From Fox: Civilian Casualties Not News (FAIR Action Alert):

A memo circulated at the Panama City (Fla.) News Herald and leaked to Jim Romenesko's Media News warned editors:

"DO NOT USE photos on Page 1A showing civilian casualties from the U.S. war on Afghanistan. Our sister paper in Fort Walton Beach has done so and received hundreds and hundreds of threatening e-mails and the like.... DO NOT USE wire stories which lead with civilian casualties from the U.S. war on Afghanistan. They should be mentioned further down in the story. If the story needs rewriting to play down the civilian casualties, DO IT. The only exception is if the U.S. hits an orphanage, school or similar facility and kills scores or hundreds of children."

From BBC News: US bombing raid 'kills 100 Afghans':

US aircraft are reported to have bombed a village in eastern Afghanistan, killing more than 100 residents. Villagers told the Reuters news agency that the attack on Niazi Qalaye, 20 kilometres north of Gardez in Paktia province, in the early hours of Sunday morning, involved a B-52 bomber, a fighter plane and two helicopters. They said up to 107 people had been killed and at least 10 wounded. Many houses are reported to have been destroyed.

Narco News Reports on War Crimes Case Against Hugo Banzer -- Argentina Seeks Banzer's Extradition -- Judge Orders Bolivian General: Defend "Plan Condor" Crimes -- Court Seeks Testimony by Kissinger on U.S. Complicity

ECHELON RESOURCE LINKS from ANTIMEDIA NETWORK

From U.N. Integrated Regional Information Network, Dec 4, 2001: Human rights groups call for tribunal:

Human rights activists in Pakistan have called on the UN to establish a war crimes tribunal for Afghanistan.

"I want to request the UN human rights commission to set up a panel of experts to investigate war crimes and mass executions carried out in Afghanistan over the past two years," chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), Afrasiab Khattak, told IRIN on Monday.

"There should be accountability for the violation of international laws in Afghanistan and now is the right time as the witnesses and sources are there," he said.

From Human Rights Watch, Dec 3, 2001: Three Afghan Commanders Should Be Prosecuted:

Human Rights Watch today urged the United States and Britain to take immediate measures to ensure that three Afghan Taliban commanders alleged to have committed international crimes be held by an outside independent authority until they can be prosecuted before an impartial tribunal.
[...]
"Fazil, Dadaullah, and Nuri represent a test case for how the international community is going to ensure that those who are implicated in the worst atrocities in Afghanistan are brought to justice. If these men and others like them are not prosecuted, the cycle of violent abuse in Afghanistan is not going to end." -- Sidney Jones, executive director of the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch.

From Afghanistan to apply sharia law with discretion: minister (Sydney Morning Herald):

Judge Ahamat Ullha Zarif told AFP that public executions and amputations would continue in accordance with sharia law but justice would be applied fairly and with mercy. "There will be some changes from the time of the Taliban," he said. "For example, the Taliban used to hang the victim's body in public for four days. We will only hang the body for a short time, say 15 minutes." Kabul's sports stadium, where the Taliban used to carry out public executions and amputations every Friday, would no longer be used. "The stadium is for sports. We will find a new place for public executions," he said. Adulterers, both male and female, would still be stoned to death, Zarif said, "but we will use only small stones."

From Deaths blamed on bomb blunder (Guardian Unlimited):

The village of Naka, in the Afghan province of Paktika, was woken by explosions which wounded up to 60 people and destroyed as many as 25 houses, according to an administrative source in Pakistani frontier area of Waziristan quoted by Reuters. According to the Afghan Islamic Press news agency, one of the bombed houses belonged to Maulvi Taha, a Taliban commander, but he was not at home. The news agency put the death toll at 25, with four wounded and five houses destroyed.

From Alamogordo Daily News: Pastor decries Harry Potter message:

The Harry Potter fiction series [...] is being condemned by Christ Community Church pastor Jack Brock as evil. [...] Brock, who will be giving a sermon this Sunday entitled, The Baby Jesus or Harry Potter? said the church plans to hold a holy bonfire Dec. 30 to publicly burn Harry Potter books and other so-called unacceptable material. The service begins at 6:30 p.m. and afterwards we will conduct a burning, he said.

