Mr. David Corn,

Just did the blogger head thing - It was good!

I hope Fitzgerald is on top of the case.

I doubt Libby's counsel is blowing smoke. They will make the prosecution pull teeth every step of the way. A few million buys that much.

Thank for the update!

Kirk

The bloggerhead thing was blogversational!

What about a rolling transcript - it could have items linked like the Texas legal code David mentioned.

I wonder if any of the people with dail-ups tried it and did it work?

capt

I think and hope Fitzgerald has Libby cornered(he will get pardoned anyway). I still have my fingers crossed that Cheney is the "target".

#224 Hajji...from the King Dick post....
DEATH SQUADS IN IRAQ.

It is amazing and depressing to see how long it takes people to respond over in Iraq. As I have shared before the Christian Peace Maker Team has been reporting this to U.S. military officials since the summer of 2005.

The CPT folks had a similar response to the written reports that they were handing into U.s. military long before Abu Gharib hit the news. This is where Seymour Hersh came in and talked with CPT'rs and others about the abuses.

Here is one of Peggy's emails from last summer. I have 50 or so emails from her if anyone is interested. She is still in Iraq.

July 22, 2005

?

Dear Family and Friends,

? I haven?t written for a while because I just spent a week in Amman, Jordan studying Arabic and writing while waiting to be able to get into Iraq. First the Baghdad Airport was closed because of a combination of a sandstorm and heavy pollution. Then the U.S. military put tighter restrictions on the mode of landing. The small subsidized airline for international NGO?s we were flying in on decided it was too dangerous to fly in under those restrictions, so canceled flights indefinitely. So?Wednesday, July 20,?I flew in with Iraqi Airways, a little more expensive option, but the team did not want me to attempt coming in overland.

??????????? Coming back to our apartment in Central Baghdad feels like coming home. My arrival makes our team 5, and next week another team member returning will make 6. I have been spending most of my time so far getting reoriented to the changes that have taken place here and with the work of the team, and greeting long time-friends.

??????????? The team is still giving support to various Iraqi organizations, including the Muslim Peace Team in Kerbala. They have sponsored several work days in Fallujah and are still hope to conduct nonviolent trainings with other Iraqi groups in the future. Because the two main leaders of this organization have been traveling and working to build up the organization, it is not been as active in these projects.

??????????? Although our work with prisoners of the U.S. military system has been less, the team has been accompanying Iraqis to try to find avenues for getting information and help concerning abuse of Iraqis by Iraqi soldiers and police in their arrest and prison system. Reports of extensive abuse in this system have been disturbing.

??????????? The team has been continuing its work of ?truth-telling? in Iraq, has been visiting Sadr City and is planning for another trip to Fallujah soon.

??????????? At times the team has been a bridge between international groups and Iraqi people or institutions seeing information about medical needs or between Iraqis and UN human rights workers or US officials.

??????????? It was good to be able to go to the orphanage again and see children I have known for two and a half years as well as some new children who have come more recently. I hope to be able to go there frequently and in a small way share in their life.

??????????? Yesterday, while visiting a family, the mother told the story of her father who had a high position in the transportation and construction ministries under Saddam. In the early ?80?s he was deposed, sent to prison and the family?s home was confiscated. Now her sister?s husband has been imprisoned under the US. She says it was horrible under Saddam for prisoners and their families and life in general, but now it is even worse under the US. She said that every family in Iraq has had members killed, injured, missing or imprisoned. Everywhere we see a lot of pain and discouragement as well as people working peacefully to deal with the problems around them. We pray that we can be channels of hope and peace in this situation.

??????????? Thank you for your love and prayers,? Peggy

Palestine Solidarity Movement to Hold its Fifth Annual Divestment Conference at Georgetown University, February 17-19, 2006

Washington, DC, February 1, 2006 – Quickly approaching the February 17 – 19 date of its Fifth Annual Student Conference at Georgetown University (GU), the Palestine Solidarity Movement (PSM) announced today that its 2006 convergence will focus primarily upon skills-training for emerging divestment activists and campaign development for existing Palestine solidarity organizations. The PSM is the largest North American coalition of students, professionals, as well as religious and community groups advocating the implementation of boycott and divestment strategies in order to peacefully oppose Israeli human rights violations of the Palestinian people. MORE , SPEAKERS, SCHEDULE

CONFERENCE UPDATES

Notice: There have been considerable false charges and incorrect information circulating on the internet about the Palestine Solidarity Movement’s (PSM) forthcoming conference and its organizers. Using both quotations pulled from context, as well as outright fabrications, many individuals and organizations are flagrantly engaging in smear campaigns targeting both conference organizers and the movement as a whole. One organization falsely claims that it has intercepted PSM emails stating that Dyab Abou Jahjah, a fervent anti-Semite, has been invited to take part in our upcoming conference. He has not. MORE

When is the MSM going expose the fact that Plame was secretly working on nuclear proliferation in Iran?
With this administration's covert plans with Israel to attack Iran, and considering how vital such information could be, is there ANY justification for blowing Plame's cover?
It seems that Cheney feels payback is more important than national security.
This is purely and simply TREASON.

When will the MSM ever expose anything of consequence? Is shotgungate history already? I gave it at least a week. I think it has become obvious by now that national security is not an issue, didn't bushco just allow a Saudi co. to have 6 contracts for port security here in the states, or something like that? If that isn't a slap in the face I don't know what is. As for libby, I predict this will all blow over as soon as we nuke Iran, until then it's just a distracting soap opera. If anyone can give me a rational reason to believe otherwise, please do. And please Kathleen, don't suggest that Phase II will solve the problem, it must seem obvious to even you what a joke that has become regardless of how important it may be to we the truthseekers. I'm sorry if that sounds negative but I have all but given up hope of seeing any justice where these thugs are concerned. From illegal wars that slaughter hundreds of thousands to outing CIA agents to males hookers posing as reporters given free rein at the WH to shooting your hunting partner in the face with a shotgun, where's the justice?

The MSM would have to run the story non-stop 24/7 for about a week or two to get it through some of those not paying attention.

They will not for fear of provoking the silent masses.

capt

Secrecy over security

Libby revelation puts things in perspective

When it comes to keeping secrets, the Bush administration has what might be called a two-handed approach.

On one hand, the administration will do and has done all kinds of gymnastics to avoid giving Congress information about intelligence programs. On the other, the administration is willing to reveal classified information selectively when doing so suits its political aims.

Actions here speak louder than words.

Just in case you have forgotten: Last year, a grand jury led by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald indicted Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, on one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of making false statements and two counts of perjury related to the leaking of the identity of an undercover officer working for the CIA. Libby's trial, originally scheduled to begin Feb. 3, has been postponed until January 2007, after the November elections.

Last week, the National Journal reported that court papers in the case reveal that Libby testified before a federal grand jury that he was "authorized to disclose" - that is, to leak - highly classified intelligence information to the press "by his superiors." The evidence is a Jan. 23 letter from the prosecutor responding to Libby's lawyers, who asked what information the government will make available to the defense.

Congress, which has the duty under our system of government to watch and check the government, gets information in dribs and drabs - or not at all - at the whim of the president. The administration sends people up to Congress who wax eloquently about "inherent" presidential authority. In short, Americans are simply expected to have faith that the president is exercising powers constitutionally, legally and appropriately without accountability to Congress and the courts. Just to make sure of that faith, administration officials also try to scare people by saying that oversight would somehow harm efforts to combat terrorism.

You might think the president would want Congress as a partner in the worldwide struggle against terrorism. Yet this president acts as if he and the executive branch are the only ones who care about protecting Americans - that they alone decide what is in the national interest and that Congress somehow is an impediment. The Libby testimony underlines that. It also reveals in stark terms an administration more concerned with gaining and maintaining power than building common cause to protect national security.

*****end of clip*****

A re-post but a good piece is worth reading again!

capt

corky
If it was not for the fact that invading Iraq has made the effort against violent religious extremist's WORSE not better, your statement might actually make sense.

So I guess you are saying that the American homeland has been hit again, just like 911. I hadn't heard about any of the new attacks on American soil.

I didn't think America had been hit again. If I am right and we haven't been hit, that must mean you are lying about terrorism getting worse, and you are lying to mislead on purpose. Maybe not, Maybe you are just stupid

Cheers Greet Cheney at Appearance in Wyo.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) -- His face marked with tiny birdshot wounds, the lawyer shot by Vice President Dick Cheney while quail hunting left a hospital Friday, saying "accidents do and will happen" and apologizing for the trouble the incident had caused the vice president.

"My family and I are deeply sorry for everything Vice President Cheney and his family have had to deal with," Harry Whittington said, his voice a bit raspy but strong in his first comments since being shot on a South Texas ranch six days earlier.

The Austin attorney spoke less than 20 minutes before Cheney made his first public appearance since the shooting, receiving a rousing ovation from legislators in his home state of Wyoming.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

These people are nuts! Who cheers a guy for shooting a 78 year old friend in the face? Some sick SOB's!

capt

"The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.": Aldous Huxley -(1894-1963) Author

=
"Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise" : Adolf Hitler - German Chancellor, leader of the Nazi party

=
"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."-" : George W. Bush - 43rd US President

=
Laws just or unjust may govern men's actions. Tyrannies may restrain or regulate their words. The machinery of propaganda may pack their minds with falsehood and deny them truth for many generations of time. But the soul of man thus held in trance or frozen in a long night can be awakened by a spark coming from God knows where and in a moment the whole structure of lies and oppression is on trial for its life.: Sir Winston Churchill

===
Thanks ICH Newsletter!

Current Administration Seems to Relish Media's Anger

"McClellan is a brick wall disguised as a government official. He wins any time the press bangs its head against the wall," NYU's Rosen said. "Part of the White House strategy is essentially cultural, that resentment against the press is itself converted into a political asset."

Thus Cheney found a ready audience when he suggested that the White House press corps was angry only because he'd left them out of the loop.

"I had a bit of the feeling that the press corps was upset because, to some extent, it was about them," he said. "They didn't like the idea that we called the Corpus Christi Caller-Times instead of The New York Times."

Conservative bloggers echoed that line of attack, despite firm statements from loyal Republicans such as former Defense Department spokeswoman Torie Clarke and former White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater, who both said that Cheney had acted irresponsibly by not immediately disclosing to the nation that he'd shot someone.

Live TV broadcasts of news briefings also help the White House manipulate the media. Pundits, bloggers and talk-show hosts often spend more time criticizing reporters' questions than the issues they're raising. And reporters probing aggressively for information from polite but unresponsive officials can look like snarling jackals.

"Ideally, televising the briefings should add to the transparency of the White House. But it's become less. It's how the White House can use the event to its advantage," said Ferrel Guillory, director of the Program on Southern Politics, Media and Public Life at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

"It's another staged event. And the journalists in the briefing room are playing the role the White House wants them to play, as adversaries."

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

The recent lack of honest reporting from all sides of the MSM and the 1600 press corps does help the liars pull this kind of thing.

capt

Connecting the Dots of Cheney's Crimes

Ultimately, however, it was "Daily Show" correspondent Rob Corddry who hit the bullseye, when he reported that: "The Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now, according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be a 78- year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Wittington's face."

All seriousness aside, there is a good deal of humor to be found in the fact that members of the White House press corps have finally been roused to mount the journalistic barricades by a hunting accident. While they cannot be counted on to go after the big stories, they are unrelenting in their determination to get to the bottom of every tale of celebrity folly -- be it Britney Spears failure to place her baby in a carseat or Dick Cheney's inability to shoot straight after he's downed a cold one.

But, as in the days when Pravda and Tass could not be relied upon to go after the big stories of Soviet shenanigans, Americans now know that, for the full story about this administration, they must turn to the comedians and the satirists who understand that Cheney's abuse of beer and guns cannot compair with his abuse of the most powerful vice presidency in American history.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

How sad is it when "The Daily Show" is more on point than the MSM.

capt

From the previous thread from th

Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore

While digesting Reader's Digest
In the back of a dirty book store,
A plastic flag, with gum on the back,
Fell out on the floor.
Well, I picked it up and I ran outside
Slapped on my window shield,
And if I could see old Betsy Ross
I tell her how good I feel.

Chorus:
But your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.
They're already overcrowded
From your dirty little war.
Now Jesus don't like killin'
No matter what the reason's for,
And your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.

Well, I went to the bank this morning
And the cashier he said to me,
"If you join the Christmas club
We'll give you ten of them flags for free."
Well, I didn't mess around a bit
I took her up on what he said.
And I stuck them stickers all over my car
And one on my wife's forehead.

Repeat Chorus:

Well, I got my window shield so filled
With flags I couldn't see.
So, I ran the car upside a curb
And right into a tree.
By the time they got a doctor down
I was already dead.
And I'll never understand why the man
Standing in the Pearly Gates said...

But your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.
We're already overcrowded
From your dirty little war.
Now Jesus don't like killin'
No matter what the reason's for,
And your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.

For the best lyrics site visit sing 365

This is for the lying propaganidist Pandemoniac, who said I LIED when I made the claim that the countries of Egypt, Jordan, Australia, Britain ALSO had intelligence indicating Iraq had WMDs.

I also put Russia into the same category, since Russain president Vladimir Putin said he had intelligence that indicated that Saddam Hussein's intelligence services were planning an attack on the U.S. after 9/11.

Australian intelligence about Iraq's WMDs:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,,1266766,00.html

British intelligence about Iraq's WMDs:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/europe/july-dec04/intelligence_7-14.html

Egyptian & Jordanian intelligence about Iraq's WMDs:
http://capitolhillcoffeehouse.com/chch_news_157.htm

In an article for Parade magazine, published on Aug 1 2004, Retired General Tommy Franks discussed the possibility of WMD’s in Iraq, He mentioned that he had spoken to both the President of Egypt (Hosni Mubarak) and the King of Jordan (King Abdullah), about two months before the invasion of Iraq. Both told him that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. In fact, King Abdullah informed him that “Saddam has WMD - biologicals, actually - and he will use them on your troops. ” Within the hour, he had relayed that information to Washington.

Russian intelligence indicating Iraqi intelligence services were planning an attack on the U.S. after 9/11:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/06/18/russia.warning/index.html

So it looks like the Propagandist and liar, Pandemoniac, owes me an apology and explanation.

But then again, I'm not holding my breath. This is the same guy who called Phase 1 of the Senate Intelligence Committee a "whitewash" after he found out that Phase 1 exonerated George W. Bush. He says Phase 1 didn't exonerate Bush, but yet he still calls it a "whitewash" because it DID exonerate Bush!

This is the same guy who says there was no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, even though the Clinton administration made the SAME claim in 1998, even though both the Senate Intelligence Committe and both the Chairman and Democratic Vice Chairman of the 9/11 comission said that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

Yeah, but Pande here says Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda HATED each other, but yet they offered each other safe haven!?!? LOL It must suck to be a progressive, all fantasy, no reality!

capt, #13

I know what you mean. It seems more often nowdays the ones who do parodies of the news of the day are often more revealing and being more truthful than the supposed news sources themselves.

"My family and I are deeply sorry for everything Vice President Cheney and his family have had to deal with," Harry Whittington said.

The victim apologized to the vice president and his family for what THEY had to deal with! Amazing. What era are we living in anyway? If there was any doubt that we have a king and his court right out of the 1500's in place, it's gone now. At least in MY eyes.

Lots of people went to the block under Henry VIII. Most of them apologized to the king just before they lost their heads. That was because they were worried about their family's welfare when they were gone. We're back to that kind of country. The lawyer's words reminded me of English history. So many parallels in this government to the old king's of England's courts. Our King George went on a "progress" today. He flew, on our buck, to Michigan just to visit some factory. Imagine all the people that had to go with him, and all the accoutrements his progress required. Imagine what the people he visited, the cities he entered, had to go through to accommodate the king.

I've been a rabid Anglophile my whole life. It was great to read about it, but I sure don't like living it.

Just watched the show. I enjoyed it. Will watch it again. I like listening to two people hash things out even when they have too much in common. Ideas get generated. Opinions get thought through and I get to listen to it happen.
That cartoon thing. There's a million dollar bounty on the guy who created it now. That's a big temptation for somebody who wants to make the fanatics happy, he'd be the hero, or for someone who likes money. There was a discussion on the subject one day on Democracy Now. It was from the perspective of the Muslim population.

As Muslim Outcry Grows, Questions of Rights vs. Responsibilities Come To the Fold

JUAN GONZALEZ: Rahul Mahajan, let¹s ask you, these cartoons actually were published in September. This is months later that these protests have erupted around the world. Your reaction, one to the publication here in the United States of a Wyoming newspaper, and also to the protests themselves?

RAHUL MAHAJAN: Well, I think the question of publication now and the question of the original publication are two different things. The problem with the first one was that some of the cartoons, in particular with the one with the Prophet's turban as a bomb, with allah jdssdjf written on it were not just blasphemous if you're a Muslim, which shouldn't be of concern to those who are not Muslims, but also are racists in essentially saying that all Muslims are terrorists. Now if you reprint it, it kind of depends on what your point is.

At this point it is a huge story and it is news and people should be seeing it just to see what the controversy is about. Some people are re-printing just to say it is another step in the culture wars, and I think that¹s silly. But certainly even the original publication knows there is freedom of the press and they had the right to do that it was just a really bad idea and really racist thing that should be opposed.

The reason it's taken so long for the protest to come to a head is that that's how things always happen. Political processes do not happen overnight. First of all, as was said already, there were many attempts to peacefully address the problem, most of them were rebuffed in Denmark. Then it got out to the attention of all the Muslim countries. Some governments and some groups in those countries decided to stir up protest. And then I think what really started this auto-catalytic chain was the cascade of reprinting of the stories all over the place. So I think that people say, you know, it's taken so many months, to suggest there is something manufactured about the crisis but no, that's just how things work politically.

AMY GOODMAN: Behzad Yaghmaian, your response?

BEHZAD YAGHMAIAN: I agree with most of what he said. What I like to add to this is the way the western media has portrayed the Muslim population, especially those living in the west has been very problematic. The reprinting of these cartoons in my opinion, has been a political act; a political act with an intention of demonizing the Muslim population.

That is, it was quite well calculated, it was anticipated that the most fundamentalist section of the Muslin population in the West would react. And then using that reaction as a way of the politics of exclusion to excluding the Muslim migrants. There are fifteen million Muslims living in the west, in Europe now. The Europeans are not happy with that. The aesthetics of the cities have changed. From the beginning they were upset with having that many Muslims in the communities. The way the Muslims, some of them, dress, the way they go out, the way they eat, the way their cultures, all of them, have been troubling to a lot of the Europeans. This has now been used as a way of further excluding the Muslims. And also it's important to note that those who protested this in Europe are a very small fraction of the fifteen million Muslims who live in Europe.

The majority of the Muslims are not against ideas of western democracy; they embrace that, that is why they are there. But the media actually blames and victimizes the majority because of the action of the minority. So that's one problem. In the end it's going to lead to further marginalization of the large section of the Muslim population that wants to be a part of the European community and live there.
------------------------
The thing that really scares me about this kind of turbulence is that the wick keeps shrinking and getting closer to the dynamite keg. Where's is this all leading?

Here is the article from Mother Jones regarding the Hackett snub

Backroom Battles

This administration is soooo disfunctional. I want this. I want that. You need to give me this. Look at how much trouble this whole thing has caused me. Libby needs to take it like a man. He did the crime.
And the Cheney shooting...man I just can't see myself feeling sorry for the guy who shot me. I'd be too busy feeling sorry for me.

TRH,
Thanks for posting that. That is really gross. Yeah, let's support the military. What a joke.

Jeanne,

I'm no Democrat but I don't understand why they would take out an obviously popular candidate who has energized a new generation of voters in Ohio. There was no truth to any allegation being made yet they chose and I think Hackett was absolutely right in his response, "If you don't want to see a Marine doing their job, don't send them off to war!"

February Friday 17th 2006
House of Representative votes to support Bush's lies on Iran

H. Con. Res. 341: condemning the Government of Iran for violating its international nuclear nonproliferation obligations and expressing support for efforts to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council

Nays: Kucinich, Paul, Stark, Mcdermott

Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), Ranking Member of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, issued the following statement today on H. Con. Res. 341:

This bill undermines efforts towards a peaceful resolution of Iran's nuclear ambitions, and puts the United States on a dangerous path that could lead to war. This bill, and the debate in the House, have an eerie resemblance to similar debate and resolutions that led to the misguided and ill advised war in Iraq.

This bill scuttles the only possibility for a peaceful resolution of this crisis. Namely, the offer, by Russia, to enrich uranium for Iran to use in its nuclear power plants. Iran would not operate any enrichment processing facilities of its own, and therefore would not have the ability to make isotopes of uranium suitable for weapons. This is the essence of a resolution offered by Russia to avert the crisis. This is the only diplomatic option available to us today.

Moreover, there is no imminent threat of Iran building a nuclear weapon. This past summer, a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear capabilities was released showing that Iran was 10 years away from building a nuclear weapon. This estimate represents a consensus among the U.S. intelligence agencies.

The Security Council option, favored heavily by the bill, thinly veils the route to a military confrontation with Iran.

The Administration, covered by this bill, is leading this country to take military action against Iran. Make no mistake, that is the US program at the UN, just as it was prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

If you think Muslim reaction to a political cartoon is bad, what do you think reaction will be when the US is to attack Iran while it occupies Iraq?

This is a dangerous and deadly course the United States should not embark upon. http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=39584
------------
I just can't believe this is happening AGAIN!!! What law are they violating? What law says they can't have nuclear powered plants for energy? 4 nays? My God we are SO screwed.

#5 Astroboy...It may be true that Plame was working on gathering intelligence about Iran. Although a few months ago there were articles written about Plame being outed because both Feith , Perle and Woolsey had connection with illegal arms trade with Turkey. That Plame had uncovered their illegal activities etc, etc.

I really think Larisa over at Raw Story is an incredible reporter. She seems to really dig deep and be one of the true investigative journalist writing these days.

Although I can not help question all of the references to "high level officials" confirming this or that about Iran or about Plame. After we have seen the use of anonymous sources overused, abused and the public seems to lose when reporters can not validate their sources.

I can see the theory of Valerie Plame being outed because she was investigating WMD movement into Iran being conveniently used as another excuse for sanctions or military action against Iran. "WELL NOW THAT PLAME IS NO LONGER COLLECTING INTELLIGENCE ABOUT IRAN..NOW WE REALLY NEED TO SET UP SANCTIONS OR CONDUCT A MILITARY STRIKE.

Until I hear Valerie Plame or Joe Wilson say that this is what she was doing I question the validity of "high level officials" these days who come out anonymously.

If several of these "officials" that Larisa quotes in her article about why Plame was outed would come out before the public and stand by their claims, then Larisa would have me believing that this is why Plame was outed.

When Iaea Mr. El Baradei comes out with his report at the beginning of March we should all be listening closely. Since his March 7th 2003 statements discounting the Niger documents, when he told the world they were fakes, and the american media barely touched his statements.

Hopefully our representatives and the rest of the world will be listening to what Mr. El Baradei has to report about Iran instead of listening to the neo-cons.

.

Saladin,

I'll join you in your support for Iran having nuclear powered plants for energy if you join me in support of having nuclear powered plants for energy in the U.S. I think Billy Joel said it best in his song "It's a matter of trust"
Nuclear power in the U.S. would put OPEC virtually out of business.

Our leaders have gone completely insane. They are so 'in the box' that they can't look at reality and figure out another plan. They need to be thrown out of office. Everyone of them.

#6 Saladin...I know that Phase 2 is not the answer to the level of corruption that this administration is guilty of.

Although I believe it is the only chance that is left to see some of these criminals held accoutable for their crimes against humanity.

I know it is highly unlikely...I am just hanging onto some hope...and I will keep pushing.

TRH,
My neighbor is an engineer. He says nuclear power is the way to go. The more modern nuclear power results in very little nuclear waste.

#26 Jeanne(above) ...what a wonderful program you described. It is too bad the parents could not recognize the value in it. Your youngest daughter being involved with the ACLU is inspiring...wonder where she gets her inspiration?...Good Job !

#230 Corky (back at the King Dick thread.... I
really like the idea.

#270 Alan...back at the "King Dick" thread...thanks for reminding us to call Roberts, and others about the NSA bailout

TRH, I read a very interesting book called "Fire and Ice" that addressed the nuclear power issues and what to do with the waste. I agree that nuclear power is the best option now, but we have to figure out what to do with the leftovers, this is no small problem. But the uproar over Iran is purely manufactured propaganda just like it was for Iraq, and for the same reason, petrodollar hedgemony, it really is that simple. Even if Iran did intend to build a nuke, which there is absolutely no evidence to support, who would they launch it at? US? And do they not know what the consequence of that would be? Is this even remotely possible? Aside from the wildly paranoid fantasies of the bushbots, any sensible person knows better. Even Israel, who has 2-400 nuclear bombs, knows better than to start launching them in panic. Once that evil genie is out of the bottle, there's no stuffing it back in. If a nuke is launced it will be the US that does the launching, just as it was before. We have some 10,000 of them, somehow that doesn't make me feel safer.

US 'losing media war to al-Qaeda'

The US is losing the propaganda war against al-Qaeda and other enemies, defence chief Donald Rumsfeld has said.

It must modernise its methods to win the minds of Muslims in the "war on terror", as "enemies had skilfully adapted" to the media age, he said.

Washington and the army must respond faster to events and learn to exploit the internet and satellite TV, he said.

...In a speech to the Council of Foreign Relations, Mr Rumsfeld said some of the US' most critical battles were now in the "newsrooms".

"Our enemies have skilfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but... our country has not," he said.

Mr Rumsfeld said al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremists were bombarding Muslims with negative images of the West, which had poisoned the public view of the US.

The US must fight back by operating a more effective, 24-hour propaganda machine, or risk a "dangerous deficiency," he said.

Government communications planning must be "a central component of every aspect of this struggle", he added.

"The longer it takes to put a strategic communications framework into place, the more we can be certain that the vacuum will be filled by the enemy."
-------------------------
Or we could try not using torture. Or we could try not having our soldiers using illegal weapons. Or we could try not starting illegal wars, destroying the country and then stealing reconstruction funds.

The easy way is to think of propaganda we can used against the enemy. It's also a big waste of time.

Jeanne,

I hope Saladin doesn't think I was disagreeing with her. Nuclear power should be a viable option for all countries. The nuclear incident here in the United States at Three Mile Island caused such a major uproar from the environmentalists that those in the know got scared and backed away from the evolution of nuclear power in the U.S. There has been more death in this country by pollution from auto's, factories, etc than any nuclear incident, yet we ban one and not the others. All are potential dangers and there are risks involved. But to ban one in favor of others with just as great a risk is absurd.

Iraq: What Cheney Truly Has to Answer For
Tom Lasseter, intrepid war correspondent for Knight Ridder, has an appointment in Samarra. In this city, "re-taken" by the U.S., death, devastation and cries of "Why? Why?" come from both Iraqis and Americans.

By Greg Mitchell

(February 16, 2006) -- We’§ like to give Vice President Cheney a break from the wall-the-wall coverage of the face-shooting incident of this past week, so let’≥ turn to his war in the Middle East, which continues maiming (and creating more terrorists) every day. Over there, the warriors on each side are not using birdshot.

My favorite editorial cartoon of the week comes from my local paper here in the Hudson Valley, The Journal News, which happens to employ recent Pulitzer winner, Matt Davies. He pictured a barren landscape, looking much like Iraq, with buckshot-riddled bodies strewn across the field, Cheney with his shotgun still smoking, and flying harmlessly overhead a duck labled җMDs.ӠCheney looks up at the honking duck, says, ҄amn. Missed.ӊ

Well, that pretty much says it all. Yet one of the top American correspondents in Iraq, Tom Lasseter of Knight Ridder, still manages to say quite a bit more, in a gripping, and depressing, article distributed today and posted at the www.krwashington.com site.

