We'll never claim to be fair and
balanced, just honest and trustworthy
January 10, 2008
Amidst tit for tat accusations
between Iran and Bush he's in the middle east to spur division for his
gain as thousands protest in Gaza, it's working! From James Joiner for
An Average
American Patriot
With one year left all of a sudden the little Bush feels a
need to go to the middle east to show a facade of concern
but in actuality to create more division to be used for his
gain but it will give him cover if there are elections and
his predecessor will get the blame for his mess in the
middle east and have to quell that and the world as it
thanks to Bush is taking sides and preparing for war.
As you know, it is merely another facade. You know Bush
practices his Rove taught 3D Politics (divisive, deceptive,
deceitful, Politics) in order to further his agenda. He
creates division where there is none so he can forcefully
enforce his will. Divide and conquer has not failed him yet.
It is what he has been doing to us, he is doing it in the
middle east, and he is doing it around the world to have to
fight and enforce his new world (dis)order Forever war!
Like all the other future chaos Bush has laid the foundation
for around the world this will be no exception. The
elections though are very timely in relation to his
"supposed" peace laying mission. If there are elections
whoever is elected will get the blame for this Bush caused
middle east war even though ensuring it is the reason he
attacked Iraq to get our military into the middle east. He
will not leave but is hanging there until the entire middle
east explodes and he gets his new (dis)order world war. At
the last minute he is using another of his numerous facades
of concern this time looking for peace in the middle east
but on his terms not Iran's or other Islamist interests.
Forget it Iran will not allow the roots of peace on Bush's
terms to take root in the middle east. the excuse for war
will be found by oone side or the other!
While he is over there supposedly looking for peace Iran has
denounced video and audio recordings released by the United
States of the two nations' confrontation in the Strait of
Hormuz as "fabricated," according to statements carried by
state-run television station. However, President George W.
Bush repeated his assertion that Iran is "a threat to world
peace" and warned the Islamic republic against any
escalation. "We have made it very clear, and they know our
position, and that is: There will be serious consequences if
they attack our ships," Bush said on Wednesday. "My advice
to them is: Don't do it." Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman
downplayed the incident earlier Wednesday, calling it
"normal," state-run news agency IRNA reported.
The state-run Press TV quoted a spokesman for Iran's
Revolutionary Guard Navy as saying that the video "had been
compiled using file pictures and the audio had been
fabricated." The Pentagon Tuesday released a four-minute,
20-second video of Sunday's incident, including video
showing small Iranian boats swarming around U.S. warships in
the Persian Gulf. In the audio recording, a man speaking in
heavily accented English threatened, "I am coming to you.
...You will explode after ... minutes."
Watch the confrontation
Read both sides of the story and watch the video of the
confrontation. How do you fabricate something like that on
the spur of the moment. I do not believe you can but the
incident is serving the purpose of getting the people behind
a war between the US and Iran that will embroil the entire
middle east.
To prove it Iranian's were interviewed saying the US was
behind the instigation and it should not be tolerated. with
that said President Bush's visit to the Middle East comes
amid waves of criticism and rancor from the Arab press.
Newspaper columnists note the push for Middle East peace has
not begun until the final year of the president's two terms
in office. Mr. Bush remains one of the least popular world
leaders in Arab opinion polls, and is held personally
responsible by many in the region for the destabilizing
chaos in Iraq. In his tour of the region, he will have to
overcome widespread skepticism about his new push toward an
Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. Arab League Secretary
General Amr Moussa acknowledged this when he spoke to
reporters on Sunday, saying everyone - including himself -
has lots of suspicions and doubts. Moussa said that the
United States should bear its responsibilities if it wants
to change the situation and the general feeling in the
Middle East.
Skepticism in the middle east
You do not have to be from the middle east even if you are
Jewish and on Bush's side or not to realize Bush is almost
solely responsible for the breakdown of the middle east.
Attacking Iraq was his excuse to get into the middle east
and help Israel create a new middle east order and it is
only normal that he incur the rancor of middle easterners
with Gaza being no exception. Brandishing placards showing
George W. Bush as a vampire swigging Muslim blood, thousands
of Hamas supporters protested in Gaza on Wednesday against
the U.S. president's visit to Israel and the occupied West
Bank.
Some 20,000 members of the Islamist group, shunned by the
West for refusing to renounce violence, set U.S. and Israeli
flags alight. Bush was a "butcher" whose first presidential
visit to the Holy Land was skewed towards helping Israel,
they said. "In his first words Bush talked about Israel, its
security, its democracy and the right of America and Israel
to defend themselves," senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar
told reporters at the rally. "He did not talk about
settlements or the assaults against our people." In
Jerusalem, Jewish families waved Israeli and American flags
and cheered Bush, who hopes his visit will invigorate
efforts to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal before he
leaves office.
Thousands protest vampire bush
** I take no sides in this issue beyond saying it should be
obvious to the brain dead that this can only end one way.
can't anyone see that? You have to assume yes and that dues
are willing to be paid and world war fought. Again with that
said I absolutely hate to agree with Bush but in light of
the rancor he has created in the middle east and around the
world I have to agree with him here. U.S. President George
W. Bush on Tuesday said he wants Turkey to be admitted to
the European Union "in the interests of peace," describing
Ankara as a bridge between Europe and the Muslim world.
