| | Iran:
The next screwed-up slaughter
Ex-State Dept official:
White House planning massive Iran war| |
Excerpt:U.S. contingency planning for military action against Iran's nuclear program goes beyond limited strikes and would effectively unleash a war against the country, a former U.S. intelligence analyst said on Friday. |
U.S. soldiers ordered to "kill
or capture" Iranians in Iraq| |
Excerpt: Late last year, Mr Bush gave the military secret authorization to kill or capture members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard and any Iranian intelligence operatives suspected of arming or supporting Shiite militias in Iraq. But the policy has attracted influential skeptics inside the Bush Administration and the intelligence community who are concerned that Iran could respond by escalating the conflict.
Comment: So we're now killing all the Iranians we find in Iraq? Isn't this more or less a declaration of war? Retaliation is inevitable. In fact, it's clear that provoking retaliation against American soldiers is exactly the point. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
U.S., Israeli officials call for
Iran war at security conference| |
Scroll down to "Paper: Israeli officials prepare public for attack on Iran": Iran has been the central topic of discussion at a major security forum this week in the Israeli resort of Herzliya. Speakers at the forum have included top Israeli and U.S. officials, four U.S. presidential candidates and several leading neoconservatives, including Richard Perle and former CIA director James Woolsey. A reporter from the Financial Times wrote: "The war drums are beating pretty loudly here in Herzliya." |
U.S. warns Iran to back down| |
Excerpt: A second U.S. aircraft carrier strike group now steaming toward the Middle East is Washington's way of warning Iran to back down in its attempts to dominate the region, a top U.S. diplomat said here Tuesday.
Comment: That line is almost funny, in an absurd, Dr Strangelove kind of way. The U.S.... warning Iran... not to try to "dominate the Middle East"... Rebecca PERMANENT LINK |
Bush-Cheney looking for a
Gulf of Tonkin-like incident| |
Excerpt: Anxious to provoke Iran into a military confrontation, George W. Bush authorized, in early January, an attack on an Iranian consulate in the town of Irbil, in Iraq, capturing five staff members. This was an act of war, because it was carried out on a diplomatic compound. The Iraqi and Iranian governments have both called for the men's release.
This aggression came after the Bush-Cheney administration sent two large nuclear aircraft carriers, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the USS John C. Stennis, each accompanied by guided-missile cruisers, destroyers, frigates, submarine escorts and supply ships, to the Persian Gulf. As a consequence, the Persian Gulf is teeming with American military gear.
In this relatively small sea, such a concentration of military equipment is bound to result in accidents. Indeed, around January 8, a U.S. nuclear submarine hit a Japanese oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz near the Arabian Sea. The Strait of Hormuz connects the Persian Gulf with the Arabian Sea and is a most strategic shipping lane for transporting oil products from countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran. |
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Senate Committee rejects troop increase| |
Excerpt: By a 12-9 vote, the [Senate Foreign Relations Committee] approved a non-binding resolution telling Bush that his plan to escalate the U.S. military presence in Iraq was "not in the national interest." The full Senate will vote on the issue next week.
Comment: Yes, this is a ridiculously small baby step. We all voted in November to stop the war yesterday, and what we get in response is a non-binding (! ) resolution opposing the escalation (! ) of the war.
But remember, these are Senators. They are the moral and ethical equivalent of toddlers just learning to walk. They need us to hold their hands and coax them every inch of the way. So please grit your teeth and call or email your Senators to tell them to approve this non-binding resolution when it comes to the floor next week. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Bush wants all regulatory
agencies run by cronies| |
Excerpt: In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president's priorities.
....Business groups hailed the initiative. |
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Sickening health care
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Bush's "health plan" would encourage employers to stop insuring workers| |
Excerpt: "Well, the insurance lobby and Big Pharma are the major opponents of national health insurance. The spokesman for the trade organization of health insurance said, "We are completely and totally opposed to national health insurance. It's a life or death struggle for us." And that's a direct quote. The insurance industry is extremely powerful. They lobby. They give campaign contributions. And there's no role for a private insurance industry in an efficient, affordable well-run health insurance program.
"Big Pharma has also opposed national health insurance, because every nation that has national health insurance has turned around and negotiated with the pharmaceutical industry and forced them to lower their prices. So the Canadians and Europeans spend about 60 cents for every dollar that we do in healthcare. That is, the price of the exact same drugs that we take in the United States is about 40% lower in nations with national health insurance. The pharmaceutical industry knows that, and that's part of why they oppose national health insurance."
Comment: No matter how inured I become to these flimflam artists' outrageous con jobs I still managed to be shocked by the increasing brazenness of them.
In this interview, Dr. Woolhandler is handicapped by being a very public figure so she can not just say it directly out loud, but, if you listen carefully between the lines of what she has to say, it seems that she mostly agrees with my contention that our "health care industry" has become little more than a playground for gangsters who never had it so good and aren't about to let this golden goose fly away by giving into demands for actually providing care to sick people instead of just using illness to extort money from them.
Virtually the entire rest of the world watches this drama with stunned disbelief. If they had an economy and government so totally in the hands of criminals as it is in the U.S. they would have an easier time understanding what is going on here. Herb Ruhs, MD PERMANENT LINK
Comment: The bottom line here is that Bush wants to stop giving companies a tax break for providing health insurance. This has to be the single most efficient way to cut off health care access for the greatest number of Americans possible. Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK
Bush's health plan? Deduction cuts Social Security
Excerpt: Bush's proposal to create a tax deduction for health insurance, if enacted into law, could reduce Social Security benefits for many Americans because the deduction would apply not only to income taxes, but also to payroll taxes that go to Social Security. While most workers might welcome a cut in payroll taxes, the flip side is the less they pay into Social Security, the less they can collect when they retire. |
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White House asks court to drop illegal spying case| |
Excerpt: The Bush administration sought on Thursday to drop its appeal of a federal court ruling that concluded the government's domestic spying program is unconstitutional, saying the entire issue is moot since the surveillance now is monitored by a secret court.
Comment: Of course, we have absolutely no proof that the White House has stopped illegal spying, other than their say-so. And they coincidentally "stopped" the illegal activity just before a court was going to nail them for it. Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK
Comment: For Americans who don't live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, do broken laws disappear without prosecution when lawbreakers say they won't break the law any more? Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Army probes war contractor fraud| |
Excerpt: From high-dollar fraud to conspiracy to bribery and bid rigging, Army investigators have opened up to 50 criminal probes involving battlefield contractors in the war in Iraq and the U.S. fight against terrorism, The Associated Press has learned.
