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Comedian Kristin Rand on spirituality, polyamorous hominids and cotton candy

Comedian Kristin Rand on spirituality, polyamorous hominids and cotton candy

Reading is about more than following a narrative or learning facts; it can also be a profound shared experience that culminates in a better understanding of ourselves and each other. In that spirit, welcome to the Westword Book Club, a weekly feature celebrating the books that inspire Denver artists.

Kristin Rand is a boisterous and unflinchingly honest local comedienne, actress and fashionista. She's Half of the sketch comedy duo Moxie! that she formed with fellow crowd-crusher Mara Wiles, and together they have monthly shows at the Voodoo Comedy Playhouse. Rand also recently starred in the Nix brothers's short film Love to Hate, which won the audience award at the 48 Hour Film Project. Westword recently caught up with Rand to discuss spirituality, poetry, the mating habits of prehistoric humans and literary cotton candy.

See also: Westword Book Club: Evan Nix on Joseph Campbell, Bruce Campbell and The Wiz

Westword: What sort of books do you habitually read?

Kristin Rand: I was thinking about that. I don't think you've ever interviewed anybody who reads the type of books that I read. I read a lot of books about spirituality, science and psychology. Stuff like that. I used to love memoirs, too, and still have a place in my heart for memoirs. I'm kind of falling back in love with the art of writing, so I've been really drawn to fiction that is specifically well-written -- whereas before I would only read fiction for the stories. I just started reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which is like the only literary thing I've read since Bukowski's Ham on Rye.

A lot of teenage creeps are into Bukowski for some reason. I'm guessing it's the latent misogyny and bad hygiene.

Yeah, I couldn't get into either. Friends whose opinion I respect recommended it very fervently and then when I read it I was just like, um, okay?

He's also just kind of gross. I prefer a glamorous writer.

I'm such a voracious consumer of other people's art, I love people who make art and I get even more into it as I get older. I get why people -- young men, especially -- appreciate Bukowski's writing style. I hate to sound too pretentious, but as someone who pursues art, I get less critical as I realize how much effort goes into making anything. I think that the path that I took to find and perfect my voice and learn how to give what it is that I have to give has made me appreciate artists. Painters, people who make clothes, do poetry or do anything expressive at its truest from are creating something unique and personal.

What are the spirituality books that you mentioned earlier?

This makes me sound like an asshole, but I feel like the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle is like my bible. I know that so-called new-age thought gets dismissed really easily, and I don't care what religion people are, but the stuff in that book doesn't apply to any one belief system. It's a very calming book. I feel like Tolle writes and speaks like an alien. That accent is unbelievable if you listen to that book on tape. It's freakish.

There's some helpful stuff there, but I kind of can't stand Power of Now. It's basically saying the same things as existentialism, but existentialists don't try to coddle you with false solutions. I was also forced to read Tolle, so maybe it's a more personal resentment.

I could see how you would resent that book because it's written in a very non-personal way. It's a good book for people in rehab. I read a lot of existentialism in my early twenties when I was super-disillusioned. I think you have to get past that bleakness at some point and try to enjoy yourself. There's also a book called Be Here Now by Ram Dass, which is like my favorite book. I'll let you borrow it if you take good care of it. He makes similar points to Tolle but in a totally different way. Ram Dass, who used to be called Dr. Richard Alpert and he worked with Timothy Leary at the Harvard psychedelic studies. Then he went to India and he was kind of reborn as the Ram Dass guru character. I wish I brought it with me. The main part of the text are these crazy elaborate mandala drawings with these saying repeated all over like a chant. "Just let go, man. There is only right now!" It's like getting a good talking-to, and there's so many specific things that I read in that book where I'm like, "Fuck, yes," and can apply to my life. Growing up and going to church never made me feel better about things, it gave me so much weird guilt and sadness. It didn't provide anything for me. If it provides for other people, that's fine, go for it, feel good about living. I can't reconcile the idea of turning my problems over to this idea of god, the provider, the creator. I don't know where I'm at spiritually, I don't know what the fuck is even true, but that book is the shit and it's been really helpful to me.

Not much fiction though? I like to read non-fiction books over a long period of time, because there's not like a story to keep me from putting it down, so I like to throw a comic book or something in the mix somewhere in the middle to just maintain the habit of reading with something more immediately engaging.

I need to do that more, just give myself more cotton candy. I like to just fucking go for it and slog through books. It'll take me a while to get through it, but right now I'm reading the Denial of Death by Ernest Becker, which is just like: amaze! Next on my list is The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurzweil. I have like eighteen books on my good-reads list right now. Reading is so great, I'm really falling back in love with it. I used to read so much as kid.

What did you like to read back then?

Let's see. I'd read like all the Nancy Drew mysteries stuff. I was like seven or eight, but then having to read for school kind of ruined it for me. I used to read a lot of Chuck Palahniuk in college, which I guess was a bit like cotton candy for me. He is great when you're in your twenties. He had a good run there in the early 2000s. I liked that you could be doing whatever you wanted with your life and then just dip into his insanity for a hot second and then get back out.

Which ones did you read? Have you kept up with his recent stuff?

I feel like I read all of them, but I feel like I stopped reading like right before Haunted came out.

Well, it's all downhill from there. There's a section from Haunted that is just...

Wacky pants?

Well, let's say it's literally stomach-churning. The rest of the book kind of fizzles, it's a bunch of ideas that barely hang together. Anyway, you go see a lot of poetry readings, right? We haven't discussed poetry all that much in this series.

I feel like on the spectrum of what we do as comics, it's just on the other end of the fucking teeter-totter. It's a spoken expression of hurt and emotion, but it's trying to be evocative of particular emotions, while we're trying to evoke laughter. It's all about how you process shit. It's a similar path that ends up in completely different places. I'm so drawn to it, not just slam, but poetry in general.

I think comics can benefit from a more poetic relationships\ with words. They're also not like, hiding in an irony foxhole. Poets seem more sincere.

Listen, I've fucked enough of them to know that it's not even real, it's just the beauty of their art. You can say all sorts of beautiful things and still be a totally flawed person who doesn't even know how to do the beautiful things you write about. Whatever. I love artists.

Let's talk about Sex at Dawn, which I think is a really fascinating book that challenges the whole monogamy paradigm from an interesting historical perspective.

Great book, great argument. I like how they trace it back to the development of agriculture, which led to the idea of property ownership. There's kind of a funny chart in the book that documents how agriculture eventually leads to war.

That idea of property ownership extended to women, which seems like it's been a pretty shitty deal for you so far.

I love how that book questions these ideas that we mistake as our foundation for no reason. Just because it's someone else's idea of what is right or natural. Who the fuck said that it's natural for a woman to be stuck with the same man because he wants to be sure it's his children who inherit his stuff? I don't want these things that people say I should want. The idea of home ownership is terrifying, possessions just make me more anxious. If this is the way things are supposed to be, then why is everything so fucked up? The record stands against what we call natural. Things haven't turned out the way I think we'd intended. It's a great book, though, because it's just presenting an argument, they're not insisting that it's certain.

Well, it's history, so there's no way of knowing. I remember a theory from the book that makes a weird sort of sense. It's about why women make noise when they orgasm: there's like an instinctual reason, it's not just so they can flatter guys' egos. Apparently, the noises were like a signal to other potential caveman lovers because women can have multiple orgasms.

I know that's awesome. It's like, "Hey! Hey other cavemen! Get over here, I gotta up my dick game!"

Kristin Rand can be seen performing standup at Capitol Hilarity at Blush & Blu on September 4, and headlining the Down Under Comedy Club in Greeley September 13-14. She'll also be sharing a story on the September 19 Narrators show: Apparently, the theme is dicks.

Follow Byron Graham on twitter @ByronFG for more mildly amusing sequences of words.

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December 5, 2016

Mozart died 225 years ago today. He was only 35. The cause of Mozart’s death is a medical question that has endured as long as his music. University of Michigan medical historian and PBS contributor Dr. Howard Markel sat down with us today to help unwind the medical mystery.

'Half Of Humanity Has Something To Say': Composer Kaija Saariaho On Her Met Debut

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Saariaho isn't the first woman composer to stage an opera at New York's Metropolitan Opera — just the first in more than a century. Her opera, L'Amour de Loin, has its New York premiere this week.

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Dead Dog, Other Emaciated Animals Found At Greensboro House

1 Dog Dead, 2 Dogs Undernourished

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Greensboro Police and Animal Control Services are investigating a possible animal cruelty case.

On Tuesday, Animal Control received a tip about a dead dog and others chained up at a house on Grove Street.

Once police arrived, they discovered three dogs abandoned including one dead. They also said two dogs are extremely emaciated.

Several animal control trucks lined the street in front of the house.

Right now, authorities are still trying to figure out how long the dogs were back there alone.

Nobody lives at the house anymore.

However, neighbors tell us they've been concerned for a while.

Mark Allred lives behind this house and he says he's seen the dogs roaming around the neighborhood before.

On Tuesday, when he saw one had died -- he knew he had to call for help.

""It's just heartbreaking to see dogs in this condition. Dogs are meant to be man's best friend.  They're supposed to come in and be loved and be fed and watered. For someone to treat them like that, it's just heartbreaking," said Allred. "I can't believe that something like this could happen in my own neighborhood."