Very clever -- Voldemort! But your pathetically transparent ruse to summon your minions to Almagordo (!) for Goddess-knows-what nefarious new purpose has not gone undetected! I'm sending off an owl to report you to the Ministry of Magic right this minute!

The Nation: Katha Pollitt: Pennies in the Hat

Counterpunch: Lawrence McGuire: Killing Other People's Children

PetitionOnline: Campaign to Free Palestinian Child Political Prisoners

Boston Globe: Palestinian children bear brunt of violence

P-I Focus: No future in sight for Afghan children

I can't decide if I'm a militant agnostic or a secular fundamentalist.

From Guardian.co.uk: Harry Potter II stills stolen from studio set:

A set of stills from the second instalment of the Harry Potter trilogy have been stolen from Leavesden studios near Watford, where the film, The Chamber of Secrets, is being shot. The theft has caused panic at Warner Bros, with the studio threatening to sue anyone who uses the images.
[...]
They have not yet found their way onto one of the hundreds of Harry Potter fan sites on the internet.

Oh, yes they have ... but you'd better look quick, before the muggle lawyers get to them.

Wrote my rep, to support H.R. 2459, to establish a Department of Peace:

To: [U.S. Representative]:

I urge you to join Rep. John Olver and 42 of your fellow representatives in co-sponsoring H.R. 2459, originally sponsored by Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, to create a U.S. Department of Peace.

Rep. Kucinich has a very informative website about this bill (and other peace efforts) at:
http://www.house.gov/kucinich/action/peace.htm

For the full text of the bill, and a link to the current list of co-sponsors, see:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c107:H.R.2459.IH:

BuzzFlash.com: Was Flight 93 Shot Down Over Pennsylvania? If So, Was It Because The Hijackers Were Targeting Three Mile Island?

Favorite alternative media sources submitted by readers of The Nation.

From NYTimes: "Cloudy Future for U.S. Women's Agencies", by TAMAR LEWIN (requires free registration):

The Bush administration is considering shrinking or eliminating some federal offices charged with protecting women's interests and has stalled activity in other offices, say women's advocacy groups and some of the women who work for the offices involved.

Those with uncertain futures, these sources say, include the 10 regional offices of the Labor Department's Women's Bureau. The sources also say panels that advise the military and the Department of Veterans Affairs on women's issues have been stalled because the White House has not named new members.

There has also been talk of consolidating offices on women's health in agencies like the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

From sfbg.com: "Wartime profiteers of the digital age: Are computer-security companies cashing in on fears of terrorism?", by Annalee Newitz:

Late one October night, four feds showed up at Rob Rosenberger's door, just to have a "conversation." Eventually they revealed the purpose of their visit: they wanted Rosenberger to censor a column he had posted on his Web site. Or else.

See also Replacement column at Vmyths.com.

iAbolish: Take Action: Tell Hess: Stop Profiting from Forced Labor in Burma

AlterNet: "Collateral Damage Made Real", by Deborah James

Metacrap: Putting the torch to seven straw-men of the meta-utopia, by Cory Doctorow. Thanks to More Like This for the link.

If you are a resident of Massachusetts, please write to your representative in the Mass. House of Representatives to support the "legislative revolt" to remove Speaker Thomas M. Finneran from his position. Don't let this opportunity slip away! For background, see:

Finneran tries to calm the storm, by Frank Phillips, Boston Globe, 12/18/2001

End game for Mr. Speaker?, by Dan Kennedy, Boston Phoenix, 12/17/2001

To find out who represents your town/city/precinct in the MA House, visit: http://www.state.ma.us/legis/citytown.htm. Remember to put your full address at the bottom of your letter, so that your rep knows you are a constituent. Here is the email I just sent to my MA state rep:

Dear [Representative]:

I am one of your constituents.

I STRONGLY SUPPORT the challenge to Massachusetts House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran's position that has been announced by Representative Daniel Bosley of North Adams and Representative J. James Marzilli Jr. of Arlington, among others. I urge you to do the same.

