Bush slashes aid to poor
to boost Iraq war chest| |
Excerpt: Mr Bush's $2.9 trillion budget, sent to Congress yesterday, includes $100-billion extra for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for this year, on top of $70-billion already allocated by Congress and $141.7-billion next year. He is planning an 11.3% increase for the Pentagon. Spending on the Iraq war is destined to top the total cost of the 13-year war in Vietnam.
The huge rise in military spending is paid for by a squeeze on domestic programs, including $66-billion in cuts over five years to Medicare, the healthcare scheme for the elderly, and $12-billion from the Medicaid healthcare scheme for the poor.
Comment: The budget cuts also target low-income heating assistance and Head Start programs. Because most Americans would gladly go without heat or a decent education in order to funnel more money into a war machine that's given us the most popular military conflict in American history. Oh,
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Investigation says Pentagon manipulated intelligence| |
Excerpt: Pentagon officials undercut the intelligence community in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq by insisting in briefings to the White House that there was a clear relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, the Defense Department's inspector general said Friday.
Acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the office headed by former Pentagon policy chief Douglas J. Feith took "inappropriate" actions in advancing conclusions on al-Qaida connections not backed up by the nation's intelligence agencies.
Pentagon unit defied
CIA advice to justify Iraq war
Excerpt: A report presented to the armed services committee by the Pentagon's inspector general, Thomas Gimble, exposes the Bush administration to new charges of manipulating intelligence to make its case for going to war against Saddam nearly four years ago.
Mr Gimble described a unit called the Office for Special Plans, authorized by then Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and overseen by the former policy chief Douglas Feith, to review raw intelligence on Iraq. The main focus of the unit was establishing a link between Saddam and al-Qaida -- going against the consensus in the intelligence community that the Iraqi leader had nothing to do with the September 11 2001 terror attacks. |
| | Iran:
The next screwed-up slaughter
Iranian weapons being used against
U.S. troops ... says reporter
who lied about Iraqi WMD| |
Excerpt: Saturday's New York Times features an article ... that suggests very strongly that Iran is supplying the "deadliest weapon aimed at American troops" in Iraq. The author notes, "Any assertion of an Iranian contribution to attacks on Americans in Iraq is both politically and diplomatically volatile."
What is the source of this volatile information? Nothing less than "civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies."
Sound pretty convincing? It may be worth noting that the author is Michael R. Gordon, the same Times reporter who, on his own, or with Judith Miller, wrote some of the key, and badly misleading or downright inaccurate, articles about Iraqi WMDs in the run-up to the 2003 invasion.
Gordon wrote with Miller the paper's most widely criticized -- even by the Times itself -- WMD story of all, the Sept. 8, 2002, "aluminum tubes" story that proved so influential, especially since the administration trumpeted it on TV talk shows. |
American intelligence experts:
Iran not a major player in Iraq| |
Excerpt: Iraq's neighbors influence, and are influenced by, events within Iraq, but the involvement of these outside actors is not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability.
Comment: So the American intelligence community believes that Iran is NOT significantly influencing the war in Iraq. Meanwhile, the Pentagon reported just this week that high-ranking Pentagon officials lied about Iraq intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. Now, high-ranking Pentagon officials are saying that Iran is playing a major role in the Iraq. How can anybody listen to these claims with a straight face? |
U.S. baiting Iran retaliation| |
Excerpt: White House officials are taunting
Iran into an action the United States could use as an excuse for an attack, a former security official told Newsweek, the magazine reported.
"They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something (the United States) would be forced to retaliate for," Hillary Mann, former director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs at the National Security Council, which reports to the White House, told the New York newsweekly. |
Hillary Clinton supports war with Iran| |
Excerpt: Calling Iran a danger to the U.S. and one of Israel's greatest threats, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said "no option can be taken off the table" when dealing with that nation...Clinton, D-N.Y., spoke at a Manhattan dinner held by the nation's largest pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. |
Cheney aide says 2007 attack
on Iran is a real possibility| |
Excerpt: Some senior administration officials still relish the notion of a direct confrontation. One ambassador in Washington said he was taken aback when John Hannah, Vice President Cheney's national security adviser, said during a recent meeting that the administration considers 2007 "the year of Iran" and indicated that a U.S. attack was a real possibility. Hannah declined to be interviewed for this article. |
Iran diplomat kidnapped by
U.S.-controlled Iraq unit| |
Excerpt: The Iranian Government said that Jalal Sharafi, the second secretary at its embassy in Baghdad, was seized on Sunday by an Iraqi commando unit which operated directly "under the supervision of the American forces in Iraq." Hassan Kazemi Qomi, the Iranian Ambassador to Baghdad, said that the gunmen used American vehicles and the diplomat's seizure appeared to be "within the framework of the U.S. President's order to step up encounters with Iranians." |
Gates claims some serial numbers
and such on pieces of metal proves
Iran is supplying Iraq with weapons| |
Excerpt: Serial numbers and other markings on bombs suggest that Iranians are linked to deadly explosives used by Iraqi militants, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday in some of the administration's first public assertions on evidence the military has collected.
Comment: Anything emerging from the highest levels of the Bush-Cheney administration should be presumed a lie. |
Iranians rally to support nuclear program| |
Excerpt: Iranians poured into the streets Sunday to mark the 28th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution as part of an event that also is widely seen as a national referendum on Iran's disputed nuclear program.
