US space agency (Nasa) scientists are celebrating after seeing a probe crash into the heart of a comet.
The washing machine-sized “impactor” collided with Comet Tempel 1 at a relative speed of 37,000km/h, throwing up a huge plume of icy debris.

The probe’s mothership, the Deep Impact spacecraft, watched the event from a safe distance, sending images to Earth.

Dr Don Yeomans, a Nasa mission scientist, was ecstatic: “We hit it just exactly where we wanted to.

“The impact was bigger than I expected, and bigger than most of us expected. We’ve got all the data we could possibly ask for.”
Full: bbc.co.uk

Deep Impact (poem)
nothing pleases
male more
than when his probe
hits home.

by Rootsie
“Pressuring G8 nations to end extreme poverty in Africa”
NPR, Sat. July 2, 2005

I have done a lot of writing on this subject of Africa, and ‘aid’ and imperialism, of the inevitable toxicity of all European and US approaches to Africa and the rest of the nonwhite world. I learned at the feet of my black colleagues at trinicenter.com, and from a certain Palestinian scholar. And bottom-line, that is the point. These things are not things whites can teach one another. There is no way out of this global morass if whites are unwilling to let the worst victims lead us all out of it.

The idea that Bob Geldof, Bono, and company are ‘pressuring’ G8 countries to address African poverty is pure fiction. Those following the news over the past months know that the ‘debt-relief’ proposals for Africa originate from Tony Blair and Gordon Brown at 10 Downing St. in anticipation of Britain’s term as head of the G8 countries. This ‘Make Poverty History’ business is not some spontaneous populist uprising. You have to look to places like Venezuela and Bolivia for that. No, this is nothing more than a monstrous propaganda stunt designed to rubber-stamp the new scramble for Africa, for her oil and gas and minerals, all in the name of humanitarian mercy, pity, and charity. Well as old William Blake wrote 200 years ago, “Mercy would be no more/ If we did not make somebody poor.”

This is a very old story. During the era in which Britain controlled over 80% of the world’s land mass, all manner of triumphalist claims were made for this great ‘civilizing mission’ of theirs, perhaps no better expressed than in Rudyard Kipling’s “Whiteman’s Burden”:

Take up the White Man’s burden–
Send forth the best ye breed–
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captive’s need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild–
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man’s burden–
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain,
To seek another’s profit
And work another’s gain.

Take up the White Man’s burden–
The savage wars of peace–
Fill full the mouth of Famine,
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
(The end for others sought)
Watch sloth and heathen folly
Bring all your hopes to nought…

In his study of imperialist discourse, the late Professor Edward Said points out:

“Kipling himself could not merely have happened; the same is true of his White Man. Such ideas and their authors emerge out of complex historical and cultural circumstances…One of them is the culturally sanctioned habit of deploying large generalizations by which reality is divided into various collectives…Underlying these categories is the rigidly binomial opposition of ‘ours’ and ‘theirs’, with the former always encroaching upon the latter…’Our’ values were (let us say) liberal, humane, correct; they were supported by the tradition of belles-lettres, informed scholarship, rational inquiry…An imposing edifice of learning and culture was built, so to speak, in the face of actual outsiders (colonies, the poor, the delinquent) whose role in the culture was to give definition to what they were constitutionally unsuited for.” (Said, Orientalism, 227-28)

According to Bush and Blair, ‘they’ are constitutionally unsuited for democracy and self-government, and naturally need a whole lot of help from ‘us’. In fact our perception of ‘their’ brokenness has largely defined us.

The ‘opposition’ to the Blair proposals, like the Royal Africa Society, warns that the billions in aid poured into Africa (with no word of the trillions taken out) have had no effect due to the ‘corruption’ that afflicts African governments. For more than 30 years of Mobutu Sosu Seke’s reign of terror in Congo, the man for whom was coined the term ‘kleptocrat,’ American presidents and British PM’s from Kennedy to Reagan and Wilson to Thatcher celebrated him as the great voice of reason and moderation in Africa. He was their creation, and an obedient one. It is thus difficult to see what Bush and Blair mean by ‘corruption.’ Blair threatened the African Union to ‘do something’ about President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe as a prime example of the sort of thing they’re referring to. The last man standing from the anti-colonial struggle, the one who moves to get indigenous land back from white farmers, the one who rebuffs UN and European offers of ‘aid’, saying instead ‘we will do it ourselves.’

Whatever else Mugabe might be or do, it is this that makes him odious to Bush and Blair. When ‘corruption’ serves their interests, they are most willing to shut up about it, and even to aid and abet it.

