The Razor's Edge

2003-08-07T17:34:00.000-05:00

Policy Analysis Market

Or the Terrorist betting pool as some were making out to be, has been killed. Most of the people who raised the strongest objections to it, never bothered to look into the soundness of the program how it would have worked.

Here is a typical example from David Morse at Commondreams.

The announced purpose of the Policy Analysis Market, as it was known, was to harness the “anonymous forces of market capitalism” to predict the likelihood of acts of terrorism - much as commodity-trading speculates on the future price of coffee or pork bellies. The Pentagon’s justification was that “markets are extremely efficient, effective and timely aggregators of dispersed and even hidden information.”

But critics in the Senate raised moral, as well as tactical concerns, in pointing out the obvious. Not only were markets faulty predictors of the future (witness the last stock market bubble and its collapse),

I find it interesting that Morse, who writes about economic issues, cannot differentiate between equities markets and futures markets and the fundamental differences between the two. But anyhoo……..

but if anonymous online traders could bet on the probability of various acts of terrorism in the Middle East - assassinations and coups - the setup was an invitation to mischief, including insider-trading by terrorists themselves. This may have been the Pentagon’s real intent all along: to use its cyber-surveillance capability to track buyers and sellers. But even as a long-term sting operation, it was ripe for abuse by speculators of every stripe.

“Can you imagine,” asked Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, who helped blow the whistle in the Senate, “if another country set up a betting parlor so that people could go in - and is sponsored by the government itself - people could go in and bet on the assassination of an American political figure?”

The new toy was the latest brainstorm from its Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, DARPA, created to spearhead the War on Terrorism, and headed by the notorious John M. Poindexter. DARPA was trumpeted by Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense, as “brilliantly imaginative.”

The idea was anything but brilliant, of course. It was, as one Congressman put it, “unbelievably stupid.” A New York Times editorial called it “wacky,” and demanded Poindexter’s resignation, without asking how the idea had gotten past Wolfowitz. In response to the bipartisan outrage, Wolfowitz lost no time distancing himself from the project, suggesting that the brainstormers at DARPA “got too imaginative.”

Ok, now that we heard the screed, its time to iron a few of Morse’s wrinkles.

First, not just “speculators of every stripe” would be allowed to participate. Policy experts would make up the backbone of those eligible to participate in the futures market. Military experts like Bill Gertz from the Washington Times, former diplomats and intelligence officials, think tank members would be the main source for the project.

These individuals would use their vast expertise and resources [as well as free time] to make predictions about current events. The issues could be things as mundane as whether Islamic fundamentalists would gain more seats in the Turkish house of parliament to economic forecasts for Egypt, to speculation as to whether or not liberalized political reforms will continue in Iran.

This would not be a system in which unknown people from Al’Queda, or Hamass, or Islamic Jihad could participate.

Issues of terrorism would also be open to speculation, but the Policy Analysis Market was to give a more comprehensive outlook for the Middle East.

Financial incentives would not be given out on a cash basis either. It is not as if someone could wager $100million on the assignation of a political figure and then make sure they won the bet. The Financial portion would have been given in the form of grants to the individuals and think tanks that made the correct predictions as well as those who agreed with it. A real financial incentive to be right or wrong would go a long way in forcing people to look at situation in a more realistic way and not fog opinions and speculations with ideology.

After all we are talking about money here, and futures markets are very good predictive tools for what they pertain to. I have been told that if I want to know what the weather in Florida is going to be like in 6 months, just look at what 6 month orange juice futures are doing.

DARPA has also had some fantastic successes in the past 30 years with technologies and systems it had thought up. The internet is perhaps DARPA’s most used, and least well known.

All these things aside, nothing in the first half of Morse’s article had anything to do with the “real” objections to the Policy Analysis Market. Like every other lefty out there, they absolutely hate anything connected to free market economic ideas.

Poindexter’s follies are the quintessence of what this administration has been about from the beginning. This latest scheme simply exposes the tip of an ideological iceberg that is no less wacky or dangerous, but which has escaped such noisy condemnation because it floats in a sea of general acceptance. It is the ideology of privatization, carried to extreme.

At its most benign, this ideology rests on the very dubious assumption that every aspect of government, from elections to social institutions, to foreign policy, can be governed by the so-called free market. At its most vicious, it is simply monopoly capitalism masquerading as government: profoundly antidemocratic, as well as anti-competitive, with no thought beyond lining the pockets of the powerful.

And there we have it.

2003-08-05T01:20:00.000-05:00

Larry Flynt at His worst

NATIONAL PRAYER DAY - PRAY FOR THE DEATH OF BILL O'REILLY

HUSLTER Magazine invites you to join us in prayer.

On Tuesday, August 5th at 12:45pm, we have organized a special gathering to pray to God for Fox News Channel blowhard Bill O'Reilly's death.

