Chinese Pope?
[Here’s something to think about with regards to the new Pope, whoever that might be. Pope John Paul II, as they are saying, was a unique kind of guy because had lived under the Nazis and the Communists and he helped kind of lead the charge of the god-fearing people against the forces of godless Communism. And, as the people on TV are incorrectly saying, he had a hand in the “fall of communism”.
Not true. He had a hand in the fall of Soviet Communism, or what you might call European Communism. I think is fair to say that there as many people today living under Communist dictatorship as there were at the height of the Cold War, maybe more in fact.
What’s that? you say. Communism? Where?
Apparently most people seem to have either forgotten or just don’t know that mainland China continues to live under a Communist dictatorship that is every bit as godless and disrespectful of people’s lives and dignity as the Soviets and Eastern Europeans ever were.
Most people probably also do not know that there are most likely at least a couple of cardinals in China and Vietnam operating “undercover” you might say.
“On the 18th of January, 1998 Pope John Paul named two secret cardinals in a rarely used ecclesiastical rite known as 'in pectore,' Latin for 'in my breast' or 'in my heart.' This procedure is used to protect Roman clergy in politically dangerous and hostile environments. Vatican observers believe that the two secret cardinals were named in China and Vietnam.”
http://www.cin.org/users/msmith/persecution/chinapersecution4.html
http://www.cardinalkungfoundation.org/articles/newsletter/christmas_greetings2003.htm
I have not noticed anyone in the media speculating on a Chinese pope. But there has been a lot of talk that the next Pope will come from the Third World since that is where most of the world’s Catholics [and most of the world’s people in general] reside.
Everyone talks about how it was a big surprise to have this guy from Poland become Pope. How much bigger of a surprise might a Chinese Pope be?
That charge against godless Communism might not be over yet.
Just something to think about.]
[I was listening to NPR on Friday before the Pope died and I noticed something that I actually hear all the time, but never paid attention to.
They were interviewing someone about the Pope’s legacy and things like that. So the inerviewer said something along the lines of “Well, you know at a time like this it is natural to want to focus on the good things the Pope has done, his achievements, but he has also been controversial and not everyone has been happy with his leadership, isn’t that right?”
So I heard that and I realize I have heard segues like that many times before. But they are right, it IS natural to not want to speak ill of someone who is about to drop dead. So what the media people are really saying is “Let’s do something unnatural. Let’s speak ill of the dead or dying.” Or just generally, “let’s do something unnatural” because they frequently say “well its natural to want to do X, but let’s do Y instead.” ]
[I also want to putin a note here for anyone who bothers to read the news. I have noticed from a lot of exposure to news stories, that contrary to what they teachin journalism class, virtually all news stories bury the interesting and/or useful information near the bomttom of the article, and the top is filled with chaff. So if you are only going to glance at an article, glance at the end of it first.]
Police are investigating the discovery of what they believe are human organs found on the sidewalk not far from Yale-New Haven Hospital.
Someone called police Wednesday evening to report they had found a liver and a kidney on the sidewalk.
Two people needed five days' treatment after contact with centipedes or venomous millipedes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4390397.stm
[I just noticed this is a different guy predicting a third quake from the one quoted in an earlier story I linked from here.]
A prominent seismologist says he cannot rule out the risk of a third big quake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, where two massive temblors have occurred in just three months.
"The probability of a third quake in the coming months and years cannot be excluded," said Mustapha Meghraoui, who is in charge of active tectonics at the Institute for Planetary Physics in France.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200503/s1334734.htm
In the remote Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, it is not only the stunning scenery that surprises the eye.
Driving from the country's only airport in Paro to the capital city of Thimphu, graphic and colourful paintings of penises adorn the white-washed walls of homes, shops and eateries.
In many places, pictures of dragons and soft drink advertisements showing a Bollywood actress jostle for space on the walls with phallic drawings.
The origin of these drawings can be traced to a Buddhist monastery near Bhutan's former capital, Punakha.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4381893.stm
The government requested and won approval for a record number of special warrants last year for secret wiretaps and searches of suspected terrorists and spies, 75 percent more than in 2000, the Bush administration disclosed Friday.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4908181,00.html
A seal hunter carrying a rifle fired shots into the air Friday as a group of sealers and protesters clashed amid the ice floes on the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
The confrontation happened after three helicopters carrying anti-sealing activists and photographers landed near a sealing vessel off the north coast of Prince Edward Island.
http://www.rense.com/general63/SKE.HTM
Pope John Paul neared death onFriday as his health suddenly worsened, drawing anguishedprayers from Catholics around the world reluctant to accept hishistoric pontificate was at an end.
The Vatican said the 84-year-old Pontiff had difficultybreathing and his blood pressure had dropped dangerously low.
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5645325&cKey=1112349032000
"With two-thirds of the world's 1 billion Catholics living below the equator, the world's largest Christian denomination is no longer a European institution," he said. "Talk of a pope from Africa is very significant. Black Catholics are coming of age."
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/48/story_4829_1.html
Nearly a dozen passengers were escorted off a Southwest airlines flight Tuesday night and taken into custody, suspected of being illegal immigrants.
Eleven people were taken off Southwest flight 2340 from Chicago at RDU International at 6:40pm Tuesday.
Authorities said an air marshal who was on the flight overheard some people talking about being smuggled into the US The air marshal then contacted INS and customs officials who met the plane.
http://www.rense.com/general63/max.htm
A Bainbridge Island millionaire is free after cutting a plea deal with prosecutors over child rape charges.
David Nusbaum walked out of jail a free man after spending less than a year behind bars.
http://www.komotv.com/stories/35798.htm
The ongoing investigation into allegations that a Pentagon staffer named Larry Franklin passed on classified government documents to two members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobby group, continues but with several new twists.
Over the past weekend, several Israeli papers carried a report by JTA, the Jewish news service, that top officials of the lobby group had appeared in front of a grand jury in "late January or early February," and that the two staff members who had contact with Franklin ñ Steve Rosen, of AIPAC's research department, and Keith Weissman, AIPAC's deputy director of foreign policy issues ñ have been placed on paid leave.
The same report also said that Mr. Franklin had been "quietly" rehired at the Pentagon over the "FBI's objections." Franklin, however, was not given back his previous position in the Iran section, but instead placed in a "non-sensitive" area which the report didn't specify.
http://www.rense.com/general63/dwdder.htm
The Farley Mowat is under attack.
11 crewmembers have been arrested by the Mounted Police for taking pictures of sealers. They were arrested after 8 sealers physically assaulted 7 Sea Shepherd crewmembers on the ice with hak-a-piks and clubs.
The sealers were from the sealing ship the Brady Mariner out of Newfoundland.
The Canadian Coast Guard ship on the scene is the Amundsen.
http://seashepherd.org/news/media_050331_3.html
Five U.S. soldiers were arrested in Colombia on charges of smuggling more than 30 pounds of cocaine out of the country, El Tiempo reports.
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20050401-070731-2263r.htm
"Only once in human history did God take a country as an inheritance and give it to His chosen people," Schoenborn said, adding that Pope John Paul II had himself declared the biblical commandment for Jews to live in Israel an everlasting covenant that remained valid today. Christians, Schoenborn said, should rejoice in the return of Jews to the Holy Land as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
http://www.rense.com/general63/papl.htm
Meanwhile, the agents locked up in Egypt were ignored, excluded from several prisoner exchanges with Israel after the wars of 1956 and 1967. Now that they have been officially recognised in Israel, the former agents are campaigning for a full account of their operation to be included in the high-school syllabus.
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/spages/559008.html
Of the $18.4 billion that Congess appropriated 16 months ago for postwar reconstruction in Iraq, only $3.6 billion has been spent to date. There has been much head-scratching over this uncharacteristic failure of the Pentagon to spend money promptly.
A recently unearthed portion of a Defense Department memo sheds some light on the issue, suggesting that more than $14 billion earmarked for reconstruction was actually invested on Wall Street. The memo's author and date are unknown. This portion of the apparently classified document -- marked "page 3" -- was mistakenly sent to Mid-America Seed Savers, a nonprofit organization in Lawrence, Kansas whose members had filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents related to the Army's alleged distribution of genetically engineered wheat seed to farmers in Iraq. The memo fragment is reproduced here in full:
http://www.counterpunch.com/cox04012005.html
I keep waiting for someone to notice the way the rash of school shootings the US has experienced has coincided with the massive program of drugging ìover-activeî students or those deemed to have an ìattention deficit.î Medicating students has replaced counseling.
http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_7662.shtml
Top officials at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) have appeared before a grand jury and two senior staffers have been placed on paid leave in the latest developments in the federal investigation of the pro-Israel lobby for allegedly passing classified information to Israel, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the case.
At the same time, the Pentagon staffer at the center of the allegations, accused of espionage by the FBI and then pressured into an alleged FBI ìstingî against AIPAC, has been quietly rehired by the Pentagon, over the FBIís objections
http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=13893
Just how deep are the problems at American International Group?
Phony accounting for more than a decade, the forced retirement of its longtime chairman, a sharp drop in the company's stock and criminal investigations of the Manhattan insurance giant may be just the beginning, analysts said Wednesday, even as new woes were added to the list.
And that could spell bad news for investors, policyholders and employees, the analysts said.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/03/31/BUGN5C0TK81.DTL
[Three months in prison for shooting an air gun NEAR a bunch of hooligans who had been terrorizing her family. I can say without qualification that if she had just killed them and hid the bodies she would be walking free right now.
