Saintperle

6/30/06

Some people say that for these guys, no matter how much they get, it's never enough

...or maybe they just like to steal...



Ex-Bush Aide Hopes to Avoid Theft Trial

By STEPHEN MANNING Associated Press Writer

June 29,2006 | ROCKVILLE, Md. -- Former White House adviser Claude Allen is negotiating with prosecutors in hopes of avoiding a trial on theft charges, according to his attorney.

Allen was to go on trial Friday for allegedly trying to make fraudulent returns worth at least $5,000 at Target and other stores.

But Montgomery County prosecutors and Allen's attorneys have agreed to postpone the trial while negotiations continue, according to Allen lawyer Gregory Craig. He would not elaborate on the talks.

Prosecutor Douglas Gansler would not comment.

Allen, 45, was one of President Bush's top domestic policy advisers in a $161,000-a-year job until he resigned in February, a month after he was arrested at a Target store in Gaithersburg.

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

Target? $161K a year and he's trying to rip off TARGET? Classy fellow.

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6/29/06

Why I am against impeaching George W Bush and also why the Three Amigos of the Bush Admin aren't the only wankers around

(06-29) 07:49 PDT Berkeley, Calif. (AP) --

The left-leaning city of Berkeley will let voters decide whether to call for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

The City Council voted Tuesday night to put an advisory measure on the Nov. 7 ballot calling for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

The measure says the administration violated the Constitution with illegal domestic spying, justified the Iraq war with fraudulent claims and illegally tortured citizens.

The move is largely symbolic because only Congress has impeachment powers.

The city will spend $10,000 to put the measure on the ballot.

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

WHY AM I AGAINST IMPEACHING THESE CRIMINALS?

BECAUSE IT WILL SEEM TO SAY THAT BUSH IS BILL CLINTON'S EQUAL.

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

OK -- I keep referring to Dumsfeld, Shotgun Dick, and Monkey Boy as the Three Amigos who sit around jerking each other off.

And no, it's not a vice unique to Republicans.

What it is about -- this metaphorical wanking -- is about a sexual fantasy that has nothing to do with reality, that in fact, doesn't even consider reality as relevant, regardless of how many people get hurt, just so long as it feels good to them.

Like the Berkeley City Council.

First, they have become so totally marginalized as irrelevant that even the hard-core Left finds them silly. It's amazing that they don't seem to know that.

Second -- they're spending $10,000 of the taxpayers money that should go to pothole-fixing, sewer repair, school repairs, etc --and for what?

To say:

"Oh he's a bad boy and should be removed from office."


So I guess I have to add supercilious elitism to the above -- because they seem to think they're THE ONLY ONES clever enough to have figured that out -- don't seem to realize there isn't ANYONE around who doesn't know that yet.

Except the people who don't think it's true and who will never be swayed by the argument of political officials who -- on a tiny scale -- are just as involved in plundering the treasury for personal agenda bullshit as Monkey Boy and his Henchmonsters.

We moved out of Berkeley a while ago for a variety of reasons, and one of them was that we stopped voting for whomever would be the funniest mayor or supervisor and started thinking about potholes, stop signs, traffic lights, schools, sewers, and generally electing people who will actually serve the people of the city rather than spending their time having a circle jerk about the Nobel Peace Prize.

There is an axiom I developed while in and around Berkeley over the years and I have found it is generally true:

The bigger the concept of the bumper sticker (World peace, Save Whales, etc) the more likely the driver is to make a left turn from the right lane or some such crime of inattention, and never stop talking on the cell phone while doing it..

If that person is driving a VW or Volvo (used to be) or a Prius (even more so) -- he or she will also flip you the finger (but smiling) when you honk at them.

And to the rest of the world -- guess what?

I'm talking about the Berkeley Government -- NOT the people who live in Berkeley, many of whom -- perhaps even most of whom -- are NOT silly morons.

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6/28/06

Bush thinks the NY TIMES article on money-snooping was "a disgrace"

Oh, tell us about it Monkey Boy.

You know all about disgrace.

What can we read from a comment like that?

Well, the normal -- "How DARE they publish news of our illegal activities?"

And the Elemental -- the war is over and we lost, we need to hang on in order to gain enough time to start lining up people to blame for it.


Can't blame US for fucking up and getting our people and their people killed and maimed and life-destroyed.

After all "You go to war with the Army you've got." (The fact that there was NO NEED AT ALL TO GO TO WAR... not relevant as in "Are you people still talking about that? That's ancient history. Like the 2000 election.")

I KNOW!

Let's blame it on the people who thought it was a really bad idea to go to war, who predicted it would end like this -- civil war, anarchy, terrorism becoming a growth industry in response to our military invasion -- let's blame it on them, but we'll just change what they said a little bit, say they WANTED it to end in failure instead of just foreseeing that it would. No difference there, right Karl?

Another tired vicious worn-out tactic. I guess these guys figure they can still scare the crap out of people and get them angry -- always has worked before. Still working now. And blame it on the flag-burners, the last of which was seen sometime before the last sighting of an Ivory-billed woodpecker cross-breeding with a Passenger Pigeon.



There IS a way to regain the respect in the world these Bozos have pissed away -- find a way to put 'em on trial for Crimes Against Humanity. The Three Amigos -- Monkey Boy, ChainGang, and Redrum, and oh yeah, that little Gollum of a Towel Boy, Karl "Hey guys wait up for me" Rove.

