/We are normal and we want our freedom/Freedom!/

Journal BlackHat's Journal: /We are normal and we want our freedom/Freedom!/ 8

Journal by BlackHat on Wednesday August 23, 2006 @02:32AM

Mr Bowie singing 'Five Years', over and over, might have been a better title-song for this entry. But, there is more to discuss than just marking the five year of this journal--and in hand with it --the Journal system here on Slashdot. Sort of a mash of late August items in the usual section. Quotes, News, nYAITJs, and a texttoon too.

Why would the police in the USA be growing so eager to arrest and, most of all, confiscate video/photos of their operations?

The simplest answer is that there are agents of other agencies in police uniform working in "secret" And no doubt... civilian contractors too. Family of well placed politicos (domestic and/or foreign)? Clergy? Why, just about anyone they like, up to and including their current lovers. "Gotta get that footage of the grad getting maced by q-tip. It's hot, hot, hot!"

Not that the above is the subject of todays JE. I mention it as a nice topical bit of tinfoil speculation before I send us back to the past once again. Or is it the future?... Now? We'd better go look for ourselves [...]

Quote(1):
Setting aside all our hereditary beliefs, all our theological teachings let us try to consider the true teachings of Jesus as differentiated from the instructions given by Moses for the guidance of the Jews.

Moses never told his people to love and forgive their enemies. Jesus made a strong point of this, even bidding his disciples to forgive injuries to the seventieth time. Moses impressed upon his people the excellence of revenge, always demanding "an eye for an eye," a life for a life. Jesus said all that sort of compensation rested forever with God, that He alone, who saw and knew the hearts of men, could deal justly with them. The old Jewish law stoned to death the immoral woman--not the man--O no! certainly not! Jesus said to a flagrant woman brought before him by a rabble of men: "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone." What divine sarcasm, and how they are said to have slunk away under his perception of them!

How is it now with the Christian religion in the so-called Christian nations? Where on the face of the earth is there a community or a people that is governed and controlled by the real teachings of the Christ?

All our jurisprudence is based upon the laws given to the Jews by their leader and lawgiver. We take the lives of those people who are guilty of breaking certain laws of ours based upon the laws of Moses, and while we do not stone the life out of those women--not men--whom we prove guilty of breaking the seventh commandment, we do build up against them walls of conventionality, and of uncharity harder than the rocks once used for the killing of their bodies.

Consider this beautiful law now in operation in the state of New York. If a poor, starving, homeless, hopeless human being, maddened by the bitter woes of life, seeks surcease of pain by throwing off his own individual life, by committing suicide, the law insists that such a one shall be not only forced back to a continuance of a horrible existence here, but that each and every one of such sinners shall be punished by imprisonment and fine. If that isn't serving the devil, what in the name of common sense is it? Where are the good Samaritans among the pretended followers of the loving Christ? What sort of a reckoning will such lawmakers have to meet, and what penalties undergo under the applied judgment of the Great Teacher and exemplars? "Woe to him through whom offences come," he said, and again: "Because ye did not give aid and comfort to the least of these, I will not call you of my flock." Could anything be more brutally unmerciful than such a law as this in its dealings with the most helpless, forlorn, and seemingly Godforsaken of all earth's children--the voluntary suicide?

How the demons must gloat over the lost souls who formed and enforced such a fiendish law! Why this everlasting "harking back" to Moses, while posing as followers of teachings utterly at variance with his? Let us admit that we are Jews and stop persecuting them because they are not Christians, or let us try to know what Christ Jesus really meant us to understand by his ethics of love and good will to men.

Many people have lost all their faith in the immortality of the soul, because Moses did not preach it. It is quite possible that even the worshipped Moses did not know everything that men may yet come to know about this, and anent a world of other things. Neither did the troglodytes, nor the cliff dwellers know of electricity or the X-ray! But Jesus knew of the life--the eternal, unquenchable life--of the soul beyond this mortal existence, and he knew and taught the way and the life that leads to that higher life. All through his teachings run this under-current of belief in the value of the individual soul, and instructions as to the highest and best way to evolve it from its lowest estate up to the Infinite.

Fancy what a revolution would come to the whole so-called Christian world if the ethics of Jesus, so plainly set down in his legacy to the children of men, were understood and lived! What wrong and injustice would be done away with, what works of mercy would be wrought!
-- A.B. Scofield.