Charges are pending against the homeowners.

Anyone found guilty of felony animal cruelty could face multiple years in prison depending on the severity of the case and their prior criminal history.

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"Bills: Season Ticket Prices Per Game Won't Go Up"
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What are the final 4 games of the Bills season all about for you?
  I'm still all in on running the table and hopefully making the playoffs
  Tyrod Taylor's performances
  The future of Rex Ryan and Doug Whaley
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Stop reading the news

One of the people I read to give me ideas, strategies and direction is Ryan Holiday. A great deal of what we do here at Whaleoil comes from his ideas. One of his books is my bible.

Now you may think I am giving up our secrets, but the reality is no one will bother to try to emulate me, for a start they don’t have the work ethic I do, and they aren’t prepared to do what it takes.

That said, Ryan Holiday makes some observations about the media and politics:

The last few months have been particularly unhappy ones for me. Not because there was anything wrong in my life; on the contrary, in my life things were going surprisingly well. The source of my misery? I was caught up in the news cycle.

I told myself it was partly my job. But the reality is, I was doing less of my job. How could it have been otherwise? I’d become consumed by a divisive, contentious, scandal driven news loop. Twitter. Google News. Apple News. Facebook. Longreads and hot takes via Instapaper. CNN. Email conversations. NPR.

My media diet had gone from abstemious to addicted. As someone who is normally self-disciplined, I felt guilty about the time I was wasting and the energy I spent emoting about things far beyond me, and yet, I could not control it. I know I am not the only one—the most common thing I’ve heard from people the last few months is: I can’t wait for this election to be over so I can go back to work. I’d venture to guess that there is someone else, who deep down, can at least relate to that sentiment: Fellow (and admitted) news junkie and, now President-elect, Donald Trump.

It’s time we all came to terms with our compulsion: How is anyone going to make America or themselves great again—if we’re all glued to our devices and television screens? How can anyone maintain their sanity when everything you read, see, and hear is designed to make you stop whatever you’re doing and consume because the world is supposedly ending?

Read more »

Are NZ Herald ‘Journalists’ Afraid Of Insulting Islam?

Shaykh Anwar Sahib has shut down the at-Taqwa YouTube channel so it is harder now to see the hate that he thinks is appropriate for even public consumption. The widely (except for Labour and the Greens) condemned Auckland hate preacher was exposed in January by Whaleoil for having known Islamic State supporters in his mosque (masjid).

Before the videos were taken down, we found one more clip of interest.

It shows the radical Shaykh admitting that he knew about contact that was made by a ‘sister’ trying to warn the NZ Herald that the masjid promotes terror. We can only hope that she wasn’t beaten with a hammer when she got home.   Read more »

Media hotshots prove yet again that they can’t be trusted

The media never learn. They were called to an off the record meeting with Donald Trump. They also agreed not to disclose the content of the meeting.

Then what did they do?

That’s right, they blabbed about it like the precious little snowflakes they are:

Donald Trump scolded media big shots during an off-the-record Trump Tower sitdown on Monday, sources told The Post.

“It was like a f–ing firing squad,” one source said of the encounter.

“Trump started with [CNN chief] Jeff Zucker and said ‘I hate your network, everyone at CNN is a liar and you should be ashamed,’ ” the source said.

“The meeting was a total disaster. The TV execs and anchors went in there thinking they would be discussing the access they would get to the Trump administration, but instead they got a Trump-style dressing down,” the source added.

A second source confirmed the fireworks.   Read more »

Trotter on journalism, such as it is

Chris Trotter has finally woken up to the abject failure of the media and to the chattering classes.

DAMN AND BLAST HILLARY CLINTON! Not just because she lost – exposing in the process the appalling political judgement of the Democratic Party. And not just because her failure has saddled the world with President Trump for at least four years. Those sins, on their own, more than merit political damnation. But there is another sin for which I would like to see Clinton blasted. The sin of exposing the vacuity of contemporary journalism and the powerlessness of the mainstream media. Because, to be perfectly honest, Clinton’s failure is my failure too.

Strong words.

Then Trotter embarks on a typical left-wing hypothesis complete with jargon that no one even knows what it means.

The story has its beginnings in the Watergate Scandal. I was just 18 when Nixon was driven from the White House by what everybody said was the investigative journalism of, among others, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, and The Washington Post. For one brief shining moment journalists were hailed as heroes and journalism was portrayed as a force so powerful that not even the office of the President of the United States could prevail against it.

Forty years on, however, it is clear that Nixon’s fall owed as much to the deliberate and secretive manipulation of the news media as it did to the efforts of the courageous journalists, Woodward and Bernstein. After all, the latter’s’ key informant, the infamous “Deep Throat”, turned out to be no less a buttress of the American “Deep State” than Mark Felt, the Associate Director of the FBI.

In the movie, All the President’s Men, Deep Throat is portrayed as a reluctant but principled whistleblower from the dark heart of the Washington bureaucracy. A more probable explanation, however, is that Felt represented a Deep State faction determined to drive the mentally unstable Nixon out of the Oval Office. In 2016, it is equally probable that a highly-motivated Deep State faction, this time based in the FBI’s New York Field Office, used the news media to prevent Hillary Clinton from re-entering the White House as President.

Read more »

NZME admits their business model is failing

Adhub is a business unit of NZME. They run ads across their network and are utterly ineffective from personal experience.

Back in 2014 they approached me to do my ads. They, like everyone in the industry promised me the earth. I certainly had the traffic that advertisers would want.

After 6 months however, I had to give them the flick. They paid me much less than Google ads ever have.

It turned out however that the lack of bookings was politically motivated and they had sneakily removed me from their pitch documents and website, at the same time adding The Standard, The Daily blog and Scoop Media. They tried to explain it away blaming the agencies for the lack of bookings.

So colour me surprised when I received this email via the tipline begging for confidentiality while they try and save the business. Given their lack of honesty towards me in the past, I can’t really see myself honouring their request:   Read more »

Another reader emails Fairfax

Another reader has emailed Fairfax:

Hi Fairfax,

Please stop treating us like this.  Please stop sneaking in left wing politics into entertainment sections like Your Weekend and film reviews to support your Uber liberal narrative. I don’t want to read so-called comedians support anti-democracy protests, or how JK Rowling is so fantastic because she’s a globalist in your film reviews.

And stop it already with how fantastic transgender women are. I’m sorry you think real women pale in comparison but that’s just not true. We matter and we matter more than those who think they’re women.   Read more »

The Main Stream Media’s attempt to rebrand conservatives as alt-right

“Alt right” has been the smear of choice, a label put on conservatives and libertarians by a MSM determined to brand them as racist, sexist, homophobic and Islamophobic radicals.  So who has been branded alt-right that isn’t and what is the alt-right really?

This is a victory for every American who has been wrongly smeared as racist, sexist or homophobic by the scolds and nannies of the progressive left,” Yiannopoulos said after Donald Trump prevailed on election day.

…”It is the perfect climax to an unstoppable new populist, nationalist revolution sweeping the west. It is mirable dictu, the moment ‘social justice’ died. I couldn’t be more thrilled,” he said

Trouble is, no one seems to know exactly who is and who is not alt-right. Even Yiannopoulos, the media-proclaimed protagonist of alt-righteousness, isn’t actually a member of the club, he tells THR.

“In dozens of interviews I’ve said the opposite. I’m just the only journalist to give them a fair hearing,” says Yiannopoulos, an editor at Breitbart News, which has also been tagged with the “alt-right” label by the mainstream media.

“The left is trying to make it a new swear word,” he says. “They’ve seen this lively, powerful, exciting, funny brand of conservatism and their response is to do what they always do — call them names.”

Alt-right or not, those merely associated with the movement are riding a lucrative media wave. Breitbart’s website, for example, shattered traffic records last month, with 37 million unique visitors.

…As for Yiannopoulos, his star has risen to the point where he’s a sought-after guest on radio and television. Plus, his Dangerous Faggot Tour, where he lectures conservatives on college campuses, is routinely sold out and he’s filming his appearances for a documentary movie.

What’s the alt-right? Well, thousands of words have been written about it in the past few months, usually in the form of lengthy feature articles from left-leaning publications. Rolling Stone magazine says the movement is populated by fans of Trump looking to “reshape American politics by organizing anonymous racists on Twitter,” while Slate calls it “Euro-style white nationalism” whose standard bearer is Trump.

Those definitions work, though only if you speak to the few prominent people who actually acknowledge being on the alt-right, like Richard Spencer, founder of, and Jared Taylor, founder of American Renaissance, a magazine published by New Century Foundation, a self-described “race-realist, white advocacy organization.”

But the vast majority of conservatives who suddenly find themselves labeled “alt-right” don’t fit that mold at all.

Read more »

Dear Mainstream Media

So, how is the click bait mentality working out for media?

So, how is the click bait mentality working out for media?

Not so well.

unnamed-1 Read more »

Are the media biased against Donald Trump?

Are the media biased against Donald Trump?

Well, if you look at donations from media to both campaigns then you can see that they are indeed biased in favour of Hillary Clinton.

In yet another example of the implicit liberal bias among the mainstream media, a new report has found that award-winning journalists have forked over $382,000 to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, including New Yorker television critic Emily Nussbaum and ABC World News Tonight anchor Carole Simpson. That’s compared to contributions of only $14,000 from right-leaning journalists to Donald Trump’s campaign.