E&P has profiled Lasseter and his work numerous times in the past two years, and last we heard he was supposed to be back home in the USA, but there he is, still risking life, limb and, no doubt, sanity in Iraq.

Based in Baghdad, Lasseter often gets embedded with U.S. or Iraqi troops out in the hellish beyond. Inevitably he gets ordinary grunts to speak honest truths. His latest piece focuses strictly on Samarra, a city that has lost half of its population of 200,000 since the U.S. supposedly pacified the area more than a year ago. Lasseter reveals the true costs—°nd the real chance that the death and destruction will go for naught.

Lasseter opens by observing that more than a year after some 5,000 Iraqi and U.S. soldiers re-took the city from the enemy, “Åmerican troops still are battling insurgents in Samarra. Bloodshed is destroying the city and driving a wedge between the Iraqis who live there and the U.S. troops who are trying to keep order.

“ñiolence, police corruption and the blurry lines of guerrilla warfare are clouding any hopes of victory. ‘ât's apocalyptic out there. Life has definitely gotten worse for’†Iraqis, said Maj. Curtis Strange, 36, of Mobile, Ala., who works with Iraqi troops in Samarra. ‘ôou see Samarra and you almost want to build a new city and move all these people there.’†

“ìoldiers such as Sgt. Powell desperately want to reach out to the community, but they're mired in daily skirmishes. Residents have fled, and a 7-mile-long, 5-foot-high earthen wall that U.S. soldiers built around the city last August has failed to keep out the insurgents.

“çany of the American troops who patrol the city say they don't see much hope for Samarra. Some officers privately worry that the city will fall to insurgents as American troops withdraw." Already, roadside bomb attacks are increasing, with at least 15 going off in January.

And it’≥ hard to tell who is in the enemy. U.S. military officials suspect that many of the Iraqi soldiers, including a company commander, are on the insurgents' payroll, possibly in league with terror master Zargawi. Yet the 101st Airborne plans to hand over the town to the Iraqi police and army by July 1.

One recent day, which Lasseter describes in vivid detail, a .50-caliber machine gun, on the roof of a schoolhouse, manned by a 21-year-old Texan name Michael Pena blasted an unarmed man on the street into oblivion. Horrified soldiers rushed to the Iraqi, or what was left of himѨis organs were now slithering outѡnd watched him die, as he praised god and muttered, җhy? Why?Ӡ

҈aji, I donմ know,Ӡan American soldier replied.

A few days later, Lasseter finds the gunner, Pena, still manning the machine gun on the same roof. Pena doesn’¥ say a word about the man he killed but he is boiling with frustration.

"No one told me why I'm putting my life on the line in Samarra, and you know why they didn't?" Pena asks. "Because there is no f------ reason."

Perhaps Vice President Cheney, or his new press secretary, Katharine Armstrong, can explain that to him.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com) i

TRH, I admit I thought you were being a bit facetious. I think Iran is looking to the future of a petroleum based energy economy and seeing the pitfalls, something the people of this country prefer to keep on the back burner, a sort of see no evil, hear no evil kind of attitude. The US needs to stop thinking in terms of selfish gain and try to look more towards the future of the entire planet. We can't live in a bubble forever. What we do will bring problems that will have to be dealt with eventually.

Saladin,

Posting my last before seeing your #30. Nuclear waste is a problem but no different from smokestacks & autos spewing into the atmosphere or factories dumping into rivers or oceans. As far as Iran gaining a nuclear weapon. I agree, no threat to the U.S. But I don't need to remind you of one main reason for the U.S. to be involved. We have NATO allies in the region, oil interests, and Israel. If there is a threat to one, there is a threat to all. Cold War mentality, but that is where it comes from. I think that is the only reason we let Europe take the lead in atempting to negotiate a deal with Iran in the first place.

There was a report on NPR dealing with Iran. They were talking about nuclear power. They understand the needs of their population and are looking realistically at those needs. Nuclear power is a need. Controlling the growth in population was a need. They are being very practical. We may not like their fanatical mentality but they do understand what is best in a practical way for their people.

Now, I would not say they are rational when it comes to how they treat gays, how they treat women...but I think we have to look at the issue in the most realistic way possible and the Bush administration isn't doing that. Surprise, surprise.

Conservatives Endorse the Fuhrer Principle

02/17/06 "ICH" -- -- Last week's annual Conservative Political Action Conference signaled the transformation of American conservatism into brownshirtism. A former Justice Department official named Viet Dinh got a standing ovation when he told the CPAC audience that the rule of law mustn't get in the way of President Bush protecting Americans from Osama bin Laden.

Former Republican congressman Bob Barr, who led the House impeachment of President Bill Clinton, reminded the CPAC audience that our first loyalty is to the U.S. Constitution, not to a leader. The question, Barr said, is not one of disloyalty to Bush, but whether America "will remain a nation subject to, and governed by, the rule of law or the whim of men."

The CPAC audience answered that they preferred to be governed by Bush. According to Dana Milbank, a member of the CPAC audience named Richard Sorcinelli loudly booed Barr, declaring: "I can't believe I'm in a conservative hall listening to him say Bush is off course trying to defend the United States." A woman in the audience told Barr that the Constitution placed Bush above the law and above non-elected federal judges.

These statements gallop beyond the merely partisan. They express the sentiments of brownshirtism. Our leader über alles.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Another good piece from Paul Craig Roberts~!

capt

#33
Kathleen,
Can you imagine that soldier having to deal with the death of that Iraqi. It's so easy to be in the US and read articles like the one you posted and shrug. But that 21 year old kid killed a human being and he has to live with it.

Cheney sits on Fox news and talks about how terrible he felt shooting his friend. Get a clue guy. You have sent young men over to do the same thing not by accident but as part of the plan. How do you think they feel when they say there is no f**king reason for being there?

#37
We live in interesting times.

TRH,

I know the song. Glad you figured it out and tried to sing along. But, don't give up your day job, ok?

By the way, I play it in the key G, but I capo on A. I put a slight back beat to it. And I spice it up a bit with a dominant 7th on the turn around.

Music really does make the world a better place.

Here is a good song--"Cheney's Got A Gun".

Later,
th

PS
Capt. I hope you get some precipitation from this system we have to your north. Near Gunnison, there is a winter storm warning and moisture is reported down to Farmington.

My satelite hook up is sporatic so I have to sign off til manana

What, us count?

Earlier this week the Montana GOP circulated a letter to the editor that had already appeared in the Helena Independent Record, authored by Chuck Baraby, of Helena, claiming that "Most Senate Democrats, 90 percent, took Abramoff-related cash." The idea was that the media has falsely cast the Abramoff scandal as a Republican affair, while Democrats were taking the felon’s money as well.

Chuck Denowh, executive director of the Montana Republican Party forwarded Baraby’s letter to newspapers across the state Monday urging editors to reprint it. The letter lists 40 Senate Democrats along with the supposed amounts of "Abramoff-related" monies they received.

The problem is, the letter’s numbers don’t seem to jibe with published reports. For instance, John Kerry is identified as the recipient of $98,550 in "Abramoff-related" booty; the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics puts the Kerry total at $500. The Center also puts Conrad Burns at $55,000, not the widely reported—by us, among other— $150,000.

Denowh told the Independent he made no effort to verify the facts laid out in Baraby’s letter before circulating it.

"I assumed that if the Helena Independent Record had printed it, that was good enough for me," Denowh said Tuesday.

Baraby says he got his information from a Jan. 6 article on NewsMax.com, a conservative news website. That article cited the Republican National Committee as the source of the information.

Various Internet blogs, meanwhile, cite a website run by Dwight L. Morris & Associates, a consulting firm specializing in campaign finance research, as the source. But when contacted, Morris refused to stand behind the widely-circulating report. Morris said his firm makes campaign finance data available, and the firm’s clients use it to "grind their own axes."

In this case, he said, the client was the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

"I have no idea if the numbers are 100 percent accurate or not," Morris said from his Virginia office. "I don’t know what ‘Abramoff-linked’ means."

Morris said it’s impossible to know if the report’s authors are including legitimate donations made by the clients of the 300 or so lawyers who work at Greenberg Traurig, Abramoff’s former law firm.

"The fact is, [Abramoff’s clients] gave $2 to Republicans for every $1 they gave to Democrats," Morris said.

The Republicans’ tactics don’t appear to be paying off in Montana.

Last month the GOP urged party faithful to "vote early and vote often" in two online newspaper polls in an effort to sway public opinion in favor of Burns, but a new scientific poll released this week shows State Auditor John Morrison now leads Burns in the 2006 Senate race, and state Senate President Jon Tester is in a dead heat with the incumbent.

*****end of clip*****

The truth does not matter to the moron-bats. Say anything do anything bunch of liars.

capt

PS - th I sure hope for any rain, water, anything wet!

th,

Just noticed you mentioned the song, found the lyrics and posted them. If there is a mistake in the lyrics, don't fault me, it came from the source.

Folks should be targeting Roberts..The Young Turks should go after him. He was so slimy so slippery last week on "Meet the Press".

Doing the President's Dirty WorkArticle Tools Sponsored By
Published: February 17, 2006

Is there any aspect of President Bush's miserable record on intelligence that Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is not willing to excuse and help to cover up?

For more than a year, Mr. Roberts has been dragging out an investigation into why Mr. Bush presented old, dubious and just plain wrong intelligence on Iraq as solid new proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was in league with Al Qaeda. It was supposed to start after the 2004 election, but Mr. Roberts was letting it die of neglect until the Democrats protested by forcing the Senate into an unusual closed session last November.

Now Mr. Roberts is trying to stop an investigation into Mr. Bush's decision to allow the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans without getting the warrants required by a 27-year-old federal law enacted to stop that sort of abuse.

Mr. Roberts had promised to hold a committee vote yesterday on whether to investigate. But he canceled the vote, and then made two astonishing announcements. He said he was working with the White House on amending the 1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, to permit warrantless spying. And then he suggested that such a change would eliminate the need for an inquiry.

Stifling his own committee without even bothering to get the facts is outrageous. As the vice chairman of the panel, Senator John Rockefeller IV, pointed out, supervising intelligence gathering is in fact the purpose of the intelligence committee.

Mr. Rockefeller said the White House had not offered enough information to make an informed judgment on the program possible. It is withholding, for instance, such minor details as how the program works, how it is reviewed, how much and what kind of information is collected, and how the information is stored and used.

Mr. Roberts said the White House had agreed to provide more briefings to the Senate Intelligence Committee —†hardly an enormous concession since it is already required to do so. And he said he and the White House were working out "a fix" for the law. That is the worst news. FISA was written to prevent the president from violating Americans' constitutional rights. It was amended after 9/11 to make it even easier for the administration to do legally what it is now doing.

FISA does not in any way prevent Mr. Bush from spying on Qaeda members or other terrorists. The last thing the nation needs is to amend the law to institutionalize the imperial powers Mr. Bush seized after 9/11.
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Iran calls on UK troops to pull out of Basra

02/17/06 -- -BEIRUT (Reuters) - Iran's foreign minister called on Britain on Friday to pull its troops out of the southern Iraqi city of Basra, saying their presence was destabilising the city.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran demands the immediate withdrawal of British forces from Basra," Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters through an interpreter during a visit to Lebanon.

"We believe that the presence of the British military forces in Basra has led to the destabilisation of the security situation in the city," he said.

Prime Minister Tony Blair swiftly rebuffed Tehran, saying British soldiers were in Iraq under a United Nations mandate and warned Iran not to try to divert attention from international concern over its nuclear programme.

Mottaki also said the British presence had also negatively affected the security situation in southern Iran itself.

He was apparently referring to a spate of recent bomb attacks in southern Iran.

Iran last month accused the British military in Iraq of cooperating with Arab bombers who attacked targets in the Iranian oil city of Ahvaz, killing eight people. Britain has denied the allegation and condemned the attack.

The minister also denounced what he said were human rights violations by the British forces in Basra.

But Blair, speaking at a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, said it was up to the U.N. and the Iraqi government to decide how long the troops stayed.

"British troops are in Iraq today under a United Nations mandate and with the consent of the Iraqi government. They stay as long as the U.N. mandate is in place and the Iraqi government wishes us to stay," he said.

"What I would say to the Iranians is that there's no point in trying to divert attention from the issues to do with Iran by calling into question the British presence in Iraq which is there, as I say, with a U.N. mandate and Iraqi support."

I promise I will not post any more long ones. This is one of the best articles I have read so far about Iran. It is worth the time.

February 17, 2006

The Mad is Not Out of the Question
Stopping the War on Iran, Before It Starts
By GARY LEUPP

I have thought for a long time now that the U.S. would attack Iran. I know that the experts have said this simply isn't possible so long as the U.S. is bogged down in Iraq, and that Jack Straw has stated pretty clearly that Britain won't be on board if the U.S. decides to use its "military option." U.S. domestic opposition to the war on Iraq has slowly risen to about 55%, and there is no groundswell for a third war in Southwest Asia. But the U.S. has for several years called openly for "regime change" in Tehran, and while early on during the Bush administration Colin Powell's State Department opted to court reformers in the Iranian government, the neocons in power have long since put their bets of the underground opposition. They don't negotiate with evil, as they like to say; they plan to defeat it.

Condi Rice has once again denounced the Iranian regime as bent on "political subversion, terrorism, and support for violent Islamist extremism," and (as the neocons always do) depicted Iran as "a strategic challenge" not just to the Bush administration but to "the world," "the international community." U.S. arm-twisting of the IAEA has paid off to the extent that the agency has found Iran "in non-compliance" with the Non-Proliferation Treaty and seems poised to "report" or "refer" Iran to the UN Security Council for some sort of action next month. To the chagrin of many (including myself) the Indians, Russians and Chinese caved in to the tendentious, selective statement on Iran earlier this month, joining forces with the U.S. and lending credence to the Bushites' depiction of Iran as a lawless loner defying the whole of respectable humanity. Whatever happens in March, Bush will be able to use as political capital the September and February IAEA statements as he goes to the American people seeking support for some further action.

Just as it built the case against Iraq, the administration has tirelessly prepared its brief against Iran, discarding no exile's report nor putative terror link as implausible, no assessment of nuclear capability as alarmist. It's rushed to make bold charges (about traces of enriched uranium on centrifuges purchased from Pakistan) that it has had to quietly drop. Washington obviously wants to find reasons to attack Iran, and would be delighted to discover a full-fledged illegal nuclear weapons program buried in the bowels of the Islamic Republic. That's why the Iranian nuclear program is all over the front pages, and why the embedded press has taken to alluding matter-of-factly to "Iran's nuclear weapons program." (As though it, in its journalistic objectivity, knows there is such a thing, and that that the journalist's job is to encourage anxiety about it!)

There's surely enough material to fill up another hour of the UN's time should Rice decide to follow Colin Powell's act in February 2003 and ask the "international community" to validate another criminal assault on a sovereign state. All of this vilification of Iran has to be leading to something. But to what? A Security Council debate producing sanctions against Iran? That's apparently John Bolton's optimal scenario. It seems unlikely, given Russian and Chinese veto threats, but the representatives of both these countries caved in unexpectedly at the last IAEA vote. The Security Council may well deliberate, keeping the Iranian "threat" in the news, but deadlock over any action, allowing Bush to declare, "We tried to get the UN to act rationally, to confront the clear danger from Iran, but some nations putting narrow selfish interests first have proved unhelpful. Therefore we must again act with a coalition of our friends to do what needs to be done to meet this terrorist threat."

Were there nothing to gain from this procedure, the U.S. wouldn't be working overtime to bring Iran before the Security Council. There must be some game plan to activate once the UN ritual's done. Perhaps a couple game plans whose advocates quietly tussle behind the scenes in the highly secretive Bush White House and Pentagon. Scott Ritter suggested last June that the U.S. would use air and land forces based in Azerbaijan and "the coastal highway running along the Caspian Sea from Azerbaijan to Tehran" in an attack on Iran. Another script involves the seizure of the ethnically Arab and oil-rich province of Khuzestan. A "shock & awe" hit on Iran's dispersed nuclear facilities is apparently part of any plan, although some plans leave this mission up to the Israelis and their U.S.-supplied bunker-busters. In any U.S. operation the Mujahadeen Khalq would be deployed to engage in what Washington would in other contexts surely describe as "terrorist" actions.

All these possibilities seem so stupid from the vantage point of the imperialists' own interests that one is tempted to dismiss them. How can they afford to provoke Shiite outrage in occupied Iraq, where their troops are both hated and overextended as it is? How can they risk the massive expansion of hostilities on Israel's northern border? How can they imagine that an attack would meet with popular enthusiasm, and produce from out of nowhere a pro-U.S. regime---rather than unite civil society behind the Ahmadinejad and the mullahs? It just wouldn't make sense.

But is all the administration's rhetoric, growing shriller by the month, so much sound and fury, signifying nothing? That wouldn't make sense either. My best bet is that failing to force through a resolution imposing sanctions on Iran, Washington will bully its allies, who a year ago traded grudging U.S. support for the "E3"-Iran talks for the European promise to support punitive sanctions should Tehran continue to insist on its right to enrich uranium, into applying such sanctions. Iran will then settle comfortably enough into an axis of convenience involving China, the number one customer for its oil, and Russia, its key partner in nuclear technology.

Why would Europe comply with a scheme that would raise its petroleum prices and threaten its considerable investments in Iran? Perhaps it sees such sacrifices as the price for healing the rift that opened as the U.S. prepared its aggression against Iraq. Perhaps it surmises that the U.S. is in decline, and that the dollar will weaken and the euro strengthen as Iran sets up its euro-based petroleum exchange. Perhaps it is responding to quiet threats from the notorious Ambassador Bolton. In any case, if the goal is to cap these many months of bluster with some concrete bullying achievement paving the way for further action down the line, a sanctions regime imposed not by the "international community" but merely by the U.S. and its allies might be the best the neocons can do for the time being.

Failing, for a second time, to validate Washington's regime change plans in the region, the UN will draw the administration's fire. The neocons will accomplish one of their central goals by effectively crippling the international body, while continuing to posture as the tribune of the "international community." These thugs care nothing, of course, about global public opinion. But they are keenly interested in shaping U.S. opinion and acquiring the freedom to move forward with whatever strategy for empire opportunity might afford them down the road. If an Iraq-style invasion isn't yet in the cards, at least a UNSC debate would as reported through the corporate press show the American people who "their" friends are and make a future attack seem more palatable. If discussion results, as expected, in one or more "no" votes, the administration will say that its friends are on one side (Good), Iran and its friends on the other (Evil), and the UN unwilling to take sides "irrelevant." Posing as chiefs of the camp of the Good, the unilateralist neocons having shuffled off the coil of international accountability will do whatever they think necessary to control the Middle East.

Meantime, as the UN showdown approaches, and as the rumors of war proliferate, the antiwar movement ought not assume that the mad is entirely out of the question. Cheney asked Stratfor last summer to draw up a plan for a large-scale air assault on Iran, employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons, to be immediately implemented in the wake of a terrorist attack (of any origin) on the U.S. If he is imagining the unimaginable, so must we if we want to prevent it.

Belatedly, an organization specifically formed to oppose war on Iran has been announcing itself through mass emails soliciting endorsements. StopWaronIran.com, noting that "Just as in the case of Iraq, none of the claims made by the U.S. government stand up to unbiased scrutiny," and urges "an immediate end to Washington's campaign of sanctions, hostility, and falsehood against the people of Iran." It opposes "any new U.S. aggression against Iran." The group is international, its statement initially endorsed by Ramsey Clark, Howard Zinn, George Galloway, Tony Benn, Harold Pinter, and Margarita Papandreou among others. While all paying attention puzzle about the possible outcomes of the U.S.'s anti-Iran campaign, I urge everyone with a conscience to sign this statement. http://stopwaroniran.org/

Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion. He is the author of Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades.

He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu

Now I think I figured out why Hume asked Cheney about the declassification of secret material in that interview. This might be an attempt to provide cover for Libby. No matter; Fitzgerald is on the ball and he's going after Libby for what he can prove, i.e. perjury or obstruction of justice.

The idea that the VP, a job that has been compared to a bucket of spit by others who have held the office in the past, could have the power to classify and declassify information as secret is unprecedented.

This is all part and parcel of the Bush administration's attempt to make the executive branch all-powerful and cripple our system of checks and balances. True patriots, regardless where they line up on the political spectrum, will recognize the threat these thugs represent to our republic.

CHENEY GOES AHEAD WITH FOLSOM PRISON CONCERT

Vice President Dick "Buckshot" Cheney kept his word to the inmates at California's maximum security Folsom State Prison. He played a one hour set with his band "Dickie and The Trigger Happy Birdie Killers". The set received a luke warm reception until Cheney launched into his new, as yet unreleased, single "Go Fuck Yourself". During the guitar solo the Vice President thrilled the assembled audience by producing a rifle and opening fire. "He seems angry. Very angry" one inmate said "I mean, I always thought that the American people didn't like to vote for angry people but...Man, that dude is angry!" I managed to obtain a tape of the performance and am proud to present it here....

*****end of clip*****

An automatic sound file.

capt

And thanks for the Mother Jones link, TRH.

I'm still depressed about Hackett leaving the race, even though I'm from Michigan and I can't vote for him anyway. He's my kind of candidate. I love the guy...in a very heterosexual, manly way, of course.

This is one reason why I don't belong to any political parties.

Everything you post is long even if people beg you not to. Can't you find the time to learn how to use HTML? It's really simple. You just need the formula and someone posted a link to the formulas the other day. If you would learn to link it would save scads of space here. I e-mailed you the formula a couple weeks ago, but I guess that's not your real address. God knows who got my letter.

That was to Kathleen. A couple posts slipped in before I posted. I know that happens and should have put her name in at the beginning of the post.

The link to an easy-to-use html cheat sheet:

http://cedesign.net/help2j.htm

Yes! That's the site someone posted. I bookmarked it. Thanks B.Toest for reposting it.

Dem. Sen. 'fact checks' President Bush's speech

Filed by RAW STORY

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid hits back at President Bush's speech earlier today with a list of "fact checks" that range from the pre-war claims of WMD in Iraq, Congressional briefings about NSA wiretapping, and Vice President Cheney's involvement in putting together Colin Powell Speech to the UN in 2003, RAW STORY has learned.

Senator Reid's press release:

REID: BUSH PREACHES TO THE CHOIR IN TAMPA

"In his latest appearance before handpicked supporters, the president today called on the American people to just trust him with our nation’≥ security. Trust him on Iraq. Trust him on domestic spying. And trust him on preparing and protecting America for terrorist attacks and natural disasters. Unfortunately, more than five years of incompetence have failed to protect the American people and have eroded the president’≥ credibility. We need more than tough talk and rhetoric. We need real leadership that will make 2006 a year of significant transition in Iraq, will finally take the necessary actions to protect Americans from terrorism here at home, and will speak honestly about the challenges we face."

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

You have to read the rest, a good point by point.

capt

Carol I am a numb skull with computers. I will try it again. Thanks for the link.

Did you read the article about Iran that Leupp wrote at Counterpunch that I posted, it is worth reading.

And it is not true that everything that I post is long.

Link TV Special: Abu Ghraib - The Sequel

You can view the Abu Ghraid Dateline show from Link TV.

Why the Bush administration has not been held accountable for these crimes is a clear indication of how worthless the congress is. Worse than that, they are witnesses to a crime and are doing nothing.

#48 Don..I also like Hackett. But when he came here to speak a couple of weeks ago. I asked him a question about the middle east.

Specifically about the way the Bush administration is building up the case for sanctions or a military strike. I asked if he thought this was a good idea and he answered "we should let Israel take a shot at Iran". I am not kidding you there were 120 people in the room to hear his answer.

I asked Congressman Sherrod Brown the same question when he was here just four days after Hackett. His response to this same question was to avoid it and begin talking about some book. Everyone I talked with after his visit noticed that he dropped the ball on this question.

I had some serious questions about Hackett on the middle east issues.

Another very easy way to link is put the URL (address) just under your email address. Where is says URL Remember me? Yes no.

Then ask the readers to just click on your name/handle.

Here click on my name below

Two points

1. The Cheney shooting thing is so overblown and should not be conflated (Don?) with many other nefarious schemes of this lame administration.
2. The uproar in the Islamic countries regarding the Danish cartoons makes me think (and want to share) this simplistic thought - (Old) Europe are the parents, America is the adolescent and the Islamic countries are the kids.

15

"Tim L - second cousin of LBH "the moron"

"This is the same guy who says there was no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, even though the Clinton administration made the SAME claim in 1998, even though both the Senate Intelligence Committe and both the Chairman and Democratic Vice Chairman of the 9/11 comission said that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda."

1. I don't what rock you've been living under for the last three years. Saddam and Al Queda were on opposite ideological *and* political ends of the spectrum. The relationship that was, accoring to Cheney, "pretty well established" was based on an alledged meeting between Atta and Iraqi intellegence in Prague. There is no evidence it ever happened.

2. Now? you decide to use the Clinton admin as an authoritative source? The Clinton administration may have thought Iraq had WMDs but they didn't committ $271 BILLION dollar and invade. Clinton isolated and sanctioned Iraq. He didn not invade.

3. The 9/11 Commision Report said unequivocally there was no relationship between Iraq and Al Queda.

Tim L, There's a job for you locating nuclear weapons in Iraq. You can get a lucrative contract from your friends in the WH and move out of your parent's basement.

Media bury video of Bush's domestic spying lie

Fox's strange decision not to broadcast Cheney's drinking admission isn't the only recent example of a television news organization deciding not to broadcast video that could be embarrassing for the Bush administration.

A Media Matters review found that television news outlets, cable and broadcast alike, have virtually ignored video of Bush lying about domestic spying.

In April 2004, Bush said, "any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires ... a court order." That statement, as we now know, is demonstrably false: Bush himself has now admitted that he has ordered domestic wiretaps without court orders. Yet in the 66 days between the time White House press secretary Scott McClellan was first asked to explain Bush's 2004 remarks in light of current evidence that he was lying and February 13, CNN, Fox News, ABC, NBC, and CBS aired video of Bush's 2004 statement only 16 times.

By comparison, those same news outlets aired video of President Clinton's January 1998 statement denying a relationship with Monica Lewinsky 73 times in the 66 days after his August 1998 acknowledgement that, in fact, such a relationship had occurred.

Video of Clinton's lie about sex was broadcast nearly five times as often as video of Bush's lie about warrantless domestic spying.

*******

The SCLM are really the propaganda arm of this WH.

capt

#57
Capt,
I never knew that. You probably posted that 20 times and it didn't sink in. This time it did. Thanks.

#58
Truthseeker,
The middle east is the birthplace of civilization. I see what you are trying to say but it is making the assumption that the people of the middle east don't have the capabilities to rule themselves and that they are children. That's wrong. Iraq is one of the most educated countries in the middle east and look what we've done to it.

I agree with you, Truthseeker. That was an apt way to put it. I've said for years "it's like teenagers are running this country." With the way the Arab countries are acting, they are DEFINITELY the kids.

Truthseeker #58,

1. The Cheney shooting thing is so overblown and should not be conflated (Don?) with many other nefarious schemes of this lame administration.

I didn't mean to imply that Cheney shooting an old man in the face had anything to do with his other crimes. I was suggesting that Cheney might have used the interview to publicly float the idea that the VP has the power to classify and declassify secret information. Both TRH and myself have linked to other sites showing executive orders that may be used to justify such an interpretation. Not too many people actually know about these orders, of course. But if you get the idea out there, and repeat it over and over again, well, we've seen the results, haven't we?