In the capital, Tehran, hundreds of thousands of people chanted slogans in support of Iran's nuclear activities including: "Nuclear energy is our right" and "Death to America!" Some demonstrators carried banners highlighting defiant statement's made by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a loudspeaker told the crowd that the rallies were the "response of the Iranian nation to the illegal and invalid U.N. Security Council."
Comment: It's no fun to belabor the obvious, but for a moment, let's: First, Iran has as much right as any nation to pursue nuclear energy -- or nuclear weapons.
Second, Based on the Bush-Cheney record of lies, any claim they make about Iran must be presumed to be untrue.
And third, no complaint that Iran's government is too nuts to have nukes can hold water, while the clearly insane American government is manufacturing nuclear weapons. |
| |
Congressional Democrats call for
e-voting paper trails by '08 election| |
Excerpt: The need for new action is acute, the politicians said, because they fear a reprise of what occurred during last year's congressional election in Sarasota County, Fla. When it was reported that more than 18,000 of the county's ballots registered no choice in the House race, watchdogs suggested buggy paperless electronic machines may have been to blame for the perceived irregularities. In the end, Republican Vern Buchanan was certified as the winner of the House race with a 369-vote edge over Democrat Christine Jennings, but litigation is pending. |
U.S. sent pallets of cash to Baghdad| |
Excerpt: "Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone? But that's exactly what our government did," Rep Henry Waxman said during a hearing reviewing possible waste, fraud and abuse of funds in Iraq.
On December 12, 2003, $1.5 billion was shipped to Iraq, initially "the largest pay out of U.S. currency in Fed history," according to an e-mail cited by committee members.
It was followed by more than $2.4 billion on June 22, 2004, and $1.6 billion three days later. The CPA turned over sovereignty on June 28.
Billions and billions of
dollars disappeared in Iraq
Excerpt: This week, we were treated to the spectacle of the former U.S. civilian overlord of Iraq, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, squirming in the hot seat as he attempted with little success to explain what he did with 363 TONS of newly printed, shrink-wrapped $100 bills he had flown to Baghdad. That's $12 billion in cold, hard American cash, and no one, especially Bremer, seems to know where it went.
Comment: Is there any sane reason why J Paul Bremer can't be prosecuted?
Water deal illuminates secret contracts
Excerpt: The U.S. contractor that benefited from the multimillion-dollar deal wasn't just anyone. The company had personal ties to the officer, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who would soon leave his logistics post in Frankfurt, Germany, and move to Washington to become the CIA's third-ranking official. |
25 most corrupt officials
of the Bush administration| |
Excerpt: The misconduct covered here tends to fall into four general categories: using power to benefit friends and family members, engaging in private activities that conflict with government positions and a lack of supervision over high-level personnel. For example, Margaret Burnette, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, J. Steven Griles, David Safavian and William Myers used their positions to financially benefit friends, family members and political cronies. Lester Crawford, Darleen Drunyan, Angela Grimsley and Kevin Marlowe were indicted for conflict of interest crimes. Eric Andell, Brian Doyle and Donald Keyser could have been caught much sooner, had they been subject to greater oversight. Perhaps the most disturbing conduct from a good government perspective, however, falls outside of these categories: it is overseers, such as Lurita Doan and Janet Rehnquist, using their positions to undermine oversight. |
Mistrial could be end of Watada case| |
Excerpt: Reading a prepared statement, Fort Lewis spokesman Joe Piek said: "The military judge ensures fairness in the proceedings, especially to the accused. In this case, the judge was concerned that the stipulation amounted to a confession by Lt. Watada to an offense to which he intended to plead not guilty."
Comment: My take on this, and it's purely speculation, is that the judge may have heard some of the criticism of his earlier decision that Watada couldn't use morality as a defense -- which was an astoundingly shameful decision and had already been widely criticized. Maybe just maybe, he had second thoughts about his earlier awful decision, and sought out a way to erase that bad taste from the public's mind...
Watada 'disgraced' Army, prosecutor says
Excerpt: A lawyer for 1st Lt. Ehren Watada argued that his client was acting in good conscience, based on his understanding of the war and military law. "At most, he engaged in an act or form of civil disobedience," defense attorney Eric Seitz said in opening remarks. "No way does that add up to conduct unbecoming an officer."
Comment: Disgraced the Army -- what a disgraceful thing to say. The Army has disgraced the Army, by even trying to prosecute a soldier for what amounts to possession of morals. |
Senate moves to stop
political purge of Justice Dept| |
Excerpt: The Senate Judiciary Committee, concerned about a recent spate of prosecutor firings, moved to strip the Justice Department of some of its power to appoint interim U.S. attorneys. The bill revokes a provision in last year's USA PATRIOT Act renewal that gave the sole authority for naming interim U.S. attorneys to the attorney general. Those dismissed [by Alberto Gonzales] included Carol Lam of San Diego, who oversaw the bribery prosecution of ex-Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham, and San Francisco U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan, who supervised a federal task force probing the backdating of stock option grants to executives.
U.S. Attorney: 'I was ordered to resign'
Excerpt: "I was ordered to resign as U.S. attorney on Dec. 7 by the Justice Department," John McKay said Wednesday in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C. "I was given no explanation. I certainly was told of no performance issues."
Justice Department under Bush targets mostly Democrats
Excerpt: 79 percent of elected officials and candidates who've faced a federal investigation (a total of 379) between 2001 and 2006 were Democrats, the study found -- only 18 percent were Republicans. During that period, Democrats made up 50 percent of elected officeholders and office seekers during the time period, and 41 percent were Republicans during that period, according to the study. |
Bush's Uncle Bucky tangled in options probe| |
Excerpt: President George W. Bush's uncle, William H.T. "Bucky" Bush, was part of a group of outside directors at a defense contractor who realized about $6 million in unauthorized pay from an options backdating scheme, according to U.S. securities investigators.
