The United States received hundreds of millions in foreign aid last year, after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. But what happened to the money?
In yet another chapter of "You mean you can actually fight back when they steal your election?" it looks like Lopez Obrador keeps acting like a real opposition. Its not unlike listening to George Galloway and saying "So that's how it s done. You're supposed to oppose the Republicans not become them. "
This is just unreal. Here's a prediction. This won't remain peaceful. IN fact, this has all of the makings of a Mexican civil war. I know which side I'm rooting for. And yes, democracy, true democracy and not the fraud we live under here in the US, is worth fighting and dying for. I wish them luck.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, convinced he won't be awarded the presidency, has vowed to create a parallel leftist government and is urging Mexicans not to recognize the apparent victory of the ruling party's Felipe Calderon.
While his party lacks the seats in Congress to block legislation, Lopez Obrador can mobilize millions to pressure his conservative rival to adopt the left's agenda - or to clamp down and risk a backlash.
Both scenarios are possibilities as the former Mexico City mayor lays out plans to create his own government to rule from the streets, with the support of thousands who are already occupying protest camps throughout downtown Mexico City.
Some predict his parallel initiative - which Lopez Obrador's supporters call the "legitimate government" - could turn those protest camps into the core of a violent revolt, especially if the government tries to shut it down.
Such violence broke out in the southern city of Oaxaca after Gov. Ulises Ruiz sent police to evict striking teachers. Outraged citizens' groups joined the protests, setting fire to buildings and public buses, seizing radio and TV stations and forcing the closure of businesses in a city known throughout the world as a quaint tourist destination.
"Everything we do, from property taxes to permits to natural resources, will go through the 'legitimate government,'" said Severina Martinez, a school teacher from Oaxaca camped out in a tent in Mexico City's main Zocalo plaza. "We won't have anything to do with the official government."
Some supporters took out a newspaper ad Tuesday, calling on Lopez Obrador to set up his own treasury department and said all Mexicans "should channel federal revenues to the new treasury department."
Lopez Obrador is encouraging his followers to disobey Calderon, whose 240,000-vote advantage was confirmed Monday by the country's top electoral court. The seven magistrates stopped short of declaring Calderon president-elect, but they have only a week to declare a winner or annul the election.
"We do not recognize Felipe Calderon as president, nor any officials he appoints, nor any acts carried out by his de-facto government," Lopez Obrador said after the court ruling, which he claims overlooked evidence of fraud in the July 2 elections.
Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, increased its number of congressional seats in those elections and became the second-largest bloc, behind Calderon's National Action Party, on Tuesday as new lawmakers were sworn in.
But it holds only a quarter of the seats - not enough to block legislation, especially if Calderon forges a likely alliance with the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. That alliance would hold a majority in each house of Congress.
Lopez Obrador has ruled out negotiations with what he calls the "spurious" and "imposed" government. Because PRD legislators fear crossing him or his fervent followers, they can't cut deals to get their own legislation approved, making them even weaker.
"There is no possibility that we federal legislators in Congress will start any dialogue with the government," said PRD Senate leader Carlos Navarette, considered one of the party's moderates. "We will never forget that the leader and director of the Mexican people's action and the left is Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador."
Lopez Obrador's plan is to have his government help the poor, oppose privatizations and make the news media - which he has accused of ignoring him - more "truthful and objective."
It's not clear how he plans to do that, but his supporters are already planning to hold an alternative swearing in ceremony to rival the official inauguration on Dec. 1.
People close to Lopez Obrador say he is assuming the role of his hero, 18th century President Benito Juarez, who led a roving, "unofficial" presidency from 1863 to 1867 during the French invasion, before driving out the invaders and executing the French-installed Emperor Maximilian.
"Juarez ran the government from a carriage and restored the republic," said Rosario Ibarra, a human rights activist who frequently shares the stage with Lopez Obrador at his rallies. "We just hope there won't be any need to shoot anyone."
So far, protesters have only scuffled with police. Some fear the movement could turn violent, although Lopez Obrador says it will remain peaceful.
The administration of President Vicente Fox hopes it will all just boil down to some fiery rhetoric and posturing.
"We think this is a symbolic, political act that has no validity in the affairs of state," Fox's spokesman, Ruben Aguilar, said Tuesday. Asked about Lopez Obrador's plan to declare himself head of state, Aguilar noted that "in this country, everyone is free to say whatever they want."
There is no question that Lopez Obrador is taking his "legitimate government" or "government in resistance" - the exact title has yet to be determined - very seriously.
Asked whether Lopez Obrador would wear some version of the presidential sash during his swearing-in ceremony, PRD spokesman Gerardo Fernandez accused reporters of poking fun at the candidate. He also upbraided those who spoke of plans for an "alternative government."
"What Andres Manuel has suggested is not an alternative president," Fernandez said. "It will be a legitimate government with a legitimate president."
Paul Shambroom... Playground Donald, "Terror Town" (2005, Playas Training Center, NM., Archival pigmented inkjet on paper) From the Homeland Secuirty Series. "...For my current project I am photographing training facilities, equipment and personnel involved in the massive government and private sector efforts to prepare for and respond to terrorist attacks within the nation's borders. First responders and law enforcement officers train in large-scale simulated environments such as 'Disaster City' in Texas and 'Terror Town,' an abandoned mining community in New Mexico purchased with funds from the Department of Homeland Security. This work examines issues of fear, safety and liberty in post-9/11 America." From Paul Shambroom.
Interview with Dr. David Ray Griffin regarding his most recent article, "9/11 Live or Fabricated: Do the NORAD Tapes Verify the 9/11 Commission Report?" Griffin's article, written primarily in response to Vanity Fair Magazine's, "9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes" by Michael Bronner in their September 2006 issue, deconstructs the preposterous argument that NORAD was not notified by the FAA of hijacked airliners until they had struck their targets or crashed, and that the only jets the military scrambled were in response to a flight that did not exist. Griffin takes a close look at NORAD's audio tapes, on whose authenticity these claims depend.
