UN? We Don't Need No Steenkin' UN!

Well, the rest of the world does. Why? Becuase there are bastard countries out there such as Israel which rejcted the UN plan to probe Flotilla raid. Of course they do. Who wouldn't want to be found guilty of violating human rights again, now do they?
But hey, the The US has never had a need for a Human Rights Council anyway, because it offers rights to all those pesky brown skinned people living over the oil. That's why neocons in the US have got the House to OK a possible Israeli raid on Iran.(With support from the US, you know, the country that was so broke it couldn't afford to provide unemployment benefits to it's people) Even though Iran poses no threat to Israel, they are calling for an illegal "pre-emptive strike" against Tehran because Israel has a right to "self-defense". That same specious argument could also be used by Iran for building the nuclear weapons that the US claims they are despite all evidence to the contrary.
So when they start burning Korans in Florida this September 11, remember that the most vile hateful and evil country on the planet is Iran Israel and the United States, because they are the only ones planning to drop bombs on possible civilian targets then hope they can bury their evil deeds at the UN.

The New Slavery? Fuck You!

I don't watch sports. I don't care too much for it and can find better things to do with my time than spend it spread out in front of a television set, junk food and beer within reach getting myself worked up over something that has no impact or bearing on my life. Not that I have anything against sports, mind you, and if an opportunity to engage in any physical activity should arise, I would do it as I could really use the exercise.
I really don't care much about college sports, mainly because the art school I attended didn't have a sports team of any sorts, so I don't see how people can get bent out of shape about a college football team from a school they never had any intention of attending.
So I was very dismayed to find out that The NCAA is slavery! The poor put upon college athlete, who is offered a free ride at some of the finest school to get a higher education most people only dream of getting are no better than a slave. After all, they're only there to pass the time until they become eligible for professional sports anyway, why shouldn't they be able to accept gifts from generous donors?
The writer of the piece seems to think it's unfair that Reggie Bush (who, as I found out, is not a member of the Bush family) should have to forfeit his Heisman just because he broke the rules. As everybody knows by now, rules aren't for our professional athletes, especially if they're really good. He also feels that it's not fair that deans, athletic directors and coaches can make big salaries while the poor student has to wait a couple years to make the annual salary of the three aforementioned college professionals combined. He also feels it's not right that the money that colleges make should go to subsidize other "welfare sports", you know, everything that isn't college football or basketball, at the expense of the star player who is only receiving a free education, room and board, books, etc. And heaven for fend that some of that money be put towards academic scholarships for students who have the intellect but not the means nor athletic ability to go on to higher learning with out some help.
Now in Jason Whitlock's defense, I'm sure Reggie Bush wasn't doing anything that any other star athlete does, the problem is, that Bush got caught. But his idea that Bush isn't being compensated because he's too fucking stupid to appreciate a full college ride, well, that's a problem of Bush's lack of a value system, not the NCAA.
Our society puts too much emphasis on sports, winning and money. Sports dominate the world of the television watcher like no other single entity. Winning has become the most important thing, taking a back seat to decency, honesty, and integrity. And money has become everything for so many people in this country that it won't be long before we're all tearing each other apart so we can sell our rendered remains for a fistful of scratch.So I won't weep for the college athlete who should have to follow rules, at least while he's attending college, because he's living a dream. He's just too fucking stupid t5o realize it.

The Real Housewives Of The Tea Party

Poor Sam Wurzelbacher! I guess you are not wanted in the new Tea Party, which formed it's own caucus today in congress. To quote caucus leader Michele Bachmann:

the newly formed group will provide a voice in Congress for "real housewives, real farmers, real businessmen, real plumbers."

Not those one-time plumber, now full time metacelebrity wannabes. I just hope that when she says "real housewives" she doesn't mean the reality television show.
Now I'm not saying that the members of the Tea Party are slow, but when you fall for a three year old news story from The Onion, you do come across as gullible. And totally unaware that your movement has been co-opted by the Republican Party and a second rate Howard Beale.

