Saintperle

12/31/05

Bush was denied wiretaps, so he told the court (and the law) to go fuck itself. Spoiled brat in the White House

WASHINGTON, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- U.S. President George Bush decided to skip seeking warrants for international wiretaps because the court was challenging him at an unprecedented rate.

A review of Justice Department reports to Congress by Hearst newspapers shows the 26-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than the four previous presidential administrations combined.

The 11-judge court that authorizes FISA wiretaps modified only two search warrant orders out of the 13,102 applications approved over the first 22 years of the court's operation.

But since 2001, the judges have modified 179 of the 5,645 requests for surveillance by the Bush administration, the report said. A total of 173 of those court-ordered "substantive modifications" took place in 2003 and 2004. And, the judges also rejected or deferred at least six requests for warrants during those two years -- the first outright rejection of a wiretap request in the court's history.


*****************

Oh, I get it now. It's Nixon Redux.

Especially with the Justice Department doing Criminal Investigation on who might have been the whistle-blower about this "If the law says 'No,' then fuck the law" policy of the top law enforcement officials in the USA.

But NO investigation of Bush's Taliban for breaking the law in the first place (and second place, and 173d place...)

Do the words "PERP WALK" mean anything here?


Link
|

12/30/05

I love this poem -- it is NOT a farewell -- I'm not sick, and with good fortune letting me dodge the freeway drunks, might have some more time on the planet -- but I'm an old fart, so I think in terms of the next waves, but could never say it as well as Charles Olson did in this poem he wrote as a young man:


Only the Red Fox, Only the Crow

You who come after us
you who can live when we are not
make much of love

You to whom the spring can return
when we will merely correlate a worm
enjoy the envy
in this blind glance

You who shall have the earth,
and one another,
the government of noon,
do not fail us, dance

We shall not know, but you
remember this: the two-edged worth
of loveliness
The night's for talking and for kissing

And when, on summer field
two horses run for joy
like figures on a beach
your mind will find us,
as we have found,
within its reach.

This, then, under the leaves
or under snow,
you who come after us,
we send you for envoy:
make most of love.


Charles Olson, 1948

|

"Curses are like young chickens...." If drunken junior Bush relies on 9-11, why oh why can't I?

Just thought I'd post this here, a piece I wrote and posted on Crapshoot for the New Year January 2002. It looked at what our nation had done in the few months that followed the monstrous events of 9-11-2001.


"Curses are like young chickens, they always come home to roost."

Robert Southey, Poet Laureate of England, 1810

So it comes to this – most of the patty-cake press poofters have agreed that ignorance is bliss, or, in other words, life was much better before September 11, 2001.

For some of the rest of us, September 11th was the day when the corporate media-fed Americans finally woke up and got a glimpse of what we had been trying to tell them for a long time -- that this was the way of the world -- death, mutilation, loss, suffering. Believe me -- there was no satisfaction or gratification in it. Monday mornings can be rough, even the ones which bring much-needed consciousness. The chickens were flying in...


... one well-to-do lady told me, "Oh I'm so tired of hearing that -- 'the chickens coming home to roost'.. it's such a cliche."


I was polite because I like and admire this person, but it seemed as if she hadn't yet considered what that phrase actually meant and why people who weren't particularly white or well-fixed kept saying it -- it seemed that annoyance and denial had risen up and slammed the door before understanding had a chance to sneak in.

To be fair, since she is a rather accomplished artisan of words, she may have merely been reacting against that annoying habit of picking up and repeating meaningless mass media catch phrases... "It's to die for..." "Yadda yaddahyaddah..." "Talk to the hand..." "We will eliminate all evildoers..." "They hate us for our Freedom..."


Still, there are >B?enough people around who did set up gates of denial rather than allow themselves to understand that phrase that I'll let the example stand. (And wow -- think what will happen when "Eat the Rich" gets its next round of popularity.)

It's easy to be happy and cheerful when you live where most of America was living ... in a shiny, high-speed dream propped up with prescription drugs, high-priced toys, prime-time Friends, media distractions, electronic games, Victoria's Secret catalogues for the boys, stud muffins for the girls, comfort food and $2000 devices to imitate climbing up stairs. And for the truly brain-damaged and vicious -- Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson

And then we find out that people who are ostensibly just minding their own business (like, for example, the people at work in the World Trade Center Towers) get blown up, burned down, killed and wounded every day, only heretofore not in the good old US of A (except at places like abortion clinics, synagogues, McDonald's, schools, playgrounds...) And that's a shock, but there's more -- entertaining the idea that the price of our comforts may actually include that sort of crime, in fact, the getting of those comforts has sometimes insisted on that sort of crime going on in other countries. (Check out the Shell Oil action in Nigeria. Some are calling it genocide.)

The implication is hard to look at -- that each and every one of us who drives a car, watches TV, has heat and food and music CDs and VCRs and computers and running shoes and other luxury items also owns a piece of the action that was being transacted at ground zero -- some sort of suicidal protest by a dozen or so well-to-do Saudi Arabian lads. All of us -- each of us -- own a piece of it, even those of us who didn't yet have DVD and Surround Sound ...

And it was hideous and horrible and wounding to so many more than those in those buildings in New York and Washington, but even worse has been the packaging of September 11th. In the months since that day, the manipulation of our emotions has been obscene.


Most people with an active brain pattern had some human compassion for those people in New York and Washington DC, people who owned no more of the monstrous machine than we did, but just worked a little closer to the gears and pulleys.


Since then, that compassion has been twisted, used, raped, bad-breath'd, buggered, and finagled until we can't even find it any more... used to sell us those running shoes and newspapers. It's been used to sell TV viewers to advertisers and travel plans to TV viewers. Those lost lives are still being used every day as politicians dance on the mass grave to push their hoary old agendas... pay off their back-room sweeties by selling us the tired old fantasy that the rich provide the affluent society for the rest of us, never admitting that it's the rest of us who create enough wealth for the rich to get a free ride.


And because they are maintaining the lie, they're still flinging their fucking chickens here there and everywhere, without an actual thought coming out of that period of stunned silence right after the big event. All they saw was a new opportunity for plunder, and plunder on a blatant scale that would be termed, were it in an historical text book, "sacking the treasury."

Remember? Malcolm X said it right out loud way back then in 1963 but everyone got pissed off because they were upset that Jack Kennedy was killed and they couldn’t accept that some colored man could see exactly what was happening: the chickens were coming home to roost.

Thirty, forty years later -- school yard shootings, mutating viruses, drug-resistant micro-bugs -- stories of hate and fear, bizarre murders, irrational lashings-out, teenagers wearing hip boots and laboratory gloves beating AIDS victims to death while screaming “Faggot!” at them, setting drunks on fire, chasing interracial couples through the parks -- they all seem to be part of that same flock of chickens coming home, every one of them traceable to ideas and attitudes we let fly from our social norms and niceties. All sorts of chickens:


Trail of Tears chickens and My Lai chickens; unindicted co-conspirator chickens and S&L bailout chickens; Wounded Knee and Sand Creek chickens and Personal Seat License chickens at the ball games and Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn chickens.

Squawking disappointment chickens are coming in from car repair ripoffs and all the way back to the Chicago Black Sox scandals, chickens are showing up from those who loved Salvador Allende and those who thought remembering Sandino gave them some dignity and those who thought they’d puke if they had to see one more bunch of vicious insincere presidential candidates posing and flexing their muscles to show how tough they'll be when confronting some poor bastards from the third world, and chickens from college basketball point-shaving scandals and cock-a-doodle-doo’s of despair from the Cuyahoga River on fire. Self-righteous blame-pointing chickens waggling feathered fingers, squawking accusations.


