Sunday, January 30, 2005

Habib psychologically scarred: US lawyer

    Mr Habib's US counsel Joe Margulies said he did not wish to elaborate on the extent of Mr Habib's condition, but said he would need specialist treatment.

    "Mr Habib has some chronic medical conditions as a result of his incarceration, that we're going to get taken care of or at least have specialists take a look at," Mr Margulies told reporters at Sydney Airport.

    "He has developed some emotional and psychological conditions that will require even more time (to recover from)."

    [ SMH - 2005/01/30 ]

One could understand if Habib might be feeling a little resentful about such tyranny.

Saturday, January 29, 2005

Winer Numbers

Ok, this isn't news, but I only just encountered this term recently: Winer Number. Cruel. But funny.

Friday, January 28, 2005

Seymour Hersh Unplugged...

...from his typewriter. Counterpunch has a transcript of a speech he recently gave to a synagogue in New York.

Don't forget to read his recent New Yorker article The Coming Wars which contains various assertions about the chaos to come that you know have got to be true precisely because the Whitehouse has denied them.

Finally, Alternet has published the transcript of an interesting interview with Hersh by Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman.

Obama fails to censure Rice

That's a shame...Obama fails to censure Rice.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

An Interview With Naomi Klein

In this interview on AlterNet, Naomi Klein discusses why she thinks Kerry lost: bad marketing; playing on Bush's turf ; failing to make the morality of the war and the abuses of Abu Ghraib an issue. She also discusses the question of withdrawal from Iraq and sketches a possible agenda for the anti-war movement to follow.

Tortoise CVS

I've just installed this now. It is quite good - not as slick as the CVS support in Eclipse 3.0, but quite handy, nonetheless. Recommended.

"TortoiseCVS lets you work with files under CVS version control directly from Windows Explorer. It's freely available under the GPL.

With TortoiseCVS you can directly check out modules, update, commit and see differences by right clicking on files and folders within Explorer. You can see the state of a file with overlays on top of the normal icons within Explorer. It even works from within the file open dialog."

read more ...

Paul Craig Roberts on the Republican Party

Paul Craig Roberts is a libertarian, who once served in the Reagan administration. He writes with force about the dangers of the current US administration.

A Dogged Determination To Do Nothing

In a story about Habib "profiting" from payments in relation to media interviews he might grant, Ruddock is determined to "[pursue] any obligation under law".

    A spokesman for Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said on Tuesday the minister had sought advice from his department about the relevance of the legislation to any potential media deals Mr Habib could secure.

    "We will examine closely the implications and if there is an obligation under law it will be pursued,” said the spokesman.

    [ SBS - 25/01/2005 ]

Yet, when it comes to allegations that Habib was abused while in US custody, Ruddock is satisfied merely to "pass them on".

    A spokesman for the Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, said last night that it was the first time the Government had heard the claims involving Mr Habib.

    "We haven't heard those sorts of allegations from Mr Habib but we're aware that allegations of that nature were made by other detainees released last year," Mr Ruddock's spokesman said.

    "But if he's got any evidence to support those sorts of claims we'd pass them on."

    [ SMH - 26/01/2005 ]

Where's the dogged determination to investigate these alleged abuses and request that the abusers are brought to account "under law", Phil? Why are you content to merely "pass them on"? To whom? With what expected effect?

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Dream On America

This article examines the notion that the rest of the world aspires to adopt the "American Dream".