"Turkey sets a fantastic example for nations around the
world to see where it's possible to have a democracy that
co-exists with a great religion like Islam," Bush said at a
White House meeting with Turkish President Abdullah Gul. "I
strongly believe that Europe will benefit when Turkey is a
member of the European Union," Bush added. "It's in the
interests of peace that Turkey be admitted into the EU." In
Gul's first visit to the White House as Turkish president,
the two leaders also discussed energy issues and the
Kurdistan Workers Party, which Bush called "a common enemy."
"It's an enemy to Turkey, it's an enemy to Iraq and it's an
enemy to people who want to live in peace. The United
States, along with Turkey, are confronting these folks and
we will continue to confront them for the sake of peace,"
Bush said. (Reporting by David Morgan)
Bush says Turkey's EU entry would aid middle east peace
I think it is a step in the right direction but more likely
all it will do is set further division to be used in Bush's
favor as he continues to divide the middle east and the
world in preparation for his inevitable new world (dis)order
Forever War!
Congress Gives Itself Another Pay Raise From NY Texan for
BlueBloggin
I really think that employees in this country need to
start a new trend for job performance and raises. Do a
poor job, ignore your boss (us) and then give yourself a
raise. Amazing our spines Congress can only seem to do
two things well, go on vacation and give themselves
another raise. Their last raise was in 2006, so I guess
they felt they deserved yet another $4,100. Obviously
Congress passed raising the minimum wage rate so they
wouldn’t feel guilty when they gave themselves another
raise. And this even includes Dick Cheney!
So the next time you need a raise,
don’t worry about you job performance or talking it over
with the boss just go to accounting and do it.
WASHINGTON (AP)
— Fortunately for members of Congress, their pay isn’t
tied to their approval ratings.
Lawmakers in 2008 will receive
salaries of $169,300, a boost of $4,100 over the pay
they have lived with since January 2006.
That 2.5 percent increase is
mirrored by similar raises for associate justices of the
Supreme Court, who will see their pay go from $203,000
to $208,100, and Chief Justice John Roberts, whose pay
will rise to $217,400 from $212,100.
The salary figures were published
in Tuesday’s edition of the Federal Register.
Democrats, newly elected
to the majority, had vowed to block an increase in their
paychecks until Congress raised the minimum wage.
With the minimum wage increase
accomplished last year, House Democratic leaders
joined with their Republican counterparts to oppose a
procedural vote to bring the COLA issue to the floor,
leaving the way clear for their automatic raise.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will get a
pay boost from $212,100 last year to $217,400, the
same as Chief Justice Roberts.
The majority and minority leaders of the House
and Senate and Senate president pro tempore Robert
Byrd, D-W.Va., will get increases from $183,500 to
$188,100.
Dick Cheney, in his last year
as vice president, will receive $221,100, up from
$215,700. President Bush’s salary of $400,000 is
unchanged.
When I was a kid I was influenced a lot by my older sister, who is also a baby boomer and six years older. The things she read, listened to and paid attention to were all around me, even though I was too young to really be a full participant. I remember, for instance:
I was most intrigued by the Whole Earth Catalog. First issued 40 years ago, the Catalog is the subject of a new book, Counterculture Green, by Andrew Kirk. In its heyday, almost 2 million copies of the Whole Earth Catalog were sold. The Catalog featured an array of alternative lifestyle products and information. I would like to find a copy of it today to remind myself what I loved about it.
Know a blog
that deserves to be featured on the Blog World Report?
Contact
Robert.
Sunday afternoon, at a large local
Islamic Center, I was lucky to be able
to hear
Rabbi Michael Lerner speak.
Did you hear that???
I heard a RABBI speak at a local ISLAMIC
CENTER. It was the first time that a
Rabbi had ever spoken there. Seated next
to the Rabbi was the Imam of the Center.
As an aside, I know that a prominent
local imam is giving a class with a
local rabbi on a regular basis.
May the false beliefs and stereotypes
die.
Okay, back to our story...
Michael Lerner was beautifully inclusive
in his message. As he spoke he was sure
to include language that spoke to
Muslims, Jews, Christians, atheists,
agnostics, and those of us who identify
with spirituality but claim no religion.
There has been a struggle for the
last couple of thousand years. A
struggle between two views.
One view - The view of fear. Humans
have been thrown into the world all
by ourselves, surrounded by people
out for themselves who will dominate
you unless you dominate them.
Security = power over others.
Skepticism and a sense that people
will take advantage of you are the
prevailing view. (He called this
"the right hand of God
consciousness" and you'd have to
read his book to find out why.)
Because of the right hand world
view, people have a deep hunger for
meaning and purpose in life. In the
work place, people feel surrounded
by others who work from the mindset
that they need to be looking out for
#1. People come home feeling like
they have been used for others to
profit. And overall there is much
looking at others as "what you can
do for ME". Our relationships are
about You taking care of MY needs.
This creates tremendous insecurity
in the family and the workplace.
The second view - Hope
consciousness. We're not here alone.
And we all came through a mother.
Through that, hopefully, we learned
about love that is given to give -
not given in order to get. In this
second view, it's possible to build
safety for ourselves by creating
loving relationships. (This is the
left hand of God view.)
The left hand view sees others as
embodiment of the sacred. In this
view, we don't look at the universe
and only see it as a product to
benefit us. And if our country acted
from the left hand consciousness, we
would be a force of generosity and
kindness, not domination.