They've been streaming in from all over time and place. Big old rasty chickens with scars and eyepatches are flying all the way in from Dugout Doug MacArthur’s crushing of the Bonus Army in 1932. Little nasty pecking chickens in great noisy swarms of thousands at a time have been flying in from the graves of dead Chinese in the California gold fields. Millions and millions of whining little pissant chickens are coming back from every rush hour and every corporate bottom line downsizing in America.


And all of Colonel Sanders’ chickens are coming.

Schoolyard shootings? Some kid that just couldn’t take any more wedgies -- cluck; some slow kid’s chickens squawking at the teachers’ dirty looks -- cluckity, cluck.

Sacco and Vanzetti's chickens and poor dimwitted Marinus van der Lubbe's lonely Reichstag Fire chicken. George Herbert Walker and Prescott Bush's Nazi Bond chickens. George Herbert Walker Bush's use of former SS men as "ethnic consultants" in his presidential campaign chickens ... Iran-Contra coverup chickens, Phoenix Program coverup chickens ... angry little green chickens from ex-Marines who noticed how Lieutenant Pat Robertson made a phone call to daddy and got to stay in Japan getting whores and booze for the brass while the rest of them rode that wave into the swirling toilet of freezing death in Korea.


Nice folk -- white folk -- complain they're terrified to walk on the street, seeing a gaggle of black teenagers in baggy pants and backwards caps every block or so, making aggressive gestures, pointing, laughing, hostile. And if not black youngsters, then raggedy homeless people scaring them by asking for money. And it doesn’t ever seem to occur to them that this is the identical terror that has been forever felt by every black man and woman and every vagrant at every corner where white people stand.

I think it works like this: the chicken-spirits float through the air late at night looking for a home, seeking out all the woofties and flakies who can’t quite hold on to it, burned out or laid off or maybe never even able to start -- and then, like a game of musical chairs, one of them is IT -- the chicken-spirit glides in through his sleeping orifices. In the morning, the loser wakes up, loads his guns and heads for the office looking for someone to blame. Some just kill themselves. Some -- the ones flying a truly erratic orbit -- sometimes make bizarre art. Some just start ticking, waiting for something to set them off.


Some try to redeem something.

Maybe it could have been averted. Probably not, because the world is actually more or less round and what goes around literally comes around, whether it's air pollution or deep resentment. But it's too late for any of that now, so get used to it -- the chick chick chickens are back and we'd all best be getting used to eating that chicken, cause there's a lot of it coming, and it's mmm-mmm good, genuine American home cookin'.

"Oh lord I want to eat it,

eat that chicken, eat that chicken pie...

eat that chicken, Rock boparootie,

eat that chicken, razzamatootie,

eat that chicken, eat that chicken pie..."

Charles Mingus


|

12/29/05

THIS IS ABOUT AN ADWARE PROGRAM CALLED SPY AXE

It invades and INFECTS your computer and tells you to buy it to prevent malicious adware from invading your computer and CONTINUALLY flashes an unremovalbe pop-up a "YOUR COMPUTER IS INFECTED!" window designed to drive you crazy.

It tells you how to identify it -- if you get unremovable pop-ups. Like theirs.

SPY AXE

Each time you remove the program it returns...


A bunch of lowlife scumbag motherfuckers...

avoid them at all costs , and if anyone knows how to hack them, please... take them down


---Just joking about that LAST item, though, about hacking -- I'm so pissed off -- well, I'm not joking, but I hate what these pissant motherfuckers did when they just hacked me -- I can AT LEAST not become like them, so while I'd love to have them face to face, I do NOT want to escalate this shit -- I'll take it to my guys and see if they know how to extract it. Revenge is punching the tar-baby. Never works.

But -- Ultimately -- Webroot's Spy Sweeper (and PC-Cillin) managed to root out the last of it -- Fake alert and popups ... consider this an endorsement of both.


|

The Myths about Iraq -- or BS flows outward from the White House

All 10 are important and interesting, and the link above to Informed Comment -- Juan Cole's Blog -- explains each in detail, but most bloggers know the untruth of most of them, so I would point out that, to me, the most important ones concerning issues I didn't really know are #'s 5, 6, and especially, #10 (that the US WANTED free elections in Iraq)


1. The guerrilla war is being waged only in four provinces.

2. Iraqi Sunnis voting in the December 15 election is a sign that they are being drawn into the political process and might give up the armed insurgency.

3. The guerrillas are winning the war against US forces.

4. Iraqis are grateful for the US presence and want US forces there to help them build their country.

5. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, born in Iran in 1930, is close to the Iranian regime in Tehran.

6. There is a silent majority of middle class, secular-minded Iraqis who reject religious fundamentalism.

7. The new Iraqi constitution is a victory for Western, liberal values in the Middle East.

8. Iraq is already in a civil war, so it does not matter if the US simply withdraws precipitately, since the situation is as bad as it can get.

9. The US can buy off the Iraqis now supporting guerrilla action against US troops.

10. The Bush administration wanted free elections in Iraq.

Link
|

12/28/05

UP AND DOWN THE LADDER


UP THE LADDER


Adam says:

"Eve shouldn't have been allowed to show me the fruit."

Eve says:

"The serpent shouldn't have been allowed to tell me what that fruit actually does."

The serpent says:

"Didn't someone say something about TRUTH around here?
Something about CHOICE?
Doesn't the public have a right to know?"


God says:

"Some things affect garden security too much to discuss and need to be classified."


*******************************


DOWN THE LADDER



God says:

"I've got a universe to run here and it doesn't help to have you people running off at the mouth and whining your complaints like 'I don't like ticks... I don't like plague... I don't like mucus and crib death and hemorrhoids...'

"You people aren't helping, in fact you're hurt us all by questioning my perfection and giving aid and comfort to the enemy. We've got a war going on here between heaven and hell, and we need solidarity. Now is not the time to criticize. Trust me. I know what I'm doing."

The serpent says:

"This war between heaven and hell has been going on since the beginning of time and we've been getting the same story all along:
'Trust me, I work in mysterious ways. I'm the good guy.'
We've heard it.
It sucks.
The information is only classified to cover up payoffs and theft and blunders.
The enemy knows all that stuff.
We're the only ones who aren't supposed to find out.

Eve says:

"Everyone's getting hurt by this war.
Win or lose, nothing's going to be left.
It's not about heaven or hell -- it's about who's got the big one... That's all you care about.


Adam says:

We don't need a heaven or a hell.
The price is waay too high.
I think it's a racket, so take my name off your sucker list and don't call me again.





|

12/26/05

For a little perspective -- "Happy Holidays" used to be shorthand for the longer:

"Merry Christmas and Happy New Year."

Had NOTHING to do with denying that it was Christmas.
Just made it easier to wish someone well in passing as a good-natured good-will wish.

But then, those were the days where people got their radio ratings honestly --

by accepting Payola from Record Companies.

|

Wonder what the Bush Admin's Interest is in Defending Anna Nicole Smith's claim for inheriting the Old Man's money?






















Oh, right -- she's from Houston.

There he goes -- favoring those Home State Texans once again.

|




















Look out Karen Hughes and Condoleeza -- there's a NEW Mommy in town.

And Monkey Boy is using the Federal Courts to pay for her.

See the Article Below.

|













We Must Admit --
The Bushies ARE setting their priorities to help the underprivileged.



WASHINGTON - Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith has an unusual bedfellow in the Supreme Court fight over her late husband's fortune: the Bush administration.

The administration's top Supreme Court lawyer filed arguments on Smith's behalf and wants to take part when the case is argued before the justices.

The court will decide early next year whether to let the U.S. solicitor general share time with Smith's attorney during the one hour argument on Feb. 28...

She is trying to collect millions of dollars from the estate of J. Howard Marshall II, the oil tycoon she married in 1994 when he was 89 and she was a 26-year-old topless dancer in Houston. Marshall died in 1995.