And keep 'em in Guantanamo until we get enough hard evidence to win the case -- no matter how long it takes.

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Flag Amendment Narrowly Fails in Senate Vote

WASHINGTON, June 27 — A proposed Constitutional amendment to allow Congress to prohibit desecration of the flag fell a single vote short of approval by the Senate on Tuesday, an excruciatingly close vote that left unresolved a long-running debate over whether the flag is a unique national symbol deserving of special legal standing.

*******

Right -- what it left unresolved is whether or not congress can throw enough irrelevant shit against the wall (Flag-burning, Fag-bashing, etc) to make us forget that they have done NOTHING -- NOT ONE FUCKING THING in the past 2-4-6 years for the American people --

nothing about health care (oh, excuse me, there was that Big Pharma payoff Bush engineered, called it Medicare Drug Benefits),

nothing about unemployment ("the economy," i.e. a bunch of numbers -- looking good. People having jobs -- forget it)

nothing about the environment except to sell it to their pals,

nothing about poverty (sorry can't raise the minimum wage from $5 bucks an hour -- need the money to give ourselves pay raises)

nothing about oil prices (except to start a bogus war and justify a whole bunch of the kind of thing literally known as fascism -- e.g. -- merger between corporations and the state)

---ahh, I'm getting old, but I seem to remember a relevant phrase from the 60's -- hmm, my memory must be going, what was it now?

Oh yeah ...

UP AGAINST THE WALL MOTHERFUCKERS!

How much of this vicious obscene criminal bullshit can we take as a people?

The ONLY thing thesde people protect is their "constitutional" right to take bribes and call them campaign contributions.

It's time WE -- the government -- financed political campaigns, time the TV networks (which we own, and license to the corporations) gave free and equal time to candidates, time we banned bribery of public officials and contenders for public office.

UP AGAINST THE LAWS, MOTHERFUCKERS -- a more reasonable and less counter-productive thing to do than just blow it completely by resorting to violence. That's for the conspiratorial Three Amigos to do. (Redrum, ChainGang, and Monkey Boy to do -- along with Karl "Hey Guys I can lie and spout vicious venom like a motherfucker, so can I hang with you guys" Rove)

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6/27/06

Bush's Mideast policies have turned a brutal terrorist into an icon of resistance -- and made violent fundamentalism more popular.

By Juan Cole

June 27, 2006 |

Whatever the meaning of the killing of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by a U.S. airstrike earlier this month, it has not lessened Iraq's violent nightmare, or calmed tensions in the Middle East. Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called him "the prince of martyrs" and vowed revenge on the U.S. Some reports suggest that the two U.S. soldiers captured at Yusufiyah were tortured and killed by Zarqawi's shadowy successor. The three weeks after his death have witnessed daily bombings with dozens of casualties throughout Iraq. And Zarqawi's demise has stirred up trouble throughout the region, as controversies on how to respond to it have erupted among secularists and fundamentalists, Sunnis and Shiites.

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

You could call it unintended consqequences, but COME ON -- haven't any of them ever seen ANY of the numerous bad movies in which the Bad Guy or the Good Guy (but always the Little Guy fighting against the BIG Guys) says (All together now):

"You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea!"

(Hmm, maybe not -- after all, remember they kept saying they didn't know what was happening in New Orleans when Katrina hit, not for several days, until a reported asked: "Don't any of you people watch the news on television?" Maybe they just sit around, isolated, jerking each other off with thier self-importance. Certainly that would go a long way to explaining their lunatic policies.)

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6/23/06

Congress May Bestow Unchecked Spying Powers on President





---So what we're seeing is a congress so panicked, so terrified by both Al Quaeda AND the voters* they're willing to give this mean-spirited stupid playground bully and his bottomless pit of cronies for whom enough is never enough, ALL THE POWER TO DO WHATEVER THEY WANT.

Even RETROACTIVE acquittal for any FELONIES, HIGH CRIMES, AND MISDEMEANORS done before this new set of laws will say they're not felonies anymore.

Story by Catherine Komp, The NewStandard

Friday 23 June 2006

While dozens of lawsuits challenging the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance of Americans slowly move through the courts, the Senate Judiciary Committee is poised to consider legislation that would effectively legalize the practice.

Civil-rights advocates and constitutional-law experts say several proposed bills attempt to "whitewash" executive wrongdoing before Congress has the opportunity to conduct hearings and gather the facts surrounding the National Security Agency's involvement in warrantless wiretapping and telecommunications data mining.

"Congress has the power to ensure that the president follows the law; they just have chosen not to use it," said Brittany Benowitz, staff attorney for the Center for National Security Studies, a government watchdog group.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Arlen Specter** (R-Pennsylvania) introduced the "National Security Surveillance Act" (S.2453) last March, which he followed with a substitute proposal in May.

The legislation would amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and establish new "procedures for the review of electronic surveillance programs." FISA, which was expanded under the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act, was first established in 1978 to define the procedures and set up special courts to oversee the gathering of foreign intelligence through physical and electronic surveillance.

The Specter bill states in its findings, "It is in our nation's best interest for Congress to use its oversight power to establish a system to ensure that electronic surveillance programs do not infringe on the constitutional rights of Americans, while at the same time making sure that the president has all the powers and means necessary to detect and track our enemies."

