artappraiser's Blog

My Dashboard just quit working,

2010-09-14T18:38:35Z

just a "heads up" for everyone else still using their dashboard that this might be happening to as well.

I get this error message trying to access it:

Movable Type
An error occurred

Can't call method "id" on an undefined value at /var/www/cgi-bin/mt-current/plugins/CommunityDashboard/lib/CommunityDashboard/App/Community.pm line 11.

For those who want to get into the Discus comment tracking (for comments outside reader blogs,) my post explaining that is here. (Or, if TPM Reader Blogs become hard to access, a copy can be accessed off-site here.)

I got an error message the first time I tried to go into Movable Type to post this entry, too.

Good news: the new TPM system does have tracking of comments by user, and "Dashboard" style capability

2010-09-09T13:30:00Z

RE-PUBLISHED for those who missed it the first time.

Thanks to teamwork, starting with Wendy Davis noticing on my last thread that there was something strange going on when she hovered over the new comments, and me trying to figure out what we had or didn't have, and getting it very wrong at first, and today with Bwakfat and stillidealistic on readytoblowagasket's thread, we figured it out:

that we have a very nice, useful system of tracking of comments by user, provided by Disquis.com's management of the comments everywhere on the site (except for the Reader Blogs section, which is still using the site's older "Dashboard" system.)

You access every user's comments at their avatar (This is the new system comments, and not reader blogs.)

If you use Internet Explorer, you should be able to click right through from the avatar to their comments listed on the Disquis site, a page dedicated to that user, "My Profile." There you will see the links to get back to the TPM's threads that the comments are on.

If you use Firefox, it seems it does not click through for everyone but if you hover on it you will get the url and then right click and you can "open link in new tab" or "open link in new window."

It's similar on a Mac/Safari, bwakfat says: I have a mac, and control+click lets me open the link in a new tab.

Disquis has other tracking services for website commenters that they offer, but I haven't checked them out much yet. Go to their "About" page if you're interested. Their home page is disqus.com (no "www").

Note that this only works for comments, not for blog posts, because Disquis is only managing this site's comments. So for Josh Marshall for example, you can only get access from an avatar on a comment made by him, not from his avatar on a blog post.

Like many others, I am concerned about combining registrations at all these collation sites, and also worry that doing it "wrong" may screw up logging in at places. So if anyone has anything to say pro or con about this service, or suggestions from using it elsewhere, please do.

UPDATE: Stillidealistic says it appears that you can get functions just like the old "Dashboard":

More exploring on discus...

If you go to someone's avatar, click to pull up their page, subscribe to them. Then when you pull up your account, your comments are listed, as are those of the people you subscribe to, in order, just like on our dashboards, now!

Posted by stillidealistic

September 4, 2010 9:43 PM | Permalink

but also warns that you should check out what else they have on you there:

Now here's something interesting. I went over to discus and tried to set up an account, only it's already there, and I didn't sign up for it, so it must be an automatic thing.
...And, when I checked my comments, it picked up one I made at an off the wall site a year ago, back during the Whole Foods debate.
Point is...this thing connects up basically everything you do on the web under that name, so keep your stories straight! Ha! You don't wanna be saying one thing one place, and something else somewhere else!
Posted by stillidealistic in reply to a comment from artappraiser
September 4, 2010 9:15 PM | Permalink

Any possibility that TPM management can turn on exporting tool so reader bloggers can transfer their blogs?

2010-09-06T15:03:20Z

If there is a decision to take reader blogs off line for a while or permanently, can management turn on the Export function on Tools menu on the Movable Type for reader bloggers so that they can export blogs to another venue like Google Blogger? For a short time before you take the Movable Type away?

See for example,

MovableType2Blogger:

http://movabletype2blogger.appspot.com/

Just askin' in case it would be a simple thing to do....I'm sure everyone would understand if it put too much strain on your resources.

TPM "public" service announcements revealed! [UPDATED Aug. 28 5:45pm]

2010-08-28T19:21:55Z

In my experience as a member here since at least 2005, announcements about the current state of the site and its future are often hidden away as comments on threads that many users don't see. I am taking the opportunity I still have to blog here (which was admittedly difficult and also seems to be tentative and iffy) to change that.