Like Marshall,President Bush was a Texas oil man.
Both attended Yale.
Both held government positions in Washington.

There are differences. Marshall had a penchant for strippers, and the court record before the justices is one of poverty, greed, sex and family rivalry.

A federal bankruptcy judge sided with Smith in the fight over her late husband's estate, awarding her $474 million. That was reduced to about $89 million by a federal district judge, then thrown out altogether by a federal appeals court.


--And she will definitely be properly grateful.

Maybe even more so than Monica was (another time, another president).


|

America still is a world leader -- George W Bush's dicta still followed, even in the Islamic world...

Who says that the World won't listen to or follow what this President says?

Hey -- remember, when the first burgeoning of the insurgency appeared in Iraq in 2003, how Mr. Bush stood there so bravely in the Rose Garden and said:

"BRING IT ON."


And oboy -- did they ever!

So there.

|

12/24/05

Hey, W., It's Safe! Read This -- Maureen Dowd

Dear Maureen -- thank you for letting your brother Kevin write your Christmas column -- without comment -- so he could have enough rope to show us all what an asshole he is.

To be kind, let me just say about him and the others who scream these sort of inanities -- he/they sure have a rich fantasy life.

For example:

So first, I'd like to give a big thank you to Speaker Hastert for ordering the renamed Holiday tree to revert to its original title of Christmas tree. And why not? We do not decorate the tree for Easter or the Fourth of July. It is a Christmas tree.

Well it was America's number one pretend-Christian (George W Bush) and his people who decided it was a Holiday Tree. And don't tell me a man who's trademark line is "Who cares what YOU think?" was intimidated by public opinion.


To the P.C. Elites: The founding fathers guaranteed Freedom OF Religion, not Freedom FROM Religion. Please go away, you are making my hair hurt.

Actually they DID guarantee both, but perhaps you haven't actually READ the Constitution.

To Michael Moore, Rob Reiner, Barbra Streisand, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and Alec Baldwin... MSNBC: Susan Estrich, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Lanny Davis... Hillary (sic)

The Usual band of suspects dragged out for another whipping. No marks for original thought, although I'm sure you did well with Original Sin in school.

To Bill O'Reilly: Thank you

Jeezus! Bill O'Reilly's charge of a War Against Christmas is based on LESS evidence than the WMD's in Iraq.

AND THE REAL BIG ONE:

The same people that are calling for troop withdrawal were under their beds on 9/12/01 screaming "Kill the Infidels!" Let's fight them there instead of here and bring our troops home with honor as soon as possible.

You know this for a fact, right? Or are you thinking of ALL the members of the pro-war Bush administration who hid under their beds during the Vietnam War while those of us who were Lefties answered our draft calls and actually paid back the United States for the benefits it had given us -- whether or not we wanted to, whether or not we felt we had more important things to do or not.. and by the way -- wasn't Dick Cheney hiding under a bed in an undisclosed location on 9-11?

So thank you once again, Maureen -- your brother has a rich fantasy life, for sure. He's also a schmuck who reminds me of nothing so much as the kids from St. Louis Church who used to chase Jews in the small town screaming "Fadda says you killed our lord."

And -- oh yeah --

To Judge Jones of Pennsylvania: No Intelligent Design? You are going to be hoping for a Big Bang if St. Peter is checking ID's.

And you, sir, actually KNOW there is a Saint Peter and a Heaven, because may be in for a BIG disappointment when you find out just how much bullshit there might be in the dogma you've been trained to believe. (There are those who say Jesus was gay ... yep. Him and his boys, hanging out together... living with his mother into his 30's. Hmmm?)

And even if there is, how will you feel when you find out which side of Good-Evil your stance of denouncing and insulting others who don't agree with you is on. Because you behave as if you REALLY think Jesus followed "turn the other cheek" with "Just joking -- nahh, kill 'em all if they fuck with you."

Link
|

12/23/05

Alito Defended Officials From Wiretap Suits

Ahh, the good old days -- when most people didn't know just what sort of self-serving crooks were running things.



Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito defended the right of government officials to order domestic wiretaps for national security when he worked at the Reagan Justice Department, an echo of President Bush's rationale for spying on U.S. residents in the war on terror.

Then an assistant to the solicitor general, Alito wrote a 1984 memo that provided insights on his views of government powers and legal recourse — seen now through the prism of Bush's actions — as well as clues to the judge's understanding of how the Supreme Court operates...

The memo dealt with whether government officials should have blanket protection from lawsuits when authorizing wiretaps...

In its court brief, the government argued for absolute immunity for the attorney general on matters of national security...

(The court refuted that argument.)"The danger that high federal officials will disregard constitutional rights in their zeal to protect the national security is sufficiently real to counsel against affording such officials an absolute immunity," the court held...

The decision was consistent with the Supreme Court's unanimous ruling in 1972 that it was unconstitutional for the government to conduct wiretaps without court approval despite the Nixon administration's argument that domestic anti-war groups and other radicals were a threat to national security...

Among the documents released Friday was a June 1985 memo in which Alito said abortion rights should be overturned but recommended a roadmap of dismantling them piece by piece instead of a "frontal assault on Roe v. Wade."


Alito told them that their chances would be better in the future --- like when HE sits on the Supreme Court?

Link
|

ALito and the whole gang ...20 years ago...

Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito was called on 20 years ago to address possible ethics concerns over then-Justice William H. Rehnquist's book deal...

"We are unaware of any ethical rule barring judges or justices from writing books about their experience on the bench," Alito said in a 1986 memo to John Bolton, an assistant attorney general at the time...


Boy -- talk about The Usual Suspects. Am I the only one finding this a bit creepy, how all these players were playing patty-cake with each-other back in Reagan's day?

Link
|

12/21/05

A thought on Bush's repeated comment: "Who cares what YOU think?"

And on his sneering at objections that his policies are alienating every country in the world.

Venezuela and Bolivia now BOTH have socialist presidents and they each have a REAL mandate from the people to make changes, which includes nationalization of oil reserves with Bushie and Cheney's pals becoming minority participants, taken down from their current strutting I-ME-MINE-ALL-MINE position.

The governments' share will go largely to the poor and sick.

Oh boy -- is Georgie gonna get yelled at when he gets home!


|

BBC NEWS | Venezuela gives Exxon ultimatum

Venezuela has given the world's biggest oil company, Exxon/Mobil, until the end of this year to enter a joint venture with the state.

Failure to do so will almost certainly result in Exxon losing its oil field concessions in the country.

Venezuela's socialist government has now signed new agreements with almost all foreign petroleum companies.

After months of pressure from left- wing leader Hugo Chavez most foreign oil firms working there have caved in.

They have agreed to hand over a controlling stake of their oil interests to the Venezuelan state.

This means that Venezuela now calls the shots in what the foreign guests can and cannot do.

In addition, the companies which have signed the new contracts - such as Chevron, BP, Shell and Total - will in future be presented with much higher tax bills by the government.

But Venezuela says it is only fair that the foreigners are made to pay up as they have got away lightly in the past.

Much of the oil revenue in Venezuela goes into social projects in shanty towns and poor rural areas.

But the US oil giant, ExxonMobil, is digging in its heels and is so far refusing to agree to the terms of the new deal.

Exxon risks losing Venezuelan operations if it fails to comply.

There is growing unease among foreign energy companies based Latin America that they may be forced to become junior partners by a string of left wing governments.

***************************
(Oh, boo-fucking-hoo. ed.)
***************************


So this is outrageous -- how DARE they elect the leaders THEY want instead of the ones WE want?

How DARE they decide that THEIR natural resources belong to THEM?

How DARE they demand that foreign companies pay for depleting those natural resources?