In researching a new film, I have been watching documentary archive from the 1980s, the era of Ronald Reagan and his "secret war" against Central America. What is striking is the relentless lying. A department of lying was set up under Reagan with the coy name, "office of public diplomacy". Its purpose was to dispense "white" and "black" propaganda - lies - and to smear journalists who told the truth. Almost everything Reagan himself said on the subject was false. Time and again, he warned Americans of an "imminent threat" from the tiny impoverished nations that occupy the isthmus between the two continents of the western hemisphere. "Central America is too close and its strategic stakes are too high for us to ignore the danger of governments seizing power with military ties to the Soviet Union," he said. Nicaragua was "a Soviet base" and "communism is about to take over the Caribbean". The United States, said the president, "is engaged in a war on terrorism, a war for freedom".
How familiar it all sounds. Merely replace Soviet Union and communism with al-Qaeda, and you are up to date. And it was all a fantasy. The Soviet Union had no bases in or designs on Central America; on the contrary, the Soviets were adamant in turning down appeals for their aid. The comic strips of "missile storage depots" that American officials presented to the United Nations were precursors to the lies told by Colin Powell in his infamous promotion of Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction at the Security Council in 2003.
Whereas Powell's lies paved the way for the invasion of Iraq and the violent death of at least 100,000 people, Reagan's lies disguised his onslaught on Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. By the end of his two terms, 300,000 people were dead. In Guatemala, his proxies - armed and tutored in torture by the CIA - were described by the UN as perpetrators of genocide.
There is one major difference today. That is the level of awareness among people everywhere of the true purpose of Bush and Blair's "war on terror" and the scale and diversity of the popular resistance to it. In Reagan's day, the notion that presidents and prime ministers lied as deliberate, calculated acts was considered exotic; Nixon's Watergate lies were said to be shocking because presidents did not lie outright.
The US government has been accused of trying to undermine the Chavez government in Venezuela by funding anonymous groups via its main international aid agency.
Millions of dollars have been provided in a "pro-democracy programme" that Chavez supporters claim is a covert attempt to bankroll an opposition to defeat the government.
The money is being provided by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) through its Office of Transition Initiatives.
In case you missed it, philip agee:How United States Intervention Against Venezuela Works
If Web readers in Britain were intrigued by the headline "Details Emerge in British Terror Case," which sat on top of The New York Times's home page much of yesterday, they would have been disappointed with a click.
"On advice of legal counsel, this article is unavailable to readers of nytimes.com in Britain," is the message they would have seen. "This arises from the requirement in British law that prohibits publication of prejudicial information about the defendants prior to trial."
Also see, MOA's Open thread 06-82 with regards to British "moisture on planes" terror scare.
P.s. nor have I been able to access the article through bugmenot, does anyone have access to the original?
Lone Star military intelligence analyst who actually analyzes something important. The high percentage of support he receives in the comments following the article may be illusory, but at least the usual trolls and shills seem to be either absent or hopelessly outnumbered. One would like to hope that this is a significant straw-in-the-wind, but it will probably make fewer waves than Cindy Sheehan, whose protest has not yet, alas, been able to reach "critical mass".
Video describing serious safety and security problems with the Deepwater Program - specifically the 123 class of patrol boats. This video is factual . I created the video and posted it hoping someone with the right connections sees it and can assist me in fixing the problems. While the DHS IG is currently investigating the issues the US Coast Guard has been stonewalling and not cooperating fully. As such the investigation cannot conclude. My hope is to instill a sense of urgency..
Whistleblower uses YouTube to out key coup co-conspirator, Lockheed Martin, contracted to prepare coast a guard fleet to be easily compromised by...who knows? Terrorists?
Is this glaring, bumbling private-sector incompetance, or very competant, efficient planning for a fall back to such an explanation should something occur? Either way, pretty clear who's in cahoots and not a ringing endorsement for the virtues of the private sector. Let's see if some government oversight can do something about it (not holding my breath) now that the whistleblower's statement is on you tube.
Into our town the hangman came, smelling of gold and blood and flame. He paced our bricks with a different air, and built his frame on the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side, only as wide as the door was wide with a frame as tall, or a little more, than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered whenever we had the time, Who the criminal? What the crime? The hangman judged with the yellow twist of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were with dread, we passed those eyes of buckshot lead. Till one cried, "Hangman, who is he, for whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in his buckshot eye and he gave a riddle instead of reply. "He who serves me best," said he "Shall earn the rope on the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down and laid his hand on a man who came from another land. And we breathed again, for anothers grief at the hangmans hand, was our relief.
And the gallows frame on the courthouse lawn by tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone. So we gave him way and no one spoke out of respect for his hangmans cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down on roof and street in our quiet town; and stark and black in the morning air the gallows-tree on the courthouse square.
And the hangman stood at his usual stand with the yellow hemp in his busy hand. With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike, and his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done, yesterday with the alien one?" Then we fell silent and stood amazed. "Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us, "Do you think I've gone to all this fuss, To hang one man? That's the thing I do. To stretch the rope when the rope is new."
Above our silence a voice cried "Shame!" and into our midst the hangman came; to that mans place, "Do you hold," said he, "With him that was meat for the gallows-tree?"
He laid his hand on that one's arm and we shrank back in quick alarm. We gave him way, and no one spoke, out of fear of the hangmans cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise the hangmans scaffold had grown in size. Fed by the blood beneath the chute, the gallows-tree had taken root.
Now as wide, or a little more than the steps that led to the courthouse door. As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall, half way up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took, we had all heard tell, was a usurer..., an infidel. And "What" said the hangman, "Have you to do with the gallows-bound..., and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he who has served you well and faithfully?" The hangman smiled, "It's a clever scheme to try the strength of the gallows beam."
