Sunday April 15th 2007

4/14/2007: 9/11 Timeline project update for week of April 7-14 -- US Surveillance of Al Qaeda and more
Must Read - posted at BuzzFlash - A quote...."A number of Paul Thompson’s recent entries relate to the charity Mercy International. In addition to doing charity work, this group is alleged to have had a number of ties with al-Qaeda. But what makes this charity especially interesting is that there are allegations the CIA also worked through the charity. As time goes on, it is becoming clearer and clearer that al-Qaeda was being heavily monitored by US intelligence before 9/11. Many new entries focus on the 1998 African embassy bombings and raise the question why the US did not act when so many participants were under surveillance in the months and even years leading up to the bombings (see, for example, Early 1994-September 27, 1998, May 21, 1996, Late 1996-August 20, 1998, Shortly Before August 21, 1997, August 1997, May 1998, and July 29-August 7, 1998).
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

More False Flag Terror Attacks
A quote...."April 12, 2007 -- More false flag terror attacks prior to French presidential elections? Just days prior to the French presidential election which pits anti-North African Muslim conservative Nicolas Sarkozy, supported by the international neo-con clique, against a Socialist and centrist candidate, bombs have gone off in Algeria and Morocco. The attacks have been blamed on "Al Qaeda," the neo-cons' favorite (and likely controlled) bogeyman."

See also....The Redirection
See also....US Sent Pallets of Cash to Baghdad [ 363 tons !! ]
See also....How the US sent $12bn in cash to Iraq. And watched it vanish
See also....Accidentally Arming the Enemy Again - 200,000 AK-47's Lost...
See also....Shady dealers aim to arm Iraq
See also....Constructive Instability
See also....They Hire Other People to do "It" for Them - 03-02-07 - mpg
See also....Viral Neocons - 05-26-05 - mpg
See also....US Soldiers serving as drivers for terrorists
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Sadr's Rising Star to Eclipse Bush's Surge?
A quote...."Public opinion polls are valuable chips to play for those engaged in a debate of national or international consequence. In the end, however, they are abstract numbers. It is popular demonstrations which give them substance, color, and -- above all -- wide media exposure, and make them truly meaningful. This is particularly true when such marches are peaceful and disciplined in a war-ravaged country like Iraq."

Of course a couple of days after this demonstration of anti-occupation Iraqi solidarity we had a series of massive car bombings.....one could say the bombings had been highly "fortuitous" events if one were trying to continue a policy of "divide and conquer".  One could certainly say that.- mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Sadr group to boycott Iraq government
A quote...."The political bloc of firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Sunday said it is quitting the Iraqi government, as a wave of bombings left another 43 people dead in Baghdad.  -  "We will announce our withdrawal from the government tomorrow," Saleh Hassan Issa al-Igaili, a lawmaker from the Sadr group, told AFP."

Afghanistan Fight Will Only Get Tougher
A quote...." The death last Sunday of six Canadian soldiers in southern Afghanistan reminds us of Santayana’s famous maxim that those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it.  -  The soldiers were killed near Maiwand, a name meaning nothing to most Westerners. But there, on July 27, 1880, during the bloody Second Anglo-Afghan War, the British Empire suffered one of the worst defeats in its colonial history.  -  Two years earlier the Raj (Britain’s Indian Empire) had invaded Afghanistan for a second time. The British put Afghan puppet rulers into power in Kabul and Kandahar."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Hired Guns in Iraq killing for amusement
A quote...." On the afternoon of July 8, 2006, four private security guards rolled out of Baghdad's Green Zone in an armored SUV. The team leader, Jacob C. Washbourne, rode in the front passenger seat. He seemed in a good mood. His vacation started the next day.  -  "I want to kill somebody today," Washbourne said, according to the three other men in the vehicle, who later recalled it as an offhand remark. Before the day was over, however, the guards had been involved in three shooting incidents. In one, Washbourne allegedly fired into the windshield of a taxi for amusement, according to interviews and statements from the three other guards"

See also the article shown below - posted 04-13-07
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Vets are home and homeless - After fighting in Iraq, some end up on streets
A quote...."Three years ago, when he returned from Iraq and a stint in the U.S. Army, Herold Noel thought he’d be treated as a hero. Instead, he faced a series of degradations, including learning he was ineligible for public-housing assistance.  -  That’s when Noel went back to the red Jeep that had become his home at night. That’s when Noel — fueled by alcohol — took out a gun. That’s when Noel fired the bullet intended to pierce his skull and kill himself instantly.  -  Noel misfired, then passed out. When he woke up, he realized what had happened."

This all seems so eerily familiar, one wonders when we as a nation have experienced this sort of thing before....you know about thirty years ago....in a country which has it's name start with the letter "V".

Let's make this clear to everyone reading this blog, as the economy starts to head down hill over the next two to three years what we're seeing now is just going to be the tip of the iceberg.

One question for all you Bush supporting "New Roman Empire" citizens out there....are you going to repeat this same stupidity again for a third time twenty five years from now?  Are you 'all going to arrange another "fortuitous" event to set it off?

This author, the rest of the country and no doubt the rest of the world would really like to know just how many more people you're going to murder next time.  Please tell us....better yet why don't all you "Neo-Romans" just go move to Antarctica and save everyone throughout the world a whole lot ‘a pain and grief. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

U.S. report: Marines Killed Unarmed Civilians
A quote...."04/15/07 "Washington Post" -- -- A preliminary U.S. military investigation indicates that more than 40 Afghans killed or wounded by Marines after a suicide bombing in a village near Jalalabad last month were civilians, the U.S. commander who ordered the probe said yesterday."

This is a quote from the Washington Post article regarding the incident...."The swift U.S. military response to the Afghanistan incident and Kearney's candor about the investigation contrasts with the much slower and more guarded response to other cases involving alleged killings of civilians by U.S. troops, such as the one in Haditha, Iraq, in 2005." - italics/bold by website author.

Totally and utterly wrong....again.  See article below.  To the Washington Post et. al. - the reason hundreds of thousands of people have died in the last five years is because of your staff's constant and consistent inability to tell the truth and get their facts straight.  Your newspaper has deliberately and maliciously encouraged this policy to support the thugs that currently inhabit the White House and their plans to enrich themselves.

Considering all those who have already died or suffered terrible  injuries due to your horrendous record of malfeasance, it would be taken as a great kindness and the LEAST YOU COULD DO if the paragon of deliberately inaccurate mediocrity that your paper represents WOULD STOP LYING TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!

Thank you very much. - mpg

'Deletion' of Images in Afghanistan: Attempt to Cover Up Civilian Killings?
Must Read - Related article - Some quotes...."NEW YORK In the past day, there has been wide media coverage of an official report on the slaying of Afghan civilians by U.S. forces early last month...."....Gaining much less coverage are the report's comments on a nearly-forgotten aftermath of the apparent crimes, carried by E&P and other media outlets at the time: the U.S. military's forced "deletion" of images taken by Associated Press cameramen and others. A freelance photographer working for The AP and a cameraman working for AP Television News said then a U.S. soldier deleted their photos and video showing a four-wheel drive vehicle in which three people were shot to death about 100 yards from the suicide bombing. The AP lodged a protest with the American military."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Aid and Comfort for Torturers:
A quote...."On January 24, 2003, National Guardsman Sean Baker, stationed as a military policeman at Guantánamo detention center, volunteered to be a mock prisoner, donning an orange suit and refusing to leave his cell as part of a training exercise. As planned, an Immediate Reaction Force team of MPs attempted to extract him from the cell. When he uttered the code word, "Red," indicating that this was a drill and that he'd had enough, one of the MPs "forced my head down against the steel floor and was sort of just grinding it into the floor. The individual then, when I picked up my head and said, 'Red,' slammed my head down against the floor," says Baker. "I was so afraid, I groaned out, 'I'm a U.S. soldier.' And when I said that, he slammed my head again, one more time against the floor. And I groaned out one more time, I said, 'I'm a U.S. soldier.' And I heard them say, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa.'" Even though, unlike if Baker had been a real prisoner, the "extraction" was called off part-way through, he was diagnosed with traumatic brain injury and was left with permanent injuries, including frequent epileptic-style seizures."

Tomgram: Hiro, Can Sadr and Sistani Handle Bush?
A quote...."Mortar attacks on the Green Zone, the American controlled and massively fortified citadel in the heart of Baghdad, were already on the rise when, late last week, a suicide bomber managed to penetrate the Parliament building inside the Zone and kill at least one legislator, while wounding others, in its cafeteria. Some parliamentary representatives were soon declaring the still unfolding American "surge" plan in the capital a dismal failure."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Bush administration pushes for expansion and deepening of police state  -  article #1
A quote...."The George W. Bush administration seized the White House in 2000 by way of an openly stolen election, then cemented its criminal power into place with the unprecedented 9/11 mass murder, and its two resulting abominations: the fabricated “war on terrorism” (the pretext for endless global war), and the USA Patriot Act (the full-scale destruction of the Constitution, and the militarization of the US homeland)."

Bush asks Congress to alter 1978 eavesdropping law  -  article #2
A quote...."WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration asked Congress on Friday to expand the number of people it can subject to electronic surveillance in the United States."

The Governor's Database  -  article #3
A quote...."Texas is amassing an unprecedented amount of information on its citizens  -  Piece by piece, Gov. Rick Perry’s homeland security office is gathering massive amounts of information about Texas residents and merging it to create the most exhaustive centralized database in state history. Warehoused far from Texas on servers housed at a private company in Louisville, Kentucky, the Texas Data Exchange—TDEx to those in the loop—is designed to be an all-encompassing intelligence database."

Lawyers: Bush staff can eject dissenters  -  article #4
A quote...."DENVER — Lawyers for two men charged with illegally ejecting two people from a speech by President Bush in 2005 are arguing the president's staff can lawfully remove anyone who expresses points of view different from his."

ANOTHER Political Prosecution From A Scandal-Tainted US Attorney?  -  article #5
A quote...."This looks like it might be yet another political prosecution. This time it isn't a US Attorney engaging in a political prosecution in order to keep the job -- instead it involves one of those NEW, Rove-approved US Attorneys who replaced those US Attorneys fired for failing to engage in political prosecutions. This prosecution shows us what to expect from now on. This one is prosecuting a guy entirely for political and not legal reasons, AFTER the courts threw out the case AND after the judge said they should drop the charges."

Domenici Sought Iglesias Ouster  -  article #6
Some quotes...."    Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was fired after Sen. Pete Domenici, who had been unhappy with Iglesias for some time, made a personal appeal to the White House, the Journal has learned.  -  Domenici had complained about Iglesias before, at one point going to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales before taking his request to the president as a last resort.

And...."In the spring of 2006, Domenici told Gonzales he wanted Iglesias out.  -  Gonzales refused. He told Domenici he would fire Iglesias only on orders from the president. -  At some point after the election last Nov. 6, Domenici called Bush's senior political adviser, Karl Rove, and told him he wanted Iglesias out and asked Rove to take his request directly to the president.  -  Domenici and Bush subsequently had a telephone conversation about the issue." - italics/bold by website author. - Note: articles #4, #5 & #6 posted at BuzzFlash

Looks like Bushy was directly involved in the firings.  Either Congress deals with this immediately or they will quickly become irrelevant to the running of this government.  We are all only a few short months from living under, for all intents and purposes, what is effectively a dictatorship. - mpg

Regarding the six articles shown above see also.... Thirty Acts to Restore Americans' Rights 11-10-06 - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

The FBI's terrorism trade-off
A quote...."Focus on national security after 9/11 means that the agency has turned its back on thousands of white-collar crimes  -  Thousands of white-collar criminals across the country are no longer being prosecuted in federal court -- and, in many cases, not at all -- leaving a trail of frustrated victims and potentially billions of dollars in fraud and theft losses."

Does this surprise anyone?  Not only is the White House firing federal prosecutors who do their jobs, not only are they hiring the ones who don't (article #5 above), they're having the FBI back off thousand of white-collar criminal investigations....no doubt because most of them are friends of those in the White House? - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

9/11 - From The History File...FBI claims Bin Laden inquiry was frustrated
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

RNC lawyer admits at least four years of Rove emails missing
A quote...."At least four years of emails * sent by White House adviser Karl Rove have gone missing, a lawyer for the Republican National Committee informed congressional staff members Thursday, a front page article in today's Washington Post reports."

FOUR YEARS WORTH !!  Are they kidding?  They're not treating Congress with contempt anymore; they're way beyond that at this point.  Rove and the Bush administration are actually making fun of Congress, they're basically saying at this point nah-nah, nah-nah, ....go ahead and make us turn over those e-mails to you…you sissies.

Is this anyway to run a country? - mpg

* bold/italics by website author
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

US national command authority in disarray?
More on the "war czar" idea. - mpg

Why deficit? Follow the money trail, Mr. Watson
Some quotes...."Cartoonist Scott Adams coined the word "confusopoly" to describe an economic transaction made intentionally confusing to discourage detailed examination....."....Is there an easier way to understand where our tax money is actually going? Indeed, there is - and it is a well-established method for cracking cases in law enforcement. You simply follow the money, Mr. Watson."

Vermont newspaper calls Bush worst president in U.S. history, calls for impeachment
A quote...."On Friday the 13th, April 2007, the Brattleboro Reformer, the third largest newspaper in Vermont that dates to 1876, joined the chorus of people calling Bush the worst president in U.S. history and for his impeachment ."

Moon Waning in Washington  -  Reverend Moon and the Bush Family
A quote...."Over the years, Bush 41 -- and family -- have benefited from both the Rev. Moon's political and financial support:  -  * In 1996, Bush 41 was the featured speaker at a Moon-sponsored Buenos Aires banquet, for which he may have received as much as $100,000 according to the Washington Post, to launch Moon's Latin American publication "Tiempos del Mundo" (Times of the World). "A lot of my friends in South America don't know about the Washington Times but it is an independent voice," the former president said. "The editors of the Washington Times tell me that never once has the man with the vision interfered with the running of the paper, a paper that in my view brings sanity to Washington DC."

Crude awakening, part one
A quote...."For decades, the oil-rich delta of the Niger river has been plundered by western companies and rampant political corruption. But now a small group of ruthless Ijaw tribesmen are threatening to sabotage production unless their demands for compensation are met. Sebastian Junger heads into the secretive mangrove swamps to meet the waterborne warriors who are prepared to trigger a global meltdown"

Bonded at Birth
A quote...."I am a child of the coup d'état, born in Iran a few days after the CIA helped overthrow the popular, democratic government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953."