*********But what if it's the President himself who's the enemy?*********

But some legal experts say the bill eliminates checks and balances, failing to ensure protection of Americans' constitutional rights to freedom of expression and against unreasonable search and seizure. According to the ACLU's analysis of the bill, the legislation would amend a section of FISA that imposes penalties for warrantless surveillance - currently up to five years in jail and a $10,000 fine - and permit the executive branch to approve a wiretap without a Foreign Intelligence court order.

The ACLU points out that the bill creates a "retroactive exception to criminal liability" for federal agents spying on people without warrants as long as it's done at the discretion of the president.

The bill would also eliminate a provision in the federal criminal code that designates FISA as the exclusive authority for wiretapping Americans to gather foreign intelligence. In abolishing this part of the criminal code, the ACLU said the bill would "reward the president's [past] refusal to follow FISA by [retroactively] exempting him from following these procedures." It would also, the group argues, "allow any president to make up his own 'rules' for wiretapping Americans and secretly implement those rules unless and until a court finds such rules unconstitutional."

********** And we're supposed to START by trusting THIS pissant playground bully liar to do it right?******

Lisa Graves, ACLU senior counsel for legislative strategy, told The NewStandard, "It would embed into federal law the notion that the president has inherent power to monitor Americans' communications without court order."

Another bill, Senator Mike Dewine's (R-Ohio) "Terrorist Surveillance Program Act of 2006" (S. 2455), would also authorize warrantless surveillance if "the president determines that the surveillance is necessary to protect the United States, its citizens, or its interests, whether inside the United States or outside the United States."

According to Benowitz of the Center for National Security Studies, this legislation is even worse than Specter's bill. She said these changes are like "the PATRIOT ACT on steroids," because they include no checks and balances.

"It would, like the Specter bill, authorize the president to do what he's doing - which is spy on people who are suspected of wrongdoing, without a court order," Benowitz said. "But it would make it worse because it would actually restrict congressional oversight..."


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


* And why would they be scared of voters unless they KNEW they were not doing their job but simply buttfucking the public according to instructions by that band of locusts from Hell that call themselves Neo-cons (well, the "con" part is right) and are terrified that the voters will find out? And who actually believe that the voters DON'T ALREADY KNOW.


** You remember Arlen Spectre, don't you -- the coverup fantasist who sat on the Warren Commision and invented the "single bullet theory" about JFK's murder to prove that Oswald acted all by his lonseome, despite all the reports that the shots came from another direction.


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6/20/06

Republican Rep. Steve King trying to be funny about the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi:

"There probably are not 72 virgins in the hell he's at.

And if there are, they probably all look like Helen Thomas."



Aside from the fact that a comment like that reveals him to be a total asshole, there's an old quote from the days when it was only print media about the power of the press that reveals him to also be a moron:

"Never pick a fight with a person who buys ink by the barrel."

(updating it to ..
"or who's holding the mike.
Or who has a popular blog.
Or a network radio/TV show.")

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6/16/06

A modest question from a Jewish American ---

If Jews have a "God-Given" right to take back land they left hundreds and thousands of years ago, why don't Mexicans? (For them it's only been 150 years.)

Or the Wintu in California?

Or the Sioux? Or the Cheyenne? Or the Cherokee?

The Iriquois (on whose federation our constitutional system was modelled, except theirs worked for a lot longer than ours.)?

Lenni Lenape?

Wahoo?

Kickapoo?

Is it God-given right?

Or Gun-taken might?

And if so, why all the oleagenous smarmy religious blather about it?

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Deadwood's back and looks to be a good as ever...

(Portions of this post appeared previously in these virtual pages)



The scripting and acting and directing of Deadwood is still extraordinary with multi-level oblique conspiracy ongoing and involving more or less everyone.

Most people have noticed -- of course -- the amazing stellar performance of Ian McShane as Al Swearengen. But EVERY actor in the ensemble series is revealed, sooner or later, to be doing something above and beyond what might be expected or even hoped-for, with complex unstated undercurrents enriching each one, whether it's the perennially-underrated Brad Dourif (I still remember his amazing performance with Michael Ironside in 1989's Chaindance aka Common Bonds as Doc Cochran or William Sanderson in an insanely grotesque portrayal of the devious, semi-literate and sensitive E.B.Farnum, or the truly amazing Robin Wiegert as Calamity Jane.

The characters are generally debased, brutalized, opportunistic, and murderous, but, other than perhaps Powers Boothe's presenting a brilliant Face of Evil as Cy Tolliver, sooner or later we find that every one of them has some standards, some principles, complexity, even something one might call a personal morality.

You can continue all the way down the cast list and see what might be "personal-best" performances from damn near evereyone -- Jeffrey Jones as A.W. Merrick, Paula Malcomson as Trixie, Molly Parker (who creatred a character we'd never seen before -- or since -- in Center of the World in 1991 -- complex, unsweetened, searing) as Alma Garrett,
W. Earl Brown who makes Dan Dorrity something deep out of a role that could have been nothing, Geri Jewell who plays her disability as Jewell with the boldness and timing of the standup comic she also is, , Keone Young as Mr. Wu, Dayton Callie as Charlie Utter, the marvelous Kim Dickens as Joanie Stubbs, Timothy Olyphant as Seth Bullock, John Hawkes as Sol Star, Leon Rippy as Tom Nuttal, and the unnamed actor portraying a character gradually emerging as a viewer-favorite, E.B. Farnum's factotem Richardson -- the dim-witted pagan who prays to the Horned God --

and what is the matter with those c-ksuckers that run the HBO Deadwood site?