Comment: And the lawyer investigating that scheme, Kevin Ryan, was one of the seven U.S. Attorneys recently fired by Alberto Gonzales and replaced by political hacks ... but I'm sure that was a complete coincidence. |
Cheney's son-in-law blamed for delaying investigations of Homeland Security| |
Excerpt: "[Homeland Security] has been one of our persistent access challenges," GAO Comptroller General David Walker told the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. Walker said the problem is "systemic" and not the fault of any single individual. But he complained that GAO has had to go through the office of Chief Counsel Philip Perry. Perry is married to Elizabeth Cheney, a former State Department official who is one of the vice president's two daughters. Walker said it is his understanding that Perry's office has to review documents GAO seeks before they are released and that Perry selectively sits in on interviews with department employees. |
Journalist behind bars 171 days and counting| |
Excerpt: Freelance videographer Josh Wolf defied a federal grand jury's order in July to hand over raw footage of anarchists clashing with police in San Francisco. He said he was protected by the 1st Amendment. A federal judge said he was in contempt of court. On Aug. 1, the 24-year-old blogger reported to the federal detention facility in Dublin, Calif. He has been there ever since -- except for a period in September when he was freed while a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on the legality of his incarceration. (The panel upheld it.) |
Army Corps of Engineers may be
sued over Katrina damage, judge rules| |
Excerpt: At the core of the issue is the controversial channel known as the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (or MRGO), a waterway through the city that connects the Gulf of Mexico with the Mississippi River. Many observers believe that the channel served to increase storm surge levels, which ultimately led to the levee breaches that devastated the city. |
Court OKs surreptitious GPS tracking by police| |
Excerpt: The fourth amendment protects against unreasonable search and seizure, but the judges ruled that the placement of a GPS tracking device without the suspect's knowledge, does not qualify as a search of his car. |
Police reluctant to accept changes
that reduce false convictions| |
Excerpt: Since 1992, 194 people have been exonerated on the basis of DNA evidence, and some 75 percent of the convictions involved at least one faulty eyewitness identification, according to the Innocence Project, which works to clear those who are falsely imprisoned. A separate study published by the University of Michigan in 2004 found that 90 percent of mistakes that led to false convictions in rape cases were caused by eyewitness errors. |
Newsweek runs interview with
George Clooney -- but not in America| |
Excerpt: Let's say a major U.S.-based international news magazine lands an exclusive interview with one of the biggest stars and Americans pop icons of the current day. Just hypothetically speaking of course. And since he's also a person who's known for getting political, they interview him about American politics ("I like Obama"), and even ask him if he plans to become a politician as some rumors have suggested (for the record, he says he won't).
If you were the editor of said news magazine, would you publish the interview in the United States, or would you publish that interview in every other non-U.S. international edition of the magazine? Apparently Newsweek's editors have decided that the latter is a better choice. |
Bush-Cheney rewriting their
history on global warming| |
Excerpt: There was an absolutely incredible letter from the White House yesterday concerning Bush's record on climate change. It is signed by Office of Science and Technology Policy director John Marburger and Council on Environmental Quality chair James Connaugton, both of whom, with this letter, are guilty of deceiving the public.
The letter says: "Beginning in June 2001, President Bush has consistently acknowledged climate change is occurring and humans are contributing to the problem." False. I need only point out, yet again, that just last year, Bush claimed there was a debate over whether global warming was "manmade or naturally caused." |
Senate Republicans block anti-escalation debate; House to vote next week| |
Excerpt: This week the venue for congressional deliberations on President Bush's Iraq war policies shifts to the House. There, Democrats are expected to propose a non-binding resolution that criticizes Bush's 21,500-troop increase in Iraq. Democrats think they will draw some Republican support. A procedural vote Monday, in which nearly all the GOP senators stayed together, blocked the start of the Iraq debate in the Senate. |
Poll: Congress gets low marks
for dragging feet on Iraq| |
Excerpt: An Associated Press-Ipsos poll conducted this week shows that public approval of Congress has improved slowly but steadily in the past three months. Still, 58 percent disapprove of the work of lawmakers. Even a majority of Democrats -- 52 percent -- disapprove of the work of Congress, indicating a desire for quicker action from the Democrats now in charge. |
"Investigation" that didn't talk to prisoners
finds no prisoner abuse at Guantanamo| |
Excerpt: Sgt Cerveny said five navy guards described in detail how they beat up detainees. "The one sailor specifically said 'I took the detainee by the head and smashed his head into the cell door'," she said in an affidavit filed in October.
