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Today's Stories August 4 / 5, 2007 Alan Farago The Candidates and the Collapsing Economy Dave Zirin When Domes Attack: Even in Minnesota Anthony DiMaggio Double Standards in U.S. Aid to the Middle East Nicola Nasser The Iranian Option   August 3, 2007 Gabriel Matthew Schivone An Interview with Noam Chomsky on Responsibility, War Guilt and Intellectuals Jonathan Cook Israel's Jewish Problem in Tehran Patrick Cockburn Sunnis Walk Out of Iraq Government Little Steven Van Zandt Die, Greedy Swine! Die! Die!: How the Record Companies are Killing Rock Music Christopher Brauchli Bush Makes Putin Look Like James Madison D. K. Wilson Two Sides and a Middle: Michael Vick Ain't the One to Ask Linda Ford and Ira Glunts Maxwell's Silver Hammer: Syracuse University Enlists in the Global War on Terror Kelly Overton The Casualties of Green Scare: the Feds' War on the Animal Rights Mvt. Monica Benderman In Freedom's Name Manuel Garcia, Jr. Minneapolis Bridge Collapse: Was Cheney at the Scene? Website of the Day A Cinematic Look at the Police State in Action   August 2, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts The Return of the Robber Barons Stanley Heller Report from the Land of Apartheid Eric Ruder Fighting PTSD; Fighting the Army Robert Fantina Still Getting It Wrong: the NYT and Iraq Alan Farago The Toxic Mortgage Waste Crisis Chris Floyd Chertoff, Chiquita and Death Squads Franklin Lamb Lebanon's Crucial Special Elections Sen. Russ Feingold Closing the Book on the Abramoff Era Anthony Papa Drug Treatment isn't a Silver Bullet Norman Solomon The Big Guns of August Website of the Day Louie, Louie Video Contest   August 1, 2007 Debbie Nathan More Secret Payments by Former NYT Reporter to Web Porn Star Surface in Nashville Courtroom Fred Gardner Ciao, Michelangelo Gary Leupp Why Iraq's Best-Loved Athlete Can't Go Home David Rosen America's Top 10 Political Sex Scandals Winston Warfield Is the Tillman Case Still a Coverup? Daniel McBride Lessons from Bomber Harris: If the US Strikes Pakistan Glen Ford The Corporate Plan to Crush Black Resistance Thomas P. Healy The Toxic Career of Indiana's Environmental Commissioner John V. Whitbeck The Five Percent Solution David Krieger Nuclear Weapons and the University of California Website of the Day The Tragic Story of Hisham Mohammed   July 31, 2007 Kathy Kelly Dancing in the Darkness: the Story of Abu Mahmoud Clancy Sigal The Ghosts of Passchendaele Paul Krassner Assholes of the Week: From Baby Doll to Cheney Joe DeRaymond Return to the Republic of Death? Diane Christian "Winning": What Bush Could Learn from the Shade of Achilles Chris Floyd Good News is No News: Why the Bush Adm. Buries Accounts of Extremist Recantations Ramzy Baroud Bush's Real Agenda in Palestine Alan Farago Battle for the Soul of Florida Fidel Castro In Spite of Everything: Reflections on the Pan American Games Dan Bacher The Fish Terminator: Schwarzenegger's Campaign to Build the Delta Canal and More Dams   July 30, 2007 Marjorie Cohn: Independent Counsel Time Patrick Cockburn Four Million Iraqis on the Run Peter Quinn Irish in America Uri Avnery A Warning to Tony Blair John Ross Zapatista Intergalatica Lands on Earth Ron Jacobs Free the San Francisco 8 David Vest Farewell, Old Friend: Another Legend of the Blues is Gone Jeffrey St. Clair T99 Nelson: Seduced by a Legend of the Blues Website of the Day Collateral Repair Project   July 28 / 29, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Now the NYT is Selling "Bloodbath" as a Rationale to Stay in Iraq Ralph Nader Rotten Justice Robert Fantina American Lies and Iraqi Nationalism Fred Gardner Prohibitionists Attack, Reformers Fundraise   Yves Engler Handwashing and the Bottomline   July 27, 2007 John Ross Bombing Pemex--or Not? Arthur Neslen Gaza was a Gas for Blair Dave Lindorff Declaring the US a Battlefield: Martial Law is Now a Real Threat Julene Blair The Environmentalist Within Christopher Brauchli Bush Uses Children as Shock Troops in His War on Socialized Medicine Jesse Hagopian Fund the Wounded, Not the War Charles Modiano Manufacturing a Villain: Sports Illustrated's Vilification of Barry Bonds Bill Day The Hollow Environmentalism of Leonardo