BAE All That You Can Be

Nov 29, 2006 "BAE Systems saw its shares climb 2.3% in London on Wednesday after the weapons company announced a deal with the U.S. Army.

The company confirmed it had received contract modifications worth $1.16 billion from the U.S. Army TACOM Life Cycle Management Command -- one of the force's largest weapon systems research, development, and sustainment organizations -- to remanufacture and upgrade 610 Bradley Combat System vehicles and to provide spare components.

Media reports said that work on the contracts will begin immediately, with deliveries scheduled to begin in April 2008 and run through April 2009.

BAE purchased United Defense Industries, the maker of the Bradley fighting vehicles, in June 2005 to become the U.S. Pentagon's seventh-biggest contractor. In September, BAE said first-half profit rose 28% on sales of Bradleys to the U.S.

"Bradleys have been delivering excellent capability to our war fighters since March 2003,'' said Andy Hove, BAE Systems' director of Bradley Combat Systems, in a statement.

Shares of BAE Systems fell 4.4% on Monday on reports it might lose a Eurofighter deal with Saudi Arabia if a fraud probe was extended to the Saudi royal family. The Sunday Telegraph newspaper said the Saudi government would scrap its Eurofighter Typhoon agreement with Britain and give the jets contract to France if the U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) poked their noses into Swiss bank accounts allegedly linked to members of the Saudi royal family."


--- War ! huh ! yeah what is it good for ....

FSLN El día que Nicaragua triunfó daniel ortega presidente

Did you do this when Clinton or Bush or Reagan won?

Don't Make Kate Angry, You Wouldn't Like Kate When She's Angry

Subtitle: Auchi Still At It

Received an email today from Harjinder Obhi, London based attorney for Google, with fuzzy threats of lawsuits, forcing my identity be disclosed, potential shutdown of Kate/A/Blog, etc. etc.

I'm working on a post and scanning today's documents although above lawyer used an extra brain cell and marked his email communication as "LEGALLY PRIVILEGED" I suppose in hopes I'm so scared I will not scan and publish. Oh ye of little faith in Kate's nerve.

Mr. Obhi politely tells me if Auchi files suit, Google will be forced to produce information about me, emails, IP addresses, ISP information, etc. etc. etc. and that once my identity is known I will be formally added to the lawsuit.

And Mr. O. was nice enough to make it easy on me, by suggesting I send him my phone contact information and the best time to reach me to discuss this situation. Hahahaha. Do I look like I just fell off the turnip truck? Sure honey child, here's my phone number, address, SSN, banking info, weight, and dress size.

Oh, and Carter-Ruck did not at all like my response posted to their first threat. Geeze, you just can't please some people.

Now my eldest daughter suspects I am withholding information, wants to know what I know that I'm not telling, that may get us all killed.

50,000,000+ blogs around the world and they walk into mine. The story of my life.

:)

Background posts: September 2005 and November 2006.

Snakeoil Investment on the Rise

(AP) LONDON "Within the next 25 years, AIDS is set to join heart disease and stroke as the top three causes of death worldwide, according to a study published online Monday. When global mortality projections were last calculated a decade ago, researchers had assumed the number of AIDS cases would be declining. Instead, it's on the rise."

(Bloomberg) -- "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has more money to spend fighting AIDS and other global health menaces this year, partly because of better returns from its investments in U.S. drug companies. The gain illustrates a symbiosis between the foundation and drug companies. In backing programs to fight disease, the charity is, indirectly, a buyer of medicines. It boosts the fortunes of drugmakers -- and how they fare, in turn, helps determine how fast the foundation grows."

LONDON March 2006 - "Former President Bill Clinton on Tuesday called for mandatory testing for HIV/AIDS in countries with high infection rates and the means to provide lifesaving drugs. Since leaving the White House Clinton has devoted much of his attention to getting anti-AIDS drugs to poor countries at the cheapest possible prices through the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative."

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is poised to issue new recommendations for testing for HIV in adults, adolescents, and pregnant women. Frustrated that more than 25 percent of Americans with HIV infection are unaware of their status and that almost 40 percent of those with newly diagnosed AIDS discover that they are infected less than a year before diagnosis, officials have proposed that HIV screening be routinely offered in all health care settings.

--- There's discussion in my state of mandatory AIDS/HIV testing to acquire a driver license, at an "affordable" fee of course. REVENUE and mo' money for TPTB. It's time for that bird flu epidemic too.

Geeze, I can remember when cancer was the disease they swore to conquer and cure. Aren't we overdue for another "breakthrough" miracle drug that doesn't live up to its promise? That reminds me, I've never had a flu shot - and have never had the flu. Go figure.

Eating Their Own

The poisoning death of ex-Soviet KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko.

"Litvinenko, 43, a Kremlin critic, died Thursday night of heart failure from what doctors said was poisoning from polonium-210 — a radioactive element usually produced in a nuclear reactor or particle accelerator. Litvinenko had told friends and family he was poisoned because he was investigating the killing in Moscow last month of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a vocal Kremlin critic.

In the 1990s, he alleged that the FSB was involved in executing businessmen and other public officials opposed by the government. After a nine-month stint in prison in 1999 for abuse of office, he moved to Britain."

--- Polonium-210 is also seen in the urine and blood of heavy tobacco users. And what exactly is meant by "abuse of office"?

Falling Out With the Kremlin
"Like a plot straight out of the Cold War, the poisoning death of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko has put a murky spotlight on Vladimir Putin. Fiercely critical of the Kremlin, Litvinenko had said publicly that he once refused orders to assassinate business tycoon Boris Berezovsky."

--- Berezovsky is alive and well with a 30 million dollar home in the south of France and offices in London. According to Rossiyskaya Gazeta "The killing of Litvinenko could have been orchestrated by his associate Boris Berezovsky in order to discredit Russian authorities."

Is that any way to treat someone who refused to kill you?

But, we know oligarchs eat their own when need be. Litvinenko was little more than a gnat on Putin's porkchop, and his death much more useful to the Russian Euro-exiles who wannabe ruling.

Cui bono?

Letter to Moore Dumbshit & Similar Piles of Useless Compost

From an open letter of Michael Moore: "Tomorrow marks the day that we will have been in Iraq longer than we were in all of World War II.

That's right. We were able to defeat all of Nazi Germany, Mussolini, and the entire Japanese empire in LESS time than it's taken the world's only superpower to secure the road from the airport to downtown Baghdad."

--- The above meme has to be the most stupid yet of this decade. (Moore goes on with other talking points for simpleminded folks but I won't bother listing them all today, i.e. he fails to mention that we did indeed stay in German, Italy, Japan and "help" them set up governments to US liking.)

We have fought in Iraq longer than we fought WW II but we have not fought in the manner of which we fought WW II :

Total Axis Powers dead (them) : 8,268,000
Total Allied Powers dead (us) : 40,000,000 give or take a few million.

Perhaps if the Moore-ish memesters want to compare length of winning WW II they should also compare methods used to win it ...

National Service on the Global Plantation

Rangel's argument for a military draft seems to be the belief that it would curb the government's taste for war, and spread the burden to all classes of society. Charlie's leadership in the War on Drugs has gone so well (hahaha cough, cough) he's been selected to lead the Fight For More Fodder.

The last 60 years of history says differently about mandatory military service but perhaps Rangel is hopeful that this war is different, this time the draft will equalize, this time the social pecking order of the pragmatic ruling elite will send the dimmest of their sons en masse (all 10 or 12 of 'em) to the Middle East for the "cause".

The affluent class will continue to purchase "get our of war free" cards for their spawn, or safe duty stations around the globe. The "burden" will still fall to the poor and working classes, with a couple of big-namers to trot out as proof that the higher-ups are doing their duty too. Mandatory service will never end corporatoguvnment's appetite for war profits, if anything, more fodder will only increase it.

I am not against a draft, however. I see too many youths whose future is little more than a lifetime on momma's couch or a cot on cell block C. (Engineered that way?)

But, are the social peckers higher on the ladder aware that more than half of the future fodder to be targeted can't pass a military physical? A couch potato generation of recruits will need to be starved on fat farms before boot camp. And being forced into unwanted service how many would be whipped into shape? A hungry person can be quite cranky and obstinate.

Even if a small percentage of drafted obese/overweight fodder can be physically fitted, there's the accompanying health damage that must be dealt with : asthma, high blood pressure, damaged joints and cartilage, flatfeet, and more often than not the emotional problems that created the fattest generation for corporate products and goods. Maybe Big Pharma has a solution.

Rather like TPTB have created a nation of fatted Frankenconsumers and now need to press their monster into service. We all know how that story ends.