This is a story from the future of America.]
During the midnight confrontation near her suburban home in Urmston, Greater Manchester, she fired up to six rounds from the gas-powered air pistol into the ground close to the feet of her antagonist. She later confessed to police officers that she had acted “like a madwoman possessed” but complained that the activities of the youths had left her at breaking point.
Mrs Walker looked apprehensive in the dock at Minshull Street Crown Court, in Manchester, as the judge told her yesterday that she would serve at least three months before being considered for release.
...
She later expressed surprise when an armed response unit arrested her and not the youths. Afterwards she complained to officers: “Police are very sympathetic but the law is on the side of these criminals and yobbos and not the victims. They have all the rights.”
In evidence Mrs Walker said: “I cannot say I am sorry I challenged him (the teenager). I think I needed to do it to get rid of my anger. I know I shouldn’t have done it. I know I was loopy.”
Farrhat Arshad, for the defence, suggested that Mrs Walker had given “her lot to society”. Ms Arshad said: “The court is familiar with the acts of petty vandalism and theft that were caused to her property. Although they may appear as petty, the effects on Mrs Walker were great. She thought her family, which was supposed to be safe, was being attacked.”
Mrs Walker was found guilty of affray and possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence after a week-long trial in February.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1546915,00.html
U.S. employers added 110,000 workers in March, barely half the number expected, as rising costs crimped hiring. Bonds and stocks rose on speculation the Federal Reserve won't need to raise interest rates as fast as investors expected.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_us&refer=top_world_news&sid=aLuTjyBKvG04
Tony Blair's plan to make the economy the centrepiece of Labour's re-election strategy suffered a fresh blow yesterday when Britain's biggest building society reported the sharpest fall in house prices for 10 years.
As speculation intensified that the prime minister would name May 5 as polling day next week, the Nationwide reported that weaker demand for property sent seasonally adjusted prices tumbling by 0.6% last month.
http://money.guardian.co.uk/news_/story/0,1456,1449876,00.html
"My son Ronald Lee Chavez an employee of Halliburton in Iraq was severely beaten by peer Halliburton employees. These employees are known in Iraq as the Leesville, LA "Red Neck Mafia".
Ronald was med-evaced to Camp Anaconda where he is in a US Military Hospital and remains there. According to my daughter in law Patti, Ronald is to be transferred to a military hospital in Germany because of Atria Fibrillation to his heart due to the severe beating. What I understand, Halliburton has advised Patti, that Ronald needs a Passport to get medical treatment at a Military Hospital in Germany.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/30/1544247
[If there was nothing else wrong with the federal government, the fact that it has even one base that is bigger than a whole state would be problem enough, but it actually has lots of bsaes and tracts of land bigger than whole states. The federal government controls virtually the whole state of navada. If you look at map showing government and non-government land, the non-gov land is actually just a little squiggly line in the middle part of the state.]
In a letter denying a Freedom of Information Act request filed in October by the Deseret Morning News, Brig. Gen. James R. Myles, commander of the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command, states that the Army had identified "a number of documents ... regarding proposals to enlarge the boundaries of Dugway Proving Ground," confirming it is indeed looking at expanding the base that is already larger than Rhode Island.
But, he wrote, "we must withhold the documents in their entirety under Exemption 5 of the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act). All of the documents found responsive to your request are predecisional and deliberative in nature."
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600122609,00.html
The US-British occupation of Iraq is poisoning all political processes in my country and across the Middle East. The elections held under the control of the occupying forces in January were neither free nor fair. Instead of being a step towards solving Iraq's problems, they have been used to prolong foreign rule over the Iraqi people.
Only when the occupiers withdraw from the country can Iraq take the first secure steps towards peace and stability. Once a strict timetable for withdrawal is set, Iraq's political forces could freely agree and set in motion a process of genuinely free and fair democratic elections, a permanent constitution, and a programme that meets the demands of all the Iraqi people.
The occupying powers are now following a policy of divide and rule, encouraging sectarian and ethnic divisions and imposing them on all the institutions they have created.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1449864,00.html
THE al-Qaeda terror group made unexpected advances in developing a virulent biological strain - dubbed "Agent X" - before the September 11, 2001, attacks, a US presidential commission on US intelligence operations said today.
The commission said in its final report that intelligence analysts were "surprised by the intentions and level of research and development" uncovered after the US invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.
The commission, appointed by US President George W. Bush in response to intelligence failures in Iraq, said US intelligence had long held that al-Qaeda members had trained in crude methods for producing biological agents such as botulinum toxin, as well as toxins obtained from venomous animals.
But the commission said intelligence agencies before the Afghanistan invasion had been uncertain whether al-Qaeda had managed to acquire "a far more dangerous strain", which it only identified as Agent X in its unclassified report.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12720325-23109,00.html
A decorated Army captain convicted in the shooting death of a wounded Iraqi was dismissed from the military Friday, but will serve no time in prison after insisting at his court-martial that the shooting was a mercy killing.
A relieved Capt. Rogelio "Roger" Maynulet, 30, threw his arms around his attorneys, wife and parents after the military court spared him a prison sentence. Prosecutors had sought a three-year term along with the dismissal.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050401/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/germany_us_iraq
Cheap money and refinancing have fueled an unparalleled boom/inflation of real estate prices across the nation. Most gains have been cashed out via the equity loans that have provided a supplemental "income" for households to keep this economy spending. It’s the costly S&L tragedy all over again.
http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/033105Cederholm.shtml
The ACLU said the reason for the delay in delivering the more than 1,200 pages of documents was "evident in the contents," which include reports of brutal beatings, "exercise until exhaustion," and sworn statements that soldiers were told to "beat the f**k out of" detainees. One file cites evidence that military intelligence personnel in Iraq "tortured" detainees held in their custody.
http://www.antiwar.com/ips/fisher.php?articleid=5415
Retired Major Doug Rokke, Ph.D. (USAR, retired), who was an Army health physicist during the Gulf war and was then responsible for trying to 'clean up' radiologically contaminated US equipment (RCE's) there, has been calling on the military to follow its own regulations. He and Damacio Lopez continue to make this call.
These Army regulations and the "Handling Procedures for Equipment Contaminated with Depleted Uranium or Radioactive Commodities" specify stringent requirements for handling RCE's, as well as providing medical surveillance, training, and environmental protection among other requirements. [You may also download the Procedures at the military's site]. For instance, the regulations require protecting the environment in the war zone - Iraq in this case - (Army Regulation 700-48, 2-4) and medical care for any "individual" who "may have been exposed" to DU contamination. (Army Regulation 700-48, 2-5). (The US has used DU in many US states and other countries; we focus on Iraq here, given the current crisis and the huge amounts of DU used. The regulations apply wherever DU has been used.)
Reading these regulations and procedures, one must wonder how the US can justify - morally or legally - using such a weapon. (See the Karen Parker, J.D., article on the illegality of DU Weaponry under international humanitarian law.)
Very recently, two US military publications have taken noticee of the regulations. But again, what of the Iraqis - a people who will be left to live with what the US has left behind? And, will the military follow these reminders of their regulations, even concerning US soldiers?
http://www.traprockpeace.org/depleted_uranium_regs.html
Five Shuman Juvenile Detention Center guards and the father of a Penn Hills boy were criminally charged yesterday as a result of a "scared straight" incident at the lockup Sunday in which the 13-year-old boy was beaten.
Matt Freed, Post-Gazette
Charles Smith attends a preliminary hearing at the Municipal Courts Building in front of District Judge Rob Wyda last night.
Click photo for larger image.
Previous coverage
'Scared straight' bid goes awry
Police said the boy's father, Anthony Donald Sr., of Penn Hills, placed the youngster, who has never been charged with a crime, in the hands of two friends who are Shuman guards. Donald was charged with misdemeanor counts of conspiracy and child endangerment.
Donald Jr. said the guards ordered him to strip in a public place and put on a uniform. When he refused, he said, four guards forced him to the ground, beat him and stripped off his pants.
Four of the guards, called "child care workers," are charged with unlawful restraint and false imprisonment, which are felonies.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05091/481093.stm
I'm an active duty Department of State Officer not involved in political or economic issues. I have read the letter's contents and viewed the 'letterhead.' I can say with confident certainty that it is a fake, but without going into the details of the dozens of grammatical errors. Remember, Ambassadors don't do much political reporting, senior (and junior officers looking to make their careers) write political reporting cables. In fact, during meetings, briefings, panels, etc, there are always seasoned/senior political officers taking notes for the Ambassadors, and THEY draft the cables which are read, proofread, and meticulously picked over by people who pride themselves on their unique abilities to set scenes and use just the right word to convey accurate positions of the policy makers and opinions of those policy makers. No group of seasoned political, economic, and aid/development officers, who all read and clear on 'policy' papers back to Washington decision makers, would let such a sloppy paper go forth to Washington. And such policy discussions about internal politics of any country are NEVER in 'memo/letterhead' format. Who are the recipients of such papers? Do they think we mail things in this electronic age? No. Any such discussions are sent by electronic, i.e. 'cable' format. A true 'secret' embassy document would have names of drafter, clearing officers, classification reason and expiration dates, specific policy/program tags for recipient offices, etc. Cables are not 'signed.' This is a fraud for some sort of domestic Kyrgyz purposes.
http://cryptome.org/kyrgyz-secret.htm
[Did they have a “Mission Accomplished” banner in the background?]