From Public Integrity:

In all, people identified in federal campaign finance filings as journalists, reporters, news editors or television news anchors — as well as other donors known to be working in journalism — have combined to give more than $396,000 to the presidential campaigns of Clinton and Trump, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis.

Nearly all of that money — more than 96 percent — has benefited Clinton: About 430 people who work in journalism have, through August, combined to give about $382,000 to the Democratic nominee, the Center for Public Integrity’s analysis indicates.

About 50 identifiable journalists have combined to give about $14,000 to Trump. (Talk radio ideologues, paid TV pundits and the like — think former Trump campaign manager-turned-CNN commentator Corey Lewandowski — are not included in the tally.)

According to the report, the law requires disclosure of names only when the donation exceeds $200, meaning the numbers could swing even higher.

Nussbaum, a Pulitzer Prize winner, has been actively knocking Trump this election cycle as running an “ugly and xenophobic campaign.” She said, “I rarely write about politics, but it’s true that the RNC-on-TV posts verged on punditry, and I can understand the concern about disclosure.” Nussbaum gave $250 to Clinton.

Most major outlets forbid their journalists from making contributions. Oddly enough, the clearly “we’re with her” New York Times states in its ethics handbook: “Any political giving by a Times staff member would carry a great risk of feeding a false impression that the paper is taking sides.” The Associated Press and CNN also ban its journalists from donating to political campaigns.

Read more »


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South Louisville shooting sends one to hospital overnight

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) -- LMPD is investigating a shooting that sent one person to the hospital overnight.

Metro Safe says officers got the call just after 4 a.m. Sunday about a shooting happening on Wilmoth Avenue near Putman Avenue in south Louisville.

There's no word on how that person who was shot is doing this morning.

Police have not made any arrests.

This story will be updated when more information becomes available.

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*Second episode*

At the hospital where boozy teen Gabby is being looked over after passing out, Ashley and Laurel are relieved to hear she will be OK. But a row soon erupts between the stressed-out parents which ends in dementia sufferer Ashley’s tears after he accidentally wallops his wife in the face!

The shattered family return to the village just as the Christmas lights are being turned on, and Bernice is shocked to see the terrible state the Thomases are in. At a very low ebb, Laurel makes a decision about her husband’s care.

Liv knows repercussions will be heading her way when she learns Gabby ended up in hospital after their drinking session. When Belle finds Liv, she takes her under her wing and urges her to delete the drunken footage she has of Gabby. Robert tries to reassure Aaron, Liv’s brother and guardian, that it will all blow over, but Aaron’s not so sure – and he’s right to worry as Gabby’s mum, Bernice, has got a bone to pick with his wayward sister…

Elsewhere, Finn tries to make up with Kasim, and Lisa asks Joanie and Zak to reconsider their plan to move away.


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Used car prices set to rise, report says

  • salon of expensive car new luxury

Used car prices continue to move higher across Canada despite stronger-than-expected sales of new vehicles in 2012, a report by Scotiabank says.

The improvement reflects a 4 per cent increase in purchases of pre-owned models so far this year, as well as the dwindling supply of these vehicles.

Canadian used car prices have been rising since 2009 just before the start of the global economic recovery.

In contrast, new vehicle prices in Canada have been flat since 2010 as automakers have enhanced incentives over the past two years to spur sales.

More: Here are Canada’s best new cars

More: 7 must-do tasks after buying a used car

The net result is Canadian used car prices are at record highs relative to the price of new models, the report released Thursday said.

The supply shortfall is the direct result of a plunge in fleet and leasing volumes since 2008. New vehicle leases in Canada slumped to only 180,000 units in 2009 and while they have edged higher in recent years, lease volumes still remain 40 per cent below the average of the previous decade.

In addition, fleet purchases of new cars and light trucks have averaged less than 200,000 units annually since 2009 — nearly 100,000 units below the average of the previous 10 years.

Meanwhile, growth in global car sales stalled in September with volumes unchanged from a year ago.

The slowdown reflects a sharp falloff in sales of Japanese models in China due to a territorial dispute between Beijing and Tokyo over two uninhabited islands in the East China Sea and further deterioration in Western Europe, especially Spain.

Excluding these regions, purchases advanced a solid 6 per cent, year-over-year, driven by double-digit increases in North America and Russia.

More recent data for October indicate that U.S. passenger vehicle sales remained healthy despite the impact of Hurricane Sandy, which reduced overall volumes by an annualized 300,000 units.

U.S. purchases totalled an annualized 14.2 million units last month, in line with the year-to-date average. However, a sales acceleration is likely coming in months as U.S. consumer confidence is currently at the highest level since February 2008. The number of Americans planning to buy a new vehicle is also at the highest level since the tech bubble of the late 1990s.

In addition, replacement demand will be boosted by the significant number of vehicles that were damaged by flood waters from Hurricane Sandy.

New vehicle sales in Canada accelerated to an 8 per cent, year-over-year, increase last month, climbing to a record high for the month of October. Purchases jumped back above an annualized 1.70 million units for the first time since May.

The improvement reflects a further increase in incentives to clear out the 2012 models, as well as the introduction of popular new fuel-efficient vehicles. In particular, car sales advanced 16 per cent, year over year, last month, while truck purchases were largely flat.

  • Used car prices set to rise, report says


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Linksys Links Back to Dual-band

By Eric Griffith

September 30, 2004

Announcements from the company's recent press event include expanding (and lowering the price of) 11a/g products, support for Verizon VoIP, and a software kit to make it easier to set up and secure a home network.

Dual-band products that support both radio frequencies at 5.0GHz (for 802.11a) and 2.4GHz (for 802.11g/b) have been pretty much passed over by the home networking audience, where finding 802.11a clients is about as easy as finding good new shows in a fall TV season. However, many think 802.11a's future is in sending video signals. That's why Dual-Band Wireless A+G products are among the new (and reintroduced) products and services introduced this week by Linksys during its Home Networking Day press event.

Linksys—owned by Cisco Systems and rated number one in consumer sales of Wi-Fi products—also has new support for the VoiceWing VoIP service from Verizon, deals with Best Buy to educate consumers on networking, and a new wireless 802.11g camera.

The 802.11a/g product line includes the WRT55AG router Linksys has had since 2003, but with a massive price drop from $299 MSRP to $109. Linksys also offers a dual-band notebook PC Card and desktop PCI adapter for $89 each (each has Wi-Fi Protected Access for security), and an external USB adapter for $99. In the company's announcement, they specifically say the 802.11a mode is "best suited for multiplayer games and video streaming."

Even though they tout the video on 11a, their new camera is 11g: the Linksys Wireless-G Internet Video Camera (model WVC54G) is an update of the previous 11b version with the same form factor, this time with a little LCD screen right on the camera to show the unit's assigned IP address, making it easier to access through a Web browser window. Using the SoloLink Dynamic Domain Name System (DDNS) service, you can access the camera's streaming video over the Internet from any location. The unit will have a price of $199.

The company is also going to have a new "Easy Toolkit" shipping with its Wireless-G products, including a wireless network configuration wizard co-developed with Intel to step people through the setup process of their home WLAN. It will also include the SecureEZSetup software developed by Broadcom to make securing a network a simpler process than it has been previously. SEZS is only available on a few select Linksys products using Broadcom chips.

Other Linksys news of the week isn't wireless-specific, but can be used by wired and wireless Linksys customers alike:

Linksys will support the new VoiceWing Broadband Phone Service from Verizon with a two phone port adapter that converts analog calls to VoIP calls on the service. Verizon will be including the adapters in its installation kits to VoiceWing customers. This isn't the first Linksys products to support VoIP— they also have similar adapters for the Vonage VoIP service. Linksys will also soon have a wireless 802.11g router with two phone ports built in.

Linksys will be supplying the Best Buy consumer electronics chain with Interactive Home Networking Zone displays to help educate the public about setting up a home network. It will cover basics as well as multimedia uses, such as getting digital music on a PC to play on the stereo. The zone is already in 550 stores, with more planned.

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Online Assembler/Disassembler

This page holds an experimental online assembler/disassembler. This tool allows you to copy and paste WP 34S source code into the text field below, and it will be compiled into an object file which can be loaded into your calculator.

In order to use this tool, enter your email address below, confirm the agreement, and paste in the code you want to compile. The resulting .dat file, along with any output of the compile, will be emailed to the address you provide below.

The disassembler version of this tool will be available shortly.

Please understand that this tool is experimental in nature. We've provided it for convenience of those who do not have easy access to Perl. Use at your own risk!

WP 34s Assembler

If you can't read the letters on the image, download this .wav file to get them read to you.

There is also a complete assembler/disassembler user's manual in PDF form available.

Man page  - Assembler/Disassembler for the WP34s calculator.