DiCaprio Walter Brasch Leaders Afraid to Lead M.D. Mitchell Farm Based Camps Website of the Day Fighting Sarcoma   July 26, 2007 Kathleen Christison The Siren Song of Elliot Abrams Andy Worthington Why the Pentagon's Gitmo Study is a Joke Clancy Chassay How the Bush White House Seeks to Destroy Lebanon Marjorie Cohn Showdown Over Executive Privilege Susie Day Apartheid Americana David Price Tour de Witch Hunt: Drugs, Diaries and Purges Marie Trigona Argentina's "Dirty War" Crimes Trial: The Torturer Priest Norman Solomon Media Spin on Iraq: We're Leaving (Sort Of) William S. Lind How to Win in Iraq Natsu Saito Ward Churchill and the Regents at the University of Colorado John Stauber Netroots and the Iraq War: Does Ending It Matter to Them Anymore? Website of the Day Sticking It to the Man   July 25, 2007 Andy Worthington Gains and Losses at Gitmo Gary Leupp Bush Speechwriter, Michael Gerson, Calls for Attack on Syria Ray McGovern The Sad Decline of John Conyers Dr. Susan Block Bonobo Bashing in the New Yorker Joshua Frank Hillary's Neocon: the Imperial Vision of Richard Holbrooke Tina Richards What Harry Reid Doesn't Know About His Own Bill Ben Terrall Indonesia's Bloody Brand of CounterTerrorism Farzana Versey God Acquitted!: Lessons from the Case of Darwood Ibrahim Mohammad Ali Salih A Bomb in My Briefcase? Laura Carlsen A Strange Homecoming: Reflections on the First US Social Forum Ron Jacobs Come to Kennebunkport! Sunsara Taylor Knocked Up is F**ked Up Website of the Day Wal-Mart's Flip Flops: Feet Killers July 24, 2007 Saul Landau How to Walk in Bushtime Kathy Kelly The Plight of Iraqi Refugees in Jordan Russell Mokhiber The Michael Vick / George Bush Thing M. Shahid Alam Islam Now, China Then Patrick Cockburn and Anne Penketh Meeting in Baghdad Dave Lindorff Overcoming John Conyers Binoy Kampmark You Tube You Can't: Failure of a Medium Richard Neville Murdoch's Transplant: a Warning to the Wall Street Journal Cindy Sheehan We Must Move Beyond Politics as Usual Evelyn Pringle Anti-Depressants and Birth Defects: Why is the CDC Downplaying the Risks? Norman Solomon Media Corrections We'd Like to See CP Newswire Reading Harry Potter Not Sinful Website of the Day Sea Islands Black Heritage Festival   July 23, 2007 Andy Worthington Narcolepsy on Gitmo Detainees Uri Avnery A Trap for Fools Patrick Cockburn Turkish Prime Minister Threatens to Invade Northern Iraq Sousan Hammad The Children Without a Title John Walsh Todd Gitlin's Nader Fixation Harvey Wasserman Spinning Kashiwazaki: PR Flacks Rush to Aid of Crippled Nuke Martha Rosenberg The Life and Times of a Hog-Hanging Farmer Collin Baber Here Come the MRAPs: Resurrecting Apartheid Armor for Iraq Reza Fiyouzat Iran's Forgotten Anti-Nuke Movement Stephen Lendman Saving a President: Scare-Mongering and Executive Orders Website of the Day The Port Huron Project   July 21 / 22, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Giuliani and the Dogs of War Werther How to Read a National Intelligence Estimate Ralph Nader Atomic Blowback David Keen Buy Hard: How to Sell an Endless War Fred Gardner Karl Rove, Pothead: When Good Drugs Happen to Bad People Gary Leupp Edelman's Edict: Is Hillary "Reinforcing Enemy Propaganda?" Robert Fantina Fear in Iraq Saker The Future of Palestine: an Interview with Jonathan Cook Rannie Amiri Nasrallah in the Crosshairs: How will the Third Lebanon War Start? Mike Whitney The Crisis in Hedgistan Dr. Susan Rosenthal, MD The Hidden Injuries of Powerlessness: Linking Alienation and Dissociation Monica Benderman Facing the Truth Dan Bacher Deltagate: the Politics of Fish Kills Michael Baney Fujimori's Long Race From Justice Missy Beattie Here, There and Everywhere Ron Jacobs Tremble, Tyrants Adam Engel Radical Language: an Introduction Thomas Naylor California Split: an Open Letter to Schwarzenegger Poets' Basement Landau, Ford and Engel Website of the Weekend Surge in Action   July 20, 2007 Eliza Szabo Fatal Neglect: Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan Pam Martens Doctoring the News: CNN's Sanjay Gupta, Laura Bush and Merck Alan Farago Winners and Losers in the Housing Market Crash Harvey Wasserman Lies and Leaks: The Earthquake That Screamed "No Nukes!" Marjorie Cohn Iraqis