The fourth man's dark accusing song had scratched our comfort hard and long. "And what concern," he gave us back, "Have you ... for the doomed and black?"
The fifth, the sixth, and we cried again, "Hangman, hangman, is this the man?" "It's a trick", said he, "that we hangman know for easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased and asked now more as the hangman tallied his bloody score. And sun by sun, and night by night the gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide until they covered the square from side to side. And the monster cross beam looking down, cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the hangman came and called through the empy streets...my name. I looked at the gallows soaring tall and thought ... there's no one left at all
for hanging ... and so he called to me to help take down the gallows-tree. And I went out with right good hope to the hangmans tree and the hangmans rope.
He smiled at me as I came down to the courthouse square...through the silent town. Supple and stretched in his busy hand, was the yellow twist of hempen strand.
He whistled his tune as he tried the trap and it sprang down with a ready snap. Then with a smile of awful command, He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me Hangman." I shouted then, "That your scaffold was built for other men, and I'm no henchman of yours." I cried. "You lied to me Hangman, foully lied."
Then a twinkle grew in his buckshot eye, "Lied to you...tricked you?" He said "Not I... for I answered straight and told you true. The scaffold was raised for none but you."
"For who has served more faithfully? With your coward's hope." said He, "And where are the others that might have stood side by your side, in the common good?"
"Dead!" I answered, and amiably "Murdered," the Hangman corrected me. "First the alien ... then the Jew. I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky none before stood so alone as I. The Hangman then strapped me...with no voice there to cry "Stay!" ..for me in the empty square.
Following the CIA's "Psychological Operations" Manual for the Nicaraguan Contras, the State Government Has Unleashed a Bloody Counterinsurgency Strategy to Eliminate the Social Movement
A U.S. envoy was stopped at the airport in Venezuela and charged with violation of diplomatic security because he attempted to bring in several bags loaded with ejector equipment and explosive charges. When questioned, the envoy said the ejector equipment were replacement parts for the Venezuelan air force.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) can be used to monitor U.S. persons who engage in unlawful "collection or transmission of information that is not generally available to the public" even if they are not acting on behalf of a foreign power.
That is the upshot of an August 14 ruling (pdf) disclosed last week in the case of two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)
....
By the Court's logic, it does not take an big imaginative leap to envision the application of FISA surveillance to members of the press or others who deliberately solicit classified or controlled information or who report on classified programs in willful defiance of official directives to the contrary.
"Have You Had Enough" One of the best political ads ever. From Youtube: Permission for use of music by the Squirrel Nut Zippers & Rickie Lee Jones from Executive Producer Howie Klein. Produced without the help of any campaign or any party. If you know of a campaign that wants to use their own version of this video, please contact me.
Professor's 9/11 theories outrage NH leaders By STAFF REPORT
Sunday, Aug. 27, 2006
A tenured professor of psychology at the University of New Hampshire believes an "elite" group within the federal government orchestrated the September 11th attacks on America.
William Woodward has already raised that possibility in his classroom and later this year hopes to teach a class that would explore Sept. 11th "in psychological terms -- terms like belief, conspiracy, fear, truth, courage, group dynamics."
He may not get the chance. Several state leaders yesterday criticized Woodward for bringing the radical theories into the classroom.
"In my view, there are limitations to academic freedom and freedom of speech," said U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H.
"I believe it is inappropriate for someone at a public university which is supported with taxpayer dollars to take positions that are generally an affront to the sensibility of most all Americans," Gregg said.
Tomorrow is the start of the annual Burning Man festival in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. No, I won't be going. I'm wary of any event that involves large numbers of white people gathering to set things on fire.
The only good thing about Burning Man is that, for a few days, San Francisco will be rid of a few hundred annoying faux-bohemian types. (If I were inclined to emulate Ann Coulter, I might go further and suggest that Burning Man would be an opportune time for that other great Nevada desert tradition, a nuclear weapons test. But I'd never stoop so low.)
For the first time, Burning Man participants will be able to "offset" their global warming impact much the same way large corporations do, by investing in clean energy projects.
Yep, they've bought into the trendy-but-empty-gesture-of-the-monent, "carbon offsets". Burners feeling guilty about all the fossil fuel they waste driving to the desert, and all the pollution they generate by burning tons of wood, can assuage their consciences (but not achieve very much else) with token cash payments in the delusion that this will somehow help to alleviate global warming. Perhaps next year they can sign up BP as a sponsor.
The incidence of rape in the United States has declined 85% in the past 25 years while access to pornography has become freely available to teenagers and adults. The Nixon and Reagan Commissions tried to show that exposure to pornographic materials produced social violence. The reverse may be true: that pornography has reduced social violence.