Comment: They'll probably go after the small fry while the big fish get away. Tim M. PERMANENT LINK |
Black Panthers arrested in 35-year-old
murder, confessed under torture| |
Excerpt: Two years after the killing, Taylor and Bowman were arrested in New Orleans. But a judge dismissed the charges in 1976 because of allegations the men had been tortured by police officers during an interrogation.... Two defense lawyers said Wednesday they believe the new charges are retaliation for the former Panthers' torture allegations. |
Thousands protest war in Iraq, Iran| |
Excerpt: Air Force Staff Sgt. Tassi McKee, 26, an intelligence specialist at Fort Meade, Md., said she joined the Air Force because of patriotism, travel and money for college. "After we went to Iraq, I began to see through the lies," she said.
In the crowd, signs recalled the November elections that defeated the Republican congressional majority in part because of President Bush's Iraq policy. "I voted for peace," one said.
Photos from San Francisco |
Election staff convicted in rigged Ohio recount| |
Excerpt: Two election workers were convicted Wednesday of rigging a recount of the 2004 presidential election to avoid a more thorough review in Ohio's most populous county.
Jacqueline Maiden, elections coordinator of the Cuyahoga County Elections Board, and ballot manager Kathleen Dreamer each were convicted of a felony count of negligent misconduct of an elections employee. They also were convicted of one misdemeanor count each of failure of elections employees to perform their duty. |
U.S. military lied about soldiers' deaths| |
Comment: If this was an isolated lie, one public relations officer spinning the facts into something not-so-factual but perhaps a tad more heroic-sounding, maybe you could argue that the lie doesn't matter much. ...
Fact is, America's public conversation on Iraq has been contaminated by countless lies from the White House and military command. So many of official announcements have been just plain bull, any wise observer has to doubt anything this administration says.
And now, Bush, Cheney, and their league of liars are about to attack another nation, based on another set of lies ... Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Jury finds Kerr-McGee liable for unpaid oil royalties after Interior Dept refused to act| |
Excerpt: A jury in Denver has agreed with a former top auditor for the U.S. Interior Department that Kerr-McGee had cheated the government out of millions of dollars in royalties on oil it produced in publicly owned coastal waters.
The decision, reached Tuesday by the jury after deliberations of about four hours, is a vindication for the auditor, Bobby Maxwell. He became a whistle-blower and sued Kerr-McGee as a private citizen after top officials at the Interior Department ordered him to drop his audit findings.
It is also a potentially big embarrassment for the Interior Department, which dismissed Maxwell in a "reorganization" and which had insisted that his case against Kerr-McGee had no merit.
Comment: And a reminder, for a little context about who we're dealing with, Kerr-McGee was also the employer and killer of Karen Silkwood. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK
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Baghdad: A city paralyzed by fear| |
Excerpt: Baghdad is paralyzed by fear. Iraqi drivers are terrified of running into impromptu checkpoints where heavily armed men in civilian clothes may drag them out of their cars and kill them for being the wrong religion. Some districts exchange mortar fire every night. This is mayhem beyond the comprehension of George Bush and Tony Blair. |
Maine rejects Real ID Act| |
Excerpt: Maine overwhelmingly rejected federal requirements for national identification cards on Thursday, marking the first formal state opposition to controversial legislation scheduled to go in effect for Americans next year.
Both chambers of the Maine legislature approved a resolution saying the state flatly "refuses" to force its citizens to use driver's licenses that comply with digital ID standards, which were established under the 2005 Real ID Act. It asks the U.S. Congress to repeal the law.
Comment: They're stubborn in New England. Everyone else goes along to get along, but in about ten years the U.S. will consist of only Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine... Render PERMANENT LINK |
Massive immigration raids in LA| |
Excerpt: "The police didn't just take people with deportation orders, they took anybody ... guys who were just hanging out in the street and even from a Jack in the Box restaurant ... and now people are afraid to go out," he added. |
ACLU questions Bush's
"right" to open your mail| |
Excerpt: The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for National Security Studies today filed three Freedom of Information Act requests seeking the immediate release of records related to President Bush's asserted authority to search Americans' mail without a warrant. The president claimed this unprecedented authority in a "signing statement" attached to a statute that expressly prohibits opening First Class mail without a warrant. |
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Trashing the planet
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Giant polluters ask for cap on greenhouse gases| |
Excerpt: Chief executives of 10 major corporations urged Congress on Monday to require limits on greenhouse gases this year, contending voluntary efforts to combat climate change are inadequate...Members of the group include chief executives of Alcoa Inc., BP America Inc., DuPont Co., Caterpillar Inc., General Electric Co., and Duke Energy Corp.
Comment: I'm not sure what to make of this. Was this a flashy PR stunt, a favor to the Bush administration ahead of his State of the Union speech? Or have companies actually realized that environmental apocalypse might be bad for profits? Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK |
U.S. answer to global warming:
smoke and giant space mirrors| |
Excerpt: The U.S. government wants the world's scientists to develop technology to block sunlight as a last-ditch way to halt global warming, the Guardian has learned. It says research into techniques such as giant mirrors in space or reflective dust pumped into the atmosphere would be "important insurance" against rising emissions, and has lobbied for such a strategy to be recommended by a major UN report on climate change, the first part of which will be published on Friday. |
UN dossier 'ends all climate-change doubt'| |
Excerpt: Leading environmentalists said the report was the final nail in the coffin for "climate-change deniers" and also presented a challenge to government to impose tougher restrictions on greenhouse gases in order to prevent a temperature rise of 2C or more. |
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Canada offers apology, settlement
to citizen kidnapped, tortured by U.S.| |
Excerpt: Maher Arar, 36, showed signs of a sense of humor and certainly a sense of satisfaction after receiving $10.5 million compensation from the federal government and an apology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper for Canada's role in his torture more than four years ago in a Syrian prison.
"In doing so, the government of Canada and the Prime Minister have acknowledged my innocence. This means the world to me," Arar told a press conference in Ottawa.
"I feel proud as a Canadian," said the software engineer, who had a promising career before he was arrested in September 2002. That is before the RCMP gave U.S. officials incorrect information on his being a terror suspect, which led to deportation to Syria where he was jailed and tortured for almost a year. |
Libby: White House sacrificed him for Rove| |
Excerpt: Top White House officials tried to blame vice presidential aide "Scooter" Libby for the 2003 leak of a CIA operative's identity to protect President Bush's political strategist, Karl Rove, Libby's defense attorney said Tuesday as his perjury trial began and the first witness took the stand.
CIA staffer says he warned
Cheney and Libby of leak's danger
Excerpt: A CIA employee who gave regular intelligence briefings to Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., testified yesterday that shortly after the leak of a CIA operative's identity, the pair was given a stark warning that the leak could lead to the deaths of people who aided American intelligence gathering abroad.
