Lightening X-Rayed

Scientists recently built a way to take photos fast enough to shoot lightening reliably, enabling them to capture it with x-ray photography for the first time.

"The pictures suggest a lightning bolt carries all its x-ray radiation in its tip." Re- the cool-looking, straight green flame: "[t]he lightning bolts were triggered by launching small rockets into the thunderstorms. . . . The rockets trailed wires behind them to direct the lightning through the camera's field of view."

More at National Geographic.

Wikileaks UPDATES 2010-12-24: Lynching the Messenger; Assange-Speak

Another great piece from Glenn Greenwald at Salon, observing,

As revealing as the disclosures themselves are, the reactions to them have been equally revealing. The vast bulk of the outrage has been devoted not to the crimes that have been exposed but rather to those who exposed them. . . . A consensus quickly emerged in the political and media class that they are Evil Villains who must be severely punished, while those responsible for the acts they revealed are guilty of nothing. That reaction has not been weakened at all even by the Pentagon's own admission that, in stark contrast to its own actions, there is no evidence -- zero -- that any of WikiLeaks' actions has caused even a single death. Meanwhile, the American establishment media -- even in the face of all these revelations -- continues to insist on the contradictory, Orwellian platitudes that (a) there is Nothing New™ in anything disclosed by WikiLeaks and (b) WikiLeaks has done Grave Harm to American National Security™ through its disclosures.

It's unsurprising that political leaders would want to convince people that the true criminals are those who expose acts of high-level political corruption and criminality, rather than those who perpetrate them. Every political leader would love for that self-serving piety to take hold. But what's startling is how many citizens and, especially, "journalists" now vehemently believe that as well.

[I.e., let's lynch the messenger.] Greenwald concludes with a partial list of crimes revealed by Wikileaks in 2010.

On a more hopeful note, here are a few quotes from speeches or interviews of Julian Assange:

“Which country is suffering from too much freedom of speech? Name it. Is there one?” (source)

“The aim of Wikileaks is to achieve just reform around the world and do it through the mechanism of transparency.
[O]rganizations that have material and want to conceal it are giving off a signal that they believe there will be reform if that material is released.
So we can do things very efficiently by selectively trying to get that material and stick that into the public intellectual record where it can be used by everyone to inform their decisions.” (source)

“What does censorship reveal? It reveals fear.” (source)

"[S]ecret planning is secret usually for a reason, because if it’s abusive it is opposed.
It is our task to find secret abuse plans and expose them where they can be opposed before they’re implemented. Because if they’re exposed by the implementation – by people suffering from that abuse – then the abuse has already occurred and it’s too late.” (source)

“It is impossible to correct abuses unless we know that they’re going on.” (source)

“[W]e in the West have deluded ourselves into believing that we actually have a truly free press. We don’t. And we can see that in the difference between what Wikileaks does and what the rest of the press does.” (source)

"And now we see that the function of censorship has also been privatized.
And what that means is that litigious billionaires and big companies are able to effectively prevent certain things [from] appearing in public.
Or reduce the number of those things appearing in public by using the legal system or by using patronage networks and economic flows to make it unprofitable to talk about certain things most of the time.” (source)

“We know for sure that one big media company in the US had the ‘Collateral Murder’ video for years and did not release it.” (source)

"In the UK right now there are 300 secret gag orders. Those are gag orders that not only prevent the press from reporting corruption and abuse, they prevent the press from reporting [that] the press has been gagged.” (source)

"[M]ost information that comes to you is targeted at you. It is designed in some small way to manipulate you, so it is a deviation from the truth.
But the internal documents of major corporations and intelligence agencies and governments are designed for their internal use. . . . They’re not designed to manipulate you. And because of that difference in perceived audience you can start to see how major organizations work, and it’s not how people think they work; it’s something different.
And if we are to produce a more civilized society, a more just society, it has to be based upon the truth. Because judgements which are not based upon the truth can only lead to outcomes which are themselves false.” (source)

“[T]he basic structural relationships in highly developed Western countries are fiscal, they’re not political.” (source)

"I think fiscal relationships have been engineered in such a way that they’re complex and opaque. . . . How can people become angry with information that’s that complex? It’s hard. You have to work a lot harder as a journalist to turn that into an emotionally impactful story. So that’s a kind of tax on powerful revelation.” (source)

“If tribunals try to hide their sources of funding then at the very outset we have to be suspicious about their conclusions.” (source)

“In this broader framework of what we do it is to try and build an historical record, an intellectual record, of how civilization actually works in practice.” (source)

More at Beginning.

And one from Wikileaks: "Sarah Palin says Julian should be hunted down like Osama bin Laden--so he should be safe for at least a decade." (see www.twitter.com/wikileaks/statuses/11620256778821632 )

Wikileaks UPDATES (2010-12-23): More Re- Manning, Lamo, Moore, & More

A couple of good tweets from the last 24 hrs.:

@GregMitch: I'm live-blogging WikiLeaks news & views again, on day 25 of "Greg Mitchell Held Hostage."

and

@ggreenwald: Simultaneously advocating government transparency and individual privacy isn't hypocritical or inconsistent; it's a key for basic liberty.

