A Controversial and/or Informative Site [Archive] - Page 23

Saundra Hummer

November 7th, 2007, 05:16 PM

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V V V V VCan We Talk? The 'Cos and Black ConversationIt's hard to tell whether what Bill Cosby is continuing is a crusade or a tirade, but so far, critics are voting for the second. As usual, average black folks are caught in the crossfire.

In May 2004, Cosby addressed the gala 50th commemoration of Brown v Board (full text here) in a capacity-crowded Constitution Hall in DC. Rather than celebrate the victory and its attendant successes, "America's Granddad" railed at length against a black sloth, nihilism, poor parenting and moribund morality that he believes worse than racism ever was. Here's a taste:

We cannot blame white people. White people -- white people don’t live over there. They close up the shop early. The Korean ones still don’t know us as well -- they stay open 24 hours....

50 percent drop out rate, I’m telling you, and people in jail, and women having children by five, six different men. Under what excuse? I want somebody to love me. And as soon as you have it, you forget to parent. Grandmother, mother, and great grandmother in the same room, raising children, and the child knows nothing about love or respect of any one of the three of them. All this child knows is “gimme, gimme, gimme.” These people want to buy the friendship of a child, and the child couldn’t care less. Those of us sitting out here who have gone on to some college or whatever we’ve done, we still fear our parents. And these people are not parenting. They’re buying things for the kid -- $500 sneakers -- for what? They won’t buy or spend $250 on Hooked on Phonics.

Let's just say the speech got noticed; three and a half years later, he's still pugnaciously facing off with his detractors who think Cosby is further entrenching racist stereotypes and victim-blaming. The blowback seems only to energize him.

As the criticism worsened, he embarked on a barnstorm town hall trip (inevitably blamed his "Blame the Poor Tour" by opponents) and took his message on the road to yet more capacity crowds even as Michael Eric Dyson wrote an entire book about Cosby's speech and it's implication of the black middle class in racism against the black poor. Juan Williams had Cosby's back in another book inspired by the infamous speech (which I blurbed). Undaunted, Cosby has followed the speech, the tour and the controversy with a book, Come On, People, written with black psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint. Both Oprah and NBC's Meet the Press give the authors major air time; books are selling nicely and the afro-sphere is abuzz, so far with condemnation. Duke scholar Karla FC Holloway sums up the critique's main thrust:

Bill Cosby made his career earning our laughter, but his recent "call-out" to black communities -- in which he blames the multifaceted perils of black children (whom he has called "dirty laundry") on their parents' disinterest in their success -- only serves to solidify our biases about privilege, potential and race.

It's undeniable that Cosby relies on a tenuous "argument by anecdote" approach ("women having children by five, six different men") that seriously weakens his aim, still (or, maybe, as planned) it resonates with the black masses (the crowd hooting and clapping in Constitution Hall weren't exactly Jabari and Jaquita Sixpack) and it is they, not the critics, who live everyday in the crosshairs. Caught between the gunsights of cops who may not bother to puzzle out whether being on the corner at 4 am means waiting for the bus to the assembly line or for someone to mug, haven't the black masses a right to blow off some steam? Cosby didn't get where he is by not knowing his audience and maybe that audience is not the po-mo, Black Students' Association Past Presidents' League and Modern Language Association Auxiliary. Or maybe he's just a tired, disspirited old man. Either way, given the popular response, it may just be that the the black Joe Average is capable of grappling unselfconsciously with a complexity that the Talented Tenth are not. A la E. Franklin Frazier, their distance from whites (i.e. segregation) may insulate them from whites' psychic violence ("Sorry Mr. CEO. Thought you were the janitor.") and frees them to speak without censoring themselves (i.e. dog black folks they perceive to be misbehaving). They know exactly who the deserving and the undeserving poor are and just how tricky living in that integrated community can be. Funny that the black masses can call a spade a spade when a black Ph.D. cannot. Must not. One extremely suspicious aspect of these critiques is a suspicious over concern with the doings of whites to the detriment of black introspection and conversation, this business of 'airing dirty laundry' in public.

This analysis is a mainstay of protectionist black advocacy. It is illegitimate and speaks to the relevance of this much needed conversation, the very one that apologists for black underachievement don't want to take place. Duke scholar Karla F.C. Holloway (author of this lovely book) offers the latest, and most elevated, example of this gambit wherein any perceived black disfunction must be de-coupled from blackness:

During Cosby's recent appearance on Oprah to promote the book, parents who tragically lost a child to a drive-by shooting said they were "parents" who tried to protect "our child." They did not say they were "black parents" who tried to protect "our black child." I doubt Cosby heard the subtlety. He was too busy earning the audiences’ knowing chuckles when he explained to Oprah that he thought he was talking to “mines” (black folk) in these community attacks. He joked that he had no idea that whites would be listening in, or that someone would report the meeting’s agenda to a white friend or member of the press.

While the above is the mildest example of this tactic this writer has encountered, it's common for black critics of the left-liberal status quo to be routinely excoriated, and accused of treason, for "giving ammunition to the enemy," a la Cosby. It's a strategem which must be baldly rejected; either the First Amendment applies among blacks or it does not. At least Dyson took the time to debate Cosby on the merits, however superficially IMHO (e.g. black parents are neither profligate nor uncaring for favoring $500 sneakers over Hooked on Phonics, since the latter hasn't been proven effective). This argument simply takes as given that blacks must ignore their problems if it makes them look bad in front of whites. Presumably, if no one mentions the near 350 black on black murders in Philadelphia this year, George Will won't notice.

More practically, exactly how are blacks, or any group, to discuss their issues, work to redress their grievances, or even comfort each other if they may only do so in a black 'cone of silence,' and doesn't that tell Jaquita to shut the hell up while fronting for Susan? There is simply no set of secretive circumstances under which the National Review is ever going to run out of horrible things things to blame the black victim for, whether blacks stand mute or not. A sad insistence on keeping up the threadbare black urban identity is just that, sad. More significantly, it bespeaks a need for white approval as well as sacrifices a black progress which can only come from discussion, internal critique, and plans for uplift labored upon in concert with blacks and their allies. It simply boggles the mind to reconcile a belief in the kind of racism which helps to produce our urban social condition with the simultaneous insistence that whites must, at all costs, not be allowed to 'hear' a discussion of those conditions.

Dog him all you want, but the Cos' has touched a nerve. This is a conversation black America wants to have, though it's elite may not. Engage with it. Elevate it. Make Cosby admit where he's being redunctionist or just plain wrong. Don't just tell him to shut up because white folks are looking.

[B]Posted by
Debra Dickerson on 11/06/07 at 12:20 PM
Go on-site to leave a comment or view comments by clicking on the following URL:
http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2007/11/6089_can_we_talk_the.html?src=email&link=hed_20071107_ts6_Is%20Bill%20Cosby%20on%20a%2 0Crusade%20or%20a%20Tirade%3F
Bill Cosby hasn't done so well himself in the parenting field. His wife Camile even rented a separate house to escape their children while she worked on college studies. He himself had a child who had stepped over some lines, as did his daughter he had with his wife, not the illegitimate child we're learned of. He himself hung at the Playboy Mansion and who knows what all.

He fathered an illegitimate daughter who is distraught and resorted to blackmail over what she considered her plight. It looked like a cry for recognition; recognition which only happened in the shadows until her attempt to blackmail.

There is something wrong with this picture. Bill Cosby reported his illegitimate daughter to the police and he pressed charges and/or helped put her before a judge. How about his own transgressions? What was his pay off with her mother, hush money in his own mind, or some actual caring for her and his daughter? I think it could be a tiny bit of both. Hush money? It seems like it to me, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he helped out the girls mother so he could still drop by for his perks?

This man can be disgusting at times especially in in how he exercises his moral judgements of others, while it's he who should have known better. After all, he is bright and eruidite, and could have done better by this girl and her mother, but I believe it was all about him; his "mistress" and their daughter were less than secondary it seems, and there are others out there, or so we're hearing.

So how does he rate the privilidge? How is it that he can tell others how wrong they are in their lives? He isn't one to judge is he? He may be making some valid points, but really, he needs to do more for the ones he talks so down about and do something to elevate their lives as he does with scholarships for those who will make it regardless of how much money he pumps into their cause. He needs to catch the little children before they start their free fall into lives that destroy. He needs to have programs instituted that shows the way for their parents. Slamming them at large gatherings of ones who are genuinely concerned, it doesn't do much does it? I hope I'm wrong about this, but this is how it does seem. SRHV V V V V
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Saundra Hummer

November 8th, 2007, 12:10 PM

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^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Priest accused of stalking
Conan O'Brien

By
SAMANTHA GROSS
Associated Press Writer
Wed Nov 7, 11:26 PM ET

A priest has been arrested on charges of stalking late-night talk show host Conan O'Brien by writing him threatening notes on parish letterhead, contacting his parents and showing up at his studio, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The Rev. David Ajemian, a priest in the Archdiocese of Boston, was arrested last week while trying to enter a taping session of NBC's "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" at New York's Rockefeller Plaza, said Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan prosecutor's office.

Ajemian referred to himself as "your priest stalker" in one note and complained of not being allowed in to see an earlier taping of the O'Brien show, court papers say.

"Is this the way you treat your most dangerous fans?" the note said.

The letters and e-mails, which started coming in September 2006, continued even after Ajemian was asked to stop and were "intended to cause annoyance and alarm," Thompson said.

"I want a public confession before I ever consider giving you absolution — or a spot on your couch," wrote Ajemian, who signed the notes "Padre," Thompson said.

Ajemian also has been in contact with O'Brien's parents, Thompson said.

A telephone message left Wednesday night at St. Mary-St. Catherine of Siena Church in Boston, which Ajemian gave as his address, was not immediately returned.

O'Brien is not commenting, an NBC spokesman said.

The Boston Archdiocese said in a statement that Ajemian had been placed on leave and was no longer allowed to minister publicly. O'Brien has participated in fundraising activities for the archdiocese.

The priest and the late-night host may have attended Harvard University at the same time. O'Brien graduated in 1985, and Ajemian graduated from high school in 1979 before attending the Ivy League school, according to an alumni magazine published by his high school.

The priest could face up to a year in prison if convicted of aggravated harassment and stalking.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press.

Copyright © 2007 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Go on site to gain access to this article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071108/ap_en_ce/conan_o_brien_stalking&printer=1;_ylt=Amo4YT7_DwqU_Rh_qpqtcDfqChkF The world gets stranger and stranger. I have to wonder what's amiss in the brains of stalkers? Why is there such a phenomenon? There has to be some sort of chemical imbalance. Is there another explanation for this happening? It is so odd and dangerous. It seems to me that as stalkers become more intense in this strange behavior, they oftentimes end up with the intent to kill, as they go off even deeper into mental illness. SRHv v v v v v v v v ,

Saundra Hummer

November 8th, 2007, 01:18 PM

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. . . . . . .

I don't always agree with this orginization, but oftentimes I do. Here is their latest newsletter. This time I believe they're on the right track. This might end up being the straw that broke the camels back, as I don't know about all of you, but we are being stretched with all of the increased costs from everything from a bar of soap to gasoline for our transportation. Costs for even the most mundane of items are going up in leaps and bounds, as well as as drastic increases in food and utilities, until, if it isn't a large expensive item we are worried about paying for, we are being nickled and dimed to death as we fight to survive. We need relief, not increases in outgoing cash. SRH

Dear MoveOn member,

If the richest tycoons on Wall Street get their way, you'll face a significant tax hike this year so they can buy another tropical island. Sound fair?

Here's the deal: An obscure provision called the "alternative minimum tax" is going to end up raising taxes for tens of millions of middle-class households—maybe even yours—unless Congress acts quickly.1

Democrats want to cancel this tax increase for the middle class—and pay for the shortfall by closing a massive new loophole that's allowing the richest investors on Wall Street to pay lower tax rates than you or I do.2 (Want to see how much more you pay in taxes than you would if you paid the same rate as Wall Street tycoons? Click the link below to try our calculator.)

The bill is coming up for a vote tomorrow, and super-rich investors are making big campaign contributions and lobbying hard to keep their loophole. They could kill the proposal—Congress needs to hear from the rest of us right away. Can you sign our petition to close the mother of all tax loopholes? Click here to add your name—and see how much more you're paying:

http://pol.moveon.org/loopholecalc/o.pl?id=11644-4054703-o5Z6Wc&t=4

Here's the petition text: "The richest tycoons on Wall Street shouldn't pay a lower tax rate than the rest of us. Congress should close the mother of all tax loopholes."

We're all paying billions of dollars a year for this tax loophole. Please forward this email to your friends, family, and co-workers. We'll email everyone who signs with the phone number for their member of Congress.

Some investment tycoons are raking in more than $1 billion a year, but they get away with paying a lower tax rate than you and me. The "carried interest" loophole lets them pay just 15% instead of the 35% most upper-income people pay—or even the 25% most middle-income people pay.3

The result: Our country is shortchanged by billions every year—and the rest of us shoulder an unfair tax burden. If we close this tax loophole, we'll be able to afford to fix the alternative minimum tax so middle-class families don't face a big tax hike this year.

These well-heeled investors will stop at nothing to hang onto their billions, including massive political contributions. Predictably, Republicans are trotting out anti-tax rhetoric to defend tax breaks for wealthy financiers.4 Yet even President Bush's former top economic adviser says the tax loophole is unfair.5

This is exactly what we sent Democrats to Washington to do—fight for the people they represent. But closing this loophole isn't popular with some of the wealthiest political donors—and some Democrats are nervous about this bold move.2 We need to show the Democrats we'll have their backs when they fight for economic justice.

Can you sign our petition to close the mother of all tax loopholes? Clicking here will add your name:

http://pol.moveon.org/loopholecalc/o.pl?id=11644-4054703-o5Z6Wc&t=5

Thank you for all you do.

–Noah, Marika, Matt, Jennifer, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Thursday, November 8th, 2007

P.S. Good news! MoveOn members in Kentucky celebrated Tuesday after helping unseat Gov. Ernie Fletcher, a Republican backed by Mitch McConnell. They knocked on over 25,000 doors before Election Day and helped test our newest get-out-the-vote tools for 2008. Congratulations, Kentucky MoveOn members!

Sources:
1. Letter to Congress from 300+ organizations in support of closing the loophole, September 5, 2007
http://www.ctj.org/pdf/carriedinterestsignon080707.pdf

"Alternative Minimum Tax Likely to be Large Issue in 2007," OMB Watch, December 5, 2006
http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/3656

"The Individual Alternative Minimum Tax," Tax Policy Center," November 10, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3143&id=11644-4054703-o5Z6Wc&t=6

2. "Democrats Split Over Bill Affecting Backers," Washington Post, November 7, 2007
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3148&id=11644-4054703-o5Z6Wc&t=7

Video of Warren Buffett interview, NBC Nightly News, November 6, 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu5B-2LoC4s

3. "Understanding the 'Carried Interest' Issue," TPM Cafe, June 26, 2007
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3142&id=11644-4054703-o5Z6Wc&t=8

4. "GOP calls Rangel tax plan a 'gift'," The Hill, October 26, 2007
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3149&id=11644-4054703-o5Z6Wc&t=9

5. "Mankiw: Raise taxes on venture fees," Baltimore Sun, July 19, 2007
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3150&id=11644-4054703-o5Z6Wc&t=10

PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

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"The richest tycoons on Wall Street shouldn't pay a lower tax rate than the rest of us. Congress should close the mother of all tax loopholes."

Sign the petition

How much more do you pay?

See how much more you're paying in taxes than you would if you paid the same rate as Wall Street investors! Try our calculator: Go on-site to gain access to caculator, or sign up for newsletter.

Subscription Management:
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Saundra Hummer

November 8th, 2007, 04:07 PM

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<<<<o>>>>Bogus Cancer Stats, Again
November 8, 2007
Giuliani stubbornly repeats a claim about prostate cancer that authorities call "very misleading" and "complete nonsense."
Summary
Rudy Giuliani insists he was "absolutely accurate" to say that men with prostate cancer have a 44 percent survival rate in England, despite being contradicted by FactCheck.org, major news organizations and several cancer experts.

The Canadian psychiatrist who first came up with the figure, despite his admission to us that the statistic is "technically" not a survival rate at all, is also defending the figure as valid and describing criticism of his figure as a "malignant rumor." The conservative think tank which published the figure also is defending it.

We find no merit in these rebuttals, nor do the cancer experts we consulted. A professor of biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University calls Giuliani's figure "very misleading," and the chief of urology at a leading medical school calls it "complete nonsense." No less an authority than Britain's health secretary says Giuliani's cancer statistic is wrong. We agree.

Giuliani is entitled to his low opinion of what he calls "socialized medicine" in Britain, and to his strongly held belief that patients generally fare better in the U.S. We take no position for or against the British system or the various health-care proposals bring advanced in the 2008 presidential campaign. We do object to Giuliani's continued use of a false statistic to support his argument.

Note: The full article with all graphics and video clips may be seen on our Web site.

Desktop users:
http://www.factcheck.org/bogus_cancer_stats_again.html

Mobile users:

http://www.factcheck.org/mobile/article.php?id=374

This site has other issues which they check up on for accuracy; oftentimes checking a statement or a questionable press release, for accuracy, oftentimes comparing political arguments by candidates to let us know if either party is being truthful. They play no favorites. They report back to us with what is usually the truth of a matter. They perform a valuable service and provide us with valuable tools to learn more about topical issues of the day. . . . . ..

Saundra Hummer

November 8th, 2007, 04:43 PM

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*********
Senate overrides Bush's water bill veto

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Senate negates veto of bill that helps Gulf Coast, Everglades, Great Lakes

White House says "no one is surprised that this veto was overridden"

Bill funds projects including the reconstruction of levees around New Orleans

President Bush has called the measure too costly

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Senate on Thursday handed President Bush his first veto override -- authorizing $23 billion in new water projects.

The vote was 79-14. Approval by two-thirds of the Senate, 67 members, was required for passage.

Bush spiked the measure Friday despite its overwhelming bipartisan support, calling it too costly and complaining that the 900 projects it authorized would overtax the Army Corps of Engineers.

But the House of Representatives passed it again Tuesday on a 361-54 vote -- well beyond the two-thirds margin needed for an override -- and the White House said it was resigned to seeing the bill become law. See a chart of recent and historical vetoes »

Supporters said the projects authorized under the Water Resources Development Act are necessary to rebuild the Gulf Coast after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, restore the Everglades and Great Lakes fisheries and build flood-control projects nationwide.

They said it has been more than seven years since Congress passed a major water resources bill.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, a Democrat from California who was responsible for shepherding the bill through the Senate, said the Senate was sending the president a message.

"You should respect the Senate, the House, the Congress and American people because we are elected, too," Boxer said. "We are close to the people. We know what their needs are."

Florida Sens. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, and Mel Martinez, a Republican, said they also decided to vote to override the veto, noting that the bill authorizes nearly $2 billion for Florida projects, most of it related to the Everglades.

"It's time for us to save one of the great natural wonders of the world," Nelson said at a news conference.

Before Thursday's vote, two senators from states hard-hit by Hurricane Katrina -- a Republican and a Democrat -- urged their peers to override the veto.

"This is about flood protection, this is about water and sewer projects, it is about doing something about water and the proper salinity in the Gulf of Mexico.

"These are good, deserved, justified projects that should go forward," said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, whose home in Pascagoula was wiped out by the storm.

"A quarter of the state probably wouldn't even exist if we didn't have flood control projects," Lott said. Nearly every president has had trouble with water resource programs, and Bush was "just trying to hold the line on spending."

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana, said the bill has overwhelming support from both sides.

Landrieu said the bill will lay a foundation for reconstruction after the storm, which killed more than 1,800 people in Louisiana and Mississippi.

The measure will fund projects including the reconstruction of levees around New Orleans, Louisiana, and closing off the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet -- a manmade channel blamed for funneling Katrina's storm surge into the city's Lower 9th Ward and neighboring St. Bernard Parish.

In his veto message, Bush complained that Congress added about $8 billion in projects to the bill in committee after each house had passed its own version. "American taxpayers should not be asked to support a pork-barrel system of federal authorization and funding where a project's merit is an afterthought," he said.

In a statement issued after Thursday's vote, the White House said,"No one is surprised that this veto was overridden."

But, White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore said in the statement, "It's obvious that the bill doesn't make difficult choices and doesn't set spending priorities. We don't believe it's a responsible way to budget."

Bush's veto of the water projects bill was the fifth veto of his presidency. All of those came in his second term, according to Senate data.

Bush has vetoed fewer bills than any president since James A. Garfield, who issued no vetoes during his seven months in office in 1881.

Congress unsuccessfully attempted to override three of the president's previous four vetoes.

All About
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
• Hurricane Katrina

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/08/congress.water/index.html
© 2007 Cable News Network. * * *
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Saundra Hummer

November 8th, 2007, 05:02 PM

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^^^^^^^ The Cancer From Within
By
David Antoon

Posted
Nov 7, 2007

“I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. ...”
—Oath of Office

“Our mission is to educate, train, and inspire men and women to become officers of character motivated to lead the United States Air Force in service to our nation.”
—Air Force Academy mission statement

“We will not lie, steal, or cheat. ...”
—Air Force Academy honor code

“Military professionals must remember that religious choice is a matter of individual conscience. Professionals, and especially commanders, must not take it upon themselves to change or coercively influence the religious views of subordinates.”
—Religious Toleration (Air Force Code of Ethics, 1997)
Forty-two years ago, at the age of 18, I took the oath of office on my first day as an Air Force Academy cadet. The mission of the academy was not only to train future leaders for the Air Force but for America as well, because, in the end, most academy graduates do not serve full military careers. The honor code became an integral part of everyday life. These are the values that I, and most graduates of the 1960s and early ’70s, took with us from our four years at the academy.

I, as did many graduates, underwent pilot training followed by tours of duty in Vietnam. Like military men and women of today, we did our best to become technically competent and professional leaders. Never, during my four years at the academy and subsequent pilot and combat training, was the word warrior used; nor, whether as a cadet or officer, did I ever encounter “Christian supremacist” rhetoric.

In April of 2004, my son, after receiving a coveted appointment to the United States Air Force Academy, asked me to accompany him to the orientation for new appointees. This 24-hour visceral event changed my life forever, and crushed my son’s lifelong dream of following in my footsteps.

The orientation began with a one-hour “warrior” rant to appointees and parents by the commandant of cadets, Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida. The fact that the word warrior had replaced leadership was a signal of what was to follow. I later learned that cadets, to determine when a new record was established, had created a game in which warrior was counted in each speech Weida gave.

My son and I then made our way to the modernist aluminum chapel, where I expected to hear a welcome from one or two Air Force chaplains offering counsel, support and an open-door policy for any spiritual or pastoral needs of these future cadets. In 1966, the academy had six gray-haired chaplains: three mainline Protestants, two priests and one rabbi. Any cadet, regardless of religious affiliation, was welcome to see any one of these chaplains, who were reminiscent of Father Francis Mulcahy of “MASH” fame.

Instead, my son’s orientation became an opportunity for the academy to aggressively proselytize this next crop of cadets. Maj. Warren Watties led a group of 10 young, exclusively evangelical chaplains who stood shoulder to shoulder. He proudly stated that half of the cadets attended Bible studies on Monday nights in the dormitories and he hoped to increase this number from those in his audience who were about to join their ranks. This “invitation” was followed with hallelujahs and amens by the evangelical clergy. I later learned from Air Force Academy chaplain MeLinda Morton, a Lutheran who was forced to observe from the choir loft, that no priest, rabbi or mainline Protestant had been permitted to participate.

I no longer recognize the Air Force Academy as the institution I attended almost four decades earlier. At that point, I had no idea how invasive this extreme evangelical “cancer” had become throughout the entire military, that what I had witnessed was far from an isolated case of a few religious zealots.

In order to better understand this shift to a religious ideology at this once secular institution, I called the Academy Association of Graduates (AOG). Its response: “We don’t get involved in policy.” What I didn’t know was that the AOG, like the academy, had affiliations with James Dobson’s and Ted Haggard’s powerful mega-churches. When Dobson’s Focus on the Family “campus” was completed, the academy skydiving team, with great ceremony, delivered the “keys from heaven” to Dobson. During some alumni reunions, the AOG arranged bus tours of Focus on the Family facilities in nearby Colorado Springs, Colo. I also learned that the same Monday night Bible studies discussed at orientation were taught by bused-in members of these evangelical mega-churches and that some spouses of senior academy staff members were employed by these same religious institutions. It seemed that my beloved United States Air Force Academy had morphed into the Rocky Mountain Bible College.

The academy chaplain staff had grown 300 percent while the cadet population had decreased by 25 percent: from six mainline chaplains to 18 chaplains, the additional 12 all evangelical. The academy even gained 25 reserve chaplains, also nonexistent in earlier times, for a total of 43 chaplains for about 4,000 cadets, or one chaplain for every 100 cadets.

In the following weeks, a uniformed Army Maj. Gen. William Boykin began sharing his Christian supremacist views from church pulpits around the country, declaring that he was “God’s Warrior” and that “America is a Christian nation.” He demeaned the entire Muslim world by stating that his God was bigger than a Muslim warlord’s god and that the Muslim’s god “was an idol.” He received little more than a token slap on the wrist. At the time, Joseph Schmitz, then the Department of Defense inspector general (Schmitz is currently the chief operating officer of Blackwater International), found that Boykin had committed no ethics violations.

Days later, the May 10 edition of The New Yorker featured the Abu Ghraib torture article by Seymour Hersh, who more than three decades earlier had brought us the story of My Lai.

As a late critic of the Vietnam War, in which I lost many high school and academy classmates, I was skeptical and critical of the drum beat for war orchestrated by the Bush administration. When then-Secretary of State Colin Powell again sold his soul in front of the United Nations and the world, the die was cast. I say again because as a major on his second tour in Vietnam, Powell whitewashed reports of the My Lai massacre and attempted to discredit and silence those few, most notably Ron Ridenhour, who had the courage to get the story into Hersh’s hands.

These were some of my thoughts on the day my son had to decide whether or not to accept his appointment to the Air Force Academy. It was a time in my life when fatherhood and truth were confronted with faux nationalism. With tremendous courage and sadness my son declined his appointment and ended his dream—and my dream for him—to attend the Air Force Academy. Though deeply saddened, we were not sorry.

In what would have been my son’s academy summer encampment, chaplain Watties “suggested” that cadets return to their tents and tell their tent mates they would “burn in hell” if they did not receive Jesus as their savior. At the same time, the academy commandant, Weida, made a habit of including biblical passages in official e-mails and correspondence to subordinates and cadets. He had developed a secret “chant and response” with the cadets: When he yelled “Airpower,” the evangelical cadets in the know would respond “Rock, sir” in reference to the Bible story that Jesus built his house upon a rock.

Coincidentally, at this time and at the invitation of the academy, the Yale Divinity School was observing the pastoral care program for sexual assault victims at the academy. Under the leadership of professor Kristen Leslie, the Yale team issued a stunning report on the divisive and strident evangelical pressures by leadership and staff at the academy.

The response from academy leaders was telling. They at first denied the reports of Watties’ “hell-fire” threats. Under media pressure, they later claimed the violations were committed by a visiting reserve chaplain, when in fact they were by the recent Air Force Chaplain of the Year himself: Watties. In an interview after receiving his Chaplain of the Year award, Watties boasted of baptizing young soldiers in Saddam Hussein’s swimming pool. It is difficult to think of more inflammatory and Crusader-like behavior in an Arab nation.

In response to the Yale report, the academy demanded that chaplain Morton denounce the report she had co-signed. When she refused, she was transferred to East Asia, ultimately resigning from the Air Force in protest. Morton was the only officer who put her oath of office “to support and defend the Constitution” above careerism.

Then-DoD Inspector General Schmitz, noted for his Christian supremacist rhetoric in the book “Blackwater,” sent a team led by evangelical “born again” Lt. Gen. Roger Brady to investigate the academy. Schmitz had recently found no ethics violations in the actions of Gen. Boykin and allowed Boykin’s promotion to senior military officer in charge of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and “extraordinary rendition.” The “Brady Report” found the academy only to have an “insensitivity” problem. Air Force Academy graduate Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, “silenced” and removed from the major general promotion list, was secretly promoted with back pay the following year at Wright Patterson Air Force Base.

Following the release of the “Brady Report,” West Point graduate and Secretary of the Air Force Mike Wynne, ignoring the existing code of ethics, issued another “code of ethics” that allowed evangelical proselytizing. A month later, in an effort to appease the religious right, Wynne issued an even softer “code of ethics.” Amazingly, Wynne’s document is in complete violation of the code of ethics issued in 1997 by Secretary of the Air Force Sheila Widnall prohibiting proselytizing by commanders and other officers.

The pre-existing Air Force code of ethics in The Little Blue Book states:
“Military professionals must remember that religious choice is a matter of individual conscience. Professionals, and especially commanders, must not take it upon themselves to change or coercively influence the religious views of subordinates.”

Here are just a few violations of that principle over the last three years: Academy football coach Fisher DeBerry hung a banner in the team locker room reading: “Competitor’s Creed: I am a Christian first and last. ... I am a member of Team Jesus Christ.” Baseball coach Mike Hutcheon, recruited from evangelical Christian Bethel College, forced players to lead team prayer during practice. When asked about locker room prayer in March 2007, Lt. Gen. John Regni, the academy superintendent, responded “we have chaplains that are attached to each of the teams and they are very important in that area.” In a July 12, 2005 interview with the New York Times, Brig. Gen. Cecil Richardson, Air Force deputy chief of chaplains, stated, “...we reserve the right to evangelize the unchurched.” For over a decade, the official academy newspaper ran ads stating: “We believe that Jesus Christ is the only real hope for the World. If you would like to discuss Jesus, feel free to contact one of us! There is salvation in no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” The ads were signed by 16 department heads, nine permanent professors, both the incoming and outgoing deans of faculty, the athletic director and more than 200 academy senior officers and their spouses.

Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, in just a few short years has received complaints from more than 6,000 service members and discovered church-state violations at the academies, at military installations in Iraq and around the world, and even within the inner corridors of the Pentagon.

In 2005, when Weinstein filed suit against the Air Force for constitutional violations of church-state separation, the House of Representatives, with little public notice, passed a chilling bill that undermines enforcement of the First Amendment’s separation of church and state. The Public Expression of Religion Act, H.R. 2679, provides that attorneys who successfully challenge government actions that violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment shall not be entitled to recover attorney’s fees. According to The Washington Post, the purpose of this bill is to prevent suits challenging unconstitutional government actions advancing religion.

In December 2006, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation brought media focus to the Christian Embassy Evangelical Organization and its now famous video, which clearly showed the egregious ethics and constitutional violations of several flag officers and the breadth of the problem. Air Force Academy graduate Maj. Gen. Jack Catton, who suggested in the film that his religious beliefs trump country and his oath to the Constitution, was cited last year for sending e-mails to military subordinates and contractors advocating they vote for a particular candidate for Congress, arguing that there are “not enough Christians in Congress.” West Point graduate and Army Brig. Gen. Robert Caslen, who was filmed stating “We are the aroma of Jesus Christ here in the Pentagon,” is now commandant of cadets at West Point. West Point graduate Army Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, another Christian Embassy star, was the “voice” and “face” of the press conferences at Qatar. His office is famous for the creation of the “Rambo” Jessica Lynch fabrications and the manipulation of the killing of Pat Tillman into a recruiting and media event. West Point graduate and evangelical Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, involved in the investigation of Tillman’s death, stated publicly that Pat Tillman’s family was not at peace with his death because they are atheists who believe their son is now “worm dirt.” Air Force Academy graduate Maj. Gen. Peter Sutton, assigned as the senior U.S. military officer in Turkey at the time the Military Religious Freedom Foundation brought the Christian Embassy into media focus, was questioned by Turkish officials about his membership in a radical evangelical cult.

Many are aware of the mercenary army, Blackwater USA, led by Eric Prince, former Ambassador Cofer Black and Joseph Schmitz, the same Joseph Schmitz mentioned above. It is here where the ties become complex and suggestive of an even grander “crusade.”

As described by Jeremy Scahill in his book “Blackwater,” Prince, who attended the U.S. Naval Academy, comes from a wealthy theo-con family, is a “neo-crusader,” and a Christian supremacist. He has been given billions of dollars in federal contracts to create a private army. COO Schmitz, another Naval Academy graduate, is a member of the Order of Malta, a Christian supremacist organization dating back to the Crusades, and happens to be married to the sister of Jeb Bush’s wife, Columba. And Cofer Black, former coordinator for counterterrorism at the U.S. State Department and former director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, who was quoted by the BBC as saying “Capture Bin Laden, kill him and bring his head back in a box on dry ice,” brings his own skill set to the Blackwater team as vice chairman.

The Christian supremacist fascism first reported at the Air Force Academy is endemic throughout the military. From the top down, there has been a complete repudiation of constitutional values and time-honored codes of ethics and honor codes in favor of religious ideology. And we now have a revolving door between Blackwater USA, which is Bush’s Praetorian Guard, and the U.S. military at every level. The citizen-soldier military dictated by our founding fathers has been replaced with professional and mercenary right-wing Christian crusaders in control of the world’s most powerful military. The risks to our democratic form of government cannot be overstated.

This evangelical Christian supremacist fascism within our military and government is a cancer. Officers, especially commanders, who violate the original code of ethics, must be rooted out of the military. The undermining of the Constitution, especially by senior military officers, must end.

As I look back at my 30 years as an active-duty officer, two combat tours in Vietnam, decorations including air medals and the Distinguished Flying Cross, I realize that not once was my service in support or defense of the Constitution. For the very first time, I am upholding my oath of office.

Related Articles:
Robert Dorr, a Military Times columnist, accurately describes the “religious” cancer infecting the U.S. military in his Aug. 7 article, ”Keep the Faith (to Oneself).”

An opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times, “Not So Fast, Christian Soldiers: The Pentagon Has a Disturbing Relationship With Private Evangelical Groups,” describes similar egregious behavior.

Thomas D. Williams and J.P. Briggs II, Ph.D., describe how “Fringe Evangelicals Distort US Policy.”

usafa.af.mil

The famous Air Force Academy cadet chapel, once a place of nondenominational worship and reflection, seems to have become a focal point of evangelical indoctrination and conversion.

A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.

Copyright © 2007 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20071107_the_cancer_from_within/

This is a frightening situation, combined with Black Water, a military filled with religious zealots, puts us on the same footing as the radical fundamentalist Muslims who want to control the world. It could take over our own country and do away with more of our "Constitutional Rights" than has already come about. We do need to wake up to where this all is headed. I don't believe I'm being overly pessimistic either. We are on a strange and bumpy path, and it's not getting any better. We need to stop this run away train, if there's any way whatsoever to do so. This is just crazy. SRH^ ^ ^.

Saundra Hummer

November 8th, 2007, 05:19 PM

.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Dennis Kucinich
The long shot
By
Brian Early
bearly@hippopress.com

Ohio Rep. and Democratic hopeful Dennis Kucinich has been in politics since 1969, when he won a seat on the Cleveland City Council. He served as mayor of the city as well. He was elected to the U.S. House in 1996 and has stayed since. He also ran in the 2004 Democratic presidential primary.

Q:What makes you think you should be president?

A:
When I look at what’s going on in our country right now, when I see war being used as an instrument of policy, and when I see poverty rising in the United States, someone has to step forward and say, stop this madness, stop ruining our nation, stop destroying our Constitution, and let’s envision a country we can have, which is one which has peace and prosperity. I’ve had the experience in my life of changing the outcome when people said it was impossible. I’ve had so many experiences in my life where I’ve seen that you can really reach in and change the outcome. Miguel de Unamuno wrote that “only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible.” Any of us in life can look at challenges, and the understanding that we take into that challenge is going to determine the outcome. I happen to believe that each one of us have the abilities to change the outcome in our own lives, and also in the life of our nation, if we are willing to stand forward, stand up and speak out.

Q: If as president you could say it happens and it happens, what’s the one thing you do?

A:The first act in office is going to be to cancel NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement] and withdraw from the WTO [World Trade Organization]. The president can do that. Then I will establish trade with other nations that’s based on workers’ rights, meaning the right to organize, the right to collective bargaining, the right to strike, the right to a decent wage and benefits, the right to a safe work place, the right to be able sue your employer if you are working on a job that is unsafe and the employer hasn’t corrected it, the right to a secure retirement, the right to participate in the political process. These are basic rights that will be written into the trade agreements. Other countries who want to trade with the United States have to guarantee the workers that. That way there’s no race to the bottom. That way we don’t lose factories to countries that don’t provide workers with any protections. I see trade as being this marvelous mechanism that can lift up the human condition. That is one of the things I can do immediately. Also, I will issue a direct order immediately to bring our troops home from Iraq, and I will do it in consultation with the leaders of the region, asking them for their help in putting together a peacekeeping and security force that will stabilize Iraq as United States leaves. I will go to Iran immediately and open up negotiations for the first time in 28 years. That I would try to do in the first month. We’d immediately ratchet down the rhetoric and the pressure and try to work with Iran so that they know they we are not a threat, but also to talk to them about the responsibilities of moving towards nuclear power. I prepared to do a whole range of things the first day, the first week, the first month. I’ve thought this through. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’m ready to be president.

Q: How is this election different then when you ran in 2004?

A: Something’s happened now that’s different. Last time I didn’t really register in New Hampshire, and maybe it’s because I got in the race late here, but I didn’t register in a way that I am now. Our campaign is starting to get traction here. Because the media has tried to set up this race as if it was just between three candidates. With me moving into fourth place ... I get into third, this race changes. I can win the presidency, and all I have to do is get to third place.

Q: Because you beat the perceptions.

A: Not just beat the perceptions. Let’s look at the race. Senators Clinton and Edwards voted for the war in Iraq, and both have voted to fund it. Senator Obama said he was opposed to the war, but has voted to fund it as much as Senator Clinton has. Senators Clinton, Edwards and Obama have said all options are on the table with respect to Iran. While they’re all expressing concern about going to war with Iran, it was their rhetoric that helped create the circumstances that have emboldened this president. I get into the top three, and it’s myself, Senators Clinton and Obama. The race changes because there is no difference between Senators Clinton, Edwards and Obama. When I get in the race, they’re going to see the differences are real. I’m talking about rejecting wars as an instrument of policy, I’m talking about a not-for-profit health care system, I’m talking about bringing our troops home now, not 2013, as Senators Clinton, Edwards and Obama are talking about. There are differences that run very deep.

Q: What’s the challenge now?

A: I’m seven points behind John Edwards right now. That’s not an insurmountable lead by any means. And it will shock the political pundits when you see the race they thought they had figured out, suddenly upended. My presence in the race is already starting to surprise people because we are catching on nationally. We’re starting to get a lot of national coverage. Our campaign is on the move. Watch what happens. We stand poised to be the surprise of the 2008 campaign, and I think anything could happen in New Hampshire. I think we have a real shot at winning New Hampshire and changing the entire political landscape because of what happens in New Hampshire. People in New Hampshire are ready for something profoundly new and different. And I think our campaign will be the one to do it. Do I know I’m a long shot? Of course. But long shots do win. Look at Seabiscuit.

Q: What do you like most about campaigning?

A: I love people. Wherever I go, I meet people who have hopes and dreams and we share those about what our country can become. And you know what? As I’ve traveled across America, you see how much Americans have in common. And that’s the big lie in this world: people are just so different. From town to town, state to state, region to region, there’s a lot that people have in common. There’s a lot of hopes and dreams that people share. And when you travel around the world, you see the same thing, which is why you know that war is such a great human tragedy and how it’s time to have leaders that know that and understand that the world can be a dangerous place, but who look to unite people around their commonalities and to find things that you can work on to make America more secure by working with people of other countries who want to do the same thing with for their country, which is, find a common interest.

—Brian Early
http://www.hippopress.com/071108/mQA2.html[I] ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ .

Saundra Hummer

November 8th, 2007, 05:38 PM

::?::?::?::?::?::
What in the world is going on here? It's as if it's some sort of sinister plot, lead poisoning to the point where our children can become mentally deficient, enough heavy metal to effect children into adulthood. This is crazy. Now this.

Toy contaminated with 'date rape' drug pulled

Story Highlights
NEW: Distributor provides phone number for return and replacementChildren who swallow the beads can become comatose or have seizures

Toys are sold as Aqua Dots in the U.S., as Bindeez Beads in Australia

Three children were hospitalized in Australia after swallowing large quantities

NEW YORK (CNN) -- U.S. safety officials have recalled about 4.2 million Chinese-made Aqua Dots bead toys that contain a chemical that has caused some children to vomit and become comatose after swallowing them.

Scientists have found the popular toy's coating contains a chemical that, once metabolized, converts into the toxic "date rape" drug GHB, or gamma-hydroxy butyrate, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission spokesman Scott Wolfson told CNN.

"GHB is this drug that in low doses actually causes euphoria," said Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent. "In higher doses, it can cause people to go into a coma. It can cause seizures. It can cause something known as hypotonia, where all your muscles just become very flaccid.

"And it can cause people to become amnestic, ... which is why it became a date-rape drug," Gupta said.

"So this is nasty stuff, and it appears that the chemical is actually converting into it in the body."

The arts and craft beads, aimed at children 4 years and older, have been selling since April at major U.S. retail stores as "Aqua Dots" and in Australia under the name "Bindeez Beads."

CPSC spokeswoman Julie Vallese said anyone with Aqua Dots at home should immediately take the toy away from children and contact distributor Spin Master Ltd. to return for free replacement beads or a toy of equal value.

For additional information, contact Spin Master at 1-800-622-8339 between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday.

The toy was named toy of the year in Australia and recently made Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s list of top 12 Christmas toys.

Wal-Mart on Thursday listed Aqua Dots on its Web site as "out of stock online" and had removed them from its top toy list.

Toronto-based Spin Master stopped shipping Aqua Dots and asked retailers to pull them off their shelves, where they had sold for $17 to $30. Watch what's known about the beads »

Melbourne-based Moose Enterprise Pty. Ltd. recalled Bindeez Beads on Tuesday after three children in Australia swallowed large quantities of the beads and were hospitalized.

"I was so frightened because I thought she wasn't going to make it," Heather Lehane told CNN affiliate Network 7 of her 10-year-old daughter, Charlotte, who was sickened by the beads.

In the United States, the Washington-based safety commission said it has received two reports detailing the severe effects of the digested beads.

The CPSC said a boy nearly 2 years old "swallowed several dozen beads. He became dizzy and vomited several times before slipping into a comatose state." The toddler was hospitalized and has since fully recovered, the commission added.

In the second incident, a child vomited, fell into a coma and was hospitalized for five days. It was not immediately clear whether the child had made a full recovery.

The recall is the latest to target Chinese-made toys. See if your child has any recalled toys »

Last month, U.S. government safety officials and retailers recalled at least 69,000 Chinese-made toys over concerns of excessive amounts of lead paint, which can cause lead poisoning.

CNN's
Janine Brady, Jason Carroll, Laura Dolan,
Julie O'Neill and Leslie Wiggins
contributed to this report.
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/08/toy.recall/index.html
© 2007 Cable News Network ::?::?::?:: .

Saundra Hummer

November 8th, 2007, 06:30 PM

.^^^^^^^^^ Domes rising in Yellowstone
By
MIKE STARK
Billings Gazette

BILLINGS, Mont.-- Parts of the collapsed, restless volcano in Yellowstone National Park are swelling faster than has ever been recorded.

Geologists from the University of Utah say two domes inside the Yellowstone caldera have steadily inflated at two to three times the rate as some of the most rapid movements recorded between 1923 and 1984.

"We've gone to this really pronounced, and I would say unprecedented, uplift of the caldera," said Bob Smith, a Utah geologist and one of the leading researchers into Yellowstone's busy volcanic life.

Smith presented some of the new findings Wednesday to the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

On Friday, Smith is scheduled to present new information about the vast, fiery hot spot that has fueled Yellowstone for millions of years. One finding is that the tilting plume extends at least 390 miles below the surface.

The new research, including discussion of the origin and evolution of the Yellowstone hot spot, may help put an end to several years of debate about what kind of plume underlies the park.

Like a piece of paper moving over a candle, the Earth's crust has drifted over the hot spot for millions of years, destroying mountains and leaving a 300-mile-wide valley known as the Snake River Plain in Idaho.

The activity had a significant role in shaping landscapes in the West, from drainages and valleys to seismic drama playing out beneath the surface.

"It's had a really profound effect over a much larger area than just Yellowstone," Smith said.

Yellowstone's geology was a hot topic at the AGU meeting. More than 60 presentations touched on the park, whether it was looking at the diet of ancient wolves or activities of helium isotopes.

In recent years, much attention has been focused on so-called "huffing and puffing" of the Yellowstone caldera, the huge collapsed volcano that stretches across the park's middle.

The caldera has been rising and falling for at least 15,000 years, sometimes swinging more than 10 feet.

Portions of the caldera rose more than 3 feet between 1923 and 1984 and then dropped nearly 8 inches from 1985 to 1995. Measurements in 1995 and 1996 showed it rising again before starting to fall in 1997.

The latest upward motion has been unusual for its speed.

Using data collected on the ground and from satellites, scientists say the Mallard Lake Dome, west of Yellowstone Lake's West Thumb, has inflated by 4 centimeters a year since the middle of 2004, while the Sour Creek Dome north of Fishing Bridge has increased by about 6 centimeters a year. (One inch is about 2.5 centimeters.)