Republican chairman of the Oregon Christian Coalition Lou Beres confessed to molesting a 13-year old girl. Republican County Constable Larry Dale Floyd was arrested on suspicion of soliciting sex with an 8-year old girl. Floyd has repeatedly won elections for Denton County, Texas, constable. Republican judge Mark Pazuhanich pleaded no contest to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation. Republican Party leader Bobby Stumbo was arrested for having sex with a 5-year old boy. Republican petition drive manager Tom Randall pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 14, one of them the daughter of an associate in the petition business. Republican County Chairman Armando Tebano was arrested for sexually molesting a 14-year-old girl. Republican teacher and former city councilman John Collins pleaded guilty to sexually molesting 13 and 14 year old girls. Republican campaign worker Mark Seidensticker is a convicted child molester. Republican Mayor Philip Giordano is serving a 37-year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing 8- and 10-year old girls. Republican Mayor Tom Adams was arrested for distributing child pornography over the internet. Republican Mayor John Gosek was arrested on charges of soliciting sex from two 15-year old girls. Republican County Commissioner David Swartz pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison. Republican legislator Edison Misla Aldarondo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping his daughter between the ages of 9 and 17. Republican Committeeman John R. Curtain was charged with molesting a teenage boy and unlawful sexual contact with a minor. Republican anti-abortion activist Howard Scott Heldreth is a convicted child rapist in Florida. Republican zoning supervisor, Boy Scout leader and Lutheran church president Dennis L. Rader pleaded guilty to performing a sexual act on an 11-year old girl he murdered. Republican anti-abortion activist Nicholas Morency pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor. Republican campaign consultant Tom Shortridge was sentenced to three years probation for taking nude photographs of a 15-year old girl. Republican racist pedophile and United States Senator Strom Thurmond had sex with a 15-year old black girl which produced a child. Republican pastor Mike Hintz, whom George W. Bush commended during the 2004 presidential campaign, surrendered to police after admitting to a sexual affair with a female juvenile. Republican legislator Peter Dibble pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl. Republican advertising consultant Carey Lee Cramer was sentenced to six years in prison for molesting two 8-year old girls, one of whom appeared in an anti-Gore television commercial. Republican activist Lawrence E. King, Jr. organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s. Republican lobbyist Craig J. Spence organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s. Republican Congressman Donald "Buz" Lukens was found guilty of having sex with a female minor and sentenced to one month in jail. Republican fundraiser Richard A. Delgaudio was found guilty of child porn charges and paying two teenage girls to pose for sexual photos. Republican activist Mark A. Grethen convicted on six counts of sex crimes involving children. Republican activist Randal David Ankeney pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault on a child. Republican Congressman Dan Crane had sex with a female minor working as a congressional page. Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous relationship with his step daughter. Republican Judge Ronald C. Kline was placed under house arrest for child molestation and possession of child pornography. Republican congressman and anti-gay activist Robert Bauman was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar. Republican Committee Chairman Jeffrey Patti was arrested for distributing a video clip of a 5-year-old girl being raped. Republican activist Marty Glickman (a.k.a. "Republican Marty"), was taken into custody by Florida police on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with an underage girl and one count of delivering the drug LSD. Republican legislative aide Howard L. Brooks was charged with molesting a 12-year old boy and possession of child pornography. Republican Senate candidate John Hathaway was accused of having sex with his 12-year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media.
Republican preacher Stephen White, who demanded a return to traditional values, was sentenced to jail after offering $20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.
Republican talk show host Jon Matthews pleaded guilty to exposing his genitals to an 11 year old girl.
Republican anti-gay activist Earl "Butch" Kimmerling was sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting an 8-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her. Republican Party leader Paul Ingram pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served 14 years in federal prison. Republican election board official Kevin Coan was sentenced to two years probation for soliciting sex over the internet from a 14-year old girl. Republican politician Andrew Buhr was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13-year old boy.
Republican legislator Keith Westmoreland was arrested on seven felony counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition to girls under the age of 16 (i.e. exposing himself to children).
Republican anti-abortion activist John Allen Burt was found guilty of molesting a 15-year old girl. Republican County Councilman Keola Childs pleaded guilty to molesting a male child. Republican activist John Butler was charged with criminal sexual assault on a teenage girl. Republican candidate Richard Gardner admitted to molesting his two daughters. Republican Councilman and former Marine Jack W. Gardner was convicted of molesting a 13-year old girl. Republican County Commissioner Merrill Robert Barter pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy. Republican City Councilman Fred C. Smeltzer, Jr. pleaded no contest to raping a 15 year-old girl and served 6-months in prison. Republican activist Parker J. Bena pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000. Republican parole board officer and former Colorado state representative, Larry Jack Schwarz, was fired after child pornography was found in his possession. Republican strategist and Citadel Military College graduate Robin Vanderwall was convicted in Virginia on five counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the internet. Republican city councilman Mark Harris, who is described as a "good military man" and "church goer," was convicted of repeatedly having sex with an 11-year-old girl and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Republican businessman Jon Grunseth withdrew his candidacy for Minnesota governor after allegations surfaced that he went swimming in the nude with four underage girls, including his daughter. Republican campaign worker, police officer and self-proclaimed reverend Steve Aiken was convicted of having sex with two underage girls. Republican director of the "Young Republican Federation" Nicholas Elizondo molested his 6-year old daughter and was sentenced to six years in prison. Republican president of the New York City Housing Development Corp. Russell Harding pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer. Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, Richard A. Dasen Sr., was found guilty of raping a 15-year old girl. Dasen, 62, who is married with grown children and several grandchildren, has allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young women. Republican Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the rape of children in Iraqi prisons in order to humiliate their parents into providing information about the anti-American insurgency. See excerpt of one prisoner's report here and his full report here.
The reactionary campaign against knowledge and information is reaching frightening new heights.
The Environmental Protection Agency has been ordered by the White House to "shut down [its] libraries, end public access to research materials and box up unique collections on the assumption that Congress will not reverse President Bush's proposed budget reductions." Fifteen states will lose library service immediately, the rest will follow, and the public is to be turned away as soon as possible.
Will the most powerful and well-funded institution on the planet remain under civilian command indefinitely? As the domestic spying saga unfolds and militarism rises, Harper's brought four experts - both academics and brass - to discuss the possibilities.
"To subdue America entirely, the only route remaining would be to seize the machinery of state itself, to steer it toward malign ends - to carry out, that is, a coup d'etat."
Althouse has been on a roll lately. Greenwald's latest on her op-ed is irresistable.
At the risk of beating a dead horse, there is one other point worth making about the Ann Althouse Op-Ed. In the very first sentence, Althouse criticized Judge Taylor for "referring to [Earl Warren] as 'Justice Warren,' not 'Chief Justice Warren,' as if she wanted to spotlight her carelessness." The day before, Althouse created an entire post on her blog with the exclusive purpose of making this same "point" ("How can you forget to call him Chief Justice?").