For those who prefer their news re- what WL has brought us in cartoon form, The 12 Days of Wikileaks provides a partial list and is accompanied by a transcript with links to the stories mentioned.

The EFF has posted a frightening reminder that the drive to throttle WL continues and of the ease with which the powerful can silence dissidents: "Wikileaks Mirror Taken Down: Host Buckles Under Demands from Upstream Provider." SiteGround required removal of the WL files on the user's site as a condition to reinstatement of his account because, it said, "a future DDOS attack might violate its terms of use" (emphasis supplied). Of course, any such attack would most likely be mounted by the US government or others embarrassed by WL's publications. EFF notes, "your speech online is only as free as [your] weakest intermediary"; and "[i]f intermediaries are willing to use the potential for future DDOS attacks as a reason to cut off users, they can cut off anyone for anything."

Excellent investigation of the conditions under which the Army private suspected of leaking the cables to WL is being held, at Firedoglake. The United Nations' top anti-torture envoy is now looking into a complaint that Manning is being mistreated; more at AP. FDL also has a great Manning-Wikileaks timeline. UPDATE: As of 2010-12-28, inconsistencies in Adrian Lamo's story about his contacts with Manning, unearthed through some great analysis at FDL, have continued to multiply; meanwhile, Wired's Kevin Poulsen continues to refuse to release the full texts of Lamo's internet chats with Manning. FDL has now also added a compilation of key Manning-related articles, here.

From The Guardian re- revelations of State Dept. preoccupation with screenings of Michael Moore's films in other countries:

After a leaked cable from US diplomats in Havana falsely claimed Cuba had banned Moore's documentary Sicko – when in fact it was shown on state television – another cable reveals US officials flying into a panic after hearing a rumour that a New Zealand cabinet minister was hosting a screening of Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11. . . . the classified cable from the US embassy in Wellington in 2003 . . . breathlessly report[s] a series of calls to the New Zealand prime minister's office . . . .

More at the foregoing link and at MichaelMoore.com.

"According to Domain Name Wire, the [Bank of America] has been aggressively registering domain names including its board of directors' and senior executives' names followed by 'sucks' and 'blows.' For example, the company registered a number of domains for CEO Brian Moynihan: BrianMoynihanBlows.com, BrianMoynihanSucks.com, BrianTMoynihanBlows.com, and BrianTMoynihanSucks.com." Emphasis supplied; more here. Sounds like bank regulators should take a closer look, regardless of what WL may or may not be preparing to release.

WaPo reports that the CIA has launched a task force "to examine whether the latest release of [US Embassy Cables by WL] might affect the agency's foreign relationships or operations":

Officially, the panel is called the WikiLeaks Task Force. But at CIA headquarters, it's mainly known by its all-too-apt acronym: W.T.F.

* * * * *
To some agency veterans, WikiLeaks has vindicated the CIA's long-standing aversion to sharing secrets with other government agencies, a posture that came under sharp criticism after it was identified as a factor that contributed to the nation's failure to prevent the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Emphasis supplied; more at the link. Evidently, those intelligence agency veterans haven't actually bothered to read Assange's own writings.

Wikileaks plans to release a cache of documents concerning Israel within the next six months. More here.

Statement from the U.N. on WL here. It reiterates principles re- freedom of expression and access to info possessed by public officials vs. secrecy where there's a risk of substantial harm and journalistic responsibility, without making any factual findings or reaching any conclusions re- particular cases.

Excellent editorial at El Pais regarding its decision to publish info from the cables. Here are a few quotes; but the whole thing's well worthwhile:

We must not lose sight of the fact that the important thing about the WikiLeaks revelations are the revelations themselves . . . .

* * * * *
I believe that the global interest sparked by the WikiLeaks papers is mainly due to the simple but very powerful fact that they conclusively reveal the extent to which politicians in the advanced Western democracies have been lying to their citizens.

* * * * *
Tens of thousands of soldiers are fighting a war in Afghanistan that their respective leaders know is not winnable. Tens of thousands of soldiers are shoring up a government known around the world to be corrupt, but which is tolerated by those who sent the soldiers there in the first place. The WikiLeaks cables show that none of the Western powers believes that Afghanistan can become a credible nation in the medium term, and much less become a viable democracy . . . .

* * * * *
Even the least attentive observer cannot fail to be shocked by the maneuvers to shut down three investigations by the High Court that affected the United States . . . . It was equally aggressive in trying to derail Spanish judicial inquiries into torture at Guantánamo, the CIA's kidnapping of suspected Islamic militants, and the killing by US troops in Iraq of a Spanish cameraman in 2003. . . . We have also seen how US diplomats in Berlin warned the German government of the serious consequences of bringing charges against CIA agents accused of kidnapping Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen who was abducted and taken to Afghanistan where he was tortured. El-Masri was then dumped in Albania when it was realized they had the wrong man. Kidnapping and torture are serious crimes. For US diplomats to pressure an ally to prevent suspects from being investigated is unacceptable, and trashes the idea that those diplomats are just doing their job.