By The Way

The latest phrase for discussing the Iraq War, per the ruling class and the media they own, is to refer to such murder and mayhem as finding/working "a way forward".

A way forward. Positive sounding.

A way forward. Sounds favorable, certain, hopefully expectant. Onward soldiers marching ... forward.

Some folks would have sworn before elections they heard talk of "withdrawal" and "redeployment" and "ending" the war. But dear leaders really meant to say working "a way forward".

Could that be considered blowing smoke up your butt?

Urban Dictionary: Giving a gratuitous and insincere compliment, possibly to deceive. (Can be my, your, his, or her ass, but probably not plural, as in their asses.) Most literally translating to "trying to get a reaction" out of somebody. Originated from a 16th century technique to determine death by literally blowing tobacco smoke into someone's anus (through a long pipe) - where a reaction indicated that the person was still alive.

Your Documents Please

WASHINGTON (AP) - "Nearly all air travelers entering the U.S. will be required to show passports beginning Jan. 23, including returning Americans and people from Canada and other nations in the Western Hemisphere.

The date was disclosed Tuesday by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in an interview with The Associated Press. The Homeland Security Department plans to announce the change on Wednesday.

The Homeland Security Department estimates that about one in four Americans has a passport. Some people have balked at the $97 price tag.

The Sept. 11 Commission said in its report, "For terrorists, travel documents are as important as weapons."

The commission recommended strengthening security of travel documents. A 2004 law passed by Congress mandated the change to require passports as the only acceptable travel document, with few exceptions, but the exact date had been in question."

--- Now before yelling about fascism and tyranny and all that – remember the foremost reason the government does anything - REVENUE. As a side note, or question, you didn't really believe all that hype about USA Ronnie winning the "cold war" did you?

Hollowwood Gladiators

If Michael "Kramer" Richards at his age can't handle a heckler he should stick to pre-written lines on sitcoms. This may shock a few, but I, Kate, have never seen an episode of Seinfeld. I feel so alone.

The hecklers were correct. Kramer Michael is not funny. A washed up has been comic, made wealthy by Hollywood writers where onscreen talent is the least requirement of what makes a star a star.

Many Richards fans will twist and parse the tirade and excuse it, justify it. He was provoked and lost his cool, etc. Richards can play dumb, or play heckling victim, announce he's bipolar and off his meds, claim temporary insanity – but even the dullest nitwit knows the Laugh Factory tirade was a glimpse of the real Richards.

That's "what happens when you interrupt a white man, pal."

Let's broadcast "Stick a fork in it" Richards, OJ "If I Did It", and "Jews Cause All Wars" Gibson together in small hut with Ka-Bar knives discussing race, religion, and crime for a few weeks. Call it reality TV.

It Me Psychobabble - Arggg Ahhh Ummm

SAN FRANCISCO Nov 19, 2006 (AP)— Two peace activists have planned a massive anti-war demonstration for the first day of winter. The Global Orgasm for Peace was conceived by Donna Sheehan, 76, and Paul Reffell, 55, whose immodest goal is for everyone in the world to have an orgasm Dec. 22 while focusing on world peace.

"The orgasm gives out an incredible feeling of peace during it and after it," Reffell said Sunday. "Your mind is like a blank. It's like a meditative state. And mass meditations have been shown to make a change." The couple have studied evolutionary psychology and believe that war is mainly an outgrowth of men trying to impress potential mates, a case of "my missile is bigger than your missile," as Reffell put it.

By promoting what they hope to be a synchronized global orgasm, they hope to get people to channel their sexual energy into something more positive.

--- Some folks have their hands on too much time.

Sounds to me like Donna and Paul have studied evolutionary bellybutton babble and are in a constant orgasmic state of mind which by their own definition is – peacefully blank. Poor woman, who's gonna tell her if she feels "peace" during an orgasm that's not an orgasm.

Reducing the misery of the world to a few seconds of cum. No food, don't have shoes, dodging bullets and mayhem, children dying - here - have a global orgasm. How self-indulgently Californian.

Namu-myoho-renge-kyo.
Namu-myoho-renge-kyo.
Namu-myoho-renge-kyo.
Namu-myoho-renge-kyo.
Are we there yet?

Victory Poem

Henry Kissinger, permanent member of living liars club, tells us military victory is no longer possible in Iraq. Or at least that's ABC/AP's interpretation of a recent Kissinger interview. (Foto Kissinger, Michael Bloomberg)

"A dramatic collapse of Iraq whatever we think about how the situation was created would have disastrous consequences for which we would pay for many years and which would bring us back, one way or another, into the region," he said.

Kissinger, whose views have been sought by the Iraqi Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James Baker III (one of Poppy's errand boys), called for an international conference bringing together the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Iraq's neighbors including Iran and regional powers like India and Pakistan to work out a way forward for the region.

Basically - nevermind how we got into Iraq, it's win now or come back later or second choice (same as the first), and the current method being tried, force the Iraqi people to accept that Iraq as they knew it is over, gone, finished.

Iraq will be one large oil well with "regional powers," Iraqi elite exiles, and international whitetrash forevermore disbursing and distributing the oily payoffs . And it will be called VICTORY goshdammit. The ruling elite dream too. And threaten with subtle statesmanship : win now or you coalition of little grunts will be back here shitting in the sand again instead of on these bases the nice American taxpayers built.

Pulling Kissinger out as expert advisor, former "architect of the Vietnam war," is like asking Charles Manson to give advice on family dynamics, indicating the powers that be (TPTB) have intermarried and bred for far too many centuries. Dumbed down doesn't apply just to the little sheople.

"Enter into dialogue with Iran" Kissinger tells us. Duh. Was that the plan all along? Global white power prefers and protects, even creates, oppressive regimes, and as I've said before, Poppy Bush and crew have long appreciated the Iranian government's "help" in the region.

If the situation works out the way Kissinger and his kind dream of - then the US/Euro bosses and dons will eventually play good guys in history and on TV (as usual); Arab lackeys in the region will regularly transfer the agreed upon monies to royal accounts; jet to visit one another to wine, dine, and laugh at the little people who do whine incessantly about a world of profitable chaos.

Joe Average Iraqi will retire to his mud hut with a TV and cell phone and accept his fate. Drugs from the Afghani 'hood, porno of blonde girls, and killing for playstations will replace jihad ideology. Some day, the customer service voice setting up your DSL will be a former "insurgent" working a 12 hour shift for Microsoft, ATT, etc., or a bill collector wanting that $5000 plus interest and fees on the defaulted Visa card your wife maxed out while you were serving in the Green Zone.

"Progressive" folks can earnestly get back to demanding marriage for gays and rights for illegal aliens – oops, 'cuse me, no human is illegal, just immigrants here for the declining American way of life and "to do the jobs Americans won't."

Or worse, "progressives" can waste thousands of hours and millions of dollars trying to punish a couple of members from the ruling class, and call it VICTORY for the little people.

God, it all reads like winning poetry to the global elite.

KAB Prescription

Regular readers are aware I am anti-medicating, when possible. However, I will vouch for this one, used sparingly. Please heed precautions and possible side effects though.

Still Carrying Water

"News" just seems so repetitive, different name or two and face, but same old same old business as usual.

Therefore, I'll repeat myself.

Only You :)

The Platters 1956

Get New Writers, Please

Al-Qaeda in Iraq Claims to have mobilized 12,000 fighters.

Abu Ayyub al-Masri, al-Muhajir the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq also claims:

"The American people have put their feet on the right path by ... realizing their president's betrayal in supporting Israel" the al-Qaeda in Iraq leader said. "So they voted for something reasonable in the last elections," he said.

"We call on the lame duck (Bush) not to hurry up in escaping the same way the defense minister did," he said, referring to the removal of Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary following the Democrats' victory in Midterm elections.

"They are getting ready to leave, because they are no longer capable of staying," the al-Qaeda leader said.

"Remain steadfast in the battlefield you coward," he called on the U.S president.

--- Ya really think Abu Ayyub doesn't know the Dems support Israel as much as the Reps? Has Abu not studied the democrats voting record on all things Israel, the campaign contributions and attendee lists to Jewish pac-parties and events? The same bootlicking democrats who have voted nearly unanimously for BushCo policies and appropriations for years?

American people smart, democrats reasonable, yea. Bush supports Israel, betrays American people. Sounds like Abu Ayyub has been reading the American "alternative" webworld.

Can you see Abu Ayy using the term "lame duck"?

Who writes this Hollywood B movie shit? There really should be an oversight committee on these scripts.

(And note, Abu Scriptor includes a taunting talking point for republican American cowboys, i.e. remain steadfast, as cut and run from the battlefield makes an incompetent coward, do you wanna be seen that way America?)