"I thought there was a very grave danger to leaking the name of a CIA officer," the briefer from Langley, Craig Schmall, said he told Messrs. Cheney and Libby during a morning session at the vice president's residence. "Foreign intelligence services where she served now have the opportunity to investigate everyone whom she had come in contact with. They could be arrested, tortured, or killed."
Comment: And did Dick Cheney give a damn that his leak probably killed people? Steve R. PERMANENT LINK
Rove subpoenaed for Libby trial
Excerpt: Two of President Bush's top advisers have been subpoenaed as possible witnesses in the trial of former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a legal source familiar with the case told CNN on Friday. ...
Karl Rove, Bush's longtime political confidant, serves as deputy chief of staff at the White House; Dan Bartlett is a counselor to the president and the former White House communications director. |
U.S. still bombing Somalia| |
Excerpt: The United States launched an airstrike in Somalia against suspected terrorist targets -- the second such attack this month, defense officials said Wednesday. ... One official suggested that early indications showed that no high-value target was killed or captured.
Ethiopian troops withdraw from
Somalia, leaving chaos behind
Excerpt: Ethiopian troops whose military strength was crucial to helping Somalia's government drive out a radical Islamic militia began withdrawing yesterday, raising fears of a power vacuum unless peacekeepers arrive soon in this chaotic nation.
Comment: In other words, we have succeeded in stopping the good Muslims and have put the evil, violent, tyrannical warlords back in power in Somalia for the foreseeable future. Another American foreign policy triumph. Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK
Somalia for dummies
Excerpt: In brief, we are attacking a popular Muslim group that has had a stabilizing effect on Somalia and which has no proven ties to Al Qaeda, by claiming that they're in league with Al Qaeda. Plus, our violent actions are creating many actual terrorists. It's a little like Iraq, if Saddam had been really popular and if the invasion of Iraq got almost no press coverage. |
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Excerpt: Baby Einstein is part of what Alissa Quart, in an August 2006 piece in the Atlantic ("Extreme Parenting"), called the Baby Genius Edutainment Complex, an industry that preys on the status anxiety of neurotic parents who, until Aigner-Clark and others told them otherwise, didn't sweat the meritocratic rat race until it was time to place their pint-sized strivers in preschool. That changed in the mid-1990s, when Don Campbell, extrapolating wildly from earlier research involving college students that, Quart writes, has never been duplicated, trademarked the slogan "Mozart effect" and used it to market classical-music CDs for infants. Aigner-Clark followed suit with her Baby Einstein videos in 1997.
Silence on Katrina is deafening
Excerpt: What still stands out from President Bush's State of the Union speech is what wasn't there: any mention of New Orleans ... or the Mississippi Gulf Coast ... or Hurricane Katrina...
Bush's four anti-terror
successes all fictional
Summary: President Bush claimed in his State of the Union speech to have prevented four terrorist plots. All four incidents have been exaggerated to the point that citing them amounts for four lies.
Transcript of President Bush's
State of the Union address
Excerpt: Blah blah. Complete distortion of the facts. Smirk. Blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah. Lie. Hypocrisy. Blah blah blah. Lie. Lie. Phony platitude. Lie. Lie. Lie. Lie. Blah blah. Blah. Hypocrisy. Blah blah blah. Blah blah. Fatuous foolishness. Lie. Lie. Hypocrisy. Complete distortion of the facts. Phony sincerity. Blah blah. Half-truth. Blah blah blah. Terror! Terror! Rhetorical hogwash. Complete distortion of the facts. Smirk. (Applause) |
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U.S. may censure Israel for
misuse of cluster munitions| |
Excerpt: The New York Times reported on its Internet site Saturday evening that the report will say Israel may have violated agreements with the United States by its use of American-supplied cluster munitions during last year's war in Lebanon.
Comment: In a country run by the Israel lobby, MAY is as far as anyone dares to go. E13 PERMANENT LINK
Comment: Censure? Oh my. A random wrist will be slapped on Monday, and it'll be forgotten by Tuesday. Rebecca PERMANENT LINK |
Rosie O'Donnell: Impeach the President| |
Excerpt: "You know what I think the Congress should do, and I'm sure this will make me in some sort of celebrity feud or AOL poll, but someone, I believe, should call for the impeachment of George W. Bush, to let the world know."
Rosie went on to say, "I think we should do it so the world knows that the nation is not standing behind this President, these choices. That the nation, a democracy, feels differently than the man who is leading as if it were a dictatorship. And that "we" represent this country, he does not lead as a monarch." |
Bolton: U.S. has no interest in peaceful, united Iraq| |
Excerpt: "We did a disservice to Iraqis by depriving them of political leaders," Bolton was quoted as saying, adding that the Coalition Provisional Authority that initially ran Iraq allowed terrorists to regroup. |
U.S. invasion was "idiot decision", says Iraq vice president| |
Excerpt: The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was an "idiot decision" and Iraqi troops now need to secure Baghdad to ensure the country's future, Vice-President Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Thursday. "Iraq was put under occupation, which was an idiot decision," Mahdi said at the World Economic Forum in Davos. |
Bernstein: Bush administration has
done 'far greater damage' than Nixon | |
Excerpt: "But perhaps worst, has been the lying and mendacity of the president and his men and women -- in the reasons they cited for going to war, their conduct of the war, their attempts to smear their political opponents.
"Nixon and his men lied and abused the constitution to horrible effect, but they were stopped.
"The Bush Administration -- especially its top officials named above and others familiar to most Americans -- was not stopped, and has done far greater damage. As a (Republican) bumper-sticker of the day proclaimed, 'Nobody died at Watergate.' If only we could say that about the era of George W. Bush, and that our elected representatives in Congress and our judiciary had been courageous enough to do their duty and hold the President and his aides accountable." |
Microsoft offers payment for
favorable Wikipedia edits| |
Excerpt: Microsoft Corp. landed in the
Wikipedia doghouse Tuesday after it offered to pay a blogger to change technical articles on the community-produced Web encyclopedia site. |
CIA uses Facebook, and NSA
wants social networking data| |
Excerpt: The CIA has a Facebook page. It invites students to apply for the National Clandestine Service. It has 2,844 friends. Is this interesting? Not really; the Agency is a well-known college recruiter already, visiting campuses to find promising recruits and hosting a rigorous two-summer internship for students. But it does raise the question: Is a government that seems fixated on using automated surveillance to understand the social links between people hoping to tap social networking sites for data?