#63
Carol,
I can't agree. How are the Arab countries acting like kids? That's your perspective. A middle eastern country has been invaded. They are being threatened by a superpower. Their culture is being insulted constantly. Their religion is being made to look as if it has no consequence. Everything we are doing is very threatening to the middle east.
Not only that but Israel has become very violent in it's demands. It is racist in it's actions toward the Palastinians. It is also very threatening to the middle east.

Just watched the latest Maher. Some very funny stuff, and an interview with Feingold as well.

He started his new season at the perfect time, didn't he? The show started with a trailer for the new Dick Cheney "gangsta" film, "Get Quail or Die Tryin'"

At one point, the panel was discussing the discrepancies in the stories regarding the use of alcohol. Maher said, (and I'm paraphrasing), "C'mon! Who isn't drunk at 5:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday! Especially after a hard week of trying to destroy the world!"

Oh man, the house is cracking tonight. It's going to get down to -18. Ick.

Jeanne, they're acting like kids every time they fly off the handle over imagined slights, like the ridiculous cartoons. "I'll get you back," they're saying. Just like children.

Secrecy inquiry OK'd by panel

WASHINGTON - Leaders of the House intelligence committee said Thursday that they had agreed to open a congressional inquiry related to the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program. But a dispute immediately broke out among committee Republicans over the scope of the inquiry.

Rep. Heather A. Wilson, R-N.M., the committee member who called for the investigation last week, said the review "will have multiple avenues, because we want to completely understand the program and move forward."

However, an aide to Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., who leads the committee, said the inquiry would be much more limited in scope, focusing on whether federal surveillance laws need to be changed and not on the eavesdropping program itself.

The decision came as the Senate Intelligence Committee put off a vote on conducting its own investigation after the White House, reversing course, agreed to open discussions about changing federal surveillance law. Senate Democrats accused Republicans of bowing to White House pressure.

For weeks, the Bush administration has been aggressively resisting calls from Democrats and some Republicans for a full review into the National Security Agency's surveillance program, saying such inquiries were unnecessary and risked disclosing sensitive national security information that could help al-Qaida.

Elsewhere on Thursday, a federal judge ordered the administration to begin turning over internal documents on the surveillance program, the Justice Department balked at having former Attorney General John Ashcroft and other former department officials testify about it before Congress, and lawyers for a Kentucky man prepared to bring a federal civil-rights lawsuit today against President George W. Bush to have the surveillance declared illegal and unconstitutional.

*****end of clip*****

Heather Wilson is my representative here in District 1 NM. She votes with Bunnypants 90% of the time (last stats I read) and I think this is a total set-up. She gets to act like she wants a broad investigation but the outcome was calculated. The illegal wire taps are very unpopular here. We have Los Alamos, Sandia Labs, Honeywell, Phillips, Intel, etc. a bunch of companies that compete for military and scientific contracts.

This is how they give each other political cover.

capt

Carol,
So you're saying that when they make a cartoon of Jesus as a terrorist Pat Robertson is just going to smile and turn the other cheek?

Don @ 64

I didn't really mean anything by invoking your name other than to credit you with a good word (conflate). The question mark indicated that I wasn't sure it was you. But I'm using up bandwidth with no point - so I'm outta here.

capt,

Wilson is supposed to be on Maher next week. Maher is ALL OVER the NSA scandal. Hopefully, he'll pin her down. I know you've written her in the past, and now might be a good time to do it again. Perhaps you might suggest that she should let her constituents know how she feels about this while she's on the program.

They ("they" being wingnut Bush cult fascists operating under Rove directives) are playing as if we're ("we" being any patriots against dictatorship) weak on terrorism. But the American people are starting to see through it. They say the president's got every right to do what he is doing, yet they are doing everything possible to kill this issue. Is there any more obvious evidence of their fear?

It ain't over 'til it's over.

TS #71 -

No problem. I know you weren't being hostile; I was just trying to clarify if there was any misunderstanding.

Jeanne, Robertson can get as bent out of shape as he wants but the people won't start rioting over any cartoon. We're adolescents here. A notch above the fray.

Carol,
I have a hard time with this because I don't think we are a notch above the fray. Maybe we won't riot but we have committed torture. We are taking innocent men and placing them in prison for what? No one knows.
I just don't like the kid analogy. It's demeaning. It gives a reader the impression that our domination over them is warranted.

You put humans in the right conditions riots occur. It isn't an Arab phenomenon.

Earlier on this thread or the one before, we were talking about songs. This is much better listened to but here are the lyrics. I'm off to bed.

Brothers in Arms

These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be
Some day you'll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you'll no longer burn
To be brothers in arm

Through these fields of destruction
Baptism of fire
I've watched all your suffering
As the battles raged higher
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms

There's so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones

Now the sun's gone to hell
And the moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it's written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
We're fools to make war
On our brothers in arms

#72

Received four replies from the four emails I sent yesterday. I cleaned them out of my inbox but will post her reply next time I get one.

I called and left her a message at her office.

We almost booted her in the last election.

The oddest reply from her included the statement: "I know you hate the president but blah blah blah "

She probably has my name on her hit list.

capt

#75

I think we are nearly infantile. War is such a sandbox game a three year old type of tantrum taken to the extreme.

capt

Give Hamas Election a Chance

How in the world can any democratic election succeed unless you give it a chance. We are suppose to be spreading democracy and not puppet governments or dictatorships. What in the hell are our men and women dying for? Unless spoiled brat Hitler Bush has his way, he is taking his bat and ball home with him. Hitler Bush grow! All you are is a spoiled brat!!!!!

Hitler Bush grow up!!! Horseshit reigns in the WH!!!

Ah, yes . . . pardon me while I throw myself on the floor and scream.

#14

Hey Doofus TRH,
Get a Clue!

"Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore" is a John Prine song that makes fun of ignorant fucks like you that go around waving your flag and at the same time are to stupid to realize how fucked up things really are.

I don't know what is worse? You worthless liberal hippies or you nazi loving freaks letting it all happen.

Bogus degree,

You get a clue. I was only posting the words to a song th mentioned. As for waving my flag, have you ever seen me do it? Why not try something like getting a real degree, a degree of sense.

awwwwww, how cuuuuute!

Some of ya know about my friend Jen from my email(she calls me Dad). She's an online friend originally, but an IRL (in real life) friend too. Known her 'bout 8 yrs now. So anyway, I wanna share wif you guyz the slide show she sent while I was out. Jess is her daughter...

Jes-uh-cah... aww, dontcha wanna hug her

Good one Alan,

Just got the 8 month old back to sleep by playing on the NOGGIN website. He likes Moose A. Moose. Now stretched out beside me in the recliner. Nice touch of Eve so early in the morning!

LOL Capt, your #47 cracked my azz up! Dammit man, where do you find this stuff?! hahaha I'ma send it to my friends.

awesome dude, keep 'em coming

Just got the 8 month old back to sleep...

I remember that stuff! haha My girls are 24 and 20, so it's been awhile. I miss it tho, so no matter how much trouble it seems like at the time, soak it all in Tim. No doubt about it, my girls are the bestest thing I've done or will ever do. Rich don't always mean money, ya know?
*props to ya Dad*

Alan,

You got that right! Now back to bed. My 7 year old has a basketball game in the morning. These old bones need some rest.

These old bones need some rest.

yeah, I hear ya... but I'm an hour behind you guyz in the east. Think I'll catch up on a few more posts. I'm only like, 40 behind...

Resist

I've linked you guyz to my other pictures b4, but since I bragged 'bout it earlier, lemme show ya what I'm yappin' about.

one of my favs
This one's a couple years old. Early morning on my birfday, they came over 'n woke me up.

fk it, here's the rest of 'em

Alanz page

Alan,

Great pics! Thanks for sharing.

The sobering news yesterday is that Greenland is losing its snow much faster than previously thought. As ski fans know, when the snow is gone, it is much more difficult to replace it. Bear in mind that most of the world's largest cities and many of its people are at sea level. So it may produce a tragedy thousands of times more economically destructive than the New Orleans affair. The irony here is those who have the most to lose in a personal sense are the least worried about it.

On the way in to work this friday day, I listen to civil war tapes:

Grand Gulf, Raymond, Jackson
Champion Hill, Big Black
and the siege of Vicksburg has begun in earnest after the first repulse,
I cant wait for trip back home
Grant was so cool

Im here, Just to balance out you pussies.
You know, its pretty tuff to turn the other cheek when you're head has been cut off.
Bush has it right. Blessed is the long term peace maker
After 9/11 in NY, what would you do? Offer them LA? How many more 9/11 would it take before you get a righteous hard on? 3? 6?
Please do tell. No thank you.
Glory Glory Halleuya, his truth is marching on

Cornnuts: A bunch of pussies, with your heads stuck in ground. You all may want to bet your family's lives, but not me, no thank you.

Any president who liberate 50,000,000 souls from tyranny and oppression, deserves your praise.

You may now bow down, and worship our beloved president. Permission granted.

What no response?
You whimpy pussies. War Monger, ha!

Just like lincoln butchering 650,000
Or Rosesavelt butchering 250,000, etc etc
God knows what you would call G. Washington.

Cornnuts: A bunch of lame ass pussies.

DMR

Go back to bed. It's Saturday.

Nice...

Gambling with OTHER families' lives is SOOOOO MACHO!

-T

Hajji,

By the saneness of his argument, maybe I was mistaken. I shouldn't have told him to go back to bed, just go to bed.

erp!

from: The WAR PRAYER
____________

"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory--*must* follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(*After a pause.*) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
____________

When it comes to WAR, god's already left the building!

Hajji,

If you haven't had a chance yet, visit FARK . It's a great site for news from all around the world, from the silly to the serious.

Wurkin'...firewall doesn't give a FARK!

-T

Farkin A!

TRH, if your still out there here is a great article, with some history of dollar hegemony, on the upcoming oil bourse. What ever happened to the REAL conservatives like Ron Paul?

The End of Dollar Hegemony
by Ron Paul

Our whole economic system depends on continuing the current monetary arrangement, which means recycling the dollar is crucial. Currently, we borrow over $700 billion every year from our gracious benefactors, who work hard and take our paper for their goods. Then we borrow all the money we need to secure the empire (DOD budget $450 billion) plus more. The military might we enjoy becomes the backing of our currency. There are no other countries that can challenge our military superiority, and therefore they have little choice but to accept the dollars we declare are today's gold. This is why countries that challenge the system, like Iraq, Iran and Venezuela, become targets of our plans for regime change.

Ironically, dollar superiority depends on our strong military, and our strong military depends on the dollar. As long as foreign recipients take our dollars for real goods and are willing to finance our extravagant consumption and militarism, the status quo will continue regardless of how huge our foreign debt and current account deficit become.

But real threats come from our political adversaries who are incapable of confronting us militarily, yet are not bashful about confronting us economically. That's why we see the new challenge from Iran being taken so seriously. The urgent arguments about Iran posing a military threat to the security of the United States are no more plausible than the false charges levied against Iraq. Yet there is no effort to resist this march to confrontation by those who grandstand for political reasons against the Iraq war.
-----------
Gold? We don't need no stinkin gold! We'll just nuke your ass if you won't take our fake money!

Saladin,

Good link. While I haven't recently commented regarding your economic posts, I have read them with interest. As well, as the oil bourse. The majority of Americans believe nothing outside the U.S. can affect them greatly. These things surely will.

Iran/Venezuela Declares
Economic War On US
By Ed Haas
Muckraker Report
2-17-6

During a recent visit to Caracas, Venezuela, Iranian parliamentary speaker Gholam Ali Hadad Adel said U.S. opposition to Iran's nuclear program was "only a pretext." "They are worried that we want to be independent," Hadad Adel said through an interpreter.[1] Adel was kind to use the word "pretext". A more direct statement by Adel would have been to say that U.S. opposition to Iran's nuclear program is more of the same hardliner propaganda coming out of the Bush Administration, meant to drum up public support for additional Bush Administration sponsored, pre-emptive strikes against nations that dare to abandon the U.S. dollar in favor of the euro or any other foreign currency.

Why else would Adel say that the U.S. opposition to Iran's nuclear program was "only a pretext" if he didn't possess full knowledge of what he believed to be the real reason why the Bush Administration and its supporters in the U.S. Congress have suddenly gotten themselves all hot and bothered over a nuclear program that has been in play for decades and is by many accounts, at least ten more years away from being able to produce even a single nuclear weapon? What did Adel mean when he said that "they are worried that we want to be independent" when Iran is already an independent country? No foreign army is presently occupying Iran. It holds elections. In 2000, the U.S. applauded when the Iranian people elected reformists to the Iranian Parliament. In 2004, the Bush Administration, the spread democracy by spraying bullets administration, frowned when those same Iranian voters elected the resurgent conservatives into power once again. The point here is that Iran is already independent by all accounts, so what did Adel mean when he said that the Bush Administration and its NEO-CON supporters are worried that Iran wants to be independent?
-----------
All the whining from the crybaby bushbots will never change this one simple fact. These tiny countries across the planet wield no physical power against us, they never have and never will. The tyrants in charge are more often than not placed there by the US and removed when they break the rules, so tyranny has nothing to do with regime change. The US is no benevolent caregiver to the downtrodden. It is all about the money, plain and simple, and if you follow the money you will unearth the most horrendous crimes against humanity committed by the US, Britain and Israel, the true axis of evil, armed to the teeth with thousands of nuclear WMD's that they will not hesitate to use against any and all threats to the economic system that they and they alone benefit from. Anyone who supports this regime is just as evil as the leaders who commit the crimes.

TRH, the economic threat is all that matters. It is the one thing that can utterly destroy this nation. But it isn't something that can cause panic and fear like the threat of terrorists with nukes, which is completely without a truthful foundation, but keeps the sheeple in line nevertheless. As long as they have that magic plastic with which to purchase all their hearts desires, there IS no economic threat. And the MSM makes sure they never learn the truth by lying about the economy and inflation. But how do you explain that to a population that is largely ignorant of national monetary matters and policy and who don't WANT to know because they consider it boring? When that hammer falls, and it will, a huge swath of the country will suffer like they never imagined, but it will be too late to make the changes that need to be made now. Economic WMD's will leave a fallout that we may never recover from.

Here is a review of the movie "Why We Fight" published in the Globe and Mail. This is important because we have to go beyond the evident, even beyond the nefarious bush gang's motives for war, and become aware that given its present structure, the U.S. MUST go to war, no matter who the president is. bush represents the loss of democracy at home. But he, too, is just another instrument of a gigantic military and industrial/commercial bureaucracy with a life of its own run by non-elected administrators.

Article:
RICK GROEN

Why We Fight

Reviewed by Rick Groen
The Globe and Mail, Friday, Feb. 17, 2006

***

Directed and written
by Eugene Jarecki
Classification: PG

The revisionist wisdom now suggests that the United States invaded Iraq for two conjoined and equally motivating reasons. The first was concrete: the realpolitik of oil. The second was ideological: to pursue a post-Cold War, pre-9/11 policy of establishing America as a global uni-power charged with spreading American values, both democratic and economic. The great value of Why We Fight, a far-ranging documentary by Eugene Jarecki, is to expand the historical frame and, in so doing, add a compelling third reason: Having grown permanently militarized, America wages war because it has developed a systemic
bias toward the waging of war.

Ironically, Jarecki hones his argument with the help of the first and last military generals to assume the U.S. presidency: George Washington, who advised against the formation of a standing army; and Dwight Eisenhower, who famously coined the term "military-industrial complex" and, less famously, warned of its "grave implications," of its capacity to drain domestic resources and erode
civil liberties. From there, the film amasses an impressive range of talking heads and archival footage to make its case. Yet Jarecki, unlike Michael Moore, stays out of his picture and studiously avoids the temptation, however entertaining, to villainize or satirize. Yes, he definitely has a point of view, but his clear wish is to promote it with the cold force of implacable logic.

To that end, the logic is essentially this: Since the conclusion of the Second World War, defence spending in the U.S. has risen so astronomically (accounting for more than all the other departments combined) that Eisenhower's worrisome
duo is now a formidable troika -- the military-industrial-political complex. Chanting the mantra of high profits and more jobs, elected officials, in the White House and in Congress, have joined forces with the Pentagon and industry contractors, and all three contingents currently overlap, each with a vested interest to continue that massive spending.

To further rationalize the expense, policy itself has been "outsourced" to congenial think tanks headed by the ideological likes of Richard Perle. Add it all up and, in the view of Chalmers Johnson, a former CIA consultant and the bluntest of the talking heads, the result is inescapable: "When war becomes profitable you're going to see more of it."

So much for the profits, but what of the losses, especially in human life, both American and foreign? Again, Jarecki pursues a relentless logic. Echoing Moore in Fahrenheit 9/11, he reminds us that, with the elimination of the draft, volunteers for the standing army are mainly recruited from the disadvantaged
classes. And, as an analyst here insists, the lives of the poor are simply more expendable: "We got out of Vietnam effectively only when the lottery began and middle-class kids started getting killed." Since then, to quell social dissent,the government has become ever more adroit at "dominating the debate and shaping
the news," with the fourth estate accepting its "embedded" role in the entire process.

On the other side of the killing equation, technology is a further tool in managing the debate and mollifying any bleeding hearts. If the manufacture of bombs makes for good business, the research and development of so-called "smart
bombs" makes for even better propaganda, for advancing the thesis that modern war is sanitized -- the bad guys get theirs but innocent civilians are spared. Jarecki lets the Rumsfelds and the fighter pilots have their cheerful say, then cuts to the director of a Baghdad morgue, who opens a vault filled with the charred bodies of teachers and students and housewives and children. Computers crash, technology fails, and, tragically, the rumours of death's precision have
been greatly exaggerated.

The strength of this documentary lies in its balance, or at least the careful appearance of balance. Both sides of the issue receive their due, and Bush administration supporters are given every chance to dress up war in its time-honoured garments of peace and sacrifice and freedom and justice. The one weakness is Jarecki's recurring attempt to humanize the essay via, among
others, a grieving father and a raw recruit. Often, not always, their presence seems appliqu餬 a somewhat contrived search for the personal touch.

To the contrary, what gives the film its motional momentum, and the argument its affective power, is the sheer and even brutal impersonality of the logic. In Why We Fight, America's war machine emerges as a profitable enterprise with a lucrative past hinged to a bountiful future; and America itself appears as a bottom-line nation whose own internal battle has tilted precariously, with the dictates of capitalism vanquishing the shibboleths of democracy. If so, the last fearsome word belongs to the blunt Johnson, who, pointing to the inevitability of permanent military bases, has unflinchingly seen what others are just beginning to glimpse: "We do not have an exit strategy in Iraq because we never intended to leave."

------

Profile: Eugene Jarecki
Understanding war: 'There's no benefit in blaming the players without understanding the system that puts them in place'

From the above article. The bushbots want an idea for how to fix this mess the politicians, both left and right, have gotten us into? Well, this would be an excellent start! Remember who was the president in 1913 that allowed this band of banker crooks to usurp the power to mint coin? That was the beginning of the end. Our current situation is no accident, we have been brought to the brink on purpose, and it is my belief that bushco has been chosen to tip us off the edge.
----------------

Here's the headline you will not read or hear from the mainstream media, but no doubt should. America is under attack. Iran and Venezuela have declared war on the petrodollar. The reason why the U.S. dollar is vulnerable to attack is because our currency is printed and loaned to the federal government by a syndicate of private banking institutions doing business as the Federal Reserve. The money system, the Federal Reserve System, is a funny money system that makes money out of nothing and loans it to the government of the United States at face value plus interest. The remedy for this currency crisis is to abolish the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, eliminate the 16th
Amendment commonly referred to as the income tax amendment, and return the Secretary Treasurer back under the control of the U.S. Congress, as well as the printing and management of all our nation's currency. Finally, all currency and coin of the United States must be permanently anchored to a gold or silver standard.

And in conclusion:

These objectives might seem impossible to implement. But when weighed against the alternative; killing and maiming while being killed and maimed, all to protect the interests of a private corporation banking syndicate that created, funds, and has cleverly disguised itself as a pillar of Americanism under the War on Terror canopy as it sinks the U.S. taxpayer so deep into debt that no peaceful means will ever achieve discharge of the debt, and suddenly, fixing our own county's glaring defect, our fiat money system, so that the United States no longer has to fight wars to sustain the value of its currency does not seem like that difficult of a task when compared to the price the U.S. pays to wage war.
---------
If you want to know who is the real power behind ALL US govt. you need look no further that the super rich banker elite. He who prints the money makes the rules. That has always been true.

In 1963, President John Kennedy wanted an end to the Federal Reserve System, which had a strangle-hold on the United States and virtually the world. By a simple stroke of the pen, President Kennedy dismissed the Federal Reserve System and ordered the U.S. governmcnt to restore its Constitutional-mandate of controlling the money. President Kennedy was dead three weeks later. When President Lyndon Johnson took office, he immediately rescinded Kennedy's order and the Federal Reserve won another round.

Representative Charles A. Lindberg, Sr., the father of the famous aviator, was a member of the Banking and Currency Committee. He opposed the Federal Reserve Act and gave a speech on January 20, 1915. "The system is private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other people's money, and in the interest of the stockholders and those allied with them." Representative Louis T. McFadden, chairman of the Housing Banking and Currency Committee, stated on June 10,1932, "Some people think the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are not Government institutions. They are private credit monopolies that prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign and domestic swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders."

Here arc the top controllers of the Federal Reserve Bank

1. Rothchild banks of London and Berlin.

2. Lazard Brothers Banks of Paris.

3. Israel Moses Seif Banks of Italy.

4. Warburg Bank of Hamburg and Amsterdam.

5. Lehman Brothers Bank of New York.

6. Kuhn, Loeb bank of New York.

7. Chase Manhattan Bank of New York, which controls all of the other 11 Federal Rwerve Banks.

8. Goldman, Sachs Bank of New York.

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
Thomas Jefferson
----------
These are the rulers of the world. All politicians are just the puppets of the bankers, that includes bushco, who just happens to me more brutal than most.

From: Portland Indy Media

BUSH LAND SALE PROPOSED TO SELL 50 MILES (34,000) IN KLAMATH NATIONAL FOREST

The Bush administration shocked Americans this week by proposing to sell of 200,000 acres of public lands to pay for rural schools in his budget. The Klamath National Forest would be the hardest hit in the national with about 50 square miles to be sold from the Klamath River. Under Bush's plan, the Forest Service would sell 200,000 acres of public lands, including 85,465 acres in California.

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION PROPOSED TO SELL OFF 200,000 ACRES OF PUBLIC LAND:
Shockingly, more than a third of California's acreage would come from the Klamath National Forest.

This plan calls for halving the amount of money going to rural communities under the County Payments program, and re-linking the money to logging on public lands. The Bush proposal calls for selling off approximately $800 million worth of America's forestlands - lands that were set aside as a legacy for our children and grandchildren.
-----------
Isn't the looting of a country the last thing the leaders do right before they split with all the booty?

Over A Century of U.S. Military Aggression 1890-2003

The image depicted in school books of the United States as a benevolent, concerned and democratic nation, seeking to bring true democracy to others, support the weak and admonish the strong is hardly accurate. Very few people in America, though not outside its boundaries, realize that the United States is one of the most aggressive, militaristic nations on earth. Unlike the Roman Empire, America does not know how to govern and most of its invasions, attacks and conquests have been predicated on business interests. The United Fruit Company, on whose board of directors, a number of CIA official sat, persuaded us to invade Guatemala in the 1950s because their newly-elected President dared to confiscate UFC lands and give them to the local poverty-stricken natives. This is only one example and here are many others....
-------------
Now, WHO are the terrorists? And America wonders why we are hated by the world.

The US rainbow colored war on the world.

Invade and occupy Canada? Don't believe it? Read this article. Our country is led by psychopathic lunatics!

the United States of Amnesia, a country where all semblance of the yesterday becomes but a haze of blatant forgetfulness and convenient whitewash, a black hole of Alzheimer's-like darkness from where no recollection of past lessons, mistakes, errors or history can be seen or touched.

LAND OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE

ha! whittington apologizes to cheney -
*I'm sorry that I made you shoot me in the face my friend*

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A landmark new U.S.-India nuclear agreement would enable New Delhi to expand atomic weapons production and encourage Pakistan and China to do likewise

Smoking Mirrors

The Star-Spangled Double Wide White Trash Heaven

...America is a department store with a parking lot and housing attached. That's all it is. It's a megaphone of sanctimonious religious types with bad hairdo's running the Elmer Gantry con with one hand in your pocket and the other on your thigh. I don't ever expect to run into the Jesus they keep screeching about and it's a sure bet they aren't going to run into any version of the real Jesus should that be an option.

When I think of America I think of United Fruit and all the good little efforts made by America in the hot-lands to the South. I think of Vietnam and napalm and I think of Falujah and napalm too. I think of the scientists at Proctor and Gamble working on new and improved Napalmolive Soap. I think of all the weapons industrialists and their cluster fucks with the Defense Department. I think about Iraq and Iran and whomever else is in the crosshairs so that a nation of fat, stupid, willful little (not so little actually) pigs can drive their SUV's two blocks to the 7/11 for the Big Gulp in the fifty gallon drum.

I think of rapid deterioration and epidemic diabetes. I think about what it's going to be like when the fabric breaks and bands of rampaging lunatics move through the urban jungles of inbred decadence and luxury junkies in high rises. I think about the complete loss of manners and spatial awareness.

I know there are a lot of good people in America. At least, I assume it must be so. Of course there are also a lot of people who are walking backwards into the process of de-evolution and there are a lot of people moving like predators through the metaphorical jungles and the oceans of that land and of course, control of the country is in the hands of some vicious characters who are half-pig, half crocodile and half STD. These characters work for another group of aliens who own corporations and are half-shark, half vampire bat and half shit-eating slug. I'm supposing that this group works for another group whose characteristics I cannot define because you never see them. You just see the wreckage left in their passage.

Katrina sums up America as it is today. America is a department store with membership privileges that are determined by the quality of one's membership package. America is the land of me first, you later, maybe. America is a land of blood spilling like waterfalls in many parts of the world that aren't America. America is a nation of gangsters; little gangsters and big gangsters with a gangsta-rap soundtrack. America is a fast food franchise with sick lumpy animals waiting in line for some more hair of the dog that possessed them. America is a bankrupt dot.com that sold a non-existent product to a once human population; Oh beautiful for wasted skies for ample waves of pain, for purple mountain travesties above the looted plain.
-------------
So sad but true. How did we get like this?

#114 James Ha..."land of the puppet people"...Manuel tells it like it is/was/might be. I can't quite remember.

James, that was a very good essay. The TV is the enemy.

#117 Saladin...What a great article. Who wrote that? It is sad and true.

Although there are a lot of good people out there, folks who see right through the hogwash coming not only out of this administration but out of the self consumed nation that we have become.

I realized last night after I decided not to go over to the 5TH ANNUAL PALESTINIAN SOLIDARTIY CONFERENCE IN D.C. this weekend, that it is critical to attend such events to be around like minded folks.

I realized once again that one of the reasons that I went to all of the anti-invasion marches before the war and to several protest after was to interact with like minded americans

For me it is critical to come face to face with others and look into peoples eyes and hear their words about what they think is going on with our country and this administration.

There are a lot of good people in America and sometimes you need to go out on the streets and find them to feed your own hope.

I am considering going to the AIPAC CONFERENCE IN EARLY MARCH to see just what goes on there first hand. We can be sure the conference will be focused on military action against Iran....this will be the big push...and they will be lobbying their representatives for action against Iran ( I will put money on this) the following Tuesday after the conference.