Here's the most important one in my humble opinion, with my bold highlighting. I think it's something every user here should know, not just the people who happen to return to read comments on Schmed's thread.

Schmed, let me try to address the question of how this is better from the user's perspective.
Some of this I address in this comment on another thread. http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/d/a/dan_k/2010/08/amateur-hour-on-the-internets.php#comment-4082928

More generally, when the kinks are worked out, users will have less annoyance with spam -- which disqus can handle and MT could not. The login system will be much more robust -- no getting knocked offline, no getting emails saying you're using the wrong password when you're not etc. On top of that, once we have a secure and functioning log in system we can build features that actually work and are reliable on top of it.

That's the plus side.

On the down side some functionality is being lost, in least in the short term. The dashboard system will no longer work. Temporally we will also not be allowing new people to set up reader blogs and we are suspending access to reader blogs that have not been accessed in more than six months. We have carved out a portion of the site (the active reader blogs) to continue using the old system because of the importance of reader blogs and the time people have invested in them. I hope in relatively short order we'll be able to migrate them to a new system that will allow us to allow new users the ability again to start their own reader blogs. For now though, only the existing reader blogs will continue.

Again, I give some of the wheres and whys for this in the comment at the link above. But the gist is that we could no longer afford the staff time commitment or the money it was costing us to keep the old system going. And even though there's some pain involved we knew that we could create a better system by moving to the new open login system we've created.
Posted by Josh Marshall
August 28, 2010 12:42 AM | Permalink

Another comment:

]]> Oy. Why be rational when a little conspiracy is so much more fun? As you can see, some of the functions that were supposed to work didn't. And that's led to some complications. But needless to say, the idea that this was "some sort of racket somehow designed to steer money into Talking Points Marshall's pockets" is just crazy paranoia.

Here's a reality check. TPM, if I don't say so myself, is a great news organization. It's also a small organization with a small business staff and one full time technologist. It also operates on small budgets. Running the comments system through MT with almost 200k registered users was not only breaking down on numerous fronts, the scale of it was costing literally thousands of dollars of month to maintain. To give you a sense of the scale roughly 25% of the server costs went to running the site in the sense of having articles published, pictures hosted, and all the functionality. About 75% at one level or another went to maintaining the database of registered users and their comments. That made no sense, especially because those costs weren't maintaining the system well. It was still in a state of near collapse and getting worse almost by the day.

Not only was the system not functioning well. But we also couldn't add new functionality to the site because we'd be building on this non-working foundation. All of that led us to make these changes.

Now it's bumpier than I would have liked. And if people want to complain or make fun of us, we can take it. I understand it's annoying, though I think some of the comments are ungenerous given the amount of work being done by the people running the site to keep it all going, etc. But seeing this as some sort of secret plan to make money off peoples comments? I mean, that's off in 9/11 was in an inside job territory.

As I've said, I understand the frustration. I'm confident in short order this will be a much better system than the flawed one we were dealing with. And over time it will continue to improve. The whole tech and publishing staff is going to be fielding questions and doing fixes over the weekend.

Posted by Josh Marshall
in reply to a comment from Dan K
August 28, 2010 12:18 AM | Permalink

EDITED AUGUST 28, 5PM, TO ADD two more comments by Josh Marshall and the more public posts by him and other staff:

Let me try again to clear up the remaining questions and confusion. First, no one's content (by which I mean any old comments and any reader blog posts) are going anywhere. When I say we're suspending access to certain blogs, what that means is that people will not be able to post them anymore. But the writing and the url the particular pages are at are not going anywhere. So while you can off course copy them and repost them elsewhere there is no need to. Because they'll be here tomorrow, next month, next year and so on.

But let me provide some context to why this is happening. Over the years people have set up roughly 180,000 reader blogs at TPM. In many cases people didn't even know they were setting up blogs since one was set up automatically when someone registered to comments. I'm at home now so I don't have the exact numbers at my fingertips, but the gist is that the vast majority of those blogs have never been posted to. Of the six thousand or so that have ever been used/posted to, only a few hundred are active -- which we defined as having been posted to within the last six months.