Iran to Build 2 Nuclear Power Plants
A quote...." TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran said Sunday it is seeking bids for the building of two more nuclear power plants, despite international pressures to curb its controversial program."

This fugitive billionaire has exposed his violent agenda
A quote...."There can now be no doubt about the motivations of those behind the long and sustained campaign to blacken Russia's image and destabilise the Russian government from afar over the last few years. In the clearest possible terms, Boris Berezovsky told the world last week that he wants to foment a violent revolution in Russia against a democratically elected president. "I am calling for revolution and revolution is always violent," he says, confirming ominously that "there are practical steps" which he is taking."

A Whistleblower on Why Whistleblowing Matters, and Why You Should Be One...No Matter the Price...
A quote...."The truest act of patriotism is to protect the public from a corrupt and wasteful government."
-- TheFirstWhistleblower.org

"The United States government and American corporations are counting on you to keep your mouth shut.  -  According to Transparency International's Peter Eigen, the World Bank estimates that every year corruption costs one trillion dollars. Here in the United States, billions of our tax dollars are stolen every year due to corruption, bribery, fraud, willful malfeasance and misfeasance, and plain old greed. And if you come across evidence of this fraud and corruption, you are expected to keep quiet about it."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

A 9/11 "Smoking Gun" Hidden In Plain Sight
A quote...."Let's face it, if the 9/11 attacks were "legitimate", they would have been accompanied by "legitimate" statements and claims of responsibility.  -  You don't pull off the most spectacular "terrorist" attack in history, especially against largely symbolic targets, and then hide."

Saturday April 14th 2007

Iraq: Erasing History
A quote...."Who is erasing Iraq's history? A visitor only has to be in the country minute's before someone informs them: 'We are the cradle of civilization' and launches in to the pride and passion of historical jewels and archeological wonders stretching back seemingly beyond time. They are not Sunni, Shia, Christian, Turkoman, Yazidi jewels, they are Mesopotamia's and have been proudly nurtured since the mists of time."

"Suicide Bombings" - The Cover Story For US Military Ops In Iraq
A quote....""Suicide bombings" are a daily occurrence in Iraq, and are the major propaganda tool used by the US government and its mainstream media to convince the world that there is still some "freedom and Democracy" work to be done by US troops in Iraq. But what if they are a cover for something else?"

See also....The Smash of Civilizations
See also...."For Iraq, "The Salvador Option" Becomes Reality
See also....Salvador Option Surfaces Again
See also....Whatever Happened to the Salvador Option?
See also...."Remember the Native Americans - 02-07-07 - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Terror War III: U.S. Forces Capture, Render Refugees From Somali "Regime Change"
A quote...."Here's how George W. Bush treats refugees fleeing from the carnage wrought by his "War on Terror": he has them captured at gunpoint and "rendered" to torturers in his pay, where they are chained, blindfolded, beaten, stuffed into cages then "disappeared" into secret prisons notorious for their vile abuses. These captures of people trying to escape from the terrors of "regime change," from the ravages of foreign armies invading their homes, include women and children, as attested by the story of 17-year-old Safia Benaouda, a pregnant Swedish woman who was grabbed – by American troops – as she fled from the bloodbath following the Bush-backed Ethiopian assault on Somalia, AP reports."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Their Arms and Their Man: Musharraf Gives and Takes For Bush-Cheney
A quote...."In a report released March 27, 2007, it was disclosed that Pakistan has been rewarded for its warm friendship with Mr. Bush by being made the most favored beneficiary of a new post-9/11 program that the Defense Department informally refers to as the Coalition Support Funds (CSF). CSF sends money to those countries that have helped in the fight against terrorism. According to the report, in the three years that preceded 9/11, Pakistan received $9.1 million in military aid. In the three years after 9/11 it received $4.2 billion in military aid. Only Israel and Egypt received more aid. Before 9/11 Pakistan received less military aid than Estonia or Panama. Since 9/11 Pakistan has received more than $10 billion in overall aid including military aid."

Pakistan through the ISI has supplied or funneled to the Taliban and al Qaeda MORE MONEY THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, including Saudi Arabia since the Saudis sent most of their money through Pakistan. Naturally Bush's Neocons have rewarded Musharraf for his support of al Qaeda.

Let’s repeat that shall we....Naturally Bush's Neocons have rewarded Musharraf for his support of al Qaeda.

Do you get it yet America?  Has it penetrated yet? - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

The Apostles of Deception
A quote...." 04/15/07 "ICH" -- -- What passes for Christianity among the people, like so many things American, is not the genuine article. The sermons that rise from many of the pulpits of the churches of America are, I suspect, as counterfeit as a six dollar bill; as phony as the people running the country. But those whose faith is blind are incapable of seeing truth. That is the trouble with blind faith. It does not, it cannot, see. I have always been wary of organized religion."

The Sinking Ship, Slipping Off the Rocks
Related article - A quote...."Washington, DC April 2nd, 2007 -- Around the DC "Political Networking Circuit " it is amazing how quickly the Washington Influencers distance themselves from a losing cause, even when they were instrumental in creating the mess.  -  The Evangelicals, who must take much of the blame for lying and fabricating the War in Iraq to meet their own hallucinatory goals now believe that the Republicans have betrayed their lofty ideals, suitably sanitized of all responsibility for their disastrous lobbying. They have seen the light, been spoken to by a higher lifeform and believe that Bush has followed the wrong path."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Generals Deserting Bush
A quote...."Those priceless if blood-soaked words—“They don't know where the hell they're going”—are those of retired Marine Gen. John J. Sheehan. He used them to describe the Bush administration’s amateur years in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sheehan was one of three top generals the administration asked to become its “war czar,” overseeing Iraq and Afghanistan. All three refused. The Post reports that “The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies.” Besides the fact that generals are being wise enough to decline, Bush’s latest PR ploy raises a question. Why a czar? Isn’t Bush the commander in chief? Hasn’t he reminded us of the fact with incessant arrogance and rash-like Decideredness?"

Top Wolfowitz Postings Went to Iraq War Backers
A quote...."WASHINGTON, Apr 13 (IPS) - Of the top five outside international appointments made by embattled World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz during his nearly two-year tenure, three were senior political appointees of right-wing governments that provided strong backing for U.S. policy in Iraq."

Neocon War Propaganda To Be Investigated
A quote...."A U.S. House committee has announced it will hold hearings to investigate misleading military statements that followed the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman in Afghanistan and the rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch in Iraq."

Report: US Attorney replacements were picked prior to firings
A quote...."Replacements for several of the fired U.S. Attorneys were picked prior to their dismissals, with the White House identifying Bush insiders for the positions, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Iraqi Kurds play with Turkish fire
A quote...."A controversial interview with Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani by Al-Arabiya television last weekend may convey a superficial impression that events in northern Iraq could be spinning beyond the control of the United States."

Turkish intrusion in North Iraq would mean war - Kurdish MP
Related article - A quote...."ANKARA, April 13 (RIA Novosti) - Turkey's intrusion into the north of Iraq to conduct a military operation against Kurdish separatists based there would be tantamount to a declaration of war, a senior MP in Iraq's Kurdish autonomy said Friday."

Report: Turkish troops kill 4 Kurdish rebels in clash near Iraq border
Related article - A quote...."ISTANBUL, Turkey: Turkish troops killed four armed Kurdish guerrillas who had crossed over the border from northern Iraq, the government-owned Anatolia news agency reported Saturday."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Chipping at foundations of belief
A quote...."The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center has partnered with the Israeli government to build a new "Museum of Tolerance" in Jerusalem. According to former Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Meron Benvenisti, the museum site encompasses a Muslim cemetery seized by Israel in 1948 and long-since paved over. What does a shrine to tolerance mean when it is constructed -- literally -- over the dead bodies of a Palestinian population that was expelled from its homeland."

Fred Zeidman and the Republican Jewish Coalition
A quote...."There's been a fair amount of attention paid to the Republican Jewish Coalition lately as a result of their sponsorship of an ad swiftboating Nancy Pelosi for her trip to Syria. Most of the analysis I've seen has focused on links between the RJC and the Bush administration -- most notably Sam Fox, recently recess-appointed by Bush as ambassador to Belgium, who headed the RJC until just a few months ago. The current RJC leadership also includes such GOP stalwarts as Ari Fleisher, Ken Mehlman, and the ever-slimy Mel Sembler."

Uranium weapons maker roasted in U.K. parliament
A quote...."This is the text of a speech delivered to the British House of Commons by John LaForge, a freelance writer for Pulse and organizer with Nukewatch. He was invited by the Manchester-based Campaign Against Depleted Uranium (CADU.org/uk) to be part of a panel on uranium weapons. The occasion was CADU’s Parliament Lobby Day, intended to inform British MPs about uranium weapons and the pursuit of an international ban."

Landslide Denied
Must Read - A quote...."Major Miscount in 2006 Election: Were 3 Million Votes "Misplaced"? - Election Defense Alliance, a national election integrity organization, issued an urgent call today for an investigation into the 2006 election results and a moratorium on deployment of all electronic voting equipment after analysis of national exit polling data indicated a major undercount of Democratic votes and an overcount of Republican votes in congressional races across the country. These findings are an alarming indictment of the American election system in which 80% of voters used electronic voting equipment."

Everyone knew Bush stole the Ohio vote and therefore the 2004 election.  We all knew they'd try to do the same for the 2006 vote.
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

9/11 - From The History File...Armed pilots banned 2 months before 9-11
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Brazil ready to broaden nuclear cooperation with India
A quote...."Brazil Friday announced that it is prepared to broaden its cooperation with India in the field of nuclear energy."

Sticks and Stones
A quote...."Every so often, some dirty little news story surfaces which, despite my best efforts to ignore it, seizes the national (in)attention with such disproportional ferocity that I can’t help but sit up and wonder at its origin. While my interest in the often-incoherent ramblings of shock "journalists" approaches nonexistence, the reaction of the media and the "victims" to the recent flap over radio host Imus’ comments regarding the Rutgers female basketball team should instruct us all on the nature of modern media, business in general and the role that consumers and advertisers play in the policies of both. Ignoring the obvious fact that such inconsequential blather serves, most importantly, to distract us from the very real dangers that government poses, I’d like to focus, instead, on what this incident says about American society, in general."

Chavez: Troops to escort oil takeovers
A quote...."CARACAS, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez said Thursday that soldiers will accompany government officials when they take over oil projects in the Orinoco River basin next month.  -  Chavez has decreed that Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, will take a minimum 60 percent stake in four heavy-oil projects in the Orinoco River region and invited the six private companies operating there to stay on as minority partners."

Gold rises, as dollar falls sharply against euro
A quote...."NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures rose sharply Friday, as the dollar fell to a more than two-year low versus the euro, boosting demand for the precious metal.  -  Gold for June delivery closed up $10.20 at $689.90 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract gained 1.5% on the week.  -  Gold finally made a successful attempt at overcoming resistance at the $682/$685 level, after the US dollar sank to a 24-month low against the euro and oil prices firmed," said Jon Nadler, analyst at Kitco Bullion Dealers.  -  "A combination of adverse factors keeps gnawing at the US currency and may leave the Fed in the unwelcome predicament of having to boost rates to throw out a life-preserver to the greenback," Nadler said."

The Saturday Cartoons
A little humor. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Friday April 13th 2007

White House: E-mails on firings may have been killed
A quote...."WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Some White House staff wrote e-mail messages about official business on Republican Party accounts, and some may have been wrongly deleted, the administration said Wednesday in a disclosure tied to the inquiry into the firing of eight U.S. attorneys."

Sure....it was some sort of horrible accident that got those e-mails deleted….isn’t that right? Does anybody seriously believe that?  Folks this is becoming childish, it used to be funny in a hideous dark sort of way, but they're not even trying to hide their contempt for Congress anymore.

The executive branch of the US government is now completely out of control, they are no longer even pretending to obey the law... their behavior is becoming increasingly dangerous.  Unless the legislative branch puts its collective foot down immediately they will become utterly irrelevant to the running of this government. - mpg

Operation Catcher's Mitt
DOJ Curtailed Highly Classified Prog . to Monitor Al Qaeda Suspects in the U.S.

A Look at the CIA vs. the Administration
2001 memo to Rice contradicts statements about Clinton, Pakistan

Thursday April 12th 2007

No posts - mpg

Wednesday April 11th 2007

Reality not violent enough for neo-cons
Must Read - A quote...."To some people, the themes of international politics are indistinguishable from those of professional wrestling. They see in the relations of nation states a ritualized melodrama of dominance vs. submission, triumph vs. humiliation. To them, every game’s a zero sum game; millions of individual human beings are labeled “good” or “evil.” All conflicts that don’t end violently, end shamefully; compromise equates with cowardice. So it was with the standoff between Great Britain and Iran over 15 Royal Navy sailors taken captive in the Persian Gulf. Ordinary people welcomed their release with happiness and relief. Actually, it’s tempting to say most normal people did. A perilous situation had been resolved without tragedy and without provoking a potentially disastrous war. Sure, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used the occasion to score propaganda points. But what points ? That Iran is a sovereign nation capable of defending its territory. That its leaders can act magnanimously, freeing the prisoners before Easter as a “gift to the British people.” With a characteristic lack of subtlety, Ahmadinejad all but spelled out the message: We respect your faith. Maybe you should respect ours."

Democrats for war: The inevitable collapse
A quote...."The precipitous decline of antiwar sentiment within the Democratic Party has been on grand display over the past few months.  -  The majority of leading Democrats say they oppose the war in Iraq, but still refuse to cut funding. And when Bush vetoes the pork-swollen appropriations bill, which he’s promised to do, the Democrats have pledged to compromise, rewrite the bill, and grant President Bush exactly what he wants: more cash and no timetable for troop withdrawal from Iraq.  -  “We’re not going to cut off funding for the troops,’’ said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin over the weekend on ABC’s This Week. “But what we should do, and we’re going to do, is continue to press this president to put some pressure on the Iraqi leaders to reach a political settlement.’’  -  Levin also stated that Democrats would take out language calling for troop withdrawal, but reiterated that they would not “vote to cut funding, period.” - See also Stupidity Alert 03-28-07 - mpg & Results Not Polls Are What Count 03-25-07- mpg

Signs and Wonders
A hilarious satirical send-up of Sean Hannity – mpg

Algeria Attack and the al-Qaeda Penetration of Africa
A quote...."It is sincerely mysterious [that] “al-Qaeda” has a knack of showing up in places targeted by the neocons. For instance, Africa, in particular Somalia and, more recently, Algeria.

