As part of our efforts to continually upgrade the facilities at this website we are running a trial of our MicroFidelity® download system this issue. This enables higher quality downloads playable on all digital playback devices compatible with the MP3 format. For mutual peace of mind and convenience we will be accepting payment via PayPal.

Our first download is a higher quality digital download of the very limited edition GunSluts single that was previously only available during the last world tour.

We are also pleased to announce our link up as an Amazon Associates site. All commercially available CDs from The The can now be purchased via our Showroom simply by clicking on the respective ‘Buy Now’ button.

We also have a range of T-shirts and merchandising currently in design and production. These will be available soon. 

Noam Chomsky interviewed by Kaveh Afrasiabi - August 2006

www.chomsky.info

Do you agree with the argument that Israel's military offensive in Lebanon is "legally and morally justified?"

Noam Chomsky: The invasion itself is a serious breach of international law, and major war crimes are being committed as it proceeds. There is no legal justification.

The "moral justification" is supposed to be that capturing soldiers in a cross-border raid, and killing others, is an outrageous crime. We know, for certain, that Israel, the United States and other Western governments, as well as the mainstream of articulate Western opinion, do not believe a word of that. Sufficient evidence is their tolerance for many years of US-backed Israeli crimes in Lebanon, including four invasions before this one, occupation in violation of Security Council orders for 22 years, and regular killings and abductions. To mention just one question that every journal should be answering: When did Nasrallah assume a leadership role?

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by Greg Palast

www.gregpalast.com

It has been a very good war for Big Oil — courtesy of OPEC price hikes. The five oil giants saw profits rise from $34 billion in 2002 to $81 billion in 2004, year two of Iraq’s “transition to democracy.”
But this tsunami of black ink was nothing compared to the wave of $113 billion in profits to come in 2005: $13.6 billion for Conoco, $14.1 billion for Chevron and the Mother of All Earnings, Exxon’s $36.1 billion.

For these record-busting earnings, the industry could thank General Tommy Franks and the troops in Baghdad, the insurgents and their oil-supply-cutting explosives. But, most of all, they had to thank OPEC and the Saudis for keeping the lid on supply even as the planet screamed in pain for crude.

When OPEC raises the price of crude, Big Oil makes out big time. The oil majors are not simply passive resellers of OPEC production. In OPEC nations, they have “profit sharing agreements” (PSAs) that give the companies a direct slice of the higher price charged.

More important, the industry has its own reserves whose value is attached, like a suckerfish, to OPECs price targets. Here’s a statistic you won’t see on Army recruitment posters: The rise in the price of oil after the first three years of the war boosted the value of the reserves of ExxonMobil Oil alone by just over $666 billion. (The devil is in the details.)

Smaller Chevron Oil, where Condoleezza Rice had served as a director, gained a quarter trillion dollars in value. Chevron named a tanker after Rice, but given the firms change in fortunes once she became National Security Advisor and then Secretary of State, they should rename the whole fleet in her honor. Altogether, I calculate that the top five oil operators saw their reserves rise in value by over $2.363 trillion