Almost all of us have both of these
voices in our heads and when the
social energy around us moves toward
fear, we pick up on that.
Conversely, when the messages around
us are of hope, we confirm that
point in our heads. So the
fundamental task is to move the
social energy toward hope.
We need a change of consciousness
toward love, caring, kindness, and
generosity, and one of the reasons
that this is not happening is
because we tell ourselves it won't
happen. (I know that I always say
that I'd love to see Kucinich as
prez, but I know he's too good to be
pres - not a very useful thought
process there.)
We need to ask our candidates to
have a bigger vision.
We need to reject realism and
transform reality.
Michael Lerner helped me to realize that
my hopes for a culture of kindness and
compassion is not a crazy dream. There
are many people working toward that
vision.
For more info, visit the
Network of Spiritual Progressives
Watch a good video of Lerner speaking
here.
"The women's movement in its early
years, the civil rights movement in its
early years, and the environmental
movement in its early years were all
dismissed as "unrealistic" because they
stepped outside the frame of politics as
it was then currently understood by the
media and the politicians. We are
following that same path." - Michael
Lerner
This is an email from Cong. Wexler about the "surge-is-working" propaganda. I just want to scream every time I hear someone on TV say it's working. Grr! Look at the facts, morons!
A Surge of More Lies by Congressman Robert Wexler
A new troubling myth has taken hold in Washington and it is critical that the record is set straight. According to the mainstream media, Republicans, and unfortunately even some Democrats, the President's surge in Iraq has been a resounding success. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
This assertion is disingenuous, factually incorrect, and negatively impacts America's national security. The Surge had a clear and defined objective - to create stability and security - enabling the Iraqi government to enact lasting political solutions and foster genuine reconciliation and cooperation between Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds.
This has not happened.
There has been negligible political progress in Iraq, and we are no closer to solving the complex problems - including a power sharing government, oil revenue agreement and new constitution - than we were before the Administration upped the ante and sent 30,000 more troops to Iraq.
Too many Democrats in Congress are again surrendering to General Petraeus and have failed to challenge the Bush Administration's claims that the surge has been successful. In fact -- it is just the opposite.
The reduction in violence in Iraq has exposed the continuing failure of Iraqi officials to solve their substantial political rifts. By President Bush's own stated goal of political progress, the Surge has failed.
Of course raising troop levels has increased security - a strategy the Bush administration ignored when presented by General Shinseki before the war in Iraq began - but the fundamental internal Iraqi problems remain and the factors that were accelerating the civil war in 2007 have simply been put on hold.
The military progress is a testament to the patience and dedication of our brave troops - even in the face of 15 month-long deployments followed by insufficient Veteran's health services when they return home. They have performed brilliantly - despite the insult of having President Bush recently veto a military spending bill that enhanced funding and benefits, and increased care.
Despite the efforts of American soldiers, the surge alone cannot bring about the political solutions needed to end centuries of sectarian divide.
As it stands, little on the ground supports the assertion that Iraqis are ready to stand up and govern themselves. Too few Iraqi troops are trained, equipped and combat ready, and they cannot yet provide adequate security. Loyalty is also an issue in the Iraqi army as Al Queda and Sunni insurgents infliltrate their defense forces. The consequences turned deadly just recently when an Iraqi soldier purposely killed two U.S. troops.
On the streets of Baghdad and Mosul, the Sunni and Shia factions have paused their fighting, awaiting guarantees and protections that have not yet been delivered. As Iraqi refugees return, there is no mechanism to help them rebuild their lives, nor recover their now-occupied homes. Neighborhoods once mixed are now segregated.
In Northern Iraq, Kurdish terrorists conducting nefarious operations across the border into Turkey have compelled our NATO ally to strike at bases, inflaming tensions between Baghdad and Ankara.
The surge is working? We suffered more U.S. casualties in 2007 than in any other year of the war. We can't afford any more of this type of success.
How can we create the situation that is most likely to deliver political progress in Iraq? Not by continuing the surge and occupation. Our best chance (there is no guarantee) is by putting real pressure on the Iraqi government to force action. Telling the national and local Iraqi leaders that we are withdrawing our troops can help accomplish this goal. Today, the majority Iraqi Shia government led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has little incentive to act when American troops remain in the country to provide security and stability.
Based on the Administration's plan, John McCain's proposal of a 100-year US occupation could be a reality!
The Democratic Congress must act aggressively to first cut off funding for the surge and then the entire war. Many of my colleagues avoided a showdown with the administration because they mistakenly believed such a fight would endanger the safety of the troops.
In fact, we must accept that every soldier killed or injured in the coming months should have already been home. Every billion dollars of war-appropriations we spend from here on should have been spent on genuine priorities here at home such as children's heath care.
Enough is enough: While the Administration over-commits American forces in Iraq, we see Al Qaeda-regrouping and Osama Bin Laden still at large. We remain seriously bogged down in Afghanistan, and are witnessing a crisis in Pakistan that has left a nuclear country on the brink of a meltdown. America's resources and attention are desperately needed elsewhere and our soldiers must no longer be needlessly sacrificed as we wait for Iraqis to stand up.
The Surge has failed. If my colleagues gullibly accept the moving rationale for the Surge, just as so many have for the war itself, we will have failed as well.