Smith said the activity may be spurred by an infusion of magma from below that's heating up fluids and causing the ground to bulge.

"It's like inflating the balloon but the balloon is capped," Smith said. "Eventually that fluid's got to go somewhere."

While most of the caldera has been inflating, another nearby area has been falling.

A newly discovered bulge just outside the caldera, near Norris Geyser Basin, has fallen by about an inch since 2004.

But in the preceding six years - from 1997 to 2003 - the dome grew by about 5 inches and may have triggered some of the unusual activity at Norris, including a sudden rise in temperatures, the formation of explosive new steam vents and the re-awakening of Steamboat geyser, the world's tallest.

When the dome, called the North Rim Uplift, began deflating again, temperatures at Norris dropped, Steamboat stopped erupting and the steaming vents at nearby Nymph Lake died down.

The below-ground connections between the ups and downs at Norris and domes inside the caldera are still unknown.

And what it all adds up to in the big picture is also unclear - except that Yellowstone continues to be geologically active and few things stay static for long.

In recent years, the possibility of a large volcanic eruption has been a popular media topic, but Smith said the scenario seems over-hyped. A more likely possibility would be a large earthquake, he said, noting that the most powerful quake in the interior Western United States happened at Hebgen Lake on Aug. 17, 1959.

"It's a much higher risk," he said.
http://www.jacksonholestartrib.com/articles/2006/12/15/news/wyoming/68c634812e2ed7bc87257244007b7b4d.prt
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ .

LAL

November 8th, 2007, 10:19 PM

Pakistan’s General Anarchy

By MOHAMMED HANIF
Published: November 7, 2007

THE power grab last weekend by Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, cleverly timed to stall the Western reaction for 48 hours, was essentially a coup against himself. Faced with increasing demands to give up his position as military chief and confront the complexities of civilian rule, General Musharraf decided to topple President Musharraf.

In an interview a couple of months ago, General Musharraf said that his army uniform was his second skin: “How can I possibly take it off?” His comment was dismissed at the time as old-school dictator-talk.

But a few weeks ago he submitted an affidavit in Pakistan’s Supreme Court stating that if his election as president was not validated, he’d continue to work as the army chief — indefinitely. As the Supreme Court contemplated this ultimatum, General Musharraf got the jitters and decided to lock up most of the court’s judges, and also to pull the plug on every independent news source in the country.

To understand the difference between the general and the president, one only has to look at the lists of people detained and released on the night of the coup. The first people to be arrested after the imposition of emergency were not the leaders of Pakistani Taliban, nor their sympathizers in Islamabad. There was no crackdown on sleeper cells that have orchestrated a wave of suicide bombings across Pakistan.

The people he has arrested in the last few days besides judges and lawyers have included peace activists, teachers, artists — basically the kind of people who have done more than anybody else to push ahead his avowed agenda of moving Pakistan away from religious militancy.

On the night he declared the emergency, General Musharraf released 28 Taliban prisoners; according to news reports, one was serving a sentence of 24 years for transporting two suicide bombers’ jackets, the only fashion accessory allowed in Pakistan’s Taliban-controlled areas. These are the kind of people who on their off days like to burn down video stores and harass barbers for giving shaves and head massages.

In what can be seen only as a reciprocal gesture, the Taliban released a group of army soldiers it had held hostage — according to the BBC, each soldier was given 500 rupees for good behavior.

Why do General Musharraf and his army feel a sense of kinship with the very people they are supposed to be fighting against? Why are he and his army scared of liberal lawyers and teachers but happy to deal with Islamist Pashtuns in the tribal areas?

The reasons can be traced back to the 1980s, when another military dictator, Gen. Zia ul-Haq, launched a broad campaign to Islamicize Pakistani society and the armed forces in particular. Back then, I was a cadet at Pakistan’s Air Force Academy, where I witnessed, along with hundreds of other aghast cadets, a remarkable scene in which a new recruit, out of religious conviction, refused to shave his beard. (Like most military training institutes in the world, the academy’s first right of passage was to turn the civilian recruits into clean-shaven jarheads.)

The issue was eventually referred to the Army high command in Islamabad, and as a result procedures for training institutes were amended — the boy was allowed to keep his beard and wear his uniform. The academy barber never recovered from the shock.

Within months there were other changes: evenings socializing to music and mocktails were replaced by Koran study sessions. Buses were provided for cadets who wanted to attend civilian religious congregations. Within months, our rather depressing but secular academy was turned into a zealous, thriving madrassa where missing your daily prayers was a crime far worse than missing the morning drill.

It is this crop of military officers that now runs the country. General Musharraf heads this army, and is very reluctant to let go.

For those who have never had to live under his regime, the general/president can come across as a rakish, daredevil figure. His résumé is impressive: here’s a man who can manage the frontline of the Western world’s war on terrorism, get rid of prime ministers at will, force his political opponents into exile and still find the time to write an autobiography. But ask the lawyers, judges, arts teachers and students behind bars about him, and one will find out he is your garden-variety dictator who, after having spent eight years in power, is asking why can’t he continue for another eight.

General Musharraf’s bond with his troops is not just ideological. Under his command Pakistan’s armed forces have become a hugely profitable empire. It’s the nation’s pre-eminent real estate dealer, it dominates the breakfast-cereal market, it runs banks and bakeries. Only last month Pakistan’s Navy, in an audacious move, set up a barbecue business on the banks of the Indus River about 400 miles away from the Arabian Sea it’s supposed to protect.

It’s a happy marriage between God and greed.

For now, the general’s weekend gamble seems to have paid off. From Washington and the European Union he heard regrets but no condemnation with teeth — exactly what he counted on.

General Musharraf has always tried to cultivate an impression in the West that he is the only one holding the country together, that after him we can only expect anarchy. But in a country where arts teachers and lawyers are behind bars and suicide bombers are allowed to go free, we definitely need to redefine anarchy.

Mohammed Hanif, the head of the BBC’s Urdu Service, is the author of the forthcoming novel “A Case of Exploding Mangoes.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/opinion/07hanif.html?_r=1&ex=1352178000&en=c828b266779ac57e&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&oref=slogin

Saundra Hummer

November 8th, 2007, 10:20 PM

.
X X X X X X XRevealed: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran
By
Uzi Mahnaimi, New York
and
Sarah Baxter, Washington

11/07/07 "The Times"--ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.
Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources.

The attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb.

Under the plans, conventional laser-guided bombs would open “tunnels” into the targets. “Mini-nukes” would then immediately be fired into a plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of radioactive fallout.

“As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished,” said one of the sources.

The plans, disclosed to The Sunday Times last week, have been prompted in part by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad’s assessment that Iran is on the verge of producing enough enriched uranium to make nuclear weapons within two years.

Israeli military commanders believe conventional strikes may no longer be enough to annihilate increasingly well-defended enrichment facilities. Several have been built beneath at least 70ft of concrete and rock. However, the nuclear-tipped bunker-busters would be used only if a conventional attack was ruled out and if the United States declined to intervene, senior sources said.

Israeli and American officials have met several times to consider military action. Military analysts said the disclosure of the plans could be intended to put pressure on Tehran to halt enrichment, cajole America into action or soften up world opinion in advance of an Israeli attack.

Some analysts warned that Iranian retaliation for such a strike could range from disruption of oil supplies to the West to terrorist attacks against Jewish targets around the world.

Israel has identified three prime targets south of Tehran which are believed to be involved in Iran’s nuclear programme:

Natanz, where thousands of centrifuges are being installed for uranium enrichment

A uranium conversion facility near Isfahan where, according to a statement by an Iranian vice-president last week, 250 tons of gas for the enrichment process have been stored in tunnels

A heavy water reactor at Arak, which may in future produce enough plutonium for a bomb

Israeli officials believe that destroying all three sites would delay Iran’s nuclear programme indefinitely and prevent them from having to live in fear of a “second Holocaust”.

The Israeli government has warned repeatedly that it will never allow nuclear weapons to be made in Iran, whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has declared that “Israel must be wiped off the map”.

Robert Gates, the new US defence secretary, has described military action against Iran as a “last resort”, leading Israeli officials to conclude that it will be left to them to strike.

Israeli pilots have flown to Gibraltar in recent weeks to train for the 2,000-mile round trip to the Iranian targets. Three possible routes have been mapped out, including one over Turkey.

Air force squadrons based at Hatzerim in the Negev desert and Tel Nof, south of Tel Aviv, have trained to use Israel’s tactical nuclear weapons on the mission. The preparations have been overseen by Major General Eliezer Shkedi, commander of the Israeli air force.

Sources close to the Pentagon said the United States was highly unlikely to give approval for tactical nuclear weapons to be used. One source said Israel would have to seek approval “after the event”, as it did when it crippled Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak with airstrikes in 1981.

Scientists have calculated that although contamination from the bunker-busters could be limited, tons of radioactive uranium compounds would be released.

The Israelis believe that Iran’s retaliation would be constrained by fear of a second strike if it were to launch its Shehab-3 ballistic missiles at Israel.

However, American experts warned of repercussions, including widespread protests that could destabilise parts of the Islamic world friendly to the West.

Colonel Sam Gardiner, a Pentagon adviser, said Iran could try to close the Strait of Hormuz, the route for 20% of the world’s oil.

Some sources in Washington said they doubted if Israel would have the nerve to attack Iran. However, Dr Ephraim Sneh, the deputy Israeli defence minister, said last month: “The time is approaching when Israel and the international community will have to decide whether to take military action against Iran.”

© Copyright 2007 Times Newspapers Ltd. Go on-site to access this article and others pertaining to this issue by clicking on the following URL:
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Saundra Hummer

November 8th, 2007, 10:26 PM

.X X X X X X XU.S. Says Attack Plans for Iran Ready
By
Associated Press

11/08/07 "Military" - -- -WASHINGTON - U.S. defense officials have signaled that up-to-date attack plans are available if needed in the escalating crisis over Iran's nuclear aims, although no strike appears imminent.

The Army and Marine Corps are under enormous strain from years of heavy ground fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, the United States has ample air and naval power to strike Iran if President Bush decided to target nuclear sites or to retaliate for alleged Iranian meddling in neighboring Iraq.

Among the possible targets, in addition to nuclear installations like the centrifuge plant at Natanz: Iran's ballistic missile sites, Republican Guard bases, and naval warfare assets that Tehran could use in a retaliatory closure of the Straits of Hormuz, a vital artery for the flow of Gulf oil.

The Navy has an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf area with about 60 fighters and other aircraft that likely would feature prominently in a bombing campaign. And a contingent of about 2,200 Marines are on a standard deployment to the Gulf region aboard ships led by the USS Kearsarge, an amphibious assault ship. Air Force fighters and bombers are available elsewhere in the Gulf area, including a variety of warplanes in Iraq and at a regional air operations center in Qatar.

But there has been no new buildup of U.S. firepower in the region. In fact there has been some shrinkage in recent months. After adding a second aircraft carrier in the Gulf early this year - a move that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said was designed to underscore U.S. long-term stakes in the region - the Navy has quietly returned to a one-carrier presence.

Talk of a possible U.S. attack on Iran has surfaced frequently this year, prompted in some cases by hard-line statements by White House officials. Vice President Dick Cheney, for example, stated on Oct. 21 that the United States would "not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon," and that Iran would face "serious consequences" if it continued in that direction. Gates, on the other hand, has emphasized diplomacy.

Bush suggested on Oct. 17 that Iran's continued pursuit of nuclear arms could lead to "World War III." Yet on Wednesday, in discussing Iran at a joint press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Bush made no reference to the military option.

"The idea of Iran having a nuclear weapon is dangerous, and, therefore, now is the time for us to work together to diplomatically solve this problem," Bush said, adding that Sarkozy also wants a peaceful solution.

Iran's conventional military forces are generally viewed as limited, not among the strongest in the Middle East. But a leading expert on the subject, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says it would be a mistake to view the Islamic republic as a military weakling.

"Its strengths in overt conflict are more defensive than offensive, but Iran has already shown it has great capability to resist outside pressure and any form of invasion and done so under far more adverse and divisive conditions than exist in Iran today," Cordesman wrote earlier this year.

Cordesman estimates that Iran's army has an active strength of around 350,000 men.

At the moment, there are few indications of U.S. military leaders either advising offensive action against Iran or taking new steps to prepare for that possibility. Gates has repeatedly emphasized that while military action cannot be ruled out, the focus is on diplomacy and tougher economic sanctions.

Asked in late October whether war planning had been ramped up or was simply undergoing routine updates, Gates replied, "I would characterize it as routine." His description of new U.S. sanctions announced on Oct. 25 suggested they are not a harbinger of war, but an alternative.

A long-standing responsibility of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is to maintain and update what are called contingency plans for potential military action that a president might order against any conceivable foe. The secret plans, with a range of timelines and troop numbers, are based on a variety of potential scenarios - from an all-out invasion like the March 2003 march on Baghdad to less demanding missions.

Another military option for Washington would be limited, clandestine action by U.S. special operations commandos, such as Delta Force soldiers, against a small number of key nuclear installations.

The man whose responsibility it would be to design any conventional military action against Iran - and execute it if ordered by Bush - is Adm. William Fallon, the Central Command chief. He is playing down prospects of conflict, saying in a late September interview that there is too much talk of war.

"This constant drumbeat of conflict is what strikes me, which is not helpful and not useful," Fallon told Al-Jazeera television, adding that he does not expect a war against Iran. During a recent tour of the Gulf region, Fallon made a point of telling U.S. allies that Iran is not as strong as it portrays itself.

"Not militarily, economically or politically," he said.

Fallon's immediate predecessor, retired Army Gen. John Abizaid, raised eyebrows in September when he suggested that initiating a war against Iran would be a mistake. He urged vigorous efforts to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, but failing that, he said, "There are ways to live with a nuclear Iran." He also said he believed Iran's leaders could be dissuaded from using nuclear arms, once acquired.

The possibility of U.S. military action raises many tough questions, beginning perhaps with the practical issue of whether the United States knows enough about Iran's network of nuclear sites - declared sites as well as possible clandestine ones - to sufficiently set back or destroy their program.

Among other unknowns: Iran's capacity to retaliate by unleashing terrorist strikes against U.S. targets.

Nonmilitary specialists who have studied Iran's nuclear program are doubtful of U.S. military action.

"There is a nontrivial chance that there will be an attack, but it's not likely," said Jeffrey Lewis, director of a nuclear strategy project at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy group.

Copyright 2007 Associated Press.
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LAL

November 8th, 2007, 10:42 PM

Venezuela's currency plummets

By Alex Kennedy and Matthew Walter Bloomberg News
Published: September 3, 2007

CARACAS: The Venezuelan economy, under the direction of President Hugo Chávez, is starting to unravel in the currency market.

While Venezuela earns record proceeds from oil exports, consumers face shortages of meat, flour and cooking oil. Annual inflation has risen to 16 percent, the highest in Latin America, as Chávez tripled government spending in four years.

Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips are pulling out after Chávez demanded that they cede control of joint venture projects.

The bolivar has tumbled 30 percent this year to 4,850 per dollar on the black market, the only place it trades freely because of government controls on foreign exchange. That compares with the official rate of 2,150 per dollar set in 2005. Chávez may have to devalue the bolivar to reduce the gap and increase oil proceeds, which make up half the government's revenue.

"This has been the worst-managed oil boom in Venezuela's history," said Ricardo Hausmann, a former government planning minister who now teaches economics at Harvard University. "A devaluation is a foregone conclusion. The only question is when."

JPMorgan Chase and Merrill Lynch expect Chávez to devalue the bolivar 14 percent in the first quarter of 2008 after he introduces a new currency Jan. 1 that will lop three zeros off all denominations.

The new currency, to be called the strong bolivar, will have an exchange rate of 2.15 per dollar, the equivalent of the current rate, Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabezas said last week. Analysts forecast that the official rate will decline 13 percent by the end of 2008, according to a Bloomberg survey.

"We're not going to devalue, no matter how much they pressure us," Cabezas said last week. "The so-called parallel market doesn't dictate our fiscal, exchange or monetary policies."

Chávez, an ally of President Fidel Castro of Cuba, weakened the currency 11 percent in 2005. Chávez imposed restrictions on foreign exchange in 2003 to halt the capital flight that has driven down the bolivar more than 70 percent since he took office in 1999.

A devaluation would give the government more bolivars from its oil export tax receipts, helping fund Chávez's policies to provide free health care, housing and discounted food to millions of Venezuelans. The government says social programs helped cut the poverty rate to 34 percent in the first half of 2006 from 49 percent eight years earlier.

Oil, which has risen 155 percent in the past five years, accounts for about 90 percent of Venezuela's exports.

As the gap between the official exchange rate and the black market rate has increased, so has the incentive to exploit rules, like a regulation that allows people to spend $5,000 a year on their credit cards while traveling abroad.

Some Venezuelans travel to nearby Curaçao, where they buy $5,000 of casino poker chips with their credit cards, exchange the chips for cash and then sell the dollars on the black market back in Caracas.

"People are invoking their right to circumvent what are very, very stiff controls," said Alberto Ramos, senior Latin America economist at Goldman Sachs Group in New York.

The foreign exchange regulations are part of the controls that Chávez has created in his "march to socialism." The government sets retail prices on hundreds of consumer products and fixes both the maximum rate at which banks can lend and the minimum interest they can pay depositors.

Chávez, who is seeking to end presidential term limits, has taken $17 billion of foreign reserves from the central bank and expropriated dozens of farms that he deemed underutilized.

He nationalized Venezuela's biggest private electric and telephone utilities and took majority stakes in oil projects owned by Exxon and ConocoPhillips. Foreign direct investment was a negative $881 million in the first half as foreign companies pulled out money.

Chávez terminated the broadcast license of the country's most-watched television network in May, sparking weeks of student protests. He has threatened to take over cement makers, hospitals, banks, supermarkets and butcher shops, saying they were not obeying price controls.

"It's like our director of marketing, our director of sales, our director of manufacturing is President Chávez," said Edgar Contreras, who runs international operations at Molinos Nacionales, a Caracas-based food manufacturer that employs 1,500 people. "We can't go on like this."

Contreras called the government-set prices on many products "fantasy prices" that are below production costs. Milk, chicken, coffee and flour have disappeared from store shelves in Caracas at times this year.

Saundra Hummer

November 8th, 2007, 10:59 PM

.
X X X X X X XThe Neoconservative Agenda to Sacrifice the Fifth FleetThe New Pearl Harbor
By
Michael E. Salla
M.A., Ph.D.
11/08/07 "ICH" -- -- -The Bush administration has covered up and ignored dissenting Pentagon war games analysis that suggests an attack on Iran’s nuclear or military facilities will lead directly to the annihilation of the Navy’s Fifth Fleet now stationed in the Persian Gulf. Lt. General Paul Van Riper led a hypothetical Persian Gulf state in the 2002 Millennium Challenge wargames that resulted in the destruction of the Fifth Fleet. His experience and conclusions regarding the vulnerability of the Fifth Fleet to an assymetrical military conflict with Iran have been ignored. Neoconservatives within the Bush administration are currently aggressively promoting a range of military actions against Iran that will culminate in it attacking the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet with sophisticated cruise anti-ship missiles. They are ignoring Van Riper’s experiences in the Millennium Challenge and how it applies to the current nuclear conflict with Iran.

Iran has sufficient quantities of cruise missiles to destroy much or all of the Fifth Fleet which is within range of Iran’s mobile missile launchers strategically located along its mountainous terrain overlooking the Persian Gulf. The Bush administration is deliberately downplaying the vulnerability of the Fifth Fleet to Iran’s advanced missile technology which has been purchased from Russia and China since the late 1990’s. The most sophisticated of Iran’s cruise missiles are the ‘Sunburn’ and ‘Yakhonts’. These are missiles against which U.S. military experts conclude modern warships have no effective defense. By deliberately provoking an Iranian retaliation to U.S. military actions, the neoconservatives will knowingly sacrifice much or all of the Fifth Fleet. This will culminate in a new Pearl Harbor that will create the right political environment for total war against Iran, and expanded military actions in the Persian Gulf region.
The Fifth Fleet’s Vulnerability to
Iran’s Anti-Ship Missile Arsenal
The U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet is headquartered in the Gulf State of Bahrain which is responsible for patrolling the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, Suez Canal and parts of the Indian Ocean. The Fifth Fleet currently comprises a carrier group and two helicopter carrier ships. Its size peaked at five aircraft carrier groups and six helicopter carriers in 2003 during the invasion of Iraq. Presently, it is led by the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier commissioned in 1961. It is the oldest of the Navy’s nuclear powered class carriers and scheduled to be decommissioned in 2015 when the first of the new Ford Class carriers enters service. The Enterprise has over 5000 Navy personnel, and on November 2, began participating in a Naval exercise in the Persian Gulf. http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL02134242 .

The Fifth Fleet is part of Central Command which is responsible for military operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, including the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Central Command is led by Admiral William Fallon, the first naval officer to head Central Command. His appointment reflected widespread opinion that Naval forces would be central in the evolution of missions and goals in the Persian Gulf region. Robert Gates, the U.S. Secretary of Defense explained: “As you look at the range of options available to the United States, the use of naval and air power, potentially, it made sense to me for all those reasons for Fallon to have the job.” http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/15/1212/ It would be Central Command and the Fifth Fleet that would be directly responsible for carrying out a new war against Iran. As a result, it would be the Fifth Fleet that would be most vulnerable of all U.S. military assets to Iran’s arsenal of anti-ship cruise missiles.

The Fifth Fleet’s base in Bahrain, is only 150 miles away from the Iranian coast, and would itself be in range of Iran’s new generation of anti-ship cruise missiles. Also, any Naval ships in the confined terrain of the Persian Gulf would have difficulty in maneuvering and would be within range of Iran’s rugged coastline which extends all along the Persian Gulf to the Arabian sea.

Iran began purchasing advanced military technology from Russia soon after the latter pulled out in 2000 from the Gore-Chernomyrdin Protocol, which limited Russia’s sales of military equipment to Iran. http://english.pravda.ru/russia/politics/03-12-2005/9334-iran-0 . Russia subsequently began selling Iran military technology that could be used in any military conflict with the U.S. This included air defense systems and anti-ship cruise missiles in which Russia specialized to offset the U.S. large naval superiority. One researcher of Russia’s missile technology explains its focus on anti-ship technologies:

Many years ago, Soviet planners gave up trying to match the US Navy ship for ship, gun for gun, and dollar for dollar. The Soviets simply could not compete with the high levels of US spending required to build up and maintain a huge naval armada. They shrewdly adopted an alternative approach based on strategic defense. They searched for weaknesses, and sought relatively inexpensive ways to exploit those weaknesses. The Soviets succeeded: by developing several supersonic anti-ship missiles, one of which, the SS-N-22 Sunburn, has been called "the most lethal missile in the world today." http://www.rense.com/general59/theSunburniransawesome.htm

The SS-N-22 or ‘Sunburn” has a speed of Mach 2.5 or 1500 miles an hour, uses stealth technology and has a range up to 130 miles. It contains a conventional warhead of 750 lbs that can destroy most ships. Of even greater concern is Russia’s SSN-X-26 or ‘Yakhonts’ cruise missile which has a range of 185 miles which makes all US Navy ships in the Persian Gulf vulnerable to attack. http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/ss-n-26.htm .

More importantly the Yakhonts has been specifically developed for use against Carrier groups, and has been sold by Russia on the international arms trade.

Both the Yakhonts and the Sunburn missiles are designed to defeat the Aegis radar defense currently used on U.S. Navy ships by using stealth technology and low ground hugging flying maneuvers. In their final approaches these missiles take evasive maneuvers to defeat anti-ship missile defenses. The best defense the Navy has against Sunburn and Yakhonts cruise missiles has been the Sea-RAM (Rolling Actionframe Missile system) anti-ship missile defense system which is a modified form of the Phalanx 20 mm cannon gun . The Sea-RAM has been tested with a 95% success rate against the ‘Vandal’ supersonic missile capable of Mach 2.5 speeds but does not have the radar evading and final flight maneuvers of Russian anti-ship missiles. http://www.navybuddies.com/launcher/ram.htm Naval ships are having their anti-ship missile defense fitted with the new Sea-RAM http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htada/articles/20060412.aspx. However, the Sea-RAM has not yet been tested in actual battle conditions nor against the Sunburn or Yakhonts missiles which out-perform the Vandal. The Vandal is currently scheduled for replacement by the ‘Coyote’ which replicates many of the evasive maneuvers of the Russia anti-ship missiles necessary for developing an effective defense. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/gqm-163.htm .

So great is the threat posed by the Sunburn, Yakhonts and other advanced anti-ship missiles being developed by Russia and sold to China, Iran and other countries, that the Pentagon’s weapons testing office in 2007 moved to halt production on further aircraft carriers until an effective defense was developed. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=a5LkaU0wj714&refer=home . Iran has purchased sufficient quantities of both the Sunbeam and Yakhonts to destroy much or all of the Fifth Fleet anywhere in the Persian Gulf from its mountainous coastal terrain.

Millennium Challenge Wargames and GAO Report In 2000, the Government Accountability Office (formerly General Accounting Office – GAO) conducted a study on the US Navy’s preparedness for anti-ship cruise missiles http://fas.org/man/gao/nsiad-00-149.htm . Subtitled, Comprehensive Strategy Needed to Improve Ship Cruise Missile Defense, the study pointed out that the “threat to surface ships from sophisticated anti-ship cruise missiles is increasing. Nearly 70 nations have deployed sea- and land-launched cruise missiles, and 20 nations have air-launched cruise missiles.” The study found that although “the Navy has made some progress in improving surface ship self-defense capabilities, most ships continue to have only limited capabilities against cruise missile threats.” A subsequent military study in 2003 found that only 27 Naval ships were fitted with the Sea-RAM anti-missile defense which had performed well in tests. http://www.jfsc.ndu.edu/current_students/documents_policies/documents/jca_cca_awsp/Cruise_Missile_Defense_Final.doc

The GAO study found that while “Navy leaders express concern about the vulnerability of surface ships, that concern may not be reflected in the budget [1997-2005] for ship self-defense programs.” Most importantly, the GAO study found that Navy assessments “overstates the actual and projected capabilities of surface ships to protect themselves from cruise missiles.” The GAO study’s criticism of the Navy’s capacity to satisfactorily deal with cruise missile threats was vividly illustrated in the Millennium Challenge wargames held in the summer of 2002.

The “Millennium Challenge” was one of the largest wargames ever conducted and wargames involved 13,500 troops spread out at over 17 locations. The wargames involved heavy usage of computer simulations, extended over a three week period and cost $250 million. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002 Millennium Challenge involved asymmetrical warfare between the U.S military forces, led by General William Kernan, and an unnamed state in the Persian Gulf. According to General Kernan, the wargames “would test a series of new war-fighting concepts recently developed by the Pentagon.” http://www.rense.com/general64/fore.htm . Using a range of asymmetrical attack strategies using disguised civilian boats for launching attacks, planes in Kamikaze attacks, and Silkworm cruise missiles, much of the Fifth Fleet was sunk. The games revealed how asymmetrical strategies could exploit the Fifth Fleet’s vulnerability against anti-ship cruise missiles in the confined waters of the Persian Gulf.

In a controversial decision, the Pentagon decided to simply ‘refloat’ the Fifth Fleet to continue the exercise which led to the eventual defeat of the Persian Gulf state. The sinking of the Fifth Fleet was ignored and the wargames declared a success for the “new war-fighting concepts” adopted by Gen. Kernan. This led to Lt General Paul Van Riper, the commander of the mythical Gulf State, calling the official results “empty sloganeering”. In a later television interview, General Riper elaborated further:

"There were accusations that Millennium Challenge was rigged. I can tell you it was not. It started out as a free-play exercise, in which both Red and Blue had the opportunity to win the game. However, about the third or fourth day, when the concepts that the command was testing failed to live up to their expectations, the command at that point began to script the exercise in order to prove these concepts. This was my critical complaint.” http://www.rense.com/general64/fore.htm

Most significant was General Riper’s claims of the effectiveness of the older Cruise missile technology, the Silkworm missile which were used to sink an aircraft carrier and two helicopter-carriers loaded with marines in the total of 16 ships sunk. When asked to confirm Riper’s claims, General Kernar replied: “Well, I don’t know. To be honest with you. I haven’t had an opportunity to assess what happened. But that’s a possibility… The specifics of the cruise-missile piece… I really can’t answer that question. We’ll have to get back to you” http://www.rense.com/general64/fore.htm

The Millennium Challenge wargames clearly demonstrated the vulnerability of the US Fifth Fleet to Silkworm cruise missile attacks. This replicated the experience of the British during the 1980 Falklands war where two ships were sunk by three Exocet missiles. Both the Exocet and Silkworm cruise missiles were an older generation of anti-ship missile technology that were far surpassed by the Sunburn and Yakhonts missiles. If the Millennium Challenge was a guide to an asymmetrical war with Iran, much of the U.S Fifth Fleet would be destroyed. It is not surprising Millennium Challenge was eventually scripted so that this embarrassing fact was hidden. To date, there has been little public awareness of the vulnerability of the US Fifth Fleet while stationed in the Persian Gulf. It appears that the Bush administration had scripted an outcome to the wargames that would promote its neoconservative agenda for the Middle East.

The Neo-Conservative Strategy to Attack Iran Neoconservatives share a political philosophy that US dominance of the international system as the world’s sole superpower needs to be extended indefinitely into the 21st century. Part of the neoconservative agenda is to identify and overthrow states that are opposed to the current U.S. dominated international system. After the 911 attacks, rogue states viewed as supporters of international terrorism were elevated into what President Bush called in his 2002 State of the Union speech the “Axis of Evil” . http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html These originally included Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Neoconservatives view forceful diplomacy backed by military intervention as the price to pay for reigning in rogue states that support terrorism. Up until the 2003 invasion, Iraq had been the principal rogue state that was a targeted by neoconservatives. Subsequent to the US overthrow of Saddam Hussein and forceful multilateral diplomacy on North Korea, neo-conservative attention has firmly shifted to Iran.

In early 2006 neoconservatives within the Bush administration began vigorously promoting a new war against Iran due to the alleged threat posed by its nuclear development program. Iran has consistently maintained that its nuclear development is lawful and in compliance with the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Article IV.1 of the NPT states: “Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes…” http://www.un.org/events/npt2005/npttreaty.html . The only constraint on this “inalienable right” is that states must agree not to pursue a nuclear weapons program as identified in Articles I and II of the NPT. Since 2004, The Bush administration has been citing intelligence data that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons and must under no circumstances be allowed to do this.

Much of Iran’s nuclear development has occurred in underground facilities built at a depth of 70 feet with hardened concrete overhead that protect them from any known conventional attack. This led to the Bush administration arguing in early 2006 that tactical nuclear weapons would need to be used to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/04/17/060417fa_fact This culminated in a fierce debate between leading neo-conservatives such as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, with the Joint Chiefs of Staff which remained adamantly opposed. Seymour Hersh in May 2006, reported the opposition of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In late April, the military leadership, headed by General Pace, achieved a major victory when the White House dropped its insistence that the plan for a bombing campaign include the possible use of a nuclear device to destroy Iran's uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran. …. "Bush and Cheney were dead serious about the nuclear planning," the former senior intelligence official told me. "And Pace stood up to them. Then the world came back: 'O.K., the nuclear option is politically unacceptable.' http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/10/060710fa_fact .

Subsequent efforts by the neo-conservatives to justify a conventional military attack have been handicapped by widespread public skepticism by the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program, and Iran’s compliance with the Nonproliferation Treaty. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has stated that Iran is complying with its inspection requirements. In a statement on October 8, 2007, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, dismissed the main argument used by the Bush administration when he said "I have not received any information that there is a concrete active nuclear weapons program going on right now." http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20071028-114627-4645r . ElBaradei went on to cite U.S. military assessments that Iran is a few years away from developing weapons grade nuclear fuel that could be used for nuclear weapons. The Bush administration, frustrated by the determined opposition both within the U.S bureaucracy, military and the international community to its plans has adopted a three pronged track strategy for its goal of ‘taking out’ Iran.

First Attack Strategy The first strategy is to drive up public perceptions of an international security crisis by warning of a Third World War if Iran’s nuclear program is not stopped. In a Press Conference speech on October 17, President Bush declared:

I've told people that, if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. I take the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very seriously. And we'll continue to work with all nations about the seriousness of this threat. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/10/20071017.html
Bush’s startling rhetoric was followed soon after by Vice President Cheney on October 23 who warned in a speech before the Washington Institute for Near East Studies: ''Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions.” http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/21/cheney.iran.ap/ Cheney went on to allude in his speech to military action where the US and its allies were "prepared to impose serious consequences." He then declared: “We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.''

Bush’s and Cheney’s alarming rhetoric provides political cover for Israel, which is also adamantly opposed to Iran’s nuclear developments plans, to bomb its nuclear facilities. On September 6, 2007 an elite Israeli Air Force Squadron launched a daring air raid and destroyed a secret Syrian facility that had allegedly received nuclear material from North Korea. According to a Sunday Times report, the “Israelis proved they could penetrate the Syrian air defense system, which is stronger than the one protecting Iranian nuclear sites.” http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2461421.ece The Syrian raid was a test run for what Israel could do against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Bush administration has been encouraging a covert Israeli military strike against Iran given determined opposition to a U.S. led military strike. An earlier Sunday Times report from January 2007 exposed Israeli plans for airstrikes against Iran using nuclear armed bunker busting weapons in the event the U.S. did not move forward: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article1290331.ece . However, the U.S. military is also opposed to a unilateral attack by Israel which would result in a furious Iranian retaliation against American forces.

There were unconfirmed reports that the U.S. denied Israel the flight codes to fly over Iraqi airspace for an early 2007 air raid sanctioned by neoconservatives within the Bush administration. Currently, Admiral Fallon, the Commander of Central Command, is opposed to U.S. military strikes against Iran. During his confirmation hearing in February 2007, Fallon privately confided that an attack on Iran “will not happen on my watch” http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/15/1212/ . It is highly likely that Fallon would veto any Israeli attack on Iran, and deny it the flight codes it requires for flying over Iraqi airspace.

Second Attack StrategyThe second strategy has been shift emphasis from removing Iran’s nuclear facilities, to emphasizing its support for terrorism. Given widespread military and political opposition to attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Bush administration is now depicting Iran as a supporter of terrorism in Iraq. Seymour Hersh described the shift as follows:

“Now the emphasis is on “surgical” strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism.” http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/08/071008fa_fact_hersh .

The change in strategy was given a powerful boost by the passage of the Kyle-Lieberman amendment by the U.S. Senate on September 26 which designated “the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization” http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:SP3017: . This would enable the Bush administration to authorize strikes against Iranian Revolutionary Guard facilities inside Iran on the basis that they are supporting Iraqi terrorist groups targeting U.S. military forces. According to Hersh the shift in strategy is gaining support from among the American military. While Admiral William Fallon has privately expressed opposition to military action against Iran, the commander of U.S. forces inside Iraq, General Petraeus, supports the Bush administration’s Iran policies. Petraeus has declared: “None of us, earlier this year, appreciated the extent of Iranian involvement in Iraq, something about which we and Iraq’s leaders all now have greater concern”. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/08/071008fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=2 Petraeus went on to claim that Iran was fighting “a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq.” Consequently, limited surgical strikes against Revolutionary Guards facilities might be authorized by the Bush administration.

Third Attack Strategy The third and most dangerous strategy used by the Bush administration is to sanction a covert mission that would create the necessary political environment for a war against Iran. This is arguably best evidenced in the infamous B-52 ‘Bent Spear’ incident on August 30, 2007 where five (later changed to six) nuclear armed cruise missiles were found en route to the Middle East for a covert mission. http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_michael__071020_the_b_52_incident__96_.htm The nuclear warheads had adjustable yields of between 5 to 150 kilotons, and would have been ideal for use against Iran’s underground nuclear facilities or in a false flag operation that would be blamed on Iran. According to confidential sources, the covert mission involving the B-52 was to coincide with Israel’s September 6 military strike against a Syrian military facility http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_wayne_ma_070928_news_of_b_52_nukes_l.htm . However, Air Force personnel stood down ‘illegal’ orders that most likely came from the White House, and averted what could have been the detonation of one or more nuclear devices in the Persian Gulf region. There is much evidence to believe that ultimate responsibility for the B-52 incident can be traced to the office of the Vice President. http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_michael__070907_was_a_covert_attempt.htm Due to the Bush administration’s authority directly order military units to participate in covert missions regardless of their legality, the possibility that a covert mission will be used to provoke a war with Iran remains high.

Consequences of Iran being AttackedIn an effort to intimidate Iran, the Bush administration has regularly placed two aircraft carrier group formations in the Persian Gulf http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2007/ss_gulf_11_04.asp . In the naval exercises that began on Novembers 2, the USS Enterprise (CVN 65) and a helicopter carrier, the USS Kearsarge (LHD 3), are in the Persian Gulf simulating “a quick response to possible crises” http://www.cusnc.navy.mil/articles/2007/228.html . The size and timing of possible U.S. military attacks on Iran’s nuclear and/or military facilities, will influence the speed and scale of an Iranian response. Iran’s response will predictably result in a military escalation that culminates in Iran using its arsenal of anti-ship cruise missiles on the U.S. Fifth Fleet and closing off the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping. Iran’s ability to hide and launch cruise missiles from mountainous positions all along the Persian Gulf will make all Fifth Fleet ships in the Persian Gulf vulnerable. The Fifth Fleet would be trapped and unable to escape to safer waters. The Millennium Challenge wargames in 2002 witnessed the sinking of most of the Fifth fleet. Less advanced Silkworm cruise missiles, when compared to Iran’s stock of Sunburn and Yakhonts missiles, were used in a simulated asymmetric warfare that would resemble what would occur if Iran and the U.S. went to war. The sunk ships included an aircraft carrier, two helicopter carriers in the total of 16 ships that were ‘refloated’ in the exercise to produce a scripted outcome.

If an attack on Iran were to occur before the end of 2007, it would lead to the destruction of the USS Enterprise with its complement of 5000 personnel on board. Further losses in terms of support ships and other Fifth Fleet naval forces in the Persian Gulf would be catastrophic. An Iranian cruise missile attack would replicate losses at Pearl Harbor where the sinking of five ships, destruction of 188 aircraft and deaths of 2,333 quickly led to a declaration of total war against Imperial Japan by the U.S. Congress.

The declaration of total war against Iran by the U.S. Congress would lead to a sustained bombing campaign and eventual military invasion to bring about regime change in Iran. Military conscription would occur in order to provide personnel for the invasion of Iran, and to support U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan that would come under greater pressure. Tensions would rapidly escalate with other major powers such as Russia and China who have supplied Iran with sophisticated weapons systems that could be used against U.S. military assets. The closing of the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping and total war conditions in the U.S. would lead to a collapse of the world economy, and further erosion of civil liberties in a U.S. engaged in total war.

ConclusionsThe above scenario is very plausible given the military capacities of Iran’s anti-ship cruise missiles and the U.S. Navy’s vulnerability to these while operating in the Persian Gulf. The Bush administration has hidden from the American public the full extent of the Fifth Fleet’s vulnerability, and how it could be trapped and destroyed in a full scale conflict with Iran. This is best evidenced by the controversial decision to downplay the real results of the Millennium Challenge wargames and the dissenting views of Lt. General Van Riper over the lessons to be learned. The Bush administration is also downplaying the significance of the 2000 GAO report on US Navy vulnerability to cruise missile attacks.

Neo-conservatives within the Bush administration are fully aware of the vulnerability of the Fifth Fleet, yet have at times tried to place up to three carrier groups in the Persian Gulf which would only augment U.S. losses in any war with Iran. Yet the Bush administration has still attempted to move forward with plans for nuclear, conventional and/or covert attacks on Iran which would precipitate much of the terrible scenario described above.

A reasonable conclusion to draw is that neoconservatives within the Bush administration are willing to sacrifice much or all of the U.S. Fifth Fleet by militarily provoking Iran to launch its anti-ship cruise missile arsenal in order to justify ‘total war’ against Iran, and force regime change. An immediate solution is to expose the neo-conservative agenda to sacrifice the Fifth Fleet and to make accountable all those responsible for it.

On April 24, 2007 Congressman Dennis Kucinich began circulating articles for impeachment proceedings against Vice President Dick Cheney which included among his “high crimes and misdemeanors” his advocacy of aggression against Iran. http://kucinich.house.gov/UploadedFiles/int3.pdf . The relevant section in the Kucinich bill states:
“With respect to Article III, that in his conduct while vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney openly threatened aggression against the Republic of Iran, absent any real threat to the United States, and has done so with the United States's proven capability to carry out such threats, thus undermining the national security interests of the United States.”.

After gaining additional support from 21 members of Congress as co-sponsors, Kucinich introduce his articles of impeachment as a privileged resolution on November 6 to force a vote in the House of Representatives. http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=77985 . His privileged resolution was voted on and referred to the House Judiciary Committee for further study.

In addition to Vice President Cheney, President Bush also is culpable for the neo-conservative agenda to sacrifice the Fifth Fleet by militarily provoking Iran into launching hostilities that culminates in total war with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Impeachment proceedings also need to be launched against President Bush for “high crimes and misdemeanors” for approving neoconservative plan to sacrifice the U.S. Fifth Fleet through an unnecessary military provocation of Iran. A new Pearl Harbor can be averted by making accountable Bush administration officials willing to sacrifice the Fifth Fleet in pursuit of a neoconservative agenda.***

[I]About the Author

Dr. Michael Salla is an internationally recognized scholar in international politics, conflict resolution, US foreign policy and the new field of 'exopolitics'. He is author/editor of five books; and held academic appointments in the School of International Service& the Center for Global Peace, American University, Washington DC (1996-2004); the Department of Political Science, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia (1994-96); and the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, Washington D.C., (2002). He has a Ph.D in Government from the University of Queensland, Australia, and an M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Melbourne, Australia. He has conducted research and fieldwork in the ethnic conflicts in East Timor, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Sri Lanka, and organized peacemaking initiatives involving mid to high level participants from these conflicts.

Website: www.americasherojourney.com
Recommended Reading
Governmental Accountability Office, “Defense Acquisitions: Comprehensive Strategy Needed to Improve Ship Cruise Missile Defense.” Letter Report, 07/11/2000, GAO/NSIAD-00-149. http://fas.org/man/gao/nsiad-00-149.htm

Mark Gaffney, “The Sunburn - Iran's Awesome Nuclear Anti-Ship Missile The Weapon That Could Defeat The US In The Gulf” 11/02/2004, http://www.rense.com/general59/theSunburniransawesome.htm

Mark Gaffney, “Myth Of US Invincibility Floats In The Persian Gulf,” 04/16/2005 “http://www.rense.com/general64/fore.htm

Seymour Hersh, “The Iran Plans: Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?” New Yorker, 4//17/2006 http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/04/17/060417fa_fact

Seymour Hersh, “Last Stand: The military’s problem with the President’s Iran policy,”New Yorker, 07/10/2006 http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/10/060710fa_fact

Seymour Hersh, “Shifting Targets: The Administration’s plan for Iran,” 10/08/ 2007

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/08/071008fa_fact_hersh

Dennis Kucinich, “Rep. Dennis Kucinich Privileged Resolution,” Speech to U.S. House of Representatives 11/06/07, http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=78044

Michael Salla, “The B-52 Incident – An Unfolding Saga of Villains, Scapegoats and Heroes,” OpEdNews, 10/20/2007 http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_michael__071020_the_b_52_incident__96_.htm

Michael Salla, “Was a Covert Attempt to Bomb Iran with Nuclear Weapons foiled by a Military Leak?” OpEdNews, 9/07/2007 http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_michael__070907_was_a_covert_attempt.htm

Phil Tissue, et. al., “Attacking the Cruise Missile Threat,” Joint Forces Staff College, 09/08/2003 http://www.jfsc.ndu.edu/current_students/documents_policies/documents/jca_cca_awsp/Cruise_Missile_Defense_Final.doc

To gain access to this article click below:
http://www.informationclearinghouse
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Saundra Hummer

November 8th, 2007, 11:08 PM

.
~~~~~~~
"We frail humans are at one time capable of the greatest good and, at the same time, capable of the greatest evil. Change will only come about when each of us takes up the daily struggle ourselves to be more forgiving, compassionate, loving, and above all joyful in the knowledge that, by some miracle of grace, we can change as those around us can change too."

Maíread Maguire
~~~
"War would end if the dead could return."

Stanley Baldwin
~~~
"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind...War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."

John F. Kennedy

~~~~~
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Saundra Hummer

November 8th, 2007, 11:53 PM

Pakistan’s General Anarchy

Hi Lal, been a while, glad you're posting again.

I find this man so hard to understand.

He seems more than decent. I find him likeable. Not a good judge of character? Or is he just more adept at putting forth an image he has cultivated rather than his true self? Is he a benevolent dictator, or a tyrant? Was he a tyrant before this round of arrests and other abuses?

If I were to pick a world leader to spend time with, to converse with, Masharaf would be one of my top choices, as he is a puzzle, so much so he becomes interesting. Putin is another. But with Putin, put Gorbachev along side of him to balance out the conversation and let me know what might really be at the root of his personality, I believe I know some of his goals, and what drives him. I don't know who could do that with the leader of Pakistan. Bhutto is a puzzle as well. There are so many horrific claims surrounding her husband and her, that it's hard to know who to believe.