Comment: The author seems skeptical of any ill-purposed elements in the matter he discusses. He might feel differently though if he examined the references listed on this page JR Mooneyham PERMANENT LINK |
EU governments undermine torture ban| |
Excerpt: EU states have relied upon empty promises of humane treatment, known as "diplomatic assurances," in efforts to justify the return of terrorism suspects to countries where they risk being tortured. In the report adopted today, the European Parliament's Temporary Committee on illegal CIA activity in Europe focuses on CIA flights and U.S.-sponsored transfers of terrorism suspects. It also calls on EU member states to oppose the use of "diplomatic assurances" on torture in returning terrorism suspects. Europe pioneered the use of these "no torture" promises in the 1990s, well before the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
EU report says member nations
knew of secret CIA terror flights
Excerpt: A new report by the European Union claims governments knew about, and authorized secret flights carrying terror detainees and carried out by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
A special European Parliament committee says EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and EU counter-terrorism coordinator Gijs de Vries knew about covert abductions, flights and possibly detention centers located within the European Union, and failed to disclose key facts when asked to testify. |
Toothless Iraq resolution 'emboldens'
enemy, says new Secretary of Defense| |
Excerpt: Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday that a congressional resolution opposing President Bush's troop buildup in Iraq amounts to undercutting U.S. commanders in a way that "emboldens the enemy."
Comment: 'Cuz the Iraqis have been so lily-livered and well-behaved until now...? Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK
Is Rumsfeld still in charge?
Excerpt: The transition office has raised some eyebrows inside the Pentagon, the Times wrote. Some question the size of Rumsfeld's staff, which includes two military officers and two enlisted men. They also ask why the sorting could not have been done from the time Rumsfeld resigned Nov. 8 to when he left the building Dec. 18. |
Air America dropped in Santa Cruz| |
Excerpt: The left-leaning radio network, aimed at taking on Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talk shows, debuted in 2005, but local advertisers never bought in.
KOMY owner Michael Zwerling says his station didn't sell a single ad around Air America in a year and a half.
Comment: Here's a familiar lie, told elsewhere too, as the radio network struggles. And I suppose, from a capitalist perspective, some business owners are reluctant to run ads on programs that question the President, the war, and the clouds of bull that swirl around the Bush-Cheney administration.
But in Santa Cruz, a liberal California college town, this station's sales staff couldn't sell a single commercial to a local advertiser in a year and a half? That's just a clear and present lie. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK
Air America sold
Brainy Hartmann takes Franken's slot
Excerpt: "I love talk radio. I don't want to be on TV. I don't want to run for public office. I don't want to be a movie star. I write books and I do talk radio and that's enough for me." |
Google tries to make Googlebombs ineffective| |
Excerpt: But it seems that Google received too many complaints to continue to ignore this problem and from now on we won't see too many Googlebombs, as Google updated their algorithms for these special cases. "By improving our analysis of the link structure of the web, Google has begun minimizing the impact of many Googlebombs. Now we will typically return commentary, discussions, and articles about the Googlebombs instead." |
Clean green street art leaves authorities perplexed| |
Excerpt: A number of street artists around the world have taken to expressing themselves through an innovative practice known as Reverse Graffiti. Taking a cue from the "Wash Me" messages scrawled on the back of delivery trucks, they seek out soot covered surfaces and inscribe them with images, tags, and even advertising slogans using scrub brushes, scrapers and pressure hoses. ...
The practice puts authorities in a definite moral quandary. According to Moose, "Once you do this, you make people confront whether or not they like people cleaning walls or if they really have a problem with personal expression." ...
The Brazilian artist's work came to a happier resolution. The authorities were certainly miffed but could find nothing to charge him with. They had no other recourse but to clean the tunnel -- but only the parts Alexandre had already cleaned. The artist merely continued his campaign on the other side of traffic. The utterly flummoxed city officials then decided to take drastic action. Not only did they clean the entire tunnel but also every other tunnel in Sao Paulo. |
Discovery Channel scoops
CNN on TWA 800 story| |
Excerpt: Former FBI Assistant Director James Kallstrom admitted for the first time on national television -- on the Discovery Channel's Best Evidence -- that "In retrospect, [he] shouldn't have asked the CIA" to produce the animation of Flight 800's final moments. However, CNN's No Survivors, which relied heavily on Kallstrom, never mentioned the controversy surrounding the CIA or any other government animation. Instead, CNN just cited the government as its source and played its own animation of Flight 800 climbing. ...
If you missed the Discovery Channel show, it will air again on February 15th at 1PM EST. |
Customer sends bailiffs in to seize bank's computers| |
Excerpt: In June last year Declan Purcell demanded the refund of £3,400 charges he accrued during the previous six years while running a motorcycle dealership.
Royal Bank of Scotland ignored the claim so in October Mr Purcell filed an online application to get the money back through the county court. After 30 days the bank had not responded and so on December 10 the court ruled in Mr Purcell's favor. It ordered RBS to pay the charges and £120 court costs. When RBS again failed to respond Mr Purcell got the court to give him a warrant of execution, allowing him to order debt collectors to reclaim items from the bank equal in value to the amount he was owed.
Finally on Monday, January 8, a team of debt collectors walked into the busy Camden Town branch in North London, demanded to see the manager, showed their court order and announced that they were repossessing items. |
Judge orders NYC to release
documents in 2004 protest suppression| |
Excerpt: A judge on Monday rejected the city's effort to keep secret most of the files and videotapes documenting the arrests of hundreds of protesters at the 2004 Republican National Convention.
U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV repeatedly criticized the city's reasoning for its requests, saying that there was little factual support, or that they lacked common sense. |
U.S. plans to 'fight the net' revealed| |
Excerpt: Perhaps the most startling aspect of the roadmap is its acknowledgement that information put out as part of the military's psychological operations, or Psyops, is finding its way onto the computer and television screens of ordinary Americans.
"Information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and Psyops, is increasingly consumed by our domestic audience," it reads.
"Psyops messages will often be replayed by the news media for much larger audiences, including the American public," it goes on. |
Cheney unleashes flood of lies in interview| |
Excerpt: Vice President Cheney said yesterday that the administration has achieved 'enormous successes' in Iraq but complained that critics and the media 'are so eager to write off this effort or declare it a failure' that they are undermining U.S. troops in a war zone, striking a far more combative tone than President Bush did in his State of the Union address the night before. |
Italian court: Downloading music, movies
and software OK if not profit motivated| |
Excerpt: Italy's top criminal court has ruled that downloading music, movies and software over the Internet isn't a crime if profit wasn't the motivation, though analysts questioned Monday whether the ruling would have much effect on copyright laws.
