when last we saw our intrepid bad guys they were
far above the clouds. we rejoin them there for
part 2 of "Aluminum Planes & Steel Hearts"
----------
cont. from #33 prior thread -

stewardess! i mean, hostage! more coffee! so my friend, have you familiarized yourself with this infernal machine yet? it is time to turn off the transponder now.

uh, which one is the transponder again?

this one is the transponder. no wait! THIS one is....i think. blast it! just flip some switches at random! it won't matter.
look down my friend, do you see those alternating triangles of light and dark green?

oh i see them! what do they mean?

my friend, those are the boundaries of neighboring air force space - if we follow along the edges between them they will never know we are there!

oh just like the 4 foot stone wall between my hovel and my cousin's hovel back home?

exactly my long-legged friend! rejoice for we are almost there!

Harry Reid

Dear Cornposters:

Here are some personal facts that you may or may not know. Posting is a stressor. A person with heart problems must avoid stress. Plus, I have only one artery that is functioning to my heart. That fact is a result of tests at the university hospital.

Here is my question. Why should I keep posting in an effort to help in, maybe, a small way for my country to be more humane and loving toward all of God's children?

Harry Reid said that English as a national language would be racist. That is an outrageous statement, a totally outrageous statement. If the Democrats believe that they are going to win some elections to take back the House those kind of comments, they are nuts. Yes, they are nuttier than Bushitler.

Why should I put stress on myself with posts when the Democrats are undermining our efforts to defeat the Nazis.

Are the Democrats really that stupid?

Again, I must personally add a comment. I do not know at this moment whether or not I can vote for Democrats. I know that I cannot vote for the Nazis. That must leave me in limbo for November 7, 2006.

Sincerely,

Gerald

WELCOME TO MEXICO!

a compelling and heartwarming tale elaborating on the hoops that american immigrants to mexico must jump through.

The fall of the Roman Empire occurred after Emperor Valens opened Rome's borders in 376 A.D. By 476 A.D., Rome vanished after it allowed the Goth nation to cross the Danube River. If the United States won't protect its borders, its language or its culture, and will not enforce its laws--it will repeat Rome's fall. Mexico's invasion of the United States exceeds the scale of the Goth migration into Rome or any other migration in history.

excerpt from: NERVOUS AS A WHORE IN CHURCH

I agree. We must keep the Goths and their very depressing music out of the United States.

This column is dedicated to those who died in the 1945 Empire State Building plane crash tragedy. It is also dedicated to one of the bravest, pluckiest news photographers ever to flash a bulb: Ernie Sisto. The photograph at the top of the article was taken from the 90th floor, looking down on the crash. Not content to get just any old picture, Sisto (pictured at left) opted for one that would put things in proper perspective. To do this, he had one reporter hold each of his feet and dangle him out the window so he could get past the ledge, affording him that straight-down shot. Whether he had balls the size of Texas or he was simply insane we don't know, but Ernie, here's to you for documenting history at all costs. (I vote for "crazy.")

Tuning In Time

How many of these guys are missing a leg??

Taliban Commander Is Believed to Be in Afghan Custody

A stocky man with a thick black beard and the heavy black turban that is the signature dress of Taliban fighters, Mullah Dadullah is known to have an artificial leg. He surrendered his forces in northern Afghanistan in 2001 after the American invasion, but escaped capture himself and has been at large since, sometimes giving interviews to journalists, vowing to fight until foreign troops leave Afghanistan.

"We arrested dozens of Taliban in an operation that started Wednesday, and among them is a man who is missing a leg, is seriously wounded and is unconscious," Maj. Gen. Rahmatullah Raufi, corps commander of the Afghan National Army in Kandahar, said in a telephone interview. "There is a suspicion that it may be Mullah Dadullah, but it is not proven yet. He is in the hospital in the American base of Kandahar and was captured by the coalition."

Freedom is a tricky thing.

Are we free to build walls and be left alone? Are we free to live with like-minded people in communities like the Pennslavania Dutch, Mormans, or fundamentalists in Florida? Are we free to speak in our native languages whether it's German or Yiddish, Russian or Spanish? Can there be good reasons nontheless to require immigrants who want to become citizens to learn functional English? Does that require we declare an official language?

We are a nation of immigrants.

It makes sense to honor the promise this county made to the huddled masses. What makes immigration successful? What makes it unsuccessful? As a country, we've been this way before but we act as though we have no history to rely on to guide us.

When Frost was asked by a professor of religious studies about the role of religion in his life and poetry (a smart or dumb question?), Frost answered by reciting a nursery rhyme.

Mary had a little lamb
His name was Jesus Christ.
God, the father, was the ram,
But Joseph took it nice.

[LINK]

I worry a bit about the effect on wages from massive immigration, but I'm fairly optimistic otherwise about the idea of Mexican immigrants becoming citizens. Why?

The modern American right-wing movement (I refuse to dignify these five-and-dime fascists with the name "conservative") is irremediably dependent on white supremacists (of one or another degree of virulence) for its political muscle. Since Mexicans tend to be mestizos or even pure Native Americans, no more than a token few would be welcome into the ranks of the Right.
(kind of like the "Fo'Rent 2%" of African-Americans) Hence, they would have no choice but to gravitate to the Left, which would give the Left serious electoral muscle, maybe enough to establish, at long last, REAL, SOCIAL DEMOCRACY, like most other Western countries have, here in the good old USA. Among other things, that would mean stronger unions, higher wages, and firmer safety-net programs,. which would take care of my one real objection. (the effect on wages) I think more naturalized citizens from Mexico means more voters who share my views, so I find it hard to object to that.

Besides, we stole much of the Southwest from Mexico. (we "bought" it, but at gunpoint)
I can't bring myself to get upset about Mexicans entering the country, since part of it really belongs to them, anyway.

I recognize that most of our immigration-fearers on THIS blog are not racist, but I don't think they've considered the possible advantages for our brand of politics.

Actually, even if we could somehow close the borders (as if the GOP's paymasters who live high off cheap labor would allow it), natural increase will make the USA a nonwhite-majority nation some time in this century. Once that happens, the Right is burnt toast.

Venceremos, Kid Charlemagne

Frost's poetry says that good fences are the mutual interest between two good neighbors.If we could just convince President Fox that his side of the fence should keep the immigrants in and our side will keep them out.Right now it is completely one sided.

oy, this is like listening to ed schultz. what's next? commentary on the duke case?

"Frost's poetry says that good fences are the mutual interest between two good neighbors."

No it doesn't - that was the whole point of David Corn's post.

Frost's poem clearly shows that the narrator finds the line "Good fences make good neighbours" to be an inadequate response to his questions.

"If we could just convince President Fox that his side of the fence should keep the immigrants in and our side will keep them out..."

Or we could convince people like yourself that immigration is not something to be afraid of - it is an inevitable and largely self-regulating process which for the most part, helps everyone involved - both migrants and the receiving country, racists excluded.

Interesting to see the conservative movement which has for so long berated government meddling in the lives of individuals and business suddenly demand an authoritarian state to control the lives of Mexican immigrants whose principal desire is to make a decent living for their families in a country that wants their labour. What happened to the libertarians?

And what of the likes of Pat Buchanan and Bill O'Reilly - how do they imagine that the Irish came to America? Irish emigration has created a colossal international diaspora of which both they and myself are a tiny part. We betray our own roots by bashing Mexicans who, like our own ancestors, needed a break in a new country.

Immigration - get over it and let other people get on with their lives in peace.

Why can Israel build an aparteid wall to keep out the natives, AKA the Palestinians, but if the US even talks about it, it's the worst racist idea in the world? I think they got the idea of a wall from Israel, one of the most racist states on the planet. Building walls to keep people out is a stupid idea and a waste of money, especially considering the following fact:
--------------
From; Building a North American community, the selling of America
By Deanna Spingola

While our sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers having been spilling their blood in the sands of Iraq under the guise of restoring the country to the Iraqi citizens, our president is in the process of giving our country to the elite One World Order insiders. While our president is requiring protected borders in Iraq, he is obliterating, not only our southern, but our northern borders.

The leaders of three countries met at Baylor University in Waco, Texas on 23 March 2005. This meeting included George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. There were no security cameras or media coverage on this event, so-called conservative or liberal. These three "wanna be" dictators established the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America."

On 17 May 2005 the Council on Foreign Relations created an Independent Task Force to study the three country pact. This 31 member task force was chaired by: John F. Manley, Pedro Aspe, and William F. Weld and vice chaired by: Robert A. Pastor, Thomas P. d'Aquino, Andr?s Rozental. These efforts were sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations in association with the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales.

For this coming political transition for America, Canada and Mexico, the CFR Task Force suggests the following specific measures:

Make North America safer: (from their web site)

Establish a common security perimeter by 2010.

Develop a North American Border Pass with biometric identifiers.

Develop a unified border action plan and expand border customs facilities.
------------
There's lot's more on the CFR website, they liberally sprinkle 9/11 around as an excuse for yet another assault on the US. I doubt if they are going to be building any walls on the US/Mexico border, this is just another distraction from the same agenda they've had all along, which is to create one massive poverty slave class that can be more easily controlled than a well educated, economically successful middle class. This transformation is happening right before our eyes. It won't be long now, if they get their way we will all be one big happy family!

In two generations the children will speak english the way other groups of immigrants became assimilated here, look at the history. Worrying about the latest fad of crossing the border for jobs is not going to get the job done. Arrest the employers and the immigrants won't have a reason to stand on the corner. However there won't be any day labor for those little jobs that americans won't do. Like digging up the tree that has to be moved, or moving boxes for a stipend. Need them? Not really, but they are convenient to most of the americans that hire them. Just try to hire an american to do some carpentry, block, or yard work. No takers and the ones that do show up are either drunk or on drugs. Been there done that. Nope they are here and we better get used to that. Pass the tacos.

Alex, I understand what you're saying, and in an ideal world unlimited immigration would not pose any problems. I know that immigration is what made this country, but it can hardly be said that it was good for everyone, I suspect the Native Americans would disagree with you on that point because it was a freakin disaster for them. Immigrants were required to submit to a basic health exam, they were not allowed to simply pour across the border and assimilate. Today many illegal immigrants bring with them very serious diseases that cannot be kept out of the general population because they are not subject to any kind of exam. The cost of caring for very sick immigrants is overwhelming the resources of many communities. What is the solution? I don't know. No decent person wants to send sick people back to the poverty they just escaped, but there are millions of Americans who cannot afford even basic health care that are forced to do without while the govt. provides care for people who have not contributed anything to the cost. One thing I am sure of, if bushco is promoting it, you can count on it being horrible for everyone, including the immigrants.

How Does President Bush Compare with Other Wartime Presidents With Respect to Free Speech Issues?

Bush and Cheney Are On Track To Outdo Their Rights-Infringing Predecessors

It's true that Bush and Cheney did not call for the arrest of Howard Dean in 2004, as Woodrow Wilson did with Eugene Debs during World War One - an analogy Stone offers to suggest some progress is being made. But as more and more comes out about what they have done, it is clear that they plan to outdo all their predecessors when it comes to dramatic infringements of civil liberties in the name of wartime necessity. Stone may have been premature in believing progress has been made. The facts suggest otherwise.

Rather than suspend habeas corpus, Bush and Cheney declare people "enemy combatants" and keep them out of the jurisdiction of federal courts. No one knows how many Arab Americans (or Middle Easterners) have been rounded up, but rather than create internment camps, they are deporting them, sending them to secret prisons, or turning them over to countries where civil liberties do not exist, in a process delicately known as "diplomatic rendition" but better described as "torture by proxy." .

More generally, Bush and Cheney have surely topped all their predecessors in their unbridled support for and use of torture. They have outdone all their predecessors, too, in their high-tech, relentless fear-mongering. In their claim of strengthening the presidency, they have shown they are cowards hiding behind the great power of the offices they hold, the prerogatives of which they are determined to abuse.

Professor Stone quotes Justice Louis Brandeis, who wrote "Those who won our independence … knew that … fear breeds repression and that courage is the secret of liberty." There is no such courage in the Bush and Cheney presidency.

More HERE

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

A good piece that has some good historical references.

capt

Experts say report of badges for Jews in Iran is untrue

Chris Wattie, National Post
Published: Friday, May 19, 2006

Several experts are casting doubt on reports that Iran had passed a law requiring the country's Jews and other religious minorities to wear coloured badges identifying them as non-Muslims.
The Iranian embassy in Otttawa also denied the Iranian government had passed such a law.

A news story and column by Iranian-born analyst Amir Taheri in yesterday's National Post reported that the Iranian parliament had passed a sweeping new law this week outlining proper dress for Iran's majority Muslims, including an order for Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians to wear special strips of cloth.

According to the reports, Jews were to wear yellow cloth strips, called zonnar, while Christians were to wear red and Zoroastrians blue.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre and Iranian expatriates living in Canada had confirmed that the order had been passed, although it still had to be approved by Iran's Supreme Guide Ali Khamenehi before being put into effect.

Hormoz Ghahremani, a spokesman for the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa, said in an e-mail to the Post yesterday that, we wish to categorically reject the news item.

These kinds of slanderous accusations are part of a smear campaign against Iran by vested interests, which needs to be denounced at every step.
Sam Kermanian, of the U.S.-based Iranian-American Jewish Federation, said in an interview from Los Angeles that he had contacted members of the Jewish community in Iran, including the lone Jewish member of the Iranian parliament, and they denied any such measure was in place.
------------
Three guesses who the "vested interests" behind this are, Simon Wiesenthal is a clue, and the first two don't count. KOS has an interesting story about the roots of this attempt to demonize Iran as much as possible, the usual suspects.

Why is the Media Downplaying Our Voting Scandal?

"Here, from that poll, are the stations listed as first choice by respondents and the percentage of respondents who thought the election was stolen: CNN 70%; MSNBC 65%; CBS 64%; ABC 56%; Other 56%; NBC 49%; FOX 0.5%.

"With 99% of Fox viewers believing that the election was "legitimate," only the constant propaganda of Rupert Murdoch’s disinformation campaign stands in the way of a majority of Americans coming to grips with the reality of two consecutive stolen elections."

Bi-partisan Commissions have studied this problem. One led by ex-president Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker noted, "Software can be modified maliciously before being installed into individual voting machines. There is no reason to trust insiders in the election industry any more than in other industries."

A recent Wall Street Journal story revealed, "Some former backers of the technology seek return to paper ballots, citing glitches, fraud fears."

Aviel Rubin, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University, did an analysis of the security flaws in the source code for Diebold touch-screen machine. After studying the latest problems, The Times reported Rubin said: "I almost had a heart attack. The implications of this are pretty astounding."

Worse still, the Congress is burying reform measures with scant media attention. Chellie Pingree, president of Common Cause writes: "What is Congress doing? Nothing. Right now HR 550, The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act the bill, which would take care of these problems, is languishing in committee. The bill has 186 cosponsors, more support than most bills voted on in the House."

More HERE

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

Get your crash helmets and safety belts on, November is going to be another stolen election. The Neocrazies will not cede power to anyone under any circumstance. The only "fair" election is one they win at any and all cost.

They are setting up the excuse why they will win already.

capt

It is an overstatement to suggest -- even obliquely -- that the spread of infectious diseases in the United States are caused by illegal immigrants.

Diseases that proliferate in the developing world are entering the United States through returning U.S. residents, visitors to the U.S., and immigrants, both legal and illegal.

is

is that what I said micki? Go back and read it again.

I should also mention, that research indicates that the spread of infectious diseases results as much from changes in human behavior--including lifestyles, land use patterns, increased trade, travel, and inappropriate use of antibiotic drugs--as from mutations in pathogens. ...hard to lay the bulk of the blame mainly on illegal immigration.

Read for comprehension -- obliquely.

Read what I said!

The Centers For Disease Control reports that illegal immigrants account for over 65 percent of communicable diseases (TB, hepatitis, leprosy, AIDS, etc.) in the U.S. Of course, immigration officials are supposed to screen out applicants for legal immigration who are carrying diseases. But illegals slip over the border unchecked.

There are seven thousand registered cases of leprosy in the US, for example.

Each year some 300 new cases of leprosy are identified in the United States. The vast majority of these patients are immigrants who acquired the disease in their home countries. [MSN Encarta]

Tuberculosis is generally regarded as the most common infectious disease found in immigrants. More than half (53.4 percent) of all TB cases reported in 2003 involved foreign-born persons.
---------
I suppose the CDC could be considered another racist organization, right? How about, instead of nitpicking, the WHO get some help to these people? Infectious diseases are running rampant in Mexico and don't appear to be of concern to anyone who could do something about it. There is talk of quarantine if the bird flu should enter this country, why is this any less important? If there are this many sick Mexicans in the US, just imagine how many there are in Mexico. Why isn't this problem being addressed?

As Karl Rove throws more and more logs on the hate fire, the democrats are preparing for the next hate machine assualt by doing what they always do...

Quivering like jello.

"Aluminum Planes & Steel Hearts"
the continuing saga of intrepid bad guys.
Chapter 3 - the realization
----------

oh mustapha, i've realized that i have committed a most grievous error!

what is wrong my friend? and keep your eyes on those clouds up ahead!

oh! in addition to leaving the copy of "How To Fly A 757" in the suitcase, i fear that i have forgotten my koran on the counter-top at the girly bar we visited last night!

have no fear achmed my friend, and replace your hands on that wheel! i have brought my copy of the koran, and i have it...right....
(checks pockets furiously) ....oh achmed, i do believe that i have left MY copy of the koran in the taxi cab that we shared on the way to the airport.

I didn't even say that "obliquely." I said that many illegal immigrants come here with serious diseases, that is a verifiable fact. My question is, why is this problem not being dealt with in MEXICO? Don't organizations like WHO care about the people, no doubt many of them are children who are suffering, in Mexico?

Neocon Scaife and the Nose Cone Blob Ruse

Kurt Nimmo | May 20 2006

As noted by the blogger Xymphora, upon reading a post on the Smirking Chimp site, Judicial Watch, the organization responsible for filing a FOIA request and thus bringing us earlier this week the eminently ignorable Pentagon crash video, is hooked up with Richard Mellon Scaife, billionaire bankroller of fascist neocon outfits such the American Enterprise Institute, the Hoover Institution, and the Marxist turned neocon David Horowitz's various smear operations.

Judicial Watch was created to harass and snap at the heels of Bill Clinton, a favorite pastime for the likes of Scaife and the lunatic Republican fringe now in control of Congress. Judicial Watch, which recently released video supposedly showing a plane hitting the Pentagon, is essentially a tool of Richard Mellon Scaife, who has given 8.5 million dollars, at least, to support this organization. Though officially a watchdog group, Judicial Watch got its start by filing over 50 nuisance lawsuits against the Clintons, the post on Smirking Chimp explains.

Regardless of the fact the latest video so rapturously embraced by the corporate media as evidence to put the "conspiracy theorists" out to pasture, is a less than worthless distraction, the connection between Judicial Watch and Scaife, who is a documented CIA asset, puts the whole affair in context.

In 2002, Judicial Watch received $1.1 million from The Carthage Foundation and a further $400,000 from The Sarah Scaife Foundation. The year before the Scaife Foundation had given $1.35 million and Carthage $500,000, reports SourceWatch. In all, between 1997 and 2002, Judicial Watch received $7,069,500 (unadjusted for inflation) in 19 grants from a handful of foundations. The bulk of this funding came from just three foundations, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, The Carthage Foundation and the John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.

Moreover, Judicial Watch, according to David Corn on his Klayman Watch blog (Larry Klayman is a trade lawyer heading up Judicial Watch), is connected to Richard Viguerie, the direct-mail titan of the neocon movement. In short, Judicial Watch is nothing less than a shill for neocons, who have a vested interest, lest the truth emerge and they be arrested and prosecuted for treason and murder in promoting the nine eleven fairy tale and discrediting researchers interested in getting at the truth.
-------------
How very interesting. Did David mention that on the blog? I may have missed it. I knew something fishy was going on.

Incredibly well-informed posts today, from all sides. Civility and reason.

Thinking caps on. Well done, you.

Don't Click on This Ad

The Nation website has been running an ad recently urging readers to "say no to government regulation of the internet." Please don't click on it. It's a deceptive campaign created by high-priced consultants and paid for by the cable and phone industries to build opposition to the net neutrality bill. Companies like AT&T, Verizon, BellSouth and their trade associations are spending millions every week to mislead and misinform the American public through tricky ad campaigns such as these.

As the invaluable group Free Press reports, their latest attempt to hoodwink Internet users is a cutesy cartoon at www.dontregulate.org -- a clever piece of industry propaganda that is riddled with half-truths and conveys a fake populist message that sounds plausible, while undermining the work of genuine public and consumer advocates.

Why, you may ask, is The Nation running the ad? The short answer is that we take ads because we're a business that runs, in part, on advertising revenue, not because we agree with the advertiser. It's the same answer we gave to outraged readers when we took full-page magazine ads from Fox News. (Click here to read The Nation's advertising policy.) My goal here isn't to defend the policy--though I do find it legitimate and unobjectionable--but rather to try to highlight this particular ad's devious and misleading opposition to "net neutrality"--something that The Nation magazine fully supports. (Network neutrality is simply the principle that Internet users should be able to access any web content they choose, without restrictions or limitations imposed by their Internet service provider.)

More HERE

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

"we take ads because we're a business that runs, in part, on advertising revenue"

The business that runs, "in the other part", on subscription revenue will hear the complaints more clearly when people start canceling their subscriptions. I cannot imagine how "The Nation" can avoid that reality, it is as much a business decision as running deceptive ads.

The fact that "The Nation" would defend the same by the piece above is nothing short of an insult.

I wonder in the history of "The Nation" how many times it ran a ad or sold ad space then ran a piece instructing subscribers "Don't Click on This Ad" or before the internet - "Don't read this sponsor/ad" - I cannot imagine that is much incentive for the people and businesses that purchase ad space.

The fact that revenue can be generated by deception - revenue FOR "The Nation" makes the whole thing more dastardly not less and certainly not a justification for raising revenue for the jerks making the deceptive ads.

As long as it makes money no line can be drawn? BU__SH__!

capt

Saladin, just some brief replies to the points you rasied:

"Alex, I understand what you're saying, and in an ideal world unlimited immigration would not pose any problems."

Unlimited immigration is not without problems any more than, say, the sale of alcohol is.

But the problems of criminalising immigration are greater - as with historical efforts to criminalise alcohol sales in the US.

The rational and humane approach is to try and manage the consequences of freedom.

"I know that immigration is what made this country, but it can hardly be said that it was good for everyone, I suspect the Native Americans would disagree with you on that point because it was a freakin disaster for them."

Well the difference here is between immigration and armed conquest of land and resources. But only the paranoid right are comparing Hispanic immigration to the conquest of America by Europe.

Overall immigration has substantial benefits, though migrant workers do tend to get treated relatively badly, and the economic benefits of immigration are not shared equally among the employing class and the working class (but then, nothing is, is it?).

But immigrants tend to make a bit more money even on modest wages than they would back home and send the cash to their families - the entire economy of poor countries like El Salvador and many communities in places like China are kept afloat by this money.

Meanwhile, the host country receives an influx of productive labour and the taxes paid by migrants well exceeds money taken from welfare.

Problems are sometimes caused when people with much-needed skills leave poor countries for rich ones, such as doctors. But this problem is best addressed by improving their opportunities in their own country without restricting freedom of movement. Many migrant workers also develop skills and receive training in rich countries which they then take back home with them after a few years.

"Today many illegal immigrants bring with them very serious diseases that cannot be kept out of the general population because they are not subject to any kind of exam."

There is some truth to this, but the problem is not helped by turning immigrants into criminals, thus forcing them underground and away from healthcare. If an immigrant trying to make a living must live in constant fear of the authorities and with no prospect of health insurance, how can they be encouraged to seek medical help if they suspect they have a serious illness?

A black market in immigrant labour is a potential source of disease - but open channels of immigration can be monitored by public health authorities.

