No Peace For The New Year

News coming out of Germany that indeed the US is planning a strike against Iran in 2006 brings dismal hopes for peace in the new year. Still fighting in the quagmire that is Iraq, Bush, perhaps to appear more victorious for his fellow Republicans in this year's elections, is planning to involve the US in yet another war that has nothing to do with 9/11, the Neocons New Pearl Harbor, that they have used to justify every abuse committed by this regime, from torturing prisoners of war, to spying on Americans without warrants.
For some reason, people have been brainwashed into thinking that America should be an empire, stretching it's corrupt influence through out the globe, an idea sure to make the US a target of terrorism for years to come. Beer swilling brain damaged chemically imbalanced meatheads waving flags think that because we have the military strength to take what we need, we should go right ahead and do it. This kind of thuggery is called stealing, and no one who can call themselves a Christian can condone it(for sure, even Bush's church condemns him for it). Fortunately for Bush, the war supporters are convenient Christians, people who call themselves Christians, but in fact, lack any of the spiritual connection thatone makes when was in step with the Lord. Stealing. Killing. Lying. Happy New Year, you hypocritical fucks. My only wish is that there truly was a Hell so you could all go there when you die.

The Only Country Crazy Enough To Use Nuclear Weapons?

News came out yesterday that Israel has dropped plans for a pre-emptive strike against Iran. I guess they decided that even if Iran does develop nuclear weapons, Israel still has enough nukes in it's arsenal to wipe Iran out if Iran should try to wipe out Israel. It's that whole Mutual Assured Destruction thing, like that which stopped the US and the USSR from obliterating each other during the cold war. This exemplifies the whole problem created when the US opened the nuclear Pandora's Box in the forties. Like Samuel Colt when he created the Colt .45, the nuclear weapons are the great equalizer, unfortunately, now every country feels that they need them to protect themselves from perceived threats.
Iran, which will develop nuclear weapons under the guise of it's nuclear power program, has no empirical designs. They only wish to protect itself against Israel, which has nuclear weapons to protect itself from other Middle Eastern countries that may wish to attack them. But in the history of nuclear weapons, there has only been one country insane enough to use them. That's right, I'm talking about the good ol' US of A, which unleashed the atomic monster against the citizens of Japan as way to send a message to the Soviet Union that we had them weapons. And starting in 1991, the US has been using depleted uranium rounds, considered to be nuclear weapons, in combat situations.
The US, under the neocon agenda, does in fact have empirical designs, especially in the Middle East. Under the guise of a "war on terror" or the Global Struggle Advocating Violent Extremism as I prefer to call it, it intends on setting up shop all over the Middle East. Next on the list:Iran, of which the propaganda campaign will probably commence in the new year, as ABC news has sent a correspondent to Iran, an inside man to cover the invasion from the Iranian perspective. I'm sure that other news organiztions, such as Faux News, will, too, send their own correspondents there as well.
In fact, in the summer of this year, Dick Cheney, madman that he is, sought to create a military policy to attack Iran with nuclear weapons following a terrorist attack on US soil, even if Iran was in no way involved. And in March of 2006, Iran will commit an act of economic terrorism, setting up a bourse which will trade Iranian oil solely in euros, striking a blow against the US domination of oil markets such as it has enjoyed since the end of WWII.
So while the anti-war movement in this counry is focused on the war in Iraq, and the innumerable atrocities committed there by the US, the only people crazy enough to advocate a nuclear war will strike at another country again.

The Word On Everybody's Lips These Days......

Yesterday, out of boredom (I'm off for Christmas break from my first job and my second job has slowed down considerably) I thought it would be fun to Google some words. Usually, I type in oxymorons, like Sexy Ann Coulter, or Naked Republicans. After going through all these, I thought I'd type in Bush and impeachment and I got 3,030,000 hits.
One can only suspect that the Republicans in Congress and the talking heads at Faux News are choking on their words as they called for the impeachment of Bill Clinton for lying about a blow job he received as part of a frivolous nuisance lawsuit brought on by the same people who were seeking to end frivolous lawsuits. The problem with the Republican party is they are steeped in layer upon layer of hypocrisy, like a stale birthday cake or a rotten onion.They all act as if they are above the law and every crime they commit they do so in the name of "national security". Dick Cheney's secret energy meetings? Can't tell you about those, it's "national security". Disclose the destinations that Dick Cheney flew to on the public's dime? can't do that, It's "national security". Never before has an administration invoked secrecy for all it's actions, leaving me to wonder what they are trying to hide.
Well, in the secret energy meetings Cheney had in the summer of 2001 documents released by a suit filed by Judicial Watch, they included maps of Iraqi oil fields. Why they had maps of oil fields of a country that posed no threat is a question we'll never get an answer to, or why hiding this from the public was a matter of "national security".
What we have now is a presidency that places itself above the law as it violates the constitution (viewed by the President as a "goddamned piece of paper"), while his party, whose members (Delay, Frist, Ney, etc.)are embroiled in ethical controversies that they would have run Democrats out of DC for committing. That's the very hypocrisy that defines the Republican party as the greater of two evils.It's no wonder that impeachment isn't on their minds, they're too busy trying to ave their own hides until they can hook up with a cushy corporate position to keep them in the lifestyle they've grown accustomed to at taxpayers expense.

Depleted Uranium And You: What Your Recruiter Won't Tell You

Depleted Uranium and You:What Your Recruiter Won't Tell You
An update on a previous post at unbrainwashed

Forgive Bill O'Reilly, He Knows Not What He Does

Today, while stopping at Sweet Jesus I Hate Bill O'Reilly , one of my favorite internet stops right after WRH and Lose The Noose , I followed a link to a story in the Tampa Bay Tribune. In the article, entitled What Would Jesus Buy At Wal Mart? they mentioned that Bill O'Reilly is still hawking his "Boycott France" bumper stickers. Apparently, Mr. O'Reilly (who claims to be some sort of Christian), has not forgiven France for refusing to vote for the invasion of Iraq in the UN Security Council, preferring to wait to let the weapon inspectors do their job. And I'm sure that are lots of window licking mouth breathing retards out there who refer to french fries as "freedom fries" or "American Fries" because, well, I don't know, maybe because they're brain damaged?
I mean if France had gotten it's way, UN weapons inspectors would have found no WMD, just like the US hasn't found any in the nearly three years we have been illegally occupying that country. Because they didn't fucking exist! So if they were never there to begin with, why is Bill O'Reilly still so cheesed off at France? I mean, they are a bit snooty towards Americans, but I can understand that, we're all a bunch of uncultured NASCAR watching morons. And, more importantly, why hasn't he been able to forgive them, being the Christian he claims to be?
I often wonder if Bill O'Reilly does attend church services on a regular basis. Part of being a Christian is to come together in Jesus' name and celebrate God's love, right? Part of the sharing of God's love is forgiving those who have committed transgressions against you. Mr. O'Reilly, who spent the better part of the Christmas season ready to pillory anyone who had the audacity to say"Happy Holidays", in case the other person should be, I don't know, Jewish, shows that he is severely lacking in Christ's love and the ability to forgive, even when a country like France has done nothing wrong. Yet his campaign to boycott France shows that he is lacking the compassion that marks some one whose soul is saved because they have accepted Jesus H. Christ as their personal saviour.
In my opinion, Mr O'Reily is just another in long line of Conservative Christian hypocrites, asswipes who invoke Jesus' name when convenient but never exercise any of the values put forth by Christianity, such as for forgiveness. Not that France needs to be forgiven, the only people who have transgressed in this situation is the Bush administration and all the brainwashed braindead flag waving beer swiling chemically imbalancedNascar watching window licking retards who still call french fries by any other name.And I don't blame Mr. O'Reilly if he chooses not to attend a church service, who wants to get up early Sunday morning to hear about how they're going to Hell?

Iran, Iran So Far Away

Imagine a giant spinning wheel, like you would find at a carnival game, with the wheel split into equal slices, like that of a pie, each one representing a Middle East country. Then imagine George Bush, dressed in a red striped suit and a straw hat, like a carnival barker. He spins the wheel, it clicks as it passes the pegs used for stops. Click click click. Iran, Syria, Iran, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Iran, Syria, until it finally stops on one. That pretty much describes Bush's foreign policy.
Let's say it stops on,oh, how about Iran. Next, the corporate media starts a propaganda campaign designed to garner the public support for a strike against that country. First, we'll hear stories about new-cular weapons that Iran doesn't have. Then, we'll hear stories about ties to alQa'da that don't exist. And don't forget, we'll hear those magic words "9/11, 9/11"that Bush uses to justify everything from illegal torure of prisoners of war, to illegal spying on American citizens, to an illegal invasion of a sovereign nation.
In the meantime, anybody who opposes the third war Bush will lead this country into is viewed as a traitor, aiding the enemy, and as unpatriotic as the ashes of a burnt flag. Intelligence will once again be fixed, just as it was to justify the invasion of Iraq. None of it will be investigated, just regurgitated by the media and accepted by the "opposition", only as means of covering their asses when it turns out to be false.
CIA director Porter Goss just returned from Turkey , after visiting other nations of the Middle east informing them of our intent to bomb Tehran with air strikes in 2006. Of course, none of this was reported in the US media, who chose to gloss over Mr. Goss' trip. This is very similar to our informing Pakistan and other nations of the region of our intent to invade Afghanistan, in March of 2001, six months before the 9/11 attacks which were used as justification for the invasion. The taliban, then in charge of Afghanistan, wanted too much money to build a pipeline through their country from the Caspian Sea to a port in Pakistan, and so after rejecting the carpet of gold offered by the US, they received a carpet of bombs.
So what has Iran done that is so awful? In reality, they are seeking to build a nuclear reactor, to generate nuclear energy. Also, in March of 2006, they plan to open a bourse for oil trading that will only except euros, effectively performing a death blow to the petrodollar, the bad checks the US has been passing around for years that have allowed the standard of living in this country to remain at a relative high while not actually producing anything that we can sell in world markets. And, to top it all off, their recently elected president is a Holocaust Denier, which is soon to be a crime worldwide.
This will make then three wars that Bush has started, with no intention of finishing (we are still fighting in Afghanistan) because the whole purpose is to keep the American boot up the ass of the Mideast region until every drop of oil is sucked out of the ground and every dollar is sucked out of the pockets of the American people. After that, there is no plan because there is no concern once the profit motive is gone. We'll just pull out and leave those people to their own devices, which would in fact end the terrorism as all the terrorists want is for us to get the fuck out anyway.
So while the anti-war factions and the peace movement break apart because they can't decide who is the more activist of the two, Bush and his henchmen are planning another war, that no matter how many people around the world take to the streets to protest, they're going to start anyway, because, well, Bush is a war president, and everything he does, he does with war on his mind.