What this means is that we have several hundred bloggers who are making any use of the service at all but TPM is footing the bill for keeping active server capacity -- which in this case really means database capacity -- for almost 200,000 of them. To put it in round numbers we're paying in the high 5 figures a year for an infrastructure that is barely being used. And we cannot afford that. Add to this, as I've noted elsewhere, that the MT infrastructure for commenting and blogging, did not really work at that scale and the company that makes MT, Six Apart, is slowly withdrawing support for the use of MT for sites that operate at our scale. So we can tremendous costs running a system that did not work well and that there was no to fix.

As I said, nothing that anyone has written here is going anywhere. Suspending access simply means that for the person who set up a reader blog two years ago, did one post and never did another, if they show up tomorrow to do a second post they will not be able to post it. Their existing single post will still be there. But they will not be able to post another. If things still aren't clear let me know and i'll try to clarify.

Posted by Josh Marshall August 28, 2010 9:43 AM | Permalink

At a certain point this just becomes paranoia and victimhood. I cannot be more clear. No, this does not lead to any more revenue for TPM. This does not lead to more effective targetting of ads. No ads you are seeing are tied to or better targetted because of the login process.

More on why we made the change in this comment here.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/s/c/schmedley/2010/08/brave-new-tpm.php#comment-4083346

A lot of these services, FB especially do want to find ways to suck more information about of users. But we specifically built this system so that that does not happen. Al Shaw, our developer and Erik Hinton, our tech fellow, built a system that uses the authentication services these systems provide without sucking data from FB to TPM or allowing FB to do the reverse.

I understand people are sensitive about privacy and change that isn't well explained. But if I sometimes sound touchy about these questions, here's why. TPM now has any operating budget of upwards of 2 million dollars a year. It has twenty employees. Most of our resources go to news production and virtually all of our revenue comes from running ads on news pages. The reader community part of the site at TPMCafe makes up only a tiny fraction of site's traffic and brings in essentially no revenue. But it's responsible for the majority of our server and site infrastructure costs. Believe me, I'm not expecting anybody to shed a tear over this. But if I were trying to maximize revenues, it would be an open and shut case. We'd just shut this part of the site down.

So I get people's annoyance and I get mad at us when we don't handle things perfectly and don't communicate well. But as a company and as individuals we're actually putting a lot of work and resources into maintaining this part of the site and keeping access to all the content that's ever been written here as something like a sacred trust.

So, no, this isn't a secret plan to make money off you. If we ever started pooling data to offer to advertisers we would make it very clear what we're doing and provide ample notification. But we're not. This is a plan to use our resources wisely and not spend money we cannot afford to spend on a system that is not working in any case. That's the reality. If you refuse to believe it, there's really no more I can offer.

Posted by Josh Marshall in reply to a comment from Purple State August 28, 2010 9:58 AM | Permalink

More On New Comments System

Josh Marshall | August 27, 2010, 7:29PM, TPM Editors Blog

More details and answers to your questions on our new comments system after the jump. As expected, some of you are experiencing some glitches and difficulties with the new comments and login system we rolled out today. First, our apologies for the trouble. And thanks to all of you who've written in. Let me try to answer some of the questions we've been asked most.

What if I don't want to login using my Facebook, Google, Yahoo or Twitter accounts?
Most users have an account with one of these services. However, a small number of you do not. If you don't have or don't want to use an account with one of these services, next week we're rolling out a TPM specific login using O-Auth. That way you'll have a way to login even if you don't want to use any of these other services.

How do I get back or use my existing TPM username or identity?
If you have been a long-time TPM user, when you registered with us you gave us an email address. If you used that same email address to sign up for Facebook, Google, Yahoo or Twitter, then our system will automatically import your old identity into the new system. To put that in plain English, your comments will show up with your old TPM user name and avatar. If for some reason that does not work, next week we'll be rolling out a setting that will let you pick a new TPM-specific user name or avatar

I want to comment but I don't want to do it under my own name, which I'd have to do with one of these other accounts.
As noted, most of you should be able to automatically import your old identity into the new system. If not, you should be able to use the new features we're rolling out next week (the ones noted in #1 and #2) to get around that problem.

