.... the dark side of victory and defeat...

"...... the dark side of victory and defeat, final proof, like the dead who are buried within hours, that war is indeed about the total failure of the human spirit" Robert Fisk The Great War for Civilization (p.968)

Winged Migration

Can someone please send a copy of this to the Cheney family

Tuesday, March 20 at 8pm

Winged Migration

Jacques Perrin's Oscar-nominated documentary captures the beauty and wonder of bird migration around the world, literally offering a bird's-eye view of flight patterns through 40 countries and the seven continents.

This should be repeated on Ch 21!

Sent in by OMcIntyre

PAK: Editorial on current situation

Omar R. Quraishi, op-ed pages editor at Pakistan's "The News," asked me to circulate this. His e-mail: omarq@cyber.net.pk The News March 13, 2007 Editorial All the makings of a police state The events since Friday make extremely depressing reading for anyone remotely concerned about the state of the nation. The continued virtual house arrest of the suspended chief justice of Pakistan, Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, is a black spot on this government that will be difficult -- one would say, almost impossible -- to erase from public memory. As if the humiliation of Justice Chaudhry being summoned to Army House and being asked to explain to the president (wearing army fatigues) the allegations contained in a now-controversial letter was not enough, one now learns that since Friday the suspended chief justice of Pakistan and his family have had their telephone lines disconnected, their mobile phones taken away and have been prohibited from watching television or reading newspapers. According to several reports, most quoting Justice Chaudhry's family members, the house of the suspended chief justice is swarming with officials of the intelligence agencies and no one is allowed to enter the premises, though retired air force chief Air Marshal Asghar Khan did manage to argue and walk past the guards and meet Justice Chaudhry. In doing all of this, the government has clearly overstepped its authority. Justice Chaudhry, if Article 209 has been followed and read properly, has had a reference filed against him for misconduct and abuse of office. However, preventing him from meeting people and restricting his and his family's movement, and not letting him establish contact with anyone outside his residence gives the impression as if the government considers him a dangerous criminal who is a clear and present danger to society. What the government has been doing since Friday is only going to exacerbate the crisis and lower its credibility -- already quite low -- in the eyes of (it can be safely said) most Pakistanis because they will think that if this can happen to a chief justice of the Supreme Court then ordinary citizens might just as well forget about receiving their constitutionally guaranteed right to due process and a fair hearing. By denying the suspended chief justice the right to move around freely, to meet whoever he wishes or even to talk to the media, the government is in violation of the Constitution, and specifically of the constitutional process by which a member of the Supreme Court is to be removed from office. Surely, the president, the prime minister, members of the federal cabinet and even the brother judges of Justice Chaudhry would agree that his is a case of convicting without even being given a fair hearing. Surely, it can be seen that Article 209 does not authorise the president, or anyone for that matter, with the power to restrict the physical movement of a judge against whom a reference has been filed and to bar him from using any link to the outside world. A lot of damage has already been done by this full frontal assault on the judiciary of the country. Of course, no one should defend a judge, no matter how august he may be, if he indulges in conduct unbecoming of his office and misuses his official powers. But allegations should not be equated with proof and conviction -- something that the government's actions suggest is the case -- and the method and process outlined in the Constitution need to be followed. This constitutional method does not have any provision for physically restricting a judge under investigation from moving about freely and stripping away his officially entitled privileges -- the latter can be done only after the investigation has been carried out and a recommendation for removal made by the Supreme Judicial Council and acted upon by the president. Even in that eventuality, the action should not be seen as high-handed and vindictive -- which seems to be the case now, despite the fact that the charges against Justice Chaudhry remain mere allegations. As has been reported widely, on the day of his suspe nsion following the filing of the presidential reference, Justice Chaudhry was stopped from entering the premises of the Supreme Court building and escorted to his house by a senior police official. Even now, with a reference filed against him but none of the charges proved, the suspended chief justice should be free to visit his office if he so wishes because there is nothing in the Constitution that prevents any judge of the Supreme or High Courts, and against whom a reference has been filed with the Supreme Judicial Council, from attending his office. There is one other point as well: ministers should not consider the people of this country to be bumpkins who cannot see what is going on. When told that Air Marshal Asghar Khan had met Justice Chaudhry who told him that he (Justice Chaudhry) had no access to the phone, TV or newspapers, one member of the federal cabinet expressed surprise and then went on to say that this itself was proof that the chief justice was free to meet people. Surely, the hordes of journalists, politicians and well-wishers standing outside the gates of Justice Chaudhry's official residence and denied entry by the security staff posted there speak of an entirely contrary situation, one that really puts official claims that he is free to meet anyone to shame. The government needs to extricate itself from this ugly situation before it spirals out of control. Any delay in repairing the damage can only convince most Pakistanis that they live in a country that has all the makings of a police state. Also, equally importantly, the government needs to understand that for the sake of its own credibility this farce needs to come to an end.

CRIME: Three from India Indicted for Online Brokerage Scheme

CRIME: Three From India Indicted for Online Brokerage Intrusion Scheme
http://www.sajaforum.org/2007/03/crime_three_fro.html

Two men in Chennai and one Indian who lives in Malaysia have been indicted in what the Justice Department is calling a "hack, pump and dump" scheme of breaking into the accounts of online brokers. From the press release (in full below):

"A federal grand jury in Omaha, Neb., has indicted three individuals on charges of conspiracy, fraud and aggravated identity theft stemming from a high-tech, international fraud scheme designed to hijack online brokerage accounts for profit, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Joe W. Stecher for the District of Nebraska, FBI Executive Assistant Director for Criminal Investigations Michael A. Mason, and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Christopher Cox announced today."