(Only important fact here -- Venezuela may not have the LARGEST oil reserves in the world, bigger even than Saudi Arabia -- too hard to do an accurate count -- but then again, they may. Get it?)

Since sending troops into Venezuela would be even less likely to succeed than in Iraq, can we expect this administration to do a Salvador Allende on Sr. Chavez?

(Hmm, let's see -- The primary players in the murder of THAT elected president were pretty much the same players we have now -- Cheney, Rumsfeld, Negroponte, Poindexter, etc -- and we KNOW they haven't come up with any new ideas since Grant took Richmond, in fact, they're trying to take the country's social programs BACK to Reconstruction --- they may.

Although -- didn't they actually try earlier this year and botch it?

Link
|

The good news? A Democratic majority in congress after next year's election means BOTH Bush and Cheney can be impeached,

The bad news? They still have those X-Box Electronic Voting Machines that will give Mssrs Diebold,Bush, Cheney, et al whatever result they want.


Executive Summary

This Minority Report has been produced at the request of Representative John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee...

In brief, we have found that there is substantial evidence the President, the Vice President and other high ranking members of the Bush Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war with Iraq; misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for such war; countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and other legal violations in Iraq; and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of their Administration...

|

12/20/05

Once again ...

"But EVERYONE in the world ALSO

believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq"



No, they didn't, and least of all were the people who were actually there as inspectors and who spoke out --- Hans Blix didn't, Scott Ritter didn't and Scott Ritter been there and seen what there was to see and had published his findings in the Boston Globe on Saturday, July 20, 2002, in an article titled:

Is Iraq a True Threat to the US?

In the article, he explains, WMD by WMD why they weren't there and couldn't possibly be there (deterioration of elements involved, etc).

Oh yeah, Mohammed el Baradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency (the UN group that oversees who's doing what with nuclear stuff), the man who just won the Nobel Peace Prize didn't believe it and also told us.


So this array of multiple pieces of shit we call an administration lie, run amok, break laws, and in essence, do whatever they feel like to serve their oil-hungry masters. And as Noam Chomsky pointed out in the interview referred to in the posting below, they discredited, mocked, and attacked anyone in the mainstream who dared to suggest this war was about controlling the oil in the Middle East.

We get a very small percentage of our oil from that part of the world -- most is either domestic or comes from Canada or Mexico or Venezuela (did anyone wonder why those assholes in the White House got so upset when the people of Venezuela elected the presidente THEY wanted instead of the one WE wanted? And by WE I mean THEY in the WHITE HOUSE, not me or anyone I know.)

Incompetent assholes, I should say -- they couldn't even pull off a Latin American coup, something the USA government has had more than 100 years of experience and 50-60 successes in doing. Someone should have told them to read the manual.

It's not that we need it (the oil), but, as Chomsky pointed out in the interview, controlling access of oil to OTHER countries is about pure power.

To repeat -- the short version -- these ghouls LIE, they CHEAT, they STEAL, they KILL, they BREAK WHATEVER LAWS stand in their way, DESTROY whatever people stand in their way -- and -- bottom line?

They don't care if you or I live or die.

They believe they OWN America, and pretty much, they do.

|

12/19/05

This is required listening ...

This interview was done yesterday, December 18th -- it runs about 56 minutes, but is worth the time... this is perhaps the first discussion of Iraq I've heard since we went in there that actually makes sense -- even Ente Grillenhaft would approve ... clear, calm, with a sense of context, perspective and reality -- and posits a definite and what might be the ONLY workable solution to the situation there (altho I have serious doubts that Bush and Cheney et al would enjoy it)

From Information Clearing House


Chomsky on Terror and Iraq

An interview by Andy Clark

Author and activist Noam Chomsky joined Amsterdam Forum this week and took questions from listeners from around the world on Iraq and the War on Terror.

Transmission date: 18 December 2005

Noam Chomsky is professor emeritus of linguistics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is world renowned as a linguist and political activist. His latest book is 'Imperial Ambitions: Conversations with Noam Chomsky on the post 9/11 World.'

© Radio Nederland Wereldomroep, all rights reserved

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Information Clearing House endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


This was sent to me from Sweden by a long-time, valued friend, Steve Bennett, a brilliant classical musician (clarinette), who is also an insightful gatherer of non-musical information (I've actually known that for some time.)

Thanks Steve.

|

Condosleeza gets the General Powell treatment -- the public High Colonic

Ahh, there she was on Tim Russert's Meet the Press last night, new hairdo -- the old Hitler bias-bang slash gone for a softer look, and it didn't help.

Over and over again she said:

"The President HAD the authority... ( to tap phones without a court order/warrant/probable cause.")

Over and over Tim Russert countered:

"And what authority is that?"

"Well, I'm not a lawyer..."

They went around and around with the gap-toothed golem invoking the magickal mantra: "NINE-ELEVEN ... NINE-ELEVEN ... NINE-ELEVEN."

And over and over again ...

"He had the authority"
"What authority is that?"
"I'm not a lawyer..."

(In other words, "I'm out here looking like a fool, standing up for the Monkey Boy and I don't have any idea what I'm talking about."

Either that, or she knew the Talking Point she was supposed to use -- the one A.G. Gonzalez used today -- that Bush had "inherent authority" as President "to break the law," and in her mind, even she still had some principles, and she sang of Olaf glad and big, and thought, as he did: "...there is some shit I will not eat.")

And she was nervous and distracted and slipping, skipping words and thoughts.

She had the look on her face that told us she finally found out what the former Secty of State -- General High Colonic found out:

1. Bush and his people will use you till Hell won't have it.

2. They'll take whatever credibility you've managed to acquire in your life and use it for toilet paper.

3. Having your life publicly sodomized by these people is NOT fun, not comfortable, not right.


And she didn't like it.


And that bodes not-so-good for Bush -- he's always had a Mommy to bail him out of his dirty diapers and other messes he makes -- Barbara, Laura, Karen Hughes, Condie...

Colin Powell is one thing -- a pussycat -- but fucking with Condosleeza is another.

Mommies Rule.

Mommies slap bad boys down.

Even Kobe Bryant wouldn't go there,where Condie is concerned

(Jeezuz -- just look at her face when she's not aware she's being photographed -- not only Monkey Boy's mommy, but Grendel's Mother, too.)

Monkey Boy may not be getting away with this one --
This was no Harriet Meiers he humiliated.

He'd better be looking over his shoulder.

|

12/17/05

I was watching Washington Journal again on CSPAN this morning, and all the talk was about the Iraq elections and the Republicans (self-identified) wereslamming the New York Times for not covering it. And when Brian Lamb pointed out that they had big big front-page stories on the election, but no editorial, they (the GOP-ers) shifted to attacking them for no editorial.

(Brian Lamb is repeatedly attacked by right-wingers for being "obviously biased in favor of Liberals," and by Lefties for being "obviously biased in favor of Conservatives." Which tells me he's doing something right.)


The other aspect of this attitude was and is to shout about how the Democrats this and the Democrats that and -- apparently they don't read the papers thoroughly enough to realize the Republicans have controlled the entire government for the past several years -- and how "these people (Democrats) hate Bush so much they won't give him credit for anything, but would rather complain."

And of course these people were -- during the Clinton administration -- constantly giving Bill Clinton whatever credit he might have deserved for whatever -- the economy, stopping the genocide (even if somewhat belatedly) in the Balkans, getting Compassionate Leave, and COBRA, and other such socially-needed programs into law -- and these people NEVER attacked Hilary as a witch, a bitch, a murdering lesbian monster, or even -- as Rush Limbaugh did -- mocked their 13-year-old daughter's bad hair days on his network show -- something extraordinarily cruel and low even for that piece of pompous piece of babbling shit.