Robert Fisk: Divide and rule - America's plan for Baghdad
A quote...." Revealed: a new counter-insurgency strategy to carve up the city into sealed areas. The tactic failed in Vietnam. So what chance does it have in Iraq?"

US raid on mosque leads to massacre in Baghdad
A quote...."“The Iraqi Army raided a mosque and killed two men in front of other worshipers at the early morning prayers,” the Times reported. It quoted Qais Ahhmed, a laborer who lives close to the mosque, as saying that one of those executed was the muezzin, the person chosen to lead the call to prayer.  -  “Then the locals took their guns and went out to fight the Iraqi Army and the police in reaction to these executions,” Ahmed added.  -  It was at that point that US troops joined the battle, calling in helicopter gunships to launch air strikes on the neighborhood.  -  The episode, which has all the earmarks of a deliberate provocation aimed at drawing out opponents of the American occupation in order to slaughter them, provides a revealing glimpse into the reality of the so-called “surge” ordered by the Bush administration."

The Iraqi resistance only exists to end the occupation
Related article - A quote...."The escalating attacks are not usually aimed at civilians, but are a direct response to the brutal actions of US-led troops."

Arabs Admit Being Cowed Before American Invasion
A quote...."The Arab Summit held in Saudi Arabia was one in which Arab leaders confessed to errors they have made. But it must be borne in mind that these errors are not simply mistakes, but sins for which an entire generation of Arabs have paid for in blood, underdevelopment and a future of insecurity."

The Iran War Theater's "Northern Front": Azerbaijan and the US Sponsored War on Iran
A quote...."In a timely decision, Azerbaijan recently (mid-March) granted NATO the permission to use two of its military bases and an airport to "back up its peace-keeping operation in Afghanistan" including support for NATO's "supply route to Afghanistan".  NATO's special envoy Robert Simmons insists that the agreement has nothing to do with US plans to wage aerial bombardments on Iran."

Corporate Media Bias in America: It sounds like "Apple Pie" and "Motherhood"
A quote...."This article addresses two of the writer's favorite corporate media targets - the Wall Street Journal's far-right editorial page and New York Times on every page. Both broadsheets were recently in attack mode taking on two Latin American leaders deserving praise but never getting any other than occasional backhanded kinds from papers devoted to one dual core mission - supporting the power elite and their own bottoms lines. First, the Journal."

'Surge' Architect Rejects 'War Czar' Job - posted at Consortium News
A quote...."The widespread doubts within U.S. military and intelligence circles that George W. Bush’s Iraq War “surge” can succeed were underscored when one of the plan’s architects, retired Army Gen. Jack Keane, was one of three generals to rebuff a White House offer of a new job dubbed “war czar.”

In other words, no one wants to be the next sacrificial goat and be forced to fall on their sword for George Bush's stupidity. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Breaking: - Double the Troops in "Surge" (Updated)
A quote...."President Bush and his new military chiefs have been saying for nearly a month that they would "surge" an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq, in a last, grand push to quell the violence in Baghdad and in Anbar Province. But a new study by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says the real troop increase could be as high as 48,000 -- more than double the number the President initially said."

Iran envoy repeats US abuse claim
A quote...."An Iranian diplomat kidnapped in Iraq has appeared before journalists in Tehran, saying that a US official was present while his captors tortured him."

Recession 2007

Tuesday April 10th 2007

Syria, Elliot Abrams, and the Contras All Over Again
Must Read - A quote...."It has an all-too-familiar ring to it."

ABC News: Army proposing extending duty for everyone in Iraq
A quote...."Next, we turn to Iraq and the American soldiers who are serving there. ABC news has learned that the army has put on the defense secretary's desk a proposal to extend the tour of duty for every active duty soldier in Iraq by three months. Robert gates could have a decision on that proposal later this week or early next. Here’s our national security correspondent, Jonathan Karl, at the pentagon. Jon?"

Senate Democrats pledge funding to continue Iraq war
A quote...."In a declaration of support for an extended and open-ended US occupation of Iraq, two leading Democratic senators told national television audiences Sunday that under no circumstances would the Democratic congressional majority cut off funding for the war."

And How Bush Said "Thanks" - How Syria Helped US in "War on Terror"
A quote...."About five years ago I had a visit with Syrian President Bashar Al Asad, a visit when he told me that his intelligence services had uncovered a plot by Al Qaeda that would have killed American servicemen in the Middle East. He turned over the information to the U.S., which was then able to stop the operation, saving the lives of the Americans who were being targeted.  -  When I asked him what operation that was, he replied that, "The Americans asked me not to talk about it, but if they keep calling us a terrorist state, I will talk about it."  -  After I left his office, I asked the U.S. Ambassador to Syria if what he had said was true. His reply was that not only was it true, but that President Asad had been able to stop more than one Al Qaeda attack on American interests.  -  Those days are gone now, the heavy handed bad-mouthing of Syria by George W. Bush is causing Syria to completely stop its cooperation." - bold/italics by website author.

Precisely!!  That's the whole point. - mpg -- See also....The Redirection
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Congress Must Cut Off - Bush Family War Profits
A quote...." Since this war on terror was declared following 9/11, the pay levels for the CEOs of the top 34 defense contractors have doubled. The average compensation rose from $3.6 million during the period of 1998-2001, to $7.2 million during the period of 2002-2005, according to an August 2006, report entitled, "Executive Excess 2006," by the Washington-based, Institute for Policy Studies, and the Boston-based, United for a Fair Economy. - This study found that since 9/11, the 34 defense CEOs have pocketed a combined total of $984 million....."

See also the article shown below.....posted 04-07-07

========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Iraq: Why the media failed - posted at BuzzFlash
 A quote...."April 10, 2007 | It's no secret that the period of time between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq represents one of the greatest collapses in the history of the American media. Every branch of the media failed, from daily newspapers, magazines and Web sites to television networks, cable channels and radio. I'm not going to go into chapter and verse about the media's specific failures, its credulousness about aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds and failure to make clear that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 -- they're too well known to repeat. In any case, the real failing was not in any one area; it was across the board. Bush administration lies and distortions went unchallenged, or were actively promoted. Fundamental and problematic assumptions about terrorism and the "war on terror" were rarely debated or even discussed. Vital historical context was almost never provided. And it wasn't just a failure of analysis. With some honorable exceptions, good old-fashioned reporting was also absent."

The Federal Reserve Monopoly Over Money
A quote...."04/10/07 "ICH" -- - Recently I had the opportunity to question Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke when he appeared before the congressional Joint Economic committee. The topic that morning was the state of the American economy, and many of my colleagues raised questions about how the Fed might better "regulate" things to ease fears of an economic downturn. The tenor of my colleagues' questions suggested that Mr. Bernanke's job is nothing less than to run the U.S. economy, like some kind of Soviet central planner. "

Iran planning to stop using U.S. dollar to price oil, central bank governor says
A quote...."KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: Iran is planning to stop using the U.S. dollar to price oil, with less than half of its oil income now paid in the U.S. currency, Iran's central bank governor said."

US soldier causes Italy furore before murder trial
A quote...."ROME, April 10 (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier who goes on trial in absentia next week in Rome for murder caused a furore in Italy on Tuesday for defending his fatal shooting of an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq. Mario Lozano, of the U.S. Army's 69th Infantry Regiment, is charged in Italy with voluntary homicide for killing Nicola Calipari as the agent was escorting a newly freed hostage, reporter Giuliana Sgrena, to Baghdad airport in 2005."

Two Explosive Books Tell the Inside Story of the Forged Iraq-Niger Docs That Helped Build the Case for War
Listen to Segment || Download Show mp3 ||  Watch 128k stream  ||  Watch 256k stream  ||  Read Transcript  ||
A quote...."EXCLUSIVE - In his January 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush declared the infamous sixteen words: “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” The claim was central to the administration’s claims that Saddam Hussein was seeking weapons of mass destruction and served as a basis for launching the Iraq invasion less than two months later. Bush’s declaration was based on an intelligence document that provided evidence about Iraq’s purchase of uranium from the African country of Niger"
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Ira Chernus: What Will We Learn From Our Iraq War?
A BuzzFlash interview - A quote....

BuzzFlash: Let’s look back at something you brought up in terms of the Vietnam War. At the chaotic end of the Vietnam War, with the infamous photos of the last GIs leaving the embassy, and Vietnamese falling off the runners of helicopters because they were trying to flee -- the two people who presided over that were Donald Rumsfeld and his assistant Dick Cheney.

Ira Chernus: Yes.

It’s an interesting interview whose subject regards the interplay between a people's psychology and their national myths and how this interaction might lead to various pathologies in the formation of a Nation's foreign policy and culture.

Mr. Chernus has an interesting point of view, however in the opinion of this author when it comes to the United States, it appears that money and power are the sole determinants and predictors of America's foreign policy.  The rest is simply a thin veneer, a shroud tastefully placed over the diseased, pox covered, hideously deformed, New Roman Empire that this Nation has made itself into.

The American national myths as discussed by Mr. Chernus are simply used by our predatory elites to manipulate, coerce and deceive the bulk of America's people to further the elites rapacious desires.

The really sad part is that most of America's people want to be deceived by their elites.  They want to be comforted by the "victory culture" because if they were to confront what they have willingly lent their names to, what they have willingly done to themselves, what they have let themselves become....they would realize they are the monsters now.  And that is something very few people would willingly face. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

The " S " Words-- Serfdom and Slavery
A quote...."This essay will examine the gigantic failure of worldwide credit welfare as a centerpiece, and why it can easily be associated with modern-day Serfdom. Hence the " S " word as the title reads. Yet many Westerners would agree that slavery is intolerable and must be dealt with. Alas those asking for action generally ignore that in the 1850s a slave went for the equivalent of 40,000 present dollars while today a slave often cost under $100 as Dr Kevin Bales stresses in his video-documentary "Disposable People, New Slavery In The Global Economy" .

Sarko on pedos: "born that way and are a problem managing."
A quote...."April 9, 2007 -- With the French presidential election on April 22 and neo-cons everywhere anxious to see one of their own, Nicolas Sarkozy, garner a majority of the vote in the first of two elections, Sarkozy has, in a major blow to his fortunes, tipped his hand on a theme common to neo-con politicians in France, the United States, Canada, Australia, Britain, and other countries -- their fascination with, defense of, and participation in pedophilia and pedophilic rituals. In an interview with a French magazine, Sarkozy said he is "inclined to think that people are born pedophiles, and that it is also a problem that we do not know how to manage."

Cheney's Nemesis
A quote...."For forty years, Seymour Hersh has been America’s leading investigative reporter. His latest scoop? The White House’s secret plan to bomb Iran - On May 29th, 1975, an aide to then-White House chief of staff Donald Rumsfeld sat down with a yellow legal pad and in careful longhand sketched out a list of possible responses to a damaging investigative report in The New York Times. "Problem," the aide wrote. "Unauthorized disclosure of classified national security information by Sy Hersh and the NYT." He then laid out five options, ranging from the most ominous (an FBI investigation of the newspaper and a grand jury indictment) to the least offensive ("Discuss informally with NYT" and "Do nothing"). Number three on the list, however, read, "Search warrant: to go after Hersh papers in his apt."  -  The note's author? A viper-mean Beltway apparatchik named Dick Cheney, who was making his name doing damage control for the Republican White House after the Watergate disaster."

Congress Presses for Justice Docs
A quote...."One last chance, or the subpoenas come out.  -  Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee along with ranking member Arlen Specter (R-PA) wrote Attorney General Alberto Gonzales yesterday to ask again for certain withheld documents relevant to the U.S. attorney firings. If Gonzales doesn't turn them over by tomorrow, the committee will issue subpoenas for them on Thursday, they write. You can read the letter here.
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

9/11 - From The History File...Ashcroft knew
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy (Now in Paperback) - posted at BuzzzFlash
A quoted quote...."Starred Review. Forget Iraq and Sudan--America is the foremost failed state, argues the latest polemic from America's most controversial Left intellectual. Chomsky (Imperial Ambitions) contends the U.S. government wallows in lawless military aggression (the Iraq war is merely the latest example); ignores public opinion on everything from global warming to social spending and foreign policy; and jeopardizes domestic security by under-funding homeland defense in favor of tax cuts for the rich and by provoking hatred and instability abroad that may lead to terrorist blowback or nuclear conflict."

Ecological Apocalypse: Why Are All The Bees Dying?
A quote...."The article states that U.S. bee colonies have been dropping since 1980 and the number of beekeepers have halved.  -  Scientists are thus far stumped as to what is causing the decline, ruling out parasites but leaning towards some kind of new toxin or chemical used in agriculture as being responsible. "Experts believe that the large-scale use of genetically modified plants in the US could be a factor," reports Germany's Spiegal Online."

The blogosphere risks putting off everyone but point-scoring males
Some quotes...."So you're at a public meeting on, say, the war in Iraq and the main speaker has just sat down. Someone in the audience rises to declare the speaker is talking crap, but that's typical of him because he knows nothing and it's a scandal that he's paid for the rubbish he turns out. A second man agrees that the speech was trash, but tells the first man he should crawl back under his stone because he never says anything worth listening to. A third man wonders why the speaker didn't mention Israel, especially given his Zionist-sounding last name.....""....If that has an oddly familiar ring, it may be because you're spending a lot of time online, specifically in the new and still lawless world known as the blogosphere."

Iranian military to issue book, CD on U.K. sailors' arrest
A quote...."TEHRAN, April 10 (RIA Novosti) - A book and a compact disc detailing admissions by detained British sailors and marines that they entered Iranian territorial waters illegally will soon be issued, Iran's military said Tuesday."

The US and Britain aren't spreading "freedom and democracy", nor did they ever intend to.  But it sure looks like they are spreading that good old Anglo-Saxon technique commonly known as professional perception management, also known as spin control, framing, infotainment, shaping, etc. etc. etc.  Isn't that just great? - mpg

Iraqi Staffer for McClatchy Lists Gains After 4 Years of War
A quote...."Iraqis never feel afraid of the electric shocks because we have electricity power for only two hours a day or three hours as a maximum. The rest of the day we have to use small Chinese generator that cost something like 100 $ which are not really powerful enough to kill people."

McCain Has Gone McCrazy
A quote...."John McCain has become the mad uncle that the family keeps locked in the attic, but always manages to escape. Hey, they're Republicans - what do they care about proper care and treatment of the mentally ill? Anyway, eventually someone finds him sitting naked in the street, playing with his own feces. It's sad - tragic really. No human being should have their dignity ripped from them in that way."