Kathleen, that is from the Smoking Mirrors blog. He writes some incredible essays, that was just a few excerpts. Did you hear that the US has demanded that Palestine give back the 50 million in aid it received because Hamas won the elections? This is some of the most disgusting hypocrisy I have ever come across. We give billions to Israel, the biggest terrorist nation in the middle east, claiming they are a benevolent democracy, but withdraw funds when that same democracy works against US-Israeli interests. Once again the poor and wretched are forced to suffer at the hands of the US.

Republican Sues Bush, Cheney, NSA, TSA for Illegal Surveillance, Wiretapping
Source: NewsBlaze
URL Source: http://newsblaze.com/story/20060217 ... sblaze/TOPSTORY/Top-Story.html
Published: Feb 17, 2006
Author: Alan Gray

Scott Tooley, a Republican, and former Congressional aide and law school graduate, educated at renowned Christian universities, has filed suit against the President, Vice President and relevant federal agencies for their illegal surveillance programs.

According to the complaint, the Bush-Cheney Administration initiated numerous illegal and perpetual surveillance methods on Mr. Tooley and his family after he was incorrectly placed on the TSA's "selectee" or watch list.

Mr. Tooley's case is unique because the suit alleges the Bush Administration has used additional illegal surveillance methods on him in addition to the illegal wiretapping. Mr. Tooley is also the first Republican to file suit with regard to the Bush Administration's surveillance programs.

The suit alleges that RFID tags "that monitor their vehicle movements" were placed on his wife's car.

Prior to filing suit, Mr. Tooley says he asked federal agencies for the removal of his name from the TSA's watch list and any documents relating to the matter. He says he was stonewalled and told that the agencies could neither confirm nor deny that his name was placed on multiple watch lists.

The complaint was filed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday, February 17, 2006. Mr. Tooley is represented by Larry Klayman, former Chairman of Judicial Watch and former U.S. Senate candidate from Florida. Mr. Klayman is now in private practice in Miami and Washington, D.C.

US warns against Chavez 'danger'
Source: BBC
URL Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4723902.stm
Published: Feb 17, 2006
Author: BBC

US warns against Chavez 'danger'

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is one of the biggest dangers facing Latin America, Washington has said.
US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said Mr Chavez was trying to influence others away from democracy, and called for a united front against him.

President Chavez responded by accusing the US of aggression, saying "world opinion is with Venezuela".

The exchange would appear to undermine recent efforts to improve increasingly strained ties between the two states.
-------------
Influence others AGAINST democracy? Now that's rich! I suppose the recent meeting with Iran to discuss trading oil in euros has absolutely nothing to do with this recent sword rattling, right?

#57 Capt...thanks for reminding me of this. Although I think Carol/Caroline has it out for me. Others can post long articles...but she seems to target me...I can take it.

interesting article about Times trying to settle the outrage of Muslims by insulting Catholics.

Click my name.

The New York Times: Out of control

Michael Gaynor
Michael Gaynor
February 17, 2006

The New York Times is out of control. It has lost its "soul." The Times never was elected to anything, but in recent years it repeatedly and utterly irresponsibly elected to undermine America, notwithstanding the War on Terror, and even to insult Christians, while slyly posing champion of America's civil rights and champion of multiculturalism and tolerance.

If The Times had "championed" America during World War II the way it has been "championing" America during the War on Terror, we either would not be here or we'd be speaking German or Japanese. If The Times disparaged the Prophet Muhammed the way it disrespected the Virgin Mary, there would be plenty of dead Timespeople.

Did The Times call for President Roosevelt to be impeached, convicted and removed from office as a result of the attack on Pearl Harbor or his decision to intern Japanese Americans?

No.

Did The Times focus on problems at the Abu Ghraib prison or Saddam Hussein's mass graves?

The prison problems. Day after day, week after week, on the front page.

Did The Times focus on what was being accomplished in Iraq or the problems faced in Iraq?

The problems.

These days Bob Herbert of The Times is calling for Vice President Cheney to resign over a hunting accident and The Times' Maureen Dowd is promoting her book telling women that they don't need men.

Who is sillier?

Good Thread!

Keep them coming folks!

You guys ROCK!

I cannot understand how a person could come here and not be better informed if they just read the links and commentary.

But I digress - You all RAWK! (in my book)

Please continue - all of you!

capt

Senate Chairman Splits With Bush on Spy Program

Article Tools Sponsored By
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: February 18, 2006

WASHINGTON, Feb. 17 — The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Friday that he wanted the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program brought under the authority of a special intelligence court, a move President Bush has argued is not necessary.

The chairman, Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, said he had some concerns that the court could not issue warrants quickly enough to keep up with the needs of the eavesdropping program. But he said he would like to see those details worked out.

Mr. Roberts also said he did not believe that exempting the program from the purview of the court created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act "would be met with much support" on Capitol Hill. Yet that is exactly the approach the Bush administration is pursuing.

"I think it should come before the FISA court, but I don't know how it works," Mr. Roberts said. "You don't want to have a situation where you have capability that doesn't work well with the FISA court, in terms of speed and agility and hot pursuit. So we have to solve that problem."

front page of the times

We should all be applying pressure on Roberts for a full investigation of the NSA.

February 16, 2006
On Wednesday 16 February 2006, Australian public broadcaster SBS current affairs program DATELINE telecast a segment featring 60 new photos of the torture inflicted on prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. These photos were secured by court order - the ACLU figures prominently in the report - but these photos haven't yet been shown in the media anywhere in the United States. Because of the broadcast on SBS, you now have access to both Web-downloadable versions and BitTorrent file-sharing network versions of the broadcast on this site. THESE PHOTOS ARE VERY DISTURBING. Please do not view this video if you are easily disturbed by graphic imagery of torture and death.

*To view the photos from Salon.com and the SBS broadcast click* here

">To view this disturbing video, click here

One more try:

To view this disturbing video, click here

#151 Saladin...

Capt...do you think efforts at isolating Hamas, military strikes against Iran, which I have read will only piss off people in the Middle east even more. Is this all part of the "creative destruction" strategy of people like Michael Ledeen. Keep the area inflamed and enraged.

Is this the focus? Sure seems like it.

Capt, I'm waiting for the rank and file bushbots to show up with wild conspiracy theories about Hugo Chavez and his WMD's aimed right at the heart of Amerika! It's only a matter of time before he and Cuba and Iran gang up on innocent little bushco and push the button. Is there ANYTHING they won't swallow?

Posting

Dear Kathleen:

I do not believe that anyone has it in for you. I have no problems with your long posts. Sometimes long posts are unavoidable. Linking articles with a website, like David Corn's website, is easier. I am fortunate because my son can help me with linking.

Go to the library or a friend or Kinko's and ask the question how to link an article with a website. They may offer help.

Sincerely,

Gerald

Partisan Political Pukes

Democrats blame Republicans for the mess we're in these days. Republicans blame Democrats. In fact, both sides share the blame and neither side presents any real solutions because they can't get beyond their own partisan agendas that are more about control than what's good for the country.

Republicans are corrupt. So are Democrats. Republicans abuse power. So do Democrats. Republicans put their own narrow-focus, special-interest fed agenda ahead of the welfare of America. Got a newsflash for you. So do Democrats.

It is not one party or another that is destroying America. It's the political system itself - a self-perpetuating monster that feeds on money, lust for power and self-interest. Republicans tolerate a crook like Tom DeLay in their midst. Democrats have Corrine Brown. Republicans had Duke Cunningham. Democrats had Jim Trafficant. Both parties have their crooks, their cheats, their swindlers and their con-artists. And both parties try and protect them.

George W. Bush uses the power of the White House to go after his enemies. So did Bill Clinton. Abuse of power by a President, Democrat or Republican, is nothing new.

Democrats and Republicans voted to authorize the war in Iraq. Democrats now say they were misled by Bush. They were. We expect our elected officials to ask the hard questions before voting to send young American men and women to die in a war based on lies but the sad truth is few on Capitol Hill - Republican or Democrat - raised a serious objection before giving Bush permission to wage war.

Both Democrats and Republicans voted for the right-robbing USA Patriot Act, a single piece of legislation that gutted the Constitution and destroyed the American way of life. And Democrats stood alongside Republicans in the Senate this week and voted to reauthorize that act.

On Meet the Press last week, Jane Harman, the ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she and other Democrats supported using the National Security Agency to spy on Americans but did not like the fact that the President didn't fully brief Congress about it.

"I support the program," she said. "I've never flinched from that."

In other words, she and her fellow Democrats are not upset that the United States government is using all its technology to eavesdrop on Americans. They're just mad that she wasn't in the loop.

What all this tells me is that neither party gives a damn about the Constitution or the freedoms that used to define this country.

It tells me that both have sold out their country in the name of politics.

It tells me Republicans and Democrats have one thing in common: They are all traitors to the United States of America.

*****end of clip*****

I swear, Doug is nearly always a breath of fresh air.

capt

GO DOUG!! Trash that idiotic partisan fantasy designed to pit citizen against citizen. A political civil war staged to distract the masses, and how well it has worked. I found the perfect discription that I think fits most of the posters here, and used as a self description by the Smoking Mirrors blogger, and it is Libertarian Socialist, HA! How perfect!

Anyone who incorporates the word, puke, in their articles or posts are my kind of man or woman.

#130

We cannot have perpetual war without an enemy. Sure seems like the fomenting of hatred works for the chaos necessary to justify ANYTHING!

#131

It seems refreshing not to have a bunch of silliness and mobile home humor. I hope we have not jinxed it!

and:

Kathleen,

I do agree with Gerald. I do not think anybody has it out for you. Take suggestions with a wink and a nod and post whatever you like. Do not take anything personally - I doubt it was ever intended to be so.

If Mr. David Corn says something I would follow his lead - on his blog - but it is hard to know if a comment is actually from him unless it is in his post. We have had a few creative trolls post with his name (once or twice).

Not to mention a troll could post as Carol or others so . . . just write those posts off. Take them with a grain of salt. Nobody can create censorship on lenght or content (except David) so . .

Do not self-censor for lenght or content, it just would not be right.

Very long posts without paragraph breaks can become a blurr and eyes can glaze over. That is the only thing I run into when reading. For what my opinion is worth.

Sometimes information is very hard to "clip" and "clips" taken out of context can change the meaning so sometimes it is necessary for long pieces. It is all good to me. I read every word and every word at links.

capt

One of the things I like best about CHB (Doug Thompson) is when Clinton was in office the (so-called) left would rail about how he was a right-wingnut because he tells it like he sees it.

I do not always agree 100% but I am with him 90% - 90% of the time. Far better than most!

capt

Capt I have to say I disagree here. If americans are communicating with Al Queda (and if there is solid evidence to back this up). I have to agree with Harman although there HAS to be oversite by the appropriate committee..following the law. Don't make it up as you go along.

I also do not go along with the idea that Democrats and Republicans are the same. There is a "degree of severity" as to how far they have gone with corruption. I also believe there are people in Congress who sincerely care about the people they attempt to represent.

I hated that Democrats and Republicans voted for the war resolution I thought this was a combination of fear, being concerned with their own asses, and false intelligence. (they did hear even more lies than the american public).

I will not forgive them for sending our military into a country based on lies, to kill innocent Iraqi people. They were accomplices to these crimes and should be judged for their crimes.

I agree that our system has become sick very, very, ill. Our nation seems to be in Greedlock, and multi-nationals have been exporting this condition at a rapid pace

We are living within the belly of the beast..and until I decide to leave the country I will participate in non violent means to slow the beast down...

GANDHI..GANDHI..GANDHI

BTW Kathleen, I think Carol and Caroline are two different people. I have not known Carol to post anything so overtly rude or insulting as I have seen Caroline post in the past. When Carol disagrees she tends to do it politely as far as I have seen. Everyone gets a bee in their bonnet from time to time, but it is a good idea to try and remain civil, especially towards those with whom you share ideologies. We can't agree on everything, but disagreement should not create such enmity amongst those of us of like mind. We all have one thing in common and that is our complete abhorrence of bushco and their murderous policies, that is important common ground and something we can all work together to change.

Kathleen, I do not have it "in" for you. The day I asked (not so politely, I admit) that you learn to link or at least eliminate the extraneous portions of your posts that you cut & paste, was "one of those days." No excuse, I admit.

Others have also suggested that posters learn to link.

I apologize for my lack of finesse and insensitivity. I don't care if you post long articles or not, it does not bother me, but I do think it would be helpful if you didn't include the stuff that should be "cut." IMHO.

I am not Carol, BTW.

Kathleen,

It is good to have hope.

capt

#63 this one is for you

The Caliphate Myth
Tom Porteous
February 13, 2006
Tom Porteous is a freelance writer and analyst who was formerly with the BBC and British Foreign Office. He has lived and worked in the Middle East for many years, and travels frequently to Iran.

At a time of growing political tension between the Muslim world and the West, a new bad idea is creeping into the discourse of European and North American political leaders and is being used to justify an intensification of Western political and military intervention in the Muslim world.

Donald Rumsfeld wheeled this bad idea out at a conference on global security in Munich last week. George Bush alluded to it in his 2006 State of the Union address in January. Tony Blair and his Home Office minister, Charles Clarke, have both spoken of it in the past six months. Dick Cheney has bandied it about for even longer. The rhetoric of the new German Chancellor Angela Merkel suggests she too has signed up.

The new bad idea is this: the Ҧree West,Ӡhaving defeated German Nazism and Soviet Communism, now faces a new strategic challenge from the ambition of Muslim radicals to re-establish an Islamic caliphate and impose Islamic law on half the world.

As the U.S. Defense Secretary put it at last week’≥ Munich conference, Islamic radicals “≥eek to take over governments from North Africa to Southeast Asia and to re-establish a caliphate they hope, one day, will include every continent. They have designed and distributed a map where national borders are erased and replaced by a global extremist Islamic empire."

Ouch! A map without borders! Is this the new WMD?

It is true that many Islamist groups, including terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, say they would like to see the reunification of the Muslim world under one political leadership. They also frame this in terms of the re-establishment of the political institution which unified the Muslim world in the first few centuries of Islam: the caliphate.

But does this make it sensible, wise or proportionate for the leaders of the most formidable military alliance in the history of the world to base their strategic posture for the early 21st century on the invocation of an Al Qaeda or Iranian run, Ҵerrorist caliphateӠstretching half way around the globe?

No, it does not. And here’≥ why.

First, the evidence that Al Qaeda or any similar organization is in a position to re-create and control a caliphate is entirely non-existent. The only country where Al Qaeda was able to gain any kind of territorial foothold was in parts of Afghanistan. Even there, they were dependent on the goodwill of local leaders, the Taliban, who had only come to power after Afghanistan had been reduced to ground zero by the combined policies of the Soviet Union and the West during the Cold War and subsequent international neglect.

In Iraq, where the U.S. military invasion and occupation has created another opportunity for Al Qaeda, Bush’≥ claim that Al Qaeda would take over the country in the event of a U.S. military withdrawal is nonsense. Al Qaeda has the same chance of imposing its political authority in Iraq as the U.S. does: nil.

As for Iran, in the 25 years since the Islamic revolution, Tehran has been unable to export its Shi’©te version of Islamist rule to any other Muslim state, in part because most other Muslim states are dominated by Sunnis. In fact, revolutionary Iran long ago gave up efforts to export its ideology to the wider Muslim world and has concentrated instead on cultivating its influence among Shi’©te sectarian groups in Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere.

The second reason why raising the specter of a resurgent caliphate is foolish is that it plays into the hands of groups like Al Qaeda who claim the ҷar on terrorӠis an assault on Islam itself. Where, one wonders, have all those millions of dollars put aside by Washington and London for public diplomacy in the Muslim world gone? It surely would not have cost much to find out that, so far from being seen as a totalitarian tyranny, the early Muslim caliphate is highly venerated by most Muslims as a golden age of Islam. Comparing it to the Third Reich is therefore not a good way of winning friends and influencing people in the Muslim world.

The third problem with the caliphate idea is that it has led Western politicians to prepare for and fight the wrong kind of conflict. Al Qaeda is a non-state terrorist organization that presents a complex of threats to western interests, some quite serious but none existential. Its main resource lies not in controlling territory or armies but in its symbolic and ideological influence among young and alienated Muslims. This influence is directly proportionate to the degree to which such Muslims sense they and their religion are oppressed and attacked by the West.

The main policies of the U.S. and its allies since 9/11 have been to fight Al Qaeda as though it was a conventional territorial enemy. This has involved massive projection of military force throughout the Muslim worldѦrom "North Africa to Southeast Asia,Ӡto borrow Rumsfeldճ wordsѩncluding two outright military invasions and occupations, a continuing buildup of Israeli military power, and now the threat of military strikes against Iran. But because the enemy is not a conventional one, these interventions have quickly degenerated into crude counterinsurgency operations involving the use of torture, prolonged detention without trials and the killing of tens of thousands of civilians.

The chronic insurgencies in Afghanistan, Iraq and the occupied territories, the successes of Islamist political parties in elections in several Muslim countries and, to some extent, the furor over the Danish cartoons, all demonstrate how counterproductive and ill-judged these policies are. Among other impacts in the Muslim world, they are boosting the influence of Al Qaeda and other forms of Islamist radicalism, fostering anti-Western sentiment, undermining secular reformist trends and destabilizing states.

If Western leaders’†apparent obsession with the notion that the West faces a real threat from an emergent extremist caliphate is so foolish, why do they use it?

Three answers come to mind. First, whether they really believe in the threat or not, it is a convenient cover for their signal and deepening failure in the ҷar on terror.ӠBy raising the menacing specter of another evil empire, Western leaders seem to be saying to their publics that the failures in Iraq , Afghanistan and elsewhere have nothing to do with their own shortcomings, lack of imagination or ideological blindness, but with the very terribleness of the threat we are facing.

Second, the notion that the West faces the extraordinary threat of an evil caliphate provides an excuse for avoiding the very real and difficult problems that the West does need to face in relation to the Muslim world, problems which the West is so far either unwilling or unable to address seriously. These include the need to engage with political Islam and undercut the appeal of extremists, to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, to help stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan and to prevent other states going the same way.

Third, in the febrile post-9/11 political atmosphere of the West, the exaggeration of the threat from Islam has in different ways (immigration, terrorism, values) come to be exploited by political entrepreneurs as a crucial means of winning political power, extending state control over scared citizens, and justifying the massive projection of military power abroad. So the notion of a threatening Islamic caliphate may be not such a bad idea after all.

It’≥ just not true.

Breaking Wind

Dear Cornposters:

I want to apologize to you. In one of my posts I said that a fart was a favorite song. Actually, a fart is music to my ears. It is not a song.

At 66 years of age I do participate in farting contests. Actually, they are called breaking wind contests. Breaking wind sounds classier. To use the word, fart, probably shows minimal class.

In these breaking wind contests there are different categories, such as the longest, loudest, and smelliest breaking winds. Each category is given a number from one to five. Five is the highest score. In each category there is a winner but in combining the total points there is an overall winner.

Personally, there is only one category that I care about and that is the smelliest category because breaking wind under the smelliest category means the internal parts of my body can be renewed.

Please accept my apology when I said that a fart is my favorite song. It is actually my favorite sound of music.

Sincerely,

Gerald

#133...saladin...yes.

I am wondering what ideas people might have for pre-empting the efforts that will be made by those attending the AIPAC CONFERENCE in early March. After this event many people who support Israel no matter what the government does will be visiting their representatives pushing for hard formilitary action in Iran...GUARANTEED.

I am going to contact all of the Palestinian Solidarity groups and other groups that I am involved with and ask people to call and e-mail their representatives just before the Aipac conference. Letting our representatives know that we do not in any way shape or form support sanctions or military action against Iran.

IAEA'S Mr. El Baradei has said that " Iran does not pose an imminent threat".

WE NEED TO PRE-EMPT ISRAEL/AIPAC's PUSH FOR SANCTIONS OR MILITARY ACTION AGAINST IRAN.

"We can't agree on everything, but disagreement should not create such enmity amongst those of us of like mind. We all have one thing in common and that is our complete abhorrence of bushco and their murderous policies, that is important common ground and something we can all work together to change."

~ Saladin

True and profound. I would only add:

"disagreement should not create such enmity amongst those of opposing minds/views."

Let the trolls come and insult, be rude, ugly, etc. read their piffle posts or not but there is never a reason to stoop to a low-brow cursing contest, those posts are just a waste of time and type.

Just adding on in agreement!

capt

MICHEAL LEDEEN IS BACK FROM WHO KNOWS WHERE COOKING UP WHO KNOWS WHAT KIND OF FALSE INTELLIGENCE ABOUT IRAN...WE WILL PROBABLY HEAR ABOUT SOMETHING "NEW" THIS WEEK ABOUT IRAN

MICHAEL LEDEEN... THE MAN PUSHING FOR MILITARY ACTION IN IRAN....his theme song is "FASTER PLEASE", he is the "master of creative destruction"..the pusher of "noble lies".

All I can say is "Faster Please" Patrick Fitzgerald and Paul McNulty (prosecutor in Aipac case) please lock this guy up.

February 17, 2006, 9:51 a.m.
A Mullah’≥-Eye View of the World
Iran is acting on its assessment of the West’≥ strength and resolve.

Sometime in late November or early December, Iran’≥ Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei gathered his top advisers for an overall strategic review. The atmosphere was highly charged, because Khamenei’≥ doctors have diagnosed a serious cancer, and do not expect the Supreme Leader to live much more than a year. A succession struggle is already under way, with the apparently unsinkable Hashemi Rafsanjani in the thick of it, even though Khamenei, and his increasingly powerful son Mushtaba, is opposed to the perennial candidate-for-whatever.

Despite this disquieting news, the overall tone of the conversation was upbeat, because the Iranians believe they see many positive developments, above all, the declaration that "it has been promised that by 8 April, we will be in a position to show the entire world that 'we are members of the club.'" This presumably refers to nuclear weapons. Against this cheery background, the assessment of the Iranian leaders continued:

The weakness of the Bush administration is notable. Recent public opinion polls show the country seriously divided, and the top Iranian experts on North America have concluded that the president is paralyzed, unable to make any tough decision (and hence unable to order an attack against Iran);

2006 is an election year, and even some Republicans are distancing themselves from Bush, weakening the White House even further;

Israel is facing the darkest moment in its history (remember that this conversation took place before Sharon’≥ stroke). Likud is divided, Netanyahu is openly against Sharon, and the Labor party has lost its old guard. No strong government is possible (and hence Israel is similarly unable to order an attack against Iran). Therefore this is a moment for Iran to take maximum advantage;

Iranian power and prestige is at an all-time high among the Palestinian terrorist groups, from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah, to secular, even Communist groups. Terrorists who in the past had rejected Iranian approaches now travel to Tehran for support;

The Syrians have given Iran final say over the activities of Sunni terrorist groups in their country;

Iran now exercises effective control over groups ranging from Hezbollah, Ansar al-Islam, al Qaeda, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Jaish-e-Mahdi, and Jaish-e-Huti (Yemen) to the Joint Shi’©te Army of Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, and part of Saudi Arabia, as well as Islamic movements in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia;

In the four and a half months since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has become president, he has brought the extremist group led by Mezbah Yazdi under control, and, notably, he has forced Syria to resist all pressure from the United States;

The Europeans are no longer necessary for the Iranian strategy, and can now be "thrown out of our game." They are in no position to do any damage because they are too busy fighting with one another;

Khamenei called for two urgent missions. The first was to do everything possible to drive up oil prices by an additional 30 percent by the first week in April. The second was to intensify the propaganda war against the West in the same period. He stressed that it was important to compel the United States to face at least three crises by the April 8.

In short, the Iranians at the highest levels of the regime believe they have good reason for behaving quite feisty, and if you look at the events that have taken place since then, you will see that the mullahs are acting consistently with the analysis presented to (and in part by) Khamenei. The propaganda war —†lately and dramatically in the form of the cartoon crusades —†has indeed been intensified. The Europeans have been systematically dissed, and more: their embassies in Tehran have been stoned, Iranian diplomats have insulted them with regularity, and the regime slapped a trade embargo on all goods coming from the infidel Europeans. When the French announced that the Iranian nuclear program was undoubtedly designed to produce weapons, Tehran demanded an apology. Above all, there is no longer any pretense of cooperation with the Big Three negotiators on the nuclear program.

This suggests that the mullahs do indeed believe they have acquired nuclear weapons, and there is no longer any need to play stalling games with the Germans, French, and Brits. Nor is there any reason to feign humanity in the treatment of their own people. The repression of any and all groups which might conceivably organize an anti-mullah revolution looks to reach the historic levels of the immediate post-revolutionary period, when hanging judges routinely ordered the execution of thousands of citizens for often-fabricated crimes. Of late, the regime has beaten, tortured, and incarcerated thousands of Tehran bus drivers, Bahais, Sufis, and Ahwaz Arabs, and they have even threatened the families of political prisoners, saying that the whole lot of dissidents will be killed if the U.N. votes for sanctions.

This brutal and open use of the mailed fist bespeaks utter contempt for the West; Khamenei & Co. do not think we will respond, do not fear Western action, and believe this is a historic movement for the advance of their vision of clerical fascism. But it also bespeaks a chilling recognition of their nemesis: the Iranian people. President Ahmadinejad recently canceled most foreign travel by regime officials, for example, which is not the sign of a confident mullahcracy; quite the contrary, in their heart of hearts, they know that they are walking a fragile tightrope, and their incessant preventive actions against normal Iranians look very much like Mickey Mouse in , racing frantically to stop an army of bucket-carrying brooms from drowning him.

Moreover, the runaway optimism (which in many clerical minds goes hand in hand with the conviction that the Shiite Messiah, the 12th Imam, is about to reappear, thereby ushering in the End of Days) is not as solidly grounded as the mullahs might wish. For starters, oil prices are headed south, not toward the 30-percent increase ordered by the supreme leader. And the analysis of the perceived ҰaralysisӠof the United States is nothing more than a replay of the usual blunder committed by our enemies, who look at us and see fractious politics, widespread self-indulgence, and an unwillingness or inability to face up to real war. In this, as in so many other ways, the mullahs of the Islamic Republic are emulating failed tyrants, from the German Kaiser and F?hrer to the Italian Duce, the Iraqi dictator, and the Soviet Communist first secretaries, all of whom learned, to their ruin, that free societies are quite capable of turning on a dime and defending their interests and values with unanticipated ferocity.

And indeed, after years of dithering, we now have the first encouraging signs that this administration is inclined to support revolution in Iran. Secretary of State Rice, after her laudable reform of the Foreign Service, has now asked Congress for an additional $75 million to advance the cause of freedom in Iran. This is good news indeed, especially since there were hints in her testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday that we have already begun supporting Iranian trade unions, and even training some of their leaders. To be sure, the bulk of the money —†$50 million —†will go to the bureaucratic, and thus far utterly uninspiring, group running radio and TV Farda for the State Department, and the profoundly disappointing and feckless National Endowment for Democracy and the Democratic and Republic Institutes, but at least some money is promised for independent Farsi language broadcasters. Even with these shortcomings, we should celebrate Rice’≥ embrace of the cause of Iranian freedom so concretely.

On the other hand, there is no reason for joy at the news that assistant secretary Steve Rademacher seems to have gratuitously and foolishly promised that we will not use military power against Iran’≥ nuclear facilities. There is every reason to leave such stratagems in the haze of uncertainty, even if —†as I have long argued —†you believe it would not be a good idea, at least at this moment. Such declarations will reinforce the mullahs’†conviction that they have nothing to fear from us, and encourage them to race ahead with their murderous actions.

Even the world at large is beginning to bestir itself. Wednesday was a day of support for the Iranian bus drivers all across the civilized world. The AFL-CIO, driven by Teamsters’†President James Hoffa, in tandem with Senator Rick Santorum, has been leading the charge, now joined by unions in France, Britain, Spain, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Canada, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, and Bermuda. The appeasers in the Italian trade unions, like their opportunistic bosses, sat it out. Still, it’≥ an impressive list.