The US has dismissed a tour by journalists of a nuclear facility in Iran as a "staged media event".
The state department said Iran should be answering questions about what it is doing at the Natanz site, the existence of which was kept secret until 2002.
Journalists accompanied Iran's president to the site on Wednesday.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4395911.stm
THE MISSING ABU GHRAIB TORTURE IMAGES
Last year, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed
Services Committee that he had viewed the contents of three
compact disks containing "blatantly sadistic, cruel, and
inhuman" acts of torture and abuse committed by some U.S.
personnel at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Almost none of those images have been released into the public
domain, and they may never be if the government has its way.
The Pentagon's successful efforts to deflect Freedom of
Information Act requests for disclosure of the images -- with
identifying features obscured if necessary -- are traced by Matt
Welch in the latest Reason Magazine.
See his article "The Pentagon's Secret Stash: Why we'll never see
the second round of Abu Ghraib photos," Reason, April 2005:
http://www.reason.com/0504/co.mw.the.shtml
Most recently, the Army has said that it has no idea what images
are being requested, and that requesters must supply more
details.
"Please provide the date, location, and names of persons involved
in the abuse and we will attempt to conduct a search," wrote
Phillip J. McGuire, Director of the Army Crimes Records Center on
March 7
The images, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress, depict "acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel, and inhuman." After Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) viewed some of them in a classified briefing, he testified that his "stomach gave out." NBC News reported that they show "American soldiers beating one prisoner almost to death, apparently raping a female prisoner, acting inappropriately with a dead body, and taping Iraqi guards raping young boys." Everyone who saw the photographs and videos seemed to shudder openly when contemplating what the reaction would be when they eventually were made public.
http://www.reason.com/0504/co.mw.the.shtml
[So for this woman who actually lived in a Nazi death camp, some of the definiing characteristics are rought treatment and humiliation. Why do these things sound familiar?]
Rough treatment, being pushed and grabbed, the humiliation piece of it were all part of Auschwitz," Warford said. "It certainly is possible to have a psychological response to a trigger event, such as being grabbed on a bus. Whether that happened is up to the jury or court to decide."
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1112439716296310.xml
Those born in the last quarter of the 20th century might be forgiven for thinking that the papacy and Poland go hand in hand or that the pope has always been a man at home among common people and intent on spreading the Catholic word around the globe in person. Older people, however, know John Paul II was anything but typical. Even in his last years — shaking from Parkinson's disease and moving slowly through a millennial pilgrimage to the Holy Land — it was clear he was a pope like no other.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3276587/
In 1954, Israeli agents working in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including a United States diplomatic facility, and left evidence behind implicating Arabs as the culprits. The ruse would have worked, had not one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to capture and identify one of the bombers, which in turn led to the round up of an Israeli spy ring.
http://www.rense.com/general63/attk.htm
Investigators say they've discovered a critical mechanism key to heart attack-linked cell death, and they say a drug already exists to block this mechanism. That drug, cyclosporin, is an immunosuppressant often used in patients undergoing organ transplants.
http://www.healthcentral.com/news/NewsFullText.cfm?id=524829
[How about a bill to give those 0.5 to 1M jobs to actual American people?]
The Senate is bracing for its first fight over amnesty for illegal immigrants in nearly 10 years after the chamber's parliamentarian ruled that a debate over granting legal status to illegal agriculture workers will be allowed on the pending emergency spending bill.
The $81 billion spending bill covers costs associated with the war on terror, and the House already passed a version with provisions restricting asylum claims and cracking down on illegal immigrants' ability to use driver's licenses. The parliamentarian said those provisions open the door for Sen. Larry E. Craig, Idaho Republican, to offer as an amendment his bill, commonly called "Ag-jobs," to legalize the 500,000 to 1 million illegal immigrants now working in the agriculture industry.
http://www.rense.com/general63/dedw.htm
These maneuvers involved a war in a fictitiously named Persian Gulf country that resembled Iraq." The games were carefully scripted to prove the efficacy of a Rumsfeld-style high-tech army. Unfortunately, Gen. Van Riper stepped outside the script and using such simple devices -- the sort now undoubtedly being employed by the Iraqi insurgency -- as "motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to Red troops, thereby eluding Blue's super-sophisticated eavesdropping technology," he trumped the techies. "At one point in the game, when Blue's fleet entered the Persian Gulf, he sank some of the ships with suicide-bombers in speed boats. (At that point, the managers stopped the game, ‘refloated' the Blue fleet, and resumed play.)" He was reprimanded and finally quit in protest. But someone -- with the last couple of years in Iraq in mind -- should have paid the man some mind.
Perhaps that's why our Secretary of Defense, responsible for sending those F-16s to Pakistan, has been in a panic over the fact that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's government recently bought 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles. Little Venezuela's purchase of 1940's-era-design rifles has Rummy in a tizzy; and, for all the high-tech goodies at his command, not without reason. The insurgency in Iraq has demonstrated that a relatively small force of lightly armed insurgents in an area roughly the size of California can bog down, stretch to the limit, and effectively counterbalance for two years the might of the U.S. military, despite its trillions of dollars worth of satellites, armor, artillery, air power, futuristic weapons, and old-fashioned bullets.
...
Lets face it, making war is fast superceding sports as the American national pastime. Since 1980, overtly or covertly, the United States has been involved in military actions in Grenada, Libya, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Haiti, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Liberia, Sudan, the Philippines, Colombia, Haiti (again), Afghanistan (again) and Iraq (again) and that's not even the full list. It stands to reason when the voracious appetites of the military-corporate complex are in constant need of feeding.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/2005/04/build_it.html
[One that gets me about Republicans, who typically claim to be both law and order types and anti-homosexuality, is that they are perpetually devising new ways to get more people locked up in prison, even though the prison system is the number one promoter and enabler of the homsexual behavior in this country.
They are always harping on the libeal media or whatever. But I have yet to see a TV show or movie that will literally hold someone down and sodomize them repeatedly over the course of years until they more or less come to accept it as normal behavior, whereas this happens all the time in the prison system.]
There are very graphic scenes of torture and abuse within this film. View at your own discretion, but spread the word so more may become informed. A British documentary on the extreme brutality of the American Prison System. One in every 150 American Citizens is in jail, with 5% of the World's Population, the US has 25% of the World's Prisoners, making the leading jailer in the world (even the counties they ëliberate' jail les of their population). The one time Land of the Free has become the Ultimate Prison State!
http://www.rense.com/general63/bbm.htm
As if earthquake-ravaged Indonesia doesn't have enough to worry about, now scientists warn that a Sumatran super-volcano might blow its top at any time.
If it does, the blast will toss hundreds of thousands of cubic kilometres of rock and ash into the atmosphere, dwarfing the eruptions of Krakatoa, Mount St Helens, Pinatubo and any conventional volcanic explosion of the past tens of thousands of years.
http://www.rense.com/general63/shak.htm
The Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and members of the Chinese government arranged for a banquet with five large tables fastened together. Cardinal Sin and Bishop Kung were seated on opposite ends of the tables separated by more than 20 Communists. They were not allowed to greet each other or to speak. After awhile, Cardinal Sin suggested that each man sing a song to provide a little stimulation for an otherwise silent gathering. So each man sang a song of his choice. When the time came for Bishop Kung to sing, he chose a song of faith that would convey to Cardinal Sin that in all his years of captivity he never renounced his God or his Church.
After Bishop Kung sang just a few bars, in Latin, of the beloved hymn, "Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam mean. (You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church)", a member-Bishop of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association informed his superiors of Kung's ruse. Bishop Kung was told to be silent, but he looked at Cardinal Sin and finished the song.
Cardinal Sin carried Bishop Kung's message to the world: this man of God never faltered in his love for his church or his people despite unimaginable suffering, isolation and pain.
http://www.cardinalkungfoundation.org/biography/index.htm
[Someone asked teh question, wht if you made a commcercial like this with israel as the bad guy? Of course it would never even get on the air, even though Israel
A. actually has nuclear weapons,
and
B. actually has attacked and endangered the United States, for example the USS Liberty ship, the Lavon Affair tacks referred to elsewhere here, and the Pollard spy scandal in which the israelis sold out our nuclear secrets to the Russians.]
The newly formed Iran Freedom Foundation has launched two television commercials warning that American cities are vulnerable to attack by an improvised nuclear device detonated by Iranian-backed terrorists.
Titled "An Atomic 9-11: When Evil is Appeased," the spots are based on a scenario described in the new WND Books release "Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians," by Jerome R. Corsi, co-author of the best-selling "Unfit for Command."
The ads can be viewed on the IFF website.
Corsi believes an atomic 9-11 is an imminent threat once a terrorist state like Iran has the capability to develop nuclear weapons.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43504
President Bush has nominated Vice President Cheney's son-in-law, a prominent Washington lawyer who represents companies in the homeland security field, to be the general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security.
Philip J. Perry, who is married to Cheney daughter Elizabeth Cheney Perry, is a partner at the Washington law office of Latham & Watkins, and has represented Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp. in dealing with the department.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A16318-2005Mar31?language=printer
Click to view caption
An Israeli settler dressed in clown costume carries an M-16 rifle as he joins a Purim parade in the west bank town of Hebron
The Palestinian Authority (PA) is calling on the international community, including the "Quartet" (the US, EU, Russia and the UN), to pressure Israel to put an end to nearly daily pogrom-like attacks by messianic Israeli terrorists on defenseless Palestinian villagers throughout the West Bank.