Seismic Bullshift

A few headlies (headlines):

Democrats Take House!
Democrats Given Mandate!
Democrats sweep House, Senate hangs in balance!
Midterms: Democrats Celebrate Victory!
Hillary Declares "We"ve Taken Back America"!
Bush, Stung By Election Loss!
Seismic Shift in DC!

One guess as to who really gets shifted and stung.

Don't you trust the voting process now; is not your faith in the election process restored? The election was so close in some areas that political analysts were analying and white-knuckling returns all night long. A cliffhanger. Rah rah rah, red, blue, red blue, and a Black guvnor too.

Nancy Pelosi tee-heeing all the way to the House tells us "the people have spoken" while reminding everyone impeachment talk is not on the agenda. She and her compadres will bring back integrity, and fiscal responsibility to government, and do it with bipartisanship (hail hail the gang's all here). She says it's a new direction.

It's the other cheek on the corporate ass. Hooyah.

Negotiating For Fonda

Deandre Brunston, age 24, shot at 81 times by the police, struck by 22 bullets. The policemen's bullets also struck a police dog, the dog died after being airlifted to a hospital. Brunston bled out at the scene. The incident took place in August 2003 in Compton. Brunston was unarmed and according to reports was holding a flip-flop he had found on the porch. Brunston had said he would surrender if he could speak to his pregnant girlfriend Fonda.

Fotos From #3 Son

Chuckie in Iraq.



Somewhat clueless, but he's mine.


What a mess!


Iraq sunset.

Venezuela Backs Panama

"Latin American and Caribbean nations unanimously endorsed Panama on Friday as their candidate for a two-year U.N. Security Council seat after weeks of deadlock between Venezuela and U.S.-backed Guatemala.

The deadlock was broken on Wednesday after Venezuela and Guatemala agreed to withdraw their candidacies for the coveted seat and threw their support behind Panama."

Hmmm. So the anti-imperialist anti-Bush Hugo Chavez backs Panama, the little Columbian drug smuggling conduit and money laundering nation that Daddy BushCo took possession of in 1989, after capturing good buddy turned arch enemy, Manny Noriega.

Columbia, Panama, Venezuela. I think they got another trifecta.

Under the Big Tent

Back in April of this year I watched the cliched, painfully gushing speeches and ribbon cutting dedication of GWB's "fully restored" childhood home in Midland.

Mom and dad Bush, and Laura were there, along with some of Midland's finest. And I thought, George W. Bush, the teflon bonesman, will enter history as a good guy, just as all presidents have before him, more or less.

Bush spent a long 5 years in the Midland house – now it's a holy shack/shrine, to be kept as an eternal tribute to #43 where the public can tour and touch history. Just thinking of the mindset of the sheep who would want a tour makes me queasy.

Junior couldn't be there but the little woman Laura made a brief speech, mentioning that "George didn't like to think of his childhood home as historic, yet" (laughter, applause). The dedication was sheer tacky tripe. I couldn't believe I watched. I may have been mesmerized by the aging and evil Poppy and Barb Bush, hypnotized by counting their liver spots.

But it all reminded me of my dad's disgust for the politics of his era. In particular, I now understand his firm, life-long contempt for one man. Harry Truman.

Nor did dad think much better of Franklin Roosevelt (pres. 1933-45). As Frankie was rewarded for pretending not to notice Euro-America corporatedom supporting, aiding, and abetting Hitler's Germany, today's globbed together corporations will reward GW too - by ensuring he is not remembered as a war criminal, but as the president who stopped Saddam. The War on Terror president. The devout Christian and family man president. The sometimes misunderstood president.

Franklin fell suddenly ill and died of a cerebral hemorrhage in April 1945 and a very nobody hick vice-president Truman, came into office to do the wet work for the global elite. Three months after taking office from a dead prez Truman dropped atomic bombs on Japan.

Cerebral hemorrhage or whipped by a pretzel – the PTB will have their way.

Forty or so years from now, per government's SOP, un-redacted reports will be released to "prove" the Bush administration were the good guys. (Why it takes so many years to create historical vindication is beyond me.)

My dad would rant and stride through the house using words and phrases a child shouldn't hear. The only time I heard him swear was in connection to Truman. For a while, as a child, I thought Harry Truman was a boss or co-worker of dad's as his contemptuous rants toward the man seemed quite personal. And now I have my own "truman" (Bush).

Truman and Roosevelt bedded with the Harrimans, Prescott Bush, Poppy, Rothchilds and Rockefellers, and dozens of others, as they are today. Behind the scenes the ruling elite stand in solidarity, passing knowledge and power from one generation of the selected few to the next.

The sheeple feed on television and state education and think they're knowledgeable, passing on the doctored history they're given; collective experience and wisdom lost on the next generation fortunate enough to be consumers, save a few who re-learn the same lessons as the few before them.

When scandals break the people believe it's higher-ups seeking to enlighten the masses – but it's just middlemen clearing out competition for their own climb upward. When pundits and eggheads say what fans want to hear – fans think it progress, but it's all carefully designed, a fancy meal fed to those who might be sharp enough to find a clue. And everyone thinks the political dumbass is not him, it's the other guy.

Sometimes I think, overall, we're getting exactly what we deserve.

Now Is The Time

To pull Ousama off ice to give the American sheeple a morale boost.

Cut & Run, Stay The Course, or Take The Money & Run

Busily counting up the billions last July the folks at Halliburton were nonchalant when Iraq contracts were not renewed. Replaced with domestic deals.

Now Bechtel is leaving Iraq, their contract expired on Tuesday. "Some employees remain to finish the paperwork, but essentially, the company's job is done." Or, more appropriate, a job not done - but paid for.

Congress Tells Auditor in Iraq to Close Office. "Investigations ... have sent American occupation officials to jail on bribery and conspiracy charges, exposed disastrously poor construction work by well-connected companies like Halliburton and Parsons, and discovered that the military did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces.

... tucked away in a huge military authorization bill that President Bush signed two weeks ago ... order comes in the form of an obscure provision that terminates ... the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, on Oct. 1, 2007. The clause was inserted by the Republican side of the House Armed Services Committee over the objections of Democratic counterparts during a closed-door conference, and it has generated surprise and some outrage among lawmakers who say they had no idea it was in the final legislation."

(They could attempt reading the final legislation, if not so busy with continuous campaigning and lunching with no lobbyists left behind.)

== Sounds like the criminals are cleaning up evidence, wiping off fingerprints, stashing the cash.

What became of the bourse of Iran to crash the dollar? Where's the housing market crash? For all the doom and gloom there's a global cash glut fueling an investment boom. Bad news is, it's not a boom for America's Joe Average. Remember, one man's bust is another man's boom.

"The cash glut is reheating the U.K. housing market, while in Japan companies plan the most investment since 1990. China's biggest bank this month attracted orders for more than half a trillion dollars with its initial public offering of shares."

As I've ranted before, most of Iraq's resources are for China and other Asian worker bee colonies. You know, those countries that actually have a manufacturing base, the one that used to be Made in America. Those factories that once fueled the US economy before Reagan/Poppy Bush convinced the sheep that American labor was destroying corporate America's "competitive edge" with wage demands.

And, according to the Iraqi oil minister, in attempts for more investments in the country, Iraq is working with China to revive an oil deal first signed in 1997. Officials will confirm the details of the $1.2 billion deal next month, which involves developing an oil field called al-Ahdab, in Iraq's southern region.

Technology and capital and energy pour into China, India, etc., lured by cheap labor, nonexistent enviromental laws, and deals so investor friendly that Wall Streeters have wet dreams while awake. But hey, you don't want to be called an "isolationist" right?

In case you thought China was communist, it's not – it just plays one in the history book. China is capitalist, State owned capitalism. Not all that different from US, Inc. where most of the wealth is owned by the few who own the State, although Americans have more freedom to bitch about it.

So, haul in the gangplank me hearties, looks like the pirates will technically end Iraqmire in a couple of years (in time for 2008). NATO/UN forces and mercs can handle the war from here, with continued US funding and strategically located militarized "embassies."

The democrats will be installed and America's "ruling class" will turn their attention (and contracts) to domestic issues (woe is we), and our favorite fearmongers will continue to shout about such things as the "Civilian Inmate Labor Program" (began under Clinton) which will enslave us all to compete in world labor markets - or list us as enemy combatants, forced to mow weeds and spear cigarette butts on roadways.

Sy Hersh Sex, Lies, & Video Tapes = $ale$

Continuing right along with demonizing US troops, Seymour Hersh lectures that there's a video in which American soldiers massacre a group of people playing soccer. "Three U.S. armed vehicles, eight soldiers in each, are driving through a village, passing candy out to kids," he began. "Suddenly the first vehicle explodes, and there are soldiers screaming. Sixteen soldiers come out of the other vehicles, and they do what they’re told to do, which is look for running people."

