Omnes Mundum Vacimus: Tariq Ali: What to Make of 'The Capture

Rant #1:

Governor John Kitzhaber held a clandestine summit this past Monday at, Mahonia Hall .  The goal was to call lawmakers together to, Well...make law.  Laws concerning Oregon's 2011-13 budget.   Two months remain to nail down spending details on some of the biggest and thorniest parts of the budget, particularly safety-net programs for the poor and vulnerable.  Senate Democrats and Republicans have put together  a deal to cut capital gains taxes while shifting kicker tax rebates into a Rainy Day Fund. And next week, state economists will issue an updated revenue forecast.  Smart money is on ‘rain’. 

Because of the dicey nature of the budget -- and all the interest groups vying for more money -- details about the governor's meeting were kept to a minimum.

The Senate Finance and Revenue Committee approved a measure that would shift half of personal income tax kicker rebates into a state "emergency reserve fund" that could only be tapped during economic downturns. If approved by both chambers, the measure would be placed on the November 2012 ballot. In the end, the deck chairs look nice like that…but the real question the has to be addressed – and sooner rather than later is this:  Is there anyone out there in LeaderLand crazy-brave enough to tax corporations and go after off-shore accounts?  And to those who are wringing their hankies over Oregon’s “unfriendly business climate”  I would ask, ‘You’re talking about “unfriendly business” or “unfriendly climate” because they are different.  And one thing we don’t need and can’t afford is another company that wants a tax rebate - a free ride, essentially - just for doing the state the dubious favor of locating itself here.  If these companies don’t want to pay their part then why do we care if they decamp for some deregulated cesspool full of tax traitors.  How about passing a law that banks wishing to do business in the Great State of Oregon must loosen the credit lines and free up the cash reserves they are sitting on.  If banks don’t want to comply there are plenty of other bankrupt communities ready to welcome them.    It’s “USA! USDA” until the time comes to contribute to the common weal…

www.guardian.co.uk/profile/tariqali

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But in the end, Omnes mundum vacimus

The Associated Press, Reuters and virtually every other news wire in  the world has reported the not-too-surprising news that mere hours after President Obama made a calm, intelligent, statesman-like statement to the effect that his administration would not release photos of Osama bin Laden's corpse, faked pictures went viral.  Obama told the world "That is not who we are."  apparently he was wrong.  That is exactly who we are:  A ghoulish rabble parading a head on a spike through the electronic slums.  The  images are bloody, grotesque and convincing: Osama bin Laden lies dead, the left side of his head blasted away. But the pictures are fakes.

Doctored photos purporting to show bin Laden's corpse rocketed around the world on television, online via social media and in print almost as soon as his death was announced.

The pictures have spread without regard for their origin or whether the images are real. Meanwhile, scammers have piggybacked on the popularity of the images and spiked supposed online links with computer viruses.

Newsrooms and the public have been left in the tough spot of deciding what to believe when software has made doctoring photographs easier than ever. And the hunger for visual evidence of bin Laden's death may only grow now that President Barack Obama has said the government's photos will remain classified.

Still, the appetite for images remains. In perhaps the most widely distributed photo, a bloodied bin Laden appears to be missing his left eye, and he is grimacing as if he died in pain. The White House says bin Laden was shot above his left eye.

Reuters reported on its photography blog that the mouth, ear and beard in the picture exactly matched a photo the news agency had snapped of bin Laden at a news conference in 1998. The upper half of the face appears to be from a different corpse.

Another photo released on the website liveleak.com shows bin Laden lying on his back with a wound over one eye as a soldier with an American flag insignia on his shoulder stands over the body. The photo is in green and black, as if taken with a night vision lens.

The website has since retracted the photo, which liveleak.com indicated was made with a photo of bin Laden digitally stitched into a still from the 2001 movie Black Hawk Down.