Quote(2):
In 1559 Henry II. was killed by an accident at a tournament. The marriage of the two children had taken place. The sickly boy, with only a modest portion of intelligence, was Francis II., King of France. Marie, his beautiful and adored queen, controlled him utterly, and was herself in turn controlled by her uncles of the house of Guise. In fact, the family of Guise, which was the head of the Catholic party in the kingdom, ruled France, with the strange result that if Catharine looked for any allies in her fight with this ambitious family, she must make common cause with the Protestants, led by Admiral Coligny, whom she hated only a little less than the uncles of Marie Stuart.

The princes of the house of Bourbon, a remote branch of the royal family, which, next to Francis, were the nearest to the throne, had been extremely jealous of the growing power of the Guises. Now they saw them, as the advisers of the young king, actually usurping the position which was theirs by right of birth.

Two factions grew out of this feud in the court, and there developed a Bourbon party, and the party of the Guises; one identified with the Protestant and the other with the Catholic cause.

Antony de Bourbon, the head of the family of this name, whether from conviction or from antagonism to the Guises, had openly espoused the Protestant side. It was the rich burghers of the towns, in combination with the smaller nobles, which composed the Protestant party in France. And although the impelling cause of the great movement was religious, political wrongs had become a powerful contributing cause; as is always the case, the discontented and aggrieved, for whatever reason, casting in their lot with those who had a deeper grievance and a more sacred purpose.

Whether the conversion of the Bourbon prince was of that nature or not, who can say? But the movement swelled, and France was divided into two hostile camps: one under the Protestant banner of Antony de Bourbon, father of Henry of Navarre, and the other under that of the Catholic, Francis, Duke of Guise; and two children were on the throne of France while the ground was trembling beneath their feet with a coming revolution.

Francis I. had been too much occupied with his own plans to take in hand systematically and seriously the prevailing heresy. Henry II., son of Francis, had also temporized with the religious revolt, probably not realizing the powerful element it contained. Now, with the Guises firmly in power, there would be no more half-way measures.

But a crisis was at hand which would change the whole situation. The discovery of a plot to seize the person of the young king and place a Bourbon prince upon the throne, led to a general slaughter. Fresh relays of executioners in Paris stood ready to relieve each other when exhausted, and the Seine was black with the bodies of the drowned.

During this preliminary storm the frail young king, Francis II., suddenly died. Marie Stuart passed out of French history, and the power of the Guises was at an end. The fates were certainly fighting on the side of Catharine.

There are hints that the fine Italian hand may be seen in this event which at one stroke removed every obstacle from her path! However this may be, Catharine wasted no regrets upon the death of a son which made her queen regent during the minority of her second son, Charles, now ten years of age (1560).

There was no time to lose. Her control over the feeble Charles IX. before he reached his majority must be absolute. Every impulse toward mercy must be extinguished.

What can be said of a mother who seeks to exterminate every germ of truth or virtue in her son; who immerses him in degrading vices in order to deaden his too sensitive conscience and make him a willing tool for her purposes? Inheriting the splendid intelligence as well as genius for statecraft of the Medici, nourished from her infancy upon Machiavellian principles, cold and cruel by nature, this Florentine woman has written her name in blood across the pages of French history.

There were two main ends to be kept in view: the destruction of the Guises, and the extermination of the Huguenots, as the Protestants were now called. These were difficult to reconcile, but both must be accomplished.

Coligny, the splendid old admiral and Huguenot, hero of the nation, he, too, must go. And Henry of Navarre, the adored young leader of the Huguenots, of course was high on the list marked for destruction; but there might be other uses for him before that time.

Never had the Huguenots received such gentle treatment. Disabilities were removed and privileges bestowed. Never was the beautiful queen-mother as smiling, gracious, and witty. A letter to her uncle, Pope Innocent III., written, it is said, between a dinner and a masquerade, asked if men might not be good enough Christians even if they did not believe in transubstantiation, and useful subjects even though they could not accept the Apostolic succession!

Then this excellent woman declared her admiration for the intelligence of the Huguenots, whom until now she had believed were mere fanatical enthusiasts. Then Henry of Navarre, the brave, generous, accomplished Protestant leader, was urgently invited to the court, and finally even offered the hand of Margaret of Valois, her daughter, as a compromise which would heal the rivalry between the two faiths.

And so, on the 18th of August, 1572, Notre Dame, grim but splendid, looked down upon the marriage of Margaret and Henry, in the presence of all the leaders of Huguenot and Catholic in France.