They don't think he's important enough to list?


Have I missed anyone? Of course I have -- but that doesn't mean they aren't worthy of recognition.



********

This is it for a complete season.
HBO offered a 6-episode season next year, by David Milch turned it down as not enough time to complete the story, which, historically, HAD a definite time limit, then settled for two 2-hour shows.

(Does that seem like a bad deal? Couldn't accept only 6 so he negotiated for 4?)

Well, who am I to ever suggest the man doesn't know what he's doing? Obviously he does.

Perhaps a single 2-hour episode allows more story and complexity than two individual hours. Or something.

I favor the perspective of being quite glad to have and have had as much as we have.

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Was Osama bin Ladn the one who dropped a dime on Wowie Zarqawi?

Very interesting article in the June 19th New Yorker by Lawrence Wright.
The gist of it is that the death of Zarqawi is GOOD for Al Quaeda...

Among those quietly celebrating the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi last week, no doubt, were Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leaders of Al Qaeda, who have watched their nominal ally wreck the standing of their organization among Muslims around the world.

After Zarqawi began his bloody operations in Iraq, in 2003, support for suicide bombings—the signature of Al Qaeda since the destruction of the American embassies in East Africa, in 1998—plummeted in Islamic countries. Muslims surveyed in the 2005 Pew Global Attitudes Project reported in substantial numbers that Islamic extremism was a threat to their own countries...

Zarqawi was the herald of a new generation of terrorists whose roots were in street crime, not in Islamic militancy. A former thief and sex offender, he memorized the Koran while he was in prison, and began issuing fatwas and calling himself “sheikh...”



Hmmm, talk about "Unintended Consequences."


You can read the entire essay here

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6/13/06

Everyone seems to be worried that Bush et al MAY BE, MAY BE TRYING TO, MAY BE IN THE PROCESS OF -- eliminating the constitution and delivering the country to friends and Asian Investors...

They're not quite correct.


Done deal, already happened ---

MUTATIS MUTANDIS


(The change has already taken place.)

So the question is: "What now?"

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Steelers QB Roethlisberger May be OK After 7 hours of Surgery Following Crashing his Suzuki Hayabusa, (0=139mph in the 1/4 mile), Riding Without a Helmet.

Athletes by their very nature tend to be risk takers...According to a report in Psychology Today, researchers believe this behavior is more than a simple death wish. The need to take risks may be something addictive deep in their brains linked to arousal and pleasure.


In the 60's and 70's, we called it "danger-fucking."
Some of us survived more or less intact.*


*(By "intact" I mean a person still able to count all his fingers and toes and not spend all of his time doing it over and over again.)


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6/11/06

Iraqi Raises Questions on al-Zarqawi Death

Saturday 10 June 2006

Baghdad - US officials have altered their account of the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, saying he was alive and partly conscious after bombs destroyed his hideout, and an Iraqi man raised fresh questions about the events surrounding the end of Iraq's most-wanted militant. The man, who lived near the scene of the bombing, told AP Television News on Friday that he saw US soldiers beating an injured man resembling al-Zarqawi until blood flowed from the victim's nose...

"He was still alive. We put him in the ambulance, but when the Americans arrived they took him out of the ambulance, they beat him on his stomach and wrapped his head with his dishdasha, then they stomped on his stomach and his chest until he died and blood came out of his nose," Mohammed said, without saying how he knew the man was dead.

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

My my what a surprise -- a bunch of Army and/or Marines find the man who ordered the IED's that maimed and killed all those people, and -- oh so barbaric -- decided there wasn't going to be a years-long agitprop trial where Wowie Zarqawi gets to justify his murders.

What a tragedy.

And oh yeah -- to all the asshole wingers who call into CSPAN talking about how Liberals and Lefties are SORRY Zarqawi is dead, how anyone who agreed with Rep. Murtha should be embarrassed -- oh the best one -- how the liberals promote Haditha but how they don't know if those children who were slaughtered had weapons --in other words, who will justify anyone and anything that the pre-judicial opinions they received from Rush 'Doper Dan' Limbaugh and Bill 'Gamblin' Man' Bennett, and Ann 'Ilse Koch had nothin' on me' Coulter ---

GET A F**KING LIFE -- if you know how moronic and "We're Delta's and we're the best" (and I don't mean Delta Force) you sound, well, actually, you'd probably do a Beavis, Bush, and Butthead "hurr - huhrr - huhhrrr" idiot's laugh and say "Hey -- he said 'Mo'.. like Ho-Mo... huhrrhurhhurh."

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6/10/06

President Bush expressed "serious concern" Saturday over the suicides at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay and directed an aggressive effort by his administration to reach out diplomatically while it investigates.


Gee, couldn't have anything to do with the fact that these guys were abducted from wherever and held incommunicado and without charges for 4-1/2 years, could it? Nahhh, why would anyone despair of that? They have a bed and three squares a day, right?

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The whole "grieving relative" game...

From

Mourning in America

NYTimes .. June 10, 2006

... a new politically invulnerable class. Arguing with someone in mourning just isn't done — unless, of course, you are Ann Coulter and you have a new book to sell.

