Ah, Those Southern Trees & Their Strange Fruit

Shit like this makes me nostalgic for them good, ol' days when us Whaht fokes could jist lynch any nigra what pissed us off:
Black High School Students in Louisiana Threatened With Lynching

"In September 2006, a group of African-American high school students in Jena, Louisiana asked the school for permission to sit beneath a 'whites only' shade tree. There was an unwritten rule that blacks couldn't sit beneath the tree. The school said they didn't care where students sat. The next day, students arrived at school to see three nooses (in school colors) hanging from the tree ....," writes Rick Perlstein of TomPaine.

Jena's up in the 'cracker-barrel/po'-whaht traish' part of the state, north of Cajun country; around Alexandria, where Barksdale AFB is. I wouldn't live there on a fucking stipend. Here's Wikipedia on "race relations" in Jena:

Racial tensions surfaced in Jena on September 1, 2006, when hangman's nooses were discovered in a tree on the high school campus. Despite the school head recommending the noose-hangers be expelled, the board overruled him and the three white student perpetrators were suspended from school for three days, what some called a mere "slap on the wrist"[2]. On November 30, an arson fire destroyed the main academic building at the school. On December 4, a fight broke out on campus, after which six African-American students were arrested and charged with attempted second-degree murder. Law enforcement officers told the Alexandria Daily Town Talk they have found no links between the noose incident, the arson fire, and subsequent fights. The six accused of attempted second-degree murder are black and were fighting a white student after a week of intimidation by white students, including the one who was assaulted.[3].

On june 26 the first day of trial for Bell, one of the defendants, the prosecutor agreed to reduce the charges for Bell to aggravated second degree battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated second degree battery.[4] As of june 26 there is no word as to whether the charges of the other 5 (for which the trial date is later) will be reduced.
Hence, the town has gained international notoriety as an example of the alleged "new 'stealth' racism" that lives on in America

I have been told by several black folks they prefer living in the South, where the bigotry and racism are obvious, to living places where it's less evident, but not less toxic or pervasive.

WASF...And Everybody (Now) Knows...

...That the fix is irrevocably in, the deck is irreversibly stacked, the dice are totally loaded, the money’s invisibly marked, the dealer’s OBVIOUSLY cheating, and the fucking house knows???

The reason that the Bushviks don't seem to care about Abu Gonzo, and the corruption of the DoJ is that they know that with the present composition of the SCROTUS, they don't hafta worry about a Constitutional Crisis, cuz the Opus Dei majority will decide in favor of the Unitary Executive. The decisions announced this week only make the obvious point...

The Dems also know this, anbd this is why they will NOT provoke one...


WASF: We Are SOOOOOOOO Fucked.

You Coulda Knocked Me over Widda Fuckin' Feather

Oil spikes above $70 a barrel

By JOHN WILEN, AP Business Writer 18 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Oil futures spiked above $70 a barrel on Thursday for the first time since Sept. 1 on a government report that showed gasoline inventories dropped unexpectedly as the summer driving season neared its peak.

Retail gasoline prices, meanwhile, broke a monthlong decline and held steady overnight at a national average price of $2.975 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Gas prices had been falling steadily since their May 24 peak of $3.227 a gallon.

I for one would NEVER have fucking imagined that there would occur a fucking spike in the fucking cost of oil, just in fucking time for fucking Fourth of July holiday driving, would you?

The Opus Dei Five Just Reversed Brown v. Tulsa

About two hours ago, the motherfuckers did it...
So much for Stare Decisis...but we already knew that, din't we?

Schools Must Ignore Race in Placing Pupils, Justices Say

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: June 28, 2007

Filed at 1:53 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected integration plans in two major public school districts but left the door open for the limited use of race to achieve diversity in schools.

The decision in cases affecting how students are assigned to schools in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle could imperil similar plans in hundreds of districts nationwide, and it further restricted how public school systems may attain racial diversity.

The court split, 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts announcing the court's judgment. The court's four liberal justices dissented.

''The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,'' Roberts said.

We Are SOOOOOOO Fucked!
You think it's an exaggeration? Wait 'n' see, folx...
Ya see what happens when the gutless fux who are SUPPOSED to be an Opposition party refuse to stand up and actually oppose the Regime?

Have Your Carcass!

$5005.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth

My truck (1999, f-250 superduty, 110k mi) is worth more than I am...

(Via scienceblogs.com/pharyngula)

"...(I)f it's constitutional, then I'm a banana."

The Bush White House man who wasn't there isn't the president. It's Vice President Dick Cheney, who, if you believe in karma, may be returning in the next life as an especially pernicious mildew. Or, if the gods are feeling larky, decorative kale.
--Michael Winship, TruthOut contributor

Re: Cheney's bizarre claims to be apart and/or above normal Congressional oversight.

Support TruthOut...

Another Great Afghan Success Story

Warlords Celebrate Record Poppy Harvest

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Afghanistan produced dramatically more opium in 2006, increasing its yield by roughly 49 percent from a year earlier and pushing global opium production to a new record high, a U.N. report said Tuesday.

Opium production in Afghanistan increased from 4,100 metric tons in 2005 to 6,100 metric tons in 2006, according to the 2007 World Drug Report released by the Vienna-based United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Opium is the main ingredient for heroin.

In 2006, Afghanistan accounted for 92 percent of global illicit opium production, up from 70 percent in 2000 and 52 percent a decade earlier. The higher yields in Afghanistan have brought global opium production to a new record high of 6,610 metric tons in 2006, a 43 percent increase over 2005.

Progress, at last!!!

WASF!

(sOTto voce:)
Weeeeeee

Are

Sooooooooooooooooo

Fucked!

Opus Dei and the CorpoRats have staked an irrebuttable claim to OWN the SCROTUS...

The Bushevik SCROTUS today castrated the Endangered Species Act, McCain-Feingold, and strengthened the claims of the Fucktards that, "Tinker" notwithstanding, students do shed their rights at the school-house door...