will be the Deciders Dave Zirin White Noise and the Black Athlete Anthony DiMaggio American Public Opinion and Israel Scott Liebertz Oaxaca on Edge Linn Washington, Jr. British Cops Assault Rape Allegations Bill Piper / Anthony Papa Flying High?: The Political Junkets of Bush's Drug Czar Ramzy Baroud Bush's War Policy: When Time Heals Nothing Website of the Day The Prankster Art of Mark Jenkins   July 19, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Next Invasion of Iraq Remi Kanazi Is This Ben Gurion or Hell?: a Palestinian Adventure Through Israel's Largest Airport Winslow T. Wheeler The Surging Costs of the Iraq War Sharon Smith Democrats and Health Care: Behind the Rhetoric Dave Lindorff Killing Cabbies in Iraq Conn Hallinan Have Gun, Will Travel: Mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan D. K. Wilson The Michael Vick Case Pulls Back the Veil on Who We Really Are Joshua Frank Democrats as Leviathan: Another Step Toward War with Iran Norman Solomon The Ghost of Wayne Morse Russell Hoffman Rattling the Reactor: Quakes, Fires and Leaks at the World's Largest Nuke Ray McGovern Bush's Wooden Headedness Kills Website of the Day Protesting Power July 18, 2007 Brenda Norrell Spy Towers on the US Border Col. Dan Smith How the US Could "Lose" Saudi Arabia Martha Rosenberg Lord of Crookharbour: the Trial of Conrad Black Conn Hallinan Bombing and Spraying Afghanistan Binoy Kampmark The SIM Card Terror Case Patrick Bond / Rehana Dada Who Killed Sajida Khan? Tom Johnson The Long Road ... to Nowhere Paul Craig Roberts A Free Press or a Ministry of Truth? Bob Quellos Pushing the Poor Out of House and Home Felice Pace Falling for Lieberman's Iran Resolution Robert Weissman National Health Insurance: More Humane and More Efficient CP Newswire Shocking Report Showing Involvement of US Psychologists in Torture Website of the Day Gilad Atzmon Live!   July 17, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Just Another Day in Iraq: 100 Fathers, Mothers and Children Killed Marjorie Cohn Out of Control: Executive Power Plays Evelyn Pringle Inside Bush's FDA David Rosen Moral Hypocrisy on the Hill: the Christian Right, Sexual Scandal and the Pleasures of the Courtesan Susan Miller Width Matters: Displacement and Israel's Wall Franklin Lamb Did the UN Cave to Israel on Lebanon's Shabaa Farms? Don Monkerud Considering Victory in Iraq Harvey Wasserman Nuclear Surge Russell Hoffman Japan Dodges a Radioactive Bullet Dave Lindorff Feingold Turns to Dross Dave Zirin Reclaiming Sports as True Fiction Website of the Day Che at the UN: 1964   July 16, 2007 Gary Leupp Cheney Urges Bush to Strike Iran Ellen Cantarow The Untold Story of Iraqi Women Paul Craig Roberts Impeach Now Allan J. Lichtman The D.C. Madam's Public Service Dan Bacher Cheney and the Klamath: Was the Veep Behind the Nation's Worst Salmon Kill? Patrick Cockburn The Killing of Khalid W. Hassan Manuel Garcia, Jr. Property is Racism James Brooks AIPAC and Mahmoud Abbas: the Undemocratic Road to Defeat Liaquat Ali Khan The Judicial Crisis in Pakistan Julie Flint Suleiman Jamous in Limbo Website of the Day Free Suleiman Jamous!   July 14 / 15. 2007 Alexander Cockburn Support Their Troops? Andy Worthington Gitmo's Tangled Web: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Majhid Khan, Dubious US Convictions and a Dying Man Ralph Nader Lawlessness, Waste and Incompetence Robert Fantina The Illegalities of the Iraq War Ron Jacobs Architecture as Military Strategy Joshua Frank Eat, Fight, Screw, Pray: An Interview with Joe Bageant Conn Hallinan Guns, Foundations and Free Trade: How the Right Targets Africa Dr. Susan Rosenthal, MD War and Dissociation John Ross No En Nuestro Nombre!: a Letter to the Mexican Antiwar Movement Fred Gardner Who's Afraid of Cannabidiol? Rannie Amiri A Primer on Israeli Doublespeak Charles Modiano ESPN's Rap Sheet: Pacman as Black Man Anthony DiMaggio America's Parochial Press China Hand Executive Orders and Coercive Diplomacy Missy Comley Beattie Reprobate Rhetoricians Dr. James J. Murtagh, Jr. Harry Potter Battles Big Brother Kenneth Rexroth On Thomas More's "Utopia" Poets' Basement Engel, Davies and Orloski Website of the Weekend GOP Sex Hypocrites: a Slideshow