An obvious cover-up, officer says
Excerpt: "I am aware that the investigators interviewed only the suspects and some witnesses but did not interview any detainees or potential victims," he told ABC News. "Failure to interview those who may have been subjected to abuse is indicative of an incomplete investigation." |
Democrats start planning
to close down Guantanamo| |
Excerpt: Key House Democrats said Thursday they are considering a plan to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by the end of 2008, with the exception of several dozen detainees in the war on terror who would be kept at the facility and tried there. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said he hopes to include the provision in legislation this spring that Democrats also intend to use to try to prevent further increases in troop strength in the war in Iraq. |
Boeing helps CIA fly kidnapped
suspects abroad for torture| |
Excerpt: On the Boeing 737 Business Jet, Khaled el-Masri said, "all the people were in black clothes and black masks. They put earplugs in my ears and a sack over my head." After putting chains on his legs, they led him onto the plane. "They threw me on the floor and injected me with something. I blacked out." |
Army prepped video warning about depleted uranium, but never showed it to troops| |
Excerpt: A special investigation on the effects of depleted uranium reveals the Army made a tape warning of the effects of depleted uranium which was never shown to troops despite the fact the Pentagon knew the agent to be potentially deadly, CNN reports Tuesday. |
Veteran kills himself in line at V.A.| |
Excerpt: Family and friends had convinced him at last that the devastating mental wounds he brought home from war, wounds that triggered severe depression, violent outbursts, and eventually an uncontrollable desire to kill himself, could not be drowned in alcohol or treated with the array of anti-anxiety drugs he'd been prescribed.
And so, with his father and stepmother at his side, he confessed to an intake counselor that he was suicidal. He wanted to be admitted to a psychiatric ward.
But, instead, he was told that the clinician who prescreened cases like his was unavailable. Go home and wait for a phone call tomorrow, the counselor said, as Marianne Schulze, his stepmother, describes it.
When a clinical social worker called the next day, Jonathan, 25, told again of his suicidal thoughts and other symptoms. And then, with his stepmother listening in, he learned that he was 26th on the waiting list for one of the 12 beds in the center's ward for post-traumatic stress disorder sufferers. |
NYPD stops and frisks 500,000 in one year:
85% of those stopped are black or Latino| |
Excerpt: Black civil rights leader Al Sharpton threatened Sunday to file a class-action lawsuit over a reported fivefold increase over the number of people stopped and frisked by city police. The New York Times reported Saturday that the New York Police Department stopped more than 500,000 people last year, more than five times as many as they did just four years before. According to the report, 55 percent of the people stopped last year were black and more than 30 percent were Hispanic. |
U.S. declines to join
ban on secret detentions| |
Excerpt: Representatives from 57 countries on Tuesday signed a long-negotiated treaty prohibiting governments from holding people in secret detention. The United States declined to endorse the document, saying its text did not meet U.S. expectations.
Comment: There hasn't been a U.S. administration this vile, this despicable, this evil and embarrassing since ... hell, since I don't know when. Who was the last President who publicly backed slavery, before the Civil War? |
U.S. immigration cavity search ends in agony| |
Excerpt: U.S. immigration officials insisted the sufferer of an anal infection remove a small piece of medical thread which was being used by doctors to treat the condition. The man required treatment under general anaesthetic as a result. The man had an anal fistula, which is a painful channel that can develop deep into the anus, caused by infection or digestive conditions such as Crohn's disease. ...
Arriving on holiday in New York in August last year, the unnamed 48-year-old was interrogated and searched by immigration officers, according to a letter appearing in medical journal The Lancet. The rectal examination discovered a device called a seton, which doctors in the UK had inserted into the fistula to help control long-term infection.
The seton was made of a blue braided medical suture material knotted and passed into the hole where the fistula surfaced. After one baffled immigration officer pulled "very hard" on the seton, the patient was given the choice by the baffled immigration officers of either getting on the next plane home, or submitting himself to a procedure to have it removed.
Comment: I know it's a bit embarrassing, but I do hope this anonymous victim of U.S. Immigration comes forward and sues the agent and agency that did this to him. |
Legacy of radiation illness stirs
objection to Nevada bomb test| |
Excerpt: The federal government reassured the townspeople they were in no danger as it detonated 952 bombs in Nevada over four decades. But thousands of people who lived downwind of the test site got radiation-related cancer, and the town of 50,000 has its own cancer-treatment center today. |
Wal-Mart discrimination suit
is allowed to go forward| |
Excerpt: A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest private employer, must face a class-action lawsuit alleging as many as 1.5 million female employees were discriminated against in pay and promotions.
The ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a 2004 federal judge's decision to let the nation's largest class-action employment discrimination lawsuit go to trial, possibly exposing the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailing powerhouse to billions of dollars in damages. |
Republican Convention protesters
held longer than bank robbers| |
Excerpt: Christopher Dunn, associate legal director at the NYCLU, said the documents "reveal that the long detentions of the thousands of protesters arrested for minor offenses at the convention were the result of deliberate policy decisions by the NYPD. During the convention, you got to a judge much faster if you were a bank robber than if you were charged with parading without a permit," he said. Records show that arrested protesters on Aug. 31, 2004, were held an average of 32 hours before appearing in court, while those arrested on other offenses were held less than five hours.
Comment: The only explanation is unconstitutional: These Americans were held much longer than ordinary arrestees to prevent them from protesting. So if America is still governed by its Constitution, New York Police commanders will be arrested and prosecuted... |
Pentagon official resigns after
threatening Guantanamo lawyers| |
Excerpt: A senior Pentagon official resigned Friday over controversial remarks in which he criticized lawyers who represent terrorism suspects, the Defense Department said....Stimson drew outrage from the legal community -- and a disavowal from the Defense Department -- for his Jan. 11 comments, in which he also suggested some attorneys were being untruthful about doing the work free of charge and instead were "receiving moneys from who knows where." He also said companies might want to consider taking their legal business to other firms that do not represent suspected terrorists. |
"Doomsday seed vault"
will be ready by 2008| |
Excerpt: The final design for a "doomsday" vault that will house seeds from all known varieties of food crops has been unveiled by the Norwegian government. The Svalbard International Seed Vault will be built into a mountainside on a remote island near the North Pole. |
Rice: I never saw Iran's 2003 peace offer| |
Excerpt: Rice told Congress she does not remember seeing the 2003 Iranian proposal, which suggested Iran was ready to discuss its disputed nuclear program, support for militant groups that the United States labels terrorists and the acceptance of Israel. The administration dismissed the proposal, which has since become a touchstone for criticism that the Bush administration muffed a chance to avert Iran's rush toward nuclear proficiency that could produce a bomb.