Jon Stewart,
Rudy, Hillary's tears and lots of laughs
From
GottaLaff
Cliff Schecter
WGA strike or no WGA strike, it's great to have Jon Stewart back:
On Tuesday night's writer-free version of Comedy Central's Daily Show, Jon Stewart interviewed Rudy Giuliani adviser David Frum [...]
After Stewart credited Ron Paul, who nearly beat Giuliani in Tuesday's New Hampshire Primary, with being the most conservative running, Frum blasted the Texas congressman as offering"terrible answers."
"He's one of those people the more you learn about him ... the more disturbing a personality he becomes," Frum charged.
"You should check into your guy," Stewart joked. As the audience roared, he added, "My brain's not on strike, brother."
Let's visit the part that made no sense:
Frum was quick to defend Giuliani as the "most successful public sector executive in the last 30 years." Stewart agreed, "That is true."
Just this once I'll let it slide. Maybe he was just being polite, maybe he didn't really hear Frum right, maybe he had a lapse of sanity. Or maybe he forgot about this,this, this and this.
Anyway, he redeemed himself:
"You've got to forgive candidates their omissions, their errors, their complete reversals, their total falsities -- and, of course, their delusions," said Stewart. He then played a clip ofGiuliani claiming, "We don't mention September 11 nearly as much as people think."
"I have to say that is true," Stewart agreed, "because I was under the illusion he used it every single word."
He redeemed himself twice. Referring to Mike Huckabee:
"I don't think we want President Homer," said Frum.
"We have President Homer," Stewart insisted.
Check out the video. It's a little longer than I usually post, but I didn't think you'd mind.
...The U.S. political system is based on what political scientists call a single-member district plurality (SMDP). That's a fancy way of saying that the U.S. elects representatives from particular districts, with the person who gets the most votes in a district (also called a plurality) winning the seat. Each district is winner-take-all, and votes in one district have no effect on other districts. Presidential elections, though nationwide contests, are likewise really state-by-state races, thanks to the Electoral College, in which every state except Maine and Nebraska awards all of its electoral votes to whichever candidate wins a plurality of the state's votes.
In the 1950s, the French sociologist Maurice Duverger observed that stable two-party systems often develop spontaneously in places that use single-member district pluralities. Political scientists now refer to this tendency as "Duverger's Law."
The reasons here are mainly statistical. Third parties may have statistically significant support (maybe 15 percent of voters in every district supports a third party). But in an SMDP system, the third party may well not win any seats. So those voters will likely join with another party and look for a compromise candidate that could represent them. Similarly, suppose that a district has 200,000 conservative voters and 110,000 liberal voters. One would expect a conservative candidate to be elected. But if two conservative parties each run a candidate, then a liberal candidate may well be elected – unless the conservative parties unite behind a single candidate. [emphasis added]
This is the reason that third parties and third party candidates tend to gum up the works, rather than effect needed changes. The most significant example of this is Ralph Nader's campaign in 2000, without which the election theft perpetrated by Bush and the GOP could never have happened. This also exposes the folly of those who would desert the Democratic Party in favor of a more progressive third party candidate.
In my opinion, a more progressive third party is a worthy goal for the future, but in order to make it work, we must first change the way in which politicians are elected from SMDP to a more equitable system. That is a long process. It begins by putting progressives who favor such a system in office at the local and state levels and gathering strength until the change cam be made on a state by state basis.
I realize this is a "drain the swamp" issue, and right now, we're up to our arses in GOP alligators, fut it's certainly foof for futire thought.
Yeah, you knew that already, but what do they do when confronted with the truth from the subject of their reporting?? They keep repeating the false story!! Read about Paul Begala’s attempt to clue FOX in to the truth.
I’ve been dealing with the media and politics for 25 years, but I’ve never had a more surrealistic day than January 8. Several times that day Fox News reported that I was joining Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign. It was a big story - at least until the stunning election returns.
The only problem was, it wasn’t true.
Fox News never even tried to contact me to verify their story, and when I contacted Fox, I felt like a character in a Kafka novel — or at least Curb Your Enthusiasm.
After I told Fox it wasn’t true — and this is the surreal part — they kept reporting it anyway. In fact, Fox’s Garrett told me he’d “take it under advisement.” Take it under advisement? I realize I’m generally seen as just another liberal with an opinion, but this was not a matter of opinion, it was a matter of fact. Fox now knew their story was flatly, factually wrong, and they took it “under advisement.”
This might be funny if this were some High School Journalism Class project, but these are the antics of a multi-billion corporation.
If you live within broadcast or newspaper range of Seattle, you’re probably familiar with the Reverend Ken Hutcherson. He's the Pacific Northwest’s answer to Pat Robertson, James Dobson and Torquemada.
H/T to Daniel DiRito (here and here) for this story.
In his neverending battle against the Homosexual Agenda, Reverend Hutcherson has found a vicious new go-for-the-jugular tactic. My first thought was that Ken Hutcherson is just a pathetic lowlife shitstain. But at the same time: hey, liberal and populist groups could also use this same tactic. Sure he's a pukebag, but maybe he can teach us something.
Hutcherson’s Antioch Bible Church is located near Microsoft’s headquarters. He's trying to get millions of Biblewipes to purchase shares of Microsoft stock so they can exert control over Microsoft’s employment policies. Microsoft has been violating God’s Law by offering benefits to same-sex couples. Microsoft shareholders have repeatedly voted in favor of these policies.