She managed to offend everyone from Hillary Clinton to Bill O'Reilly by suggesting that some of the activist widows of the Sept. 11 victims were enjoying their husbands' deaths. That's over the top even for Coulter. But she has identified a real problem: how do you conduct a political argument with grieving relatives?

**********
----- well, you can't really. But while they deserve our sympathy -- Tierney is partially correct in the paragraph below -- fear and grief and all that jazz gives you LESS perspective than the average unwounded slob... But he's DEAD WRONG on the first part...

*********

....Grieving relatives certainly have a right to be heard, and their stories need to be considered by legislators and judges. But having tragedy strike your family does not make you an expert on public policy. Instead, it warps your perspective. You become the most narrow special-interest group, obsessed with redressing a personal loss no matter what the cost to society.

*******

---NO, their stories do NOT and SHOULD NOT be considered by legislators and judges -- well, maybe legislators -- they're such sheep why not make them follow something besides money -- but judges?

The judiciary was established as an independent governmental wing as a way to counter the emotional kiss-ass of the Executive and Legislative vote-seeking branches -- a place where reasoned intellect and NOT emotional garbage are the motivating forces behind decisions.

The law that allows grieving parents, sisters, brothers and etc to spill their crying guts before a sentencing jury is just a Soap Opera version of lynch law.

IT'S WRONG, DEAD WRONG.

A miscreant has the right to be tried by a jury of his or her peers -- but when weepy old granma gets on the stand, it effectively turns HER into the peer and the convicted felon into dog-doo.

**********

--- We've become a nation run by Soap Opera-Video Game Philosophy -- and the Republicans are right up there with the Democrats as perps of this mockery of our Constitution.

And when Ann Coulter points a finger at Liberals for USING grieving people for political ends but somehow manages to fail to see such nauseating spectacles as MonkeyBoy Bush putting his arm around a non-fallen NYPD firefighter to raise his floundering ratings, and Bill Bennett, a degenerate gambler, attacking gay men and women who want to marry each other because it could lead to polygamy and worse, it just reinforces that Black-White Good-Evil stupid simple sappy mentality that has become political discourse in this country.


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6/9/06

Big crater seen beneath ice sheet


Combined image of gravity fluctuations and airborne radar in Wilkes Land (OSU)
Combined gravity and radar data reveal a crater formation deep under the ice (Image: OSU)




What appears to be a 480km-wide (300 miles) crater has been detected under the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.

The scientists behind the discovery say it could have been made by a massive meteorite strike 250 million years ago.

The feature at Wilkes Land was found by Nasa satellites that are mapping subtle differences in the Earth's gravity.


"This Wilkes Land impact is much bigger than the impact that killed the dinosaurs," said Prof Ralph von Frese, from Ohio State University, in the US.

If the crater really was formed at the time von Frese and colleagues believe, it will raise interest as a possible cause of the "great dying" - the biggest of all the Earth's mass extinctions when 95% of all marine life and 70% of all land species disappeared.

Some scientists have long suspected that the extinction at the boundary of the Permian and Triassic (PT) Periods could have occurred quite abruptly - the result of environmental changes brought on by the impact of a giant space rock.


(Thanks to Richard A Lupoff for directing me to this story. I think that he -- like most science fiction writers -- finds a bit of unreality in the way headlines increasingly seem to be stories written by him or others in the field many years ago.)

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Catch Osama, Not Fish

That's Mark Kleiman's adaption to Rahm Emanuel's press comment:


“Five years after President Bush said he would find Osama bin Laden, we’re all glad to hear that all he’s caught is an apparently harmless fish,” said Congressman Rahm Emanuel, Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.


Mr. Kleiman thinks it would make a dandy bumper sticker.

Or, for the longer version, how about my suggestion:


"If you give a man a fish,
he can eat for a day,
but if you catch Osama bin Laden,
he can sleep every night."




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A provocative news item

Received in email from CNN Breaking news --

-- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was alive when U.S. troops reached him after the U.S. bombing raid, but died "almost immediately" after, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said.

Later, answering a journalist's question, Major General Someone-or-other said "Yes, we were attemtping to perform life-saving measures."


Hmmm ... not as if our people might have any unprofessional or personal hostility toward Mr Wowie (IED) Zarqawi, but I keep getting an image of the statement on site:

"Honestly, we tried to keep him alive as long as we could, but it was Miller Time" said USMC Gunnery Sergeant Percy (Hand Me the Pliers) Miller.

(How often do line troops get to capture the man who actually gave the orders to plant the IED's that killed, maimed, and mutilated their close friends? They might be a tech pissed off, no?)

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6/8/06

George Bush Sr. asked retired general to replace Rumsfeld


George Bush Sr. asked retired general to replace Rumsfeld

The former president's secret campaign to oust the secretary of defense was rebuffed by President Bush, a source says.

By Sidney Blumenthal

June 8, 2006 | Former President George H.W. Bush waged a secret campaign over several months early this year to remove Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The elder Bush went so far as to recruit Rumsfeld's potential replacement, personally asking a retired four-star general if he would accept the position, a reliable source close to the general told me. But the former president's effort failed, apparently rebuffed by the current president. When seven retired generals who had been commanders in Iraq demanded Rumsfeld's resignationin April, the younger Bush leapt to his defense. "I'm the decider and I decide what's best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain," he said. His endorsement of Rumsfeld was a rebuke not only to the generals but also to his father. The elder Bush's intervention was an extraordinary attempt to rescue simultaneously his son, the family legacy and the country.