Th rapid spread of disease is a consequence of the speed of modern travel as the brief SARS epidemic showed - but this had nothing to do with immigration. Only by restricting all travel could the threat be effectively curtailed, but that would be a pretty terrible idea.

"No decent person wants to send sick people back to the poverty they just escaped, but there are millions of Americans who cannot afford even basic health care that are forced to do without while the govt. provides care for people who have not contributed anything to the cost."

That last sentence is based on the idea that immigrants do not contribute anything to the US economy, when in reality their contribution is invaluable.

Also the choice between healthcare for US citizens and immigrants is a false one - the richest country and largest economy can afford both and then some. Might to have skimp a bit on other things though like, say, tax cuts for the uber-rich, National Missile Defense and the Iraq War. Priorities, priorities...

"One thing I am sure of, if bushco is promoting it, you can count on it being horrible for everyone, including the immigrants."

Well Bush's sudden rediscovery of the reality-based community on at least one issue is obviously not born of principle. The White House is bowing to business-orientated Republicans who recognise their dependence on Hispanic labour over Republicans who fear the dilution of the White Race.

Nor is his policy particularly generous to immigrants, but it represents a welcome acknowledgment of reality - perhaps a first for an administration which famously prefers to contemplate the world of its own imagination to the one we all have to live in.

But Bush's policy also represents a partial capitulation of the massive Hispanic migrants' rights movement that has exploded across the South-West - it's a partial victory for ordinary people against prejudice and power.

Also it offers the left lots of fun as we watch the Reublican party base turn on its old hero whom they have worshipped so intensely for so long.

I don't normally like to suggest advice to the Democratic Party, but here's an idea - Democrats should be loud and vocal in their support for the liberal parts of Bush's immigration policy, praise the president, and then sit back and watch the Republican Party eat itself alive.

OK, so those replies weren't so brief...

The rational and humane approach is to try and manage the consequences of freedom.

ah, but freedom is very expensive - slavery is relatively cheap.

I actually voted, uh, for the uh, 87 billion uhm, before I voted uh, against it!

HELPING GEORGE a cartoon by Lartie Shaw

from #32: "...Republicans who fear dilution of the White Race."

Or, as Stephanie Miller calls them, "the Deliverance wing of the Republican Party".

You will now have "Dueling Banjos" running through your heads the rest of the day.

If, like me, you can't pick Steph up on any of your local stations (she's on 8-11 CDT) you can go to wavz.com and listen online. The comedy-bit portions of her show are available at stephaniemiller.com/show/ (QuickTime)

I almost forgot, fellow babies...BOOGER!

Home from the NaCl mines until Monday evening, Kid Charlemagne

QUICKLY DIVIDE AND CONQUER.
just say Democracts / Republicans
and all rationality in USA stops.

It really is more "us versus them" where "us" are the people and "them" are the ruling elite.

Some people will never see past the left-right paradigm.

Many on both sides would sooner die than think.

"Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so." ~ Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

capt

"Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so." ~ Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

That's an excellent quote from Russell, Capt.

WE ALL HAVE TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT TERRORISM, BUT YOU WILL NEVER END TERRORISM BY TERRORIZING OTHERS. MARTIN LUTHER KING III

It is worth pointing out, that if you watch the CNN footage from the morning of 9/11, there was a great deal of confusion about what happened at the Pentagon. The story that an airplane hit the building wasn't reported for more than half an hour after when the Pentagon was officially to have been attacked. Interestingly, the first reports from the Pentagon were just of fire then there was a report of a helicopter crash.
----------------
probably because after blob77 hit the pentagon, the section where blob77 hit remained standing for a good long while before collapsing into a loose heap. there was in fact a green firetruck that was just down the street from the pentagon on an unrelated incident and it arrived within minutes and put the fire out. somehow the fire ignited again and vehicles that were one color in the first photos had magically changed colors in subsequent photos.
----------------
my advice to you all:
never underestimate the power of yosemitesam.

I am convinced that the influx of illegal immigrants is not allowed for any benevolent purpose. Part of the attraction of hiring undocumented workers as opposed to US citizens is that employers are spared the costs of workman's comp, SS contributions and various other taxes that are required for every citizen hired. If the employers are not paying I find it highly unlikely that the workers are paying. There are so many conflicting studies over whether taxes paid more than cover costs or are in the red.
For example, one study shows that the work force of LA County is 4.5 Million people and there are an estimated 972,500 people working for cash, roughly 21%, predominantly undocumented workers. Another claims the number is closer to 40%. The studies tend to reflect the politics of the writers, and the formulas they use vary a lot. I don't trust bush, I think this whole debate is one giant photo-op designed to save his ass, not help anyone.

Washington politicians are not real Americans

Here are two headlines that demonstrate why I do not believe bushco spends one second feeling concern for illegal Mexican immigrants.

Iraq War Vets Documentary Highlights Growing Trend Of Homeless Iraq War Vets
On any given night the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) helps 200 to 250 of them, and more go uncounted. They are among nearly 200,000 homeless veterans in America, largely from the Vietnam War.
Advocates say the number of homeless veterans is certain to grow, just as it did in the years following the Vietnam and Gulf wars, as a consequence of the stresses of war and inadequate job training.

AND

Thousands Of Katrina Victims In FEMA Trailers Receive Eviction Notices
"We're two weeks before the resumption of a new hurricane season," said Reilly Morse, a Center for Justice attorney who has been helping people appeal their evictions. "Now FEMA is making a catastrophe worse, if that's possible. It's taking people and putting them on the street, essentially."
------------
They couldn't care less about US, much less sick, poverty stricken immigrants.

US Code, Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 118, 2441
Posted May 20, 2006 09:00 AM PST

Those who order the commission of war crimes, as defined by the Geneva and Hague Conventions in regards to conduct of war, 'shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death'.

This may explain why the US Government is trying to block all torture lawsuits, because under US law, those who authorized the torture, which has resulted in deaths, are looking at the death penalty themselves.
-------------
Let the trials begin.

"I am convinced that the influx of illegal immigrants is not allowed for any benevolent purpose."

No, of course not, but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing in itself.

Illegal immigration is "allowed" for two reasons - first, that much of US industry, services and agriculture depends on it and second, the sheer practical impossibility of preventing it.

"I don't trust bush, I think this whole debate is one giant photo-op designed to save his ass, not help anyone."

Bush is a vindictive, egotistical, arrogant, selfish, corrupt, reflexive liar who gets a kick out of putting people to death and is probably mentally unstable. Not accusations I make lightly.

And his entire political mission is dedicated to covering his butt. Of course he doesn't care the rights or lives of Hispanic workers - politicians are hardly ever motivated by things pure and noble and certainly not this one.

Most of the political and military strategists of the Union Army cared little about Negroes in the Confederate States. The British Empire outlawed the slave trade after centuries of raking off its proceeds - was England's Georgian ruling class motivated by human rights concerns? Obviously not.

But it is the motives of Bush's critics on the right that are the more worrying in this case, namely straightforward malice and bigotry.

"Part of the attraction of hiring undocumented workers as opposed to US citizens is that employers are spared the costs of workman's comp, SS contributions and various other taxes that are required for every citizen hired."

Yes, but these are workers' rights issues, not just immigration matters.

The left has a classic strategy for addressing this - decriminalising migrant workers and winning union rights for them so they can organise themselves and fight for better conditions. Surely to be preferred to joining hands with the racist right and criminalising immigrants.

For the left to make headway in America - and in other countries where the right exploits anti-immgration sentiment like Western Europe and Australia - it's not just a matter of opposing Bush, but fighting back against the reactionary ideology of the conservative movement and sticking up for progressive values.

Business currently has the right to romp over the planet at will, while labour is told to stop at the border. It's an inbalance that should be evened up.

Gerald hits a home run!

Harry Reid said that making English only was racist, but poor Harry only speaks English, so he's calling himself a racist pig! Ha Ha

Liberals- you've got to love them!!!

"Part of the attraction of hiring undocumented workers as opposed to US citizens is that employers are spared the costs of workman's comp, SS contributions and various other taxes that are required for every citizen hired."

Yes, but these are workers' rights issues, not just immigration matters.

Posted by Higgins

Workers rights issues? How so? Workers comp is mandatory for legal citizens and employers can be fined if they do not comply. How is this a workers issue if it's already mandatory? Workers Comp protects the workers and if employers are bypassing the system to hire illegals then that is less money in the insurance pool to support legal workers. If we did not have an illegal problem we would be putting more funds into SS, Workers Comp (which would lower the costs for employers, which would = more peolpe hired)and tax revenues paid by business's would increase.

Your statement on this issue is not even close!

I am convinced that the influx of illegal immigrants is not allowed for any benevolent purpose."

No, of course not, but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing in itself.

Posted by Higgins

What part of "illegal" do you not understand?

If you support breaking the law for employers and illegal immigrants then why are progressives always whining about Bush breaking the law (which hasn't been proven by anyone yet)?

Saladin, just some brief replies to the points you rasied:

"Alex, I understand what you're saying, and in an ideal world unlimited immigration would not pose any problems."

Unlimited immigration is not without problems any more than, say, the sale of alcohol is.

But the problems of criminalising immigration are greater - as with historical efforts to criminalise alcohol sales in the US.

Posted by Higgins

Alex, you're wrong again. No ones criminalizing immigration. We allow so many people to come here legally just like every other country. Comparing this to criminalizing alcohol isn't even close. It would be more like comparing legal immigration to legal alcohol sales and illegal immigration to black market (illegal-moonshine) alcohol sales for a more accurate comparison.

David,

Concerning your post: Are you against building a wall or are you just against using Frost incorrectly?

You seem to not have a position other than the Frost comparison.

Also, are you against or for illegal immigration?

It would be nice to know where you stand!

"I know that immigration is what made this country, but it can hardly be said that it was good for everyone, I suspect the Native Americans would disagree with you on that point because it was a freakin disaster for them."

Well the difference here is between immigration and armed conquest of land and resources. But only the paranoid right are comparing Hispanic immigration to the conquest of America by Europe.

Posted by Higgins

Wrong again Alex. It was two democrat Govenors from border states that delcared a state of emergency to get federal funds. The drain of state resources to pay for the illegal problem is bankrupting their state economies.

The cost of illegal immigration:

PENDLETON, ORE. - Out of ideas and low on cash one cold morning, the man with the biggest badge in town put his meaty fingers on a keyboard and tapped out a letter to the leader of Mexico.

"Dear Precidente (sic) Fox," it began.

"My name is John Trumbo. I am Sheriff of Umatilla County in northeastern Oregon." Illegal immigrants "from your country" who committed crimes here, the letter said, cost Americans lots of money.

Last year, more than 360 of "your citizens" spent time in jail "at a cost of $63 a day which equates to a request for payment of $318,843," the letter concluded. "At this time, you will not be billed for medical, dental and transportation costs. Your prompt attention to this request will be very much appreciated."

Three months later, Trumbo reports, Vicente Fox still has not paid up. The Mexican president has issued no response.

***And this folks is just to house the criminals that come here in one town.

LBH,

"Your statement on this issue is not even close!"

To what?

"Workers rights issues? How so?"

Because they are workers and they do not have many rights.

"If we did not have an illegal problem we would be..."

Stop right there! You do have an "illegal problem" and what is more it is unlikely ever to go away. Immigration has been a major feature of every age of human history and it is unreasonable to imagine it could now - in this day and age - be brought to a halt, except possibly by an ultra-totalitarian state.

(Immigration into North Korea is pretty tightly controlled - I wonder if our friends at Fox news will start to praise the efficency of Pyongyang's undoubtedly successful entry controls.)

Of course, if you decriminalise immigrants, then you won't have an illegal problem either because the pursuit of work and a new life in another country will no longer constitute a crime to be punished, as was the case about a century ago when those famous words were inscribed on the Statue of Liberty.

I see you have written more...

"What part of "illegal" do you not understand?"

I fail to see why anyone thinks is a good argument. If the law is nonsense it is not an effective comeback to insist on enforcing bad law because it is the law.

I support a change in the laws of so that those seeking a new life in other countries are no longer regarded as criminals.

"If you support breaking the law for employers and illegal immigrants then why are progressives always whining about Bush breaking the law (which hasn't been proven by anyone yet)?"

You are conflating different issues and isn't clear which ones.

But if you want me to explain why desperate Mexican workers trying to make a living by doing necessary work in America are not morally equivalent to the NSA violating the Fourth Amendment while the President denied it, then i am prepared to. Is it necessary to do so? Apparently you regard the whole issue as mere whining, so it seems that it is.

"Comparing this to criminalizing alcohol isn't even close. It would be more like comparing legal immigration to legal alcohol sales and illegal immigration to black market (illegal-moonshine) alcohol sales for a more accurate comparison."

But that's what I did - compared illegal immigration to the black market in alcohol in the US in the 1920s and 1930s.

No analogy is perfect and they can always be challenged but there are similarities:

1) The Prohibition of alcohol and of migrant workers both create/d a black market where organised crime seeks to meet needs/wants that are not met legitimately - providing alcohol to willing customers in the first case, providing transport and false documentation in the latter. In both cases, bad policy making creates a niche for organsied and dangerous criminal elements that wouldn't otherwise exist.

2) Both policies are substantial failures, attempts to enforce unenforceable laws.

3) Both policies prompted/are prompting US administrations to acknowledge reality, abandon an unsustainable situation and change the law.

Hastert: If You Earn $40,000 a Year and Have a Family of Two Children, You Don't Pay Any Taxes

During a late session last night, Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) made a stunning claim on the House floor:

Well, folks, if you earn $40,000 a year and have a family of two children, you don't pay any taxes. So you probably, if you don't pay any taxes, you are not going to get a very big tax cut.

Watch it:

While someone with a $40,000 salary and a family of four paid little or no federal income taxes last year, Hastert ignores various other taxes paid by all Americans payroll taxes, gas taxes, sales taxes, etc.

Consider payroll taxes, which go to paying for Social Security and Medicare. Assuming their entire $40,000 in salary came from wages, this family paid $3,060 (7.65 percent of $40,000) in federal payroll taxes last year. (Note: The employer also contributes this amount, but most economists "believe that the portion of the payroll tax paid by the employer is borne by the worker.")

Hastert, who earns a hefty $212,010 a year salary, doesn't seem to understand that families across America are facing higher health care costs, mortgage payments, and gas prices. And yes, they also have to pay their taxes.

More HERE

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

Talk about not knowing what he is talking about?

OMG What a jerk! He is making law and has not a clue about reality. Not to mention according to Sibel Edmunds he is a bag man involved with some very shady dealings. (just like every other politician but worse - the speaker has power to abuse and does so)

To believe your own spew is the root of all delusion.

"Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion." ~ Edward Abbey (1927 - 1989)

capt

"Wrong again Alex. It was two democrat Govenors from border states that delcared a state of emergency to get federal funds. The drain of state resources to pay for the illegal problem is bankrupting their state economies."

My claim here, in response to an argument put by Saladin, was that only the paranoid right were comparing Hispanic immigration to the genocide of Native Americans by European settlers.

Your statement that Democratic governors are appealing for state funds to enforce immigration laws does not contradict this claim in any way.

And again, note that the costs of illegal immigration are from the effort to enforce bad laws. The cost of deploying the National Guard to the border, or to construct some version of the Berlin Wall along it will also be expensive - but the costs are incurred not by immigration but the pointless effort to suppress it.

No Lousy Reading Comprehension here. My son just graduated Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, double major History and English from Hamline University! He did it. Yahoooooooo!

OH BTW,
My son Thomas.....

Congratulations to Thomas and his devoted Mom. Cheers!

It seems too many are taking this immigration issues far too seriously. Bush is not even trying to solve any problem he has already committed to privatize the administration and supervision, he cut 9,790 Border Patrol Agents... Feb. 9, 2005 and says the 6,000 are only temporary.

Now consider what a monumental failure this will be. Bush has cut nearly 10,000 border agents substituted the NG? They are there only until the government can replace the administration with a contractor even though such action may not be legal.

Bush just wants another $1.9 billion dollars of our grandchildren's money to distract from his failed policies and the most expensive war in the history of history.

Imagine how much more convienent it will be when the corporations control the border. The big corporations have not begun to get creative with the concept of indentured servitude. If a person is "illegal" they can be incarcerated and must work off their crime by being a slave.

I make no excuse for such a dark vision of the future. Bush and his crew have done nothing good and have no intention of changing their ways. Look for the absolute most bizarre stupid backwards way they communicate - they always say the opposite of what they mean then say they manufactured a new reality.

capt

Hastert is a hateful bloated ignorant fat f!&%. His immigration bill is heavy-handed, punitive and counter-productive. It's shamful: Haster was a successful wrestling and football coach and never developed a capacity to understand the problems other people face.

Has anyone else noticed their phone clicking when they make calls? The other day I thought I heard someone sneeze.

Even if one were idiotic enough to misanthropically quote Frost for the purpose of supporting fence building, one need remember that the fences that needed mending in those parts, and indeed across much of the world (even Hawaii) were made of rocks, piled no more than two feet above the surface, and maybe a foot to 18 inches wide. They were to divide pasture, and demarcate property; hardly ones that were designed to control people at all.

Laughing Monsters

In the Black(water)

According to Blackwater's government contracts, obtained by The Nation, from September 8 to September 30, 2005, Blackwater was paid $409,000 for providing fourteen guards and four vehicles to "protect the temporary morgue in Baton Rouge, LA." That contract kicked off a hurricane boon for Blackwater. From September to the end of December 2005, the government paid Blackwater at least $33.3 million--well surpassing the amount of Blackwater's contract to guard Ambassador Paul Bremer when he was head of the US occupation of Iraq. And the company has likely raked in much more in the hurricane zone. Exactly how much is unclear, as attempts to get information on Blackwater's current contracts in New Orleans have been unsuccessful.

More HERE

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

See the beauty of Bushworld is private companies are run by the same mother F’•rs that used to fail running the government. ie: Brownie as a consultant for FEMA?

So, as a private company these slugs can bleed the public coffers dry without having to disclose, report or suffer the oversight the government imposes on their profit.

Fascism pure and simple and as people born into a mythology of freedom we must resist.

"The Depth of your Mythology is the Extent of your Effectiveness." ~ John Maxwell

capt

My son just graduated Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, double major History and English from Hamline University! He did it. Yahoooooooo!

Congrats!

The Madness of George W. Bush

Jeanne @ #58,
Congratulations on the academic accomplishments of your son. He really graduated cum laude?

I think I graduated, "Lawdy, how come"?

'Never Before!' Our Amnesiac Torture Debate

It was the "Mission Accomplished" of George W. Bush's second term, and an announcement of that magnitude called for a suitably dramatic location. But what was the right backdrop for the infamous "We do not torture" declaration? With characteristic audacity, the Bush team settled on downtown Panama City.

It was certainly bold. An hour and a half's drive from where Bush stood, the US military ran the notorious School of the Americas from 1946 to 1984, a sinister educational institution that, if it had a motto, might have been "We do torture." It is here in Panama and, later, at the school's new location in Fort Benning, Georgia, where the roots of the current torture scandals can be found. According to declassified training manuals, SOA students--military and police officers from across the hemisphere--were instructed in many of the same "coercive interrogation" techniques that have since migrated to Guant?namo and Abu Ghraib: early morning capture to maximize shock, immediate hooding and blindfolding, forced nudity, sensory deprivation, sensory overload, sleep and food "manipulation," humiliation, extreme temperatures, isolation, stress positions--and worse. In 1996 President Clinton's Intelligence Oversight Board admitted that US-produced training materials condoned "execution of guerrillas, extortion, physical abuse, coercion and false imprisonment."

More HERE

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

A must read if you have not yet.

capt

The demonic has taken control of our devil incarnate nation. The demons of our making have total control over us.

The demonic has taken control of our devil incarnate nation. The demons of our making have total control over us.

More Troops Being Deployed to Iraq

At a time when the Pentagon hoped to be withdrawing troops from Iraq, ABC News has learned additional U.S. troops are going in.

Pentagon officials tell ABC news that two battalions — about 1,300 troops — are moving into Iraq from Kuwait. With the additional troops, there will be more than 134,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

More HERE

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

What war, eh?

capt

meanwhile back home in the mountains of lower slobovia, achmed's wife is walking along whistling her favorite tune "sneaky man sneak" by possum pete's pals when she spies a new billboard sign for the very first time:
TRY OUR NEW FISH BURRITOS!
fish burritos?, she thinks to herself. wherever would they find a fish way up here in the mountains of lower slobovia? and what the devil is a burrito?

Bush is certifiable

Burrito

The 30-inch burrito story came from the Yahoo News Service. Yahoo did not mention whether or not the burrito was an all bean burrito. An all bean burrito would have put the burrito in the WMD category.

In fact the all bean burrito may be our answer to an alternative energy source. When people eat the all bean burrito, the gaseous emissions from our human bodies may offer an important research project to keep Americans away from their gluttonous and voracious appetite for oil that places our country in a constant war mode.

It is my understanding that cheney and his band of goons and thugs have now a patent on caked animal and human dung that can be used as an alternative fuel source for Americans in northern states. The sale of caked animal and human dung should be on the shelves before the winter months commence. An insider says that the hold-up for announcing the sale has to do with the settled price for the sale of this dung. The insider also says that the settled price for caked animal and human dung will qualify cheney and his band of goons and thugs for the "Golden Fleece Award."

Excellent picture (under construction) of the lightweight trusses holding up each floor of the towers.

.jpg/trusses

and here's a schematic of same...

.jpg/schematic

Thank you, Alan. saladin, why are there no 110 floor skyscrapers in California? What is the building requirement for hurricane force winds in California? Why? What is the New York code for earthquakes? Why? What is the New York City code for hurricane force winds? Why? How long did the truss-built towers last?

More Troops Being Deployed to Iraq

WASHINGTON, May 19 (UPI) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration wants to add a warning label on packaging for an antibiotic that has been linked to liver failure.

An internal FDA memo written by the Division of Drug Risk Evaluation described "profound" liver injury in some patients occurring within the first few days of taking the medication. The memo said that 12 of the cases had few other possible causes, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The liver-failure rate was "clinically remarkable" and "consistent with an association" between the medication and liver failure, the FDA document stated.

The estimated rate of reported liver failures linked to Ketek was 23 per 10 million prescriptions as compared with a reported rate on competing products of of 6.6 per 10 million prescriptions for Avelox, six for Tequin and 2.1 for Levaquin.

A large clinical trial that was intended to prove the drug's safety was hampered by fraud and other problems, yet the FDA approved the medication anyway. In 2005, 3.35 million prescriptions were written for Keteck.

Despite concerns about safety, the FDA approved Ketek for sinusitis, bronchitis and pneumonia.

The FDA's drug memo recommends a warning on the label in either bold type or a black box, mentioning "reports of liver necrosis and liver failure."

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

Seems odd the FDA would make such a fuss over Ketek when the number one cause of liver failure in the USA is acetaminophen - yep good old "safe" Tylenol - the number one cause of liver failure ahead of all of the hepatitis’, ahead of cirrhosis from alcohol and drug abuse.

'Safe' painkiller is leading cause of liver failure

capt

DB and Alan,

Win the 911 post of the day? WTF?

Did somebody pull your chatty Kathy string?

I think you guys are very funny but dreadfully redundant. I thought you guys only posted about 911 at your physforum? I am sure everybody that is interested will join you there.

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject." ~ Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

capt

a lovely photo! and if you take a step back from there you will see the other half of the light weight trusses:

.jpg/other half

Just for clarity, what they call "trusses", we called "bar joists". I even sent a few of you guys a picture of an ironworker installing some for the 'roof of the roof'... the ceiling above our machine room that's on the roof. That picture was of the "Galleria Plaza Hotel" when we were building it... now called "Westin Galleria Hotel", here in Houston.

Thanks James (for #80). I wanted to see that one again, but it would've taken awhile to find where you posted it before.