Attacks have mushroomed recently as extremist Israeli settlers vow to commit acts of "unprecedented violence" to thwart Israel's planned "disengagement" from the Gaza Strip.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/736/re4.htm
Most Europeans, including almost all British citizens, will need a visa to visit America later this year after the US Congress said that there was little chance of postponing a deadline for the introduction of biometric passports.
The EU has asked for more time to meet new American standards under which travellers will be able to enter the US without visas only if they hold a passport with a digitalised photo stored on a chip.
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=625542
Tipped they may have missed evidence a decade ago, FBI agents searched the former home of convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols and found blasting caps and other explosive materials apparently related to the 1995 attack, officials said Friday.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/04/01/nichols.house.search.ap/index.html
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression
Originally Thirteen Techniques for Truth Suppression
by David Martin, author of America's Dreyfus Affair
Strong, credible allegations of high-level criminal activity can bring down a government. When the government lacks an effective, fact-based defense, other techniques must be employed. The success of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative, compliant press and a mere token opposition party.
http://www.dabney.com/wacomuseum/library/martin1.html
[This is from 2002]
ISRAEL’S Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has called on the international community to target Iran as soon as the imminent conflict with Iraq is complete.
In an interview with The Times , Mr Sharon insisted that Tehran — one of the “axis of evil” powers identified by President Bush — should be put under pressure “the day after” action against Baghdad ends because of its role as a “centre of world terror”. He also issued his clearest warning yet that Israel would strike back if attacked by Iraqi chemical or biological weapons, no matter how much Washington sought to keep its controversial Middle Eastern ally out of any war in Iraq.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-469972,00.html
During the series of Witch Hunts that constituted the GOP's orchestrated reaction to the election and re-election of President Clinton, we constantly heard the tiring refrain that it was all about the rule of law. It wasn't the sex, it was the lying (under oath), doncha know? Well needless to say, none of our friends on the other side of the aisle ever really believed what they were saying, and the depths of their genuine hatred -- or at least utter disregard -- for the rule of law has become abundant in the years since then.
That this is so has been evident in the ceasless invective against "activist judges" (read: any judge with whom we disagree) and lawyers that has been part and parcel of the well-oiled Mighty Wurlitzer, but never has it been clearer than during the recent rhetorical necrophiliac orgy that found its newest object of idolatry in the still breathing body of a poor, defenseless, brain-dead woman who by all credible accounts would never have wanted such defenders in a million years.
The extraordinary and probably unconstitutional grandstanding midnight legislation was essentially an attempt to overturn judicial review by means of legislation. It was an attempt, pure and simple, to subvert the system of checks and balances by making the judiciary subservient to the party of power. When this happens in, say, post-Soviet Russia, we tut-tut and make remarks as to the limits of democratic reform in the absence of an independent judiciary. But when it happens here, lead blowhards such as James Dobson blovaite as to how the "activist judges" are "subverting the will of the people."
And when Tom Delay starts talking about how "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today," we can only hope that Judges Greer and Whittemore have looked carefully into the possibility of acquiring bodyguards.
...
What the authoritarian right wants are not constitutional conservatives but yes-men. They want the kind of judges who are influenced not by rule-of-law and the rational application of principles, but by ideology and political loyalism of the basest sort.
http://www.rense.com/general63/ahte.htm
A Brazilian congressional panel investigating the murder of a revered American nun has found evidence that a broader conspiracy between loggers, ranchers and officials is behind a wave of violence against peasant farmers and environmental activists in the Amazon state of Para.
A senate panel concluded that four people arrested for the murder of Sister Dorothy Stang are merely the most visible elements in an intricate chain of interests whose use of violence has given them almost unbridled power in a notoriously lawless region.
http://www.rense.com/general63/rb.htm
The average American in the year 2005 lives a fragile existence, in a struggle for survival that can be ended by missing a few paychecks. The carrot at the end of the stick which was formerly known as "the American dream" has been replaced by a whip that can best be described as the American nightmare of homelessness, and slow, early death. You no longer work to achieve a better life for yourselves and your children. You work to keep a roof over your head, and you pray that you don't lose it. You became a slave when fear replaced incentive as your motivation to work, but I still suggest that you work while you can, because if the company you work for can't send your job overseas, the U.S. government is allowing 2000 people per day to enter this country illegally, because they're willing to do your job for less.
It doesn't matter if you're a "white collar" or "blue collar" employee. If you're an American, you're too highly paid.
http://www.rense.com/general63/newam.htm
I'm not asking that you waste the time or paper required to write your congressman, because they don't care what you think anyway. What I am asking you to do is to remember something. When the economy does crash, and you're forced into the street. I want you to remember that this isn't your fault, and it's not the result of a "bad economy." Please remember that you're poor, hungry and homeless, because that's where our government wants you to be, and they intentionally destroyed the U.S. economy because they want you to suffer, and beg. And regardless of how bad things get, never sell your rifle. -- Jolly Roger
"Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens..... Lenin was certainly right." - John Maynard Keynes*
http://www.rense.com/general63/newam.htm
[The Insane Clown Posse, Purim-style.]
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/736/_re4.htm
The original salute and pledge of allegiance to the U.S. flag were created by a socialist to promote socialism in the most socialistic institution - government schools (socialized schools). The pledge began with a military salute (at http://rexcurry.net/pledge_military.html) for the phrase "I pledge allegiance" and then for the rest of the chant the arm was extended outward to a straight-arm salute resembling the salute of the National Socialist German Workers' Party. (see photos linked at http://rexcurry.net/pledge1.html).
http://rexcurry.net/pledge_military.html
There is a breathtaking hypocrisy to the indictment of Kofi Annan over the oil for food programme for Iraq. It was the US and the UK who devised the programme, piloted the UN resolutions that gave it authority, sat on the committee to administer it and ran the blockade to enforce it. I know because I spent a high proportion of my time at the Foreign Office trying to make a success of it. If there were problems with it then Washington and London should be in the dock alongside the luckless Kofi Annan, who happened to be general secretary at the time.
But there is a deeper level of perversity to the denigration of Annan by the American right wing. They have long clamoured for reform of the UN. Kofi Annan has just proposed the most comprehensive overhaul of the UN in its history and is the general secretary most likely to deliver support for it. If they persist in undermining him they are likely to derail his reform package. The suspicion must be that they would rather have a creaking, ineffective UN to treat as a coconut shy than a modern, representative forum that would oblige them to respect collective decisions.
...
The eccentric selection of John Bolton as Bush's ambassador to the UN is consistent with such a strategy of sabotage rather than reform. His hostility to any constraint on US unilateralism is so deep, (and his life so sad), that he described his "happiest moment" signing the letter to Kofi Annan telling him that the US would have nothing to do with the international criminal court. His relish in the gesture is all the more revealing as the issue was not within the remit of his job, and he pleaded to be allowed to sign as a special favour.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/columnist/story/0,9321,1449970,00.html
Authorities have determined that a New York man found with credit cards and identification in eight different names after a late February high-speed chase is the person he ultimately told police he was.
Israel Bleier has a valid U.S. passport, deputy district attorney Alan Charmatz told Marin Superior Court Judge Stephen Graham yesterday during an appearance in the defendant's criminal case on charges of evading arrest, receiving a stolen vehicle, possession of stolen property and three counts of identify theft.
Bleier, 20, originally presented a French driver's license with his picture and the name of Samuel Fine when he was arrested Feb. 27. He allegedly sped away at upward of 110 mph after a sheriff's deputy attempted to pull over his rented Cadillac sedan that police said was traveling at about 90 mph on southbound Highway 101 in Novato at 3:30 a.m.
...
"I am not being treated right because I am Jewish," Bleier told the judge.
http://www.marinij.com/Stories/0,1413,234~24407~2795074,00.html
After a few close calls, astronomers have finally obtained the first photograph of a planet beyond our solar system, SPACE.com has learned.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/04/01/extrasolar.planet.photo/index.html
Oil prices soared to fresh all-time highs, underpinned by worries about US refining capacity and building on gains caused by a study raising the possibility of 100-dollar per barrel oil.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in May, jumped to an all-time closing high of 57.25 dollars a barrel, up 1.87 from Thursday's close.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050401/bs_afp/commoditiesenergyoil_050401231928
Republicans, the Society of Christian Socialists
By Rex Curry, 7/12/2002 3:36:17 AM
Should the Republican Party be renamed the "Society of Christian Socialists"? Most Republicans favor the Pledge of Allegiance, which was written by Francis Bellamy, a member of the Society of Christian Socialists. Bellamy wrote the pledge to promote socialism in the most socialistic institution -government schools.
When Republicans criticize the 9th Circuit Court of appeals, Republicans don't call for ending government schools, instead Republicans simply criticize the ruling against the phrase "under God."
When the First Amendment establishment clause was written, the government wasn't operating schools, and wasn't making students say pledges with, or without, God. But that isn't part of any Republican arguments.
Republicans don't call for ending government schools. Republicans want students to say the pledge in the government schools, and they want the phrase "under God" included.
Perhaps the name "Society of Christian Socialists" would fit Republicans even better than Bellamy, since Republicans favor the more religious version of Bellamy's pledge with the phrase "under God" inserted in 1954. When the pledge was originally written, the socialist Bellamy didn't want God used to endorse socialism and government schools. Republicans are more socialistic than that today.
It's a good bet that if the present Republican Party policies were compared with those of the Society of Christian Socialists in 1862, it would be seen that the Republicans have adopted and surpassed the socialism of the Society of Christian Socialists of 1862.