Saundra Hummer

November 9th, 2007, 02:46 PM

:: :: :: :: :: 101 gadgets that changed the world
www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk
[Published: Monday 5, November 2007 - 08:16]

Compiled by Simon Usborne

From the Abacus to the Zip

1. Abacus, AD190

Use of the abacus, with its beads in a rack, was first documented in Han Dynasty China in about AD190, but the word dates to much earlier calculating devices. "Abacus" derives from the Hebrew ibeq, meaning to " wipe the dust" or from the Greek abax, meaning "board covered with dust", which describes the first devices used by the Babylonians. The Chinese version was the speediest way to do sums for centuries and, in the right hands, can still outpace electronic calculators.

2. Archimedes Screw, c.700BC
Purportedly devised by the ancient Greek physicist Archimedes of Syracuse in the 3rd century BC to expel bilge water from creaking ships, the screw that bears his name in fact predates Archimedes by about 400 years. Recent digs have established that earlier screws, which are capable of shifting water " uphill", were used in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in the 7th century BC. So effective was the device, it is still used today in several sewage plants and irrigation ditches.

3. Aspirin, 1899

Little tablets of acetylsalicylic acid have probably cured more minor ills than any other medicine. Hippocrates was the first to realise the healing power of the substance – his related ancient Greek treatment was a tea made from willow bark, and was effective against fevers and gout. Much later, in turn-of-the-century Germany, chemist Felix Hoffman perfected the remedy on his arthritic father, marketing it under the trade name Aspirin.

4. Atari 2600, 1977

The gaming industry today is worth $30bn (£15bn) and new titles are released to more fanfare (and fervour among legions of gaming nuts) than the biggest Hollywood blockbusters (see Big Game Hunters, p37). Not so in the 1970s, when consoles were hard-wired to play one or two crude games such as Pong. Atari changed that with the 2600, the first console to take an unlimited number of games cartridges. The 1978 release of Space Invaders sent sluggish early sales skywards, heralding the age of the Wii, the PS3 and the Xbox 360.

5. Barbed wire, 1873

Symbol of oppression or a revolution in farming? It depends on which side of the fence you sit. Certainly, the world's most divisive invention was conceived not to keep people in or out, but cows. Joseph Gidden, a 60-year-old New Hampshire rancher was the first to invent a method for mass manufacturing of barbed wire and he made a fortune as miles of his wire criss-crossed American farms. Its low cost means it remains first choice for farmers and border guards.

6. Barcode, 1973

Barcodes were conceived as a kind of visual Morse code by a Philadelphia student in 1952, but retailers were slow to take up the technology. That changed in the early 1970s when the same student, Norman Woodland, then employed by IBM, devised the Universal Product Code. Since then, black stripes have appeared on almost everything we buy, a ubiquity fuelled by their price – it costs about a tenth of a penny to slap on a barcode.

7. Battery, 1800

For the battery we must thank the frog. In the 1780s, the Italian physicist Luigi Galvani discovered that a dead frog's leg would twitch when he touched it with two pieces of metal. Galvani had created a crude circuit and the phenomenon was taken up by his friend, the aristocratic Professor Alessandro Volta, whose voltaic cells stacked in a Voltaic pile amazed Napoleon. The pile was also the first battery, whose successors power more than a third of the gadgets on this list.

8. Bicycle, 1861

The renowned 19th-century US feminist Susan B Anthony said in an interview in 1896: "I think [the bicycle] has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world." First devised as a gentleman's play thing in the 1820s, the push-powered hobby-horse quickly evolved to become the most classless form of transport, trundling by the millions along highways and byways all over the world. The French vélocipède, invented in 1861 by Pierre Marchaux, is widely considered to be the first true bicycle.

9. Biro, 1938

Had the Hungarian journalist Laszlo José Biró kept the patent for the world's first ballpoint pen, his estate (he died in 1985) would be worth billions. As it happened, Biró sold the patent to one Baron Bich of France in 1950. Biró's breakthrough had been to devise a ball-bearing nib capable of delivering to paper the smudge-resistant ink already used in printing. Today around 14 million Bic "Biros" are sold every day, perhaps making the pen the world's most successful gadget.

10. Blackberry, 1999

Ask the average office worker they think of their Blackberry and they will variously call it a boon and a curse. Developed by the Canadian firm Research in Motion and unleashed in 1999, the gizmo has provided legions of roaming desk jockeys with a hotline to their inboxes, and enabled armies of bosses to keep employees digitally shackled to their swivel chairs. The addictiveness of the device led it to be dubbed the "Crackberry".

11. Bow and arrow, 30,000BC
The major preoccupation for pre-historic man was killing whatever moved, and devising ever more efficient means to do it. For centuries hunters relied only on what missiles they had the strength to throw, breaking bones with sticks and stones. That changed somewhere in Africa, sometime more than 30,000 years ago, when the earliest archers emerged with bows and arrows. The earliest recovered weapons, dating from around 9,000BC, were unearthed near Hamburg and were made of pine tipped with flint.

12. Bra, 1913

Before she patented her creation, the New York socialite Mary Phelps Jacob, widely considered to be the inventor of the modern bra, had bought a sheer silk dress and devised a handkerchief and ribbon device as an alternative to unsightly corsets. She later sold her business for $1,500 to Warner Brothers Corset Company, who made $15m from her uplifting invention. Today, UK women spend £1.2bn on bras and pants each year; Marks & Spencer claims a market-leading 38 per cent share of sales.

13. Button, 1235

Which came first, the button or the buttonhole? The button; the ancient Greeks fastened tunics using crude buttons and loops, but it took the buttonhole to popularise the little discs of perforated plastic that adorn our clothes today. The earliest evidence comes from 13th-century German sculptures, which show tunics featuring six buttons running from neck to waist. Today, 60 per cent of the world's buttons are made in one Chinese town, Qiaotou, which churns out 15bn buttons a year (see also Zip).

14. Camcorder, 1983

It wasn't long ago that capturing moving images required a crew of grubby-handed technicians, yards of magnetic tape and a camera the size of a garden shed. These days, anyone can call themselves a film-maker. Sony was the first to produce a consumer camcorder with the release of its Betamovie in 1983.

15. Camera, 1826

The British polymath William Talbot, inventor of one of the earliest cameras (Joseph Nicéphore Niépce had produced the earliest surviving photograph on a pewter plate in 1826), was inspired by his inability to draw. He described one of his sketches as "melancholy to behold", wishing for a way to fix on paper the fleeting photographic images that had been observed for c enturies using camera obscura. His early developing techniques in the late 1830s set the standard for decades – he invented the negative/positive process – and photography passed swiftly from novelty into ubiquity, helped in large part, in 1888, by George Eastman's Kodak, the first camera to take film.

16. Cardiac pacemaker, 1958
It wasn't long ago that if you had a terminally dodgy ticker you would be sent to hospital and hooked up to a large, static piece of kit. Cue Swedish doctors Rune Elmqvist and Ake Senning, who in 1958 designed the first implantable pacemaker. Their device failed within hours and it took the US engineer Wilson Greatbatch to build a reliable model in his garden shed. He tested a prototype on a dog in 1958 and, in 1960, Henry Hannafield, 77, became the first human recipient.

17. CD, 1965

For the US inventor James Russell, the crackly sound of vinyl ruined music, so he patented a disc that could be read with a laser rather than a needle. Philips and Sony picked up the trail in the early 1970s, when they perfected the Compact Audio Disc or CAD, later shortened to CD. The first discs appeared in shops in the early 1980s and could play 74 minutes, on the insistence of Sony chief Akio Morita, who stipulated one disc could carry Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

18. Clockwork radio, 1991

With the wind-up radio, not only did deprived areas of the developing world get access to public information about Aids and contraception, but we were gifted a true legend of invention. Trevor Bayliss (see My Secret Life, p7), a former professional swimmer, stuntman and pool salesman, devised the contraption after being horrified by reports from Africa that safe-sex education wasn't getting through.

19. Compass, 1190

Forced to rely on natural cues such as cliffs or spits of land, as well as crude maps and the heavens, early mariners would get hopelessly lost. Desperate for something more reliable, sailors in China and Europe independently discovered in the 12th century lodestone, a magnetic mineral that aligned with the North Pole. By 1190, Italian navigators were using lodestone to magnetise needles floating in bowls of water. The device set humanity on the course to chart the globe.

20. Condom, 1640

Egyptians donned them 3,000 years ago and the 16th-century Italian gynaecologist Gabriele Falloppio (he of the tubes) first advocated their use to prevent the spread of disease. The earliest remains of a condom, which date from 1640, were discovered in Dudley. In modern times, condoms, which until the 1960s were made from animal gut, have allowed generations of couples to avoid unwanted pregnancies and saved an inestimable number of lives by preventing the spread of diseases such as Aids.

21. Credit card, 1950

Before the advent of "plastic", consumers were forced to queue at bureaux de change and high-street banks to get their hands on cash. Today millions of us (there are 66 million credit cards in circulation in the UK – six million more than there are people) can get our hands on anything with just a swipe of a card, whether we can afford it or not (outstanding credit stands at about £60bn). We have the American Ralph Schneider, founder of the Diners' Club card, to thank for this dangerous convenience.

22. Digital camera, 1975

There could be no digital camera without the charge-coupled device (CCD), the "digital film" that captures images electronically. Developed in 1969, the widget allowed the Kodak engineer Steven Sasson to build the first digital camera, which resembled a toaster. The first, horribly blurry snap (of a female lab assistant) he took boasted just 0.01 megapixels and took almost a minute to record and display, but in those 60 seconds, Sasson had transformed photography – today digital cameras have all but killed off film and made photographers of us all.

23. Digital TV recorder, 1999
In homes full of slimmed-down TVs and gleaming DVD players, video cassettes, with their clunky heads and jam-prone magnetic tape, look decidedly dated and are a more common site at car boot sales than on living-room shelves. That is thanks, in part, to the rise of the digital recorder, which (almost) silently lays down programmes on a computer hard disk. The first consumer systems came from ReplayTV and TiVo, and have been joined in the UK by Sky+, as well as cable and Freeview hard-disk recorders.

24. Digital watch, 1972

Watches made the short journey from bosom to wrist during the 19th century, due in part to the craze among middle-class women for cycling. Their new, more convenient position made sense and they developed quickly. Rolex made the first waterproof watch in 1926 and a year later the ultra-accurate quartz-crystal controlled clock arrived. Watches finally went digital in the 1970s when the Hamilton Company developed the Pulsar, which sported lights in place of hands; the liquid crystal display (LCD) followed in 1977.

25. Drum, 12,000BC

It's a mystery as to what made man first knock on a bone or a gourd with no other intention than to make a nice noise, but thank goodness he did – it is hard to imagine a world without music. Evidence of music-making dates back tens of thousands of years, but it is thought the drum was the first instrument to be built, possibly as early as 12,000BC. The earliest tuneable instrument, the stringed harp, was first plucked in modern-day Iraq in around 4,500BC.

26. Dynamite, 1867

Few inventions, save perhaps the atomic bomb, can claim to have shaken the world in quite the same way as nitroglycerine. And few inventions can have claimed so many lives. The first to succumb to the explosive force of Dynamite was the inventor's brother; Alfred Nobel's youngest sibling perished when an early experiment to stabilise nitroglycerine by adding a chalky material called kieselguhr, went horribly wrong. In 1896, Nobel used his Dynamite fortune to endow the Nobel Prizes.

27. Electric shaver, 1928

For sensitive-skinned men who daily face the choice between tearing their cheeks to shreds or growing a scraggly beard, the electric razor is a godsend. They can thank a retired American soldier for the invention. While working in Alaskan mines before returning to service in the First World War, Lieutenant Colonel Jacob Schick struggled with foam and blades in the sub-zero temperatures. His prototype electric alternative resembled modern razors, but it was attached to a bulky external motor: self-contained shavers appeared in 1928.

28. Eraser, 1770

Strange, perhaps, that it took 200 years after the invention of the lead pencil for somebody to dream up the eraser. Until then, draughtsman had to use bread, but the English engineer Edward Naine saw potential in natural rubber to do a better job. It did, but, like bread, was perishable. The advent of more durable vulcanised rubber in 1839 (a method pioneered by the tyre tycoon Charles Goodyear) sealed the future of the eraser. Hymen Lipman conceived the all-in-one pencil eraser in 1858.

29. Fax machine, 1843

A young person today might struggle to pick a fax machine out of a line-up of obsolete office gadgets, but most desk jockeys still familiar with the device probably don't realise it is more than 160 years old. Yes, they didn't have digital displays and printouts that say "OK", but the device built by the Scottish clockmaker Alexander Bain in 1843, which compri sed a pen attached to a pendulum kept in motion by electromagnetic impulses, is remarkably similar in principle to the modern machine.

30. Fibre optic cable, 1966
In an experiment requiring nothing more complicated than two buckets, a tap and some water, the Irish scientist John Tyndall in 1870 observed that a flow of water could channel sunlight. Fibre optics – tubes of glass or plastic capable of transmitting signals much more efficiently than traditional metal wire – operate under the same principles and were perfected by Charles Kao and George Hockham in 1966. Today, thousands of miles of cables link all corners of the globe.

31. Fire, 590,000BC

Fire, like air or water, is nothing new – but the ability to control it is. Well, quite new. Evidence suggests early man used fire more than a million years ago, but the earliest signs that we had learned to command it date from nearly 800,000 years ago. Archaeologists at a dig in Israel in 2004 discovered clusters of burnt flint tools, evidence of hearths or campfires. The ability to start fire in a flash only came with the invention of the match in 1827 (see Match).

32. Fish hook, 30,000BC

It isn't a complicated device, the fish hook – just a bit of bent wire with a sharpened end – but throughout most of human history it has allowed man to nab a meal without risking life and limb hunting wild animals, or busting a gut in the fields. The earliest hooks, which probably date to around 30,000BC, were in fact carved in wood. Others have been fashioned from horns, shells, thorns or even, in the case of the Easter Islands, the thigh bones of deceased fishermen.

33. Floppy disk, 1971

They may seem horribly dated today (many modern computers don't even ship with floppy disk drives) but for more than 20 years – aeons in the digital age – they were the only effective means to carry data between computers. The first floppies, invented in 1971 by IBM geek Alan Shugart, held just 100 kilobytes; modern disks can store 1.44 megabytes. Today, the largest iPod can store the same amount of data as 113,778 floppy disks, which in a stack, would match the height of London's BT Tower.

34. Flushing toilet, 1597

Thomas Crapper, right? Wrong. Sir John Harrington, author, courtier and godson to Queen Elizabeth I, is the true inventor of the flush toilet. The miscredited Crapper, whose name helped build the urban myth that has surrounded him for centuries, indeed had a hand in toilets, but Harrington beat him to it, installing lavatories for the Queen at Richmond in the late 16th century. The "Crapper" (the world crap existed long before Thomas) was improved with the invention of the "S" bend in 1775.

35. Fridge, 1834

The greatest kitchen convenience was the death of the greengrocer, allowing harried professionals to keep perishables "fresh" for days at a time. But few people (greengrocers aside) would bemoan their invention. Jacob Perkins was the first to describe how pipes filled with volatile chemicals whose molecules evaporated very easily could keep food cool, like wind chilling your skin after a dip in the sea. But he neglected to publish his invention and its evolution was slow – fridges would not be commonplace for another 100 years.

Click below to see the remaining ones with photos. There's 101 total.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/technology/article3129960.ece
© Belfast Telegraph :: :: ::

Saundra Hummer

November 9th, 2007, 04:10 PM

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~~~~~~~
"There is no telling how many wars it will take to secure freedom in the homeland."

George W. Bush
(1946- )
43rd US President
Source:
In a speech on August 7, 2002
~~~
"The war made possible for us the solution of a whole series of problems that could never have been solved in normal times."

Joseph Paul Goebbels
(1897-1945)
Nazi Propaganda Minister
Source:
The Göebbels Diaries
1942-1943
~~~
"All our political forms are exhausted and practically nonexistent. Our parliamentary and electoral system and our political parties are just as futile as dictatorships are intolerable. Nothing is left. And this nothing is increasingly aggressive, totalitarian, and omnipresent. Our experience today is the strange one of empty political institutions in which no one has any confidence any more, of a system of government which functions only in the interests of a political class, and at the same time of the almost infinite growth of power, authority, and social control which makes any one of our democracies a more authoritarian mechanism than the Napoleonic state."

Jacques Ellul

~~~~~
.

Saundra Hummer

November 9th, 2007, 04:22 PM

.
^^^^^^^^^
Suddenly, Impeachment Hearings
Are
Looking Like a Strong Possibility
By Dave Lindorff
11/09/07 "ICH" -- - -You wouldn’t know it if you just watch TV news or read the corporate press, but this past Tuesday, something remarkable happened. Despite the pig-headed opposition of the Democratic Party’s top congressional leadership, a majority of the House, including three Republicans, voted to send Dennis Kucinich’s long sidelined Cheney impeachment bill (H Res 333) to the Judiciary Committee for hearings.

The vote was 218 to 194.

Now the behind-the-scenes partisan maneuvering that preceded that vote was arcane indeed, with Kucinich first exercising a member’s privilege motion to present his stymied impeachment bill to the full House, only to have Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrange for a colleague (Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-MD) offer a motion to table it. The Republicans, anxious to embarrass the Speaker, threw a wrench into that plan, though, by voting as a bloc to oppose tabling. Since Kucinich already has 22 co-sponsors for his bill, it was clear that the tabling gambit would fail. As soon as that became apparent, rank-and-file Democrats, unwilling to be seen by their constituents as defending Cheney, rushed to change their votes to opposing the tabling motion. In the end, tabling failed by 242 to 170 with 77 Democrats supporting a pleasantly surprised Kucinich.

In order to avoid a floor debate on the merits of impeaching the eminently impeachable Vice President Cheney, Pelosi and her allies then moved to send Kucinich’s bill directly to the Judiciary Committee. They were joined by three Republicans, including maverick Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-TX).

Now the hope of the Democratic leadership is that this means Kucinich’s impeachment bill will continue to be safely bottled up in a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee. But it may not work out that way for them.

Whatever the explanation, this impeachment bill has been endorsed by a floor vote of the full House, with bipartisan support.

For the Judiciary Committee to sit on it now and not schedule a hearing would be a gross travesty of parliamentary procedure and custom.

Indeed, some House members not associated with Kucinich’s resolution are now openly calling for immediate hearings into Cheney’s impeachable actions—specifically lying the country into a war in Iraq, and threatening war with Iran.

One indication of the change in the political climate in the House is the announcement by Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL), a six-term congressman and a member of the House Judiciary Committee, that he will call for the Judiciary Committee to take up Kucinich’s impeachment bill. This is significant because Wexler, no left-wing hothead, is not a co-signer of the Kucinich bill.

In an email message to constituents, Wexler said:

“I share your belief that Vice President Cheney must answer for his deceptive actions in office, particularly with regard to the preparations for the Iraq war and the revelation of the identity of covert agent Valerie Plame Wilson as part of political retribution against her husband.”

“…Cheney and the bush Administration have demonstrated a consistent pattern of abusing the law and misleading Congress and the American people. We see the consequences of these actions abroad in Iraq and at home through the violations of our civil liberties. The American people are served well with a legitimate and thorough impeachment inquiry. I will urge the Judiciary Committee to schedule impeachment hearings immediately and not let this issue languish as it has over the last six months. Only through hearings can we begin to correct the abuses of Dick Cheney and the bush administration; and if it is determined in these hearings that Vice President Cheney has committed High Crimes and Misdemeanors, he should be impeached and removed from office. It is time for Congress to expose the multitude of misdeeds of the Administration and I am hopeful that the Judiciary Committee will expeditiously begin an investigation of this matter.”

Also calling for prompt action by the Judiciary Committee in the wake of the Tuesday House vote was Carol Shea-Porter, a first-term Democrat from New Hampshire, who also is not a sponsor of the Kucinich measure. In explaining her vote to send the Kucinich bill to the Judiciary Committee, she said:

“It is the duty of the Vice President to faithfully execute the laws of the United States of America and to defend the Constitution. There is growing evidence that the Executive Branch has ignored some of our laws and has attempted to bend the Constitution to its will. Members of both parties decided that this issue is too important to ignore. I voted with my Republican and Democratic colleagues to investigate the Vice President’s actions in office.”

She characterized the resolution sending the bill to the Judiciary Committee as a “strongly bi-partisan vote.”

With these kinds of endorsements and calls for action, it is clear both that Speaker Pelosi is looking increasingly pathetic and out of touch with her “impeachment is off the table” mantra, and also that Judiciary Chair John Conyers (D-MI), who seems to have been intimidated by the Speaker for the past year, but who earlier had been a leader in exposing the crimes of the Bush/Cheney administration, is getting strong support for taking a bolder stand.

Stephen Cohen (D-TN), a member of the Judiciary Committee who is a co-sponsor of the Kucinich resolution, says he thinks that there will be an impeachment hearing in the committee.

The 22 House members who have already signed on as co-sponsors of Kucinich’s Cheney impeachment resolution are: Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Maxine Waters D-CA), Hank Johnson (D-GA), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Lynn Woolsey D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Albert Wynn (D-MD), William Lacy Clay (D-MO, Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Jim McDermott (D-WA), Jim Moran (D-VA), Bob Filner (D-CA), Sam Farr (D-CA), Robert Brady (D-PA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Donald Payne (D-NJ), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI), Ed Towns (D-NY, Diane Watson (D-CA, and Danny Davis (D-IL).

The change in attitude toward impeachment among the rank and file, and the evident increasing willingness to buck the Speaker, reflects growing awareness of the groundswell of popular anger with the Bush administration and the Democratic Congress over continued funding of the Iraq War, and over continued erosion of Constitutional government and civil liberties by an administration that wants unfettered executive power and by a Congress that is afraid to act.

The latest polls show three in four Democrats in favor of impeaching the vice president and president, while a majority of all Americans favor impeaching the vice president and roughly half of all Americans favor impeaching the president.

This is before hearings and presentation of evidence have even begun!

The Democratic strategy for the 2008 election has been to do nothing overly confrontational, to pass no significant legislation, to collect lots of money from corporate interests, and to hope that the Republican Party, saddled with an unpopular administration and an unpopular war, will implode.

The strategy, however, is proving to be a disaster, as public support for the Democratic do-nothing Congress has fallen even below the president’s record low numbers. Just running against Republicans, Bush/Cheney, and the continuing war risks seeing Democrats go down to defeat in ’08.

It is awareness of this looming electoral disaster that underlies the growing restiveness among rank-and-file Democrats in the House, all of whom have to face the voters in less than a year’s time.

As recently as a month ago, it didn’t look like impeachment was in the cards,

Now it’s starting to look like we Cheney’s going to be put in the dock.

It may not be long before we start to see bills of impeachment filed against President Bush too.

The corporate media enjoy making fun of Rep. Kucinich, a height-challenged but dedicated progressive who has made a career of standing tall for his views. If his bill ends up leading to impeachment hearings against Cheney, Kucinich will end up having the last laugh.

Is reason overcoming political greed? SRH
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info
Click on above like for statistics, cartoons, anchor articles (which will curl your hair, if you have any), and much more. vvvvvvv .

Saundra Hummer

November 9th, 2007, 04:40 PM

^^^^^^^Rep. Dennis Kucinich:
Effort to Impeach
Vice President Cheney Still Alive
Democracy Now!
11/09/07
Despite the best efforts of the Democratic leadership, impeachment was indeed on the table this week in Washington. On Tuesday, Congressmember and presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich nearly forced the full House to vote on his measure to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. House Resolution 333 accuses Cheney of deliberately manipulating intelligence and deceiving the public to build support for the invasion of Iraq and now towards a possible attack on Iran. Twenty-one House Democrats have supported the bill, but it's met fierce opposition from the Democratic leadership.

Democratic leaders were able to send the bill to the House Judiciary Committee, where they expect it to languish. In a bizarre sequence, Republican lawmakers initially voted against tabling the bill after their leadership apparently decided a House debate would embarrass the Democrats. The bill was eventually sent to committee after a back-and-forth wrangling between Kucinich and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

Democratic leaders have famously declared that impeachment is off the table. But their view does not fall in line with recent polling figures. An American Research Group poll in July found that fifty-four percent of Americans support beginning impeachment proceedings against Vice President Cheney. Seventy-four percent of Democrats were also in favor.

Congressmember Dennis Kucinich of Ohio introduced the measure. He joins me now from Washington.
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JUAN GONZALEZ: Despite the best efforts of the Democratic leadership, impeachment was indeed on the table this week in Washington. On Tuesday, Congress member and presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich nearly forced the full House to vote on his measure to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. House Resolution 333 accuses Cheney of deliberately manipulating intelligence and deceiving the public to build support for the invasion of Iraq and now towards a possible attack on Iran. Twenty-one House Democrats have supported the bill, but it's met fierce opposition from the Democratic leadership.

Democratic leaders were able to send the bill to the House Judiciary Committee, where they expect it to languish. In a bizarre sequence, Republican lawmakers initially voted against tabling the bill after their leadership apparently decided a House debate would embarrass the Democrats. The bill was eventually sent to committee after a back-and-forth wrangling between Kucinich and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

AMY GOODMAN: Democratic leaders have famously declared impeachment is off the table. But their view does not fall in line with recent polling figures. An American Research Group poll in July found 54% of Americans support beginning impeachment proceedings against Vice President Cheney. 74% of Democrats were also in favor.

Congressmember Dennis Kucinich of Ohio introduced the measure. The presidential candidate joins us now from Washington, D.C. We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Congressman Kucinich.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Good morning. Good morning, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain exactly what you did this week.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: The articles of impeachment that were introduced under a privileged resolution cite the Vice President's persistent lies relating to Iraq. He claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, that necessitated the US response. He claimed that Iraq somehow was connected to al-Qaeda's role in 9/11. He has been beating the drums for war against Iran. Those are the elements of the articles of impeachment that were introduced into the House this week.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And why introduce your resolution in regards to Vice President Cheney and not to President Bush?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, certainly President Bush also has to be held accountable. However, I think that any constitutional process that begins for the removal of an official, when you have the Vice President, who led the effort to deceive this country with respect to a war against Iraq, it’s appropriate that he be dealt with first, so that you don’t create a condition where you remove the President first and then Mr. Cheney becomes his successor, and then you have to have an impeachment of two presidents consecutively.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain the leadership's position and why you chose to do what you did this week.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: I think it’s very difficult to explain their position, because I don’t think their position is defensible. I think when you consider that our whole nation is at risk, our constitutional form of government has been undermined by lies, by illegal war, by massive debt, how can you explain the position of Democratic leaders?

I think that the American people and their response is becoming more and more powerful, and we’re seeing that there being rising discontent among Democrats in Congress about the direction that our leaders have said is not possible. I think that people want to see this administration held accountable. After all, what could be more important than having an opportunity to get to the truth of what happened in Iraq, that the war was based on lies; that over almost 4,000 of our brave young men and women who represent this country have lost their lives because of those lies; that over a million innocent Iraqis, noncombatants, civilians, have lost their lives because of those lies; that we will spend between one and two trillion dollars for this war, even borrowing money from China? And our whole domestic agenda is being capsized by this war. And the administration is preparing still to take us in another war against Iran, similarly lying about a cause for war. So what can be more important? Our country is at risk, and it’s time for our Democratic leaders to take a stand.

JUAN GONZALEZ: What do you say to those who will argue that even though they may agree with you on a lot of your concerns, that the impeachment process itself would drag out for so long that it may as well -- people should just move forward toward the elections and elect a new president?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Right, well, you think about that. You know, the administration will be in office for at least fourteen more months. They can cause a lot of damage in that time. They’re planning to attack Iran. When you think about the defense authorization budget including a provision that would retrofit Stealth B-2 bombers so they can carry 30,000-pound bombs, which would then be dropped on nuclear research labs, creating an humanitarian and ecological disaster, “What are we waiting for?” is the question, not “Why don’t we wait for the election?”

AMY GOODMAN: The other argument that the leadership has used is that they’re concerned about losing in a landslide vote against them, that that is bad strategically, Congressman Kucinich.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Since when does it become unfashionable to stand up for the Constitution, to stand up for our nation's laws, to stand up for international law, to stand up for moral law? Since when does it become inconvenient to take a stand that would help secure our democracy once again? I mean, we’re really -- it’s all at risk right now, and it’s time that the Democratic leadership exerted an effective influence. As a coequal branch of government, Congress cannot stand by and let this administration continue to undermine our Constitution. That’s why I introduced those articles of impeachment.

AMY GOODMAN: What happens now? Is it over?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Not at all. I mean, Representative Wexler, who’s a member of the committee, sent a note to the members of the committee two days ago saying that we ought to proceed with hearings. Members have been talking to John Conyers on a regular basis since the impeachment resolution was introduced, asking him to take this up, and I’m hopeful that he will.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you feel Conyers has changed his position from, when he was in the minority, calling for impeachment, and then, when he became head of the House Judiciary Committee, stepping back with pressure from the House leadership?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: I think John Conyers wants to do the right thing, and I’m hopeful that he will.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Congressman, I’d like to ask you, on another matter, a vote this week in Congress over the Peru free trade bill. Many Democrats supported the administration position on this. You’ve been outspoken in your opposition to many of these free trade agreements. Your perspective on this vote?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: It’s a disaster for the people of Peru. It’s a disaster for farmers whose land is being poisoned by gold mining and the cyanide that’s used in that process. And American workers have absolutely no protection about jobs being moved out of this country. It’s basically a modeling of NAFTA sent to Peru. This is really a continuation of the stripping of rights of peoples of both nations. And a reason why NAFTA has to be canceled -- and I’ve said that I would do that as President -- that we must get out of the WTO -- I said that I would withdraw from the WTO -- and to have trade that is wholly and solely based on workers' rights, human rights and environmental quality principles. And it’s time that we recognize that this whole trade model has been about nothing but a race to the bottom for workers. It’s time we stood up for workers, no matter if they’re in Peru or anywhere else in the world, but certainly in the United States. We should have some concern about what the effect of these trade agreements are on American workers.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Kucinich, you are head of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee, which has oversight over the FCC. Today in Seattle, there is going to be the last of the FCC hearings, as Kevin Martin, the chair, wants to expedite media consolidation. He says perhaps they’ll be taking a vote around December 18th. What control do you have over this?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, as the chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee, I can and will hold hearings on the FCC's decision-making process. I think that we are in a time when media consolidation is having a material and adverse impact on our exercise of First Amendment rights in a democratic society. The public may be largely unaware that the electronic media are regulated because the airwaves belong to the people. And the Federal Communications Act of 1934 said that the electronic broadcast media must serve in the public interest, convenience and necessity. And the more monopolization that happens, the less likely it is that the public interest is going to be protected. So there is a long and historic train here of thought that says that media consolidation is a danger to our democracy and that, notwithstanding what the FCC does, Congress should intervene to block any effort that would enable further media consolidation.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And the argument of those who say that the advances, the technological advances in communications, the development of the internet, basically has made -- outmoded a lot of the regulations that the FCC operates now to regulate media ownership.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: There’s a lot of people who think the Constitution is outmoded, too. I think that when we realize the concentration of wealth in our society has accelerated wealth to the top, the concentration of information in our society and control over information accelerates the intellectual wealth of the country and the First Amendment rights of the country into the hands of fewer and fewer.

You know, A.J. Liebling years ago famously said freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one. But when you’re talking about electronic broadcast media, the people own the airwaves. I mean, that is the fundamental understanding that the American people should have. Those airwaves do not belong to those networks or to those big media companies. The airwaves belong to the public, and they're supposed to serve in the public interest.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Congressmember Dennis Kucinich, not only a Congress member from Ohio, but Democratic presidential candidate. I wanted to ask you about the issue of exclusion of presidential candidates from various debates, most recently Mike Gravel, the former Alaska senator. You weren’t invited to the Democratic Party’s Jefferson Jackson dinner in Des Moines, that the six other Democratic contenders are; your response?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, it’s pretty interesting when you consider the fact that I’ve been running consistently fourth in a number of national polls, ahead of three of the candidates who have been invited. So what does that say? It says that there’s an attempt to rig the presidential election, using the Iowa Democratic Party as an accomplice. That’s not acceptable. This election doesn’t belong to one state or, for that matter, to one party. And so, you know, look of the national polls, and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Amy, while we’re still on the air, there’s something I want to mention to you that I think is really important. Last night I was reading the Defense Authorization Bill, and there is a section in the bill that I want to read to you: Section 1615 requires the Secretary of Defense to, one, “determine the military-unique capabilities needed to be provided by the Department of Defense to support civil authorities in an incident of national significance or a catastrophic incident.” And then it goes on to say provide funds to develop a plan. What’s going on in this country? How can we stand by and see our basic liberties undermined?

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Congressmember Dennis Kucinich in Washington, D.C., running for president. I wanted to ask you about the comment you made during one of the presidential debates, that issue of seeing an unidentified flying object. Can you explain what it is that you saw?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, first of all, you know, I was kind of taken aback when I was asked that question, but I understand in Washington the truth is an unidentified flying object, so I guess I could admit that I saw something, found out later that Ronald Reagan on two occasions was said to have seen a UFO, that Jimmy Carter was said to have seen a UFO. So I’m assuming that now becomes a prerequisite for becoming President of the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: Final comment on media coverage right now of the presidential race that you’re a part of.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, you know, I mean, the New York Times has yet to discover that I’m a candidate. I could -- if I suddenly catch fire in New Hampshire, where we’re running fourth and closing in on third place, I would imagine that I could even win the election, and the New York Times would have a big story about second, third, and fourth place and fail to mention that I won.

There is an attempt by the media to manage this election, to try to determine the outcome of the election prior to the people casting votes. It’s just another way to try to defeat the public interest and to make of the election a kind of a farce.

You know, all I need is an opportunity to debate Senator Clinton on the war. She has voted for the war. She voted to fund the war. She wants to stay in Iraq through 2013. And, frankly, her positions aren’t much different than Barack Obama’s, John Edwards’s. I mean, when I break into the top three, the whole election changes. And I’m working on that.

I realize I’m a long shot. I don’t have any delusions about that. But I also know that right now democracy is a long shot in America, and I realize that our constitutional protections are kind of a long shot. So I’m willing to take that stand, and I think that the people of New Hampshire are going to have an opportunity to append the political process by voting for my candidacy, which will give them a chance to have a voice and a consistent supporter, not just of peace and workers' rights and healthcare for all, but of the basic constitutional principles that brought us together to form a nation so many years ago.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Kucinich, I want to thank you very much for being with us, Congress member from Ohio and Democratic presidential candidate.

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Saundra Hummer

November 9th, 2007, 05:01 PM

.
. . . . . . .
Products?
Conditions
Don't Take a Chemical Bath
By
Judi Ketteler

With literally thousands of chemicals and fragrances added to everything from moisturizer to nail polish, how do you know if your beauty product is safe?

We live in a chemical-infused world. Although there are some benefits -- clean drinking water, for example -- when it comes to beauty products, chemicals are thought by many to cause adverse health effects. That's because chemicals from beauty products don't pass through your digestive system where they might be filtered; instead, they head right into your bloodstream.

It's important for consumers to understand that the cosmetic industry is not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Companies are required to list all the ingredients in order of use, but they're not required (by federal law) to test products for safety. The FDA can only act if they have strong scientific knowledge that a product is dangerous. That doesn't mean that companies don't have safety standards, but it does mean that claims like "natural," "botanical" or "organic" are basically useless.

So where does this leave the consumer? The Environmental Working Group (EWG) -- a non-profit, non-partisan organization working to educate consumers about chemicals in cosmetics -- created Skin Deep a searchable database that analyzes about 25,000 beauty products and 10,000 different ingredients.

"It's about trying to pick better products in the same category," says Kristan Markey, a chemist and research analyst for EWG. For example, it's not reasonable to stop using all soap, but you can choose milder soaps with fewer ingredients. "It's a big challenge, but basically, it's just a matter of slowly going through your bathroom cabinet," Markey says. The best place to start is by looking at the ingredients. However, even that can feel like a Herculean task, given that most ingredients are multi-syllabic words you can't even pronounce, let alone have any idea what they do.

Here are some tips to get started:
Minimize Fragrances
Beware of the word "fragrance." You might think it's something that simply smells pretty, but scents are chemicals. The truth is, it's impossible to know exactly which chemicals are in a fragrance. There are more than 5,000 different fragrances used in cosmetics and skin care products, reports the American Academy of Dermatology. Plus, not all chemicals are listed on a label. To complicate matters, fragrance chemicals are a leading cause of allergic reactions to cosmetics. Choose "fragrance free" whenever possible. Or, if the bouquet of lavender fields is crucial for your morning shower, look for products with no chemical preservatives."

Scrutinize Nail Polish
Phthalates -- used widely in nail polish -- are a big topic of controversy and research. Scientists have been studying this group of chemicals for at least 20 years and have found that they may be linked to birth defects in humans (they're definitely toxic to animals). Unfortunately, phthalates often get hidden under "fragrance," so it's hard for the consumer to know if the nail polish contains it or not. The best tactic: Use less nail polish -- perhaps just paint your toes and skip the nails. (I've also found CADMIUMS in nail polish and they can damage your kidney's, they are extremely toxic, another heavy metal. SRH)

Use Hair Dyes Less Often
Salons are not required to list the ingredients in their hair dye, Markey says, but we know that many contain coal tar ingredients -- chemicals that have been linked to cancer. Black hair dyes for men have also been found to contain lead (called lead acetate), which has been restricted in both Canada and the European Union. Avoiding hair dye altogether is a tough pill to swallow -- but try to go as long as possible between uses.

Avoid Skin Lighteners
"You want to avoid anything that changes your skin composition," Markey says. Watch out for products that have hydroquinone -- a chemical that bleaches the skin and can cause lesions. The FDA has issued warnings about it and recommended that it no longer be generally recognized as safe and effective.

Choose Shampoo Carefully
Be especially wary of dandruff shampoos, because they often contain selenium sulfide -- a neurotoxin and possible carcinogen. If you can, avoid shampoos that list ethanolamine or diethanolamine -- called TEA or DEA on the label. These are nitrosamines, says Markey, which are thought to be carcinogenic (though it's not clear in what amounts). The FDA has also been monitoring the contaminant 1,4-dioxane, which on a label could be called "PEG," "Polyethylene," "Polyethylene glycol," "Polyoxyethylene," "-eth-," or "-oxynol-."

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify
Once you start digging into the ingredients of many of your favorite beauty products, it's easy to become disheartened. After all, who doesn't like to look nice, smell nice and have smooth skin and pretty nails? But try to look for ways to cut down the amount of products you're using: Drop a step from your skincare routine, give your hair days off from washing, use fragrance free whenever possible and always look for products with less ingredients. . . . . . .

thedwork

November 9th, 2007, 08:21 PM

Saundra Hummer

November 9th, 2007, 09:41 PM

Kucinich!!!!!

:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

as always, thanks for putting up what you do Saundra. let's hope Dennis gets some traction w/ his campaign and maybe even the equally (more?) important impeachment proceedings. strange the way it's gone down so far. nothing surprises me w/ this congress anymore. i have to read more on it...

I know, the same with me, and there are those who are afraid Cheney and Bush will attack Iran and Syria and who knows who else, just to be able to put them in the "legal" position to postpone elections all together. Think not? To quote you, "Nothing surprises me anymore".

Saundra Hummer

November 11th, 2007, 05:06 PM

.
~~~~~~~
"[America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom."

John Quincy Adams -
(1767-1848) 6th US President
Source:
Speech before the House of Representatives,
July 4, 1821
Quoted in William Bonner
and
Pierre Lemieux (Editors),
The Idea of America
(Les Belles Lettres, 2003)~~~
"War itself requires no special motive but appears to be engrafted on human nature; it passes even for something noble, to which the love of glory impels men quite apart from any selfish urges. Thus among the "American savages", just as much as among those of Europe during the age of chivalry, military valor is held to be of great worth in itself, not only during war (which is natural) but in order that there should be war. Often war is waged only in order to show valor; thus an inner dignity is ascribed to war itself, and even some philosophers have praised it as an ennoblement of humanity, forgetting the pronouncement of the Greek who said, "War is an evil inasmuch as it produces more wicked men than it takes away." So much for the measures nature takes to lead the human race, considered as a class of animals, to her own end."

Immanuel Kant
(1724-1804)
German philosopher
Source:
Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch, 1795
~~~
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people!"

Patrick Henry
(1736-1799)
US Founding Father

~~~~~ .

Saundra Hummer

November 11th, 2007, 05:19 PM

.
X X X X X
Solidarity

By
Charles Sullivan

11/09/07 "ICH" --- - We are living in extraordinarily dangerous times, when evil, rather than justice, prevails. The schoolyard is terrorized by thugs and punks with names like Bush, Cheney, Limbaugh, Robertson, Clinton, Rockefeller, Rice, Rumsfeld, Perle, Kristol and Giuliani—pedigreed people all.

In an inconspicuous corner of the schoolyard, the good people—and they are legion—keep to themselves, afraid. No one wants to be hurt; and the thugs and punks are dangerous, even criminally insane people. They have terrible weapons and criminal gangs who patrol the schoolyard to intimidate and terrorize, looking for those who talk to others; looking for signs of organization and resistance. The good people have witnessed their maiming and killing countless times. They have every reason to be afraid.

An aberration of nature, the blood of the punks and thugs is not red like ours; it is green, the color of money. They have an insatiable thirst for blood—our blood; the blood of all innocents. Blood money is their currency. Through some kind of strange alchemy, they are able to convert blood into money to own the world.

Every aspect of the schoolyard: the church, the Federal Reserve, the banks, the workplace, the corporation, and the militia are under their control. Not only do the thugs and killers have weapons, they have chemical and nuclear weapons, doomsday machines by the dozen. They have no regard for life, human and non-human alike. They are incapable of rational thought guided by just principles. The world, every inch of it, belongs to them. They are its rightful masters, so they think—holding patents on life’s genetic blueprints; gods among mortal beings, without limitations. They are our all knowing superiors and we are their helpless, foolish children tugging anxiously at their pant legs, vying for attention.

The thugs and punks are aggressive without restraint, and they wear the garments of priests and saints and public service. Their minds are disturbed, their hands stained with the blood of the innocent. Their conscience, if it exists at all, is unstained by guilt or principle. Their decadent, wrinkled bodies are devoid of soul, sustained by the embalming fluid of the walking dead.

Their ancestors were the inventors of chattel slavery; ours were their servants who worked the fields and died in their wars. Their ancestors tormented and eradicated the aboriginal peoples under the flag of religion and manifest destiny—testaments to their stupendous strength and superiority; ours were the vanquished and oppressed.

It was their ancestors who busted the unions of our ancestors, who killed our ancestral kin at Wounded Knee; at Ludlow and the McCormick Reaper Works at Chicago, and thousands of other places like those. It was their ancestors who shot Joe Hill in Utah and lynched Frank Little from a railroad trestle in Butte, Montana.

And it was them who murdered hope and kept fear alive; a fear that stalks and haunts us to this day: a horror that has given the Manitou of Dick Cheney to the present like the kiss of Judas; a specter of endless war and war profiteers that parasitizes the innocent and the just, with the insatiable appetite of maggots that feed on the decaying flesh of the dead.

The thugs and punks are not like us. They know they are superior to us and to everyone; to every being on this planet. We are not of their class, the descendants of wealth and property, with social pedigrees obtained through terror and mayhem. They and their ancestors have always been the terrorists, and we and our ancestors have always been the terrorized.

The present is a manifestation of an unbroken chain of events converging from the distant past. The reign of terror can be ended, must be ended, by breaking the chain and casting its hefty iron links into the sea. The bullies, the punks and thugs terrorize the schoolyard because they were not dealt with in the past. We did not arrive at this important moment in history by chance. Cause and effect brought us here. Those in the present are reaping what was sown by those who came before us, just as the future will be the result of what we do now.

Most of those in the schoolyard, aside from the thugs and punks, are peace loving people. They do not want trouble, so they knuckle under and do what they are told, and the decay continues to spread like a dark plague of pitiless death that blots out the sun. Like ghastly cadavers, the good and the innocent lie in quiet repose, paralyzed by fear and uncertainty, unable or unwilling to act in their own defense.

Because the social disease that leads to injustice and war was never adequately addressed, it persists; it festers and mortifies. Our gangrened limbs blacken, stink, and fall by the wayside in response to festering injustice. The sickening stench that envelops us is the half buried corpses of our ancestors clamoring for truth; screaming not for vengeance, but for justice. We pretend that we do not hear, but a deafening crescendo of the dead is rising all around and within us, too awful, too persistent to be ignored indefinitely; a nightmare that haunts and tortures our sleep, our every waking moment.

The chain must be broken or it will continue to grow and it will beat down our children and our children’s children. It is a frightening and troublesome thought, but it is wholly rational and based upon convincing physical evidence. History has borne ample witness to these events, as we bear witness to them now. It explains both past and present, and it portends an ever worsening future—a nightmare worse than all of those of the past added together; for injustice, like cancer, does not grow linear—like, but like crystals of quartz; it grows exponentially, like atoms unleashed in a nuclear explosion that consumes the world in fire and smoke.