The Protestants wept for joy at the reconciliation accomplished by this union. And all were to remain and partake of the week of festivities which were to follow.

Then, the pageant over, a secret council was held in Catharine's apartment in the Louvre, in which her remaining son, Henry, participated, but from which his brother the king was excluded; some wishing to include the Guises in the approaching massacre, some urging that Henry of Navarre be spared, but all agreeing that Coligny must go; it being, in fact, the influence of this magnetic man over the young king which was the danger-point compelling haste and the uncertainty as to what her son might do endangered the success of the whole plot.

Charles, who was now king, was impressible, easily influenced, yet stubborn, intractable, incoherent, passionate, and unreliable; sometimes inclining to the Guises, sometimes to Coligny and the Huguenots, and always submitting at last, after vain struggle, to his imperious mother's will, in her efforts to free him from both. We see in him a weak character, not naturally bad, torn to distraction by the cruel forces about him, who when compelled to yield, as he always did in the end, to that terrible woman, would give way to fits of impotent rage against the fate which allowed him no peace.

The time had arrived when Catharine feared the influence of Coligny more than that of the Guises. Brave, patriotic, magnetic, he had succeeded in winning Charles's consent to declare war against Spain. Philip II. of Spain was Catharine's son-in-law and closest ally. Her entire policy was threatened. At all hazards Coligny must be gotten rid of. The young King of Navarre, adored leader of the Protestants, was a constant menace; he, too, must in some way be disposed of.

There were sinister conferences with Philip of Spain and with his minister, that incarnation of cruelty and of the Inquisition, the Duke of Alva.

To the honor of France it may be said that the initiative, the inception of the horrid deed which was preparing was not French. It was conceived in the brain of either this Italian woman or her Spanish adviser and co-conspirator, the Duke of Alva. We shall never know the inside history of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. It must ever remain a matter of conjecture just how and when it was planned, but the probabilities point strongly one way.

Charles was to be gradually prepared for it by his mother. By working upon his fears, his suspicions, by stories of plottings against his life and his kingdom, she was to infuriate him; and then, while his rage was at its height, the opportunity for action must be at hand. The marriage of Charles's sister Margaret with the young Protestant leader Henry of Navarre, with its promise of future protection to the Huguenots, was part of the plot. It would lure all the leaders of the cause to Paris. Coligny, Conde, all the heads of the party, were urgently invited to attend the marriage feast which was to inaugurate an era of peace.

Admiral Coligny was requested by Catharine, simply as a measure of protection to the Protestants, to have an additional regiment of guards in Paris, to act in case of any unforeseen violence.

Two days after the marriage, and while the festivities were at their height, an attempt upon the life of the old admiral awoke suspicion and alarm. But Catharine and her son went immediately in person to see the wounded old man, and to express their grief and horror at the event. They commanded that a careful list of the names and abode of every Protestant in Paris be made, in order, as they said, "to take them under their own immediate protection."

"My dear father," said the king, "the hurt is yours, the grief is mine."

At that moment the knives were already sharpened, every man instructed in his part in the hideous drama, and the signal for its commencement determined upon. Charles did not know it, but his mother did. She went to her son's room that night, artfully and eloquently pictured the danger he was in, confessed to him that she had authorized the attempt upon Coligny, but that it was done because of the admiral's plottings against him, which she had discovered. But the Guises--her enemies and his--they knew it, and would denounce her and the king! The only thing now is to finish the work. He must die.

Charles was in frightful agitation and stubbornly refused. Finally, with an air of offended dignity, she bowed coldly and said to her son, "Sir, will you permit me to withdraw with my daughter from your kingdom?" The wretched Charles was conquered. In a sort of insane fury he exclaimed, "Well, let them kill him, and all the rest of the Huguenots too. See that not one remains to reproach me."
-- M. Parmele.