Who knows, maybe Geldof and Bono have all the best intentions. Personally, I think they’re royal jesters, clowns and dupes. The fact remains that they are stuck in the imperialist paradigm, as is every white until she or he does the work to break out of it. It was Professor Edward Said who taught me to observe the language of imperialism. Watch the discourse. It has remained essentially unchanged since the Crusades. “Make Poverty History”: who is the doer, the maker, the master of history? And what is Africa to them but a silent, sullen, giant existing only as an object to have things done to it, for it? In the imperial view, Africa is “a theatrical stage affixed to Europe.” (Said, Orientalism, 48) And this latest imperial pageant is particularly nauseating when we remember that these great saviors of Africa are the ones who ruined her in the first place, not to mention the fact that they are presently reducing Iraq to rubble.

How do you talk about ‘aid’ and ‘debt forgiveness’ in reference to a place you have despoiled and robbed and continue so to do? You are able to think in these terms because everyone in Europe and the U.S., even the left, operates under the assumption that “we” alone are capable of knowing what’s good for “them,” and have the resources and might to “fix” the world. I heard an ‘activist’ saying that the rich nations alone have the ability to eradicate poverty. What makes us think so?

What if causes have effects? What if centuries of aggressive imperialism have rendered the West morally exhausted and incapable of doing anything good for anyone? Jean Paul Sartre said as much back in 1961:

“1961. Listen: ‘Let us waste no time in sterile litanies and nauseating mimicry. Leave this Europe where they are never done talking of Man, yet murder men everywhere they find them, at the corner of every one of their own streets, in all the corners of the globe. For centuries they have stifled almost the whole of humanity in the name of a so-called spiritual experience.’ The tone is new. Who dares to speak thus? It is an African, a man from the Third World, an ex-‘native’. He adds: ‘Europe now lives at such a mad, reckless pace that she is running headlong into the abyss; we would do well to keep away from it.’ In other words, she’s done for. A truth which is not pleasant to state but of which we are all convinced, are we not, fellow-Europeans, in the marrow of our bones?” (Sartre, Preface to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth)

“Leave this Europe”, Fanon proclaims to his fellow ‘natives’. Leave the West. Like Chavez in Venezuela, use their greed for your treasure against them. Demand reparations. Make them sign a pledge to leave you alone. Tell them you have no interest in their cracked idea of a ‘world economic community.’

Young privileged people across the planet today are being treated to a big fun-fest. They are raised to expect such things, for they are given seemingly endless opportunities to feel they are good and kind and charitable, no matter what carnage their tax dollars happen to be paying for today.

Even if Live8 was what they say it is, a great outpouring of human charity, it’s nauseating. But this hoopla conceals the wicked intentions of corporate imperialists out to privatize the planet and divide up the spoils like vultures. But that’s an insult to the vultures, who only do what they are made for. If humans could only learn to do the same.

“’We can sit and watch. Of course, some day we shall step in. We are bound to. But there’s no hurry. Time itself has got to wait on the greatest country in the whole of God’s universe. We shall be giving the word for everything—industry, trade, law, journalism, art, politics, and religion, from Cape Horn clear over to Surith’s Sound, and beyond it, too, if anything worth taking hold of turns up at the North Pole. And then we shall have the leisure to take in hand the outlying continents and islands of the earth. We shall run the world’s business whether the world likes it or not. The world can’t help it—and neither can we, I guess.’ (Joseph Conrad, Nostromo)
Much of the rhetoric of the “New World Order” promulgated by the American government since the end of the Cold War—with its redolent self-congratulation, its unconcealed triumphalism, its grave proclamations of responsibility—might have been scripted by Conrad’s Holyroyd: we are number one, we are bound to lead, we stand for freedom and order, and so on. No American has been immune from this structure of feeling….it is a rhetoric whose most damning characteristic is that it has been used before…with deafeningly repetitive frequency in the modern period, by the British, the French, the Belgians, the Japanese, the Russians, and now the Americans.” (Said, Culture and Imperialism, xvii).

An attack by Gordon Brown on the “hypocrisy” of Europe and other rich countries for pledging aid to Africa while imposing unfair trade barriers was today dismissed by the head of the EU’s executive arm.

In a sign of the gulf between Britain and many of its European partners on the eve of the G8 summit next week, Jose Manuel Barroso declared that the EU had nothing to be ashamed of because it had the world’s most open markets to developing countries.

“Europe is the most open market to developing countries by far,” the European commission president told Guardian Unlimited.
Speaking ahead of London talks with Tony Blair to mark the start of Britain’s six month EU presidency today, Mr Barroso said: “We should not be ashamed – on the contrary.