The Monkey God's Middle Finger

Every country has it's own sacred ground. In Jerusalem, for instance, is the Dome of the Rock, a piece of dirt sacred to both the Jewish people and the Muslims. England has the Cavern Club, a sacred place for rock fans world wide, and Australia has the Outback, where Crocodile Dundee once killed a crocodile with an oversized knife.
Here in America, we have Ground Zero, a place hallowed by right wingers and neocons as a place where over 3000 Americans of all walks of life, and all religions, died so that the Cheney/Bush Axis of Evil would have carte blanche to start wars anywhere there was an Arab bowing towards Mecca. So naturally when plans for a mosque three blocks away from this consecrated ground were announced, the constitution quoters and theocracy seekers had a fit. It's almost as if Hezbollah, the Lebanese political party was planning on building a 'terrorist' theme park there. And almost on cue, professional Islamophobe Sarah Palin, who refudiated charges the Tea Party is racist, joined forces with Tea Party racist Mark Williams to fight the Monkey God's Middle Finger to Manhattan.
It's the Right Wing Fear Factory in full effect. This being an election year, they need something, anything to scare the good little Christ-Stains into suporting their party (the whole abortion thing, being played out, as it wouldn't take very long for someone on the left to point out that with a Republican Congress and administration they did nothing to stop that wedge issue)by stoking up the fears that yes indeedy-those Mooslems, they taking over, and soon will be forcing us to bow to Allah and Mecca everyday.

Another Easily Moved Thing Is US Dollars

Listen! Do you want to know a secret? But you gotta keep it to yourself, there's no need for all those unemployed people finding out.
You see, while Congress stalls on providing an extension of unemployment benefits for the nearly 22% of Americans out of work, the US just granted Israel $2.775 billion in aid for military and security purposes.As well as more aid to Pakistan, although only in the hundreds of millions there.
There is a small problem with these billions of dollars going to Israel. A little thing called the Symington Amendment which bans US economic and military assistance to countries which acquire nuclear enrichment technology when they do not comply with IAEA regulations and inspections. That would make this whole package, well, illegal. Not to worry, though Mr. President, US law, like the Congress that enacts them, is a thing that is easily moved.

Just Another Intelligence Failure In The Mega Million Corporate Idiocracy

The unnamed source is the scourge of true journalism, because it is an uncheckable rumor displayed as fact. And yet, in the permanent twenty-four hour news cycle,and it's unslakable quest for breaking news, the unnamed source has become the savior of the propagandist. Need to deliver a cutting blow to your competition? Nothing works better than an anonymous aide.
And if an intelligence failure is played out the world stage? Don't blame it on your agency. Fuck no. Blame it on the victim! Because if you can believe that the intelligence agency with the largest budget in the world was outsmarted, then you probably would believe that a slim majority of Americans support a military strike against Iran, if you were the type to believe that polls are nothing more than manipulated information used to create opinion and not reflect it. But hey, in their world we're more than halfway there! Never mind that in the rest of the world, the attempted bribe story is already out there, the rest of the world knew that reasons given for our invasion of Iraq were lies (France, anyone?), it just never made it past the gatekeepers of anonymous sources.
So while the egg on our collective face is discretely wiped off by the corporate media, and the blame is placed not on the criminals, but on their victim, maybe we should consider that another intelligence failure ( you know, like 9/11, Iraq's WMD, etc,) is to blame, we still keep relying on the intelligence gleaned from people who don't appear to be very smart.

One Way Or Another

They're gonna find ya. Gonna getcha getcha getcha! And by them, I mean of course, those durned Islamofascists who hate us not for the collateral damage piling up in their homeland, but because we are as free to be as stupid as Team Jake.
Or Team Edward.
The point is, every day, they're cooking new ways to overthrow this great "Christian" nation. First, and I realize that many of both my readers are well aware of this, but Texas Republican Representative Louis Gohmert thinks that the Islamofascists are hatching a plot to have terrorist babies in the US, where, thanks to the 14th amendment, they will be US citizens, then they come back in 25 years, after extensive training in an Al qaeda camp conveniently located in the country Israel the US wants to invade next.
Not to be outdone in the crazy department, Sue Myrick, a Republican from Nutty Cuckoosays Iranians are teaming up with Venezuela to infiltrate our borders. Spending six months in Caraccas to learn Spanish, then it's across the border to "do us harm".
Well, that should could and would be the end of it, but no. Now there's talk of the Taliban training jihadist monkeys! That's right! Cute little macacas given an AK-47 and trained how to discern and shoot only American soldiers (because, you know, monkeys are just that smart). We all see monkeys on television. And except for that episode of Gilligan's Island where one got hold of some abandoned Japanese armaments and started attacking the castaways, they are all pretty cute. Not really, but from a distance.
So you might as well surrender now, Dorothy, because those Islamofascists hate our freedoms and want to take them from us anyway possible, no matter how crazy it may sound. Really.