---- what makes this interesting to me in a semi-Freudianistic way is that way back in the year 2000, I saw Donald Rumsfeld on CSPAN, giving some sort of speech and I said to my wife:

"Wow -- Poppy Bush really looks good. Think he's got a painting of himself degenerating in the attic?"

Is Rumsfeld the "Higher" Father Bushwah talks about?

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6/7/06

Even the Senate couldn't bring themselves to vote for the Gay Marriage Amendment -- but the language of the vicious little pricks who backed it was all the same (do they think we don't notice they're all reading the same script?)

"We need to PROTECT marriage."

"PROTECT marriage."

PROTECT

PROTECT

PROTECT

AND PROTECT ourselfves from UNELECTED judges. (Who are actually APPOINTED by those same elected officials) -- in other words: "Protect ourselves from the Constitution."

PROTECT MARRIAGE

PROTECT MARRIAGE

PROTECT MARRIAGE

---what POSSIBLE harm could two men or two women who agree to stop fucking around and make a vow for a home and a life together -- what possible HARM could that do to me and my wife? Or you and YOUR wife or husband?

I think perhaps those people need to start wearing aluminam foil hats, so the Extraterrestrial Buttfuck People from Betelguese can't send mind-messages to them.


PS -- the pundits kept saying that "The Base" wouldn't buy it again, that they'd see it was just a cynical election ploy. Well, remember -- these people give their hard-earned money to the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell and Jimmy Swaggart and that vicious little hate-monger who calls himself Reverend Wildman -- I wouldn't count on them seeing through any kind of cynical hustle.

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The cumulative effect of mudslinging...

Throwing feces at each other like demented apes, our two Democratic wannabe governors ran it down to a close finish -- reaping THE SMALLEST TURNOUT OF VOTERS IN STATE HISTORY.

And now they're friends -- Westly called and conceded to Angelides and offered to help. So it's all bygones being bygones -- to THEM.

To us, is just confirms our opinion that when you have either money or the political machine behind you, the players exemplify the late Arlen Riley Wilson's philosophical pronouncement, that where politicians are concerned: "The scum rises to the top."

And after each go-round they shrug and smile and say "Well, that's the way the game is played."

Race-baiting: Bush pere with Willy Horton and Bush fil with McCain's alleged negro love child, Bill Clinton publicly slapping down Sister Souljah -- accusations of criminality: Hillary Clinton murdered Vince Foster, Adlai Stevenson murdered his brother -- the earliest political statement I can recall.

Also, back after the Stevenson runs, when, referring to my Democrat family, I was told that supposed fact and also that anyone who voted Democrat was a Communist and a Traitor --- hmm, that one hasn't changed in 50+ years.

Oh and of course sexual and spiritual degeneracy: Hilary is a lesbian witch -- yeah, but how is she degenerate? -- GW Bush is Gay -- the idea of that man having sex with anything is repulsive, but to some of us, Gay is not OUR way but no worse than Straight -- and sometimes more Christian and forgiving.

And THEY, the politicians, pass it off, but we - cumulatively, wonder about each and every candidate and elected official AND...

We look for -- and FIND -- that they really ARE the criminal, vicious, thieving swine their opponents (either in the same party or the opposing one -- doesn't matter) said they were.

What is more obscene than Phil Angelides mouthing total bullshit the morning after his victory?

"I believe we can have the best schools inthe world." And we ALL add the unspoken -- "Not that I'm going to do anything about making them way, just that I believe it."

Probably -- if Westly had won, seeing HIM prance and posture in a similar manner.

They are ALL scum and they ALL (regardless of party) owe a gigantic debt to Bush & Company for having -- right out of the gate -- made it illegal to even openly THINK about what they might look like through the crosshairs.

And that's funny, because those of us who don't own guns or rifles, who never would get past imagining it -- we're the ones who might talk about it.

The guys who are serious about it -- the Minutemen of the 50's and 60's and their heirs ("We have a list of politicians we're going to shoot as soon as the Russians invade." True quote) don't ever talk openly about it -- they just play with bullets and fertilizer in their basements. Vicious fucks who will blow up secretaries and janitors.

(Although, as a former mediocre poet, the idea of offing a politician with a compound made of fertilizer has a certain appeal for its appropriate irony. BUT ONLY as a concept, a fictional motif. No irony in the reality -- just hideous pain and destruction.)

Note to the FBI -- I don't do stuff like this and I certainly don't advocate it because when anyone does it, the replacement is ALWAYS TWICE as paranoid, TWICE as scared and TWICE as vicious.

Those of use who haven't spent our lives playing with guns, spent our time reading things like Aesop's Fables, like the story of the Frogs who wanted a King. (The moral -- "You're only going to make it worse.")

But the contempt and anger and hositlity people feel toward these criminal jerks when they're in office -- posturing and telling us they want to SERVE US ("It's a -- gasp -- a cookbook!") is no more than the logical result of listening to THEIR statements during the election process and actually thinking about those statements -- something they apparently DON'T do.

At least now -- the rest of June and July, possibly even August -- we will have a sort of respite from the tree-killing self-promotions that go from printing press to mailman to recycling bin. And from the phone calls -- either live or taped.