Former National Security Council aide Flynt Leverett had left the NSC by the time the fax arrived, but he said in an interview that he knows the document was sent to the NSC. "This administration, out of some combination of ideological blindness and incompetence, couldn't be bothered to explore whether this opportunity was as serious as it looked on paper," Leverett said Wednesday. |
Italy to try U.S. soldier for agent's death| |
Excerpt: A Rome judge on Wednesday ordered a U.S. soldier to stand trial on homicide charges for shooting dead an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq in 2005 as he was escorting a newly freed hostage to safety, prosecutors said. |
Accidental attack on Brits was
U.S. reservists' first combat mission| |
Excerpt: The Sun today publishes the full, disturbing truth about how the U.S. pilot of an A-10 tankbuster jet broke all the rules to shoot up a British convoy in the Iraq war. We obtained the cockpit videotape at the center of a diplomatic row between the two allies. ...
The tragedy unfolded on March 28, 2003 -- day seven of the invasion to topple Saddam. The two single-seat, slow-flying jets were nearing the end of a two-hour mission to destroy artillery and rocket launchers from Saddam's 6 Armor Division, dug in 25 miles north of Basra.
Comment: Accidents happen in warfare. It's the war that's the outrage, not the accident, and the extra outrage is that the U.S. hid the facts of the matter for four frickin' years.
If there was a shred of sanity in the Bush administration, people would be fired and prosecuted for the cover-up. |
Fox to begin a 'more
business friendly' news channel| |
Excerpt: Yesterday, Rupert Murdoch confirmed one of the worst kept secrets in the media industry, that the News Corporation will start a long-awaited business news channel in the fourth quarter of this year. In doing so, he also took a shot at CNBC, the leading television business news outlet, vowing that the new channel would be friendlier to corporations.
Comment: Murdoch is no dummy, but this just ain't gonna work, at least not as described. You can lie to ordinary Americans all day long, like Fox News, and you'll draw a reliable audience. But investors need to be connected to truth, not propaganda. Will anyone buy lies when their money is on the |
Big win for innocent RIAA defendant| |
Excerpt: Debbie Foster, a single mom who was improperly sued by the RIAA (a/k/a Sony, Virgin, Philips, Warner Bros, etc.) back in 2004 for file sharing, has won back her attorneys' fees. The decision today is one of the first in the country to award attorneys fees to a defendant in an RIAA case over music sharing on the Internet. |
Man claims Pat Robertson threatened him| |
Excerpt: A Texas bodybuilder suing Pat Robertson contends the religious broadcaster walked into federal court for a legal proceeding and told him: "I am going to kill you and your family." |
Dozens of Bedouin left homeless
after six houses destroyed in Negev| |
Excerpt: The Interior Ministry and the Israel Lands Administration on Wednesday razed six homes occupied by some 70 Bedouin in an unrecognized village in the Negev. |
Livni: Extremists using Jerusalem
dig for their own political benefit| |
Excerpt: Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Thursday that Israel would never do anything to harm freedom of worship for all religions in Jerusalem, and that certain groups are using excavations near the Temple Mount for their own political gain.
Comment: When Israel says it would never do something, it's time to watch out! They usually say that after they kill a bunch of children, or UN peace observers.... (And WHO is using the excavation for political gain is really debatable, since Olmert needs every bit of support he can get, and the religious Jews WANT the Temple Mount (Al Aqsa).... To Tsipi, like to her new best friend Condi, lying is the way to treat the
Hundreds gather in Jerusalem to
protest Temple Mt. construction
Excerpt: Hundreds of people gathered outside the Old City of Jerusalem's Dung Gate on Thursday to protest against the construction of a new bridge to the Temple Mount. The protest has thus far remained peaceful. |
Israeli Judge: Troops at fence protest
were more violent than protesters| |
Excerpt: After watching a videotape of the rally, the judge wrote that the troops showed an "ugly face" to people holding a democratic demonstration. |
"I was scared. Who would believe
the Israeli president raped me?"
| |
Excerpt: "I went into his office with a book I needed to put away," she said. "He was sitting at his desk and there's a big wall of books behind him. I was reaching up to put the book away when he came up behind me." |
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Putin blasts America's 'unilateral, illegitimate actions' | |
Excerpt: Russian President Vladimir Putin harshly criticized U.S. foreign policy yesterday, telling an international conference packed with senior American and European officials that Washington's militarism has fostered global instability and forced vulnerable nations to seek nuclear weapons.
In a major address that was scolding, pleading and occasionally mocking, Putin accused the United States of attempting to create a "unipolar world" where it was free to ignore international law and impose its own will.
"Unilateral, illegitimate actions have not managed to resolve any problems, but made them worse," he said at an annual security conference here. "Local and regional conflicts have only grown in number." |
Cheney's office stonewalls on ... everything| |
Excerpt: The Office of the Vice President under Dick Cheney seems to cultivate secrecy as an end in itself, and not simply to protect national security or personal privacy. The OVP will not even confirm how many staff people work there, who they are, or much of anything else.