Programmer speeds search for gravitational waves

A global effort to detect gravitational waves has received an unexpected boost after a volunteer improved the computer code used comb through data from ground-based detectors.

Akos Fekete, a Hungarian programmer, is one of network of people who contribute their spare computer processing power to a project called Einstein@home, launched by the American Physical Society (APS) in March 2005. This links volunteers' PCs via the internet and uses their combined power to probe for data patterns that could reveal gravitational waves.

Gravitational waves are ripples in space-time predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity that should be radiated by massive objects such as black holes. Directly detecting them would provide astronomers with a very valuable new tool for observing the cosmos.

The data for Einstein@home is collected by two ground-based laser interferometers - LIGO in the US and GEO 600 in Germany. These two instruments use laser beams to try to detect the incredibly small distortions to space-time that gravitational waves are believed to cause.

More HERE

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

Tweak a little assembler and - there you go!

capt

and if you take yet another step back you can see the entirety of the light weight truss construction:

.jpg/entirety

I must have been mistaken.

I'll check back when you guys are done!

Have a blast!

capt

*every glass and steel building I worked on had I-beams bolted (then later welded also) to gusset plates on the columns, to support the concrete floors. But they also had columns spread throughout the floor, not just at the perimeter and the core.

capt, thanks for the post regarding gravitational waves. Also, I'm the only one who stated that I wouldn't post what I found there here. (If that makes sense...) I finally managed to convince Alan to do so and he clearly enjoys it. Still haven't convinced james or saladin to come and read just the latest entries and maybe post a question... Anyway, it is only about WTC, not other events on 2001 Sep 11.

JUDY --- I'll look at the site you mentioned if you will post a link. Otherwise I am new enough to webland that I am not sure how to find it.

"Workers rights issues? How so?"

Because they are workers and they do not have many rights.

Posted by Alex

This is a very general statement, give me some examples in what you feel are not many rights. Are you saying unions are not effective? How about class action law suits? Is this why everyone wants to come here to work, because we have so few rights?
______________________________________________

If we did not have an illegal problem we would be..."

Stop right there! You do have an "illegal problem" and what is more it is unlikely ever to go away.

By Alex

Correct, if we choose to do nothing as you propose then it will never go away.
_________________________________________________

Of course, if you decriminalise immigrants, then you won't have an illegal problem either because the pursuit of work and a new life in another country will no longer constitute a crime to be punished, as was the case about a century ago when those famous words were inscribed on the Statue of Liberty.
By Alex

Alex, we are a nation of laws and the current law says that we will only allow so many immigrants to enter our country through a legal process and this is for good reason.

Do you support legalizing all immigrants even if they have criminal backgrounds? What if they come to just take advantage of our solcial services programs without any intention to work or pay taxes? If they commit a crime here in the US do you support paying to jail these immigrants at the taxpayers expense? For how long? Life?

I agree that a border fence is not the answer. The correct response is to enforce current laws and send Mexico the bill.

"What part of "illegal" do you not understand?"

I fail to see why anyone thinks is a good argument. If the law is nonsense it is not an effective comeback to insist on enforcing bad law because it is the law.

I support a change in the laws of so that those seeking a new life in other countries are no longer regarded as criminals.

By Alex

Again, would you allow this for anyone? What if they are criminals(mureders, gang memebers, drug dealers, pedophiles, etc.) Anything for a chance at a new start? Is this a progressive fuzzy feeling to fell good about yourself?

As soon as the Cubanos in Miami all speak English and the Amish give up speaking anything but English, we should force George Bush to learn English.

"If you support breaking the law for employers and illegal immigrants then why are progressives always whining about Bush breaking the law (which hasn't been proven by anyone yet)?"

You are conflating different issues and isn't clear which ones.

But if you want me to explain why desperate Mexican workers trying to make a living by doing necessary work in America are not morally equivalent to the NSA violating the Fourth Amendment while the President denied it, then i am prepared to. Is it necessary to do so? Apparently you regard the whole issue as mere whining, so it seems that it is.

By Alex

Mexican workers come here by the millions legally and shouldn't be punished by soft progressives and Bush that want to give the illegals a free ride.

There is no difference in upholding the law no matter if it's giving a ticket for speeding, drinking and driving, stealing money from the boy scouts, murdering your neighbor, or coming here illegally. The difference is in the punishment. Our legal system works, the problem is that some people don't understand how it works.

Re #90: sourcer, are you sure he is capable of it?

As is generally the case most people focus on the little guys. People trying to find jobs, feed their families etc. On Lou Dobbs ( who is obsessed with this topic) a few evenings ago, he reported that in 2004 there were three employers fined and in 2005 O. Why are folks often looking down the ladder instead of up.

Go after those who profit from hiring illegal immigrants. OOp! We know that will not

Crackdown on hiring of illegal workers shifts to employers
Updated 5/5/2006 The Arizona Republic
By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY
SILVER SPRING, Md. —†The sun is barely up over the horizon when Juan Reyes arrives at Casa de Maryland, which operates a job site for day laborers here. Most days he comes to this parking lot to wait for painting, landscaping or other jobs. Reyes mills about with the other men who sit in groups quietly talking or sharing steaming tamales eaten off paper plates. He needs work, he says, so he can send money to support his three children, ages 18, 12 and 10, in Guatemala.
"Sometimes it's very hard, very hard (to find work)," says Reyes, 36, who is an undocumented worker who lives in Takoma Park. Still, he says, employers rarely ask to see paperwork and hire him even though he's in the country illegally. "They never ask."

But pressure is on to change that. Last month, the Department of Homeland Security vowed to expand its efforts to target employers who hire illegal immigrants, with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff pledging to "counter the unscrupulous tactics of employers."

Signs of stiffer enforcement have already appeared. Last month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested seven current and former supervisors of IFCO Systems North America, a Houston-based pallet-supply company. They've been charged with conspiring to transport, harbor and induce illegal immigrants to reside in the USA for financial gain. The conspiracy charge carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for each undocumented worker.

Agents also apprehended more than 1,100 illegal workers at IFCO plants in 26 states. ICE says managers transported illegal immigrants to and from work, paid their rent and then deducted money from the workers' monthly paychecks to cover these expenses.

The pledge to crack down and the recent raid are spurring debate about federal enforcement of immigration laws as they pertain to employers. Some immigrants and others opposed to stiffer enforcement have held protests, such as the ones Monday outside IFCO's offices. But critics say the government's current practice is to look the other way at employers who hire undocumented workers, creating an illegal immigrant crisis while unfairly giving employers who skirt the law a free ride.

"The Bush administration is committed to a policy of non-enforcement, and that's why the overall effort at enforcement is going to fail," says Steven Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., non-profit research group focused on immigration. "We don't do anything to employers who hire illegals. There's a complete lack of commitment."

Employers rarely penalized

Employers who hire undocumented workers such as Reyes to do a host of jobs —†from construction and meat packing to agricultural work and painting —†rarely face penalties, even though a federal law passed in 1986 criminalized the hiring of illegal immigrants.

In fiscal year 1999, the government issued 417 notices of "intent to fine" employers for knowingly making such illegal hires. But by 2004, that number had dropped to three, according to a June 21, 2005, Government Accountability Office report. Worksite enforcement amounted to less than 5% of all of the federal government's ICE investigation activities. Since 9/11, the government has "almost exclusively focused worksite enforcement resources" of illegal immigration on sites such as airports and nuclear power plants, according to the report.

But federal officials say they've been strategically shifting away from administrative fines to criminal charges —†last fiscal year, that approach resulted in 127 criminal convictions, up from 46 the previous year.

And already, word has spread that the government is cracking down on employers, which in some cases has undocumented workers saying it's harder to find jobs because employers are more fearful they could face possible repercussions for hiring them.

DB, is this the link of JUDY? : reopen911.org/

We know that will not happen that would be Bush's base.

Re #93: Thank you, kathleen.

Daddy's flown across the ocean
Leaving just a memory
Snapshot in the family album
Daddy what else did you leave for me?
Daddy, what'd'ja leave behind for me?!?
All in all it was just a brick in the wall.
All in all it was all just bricks in the wall.

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

Waiting for the worms..., or for just the shoe to drop.

Meanwhile I've been enjoying working outside on the deck and in the garden, sorry to have missed you all for a couple of days.

There is this little gem to share:

Should Gen. Hayden Be Confirmed or Court-Martialed?
By Ray McGovern
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Saturday 20 May 2006

"Court-martialed," says one highly-respected former DIRNSA (which, for the uninitiated, stands for "Director, National Security Agency"). The comment came amid a private burst of indignation at the news that Gen. Mike Hayden had bowed to administration pressure to skirt the law and violate what until then was the NSA's "First Commandment" - Thou Shalt Not Eavesdrop on US Citizens.

Another highly respected former DIRNSA, Adm. Bobby Ray Inman, on May 8, expressed serious reservations over the administration's flouting of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 by ordering warrantless eavesdropping on Americans. During a New York Public Library panel discussion including New York Times reporter James Risen, who originally broke the eavesdropping story, Inman said, "In my view, this activity was not authorized by a [congressional] resolution.... There clearly was a line in the FISA statutes which says you couldn't do this." Inman also pointed out the "extra sentence put in the bill that said, 'You can't do anything that is not authorized by this bill.'"

Adm. Inman added, "My problem is not going through the Congress to revise the statute," if FISA needed to be amended to deal with issues not anticipated in 1978. He spoke proudly of the earlier ethos at the NSA, where "it was deeply ingrained that you operate within the law and you get the law changed if you need to." As for now, Inman insisted, "What you want is to get away from this idea that they can continue doing it." He placed the blame squarely on Vice President Dick Cheney, whose attitude, he said, has not changed from when he was chief of staff for President Gerald Ford. Inman gave this account of Cheney's input:

"We don't need law. The president has authorized these in the past and can authorize them now."

More.

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

On English as the official language. Doesn't it appear that the word official has been made a worthless advertising slogan of late, anyway? As in the official snack food of your favorite sports league? Would that make you switch from beer nuts to pretzels if beer nuts were your wont?

Of course, if pretzels wants a rematch with the prez, I'm rooting for pretzels.

But, if English does become the official language...doesn't that disqualify the Wush from holding office?

Jest sayin'.

"Comparing this to criminalizing alcohol isn't even close. It would be more like comparing legal immigration to legal alcohol sales and illegal immigration to black market (illegal-moonshine) alcohol sales for a more accurate comparison."

But that's what I did - compared illegal immigration to the black market in alcohol in the US in the 1920s and 1930s.

By Alex

But this is were you get it wrong because your comparison does not take into consideration legal immigrants by comparing it to the 1920-30.

We have a legal process for immigartion, just like we have a legal process for selling booze and gambling.

Some people take the easy way by trying to bypass the legal system like illegal immigration compared to selling alcohol illegally to say minors or hard liquor in alcohol free zones in certain counties.

The difference between our views are that you want to give anyone a free ride to the US and be a citizen. I would stick to our current screening process that would allow people here on a temporary basis until they can prove they deserve to be here and kick out those who don't.

DB, how do you know I haven't been there? Because I don't post? Since I have spent 1 1/2 years examining every aspect of 9/11 I have been able to find, I don't feel the need to keep hammering on one single issue that is nothing but a lot of theories. I know bushco is lying because the preponderance of evidence proves it. That's all I need to know. I've put in the time and I've done a ton of research, no one will be able to convince me that bushco is not complicit in 9/11, either through knowledge beforehand and allowing the attacks to take place, or more likely, taking an active part, though I don't believe they had much to do with the actual planning. How or why those buildings fell or exactly what kind of planes crashed into them doesn't make a speck of difference, it doesn't change anything at all.

capt, you and your cohorts should be thanking DB and Alan for keeping "the topic" alive. That they continue to discuss WTC is part of the search for the truth, is it not?

As soon as the Cubanos in Miami all speak English and the Amish give up speaking anything but English, we should force George Bush to learn English.

By soucer

Good one, I would add Teddy Kennedy to be next. That would be sober English.

Katleen 93

Good point-I agree!!

Send the employers to Mexico with the illegals.

RS: "Of course, if pretzels wants a rematch with the prez, I'm rooting for pretzels."

LOL!

Why is this immigration debate heating up all of a sudden? Why are people who want to allow illegals to stay called "soft progressives" and those who want the laws strictly enforced called "racist?" I think both sides present valid points. If we are going to have laws regulating immigration, then they should be enforced. If they don't want to enforce them, as I suspect because of the North American union plan, why have these laws at all? Another fine controversy to widen the rift between left and right even more. If bush keeps it up we might have all out civil war!

We know that will not happen that would be Bush's base.
Kathleen

Now Kathleen, why would you say this? 40% of all new small business owners are Hispanic which are mostly democrats according to Pnade.

This is what I would place a bet on this week. That we will see some "false" evidence come out this week about Iran's "alleged" nuclear program. If Karl is indicted this week they will need something to blow it out of the water. I had read somehere the infamous Iran/Contra spy/liar false intelligence supplier had been hired by the Pentagon or State Department once again ( could this be true). And I am not kidding you that whenever Micheal Ledeen is missing from writing at National Review for more than two weeks something new and negative about Iran pops up.

Last Sunday on Chris Matthews in Chris's "Tell me something I don't know" segment Andrea Mitchell told Chris that there would be some undisputable intelligence about Iran's nuclear program that would be surfacing. (she was setting the stage) I'll put money on it Ledeen and Micheal Rubin are busy supplying it.

Anyone want to make a bet?

Saladin
104

Good point! You're correct! There are differing views within the Republican party and Democratic Party. I do not support Bush's blanket amnesty or the boredr wall that was approved by the senate 83-16 vote. No new laws, just enforce the current laws damnit!!

Here is something interesting I just stumbled upon:

According to [WTC designer Leslie Robertson], New York City has some of the worst wind loads in the nation, even stronger than Chicago or Los Angeles. This is because of the occasional wind generated off of the Atlantic Ocean during hurricane season. As a result, buildings in New York City must be designed to be twice as strong as similar buildings designed to withstand an earthquake in Los Angeles. [NYC24]

Cheney has tapped Iranian expatriate, arms dealer to surveil discussions with Iran, officials say
Larisa Alexandrovna
Published: Thursday April 20, 2006
The Department of Defense and Vice President Dick Cheney have retained the services of Iran-Contra arms dealer and discredited intelligence asset Manucher Ghorbanifar as their ҭan on the ground,Ӡin order to report on any interaction and attempts at negotiations between Iranian officials and US ambassador to Iraq, Zelmay Khalilzad, current and former intelligence officials say.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, three intelligence sources identified the Iran-Contra middleman as having been put back on the payroll, acting as a human intelligence asset and monitoring any movement in discussions about Iran’≥ alleged burgeoning nuclear weapons program.
ҋhalilzad has been authorized to enter into discussions with the Iranians over the issue of stability inside Iraq,Ӡone former intelligence source said.
These discussions, however, are now on hold for unspecified reasons. Sources close to the UN Security Council and a former high ranking intelligence official say that this latest failed attempt to bring Iran to the table is part of an ongoing attempt by Cheney and Rumsfeld to squash diplomatic activities.
Another intelligence source confirmed the spiking of diplomatic action on Cheneyճ behalf, explaining that the Bush administration sees such talks as a ҳign of weakness.ӊ
Asked if Ghorbanifar was essentially being employed as a spy, one former senior counterintelligence official said, "You could put it that way."
A former high ranking state department official, however, doubted that the Office of the Vice President would employ Ghorbanifar directly.
҉n my experience it would be highly unusual and even extraordinary if the Office of the Vice President would have such activities,Ӡthe ex-State Department official said. Yet the source added that the current Vice Presidency is in itself ҵnusualӠand ҥxtraordinary.ӊ
Cheney’≥ office did not return calls seeking comment for this article.
As reported by RAW STORY last Thursday, the Defense Department has created a special operations arm of various Iranian dissidents, using terror group Mujahedeen-e Khalq to conduct operations on the ground in Iran. According to current and former intelligence officials, the latest revelations of Ghorbanifar’≥ involvement again illustrate that Cheney and the Pentagon continue to work on the periphery of protocol in order to bypass US intelligence agencies and resources.
Reports of the Bush administration’≥ interest in meeting with Iranian officials continue to suggest that it is Iran that is pushing back against diplomatic talks. Yet all three intelligence sources and sources close to the UN Security Council say it is the US that is squashing attempts at talks between the two nations.
Earlier this month, for example, the New York Times reported that Iran’≥ UN Ambassador, Javad Zarif, wanted discussions. In a New York Times op-ed, Zarif contended that Iran is committed to nuclear nonproliferation and eager for talks.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) approved using Ghorbanifar as an intermediary, intelligence sources say. Hoekstra attended at least one meeting in Paris with Curt Weldon and Harold Rhode to meet with Ghorbanifar.
҈oekstra okayed these channels,Ӡone intelligence source said. ҈e gave his blessing.ӊ
In response to an email from RAW STORY, the House Intelligence Committeeճ Republican spokesman Jamal Ware said he was out of the office and unable to discuss this issue with Congressman Hoekstra, adding: it was Ҥoubtful we would have a comment either way.ӊ
Iran Contra middleman

If these allegations are true, Ghorbanifar’≥ recruitment reinstates him to a position he held during the Iran Contra affair, when he was implicated in the scandal of selling arms to Iran in order to fund a right wing terrorist group, the Contras, who were battling the democratically-elected Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

Ghorbanifar was also present at discussions in Rome in 2001 –†talks which have received much attention because they were attended by Pentagon and Iranian officials. According to neoconservative Michael Ledeen, who participated in the talks, the topic was Iran. A second set of meetings later took place in Paris.

“îhe Rome meetings had nothing whatsoever to do with Iraq, but with Iran and Afghanistan," Ledeen told RAW STORY.

In an exclusive interview with Newsweek late last year, Ghorbanifar stated that the meetings in Rome and Paris were about regime change in Iran. The meetings included Larry Franklin, a Pentagon Iran analyst who has been convicted for passing secrets to an Israeli lobby, and Harold Rhode, a Defense Department consultant also under investigation in the case.

҇horbanifar, a former Iranian spy who helped launch the Iran-contra affair, says one of the things he discussed with Defense officials Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin at meetings in Rome in December 2001 (and in Paris last June with only Rhode) was regime change in Iran,ӠNewsweek wrote.

Ledeen says that Ghorbanifarճ role in the Rome meeting he attended was that of үccasional translatorӠand үrganizerӮ

Ґlease note, once again, that Ghorbanifar was not an active participant in the December, 2001, meetings in Rome,Ӡsays Ledeen.

҉n all the discussions I attended, there was no discussion of Iraq; we talked about Iran, and particularly about Iran's activities in Afghanistan, aimed at American forces there,Ӡhe added.

҇horbanifar has never made a secret of his desire to rid his country of the mullahs' tyranny,ӠLedeen continued. ҈e has said that constantly since the first day I met him, in 1985. It shouldn't surprise anyone to hear that he may have spoken about that with US Government officials, in Rome and elsewhere. But if that happened, it was outside the meetings I attended.ӊ
As previously reported by RAW STORY, the Paris meetings, which were also attended by Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) on at least two occasions in the spring of 2003, involved attempts by Ghorbanifar to advance false intelligence in order to implicate Iran in a bizarre uranium theft claim. The assertions were debunked by the CIA and by other US intelligence and military experts.

According to two of the three intelligence sources, the arms dealer was brought in to observe attempts by Khalilzad or Iranian officials at diplomatic activities and report back to Rumsfeld and/or Cheney through whomever is ҨoldingӠGhorbanifar, sources say.

US Seeks to Curb Iran With Neighbors' Help
By Paul Richter and Peter Spiegel
The Los Angeles Times
Saturday 20 May 2006

The plan calls for missile defense systems and interceptions of nuclear technology. Gulf states are receptive but wary of angering Tehran.

Washington - Opening a new front in its effort against Iran, the Bush administration has begun developing a containment strategy with the Islamic state's Persian Gulf neighbors that aims to spread sophisticated missile defense systems across the region and to interdict ships carrying nuclear technology to the country.

More.

Mr. Schwartz,

I notice you're quoting Ray McGovern. This can't possibly be the same Ray McGovern who was sent to prison on financial fraud charges, is it?

This isn't the Ray McGovern who writes regularly for Lyndon LaRouche publications, is it?

This isn't the Ray McGovern who recently called for a "new Marxist International throughout the world", is it?

This can't possibly be the Ray McGovern who says the LaRouche researchers, "do some fairly good work".

Surely a smart man like yourself wouldn't, couldn't be quoting such a crackpot.

Could you?

May 18, 2006
Hastert Lets Cheney Have It
House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) "engaged in a high-decibel rant last week when he met with Vice President Dick Cheney," Robert Novak reports. "The speaker was enraged by the sacking of his friend and former colleague, Porter Goss."

"Hastert was so vituperative that a private session with President Bush in the living quarters of the White House was scheduled immediately."

"That wrath reflects the feeling in the House Republican cloakroom that Goss, who gave up a safe congressional seat from Florida for a thankless cleanup mission at the CIA, is being made a scapegoat for the government's intelligence mess. But Hastert's discontent goes beyond the CIA. The GOP mood on Capitol Hill, particularly the House, is poisonous."

Ray McGovern’s 27-year career as a CIA analyst spanned administrations from John F. Kennedy to George H. W. Bush. Ray is now co-director of the Servant Leadership School, which provides training and other support for those seeking ways to be in relationship with the marginalized poor. The School is one of ten Jubilee Ministries, not-for-profit organizations inspired by the ecumenical Church of the Saviour and established in an inner-city neighborhood in Washington, DC.

The department Ray heads at the School deals with the biblical injunction to “speak truth to power,” and this, together with his experience in intelligence analysis, accounts for his various writings and media appearances over the past year. His focus dovetails nicely with the passage carved into the marble entrance to CIA Headquarters: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”—the ethic mandating that CIA analysts were to “tell it like it is” without fear or favor.

In January 2003, when it became clear that that ethic was in serious jeopardy, a handful of intelligence community alumni/ae, including Ray, created Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. VIPS now includes over 35 former professionals from CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Army Intelligence, the FBI, and the National Security Agency. VIPS’ first effort (of ten thus far) was a same-day critique of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s address to the UN on February 5.

In addition to co-authoring some of VIPS’ issuances, Ray has published some 20 op-eds over the past year on intelligence-related issues. These have appeared in newspapers and journals around the country like The Birmingham News, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The Miami Herald, Die Sueddeutsche Zeitung, The International Herald Tribune, and Der Berliner Tagespiegel, for example.

Over the past several months, he and his VIPS colleagues have made numerous TV, radio and lecture appearances in the US and Europe. They also have appeared in several recent video documentaries—notably, “Uncovered: the Whole Truth About the Iraq War” (Robert Greenwald) and “Break the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror” (John Pilger).

Ray’s duties at CIA included chairing National Intelligence Estimates and preparing the President’ Daily Brief (PDB). These, the most authoritative genres of intelligence reporting, have been the focus of press reporting on “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq and on what the president was told before 9/11. During the mid-eighties, Ray was one of the senior analysts conducting early morning briefings of the PDB one-on-one with the Vice President, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

Ray received his B.A., summa cum laude, from Fordham College and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Designated a Distinguished Military Graduate, he was commissioned upon graduation and served as an infantry/intelligence officer in the US Army from 1962-64. Ray holds an M.A. in Russian Studies from Fordham University and a certificate in Theological Studies from Georgetown University. He is also a graduate of the Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.

At his retirement ceremony, Ray received the Intelligence Commendation Medal and a letter from then-president George H. W. Bush wishing him well in his transition to non-profit work in inner-city Washington. Ray served on the board of Bread for the City from 1989-94, the latter two years as president, before becoming co-director of the Servant Leadership School.

A native New Yorker, he has been married to Rita Kennedy for 42 years; they have five children and six grandchildren.

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

That Ray McGovern.

Michael Graham: 'Fast-track flyboy: Just how did George W. Bush become Lt. Bush, anyway?'