The court's decision, issued earlier this month but reported over the weekend by the Italian media, overturns earlier convictions against two former Turin Polytechnic Institute students who set up in 1994 a peer-to-peer, file-sharing network that was shut down within months. |
Impeachment -- it's on the table in Israel| |
Excerpt: The Knesset House Committee will begin impeachment proceedings against Israeli President Moshe Katsav on Monday. |
Pope condemns violent and sexually explicit games
Travel to U.S. off 17 percent since 9/11| |
Excerpt: Since the September 11 attacks, the United States has tightened security measures and toughened its visa and entry requirements. As a result, the country was ranked as the world's most unfriendly to visitors in a survey conducted last year of travelers from 16 nations.
"Our economic security is suffering from a drastic decline in overseas travelers and we are missing an extraordinary opportunity to strengthen America's image around the globe," said Stevan Porter, president of Intercontinental Hotels Group and chairman of the association's Discover America Partnership. "We are in the midst of a travel crisis." |
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Lightning round news
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Have you clicked our Mystery links?
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Contemplating the road ahead
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: As the Vietnamese saying goes, "When elephants fight, ants get crushed." We ants, in our multitude and resourcefulness, stand a better chance of survival than spoiled effete elephants. |
The torch of leadership
-- extinguished, not passed
by Jim Kirwan, Rense| |
Excerpt: In Washington and across this land a huge percentage of people are confounded by how to deal with Bush & the Bandits. Impeachment is handicapped by the fact that the public has not demanded the arrest of Dick Cheney and the subsequent prosecution of Bush by Impeachment proceedings. The missing component in all of this is that huge number of young people -- the same group that brought down the government over the illegal and obscene war in Vietnam. Those students were idealistic to be sure, but they knew their lives were on the line -- hence they fought the government to a standstill until the war was forced to an end. |
There is but one top priority
by A Proud Liberal| |
Excerpt: The parallels to the Vietnam War cannot be ignored, except that the moral justifications for our involvement in Vietnam far out weighed those in Iraq. The most glaring of these is the fact that one side (the South) of a continuing civil war wanted our participation, in Iraq there was no civil war until the invasion and occupation. On December 31, 1970, the U.S. Congress repealed the entirely fictitious Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which in 1964 authorized a dramatic increase in U.S. military involvement in Vietnam in response to an attack on U.S. forces that later turned out to not have happened. Why cannot the current Congress step up to the bat and do the same with the Congressional resolution that supposedly gave Bush the power to invade Iraq? The basis for that resolution was even more false than the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. No more "but look at how many Democrats voted for it," should even be allowed. Continuing two wrongs still does not make a thing right. |
Stop the Iran war before it starts
by Scott Ritter, The Nation| |
Excerpt: If hearings show no case for war with Iran, then Congress must act to insure that the United States cannot move toward conflict with that nation on the strength of executive dictate alone. As things currently stand, the Bush Administration, emboldened with a vision of the unitary executive unprecedented in our nation's history, believes it has all of the legal authority it requires when it comes to engaging Iran militarily. The silence of Congress following the President's decision to dispatch a second carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf has been deafening. The fact that a third carrier battle group (the USS Ronald Reagan) will probably join these two in the near future has also gone unnoticed by most, if not all, in Congress. |
Is it better to fight them in Iraq?
by Thomas Hoyt, Strike the Root| |
Excerpt: "Would you rather fight the terrorists in Iraq or in Manhattan?" Upon first blush, this is just what the doctor ordered. Even if 1,000 Marines get killed in a single day in Baghdad, squeamish citizens can reflect that it's better for 1,000 people to get killed in a different country than in Times Square. After all, you don't want blood spattering on a starlet or something.
I was musing along these lines when it suddenly occurred to me: The enemy would rather fight us in Iraq, too! Think about it: Suppose you really hated the U.S. empire and wanted to kill as many U.S. soldiers as possible, but you were an unemployed goat-herder living on the outskirts of Fallujah. If the U.S. kept its men in arms stationed in secure bases in Georgia and Texas, it would be pretty hard for you to hurt them. First you'd have to stow away on a ship crossing the ocean, or save up 50 times your annual income to buy a ticket. How much more convenient it would be if the U.S. commander-in-chief ships over 100,000 such troops over to your neighborhood! |
The "wipe Israel off the map" hoax
by Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet| |
Excerpt: Did Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad really threaten to "wipe Israel off the map" or is this phrase just another jingoistic brand slogan for selling the next war in the Middle East? |
We only spy on terrorists ... and protesters ...
by Ken Grandlund, Bring It On| |
Excerpt: According to documents obtained by the ACLU, at least 186 anti-war protests have been monitored by the Pentagon's domestic surveillance program, collecting nearly 3000 reports on American citizens who are neither terrorists nor doing anything illegal. In fact, the groups being actively monitored are primarily groups that are against the Bush War in Iraq. Groups like Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and Military Families Speak Out. Groups filled not with berserker jihadists, but instead filled with honorable American former service members and their families. People who have fought for this country or lost family members in this stupid and ill-fated war in Iraq. |
A cost analysis of Windows
Vista content protection
by Peter Gutmann| |
Excerpt: The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history.
Comment: This is well worth a read, even if you don't understand all of the technical mumbo-jumbo. Come back to it later when you have more time if you need to, but don't give up just yet. The implications are clear to most laymen, even if the details are not. To call it "evil" is an oversimplification. It's Orwellian. Phil H. PERMANENT LINK |
Love Jesus or burn forever in Hell...
by Dennis Diehl, Ezine Articles| |
Excerpt: In effect this would be the same as me, a loving parent, telling my kids, either you love your daddy, or I will kill you and not in a good or easy way. Any parent that was reported to have said this to a child would be arrested and probably loose custody of the child. But not "God." of course. Now any real God would never have such a flawed "these are the rules of love" mentality and this is more a reflection of the human who thought it up as cute or threatening, depending on the desired effect. It's also hogwash. |
My six months on right wing blogs
by Maccabee, Maccabee's diary| |
Excerpt: The carnage is the result of dead-enders, terrorists, and the press. It's the Liberals fault, it's John Kerry's fault. Also, whenever there is blame, it should also be pointed at everyone. "Everyone saw the same intelligence"...etc. You will rarely find a criticism of Bush on right-wing blogs and when you do it is filled with disclaimers. |
Checkpoint comradeship
by Amira Hass, Ha'aretz [Jerusalem, Israel]| |
Excerpt: Brigade commanders come and go, soldiers are replaced and yet, during the past two years, the reports about the distant Taysir checkpoint have remained the same: soldiers who invent harassments, waiting times way beyond what is justified, on various false excuses (one time it is construction work at the checkpoint, another time forged documents and yet another time a security warning), and reports of people who were made to pass through a different checkpoint. |
Texas hold-em
by Stephen Pizzo, Smirking Chimp| |
Excerpt: He's demanding we roll over his already defaulted loans -- demanding we make him additional loans in U.S. lives, treasure and reputation and, though he has established a nearly unbroken record of a deadbeat borrower, he wants us to accept that his new plan is a good one. We must, Texas George says, provide what he says he needs to complete his plan. And, if we refuse, he warns ominously, the resulting failure will be entirely our fault.