But Madison Guy points to another Op-Ed written by Althouse in the NYT back in 2005, the purpose of which was to defend the Sam Alito nomination. To do so, Althouse said this: "Yet while Justice Burger remained conservative, Justice Blackmun went on to write the opinion legalizing abortion in Roe v. Wade and, eventually, to vote consistently with the liberal justices." As Madison Guy notes: "that would be Chief Justice Warren Burger, right?"
Let us not forget this is the same woman who had this to say about Kevin Barrett and 9-11:
Barrett then tries to lay out the details of the theory. The word "thermate" comes out of his mouth. (It's supposed to be "thermite," but why be precise?) [ADDED: Apparently, there is something called "thermate," which, like thermite, has a role in the conspiracy theory.]
Sometimes you almost think this stuff is a parody.
P.S. On a different note, can I get a show of hands for those whom read my posts? I hate to be all existentialist on ya, but I seem to hardly ever garner comments on any of my blogs. Are my posts appreciated outside of the other posters here? Feeling quite the outsider today, but expected to make full recovery. ;-)
Summary: Despite all the ominous warnings of wily terrorists and imminent attacks, there has been neither a successful strike nor a close call in the United States since 9/11. The reasonable -- but rarely heard -- explanation is that there are no terrorists within the United States, and few have the means or the inclination to strike from abroad.
John Mueller is Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University and the author of "The Remnants of War." He is currently writing a book about reactions to terrorism and other perceived international threats that will be published early next year.
. . . apparently this is old news but I hadn't heard it before. I haven't been able to stomach corporate evening news for at least a decade - but man, it just gets worse and worse - current NBC anchor Brian Williams has said, "it's my duty to listen to [nationally syndicated radio host] Rush."
Jack Quinn served as Vice President Gore's chief of staff and later as counsel to President Clinton. In January 2000, he left what was still a Democratic White House and formed Quinn Gillespie with Ed Gillespie, a Republican and close friend of Tom DeLay. This firm was among the pioneers of the one-stop-shopping approach that has since swept Washington. Want to influence the legislative process? Now you can get right to the top of both parties by hiring a single firm.
Quinn Gillespie has represented clients who want to drill in fragile areas of Alaska, put the screws to already beleaguered American creditors, and prevent the introduction of more healthy dairy substitutes in school lunches. Quinn helped secure a controversial pardon for the fugitive financier Marc Rich as Clinton was leaving office.
Firm clients have included: Enron; the American Petroleum Institute (supported lifting federal ban on offshore drilling on the outer continental shelf, including Alaska; opposed raising taxes on oil companies); the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care (which of course is actually the notorious nursing home industry -- the Alliance was indicted in late 2004 for a $100,000 illegal contribution to DeLay's PAC); the Partnership to Protect Consumer Credit (which wants to preempt tougher state and local laws designed to protect consumers); the International Dairy Foods Association (which opposes the introduction of more healthful dairy substitutes in school lunches); "Ax the Double Tax" coalition (which in truth prefers no taxes at all, but if they must exist, would like corporations to be able to repatriate foreign subsidiary profits at a lower tax rate); Bank of America (fighting stricter consumer data-protection legislation proposed after big data breach at BOA).
Perhaps the coziness is most poetically illustrated by the fact that there is another Jack Quinn in the same business, but, in a perfect reversal of Jack Quinn #1, he is a Republican paired with a Democrat. The increased Dem-Republican cooperation (perhaps 'cooptation' is a better term) is reflected in remarks by yet a third Quinn, Thomas Quinn (no relation to either Jack Quinn). Here's what he says about the work of his firm, Venable LLC, applies to the whole politically neutral K Street scene today: "Here we work very collegially, and I've gotten more collegial as there are more Republicans. We work closely with Republicans. All of us are in this together."
See the latest Bliar BuschCo scare in the air has created a whole new class of crime in the eyes of the gullible.
It's called "unwhite while possessing technology in public".
The Gruaniad explains:
Dutch prosecutors are releasing all 12 passengers held for interrogation after a Northwest Airlines flight to Mumbai turned back to Amsterdam under escort by fighter jets.
The men, all Indian nationals, aroused suspicions on Flight NW0042 because they had numerous mobile phones, laptops and hard drives, and refused to obey the crew, prosecutors said.
US air marshals stepped in during the drama. Dutch prosecution spokesman Ed Hartjes said no evidence of a terrorist threat was found but the pilot was right to turn back as the equipment could have been used to set off a bomb.
It's a fairly predictable early 21st century tale of five Uighurs, natives of Xinjiang province of China, who had hopped over to Afghanistan then Pakistan to get themselves some of that freedom of religion stuff being as they were muslims and therefore not exactly flavour of the month with a lot of powerful chinamen.
These chaps were not in the least seperatist, jihadist, terrarist or even egoist, just blokes going about their business. When they fronted into a town in Pakistan and asked for directions to a mosque, such institutions being rather thin on the ground back home in sunny Cathay, some local sport decided to sell them to the septic tanks as terrarists, just for the fun of it and of course, make hisself a dollar or three.
These chaps then languished in Gitmo for several years. The fact that their innocence was apparent to all who investigated them was irrelevant since BushCo were concerned about what may happpen to them if they return to China ( Uighurs being an oppressed minority in China) couldn't send them back there and no one else wanted them. Yeah I know there's something not quite rational in that line of BushCo thinking. Irrational but certainly not suprising.
Then Canada said they would to take them . . . but their lawyers who had been trying every trick in the book also had another iron in the fire in the form of an appeal in the federal courts which was coming up for it's date.
Senor Gonzales must have been concerned about one of those nasty all encompassing precedents being created by those liberal activist judges that he keeps appointing from the Federalist society via John Birch at al, because quick as a wink the 5 friends were whisked out of Gitmo in shackles, blindfolds, and buttplugs then awarded a free vacation for the rest of their lives in sunny downtown Albania, from whence they will never escape.