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

A cute little read...

DB,

A presumption is that I do not or have not already posted there, eh?

So why are you not keeping your word?

Exception to the rule? Just curious.

capt

Ah, saladin, re #93 and #108: First, thanks for the quote from the building designer. However, wind loads and earthquake loads require different designs, helping to explain why there are no 110 floor skyscrapers in California.
But more fundamentally, you keep dabbling with the physics and engineering. So every time you make a mistake, I will call you for it. Indeed, if you had been tracking the PhysOrgForum thread in the past couple of days, you would have seen some visuals of the truss support in the, for the 1960s, highly innovative design and construction of the WTC towers.

Then you change your story. In #93 you state, in effect, the engineering and mode of collapse does not matter to you. Good! I encourage you to stick to that. I don't much understand people's motivations, inclding my own. I do understand the basic physics, and some aspects of the engineering. Even more, I know something about what it takes to become a Professional Engineer. Imho, with only a PhD, I think the qualifications for a P.E. are substantively higher.

So I'll largely stick to the physics and engineering. If someone is confused about that aspect of 2001 Sep 11, I'll try to explain, even when various people do not like the explanation.
I don't have the time nor the expertise to consider all the FUBAR (for sure) and complicity (maybe) which lead up to the worst surprise attack the United States as so far suffered.

White House In Disarray: Contradicting Snow, Gonzales Says Bush Opposes Making English The National Language

Today Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said that President Bush "has never supported making English the national language." But earlier this morning, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said Bush supported efforts in the Senate to do just that:

As you know, there were actually a couple of amendments that came up yesterday, an Inhofe amendment and also a Salazar amendment. And what has come out of that is a description of English as the national language. And I think —†and we have supported both of these. …†And I think both of these amendments are consistent with that stated presidential desire.

The text of the amendment Snow said Bush supports:

The government of the United States shall preserve and enhance the role of English as the national language of the United States of America.

Looks like the White House message machine is broken.

More HERE

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

English or not this WH is losing it.

capt

Dorothy (Doro) Bush Koch was on C-Span 2's Book TV this morning shilling for her new book, about her father - 41.

She spoke about what a lovely person he is, and how everybody loves him, Bill Clinton included.

My open question to her:

Why did your brother seal Reagan and Bush (41) records immediately upon taking office, making real historical observation that much more difficult, and fluff pieces like yours much more prominent?

Re #115: No, capt, no presumption regarding you. Well, if you do you are using an AKA.

And it appears that it is not possible for me to avoid posting here when I see such ignorance regarding WTC on 2001 Sep 11... But I have not and will not initiate any of it here.

DEMOCRATS AND THE DEFENSE BUDGETS

Just as Ruinous as Republicans Democrats and the Defense Budgets

All the conditions are ripe for a major debate on America’s defense budget. A Republican White House and Congress have produced, at increased cost, a military establishment that is shrinking, aging and less ready to fight. The ruinous effects have shown up again and again, in the form of over-stretched, poorly supported forces in Iraq.

There is, however, no debate. The Democratic Party, while happy to take easy potshots, is advocating more of the same.

On track to exceed $530 billion this year, Pentagon spending is now higher than at any time since World War II, even though our military is smaller today than at anytime since 1946. America’s huge defense budget now exceeds the rest of the world combined.

More HERE

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

If we cannot reduce the momentum of increased military spending nothing else will matter much.

capt

DB,

Which post on this thread prompted ignorance regarding WTC? Or were the first 70 posts completely ignorant politically as well? Nothing shines apples faster or better than mutual respect and civility. If ignorance moves you so easily maybe your constitution is weak at the foundations of social interaction and proper etiquette or is calling people ignorant become acceptable if it serves a temporary purpose?

So where (at what post) is that Ignorance that prompted your post at #77? I am not following your non-sequitur?

Please be specific. Unless you are just kidding?

Thanks

capt

Choices

Dear Cornposters:

In life God has given us a free will. With our free will we are able to make choices in our lives. Some choices will be good and some choices will be bad. With choices will come consequences! Some consequences will be good and some consequences will be bad. In the end we are held responsible for our choices.

Let us look at some choices that we can make in our lives. If we vote for Nazis, we are saying to the world that we choose to be murderers and war criminals. If we vote for Democrats, we are saying to the world that we are racist and racism is synonymous with hatred.

As a white person from the 1960s to the twenty-first century I was considered a racist because I was white. Now we are into the twenty-first century and because I speak English I am a racist. There is no way the label of racist can be shrugged off a white person who also speaks English in the United States of America.

As I enter the few remaining seconds of my life, I remember the story of no man is an island. Personally, I feel like a man who is on an island. I can no longer feel like I am an American in the United States of America. The United States of America is no longer my country. I feel like an outsider.

There are times that I look and feel like Sylvester Stallone in the original movie of Rocky. If you recall the movie, you will recall how Rocky looked after his fight with Apollo Creed. If you can picture Rocky at the end of the fight, that is how I look and feel as an American. I look and feel like an English speaking white American who has been stomped on endlessly over my face and body by certain groups in our country, by the Nazis, by the elitists, by the fundamentalists, and now by the Democrats.

Sincerely,

Gerald

World Wide Military Expenditures

Country Military expenditures - dollar figure Budget Period

World $950 billion 2004 est. [see Note 5]

Rest-of-World [all but USA] $500 billion 2004 est. [see Note 5]

United States $466.0 billion FY04 actual [see Note 8]

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

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. - Dwight D. Eisenhower

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children...
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

when I see such ignorance regarding WTC on 2001 Sep 11

sigh.

why is this building exploding into dust? and
why is THIS building exploding into dust?

OOps, the preceeding quote should have been labeled with Pres. Eisenhower's name at the end, and all in italics, my bad.

RS,

I recognized it!

DDE was a soothsayer about the military.

capt

#106 kathleen, no bets!!!!! The war with Iran is etched in stone!!!!!!!!!!

This is how the Democrats make me feel

WMR is as good as our sources and contacts. We vet them, cultivate them, and protect them. If they pass legitimate information, we report it. If situations change and items we report do not pan out, that does not reflect badly on them. Note the term "item." WMR is a political insider publication. Our daily reports are not standard news stories that name sources and quote them but items -- compilations of what we hear and read from our confidential sources. WMR reports what would never be permitted to leave the news rooms of The Washington Post, New York Times, ABC News, or CNN. After all, reporting raw information would get their editors and reporters tossed off every social "A list" and "B list" in Washington.

WMR stands by its report that there was a meeting between Fitzgerald and Rove and his attorneys at Patton Boggs LLC in Washington on Friday, May 12. The meeting was to inform Rove that he would be indicted. The Attorney General had been informed in person by the Grand Jury that they had indicted Rove -- the same courtesy afforded him last October in the Libby case. The Grand Jury was apparently not in session yesterday but that does not mean the Rove matter was off the agenda. According to the daily docket in the Clerk's Office, two US District Court judges were deliberating cases in which there were potentially sealed indictments. Judge Alan Kay heard a case titled "UNITED STATES v. SEALED." Judge Reggie Walton, the presiding judge in the Libby trial, deliberated a number of cases titled "SEALED v. SEALED." With a sealed indictment in hand, the Special Prosecutor could have been negotiating a plea agreement with the Rove camp during the last week. And that may have set off a guerre royale between the Special Prosecutor and White House, with the prosecutor at a severe disadvantage.

Wayne Madsen

No reform is better than bad reform

We are going backwards. For a long time now we have been a nation that understood the importance of providing information to people in a language they understand. It protects the public safety, the public health and civil rights.

Now the U.S. Senate has voted to make English the national language. The measure - proposed by James F. Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma - came as part of the debate on immigration reform and is an amendment to the Senate immigration bill.

The amendment is so flawed and dangerous that the Senate also approved a second, weaker amendment that says English is the "common and unifying language" of the country. This second measure was proposed by Ken Salazar of Colorado, one of only three Hispanics in the Senate, as a way to deflect the negative impact of the Inhofe amendment.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid called the Inhofe amendment "mean-spirite" and "divisive." He`s right. This regressive measure threatens to reduce multilingual government programs and eliminate the rights of those people, including U.S. citizens, who use them. It would make it difficult for people to report illnesses and seek medical treatment, and to report crimes.

More HERE

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

An interesting point of view.

I do not call people from either side of the argument names because I believe it is intended as a distraction and a political device of mass manipulation.

Bush is going to wreck the border patrol and privatize the whole thing. Anybody that thinks that fixes anything is nuts (IMO).

I have never taken any politician (local, national, republican or democrat) seriously after I saw mayor Quimby on "The Simpsons" was faced with pitch-fork and torch wielding citizens ready to string him up and he comes up with the idea to blame the immigrants.

Now I hear Quimby when I hear "blame the immigrants" for anything. It is political kabuki theater and is not even serious politics.

My better half is first generation American. So I guess I am also prejudiced.

capt

capt, not on this thread. Previous threads. I thought you were talking in general. But james has just posted another. But since I have already, several times, suggested to james that he pose such questions on the PhysOrgForum thread, I won't do it again...

111
Mr. Schwartz,

I notice you're quoting Ray McGovern. This can't possibly be the same Ray McGovern who was sent to prison on financial fraud charges, is it?

This isn't the Ray McGovern who writes regularly for Lyndon LaRouche publications, is it?

This isn't the Ray McGovern who recently called for a "new Marxist International throughout the world", is it?

This can't possibly be the Ray McGovern who says the LaRouche researchers, "do some fairly good work".

Surely a smart man like yourself wouldn't, couldn't be quoting such a crackpot.

Could you?

Posted by: factchecker at May 20, 2006 06:13 PM
= = = =

No No No No No and No. Now you know.

I suppose a guy named factchecker wouldn't hesitate to do a quick google search before assuming the worst.

Mike D and Robert, Mr. McGovern does believe bushco was complicit in 9/11, that alone will label him a looney, no matter how distinguished his background is. What does a 27 year CIA veteran know anyway?

DB 116, where is my mistake, my "dabbling" in a quote from the building designer? You asked if I knew anything about building codes in CA and NY, and I just happened to run into that quote. NY skyscrapers are designed to be doubly stong to withstand hurricane force winds. That's all he said.

DB, i have passed along your suggestions that i pose such questions on the physorg.com forum to others wiser than myself, and have pointed out to them that all of their questions and suspicions would surely be answered and allayed if only they would do so!

What does a 27 year CIA veteran know anyway? - Saladin

The best restaurants in Washington D.C.?

MP to investigate Dr Kelly's death
Hélène Mulholland
Friday May 19, 2006

[...]

Mr Baker explained that he had decided to wait until he relinquished his environmental role before embarking on an investigation to find out the "truth" that the Hutton inquiry had failed to deliver.

"It did not answer questions," he told Guardian Unlimited today.

"It was not carried out using proper rules of evidence, people were not giving evidence under oath and the whole thing became a criticism of the BBC."

Mr Baker said he had given himself a year to carry out his inquiries. This will include revising the medical evidence, interviews with experts and looking at issues relating to the government's "behaviour" in the affair, as well as the weapons of mass destruction claims made in the months preceding Dr Kelly's death.

[...]

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

So many unaswered questions....

Jewish MP denies Iran badge plan

IRAN'S only Jewish MP strongly denied reports in a Canadian newspaper overnight that Iran may force non-Muslims to wear coloured badges in public so they can be identified.

"This report is a complete fabrication and is totally false," Maurice Motammed said in Tehran. "It is a lie, and the people who invented it wanted to make political gain" by doing so.

The National Post newspaper quoted human rights groups as saying that Iran's parliament passed a law this week setting a public dress code and requiring non-Muslims to wear special insignia.

Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear a yellow, red or blue strip of cloth, respectively, on the front of their clothes, it said.

Mr Motammed said he had been present in parliament when a bill to promote "an Iranian and Islamic style of dress for women" was voted. "In the law, there is no mention of religious minorities," he added.

More HERE

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

I think the first question is: If they want to wear patches as some Christians do - why not?

Fetish wear in Christianity has a long history. Sir Thomas More wore a hairshirt continually after his conversion. Filthy, itchy, unsanitary and crawling with vermin a hairshirt was worn as a continual reminder of the suffering of Christ and the unworthiness of the wearer. Today most Christians simply resort to wearing patches as symbols acknowledging the sufferings of Christ. The patches pictured here (4) refer to 1) Peter's denial of Christ when the cock crowed, 2) communion and the garden of Gethsemane, 3) the whipping of Jesus, 4) the crown of thorn and nails, 5) the ladder and sponge used to give Jesus vinegar on the cross and 6) the robe over which the soldiers gambled.

capt

Re #134: Sorry, saladin. I found that quote interesting. No mistake.

The questions were my attempt to use the Socratic method...

Re #135: I don't know about all the questions and suspicions. I suspect that some will never be answered. But the general outline is, finally, clear even to me and some of the strange events at WTC 2001 Sep 11 sufficiently explained for me to comprehend.

DB,

Post whatever you think is interesting. If people are stimulated to respond then so be it. I just thought your #77 was off the wall and refernces to my friends as ignorant is beneath a self-imposed civil standard. People will disagree but there is no reason to resort to name calling, especially between friends?

That is me opinion so it cannot be wrong. It is just the way I see it.

But what do I know? HA!

capt

"The questions were my attempt to use the Socratic method"

I do not remember calling people ignorant as part of Socratic methodology?

I will review my source materials.

capt

in the meantime, we are still on chap. 3 of the continuing saga:
"ALUMINUM PLANES & STEEL HEARTS: a wholly factual and true account of the events of 911"
------------

we last saw achmed's wife as she was questioning the need for a certain billboard. we take up with her back at the hovel that she shares with her husband, where she is preparing a lunch of cream of something soup....

blast! where is that fool anyway? he has once again failed to bring the llamas in!

leaning over the four foot stone wall that separates their hovel from that of the hovel of achmed's cousin, achmed's wife yells at achmed's cousin's wife, zerbeena.

beena! ask that fool husband of your's where is achmed! he has failed once again to bring in the llamas! by the way, what is today's date?

*today's date? why today is indeed the twelfth of september, in the year of somebody's lord two thousand and one! why do you ask?*

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895, Act I

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

The truth is more important than the facts.
Frank Lloyd Wright (1869 - 1959)

The truth is always a compound of two half- truths, and you never reach it, because there is always something more to say.
Tom Stoppard (1937 - )

The forceps of our minds are clumsy forceps, and crush the truth a little in taking hold of it.
H. G. Wells (1866 - 1946), 1903

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George Orwell (1903 - 1950)

The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815 - 1902), 1890

Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.
Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804)

Re #141: I'm just a beginner at the Socratic method. You needn't review, capt.

Re #140: I just reviewed #77. How is this off the wall? Where does the word 'ignorant' appear there? I don't see it. (Socratic method(?))

According to the WTC Report, 1½ inch, 22-gauge non-composite steel deck trusses were supported at the inner core on seats off a girder which ran continuously past and was supported by the core columns. The only thing securing trusses to the inner core were 5/8" bolts:
-------------
My last comment about WTC designs. If the above is true, which, in my non-PhD opinion, seems highly unlikely, the engineers for that design need to go back to school. That wouldn't withstand hurricane force winds for 1 year, much less 30. But if that is the design they insist was used, without blueprints to back it up, then it's no wonder the PhysOrg guys think they fell down because of relativly minor fires. It's amazing they didn't collapse during the previous fires and explosions!

Re #146: saladin, I don't know what the 'WTC report' is, but this is misleading. The trusses, sat on plates at the inner core end, so they could slide back and forth some. In a slot in these plates were 5/8" bolts into the slider. So the trusses sat on the strong sliding plate. The 5/8" blot were simply limiters for the motion so that the trusses could not, even with hurricane force wind sheer, side off the under plate, which was firmly fastened to the core.

So your idea is not the design used. Earlier today is posted a drawing. That shows you what I mean (and uses the official terms for these components).

Finally, several of the PhysOrgForum guys have actually read the entire NIST report. That was prepared, using the actual building plans, by structural engineers, some of whom have both a PhD and a P.E.

Actually, there was a previous fire in WTC 1, the north tower, in 1975. The building was designed to withstand ordinary office fires, and indeed did. Then the south tower was bombed. While never part of the design considerations, the building had sufficient strength to withstand that. However, these towers were only designed to be struck by airplanes flying at most 180 mph. As the actual strikes were much faster, the buildings eventually collapsed. It is a tribute to the careful, inovative yet conservative, engineering that went into the design that the buildings stood as long as they did, without any attempt to fight the fires...

All of that without even looking at the blueprints?

Impressive.

capt

that the buildings stood as long as they did, without any attempt to fight the fires...

any attempt, that is, other than the actual firemen who climbed all the way to the fires and radioed back that the fires were for the most part non-existent and what fires there were could be put out with 2 hoses. "lines" i believe he called them. it was at that point in the firemen's historic recordings, (which the public had to fight tooth and nail to obtain [national security?]), that wtc2 began to explode.

So, where are those plans? Why can't non-Govt. funded researchers have access to them? Those buildings were funded with public money, and the public has the right to review the plans if they want to, so I think whoever is concealing them should hand them over, but that's just me. This is just more grist for the secrecy mill.

Here is an interesting quote I found on your PhysOrg site:

Neither FEMA, nor the 9/11 Commission, has been willing to release the building plans of the twin towers. Without this, their scientific assesment of the collapse of these buildings has no scientific credibility, in my view. No journal would accept a scientific paper that specified that it's data would not be made available for independant assesment.
----------
That was posted by someone named Damian, who appears to doubt the official story.

Someone named Adoucette replied:

The building plans aren't the property of the NIST or the govt. They can't publish them.

(Actually, he is correct, they are public property.)

To which Damian replied:

As far as I can recall, courts and independantly appointed judicial or congressional inquiries have almost unlimited legal authority to subpoena documents of any kind.

Moreover, they have the legal authority to do exactly what they please with them if they believe there are necessary benefits to society in the process. So absolutely nothing was standing in the way of the 9/11 Commission publishing the WTC building plans - nothing, that is, except a fundamental determination that the public not be able to review the evidence on its own merits.

There are two very powerful benefits in publishing the building plans:

(1) as a matter of considerable public interest, especially to the families of victims on 9/11;

(2) it would allow independant scientists to review the findings of the 9/11 Commission.

My principal claim is that the findings of the 9/11 Commision is scientifically deficient in the absence of published WTC building plans. It is especially unsatisfactory in cirumstances of strong public interest with the possibility of political interference in those scientific findings.

You don't MIND, do you, Adoucette, if interested members of the public or the scientific community make up their own minds on the matters of 9/11? Or would you prefer that they just asked you what to think? By your twisted logic, drug companies should not have to provide experimental data on new drugs to the FDA. Would you care to support that position?
-------------
I would add a third reason, so that the plans may be studied by engineers around the world to better design skyscrapers and avoid the disaster of the WTC's in the future.
I will repeat that the WTC's were publicly funded, no one has the right to conceal this info. from anyone who requests it. I have read this controversy is the subject of various legal battles.

Saladin #18

Explain more about the smear campaign against Iran. Where is it coming from?

From #119:

"And it appears that it is not possible for me to avoid posting here when I see such ignorance regarding WTC on 2001 Sep 11... But I have not and will not initiate any of it here."

Since you seem to want to pursue such ignorance yourself, please direct me to the post or posts that are "such ignorance"?

You come here with the credentials of a professor but devolve into calling people or what they post ignorant? Poor form for any educated person - extremely poor form for somebody that has spent a lifetime teaching and learning? Why be so base?

"that it is not possible for me to avoid posting"

Only you can decide whether to post here or elsewhere. You are not under the control of another. Poor form, and a poor excuse.

Shall we discuss the specific posts you think are ignorant and why such ignorance makes it impossible for you to not post? If you are not in control of yourself who is and can I contact that person directly?

Maybe you can get serious and apologize for the insults and try to stick to the issues? It would facilitate better and more productive communication whether we agree or not.

Thanks

capt

sir, haven't you figured out by now that NIST is not your friend?
NIST and the WTC: science at the service of an empire

Explain more about the smear campaign against Iran. Where is it coming from?

it must be coming from whoever has a vested interest in the weakening of iran. the IAEA has been up one side and down the other of iran and they found no evidence of atomic weaponry programs. and iran is a signatory of the non proliferation treaty, (of which israel refuses to sign and the U.S. refuses to abide by.)

From Wikipedia

...the twin towers had the world's highest load-bearing walls.

and this

One of the world's largest gold depositories was stored underneath the World Trade Center, owned by a group of commercial banks.
----------
There's those pesky bankers again. Gee, I wonder what happened to all that gold, has anyone heard?

Thinker, the smearing of Iran is originating from the same place as the smearing of Iraq, from the one place that has the most to benefit by it's utter destruction, ISRAEL! And by that I do NOT mean the Jews in general, I mean the radical, rightwing, psychopathic, extremist Zionists.

They also said Saddam had $5 billion?

I wonder where all that booty went?

Curious.

A B-25 makes a hole in the Empire state buliding 18 X 20 feet. Much larger than the hole at the Pentgon? B-25 stands 15 feet tall when standing on its landing gear. The fusilage was only about 8-10 feet wide. Much smaller than the aircraft they claim hit the Pentagon. Hmmmmm

No fire at Shanksville even though the aircraft was heavy with fuel? No fire, I bet that avgas just evaporated.

For sure! I am just another ignorant dolt.

Please excuse my ignorant post.

I can't help myself, I am too ignorant.

capt

i think we can all agree that the wtc's demise was either devised by plan or the result of a tragic mishap, ya? - tragic either way. however, it would've been nice if the govt. hadn't stepped in immediately and supervised the removal of the remains for investigation by their hand-picked investigators only.

and i bet we can further agree that the four 911 planes were either real, or illusions foisted upon us by cruel deceiving opportunists, correct? however, it would be nice if the govt. hadn't stepped in immediately and supervised the removal of the planes and to this day have not turned over the small part serial #'s for confirmation.
george nelson

BTW - "capt" is not my name it is an AKA. I only use that handle "capt" here. I post in many places under many handles. Some other sites already had capt or captain so I do have to be creative. I have never had any military rank, the "capt" is a nickname I was given as a ski instructor because there was already a "Kirk" teaching at the ski area. Captain Kirk was a popular TV character at the time.

Just so you know.

capt

Re #148: Yes, capt. I've been following PhysOrgForum since page 550 and looking at most of the links posted there. Since the schematics agree with the visuals of the construction and I am just following what is presented on a variety of sites, including skeptic sites, I'm moderately aware of the design of the WTC towers and also WTC 7.

Re #149: very incomplete understanding, james. Ask on the PhysOrgForum site.

Re #150: Very good, saladin! I am proud of you. I have no answers regarding why NIST had to great lengths to obtain the plans. I have no answer regarding what the Port Authority of New York is doing. I could only guess.

Re #152: capt, I was being honest and was exposed. My professional qualifications are largely irrelevant to these matters. However, I did have two years of physics in each of high school and college. The first year of each is now, finally, of some use. More so is a beginning college textbook on physics. It is also rather helpful to have associated with actual engineers for the last 15 or so years. Nonetheless, I do not have any professional qualifications regarding structural engineering, same as S.E. Jones.
However, I do get rather annoyed when various posters state, authoritatively, without qualification or citing a reference, that such and so is true when it is simply not.

Re #153: Actually, james, I know some engineers at NIST. None of them have anything whatsoever to do with structural engineering. I have read comments by other civil engineers who hold what NIST has done regarding the collapse of the WTC towers has innovative and valuable.

Maybe I did not cover everything, but I need to leave now. Apologies.