As Bernard Cullen of Boston is quoted as saying in a Boston Globe editorial on Dec 17:

''I am putting my state representative on notice that I shall not again vote for him until he stands up to Finneran.''

My sentiments exactly. Please let me know your position on this matter.

From Workers World: Thousands killed by U.S. bombers, by Deirdre Griswold:

As of Dec. 10, more than 3,500 civilians had died in the U.S. bombing, according to Prof. Marc W. Herold of the University of New Hampshire. Herold has been keeping tabs on casualty reports since the bombs began falling on Oct. 7. He has done a meticulous job of tabulating, day by day and place by place, all the reports of civilian casualties to be found in the world press. Herold released the results of his study on Dec. 10 in a discussion with Amy Goodman, producer of Democracy Now!

An Excel spreadsheet [and Word document] containing the information can be found at http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mwherold/.

HTML versions of these files can be found at:

• http://www.media-alliance.org/mediafile/20-5/index.html
• http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm
• Spatial Distribution of Afghan Civilian Casualties Caused by the U.S Air War, Oct. 7 - Dec. 6

Must read: "Narcocorridos: A Journey Into the Music of Drugs, Guns, and Guerrillas", by Elijah Wald

Narco News Lawsuit Thrown Out: Precedent Extends Press Protections to the Internet

Amnesty International USA: TAKE ACTION TODAY TO STOP ANTI-INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT LEGISLATION!

ACLU Action Alert: Oppose Unnecessary and Unconstitutional Eavesdropping!

From Anthrax Matches Army Spores: Organisms made at a military laboratory in Utah are genetically identical to those mailed to members of Congress:

For nearly a decade, U.S. Army scientists at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah have made small quantities of weapons-grade anthrax that is virtually identical to the powdery spores used in the mail attacks that have killed five people, government sources say.

Until the anthrax attacks led to tighter security measures, anthrax grown at Dugway was regularly sent by Federal Express to the Army's biodefense center at Fort Detrick, in Frederick, where the bacteria were killed using gamma radiation before being returned to Dugway for experiments.

I'm voting for Robert Reich for Governor of Massachusetts!

Boston Herald (!): U.S. ties to Saudi elite may be hurting war on terrorism

Tired: caffeine and speed -- Wired: PROVIGIL. Thanks to Objectionable Content for the link.

independent.co.uk: Yvonne Ridley, the British journalist captured by the Taliban, this week makes the extraordinary claim that Western intelligence agencies tried to get her killed to bolster public support for the air strikes on Afghanistan.

Who's the Medieval Barbarian? Taliban Marijuana Policy vs. US Marijuana Policy

From Steven R. Quartz's review of The Shattered Self: The End of Natural Evolution, by Pierre Baldi:

In chapters 4 through 7, Baldi explores biotechnology’s decentering through such timely topics as emerging reproductive technologies, human cloning, stem cells and DNA morphing, along with even more exotic possibilities such as combining cloning with technologies used to artificially produce Siamese twins (as has been done with frogs) to create Siamese-twin clones of oneself.

From The Nation: "Governing the Genome", by Ralph Brave:

Biomedical legal scholar Max Mehlman has proposed an extensive system of universal genomic profiling under which genetic enhancements would be controlled throughout an individual's life. A genome profile taken at birth would be regularly checked to see whether enhancements had been performed. Genetic enhancements would be controlled just as narcotics are today. While acknowledging that such a future looks like a genetic police state, for Mehlman this remains a superior alternative to state-sponsored genetics or a society with a genetic underclass locked into eternal subservience by a ruling, self-perpetuating genetic aristocracy.

Guardian Unlimited: US holds up biological weapons control, despite anthrax attacks. Germ war talks on how to enforce curbs are suspended

Andy Cockburn: 2D versus 3D GUIs for file and document management

From BBC News: Conductor held over 'terrorism' comment, December 4:

Pierre Boulez was sleeping in his five star Swiss hotel when police dragged him from bed and informed him he was on their national list of terrorist suspects.

Thanks to MetaFilter for the link.