Somehow that salutory tale of being an un-whitefella backpacker reminded me of a chapter in Fear of Flying whence young Erica finding herself bereft of psychiatrists and footloose in Germany hoofs it over to the Nuremburg stadium where adolf and the gang used to party.
Erica is a bit off her feed since Laing has pulled the old existentialist con and gone back to his wife, therefore when her Jewishness kicks in she finds it impossible to look at Germans without wanting to scream in their faces. "where you you when the nazis were dragging your neighbors off to the camps? why did you do nothing?"
Is that what Uighur people will be thinking in the not too distant future?
In one of those quiet, behind-closed-doors-moments, right wing extremists in the White House have secretly removed Evolution, the single organizing principle of biology, as a graduate study program eligible for Federal funding.
Evolutionary biology has vanished from the list of acceptable fields of study for recipients of a federal education grant for low-income college students.
The author of a new book about the mistakes that led to 9/11 accuses the National Geographic Channel of diluting a documentary about the book in order to protect the government. Snip:Able Danger insiders had figured the documentary to be controversial, but no one expected open warfare to break out between Lance and his broadcasters prior to its airing. Lance, who was originally slated to narrate the film, is so angry at what he sees as the program's shift in direction and emphasis that he now refuses to back it at all.
The Amnesty section of Mannheim (Germany) wanted to create new and strong public interest in their town, because people often avoid the classical Amnesty information desks in pedestrian zones and shopping malls
Once in awhile, maybe you will feel the urge To break international copyright laws By downloading MP3s from file-sharing sites Like Morpheus or Grockster or Limewire or Kazaa
But deep in your heart, you know the guilt would drive you mad And the shame would leave a permanent scar 'Cause you start out stealin' songs, then you're robbin' liquor stores And sellin' crack and running over schoolkids with your car
So don't download this song The record store's where you belong Go and buy the CD like you know that you should Oh, don't download this song
Oh, you don't want to mess with the RI-double-A They'll sue you if you burn that CD-R It doesn't matter if you're a grandma or a seven-year-old girl They'll treat you like the evil hard-bitten criminal scum you are
So, don't download this song Don't go pirating music all day long Go and buy the CD like you know that you should Oh, don't download this song
Don't take away money from artists just like me How else can I afford another solid-gold Humvee? And diamond-studded swimming pools? These things don't grow on trees So all I ask is everybody please
Don't download this song (don't do it, oh no) Even Lars Ulrich knows it's wrong (you can just ask him) Go and buy the CD like you know that you should (you really should) Oh, don't download this song
Don't download this song (other people should do it for you) Might wind up in jail like Tommy Chong (remember Tommy) Go and buy the CD (right now) like you know you should (go out and buy it) Oh, don't download this song
Don't download this song (na, na, na, na, na, na, oh) Or you'll burn in hell before too long (and you deserve it) Go and buy the CD (just buy it) like you know that you should (you cheap bastard) Oh, don't download this song
Army: Doubting Official 9/11 Story Is 'Disloyal To The United States'..."It has been reported that Colonel Green also wrote that SFC Buswell claims to have information proving a conspiracy on the part of the United States Military Industrial Complex to attack targets within the United States, e.g., The Pentagon."
I'm going to pose a hypothetical here - you're in an airport in the U.S., wearing a t-shirt with the words, "We will not be silent" screen printed on the front. Out of nowhere, airline security (or some other nebulous authority figure) pulls you aside and asks you to take it off because someone complained.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was among a few dozen banks, insurance companies, mutual funds and others entities that loaned $350 million to MediaNews Group Inc. for its purchase of four newspapers from publisher McClatchy Co.
The Seattle-based Gates Foundation, the world's largest philanthropy with an endowment of about $30 billion, contributed an unspecified amount of money toward the transaction, according to an Aug. 8 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission by MediaNews Group. Others listed as contributors include General Electric Capital Corp. and Blue Shield of California.
Spokeswoman Monica Harrington said she could not confirm how much the foundation had contributed to the loan. A message left with the foundation's investment team Monday was not immediately returned. ... Denver-based MediaNews, a privately held company headed by William Dean Singleton, bought the Mercury News and Contra Costa Times to establish itself as the largest newspaper publisher in the San Francisco Bay area. Hearst Corp. bought the Monterey and Minnesota papers but is turning both over to MediaNews in exchange for a stake in MediaNews' operations outside the Bay Area.
MediaNews already owns the Oakland Tribune and a cluster of suburban papers in the Bay Area. Its other properties include The Denver Post, The Salt Lake Tribune and The Detroit News. ... The Gates Foundation awarded about $1.36 billion in grants last year, much of it for public health initiatives in developing countries. In the United States, its donations focus on education and technology in public libraries.
The foundation's loan to MediaNews is part of a broad investment portfolio designed to fund the endowment. The foundation's assets include more than $4 billion in stock in companies including oil behemoths BP PLC and Exxon Mobil Corp., club warehouse chain Costco Wholesale Corp., and pharmaceutical makers Merck and Co. and Schering Plough Corp., according to a recent SEC filing.
Gates Foundation: Helping the world, one murderous investment at a time.
Look at that list of corporations. Does any one of those represent your vision of what the world should look like in the future? It's almost a top ten list of the world's top environmental marauders.
The capitalistic vision of charity is more than tapeworm-like -- it is positively cannibalistic: We will eat our hands to feed our feet,or some sort of madness. Gates' father was reputed to be a pretty nice guy. How did he ever manage to raise such a psychopath?
When I was working in software, I watched his company gobble up smaller companies like a shark, solely in order to keep their superior technologies off the market and not competing with MS's inferior technologies. Everything good was devoured, while pure shit emerged from the Microsoft end.