Never mind that the bomb was detonated by remote control," Hersh continued. “[The soldiers] open up fire; [the] cameras show it was a soccer game."

"About ten minutes later, [the soldiers] begin dragging bodies together, and they drop weapons there. It was reported as 20 or 30 insurgents killed that day," he said.

(Psssssst Sy, cops call it a "throw down" whether gun or drugs, and it works well, ask Black and brown folks in prison.)

Hersh has reportedly personally viewed the video of the soccer massacre. And apparently has inside info on tapes and photos of children being raped at Abu Ghraib. The ACLU has recently won access to those tapes and photos. Odd isn't it that the Pentagon encourages the troops to document material for their own court martial and hanging. Odder still that Sy gets private screenings.

But, I am appalled I tell you absolutely appalled, at the ignorance of a Pulitzer Prize journalist as Hersh, not knowing American military history.

HERSH: If Americans knew the full extent of U.S. criminal conduct, they would receive returning Iraqi veterans as they did Vietnam veterans, Hersh said. "In Vietnam, our soldiers came back and they were reviled as baby killers, in shame and humiliation," he said. "It isn’t happening now, but I will tell you – there has never been an [American] army as violent and murderous as our army has been in Iraq."

Sy, Sy, what orifice are you pulling info out of? I personally have ancestral documents and letters of long dead grandparents and cousins writing of the Civil War. One a survivor of Andersonville. The ungodly atrocities the Confederate Army committed upon captured Black Union soldiers and slaves would make Vietnam and Iraqi veterans look like boyscouts. And the Union Army was little kinder to the Confederates.

God I can't decide who's dumber these days, red or blue.

Hot Tamales

CARACAS, Venezuela Nov 2, 2006 (AP)— Flush with oil profits, President Hugo Chavez handed public workers $3 billion in Christmas bonuses 1 1/2 months early, angering opposition leaders who called it part of a cynical pattern of public handouts ahead of a December presidential election.

The "spending spree" includes free train rides, a rock concert, and a propaganda machine that painted pro-Chavez slogans on buses and handed out T-shirts with the image of the former paratrooper, known affectionately as "El Comandante.

Chavez uplifting ... his peoples.

Olbermann Wan Kenobi Sitcom

Keith Olbermann relentlessly pursues the source of his country's woes - GW.

With lightsaber drawn, Olbermann makes a Special Comment : "There is tonight no political division in this country that he and his party will not exploit, nor have not exploited; no anxiety that he and his party will not inflame. There is no line this President has not crossed — nor will not cross — to keep one political party, in power."

- Hahahahahahaha. Olbermann thinks we have more than one political party.

Kerry Does His Part to Throw Republicans Another Election

Kerry said: "Education, you know, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

Kerry meant:"I can't overstress the importance of a great education. Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq."

Kerry explanation: Botched a joke.

Truth: Kerry's brain was outpacing his mouth, slip of the tongue. I mean, come on, we know Kerry didn't study this speech (homework) real hard, and he's not exceptionally smart – the man only a couple of years ago discovered he was Jewish. By age 55 most of us have made enough effort to know who and what we are.

Kerry, typical of ruling elite, believe the military are "dumb animals", necessary cogs in the profit making machine. Kerry is on the same level as GW. Conmen. Sleazy feudal warlords dressed in silk and wool pretending to give a shit about the serfs.

I expect Kerry will break and apologize to the troops, he knows the military is all that stands between his class and millions of uneducated and poorly educated have-nots. (When the ruling class speak of "security" they want you to believe it's your safety they're worried about.)

The insult in Kerry's comment was to encourage the deteriorated American dream that studying hard, do your homework, try to be smart, and you too will be successful. Code for - you won't need a network of powerful generational groomers - like most of America's ruling class today. And if you fail - well, that's just class envy, try harder.

Riddled

You are driving in a car at a constant speed. On your left side is a 'drop off' (the ground is 18-20 inches below the level you are traveling on), and on your right side is a fire engine traveling at the same speed as you. In front of you is a galloping horse which is the same size as your car and you cannot overtake it. Behind you is another galloping horse. Both horses are also traveling at the same speed as you . What must you do to safely get out of this highly dangerous situation?

For the answer click and drag your mouse from star to star.

*  Get your drunk ass off the merry-go-round. *

 

1, 100, 1000, ...

Where Is The Love



One Tin Soldier

Gas Leak

NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, columnist Mark Shields revealed that one of the “highest ranking men” in the military has recommended removing all U.S. troops from Baghdad. Here’s the key excerpt:

MARK SHIELDS : The highest ranking or certainly one of the highest ranking men in the United States military today has recommended that we remove all troops from Baghdad, all American troops from Baghdad…All of the troops out of Baghdad, secure the road to the airport, secure the oil fields and the borders, and say that the pacification and the maintaining of order in Baghdad is the responsibility of the Iraqis. That is the recommendation of probably one of the most — probably the most respected man in uniform today.

---- "Secure the oil fields" the borders, the airport – and let the Iraqi factions in Baghdad have at it? The insurgents won't follow US troops to oil fields, airport, borders?

What high ranking brain fart thinks this is progress?

Improvements

DETROIT - The American Civil Liberties Union on Friday dropped a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the USA Patriot Act.

The ACLU said it was withdrawing the lawsuit filed more than three years ago because of “improvements to the law.” The Justice Department argued last month that amendments approved by Congress in March 2006 had corrected any constitutional flaws in the Patriot Act.

“While the reauthorized Patriot Act is far from perfect, we succeeded in stemming the damage from some of the Bush administration’s most reckless policies,” Ann Beeson, associate legal director of the ACLU in New York, said in a written statement.

---Yep, another ACLU triumph for we the leetle peeple (said with a hint of sarcasm).

Methuselah Juice

I don't particularly agree that stem cell research should be federally funded for the simple reason I have yet to see the feds fund anything that is not eventually corrupted and compromised, at great expense to the public for benefit but to a few.

What bothers me about stem cell research being an issue is it's a not an issue. Yep Bubba. It's not really an issue. The pols just want you to think stem cell research should be on the front burner, so you're not dwelling on the little things like corruption, deficits, war. So you don't dwell on ideas of banishing PACs and lobbyists, and other powerfuls who own the government our sons and daughters die for.

Basically, federal funding for stem cell research is limited by BushCo guidelines. But private funding, corporate funding, foundation funding, and states can fund all the stem cell research they want.

Serious stem cell research is going on, whether the public agrees or not. Reading the NIH site on stem cell guidelines NIH and the research community have "established a research infrastructure to ensure the successful handling and the use of cells" eligible for federal funding.

NIH also reminds research institutes that "Organizations will be well served by providing training to staff working with non-registered lines to reinforce these policies and procedures and the need to carefully document the assignment and allocation of costs between federally supported and non-federal projects." (Key words : Staff, non-registered, carefully document, allocation, costs = fraud).

Reports claim we age because our stem cells essentially run out of juice and can no longer cope with the degree of cell turnover that keeps our organs young. If true, not only could disease be reversed or cured but life will be greatly extended by altering or replacing the body's stem cells. A select few could regenerate themselves and live on and on. Really living history you might say.

We already fund big pharma R&D for drugs we can't afford. I'm sure we'll do as much for stem cells. Who more than the ruling elite would love nothing better than to live and rule, literally, for centuries? Kind of gives new meaning to words like dynasty and "long live the king."

Live Footage of Ghost

I'm not one to argue for or against the supernatural but some things just cannot be explained by science. Check out this footage.

Plumbing 101

Broken Government, A CNN Jack Cafferty offering, airs tonight.

Gosh, everything is broken. The borders are broken, the government is broken, morality and family values are broken, Madonna's deal to buy her own little Black child is broken (getting quite the mileage out of this one ain't she?).

Cafferty will tackle "out-of-control spending and corruption in Congress, presidential abuse of power, voting machine concerns, problems with the GOP and Democratic parties, and a seeming inability to really tackle big issues, like the open border debate."

(Note: The above tackle topics have been shouted by the "opposition" since shortly after those mostly British ol' boys and slaveholders walked out and told the lady "a republic, if you can keep it.")

Not tackling big issues is not due to "inability" Jack, it's part of the plan. And Jack, wish you'd told us in 2000 or 2001 or 2003 how broke things were. You know, before BushCo was installed, before war on Afghanistan to capture a man we still haven't caught, and before engaging in wider war. Or was the government not broken back then?

Oh, I remember, that's when you were on American Morning and said those Iraqi women held in prison by the US were better off: "Given the way these mutants treat women in their societies, the women are probably better off in US custody."