Monday April 9th 2007

Six Crises in Search of an Author
Must Read - A quote...."Still, the arc of instability, as a name, was then more prediction than reality. And it was a prediction -- soon enough to become a self-fulfilling prophesy -- on which George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and all those neocons in the Pentagon readily staked careers and reputations. As a crew, already dazzled by American military power and its potential uses, such a bet undoubtedly looked like a sure winner, like betting with the house in a three-card monte scheme. They would just give the arc what it needed -- a few intense doses of cruise-missile and B-1 bomber medicine, add in some high-tech military boots-on-the-ground, some night-vision goggled eyes in the desert, some Hellfire-missile-armed Predator drones overhead, and some "regime-change"-style injections of further instability. It was to be, as Andrew Bacevich has written, "an experiment in creative destruction."

Did I hear the fortieth anniversary of US-led occupation of Iraq?
Must read - A quote...."Many Western historians draw astounding parallels between the British occupation of Iraq in 1914 and the American occupation of Iraq about 89 years later. Britain completed its occupation in 1918 with long military campaign during World War I when the Ottoman Empire collapsed, and Iraq became a British colony in 1920.
In response to Iraqi resistance, including a country-wide uprising in 1920 started in al-Rumaitha city, southwest of Baghdad, British forces battled for over a decade to pacify the country, using airplanes, armored cars, firebombs and mustard gas. Air attacks were used to shock and awe, to teach obedience and to force the collection of taxes. Winston Churchill, as responsible cabinet minister in the early years, saw Iraq as an experiment in high-tech colonial control. Though officials in London sometimes had qualms about the violence, colonial administrators on the ground like Gertrude Bell expressed enthusiasm for the power of the imperial military enterprise."

The Wages of Militarism - Whining Imperialists
A quote...."Two kinds of imperial whining have come to pervade foreign policy discussion. One relates to Bush's overextending the military so they cannot deploy to other places desperately needing their lethal capacity.  -  Others fixate on "American credibility." If we withdraw, an October 22, 2006 Washington Post editorial declared, we forego our "moral obligation." After all the U.S. military and Iraqi sacrifices, the U.S. must not allow a collapse, which would occur "without the prop of 140,000 [now 170,000] U.S. troops."

U.S.–Made Mess in Somalia
A quote...."The media often report overseas developments, but don’t always explore their underlying causes, which, in many cases, conveniently lets the U.S. government off the hook. The recent internecine violence in Somalia provides a classic example."

See also....North Koreans arm Ethiopians as U.S. assents
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Children in Chains: This is the New America
A quote...."A nation that has made money its god should not be surprised when the image of God that it produces is a horrible rictus of meanness, violence and sexual obsession. A nation that has made money its ultimate value should not be surprised when its communities are gutted, its families wither and millions of people are thrown away like trash. A nation that has made money its only guiding principle should not be surprised to find its sons and daughters being blown to bits – and blowing other people to bits – in foreign lands for the sake of the wealth and power of a small rapacious elite and the bootlicking liars who serve them."

Amen! - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Bush Spreads Guantanamo Gangrene Globally
A quote...."The atrocities and murders at Abu Ghraib, just west of Baghdad, where an estimate 70 to 90 percent of the captives are said to have been arrested by mistake, have been well documented. At Bagram prison, north of Kabul, Afghanistan, prisoners have been treated just as badly. Some have been chained to ceilings for days and repeatedly beaten; some have been put in cold rooms so long their hands and feet became swollen, inflicting excruciating pain, and death. As at Abu Ghraib, some Bagram captives were just beaten to death. John Sifton of Human Rights Watch, concluded Iraq detainees are routinely beaten. Torture was “condoned and commonly used,” he said."

Iran warns Iraq over Iranians held by U.S. forces
A quote...."TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has warned neighbouring Iraq that its failure to secure the release of five Iranians detained there by U.S. forces could impair Tehran's cooperation with Baghdad, a senior official was quoted on Sunday as saying.

Curious Coincidences Over Fate of Iranians Kidnapped in Iraq
A quote...."    According to Hoshyar Zebari, head of Iraqi diplomacy, the three events that follow "are not connected in any way." Tehran's liberation on Wednesday, April 4, of fifteen British sailors has "nothing to do" with the liberation twenty-four hours earlier of an Iranian diplomat who mysteriously disappeared two months ago in Iraq. Neither does it have anything to do with the announcement a few hours later in Tehran that five other Iranian "diplomats," captured by the American Army January 11 in Iraq, will receive a visit by an adviser from their Iraq embassy. "Simple coincidence," says everyone in unison from Baghdad, London, Tehran and Washington, where the very idea of a "goodwill" exchange seems impossible to acknowledge. "No negotiation, no accommodation," they all assert."

Iran releases rebuttal footage of sailors playing chess
A quote...."The Brits really should've quit while they were ahead . . .
Too late now."

Halliburton winds up Iran work
A quote...."US oil services giant Halliburton said Monday it had wrapped up its work commitments in Iran and was no longer conducting any projects in the Islamic republic."

15,000 Troops Could Stay Longer in Iraq
A quote...."WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon is considering a plan to extend the tours of duty for up to 15,000 U.S. troops serving in Iraq, a defense official said Monday."

Army prosecutions of desertion rise sharply
A quote...."Army prosecutions of desertion and other unauthorized absences have risen sharply in the last four years," writes Paul von Zielbauer for the Times, "resulting in thousands more negative discharges and prison time for both junior soldiers and combat-tested veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Iraqi Shiites unite in protest against US 'occupation'
A quote...."Hundreds of thousands of Shiites burned and trampled on US flags on Monday as they gathered in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf for an anti-American rally called by firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on the fourth anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein."

The photographs tell the story... Is This Media manipulation on a grand scale?
A quote...."April 6th: Iraqi National Congress founder, Ahmed Chalabi is flown into the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah by the Pentagon. Chalabi, along with 700 fighters of his "Free Iraqi Forces" are airlifted aboard four massive C17 military transport planes. Chalabi and the INC are Washington favorites to head the new Iraqi government. A photograph is taken of Chalabi and members of his Free Iraqi Forces militia as they arrive in Nasiriyah."

The unresolved story of ABC News' false Saddam-anthrax reports
A quote...."All of those factual claims -- each and every one of them, separately -- were completely false, demonstrably and unquestionably so. There is now no question about that. Yet neither ABC nor Ross have ever retracted, corrected, clarified, or explained these fraudulent reports -- reports which, as documented below, had an extremely serious impact on the views formed by Americans in those early, critical days about the relationship between the 9/11 attacks, the anthrax attacks and Iraq."

Why CNN Can't Tell You the Truth
A quote...."CNN cannot tell you the truth because the truth would destroy the very gravy train that feeds them. Write CNN and tell them you are sick and tired of their slanted reporting, and tell them you are going to boycott their advertisers unless they get back to unbiased reporting. That might actually get their attention."

Why boycott their advertisers....just boycott all of the mass media and go browse the web to get your news…. real news that is.  You'll be better informed, you won't have to watch, read or listen to their sickening garbage, it'll be cheaper and in the end you'll feel a whole lot better. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Sign on to Sander Hicks' Open Letter to DA Hynes - [Regarding: 9/11]
A quote...."It's been three months since I wrote you my letter of January 9th, 2007, urging your office to open an investigation into the horrific terrorist attacks of 9/11/01. Based on original research and sources, I urged you to focus on the social network that helped 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta in our hometown of Brooklyn, NY. I have not yet received a response, so I am sending you this second letter, with key updates. It will be published in the April issue of The New York Megaphone (circulation 66,700) as well."

9-11 Truth on The View. Rosie O: Another Unexpected Hero.
A quote....The Truth will not change. Perception of the Truth continuously grows.  While Rosie may not get www.911Truth.org on the View, some great nuggets of truth have been leaking out to the people."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

9/11 - From The History File...Bush held up plan to hit Bin Laden
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Where Have All The Bees Gone?
A quote...."Faced with demands related to customs duties and subsidies which protect and support US ethanol production, Bush did not make the slightest concession to his Brazilian guest at Camp David.  -  President Lula attributed to this the rise in corn prices, which, according to his own statements, had gone up more than 85 percent.  -  Before these statements were made, the Washington Post had published an article by the Brazilian leader which expounded on the idea of transforming food into fuel."

More calls for attorney general to resign over firings of US attorneys
A quote...."Appearing on the “Fox News Sunday” program, former speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich joined other prominent Republicans and a larger number of Democratic lawmakers in urging Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to resign over his role in the firings of eight US attorneys."

Professor who criticized Bush told added to terrorist 'no-fly' list
A quote...."A top Constitutional scholar from Princeton who gave a televised speech that slammed President George W. Bush's executive overreach was recently told that he had been added to the Transportation Security Administration's terrorist watch list. He shared his experience this weekend at the law blog Balkinization."

UK Government's Endless Lies Over ID Cards
A quote...."Yet more declassified papers have emerged that prove that the British Government has consistently attempted to mislead the public over ID cards and retention of biometric information. A second set of papers also shows that the government has embarked on a huge programme of fingerprinting school children without Parliamentary debate or oversight."

Sunday April 8th 2007

Happy Easter Sunday - no posts - mpg

Saturday April 7th 2007

White Toyota, white aid
A quote...."Hey white man" she called to me "these people all come to our country in their fast cars saying they want to help us but they never stop and give us a lift."

How Can Children of the Holocaust Do Such Things?
What are Jews now capable of resisting: tyranny? Oppression? Occupation? Injustice? We resist none of these things, no more. For too many among us they are no longer evil but necessary and good-we cannot live, survive without them. What does that make us? We look at ourselves and what do we see: a non-Jew, a child, whose pain we inflict effortlessly, whose death is demanded and unquestioned, bearing validity and purpose.

An Archive of Despair
A quote...."After the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, looters pillaged and burned the library. Now, on the brink of the fourth anniversary of Saddam Hussein's fall, and several weeks into a new security offensive, Eskander and his staff are struggling to preserve the fragments of Iraq's ancient heritage at a place he calls the "historical memory of the country."  -  "What makes a Kurd or a Sunni or a Shia have something in common is a national library," he said. "It is where the national identity of a country begins."

Neocon Lieutenant Colonel Blames Iraq’s Victims
A quote...."Perhaps you remember Ralph Peters? He’s the United States Army Lieutenant Colonel formerly assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence who redrew the map of the Middle East for Armed Forces Journal in June, 2006. In the article, entitled “Blood Borders,” Peters wrote that his “hypothetical redrawing of boundaries reflects ethnic affinities and religious communalism,” in other words, Peters has adopted the Israeli idea of busting up the Arabs, Kurds, and Persians into Bantustans."

The New American Colonialism - To the peoples of the world, they'll eventually come for you all, everyone of you, with insincere smiles plastered on their faces while mockingly and repeatedly insisting "we're here to help you", to "bring you freedom and democracy"....and then, with delicious glee and with a great deal of satisfaction, they will gut, devour and destroy your country.

Never forget Iraq, never ever forget what they did to that country.  Never forget what they intend to do to Iran, to the rest of the Middle East, and to the world. - mpg

See also....Viral Neocons - 05-26-05 - mpg
See also....White Man's Burden - 12-20-06 - mpg
See also....Remember the Native Americans - 02-07-07 - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

North Koreans arm Ethiopians as U.S. assents
A quote...."Washington: Three months after the United States successfully pressed the United Nations to impose strict sanctions on North Korea because of the country's nuclear test, Bush administration officials allowed Ethiopia to complete a secret arms purchase from the North, in what appears to be a violation of the restrictions, according to senior American officials."

========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

American tortured by US in Iraq speaks out
A quote...."04/07/06 "ICH" -- -- WASHINGTON, Apr 5 (IPS) - A year ago, Donald Vance learned what its like to be falsely accused by the U.S. military of aiding terrorists. He was held without charge for more than three months in a high-security prison in Iraq, and interrogated daily after sleepless nights without legal counsel or even a phone call to his family."

As US, British death toll rises: Pentagon orders 14,000 National Guard troops to Iraq
A quote...."US military authorities revealed that thousands more National Guard troops have been assigned to duty in Iraq in deployments scheduled for the next three years. The announcement coincided with reports that twelve more US and British troops were killed over a three-day period in the war-torn country."

Occidental CEO got more than $400 million in 2006
A quote...."CHICAGO (Reuters) - Occidental Petroleum Corp.'s chairman and chief executive took in more than $400 million in compensation last year, the company said in a filing, one of the biggest single-year payouts in U.S. corporate history."

To all the service men and woman out there, they gave this guy four hundred million dollars for one year's worth of service.  How much are they going to give you for one years worth of service?  How much are they going to give you for one of your arms, for one of your legs, or for one of your eyes....?

And you know what the really funny part is, if you succeed in your "mission" you're going to make this guy and the rest of his cronies even more fantastically wealthy than thay already are....now that's truly hilarious. – mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Saudi King “mistaken” over legality of US troops in Iraq: Bolton
A quote...."DUBAI - Former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said on Friday that Saudi’s King Abdullah was ”mistaken” when he questioned the legality of the US military presence in Iraq and should “correct” his controversial remarks on the matter."

Kurd: U.S. Sought Other Iranians in Raid
A quote...."BAGHDAD (AP) - American forces who captured five Iranians in the northern city of Irbil three months ago were really after commanders of Iran's Revolutionary Guards who were visiting Kurdish officials, the Kurdish leader said in remarks broadcast Saturday."

Wolfowitz Accused of Nepotism at World Bank
A quote...."WASHINGTON - A controversial raise for a World Bank employee who has been romantically involved with the Bank’s President Paul Wolfowitz was not the work of the Bank’s Ethics Committee, as originally alleged by Wolfowitz’s office, according to the watchdog group that leaked the information.Members of the Ethics Committee of the Board, the relevant body that would have approved the raise, which has triggered allegations of nepotism at the Bank’s highest levels, say that they knew nothing of the salary hike, according to the Washington-based Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower protection organisation."

The IMF at Sixty-Three — An Early Retirement?
A quote...."It's a rite of Spring in Washington: as winter fades and the cherry blossoms burst into their pale pink splendor, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank hold their annual Spring Meetings. It was not so long ago, in the pre-9/11 world, that the event attracted protestors, police crackdowns, and pre-emptive strikes against them. "Better the finance meeting had been held offshore, like other nefarious cartels do, than to reinforce the image of our nation's capital as a two-bit capitalist dictatorship," wrote Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy in 2000, after the police rounded up scores of bystanders, including tourists, and threw them in jail."