“In terms of the access to our markets for the less developed countries, we have almost no quotas or tariffs – the so-called ‘everything but arms’ initiative. What I hope is to engage others in the developed world to be as open and generous.”
Full: guardian.co.uk

They are all hypocrites and should all be ashamed, but they have no shame.

by Gary Leupp
…”We may be looking at a summer of simultaneous crises on opposite sides of the world,” says “one of Mr. Bush’s closest aides” to David E. Sanger of the New York Times. Sanger takes that to mean Iran and North Korea, neither of which wants to provoke a crisis, both of which want to be left alone but are confronted with an administration that wants to defeat them while it remains in power. The summer crises if they come will be contrived, involve lies, shamelessly manipulate the stupider sectors of public opinion and probably require further assaults on civil liberties. I don’t think another Korean War is in the cards; the “crisis” in Korea can simmer indefinitely. All it does is make the U.S. look unreasonable, in the eyes of the Chinese and most other people; encourage South Korean sympathy with Northern compatriots striving to stave off imperialist attack; and give the Japanese right an opportunity to jettison Japan’s “pacifist” constitution. I think the real summer crisis will be the Middle Eastern one.

So Iran or Syria, I was thinking. But the fairly reputable Jane’s Intelligence Digest points in another direction. It reports that Rumsfeld plans a “confrontation with Syrian troops” in the Bekaa Valley soon. That’s in Lebanon, from whence the UN has confirmed that Syria, in haste, has recently withdrawn (in response to bulling U.S. demands) the troops sent long ago—at Lebanese Christians’ request—to mediate in a brutal civil war. But constantly raising the bar, the U.S. insists that Syria withdraw all its intelligence agents from Lebanon too. Washington will—just watch—keep asserting without evidence that Syria’s intelligence apparatus, which like any such apparatus is invisible, hard to identify or quantify, remains in Lebanon screwing with Lebanese politics in a way that, say, the U.S. CIA never screws with anybody.

Weak, divided, pulverized Lebanon may well be the next stage for U.S. aggression. That would keep the ball rolling. Bush would refer to the Bekaa Valley as “the latest battleground in the war on terrorism”—all in response to 9-11 when the terrorists attacked us. “Better get them in Lebanon than face them here,” he’ll spew, and some will swallow it. They’ll buy the notion that Hizbollah, a Shiite-based mainstream highly popular political party with an armed wing in southern Lebanon, which embarrassed the U.S. by organizing massive demonstrations dwarfing the its client parties in Lebanon last month, is an al-Qaeda type terrorist organization. They’ll surely bring up the Reagan-era Hizbollah attack on the U.S. force in Lebanon that shouldn’t have been there to begin with, since it was just deployed to abet Israel’s criminal invasion.
Full: counterpunch.org

Sir Isaac Newton, famous for his revolutionary work in mathematics, optics, gravity and the laws of motion, had a secret hobby. A collection of his notes thought to have been lost 70 years ago reveal his passion for alchemy and fruitless attempts to turn lead into gold.
His handwritten notes, commenting on the work of other famous 17th century alchemists and documenting his own attempts to manufacture precious metals, were rediscovered in the vaults of the Royal Society and will go on display for the first time next week at the its summer science exhibition.

The notes were originally uncovered following Newton’s death in 1727, but they were never properly documented and were thought to be lost following their sale for £15 at an auction at Sotheby’s in July 1936. But during the cataloguing of the society’s miscellaneous manuscripts collection the notes were discovered and, with the help of Imperial College’s Newton Project, were identified as being the papers that had disappeared nearly 70 years before.

Newton kept hidden his occasional interest in alchemy during his lifetime, in part because the making of gold or silver was a felony and had been since a law was passed by Henry IV in 1404. But throughout his career he, and other scientists of the time, many of whom were fellows of the society, carried out extensive research into alchemy.
Full: guardian.co.uk

WASHINGTON, June 30 – After a bitter and prolonged battle over the promises and perils of foreign trade, the Senate voted on Thursday to approve the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

The vote of 54 to 45, which came after weeks of efforts to placate angry sugar producers and other interest groups, was a major victory for President Bush at a time when Republicans and Democrats alike have been alarmed about soaring imports from low-cost countries.

The vote set the stage for an even more difficult fight in the House, where opposition to the trade pact is strong among lawmakers from textile regions in the South, manufacturing states in the Midwest and sugar- producing areas like Florida, Louisiana, Minnesota and Wyoming.