Why'd we do this?
The basic reason is, our old login system was breaking down. It simply could not handle our growth. We realized we could not use our resources and money to continually patch bugs, so we decided to build a new system from scratch -- one that was stable and would allow to build new features on. This decision was not taken quickly or capriciously. So we built a new system based on the OAuth framework, which is quickly becoming an industry standard.

Check Out Our Revamped Comments
Kourosh Karimkhany | August 27, 2010, 4:20PM, TPM Editors Blog

We're revamping two parts of Talking Points Memo today -- comments and the login process. In the past few months, some of you have experienced trouble registering on TPM and logging in to comment. Most frustrating, some of you were getting kicked out of the system after having composed long comments and losing your work (it happened a couple times to ourselves). We realized bug batches weren't going to do the trick, so we rebuilt the two systems from scratch. More about the changes after the jump.

First, we rebuilt the login system. Starting today, you can log in with profiles you have built on other networks like Google, Yahoo, Facebook or Twitter. Not to get too technical, but we decided to use the OAuth infrastructure because it is becoming an industry standard, preserves privacy and is rock-solid.

Second, we partnered with a company called Disqus for the new commenting system. We like them quite a bit because commenting is all they do, and they are very good at it (while we are not). For example, at times our current commenting system gets inundated with spam; theirs is far more spam-resistant. They also have neat features that we would not be able to build. There is a downside: Starting this afternoon you cannot post comments on articles published before 4 pm Eastern Friday.

Usually, when a site makes some substantial changes to its core functionality, the main question from its most devoted audience members is: Why are you doing this? Why can't we keep everything as it is? Why are you rocking the boat? Here's the answer. Industry standards for login, commenting, sharing and everything tied to it have changed dramatically over the last two or three years. TPM is big enough that we have lots of registered users (almost 200,000) but not so big that it makes sense for us to spend the resources to maintain and perfect our own completely separate login and identity ecosystem. To do so requires lots of staff time that we think are better spent on what we do best, news reporting. We're confident that the final result will be smooth logins, easier commenting, easier sharing and less comment spam.

Now let me emphasize a few points:

* All of our privacy policies and practices remain the same. None of these changes will force you to give any more info to any outside service or to us for that matter.

* While we are relying on Disqus, an outside vendor, for the system that runs the commenting, they will not be getting information you do not want to reveal to them.

* We will not force you into registering with yet another network. You can use an existing identity (i.e., your login from Facebook, Gmail, Twitter or Yahoo).

* If you have an identity with TPM (a user name or avatar by which people know you), our automated system will let you import it seamlessly. All you have to do is log in with another network -- like Yahoo or Gmail -- that has the same email address on record as you registered with TPM.

A final point. We do not expect the switch to be glitch free. Inevitably, some snafus will arise. We apologize in advance for these. As part of this change we will also be phasing out the "dashboard" function on the site, though we plan on bringing back similar functionality in the future. But we had to make these changes because we had outgrown our old infrastructure and we could not patch it. More important, we will be launching a bunch of new features in the coming months that need this rock-solid foundation. We're eager to hear your questions and comments so send them along.

Our new Login System

By Al Shaw - August 27, 2010, 5:19PM, TPMCafe

Since we pushed our new federated login system live about an hour ago, we've gotten a few emails from regulars with concern about how to reclaim their existing usernames and avatars despite the fact that we're phasing out native login. The way it works is this: if the email address you originally signed up with at TPM matches the email address on your Google, Yahoo or Facebook account, the system will automatically reclaim your username and avatar when you sign in. You will no longer need to login with a username and password to use this identity.

We know that your email on file may not match one of those accounts, and at the moment there is no way to reclaim a username without that matchup, but it is something we're actively working on, and we'll keep you posted on the progress.