In the end, there is only one way to remove the thugs and punks from our schoolyard. It is to face them down, not alone, which would be suicidal, but in unison, for we outnumber them millions to one. Unity, solidarity and justice are more powerful forces than hate and violence, just as surely as truth is superior to lies, life is preferable to death; and freedom is preferable to imprisonment and servitude. The disparate parts of solidarity already exist in broken disarray at our feet: We have only to bring them together in a continuous chain of ironclad unity.

There are risks involved. Success is not guaranteed. But without just opposition to terror just outcomes are not possible. So we need courage and faith that translates into principled action—and solidarity. It is high time to call the punks and thugs out into the open. Those who are ruled by fear cannot be guided by justice. Justice demands that we have this fight—us against them.

Charles Sullivan is a nature photographer, free-lance writer, and community activist residing in the Ridge and Valley Province of geopolitical West Virginia. He welcomes your comments at csullivan@phreego.com.

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Saundra Hummer

November 11th, 2007, 05:40 PM

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Twenty Reasons against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran
By
CASMII
11/09/07 "CASMII" -- -- Five years into the US-UK illegal invasion of Iraq and its consequent catastrophe for Iraqi people, peace loving people throughout the world are appalled by the current Iran-US standoff and its resemblance to the run-up to the invasion of Iraq . The hawks, headed by Dick Cheney in Washington , are now shamelessly calling for a military attack on Iran . The same Israeli lobby which pushed for the invasion of Iraq is now pushing for a military attack on Iran . The same distortions which were attempted to dupe the western public opinion for the invasion of Iraq , are now used to pave the way for another illegal pre-emptive war of aggression against Iran . As in the case of Iraq , the UN Security Council Resolutions against Iran , extricated through massive US pressure, are meant to provide a veneer of legitimacy for such an attack.
Contrary to the myth created by the western media, it is the US and its European allies which are defying the international community, in that they have rejected negotiations without pre-conditions. They show their lack of good faith by demanding that Iran concede the main point of negotiations, namely, suspension of enrichment of uranium which is Iran 's legitimate right under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, before the negotiations actually start.

The Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) calls for immediate and direct negotiations between the US and Iran without any pre-conditions.

Here, we debunk the main unfounded accusations, lies and distortions by the US and Israel and their allies while highlighting the main reasons to oppose sanctions and military intervention against Iran .

IRAN 'S NUCLEAR PROGRAMME: FACTS AND LIES
1. There is no evidence of a nuclear weapons programme in Iran . The US and its allies pressure Iran to prove that it is not hiding a nuclear weapons programme. This demand is logically impossible to satisfy and serves to make diplomacy fail in order to force regime change. Numerous intrusive and snap visits by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, totalling more than 2,700 person-hours of inspection, have failed to produce a shred of evidence for a weapons programme in Iran . Traces of highly enriched uranium found at Natanz in 2004, were determined by the IAEA to have come with imported centrifuges.

In July 2007, IAEA and Iran agreed on a work plan with defined modalities and timetable to clarify all issues of concerns in relation to Iran 's nuclear programme. On 27 th August 2007 IAEA announced that “The Agency has been able to verify the non-diversion of the declared nuclear materials at the enrichment facilities in Iran and has therefore concluded that it remains in peaceful use ”. The Agreement also cleared Iran 's plutonium experiments, which the Cheney Camp had accused of being evidence of Iran 's weaponisation programme.

Dr Mohammad El-Baradei, the IAEA Director General, said on 7 th September 2007, “For the last few years we have been told by the Security Council, by the board, we have to clarify the outstanding issues in Iran because these outstanding issues are the ones that have led to the lack of confidence, the crisis” , “We have not come to see any undeclared activities or weaponisation of their programme”.

Two years earlier, in June 2005, Bruno Pellaud, former IAEA Deputy Director General for Safeguards, was asked by Swissinfo if Iran was intent on building a nuclear bomb. He replied: "My impression is not. My view is based on the fact that Iran took a major gamble in December 2003 by allowing a much more intrusive capability to the IAEA. If Iran had had a military programme they would not have allowed the IAEA to come under this Additional Protocol. They did not have to."

2. Iran 's need for nuclear power generation is real. Even when Iran 's population was one-third of what it is today, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, negotiating on behalf of President Gerald Ford, persuaded the former Shah that Iran needed over twenty nuclear reactors. With Iran 's population of 70 million, and growing, and its oil resources fast depleting, Iran may be a net importer of oil in just over a decade from now. Nuclear energy is thus a realistic and viable solution for electricity generation in the country.

3. The "crisis" over Iran 's nuclear programme lacks the urgency claimed by Washington . Weapons grade uranium must be enriched at least to 85%. A 2005 CIA report determined that it could take Iran 10 years to achieve this level of enrichment. Many independent nuclear experts have stated that Iran would face formidable technical obstacles if it tried to enrich uranium beyond the 3.5% purity required for electricity generation. According to Dr Frank Barnaby of the Oxford Research Group, because of contamination of Iranian uranium with heavy metals, Iran cannot possibly enrich beyond even 20% without support from Russia or China. IAEA director, Dr. Mohammad ElBaradei, too, reiterated in October 2007 that “I don't see Iran , today, to be a clear and present danger. And our conclusion here is supported by every intelligence assessment I've seen that even if Iran has ambitions to develop nuclear weapons, it's still three to eight years away from that”.

4. Iran has met its obligations under the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Iran voluntarily accepted and enforced safeguards stricter than IAEA's Additional Protocol until February 2006, when Iran 's nuclear file was reported, under the pressure from the US , to the Security Council. (The US , by contrast, has neither signed nor implemented the Additional Protocol, and Israel has refused to sign the NPT.)

Iran 's earlier concealment of its nuclear programme took place in the context of the US-backed invasion of Iran by Saddam. Not only the U.S. , Germany , and the UK were complicit in the sale of chemical weapons to Saddam which were used against Iranian soldiers and civilians but Israel 's destruction of Iraq 's Osirak reactor in 1981 was treated with total impunity. Iranian leaders then concluded from these gross injustices that international laws are only “ink on paper”.

But the most direct reasons for Iran 's concealment were the American trade embargo on Iran and Washington 's organized and persistent campaign to stop civilian nuclear technology from reaching Iran from any source. For example, in 1995 Germany offered to let Kraftwerk Union (a subsidiary of Siemens) finish Iran 's Bushehr reactor, but withdrew its proposal under US pressure. The following year, China cancelled its contract to build a nuclear enrichment facility in Isfahan for the same reason. Thus Washington systematically violated, with impunity, Article IV of the NPT, which allows “signatories the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy”.

Nevertheless, Iran 's decision not to declare all of its nuclear installations did not violate its NPT obligations. According to David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, who first provided satellite imagery and analysis in December 2002 [7], under the safeguards agreement in force at the time, " Iran is not required to allow IAEA inspections of a new nuclear facility until six months before nuclear material is introduced into it."

5. Iran has given unprecedented concessions on its nuclear programme. Unlike North Korea , Iran has resisted the temptation to withdraw from the NPT. Besides accepting snap inspections under Additional Protocol until February 2006, Iran has invited Western companies to develop Iran 's civilian nuclear programme. Such joint ventures would create the best assurance that the enriched uranium would not be diverted to a weapons programme. Such concessions are very rare in the world, but the U.S. and its allies have refused Iran 's offer.

6. Enrichment of uranium for a civilian nuclear programme is Iran 's inalienable right. Every member of the NPT has the right to enrich uranium for a civilian nuclear programme and is entitled to full technical assistance.

But with the US as the back seat driver and in violation of their assistance obligations, France , Germany , and the UK insisted throughout the three years of negotiations that Tehran forfeit its right, in return for incentives of little value. Some European diplomats admitted to Asia Times Online on 7th September 2005, that the package offered by the EU-3 was “an empty box of chocolates.” But “there is nothing else we can offer,” the diplomats went on to say . “The Americans simply wouldn't let us.”

7. The Western alliance has not tried true diplomacy and relies instead on threats. Iran refuses to suspend its enrichment of uranium before bilateral negotiations begin, as demanded by the White House, because it suspects Washington will stall with endless doubts regarding verification of suspension.

WESTERN HYPOCRISY 8.The UN resolutions against Iran , in contrast to the treatment of the US allies, South Korea , India , Pakistan , and Israel , smack of double standards. For example, in the year 2000, South Korea enriched 200 milligrams of uranium to near-weapons grade (up to 77%), but was not referred to the UN Security Council.

India has refused to sign the NPT or allow inspections and has developed an atomic arsenal, but receives nuclear assistance from the US in violation of the NPT. More bizarrely, India has a seat on the governing board of IAEA and, under US pressure, voted to refer Iran as a violator to the UN Security Council. Another non-signatory, Pakistan , clandestinely developed nuclear weapons but is supported by the US as a “war on terror” ally.

Israel is a close ally of Washington , even though it has hundreds of clandestine nuclear weapons, has dismissed numerous UN resolutions and has refused to sign the NPT or open any of its nuclear plants to inspections.

The US itself is the most serious violator of the NPT. The only country to have ever used nuclear bombs in war, the US has refused to reduce its nuclear arsenal, in violation of Article VI of NPT. The US is also in breach of the Treaty because it is developing new generations of nuclear warheads for use against non-nuclear adversaries. Moreover, Washington has deployed hundreds of such tactical nuclear weapons all around the world in violation of Articles I and II of the NPT.

9. Iran has not threatened Israel or attacked another country. The track records of the US , Israel , the UK and France are very different. These so called “democracies” have a bloody history of invading other countries. Iran 's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has declared repeatedly that Iran will not attack or threaten any country. He has also issued a fatwa against the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons and banned nuclear weapons as sacrilegious. Iran has been a consistent supporter of the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and called for a nuclear weapons free Middle East .

The comments of Iran 's President Ahmadinejad against Israel have been repeated by some of Iran 's leaders since 1979 and constitute no practical threat. The statement attributed to him that “ Israel should be wiped off the map” is a distortion of the truth and has been determined by a number of Farsi linguists, amongst them, Professor Juan Cole, to be a mistranslation. What he actually said was that “the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time". Ahmadinejad has made clear that he envisions regime change in Israel through internal decay, similar to the demise of the Soviet Union . Iranian leaders have said consistently for two decades that they will accept a two-state solution in Palestine if a majority of Palestinians favour that option.

This is in sharp contrast to the explicit threats by Israeli and the US leaders against Iran , including aid to separatist movements to disintegrate and wipe Iran off the map, as reported by Seymour Hersh and Reese Erlich. There is considerable evidence of clandestine operations by the US , British and Israeli agents who are arming, training and funding terrorist entities such as Jundollah in Baluchistan, Arab separatists in Khuzestan, and PJAK in Kurdistan . These concrete attempts at disintegration of Iran , as well as the 100 million dollars congressional funding for ‘democracy' promotion in Iran , constitute aggression and are interference in Iran 's domestic affairs and Iranian people's rights of sovereignty. They violate the bilateral Algiers Accord of 1981, in which Washington renounced any such actions in the future.

Furthermore, President Bush and Vice President Cheney, former UN ambassador, John Bolton, Senator Lieberman, as well as presidential candidates Guilliani, Romney and McCain are openly advocating and pushing for pre-emptive military attack on Iran. The French President, Sarkouzy, and his Foreign Minister, Kouchner, the new recruits to the Neo Cons camp, have added their voice to this chorus for war . British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, too has not ruled out the pre-emptive military option against Iran .

Iran is no match for Israel , whose security and military needs are all but guaranteed by the US . Iran is surrounded on all sides by the US Navy and American bases.

Iran has not invaded or threatened any country for two and a half centuries. The only war the Islamic Republic fought was the one imposed by Saddam's army, which invaded Iran with the backing of the US and its allies. When Iraq used chemical weapons, supplied by the West, against Iranian troops, Iran did not retaliate in kind. When Afghanistan 's Taliban regime murdered eight Iranian diplomats in 1996 and remained unapologetic, Iran did not respond militarily.

10. The US “democratization” programme for Iran is a hoax. Although violations of human rights and democratic freedoms do occur too often in Iran , the country has the most pluralistic system in a region dominated by undemocratic client states of the US . It is sheer hypocrisy for the US, which turns a blind eye to the gross human rights abuses by its allies, such as Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Libya, and Egypt, to misrepresent its agenda in Iran as a “democratization” programme. Washington 's pretensions ring especially hollow when one remembers that in 1953 Iran 's nascent democracy under Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq was overthrown by the CIA, which restored a hated military dictatorship for the benefit of American oil conglomerates.

UN SECURITY COUNCIL INVOLVEMENT TOTALLY UNJUSTIFIED
11. There are no legal bases for Iran 's referral to the UN Security Council. Since there is no evidence that Iran is even contemplating to weaponize its nuclear programme, no grounds exist for this sidelining of the IAEA.

Michael Spies of the New York-based Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy has clarified the issue: "Under the Statute (Art. 12(C)) and the Safeguards Agreement, the Board may only refer Iran to the Security Council if it finds that, based on the report from the Director General, it cannot be assured that Iran has not diverted nuclear material for non-peaceful purpose. In the past, findings of `non-assurance' have only come in the face of a history of active and ongoing non-cooperation with IAEA safeguards. The pursuit of nuclear activities in itself, which is specifically recognized as a sovereign right, and which remain safeguarded, could not legally or logically equate to uncertainty regarding diversion."

IAEA director, Dr ElBradei, has consistently confirmed that there has been no diversion of safeguarded nuclear material in Iran and the recent IAEA-Iran workplan of July 2007 has reconfirmed this. He has also said, under pressure from Washington , that he cannot rule out the existence of undeclared nuclear activities in the country. However, according to the IAEA's Safeguards Implementation Report for 2005 (issued on 15 June 2006), 45 other countries, including 14 European countries, in particular Germany , are in this same category as Iran . ElBaradei added in September 2007 that in Iran “we have not come to see any undeclared activities ... We have not seen any weaponisation of their programme, nor have we received any information to that effect” . He has also repeatedly urged skeptics in Western capitals to help the IAEA by sharing any possible proof in their possession of suspicious nuclear activity in Iran .

Moreover, according to the UK-based Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, certifying non-diversion of nuclear material to military purposes for any given country takes an average of six years of inspections and verification by the IAEA. In the case of Iran , these investigations have been going on for only about four years now.

Iran 's file, therefore, must be returned to the jurisdiction of the IAEA and the rules of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). The US and its allies violated the rules by exerting massive pressure on the IAEA to report Iran without any legitimacy to the UN Security Council. For example, David Mulford, the US Ambassador to India , warned the Government of India in January 2006 that there would be no US-India nuclear deal if India did not vote against Iran at the IAEA. On February 15th 2007, Stephen Rademaker, the former US Assistant Secretary for International Security and Non-Proliferation, admitted publicly that the US coerced India to vote against Iran. Clearly, reporting Iran to the UN Security Council and the subsequent adoption of the Resolutions 1696 and 1737 have been carried out with US coercion and have thus no legitimacy at all.

SANCTIONS NOT A GOOD IDEA12. Dr ElBradei, the head of the IAEA, has said that more sanctions are counterproductive. Economic sanctions on Iran will harm the people of Iran , as they were devastating to Iraqis, resulting in the death of at least 500,000 children. Sanctions would not however bring the Islamic Republic to its knees. Instead, any kind of sanctions, including the so-called "targeted" or "smart" sanctions, are viewed by the Iranian people as the West's punishment for Iran 's scientific progress (uranium enrichment for reactor fuel). As sanctions tighten, nationalist fervour will strengthen the resolve of Iranians to defend the country's civilian nuclear programme.

13. Sanctions are not better than war; they can be exploited as a diplomatic veneer and a provocative prelude to military attack, as they were in Iraq . Thus, countries which support sanctions against Iran are only falling into the US trap in aiding the war drive on Iran .

STATEGIC SHIFT TO MULTI-FOCAL TARGETS 14. A US attack on Iran is imminent. The end of George Bush's presidency in 2009 could be a serious set back for the NeoCons' hegemonic dreams to control the energy resources in the region. He is unlikely to leave office bearing the legacy of failures in Afghanistan and Iraq and particularly leaving Iran a stronger player in the region. Thus the likelihood of military attack on Iran before Bush leaves office is a reality. Washington insiders have told security analysts that preparations for military attack have been made and are ready for execution.

Since January, in addition to the nuclear issue, the US has also focused its propaganda to falsely implicate Iran in the violence and failures of US policies in Afghanistan and Iraq . The Iran-US bilateral dialogue this summer was derailed amidst accusations that Iran aided the killing of American soldiers by providing sophisticated weapons and training to Afghan and Iraqi fighters. As in the nuclear case, Washington has provided no proof .

British Foreign Minister, David Miliband, admitted in an interview with the Financial Times on 8 th July 07 that there was “No Evidence” of Iranian involvement in the violence and instability in Iraq . Likewise, the British Defence Minister, Des Browne, in August 07 maintained categorically that “No Evidence” existed of Iranian government's complicity or instigation in supplying weapons to Iraqi militias. The Washington Post, too, reported from Iraq that hundreds of British troops combing southern Iraq for sign of Iranian weapons have come up empty-handed. Furthermore, Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, and Al-Maleki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, have stated Iran 's positive role in providing whatever limited stability there is in both these countries. Nevertheless, G eorge Bush's speech on 28 th August, authorizing the American military to “ confront Tehran 's murderous activities”, and the deployment of British troops to the Iranian border to guard against Iran 's “proxy war” in Iraq , signaled a systematic building towards a casus belli for another illegal pre-emptive war. The Kyle-Lieberman Amendment to the Defence Authorisation Bill, too, accused Iran of killing American servicemen in Iraq and nearly authorized the military to take all necessary action to combat Iran .

A third focus in the US war drive has now been launched by branding Iran 's Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization. This unprecedented move in US foreign policy and international relations is the proclaimed basis for imposing the toughest sanctions ever on Iranian banks, companies and individuals.

These new measures represent a massive escalation in the US war drive, they are a prelude to a military attack on Iran and provide the legal pretext for the US military to wage war on Iran without the prior approval of the US Congress.

ILLEGALITY OF A MILITARY ATTACK 15. Foreign state interference in Iran violates the UN charter. According to Seymour Hersch, the US is running covert operations in Iran to foment unrest and ethnic conflict for the purpose of regime change. Unmanned US drones have also entered into Iranian air space to spy over Iranian military installations and to map Iranian radar systems. These actions violate the UN Charter's guarantee of the right of self-determination for all nations.

The Bush Administration has also confirmed, in the 2006 US National Security Strategy, its long term policy for pre-emptive military action against Washington 's rivals. Former British prime minister, Tony Blair, supported this policy in his 21st March 2006 foreign policy speech, and his successor Gordon Brown has not rejected the pre-emptive use of military force against Iran . However, unprovoked strikes are illegal under international law. To remove this obstacle, John Reid, the then British Secretary of Defence, in his speech on 3rd April 2006 to the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, proposed a change in international law on pre-emptive military action.

16. Reports of nuclear attack scenarios against Iran can serve to raise the public's tolerance for an act of aggression with conventional military means. People of conscience and sanity must not only condemn even contemplation of a nuclear attack, but also denounce any conventional attack.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF AN ATTACK ON IRAN 17. Bombing cannot end Iran 's nuclear programme. Since Iran already has the expertise to enrich uranium up to the 3.5% grade for a fuel cycle, no degree of bombing will halt Iran 's civilian nuclear programme. On the contrary, the resulting mass casualties and destruction would strengthen the voices that argue Iran , like North Korea , should build a nuclear deterrent.

18. An attack on Iran will unite Iranians against the US and its allies. A great majority of the public in Iran support the country's right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes. This has been confirmed by all opinion polls conducted in the country, including polls taken by Western institutions. Therefore, a bombing campaign will not lead to an uprising by the Iranian people for regime change as envisaged by the US . Rather, it would ignite nationalist feelings in the country and unite the population, including most of the government's critics, against the West.

19. A nuclear attack on Iran would fuel a new nuclear arms race and ruin the NPT. Any military intervention against Iran will lead to a regional catastrophe and expanded terrorism. Senator McCain, the Republican presidential hopeful, who has himself advocated the use of force on Iran , has predicted that an attack against Iran will lead to Armageddon. American or Israeli aggression on Iran , coming on the heels of the Iraq disaster, would inflame the grievance and outrage of Muslims worldwide and help jihadi extremists with their recruitment campaign. The region wide conflagration resulting from an Israel/US attack on Iran would dwarf the Iraq catastrophe.

20. The cause of democracy in Iran will suffer gravely if the country is attacked. President Bush's "axis of evil" rhetoric severely undermined the reformist movement in Iran at a time when the country's president promoted Dialogue Among Civilizations. Bush's hostile posture strengthened the hands of Iranian hardliners and contributed to the reformist movement's electoral defeat in 2005. That setback would be dwarfed by the consequences of a military assault on the country.

© 2005 - 2007, Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran http://www.campaigniran.org OR go here to see additional articles on this issue:
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Saundra Hummer

November 11th, 2007, 05:53 PM

^$^$^$^$^$^
Money talks and everyone else ends up silenced in the woods? Take a look see at this article and the following comments. SRH'I feared I'd end up dead in the woods like Dr Kelly,' says biological warfare expert who criticised Britain and U.S.
By GLEN OWEN and OLIVER WADESON - More by this author »(Go on-site to view. Just click on the URL at the end of this article.

Last updated at 00:42am on 11th November 2007

Comments (3)

Fighting back: Jill Dekker was given special protection by the Belgian government after a series of 'sinister' incidents
An EU expert on biological warfare has told how she fears ending up 'dead in the woods' like scientist Dr David Kelly after an alleged campaign of intimidation by members of MI6 and the CIA.

Jill Dekker, a bio-defence expert based in Brussels, has reported a string of sinister incidents – including the parking of a hearse outside her house – after making a speech critical of British and American policy in the Middle East.

Her claims are included in a new book by Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker which argues that Dr Kelly was murdered to silence his criticism of the grounds for going to war in Iraq.

American-born Dr Dekker has been billed at security conferences as the director of the 'public health preparedness programme' at the European Homeland Security Association (EHSA), a security think tank.

She was placed under the protection of the Belgian government after reporting a series of sinister incidents earlier this year.

The Belgians confirm that they mounted a three-month protection operation earlier this year for Dr Dekker, who has advised the European Commission on bio-terrorism issues, but refuse to be drawn on the extent to which her fears were wellfounded or why the protection was eventually lifted.

The EHSA bears many of the hallmarks of a 'front' organisation for espionage activities, although Dr Dekker refuses to say anything about it except that it answers to the French government.

Established in 2004, it holds workshops and conferences, and claims partnerships with a number of security-based thinktanks around the world.

It appears to exist only in cyberspace, with its staff, including its president, French career diplomat Richard Narich, only contactable by email. Dr Dekker is not listed on the EHSA website and the organisation was yesterday not responding to any calls.

Dr Dekker says the 'intimidation' against her started in March, as she was flying to Florida to give a speech on Syria's weapons programme to an intelligence summit. She says she was subjected to a 'heavy-handed' interrogation by a man she suspects of being a British intelligence operative.

She believes the speech made her powerful enemies because she argued that billions of dollars spent by the US government to develop a smallpox vaccine has been wasted because scientists – including British experts – have used a different viral strain to the one she believes is being developed in Damascus.

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'Mysterious': The hearse which Jill Dekker followed and photographed (Go on-site for photo's)

If this is true, it means governments would have no way of protecting the public against the use of the virus by terrorists or rogue states.

She also believes that Iraq did have a biological weapons capacity which was all shipped to Syria before the outbreak of war.

She argues this was known, but was concealed from the public because the real purpose of the war was not to target weapons of mass destruction but to topple Saddam Hussein and gain a strategic foothold in the region.

When she returned to her home in Belgium after the speech she said she was subjected to an overt campaign of surveillance and harassment, including being continuously followed on foot and having cars parked outside her house with the headlights on.

On one occasion, she says she found a hearse parked outside her house with the drivers 'staring straight ahead.' When she approached, it sped off and she pursued it, taking photographs as evidence.

After being told that Mr Baker was writing a book about the circumstances surrounding Dr Kelly's death, she sent him an email on March 23 designed, she says, to highlight the risk she felt she was under.

Dr David Kelly, the UK's leading weapons inspector in Iraq, was found dead in 2003
'I've informed all my diplomatic friends that not only am I not suicidal, I am looking forward to my children growing up and . . . also my great career,' she wrote. 'Much like other people who suddenly were found dead in woods.'
A week later, she wrote: 'The US State Department and their surrogates... continue to intimidate me and my family – every day they are outside my home, they tail me 24/7 – I believe they could try to kill me so I don't reveal any more of my research on Syrian biological weapons.'

In a third email in April, she wrote: 'I refuse to be intimidated by anyone who uses the tactics they used – so unprofessional even people inside can't believe how they have acted here – it's like Johnny English [the 2003 spoof spy film starring Rowan Atkinson as an incompetent British agent], really so amateurish. Our services just aren't what they used to be.'

It is difficult to establish whether there is any truth to Dr Dekker's claims of harassment, as she refuses to disclose the precise location of her home 90 minutes drive from Brussels for 'security reasons'.

She says the Belgian government extended its protection to her three months ago by making her a Belgian citizen, and is investigating her claims through its public prosecutor's office. The Government confirms that she is now a Belgian national.

Dr Dekker has given a detailed account to The Mail on Sunday of the alleged campaign of intimidation, which she believes was led by American and British intelligence.

She tells how she was subjected to an 'amateurish' interrogation by the British man on the plane to Florida.

'The plane was absolutely packed, and there was just one seat next to me that was empty. The plane was held up to let the final passenger on board,' she said.

'He then started asking me questions regarding my occupation, quite sensitive things about Nato and the like, to the point that I turned and said to him, 'OK, go down the list'.

'He then backed off but continued throughout the flight to be intrusive. He had this whole cover story about why he lived in Holland, right down to financial documents he showed me.

He asked me right out of the blue about Isotopes – now there's a word you don't hear everyday on a transatlantic flight.'

When she returned to Belgium after the conference she says was followed relentlessly on foot and by car, and had vehicles parked outside her house – often with darkened windows and their headlights fullon in broad daylight.

Of her encounter with the mystery 'hearse', she said: 'No one in our neighbourhood had died and the agents sitting in the front wouldn't make any eye contact, just stared straight ahead.

'I was pretty ticked off so I decided to pull my car out and follow them. They took off so fast – they must have been driving at around 100 kph through the countryside. Then they followed me the next day with this hearse with Belgian plates all the way home.'

She says that after 'making a few calls', she was placed under the protection of the local police. The 'campaign' then stopped, having lasted just over a month.

'It was unbelievable to me that I had to ask another government for protection against my own,' she said. She kept a daily 'harassment' diary, which she has handed to the Belgian authorities.

Dr Dekker, who says she met David Kelly before the Iraq war at Wilton Park, a countryside conference centre used by the Foreign Office, agrees with Mr Baker's conclusion that he was murdered.

Dr Kelly, the UK's leading weapons inspector in Iraq, was found dead in woods close to his Oxfordshire home in 2003, after apparently committing suicide.

He had been highly critical of the intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq, and in particular the infamous assertion that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction which he could deploy at 45 minutes notice.

Speculation about potential culprits who might have had a motive to silence him has ranged from 'special ops' units of the intelligence services to expatriate Iraqi opponents of Saddam.

Mr Baker writes in his book The Strange Death of David Kelly, which is published tomorrow: 'I have met Dr Dekker on two occasions and had a number of long exchanges with her. She does not strike me as the sort either who would frighten easily, or who would ginger up her story for effect.

'Rather, she is a somewhat hardnosed, intelligent and knowledgeable woman who has succeeded well in a profession where men predominate. I therefore took it seriously when she emailed me.'

Dr Dekker emerged from the shadows of what she says has been a 20-year career as a scientist in 2005, when internet records show that she was a 'bio-defence consultant' for the Brussels-based thinktank New Defence Agenda.

The organisation, which bills itself as 'platform for discussing Nato and EU defence and security issues', names former Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten and former Nato secretary general Lord Robertson among its patrons.

But critics have called it the arms industry's 'weapon of mass disinformation' because of the partnerships it has established with companies such as BAe Systems, Lockheed Martin and Thales.

The International Intelligence Summit, which she addressed in Florida, described itself as 'a nonpartisan, non-profit, neutral forum that uses private charitable funds to bring together intelligence agencies of the free world and the emerging democracies ... the purpose of The Summit is to provide an opportunity for the international intelligence community to listen to and learn from each other, and to share ideas in the common war against terrorism.'

The publicity for the conference said: 'The list of presenters will include many of the top leaders of the intelligence, espionage, counterterrorism and counter-intelligence agencies from around the free world. The Summit is intended to be the most prestigious world conference on international studies, intelligence policy, terrorism, and homeland security.'

The Summit flagged up Dr Dekker by saying she 'regularly consults with Ministries of Public Health, Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Ministries of Defence on issues related to Mid-East state bio-warfare programmes'.

It added that she 'has advised the European Commission on bio-terterrorism and stockpiling for Category A bio-warfare agent countermeasures; resulting in (COM (2004) 701 Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament Preparedness and consequence management in the fight against terrorism'.

Asked if she knew anyone who could back up her claims of intimidation, she referred us to one of her friends, who spent 20 years as a CIA officer and now works as a consultant.

He said: "She told me what happened, and I believe it. What she described is known as heavy harassing surveillance, with the purpose of intimidating."

Dave Thomas, the local police inspector who was entrusted with Dr Dekker's protection, said he had done so on the orders of the Belgian ministry of the interior.

Speaking in accented English almost as good as his distinctly un- Belgian name would suggest, he said: "It is true that we were told to look after her. They said she was an important person who felt under threat."

But he did not go into details into what action his force had taken.

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said the order had come from the country's Crisis Centre, Belgium's emergency planning department.

He said: "Jill Dekker specialises in bioterrorism. She reported to us that she felt she was being threatened by foreign intelligence services, and we received an instruction from the Crisis Centre on March 21 that she should be protected. The protection was withdrawn on July 7."

Last night, Mr Baker said he believed Dr Dekker could have made enemies by exposing a fallacy at the heart of military action against Iraq.

"If the war was really about WMD, then to be consistent we should also invade Syria," he said.

"Otherwise, it suggests that it was more about giving Saddam a bloody nose."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=492907&in_page_id=1770 ^$^$^$^ ,

Saundra Hummer

November 11th, 2007, 11:48 PM

. ^^^^^
Guns Linked to Pancho Villa Auctioned
US-The Associated Press
2007-11-12 02:18:32.0

FREDERICKSBURG, Texas -
Three guns linked to Pancho Villa were auctioned for nearly $29,000, apparently less than what organizers expected the firearms tied to the Mexican revolutionary to fetch.

"That's the fun of auctions - sometimes you get bargains," said Amy McMurrough, a spokeswoman for the auction, which was held Saturday near San Antonio.

The prize of the auction - Villa's Remington single action revolver with his real name, "Doreteo Arango," engraved on the barrel - sold for $18,000.

A rifle that Villa reportedly dropped in the Rio Grande during a skirmish with opposition forces sold for $7,500, and a pistol owned by Villa's bodyguard was sold for $3,450.

Besides the guns, a Spanish-made sword belonging to Villa sold for $7,500, McMurrough said.

A pocket pistol that once belonged to "Calamity Jane" sold for $11,000. The gun, among about 1,000 Old West items in the auction, bears the moniker "Martha Jane Cannary," the frontierswoman's real name.

In 1916, Villa led a group of irregular fighters in a brief raid into Columbus, N.M., in what is considered the last battle against foreign forces on U.S. soil. Eighteen Americans were killed, prompting an unsuccessful manhunt for Villa. He made his peace with the Mexican government in 1920 but was assassinated in 1923 at the age of 45, likely out of fear he would rise up again.

Last year, Villa's death mask that featured his prominent mustache and eyebrows sold at auction for $17,000.

---Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
^^^ ..

LAL

November 12th, 2007, 12:34 AM

A letter to the Fed boss Dr. Ben "B-52" Bernanke..

Thanks Dr. Bernanke

Dear Dr. Bernanke:

I wanted to write to thank you for helping the price of Gold and to encourage you to keep up the good work. I know you will. I've never been a fan of Gold throughout my investing career, but the Fed's policies over the last 10 years have changed my mind.

I also wanted you to be one of the first to know that I am advising my readers to start putting a significant amount of their money in Gold. I recommend long-dated Gold futures, Gold ETFs (like GLD), and Gold producers (such as NEM, TRA, and CGHRF.PK). I especially like the smaller miners as they have more upside potential.

In spite of the run up, Gold continues to be a great investment. Burgeoning inflation is likely to push the price higher, as markets move from discounting Gold relative to stocks and bonds to putting a premium on it.

If I'm misguided, please let me know. But I trust you'll be there to pump lots of liquidity into the banking system.

I'm confident you will continue to argue that the appreciation of commodities and the weakness in the dollar are not important indicators of inflation. The true indicator is core inflation. The slowdown in housing and the economy will lead to core disinflation in 2008. In anticipation of this disinflation and to prevent the economy from falling into a recession, you and the FOMC will continue to lower rates.

After all, the credit crunch in the banking system is monstrous. The market and the press (in spite of so much talk) are underestimating the threat.

Just two weeks ago, your institution (the Federal Reserve) released a report that got little attention. The report showed that large bank capital had declined by $40 billion since the beginning of August. According to Merrill Lynch economist David Rosenburg, "This has never happened before over such a short timeframe and this is rather serious because such a steep and sudden compression in large-bank capital has the potential to create a negative lending environment...The large banks have been forced to take commercial paper back on their balance sheets and as a result are choking on assets they did not plan on having - thereby tying up regulatory capital." This trend could "significantly inhibit" economic growth.

According to the Financial Times, "Big U.S. commercial banks have seen $280 billion of new debt come on to their balance sheets since the credit squeeze, threatening to undermine economic growth by inhibiting their ability to make new loans. The banks have been forced to take on to their books large amounts of commercial paper and leveraged loans after investor demand for such assets dried up in the summer."

As you probably know, while these numbers sound quite large, they are only the tip of the iceberg. According to Moody's, the credit rating agency, assets held by bank-sponsored special investment vehicles
("SIVs”) were $320 billion in July. Two SIVs announced several days ago that they will be unable to pay their debts. Such moves could force more liabilities onto the balance sheets of banks, further constraining liquidity and possibly even threatening the banks' own solvency.

Through fractional banking and the rules that you set at the Federal Reserve, banks are allowed to have 20 times the amount of liabilities as their net capital. Because SIVs are off-balance sheet, banks can now have even more than 20 times. In addition, many SIVs have their own leverage, sometimes up to 10 times. In other words, only a slight move down in the value of SIV or other assets means that banks could be insolvent.

Dr. Bernanke, you need to move quickly to inject more liquidity into the system. 50 bps is not enough. A lot more interest rate cuts are needed. A lot.

Look at Citigroup as an example. Citigroup has just $65 billion in shareholder equity. Yet Citigroup alone has more than $80 billion in exposure to SIVs and another $80 billion to conduits. According to
the Associated Press, "Citi said it was suspending share buy-backs because its capital ratios had weakened partly due to the large amount of commercial paper and leveraged loans it had taken on."

You must act now. The cycle is viscous. If banks don't have enough capital, they won't lend. If they aren't lending, what will the American consumer do? And what will support housing prices? Houses are already unaffordable. Imagine what will happen if lending dries up even more! And what will keep the LBO, hedge fund, and derivatives markets running?

So please ignore those cynics who don't understand the severity of the problem. Don't worry about the price of Oil, Wheat, or Gold. Let them rise and let the dollar fall. Because the U.S. economy needs $2 billion a day in foreign cash to make up for its overconsumption and lack of manufacturing, more interest rate cuts could send foreigners fleeing the dollar. The dollar could drop by 50%. That's good.
That's exactly what we need to save the banks and housing. Who cares if a further drop in the dollar leads to fleeing capital, a further tightening of credit, and a rise in long-term interest rates? Who do these cynics think where are? Argentina? Please. We are the U.S. and A.

I know you're going to act. After all, PIMCO is now on board with Paulson's SIV plan. PIMCO's support comes as a surprise after Bill Gross, the chief investment officer, criticized the effort as "a little lame" in a television interview. Hmmmm. He must have gotten some assurances that the government hears his call for the Fed to lower rates at least another 100 bps.

Anyway, you know the banking system better than I do. I'm sure you're way ahead of me, and I'm sure you're planning even more interest rate cuts and more core inflation rationalizations.

So thanks for the good work, and please tell your friends to listen to what I'm telling my readers: "Don't sit there and moan about how the Fed is taking away your savings. Do something about it. Protect yourself and make some money in the process. Buy Gold."

P.S. While you're at it, can you do something to quiet that Greenspan guy? Now that he's out of office, he can tell the truth and it keeps hurting the markets. He's desperately trying to disassociate himself from the inflationary policies of the Fed, in a last ditch effort to save his legacy. Just the other day, according to the Associated Press, "Greenspan suggested it would be best to let SIVs and banks bear the burden of holding bad assets by making them lower prices as much as necessary to sell them, rather than setting up a fund that some see as a bailout for the banks...’What creates strong markets,’ he said, ‘is a belief in the investment community that everybody has been scared out of the market, pressed prices too low and there are wildly attractive bargaining prices out there.’" Doesn't he get it?

The government must do something. You can't be Fed Chairman and sit idly by while a recession occurs. He never did. Why should the burden fall on you?

When asked about his own attempts to bail out the banking industry while he was in office, Greenspan “said the 1998 Fed-sponsored rescue of Long-Term Capital Management worked because it took a set of assets that would otherwise have been dumped at firesale prices off the market, allowing prices to find a true equilibrium. But he said today 'we are dealing with a much larger market.'” Wasn't the entire argument behind bailing out Long-Term that the market effect was so large it threatened global stability? Ah, how short memories are.

http://thinkinvest.blogspot.com/

LAL

November 12th, 2007, 12:38 AM

An imaginary convuhsation....?!$$ :cheers :gavel:

THE ROBERT RUBIN & BEN BERNANKE DEATH EMBRACE
by Charles Zentay
thinkinvest.blogspot.com
November 8, 2007

Ben Bernanke: Hello, how may I help you?

Robert Rubin: Dr. Chairman, it’s your old friend Bob over at Citi.

Bernanke: Oh Bob, what a pleasure. It’s nice to hear from you again. What can I do for you?

Rubin: Well Ben, we’ve got some problems over here. Now I trust you will be discrete on this. We can’t let this get out in the market. I think we’re insolvent.

Bernanke: What?

Rubin: See we have about $65 billion in capital, but we have $55 billion in Super Senior CDOs, and no one will buy them from us.

Bernanke: No one?

Rubin: We can’t sell them for $1. I’m now being told that if no one wants to buy pieces of paper from you, it turns out they are worthless. Believe me. I’m as shocked as you are.

Bernanke: But don’t you have a lot of cash flow? That’s what I’ve been hearing on CNBC.

Rubin: Well, in addition, we have $80 billion in SIV exposure, an additional $80 billion in conduit exposure, and a lot, lot more in derivative exposure that might not be worth what we said it was when we paid out our bonuses over the last couple years. I talked to some ex-traders, but they aren’t inclined to give back the bonuses. You add it all up, and we don’t have enough money to meet our liabilities.

Bernanke: I see. I hadn’t realized that.

Rubin: We have a lot of cash flow, but our creditors are no longer buying that story. Counterparties are asking use to put up more capital for every trade we do, traders are leaving, and the whole thing is starting to wind down. If this information ever gets public, we could see our depositors start to leave as well. Oh, and with the economy possibly going into recession, we might have a lot more losses from credit cards.

Bernanke: I see. I understand how important what you are telling me is. I spent years studying the Great Depression.

Rubin: Right, and the worst part about it is that other banks have tremendous amount of counterparty exposure to us. There are $45 trillion in Credit Default Swaps in the system right now. Our accounting isn’t that good, so I can’t even tell you how many trillion we have with other banks. But I do believe it’s in the trillions. So if we start to go down, well, you know what happens.

Bernanke: A total meltdown of the U.S. financial system.

Rubin: Right! So you’ve got to help me out.

Bernanke: So how can I help you? You know I’m here to help. That’s my entire job. You should know that after your time in the government.

Rubin: Yes. We were good at bailing people out. We saved the world. So here’s what I need. I need you to give us $500 billion. No loan. No lowering interest rates. Those things are not going to help. They will just prolong the day. Look what lowering interest rates did to Japan. Their stock market is still below where it was 17 years ago. No, that route won’t do. What I need is cold, hard cash.

Bernanke: But I said I would never bail out investors and bondholders for the risks they took.

Rubin: Yes, but we’re talking about the entire U.S. banking system.

Bernanke: But why not just lower rates?

Rubin: Because banks would just take that money and buy commodities and move it off-shore. They know the banking system is weak, so they don’t want to lend into it anymore. They want to make a profit. It’s amazing how selfish people can be.

Bernanke: Hmmmm. So how does it work?

Rubin: Well, usually it works by the government claiming that there is no other option, that financial meltdown is the only outcome. You talk about the risk and how the government was forced to take this step in order to save the public, to protect the people. In return, I call my Democratic friends and tell them what a great job you are doing in the face of such troubling times, and I work behind the scenes to ensure that you will get re-nominated to be Fed Chairman. I also work my banking contacts to ensure that you get an extremely high-paying job once you’re out of office.

Bernanke: Is that how it worked for you?

Rubin: Definitely. I had a great job at Citi, earning a ton of money, without real responsibilities. But then this darn credit crunch came along. I wanted to bail, but Sanford Weill convinced me how bad that would look for my legacy. So I’m here to protect my legacy, and of course the entire U.S. banking system. Anyway, you guys were the ones who created this mess.

Bernanke: What? Us guys? What do you mean?

Rubin: Well, when markets were sky high and Long Term Capital threatened to bring them down a little, you lowered rates, and equities skyrocketed to new highs. That was back in 1998. The Internet Bubble should have been popped, not encouraged! Then in 2001, you dramatically lowered rates. It caused this Housing Bubble. And you and Greenspan did nothing to remove excess credit from the markets. In the 1990s, credit was growing $1 trillion a year. Over the last years, it’s been growing $4.5 trillion a year. You blamed the Chinese for this excess liquidity. Now that was smart. I couldn’t have thought of a better one than that, but it turns out it wasn’t true. It was you and Greenspan who were creating all the liquidity and encouraging risky trading practices by all the major banks. Well, we took the risk you encouraged us to take, and amazingly markets didn’t go up forever. Remember, you guys are the ones who set the rules. You told us to leverage up our balance sheets 20 to 1, and we were also able to work with other people in Washington to get that ratio up further by hiding things off our balance sheet, just like Enron did. But it was all legally done this time. It was allowed by Washington.

Bernanke: But you know the dollar is at an all-time low and people are running away from our currency?

Rubin: I know, but don’t worry. I’ve sold a lot of my shares in Citi, and I’m well diversified. I appreciate your concern.

Bernanke: No, I meant what will the American people think?

Rubin: As long as you talk about the greater good and how you’re doing it for their sake, you’ll get re-nominated. Plus, you can’t even imagine the New York City perks at these big banks.

Bernanke: What are my other options?

Rubin: Well, none really. The only other option is that we unwind Citi and sell it off in pieces. We might have a strong dollar, but we’ll have quite a recession. Banks will stop lending. You think the housing market is bad now? Just imagine that scenario. As for me, I lose my job and Jaime Dimon gets the last laugh. He’ll kick away Sanford Weill’s life work and legacy. You know I think Dimon is a Republican, and I don’t think they are going to win the next election. So you might want to think twice about going down that route. That might be the morally right thing to do. But it won’t help you.

Bernanke: But if we bail out Citi, people will lose confidence in the system. The dollar will plummet. Gold will skyrocket. Oil will shoot above $100 a barrel and then some. Inflation will be at hand, and long-term interest rates might go up! But I really do like this job. And it would be nice to make some money once I’m done here.

Rubin: I know. It’s great. Maybe you’ll even get on the cover of Time magazine if we pull this off.

Bernanke: Oh Time! I love Time.

Rubin: Yeah, it’s great, isn’t it? I loved the piece they did last week on…Well never mind.

Bernanke: Hmmmm. Let me think about it. We need to come up with some clever way to make it look as if I’m not helping you out directly. I’m sure I can come up with something. You know I have a PhD.

Rubin: I know. That’s why we all supported you for the job.

Bernanke: Ok. Don’t worry. I’ll come up with something. We can definitely get this done. We’ll save Citi.

Rubin: Yes. We’ll save Citi! Get back to me soon, though. We don’t have much time.

Bernanke: Ok. Let me ruminate a little. I’ll get back to you in a jiffy.

Rubin: Ruminate away. That’s what you academics are good for [aside to the audience: and for having no backbone!].

Bernanke: Toodles.

Rubin: Chao.

Saundra Hummer

November 12th, 2007, 12:27 PM

. X X X X X GET RICH OR DIE TRYING
German Mercenaries Seek their Fortunes in Iraq
By John Goetz and Conny Neumann
SPIEGEL ONLINE - November 12, 2007, 02:55 PM
American companies like scandal-plagued Blackwater aren't the only ones sending fighters to Iraq -- German companies are also part of the mix. Their mercenaries are either getting rich in the process or returning home in a coffin.

It's an ordinary, middle-class row house, with firewood stacked neatly outside and a closely-mowed lawn, part of a development of similar houses in a small town somewhere in Germany. But the unremarkable house is home to a man -- who would prefer it if both he and the town remain anonymous -- who makes his living from war.