The 911 Mystery Plane
A quote...."On September 11 2001, as the eyes of the nation were focused on the gruesome events at the World Trade Center, the networks interrupted their coverage in New York with a breaking story from Washington. A large plane had just been sighted over the White House. Exactly when it first appeared is not certain, but the reports aired at about the time of the pentagon strike, or just before. Witnesses who saw the mystery plane say it circled over Washington. CNN's Senior White House correspondent John King saw it while standing in Lafayette Park, directly across from the White House. King reported live that "about 10 minutes ago, there was a white jet circling overhead. Now, you generally don't see planes in the area over the White House. That is restricted air space. No reason to believe that this jet was there for any nefarious purposes, but the Secret Service was very concerned, pointing up at the jet in the sky."[1]"
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

9/11 - From The History File...Bush Downgraded Bin Laden as a Threat in 2001 [just prior to 911]
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Editorial | Karl Rove and the GSA
A quote...."The Democrat-controlled House is investigating whether Doan violated the Hatch Act for a meeting she hosted at the GSA on Jan. 26. In attendance at this brown-bag lunch were more than 40 political appointees from around the country, participating via teleconference. They saw a PowerPoint presentation from J. Scott Jennings, who happens to be deputy political director to Karl Rove, the president's political guru."

How Giuliani Lost America - Dead Dogs Don't Bleed
A quote...."Since that apex in popular esteem, Giuliani's course has been unsteady. His business enterprises and associates have come under unsparing scrutiny, prime among them his former New York City police chief, Bernie Kerik, a former prison warder plucked from obscurity by Giuliani. Last week prosecutors informed Kerik he will be indicted for serious offenses including tax evasion and misleading federal investigators (Martha Stewart's ticket to conviction)." - For more fun see Rudi's cross dressing....Rudy Giuliani in Drag Smooching Donald Trump  - mpg

Venezuela, assuming chair of OAS Permanent Council
A quote...." Venezuela’s Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States (OAS), Ambassador Jorge Valero, assumed the chairmanship of the Permanent Council and talked about the need for deeper conceptual and institutional change within the hemispheric organization."

Are GM Crops Killing Bees?
A quote....A mysterious decimation of bee populations has German beekeepers worried, while a similar phenomenon in the United States is gradually assuming catastrophic proportions. The consequences for agriculture and the economy could be enormous."

See also....Species under threat: Honey, who shrunk the bee population? - posted 03-01-07
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Friday April 6th 2007

Pentagon Officer Created Phony Intel on Iraq/al-Qaeda Link
A quote...."    Newly released documents confirm that a Pentagon unit knowingly cooked up intelligence claiming a direct link between Iraq and al-Qaeda in order to win support for a preemptive strike against the country.  -  A report prepared by the Defense Department's Inspector General for Carl Levin, the Democratic Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, explicitly shows how former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith used his defense department position to cook intelligence claiming a connection between the terrorist organization and Saddam Hussein's regime."

Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted
Related article - A quote...."Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday."

Today's Must Read
Related article - A quote...."For Vice President Cheney's lies and distortions to be exposed is common. But it's a rare satisfaction for them to be thrown back in his face on the same day."

Bush/Cheney Still Lie with Abandon
Related article - A quote...."What makes George W. Bush and Dick Cheney such extraordinary threats to the future of American democracy is their readiness to tell half-truths and outright lies consistently without any apparent fear of accountability."

Public Anxiety Over Foreign Policy Nears Crisis
A quote...."Among other findings, the survey, the fourth in a semi-annual series by the New York-based Public Agenda and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), found that nearly six in 10 respondents doubt the government is being honest with them about foreign policy -- a 10-point increase from just six months ago."

Think about it....after six years of the most  blatantly obvious, totally pathetic, childishly immature, non-stop, continuous lying this world has ever seen, a majority of the American public has begun to "doubt the government is being honest with them about foreign policy"

Better late than never is definitely not always better.  How many people out there want to bet that after this disaster winds down to it's horrible whimpering conclusion, that twenty five years from now our rich elites will "do it" all over again, while the ever forgetful American public will take just as long to realize they were lied to....all over again. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

9/11 - From The History File...Pre-9/11 Put Options on Companies Hurt by Attack Indicates Foreknowledge
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

U.S. protects Iranian opposition group in Iraq
A quote...."BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An Iranian opposition group based in Iraq, labeled a terrorist organization by the United States, gets protection from the U.S. military despite Iraqi pressure to leave the country."

A De Facto Hostage Exchange
A quote...."The stand-off over the 15 British sailors and marines captured by Iran ended with a de facto prisoner exchange, despite denials by Britain and Iran that a swap was intended.  -  The first sign of a breakthrough the day before yesterday was the release of Jalal Sharafi, an Iranian diplomat abducted from the streets of Baghdad two months ago, whom Iran claimed had been seized by Iraqi commandos controlled by the US."

No U.S. attack on Iran, [yet] oil price hits $70 in expectation
A quote...."TEHRAN, April 6 (RIA Novosti) - Washington did not launch air strikes against Iran early Friday despite recent media reports, but expectations of the attack have driven Brent price to $70 per barrel."

Rich Get Richer, Poor Get Powerless
A quote...."The latest figures are out on income distribution in the United States, and they are lulus. To say the spread is top-heavy is putting it mildly.  -  A mere 300,000 people had incomes equal to the total income of the bottom earning half of the entire population. That's 150 million people. Put another way, those 300,000 had incomes 440 times greater than the average income in the United States. Stated yet another way, the golden 300,000 sopped up more than 20 percent of all incomes."

Thursday April 5th 2007

From Economic Apartheid to Political Revolution
Must Read - A quote...." 04/05/07 "ICH   " -- -- Americans have always accepted a certain level of economic inequality as the inevitable consequence of an open capitalist society where some people through their own efforts do better than others.  The presumption is that there is fairness in the marketplace and economic system.  What a quaint, outdated belief."

Ford CEO Paid $39.1 Million for Four Months
A quote...."    Alan Mulally, Ford Motor Co.'s new president and chief executive officer, received compensation valued at $39.1 million during his four months on the job last year, according to an analysis of a federal regulatory filing made Thursday.  -  Mulally succeeded Bill Ford as CEO of the Dearborn, Mich.-based company on Sept. 1.  -  The nation's second-biggest automaker lost $12.7 billion in 2006, the largest loss in its 103-year history, largely due to a massive restructuring plan undertaken amid a withering assault from Asian automakers that have taken an increasing share of the U.S. auto market"

Topsy turvy America.....no bad deed goes unrewarded, no good deed goes unpunished. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Deeper Into Darkness:Slavery and Betrayal in Bush's Gulag
A quote...."While yesterday's post focused on the ludicrous charges used by Gambian authorities to detain al-Rawi and his friend, Jamil el-Banna -- that a battery charger in their luggage was a "suspicious device" -- the Independent story provided by Kastelein and Smintheus' work focuses on the real reason the two men were detained, at the specific request of British intelligence: to press-gang them into work as spies for the Anglo-American "war on terror."

US to call up 12,000 Guard soldiers for Iraq
A quote...."The Pentagon will call up 12,000 National Guard soldiers for service in Iraq to fill gaps in the overworked army, a report said Thursday.  -  The National Guard is a volunteer militia, but, said NBC News, they will receive an involuntary call-up to report for duty in Iraq."

Osama in the Green Room
A quote...."Lately, the CIA, Pentagon intelligence, Mossad, MI6, Spain’s CNI, German intelligence—call it the Spook Monolith—have busied themselves with video productions. In the past day or so, “a videotape showing what [al-Qaeda] says is an attack by militants on a US military camp in Afghanistan” (entitled “Hell for the Americans in the Land of Kharasan”) has appeared, according to the Australian, followed by “a videotape purportedly from Al Qaeda that threatens attacks against Spanish troops serving in Afghanistan,” Expatica reports, and finally a possible guest appearance by the dead CIA asset, none other than Osama bin Laden."

We Gathered Intelligence'
A quote...."The captain in charge of the 15 marines detained in Iran has said they were gathering intelligence on the Iranians. * -  Sky News went on patrol with Captain Chris Air and his team in Iraqi waters close to the area where they were arrested - just five days before the crisis began"  - * bold/italics by website author.

Iran takes the wind out of US sails
A quote...."WASHINGTON - If the administration of US President George W Bush is paying attention, the drama over the 15 British sailors and marines, whose release by Iran after 12 days of detention was announced in Tehran on Wednesday, was designed to convey two key messages, according to experts in Washington."

Iran Gains in Standoff With Britain
A quote...."Iran emerged with a measure of strength from its standoff with Britain over the captured sailors - deflecting attention from its disputed nuclear program and proving it can cause trouble in the Middle East when it chooses."

Suicidal Statecraft
A quote...."The people of America, Britain, Iran and Israel yearn for peace, while their weak and unpopular leaders yearn for war that might miraculously resuscitate their terminal regimes."

A quote quoted by the article.....
In Demian, Hesse describes the deeply troubling premonitions of the First World War. In what is sometimes described as the world’s first psychoanalytical novel, Max Demian tells Emil Sinclair,

    “I still know nothing except that something is going to happen on a vast scale, something dreadful in which I myself will be involved. Sinclair, we will take part in this event that we have discussed so often. The world wants to renew itself. There’s a smell of death in the air. Nothing can be born without first dying. But it is far more terrible than I had thought.”
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Democratic Blood Money
A quote...."04/05/07 "ICH" - - -- - Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California silently resigned from her post on the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee (MILCON) late last week as her ethical limbo with war contracts began to surface in the media, including an excellent investigative report written by Peter Byrne for   Metro in January. MILCON has supervised the appropriations of billions of dollars in reconstruction contracts since the Bush wars began."

158 Democrats Gone, and Counting (Take That You Weasels)!
A quote...."It's been only a four days since I published a column on my website (www.thiscantbehappening.net) calling for Democrats to quit a party that is being misled by calculating politicians who are willing to fund a war until the next election, and who are unwilling to impeach a criminal president, all in the interest of possibly winning the White House and a few more seats in Congress in 2008."

Trilateral Hell
A quote...."April 5, 2007 -- To be perfectly honest, there are days when I think I should stop the writing, stop the researching, and do nothing but pretend all’s well with the motherland, plant a spring garden, and pray for mercy upon the American people and myself.  In fact, I’ve been thinking such, and on a daily basis, for the last two years.  However, I continue to be haunted with thoughts that pop into my head, telling me to try one more time – just one more time – to get through to the mis-educated and tell-a-vision’d public."

The most revealing three-minute YouTube clip ever
Must Read - A quote...."I want to return to the video clip of the jovial and dismissive discussion of the U.S. attorneys scandal on yesterday's Chris Matthews Show (embedded below). In one sense, this clip is completely typical of how our national media thinks and talks about political matters. But there just is something about this particular discussion and the giggling, vapid participants that is extra vivid and instructive on a visceral level."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

TPM Canned US Attorney Scandal Timeline
Resource - Added to the "The Muckraker's Reference Section" See article
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

AUDIO/TRANSCRIPT: Diebold Whistleblower Stephen Heller Interviewed by Brad Friedman, 3/25/07
A quote...."The following is the audio and text transcript from the first live broadcast interview with "Diebold Whistleblower" Stephen Heller and his wife Michelle Gregory. It was conducted by Brad Friedman of The BRAD BLOG on Action Point with Cynthia Black on March 25, 2007, and aired live on KPHX 1480am, Phoenix' Air America affiliate, and the flagship station for Nova M Radio. Brad was Guest Hosting for Black that week."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

The Internationalization of Genocide: Transforming Food into Fuel
A quote...."No one at Camp David answered the fundamental question. Where are the more than 500 million tons of corn and other cereals which the United States, Europe and wealthy nations require to produce the gallons of ethanol that big companies in the United States and other countries demand in exchange for their voluminous investments going to be produced and who is going to supply them? Where are the soy, sunflower and rape seeds, whose essential oils these same, wealthy nations are to turn into fuel, going to be produced and who will produce them?"

World Trade Center 7: Why after six years, do we still not know what happened to this stupid building?
A quote...."April 5, 2007 -- On February 28, 2007 Muckraker Report editor Ed Haas and Connecticut attorney Jerry Leaphart sent a Request for Correction to the National Institute of Technologies as a preliminary to filing a legal injunction against NIST for its conduct in the investigation of the collapse of World Trade Center 7.  The U.S. Department of Commerce has published the Request for Correction on an office web site, which you can view here."

The Evidence Is There: It’s Time for Congress to Investigate the Ties Between the Bush Family and Osama bin Laden
A quote...."Now that the U.S. Congress is investigating the truth of President George W. Bush's statements about the Iraq war, they might look into one of his most startling assertions: that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.  -  Critics dismissed that as an invention. They were wrong. There was a link, but not the one Bush was selling. The link between Hussein and Bin Laden was their banker, BCCI. But the link went beyond the dictator and the jihadist -- it passed through Saudi Arabia and stretched all the way to George W. Bush and his father."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

9/11 - From The History File...Kean Insight - Bush, bin Laden, BCCI and the 9/11 Commission
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Tony Blair Declares News Black-Out on Pedophile Investigations
A quote...."While British Prime Minister Tony Blair is under criminal suspicion in the "honors-for-cash" scandal that has rocked his Labor government, we have been told that there is an even more explosive scandal that Blair, up to now, has managed to hide behind the draconian British policy of issuing "D-Notices," government orders that prohibit the British media from reporting on certain "national security" cases."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Wednesday April 4th 2007

Iranian, Saudi discuss collective defense agreement
A quote...."Iran's Minister of Foreign Affairs Manouchehr Mottaki last week held talks with his Saudi counterpart Saud Al-Faisal on most important issues of the Islamic world and the Middle East.  -  According to the Iran's Foreign Ministry Press Office, at the meeting on Thursday, the two sides met on the sideline of the summit of Arab heads of states in Riyadh.  -  Mottaki expressed satisfaction with the initiative of Arab League and the role of Saudi Arabia in inviting non-Arab Islamic states to the summit, and said this will bolster and expand cooperation among regional and Islamic countries.  -  "Exploring avenues for further cooperation among Islamic states and granting observer status to the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Arab League are on the agenda of the summit," he added."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Detainee Torture Breeds Muslim Awareness
A quote...."The torture and abuse of Muslim detainees by the United States at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Guantanamo in Cuba, Bagram in Afghanistan and other places has awakened the Muslim community to the cause for human rights. Muslims living in Europe and America and the relatives and sympathizers of the detainees have organized many campaigns for the release of the detainees. In an attempt to turn public opinion against the United States' mistreatment of the detainees, they show photos, publish documents and reports, mark "torture day" and bring out processions."

Guantanamo conditions 'worsening'
A quote...."Conditions for detainees at the US military jail at Guantanamo Bay are deteriorating, with the majority held in solitary confinement, a report says."