Should the Republican Party be renamed the "Society of Christian Socialists"?
http://rexcurry.net/commentary/Bellamy.html
Not true. He had a hand in the fall of Soviet Communism, or what you might call European Communism. I think is fair to say that there as many people today living under Communist dictatorship as there were at the height of the Cold War, maybe more in fact.
What’s that? you say. Communism? Where?
Apparently most people seem to have either forgotten or just don’t know that mainland China continues to live under a Communist dictatorship that is every bit as godless and disrespectful of people’s lives and dignity as the Soviets and Eastern Europeans ever were.
Most people probably also do not know that there are most likely at least a couple of cardinals in China and Vietnam operating “undercover” you might say.
“On the 18th of January, 1998 Pope John Paul named two secret cardinals in a rarely used ecclesiastical rite known as 'in pectore,' Latin for 'in my breast' or 'in my heart.' This procedure is used to protect Roman clergy in politically dangerous and hostile environments. Vatican observers believe that the two secret cardinals were named in China and Vietnam.”
http://www.cin.org/users/msmith/persecution/chinapersecution4.html
http://www.cardinalkungfoundation.org/articles/newsletter/christmas_greetings2003.htm
I have not noticed anyone in the media speculating on a Chinese pope. But there has been a lot of talk that the next Pope will come from the Third World since that is where most of the world’s Catholics [and most of the world’s people in general] reside.
Everyone talks about how it was a big surprise to have this guy from Poland become Pope. How much bigger of a surprise might a Chinese Pope be?
That charge against godless Communism might not be over yet.
Just something to think about.]
[I was listening to NPR on Friday before the Pope died and I noticed something that I actually hear all the time, but never paid attention to.
They were interviewing someone about the Pope’s legacy and things like that. So the inerviewer said something along the lines of “Well, you know at a time like this it is natural to want to focus on the good things the Pope has done, his achievements, but he has also been controversial and not everyone has been happy with his leadership, isn’t that right?”
So I heard that and I realize I have heard segues like that many times before. But they are right, it IS natural to not want to speak ill of someone who is about to drop dead. So what the media people are really saying is “Let’s do something unnatural. Let’s speak ill of the dead or dying.” Or just generally, “let’s do something unnatural” because they frequently say “well its natural to want to do X, but let’s do Y instead.” ]
[I also want to putin a note here for anyone who bothers to read the news. I have noticed from a lot of exposure to news stories, that contrary to what they teachin journalism class, virtually all news stories bury the interesting and/or useful information near the bomttom of the article, and the top is filled with chaff. So if you are only going to glance at an article, glance at the end of it first.]
Police are investigating the discovery of what they believe are human organs found on the sidewalk not far from Yale-New Haven Hospital.
Someone called police Wednesday evening to report they had found a liver and a kidney on the sidewalk.
Two people needed five days' treatment after contact with centipedes or venomous millipedes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4390397.stm
[I just noticed this is a different guy predicting a third quake from the one quoted in an earlier story I linked from here.]
A prominent seismologist says he cannot rule out the risk of a third big quake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, where two massive temblors have occurred in just three months.
"The probability of a third quake in the coming months and years cannot be excluded," said Mustapha Meghraoui, who is in charge of active tectonics at the Institute for Planetary Physics in France.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200503/s1334734.htm
In the remote Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, it is not only the stunning scenery that surprises the eye.
Driving from the country's only airport in Paro to the capital city of Thimphu, graphic and colourful paintings of penises adorn the white-washed walls of homes, shops and eateries.
In many places, pictures of dragons and soft drink advertisements showing a Bollywood actress jostle for space on the walls with phallic drawings.
The origin of these drawings can be traced to a Buddhist monastery near Bhutan's former capital, Punakha.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4381893.stm
The government requested and won approval for a record number of special warrants last year for secret wiretaps and searches of suspected terrorists and spies, 75 percent more than in 2000, the Bush administration disclosed Friday.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4908181,00.html
A seal hunter carrying a rifle fired shots into the air Friday as a group of sealers and protesters clashed amid the ice floes on the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
The confrontation happened after three helicopters carrying anti-sealing activists and photographers landed near a sealing vessel off the north coast of Prince Edward Island.
http://www.rense.com/general63/SKE.HTM
Pope John Paul neared death onFriday as his health suddenly worsened, drawing anguishedprayers from Catholics around the world reluctant to accept hishistoric pontificate was at an end.
The Vatican said the 84-year-old Pontiff had difficultybreathing and his blood pressure had dropped dangerously low.
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5645325&cKey=1112349032000
"With two-thirds of the world's 1 billion Catholics living below the equator, the world's largest Christian denomination is no longer a European institution," he said. "Talk of a pope from Africa is very significant. Black Catholics are coming of age."
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/48/story_4829_1.html
Nearly a dozen passengers were escorted off a Southwest airlines flight Tuesday night and taken into custody, suspected of being illegal immigrants.
Eleven people were taken off Southwest flight 2340 from Chicago at RDU International at 6:40pm Tuesday.
Authorities said an air marshal who was on the flight overheard some people talking about being smuggled into the US The air marshal then contacted INS and customs officials who met the plane.
http://www.rense.com/general63/max.htm
A Bainbridge Island millionaire is free after cutting a plea deal with prosecutors over child rape charges.
David Nusbaum walked out of jail a free man after spending less than a year behind bars.
http://www.komotv.com/stories/35798.htm
The ongoing investigation into allegations that a Pentagon staffer named Larry Franklin passed on classified government documents to two members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobby group, continues but with several new twists.
Over the past weekend, several Israeli papers carried a report by JTA, the Jewish news service, that top officials of the lobby group had appeared in front of a grand jury in "late January or early February," and that the two staff members who had contact with Franklin ñ Steve Rosen, of AIPAC's research department, and Keith Weissman, AIPAC's deputy director of foreign policy issues ñ have been placed on paid leave.
The same report also said that Mr. Franklin had been "quietly" rehired at the Pentagon over the "FBI's objections." Franklin, however, was not given back his previous position in the Iran section, but instead placed in a "non-sensitive" area which the report didn't specify.
http://www.rense.com/general63/dwdder.htm
The Farley Mowat is under attack.
11 crewmembers have been arrested by the Mounted Police for taking pictures of sealers. They were arrested after 8 sealers physically assaulted 7 Sea Shepherd crewmembers on the ice with hak-a-piks and clubs.
The sealers were from the sealing ship the Brady Mariner out of Newfoundland.
The Canadian Coast Guard ship on the scene is the Amundsen.
http://seashepherd.org/news/media_050331_3.html
Five U.S. soldiers were arrested in Colombia on charges of smuggling more than 30 pounds of cocaine out of the country, El Tiempo reports.
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20050401-070731-2263r.htm
"Only once in human history did God take a country as an inheritance and give it to His chosen people," Schoenborn said, adding that Pope John Paul II had himself declared the biblical commandment for Jews to live in Israel an everlasting covenant that remained valid today. Christians, Schoenborn said, should rejoice in the return of Jews to the Holy Land as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
http://www.rense.com/general63/papl.htm
Meanwhile, the agents locked up in Egypt were ignored, excluded from several prisoner exchanges with Israel after the wars of 1956 and 1967. Now that they have been officially recognised in Israel, the former agents are campaigning for a full account of their operation to be included in the high-school syllabus.
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/spages/559008.html
Of the $18.4 billion that Congess appropriated 16 months ago for postwar reconstruction in Iraq, only $3.6 billion has been spent to date. There has been much head-scratching over this uncharacteristic failure of the Pentagon to spend money promptly.
A recently unearthed portion of a Defense Department memo sheds some light on the issue, suggesting that more than $14 billion earmarked for reconstruction was actually invested on Wall Street. The memo's author and date are unknown. This portion of the apparently classified document -- marked "page 3" -- was mistakenly sent to Mid-America Seed Savers, a nonprofit organization in Lawrence, Kansas whose members had filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents related to the Army's alleged distribution of genetically engineered wheat seed to farmers in Iraq. The memo fragment is reproduced here in full:
I keep waiting for someone to notice the way the rash of school shootings the US has experienced has coincided with the massive program of drugging ìover-activeî students or those deemed to have an ìattention deficit.î Medicating students has replaced counseling.
http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_7662.shtml
Top officials at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) have appeared before a grand jury and two senior staffers have been placed on paid leave in the latest developments in the federal investigation of the pro-Israel lobby for allegedly passing classified information to Israel, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the case.
At the same time, the Pentagon staffer at the center of the allegations, accused of espionage by the FBI and then pressured into an alleged FBI ìstingî against AIPAC, has been quietly rehired by the Pentagon, over the FBIís objections
http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=13893
Just how deep are the problems at American International Group?
Phony accounting for more than a decade, the forced retirement of its longtime chairman, a sharp drop in the company's stock and criminal investigations of the Manhattan insurance giant may be just the beginning, analysts said Wednesday, even as new woes were added to the list.
And that could spell bad news for investors, policyholders and employees, the analysts said.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/03/31/BUGN5C0TK81.DTL
[Three months in prison for shooting an air gun NEAR a bunch of hooligans who had been terrorizing her family. I can say without qualification that if she had just killed them and hid the bodies she would be walking free right now.
This is a story from the future of America.]
During the midnight confrontation near her suburban home in Urmston, Greater Manchester, she fired up to six rounds from the gas-powered air pistol into the ground close to the feet of her antagonist. She later confessed to police officers that she had acted “like a madwoman possessed” but complained that the activities of the youths had left her at breaking point.