Cafferty will go heavy listing a few things wrong with government, and real light on what to do about it. A few short months of the State repeating the "government is broken" is surely prelude to the "fixers" - who will soon arrive to repair things for ya.

Let the Games Begin

Barak Obama now says a run for the White House is not out of the question. Viewing how the system has worked the past couple of hundred years I gotta wonder – what horrors are planned if a woman (Hillary) and a Black man are seriously considered as fall guys?

Think of the news bytes either would generate. How progressive of US to at long last have a woman or a Black in the top job. Aren't we forward thinking. Hillary and Obama, hungry narcissists see only headlines of "The First …."

When they gave us Stupid 6 years ago a few folks knew war was imminent. The powers that be wouldn't puppet someone that wet-brained unless the agenda was so ugly only a fool would take the job. Might explain why Gore and Kerry acquiesced so willingly and early in those "stolen" elections.

Sigh, I can hear the buffoons drawl over at the diner. Identifying with gender or pigment, they will say Hillary or Obama would make good presidents 'cause they know what it's like … "it" being she knows what it's like to be a woman and mother and he knows what it's like to be Black, etc. I know I know, but heartland logic works that way.

I await the no-name nobody, a small time player to be presented as viable candidate. Maybe another former governor with experience in looting a State before looting the nation. The cleanest crook the parties can find for the next charade. Time for a grandpa Ronnie? An affable gentle old pol with Alzheimer's to reassure the public he will bring peace, prosperity, and good health.

I don't think Obama has a serious shot at the White House, but then I'm still struggling with the idea the PTB would install a woman – although a white female from the power circle is more believable than a Black. But if either or both are installed in the top spot, watch out. Something awful this way comes. It means no American born white man wants the task (or possible blame) for the next step in designing the new world order. Maybe Arnie the Austrian can be pumped up for the job.

Dance – Cures a Boggy Mind

Trust me, a few lessons and even the guy with two left feet can dance. Tango is easier than you think. So are the Cha Cha Cha, samba, and rhumba.

And of course, remember this one? - brought back memories of people and politics in places I had forgotten. Move out the dining room furniture grampa – let's dance.
.

Malcolm X

At Oxford December 1964

Posse Comitatus – Again

Folks over at Kos have their knickers in a knot over BushCo "HUGE! Bush Guts Posse Comitatus, Grabs National Guard!

I mentioned last February and in August 2005 that the Posse was dead long before BushCo began tinkering.

Throughout the 1890s the presidents authorized the use of regular troops on several occasions to keep order during the labor unrest of that era. In 1914 Wilson used troops to put down labor disputes.

Presidents can use the military against civilians and have done so without using that fearfully nasty term - "martial law." They have always had the power to use the National Guard and Federal troops anytime for anything they damn well please.

Janet "Waco" Reno sound familiar? Military assistance to the FBI at the time included advice by commandos to the FBI's planned assault on the Koresh compound.

Remember the Guard troops in 1957 Arkansas to enroll Black students in Little Rock schools? Remember federal troops and guardsmen under presidential orders in Mississippi and Alabama in the '60s? Remember Kent State? Remember Federal troops sent into Los Angeles for Rodney King riots?

State and Federal troops have been deployed domestically many times to enforce State and Federal "law".

The time to yell about "gutting" the Posse Comitatus was a long long long long time ago. Posse Comitatus has been ignored at the whim of any president who wanted to ignore it. The government is now officially stamping a smiley face on what government has always done.

In 1999 Joseph Farah, at WorldNutDaily wrote the same fear-filled witless shit about Bill Clinton:

"No one should ever think the Posse Comitatus Act is any check whatsoever on the ability of the federal government to employ military might against civilians," said Olson. "We were surprised at how weak the Posse Comitatus Act is," he continued. "There have been no prosecutions ever, and it doesn't apply to any branch of the armed forces except the Army and the Air Force. It has a huge exception -- that deployment of the Army or Air Force as a posse comitatus is a crime, 'except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress.'"

Olson and Woll also discovered that the military doesn't need an order from the president to have control over civilians. Any commander can do it -- that is, suspend all civil rights.

And if ever we had a president in the White House capable of such treachery, it is Bill Clinton. If ever we had a president with nothing to lose, it is Bill Clinton. If ever we had a president with nowhere to go and too young for retirement, it is Bill Clinton. If ever we had a president showing no signs of eagerness to turn over the reins -- even to a handpicked successor -- it is Bill Clinton."

Geeze, that part about "showing no signs of eagerness to turn over the reins" sounds damn familiar. Democrats and Republicans, they're in it together folks - taking turns at scaring the hell outta ya.

Asylum Street Spankers

Stick That Yellow Ribbon

None Dare Call It Graft

The US Defense Department said compulsory anthrax vaccination of military personnel serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and South Korea will resume within the next 30 to 60 days. Anthrax immunization is said to raise the risk of infertility, multiple sclerosis and lupus. Although people have died following a vaccination, the Pentagon says the link between anthrax immunization and death is not evident.

Bioport finally going to get theirs?

BioPort Corporation was/is the sole manufacturer of the anthrax vaccine. BioPort, whose headquarters is located in Lansing, Michigan, is owned by multiple shareholders. The two main companies that make up BioPort are Intervac, headed by William Crowe and Faud El-Hibri, and Michigan Biologic Products Inc., which is made up of seven managers from the era when the State of Michigan owned the plant, headed by Robert Myers. The former state employees were specifically permitted by the Michigan State Legislature to bid on the sale. The legislators hoped that retaining local management as investors would help keep the plant and its 174 jobs in Michigan. Admiral William Crowe, Jr., is a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the U.S. ambassador to Britain until 1997. Fuad El-Hibri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, transformed a British government plant for vaccine production into a successful private venture.

Bioport was/is – until Emergent Solutions was formed in 2004 and became parent company to Bioport. Fuad El-Hibri is also CEO of Emergent. Admiral William J. Crowe retired last year from Emergent at the ripe old age of 80. Last but not least, Robert Myers is a very busy man with many companies.

Bioport/Emergent spent $880,000 last year in lobbying. Note the chart shows lobbying costs in 2003 was $200,000, in 2004 it was just under $400,000, and 2005 the $880,000 figure. In 2006 that tiny sliver on the chart looks like maybe $50,000? Must have known they had their money's worth and didn't need to press the palms of congress this year.

Put Options Making The Rounds – Again

"Before you read this article, conduct this test. Try to purchase some stock, or some futures, a mutual fund or some put options, without providing your identity. Go ahead and try it! See if you get anywhere. Find out what happens when you tell the investment firm that you want to make a huge investment anonymously. It can't be done.

Then ask yourself this question: How could someone have placed anonymous put options on American Airlines and United Airlines just prior to the attacks of 9/11? Then ask yourself why no one has investigated this suspicious deal. Ask yourself why there has been no attempt by the US government to identify the person who anticipated huge profits from a disaster that was yet to occur. Is it because the trail possibly leads to the CIA?"

If I recall correctly this story began with Michael Ruppert back in October 2001. It was a hot hot hot story on alternative sites, added to the list of "further proof" that 9/11 was an inside job.

Yea, why has no one investigated this suspicious deal? Could it be the "put options" story was put out by CIA? Have the masses been psy-op'ed yet again with worthless information?

I smell a hamster wheel.

For years the IFCA has worked on anonymity issues at yearly conferences. From 1999 lecture notes in computer science, the concept of an eshare, or digital stockholder certificate, which allows investors in companies to buy and trade shares without revealing their identity or the size of their investment. Dividend payments to investors are also supported, again without revealing shareholder identities, even if a government taxation agency requires verifiable documentation of shareholder earnings. The protocols presented are based on certified anonymous public keys with trustee-revocable anonymity, which may be of independent interest."

Are the above procedures in practice? Can powerful people play the market anonymously? Can you say it positively can't be done, isn't being done?

According to the blogosphere the person holding the put options never claimed the profits from 9/11 and is being protected by the government. Wouldn't a financially savvy person know he couldn't collect before he placed the put options? Besides, it was $2 million or so – chump change compared to the billions made "legitimately" by contractors and investors. Granted they are greedy, but not stupid. Well, not so stupid as to leave a trail of put options to their door.

Gotta wonder why all these "ignored by the mainstream" stories seem to come from all the same "truth" websites too.

Rehash rehash. Can't Intel plant some new and better material?

World Still In Love With US

Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- International investment in U.S. securities surged to a record $116.8 billion in August as foreigners stepped up their buying of Treasury debt.