I wonder where all that booty went?

and i wonder where the 2.6 TRILLION that (heckuva job rummy!) reported as unaccounted for on 9/10/01 went.
-----------

wait, are you saying that when a plane strikes a tall building, it should make a hole bigger than the plane? that's odd, because the holes made by both planes at both wtc's were smaller than the planes were!

sigh. how is that an incomplete understanding?(149)
either the fireman said over his radio that the fires were small and could be put out with 2 lines or he did not. and since those very recordings were fought for in court and eventually released to the public, i can safely say that the fireman did in fact say that very thing! and speaking of fires, must i link to that poor gal waving yet again in order to back up the fireman's claim that the fires were small?
what else about (149) is an incomplete understanding? the exploding tower bit? if you watch the demise of the towers you will see that they did indeed explode with emough force to send those giant beams flying quite a long way.

well, maybe since you know some engineers at NIST that would explain why you are so reluctant to dismiss NIST. i know a few engineers myself, and they are dismayed at the bogus level to which the ASCE has stooped with the pentagon building performance report.

stay tuned for part 4 of my novella:
"ALUMINUM PLANES & STEEL HEARTS"
if anyone is interested, it began on the monkey man thread. # 28, 33, 117. and continued on this good fences thread. #27, 73, 142. ha, out.

All that missing gold got me thinking, and look what I found:

Gold Prices Leaps on World Trade Centre Attack
11th September 2001
Today's terrorist attacks on The World Trade Centre in New York, and the Pentagon in Washington have been alarming. The New York gold market reacted up sharply from $271 to $278 before closing just after 2 p.m. G.M.T., or 9 a.m. E.S.T.
---------------
Today gold is hovering around the $700 mark. If that was a shifty scam, someone has made a literal killing!

"I do get rather annoyed when various posters state, authoritatively, without qualification or citing a reference, that such and so is true when it is simply not."

You are in charge of your emotions too sir, quit with the insults as the justifications are obviously beyond your verbal skills regardless of any qualifications.

How many students did you call ignorant in your career and how well did they learn that lesson?

I cannot imagine a man of any qualifications so petty as to deflect responsibility for their errors of ill manners to others. (still wondering where are those ignorant posts - any thread will do - how else will we ignoramuses ever learn from the good professor?)

I guess civility transcends education but not good taste or due consideration. Or are you the exception to the rule?

You should apologize for your insults and stick to the issues and your qualifications do not matter one lick here, this is an open blog. Many have listed their resumes and such. I am never impressed. It seems those that need to qualify their commentary also lack the necessary skills to make such accolades apparent without citation. That never reflects well on them.

Happens every time.

So, I will make it easy as you seem to have very limited abilities for such an educated man - list just the numbers and the title of that page (this one is: "Good Fences and Lousy Reading Comprehension")

I am completely serious even if you are not. If we cannot know which posts MAKE you do things we will never be able to effect control and we will always be back here repeating the same stuff or do you think you have become more convincing? (Not to me your insults and pettiness have made you less so. In my opinion)

Which are the ignorant posts? Please. (I am sure there are too many, so just a few will do)

capt

The Real History of The Middle East: Who Really Owns Palestine?

look at this map - no wonder they're mad!

And, guess who they blamed it on? That's right, our immortal, eternal boogeyman OBL!

Bin Laden rigged oil and gold prices - bank chief
By Philip Sherwell
(Filed: 23/09/2001)

OSAMA bin LADEN is believed to have made a massive profit from trading in oil and gold as well as shares on the eve of the suicide attacks blamed on his followers.

Ernst Welteke, president of the Bundesbank, said financial investigators had found strong indications of suspicious dealings in gold and oil, as well as unusual movements in airline and insurance shares, in the days before the September 11 attacks in the United States.

It appears that terrorist leaders capitalised on their "insider knowledge" of the planned atrocities to invest in oil and gold, knowing that the prices would rise after the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Strange stock-market fluctuations have already been identified.

European Union finance ministers, meeting in Liege, Belgium, ordered national regulators to investigate the alleged market manipulations. Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, said: "Financial institutions in every part of the world should be under an obligation to report suspicious transactions where terrorist money could be in use."

Mr Welteke, speaking during a break in the same meeting yesterday, said: "There are ever clearer signs that there were activities on international financial markets that must have been carried out with the necessary expert knowledge."
-----------
Not only can this mastermind outwit the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and the two main sources of our protection, the Airforce and NORAD, but, he can also manipulate oil and gold prices, all with a cell phone from a cave in Afghanistan!
Unfortunately nothing ever came of that investigation. Now, it's a big secret, along with just about everything else concerning 9/11. Also, no one ever claimed the ill gotten loot. What good is the investment if you don't cash in?

"Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information." -- US official quoted in Carl Cameron's Fox News report on the Israeli spy ring.

Damn, is EVERYTHING classified?

Which are the ignorant posts?

i do believe he was referring to my #124 - that's ok though, they are merely photos and they speak for themselves.

James, did you read the content of that site with the map? That guy tries to justify the usurpation by European Jews in Palestine by saying they wrote about Jerulesalem a lot in the book of Psalms! He completely ignores the fact that maybe the NATIVE SEMITES might object to being booted out of their homeland by force and feel the need to fight back, just like the Apaches he mentioned did. Poor Israel, the eternal victim. I wonder how long Russians would have gotten away with such murderous and deceitful behavior by endlessly whining about the 10 million that were murdered in the Gulags? Does that give the right to treat people as you have been treated? God help us if that is so.

from a cave in Afghanistan! ha! it must be a batcave or something!

osama bin laden - evil supergenius

sal, when i saw the word bible i knew it would be slanted. no, i just looked at the map. it would seem by that map that israel has some explaining to do.

two headlines:
Rep Betty McCollum Bans AIPAC From Her Offices
Heroic MN Rep. Betty McCollum Stands Up To AIPAC

159 Capt. I need a little advice. When I ski the bumps on a steep incline I have trouble controlling my speed especially if I ski in the tracked groove but if I turn just over the top on the backside of the bump there's usually enough snow to help me manage the turns. How can I ski the trough and check my speed effectively?

#172,

Email me with a valid address and we can take the discussion off blog. It is hard to offer advice without ever skiing with you. But I can offer a few tips.

capt

Ya know, it would be very nice if 9/11 could be put to bed on this blog every once in awhile. All the arguing back 'n forth is getting old. I mean, what is the point already? The conspiracy theorists are getting particularly combative and treating people with opposite opinions as if they were refucklican trolls! God, give it a rest.

What is the point? You mean beyond the fact that 9/11 is the reason our entire country has gone straight to hell and seems determined to take all oil bearing pieces of the planet with it? Or the fact that all the lies and secrecy surrounding it have enabled those crazy fuckers in DC to continue getting away with it? No point at all I guess. We should just allow that water to sweep on under the bridge.
James, the dude that has that website with the map, I think his name is Jack Kinsella, was just on a National Geographic documentary tonight about the book of Revelation. I have a much better understanding of his support of Israel now, he is one of those nutty Armegeddon-Rapture preaching evangelicals that is convinced that Israel must rebuild their temple so the anti-Christ can use it as a speaking platform. My God, the crazy people who are happy about the whole idea of most of the people on earth getting wiped out.

I don't see why you have to ski with someone to offer advice based on that inquiry, if you are a ski insructor. Just my opinion...

I move that from now on we only discuss topics that are more important, like karl rove, tom delay, that traitor hayden and building walls on the border. That is, as long as that is acceptable to those who disapprove of subjects they themselves are not interested in.
Whatever happened to that gannon fellow? Or the DSM?

Jesushchrist, 9/11 is not the "reason" our "country has gone straight to hell" -- if our country has gone straight to hell (to which I take exception), there would be causes, in addition to the events of 9/11. That is just too simplistic.

Do you have any hope in the human race?

I "move" that we discuss anything we damn well please to discuss until David Corn tells us to STFU. Carol did not say "don't discuss" 9/11, she just expressed a level of weariness in the futility of discussing it under the current circumstances on this blog.

Maybe I'm misreading Carol....but she's pretty damned sensible, IMO.

Jeanne...best wishes to your son as he embarks on the next phase of his journey. I have a feeling he will distinguish himself with a mark of distinction wherever his path takes him.

Roots and wings...important things all kids need.

conspiracy theorists are getting particularly combative and treating people with opposite opinions as if they were...

i hope that i have not. i hope that i will not. and that having been sed,...911 IN YOUR FACE! beeotches!

i'm just kidding ladies - - you're right of course carol and micki, 911 is tedious, odious and not the end of the world - i agree with sal though that it is the beginning of the end of the world - hopefully the next generation will see it thru to the end.

in the meantime i hope you will all buy my new book:
"ALUMINUM PLANES & STEEL HEARTS"
if anyone is interested, it began on the monkey man thread. # 28, 33, 117. and continued on this good fences thread. #27, 73, 142.
stay tuned for part 4 of my novella. ha.

jeanne! what micki said!(180) except double!

"I don't see why you have to ski with someone to offer advice based on that inquiry, if you are a ski instructor. Just my opinion"

Then you are not a ski instructor.(obviously)

First thing that has to be done is evaluate the skiers ability. Is he on choppy bumps or on VW sized moguls, is his weight forward in an athletic stance or is his ass sticking out and his weight too far back? Is he comfortable on the terrain? Just by watching a student ski an instructor can form a complete lesson plan.

There are even issues that relate to the type of skis used.

And I am not currently an instructor, have not been for many years (last time I wore a uniform was the 1990 - 91 season). So you are correct I am not an instructor - I was an instructor.

If you think that is a brag on my part, it is not. The highest level I was cleared to teach (through the PSIA) was a "C" class. Although I had a very solid private clientele (that is where one can make some money) and private instruction is not limited to the same level structure .

I have no clue why you would make such comment.

Do you really think I would have fabricate a reason I use capt as a handle? I really do not know why you would even care?

capt

James, you've been very decent during the 9/11 "discussions". I wanted to say that above but didn't know how w/o upsetting other people. I suppose they'll be upset now, but you have been a gentleman and I want you to know I noticed that.

Through roughly the end of 2002, I accepted the orthodox conspiracy theory regarding the 9/11 attacks. Remember the orthodox explanation is also a conspiracy theory; it says that al-Qaeda, and only al-Qaeda, conspired to hijack the aircraft, with no help from anyone in our governing or corporate communities (not that there's much difference between those two). I began to doubt the official explanation when the emphasis shifted to Iraq. The Elephascists' use of 9/11 as a partisan issue in the 2002 elections also started me to doubting.

I suspect many of us progressive folks are reluctant to entertain complicity theories ("complicity" meaning members of our govt. /corporate communities were involved) because, historically in the USA, such theories have been found more often on the hard Right. Suspicion of fiat currency, for example, is a durable theme of the hard Right. Of course, that doesn't automatically mean it's wrong to suspect that just because the hard Right does--a stopped clock is right twice a day, after all. ;) I suspect we simply don't wish to sound like Birchers, or worse, McVeigh types.

A bit of friendly advice for fellow Cornbloggers: unless you can't get the stories you want anywhere else, it hurts credibility to refer to sites that also carry stories from people who believe we're being visited by superintelligent little green hamsters from Zeta Reticuli 5 or wherever. (did somebody say "Jeff Rense"?) ;)

Also, some of us hold jobs where it could hurt our career prospects if it were known that we consider complicity theories seriously, because "only crazy people believe far-out moonbat stuff like that". I take no risk in entertaining such theories, because I hold an ordinary job where my employers don't give a rodent's rump if I believe in, well, superintelligent little green hamsters from Zeta Reticuli 5, as long as I turn out sufficient amounts of high-quality NaCl on time.

Well, I must be going for now. I never know when the Reticulites will want to study me again, but at least they have medical tricorders now. They're actually a rather sweet bunch; they did apologize for the anal probes they used to use. ;)

Live long and prosper (yes, even the Busheviks), Kid Charlemagne

New information about 'Project SERPO' made public: What does it mean?

TC’s account agrees that visitors from the Zeta Reticuli star system crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947, and that a live being survived on U.S. soil until 1952. His descriptions of these beings appear consistent with the many other reports. The evolution of the U.S. Government response to these visitors also seems somewhat in line with the Project SERPO reports and similar accounts.

However, TC states that no exchange program involving the U.S. military and the inhabitants of the planet Serpo or Seinu took place. He claims Project SERPO, originally called "Project SERPONIA," is a disinformation cover story.

For those who have been following the Project SERPO and Project CRYSTAL KNIGHT reports, the accounts about an exchange program from 1965 to 1978 involving a 12-person joint-service U.S. military team and extraterrestrial visitors from a planet in the Zeta Reticuli star system have been fascinating.

More HERE

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

Zeta Reticuli you say?

capt

I can accept the likelihood of extraterrestrial life, including intelligent life, existing out there. I have one major problem with the idea of their visiting us on any frequent basis: the time involved. Relativistic physics says that time slows down the closer you get to the speed of light, so given a sufficient source of energy and other considerations, travelers could make interstellar journeys in a reasonable time, but time would pass at the normal rate back home, so while you could return to your home, most or all of the people you knew would be dead, and your society would likely be very different as well. Of course, if our hypothetical aliens have licked this "death" problem, that might not be such a deterrent. The UFO enthusiasts could eliminate my biggest objection if they could prove to me that FTL travel was possible after all. ("warp drive", anyone?) LLAP, KC

The schematic at #76 calls the angle-iron on the perimeter columns a "gusset plate"... same term I used when talking about the steel and glass buildings I helped build. (On the other end, the trusses connected to the core columns by bolting to a welded c-channel.) Just wanted to explain that the "gusset plates" I experienced were vertical with holes in them that corresponded to the holes on the "gusset plate" welded to the web (not the flange at top or bottom) of an I-beam. About 8 or so bolts (used to use rivets long ago) to connect them... left loose temporarily. The connectors put 'em together and move on (and up), while another crew with spud wrenches and impact guns, along with come-alongs to pull it all square and plumb, goes behind them to tightens the bolts... then a welder comes by and does his thing to the tightened gusset plates.
One other thing, with hurricane force winds, we're talking about lateral loads (tall buildings are like a sail) and I'd guess that earthquakes stress the gravity loads more. I dunno, maybe lateral too, since it would be shaking.

Saladin,

I thought that you were talking about Zionists but wasn't sure. Your post gave me the impression that you thought something like the Christian right wing of the Christin right wing party.

Iran doesn't appear to be the threat that all the hype is about. What do you think about that?

Appreciated, most people here are discussing other topics and no one has been waiting in anticipation for me to talk about immigration again... but, here are some replies to LBH who asked me a series of questions.

On supporting a change in the law to decriminalise immigrants, LBH brings up a popular talking point:

"Again, would you allow this for anyone? What if they are criminals(murderers, gang members, drug dealers, pedophiles, etc.) Anything for a chance at a new start? Is this a progressive fuzzy feeling to feel good about yourself?"

If efforts to control and suppress immigration were abandoned, it would still be possible to monitor the movements of individuals who were a threat to the public, just as it is with US citizens - probably easier given the resources that would be freed up for law enforcement authorities to concentrate on dangerous criminals rather than foreign job-seekers who are not the slightest threat to anybody.

"Mexican workers come here by the millions legally and shouldn't be punished by soft progressives and Bush that want to give the illegals a free ride."

Legal Mexican workers are in no way being punished by measures that will make their lives considerably easier, or from a progressive rebuttal of the prejudice they endure, particularly from the racist right.

"There is no difference in upholding the law no matter if it's giving a ticket for speeding, drinking and driving, stealing money from the boy scouts, murdering your neighbor, or coming here illegally. The difference is in the punishment."

Again, I really wonder how to impress you the point that enforcing bad law is harmful and the sane, humane response is to change the law.

If I propose - as I do - that women in Saudi Arabia should be allowed to walk in public without a male escort and without an abaya, presumably some Arabian official can protest that I am undermining Saudi law. But so what? The law is irrational and immoral and it is bizarre to maintain that all laws are equally important and should be upheld regardless of their lack of justification.

Murdering your neighbour or drinking and driving are obviously harmful activities. Crossing the US-Mexico border and trying to get a job as a cleaner is not harmful. Murdering your neighbour is normally illegal in every culture, immigration has only been subject to penalties in the USA since the end of the 19th century. There is no equivalence at all between immigration law and the law regarding urder or theft.

"We have a legal process for immigartion, just like we have a legal process for selling booze and gambling."

Right, but it still isn't liberal enough. You currently have a legal process for alcohol and gambling because efforts to suppress them were gradually and sensibly abandoned. Bush's proposals represent a similar process for immigration - recognition that current law makes little sense and accommodating reality.

"Do you support legalizing all immigrants even if they have criminal backgrounds?"

What happens when a criminal travels from Maryland to Virginia? How the States of the Union get around this problem without banning freedom of movement within the USA?

"What if they come to just take advantage of our solcial services programs without any intention to work or pay taxes?"

Not that likely - if they don't get work, they can't send any money back home which is why the great majority are in the US in the first place. See below...

"If they commit a crime here in the US do you support paying to jail these immigrants at the taxpayers expense?"

"The taxpayers" will of course include many immigrants.

But again, what if people from Maryland go to Virginia (or wherever) and commit a crime? The US has proceedures for dealing with this and there is no reason in principle why the US and Mexico cannot work this out between them while allowing freedom of movement for everybody else.

"Some people take the easy way by trying to bypass the legal system like illegal immigration compared to selling alcohol illegally to say minors or hard liquor in alcohol free zones in certain counties."

This analogy doesn't work, but more importantly, where on earth do you get the notion that bypassing the legal system is an easy option?

Do you have any idea how hard the life of undocumented workers are?

I live in England where similar anti-immigrant hysteria has been oozing through our political system. In 2000 a lorry turned up in Dover filled with the decaying corpses of 58 aspyhxiated Chinese workers who, seeking work here, put their trust in one of the criminal gangs that smuggles workers in and whose driver forgot to open the air-vent in the back of the truck. You know, it doesn't give me a warm, fuzzy, progressive feeling to know that thousands of people around the world die in horrific circumstances because they are desperate to leave their own country to make a living but have no legitimate channels open to them.

In his excellent book on immigration, 'Thinking the Unthinkable', Nigel Harris writes:

"It is officially stated that only 2,000 have died on the borders trying to enter Europe in the past decade in the past decade. Given the daily corpse count, it seems a wild underestimate. Then there are the bodies not found, lost at sea, in the mountains or in the deserts. The US border patrol claims to have found 1,600 corpses in the course of four years during the 1990s. That is far more than the number of Americans killed in the [1991] Gulf War. The crash on Interstate 40 at the end of 1999 left another crop of grieving widows, fatherless, parents without sons, far to the south in a town in central Mexico. Casual statistics make no allowance for the bereaved, or for those who mortgage their family's wealth to send a son or daughter to work in the alien north, who lose a child but retain the crippling debts."

Those are the people taking the "easy" route - families who put everything into financing a dangerous journey for a husband, son or daughter to travel to the US and send back enough money to cover the debts and feed them, always at the risk of dying in the attempt.

"The difference between our views are that you want to give anyone a free ride to the US and be a citizen."

How is it a free ride to leave home, travel to another country, find a job and perform difficult work? It's not free - Mexican families use all the money they have just to get a family member across the border.

Furthermore, many of them are not after US citizenship - one of the most common jobs for illegal immigrants is seasonal work picking fruit where they work for a few months, make some money and go back home. And Californian agribusiness would be in a lot of trouble if they didn't.

The difference between our views is that I don't see any reason to be a millstone around the necks of people who are not harming anybody.

Have some trust in human freedom and let them be.

Saladin,

The reason Illegal Immigration is suddenly in the spotlight is because it gives the general public the impression that the bushbot administration is doing something and takes the attention off of all of the screwups and corruption that is plaguing this administration.

Of course, it seems that all politicians on both sides are forgetting the fact that if Mexico had labor laws that allowed it citizens to earn a living wage, we wouldn't have nearly this much of a problem. There are no provisions in any bill out there that deals with that issue. It's a band-aid approach.

Canada better watch out because if this administration and administrations to come allow corporations to deteriorate our own labor laws like they have, we will be going to Canada to look for decent wages! They'll be building a wall next!

"Of course, it seems that all politicians on both sides are forgetting the fact that if Mexico had labor laws that allowed it citizens to earn a living wage, we wouldn't have nearly this much of a problem."

Excellent point!

The problem with Mexico has always been the result of corruption.

Guess what we get to face here at home?

CORRUPTION!

I am he
As you are he
As you are me
And we are all together.
See how they run
Like pigs from a gun
See how they fly. I’m crying.
Sitting on a cornflake - waiting for the van to come.
Corporation teeshirt, stupid bloody
Tuesday man you been a naughty boy
You let your face grow long.
I am the eggman oh, they are the eggman -
Oh I am the walrus GOO GOO G’JOOB.

~ Beatles I am the Walrus

capt

Light That Travels ... Faster Than Light!

A team of researchers from the Ecole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne (EPFL) has successfully demonstrated, for the first time, that it is possible to control the speed of light -- both slowing it down and speeding it up -- in an optical fiber, using off-the-shelf instrumentation in normal environmental conditions. Their results, to be published in the August 22 issue of Applied Physics Letters, could have implications that range from optical computing to the fiber-optic telecommunications industry.

On the screen, a small pulse shifts back and forth -- just a little bit. But this seemingly unremarkable phenomenon could have profound technological consequences. It represents the success of Luc Th?venaz and his fellow researchers in the Nanophotonics and Metrology laboratory at EPFL in controlling the speed of light in a simple optical fiber. They were able not only to slow light down by a factor of three from its well -- established speed c of 300 million meters per second in a vacuum, but they've also accomplished the considerable feat of speeding it up -- making light go faster than the speed of light.

More HERE

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

I think it is folly to assume that all life in the universe has the same limitations we have. The study of neutrinos has opened the door to another dimension. Hard science not science fiction.

capt

carol, you are a dear - so is sal and jeanne and mick and any other ladies that i've forgotten to name - if i could get away with it i would kidnap you all and have my own harem! - but, since i AM a gentleman i would of course send letters of apology to your respective families!
i've thought of a better topic than 911 anyway; "garden gnomes, and their effect on rural society" - for instance, what does a real gnome think when he's sneaking around and comes across a yard full of garden gnomes? is he pleased at the flattering likeness? or does he believe that a garden gnome is a real gnome who's been placed under a spell and forced to stand there for all eternity? -

capt, I was a ski instructor in college. And THAT is my opinion -- that I could give some generic advice to THAT inquiry.

Professional ski instructors offer ADVICE, in writing, without viewing a real, live, skier all the time. They also do it with video. Nothing unusual.

Go make a sitzmark! ;-))

micki, once again you miss my sarcasm, I'm just not good at getting it across sometimes. But I strongly disagree with you about the reason for our countries downward spiral. Since 9/11 our govt. and I mean all those who voted to invade Iraq for no reason, which has resulted in the misery, destruction, death and the spread of DU poison on a hellish level, has done everything in it's power to stomp us into submission, and 9/11 is the reason. We have seen our most precious rights eroding away before our eyes, because of the passage of the 2 patriot acts, not slowly, but in more of a landslide kind if way, because of 9/11. Innocent people are being held without charge and tortured in our names, because of 9/11. We are now considered the pariah of the planet by most of the people who live on it, because of 9/11. We are rapidly becoming a police state, where the average family can't even board an airplane without being assaulted by TSA goons, because of 9/11. The population lives in fear while nations are smeared and maligned, because of 9/11. I could go on and on with the results we are forced to endure because of that one horrible day, you may not consider it hell, but I sure do. The America I grew up in has almost completely vanished, in 5 short years, because of one day, and a huge percent of the population says, "it's all those crazy Muslims fault." Do I have any hope in the human race? Yes, but it is fading. I have no hope in the leaders of the human race, they have failed miserably. I don't know what our future holds, but if the past 5 years is any indication, it doesn't look too good.

James, you ARE a dear! I have a whimsey walk in my garden, with all types of oddities. However, my garden gnomes wandered off to Portland to live in a larger city.