Comment: So much print wasted on sound and fury signifying nothing these days regarding the Bushites, so little insight offered. This article is an exception. The author has the background to make the connections between the Savings and Loan Scandal, which he wrote a great book about (Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans), and the current vast conspiracy of the Bush presidency. Herb Ruhs, MD PERMANENT LINK |
Hospice got me boinked
by Nick Wallis, The Guardian| |
Excerpt: Since I was 13 I have spent weekends at Helen House, a children's hospice in Oxford, and more recently Douglas House, a hospice for young adults. In 2004, when I was 20, I decided to broach the subject with one of the doctors whom I had known from the outset and whom I trusted. I was already aware that other people with disabilities used, for want of a better word, prostitutes, or more politely, sex workers. |
The empire turns its guns on the citizenry
by Paul Craig Roberts, CounterPunch| |
Excerpt: In recent years American police forces have called out SWAT teams 40,000 or more times annually. Last year did you read in your newspaper or hear on TV news of 110 hostage or terrorist events each day? No. What then were the SWAT teams doing? They were serving routine warrants to people who posed no danger to the police or to the public. |
Sen Webb rips up prepared
speech, rips Bush a new one
by Jeff Cohen, Common Dreams| |
Excerpt: The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two former commanding generals of the Central Command ... and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable -- and predicted -- disarray that has followed. |
Capitalism's hard rain
by Ben Stein, New York Times| |
Excerpt: When yeoman farmers sent their savings to banks in London and Glasgow and Paris, they had to be able to count on it not being stolen. That was what allowed capital to be accumulated and deployed, and for the entire world economy to take off.
When I see what the top dogs at all too many corporations are now doing to that trust, I feel queasy. Outrageous -- yes, obscene -- pay. Greedy backdating of stock options, which in my opinion is straight-up theft. Managers buying assets from their trustors, the stockholders, at pennies on the dollar, then forestalling competing bids with lockups and insane breakup fees.
These misdeeds and many, many more are hammer blows at the granite foundation of trust we built in the 1940s and '50s. How long democratic capitalism can survive these blows before it gives in and gives birth to revolution or to an out-and-out aristocracy, I am not sure. |
Disneyland for sociopaths
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: The basic moral judgement in US business life is, "It's only wrong if you can't get away with it." Restraint is seen as a sin of commerce. In fact, "under the law," managers of corporations are required to place "shareholder value" above all other considerations of conducting business. From this blueprint we have constructed a Disneyland for sociopaths. |
What American "democratization" has accomplished in Afghanistan and Iraq
by E13, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Iraq is in a worse situation now than it was at the time of its elections, there is still no water, electricity, jobs, or security; over 100 civilians are dying violent deaths every day, and twice as money are being wounded, but there is a draft resolution on the table giving American and British oil companies access and rights to Iraqi oil for the next 30 years. Is this going to make the life of the Iraqis better, freer, more secure? The Afghanistan election story is even worse. ... |
Wealth and power of Bill Gates
by Phil H., Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Do not kid yourself. There *is* a master class and a slave class in this world. If you are concerned at all with rectangular bits of numbered paper or digits on an ATM screen that measure your worth, guess which one you belong to? |
War -- what is it good for?
by KathyFisher, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: You are scared to believe the truth. You don't want them knocking down your door, but the very fact that you are frightened of this means down deep you know they have too much power, they are out of control. You know what they did, but damn there's too much to give up if you admitted that they have committed crimes. |
Driving me crazy
by Michelle, WhyYouLittle| |
Excerpt: Armed with liquid courage, George continues to give new meaning to "offensive driving"; running lights and flipping off the other drivers. When asked about the highway carnage he's leaving in his wake, George says he feels bad about the deaths but insists that he really is one of those rare drivers who operates better after a few drinks, and that we just need to trust him. |
Hillary Clinton and the Israel lobby
by Joshua Frank, AntiWar| |
Comment: Hillary Clinton is owned by AIPAC. Bought and paid for, lock, stock and barrel -- She is an absolute horror show for America's hopes for peace and justice for mankind. A sociopathic prevaricator like Bush, except smart... Mr. Chuckles PERMANENT LINK |
Don't you love the smell of propaganda in the morning?
by CactusPat, CactusPat's Blog| |
Excerpt: This is propaganda 101 as practiced by the Bush Occupation. Crude and stale as it may be, it will no doubt prove marginally effective as the corporate state mediawhores are freely doling out the misinformation of the illegitimate Bush Cabal. And you thought propagandizing the public by the US government was against the law.... |
Ongoing lies of pundits and politicians
by David Sirota, San Francisco Chronicle| |
Excerpt: The president was barely bothered by reporters about why he denied he ever said "stay the course." Lieberman continues to be invited on Sunday talk shows as a credible guest discussing Iraq, and no one asks him about his hypocrisy. Meanwhile, Klein, Brooks and Cohen are still prominent news analysts for the largest publications in America, playing key roles shaping a political debate they now distort. |
Will the US become a banana republic?
by Marc Faber, LewRockwell.com| |
Excerpt: In the late 1980s, the super-rich did very well in Japan. In the mid-1990s, the super-rich creamed off all the money in Southeast Asia. Both periods were characterized by asset accumulators becoming rich and being highly leveraged. In both cases, subsequent events -- the bear market in asset prices in Japan, and the Asian crisis -- - hurt the asset shufflers the most; ordinary people, especially those living in the countryside, were hardly affected. I suppose that if you have nothing, you have little to lose! Therefore, as a contrarian bet, I would look at shorting at some point companies that have benefited the most from the shift in wealth from the masses to the asset shufflers. Such a list would obviously include luxury retailers, the brokerage industry, asset management companies, and custody banks, all of which either arranged or benefited from this transfer of wealth and the asset inflation. |
What $1.2-trillion can buy
by David Leonhardt, New York Times| |
Excerpt: In the days before the war almost five years ago, the Pentagon estimated that it would cost about $50 billion. Democratic staff members in Congress largely agreed. Lawrence Lindsey, a White House economic adviser, was a bit more realistic, predicting that the cost could go as high as $200 billion, but President Bush fired him in part for saying so. |
Stand up against the surge
by Molly Ivins, syndicated columnist| |
Excerpt: We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush's proposed surge. If you can, go to the peace march in Washington on January 27. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, "Stop it, now!"