They didn't, did they?

Didn't they all hold up a calming hand during the Clinton years at the continual attacks on them, and tell friends and co-workers "Wait, let's see how it works out."

Because it still remains to be seen whether this adventurist slaughter and ravaging in Iraq comes out well, as Bush and his people anticipated, or if this election is just one more step toward civil war (by so clearly defining the factions who want power), or alliance with Iran, or whatever might come from de-stabilizing the Meddle East.

It is not treason to wonder what the outcome of an adventure that has not yet reached a stable outcome will be?

And it is not treason to think it looks as if it's heading for disaster.

Thinking it's looking as if it's going to turn out badly is NOT THE SAME as WANTING it to turn out badly ... or as Lenny Bruce said about another topic but a similar phenomenon, about people who didn't understand that "Educating someone about syphilis is NOT instruction go out and get it."

You people -- not ALL Republicans -- but the ones who do that stuff -- are just tiresome and all your comments tell us (and I'm NOT a Democrat) is that you don't have enough brains to think for yourself, but gobble up the daily talking points and catch-phrases. My friend Bob, a Republican, who rarely misses a chance to point to why he suports Bush and etc., tells me what he thinks in his own words, and uses his own thoughts -- and is therefore worth listening to because he's showing me a different point of view from mine, and often makes points worth considering and even -- yes -- even worth incorporating into my own perspective.

The rest of you who parrot the pathetic Scott McClellan's talking points -- just Boring.

Stupid.

Useless.

|

Owens Says He Felt Unwanted by Eagles

Omigoodness -- like the proverbial red-headed stepchild? A little boy, neglected while all the other reindeer play and never ever ask poor Terrell to join in their reindeer games?

Before Terrell Owens was banished from the Philadelphia Eagles, the All-Pro wide receiver told GQ magazine that some of his teammates didn't want him to play in the Super Bowl last February...

"That's why I felt so ultimately disrespected, because I knew how hard I worked to get back on that field to help them. Had I not played, who knows, we probably would've gotten beat worse..."

"When I was rehabbing, they called me selfish for trying to get on the field to play," he explained. "I said, 'You guys are labeling me selfish for rehabbing, trying to play in the biggest game of the year?' If Brett Favre had done it, you would've said he was a hero, would've given him an 'ironman' award or something like that.

"But me? For whatever reason, I was selfish. And for the life of me, I just don't understand."



Ahhh, boo-fucking-hoo.


...Owens feels he doesn't get equal treatment from the media.

"I went down to the Houston Astrodome after (Hurricane) Katrina, but nobody made a big deal about it," he said. "But you saw Peyton Manning and his brother, they made a big deal about that. I did it on my own. I didn't do it for publicity."



---well then what's your problem? If you didn't do it for publicity, why are you whining like a little baby because you didn't GET any publicity?

Listen -- you're getting skeenteen million dollars a year to play a game you're good at. You managed to come back for the big game and just because you played when the docs said maybe not, you WANT A RAISE? The REAL football players ALWAYS play when the docs say "NO," as long as they can walk --- and they don't seem to get MYSTERY GROIN PULLS when they don't get their way.

(Groin pulls -- yeah, well, I guess there's an appropriate cheap shot about whether or not you have balls, but I won't take it.)

If you really want some respect, you play it the way the greatest -- and most-loved -- WR ever, Jerry Rice played it -- you do your absolute best and you don't whine and complain and make excuses.

You shut up and do your job, just the same way millions and millions and millions of young men your age do -- those who have jobs, the ones making some sort of grandiose $31.500 a year.

But when you're a constantly annoying pain in the ass, you're only tolerated for your talent and performance, and you're out of there the minute you miss a step.

That doesn't mean "kissing ass."

It means acting like a man and giving all due respect to the other people you work with -- and if you're religious, thanking God that a socially-retarded annoying asshole like you has enough talent and a good enough physiology to compensate for your hatefullness.



Link
|

12/15/05

Jolting Joe

"Liberal Democrats are enraged at Joe Lieberman for supporting the Iraq war. But will attacking the Connecticut senator make the party stronger -- or alienate its moderates?"

MODERATES? It's not his support of the Iraq War that's alienating Democrats ... it's his fawning, caviling, sleazoid, suckass way of kissing up to Bush.

Any man or woman can believe this war could work out and be a good thing -- I don't happen to, but so what -- just my opinion and as they useta say in the Corps -- "Opinions are like assholes -- everybody's got one and they all stink."

It's the way he acts like a terrified puppy -- rolling onto his back and pissing all over himself in fear and delight whenever he's around Dubya that is so disgraceful and so embarrassing to anyone who has ever wanted to call himself or herself a Democrat or a Jew.

It's a shame -- he says he was a Freedom Rider back in the day, but now he's become the stereotype of the whiny Jew and it's painful to watch, certainly nothing anyone can admire.

Link
|

12/14/05

I'm otherwise occupied these days -- but the Arnold the Barbarian and Tookie Willams debacle just sticks --

Tookie kept saying he didn't do the crime.

Arnold said he couldn't commute the sentence unless he expressed remorse for having done the crime.

And relatives of the dead people have been elevated to the status of intelligent humans, based on nothing but their past proximity to the people who got shot -- and immediately blew it, saying that we shouldn't forget the victims, that he shouldn't get off ... failing to understand that life without parole is not exactly getting off scot free.

So, in essence, Arnold said we don't need anyone to talk to kids on the street and say "Don't do what I did -- look at me -- I'm going to be in a cage the rest of my life. Think about it."

But what Arnold did say was "Hey you Republicans -- see? I can be just as much of a heartless, unfeeling, sonofabitch as Bush or Clinton, or anyone else who killed people to get votes."

Congratulations, Arnie -- your father joined the Nazi Party, and you seem to have followed in his footsteps -- you joined a different club, but one still composed of thieves, thugs, liars, murderers, and -- oh yes -- white people who don't mind killing people of another race..

By the way -- did you ever show real remorse for all the woman you debased, groped, grabbed, insulted, shouted down, and marginalized as crazies to even question your right to fondle them without their consent.

Just wondering because the Kissing Bandit was executed in the '50's for rape when all he did was kiss women against their will (after robbing their boyfriends when they were parked and necking).

Aren't you glad that's not the law anymore?
I would imagine some of the women you abused aren't.

|

12/11/05

OK -- a friend told me he agreed, but that really, I was all over the place with my Joey Lieberman stuff -- ok, here it is simply and succinctly:

Bill Clinton had Monica Lewinsky.


George W Bush has Joey Lieberman.


Clear enough?

|

12/10/05

Lieberman's Iraq Stance Brings Widening Split With His Party - New York Times

"Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut has become an increasingly unwelcome figure within his party, with some Democrats seeing him more as a wayward son than a favorite son...

In the last few days, the senator has riled Democratic activists and politicians here and in his home state with his vigorous defense of President Bush's handling of the Iraq war at a time some Democrats are pressuring the administration to begin a withdrawal."



It's not Little Joey's opinion about the war that is upsetting and embarrasing -- anyone can be scared into being wrong -- it is LITERALLY his STANCE -- whining, whimpering, servile, simpering, caviling, bent over, kissing Bush's ass, his head so far up the sock puppets anus he's kissing it from the inside.

He's an embarrassment to anyone who still calls him or herself a Democrat, and pretty much to anyone who calls himself an American.

As to anyone who calls himself a Jew -- even worse. Bad enough that the list of potential perp-walks reads like an AJA roster from Abramoff to Wolfowitz, and everyone in between ... this asshole continually refers to himself as an Orthodox Jew -- hey, schmuck -- Orthodox Jews do NOT shave, for starters ... do we need to go on?