Carol, I have tried my best to be civil. I have been called all sorts of names. I have been accused of ignorance and being witless, and worse. I've been insulted and cursed at, but I do not reply in kind. I do not see the purpose in conducting debate in that manner. People are bound to disagree. The main reason I continue the 9/11 debate is to get people to start asking questions. There are many visitors to this blog who don't comment, and I'm willing to bet that, like I was 2 years ago, not even aware there IS a debate. I am sorry if you are weary of it, I am weary of bushbots constantly extolling the virtues of their hero bush, but I just scroll past and do the best I can to ignore it.
James, I would contribute to the gnome question, but I have never personally met a gnome, so I have no clue what they might think!
micki, didn't capt. offer to help via e-mail? What is the big deal?

Thinker, here is an article from The Toronto Star,
tell me, does all this sword rattling sound familiar?

West urged to halt Iran
Israeli general warns of proliferation

Time running out to stop Tehran's plans
May 20, 2006. 01:00 AM
OLIVIA WARD
FEATURE WRITER

The West has less than a year to block Iran's ambition to develop nuclear weapons before it touches off "hyper-proliferation" throughout the Middle East, says Israel's military intelligence chief.

"The most important step for Iran is the first one, independent research and development capacity," said Maj.-Gen. Aharon Ze'evi. "They have already begun to enrich uranium, starting in January or February 2006. After that, it isn't important whether the first bomb is built in 2010 or 2015. The damage is done."

Tehran announced in April it had enriched uranium to a level that can be used for producing a domestic energy supply, saying it would continue to escalate the enrichment program.
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If Israel decides to launch a unilateral attack against Iran, guess who will be forced to deal with the fallout? Our sons and daughters who are right in the middle.

Marijuana Muffins of Mass Destruction?

Another good thing about Jeanne's homestate....

In the United States, Minnesota has been a leader in refugee resettlement since 1979; one center for international health has established a unique multidisciplinary primary and specialty care program for refugees and immigrants. Hmong, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Russian, Ukrainian, African, and Latin American refugees and immigrants have been seen; diseases such as hepatitis B, tuberculosis, and parasitic diseases, as well as mental health problems, have been diagnosed; and prevention strategies or therapies have been implemented.

Successful integration of migrant populations into their new communities' health-care systems is critical to the prevention and control of new and reemerging infectious diseases.

Micki,

The reason I offered to take the discussion off blog is because I thought skiing advice might not be interesting to the non-skiers on the blog.

I guess I was mistaken.

I would have to ask a few questions that are very important. What is the skiers ability for one. I would be able to assess that visually (you can do it psychically?). I would also ask if they have ever had a lesson, how many and at what levels? Is this person a beginner, novice or expert? Do they ski on the bunnyslope or on double black diamond? If you are able to get even a little of that from the post that asked me a question - well good for you! I am not that good. I am always looking for enough information to offer a cogent response. My weakness I am sure.

Not exactly the kind of thing I will pollute the blog with. Again I would ask: Why the heck do you care? Seems more than a little curious to me.

What is your point? Franky my dear I do not give a flying flip what your opinion is about me. I did not offer you advice and you did not ask me for advice unless you are spoof posting under the Mike handle? What gives and who put a bee in your bonnet?

capt

Franks: Soldiers' Deaths Cost of Security

COLIN FLY / AP | May 21 2006

Those who count the increasing number of American soldiers killed in Iraq are missing the bigger picture, retired Gen. Tommy Franks said Saturday night.

"What we're talking about is neither 2,400, 24,000 or 240,000 lives," Franks said at the National Rifle Association's annual banquet. "Terrorism is a thing that threatens our way of life. It doesn't have anything to do with politics."

More than 2,400 soldiers have died since the beginning of the invasion of Iraq, the plan for which Franks developed and executed. He also oversaw combat in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

"I watched as America changed," Franks said. "That's not near done. We have to secure ourselves. We have to secure our Constitution."

During his 30-minute speech, Franks took an occasional jab at the media and fellow generals for attacking Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

"We haven't got any generals here. They're all in front of TV cameras complaining about Don Rumsfeld," Franks deadpanned. "Difference is, I know what I'm talking about."

Franks staunchly defended his friend even as he called him "grumpy" and "grouchy."

"I don't care about your politics. I don't. Don Rumsfeld is an American patriot."

Franks retired in 2003 after a 36-year career in the Army, highlighted by becoming commander of Central Command in June 2000. He received warm ovations from the 3,000 NRA members in attendance.

"It makes me think about going into politics," Franks said. "The great blessing is that thought doesn't last long."
---------
WOW, what a lunatic! More 9/11 fallout. And this, to me, is the worst. Our soldiers sent to the meat grinder because of that one monstrous lie, and this jerk says it doesn't matter, "It's the terrorists, and we must sacrifice our children to preserve that goddamn piece of paper!" AAAARRRRGGG!!!

What is the big deal?

There is no BIG DEAL!

sal- The main reason I continue the 9/11 debate is to get people to start asking questions.

me too and that's why i go on and on about it - but for me it's easy to see that if the planes were obviously phony, the towers must've been brought down by design. i tend to forget that it's not so obvious to others.

capt, you offer plenty of advice, which is A-OK with me.

to preserve that goddamn piece of paper
ha. while they're pretending to preserve the face of it, they're busy eroding it from behind.

Inflated Terrorism - Propaganda Lies
Exaggerated misconceptions of worldwide terrorism to frighten us into supporting a global police state.

Peter Phillips / Project Censored | May 21 2006

Vice President Dick Cheney's keynote address at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference March 7, 2006 is a telling example of neo-conservative global dominance thought in the current administration. Here are his exact words, "Israel, and the United States, and all civilized nations will win the war on terror. To prevail in this fight, we must understand the nature of the enemy. As America experienced on September 11th, 2001, the terrorist enemy is brutal and heartless. This enemy wears no uniform, has no regard for the rules of warfare, and is unconstrained by any standard of decency or morality.The terrorists want to end all American and Western influence in the Middle East. Their goal in that region is to seize control of a country, so they have a base from which to launch attacks and wage war against governments that do not meet their demands ultimately to establish a totalitarian empire that encompasses a region from Spain, across North Africa, through the Middle East and South Asia, all the way around to Indonesia."

(They will accomplish this from Afghani caves!)

Cheney claims that evil terrorists everywhere are plotting for the ruin of "civilized" nations. In order to stop them we must militarily control all the regions they are threatening in a permanent global war. Cheney's military empire, set to prevail over the totalitarian terrorists, will inevitably expand global resistance to US domination. Large coalitions of freedom fighters, fundamentalists, patriots, religious zealots, nationalists, and ideologues of various beliefs will emerge from within the regions the US occupies.

(How DARE those barbarians resist our invasion!)

For Cheney and other global dominance neo-conservatives, the terrorist label is so broad that it can be applied to any individual, group, or nation that resists US military occupations, US threats, or US corporate interests anywhere in the world. In reality, the US military is the world's foremost totalitarian force.

Maintaining an US military global police force enriches defense contractors and enflames resistance. There is no worldwide terrorism threat other than the one we create when we make war on other peoples. Addressing world poverty, sickness, and environmental issues will go much further in preventing single acts of terrorism inside the United States than any military actions we can muster. It is time to challenge the neo-conservative global dominance agenda and stand up for human rights and the traditional American values of grass-roots democracy, due process, governmental transparency, and individual freedoms for ourselves and the rest of the world.

(That is not an option because of 9/11!)

James, maybe there were gnomeplanes flown by creatures who speak a different "gnomenclature?"

"gnomenclature?"

HA! Good one!

I thought all gnomes were real? All the ceramic looking ones under a spell placed on them by the lawn jockeys and pink flamingoes?

capt

i'm making my yard into a ninja turtle battleground - if i find a garden gnome he will be a giant, either good or evil depending on his expression - as soon as i get a new lawnmower though my yard will have to be a ninja turtle soccer pitch!

everyone knows pink flamingoes are incredibly vain and despise competition of any sort!

Light That Travels ... Faster Than Light!

Fresh doubts have been raised over claims by Afghan officials that they have captured one of the Taleban's top commanders, Mullah Dadullah.

The officials told the BBC on Friday that he had been seized in the southern province of Kandahar.

But a man claiming to be Mullah Dadullah later told the BBC he was still free, and not far from Kandahar.

More HERE

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

I have an odd sense of humor but "Mulllah Dadullah" cracks me up! I think it is part of the "Banana" song?

capt

DIEBOLD DISASTER: NEWSWEEK JUMPS IN, COVERS LATEST E-VOTING DEBACLE!
Company Spokesman/Dead-Ender David Bear Running Out of Spin!

"If Diebold had set out to build a system as insecure as they possibly could, this would be it," says Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer-science professor and elections-security...

Brad Blog

May 29, 2006 issue - Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the voting booth, here comes more disturbing news about the trustworthiness of electronic touchscreen ballot machines. Earlier this month a report by Finnish security expert Harri Hursti analyzed Diebold voting machines for an organization called Black Box Voting. Hursti found unheralded vulnerabilities in the machines that are currently entrusted to faithfully record the votes of millions of Americans.

How bad are the problems? Experts are calling them the most serious voting-machine flaws ever documented. Basically the trouble stems from the ease with which the machine's software can be altered. It requires only a few minutes of pre-election access to a Diebold machine to open the machine and insert a PC card that, if it contained malicious code, could reprogram the machine to give control to the violator. The machine could go dead on Election Day or throw votes to the wrong candidate. Worse, it's even possible for such ballot-tampering software to trick authorized technicians into thinking that everything is working fine, an illusion you couldn't pull off with pre-electronic systems.
-----------
It only took 5 years, better late than never! Maybe David will come aboard now.

Oop's wrong title but the link was correct:

Doubts over Taleban chief seizure

capt

Israel should face sanctions

The Palestine crisis is now more dramatic even than apartheid, but it is the victims who are punished

Ronnie Kasrils and Victoria Brittain
Friday May 19, 2006
The Guardian

Western leaders are frustrating democratic elections in Palestine by withholding aid, and using collective punishment, an economic siege and starvation as political weapons in their efforts to get the Hamas government to accept their terms of business with Israel.
Never in the long struggle for freedom in apartheid South Africa was there a situation as dramatic as in Palestine today: even though children were killed for resisting a second-class education; the liberation movement's leaders were locked up for decades on Robben Island; new leaders were assassinated; church leaders were poisoned; house demolitions and forced removals were frequent; and western governments told South Africans who their leaders should be, and what their policies should be.

The African National Congress confronted the military, economic and social power of white rule with a small guerrilla army, the mass support of the people and a moral authority that won it a following among millions around the world. Many now forget that the abhorrent apartheid system was treated as normal in the powerhouses of the world: entrenched interests meant the western media produced a sanitised version of its suffering and injustice.

Today western moral authority in the Middle East is gone, as much because of years of double standards in Palestine as because of the current disastrous war on Iraq. There is no excuse for not knowing the truth about what is now happening to the Palestinians. And the most recent diplomatic moves by the Quartet - the US, the EU, the UN and Russia - to alleviate suffering, while keeping up the ban on dealing with the Palestinians' elected leaders, are totally inadequate.

Some plain speaking on the current crisis, and on what will happen without serious political intervention, shows why. The root problem is the intensifying Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Despite the international court of justice ruling it illegal, Israel's 390-mile wall snakes on through the West Bank, taking another 10% of the land and providing for the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements. Nearly 50,000 Palestinians are to be left in limbo on the Israeli side of the wall; 65,000 will face a daily commute through 11 transit points. Towns such as Qalqilya and Jayyous, formerly prosperous, with fertile hinterlands and good water supplies, are virtually encircled, with their farms and greenhouses on the Israeli side.

Meanwhile, Israel is withholding $50m a month in customs duties and tax owed to the Palestinians, and energy supplies have been cut off. Palestinian civil servants, teachers, doctors and security forces have not been paid for over two months. The potential for civil war between factions of armed, increasingly desperate men is so obvious that Palestinians are not alone in thinking that the US actually wants such self-destruction.

The Palestinians are having sanctions imposed on them for their political choice. But it is Israel, creating new facts on the ground to prevent the emergence of a viable Palestinian state, that should be facing UN sanctions. The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, should use his last months in office to call for sanctions to bring about the implementation of the ICJ ruling on the Israeli wall, the closure of West Bank settlements and the release of Palestinian political prisoners. And those who care for freedom, peace and justice must build a global Palestine solidarity movement to match the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s.

Ronnie Kasrils was head of intelligence in the African National Congress's armed wing and is now South Africa's intelligence minister; he is writing in a personal capacity.

Victoria Brittain is co-author with Moazzam Begg of Enemy Combatant
-------------
Do as we say, not as we do.

If might made right then Israel would be right? Even the Israelis do make that claim. (not completely)

We should have learned by now that all of the military might on the planet cannot kill all the people that disagree nor will bombs and bullets change the way people think.

War is a failed policy if the goal is peace.

Freedom, peace and democracy cannot be imposed, coerced, instilled or inspired at the business end of a gun or by military force however massive.

capt

well the decider has decided that the first blow of ww3 has been struck by the courageous passengers of flight93 - so that means that ww3 has been started by americans and the first blow was a karate chop - (heckuva job rummy!)
-----------
on a lighter note, when the ninja turtles are not battling they enjoy a good squirrel rodeo followed by a squirrel hoe-down. i managed to capture one squirrel with a small lasso but he disdainfully scratched a flea in my direction so i released him.

The Voice of the White House

It might be instructive to many Americans to learn more about this invasive Gestapo/KGB behavior and at the end of this study, we have some interesting news that will hearten the victims and depress the oppressors.

Since the subject of clandestine private and public espionage on American citizens is now of great interest, I am making an in-depth study of how this is done and, most especially, by whom. The cooperation of three large telephone companies and at least two major computer servers has been mentioned before, and will be mentioned in detail again, but now we will look at what are called data Miners, or firms that collect all manner of information on Americans and then give, or in many cases, sell it to government agencies that cannot, by law, collect such information themselves.

In the United States today, the top collector and disseminator of highly personal information to include DNA data, is called ChoicePoint. This company, as of May 1, 2006, has amassed over 17 billion files on American citizens....
-------------
Gestapo style spying, justified by, all together now, NINE ELEVEN! I will alter my statement regarding the US being in hell. Some cultures believe there are various levels of hell, so I am willing to compromise by saying we may have only reached the first level, there could be as many as six more to go!

#201 Sal, the JOINT Terrorism Task Force was deployed!! Hillarious!!

we may have only reached the first level, (hell)

hell is very sneaky. never underestimate the power of yosemitesam!

I know DEN, and just in time as I was planning to make some Marijuana muffins today, but I have been saved from a potentially grave error! This is even more impressive then the time the TSA goons saved the country from a radical attempting to run up the down escalator at the airport, God only knows the horror and destruction that was averted!

Breaking Pledge, Bush's New Bush Tax Cut Bill Triples Rates For Teens With College Funds...
New York Times | DAVID CAY JOHNSTON | Posted May 20, 2006 10:48 PM

Linked by Huffington Post

The $69 billion tax cut bill that President Bush signed this week tripled tax rates for teenagers with college savings funds, despite Mr. Bush's 1999 pledge to veto any tax increase.

Under the new law, teenagers age 14 to 17 with investment income will now be taxed at the same rate as their parents, not at their own rates. Long-term capital gains and dividends that had been taxed at 5 percent will now be taxed at 15 percent. Interest that had been taxed at 10 percent will now be taxed at as much as 35 percent.
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These "NEW AGE CONSERVATIVES" are breaking every rule in the conservative handbook!

The Joint Terrorism Task Force, stomping out joints, one joint at a time,(after they smoke em first).

Muffins sound good, Yummm, just do'nt use that cheap Mexican weed or you'll get sick like they did.

DEN, I have decided, in the interest of safety, to make banana bread and split pea soup instead, better safe than sorry! We are having a gloriously rainy day on my side of the hill, my favorite kind of day for making soup. How's the weather on your side?

9/11 bothers me, why all the secrecy? How hard would it be for someone to go in to the WTC towers on a 3-day holiday weekend claiming to work on the elevators and set Thermite charges onto the inner support columns by standing on the top of the elevators inside the elevator shafts? It is not a particularly complicated operation to do so. Carts full of thermite, elevator out of service signs. Lets not forget the dancing Israeli movers afterwards. No wonder they want everything possible to be secret.

Alan, this is for you because I remember your post regarding this subject and your concern, GOOD NEWS!

House votes to stop sales of wild horses
The Associated Press
Published 5:01 pm PDT Thursday, May 18, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House directed the Interior Department on Thursday to halt the sale of wild horses for slaughter, saying that was not the purpose of the program that makes the horses and burros available for adoption.
The measure, part of the department's spending bill for the 2007 budget year, prohibits the use of agency funds for the sale or slaughter of wild, free-roaming horses and burros.

It was approved unanimously by voice vote.

"We need to stop the slaughter of wild horses and burros not only because it is morally wrong, but also because the program itself is a failure," said Rep. Nick Rahal, D-W.Va., a sponsor of the provision.

He said the prohibition is needed to counter action by Congress in 2004 that eased animal protections that had been part of the horse and burro adoption program since its inception in 1971. Those changes opened the way for animals to be made available for commercial slaughter.

Since then, 41 wild horses have been slaughtered "and thousands more face an uncertain fate," Rahal said.

The Bureau of Land Management, the agency that manages the adoption program, has told Congress that in light of the changes made in 2004, it had little control over what happens to the animals after they are sold.

Last year there were an estimated 32,000 wild horses and burros on public lands.
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There are many wild burro and horse herds here in the Eastern Sierras, I have seen them on several offroad trips. It is an amazingly beautiful sight, and so surprising when you come upon them.

Sal, the sky is overcast and radar shows rain heading this way too, might be here mid-afternoon. Low pressure off the coast slowly creeping in.

I went for a ride in the hills yesterday and the wildflowers are living up to their reputations and going wild. Purple, red, peach, blue, a veritable extravaganza of color. MMMM Pea soup. Musical soup! makes ya toot!

Sal,NWS west coast radar loop

DEN, that's why they invented BEANO!

Thanks for the link, my husband will like it. He used to be a pilot and loves weather maps, not so much flying anymore, but he still has the bug!

Time to cook, check back later.

Sal, my gas laughs at Beeno, better to use THIS. When there's just no stopping it!

DEN out!

VIRTUAL AMERICA

Bush-Linked Company Handled Security for the WTC, Dulles and United

Marvin P. Bush, the president's youngest brother, was a director at Stratesec from 1993 to fiscal year 2000. But the White House has not publicly disclosed Bush connections in any of its responses to 9/11, nor has it mentioned that another Bush-linked business had done security work for the facilities attacked.

Marvin Bush joined Securacom when it was capitalized by the Kuwait-American Corporation, a private investment firm in D.C. that was the security company's major investor, sometimes holding a controlling interest. Marvin Bush has not responded to telephone calls and e-mails for comment.

KuwAm has been linked to the Bush family financially since the Gulf War. One of its principals and a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, Mishal Yousef Saud al Sabah, served on the board of Stratesec.

The managing director at KuwAm, Wirt D. Walker III, was also a principal at Stratesec, and Walker, Marvin Bush and al Sabah are listed in SEC filings as significant shareholders in both companies during that period.

Marvin Bush's last year on the board at Stratesec coincided with his first year on the board of HCC Insurance, formerly Houston Casualty Co., one of the insurance carriers for the WTC. He left the HCC board in November 2002.

More HERE

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

Forget even a small ruse. A Bush was in charge of security.

Things that make thinking people go Hmmmm.

capt

Bush Family Dipping Into Security Pie

The full effects of the 2001 so-called ``USA Patriot Act'' have not yet been felt, fortunately. But one of its first effects has been to benefit the president's brother, Marvin.

Marvin P. Bush, one of George W. Bush's three younger brothers, is co-founder and partner in Winston Partners, a private investment firm in Alexandria, Va. Winston Partners in turn is part of a larger venture capital entity called the Chatterjee Group, headed by venture capitalist Purnendu Chatterjee. (Venture capital firms provide money to start-up businesses and other companies, usually in return for equity and some managerial say in the company.)

Through this and other business relationships, this Bush sibling is positioned to do very well in high-tech activities as a result of provisions of the Patriot Act.

Securities and Exchange Commission filings show that the Chatterjee Group consists of Winston Partners, L.P.; and a half-dozen other entities with addresses in the Cayman Islands, the Netherlands Antilles, the Isle of Man and Delaware.

Bush's partner is Scott Andrews, with whom he went to school. Winston Partners has two branches, hedge funds and private equity funds, engaged in a variety of investments, including global ``outsourcing'' and offshore information technology.

H.R. 3162, called ``The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act'' (or USA Patriot), was designed to prevent money laundering and requires banks to ``know their customers.''

More HERE

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

Then Marvin gets to make a killing on the "Patriot Act"?

Naw, just another happy coincidence.

capt

TRIMMING THE BUSHES

Family Business at the Watergate

Not many, if any, news reports have focused on the unpublicized connections of this Bush administration's family members with politically and financially sensitive operations. Business Week recently noted that "dads and sons and other relatives reign so widely in this administration that there have never been so many family combos in an administration at the same time." And the British Economist has said that "George Bush's Washington is a study in family influence." End of story few details.

But there are a small number of journalists with enough patience, energetic curiosity and research ability to dig for some of those untold details. One of them is our occasional contributor Margie Burns, a scholarly investigator with a Ph.D. who teaches English literature at the University of Maryland in Baltimore when she is not probing Internet sources for her next article.

She has written for us on White House connections with Halliburton (September 15, 2003); the Bush family's profiteering in Iraq (February 1, 2004); and the right-wing Washington "neocons" who promoted the U.S. invasion of Iraq (May 1, 2004).

For more than 20 years the Bush family has had extensive business ties to Middle East geopolitics. Among other connections, during the 1990s certain suites at the Watergate office building in Washington, rented by the embassies of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, were also home to a Bush-linked private investment firm.

The investment company, called the Kuwait-American Corporation (KuwAm), backed and largely controlled a security company named Stratesec and an aircraft company named Aviation General. Both Stratesec and Aviation General convened their annual shareholders' meetings from 1999 through 2001 in Suite 900 at the Watergate, then rented by the Saudi embassy.

(from page 3):

ENLARGING MARVIN

Among his other business interests, Marvin Bush also served on the board of directors of HCC Insurance (formerly Houston Casualty Company), one of the main insurance carriers for the World Trade Center. Thus Bush, paradoxically, was connected to two companies with a significant interest in security at the trade center. In spring 1999, Bush was simultaneously a nominee for the boards of both Stratesec and HCC Insurance.

Bush's directorship at Stratesec was not included on the proxy statement for HCC that year, and his connections with HCC were not included on the proxy statement for Stratesec. SEC regulations require directors and officers of public companies to list their other directorships and business connections. In addition to Bush's violations of the SEC regulations in these instances, his directorship at Fresh Del Monte, where he and a longtime friend who brought him into HCC were also on the Audit and Compensation committees, was also omitted in the Stratesec proxy filing.

Bush's HCC proxy information did disclose his positions at his own firm, Andrews-Bush, and at Fresh Del Monte, but in addition to not disclosing his Stratesec connection, he omitted yet another association, with Kerrco, an oil company in Houston.

More HERE

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

I am sure this Bush is a genetic defect just like Bunnypants. I am sure he did not even know what he knew so he did not lie by omission. (runs in the family)

capt

BUSH FAMILY MACHINATIONS, 1918-2000

1918 Prescott Bush Sr., leads a raid on a Indian tomb to secure Geronimo's skull for Skull & Bones.

1937 Prescott Bush's investment firm sets up deal for the Luftwaffe so it can obtain tetraethyl lead.

1942 Three firms with which Prescott Bush is associated are seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

1953 George Bush and the Liedtke brothers form Zapata Petroleum. Zapata's subsidiary, Zapata Offshore, later becomes known for its close ties to the CIA.

1954 The Bush family buys out the Liedtke brothers.

1955 George Bush sets up a Mexican drilling operation, Permago, with a frontman to obscure his ownership. The frontman later is convicted of defrauding the Mexican government of $58 million.