Hutcherson is hoping that if enough mouthbreathing snakehandlers own shares of Microsoft, they can force the company to stop these blasphemous practices and drive those homosexual sinners back into the closet, as God intended.
Being a man of God (supposedly), does Ken Hutcherson devote any time or effort toward poverty, homelessness and the fifty million Americans who have no health insurance? No, no and no.
Hutcherson tried to intimidate Microsoft’s leaders at their last annual shareholders’ meeting. “I could work with you, or I could be your worst nightmare…I hope to hear from you and if not, you will hear from me.”
Think how much America could be improved if liberal and populist organizations used these same tactics. Imagine, millions of people buying shares of Halliburton, Exxon, Monsanto, the largest banks — and forcing them to change their destructive policies.
The Far Right is extremely diligent and persistent and they have a no-holds-barred shrewdness that the Left could use. Since the 1970s the Right has had stealth candidates infiltrating thousands of school boards and city councils throughout the country. Rightwing think tanks have spent decades pulling strings at the highest levels of government. And now we have Ken Hutcherson’s jugular tactics. If only we could use these methods to solve some REAL problems.
In the meantime: Ken Hutcherson, go perform a reproductive act with your female parental unit.
A new survey
estimates
that 151,000
Iraqis died
of violence
in the three
years
following
the U.S.-led
invasion of
the country.
Roughly nine
of 10 of
those deaths
were a
consequence
of U.S.
military
operations,
insurgent
attacks and
sectarian
warfare.
The survey,
conducted by
the Iraqi
government
and the
World Health
Organization,
also found a
60 percent
increase in
nonviolent
deaths --
everything
from
childhood
infections
to kidney
failure --
during the
period.
I haven't had
time to do a
complete
analysis, but
right off the
bat you can see
some problems.
First, note that
both the news
articles and the
report itself
quantify only
the 151,000
deaths from
"violence." This
does make it
clear how
inaccurate the
methodology of
Iraq Body Count
(its much lower
numbers relying
on published
media reports,
and counting
"civilians"
only) is, but
it's very
misleading with
respect to the
earlier
Johns Hopkins
studies. Why?
Because the
Johns Hopkins
study was a
study of "excess
deaths," not
deaths by
violence only.
Unfortunately,
although the WHO
study says they
"found a 60
percent increase
in nonviolent
deaths," they
don't quantify
how many that
amounts to, so
comparing its
151,000 total to
the Johns
Hopkins study is
difficult
indeed.
Also,
note the March
2006 end date.
Nothing wrong
with that, the
study had to end
sometime, but
there's no
attempt, either
in the press or
in the study
itself, to
project from
that number or
even to mention
it. 21 months
have passed
since March
2006, and a lot
more Iraqis have
died (indeed,
official numbers
have said that
last year saw an
even higher
Iraqi death toll
than the ones
that preceded
it). Clearly,
then, the
"151,000"
number, which is
now going to
assume the role
of gospel, is
starting out
incorrect, even
if it was
correct as of
March 2006.
But the
biggest problem
is the
non-violent
death problem.
There seems to
be an idea that
only violent
deaths "count,"
as if people
dying from poor
public health
conditions, poor
nutrition, or
poor health care
are somehow less
dead, or as if
the increase in
their numbers is
any less
attributable to
the invasion.
Consider
Table 3 from
the study. For
all ages,
subtracting out
the violent
component gives
3.07 deaths per
1000
person-years
from disease and
other
non-violent
causes before
the invasion,
and 4.92 after,
a 60% increase.
Violent deaths
went from 0.1 to
1.09. I'm no
statistician,
but even though
that's a 10-fold
increase, the
absolute
increase of 1.85
deaths per 1000
person-years
from non-violent
causes would
seem to be 70%
larger. So if
there were
151,000
additional
violent deaths
by March 2006,
my crude
calculation
(which I am
very willing
to have
corrected by a
real
statistician)
gives 256,000
deaths from
non-violent
causes, for a
total of 407,000
Iraqis dead as a
result of the
invasion by
March 2006.
That's three
years of data,
which means it's
11,300/month.
Add an another
21 months and
that's another
238,000 people,
for a grand
total of
645,000, more
than four times
higher than the
number you're
now going to be
hearing bandied
about in the
corporate media.
One hell of a
lot of people.
Or, to be blunt
about it, former
people. They're
dead now.
P.S.:
Shall we start a
poll as to when
the first time a
reporter will
ask George Bush
about these
numbers? I'll
place my bet on
"never."
BLOG
RECOMMENDATION
Are you into the
spooky side of
life? Then
you might just
want to check
out a blog
dedicated to
spooky America.
Check out
True Hauntings
of America.
Princeton
University
Reveals How the
GOP Steals
Elections
From Len Hart
for
The Existential
Cowboy
Unless
something is
done, the GOP
will steal the
next election as
well. Unless
something is
done, this
series of
primaries means
absolutely
nothing. The fix
is undoubtedly
in. Unless
something is
done, the GOP
will walk away
with another
stolen election,
another GOP
nincompoop will
foist upon the
nation his
personal and
vainglorious
ambitions of
empire. The
Military/Industrial
complex is
licking its
chops and
theocrats are
lining up to
play Torquemada.
The following
video was
produced by
Princeton
University. It
explains
precisely how
the votes are
stolen and will
be stolen again.