For some reason this all reminds me of Future Sound Of London's 'Dead Cities', decaying, desolate urban sprawl. Rats chewing through rubbish on the cracked pavement. A solitary psychopath monitoring the noise of his neighbours. A weirdo snorting his own dead skin cells to stay young. All these compulsive disorders that arise out of city life. Once the corps have sucked us dry and moved abroad...Dead cities. They should burn this fucking place down and start again...
George Orwell once said that omission is the greatest form of lie.* Gore's omissions in An Inconvenient Truth are so extraordinary that it is hard to know where to start. Watching An Inconvenient Truth is more useful for understanding how propaganda is made and used than for understanding the risks of global warming (I am not qualified to judge the scientific evidence here -- I am assuming that Gore's presentation on global warming is sound).
The fundamental lie that Al Gore is telling comes from defining our problem as environmental -- in this case global warming, whereas our environmental problems -- as real and important as they are -- are but a symptom of the problem, not the problem. Gore defines our problem as "what." He is silent on "who." For example, Gore does not ask or answer:
* Who is doing this?
* Who has been governing our planet this way and why?
* Cui bono? Who benefits?
* Who has suppressed alternative technologies resulting in our dependency on fossil fuels? Why?
* Who has generated how much financial capital generated from this damage?
* How did things get this bad without our changing? How much was related to fear of and dirty tricks of those in charge?
* How do we recapture resources that have been criminally drained and use them to invest in restoring environmental balance?
Utah Phillips once said, "The earth is not dying. It is being killed, and the people killing it have names and addresses." In one sentence, Utah Phillips told us more about global warming than Al Gore has told us in a lifetime of writing and speaking, let alone in An Inconvenient Truth.
Needless to say, Gore offers no names and addresses. Gore's "who" discussion is limited to population. He seems to imply that the issue is the growth in population combined with busy people being shortsighted, leading to some giant incompetency "accident." That makes it easy to avoid digging into the areas that would naturally follow from starting with "who" - which should lead to dissecting the relationship between environmental deterioration and the prevailing global investment model that is such a critical part of the governance infrastructure and incentive systems.
Gore walks us through timelines showing the global warming of temperatures. By defining the problem as simply environmental damage, and shrinking the history down to temperatures, there is no need to correlate environmental deterioration with the growth of the global financial system and the resulting centralization of economic and political power. The planet is being run by people who are intentionally killing it. Their power is their ability to offer all of us ways of making money by helping them kill it. Hence, understanding how the mechanics of the financial system and the accumulation of financial capital relate to environmental destruction is essential. If we integrate these deeper systems into an historical timeline, authentic solutions will begin to emerge. But Gore omits the deeper systems and the lessons of how we got here and in so doing closes the door on transformation.
For example, there is no place on Gore's time line that shows:
* the creation of the Federal Reserve:
* the movement of currencies away from the gold standard:
* the growth of non-accountable fiat currency systems:
* the growth of consumer, mortgage and government debt;
* the growth in the superior rights of corporations over people and living things;
* the growth of "privatization" (which I call "piratization");
* the subversive and sometimes violent suppression of renewable energy, housing and transportation technologies and innovations;
* the growth of the offshore financial system and the use of that system to launder and accumulate vast sums of pirated capital accumulated through the onshore destruction of communities.
Understanding the fundamental imbalance of the corporate model -- where enterprises have the rights of personhood, but not the finite existence of people or the legal responsibilities and liabilities -- and the corporate model's economic dependence on subsidy that drives up debt, economic warfare and the destruction of all living things is a critical piece to developing actions to reverse environmental damage. Al Gore is a man that has made money for corporations his entire life. He is a member in good standing of the Tapeworm and his current lifestyle and this documentary are rich with the resources that corporations can provide.
There is also no personal accountability. Al Gore has not "come clean." There is no discussion of Gore's role in the Clinton Administration in facilitating worldwide economic centralization and warfare, and with it genocide and environmental destruction -- for example, there is no mention of The Rape Of Russia or the driving out of Washington of an investment model proposing to align places with capital markets to create a win-win economic model that he intimates is possible. For more, see my recently published case study on Tapeworm Economics, and the competition between two economic visions during the Clinton Administration, "Dillon, Read & the Aristocracy of Prison Profits".
The documentary ends with a long list of things that we can do. Many of these items are on my list. We all need to come clean in the process of evolving towards sustainability. However, without a new investment model and the governance changes that automatically follow, the result of An Inconvenient Truth is to teach us to be good consumers of global oil and consumer product corporations and banks and -- we are supposed to intuitively understand -- vote for Al Gore or the candidates he endorses. Gore draws us down a rabbit hole, which leaves us even more dependent on the people and institutions that created and profited from the problem in the first place. What that means is that the real solution will be significant depopulation. The viewer is left to preserve a bit of the shrinking American bubble to protect us from having to face the depopulation solutions underway (See above links on "The Rape Of Russia" and "Dillon , Read & The Aristocracy Of Prison Profits".)
The way a tapeworm operates inside our bodies is to inject a chemical into its host that makes it crave what is good for the tapeworm and bad for the host. An Inconvenient Truth is an injection from the Tapeworm. Don't see it and crave a new round of what has not worked before. Things are not hopeless. There is no need to waste time and money adoring and financing the people who are killing the planet, or counting on the politicians who protect them.
To get you started, let me recommend that you take the money and time that you would spend watching An Inconvenient Truth and invest it in reading or watching a few of many authentic leaders with useful maps and solutions that are leading to serious ecosystem healing and transformation:
I haven't been able to take Al 'Earth in the Balance' Gore seriously since he cast the tie-breaking vote for NAFTA.
(C.A. Fitts is dead on here as usual. I almost screamed this in the theater when 'An Inconvenient Truth' was ending with upbeat rock music and suggestions about turning down our thermostats and recycling.
Missing from Al Gore's sterile eco-disaster warning filled with psychic shock-absorbers to prevent appropriate response was who the perps are that are still killing the planet and his hand in it.