The latter, of course, only confirms the various critical observers' claims that the primary curriculum of the schools is orthodoxy and the purpose is indoctrination...

(SLAP!) THIS IS NOT FUNNY, PUNK!

There is no hope for liberty, for openness, for at least 20 years...or 'til syphillitic senility serendipitously overtakes the abysmal Uncle Thomas (though, as with Raygun, how would one tell?) Scalito played to form, and Roberts authored two of the majority decisions.

Under the penumbra of the doctrine of imprimatur...that speech-at-school carries the impress of the authority of the state?

I do not want to start on the EPA revision. Scalito? phagh!!!!

And it will be through these expedients--through packed courts and polluted agencies--that the Busheviks will continue to perpetrate their predations on the ability and the will of the People for self-governance long after their (presumptive) removal in 18 months.

The next regime, even if it were Dem, will not expunge the fascist sympathies embedded in the fundamental institutions of the Nation. That's the work of attrition...

If you pray, pray for John Paul Stevens...

Addendum @ 22:04, MDT: I was going to publish this as a comment at FDL, but was abashed, because i imagined it would likely be read/moderated as vulgar, or distracting, or something. It's what they call 'the chilling effect.'

Supportin' Them Troops: Extended Deployments and Crappy Treatment

(Both of these stories were collected by TruthOut.Org, which deserves your support, even a small donation.)

Repeat Deployments Lead to Long-Term Mental Disorders

With troops facing extended combat tours without relief that are unprecedented in US history, experts say even the expanded health care proposed by the Army will not prevent significant numbers of soldiers from suffering life-changing mental disorders.

Gov't Struggles to Care for Wounded GIs

America's war wounded number between 35,000 and 53,000. More of them are coming home, with injuries of a scope and magnitude the government did not predict and is now struggling to treat.

Ya think there's any dots to connect here?

The Country Will NEVER Return To The (More) Innocent, Pre-Bushevik Days

If you pay attention to history, one of the things you learn is that when events occur which undo major facets of popular sovereignty, those elements of popular sovereignty are NEVER restored to their previous strength, power, or authority. Revolutions decay into tyrannies, always. It is just a matter of time. The USer version is no exception.

The PNAC/Zionist/Fascist coup d'etat, mid-wived into the world by Sandra Day O'Connor (may her innards turn to feculent jelly and may she reek of corruption such that her presence may not be borne in any society!), has corrupted, weakened, disabled, or undermined EVERY instrument and institution of democratic self-governance to which it has set its attention. Every branch of government, every department within every branch, every bureau within every department within every branch, every single aspect of what used to set the USA apart from its peers in the world: everything they have touched they have turned to shit.

Vide: The Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches are all irremediably corrupt at their very top-most reaches , and since "democracy" in the USA has become a top-down project, we may not expect to see their renaissance. The army and marines are devastated by the ICORP in Iraq and Afghanistan. The DoJ is a laughingstock, the SCROTUS has betrayed its partisanship for all to see, the vote is poisoned by electronic fraud and theft, the regulatory agencies which might occasionally have been counted on to rein in the excesses of the corpoRat oliogarchs all meekly accede to their masters' wishes.

This was no accident. This was in fact their orders, their agenda, and their instructions from the CorpoRats and pollutocrats who are their paymasters and censors.

It is delusional in the extreme to think/hope a 'new' president, cabinet, etc.--no matter who: Obama, HRC, Edwards, Dodd, Richardson, any of 'em--will set things to rights and restore the country to the status it held prior to the Bushevik reign. The interests of the corpoRat/national security state will NOT be denied.

As I think it was Santayana who noted, we are totally fucked. All that's left is to get over it.
./

A Dog Story, by PanamaRed

PANAMA HEARS A DOG STORY
(H/t to m'pal, JT in Santa Fe, and to Red for his humanity)
Rockvale, TN, June 2007 - -
I took a ride a couple of days ago and picked up some cement blocks from a nice old man I'd met at the VA. There were a lot of them, well over one hundred, and it took me two trips over two days, so I kinda got to know my block benefactor a little bit.

The guy I got them from, a fellow VA client, went in the Army when he was 19, in 1967. He was a sniper, and he says that being a sniper kinda distances you from your comrades, what with you hiding up in trees for days at a time and, sniping being kind of unsavory and sneaky and just plain not honest, hell, it's murder plain and simple, so you don't develop many close buddies in the service.

In 1967 I was 22. So I got just a few years on him. This poor f*cker looks about twice my age, has had five heart attacks and after the last one tried to commit suicide, which they saved him from and put him in the nuthouse out at VA, which the denizens often call Club Meds.

His name is James. James is, like a lot of those we refer to as "lacking in social skills", somewhat of a misanthrope. That much contact with first the Viet Cong and now the Veterans' Administration will do that to you.

His social outlet, the thing that keeps his groove thing going the little bit that it does, is that he keeps a bunch of animals, mostly dogs but a few goats and turkeys and the odd interloping wild thing, upon whom he lavishes all the overflowing goodness of his f*cked up and failing heart that the world wants nothing to do with.

He told me a dog story, and that, finally, is the subject of this note.

A coupla years back, there appeared on James's land a pit bulldog who would hide at the edge of the woods and watch all that was going on in the yard. But when James tried to approach him he would run away.

James ultimately did become his trusted friend, though, and got him to the vet and he was full of scars. The vet said he thought the dog had been used as a "training dog" for bringing out the beast, which they call "blooding" around here, in fighting pit bulldogs. Thus he had gotten all physically f*cked up, as well as developing a deep and keen mistrust of anything on two or even four legs.

I'm jumping ahead in this part here as a set up to the story, so you can get some idea of the total desperation, desolation and sadness of this critter before he found his way to James's.