Another concern people have expressed is wanting to comment under a pseudonym. As it stands now, logging in with Google or Facebook may default you to your real name. We're actively working on a feature to allow custom usernames for people who have logged in under any service.

Thanks for helping us roll out a better login and commenting experience at TPM!

Obama's surprise private press briefing on Iran policy

2010-08-06T05:16:48Z

August 4, 2010:

The White House chose an unusual way to send its signals to Tehran. A small group of journalists was invited to a "background session" on Iran policy with "senior National Security Staff." The briefer turned out to be Obama. An official said later that the president plans more of these unscripted, informal meetings.

from the report by David Ignatius, Washington Post columnist, one of those present.

Here are some of the others present with links to their reports:

Robert Kagan, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace writing at the Washington Post;

Christiane Amanpour, ABC News;

Marc Ambinder, The Atlantic;

Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic

Also present:Carol Giacomo of the New York Times editorial board, NBC's David Gregory, and The Economist's Peter David.

Here is a backgrounder on related from Laura Rozen.

"Netroots" does its own Breitbart-style stuff on Geithner and Warren

2010-07-22T02:01:21Z

As I said here on Dean Baker's thread, this original Huffington Post story by Shahien Nasiripour, purporting that Geithner was opposing Elizabeth Warren's nomination, was a rumor from one unidentified and un-described source, combined with the author's suppositions that Geithner must hate Warren because she questioned him roughly in a hearing.

Because "netroots" et. al. hates Geithner, they are ready and willing to believe this rumor, disseminate it and even form groups to fight him about something they have imagined he is doing, and even make advertising buys spreading the rumor.

Meanwhile, it's not really appropriate for him to voice public preferences on this matter, as he has to work with whoever eventually fills the position. But because of all this madeup crap, he's been pushed to do so:

Geithner: Warren Would Be Good Consumer Watchdog

July 21, 2010

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday that Elizabeth Warren has the credentials needed to head the new Bureau of Consumer Protection set up as part of a landmark financial reform overhaul.

In an interview on PBS' "Charlie Rose Show," Geithner was asked whether Warren was Treasury's top candidate for the consumer watchdog post but said it was President Barack Obama's decision to make.

"Let me just say she is an incredibly capable, effective advocate for reform," Geithner said. Treasury has denied rumors of conflict between Geithner and Warren....

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said earlier on Wednesday that Warren would be a "terrific" nominee to head the agency.

The position is considered a key one but the timing of an appointment is unclear and there are other potential candidates besides Warren, though Geithner offered lavish praise."She was way ahead of her time, way ahead of the country in pointing out what was actually happening in the credit busies," Geithner said of Warren. "So like I say, I think she'd do a great job in that position."

[.....]

Have so many in the blogosphere lost all skills to read skeptically? What is going on when people active on poltitical websites no longer seem to realize that rumors often have hidden agendas? And do so many, just because they are on a site where they like the slant, really believe everything they read on it is true? Has the internet become a really nasty tool of deception in politics? Scary folks, scary-- reminds me of the Bushies' "believe it and it will be true."

I know that Geithner may be covering his ass in the above statements. But come on, at least they are actual quotes from an actual person with a name, a face and a job with major major responsibilities, and not rumors from a single anonymous source.

If you feel strongly about Elizabeth Warren for this position, of course you should write your Congresspersons and the White House. But my suggestion is to leave Geithner out of it, because if you don't, you will sound like gullible, easily manipulated people who need not be taken seriously. They'll figure if you fall for that one, you'll fall for others, too.

A transcript of the July 7 interview of President Obama by Israeli TV

2010-07-09T01:38:55Z

is here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/interview-president-yonit-levi-israeli-tv

I noticed bits and pieces, like the following, are being mentioned in a lot of summary news articles:

Q Are you concerned that Prime Minister Netanyahu might try unilaterally to attack Iran?
THE PRESIDENT: You know what, I think that the relationship that -- the U.S. and Israel is sufficiently strong and that neither of us try to surprise each other but we try to coordinate on issues of mutual concern. And that approach is one that I think Prime Minister Netanyahu is committed to.