Osama Bin Dead Four Years Now

Last Friday, December 16, 2005, marked the fourth anniversary of the death of Osama Bin Laden. His death ,from serious complications in the lungs (probably due to his kidney problems),was reported in an Egyptian newspaper and is generally known throughout the Arab world. Of course, the Corporate media never reported it, although Osama does make it back in the news in video and audio tapes that turn up whenever the Bush administration needs to scare people in to go along with his nefarious plans. The last time Osama conveniently spoke from beyond the grave is right before the 2004 presidential election. And I'm sure ten or twenty years from now, when the media decides to look back at the events that lead up to the war were sure to still be fighting, they might bring up the fact that, yes, Osama probably died then, but will make no apologies for failing to report it then as Bush needs Osama to be alive to continue his "war on terror".
Not that we're fighting terrorists in Iraq, we are fighting an insurgency, although Donald Rumsfeld would prefer you not call it that. And you can bet that when we go in to Iran and Syria, that, too will be called a war on terror. By the President and the corporate media.
Bush doesn't seem too interested in finding Osama either, stating on March 11, 2002, six months after 9/11, "I don't know where Osama is, I don't know and I don't care. He's not that important."
Osama never took credit for 9/11, instead blaming it on Israel and a secret government inside the US government. By that he meant the PNAC, whose stated goal is creating a Greater Israel. This group was inside the Pentagon and were the only persons with the ability to give the Air Force the stand down order that allowed the hijacked airliners to penetrate US airpace and slam into the WTC and Pentagon. This thread leads through the AIPAC spy scandal and Larry Franklin at the Pentagon OSP, who not only passed on sensitive secrets to Israel, but also passed along "fixed" intelligence the WHIG used to justify the invasion of Iraq. Which also leads to jack Abramhoff,now under investigation, who hosted (according to witnesses) Mohammed Atta on one of his casino boats prior to 9/11.
Now I know that some of you might be saying, "I saw the video of Osama watching a tape of the 9/11 attacks and laughing." This tape turned up nearly seven months following Osama's death, with an Osama look alike. Here is a still picture from that video.

On closer examination, you see that it is not Osama at all, the cheeks are too full. And Osama, usually pictured in and around caves, is now staying somewhere with walls similar to the ones in my apartment. Who would gain from such deception?

Recently, the Senate voted to extend the Patriot Act for six months, against the wishes of the Bush administration, who look to make the powers granted by this act permanent. Bush, who has called the constitution a "god damned piece of paper", has stated that" this would be a heck of a lot easier if this were a dictatorship...as long as I'm the dictator" and has authorized warrantless spying on Americans, all in the name of the war on terror. Oops, I mean the Global Struggle Advocating Violent Extremism...er, better make that Against Violent Extremism. And as long as he and corporate fascist media buddies brainwash Americans to think that Osama and his ilk are still lurking about ready to kill our women and children, the less likely they are to reveal to them that Osama is in fact dead.

Or you could believe that the Islamic world is full of religious zealots who are looking to convert us all to Islam or kill us. And if you believe that, you probably think that someday they'll find Saddam's weapons of mass destruction as well.

Here's A Show Of Good "Faith"

Ring those Christmas bells as a death knoll for Christian behavior. It seems Joel Osteen's wife had a conniption on a flight to Colorado for a ski trip. Details are sketchy, but apparantly there was something spilled on a seat and Ms. Osteen was not satisfied with the job the FA did of wiping it up, which lead to an altercation between the two and the refusal of Ms. Osteen to sit down allowing the plane to take-off. This is wrong on so many levels.
Where is the compassion? The flight attendants have a whole plane of people to take care of, why does Ms. Osteen feel that she is more important than the rest of them? What about forgiveness? It seems that the arm candy trophy wife of the pastor of the largest congregation in the US should have some.
How about putting others first? I was always led to believe this was a true tenet of Christianity:Jesus, Others, You.A whole plane of people had to wait an hour while the Osteens deplaned and their baggage was retreived from the cargo hold.
I wonder why the Air Marshalls didn't pump her full of lead like a bi-polar man with a knapsack or at least arrest her. I wonder why the Osteens were leaving on a trip right before the biggest Christian holiday of the year.
Well, as I have heard and read, a lot of churches will be closed this Sunday. The most Holy day of the year, and God will be put aside so people can spend more time with their things, sacrificing Jesus on the altar of Mammon. That God isn't striking these people down for complete blasphemy or heresy is all the evidence I need that God simply doesn't exist.

The President Who Cried War

Poor old George W. Seems that his momma never read him the fable of the boy who cried wolf. Now George is having trouble getting people to believe his lies about Iran. What was that old saying they have in Tennessee? Anyway, Bush and the corporate media are beginning the propaganda camaign to start a war with Iran, but no one believes him.
Of course blames the whole Iraq fiasco on 'faulty intelligence". What he doesn't mention is that the faulty intelligence is in the head of the guy in the Oval Office. He's a fucking idiot. While he maybe smarter than a lot of Americans, most of them are too stupid to fall for the same thing twice. What was that saying they have in Tennessee? I know they have it in Texas.
We are supposed to be fighting a war on terrorism, I mean a struggle against violent extremism, but the only violent extremists are the guys in the DoD who used chemical weapons on Iraqi civilians and also like to torture people. And, having avoided military service when they were of fighting age, like to start a new war every couple of years, even while we're still fighting old wars. (Afghanistan anyone?) You see, there's only five countries in the world where the Rothschilds don't have a bank and one of them happens to be Iran.
Right now, Iran is building niclear power plants. Also, in March of 2006, they intend on setting up an oil bourse that trades only in euros. So the Bush administration, being egged on constantly by Israel, (who wants to be the only one in the MidEast with nuclear weapons), and with the blessing of fascistic corporate America(who will use the media which they own and/or control), plans on military action against Iran.The only thing is that smart Americans still remember that Bush lied about Iraq. So no matter how much intelligence they can "fix" around the policy of war in Tehran, people are going to ask "Is this more 'faulty intelligence', your most exhalted idiocy?" I mean the mouth breathing flag waving brain damaged beer swilling monkeys who are still sporting their magnetic ribbons will swallow it, but when the corporate media lies are exposed, how will they sell the invasion of Syria?
I know they have the saying down in Texas, Mr. (so-called) President. It's a shame you can't remember it. because if you don't, you're condemned to repeat it.

"No Body To Kick Nor Soul To Shame"

This post would have come out sooner, but my computer was infected with spyware and adware, so it took a bit to download some stuff to get rid of it. I don't know why there is spyware on my computer, I mean, I have a good idea how it got there, but I'm not sure what purpose it serves. Kind of like the Bush administration spying on Americans. I mean, what is some global corporation trying to find out about me, whatever they're selling, I'm not buying. I got too much crap as it is and there's no way they can sell me more. I'm on to them.
Nor do I understand the purpose of adware. Does anyone think that by freezing my computer I'm going to want to buy your product? Freezing my computer is going to make me "accidentally" knock down your display at the store or draw nasty messsages in your ads in magazines at the laundromat.
Corporations want your money so they can own a little more of the world. Having zoomed in on all available land, now the fight is on to own genomes so that everything you use has a patent on it, even the rice you use or the vegetables you eat. Of course, if you grow your own vegetables, don't save the seeds as they have been biologically altered so as not to grow if planted, so you have to buy more seeds from the corporation. What a wonderful world they're creating.
And it's their world too. They get the taxbreaks for planting a bit of green along the highway, plus they get to imprint it with their logo. Logos are everywhere in this country, and if you're not covered in logo, what kind of walking billboard are you? I mean, there isn't a ball field or sports stadium in the country that isn't owned by some conglomerate, complete with skyboxes for the high priests of expense accounts to drink expensive champagne, smoke expensive cigars and rendezvous with their expensive mistresses.
Every corporation puts up a facade of benevolence while they plunder the earth to garner more riches for their stockholders, the only people they are answerable to. They willfully break the law because it's cheaper to do that and pay the fine than it is to be in compliance. Most corporations are repeat offenders as well, which leads to my proposal.
Every corporation is granted a charter by a state to do it's business. At any time the state can revoke that charter, which is why corporations own so many politicians and judges. Many states have what are called repeat offender laws, three strikes and you're out. Perhaps it's time for something similar for our corporations. Break the law three times, and the state will be forced to revoke your charter. All your assets will be liquidated and you will no longer be able to do business. Corporations have too much power and too many rights and should be brought down to same level as the rest of Americans. I wonder if it's too late to get it on the ballot for 2006?

