The number of people who died from AIDS since November 26, 2007:
17,333 [taken 2:30 PM Novmber 28, 2007]. Robert Wilson’s
Toplogical III behind it. Science Center, North Yard.

I was living in New York City¹ when it broke out². It was “a gay disease” at the time. The wrath of God? Or act of man? In any case, it is a “gay disease” no longer. Especially not in Africa where it is much more prevalent than the U.S. The American gay community organized for the medical community to search for a cure and organized to promote safe sex practices especially in their own community. Research has not found a cure. It has found lots of things that help a little and some things that help some. The latter are quite expensive. Lives can be prolonged in America, but not in Africa. The gay activists bemoan the resurgence of AIDS in their midst. Their fellows have grown tired of being careful.

That’s the situation as I understand it, but then I haven’t been following the pandemic anything like carefully. Perhaps not having had a date in this Millenium has made me feel immune. Or perhaps newer shocks have pushed out the old.

The good news is that Harvard is gearing up to celebrate World AIDS Day. Included, the lighting of:

They have related events schedule for slightly more than a month. I’ll try to get links.

¹I lived on the Bowery a few steps from Delancy Street at the time, but I was homeful. I shared a loft with my college friend Beriau.

²That is, the “official” Center for Disease Control outbreak.

Still at it and canvasing Harvard Square.

Dan canvasing for GreenPeace in Harvard Square. Harvard’s third

oldest building, Wadsworth House is in the background.

WikiLeaks went live again. No evidence of foul play has appeared. No explanation of the the outage has been offered either, but the TOR Project did release a new version and the release note admitted that the previous version had a bug which would cause servers to be down for hours at a time.1 WikiLeaks returned with an “open source”2 article analyzing the contents of the Guantanamo document leaked through the site earlier. Stephen Soldz of Psychologists for an Ethical APA finds further evidence of complicity between APA psychologists and Pentagon sponsored torture.

¹I apologize for taking so long to follow up. I should have “unwarranted” this rumor sooner.
²The intelligence community has adopted this phrase to describe gathering intelligence from sources that are not restricted. In this case, the “value added” is “connecting the dots” that are otherwise out in the open.

Guantánamo Bay Camp Delta Map from leaked military manual.
Courtesy WikiLeaks.org

Wired Magazine reported yesterday that:

A never-before-seen military manual detailing the day-to-day operations of the U.S. military’s Guantánamo Bay detention facility has been leaked to the web, affording a rare inside glimpse into the institution where the United States has imprisoned hundreds of suspected terrorists since 2002.

[Full Article]

The document was leaked through an “anonymized” Wiki site called WikiLeaks.org. The Wikipedia page for it notes that sometime since the leak the site “has become inaccessible”. I first heard of this from Rachel Maddow and discovered that the main site was inaccessible. I assumed Rachel had slasdoted the site, but this morning still no go. I tried several of the regional WikiLeaks sites listed on the Wikipedia page to no avail. If WikiLeaks has been the target of BlackOps, how did THEY get widely separated servers?¹

WikiLeaks used the software from WikiMedia Foundation for assembling and presenting information and the The Onion Router to provide anonymity to whistleblowers.

As of 19:20 UTC Thursday Novermber 15, 2007 these sites all are inaccessible:

• http://wikileaks.org
• http://wikileaks.org.uk
• http://wikileaks.org.au
• http://wikileaks.cn
• http://wikileaks.in
• http://wikileaks.org.nz

¹I suppose a Domain Name Server attack might make all the WikiLeaks sites “inaccessible” if, like me, you don’t know any of the IP addresses. If true, a possible countermeasure might be for a number of “above ground” friendlies to post IP addresses to the net - an alternate DNS.

What do we know? What can we do? “

Iranians for Peace and Justice [awesome site] on Boston Common 10/27/07.

Thursday, November 15th, 7:00 - 9:15 pm at
Cambridge YMCA, 820 Mass. Ave. Central Square [Note Change in Location especially DotPeace.]

The forum will feature a panel with Paula Gutlove and Gordon Thompson, who co-convene the US-Iran Working Group on Health Science Cooperation and recently led a health diplomacy mission to Iran, Kaveh Afrasiabi, an Iran expert and Professor of International Relations at Bentley College and Anne Miller, New Hampshire Peace Action director, who visited Iran in 2006 as part of a “peace between peoples” delegation and is organizing on peace issues for the presidential primaries. Following brief presentations, there will be time for questions, information sharing with local peace and justice groups and brainstorming ways to respond.