Around here we got a lotta goats. In some places the ground is rocky and you can't run cows there, so goats is it. Some folks keep sheep as well. Which brings us to the Great Pyrenees breed of dog. What a noble creature! The complete opposite of the pit bull prototype, the Pyrenees is innately nurturing and caring for all around him. They live with their charges, adopt the herd as their pack and, looking pretty much the same as the creatures they care for, provide total protection for sheep and the famous Tennessee fainting goats.

Around the time the pit bull showed up and was hiding at the edge of the woods, James had just acquired a couple of Pyrenees pups to run with his goats and turkeys. He kept the pups in a cage in his yard; wanting
them to stay outdoor dogs he didn't bring them into his house.

Each day he'd look out at the sad pit bull at the edge of the woods and wonder if maybe he shouldn't put some food out for him. But he decided against doing that, because then the dog would have no incentive to come closer, would simply continue to hang out, fed but unloved and unsocialized, at the edge of the woods. So
he hoped hunger would bring the dog to him.

But he began to notice a strange occurrence.

Every morning, the Pyrenees pups' dish would be outside their cage. He couldn't figure it out. Meantime the pit
showed no sign of being hungry, was gaining weight in fact.

And then accidentally James got up early one morning and was looking out the window of his doublewide, and he saw the pups pushing the dish under the mesh of their cage to the pitbull waiting outside. So they were sharing their food with this strange sad little guy.

Well, it nearly broke James's heart of course, this display of altruistic behavior on the part of these little pups, no more than three months old. "Just part of the way Pyrenees is, I guess," he said to me.

So of course there was no point now to withholding food from the pit so James started feeding him, first at the edge of the woods, then bringing the food dish ever a little closer to the house, until he finally won him over.

Now the Pyrenees pups are grown and watch over his goats and ducks and turkeys. Their names are Rocket and Comet.

The pit bulldog is still there, too.
James named him Pretty Boy.

In Peace and Love
Panama

Medical Marijuana: "Kaneh Bosum" Sanctioned by Biblical Texts

Jun-14-2007 00:02
Dr. Phillip Leveque Salem-News.com

For those afflicted, there is no escaping PTSD, but sufferers may have some relief in sight....

(The Money Quote)

..Many veterans with PTSD, especially those from Viet Nam, discovered that marijuana was better than any of the aforementioned medications. However, the official position of V.A. doctors under government regulations are not even allowed to discuss with patients that marijuana might help.

Medical marijuana acts as a homeostatic modulator, which means that it is used to help patients get back into a normal state almost to the extent and cause of their PTSD and many other physical/ mental/ psychological conditions.

Medical marijuana reduces pain and memories of pain, modulates emotional reactivity, modulates negative affect (depression), relaxes skeletal and smooth muscle, modulates mood decreasing anxiety and insomnia and acts as an antidepressant without adverse effects.

The most important feature of medical marijuana is the lack of or minimal adverse effects. It is true that overdoses can cause panic or anxiety effects but patients soon learn to avoid them by inhalation of marijuana medical fumes with a vaporizer.

The most useful attribute of vaporizers is that a patient can easily determine the titration of his inhalation dose within seconds to the dosage which provides relief. The country of Israel, which has been in near constant warfare for fifty plus years, has recognized the benefits of medical marijuana for the treatment of PTSD. It is hopeful that their experience will soon get to the U.S. Of course, the Israelis have the Hebrew bible to fall back on. Kaneh bosum (cannabis) was used in biblical times as medicine.

There's more of the story here.

Too Many Medical "Professionals" Assume Mantle Of Moralists

Dr. Who? or Dr. Who-da-fuck-do-you-think-you are?

This is just fucking outrageous.
First it was pharmacists.
Some of this bunch of over-rated pill-counters started to interpose their 'religious/moral' codes between their clients and legally prescribed medicines, refusing to fill prescriptions for both birth control scrips and abortifacents on the grounds that the use of such products offended their anti-choice 'principles.'

Now, according to a story running on MSNBC today (linked in the headline, above), physicians are beginning to intrude their 'principles' on abortion into their care for rape victims seeking 'the morning-after' treatment to prevent their bearing their rapist's child.

The story is admittedly anecdotal. One ass-whole MD in DumbFuck, PA, does not make a national emergency. Still, the hospital at which these events occurred is associated with Penn State University. To the extent that such a trend occurs and even increases, it is a concern; an even greater concern when it happens in a teaching hospital. In general, any paper in any decent-sized city with more than one hospital, and a half-decent city-desk editor, oughta put a team of reporters on such a story, because-in my humble opinion--a doctor who refuses to administer or prescribe abortifacents for a rape victim who requests them is guilty of gross ethical violations and should be stripped of the license to practice medicine.

I believe the same to be true about pharmacists. If they cannot do the jobs their licenses entitle them to do, then the licenses ought to be suspended. I do not think Wal-Mart--which was officially in sympathy with its pharmacists who refused to fill certain prescriptions--has rescinded that policy. A customer boycott of Wal-Mart and any other retailer which supports such actions is warranted until and unless they rescind the policy and fire the fucking asshole retail moralists behind their pharmacy counters, and replace them with people who will do their fucking JOBS.

"A Domestic Breed Disappears Every Month"

The UNFAO sounds the alarm over a global threat to farm animal diversity as the pressure of food product industrialization and homogenization erases one breed of chicken, beef cattle, pig, or even rabbit from the surface of the globe every month.

Under pressure from the industrialization and homogenization of food products, one breed of chicken, beef cattle, pig, or even rabbit is now erased from the surface of the globe every month.

This trend deeply worries the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) which sees these disappearances as "the biggest global threat to farm animal diversity," which, at the same time, reduces the ability to confront natural catastrophes such as global warming and the emergence of new diseases, the international organization indicates in a report made public last week.

With the first genetic portrait of breeding stock animals in the world in hand, the FAO is, in fact, sounding the alarm: by always wanting to produce more at lower cost, intensive agriculture is in the process of speeding to its ruin. How? By concentrating on a too-limited number of animal breeds, like the Holstein in the milk-production sector, the Duroc pig for pork-breeding and the Rhode Island Red and Leghorn chickens, with, as an inevitable consequence, "a risk of extinction of several other indigenous and heirloom varieties," but also an "erosion of genetic diversity" that today's children risk paying for tomorrow, as one may read in the 500-page document.