Just doing my part to stand up to web-bully KPMG.com: here's a link to KPMG's Disclaimer page that bypasses their homepage.

9-11peace.org: Email the United Nations to Protect the Delivery of Aid by the immediate deployment of a UN-mandated security force to Afghanistan.

Already circulated widely via email, but well worth re-posting, IMHO. Source unknown:

Confused? Having difficulty telling the good guys from the bad guys? Use this handy Guide to differences between Terrorists and the U.S. Government:

TERRORISTS: Supposed leader is the spoiled son of a powerful politician, from extremely wealthy oil family.
US GOVERNMENT: Supposed leader is the spoiled son of a powerful politician, from extremely wealthy oil family.

TERRORISTS: Leadership was not elected by a majority of the people in a free and fair democratic election.
US GOVERNMENT: Leadership was not elected by a majority of the people in a free and fair democratic election.

TERRORISTS: Leader has declared a holy war (‘Jihad’) against his ‘enemies’; believes any nation not with him is against him; believes god is on his side, and that any means are justified.
US GOVERNMENT: Leader has declared a holy war (‘Crusade’) against his ‘enemies’; believes any nation not with him is against him; believes god is on his side, and that any means are justified.

TERRORISTS: Supported by extreme fundamentalist religious leaders who preach hatred, intolerance, subjugation of women, and persecution of non-believers.
US GOVERNMENT: Supported by extreme fundamentalist religious leaders who preach hatred, intolerance, subjugation of women, and persecution of non-believers.

TERRORISTS: Kills thousands of innocent civilians, some of them children, in cold blooded bombings.
US GOVERNMENT: Kills (tens of) thousands of innocent civilians, some of them children, in cold blooded bombings.

TERRORISTS: Operates through clandestine organization (al Qaeda) with agents in many countries; uses bombing, assassination, other terrorist tactics.
US GOVERNMENT: Operates through clandestine organization (CIA) with agents in many countries; uses bombing, assassination, other terrorist tactics.

TERRORISTS: Using war as pretext to clamp down on dissent and undermine civil liberties.
US GOVERNMENT: Using war as pretext to clamp down on dissent and undermine civil liberties.

TERRORISTS: Weapon of choice: a three-dollar box cutter.
US GOVERNMENT: Weapon of choice: a billion-dollar B1 bomber.

Is it just me, or is Attorney General John Ashcroft starting to sound dangerously unhinged? Maybe he's just upset about the lawsuit.

Brother of Ethel Rosenberg admits to lying in court

From Guardian Unlimited: An offer they can't refuse, by Philip Willan:

The Italian secret services will soon be authorised to break the law. [...] The reform is due to go into effect by next March and will guarantee impunity to agents who break the law - in the context of operations authorised by the head of government for reasons of state security.

From nature.com: Deception fuels domestic bliss -- Evolution may make men ignorant and gullible:

A new mathematical analysis suggests that evolution favours babies who don't much resemble their fathers, and males who believe their partner when she says a child looks just like him.

ENRONGATE --The Early Days: Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif) to Vice President Dick Cheney: "It is appropriate to ask whether Enron communicated to you or others affiliated with your task force information about its precarious financial position. This is especially important since this information was apparently hidden from investors and the public until quite recently.''

MAKE MONEY FAST! By day-trading in weather derivatives!

Officials denounce proposal to muzzle student newspapers

independent.co.uk: US bombs hit wrong target for second time in two days, by Richard Lloyd Parry, in Jalalabad

"The War Prayer" (1905), by Mark Twain

HAS PROFESSOR WILEY BEEN "DISAPPEARED"?

NY Times: It Can Happen Here, by Anthony Lewis (requires free registration).

From Internet Samizdat Releases Suppressed Voices, History:

One of the most fascinating items of Internet samizdat is a 1998 interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor, conducted by the French publication Le Nouvel Observateur. In the interview -- translated by author and CIA critic William Blum -- Brzezinski boasts that the CIA was supporting guerilla activities inside Afghanistan six months before the Soviet intervention, taking steps to “induce” the Soviets to intervene:

BRZEZINSKI: According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujaheddin began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, Dec. 24, 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.