It’≥ a small and long overdue step forward, to be sure, but great journeys sometimes begin slowly and uncertainly. The great thing is that, after years of empty rhetoric, stalled internal debates, and the paralysis so dear to Khamenei’≥ heart, we have finally gotten started. Will it succeed? Do the tens of millions of Iranians who rightly hate their rulers have the stomach, the imagination, and the discipline to organize the downfall of the regime?

Nobody knows, perhaps not even the revolutionaries themselves. But America has moved, and when America moves, even gingerly, there will be ripples throughout Iran and throughout the region. The key imperative is that, now that we are in, we must persist and prevail. So far, so good: in the State of the Union the president spoke eloquently of our respect for the Iranian people and our determination to help them if they show the will and the capacity to act effectively. That was exactly the right note. And the secretary of State was similarly and appropriately modest in her rhetoric, speaking of our desire to support freedom —†not announcing a national crusade, and not threatening dramatic action. It is for the Iranians to liberate their country. If they are willing to fight for freedom, we should stand with them.

Now, finally, they know we will. And the cry of "faster, please" must quickly go out to them.

—†Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. He is resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute

SO HERE WE HAVE LEDEEN TELLING THE WORLD WHAT IRAN HAS AND THAT THIS WILL BE COMPLETE BY APRIL 8 JUST BEFORE THE AMERICAN PUBLIC FINDS OUT (IF THE MSM CARRIES THE NEWS) THAT AIPAC HAS BEEN SPYING ON THE U.S. ....

CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHAT WOULD BE WRONG WITH LISTENING TO IAEA'S MR. EL BARADEI.WHO WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE NIGER DOCUMENTS...INSTEAD OF FOLLOWING .A PROVEN LIAR "AN AGENT OF INFLUENCE FOR ISRAEL"

THIS GUY HAS TO GO TO JAIL

Despite this disquieting news, the overall tone of the conversation was upbeat, because the Iranians believe they see many positive developments, above all, the declaration that "it has been promised that by 8 April, we will be in a position to show the entire world that 'we are members of the club.'" This presumably refers to nuclear weapons. Against this cheery background, the assessment of the Iranian leaders continued:

Espionage and the First Amendment

Spycraft, free speech, and the AIPAC espionage case

Is there a First Amendment right to steal and transmit vital U.S. secrets to a foreign power? Viet Dinh, the intellectual author of the PATRIOT Act and a rising star among the neoconservative legal theorists who have commandeered the Justice Department in the service of presidential omnipotence –†thinks so.

In the latest development in the AIPAC spy case, in which two longtime employees of one of the most powerful lobbies in the Washington are charged with passing classified information to Israeli officials, Dinh has submitted a legal brief [.pdf] that, in so many words, asserts exactly that.

Dinh starts out by citing none other than Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who, at his press conference announcing the indictment of Scooter Libby, explained why he did not prosecute under the terms of the Espionage Act. The context is in response to a question about Valerie Plame's covert status:

"And all I'll say is that if national defense information which is involved because her affiliation with the CIA, whether or not she was covert, was classified, if that was intentionally transmitted, that would violate the statute known as Section 793, which is the Espionage Act.
"That is a difficult statute to interpret. It's a statute you ought to carefully apply.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Justin does write some very good and well supported pieces.

capt

I was thinking about the bizarre statement by Harry Whittington, apologizing to cheney for what cheney and his family were subjected to:

Is the 'Stockholm Syndrome' used to describe reactions to traumas other than hostage situations?

* The Stockholm Syndrome: Not Just For Hostages
by Dee L.R. Graham, Edna Rawlings, Nelly Rimini

The Stockholm Syndrome is an emotional attachment, a bond of interdependence between captive and captor that develops 'when someone threatens your life, deliberates, and doesn't kill you.' (Symonds, 1980)

The relief resulting from the removal of the threat of death generates intense feelings of gratitude and fear which combine to make the captive reluctant to display negative feelings toward the captor or terrorist. It is this dynamic which causes former hostages and abuse survivors to minimize the damage done to them and refuse to cooperate in prosecuting their tormentors.

"The victims' need to survive is stronger than his impulse to hate the person who has created his dilemma." (Strentz, 1980) The victim comes to see the captor/threatening person as a 'good guy', even a savior. This condition...occurs in response to the four specific conditions listed below:

o A person threatens to kill another and is perceived as having the capability to do so.

o The other cannot escape, so her or his life depends on the threatening person.

o The threatened person is isolated from outsiders so that the only other perspective available to her or him is that of the threatening person.

o The threatening person is perceived as showing some degree of kindness to the one being threatened.

Just an observation in this bizarro world...

Jarrod Agen, a spokesman for the Homeland Security Department, said Thursday that the U.S. government would still control the ports

Bill Would Stop Sale of Port Operations to Arabs
By Nicholas Johnston
Bloomberg News
Saturday 18 February 2006
Democratic senators cite security issue.

Washington - Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Robert Menendez of New Jersey have introduced legislation to prohibit companies owned or controlled by foreign governments from buying U.S. port operations.

The measure is intended to block the $6.8 billion sale of a company that operates six U.S. ports to a firm controlled by the United Arab Emirates.

"Our port security is too important to place in the hands of foreign governments," Clinton said.

Missing From ABC's WMD 'Scoop'

Star defector Hussein Kamel said weapons were destroyed

But ABC's story does not include what was arguably Kamel's more important revelation, which was that Iraq had destroyed its stocks of usable unconventional weapons. "Iraq does not possess any weapons of mass destruction," he told CNN in 1995. He told the same story to U.N. and U.S. officials, saying that by destroying the weapons in the summer of 1991, Saddam Hussein hoped to conceal how far Iraq had gotten in developing weapons, with the intent of restarting these programs after the inspection regime was ended.

Hussein Kamel was lured back to Iraq in 1996, where he was almost immediately killed by Saddam Hussein's forces. But when the Bush administration began gearing up for war with Iraq in 2002, it found that selective citation of Kamel's testimony could be very helpful in making its case. Vice President Dick Cheney asserted in an August 2002 speech (8/26/02) that the Iraqi regime had been "very busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents," and continued "to pursue the nuclear program they began many years ago." To back this up these claims, Cheney added, "We've gotten this from the firsthand testimony of defectors, including Saddam's own son-in-law"—° reference to Kamel.

In a Chicago Tribune op-ed (9/10/02), former head of the U.N. weapons inspection team Scott Ritter pointed out that Cheney had left out a critical part of Kamel's story:

Throughout his interview with UNSCOM, a U.N. special commission, Hussein Kamel reiterated his main point that nothing was left. "All chemical weapons were destroyed," he said. "I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed."

Nevertheless, the administration continued to selectively use Kamel's disclosures to bolster its case that Iraq had hidden stockpiles of banned weapons. "It took years for Iraq to finally admit that it had produced four tons of the deadly nerve agent, VX," then-Secretary of State Colin Powell said in his February 5, 2003 speech to the U.N. "The admission only came out after inspectors collected documentation as a result of the defection of Hussein Kamel, Saddam Hussein's late son-in-law." Powell did not note that Kamel had also reported that this nerve gas, along with all other such weapons, had been destroyed years earlier (Extra!, 5-6/03).

*****end of clip*****

Like Bunnypants and his gang of merry morons didn't know the WMD's were destroyed.

This administration has not paid ANY cost for lying us into an illegal and unnecessary invasion of a country that could not threaten their neighbors let alone the USA or our allies.

capt

Jail Inmates Were Stripped to Deter Riots

About 100 had only blankets for covering, a practice the Sheriff's Department defends. Beds were not secured, a violation of guidelines.

More than 100 inmates at a Los Angeles County jail were ordered to strip naked, had their mattresses taken away and were left with only blankets to cover themselves for a day as Los Angeles Sheriff's Department officials tried to quell racially charged violence that has plagued the jail system for nearly two weeks.

The tactics defended Friday by jail officials as necessary to stop the fighting were immediately criticized as dehumanizing and highly inappropriate by civil rights activists and the Sheriff's Department's independent overseer.

"I have no problem taking privileges away It comes to a different level of basic human rights if you take away clothing and dignity," said Michael Gennaco, chief of Sheriff Lee Baca's office of independent review. "I don't know if it is consistent with the sheriff's core values."

Baca said Friday that he was informed of the tactics after the order was given and supported the move, as long as the measures were short-lived. He said keeping inmates naked was at the "outer edge of our core values" but was done to save lives.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

At first glance I thought this story was about Abu Griab.*sigh*

capt

#148 Capt... did you read the latest piece from Michael Ledeen that I posted. This guy is one of the main war pushers. I'll put money on it this week we will hear about new "evidence" that turns up supplied by Curveball cousin about Iran.

I had read that piece that you posted by Justin the other day. I have depended on Justin for years now. He is ten steps out in front of most journalist. Almost everything he was writing about several years ago has been right on the mark.

later...

Michael Ledeen, the serial plotter, and his pal Harold Rhode have been in cahoots since Iran-Contra days -- and maybe even before that. Rhode tells Rummy what he's supposed to think about Islamic affairs. Ledeen and Rhode are plotting and planning to take "steps" for "preventive action" against Iran, using their close ties with Mossad. It is not a matter of "if" only "when"...when does the neo-totalitarian cabal get the most benefit? But, they don't get ANYTHING right!!!

JOIN US ON MARCH 8 IN WASHINGTON D.C.

Sign-up below to join us in Washington D.C. on March 8! We will be in touch with you during the coming weeks to organize your participation.

On March 7-8, a delegation of Iraqi and American women, including mothers who have lost their children in this war, will travel to Washington DC to pressure the Bush administration, meet with Congresspeople, hold public events and strategize for future actions. It will be an emotional and historic time, and we'd love for you to be there!

To help sponsor the delegation of Iraqi women that will be joining us in DC on March 7-8 and touring the US for the week following International Women's Day click here.

Don't forget to check out our housing and ride board!

"did you read the latest piece from Michael Ledeen that I posted."

Yes, and no doubt, they already have the laptop full of crud - it will prove to be all false but once action is started it cannot be stopped.

Same groups behind the laptop as the Niger forgeries. (I bet)

It makes me go:

AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!

capt

"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." ~ Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955), (attributed)

*****

There are war planners but never any peace planners? We get what we plan for, I guess. *sigh*

capt

Oh my God, I had to use Microsoft Interenet Explorer. At the top of the screen it is reading Caution: This website contains suspicious content. Help Report.

What is that all about??

Hey Capt,

A friend sent this to me a while back, though it may fit with your post at 157.
It is a proposal for a Department of Peace.

http://www.thepeacealliance.org/action.htm

I have to prepare for a trip to AZ. UGH

Later,
th

No, don't do it.

From www.capitolhillblue.com regarding the Patriot Act...

THE RANT
By DOUG THOMPSON
Founder and Publisher

"Which means virtually no one - Democratic or Republican, conservative or liberal, left or right - can claim the high road when it comes to destroying freedom in the United States. Only Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., seems to realize the dangers of the act, continuing to fight it and saying the law, even as amended, allows "government fishing expeditions" and an outright assault on the Constitution."

Read the full column here.

Shut It Down

Nazi America is the most evil and vile nation to have been born in the history of the universe.

Jeanne, our criticism of Israel probably set it off! I use IE but never get any warnings like that.
Kathleen, I wonder if you saw this article:

Dismiss AIPAC charges, duo asks
Source: The Washington Times
URL Source: http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20060215-113838-3636r.htm
Published: Feb 16, 2006
Author: Jerry Seper

A professor at Georgetown University Law Center, Mr. Dinh joined with lawyers Abbe D. Lowell and John Nassikas in a motion filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria condemning the charges as "a dangerous attempt by prosecutors to over extend to private citizens a statute which was intended to apply solely to government officials with access to classified information."

The motion said the indictment violated First Amendment protections due a lobbying organization whose policy activity and civic engagement "is the very justification for a free press and free speech."
---------
Doesn't THAT make you go "HMMMMM!"

Also, here is a story about a Palestinian in exile, this makes me want to SCREAM!

The Daily Life of Kawther Salam; When Your Home is Converted into a Jail

When the Israeli occupation pulled out of Gaza, the occupier state sent many of those squatters to live in the West Bank. These squatters and their government are thieves, and while the American government is paying these criminals so they get out of Gaza, they just went and live in Nablus and other parts of the West Bank. After pulling out of Nablus, perhaps in the year 3000 then, they will go and live in Hebron. Of course their high-yield thieving game is fun while the US government gives them to the tune of US$ 200.000 per family from American tax dollars to leave lands which they stole and where they should never have been in first place.

Never to to miss an opportunity of fomenting terrorism, the government of the Israeli occupation also granted the council of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank permission to establish new settlements in the West Bank. For this purpose the Israeli Finance Ministry had illegaly diverted millions of Sheqels from the Israeli social security budget, and additionally to that, millions of American tax dollars went to build these new houses for illegal settlers in the West Bank instead of alleviating the need of Americans displaced and left homeless by the hurricane Katrina.
---------
This is a heartbreaking story. It's like the story of the Native Americans and the tyrants who refused to share but crushed and sent into extinction so many people and dispersed the rest to reservations on land that no one else wanted. Will this unjust treatment ever end?

The Lone Patriot

David, if you're still lookin' for good songs, I nominate this one... from The Offspring - "Want You Bad"
(lyrics) *and again, it sounds better'n it reads

If you could only read my mind
You would know that things between us

Ain't right

I know your arms are open wide
But you're a little on the straight side

I can't lie

Your one vice
Is you're too nice
Come around now can't you see

I want you
All tattooed

I want you bad

Complete me
Mistreat me
Want you to be bad

If you could only read my mind
You would know that I've been waiting

So long

For someone almost like you
But with attitude,
I'm waiting So come on

Get out of clothes time
Grow out those highlights
Come around now can't you see

I want you
In a vinyl suit
I want you bad

Complicated
X-rated
I want you bad

Don't get me wrong
I know you're only being good

But if that's what's wrong
I guess I just misunderstood

I want you
All tattooed
I want you bad

Complicated

X- rated

I want you bad
I mean it
I need it
I want you bad, bad, bad, bad, baddddd!
====================
K, so I'm still of the Led Zep age, and they're still my fav... but there's alot of new stuff that rawks too.
Can't go wrong with anything by Coldplay. Chris Martin is a piano-playin' good-singin' mo/fo.
Try "Speed of Sound", "Clocks", and a couple of older ones by them, "Yellow" and "Trouble".
I got the lyrics from this site:
The Music Made Me Do It

Saladin... I did read this the other day.

go ahead and scream...people need to call and make a stink out of this..This guy wants to make it o.k. to spy on the U.s.

Bush gets an earful

Saladin..from what I have read about Rosen he had been a government official at one time and had sign numerous agreement about classified information. So that he was well aware of breaking the law.

I also have read that they have Rosen on tape saying "it's a good thing the U.S. does not have an "offical secrets act". Knowing full well what he was doing.

Saladin....I know this has all ready been posted before. Please read the paragraph I have separated. While I really think Larisa is one of the best investigative reporters going. Enough of trusting these "officials apeaking under strict confidentiality".

This could be so perfect to use for the neo-cons "now we really need to invade Iran, because we are not able to collect intelligence"

I really question this article of Larisa's. I say prove it.

Outed CIA officer was working on Iran, intelligence sources say
02/13/2006 @ 10:25 am
Filed by Larisa Alexandrovna

The unmasking of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson by White House officials in 2003 caused significant damage to U.S. national security and its ability to counter nuclear proliferation abroad, RAW STORY has learned.

According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaking under strict confidentiality, intelligence officials revealed heretofore unreported elements of Plame's work. Their accounts suggest that Plame's outing was more serious than has previously been reported and carries grave implications for U.S. national security and its ability to monitor Iran's burgeoning nuclear program.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While many have speculated that Plame was involved in monitoring the nuclear proliferation black market, specifically the proliferation activities of Pakistan's nuclear "father," A.Q. Khan, intelligence sources say that her team provided only minimal support in that area, focusing almost entirely on Iran.

Plame declined to comment through her husband, Joseph Wilson.

Valerie Plame first became a household name when her identity was disclosed by conservative columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003. The column came only a week after her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, had written an op-ed for the New York Times asserting that White House officials twisted pre-war intelligence on Iraq. Her outing was seen as political retaliation for Wilson's criticism of the Administration's claim that Iraq sought uranium from Niger for a nuclear weapons program.

Her case has drawn international attention and resulted in the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, on five counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements. Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who is leading the probe, is still pursuing Deputy Chief of Staff and Special Advisor to President Bush, Karl Rove. His investigation remains open.

The damages

Intelligence sources would not identify the specifics of Plame's work. They did, however, tell RAW STORY that her outing resulted in "severe" damage to her team and significantly hampered the CIA's ability to monitor nuclear proliferation.

Plame's team, they added, would have come in contact with A.Q. Khan's network in the course of her work on Iran.

While Director of Central Intelligence Porter Goss has not submitted a formal damage assessment to Congressional oversight committees, the CIA's Directorate of Operations did conduct a serious and aggressive investigation, sources say.

Intelligence sources familiar with the damage assessment say that what is called a "counter intelligence assessment to agency operations" was conducted on the orders of the CIA's then-Deputy Director of the Directorate of Operations, James Pavitt.

Former CIA counterintelligence officer Larry Johnson believes that such an assessment would have had to be done for the CIA to have referred the case to the Justice Department.

"An exposure like that required an immediate operational and counter intelligence damage assessment," Johnson said. "That was done. The results were written up but not in a form for submission to anyone outside of CIA."

One former counterintelligence official described the CIA's reasons for not seeking Congressional assistance on the matter as follows: "[The CIA Leadership] made a conscious decision not to do a formal inquiry because they knew it might become public," the source said. "They referred it [to the Justice Department] instead because they believed a criminal investigation was needed."

The source described the findings of the assessment as showing "significant damage to operational equities."

Another counterintelligence official, also wishing to remain anonymous due to the nature of the subject matter, described "operational equities" as including both people and agency operations that involve the "cover mechanism," "front companies," and other CIA officers and assets.

Three intelligence officers confirmed that other CIA non-official cover officers were compromised, but did not indicate the number of people operating under non-official cover that were affected or the way in which these individuals were impaired. None of the sources would say whether there were American or foreign casualties as a result of the leak.

Several intelligence officials described the damage in terms of how long it would take for the agency to recover. According to their own assessment, the CIA would be impaired for up to "ten years" in its capacity to adequately monitor nuclear proliferation on the level of efficiency and accuracy it had prior to the White House leak of Plame Wilson's identity.

A.Q. Khan

While Plame's work did not specifically focus on the A.Q. Khan ring, named after Pakistani scientist Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the network and its impact on nuclear proliferation and the region should not be minimized, primarily because the Khan network was the major supplier of WMD technology for Iran.

Dr. Khan instituted the proliferation market during the 1980s and supplied many countries in the Middle East and elsewhere with uranium enrichment technology, including Libya, Iran and North Korea. Enriched uranium is used to make weaponized nuclear devices.

The United States forced the Pakistan government to dismiss Khan for his proliferation activities in March of 2001, but he remains largely free and acts as an adviser to the Pakistani government.

According to intelligence expert John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, U.S. officials were not aware of the extent of the proliferation until around the time of Khan's dismissal.

"It slowly dawned on them that the collaboration between Pakistan, North Korea and Iran was an ongoing and serious problem," Pike said. "It was starting to sink in on them that it was one program doing business in three locations and that anything one of these countries had they all had."

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Pakistan became the United States' chief regional ally in the war on terror.

The revelation that Iran was the focal point of Plame's work raises new questions as to possible other motivating factors in the White House's decision to reveal the identity of a CIA officer working on tracking a WMD supply network to Iran, particularly when the very topic of Iran's possible WMD capability is of such concern to the Administration.

Related Raw Story articles by Larisa Alexandrovna

Spurious Attempt to Tie Iran/Iraq/Uranium Ledeen and Panorama Phase II Stalled Phase II and Feith OSP Runs off books missions/wmd political problem Senate Intel Chair Quietly Fixes Intel

Related update: The Washington Note reports that Wilson's Niger report contained elements about Iran. More here.

Does Colin Powell have a shred of conscience? If he does, he will come forward before it is too late and tell all that he knows. He, I believe, has enough information to expose this pack of jackals that shut him out after they used him up and marginalized him. (He deserves it; I am not sticking up for him.)

If one believes in redemption, Powell could redeem himself by coming clean and being the ultimate whistle-blower. By blowing the whistle, he could maim this neo-totalitarian grand scheme in one fell swoop.

The world waits...

James, Land of the Puppet people was, dare I say it, great. Man, after reading that I know for SURE we're doomed. Doomed, doomed, doomed. I copy/pasted the article and saved it for who knows what. Thanks.

Tried again. this is a great interview with Schuer about Bin Laden. Schuer came to a conference here in Athens several years ago. He really knows his material..click my name...I hope it works

Tried again. this is a great interview with Schuer about Bin Laden. Schuer came to a conference here in Athens several years ago. He really knows his material..click my name...I hope it works

Sorry it is at anti war.com, it is a long interview. Carol I think you would like it.

BIN LADEN'S GAME
By Steve Perry

Illustration by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher

When the latest Osama bin Laden tape aired on al Jazeera last month, Michael Scheuer's phone was one of the first to start ringing off the hook with calls from journalists seeking a quick soundbite for that day's news cycle. Scheuer has credentials on the subject that few can match: By the time September 11 happened, he had been studying and trailing bin Laden for five years, as the creator and chief analyst of the CIA's bin Laden unit. Later on, writing as "Anonymous," Scheuer put out two books about bin Laden and his group, Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam and the Future of America (published in 2002, but largely written in 1999 as an unclassified manual for CIA personnel joining the bin Laden unit) and the bestseller Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror, which appeared in 2004 shortly before Scheuer resigned the CIA to go public about his views.

Appearing on CBS Evening News the day the tape surfaced, January 19, Scheuer told anchor Bob Schieffer that "it would be foolish not to take this very seriously as a threat to the United States." He discussed the Islamic custom of offering one's enemies an out before attacking them, and made reference to bin Laden's long-standing wish to obtain a nuclear weapon, and to the still-unsecured stockpile of nukes in the former Soviet Union. "It sounds pretty scary, what you're saying here," Schieffer offered near the end of the two-minute segment. "This is not a threat that should be defined

Micki I saw Colin Powell on Charlie Rose about three months ago. Don't hold your breath. He was basically giving the nod for military action against Iran.

Kathleen, I don't have it in for you as Gerald and the Capt said. I'm just hoping to prod you into learning to link. I didn't know how when I came to this site but I finally decided to take it on.

I don't know how other people are, but when I see one of your lengthy articles it gives me pause. I know that sounds awful, but I don't have time to read everything there is to read. We all have different interests, too. Some, like the Capt, posts a link and a bit to get one's attention. If it grabs me, I go out and read it.

Yes, I know, I have a roller on my mouse which I use a lot. But I also have dial-up and bandwidth means something to people like me.

Saladin, thanks for saying I've not been rude or insulting. I try not to be unless I give in and lash out at a troll.

Yes, Carol and Caroline are two different people, but Caroline already pointed that out.

Osama bin Laden tape

Here's the link for Kathleen.
By the way the City Pages is my hometown newspaper. It's really a good local paper.

Aiko Aiko -- Grateful Dead (Traditional)

Chords: A -- D

My spy boy saw your spy boy, sittin' on the fi-yo,
My spy boy told your spy boy, "Gonna set your flag on fi-yo."
I said hey now (hey now), hey now (hey now),
Aiko Aiko all day.
Jockomo feena na na nay, jockomo feena nay.

My grandma and your grandma were sittin' by the fi-yo,
Said my grandma to your grandma, "Gonna set your tail on fi-yo."
I said hey now (hey now), hey now (hey now),
Aiko Aiko all day.

Later,
th

MARCH 20O6 IS NEUTRON BOMB MONTH

By Derrick Michael Reid

The Bush administration may beat a possible victorious Likud party chief, Benjamin Netenyahu to the punch, and go after Iran very soon. If you have a limited view of the war on terror, OBL is then your obsession, as a limited police action. If you have a comprehensive view of the war on terror, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran are all battles in it. As I see it, in the comprehensive view, the war on terror will never be won until governments in the middle east area provide rights of the vote and petition of grievances to governments so that all can participate in the affairs of state of those governments that will then sit on the Islamo-fascist terrorists. Its all perspective, of course.

Other claims Iran just wants to get on with their lives without outside interference. Cute theme, but I don't believe it holds water. "Without outside interference", oh, you mean, so Iran can with impunity execute anyone who bad mouths the controlling Mullahs. The controlling theocratic Mullahs would love that kind of prohibition from outside interference. I wonder, which side the pacifists guys are really on? Don't tell me, pussie Galore's? Well, just call me James. Ever hear of "Death to America", "Wipe Israel Off the Map", "Burn the Danish Embassy", "Behead the Infidels", "Reclaim the Lost Islamic Empire", "Blow up African Embassies", "Blow up US Naval Ships", "Oil Embargo", "Violations of Agreed to Nonproliferation with Stealth Development under Guise of Peaceful Development", and even, "Death to the Saudi Ruling Family for Dealing with the Devil". Embedded Islamic extremism anyone?

We might want to look to the example of Ms. Sanchez, as she said in Aliens, "we ought to thrown in poison canisters in there and wipe out the whole rat's nest, give me five!" However, extermination is also not the answer. Islam is a noble religion in moderation and the necessary social glue in the region, and Islam in the middle east must be preserved, not destroyed. The reality check is a peaceful resolution that we all should desire. I am hoping for a peaceful resolution, and civility in the Islamic world and with its relation to the civilized western world, but it don’t look good, not with the controlling Mullahs in power.

My philosophy is not just to hammer Iran, in any case. What I really want is for Iran to accept the Russian deal, and hope President Putin can pull it off, to chill things out, and let the Iranian people eventually boot out the intolerant controlling Mullahs, gradually, in due course. I really don't want Iran to get hammered, as they certainly will be, if they keep it up, but rather, I would like moderates in control in Iran, that will sit on the crazies and keep a lid on the Islamo-fascist terrorists, so Iran can build its economy, prosper, and become more interconnected with the CORE of civilized nations, to promote world peace and civility, and out of the GAP membership of rough nations.

However, the atomic BOMB, is the key that triggers the war mentality. It is as simple as that. If Iran would accept international inspection and off site nuke material generation, so we all can live with their so-called "peaceful use", I am all for that, as war should be the last option, but if war it is, many say, give it to them in full measure. But I am afraid, that the Iranian president, controlled by the Mullahs, has an apocalyptic religious view of destiny of mass conflagration to gain the lost Islamic empire of the eleventh century, and is way way way to dangerous to let Iran get any near an atomic BOMB.

I can not see Iran backing down, though, nor accepting the Russian deal. Iran would perceive it as humiliation and as contrary to their die-by-the-sword mentality of reconquering the old Islamic empire. I only see a carrier-based blockade, with or without UN oversight and approval, and an eventual Gulf of Tonken like resolution, and off to war we go, with massive carrier-based stand off strikes, hopefully with assistance with some moderate Islamic states, with a major prospect of dragging the Israelis into the fray, who wont mess around this time around, having been there and done that, with Iraq. The Jews were so brave during Iraq war, taking the punishment, without striking back. You have to give it to the Jews on that one. But, now, they may just jump in, having been directly threatened with extinction. It don't look good.