Weekend Edition August 4 / 5, 2007 From 9/11 to Minneapolis A Bridge Truth Movement? By MANUEL GARCIA, Jr. Like many, I was intrigued to find the causes of the Minneapolis bridge collapse; and I was saddened by the tales of personal tragedies. About a year ago, I wrote a series of articles on the physics and thermodynamics of the World Trade Center fires and collapses, on 11 September 2001. I did this as an effort to put into plain English the physics effects and engineering concepts I knew about -- these being my fields -- to help the average person interpret what they would see in video recording of these collapses. Among engineers and physicists it is easy to convey the magnitude and nature of forces, heating and stresses. However, people not trained in these disciplines can have a difficult time appreciating how much energy is stored up as "potential energy" in a tall building, and how much energy can be transferred as "impact" in a car crash or airplane crash. Other ideas such as "creep", "metal fatigue", the volatilization of plastics into flammable and explosive gas mixtures, the heat capacity of materials, shock waves in air and stress waves in solids are all hard to evaluate "intuitively" without some technical education, and also some practical experience (laboratory tests or applications in the field). I thought, naively I now realize, that many people would appreciate this type of "plain English" background to a discussion of the technicalities behind the physical phenomena of 9/11, and similar events. As a scientist, I am the first to realize that "the actual cause" of any such event is only isolated -- and always with some degree of uncertainty, or "error bar" -- after a lengthy and careful analysis, which may involve several technical disciplines, e.g., chemistry and mechanical testing, computer modeling of stress and deformation, review of maintenance logs and other exercises in forensics. What armchair discussions prior to the findings of an official "inquest" can provide the public is some idea of the forces and phenomena involved. The events of 9/11 triggered a vast outpouring of ignorance, usually described as the "9/11 truth movement", by people who had no idea of any of the physical science. This "movement" has nothing to do with science, or physics, or even the events of 9/11; but it has everything to do with the psychological needs of its cultists. Today, there are hundreds of articles in technical and professional journals about the physics of the 9/11 collapses, and anyone interested to learn the details of that could read those articles, or find articles by science writers who have abstracted the scientific literature on the subject. This is work, and requires some education, perhaps quite a bit if you wish to review and critique the source material in the professional journals. How much easier to just fantasize, to "know" because "it is obvious" and you can "see it." Just like flying saucers. People who had fixated on 9/11 for their emotional and psychological needs did not like my "physics of 9/11" series because it did not lead to the conclusions they wanted, which were usually of two types: 1. the government did it, a masterful conspiracy to kill thousands of Americans, to instill fear and bring about a police state (not that I disagree with the view that many in government and corporations desire to bring about a police state); 2. I (the omniscient conspiracist) am a visionary and heroic person for seeing through this (imagined) masquerade, and shouting about it to "wake up the American people", a modern Paul Revere deserving of recognition. One letter-writer summed it up perfectly, dismissing my articles thusly: "I don't understand any of your equations, but you're wrong." In this I am only speaking of the polite to barely tolerable writers. There were many, many abusive and insulting letters, usually anonymous (not too much bravery here). I'm afraid I became quite disgusted with the "typical" level of thinking (I use the word hopefully) of the public, and especially that segment of the public that read my articles on 9/11 phenomenology. So, on occasion, I indulge in a bit of prodding at the conspiracy theorists, not so much to attack their ideas (I use