"Cheney's office refuses to give any details to reporters," observed Justin Rood in TPMmuckraker yesterday, noting further that the OVP "is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, so any such request would be futile." |
Lieberman wants a "War on Terror tax"| |
Excerpt: Spratt said Bush's plan projects a $61 billion budget surplus in 2012 while assuming only $50 billion in war costs in 2009 and none after that. This year, fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could total around $170 billion.
Comment: Looks like yet another Bush-Cheney lie to me. As if the occupation is ever going to end, or as if the cost of occupying Iraq is going to go down... |
Mass defection of North Korean troops| |
Excerpt: The border guards reportedly escaped from the central party's combined inspection squad's arrest attempt and were being pursued by North Korean agents in Manchuria. |
Army sensor tests to close part of downtown| |
Excerpt: Part of downtown Huntsville will be shut down this weekend so the Army can test new sensors designed to track vehicles in a city, police said.
The affected area is bordered by Meridian Street on the north, Jefferson Street and Westside Square on the west, Washington Street and East Side Square on the east and Southside Square on the south.
The test site will be barricaded and off-limits to the public from about 1 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday while personnel from the Army, the Redstone Technical Test Center, Redstone Arsenal and Textron Systems Corp. run tests on the new sensor equipment.
Vehicles ranging from smaller pickup trucks to larger Humvees and troop transports will move through the area where sensors will be placed, Miller said. Information gathered from the simulation could be used for a future combat systems program that's in the works, she said. |
Venezuela moves to nationalize electricity| |
Excerpt: President Hugo Chavez's government moved to nationalize Venezuela's largest private electric company on Thursday, signing an agreement to buy a controlling stake in Electricidad de Caracas from its U.S.-based owner, AES Corp. |
Cops pressure college teacher to
stop using Tor anti-tracking software
| |
Excerpt: The other men were not familiar, but a quick glance at their cards told me they were detectives on our campus police force. They closed my office door behind them, sat down, took out notepads and pens, and asked if I had a few minutes to speak with them about Tor. |
4th-graders' anti-war song
dumped from concert| |
Excerpt: "Stop the destruction, devastation, save humanity, end the war. What are we doing with our bombing and our shooting and our fire and destruction every day?" according to an unofficial copy of the lyrics.
"It appears that parent and other parents interpreted it as an anti-Iraq War song," said Principal Mary Ann Knight. |
Mississippi Senate passes abortion ban| |
Excerpt: The state Senate passed a bill Wednesday to ban most abortions in Mississippi, but the House chairman in charge of such legislation said he's going to kill it. "I have no intention of taking up any pro-life bills this year," said House Public Health and Human Services Chairman Steve Holland, D-Plantersville.
New Hampshire Governor OK
with ending parental notification
Excerpt: Gov. John Lynch said Thursday he will sign a bill to repeal New Hampshire's parental notification law -- currently in limbo as a result of a court battle.
Spokesman Colin Manning said Lynch believes the unconstitutional law, which would require abortion providers to notify at least one parent at least 48 hours before performing an abortion on a minor, fails to protect the health and safety of all women. |
Is Scientology trying to
make this man miserable?| |
Excerpt: The misdemeanor conviction in California stems from a post that Henson made in the alt.religion.scientology Usenet newsgroup that joked about aiming a nuclear "Tom Cruise" missile at Scientologists, and Henson's picketing of the group's Golden Era Productions in Riverside, Calif.
Michael Kielsky, Henson's defense attorney, said Monday that his client will likely be released on Monday evening and is required to appear in court for a March 5 hearing. |
Mystery killer silencing honeybees| |
Excerpt: At stake is the work the honeybees do, pollinating more than $15 billion worth of U.S. crops, including Pennsylvania's apple harvest, the fourth-largest in the nation, worth $45 million, and New Jersey's cranberries and blueberries.
While a few crops, such as corn and wheat, are pollinated by the wind, most need bees. Without these insects, crop yields would fall dramatically. Agronomists estimate Americans owe one in three bites of food to bees. |
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Lightning round news
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Old pot conviction gets contestant
booted from American Idol
"I want to know if right here, right now,
once and for all and without nuance,
you can say that war authorization
was a mistake. I, and I think a lot of
other primary voters -- until we hear
you say it, we're not going to hear all
the other great things you are saying."
Teacher arrested for allegedly
using cocaine in front of 4th graders
Have you clicked our Mystery links?
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Worries not usually spoken aloud
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: That American "government" would resort to this sort of thing is hardly a fantasy. All kinds of "sub-lethal" weaponry have been described recently in the mass media and on the net. Threats to use them against the political opposition are hardly veiled (witness the propaganda campaign about the "heat ray" weapon and its application to "civil disturbances").