A Tale Of Two Defectors

Defector 1: Reza Kahlili, a Iranian revolutionary Guard defector who went to work for the CIA following the revolution of 1979 says that Tehran will attack Israel. Speaking at a conference at The Washington Institute For Near East Policy, Mr Khalili (not his real name) has stated that Iran will unleash the largest suicide bombing mission ever! Of course, since Israel has nuclear weapons while Tehran doesn't, it will most certainly be a suicide mission, conveniently timed for the propaganda run up for the US/Israel attack against Iran, later this year.
Defector 2:Shahram Amiri is a top Iranian nuclear scientist. He went missing a year ago on a pilgrimage to Medina, a city in Saudi Arabia. The Iranian government claims he was kidnapped, the US denied that claim.
Well, fast forward a year later, and Mr. Amiri (his real name) has turned up in the Iranian interest section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington DC. Mr. Amiri has claimed he was kidnapped and held against his will where he was "under enormous psychological pressure and supervision of armed agents in the past 14 months".
Hmmm. Mr. Amiri then goes on to state that "I was not prepared to betray my country under any kind of threats or bribery by the US government."
So, in other words, the US government, desperate to start a war against a country that is not a threat to anyone (unlike, say, the US), kidnaps a top Iranian nuclear scientist, using various means of coercion tries to get him to betray his country (possibly by stating lies about Iran's nuclear power program). Then the man escapes, posts an interview on YouTube stating he is a prisoner, which is then countered by another YouTube video of someone resembling Amiri saying he is fine and every body should just go back to buying things and disregard the previous video. Now it turns out the first video is right, and all Mr. Amiri wishes is that he just be allowed to return back to his country.
So there you have it. A defector who (most likely) was coerced (or bribed) into telling the chickenhawk war mongers what they needed to hear, and a kidnapping victim that was tried to be passed off as a defector in order to lie to sell ANOTHER war to the American television watcher.

If You Really Want To Piss Off Ahmadinejad, Grow A Mullet

Here's a funny thing. While the rest of the god fearing world is shitting their pants over Iran because of something they have yet to be proved to be doing, Iran has outlawed the mullet. How can anyone be afraid of a country that finds the ugliest hair style ever in the history of man, I mean, after the fauxhawk, of course, or that crew cut that has once again become so fashionable with the people in conservative circles who still have hair, such a threat that they have to pass an edict outlawing it.
I really don't like the mullet either, having despised it from the first time I saw an idiot with virtually no bangs coupled with a long feathered tail in back walking the West Side of GR, worn by some mustachioed ne'er-do-well in a wifebeater. So while I simultaneously applaud President Ahmadinejad for his courageousness in defending his country from the invasion of a hairstyle so hideous, it has become the epitome of idiocracy, I also disdain him. There are few ways that you can tell if a person is wrong headed. Draping themselves in some form of red, white, and blue is one. Tucking their T-shirt into their shorts is another. But the single most doofus-y way to detect a doofus, is their predilection for a bad hairstyle that should have died with the seventies, yet still lingers on in the corners of Real America where people refer to the president as Barack HUSSEIN Obama.
So go ahead, impose sanctions on Iran, you'll only make it's Revolutionary Guards richer and more powerful, but you must admire a country that saw the most godawful thing a person could grow outside of neurofibromatosis on their head and said none of that here.

Joe The Plumber Is Taking This Country Back!!! (To The Days Of Trillion Dollar Budget Deficits)