Mammon Christmas Everybody!

This morning on the radio, they told the story of a man in Rhode Island, I believe it was, who had set up his Christmas display in his yard as a tribute to Paris Hilton. Now I know that Christmas has nothing to do with Jesus now, when people set up idolatry to weasel faced publicity whores all Holiness is removed form the table.
Christmas has become of celebration of Mammon, the evil God of material things. Sure, it's about getting together with family, but wouldn't the Holidays be a little better if you had a new furniture set to impress visiting relatives? If your husband really loved you, he'd refinance the house to buy you some of our fine jewelry. Visit relatives in your new car! Whip up a lovely Christmas dinner on some new kitchen appliances. If you shop at our store, you'll save enough money to buy more presents!
Meijer, the local Wal-Mart wannbe even has signs throughout the store with two children bearing the caption "The More The Merrier". These are the values we a re teaching our children greed. I even know of some brain damaged sickos who tell their children that if you leave Santa Coke and cookies instead of milk and cookies, you'll get more presents! As if instilling greed in them isn't bad enough, they have to replace milk (which has some nutritional value) with toxic sludge manufactured by a soulless multinational corporation. Way to imprint!
I, too, used to like things, pointless things, but after having to move twice in the last two years, I feel much better getting intangibles from my loved ones as opposed to showering them with gifts because I'll feel guilty if I don't. If you haven't done any thing wrong you can't feel guilty. And I also know that you can't worship materialism and call yourself any kind of a Christian (not that I call myself one) as a servant cannot have two masters (thank you CS Lewis), and if you're serving Mammon, you are not serving Jesus.
All day at work I am forced to listen to the Christmas music station on the radio, and the commercials are all obscene. But even more obscene is something called (I think) "A Soldier's Night Before Christmas". What really annoys me is when "Santa" refers to the soldier as a hero. Let me see, aiding and abetting the Bush administration while they steal Iraqi oil, torturing prisoners of war, using chemical weapons against innocent civilians, raping Iraqi women and children, stop me when I get to something heroic. Hearing that song makes me wish I had a "I Support The Insurgency!" magnetic ribbon on my vehicle. It's nice that there is some soulless music producer to put together this kind of sap to exploit the war and make a few bucks. It's what Christmas is about.

Print Journalism On It's Deathbed

This was bound to happen. Newspapers have been losing readers ever since the invention of television. Slowly readership has eroded as people "don't have enough time" to read the news when they can just watch it on tv. But something else has happened as well.
Investigative reporting has fallen by the wayside. Not one reporter bothered to investigate the claims made against Iraq by the Bush administration. And even if they had, no editor would publish it. Even though they turned out to be lies, the newspapers reported them as truth.
And if the papers reported the truth, I'm sure the readership would go up as well. I know I'm not going to buy the local news as I know firsthand how ill-informed they are and how much they work as propagandists for the government.
Recently it has been revealed that the government has been writing articles they paid newspapers to print. Nothing wrong with pro-American propaganda says the media. Which shows you what idiots are working in the field of journalism today. Somewhere, someone on the board has figured out that it's more cost effective to have the government pay them to run propaganda pieces than it is to pay a reporter to investigate a story.
This comes to no surprise to those of us who read the blogs. That's why we read them, why we write them, to get the truth out, not to make money. (I know I make nothing from this, am I doing something wrong?) And that's why I get my news here.

In March of 2006, Iran will set up a bourse where they wil begin trading their oil for euros as opposed to dollars. That is why we keep hearing talk about Iran's "nuclear program", their attempt to build nuclear power plants, not nuclear weapons as we are being led to believe. There's an old saying that goes something like this-"Fool me once, shame on you, fool me can't get fooled again". Perhaps those in charge will hope we all forget about the scare threats (that turned out to be lies) generated by the Bush administration to justify our illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. And being that the majority of Americans are brain damaged beer swilling television watching monkeys, they will probably will forget and dust off them flags and start waving them again.
And of course the Democrats will also go along, for some reason, even though the majority of Americans think we shouldn't be in Iraq (have I just contradicted myself? Probably), they refuse to stand up to the Republicans and call them out for being the evil lying fucks that they are and stand aside like a castrated man at an orgy. Either they don't want to be called out for being cowards (which they appear to me to be for doing nothing about the criminality of the last five years) or their corporate and Israeli (who have threatened to attack Iran by, hey! March 2006) owners are behind a war that neither of them will lose family members in.
Before the propaganda parade begins a couple things to remember. One, Iran has offered to let US companies bid on construction of it's nuclear plants, which ought to get Dick (head) Cheney's mouth drooling. Plus, with a US company involved, it would very simple for the US to monitor exactly what is going on at these facilities. Two, media presstitutes have no problem peddling government propaganda. Brian Williams said it's no big deal, as well as the morning deejays on the Clear Channel station I hear every morning. Of course propaganda is a polite way of saying lying, these soulles bastards will do anything to get a war on. Maybe they can call it something stupid like "Operation:Iranian Freedom" and all the tube watching chemically imbalanced brain damaged flag waving beer swilling retards will start putting more magnetic ribbons on their Sport Utility Behemoths. As long as you believe were not really there to steal more oil, you can't really feel bad about American troops being used by the Bush administration to kill and die to commit a crime.
For you see, it was not WMD, or 9/11 or the war on terror (oops! I mean the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism) that led us to Iraq, it was the simple fact that Saddam had begun to accept only euros in his oil for food program. Sanctions were due to be lifted and that meant that Saddam would be selling all his oil in euros and not dollars. And now that we have Iran doing the same thing, you can bet there'll be some way to link Iran to "terrorists" and all this bullshit will start again.
Are you going to be stupid enough to fall for it again?

About That "God Damned Piece Of Paper", Mr. President

Bush's approval ratings are up, so I'm told, so I went to the story at MSNBC, and found that his ratings were up in "key" demographics, that is, those who we can cobble together to make it look like corporate America's bastard President isn't tanking in the polls. This morning on Today, Chris Matthews also clarified that his approval ratings are up because of lower gas prices and a good economy, however when you factor in the Iraqi war, the lies that Bush manufactured to take us there, and the fact that we are there until every last American soldier is dead, or every last drop of oil is sucked out of the ground (my words, not his), then his ratings go down.
First, I'd like to look at the economy and gas prices. Every year at this time, the economy goes up because more retailers are hiring seasonal help, putting more people to work and more money into the economy. People can buy beer and get a buzz and suddenly Bush don't seem like such a bad guy.Then it drops of because it's not a sustainable economy, and more people are out of work. Two gas prices, which were two weeks ago hovering just above the two dollar a gallon price, are now creeping up to the levels they were at post-Katrina. Also, the winter is upon us, and those of you who use gas to heat your home are going to get a bigger shock at the end of this month than you got from last month's bill, as usage drives demand which drives up prices.
Of course, once the new year comes, and we're still losing troops in Iraq, the holiday buzz has worn off and people are socked with high heating bills to go with their increased credit card debt, Bush's ratings will fall once again as the cold winter wakens us up to the harsh realities of a failed presidency.
That his approval ratings move up and down show not an incompetence in the presidency, rather they show an incompetence in the American people. We have traded our ideals for idols, totems such as eagles and stars and stripes. To these people and their president, the Constitution is "a Goddamned piece of paper" because they have been dumbed down and brainwashed into not understanding why we have such an esteemed piece of paper (parchment, really, but these brain damaged monkeys don't know what a parchment is) in the first place.
All over the corporate media, in the subtlest of ways, the propaganda is put in place. Morning radio deejays refer to the ACLU as being on the wrong side, that we ought to just screw the Constitution and deal with criminals in the harshest of ways, even lauding Wal-Mart for restraining a shoplifter to death.
And what do we get in return for giving up a guarantee on all our rights? A flag, which is just a God Damned piece of cloth? A magnetic yellow ribbon to place on our Sport Utility Behemoth that says "We support our troops" as we turn a blind eye to the torture they commit? Or as the drop chemical weapons of mass destruction on civilians? A sense of superiority because "might makes right", not any goddamned piece of paper?
And what about that Bible you cling to as justification for every wrong you commit? Isn't that all just a collection of God damned pieces of paper? The Ten Commandments just a bunch of God damned pieces of rock? Unfortunately, they are, as most Christians have traded the values put forth by Christ for symbols as well, feeling they are saved with a fish on their car and a cross around their neck as violate every tenet put forth by the teachings of Christ.
Thou shall not kill? Thou shall not steal? Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor? Thou shall not covet? Sins committed by our "Christian" president that can only be forgiven if he admits he did them and performs an true act of contrition. And if he had evere read the Bible (as he has claimed), he would have done it by now. Perhaps this idiot President is waiting for it to come out on video.