The increase compares with July's $32.9 billion, which was the lowest since May 2005, the Treasury Department said today in Washington. The figure exceeds the $56.5 billion median estimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Demand for U.S. assets jumped in August as the Federal Reserve ended two years of interest-rate increases and reports showed a combination of easing inflation and greater consumer spending. More than a month later, that faith in the U.S. is holding, helping drive the Dow Jones Industrial average to a record high yesterday.

"There's no evidence confidence in the U.S. is weakening," Steven Pearson, chief currency strategist at HBOS Plc, Britain's biggest mortgage lender, said from London. "This number is very strong. It gives you an idea why the dollar has held up."

International purchases of U.S. securities previously peaked at $102.6 billion in October 2005 and averaged $71.6 billion over the 12 months through July. The average over the previous five years was $57.8 billion.

China, Japan, the U.K. and major oil exporters increased their holdings of U.S. government debt.

Japan, the largest holder of U.S. Treasury securities, raised its holdings by $7.6 billion to $644.2 billion. China, the second-largest holder, raised holdings by $8.7 billion to $339 billion.

Eeek!

WASHINGTON "Sen. John Kerry says he deserves a second chance if he decides to take another crack at becoming president. The Massachusetts Democrat, who lost to President George W. Bush in 2004, said it is a basic principle that "Americans give people a second chance. And if you learn something and prove you've learned something, maybe even more so. Now, I don't know what I'm going to do yet. We'll make that decision down the road."

Hillary/Kerry? Gore/Hillary? Gore/Kerry? It will be the greatest entertainment in decades, so many seasoned contenders to take a cracker at it.

It Takes a Village - Of Hamsters

Why anyone believes pollsters is beyond me. CNN's latest poll "suggests support among Americans for the war in Iraq is dwindling to an all-time low. Just 34 percent of those polled say they support the war, while 64 percent say they oppose it." Note - every poll this year has been at "an all-time low." We should be in the negative numbers by now folks.

I'd say that 34 percent is and has been the same support since day 1. The current wars never had more than a third of the country's support. The "media" is just now getting around to perhaps publishing a truthful, albeit 3 years late, poll.

That one-third of Americans would support what the US is doing in the Middle East is a sad commentary of American stupid, and as the comic said 'you can't fix stupid.'

In the few weeks after the start of Iraqmire the 34% knuckle draggers thought we'd kick ass and be home by the fourth of July 2003. Today, the same low forehead set is disappointed the US wasn't an instant winner - they would support the nuke'em back to stoneage method.

The latest polling reflects the media coverage of dear boy leader Bush. From the haloed war president in the news Bush became the duped bumbler surrounded by manipulators. The monkey-hear monkey-repeat public will say they no longer support the war on Iraq simply because a few minutes of daily propaganda, found while channel surfing, handed them the opinion with a Bush lied talking point. A week of pro-war media and warm story fuzzies and a large number would reverse that opinion. Again.

One-third of the public supports empire at any cost, usually labeled republicans, conservatives, rightwing. One-third, known as liberal, progressive, or leftwing, also support maintaining the American way of life but in a manner less obvious. Kill 'em with sanctions, or labor markets and manufacturing, or as a last resort call it peacekeeping. You might say two-thirds of the public support the American way of life by any means necessary; some just prefer the death toll looks pretty, or moral, as in a "legal" war.

(All wars are devised by the ruling classes. All wars are immoral and illegal. All wars could be prevented if that were the preference of the ruling class.)

The remaining 33 percent I divide as approximately 23 percent who don't give a shit at all about what goes on around them, and 10 percent who know the game is so rigged the only thing one can do is self-protect and wait for the collapse (probably not in my lifetime) but this is the group in which I hold membership.

I call them the 10 Percenters, lonelier than the Maytag repairman. I once thought this group at 15 percent but have since revised downward. The internet, while connecting individuals to others of like mind, has also highlighted that realists are far fewer than once thought.

(Note: My numbers have a sampling error of 0-100% plus or minus.)

Regardless a person's IQ, education, or class there are compatible mouthpieces. PhD intellectuals and experts. Imus and Limbaugh and Franken. Horowitz and Chomsky. Socrates and Meletus. Celebrities and Generals. For every Michelle Malkin there's a Molly Ivins. Heroes and bad guys for both sides; even Bob Woodward type guys who work for both sides. And some guys who change sides – almost always epiphanic old men who secured their fortunes pre-epiphany, and having safely trust-funded to heirs the bulk of said fortune, with one foot nearing retirement and the other foot in a nursing home they become, apparently, kinder and gentler men.

And all the while Big Money is on the move - linking to other Big Money and the hidden State. As the village pep clubs cheer for red or blue or whatever color offered - the small global ruling class link arms, knowing the masses are spinning on the hamster wheel, running faster and faster, going nowhere.

Microminds Prize

I was reseaching last week on Bangladesh; millions living in squalor working themselves to death in textile factories, living on less than a dollar a day, etc. The country is the world's #1 producer of jute and jute is real trendy now.

The Bangladesh government has stubbornly tried to attain better trade status with the US, paying DC lobbyists in hopes of more duty-free access to US markets.

The country is 135 million squeezed into an area the size of Wisconsin. Over half the population in poverty. Predominantly Muslim.

Microcredit has been around for decades and touted as a near miracle idea for the world's poor although somehow the world's number of poor just keeps growing and growing and growing. Grameen's "cell of 5 people borrowing together" appeared more a pyramid scheme to me so I was checking into it when professor Yunus and Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Surprise surprise, Grameen Bank funded by UN and other organizations, and you know my stand on big-dot-org as savior.

Grameen and the professor are hooking up the poor with cell phones. Good old fashioned shiny baubles and bangles capitalism for hoveltown.

I found Jeffrey Tucker over at Ludwig von Mises (who I don't always agree with) has a 1995 article that pretty much sums up Grameen and company.

Bangladesh would be better served had the professor used his talents to remedy the slave wage factory labor of women and children.

Four Tops With Andantes

Ask the Lonely

Ahhh... when music was beautiful ....

Bush Still Trailing Clinton Kill In Iraq But Bush Expected To Take The Lead By 2010

Bush Iraq kill : 655,000.

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

Clinton Iraq kill: 1,000,000.

The U.S. military and economic war on Iraq, which caused more than 1 million Iraqi deaths, never let up under his (Clinton) reign. In fact, during his eight years in office, Clinton sent U.S. forces into combat situations nearly twice as many times as the four preceding presidents combined had over 17 years. (Remember, 500,000 were dead children and according to Maddy Albright their dying was "worth it.")

HR 4752 For 18 To 42

Universal National Service Act of 2006 This bill still lurking around the House.

To provide for the common defense by requiring all persons in the United States, including women, between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.

Deferments: Extreme hardship; or physical or mental disability.

The bill has been assigned to the following committee:

House Armed Services, Subcommittee on Military Personnel:
Rep. John McHugh [R-NY], Chairman
Rep. Jo Ann Davis [R-VA]
Rep. John Kline [R-MN]
Rep. Thelma Drake [R-VA]
Rep. Michael Conaway [R-TX]
Rep. James Saxton [R-NJ]
Rep. Walter Jones [R-NC]
Rep. Jim Ryun [R-KS]
Rep. Robert Hayes [R-NC]
Rep. Victor Snyder [D-AR]
Rep. Martin Meehan [D-MA]
Rep. Loretta Sanchez [D-CA]
Rep. Robert Andrews [D-NJ]
Rep. Susan Davis [D-CA]
Rep. Mark Udall [D-CO]
Rep. Cynthia McKinney [D-GA]

If you are interested in receiving information on becoming a Board Member for the Selective Service System apply now, just in case. I applied 3 years ago and it's fairly easy (must be if they took me).

The deferment you give, for anal cysts and bad knees, may be your own.

Powerful Pedophiles

Conspiracy of Silence.

Lights Dim For Republicans?

You would think that's the sentiment, reading and listening to the popular heads. One might think all it takes to bring down a Republican regime is the national outing of a gay-ped harassing high schoolers on the congressional campus.

The usual pollsters are out flagellating the public with numbers showing Bush & Co. have lost their appeal (as if they ever had appeal to anyone who stopped mimicking TV long enough to think). Although BushCo numbers have been "plummeting" for months – they're really "plummeting" this time. Really.

Haven't the polls been telling you for the last month that "Fully 53 percent of Americans want the Democrats to win control of Congress next month…"?

I've stuck my neck out more than once with predictions and have not been red-faced so will do so again. Here it is :

It is unlikely the Democrats will win control of either house of congress, much less both. The masters may, for circus-sake, have it appear close, "down to the wire" theatrics – but I don't see the pendulum in the Potomac's pig-pit swinging back to Democrats.

Although honestly - I would prefer a dem win as it would mean watching those pundits currently on the attack have to go on the defense. Nothing more pitiful or generates more chuckles around my house than watching democrat pundocrats defend the near-same stinking policies they were condemning before their team "won" the election.