The pact would eliminate most trade restrictions on about $32 billion in annual trade with the Dominican Republic and the five Central American nations of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

Though the volume of trade involved is tiny in comparison to that with China or Europe, both Mr. Bush and his opponents have viewed the pact as a crucial touchstone to the broader challenges of globalization.
Full: nytimes.com

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — A unilateral decision by the United States to indefinitely retain oversight of the Internet’s main traffic-directing computers prompted concerns Friday that the global telecommunications network could eventually splinter.

”This seems like an extension of American security in the aftermath of 9-11,” said John Strand, a Denmark-based technology consultant. ”People will ask: `Do the Americans want to control the Internet?”’

Washington’s decision, announced Thursday, departs from previously stated U.S. policy.

Many countries favor gradually releasing oversight of the Internet’s so-called ”root servers” to an international body, and a showdown on the issue could come in November at a U.N. information society summit to be held in Tunisia. A U.N. report this month on Internet governance is expected to address the issue.

Michael D. Gallagher, an assistant secretary at the U.S. Commerce Department, said in announcing the policy shift Thursday that it was a response to growing security threats and increased reliance on the Internet globally for communications and commerce.

But the explanation did little to allay fears that the United States is overstepping its boundaries and locking its grip on the Internet.
Full: nytimes.com

What happened to William Rodriguez the morning of 9/11 is a miracle. What happened to his story after-the-fact is a tragedy.

But with miracles and tragedies comes truth. And truth is exactly what Rodriguez brings to the whole mystery surrounding 9/11.

Declared a hero for saving numerous lives at Ground Zero, he was the janitor on duty the morning of 9/11 who heard and felt explosions rock the basement sub-levels of the north tower just seconds before the jetliner struck the top floors.

He not only claims he felt explosions coming from below the first sub-level while working in the basement, he says the walls were cracking around him and he pulled a man to safety by the name of Felipe David, who was severely burned from the basement explosions.

All these events occurred only seconds before and during the jetliner strike above. And through it all, he now asks a simple question everybody should be asking? How could a jetliner hit 90 floors above and burn a man’s arms and face to a crisp in the basement below within seconds of impact?

Rodriguez claims this was impossible and clearly demonstrates a controlled demolition brought down the WTC, saying “Let’s see them (the government) try to wiggle out of this one.”
Full: arcticbeacon.com

…If this is a potentially fascinating work of architecture, it is, sadly, fascinating in the way that Albert Speer’s architectural nightmares were fascinating – as expressions of the values of a particular time and era. The Freedom Tower embodies, in its way, a world shaped by fear.

At a recent meeting at his Wall Street office in New York, Childs tried to deflect this criticism by enveloping the building in historical references. The height of the tower will match the height of the tallest of the former World Trade Center Towers – 1,368 feet – which will re-establish its relationship to the nearby World Financial Center, which was built at exactly half that height. The fortress-like appearance of the base was inspired by the Strozzi Palace in Florence, the relationship between the base and the soaring tower by Brancusi’s “Bird in Space.”

But the tower has none of the lightness of Brancusi’s polished bronze form, let alone its sculptural beauty. And the Strozzi Palace’s blank stone facade is beautiful because it is a mask: Once inside, you are confronted with a courtyard flooded with light and air, one of the great architectural treasures of the Renaissance.

What the tower evokes, by comparison, are ancient obelisks, blown up to a preposterous scale and clad in heavy sheaths of reinforced glass – an ideal symbol for an empire enthralled with its own power, and unaware that it is fading.
Full: iht.com

by Mike Whitney
“You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn’t find one of ’em, not one stinkin’ dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like… victory. Robert Duvall, “Apocalypse Now” (1979)

Two weeks ago the UK Independent ran an article which confirmed that the US had “lied to Britain over the use of napalm in Iraq”. (6-17-05) Since then, not one American newspaper or TV station has picked up the story even though the Pentagon has verified the claims. This is the extent to which the American “free press” is yoked to the center of power in Washington. As we’ve seen with the Downing Street memo, (which was reluctantly reported 5 weeks after it appeared in the British press) the air-tight American media ignores any story that doesn’t embrace their collective support for the war. The prospect that the US military is using “universally reviled” weapons runs counter to the media-generated narrative that the war was motivated by humanitarian concerns (to topple a brutal dictator) as well as to eliminate the elusive WMDs. We can now say with certainty that the only WMDs in Iraq were those that were introduced by foreign invaders from the US who have used them to subjugate the indigenous people.

“Despite persistent rumors of injuries among Iraqis consistent with the use of incendiary weapons such as napalm” the Pentagon insisted that “US forces had not used a new generation of incendiary weapons, codenamed MK77, in Iraq.” (UK Independent)

The Pentagon lied.
Full: zmag.org