Hopefully, and with full UN sanctions, Russia will stop nuke facility development, and all nations, including China, will refuse to buy oil, except for food. Maybe then Iran will compromise, but I still doubt it, as intolerant theocracies do not lend themselves well to compromise, as is the nature of the truly transparent democratic civilized world. I see only war. If anyone has any suggestions, the world is all ears. A Fox News commentator said this day 2/18/06, that China would veto any sanctions. This is crazy, in my opinion. The gunslinger in the Whitehouse would perfect a carrier-based blockade, that would raise oil prices sky high, and tank the Chinese economy dead in its tracks, that would raise discontent in China that would then threaten Beijing's hold on power. The Whitehouse gunslinger, if push come to shove with the Chinese, wont mess around, and China knows it. China's president is invited to the Whitehouse soon "for a little visit", and lets hope for mutual support and a common front against Iran's intractable positions. The Chinese know that the US holds the trump cards, to wit, carrier battle groups to perfect the gunslinger's blockade.

The US hold three aces in the high stakes poker game, and they are, political influence, the almighty dollar, and the carrier battle groups. Russia is basically on board, wanting to make money with Iranian nuke processing in Russia for Russia's economic gain. China will play ball, in the end, as having a history of going with the flow, and will work with all speed to get Iran to compromise, in the end. Yes I watch FOX news, but I know a snow job, when I see one.

The high stakes poker game is on in earnest, for sure, with the gunslinger and the Mullahs both going ALL-IN. President Bush has the petrol strategic reserves, and the Iranian economy is presently tanking, a very weak hand, and China wont risk their economy, not now, and Iran has no aces in the hole. The Whitehouse gunslinger, President Bush, would blockade Iran, with or without UN sanctions. That is, Iran has got until sun down, in March 2006, to get out of dodge. The US petrol strategic reserves is an ace in the hole, giving President Bush, four aces in this high stake poker international game of wills. Well, with UN security referral due in March 2006, I believe, March is neutron bomb month, in the commodities markets, with massive short squeezes, dripping from all precious metals and base metals positions. Be all in, in your bullion and stock share positions, as March 2006 is when the poker game might get a call to show the hands in play.

Derrick Michael Reid, ESQ: Electronic Engineer, Patent Attorney, Precious Metals Investment Manager, and Geopolitical and Geoeconomical Analyst, DOB 6-30-54 Ohio, and 50 years living in Southern California, a hard-right Ronald Reagan type. Electronic Engineer BSEE University of California Berkeley, 1975, with 10 years experience for various high-tech electronic firms, Graduate Studies in Semiconductors at USC, and Patent Lawyer, JD, Western State University 1981, with 25 years of sole practice including litigation and patent prosecution, mostly high-tech satellite communication systems at federal research labs. Presently also engaged in setting up Web based gaming in Russia with a Russian wife and two wonderful little boys having dual residences in both Laguna Beach CA and Vladivostok Russia, and routinely privately writing to Bush and Putin on courses of action as interested in global affairs.

kathleen, I won't hold my breath. I think Colin Powell sold his soul to the devil a looooong ago -- during the Vietnam War and My Lai.

But, I do believe he does have the information to bring this cabal to its knees, if he decided to redeem himself. That was my point. Is he man enought to do it? Does he have any honor left?

Also, Kathleen...you should ask Carol to teach you to LINK. She's got the formula down to a gnat's ass -- she taught me how to do it with the simplest instructions I have EVER seen!

An Interview with Ann Wright
End the War and Impeach Bush

The Pentagon is slow to undertake any substantive studies on the effects of DU but uses the lack of studies to justify withholding compensation for the healthcare costs of returning veterans suffering the effects of exposure to DU.

Yeah, the U.S. military ought to go on strike! And I say that as a 29-year veteran of the military. The military ought to go on strike and demand that until appropriate studies are done we stop using that stuff. The people being injured are not only the civilians in the countries we go into but our own military.

Carol I promise I will try again. It is just when I get on I just read and read. I have tried and will again. If you have not noticed I am only posting just a bit of the article.

THIS IS FROM THE JORDAN TIMES..
Iranian suicide bombers warn US, UK against strike on nuke facilities

TEHRAN (Agencies) —†A gathering of Iranians who claim they are dedicated to becoming suicide bombers warned the United States and Britain on Saturday of attacks on coalition military bases in Iraq if there were a strike against Tehran's nuclear facilities.
"With more than 1,000 trained martyrdom-seekers, we are ready to attack the American and British sensitive points if they attack Iran's nuclear facilities," said Mohammad Ali Samadi, spokesman of Esteshadion (Martyrdom Seekers).

"We have registered more than 52,000 people who willingly are ready to defend their country." "If they strike, we have a lot of volunteers. Their [US and British] sensitive places are quiet close to Iranian borders," Samadi said after a gathering of about 200 students for a seminar on the suicide-bombing tactics at Tehran's Khajeh Nasir University.

Samadi reviewed the history of the suicide bombing as a weapon, praising it as the most effective Palestinian tactic in their confrontation with Israel.

The organisers also showed video clips of suicide attacks against Israelis, including one in the Morag settlement near Rafah in Gaza Strip in February 2005. One settler, three Israeli soldiers and the two attackers were killed in the attack.

Hasan Abbasi, the main speaker also praised suicide-bombers, but denounced attacks against "innocent people as Al Qaeda did in New York." Abbasi told the audience of potential martyrs that Iran was not seeking nuclear weapons as claimed by the United States and some of its allies. "Our martyrdom-seekers are our nuclear weapons," said Abbasi, a university instructor and former ranking in the elite Revolutionary Guards.

After his speech, about 50 students filled out membership applications.

"This is a unique opportunity for me to die for God, next to my brothers in Palestine. That was why I signed up," said Reza Haghshenas, 22, an electrical engineering student.

A 23-year-old woman student, Maryam Amereh, said: "We are trying to defend Islam. It's a way to draw the attention of others to our activities." But Rahim Hasanlu, a 22-year-old industrial management student, sipped his orange juice and declared himself not interested in joining. "I just attended to learn what they're saying, thats all." Esteshadion was formed in late 2004, calling for members on a sporadic basis at Friday prayer ceremonies, state-sponsored rallies and at the group's occasional meetings.

Those who join have three choices: To train for suicide attacks to defend Iran's national interests, for suicide attacks against Israel or the assassination of British author Salman Rushdie, who was sentenced to death by former Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini for his 1989 book, "Satanic Verses."

On Saturday, Iran said a reported proposal by the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog for the Islamic republic to be allowed to conduct small-scale uranium enrichment work was a "step forward."

Diplomats have said the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohammad Al Baradei, has warned in quiet diplomacy that it will be hard to strike a compromise in the mounting crisis unless Iran can conduct limited fuel work.

ElBaradei has reportedly said a deal could hinge on letting Iran operate a pilot enrichment plant while also giving guarantees not to conduct industrial-scale enrichment. "We regard this proposal as an indication of accepting enrichment in Iran and a step forward," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA.

"We have two main aims in nuclear negotiations: one is to clear some countries' concerns by giving the required guarantees about the peaceful nature of the Islamic Republic of Iran's nuclear activities, the second is to obtain Iran's legitimate rights which is having peaceful nuclear technology."

Thanks for being patient Carol...I promise I will try again and will not be posting any more tonight...just reading elsewhere.

Jeanne,

I fired up IE - no warning on mine - could be sercurity settings but try shutting down (power off) fire it back up to see if it is a temporary thing?

TH - Thanks! I think I remember Kucinich mentioned a peace dept. too.

CHRIS! Where have you been - making some beautiful music (I hope)

RE: Colin Powell The fact that he has let his friendship with Larry be damaged because Larry is willing to tell the unvarnished truth does not bode well for Colin ever being truthful. IMHO

capt

Sorry I lied....I am obsessed with this issue. Sure did not read about this in the main stream papers did anyone else?

February 18, 2006
Not Another No-End-in-Sight War

by Gordon Prather
Last week, Representative Ron Paul (R, TX) pleaded with the House to not pass the House Concurrent Resolution entitled "Condemning the Government of Iran for violating its international nuclear nonproliferation obligations and expressing support for efforts to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council":

"Those reading this bill may find themselves feeling a sense of deja vu. In many cases one can just substitute 'Iraq' for 'Iran' in this bill and we could be back in the pre-2003 run up to war with Iraq.

And the logic of this current push for war is much the same as was the logic used in the argument for war on Iraq.

the rest is at antiwar.com

THANKS JEANNE FOR LINKING THAT INTERVIEW WITH SCHEUER(SP?)

Click on my name

For more help linking drop me and email at:

CaptainKirk@Rock.com

I am willing to help anybody - and will provide some real world examples.

Careful of long lists of HTML tags only Bold Italics and Anchor will work on this blog.

You only need ask. I will help!

capt

capt

Butchers, bakers, barbers and blacksmiths - all are fair game in blood-soaked Baghdad

Marwan Rassam's restaurant is a Baghdad institution, famous for its pizzas and grilled meat sandwiches wrapped in flat ''saj'' bread.

Ordinary as that may seem, Rassam's diner was bombed last year by extremists who have broadened their targets beyond Americans, Iraqi police and troops to include bakers, cigarette vendors and even employees of a perfume boutique.

''I'm like any other Iraqi nowadays, feeling that I am vulnerable and can die at any moment,'' Rassam, a Christian, said Friday.

In the past two weeks, mechanics, blacksmiths, bakers and liquor dealers have been killed in drive-by shootings or roadside bombings.

Two brothers working in an exclusive cologne and perfume shop in south Baghdad's Maalif district were gunned down Friday inside the store. The killers left without taking anything, police said.

About an hour later, armed men attacked a nearby watch store. This time the staff was ready, grabbing guns from below the counter and chasing the assailants into the street.

They shot one dead, and U.S. soldiers sent in a robot to remove a grenade from the corpse.

Just why Iraqis with no clear ties to the U.S. military or Iraqi police are being killed or kidnapped in increasing numbers has become one of the most disturbing questions of the post-Saddam Hussein era.

In Rassam's case, perhaps the young couples sitting at outside tables enraged Islamic extremists. Or the diner could have been targeted by militants wanting to kill policemen who regularly eat there. Nobody knows for sure - except the bombers.

The 2004 bombing wounded several of Rassam's patrons but caused no deaths. A year later, someone planted a bomb at the front door when the restaurant was closed, causing damage but no injuries.

Many blame the government for not securing the country. Others blame the Americans for failing to ensure law and order after overthrowing Saddam's authoritarian regime in 2003.

Theories about the attacks abound, ranging from revenge for some past sleight, to extortion to the anti-Western sensibilities of Islamic extremists.

''Barbers are being killed for cutting people's beards and removing hair from men's faces,'' said Alaa Shakir Kamil, a 32-year-old barber shop owner in the eastern New Baghdad neighborhood. ''I stopped doing this and put a sign on my window saying I don't trim beards or remove facial hair.''

....So much attention is directed at the war against the insurgents that the police have little time to fight crime, he said.

''The government doesn't have time or resources to deal with the criminal side of the violence while it tries to also concentrate on terrorism,'' said al-Ani, an analyst for the Gulf Research Center. ''The targets are getting lower and lower. A year ago you could only kidnap the rich people. But now anyone is a target.''
-------------------
The war gets more bloody and more complicated.

#159 Th...so great of you to post the info about the Dept of Peace . Our friends Bev and John Titus who lost their dear daughter Alysia (she was a stewardess on one of the 9/11 hijacked planes) are part of these efforts.

They are remarkable people...they are co-founders of a group called SEPTEMBER ELEVENTH FAMILIES FOR PEACEFUL TOMORROWS.

The Sept 11th families marched at the front of the New York city protest in Feb. 2003.. against the invasion.

Rumsfeld Almost Moved To Tears Over Turning Over Iraqi Oil

Donald Rumsfeld: Are we gonna end up with something that we stand back and look at and say, 'Gee, that's a pretty picture?' No! It's gonna be an Iraqi picture! It's not gonna be an American picture! (Starts beating his fist on the table) But, it's gonna get done and, and, the idea of the alternative, of turning that country with that water, and that oil, over to terrorists, to Zarqawi type people that are out beheading people. (pause) I think that the thought of that is just fundementally unacceptable.

Comments: Fox went for the dramatic, not offering up any of the questions that the lawmakers had but giving Rumsfeld full reign over the issue. I wish you all could have seen it, when Rumsfeld was talking about "of turning that country with that water and that oil...", I swear he almost had tears in his eyes, the thought of letting go of that oil -- it was just too much for him.

SCIENTIFIC PROOF CHENEY'S SHOOTING STORY A LIE

Harry Whittington Shooting Ballistics Tested, Cheney shot at Whittington from 15 feet not 90 as claimed

SYNOPSIS OF VIDEO NEWS REPORT DOCUMENTING SHOOTING TEST
by Alex Jones

Below is a ten minute "see-for-yourself" report that conclusively shows that Vice President Dick Cheney's claims to Kennedy County Sheriff's Deputies in south Texas is a total fabrication.

A massive cover-up has been conducted concerning the shooting. We know that most of the facts that have been told to the public are manufactured frauds.

Cheney claims that he shot Whittington at 90 feet, ballistic tests from the spread of the shotgun pellets to their penetration depth is 100% conclusive.

Harry Whittington was shot at close range, between 15 and 18 feet, not the 90 claimed by Dick Cheney and the Secret Service. It is now clear why they refused to let Sheriff's Deputies interview Cheney for over 13 hours and why they claimed that Whittington's injuries were superficial when in truth they were grievous.

The mainstream media is ignoring this literal smoking gun evidence. Anytime they wish, the local police can conduct their own ballistics tests and they will have the exact same findings. The media can conduct their own tests. The ballistics of shotguns and birdshot is well known to tens of millions of Americans who hunt fowl.

We have now scientifically proved with an engineer and a police officer on-site conducting the test that the American people are being lied to and a cover-up is in progress.

*****end of clip*****

Not exactly news to those here that enjoy their guns. Anybody that is even a little familiar with shotguns or bird-shot knew the distance was very close.

Interesting just the same.

capt

derrick michael reid 179 -
did you actually say 'comprehensive view of the war on terror'? - that's classic man! very comprehensive of you! there truly must be a place for you in PNAC, just keep trying! - here, this pretty much sums up MY simple view of the war on terror::

War marketers understand fully that rationality and common sense vanish in the wake of introduced fear and hatred. Therefore, the use of fear and terror to condition the masses into believing that only through war can their lives be made safer will once again be used, conveniently attaching the illusion of George W. Bush as the one man that will insure their security. Over the next few weeks and perhaps even months, the propaganda used to vilify Iran will intensify, just as it was prior to the Iraq War. We will be forced to hear, repeatedly, the evils of the regime, the wicked intentions of the new president and the manufactured threat to our security. We will be told over and over again how Iran has been a pariah on the world stage, that they overthrew our puppet dictator a few decades back, held America's embassy hostage, support most of the world's terrorists, are a tyrannical regime, want to destroy Israel, are a clear and present danger to our national security and, if we are lucky, that they even harbor the bogeymen of the moment, Al-Qaeda.

and then there's this:: THERE IS NO WAR ON TERRORISM

reid, do us a favor :: tell your PNAC masters "NO THANK YOU!"

bring this cabal to its knees, if he decided to redeem himself.

You guys are so much fun, the CABAL, really?

I hate to break this to you corn nuts,

its called the

guess what .....

THE ADMINISTRATION

look it up!!

"to its knees" yeah, just like the dems did to bushie in Nov 04??? You guys are nuts.

ROFLMFAO!!!

To be honest, I dont even know at PNAC is.

Really,

I know what "Global Confluence" is as I have defined it, but then I am an independent thinker.

So, I dont even have a clue, what is PNAC,

is that a bird-flu off-shoot, and in pandemdic neurosis in the halls of cornville?

ROFLMAO!! Why dont you people get a reality check?

Here, let me help a little.

Not to worry, though,
its a freeby for psych-analysis.
I am here to help you all, find the light, or reason and moderation.

http://imcs.dvgu.ru/news/dmr/globalconfluence.html

Why dont you all just coward in your bed?

Oh, sorry, you already did that, in cornville.

#193
D. M. Reid doth protest too much me thinks.

Isn't one babbling idiot in the white house enough? Why do they cluster on this blog? Afraid or just have no where else to go? Damn, cornposters rock, the rest of these maggots don't deserve the bandwidth. GW is a delusional individual and unfortunately he is president, but the rest of his crowd only have a short period of time to do their worst then it will be over; or not. Time will process this all away also, nothing ever turns out like people plan, or think it will patience and watch the fireworks.

US joins the battle of Kabul

KABUL - On the face of it, all the elements of the Bonn Agreement have been accomplished in Afghanistan, in accordance with the blueprint that was hammered out following the ousting of the Taliban government in 2001.

The country has a new constitution, an elected president and parliament, a judiciary and all the other social, political and economic infrastructure.

Yet the situation is reminiscent of the early 1990s following the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the ousting of the communist government, when fractious mujahideen groups fought for power and virtually brought the country to its knees.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Everything new is old again!

capt

WTF,

Chapter and verse brother.

Telling like it is!

capt

I think the flame is a flickering on the neocons. The polls are down even in the red states. Cheney can't shake the shooting story. The only thing they really had going for them was "a cowboy" named Bush. Somebody the average guy could have a beer with. Then Cindy Sheehan happened. And then Katrina happened. Now he looks like nothing more than a scared drunk to the average American.

Everywhere I go I hear people talk about what they can't afford. The average American is in a world of hurt and eyes are beginning to turn in the direction of the White House and Congress. If the white house boys aren't shaking in their cowboy boots they should be because it's only going to get worse and people are realizing they have been had.

Firm Sues to Block Foreign Port Takeover

WASHINGTON - A company at the Port of Miami has sued to block the takeover of shipping operations there by a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates. It is the first American courtroom effort to capsize a $6.8 billion sale already embroiled in a national debate over security risks at six major U.S. ports affected by the deal.

The Miami subsidiary, Continental Stevedoring & Terminals Inc., said the sale to Dubai was prohibited under its partnership agreement with the British firm and "may endanger the national security of the United States." It asked a judge to block the takeover and said it does not believe the company, Florida or the U.S. government can ensure Dubai Ports World's compliance with American security rules.

.......The sale, already approved by the Bush administration, has drawn escalating criticism by lawmakers in Washington who maintain the United Arab Emirates is not consistent in its support of U.S. terrorism-fighting efforts. At least one Senate oversight hearing is planned for later this month.

The Port of Miami is among the nation's busiest. It is a hub for the nation's cruise ships, which carry more than 6 million passengers a year, and the seaport services more than 30 ocean carriers, which delivered more than 1 million cargo containers there last year.
---------------------
Generally court battles go on for years but since the Bush administration is involved it should be decided in about three weeks.

I am home in Austin and not feeling too well at all. I have hundreds of birdshot pellets still in me yet (that's "yet" as in "still," not as in an anatomical area).

Anyway, I wanted to tell you cornposters first that I was released from the Corpus Spohn hospital because they don't like high-profile patients dying on their watch! (You do know that "corpus" means "the body of a human or animal, especially when dead?! What an awful name for a hospital.) Spohn is pronounced "spawn" which is bad enough! Well, when they thought I was still unconscious, I heard them say, "We gotta get him out of here!" That kinda scared me.

Anyhoo, when that religious-nut Dr. Blanchard said, referring to me, "He's not 100%" that was a real understatement! I'm peeking at around 30%, which is not a good feeling.

Well, anyhoo, again. God! It's hard to think straight when I'm feeling so puny!

I hope ya'll will keep a good watch on the Austin American-Statesman and our society rag here in town, the West Austin News, and take note if ya'll see that I've taken a turn for the worse.

Dick Cheney made me make that ridiculous statement. You heard it here first.

I hope before I die, I learn how to hyperlink. I learned to hyperventilate last weekend.

Harry,
Who was that guy behind you at the news conference? He looked really friendly.

Nice call on the graymailing tactic, David.

Maybe Fitz should call their bluff and request that all PDBs going back to Jan. 2001 be made available. He could say that that's necessary to show the full scope of Libby's duties. Anything less would provide a skewed picture, he might contend. All or nothing.

Of course, the White House would freak at the thought that the true extent of Bush's pre-9/11 failings could become public, and that would put a quick end to Scooter's legal weaseling.

FIRST DOCTOR TO SEE WHITTINGTON AT HOSPITAL IN KINGSVILLE HAS NOT BEEN CONTACTED BY ANY INVESTIGATIVE AGENT OR LAW ENFORCEMENT PERSONNEL

Oh, by the way, if you every wonder about the "POWER" of this administration, their tentacles reach everywhere. I was told to be contrite and apologetic, so what's a man to do?

(I just learned to hyperlink!)

Now if we could just get to the gray-bar hotel(ing)!

My close-up photo at discharge

Dear Miss Jeanne:

That fellow you might be referring to is Peter Banko, the hospital administrator. Nope. He wasn't real friendly. In fact, he acted like my "minder."

Harry,
I heard you had a nice tan. That doesn't look like a tan to me.

And I meant friendly in a Hannibal Lecter sort of way. I thought I'd skirt around the issue in case he was related to you. People say mean things about my kids I get real nasty.

#178 That guy has three names and lots of credentials but no common sense, and bloodthirst.

Carol, I too have lashed out at trolls, sometimes they say something that is so outrageous that I can't help myself, but I really do try hard to ignore them, they simply aren't worth the effort, they are traitors after all.
Kathleen, any reference to OBL I take with a grain of salt. As you must know by now I put no faith in the theory of Arabs with boxcutters hijacking planes, nor AL-CIADA behind them. It is ridiculous and offers no proof. You must realize who gains by demonizing Arabs and Palestinians, and it sure as hell isn't OBL! Think about it.

Behind the White House's Billion-Dollar Propaganda Push

In two years, the Bush administration spent $1.6 billion to paint a prettier picture of its failing policies, even as it cut away the social safety net.

....A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress's research and auditing body, tracks more than 340 contracts negotiated between several government departments and PR, advertising and media firms from 2003 through the first part of 2005.

The study, requested by the House of Representatives Democratic leadership, found that from 2003 to mid-2005, the administration racked up some $1.4 billion in contracts with advertising agencies to broadcast positive messages about its policies and initiatives. Another $200 million went to public-relations companies, and $15 million were spent building connections with media outlets. Individual members of the press received a total of $100,000 in promotional contracts.

Seizing on the study's results as a chance to broach accountability issues in the administration, Representative Henry Waxman (D-California) said in a statement that the report showed the White House was spending taxpayer dollars on a self-serving "propaganda effort."
---------------
Not only is it a self serving "propaganda effort" but think about how many friends they can hand out money to. It's just another money making venture.

Has anyone seen the ads on TV with soldiers talking about how much reconstruction is going on in Iraq and how great the election was? It's gross. If you see the ad tell me who puts it out. It's something like 'Committee for voting ...something'. I want to know who this committee is.

Ted Rall Mulls Lawsuit Against Neocon Coulter

It appears editorial cartoonist Ted Rall may sue the loudmouth fascist Ann Coulter for a "provocative remark" she made last week. "Coulter reportedly said Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C.: "Iran is soliciting cartoons on the Holocaust. So far, only Ted Rall, Garry Trudeau, and The New York Times have made submissions'... Rall announced on his blog that he would look into taking legal action against Coulter if readers of his blog wanted him to—°nd if they pledged the $6,000 needed to draft and file a lawsuit in New York."

....Get used to it, Ted. I am called a Holocaust "deniar" on a regular basis-and I never write about the Holocaust-and an "anti-Semite" for criticizing Israel (even though the people who run Israel are not even Semites). One particular loathsome piece of human detritus in Israel is in the habit of making up countless lies about me (for instance, that I am connected to the Barnes Review, supposedly both a historical revisionist and Holocaust denial magazine). Ted may dislike being called an anti-Semite, but at least his wife's name was not hijacked (far as I know) and used to write obscene and slanderous comments on various message boards. Coulter's comment is nothing compared to having Betar fascists call you at work and threaten you.

It would be nice to raise the money to sue the people who continually stalk and harass me (one is enlisted in the U.S. military), in particular one violently insane blogger who urges his psychopathic friends to pay me (and others) a visit and execute me as a traitor. In order to do this, I'd have to ask people for money every day of the week.

Ted Rall should realize that he is on to something when people like Coulter call him a Holocaust "deniar." He should wear it as a badge of honor, since anybody with two brain cells to rub together would realize he is not a Nazi or Holocaust revisionist.
--------------
Wow!

Local group forms to support troops; Coalition to help connect military families

A national group that has organized rallies supporting U.S. troops and the Iraq war plans to announce today that it has formed a Minnesota chapter.

The local chapter, Minnesota Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission, says it will be a coalition of veterans, families of dead or wounded service members, businesses and nonprofit groups.

The aim is to support military families and "share the good news" about events in the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, the chapter's organizers say. The organizers said the gathering of military families is the first time they've all been able to come together. Organizers believe it is important to have the network available to share their stories.

The group is a project of Operation Iraqi Hope, an organization founded by Chuck Larson, an Army Reserve major from Iowa. Operation Iraqi Hope led an effort to collect school supplies for Iraqi children.

"Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission is a grass-roots coalition of Gold Star families (who've lost loves ones in the war) that works to support our troops and get the good news out about all that they've accomplished in Iraq and Afghanistan," Larson said.

Operation Iraqi Hope also has been involved in organizing counterprotests to such anti-war demonstrations as the one last September in Washington that featured Cindy Sheehan, the California woman who gained attention when she spent three weeks in August camped near President Bush's Texas ranch to protest her son's death in Iraq.

Minnesota Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission is to be headed by Merrilee Carlson of St. Paul. Her son, Army Sgt. Michael Carlson, died a year ago in Iraq.

The chapter's announcement will be at 11 a.m. at Landmark Center, 75 W. Fifth St., in downtown St. Paul. Larson will attend the event.

Video HERE (for download)

Families United (main group)

*****end of clip*****

I am looking for an interview I heard/read about those ads.

capt

Google rips Bush administration's search request

Google called the Bush administration's request for data on Web searches as ``so uninformed as to be nonsensical'' in papers filed in San Jose federal court Friday, arguing that turning over the information would expose its trade secrets and violate the privacy of its users.

The 21-page brief filed by the Mountain View search giant angrily dissected the government's claim that the search results would produce useful evidence regarding child pornography.

The Justice Department asked a federal judge to force Google to turn over the data last month, after Google refused to comply with an earlier subpoena. Government lawyers said the searches would help it defend the Child Online Protection Act, which was struck down as unconstitutional. The law is designed to keep children from sexually explicit material on the Internet.

The Justice Department has a week to submit a written response. A hearing is scheduled for March 13 in U.S. District Court in San Jose.

Google's struggle with the Justice Department has focused worldwide attention on the risk that Internet technologies will be used by governments for surveillance purposes -- and that the privacy of users could be compromised without their ever knowing it.

In justification of its demand of data from Google, the Justice Department revealed that it had requested -- and received -- similar data from Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL.

Google's resistance to the U.S. government has won the company praise from many of the people who use its service. At the same time, its stance toward the Justice Department subpoena has been contrasted with the company's recent decision to roll out a Chinese-language search service that complies with Chinese government censorship requirements.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

I hate that the government was already given data from other companies.

capt

POOP!

haha I just seen this on the open thread and C&L...

DRINKIN' and DRUGGIN' and WATCHIN' TV

If anyone met us, they'd surely agree
We're proper as any two people can be.
We're clean-cut, well-mannered,
Well-dressed and polite...
But, oh, if they'd see us at night
When we're drinkin' and druggin' and watchin' TV...
Eatin' cold pizza and drinkin' ice tea.
Just you and me and the devil makes three...
Drinkin' and druggin' and watchin' TV.