Usage: src_file [src_file2 [src_file3]] -o out_binary  # assembly mode in_binary -dis [-o out_binary] > src_file       # disassembly mode

   src_file         One or more WP34s program source files. Conventionally, "wp34s" is used
                    as the filename extension.
   -o outfile       Output produced by the tool. In assembler mode, this is required and will be
                    the binary flash image. Assembler output extension is conventionally ".dat".
                    In disassembler mode, this is optional and will be the output ASCII source
                    listing, conventionally uses the ".wp34s" extension. I/O redirection can be
                    used as an alternate method of capturing the ASCII source listing in disassembler
   -dis             Disassemble the binary image file.
   -op infile       Optional opcode file to parse.              [Default: --internal table--]
   -fill fill_hex   Optional value to prefill flash image with. [Default: instruction 'ERR 03']
   -s number        Optional number of asterisks (stars) to prepend to labels in
                    disassembly mode.                           [Default: 0]
   -syntax outfile  Turns on syntax guide file dumping. Output will be sent to 'outfile'.
   -ns              Turn off step numbers in disassembler listing.
   -svn             Report compressed opcode table SVN version number to STDOUT.
   -h               This help script.

  $ great_circle.wp34s -o wp34s-3.dat
  - Assembles the named WP34s program source file producing a flash image for the WP34s.
    MUST use -o to name the output file in assembler mode -- cannot use output redirection.

  $  great_circle.wp34s floating_point.wp34s -o wp34s-1.dat  -fill FFFF
  - Assembles multiple WP34s program source files into a single contiguous flash image for
    the WP34s. Uses 0xFFFF as the optional fill value. Allows (and encourages) use of libraries
    of programs by concatenating the flash image from several source files.

  $ -dis wp34s-1.dat -s 3 > myProg.wp34s
  $ -dis wp34s-1.dat -s 3 -o myProg.wp34s
  - Disassembles a flash image from the WP34s. Prepend 3 asterisks to the front to each label to
    make then easier to find in the listing (they are ignored during assembly). Both invocation
    result in identical behaviour.

  $ -dis wp34s-0.dat -o test.wp34s; test.wp34s -o wp34s-0a.dat; diff wp34s-0.dat wp34s-0a.dat
  - An end-to-end test of the tool. Note that the blank fill mode will have to have been the same
    for the binaries to match.

  1) Step numbers can be used in the source file but they are ignored. Since they are ignored,
     it doesn't matter if they are not contiguous (ie: 000, 003, 004) or not monotonic (ie: 000,
     004, 003). The disassembler does produce step numbers that are both contiguous and monotonic
     -- when not suppressed by the -ns switch.
  2) You can name a different opcode table using the -op switch. This can be used to translate a source
     written for a different SVN revision of the WP34s to move the program to a modern version of
     the WP34s. Typically, disassemble the old flash using the old opcode table and reassemble using
     the default (internal) table. This is also an insurance policy against the opcodes evolving as well.
     Simply target newer opcode tables as they become available. To generate an opcode table, using the
     following (Linux version shown. Windows is likely similar, though I have never tried):
      $ svn up
      $ cd ./trunk
      $ make
      $ ./Linux/calc opcodes >
      $ -dis wp34s-0.dat -op > source.wp34s
  3) The prefill-value will be interpreted as decimal if it contains only decimal digits. If it
     contains any hex digits or it starts with a "0x", it will be interpreted as a hex value. Thus
     "1234" will be decimal 1234 while "0x1234" will be the decimal value 4660. Both "EFA2" and "0xEFA2"
     will be interpreted as a hex value as well (61346). The leading "0x" is optional in this case.
  4) The order the command lines switches is not significant. There is no fixed order.
  5) There is subtle difference in using the disassembler with the "-o" switch and output redirection.
     With the "-o" switch, the resulting file will not contain the commented statistics -- these will
     be displayed on the screen. With redirection, all printed lines go to the file.
34s/assembler.txt · Last modified: 2011/07/15 10:58 by admin


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On this page you will find prices and informations to buy your speakers Kinyo SW-102 with confidence. Wikio Shopping also provide a price evolution based on lasts six weeks, some customers reviews and photos to help you choose the best Kinyo products at the best price.

Kinyo SW-102

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Technology Transfer and the New EU Competition Rules

ISBN13: 9780199282142
ISBN: 0199282145
New Edition ISBN: 9780198726067
Published: March 2006
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: UK
Format: Hardback
Price: £162.50

This is a Print On Demand Title.
The publisher will print a copy to fulfill your order. Books can take between 1 to 3 weeks. Looseleaf titles between 1 to 2 weeks.

The new Technology Transfer Block Exemption Regulation (in force from May 1, 2004) signals a profound change in the nature of the regulatory framework for technology licensing under EU competition law. This book examines the new Regulation in detail, placing it in the wider context of: (i) the context of the modernisation reforms of EC competition law generally; and (ii) the changes in treatment of "technology transfer" within the broader context of changes in treatment of IP rights over technology more generally. The book also considers the approach to assessment of IP issues set out in the Guidelines that accompany the Regulation.

The central feature of the Commission's new approach is that firms and practitioners must engage in self-assessment to determine whether their agreements comply with Community competition law. Paradoxically, this makes it more important that practitioners understand the significance of the old case law: the book considers to what extent these cases remain valid today.

It also goes beyond paraphrasing the Commission's Guidelines, discussing their legal basis and, where appropriate, criticising the approach taken by the Guidelines where the legal basis is unsure.

  • A timely examination of the completely revised EC competition law regime for intellectual property licensing
  • Step-by-step guidance on the new "self-assessment" approach to exemption
  • Considers to what extent old case law is valid today, allowing practitioners to assess whether their existing agreements comply with the new law
  • Makes the recent changes in the treatment of intellectual property readily understandable to specialists and non-specialists alike
  • Draws important lessons for IP licensing from case law in other sectors
  • Written by expert authors combining analytical skills with practical understanding of the subject

Competition Law, Intellectual Property Law
Part I Introduction
1. Introduction
2. The Development of the Regulatory Framework for IP Licensing in the EC
Part II The New Framework for Analysis of IP Issues
3. The 'Modernisation' of EU Competition Law Enforcement - the New Analytical Paradigm for Applying Article 81 Analytical Paradigm for Applying Article 81
4. Applying the Economics-based Approach to Article 81: Assessing Competitive Harm and Economic Benefit
5. IP Licensing under the New Paradigm
6. Market Definition
Part III Applying the Methodology to Agreements Under the New Rules
7. Vertical Agreements for Technology Transfer between Non-competitors
8. Licensing between Competitors
9. Cooperative Development and Exploitation of Technology
Standard Setting
Technology Pools
and Joint Research and Development
10. Technology Licensing and Article 82
A The Main Features of the New Technology Transfer Regulation
B Technology Transfer Block Exemption Regulation
C Commission Notice Guidelines on the application of Article 81 of the EC Treaty to technology transfer agreements (2004/C 101/02)


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Previous Edition ISBN: 9780414040144
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Publisher: Sweet & Maxwell Ltd
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The Italian Legal Tradition

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ISBN13: 9781855217591
ISBN: 1855217597
Published: April 1997
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing Ltd
Country of Publication: UK
Format: Hardback
Price: Out of print

This volume is designed to provide an introduction to Italian law and the legal system of Italy. It is not intended to be a detailed exposition of the rules of Italian law, or a comprehensive history of that system. The text is rather meant to give its readers sufficient information regarding the influences which have shaped and which continue to shape Italian legal development, together with a broad overview of the main areas and features of modern Italian law, to allow them to progress with confidence to literature which takes that context for granted.

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European Jurisdictions, Italy
The Italian legal tradition
the hallmarks of civil law systems
the sources of modern Italian law
the modern Italian state
the legislature and the legislative process
the Italian constitution
civil justice
the Italian legal profession
criminal justice
administrative justice
the family and the law
the law of property
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Strategic Interviewing: How to Hire Good People

ISBN: 978-0-7879-5989-0
200 pages
February 2002, Jossey-Bass
Strategic Interviewing: How to Hire Good People (0787959898) cover image

Interviewing is one of the most effective ways to identify and attract employees who will be successful enough to stay. But few managers are adept at the skill. This book helps eliminate expensive errors of judgment by presenting readers with a set of behaviorally based interviewing strategies. Written by the faculty of the prestigious University of Michigan Executive Education Center--and based on one of their most popular courses--its seven-step "Strategic Interviewing Approach" helps interviewers define the competencies candidates need to possess and make hiring decisions based on accurate predictions of the candidates' performance.
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Table of Contents

Series Foreword xi

Preface xiii

1 The Case for a Strategic Interviewing Approach 1

2 Developing Realistic Goals and Managing the Interview Process 21

3 Defining Performance Expectations 45

4 Developing Job-Related Questions and Answers 69

5 Conducting an Effective Interview 99

6 Making the Hiring Decision 123

7 Getting Strategic Interviewing to Work for You 145

Appendix A Comments on Assessment 4.1 161

Appendix B Sample Job Barriers, Requirements, Questions, and Answers for a Sales Position 165

Notes 169

The Authors 175

Index 177

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Author Information

RICHAURD CAMP an industrial/organizational psychologist and management consultant, teaches strategic interviewing at the Executive Education Center at the University of Michigan Business School and is professor of management at Eastern Michigan University. He also serves on the editorial board of The Journal of Business and Psychology.

MARY VIELHABER teaches at the Executive Education Center of the University of Michigan and is a professor of management at Eastern Michigan University and the codirector of the graduate program in human resources and organizational development.

JACK L. SIMONETI an international consultant has served as a professor and department chairman of management at the University of Toledo and assistant industrial relations manager for B.F. Goodrich Company.