Quote(3):
When she{Mary Baker G. Eddy} wrote this little biography her great life-work had already been achieved, she was become renowned; to multitudes of reverent disciples she was a sacred personage, a familiar of God, and His inspired channel of communication with the human race. Also, to them these following things were facts, and not doubted:

She had written a Bible in middle age, and had published it; she had recast it, enlarged it, and published it again; she had not stopped there, but had enlarged it further, polished its phrasing, improved its form, and published it yet again. It was at last become a compact, grammatical, dignified, and workman-like body of literature. This was good training, persistent training; and in all arts it is training that brings the art to perfection. We are now confronted with one of the most teasing and baffling riddles of Mrs. Eddy's history--a riddle which may be formulated thus:

How is it that a primitive literary gun which began as a hundred-yard flint-lock smooth-bore muzzle-loader, and in the course of forty years has acquired one notable improvement after another--percussion cap; fixed cartridge; rifled barrel; efficiency at half a mile how is it that such a gun, sufficiently good on an elephant hunt (Christian Science) from the beginning, and growing better and better all the time during forty years, has always collapsed back to its original flint-lock estate the moment the huntress trained it on any other creature than an elephant?

Something more than a generation ago Mrs. Eddy went out with her flint- lock on the rabbit range; and this was a part of the result:

"After his decease, and a severe casualty deemed fatal by skilful physicians, we discovered that the Principle of all healing and the law that governs it is God, a divine Principle, and a spiritual not material law, and regained health."--Preface to Science and Health, first revision, 1883. (N.B. Not from the book itself; from the Preface.)

You will notice the awkwardness of that English. If you should carry that paragraph up to the Supreme Court of the United States in order to find out for good and all whether the fatal casualty happened to the dead man--as the paragraph almost asserts--or to some person or persons not even hinted at in the paragraph, the Supreme Court would be obliged to say that the evidence established nothing with certainty except that there had been a casualty--victim not known.

The context thinks it explains who the victim was, but it does nothing of the kind. It furnishes some guessing-material of a sort which enables you to infer that it was "we" that suffered the mentioned injury, but if you should carry the language to a court you would not be able to prove that it necessarily meant that. "We" are Mrs. Eddy; a funny little affectation. She replaced it later with the more dignified third person.

The quoted paragraph is from Mrs. Eddy's preface to the first revision of Science and Health (1883). Sixty-four pages further along--in the body of the book (the elephant-range), she went out with that same flint-lock and got this following result. Its English is very nearly as straight and clean and competent as is the English of the latest revision of Science and Health after the gun has been improved from smooth-bore musket up to globe-sighted, long distance rifle:

"Man controlled by his Maker has no physical suffering. His body is harmonious, his days are multiplying instead of diminishing, he is journeying towards Life instead of death, and bringing out the new man and crucifying the old affections, cutting them off in every material direction until he learns the utter supremacy of Spirit and yields obedience thereto."

In the latest revision of Science and Health (1902), the perfected gun furnishes the following. The English is clean, compact, dignified, almost perfect. But it is observable that it is not prominently better than it is in the above paragraph, which was a product of the primitive flint-lock:

"How unreasonable is the belief that we are wearing out life and hastening to death, and at the same time we are communing with immortality? If the departed are in rapport with mortality, or matter, they are not spiritual, but must still be mortal, sinful, suffering, and dying. Then wherefore look to them--even were communication possible-- for proofs of immortality and accept them as oracles?"--Edition of 1902, page 78.

With the above paragraphs compare these that follow. It is Mrs. Eddy writing--after a good long twenty years of pen-practice. Compare also with the alleged Poems already quoted. The prominent characteristic of the Poems is affectation, artificiality; their makeup is a complacent and pretentious outpour of false figures and fine writing, in the sophomoric style. The same qualities and the same style will be found, unchanged, unbettered, in these following paragraphs--after a lapse of more than fifty years, and after--as aforesaid--long literary training. The italics are mine:

1. "What plague spot or bacilli were [sic] gnawing [sic] at the heart of this metropolis . . . and bringing it [the heart] on bended knee? Why, it was an institute that had entered its vitals--that, among other things, taught games," et cetera.--C.S. Journal, p. 670, article entitled "A Narrative--by Mary Baker G. Eddy."

2. "Parks sprang up [sic] . . . electric-cars run [sic] merrily through several streets, concrete sidewalks and macadamized roads dotted [sic] the place," et cetera.--Ibid.

3. "Shorn [sic] of its suburbs it had indeed little left to admire, save to [sic] such as fancy a skeleton above ground breathing [sic] slowly through a barren [sic] breast."--Ibid.

This is not English--I mean, grown-up English. But it is fifteen-year-- old English, and has not grown a month since the same mind produced the Poems. The standard of the Poems and of the plague-spot-and-bacilli effort is exactly the same. It is most strange that the same intellect that worded the simple and self-contained and clean-cut paragraph beginning with "How unreasonable is the belief," should in the very same lustrum discharge upon the world such a verbal chaos as the utterance concerning that plague-spot or bacilli which were gnawing at the insides of the metropolis and bringing its heart on bended knee, thus exposing to the eye the rest of the skeleton breathing slowly through a barren breast.