Like a chancre sore that won't go away, failed 'journalist', 'author','country singer', and all around metacelebrity Sam "'Joe'" the "'Plumber'" Wurzelbacher is back for another political election season, expounding his deep rooted political philosophy to the candidate who can pay his speaking fee for his endorsement
First off, Sam, who hasn't done a lot of plumbing since being turned into an icon for the McCain Campaign of 2008, has backed two candidates in the same race. It must be hard to go back to plunging people's toilets when you've been on SNL.
Also, Mr. Wurzelbacher has joined the "Take Our Country Back Tour" joining other fellow 'Americans' such as Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Karl Rove and Sarah Palin. (Although, to be honest, "Joe" doesn't even rate a mention on their home page). The goal of said tour is to encourage Americans to vote for candidates who believe "in the right of the American people—and only the American people—to determine the course and destiny of the United States of America." No more of those Kenyan Muslim Fascists deciding our policies for us. (But it is perfectly okay for our foreign policy to be decided by Israel). The Real America, according to Sammy, lives out here, the people who do the jobs that Mr. Plumber would do, if he didn't have a celebrity status to exploit. Sam and Co. don't ask you to vote for Republicans or Democrats, you see, but 'Americans', which has become another one of those right wing code words like 'family values' that mean exclusively white people, or people of color who know their place, like Michael Steele or Piyush  "Bobby" Jindal.

General Casey Wants To Give Afghanistan What We Don't Have In America, And He Wants Us To Waste Another Decade Giving It To Them

Speaking at the Aspen Institute Ideas Festival Friday, Army Chief Of Staff Gen. George Casey says we may be fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq another ten years. Whose idea is that? Certainly not mine, but I'm not invested in the military-industrial complex, so I won't be making a dime by bleeding the country dry.
But what's more upsetting are the objectives of the military in the region.
1.)You are only going to succeed when the people perceive there is a government represented by their interests-So why should the people of Afghanistan have what we don't? My interests don't include making the rich people richer, mine include something like providing decent health care for every American,or that those struggling through tough economic times not of their creation can keep their homes and feed their families. These were both wars of choice, only I didn't choose them.
2.)when there is an economy that can give them a job to support their families-Wait a minute-we had that here! I remember it well. Then our corporate idiocracy said, you know what, if we outsource your jobs to another country that doesn't have organized labor, we'll make out-we mean, you'll be able to buy more consumer goods because they won't cost as much. And the television watchers all said "Yup, yup, yup, more stuff for me! I like the sound of that~!"
3.)when there are educational systems that can educate their family-Do you mean like we used to have? Nowadays, many right wing candidates are calling for the abolition of the department of education. Why? Because the Official Party of 'NO!' said that education is bad because they won't let your myths be taught to other people's children, science is bad because it disproves their faith, and the only thing children should be reading is our big book of approved fables.
4.)States, non-states and individual actors who are increasingly willing to use violence-You mean, like flying unmanned drones into civilian areas, casually referring to civilian deaths as collateral damage, and bombing areas where we think there may be people we want to kill? Doesn't anybody in charge have at least one iota of common sense to realize that maybe the reason that they are shooting at us is because we started shooting at them first?
Of course, the general, who is set to retire in nine months , was followed by a Pentagon spin doctor, who stated:"General Casey was speaking of the types of conflict we will be fighting for a decade or so. He did not, nor did he intend to, imply that we would be fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan for 10 more years."
What he really meant to say was "We'll be fighting in Iran as well. That could take some time."

Taking Risks For Peace By Killing All You Hate

President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu met Tuesday for talks to smooth over the rift between the two leaders before they could both go ahead with the all-out attack on Iran. President Obama said Netanyahu was willing to take risks for peace. He then went on to call Fox News fair and balanced, BP as fine environmental stewards and Toy Story 3 as the best Toy Story yet.
Really, to call the man who called for an attack on Iran for it's peaceful nuclear power program, continues it siege against the people of Gaza for exercising democracy, and defended the murder of nine activists bringing relief to the people of Gaza a man of peace is to call Sharron Angle a sane voice for women's rights.

I Thought America Won It's Independence From High Prices

It's about time we faced up to the fact that the United States is a corporate idiocracy. Large multi-nationals beam mind numbing drivel into our homes featuring meta-celebrities in voyeuristic situations and call it reality. We are rapidly becoming a nation of slack-jawed mouth breathing window lickers who haven't read a book since they got out of school and couldn't locate Afghanistan on a map, let alone give a clear concise reason why we need to spend another $33 billion there.
How do I know? More than twenty five percent of Americans couldn't tell you from whom we won our independence. So where does these mentally challenged people emanate from? I mean, they can't all come from the Tea party, as they only comprise 18% of the population, but it is nearly as many Americans who think that Sarah Palin resigned as governor because it was the right thing to do for Alaska (which in a way, it was).
To some, the dumbing down of the United States isn't happening quick enough. There's only so many episodes of Jersey Shore that you can get people to watch. So to help ease this country into a more acceptable moronic state, Glenn Beck has plans for an university ('magic underpants' not included). This exclusive chance to be taught revisionist history by avowed theocrats is available exclusively to subscribers of Beck's Insider Extreme, a website devoted to fleecing the sheep to line Glenn Beck's pockets. Once you pass this course, Glenn Beck doesn't promise you'll get a job from it, only that you'll be as confused politically as he is, just what you need when you're working your new job, wrangling shopping carts in a Wal-Mart parking lot.
(Cross posted at American Insurgency)