Entitled, "The State of Zoogenetic Global Resources for Food and Agriculture," this report was unveiled last Thursday by the Commission of Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture during a meeting in Rome, Italy

The same forces that are arrayed to overthrow all NATURAL diversity in the name of homogeneity and industrialized predictability are now threatening the sphere of domesticated life. The narrowing of diversity among domestics echoes and exacerbates the effects of the same process occurring concurrently in nature as humans exterminate one species after another, and fuck up the remaining ecosphere so badly that the remaining creatures go extinct.

There's MUCH more, and none of it encouraging, if you follow the link in the headline here.

Toxic, the Tank Engine

On Slate (and elsewhere) today:

By Christopher Beam
Posted Wednesday, June 20, 2007, at 6:55 PM ET

The manufacturer of Thomas the Tank Engine trains recalled some of the toys last week after discovering that they were decorated with lead paint. Like many other toys that have been recalled in recent months, the trains were made in China. Don't toys have to pass safety tests before they hit store shelves?

No. Toys sold in America are required by law to meet safety standards, but all presale testing is voluntary. Some of the biggest no-nos—selling a toy that's a choking hazard or using lead paint—are covered by federal laws like the Federal Hazardous Substances Act and the Child Safety Protection Act. When it comes to other safety matters, the federal government and local governments will often look to the voluntary standards set by ASTM International (originally known as the American Society for Testing and Materials).

I take it that USers aren't gonna appreciate higher tariffs on cheap shit we import from China and elsewhere to conduct safety tests. But otherwise th cheap shit will continue to be dangerous.

For the record: NPR reports this morning (6/22) that inspectors did not discover this for at LEAST two years.

Schlozman Decrees Minority Female DoJ Employees 'Not American Enough'

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer (via TruthOut.org)
Thursday, June 21, 2007; A01

Karen Stevens, Tovah Calderon and Teresa Kwong had a lot in common. They had good performance ratings as career lawyers in the Justice Department's civil rights division. And they were minority women transferred out of their jobs two years ago -- over the objections of their immediate supervisors -- by Bradley Schlozman, then the acting assistant attorney general for civil rights.

Schlozman ordered supervisors to tell the women that they had performance problems or
that the office was overstaffed. But one lawyer, Conor Dugan, told colleagues that the recent Bush appointee had confided that his real motive was to "make room for some good Americans" in that high-impact office, according to four lawyers who said they heard the account from Dugan.

In another politically tinged conversation recounted by former colleagues, Schlozman asked a supervisor if a career lawyer who had voted for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a onetime political rival of President Bush, could still be trusted.

Schlozman has acknowledged in sworn congressional testimony that he had boasted of hiring Republicans and conservatives, but he denied taking improper actions against the division's career officials. That account was challenged by six officials in the division who said in interviews that they either overhead him making brazen political remarks about career employees or witnessed him making personnel decisions with apparent political motivation.

Schlozman's efforts to hire political conservatives for career jobs throughout the division are now being examined as part of a wide-ranging investigation of the Bush administration's alleged politicization of the Justice Department. The department's inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility confirmed last month that their inquiry, begun in March, will look at hiring, firing and legal-case decisions in the division.

Is it an accident that all of Abu Gonzo's lackeys and lickspittles have the same kind of immature, undescended-testicle male voices?
Please, lord, if you love me, put me in a room alone with that squeaky lil shitwhistle Schlozman.

The damage done to the body politic by the SCROTUS decision installing the Busheviks will not be easily undone. It won't be a matter of months or even years: It will be decades, even generations before we will be rid of the fucknozzzles and shitwhistles hired by the Busheviks to fill 'career' positions within the Govt.

Sneak Previews of Michael Moore's "Sicko" Set For Saturday In Some Markets

NEW YORK, June 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Due to the fantastic reaction SiCKO received at its premieres and pre-release screenings, the overwhelming demand from audiences who want to see the film, and the early reviews from critics, Michael Moore's highly anticipated and entertaining film SiCKO will open in New York City this Friday, June 22nd, one week earlier than originally planned. Sneak previews of SiCKO will be held around the country on the evening of Saturday, June 23rd (see list of cities below).

Click on the link in the headline of this post to learn if it's gonna happen in your market. In Albuquerque, the showing's scheduled for the Century Rio 24, but I don't have the time yet. 7:30 pm.

Is Congress Getting Ready To Fuck Labor Again?

If you gotta ask, you're not paying attention.

From TruthOut.Org (to which I sent a small, tax-deductible donation yesterday)

Dmitri Iglitzin asserts: "Unless advocates are able to successfully change the nature of the debate about this bill [the Employee Free Choice Act], through reference to the advantages of 'presumed enrollment,' it may not even be passed out of the Senate, where it is currently pending, much less obtain enough popular support to persuade the current, or next, president not to veto it."

This, coupled with the (fucking unanimous) SCROTUS opinion last week requiring unions to have affirmative assent from members for 'political' expenditures, pretty much spells the final demise of organized labor as a force in USer politics.

If you're a wage-slave in this country, you are SOOOOOOOOOOOOO fucked! Company stores, next?

If You Have A Boss, You NEED A Union!

Separation Of Church & State? Not In The Chaplaincy of the USer Military

Via TruthOut.Org:
VIDEO Jason Leopold: My Interview With Mikey Weinstein

TO's Jason Leopold reports:
"More than two years ago, Mikey Weinstein launched the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit government watchdog group that aims to keep a close eye on the military to ensure its adherence to the law mandating the separation between church and state, after his son, a student at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO, was harassed about his Jewish faith and urged by other cadets and Air Force officials to convert to Christianity."
Weinstein said the military has been hijacked by a right-wing, fundamentalist Christian agenda, in what appears to be a clear-cut violation of the constitutional separation between church and state, that has rippled across all four branches of the military under President Bush.
The rise of evangelical Christianity inside the military went on steroids after 9/11 under this administration and this White House," Weinstein said in an interview. "This administration has turned the entire Department of Defense into its own personal faith-based initiative."