The immense contrast between the legitimate English of Science and Health and the bastard English of Mrs. Eddy's miscellaneous work, and between the maturity of the one diction and the juvenility of the other, suggests--compels--the question, Are there two guns? It would seem so. Is there a poor, foolish, old, scattering flint-lock for rabbit, and a long-range, centre-driving, up-to-date Mauser-magazine for elephant? It looks like it. For it is observable that in Science and Health (the elephant-ground) the practice was good at the start and has remained so, and that the practice in the miscellaneous, outside, small-game field was very bad at the start and was never less bad at any later time.

I wish to say that of Mrs. Eddy I am not requiring perfect English, but only good English. No one can write perfect English and keep it up through a stretch of ten chapters. It has never been done. It was approached in the "well of English undefiled"; it has been approached in Mrs. Eddy's Annex to that Book; it has been approached in several English grammars; I have even approached it myself; but none of us has made port.

Now, the English of Science and Health is good. In passages to be found in Mrs. Eddy's Autobiography (on pages 53, 57, 101, and 113), and on page 6 of her squalid preface to Science and Health, first revision, she seems to me to claim the whole and sole authorship of the book. That she wrote the Autobiography, and that preface, and the Poems, and the Plague-spot- Bacilli, we are not permitted to doubt. Indeed, we know she wrote them. But the very certainty that she wrote these things compels a doubt that she wrote Science and Health. She is guilty of little awkwardnesses of expression in the Autobiography which a practiced pen would hardly allow to go uncorrected in even a hasty private letter, and could not dream of passing by uncorrected in passages intended for print. But she passes them placidly by; as placidly as if she did not suspect that they were offenses against third-class English. I think that that placidity was born of that very unawareness, so to speak. I will cite a few instances from the Autobiography. The italics are mine:

"I remember reading in my childhood certain manuscripts containing Scriptural Sonnets, besides other verses and enigmas," etc. Page 7.

[On page 27.] "Many pale cripples went into the Church leaning on crutches who came out carrying them on their shoulders."

It is awkward, because at the first glance it seems to say that the cripples went in leaning on crutches which went out carrying the cripples on their shoulders. It would have cost her no trouble to put her "who" after her "cripples." I blame her a little; I think her proof-reader should have been shot. We may let her capital C pass, but it is another awkwardness, for she is talking about a building, not about a religious society.

"Marriage and Parentage "[Chapter-heading. Page 30]. You imagine that she is going to begin a talk about her marriage and finish with some account of her father and mother. And so you will be deceived. "Marriage" was right, but "Parentage" was not the best word for the rest of the record. It refers to the birth of her own child. After a certain period of time "my babe was born." Marriage and Motherhood-Marriage and Maternity-Marriage and Product-Marriage and Dividend--either of these would have fitted the facts and made the matter clear.

"Without my knowledge he was appointed a guardian." Page 32.

She is speaking of her child. She means that a guardian for her child was appointed, but that isn't what she says.

"If spiritual conclusions are separated from their premises, the nexus is lost, and the argument with its rightful conclusions, becomes correspondingly obscure." Page 34.

We shall never know why she put the word "correspondingly" in there. Any fine, large word would have answered just as well: psychosuperintangibly --electroincandescently--oligarcheologically--sanchrosynchro- stereoptically--any of these would have answered, any of these would have filled the void.

"His spiritual noumenon and phenomenon silenced portraiture." Page 34.

Yet she says she forgot everything she knew, when she discovered Christian Science. I realize that noumenon is a daisy; and I will not deny that I shall use it whenever I am in a company which I think I can embarrass with it; but, at the same time, I think it is out of place among friends in an autobiography. There, I think a person ought not to have anything up his sleeve. It undermines confidence. But my dissatisfaction with the quoted passage is not on account of noumenon; it is on account of the misuse of the word "silenced." You cannot silence portraiture with a noumenon; if portraiture should make a noise, a way could be found to silence it, but even then it could not be done with a noumenon. Not even with a brick, some authorities think.

"It may be that the mortal life-battle still wages," etc. Page 35.