We Don't Need Another Dick In The State Capitol

The other night at work, the talk came around to politics, and someone (surprisingly, not me) brought up the candidacy of Dick DeVos. For those unfamiliar with Mr. DeVos, let me send some chills down your spine. One, Mr. DeVos is the son of Amway (now Alticor) co-founder Richard DeVos. Two, he is the husband of former Republican Party Chairwoman Betsy (Prince) DeVos. Mr. DeVos is anxious to dive in to politics, and this would be the second run he's made for public office.
He and his wife were successful in getting their school voucher scheme on the ballot in 2000, which was handed a defeat, along with defeats for all Republican candidates for national elections, Senator Spence (I'm in the Bush administration, head of a cabinet I suggested abolishing as a Senator)Abraham, as well as George W and the Governorship sought by (Another) Dick Posthumus. The voucher scheme was an attempt to use tax dollars to subsidize religious education, as well s giving those able to afford a private school education essentially a tax cut for sending their children there instead of the public school systems.
The DeVos' are about as disconnected as the Bush family, with Betsy stating at one time that workers in Michigan were 'paid too much money", a statement that didn't sit too well with all the working people in Michigan. Both Dick and his wife grew up the offspring of two wealthy families who combined their family fortunes.
The good news is that DeVos is trailing in the polls (even among republican candidates). The bad news is that he has a lot of money to spend until November.

Meet The New Boss (Same As The Old Boss)

"Fool me once, shame on-you. Fool me twice, you can't be fooled again."-George W. Bush

In yesterday's Grand Rapids Press, there was a front page article about the local marine who was recently killed in Iraq. His uncle said he was going to fight there for "payback". I didn't buy the paper, but i imagined that the "payback" was for 9/11, which, for the millionth time, Saddam had nothing to do with. He also had no ties to alQaeda. So this poor young casualty was suckered into fighting and dying for a lie perpetrated by the White House and the corporate media.
The Bush administration has told a total of twenty seven lies to sell this war to the American people. Another lie was when they called the war "Operation:Iraqi Freedom". You'd have to be a chemically imbalanced brain damaged beer swilling tube watching monkey to think we're bringing anything resembling freedom to Iraq. In fact, the women of Iraq wil suffer a major setback as any of the major parties jockeying to create their own theocracy in Iraq will restrict the rights the women enjoyed under Saddam.
One of the stories we heard was how Saddam tortured his own people. Now this is a horrible thing and I don't doubt it's truth, but this begs the question: Why is it alright for the US to torture Iraqis? What kind of information about non-existent WMD could they have? So if we are torturing the Iraqis, how are we better than Saddam? Is this truly freedom?
Another favorite story was Saddam gassed his own people. True, there was a border skirmish during the Iran-Iraq war where a Kurdish village was caught between both sides, where both hurled chemical weapons at each other with the Kurds caught between, but who supplied them with these weapons? This is one of the reasons that saddam will never be brought to trial, in open court he would have to tell how Donald Rumsfeld and the US government helped him to acquire them. And if chemical weapons of mass destruction are so bad, why are we using napalm and white phosphorous on the Iraqi people? Isn't that as bad, if not worse, than the mustard gas Saddam used? Is this truly freedom?
Look at the picture of the young boy at the top of the page. How old do you think he is? Five, six maybe seven years old? Does he look free to you? I mean, besides the fact that he has been freed of this mortal coil courtesy of the US troops, the ones we are expected to support, even after they commit atrocities like this so Republican soccer moms can drive around in Sport Utility behemoths and not worry about losing their children in a car accident. Of course, most of us would rather not think about that as we drive from mall to mall buying cheap trinkets made by Chinese dissidents to mindlessly give each other in the Holy Name of the Prince of Peace, do we?
Having already established that Saddam was a bad guy, mean, rotten nasty to the core, how the fuck have we made the Iraqi peoples lives any better?
We haven't, and only a flag waving beer swilling chemically imbalanced brain damaged tube watching doofus would think we have.

Happy Xmas (War Is Over)

Every radio market in the US has a station that in the months prior to Christmas begins playing Christmas music 24/7, sandwiched between ads for expensive appliances and jewelry as the major target audience for these stations are women, who are the ones who do most of the holiday shopping. Not to generalize and say that all women do this; nor would I say that no men are guilty of being shopaholics, it's just the majority seem to women.
At work, we have a communal radio, usually tuned to the classic rock station as I enjoy the morning show Kevin Matthews. The hag who works across from me (there are other terms I could use, such as bitch, which has become a badge of honor to some, to other words better suited the Ron Nasty Memeorial Page that are not suited for this forum)complained that she wanted to listen to Christmas music, which, when I'm at work, is as depressing as it can get.
But what's even more depressing is some of the Christmas music. I like the old carols, as long as no one tries to "modernize" them (today, I heard a medley of traditional carols set to disco beat, perfect for shoppercizing to). Some of the old versions of holiday classics by Mel Torme, Bing Crosby, Perry Como and the like I can stand, but when i hear five different versions of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas", I wonder, do we really need them? I mean, does the world really need a Kenny G Christmas CD?
I have quite a collection of Christmas music myself, when I was married, my wife downloaded LimeWire on her computer (go after her RIAA, not me)and I would spend the evenings downloading all kinds of Christmas music in a quest to make the perfect Christmas tape to listen to on the inevitable trip to my in-laws on Christmas. But what i have is more varied featuring songs like "Christams In Prison" by John Prine or (get ready for it) "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)" by the Ramones that would never get played on any Christmas music radio station.
But one of my favorite downloads is a Christmas song that gets a lot of airplay with a lot of people missing the point of the whole song. That song is "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. It's as much an antiwar song as much as it is a Christmas song, if not more. The song came on the radio today and the Fox watching Bush hugging Christmas music loving hag was singing along with the words she knew, oblivious to the message of the song, which is as relevant now as when it was written during the Vietnam war."War is over, if you want it". That the local station is part of Clear Channel (which tried to ban Lennon's "Imagine" following 9/11) which is owned by a Bush supporter makes it somewhat ironic that they would play such a song.

Just Another Excuse Not To Shop On The Day After Thanksgiving

There is something terribly wrong with the greed that has engulfed this country. At a time of year when people who profess to be Christian fight each other without regard to safety and well being of each other all to be the first to acquire material posessions that they can share with loved ones in Jesus' name, it boggles the mind. That this happened at Wal-Mart is bad enough, but this is my hometown, good old conservative Christian Grand Rapids, MI . I offer this up as yet more proof that the Christian celebration of the birth of Christ has been replaced by the Capitalist celebration of the acquisition of more and more material things. It's easy to see how some can justify a war to take the oil from the people living directly above it when this kind of unrepentant greed is so prevalent in our society (you should see these fuckers line up for a church sale).
Update: At the laundromat this morning, I heard from the attendent that her daughter was there at the time. This didn't take place at the Grand Rapids Wal-Mart (as I do believe there are no Wal-Marts within the city limits) but at the Cascade Wal-Mart, which is on 28th Street. Cascade is an affluent suburb of Grand Rapids, 28th Street is ten miles of nothing but suburban shopping pleasure. Also, another source for the video is here .
Now the shoppers are laying responsibility for the fracas on Wal-Mart, and as much as I dislike Wal-Mart, and feel that a bit of the blame can be placed at their feet, my belief is that the shoppers themselves bear most of the responsibility. Greedy, materialistic folks who cherish a bargain more than civility are to blame. If they themselves hadn't put such a high price on the acquisition of bargains and felt it necessary to elbow and shove each other out of the way, none of this would have happened. But, as most of us already know, the sheeple are unable to think outside of the herd mentality and can never take any responsibility for their actions. This is symptomatic to the me-first attitude that permeates our society.
The laundromat attendent also mentioned that her daughter, who got up early and waited in line, didn't even get what she had gone there to get.

Another Neocon Nazi Nutjob

One wonders what goes on in the mind of Ann Coulter as she spews her venom in the name of "family values" and "compassionate conservatism", two folksy ideas no longer in the Republican lexicon, as no one in the party seems to actually practise them. How can someone who makes her living by responding to the news be so woefully misinformed. It's as if she and Bill O' Reilly and other propaganda shills for the Neocon Nazis in charge are following the old Nazi party idea that if you repeat a lie enough times, people will believe it.
Once again, I must repeat this, but Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. He destroyed all he had following the first Gulf War to be in compliance with UN mandates. The only way he could have had any was if Brewster Jennings hadn't stopped that shipment through Turkey that the military was planning on planting to be conveniently found (more "fixed intelligence" as per the Downing Street Minutes). In the almost three years since the invasion of Iraq, they have yet to find any evidence that Saddam was holding any chemical weapons. The only one who had any chemical weapons was the United States, who used napalm on the citizens of Fallujah.
There was also no ties to alQaeda, a fact the Bush administration was aware of two days following 9/11, of which Iraq had no part in either.
The war in Iraq is part of the Neocon agenda, put forth by The Project For A New American Century. In order to dominate world both with our economic policies as well as our military, we must be able to control the world's remaining oil resources. To that end, we must then cause regime change in the countries of the Middle East where the world's remaining oil lies, and install regimes friendly to both American military ideals as well as American oil companies. All that was needed to start this plan was a catastrophic event " a new Pearl Harbor" which conveniently took place as soon as possible once the Neocon Nazis (Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, etc) were placed in power (by a judical coup). That their goals are one and the same with the goals of the Third Reich (or the Worldwide Communist Conspiracy, for that matter) makes them more dangerous than the bunch of religious fanatics aiming to get the foreign interlopers from their homeland that they Neocon Nazis have use as an excuse to fight a never ending battle.
Now of course, the bets are on for their next target. Syria, or Iran. Having successfully gotten rid of Saddam (and with him the edict he signed taking only euros for his oil), our troops have been kept in position until a case can be made for an invasion of either country, depending on which one they can best market to the American people. Given that we've sent forces into Syria , my money is on that war.

