September 23, 2005

Rita could blow Bush out of office

The Washington Post writes this morning:

"Hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Hurricane Rita were stuck in their cars throughout much of Thursday, with many running out of gas and sweltering on roadsides in 100-degree heat as they waited for authorities to bring them gasoline."

So let me contemplate this. 9/11 happens, 3000 people are killed. The Bush-government proclaims it will prevent future desasters like this. It founds the Homeland Security department. Next thing we know it starts wars with Afghanistan and Iraq. Some time later, hurricane Katrina hits the coast line of Louisiana and a historical city, a cradle of culture, is wiped out. A 1000 people die, seven year old children get raped, looting and anarchy govern over the New Orleans Superdome, where people are held like animals. Now hurricane Rita, with a strength of 7 on the hurricane scale (Katrina was 5) shows up in front of the Texas coast line. Texas, for christs sake, that's the homeland of Mr. President himself! People have a short memory, but Katrina was not even out the door a new hurricane shows up, so they know what to do. They run.

Now tell me this. How many failures of government does it need to get a government overthrown? Does the entire country have to dissolve in chaos or just a fraction of it? It was easy to watch the wars like a video game when it was about "them there" and "us here". Now it's all here. It will be interesting to watch if a whole row of lies, failures and clearly displayed incompetence are important enough for an impeachment case. After all it's not a horrendous act like a blowjob from a trainee.

Posted by Henning von Vogelsang at 12:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 12, 2005

They knew Iraq would be a mess

In its article "Memo: U.S. Lacked Full Postwar Iraq Plan", the Washington Post published today:

A briefing paper prepared for British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers eight months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq concluded that the U.S. military was not preparing adequately for what the British memo predicted would be a "protracted and costly" postwar occupation of that country.

The eight-page memo, written in advance of a July 23, 2002, Downing Street meeting on Iraq, provides new insights into how senior British officials saw a Bush administration decision to go to war as inevitable, and realized more clearly than their American counterparts the potential for the post-invasion instability that continues to plague Iraq.

Now, disclosure of the memo written in advance of that meeting -- and other British documents recently made public -- show that Blair's aides were not just concerned about Washington's justifications for invasion but also believed the Bush team lacked understanding of what could happen in the aftermath...

...In a section titled "Benefits/Risks," the July 21 memo states, "Even with a legal base and a viable military plan, we would still need to ensure that the benefits of action outweigh the risks."...

...Saying that "we need to be sure that the outcome of the military action would match our objective," the memo's authors point out, "A post-war occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise." The authors add, "As already made clear, the U.S. military plans are virtually silent on this point. Washington could look to us to share a disproportionate share of the burden."

Now, why doesn't this surprise me?

Posted by Henning von Vogelsang at 07:55 AM | Comments (0)

June 09, 2005

What ONE really does, and doesn't do

While I'm endorsing and encouraging any effort to actually do something about AIDS and to fight poverty, I also have mixed feelings about this campaign. Is it truly about humanitarian motives, or is it another attempt to blend us, to raise lots of money that won't change a thing for good? Additionally I see there's a lot of fashion going with it. Granted, star celebrities making a statement in the ONE commercial are eye catching. If Al Pacino is saying it's cool and every girl's dream Brad Pitt shows up twice, hey, it's got to be cool. The wrist band at the top of the ONE website is really stylish too. Don't you want one?

More things about ONE are questionable. Is it just money that's needed, or is it a change of policies towards Third World countries? What would be required are true efforts by corporations, thinking over their Globalization efforts. It strucks me odd, the topic Globalization is not even mentioned on the site, while it actually is the main cause for current poverty in the Third World. It also annoys me that there is no word about what will be done with the money, if it is invested in permanent changes, such as long term planned education systems, schools and university programs for the poor and true help to support and maintain a locally bound economy, that is not driven by trade treaties with international company networks such as Nestle, Nike, Coca-Cola. Sorry, but stating this is "...in the best American tradition of helping others help themselves..." has a bad aftertaste. It's simply hypocritical to mention "best American tradition" and failing to make any comment about current U.S. policies.