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14/12/03 GI Special 154: One Down, One To Go

(Larry Downing/Reuters)

 Incredible Bremer Still Talks Like Resistance Movement Fighting For Hussein
By EDWARD WONG and KIRK SEMPLE, December 14, 2003 New York Times

Bremer appealed to insurgents loyal to Mr. Hussein to give up the fight today.

"With the arrest of Saddam Hussein, there is a new opportunity for the members of the former regime, whether military or civilian, to end their bitter opposition," he said in the news conference, which was televised. "Let them now come forward in a spirit of reconciliation and hope, lay down their arms, and join you, their fellow citizens, in the task of building the new Iraq."

(For weeks, interviews with resistance fighters have quoted them expressing contempt and loathing for Hussein, and saying they are fighting for Iraqi independence from a foreign invasion.  They will continue to do so, with more strength than ever before, now the murderous asshole is off the board.  They are right to do so.)

By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer 12.14.03

Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, which captured Saddam, said the ousted leader did not appear to be directly organizing resistance – noting no communication devices were found in his hiding place.  (So much for the silly bullshit about Hussein leading the resistance.)

December 14, 2003 Release Number: 03-12-14C

AL HASWAH, Iraq — A soldier was wounded and subsequently died while attempting to disarm an improvised explosive device (IED) during the morning of Dec. 14.  The device, discovered by a patrol unit, was hung on a telephone pole near the road.  The soldier, a trained explosive ordnance disposal specialist, approached the IED to disarm it when the device exploded.

A Death In Peru, Indiana
Dec. 13, 2003 Associated Press

PERU, Ind. - A soldier from northern Indiana whose wife is expecting a baby in the spring was killed in Iraq by a bomb explosion, his mother said.

Army Sgt. Jarrod Black, 26, was in a convoy west of Baghdad on Friday when military officials said insurgents detonated a bomb alongside the road, killing Black and wounding two others.

The bomb attack happened in Ramadi, about 60 miles west of the Iraqi capital, the U.S. Central Command said. Black was evacuated to a combat hospital and died of his wounds.

"I'm in denial and total shock right now," Jane Black told The Peru Tribune for a story Saturday. "Jarrod was a brat that everyone loved to be around."

Black, who attended Peru High School, had last talked with his parents on Wednesday.

"He didn't get to call home very often," his mother said. "He said he loved me and he was being safe. Then he called his dad at work and got to speak with him for a little while. God wanted me to have one more conversation with my son."

Black and his wife Shawna found out recently they were to be the parents of their first child together, a girl, in April. He also was the father of two sons, ages 2 and 3, from a previous relationship.

"(Jarrod) wanted to know what I thought of him having a little girl," his mother recalled of Wednesday's conversation.

Black, who served on a tanker with his unit, had been in the Army since 1999, and was deployed to the Middle East in September. His brother, Brandon, has served in Iraq as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division since February.

Bill Shuey, a longtime English teacher at Peru High School, said he believed much of the community some 50 miles southwest of Fort Wayne would mourn Black's death.

"Jarrod was a huge (Peru) Tiger fan," said Shuey, who announces for Peru athletic events. "He was always in the front row cheering on Peru, supporting the Tigers. He was an energetic, young man who was full of life. This is a huge loss for the town of Peru."

Black was the 17th person from Indiana to have died while serving in the Mideast during

the war with Iraq.  Eleven of those deaths have happened since President Bush declared May 1 that major combat operations in the country had ended.

U.S. Troops Hurt

ANOTHER BAD PLACE TO BE;  US Army soldiers move about in northern Kuwait.  Four US soldiers received 'minor injuries from broken glass' in two attacks with small arms fire against their convoys in Kuwait, a US army spokesman said.(AFP/File/Jim Watson) BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW!

Car Bomb Hits Police Station
Dec. 14, 2003 KHALDIYAH, Iraq (AP)

A bomb in a car outside a police station Sunday morning west of Baghdad killed at least 17 people, wounding 33 more, the U.S.  military said.

A police lieutenant says 16 police officers are dead,

The car bombing in Khaldiyah, 50 miles west of Baghdad, killed  police officers, city workers and civilian bystanders, U.S. Army  Lt. Col. Jeff Swisher.

An emergency room administrator at a hospital in the nearby city  of Ramadi put the toll even higher, at 21 people killed and more  than 20 injured.  Many victims were Iraqi police officers and  workers who were sweeping the street outside the district police

office, said hospital administrator Haitham Bahar Taha.

U.S. troops arriving on the scene blocked off the area and two  helicopters hovered overhead.  U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police later  surveyed the site of the blast, which left a huge crater in the  road and collapsed a large section of the building's front wall.  Several destroyed cars were scattered in the street nearby. Muthana Hameed, a local resident, said he saw a lot of bodies of  police and municipal workers.

A Khaldiyah policeman, Mohammed Abed, said an ``unfamiliar'' car  was parked outside the station moments before the blast

Telling the truth - about the occupation, the cuts to veterans benefits, or the dangers of depleted uranium - is the first reason Traveling Soldier is necessary.  But we want to do more than tell the truth; we want to report on the resistance - whether it's in the streets of Baghdad, New York, or inside the armed forces.  Our goal is for Traveling Soldier to become the thread that ties working-class people inside the armed services together. We want this newsletter to be a weapon to help you organize resistance within the armed forces. If you like what you've read, we hope that you'll join with us in building a network of active duty organizers.  http://www.traveling-soldier.org/

Large Explosions Rock Central Baghdad

IMPOSSIBLE PLACE TO BE  A U.S. soldier rushes to scene after a pick up truck exploded in central Baghdad  Dec. 14, 2003. Large explosions were heard in central Baghdad Sunday evening and flames and thick smoke were seen rising, just hours after U.S. officials announced the capture of Saddam Hussein (AP Photo/Dusan Vranic)

The Associated Press December 14, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Large explosions rocked central Baghdad Sunday evening and flames and thick smoke rose from the area, just hours after U.S. officials announced the capture of Saddam Hussein. A policeman said there were no casualties.

Shortly afterward, bursts of gunfire rang out from the area. The explosions occurred at 8:20 p.m. local time in the central Baghdad area of Karadah.

A policeman said a white four-wheel drive vehicle had exploded on Saadoun Street, a busy thoroughfare, after two men jumped from the vehicle and fled the scene.

Two fire trucks arrived a few minutes later and started putting out the blaze.

Pentagon Caught Lying About Numbers Of Wounded In Iraq

(From Dave Collins to Vietnam Veterans Against The War NET: This seems really dumb. And more than a bit desperate.  Dave)

By Patrick Peterson, KNIGHT RIDDER TRIBUNE. Dec. 06, 2003

GULFPORT, Miss. - An influential Mississippi congressman has raised the possibility that the Pentagon has undercounted combat casualties in Iraq after he learned that five members of the Mississippi National Guard who were injured Sept. 12 by a booby trap in Iraq were denied Purple Heart medals.

The guardsmen were wounded by an artillery shell that detonated as their convoy passed the tree in which it was hidden, but their injuries were classified as "noncombat," according to Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss. Taylor, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, learned of the classification when he visited the most seriously injured of the guardsmen, Spc. Carl Sampson, 35, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

Taylor said the incident raised concerns that Iraq combat casualties had been understated.

Taylor said Friday. "I just don't want to see anyone else who's been injured get cheated about their Purple Heart."

Members of the Mississippi National Guard were mystified.  "Sampson should have already been awarded a Purple Heart," said Lt. Col. Tim Powell, a spokesman for the Guard.  "An improvised explosive device built and placed with the intent to harm American soldiers is hostile."

Sampson, who sustained shrapnel wounds to his face and arms, is now hospitalized in Tampa.

Bush Buddies Get Billions To Serve Troops Rotting Meat From Filthy Kitchens
WASHINGTON (AFP) Dec 13, 2003

The Pentagon repeatedly warned contractor Halliburton-KBR that the food it served to US troops in Iraq was "dirty," as were as the kitchens it was served in, NBC News reported Friday.

Halliburton-Kellogg Brown and Root's promises to improve "have not been followed through," according to a Pentagon report that warned "serious repercussions may result" if the contractor did not clean up, the television network reported.

The Pentagon reported finding "blood all over the floor," "dirty pans," "dirty grills," "dirty salad bars" and "rotting meats ... and vegetables" in four of the military messes the company operates in Iraq, NBC said, citing Pentagon documents.

The company feeds 110,000 US and coalition troops daily at a cost of 28 dollars per troop per day, NBC said.  (Get that again, $28 per soldier per day for rotting meat, etc.  Guess where they money goes, right into the pockets of this disgusting war profiteering Bush campaign contributor.  The Halliburton suits in Iraq better stop this shit very fast.  Hungry soldiers wanting decent food and armed with frag grenades are not to be fucked with without major payback.  Ask any Vietnam vet.)

The Pentagon found unclean conditions at four locations in Iraq, including one in Baghdad and two in Tikrit. Even the mess hall where Bush served troops their Thanksgiving dinner was dirty in August, September and October, according to NBC.

This adds up to "a company that arrogantly is overcharging when they can get away with it and not providing the quality of service that they agreed to do," Representative Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, told NBC.