* Finally, not only has the use of the strategy of omission of information long been used, especially by government, as a ubiquitous method of how bureaucracy really works, but the Bush crime family venture has taken it out of the norm and squared it to the nth power and standardized it. American has become a mafia.
For what's the underlying implication of the "neo-cons über alles" meme? It's that hard-core, down-and-dirty inside operators like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld--who have spent their entire adult lives at the dark heart of the government-corporate-warbiz-spygame power nexus--are actually innocent lambkins led astray by the wicked blandishments of Richard Perle. It's that the world-striding oil barons, Wall Street dynasts and CIA scions of the Bush Faction are just wide-eyed rubes bamboozled into acting against their own interests by the dazzling sophistry of William Kristol and Michael Leeden. It's that no U.S. administration would ever undertake the kind of rapacious policies we've seen in the last five years--unless they'd been tricked into it by wily Zionists and their ideological outriders. It is, in short, our old friend "American exceptionalism," decked out in dissident drag. ... The reality is that Iraq was invaded because a powerful faction of the old-line American Establishment wanted to do it and the rest of the Establishment--the Democrats, the media, the "respectable" intelligentsia--countenanced the crime. The belligerence and oppression of the hardline Israeli government in Lebanon and Palestine are receiving unquestioned--and armed--support from the United States because this suits the larger strategic purposes of the "global dominance" faction of the Establishment, and the domestic political purposes both of the Democrats, heavily reliant on Jewish-American backing, and the Republicans, dependent on their rabidly pro-Israel evangelical base.
It is the American elite-- pursuing, as always, the enhancement of its own power and privilege, heedless of the consent of the governed or the genuine interests of the American people (or the Palestinian people or the Israeli people or the Lebanese people or the Iraqi people)--that bedevils us. The emergence of the cretinous neo-conservative cult is just a symptom of a deeper moral corruption coursing through the dominant institutions and structures of American society. The body politic is rotting from the head.
August 16, 2006 The Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
Is this is how Israel treates its anti-war activists?
Border Police unit firing on demonstrators from close range.
The video clearly shows the commander of the unit saying, "This is Lebanon!" as he orders his force to fire on retreating demonstrators, and "I will not allow a demonstration during wartime!"
Israeli Soldier in Bil'in: "This is Lebanon!" Posted in Reports, Bil'in Village, Video
Israeli activists have uploaded a video of the shooting of Lymor and the initial violence of the Israeli military in Bil'in on Friday, August 11th. To view it click here: http://content.mishtara.org/bilin-11-8-06.wmv
Higher quality for broadcast is also available from the ISM media office
The video clearly shows the Border Police unit firing on the demonstrators from close range. There is no evidence that the soldiers were in danger. Typically, the military spokesperson has claimed that "activists threw stones" and Haaretz's article yesterday reiterating the same false information. The video also clearly shows the commander of the unit saying, "This is Lebanon!" as he orders his force to fire on retreating demonstrators, and "I will not allow a demonstration during wartime!"
The commander, Majdei, made this decision despite a military court decision in August 2005 that people in Bil'in have the right to protest n their land on the village-side of the apartheid wall. Every week since the wall was finished in March 2006, the Israeli military has also denied them the right to protest on their farmland on the other side of the wall. The wall separates villagers from 60% of their farmland, half of which has already been annexed and developed by Jewish settlements.
In addition many villagers have been arrested in the night during army raids for participating in the demonstrations in Bil'in. Two villagers are still in prison: Esaam Matar, 29, has been imprisoned eight months and the military has ruled he is to be deported to Jordan; and Muhammad Burnat, 19, has been imprisoned for 3 months and has not yet had a trial for his alleged crimes.
According to official military regulations, which were reported in the Hebrew version of Haaretz today, soldiers are not allowed to fire from a distance closer than 40 meters. They are instructed not to fire at vital areas of the body and only to fire when they are in immediate danger. Each week during demonstrations in Bil'in, many non-violent demonstrators are injured in the head, neck and chest.
The Israeli who was shot in the head and a Danish woman beaten with a gun on Friday are the most serious injuries the army has caused since Ramzi Yassin, who was shot in the head with a plastic-coated steel bullet. Ramzi, from Bil'in, was handing out water during a demonstration in Bil'in on July 8th 2005, when he was shot in the side of the head. The bullet caused severe bleeding of his brain and he was left unconscious for 7 days and with permanent brain damage. Haitham al Khateeb of Bil'in, Yonathan Pollack, an Israeli, BJ from Denmark, and Phil of Austrailia were hospitalized at different times all for rubber bullets injuries to their heads at close range at Bil'in demonstrations, except for Haitham who was hit by a tear gas canister fired at his head.
Lymor, who was shot on Friday, is currently in a stable condition at Tel Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv. It took the ambulances about an hour to get from the site where he was shot to the hospital. He was taken in for immediate surgery which took 3 hours, and a rubber bullet as well as shards of bone and damaged brain tissue were removed from his head and an internal heomorage was stopped. Before the surgery he was totally clear and aware even though he was in a lot of pain. After the surgery he was moving his arms and legs while he was under sedation. He was taken off sedation around 7pm yesterday evening. He can move his limbs and can talk but is having trouble with his vision.
Rina, from Denmark, is also currently in the hospital in Hebron, suffering from severe concussion caused by an Israeli soldier beating her with his gun. She is stable, but is still having trouble walking on her own. =========
"America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception.
"Mass-market nostalgia gets you hopped up for a past that never existed. Hagiography sanctifies shuck-and-jive politicians and reinvents their expedient gestures as moments of great moral weight. Our continuing narrative line is blurred past truth and hindsight. Only a reckless verisimilitude can set that line straight."
--James Ellroy, American Tabloid
Ensure a Free and Fair Election (Ban Paperless Voting Machines
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."
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