PHOTO GALLERY: GERMANY'S DOGS OF WAR
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His office on the second floor marks the starting point of a journey into a war zone for those Germans willing to undergo the risks. For an unlucky few, it's a one-way journey.

The owner of the house runs an agency which sends Germans to crisis zones around the world, especially Iraq, where they work as highly-paid bodyguards, security guards and civilian contractors to the US government. They come from a country that never wanted to get involved in the seemingly endless Iraq war, but which -- through businesses like the one being run from this small office in a nondescript house -- has nonetheless become entangled in the conflict.

Some of these German civilian contractors have lost their lives in Iraq, returning to their native country in coffins. The bodies of others were never found. The man in the row house, one of a handful of such agents operating in Germany, has himself lost some of his colleagues.

FROM THE MAGAZINE
The row house is the main office of a company that provides security services, sending civilian contractors to protect others in a country where providing protection is an almost impossible task. The work, though borderline illegal, is extremely lucrative. The distinction between mercenaries and those providing security services in Iraq is blurred at best. German law does not bar German citizens from fighting in other countries, as long as they are not involved in war crimes. However, it is illegal to recruit Germans as mercenaries for other countries' wars.

But there are gray zones and ways of getting around the rules. There are Arab and African countries willing to provide German firms with shell companies outside the jurisdiction of German courts. Nevertheless, these arrangements could end up involving the German government if, for example, a German security officer participates in a massacre -- or merely happens to get kidnapped.

"We urgently caution Germans not to go to Iraq," says a spokesman of the German Foreign Ministry. "This also applies to Germans working for private security firms." The Foreign Ministry has no statistics on how many of these civilian contractors have already been killed. Their bodies are usually sent home on American aircraft -- without going through diplomatic channels.

The man in the row house has the good fortune of resembling actor Brad Pitt, only with a more muscular body. He has the look of a man who has kept himself in excellent shape in the past -- first as a member of a special forces unit and later as a bodyguard for an East German negotiator. Nowadays his direct involvement with weapons is limited to rabbit hunting. Only a few dozen men work for him, making this particular broker a bit player in the high-stakes personal protection market, which is largely in the hands of American companies.

Those with courage and the right skills can earn a very good living, he says, especially in Arab countries, where the members of ruling families are willing to pay a fortune for their security. In Iraq, this also applies to members of the government and many employees of foreign companies. The demand for security services is higher in Iraq, where survival comes at a high cost. The Iraqi capital currently sees an average of 1.8 attacks by insurgents daily.

In Baghdad, international security firms operate in a virtually lawless environment and, in many cases, have assumed paramilitary roles. The number of civilians working in Iraq, 180,000, already exceeds the number of US troops in the country. Around 30,000 of these civilian workers are involved in security. Most of these private warriors are Americans, some of whom work for the scandal-plagued US company Blackwater. No one knows how many Germans are involved with such firms.

For a long time, these foreigners in their bulletproof vests enjoyed immunity from prosecution. In a decree issued in 2004, the US civilian administrator removed them and their activities from the jurisdiction of Iraqi courts. However, the Iraqi government recently presented a draft bill that would eliminate this immunity for foreign security personnel. At a minimum, the law would require that they register their weapons and their armored vehicles in the future.

Nevertheless, there have been numerous cases of attacks on the civilian population, often leading to the deaths of innocent people. Given the constant risk of terrorist attacks on every street corner, it's not surprising if private security personnel can sometimes be trigger-happy. In mid-September, for example, Blackwater contractors killed 17 Iraqi civilians at a Baghdad intersection because they believed they were under fire. Nevertheless, the company is unlikely to face prosecution in the United States or in Iraq, although US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently decided that the Pentagon will exert tighter control over private contractors in the future.

The German broker recommends that in places where attacks are likely, a high-risk individual such as a company executive needs four bodyguards working around the clock. He charges at least $2,000 a day for each of his well-trained bodyguards, who receive in turn between $800 and $1,200 a day in pay.

The broker works almost exclusively with Germans, and occasionally with Austrians. He says that what he values most about Germans is their reliability, professionalism and high level of education. His competitors also clearly value such uniquely German qualities, highlighting them as they do in their advertising. Praetoria, a firm based in the northern German city of Bielefeld, promises German companies security in crisis regions, discreetly calling itself a "strategic security partner" of the Iraqi reconstruction program.

PHOTO GALLERY: GERMANY'S DOGS OF WAR
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These firms recruit most of their security personnel from among former members of elite units of the police force and German military, or Bundeswehr. They include members of the Bundeswehr's KSK special forces, combat swimmers, sharpshooters and members of special state police force units. The broker is pleased to report that the supply is ample.

Although young police officers and soldiers enjoy a secure livelihood in Germany, their incomes are not high. A KSK soldier earns a monthly gross salary of about €2,500. Working for a private security service, he can make that much in two or three days -- tax-free. The German tax authorities have little or no control over money earned in war zones. Those who are willing to risk their lives in Baghdad can easily put aside several hundred thousand dollars in two or three years.

The men live spartan lives during their deployment, living as they do in a place with few opportunities to spend money. Most of the Germans live in barracks in US camps, where the rooms are small, cold and sparsely furnished. They work in four-man teams, six to eight weeks at a time, followed by three weeks off. A job usually lasts between six months and a year, and most contracts are extended automatically.

According to the broker, the bodyguards have learned to quickly move their earnings to offshore bank accounts in places like Mauritius or the Philippines. For some, their sheltered earnings become a means of starting a new life. After completing their contracts, they move abroad for a few years, perhaps to some tropical paradise where it is easy to forget the rigors of working in a war zone.

No one apart from their families is usually aware that the German specialists are in Iraq. Germany's rough-and-ready civilian contractors often work for themselves, entering into direct contracts with their employers as freelancers. The German brokers have little official connection with the men.

Nevertheless, the anonymous manpower broker in his row house must make arrangements to keep his team in shape. For this reason, he has obtained two premises -- one in an Arab country and one in southern Africa -- which he uses as training camps. The camps make it possible for the men to hone their skills -- in marksmanship and the use of explosives, for example -- far from the watchful eyes of nosy officials. "Of course this sort of thing would be impossible in Germany," says the broker. "It would cause a huge fuss if I conducted this sort of training somewhere in the country. The next thing you know, they'd be calling us a neo-Nazi militia and the cops would be knocking at the door."

To get the bodyguards to Iraq, the broker works with business partners who are accredited as subcontractors to the US military. This ensures that his men are housed in a protected camp and are given access to security zones, even when the people they are assigned to protect are employees of private Western companies. Without military protection, working in the war zone would be impossible, and even these hardened bodyguards would not be safe for long if they lived in private accommodation.

It is possible that Bert Nussbaumer, supposedly one of the members of the German broker's team, is relaxing on a remote island somewhere. But it's more likely that he is dead. The 25-year-old Austrian national has been missing for the past year. In November 2006, Nussbaumer, who officially worked for the US firm Crescent Security Group, and four American colleagues were escorting a convoy of construction engineers in southern Iraq. The convoy came under attack and Nussbaumer and the Americans were taken hostage. It was later claimed that Nussbaumer had been shot.

Shortly after the attack, Iraqi security forces said that they had identified one of the dead as Nussbaumer. This information proved to be wrong.

Another civilian contractor dreamed of buying a house with the money he planned to earn during a dangerous mission in Iraq. Karl Saville, a 33-year-old former soldier from the northern German city of Osnabrück, was killed in his car on May 7, 2006 in a suicide bombing in Baghdad. Saville worked for Danubia Global, a Bucharest-based security firm that performs contracts for the US government in Iraq. According to Saville's widow Yvonne, when she was notified of her husband's death, Danubia Global called it an unfortunate "accident" and provided no further details.

Saville, who worked for an American company that uses dogs to search for explosives, was relatively experienced. But he apparently became increasingly afraid as the months dragged on. Shortly before his death, he wrote: "It's horrible out there sometimes. But that's the reason we get paid so well. Motorcycle and car bombs are our biggest threat."

Saville's widow and their young son Christopher now receive an annual pension of $110,000, courtesy of the US Department of Labor, which compensates the survivors of the Americans' helpers -- no matter where they live.

PHOTO GALLERY: GERMANY'S DOGS OF WAR
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Officials at Danubia Global have refused to talk about Saville's death. They are also keeping quiet about an extensive investigation of the US firm Custer Battles, a partner in Danubia Global, by prosecutors in the western German city of Darmstadt. According to prosecutors, Jacqueline Battles, the wife of one of the company's former owners, laundered €1.5 million in earnings from dubious security deals through various German bank accounts. She denies the accusations, however. Due to lack of solid evidence in the US, the case was withdrawn in return for a payment of €5,000.

The fact that the work of the security services is not only dangerous but can also sometimes be messy doesn't bother the bodyguards too much, however. The German Iraq mercenary Volker Schmidt (not his real name) considers most German firms to be respectable. It depends mainly on who they employ, he says: "Those who hire people from, say, Uganda run a higher risk that something negative will happen."

He has been working in Iraq since the summer of 2004, making him something a veteran of the profession. Prior to that, he was in Colombia and Bosnia. He has learned that in Baghdad you have to move around the streets in a very specific way. "Of course, we often have to fire warning shots," he says. You have to maintain space around yourself, creating a security zone which is as empty as possible, he says. After all, space is life -- if a large car bomb explodes, you need to be far away to make sure you survive. Generally the bomb planters don't work alone, but bring along snipers who can pick off their victims in the chaos after an explosion.

"Being in Iraq is damned hard work," says the bodyguard. "You're expecting to die at any second -- you're constantly under pressure."

It's a warning also for the ever-increasing numbers of young German adventurers who dream of going to war zones as security guards or mercenaries. Enticing Internet forums with names such as "Arbeiten in Krisengebieten" ("Work in Crisis Zones") or "Civilian Contractor Jobs" promise them quick money -- and an endless supply of adrenaline.

Many wannabe fighters use the forums to find out about training institutes such as Lübeck's Bodyguard Academy. Gun-for-hire Schmidt is one of the founders of the company. Students at the academy take strenuous courses in hand-to-hand fighting and how to survive in a war zone. There are plenty of 20-year-olds who fancy themselves as heroes and want to go abroad, brandish heavy assault rifles and wear cool sunglasses. The academy rejects many applicants however -- because they are either too young, too crazy, or don't speak good enough English.

Sam, who comes from near Cologne, certainly meets the age requirement. He is 35 and spent 11 years as a soldier in the German army before leaving the service of his own accord. Since then he has been dreaming of a mission in Iraq, attracted as much by the risks as the money. "Of course I am afraid," he says. "But I do everything humanly possible to make a deployment in Iraq possible. I don't have any family yet, so I think that I can do it."

But he hasn't received a suitable job offer yet. Maybe his skills are simply not sufficient -- after only, he only served in the communications corps. Instead of living out his dream in the Gulf's desert sand, Sam spends a lot of time surfing Internet forums, where young men indulge in violent fantasies. Most of it is possibly just swagger, but professionals with the right training could certainly translate words into deeds, even if competition is tough.

Sam finds it unfair that the Americans or Brits in the profession have much better chances than the Germans. Nonetheless, he clings to the belief that he will soon have his ticket to Iraq.

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2007
All Rights Reserved
Related SPIEGEL ONLINE links:
Photo Gallery: Germany's Dogs of War
http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/0,5538,26275,00.html
'Yeah, this Is Fun!': The Chronicle of a Deadly Blackwater Flight (10/06/2007)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,509852,00.html
Reining In Blackwater: House's Iraq Bill Applies US Laws to Contractors (10/05/2007)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,509592,00.html
Blackwater Hearing: White- Collar Mercenary Under Fire (10/03/2007)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,509264,00.html
Blackwater Account Challenged: From Errand to Fatal Shot to Hail of Fire to 17 Deaths (10/03/2007)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,509281,00.html
Contract Carnage: Blackwater's Hail of Gunfire (09/24/2007)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,507513,00.html
Private Warriors: US Contractor Banned by Iraq Over Shootings (09/18/2007)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,506345,00.html
SPIEGEL 360: Our Full Coverage of Iraq
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,k- 6947,00.html

URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,516434,00.html
X X X X X X X X X .

Saundra Hummer

November 12th, 2007, 02:41 PM

..!.!.!.!.!.!.!.Staying Safe Online
Toxic Toys On The Web
11.12.07, 6:00 AM ET
Parents may feel a brief moment of relief when companies stop shipping toys discovered to be toxic, as they did last week when three more items made in China were added to the list of banned products. Stopping imports of the problematic toys will surely save lives and prevent trauma, right?

Not entirely. As holiday shoppers turn to the Internet to find bargain-priced gifts, toy givers should beware: Even though the U.S. government has banned manufacturers from shipping toxic toys, many of those products continue to be available for sale on the Internet. And the best safeguard for children? A very choosy consumer who knows when to steer clear of toys that could cause problems.

Exactly how many toxic toys may be available via the Web is unclear. On Nov. 5, one research group made public its effort to pin down where toys that should be banned may be popping up for sale. Brand-tracking software and consultancy firm MarkMonitor set out to track down the Web sales of four toy brands that have been recalled in recent months by toy makers Mattel and RC2.

In Pictures: How To Spot A Toxic Toy Online
These tracked toys--Dora the Explorer, Thomas the Tank Engine, Elmo and Barbie--were pulled from retail shelves in early August, the beginning of a wave of recalls that purged more than 12 million toys coated with toxic lead paint or featuring dangerous, swallow-able magnets. All were made in China.

At the time of the early-September study, MarkMonitor found 1,100 listings on eBay for those four toys. But identifying precisely which of these listed toys contained the lead-contaminated paint or other dangerous features just from incomplete online listings turned out to be tricky even for a research organization. Mark Monitor's analysts say they could determine from posted images or item descriptions that around 30% of those items listed on eBay were in fact the recalled versions, banned for toxic contamination or dangerous magnets.

MarkMonitor also sifted through three business-to-business exchange sites--Alibaba.com and Made-in-China.com, and iOffer, which sell products to retailers. In this case, the firm's analysts found that around 8% of the listings--some of which offered hundreds of toys--offered one of the four tracked toys, though they couldn't identify how many of those listings offered dangerous versions of items, as opposed to those produced before or after the period of the recall.

Though MarkMonitor's data are far from definitive, the company's study raises a disturbing point. If a brand-tracking firm can't identify a contraband toy sold online, how can unsuspecting parents?

That ambiguity, according to Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) spokesman Scott Wolfson, means that the commission needs to work more closely with eBay to root out recalled toys. He said MarkMonitor's findings are troubling. "The data speaks to the need for us to continue to help eBay build filters into their system and block specifically recalled products," he says. "Even at the micro level, a single product could be deadly."

The problem, says eBay spokeswoman Nichola Sharpe, is volume. At any given time, she says, the site hosts 102 million auctions, with 6 million new items posted every day.

At that rate, manually hunting down recalled toys is nearly impossible. Instead, the company automatically shows recall warnings to sellers who include certain words and brand names in listings, posts all CPSC recalls on its announcements page, and offers users the option to flag items as having been recalled. More aggressive methods like blocking suspicious auctions or flagging all toy sales, Sharpe argues, would make listing legitimate items too difficult. Ultimately, she says, "the focus is on user education."

Similarly, Mattel can orchestrate a simultaneous recall of products from 40 different countries. But "we don't have control over the secondary market," points out company spokeswoman Lisa Marie Bongiovanni. "We encourage auction sites and business-to-business sites to do a better job in enforcing their recall protocols," she adds--hardly a guarantee that defective products will be removed from online sites.

MarkMonitor's Fred Felman agrees that while manufacturers and online selling sites could be more vigilant about tracking recalled products, the burden of protecting children from toxic toys falls on the consumer. "We have a culture of trying to place blame on the manufacturer or someone else with deep pockets, but ultimately the safety of children is beholden to their parents," Felman says.

For concerned parents, the key to spotting a recalled toy offered online, says Felman, is checking the listing using the search function on the CPSC's Web site. If the product code and date of production are obscured, send a message to the seller asking for more information. Checking the seller's history can also reveal whether he or she has sold toys to satisfied customers in the past.

And eBay isn't the only place where dangerous toys are lurking on the Web. The MarkMonitor study found around 340,000 instances of "cyber-squatting," or registered domains intended to impersonate a legitimate brand. By the firm's count, those counterfeit sites increased 10% over last quarter and 19% over the same quarter from last year. When those shady pages hijack toy brands, Felman contends, they're much more likely to sell recalled versions of the items.

The business-to-business listings are even more troubling, says Felman, because each offer could be a source of contaminated toys that end up on store shelves. "A small retailer trying to save money might go to the site and purchase stock for their stores," he says." This alternate distribution channel represents another real risk for consumers."

MarkMonitor isn't the first to notice the problem of ineffective recalls. On Oct. 30, the Senate Commerce Committee approved a bill called the CPSC Reform Act, introduced by Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., that would make it illegal to sell a recalled product and impose fines of between $1.83 million and $100 million on those who do so.

In the meantime, says Frank Clarke, a spokesman for the Toy Industry Association, consumers are on their own. " It's kind of a wild West. We in the industry can advise customers, but we can't control the Internet," he says. "It's pretty much buyer beware."

In Pictures: How To Spot A Toxic Toy Online
Go on-site to view, just click on the following URL:
http://www.forbes.com/2007/11/09/banned-toys-china-technology-personaltech-cx_ag_1112toys.html?partner=alerts
.!.!.!. .

Saundra Hummer

November 12th, 2007, 03:32 PM

.
~~~~~~~
"When even one "American" -- who has done nothing wrong -- is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril."

Harry S. Truman
(1884-1972)
33rd US President
August 14, 1951
Source:
Address at the Dedication
of the
New Washington Headquarters
of the
American Legion
~~~
"Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing Freedom of Speech... Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech..."

Cato
John Trenchard
(1662-1723)
&
Thomas Gordon
(169?-1750)
Source: Letters, 1720
~~~

"When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory – must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

'O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle – be Thou near them! With them – in spirit – we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with hurricanes of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it – for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.'

[After a pause.] Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits."

Mark Twain
Source: from The War Prayer, 1904.
Having directed it to be published after his death, Twain said, "I have told the truth in that... and only dead men can tell the truth in this world."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17801.htm
~~~~~
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Saundra Hummer

November 12th, 2007, 03:51 PM

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$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $
.$.$.$.$.$.$.$.$.
'Boston Globe' Web Site Calculates Other Uses For $611 Billion Spent on Iraq
By
Joe Strupp

Published:
November 12, 2007
11:10 PM ET

NEW YORK Boston.com, the Web site of The Boston Globe, has again taken a unique view of the latest Iraq War funding request, offering a look at what the $611.5 billion that would be spent so far on the war could buy if it was not used for the military operation.

The Web site provided a similar assessment in May when the price tag had reached $456 billion. Now with the latest appropriation request set to hike the cost to $611.5 billion, the Web staff has found a new list of would-be uses.

Dave Beard, editor of Boston.com, noted in an e-mail that the posting had remained the most popular news item on the Web site for the past two days.

"If the Bush administration succeeds in its latest request for funding for the war in Iraq, the total cost would rise to $611.5 billion, according to the National Priorities Project, a nonprofit research group," the staff stated in an online introduction. "The amount got us wondering: What would $611 billion buy?"

Among the findings, from college tuition to free gasoline -- each posted with an accompanying photo -- staffers revealed the following:

• "U.S. drivers consume approximately 384.7 million gallons of gasoline a day. Retail prices averaged $3.00 a gallon in early November. Breaking it down, $611 billion could buy gasoline for everybody in the United States, for about 530 days."

• "In fiscal 2008, Medicare benefits will total $454 billion, according to a Heritage Foundation summary. The $611 billion in war costs is 17 times the amount vetoed by the president for a $35 billion health."

• "According to World Bank estimates, $54 billion a year would eliminate starvation and malnutrition globally by 2015, while $30 billion would provide a year of primary education for every child on earth. At the upper range of those estimates, the $611 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world's poor for seven years."

• "At almost $15 billion, Boston's Central Artery project has been held up as the nation's most expensive public works project. Now multiply that by 40 and you're getting close to US taxpayers’ commitment to democracy in Iraq – so far."

• "At published rates for this year, $611 billion translates into almost 14 million free rides for a year at Harvard University. Tuition and fees at the University of Massachusetts-Boston could be paid for over 53 million years."

Of course, nothing in Boston is done without at least a slight connection to the Red Sox, so staffers added: "The Red Sox and Daisuke Matsuzaka agreed on a six-year, $52 million contract. The war cost could be enough to have Dice-K mania for more than 70,000-some years at this year's rate."

The presentation can be found here

The comparison has also prompted dozens of comments, which range from anti-Globe sentiment such as, "I would buy a newspaper which doesn't show its leftist bias in all aspects of its operation, from editorial page, to articles, to message boards" to attacks on the Bush administration: "(It is) almost enough to buy the net worth of Bush and Cheney after 8 years in the White House!"

***

Related:
Military Reporter Recalls Bush's Objections To Iraq Invasion On A Previous Veteran's Day (Go on-site to view)
* * * * *
Joe Strupp (jstrupp@editorandpublisher.com) is a senior editor at E&P.
Links referenced within this article here
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/gallery/251007war_costs/

Military Reporter Recalls Bush's Objections To Iraq Invasion On A Previous Veteran's Day
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003671351

jstrupp@editorandpublisher.com
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/mailto:jstrupp@editorandpublisher.com

Find this article at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003671207
.$.$.$. .

Saundra Hummer

November 13th, 2007, 10:55 AM

.
^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^
A GREG PALAST NEWSLETTER
Tasered Florida Student on Palast Report
Today on Air America Radio

It’s not the volts, it’s the votes
by
Zach Roberts
GregPalast.com

The student shocked by a taser gun last month at the University of Florida while questioning Senator John Kerry will appear today on The Palast Report on Air America Radio.

Andrew Meyer will join Greg Palast's investigative segment on the Air America program "Clout." Check www.GregPalast.com for listings and AirAmericaRadio.com.

Palast's office is in contact with the Senator's office to see if Kerry will answer Meyer's question - without an armed guard.

Meyer, who appeared this morning on the Today show (check out the clip here) sandwiched between reports on Britney Spears, Oprah Winfrey and Heather Mill's, was the only guest who managed to sneak in a matter of substance on the gossip and title broadcast. Meyer told Today that the real issue isn't the volts he received, but the votes uncounted.

As he told NBC earlier, "The first question I asked the Senator [Kerry] was about his concession of the 2004 election. Greg Palast, author of 'Armed Madhouse,' the book I was holding up at the forum, proved that John Kerry won the 2004 election. The ultimate point I was trying to make was to bring up the heinous way millions of American votes were chucked in the garbage on Election Day."

In Armed Madhouse, and in stories for Harpers Magazine and BBC Television Newsnight, Palast reported that Gainesville, Florida, where Meyer attends school, is the center of attacks on the rights of Black voters. In 2000, Governor Jeb Bush ordered the illegal purge of thousands of voters, the majority of them African-American, as felons who did not have the right to vote. One was Pastor Thomas Johnson of Gainesville, ironically, a personal friend of Jeb Bush - but an African-American and so, said the improperly pastor, barred from casting a ballot.

In 2004, the Palast BBC Team discovered that African-American voters Florida, including soldiers on active duty, were the targeted by "caging" lists disseminated by Karl Rove's assistant for the purpose of wrongly blocking their right to vote. Congressman John Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has begun an investigation of this voter caging scam.

Meyer said he wanted to know why Kerry, who said he's read the Palast investigative reports, so rapidly conceded the Presidential race in 2004, thereby abandoning these African-American voters. Currently, Meyer is on assignment to follow up on the fate of Florida's disenfranchised voters as a student intern with the Palast team.

"I've told Andrew," said Palast, "If you're going to ask tough questions, for God's sake, wear a grounding wire."

In 2001, Palast, while filming for BBC Television, was himself removed from the Office of Katherine Harris after asking her elections supervisor about the purge of Black voters. Palast's removal is captured on the BBC Film, "Bush Family Fortunes."
*****************
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, ARMED MADHOUSE: From Baghdad to New Orleans -- Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild.

Subscribe to Palast's writings and view his investigative reports for BBC Television's Newsnight, at:

http://www.GregPalast.com.

Palast is available for limited media comment, but Meyer, due to legal restrictions, is not. E-mail zach (at) gregpalast.com
^^ ^^ ^^ .

Saundra Hummer

November 13th, 2007, 03:34 PM

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
KILL THE SPILL
San Francisco surfers take cleaning Ocean Beach into their own hands
By:
Marcus Sanders
November 13, 2007
Monday morning dawned like any good late-fall morning at Ocean Beach, San Francisco: cool, windless, with high clouds and diffused sunlight; a medium-sized NW swell loping onto the too-high-tide sandbars. A bunch of tai-chi practitioners, homeless people sleeping in the dunes or pushing shopping carts down the path; jogging moms and bike-riding dads and high school kids texting each other from park benches.
Everything was totally normal, except for the fact that there was only one guy out on the whole beach. Oh, yeah, and the uniforms up and down the sand: Dept of Fish and Game, EPA, HAZMAT suits, Coast Guard, National Park Service, lifeguards, firemen, ect, ect.

It took five days after Wednesday's Cosco Buran 58,000 gallon-oil spill in San Francisco Bay, but the suits have finally made it to Ocean Beach. (Though of course the oil's been here since Thursday morning.)
The company responsible for the spill contracted a company called the O'Brien Group to clean it up, and a couple dozen official guys in HAZMAT suits showed up on Sunday afternoon with rakes and shovels - to find upwards of 500 people already here cleaning the sand by dobbing up oil with 12' by 12' hair mats. (Hair mats are made from donated human hair and have proven to be very effective at picking up the oil. All have been donated by matteroftrust.org/. The official team wasn't just kinda late, but also ineffective, according to those on the ground.

"Those guys are called 'the sandwich eaters'," says local surfer Byron Cleary, co-founder of the Kill the Spill (KTS) volunteer effort that has spearheaded the unofficial beach cleanings. "The official clean-up guys hang out in their vans and then walk to the sand for the 5pm TV photo op with rakes and shovels. When they first showed up, one of our team saw them raking the sand up by the dunes and was like, 'hey, that's all nice and everything, but the oil's over here.'"

Cleary, along with KTS co-founder Kathleen Egan went to bed last Wednesday night hearing about a couple hundred-gallon oil spill and woke up Thursday morning to the reality of a 58,000-gallon spill and decided they needed to do something. The spent a frustrating Thursday at Command Center in Fort Mason trying to figure out what was going on and how to help. "We kept telling 'em we had lots and lots of friends who wanted to volunteer," says Cleary. "But they just kept giving us moving targets and told us to call on Friday morning." "Those guys are called 'the sandwich eaters': The official clean-up guys hang out in their vans and then walk to the sand for the 5pm TV photo op with rakes and shovels. When they first showed up, one of our team saw them raking the sand up by the dunes and was like, 'hey, that's all nice and everything, but the oil's over here.'"
--Kill the Spill's Byron ClearyThursday night, Cleary and others grabbed high-powered headlamps and snuck out to various Bay Area beaches, including Pt. Bonita Lighthouse, to see how bad it really was. "We found a bunch of oiled birds," he said. "It was worse than we'd thought."

Friday morning came around and when Cleary finally got the EPA on the phone, he was told to basically do nothing. "They called us convergent volunteers," he said. "They told us we're to stay home or risk being cited and arrested. But we knew we had to do something."

Friday morning, meanwhile, dawned windless and clear at Ocean Beach, with the remnants of last week's south swell hitting a couple key sandbars perfectly. Nathan McCarthy, co-owner of Marin County's Proof Lab Surf Shop would have surfed Ft. Cronkite in Marin if the whole thing hadn't been closed, but as it was he paddled out at Ocean Beach Friday morning, despite warning signs on the beach and rangers patrolling the sand. There were a half dozen guys out on a peak that had seen 40 guys all week.

"There was a ten-foot span of oil right at the high tide line," he said. "But once you were in the water it wasn't so bad."

Not for long, though.

"As soon as the tide started going out, though, these oil slicks started to pass by us in the water. I was out of there, and haven't surfed since."

McCarthy didn't get sick, but there have been various reports by local surfers who've gone in the water of rashes, ear, nose and throat problems and more. "Do not go into the water," urges SF Surfrider's Wes Womak, who's been at Ground Zero all weekend.

The Surfrider Foundation has not officially endorsed any oil clean up efforts at Ocean Beach due to the fact that it's a hazardous material to clean up. "We did our regular high-tide-line clean up on Saturday, but we can't suggest people clean up the oil unless they've been trained," said Womak. "We are, however, extremely upset at the fact that no signs were posted warning people of the oil at Ocean Beach for a few days. I had to tell people who were letting their dog fetch into the oily shorebreak."

Monday morning, a Department of Fish and Game rep looked out to sea and shook his head. "Still lots of oil out there," he says. "We're supposed to discourage people who haven't been trained not to clean up the oil, but the surfers have been doing a better job of cleaning it up than anyone else."

Also on Monday morning, volunteers took a special four-hour training class at the Irish Cultural Center across from the zoo to learn how to safely clean up the oil. The official hazardous materials clean up class is 24 hours, but the EPA (at the urgings of KTS) created a special condensed version for those who specifically want to help clean this spill. Once a person completes the four-hour course, they're allowed to clean the beach as long as it's a 7-1 ratio of people who've passed the original test.

Monday afternoon saw over a hundred official volunteers march up the beach with hair mats cleaning up oil; Tuesday morning, there are more of the same. A very important volunteer training session is set to take place on Wednesday Nov 14th at 6pm (location: TBD) so more people can get certified to clean. Stay tuned to Surfline and zunasurf.com for updates on how you can help.

***

MORE INFORMATION

INTERACTIVE GOOGLE MAP OF AFFECTED AREAS

www.zunasurf.com/oilspill/

www.sfgate.com

www.niceness.org

SURFLINE HOME PAGE

MORE SURFNEWS

Go on-site to gain access to photo's and other information. Just click on the following link:
http://www.surfline.com/surfnews/article_bamp.cfm?id=12226 ~ ~ ~

Saundra Hummer

November 14th, 2007, 12:08 PM

.
///*\\\*///*\\\

The Huffington Post
Laurie David and Gene Karpinski
Did Tim Russert Get the Memo?
Posted November 13, 2007
01:15 PM (EST)

This past week, NBC completed its Green Is Universal campaign -- a week-long effort to educate and engage the public by infusing its programming with environmental themes. The effort resulted in everything from Matt Lauer reporting from the Arctic circle to Al Gore making a cameo appearance on 30 Rock parodying himself. Throughout the week, global warming was front and center. And then there was Tim Russert.

As the network's Washington Bureau Chief, Mr. Russert was surely alerted to the broadly publicized campaign. The emerald green tie he donned in Sunday's Meet the Press interview with Senator Barack Obama would seem to confirm that. But if you watched the interview, you probably noticed that Tim Russert didn't actually get the memo. Instead, Russert continued his long-running pattern of ignoring an issue that the American voters, the international community and the world's scientists have all identified as one of our most pressing challenges. Not to mention one of the most consequential.

How bad have Tim's interviews been? Over the past ten months, presidential candidates have made 16 appearances on Meet the Press. In the nearly three hundred questions he has asked the candidates, not once has he uttered the words "global warming." Not once.

At the two debates Mr. Russert has moderated, he has found time to discuss a national smoking ban, the drinking age, Bible verses, baseball, and even UFOs but not once did he ask how candidates would address the climate crisis.

His lack of coverage of the issue has been so glaring that one can only wonder whether he still needs to be convinced that global warming is a problem.

Of course, this failure is not his alone, but he is certainly the worst and most prominent example of it.

As a result, it is not surprising that the majority of the Republican candidates have coasted through the primary without having to outline any specific policies to address global warming. And while most of the Democrats have detailed plans, there has been little effort to compare their policies and gauge who is best prepared to tackle this historic challenge.

So here we are at the tail-end of an unprecedented year-long primary campaign and the media has largely failed to ask difficult and direct questions about one of the greatest challenges humanity has ever faced.

In light of this failure, several groups have partnered with Grist to host a presidential forum -- Global Warming & America's Energy Future -- this Saturday in Los Angeles. This will be the first event exclusively devoted to questioning the candidates on their policies and vision for tackling our growing energy problems. But with dozens more candidate forums, debates and interviews, the real question is this:

As interesting as it is to ponder whether we are alone in the universe, when on Earth will Mr. Russert cover global warming as a political issue?
To learn more about the event or to watch a webcast of it, go here.

Just click on the following URL for this article and much more, including numerous comments by readers.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laurie-david-and-gene-karpinski/did-tim-russert-get-the-m_b_72433.html
///*\\\ .

Saundra Hummer

November 14th, 2007, 01:02 PM

.
^^^^^ ^ ^^^^^
Hail, the Conquered Hero
November 2, 2007, 6:50 pm
“You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live.” — Shylock
The “Imus incident’” burned so brightly way back when, knocking big stories from front pages. It seems so long ago.

How absolutely silly it looks from this distance.

A widely popular entertainer and broadcaster made an offhand and — as became instantly clear — ill-advised joke about a basketball team made up largely (but not entirely, I was surprised to learn, given the attention the story was getting) of black women.

The joke hit the fan and Yeats’s “the worst” filled themselves with passionate intensity. A senator held up a picture of the team and righteously intoned, “How could he say those awful things about these lovely girls?”
And no one hit him with a pie.

A lot of people did not come off well.

Experts at exploitation and manipulation seized on the event and flew into action. Over-reactors outdid themselves. Alleged friends of the unlucky man in question measured their comments a bit too cautiously, perhaps, for their current comfort.

Wee embers were fanned into an inferno by skilled flame-fanners and the professionally offended. Demands were high-handedly demanded. All sorts of people piled on the wounded body. It began to resemble the way certain birds and beasts pile on the ailing pack member and peck or chew it to pieces.
Among the erstwhile Imus program’s virtues was that it provided a welcome relief from political correctness. (The vocal group Blind Boys of Alabama were not presented as the Visually Challenged Boys….) The Imus show had long been an eccentric mix of news, music, sports talk and — thanks to its well-read host — first-rate conversation. The booking of significant guests was a constant. There were authors, “personalities,” notable achievers, politicians and pundits of every stripe. (And, pleasantly, a host who stood apart from at least half of his colleagues by not pronouncing “pundit” as “pundant.”) At the risk of seeming class-conscious, whenever I’ve appeared with Imus, the folks who mentioned seeing me were certainly . . . well . . . is there a nice way of saying “well above average”?

The component of the show that caused the furor was that treacherous quicksand, humor.

Imus and his supporting cast were remarkably up on the latest slang, rap talk and inside argot of the music world, the sports world, the street and all minorities. They knew everybody’s trash talk. Hearing it helped the listener feel hip, too. Or at least hep.

But there lay the snare that entangled Imus.

There’s no getting around what he said, of course, but it’s worth asking under what circumstances would a man ever be justified in calling a bunch of women — of any color — by the volatile term “hos”? The first requirement, really, would be that he would have to know them. How can an insult be personal if the person delivering it and the person(s) receiving it don’t know each other? Imus would have had to meet the ladies and determine to his satisfaction that they were, um . . . how to say? . . . ladies of light virtue. And then he would have to decide to broadcast the authenticated fact. And what on earth would have to be in his mind were he to do that?

But it’s as if that’s what actually happened. He didn’t know the women later seen on television and in the dopey senator’s photo. He threw in a bit of slang as he might have about laundry if it had been a Chinese team, or garlic or Mafia if Italian, or the turistas if they had been from south of the border, or Nazis if from Argentina. Not everybody’s favorite kind of humor, but easily tolerated — although clearly not by some — for all the good stuff in the other 239 minutes of the show.

What force needed to enter the picture to fan the flames into a California fire? Who but that oft-times amusing rogue — except when he was Tawana Brawley’s patron — Al Sharpton, the very reverend. (And, to a lesser extent, Jesse Jackson — the same Jesse Jackson who brought the phrase “Hymie Town” to a wider audience.)

I seem to recall a history of cordial relations between Sharpton and Imus. I often wish an unwell part of my brain didn’t notice such distractions as the fact that the letters in “Al Sharpton” re-arrange to spell “trash no pal.” But let that pass. I’ve always liked both Sharpton and Jackson when they’re at their best.

Christian forgiveness, with so many reverends around, seems in short supply. Some weeks back an all-black panel convened by one of the cable news shows — after word came (since confirmed) that the host would likely be back by the end of the year — gave Imus a vigorous going-over. A lady sociology professor, seething with disdain, weighed in wondering how anyone could even think of allowing back on the air “this merchant of hate.”

Hey, prof, get some guy wires on that wrath.

And some perspective. Do you not encourage, in your students, keeping distinctions clear? And the ability to spot ludicrous comparisons? Would you assign an essay on the topic “Four Merchants of Hate: Joseph Goebbels, Charles Manson, Osama bin Laden and Donald Imus of Central Park West?”
A particularly painful sight has been the performance of members of the National Association of Black Journalists, clubbing and pounding the radio/television host as if he were a Grand Kleagle. They, too, want him to remain exiled to Elba.

Seeing journalists, black or white, so ardently on the wrong side of an abridgment of free speech and censorship matter is upsetting.

I watched a fellow from the NABJ triumphantly announce recently on Chris Matthews (I think) that not one of the team members’ hair was, in fact, the “nappy” style at all. So Imus’s sin was . . . inaccuracy?

This journalist also looks forward, if Imus returns, to “seeing the network keeping a good sharp eye on him.” How — particularly in your profession, my friend — do you develop such a crush on censorship?

Barbara Ciara, president of the NABJ, claimed not long ago that Americans black and white “still have the sting of that insult ringing in their ears.” Leaving aside the mixed metaphor (stings don’t ring), we must move in different circles.

(Note: Since writing the last few paragraphs, I’ve learned that there’s been a little “give” in some of the critics’ attitude. Surely not because they might want to appear on what is certain to be a popular program.)

Will the returning Imus be a different Imus? A meek, capon-like replica of his former astringent self? Comics today are doing Mormon jokes all over the place. Would the “new” Imus not dare do one, for fear of bringing the entire Tabernacle Choir down on his head?

There is really no getting away from the injustice that’s been done. A program enjoyed (and missed) by millions was trashed for the sake of the few. No one who contributed to the denouement of the Imus show and the mindless abuse heaped on him has anything to be proud of.

Although of rather less significance than, say, a failed foreign war, the whole episode seems nonetheless to take its place among those aberrations in our society that cause foreigners to shake their heads in disbelief.

A black minister said, “This incident, I feel, will be merely the beginning of great strides and an age of greater understanding between all the peoples of our country.” A nice sentiment and certainly a welcome change of tone from the “hate merchant” crowd.

But it pains me to say that I fear this good and optimistic man of the cloth is in for some disappointment. Such profound, more-than-skin-deep matters don’t get resolved so easily. The incident will not have one iota of effect on our stinking racism.

Go on-site to gain access to this article as well as other information concerning Dick Cavett, etc. Just click on the following URL:
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vvv v vvv .

papsrus

November 14th, 2007, 01:38 PM

Saundra Hummer

November 14th, 2007, 02:13 PM

Thanks for posting the Greg Palast item above on the tasered Florida student. They seem to have a sense of humor about the whole incident. But the issue the student wanted to bring up -- suppression of votes in America -- is one that is serious and important, and a practice that apparently most people (Sen. Kerry included) are willing to accept.

I once heard that blowhard Chris Matthews say on his show that the issue of vote tampering in Ohio in 2004 was no big deal because there has always been vote tampering in America. ... I didn't find it reassuring and have long since given up watching Matthews' heckling contests, which somehow pass for informed commentary.

Thanks again!

You're more than welcome!

Surely Chris having said this was doing it "Tongue in Cheek"? He does do this a lot.

Vote stealing and voter abuses do matter and they have mattered. We've heard of it in the past, but never in our lives have we paid such a price for such crookedness. Renquist went to his grave never fully realizing just what he saddled us with, but somehow, I don't believe it would have even mattered to him, as it was his poker games and gold emblazoned judicial robes which seemed to fill up his mind. These things, and the pain of cancer which they say can bother one to the point of not thinking straight.

Will it ever end with these people? It doesn't really seem like it.

Saundra Hummer

November 14th, 2007, 02:25 PM

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:::: :::: ::::
Two Black Seas: Oil Spills Updates 11/12/07 2:39 PM

Click on the following URL to see photo's, and maps, etc. It will be at the end of this post.

What do San Francisco Bay and the Black Sea have in common these days? Black waters fouled by crumbling ships, possibly bad seamanship, single-hulled tankers, and what always seems to be chronically inadequate first responders.

The San Jose Mercury News reports that the spill in San Francisco Bay has wafted north to foul the oyster beds in Point Reyes National Seashore, shutting down the Drakes Bay Oyster Company, which produces more than 80 percent of Marin County's oyster crop. The Santa Rosa Press Democrat reports the bar pilot responsible for bringing the Cosco Busan into the bay claims the ship suffered from an inexperienced crew and faulty radar. Meanwhile, the Marin Independent Journal reports that frustrated residents of the seaside town of Bolinas have taken matters into their own hands, rescuing birds and scooping up fist-sized blobs of oil with colanders, laundry baskets and fishing nets:

"Ultimately, if they're not going to send help, we're going to have to do it ourselves," said Bolinas resident Hermione Healy, who with her sister Krishna fished for oil that she described as "looking like pieces of asphalt floating by."

And once again Google maps are bringing the disaster closer to home, wherever you are, including this one from KCBS:

View Larger Map

[Go on-site to gain access to this map and more]
Halfway around the world, the Strait of Kerch, connecting the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, is reeling from the effects of up to 10 ships sunk in a monster storm Sunday.

Looking north up the narrow Kerch Strait dividing The Black Sea from the Sea of Azov.[Go on-site]

The Volganeft-139 tanker was carrying about 1.3 million gallons of fuel oil when the storm sundered it, losing at least half its load so far. The AP reports the ship was constructed for river use and was unfit to endure severe weather at sea. So far, more than 30,000 birds—some of the thousands migrating south from Siberia at this time of year—plus countless fish have been killed in an what officials are calling an ecological catastrophe. The Moscow Times reports that a freighter carrying 2,000 tons of sulphur sank nearby at nearly the same time:

"We hope that in the water sulphur will not form any substances dangerous to humans," Mitvol [deputy head of the Natural Resources Ministry's environmental watchdog] said. Several hours later, another freighter carrying sulphur sank off Kavkaz, Interfax reported… The same storm, which is expected to rage for up to three days, also sank a freighter with scrap metal off Sevastopol… The hull of [another] oil tanker Volganeft-123 cracked after being hit by high waves, but it was afloat and its oil products were not leaking.

Let's face reality. Oil, once spilled, is bloody hard to unspill, no matter the circumstances. Get ready for talk about double-hulled tankers to resurface. Get ready for nothing to come of it. Again.

Julia Whitty is Mother Jones' environmental correspondent. You can read from her new book, The Fragile Edge, and other writings, here.

- Julia Whitty

This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and .....

© 2007 The Foundation for National Progress

http://www.motherjones.com/blue_marble_blog/archives/2007/11/6166_two_black_seas.html?src=email&link=hed_20071114_ts6_From%20Sea%20to%20Sludgy%20S ea
:::: :::: :::: .

papsrus

November 14th, 2007, 02:29 PM

You're more than welcome!

Surely Chris having said this was doing it "Tongue in Cheek"? He does do this a lot. ...

It's possible, but I had the distinct impression he was completely serious. I believe a guest was pressing him on the matter and this was his way to wave off the whole Ohio thing.

Saundra Hummer

November 14th, 2007, 04:15 PM

.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
CHECK OUT ALL OF THESE ARTICLES

WE MUST SAVE OUR OCEANS, OUR WATER WAYS
OR
WE ARE DOOMED

SRH

The Last Days of the Ocean
We're Pushing Our Seas to the Brink. Can They be Saved? A Mother Jones special report.
The Fate of the Ocean
By Julia Whitty
March/April 2006 Issue

Assaulted by pollution, overfishing, climate change, trash, and noise, our oceans are approaching a point of no return. The health of the world they feed and protect won't be far behind.
P L U S :
Whales hit the beaches
Polar bears face extinction

The Catch
By Michael W. Robbins
If America's fisheries are regulated, how can they be overfished? Because the regulators and the fishermen are one and the same.

P L U S :
Video: Mike Robbins talks fishery reform on Free Speech TV
The ocean's top enemies
A field guide to failing fish

Net Losses
By H. Bruce Franklin
How a football tycoon took George H. W. Bush's oil company and used it to declare war on the fish that built America.

Navigating the Catch of the Day
By Daniel Duane
Overfishing...mercury...but they taste so good! How to eat fish without fear

Online Exlusives
M O R E S T O R I E S

Video: The Fate of the Ocean

Mother Jones Radio's Angie Coiro interviews Julia Whitty, author of The Fate of the Ocean, on Link TV.

The Dolphin DefenderFilmmaker and conservationist Hardy Jones on reasons for hope in a sea of troubles.

I'll Take MenhadenShould this threatened fish be an essential part of your healthy diet?

Saving the Ocean: It's a Question of LeadershipTwo "ocean champions" say the problems of the ocean are fundamentally political--and so are the solutions.

How the Lobster Clawed Its Way UpA crustacean's climb from pauper's fare to modern-day delicacy

"We All Want More Fish"The editor of Sport Fishing magazine says many recreational fishers are conservationists at heart.