Do you have a friend or relative in the service? Forward this E-MAIL along, or send us the address if you wish and we’ll send it regularly. Whether in Iraq or stuck on a base in the USA, this is extra important for your service friend, too often cut off from access to encouraging news of growing resistance to the war, at home and in Iraq, and information about other social protest movements here in the USA.  Send requests to address up top.  For copies on web site see: http://www.notinourname.net/gi-special/

By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer 12.13.03

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, speaking at a news conference, said "There is no question in my mind that the coalition and the Iraqi people are winning," he said.

(Sanchez still just doesn’t get it.  The Iraqi people are indeed winning, because the coalition is losing.)

Army Facing Medical Crisis;

Troops' Rotation Straining System
By Robert Schlesinger, Boston Globe Staff, 12/13/2003

WASHINGTON -- The planned rotation of roughly a quarter-million soldiers into and out of Iraq and Afghanistan next year is threatening to overwhelm the Army's medical system, according to military and political leaders.

Top Pentagon brass and congressional leaders fear that between the needs of Reserve soldiers unable to deploy because of previous medical problems, the health issues of returning soldiers, and a record number of troops in transit, the problems experienced this fall at Fort Stewart could resurface nationally.  The Georgia military base, suddenly faced with handling the medical needs of thousands of troops returning from Iraq, came under sharp criticism for long delays in care that especially affected reservists, and for shunting ailing reservists into substandard housing to make way for the returning soldiers.

"Our concern and the concern on [Capitol Hill] big time is that the situation at Fort Stewart is going to be replicated over and over and over and over," said Derek Stewart, director of defense capabilities for the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, which is examining the issue. "But I'll tell you -- we're not getting a good feeling that they're preparing."

A major problem facing the military medical system is the ill health of thousands of reservists even before they ship out to battle zones. Overall, according to an Oct. 25 study by the Army surgeon general's office, 1,800 to 3,600 reservists -- members of the Army Reserve or Army National Guard -- were activated but were unable to deploy for Operation Iraqi Freedom because of health problems. Under Army regulations, once soldiers are called up to duty, the Army is responsible for their treatment until they return home.

"Just like you've read the reports about the large numbers of Americans who don't have any medical insurance -- a percentage of those are reservists," said John O'Shea of the Reserve Officers Association. "When families have reduced incomes, one of the things they normally consider a luxury, believe it or not, is medical care or dental care."

Dominican Republic Unwilling,

But U.S. Demands Troops Stay

SANTO DOMINGO, Dec. 11 (Reuters) – The United States expects troops from the Dominican Republic sent to Iraq to serve the full year promised and not to leave ahead of schedule, a U.S. official told the Dominican government on Thursday.

President Hipolito Mejia and Armed Forces Minister Lt. Gen. Jose Miguel Soto Jimenez indicated last week the Caribbean country's 300-strong contingent could be pulled out before February after their base in the southern city of Diwaniya came under mortar attack.

The Dominican soldiers were deployed to Iraq in late July to work alongside some 1,300 Spanish troops patrolling an area south of Baghdad.

''We expect the Dominican soldiers to remain in Iraq for a year. That was the commitment we reached with President Mejia,'' U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega said on a visit to Santo Domingo.

The Dominican Republic's participation in the U.S. military operation in Iraq has divided the country, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, and could hurt Mejia's hopes of seeking re-election next year.

Once a booming economy with surging tourism, the country of around 8 million people has sunk into a deep economic slump following the collapse of a major bank.

A dozen people have died since September in angry street protests over rising prices, a plunging local currency, a proposal for International Monetary Fund-mandated austerity measures and constant power cuts.

Only 21% Trust Occupation Forces
By Helena Cobban, Christian Science Monitor, December 11, 2003

A recent poll organized by a British company found that only 21 percent of Iraqis said they had "quite a lot" of trust in the US and British forces there. The rest all described their trust level as "not very much," or "none at all."

An U.S. Army In Revolt Stopped A Hopeless Imperial War Before;

It Needs To Happen Again
By Kim Phillips-Fein | 12.11.03, inthesetimes

Near the end of the Vietnam War, as the antiwar movement roiled domestic politics and the Viet Cong showed no signs of giving in, a group of black soldiers formed an underground society named the Mau-Maus, in reference to a 19th-century uprising against the British in Kenya.  Other soldiers, at about the same time, put up posters at Army bases reading, "Don't Do What They Tell You, Tell What They Do," and went on "search-and-avoid" missions-told where the enemy was, they'd march in the opposite direction.  In 1971, for the Fourth of July, soldiers at one base held a peace rally, calling for "immediate and total American troop withdrawal."

These were only a few signs of an army in revolt and a foreign policy in collapse.

Many American soldiers found themselves incapable of tolerating the war's inhumanity, and the army was collapsing by the war's end.

One journalist who lived in Vietnam in the early '70s says, "When I hear people say we could have won the war, I always think: Where were you going to get the soldiers?"

Yet while the American soldiers served one-year tours of duty the North Vietnamese soldiers endured vast deprivation, living in the jungle for years on end, with scant food, sickness, exhaustion and a death rate nearly 20 times that of the Americans. Why were they able to tolerate such conditions?

Appy suggests that the basic difference was that North Vietnamese soldiers understood themselves as fighting a political war against an occupying power.

What do you think?  Comments from service men and women, and veterans, are especially welcome.  Send to the E-mail address up top.  Name, I.D., withheld on request.  Replies confidential.

Telling It Like It Is

In closing, I think we should reflect on the words of General David Shoup, former US Marine Commandant and Medal of Honor recipient who in 1966 said

"I believe that if we would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-soaked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution on their own.  And if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the 'haves' refuse to share with the 'have-nots' by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own and not the American style, which they don't want and above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans."

David Cline, President

Veterans For Peace http://www.veteransforpeace.org/

Veterans For Peace Newsletter Fall 2003

Retreat Into Hardened Bases;

Strategy For Disaster

(From an interview with Stan Goff, SSG (Ret’d) by Dave Lindorff, in Veterans For Peace Newsletter, Fall 2003) http://www.veteransforpeace.org/

In some ways it's similar, and in some ways it's very different.  The terrain is different, and you don't have the Cold War underlying it, though the Bush Administration seems to be trying hard to create a new global enemy like that.

What is happening that is similar is that, in order to limit the casualties, which are raising the level of concern at home, the Pentagon has essentially shut down all operations.  The troops have been pulled back behind the wire into hardened bases.  The problem with that is that when you pull back, you hand the countryside over to the enemy, and then the static positions set you up as targets, which are under surveillance by the guerrillas.

It's a classic no-win situation for the United States now, with the Iraqis executing a classic guerrilla strategy of going after the softer targets like the United Nations and the pipelines, and I frankly don't see how we get out of it.

(That sounds pretty pessimistic.)

I'm an optimist really, though. Maybe a short-term pessimist but a long-term optimist. You know, the government can spin, spin, spin, like with U.S. occupation coordinator L. Paul Bremer saying over and over that we're "turning the comer."  But eventually reality reasserts itself.

I think that the Bush Administration will collapse from its own hubris. You know, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is not the smart guy people in the media say he is. He is a fool who thinks he's smarter than his generals.

He has an outrageous faith in technology's ability to solve military problems, and he seems to have Bush firmly in tow. But they're in a box. They're in the process of self-destruction.

Useless, Pointless Sham
By ALEX BERENSON, NY Times 12. 14, 2003

Lt. Col. Eric Nantz commands the First Battalion of the 325th Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division, whose tanks and paratroopers patrol six neighborhoods, including Ghazalia.   But the 82nd has only 800 soldiers to patrol a population of a half million.

The Ship Of Fools;

Ignorant Incompetents Try To Rule A Nation

The Washington Monthly's Who's Who
December 2003, Special Baghdad edition, By Joshua Micah Marshall, Laura Rozen, and Colin Soloway’

(Joshua Micah Marshall is a Washington Monthly contributing writer and author of Talkingpointsmemo.com. Laura Rozen is a national security writer in Washington, D.C. Colin Soloway is a contributing editor of Newsweek.)

Simone Ledeen is serving her country.  She is the daughter of Michael Ledeen, the Iran-Contra luminary, AEI scholar, and all-around capo in the neocon mafia.  She's 29, a freshly-minted M.B.A., with little to no experience in war-torn countries.  But as an advisor for northern Iraq at the Ministry of Finance in Baghdad, she is, in essence, helping shape one quarter of that nation's economy.

When the history of the occupation of Iraq is written, there will be many factors to point to when explaining the post-conquest descent into chaos and disorder, from the melting away of Saddam's army to the Pentagon's failure to make adequate plans for the occupation. But historians will also consider the lack of experience and abundant political connections of the hundreds of American bureaucrats sent to Baghdad to run Iraq through the Coalition Provisional Authority.

It's not that Americans lack such experience. In the last decade particularly, many American officials acquired a great deal of expertise in post-conflict reconstruction in places like Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor and in post-Communist countries in Eastern Europe and around the globe--expertise that could have been put to good use at the CPA.