I decided I would be better informed by reading the whole thing, and recommend the same to others

I also noticed Israeli media mentioning some things John McCain said on his trip this week to Jerusalem (with Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham). after meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Israeli army chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi. But those pieces are simply quoting things from this Washington Post article, and one might as well go to the original source:

McCain: Israel not planning strike on Iranian nuclear facilities

by Janine Zacharia from Jerusalem, Washington Post, July 7, 2010.

Civil war in Pakistan continued

2010-07-02T18:16:12Z

"Those who still pretend that we are not a nation at war are complicit in these deaths," said Farahnaz Ispahani, a spokeswoman for President Asif Ali Zardari.

from
Suicide Bombers Strike Sufi Shrine in Pakistan by Sabrina Tavernise and Waqar Gilani from Islamabad, New York Times, July 1, 2010.

LAHORE: The death toll of Data Darbar incident rose to 45 on Friday while Chief Justice Lahore High Court has taken a suo motu notice of the incident and has called the CCPO Lahore to appear before the court on July 5.

A day of mourning was observed in Lahore while protests were also held against the suicidal attacks in all major cities. People from all walks of life severely condemn the incident.

Security was on high alert due to Friday's prayers. A number of religious and political organisations have announced Saturday as a day of mourning.

Meanwhile, the scenes of carnage at Data Darbar were caught on closed circuit televisions which recorded the bombers in the final moments before they blew themselves up....

from
Death toll rises to 45; LHC takes suo motu notice, Dawn, July 2, 2010.
]]> LAHORE: At least 10 people, including two masterminds, allegedly involved in attack on the Garhi Shahu worship place of Ahmedi community have been arrested on Friday by Lahore police along with a huge cache of arms and ammunitions.

Police claimed to have recovered at least 20,000 kg of explosives, 100 Kalashnikovs and 18 suicide jackets from different areas of the city.

According to sources, the two masterminds had gone to the North Waziristan's Datta Khel area and one of them holds a diploma in engineering....
from
Ten arrested for attacks on Ahmedis in Lahore, Dawn, July 2, 2010.

To be updated intermittenly over time in comments.

Like a play or a movie

2010-06-29T03:09:57Z

Jessie Gugig, 15, said she could not believe the charges, especially against Mrs. Murphy, who was an accomplished gardener.

"They couldn't have been spies," she said. "Look what she did with the hydrangeas."

from "In Ordinary Lives, U.S. Sees the Work of Russian Agents" by Scott Shane and Charlie Savage, June 28, 2010.

Actually, this one particular play and movie: "Pack of Lies".

Any other TPM users get a malware infection recently?

2010-06-28T16:58:17Z

I got a malware infection on June 20 which activated shortly after using this site.

Now I just noticed member Emma Zahn saying in the following comment that she recently got one too:

Thanks. I would expand on my remarks except for two things:

1) Just after submitting my last post my computer got hit with Antivirus7. I admit calling them jerks was a bit harsh but really....was a malware attack really called for? :)

2) I am out of Ritalin.

Maybe later. You're welcome to take the point and run with it if you like.

Posted by Emma Zahn in reply to a comment from David Seaton
June 24, 2010 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink

They were not the same, mine was "AV Security Suite," hers was "AntiVirus 7."

BUT it's curious that they are both what is known as "scareware," and very similar. Mine has been described as originated from the same root as Antivirus Soft.

These scareware thingies are really nasty, they don't just appear like fake anti-virus programs with tons of pop ups per minute, eventually redirecting your browser to porn or other junk sites, but they take over and block your real anti-virus and other protection programs (I have fully updated AVG, the paid version, and it didn't detect a known malware named to imitate it, go figure! I also have Windows Vista Business which has other protections.) They are very difficult to remove from your computer, going into the registry with files that can replicate if partially removed.

I got lucky. First I knew the warning pop ups were fishy and I didn't do what any of them directed me to do, just continued to try to close them (the latter is hopeless, they keep coming like rain.) I used Windows Restore to go two days back on my computer and then I immediately purchased and installed Malwarebytes Anti-malware software, and crossing fingers, it hasn't come back.