1959 Manuel Noriega recruited as an agent by the US Defense Intelligence Agency.

1960 Some investigators believe George Bush spent part of this year and the next in Miami on behalf of the CIA, organizing rightwing exiles for an invasion of Cuba. Is said to have worked with later Iran-Contra figure Felix Rodriguez.

More HERE

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

You can read a clear timeline from 1961 to 2000 at the link.

From the family history - nothing is beyond these snakes and slugs - nothing. Organizing, promoting and profiting from an attack on American citizens is just business as usual for these criminals.

capt

House votes to stop sales of wild horses

YAY!@#$%

Thanks for that good news Sal.
*hugs 'n a hershey

How hard would it be for someone to go in to the WTC towers on a 3-day holiday weekend claiming to work on the elevators...

You're kidding, right?
I guess that would start with the thermite delivery to the loading dock. "Yeah, back it on in. Don't worry 'bout them papers, just go ahead with whatever you wanna do. You guys are with Ace Elevators? Haven't seen you guys here before, but go ahead. The elevators are that way."

3-day weekend... plenty of time to set up a demo haha
with a product that's never been used before with that intention... never mind that hatches are individually walled-off and not open to the rest of the building's beams.
What about "timing"? Set to go off when?
Oh nevermind, this is just crazy.

I believe that no country can say she is a democracy unless religious freedom is open to all in a country.

Holy Father Points to an Ingredient for Peace
Links It to Respect for Religious Freedom

VATICAN CITY, MAY 18, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI highlighted religious freedom as one of the keys for peace in an age of globalization, as he addressed ambassadors from Australia, India, Chad, Cape Verde and Moldova.

"Peace is rooted in respect for religious freedom, which is an essential and primordial aspect of the people's freedom of conscience and of nations' freedom," said the Pope in his address delivered in French today.

"It is important that throughout the world every person adhere to the religion he wishes and practice it without fear, as no one can base his existence solely on the pursuit of material well-being," the Holy Father added.

According to the Pontiff, "To accept that personal and collective dimension will undoubtedly have some beneficial effects on social life. To love the Almighty and to receive him invites every one to be at the service of his brothers and to build peace."

In fact, the other key that Benedict XVI stressed to the diplomats for the building and consolidation of peace in a globalized world was fraternity, which implies solidarity.

Thus the Holy Father encouraged "leaders of nations and all people of good will to commit themselves with ever greater determination to the building of a free, fraternal and solidaristic world, in which the care of persons is above simple economic aspects."

"We have the duty to recognize that we are responsible for one another and for the progress of the world as a whole," he observed. "No one can respond, as Cain, to God's question in the Book of Genesis: 'Am I my brother's keeper?'

"In the era of globalization, it is important that the management of public life not be guided preponderantly and solely by economic considerations, by the quest for profitability, by an inconsiderate use of the planet's resources in detriment to populations, in particular the less favored, running the risk of long-term mortgaging the world's future."

What's your opinion of Bush's tax cut?
I oppose it 63%
I favor it 25%
I'm not sure 12%

Do you think Bush broke his pledge to veto any bill that raised taxes?
Yes 71%
No 21%
I'm not sure 8%
Total Votes: 161,212

Despite Pledge, Taxes Increase for Teenagers

poll is on the side of this article that was linked already at another site

geography quiz

Short one, only 7 interactive questions. I got all 7 correct. Who wooda thunk it?

The aftermath of Bush's crusade

Who Really Built the Pyramids?

The Great Pyramid at Giza is a massive structure. It stands 450 feet high and its base covers about 13 acres -- roughly equivalent to 16 football fields. The pyramid consists of 2.5 million limestone blocks, each weighing between two and thirteen tons. Evidence shows that it was built over a 23 year period during the reign of reign of Pharaoh Khufu.

Is it possible that people with no machines and no advanced tools were able to hoist the tremendously heavy blocks 450 feet high and complete the project in 23 years? Pyramid scholar Evan Hadington calculated that to accomplish this feat, workers would have to place a block every two minutes during a ten hour work day, 365 days a year.

(snip)

Other facts used to bolster the theory that aliens were involved in pyramid construction are similarly questionable. One source notes that the Great Pyramid is 481 feet tall, which is exactly 1 billionth of Earth’s distance from the sun. The true height of the pyramid is about 450 feet, and Earth’s distance from the sun is between 91 and 93.5 million miles depending on its position along the orbit. Regardless of these inconsistencies, such facts are commonly quoted.

HAS ANYONE HEARD OF OUR HITLER PUSHING FOR CHRISTIAN RIGHTS IN MUSLIM COUNTRIES? OUR BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN ARE FIGHTING AND BEING LILLED AND MAIMED FOR NOTHING. WE HAVE A NUTCASE IN THE WHITE HOUSE.

Holy See to Press for Christians' Rights in Muslim Lands
Archbishop Lajolo Urges Reciprocity for Religious Freedom

VATICAN CITY, MAY 18, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The Holy See confirmed its intention to mobilize within the international community in the defense of Christians' fundamental rights in predominantly Muslim countries where religious freedom is denied.

Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, Vatican secretary for relations with states, confirmed this decision when addressing the plenary session of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers on the topic "Migration and Mobility from and to Countries of Islamic Majority."

Speaking on Vatican Radio, Archbishop Lajolo commented on Benedict XVI's appeal on Monday to Muslim countries to practice reciprocity in the recognition of religious freedom.

Reciprocity, as understood by the Holy See, means that, if Christian countries recognize Muslims' freedom of worship, then Islamic nations should likewise recognize a similar right for Christians.

However, in many Muslim countries this concept seems to be foreign, lamented Archbishop Lajolo. Such countries, he said, invoke "for their citizens abroad the fullness of rights that, on the contrary, they do not recognize for immigrants of other confessions in their own territory."

The situation is forcing Christians to abandon countries of Muslim majority, the Vatican official noted.

Thus, the archbishop said that the Holy See will make its voice heard in international organizations and conferences to promote respect for the human rights of immigrants and recognition of a juridical situation proper to the dignity of every person.

Archbishop Lajolo added that the Holy See will continue to state its opposition to the use of religion to justify terrorism and violence.

#219: "Squirrel Rodeo" would be a great name for a rock band (country-rock might be best).

I took a guess at explaining progressives who still accept the orthodox 9/11 story at #185. I can sympathize with them to some degree because I once was one of them. Remember that some of our friends hold the sorts of jobs where adherence to complicity theories could hurt their career prospects. It's easy for folks like us who face no such risk to criticize them; I'm lucky to hold a job where no one cares what I think about social and political matters.

I must leave the Net for several hours now, so farewell, all.

Live long and prosper (even the Bushbots), Kid Charlemagne

Hold the jerks accountable

DON'T GIVE UP

That poor substitute teacher sure found that out the hard way KC!

Jesus isn't magic

The teachings of Jesus are revolutionary.

Make me an instrument of peace

I will not leave the Catholic Church. My Church has slow thought processes but her heart is in the right places.

Filing: Tape Shows Lawmaker Taking Money

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A congressman under investigation for bribery was caught on videotape accepting $100,000 in $100 bills from an FBI informant whose conversations with the lawmaker also were recorded, according to a court document released Sunday. Agents later found the cash hidden in his freezer.

At one audiotaped meeting, Rep. William Jefferson (news, bio, voting record), D-La., chuckles about writing in code to keep secret what the government contends was his corrupt role in getting his children a cut of a communications company's deal for work in Africa.

As Jefferson and the informant passed notes about what percentage the lawmaker's family might receive, the congressman "began laughing and said, 'All these damn notes we're writing to each other as if we're talking, as if the FBI is watching,'" according to the affidavit.

More HERE

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

Video is strong evidence. I think this guy is done.

capt

let me see if i've got this straight...

marvin bush was a director at Stratasec which was involved somehow with security for the wtc and dulles airport/united airlines, and then went to HCC Insurance which handled the insurance policies for the wtc, where leaseholder silverstein would up the wtc's terror attack coverage before the wtc is destroyed in a terror attack by a united airliner. silverstein then admits that they made the decision to "pull" wtc7, and collects a metric sh*tload of $$ from the terror attack insurance? marvin bush then moves over to the Chatterjee Group which is a direct recipient of patriot act funding. the patriot act had been waiting in the wings and sprang out fully formed soon after the 911 terror attacks.

good thing that i'm not a coincidence theorist, i'd have a field day with those coincidences!

James, I've often wondered what would happen if some non-connected, average Joe, who say, inherited some money and decided it would be fun to buy a nice, fancy mansion, and also add double the insurance coverage for said mansion, but unfortunately, six weeks later, the mansion completely burns to the ground. Do you think the insurance co. would pay off without doing a full investigation to completely rule out even the slightest chance of arson by the unfortunate owner, who now stands to collect way more than the mansion was worth? Not to mention the fact that his newly purchased property was under review for asbestos clean up which would cost buukuu bucks, but now, happily, he doesn't have to worry about THAT anymore! With silverstein, the only thing they argued about was whether the attacks constituted one or two seperate events. Lucky larry, he won!

Take a good look at the Bush family history and than start to understand that Jeb Bush will take over the White House in 2009 and his son, George P. will take office in 2017. That will mean 24 years of corruption and lies for our devil incarnate nation. Happy days are here for 24 years. These are great times for Nazi corruptors and liars.

going back in time a bit, weirdo prescott bush robs a grave and steals the skull of geronimo, goes on to become one of the financiers of hitler's nazi party, and fathers a son who will be an oil man and the director of the CIA before becoming president of the u.s. (while he is still only vice-prez, the full prez is shot by a weirdo in a botched assassination attempt?) - during CIAbush's time in the white house a pedophile ring is uncovered there but the witness dies a mysterious death. hmmm.

This has turned out to be a great Sunday. Three of my fifteen foxes have articles that I have shared with you. They are Molly Ivins, Karen Cobb, and Cindy Sheehan. I will be going to The Nation and see if my Sweet Katrina has an article.

My Sweet Katrina Does Have an Article

James, that is demockracy at it's FINEST! Absolutely ANYONE can be president in this fine nation!

forward in time again where we find CIAbush's son jeb one of the founding members of PNAC who writes a missive stating that the american people will surely not go along with our vision of dominance unless they are subjected to another pearl harbor like event. meanwhile, CIAbush junior's brother is now the prez. of the u.s. at the same time that marvin bush is having all the fun at stratasec & HCC ins, and OILbush junior the prez. states that "911 was our pearl harbor".
un-fucking-real.

With four articles from my foxes there has been an increase in my heart palpitations to a danger level. My foxes do make me proud!!!

911 was officially an OUTSIDE job!
(outside the realm of official credibility)

Ex -US soldier: 'If he didn't answer the way we liked, we would shoot his youngest kid in the head'

Jessie Macbeth, a Former Army Ranger and Iraq War Veteran Tells All

This 20 minute interview will change how you view the U.S. occupation of Iraq forever. I cannot possibly recommend this more highly. An Iraq war veteran tells of atrocities he and other fellow-soldiers committed reguarly while in Iraq. I have never seen this level of honesty from a U.S. soldier who directly participated in the slaughtering of Iraqis.

Excerpts:

"When we were doing the night raids in the houses, we would pull people out and have them all on their knees and zip-tied. We would ask the man of the house questions. If he didn't answer the way we liked, we would shoot his youngest kid in the head. We would keep going, this was our interrogation. He could be innocent. He could be just an average Joe trying to support his family. If he didn't give us a satisfactory answer, we'd start killing off his family until he told us something. If he didn't know anything, I guess he was SOL."

and

"For not speaking out, I feel like I'm betraying my battle-buddies that died."

Watch the video here.

http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/informational_posting/000394.php
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I will miss this, GOD, I HATE DIAL-UP!

Hey Capt and all fellow Corn Fans!

Just back fron the south Eastern Utah desert -just in time to pick up that little doozy as mentioned on #255 Capt. Good timing!
These are my immediate questions:
1) Whats this guys track record in office. Do Democrats hate him or defend him? Is this retalliation for "culture of corruptin" strategy?

I'm just back -haven't yet washed off the desrt.-Or the hangover for that matter, Heh!

So, tonight, I will be interested watching and learning how the discussion transpires.
Monday will David Corn make some calls and get a little more skinny on this very intiguing story?

(Like to hear what my friends from New Orleans have to say.)

Later tonight,
th

i hate dial-up too. my neighborhood's phone lines are too obsolete to carry dsl signals and cablenet costs twice what dial-up costs so dial-up it is! - i miss seeing all the videos that dsl's must take for granted.

I wonder what happened to Pan? He hasn't dropped in for a long time. Anyone know?

"coincidence theorist"

HA and DOUBLE HA!

capt

The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing: John Adams

=
To change masters is not to be free: Jose Marti y Perez

=
If men use their liberty in such a way as to surrender their liberty, are they thereafter any the less slaves? If people by a plebiscite elect a man despot over them, do they remain free because the despotism was of their own making?: Herbert Spencer.

===

Thanks ICH Newsletter!

Pande is traveling. All is well.

Thanks capt. BTW, the name William Jefferson, does that strike you as somewhat ironic?

Our Pearl Harbor is like the first Pearl Harbor, a set-up by the powers that be to get us into a war to enrich the international bankers and their disgusting war machine.

"War is a racket."

Smedley Butler

William Jefferson?

You mean Bill Jefferson? Or BJ?

There I have gone full circle!

HA!

capt

With each announcement, the creaking of my bones, the stiffness in my joints becomes more pronounced.

Elizabeth Ryann (Libby)
8lbs 12oz
4:08am
5/21/06

I'm too young to be a "Grand Poppi" twice...right?

Now too sleep, I get to keep Allie B. occupied most of tomorrow, waiting on Mommy and Libby to come home from the hosspital.

-T

Congratulations! Poppi!

WOO HOO!

The is another reason for hope of a better world.

capt

Don't sweat it Hajji, I'm a grandmother thrice, and the forth is due in July. I'm still alive and raising hell, as you will be! Congratulations!!!

old man!

Congratulations to Grand Poppi, Jill and all the rest on the arrival of Elizabeth into this world. May she have a long, healthy and happy life.

Just something to throw out on a Sunday evening waiting for the new thread. My favorite Cornposters are as follows, in no particular order:

Saladin Never holds her tongue no matter the subject.

Capt Always at the ready with link to subjects, quotes, etc.

Hajji Wit and wisdom rolled into one with brevity puncuated.

Pandemoniac Humerous touch on every subject and always worth a read.

Doesn't mean I don't like the rest of you all. Now waiting on the next thread.

They all do it in one way or another. You are foolish to believe otherwise.

WASHINGTON — A congressman under investigation for bribery was caught on videotape accepting $100,000 in $100 bills from an FBI informant whose conversations with the lawmaker also were recorded, according to a court document released Sunday. Agents later found the cash hidden in his freezer.

At one audiotaped meeting, Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., chuckles about writing in code to keep secret what the government contends was his corrupt role in getting his children a cut of a communications company's deal for work in Africa.

Remember they're politicans first, public servants last.

Did anyone watch Russert, Hardballor Stephanopolous this morning? Ms. Condi Mushroom Cloud Rice was on Russerts Meet the Press. She is truely frightening. One of the the mantras coming out of the Bush administration is that "everybody" you know all of our "allies" have the same concerns about Iran. They also continue to repeat that many countries had the same information about Iraq's WMD's before the illegal invasion. Is this because the lies that came out of FEITH AND CHENEYS Office of Special Plans was sent to other nations?
When Russert asked her about the evidence to back up the Bush administration's repeated claims about Iran's "illegal" nuclear developments, she did not answer. She repeated that all of our "allies" have the same concerns. She did not respond at all to Russerts request for evidence.

Russert went on to ask her about why the U.s. will not sign an agreement that promises to not pre-emptively invade or attack Iran. Ms. Mushroom Cloud Rice would not come close to addressing his question about security guarantees for Iran. The HYPOCRISY IS MONUMENTAL. You can watch this segment at the Meet the Press website

On Chris Matthews "Tell me something I don't know segment" Kathleen (not sure what her last name is) said that Rove would not be indicted this week or next in fact possibly not at all. Could she be right?

TRH, I know I have a hard time holding back, but my intentions are good! Thanks.

Kathleen, name one thing about this crew from hell that isn't frightening!

Saladin,

No need to hold back. To do so would be self censorship. By the way, I meant "links" re Capt and "punctuated" re Hajji. I've had my differences with all four of you in the past but still respect and read with interest what you four contribute to this site.

kath 283
there you go! never any real evidence, just bogus everybody-knows-and-has-the-same-concerns conventional wisdom bullshit.

did not answer.... did not respond at all to request for evidence.

would not come close to addressing his question

the bushco M/O in a nutshell.

YOU WILL OBEY

Carol, Saladin..whatever folks want to debate/discuss/argue, is fine by me. If Corn does not like it he will let people know, otherwise just simply scroll past, start another discussion.

Just got out of my garden, it has been overcast and raining In Athens for 7 days after a magnificent spring. I was so pissed the deer ate all of my beans, chard, and peas. Still have plenty, just hate planting a garden for deer, rabbits, ground hogs etc. This is what I get for not having dogs any more. (our last family dog Chester a giant Dalmation died 2 years ago) We have had an assorted menegarie of dogs, cats, horses, chickens etc over 28 years of raising children. I always thought I would never be able to live without a dog, but I hate to admit it, it has been liberating.

LORD HELP ME TO BE THE PERSON THAT MY DOG THINKS THAT I AM.

Somehow Condi thinks we have plent of allies for the regime change in Iran. \

split emerges in West's front against Iran: diplomats By Louis Charbonneau
Sat May 20, 5:59 PM ET
BERLIN (Reuters) - The European Union and Washington are split over an EU proposal to offer Iran a generous package of incentives including nuclear reactors and security pledges if it stops enriching uranium, diplomats said on Saturday.

The EU draft offer of a package of incentives in exchange for a suspension of enrichment has caused a split in the West's previously united position on Iran since Washington has serious reservations about the European plan, EU diplomats said.

The plan will be discussed in London on Wednesday by senior officials from France, Britain and Germany (the EU3), the United States, Russia and China, an EU diplomat familiar with the EU3's draft told Reuters.

"We agreed to offer Iran a nuclear power plant and possibly more, along with support for an international (nuclear) fuel consortium to guarantee fuel for civilian nuclear activity," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

Russia and China are expected to support the plan but Washington is concerned about the idea of supporting a regional security framework in the Middle East and exempting EU firms from U.S. penalties if they do business with Iran.

This is at "Talk Left"

I'd like to break this posting into two categories: What we know, and what we believe. They will be clearly marked.

We know that we have now three independent sources confirming that attorneys for Karl Rove were handed an indictment either late in the night of May 12 or early in the morning of May 13. We know that each source was in a position to know what they were talking about. We know that the office of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald will not confirm, will not deny, will not comment on its investigation or on our report. We know that both Rove's attorney Robert Luskin and Rove's spokesman Mark Corallo have categorically denied all key facts we have set forth. We know we have information that directly contradicts Luskin and Corallo's denials. We know that there were two network news crews outside of the building in Washington, DC that houses the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm that represents Karl Rove. We know that the 4th floor of that building (where the Patton Boggs offices are located) was locked down all day Friday and into Saturday night. We know that we have not received a request for a retraction from anyone. And we know that White House spokesman Tony Snow now refuses to discuss Karl Rove - at all.

Further, we know - and we want our readers to know - that we are dependent on confidential sources. We know that a report based solely on information obtained from confidential sources bears some inherent risks. We know that this is - by far - the biggest story we have ever covered, and that we are learning some things as we go along. Finally, we know that we have the support of those who have always supported us, and that must now earn the support of those who have joined us as of late.

We now move on to what we believe. (If you are looking for any guarantees, please turn back now.)

more here
Marc Ash, Executive Director - t r u t h o u

kathleen,

Don't laugh this off. Put out mothballs around the edge of your garden. It masks the smell of the vegetables and actually acts like "smelling salts" to animals with sensitive smell. I thought the idea was crazy but it has worked to keep stray cats {our neighbors tend to feed} from comming into our yard and getting into our garage. It has worked so far. I heard the idea on the radio when the host was curious how the moth balls killed the moths and a caller call in to say that it burns their lungs because of the strong smell and what is contained in the mothball. The caller also said it works on mice, moles, cats, dogs, and other animals with a keen sense of smell. Try it and let me know.

Interview with John Dean at Truthout

An Interview with John Dean
By Matthew Rothschild
The Progressive Magazine

Saturday 20 May 2006

Here is a transcript of an interview with John Dean of Watergate fame.

Dean was Nixon's White House counsel for three years and then testified against him. He is the author, most recently, of "Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush." On March 31, Dean testified in favor of Senator Russ Feingold's censure bill. The interview was conducted on April 28 by Matthew Rothschild, the editor of The Progressive magazine. You can listen to the interview at http://progressive.org/radio_dean06.

Q: Tell me what your lasting impressions are of Richard Nixon.

I don't want to start thinking about my lasting impressions of Nixon, because I fear I will projectile-vomit on my monitor before I can get up and run to the toilet.

my lasting impression of nixon?

he's quite a few steps up in integrity than the bushco crew.
----------

The fact that we have not had another tragedy like 9/11 is no accident.

(U.S. SENATOR PAT ROBERTS, in New York Times)

Thanks TRH. I have used piss, human hair, sprayed plants with cayenne pepper spray. I was lax this year. Moth Balls make sense. Thanks again.

When I first moved to Athens Ohio after living 15 years in Colorado, (Aspen, Crested Butte, Boulder and Steamboat Springs) I really had not seriously gardened. When I first started growing a large garden I often felt like the ground hogs were sitting in their holes having a glass of Chardonay as they kept close watch as I planted their garden with unusual greens, mizuna, rugallah, shungiku, an assortment of melons tomatoes and much more. I lost it one year after seeing all of my watermelon, cantalope etc. with several bites taken out of each perfectly ripe melon. It turned into a war, I was dropping gas bombs down their holes etc. ( I've said before I am not a pacifist). Dogs generally do the trick with groundhogs, but when that fails, I will do what I have to do.

Can't wait for a piece of fresh corn and tomatoes, pesto, and fresh mozzarella on toasted rosemary bread with olive oil drizzled on the top, salt and pepper, Damn I am making myself hungry.

It often seems terribly wrong that I am able to talk about such things as my garden when my country has brought such suffering and a nightmare to the Iraqi people. Surreal!

May 22, 2006 Issue The American Conservative
Can We Win An Insurgents’†War?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
The U.S. Army is not going to be defeated in Iraq, said one U.S. general, and he added pointedly: If we lose this war, we will lose it here in the United States. Correct.

The only war America ever ҬostӠwas lost in the United States.

When Nixon pulled U.S. forces out of Vietnam in early 1973, the Viet Cong had been crushed, the North Vietnamese defeated, every provincial capital was in Saigon’≥ hands.

Yet we lost Vietnam in 1975, when Hanoi, rearmed by Moscow, invaded with a dozen divisions, while Saigon, cut off by Congress, was forced to fight what General Giap called ҡ poor manճ war.Ӡ

Books have been written about why we did what we did in 1974 and 1975. The truth is the United States walked away from South Vietnam when our enemy was flat on his back. As Nixon was bedeviled by Watergate, a Democratic Congress to whom power had passed decided South Vietnam was no longer worth saving.

In Iraq, we have fought three years and the cost in war dead is not 5 percent of the 58,000 we lost in Vietnam. Yet America’≥ will to see this war through seems less than it was in Vietnam in November 1968.

When Nixon told the nation North Vietnam could not defeat the United Statesђonly Americans can do thatӑand he called on the ҇reat Silent MajorityӠto stand with him for Ұeace with honor,Ӡthe country didѴhrough three more years of war and 30,000 more dead.

But the America of 2006 would never accept three more years of 10,000 more dead every year for success in Iraq. Long before, the nation would force the administration to pull out. And this raises a relevant question. Are we the people and nation we used to be?