The forum is sponsored by AFSC, Cambridge Peace Commission, Mass. Peace Action, IPPNW/PSR¹, Cambridge UJP, WILPF, Middle East Crisis Coalition² and Greater Boston United for Justice with Peace.

For more information, people can contact the Cambridge Peace Commission at peace@cambridgema.gov 617-349-4694 or Mass. Peace Action www.masspeaceaction.org 617-354-2169

¹International Physicians for the Prevention of War [Google translate]

²Their page is parked. I tried.

Representative Dennis Kucinich today introduced a “priveleged resolution” H. Res. 799¹ to impeach Ricard B. Cheney. It is essentially the same as his previous motion to impeach H. Res. 333² which was blocked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. A privileged motion, if not tabled or referred, must be debated and voted upon. House Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer [D. Maryland] introduced a motion to table, but the Republicans voted it down! The fifteen minute vote lasted an hour and five minutes with many Republicans who had initially voted to table changing their votes. [Brent Budowsky thinks they may have outsmarted themselves.] Eventually some Democrats who had initially voted to table followed suit. The House voted 218-194 on Steny Hoyer’s motion to refer to the Judiciary Committee.

The corporate media take the view that this is a campaign stunt that has no chance of further action. The referral to House Judiciary, in their view, amounts to killing it. But polls indicate that 54% of the American people favor impeachment. Many municipalities have passed impeachment resolutions. Needless to say, “alternative media” have a different view. Bradblog has a “waffling” statement from John Conyers. “Waffling” is in his view, better than “not on the table.” Paul Reickhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, told Rachel Maddow that “this story has legs.” AfterDowningStreet.org, who sponsor ImpeachCheney, view it as a hopeful sign and a cause for action. If you would like to have your name read into the Congressional record, check them out.

¹Full text from the Library of Congress. It’s easier to read than the text on Kucinich’s website. Note that resolutions [H. Res.] and bills [H.R.] have separate numbering schemes.

²Full text from the Library of Congress. An easier to read slightly polished version of the full text by Mathew Cardinale of the Atlanta Progressive News. An easy way to compare 333 and 799 is to open them in adjacent tabs and align them vertically. Flipping tabs will cause differences to appear as “motion”.

The nomination of Michael Mukasey to replace Torture Alum Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General was voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee 11-8. It now goes to the full Senate.

Coalition member demands “Habeas Now!”.
University Hall April 26, 2007.
Photo: Harvard Anti-Torture Coalition

When Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey was asked if he would condemn the use of waterboarding¹, he sounded a lot like portly Sargent Schultz in Hogan’s Heroes, “I know nothing, nothing.” The Harvard Anti-Torture Coalition, who did some very fine work busting Torture Alum Alberto Gonzales , reacted, “We Drown in Silence“. But they came up fighting last Friday, urging us to call our Senators to oppose the nomination. They provide phone numbers. There is still time, since the Senate Judiciary Committee vote is tomorrow Nov. 6. Pundits believe that the chances of stopping the nomination in Committee are much better than stopping it on the floor of the full Senate.

The Stop Torture front page.

John Nichols, who writes for the Nation and the Capitol Times, says that over the weekend U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold launched a new campaign to block approval of the nomination.

²Note the Post-Orwellian locution for “prisoner” and “torture”.

I’m very late in reporting on my field trip to D.C.¹ and the first annual teach-in “Confronting the Global Triple Crisis - Climate Change, Peak Oil, Global Resource Depletion & Extinction” and nearly missed my opportunity to pump up the National Day of Climate Action. But if you are already convinced or even just curious y’all come

Saturday November 3, 2007.

For the Boston folks a few possibilities:

8:45 AM Cambridge City Hall - “Walk for a Climate Revolution” arriving at St. Paul’s Cathedral (near Park St T) at:

10:30 AM St. Paul’s Cathedral (near Park St T) - “The BIG One” will conclude about 12:00 N with a send off for the:

12:00 N St. Paul’s Cathedral (near Park St T) - “Revolutionary Ride” stopping at Alewife T station @ 1:00 PM then on to Concord. You CAN take a bike on the Red Line .

Otherwise follow the “Join an Action” link on the Step It Up 2007 website.

For the “my revolutionary fervor is bigger than yours” crowd, I will simply point out that Bill Mckibben, who organized this and the first one last year, caught some tear gas at the WTO demonstration a while back. Can a former Crimson President have street cred? Darfur, by the way, is about oil, imperialism, AND global warming.²

¹by carbon friendly public transportation.

²IOU a cite.