So you bring the chemicals, I bring the wine.
I fiddle with yours and you diddle with mine.
Then drunken and drugged, we fall back on our backs
Naturally performing unnatural acts
Such as drinkin' and druggin' and watchin' TV,
Eatin' cold pizza and drinkin' ice tea.
Just you and me and the devil makes three,
Drinkin' and druggin' and watchin' TV.

In the flickin' TV light we're goin' to hell...
Makin' love with the sound off to the P.T.L..
Jim Baker can see what you're doin' to me...
Drinkin' and druggin' and watchin' TV.
So stop drinkin' and druggin' and watchin' TV,
Eatin' cold pizza and drinkin' ice tea...
Livin' your life degenerately,
Drinkin' and druggin' and watchin' TV.

Total capitulation to special interest.

AGAIN. Do I alone see a pattern?????

Son got a call from the DNC, I said what do you want?, eventually it became clear that this would be..........more money.

I mentioned how money had already been sent, but that remarkably few members of congress seemed to stand up for the issues for which this money was sent. It was cathartic. And I honestly think this is the best we can expect from the (pork barrel) Democratic Party.

I watch votes.

It couldn't be clearer.

Lots of rhetoric. Few votes.

Democrats are being seriously LET DOWN BY THEIR PARTY.

We need to say so, Now, Loud and Clear.

And take a hint from Rove, repeat, repeat, repeat.

But if the Dem's want my bucks, let them bring forward a candidate that I think will do what needs to be done. This aint Hillary.

Could be Gore.

But the Democratic Party is on my ignore list.

They are regular Loosers.

We are a Nation in serious danger of forgoing Democracy for a false feeling of security.

Do we we Really want our major ports controled by Arab states?????????????

Are our borders not porous enough????

China controling both ports on the Panama Canal clearly worries nobody but me...........

Nero fiddled while Rome burned. I smell serious smoke.

Food for thought.

OUR MAN AT THE TOP, GEORGE W BUSH,

OUR BELOVED PRESIDENT!!!

OUR GREAT COMMANDER IN CHIEF!!!

OUR MORAL LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD!!!!,

as got Iran is a strategic box, through futuristic vision, difficult dimplomacy, and stick-to-it-ivenss so as to stragetically surround Iran from US friendlies Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and the US controlled Persian Gulf, with assets in place to deal Iran a punishing blow if it dont heel soon on the nuke issue with the UN referral due in March 06, whereas, Iranian's extremism has politically isolated Iran, without a significant true friend in the region, and without a friend willing to come to its aid, and has a tanking economy, and lact sufficient assets to adequately defend itself from the US juggernault.

I know you all love W has much as I do, with victory in Iraq near fata-complee as the Iraqis become more capable each day with resulting fewer US casualties, and now we are ready to pounce on Iran, the last nut to crack, in the comprehensive war on terror, if Iran dont give up on the atomic BOMB.

Victory in Iraq and Victory in Iran and Victory on the War on Terror is at hand.

Lets here it for W, hip hip hurrah!!!

DMR has been slacking on his meds.

titchaba, what difference does it make who's in charge of the ports? Look who was in charge of security on 9/11, and they are supposed to be ALLIES!

Jeanne, this may be the outfit you're referring to: PROGRESS FOR AMERICA. A typical bushevikian, Orwellian spin machine...looks like Minnesotans are being singled out for the TV onslaught of lies and propaganda

Troops back from Iraq being deployed on front lines of spin war

Politics: An Ad for the Iraq War

Starting this week, PFA will launch a reported $500,000 TV campaign in Minnesota aimed at boosting public opinion about the war on the eve of the 2006 elections. The 60-second spot features Iraq war veterans defending the U.S. presence in Iraq as crucial to winning the war on terror. "You'd never know it from the news reports, but our enemy in Iraq is Al Qaeda, the same terrorists who killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11," one vet says in the ad, which includes images of the Twin Towers, a bombed Madrid train and other terrorist attacks. Another vet cites the "real progress" in Iraq, telling viewers, "The media only reports the bad news."

KSTP TURNED DOWN THE ADS:

The reason that KSTP-TV management decided not to air the recent :60 commercial for Progress for America were the lines, “that the media only reports the bad news”, and “you would never know it from the news reports but the enemy in Iraq is al Qaeda.”
We are a major news operation in our market, as is our network, ABC. We looked at the copy very carefully and decided that it was not appropriate since news is what we provide in the communities we serve and the statements are not consistent with our product.
We would like the opportunity to run this particular ad on the station provided it did not include the two lines regarding news.

Slacking on Meds, not so,
any time I write a pro-bush hurrah, I immediately go to the seat of treason, cornville, and post my glorious words, while dying in laughter, yet hoping it might bring home some lost sheeple. I really do get a kick at sticking the rah-rah stuff and old glory in cornville.

It is you all who should be on meds, as I am sure the hole in the ground, where youre heads are at must be generating putrefaction brains, by now.

Saladin, that fella you mention is not "his own person" -- he is mentally ill and cannot help it that he has fallen victim to his captors.

A very, very sick person, indeed. He'd be laughable if it weren't for the fact of his illness.

TV ads about Iraq war causing controversy

Last week, when KARE 11 began running the ad, which is paid for by the "Progress for America Voter Fund," a number of viewers called the station to voice concerns.

"It was such a distorted, extreme point of view," said one viewer.

Another said, "It was run during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics last night. I think that was the worst possible taste you could have had."

Viewer anger has been directed at the ad, which features Minnesota veterans trying to build support for the war in Iraq.

The Progress for America Voter Fund spent more than $700,000, in the Twin Cities market, to get the ad on the air.

The fund is the same group that spent millions of dollars attacking John Kerry in the 2004 presidential campaign and has continued running ads promoting President Bush's policies and nominees.

In the latest ad, one of the lines most troubling to viewers is this one delivered by a Marine reservist from Woodbury:

"You'd never know it from the news reports, but our enemy in Iraq is al Qaeda," says Lt. Col. Bob Stephenson. "The same terrorists who killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11."

On Monday, Stephenson said the ad technically is accurate, because al Qaeda has been in Iraq since the U.S. invasion. In July 2004, the commission appointed by Congress to study 9/11 reported there was no link between the 9/11 attack and Saddam Hussein.

"I'd like to remind everybody that the ad does not claim that the U.S. went into Iraq looking for al Qaeda," he said....

As for KARE-11's position, general manager John Remes issued a statement saying, "The station neither agrees nor disagrees with the messages in advertising, but one of our responsibilities is to be an advocate for freedom of expression and to provide a marketplace of ideas."

The ad is scheduled to run through next Wednesday (on KARE-TV).

micki, I was serious about the meds comment! "Glorious bush?" Now, what does that remind me of?

Jeanne, this is the same outfit that spend brazillion dollars on TV ads hyping Samuel Alito as the greatest thing since sliced bread.

I know you were! "Glorious bush!??" Has that guy been fitted for his brownshirt?

Hi everyone. Question for y'all...

All the news sources say Whittington was shot on Saturday, and not made public until Sunday. But did you see that clip on Crooks&Liars of Harry reading his statement and he clearly says it was Friday. What do you guys make of that? Sorry if you've already been all over this topic in my absence.

yup, and the jackboots are on order, there's a backlog dontcha know!

The New American Police State

This is a great article on Nazi America and Paul Craig Roberts!!!

that than the cornvill motto,

corpus dilecti

One positive aspect about Nazi America being a dead nation is that her evil and vile ways may also die. Now that would be a positive side of a dead Nazi America. All I have left are dreams of my America of the by gone years.

Let us say a prayer for the dead Nazi America! May the dead Nazi America rest in peace!

Gerald, America will not die, it is simply being absorbed into the NWO. Soon all the world will be made up of two individual classes, that of the slave laborers and the powerful rich elite. We have been moving towards this end for decades.

Time Is Short

Dear Cornposters:

I truly believe that Nazi America is dead. Her demise started with Nixon and his divide and rule ideas. We have been living in a hateful state for nearly 40 years and there is no end in sight.

Let us say that we have another 20 years of hatred! That would mean about 60 years of hatred to overcome. That is three generations. It will require another three or four generations to heal and I am afraid that Nazi America does not have the time.

Time is short and time is precious. Nazi America does not have the time to properly heal. The hatred is so deep and widespread that the lesion is the size of an abyss and it can never heal.

Yes, Cornposters, Nazi America is a dead nation. As for me I will seek consolation in prayer and hopefully drawing myself closer to God's perfect love.

Sincerely,

Gerald

#235 Saladin, I believe that you are right regarding two individual classes - the slave class and the elite class.

For me I reall Jesus' words, "Come to me and I will give you comfort." All that is left for me in dead Nazi America is prayer.

FRONTLINE
http://www.pbs.org/frontline/

- This Week: "The Insurgency" (1 hour),
Tuesday, Feb. 21 at 9pm on PBS (check local listings)
- Inside FRONTLINE: Rare access to the enemy
- Live Discussion: Chat with producer Matt Haan Wed. Feb. 22 at 11 am ET

Anyone wanting to report on the insurgency in Iraq faces an obvious obstacle: it is very dangerous. FRONTLINE asked veteran producer Tom Roberts ("A Company of Soldiers") how he would go about it. As a matter of policy, we did not want Tom or co-producer Matt Haan and the team to try and meet the insurgents, but as Tom and Matt discovered when they went to Iraq, there are a small number of journalists who have interviewed some of the insurgent leaders. One of them in particular, Michael Ware, Baghdad bureau chief for Time magazine, has done some superb reporting on the insurgency. His access is rare. But there is more. Ware has his own personal videos, and he made some of his footage available to FRONTLINE.

In "The Insurgency," airing this Tuesday, you will meet Ware and see his footage for the first time. And, listening to the insurgents in their own words, you will get a sense of who they are - from the foot soldiers of Al Qaeda to the strategists directing the fight; you will meet an intrepid Iraqi photojournalist who has risked his life to report on the foreign fighters pouring into Iraq to give up their lives in the battles for Fallujah; and you will hear from officers in the U.S. Army who are seen in action against the insurgents and who give their perspective on the counterinsurgency battle.

Co-producer Matt Haan remembers a particular incident from their time in Iraq: "Filming was finished. We were traveling aboard a Blackhawk back to Baghdad to connect with our flight out when we heard that the Al Hamra Hotel had been hit by a car bomb. We had left the hotel - our main base during our time in Iraq - less than 48 hours before. We had been lucky."

We hope you will join us next Tuesday for "The Insurgency" and after, explore FRONTLINE's Web site for more about this war and analysis of the U.S. strategy and whether it can work. And, take the opportunity to watch our report again online and express your opinion about it at

http://www.pbs.org/frontline/insurgency/

Jesus said to three of His disciples the night before He would be crucified, "Come and pray with me." Yes, Jesus, I will pray with you. For Nazi America is dead and we are all about to die from hearts filled with hatred.

U.S. Church Alliance Denounces Iraq War

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil - A coalition of American churches sharply denounced the U.S.-led war in Iraq on Saturday, accusing Washington of "raining down terror" and apologizing to other nations for "the violence, degradation and poverty our nation has sown."

The statement, issued at the largest gathering of Christian churches in nearly a decade, also warned the United States was pushing the world toward environmental catastrophe with a "culture of consumption" and its refusal to back international accords seeking to battle global warming.

"We lament with special anguish the war in Iraq, launched in deception and violating global norms of justice and human rights," said the statement from representatives of the 34 U.S. members of World Council of Churches. "We mourn all who have died or been injured in this war. We acknowledge with shame abuses carried out in our name."

The World Council of Churches includes more than 350 mainstream Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox churches; the Roman Catholic Church is not a member. The U.S. groups in the WCC include the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Methodist Church, several Orthodox churches and Baptist denominations, among others.

The statement is part of widening religious pressure on the Bush administration, which still counts on the support of evangelical churches and other conservative denominations but is widely unpopular with liberal-minded Protestant congregations.

More Here

*****end of clip*****

My only question is: Where the heck were the voices of reason while the Kkkristo-fascists were busy electing Bunnypants in their Kkkristo-fascists churches[sic]?

capt

#238 capt, thank you for the Tuesday Frontline comment! I highlighted the time in the T.V. guide.

Insurgents made a grave mistake by kidnapping and killing the people. If they had kodnapped people and say their concerns and released the captives. The captives would be able to speak to the world as to what the insurgents were saying. The damage by the insurgents with kidnapping and killing cannot be repaired. A case in point was the kidnapping of a reporter whose name was Pearl. It is my understanding that Pearl was a fair and objective reporter. Releasing him with the insurgents' causes and concerns would have made great progress toward understanding. I know that Nazi America is evil and vile but I cannot side with kidnappers who kill their captives.

#240 capt, too little and too late! Time for denouncing war is before it starts and not after it has started. It has been nearly three years of senseless murders. I am disappointed that my Catholic Church is not a member of the world alliance.

Thank you Micki,
I am going to email KSTP right now and thank them for not running that ad. I saw it again this morning on KARE 11. It is disgusting. I'll write KARE 11 too and voice my objections.

John Paul II was very vocal about the Iraq war as wrong and immoral. In fact he was vocal before the war started and still Hitler Bush attacked Iraq and 54% Catholics voted for Hitler Bush in 2004.

This Iraq war really pisses me off!!!!!

No Bravery

DMR, Logan Act; Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both...........Your a lawyer, at least you pretend to be one on this blog. Time to write another letter to Mr. Putin?.......LAWBREAKER

Jeanne,

I am a little confued? The ads at 213 are not the right ones?

From what you posted the ads sound verbatim?

Are these more pro-war rosy picture ads in MN?

capt

Total Hatred

Dear Cornposters:

When you hear the song, No Bravery, take a close look at Bush's face that flashes throughout the song and you will see a face of total hatred toward human life.

http://nobravery.cf.huffingtonpost.com/

Sincerely,

Gerald

I watched Stefanopolis this AM, Katrina VDH, trying to hold her own against reich wing shills, Cokie Roberts and George Will. I had the distinct impression they were laughing at her comments, like they were better than she was....HACKS!

#247, I, too, am confused to the ads!

'The Americans are Breaking International Law

It is a Society Heading Towards Animal Farm'
- Archbishop Sentamu on Guantanamo

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, has launched a passionate attack on President George Bush, saying his administration's refusal to close the notorious Guantanamo Bay camp reflected "a society that is heading towards George Orwell's Animal Farm".

Dr Sentamu, the Church of England's second in command, urged the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) to take legal action against the US - through the US courts or the International Court of Justice at The Hague - should it fail to respond to a report, by five UN inspectors, advising that Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay should be shut immediately because prisoners there are being tortured.

The report was published on Thursday, as a senior High Court judge, Mr Justice Collins, stated that American actions over Guantanamo's Camp Delta do not "appear to coincide with that of most civilised nations". As a result of his ruling, three of eight British inmates held in the camp are to appeal to the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to intervene with the Bush administration on their behalf.

Archbishop Sentamu's comments will strengthen the increasingly insistent international pressure for Guantanamo to be closed. Archbishop Desmond Tutu called for its closure, after similar appeals by Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, and the UN secretary general Kofi Annan.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

It is never too late to do the right thing.

capt

Do you really believe Hitler Bush, an amoeba with no conscience and heart, really cares what an Archbishop of York says?

Israel to impose Hamas sanctions

Israel's cabinet has approved punitive sanctions on the Palestinian Authority, now dominated by militant group Hamas.

Israel will withhold an estimated $50m (?28m) in monthly customs revenues due to the PA, as well as impose travel restrictions on Hamas members.

Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the PA was becoming a "terrorist authority" and ruled out any contact with a Hamas-led government.

Israel would allow humanitarian aid to reach the Palestinians, Mr Olmert said.

The cabinet did not adopt harsher measures proposed by security officials, in apparent deference to US calls to avoid increasing hardships for ordinary Palestinians.

Mr Olmert said Israel was not prepared to work with a Palestinian Authority (PA) in the hands of Hamas.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

So, clearly democracy is not the answer if the democratic process elects the wrong candidates? (not on the USA approved list)

That is a pretty big caveat - maybe we should add that disclaimer in some fine unreadable print on our banners for spreading freedom and democracy.

capt

#252

No Busheney will not listen to anyone. I meant it was good to hear an Archbishop speaking frankly on the subject.

Poppy would not listen to Mother Teresa!

"Please choose the way of peace. ... In the short term there may be winners and losers in this war that we all dread. But that never can, nor never will justify the suffering, pain and loss of life your weapons will cause." ~ Mother Teresa (1910 - 1997), -- Letter to U.S. President George Bush and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, January 1991.

Dumbya only listens to the voices in his head, he thinks it is God speaking through him. He thinks his voices trump everything including reality. Thinking about stuff is too much hard work. Easier to believe - that way he does not conflict with reality (in his mind).

capt

Capt, here is an article to counter the psychotic-despotic leaders of Israel.

Israel does NOT represent all the Jews around the world. There are many peaceful and law abiding Jews who loudly and forcefully oppose the Zionist state of Israel and work towards peace with their Palestinian brothers and sisters.

NETUREI KARTA AROUND THE WORLD

Jews United Against Zionism

Congratulations and Well-Wishes to Hamas from Neturei Karta International, Diaspora
27 January 2006

With the help of the Almighty
Asaloom Aleikem

We are Neturei Karta International, representatives of the Torah abiding Jews throughout the world who stand true in their Torah observance and stand strong in their opposition to Zionism and the state of Israel.

As you may well know, we Torah Jews, have always stood in complete solidarity with the Palestinian people.

True to the precepts of the Torah, we have always acknowledged and accepted the Palestinian rule over the entire Palestine. Further, in accord with the Jewish teachings, whichever party and whichever system of government that the Palestinian people choose, was and is completely respected and accepted by us, the Jewish people.

Now, on the occasion of the recent elections that have taken place in Palestine, we join our brethren in Palestine, in humbly offering our blessings and congratulations to you leaders, followers, and supporters of the Hamas organization upon your success.

Torah true Jews have always been deeply pained by the suffering of the Palestinian people which has come about through the creation of the Zionist state, the state of Israel-the so-called Jewish state. This horrendous development is to the Torah Jews an unequaled tragedy and an extreme embarrassment, to say the least.

The subjugation, oppression and ultimate expulsion of a people in order to accomplish the goal of creating a state, only compounds the crime and sin, is expressly forbidden and is antithetical to all the concepts of Judaism.

The Zionists have ignored all the aforementioned. They, with brazen chutzpah rebelled against the Almighty and the laws of His Torah with the conception of the Zionist ideolegy and by creating and operating the state of Israel. They have expelled large numbers of Palestinian people and relentlessly and unremittingly subjugated and oppressed the remaining Palestinians and religious Jews throughout Palestine for nearly an entire century.

Therefore we declare our total opposition to Zionism and the state of Israel. We furthermore declare our total support and solidarity with you, the Palestinian people.

Leaders of Hamas, upon your elevation to the position of official representatives of the entire Palestinian people, we offer our blessing and a prayer to the Almighty:

MAY the Almighty guide you and bestow upon you His wisdom to enable you to lead the Palestinian nation according to His will.

MAY the Almighty unite the hearts of the Palestinian people to accept and embrace your leadership with love and good will.

MAY it be the will of the Almighty that we should merit to see the peaceful and speedy dismantlement of the Zionist entity - the state of Israel and the transformation of rule over the entire Holy Land, including of course Al-Quds, to its proper rulers, the Palestinian people. Then we can once again live according to the will of the Almighty, Arab and Jew as neighbors, as we have been doing for so many hundreds of years up until the inception of Zionism.

ULTIMATELY, MAY it be the will of the Almighty that the entire world merit in the near future, to behold the revelation of His glory, when all mankind will serve Him in joy and harmony, AMEN.

Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss
Neturei Karta International, USA

Rabbi Ahron Cohen
Neturei Karta, UK
---------
I say AMEN as well. Thank God for these voices of reason.

Do we have any Nazi Americans left who will talk to Jesus? Is it so difficult to talk to Jesus?

Russia Warns U.S. Against Striking Iran

Israel's cabinet has approved punitive sanctions on the Palestinian Authority, now dominated by militant group Hamas.

Russia's top military chief on Thursday warned the United States against launching a military strike against Iran and a top diplomat voiced hope that close cooperation with China could help resolve the Tehran nuclear crisis.

With tension mounting over Iran's nuclear programs, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the chief of Russia's general staff, warned the United States against attacking Iran.

"A military scenario can't be ruled out," Baluyevsky was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

He said that while Iran's military potential cannot compare to the United States', "it is hard to predict how the Muslim world will respond to the use of force against Iran."

"This may stir the whole world, and it is crucial to prevent anything like that," Baluyevsky was quoted as saying.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

I hope someone is listening to the Russians.

capt

#252 should have read does anyone believe and not do you believe.

Teresa Whitehurst

Saladin,

Great piece!

I am convinced most people want peace.

"I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it." ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

Thanks

capt

As I was reading Teresa Whitehurst's article, I have come to realize that both Nazi America is dead but so is Christianity in Nazi America.

May Christianity in Nazi America rest in peace!!!!!

idiot alert!

"fata-complee"

Jacobellis remains positive after fall

A day after her flop heard round the world, Lindsey Jacobellis maintained a positive outlook and a firm resolve to not let infamy swallow her.

The Stratton, Vt., snowboarder made history Friday by becoming the first Olympic women's silver medalist in snowboardcross.

*****end of clip*****

Congratulations on the medal! The USA is proud to have such a fine example represent our nation.

Cheers!

capt

#247
Capt,
Those are the ads. It drives me insane when I hear about Iraq somehow being involved with al Qaeda. They may be now but they weren't when the war started. The ad makes it sound like everything is going great over there. They use family of fallen soldiers to make me feel guilty about not supporting the war and their children who have died. It's just gross.
Thanks for posting the ads.

Another thing that bothers me about the ads is that they have the ability to create a very negative outcome. There is a strong right wing element in this state that has captured people's emotions by using agendas such as gay marriage and abortion. They have been able to swing voters to their side with those issues. It has also made for strong divisions in the political and legislative arenas. The right wing has begun to lose their steam so what do they do? Put out ads like the ones you posted. Its propaganda as you've seen. They play with people who are not very political making those people feel terrible about not supporting the families of fallen soldiers. It's gross. I don't think it is going to work anymore. Empty pockets don't make the grade.

Jeanne,

I am sure (all but positive) these are Pentagon psy-ops.

capt

Micki posted this earlier. I am posting it again. Get ready folks. This is coming to a TV near you.

Troops back from Iraq being deployed on front lines of spin war

Nick Coleman, Star Tribune

Evidence of a menacing increase in insurgent attacks on American troops in Iraq was declassified and presented to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, D.C., last week. The news was grim: There were 2,500 insurgent attacks in December, and although there are peaks and valleys in the numbers, each peak is said to be higher than the peak before.
But for those devoted to political spin more than truth, there was a positive development in the war, a development which, oddly, took place on TV sets in Minnesota.

A commercial featuring veterans of the war in Iraq began airing here, telling viewers that the war in Iraq is against the terrorists of 9/11 and that it is going swimmingly.

These are dubious assertions, given that the war was billed as a war against Saddam Hussein and that it had cost the lives of 2,267 Americans as of Friday (almost 1,800 since the president said the mission was accomplished).

But more curious than the dubious assertions is the agenda of this big-bucks ad campaign: Who is paying for this pro-war propaganda?

News reports identified the sponsor as "the conservative Progress for America Voter Fund," but that barely scratches the surface. Progress for America is a campaign front for President Bush, meaning we have reached the point when the money men for a president who no longer faces election keep spending on spin to try to shore up support for a mistaken elective war.

According to the Center for Media & Democracy, Progress for America and its voter fund raised $38 million for the 2004 Bush campaign. Its first chairman, according to the Washington Post, was Ken Adelman, who was the Bush 2004 campaign director. It also used the services of Ben Ginsberg, who quit the Bush campaign after it was learned he had given legal counsel to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the attack group that smeared Sen. John Kerry in 2004.

Fellow Americans, the Swift Boating of Iraq has begun.

"This is a political organization that is using troops for a political agenda," says Paul Rieckhoff, founder and executive director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). "These ads are trying to prop up the president's flagging agenda. That seems like a cheap trick. It's the same kind of thing he does when he keeps goes around giving speeches in front of the troops."

His group, formerly known as Operation Truth (ex-Gov. Jesse Ventura is on the board of advisers), is a nonpartisan organization that supports the military while "empowering" veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars "to use their credibility and experiences to speak truth to power."

To Rieckhoff, a combat platoon leader in Iraq, these ads do not speak the soldiers' truth.

"The troops do not overwhelmingly support the president in Iraq," says Rieckhoff, who notes that polls show the troops' approval sinking to the low 50 percent range. "And the CIA said there is no link between 9/11 and Iraq. They still say that.

"So this ad is simply not true."

Be warned: Despite the patriotic music, the flags and the burning Twin Towers, these ads aimed at Minnesota's heartstrings are not about supporting the troops. They are just a desperate attempt to salvage support for an unpopular president's reckless war.

Jeanne, what little I watch of TV will prevent me from being annoyed with those idiotic commercials, I ALWAYS mute them! Plus, whenever they show images from 9/11 I am reminded of the treacherous nature of our govt. and what they are willing to do to gain absolute power. They are the epitome of evil.

any gardeners out there? any lawn care enthusiasts? boy have they ever got a new product for you!
The Amazing Penta-Lawn!

I just watched a MTP segment with Mary Matlin, David Gregory and Maureen Dowd. (Crooks and Liars) The white house is clueless. The whole segment was about how liberal the press is and how they beat up on Cheney. The press didn't make all the bad judgments involved with this shooting. There were questions that weren't being answered as par for the course and the press looked for answers.

This is the same administration that royally screwed up Katrina. This is the same white house who keep trying to make Iraq war look like it's progressing forward in a positive way. Matlin talked about the American people being concerened about what the president is doing for them. Well....what is he doing for us?

James, that Penta-Lawn ad is freakin HI-LAR-IOUS!
Sign me up!

James, that Penta-Lawn ad is freakin HI-LAR-IOUS!
Sign me up!

whoops, sorry 'bout that!

Would Penta-Lawn on the sides of the Twin Towers have helped to keep the towers from collapsing?

Brilliant

Dear Cornposters:

I must admit that the Nazi Party is brilliant. When the news is bad about the Bush and his Nazi Party, they go into their attack mode. They attack the Democrats on everything in order to keep the focus off the idiots, imbeciles, and morons who make up the Nazi Party.

Of course it helps to have the six giant media corporations on your side. These corporations are the Nazi Party's bed partners. I wonder what games they play in bed?

Sincerely,

Gerald

For those of you who thought you'd been screwed every which way possible, here's one you may not be ready for.

Alternative minimum tax hovers over millions

Roughly 3.5 million individuals and families will need to pay up

WASHINGTON - They may not know it, but millions of taxpayers could be at risk this year of owing the alternative minimum tax.

Roughly 3.5 million individuals and families filling out their 2005 tax returns or visiting their accountants this spring will discover they owe the tax. It was originally imposed to make sure that the wealthiest couldn’¥ use tax breaks or deductions to eliminate their entire tax liability.

But inflation and recent tax cuts push more and more taxpayers into the grasp of the alternative minimum tax each year. Lawmakers had blunted the tax’≥ effect on upper- and middle-income families in previous years, but ran out of time to keep the fix in place this year. Those laws expired at the end of 2005. This year, more than 15 million additional taxpayers could get tipped into the tax’≥ reach unless Congress acts first.