The anthrax attacks have sunk below the horizon of news consciousness, but circumstantial evidence (the only kind we will have until we have our own Truth Commission, if ever) points to official involvement. |
Forgotten principles
by Leon Fisher, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: You who support the abomination taking place in the Middle East, and who support the usurper who has defiled the temple of our Government, will reap what you have sowed. The murderous and corrupt policies of the Bush cabal will backfire, your stocks will plummet, and your own children will be sent into the caldron of war. You will lose much of what you hold dear, and quite rightly so, and you will be haunted for the rest of your days. |
The new age of miracles
by Kevin Good, Unknown News
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Excerpt: Say our country has $5 to spend this year but the administration wants to spend $10. The administration proposes a budget of $20. Congress has weeks and weeks of sweaty heated debate and drastically cuts the proposed budget to $15. Congress goes home boasting of budget cuts. The administration spends $12 and boasts of reducing spending by being $3 under budget. They both add $8 to the country's debt. |
There's a message at the heart
of Flags of Our Fathers
by Leon Fisher, Unknown News
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Excerpt: This movie clearly illustrates the dishonesty and contempt with which the political structure in Washington and its wealthy backers hold the common man, using him to do their dirty work for them. |
The American torture handbook
by J.S. Magruder, whynotresist.blogsome.com| |
Excerpt: A few pages later, in an offhand way, without any charged language, it is suggested that priests and nuns not be overlooked as potential terrorists. Knowing how that bit of training advice was applied in El Salvador, it is difficult to read these manuals as anything other than documents of intent. The evil is laid out quite plainly interspersed with the mundane and banal. |
Remembering Molly Ivins
by Theodora, Ography| |
Excerpt: Always one of my favorite reads, Molly Ivins' columns were not only entertaining but made sense. Ivins put into words what I think most of us know in the back of our consciousness somewhere. And she was unabashed in her social critique, a quality that I much admire. |
Say "f**k" proudly
by Lambert's Blog
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Excerpt: Our Betters built an obscene world. Obscenity is not only a proper, but a necessary response to that world. Obscenity denies these evildoers the deference they claim is their due; the deference they still demand from us, and from their Beltway courtiers, sycophants, and enablers. |
New "biodefense" laboratory may
reflect a Bush germ warfare effort
by Sherwood Ross, The Smirking Chimp| |
Excerpt: Although no foreign power has threatened a bioterror attack against America, since 9/11 the Bush administration has allocated a stunning $43-billion to "defend" against one. Critics are now saying, however, Bush's newest "biodefense" initiative is both offensive and illegal. |
Victory is not an option in Iraq
by Former NSA Director William Odom, Washington Post
| |
Excerpt: The first and most critical step is to recognize that fighting on now simply prolongs our losses and blocks the way to a new strategy. Getting out of Iraq is the pre-condition for creating new strategic options. Withdrawal will take away the conditions that allow our enemies in the region to enjoy our pain. It will awaken those European states reluctant to collaborate with us in Iraq and the region. |
What 'Israel's right to exist' means to Palestinians
by John V. Whitbeck,
The Christian Science Monitor| |
Excerpt: To demand that Palestinians recognize "Israel's right to exist" is to demand that a people who have been treated as subhumans unworthy of basic human rights publicly proclaim that they are subhumans. It would imply Palestinians' acceptance that they deserve what has been done and continues to be done to them. Even 19th-century U.S. governments did not require the surviving native Americans to publicly proclaim the "rightness" of their ethnic cleansing by European colonists as a condition precedent to even discussing what sort of land reservation they might receive. Nor did native Americans have to live under economic blockade and threat of starvation until they shed whatever pride they had left and conceded the point. |
Advice to investors: Get out of America
by James J. Cramer, New York Magazine| |
Excerpt: Bush's policies are now loathed to the point that I have to recommend the unthinkable: You've got to diversify into other countries, perhaps as much as 20 percent, and you must do it now, before the damage this president's doing to our stocks accelerates. You won't be alone. We've seen unprecedented net flows of capital out of our country in the past few years. International purchases of U.S. stocks and long-term assets fell this past November to $68.4 billion, from $85.3 billion in October. And U.S. investors bought a record $21.2 billion of foreign stocks that month. Preservation of capital and simple prudence demand that you put some money offshore yourself. |
Expert says "buh-bye" to
Microsoft, switches to Mac
by Scott Finnie, Computerworld| |
Excerpt: After living with the Mac for three months and comparing it to my Vista experiences, the choice is crystal clear. I've struggled to sort out my gut feeling about Windows Vista (see "The Trouble with Vista"), but the value and advantage of the Mac and OS X are difficult to miss. While I continue to work with Windows XP and Vista on a number of other machines, I am now recommending the Macintosh for business and home users.
Microsoft's marketing materials for a past version of Windows used the phrase, "It just works." But the only computer that tagline honestly describes is the Macintosh. Don't translate that in your mind as, "Yeah, so what, the Mac is easy to use." Any new computing environment takes some getting used to. The easy-to-use aspect is nice, but not all that significant. When Mac users say, "It just works," what they mean is that you spend more time on your work, and a lot less time working on your computer.
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The politics of the man behind 24
by Jane Mayer, The New Yorker
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Excerpt: Jack Bauer remains coolly rational after committing barbarous acts, including the decapitation of a state's witness with a hacksaw. Joe Navarro, one of the FBI's top experts in questioning techniques, attended the meeting; he told me, "Only a psychopath can torture and be unaffected. You don't want people like that in your organization. They are untrustworthy, and tend to have grotesque other problems."
Rights group: TV torture
influencing real life
Retired U.S. Army Col. Stu Herrington, who learned interrogation techniques in Vietnam and is an expert asked by the Army to consult on conditions at Guantanamo Bay, said that if Bauer worked for him, he'd be headed for a court-martial.
"I am distressed by the fact that the good guys are depicted as successfully employing what I consider are illegal, immoral and stupid tactics, and they're succeeding," Herrington said. "When the good guys are doing something evil and win, that bothers me."
Comment: I wouldn't want to be accused of hyperbole or anything, but the producers of 24 are frickin' traitors to every principle America supposedly stands for. |
"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. ... We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, 'Stop it, now!'"
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Molly
by Leigh Saavedra, Unknown News
We wish you could have stayed
to see the valid close
his smug smile gone
drowned in full disgrace ...