Don't Buy Anything Day

Long ago, when Christian priests were trying convert the Pagans, they converted the Pagan holidays into Christian ones. One such was the celebration of the winter solstice, which was converted into a holiday celebrating the birth of Christ. Now the High Priests of money have successfully done the same thing with this Christian holiday, converting a day celebrating the birth of Christ into a celebration of materialism and greed. Nowhere is that greed more prominently displayed than on the day following Thanksgiving, where thousands of brainwashed consumers hop into their sport utility behemoths (the better to hold more purchases), drive out to the malls where they will while away the day in a spending frenzy, using paper and plastic to dig a hole that they will have to refinance their houses to get out of, all because they just have to get that someone something because they will be getting them something and it's all about giving. So they buy something stupid, but that doesn't matter, it's the thought that counts, for someone that they really don't know all because they feel a sense of obligation.
The stores, aware of this sense of guilt, will offer up some cheap trinket to get the people to line up early in the morning to be one of the first fifty shoppers in the store. "Here's something made by slave labor in China that you can reward yourself with for being so gullible that we got you out of bed early on your one day off before the holidays to open your checkbook up here first!"
To that end, some people are now spending the day after Thanksgiving, not buying anything, in a day they call, appropriately enough, National Don't Buy Anything Day. It's an idea whose time has come. What kind of maniac would want to fight the crowds in a feeding frenzy "because of all the bargains" when the truth of the matter is, if you wait until a few days before the holidays, stores so desparate not to be stuck with excess inventory start marking down items in an effort to get it off the shelves.
The past few Christmases have been dismal for retailers and if you used your head, you'd see why. All the money spent on crap made overseas means that the money that used to go to Americans for these products means that the money is going somewhere else. The price hasn't gone down, so therefore this means a bigger profit in the pockets of the Capitalists who glory in this season because they don't have a mansion in Wisconsin yet and would like to purchase one next year before the deer hunting season starts. And if you want to see their definition of sucker, just look at the news reports (and they do on every year) of the feeding frenzies at the malls and see if you can glimpse any soul in the eyes of the shoppers as they parade up and down the aisles of the local Wal-Mart looking for that one gift for Gladys in accounting who got them that nice candy dish (now safely tucked away in the cupboard above the fridge) last year and they didn't get her anything.
This why I don't care too much for Christmas, not just because I don't believe in Jesus, or because I won't be getting anything this year (I'd prefer to get nothing as opposed to the crap I had to pretend to like over the years). It's because the original point of giving something special has been replaced by giving anything to any vague acquaintence because of a sense of obligation. Or over stimulating children by giving them so much stuff that they can't really soak it all in and they don't appreciate any of it because their siblings or cousins got one too and it's not really special.
I remember one Christmas, when I was married, my youngest son, Nelson really wanted an Ed, Edd, & Eddy as that was his favorite cartoon. My wife and I searched all over, stores, the internet, looking for anything to do with that show. There was nothing. Finally, I cut some figures out of a piece of wood, spent hours sanding the edges, painted each character on the pieces of wood and gave them to him, from Santa. He loved those toys! he took them everywhere with him, even to bed. They were his favorite toys because they were special, made with love, not by some Chinese dissident. And that, to me, symbolized the whole holiday spirit. So I will be getting my boys stuff for Christmas this year, I just won't be buying it on the day after Thanksgiving.

I Fear Bill O' Reilly More Than I Fear Al Qeada

I was just reading Bill O'Reilly's talking points about former CIA agent Michael Scheuer's article in the washington Times (there's a bastion of journalistic integrity) about how we don't have what it takes to win the war on terrorism. Excuse me, but isn't that the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism? Any time I read some one drop the phrase "Islamofascist" I automatically think Christianazi,as we are over there trying to impose our belief system on a group of people happy with theirs and only wish to get us the fuck out of their countries. really. that's all they want. If you would have read the alQueada posting immeduiately following 9/11 (which they blamed on Israel, they never took any credit for the act except in a crudely made video tape showing a fake Osama laughing at a television screening of the planes hitting the towers), you would see that their main objective is to rid their countries (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, etc.) of all the outsiders who wish to force their influence on said countries. They don't want to take over the world, that's the aim of the Neocon Nazis in the Bush administration.
According to Bill, our press is more concerned with Valerie Plame, an act of treason that he considers no big deal, than it is with the war on terror (which, I guess Bill needs to be reminded, has been changed to the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism) of which Iraq had no part in and was in fact monitoring terrorist organizations which Saddam saw as a threat to his secular regime. Sure, he was sending checks to the families of suicide bombers, but hell, we're sending checks to the government that ran Rachel Corrie over with a bulldozer (repeatedly) as she tried to prevent the destruction of a Palestinian doctor's house.
US scientists have recently reconstructed the 1918 Spanish Flu virus that created a pandemic, and one wonders: what is the purpose of this, since bio-weapons are illegal under international law? I mean, why are we spending time and money and energy developing a weapon that should never be used? And if you think that it's safe in the hands of the US, remember that's where the anthrax used in the anthrax letters came from, a US bioweapons lab. Al qaeda doesn't have these resources, they just a bunch of cave dwelling religious wackos who distrust science as much as the Religious Right.
And so, let me remind you that the most violent extremists in the world right now are the neocon nazis in the Bush administration. They use torture. They use chemical weapons like napalm on civilian populations. They invade countries under false pretenses. Any one who supports these lunatics are a threat to the American ideal (well, we did wipe out the Indians, but if we don't mention that then we can feel so much better about ourselves) and should be feared more than anybody in al Qaeda. I mean, the guy downstairs is Middle Eastern, gone frequently and keeps odd hours, but I feel better livng next to him than I do if I lived next to Bill O'Reilly.

No Exit

When Valerie Plame was outed by the Bush administration, many assumed it was because of her husband's criticism of the Bush administration manipulating his report following an investigative trip to Niger to look in to claims that Saddam was trying to purchase "yellow cake" uranium there for the purpose of developing nuclear weapons. As a result of this act of treason, the company that Ms. Plame worked for, Brewster Jennings was effectively put out of business as a world wide monitor of WMD. But
apparently Ms. Plame was outed in retaliation for Brewster Jennings intercepting a shipment of VX nerve gas being shipped through Turkey into Iraq by the military to be planted in Iraq as evidence of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
I remember the first time I saw James Howard Kunstler on C-SPAN (I think) giving a critique on the poor design of public places in the US. It was a fascinating speech, and I had no idea who this guy was but in the middle of this he offered his opinion on why we were heading for Iraq. "We need oil, and we need to put a police station in the Middle East to insure that we keep getting that oil." That was all I heard from this guy until I discovered the Clusterfuck Nation Chronicles while visiting What Really Happened and started viewing the eyesore of the month at kunstler.com that I put the two together. But that's why we are in Iraq. In order to continue our wasteful lifestyle of more and more useless materialism, we need to keep the oil coming into this country and to that end, we will not be leaving Iraq until every drop of oil has been sucked dry from the vast oil reserves there. Kuwaiti wells are beginning to run dry (that's why Saddam invaded Kuwait in the first place, they were slant drilling under his oil fields) and so we need a "friend" in the Middle East to keep the oil flowing.
And that's why Cheney chose Bush to be his pigeon. Here's a guy who can't even find his way out of a hotel following a press conference for Christ's sake, how is going to find his way out of a quagmire like Iraq? Then there are the beer swilling flag waving brain damaged monkeys who in their misguided machismo think we ought to stay until every Iraqi citizen or American soldier is killed which will happen right about the time that all the oil is gone at current consumption rates. Add to that all that the scripturally demented Bible thumpers who think if we secure the MidEast for Israel then Jesus will come back and they shall all go to Heaven no matter how many deaths they have caused doing so, and you have a good picture of why we're never leaving Iraq.
And you can't really paint this as a Republican-Democrat thing because according to a
Newsweek survey 74% of Americans support an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, while the House voted 403 to 3 in favor of keeping the troops there with no exit strategy. So we have no represenative government any more, but I'm sure that if most Americans knew that in order to pull out of Iraq they'd have to give up their sport utility behemoths, they'd want to stay the course no matter how many lies were used to trick them into supporting the invasion.

Who Gassed The Puppy?