This whole story just pisses me off. Take the time and regard the interview. Military chaplains rival in oxymoronity such enduring gems as 'military intelligence' or 'giant shrimp'. At very least, in consequence of the presumption that puts a chaplain in the trenches to begin with, a military chaplain ought to foreswear proselytizing while taking the officer's oath.
And the chaplains seem to be not the worst offenders. The reports of retributive duty assignments for insufficient reverence in the squad bay (or on one's dog-tags) are chilling. Hence it would certainly be logically permissible to bestow on the chaplains, for their rapacious orthodoxy and reflexive proselytization, the responsibility for the outrages perpetrated on non-believers--heretics by definition--by the 'saved' leaders of training platoons or whole, entire fucking air bases and everything in-between.

Perhaps it is not coincidental that Mithras, the deity worshipped by the Roman legions beginning sometime before the start of the Common Era and continuing for some centuries thereafter, is the almost literal template for the post-Constantinian life of Jesus.

With their direct connection with the Sky Pilot, I suppose one shouldn't be too surprised that the greatest offenders against the Constitution are in the Air Force.

Go Sign A Petition To Increase FDA's Inspection Budget

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/988291138

My Message to my Congresscritters:
As the US economy becomes more and more 'globalized,' and the gap between rich and poor metastacizes, more and more of our food supply will come from nations wherein elementary food safety and sanitation practices are problematic, to say the least.

While it is probably expensive to conduct food safety inspections on the ground in those places, it is --and will continue to be-- much less expensive than the murderous, illegal, immoral occupation being waged in Iraq and being planned for Iran, for instance.

If the Congress cannot bring itself to actually direct resources to the safety and sanitation of the food supply for the WHOLE COUNTRY, it could clearly be indicted, wholesale, for dereliction of its duties. The deaths of hundreds of pets and no small numbers of humans over the past several years, due to preventable contaminations of various kinds, suggests both the scope and the gravity of the situation.

I urge my representatives to 'do the right thing,' and radically increase the budget for food safety and sanitation in the FDA.

A Few More Hearts And Minds We Don't Need To Worry About "Winning" Anymore

AP, reports:

Seven children were killed in a US-led coalition air-strike targeting suspected al Qaeda militants in eastern Afghanistan, a coalition statement said Monday.
The strike came hours after the deadliest insurgent attack since the Taliban fell in 2001.
Police said on Monday they had detained a suspect in connection with the deadly suicide bombing that destroyed a bus full of police instructors at Kabul's busiest transportation hub, killing 35 people and wounding 52.

I guess the fact that the 'authorities' 'detained' a couple of suspects makes it all okay.
Anyway, that's the clear implication of the story: Yuh wanna make an omlette, yuh gotta kill a few kids...
Or?

NPR Treads PERILOUSLY Close To The Truth

"Host Liane Hansen speaks with Anthony Kuhn in Shanxi Province. There are reports from Shanxi and Henan provinces that poor children are among those who have been abducted to work as forced laborers in brick kilns."

If you pay close attention, at the end of this story, the NPR reporter guy sorta, kinda almost sez that the accumulation of wealth DEPENDS on the exploitation of workers.


Almost.
Not quite...
But close

Mercs in Iraq Taking Bigger Hits: DILLIGAF?*

Back in 'o4, four Blackwater mercenaries got caught by insurgents in Fallujah, becoming both the symbols of hitherto concealed mercenary participation in Iraq and an immediate 'casus belli' for the subsequent, ferocious US Marine assault on the city which effectively destroyed it.
Things are heating up again in Iraq for mercenaries there (via MSNBC):

Iraq contractors face mounting losses
As security work and attacks increase, so do casualties

BAGHDAD - Private security companies, funded by billions of dollars in U.S. military and State Department contracts, are fighting insurgents on a widening scale in Iraq, enduring daily attacks, returning fire and taking hundreds of casualties that have been underreported and sometimes concealed, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials and company representatives.

While the military has built up troops in an ongoing campaign to secure Baghdad, the security companies, out of public view, have been engaged in a parallel surge, boosting manpower, adding expensive armor and stepping up evasive action as attacks increase, the officials and company representatives said. One in seven supply convoys protected by private forces has come under attack this year, according to previously unreleased statistics; one security company reported nearly 300 "hostile actions" in the first four months.

The majority of the more than 100 security companies operate outside of Iraqi law, in part because of bureaucratic delays and corruption in the Iraqi government licensing process, according to U.S. officials. Blackwater USA, a prominent North Carolina firm that protects U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, and several other companies have not applied, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. Blackwater said that it obtained a one-year license in 2005 but that shifting Iraqi government policy has impeded its attempts to renew.

Excuse me? What do you call it when folks commit murder and mayhem outside the law?

(*DILLIGAF = Do I Look Like I Give A Fuck?)

Barbara Ehrenreich: On Immigrants and Other Low-Status Workers

Barbara Ehrenreich | They Came Here to Work
(From The Nation, via TruthOut.Org)

"Rush Limbaugh has been expecting liberals to start 'whining' about the $5,000 fine undocumented immigrants will have to pay to gain citizenship under the new immigration bill, but most liberals have been too busy chortling about the immigration-induced split in the GOP to make their own case against the bill. So let a mighty whine rise over the land: Undocumented workers shouldn't be fined; they should get a hefty bonus!"

Read her, and at the same time LISTEN to this presentation from the NPR program, Human Kind, drawn from her research and experiences writing "Nickled & Dimed." She's very persuasive, especially on the "totalitarian aspects' of the low-wage work-place.

He Vass Unnly Follovink Oaah-dahss!!!