(Still) Big in JapanThought whale hunting was a thing of the past? Think again.

I Cover the WaterfrontA science journalist evaluates media coverage of the oceans beat.

Toxic Fish and Poor CommunitiesA Bay Area activist raises awareness about contaminated seafood.

Pesticide in the Water
The EPA is supposed to protect our rivers and oceans. However, ...

A Guide to Environmental Non-Profits

How to distinguish groups doing good from ones that just sound good.

T H E I S S U E S E X P L A I N E D
Not Enough Fish in the Sea: The causes and consequences of overfishing

How to Catch a Fish: Modern methods are more efficient than ever--and more destructive.

Catch as Catch Can: Millions of marine animals are killed "incidentally" every year.

Aquaculture: Fish farming offers a solution to overfishing; but is the environmental cost too high?
Who's In Charge Here? Government and the ocean Marine Pollution: How the ocean became a toxic waste dump.

Development: Are we loving our coasts to death?

Coral Reefs: There's still time to save some reefs, but just barely.

L E A R N M O R E
A List of Organizations Advocating for and Researching the Oceans

Maps, Charts, and Graphs
A C T N O W
Sign up for Mother Jones' Ocean Voyager, an exciting online journey to the world's ocean hotspots.
Resources for getting involved
E-mail article

This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and ....©

2006 The Foundation for National Progress

http://www.motherjones.com/cgi-bin/print_article.pl?url=http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2006/03/oceans_index.html ~ ~ ~

Saundra Hummer

November 15th, 2007, 03:40 PM

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* * * * * Historic whiskey could go down drain
By
JOE EDWARDS
Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 38 minutes ago

Here's a sobering thought: Hundreds of bottles of Jack Daniel's whiskey, some of it almost 100 years old, may be unceremoniously poured down a drain because authorities suspect it was being sold by someone without a license.

Officials seized 2,400 bottles late last month during warehouse raids in Nashville and Lynchburg, the southern Tennessee town where the whiskey is distilled.

"Punish the person, not the whiskey," said an outraged Kyle MacDonald, 28, a Jack Daniel's drinker from British Columbia who promotes the whiskey on his blog. "Jack never did anything wrong, and the whiskey itself is innocent."

Investigators are also looking into whether some of the bottles had been stolen from the distillery. No one has been arrested.

Authorities are still determining how much of the liquor will be disposed of, and how much can be sold at auction.

Tennessee law requires officials to destroy whiskey that cannot be sold legally in the state, such as bottles designed for sale overseas and those with broken seals.

"We'd pour it out," said Danielle Elks, executive director of the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission.

The estimated value of the liquor is $1 million, possibly driven up by the value of the antique bottles, which range from 3-liter bottles to half-pints.

One seized bottle dates to 1914, with its seal unbroken. Elks said it is worth $10,000 on the collectors market. Investigators are looking into whether the liquor was being sold for the value of the bottles rather than the whiskey.

"Someone was making a great deal of profit," she said.

Tennessee whiskeys age in charred white oak barrels, but the maturing process that gives them character mostly stops when it is bottled. A bottled whiskey can deteriorate over a long period of time, especially if it is opened or exposed to sunlight and heat.

Christopher Carlsson, a spirits connoisseur and collector in Rochester, N.Y., said old vintages of whiskey in their original containers are highly prized.

"A lot of these bottles are priceless," he said. "It's like having a rare painting. It's heavily collected."

The raids, prompted by a tip, were conducted at two warehouses and a home in Lynchburg, about 65 miles southeast of Nashville. Another raid was at a Nashville hotel room where drinks were being served and bottles were being sold.

For now, the whiskey is being stored in a Nashville vault.

Elks acknowledged that pouring out the whiskey would not be a happy hour for her.

"It'd kill me," she said.
* * * * * * *Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2007 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Go on-site to gain access to this article and others, photo's etc. Just click on the following URL:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071115/ap_on_re_us/confiscated_whiskey;_ylt=AtX9WP7cyo0EMOit2Nkdndes0 NUE

* * * .

Saundra Hummer

November 15th, 2007, 09:15 PM

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~~~~~~~
“I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket."

Major General Smedley Darling Butler
(1981-1940)
Major General USMC
"Old Gimlet Eye'' and "Hell Devil Darling"
Most highly decorated military men
from the pre-World War II era.
Source: from a speech in 1933
~~~
"The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear."

Herbert Sebastien Agar
(1897-1980)
Source: The Time for greatness, 1942
~~~
"The key to wisdom is this -- constant and frequent questioning ... for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth."

Peter Abelard
(1099-1142)
Source: Sic et non, c. 1120
~~~
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."

Aldous Huxley
(1894-1963)
Author

~~~~~
.

Saundra Hummer

November 16th, 2007, 03:58 PM

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<<<<<O>>>>>
Nixon on Tape:
Reagan Was "Shallow"
and of
"Limited Mental Capacity"
Richard Nixon, say what you will of this criminally minded president, was a keen observer of politics. But he seems to have underestimated fellow Republican Ronald Reagan (or the American public). On the morning of November 17, 1971, Nixon, while meeting with National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger in the Oval Office, shared a few sharp--and negative--comments about California Governor Ronald Reagan, who had recently told Kissinger that Nixon had a "real problem" with conservatives who believed Nixon was not sufficiently hawkish on foreign policy matters.

For years, the Presidential Recordings Program of the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia has been transcribing and analyzing the tape recordings Nixon secretly made in the White House. Even though it's been 33 years since a disgraced Nixon left office, his tapes are still being processed by the National Archives, and the Miller Center has only recently gotten to the tape of this particular conversation. According to the newly created transcript of the meeting, both Nixon and Kissinger believed Reagan was not the brightest bulb in the GOP. Here are some key excerpts:
President Nixon: What's your evaluation or Reagan after meeting him several times now.

Kissinger: Well, I think he's a--actually I think he's a pretty decent guy.

President Nixon: Oh, decent, no question, but his brains

Kissinger: Well, his brains, are negligible. I--

President Nixon: He's really pretty shallow, Henry.

Kissinger: He's shallow. He’s got no...he's an actor. He--When he gets a line he does it very well. He said, "Hell, people are remembered not for what they do, but for what they say. Can't you find a few good lines?" [Chuckles.] That's really an actor's approach to foreign policy--to substantive....

President Nixon: I've said a lot of good things, too, you know damn well.

Kissinger: Well, that too.
Later in the 24-minute-long discussion, the two discussed the possibility of Reagan running for president:President Nixon: Can you think though, Henry, can you think, though, that Reagan with certain forces running in the direction could be sitting right here?

Kissinger: Inconceivable.
So much for Kissinger's powers of prognostication. As they were finishing up--after discussing other matters--Nixon slammed Reagan again:President Nixon: Back to Reagan though. It shows you how a man of limited mental capacity simply doesn't know what the Christ is going on in the foreign area. He’s got to know that on defense--doesn't he know these battles we fight and fight and fight? Goddamn it, Henry, we've been at--

Kissinger: And I told him--he said, “Why don't you fire the bureaucracy?” I said, “Because there are only so many battles we can fight. We take on the bureaucracy now, they're going to leak us to death. Name me one thing that we have done that the bureaucracy made us do.”

President Nixon: The bureaucracy has had nothing to do with anything.

Kissinger: No, no. They've made our lives harder. They've driven us crazy. But that doesn't affect him.

Shallow, negligible brains, limited mental capacity? Well, Reagan did manage to get elected twice, and he served out his two terms--a feat Nixon did not accomplish. And Kissinger happily served on Reagan's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
Posted by David Corn on 11/15/07 at 7:02 PM
Go on-site to gain access to this article and other articles of interest, links, photo's, etc. Just click on the following URL: http://www.motherjones.com/ <<<O>>>
.

Saundra Hummer

November 16th, 2007, 04:44 PM

.*v*v*v*v*v* Couric mocks Dan Rather in Web video By JAKE COYLE, AP Entertainment Writer
1 hour, 30 minutes ago

Though battles between news anchors have historically been between rival networks, today's ripest feud is a purely CBS affair: Katie vs. Dan. The rivalry took a humorous turn Thursday when a video was posted on the Web showing Katie Couric mocking Dan Rather while preparing to anchor a broadcast from Nashville, Tenn., last week.

While her CBS crew prepared for the Nov. 8 evening broadcast and makeup was applied to her, Couric mocked Rather. A video of Rather surfaced last month, showing the former "CBS Evening News" anchor obsessing over his appearance before a remote broadcast — particularly questioning the wearing of an overcoat.

"I'm going to be like Dan Rather on YouTube," joked Couric, alluding to Rather by fiddling with her coat. "Geez, don't you think he deserves a little payback?"

She then added, laughing: "This tart is ready to go!"

Rather, who left CBS News in March 2005, in June referred to his successor as "a nice person," but said "the mistake was to try to bring the `Today' show ethos to the `Evening News,' and to dumb it down, tart it up in hopes of attracting a younger audience."

The video of Couric (http://tinyurl.com/2w6y6a) was posted by comedian Harry Shearer on MyDamnChannel.com, a video Web site co-founded by Shearer. He also posted the video of Rather, taken from his anchoring days, last month (http://tinyurl.com/35jlva).

Jen Farley, a spokeswoman for CBS would not comment on whether someone from CBS had supplied the video.

It could have come from any number of places, including CBS affiliates, which receive pre-broadcast footage.

"It was from an open satellite from a location in Nashville," said Farley.

The timing of the video coincides with a legal battle between Rather, who now does the show "Dan Rather Reports" for cable station HDNet.

Rather is suing CBS for $20 million in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages, claiming his bosses made him a "scapegoat" for the controversy that arose over a disputed story about President Bush's military service.

CBS on Thursday asked a judge to dismiss the defamation lawsuit filed against the network and its parent company, Viacom Inc., arguing that he waited too long to take legal action.

Rather didn't immediately return a call from The Associated Press on Friday.
v***v
On the Net:
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/eveningnews/main34 20.shtml
http://www.mydamnchannel.com/
http://www.hd.net/danrather.html]
Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
*v*v*v*v*v*v* .

Saundra Hummer

November 16th, 2007, 07:54 PM

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.
NEW FACT CHECK
Clinton vs. Obama
Who's right on health care,
Social Security?

November 16, 2007
Summary
In the latest debate among the Democrats, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama sparred over their plans for health care and Social Security. We found both presidential candidates guilty of exaggerations and questionable claims:

*Clinton said that Obama's health care plan would leave 15 million Americans without insurance, while her plan provided universal coverage. Obama countered that his proposal would cover everyone in the country. Clinton's plan will likely cover more people than Obama's, but it's doubtful the difference between their very similar proposals would be as high as the figure Clinton cites.

*Clinton implied that firefighters would be affected by Obama's proposal to raise the income limit for Social Security taxes above $97,000 a year. Obama implied that his proposal would tax only the "upper class." We found both claims misleading.

Obama also said an employer has a greater chance of being struck by lightning than of being prosecuted for employing an immigrant who's in the U.S. illegally. That turns out to be pretty close to the truth.

Analysis
The debate took place Nov. 15 in Las Vegas and was hosted by CNN. We found sharp exchanges between the front-runners.

15 Million Left Out?
Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama traded words about their health care plans, and we found both dabbled in exaggerations:

Clinton: His plan would leave 15 million Americans out. That’s about the population of Nevada, Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire. I have a universal health care plan that covers everyone.

Obama: Well, let’s talk about health care right now because the fact of the matter is that I do provide universal health care. ... [W]e’ve put forward a plan that makes sure that it is affordable to get health care that is as good as the health care that I have as a member of Congress.

Clinton uses a dubious statistic when she claims Obama’s plan would leave out 15 million of the uninsured. But Obama’s statement that his proposal provides “universal" health care is also suspect.

Clinton based her claim on a column by The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn, who loosely estimated Obama’s plan would leave 15 million uninsured:
Cohn (The New Republic, June 3): The best studies out there — by Urban Institute researchers, the RAND Corporation, and MIT economist Jonathan Gruber — suggest that, without a mandate, improving affordability will cover roughly one-third of the people who don't have coverage. Mandating that kids (but not adults) have coverage bumps that up to about a half. Obama's advisers think that, by really loading up on the subsidies … they can goose that up to two-thirds. But that's getting optimistic — and, even then, you still have around 15 million people who are uninsured.

Cohn makes it clear here that he is offering an estimate based on the best information available, not a hard and fast calculation. And the best available information doesn't always agree. One of the people Cohn cites, economist and influential health care expert Jonathan Gruber, has gone on record saying that without a mandate, Obama's plan would still leave 6 percent of the nation – about 18 million people – uninsured. But it's not clear whether he meant "without an individual mandate" or "without any kind of mandate." The Obama plan does include limited mandates, including a requirement for employers to either provide health insurance or pay into a public fund. A Gruber study from 2006 estimates that a plan with generous subsidies and an employer mandate would lead to 82 percent of the uninsured gaining coverage, based on 2001 data. Applied to today's figures, that would leave about 8.5 million without insurance. Gruber found that a proposal that included an individual mandate would lead to 100 percent coverage of the uninsured.

Other studies also find only a small discrepancy between the types of plans that Obama and Clinton are proposing. For instance, a 2003 Commonwealth Fund study found that a plan with mixed private-public options (as the leading Democratic candidates have put forth) that also included an individual mandate would reach near universal coverage, leaving just 1 percent of people uninsured. Not including a mandate would still reach most of the uninsured, leaving about 3 percent without coverage.

Similar Plans
It's true that Clinton’s plan would likely lead to somewhat higher levels of coverage than Obama’s, according to the research we've seen. But the difference in outcomes may not amount to much. The main distinction: Clinton calls for a mandate that would require all individuals to have health insurance; Obama requires only that children have coverage and that dependents be covered under their parents' insurance up to age 25. Of the estimated 46.5 million uninsured in the U.S., 9.4 million are children and 37 million are adults, according to an analysis of Census data by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured and the Urban Institute. But neither candidate has provided enough detail for analysts to predict confidently how many might be left uninsured under either plan.

Sara Collins, an assistant vice president at The Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that calls for higher quality and accessibility in health care, says that the Obama and Clinton plans (as well as Edwards') are “very, very similar in structure.” Studies show that mandates make a difference, but Collins says the “15 million” seems like too big a number based on past analyses.

Kenneth E. Thorpe, a professor of health policy at Emory University who worked in President Clinton’s administration and who has evaluated several presidential candidates’ health plans, also says that “it’s hard to come up with precise numbers” without knowing the details on the federal subsidies these plans would include. “Whether it’s 15, 20 or 10,” he says, that estimate makes “an assumption on the subsidies that the campaign hasn’t put out.”

Robert Blendon, director of the Harvard Program on Public Opinion and Health and Social Policy, estimates Obama’s plan would end up covering 5 percent to 10 percent fewer individuals than Clinton’s. But that’s assuming that it’s possible for Clinton to require everyone to purchase insurance. Blendon suspects that it isn’t. “At the end of the day,” he tells FactCheck.org, “it’s not going to be everybody. We have no idea what the actual falloff would be.”

Among the unknown factors is what sort of insurance would turn out to be available under either plan. Preliminary data from Massachusetts, which implemented a sweeping health insurance plan last year, is showing that many people would rather remain uninsured than purchase a stripped-down plan. “People always say having some insurance is better than no insurance,” Blendon says. “It turns out, in some of the focus groups in Massachusetts, people don’t believe that.”

A Trillion-Dollar Tax Increase
Clinton called Obama's proposal to raise Social Security taxes on earnings over $97,500 per year, the current upper limit on which any tax is levied, a trillion-dollar increase on "middle class families."

Clinton: I do not want to fix the problems of Social Security on the backs of middle class families and seniors. (Applause.) If you lift the cap completely, that is a $1 trillion tax increase. I don't think we need to do that.

Taxing all earnings would indeed amount to a $1.3 trillion increase over the next 10 years alone, according to estimates by Cato Institute Social Security expert Michael Tanner, who says he drew his figures from projections by the Social Security Administration staff. A similar estimate comes from Citizens for Tax Justice, which figures the measure would bring in $124 million per year.

Obama defended his proposal by saying it would fall only on the "upper class."

Obama: I've heard you say this is a trillion dollar tax cut on the middle class by adjusting the cap. Understand that only 6 percent of Americans make more than $97,000 — (cheers, applause) — so 6 percent is not the middle class — it's the upper class.

Clinton responded by saying that some of her New York constituents would still find the increase burdensome. "I represent firefighters. I represent school supervisors," she said.

"Upper Class" Firefighters?
It's hard to say who's being more misleading here. The base pay of a New York City firefighter is $68,475 after five years on the job, and even with overtime, holiday pay and other differentials the total pay is $86,518, well below the level affected by Obama's proposal. So Clinton is being misleading to suggest that a rank-and-file firefighter would be affected.

On the other hand, FDNY captains make $140,173 with overtime, according to the department. For them, Obama's proposal could amount to a $2,646 tax increase, not counting what the city would have to pay for the employer's share of the added payroll tax. As for school administrators, in New York state there are few that make less than $100,000 a year, and some superintendents make more than twice that, according to the New York State Education Department. Are fire captains and high-school principals considered "upper class" financially? If so, it would be news to us.

Obama may be correct to say that only the top 6.5 percent of earners would be affected. That's based on that same analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice that we mentioned earlier. But we judge that Obama is being misleading to say that his proposal would tax only the "upper class."

An Unsure Cure
It is also worth noting that Obama's proposed tax increase wouldn't necessarily cure the system's financial ills.

It's true that taxing all earnings could bring in barely enough to make the Social Security system solvent for the next 75 years. Actuarial experts at the Social Security Administration estimated in 2006 that lifting the cap entirely would keep the trust fund going until 2081. That could be pushed out longer if Congress took the drastic step of denying upper-income workers any benefit for the added taxes they would pay, not giving them credit for the taxes when calculating their eventual retirement benefits. But as we've noted, Obama has only proposed raising the cap, without saying how much, or whether he'd also deny pension credit for the increased taxes.

However, Obama isn't necessarily endorsing taxation of all earnings. He's for raising the cap but hasn't specified how far. What he has endorsed, according to a fact sheet on his Web site, is "increasing the maximum amount of earnings covered," and he says he'd "work with Congress and the American people" on the details. Still, he has been more specific than Clinton, who will say only that she'll ask a bipartisan commission to come up with solutions after she's elected.

Truth Strikes
One Obama claim that we wondered about turned out to be true, or at least close enough.

Obama: An employer has more of a chance of getting hit by lightning than be prosecuted for hiring an undocumented worker. That has to change.

We find different estimates of the number of persons struck by lightning. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Severe Storms Laboratory puts the number killed or injured by lightning in the U.S. at about 600 per year. Richard Kithil Jr., founder and CEO of the National Lightning and Safety Institute, estimates the figure to be 1,000, including 300 cases that go unreported.

We have no idea how many of those lightning casualties are employers, let alone how many might have hired illegal aliens. What we do know is that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement service reports that in the most recent 12-month period on record, the total number of arrests of persons in the “employer supervisory chain” was 91.

-by
Lori Robertson, Jessica Henig,
Brooks Jackson and Justin Bank.
Sources
Cohn, Jonathan. “Cautious Candidate, Cautious Plan.” The New Republic. 3 June 2007.

Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. “The Uninsured and Their Access to Health Care.” The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. 16 Oct. 2007.

Davis, Karen and Cathy Schoen. “Creating Consensus on Coverage Choices.” The Commonwealth Fund. 1 April 2003.

Lambrew, Jeanne and Jonathan Gruber. “Money and Mandates: Relative Effects of Key Policy Levers in Expanding Health Insurance Coverage to All Americans.” Inquiry 43: 333-344. Winter 2006/2007.

New York City Fire Department, "Benefits and Salary" accessed 16 Nov 2007.

New York State Education Department, "Administrative Compensation Information for 2006-2007," 15 May 2007.

Citizens for Tax Justice, "An Analysis of Eliminating the Cap on Earnings Subject to the Social Security Tax & Related Issues," 30 Nov 2006.

"A SEVERE WEATHER PRIMER: Questions and Answers about LIGHTNING," NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory, accessed 16 Nov. 2007.
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Democratic candidates are pinned down on how quickly they would bring troops home from Iraq. The front-runners said it could take them years
http://www.factcheck.org/clinton_vs_obama.html * * * * * * * * *
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Saundra Hummer

November 18th, 2007, 05:34 PM

.
~~~~~~~"It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin."

James Monroe
1758-1831
5th US President
Source:
First Inaugural Address
1817
~~~
"Who ordained that the few should have the land (of Britain) as a prerequisite; who made 10,000 people owners of the soil and the rest of us trespassers in the land of our birth?"

David Lloyd George
1863-1945
British statesman
&
Prime Minister
~~~
"All the property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it."

Benjamin Franklin
1706-1790)
US founding Father
Source: Letter to Robert Morris
25 December 1783
Ref: Franklin Collected Works,
Lemay, ed., 1082

"There are two distinct classes of men .. those who pay taxes, and those who receive and live upon taxes."

Thomas Paine
~~~
"The State enjoys a monopoly not only on the lawful use of violence, but on the power to define the extent of its authority."

Butler Shaffer
17 March 2006
~~~
"You get the same order of criminality from any State to which you give power to exercise it."

Isabel Paterson
New York Herald Tribune

~~~~~ .

Saundra Hummer

November 18th, 2007, 08:12 PM

.:: :: :: :: ::

Tomgram:
John Brown, Invading Washington
Posted
November 18, 2007
7:29 pm

Over the last seven years, it's often been said that George W. Bush exists in a bubble. When it comes to the cast of characters in his administration -- and the Washington Consensus generally -- it turns out he isn't alone. The other night I watched Harvard academic Joseph Nye and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage discuss the crisis in Pakistan with talk-show host Charlie Rose. The two of them had just finished co-chairing a Center for Strategic and International Studies commission that produced a report, clearly meant for the next administration, on wielding American "smart power" in the world.

Nye is an exceedingly conventional American internationalist; Armitage is a former "Vulcan" who, in the first years of the Bush administration, though Colin Powell's deputy at the State Department, was close to the neocons of the Pentagon, but may now be repositioning himself for a Democratic administration. They could be said to represent the heartland of the present Washington Consensus.

Yet when they talked of Pakistani autocrat Pervez Musharraf ("I mean, Musharraf has been our boy, but we`ve not been able to do much with it..."), of the Pakistani situation more generally ("I mean, after Musharraf, there are other secular generals…"), and of the American role there ("Well, we have to be working with both Benazir Bhutto and also with our contacts in the army to make sure this doesn't turn into chaos…" "If you do anything to help Benazir, it has to be done very quietly and behind the scenes…"), they might as well have been discussing deploying federal "smart power" to Maryland, or more appropriately, to the U.S. Territory of Guam. Conceptually, they remain deep inside Washington's Pakistan, Washington's dream of a controllable world.

The Bush administration, too, had its dreams of a controllable Pax Americana to go along with a Washington-based Pax Republicana; but, as former diplomat John Brown makes clear below, these were the most provincial of global dreams, hatched at think-tanks inside the Washington Bubblesphere. The world was reimagined as a kind of imperial dreamscape for a go-it-alone group of armed imperial isolationists who, unlike most imperialists, couldn't even imagine a way those elsewhere could join in their imperial project. As Brown indicates, Bush and his top officials were the most bubblicious of non-diplomats. In the language of another era, they were not just Ugly Americans, but the ugliest of all -- and proud of it.

But perhaps they were only extremes of the Washington norm. Perhaps Americans, even in their post-World War II high-imperial phase, were never anything but powerful provincials with little grasp of the wider world: a self-contained universe of Joseph Nyes and Richard Armitages. Perhaps if you are singularly wealthy and powerful, as the United States was from 1945 into the 1970s, the provincial blunders you make don't blow back on you for 20, 30, 40 years. Now, on the downside of hyperpowerdom, they seem to blowback in about the time it takes to play your basic 30-second ad.

We also tend to ignore how much Americans actually take their bubble with them into the world. Consider, for instance, this description from the British Guardian's David Smith on his arrival at Camp Victory, one of the monstrous "mega-bases" the Bush administration has built in Iraq. American reporters often set foot in places like this, but almost never offer such descriptions, perhaps because finding a Little America in the midst of chaos and mayhem strikes them as nothing out of the ordinary.

"I arrived at Camp Liberty, one of the main US bases, and found breakfast in the 'morale area' where food facilities include a Burger King, Cinnabon, Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits and Seattle's Best Coffee Iraq. It's a sort of pre-fab American simulacrum, Disney World meets Platoon in the desert. There's also Alterations & Embroidery, Barber, Beauty, Electronics, Gift Shop, Jewelery, Magic Island Technologies, Rug Shop, Photo Processing and even New Car Sales. I wandered around the Bazaar, which takes credit cards but is closed on Fridays, and found kitsch mementos, hookah pipes, brass ornaments, 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' rugs bearing the US and Iraqi flags and a collection of Saddam portraits and clocks. A difficult purchase to explain at customs, perhaps. "

So consider with Brown just how provincial the Bush imperial moment really was. Tom
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174864/john_brown_invading_washington :: :: :: .

Saundra Hummer

November 19th, 2007, 11:40 AM

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> > > O < < <
A VIDEO
PLUS
A BOOK REVIEW
The Art of Mental Warfare Opening Statement:
Let The Media War BeginPosted By David @ 12:01 am — Filed under: Excerpts, Features

For my opening statement I am going to say some things that are obvious to those of us who spend the majority of our time researching and analyzing power politics. We have come to understand that the mainstream media is an elaborate and sophisticated propaganda apparatus that is designed and utilized to deceive, manipulate, dumb down, distract and marginalize the American public. We realize that the mainstream media is not giving us the vital information that we need to develop informed opinions and participate in this so-called “democracy.”

However, the average US citizen still does not understand this. They are too busy working hard trying to make ends meet, trying to provide for their families, trying to pay off their homes, credit cards and debt. They don’t have the time to spend hours everyday researching issues that the mainstream media doesn’t even mention or discuss.

In fact, with hundreds of television channels, radio stations, magazines, newspapers and movies, the average citizen thinks the amount of viewpoints in the media are overwhelming and diverse. They don’t realize that the vast majority of media companies are controlled by a handful of the world’s most powerful interrelated corporate interests. They don’t realize that over the past 25 years we have experienced a scandalous concentration in media ownership and an all out attack on public TV and radio.

The number of corporations dominating the US mainstream media:

1983 = 50
1993= 14
2007 = 5

Government spending on public broadcasting per person:

Germany $85
UK $83
US $1.54

The US has the lowest per capita funding of public broadcasting in the industrialized world.

“Never before has censorship been so perfect. Never before have those who are still led to believe, in a few countries, that they remain free citizens, been less entitled to make their opinions heard, wherever it is a matter of choices affecting their real lives. Never before has it been possible to lie to them so brazenly. The spectator is simply supposed to know nothing, and deserve nothing.” - Guy Debord, Comments on the Society of the Spectacle

The censorship most prevalent today is the most dangerous form. Not the censorship of explicit words, sex or violence, but the censorship of any thoughts outside of elite corporate ideology. Any views that lead to critical thought on the prevailing elite market dominance are not allowed to enter into public consciousness (the mass media).

“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth…. The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make a criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal…. If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” - Malcolm X

The Imperial War
Since Cheney and Bush began their disastrous “War on Terror,” terrorism incidents have increased over 600%. The invasion and occupation of Iraq has created worldwide hatred toward America on an unprecedented scale. If we had a critical and informative media system, the Bush administration would have never been able to launch a war built on lies, distortion and misinformation - a war that has already claimed the lives of over 750,000 Iraqi civilians, and killed, wounded or maimed over 30,000 US soldiers. As costs continue to escalate, the war will cost the US taxpayer well over a trillion dollars - with billions of tax dollars stolen and unaccounted for!

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.” — President Dwight D. Eisenhower

For those of us who have researched and read the strategy papers that have driven the Bush administration’s foreign policy - all written before 9/11 - specifically the Strategy of the Silk Route, James Baker’s and the Council on Foreign Relations’ Strategic Energy Policy, the Project for a New American Century’s Forces and Resources For a New Century and other crucial documents, we know that these documents clearly demonstrate that the war on terror is mostly a front for a geo-strategic imperial war designed to control the majority of the earth’s remaining oil supply. And the fact that this subject is almost never seriously discussed in the mainstream press is an edifying example of just how scandalous the mass media system has become.

This imperial war for resources brings us to the next urgent crisis of our time, the current and coming environmental catastrophe.

Environmental Crisis
The earth’s resources are being quickly depleted. As the three billion people in China and India become more modernized and begin living and polluting like the modern US consumer, the earth’s resources and fragile balance will become undone. Billions of people, literally billions of people, will die - from the lack of food and water that will lead to mass starvation, to the lack of medicine for treatable diseases and the spread of infectious diseases.

Half of the world’s population now lives on $2 per day or less.

Global warming is quickly making these numbers grow and we are already facing a crisis unprecedented in human history. The past three years have been the hottest three years ever recorded. In the early nineties leading scientists and organizations tried to inform us. In 1992, long before Hurricane Katrina and Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, 1700 of the world’s top scientists signed an official document, a Warning To Humanity, stating:

“Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about.”

In 1997, the World Watch Institute reported that storms would be, “more frequent, more intense, and more destructive.” Yet these dire warnings went unheard. Paid-off energy industry experts and lobbyists marginalized them, and they were never given fair coverage in the mainstream corporate media — media companies that have shared economic interests with the energy industry that they serve.

If you thought the recent upsurge in catastrophic hurricanes, tornados, heat waves, droughts and other climatic disasters have been bad, you need to understand that this was only the opening act, only a warning shot as to what lies ahead.

“The economy has now come to declare open war on humanity, attacking not only our possibilities for living, but our chances of survival…. When an all-powerful economy lost its reason - and that is precisely what defines these spectacular times.” — Guy Debord, Comments on the Society of the Spectacle

Economic Crisis
The war and environmental crisis will only exacerbate the current economic inequalities that have been growing ever wider. Even in the US, which once prided itself as being a nation with a thriving middle-class, the financial wealth of the top 1% of households now exceeds the combined wealth of 98% of households. That’s 1% having more wealth than 98% combined! The US now leads the industrialized world in inequality of wealth.

Right now, the American middle-class is hanging by a thread. The average American is in more debt today than ever. Consumer and household debt are at unheard of levels.

“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation.
One is by sword. The other is by debt.”
– John Adams, US President

The economic top 1% has looted the economy and enslaved the US public like never before. Out of the recent trillions of dollars in tax cuts more than half has gone to the economic top 1%. Tax cuts for top 1% are larger than health, education, and all other initiatives combined.

But this is just the beginning of the theft from the American middle-class. Our federal debt has reached an all time high. It is reported over and over again that the federal debt has reached a staggering eight trillion dollars. However, based upon the Financial Report of the United States, issued by the Treasury Department - a report the corrupt corporate media has suppressed and not reported on - the true total federal debt is actually over $50 trillion! $50 trillion! We are paying over $300 billion each year in interest alone. Your share of the federal debt, as a taxpaying American, is already $400,000. That’s your share! $400,000 out of your pocket and it is growing even higher.

Political Crisis
We can no longer rely on a co-opted, bought and paid for political system. Our current politicians have proven over and over again that they only make bold moves when they act in the power and greed-addicted interests that they serve. The two-party system has become a sham! Greedy Republicans and weak Democrats serve the same corporate elite masters.

Last year’s change in Congress and the coming change in president are only changes on the surface. The overwhelming majority of us will be relieved when Bush and Cheney finally leave office, but Bush is just a figurehead, just a spokesman, just a puppet on a string! He will eventually leave, but the underlying system and institutions will remain in place. Bush did not decide to go into Iraq alone, he had the support of almost every member of the Senate and an overwhelming majority in Congress. And most importantly, he had the vital support and backing of the mainstream corporate press who brazenly and uncritically trumpeted the call for this disaster. Bush is just the fall guy now, a patsy for the elite interests he serves. The press and Congress will bash him, as they rightfully should, and he will now take the blame, as he rightfully should. But when he leaves office things will only appear to be better.

Just look at the newly empowered Democratic Congress. Despite their rhetoric, they have been incredibly weak and inept in stopping the Iraq war and cleaning up congressional corruption and ethics rules. They continue to pass legislation that funds the war without any meaningful timetable for withdrawal and have officially endorsed the Bush/IMF plan to rob Iraq of their oil. And another significant and underreported fact is that none of the war funding bills have included a proposed provision that would have required the Bush administration to get congressional approval for an attack on Iran.

The Democratic Congress has even been cutting secret “trade” deals that mean billions in corporate handouts. The Republican Party is dominated by Neo-cons who believe in world domination by military force, and the Democratic Party is in the hands of Neo-liberals who believe in domination by economic force - leaving 98% of Americans without any representation.

Fighting Back: The Media War
These are just some of the serious problems now staring us in the face. It is imperative that we start getting these messages out to the mainstream and quickly swing into action. We must get our message through elite corporate censors who seek to maintain the status quo and only half-heartedly attempt half-measures. The time for half-measures is over! We must begin to take bold actions now.

We need to widen the scope of debate and expand the spectrum of thinkable thought. We have to create a culture of accountability and destroy the support systems that have led us toward devastation. We must destroy the propaganda system and dismantle the concentration of media ownership!

“I think one has to say it’s not just simply a matter of capturing people and holding them accountable, but removing the sanctuaries, removing the support systems.”
– Paul Wolfowitz

The power elite expend such great effort in controlling our communication and information system because they fear the American public more than any other enemy. They understand that if they lose their grip on our mass media, their lies and injustices will be exposed to the very people who can put a stop to their crimes!

The famed military strategist Carl von Clauswitz wrote in his study, On War, that the key to defeating an enemy is to identify and strike at “the hub of all power and movement, on which everything depends.”

The mass media is the foundation of the elite power structure. Without domination of the mass media the elite power structure is a house of cards.

“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil,
to one who is striking at the root.”
– Henry David Thoreau

Once the people can get their message through elite censors, the necessary evolution will occur. And thanks to the internet the tide has begun to swing back in our favor. The internet has given us a major weapon to battle these entrenched interests.

The internet is the one method of mass communication where you can research news and information for yourself, where you can use your own critical thinking and judgment skills, where voices are not censored through elite corporate interests.

The internet has been for us what pamphlets were to our forefathers; a new form of mass communication that is not censored by elite interests.

People are going to the internet and finding out all the information and facts that the corporate media is not letting the public in on. So, right there, you have a critical mass of informed and outraged citizens.

“Never in my lifetime have people all over the world demonstrated greater awareness of the political forces ranged against them and the possibilities of countering them.” — John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

People are using the internet for organizing and movement building.

The corporate elite are well aware of this. They see an informed citizenship rising up. The elite do not want us getting together and discussing political issues. They want that to be something that the aristocracy decides, not you. That is why they are currently attacking the open architecture of the internet.

“Every new technology necessitates a new war.”
– Marshall McLuhan

The internet has become the frontlines of the latest battle for justice, freedom and democracy. The internet is democracy’s last avenue. Cyberspace is our Underground Railroad.

The bottom line is that we are at the most crucial and pivotal time in human history. The actions we take within the next few years are of vital historical importance. Every one of us, whether we realize it or not, or whether we want to be or not, is in a war, a war unlike any other.

“You can’t be neutral on a moving train.”
– Howard Zinn

And the train is racing toward devastation at a quickened pace.

Unless we evolve from passive, apathetic spectators into active participatory citizens and overthrow the corporate elite, we will eventually pay the ultimate price.

It’s just a matter of time… tick… tick… tick…

We are here to fight a war, an information war, a media war, a war for the survival and advancement of our species. However grandiose this may sound, it is the unfortunate reality of the current situation.

It is not a war that I want to fight, I wish I could ignore the power politics of the day, but I cannot, we cannot turn away from this crisis. When you see a major catastrophe heading your way you have to confront it and fight it with every tool at your disposal! Will you fight this war with us?

Sign up to get involved, stay informed and voice your own opinions and concerns.

“Are you brave enough to see?
Do you want to change it?”
– Trent Reznor, The Hand That Feeds

Subscribe to The Art of Mental Warfare’s free email newsletter.

– This opening statement is an adapted excerpt from David Vincent’s book, The Art of Mental Warfare.

Go on-site to gain access to the video, this article with it's many links, comments, and other issues in this website. Just click on the following URL:
http://artofmentalwarfare.com/pog/
> > > O < < <

Saundra Hummer

November 19th, 2007, 12:29 PM

:: :: :: « Imus Returns
16
Nov
The Imus Enablers Are
Ba-a-a-ack!
Check out title links by going on site.

It didn’t take long for the Don Imus enablers to re-emerge. Just months after the racist, sexist and homophobic shock jock was fired for his on-air characterization of the Rutgers University women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed ho’s” — and less than two weeks after Citadel Broadcasting announced his impending return to radio -– the Big Media and Big Politics elite are crawling out of the woodwork to embrace Imus all over again.

It’s no surprise that executives of major media corporations rushed to defend Imus by claiming, as did Citadel Broadcasting CEO Farid Suleman, “He’s more than paid the price for what he did.” After all, as recently noted in the New York Observer, “redemption and rehabilitation are secondary concerns” for Citadel. Phil Boyce, operations manager at the company’s flagship station WABC, spelled it out in stark terms, explaining, “Obviously, there are a couple of reasons to look at him, but the biggest reason is the revenue opportunity. There’s a lot of money to be made there. And we’re in the business of making money.”

But what excuses and explanations are being offered by the many leading journalists and politicians – some of whom distanced themselves from the self-styled “I-Man” in the wake of the Rutgers controversy – who now say they will once again appear on his program? No amount of high-toned talk about “guilt and redemption” and “second chances” can obscure the serial offenses of a man who made a career – and tens of millions of dollars – from repeatedly using hate speech against women, gays, minorities and foreigners in exchange for cheap laughs, hot controversy and higher ratings.

Consider, for example, the curious case of CNN political commentator James Carville, who had the temerity to compare the travails of Imus to those of his former boss Bill Clinton. “I think I’ve had some history of defending friends of mine that have been in uncomfortable circumstances,” Carville told the Observer. “I defend the speaker, not the speech. If there’s no redemption, what are we here for?” Dare I suggest that Carville – set to appear as a guest on Imus’ first day back, December 3 – is there for publicity, self-aggrandizement, access to the I-Man’s audience, and the benefit of the shock jock’s well-known ability to help sell books?

Sadly, Carville is not alone in his purportedly principled stance. In fact, many of Imus’ previous enablers from the corrupt nexus of politics and media are welcoming him back. Former Senator and presidential candidate Bob Kerrey, for example, recently gave Imus his own “Seal of approval” in an article in the New York Daily News.

Kerrey began by comparing Imus not to President Clinton but to “Freddie Krueger, the terrifying lead character in ‘Nightmare on Elm Street.’” To Kerrey, “as with Freddie, there is something about the I-Man that is scary but irresistible.” After urging fellow Democrats, particularly those running for president, to “sit down, chit chat and legitimize a man they once reviled as something close to a racist,” Kerrey went on to note, “I myself have appeared on Imus before and would welcome the chance to go on the show again.”

At least Kerrey was honest about his motivation for doing so: “As offensive as his remarks were about the Rutgers women’s basketball team… he will have a big and influential audience,” Kerrey said. Moreover, to Kerrey’s mind, “Imus adds a lot to the American political debate.” Apparently, epithets like “brillohead, dark meat, Mandingos, Uncle Ben, gooks, chinks, slanty-eyed bastards, queers, homos, ho’s, lesbos, gorillas, pimps, and knuckle-dragging” African-Americans are among these worthy contributions to our political discourse.

But Kerrey offered “another reason” he believes politicians shouldn’t boycott Imus. “If they keep away from the show all the way through next year, it could do real political damage, if not in votes lost, at least in courage points,” he says. “We can’t afford to start putting our interviewers through purity tests.” Instead, Democratic politicians should simply look the other way when confronted with the “impurity” of the I-Man’s transparent racism and trade their silent complicity for access to his audience of millions and their votes.

Kerrey’s exhortation aside, to date only one current Democratic presidential candidate has decided to return to the racist ranter’s airwaves. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson will ignore Imus’ history of on-air racial blunders, since, in the words of his press secretary, Tom Reynolds, he “strongly believes this is a society of forgiveness and second chances, and that the radio host has paid his debt for his mistake.” On the Republican side, Rudy Giuliani is already on record as saying he would not boycott the shock jock, and Arizona Senator John McCain says he will return to Imus’ show, since he thinks the talker deserves –- here we go again — a second chance. “I believe in redemption, and I’ve made so many mistakes in my life and I’ve asked people to give me another opportunity,” McCain said. “What he did was unacceptable, but all of us in life, I think, ought to be able to move forward.”

In addition to Big Politics figures such as Kerrey, Richardson, Giuliani, McCain and Carville, other leading Imus enablers include such media luminaries as David Gregory, Andrea Mitchell and Tim Russert of NBC News. Russert recently told Aaron Barnhart of The Kansas City Star that he would return to the show, if his bosses at General Electric gave their permission. “If he asked me to come back and talk about political developments, I would absolutely do that,” Russert said. “But I guess I’ll have to check with the folks at NBC.”

Perhaps Russert’s corporate overlords will conveniently refuse permission. Here’s hoping they follow the lead of Newsweek, whose managing editor Jon Meacham, editor-at-large Evan Thomas, and columnists Jonathan Alter and Anna Quindlen were once Imus regulars as well. They got off the hook last week when a Newsweek spokesperson announced, “We will not participate in the Imus program.”

New York Times columnists Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd, along withTimes Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus, also benefited in the past from their appearances with Imus. Given the tone of the apologia Rich penned for the Times last April in the wake of the ‘nappy headed ho’s’ affair, the odds seem good he will return to the program. In his column, Rich accurately included himself “Among the hypocrites surrounding Imus… I’ve been a guest on his show many times since he first invited me in the early 1990s, when I was a theater critic… As a book author, I could always use the publicity.” In exchange, Rich explained, he was willing to look the other way: “Of course I was aware of many of his obnoxious comments about minority groups, including my own, Jews.” Of course…

Times Book Review editor Tanenhaus — whose biography of Whittaker Chambers was praised by the I-Man — also wrote in The Times about his appearances on Imus in the Morning. In the article, entitled “Playing Along with Imus,” Tanenhaus mused about the “surprisingly muted signals from some of the most thoughtful people” - authors and journalists – “who have traveled in the curious orbit of the Imus in the Morning program.” In the wake of the Rutgers controversy, he wrote, “they are sifting through the complex issue of their own culpability and complicity.” Suddenly the Times man is having second thoughts. “The whole business felt a little heavy-handed to me.” Tanenhaus now says. “There was a lot of piling on. I was one of the piler-on-ers. I assume he’s a little chastened, a little chagrined. So let him start all over again. Why not? When I make my own inevitable disastrous screw-up, I hope someone gives me another chance.”

Other leading media figures set to return to the Imus airwaves include The New Yorker’s Ken Auletta, who really ought to know better, having written extensively about Imus and his transgressions in the past. “I said I wouldn’t go on at the time of the controversy,” Auletta now says. “But I wouldn’t make that same claim today. Because I think people deserve second chances. If you believe in rehabilitation, if you don’t believe in the death penalty, you believe that some people can be reformed and changed.”

Then there’s the curious case of leading media pundit Howard Kurtz of Washington Post and CNN ubiquity. Kurtz is on record as saying, “I don’t believe (as a regular listener and very occasional guest on the program) that Imus is in any way racist. He sometimes crosses the line, as he himself would admit, in trying to make people laugh, but it’s all shtick. He’s no bigot.” No bigot? Judge for yourself, from Imus’ own description of Kurtz as a “boner-nosed… beanie-wearing Jewboy.”

Why would Kurtz put up with such bile? Perhaps it’s because, as Auletta noted in his New Yorker article, (quoting a top Simon and Schuster executive,) Imus is “the second most powerful person in the country in terms of selling books.” The publisher specifically credited the shock jock with boosting his company’s print order for Kurtz’s book “Spin Cycle” from twenty-five thousand copies to two hundred thousand. The motivation for Kurtz’ acceptance was perhaps best explicated by the novelist, Newsweek and onetime New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen, who when speaking of the market power of Imus, told Auletta, “All you need do is hear him wax poetic about your book and you say, ‘Hell, I’d buy that book.’” As Auletta concluded, “Five mornings a week, from five-thirty to ten, Imus in the Morning takes care of his ‘guys’—promoting their books, their columns, and their lives to more than ten million listeners.” The payback? “The program generates nearly half of the fifty million dollars a year in revenue which WFAN contributes to its corporate parent, CBS Radio.”

Besides book sales, there are other reasons bigwigs continue to enable Imus. Another Imus regular, ex-CNN political analyst Jeff Greenfield (now of CBS News) told Auletta, “For a lot of people, going on Imus is a way for them to be a different person.” Greenfield told Auletta he often got more comments for his Imus appearances than for his own television work. “People who talk to Imus are selling themselves as personalities, far removed from, say, the confines of a scripted newscast,” Auletta explained. “The television anchors Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather are regulars; another is Mike Wallace, of 60 Minutes, who says, ‘You get to feel like you’re a member of his club.’” Wallace in particular should have known better than to join the club; he had exposed on 60 Minutes Imus’ use of the word “nigger” just a year before speaking with Auletta. (Wallace interviewed an ex-producer who quoted Imus as saying he had hired staff member Bernard McGuirk “to do nigger jokes.” Imus responded that the conversation with the producer had been “off-the-record.”)