Amnesty: New Gitmo Facility Worst
A quote...WASHINGTON, 5 April 2007 — Amnesty International said yesterday that a new facility at Guantanamo Bay held prisoners in even harsher conditions than the rest of the detention center and called for the camp to be shut down."

Secret American Prisons In Ethiopia
A quote...."Human rights groups, lawyers and several Western diplomats assert hundreds of prisoners, who include women and children, have been transferred secretly and illegally in recent months from Kenya and Somalia to Ethiopia, where they are kept without charge or access to lawyers and families.  -  The detainees include at least one American citizen and some are from Canada, Sweden and France, according to a list compiled by a Kenyan Muslim rights group and flight manifests obtained by AP."

Colombia seeks Israelis accused of training death squads
A quote...."Interpol issued an international arrest warrant Tuesday for three Israelis accused of training private armies of Colombian drug cartels and right-wing death squads.  -  Yair Klein, Melnik Ferri and Tzedaka Abraham were being sought on charges of criminal conspiracy and instruction in terrorism and face nearly 11 years in prison if convicted, a spokesman for Colombia's domestic intelligence agency said, speaking on the condition that he not be identified."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Iran Sets British Sailors Free
A quote...."Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was shown on state television chatting with British sailors Wednesday. The president said they would be released immediately. Iranian state media said the 15 had "shouted for joy" when told the news.  -  The sailors will return home from Tehran's Mehrabad airport on Thursday, an aide to the president said."

Iran releases 15 British sailors
A quote...."·Iran Wednesday released the 15 British sailors 13 days after it detained them. Ahmadinejad participated in a "ceremony" for the 15 British sailors' release. ·Ahmadinejad said that no deal had been made with Britain on the issue."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Ukraine turns wild again as Yushchenko fights with parliament and government
A quote...."Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko signed a decree to dissolve the parliament of the country (The Supreme Rada) yesterday and set the new election date on May 27. The deputies of the parliament and the government of Ukraine with Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich at the head refused to execute Yushchenko’s order and considered it a non-constitutional decision. Yushchenko made a national speech on Monday night and urged the deputies not to aggravate the political situation in the country."

Conflict in Kiev Spills Into the Streets
A quote...."KIEV -- Thousands of supporters of Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych marched Wednesday to the office of his rival, President Viktor Yushchenko, to protest the president's order to dissolve the parliament and hold early elections."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Venezuela's Chávez makes a U-turn on ethanol
A quote...."CARACAS --
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez was on the ethanol bandwagon. Until, that is, President Bush jumped aboard. Now, it seems, ethanol is a threat to the poor."

It is - mpg

Economists: Ethanol push hurts poor
A quote...."WASHINGTON, April 3 The push toward corn-based ethanol has the potential to starve millions around the world, two economists from the University of Minnesota say."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

French Set Rail Speed Record: 357.2 Mph
A quote....0403dv-fastest-train The speedometer climbed higher and higher - and so did my heart rate. Inside the last of three double-decker cars sandwiched between two engines, those of us aboard the French bullet train trying to set the speed record on conventional rails watched the digital numbers flash on a screen in kilometers per hour: 400, 450, 500, 550.  -  Looking out the windows, the French countryside became a green blur.  -  Then the magic number appeared: 547.8 kph, or 357.2 mph - faster than any humans had ever traveled in a train on rails. As fast as an airplane, but on the ground.  -  The air pressure made my ears ache."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

9/11 - From The History File...Larry Silverstein, WTC 7, and the 9/11 Demolition
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

El Niño At An End And Reverse La Niña
A quote...."El Niño At An End And Reverse La Niña Weather Pattern Possible – UN Agency  -  The most recent El Niño, the periodic weather pattern that can have repercussions around the world from torrential rains and floods in the Americas and Africa to droughts and brush fires in Australia and Asia, has now ended and a transition to its mirror image, La Niña, is a substantial possibility, according to the latest United Nations forecast."

Tuesday April 3rd 2007

Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War, by Pepe Escobar
A quote...."Escobar manages to capture the absurd element of what he appropriately names ‘Jihad Inc’ as a Made in America phenomenon emerging from the ill-considered experiment in the early 1980’s by a part of US intelligence to unleash the force of Islamic believers against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan: “Jihad Inc is an American invention, along with associate executive directors Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan. It was a US strategy in USSR-invaded Afgjhanistan in the 1980’s—‘Let’s launch one billion Muslims against the Evil Empire!—that catapulted jihad to the forefront of political Islam. Zia ul-Haq, the Pakistani dictator, supported by billions of dollars, could not pass up the opportunity to launch a true, pan-Islamic jihad against Russian infidels. Wahabi Saudi Arabia also jumped at the golden opportunity to spread its rigid interpretation of Islam. In 1985 Ronald Reagan described the Afghan jihadis visiting him at the White House as the ‘moral equivalent of America’s founding fathers.’ Even at the time Whitney Houston-fan Osama bin Laden would frown if landed in the same corner of lower Paradise in the company of Thomas Jefferson. The Looney Tunes element of it all is deliriously funny—if it was not tragic. First the US pitted political Islam against communism. Then communism died. Now it’s the US against political Islam. A historical ‘what if’ perfectly allows us to think that were the Cold War still on, everyone would still be watching the same movie…”
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Detainee says he confessed to stop torture
A quote...."Speaking under oath, he said he made up a long list of Al Qaeda plots and attacks so his captors would stop torturing him, even telling interrogators that Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had a nuclear bomb.  -  "I just said those things to make the people happy. But when they freed me, I told them all, 'I only told you these things to make you happy,' " Nashiri said at a March 14 hearing held by military officials to determine if he should be designated as an enemy combatant and tried before a military commission."

If you torture someone, all you'll get is what you want to hear.  It prevents investigators from developing true leads, it distorts the investigation process, it demeans the agencies and services who engage in the practice, and it completely destroys the rule of law.

Torture is simply illegal, immoral, unethical and criminal, and so are all those who commit it.

But MOST IMPORTANTLY from a law enforcement perspective, torture simply doesn’t work. It contaminates the evidence.  It throws into question what is true and what isn't, it causes investigators to waste their time coercing their suspects, many of whom are innocent to begin with, to create fantasies which are later elaborated on and embellished further by the torture of additional suspects.

Vast data bases of utter fiction are compiled and created out of thin air from the fevered imaginations of the torturers and the fear and terror of their victims. Complete works of fiction are diligently added to daily by the new privatized "contractors" employed by the US government.

All of this so-called evidence is garbage now....all of it.  None of it can be used.  Most of what they’ve obtained would be laughed out of court, which is precisely why the US government refused to go to court in the first place with their ridiculous "evidence".

It will now be impossible to track down the real suspects....the state actors and factions in various governments who have been supporting and who continue to support state sponsored terrorism.

After five years whatever "real" leads that might have been unearthed, whatever "real" evidence that might have been uncovered has now been submerged under a sea of useless babble and manufactured “facts”.  Clouded to opaqueness by the tons of garbage the torturers have strewn about.

After five years they've made it impossible to "follow the money"

This appears to be part of a recurring pattern.

After this government's destruction of evidence regarding 9/11,  after all the stories about administration officials "not knowing" - when it turns out in fact they did know, after all the foot-dragging to create the 9/11 commission, after all of the White House’s carefully selected cronies who were picked to serve on the commission, after all the obstruction, twisting and lying that has occurred - it has become perfectly obvious that the Department of Defense has been engaged with the White House in a deliberate effort to undermine any chance to track down and find out who truly sponsored 9/11. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Bush Conjures Up Tortured Defense of Executive Privilege
A quote....".....If what Bush’s people tell the senators is neither sworn nor recorded, there is no good way to test the truthfulness of what they said.  -  Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., a former Philadelphia district attorney, acknowledged this point during a recent appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press. “I think the president is wrong when he refuses to have a transcript,” he said. “If you don’t have a transcript, senators are going to walk out and, in good faith, have different versions…as to what occurred.”  -  But, of course, that’s the intent of the president’s offer."

Again, part of a recurring pattern of obstruction. - mpg

The Pentagon’s Crooked 'Judicial' Process
A quote...."While Pentagon officials are celebrating the terrorism conviction of David Hicks in Guantanamo’s military-tribunal system, the process by which Hicks was convicted and sentenced only confirms that the Pentagon’s “judicial” system is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. After all, most everyone knew that Hicks, who has been held at Guantanamo for more than five years without a trial, never stood a chance of acquittal, but who ever thought that politics would play the determining role in what purports to be a system of justice?"

US's Bungled Plan to Kidnap Iran's Top Spook Prompted Hostage Taking
A quote...."A failed US attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that ten weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and marines."

The Truth Sometimes Hurts!
A quote...." In response to the request by the Iranian authorities to the US-led coalition to investigate the circumstances involving their detention and to release the five men, the US State Department replied that "the investigation is not complete, and we don't comment publicly with respect to ongoing investigations".  -  What a slap in the face! The Iranians who are being held as 'security detainees' are not being charged with anything and so are being held unlawfully. On the other hand, the US administration has already ruled out any possibility of prisoners exchange with the 15 Britons held by the Iranians as, in the words of Sean McCormick, spokesman for the State Department; "There is no comparison between the two issues".

U.S. says former FBI agent missing in Iran
A quote...."WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States asked Iran on Monday to provide information about a former FBI agent believed to have gone missing several weeks ago while on private business there, U.S. officials said."

ABC News Exclusive: The Secret War Against Iran
A quote...."A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News.  -  The group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran."

Editors note : It's not really an exclusive, everyone on the web has posted stories regarding the US's support for various anti-Iranian groups for the last couple of years, the MEK, the PKK the Baluchistan separatists, etc.

One might conceivably consider the story to be an exclusive, only if one limits their consideration solely to the "mass-media" outlets like ABC, but that doesn't demonstrate how exclusive ABC’s story is, it just demonstrates the complete inability of our "mass media" to obtain any “exclusive” that conflicts with the priorities of this nation’s wealthy elites. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Iran has plans to stop oil sales in dollars: TV
A quote...."TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's central bank governor said Tehran had plans to end the sale of its oil in dollars completely, state television reported on Friday, part of a move to protect the Islamic Republic from mounting U.S. pressure."

Venezuela signs deals to supply oil, fuel to China
A quote...."Caracas -- Venezuela on Monday signed deals to supply crude and fuel oil to China, part of President Hugo Chavez's attempt to break his dependence on energy exports to the United States."

Regarding the two articles shown above. - see also....We'll Make Them an Offer They Can't Refuse 09-06-06 - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Imperial Sunset? - Threats to US Hegemony
A quote...."For the first time since its rise as a superpower the United States is facing a serious threat to its hegemony across the globe."

Europe tops US in stock market value
A quote....Europe has eclipsed the US in stock market value for the first time since the first world war in another sign of the slipping of the global dominance of American capital markets."

And....Euro notes cash in to overtake dollar

All Americans who still support Bush and the Neocon agenda, who willingly continue to shell out their hard earned cash (along with ours of course) for their sick twisted little New Roman Empire fantasies of torture, mayhem, booty and bling should just keep repeating to themselves....."if we don't fight them over there, we'll have to fight them over here" - "as they stand up we'll stand down" - "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended." - "stuff happens" - and the all time favorite..... "advancing the cause of freedom and democracy"

Hope all these little fantasies give you comfort in your old age when you don't have a dollar left to spend because you've sacrificed all your money along with whatever moral values you used to have for absolutely nothing - except the infliction of  pain, death and misery on millions of people across the world. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Ah, Alberto Gonzales
A quote...."About a year from now pundits and instant historians will point back at the firing of the federal prosecutors and say, ‘That’s where the impeachment began.’I'm glad that it began with, or at least around, Alberto."

Arabs tell Olmert to get serious
A quote...."Saudi Arabia signaled Monday that it is unlikely to accept an Israeli invitation to hold a peace gathering, saying the Jewish state should stop "inhuman practices" against Palestinians and move to withdraw from Arab lands before any gesture can be made. Although the proposal was hailed by Washington, it was slammed as political posturing by the Palestinians and across the political spectrum in Israel."

Saudi Arabia offers Kurds 2 billion dollars to give up Kirkuk
A quote...."Baghdad- A Shiite newspaper published in Baghdad reported Tuesday that Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani had turned down a 2-billion-dollar offer from the Saudis in return for giving up demands to have oil-rich Kirkuk as the capital of Kurdistan. Al-Bianh al-Jadidah newspaper said that the Saudi offer was made to Barzani and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Borham Saleh when they visited Saudi Arabia last month.”

The 'X' dreams of Washington's wonks
Regarding the mental evolution of foreign policy "wonks" inside Washington's beltway.  A never ending parade of prostituting sycophants trying to curry favor with the newest "in" power wanabees by providing disgustingly fulsome praise and idiotic justifications for these elites plans to seize the booty and bling of the world. Never have so many egg heads given up so many professed values and standards so fast. .  The Roman elites never had it so good.- mpg

Follow up to the “Prior knowledge of 9/11 attacks overheard in Hebrew” story:
A quote...."April 4, 2007 – His name is Andras Szekely.  He was born in Budapest, Hungary – the son of Holocaust survivors.  At age 18, Andras fled Hungary seeking work, financial opportunity, and a better life.  He landed in Italy where he sought political asylum.  From Italy he immigrated to Sweden where he says he was welcomed with “open arms”.  Young, and with a strong curiosity for exploration, Szekely set out to travel across Europe.  Soon he found himself yearning for Israel.
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

9/11 - From The History File...Newsweek: Pentagon Generals Cancel Travel Plans One Day Before 9/11/01
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

The last confession of E. Howard Hunt: US government/CIA team murdered JFK - posted at Online Journal
A quote...."The April 5 issue of Rolling Stone features the deathbed confession of CIA operative and key Bay of Pigs/Watergate/Nixon administration figure E. Howard Hunt, The Last Confession of E. Howard Hunt by Erik Hedegaard. This piece is significant not only for its exploration of Hunt, but for breakthrough information that appears to thoroughly corroborate the work of key John F. Kennedy assassination researchers and historians."

U.S. government 'outsourcing its brain'
A quote...."Due to its increasing practice of contracting out to private firms and agencies, the U.S. government is quickly losing its expertise and competence in vital national security and defense programs, according to a Wall Street Journal report."