Former DOJ Lawyer--Now FEC Nominee--Can't Seem To Recall ANY Role in Controversial Policies Disenfranchising Minorities (via TruthOut.Org)

(Well, sooo-PRAHZ, sooo-PRAHZ!!!)

Another former Justice Department lawyer went before Congress on Wednesday with few answers for his Democratic interrogators and a spotty memory. (Der Herr Graff) Hans von Spakovsky, who's seeking a full six-year term on the Federal Election Commission, deflected questions about whether he undermined voting rights laws, saying, "I was not the decision-maker in the front office of the Civil Rights Division."

(You will recognize the Eichmann/Goodling/DoJ defense.)

Democrats--DiFi & OBama, most volubly--were outraged, of course. They're VERY GOOD at that. DiFi seemed on the verge of near apoplexy; she about strangled from twisting her pearls so tight: "Citing a scathing letter from six former senior officials of the Voting Rights Section, Committee Chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told him bluntly: "It is really a problem for this body to vote for someone with this letter on the record."

Yet a mere two short grafs later we learn:

"Whether Democrats can derail von Spakovsky's appointment is unclear.

Feinstein cautioned that "a very serious situation could develop if the Senate fails to confirm at least some" of the four nominees by fall because none of the current commissioners has won Senate approval for a full six-year term.

Another problem for foes of von Spakovsky is that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is pushing a home-state candidate, recess appointee Steven Walther of Reno, Nev., and Republicans are likely to put a retaliatory hold on Walther if von Spakovsky is rejected.

A six-year term, you note. If approved, Eichmann's heir-apparent is NOT replaceable by one the NEXT president's party.

The story continues; follow the various links to read the rest.

Ah jis wanna say: Mayan, Ah reckon all y'all've noticed: It is sher good fer thePeople that these Dem-O-Crats to have all that power.

Nuremberg War-Crimes Trial Prosecutor Says Gitmo Trials Betray Justice & Fairness

However, unless you regularly read the Sidney (Oz) Morning Herald, you wouldn't know that. The SCUM (SoCalledUnbiasedMedia) are effectively censoring critics of USer "War On Terror."

The US war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo have betrayed the principles of fairness that made the Nazi war crimes trials at Nuremberg a judicial landmark, one of the US Nuremberg prosecutors says.

"I think Robert Jackson, who's the architect of Nuremberg, would turn over in his grave if he knew what was going on at Guantanamo," Nuremberg prosecutor Henry King Jr said.

"It violates the Nuremberg principles, what they're doing, as well as the spirit of the Geneva Conventions of 1949."

King, 88, served under Jackson, the US Supreme Court justice who was the chief prosecutor at the trials created by the Allied powers to try Nazi military and political leaders after World War II in Nuremberg, Germany.

"The concept of a fair trial is part of our tradition, our heritage," King said from Ohio, where he lives. "That's what made Nuremberg so immortal - fairness, a presumption of innocence, adequate defence counsel, opportunities to see the documents they're being tried with."

King, who teaches law at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, also questioned whether former Guantanamo prisoner David Hicks deserved to be tried as a war criminal.

After being held at Guantanamo for more than five years, the Australian pleaded guilty in March to a charge of providing material support for terrorism and was sent home to serve the rest of his nine-month sentence.

"He's not an arch-criminal type, just a guy who was disaffected from the system," King said.

Hicks, who admitted training with al-Qaeda and briefly fighting on its side in Afghanistan, is the only person convicted in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals.

King, who interrogated Hitler's architect, Albert Speer, was incredulous that the Guantanamo rules left open the possibility of using evidence obtained through coercion.

"To torture people and then you can bring evidence you obtained into court? Hearsay evidence is allowed? Some evidence is available to the prosecution and not to the defendants? This is a type of 'justice' that Jackson didn't dream of," King said.

He said the Guantanamo prisoners should be tried in the court-martial system or the US federal courts, under fair rules that leave open the possibility of acquittal. Three Nuremberg defendants were acquitted, King noted.

The Bush administration has said it needs to hold the special tribunals at Guantanamo in order to protect national security. Last year the US Supreme Court struck down the first version of the Guantanamo trials as illegal.

The 2006 Military Commissions Act, which set revised rules for trying suspected terrorists at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "sort of turns its back on Nuremberg", King said. "I don't think it's a credit to us to have this thing."

"The United States has always stood for fairness. That's the important thing. We were the ones who started war crimes tribunals and we're the architects. I don't think we should turn our back on that architecture."

Reuters

This is beyond appalling. Nobody in the Bushevik regime is worthy of licking Justice Jackson's soiled shorts clean....
Nobody!

Would You Just LOOK At All That Stupid?!? Chuy!

This is just the synopsis of the latest Gallup Poll, and the stupid just so fucking BURNS! (Sorry about the background/foreground problem. Click on the images to see 'em clearly).

Now thinking about how human beings came to exist on Earth, do you, personally, believe in evolution, or not?

	Yes, believe in evolution	No, do not	No opinion
2007 May 21-24	49	48	2

Now regard the histograms below:

I do have a little issue with using the rubric 'believe in' when referring to evolution. Whatsoever one's views of the prevailing Deity, evolution seems to have been pretty thoroughly and thoughtfully documented. Critters change over time, due to impingent, pretty constant environmental conditions. Adaptation via genetic innovation = evolution. Duh. Humans are no different from--and are in no way "superior" to--any other species, pond-scum on up (and not hierarchically; rather via taxonomic complexity). This fact--this array of facts--is not a matter of belief. It is indubitable, and irrebuttable. It does not require 'belief', much less 'belief in'. It requires merely an honest attention to experience. Mebbe that's just me...

The First Annual Public Punditry Contest Winner

The Freeway Blogger, one of the most thoughtful and courageous of the anti-Busheviks in the whole land, announced recently the winner: it is apparently an unnamed citizen of Bellingham, WA. Follow the link in the headline of this post to the Freeway Blogger's page to see the whole display. It is AWE-fuckin'-SOME!

Bookmark this post!!!!!!