For if one compares the sacrifices of previous wars with the present cost in blood and treasure of Iraq, the disparities are startling.

The war against Mussolini’≥ Italy, Hitler’≥ Germany, and Hirohito’≥ Japan cost 400,000 U.S. dead in four years. At its height, a third of the GDP was allocated for the war. At its end, 12 million Americans were under arms.

In Korea, we lost 33,000 in three years. During the Eisenhower era, we spent 9 percent of GDP on defense and maintained a draft. Reagan kept defense spending at 6 percent of GDP and broke the Soviet Empire.

Today, we spend 4 percent on defense, 1 percent on Iraq, our casualties are a tiny fraction of what we took in World War II, Korea, or Vietnam. Yet America wants out and the enemy knows it. What does this tell us?

We are a changed people and nation from who and what we were in 1960. And we live in a changed world.

In the 1960s Americans believed our fate hung on the outcome of the Cold War with Communism, that the Free World was at stake. That belief and that unity were shattered by Vietnam. By the 1970s, part of America, as Carter said, had gotten over our ҩnordinate fear of Communism.Ӡ

Reagan rallied us for one more push, and it was enough. We won the Cold War when our Soviet adversary collapsed of a heart attack in the middle of the ring while we stared, stupefied.

But the enemies of the West in the Third World learned lessons from that era, too, from Algeria, Vietnam, and Afghanistan: If you keep fighting and bleeding them, the old imperial nations of the West will tire and go home. Bin Laden has always believed this.

Seeing the Taliban army collapse and disintegrate in the face of U.S. firepower, George W. Bush was persuaded the Iraqi army would do the same. Cakewalk. And the Iraqi army accommodated us and vanished. The enemy preferred to prepare for the kind of war they have often won, an insurgents’†war in which they bleed and outlast us.

Like the general said, if we lose this war, we will lose it in the United States. Why? Because the issue nowѷho rules Iraq?ѩs of greater importance to Sunnis, Shiթtes, and Kurds than to us. Because we do not see Iraq as involving the survival of our country. Because we are unwilling to spend blood for a ҤemocracyӠthat seems to mean the larger wing of Islam in Iraq gets to rule roughly for a while over the smaller wing that used to do the same to them.

As Sun Tsu wrote, know thy enemy, know thyself, in a thousand battles, a thousand victories. Going into Iraq, our leaders did not know our enemy. They do not really seem to have known America.

Americans are holding on in Iraq today, not because we anticipate the glorious fruits of victory but because we do not want to witness another defeat for the United States.

Kathleen #289, I don't care what anyone discusses here either. I scroll past plenty. I just don't know why 9/11 has to be the major topic all the time. It's like beating a dead horse. Saladin, Alan, James and Dr. Benson can continue to beat the horse all they want as far as I'm concerned. I just wanted to give my opinion. Guess I should have kept quiet. *sigh*

I am keeping my fingers crossed, hope it works for you. As well as the Iraqi people and our troops who are continuously in harms way.

RE#290: Where do these morons think we're going to get enough troops to change the Iranian regime? Our forces are overstretched already, and recruiting has gone down the toilet. Soon the Army and Marines will be reduced to taking the mother-rapers, the father-stabbers, the father-rapers, even *shudder* the LITTERBUGS! They'll just have to empty the whole Group W bench!

Unless, of course, some of our young, healthy Busheviks sign up. Now that just might save the day! Why I'm sure those macho men are so tough they'd open The Mother Of All Cans Of Whoop-Ass on the hajjis (not you, Hajji) and end the war in a week, 2 weeks at most. The hajjis'll drop their guns and run when confronted with the overwhelming throbbing studliness of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders! C'mon, freeper studmuffins! Your country and your precious, infallible, divinely anointed Commander Codpiece need YOU! Run, don't walk to your nearest Army or Marine recruiter and sign up!

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

*crickets chirping*

Pickin' the veins outta my teeth, Kid Charlemagne

Iran Hiding Atomic Facilities
Iran has drastically reduced its cooperation with international nuclear inspectors, complicating efforts to learn about the progress of its quest for atomic weapons, The New York Times reported. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says Iran has cut off access to 80 percent of its nuclear installation at Isfahan, where uranium is prepared for enrichment, a key step in assembling atomic arms. If Iran is conducting clandestine atomic work at the Isfahan facility, its pursuit of nuclear arms could be even more advanced than current intelligence estimates suggest. Iran’s nuclear program has been shrouded in secrecy from its inception – Tehran totally hid its atomic work from the world until being exposed by an exile group in 2003. Learn more about the threat that a nuclear Iran would pose to the United States and its allies.

Bill to Isolate Hamas-Led PA Nears House Vote
The full House of Representatives is scheduled to vote next week on the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act, legislation that would restrict U.S. aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority (PA) until Hamas renounces violence, accepts Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and agrees to abide by previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements. Exceptions would be made for humanitarian assistance. The bill was strengthened recently by the House Judiciary Committee, which amended the measure to prohibit the Palestinian Authority or PLO from maintaining a mission office at the United Nations unless the president issues a waiver every six months permitting it to remain open. Urge your lawmakers to support this legislation.

Iran’s Parliament Votes for Badges for Non-Muslims
Iran ’s parliament has passed a law forcing non-Muslims to wear colored badges, The National Post of Canada reported. Under the measure, the 25,000 Jews who live in the Islamic Republic would have to attach yellow strips of fabric to their clothing, while Christians would have to wear red patches. The law’s approval follows worldwide outrage at anti-Semitic comments by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” and denied that the Holocaust occurred.

......It is just a bit absurd that a nation (Israel) that is armed to the teeth , refuses to sign the NON PROLIFERATION TREATY , will not sign an agreement saying that Israel will not pre-emptively attack or invade Iraq...should demand that Iran follow rules that Isral refuses to even acknowledge should apply to them.

Carol seems as if most here at the Corn site feel other opinions are acceptable,
just not always agreed with...and that is o.k. Folks do seem to get feisty at times, (including myself) that is healthy for a "supposed democracy".

what would be the measure of success in Iraq? when the WMD are found? when the evil dictator is thrown down? when our ally assassinates the very last iraqi scientist? when there is so much leftover DU scattered around that nothing will grow or be born whole there again?
observe an everyday gas station; not a lot of flowers forcing their way up thru the cracks.
-------------------------
go to rense.com - 3 headlines there:

Iran Lawmakers Denounce False 'Badge' Law Story

Iranian Jewish MP - Badge Story Complete Fabrication

Zionist Effort To Smear Iran With
'Yellow Star' Hoax Fails

Ya know, we can yak and yammer and piss off each other and annoy each other until the cows come home. What we should be doing is fighting for our liberties in a productive way. Relatively speaking, there are really very few people in this country who are working to preserve our liberties. As time passes, and those who truly put up the good fight are in imminent danger, the REAL trouble begins.

Had enough? Well, what are you doing about it? ...no one in particular in mind.

...just wondering. No response expected or needed. Soul-searching is often useful.

Congratulations on the new grandbaby, Hajji.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul.
And sings the tune
Without the words,
and never stops at all.

Emily Dickinson

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
- Goethe

COURAGE

Carol, no one should keep quiet! We are in big trouble, no matter how you look at it, scream it from the rooftops!

#256 hmmm, about half of your post doesn't add up James. Was Stratasec still the security contractor? Doesn't matter cause Marvin left in 2000, the year before 9/11. Now, for the insurance. If marvin's company held the policy, that would be one hella liability, not an asset. I'm not sure it was marvin's company though. According to this...

Silverstein Loses World Trade Center Appeal

The 62-page ruling was written by Chief John M. Walker, a relative of President Geroge W. Bush, who was appointed by President Reagan and promoted to the appeals court by the first President Bush. It rejects the claim that most of the insurers, including Swiss Re (otc: SWCEY - news - people ), which brought the initial lawsuit a month after the attacks, could be bound by a form they'd neither signed, nor necessarily seen. As a result, some insurers will be bound by the form advocated by Willis Group Holdings (nyse: WSH - news - people ), Silverstein's insurance broker. That form, the court ruled, necessarily limits Silverstein to one occurrence and, therefore, one recovery.

Other insurers, including Hartford Financial Services (nyse: HIG - news - people ), Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance (nyse: RSA - news - people ) and St. Paul Cos. (nyse: SPC - news - people ), will go to trial with the question for the jury being the interpretation on other forms that the appeals court found ambiguous. The appeals court wrote that a jury could "find that the cause of the destruction of the (World Trade Center) was either the individual impacts caused by each plane or a single coordinated terrorist attack.'' But the court did not decide the issue itself, as Silverstein had urged.

Why would they screw Silverstein if he was part of the conspiracy, and not just a smart business man to take out 'terror' insurance for a building that had already been attacked by terrorists when he leased it?

Grandpa T.... congrats!@#$%^&*

oh did silverstein get screwed on the ins. claim for the wtc? silly me, i was under the impression that the silverstein gang was awarded a tidy settlement as a result of the terror attacks. not a bad return for silverstein's personal investment of 14 mil. boy he bent over real hard on that one didn't he?

what about #256 was in error? every word of it was true including the part about coincidence theories.

the silverstein gang was awarded a tidy settlement as a result of the terror attacks...

Yeah, that article was in 2003, I think. He was appealling.
So they settled? How much was it for? Obviously more than the 3.5 bil, but less than the 7.1 he wanted. Looking at it from his point of view, that policy cost major bucks. Subtract the income from his 'renters' that he's not getting, with the lease payments still going into a hole... the settlement doesn't look quite as big. I know he had to fight for it too, and that costs alot.
If he was 'in on it', they sure treated him dirty. And the insurance companies... would their investigators have dug up any evidence of a conspiracy? If they did, then why settle?

The "pull it" is semantics. You think it means bombs, and I think it means "save lives", and he said it to the Fire Chief knowing alot of his men had already died that day. You think the chief was his second in command, or what? (and it didn't collapse until over 5 hours later). All of which makes me think it wasn't a conspiracy.

what about #256 was in error?

Bush wasn't with Stratasec in 2001. Bush's insurance company wasn't the policy holder, or if so, it was one of 22 insurance companies underwriting that policy. Silverstein didn't "up the ins. coverage before the attack". He got terror ins. when he signed the first signed the lease. Meaning, from the beginning.

That's all I remember from that post.

The three-judge court sitting in Manhattan was hearing arguments in the World Trade Center insurance litigation in which Larry Silverstein, who holds a 99-year lease for the buildings that were destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, is claiming that he is entitled to recover $7.1 billion from the 22 insurers of the properties, twice the ostensible policy limit, on the ground that the attack of the center was two occurrences, not one. Otherwise, he would be stuck with the $3.55 face value of the policies.

Larry Silverstein's $3.5B Definition

In case you missed it from my post (it's in bold), the first trial judge was a bush relative, and he ruled against Silverstein.

Man, I wanted to read the rest of that Marc Ash article in Truthout, but alas... I couldn't find it. Kathleen, can you post the url if you can't do links?

Basra, Britain's Mesopotamian mess revisited

DAMASCUS - Alarms are ringing in London that the British army is being severely defeated in Iraq, as the city of Basra (where its 7th Armored Brigade has been based since 2003) slips rapidly into uncontrollable sectarian violence.

Basra has always been troublesome. From there, two uprisings were launched against Saddam Hussein in 1991 and 1999, only to be crushed with great force by the currently imprisoned dictator. British officials, though, refuse to accept the reality that since entering the city on April 6, 2003, they have done nothing to eradicate sectarian militias, and violence is now exploding in the southern Iraqi city, with nobody able to bring it to a halt.

Unrest escalated when a British helicopter was shot down in Basra on May 6 by a shoulder-launched missile, killing five British troops. British Defense Minister Des Browne, learning from his US counterpart Donald Rumsfeld, played down the event, calling it "an isolated incident" that had been "magnified" by the press. Coinciding with Browne's statement was a roadside bomb that killed two British soldiers in Basra this Monday, bringing the number of British deaths in Iraq since 2003 to 111.

More HERE

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

The Sunday Times on August 22, 1920, about the British role in Iraq, saying:

The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster.

Seems like everything old is new again. 90 years later and the song remains the same.

capt

if you look back you will see that i merely said that m. bush was with stratasec and HCC and then with chatterjee. stratasec was indeed involved with security for wtc and united airline. HCC insured silverstein's wtc which was terrorized by united airline. and silverstein did indeed say 'pull it'. chatterjee did benefit from the patriot act by being awarded some contracts or other. i think you are just mad because i inferred that it must've all been a giant coincidence. in fact, i thought #256 tied in very nicely with #'s 259 and 263. those were what we who are in the business of pretending to be clever call a 'follow-up piece'. all in all i believe i did a fair job with those 3 posts of putting the bush history in perspective.

if you look back you will see that i merely said that m. bush was with stratasec and HCC and then with chatterjee. stratasec was indeed involved with security for wtc and united airline.

James, bush wasn't with Stratasec anymore.
And, HCC wasn't Silverstein's insurance company either.

When Silverstein was negotiating with the insurance companies, his broker Willis Group Holdings...

and the third thing wrong with your post was, again... he got 'terror' ins. when he first signed the lease because he was taking control of a building that had been attacked before.

oh i see. you are implying that i was inferring that m. bush was with stratasec in '01. that's why you said anymore. no i merely said that m. bush was with stratasec and HCC and then with chatterjee. stratasec was indeed involved with security for wtc and united airline, and if you go back to #236 you will see that HCC was indeed involved with wtc ins. - i didn't say anything about the wtc being attacked before, but of course silverstein got terror ins. when he first signed the lease. he only signed the lease and took over 7 weeks or so before it was terrorized by a united airline.

Dixie Chick blasts Bush

The Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines apologised for disrespecting President George W Bush during a London concert in 2003. But now, she's taking it back.

"I don't feel that way anymore," she told Time magazine. "I don't feel he is owed any respect whatsoever."

As war in Iraq loomed in 2003, Maines told the London audience: "Just so you know, we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas."

The remarks led to death threats and a backlash from other US country stars, including a high-profile spat with Toby Keith. It also stalled what until then had been the group's smashingly successful career.

Bandmate Emily Robinson said she knew right away the remark wouldn't be taken lightly and got "hot from my head to my toes".

"It wasn't that I didn't agree with her 100 per cent; it was just, 'Oh, this is going to stir something up,"' she told Time magazine.

For band member Martie Maguire, the controversy was a blessing in disguise.

"I'd rather have a small following of really cool people who get it, who will grow with us as we grow and are fans for life, than people that have us in their five-disc changer with Reba McEntire and Toby Keith," Maguire said. "We don't want those kinds of fans. They limit what you can do."

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

I think that when an artist (actor, musician, etc) speaks about their political preferences and opinion on stuff that has nothing to do with their art, they will alienate some fans.

The artists that integrate their politics and deliver their message using their art as the vehicle are always better received by fans that may not always agree politically.

I am not saying that artists should not speak out about politics or only deliver their message through their art, just that they should know beforehand some fans will be off put.

capt

oh i see. you are implying that i was inferring that m. bush was with stratasec in '01.

uh huh, you mentioned coincidences a couple of times

again, if bush's HCC was one of the 22 ins. companies (and I know it wasn't the 'lead' company... it wasn't one of the ones listed), that would put him against Silverstein. How do you figure that worked? A kickback?? That would assume HCC, while a minor partner, could influence all the others to go along.
The article did say in parenteses that 2 companies weren't part of the litigation because they had settled already.
You see a conspiracy with Silverstein (or a coincidence), and I see a business man fighting against any bushco connection.

And just to top it off. If there was any kind of conspiracy, I'm betting the high-priced lawyers for the insurance companies could find the same 'evidence' that you guys see, and use it in court if it was credible, to get out of having to pay a bigger chunk of money.

in my opinion toby keith is a no-talent hack - he is not qualified to even tune the dixie chix guitar. his hat is foolish and his phony hick accent is ridiculous. even madonna's phony british accent is more authentic. in my opinion.

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Living In Ironic Times

At least Madonna brought us the Bullet Bra! That has to count for something.

capt

alan are you actually trying to unravel the web of insurance surrounding silverstein's wtc? good luck with that my friend! me, i just found it to be an odd coincidence that marvin bush seemed to have his little fingers in all the 911 pies. now that you mention it....kickbacks do seem to be the way that bushco operates, ya?

the bullet bra - HA! - i like madonna

But how? Sounds like they didn't wanna pay.

Here's another graf of the ins. companies fighting tooth and nail against Silverstein's lawyer...

Barry Ostrager, the lawyer for Swiss Re the insurer with the most to lose, called Wachtell's entire theory "a lawyer-driven concoction." While it's possible for one insurance company to agree to the terms negotiated by a "lead" insurer, it never happened in this case, he said, adding that the Traveler's form never bound any company, except possibly Travelers. With no binding definition, Swiss Re has argued that a jury must decide what the parties meant.

If they settled, then they must have felt they had a chance of losing the appeal. I'm sure they weren't holding anything back either. As you said, it was a tidy sum (the difference).

it was indeed a tidy sum - especially if the claims that the wtc was not a money maker but couldn't be torn down without first removing the asbestos at a cost of a billion $ or so were true. if that was indeed the case then the wtc's demise was a boon all the way around - except for the ins. co. of course! i think that i've said "indeed" enough times for one day. later alligators.

James, don't get frustrated with Alan--he's probably got some kind of job where it would hurt his career to be caught taking complicity theories seriously.

The Administration That Won’¥ Stop Lying

At that time Americans were told that bin Laden was the target of the invasion of Afghanistan. In retrospect we know that that was just another lie. The target was Iraq (and Iran and Syria). Bin Laden was the excuse for getting the camel’≥ nose under the tent.

Iraq has nothing whatsoever to do with bin Laden or 9/11. Yet, war in Iraq has completely absorbed the Bush Regime. The regime sticks with its war despite its sinking polls, which even Karl Rove attributes to the fruitless war.

The war in Iraq has multiplied terrorism, not reduced it. The war has destroyed America’≥ reputation. The war has served as an excuse for concentrating unconstitutional powers in the executive and for removing the institutional protections against a police state. The war has already cost 20,000 American casualties (dead and wounded) and hundreds of billions of dollars, which have had to be borrowed from foreigners, and is projected to have a total cost in excess of one trillion dollars.

This is a horrendous commitment. What is its purpose?

More HERE

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

A good piece, not such a great clip.

capt

Information Sharing on the Rove Indictment Story

I'd like to break this posting into two categories: What we know, and what we believe. They will be clearly marked.

We know that we have now three independent sources confirming that attorneys for Karl Rove were handed an indictment either late in the night of May 12 or early in the morning of May 13. We know that each source was in a position to know what they were talking about. We know that the office of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald will not confirm, will not deny, will not comment on its investigation or on our report. We know that both Rove's attorney Robert Luskin and Rove's spokesman Mark Corallo have categorically denied all key facts we have set forth. We know we have information that directly contradicts Luskin and Corallo's denials. We know that there were two network news crews outside of the building in Washington, DC that houses the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm that represents Karl Rove. We know that the 4th floor of that building (where the Patton Boggs offices are located) was locked down all day Friday and into Saturday night. We know that we have not received a request for a retraction from anyone. And we know that White House spokesman Tony Snow now refuses to discuss Karl Rove - at all.

Further, we know - and we want our readers to know - that we are dependent on confidential sources. We know that a report based solely on information obtained from confidential sources bears some inherent risks. We know that this is - by far - the biggest story we have ever covered, and that we are learning some things as we go along. Finally, we know that we have the support of those who have always supported us, and that must now earn the support of those who have joined us as of late.

More HERE

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

"attorneys for Karl Rove were handed an indictment either late in the night of May 12 or early in the morning of May 13"

If this turns out to be correct the lamestream media should be drawn and quartered.

capt

LISTENING IN

The next step, theoretically, could have been to get a suspect’s name and go to the fisa court for a warrant to listen in. One problem, however, was the volume and the ambiguity of the data that had already been generated. ("There’s too many calls and not enough judges in the world," the former senior intelligence official said.) The agency would also have had to reveal how far it had gone, and how many Americans were involved. And there was a risk that the court could shut down the program.

Instead, the N.S.A. began, in some cases, to eavesdrop on callers (often using computers to listen for key words) or to investigate them using traditional police methods. A government consultant told me that tens of thousands of Americans had had their calls monitored in one way or the other. "In the old days, you needed probable cause to listen in," the consultant explained. "But you could not listen in to generate probable cause. What they’re doing is a violation of the spirit of the law." One C.I.A. officer told me that the Administration, by not approaching the FISA court early on, had made it much harder to go to the court later.

More HERE

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

A good read. Another example of this misadministration not being able to accept they screwed the pooch, they just start humping faster.

capt

#304 Micki I find this statement of yours hypocritical. "Had enough? Well, what are you doing about it? ...no one in particular in mind."

When I was writing about things that I was doing politically to change things you hammered me. You can deny this but you did. I was trying to get folks to share what they were doing so that they could possibly be inspired, share ideas and pump each other up. You hammered me more than once for writing about these activities. Your statement is incredibly hypocritical.

Carol 298, if 9/11 is truly a dead horse this country is through. And if people really think that way my hope has suffered a serious setback. These politicians and their corporate/banker string pullers are setting us up for a fall, everything that has happened points to the demise of our whole way of life, and I don't see how it can be stopped if the people are not given the truth so they can figure out what to do. But maybe the reality is, they don't want the truth. I've been reading about the reactions of people to the new Oliver Stone movie trailers for WTC, they are not happy and are actually booing in some places. I wonder, is it because they don't want to think about it because it's a dead horse, do they think it's in bad taste, or are they wise to the propaganda attempt?

National Review Editor Rich Lowry can't believe that John McCain, whom Lowry notes is a "war hero," was treated so disrespectfully when he spoke last night at the New School in Manhattan. Lowry finds it "incredible" and "amazing" that a war hero would be subjected to heckling when giving a highly controversial speech praising a highly unpopular war.

Apparently, heckling a war hero during a speech is a despicable act. But it's perfectly OK to waive purple band-aids at decorated, wounded war veterans; and it's fine to accuse them of being soft on Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein even after they voted for the Iraq invasion and co-sponsored creation of the Homeland Security Department; and there is nothing wrong with going to the floor of the House and labeling a war hero a "coward" and then following it up with a year's worth of accusations that they are also a traitor. Calling into question a war hero's patriotism, their courage, the seriousness of their war wounds, and their allegiance to the United States is all perfectly fine. Just don't boo them at a speech. . . . [read on] "

Ted Koppel: Time for U.S. to Form an "Army of Mercenaries"?

Editor And Publisher | May 22 2006

NEW YORK Little known to the American public, there are some 50,000 private contractors in Iraq, providing support for the U.S. military, amongs other activities. So why not go all the way, argues Ted Koppel in a New York Times op-ed on Monday, and form a real "mercenary army"?

Such a move involving what he calls "latter-day Hessians" would represent, he writes, "the inevitable response of a market economy to a host of seemingly intractable public policy and security problems."

"Just as the all-volunteer military relieved the government of much of the political pressure that had accompanied the draft, so a rent-a-force, harnessing the privilege of every putative warrior to hire himself out for more than he could ever make in the direct service of Uncle Sam, might relieve us of an array of current political pressures," Kopple explains.

"So, what about the inevitable next step, a defensive military force paid for directly by the corporations that would most benefit from its protection? If, for example, an insurrection in Nigeria threatens that nation's ability to export oil (and it does), why not have Chevron or Exxon Mobil underwrite the dispatch of a battalion or two of mercenaries?"

Koppel notes that Cofer Black, formerly a high-ranking C.I.A. officer and now a senior executive with Blackwater USA, "has publicly said that his company would be prepared to take on the Darfur account."

He concludes: "The United States may not be about to subcontract out the actual fighting in the war on terrorism, but the growing role of security companies on behalf of a wide range of corporate interests is a harbinger of things to come."
----------
Corporate thugs? Why am I not comforted by that notion?