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Your cellphone is more powerful than you probably know
by Andrew Kantor, USA Today| |
Excerpt: Like most people, I suspect, I hadn't considered that a turned-off phone could be used to listen to me. (Note to self: Remove batteries before discussing you-kn0w-what with you-know-who.) And I would have liked to believe the Feds would require some oversight before demanding to know where I am at any moment. But things, we're told, are different now. It's for our own good.
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First bomb Carter; then nuke Iran!
by Alex Cockburn, CounterPunch| |
Excerpt: For weeks now the Israeli lobby has hurled its legions into battle against former President Jimmy Carter. He has been stigmatized as an anti-Semite, a Holocaust denier, a patron of former concentration camp killers, a Christian madman, a pawn of the Arabs who "flatly condones mass murder" of Israeli Jews. (This last was from Murdoch's New York Post editorial, relayed to its mailing list by the Zionist Organization of America.)
Any day now I expect some janitors at the Carter Center to resign, declaring that they can no longer in all conscience mop bathrooms that might have been used by the former President, their letter of protest duly front-paged by the New York Times, just like the famous fourteen members of the Carter Center's Board of Councilors. Actually there were, at the time of resignations, 224 people on this board, where membership is mostly a thank you for a financial donation to the center. So the headlines could be saying, "Nearly 95 per cent of Carter Center Board Members Back Former President." |
I hate to say Bush is right about anything, but ...
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: What goes around comes around. We should consider ourselves lucky to eventually suffer anything less than complete annihilation at the hands of the rest of the world for the crimes America has participated in. |
Bush the liar and unfortunately still the decider
by Leon Fisher, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: The Bush Administration, posing as the legitimately-elected government of the People, is a criminal entity which has seized and maintained power through the manipulation of two national elections in order to carry out an agenda based on the Project for the New American Century, the blueprint for American and Israeli hegemony over the oil producing nations of the Middle East. |
Poverty is coming to town
by Mr. Chuckles, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Nickels and dimes add up really fast when you're on a budget. And when Dented Cans, Inc. and Big Lots raise their prices, the poor have no alternative. There is no place lower, and no more down to go -- except food banks and dumpster diving. |
Bipartisan crimes against humanity
by Leon Fisher, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: This substantial reinforcement of American forces, especially that of another carrier battle group, will add significant weight to an attack upon Iran and Syria, and is undeniable proof of their intent to expand the war. Bush and the Zionists must be stopped before this new scenario unfolds. |
Impeachment: Hurry up! Here's why...
by Pavel C., Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Bush doesn't see that he is creating his own failures. He thinks that all this is someone else's fault. And he is emotionally lashing out, using the American military as a substitute for facing reality. He is in denial, still thinking he has a chance to redeem everything by continuing as before. |
The coming third front in Bush's war
by The Canadian, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: There is nothing more dangerous than a zealot, be they Persian, Arab, Israeli or American Fundamentalist Christian. The US has re-elected a man more dangerous than I had anticipated. |
Once more, unto the breach of trust
by Bill Brent, The Adventures of LitBoy| |
Excerpt: Well, once again, my uncanny sense of timing proves itself. Within 72 hours of setting up this ironically titled blog, I learned that Advanced Marketing Services, and its subsidiary, Publishers Group West, have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. You can read about this at MediaBistro.com. If I understand correctly, this means that about 150 PGW-distributed independent publishers will probably never get their money for three months' worth of book sales during one of the year's busiest seasons. That means the writers of those books will most likely never get their money, either. |
Is Baghdad burning?
by Stan Goff, TruthDig| |
Excerpt: The surge plan is a painfully twisted military option, but what is twisting it is not well understood. Stability in Iraq could be achieved relatively easily, even now, in conjunction with a precipitous redeployment of Anglo- American military forces. The strange attractor -- strange mostly because the media never mention it -- is Iraq's "first postwar draft hydrocarbon law," which would "set up a committee consisting of highly qualified experts to speed up the process of issuing tenders and signing contracts with international oil companies to develop Iraq's untapped oilfields." This law, which is tantamount to privatization with an Anglo-American franchise in perpetuity, is the bottom line for the U.S., as evidenced by the fact that this is the one, absolute, bottom-line point of agreement between the Bush administration and the so-called Iraq Study Group. The rhetorical scuffle between these two entities is not the what, but the how. |
Forget net neutrality: Keep packets private
by Daniel Berninger, GigaOM| |
Excerpt: Moving from the Internet, where a packet-is-a-packet, to something that looks suspiciously like the 20th century telephone network requires remarrying the content and connectivity that TCP/IP divorced. It requires deep packet inspection. It requires looking at the content of communication. |
There are Klingons in the White House
by Rep David Wu (D-Oregon) VIDEO | |
Rep David Wu's speech in Congress: "Four years ago, this administration took America to war in Iraq without adequate evidence. Since that time the administration hasn't listened to the American people, it hasn't listened to our professional military, and it certainly hasn't listened to this Congress.
"You know, it is said of a prominent businessman in downtown Portland that he never listened to anybody, and that if he was ever drawn in a cartoon, he would be drawn without ears.
"Now, this President has listened to some people -- the so-called Vulcans in the White House, the ideologues. But you know, unlike the Vulcans of Star Trek, who made their decisions based on logic and fact, these guys make [decisions] on ideology. These aren't Vulcans. There are Klingons in the White House. But unlike the real Klingons of Star Trek, these Klingons have never fought a battle of their own. Don't let faux Klingons send real Americans to war. It's wrong." |
Bush's Iraq plan? Goading Iran into war.
by Trita Parsi, Inter Press Service| |
Excerpt: While Washington speculated whether the president would accept or reject the Iraq Study Group's recommendations, few predicted that he would do the opposite of what James Baker and Lee Hamilton advised. Rather than withdrawing troops from Iraq, Bush ordered an augmentation of troop levels. Rather than talking to Iran and Syria, Bush virtually declared war on these states. And rather than pressuring Israel to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the administration is fuelling the factional war in Gaza by arming and training Fatah against Hamas. |
Mr. President, surge this
by David Swanson, Political Affairs| |
Excerpt: The occupation of Iraq has nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction or 9/11 or Saddam Hussein or democracy or making Americans more safe. There is no reason for this war respectable enough to discuss in public. And so, the U.S. corporate media does not discuss the reason, or absence of any reason, for the war. Instead we're treated to endless debates over whether the war is a civil war, or we're given hundreds of hours of coverage of a report that has no legal force and no coherent point to it. Or we learn all about new appointees and how their personalities differ from those of the outgoing war-makers. Or we learn about new committee chairs and power-shifts in Congress. Or we hear about polls and surveys on the war. Or media coverage focuses on whether to escalate the war by sending in an additional number of troops that is small relative to the number already there.