Here are some toll free numbers to the Capitol switchboard that reader Katymine (on FDL) put together, so you can call your Senators for free and voice your opinion:

1 (800) 828 - 0498
1 (800) 459 - 1887
1 (800) 614 - 2803
1 (866) 340 - 9281
1 (866) 338 - 1015
1 (877) 851 - 6437

I just called the top number to request that my Senators vote "No Confidence" in Abu Gonzo...

Not that it's gonna make a shittin'-bit of difference.

the busheviks NEED Gonzo as a lightning rod and distraction ("IMPEACH that tiny shitwhistle with the squeaky voice!")...

Bush'll not require his resignation, and there are not enough votes to impeach himi; in fact, any move to impeach Gonzo just strengthens the Busheviks, becasuse it meas all the more energy NOT spent in the direction of Darth Cheney and his fercal sock-puppet...

Harry Reid's a Gutless, Feckless, Worthless Fucking TOOL!

Snivelling lil fucktard--abetted by MOST of the rest of the so-called "Democratic" caucus, apparently WON'T try to repeal the Military Commissions Act, even though it is the single most anti-democratic, anti-constitutional piece of legislation since the Aliens & Sedition Act. The vote in the SJ committee today was 11-8, party lined, to restore habeas corpus. It is a matter of wonder to me how the GOPukes selected for that committee a pack of the least "democratic" mongrel fucktards in the whole fucking Senate.

The notable exception? Senator and Presidential candidate Chris Dodd, who is showing me more and more that HE is the best candidate for the "Left" of the spectrum, leaving such triangulating ciphers as Her Royal Clintoress and Barak "Let Us Pray" Obama in the fucking weeds...I want any of those several GOPuke motherfuckers be captured by folks whom they, themselves, would, would deny the protections of civilization.

From the Nation, today:

Today's vote means the habeas bill can now be brought to the Senate floor at any time. One source with knowledge of the legislative plan said Majority Leader Harry Reid has committed to bringing the bill to a vote within the month.

Some Democrats are pushing Reid to go further, advocating more comprehensive human rights protections and a repeal of the entire Military Commissions Act. Senator Chris Dodd, the most aggressive defender of the Constitution in the presidential race, is pushing legislation that would not only restore habeas, but also ban the use of evidence obtained through torture and recommit the U.S. to the Geneva Conventions. "We must recognize that our security is enhanced by upholding our nation's historic legal principles as we vigorously pursue terrorists," he said in a statement today. Dodd is giving a major address about his proposal at the Cardozo School of Law Commencement exercises in New York on Thursday, part of a larger effort to prioritize Constitutional rights on the national agenda – and in the presidential campaign. The Dodd Campaign has gathered over 10,000 "citizen cosponsors" for his bill, the Restoring the Constitution Act, while using YouTube, blog and netroots outreach to rally more support.

Obama, Clinton and Biden, the other Senators in the presidential race, have cosponsored the habeas legislation but not Dodd's bill, which currently has eleven cosponsors. The legislation faces an uphill battle in the Armed Services Committee, a much less hospitable venue for Constitutional rights than the Judiciary Committee. But there is one influential Armed Services member who opposed the Military Commissions Act and could jump start the effort to restore Constitutional rights: Hillary Clinton.

Hillary MIGHT be persuaded, I guess...but only if the DLC approves.

Reporter Arrested For Questioning Ghouliani Aide About WTC 7

New from the Who'dafuckinthunkit Dept: New Zealanders are privy to information about which OUR SCUM (SoCalled Unbiased Media) is content to leave USers in the dark.

This is, as the saying goes, some deep shit!

Aaron Dykes & Alex Jones / Jones Report | June 5, 2006

Manchester, NH - Freelance reporter Matt Lepacek, reporting for Infowars.com, was arrested for asking a question to one of Giuliani's staff members in a press conference. The press secretary identified the New York based reporter as having previously asked Giuliani about his prior knowledge of WTC building collapses and ordered New Hampshire state police to arrest him.

Jason Bermas, reporting for Infowars and America: Freedom to Fascism, confirmed Lepacek had official CNN press credentials for the Republican debate. However, his camera was seized by staff members who shut off the camera, according to Luke Rudkowski, also a freelance Infowars reporter on the scene. He said police physically assaulted both reporters after Rudkowski objected that they were official members of the press and that nothing illegal had taken place. Police reportedly damaged the Infowars-owned camera in the process.

Reporters were questioning Giuliani staff members on a variety of issues, including his apparent ignorance of the 9/11 Commission Report, according to Bermas. The staff members accused the reporters of Ron Paul partisanship, which press denied. It was at this point that Lepacek, who was streaming a live report, asked a staff member about Giuliani's statement to Peter Jennings that he was told beforehand that the WTC buildings would collapse.

Giuliani's press secretary then called over New Hampshire state police, fingering Lepacek.

Though CNN staff members tried to persuade police not to arrest the accredited reporter-- in violation of the First Amendment, Lepacek was taken to jail. The police station told JonesReport.com that Lepacek is being charged with felony criminal trespass. Multiple witnesses on the scene reported that the state police were also heard discussing charges of espionage.

Goddamn fucking fascist motherfuckers, may they swallow anti-freeze cocktails, and perish in abject misery.

Turns Out, Those Geneva Conventions Ain't So "Quaint" After All, Are They, Alberto?

Insurgents Report The Remaining Two Captured GIs In Iraq Slain

(NBC, MSNBC and news services

Updated: 1 hour, 37 minutes ago)

CAIRO, Egypt - An al-Qaida umbrella group claimed in a new video Monday that its militants killed three U.S. soldiers after capturing them last month.

An Islamic militant Web site said earlier on Monday it would soon release video clips showing the capture of three American soldiers who disappeared following an ambush in Iraq in mid-May. The body of one soldier was later found, but the other two remain missing.

The video shows the kidnapping as well as footage from after the attack, according to the Washington-based SITE Institute, which said it had obtained the 10-minute, 41-second clip.