Somewhere, some place at some time someone is manufacturing some evidence designed to trick the American people in to supporting an invasion in some Middle Eastern country at some time in the not too distant future. We were fed so much disinformation that was manufactured in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, that I'm sure that some of it was forgotten by the majority of Americans with attention deficit order from spending too much time in front of the television. One question that you should ask yourself is, who gassed the puppy?
You remember that cute little puppy, gassed on video tape and used as proof that Saddam had and/or was testing chemical weapons? Since we now know that Saddam had no chemical weapon program, than you must ask yourself, who gassed the puppy? Was it the CIA, who then passed it on to the White House, or was it the Mossad, who then passed it on to Larry Franklin, Israeli spy in the Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon, who then passed the information to the White House, in exchange for secret information that was then sent back to Israel? Was it Michael Ledeen, accused by the Italian government of forging stolen Niger documents that were cited by the Bush administration of Saddam's intent on starting a nuclear weapons program?
The question one should ask themselves is who benefits? Cui bono? Did the American people benefit from the invasion of Iraq? Did we get cheap oil? A sense of security from smiting a tyrant who was no more of a threat to our country than the Taliban? Did we gain any important information about WMD from the Abu Ghraib detainees we tortured to death?Did the Iraqi people gain anything after losing much of their potable water and reliable electricity? How about the citizens of Fallujah, victims of a chemical weapon attack with banned chemical weapons (including napalm) used by the United States?
But whoever gassed the puppy is not done. There are more wars to be fought and the Bush administration is willing to spread the lies to send our troops to kill and die in these wars. The Korporate media, several owned by defense contractors looking to line their pockets. There are those who are spinning the US around and pointing at Iran. The US will not benefit at all from this war and stands to lose much more as both Russia and China have pledged support with Iran as it seeks to acquire nuclear power capabilities.
And then there is Syria. Linked to the assassination of former Syrian minister Hariri by one Zuhir Ibn Mohamed Said Saddik, a convicted swindler who bragged that his testimony to UN commission investigator Detlev Mehlis made him "a millionaire". Given that Hariri had stepped down from his post in protest of Syria's influence over the government in Damascus, what would Syria have to gain in assassinating him? Who gassed the puppy?
Then we get to the Jordanian Hotel bombing. We are led to believe that this was carried out by a suicide bomber with ordinants strapped across his chest and the convenient confession of his wife after photos surfaced showing the damage coming from the suspended ceiling above the room, while no traces of what would have been a suicide bomber splattered against the wall. That the Palestinian head of intelligence plus several other Palestinian officials just happened to be there when it went off, coincidentally so were several Chinese defense officials have nothing to do with early reports that Israelis at the Hotel were giving a warning to evacuate before the bombs when off (much the same as Binyahmin Netanyahu had received advance notice of the London 7/7 terror bombing and been told to stay in his Hotel room, not to mention employees of Israeli owned Odigo receiving instant messages two hours before the planes crashed in to the Twin Towers on 9/11). Who gassed the puppy?
Clearly there is something amiss in the Congress when they vote 403 to 3 to continue the mission in Iraq ( a mission the idiot president said was accomplished on May 02, 2003, almost three years ago) while the majority of Americans, with the exception of a few beer swilling brain damaged monkeys, say we should be pulling out. Veterans who actually served in battle are called cowards by politicians who voted against assistance programs for the disadvantaged while voting themselves a $3,100 raise. The people in the Bush administration who support the war are the same people who took military deferments to stay out of VietNam and now have no family members fighting in Iraq, as do neither side of the aisles in Congress. And, to ensure their re-election, will gladly send even more American troops to die in Syria and Iran while the media runs flag waving graphics behind stories based on manufactured evidence. But don't you want to know, who gassed the puppy?

Dick The Dictator

The other day, Dick(head) Cheney made perhaps one of the first true statements of his Vice-presidency. "The administration did not manufacture evidence to trick the country into war." And he's right. According to the Italian government, it was Michael Ledeen who forged the Niger documents that said Saddam was trying to purchase uranium. And it was Israeli spy and Pentagon OSP head Larry Franklin who passed most of the questionably manufactured evidence on to the administration that they used, knowing, one would hope, that it was falsified.
Mr. Cheney seems to have acquired an unusual place in the government. Although he is only vice-president, he seems to have placed himself above the law. First there were his secret energy meetings, which he fought to keep secret and what little was disclosed following a lawsuit by Judicial Watch was maps of Iraqi and Saudi Arabian oilfields.
Now, he feels he does not have to follow the law and disclose all the places he travelled on the taxpayer's dime! I know he raised a stink locally when he visited former Republican party chairman Pete Secchia to attend his birthday party, the overtime pay that went for all the police and deputies who had to cover every driveway, sidestreet and overpass was in excess of $46,000, which was eventually paid by Mr. Secchia, but who paid for the use of the secret service, the plane that flew him here and home? We'll never know because Mr. Cheney is unique to vice-presidents, he seems to have even more power than the president.
But what really qualifies Dick as a dictator is his undying battle to allow the US to use torture. I mean, wasn't that what made Saddam such a bad dictator in the first place, was that he tortured his people? And he is also the reason there seems to be a reluctance to impeaching Bush. Can you imagine who much we'd all be screwed if that bastard ever became president?
In the words of the doctor at Dick's hurricane Katrina photo op, "Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney."

Is It Time For The Right Wing Dirty Trick Squad?

In a recent GOP memo another terrorist attack on US soil is touted by party insiders as a way to salvage the parties falling political fortunes. Some insiders see this as a way to unite the people behind the president and his policies in Iraq. Other suggestions include an economic turnaround (good luck) or successful termination of the war in Iraq (not a victory).
Last Tuesday's elections have proved that the GOP can no longer ram it's reactionary agenda down America's throat. Bush's appearance at a late Monday rally for the Republican gubernatorial candidate put him down three points in a race that was neck and neck prior to that appearance.
Looking at the media today, you can see the ramp up to beginnings of war in Syria and Iran. A report on a pipeline that could be built from Iraq through Syria to the port of Haifa in Israel in order to get the oil to the petroleum addicted American people is just another paving stone on to the road to war with Syria. Another is the alleged assassination of Lebanese ex-minister Hairiri by Syria. That Israel is the main benefactor of both events isn't even mentioned. It is also Israel who is pushing for the invasion of Iran, who is seeking to build a nuclear power plant with help from the Russians. Another terrorist attack would help along that agenda as well.
In the days preceeding 9/11, Bush's numbers were incredibly low as word of stolen elections spread throughout the country (but not by the mainstream media, who barely reported the fact that Gore won Florida). The country was divided by those who felt that Bush was instated in a judicial coup and Bush supporters who felt that we should just move on. After that tragedy, Bush's numbers went up higher than any other sitting president had the luxury to enjoy, and he used it to push a reactionary agenda through the congress, including the Patriot Act, which in fact had been composed the terror attacks.
There are those who feel that 9/11 was in fact a "false flag" operation, carried out by the Mossad, or the Mossad/CIA, others feel that it was allowed to happen, that a neocon within the Bush administration looking for a "new Pearl Harbor" gave the stand down order to NORAD that allowed three planes to fly over the most heavily guarded airspace with impunity. There are those who don't believe in "conspiracy theories" who fail to acknowledge that the official government story on 9/11 is in fact, a conspiracy. The Valerie Plame scandal, is in fact, another government conspiracy, called Plame-gate by some, in honor of that other government conspiracy, Watergate, the latter two connected by the involvement of the Republican dirty trick squad.
Would the ditry trick squad allow another terrorist attack on US soil? Given the fact that Karl Rove sent Bush to Virginia against the wishes of others within the party, they might. They are too myopic to see that the damage to Bush would be devastating, given the passage of the Patriot Act, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the torture of detainees were all designed to make us safer at home. We are fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here is the call of the dwindling war supporters. These are the soulless brain damaged monkeys who support the use of torture and have little regard for human life outside the realm of the ruling elite. "Pat" Robertson has sworn God's vengeance on Dover PA for voting out the school board members who wanted to introduce intelligent design (a/k/a creationism), and Bill O'Reilly has wished for an attack on the city of San Francisco for banning recruiters at local schools. Bothn of these are American cities, populated with American citizens, some of whom did not vote with the majority. But as we have seen in Fallujah, even those who don't support the "evil" that surrounds them are punished.
The GOP is desparate. The 2006 elections are right around the corner and they stand to lose control of the House as well as the Senate. Many of these opportunists, such as Rick Santorum, who cozied up to Bush when his numbers were high, are now distancing themselves from Bush. The only thing that could possibly save Bush is the capture of Osama Bin Laden, or the proof of his death , which could be quite an embarassment as he must have spoke from the grave in October 2004 when he threw his support behind Kerry. Or was that the dirty trick squad again?

Does Marion "Pat" Robertson Have White Phosphorous

My evenings generally go like this. I get home from my second job, turn on the computer, make a little dinner then go on line to find out what's happening in the world. My home page is SBC/Yahoo by default and they have four stories that they rotate, mostly celebrity bullshit, with one or two outrageous comments made by the imbeciles on the right. One day, for instance, it was Bush's "We do not torture" statement, and that will set me off, so I go to What Really Happened to see what is really going on in the world then it's off to my dashboard to create a post.
Tonight, I read the outrageous statement by Marion "Pat" Robertson about God striking down the good people of Dover PA who decided they didn't need a bunch of right wing nuts imposing their narrow world view on the students of that town. Then, of course, i went to whatreallyhappened to trace the evolution of the Jordan Hotel Bombing, which started out being reported as a bomb hidden in the ceiling to becoming a story about a suicide bomber. Isreali citizens at the Hotel getting advanced warnings to evacuate before the bombs went off to stories about them evacuating after the bombs went off. You, the truth, followed by the spin. There was also several links to the Italian video about Fallujah, plus other stories of interest, you know, how Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld want to be able to torture people, or the secret Republican memo that stated another "terrorist attack" will hep them retain Congress in 2006 (so wait for it, as they also need an excuse to nuke Iran and invade Syria).
After that, I read my emails, just two nice notes form Greenlilly including one directing me to the Daily Kos and a wondeful picture of a small Iraqi child whose skin had been melted off by the White Phosphorous used in Fallujah. And all this information started me to thinking.
What if "Pat" Robertson had white phosphorous? Would he hesistate to rain down on the good citizens of Dover and claim it was God's will? Why is he more outraged by democracy than he is about genocide? Or torture?Is Mr. Robertson a citizen of Dover? Why doesn't he just mind his own fucking business (or businesses, as he owns quite a few, making him millions from donations given by the gullible to the 700 Club)? Of course, the Fallujah story is being ignored by the Korporate media, which means it's about time for Ol' Lew to write a letter to the local paper with a link to the story like I had to do when I wrote them a letter about the Downing Street memo because the editor hadn't heard of it. Such is the sorry state of professional journalism today. Which is why I get my news from the internet.