That is clumsy. Battles do not wage, battles are waged. Mrs. Eddy has one very curious and interesting peculiarity: whenever she notices that she is chortling along without saying anything, she pulls up with a sudden "God is over us all," or some other sounding irrelevancy, and for the moment it seems to light up the whole district; then, before you can recover from the shock, she goes flitting pleasantly and meaninglessly along again, and you hurry hopefully after her, thinking you are going to get something this time; but as soon as she has led you far enough away from her turkey lot she takes to a tree.

Whenever she discovers that she is getting pretty disconnected, she couples-up with an ostentatious "But" which has nothing to do with anything that went before or is to come after, then she hitches some empties to the train-unrelated verses from the Bible, usually--and steams out of sight and leaves you wondering how she did that clever thing. For striking instances, see bottom paragraph on page 34 and the paragraph on page 35 of her Autobiography. She has a purpose--a deep and dark and artful purpose--in what she is saying in the first paragraph, and you guess what it is, but that is due to your own talent, not hers; she has made it as obscure as language could do it. The other paragraph has no meaning and no discoverable intention. It is merely one of her God-over-alls. I cannot spare room for it in this place.
-- Mark Twain(S. Clemens).

I'll fill out the playing field with a few more chunks over the next couple of weeks. I'm not starting a new sequence, but I would like to present a number of things ... Apocalyptic. More regular posting and regular sequences start in mid-Sept. Until then.

News by a nude man:
[organ riff] George could not have chosen a better spot on Earth for the "End of Things" to begin, nor a more appropriate agent than Israel to get the ball rolling. After all "Armageddon" is a Hebrew word. It has come to signify "the end of times" or the arrival of catastrophic events, involving huge loss of life. In its origins, however, Har-Mageddon meant simply "the mountain of Megiddo" - Megiddo being a site in Israel close to the border with Lebanon.

Richard Nixon's ghost weeps for a once [surely at some point] great nation.

Juan! Lebanon!

A current Bolton item to go with SDDPB below. And of course he'd like to sell his cake after having already eaten it. ...Well, let's be clear what we're talking about. We have said for quite some time that the issue of Hezbollah's disarming would not be taken up in the first resolution. Now, how exactly we address that in another resolution is still the subject of consultations. As I said yesterday, there was no issue of timing there, but there's neverÂ been any doubtÂ -- there's been any doubt that full implementation of 1559 is going to require the elimination of all armed militias inside Lebanon and the restoration of a full democratic process there. ...[Â sics]

Draft Lite! One of many variations already in progress. Boiled frog draft? I'll think about some metaphors while the body count continues.

And continues. [insert swooping 3D overlay of 23 links with deaths >23 and teletype chatter. Cuts in a flash to a stay tuned for more and a commercial selling floor wax.]

Free and not dead press. The British wife of a Fox News cameraman has made an emotional plea to his kidnappers to release him and a fellow journalist. Cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, of New Zealand and Steve Centanni, 60, from the US, were kidnapped in Gaza city on Monday.

Press Briefing Softball Highlights: August 18, 2006 has Casey at bat.
QUESTION: North Korea. What can you say about these reports that North Korea's planning an underground nuclear test?

MR. CASEY: Well, I believe the press reports that I saw reportedly talked about intelligence issues. And obviously I'm not going to be in a position now, or at any other point, to talk about intelligence matters.

Look, what I can say generally is all of you certainly know that we've expressed repeatedly our concerns about North Korea's nuclear program. That's nothing new. But we also have said that there's a way forward of dealing with that and that's through the six-party talks and through implementation of the September 19th agreement. That's still what we're looking for North Korea to do. And while I know it's interesting for people to speculate about intelligence matters, the fact of the matter remains that we and our other partners in the six-party talks are all united in trying to move forward on that and wanting to see North Korea stop its behavior in terms of development of its nuclear programs and return to the table and be able to address these concerns. But, you know, again, I think at this point, you know, I really don't have anything to offer you in terms of, you know, what the intelligence might or might not say on these issues.

QUESTION: Well, since you have your six-party partners, have you been in touch with any of them in light of these reports to perhaps get confirmation of whatever you may know via intelligence and also ask them again to put more pressure on North Korea to come back to the talks?

MR. CASEY: Well, we're in regular contact with the other members of the six-party talks. Certainly, we've encouraged them in all their conversations with the North Koreans to urge them to return. As you know, Chris Hill was in the region both before the ASEAN meeting and afterwards. He's had a number of consultations since then with some of his counterparts. I certainly, again, don't have anything specific to offer you on this subject. But this is something that we continue to work and we certainly continue to be in contact with our partners in the six-party talks to try and urge the North Koreans back to the table.