It is not too soon to consider life-time prison sentences for the scummy, sleazy, lying little shit-rag, Abu Gonzales, for his cavalier dismissal of the Geneva rules as "quaint & trivial."

Meanwhile, Agence France Presse (AFP) is reporting that the former commander of USer/Coalition forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Richard Sanchez, says the USer/Coalition can "forget about winning" in Iraq.

"I think if we do the right things politically and economically with the right Iraqi leadership we could still salvage at least a stalemate, if you will -- not a stalemate but at least stave off defeat," retired Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez said in an interview.

Sanchez, in his first interview since he retired last year, is the highest-ranking former military leader yet to suggest the Bush administration has fallen short in Iraq.

"I am absolutely convinced that America has a crisis in leadership at this time," Sanchez told AFP after a recent speech in San Antonio, Texas.

"We've got to do whatever we can to help the next generation of leaders do better than we have done over the past five years, better than what this cohort of political and military leaders have done," adding that he was "referring to our national political leadership in its entirety" - not just President George W. Bush.

Sanchez called the situation in Iraq bleak, which he blamed on "the abysmal performance in the early stages and the transition of sovereignty."

He included himself among those who erred in Iraq's crucial first year after the toppling of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Sanchez took command in the summer of 2003 and oversaw the occupation force amid an insurgency that has sparked a low-grade civil war in Iraq.

He was in the middle of some of the most momentous events of the war, among them the dissolution of the Iraqi army and barring millions of Baath Party members from government jobs: two actions seen as triggering the rebellion among Sunni Muslims, who fell from power with Saddam.

Sanchez is also most closely identified with the Abu Ghraib scandal, which occurred on his watch.

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

According to this author, "what we as American citizens believe is that we are potentially threatened with the end of civilisation as we know it. Of course, this makes us more willing to accept restrictions on our freedoms." Both Upton Sinclair and Huey P. Long, towards the middle of the last century, predicted that when fascism finally--inevitably???-- overtook US, it would come wrapped in the flag and singing praises to the Lord.

Chapter: The Next
(The Guardian, April 24, 2007)
From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his Regime seem to be intent on taking them all...

Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.

They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration.

Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree - domestically - as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government - the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens' ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors - we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don't learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of "homeland" security - remember who else was keen on the word "homeland" - didn't raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable - as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are (much) further along than we realise.

Conason eloquently warned of the danger of American authoritarianism. I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of European and other kinds of fascism to understand the potential seriousness of the events we see unfolding in the US.

There follows a litany of steps pretty much universally followed by Fascists since the Catholic Church invented the stuff, a couple of hundred years ago. The question is not WHETHER fascism will ensue, merely when. Click the link under the headline of this post and consider the path we're seemingly locked onto.

Almost Two Years On, Katrina Is STILL Killing People In N'Awlins

By MARY FOSTER, Associated Press Writer (via Yahoo News; photo by (c) 2005 Ellis C. Baldwin, III)

NEW ORLEANS - The bodies are no longer being dragged from houses and buildings toppled by Hurricane Katrina, but nearly two years later many in the medical community think the storm is still killing.

Storm survivors are dying from the effects of both psychological and physical stress, from the dust and mold still in dwellings to financial problems to fear of crime, health experts and officials say.

"There is no doubt in my mind that Katrina is still killing our residents," Orleans Parish coroner Dr. Frank Minyard said this week.

"People with pre-existing conditions that are made worse by the stress of living here after the storm. Old people who are just giving up. People who are killing themselves because they feel they can't go on," Minyard said.

Some say an in-depth federal analysis is needed, despite a new state report that found no significant increase in deaths in the New Orleans area from January 2006 through June 2006. The state Department of Health and Hospitals is still compiling figures for the last six months of 2006.

Dr. Raoult Ratard, the state epidemiologist, said "the only slight increase" in deaths was in the first three months of 2006 in Orleans Parish.

But New Orleans medical officials say that jump, from 11.3 per 1,000 deaths to 14.3 per 1,000, — a leap of more than 25 percent — was anything but slight. Moreover, the report doesn't take into account evacuees who died while away from the city and were returned for burial.

"Our death rate was already high, that's huge," said Dr. Kevin Stephens Sr., director of the New Orleans Health Department.

Some New Orleans doctors questioned the accuracy of the population figures used to determine the death rate, saying they might have been too high. DHH secretary Dr. Fred Cerise said he was comfortable with the population data, which he said came from the Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The city was abandoned after Katrina struck Aug. 29, 2005, and many people did not begin returning until mid-2006.

The official death tolls in New Orleans stands at about 1,100. State health officials said deaths have not been listed as Katrina-related since the end of 2005, except for bodies found under storm wreckage. But Minyard said he believes the hurricane is still behind many deaths.

(MORE)

Follow the link in the headline of this post to read the rest of the story. I know it is the duty of every bureaucrat not intimately involved at the local level to minimize the damages and harms suffered by victims of events the bureaucrat is charged with rectifying. So I'll just say this: that Ratard cat is aptly named.

Scooter Libby: A Dedicated, Selfless, TRAITOROUS, Scum-Sucking, Fascist MOTHERFUCKER

Christy, over at Firedoglake (linked above) is too kind to Scooter Libby for his 'service' to the Murkin people.

I am no fan of the CIA. It has been implicated in too many nefarious, murderous schemes for me to weep too many tears for the breech of security which Libby promulgated. They are now, and always have been way too willing to 'follow orders.' If they were gonna murder Allende, they should also have taken out Kissinger.

That said, Christy makes a really good point about Libby and the chorus of 'character witness' letters on his behalf: A 'patriot' and 'public servant' of the sort who garners all these tributes and pleas for mercy would NOT have been tried, and convicted, of bringing down the CIA networks which Libby's (and his boss, Darth Cheney's) loose lips sunk...

I think Libby should be sentenced as a traitor: life at hard labor at one of Murka's REALLLY 'bad' prisons.

Rove next, please.