Princeton tested
an AccuVote-TS
which it
obtained from a
private party.
The experiements
were designed to
determine
whether the
machine could be
hacked under
"real election
practices",
realistic
scenarios in the
real world.
Princeton found
the machine
vulnerable to a
number of
"extremely
serious attacks"
that "undermine
undermine the
accuracy and
credibility of
the vote counts
it produces." In
other words,
DieBold machines
can be hacked
and most have
been.
Princeton points
out that
computer
specialists are
skeptical of
Direct Recording
Machines (DRE),
essentially
general purpose
machines running
specialized
election
software. The
biggest flaw,
according to
Princeton, is
that DREs are
dependent upon
the "correct and
secure operation
of complex
software
programs" In the
real word, that
simply does not
happen.
Ominously, DRE
failures most
likely go
undetected.
Main
Findings The
main
findings of
our study
are:
Malicious
software
running
on a
single
voting
machine
can
steal
votes
with
little
if any
risk of
detection.
The
malicious
software
can
modify
all of
the
records,
audit
logs,
and
counters
kept by
the
voting
machine,
so that
even
careful
forensic
examination
of these
records
will
find
nothing
amiss.
We have
constructed
demonstration
software
that
carries
out this
vote-stealing
attack.
Anyone
who has
physical
access
to a
voting
machine,
or to a
memory
card
that
will
later be
inserted
into a
machine,
can
install
said
malicious
software
using a
simple
method
that
takes as
little
as one
minute.
In
practice,
poll
workers
and
others
often
have
unsupervised
access
to the
machines.
AccuVote-TS
machines
are
susceptible
to
voting-machine
viruses
—
computer
viruses
that can
spread
malicious
software
automatically
and
invisibly
from
machine
to
machine
during
normal
pre-and
post-election
activity.
We have
constructed
a
demonstration
virus
that
spreads
in this
way,
installing
our
demonstration
vote-stealing
program
on every
machine
it
infects.
While
some of
these
problems
can be
eliminated
by
improving
Diebold's
software,
others
cannot
be
remedied
without
replacing
the
machines'
hardware.
Changes
to
election
procedures
would
also be
required
to
ensure
security.
Abstract
This
paper
presents
a fully
independent
security
study of
a
Diebold
AccuVote-TS
voting
machine,
including
its
hardware
and
software.
We
obtained
the
machine
from a
private
party.
Analysis
of the
machine,
in light
of real
election
procedures,
shows
that it
is
vulnerable
to
extremely
serious
attacks.
For
example,
an
attacker
who gets
physical
access
to a
machine
or its
removable
memory
card for
as
little
as one
minute
could
install
malicious
code;
malicious
code on
a
machine
could
steal
votes
undetectably,
modifying
all
records,
logs,
and
counters
to be
consistent
with the
fraudulent
vote
count it
creates.
An
attacker
could
also
create
malicious
code
that
spreads
automatically
and
silently
from
machine
to
machine
during
normal
election
activities
— a
voting-machine
virus.
We have
constructed
working
demonstrations
of these
attacks
in our
lab.
Mitigating
these
threats
will
require
changes
to the
voting
machine's
hardware
and
software
and the
adoption
of more
rigorous
election
procedures.
An update: Iran
has charged that
US Navy video
purporting to be
Iran boats is a
clumsy fake,
obviously
intended to
provoke Iran
and/or world
opinion. Are we
dealing with
another Gulf of
Tonkin incident?
Sorry Bush! You
are the little
shit who cried
wolf. I believe
Iran! No one
believes your
sorry ass
anymore! The
high ground
belongs to Iran
--not you and
your sorry,
criminal
administration.
Iran has
called the
grainy video
and audio
released by
the
Pentagon,
allegedly
showing
Iranian
Revolutionary
Guard Boats
confronting
US warships,
"fabricated"
and accused
America of
using
archive
footage to
stitch them
up.
"The footage
released by
the U.S.
Navy was
compiled
using file
pictures and
the audio
has been
fabricated,"
the
English-language
channel
Press TV
quoted a
senior in
the
Revolutionary
Guards as
saying.
"The voices
and pictures
broadcast by
the Pentagon
about the
latest
incident
have been
fabricated
so clumsily
that the
pictures and
voices in
the video
are not even
synchronized,"
added the
source.
US National
Security
Adviser
Stephen
Hadley
echoed
President
Bush's
earlier
description
of the
Iranian move
as
"provocative."
"This is a
provocative
act - not a
smart thing
to do, and
they are
going to
have to take
responsibility
for the
consequences,
if they do
it again,"
Hadley said,
adding that
his comments
should not
be seen as a
threat.
On Tuesday,
The Pentagon
released a
short video
that showed
Iranian
speed boats
nipping
around US
warships in
the Persian
Gulf, with
audio of
heavily-accented
English
threatening,
"I am coming
to you. ...
You will
explode
after ...
minutes." In
the video,
the Iranian
boats appear
to ignore
repeated
warnings
from the US
ships.
Twenty Questions
I would Like
Asked of the
Presidential
Candidates
From Libhom for
Godless Liberal
Homo
1. Would you support banning Halliburton, its
subsidiaries, and any companies spun off of Halliburton
from all federal contracts?
2. Do you support including sexual orientation, gender
identity, and disability in hate crimes laws?
3. Are you in favor of repealing NAFTA?
4. What would you do to improve US relations with
Venezuela?