QUESTION: What does this say about the six-party process, though; that North Korea's increasingly belligerent and threatening to do things like this? Whether or not it's true, they've apparently taken enough steps to convince some people that they are planning this test.

MR. CASEY: Well, you know, again, I think the international community spoke very clearly after the North Korean missile tests about what North Korea's obligations are and what the North Koreans should be doing. Again, there's no benefit to the North Koreans in taking steps that only serve to further isolate them from the rest of the international community. The way forward for them is clearly laid out. That's outlined in the September 19th agreement and that's what we're looking for them to do.

QUESTION: South Korea tends to -- is dismissing these reports. So you have South Korea saying -- is they haven't seen any evidence of it. And you have a senior official telling a network that there's something to be anxious about here. They seem to be in that -- preparing for a test. They both can't be right, unless --

MR. CASEY: Well --

QUESTION: -- it's a matter of how material is interpreted.

MR. CASEY: Well, Barry, you know, I'll leave it to you and I'll leave it to others to speculate about North Korean intentions and activities. The fact of the matter is, you know, I'm simply not in a position to talk to you about any intelligence-related matters. Our concerns about North Korea's nuclear program are well known and, again, there's a clear way forward for addressing them that serves the North Koreans interest, that serves our interest, and that's through the six-party talks.

QUESTION: Do you think South Korea's public statements on the North Korea nuclear activities are tinged at all by their anxiety about their neighbors to the North? Or do you think it's -- you can count on these statements as empirically valid?

MR. CASEY: Well, I'm not sure which specific statements you're referring to.

QUESTION: What about this one?

MR. CASEY: Well, Barry --

QUESTION: Maybe they don't want to antagonize North Korea. Could that be?

MR. CASEY: Well, look, I'll let the South Koreans speak for themselves and speak for their intentions of behind their public statements. Frankly, though, the South Koreans are strong partners with us in the six-party talks. We're all in agreement on the way forward. Again, I'll leave it to them in terms of any analysis they have to share with you about what their neighbors to the North are doing.
Talk to the SK to find out what you are in agreement with? Sounds a little ass backwards. Not that the BlackSox fielding was worth a damn. One error, one ball and a really-really big strike. Two and one.

QUESTION: Can I just try one more on the nuclear test?

MR. CASEY: Sure.

QUESTION: Do you have any reason to believe that it's not true? There are public estimates of North Korea's abilities so you don't have to rely on intelligence for everything or secret intelligence for everything. Is there reason to believe North Korea does not have this capability now?

MR. CASEY: Look, Teri, I have nothing to offer you beyond what's already been stated publicly on this subject. And again, you know, discussing the specifics of this press report, which is what's prompting all this, gets to a discussion of intelligence issues and I just simply can't go there for you.

QUESTION: Do you take issue with a State Department official saying that it is true and that it's --

MR. CASEY: I have no idea who that official is or what their statements were based on. Simply put, I'm just not going to comment on intelligence issues.

QUESTION: Are you going to try to find -- and is the State Department apt to try to find out who the official is and perhaps confine him to his office for three hours, or what? I mean, it sounds like a capital offense. You guys are making a case that Iran and North Korea are threatening and something must be done about their nuclear program, then somebody pops up with a story that South and North Korea is preparing to have a test. I don't know why you would -- why the State Department would be shy about confirming that or disputing it.

MR. CASEY: Well, Barry, look. First of all, a couple of points. I think we've been extremely outspoken and extremely clear about our concerns about North Korea's nuclear program.

QUESTION: Absolutely.

MR. CASEY: You've heard estimates, public estimates given by the intelligence community about their assessment of North Korea's nuclear program and its capabilities. Those assessments and those kinds of statements, you know, reflect a consensus view of the U.S. Government about the problems that we confront in terms of dealing with North Korea's program. Frankly, there is a tremendous difference between that and unnamed officials speculating about intelligence matters. And you know, again, I'll leave it to the experts in the intelligence community to lay forward what our concerted views are in an appropriate forum and that rests with the public statements that have already been made and I honestly don't have anything new to share with you on it.
And the un-named wookie yells "Strike!" We should add one more from the dozen strawmen in the "Simply put, I'm just not going to comment on intelligence issues." -vs- "Those assessments...", but I like the rule of three in this section so the baseballing can hang to get this last one in.