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America's complacent, obedient slaves
by Kathy Fisher, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: In the end it won't be the war to end all wars, but the war to end all worlds! And Americans brought it upon themselves. |
Terrorized stupid
by Kevin Good, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Authorities fired 911 rounds in the direction of the suspected explosive devise, striking it five times and wounding six officers. A bomb squad robotic device moved the suspected terrorist bomb a safe distance from the school and destroyed it as the IED attempted to reactivate itself by saying, "The cat says meow."
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Democrats in Congress -- Do your duty!
by The Alchemist, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: What are you waiting for? Stand up and do your duty. Even if you Democrats are only marginally more honest than the Republicans, you will be seen as heroes, here and around the world. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose. |
On finding our way out of despair
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Depending on heroes and leaders to save us will not work. The authentic ones will just be killed, or worse turned, and the phony ones will be made to seem real. All that is left, however, is enough. Dialog with neighbors, friends and family that is inclusive of all points of view and self assigned identity is enough. Word of mouth is more powerful than mass media. |
Don't eat this, eat that by Underground Panther in the Sky, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Nobody knows why we get fat, but everyone's got an iron clad pet theory and the moral superiority complex that goes with it. And yes, they'd be more than happy to tell you how to live if you just follow their methods and buy their books. |
There is nothing more important than this
by Kathy Fisher, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: It's the good side of human nature, the very best, to try and keep trying to bring people to their senses. Trying to bring the injustice to a permanent halt. That is the best part of being alive, isn't it really? Doing what you can, to do something good? |
Six lies you shouldn't believe
about Iran, especially since,
hey, there's people down here
by Rosa Schmidt Azadi, OpEd News| |
Excerpt: I'm an American who used to live in New York City. All my life, when I heard about warships, it was US warships going places far away. I never even imagined hostile warships sailing toward New York. Now I'm in Tehran, and aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis is heading our way. And as it sails, people are discussing Israel and/or the US bombing Iran as if my family and 69 million other people weren't even here. I'm getting scared. |
We are the deciders
by Jim Kirwan, Rense| |
Excerpt: The infrastructure of this nation is in total disrepair, and there are no jobs that pay a decent wage. The government, if it were a functioning institution, could create programs that could employ virtually all the unemployed in rebuilding the infrastructure of America-by putting everyone back to work on rebuilding this nation: instead of selling off our freeways to foreign governments and letting everything else just go to hell. |
Don't you want us to succeed in Iraq?
by Robert Capozzi, Free For All| |
Excerpt: Like most of the English language, the word "success" is squishy. For example, if "success" means the U.S. troops stay in Iraq for 10 years, refereeing a Sunni/Shia Civil War until no militia are left, then, NO, Mr. Hannity, I don't support success. The Iraq War is like fruit from a poisoned tree. It was a mistake from the get-go, based on false premises. It was a set up for failure in my book. Of course, I want to get U.S. troops out of harm's way. I don't want them to die or to be maimed in a cause that I find completely inappropriate. |
Sorry state of the Second Amendment
by Radley Balko, The Agitator| |
Excerpt: Of course, the uniting factor in all of these cases is the fact that the victims had guns in the home. Never mind that the guns were legal. If you're a gun-owner, you should be particularly concerned about this militarization stuff. Those weapons give police an excuse to turn the slightest infraction of altercation into a full-on raid. If you're adamant and vocal about your Second Amendment rights, all the worse for you. |
And most Americans don't know
an iron curtain is descending
by Pariah, CounterPunch| |
Excerpt: Most Americans are unaware of the new police state procedures of U.S. officials who seek to keep millions of Americans from traveling--including trips across the border to our North, once thought the least difficult international frontier in the world to cross. There are now regular stops an "internal" checkpoints for cars traveling toward, away from or near the border in states from Maine to Washington. This includes permanent checkpoints on interstates one hundred or more miles from the border in New York and Vermont, as well as moving patrols who stop motorists in all parts of the border states. Some have called these "whiteness checkpoints," since the border guards often pull over dark-skinned motorists and people perceived as Middle Easterners. |
Nemesis: The last days of
the American Republic
by Chalmers Johnson and
Tom Engelhardt, AntiWar| |
Excerpt: We are on the brink of losing our democracy for the sake of keeping our empire. Once a nation starts down that path, the dynamics that apply to all empires come into play -- isolation, overstretch, the uniting of local and global forces opposed to imperialism, and in the end bankruptcy.
History is instructive on this dilemma. If we choose to keep our empire, as the Roman republic did, we will certainly lose our democracy and grimly await the eventual blowback that imperialism generates. There is an alternative, however. We could, like the British Empire after World War II, keep our democracy by giving up our empire. |
2007 State of the Universe Address
by Swami Beyondananda, Wake Up Laughing| |
Excerpt: Did you know that over the 20th century, war caused 260 million deaths? Why if someone did just one 260 millionth of that, it’d be all over the 6:00 news with details at 11. And if any one of us did what we allow “all of us” to do, we’d be put away forever. I guess they must have changed the Ten Commandments while we weren’t looking. Thou shalt not kill, except in extremely large groups. |
Conservatives learn nothing from
five years of blundering catastrophe
by Francis Fukuyama, The Guardian| |
Excerpt: The United States today spends approximately as much as the rest of the world combined on its military establishment. So it is worth pondering why it is that, after nearly four years of effort, the loss of thousands of American lives, and an outlay of perhaps half-a-trillion dollars, the U.S. has not succeeded in pacifying a small country of some 24 million people, much less in leading it to anything that looks remotely like a successful democracy. |
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. |
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