But I noticed that Malwarebytes just popped up when I opened TPM on Internet Explorer for the first time in a long time (instead of on Firefox where I usually view the site and where I think I caught the malware.)

Emma and I could have got it from other travels on the web but I thought the concidence was worth posting about and asking if anyone else got a malware infection soon after using this site, especially of the "scareware" type. Also, the day I got infected, I really hadn't done that many things on the internet except here.

Unfortunately, if other TPM users recently got malware infections they might still be trying to fix their computer, and not be able to see this post or comment on it.

Why Amero-centric folks should be paying attention to the Kyrgyzstan story

2010-06-18T17:03:50Z

If you have ignored the story to date, in short: there's major ethnic cleansing of the Uzbek population going on. With threat of civil war (if you can't call it that already,) 400,000 refugees, an "immense" humanitarian aid crisis involving a million (see U.N. and Red Cross), autonomous zones developing, military atrocities, and with the current provisional government (the result of an ousting of the former government via rioting,) having lost control of the south.

The U.S. has a military base there that is crucial to supplying the troops in Afghanistan.

Russia has never been thrilled with our military base there. See Medvedev's comments on that and the general situation in Kyrgyzstan in an interview with him in today's Wall Street Journal.

Afghans of Uzbek heritage are a significant part of the population of northern Afghanistan and many are bilingual in Uzbek and Persian. (Also, those who have studied al Qaeda know that some Uzbeks from the Ferghana Valley have been known among the "foreigners" causing havoc in the northwest provinces of Pakistan.)

Today's New York Times has a good summary piece filed from Osh, with added input on the U.S. government's current troubled position, as the sub-headline in the print edition says: U.S. Fretting Over Base and Rudderless Ally.

Feel free to add more stories in comments, I myself might follow it that way over the next few weeks.

Edited 7:30pm EDT to fix links.
]]>

When official Turkey and/or Iran get hepped up about the plight of the Palestinians at the hands of Israel,

2010-06-18T16:08:49Z

I like to check if they are at the same time involved in hitting back at the Kurdish independence movement. That's usually the case, as it is currently:

Turkey: May air raid killed 100 Kurdish rebels
By Selcan Hacaoglu, Associated Press, 06/18/10

ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey's military said Friday it killed as many as 120 Kurdish rebels in an air raid on rebel hideouts in northern Iraq last month and a daylong incursion by elite commandos into Iraq this week. [....]
It was the largest air assault on the rebels since a 2008 ground operation into Iraq that saw many guerrillas return to bases along the border after Turkish units withdrew. The Turkish military says around 4,000 rebels are based just across the border in Iraq and that about 2,500 operate inside Turkey. [....]

Iraq protests Iran air raid on Kurd villages
Agence France Presse, 05 May 2009

BAGHDAD -- Iraq on Tuesday summoned the Iranian ambassador to protest over an air raid targeting alleged separatists in the country's autonomous Kurdish region, the foreign ministry said.
"The foreign ministry presented an official letter of protest to the Iranian ambassador in Baghdad over Iranian forces' bombardment of border villages on Iraqi territory," it said in a statement.
t went on to demand an "immediate halt to these sorts of violations which continue to have negative repercussions on relations between the two countries."[....]

]]> Iran Tests Iraqi Resolve at the Border
By Timothy Williams and Namo Abdulla, New York Times, June 16, 2010

ALI RASH, Iraq -- This remote village high in the rugged mountains along the border with Iran has been deserted, its people having fled Iranian air and artillery bombardments with everything they could carry and whatever livestock that could be coaxed down the steep mountain trails.[....]

The Iranian government has said its bombing campaigns are necessary to weaken Kurdish guerrillas that strike in Iran and take refuge in Iraq. The only confirmed casualty has been a 14-year-old girl. [....]

Kurdish refugees say that because the bombs have burned their wheat fields and killed livestock, even when the bombardment ends it will be years before the villages will be economically secure again.

