Baghdad 5 years on

A Guardian journalist returns home to Iraq to find that far from what we hear in the US, the surge has produced nothing approaching normalcy or peace, but rather ghettos seething with violence, with nothing but makeshift walls dividing the increasingly hostile warring factions.

US claims that the military surge is bringing stability to Iraq. By traveling through the heart of Baghdad its easy to see by enclosing the Sunni and Shia populations behind 12ft walls, the surge has left the city more divided and desperate than ever.”

Check out parts 2 and 3 of this very candid view of Iraq:

Baghdad, 5 years on (part 2 of 3): killing fields

Baghdad 5 years on (part 3): Iraq’s lost generation

FRONTLINE Special - Bush's War

Two part Frontline special “Bush’s War”

absolutely remarkable in it’s grasp of the entire picture of how and why we are in Iraq. This special will undoubtedly be viewed as the definitive account of the Iraq War.

(crooksandliars)

Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink

A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

Add that to the Rocket fuel, lead, germs, arsenic and pesticides found in this report:
Study Finds Safety of Drinking Water in U.S. Cities at Risk

Photography as a Terrorist Activity

London's Metropolitan Police recently launched a counter-terrorism campaign that warns citizens to be on the lookout for "odd" photographers. Posters promoting the campaign present the camera as if it were a weapon. The climate in the U.K. is such that the photographers there last year organized a photographer's rights petition out of fear that public photography might become a licensed activity.

Campaign posters here

In 2004, New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority considered a ban on photography in subway stations. It dropped the idea the following year.

In 2006, Saudi Arabia lifted a ban on photography in public places to attract more tourists; some restrictions remain, however.

Somewhat related: Police in Japan have on occasion asked me and my friends to delete photos of police and their police boxes that we've taken on public streets here in Tokyo. I don't believe they have an real legal basis for that here, but a friend in Singapore tells me that photography of police in his island country is strictly prohibited.

When I added, "doesn't a free and active press play an important role in monitoring the police in a democracy?", he reminded me that there is no such thing as a free and active press in Singapore.

Surprisingly (to me), world opinion is divided on the importance of press freedom, according to a BBC World Service poll of 11,344 people across 14 countries. About 48% of respondants in Singapore supporting controls over the press to ensure peace and stability. Unfortunately Japan was not represented in those results.

Regulating Japanese Internets

The Japanese government thinks they can regulate content on the internet--yet can't keep cigarettes and porn away from children at the local 7/11.

The Japanese government made major moves [recently] toward legislating extensive regulation over online communication and information exchange within its national borders. In a series of little-publicized meetings attracting minimal mainstream coverage, two distinct government ministries, that of Internal Affairs and Communications (Somusho) and that of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Monbukagakusho), pushed ahead with regulation in three major areas of online communication: web content, mobile phone access, and file sharing...

Regulating the Japanese cyberspace continues here.

BoingBoing let's us know how well China's storied and expensive Great Firewall holding up.

PBS Frontline discussion on censorship and web filtering/blocking in China.

Behind the Caricature

I really enjoyed every one of these masterfully produced videos by deeply penetrating and insightful caricature artist John Kascht. Each is just a couple minutes long. They really challenge me to push deeper in the portrayals of people and places in my own writing assignments. I especially liked the ones about Obama and Guiliani. And Romney too. They're all good.

Homeland Security as Public Works Project

As an American it's frustrating to see so many billions of tax-payer dollars wasted on "Homeland Security". The Department of Homeland Security operates with a budget of over $46 billion (a 10.7% increase over 2008), and it's mission extends far and wide across countless departments, agencies and industries. Just take a look at this 2009 budget overview if you think it's just about slowing people down at the airport. (If there is nothing good on TV this month because of the WGA strike, you can always read all 3,574 pages of the budget details.)

What's frustrating is that I'm personally convinced that despite spending over $126 million dollars per day I think any sufficiently motivated person with average intelligence could figure out countless ways to harm, blow-up, poison and terrorize the American population. It took just a single man and an adolescent boy to terrorize the Beltway Tri-state back in 2002, increasing the area's murder rate by 25%. Imagine if instead of hijacking a plane, 12 men manage to emulate the Beltway sniper's modus operandi? Or the could simply put cyanide in random grocery store foodstuffs in cities across the country. Or mail anthrax to a 10,000 people. Or remember what Timothy McVeigh accomplished. Or the sarin gas attacks on Tokyo's subways.

I do think that every country needs some security, but enough is enough. No amount of money would ever prevent a sufficiently motivated person or group from accomplishing grand acts of terrorism on a society.

But what I realized today is that maybe this whole Homeland Security fiasco basically amounts to Bush's economic stimulus plan. It certainly simulates lots of industries with the big budget, and it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs. So I guess it's not that different from a pointless public works project, like building freeways, bridges and dams in places that don't really need them...

But the problem is we DO need freeways, bridges and dams. America is falling apart at the seams. "Our power grids, our rail system, our roads and bridges, our drinking water and drainage systems, our dams, our ports, our dumps: they're all failing, sometimes in visible catastrophic ways, often in just slow losses of service and usability." (source.)

But I guess it's pretty hard for any working congress person to vote against a DHS budget increase. They'd be branded as "voting with the terrorists".