Praying To Your Red, White And Blue Security Blanket

  Fox News, which we all have known for years, is neither fair balanced. Or truthful either. Basically it exists to reinforce right wing talking points while stirring up the base about non-existent issues.
Recently, the network, in it's effort to rile up the corporate idiocracy, incorrectly claimed a school refused to let students say the pledge of allegiance. Without going into much detail about how the pledge was written by a Christian Socialist, the recitation of the pledge is one of the  forms of brainwashing foisted upon children at the earliest age . Essentially a prayer to a piece of cloth, it is however considered important to the weak and feeble minded people who think it actually means something.
Following the erroneous report by Fox News, the school began receiving offensive hateful and potentially criminal messages from Fox News viewers. Because nothing makes one more patriotic than threatening a school board.
The whole controversy began when an initiative from the leader of the Republican Youth called for the pledge to be recited at every school. Because nothing says freedom more than being forced to mouth empty words to a piece of cloth. The student, Sean Harrington, gave an impassioned speech to the board spewing right wing cliches and talking points such as 'freedom isn't free' and other such drivel. All was in vain, though, as board members deadlocked on whether or not to pass the proposal. The school principal offered a compromise, wherein all who wished could join the principal in the school lobby before the start of each day and recite the pledge, which Harrington rejected.

"I was really heartbroken," Harrington said of the deadlocked vote. "It's hard to think that something so traditional in American society was turned down. ... It tells me that we've basically cast aside what our country is founded on."

Um, I think Mr. Harrington needs to retake American History 101, because the pledge wasn't even written until 1892. Our country was founded on the Constitution, which prohibits the establishment of a religion, which is what the idolatry based Americanism he wants to force upon all his fellow students sounds like to me. And as far as being 'something so traditional in American society', one must remember that it wasn't even until the forties that it became compulsory for students to recite it. So it's not that much of a long standing tradition.
So basically, what we have, is a school board being terrorized by right wing fanatics because some arrested developmental Republican still needs his red, white, and blue security blanket. Boy, is he in for a shock when he walks out into the real world.

Torture By Any Other Name......Would Still Be As Painful

That darn crazy librul media. You know, the one that bends over backwards not to offend the easily offended by not being too controversial?
Well, it seems for years, it called waterboarding torture. Well, it still considers waterboarding torture, just not when the US does it.
Sure, it's a double standard, but in order to placate those who maybe torturing, or have family members in the torture business, they can't infer that there's anything wrong with it. It's like, for fear of offending drug dealers, they started calling them entrepreneurs.
It's obvious by now that criminals are in charge, enabled by the corporate media, embedded in the social political elite, afraid to offend the leadership, because somewhere down the road, there may be a cushy government position for them.
Our corporate media has long abandoned the responsibilities of a free press. Maybe that's why newspaper circulation declines, and maybe why the country has devolved into a corporate idiocracy.

The Necessity Of Lies About The Necessity Of War

The upcoming weekend is a big holiday weekend, and, as usual, the big oil companies will exploit it by raising gas prices to pocket big profits. And motorists will gripe and grumble, and still pay it, because Americans are still too stupid to invest in any sensible alternative energy, a reliable mass transit service, or anything else that would ease our country's dependence on fossil fuels.
But if you think you're going to see high fuel prices now, just wait until the US and Israel strike Tehran. OPEC has warned war with Iran would mean an unlimited price hike, which means, bend over and grab your ankles, America. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mullen also thinks a military strike on Iran would be destabilizing.
And yet, there we are, surrounding Iran on all sides, prepared to do our worse, all based on lies. Which proves how stupefied the American people have become by the corporate media. They have forgotten that the reason were in Iraq is a bunch of lies. Weapons of Mass Destruction? Now they've conveniently moved to Iran
I could once again debunk every argument you may hear about why we need to go to war with Iran. But I'm as tired of typing them as you are of reading them. But still the lies continue. Because we need them, our corporate media isn't interested in the truth, and are too far embedded in the Washington DC Cocktail Party Set to be honest.
So I give Rep. Dennis Kucinich, the only Democrat I'd ever vote for:
"We are losing our nation to lies about the necessity of war. Bring our troops home. End the war. Secure our economy."
Amen.