QUESTION: More on Lebanon.

MR. CASEY: We'll keep one more on Turkey and then we'll go back to Lebanon.

QUESTION: The spokesman of the Turkish Foreign Minister Namik Tan stated today, "If Turkey eventually decides to send its troops to Lebanon they will under no circumstances be a combat force. It will not be under consideration for these forces to participate in any kind of activity as disarm Hezbollah. They will be deployed only with the mission of peacekeeping and have a role in humanitarian aid and logistical assistance." Any comment?

MR. CASEY: Well, I haven't seen the statement. But again, I think the Resolution 1701 makes clear what the mandate of the UNIFIL forces are. And every country, Turkey included, is going to be looking at how they intend to contribute to this force and what they intend to bring to the table. We had a good meeting in New York yesterday that was a good start on developing that force. I think it's clear from those conversations that all the countries participating believe that we do need to have a very substantial and robust force.

There is a concept of operations and a set of rules of engagement that were developed in part as a result of yesterday's meeting that are now being reviewed by potential troop-contributing countries. And I think that's a very important step forward. Because what that allows Turkey and other countries that have an interest in participating in this force to do is have a very clear understanding of what the rules of engagement are, of how the force would operate and that gives them a certain -- greater measure of clarity as a basis for making their final decisions on what they intend their contributions to bring in and how they intend to move forward.
No comment. There is plenty more in that one, and check the 17th if you've got the time.

OYAITJ:
115059 : Slagging the editorial toons, Drugs, Officials from the British Ministry of Defence had already warned US and Iraqi authorities against the squandering of money - and have been proved right, on a catastrophic scale. A report compiled by the Iraqi Board of Supreme Audit has concluded that at least half, and probably more, of $1.27bn (£700m) of Iraqi money spent on military procurement has disappeared into a miasma of kickbacks and vanished middlemen - or else has been spent on useless equipment., etc.

TYAITJ:
81096 : USAElection04 fun, 400k homes, George Malbrunot plus Marx more.

TYAITJ:
43281 : A unit of Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay $750,000 (£472,000) to settle charges that it failed to disclose its conflict of interest when advising on the merger of Hewlett Packard and Compaq., this flash from the past -- The ward was filled with gentle moaning, bloodstained sheets and bandaged heads. The face of one whimpering man was blue-black and distended. Nobody looked in a fit state to tell what had befallen them. But then, in a corner bed, a man was beckoning us over. 'Are you English?' he asked me. 'Are you American?' to another reporter. 'I am a businessman, what I do to America and England? So why do they send a rocket to my house? Why?' His name was Jassam al Zubeidi and he had only recovered consciousness an hour earlier. Later we went to look at his house, a fine middle-class villa in el-Adil, a new suburb north of Baghdad. It looked as if a landmine had sneaked in through the back window and exploded.

At 1am, because his children were frightened by the sounds of the missiles, Jassam had gathered the family in one room. He recalled drifting into sleep, his last thoughts for his two-week-old son Mohamed. 'I remember nothing else, only my wife coming to me and taking the ceiling off my body and me asking her, 'Where is my child?' ' Then he had blacked out.

The baby boy was fine and being cared for by neighbours, according to his brother, Kadim. The problem was his nine-year-old daughter Suzanne, who had been transferred to a neurological intensive care ward. 'She's dying,' whispered Kadim.

Jassam said: 'I want to ask the American people and the English people, what have the Iraqi people done to you so that you punish us like this? I love my country and I love my Saddam. I ask Saddam to take revenge for me. For the sake of Saddam I will sacrifice myself and my children.'

The minders were nervous when we asked to visit Jihad and the home of the dead teenage boy. They could not get an address from the hospital and besides, one admitted, there might be a military installation in the area.

This was the background to our tour of the damaged centres of Baghdad. The truth is that they are few and far between and, harrowing though the stories of Jassam and others are, they are the unfortunate exceptions. Most civilians were unscathed. , and much more.

FYAITJ:
11635 : I changed my mind about Ruby. I still have a number of issues, but it has over the years addressed several. A FP item accepted-yay!.

FYAITJ:
791 : Slashdot Journal system opens up. I made a poll.

Texttoon:
Fumetti : Stock photo of George W. Bush riding his bike. Overlayed caption at the bottom: "+(20 to 30) degrees F +full kit"

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