"The 23-count indictment, returned in January 2007 and unsealed today, charges Jaisankar Marimuthu, 32, a resident of Chennai, India, and Chockalingam Ramanathan, 33, a resident of Chennai, India, each with one count of conspiracy, eight counts of computer fraud, six counts of wire fraud, two counts of securities fraud, and six counts of aggravated identity theft as part of this "hack, pump and dump" scheme. The indictment also charges Thirugnanam Ramanathan, 34, a native of India and resident of Malaysia, with one count of conspiracy, two counts of computer fraud, and two counts of aggravated identity theft."

This is the first time that anyone's been arrested overseas for an "online brokerage intrusion scheme" in the U.S.

"As part of this ongoing investigation, at least 60 customers and nine brokerage firms in the United States and elsewhere have been identified as victims, with one of the brokerage firms reporting more than $2 million in losses."

The Pictures

Conversation is, among other things, a mind-reading game and a puzzle. We constantly have to guess why others say what they do. We can never be sure when words will dance with each other, opinions caress, imaginations undress, topics open. But we can become more agile if we wish.

Theodore Zeldin from the opening paragraph of CONVERSATION - How Talk Can Change Our Lives

The Authoritative and the Authoritarian

This Conference thrives on the provocation of complexity. Muslims, nowadays, are provoked by complexity. This Conference exists, marginalized by obscurity. Muslims are obscured by their marginality. Meanings and concepts are aggravated by words and phrases. Ideas are imprisoned by the very words that express them. This Conference is injected in the midst of clichés, sales pitches, and gross oversimplifications. Chaos and complexity are the stuff of creation, but order and stability is the craving of life. The authoritative directs the complex and stabilizes the chaotic, but the authoritarian dooms all to death.
    Your book, The Authoritative and the Authoritarian in Islamic Discourses, has been published and you remember the days when you thought that a single book could change the world. You remember your short jalabiyya, and patchy beard, your miswak in the upper pocket a re-affirmation of power and triumph. The sparkling white head cover limited your range of vision and provided you with such unencumbered clarity. Back then a single book, Riyad al-Salihin (The Gardens of the Righteous) symbolized all the world had to say to you and all that you had to say to others. Parts of Hayat al-Sahaba (The Lives of the Companions) would be read in the mosque and visions of a perfectly ordered, perfectly structured society would relieve the stresses of your mind. When you bought a copy of Sahih al-Bukhari, you believed that all the problems and answers of existence were contained therein. Any contradiction was a challenge and any challenge was a negation of your existence. Everytime you would assure yourself, "I will commit the whole of Bukhari to memory and then..."
    You remember a world stremlined into self-invented categories --- simple and yielding to a perfect causality. You believed that if you do your du'a' well on Friday, the rest of the week would be perfect, but if you would forget a single verse or phrase, then the order would unfold and collapse. A simple world --- an authoritarian world, comfortable with its delusions, submerged in immaturity.
    You remember the day you seized your sister's cassette tapes and destroyed them. Music is haram,  you declared. When your mother punished you, you declared that your mother was living in haram as well. Your mother never listened to music either. The only thing she listened to was Qur'an, but you did not get the point. It took you years to get the point.
    What a world --- a world streamlined and in its dimensions, fed by ignorance and sheltered by arrogance. An authoritarian world where you are the authority. A world where the magnificence of God is represented through the authoritarian voice of a self-righteous self. A world where the Divine voice becomes imprisoned by a human voice and the human voice ascends to the throne. An essentially God-less world.
    Now years later, you publish The Authoritative and the Authoritarian in Islamic Discourses. God's Will must be discovered through its evidence and signs. The voices aspiring to comprehend the Divine Will are authoritative indicators, but they never become the embodiment of the Divine. These voices might be authoritative but they must never become authoritarian. Riyad al-Salihin and Sahih al-Bukhari are raw materials --- raw indicators to the Will of the Divine. The materials could be used to construct either the authoritative or the authoritarian. If the authoritarian is constructed, the text is rendered subservient and submerged into its representer and reader. If the authoritative is constructed, the text survives unencumbered and unlimited by its representer and reader.
    It was the endless spew of contemporary oral gyrations that once rendered your world uni-dimensional and linear. But the day came when you abandoned the contemporary apologetics and the rot of the modern decay in Islamic discourses and embraced the wonders of a bygone civilization. You read Imam al-Haramayn al-Juwayni (d. 478/1084) explaining that the purpose of a Shari'a inquiry is not to reach the  right result but the inquiry itself. You read Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (d. 911/1505) arguing that God's Will is not the ruling reached but the search for the ruling. The result of a search is not the point --- the point is the search. A life consumed by the search for the Divine Will is the divine Will and is the ultimate morality.
    In short, you grew up and your conscience grew. You are no longer as threatened, but you are no longer as confident and secure. You realize that while we seek to discover the Divine will, we never come to embody it. While we search the truth, we are not the truth. From this came the Conference, from this came the book. The child of the Conference, for the sake of the Conference, in the way of Allah --- May He accept.

May 1997
Khaled Abou El Fadl
Conference of the Books
Chapter 13.