From Democracy Now--Fmr. UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter Warns Against “Politically Motivated Hype” on Iran Nuke Program:

Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter joins us to discuss what he calls “politically motivated hype” over Iran’s nuclear program. The Obama administration has warned of sanctions unless Iran allows inspections of a newly disclosed nuclear site. Iran insists the site has been used for peaceful purposes. The row comes just after Iran’s test-firing of medium- and long-range missiles and before Iranian officials are due to hold talks with the US and five other nations in Geneva.

Full transcript at Democracy Now's site.

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(Sadistic Mika Band - rumored to have been named in honor of Mika's cooking)

Sort of in keeping with the Prog/International feel of the week, I thought I would toss something a little different in the live concert department. The Sadistic Mika Band wasn't really characterized as a Prog-Rock band. They came about at a time Glam was starting to take off in 1972 and had the distinction of having their second and third albums produced by Chris Thomas (whom Mika wound up having an affair with and later marrying) and released in the UK, to good reviews and a decent following.

They toured as opening act for Roxy Music in October 1975 (where this concert comes from) to coincide with the release of their 3rd album "Hot Menu" and did several appearances on British television.

As usual, they were never issued by a label in the U.S. and had only the hardcore import collectors here for a following. Naturally, they never performed live in the U.S. even though there was a lot of press about them and a goodly amount of hype, which in turn made it possible for a number of other Japanese bands to explore popularity outside their own country during the middle and late 70's.

It's highly likely that the popularity in Europe for bands like Sadistic Mika made it possible for bands like Yellow Magic Orchestra (which morphed from ex-Mika Band members) and Ryuichi Sakamoto to establish themselves to English speaking audiences. Just as it was possible performers like Stomu Yamash'ta made it possible for bands like Sadistic Mika to be considered for release in the UK. Just speculating.

Vocals are a bit weak and not their strong suit. But the bulk of the tracks during this concert are instrumental, which are top notch and confirms the idea a lot of great musicians were not confined to a couple of countries.

After the affair surfaced, Mika and Kazuhiko Kato, the bands lead guitarist and estranged husband, divorced and left the band. Mika becoming Mrs. Thomas, Kazuhiko pursuing a solo career before becoming a TV personality, while the rest of the group continued for a time as simply The Sadistics.

Just a reminder that music is the universal language and its spoken everywhere and you don't necessarily have to understand it to get into it.

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(Paul Butterfield with John Mayall - a sort of summit conference you could groove to)

I haven't seen this reissued anywhere, although I am probably wrong. But at the time (1967), it was only available in the UK, since there was a contractual problem with Butterfield's label (Elektra) and Mayall's (Decca UK). A four-track ep featuring a collaboration between John Mayall and his Bluesbreakers from England (with disputed reports of who played what during the sessions) and Paul Butterfield from Chicago (the town, not the band) - a sort of East Meets West.

The results were met with mixed results, due probably to inflated expectations these two were the be-all/end-all of white blues musicians which no amount of hype could justify, and the fact that the disc wasn't for export to the states. Instead, it was a good solid session with two giants of 60's blues and no pretense. Simple.

This cut "Riding on The L&N" is the second track off side one. Sounding fresh as ever.

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Karl was positively freaking out yesterday afternoon over the prospect that some of his ex-colleagues at the White House might wind up being prosecuted -- or held responsible publicly -- for helping George W. Bush install a torture regime during his tenure, after President Obama's statement earlier in the day indicating he'd leave the decision up to the Attorney General.

Rove, appearing on Sean Hannity's Fox News show, was particularly frantic -- and when Rove gets frantic, he gets nasty:

Rove: Sure, as long as they've released the limits to which America will go to extract this information, let's share the information that was extracted, and saved America from further attacks. We know, for example -- it's already a part of the public record -- that the interrogation of these high-value targets kept them from being able to attack Los Angeles by flying airplanes into the Liberty tower, the tallest building in Los Angeles, which was one of their plans.

But look, let's step back for a minute. What the Obama administration has done in the last several days is very dangerous. What they've essentially said is, If we have policy disagreements with our predecessors, what we're going to do is we're going to turn ourselves into the moral equivalent of a Latin American country run colonels in mirrored sunglasses. And what we're going to do is prosecute, systematically, the previous administration, or threaten prosecutions against the previous administration, based on policy differences.

Is that what we've come to in this country? That if we have a change in administration from one party to another, that we then use the tools of the government to go systematically after the policy disagreements that we have with the previous administration? Now that may be fine in some little Latin American country that's run by, you know, the latest junta. It may be the way that they do things in Chicago. But that's not the way we do things here in America.

Hmmmm. Last I looked, Chicago was here in America.

But more to the point: Karl's sounding like someone who's already looking over his shoulder at congressional subpoenas.

And even more to the point: Sorry, Karl, but working for the White House is not a Get Out of Jail Free card. If you broke the law -- and particularly if you and your pals are war criminals according to American law for having not merely permitted but avidly constructed a torture regime -- the appropriate justice needs meting out.