the word charitably), but because of their primitive intolerance. Theirs is a modern secular religion, intellectually shallow, and of medieval bigotry as regards other lines of thought. They hew to their beliefs "on faith" because the effort to actually learn physics, engineering, chemistry, and evaluate the 9/11 phenomena rationally, and with the benefit of known scientific ideas and methods is too time-consuming, difficult, and probably unlikely to fulfill their needs for psychological pampering. Now about the recent bridge collapse note in CounterPunch. I wrote this, quickly, as my first impression of the Minneapolis disaster, and added a dig at conspiracy theorists. This was sent to CounterPunch in the spirit of a letter to the editor; it was not the submission of a Ph.D. thesis based on years of careful work. Had I intended the article to be deeper and more thoughtful, it would have been longer, to elaborate all the "technical" terms and justify what would have to have been a broader and deeper analysis. The point of my quick note was to draw attention to photos (on the BBC news website) showing the tilted footing-foundation (undermined by river currents I wondered?--later news accounts suggest not), and the deformed end of a steel beam. Extreme stress and deformation of metal can give the appearance of "melting" or "drawn taffy" to steel beams; a fact known to engineering, but frequently surprising to non-technical people. My point here is that the appearance -- to non-experts -- of a "heat effect" does not automatically mean that high heat, as in explosions, was applied. My own analysis leads me to conclude that 9/11, like the Oakland freeway collapse by fire (earlier this year), like the Minneapolis bridge collapse, were all events whose causes were "natural," in that known physical effects and the particular physical and environmental conditions at each site were responsible for the subsequent collapse. There was no sabotage (beyond the air crashes on 9/11), no intentional demolition by pre-emplaced explosives (the hidden conspiracy assumption, which is the Immaculate Conception of the 9/11 faith). Why be petty and bait the 9/11 conspiracists? Why not drop the provocations and stick to presenting my views on substantive points, without sarcasm and insult? Yes, it would be a good Buddhist and good Christian thing to do, to ignore the "slings and arrows" and just lay out the logic of whatever I wish to describe. Sarcasm and insult can spice up an article and provide some humor, but they can easily be overdone. However, they do act as deterrents to would-be letter writers of the conspiracy faiths, from sending me their lengthy efforts to convert me. I suppose I could take the high road for the benefit of the larger readership, and just avail myself of the "delete" button more often. A final note; yesterday’s today's New York Times (3 August 2007) articles on the Minneapolis bridge collapse point to a suspected weak point of the design: the major joints between metal bars in the truss, just over the columns that merge into the concrete footing at each riverbank. A suspicion is that metal fatigue (40 years of truck-induced vibration) may have opened unseen cracks within these joints (bolted and/or welded), and metal creep (slow deformation under the stress of a weight (gravity load)) led to a catastrophic failure. This bridge was deemed to have a design deficiency, in that some of the major joints were unique, they had no redundancy. More recent designs provide for the redundancy of all joints, so in the event one fails, the loads (stresses) in the framework of the bridge are redistributed while continuing to maintain the integrity of the structure and the support of the intended traffic. Manuel Garcia, Jr. is a recently retired physicist from a US Department of Energy laboratory. He is presently on holiday, and his technical interests involve fluids, electricity, heat flow and energy. His non-technical interests are varied, one being the social responsibility of scientists, another being the social dimensions of choices for the energy technologies that power a community. He can be reached at mango@idiom.com.

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