The fact that he sometimes sleeps over in his office on a Friday night might have more to do with his marriage than his devotion. I don't know, but everything I ever learned about Orthodox Jews starts with the beard.

He's just a goyishe wannabe. In hanging out with Bush, he fulfills the observation that "Jews everywhere, behave like the rest of the population, only more so."

Super-schkutzim.

(Schkutzim, for the record, are not just gentiles -- they are what are called "White trash" by Gentiles -- the people we see running away from the trailer on "COPS" -- the lowest of the low -- which pretty much describes Bush and his pals -- scum with money. Little Joey practices 'kiss up, kick down' just like the rest of the crowd.)





Link
|

12/9/05

Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'

(Is it true, that Capitol Blue is fantasy? I guess I was too gullible, even though, as with talk of Bush and Cheney,Rumsfeld, Rove, et al being complicit in 9-11 -- it's not that we know they were, nor even that we THINK they were -- it's just that we know with intuitive certainty that those people are capable of doing such a thing.)

Link
|

Ogre to Slay? Outsource It to Chinese

FUZHOU, China - One of China's newest factories operates here in the basement of an old warehouse...

The people working at this clandestine locale are "gold farmers." Every day, in 12-hour shifts, they "play" computer games by killing onscreen monsters and winning battles, harvesting artificial gold coins and other virtual goods as rewards that, as it turns out, can be transformed into real cash...

That is because, from Seoul to San Francisco, affluent online gamers who lack the time and patience to work their way up to the higher levels of gamedom are willing to pay the young Chinese here to play the early rounds for them...

With more than 100 million people worldwide logging on every month to play interactive computer games, game companies are already generating revenues of $3.6 billion a year from subscriptions..

That has spawned the creation of hundreds - perhaps thousands - of online gaming factories here in China. By some estimates, there are well over 100,000 young people working in China as full-time gamers, toiling away in dark Internet cafes, abandoned warehouses, small offices and private homes...

"It's unimaginable how big this is," says Chen Yu, 27, who employs 20 full-time gamers here in Fuzhou. "They say that in some of these popular games, 40 or 50 percent of the players are actually Chinese farmers."

For many online gamers, the point is no longer simply to play. Instead they hunt for the fanciest sword or the most potent charm, or seek a shortcut to the thrill of sparring at the highest level. And all of that is available - for a price....

The Chinese government estimates that there are 24 million online gamers in China, meaning that nearly one in four Internet users here play online games.

**********************

So the idea of playing a game to find out how good you are is a thing of the past.
It's rigging the results to put on a face to others pretending to be as good as you want them to think you are.

And this means Wm Blake was right, specifically as it may apply to George W Bush, who has quoted a Texican exression --
"If you're not willing to cheat, it means you don't really want to win."

William Blake? He said "People don't get what they deserve -- they get what they resemble."

In other words, many of us despise that spoiled brat sock puppet of a self-righteous sociopath BECAUSE he reminds us of ourselves.






Link
|

"But EVERYONE in the world ALSO believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq"

Well, first of all, not EVERYONE believed that -- Scott Ritter didn't, Hans Blix didn't -- and those two had actually been there and seen what there was to see, and were saying it right out loud early in 2002.*

As for the rest -- well they were pretty much relying on the word of Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice who got it from Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, and he told chapter and verse on the ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after we turned him over to the Egyptians in January 2002, to be tortured until he said exactly what Rumsfeld and Cheney and Bush and Rice wanted him to say -- that there were ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda and those included training in explosives and chemical weapons.

Mr al-Libi later said he had invented the stories to escape harsh treatment.

A Defense Intelligence Agency report in February 2002 let the air out of the balloon that was Mr. Libi's credibility on questions related to Iraq and Al Qaeda -- mostly because they were pretty damn sure he'd been tortured (they called it "harsh treatment) into saying it. Which, of course, was why they turned this poor schmuck over to the Egyptian Gestapo to twist his balls until he told them what they wanted to hear -- that the only man in the world that Osama Ben Ladn hated more than George Bush -- Saddam Hussein -- was playing a patty-cake game of "kill the infidels" with him.

Just makes me wonder what we would have learned had we done that to Dick Cheney when we wanted to find out what went on in the energy policy meetings. Wonder what he might do if we just threatened a dire something-or-otherusing that wonderfully creepy phrase that resounds through English history: "He was shown the instruments and confessed."

How about a press conference with electrodes attached to George Bush's balls -- and Helen Thomas holds the switch?

How about waterboarding Donnie Rumsfeld? Or pouring hot lead up Karl Rove's ass?

Just a thought. Since they have the power (if not the authority -- not when everyone is either laughing at them or howling in anger), at least we can have the fantasies.



*I recall seeing Scott Ritter on the Politically Incorrect show, and he carefully phrased his opinion. And I recall hearing Dennis Miller mock Ritter for the way he spoke. And I decded then that it would be a good thing if Dennis Miller ended up with his only broadcast presence doing commercials for a second-rate internet provider. Needless to say I have been delighted with the way his career has plummeted like a turd falling off the top of the Bank of America building -- a simile not exactly far-fetched. There's a line between sharp-edged comedy and just being a pure mean-spirited unpleasant shit. And that's aside from the fact that each passing year has him looking more and more like Richard Nixon.

|

12/8/05

Why I am a registered Libertarian

I was raised as a Democrat -- most kids grow up in the political orientation and religion their parents held -- and I have seen and heard that affiliation attacked by Republicans since, as a child, I heard allegations that Adlai Stevenson was a murderer, that all Democrats are traitors ... and that was in the 50's -- and the 60's -- and the 70's --- and the 80's -- and the 90's -- and even more, now in the 21st century, same thing happening -- venomous attacks.

You ask them about an issue -- do we have enough troops in Iraq? Are we actually torturing people? Are the people we're holding in Guantanamo actually guilty of anything? Is Dick Cheney paying off his pals with our money? Does President Bush have any say in running the government? --- and the answer is an attack on the questioner.

Most of my life I wished we might have a president who would pick the best plan of those available, regardless of the origin -- and when President Clinton did that, nodded to some Republican proposals and said, in essence, "Good idea, let's do that," he was attacked as "stealing our ideas!"

Now the Bush-wahs have their people out there attacking Democrats for doing what THEY have been doing, screaming in pain at being slandered. Ask about an unfair tax cut and they scream "Creating Class War." Say you think Bush is inadequate and they call you a "Saddam-lover," or "America-hater."

Any questioning of the war, if it's worthwhile gets you either attacked as a "rape-room lover," or asked a sneering question "Aren't the people of Iraq better off without Saddam?"

Well, actually, according to a lot of the people of Iraq, they say "NO," things were better when Saddam was in power.

Is the world, i.e. America, better off? Dunno -- we'll have to see what a solid Shi'a axis of Iran, Iraq, Syria is like, because that's what Bush has created (assuming he's the one making the decisions).

The last four Republican administrations have all treated congress as untrustworthy foreing enemies.

And Bush keeps pointing to two small towns in Iraq that are actually functioning, ignoring the daily multiple death count in the completely chaotic and anarchic areas of the rest of the country, Baghdad, for example. His justification -- one-time Democrat Little Joey Lieberman has kissed his ass so long he can be considered an ally. (By the way, I am Jewish, and find it upsetting that Joe Lieberman claims himself to be an orthodox Jew. Wrong. He's an Orthodox Ass-Kisser, Whineing Variety -- any way the wind blows, he blows the guy in charge.)

But the Democrats? Jeezus fucking Christ!

Dukakis? Gore? Kerrey? Three Blind Mice. That's the best they can do?

Clinton had some chops, so what did they do? Re-arrange the primary structure to make sure no one like him (i.e., the choice of the registered Democrats) can ever get the nomination, the contest being over in the first weeks, no chance for anyone to show their mettle over the long haul.