Mrs Walker looked apprehensive in the dock at Minshull Street Crown Court, in Manchester, as the judge told her yesterday that she would serve at least three months before being considered for release.
...
She later expressed surprise when an armed response unit arrested her and not the youths. Afterwards she complained to officers: “Police are very sympathetic but the law is on the side of these criminals and yobbos and not the victims. They have all the rights.”
In evidence Mrs Walker said: “I cannot say I am sorry I challenged him (the teenager). I think I needed to do it to get rid of my anger. I know I shouldn’t have done it. I know I was loopy.”
Farrhat Arshad, for the defence, suggested that Mrs Walker had given “her lot to society”. Ms Arshad said: “The court is familiar with the acts of petty vandalism and theft that were caused to her property. Although they may appear as petty, the effects on Mrs Walker were great. She thought her family, which was supposed to be safe, was being attacked.”
Mrs Walker was found guilty of affray and possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence after a week-long trial in February.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1546915,00.html
U.S. employers added 110,000 workers in March, barely half the number expected, as rising costs crimped hiring. Bonds and stocks rose on speculation the Federal Reserve won't need to raise interest rates as fast as investors expected.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_us&refer=top_world_news&sid=aLuTjyBKvG04
Tony Blair's plan to make the economy the centrepiece of Labour's re-election strategy suffered a fresh blow yesterday when Britain's biggest building society reported the sharpest fall in house prices for 10 years.
As speculation intensified that the prime minister would name May 5 as polling day next week, the Nationwide reported that weaker demand for property sent seasonally adjusted prices tumbling by 0.6% last month.
http://money.guardian.co.uk/news_/story/0,1456,1449876,00.html
"My son Ronald Lee Chavez an employee of Halliburton in Iraq was severely beaten by peer Halliburton employees. These employees are known in Iraq as the Leesville, LA "Red Neck Mafia".
Ronald was med-evaced to Camp Anaconda where he is in a US Military Hospital and remains there. According to my daughter in law Patti, Ronald is to be transferred to a military hospital in Germany because of Atria Fibrillation to his heart due to the severe beating. What I understand, Halliburton has advised Patti, that Ronald needs a Passport to get medical treatment at a Military Hospital in Germany.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/30/1544247
[If there was nothing else wrong with the federal government, the fact that it has even one base that is bigger than a whole state would be problem enough, but it actually has lots of bsaes and tracts of land bigger than whole states. The federal government controls virtually the whole state of navada. If you look at map showing government and non-government land, the non-gov land is actually just a little squiggly line in the middle part of the state.]
In a letter denying a Freedom of Information Act request filed in October by the Deseret Morning News, Brig. Gen. James R. Myles, commander of the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command, states that the Army had identified "a number of documents ... regarding proposals to enlarge the boundaries of Dugway Proving Ground," confirming it is indeed looking at expanding the base that is already larger than Rhode Island.
But, he wrote, "we must withhold the documents in their entirety under Exemption 5 of the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act). All of the documents found responsive to your request are predecisional and deliberative in nature."
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600122609,00.html
The US-British occupation of Iraq is poisoning all political processes in my country and across the Middle East. The elections held under the control of the occupying forces in January were neither free nor fair. Instead of being a step towards solving Iraq's problems, they have been used to prolong foreign rule over the Iraqi people.
Only when the occupiers withdraw from the country can Iraq take the first secure steps towards peace and stability. Once a strict timetable for withdrawal is set, Iraq's political forces could freely agree and set in motion a process of genuinely free and fair democratic elections, a permanent constitution, and a programme that meets the demands of all the Iraqi people.
The occupying powers are now following a policy of divide and rule, encouraging sectarian and ethnic divisions and imposing them on all the institutions they have created.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1449864,00.html
THE al-Qaeda terror group made unexpected advances in developing a virulent biological strain - dubbed "Agent X" - before the September 11, 2001, attacks, a US presidential commission on US intelligence operations said today.
The commission said in its final report that intelligence analysts were "surprised by the intentions and level of research and development" uncovered after the US invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.
The commission, appointed by US President George W. Bush in response to intelligence failures in Iraq, said US intelligence had long held that al-Qaeda members had trained in crude methods for producing biological agents such as botulinum toxin, as well as toxins obtained from venomous animals.
But the commission said intelligence agencies before the Afghanistan invasion had been uncertain whether al-Qaeda had managed to acquire "a far more dangerous strain", which it only identified as Agent X in its unclassified report.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12720325-23109,00.html
A decorated Army captain convicted in the shooting death of a wounded Iraqi was dismissed from the military Friday, but will serve no time in prison after insisting at his court-martial that the shooting was a mercy killing.
A relieved Capt. Rogelio "Roger" Maynulet, 30, threw his arms around his attorneys, wife and parents after the military court spared him a prison sentence. Prosecutors had sought a three-year term along with the dismissal.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050401/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/germany_us_iraq
Cheap money and refinancing have fueled an unparalleled boom/inflation of real estate prices across the nation. Most gains have been cashed out via the equity loans that have provided a supplemental "income" for households to keep this economy spending. It’s the costly S&L tragedy all over again.
http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/033105Cederholm.shtml
The ACLU said the reason for the delay in delivering the more than 1,200 pages of documents was "evident in the contents," which include reports of brutal beatings, "exercise until exhaustion," and sworn statements that soldiers were told to "beat the f**k out of" detainees. One file cites evidence that military intelligence personnel in Iraq "tortured" detainees held in their custody.
http://www.antiwar.com/ips/fisher.php?articleid=5415
Retired Major Doug Rokke, Ph.D. (USAR, retired), who was an Army health physicist during the Gulf war and was then responsible for trying to 'clean up' radiologically contaminated US equipment (RCE's) there, has been calling on the military to follow its own regulations. He and Damacio Lopez continue to make this call.
These Army regulations and the "Handling Procedures for Equipment Contaminated with Depleted Uranium or Radioactive Commodities" specify stringent requirements for handling RCE's, as well as providing medical surveillance, training, and environmental protection among other requirements. [You may also download the Procedures at the military's site]. For instance, the regulations require protecting the environment in the war zone - Iraq in this case - (Army Regulation 700-48, 2-4) and medical care for any "individual" who "may have been exposed" to DU contamination. (Army Regulation 700-48, 2-5). (The US has used DU in many US states and other countries; we focus on Iraq here, given the current crisis and the huge amounts of DU used. The regulations apply wherever DU has been used.)
Reading these regulations and procedures, one must wonder how the US can justify - morally or legally - using such a weapon. (See the Karen Parker, J.D., article on the illegality of DU Weaponry under international humanitarian law.)
Very recently, two US military publications have taken noticee of the regulations. But again, what of the Iraqis - a people who will be left to live with what the US has left behind? And, will the military follow these reminders of their regulations, even concerning US soldiers?
http://www.traprockpeace.org/depleted_uranium_regs.html
Five Shuman Juvenile Detention Center guards and the father of a Penn Hills boy were criminally charged yesterday as a result of a "scared straight" incident at the lockup Sunday in which the 13-year-old boy was beaten.
Matt Freed, Post-Gazette
Charles Smith attends a preliminary hearing at the Municipal Courts Building in front of District Judge Rob Wyda last night.
Click photo for larger image.
Previous coverage
'Scared straight' bid goes awry
Police said the boy's father, Anthony Donald Sr., of Penn Hills, placed the youngster, who has never been charged with a crime, in the hands of two friends who are Shuman guards. Donald was charged with misdemeanor counts of conspiracy and child endangerment.
Donald Jr. said the guards ordered him to strip in a public place and put on a uniform. When he refused, he said, four guards forced him to the ground, beat him and stripped off his pants.
Four of the guards, called "child care workers," are charged with unlawful restraint and false imprisonment, which are felonies.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05091/481093.stm
I'm an active duty Department of State Officer not involved in political or economic issues. I have read the letter's contents and viewed the 'letterhead.' I can say with confident certainty that it is a fake, but without going into the details of the dozens of grammatical errors. Remember, Ambassadors don't do much political reporting, senior (and junior officers looking to make their careers) write political reporting cables. In fact, during meetings, briefings, panels, etc, there are always seasoned/senior political officers taking notes for the Ambassadors, and THEY draft the cables which are read, proofread, and meticulously picked over by people who pride themselves on their unique abilities to set scenes and use just the right word to convey accurate positions of the policy makers and opinions of those policy makers. No group of seasoned political, economic, and aid/development officers, who all read and clear on 'policy' papers back to Washington decision makers, would let such a sloppy paper go forth to Washington. And such policy discussions about internal politics of any country are NEVER in 'memo/letterhead' format. Who are the recipients of such papers? Do they think we mail things in this electronic age? No. Any such discussions are sent by electronic, i.e. 'cable' format. A true 'secret' embassy document would have names of drafter, clearing officers, classification reason and expiration dates, specific policy/program tags for recipient offices, etc. Cables are not 'signed.' This is a fraud for some sort of domestic Kyrgyz purposes.
http://cryptome.org/kyrgyz-secret.htm
[Did they have a “Mission Accomplished” banner in the background?]
The US has dismissed a tour by journalists of a nuclear facility in Iran as a "staged media event".
The state department said Iran should be answering questions about what it is doing at the Natanz site, the existence of which was kept secret until 2002.
