"I Believe..."

In his speech to the carefully vetted crowd in Cleveland last week, the Chimp muttered "Ah bleeve" SEVENTY-FUCKING-FIVE times.
I believe I'll get another drink: By Marty Kaplan @ Huffpost, Thursday.

AP

"I wouldn't ask a mother or a dad -- I wouldn't put their son in harm's way if I didn't believe this was necessary for the security of the United States and the peace of the world. I strongly believe it, and I strongly believe we'll prevail. And I strongly believe that democracy will trump totalitarianism every time. That's what I believe. And those are the belief systems on which I'm making decisions that I believe will yield the peace."

-- George W. Bush, Cleveland, July 10, 2007
Who gives a flying fig for what you believe, Mr. President? You believed trading Sammy Sosa to the White Sox was a good move. You believed Saddam was making nukes from Nigerien yellowcake. You believed Senators of both parties would acclaim Harriet Miers as a "superb choice" for the Supreme Court," an American of "unwavering devotion to the Constitution and laws of our country." You said you had faith in General Casey (until you fired him). You keep telling us you have faith in Alberto Gonzales. We know you believe in a Higher Power, Mr. Bush -- hey, if AA works for you, you go, guy -- but why should any American mother or dad let you put their son in harm's way just because you "strongly believe" that his being wasted by a roadside IED in an Islamic civil war makes the world more peaceful and the United States more secure?

There's an old saying: "Bleeve" in one hand, and shit in the other, and sniff to discover which hand gets stinky.

The Gutless, Feckless, Useless, Worthless, Chickenshit Dumbocraps Should Not Approve Another Single Bushevik Nominee For Any-FUCKING-Thing

And ESPECIALLY, they should not seat another Bushit judicial appointment, to ANY Court, for ANY reason, ANY time.
Asshole Arlen Specter's apparently got his panties all knotted up because the Dems are threatening to bottle up the nomination of yet ANOTHER racist, sexist, red-neck, Mississippi cracker asshole, Leslie Southwick, the the 5th Circuit.
What the nation does NOT need is yet another racist, sexist, red-neck, Mississippi cracker asshole on ANY Court ANYWHERE in the goddamn, fucking Country, EVER AGAIN!
Fuck Arlen Specter. I awake every morning with the fervent wish that his prostate will soon finally consume him.

Dr. Death...Er, I Mean Sec. Chertoff's Got A "Gut-Feeling"

Chertoff's gut is telling him Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein, and the ghost of Suleiman, the Magnificent, or anyway, some REALLY SCARY ARAB is gonna attack the US "this summer."

This is, on the face of it, far less intelligence--the reliability of it remains to be seen--than was provided to the Busheviks in the Aug. 11, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing which declared Bin Laden was planning an attack, and which the Chimp & minions dismissed with the cavalier admonition that the CIA had "covered their asses."

It also happens to come at a time when the Chimp & minions' fortunes, politically, are at an historically, disastrously low ebb. Those fortunes would be materially assisted on the event of another attack in the US, especially if it were bloody and serious enough to allow the Chimp to invoke the emergency powers he arrogated unto himself a couple of months ago--emergency powers to suspend the Constitution, for example, or revoke habeas corp...oh, yeah, they've already done that...

Well, anyway, I suspect Chertoff's gut feeling arises from inside knowledge of the kind that permitted the Busheviks, and especially Cheney and the PNACabal, to so placidly await the impending AlQaeda attacks of IX/XI and essentially do nothing about them except to hope they wouldn't be toooo bad.

I have always suspected the regime--Cheney, since his brief was intelligence--knew just about everything about the AlQaeda plans except (I'll be charitable) the exact date and the targeted flight numbers. They withheld this information, and refused to act upon it for purely political reasons: they feared harming the airline & travel industry which 1) was a major source of campaign donations and 2) was teetering so precariously on the edges of financial instability that precautions necessary to protect the flights (and their passengers) would have flipped the balance. Instituting the security measures now in place through the TSA, before the attacks of IX/XI would have spooked the traveling public to drive them away from air-travel.

And insisting on installing hijacker-proof cabin doors on the flight deck--which would have stymied the attackers--was something the industry had resisted ferociously for decades, on the grounds of their being too weighty...Or something.

So they waited for their "Pearl Harbor moment." And sprang into long-contemplated action when it occurred. And the rest, as they say, is history.

(Late Flash: I recently learned that the guy in the skeletor suit (as opposed to the REAL one at HSA in DC) in real life is the dad of my incredible masseuse. Waddayano?)

This Is Only A Dilemma Cuz Many--If Not MOST--Dems Actually Support The ICORP, Opposing Only The 'Management' Of It

Iraq Study Group Plan Puts Democrats in Defense-Bill Bind
From TruthOut.Org (to which I send a small, monthly donation)

Elana Schor and Manu Raju of The Hill report, "A bipartisan proposal to implement the Iraq Study Group's recommendations is gaining momentum among Senate Republicans, but is putting Democrats in a tough position with an anti-war base that wants the chamber to take a much harder line during this month's Iraq war debate."

Death From The Skies

If/when the USer/Bushevik regime deems it politically expedient to start to reduce the number of 'boots on the ground' in Iraq, one may safely anticipate that this will NOT reduce the amount of havoc and mayhem delivered upon the innocent Iraqis. It will merely change the source of the devastation, from the Abrams, Bradleys, and HumVees in thir streets to A-10s and F-16s in their skies.

In this respect, the Busheviks will be repeating the plans of the Nixon cabal, which withdrew ground troops from 'Nam in '73, but kept up a constant, bloody, murderous campaign of air attacks up until the very last day of the USer presence there, in April, '75.

That pattern is likely to be repeated in Iraq, as ground operations are incrementally superceded by air attacks against 'insurgent' targets. Air strikes in Iraq are daily occurrences, but are almost never reported. Meanwhile, because--no matter what the military propagandists say--air-fired ordinance is not appreciably more accurate, and surely no less deadly, there are frequent instances of what the military likes to call 'collateral damage': deaths and injuries caused incidentally to the targeting of 'real' objects.

Tom Engelhart provides the meaty details in this recent TomGram. I got it off Truthdig.com, Robert Sheerer's vital blog.

FYI: The following block of text accompanies the photo at the top of this column:

The Haj Musheen Abdul Aziz Az-Kubaysi mosque complex in Fallujah was the sight of an intense and deadly battle in the initial days of the seige of Fallujah. Marines were searching the city for those responsible for the murder and mutilation of four American contractors. Heavy resistance was encountered in this neighborhood and gunfire and RPG's were observed coming from the mosque comlex. Permission was granted to assault the mosque, no longer protected by The Law of Land Warfare, and a laser guided bomb was directed to the eastern wall. The 500 lb. bomb took the wall out, the Marines stormed the compound, and all enemy forces were killed.

It is worth noting that the person 'responsible' for the deaths of the four mercenaries killed that day in fallujah--the proximal casus belli for the all-out assault on the place in 2004--was a venal, profit-driven company man from Blackwater Inc., who sent the patrol into Fallujah without normal precautions and with an under-manned vehicle in the first place.

"Robbery!"

Iraqi Oil Workers Union Founder Calls US-Backed Oil Law Is "Robbery"

In the wake of the Iraqi cabinet's approval of part of a controversial oil law, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! interviews Faleh Abood Umara, general secretary of the Federation of Oil Unions and a founding member of the oil workers union in and Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein, president of the Electrical Utility Workers Union and the first woman to head a national union in Iraq.
"Robbery" defined:

Article 111 of the Iraqi Constitution...states that the oil and gas of Iraq are owned by the Iraqi people and they have the right to control it. But when you look into the details of the law, many of the articles of the law actually conflict with this preamble of the law, the most important point of which is the issue of the production-sharing agreements, which allows the international oil companies, especially the American ones, to exploit the oil fields without our knowledge of what they are actually doing with it. And they take about 50% of the production as their share, which we think it’s an obvious robbery of the Iraqi oil...We also object to the procedure by which these companies are given the contracts for exploiting the oil, because it allows the granting of the contracts with the aid of foreign advisers. We demanded that it’s actually the Iraqi experts that need to be consulted with regards to the granting of the contracts.

Yup, it's robbery. And the passage of it will be the only measure of 'success' USers may EVER see in consequence of the ICORP of Iraq.

Run, Cindy, Run!!!

From TruthOut.Org (I support 'em w/a small monthly donation)

Cindy Sheehan said she will run as an independent against the San Francisco Democrat in 2008 if Pelosi does not file articles of impeachment against Bush by July 23. "I think all politicians should be held accountable. Democrats and Americans feel betrayed by the Democratic leadership. We hired them to bring an end to the war," reports Angela K. Brown of the Associated Press.

This is how it's s'pozed to work, innit? You think your representative ain't representing you, so you run against 'em.
Pelosi is WAAAAAAY too close to the Oiligarchs and Pollutocrats; taking the I-word off the table is/was unconscionable.

Run, Cindy, Run. I'll send ya a coupla sheckels, and so will thousands of others...

NYTimes Editorial Calls For Iraq Withdrawal

The "Money Quote":

"President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have used demagoguery and fear to quell Americans' demands for an end to this war. They say withdrawing will create bloodshed and chaos and encourage terrorists. Actually, all of that has already happened - the result of this unnecessary invasion and the incompetent management of this war. It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit."

But close, critical reading reveals, they STILL do not eschew or renounce their initial, unrestrained, enthusiastic advocacy for the ICORP of Iraq. They complain only that the invasion was "unnecessary;" not that it was immoral--by the best of soi-disant Murkin "principles"--illegal, and a criminal act of international, historical proportions and consequences.
And they complain the management of the ICORP was "incompetent," implying that had it been 'competently' managed, they'd still support it. The "If-I-Knew-Then" defense is empty posturing, since "what-they-know-now was evident to any but the sold-out acolytes of the status-quo-ante "then," as much as ever it is today.

With media allies like these, one does not need opponents.

The Dem Leadership Does NOT Oppose The ICORP of Iraq

I seriously doubt that, were the USers (thought to be) "winning" the ICORP of Iraq, Mr. Reid or any other Congresscritters, regardless of party, would be opposing it.

This, despite the 'winning' or 'losing' of it does NOTHING to change the fundamental criminality, immorality, or illegality of it.

The Democrats objections are nothing more than tactical quibbles. They don't oppose the ICORP, per se; only that USers seem to be 'losing' it. Indeed, were it going 'better,' they'd all be its happy sponsors, instead of its putatively 'unwilling' abettors.

The Old Sarge, Stan Goff, gets off a couple of well-placed rounds on the subject, in a post yestiddy on HuffPost.

Sadr Rejects Iraq's Puppet Regime's "Oil Law" (Revised, @ 12:38 MDT)

Said law, the passage and adoption of which would retroactively (and economically) 'justify' (to the war-mongering CorpoRat/PNAC/Zionist cabal) the Bushevik ICORP in Iraq, dissolves any pre-ICORP energy contracts in favor of contracts negotiated since the ICORP with British and USer multi-nationals, and puts the Iraqi economy in the caring hand of those self-same multinationals for the next 20 years.
However, as Agence France Presse (AFP) reported July 5. '07:

Followers of Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Thursday joined a growing chorus of Sunni Arab, Kurdish and Shiite opposition to a draft oil law backed by Washington. (Ed: the last two words contain the key to understanding both the reason for the anth opposition to, the measure.)
His opposition, apparently motivated by anger at the idea of US and British oil firms snapping up contracts after their countries invaded Iraq, promises to feed a fierce debate but will not necessarily derail the legislation...(Ed: Funny that they can virtually admit to the venal purposes of this horror, and in the next breath, assert that this won't 'necessarily' influence the outcome. Any wonder that the Iraqis regard maliki as a pupper?)
...Sadr's supporters said they would not support any law that would allow firms "whose governments are occupying Iraq" -- a reference to the United States, Britain and their coalition allies -- to sign Iraqi oil deals. (Ed: Well, fucking DUH! It only makes sense to the invaders to fucking reward them for the murder of a couple hundred thousand of your countryfolks and co-religionists!)
"The most serious problem with the law is the production-sharing agreements, which we categorically reject," said Nassar al-Rubaie, spokesman for Sadr's 32-member parliamentary bloc.
Such agreements, which provide for foreign oil companies to share investment and profits with the state, would "undermine Iraq's sovereignty in the short run and will strip it of its sovereignty in the long run", he added. (Ed: The agreements COMPEL the State to split the profits about 80-20 in favor of the fucking cartels, for the next fucking 20 years, fer chrissake!)
The Kurdish Regional Government, on the other hand, has demanded that the new oil law accommodate contracts it has already signed with foreign companies to exploit oil in northern Iraq.

Unfortunately for the Kurds, it was, at least in part, to invalidate and terminate those agreements that Cheney's Energy Panel met in 2001 and agreed on the necessity of starting the ICORP in Iraq. Not enough of the Cheney 'energy elect' were on the lists of those preferred by the Iraqis to develop and exploit the Iraqi oil reserves.
Btw: The legislation is an amazing document, surprising, astonishing in it the clarity with which it lays out as it so clearly does the real reasons for, and the villains in, the murderous, criminal, cynical ICORP of Iraq.
(Ed Note: The revisions are the editorial remarks inserted into the AFP piece in italics. I doubt they'll mind much in Paris.)

Nobody's Business But The Turks'

How soon will Turkey unleash its army on the Kurds of northern Iraq?
Very soon according to a veteran observer of the region, Jacques Couvas, writing at the blog AntiWar dot com. A matter of mere weeks, probably.
And that is NOT good news for peace, stability, freedom, or justice in the region.
But, of course, all those things have already been mortally bitten in the ass by the Busheviks and their insane, illegal, immoral ICORP* of Iraq.

ANKARA - The button of the stopwatch counting down the invasion of northern Iraq by the Turkish army was probably pressed on Tuesday, at an impromptu meeting between Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The two men have, in theory, scheduled meetings on Thursdays, which are often not maintained, as they do not see politically eye-to-eye. The surprise meeting on Tuesday has sparked speculation that the assault is near. Cynics, however, say this is just another coup de theatre, which aims at shaking from the shoulders the United States and Iraq, who are clearly opposed to military action against the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) on Iraqi soil.

False alarms have been almost a routine since the beginning of this year, when the general staff of the armed forces energetically requested the government's approval to move into northern Iraq in large numbers in order to avenge the weekly casualties by the army in eastern Turkey, caused by PKK armed militants stationed in refugee camps and villages in Iraq.

The Turkish army has been drawing plans since last year for a "total cleanup" of that region, but the government has avoided responding clearly. A wait-and-see strategy has prevailed within the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the ruling political formation.

Other events this week corroborate the growing belief that the incursion is near. The U.S. ambassador to Ankara on Monday had to publicly reject in dismay allegations by the Turkish press that his government has been selling weapons to PKK members. The United States, as well as the EU and Turkey, consider this organization a terrorist one.

If the Turks take on the PKK inside Iraq, there will be no reason for the Iraqi Kurds to fore-swear returning the favor and 'protecting' Turkish Kurds from the genocide which the Turks so plainly wish to inflict upon them.

Of Southern Trees & Their Fruits: Follow-Up

If you be's black in Jena, LA, you best bettah keep thet broad, flat nose clean, knee-grow!

Last week I posted on the racially charged situation in Jena, Louisiana, an 85% White/cracker-asshole community (3000 whites, 350 blacks) up in the piney woods around Alexandria, where black students who questioned the propriety of there being a "WHITES-ONLY" shade tree on campus, were met the next school day with nooses hung in the tree by white students protecting their racial privilege. Three white students were suspended for three days for this egregious act of racial terror.

Resentment apparently festered. In December, one of the three was met by several of the black students whom they'd sought to terrorize and who, understandably, took exception to the threats and beat the shit outta the cowardly little racist shit: kicked his in-bred, red-neck, racist ass into the middle of the next semester.

On the weekend there came the news that a black youth, who was one of six charged with replying physically to racist taunts of White racist rat-fucker students and kicking a little racist ass, was convicted of assault (sentencing set for July 31) by (soo-prahs, soo-prahs) an all-white jury, before a white judge, after prosecutors lowered the charges from attempted murder. Said a friend of the convicted teen's family:"The best thing, if you're black in this town, is to stay out of the system, because once they get you, you're done for. You're not getting out." Blacks constitute only just over 10% of the population of LaSalle Parish, where Jena is situated, making the seating of black jurors improbable at best.

I bet ya never imagined that could still happen in color-blind (the SCROTUS sez so) Murka, now didja?
A longer account of the situation, the circumstances, and the probable outcomes is presented by MSNBC here.

It's Now Official: Everybody In Gaza Is Hamas

And, therefore, for the murderous gunsels of the IDF, fair game:

By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 39 minutes ago

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli troops crossed into the Gaza Strip, killing eight Hamas militants in a fierce gunbattle Thursday that drew in Israeli aircraft, tanks and bulldozers.

Israel said its troops were on a routine foray against Palestinian rocket squads when they came under fire from the militants about half a mile inside the Gaza Strip. Hamas said its fighters surprised an Israeli undercover unit.

Witnesses reported a heavy exchange of fire as Israeli tanks and bulldozers moved in, backed by air power.

As soldiers took up positions on rooftops, militants fought back by laying mines and firing small arms and mortars.

Two mortars landed on the Israeli side of the Erez crossing, which has been closed to most traffic since Hamas wrested control of Gaza last month, the army said. No one was hurt.

Hospital officials said six militants were killed in the clash. All belonged to Hamas, the group said, adding that the dead included its central Gaza field commander.

Two more Hamas militants were killed later Thursday in Israeli missile strikes targeting the same area, the army and hospital officials said. The fighting erupted near the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip, a site of frequent clashes between Palestinian gunmen and the Israeli army.

Elsewhere along Gaza's northern border with Israel, Hamas officials said some 15 tanks and three bulldozers had moved into Palestinian farms and were leveling the land. The army said it had no such vehicles in the area.

It's the End of the Web As We Know It --

FTC ABANDONS "NET NEUTRALITY"
Some things just don't get undone. So no corporate toady in Congress, after gutting 'Net neutrality', and bestowing extremely valuable communications monopolies on powerful media corporations in '07, is gonna turn around two years, later, after the '08 "election" and unshit the Web.
Nagahapun; aribuddy knows it.
So it pains me now to have been, once again, right.
But there it is.
In case you haven't been paying attention (this WILL be on the test): I have predicted long and loud and at some risk to my reputation as a 'serious fellow', since before 2004, that the Web was too fucking democratizing, too fucking empowering, to be permitted for too long to flout itself in the faces of the CorpoRats who'd spent the previous 80 years, trillions of dollars, and thousands of lives to corner the market in mediated reality.
It was unrealistic, I argued, to imagine that, with the stakes so high, the rewards so rich, the power so complete, that the folks who'd spent the previous 80 years cornering every kind of media they could by which to enslave the populace would just walk away from the WEB. They would, I assured anyone who listened, move heaven and earth to ensure their continued dominance over the means and instruments by which Murkins could imagine themselves.
And further, I argued that the ways of the Web we have all grown used to would probably NOT come to the '08 election in the same form as it came into the '04 and '06 election cycles.
Indeed, with the unexpected losses for the GOP, in a way, the successes of '06 sealed our fates.

Vide:

Iain Thomson, vnunet.com 02 Jul 2007

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has decided to abandon net neutrality and allow telecoms companies to charge websites for access.

The FTC said in a report that, despite popular support for net neutrality, it was minded to let the market sort out the issue.

This means that the organisation will not stand in the way of companies using differential pricing to make sure that some websites can be viewed more quickly than others. The report also counsels against net neutrality legislation.

"This report recommends that policy makers proceed with caution in the evolving dynamic industry of broadband internet access, which is generally moving towards more, not less, competition," FTC chairman Deborah Platt Majoras wrote.

"In the absence of significant market failure, or demonstrated consumer harm, policy makers should be particularly hesitant to enact new regulation in this area."

The report has caused outrage in the online community. Many are worried that any abandonment of net neutrality will harm competition, since it will allow big companies to outspend start-ups.

"Mostly the FTC suggests ways that the telephone and cable companies could have new ways to make money from content and applications providers," said Art Brodsky, of internet advocacy group Public Knowledge.

"Or lower-income subscribers could be charged lower prices, subsidised by 'prioritization revenues' much as supported email services now provide free email accounts. Nowhere is there discussion of what the consumer gets out of the deal."

Just in time to stem the popular tide.
I know I never imagined it...
Have I mentioned? Turn your radios to WASF, Radio We Are SOOOO Fucked, whereEVER you are...
While you still can...

Missile Defense System Stand-Off

If, as the Busheviks proclaim, the real and true purpose of placing elements of a missile defense system in Europe is to forestall or defend it against attack from the south or southeast, then the Russians' offer to turn over the big radar station in Azerbajan to the task should be satisfactory, as Azerbajan is directly in line with the direction from which the threat is said to originate.

It therefore follows that the only other, serious, plausible reason for the Busheviks to refuse the offer is if their aim of putting missile defenses in Europe is NOT to preserve Europe against aggression from west Asia, but it is precisely what the Russians fear: to contain the Russians.

Or am I missing something?

The Marginalization of "SiCKo"

It's happening everywhere in the SCUM (the SoCalledUnbiasedMedia) these days.
No less a light than NPR devoted about 25 minutes (combined) of their two signature shows, Morning Edition and All Things Considered) to dissing the film and Moore.
Because, of course, Michael Moore's fat.
However, one NPR critic, David Edelstein (Day-To-Day)says:

Moore argues that Americans take dead-end jobs for insurance and stay because employers have them over a barrel. He says transform health care, and you'll remake society. History suggests the health-care industry will pay through the nose to ensure that the system never changes. But after Sicko, how can Americans let politicians feed them sugar pills?

One of the indefatigables at TruthOut.Org, Dean Baker, has a a piece up on TO discussing the 'let's kill Michael Moore' phenomenon:

"The pundits are working overtime trying to defuse the message from "SiCKO," Michael Moore's new film. They are trying to convince the public that the United States could not possibly do what every other rich country (and even some not so rich countries) have managed to do: guarantee their people decent health care."

Rock On, TruthOut. (I contribute a small amount, monthly, to sustain their efforts.)

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.