Police Log Confirms FBI Role in Arrests
A quote...."For years, law enforcement authorities suggested it never happened. The FBI and D.C. police said they had no records of such an incident. And police told a federal court that no FBI agents were present when officers arrested more than 20 protesters that afternoon for trespassing; police viewed them as suspicious for milling around the parking garage entrance.  -  But a civil lawsuit, filed by the protesters, recently unearthed D.C. police logs that confirm the FBI's role in the incident. Lawyers for the demonstrators said the logs, which police say they just found, bolster their allegations of civil rights violations."

Monday April 2nd 2007

No posts - mpg

Sunday April 1st 2007

Rupert Cornwell: Out of America
Must Read - A quote...."For one thing, the gulf between America's rich and poor has widened rapidly since the early 1980s, when tax-cutting "Reaganomics" became the vogue. According to fascinating new data from the IRS, the richest 1 per cent of the population, who earned more than $348,000 (£178,000), took almost 22 per cent of all reported income in 2005 - double their slice when Reagan came to power."

"What's more, while average incomes for the bottom 90 per cent of the population actually fell slightly, for the fortunate 1 per cent they rose by a cool 14 per cent. Only when you're earning their kind of money do you keep pace with the relentlessly increasing cost of health insurance and college tuition fees. Most fascinating of all, this widening divide is finally having an impact on national politics."

By the way you know what made up the difference for the bottom 90%, the ones who had their incomes fall about 1% during the last twenty years - borrowing on their homes, their credit cards, the national debt, and the trade deficit.

All part of that glorious ten year cycle. See....Effective Fed Funds Rate 03-24-07 - mpg

And for all you clever folks who think the US can inflate it's way out of this current debt crisis....this nation has spent way to much money and is too close to the abbreviated end of this current ten year cycle (because they wasted so much of the money) for the Fed to be able to drop interest rates even if, as expected, the US enters a recession.  That is what they call stagflation.

Although the Elites would be perfectly happy to sacrifice more Americans peons, not to mention foreign peons, by starting another war with Iran - such a course of action with the potential for rampant unchecked inflation on the economic horizon would be problematical at this point. The Elites seem willing to tolerate a "real" inflation rate of between ten to fifteen percent, however more than that would crush their "asset valuations".

The Fed and the Elites got caught with their big fat greedy hands in the cookie jar and there's not a dang thing they can do about it now no matter how many wars they're willing to start or how many people they're willing to kill.- mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Things That Go Bump in the Night: The President and His Perverts
Must Read - A quote...."The embrace of torture – implicit on the part of an un-outraged public, explicit in the declarations of Bush and his followers – is part of the general acceptance of lawlessness and authoritarianism as bedrock components of the new, post-constitutional American state. The twinning of these latter scourges may seem paradoxical at first, but of course they are intimately connected. Where an authoritarian ruler claims – and exercises – arbitrary power over the lives and liberties of citizens, then law is a dead letter: it means only what the ruler says it means, and it cannot be used against the ruler and his minions, no matter what their depredations."

Guantanamo Trial Would Have Done Stalin Proud - Lawyer
A quote...."THE secret agreement that resulted in David Hicks facing only nine more months in prison may do fatal damage to an already discredited system of dealing with terrorism suspects, legal experts say.The combination of a sentencing deal arranged behind closed doors and the conditions imposed on Hicks, including a year-long gag order and a declaration that he was never tortured, has shown the process to be a political and not legal one, Australian and US observers say."

Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, Nukes, and Western Logic
A quote...."Citizens of Lebanon, beware. Arieh Eldad has it out for you. After the scandal-ridden government of Ehud Olmert falls, probably within the next few weeks, a new government, likely led by Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, will attack Lebanon. “We have no choice. We will have to do it,” Eldad tells the neocon website, NewsMax. “Dr. Eldad explained that Israel was facing a new strategic threat, caused in part by its own failure to deal a crushing blow to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the impression of weakness last summer’s failed war created in the minds of Israel’s enemies.”

War Anniversary: Israel, Palestine Links Absent
A quote...."The Israeli connection to the political ‘realignments’ in the region goes back as early as 1992. The draft Defense Planning Guidance (DPG), which was circulated around the Pentagon for weeks before being ‘leaked’ to the New York Times, envisaged a future in which the US establishes uncontested supremacy in the post cold-war world. Though the guidance didn’t underscore Israel and its role in that new world, those who composed the document were primarily the well known Israel crowd in Washington: then-Defence Department staffers Lewis Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, and America’s man in Iraq a few years later, Zalmay Khalilzad."

Two Britons "confess" on Iranian TV
A quote...."TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian television on Sunday showed pictures of two of the 15 British sailors and marines held in Iran, the men saying they were captured after entering Iranian waters."

For more on this see....Call that humiliation?
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Iran Hostage Crisis Becomes Clearer
Related article - A quote...."The headline reads "US rejects Iran captives exchange." My initial response was "What is the US doing rejecting a captive exchange"? My second thought was, "not those hostages". Yes, Iran has asked for the five Iranian Consulate staff seized from Irbil, Kirkuk in January, 2007. You may recall that Bush had approved an attack on the Iranian Consulate in Kirkuk."

Iraqi Oil Belongs To The Iraqi People
A quote...."The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already cost the American people more than $500 billion, the deaths of 3200 U.S. troops, 25,000 others wounded, and countless Iraqi lives. The total price tag is projected to top $1.2 trillion.With the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq upon us, the Bush administration asks Congress for $93 billion more for the war, over and above the fiscal year 2008 Pentagon request for $484 billion - an 11% increase over last year! The war machine eats well while starving our people of decent housing, quality health care, and education. The Gulf Coast remains a disaster."

AP Exclusive: Kissinger says military victory not possible in Iraq - posted at BuzzFlash
A quote...."TOKYO (AP) _ Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who helped engineer the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, said Sunday the problems in Iraq are more complex than that conflict, and military victory is no longer possible."

Tillman case memo fuels cover-up theory - posted at BuzzFlash
 A quote...."The controversy over the death of former football star Pat Tillman deepened Friday when a document emerged showing that a top Army general suggested only a week after Tillman was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan that the White House should be informed of the real circumstances of the shooting."

Key Rove aide fingered in US Attorney investigation to step down; Could face subpoena
A quote...."Multiple sources reported today that a top aide to President George W. Bush's key adviser Karl Rove will soon step down from her job in the White House. The aide, Sara M. Taylor, was identified in yesterday's testimony by a former top Justice Department official as having sought the resignation of a US Attorney in Arkansas. She could still face a subpoena, RAW STORY learned."

The Rovian era
A quote...."Turn over a scandal in Washington these days and the chances are you'll find Karl Rove. His tracks are everywhere: whether it's helping to purge U.S. attorneys, coaching bureaucrats on how to spend taxpayers' money to promote Republican candidates, hijacking the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives for partisan politics, or helping to organize a hit on the character of one of the first people to publicly reveal the twisting of intelligence reports on Iraq."

Whistling Past the Graveyard
A quote...."The inability of Republicans to change their ways in the face of massive unpopularity is downright spooky.
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

9/11 - From The History File...Bush's War of Terror, 9/11. Part 7.

========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Saturday March 31st 2007

Hydrocarbon Law for Dummies
Must Read - A quote...."March 24, 2007—Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, who was in Japan last week for a four-day official visit, says U.S.-led coalition forces should be able to withdraw from his country in a year and half at the latest, a Japanese newspaper reported on Saturday."

What America Needs Now: A Prophetic Social Movement that Speaks Moral Truth to Amoral Power
A quote...."The most urgent part of the moral crisis besetting America, clearly, arises from the realm of power. Forces more ruthless and unprincipled than have ever had ruled this nation in its more than two centuries of democratic governance now hold sway."

The Fake Fight Over the Iraq War - That Was an Antiwar Vote?
A quote...."Although nothing of any significance actually happened on March 23, to read liberal commentators one would think we'd witnessed some profound upheaval, courtesy of Nancy Pelosi's skillful uniting of the various Democratic factions. What she accomplished in practice was the neutering of the antiwar faction. In the end only eight Democrats (plus two Republicans) voted against the Supplemental Appropriation out of opposition to the war. The balance of 202 no votes came from Republicans who opposed Pelosi's bill as anti-Bush and antiwar. So, in Congress 420 representatives officially have no problem with the war in Iraq continuing until the eve of the next election. Ten are foursquare against it, which is more or less where Congress has always been, in terms of committed naysayers."

See also....Stupidity Alert - 03-28-07 - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Strikes on Baghdad's Green Zone on the Rise
A quote...."BAGHDAD, March 29 -- Iraqi insurgents are increasingly hitting Baghdad's fortresslike Green Zone with rockets and mortar shells, officials said Wednesday.  -  Insurgents have struck inside the Green Zone, which includes the U.S. Embassy, on six of the past seven days, once with deadly consequences. A U.S. soldier and a U.S. government contractor were killed Tuesday night by a rocket attack that also seriously wounded a civilian, military and embassy officials said. One soldier and at least three other civilians received minor injuries, U.S. Embassy spokesman Lou Fintor said."

The insurgents have switched tactics again. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Brzezinski: Avoid disaster with Iran
A quote...."But Brzezinski reserved his harshest criticism for the current president, George W. Bush, saying he'd helped cultivate "a self-paralyzing culture of fear" after the Sept. 11 attacks, squandered the government's credibility and fed anti-Americanism in many parts of the world by failing to recognize "it is absolutely futile for the United States to be waging what is in essence a colonial war in a post-colonial age."

Britain takes softer line as Iran's hardliners seek to escalate crisis
A quote...." British attempts to cool the dispute with Tehran over the seizure of 15 soldiers and Marines were dealt a blow yesterday as Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused London of mishandling the situation.  -  Speaking at a rally in Khuzestan near where the sailors were seized, President Ahmadinejad said the sailors had trespassed into Iranian waters and he accused London of turning to the UN and the European Union for support over the detentions. "Instead of apologising and expressing regret over the action taken, [the UK] started to claim that we are in their debt and shouted in various international councils," he said."

Moscow calls for UN probe into capture of U.K. seamen by Iran
A quote...."MOSCOW, March 30 (RIA Novosti) - The United Nations secretariat should conduct an independent investigation into the detention of 15 British seamen by Iran, Russia's Foreign Ministry said Friday.  -  "Taking into account that the British side insists that its servicemen were fulfilling their UN Security Council mandate, we believe the UN Secretariat should prepare an independent report on the incident shortly," the ministry said following a meeting between Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Yakovenko and British Ambassador to Russia Tony Brenton."

Russia, Saudi Arabia sign $100-mln contract to build oil pipeline
A quote...."BEIRUT, March 31 (RIA Novosti) - A Russian company signed Saturday the first ever contract, worth more than $100 million, to build an oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia with a Saudi company.  -  Stroytransgaz, a construction arm of Russia's energy giant Gazprom [RTS: GAZP], and Saudi Aramco concluded the contract in Dhahran. This is a breakthrough for Russian business to a totally new market, which is the most attractive in the Middle East."

Oh my...first China, now Russia, how could this happen?  Isn't Saudi Arabia America's 51st State?
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Will gas exporters unite in a cartel?
A quote...."MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti economic commentator Mikhail Khmelev) - On April 9, Doha, the capital of Qatar, will host the Forum of Gas Exporting Countries.  -  Only one development is expected from the event: players on the global gas market will try to reach an agreement on setting up an international alliance like the one that unites the majority of oil exporting countries."

Economists cut back for U.S. economic forecasts
A quote...."    WASHINGTON, March 30 (Xinhua) -- A string of downbeat economic reports, including evidence that companies are paring back investment spending and signs that housing is taking another hit, have prompted economists to reduce their forecasts for U.S. economic growth in the first half of 2007, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday."

Housing's impact on jobs seen spreading
A quote...."NEW YORK (Reuters) - The weak housing market is starting to affect overall U.S. employment, and job losses that are now limited to sectors like construction will likely spread to other parts of the labor market in coming months.  -  For builders, realtors and mortgage lenders, the full impact of the downturn may take more than year to work through the system."

Democrats' Calls for Resignations are Pointless Diversions
Some quotes...."All these calls from Democrats in Congress for Bush administration people to resign are missing, or deliberately obfuscating, the point.""....the problem isn’t the officials; it’s the laws that were passed--usually with Democratic Party support.  -  For that matter, most of the most egregious crimes against the Constitution of this most criminal administration have relied, for their justification, on the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force passed by a Congress that included a Democratic-led Senate."

See also.... Thirty Acts to Restore Americans' Rights 11-10-06

And the count is still increasing, seventeen acts 11-10-06, twenty nine acts 02-25-07, thirty acts 03-29-07. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Left-Right Alliance Against War?
This ones interesting. - mpg

Turmoil in Pakistan: Baloch vow fight for independence
A quote...."Since 1947, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Land of the Pure), a military dictatorship, has been a fragile entity perpetually on the brink of internal civil war, and constantly at loggerheads with India over contested Kashmir. It is a destabilizing factor on the Asian continent. The recent sacking of Pakistan's Supreme Court Justice by President Pervez Musharraf in March of 2007 is just another one of many straws weighing on the central government's back in Islamabad, a portent of what more is to come."

One shouldn't forget however that the US is currently mucking about in Baluchistan encouraging factions there to go after Iran, which is not the Baloch's fight.  The US, with its meddling policy of "creative instability” may very well destabilize Pakistan, and it doesn't appear anyone in the US really cares. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Somalis cower as fighting rages
A quote...."The Red Cross says it has deep concerns for civilians trapped in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, as major fighting goes on between troops and rebels.  -  The death toll continues to mount even as people cowered inside from what they say is the worst fighting in 15 years."

And.....

Artillery rocks Mogadishu
A quote...."MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Shelling rocked Mogadishu for a third day on Saturday, overwhelming hospitals with casualties as Ethiopian and Somali troops backed by helicopter gunships resumed attacks on Islamist rebels and clan militia."

Look, more US "help" for another country.  Anybody else out there want the US's "help"?  Anybody?  The US would love to "help" you too....any takers? - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Spying at Cold War Levels, U.S. Says
A quote...."A senior U.S. counterintelligence official said Thursday that Russia had fully restored its espionage capabilities against the United States after a period of decline following the Cold War.  -  Joel Brenner, the head of the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, said the United States was concerned that Russia was continuing to ramp up its operations."

Ukrainian rivals rally in capital
A quote...."A power struggle inside the government in Ukraine has brought tens of thousands of demonstrators out on to the streets of the capital, Kiev."

Africa: How we killed our dreams of freedom
A quote...."Across the continent, liberation movements that fought against colonial rule proved unable to sustain democratic governance. We cannot keep blaming the past.  -  Zimbabwe's Zanu-PF has become the symbol of the descent of African liberation movements into brutal dictatorship."