In their place, the architects of the war chose card-carrying Republicans--operatives, flacks, policy-wonks and lobbyists--for almost every key assignment in the country.  Some marquee examples include U.S. civil administrator Paul Bremer's senior advisor and liaison to Capitol Hill, Tom Korologos, one of the most powerful GOP lobbyists on Capitol Hill.  Then there's the man in charge of privatizing Iraq's 200-odd state owned companies, Tom Foley, a venture capitalist and high-flying GOP fundraiser. Foley was one of the Bob Dole's top-ten career donors, Connecticut finance chair for Bush 2000 and a classmate of the president's from Harvard Business School.

The chief advisor to the Agriculture Ministry is Dan Amstutz, a Reagan administration veteran who until recently served as the president of the North American Export Grain Association.  Oxfam's Director of Policy Kevin Watkins recently quipped that with his record of opening up developing economies to cheap American agricultural exports, "putting Dan Amstutz in charge of agricultural reconstruction in Iraq is like putting Saddam Hussein in the chair of a human rights commission." The presence of so many GOP lobbyists and fat-cats on the CPA roster has led many to suspect that the staffing was driven by the desire to award prized contracts to friendly companies and campaign donors. There is more than a little truth in those impressions. But a closer look paints a more complex picture.

By making partisan loyalty their primary criteria, the administration ruled out most of the people with experience in the field and restricted themselves to politically trustworthy Republicans, many of whom, though often well-meaning and admirably willing to serve their country in a very dangerous place, had little to no experience to prepare them for the challenges they'd encounter in Iraq.

A typical example is Dan Senor.  Before attending Harvard Business School from 1999 to 2001, Senor was a staffer for then-Sen. Spencer Abraham of Michigan. After receiving his MBA, he went to the Carlyle Group, where he was a venture capitalist from 2001 to 2003. Senor left Carlyle in 2003 for a brief stint as White House Press Secretary Scott McLellan's deputy before shipping off to Iraq.

Though he showed up in Iraq as a junior press handler, Senor is now Bremer's senior advisor and for most of last summer he was in charge of organizing Iraq's post-Saddam media, an effort which most have rated as little short of a disaster.

More examples can be found at the Ministry of Education, often cited by the White House as one of the CPA's signal successes.  Who runs the Ministry of Education? The chief American advisor to the Minister of Education is Williamson Evers, a school voucher advocate and Libertarian activist from the Hoover Institution who was an education policy advisor on the Bush 2000 campaign.  The first of Evers's two deputies is Leslye Arsht, a Republican education policy wonk who served as deputy press secretary under Ronald Reagan and then in the Department of Education under George H.W. Bush. Evers's second deputy was Jim Nelson, President George W. Bush's education commissioner from when he was governor of Texas. (Nelson recently returned stateside.)

Each of the three has education policy credentials.  But one searches their résumés in vain for any evidence of the sort of expertise that would suit them to rebuild an educational system in an Arab country in the aftermath of war, a decade of sanctions, and two generations of totalitarian rule.

But critics say that even the much-hyped successes getting schools refurbished and reopened may not stand up to scrutiny.  The White House routinely trumpets the fact that 1,595 of Iraq's 10,000 schools have already been rehabilitated. But when Newsweek reporters visited five of those schools in October, they found each one trash-strewn, poorly supplied, and mostly a wreck.

More such "help" may be on the way in the person of Rich Galen, veteran GOP-spin meister, former spokesman for Vice President Dan Quayle and onetime head of Newt Gingrich's GOPAC.  In late October, Galen received the call to serve his country in Iraq as yet another of Bremer's Senior Advisors. His gig?  Adding more artillery to the Iraq War spin operation. "My job," Galen told The New York Post before shipping off, "will be to help reporters on the ground find interesting stories that they can use. If there's a civil-affairs unit out of Manhattan that rebuilt a school, it might be of interest to Channel 5 but not to a network."

CPA officials say that the older GOP functionaries do a reasonable job keeping their partisanship publicly under wraps.  But the younger Republicans in Iraq spend much of their time plotting against the Democrats. "Everything is seen in the context of the election, and how they will screw the Democrats," said one CPA official. "It was really pretty shocking to hear them talk."

"They are all on the campaign trail," said another official. "They see this as a stepping stone to a better job in the next Bush administration."  "I don't always know if they are Republicans," said yet another senior CPAer. "But what is clear is that they know nothing about development, and nothing about transitional economies."  They're trying to do the right thing, this official adds, "but they do what they do without any knowledge of how the post-war world works in reality. They come up with hare-brained schemes that cause so many problems they take more time to fix than to create."

It's also driven journalists on the ground, watching these operatives move in and out of Saddam's marble Republican Palace, which CPA commandeered as its headquarters, to joke: "They don't call it the Republican Palace for nothing."

Bremers’ Follies Roll On;

The Most Deranged Occupation In History?
The Economist (London) December 13-19, 2003 DATELINE: Baghdad

"THERE is no information available at this time," reads the message on the website of the Iraqi Media Network, the intended precursor of a hoped-for revamped state broadcasting service and the Americans' main purveyor of news in Arabic that, after 30 years of state lies, is meant to be true. "Please check back."

Iraqis have been checking for eight months, baffled by how a nation with the world's most vibrant media can leave them still yearning for something they actually want to watch. So dull is the present service that some Iraqis may even hanker for the days when Saddam Hussein's delinquent son Uday ran the television. As a result, far more Iraqis watch two Arab satellite channels, al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya, both of which seem to revel in America's local tribulations.

Part of the problem is that the Pentagon assigned Iraq's broadcasting to a defence contractor, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). So far, the firm has shown as much aptitude for delivering news as the BBC would if it had to deliver missiles.

It charged the Pentagon $100m in operating and infrastructure costs but paid its broadcasters $30 a week. It hired the same performers who sang praises to Mr Hussein as "the servant of God" to sing odes to Iraq's new-found freedom. State TV is required to relay the statements of the ruling American-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and its appointed Iraqi Governing Council, earning it a reputation as the Pentagon's Pravda. Freed from Saddam's ban on satellite dishes, a third of Iraqis have switched to other stations.

The failure to provide useful or interesting information is not just SAIC's; it is symptomatic of a more general speech impediment.  Not only does the CPA not speak Iraq's language; it rarely deigns to speak at all.  Gary Thatcher, Mr Bremer's communications adviser, does not communicate himself, and often bars CPA officials, bunkered behind their concrete bollards, from answering press inquiries directly. Mr Bremer rarely invites Arab journalists to his press conferences.

Shells Pose Cancer Risk In Iraq;

Depleted Uranium Causing High Radioactivity Levels
Antony Barnett, public affairs editor, December 14, 2003, The Observer

Depleted uranium shells used by British forces in southern Iraqi battlefields are putting civilians at risk from 'alarmingly high' levels of radioactivity.

Experts are calling for the water and milk being used by locals in Basra to be monitored after analysis of biological and soil samples from battle zones found 'the highest number, highest levels and highest concentrations of radioactive source points' in the Basra suburb of Abu Khasib - the centre of the fiercest battles between UK forces and Saddam loyalists.

Readings taken from destroyed Iraqi tanks in Basra reveal radiation levels 2,500 times higher than normal. In the surrounding area researchers recorded radioactivity levels 20 times higher than normal.

Tedd Weymann, deputy director of UMRC, said: 'At one point the readings were so high that an alarm on one of my instruments went off telling me to get back. Yet despite these alarmingly high levels of radiation children play on the tanks or close by.'

Witnesses told the UMRC that a British Army survey team inspected Abu Khasib. 'The UK team arrived dressed in white full-body radiation suits with protective facemasks and gloves. They were accompanied by translators who were ordered to warn residents and local salvage crews that the tanks in the battlefield are radioactive and must be avoided,' the report states, adding: 'The British forces have taken no steps to post warnings, seal tanks and personnel carriers or remove the highly radioactive assets.'

Dr Chris Busby, who is a member of a government committee examining radiation risks, expressed concern. 'There is no question that inhaling this radioactive dust can increase the risk of lymphomas,' he said.

Israel Supplying Occupation Equipment
Reuters, December 12, 2003

WASHINGTON: A key US ally behind-the-scenes in the war in Iraq, Israel has been contributing intelligence, tactics and technology mostly in secret to avert an Arab backlash, congressional aides and analysts said on Thursday.

The commander of the Israel Defense Force's Golani Brigade briefed US Marines in mid-June on the lessons the IDF has learned from its conflict with the Palestinians. The Israelis have supplied the American military with aerial surveillance equipment, decoy drones and D-9 armored bulldozers, sources close to the Israeli government said.

Iraqi Mothers Demand To Visit Their Imprisoned Children

13 December 2003 english.aljazeera.net

Relatives of Iraqis detained by US forces in the prison at Abu Ghuraib, infamous in Saddam Hussein's times as a centre of torture and death, are demanding visiting rights.

Families of Iraqis detained by the US authorities demonstrate demanding rights for prisoners in front of Abu Gharib prison, 20 kms north of Baghdad. The placard in Arabic reads, 'US army where did you bring our men?'(AFP/Ahmad Al-Rubaye)

A few dozen demonstrators gathered on Saturday outside the main entrance to the jail just west of Baghdad claiming their loved ones were innocent.

Each one had a story to tell of betrayal, revenge or misfortune.  Worse still none of the prisoners have been charged or allowed regular visits in the country's biggest penitentiary.

Hind Hussein al-Shumari, 35, said she had seen her brother only once, on 8 October, some three weeks after his arrest.