* * * * *
I am aware that publishing this information contrary to the wishes of my government has involved certain risks. But I am also aware that by publishing this detailed account of what our governments get up to in our name has made a contribution to the empowering of voters, and will hopefully strengthen their will to improve our democracy.

* * * * *
Our obligations definitely do not . . . include protecting governments and the powerful in general from embarrassing revelations.

Emphasis supplied; more at the link.

"Free" at the New Museum

Wish I could see it (through 2010-01-22):

“Free” explores how the internet has fundamentally changed our landscape of information and our notion of public space. Our shared space has expanded beyond streets and schools to more distributed forms of collectivity. What constitutes this expanded public is not only greater social connectedness but a highly visual, hybrid commons of information. As the artist Seth Price wrote in his essay “Dispersion,” which serves as a touchstone for this exhibition and is featured here within a large-scale sculptural Essay with Knots: “Collective experience is now based on simultaneous private experiences, distributed across the field of media culture, knit together by ongoing debate, publicity, promotion, and discussion. Publicness today has as much to do with sites of production and reproduction as it does with any supposed physical commons, so a popular album could be regarded as a more successful instance of public art than a monument tucked away in an urban plaza.”

“Free” takes its name from free culture, a social movement that acknowledges the revolution the internet has caused in industries like music and print publishing, and argues that it be dealt with as an opportunity for greater sharing and distribution of knowledge, rather than a threat. “Free” is based in this commitment to openness — but not directly about the movement itself. Rather, it explores how artists are engaging with the complex freedoms of a newly expanded public space; how they are examining the possibilities and dilemmas enabled by broader availability and circulation of digital material, rooting out information that is missing or hidden in an ostensibly more transparent society, and locating new contexts for art to take place.

Instead of exploring the internet’s formal properties — code and connectivity among them — “Free” explores its broader influence as a territory populated and fought over by individuals, government, and corporations, as a tool and as a cultural catalyst. The artists included here span various disciplines: photography, sculpture, video, and installation, among others. They emerge from different modes of artistic practice, and are connected through an expansive conversation around the show’s themes. The exhibition catalogue will take the form of an active website — newmuseum.org/free — including descriptions of each artwork in the exhibition, biographical details on the artists, as well as essays and a blog.

“Free” is curated by Lauren Cornell, Executive Director of Rhizome and Adjunct Curator of the New Museum.

Wikileaks UPDATES (2010-12-20): Roving Hands, Etc.

Not that kind . . . Karl Rove has been employed by the Swedish Prime Minister for the last two years and is believed to have influenced the country's handling of the allegations against Assange. More at HuffPo.

Apple has reportedly pulled a Wikileaks app from the iTunes store. The app gave users access to the cables and other docs on the WikiLeaks site and also provided a live feed from the wikileaks Twitter account. The app is still available for the Android.

Cablegate: the Game makes a game of searching the cables, awarding points for reading, tagging and summarizing finds.

Glenn Greenwald at Salon discusses The NYT's decision to publish an article today re- high-level planning for imminent, covert military action by the US in Pakistan – a kind of info that's usually top-secret and that Wikileaks has never published. (The info for the article was not obtained from Wikileaks but through the reporters' own investigation.) Greenwald argues The NYT was right to publish the info, since (among other reasons) "There are few things more damaging to basic democratic values than having the government conduct or escalate a secret war beyond public debate or even awareness. By exposing these classified plans, [the reporters] did exactly what good journalists ought to do: inform the public about important actions taken or being considered by their government which the government is attempting to conceal." He of course proceeds to call out for their hypocrisy those who call Wikileaks culpable while attempting to distinguish The NYT – including Visa, MasterCard, Paypal, the Times' web hosting company and the various banks who have cut off Wikileaks.

The BBC's published the transcript of a lengthy interview with Assange. At least 80% of the interview is spent hounding Assange for his alleged personal shortcomings; but if that's what you're interested in, it's the best Q & A I've seen.

Here's another interesting documentary on YouTube: Julian Assange – a Wanted Man, aired shortly before Wikileaks' publication of the Afghan War docments leak in July , 2010.

Alan Greenspan Confirms: Crisis Caused by Fraud by Counterparties

Note, he's not talking about fraud by the little guys; he's talking about fraud by "counterparties" – the people packaging and selling securitized mortgages and derivatives. This is from Nov. 9 of this year; too bad Greenspan didn't get clarity on this problem (or others) sooner.

Thanks to Karl Denninger's Market Ticker, one of few rational observers of economic news these days.

Speaking of the Media . . .

Pilger on Propaganda in the Media

John Pilger is a journalist and documentary maker who's twice won Britain's Journalist of the Year Award and whose docs have received academy awards in Britain and the US. This is the first of 7 segments, all currently available on YouTube.



Pilger was relatively early in identifying Obama as a "corporate marketing creation."