Journalists accompanied Iran's president to the site on Wednesday.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4395911.stm
THE MISSING ABU GHRAIB TORTURE IMAGES
Last year, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed
Services Committee that he had viewed the contents of three
compact disks containing "blatantly sadistic, cruel, and
inhuman" acts of torture and abuse committed by some U.S.
personnel at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Almost none of those images have been released into the public
domain, and they may never be if the government has its way.
The Pentagon's successful efforts to deflect Freedom of
Information Act requests for disclosure of the images -- with
identifying features obscured if necessary -- are traced by Matt
Welch in the latest Reason Magazine.
See his article "The Pentagon's Secret Stash: Why we'll never see
the second round of Abu Ghraib photos," Reason, April 2005:
http://www.reason.com/0504/co.mw.the.shtml
Most recently, the Army has said that it has no idea what images
are being requested, and that requesters must supply more
details.
"Please provide the date, location, and names of persons involved
in the abuse and we will attempt to conduct a search," wrote
Phillip J. McGuire, Director of the Army Crimes Records Center on
March 7
The images, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress, depict "acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel, and inhuman." After Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) viewed some of them in a classified briefing, he testified that his "stomach gave out." NBC News reported that they show "American soldiers beating one prisoner almost to death, apparently raping a female prisoner, acting inappropriately with a dead body, and taping Iraqi guards raping young boys." Everyone who saw the photographs and videos seemed to shudder openly when contemplating what the reaction would be when they eventually were made public.
http://www.reason.com/0504/co.mw.the.shtml
[So for this woman who actually lived in a Nazi death camp, some of the definiing characteristics are rought treatment and humiliation. Why do these things sound familiar?]
Rough treatment, being pushed and grabbed, the humiliation piece of it were all part of Auschwitz," Warford said. "It certainly is possible to have a psychological response to a trigger event, such as being grabbed on a bus. Whether that happened is up to the jury or court to decide."
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1112439716296310.xml
Those born in the last quarter of the 20th century might be forgiven for thinking that the papacy and Poland go hand in hand or that the pope has always been a man at home among common people and intent on spreading the Catholic word around the globe in person. Older people, however, know John Paul II was anything but typical. Even in his last years — shaking from Parkinson's disease and moving slowly through a millennial pilgrimage to the Holy Land — it was clear he was a pope like no other.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3276587/
In 1954, Israeli agents working in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including a United States diplomatic facility, and left evidence behind implicating Arabs as the culprits. The ruse would have worked, had not one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to capture and identify one of the bombers, which in turn led to the round up of an Israeli spy ring.
http://www.rense.com/general63/attk.htm
Investigators say they've discovered a critical mechanism key to heart attack-linked cell death, and they say a drug already exists to block this mechanism. That drug, cyclosporin, is an immunosuppressant often used in patients undergoing organ transplants.
http://www.healthcentral.com/news/NewsFullText.cfm?id=524829
[How about a bill to give those 0.5 to 1M jobs to actual American people?]
The Senate is bracing for its first fight over amnesty for illegal immigrants in nearly 10 years after the chamber's parliamentarian ruled that a debate over granting legal status to illegal agriculture workers will be allowed on the pending emergency spending bill.
The $81 billion spending bill covers costs associated with the war on terror, and the House already passed a version with provisions restricting asylum claims and cracking down on illegal immigrants' ability to use driver's licenses. The parliamentarian said those provisions open the door for Sen. Larry E. Craig, Idaho Republican, to offer as an amendment his bill, commonly called "Ag-jobs," to legalize the 500,000 to 1 million illegal immigrants now working in the agriculture industry.
http://www.rense.com/general63/dedw.htm
These maneuvers involved a war in a fictitiously named Persian Gulf country that resembled Iraq." The games were carefully scripted to prove the efficacy of a Rumsfeld-style high-tech army. Unfortunately, Gen. Van Riper stepped outside the script and using such simple devices -- the sort now undoubtedly being employed by the Iraqi insurgency -- as "motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to Red troops, thereby eluding Blue's super-sophisticated eavesdropping technology," he trumped the techies. "At one point in the game, when Blue's fleet entered the Persian Gulf, he sank some of the ships with suicide-bombers in speed boats. (At that point, the managers stopped the game, ‘refloated' the Blue fleet, and resumed play.)" He was reprimanded and finally quit in protest. But someone -- with the last couple of years in Iraq in mind -- should have paid the man some mind.
Perhaps that's why our Secretary of Defense, responsible for sending those F-16s to Pakistan, has been in a panic over the fact that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's government recently bought 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles. Little Venezuela's purchase of 1940's-era-design rifles has Rummy in a tizzy; and, for all the high-tech goodies at his command, not without reason. The insurgency in Iraq has demonstrated that a relatively small force of lightly armed insurgents in an area roughly the size of California can bog down, stretch to the limit, and effectively counterbalance for two years the might of the U.S. military, despite its trillions of dollars worth of satellites, armor, artillery, air power, futuristic weapons, and old-fashioned bullets.
...
Lets face it, making war is fast superceding sports as the American national pastime. Since 1980, overtly or covertly, the United States has been involved in military actions in Grenada, Libya, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Haiti, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Liberia, Sudan, the Philippines, Colombia, Haiti (again), Afghanistan (again) and Iraq (again) and that's not even the full list. It stands to reason when the voracious appetites of the military-corporate complex are in constant need of feeding.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/2005/04/build_it.html
[One that gets me about Republicans, who typically claim to be both law and order types and anti-homosexuality, is that they are perpetually devising new ways to get more people locked up in prison, even though the prison system is the number one promoter and enabler of the homsexual behavior in this country.
They are always harping on the libeal media or whatever. But I have yet to see a TV show or movie that will literally hold someone down and sodomize them repeatedly over the course of years until they more or less come to accept it as normal behavior, whereas this happens all the time in the prison system.]
There are very graphic scenes of torture and abuse within this film. View at your own discretion, but spread the word so more may become informed. A British documentary on the extreme brutality of the American Prison System. One in every 150 American Citizens is in jail, with 5% of the World's Population, the US has 25% of the World's Prisoners, making the leading jailer in the world (even the counties they ëliberate' jail les of their population). The one time Land of the Free has become the Ultimate Prison State!
http://www.rense.com/general63/bbm.htm
As if earthquake-ravaged Indonesia doesn't have enough to worry about, now scientists warn that a Sumatran super-volcano might blow its top at any time.
If it does, the blast will toss hundreds of thousands of cubic kilometres of rock and ash into the atmosphere, dwarfing the eruptions of Krakatoa, Mount St Helens, Pinatubo and any conventional volcanic explosion of the past tens of thousands of years.
http://www.rense.com/general63/shak.htm
The Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and members of the Chinese government arranged for a banquet with five large tables fastened together. Cardinal Sin and Bishop Kung were seated on opposite ends of the tables separated by more than 20 Communists. They were not allowed to greet each other or to speak. After awhile, Cardinal Sin suggested that each man sing a song to provide a little stimulation for an otherwise silent gathering. So each man sang a song of his choice. When the time came for Bishop Kung to sing, he chose a song of faith that would convey to Cardinal Sin that in all his years of captivity he never renounced his God or his Church.
After Bishop Kung sang just a few bars, in Latin, of the beloved hymn, "Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam mean. (You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church)", a member-Bishop of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association informed his superiors of Kung's ruse. Bishop Kung was told to be silent, but he looked at Cardinal Sin and finished the song.
Cardinal Sin carried Bishop Kung's message to the world: this man of God never faltered in his love for his church or his people despite unimaginable suffering, isolation and pain.
http://www.cardinalkungfoundation.org/biography/index.htm
[Someone asked teh question, wht if you made a commcercial like this with israel as the bad guy? Of course it would never even get on the air, even though Israel
A. actually has nuclear weapons,
and
B. actually has attacked and endangered the United States, for example the USS Liberty ship, the Lavon Affair tacks referred to elsewhere here, and the Pollard spy scandal in which the israelis sold out our nuclear secrets to the Russians.]
The newly formed Iran Freedom Foundation has launched two television commercials warning that American cities are vulnerable to attack by an improvised nuclear device detonated by Iranian-backed terrorists.
Titled "An Atomic 9-11: When Evil is Appeased," the spots are based on a scenario described in the new WND Books release "Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians," by Jerome R. Corsi, co-author of the best-selling "Unfit for Command."
The ads can be viewed on the IFF website.
Corsi believes an atomic 9-11 is an imminent threat once a terrorist state like Iran has the capability to develop nuclear weapons.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43504
President Bush has nominated Vice President Cheney's son-in-law, a prominent Washington lawyer who represents companies in the homeland security field, to be the general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security.
Philip J. Perry, who is married to Cheney daughter Elizabeth Cheney Perry, is a partner at the Washington law office of Latham & Watkins, and has represented Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp. in dealing with the department.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A16318-2005Mar31?language=printer
Click to view caption
An Israeli settler dressed in clown costume carries an M-16 rifle as he joins a Purim parade in the west bank town of Hebron
The Palestinian Authority (PA) is calling on the international community, including the "Quartet" (the US, EU, Russia and the UN), to pressure Israel to put an end to nearly daily pogrom-like attacks by messianic Israeli terrorists on defenseless Palestinian villagers throughout the West Bank.
Attacks have mushroomed recently as extremist Israeli settlers vow to commit acts of "unprecedented violence" to thwart Israel's planned "disengagement" from the Gaza Strip.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/736/re4.htm
Most Europeans, including almost all British citizens, will need a visa to visit America later this year after the US Congress said that there was little chance of postponing a deadline for the introduction of biometric passports.