The Old Two War Party Bait And Switch

Our political system would work a whole lot better if our two "opposing" parties were on the same page at the same time. For instance, Republicans opposed the filibuster when they had the White House, and now, with a Democratic president, it's considered an essential tool of government. (I know, I know, the GOP are "tools" of government)
As another example, in 2006 and 2008, the Democratic Party rode into power on a wave of anti-war sentiment. But now, with antiwar sentiment momentarily distracted by the continuing ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the Democratically controlled House has voted for more funding for the Afghanistan quagmire, President Obama has formally disavowed the July 2011 draw down date. Meanwhile, the Democratically controlled US Congress and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed new US sanctions against Iran, a prelude to war with that country.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, most Republicans now think the Iraq War was a mistake. Some have even gone as far as to call it "Illegal and immoral". I wonder, though, is this true regret, or is this an excuse, in that great game of Risk that has become US foreign policy in the Middle East, an excuse to move our troops in Iraq to it's immediate neighbor to the east. Or, maybe the change of heart within his own party and the fact that as an architect of a policy they are calling illegal he could now be prosecuted for war crimes has led Dick Cheney to the hospital. Don't worry, Dick. All this posturing is, I'm sure, just that, as Americans look closely at what we haven't accomplished after many years, many lives, and many, many more dollars wasted in a region of the world far removed from our back yards.
The problem is the learned helplessness of the two party system. Unable to think outside of the box, they are trapped in the Republican/Democrat box. Both parties have been in power on and off, for at least the last century, both parties have brought the country to the state it's in, and yet, people keep hoping that maybe this election cycle, or the next will bring real change if their party gets the control it needs.
Good luck with that. Evil 'A' vs. Evil 'B' is still evil.

US House Accuses Iran Of Being Just Like The US

When I was in high school, the US and the USSR were engaged in the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, or SALT II talks, which was about limiting the number of times each nation could kill the other one. I think they finally settled on 150. My father, an ultraconservative, one might even say reactionary, was opposed to such a treaty with the Russians, because, as he told me, "You can't trust those commies. They never keep their word and have broken every treaty they ever signed."
Fast forward a few decades, and here is the United States, breaking another treaty it signed, namely the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or the NNPT. Under the NNPT, the US recognizes the right of other nations to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes, such as electrical power, or medical research, and as such, would not hinder any signatory nation from doing so, and even offering to assist said nation in their quest to using the atom for peace. Except now, the US is doing everything in it's power to stop Iran from doing what it is guaranteed as a signatory to the NNPT. In other words, just like the commies of long ago, they are not keeping their word and essentially breaking the treaty which they have signed.
And now, the US House is send H.R. 1457 to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in the latest round in the lead up to the invasion of Iran, using entirely fraudulent claims.
1. President Ahmadinejad fraudulently won the last election
Remember in 2000, the hotly contested presidential election in the US? The one where the State of Florida had to pay roughly $5000 each to black voters disenfranchised by the Republican Party? Remember when it finally came out that Al Gore did in fact win Florida in 2000, we were told to "get over it"?
However, while there was no evidence of voter fraud in the 2009 Iranian elections, there is evidence that the US corporate media tried to paint it as such. So you see, vote fraud in another country is bad, very bad, but election fraud in the US is no big deal.
2. Iran has plenty of oil, why do they need to develop nuclear power?
A lot of neocons are suspicious of Iran developing nuclear power, because, they say, why do that, when they have all that oil? Well, in addition to having vast quantities of oil, Iran also has 1400 uranium mines. As the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran deputy head Fuel Hossein Faqihian pointed out, nuclear energy is a good alternative to energy derived from non-renewable fossil fuels as they are cleaner and cause less environmental damage.
Iran has even agreed to an arrangement with Turkey in Brazil in which raw uranium in Iran is exchanged for enriched uranium, thereby ensuring that Iran cannot enrich uranium to a high enough yield to use in nuclear weapons.
3. Iran supports terrorism
This claim is made because Iran funds Hezbollah, which is considered a terrorist organization by the US, Canada and Israel, but not the rest of the world which recognizes the differences between the security and political wings of the organization. Meanwhile the US, which created Al qaeda, is spending $400 billion annually to fund the MEK, a terrorist organization to destabilize the Tehran regime.
4. Iran continues to deny human rights and democracy to the people of Iran Right now, the whole of the Palestinian population in the Gaza strip is suffering under the collective punishment of the Israel led blockade against them. This blockade was put in place when the people, believing in "democracy" voted for the Hamas party to rule the Palestinian Authority over the US/Israel backed Fatah party. The blockade violates the human rights of about a million and a half people, many women and children. Meanwhile, right wing politicians in the US want us to withdraw from the UN Human Rights Commission because it wants to investigate the excessive use of force in the  Mavi Marmara flotilla raid.
5. Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program Nope.No evidence of that. Meanwhile, Israel which has nuclear weapons (and tried to sell some to South Africa), refuses to sign the NNPT or open up it's sites for inspection.
6. President Ahmadinejad has vowed to wipe Israel off the map
Here we go again. His statement was a gross mistranslation, taken out of context.
However, Israel has vowed to drop nuclear weapons on Iran again, and again,and again.