Kerry's the rep for the party as in eMails. I have this to say to Senator Kerry:

"Fuck you, you lame piece of shit. You held the center of a public forum for months. All the press was looking at and listening to you. And you said a total of jack shit. You let a bunch of slimers attack your war record and raise a guy above you as more patriotic who not only joined a National Guard unit that OTHER National Guard Units laugh at -- but didn't even finish his service in that one. So don't start doing a Gore and making speeches about what SHOULD happen when it's too late. Sit down and shut up and let someone with a brain and a spine and an idea or two stand up and lead."

They say Lowell Weicker will run against Joey Lieberman for the senate. If I lived in his state, I would break my late father's heart by voting for (and campaigning for) a Republican.

As I grow older, I become more appreciative of the Conservative viewpoint.

But there is no party to represent me.

I will not support people who are dead-set on turning this country into a theocratic dictatorship. Who are so terrified of women they can not even conceive of the possibility that people of that sex are capable of understanding moral issues and making up their own minds about such things. Mean-spirited, vicious, assholes who expend vast resources (our resources) on finding, chasing down, and imprisoning people who use a naturally-growing plant to relieve their pain. Who conserve nothing but instead use up, burn up, sell off, and destroy everything they can.

People who laugh at the Libertarians are people who don't understand just how un-fucking-believably silly the Republicans and Democrats are.

While the Libertarians' standards may be totally impractible, they actually have standards, a vision, an understanding of what direction they want to take this country, even if it's not possible to go all the way there. *

Some of the goals of those standards are less government control of individual behavior, keeping government spending to a minimum, not engaging in whimsical foreign adventures, and free trade -- meaning, if people want to do business in foreign countries, good luck -- we're not sending the military over to help them. The military is here to defend our homes, and, as two-time Medal of Honor winner Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC said, "to defend the Bill of Rights. Any other war is just a racket."

The Republicans used to be the party of the individual, self-sufficient people who wanted no more from the government than to keep foreign invaders off our soil.

The Democrats used to be the party of the social conscience, balancing the inequities to allow everyone a fair chance at achieving their goals.

Both of them became authoritarian, church-ridden, parasites, trying to control everyone and everything, betraying everything they ever stood for and ultimately, both serving the rich who give them the bribes they call "campaign contributions." (Why -- did you think Al Gore wasn't getting the same money for Oil and Pharma that Bush was? Sometimes from different companies, but still... servile running dogs, as the old expression used to go ... running dogs of the ruling class.)

To hell with them all, and I believe I'm not violating the so-called Patriot Act when I say I dearly hope each and every one of them gets the future they're creating for others.


****************

PS -- NOT WHORES -- I hate the use of that word for these scumbags holding elected and appointed office, a bunch of posturing pissants who NEVER put their own asses on the line. I remember an interview in 1972 in which a San Franciso prostitute told the interviewer:

"WE'RE NOT SELLING ANYTHING THAT DOESN"T BELONG TO US, AND THERE ISN'T A POLITICIAN IN THIS COUNTRY WHO CAN MAKE THAT SAME STATEMENT."


*(My wife points out that just knowing what you want to do and where you want to take things may not be -- in and of itself -- much of a virtue. Hitler knew what he wanted to do. So did Attila, Genghis Khan, Torquemada, Fulgencio Batista, Anastasio Somoza, Josef Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, and a few other people of clear vision and firm resolve.)



|

12/7/05

Skepticism Seems to Erode Europeans' Faith in Rice

But the good news is, they still believe in corn and wheat..

Link
|






World Wildlife Fund photos of the beast sighted in the Borneo jungle (Stephen Wulffraat/EPA)


Is it a cat, a dog, a fox — or first sighting of a new carnivore?

From Nick Meo in Jakarta and Nigel Hawkes

DEEP in the jungle, something stirs. But is it a cat, a dog, a marten, a rare fox, or even — as some surmise — the first new carnivore to be found in South East Asia for more than 70 years?
The only evidence that exists are photographs taken by an automatically triggered camera on a jungle trail in Indonesia in 2003. Infuriatingly, a large leaf obscured the creature’s face as the shutter went off.

Undaunted, researchers from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) announced the discovery yesterday, claiming it as the first new carnivore to be found in the region since the Tonkin otter-civet emerged in Vietnam in 1930...

“We showed the photos to locals who know the wildlife of the area, but nobody had ever seen this creature before. We also consulted several Bornean wildlife experts. Some thought it looked like a lemur, but most were convinced it was a new species of carnivore.”


Entire story here
 Posted by Picasa

|

If you can't beat 'em, eat 'em.



How do you tackle an invasion of giant jellyfish?
Try making sushi


THEY are called echizen kurage and they sound like monsters from the trashier reaches of Japanese science fiction.

They are 6ft wide and weigh 450lb (200kg), with countless poisonous tentacles, they have drifted across the void to terrorise the people of Japan. Vast armadas of the slimy horrors have cut off the country’s food supply. As soon as one is killed more appear to take its place...

The problem first became obvious in the late summer when fishermen chasing anchovies, salmon and yellowtail began finding huge numbers of the jellyfish in their nets.

Often the weight of the echizen kurage broke the nets or crushed the fish to death; those that survived were poisoned and beslimed by their tentacles...

In some places jellyfish density is reported to be a hundred times higher than normal. Worst of all, no one yet understands why. One theory is that global warming is heating up the seawater and encouraging jellyfish breeding...

In the meantime locals are making the best of it — rather than just complaining about jellyfish they are eating them.

Jellyfish are an unusual ingredient of Japanese cuisine but are much more prized in China. Coastal communities are doing their best to promote jellyfish as a novelty food, sold dried and salted.

Students in Obama have managed to turn them into tofu, and jellyfish collagen is reported to be beneficial to the skin.

Read the entire story here

Link
|

Times Online --

---Now this is an official's apology that is definitely sincere. Perhaps he should be a role model for our people?



Times Online December 07, 2005

Chinese toxic spill official found hanged



A senior official managing the aftermath of a spill of 100 tonnes of toxic pollutants into the rivers of northern China and Russia has been found dead, according to reports.

Wang Wei, the Vice Mayor of Jilin, where an explosion in a chemical factory released tonnes of benzene, a carcinogen, into the water supply of the city of Harbin on November 13, was found hanged at his home, an official said.

"I’d heard that he’d died at home yesterday. We’ve heard that he hanged himself," a senior official in Jilin told Reuters...

News of Wang's apparent suicide came hours after China's head of workplace safety warned that those found responsible for the explosion, which killed five people and forced the closure of the water supply to 4 million people in Harbin, would be "sternly" punished.

"Anyone who were found guilty of dereliction of duty will be harshly dealt with," said Li Yizhong, director of the National Bureau of Production Safety Supervision Administration.

"People who are found to have provided false information to investigators will also be punished severely," he said. "Any move trying to cover up the cause of the accident and any passive attitude toward the probe are deemed deception and a defiance of law."

In the immediate aftermath of the blast, which occurred in a benzene-processing tower at the Jilin Shuangben Chemical Plant, Wang was quoted as saying that the explosion had caused no environmental damage.

The death of Wang follows the sacking of at least three managers in the China National Petroleum Corporation, which runs the chemical plant. Last week, the head of China's environmental agency also resigned over the accident, which has attracted unsually critical coverage in China's state-owned media.

The slick, which has slowed in the freezing waters of the Songhua River as it makes its way northeast to the Russian border, is currently approaching the Chinese city of Jiamusi, 200 miles (320km) to the east.

Jiamusi, a city of two million people, has closed its waterworks to prevent the contamination of its water supply, according to Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency.