The EU has asked for more time to meet new American standards under which travellers will be able to enter the US without visas only if they hold a passport with a digitalised photo stored on a chip.
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=625542
Tipped they may have missed evidence a decade ago, FBI agents searched the former home of convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols and found blasting caps and other explosive materials apparently related to the 1995 attack, officials said Friday.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/04/01/nichols.house.search.ap/index.html
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression
Originally Thirteen Techniques for Truth Suppression
by David Martin, author of America's Dreyfus Affair
Strong, credible allegations of high-level criminal activity can bring down a government. When the government lacks an effective, fact-based defense, other techniques must be employed. The success of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative, compliant press and a mere token opposition party.
http://www.dabney.com/wacomuseum/library/martin1.html
[This is from 2002]
ISRAEL’S Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has called on the international community to target Iran as soon as the imminent conflict with Iraq is complete.
In an interview with The Times , Mr Sharon insisted that Tehran — one of the “axis of evil” powers identified by President Bush — should be put under pressure “the day after” action against Baghdad ends because of its role as a “centre of world terror”. He also issued his clearest warning yet that Israel would strike back if attacked by Iraqi chemical or biological weapons, no matter how much Washington sought to keep its controversial Middle Eastern ally out of any war in Iraq.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-469972,00.html
During the series of Witch Hunts that constituted the GOP's orchestrated reaction to the election and re-election of President Clinton, we constantly heard the tiring refrain that it was all about the rule of law. It wasn't the sex, it was the lying (under oath), doncha know? Well needless to say, none of our friends on the other side of the aisle ever really believed what they were saying, and the depths of their genuine hatred -- or at least utter disregard -- for the rule of law has become abundant in the years since then.
That this is so has been evident in the ceasless invective against "activist judges" (read: any judge with whom we disagree) and lawyers that has been part and parcel of the well-oiled Mighty Wurlitzer, but never has it been clearer than during the recent rhetorical necrophiliac orgy that found its newest object of idolatry in the still breathing body of a poor, defenseless, brain-dead woman who by all credible accounts would never have wanted such defenders in a million years.
The extraordinary and probably unconstitutional grandstanding midnight legislation was essentially an attempt to overturn judicial review by means of legislation. It was an attempt, pure and simple, to subvert the system of checks and balances by making the judiciary subservient to the party of power. When this happens in, say, post-Soviet Russia, we tut-tut and make remarks as to the limits of democratic reform in the absence of an independent judiciary. But when it happens here, lead blowhards such as James Dobson blovaite as to how the "activist judges" are "subverting the will of the people."
And when Tom Delay starts talking about how "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today," we can only hope that Judges Greer and Whittemore have looked carefully into the possibility of acquiring bodyguards.
...
What the authoritarian right wants are not constitutional conservatives but yes-men. They want the kind of judges who are influenced not by rule-of-law and the rational application of principles, but by ideology and political loyalism of the basest sort.
http://www.rense.com/general63/ahte.htm
A Brazilian congressional panel investigating the murder of a revered American nun has found evidence that a broader conspiracy between loggers, ranchers and officials is behind a wave of violence against peasant farmers and environmental activists in the Amazon state of Para.
A senate panel concluded that four people arrested for the murder of Sister Dorothy Stang are merely the most visible elements in an intricate chain of interests whose use of violence has given them almost unbridled power in a notoriously lawless region.
http://www.rense.com/general63/rb.htm
The average American in the year 2005 lives a fragile existence, in a struggle for survival that can be ended by missing a few paychecks. The carrot at the end of the stick which was formerly known as "the American dream" has been replaced by a whip that can best be described as the American nightmare of homelessness, and slow, early death. You no longer work to achieve a better life for yourselves and your children. You work to keep a roof over your head, and you pray that you don't lose it. You became a slave when fear replaced incentive as your motivation to work, but I still suggest that you work while you can, because if the company you work for can't send your job overseas, the U.S. government is allowing 2000 people per day to enter this country illegally, because they're willing to do your job for less.
It doesn't matter if you're a "white collar" or "blue collar" employee. If you're an American, you're too highly paid.
http://www.rense.com/general63/newam.htm
I'm not asking that you waste the time or paper required to write your congressman, because they don't care what you think anyway. What I am asking you to do is to remember something. When the economy does crash, and you're forced into the street. I want you to remember that this isn't your fault, and it's not the result of a "bad economy." Please remember that you're poor, hungry and homeless, because that's where our government wants you to be, and they intentionally destroyed the U.S. economy because they want you to suffer, and beg. And regardless of how bad things get, never sell your rifle. -- Jolly Roger
"Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens..... Lenin was certainly right." - John Maynard Keynes*
http://www.rense.com/general63/newam.htm
[The Insane Clown Posse, Purim-style.]
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/736/_re4.htm
The original salute and pledge of allegiance to the U.S. flag were created by a socialist to promote socialism in the most socialistic institution - government schools (socialized schools). The pledge began with a military salute (at http://rexcurry.net/pledge_military.html) for the phrase "I pledge allegiance" and then for the rest of the chant the arm was extended outward to a straight-arm salute resembling the salute of the National Socialist German Workers' Party. (see photos linked at http://rexcurry.net/pledge1.html).
http://rexcurry.net/pledge_military.html
There is a breathtaking hypocrisy to the indictment of Kofi Annan over the oil for food programme for Iraq. It was the US and the UK who devised the programme, piloted the UN resolutions that gave it authority, sat on the committee to administer it and ran the blockade to enforce it. I know because I spent a high proportion of my time at the Foreign Office trying to make a success of it. If there were problems with it then Washington and London should be in the dock alongside the luckless Kofi Annan, who happened to be general secretary at the time.
But there is a deeper level of perversity to the denigration of Annan by the American right wing. They have long clamoured for reform of the UN. Kofi Annan has just proposed the most comprehensive overhaul of the UN in its history and is the general secretary most likely to deliver support for it. If they persist in undermining him they are likely to derail his reform package. The suspicion must be that they would rather have a creaking, ineffective UN to treat as a coconut shy than a modern, representative forum that would oblige them to respect collective decisions.
...
The eccentric selection of John Bolton as Bush's ambassador to the UN is consistent with such a strategy of sabotage rather than reform. His hostility to any constraint on US unilateralism is so deep, (and his life so sad), that he described his "happiest moment" signing the letter to Kofi Annan telling him that the US would have nothing to do with the international criminal court. His relish in the gesture is all the more revealing as the issue was not within the remit of his job, and he pleaded to be allowed to sign as a special favour.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/columnist/story/0,9321,1449970,00.html
Authorities have determined that a New York man found with credit cards and identification in eight different names after a late February high-speed chase is the person he ultimately told police he was.
Israel Bleier has a valid U.S. passport, deputy district attorney Alan Charmatz told Marin Superior Court Judge Stephen Graham yesterday during an appearance in the defendant's criminal case on charges of evading arrest, receiving a stolen vehicle, possession of stolen property and three counts of identify theft.
Bleier, 20, originally presented a French driver's license with his picture and the name of Samuel Fine when he was arrested Feb. 27. He allegedly sped away at upward of 110 mph after a sheriff's deputy attempted to pull over his rented Cadillac sedan that police said was traveling at about 90 mph on southbound Highway 101 in Novato at 3:30 a.m.
...
"I am not being treated right because I am Jewish," Bleier told the judge.
http://www.marinij.com/Stories/0,1413,234~24407~2795074,00.html
After a few close calls, astronomers have finally obtained the first photograph of a planet beyond our solar system, SPACE.com has learned.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/04/01/extrasolar.planet.photo/index.html
Oil prices soared to fresh all-time highs, underpinned by worries about US refining capacity and building on gains caused by a study raising the possibility of 100-dollar per barrel oil.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in May, jumped to an all-time closing high of 57.25 dollars a barrel, up 1.87 from Thursday's close.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050401/bs_afp/commoditiesenergyoil_050401231928
Republicans, the Society of Christian Socialists
By Rex Curry, 7/12/2002 3:36:17 AM
Should the Republican Party be renamed the "Society of Christian Socialists"? Most Republicans favor the Pledge of Allegiance, which was written by Francis Bellamy, a member of the Society of Christian Socialists. Bellamy wrote the pledge to promote socialism in the most socialistic institution -government schools.
When Republicans criticize the 9th Circuit Court of appeals, Republicans don't call for ending government schools, instead Republicans simply criticize the ruling against the phrase "under God."
When the First Amendment establishment clause was written, the government wasn't operating schools, and wasn't making students say pledges with, or without, God. But that isn't part of any Republican arguments.
Republicans don't call for ending government schools. Republicans want students to say the pledge in the government schools, and they want the phrase "under God" included.
Perhaps the name "Society of Christian Socialists" would fit Republicans even better than Bellamy, since Republicans favor the more religious version of Bellamy's pledge with the phrase "under God" inserted in 1954. When the pledge was originally written, the socialist Bellamy didn't want God used to endorse socialism and government schools. Republicans are more socialistic than that today.
It's a good bet that if the present Republican Party policies were compared with those of the Society of Christian Socialists in 1862, it would be seen that the Republicans have adopted and surpassed the socialism of the Society of Christian Socialists of 1862.
Should the Republican Party be renamed the "Society of Christian Socialists"?
http://rexcurry.net/commentary/Bellamy.html
posted by abu nakba at 4/02/2005 03:48:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home