Right now, in the Red Sea , there are eleven US warships and three German built Israeli subs armed with nuclear cruise missiles . While there is a problem with Iran "wiping Israel off the map", there doesn't seem to be a problem with the US wiping Iran off the map. With the US now mired in two wars in the Gulf region, can it really afford to get tangled up in another? Does it really matter? We the people no longer decide what's right for this country. Although the many television-watchers may be cowed by corporate media propaganda about Big bad Iran, the truth is, while Iran isn't the greatest country in the world, neither is the US any more, mainly because we have become the aggressor that behaves in a fashion to it's once feared enemies. Economically, we can no longer afford to repair all the damaged nations of the world, because we have become as damaged.

You Can't Judge A Book B y It's Cover, But You Can Judge A Judge By The Way He Covers His Books

Given the unmitigated disaster that the the leak at BP's Deepwater Horizon has become, one would think that a temporary ban on drilling might not be a bad idea. The Obama administration had hoped the ban would allow time to ensure that other wells are operating safely. That ban has blocked by a federal judge, ruling in favor of drilling companies.
Well, guess what? That's right, the judge who ruled in favor of the drilling companies, US District Judge Martin "Marty" Feldman, owns $15,000 worth of stock in offshore drilling companies. Can you say conflict of interest?
It's a good thing that Americans have guardians of justice such as Judge Feldman, who will put public and environmental safety over their own personal gain. Judges who would recuse themselves from cases where a conflict of interest may appear, just to insure there is no appearance of impropriety.
The truth is, our justice system, much the same as our legislature, is bought and paid for, and unless you happen to have enough money to buy into it, you are seriously fucked.

The Lieberweasel Strikes Again!

Growing up, there was always that one kid, whose sense of entitlement made them feel they were entitled to the same things as every body else was, whether deserved it or not, or whether or not it was a good idea.
Ladies, and gentlemen, that whiny weaselly kid all grown up is ......Joe Lieberman!
China has the power to shut down its Internet, so why can't we?
Well, for starters, China is a communist country, while the US poses as some sort of a democracy. In the US, the open and free exchange of ideas is one of the many freedoms we have that make us better than say, China, where people have the freedom to work ten hour days seven days a week or be crushed by tanks!
Of course, Sen. Lieberman defends this act as a matter of national security, just like he defended the murder of an unarmed American citizen by the IDF as a security issue. So are we trust him on this? Remember what Ben Franklin said about liberty and security.
In the days before 9/11, the FBI shut down many Arab and Muslim websites. Some up to five days prior to that event. So the government already has shown it can shut down websites, even with out a just cause.
The internet is a dangerous place to those in charge these days. Just as quick as they can put out their disinformation someone else can discredit it as the fake it is. And with the US in preparation for yet another war by sending 11 ships to off the coast of Iran, they need to keep a lid on what's really going on before this administration's lies, much like the lies of the previous administration, are exposed for the falsehoods they really are.