Saddest of all, however, is hearing that the estimable Clarence Page has decided he too will return to the Imus airwaves. Page, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Chicago Tribune who happens to be African-American, once encouraged Imus to take an on-air pledge to stop his racist behavior and, among other things, “cease all simian references to black athletes.” Forswearing his minstrel show, Imus and Andy parodies, the I-Man promised Page, “I’ll do the best I can with your pledge and rein in these renegades, okay?” Now, despite the many transgressions of the 2001 on-air pledge, Page now says he too will let bygones be bygones. “You make a martyr out of him,” Page told the Observer. “It’s not worth it. He’s not worth it.” No word yet on whether Gwen Ifill, another African-American journalist whom Imus once referred to on air as a “cleaning lady,” will join Page on the program…

Why can’t we all just “lighten up” and “move on,” you may ask… Stop being so “politically correct” and “humorless,” you may complain. If you don’t like what you hear, just “change the station” and “stop listening,” you may advise. After all, everyone who’s anyone is happy the I-Man is back. Citadel Broadcasting stands to make lots of money. Publishers will still be able to move lots of books by using the Imus show to give a platform to authors. (“I don’t think he’ll miss a beat,” Seale Ballenger, a publicist at William Morrow, said. “I think his show will pick up right where he left off, and I think it’ll be just as important as it was in its previous incarnation.”) Sponsors will still be able to sell lots of products they advertise there. Impressive guests will return for expressive conversations, and listeners and our very democratic system will benefit greatly, no doubt…

One problem: it’s all wrapped around the most vile sort of dehumanizing hate speech, repeated ad nauseum over literally decades. As far back as the turn of the century, the TomPaine.com website chronicled “the sewage spewing from Imus’ microphone” in a series of articles by Philip Nobile and others that reached back into programs that aired years before. The website also purchased a prominent op-ed page advertisement in the New York Times and even bought time on Imus’ show to raise the issue. Nobile also laid it out in an article for the Columbia Journalism Review entitled, “In the Kingdom of Imus, the Courtiers Are Quiet.”

Now the courtiers have returned, and as TomPaine.com executive editor Isaiah J. Poole wrote in the wake of the “nappy-headed ho’s” affair, “A lot of people who consider themselves reputable—both Democratic and Republican politicians, political consultants, journalists and pundits—have shacked up in this seedy AM radio motel as if it were a five-star forum for serious political discourse. They knew better, as did the advertisers who bankrolled this enterprise and the networks that broadcast it. They have no one to blame but themselves for the soil on their own images as a result, and for whatever consequences they face if they go back in.”

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Saundra Hummer

November 19th, 2007, 01:47 PM

^^^^^^^Freedom's Watch Focus Groups War with Iran
WASHINGTON DISPATCH:The hawkish advocacy group recently rolled out a multi-million dollar ad blitz in support of the troop surge in Iraq. It's now test marketing language that could be used to sell a war with Iran.

Laura Rozen
November 19 , 2007
Laura Sonnenmark is a focus group regular."I've been asked to talk about orange juice, cell phone service, furniture," the Fairfax County, Virginia-based children's book author and Democratic Party volunteer says. But when she was called by a focus group organizer for a prospective assignment earlier this month, she was told the questions this time would be about something "political."

On the appointed day, she drove to the offices of Martin Focus Groups in Alexandria, Virginia, knowing she would be paid $150 for two hours of her time. After joining a half dozen other women in a conference room, she found, to her surprise, that she had been called in to help some of the country's most prominent hawks test-market language that could be used to sell a war against Iran to the American public. "The whole basis of the whole thing was, 'we're going to go into Iran and what do we have to do to get you guys to along with it,'" Sonnenmark, 49, tells Mother Jones.

The client paying for the focus group session, according to Sonnemark, was Freedom's Watch, a high-powered, well-connected advocacy group that launched a $15 million ad campaign this summer in support of the surge of American troops in Iraq. Among the group's leadership: former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer and Bradley A. Blakeman, a former deputy assistant to President Bush. The focus group session suggests that Freedom's Watch may be looking beyond Iraq and expanding its mission to building support for military action against Iran.

Sonnemark says she only learned of the organization's involvement after members of her politically mixed group were handed a flier bearing a bald headed eagle—its insignia. "I saw Freedom's Watch's logo on the bottom of the flier," Sonnenmark recalls. She says she vaguely knew Freedom's Watch was a pro-war organization at the time of the focus group and was aware of its recent pro-surge television ads. But as the leader of the group began the discussion, she found that his main focus was not Iraq. "He was asking questions about [Iranian president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad going to speak at Columbia University, how terrible it was that he was able to go to Columbia and was invited," Sonnemark says. "And he used lots of catch phrases, like 'victory' and 'failure is not an option.'"

"Of all the focus groups I've ever been to," Sonnenmark wrote in an email to a group of fellow volunteers for the 2006 Senate campaign of Jim Webb, "I've never seen a moderator who was so persistent in manipulating and leading the participants."(Webb, for his part, is lead author of a Senate letter warning President Bush not to attack Iran without direct congressional approval; see here and here.)

The upshot of the November focus group? "After two hours, [the leader] asked three final questions," Sonnemark recalls: "How would you feel if Hillary [Clinton] bombed Iran? How would you feel if George Bush bombed Iran? And how would you feel if Israel bombed Iran?" Sonnenmark says she responded, "It would depend on the circumstances.... What is the situation in Iraq? Do we have international support?"

When Mother Jones contacted Martin Focus Groups, an employee at its Alexandria offices who identified himself as Steve declined to comment on whether the organization had conducted a focus group for Freedom's Watch. (In 2003, Steve Weachter, the manager of the firm's Alexandria offices, told a local Virginia newspaper, "We help whoever calls. It could be about cigarette smoking, drinking, whatever. We could even have a group to evaluate Pepsi one day and Coke the next." In the same article Donna Carter, the assistant manager at Martin, recalled the time the outfit was conducting a Republican focus group in one room and a Democratic group in another.) Freedom's Watch spokesman Matt David declined to confirm the November focus group session, saying, "As a general policy we won't comment on our internal strategy."

Freedom's Watch can certainly afford to fund public opinion analysis about a potential war with Iran. Its top donors include Sheldon Adelson, the CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, a philanthropist for pro-Israel causes, and, according to Forbes, the third wealthiest man in the United States; John Templeton, a conservative philanthropist; Mel Sembler, a shopping mall developer from Florida, former U.S. ambassador to Italy, and a board member of the American Enterprise Institute; Matthew Brooks and Richard Fox, co-founders of the Republican Jewish Coalition; and Kevin Moley, a former advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney and past U.S. ambassador to international organizations. One of group's financial backers told the New York Times that Freedom's Watch easily expected to raise $200 million in donations by November 2008. Raising big money "will be easy," said the anonymous benefactor, who added "that several of the founders each wrote a check for $1 million."

Sonnenmark believes that the group's strategists were probably not encouraged by the results of the focus group she took part in. "I got the general feeling that George Bush didn't have a shot in hell" of winning public support for an Iran attack. Some members of her group suggested that should Hillary Clinton be elected president she might have more domestic credibility to make such a controversial decision. As for the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran, Sonnenmark's fellow focusees seemed to indicate that they did not believe the legitimacy of such an action was necessarily up to them to decide.

Sonnemark only took part in one test marketing session. Another, comprised only of men, entered the room after her group left. But one purpose of focus groups is to provide advocates with information they can use to best craft a pitch or an argument. And even if Sonnenmark and the other members of her group were not persuaded by the language used during their focus group session, their responses could help Freedom's Watch to hone its message. Still, Sonnenmark was not overly worried she had assisted Freedom's Watch to devise rhetoric for a new military campaign. "It is not going to be so easy this time around," she says.

Laura Rozen is the National Security Correspondent for Mother Jones.

This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and . . . .

© 2007 The Foundation for National Progress
http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2007/11/freedoms-watch-iran.html?src=email&link=hed_20071119_ts1_Wanna%20Buy%20a%20War%3F
^^^^^^^

Saundra Hummer

November 19th, 2007, 03:57 PM

.
~~~~~~~
".. the 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy"

Alex Carey
Australian social scientist
Quoted
By
Noam Chomsky
In
World Orders Old and New
~~~
"The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it."

[1941]
Edward Dowling
~~~
"If you go to one demonstration and then go home, that's something, but the people in power can live with that. What they can't live with is sustained pressure that keeps building, organisations that keep doing things, people that keep learning lessons from the last time and doing it better the next time."

Noam Chomsky
~~~
"The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."

Plato
~~~
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."

Sinclair Lewis

~~~~~
.

Saundra Hummer

November 20th, 2007, 10:07 PM

.
^ ^^ ^ ^^ ^ Michael Winship:

A Plank in Reason, Broke
Created 11/20/2007 - 10:32am
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
By
Michael Winship

Years ago, during the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-81, a colleague of mine and I took the train from Manhattan down to Princeton, New Jersey's Institute for Advanced Study, where we had an appointment with Bernard Lewis, the renowned, conservative Middle East scholar.

I don't recall much about the meeting but I do remember that at one point, we broached the much-discussed theory that part of the reason Iranian students had taken over our embassy might have been allegations that the United States had helped train the deposed Shah's secret police, the Savak, in methods of torture.

Lewis snorted disdainfully and remarked, "Saying we taught them torture is like saying we taught them how to weave rugs!"

Today, Bernard Lewis remains an intellectual fave of the neo-con crowd, a pal of Dick Cheney and Richard Perle, among others, who warns of Islam's "cosmic struggle for world domination" and urged this administration on as it planned the march to Baghdad.

Now, as the White House, with Cheney leading the charge, redirects its aggressive sword-rattling in the general direction of Iran, I often think of Lewis' words back at Princeton. It's that same combination of condescension and stagnant thinking, currently cross-pollinated by willful ignorance, that so dictates our disastrous policy in the Middle East. Just thinking about it makes me want to go screaming into the twilight of American exceptionalism.

As Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria wrote a few weeks ago, "The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality." He's worth quoting at length:
"Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?...

"We're on a path to irreversible confrontation with a country we know almost nothing about. The United States government has had no diplomats in Iran for almost 30 years. American officials have barely met with any senior Iranian politicians or officials. We have no contact with the country's vibrant civil society. Iran is a black hole to us --- just as Iraq had become in 2003."

And yet we seem to have no compunction about glibly comparing Iran to Nazi Germany, just as, such a short time ago, President Bush and Vice President Cheney compared Saddam to Hitler. "There is a desperate effort by Cheney et al. to bring military action to Iran as soon as possible," a former intelligence official told The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh last month. "Meanwhile, the politicians are saying, You can't do it, because every Republican is going to be defeated, and we're only one fact from going over the cliff in Iraq.' But Cheney doesn't give a rat's ass about the Republican worries, and neither does the President."

What may in the end save us -- even the Republicans -- from yet another Mideast quagmire is the sheer logistics of taking action against Iran in the midst of all our other troubles over there. In this instance, at least, the military is the voice of reason, realizing far better than anyone else just how thinly stretched our armed resources really are.

"We're in a conflict in two countries out there right now," Admiral Mike Mullen, the new chairman of the joint chiefs, told The New York Times. "We have to be incredibly thoughtful about the potential of in fact getting into a conflict with a third country in that part of the world." The military option is a last resort, he said, not the first.

His words were echoed last week by Admiral William Fallon, head of Central Command. In an interview with the Financial Times, he referred to "continuing stories that just keep going around and around and around that any day now there will be another war, which is just not where we want to go.

"Getting Iranian behavior to change and finding ways to get them to come to their senses and do that is the real objective. Attacking them as a means to get to that spot strikes me as being not the first choice in my book."

Elsewise, we are headed into madness, like the nightmare experienced by the heroine of an Emily Dickinson poem I read the other evening, caught in a delirious funeral: "And then a plank in reason, broke, /And I dropped down and down/And hit a world at every plunge/And finished knowing - then --"

Then -- the precipitous fall, deeper and deeper into insanity.

copyright 2007 Michael Winship

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
Michael Winship, Writers Guild of America Award winner and former writer with Bill Moyers, writes this weekly column for the Messenger Post Newspapers in upstate New York.
Published on BuzzFlash.org

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles

Source URL:
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/articles/contributors/1445
Links: Go on-site to view. There are 13.
v vv v .

Saundra Hummer

November 21st, 2007, 10:02 PM

.~~~~~~~
"To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men."

- Abraham Lincoln -
1809-1865
16th US President
~~~
"The objector and the rebel who raises his voice against what he believes to be the injustice of the present and the wrongs of the past is the one who hunches the world along."

Clarence S. Darrow
1857-1938
Source: Address to the Court,
The Communist Trial,
People v. Lloyd, 1920
~~~
"The right to defy an unconstitutional statute is basic in our scheme. Even when an ordinance requires a permit to make a speech, to deliver a sermon, to picket, to parade, or to assemble, it need not be honored when it's invalid on its face."

Justice Potter Stewart
1915-1985
U. S. Supreme Court Justice
Source: Walker v. Birmingham, 1967
~~~
"We are reluctant to admit that we owe our liberties to men of a type that today we hate and fear -- unruly men, disturbers of the peace, men who resent and denounce what Whitman called 'the insolence of elected persons' -- in a word, free men."

Gerald W. Johnson
1890-1980
Source:
American Freedom and the Press
1958

~~~~~
.

Saundra Hummer

November 21st, 2007, 10:18 PM

.
.x.x.x.x.x.x.
GOP Jewish group polls on Iran strike
Published: 11/20/2007

A U.S. conservative group led by major Republican Jews is testing for reactions to a potential Israeli strike on Iran.

FreedomsWatch recently tested three questions with a focus group of Americans, the liberal investigative journal Mother Jones reported Monday.

The questions, recalled by a focus group participant, were: "How would you feel if Hillary [Clinton] bombed Iran? How would you feel if George Bush bombed Iran? And how would you feel if Israel bombed Iran?"

Martin Focus Groups in Alexandria, Va., polled at least two such groups, the magazine reported.

FreedomsWatch was established over the summer to promote support for President Bush's Iraq war policy. It is led by, among others, Bradley Blakeman, a former senior White House official; Ari Fleischer, the former White House spokesman; and Matt Brooks, the Republican Jewish Coalition's executive director. Lead funders include Sheldon Adelson and Mel Sembler, two top Republican Party donors.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info
.x.x.x. .

LAL

November 22nd, 2007, 09:16 PM

More heavy losses by investors globally will be revealed in the months to come...beats me why no one has called for greater constraints on Central Banks abetting the financial institutions in the latter's perennial search for ever increasing humongous profits at the expense of the masses
... yas folks, artificially surpressed/low interest rates leads to people taking on greater risk in search of 2-3% extra returns just to cover inflation, which really should be known as Government money printing, leaving your average investor easy prey for the vultures, or rather, the predators.

November 21, 2007

Citibank SIVs Hit Norway Townships
by Mike Shedlock

Several Norway townships are caught up in the international credit crisis.

Several small townships in northern Norway went along with a securities firm's advice and invested as much as NOK 4 billion in complicated American commercial paper sold by Citibank. They now risk losing it all.

The township politicians are both embarrassed and angry at the financial advisers who they now claim led them astray. "They think we're a bunch of small-town fools," one local mayor told newspaper Dagens Næringsliv.

Officials in four northern Norwegian townships (Narvik, Rana, Hemnes and Hattfjelldal) went along with an alleged recommendation by Terra Securities to invest a total of NOK 451 million in what they're now calling "high-risk structured products" offered by Citibank and sold for Citibank by Terra.

To boost returns, the Norwegian townships also borrowed NOK 3.5 billion to invest in Citibank's products, which later lost as much as 50 percent of their value because of the US credit crunch.

By now it should be clear that Asset Backed Commercial Paper ABCP problems are likely to turn up anywhere and everywhere.

Here is a small sampling:

Two Bear Stearns (BSC) Hedge Funds went to Zero
Two Hedge Funds in Australia liquidated
Money has been frozen in Canada including the Yukon
US and Canadian pension plans are affected
Two banks in Germany were bailed out by the ECB
Norway Townships borrowed money to invest in this mess
Citigroup (C) and Merrill Lynch (MER) both lost their CEOs over this mess
Hundreds of $billions in potential losses are still circulating
The latest news in the US is that SIV debts are hiding in scores of public school funds and close to a $billion in defaults losses had not even been disclosed as late as a week ago even though this mess has been brewing for six months. See SIV Debts A Disaster For Public School Funds for more on this story.

Very Expensive Lessons

Don't chase yield
Don't buy something you do not understand
There is no free lunch
Rating agencies opinions are essentially worthless because they are never timely enough and because their business model creates enormous credibility as well as conflict of interest issues
Don't trust Citigroup, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch or anyone else hawking debt
That last point is critical. Lack of trust will impact Citigroup, Bear Stearns, and Merrill Lynch's credibility, as well as their ability to raise capital for years to come. Trust once lost, is not easily restored.

http://www.safehaven.com/article-8869.htm

Saundra Hummer

November 23rd, 2007, 11:30 AM

Saundra Hummer

November 23rd, 2007, 12:02 PM

.
.*.*.*.*.*.
POLAR BEARS FOR THE SOUTH POLE?
Biologists Debate Relocating Imperiled Species
By
Philip Bethge
SPIEGEL ONLINE
-
November 23, 2007, 04:05 PM
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,519271,00.html As global warming changes the face of habitats around the world, scientists are asking if humans can help save species from extinction by moving them to cooler climes. But before polar bear resettlement and tiger transports begin, is it time to take a look at easier alternatives?
DPA
Go on-site to view Tiger photo.
Bengal tigers are dangerous neighbors for people living in the Sundarbans, a lush wetland area of Bangladesh. As the wetland mangrove forests are reduced -- due to both man and rising sea levels -- the tigers' habitat shrinks, pushing them closer to people.
Climate change is driving thousands of animal and plant species into new environments. Now biologists are debating whether it makes sense to help them make the move.
Indian and Bangladeshi fishermen appeal to Bonobibi, the goddess of the forest, before they set out into the swamps. They also send their prayers to heaven to placate Daksin Ray, the tiger god.

But no amount of prayer can deter the Bengal tiger. People are killed by tigers almost weekly in the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, located in the delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers. The region is one of the last refuges for Bengal tigers. Though still the masters of the forest, a gas could prove to be the tigers' undoing. The gas is called carbon dioxide, and it's warming the earth.

The Sundarbans are one of the first ecosystems on earth that could be destroyed by the effects of climate change. According a report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), three-quarters of the region, a World Heritage site, could be underwater by the end of the century. All it takes is a 45-centimeter (1.5-foot) rise in sea levels for the Bengal tiger, also referred to locally as the "man-eater," to become one of the first victims of climate change. And if scientists' predictions are right, it will not be the last.

According to a report issued in April by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 20 to 30 percent of all species would face an "elevated" risk of extinction if the average global temperature rises by more than 1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 to 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit). And a study published in the journal Nature, concluded that by 2050 up to two-thirds of all animals and plants could be forced to move to new habitats in order to survive.

Given these dire predictions, a hotly debated issue among biologists is whether man should lend a hand, moving species when their habitats become too hot. Or will animals and plants manage to save themselves after all?

"Changes in the climate are normal for animals and plants, and they have always had to adjust to them," argues Munich State Zoo biologist Josef Reichholf.

But others disagree. "Climate change is one of the greatest threats to the diversity of species on Earth," says University of Toronto forestry professor Jay Malcolm. Mark Schwartz of the University of California at Davis agrees: "The magnitude of impending climate-driven extinctions requires immediate action."

Schwartz and a number of his colleagues have published a study that asks a radical question: If certain animals and plants are unable to flee rising temperatures, should we help them? "One obvious solution," Schwartz says, "is to help species at risk move to new environments where they may thrive." The truth is that animals and plants are already reacting to global warming, most of them migrating northward. Butterflies and bats are moving toward the poles. Scarlet dragonflies and praying mantises are becoming prevalent in southern Germany. Ospreys and house martins have begun wintering in the Mediterranean instead of Africa.

These changes are not necessarily a bad thing. "Many species benefit from climate change," says Reichholf. For instance, cranes and bald eagles, both considered endangered or threatened species until now, would encounter better living conditions in a warmer Europe. Pests like the bark beetle are feeling increasingly comfortable in northern latitudes. Elk and wild boar are expanding their range as favorite foods become more abundant.

But biologists calling for quick and decisive action are worried about species physically prevented from moving to new habitats.

If the climate changes as quickly as many scientists are predicting, these species will hardly have enough time to make their way to more favorable climes. In some cases, they will be forced to negotiate rocky and difficult paths. The earth no longer looks the way it did at the end of the last ice age. Cities, agricultural fields and roads dominate the landscape today.

Getting past these hurdles is impossible for many species. "The fragmentation of our landscapes prevents many animals and plants from moving about freely," says Volker Hammen of the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research in the eastern German city of Halle. "A single major highway is enough to deter some butterflies."

DPA
Go on-site to view photo.
Alpine snowbells thrive at high altitudes and low temperatures. Global warming may leave them with nowhere to go.
Hammen is part of an international project titled "Assessing Large Scale Risks for Biodiversity with Tested Methods." He and other researchers involved in the project warn that climate change could threaten more than half of all European plant species. For instance, they predict a drastic disappearance of species native to the Alps and the Pyrenees. As they flee rising temperatures, plants like red saxifrage are already fighting their way to higher altitudes. But at some point they reach the summit and cannot migrate any further. Glacier buttercup and Alpine snowbell are among the potential victims.

Latin America's golden frogs are another example. Two-thirds of the brightly-colored amphibians have already gone extinct in the last 20 to 30 years, falling victim to a fungus. Climate change escalates the process by providing better living conditions for the deadly fungus in the mountainous cloud forests of Costa Rica and Panama, where average nighttime temperatures are rising.

"Rare species that live in fragile or extreme habitats are already being affected," says Camille Parmesan, an ecologist at the University of Texas in Austin. Parmesan, who has evaluated hundreds of studies, does not believe that species can escape heat-trap habitats simply by adaptation. "To really come up with something new that's going to allow a species to live in a completely new environment takes a million years," says Parmesan. But the problem is that they have only a "few hundred years" to complete the process.

What can be done? Biologists' recommendations range from doing nothing to taking decisive action. The example of polar bears illustrates the dilemma. The shaggy denizens of the Arctic have become icons of climate change. The images, widely publicized in the media, of the giant creatures perched on tiny ice floes suggest that the situation is urgent. But the reality is a different story altogether. Seven of the 12 polar bear populations studied to date are stable or even growing.

This has biologists puzzled. Do polar bears really need ice to survive? Or can they emulate brown bears and hunt on land?

AFP
Two tranquilized polar bears are airlifted out of Churchill, Manitoba in Canada. Polar bears head to the icepack near Churchill to hunt for seals every winter. The fate of polar bears in a warmer world is unclear.
Fortunately, no one so far has suggested a massive airlift of the Arctic's polar bears to the Antarctic, where there is still ice in abundance. The predators would presumably commit a bloodbath among the southern continent's nesting penguin populations.

But resettlement is being discussed as a viable option for other species. The endangered Florida torreya tree, for example, leads a sorry existence along the banks of Florida's Apalachicola River. Although there are still about 1,000 torreyas left, the ailing trees are no longer producing seeds. "The torreya is trapped in the river valley," says Mark Schwartz.

But the tree has its supporters. A group called Torreya Guardians wants to see seeds from botanical gardens planted in areas where the species is currently nonexistent. "Why wait?" asks Paul Martin, a professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona.

In the end, resettlement could be the only option to protect the species from extinction in the wild. Besides, a torreya resettlement program could serve as a test case for studying the advantages and drawbacks of a method that could ring in what Martin calls "a radically new era of conservation."

The idea of deliberately resettling animals and plants in new habitats goes against the rules of species protection. Biologists normally shudder at the thought of species being accidentally or irresponsibly introduced into foreign habitats. Cane toads, for example, were originally imported from Hawaii to Australian sugar cane plantations, where it was hoped that they would decimate pests. Instead, the voracious toads embarked on a destructive march through Australian wildlife.

It is examples like that of the cane toad that prompt many scientists to recommend that instead of resettling climate change refugees, we should clear the way so that they can migrate on their own. Agronomist Hammen suggest developing wild animal corridors. The Nature Conservancy, a US-based conservation group, is trying to establish a protected area of grasslands in China's highland Yunnan Province. Alpine forests rarely grow at lower altitudes, and if warmer temperatures drive them up to higher elevations, the protected grasslands could serve as areas where they could reestablish themselves.

Even Schwartz admits: "assisted migration is only a last resort." He also warns against "cowboy environmentalists," who are already "moving around species simply because they think it's a good idea."

"Its going to be a train wreck if we wait for species to start going extinct, then panic and start moving them," says Jason McLachlan of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. "We need to have the conversation now, because it will probably take a decade to reach some consensus."

Indeed, scientists cannot even agree on the fundamental issues yet. "The debate over climate change completely distorts our perspective," says Josef Reichholf. According to Reichholf, global warming is not a key factor for the extinction of species. "Industrial-scale farming," says Reichholf, "is the No. 1 killer of species." For this reason, he argues, it is questionable "whether climate change can even cause anything to become extinct." Reichholf could be right, at least in the case of the Bengal tiger in the Sundarbans. About half of the forest cover in the region, home to more than 4 million people today, has been eliminated within the last 200 years.

Even without global warming, the tiger is losing his cover.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan.
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2007
All Rights Reserved
Related SPIEGEL ONLINE links:
Creating Wildlife Corridors: Conservationists Blaze Trails For Wildcats (09/20/2007)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,506962,00.html

Natural Historians: Preserving Polar Bears for Posterity (10/29/2007)http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,513825,00.html

Climate Change: The Polar Bears' Last Stand (12/23/2005)http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,395014,00.html .*.*.*.
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Saundra Hummer

November 23rd, 2007, 12:23 PM

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Puerto Rico Governor Sees Persecution; Critics See A Man Trying To Avoid Prosecution
Conspiracy Theorist
By
EDMUND H. MAHONY
Courant.com
Courant Staff Writer

November 23, 2007

As a U.S. territory with no votes in Congress, Puerto Rico pays a platoon of lobbyists millions of dollars to press a Congressional agenda that often consists of such gripping issues as offshore tax credits and federal shipping policy.

But the agenda has turned anything but boring.

This fall, two top Washington lobbyists — both of whom collect hundreds of thousands of dollars annually from Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila's administration — quietly tried to kill the confirmation of a federal prosecutor whose office is investigating whether the governor is involved in a wide-ranging campaign finance conspiracy.

Acevedo's lobbying effort, based on his contention that he is the unjust victim of a political prosecution, eventually found an ostensibly sympathetic senator. The senator exercised a procedural hold to block career prosecutor Rosa Emilia Rodriguez's appointment as the island's U.S. attorney.

Using government lobbyists to sidetrack the investigation of a personal legal problem was a brash tactic by Acevedo, if one that achieved only mixed results. With Rodriguez's confirmation indefinitely stalled in Congress, Puerto Rico's federal judges used their authority last month to make the appointment themselves. The investigation didn't miss a beat.

But political analysts in San Juan and Washington say the anti-Rodriguez lobby should be judged less for its effectiveness than for what they say it really was: An opening salvo in an extraordinary public relations campaign by the governor against what looks like his likely indictment.

The analysts say Acevedo is trying to save his personal and political life by appealing — before he is even charged — to public opinion and, by extension, to potential jurors.

He has begun to portray himself as yet another Democrat persecuted by Republican meddlers at the U.S. Department of Justice.

The strategy, his detractors say, conveniently deflects attention from his oversight of Puerto Rico's anemic economy as he begins what promises to be a combative campaign for re-election.

Lawyers and political analysts in San Juan aren't writing off the strategy.

The notion of politician-as-victim could get traction on an island where distrust of the federal government — and the Justice Department in particular — often underlies political debate.

The question is how much traction it will get.

"I think they have been working very hard and working strategically in order to have a hung jury if there is a trial," said Victor Garcia San Inocencio, an attorney, member of the island House of Representatives and member of the independence party, said of the governor's strategy. "I think they have played the strategy beautifully."

Brioni Suits
For more than two years, federal agents have been looking at allegations of stolen campaign funds, sham donors and links between the award of Puerto Rico government contracts and Acevedo's record-setting ability to raise money, first as Puerto Rico's nonvoting member of Congress and later as governor.

Federal authorities, as Acevedo now complains relentlessly, have turned his life inside out.

Prosecutors grilled more than 100 political associates in front of a San Juan grand jury. FBI agents questioned his friends in the Puerto Rico media in an effort to learn whether secret payments for TV ads skirted campaign rules. They looked into whether he had hair plugs and cosmetic eye surgery.

And they want to know who supplied the cash that was used to buy the governor's closetful of $3,000 Brioni suits.

The governor's response in recent weeks has been ferocious. At an unusual San Juan press conference last week, he broke major news by acknowledging that his team of Washington lawyers has learned from the Justice Department that the investigation could conclude as early as next week, presumably with his indictment. Then, for almost two hours, he attacked the investigation and the prosecutors behind it.

At the press conference, the nominal Democrat and leader of Puerto Rico's pro-commonwealth Popular Democratic Party essentially underscored what he and his surrogates have been saying for weeks: that he is the victim of two entities, the Republicans in Washington who control the Justice Department and his local political rivals in the pro-statehood New Progressive Party.

He has called the Justice Department "cocky" and "arrogant." He accused prosecutors of intimidating witnesses, manipulating evidence and leaking distortions to the press. He said he is being unfairly targeted, and offered up a list of political and business figures in Puerto Rico who he said employed — with impunity — the same sort of fundraising tactics that FBI agents are now accusing him of in order to destroy him.

"It's been a long time since this investigation stopped being a search for the truth or for investigating particular facts," Acevedo said. "It has been turned into an obstinate desire to find something that they can attribute to the governor, something to destroy the governor and the Popular Democratic Party. I have no doubt that this is the reason for the existence of this investigation."

Two days later his wife, Luisa Gandara, was complaining to a San Juan reporter that "what they are doing to us is extremely unfair, not just for him, but for all the people who have been by his side and are good people. What sustains us is faith. This family has been persecuted."

Distrust
Perhaps not coincidentally, the particulars of Acevedo's self-portrait as prosecutorial victim could have been lifted from the Washington scandal that erupted earlier this year over claims that the Bush administration's Justice Department has condoned Republican meddling.

Initially, seven U.S. attorneys complained to Congress that political appointees at Justice forced them from office because they were not shaping their prosecutions to conform with the administration's political agenda. Those complaints contributed to the resignation of Alberto Gonzales as U.S. attorney general.

As they worked to stall Rodriguez's confirmation as U.S. attorney for Puerto Rico, Acevedo's lobbyists essentially argued that the investigation of the governor is another example of political meddling. Congressional sources said Charles R. Black Jr. of BKSH & Associates and former Sen. John C. Culver, D-Iowa, contacted at least three Senate offices.

The senators initially agreed to use an anonymous procedural maneuver to hold or kill the appointment, but withdrew the offers after being persuaded that the Acevedo investigation had merit.

Eventually, the governor's camp found a willing senator. The congressional sources said it was Robert Menendez, D-N.J. — an Acevedo friend whom the governor has helped to raise campaign money on the island. The hold took effect just days before the maneuver was prohibited by a new ethics law.

Menendez will not confirm or deny being behind the hold, a spokesman said. Black and Culver could not be reached, but told the Washington Post they did not bill the Acevedo administration for their work on the Rodriguez confirmation.

A senior Justice Department official, speaking on condition that he not be identified, called the Acevedo accusations of politically motivated prosecutions "spurious" and said Acevedo's attempt to link his predicament to the issue is "political opportunism."

"The problem with the U.S. attorney scandal is that it has made people more receptive to what were formerly considered outrageous allegations, like the one the governor is making," the official said.

A Justice Department spokesman would not discuss the specifics of the Acevedo investigation, but said the department's prosecutorial record against political figures — among them Connecticut's former Republican Gov. John G. Rowland — proves that investigators follow evidence without regard to political affiliation.

The spokesman denied that federal prosecutor Rodriguez cooked up the Acevedo case with Washington Republicans for political advantage, as Acevedo supporters have claimed.

The spokesman said Rodriguez, a career prosecutor for 19 years before being named U.S. attorney, inherited the investigation from her immediate predecessor, former Puerto Rico U.S. Attorney Humberto Garcia. Garcia made his name building a string of political corruption cases against Acevedo rivals in the New Progressive Party.

Conspiracy
Acevedo's camp seems to be counting on the fact that a substantial portion of the local electorate doesn't necessarily believe whatever Washington says, and that the federal government often operates with a heavy hand in Puerto Rico and can be counted on to put the national agenda ahead of the island's.

Hundreds of thousand of people had to march in the streets of San Juan before Washington even considered closing its naval bombing range on the tiny, idyllic and populated island of Vieques. And Puerto Ricans have long criticized what they believe has been decades of harassment by the Justice Department of the small, but intellectually influential Puerto Rico independence movement.

Skepticism of the federal government is most commonly expressed by voters who oppose statehood or support independence, a group that makes up roughly half the jury pool.

Eduardo Bhatia, the Acevedo loyalist who runs the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration in Washington and who gives island lobbyists their marching orders, contends Acevedo is a victim of the mainland Republican Party's 2008 presidential election strategy.

And, he says, the man behind the strategy is recently retired White House political adviser Karl Rove — often portrayed as a master political manipulator on the opinion pages of San Juan newspapers.

If Bhatia's analysis reads like conspiracy theory, he says that's because it is.

The White House, Bhatia says, wants to replace Acevedo in the San Juan governor's mansion with Luis Fortuno.

Opinion polls show Fortuno to be Acevedo's most credible opponent in what already has become a knock-down, drag-out campaign for the November 2008 election.

Fortuno, a Republican and member of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party, replaced Acevedo as Puerto Rico's nonvoting member of Congress when Acevedo became governor in 2004.

Bhatia says that if Republicans can substitute Fortuno, a Republican, for Democrat Acevedo, they have a better chance of winning over the hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans who have settled over the past decade or so in the central part of Florida, a presidential swing state.

"Now, we can go into conspiracy theory, and I am not a conspiracy theorist," Bhatia said. "But the fact is there are about 600,000 Puerto Ricans who have moved to Florida over the last fifteen years. But they are not yet participants in the political process in Florida. Now, you realize that the last two elections were decided in Florida."

"So, am I connecting a lot of dots?" Bhatia asked. "Maybe I am. But Alberto Gonzales has resigned. Seven prosecutors have been fired for not conducting political investigations. There is a cancer eating at the Justice Department of the United States."

Deflection
Cooler heads suggest that, in Puerto Rico's perpetually white-hot political climate, conspiracy theory can be a good thing — particularly for a politician who wants to deflect the attention of voters from other issues. In Acevedo's case, it is the moribund Puerto Rico economy.

"A lot is being made of this investigation and with good reason," said Fernando Martin, executive president of the Puerto Rico Independence Party. "But it is also a fact that, whether this investigation existed or not, the smart money would tell you that he is on his way to losing the election. To cite one of your former leaders, 'It's the economy stupid.'"

Puerto Rico, Martin said, is stuck with the hemisphere's lowest growth rate. Exacerbating the situation are successive budget deficits in the hundreds of millions of dollars produced by the Acevedo administration.

A year and a half ago, Acevedo temporarily shut down the island government when it ran out of money. Despite painful tax and utility rate increases following the shutdown, Martin and others say the administration in on track for another deficit in June.

"We have been going through 18 or 20 months of continuous recession," Martin said. "There is no light at the end of the tunnel."

If deflection of the budget issue is one of Acevedo's goals, it may be working. The politics of the federal investigation has become such a big story that it is taking news space away from the economy. Acevedo is running for re-election with his party's nomination and says he will not be stopped. Fellow Popular Democratic Party members have closed ranks around him, at least publicly.

"I will continue to do what I have to do for Puerto Rico," he said recently. "Injustices like this give one greater motivation to do what needs to be done."

Given the skepticism with which many Puerto Rico voters view the federal government, some observers are not writing off his chances.

"Before this, he was doomed. Hopeless," Victor Garcia San Inocencio said. "Now, I don't know."
* * *
Contact Edmund H. Mahony at emahony@courant.com.

Copyright © 2007, The Hartford Courant
Go on-Site to gain access to this article and others. Just click on the following URL:http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-acevedo1123.artnov23,0,2260814,print.story?coll=hc-utility-business
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Saundra Hummer

November 23rd, 2007, 03:12 PM

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'What would Jesus buy?'
film asksStory Highlights

Anti-consumerism activists hold Buy Nothing Day events on Black Friday
Performance artist called Rev. Billy leads Church of Stop Shopping
Director Morgan Spurlock made documentary about activists
LOS ANGELES, California

(AP)
--
Buy Nothing Day is getting a Jesus jolt.

New York-based performance artist Bill Talen assumes the persona of Reverend Billy, often accompanied by a gospel choir, to use the histrionics and cadences of a televangelist (think Jimmy Swaggart) in an anti-consumerism effort to convert people to his "Church of Stop Shopping."

And for this year's Black Friday shopping frenzy, Talen is upping his profile with a colorful campaign promoting a new documentary film about his efforts, "What Would Jesus Buy?"

It will feature "Four Horsemen of the Shopocalypse" riding down Madison Avenue in New York and "elves on strike" at the Grove outdoor mall in Los Angeles, said Morgan Spurlock, who produced the film.

Spurlock, known for placing himself in uncomfortable situations in 2004's "Super Size Me" and his "30 Days" TV series, isn't going with the immersion technique for this project.

"I've unplugged, man," Spurlock said this week. "I've started to walk away from this idea of getting credit card after credit card to get people more gifts."

Spurlock says the campaign and film should appeal to conservative Christians as well as to those on the political left.

"People on both sides of the fence can agree on one thing, and that's that the holiday's gotten out of control," he said.

"We've been convinced that the way to show your love for someone is by what you buy them, by what the price tag is, by what is represented on the receipt. And that's the wrong message to send out," he added.

A review of "What Would Jesus Buy?" in "Christianity Today" questioned whether Talen's act, poking fun at both religion and consumerism, went too far.

"Yes, it's condescending. Yes, it cheapens Christianity," the magazine said, before concluding: "But the whole argument of the film is that our commodity culture has already cheapened Christianity."

Buy Nothing Day was conceived by artist Ted Dave of Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1992, and since then has been championed by Adbusters magazine, said Adbusters campaign manager Paul Cooper.

"It started off as a bit of a joke," said Adbusters editor-in-chief Kalle Lasn. "Environmentalists are really the core base of this movement. But after that there were religious people that came on board."

Cooper calls the day an "open source" event for all types of performance artists and activists. Any effort that generates thought about shopping and consumption is encouraged. Last year, one group wandered into stores wearing shirts that advertised 50 percent off everything in the store.

"There are a lot of people who don't like this weird tradition of hectic shopping and frenzied and angry crowds the day after Thanksgiving," Cooper said.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Music/11/23/buynothing.day.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest

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Saundra Hummer

November 23rd, 2007, 07:31 PM

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NEWS DISSECTOR
A NEWSLETTER
November 23, 2007
"BLACK FRIDAY:"As We Shop Until We Drop….

Greetings from Beantown where the big news is in the malls not in the town, I coudn't resist writing about it…

Only big news I saw today was that Pakistan's Presidennt Musharraf now reveals to the Wall Street Journal that his givernment told the US about their plans for martial law BEFORE they proclained it. Washington's reaction-tepid. They took that as a green light just as Saddam did years ago when he advised the US Ambassador in Iraq of his plans to invade Kuwait. She was non-plussed….
What a web we weave when first we practice to deceive.

Now on the big story:
MEDIA COMPLICIT IN
"SHOPAPOCALYSE"
AS CONSUMERS GO WILD
The Holiday Shopping Season Will Not Deter A "Severe Recession" To Come
By
Danny Schechter

BOSTON, MA November 24 2007:You could almost run that old Lone Ranger theme - the famous William Tell Overture - as the soundtrack to the local news stories I watched here in Boston on Thanksgiving day featuring perky local news "correspondents" stirring a buying frenzy with upbeat reports on manic consumers racing into malls for "midnight madness" sales.

It was, in the words of Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping, a "shopopocalyse." His crusade against out of control consumption is pictured in the new film "What Would Jesus Buy?," opening at some theaters in LA and San Francisco.

This highly relevant film was not on TV, of course, because our media is deeply complicit in promoting/encouraging mindless consumerism through newspapers, commercials and on newscasts. This is a well-practiced formula mirroring TV's promotion of the war in Iraq, as the line between selling and telling disappears. Media outlets are amply rewarded with endless ad revenues hyping all the discounted goodies you can get with the Boston Globe packing no less than 43 advertising/sales supplements (down from 47 a year ago) into a paper that had wall to wall Macy ads, including some offering $10 coupons to bribe you into the stores. Marketing is what the media does best.

The only negative note was the fear among some that toys might be unsafe because of lead or other dangers. Some 26 million toys have been recalled this year, a sign that the regulators were asleep on this front in the economic wars as they were on Wall Street. The real danger may not be lead in the toys but another type of lead in our heads that leads to denial on the part of millions that we can go on with addictive well-cultivated crazed consumption habits.
Bill Bowles writes about this on his CNI Blog:
"The problem is that many of us have been force-fed with a diet of nothing but passive, uncritical consumptionism, indeed, we are addicted to the stuff; breaking such powerful habits is what this is all about; it's about getting people to think critically again about what's going on and why and what, if anything, we can do about it."

Bowles also ties this cultural affliction, sometimes known as affluenza, back to our dependence on a media system that won't really allow other voices to be heard.

"It would be an understatement to say that the world has changed almost beyond recognition in the past two decades, we appear to have re-entered the age of the dinosaur, gigantic creatures stomping across the planet, 'guided' by pea-sized brains. So … we have increasing concentrations of powerful media—media that is actually an entire raft of processes critical to the survival of capitalism—either in the hands of vast corporations or the state (which in any case is now openly in bed with the big corporations)…"

Were most media outlets connecting any dots between the annual shopathon and the "severe recession" that many economists are forecasting? Were there any warnings to the public to save their rapidly inflating money for the expected hard times? Was there any explanation of how prices have sharply risen and, thus, the discounts—often "teaser" rates just like the ones offered sub-prime loan victims—are really not all they are cracked up to be?

No way.

What about the larger trends? Yes there has been reporting on how bad things are—but this reality was largely NOT depicted in the 'shop now, be happy' coverage. The Globe did run a story in the B Section where the business news is buried. At the very end of the AP report (not theirs) you read this:

"Last year, retailers had a good start during the Thanksgiving weekend, but many stores struggled in December and a shopping surge just before and after Christmas wasn't enough to make up for lost sales.
This year, analysts expect sales gains to be the weakest in five years. Washington-based National Retail Federation predicted that total holiday sales will be up 4 percent for the combined November and December period, the slowest growth since a 1.3 percent rise in 2002.

Holiday sales rose 4.6 percent in 2006 and growth has averaged 4.8 percent over the last decade."

Where were the stories alerting us to this coming calamity on the front pages? They weren't there. It is not in their interest to carry them, clearly a big No No. It gets worse. MTV pointedly rejected an ad from the Cultural Jammers Network urging a "Buy Nothing Day." The network complained, "The station that markets itself as the voice of hip youth has censored the burping pig."

But why? Their advertising standards representative, Elisa Billis, said that "the spot goes further than we are willing to accept on our channels." Too radical for MTV which routinely carries military recruiting ads with no qualms.

The Globe did carry a cartoon lampooning local sports mania in a town with winning teams. In its last panel, set in a mortgage office, a fan is being told he will be able to pay off his Red Sox/Celtics/Patriots tickets in just a few decades.

Many of the shoppers this season are charging it even though all the credit card companies have jacked up rates driving the real cost of shopping higher, and even though credit balances are at an all time high. The companies are just waiting for them. The day after Christmas, VISA will report on how much business was done. In years past, they called it "disappointing."

And then in January, the returns will start as the bills come due. Experts—including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers—are warning that the credit card system may be the next to fall.
Writes economist Robert Samuelson:
"The spectre of the subprime debacle is that it's just a start. Huge amounts of auto loans, credit-card debt, commercial mortgages and equipment leases have also been securitised. If similar problems emerged, it would shake confidence in the securitisation model and, by magnifying investors' losses, threaten to turn the credit crunch from a slogan into a reality. A broader crisis, though a long shot, can't be excluded."

Thanksgiving this year fell on the anniversary of the John F. Kennedy assassination. The New York Times predictably marked the event with one more op-ed article - in a long line — assuring us that there was no conspiracy. (Even as 80% of the public continues to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone.)