With North Korea proving they too can make big phallus explosions the polling machismo may swing a little back to the right. Will it, won't it, maybe, hang in there until the next expert poll numbers are tallied. Apparently the American public believes Republicans are better at national security although when and where that myth was written I'm not sure. However, Democratic pols have proven their national security manhood. Was it not a big Harry S democrat that rained fire and brimstone on a surrendering Japan? Did not LBJ keep us safe from Vietnamese communists?

Then there's the lying hypocrite factor. Even though the "moral" majority puffs up with indignation and hot air, in the bottom of their hypocrisy of hearts, outwardly respectable but secretly kinked, they understand Foley's lusting for male young'uns, being of closeted like-mind; they vote republican.

Although both parties are in bed with globocorporatocracy there's also the myth among the merchant peasantry that republicans are better for business. So, all these comfortable mid and small businessmen receiving Homeland contracts across the nation will vote republican. Six and seven figure security contracts have convinced many here in the Heartland that there are indeed horrendous threats since 9/11. Dems might not renew all those contracts; putting the money in gall-damn social programs instead.

Lastly, if the republicans own and control the mechanism of voting, as some netizens claim, why would they rig themselves out of power? Unless of course it's to simply continue the illusion that the system works.

Let's not forget, the next president, for appearance's sake, should be a democrat, so more likely the congress will remain a republican majority. I think it will be a real downer for Team Democrat until 2008. If democrats "win" congress next month – expect another republican president in 2008 (and expect Brangelina and Madonna to adopt more brown children but not American brown children).

Worst case scenario: Ahmadinejad is found in bed with Kim Jong Il and Osama's #2, and all the extremely dire shit found on such sites as PrisonPlanet, Freepers, Drudge, RawStory, Rense, From The Wilderness, Larouche, Uruknet, etc. come true. In that case, see you in the gulag.

Favorites (Utube Addicted)

Let's Stay Together - Al Green


Oh What A Night December 1963 - 4 Seasons


My Girl - Temptations


Somewhere Down The Crazy River - Robbie Robertson

Banksters

Banks' $7 Billion Tax-Exempt Bond Ruse Yields Nothing for Needy

By William Selway, Martin Z. Braun and David Dietz

Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Pastor Willie Williams frowns as he approaches a 10-foot-high concrete wall that's topped by spirals of barbed wire. On a steamy August morning in Pensacola, Florida, he's entering the Oakwood Terrace apartments for low-income residents. Williams, 62, shakes his head as he passes an unmanned security station.

"It looks like a concentration camp,'' he says.

The 300-apartment complex was on a list of developments that were eligible to benefit from $220 million in bonds issued by a public agency in 1999 to promote affordable housing in Florida. None of the money went to Oakwood Terrace. Not a penny of the $220 million bond issue -- which was underwritten by JPMorgan Chase & Co., the third-largest bank in the U.S., and insured by a unit of American International Group Inc., the world's largest insurance company -- was ever spent on low- income residences.

During the past decade, local governments across the U.S. have issued more than 70 of these phantom bonds -- at least $7 billion of them. That's enough money to pay the salaries of 150,000 teachers in the U.S. for one year, based on an average pay of $46,597. Proceeds from the tax-exempt bond sales are supposed to be used to improve homes for the poor or upgrade health care for the elderly or supply computers to inner-city schools.

Taxpayers never get most of those benefits; the winners are the banks, insurance companies and financial advisers that get paid millions of dollars for crafting these transactions and then profit by using bond proceeds for their own investment gains.

Dirty Old Men

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley said through his lawyer Tuesday that he was sexually abused by a clergyman as a teenager …

Attorney David Roth said Foley was molested between ages 13 and 15 by a clergyman.

He (Roth) also acknowledged for the first time that the former congressman is gay, saying the disclosure was part of his client's "recovery … He also said Foley was under the influence of alcohol when he sent the e-mails and instant messages.

Asked why Foley did not disclose the abuse sooner, Roth said, "Shame, shame."

"As is so often the case with victims of abuse, Mark advises that he kept his shame to himself for almost 40 years," Roth said.

The lurid communications were first reported last week by ABC News, which released more instant messages Tuesday that suggest Foley interrupted a vote on the House floor to chat online with a teen.

"I miss you," Foley said in one message, according to ABC.
"ya me too," the teen replied.
"we are still voting," Foley responded.

Roth said Foley was never under the influence of alcohol while conducting business on Capitol Hill, but he could not explain his previous statement that Foley was intoxicated when he sent the messages.

=== Is Foley seeking sympathy and excuses by evoking the "a victim himself" defense, burdened with "shame", under the influence, etc.? Never fails, Republicons who sneer at "liberals" coddling, are the first to grab at the same psychobabble excuses.

As distasteful as some may find Foley's yen for young pages, the bloviating talking heads are more disgusting. Pretending shock at the whole matter. As if everyone within miles of the D.C. "cocktail" circuit (pun intended) doesn't know which pervert is doing what to whom. Why do ya think so many pols look like bloated decadent degenerates? Because they ARE.

Releasing the real hardcore information might be more interesting.

A "pedophile ring" can't be exposed – too many powerful people involved in that one - but tell us which pols are engaged in CBT, TT, spanking, shaving, fisting, flogging, J/O, toilet training, brown showers, golden showers, drawing blood, enemas, etc. Tell us which pols in congressional session are wearing nipple clamps, butt plugs, rubber underwear, ball weights and crushers, and which ones keep leather whips, chains, and a paddle close at hand.

Maybe not illegal, but are ya gonna support Senator Jab Bondage who was briefly hospitalized after his 18 y/o "companion" couldn't remove the lightbulb shoved up the good senator's rectum?

If "creepy" and lascivious messages to pages, even if explicit, are all they have on Foley – he's a D.C. lightweight.

Come Home To Roost

Raimondo: "This kind of fear is understandable to Americans only on a very abstract level. We, after all, have no experience with a police state – not in the sense of a systematic totalitarian approach to repression – of which the European and Third World nations have plenty."

--- Ummm, let me clarify this - that's white folks' American history experience.

Land of the Lobotomites

Jason Leopold and his "sources" last May brought the Fitzmas crowd the giggling delightful breaking news of Karl Rove's coming indictment.



Didn't happen – but hey, what's a little more shit in the sheep pen gonna hurt.

Mistaken as a progressive writer Jason Leopold today offers this:

"In February 2001, seven months before 9/11, George Tenet, then the director of the CIA, testified before Congress and told lawmakers that the single greatest threat to the United States was Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, according to a little known copy of Tenet's Congressional testimony. During his report to Congress, Tenet eerily described a scenario that seven months later would become a grim reality."

Well, I would just as likely believe Tenet's description was because he was in on it, or at least heard rumors of it. "It" being 9/11 – "the day that changed everything." Or even that Tenet was, as all spyheads, looking for more funding. Potomac parasites - eerily similar to Hollywood movies but instead of a lovable and funny Sam L. Jackson and sexy tough girl Gena Davis saving the day - we get Valerie and Joe, Murtha, Tenet, and pseudo-journalists who have a cast of thousands of anonymous sources at their disposal.

The above Leopold piece is sloppy, with broken links and/or links to pages which do not clearly substantiate the claim Leopold uses the link to reinforce. At least not to my way of reasoning. I must have been out of the country or too busy with a life during America's last political-cultural lobotomy.

However, I do gather from the piece that Al-Kaydee and Usama or Osama lives on, was/is the mastermind of 9/11, and current and future followers are imminent threats coming to America. And that Tenet, as big a liar and dirtbag as any CIA head – is a guy we can trust - because Tenet tried but failed to convince BushCo that Osama-rama was a bigger menace than Saddam.

LEOPOLD: "Intelligence reports released by the CIA … more than 100 interviews with top officials in the Bush administration … given to various Senate and Congressional committees and media outlets prior to 9/11 show that the US had never believed Saddam Hussein to be an imminent threat other than to his own people."

(We've been through the "imminent threat" debate, let's not do again.)

Likewise, the greatest threat to the American people has been and IS its government, and those lobotomites with access to keyboards and "truth" outlets ranked high on Alexa.

"Osama bin Laden and his al-Qa'ida terrorist network remained the single greatest threat to U.S. interests." That's the crux of the story. Yesterday, today, tomorrow - terror/threat.

Ladens will come and go, Bushes will come and go, Tenets will come and go – but al-Qa'ida will remain the single greatest threat people. Get it? It's not really about Bush or Tenet or Plame or Foley or the drama of the week club. It's about meeting the needs of the ruling elite – the "threat" replacement for the new century.