5. What you eliminate “faith-based” federal funding,
which discriminates against religious minorities and the
non-religious?
6. Would you create tax penalties for corporations that
move their headquarters oversees to avoid taxes?
7. How much longer will you keep any US troops in Iraq?
8. Do you support requiring paper ballots in all US
elections?
9. Would you support an SUV tax to fund an expansion in
public transportation?
10. What would you do to improve access to abortion?
11. Would you support legislation repealing the legal
fiction that corporations are “persons”?
12. Do you support legalizing medical marijuana?
13. Do you support installing solar power systems in
military bases to prevent global warming and make the
installations more secure from potential power outages?
14) Do you support a windfall profit tax on oil
companies to fund solar, wind, and geothermal power?
15) Do you favor repealing the most favored nation trade
status for China?
16) Would you cut funding to Israel in an amount equal
to the money Israel is spending on illegal settlements
in the West Bank?
17) Would you put an acreage limit on farm subsidies so
big agribusiness can not get any of the taxpayer money?
18) Do you support single-payer healthcare?
19) Should crack cocaine penalties be kept higher than
those for powder cocaine?
20) Should substantial fines be levied against
corporations that fire employees for union organizing?
Revelations Abound in Edmonds
Article Aftermath
From
Station Agent for
Ice
Station Tango
In November I mentioned that no one in the American media will cover gagged whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. They're scared shitless of this person.
So, she did what many other people with damaging information about the Bush administration have done, go to the foreign press.
Here's some of the material covered in easy to understand bullet points:
Edmonds speaks Turkish and Farsi so the FBI recruited her after 9/11.
Part of Edmonds’s job at the FBI was to translate thousands of hours of conversations by Turkish diplomatic and political targets covertly recorded by the agency.
Edmonds testified before closed sessions of Congress and the 9/11 commission.
Many of the key points of her testimony remain secret.
Edmonds has decided to divulge information she gave to our leaders because they failed to act.
Edmonds says she heard evidence that one well-known, former senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington for information, then selling the information to Pakistani and others on the black market.
The Times contacted the person who strongly denied the claims.
Edmonds claims this person "was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position[s] and political objectives.”
Edmonds claims the FBI has gathered evidence against senior Pentagon officials, some well known, who aided foreign agents.
Edmonds claims that while translating tapes that were evidence in an investigation into links between the Turks and Pakistani, Israeli and US targets, she heard evidence that pointed to money laundering, drug smuggling and attempts to acquire nuclear and conventional weapons technology.
Edmonds claims what she heard was clearly damning.
Edmonds claims that while the FBI investigated, "several arms of the government were shielding what was going on.”
Edmonds claims that Turkish and Israeli moles were placed in military and academic institutions which handle nuclear technology.
Edmonds claims there were several "transactions" of nuclear material every month.
Edmonds claims Pakistan was among the buyers.
Edmonds believes the network obtained information from every nuclear agency in the United States.
Edmonds claims the high-ranking State Department official provided some of the Turkish and Israeli moles.
Edmonds claims the moles were primarily PhD students with security clearances.
Edmonds claims she heard the high-ranking State Department official arrange to pick up a $15,000 cash bribe. The high-ranking State Department official was to drop off the package at an agreed upon location.
Edmonds claims to have heard "at least three transactions like this over a period of 2½ years."
She strongly believes there are more.
Edmonds claims the Pakistani operation was led by ISI chief, General Mahmoud Ahmad.
She left the FBI in 2002
Intelligence analysts say that members of the ISI were close to Al-Qaeda before and after 9/11. Indeed, Ahmad was accused of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks.
Frankly, I don't understand it all myself. There's way more eye-popping stuff in there. The Times explains their methodology in corroborating elements of her story. It's all quite amazing and no one is saying anything about it on American television because they think we can't handle the truth.
More of the puzzle has come to light since Sunday.
From Inky99 at DKos:
In The Bomb in the Shadows: Proliferation, Corruption and the Way of the World, Chris Floyd takes the ball (more like a flaming bombshell) from Sibel Edmonds and runs with it.
It's an incredible read.
In case you have primary-induced amnesia (and I fear the world will), the UK's Times published an explosive story over the weekend based on an interview with translator and whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, in which she finally was able to tell a great deal of her story which the Powers That Be in the United States and the Bush administration have managed to suppress, by literally gagging her (legally speaking).
Chris Floyd describes this story as "one of the most important stories of the last quarter-century: how American officials sold nuclear arms technology to illegal proliferators -- including ideological allies of al Qaeda -- in return for bribes and other inducements. This widespread corruption has been protected from exposure by the highest levels of the U.S. government, which has gone to enormous lengths to protect the truth from coming out. The entire planet has been put at grave risk by the greed -- and geopolitical gamesmanship -- that lies behind this criminal enterprise, which actually is even more extensive, and goes back further in time, than the newspaper's remarkable revelations."
Thank you Antarctica. Good night. I need to go lay down.