In the meantime, they get water from relief agencies and buy food from itinerant traders who charge twice the price found in markets.

Some have been living in tents for weeks, and health officials say unsanitary conditions in the camps may lead to the outbreak of disease.

Sabria Salih, 26, who has an 8-month-old child, said Ali Rash -- the village she fled from more than four weeks ago -- had come under heavy attack from Iranian forces.

"We have left almost everything behind," she said. "We have only some blankets."

She said the Iranian government was mistaken if it believed that the villagers were hiding guerrillas.

"No P.J.A.K. has been killed or injured in the attacks," she said. "And no one has ever seen P.J.A.K. in our village." Edit to add:A special bonus piece for those concerned with foreign lobbies in the U.S.: here's a March piece that gives an idea about the strength and numbers of the Turkish lobby, and how important Congressional resolutions supporting Turkey are to Turkey.

"The Spill, The Scandal and the President"

2010-06-10T04:09:10Z

For the first time ever, I glanced at the TPM Twitter Rooms links on the front page. On the "Democratic Insiders" feed, I caught Peter Daou recommending this piece as a "Brutal Rolling Stone piece about administration's failings in the #Gulf disaster."

I just finished it. And it is brutal.

The Spill, The Scandal and the President

The inside story of how Obama failed to crack down on the corruption of the Bush years - and let the world's most dangerous oil company get away with murder.

By Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone, Jun 08, 2010

My teaser quote:

Like the attacks by Al Qaeda, the disaster in the Gulf was preceded by ample warnings - yet the administration had ignored them.

U.N. News Service: the world doesn't care much

2010-06-04T20:34:14Z

30 April 2010 -

UN aid chief urges DR Congo authorities to enhance protection of civilians
[....]

"Civilians continue to suffer enormously and disproportionately in this armed conflict," he said in Mwenga, where he helped launch a new feeding programme of the UN World Food Programme (WFP).

The Kivu provinces have been ravaged by armed conflict [....] where an estimated 1.4 million people are internally displaced, more than 70 per cent of whom live with host families, increasing the burden on a population with already-scarce resources.

Civilians face frequent human rights abuses, OCHA said, with villages routinely being looted and burnt down by armed groups.

Armed men from all combatant parties commit sexual violence. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) said that last year alone, 8,300 rapes were committed against women in the Kivus, an average of 160 rapes every week.
[....]

1 June 2010 -

DR Congo: UNICEF warns a lack of funding hinders efforts to assist displaced

Nearly 1.9 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) - half of them children - continue to live away from their homes after having been displaced by armed conflict, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported today, adding that a lack of funds was hindering efforts to continue assisting them.[....]

4 June 2010 -

Low funding threatens humanitarian work in DR Congo, UN warns

A funding shortfall for relief operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) could lead to a major reduction in aid to hundreds of thousands of people in the African country, where conflict in some areas has displaced a large slice of the population, the United Nations warned today.

UN agencies and their non-governmental organizations (NGO) partners have requested $828 million for humanitarian projects in the DRC this year, but only $249 million - or 30 per cent - of that amount has been made available, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The available funding include $70 million carried over from 2009, an indication of how slowly new contributions have been trickling in this year.

"If resource mobilization continues at this pace, total financing for 2010 is likely to be below $500 million, or less than 60 per cent of the of requirements, with a shortfall of over $328 million," said Fidèle Sarassoro, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for DRC.

"This would have disastrous consequences for humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable," Mr. Sarassoro added in a press release issued jointly with the DRC Government.
[....]

Maybe they should arrange an occupation by Israel to get everyone interested?

Horrible breaking news: BP says the "top kill" has failed

2010-05-29T23:22:17Z

CNN TV was just covering it, an official announcement by BP's CEO Suttle.

Here's the New York Times on it from Houston:

'Top Kill' Fails to Plug Leak; BP Readies Next Approach
By Clifford Krauss and Leslie Kaufman

Since I was here commenting, and I didn't see any other posts on it, I thought I'd start a thread so people can use it for discussion or more incoming news until a better post on it comes along.