I mean, it’s a rat’s nest

The same Commercial Media mercenaries who spent recent years trying to convince the public that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is not popular (and therefore illegitimate) have now changed their tune. Gone are the days when the Juan Foreros of big media told us that “Mr. Chávez has… managed to rankle nearly every sector – from the church to the press to the middle class” as he did three weeks prior to the attempted 2002 coup in Venezuela. Win enough elections, and I guess that dog eventually don’t hunt. The new spin is that the man in the red beret is more dangerous than ever precisely because he is too popular, not only in Venezuela, but throughout América. Now it’s his “ideas” that must be stopped
http://www.narconews.com/Issue38/article1392.html

Several months ago, an official Brazilian commission visited Vietnam. With the goal of “sharing information about resistance doctrine,” the commission composed of colonels and lieutenant-colonels visited Hanoi, Ho Chi Min City (formerly Saigon), and the Cu Chi Province, where 250 kilometers (150 miles) of underground tunnels constructed during the war with the United States still remain. On the Brazilian army’s webpage, Gen. Claudio Barbosa Figuereido, head of the Amazon Military Command, asserts that Brazil will face actions similar to those that have taken place in Vietnam, and now in Iraq, should the Amazon come into conflict:

The resistance strategy does not differ much from guerrilla warfare, and it is an option the army will not hesitate to adopt facing a confrontation with another country or group of countries with greater economic and military power.” He added, “The jungle itself should serve as an ally in combating the invader.”1 The news had little impact on the media, but it demonstrates that Brazil’s armed forces have their own strategic plans and that they see the United States as a potential military enemy.
...
On the other hand, Latin America is one of the most stable areas in the world, and few of its resources from the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are dedicated to the military budget, a mere 1.5%. This figures contrasts with the 4% of GDP dedicated to military spending by the European Union, 3% for the United States (which accounts for 47% of total military spending worldwide), and 12% for the Middle East. A good part of the current purchases and investment in armaments by various South American countries will cover nothing more than the renovation of war materials acquired in the 1960s, which have become useless and obsolete.
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/165

Another factor in what is now an adversarial relationship between the Chávez government and the Commercial Media is that Chávez didn’t just tax or criticize the media – he became the media. In 2000, Chávez started his own TV show – Alo Presidente! – and with a very different format than, say, the weekly radio monologues by George W. Bush in Washington or Vicente Fox in Mexico City. Every Sunday, on VTV - Venezolana de Televisión (Channel 8) – and Radio Nacional Venezolana (RNV) – Chávez brings all his cabinet secretaries into the studio (sometimes the show goes out into the provinces, too), as well as a live studio audience, and he takes phone calls from the public. If a caller mentions, say, a problem at a local school, Chávez then calls the Education Minister up on camera, asks him how the problem will be fixed, and comes back a week later to report how the problem was fixed
http://www.narconews.com/Issue38/article1392.html

China believes the mystery illness that has killed 19 farmers in western China is streptococcus suis, a disease common in pigs
http://www.rense.com/general67/ssic.htm

"The new bone actually has comparable strength and mechanical properties to native bone and since the harvested bone is fresh it integrates really well at a recipient site," she said.
http://www.rense.com/general67/scihas.htm

In response to the public outcry over the preventable murder of Scott Gardner and the injury of his family by a drunk driving illegal alien arrested thrice before, Representative Sue Myrick has written the department of homeland security director Chertoff to demand an explanation as to why North Carolina has only 1 deportation officer .

NC has between 300-600 thousand illegal aliens and just one deportation officer. Many of these illegal aliens are moving in and out of our criminal justice system after murdering, raping, injuring, robbing, and stealing the identities of our legal citizens without deportation. In fact, many walk right back onto our streets after serving sentences in prison at taxpayer expense!
http://www.alipac.us/article-568-thread-1-0.html

So what is shown on the 87 photographs and four videos from Abu Ghraib prison that the Pentagon, in an eleventh hour move, blocked from release this weekend? One clue: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress last year, after viewing a large cache of unreleased images: "I mean, I looked at them last night, and they're hard to believe.” They show acts "that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane," he added.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000990590

But as Correspondent Scott Pelley reported last March, it's happening to many others. Some are taken to prisons infamous for torture. And a few may have been rendered by mistake.

One of the covert missions happened in Stockholm, and the details have touched off a national scandal in Sweden
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/07/20/60minutes/main710396.shtml

"You know there was something else going on when that invasion took place. We had some target buildings we were given to destroy. The buildings weren't any type of military threat to us and we kind of looked around at each other and said 'What the hell is this all about?', but we followed orders and blew the buildings up. I really think that grabbing Noriega was a secondary reason for the invasion. There was something else going on."

He had a very puzzled look on his face at this point
http://www.menrohm.com/2005/07/invasion-of-panama-there-was-something.html

The five men in Sunday's incident were quickly freed after police determined they were just tourists.
http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1260&storyid=3502235


An Italian appeals court yesterday ordered the arrest of six additional CIA agents in connection with the disappearance of a radical Muslim cleric who was snatched from the streets of Milan two years ago, a prosecutor said.

The arrest warrants bring to 19 the number of CIA operatives being sought by Italian justice officials. None is believed to be in Italy now, and no one has been arrested in connection with the case.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05207/543685.stm

Plenty of people manage to follow a particular faith with varying degrees of credence in the literal truth of its sectarian doctrine, and even to incorporate their beliefs into their daily lives, without hammering their neighbors over the head with the need to follow suit. That fails to satisfy many of the faithful, however, and they must raise the subject at every conversation, stubbornly insisting that their obsession become yours. This seems especially true among those who make a direct or indirect living off such discourse, as though they feel the need to practice their skills on every innocent victim who falls within earshot.
http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1107

An article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh last week in the New Yorker magazine reveals that the Bush White House authorized a highly classified covert program to funnel financial and material aid to its favored slate in the January 30 Iraqi elections, an operation that may have included ballot-stuffing and other means of directly manipulating vote totals.

Hersh’s exposé underscores both the bogus character of the “democracy” which the American government has established in Iraq and the severely eroded character of democratic forms of rule in the United States itself, where the Bush administration feels free to override legal restrictions, congressional oversight and even objections from within the military-intelligence apparatus itself.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/iele-j26.shtml

This new religion, also a British import first seen in America in last half of the 19th Century, is distinct from traditional Christianity. Its adherents know they are different and refer to themselves by several names, including dispensationalist, which is adopted from the footnotes of the Scofield Reference Bible published and owned by the prestigious Oxford University Press. More recently Israel’s political leaders have dubbed them “Christian Zionists.”
http://www.whtt.org/index_temp.php?news=2&id=171&PHPSESSID=04148387aa052c5c33e77e611681cebd

It was all too much for Bob to think about. He continued going to work while Jordan stayed home, appreciating the “Attention to Detail Difference.” Eventually, Bob too would join Jordan before the Houston City Council to lament the mold and the rotting and how, according to the meeting’s minutes, “the builder knew of the problems and failed to disclose it.” Jordan had looked forward to a leisurely life taking care of her new house and writing memoirs, but when the builders would not fix the structure, and when no authority would compel them to do it, Jordan experienced, for the first time, an in-justice she could not endure. On a street corner near her house, the 59-year-old Republican began picketing for all she was worth.

“I mean, it’s a rat’s nest,” she says of the house, of Texas law, of the System,“and here I am, one grandmother with no money and no help.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/07/home_sour_home.html