Bush Has Been So Bad, Even 'Hil' Clinton Can Be President
A quote...."Just how bad is the damage George W. Bush has inflicted upon the future of the Republican Party? One word: Hillary.   -  George W. Bush's incompetent, crony-driven Banana Republic-like policies and leadership have so completely undermined the Republican Party that an extremely weak and vulnerable Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, will likely trounce the GOP's sacrificial-lamb-like standard-bearer in 2008. Yes, the same Hillary Clinton who was once despised more than a shotgun-toting Dick Cheney at a lawyer-filled hunting camp, thanks to George W. Bush, is most likely to be the next President of the United States."

Check out the photo of Hideous Hillary, she looks like a rabbit being strangled to death.- mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

"Vs" stage protest at White House.
A quote...."March 31-April 1, 2007 -- "Vs" stage protest at White House. About 60 protesters dressed up as the Guy Fawkes look-a-like "V," from the movie by the same name, staged a protest at the White House yesterday. In an encouraging sign, a group of elementary school children visiting the White House on a school trip were much more interested in "V" than in the White House or its occupant. "
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

9/11 - From The History File...An Incomplete Investigation Why did the 9/11 Commission ignore "Able Danger"?
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Sanchez investigation wraps up today
A quote...."The Corps on Friday was slated to wrap up an investigation into allegations that a corporal in the Individual Ready Reserve who appeared in gay porn films before enlisting solicited more than $12,000 from private organizations by asking them to fund a deployment to Iraq he never made, according to e-mails from the investigating officer forwarded to Marine Corps Times."

More Republican values on parade (so to speak).

Maybe Sanchez and Karl Rove could share a cell together....One has to believe Karl would be overjoyed at the prospect. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Friday March 30th 2007

No Good Choices in the Halls of Power:
Must Read - A quote...."On Friday, March 23, the Democrats in the House of Representatives pushed through the “U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Health, and Iraq Accountability Act” by a vote of 218-212. The bill gives the Bush administration some $100 billion to continue the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, while calling for U.S. combat troops to leave Iraq by September 1, 2008."

Neoconservative radicalism has reshaped our political spectrum
A quote...."David Brooks' column in The New York Times this morning contains several important observations. It would maximize clarity in our political discussions if journalists could just ingest Brooks' central point: the dominant right-wing political movement in this country that has spawned and driven the Bush presidency has nothing to do with -- it is in fact overtly hostile to -- the ostensible principles of Goldwater/Reagan small-government conservatism. Though today's so-called "conservatives" exploit the Goldwater/Reagan mythology as a political prop, they don't believe in those principles in any way. That movement is the very antithesis of those principles."

Jeremy Scahill on Soldiers of Fortune
Interview - James Harris interviews Jeremy Scahill at TruthDig - A quote...."The writer speaks with Truthdig about his new book, “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army,” privatization in America and abroad, and our dysfunctional democracy. - Must Listen -Download MP3 audio file  (running time: about 24:29 mins / 22.4 MB)

Fallujah Fears a 'Genocidal Strategy'
A quote...."FALLUJAH, Mar 30 (IPS) - Iraqis in the volatile al-Anbar province west of Baghdad are reporting regular killings carried out by U.S. forces that many believe are part of a 'genocidal' strategy.  -  Since the mysterious explosion at the Shia al-Askari shrine in Samara in February last year, more than 100 Iraqis have been killed daily on average, without any forceful action by the Iraqi government and the U.S. military to stop the killings.  -  U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces working with them are also executing people seized during home raids and other operations, residents say."

Hunting the Hunters
A quote...."Europe wants to prosecute CIA operatives who abducted terror suspects overseas. The U.S. says no way.  -  Inside an international showdown."

See also....Fun & Torture - It's a Pleasure - 02-03-07 - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

The Evasion Of Peace Process
A quote...."With the current revival of the 2002 Arab League plan for peace with Israel, the U.S. and Israeli governments face a difficult challenge: how can they continue pretending they want peace, while avoiding it at all costs?"

Senate Passes $123 billion More for Iraq and Afghanistan Wars
A quote...."While the headlines will read that the Senate voted to withdraw U.S. troops in Iraq, the peace movement recognizes that the Senate bill will extend the war not end it.  The exit date in the bill is merely a goal for the removal of combat troops, and there are large loopholes that would allow a commander in chief to keep as many troops as s/he wants in Iraq.  The bill provides $123 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – nearly $20 billion more requested by Bush."

Rep. Kucinich: Stop Funding the War
A quote...."Dennis Kucinich is a Democratic congressman from Ohio. He was one of only 14 Democrats to oppose the current Iraq supplemental bill, which sets a deadline for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. The bill, the Iraq Accountability Act, did not, however, cut funding for the war. Here he speaks with Michael Shank about the reasons for his vote, his fears of an attack on Iran, his concerns about the future of the Democratic Party, and his faith that new American leadership will craft a different partnership with the world community."

Kucinich Blasts Democrats
Interview - James Harris: interviews Dennis Kucinich at TruthDig - A quote...."Not everyone was celebrating the passage of the Iraq spending bill on Friday. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, told Truthdig it’s “a disaster for the American people.” The presidential candidate went on to explain his dissatisfaction with his party: “It’s the same kind of thinking that led us into Iraq— that we didn’t have any alternatives.”  -  Download MP3 audio file  (running time: about 12 mins / 11.2 MB)

Real US battles with Iran still lie ahead
A quote...."As the war of words between Iran and the United States continues to escalate, the psychological-warfare campaign of the latter is assuming greater and more sinister proportions, so much so that there are now good reasons to believe the US has orchestrated the kidnapping of a former Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps general in Istanbul."

Beyond Munich: The UN Security Council Helps Disarm a Prospective Further Victim of U.S. Aggression
A quote...."Imagine that when Hitler was threatening to invade Poland, after having swallowed Czechoslovakia—with the help of the Western European powers' appeasement of Hitler at Munich in September 1938—the League of Nations imposed an arms embargo on Poland, making it more difficult for the imminent victim to defend itself, and at the same time suggested that Poland was the villainous party. That didn’t happen back in 1939, but in a regression from that notorious era of appeasement something quite analogous is happening now."

"Here is the United States, still fighting a brutal war of conquest in Iraq, which it is now doing with UN Security Council  approval, with open plans and threats to attack Iran and engage in “regime change,” gathering aircraft carriers off the coast of Iran, already engaging in subversive and probing attacks on the prospective target, and the UN Security Council, instead of warning and threatening the aggressor warns, threatens and imposes sanctions on the prospective victim!"
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Britain stumbles in diplomatic dance with Iran
A quote...."With the crisis over the 15 captured British sailors and marines seemingly getting worse from day to day, there is increasing scrutiny over how the issue has been handled by the Blair government."

If Blair handles Iran like he did Iraq, we'll all be at war soon...which is no doubt exactly what the Neocons want.- mpg

Britain fails to gain strong UN support in row with Iran
A quote...."Britain on Thursday failed to secure strong UN Security Council support for its tug-of-war with Iran over the capture and continued detention of 15 British naval personnel by Tehran.  -  The 15-member body adopted a watered-down statement expressing "grave concern" at the detention of 15 British sailors and marines but stopped well short of London's call for censuring Tehran."

'U.S. Middleman' Warned Not to Violate Iran's Border
A quote...."Is the United Kingdom a spent force, intruding across Iran's borders at the behest of its masters in the United States? According to Iran's judiciary-controlled Fars News Agency, "Britain is a defeated and isolated power who is operating as the middleman of the United States."

Perspective: Britain vs Iran: Just don't mention the war
A quote...."Ever since the British sailors and marines crisis erupted six days ago upon their abduction by Iranian forces, both sides have been steadfastly maintaining that this an isolated incident, a local dispute, whose solution is to have no effect on any of the other outstanding issues between both countries."

Call that humiliation?
A quote...."I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this - allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world - have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God's sake, what's wrong with putting a bag over her head? That's what we do with the Muslims we capture: we put bags over their heads, so it's hard to breathe. Then it's perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate them to the press because the captives can't be recognised and humiliated in the way these unfortunate British service people are."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Gravel: ‘I Have My Suspicions’ That No Matter Who Is Elected ‘They’re Not Going To Get Out Of Iraq’
A quote...."Now, he’s running for President. He told us last weekend that he thought the Iraq redeployment provision attached to the House and Senate supplemental bills is “ridiculous legislation.” “We need to get out now,” Gravel said, adding that he had his “suspicions” that whoever is elected president in 2008 is “not going to get out of Iraq.”

China overtakes US in car roll-out
A quote...."CHINA overtook the US in passenger car output for the first time last year, adding to the growing list of consumer goods for which it has become the world's biggest supplier.  The surge in Chinese production "is likely to stoke more fear and angst in Washington about the rise of China", according to Joseph Quinlan, Bank of America's chief market strategist, who noted the change in rankings in a research report published earlier this week.  -  Based on data compiled by the bank, China produced about 5.2 million cars in 2006 compared with 4.4 million in the US  -  The US remains well ahead if light trucks, including sport-utility vehicles and pick-ups, are included. italics/bold by website author

Oh yeah, we build the best gas guzzlers money can buy, and you know what, we also build more weapons systems than everyone in the world COMBINED so we can go kill lots and lots of people to get oil for....

the best gas guzzlers money can buy.

Gives one a nice warm cozy feeling deep down inside as you’re driving along the highway doing eighty miles an hour in that big thumping V8-SUV monster of yours, now don't it?

You ever notice the way gasoline has a slightly reddish hue to it?  That’s the blood. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Rosie Opens 9/11 Conspiracy 'View' Debate
A quote...."Rosie O'Donnell has never been one to shy away from speaking her mind, but her latest controversial topic of conversation on 'The View' brought up a taboo that most daytime talk shows would never go near – the possibility of a conspiracy on 9/11."

By the way, the blonde (Elizabeth Hasselbeck) is the usual cliché, but listen carefully to what she has to say 2.45 minutes from the end of the video....

Ms. Hasselbeck......

"Listen" (interrupted)

Well can I...(interrupted)

"What is oil in this world....oil is power" (pause, interrupted)

"So if you want to turn that over to them....."

And there it is, openly and no doubt unintentionally blurted out by Ms. Hasselbeck, her statement over looked by the other three woman in the heat of their argument. The real reason the US is in Iraq, the real reason two million Iraqis and possibly as many Iranians will die in bloody violence.  The booty and bling the US and the Bush Neocons invaded Iraq for.

To make it clear to Ms. Hasselbeck and others of her ilk - "that" does not belong to a bunch of bubble heads so they can drive around in their five thousand pound SUVs while hundreds of thousands of people are killed for it. "That" is not worth the thousands of Americans killed and injured so bubble headed dimwits can have a status symbol.  "That" is the legacy of the Iraqi people, "that" belongs to them and their children.  "That" can NEVER be a reason to barge into someone's country so you can steal "that" from them, to torture them for it, to murder them for it.  Such actions are a violation of the norms of civilized behavior; they violate the UN charter and are considered to be a WAR CRIME. - mpg
.========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Oil and the Empire
A quote...."The oil men of the Bush administration are trying to set up one of the biggest swindles in history--the great Iraq oil robbery.  -  The cabinet of the new Iraqi government--under pressure from the U.S. occupiers who put them in power--approved a law that would undo Iraq's nationalized system and give Western oil giants unparalleled access to the country's vast reserves."

The Great Iraq Oil Robbery
A quote...."The oil men of the Bush administration are trying to set up one of the biggest swindles in history--the great Iraq oil robbery.  -  The cabinet of the new Iraqi government--under pressure from the U.S. occupiers who put them in power--approved a law that would undo Iraq's nationalized system and give Western oil giants unparalleled access to the country's vast reserves."

See also....The PSA's
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

9/11 - From The History File...The Bush-Saudi Connection
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

The Weight of Wealth
A quote...."The neo-conservative era is built on a simple economic theory - that if there is inflation and other dislocation it is because poor people are using too much of a resource, and those same poor people are using government to avoid the natural market consequences of their immoral and profligate behavior - either by spending too much money on fiscal policy, having too loose a monetary policy, or using regulation."

Politics or performance: the firings that backfired
A quote...."Once you suspend the right of habeas corpus, the Geneva Conventions and most of our civil liberties, call the Constitution just a piece of paper, and start a war based on false and illegal claims as the Bush administration did, it becomes just a hop, skip and a jump to fire eight U.S. attorneys for their “politics” not “performance."

Democratic Committee requests deposition from Secretary of State over Niger forgeries and Iraq
A quote...."The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform today formally requested Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to testify before the committee on Apr. 18 regarding the Bush administration's claims that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger, White House treatment of classified information, the appointment of Ambassador Richard Jones as "special coordinator" for Iraq, and other subjects."

AP Gets Memo: Bush Alerted To Truth About Tillman
A quote...."WASHINGTON Just seven days * after Pat Tillman's death, a top general warned there were strong indications that it was friendly fire and President Bush might embarrass himself if he said the NFL star-turned-soldier died in an ambush, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press."  * bolded by website author.

Bush has done it; he's finally achieved a record!  He has lied about more issues, more blatantly, more often, than any other human being on this planet. Way to go George, this is one achievement no ones ever going to be able to take away from you.- mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

The New SDS
A quote...."Twenty-year-old Will Klatt, wearing a green knit hat, baggy jeans and black jacket pulled over a hoodie, stands before a Civil War monument at the center of Ohio University's main campus in Athens. Although a February snow is falling steadily, more than a hundred students have turned out for this rally called by a new organization with a very familiar name: Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). - bolded by website author

They're back. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Questions for Karl Rove – and President Bush
A quote...."The stealth dismissal of U.S. attorneys by the Bush administration carries echoes of the Nixon administration firing special prosecutor Archibald Cox in 1973. Now, as then, we may be witnessing criminal acts of obstruction of justice at the highest levels of government. If left to fester, they will poison our system."

Feisty, Independent Newspapers Help Democracy Function
A quote...."WASHINGTON — It is easy to get distracted by the bad news in this business. The usual worries that permeate a workplace have been superseded by a grinding fear that the newspaper industry will die within a generation or change to the point of being unrecognizable."

Every child [in Britian] to be screened for risk of turning criminal under Blair justice plan
A quote...."A new-style "11-plus" to assess the risk every child in Britain runs of turning to crime was among a battery of proposals unveiled in Tony Blair's crime plan yesterday.  -  The children of prisoners, problem drug users and others at high risk of offending will also face being "actively managed" by social services and youth justice workers. New technologies are to be used to boost police detection rates while DNA samples are to be taken from any crime suspect who comes into contact with the police."