"He had trouble walking and hardly recognised me," said Shumari, from the Sunni quarter of Adhamiah.  She has moved in with her mother, two sisters, a sister-in-law and two nieces aged five and six.

Soldiers kicked down the door to her marital home and turned the place upside down before finding a revolver, she said.

"They beat him. They shouted at us in English and we answered in Arabic. No one could understand because there was neither a translator nor an Iraqi policeman."

For Um Muhammad, whose three sons were detained on 11 November in Baghdad's Adhamiyah district, the guilty party is her niece's husband.

"I opposed their marriage and he has taken his revenge," she said bemoaning the lack of news from her sons. Sabah Fahim brought her two sons and three-year-old daughter to the demonstration.

In June, the Americans arrested the father and brother of 32-year-old Omar Ahmad Radif in Baghdad. "I visited them six times when they were in Um Qasr prison," in the far south of Iraq.

But in November they were transferred to Abu Ghoraib and Radif said he has now been given a date of 23 April next year for a first visit.

Children of Iraqis detained by the US authorities demonstrate in front of Abu Gharib prison, 20 kms north of Baghdad. The placard in Arabic reads, 'God is great. Where is Freedom? Where is my father?'(AFP/Ahmad Al-Rubaye)

"George Bush Has Turned Iraq Into The Biggest Prison On Earth, And Called It Freedom."
By Scott Taylor in Iraq 07 December 2003, Al Jazeera

Every day hundreds of used and often stolen cars, bearing national license plates from all over Europe, cross the border into Kurdistan on their way to Baghdad.

Vast quantities of internationally donated food are also quick to find their way into the black market.

It is common to see vendors on Baghdad streets selling wheat and rice from packages emblazoned with the United Nations logo.

The fuel demands of the 140,000-strong US occupation force that are constantly patrolling in heavy armoured vehicles have overtaxed the locally produced gasoline stocks.

"THE BIGGEST PRISON ON EARTH:"  Families of Iraqis detained by the US authorities demonstrate in front of Abu Gharib prison, 20 kms north of Baghdad. Abu Gharib prison holds some 10,000 Iraqi inmates(AFP/Ahmad Al-Rubaye)

In the streets of Fallujah city, which is known for its resistance to occupation, Arabic graffiti proclaims, "It is not okay to take American money, it is okay to kill the occupiers."

"They call this operation Iraqi Freedom," said Ibrahim Amin, a 47-year-old real estate broker, "but our world has become nothing but curfews, barbed wire, searchlights, and soldiers.

"George Bush has turned Iraq into the biggest prison on earth, and called it Freedom."

Stooge Officers Whine

As Almost Half Of New Iraqi Army Men Leave Ranks
By Harry de Quetteville in Baghdad, Daily Telegraph, December 12, 2003

Almost half the first recruits to the New Iraqi Army have abandoned their posts two months after they marched to the tune of an American military band and saluted before Paul Bremer, the coalition administrator.

Mahmoud Hussein still fingers the colonel's two stars on his epaulettes with emotion. "The last time I had these on was on April 8," he said, referring to the day before Baghdad fell.

"These new soldiers have no devotion to the service. All they have is a desire for money, and now they think they don't get enough in the new army, so they leave."  (Hey, come on, lighten up Colonel, serving as a traitor to protect a foreign occupation definitely does not come cheap.)

CIA Puppet And Pentagon Puppet Battle For Occupation $
By Nicolas Pelham in Baghdad, December 11 2003  Financial Times

Tensions have emerged between two influential formerly exiled political parties in Baghdad over control of Iraq's rapidly proliferating security organisations.

Ayad Allawi's Iraqi National Accord has accused the Iraqi National Congress, led by Ahmad Chalabi, of undermining central authority by backing the creation of a private military company to secure the oil sector.

The sparring between Mr Chalabi and Mr Allawi dates from the 1990s, when both men led separate attempts to overthrow Saddam Hussein.  While Mr Chalabi is close to the Pentagon and advocates redrawing the Middle East political map,  Mr Allawi is regarded as closer to the CIA and fears further upsetting the status quo would inflame the region.

The latest dispute between the two men, both members of the Iraqi Governing Council's rotating presidency, erupted after close associates of Mr Chalabi teamed up with Erinys International, a Johannesburg-based security risk consultancy, to train and deploy a 6,500-strong Iraqi force at oil installations. The joint venture, Erinys Iraq, won an $80m two-year contract to protect oil sites across Iraq from sabotage.

"If such security companies are not under central government control there will be anarchy," said Mr Allawi. He said the interior ministry should regulate the oil security force.

Mr Chalabi has responded by accusing Mr Allawi of encouraging foreign interference in Iraq's security.   "The Governing Council did not to agree to spend $1.2bn on eight-week long courses for Iraqi police in Jordan.  It would be far more efficient to train them in Iraq," said Mr Chalabi.   Ibrahim al-Jannabi, Mr Allawi's deputy on the security committee, counters that the deal is worth $180m and is financed by the US, not Iraq.

Orders to disband Iraqi militias have been only loosely enforced.

Trouble At The Pentagon
Wall St. Journal 12.8.03

Washington–New reports by the Army and Marine Corps offering harsh assessments of the military’s intelligence capabilities during the war with Iraq are driving demand inside the military to add more intelligence specialists and more unmanned surveillance planes to the force.

A report of the Army’s Third Infantry Division said thee was a "mistaken perception" that Iraqi regular Army divisions would surrender en masse to U.S. forces. "A catch phrase was even coined, which reflected this optimistic view: ‘movement to parade,’" the report states. Instead, some Iraqis stood and fought, while the vast majority of them melted away into the population and are believed in some cases to be feeding the guerilla insurgency.

A senior defense official warned that the readiness of units returning from Iraq was likely to slip as soldiers take much-needed time off.

Army officials, however, are reluctant to ask for more troops, an expensive move that would likely cut into the service’s modernization and maintenance budget.

(Translation: more troops means less money for war profiteering defense contractors, and fewer job opportunities for the desk warriors who go on to work for the defense contractors after retirement from Pentagon procurement.)

Losing The War In Afghanistan
independent.co.uk 14 December 2003

After a relatively quick and casualty-free campaign - for the American military, if not Afghan civilians - Washington declared victory and moved on to begin preparations for tackling Saddam Hussein.  But just as the announcement of the official end to hostilities in Iraq has been followed by mayhem, the conflict has restarted in Afghanistan. The military bill for the Pentagon, so far, is a staggering $50bn - nearly £30bn.

Attacks in Afghanistan have begun to emulate those in Iraq: suicide bombings, which are not a traditional Afghan approach; similar types of explosive devices set off by remote control; missile attacks from longer range; and the targeting of foreign aid organisations and the UN.  Just as Iraqi guerrillas rocketed the Rashid Hotel in Baghdad when the US Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, was staying there, so Afghan guerrillas fired rockets into the American embassy in Kabul during the visit of Mr Wolfowitz's boss, Donald Rumsfeld, less than week ago.

Eighteen months after the fall of their Islamist regime, the Taliban and their al-Qa'ida allies are resurgent, while the forces of the Kabul government are in retreat in large swaths of the south and east. The deputy governor of Zabul admits most of his province is now in Taliban hands, officials report that the situation is much the same in neighbouring Oruzgan, while about half the territory in Kandahar has slipped out of government control. In the dusty town of Spin Boldak close to the border with Pakistan in the east, where the Taliban was born, black and green flags celebrate its rebirth.

American forces in Afghanistan and the multinational International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) have come under fire more times in the past three months than the previous 15.

This year, 25 American and Isaf soldiers have been killed and 28 injured. The number of Afghans, allied and enemy, killed, according to the US military, is "several thousand". More than 400 Taliban fighters were said to have been killed in September.

Make This Man A Lt. Col.

"Although initial unemployment claims are at their highest level in six months, the labor market is not weakening."  Gary Bigg, an economist at Banc of America Securities LLC.

(Wall St. Journal 12.12.03

Bush Plans Fresh Attacks On Working Class Americans;

Import Prices Rise As Unfunded Costs Of Imperial War Tank Value Of Dollar
Wall St. Journal 12.12.03

"Overall import prices grew 0.4% in November, the fastest pace in 4 months, the Labor Department said.  The acceleration reflected a surge in prices of nonpetrolium goods, such as consumer items and capital equipment, which rose 0.3%.  Petroleum prices rose 1.1%, showing from 1.4% in October."

To deal with the huge budget deficits generated by the war and the Bush tax cuts for the rich, "Budget officials are considering a limit of a 4% increase for all discretionary accounts, which include everything from the Forest Service to the Pentagon for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2005.

"Under that scenario, say individuals familiar with the White House deliberations, domestic programs would be squeezed sharply, as priority is given to homeland security and military needs."

(For more, check out the article "Happy Holidays For The Few" by Sharon Smith at www.socialistworker.org.)

"Too Much Steel" As Billions Live In Poverty
Wall St. Journal 12.8.03

"According to the OECD, world steel-making capacity exceeds global demand by at least 200 million metric tons.  This represents about 20% of the world’s roughly one billion metric tons of capacity, based on 2001 data.  Some steel making capacity has been shuttered in recent years, mainly because of the world-wide economic slowdown."

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