All of these stories, including the story of Bush's expected proposal for escalation of the occupation, serve the same purpose: they allow the U.S. media to claim to be covering the war without actually discussing what purpose the war serves and without showing us what the war is doing to people. |
Is "the way forward" a
Christianist dog whistle?
by Lambert, Corrente| |
Excerpt: All in all, I think Bush's use of "the way" (forward) must be very evocative for any believer that knows their Bible. For example, those in The Base who can't un-drink the KoolAid... |
A fairy tale for the modern age
by Christopher Dallman, Deacon Barry| |
Excerpt: Once upon a time, in a far off land, there lived a little blogger called Spocko. Now where Spocko lived, there was a radio station which was owned by the Mouse-King. And on this radio station were three bad rats called Mel, Lee, and Tom, who enjoyed saying naughty things about people they didn't like. One of them was even the princess of the land and Mel was heard talking about assassinating her! |
How the world will see "the surge"
by John Brown, Common Dreams| |
Excerpt: The surge is yet another expression of US unilateralism. The Americans do what they want when and how they want, no matter what non-Americans -- including Iraqis -- think. They are not bothering to get international support or approval for their surge. The rest of the world be damned. |
Brazil and Bush's War on Terror
by Robert Blumen, LewRockwell.com| |
Excerpt: The world of Brazil shows a totalitarian society in which freedom has been forfeited for a false promise of protection from terrorist attacks. Director Terry Gilliam shows how the threat of terrorism is manipulated by the state as a means of political control over the population. The threat of terror is created by the internal security police in order to generate public acceptance of totalitarian police powers.
Gilliam's exposition raises some important questions: Is the terror created by the power of the state in the alleged pursuit of terrorism worse than the terrorism itself? And are they really any different? |
Dreaming of fabled Homeland Security
by Jim B., The Wood River Journal| |
Excerpt: A Peace Train steaming with vitamins served organic vegetables grown along its line. Nutritious music piped in from the man deflecting polluted quicksilver proposals over lumps of coal facing stalking flames. Back in the secret chamber, five star errant knights diplomatically scribed "peace seeking missives", burning midnight ethanol through wee hours. |
Bush borrows his strategy from Charles Keating
by Paul Krugman, New York Times| |
Excerpt: He's Charles Keating, using other people's money to keep Lincoln Savings going long after it should have been shut down -- and squandering the life savings of thousands of investors, not to mention billions in taxpayer dollars, along the way.
The parallel is actually quite exact. During the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s, people like Mr. Keating kept failed banks going by faking financial success. Mr. Bush has kept a failed war going by faking military success. |
Bush's credibility VIDEO
by Keith Olbermann, Countdown| |
Excerpt: Any meaningful assessment of the President's next step in Iraq must consider his steps and mis-steps so far. So, let's look at the record. |
Memo to Nancy Pelosi:
Impeachment is never off the table
by Gene Racz, East Brunswick [NJ] Home News Tribune| |
Excerpt: The rest of us have accountability in our personal, professional and public lives. Why shouldn't the president have the same? After the Clinton proceedings you can bet on one thing: No U.S. President will soon be putting mirrors on the ceiling of the Oval Office and hanging around after hours with a buxom staffer in a black beret.
And by the way, the Founding Fathers were correct: A monarchy was never a good idea. President Bush has yet to grasp that simple concept. |
Like a deluded compulsive gambler,
Bush is fuelling a new cold war
by Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian| |
Excerpt: With air strikes on Somalia and a surge in troops in Iraq, he is staking everything on a finale he can call victory. |
When democracy gets in the way, the U.S. squashes it
by Andrew McGall, Contra Costa [CA] Times| |
Excerpt: A tragic vignette of American history flickers to life in the current film The Good Shepherd when Matt Damon as the CIA operations director succeeds in overthrowing Jacob Arbenz, the first Guatemalan president elected in a universal-suffrage vote.
The coup actually occurred, and the CIA's role in it is well documented. It led to more than 30 years of violence in which some 200,000 people, mostly peasants, died. |
How could this be happening?
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: If this monster is to be brought down it is more likely to be from a million pinpricks than from a killing blow. |
Am I paranoid?
by Carol Wolman, OpEd News| |
Excerpt: If what I believe is true, then Bush is sending our young people to die in Iraq for the sole purpose of consolidating his own power against "we the people". They are dying so that Carlyle and Halliburton can drain our treasury with sweetheart contracts abroad and at home, in the name of "bringing democracy to the Middle East", and "homeland security". Our troops are dying, not to defend our country or to spread a better way of life, but to help Bush and Cheney achieve their personal goals of power and wealth. |
What if American forces attack Pakistan?
by Fahd, Chowrangi| |
Excerpt: Had somebody told Iraqis even in late 80's that America would attack them, they would have ridiculed him at great lengths. Had somebody even merely mentioned to Afghans in 90's that after Russia, US will attack their country, they would have considered him crazy. If somebody tells us Pakistanis today that America will attack us in future, what will we do?
Comment: Note that such an attack isn't far-fetched at all. There have existed contingency plans for an attack in the event that the US puppet leader there falls, for years now -- due to the Pakistani nuke arsenal, and how bin Laden or others might get a piece of it (there's been several assassination and coup attempts). There's also the possibility of an attack if nuclear war suddenly looked likely between Pakistan and India -- which has almost happened once already, a few years back. And lastly, if the puppet strays too far from Bush's orders, that too could cause an attack. JR Mooneyham PERMANENT LINK |
Flesh-eating ghouls: How liberals are
stalking and crushing our innocence
with their monstrous, oozing tentacles
by Chris Dashiell, Dashiell| |
Excerpt: The problems in our country, in our world, are due to the presence of certain groups who are bent on destroying us -- "us" being the right-minded citizens who buy these books and listen to talk radio. The liberals (or the Democrats, leftists, feminists, environmentalists, whatever -- the terms are interchangeable) represent a malignant force of motiveless evil. They "assault" everything we hold dear, endanger our safety, undermine our culture. They even "plot" against Christmas. Why? Who knows? They're just evil, folks, and they need to be stopped at all costs. |
Americans aren't fat because they lack willpower; they're fat because they're broke
by Violent Acres| |
Excerpt: If you only have $5 in your pocket, you can't afford to buy a piece of grilled s |
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