More Reaction
to the Exposure of Ron Paul
From
Ron Chusid for
Liberal Values
Everyone’s coming out of the woodwork now to admit that they knew the truth about Ron Paul all along. I, along with a handful of other bloggers, have been posting on this for quite a while, but it took an article at The New Republic to change the conventional wisdom. Virginia Postrel previously thought that Paul wasn’t worth writing about, but apparently was moved to post after receiving this email:
My wife and I were big Ron Paul supporters (until yesterday, in fact). We’re also 29 and 30 years old, which means we weren’t paying attention to Ron Paul in the 90’s. We donated money to the campaign, and I suppose we failed to do the due diligence on Paul, as we didn’t dig through archives of his old newsletters. We feel terrifically betrayed, not only by Ron Paul, but by older libertarians like yourself for not publicly warning us about him. If you knew he was such bad news and that he was becoming one of the biggest mainstream representatives of libertarian thought, why didn’t you warn us? I’ve been reading your work for about ten years, and I consider you a very fair and smart writer and if you had given a public warning about Ron Paul, I, for one, would have listened. But now my wife and I and probably thousands of other young libertarians and libertarian sympathizers have been tricked into supporting something that sickens me. Even your colleague at the Atlantic, Andrew Sullivan, was taken in among lots of other public people. I’m stunned by what Ron Paul turned out to be, but I’m also stunned that waited to mention him until it was too late to do any good.
Considering that Paul never had a chance to have a real impact on the Republican race, her previous lack of interest in commenting on him is understandable. Also justifiable is her questioning of those who have promoted Paul’s campaign while white washing his record but who should have known better:
I do fault my friends at Reason, who are much cooler than I’ll ever be and who, scornful of the earnestness that takes politics seriously, apparently didn’t do their homework before embracing Paul as the latest indicator of libertarian cachet. For starters, they might have asked my old boss Bob Poole about Ron Paul; I remember a board member complaining about Paul’s newsletters back in the early ’90s. Besides, people as cosmopolitan as Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch should be able to detect something awry in Paul’s populist appeals. (Note that by “cosmopolitan” I do not mean “Jewish.” I mean cosmopolitan.) I suspect they did but decided it was more useful to spin things their way than to take Paul’s record and ideas seriously. As for Andrew Sullivan, his political infatuations are not his strong point as a commentator.
I’ve recently posted a run down of other libertarian responses to the recent article. Many others like Postrel were well aware of Paul’s past and some have also been posting on this during the campaign. Much of the talk is centering around those who wrote under Paul’s name and the relationship to Paul. Doug Mataconis summarizes this discussion and concludes, “libertarians need to ask themselves why the philosophy of freedom is attracting racist troglodytes.” This is something I’ve discussed many times, questioning whether Paul really promoted a philosophy of freedom. Paul’s philosophy is really one of social conservativism (with a few quirks), opposition to all foreign entanglements, and states’ rights. While his views have certain areas of overlap with libertarianism, there were always enough areas of difference for libertarians to have known better than to embrace his views or the man.
Tim Cavanaugh raises a similar point that “there’s a discussion to be held among libertarians about why this political philosophy seems to draw so many (classically) illiberal figures; and the hubbub over Paul’s newsletters, which are revelatory whether Paul wrote them or not, seems like an opportunity.”
In considering who actually might have written the articles quoted by The New Republic, Wendy McElroy writes:
The identity of the author of the ‘objectionable’ material from past issues of Ron Paul’s Newsletter — material that is currently being used by major media to skewer Paul [see blog post below] — is an open secret within the circles in which I run. The news accounts refer to him merely as an “aide.” We call him by his first name.
Most of us “old-time” libertarians have known about this sad period of Ron Paul’s career from the get-go. We know that it was a lapse on his part. But we who opposed it (and not all of us did) put much of the blame on the writers involved, not on Paul, who was, after all, juggling family, medicine, politics, and continued study of actual economics. That Paul didn’t realize what he was doing to his own moral stance is amazing. His style is one of earnest moralizing. That fits his character. The ugliness of this career move speaks a sad story.
Dem.
Candidates speak after New Hampshire
primary
From
Eric A. Hopp for
Oh
Well
Here are the top three Democratic candidates' speeches after the New Hampshire primary.
I will have to admit that all three Democratic candidates gave very strong speeches at the end of the New Hampshire primary. This is going to be a fun race.
"The single was released at the height of the controversy surrounding John Lennon's remarks about Christianity and this has been cited as part of the reason that it failed to reach #1 on all US charts. Despite this, it sold 1,200,000 copies in only four weeks and earned the Beatles their twenty-first US Gold Record award, beating the record set by Elvis Presley."
The bit about Lennon's Jesus remark is rubbish--conservative Christians never had that much influence on what everyone else thought, even when Lennon said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. The real reason "Yellow Submarine" did not reach #1 on every US chart was that it had to compete with it's own flip side--"Eleanor Rigby".
We first heard the song in the summer of 1966, alongside very disturbing images of the Viet Nam war, the first war televised so that you could enjoy it as you had your dinner.
With Yellow Submarine, everyone could tell that something had happened to the Beatles. Within a few years, everyone that wanted to know, did...by direct experience.
Since then, both Jesus and the Beatles have remained quite popular.
...The U.S. political system is based on what political scientists call a single-member district plurality (SMDP). That's a fancy way of saying that the U.S. elects representatives from particular districts, with the person who gets the most votes in a district (also called a plurality) winning the seat. Each district is winner-take-all, and votes in one district have no effect on other districts. Presidential elections, though nationwide contests, are likewise really state-by-state races, thanks to the Electoral College, in which every state except Maine and Nebraska awards all of its electoral votes to whichever candidate wins a plurality of the state's votes. 