Of course, we keep hearing about how Torture Saved Us From Terrorists -- notably the overhyped and debunked "Los Angeles Tower plot."

Funny thing about that -- back in 2006, it was Wiretapping Saved Us From Terrorists.

Yes, the same overhyped "plot."

Rove will have to do better than that if he wants to stay ahead of those rapidly gaining footsteps.

The pro-Gitmo, pro-torture camp are getting all excited about a Pentagon statement that 61 former detainees from the Guantanamo Bay facility "appear to have returned to terrorism since their release from custody." But that bald figure is very misleading.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said 18 former detainees are confirmed as "returning to the fight" and 43 are suspected of having done in a report issued late in December by the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Morrell declined to provide details such as the identity of the former detainees, why and where they were released or what actions they have taken since leaving U.S. custody.
"This is acts of terrorism. It could be Iraq, Afghanistan, it could be acts of terrorism around the world," he told reporters.

Morrell said the latest figures, current through December 24, showed an 11 percent recidivism rate, up from 7 percent in a March 2008 report that counted 37 former detainees as suspected or confirmed active militants.

Only "suspects"? That's pretty thin gruel when no details are given. That March figure is itself up from a 2007 claim of 30 "returning to terror" after their release from Gitmo - but that claim was firmly debunked by reports from the hard-working Seton Hall School of Law.

Just as the Government's claims that the Guantanamo detainees "were picked up on the battlefield, fighting American forces, trying to kill American forces," do not comport with the Department of Defense's own data, neither do its claims that former detainees have "returned to the fight." The Department of Defense has publicly insisted that at least thirty (30) former Guantanamo detainees have "returned" to the battlefield, where they have been re-captured or killed. To date, however, the Department has described at most fifteen (15) possible recidivists, and has identified only seven (7) of these individuals by name. More strikingly, data provided by the Department of Defense reveals that:

- at least eight (8) of the fifteen (15) individuals identified alleged by the Government to have "returned to the fight" are accused of nothing more than speaking critically of the Government's detention policies;

- ten (10) of the individuals have neither been re-captured nor killed by anyone;

- and of the five (5) individuals who are alleged to have been re-captured or killed, two (2) of the individuals' names do not appear on the list of individuals who have at any time been detained at Guantanamo, and the remaining three (3) include one (1) individual who was killed in an apartment complex in Russia by local authorities and one (1) who is not listed among former Guantanamo detainees but who, after his death, has been alleged to have been detained under a different name.

It seems clear the people being referred to in this new statement aren't a different set of Gitmo detainess and include that spurious 30 and doubtless a bunch more too.

Moreover, not one of those named in that earlier claim had attacked Americans after his release from Gitmo and all had been released "by political appointees of the Department of Defense, sometimes over the objection of the military" rather than through the tribunals process. Seton Hall's studies also found that a bare 55% of Gitmo detainess had ever taken up arms against the US and only 8% were suspected of being members of Al Qaida. The vast bulk of Gitmo detainees had been turned in by local warlords for bounty payments with no US witnesses to their alleged involvement in terrorism at all. No wonder their recidivist rate is so low, at a Pentagon figure of 11%. That compares with "an estimated 67.5%" in the general prison population.

With Obama seemingly set on closing Gitmo down, and Susan J. Crawford, convening authority of military commissions, coming forward to say that some cases cannot be prosecuted because the evidence is indelibly stained by torture, the timing of this Pentagon "just believe us" statement is a little too pat. It is undoubtably true that some dangerous people will likely be freed because of the Bush administration's arrogant belief in its own ability to re-write law to suit itself, although the number is far lower than the Pentagon is trying to suggest. Even so, any failure to keep the public safe should be blamed on Bush and his coterie.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Accusations of voter fraud by the pro-Obama progressive group ACORN. It's the subject all the rightwing bloggers are going nuts over and now they've been joined in their prosecutory zeal by the Wall Street Journal. But looking closely at the outrage, it becomes obvious very quickly that if there is a problem at all then, "the more accurate accusation may be voter-registration fraud -- for which there appears to be plenty of checks in place to guarantee it doesn't turn into some actual voter fraud."

The McCain-Palin campaign is being careful in its wording, limiting its direct accusations while hinting at far more. A current fundraising email under Sarah Palin's signature says:

The left-wing activist group, ACORN, is now under investigation for voter registration fraud in a number of battleground states. ACORN's political action committee has endorsed Barack Obama and Senator Obama himself has said, "I have been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career." The Obama Campaign even paid more than $800,000 to an ACORN affiliate for "get out the vote activity." And now we find out that ACORN is suspected of voter registration fraud.

... We've always known the Obama-Biden Democrats will do anything to win this November, but we didn't know how far their allies would go. The Obama-supported, far-left group, ACORN, has been accused of voter registration fraud in a number of battleground states.

The media, in the main, are only too happy to pile on - as this compilation of reports by a rightwing YouTuber illustrates:

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