After Tenet's 3 year kiss-ass tour for Bush, reporters (I use the term loosely) have suddenly "rediscovered" testimony to "prove" pre-war intel was manipulated.

All those who believe Bush and Company have not been openly manipulating since at least November 2000, please register at the window marked "shit4brains."

Colinoscopy

"Senior Powell aides were convinced that the secretary anticipated an invitation to stay, and they were equally certain that he intended to accept. The approaching elections in Iraq, hints of progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the rumored departure of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a principal Powell nemesis, made the next six months look like a rare period of promise for diplomacy."

--- Too funny. But proves what some have always known - Colin never had sufficient conscience to be anything but a Republican. Had he not been canned the fool would have hung around another 4 years, ramrodding bull for BushCo. God, his mama named him so appropriately.

Came Tumbling Down

Oil prices have tumbled from a mid-July peak near $80 a barrel to just under $63 on a range of factors, including burgeoning U.S. inventories and slower-than-expected economic growth.

Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh said last month that he wanted to see OPEC's basket of crude hold above $60 a barrel, which would equate to about $65 a barrel for U.S. crude.

"Some OPEC members, by decreasing production, are trying to prevent the slide of oil prices," Kazempour Ardebili noted.

Nigeria and Venezuela, both OPEC members, have pledged to cut production.

--- Tumbled? Not that it will "tumble" at the pump. Expect future news bytes to claim Chavez pledges to cut oil to US, out of spite ... yadayada.

Shock?

From WRH website "Man Accused In Rape Of 2-Year-Old Relative
Posted Sep 30, 2006 06:08 PM PST
Category: CURRENT EVENTS

"TWO YEAR OLD?!?!?!?!?!?!?"

--- Why does WRH (WhatReallyHappend) feign shock at the rape of a 2 year old? Perhaps it's the pic of the perp? WRH is aware of child traficking and rape of very young children. So why the "?!?!?!?!?!?!?"

Child rape is reported more and at younger ages. As young as 12 weeks old. Note the excuses made for the female accomplice here: "was also a victim and had come under Webster's "malign influence" and was to some extent "corrupted by him".

Rape of a 17 month old boy, ending in death.

Toddler dies after rape.

A Cincinnati man is expected to face murder charges after police say he raped and beat his girlfriend's 18-month-old daughter.

One might think there's a pattern of printing the family and/or victim's foto when the perp is white, but a mugshot when the victim and perp are Black.

Silence of the Lambs

I've ran into Molly Ivins Habeas Corpus, R.I.P. several times. Must be this week's "progressive" spoonful of rant and fear.

Seems the fear is the recently passed bill will eliminate the right of habeas corpus for those detained as enemy combatants. Fear for a law that pertains to non-citizens? I suppose Big Daddy Government's long arm could label many of us Joe Regular folks as "enemy combatants" but I've other things to fear (American education system for example).

Many seem to forget Clinton smoothed the way with similar "keepin' us safe" bullshit with the Comprehensive Terrorism Protection Act of 1995. All the rightwing sites at the time were rabid with claims of how Clinton's provisions would "present cause for grave concern with even the best of Presidents in office." Rants on the Clinton administration's brazen lust for power, and its shameless exploitation of the Oklahoma tragedy for political gain. The incessant power grabs of the Clinton administration … on and on, on and on.

Clinton was accused by the "right" of battling terrorism with tyranny, now the "left" yells the same slogan. Might say, without evoking Hitler but staying domestic, it's the same shit, different asshole.

Remember the first Republican, Abe Lincoln, also suspended the writ of habeas corpus in 1860 or '61; to be reinstated in 1866. Woodrow Wilson's imprisonment of Eugene Debs. FDR's incarceration of Japanese Americans. Etc. etc. Infringement on the peoples rights is at the whim of the powers that be.

Habeas corpus doesn't worry me. Nor the Patriot Act, which can be rolled back if the people want to. We need honest elections, public accountability of the government, and an honest press. Elections are rigged, the press 99% propaganda, and government pardons itself.

If pols are held accountable, elections honest and open, and the media "fair and balanced" even a dictator could be done away with. In 2000 when SCOTUS appointed the pResident it indicated Americans and their "representatives" would accept nonsense as reason.

Since the assassination of JFK I've watched the entire system slowly distort - crisis after crisis, hoax after hoax - making the American public dumber, dependent, and more infantile.

Everywhere I look Americans are dependent on government handout, from a few dollars worth to a few million – whether welfare mom, disability, corporate subsidy, or federal xxx-based initiative. Everyone I know receives some form of dole, outside of myself and family (although my sons joke the military is just welfare with honor). Americans are not outraged in great numbers because most are getting a free lunch somewhere from the government. They won't bite the hand that feeds them.

The "war on terror" is the newest lucrative industry to lead the sheep, from minimum wage airport worker to billionaire defense contractors. The times remind me of the serenity prayer: grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

The majority of Americans, with no serenity or courage, don't seem to know the difference. The most manipulated population on the planet bleating over planned and planted news bytes of fear and propaganda. Distracted with vague fuzzy threats to civil liberty, framed by poetic pundits from the "left" or "right" - while the legal plunderers plunder on.

I Do Declare

Here's an old favorite, oft heard talking point which pretentious white folks use to pander to the dumber among them :

"… only Congress can declare war: Congress did not do so with either Afghanistan or Iraq."

But war was not formally declared by Congress for Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, "Contra War," Panama, Somalia, the first Gulf War, and others … yet millions died as a result of those "conflicts" or peacekeeping missions or "police actions."

What part of "congressional or UN authorization" do pinheads not understand? The US has always been a phony democratic republic, rewriting the rules, adjusting the paperwork to suit the agenda; you might even say - cookin' the constitution.

National Intelligence Estimate or It Stinks More As Election Grows Near

"There is no question that many of our policies have inflamed our enemies' hatred toward the United States and allowed violence to flourish. But it is the mistakes we made in Iraq - the lack of planning, the mismanagement and the complete incompetence of our leadership - that has done the most damage to our security." - Jay Rockefeller.

"I don't think there's any question that there's an increase in rhetoric. (But) I think it's difficult to count the number of true jihadists that are willing to commit murder or kill themselves." - Frances Fragos Townsend, White House homeland security adviser.

"On Election Day, that morning, if there's still the carnage in the streets of Iraq, then it will be clear that they have concluded that this administration's policy has failed and there will be a political price for it." - Joseph Biden, Democratic senator.

"We did not invade Iraq to fight terrorism as the president would now have us believe, but we're less safe today because the war in Iraq has hindered our ability to make progress in combating terrorism." - House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi

"It is the consensus opinion of our intelligence services that because of the Iraq war, the danger from terrorism has risen during the Bush years and the world and our communities are less safe. It is the consensus opinion of our intelligence services that because of the Iraq War, the number of terrorists has increased during the Bush years." – Huffington Post.

"The overall estimate is bleak, with minor notes of optimism. It depicts a movement that is likely to grow more quickly than the West's ability to counter it over the next five years, as the Iraq war continues to breed "deep resentment" throughout the Muslim world, shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and cultivating new supporters for their ideology." - WaPo.

"New jihadist networks and cells, sometimes united by little more than their anti-Western agendas, are increasingly likely to emerge," said Gen. Michael V. Hayden, during a speech in San Antonio in April, the month that the new estimate was completed. "If this trend continues, threats to the U.S. at home and abroad will become more diverse and that could lead to increasing attacks worldwide," said the general in the NYT.

"The NIE points out that defeat of the jihadis in Iraq would stop the movement’s growth. It also points out that jihadi success in Iraq would inspire more to join the cause. In that sense, Bush’s words in March 2003 were wrong at the time, but correct now." Newsweek.

---- Curious, the Iraq War has "united" jihadists the world over, worsened the threat of attacks at home, and bred deep resentment of the West throughout the Muslim world – yet the Shia and Sunni can't come together with a little "anti-Western agenda" long enough to kick the US/UK out of Iraq?

The NIE report gives both political parties a leg to stand on, i.e. for the Democrats the Bush War has made us less safe and for Republicans it's if we don't win in Iraq the Muslim evildoers will metastasize and get us.

Democrats will make vague claims they can do better at keeping Americans safe and win back international respect - running on "redeployment" platforms or "anti-war positions" that are no more clear-cut or feasible than BushCo's strategy (or lack of) to "win the war."

Republicans will slap everyone around on the swiftboat and remind them the democrats are pussiepols who supported BushCo's war because they didn't have the spine to speak up when it would have made a difference.

None of the SOB's will admit the only "win" that matters to them is the next election.

Hmmmm. Be afraid, be very afraid when the oxymoronic National Intelligence, only weeks from election, stretches its mouth to blow both sides of the aisle.