And only get messed with by underemployed people asking us if we're happy with our long distance service and could we spend 5 minutes to answer a survey? (Sure, I'll help out -- the answer is "NO.")

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Well, at least Rob Reiner isn't going to "do an Ahhnold" and -- God Forbid!! -- ride a State Initiative Proposition into the governor's mansion from which he can spend ALL his time telling us ALL how insensitive we are and how perfect he is...

and, sorry Ann Coulter -- it ain't because he's "liberal.."
It's because he's an obnoxious, idiotic, "hey momma, hey poppa look at me" know-it-all cunt just like you. (Ooops, if we're talking about you, Missy Ann, it should be spelled with a capital-C.)

Perhaps now he'll go try to settle it out with daddy Carl and leave us to live out lives as we see fit.

(I am FIRMLY convinced the Prop 82 was soundly defeated, NOT because it was bad law -- hell, we pass so many of those out here, that's not an issue -- it's because Rob Reiner was connected to it -- he's never gotten over playing his one successful role -- Meathead -- so he just keeps on playing it again and again and again. Only now, he want to make it illegal for us to yawn and change the channel.)

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6/6/06

Regarding California's Prop 82

I am definitely in favor of pre-school.

And frankly, I don't care if getting it sets up a beaurocracy as big as Rob Reiner's ass.

Taxing the wealthy, while an easy and cheap shot, is good stuff, too.

Not perfect, but it might be a good thing.

And I am often a Lefty and proud of it -- not a Liberal -- Libertarian Left --


Still -- I have to VOTE an EMPHATIC NO on Prop 82 because...

ANYTHING that will give Rob Reiner approval and encourage him to keep coming up with yet another of his inane simpering 'look at me - I'm a good boy' kiss ass Propositions for Leftist Fascism, has to be stomped into the ground.

SO --- PUHLEESE --- for the sake of decency and our children -- on aesthetic grounds, if nothing else -- save our children from ever having to see that smug, whiny face of the Left's version of Pat Robertson in any more elections --

end the Rob Reiner scourge NOW --

VOTE NO on PROPOSITION 82


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6/2/06

Repost from a while back, the Yamashita Principle on Abu Ghraib, but that's over -- now it's the Yamashita Principle regarding the Haditha Slaughter


The Yamashita Principle, or Why Are Donald Rumsfeld, George W Bush, Alberto Gonzalez, et al still running around loose?

Redrum Rumsfeld not responsible for Haditha massacre?
AG Alberto Gonzalez not responsible?
General Peter pace not responsible?

I first posted a version of this in August of 2004 explaining the Yamashita Principle -- a principle WE created and established in International Law -- and I am re-posting it today, for the third time. First some background:

After WWII, Dugout Doug MacArthur ("I shall return ... after the fighting is over.") set up a Court Martial to try Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita for war crimes.

Yamashita's combat troops had violated an Open City agreement made for Manila, and Yamashita, left with only clerks and cooks, was unable to stop them from running amok -- and they did credit to that term, "running amok."(Perhaps their standard was "When in the Philippines, live up to the local customs." Not dissing Phillipinos -- the word "Amok" is from the Phillipine Insurrection.)

Cynics and realists believe the real crime was that MacArthur and his family owned property in Manila -- a great deal of property -- and Yamashita's soldiers damaged it. MacArthur put him on trial.

Hear ye, Hear ye:


CASE NO. 21
TRIAL OF GENERAL TOMOYUKI YAMASHITA
UNITED STATES MILITARY COMMISSION, MANILA,
(8TH OCTOBER-7TH DECEMBER, 1945),
AND THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
(JUDGMENTS DELIVERED ON 4TH FEBRUARY, 1946).

Here's the official language:

Part I

Responsibility of a Military Commander for offences committed by his troops. The sources and nature of the authority to create military commissions to conduct War Crime Trials, Non-applicability in War Crime Trials of the United States Articles of War and of the provisions of the Geneva Convention relating to Judicial Proceedings. Extent of review permissible to the Supreme Court over War Crime Trials.

Tomoyuki Yamashita, formerly Commanding General of the Fourteenth Army Group of the Imperial Japanese Army in the Philippine Islands, was arraigned before a United States Military Commission and charged with unlawfully disregarding and failing to discharge his duty as commander to control the acts of members of his command by permitting them to commit war crimes.

The essence of the case for the Prosecution was that the accused knew or must have known of, and permitted, the widespread crimes committed in the Philippines by troops under his command (which included murder, plunder, devastation, rape, lack of provision for prisoners of war and shooting of guerrillas without trial), and/or that he did not take the steps required of him by international law to find out the state of discipline maintained by his men and the conditions prevailing in the prisoner-of-war and civilian internee camps under his command.
Let's check that charge out again:

...that he did not take the steps required of him by international law to find out the state of discipline maintained by his men and the conditions prevailing in the prisoner-of-war and civilian internee camps under his command.

(An aside -- eyewitnesses have made it clear that some of those POW Rapees were 100+ nurses who were removed from the evacuation vessels and left behind in order to put several valuable grand pianos belonging to the MacArthur family on those LSTs.)
The defense argued, inter alia, that what was alleged against Yamashita did not constitute a war crime, that the Commission was without jurisdiction to try the case, that there was no proof that the accused even knew of the offences which were being perpetrated and that no war crime could therefore be said to have been committed by him, that no kind of plan was discernible in the atrocities committed, and that the conditions under which Yamashita had had to work, caused in large part by the United States military offensive and by guerrilla activities, had prevented him from maintaining any adequate overall supervision even over the acts of such troops in the islands as were actually under his command.
In other words -- "No one told me. I didn't know." OK.