Two Words:Haw-Haw

Back in the last decade of the last millenium, Republicans were so desparate to gain political power that they decided to initiate term limits in hopes of ridding the state government of electable Democrats. Which was successful, except then they had a problem, their electable candidates would lose their seats as well. What to do?
Harold Voorhees (R-Wyoming) came up with a good plan. After his two terms were up, his wife would run for his seat, serve her two terms, then their son would run, turning his district in to his own little fiefdom. But after being out of politics for awhile, Ol' Harold decided he needed the perks, power and prestige that come from holding public office, so he decided to run for Mayor of Wyoming, as a Republican.
A little background is in order here. Wyoming is in Kent County, one of only two counties in the whole state to go for Bush in 2004. As long as I can remember, there has not been a Democratic represenative from this district. So Harold probably thought he was a shoo-in.
Wrong!
Mr. Voorhees lost, not only to a Democrat, but a Democratic woman! Pro-choice people won seats on the Grand Rapids City Commission. All across the country, the fallout from the disaster of the Bush administration's corruptness and incompetence is starting to turn people away from the republican party and only instituting more electronic voting can save them. Arnold's four measures in California failed to pass, two Democrats won Governor's seats and this was an off year election! 2006 is only a year away and it looks like Bush is getting ready to start another war (or two).
But he won't be able to sell it with out media co-operation. And the Korporate media has issued mea culpas for unknowingly (they claim) helping the Bush administration to sell the lies for Iraq. And you wonder what the American people will think when they find out about the chemical weapons we used in Fallujah, if the media decides to report on it honestly (I'm not holding my breath) instead of acting like the shills they did in the build up to the (illegal) Iraq invasion and put out the "officail government story" which is always a bunch of horseshit.
In the meantime I think of Ol' Harold having to go out and get a real job (good luck, old man) and two words spring to mind: Haw-haw!
Nelson Muntz couldn't have said it better himself.

Post Number 100: Who's the Bigger Idiot?

Well, I was going to post a story here about how the US, in it's infinite cruelty, bombed the city of Fallujah with phosphorous, which is akin to the chemical weapons that Bush claimed Saddam had ready to use (which he didn't), and how the story is getting out all over the rest of the world but the US "liberal" media seems to be ignoring it, much the same way they ignored the rest of the world when they printed the administration's claims that Saddam had WMD, as well as ties to al Qeada and links to 9/11. Phosphorous is an illegal weapon (much the same as the invasion of Iraq was an illegal action) which melts human skin and bones on contact. Our wonderful leaders killed one reporter who was filming at the time and jailed another in an attempt to prevent the story from getting out.
But no, I gotta do another post about torture for it seems that the moron in the White Hosue made the bold statement the other day "We do not torture!" Either he's drunk, an idiot, both, or thinks the American people are too stupid to figure out that because Dick (head) Cheney is fighting a bill going through Congress sponsored by John McCain that prohibits torture by US forces (I guess the War Crimes Act of 1996 isn't enough) that they must enjoy the use of torture. Of course, the Republican controlled senate is too busy looking into how the story got out that we were actually using torture to actually go after the guys who authorized it.
So instead of doing a post about the Avian Flu, and those Tamiflu shots (which don't stop the spread but merely help with the systems) that Bush is advocating are made by a company(Gilead) whose majority stockholder is, wait for it, Donald Rumsfeld, and how he's safe from any lawsuit due to adverse side affects thanks to, yep, the Republican Party, I have to do another post about the secret torture prisons that are so bad, the International Red Cross can't visit them. Hell, even the Nazis and the Commies let the Red Cross in. There's something to think about the next time you jump into your Sport Utility Behemoth and drive down to the corner grocery to buy a six pack to watch football with, how many Iraqis were vaporized or tortured so you didn't have to trade that SUB in for a more fuel efficient car or even get off your fat American ass and use your legs and walk the four blocks there yourself. That makes you the idiot that George W Bush (and even myself) think you are.

The Consumer Fed War Machine

I just came back from the Clusterfuck Nation Chronicles where Mr Kunstler lays the blame for the war on all of us. We all want that nice home in the suburbs, away from the exaggerated crime in the city. We've all mortgaged our future for easy oil and the belief that the supply is endless. And one truth that Bush has spoken, this war is about the American way life and preserving it in all it's foolishness.
So unless you're willing to give up that commute in the pack of metal lemmings solitarily driving in the same direction with all the other gadgets and gizmos that keep us isolated from each other, unless you're willing to stop supporting the box stores and strip malls selling cheap crap made by slave labor in China that you just can't seem to live with out so badly that you took out a second mortgage to finance it, you are in fact supporting the war. But nobody wants to be unfashionable and we all need that sense of superiority knowing that no one of questionable ethnicity lives more than ten miles away from us, because as much as we pretend to be open minded about that sort of thing, deep down we know that they frighten us and God knows, we have enough things in this world that we can't control to scare the shit out of us, we don't need that big black guy in front of the grocery store living next door.
Yes, this war is the only way we can continue the drivethru culture, one where we never have to leave our car, not even to watch a dvd or have a meal, and the only way to end it is to stop supporting the twentyfour hour media disinformation culture that feeds the war machine. Unfortunately, too many of us are addicted to convenience that we have no idea how to survive with out the useless pointless and soon to be obsolete consumerist society that we have become.

No More Cheap Oil

On May O2, 2002, George W Bush flew on to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln emboldened with a banner reading "Mission: Accomplished". Twenty days later, on May 22, he sealed the deal by signing an executive order decreeing all future Iraqi oil sales were to be conducted in dollars as opposed to the euro.
You see, Saddam, in November of 2000, decided he was going to sell the oil in his country for euros, not dollars. What that meant to the US is that we could no longer print up as many dollars as we needed to purchase his oil, but had to buy euros to make oil transactions. Which means our dollars had to be worth something, since we went of the gold standard in 1972. We have nothing to export, all our hard goods are made in China or some third world country.
So defense contractors, such as Westinghouse (which owns CBS) and General Electric (which owns NBC) were given lots of money for munitions to blow the fuck out of Iraq. Shock and Awe. Then billions went to Dick Cheney's company Halliburton to rebuild the country we just blew the piss out of. All of these companies are big Republican party donors.
Now it came to reward W's oil company buddies. And boy have they been rewarded. One oil behemoth just posted record profits for this last quarter. This means that when they jacked up oil prices following the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, that they hadn't paid more money for the oil, they knew that they had the American idiot over an oil barrel and could pretty much charge whatever they wanted with out impunity as their man was in the White House and you just know he's not going to do anything about it. Yes, because we have to drive anywhere we need to go, we must bend over and grab our ankles while they supply the petroleum jelly.
Sen. Bill Frist has said he plans to look into this, but my cynical mind thinks that his response is just a deflection from charges against him. It probably is just a shakedown attempt designed to fill Republican coffers for the coming 2006 elections.

United States: Violent Extremists

In recent speeches, President Bush has compared terorists to Hitler and Stalin. Of course, only the truly brainwashed or brain damaged monkeys would believe this, for if you really do some comparisons, you'd see that George Bush has turned the United States in to a hybrid version of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia.
In 1939, Hitler proclaimed that Poland, a vastly inferior army to the Nazi war machine, was planning on invading Germany. The SS has staged a phony invasion using twelve prisoners from Buchenwald dressed in Polish Army Uniforms. This was all the excuse he needed to strike at Poland before they struck at Germany. In the build up to the Iraqi war, the Bush administration, using forged documents acquired from Italy under very questionable circumstances through the OSP to state that Saddam had a nuclear weapon program and could strike at us in forty five minutes. He stated that Saddam had ties to alqeada and had links to 9/11. All this was false information that Bush used to justify a pre-emptive strike, which is illegal under international law, making The Unuited States more like Nazi Germany than those regimes it seeks to change.
In 1937, following three years of purges designed to rid Russia of all perceived enemies, Josef Stalin made torture the official and usual means of extracting confessions. Many times people confessed to crimes they did not commit to stop the torture, other times family members were tortured as suspects watched. Sometimes they were tortured to death. This is why, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union was perceived as the "Evil Empire" by the US, as none of these people were granted due process such as we are privilige to in the United States.
The United States now has entered into the same area for which we condemned Communist Russia as the use of torture has become the official policy of the Bush Administration, not only violating the 14th amendment, but the
War Crimes Act of 1996 as well. This essentially makes those in the Bush Administration who advocate it, as well as those who implement it, war criminals, subject to life imprisonment.
The United States has always held itself up as the model of democracy for the world. The rule of law is a fundamental principle of democracy. We now have leaders who have placed themselves above the law, violating not only the War Crimes Act of 1996, but Title 18 United States Code Sections 793 &794. We can not condemn Saddam for using torture when in fact we are using torture ourselves. Once we begin to act like the evil that permeates the globe, we ourselves become a party to that evil. American adherence to ideals has always been what made this country great, not our military might, which should only be used to protect that idealism. When we give up our principles, and when we use violent extremes to maintain a role in the world not ordained by the Constitution, we become as evil as those we are seeking to eradicate.