Local officials in Heilongjiang Province are also considering building a temporary dam on the border with Russia to stop the slick, which is now 150km long, from reaching the Russian city of Khabarovsk, Xinhua said, quoting Chinese water officials.

Link
|

Bush Lauds Iraq Progress, Cites Challenges (blows smoke up collective asses)

December 07,2005 | WASHINGTON -- Trying to build support for Iraq war strategy, President Bush acknowledged that reconstruction has proceeded with "fits and starts" but spreading economic progress is lifting people's hopes for a democratic future...

*********
Wish WE could feel same way about our American future.



"In places like Mosul and Najaf, residents are seeing tangible progress in their lives," Bush said. "They're gaining a personal stake in a peaceful future and their confidence in Iraq's democracy is growing. The progress in these cities is being replicated across much of Iraq. And more of Iraq's people are seeing the real benefits that a democratic society can bring."


*************
Actually we DO feel the same way about America's future -- by an overwhelming majority, the people of Iraq feel that there is no future at all until Bush and his minions get the hell out of their country. And so do we.

Link
|

12/6/05

Iraq -- Oil -- Anglo-American Oil Companies -- FYI, a report

By Greg Muttitt

PLATFORM with Global Policy Forum,
Institute for Policy Studies (New Internationalism Project)
New Economics Foundation
Oil Change International and War on Want

November 2005

Executive Summary

"While the Iraqi people struggle to define their future amid political chaos and violence, the fate of their most valuable economic asset, oil, is being decided behind closed doors.


This report reveals how an oil policy with origins in the US State Department is on course to be adopted in Iraq, soon after the December elections, with no public debate and at enormous potential cost. The policy allocates the majority (1) of Iraq’s oilfields – accounting for at least 64% of the country’s oil reserves – for development by multinational oil companies.


Iraqi public opinion is strongly opposed to handing control over oil development to foreign companies. But with the active involvement of the US and British governments a group of powerful Iraqi politicians and technocrats is pushing for a system of long term contracts with foreign oil companies which will be beyond the reach of Iraqi courts, public scrutiny or democratic control.


COSTING IRAQ BILLIONS


Economic projections published here for the first time show that the model of oil development that is being proposed will cost Iraq hundreds of billions of dollars in lost revenue, while providing foreign companies with enormous profits.


Our key findings are:


# At an oil price of $40 per barrel, Iraq stands to lose between $74 billion and $194 billion over the lifetime of the proposed contracts (2), from only the first 12 oilfields to be developed. These estimates, based on conservative assumptions, represent between two and seven times the current Iraqi government budget.


# Under the likely terms of the contracts, oil company rates of return from investing in Iraq would range from 42% to 162%, far in excess of usual industry minimum target of around 12% return on investment.


A CONTRACTUAL RIP-OFF


The debate over oil “privatisation” in Iraq has often been misleading due to the technical nature of the term, which refers to legal ownership of oil reserves. This has allowed governments and companies to deny that “privatisation” is taking place..."



The report continues HERE


***************************

In other words, Saddam had all that time to screw the Iraqi public, now it's our turn. Feh.

Link
|

12/3/05

War Room -- Abramoff to make a deal?

If the dealer makes a deal

"Here's a thought that ought to send chills through Congress: Sources close to the Jack Abramoff investigation tell the New York Times that they expect the GOP lobbyist to try to cut a deal with federal prosecutors in Washington before a trial begins in the criminal case already pending against him in Florida.

As a general matter, prosecutors don't have a lot of incentive for making deals with big fish unless they think such a deal can help them hook an even bigger one. As the Times says, the "potential dimensions" of the Abramoff case are "enormous." How big? We keep hearing that prosecutors are looking at at least six members of Congress, and the Times reports today that investigators are now looking into whether Abramoff hooked up congressional aides with plum jobs at lobbying shops in exchange for legislative favors.

As the Times acknowledges, proving the quid pro quo in a bribery case can be difficult. But it's not so hard if you've got the man doing the bribing testifying for you. Why would Abramoff want to rat out his friends in the GOP? With his former business partner already pleading guilty and agreeing to cooperate with investigators, Abamoff may be realizing that the only way to avoid serious prison time is to cut the best deal he can now. With a trial set to begin next month in Florida, he doesn't have much time to act before his situation gets much more complicated. And with his lobbying business suddenly a little light, the Times says that Abramoff is running out of something else he once had in abundance: money."


We can expect a plane crash with Abramoff aboard -- "pilot error" or "mechanical malfunction" -- any day now.

Link
|


"Rhesus monkeys masturbate as frequently as possible,
every quarter hour on a good day.
The rest of their lives take structure from this.

Television provides us with
the technological equivalent of this phenomenon"


Ente Grillenhaft


|

The Schadenfreude Song

It's December and the Christmas decorations are up and ho-ho-ho, eh? So, it's that time, once again, by popular demand to bring back --

The Schadenfreude Song

Schadenfreude, schadenfreude,

Flop sweat all the way

Oh what fun it is to see

Their guys in disarray... ayyyy

They get bought and they get caught

And sometimes good guys win

The bad guys snipe

Each tries to wipe

The doo-doo off his chin

Ohhhhhh

The asses you kick, the asses you kick

When you think that you're so hot

Are the ones you lick, the ones you lick

When you find out that you're not.


Ente Grillenhaft
Brno, Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic, December 1992


|

"Duke" Cunningham -- decorated ACE fighter pilot in Vietnam -- Busted.


"Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy."

F. Scott Fitzgerald and Others



Link
|

12/2/05

Govs Fear Sale of Public Lands for Mining

By JENNIFER TALHELM Associated Press Writer

December 02,2005 | WASHINGTON -- Six Western governors and a growing number of senators say they fear a plan in a budget bill allowing the sale of millions of acres of public lands could do permanent harm to their states...

House lawmakers added the provision, which ends an 11-year congressional ban on new applications to buy public land for mining, to their budget bill on the Friday before Thanksgiving.

Supporters say it would help struggling communities recover after mines close. But opponents argue it amounts to a fire sale on federal lands, including wilderness study areas and national parks. The Interior Department says the plan could affect up to 20 million acres, while environmentalists say it could allow the government to sell 350 million acres.
***********
---INTERJECTION: Gee, why would anyone think this administration, given its record on the environment and truth, might not be able to be trusted? How could anyone think they'd allow -- let alone promote -- a fire sale of national resources?
*************

...The bill changes an 1872 law that allows private companies to "patent" -- or purchase -- public land at up to $5 an acre to mine minerals such as gold and silver.

Congress has opposed new patents since 1994. House lawmakers now propose to lift the ban and raise the fee to $1,000 an acre, or "fair market value," whichever is more.

Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., said the bill is about "sustainable economic development for rural communities in need" and that Pombo would be open to negotiating some changes.

***********

First of all, Pombo is a sociopathic real estate man pretending to represent the poor bastards in Tracy who are being buried by the process of turning the central valley into one giant strip mall.

This overturning of a most sensible ban on the giveaway of federal lands -- ostensibly for mining, but actually not requiring the buyers to mine, nor restricting them from doing/building anything they choose on the land -- is vile and irrevocable in terms of damage to OUR national world.

At a certain point, we have to stop just standing by and letting these vermin strip our land of everything. There's no way to compromise and say, "Oh, ok, it'll just be PARTIAL devastation." It doesn't belong to them and Bush, et al have no right to sell it.

Edward Abbey was right -- they bring in the bulldozers, we need to bring in the monkeywrenches.

Earth First is right -- these insane short-sighted profit-obsessed sonsobitches must be stopped.


Once it's gone, it's gone forever.

Check out Earth Liberation Front. They have an interesting viewpoint on matters such as this -- it has to do with what is defined as vandalism and what is defined as progress.

|

 
eXTReMe Tracker