And the verdict? (Some legal language deleted below.)

The Commission sentenced Yamashita to death and its findings and sentence were confirmed by higher military authority. When the matter came before the Supreme Court of the United States ... the majority of that Court, in a judgment delivered by Chief Justice Stone, ruled ... that the offence of which Yamashita was charged constituted a violation of the laws of war, and that the procedural safeguards of the United States Articles of War and of the provisions of the Geneva Prisoners of War Convention relating to Judicial Proceedings had no application to war crime trials.

Yamashita was executed on 23rd February, 1946.

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

So -- do RedRum Rumsfel dand GW Bush and his Wormtongue advisor AG Gonzalez fit that definition?

I would suggest that all that twisty legal language sent down from the High Place about how to get around the Geneva Convention would suggest they not only set the conditions for it, they also provided the perps with a defense argument in advance.


Here's an opinion from a more contemporary source in Tony Blair land:


The Yamashita Principle


The final topic for discussion is the Yamashita Principle or the Doctrine of Command Responsibility which was discussed on the SNCO and JNCO CLM packages.

This is a well-established principle of the Law of Armed Conflict. It creates the situation whereby an individual in a position of command is responsible for the actions of his subordinates.

From the first sentence we can see that any order given that results in a war-crime being committed renders the person giving the order criminally liable. The second sentence is perhaps not quite so well known. Failing to prevent crimes can also confer criminal liability on the Commander, if he/she knew or had information from which he/she should have concluded that the crime was going to be committed and also if no action was taken against the perpetrator of a war-crime.

Who Does It Apply To?


It applies to all commanders, even after their authority has been delegated. The delegation of command authority can not absolve the commander from his/her responsibility. The theory behind this is that the Commander is responsible for the delegation and the man/woman to whom he/she delegates. He/she should ensure that he/she only delegates to those who can be trusted to adhere to LOAC.


Education


The first thing that a CO must do is show that he/she has ensured that his/her troops are properly trained in the LOAC. The minimum standard is achieved by the completion of ITD(6). However, it is open to the CO to arrange further training to complement the ITD package.


Control and Monitoring


The CO must ensure that the subordinate chain of command is fully aware of the need to control and monitor the actions of their subordinates, and for the prompt, accurate reporting of all incidents that could lead to war-crimes investigations.

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

So I say again, why are Rumsfeld and Gonzalez and Pace still running around free?

Clint Eastwood for AG and Hang 'em High

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6/1/06

To clarify --

I can't believe I need to do this --

When some bozo decides to run for office, he or she says "I want to serve the people."

And the first thing is to interrupt dinner, work, entertainment, or anything else to tell people to vote for that person.

IN OTHER WORDS -- the first thing we hear from the candidate is

"I'M MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOU ARE SO STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND VOTE FOR ME SO I CAN SERVE YOU."

So if they're willing to fuck us over (a little bit) while asking for our vote, what will they ever do once in?

As Roger Price once said, "You can't fool all of the people all of the time, but if you do it once, it lasts 4 years."

And the first thing that candidate should hear from us is:

"Go to hell -- you just lost my vote."

Or words to that effect.

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U.S. Troops in Iraq to Get Ethics Training


-June 01,2006 | BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The U.S. military ordered American commanders to hold ethical training on battlefield conduct, and the Iraqi government Thursday announced its own investigation into reports that U.S. Marines killed unarmed civilians last year.

----- "Ok troops, lissen up -- this is my rifle, this is my gun, this is for insurgents and this is for civilians. Got it? Don't shoot unarmed civilians. Got it? Ok -- DIS-missed."

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An answer to political telephone solicitors

I had a call yesterday (well, I had many calls, but this was the one that I want to mention) about some candidate for the June 6th California Primary.

I don't remember who it was for, but as soon as the pitch started, I said:

"Ok, here's my standard. ANYONE who calls me for a candidate ... I DON'T vote for THAT candidate because he or she thinks it's ok to interrupt me while I'm working -- that your promo is more important than my life."

Second -- no one to tell because it was a recorded message dialing -- but it started off, whispery in the same venomous voice Pat Robertson uses when he's saying "I'm not saying all Jews are involved in this, but ..."

"Did you know that Ron Dellums ended his job as an electred official 8 years ago and has been living in a mansion in Washington DC as a lobbyist and now..."

And in this Oakland mayoral race where each of the three candidates has a different vision and different qualities and resources, but any of which might be good for this city, that decided me --
I do NOT care to listen to vicious Wormtongue sleazoids.
It was like getting poison poured into my ear -- Shakespearean and all that, but unpleasant.

I didn't even listen long enough to find out if it was Ignacio or Nancy or the Bizarro appropriately nicknamed "Oz."

It made up my mind to vote for Ron Dellums.


I doubt that people running for office will ever figure this out -- when they dump toxic waste in our ears via phone calls that take us away from our lives, they lose votes. The reason being:

"In every crowd, there's one person who DOESN'T GET THE JOKE. That person runs for office."

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