Why Did We Go To Iraq?

A report in the New York Times states that Vice-President Dick (Head) Cheney was the source of the leak in the Valerie Plame leak. And they should know since their reporter Judy Miller was part of the White House Iraq Group, intent on going to Iraq and selling the war to the American people. Their were 27 different reasons given by the Bush administration as to why went to Iraq.
The real reasons were given by retired Air Force colonel Karen Kwiatkowski in a number of speeches given at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville and Virginia Tech as well as the Appalachian Law Center.
According to Kwiatkowski, sanction and contaiment against Saddam following the first Gulf War were working too well. Many countries around the world were working preparing to do business with Iraq, once the sanctions had lifted. The US and Uk, who had ben bombing Saddam since 1991 were in no position to do business with Saddam in post sanctions Iraq.
Another reason was that Saddam decided in November 2000 to sell oil in his oil for food program in euros as opposed to dollars. When the sanctions were to be lifted, Saddam would be selling his oil in euros, not dollars. The US can print up as many dollars as it wants to buy oil, but we must buy euros. So, in effect, Saddam had cut us off from his oil supply. No more cheap oil.
Of course there were other mitigating factors you can read about here , or you can continue to scratch your head like a brain damaged monkey and pretend that the Bush administration was right, even though they committed treason to protect those lies. Never trust a man who speaks out of the side of his mouth.

America The Bully

When the US invaded Iraq, President Bush gave numerous reasons as to why it was necessary to attack a country that was not a threat to the US. He has tried on numerous occassions to link Saddam's regime to 9/11, even though there is no evidence that this was true. He tried to tie Saddam with alQieda, even though they were diametrically opposed. He said that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction, citing decades old intelligence and forged documents to make his case.
Saddam's regime was weakened following the first Gulf War and was forced to give up his chemical and biological weapons programs under the watchful eye of the UN. His people were suffering under economic sanctions placed on Iraq by the US and UK following the Gulf War. Quite simply, Saddam posed no threat to his neighbors or the United States. So why did we attack him?
Simply put, America has become the bully of the world, attacking defenseless countries with no real army to think of to steal the vital natural resources we need to grease the wheels of our hegemonic war machine. Often times, as in Somolia, we go under the guise of humanitarian purpose, but the real reason is the oil. In the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism, we have become the most violent of extremists, even tossing away the ideals that this country was founded on so we can torture Iraqis for parking violations. We are fighting against an insurgency, people who resent an illegal occupation of it's land by a foreign oppressor.
Bullies always pick on the weak, those unable to fight back, which is why we haven't gone after North Korea, they actually have the weapons of mass destruction. No, we're content to pick on countries like Iran, whose army's equiptment is twenty five years old (and acquired from the US in an arms for hostages deal) and whose only crime, aside from wishing to build a nuclear power plant, is they happen to be sitting atop a bunch of oil.
We have become the nation that our Founding Fathers based their ideals against. The Bush Doctrine, which goes completely against the Monroe Doctrine, seems to be geared towards imperial designs, which opposes the ideals of the Founding Fathers. Couple that together with the Constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment and you'll find the Bush Administration, which has threatened to veto a bill co-authored by Sen. John McCain banning the use of torture, and it's supporters as being the most anti-American idealists ever to run this country. Right wing whack jobs like Ann Coulter call for the ban of free speech and Republicans applaud her. It only stands to reason that if they intend to okay the torture of parking violators in Iraq, it's only a matter of time before they allow it here.
Our country has become the Fascist state that we fought against in WWII, only the truly brain damaged or brainwashed couldn't see the flag waving propaganda as another cog in the Bush reich war machine. But it's okay, we're a superpower.

Ann Coulter: Media Whore

Recently, Conservative psychopath Ann Coulter spoke to a group of Florida Republicans , who managed to cough up the $30,000 speaking engagement fee. One wonders how many workers were layed off so the bastards could give themselves the bonuses to afford to donate to the cause. Ms. Coulter, author of the book "Treason" gave the audience an example of what she was talking about when she suggested doing away with the First Amendment, which was met by thunderous applause by the crowd.
Yes, all these super patriots you see all over the corporate media, as well as their corporate sponsors aren't really the patriots they claim to be, which is unsettling as they are the ones in power and committing crimes from Texas to Iraq. The people who blew the whole Clinton-Lewinsky affair out of proportion are now asking that the American people ignore the treacherous Bush administrations involvement in the Plame-gate case. Anyone who dare point out that the basis for the outing of an intelligence agent, a crime under US Code 18, section 793 & 794, was in retaliation for said agents husband pointing out obvious forgeries used to justify an illegal pre-emptive strike against a sovereign nation, is not as patriotic as those who gleefully lied to the American people to send their sons and daughters into a never ending quagmire where the death toll is creeping up on 2000 dead US soldiers, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of uncounted civilian casualties.
And all of this is just "background noise", along with a faltering econmy due to rising gas prices as well as outsourcing over the borders of hundreds of thousands of American jobs, an incompetently run government of cronyism, and ethically challenged Republicans (a redundancy?)facing indictments for numerous scandals to a President more focused on starting more wars in the Middle East than he is on serving the American people.
Basically, Ms. Coulter is a overpaid Conservative lapdancer, taking money from fat rich white businesmen to hang out with them and say the kind of things they wish they could say but are afraid to. It doesn't matter that what she says is inconsistent , either to true conservativism or what she said the week before, the only thing that matters is that she's able to spout her venom regularly enough to keep the money from speaking engagements rolling in. One wonders if they still would keep rolling in if she went off Atkins and wore longer skirts.

How Do You Explain This To Your Children?

Back in the Clinton Administration, there was a lot of self-righteous indignation from Republican conservatives vis-a-vis the Lewinsky Affair. You remember, "How do I explain this to my children when they ask about it?" How do you explain an over-zealous prosecutor, who, after spending millions of dollars investigating a shady land deal, finally had decided to interrogate a sitting President about an affair between two consenting adults that had nothing to do with the original investigation? (Something to keep in mind as conservative pundits try to limit the scope of the Valerie Plame affair) The only crime was when the prosecutor put the president under oath and asked the president point blank about the affair, the moron lied about it, leading to his being impeached.
Now we have the Bush administration committing many crimes from lying to the country about the need to go to war, to the treasonous outing of an intelligence official in retaliation for her husband blowing the whistle on some obviously forged document. But, in my estimation, the most heinous crime is this:
How do you explain to your children that the official policy of the Bush administration is torture of innocent Iraqis. Why are they being tortured? They know that Saddam had no WMD, yet for some sick reason, they tortured Iraqis, some, like this one, to death. Other times, we just torture children in front of their parents to get their parents to admit to something we know doesn't exist. And I know some of you try to pin it on scapegoats like Lynndie Englund, but if it is not an official policy of the Bush administration, why is Bush fighting a bill passed by the Senate to outlaw further torture of detainees?
Yesterday, as I took a walk with my sons, my oldest picked up an apple off the ground. A few steps later, he found a thorn bush and picked a thorn from it. A little bit later, he began to poke the apple with the thorn, saying, "Dad, this is an Iraqi-"
Now I know he didn't get that from me, so I explained to him that the United States is the bad guy in Iraq. We are there illegally, in defiance of the UN and international law. Iraq was no threat to the United States, and all the claims made against them by the Bush administration were, in fact, a lie. The people we are fighting there are the citizens of that country, repelling a foreign invader intent on stealing their oil to enrich a few billionaires in this country. Sure, we all get cheap oil from it but when you consider all the death to the Iraqis and American forces there because the Commander-in-Chief and all his cronies are greedy heartless bastards, the cost isn't worth it.
Because we aren't just stealing the oil. We are smearing the good name of the US by torturing civilians as policy. This violates the Geneva conventions, as well as the Constitution, and we haven't gained any thing from it. The fighting still goes on. We are fighting to save our sorry currency because politicians have been slowly selling out the American people. They have sold out labor. Now they are intent on selling out the middle class. And the American idiot goes along with it because they think someday, they'll be rich.
You won't be rich when the housing bubble bursts. You'll be stuck paying for a house that was overvalued when you refinanced it, but when the bubble bursts, you won't even be able to pay off the mortgage if you sell it, because it won't be worth the same. You won't be rich when peak oil hits. Remember how you cried when gas prices started to creep up in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina? When peak oil hits, you'll be lucky to have a job.
Well, you might get a job working security for all those gated communities where the rich people do live. Or, possibly, you could join the armed forces, where you will be asked to torture people. There will always be wars of conquest for oil, with Syria, Iran and Venezuela on the drawing boards. And, amazingly enough, the same lies will be used to sucker the American idiot in to supporting them. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me, can't get fooled again.