I found World Vision among the names of the founders of the campaign. World Vision is on the black list for humanitarian organizations with a bad history in letting large amounts of money disappear.

For years, World Vision has used tv commercials in which they show closeups in slow motion, big eyes of african kids surrounded by flies. The only information they gave in these commercials was the bank account number of World Vision. Make people feel sorry so they send their money. Is that all there is to it?

You can talk to one.org and ask them to explain why they don't do anything beyond raising money: one@data.org

Globalization is one major reason for poverty. It is caused by the true powers ruling the world, leaders of the western economy, at the top Oil companies and the largest corporate networks.

Addiontal resources:
The ONE campaign
globalissues.org: Causes for poverty
A guide to giving: "World Vision is the largest of the right-wing evangelical organizations."

Posted by Henning von Vogelsang at 05:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 18, 2004

Freedom of expression

k10 is a website hub for designers around the world. It's well known in the scene, but I personally found I rarely get 'real information' out of it. However, right atop there is an announcement about copyright issues.
It is an interactive presentation made with Flash, with copyright issues as a subject. Wether this is just a personal display of frustration, or creative expression about the limiting elements in current copyright law—I just found it funny and interesting.

Posted by Henning von Vogelsang at 03:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 17, 2004

Click your President

Recently I found this banner on a website. I forgot the URL. I was paralyzed. I am sure it was meant as a joke. If it wasn't such a tragedy, I could laugh.

Posted by Henning von Vogelsang at 01:51 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 12, 2004

Funny or frightening

Networld Fusion writes in an article:

Mobile devices and the terrorism-alert culture

Reminds me of my own story at the airport. "Why would you bring all your devices here?" the officer asked me. She added something like she would not believe me that this was just my regular stuff, when I explained it was my hard disk, for the massive storage of pictures I made with my camera...

These are paranoic times. I wouldn't be surprised if I get strip searched next time I come to the U.S., independently of the visa I carry.

The Washington Post writes:

Cheney: Kerry Victory Is Risky
COLUMBIA, Mo., Sept. 7 -- Vice President Cheney warned on Tuesday that if John F. Kerry is elected, "the danger is that we'll get hit again" by terrorists...

Isn't that unbelievable!? Such an obviously twisted way to keep people in fear. With such a stupid lie. If we are going to be hit again, it's because we have failed to fight terrorism, and the likability is equaly high, independently of the current president of the U.S. How can an educated man use so stupid arguments, revealing blatantly his insatiable hunger for power?

If they succeed, people could likeley forget that it was in *this* presidents time when the only terrorist attack of this size and impact hit the U.S. in the first place.

The Onion Prophecies On the eve of Bush's inauguration, The Onion -- a satirical paper -- published a piece titled, "Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Over.'" In the story, the Onion made light of a worst-case scenario for the Bush presidency, with Bush making promises like "selling off the national parks," "going into massive debt," "bring[ing] back economic stagnation," and "assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years." The Onion was just trying to be funny. Instead, it was prophetic.

Is this funny or frightening?

Posted by Henning von Vogelsang at 03:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 13, 2004

The connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq

Here are excerpts and an analysis in english of Al Qaeda tapes used to recruit people. Watch the video clip about Iraq. It shows there was indeed a connection between Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein: They hated him.

Posted by Henning von Vogelsang at 09:27 AM

December 15, 2003

Similarities in public behaviour

After WWII, when asked why they did not do anything to stop the Nazi regime from contineous mass murder, the answer of most germans was, they thought the reports were overly exagarated and they didn’t believe the stories they heard could be true.

Aside of the cruelness of the Nazi regime which stands in no comparision of any government today, I think there are obvious similarities in public behaviour of US citizens facing the current incompetence of their government, and yet not being able to remove it from power.

Posted by Henning von Vogelsang at 02:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack