Vacation Time

Did you know everything in Iraq is honky-dory? That the whole country is just abuzz, wishing they were Americans, so they could vote for Bush? Well, then you are a psychotic. But that didn't stop you from taking a vacation. Step right up folks, become Viceroy of Iraq. Earn weeks of vacation time in your first two months on the job! (UPDATE: You can only see the full article if you are a NY Times archive subscriber)

Iraq, ignored and suffering

There are 300,000 people in Iraq protesting, but no matter where I turn on my cable "dial," I see nothing of it. By the way, I get NY1(New York City), NWI(Canada), Bloomberg, CNN, CNN Headline News, CNNfn, CCTV9(China), CNBC, CNBCWorld, MSNBC, and FUX. I also get CSPAN1, 2 and 3. Although, the UN Special Rappateur is on CNBC World right now, and it is a conversation WITHOUT US minders (no US propagandist, oh, maybe there is, but if he is, he isn't getting much air time) The local Iraqi cop is saying all 19 arrested are linked to Al-Qaeda. That's a crock, and they know it. The bombings are hitting anti-Sunni, anti-Saddam targets. Jordanian Embassy, why, the Jordanians were the most pro-US regime, but, considering the ancient and recent connections between Iraq and Jordan (the same Hashemite Kingdom, at some points) shows they are a natural Ba'athist enemy, not an Al-Qaeda target, The next target, the UN, has never been a Al-Qaeda target, has it? And a Bishop who had been praying in Iran for the last 20 years for Saddam's death? Those are the big three of the Ba'athist targets. But, the American media isn't showing it this morning. They don't care if you know what is going on, they want to make money.

US Soldiers stealing from Iraqis

I wrote the President an e-mail about this un-fucking-believable event. That was the subject line.. ."Un-Fucking-Believable"

The North Korean(DPRK) Update

North Korea granted NOTHING in terms of its nuclear program. It did not step back even an inch. At least as far as I can tell. Desptire this, the US declared it a success. I don't think we need to go to war over this, but lying to Americans to make it sound like diplomacy is working when it isn't, is Yet Another Farce that will lead to death and destruction. Why? Very simple. What happens if, in three weeks, the DPRK goes ahead with their nuclear test. The American public will be shocked. Didn't you tell us, Bush, that everything was OK, that everyone was pleased with the progress? Yeah, says Bush, I was lying. Hadn't you caught on that I am a pathological liar?

A movie that should make you think

Most people think more Israelis get killed in Israel/Palestine, but that's not true. 75% of the dead are Palestinians. If Americans Knew is a website that discusses this. I am watching a 1960 movie called "Exodus" which deserves merit for dealing with Israeli terrorist acts against the United Kingdom. Israeli terrorists focussed on driving the British out of British Mandate Palestine (Modern Israel, Jordan and Palestine). The movie does a more than reasonable job of showing how the political wing (Hagganah) could not control the terrorist wing (Irgun). A conversation between leaders of the two factions is very suprising. Many Israeli leaders came out of Irgun. Daniel Ayalon, Israeli Ambassador the US, spoke Thursday (Aug 29th or so). i am entirely non-plussed, and hope for Mr Ayalon to be fired, post-haste.

Upcoming Talks on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea(DPRK)

We are sending Asst. Sec of State James Kelly (note: these are the biggest international talks arranged outside the UN, or regularly meeting group (e.g. G8 Nations) that the Bush adminstration has taken part in, and they are not sending Bush, or Powell, or Armitage, but Kelly) Kelly was called "arrogant and high-handed" last time he was in the DPRK Kelly is accused of sucking up money from secret slush funds in Taiwan. Smirking Chimp covered this a while ago. Japan plans to bring up the issue regarding abductions. I think this is guaranteed to prevent any progress. It is likely that David Horowitz believes that progress could be made, if it were not for liberals like me. He argues that we didn't beat the North Vietnamese, after TWENTY SEVEN years of attempts to do so, because the North Vietnamese were counting on activists to stop our soldiers from winning. The first I say he is a drooling lunatic. Sending corrupt officials to important talks, sending low-ranking officials to monumental talks, is what causes failure. How about Nixon, in a way that to my mind makes him a traitor to the United States, for dealing with VietNam behind the scenes before he had the authority to do so. Or how about the plain and simple fact that we should not have won? To win in Vietnam would have been the most anti-Republican effort in US History.

Lies about History, thanks to the Vice-President Cheney

The Constituion of the United States gives absolute and uncontrevertible WAR, TAX and BUDGET authority to the House of Representatives. If a bill is for taxes, or for spending, or to declare war, it must originate in the House. Until the Budget Impoundment & Control Act of 1974 and the War Powers Act of ???? The President had NO Authority at all. Now, since Nixon, Presidents have drafted budgets and handed them to Congress. The War Powers Act gives the President the power to engage in war for a few days before asking Congress, a right they did not have before. Vice President Cheney, in an attempt to misinform the American people, in order to make them stupid, explains both of these acts as a LIMITATION on Presidential Power. If he is really that much of an idiot or a liar, he certainly proves the point that Bush has no judgement skills (after all, he chose Cheney to help him pick a Vice Presidential candidate, and they ended up with Cheney, talk about a commission with foregone conclusions riding roughshod over reality!) I think that makes Richard Cheney the most evil person I have ever heard of in the annals of American history.

Why to be happy, and not trust "President" Bush

1 in 100,000,000. Pretty slim odds, eh? In the entire United States there were three citizens who might appear to be fighting against America, in the war on Terror.

• John Walker Lindh, a kid, who never actually fired at US troops, and, therefore, broke no laws (you don't even automatically lose citizenship if you fight in a foreign army, and Lindh didn't join AFTER the US declared war, and he only fought the warlords who now are destorying what little is left of Afghanistan, Lindh was right to fight them, Bush was wrong to back them.)
• Hamdi: One chicago gang banger goes to terrorist training camps, allegedly.
• Some guy who was born here, and left when 2 months old.

That's it, folks. The entire extent of US citizen involvement in terorrism, to the best of my knowledge. Now, what % of the Intelligence Community budget is used on Americans, now that we know there is about a 1 in 100,000,000 chance that an American is a terrorist?

What happened in 1975?

Senator Frank Church of Idaho led a commission to investiage CoIntelPro, and numerous, disgusting, Stalinesque abuses of authority. You really think the Intelligence Community backed down when a couple of Democrats, VP Mondale and Senator Church, told them to stop harassing innocent Americans? President George Washington had, as a % of his budget, the largest intelligence effort of any President in history (his budget was tiny, they didn't believe in massive standing armies back then, because they had all read Federalist #41). NOTE: This was not used on Americans, but on FOREIGN POWERS (none of whom were Republics (democratic) back then). Washington was not having people assassinated. Washington wasn't drugging people. He was not asking the post office to record the From and To address on each envelope, in case on of the parties turned out to be a criminal, the other party could be investigated. We all know that if two people become friends and one of them turns out to be a criminal, then the other deserves to be investigated. No? I am not sure at all that a country that spends billions investigating its own people, that uses god knows what techniques, since you can't legally find out, and that starts the wrong wars, deserves to be considered "good."

Where was Osama?

If "U.S. Intelligence" was "absolutely confident" that Saddam had WMD, and they were 100% wrong... What makes us so damn sure Osama bin Ladin was in Afghanistan, and not in, say, Pakistan? Were both wars based on bogus intelligence? Jonathon Spence edited the words of K;ang Hsi, a 17-18th century, and longest ruling, Emperor of China. What I got from the beautifully edited work was that K'ang Hsi would have been a pretty good Emperor, but he took the entire Army traipsing through the entire Chinese hinterland looking for ONE BANDIT! Sound familiar? Only complete idiot buffoons think we should be using the Military to combat terrorists. In 100% of cases, it is the military which inspired the terrorists in the first place.

What I would ask of President G Walker Bush

All he has to say is "I might have been wrong. I will not run for President again until WMD are found."

Terrorism in Downtown Manhattan

In 1898 we falsely entered a war with Spain, mostly egged on by Cubans living in this country and the "yellow journalism" of a press corps eager for war. In 1975, downtown Manhattan, at Fraunces Tavern, Puerto Rican terrorists struck, killing and injuring many. For the slow at subtraction, that is seventy-eight years later.

MINDERS!!!

Bush, in January 2003, said the interviews with Iraqi scientists were dubious because Saddam insisted that "minders" (Iraqi officials who were there to watch what the Iraqi scientists said) were present. The Congressional 9/11 investigation did the same thing. Bush is no better than Saddam, on this score. Bush said interviews with minders are bullshit, but only lets his own people be interviewed with minders. Four 9/11 Moms Battle Bush, The NY Observer (nice rag, lots of ten cent words, weekly newspaper on pink paper)

CUBANS AND ISRAELIS UNITE!

     For more than 100 years the Cubans have been taking advantage of Americans, and our strength, to help them achieve goals in their own homeland. The most honorable President we may ever have had was Stephen Grover Cleveland. He was elected because the Republicans were so corrupt, and the Democrats so unelectable, that a compromise was made with a New England Democrat with unimpeachable character (the story of him fathering a child out of wedlock were shown untrue then, but checking up on it with DNA might be a smart idea, the story still seems implausible).

     Cleveland wrote his own speeches, as all Presidents did until Hoover or Taft.  For his last State of the Union(1896) he wrote this, "American Interests in the Cuban Revolution."

     The document is fascinating, showing that Bill Clinton may be smart, but he was not alone. Note the complex views of Cuba, how neither side is either completely correct or wrong. Bush's mind can't comprehend such things, or, worse, he assumes we can't.

     The relevant section to the title of this post occurs right after a paragraph detailing US-Cuban trade relations over the last few years...

Besides this large pecuniary stake in the fortunes of Cuba, the United States finds itself inextricably involved in the present contest in other ways, both vexatious and costly. Many Cubans reside in this country and indirectly promote the insurrection through the press, by public meetings, by the purchase and shipment of arms, by the raising of funds, and by other means, which the spirit of our institutions and the tenor of our laws do not permit to be made the subject of criminal prosecutions. Some of them, though Cubans at heart and in all their feelings and interests, have taken out papers as naturalized citizens of the United States, a proceeding resorted to with a view to possible protection by this government and not unnaturally regarded with much indignation by the country of their origin.

     I was amazed to read this. Over 100 years later, Cubans are doing the same thing. The President after Cleveland's second term was McKinley, who started a war with Spain over Cuba, based on a lie, pushed by the media (the sinking of the Maine). If any of you know who Les from WorldNetDaily is, imagine him shoving his way to the royal Spanish officials and asking the kinds of questions he does now, that was part of what was so exciting about "yellow journalism."

     Cubans have been doing it for more than 100 years, Isrealis for decades less, but something tells me that the Cubans should switch, and try to get the Israelis to invade Cuba and topple Castro. The 45 square miles of Guatanamo can, if well managed, support the population of Israel ;)

Greenspan, the puppet, another Media Miss

Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, has a lot of power to change short term interest rates, which can have a lot of impact on the economy. The story goes that, when President Clinton took office, Chmn Greenspan said "keep spending in check, or I will screw you and raise rates, ruining America to teach you a lesson" Well, President Clinton was more centrist than other post-WWII Democrats, and he was facing the most conservative Congress since the collapse of the McCarthy machine, or for whatever reasons, Clinton appears to have played along. Greenspan, after all, is particularly skilled at what he does. Now, in the run up to the 2000 election, Greenspan raised interest rates 6 times. In the aftermath of the election, rates were lowered 13 times. Bad storytelling apologies, that stuff is just background. Bush was elected. Within a month he was meeting with Chmn Greenspan at a Hotel (the Watergate?) to discuss economic "policy." Please recall that Bush said it was a principle that no one should pay more than a third of their income in taxes. From what philosophic source does this principle emerge? What axiom of human personality? We don't know. Interestingly enough, Bush's own taxes are under 1/3 (and he made 800,000 in 2001) and Arnold Schwarzenegger recently revealed he pays SIGNIFICANTLY less than one third, on over 57 million in income. In other words, Bush makes up principles that aren't being violated and changes laws to, well, I dunno, hook up the rich. Greenspan had been against cutting taxes for over 15 years, saying the deficit was more important, and that it should be dealt with, first. Greenspan puts spending increases and tax cuts in a similar basket, hoping always for deficit control rather than either of those aims. After a meeting under 20 minutes with Bush, Greenspan "changed his mind." Am I supposed to be stupid? Am I flaming idiot? Does it say "MORON HERE: PLEASE MISINFORM?" What do you think Bush said to Greenspan? If he had such an intelligent argument, why not make it public? There was no argument, there was no debate. Greenspan is a puppet of the GOP. In the 11 months after the election, Greenspan dropped rates 13 times. Greenspan is manipulating interest rates for partisan gain. People DIE because they can't get enough money, and Greenspan is willing to fuck with them, to kill them, to get his fascist friends elected. That is story one of Greenspan being a corrupt puppet. Story two comes about one year later, over New Year's Eve, and it shows Chmn Greenspan taking his punishment like a dog. He had helped the Senate Democrats draft an alternative to Bush's 1st Tax Cut, so Bush called him to the White House. Analyze the video... Greenspan won't make a comment walking too the White House, he doesn't answer any questions while in the "press conference" with President Bush, and in fact when a reporter pointedly asks Chmn Greenspan a question the President interjects, telling the reporter where he can find the Chairman if he needs to ask him a question (at his office, monday through friday, at the Federal Reserve Bank HQ). It was frat boy pranks.

A Story the Media Covered Up

     There has been terrorism in America since 9/11, and it was Al-Qaeda.  I say the media covered it up because I simply can't believe no one else figured it out.  Maybe I'm far smarter than I would have guessed.

     At least that's my reasoned opinion.  I, who was instantly packing his bags back in May when I caught a midnight broadcast on FOX News (cheaper than Ipecac) announcing that Homeland Security Threat Rainbow was being raised to HIGH. The threat was likely to occur within the next 2 days, they said, and the possible targets included Boston, New York City, Washington, D.C, and Norway.

     It was no joke.

     The US decided to keep embassy officials in Norway at home. Looks like the #2 al-Qaeda leader, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, was using the media to co-ordinate the attack, confusing the government of Norway in the process.

     Within three days, the cruise ship SS Norway was bombed, eight crewmembers killed, eighteen others injured outside port in Miami, Florida.

     An odd story: Lawyers tell clients to keep their mouths shut. I suppose that happens all the time, but here it sounds more like a threat.

     A week later, May 28, the cause is still being investigated.

     From the Phillipino Government, a press release saying at least seven Phillipino worker's remains have been returned home.

     Now, I don't know what normally happens in these situations, but the treatment of ten of the Filipino (non-citizen) workers who were injured seems surprisingly good. They have been put up in hotel rooms for more than six months. It makes me think that this special treatment is a way to buy silence.

     NTSB report from June, 2003 skirting around making conclusions

     One month later, the SS Norway is involved in other messes, this time with the FBI and dumping, but the FBI is involved with pre-explosion info.

---

UPDATE: As of March, 2005, the latest report on the "boiler room explosion" of the SS Norway on the NTSB website is here.  No finality to the investigation yet.

Why Conservatives Will Always Be On the Losing Side

• They never are on the lookout for their allies being corrupt.
• When someone else finds out their allies are corrupt, they never believe it, and stand by them, always looking foolish
• When all is said and done, it is always obvious that it was Conservatives holding us back
• They can't tell jokes. Drew Carey is the only conservative, and he gets most of his laughs by 1. insulting an unhealthily overweight woman he pays to dress like a clown 2. insulting his friends whom, if the dialogue is to be believed, are paid to act more stupidly than any humans on television. (i.e. the one right wing comic gets his kicks from kicking the less fortunate)

Republicans Want It Both Ways, Media Does "Beg"

GOP logic goes like this...

• We want to cut taxes
• We want to cut social services
• payroll taxes aren't taxes since they are like a pension or insurance, and the money you pay in goes to the social services
• so we will cut income taxes

Blackout 2003, from downtown NYC

I thought it was just my building, or just the local buildings. So I read. I am on the 21st floor. Walked out on my porch around 8pm, and almost had a heart attack. Half of NJ was dark, Staten Island was almost missing, and the Empire State Building seemed to be gone. Hard to be calm, after that. Luckily I my neighbors had some white wine in the fridge to get rid of, and a small radio for the false news coming in about the cause.

On C-SPAN caught NSA Rice's Thursday, Aug 7, 2003, explaining her evil anti-Americanism, which reeks of Straussianism

"We can't allow failed states to persist, because terrorism festers." paraphrase of Rice from that event. You brutal fucking bastards. Those scum in the Bush administration can't seem to remember the President's father, who started the chaos in Afghanistan (which otherwise would likely just be another too-authoritarian, Southwest Asian former-Soviet State. Don't they see they also get to blame President William Jefferson Clinton? While he was President, Kabul's seige went unanswered. More than a thousand year's of lives brought to ruin in an Anarchic power grab. Hektmayr, I think it was. And he's up to no good, again. In 1996, the Taleban saved Afghanistan from Hektmayr. The real reason is that when you try to overthrow states for any cause but justice, which, practically speaking refers to Aristocratic-Republican justice. In order...

• Aristocratic Republics
• Democratic Republics (Athens, the 50s Israeli Kibbutz)
• Constitutional Monarchy
• Absolute Monarchy
• Corrupt Republic
• Corrupt Monarchy
• Tyranny
• Anarchy

I still think Bush should not run for President again, unless WMD are found.

Variation on a Loathesome Trick, by FOX

I think if the right keeps along this path there can be no choice but that they will turn into a metaphorical class of ghouls. While rending flesh from each other, in an attempt to survive, they will, ironically, appear more ghoulish. The First Trick: Remember the hydrogen tractor-trailers? For months, the media, and President George Walker Bush (from Poland), mentioned these as "mobile biological weapons factories" and President Bush actually had the gall to suggest that the discovery of these trailers proved his pre-war assertions were correct. That's background, here's the trick... When FOX would talk about the trailers, they showed pictures of freshly painted and (feasibly) state of the art equipment. They did not show the run down, sandy-colored, paint-chipped, 1950s boiler-room looking devices that were actually found. The second trick of these mendicants, loaded with the deadly intent to undermine Our Republic by misinforming it: The other day FOX ran a story on the destruction, by the United States, of United States nerve gas bombs, i.e. the US was destroying its own arsenal. Actual clips were shown, the following... 1. Industrial shots of the destruction of our nerve gas bombs, which have been outlawed by the Geneva Convention since the end of WWI. 2. More of #1 3. the hand of someone of African descent reaching near the bomb. They only mention whose weapons they were at the beginning. In other words, unless you caught the whole segment, if you happened to miss the sentence at the very beginning, containing the word America, you would INERRINGLY be brought to believe it was Al-Iraqi weapons. Who selected that footage of the hand? Was it shot especially for this clip? I happen to know, from some time I spent at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, an Army Base focussed on weapons work, that we have been destroying WMD for decades. During this time, FOX has been around for almost a decade. Am I supposed to believe that today they decided to run stories on the destruction of the US stockpile of WMD for fun, or should we all realize that the segment was produced to increase the false sense among the public that WMD were found? I know the answer, I hope you do, too. We all shall learn that there were no weapons in Al-Iraq, and there have not really been any since 1991. The existence of weapons programs was as follows. The scientists, to the best extent possible, were kept in jobs that would keep them doing things that would keep them ready to go back to weapons work. They saved what computer disks, computers, notes, and a room full of the most difficult machinery to make. Can you imagine 12 year old computers and disks being useful?

American Ignorance

1. I know people who accept thisIsrael's parliament on Thursday passed a new law that would force Palestinians who marry Israelis to live separate lives or move out of Israel

2. Israel defies road map, no threats to funding at all.Israel on Thursday published building tenders to expand a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip - defying a stipulation in the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan that says construction in Jewish settlements must stop.

3. And now for the kicker, because, on this very same day, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel said the caricatures of Jewish faces in Arab cartoons resembled that used by the Nazis

Tom DeLay, You Must Know

If you are interested in American Politics today, and, friend or foe, many are, you must learn who Tom DeLay is. Well, 10 out of 10 Moms won't let me say anything at all about United States House Representative (R-Sugarland, TX) and House Leader Tom DeLay, so let me just say that if you are against the current GOP bills, you are against Tom. Well, Dennis Kucinich, Democrat candidate for President, Representative, has a bill submitted to Congress to ban mind control weapons in outer .space. Actually the bill was introduced to ban all weapons from outer space, but pointedly includes mention of non-typical weapons. The Bill was H.R. 2977 in the 107th Congress. If you enter "hr2977" in the first field here you can see the original bill. In a very unusual, and seemingly unconstitutional move, the DoD has given the bill a negative comment. As far as I am concerned, if the DoD doesn't want a bill passed in Congress, it better have a very complete explanation that never changes. Representative DeLay ridiculed the whole idea. Both Kucinich and DeLay are incorrect. If mind control weapons exist, why are we JUST banning them from space, why not ban all of them? And if they don't exist, well, then, the paternal position is to explain that they couldn't exist. Or, if they could, that they don't have the 150 mile range required for space based weaponry. Ah well.

Multimillionaire sensitive about travelling around on rock-star bus

Multi-Multi-Millionairre Treasury Secretary and former Rail Transport CEO, John Snow, mentioned twice to a reporter that he thought it was unfair she used the phrase "luxury bus" to describe the Transport for the Three Secretaries, Chao, Evans and Snow TOUR. Thanks to comments which C-SPAN cameras caught, Sec Snow complained to one reporter that used the phrase "luxury bus." Another reporter stuck up for the Three Secs and said that the American people would not be concerned. Then Sec Snow repeated his complaint (almost word for word). On the one hand, there is no doubt in my mind that they could have, in the realm of the possible, each had their own bus, which would be significantly more costly. On the other hand, the reporters are getting by on a Charter Bus that looks like any Greyhound, while the other Bus was, according to its driver, used for Rock Stars. So, calling it Luxury Bus is an Understatement.

1/3 of people say Bush's tax cuts have helped

I'm smart. I'm going to give out tax pills. Same 1/3 support, for the price of sugar, sawdust and gelatin. Placebos generally work on 1/3 of people. The Secretary of the Treasury, John Snow, CEO is "absolutely confident" the tax cut is "going to work". We need to rename Treasury. Something like

"Bureau of Seers, Prognosticators and Money"

or

"Ministry of Wishes, Happy Thoughts and Cash"