While they discredit suggestions of a past conspiracy, they seem to be ignoring a current one. That involves the steady decline of our economy thanks to illegal practices through white-collar predatory lenders backed by our biggest banks and hedge funds, as well as the inability of regulators to regulate and a complicit media to blow the whistle, which caused a multi-billion dollar economic crime that is still in progress. It has already defrauded millions of investors and homeowners, and the squeeze will only get worse.
- Filmmaker Danny Schechter has just finished a new book on the economic crisis, SQUEEZED: America As The Bubble Bursts, following up on his film In Debt We Trust (SopTheSqueeze.org). Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org
If you have ideas or suggestions, please write to:
Dissector@mediachannel.org

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Saundra Hummer

November 27th, 2007, 12:31 PM

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^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^CONGRESS
A Lott Of Baggage
Yesterday, Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS) announced he would resign from the Senate before the end of the year. Lott's departure was "stunning" for its timing, observed the Washington Post. Currently occupying the number two position in the Senate GOP leadership -- after enjoying a "political rehabilitation from allegations of racial insensitivity" -- Lott "cruis[ed] to his re-election" just last year. With this sudden resignation, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) said yesterday that he would "call a Special Election for United States Senator to be held on November 4, 2008," an election which may violate Mississippi state law. The resignation has sparked a "round of maneuvering inside the Republican conference," with Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) announcing he will run for the leadership position. While Lott has not yet clarified a specific motive for his retirement, the "decision will complete a two-year roller coaster ride for Lott and his emotional investment in the Senate."

THE LOBBYIST'S SENATOR: Lott has warmly embraced the entreaties of lobbyists while in the Senate. For example, he "tops the list" of "lawmakers who have most frequently been jetted around the country aboard the luxurious private jets of Corporate America." In 2006, he voted against establishing a Senate Office of Public Integrity. Lott, whose son is a lobbyist, was part of a small bloc of conservatives who voted against the ethics reform bill in August that included a two-year revolving door ban, reflecting his longtime opposition to lobbying reform. It is speculated that Lott is retiring so that he can avoid these new restrictions on former members entering the lobbying world, which kick in after 2008. Lott said yesterday that "he was going to move into the private sector after 35 years in Congress." NBC News reported that Lott may join the "lucrative world of lobbying Congress." He maintains the ethics restrictions "didn't have a big role" in his resignation.

HISTORY OF INTOLERANCE: Lott was forced out of his Majority Leader seat in disgrace in late 2002, after heralding the segregationist platform of former South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond. Speaking at a Thurmond's 100th birthday bash, Lott said, "When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either." Lott's history of intolerance is well-documented. In 1981, Lott declared, "Racial discrimination does not always violate public policy." In 1998, he likened homosexuality to "personal problems as alcoholism, kleptomania and 'sex addiction.'" He maintains an affiliation with the Council of Conservative Citizens, described as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League. In June 2007, Lott likened securing America's borders to an "electrified goat fence," stating that "there's an analogy there" for immigration reform.

EARMARKING FRENZY: Lott has acquired a reputation for his zeal in pork spending. In his book, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) quoted Lott as stating, "Balancing the budget is a nice idea, but I got an election to win." "The way I do it is, I fold them into bills where you can't find it. ... I've been around here long enough to know how to bury it," Lott explained. In 2006, Lott cosponsored a notorious $700 million "Railroad to Nowhere" in the emergency supplemental bill, reportedly the largest earmark ever. "I'll just say this about the so-called porkbusters. I'm getting damn tired of hearing from them. They have been nothing but trouble ever since Katrina," Lott said about the opposition to his railroad. After Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Coburn introduced legislation to create a public database "exposing hundreds of billions in annual spending" in 2006, Lott used Senate rules to "kill it on procedural grounds."

IRAQ -- BUSH SIGNS DEAL FOR ENDLESS, UNQUALIFIED, 'ENDURING' MILITARY PRESENCE IN IRAQ:The New York Times recently reported that the Bush administration has "scaled back" its benchmarks for political progress in Iraq, instead "focusing their immediate efforts on several more limited but achievable goals." Yesterday, the administration announced one of its goals: an endless, unqualified, "enduring" presence in Iraq. President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki "signed the new U.S.-Iraq 'declaration of principles' during a secure video conference Monday morning." The key principle in the agreement, according to the White House, is that "Iraq's leaders have asked for an enduring relationship with America, and we seek an enduring relationship with a democratic Iraq." Iraqi officials told the Associated Press that "Iraq's government will embrace a long-term U.S. troop presence in return for U.S. security guarantees as part of a strategic partnership." The White House's determination to establish a permanent presence in Iraq contradicts its long record of declarations against permanent bases. In a press briefing yesterday, White House war czar Gen. Doug Lute said the new long-term occupation plan won't require Congress's approval. "We don't anticipate now that these negotiations will lead to the status of a formal treaty which would then bring us to formal negotiations or formal inputs from the Congress," said Lute.

ECONOMY -- HOUSING CRISIS USHERS IN ECONOMIC DOWNTURN: On Sunday, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers wrote a column in the Financial Times warning that, with the subprime housing crisis leaking to all sectors of the economy, "the odds now favour a US recession that slows growth significantly on a global basis." Today, the U.S. Conference of Mayors released a report predicting that "the deepening housing crisis will cut economic growth by more than 25 percent in 143 U.S. metropolitan areas by next year and by more than a third in 65 metro communities." The study also reported that "the property value of U.S. homes will fall by $1.2 trillion, and 'at least' 1.4 million homeowners will lose their properties to foreclosure in 2008." Stocks are down 10 percent from their peak in October, another effect of the housing crunch. "Investors in stocks and bonds are paying prices that indicate they believe a snowballing housing crisis and worsening credit crunch will soon tip the U.S. economy into a recession, analysts said."

ETHICS -- AS HALLIBURTON CEO, CHENEY EVADED U.S. LAW TO DO BUSINESS WITH IRAN: In an interview published yesterday with Fortune magazine's Nina Easton, Vice President Dick Cheney conceded that as Halliburton CEO, he had opposed unilateral sanctions on Iran, even though he now strongly supports them. Cheney explained that as a private sector official, he didn't have any responsibility to "worry about" the impact of his company's dealings with the country. What Cheney conveniently neglects to mention is that Halliburton evaded U.S. law in order to deal with Iran. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act authorizes the president to block transactions and freeze assets to deal with rogue nations. In 1995, President Clinton signed an executive order barring U.S. investment in Iran's energy sector. To evade U.S. law, Halliburton set up an offshore subsidiary that engaged in dealings with Iran. In 1996, Cheney blasted the Clinton administration for being "sanction-happy as a government." "The problem is that the good Lord didn't see fit to always put oil and gas resources where there are democratic governments," Cheney explained of his desire to do business with Iran. As the Bush administration now presses for tougher sanctions against Iran, Cheney should concede that Halliburton violated the spirit of the law and encourage other U.S. companies not to follow his lead.

THINK FAST
While President Bush is attending a Mideast conference in Annapolis this morning, "he won't remain there for long." He "plans to head back to the White House after delivering his opening speech to the diplomats and dignitaries at the U.S. Naval Academy." White House aides said he wasn't planning to offer new American proposals to resolve the conflict.

The Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens recalls that when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) visited Syrian President Bashar Assad back in April, "President Bush denounced her for sending 'mixed signals' that 'lead the Assad government to believe they are part of the mainstream of the international community, when in fact they are a state sponsor of terror.'" Today, Assad will sit with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Annapolis.

At least 1.4 million homeowners will lose their properties to foreclosure in 2008, while "the property value of U.S. homes will fall by $1.2 trillion," says a new report by the the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Council for the New American City. The report predicts "deep economic impact from ongoing housing market problems."

In an attempt to put to rest concerns over his ignorance about FISA reform legislation, Time magazine columnist Joe Klein writes, "I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who's right." Salon's Glenn Greenwald responds by noting "the extreme lack of professionalism and corruption required" for Klein to say he "isn't interested in bothering to find out (and isn't even capable of determining) if anything he wrote was accurate."

USA Today's DeWayne Wikham writes, "While there is still little evidence to suggest that Bush was knowingly involved in this coverup [of the Plame outing], the evidence against Cheney is piling up. ... This trail of lies and deception has put Cheney on the same path that led to Nixonâ€™s impeachment."

"Corporate backers of next year's Olympic Games in China have done little or nothing to pressure Beijing to use its influence to end the genocide in Darfur," according to a new report. "The corporate Olympic sponsors are engaged in a form of silent complicity with the Chinese government in its support of the genocide," the report's author, Ellen Freudenheim, said.

The lawyer for Brent Wilkes, the contractor convicted of bribing former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, has asked a federal judge to approve subpoenas for journalists from NBC News, AP, and the Wall Street Journal who reported on the scandal. He wants them "to reveal how they obtained secret information relating to the federal investigation."

The Politico writes of Sen. Trent Lott's (R-MS) lucrative lobbying career prospects. "A near-certain scenario has him teaming up with his son, lobbyist Chester Lott, founder of Lott & Associates. Another, still fluid, idea is partnering with former Louisiana Democratic Sen. John Breaux, who is said to be mulling a departure from the lobbying powerhouse Patton Boggs."

And finally: Attention singles! Foreign Policy magazine has put together a list of the "most eligible world leaders." Topping the list is French president Nicholas Sarkozy, who is "always the center of attention." Also making the cut: Condoleezza Rice ("the most powerful woman in the world"), Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck ("Prince Charming"), Michelle Bachelet ("tough, smart, and ambitious"), and Hugo Chavez ("a hopeless romantic").

The research team that brings you The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org needs spring interns! Click here for more information. Go on-site to gain access to the link and the numerous others within this email. The link/URL will be provided at end of post.

BLOG WATCH
THINK PROGRESS: Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's (R) proposed special election to replace Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) may violate election law.

CENTER FOR CITIZEN MEDIA: Media watchdog affiliated with Berkeley and Harvard eviscerates the misleading FISA journalism of Time's Joe Klein.

TRAIL HEAD: On campaign conference call, bloggers ask more substantive questions than traditional reporters.

FEMINISTING: Women activists in Saudi Arabia speak out against "barbaric" rape ruling.

GOOD NEWS
"The Supreme Court will hear arguments next week about the rights of prisoners who have been detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and will immediately release audio tapes of the proceeding."

STATE WATCH
MICHIGAN: "Michigan is failing to protect children who are in the state's care through social services programs or court."

CALIFORNIA: "Wealthy right-wingers from out of state are flooding California with cash to try to change the way the state's electoral votes are allocated."

HEALTH CARE: President Bush's proposed budget may make deep cuts to programs for "low-income young children, pregnant women and recent mothers

DAILY GRILL
"Oh, you have to end earmarks. I mean, the idea of anonymous spending of billions and billions and hundreds of billions of dollars is totally undemocratic and creates total unaccountability."
-- Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, 6/12/07

VERSUS
"In all, Bracewell & Giuliani sought federal earmarks for 14 companies this year, 11 of which hired the firm after Giuliani joined in March 2005."
-- Bloomberg News, 11/26/07

UNDER THE RADAR
IRAQ -- BUSH SIGNS DEAL FOR ENDLESS, UNQUALIFIED, 'ENDURING' MILITARY PRESENCE IN IRAQ: The New York Times recently reported that the Bush administration has "scaled back" its benchmarks for political progress in Iraq, instead "focusing their immediate efforts on several more limited but achievable goals." Yesterday, the administration announced one of its goals: an endless, unqualified, "enduring" presence in Iraq. President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki "signed the new U.S.-Iraq 'declaration of principles' during a secure video conference Monday morning." The key principle in the agreement, according to the White House, is that "Iraq's leaders have asked for an enduring relationship with America, and we seek an enduring relationship with a democratic Iraq." Iraqi officials told the Associated Press that "Iraq's government will embrace a long-term U.S. troop presence in return for U.S. security guarantees as part of a strategic partnership." The White House's determination to establish a permanent presence in Iraq contradicts its long record of declarations against permanent bases. In a press briefing yesterday, White House war czar Gen. Doug Lute said the new long-term occupation plan won't require Congress's approval. "We don't anticipate now that these negotiations will lead to the status of a formal treaty which would then bring us to formal negotiations or formal inputs from the Congress," said Lute.

ECONOMY -- HOUSING CRISIS USHERS IN ECONOMIC DOWNTURN: On Sunday, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers wrote a column in the Financial Times warning that, with the subprime housing crisis leaking to all sectors of the economy, "the odds now favour a US recession that slows growth significantly on a global basis." Today, the U.S. Conference of Mayors released a report predicting that "the deepening housing crisis will cut economic growth by more than 25 percent in 143 U.S. metropolitan areas by next year and by more than a third in 65 metro communities." The study also reported that "the property value of U.S. homes will fall by $1.2 trillion, and 'at least' 1.4 million homeowners will lose their properties to foreclosure in 2008." Stocks are down 10 percent from their peak in October, another effect of the housing crunch. "Investors in stocks and bonds are paying prices that indicate they believe a snowballing housing crisis and worsening credit crunch will soon tip the U.S. economy into a recession, analysts said."

ETHICS -- AS HALLIBURTON CEO, CHENEY EVADED U.S. LAW TO DO BUSINESS WITH IRAN: In an interview published yesterday with Fortune magazine's Nina Easton, Vice President Dick Cheney conceded that as Halliburton CEO, he had opposed unilateral sanctions on Iran, even though he now strongly supports them. Cheney explained that as a private sector official, he didn't have any responsibility to "worry about" the impact of his company's dealings with the country. What Cheney conveniently neglects to mention is that Halliburton evaded U.S. law in order to deal with Iran. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act authorizes the president to block transactions and freeze assets to deal with rogue nations. In 1995, President Clinton signed an executive order barring U.S. investment in Iran's energy sector. To evade U.S. law, Halliburton set up an offshore subsidiary that engaged in dealings with Iran. In 1996, Cheney blasted the Clinton administration for being "sanction-happy as a government." "The problem is that the good Lord didn't see fit to always put oil and gas resources where there are democratic governments," Cheney explained of his desire to do business with Iran. As the Bush administration now presses for tougher sanctions against Iran, Cheney should concede that Halliburton violated the spirit of the law and encourage other U.S. companies not to follow his lead.

November 27, 2007 by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, and Ali Frick

www.americanprogressaction.org
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ .

Saundra Hummer

November 27th, 2007, 01:00 PM

.. . . . .
A QUOTE
From the Democratic Congression Campaign Committee
This was in a fund raising letter

Been to the gas station lately? Gas prices have more than doubled since George Bush took office -- it's an outrage.

Thanks to the Republican road blocks in Congress, gas prices continued to skyrocket just in time for the holiday travel rush -- ensuring that millions of dollars flowed into the pockets of their Big Oil friends and out of the pockets of America's hardworking families.

Remember the Bush Administration's secret meetings with their Big Oil friends to develop our nation's energy policy? We need to make sure the Halliburton presidency is in the past -- but with more than 60 Democrats sitting in seats that Bush carried in 2004, this November, Republicans will try to turn back the clock. GAS PRICES
When Bush entered office:
$1.45
NOW
$3.07
. . . . . . . . . .

Saundra Hummer

November 27th, 2007, 04:25 PM

.
$?$?$?$?$?$
Most say their vote has a priceBy: Lily Quateman
Posted: 11/14/07Two-thirds say they'll do it for a year's tuition. And for a few, even an iPod touch will do.
That's what NYU students said they'd take in exchange for their right to vote in the next presidential election, a recent survey by an NYU journalism class found.

Only 20 percent said they'd exchange their vote for an iPod touch. But 66 percent said they'd forfeit their vote for a free ride to NYU. And half said they'd give up the right to vote forever for $1 million.

But, they also overwhelmingly lauded the importance of voting. Ninety percent of the students who said they'd give up their vote for the money also said they consider voting "very important" or "somewhat important"; only 10 percent said it was "not important." Also, 70.5 percent said they believe that one vote can make a difference - including 70 percent of the students who said they'd give up their vote for free tuition.

The class - "Foundations of Journalism," taught by journalism department chairwoman Brooke Kroeger - polled more than 3,000 undergraduates between Oct. 24 and 26 to assess student attitudes toward voting.

"The part that I find amazing is that so many folks think one vote can make a difference," Dalton Conley, sociology department chairman, said. He added, "If we take them at their word, then perhaps they really think votes matter, and that's why someone might pay a year's tuition to buy theirs."

Sixty percent of the students who said they'd give up their vote for tuition also described their families' income as upper middle or high.

Their reasons for giving up their vote varied.

"At the moment, no candidate who truly represents my political beliefs has a chance of winning a presidential election," one male junior studying film and television at the Tisch School of the Arts wrote on the survey.

"It is very easy to convince myself that my vote is not essential," wrote a female CAS sophomore. "After all, I'm from New York, which will always be a Blue State."

Other students wrote that they were disgusted by the thought.

"I would be reversing history - a lot of people fought so that every citizen could be enfranchised," said a female in her second year at the Stern School of Business.

One CAS junior went even further, writing that "anyone who'd sell his lifelong right to vote should be deported."
Lily Quateman is a contributing writer and is in the "Foundations of Journalism" class that conducted the survey. E-mail her at news@nyunews.com.
© Copyright 2007 Washington Square News
http://www.nyunews.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticlePrinterFriendly&uStory_id=3a05a3cc-ef25-45f9-a770-8719d69a0b36
?$?$?$?$?$? :shrug:
.

Saundra Hummer

November 27th, 2007, 04:58 PM

.
:: :: :: :: :: Antigua and Barbuda: Caribbean Time Bomb: The United States´ Complicity In The Corruption Of Antigua

27 November 2007
Article by Ian Moncrief-Scott
Robert Coram wrote Caribbean Time Bomb:The United States’ Complicity in the Corruption of Antigua in 1993. His book, published by William Morrow & Co, part of Harper Collins, was immediately banned in Antigua....

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LAL

November 27th, 2007, 06:50 PM

Slave labour..

Dubai Migrants Earn $245/Month, Build $2,455/Night Hotel Rooms

By Sean Cronin

Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Jonson Joy gets up at 5 a.m. every day to work 13 hours on a Dubai construction site then comes home to a dormitory next to an overflowing sewage tank. He earns $245 a month and sends half to his wife and two children in India.

After less than a year on the job, he has had enough.

``Man is only a machine here,'' the 33-year-old pipe-fitter says as he trudges to his room at Sonapur, a labor camp for 50,000 workers on the outskirts of the Persian Gulf city.

Such living conditions, a falling currency and 9 percent inflation have triggered an exodus of laborers from Dubai and strikes by more than 22,000 workers. The protests threaten $430 billion of offices, hotels and homes as the second-largest member of the United Arab Emirates seeks to build a global finance and tourism center with cheap, imported labor.

As many as 286,000 illegal immigrants, or 7 percent of U.A.E. residents, left the country under an amnesty that expired Nov. 3, according to the Labor Ministry. The U.A.E., whose biggest member is Abu Dhabi, had 700,000 migrant construction workers last year, many from India.

``It will have the potential to delay projects,'' says Chris O'Donnell, chief executive officer of state-owned Nakheel PJSC, which has $60 billion of projects under way,

Last month, about 4,000 workers were arrested after four days of strikes during which 14 buses were smashed, police said. A strike by 18,000 employees of Dubai-based Arabtec Holding PJSC ended Nov. 10, the company said in a statement. CEO Riad Kamal declined to comment further.

24-Hour Butlers

Joy works for subcontractors on Emaar Properties PJSC's Burj Dubai, which will be the world's tallest tower, and Nakheel's Palm Island, a manmade island shaped like a palm tree where villas with private beaches sell for as much as $10 million.

From the Palm construction site he can look up at the sail- shaped Burj al-Arab. The cheapest room at the hotel costs 9,000 dirhams ($2,455) a night, comes with a 24-hour butler and a choice of 17 types of pillows. Guests arrive by chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce or helicopter.

At Sonapur, or ``city of gold'' in Hindi, Joy lives in a room with five other men, including his younger brother. There is no furniture apart from three bunk beds and a dozen buckets stacked in the corner for when the water is cut and the workers have to walk to a pipe down the road. Clothes are stored under the beds or draped over the balconies to dry.

Outside, men pick their way through sewage leaking from septic tanks as they walk to Friday prayers.

Trucks pump out the waste at night, though Joy says the noise keeps him awake. He catches the bus to work at 5:45 a.m.

``If you miss it, you lose a day's wages,'' says Joy, who asked not to disclose his employer for fear of losing his job.

Paying Recruiters

Labor Minister Ali Bin Abdallah al-Kabi didn't respond to calls to his mobile phone or faxed and e-mailed questions about conditions in the camps. Police Chief Dahi Khalfan said the accommodations are ``dignified'' and meet U.A.E. standards.

Indian workers borrow as much as $3,000 to pay recruiters to find them jobs in Dubai, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a November 2006 report. Most workers won't go home until they repay the debt, the report said.

Making matters worse, some companies withhold the first two months' wages, a practice the government condemns.

``All workers must receive full wages without any deductions,'' the Labor Ministry said in a Nov. 4 statement.

Local builders have submitted a report on working conditions to the ministry, said Ahmad Saif Belhasa, chairman of the U.A.E. Contractors Association. He declined to discuss the findings other than to say wages may be adjusted for inflation.

``We need to accept these construction workers are human beings like us,'' Belhasa said. ``Every country has its own standards, and I think the conditions here are better than in their own countries.''

Open-Air Haircuts

Joy says he earns about 900 dirhams ($245) a month, from which 200 dirhams are deducted for food and lodging. He sends about 500 dirhams to his wife. The rest is eaten up by expenses.

Joy and his brother, both Christians, pay 20 dirhams each to share a taxi for their weekly visit to church. A cup of tea costs 75 fils, or 0.75 dirham, up from 50 fils four years ago, says Joy's roommate Jayaraj, who has worked in the Gulf since 1996.

To economize, workers get their hair cut by barbers who snip and comb behind a wall at the end of Joy's street.

``They will charge you 5 dirhams for a cut,'' he says. ``It will cost you 10 dirhams in a shop.''

Going Home

The decline of the dollar also has dimmed the allure of Dubai, where the dirham is pegged to the U.S. currency. The dollar has fallen 11 percent against the Indian rupee this year.

With less to show for their labors, many workers say going home may be a better bet than staying in Dubai. India's $900 billion economy expanded an average of 8.6 percent annually in the past four years, making it the second-fastest growing major economy behind China.

``I want to go back and start my own business,'' says Pundrum Kumar, 29, who installs air conditioning.

Two miles from Sonapur, at a McDonald's restaurant where he agreed to tell his story, Joy glances at the face of Ronald McDonald before eating his first ever Big Mac, part of an 18- dirham meal purchased by a reporter.

``It's funny, we drive past this place every day on the way from work but I have never come here before,'' said Joy. ``We can't afford to eat in such places.''

Saundra Hummer

November 28th, 2007, 12:54 PM

.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ COVERT AGENT SPEAKS OUT
Posted By David
@ 10:50 am
—
Filed under: Excerpts, Features
November 27, 2007

Editor’s Note: This message comes from an anonymous source believed to be within the US intelligence community. Some of the statements cannot be verified for authenticity, but the general themes and references speak for themselves. I’ve researched everything that is possible to research and it all stands up. I have no reason to believe any of this is untrue. Read it and decide for yourself.

Confessions of a Covert Agent
Psychological Operations is my specialty. PsyOps.
Everything I’ve done has been highly classified, all black programs and black operations. Some people I know thought I worked for the CIA, but it’s much more complicated than that. I’ve worked with people in the CIA, DIA, NSC, NSA, SAIC, Army Intel and many more lesser known agencies within the intelligence apparatus.

Before focusing on PsyOps I started out running covert combat missions, special operations. I was good at what I did and rose through the ranks fast. When the “War on Terror” started I was paid a lot of money to consult with private military contractors. When private paramilitary units needed to get the jobs done that paid the most money they would come to me with checkbooks filled with US taxpayer dough.

I’ve seen the worst things imaginable, hell on earth. Had friends die in my arms. Seen piles of rotten corpses. Seen men, women and children tortured. I’ve seen the eyes of terrified and confused children being sold into a vicious life of slavery and an early death.

I could get a lot more graphic, but you get the idea.

That was my life, and all along I was told that I was fighting for freedom and working for the “good guys.” What a ridiculous comment that is! In the black world, that is, in the covert world, there aren’t any “good guys” — just varying degrees of evil.

As Brigadier General Butler famously stated, “War is a racket.” It doesn’t have anything to do with freedom and democracy. It is not good fighting evil. There’s just a bunch of old greedy gangsta motherfuckers making obscene amounts of cash and breeding hatred, violence, terrorists and sex slaves.

The truth is, there is no oversight! Meaning, you can get away with anything, nothing is illegal because no one knows about it, or the few who do are either in on it or have a vested interest in keeping quiet. Whether you’re runnin’ guns, weapons, drugs, gold, diamonds, women, children, it just doesn’t matter. As long as the old guard gets their resources, it’s all good. And in the end, it’s all about power. The people who really run this planet know that natural resources (oil, water, coltan, cobalt, etc.) are the key. The “War on Terror” is just a front for a geo-strategic resource grab on a massive scale. Even the wars in Northern Africa are all about exploitation of resources. Once the good ole CIA boys at Bechtel did their NASA satellite studies of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) mineral resources and discovered that it was the “richest patch of earth on the planet,” all hell broke loose! They figured out that the DRC has 80% of the world’s coltan, among many other vital resources. Without coltan, you can’t have any technology that requires a computer chip: computers, cell phones, satellites and weapon systems, of course. So Bechtel, the CitiBank boys, the World Bank, IMF and various covert elements have been supplying brutal regime after brutal regime in the region. Well over four million and counting have died there.

Same thing with oil in the Middle East. Do you think they really give a shit about Iraqi freedom? We worked hard to make you believe that, but c’mon, they don’t give a shit about the Iraqi people. They’ve killed about a MILLION of them! And that’s NOT an exaggeration! They sure as hell give a shit about Iraqi oil though. They also care about Saudi oil, and have a nice deal with a dictatorship that brutally oppresses their people. If freedom and democracy are the issue, how about freeing the Saudi people? Why do you think 15 of the 9/11 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia? We support a regime that oppresses those people. We support them because they cooperate on the oil front. So, why strike back at them? Let’s hit Iraq. They don’t give us any oil - let’s get’em!

If you look at the history of covert special operations, it’s all about securing a piece of land that has some valuable resource. Once the resource is identified, special ops figures out the most efficient way to suppress or extinguish the population that is unfortunate enough to live near it. Then the big companies come in, from the United Fruit Company to the Bechtels and Halliburtons of the world. That is the way it has been and still is, from John D. Rockefeller and Allen Dulles right through Kissinger, Bush Sr. and Cheney. Millions of innocent civilians have been slaughtered. Let me repeat that: Millions of innocent civilians have been slaughtered. And I’m not kidding you. These are evil motherfuckers and they are no friends of ours. These things don’t have anything to do with protecting the US people or standing up for freedom and democracy. They don’t give a shit about the average American. In this age of the global economy, the concept of nation state is obsolete. If only proud Americans could understand that. Pride in the American way is just another propaganda device for PsyOps agents — people like me — to use to manipulate you and make you think that black is white and white is black.

If you were to ask me who is a bigger threat to the people of the US, Cheney or bin Laden, or who has done more damage to the US, I would say Cheney without hesitation. Cheney, along with Bush Sr. and Kissinger, has been running the covert world for about 40 years now.

A little side note for you: I firmly believe Robert Gates, the current Secretary of Defense and Bush Sr.’s right-hand man in the covert world, used computer cryptography and software security assets to get Bush Jr. elected both times. I do not have direct knowledge of the operation, but research “Robert Gates,” “Bill Owens,” “electronic voting security,” “HAVA,” “VoteHere” and “Scientific Applications International Corp.” [We will post more on this in the near future.] The operation went so well that Gates was going to be made the first ever Director of National Intelligence. He turned down the job, but then took the Secretary of Defense position when Rumsfeld was removed from his public position. I don’t think there will ever be solid evidence linking directly to members of the administration; it’s all a tangled web of plausible deniability. But I do think it will eventually be proven that the elections were manipulated to deliver Bush the victory. Many people in the covert world take this for granted, as common sense.

Please don’t confuse this as partisan propaganda. I don’t give a shit about the Democrat or Republican PsyOps mind-fuck dynamic. They’re just labels to divide a potentially powerful united US public.
It’s hard to get the average American to understand these things. Most everyone in this country has been mind-fucked since birth. For a very blatant example, you can look at the advertising industry and the way they have increased intensely their focus on the youth. It’s all about breeding impulsive emotionally driven consumers through repetition - over and over again - buy, buy, buy. You hear something enough and you internalize the message. It becomes something like the air you breathe, like gravity. It’s there, omnipresent, but you don’t realize it or consciously think about it. It becomes the spring from which your thoughts leap forth.

What it all boils down to is the exposure rate. You take a simple message and you repeat it over and over, such as mentioning Saddam and 9/11. You don’t have to say Saddam was involved in 9/11, because that is not true. You just have to mention Saddam and 9/11 in the same simple repetitive message thousands of times and people will support an attack on a country that didn’t have anything to do with 9/11 because they’ve been psychologically conditioned to link the two.

It’s psychological operations on a grand scale, mass psychology. The scientific art of manipulating public opinion is 100 years old now. PsyOps have evolved to the point, thanks to the all pervasive mass media, where we can make you believe, or at least passively accept, whatever we want you to. I secretly worked with the world’s most powerful media companies to get you to believe what “they” want you to believe. The media is the most efficient weapon of tyranny and oppression ever created. No need to physically control populations anymore when you can do it mentally - program it in, internalize the rules.

To give a little more background on publicly revealed psychological operations, in 1977, after the Congressional Church Committee investigated CIA manipulation of the news media, and right after George Bush Sr. left his post as the Director of the CIA, famed Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein searched a little deeper into what was known as Operation Mockingbird. He revealed that over 400 US journalists were actually carrying out clandestine CIA PsyOps services. Bernstein identified operations involving almost every major US news outlet, most notably The New York Times, CBS and Time magazine. The CIA responded to all of this with a “limited hangout.” A “limited hangout” is CIA speak for when classified information gets out and you have to make it seem as if you are “coming clean” with all the information on the operation, but in reality you are really just admitting part of the operation so you can cover up other deeper parts and continue the program. This worked very effectively for them, as the US public quickly moved on and this operation has largely been forgotten. Currently, I would estimate, with cable news and the Internet now, that there are well over a thousand covert operatives spread throughout the news media. They have a firm grip on television, newspapers, wire services, radio and magazines. However, with the Internet - that’s their weak spot - it’s too decentralized and difficult to control.

The Pentagon’s Information Operations Roadmap now describes the Internet as an enemy “weapons system.” The Pentagon doesn’t hide the fact that they want total control over information, or as they call it “information dominance.” They very plainly state that they seek to “control land, sea, space and information.” This is what they refer to as “full spectrum dominance.” If you don’t think they see this as a top priority, look at Iraq. The plan to “embed” journalists with the military in Iraq was a strategic operation that considered “journalism as part of psychological operations.” The journalists that weren’t “embedded” were considered “enemy combatants.” More journalists have been killed in Iraq than in any other war, and it is the US doing a large portion of the killing.

Before I go too far here, the point I want to make to the US public, the bottom line is that the most power crazed and greed addicted people are above the law and get away with everything. In the covert world rules do not apply. Democracy is a fairy tale. Nothing is what it seems, reality isn’t real. Through the looking glass Alice goes.

I’ve fought against it and got nowhere. I’ve informed people that I naively thought could do something, but nothing could be done. I took all the blood money I’ve made and donated it to humanitarian causes. Will it make a difference? No. Not in the grand scheme of things, but in the short run it may save a few people… maybe. And that’s all I can hope for at this point.

I’ve become so cynical! I live with guilt and cynicism weighing on my every move, my every thought.

When you’ve seen the things I have seen, been involved with the things I’ve been involved with, when you’ve spent the majority of your life living like I have, what do you do when you decide to give it up and get out? Can you ever get out?

I was able to get out, thus far, when no one I knew thought I could get out. But once you lived in the covert world, “normal” civilian life feels like a prison sentence. Then again, the covert world was a prison sentence.

I’ve been strongly advised to keep a very low profile and forget about things for a while. But I find it hard to just fade into the night when we are reaching an event horizon, a breaking point. Despite my cynicism, there is a part of me that knows I have to keep fighting. The stakes are just too high, higher then they’ve ever been. The human species is in serious trouble, facing a set of crises unlike anything we’ve ever faced before. Unless these covert forces are exposed, and ultimately eliminated, I don’t see how we can even begin to make the bold actions that we need to start making now - and I mean right fucking now! These covert forces are a root cause and driver, a cancer spreading through the system and planet.

As far as I can tell, you can’t change the system from within the intelligence community itself. This includes the Senate Intel Committee. If the urgently needed changes are ever to happen, it has to come from the US public. Now I know first hand how the American public has been conditioned to be apathetic and not get involved in politics and has been fed a steady diet of misinformation. But propaganda only works to the point where the population being propagandized is not feeling the direct impact and negative consequences on a personal level in their daily lives. That’s why the draft played a large role in bringing an end to Vietnam. We need another draft to push the mainstream over the edge and into action, but the façade is beginning to crack - 9/11 had some effect, the war in Iraq certainly, Katrina, massive job loses and an economic downturn that has really just begun have all factored into creating a critical mass. Even the most propagandized population in the history of civilization will have to act when their very survival and well-being is directly threatened and impacted. I just hope enough people will understand the need for bold decisive action now, before it’s too late.

So, to the people who have awareness of the problems facing us, if I could give advice, it would be this:

Try the Bush Administration for war crimes. If the case could ever be brought to court, the evidence to convict is definitely there. This is why the administration has been strongly against the International Criminal Court. If we are to begin repairing this country, and the world, we must begin by showing these power crazed and covert forces that they are accountable. If we can convict someone like Cheney, we will send a powerful message to the covert world. If we let them walk, we will keep having these problems. New people will follow them and take their place.

Investigate where all the military spending has been vanishing off to. There are literally trillions of taxpayer dollars unaccounted for. This money is fueling the covert world and terrorism in general. As part of this, I would include an investigation into war profiteering as well.
Make it mandatory that all electronic voting machines must have a 100% verifiable paper trail.

Get people into the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) who will smash the current media ownership rules. The concentration of media ownership is the foundation of the covert power structure. Without that, the whole thing is a house of cards. That’s why the FCC is currently trying to ram through rules that will further consolidate media ownership before the Bush administration leaves office. As part of this, it is pivotal that we protect the open architecture of the Internet. The media belongs to the people, as does the government, in theory anyway, but we need an information system that actually serves the public interest.

Declare a national and global emergency on the environmental front. We have already reached the breaking point. We need organized, governmental, policy driven, bold action now.

We need to address entities that now have power over the Constitution, such as the undemocratic and unelected corporate global governing structure - institutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and “agreements” like NAFTA and DR-CAFTA, to name a few. Most Americans don’t even know what these power structures are, let alone that they have power that supersedes the Constitution. We must also address the National Security Act, that’s where the ultimate power of our country lies. The National Security Act has effectively made the Constitution meaningless and is the primary driver of the covert world. The PATRIOT Act and various other newly granted powers must also be drastically revised or eliminated completely in order to protect our civil liberties.

Lastly, we need to have publicly financed elections. As long as we have a system that requires candidates to raise tens of millions of dollars to even be considered for office, we will have politicians who bend over backwards for the richest one percent and the most powerful elements of society at the citizens’ expense. An important aspect of this has to be a requirement for large media companies to provide candidates with free airtime. Candidates have to spend the majority of their money on advertising in the mainstream media. That’s why the major news media spend so much time focusing on who is raising the most money, because they are the ones who end up with all that money. Once we have publicly financed elections and free airtime for candidates, we will get people in office who will work in the interests of the public because they are not beholden to the large and powerful entities. When you have politicians depending on the public instead of the private sector for survival, all the issues mentioned above could be addressed because they won’t have to fear the withdrawal of support from large corporations and the wealthy and powerful who do not want these things to happen. This will also enable us to eliminate tax breaks for the richest one percent, put an end to corporate welfare practices, and stop funding for obscene military and prison industrial companies that are profiting off of disasters and no longer serve security interests. Then we can redirect that money into environmental, education, health care and social security programs, to mention a few.

In the current political environment this may all sound like an unrealistic pipe dream, but these are the seven pivotal things that MUST happen. If all seven don’t happen within the next few years, we will have set the world on a disastrously irreversible course. This is “the unfortunate reality of our current situation.” It is not going to be easy, but you better start fighting for it now, while we still can.

It really does come down to us. You have to personally, in your daily life, do everything you can. With enough public pressure all of these things are achievable. Once we get a small portion of the population acting in this direction, it will quickly catch on and spread. Even though the overwhelming majority of the US population is incredibly propagandized on the surface, just underneath is the realization of the need for mass action. They just need leaders to point this out. The mainstream just needs a spark. Do what you can to set it off. It is a matter of unprecedented significance.

** This article is excerpted from the upcoming edition of the book The Art of Mental Warfare. ** http://artofmentalwarfare.com/pog/covert-agent-speaks-out/^ ^ ^ ^ ^ .

Saundra Hummer

November 28th, 2007, 01:56 PM

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Q&A: Talking with Stephen King
By
Gilbert Cruz

Stephen King likes to start the conversation and so the horror author began asking questions before TIME's Gilbert Cruz could take a seat to interview him in New York City. But Cruz soon took over. Excerpts:

STEPHEN KING: So who's going to be TIME Person of the Year?

TIME:I really don't know, there's a very small group of people who make that decision.

I was thinking, I think it should be Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan.
Really?
Yeah. You know, I just filmed a segment for Nightline, about [the movie version of his novella] The Mist, and one of the things I said to them was, you know, "You guys are just covering — what do they call it — the scream of the peacock, and you're missing the whole fox hunt." Like waterboarding [or] where all the money went that we poured into Iraq. It just seems to disappear. And yet you get this coverage of who's gonna get custody of Britney's kids? Whether or not Lindsay drank at her twenty-first birthday party, and all this other shit.
You know, this morning, the two big stories on CNN are Kanye West's mother, who died, apparently, after having some plastic surgery. The other big thing that's going on is whether or not this cop [Drew Peterson] killed his... wife. And meanwhile, you've got Pakistan in the midst of a real crisis, where these people have nuclear weapons that we helped them develop. You've got a guy in charge, who's basically declared himself the military strongman and is being supported by the Bush administration, whose raison d'etre for going into Iraq was to spread democracy in the world.
So you've got these things going on, which seem to me to be very substantive, that could affect all of us, and instead, you see a lot of this back-fence gossip. So I said something to the Nightline guy about waterboarding, and if the Bush administration didn't think it was torture, they ought to do some personal investigation. Someone in the Bush family should actually be waterboarded so they could report on it to George. I said, I didn't think he would do it, but I suggested Jenna be waterboarded and then she could talk about whether or not she thought it was torture. And then the guy from Nightline said, "Well, obviously you've not been watching World News Tonight with Charlie Gibson." But I do — I watch 'em all!

You might be one of the few people who does.
We're news junkies in my house.

Do you actually think Britney and Lindsay should be on our cover?
Yeah, I do.

Sort of a, 'This is what the media's actually interested it, so let's just put it out there' thing?
I think there ought to be some serious discussion by smart people, really smart people, about whether or not proliferation of things like The Smoking Gun and TMZ and YouTube and the whole celebrity culture is healthy. We've switched from a culture that was interested in manufacturing, economics, politics — trying to play a serious part in the world — to a culture that's really entertainment-based. I mean, I know people who can tell you who won the last four seasons on American Idol and they don't know who their f------ Representatives are.

But you've been well in the public eye for decades now. Is it pretty blatant how much worse it's gotten?
It's worse every year. And the guy says to me — the Nightline guy — I didn't get the guy's name. Granted, I haven't been feeling real well and it was a long day of interviews. But he said to me, "If we didn't cover cultural things, we wouldn't be covering you and The Mist, and promoting the movie." And I'm like, "Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan aren't cultural." They aren't political. They're economic only in the mildest sense of the word. In fact, if I had to pick somebody, some celebrity who has had some impact this year, some sort of echo in the larger American life, I would say Hannah Montana. That whole issue of online ticket sales and scalping fascinates me. There are [legitimate] issues there about the Internet, so that actually does seem to have some cultural significance.
But Britney? Britney Spears is just trailer trash. That's all. I mean, I don't mean to be pejorative. But you observe her behavior for the past five years and you say, "Here's a lady who can't take care of her kids, she can't take care of herself, she has no retirement fund, everything that she gets runs right through her hands." And yet, you know and I know that if you go to those sites that tell you what the most blogged-about things on the Internet are, it's Britney, it's Lindsay. So I think it would be terrific [to have them as TIME Persons of the Year]. There would be such a scream from the American reading public, sure. But at the same time, it's time for somebody to discuss the difference between real news and fake news.

True, in terms of Britney Spears, she's still fairly young. When you were young, fame sort of screwed you up a bit, didn't it?
The difference is that Britney is now famous for being famous. Her sales have gone down with almost every album, bigger and bigger jumps, so that nobody really cares about her music anymore. They care about the tabloid headlines and whether or not she's wearing panties. I mean, is this an issue that the American public needs to turn its brainpower on? Britney Spears' lingerie, or lack thereof?

I'll pass your suggestion along. So you're a news junkie?
I got hooked by my wife. You'd be surprised, or maybe you wouldn't be surprised, being that I'm around John Mellancamp a lot — he and I are doing this play. But it's the news 24-7. Always on.

What's this play?
It's called Ghost Brothers of Darkland County. It's a musical.

What's the plan with that?
Hopefully we'll open out of town next year. Maybe in Atlanta, if they have any water left.

When next year?
My guess it probably like June or July. We're at the point where we've got the director. The music's set. The book's set. We're fairly set. At least until audiences turn up. If they turn up their noses then things change. We're supposed to be, maybe in Atlanta, maybe in Boston, I've heard talk about California. But we've got to open out of town and see if people like what we've got.

What's the gist of the story?
[Mellencamp] had bought a place in Indiana by a lake, and he said that the person had told him the place was haunted. Well, you hear that — when you buy a place that's been around for a while in the woods, people are going to say it's haunted. [Apparently], there was some kind of tragedy that involved two brothers and a girl in the fifties — one of the brothers shot the other one apparently in some kind of a drunken game. Killed him. So the other brother and the girl jumped in the car to take the kid to the hospital, because they thought maybe they could save him. They ran into a tree and they were both killed. So apparently the ghosts haunted the place. So John asked me, "Do you think we could turn this into a play?"
In a way, he came to me at the right time. He's been doing what he does for a long time, and I've been doing what I do for a long time. John has tried things, he's tried to keep the music fresh, he's continued to release new music, [to] try different things and different formats. And he wanted to graze, to try this idea of doing dramatic music. I've always been up for something that was a little different — just keep turning the earth over, so you don't dig yourself a rut and furnish it, you know what I mean? That's how we got together.

So you expanded that little snippet of a story?
Yeah. That's my job, to take something like that, which is fairly generic, and make a story out of it that's unique. I [wrote a little and Mellencamp did some music] and then I went to him and said, "We've reached a decision point here. Neither of us knows s--- about theater. The only thing I know is that, at this point, it either becomes like Andrew Lloyd Webber — and everybody sings everything — or it can be like My Fair Lady, where people actually talk in between the singing. They go blah blah blah and then [he sings] "I could have danced all night." And then they blah blah blah some more.

Well, if it opens in New York, I'll check it out.
It probably will. We're a bit radioactive, because it has a subtext about homosexuality and it's set in the fifties so they bandy about a lot of pejorative words that were common coinage back then. But, Tennessee Williams got away with it.

Alright, I have to ask you some questions about The Mist.
Of course you do.

Short questions. First one...
And short answers!

This is the third movie you've done with Frank Darabont, the third movie he's directed based on your work.
Well, actually, there are four. The way I met him was, he did a short film of [my story] "The Woman in the Room." That was back when he was in his early twenties and he was trying to break into movies. Like [The Shawshank Redemption], which he did next, it didn't have so much as a smidge of the supernatural in it.

Are you guys film soulmates? Does he just do your stuff better than other people?
He does it really well, though there are other people who have done my work and I've been pleased with the results. But the only person that I can say that has come back for seconds and has really done me proud other than Frank would be Rob Reiner, who did Stand by Me and then came back and did Misery. And Frank will say, "I have the world's smallest specialty. I only do prison movies written by Stephen King." And he's been going on about how proud he is that he made The Mist and broke out of that mold. But I told him, "Frank, it's still a story about people in prison. They're just in prison in a supermarket!"

Is he going to do more of your stuff? There are tons more stories out there that haven't been made into movies.
Frank has the option on a short story called "The Monkey."

The one that was on the cover of the old Skeleton Crew paperback?
Right. And he'd like to do The Long Walk, which is one of the Bachman books [written by King under a pseudonym]. But The Long Walk is so downbeat, it makes The Mist look like Young Frankenstein.

Part of The Mist is this subtext about how fear makes people irrational. How do you think that's playing out in the world today?
Well, it's always there. What The Mist reminds me of is a big, exciting version of a episode like "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street." In that episode, these aliens did an experiment to see what fear did to human beings. [In The Mist], there really are monsters and they show up on Main Street in this little town. Granted, the situation is unreal, but an audience can say, "Here's a good, harmless place where I can actually test drive what I would do in a disaster." Particularly if the disaster was just totally inexplicable. But in the real world, if disaster strikes us, it seems to me that it's always inexplicable.

There have been so many movies and TV miniseries made from your stories and, not to be disrespectful, but some of them are stinkers. Sleepwalkers, Sometimes They Come Back and its various sequels, etc... How do you maintain quality control? Do you even try?
I'd go crazy. I don't try to maintain quality control. Except I try to get good people involved. The thing is, when you put together