10/12/11

Vulnerable Iraq

If you think Iraq's secure, read this about Wednesday's violence | McClatchy: "BAGHDAD — A spate of attacks including two parked car bombs and two suicide car bombs driven by suicide bombers targeted police in different districts of Baghdad, Wednesday, killing at least 22 people and wounding around 74 others, security officials said."

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A friend plays the Ney Flute - here's a video with artist Avi Adir

Ney flute Live Concert - Avi Adir - Nay - YouTube:

cap tip Drake

From Feudalism to A Money System

Medieval Economy — Feudalism and Manorialism: "The decline of feudalism can be marked by the crusades. After the Crusades, a demand was put on the production of goods, and a money system was introduced. Many peasants that worked the fiefs of nobles moved to the cities and towns in order to seek out a better future. This left the vassals of smaller fiefs unable to compensate the remaining peasants on the land for their work. As a result, vassals had to return to fighting as a knight in the service of nobles in exchange for the fees that the nobles would give. Even this was difficult due to the advent of money, since it was much easier to hire someone to organize an army than to hire a knight, whose services were required for only 40 days out of the year. Also, land was becoming scarce, so money became a natural substitute. With the remaining vassals, lords found it more effective to pay a vassal an annual fee. Vassals than had loyalties to more than one lord in order to receive more money, and confusion among loyalties occurred. However, feudalism was on its down and would soon be replaced by the money system."

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Still find it hard to listen to Rachel

Updating My Critique of Rachel Maddow - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com:

"Which is to say, I am trying to write a constructive comment. I want Rachel to succeed.

Were I her, I would take a few lessons from some of the less histrionic and bright-eyed folk at the channel. Come to think of it, are there any? The Young Russert is vocally moderate. Brian Williams is. Anyone who does not treat people like children being ushered into a surprise room. Or get incurably self-referential or presumptuously judgmental."

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How Wall Street Started

History of Early Stock Market Trade: "It was Hamilton who encouraged the trading of government debt securities on the corner of Wall Street and Broad Street in New York, then the nation's capital. The trading expanded to include stocks and the street corner got quite crowded. In 1817, traders in New York organized the New York Stock & Exchange Board (which later became the New York Stock Exchange) and moved off the street into a building at 40 Wall Street."

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James Ellroy Talks about The Cold Six Thousand

James Ellroy - The Cold Six Thousand - Eye on Books Classic:

A good brief interview with Ellroy. I am rereading his account of the assassinations of the 1960s which form the parentheses of this book. What is plausible and indisputable is the milieu that Ellroy describes with fictional characters and imagined deeds, some of them plausible indeed. It is not hard to infer from knowledge of today's milieu similar evils lurking about. Only now with the receding of the Mob criminality has moved into the edges of the corporate world under the aegis of operatives whose names are barely known to us. To say that the Right Wing is connected is an understatement. Think Cheney and his corporate ties obscure and not so obscure. To suggest that right wing figureheads now seeking to "run the country" are most likely naive is a reasonable assumption. To think this force is not lurking to stop anything like the change we seek is likewise naive. To think that the media gives a hoot about exploring this is the height of naivete,



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If you think David Brooks sees both sides

Inside Occupy Wall Street: Journalist-Participant Describes What Life Is Really Like (Complicated and Inspiring) at Zuccotti Park | | AlterNet: "Those who are afraid are doing their best to delegitimize the movement, such as New York Times columnist David Brooks, with his veiled smear of demonstrators focusing on a seven-year-old article in Adbusters he described as anti-Semitic. But as everyone knows, beyond encouragement in the magazine, Adbusters has had almost nothing to do with OWS. "

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Guinea Bloody Again on September 28

Guinea: Another Bloody and Violent September 28 · Global Voices: "Another September 28 and yet again another day of violence against the unarmed civilian population of Conakry. This date [en] is feared by all Guineans whether they live in their country or elsewhere."

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Speaking of being tied to terror, what the hell is a drone attack?

Terror.
The worst sort.
Unexpected.
Deadly.
Those tho undertake it cannot wrap themselves in any discernible mantle of legality.
Sad to say we pay taxes for same
And will pay taxes when these acts become a cause for yet another war
It is almost as if we were under instructions to prove that there is indeed 
Such a thing as Original Sin

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I don't buy it

Friend: Iran plot suspect "no mastermind" - CBS News: "Arbabsiar, 56, was being held without bail in New York for his role in the alleged plot to kill Saudi diplomat Adel Al-Jubeir in the United States. The Justice Department contends that Arbabsiar and another man working for the Iranian government tried to hire a purported member of a Mexican drug cartel to carry out the attack with a bomb while Al-Jubeir was at a restaurant."

There's something fishy about this whole thing. Iran is venal and homicidal and all the negative things one can say about a nation that is tied to terror umbilically. But all I need to do is reflect on the dunderheaded operation we call the War on Drugs and imagine the anxious state of the terror ferrets at any clue that might uncover any sort of plot and then add in the bureaucratic interaction and the political milieu and I ask myself, Is this the guy? If he is, who is running him. And why? For every James Earl Ray there are others we may never know tied to organizations that might shatter stereotypes. This just looks fishy. It would not be the first time a plot has been dramatized in order to make its objects look foolish. Give me some reason to believe this is all on the level.


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Kindlizing

Winning The War Within Collected Sonnets:

This morning I decided that the best way to monetize what I'm doing is to integrate everything done on these blogs with Kindle. I thought of this some time ago but have been lazy in applying it. At the bottom of each post at Winning The War Within I have placed a prominent link to the Kindle version of same. It's a business plan of sorts.

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Look at this and read the comments

It's s**t like this, 1%. (pic) - Digg:

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RECCMENDATION Richard Gordon Quantum Touch

The Slow as Molasses Press