Although it’≥ expected that lawmakers will act to retroactively stop the tax from hitting millions more individuals and families, taxpayers and their financial advisers start the year in a cloud of uncertainty.
-----------------

"The form of law which I propose would be as follows: In a state which is desirous of being saved from the greatest of all plagues -- not faction, but rather distraction -- there should exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty nor, again, excessive wealth, for both are productive of great evil . . . Now the legislator should determine what is to be the limit of poverty or of wealth.": Plato (427-347 B.C.):

=
"The greatest country, the richest country, is not that which has the most capitalists, monopolists, immense grabbings, vast fortunes, with its sad, sad soil of extreme, degrading, damning poverty, but the land in which there are the most homesteads, freeholds-where wealth does not show such contrasts high and low, where all men have enough-a modest living-and no man is made possessor beyond the sane and beautiful necessities.": Walt Whitman (1819-1892):

=
"A State divided into a small number of rich and a large number of poor will always develop a government manipulated by the rich to protect the amenities represented by their property.": Harold Laski (1930):

=
"Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. "In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people. "The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war. and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." : James Madison, April 20, 1795

===
Thanks ICH Newsletter!

UK radiation jump blamed on Iraq shells

RADIATION detectors in Britain recorded a fourfold increase in uranium levels in the atmosphere after the "shock and awe" bombing campaign against Iraq, according to a report.
Environmental scientists who uncovered the figures through freedom of information laws say it is evidence that depleted uranium from the shells was carried by wind currents to Britain.

Government officials, however, say the sharp rise in uranium detected by radiation monitors in Berkshire was a coincidence and probably came from local sources.

The results from testing stations at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in Aldermaston and four other stations within a 10-mile radius were obtained by Chris Busby, of Liverpool University’s department of human anatomy and cell biology.

Each detector recorded a significant rise in uranium levels during the Gulf war bombing campaign in March 2003. The reading from a park in Reading was high enough for the Environment Agency to be alerted.

Busby, who has advised the government on radiation and is a founder of Green Audit, the environmental consultancy, believes "uranium aerosols" from Iraq were widely dispersed in the atmosphere and blown across Europe.

"This research shows that rather than remaining near the target as claimed by the military, depleted uranium weapons contaminate both locals and whole populations hundreds to thousands of miles away," he said.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Sure, the government says it is from local sources? What, too many smoke-detectors?

Radiation causes disease and birth defects and is a deadly poison. The gift that keeps on giving for a 25,000 year half-life.

capt

NCC urges U.S. to heed U.N. recommendations
to close Guantanamo prison, expedite trials

National Council of Churches has "emphatically supported" a United Nations report released yesterday that calls upon the United States to close its Guantanamo detention facility "without further delay." The report of the U.N. also recommended that the U.S. government either bring detainees to trial or "release them without further delay." FaithfulAmerica.org, the online advocacy service, is circulating a sign-on letter from NCC's Bob Edgar to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. You are invited to add your name to the 11,000 who have signed it so far.

Here's the petition link.

Who Would Jesus Bomb

#280
I meant torture. Who would Jesus torture?

What It Means To Be A Republican

The vice president shoots you in the heart and in the face. Then you apologize for all the trouble it’s caused him. That’s what it means to be a Republican.

Despite almost hysterical warnings the president stays asleep at the wheel. He does nothing about terrorism and 9/11 happens. He responds by running away to Nebraska. Three days later he makes a supposedly impromptu speech with a bull horn on the rubble of the World Trade Center. He is universally cheered as a hero. That’s what it means to be a Republican. The president puts together false claims to go to war with the wrong country. His party universally supports him. That’s what it means to be a Republican.

The administration mismanages the war in Iraq so that it creates chaos, a breeding ground for terrorists and political opportunities for Islamic fundamentalists. Along the way, the reasons for going to war are exposed as false. The president runs on national security as his main issue. He is re-elected. That’s what it means to be a Republican.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Sad but true. One must first remove their brains to become a loyal republican.

capt

My Statement -- I sure DID say "last Friday" didn't I?"

Dear Miss ChiGirl and Miss Jeanne:

Yes, I did say "last Friday" didn't I? Sometimes when a person has been sedated, he can be a little loopy for a spell but I remember the incident as "last Friday" and said so. No one has corrected me, not even that little maniacal-looking feller over my shoulder. I think Mr. Vice President and Lady MacCheney (aka Mary Matalin) want it to STAY that way, too. You know, hush, hush. As you can see by this videotape referenced above, I seem to be pretty accurate, don't I?

Somebody better be sure to keep a copy of this videotape before it's scrubbed from the Internet.

Perhaps someone should get in touch with that doctor in Kingsville. He might be in a mood to discuss a few things if an enterprising reporter took a few minutes.

#280

Signed and done!

Thanks!

capt

My Statement -- I sure DID say "last Friday" didn't I?"

Dear Miss ChiGirl and Miss Jeanne:

Yes, I did say "last Friday" didn't I? Sometimes when a person has been sedated, he can be a little loopy for a spell but I remember the incident as "last Friday" and said so. No one has corrected me, not even that little maniacal-looking feller over my shoulder. I think Mr. Vice President and Lady MacCheney (aka Mary Matalin) want it to STAY that way, too. You know, hush, hush. As you can see by this videotape referenced above, I seem to be pretty accurate, don't I?

Somebody better be sure to keep a copy of this videotape before it's scrubbed from the Internet.

"Who would Jesus torture?"

I cannot help but think Jesus might have a case for torturing the torturers. Not that he would, but maybe to scare them a little? Like tell them he was going to waterboard them. The look on the torturers faces would be a classic!

Assuming Jesus has not completely lost his sense of humor.

capt

I cannot wait until God tells Bunnypants that those voices were never him. Bunnypants will get that sour puss/just ate a lemon look!

CLASSIC!

capt

Capt, bush will tell God that he is a looney lefty liberal! Then promptly send him to gitmo!

Gerald, Pentalawn 2000 could have saved the WTC's as it is completely jet fuel impervious! On the other hand, if you want a 100+ story building to completely disintegrate into concrete dust and perfectly cut girders nothing beats kerosene! Your building will be down in less than 1 hour, and ready to ship to Asian recylers in a snap!

only in the new american century could bushco claim that 19 arabs were responsible for a new pearl harbor and then turn around and sell the operation of 6 east coast ports to an arab company for 6 billion dollars.

Harry,
The story just gets more confusing all the time.
Right side, left side, straight on. Friday, Saturday, 18 hours.
It probably would have helped if they filled you in on all the details of the "story". Then everyone would have been on the same page.

Dear Miss Jeanne:

You see, I have four daughters and six grandchildren and a wife of 56 years (I think that's right; well it's close enough; maybe 55 years, maybe 57, but damned close to 56 years) and I am a Texan who has had some "benefits" from being connected in the Lone Star State. I believe in the rule of law. I am a lawyer. I also believe in protecting my family from undue "complications." I sure do wish others would help me out on this story, don't you?

Maybe one of the employees on Miss Armstrong's ranch will recall the "timeline."

I don't like the death penalty. I don't like executing folks with the mental capacity of a five- or six-year old. There's a whole lot I don't like about what's going on in this beautiful country of ours. I think perhaps I've made some of my country club Republican friends a little angry.

I sure don't want this story to be all about me, but I sure do wish it would be all about truth in government.

Thanks for listening, Miss Jeanne.

CALLING ALL ACTIVISTS!

Dear capt,

Please join us live online tomorrow morning (Monday, February 20), at 11 a.m. ET, for a national town hall discussion on spying, secrecy and presidential power.

View the live webcast from George Washington University, where I will be joined by moderator Marvin Kalb, a panel of distinguished guests and a live audience to discuss the controversy over illegal NSA spying on Americans.

Tomorrow at 11 AM ET/8 AM PT, go to:
www.aclu.org/presidentialpower

Join the nationwide online audience and submit your own questions for the panel. Help us break through White House misinformation and learn the truth about spying, secrecy, the Constitution and violations of federal law.

The event will be moderated by Marvin Kalb, Senior Fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy and Faculty Chair for the Kennedy School's Washington programs. Introductory remarks and closing will be given by Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU's Washington Legislative Office.

Panelists will include former White House counsel John W. Dean, Harvard Professor Laurence H. Tribe, Jim Harper of the CATO Institute and Mary DeRosa of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Please also sign our online Demand the Truth petition and join the call for real answers from the Bush Administration about illegal spying on Americans.

Make sure to join us live tomorrow and submit your own questions and comments about the president's program of illegal NSA surveillance, secrecy and our constitutional freedoms.

I look forward to your participation in this important event. It is not to be missed. I hope you can join us.

Sincerely,

Anthony D. Romero
Executive Director
American Civil Liberties Union

Harry,
I have always thought of you as a very decent fellow. You're a Texan the way I used to think of Texans. You're a man with real grit. You have character. You care about your fellow man. You are the type of person who gives others the courage to do the right thing.

I hope the real story gets told. You shouldn't be forced to live behind lies.

Congressman says US should freeze Dubai port deal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration has failed to put adequate security conditions on a deal for a state-owned Dubai company to manage major U.S. ports, and it should not go forward pending a full investigation, a key Republican congressman said on Sunday.

Lawmakers from both parties joined in criticizing the deal, and one called the administration "tone deaf" for approving it.

Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, said that before the administration approved the sale of British firm P&O, which manages six U.S. ports, to Dubai Ports World of the United Arab Emirates, it failed to determine whether the company could be trusted.

"The administration should freeze the contract ... until a full and thorough investigation is carried out," King told Reuters.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, defending the deal, said the administration approved it after a classified review and included provisions to protect national security.

"You can be assured that before a deal is approved we put safeguards in place, assurances in place, that make everybody comfortable that we are where we need to be from a national security viewpoint," Chertoff said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Okay, I am a giant cynic but I predict this misadministration will be in a major hurry to close the deal. My dark vision is these slugs blaming the UAE for an attack. Conventional or nuclear would not really make a difference. Even a small incident would pave the way for a major overreaction.

As always I hope and pray I am 100% wrong, not even a one-one millionth right.

capt

harry - the man shot you in the damn face for god's sake! - and the mcmedia sez that you apologized to him - just to be fair, maybe you should apologize to him for his role in 911 as well! - maybe tell him that you're sorry on behalf of all of us that his little war games involving highjacked planes were somehow taking place at the same time as the actual highjackings, confusing the air defenses into doing nothing! - better yet, please extend to him our deepest apologies that photos taken immediately after flight77 struck the pentagon reveal that there was no 757 there at all, and a search of the flight records show that in fact, flight77 never even left the ground! - can you please do that harry? apologize to dick cheney for that, will you?

Mayhem in counting terrorism

By Larry Johnson

Simply amazing; the Bush Adminstration still has not figured out how to accurately count terrorist incidents. I know some readers of this blog will be tempted to dismiss my statement as just another diatribe from a knee-jerk Bush hater. I do not hate Bush and still consider myself a political conservative. What I do not understand is, if terrorism is the biggest threat we face, why we cannot make a commitment to accurately monitor terrorist activity around the world?

Before plunging into the statistical mess created by the Bush Administration let me offer this disclaimer-- statistics alone do not fully inform us about the threat of terrorism. Statistics do not predict future behavior/ activity. However, terrorism statistics, if properly used, can provide us some indication of the scope and scale of the threat. Statistics can also pinpoint where the attacks are taking place and who is responsible for those attacks. Knowing who and where the activities are occurring should guide our policy and our resource allocation. If most of the terrorist attacks are taking place in Iraq and none have occurred in Latin America shouldn't our resources and attention be focused on Iraq? Logic says yes.

So, welcome to the world of terrorist statistical chaos.

This chart which is derived from the U.S. Government's statistics, clearly shows that not only has the number of terrorist attacks soared since we invaded Iraq in 2003, but that the number of Significant Incidents haa quintupled. If that constitutes "winning the war on terrorism" or a record of success then we have entered an Orwellian world in which up is down and black is white.

Zelikow and Brennan also reported that 1907 people died from terrorist attacks in 2004 (the second highest number ever recorded since the CIA started collecting statistics back in 1968) and 6704 were wounded. So far so good.

Another chart
2004 was worse than claimed.

And yet another chart saying something totally different.

As a taxpayer I would like to have the money spent to monitor and combat terrorism used in a coordinated fashion. Let's call it, "collecting the dots we want to connect"

...What happened to the terrorist trend in 2005? Terrorism got worse. How much worse is unclear. Instead of the "651" attacks in which people were killed, wounded or kidnapped in 2004, there were at least 953 attacks (according to the MIPT database) in which people were killed, wounded, or kidnapped. It is time for Congress to insist that the Administration provide timely and accurate information on terrorism. Since the Bush Administration cannot perform that simple task is it any wonder they have been unable to find Osama Bin Laden or his right hand man, Ayman Zwahiri?

Bin Laden compares US "barbaric" acts to Saddam's

DUBAI (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden accused U.S. forces of "barbaric" acts in Iraq comparable to those committed by Saddam Hussein, according to an audio tape first broadcast in January and posted on the Internet in full on Monday.

"The (U.S.) criminality has gone as far as raping women and holding them hostage before their husbands ... as for the torture of men it has now come to the use of burning chemical acids and electric drills in their joints," he said in the tape posted with an English-language voice over.

"Despite all these barbaric methods ... the mujahideen are strengthening and increasing by the grace of Allah," he said.

The tape, whose authenticity could not be verified, was posted on the Internet by the al Qaeda media group al-Sahab.

In January, the Qatar-based Al Jazeera television aired parts of the tape, in which bin Laden said al Qaeda was preparing further attacks in the United States.

U.S. intelligence analysts then authenticated the tape as a message from bin Laden. It was the first bin Laden tape since 2004.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Not that I think the CIA would tell the truth if it was Bin Laden but notice the dateline is DUBAI UAE?

Homer J Simpson says: "Coincidence doesn't just happen"

capt

Conservative Nonsense in the War on Drugs

Conservatives never cease to fascinate me, given their professed devotion to "freedom, free enterprise, and limited government" and their ardent support of policies that violate that principle. One of the most prominent examples is the drug war. In fact, if you’≤e ever wondering whether a person is a conservative or a libertarian, a good litmus-test question is, How do you feel about the war on drugs? The conservative will respond, "Even though I believe in freedom, free enterprise, and limited government, we’∂e got to continue waging the war on drugs." The libertarian will respond, "End it. It is an immoral and destructive violation of the principles of freedom, free enterprise, and limited government."

The most recent example of conservative drug-war nonsense is an article entitled "Winning the Drug War," by Jonathan V. Last in the current issue of The Weekly Standard, one of the premier conservative publications in the country. In his article, Last cites statistics showing that drug usage among certain groups of Americans has diminished and that supplies of certain drugs have decreased. He says that all this is evidence that the war on drugs is finally succeeding and that we just need to keep waging it for some indeterminate time into the future, when presumably U.S. officials will finally be able to declare "victory."

Of course, we’∂e heard this type of "positive" drug-war nonsense for the past several decades, at least since Richard Nixon declared war on drugs back in the 1970s. What conservatives never tell us is how final "victory" will ultimately be measured. Like all other drug warriors for the past several decades, Last doesn’¥ say, "The statistics are so good that the drug war has now been won and therefore we can now end it," but rather, "Victory is right around the corner. The statistics are getting better. Let’≥ keep going."

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

I am reminded that Clinton had those presidential "unitary" powers because we were in the drug war the whole time?

Just sayin’ä

capt

Senior Lawyer at Pentagon Broke Ranks on Detainees

One of the Pentagon's top civilian lawyers repeatedly challenged the Bush administration's policy on the coercive interrogation of terror suspects, arguing that such practices violated the law, verged on torture and could ultimately expose senior officials to prosecution, a newly disclosed document shows.

The lawyer, Alberto J. Mora, a Republican appointee who retired last month after more than four years as general counsel of the Navy, was one of many dissenters inside the Pentagon. Senior uniformed lawyers in all the military services also objected sharply to the interrogation policy, according to internal documents declassified last year.

But Mr. Mora's campaign against what he viewed as an official policy of cruel treatment, detailed in a memorandum he wrote in July 2004 and recounted in an article in the Feb. 27 issue of The New Yorker magazine, made public yesterday, underscored again how contrary views were often brushed aside in administration debates on the subject.

Confirmed: UK Accepted US Torture Planes

Via The Independent:

CIA jets suspected of flying terrorist suspects to secret prisons for torture have landed at commercial British airports and received help from UK air traffic control, the authorities have admitted for the first time.

National Air Traffic Services (Nats) confirmed that three planes with CIA tail numbers have travelled through Britain "on a number of occasions".

MPs last night seized on the letter as the first formal acknowledgement that British authorities were aware that CIA flights associated with "extraordinary rendition" have travelled through UK airspace.

So much for all of those denials when you said that you didn't help your buddy Bush send people to be tortured, hey Tony Blair?

It said the flights may also have used airspace controlled by the Ministry of Defence. Defence ministers have been criticised for refusing to answer questions put down by Sir Menzies about how often the CIA jets have landed at military air bases. Defence minister Adam Ingram said "the information is not recorded centrally".
======================
check out that link at the bottom about "qveillance"... a company using a spyder-bot to spy on web site's.

Facing Pressure, White House Seeks Approval for Spying

Check out this graf...

But two days before Mr. Bush spoke, the White House opened the door to talks in the hope of avoiding a full-scale Congressional investigation. According to lawmakers involved in the discussions, a number of senior officials, including Harriet E. Miers, the White House counsel, and Andrew H. Card Jr., the chief of staff, began contacting members of the Senate to determine what it would take to derail the investigation.

more on Mora at the WaPo...

Navy Counsel Issued Warning On Torture

The Navy's general counsel warned Pentagon officials two years before the Abu Ghraib prison scandal that circumventing international agreements on torture and detainees' treatment would invite abuse, according to a published report.

Legal theories granting the president the right to authorize abuse despite the Geneva Conventions were unlawful, dangerous and erroneous, then-General Counsel Alberto J. Mora advised officials in a secret memo. The 22-page document was obtained by the New Yorker for an article in its Feb. 27 issue.

A Pentagon spokeswoman said yesterday that she had not read the magazine article.

The July 7, 2004, memo recounted Mora's 2 1/2 -year effort to halt a policy that he feared would authorize cruelty toward terrorism suspects.

It also indicates that some lawyers in the Justice and Defense departments objected to the legal course the administration undertook, according to the report.

Mora said Navy intelligence officers reported in 2002 that military-intelligence interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were engaging in escalating levels of physical and psychological abuse rumored to have been authorized at a high level in Washington.

"I was appalled by the whole thing," Mora told the magazine. "It was clearly abusive and it was clearly contrary to everything we were ever taught about American values."

Mora said he thought his concerns were being addressed by a special group set up by the Pentagon. But he discovered in January 2003 that a Justice Department opinion had negated his arguments with what he described as "an extreme and virtually unlimited theory of the extent of the president's commander in chief authority."

When the first pictures from the Iraqi prison Abu Ghraib appeared in the press in spring 2004, Mora said, he felt stunned and dismayed that what he had warned against had taken place, and in a different setting than Guantanamo Bay.

Mora retired this year and now is a general counsel for Wal-Mart.

A U.N. report issued last week called for the United States to close its prison at Guantanamo Bay. In response, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld rejected accusations of torture or abuse and said the detention facility is well-run.

hahaha from Billmon...

I knew Cheney had heart attacks, but I never realized he was a carrier.

There's a funny picture of Chain-ee as Smoky the Bear..."Only YOU can prevent lawyers"

Niger Uranium Rumors Wouldn't Die

But the CIA soon concluded that a French-run consortium maintained strict control over stockpiles of uranium ore in Niger, a former French colony, and that none had been illegally diverted.

"Everything was accounted for," the former spy said. "Case closed."

Hardly.
=========================
The lie that wouldn't die. Every time it was shot down, more 'reports' would come in. You know, repeat repeat repeat... like they were determined to make this stick.

Presidents' Day musings

Today is Presidents' Day, a combined holiday for Washington and Lincoln's birthdays and, in reality, more of an excuse for retailers to separate consumers from their money.

Presidents' Day gives Congress another excuse to take the week off. Working stiffs, if they are lucky, get this Monday as a holiday. The pukes who roam the halls of Congress and anoint themselves with the unearned title "The Honorable" take all week off. It's a mixed blessing since we are mostly better off is these clowns aren't around to pass any more rights-robbing legislation.

But since we are here to honor two past Presidents, let's wonder for a moment just what Washington, Lincoln and others would think of the American system of "government" as it exists today.

"Government is not reason and it is not eloquence," Washington said. "It is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."

"Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it," Lincoln wrote.

Since it is our present government that is denying freedom to others and serving as a fearful master, both Lincoln and Washington would be wondering just what they hell happened to the country they loved.

America today is not free nor is it the democratic republic envisioned by our forefathers.

More HERE

Being Presidents day and all, ya might want to take a cyber stroll over to the POAC website and review their 14 Defining Characteristics of Fascism" Its more than just a list.

Capt, the drug war is good for one thing, drafting people into the 15 cents and hour labor union AKA PRISON! China and the third world countries don't have NUTHIN on us! We have the largest prison population in the world, made up largely of drug offenders, clinton definitely did his part, just like he made an amazing contribution to the murder of 500,000 Iraqis through disease and malnutrition, these being mostly women and children. Ya gotta love politicians, the biggest hypocrites on planet earth!

Saladin,

Right on the money - free labor.

Some are in prison for having a few marijuana cigarettes. What a country. We hear about China building factories next to prisons while we just incorporate the factory inside our prisons.

capt

Maybe it was always a lie but . . .

Didn't we (USA) used to call ourselves the "good guys?"

Were we ever REALLY the good guys? After reading about the many invasion plans and all the wars of aggression of the past 100+ years, I don't believe that anymore, at least not of our govt.

Another day in bizzarro America...

What do you think?

I think it boils down to human nature. We are not quite as civilized as we try to convince ourselves we are. Evolution of the species human will take place but will their be a place for humans in the future. Right now we have insured the death of possibly millions of our fellow humans through radiation and the reckless use thereof. We fight each other for sport. We have wars to feed the need to dominate. It remains to be seen how long humans populate this planet. Future explorers thousands of years from now will sift through the rubble of our humanities past and wonder how we lived and how we met our demise.

DEN, if they have a geiger counter how we died won't be hard to figure out!

"On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time." ~ George Orwell

When the power of love becomes stronger than the love of power, we will have peace. Jimi Hendrix

The glory of Bush is man fully dead!

Does anyone know who made this statement during a speech at the Discovery Institute in 1992? If you don't know you would never guess.
-------------

And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth?

And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we've achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.

All of a sudden you've got a battle you're fighting in a major built-up city, a lot of civilians are around, significant limitations on our ability to use our most effective technologies and techniques.

Once we had rounded him up and gotten rid of his government, then the question is what do you put in its place? You know, you then have accepted the responsibility for governing Iraq.

Now what kind of government are you going to establish? Is it going to be a Kurdish government, or a Shia government, or a Sunni government, or maybe a government based on the old Baathist Party, or some mixture thereof? You will have, I think by that time, lost the support of the Arab coalition that was so crucial to our operations over there.

I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today, we'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home.

Just in from top operatives inside the federal government and still my friends!

Scooter Libby cannot be prosecuted because Chainy has permission to declassify information and so Libby did not break the law. There will be no trial of Scooter Libby!

Sal; That was Darth Cheney.

I Weep

What It Means

The Impossibility of Flying Heavy Aircraft Without Training
by Nila Sagadevan

Nila Sagadevan is an aeronautical engineer and a qualified pilot of heavy aircraft.

This is a very good analysis by a real pilot, the first indepth look I have seen from a professional point of view.
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There are some who maintain that the mythical 9/11 hijackers, although proven to be too incompetent to fly a little Cessna 172, had acquired the impressive skills that enabled them to fly airliners by training in flight simulators.

What follows is an attempt to bury this myth once and for all, because I’∂e heard this ludicrous explanation bandied about, ad nauseam, on the Internet and the TV networks, invariably by people who know nothing substantive about flight simulators, flying, or even airplanes.

Hani Hanjour: "His English was horrible, and his mechanical skills were even worse. It was like he had hardly even ever driven a car. I'm still to this day amazed that he could have flown into the Pentagon. He could not fly at all.

Now let's take a look at American Airlines Flight 77. Passenger/hijacker Hani Hanjour rises from his seat midway through the flight, viciously fights his way into the cockpit with his cohorts, overpowers Captain Charles F. Burlingame and First Officer David Charlebois, and somehow manages to toss them out of the cockpit (for starters, very difficult to achieve in a cramped environment without inadvertently impacting the yoke and thereby disengaging the autopilot). One would correctly presume that this would present considerable difficulties to a little guy with a box cutter, Burlingame was a tough, burly, ex-Vietnam F4 fighter jock who had flown over 100 combat missions. Every pilot who knows him says that rather than politely hand over the controls, Burlingame would have instantly rolled the plane on its back so that Hanjour would have broken his neck when he hit the floor. But let's ignore this almost natural reaction expected of a fighter pilot and proceed with this charade....
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Very interesting.

Six Questions

WTF wins!

Is Anyone Listening

Corky,
Those polls are a joke. They go up on the weekend and the "live vote" lasts until they get the numbers they want.

#307
Den,
I would like to see that as a poster and hung up in every Social Studies class in high schools and colleges. In fact post it liberally. All over campus. If I was in college I'd be running that list off and taking my stapler and finding the cork boards and poles.

At the Brink

The Pentagon Is Run by a Madman

Den,
I sent the article to the MN Daily at the U of M.

Alan,
I wrote many senators about the spying investigation being derailed.

When do you believe, we will nuke Iran?

The dismemberment of human bodies will be a glorious sight for Nazis, neocons, and profiteering Christians.

Openness to God's Love Can Heal Humanity, Says Pope
Comments on the Paralytic in Mark's Gospel

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 19, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI says that only God's love can renew man's heart, and only if the heart of paralyzed humanity is healed can it get up and walk.

The Pope delivered that message today before he recited the midday Angelus with more than 30,000 people who gathered in St. Peter's Square.

The Holy Father focused on Jesus' desire to heal man's heart and, in doing so, explained the Gospel passage of the day's liturgy, the healing of the paralytic, in Mark 2:1-12.

Jesus "said to the paralytic: 'My son, your sins are forgiven,'" a way of acting that showed "above all he wants to heal the spirit," the Pontiff said from the window of his study. "Only afterward, to show the authority that has been conferred on him by God to forgive sins, [Jesus] adds: 'Rise, take up your pallet and walk,' and heals him completely.

"The message is clear: Man, paralyzed by sin, needs the mercy of God that Christ has come to give him so that, healed in his heart, the whole of his life can again flourish."

Benedict XVI continued: "The paralytic is [an] image of all human beings whom sin prevents from moving freely, from walking on the path of goodness, to give the best of themselves.

"In fact, evil, nestling in the spirit, binds man with the cords of deceit, anger, envy and other sins and, little by little, paralyzes him."

Signs of sin

"Also today," the Pope added, "humanity bears the signs of sin which prevent it from progressing quickly in those values of fraternity, justice and peace, which it has proposed itself in solemn declarations."

Aware that the causes of the blockage and paralysis of humanity on this path "are manifold," Benedict XVI invited the faithful to believe and have confidence that "only Jesus can really cure."

"Only the love of God can renew man's heart, and only if the heart of paralyzed humanity is healed can it get up and walk. The love of God is the true force that renews the world," he stressed.

"To lead the men of our time to Christ the Redeemer so that through the intercession of Mary Immaculate, he could heal them" was "the basic choice" of those who preceded Benedict XVI in the Petrine ministry, the Pope said.

Especially "our beloved John Paul II," he added, wringing loud applause from the crowds gathered in St. Peter's Square.

"I have also wanted to proceed on this path," Benedict XVI affirmed. "With the first encyclical 'Deus Caritas Est,' I wished to indicate, to believers and to the whole world, God as source of authentic love."

The Holy Father also invoked the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, "so that all men will be open to the merciful love of God, and thus the human family might be profoundly healed from the evils afflicting it."