The service will be held in Los Angeles at Cornerstone Plaza, 1990 S. Bundy Drive. Located on the corner of Bundy Drive and LaGrange Av e.

DISCLAIMER: This serious gathering will truly take place, however if O'Reilly dies, it must be God's will.

For more information, please contact: Sean Carney 323-651-5400 ext. 7361

You know, there are many who don’t like O’Reilly, [I really cannot comment as my shitty cable provider does not even have Fox News], but to pray for his death is truly one of the most disgusting things I have head come out from the left in quite a while.

One has to wonder if this will make Matthew Rothschild’s McCarthy Watch found in the Progressive Magazine or if that useless cunt Naomi Klein will have anything to say about this.

On a side note, I think that the current plight of Flynt is one the quintessential definition of the phrase “poetic justice”. Here we have shining example a hate filled man once mired hedonism that because of an assassin’s bullet missing his heart but not his spine can no longer delight in the ladies that once surrounded him.

I suppose he has to compensate somehow.

2003-08-05T00:59:00.000-05:00

Cuba Jams Satellite Transmissions to Iran

Considering that the left is so adamant about US imperial designs to topple the Cuban dictatorship via military action [
this prick contends its because we are jealous of the "successes" of the Cuban socialist experiment], I am not surprised that this storyhas not gotten more airplay.

Transmitters in Cuba are jamming the signals of at least four U.S.-based television stations owned by Iranian Americans who are critical of the Tehran regime and use satellites to transmit programs to Iran, according to broadcasters and a private U.S. firm that has pinpointed the source of the interference.

All the transmissions affected so far are beamed from Los Angeles -- which has a large population of Iranian exiles -- by privately owned stations that oppose Iran's theocratic government, officials of the four stations said.

Although the jamming only occurred for a few days, the timing of it is very important. It took place during the first week of July, when protests by Iranian students were at their largest level since the 1979 overthrow of the Shah.

The jamming is most likely being done from a facility just outside of Havana built by the Soviets during the Cold War to spy on the US and block anti Castro/Soviet radio transmission.

The Cubans are most likely doing this in exchange for Iranian oil. An incentive which could easily be “lost” through the work of a US Navy UDT on any tanker coming from Iran.

2003-08-05T00:35:00.000-05:00

From the files of “What They Really Think”

The peace movement summed Up:

In the glow of the Iraq war's initial military success, most American peace activists felt profoundly demoralized.

- Paul Loeb at Commondreams

2003-08-05T00:32:00.000-05:00

Absence

No I have not vanished from the face of the earth, I have just been extremely busy.

2003-07-21T23:27:00.000-05:00

The Screwing of Greg Palast: The Wait Is Over

About a month back I commented on Greg Palast’s observation that Cynthia Mckinney had been “screwed” out of her reelection bid because, in Palast’s view, she was the object of a deliberate disinformation campaign put out by us evil neo-cons.

After several threatening emails and phone calls, I finally got someone over at KPFA to send the the transcripts of the March 25th, 2002 interview with Cynthia Mckinney. Sure enough, it seems as if Palast was full of shit.

Have you heard about Cynthia McKinney, former U.S. Congresswoman?

According to those quoted on National Public Radio, McKinney’s “a loose cannon” (media expert) who “the people of Atlanta are embarrassed and disgusted” (politician) by, and she is also “loony” and “dangerous” (senator from her own party).

Yow! And why is McKinney dangerous/loony/disgusting? According to NPR, “McKinney implied that the [Bush] Administration knew in advance about September 11 and deliberately held back the information.”

The New York Times’ Lynette Clemetson revealed her comments went even further over the edge: “Ms. McKinney suggest[ed] that President Bush might have known about the September 11 attacks but did nothing so his supporters could make money in a war.”

That’s loony, all right. As an editor of the highly respected Atlanta Journal Constitution told NPR, McKinney’s “practically accused the President of murder!”

Problem is, McKinney never said it.

That’s right. The “quote” from McKinney is a complete fabrication. A whopper, a fabulous fib, a fake, a flim-flam. Just freakin’ made up.

Yes, this is one fact the Times reporter didn’t fake: The McKinney “quote” was, indeed, all over the place: in the Washington Post, National Public Radio, and needless to say, all the other metropolitan dailies – everywhere but in Congresswoman McKinney’s mouth.

Nor was it in the Congressional Record, nor in any recorded talk, nor on her Website, nor in any of her radio talks.

Fabricated, ehh….. Well lets just have a look at what the transcripts tell us shall we.

According to the Washington Times article that Palast cites as fabricating the quote, here is what the Washington Times quoted Mckinney as saying McKinney

From the Washington Times

In a recent interview with a Berkeley, Calif., radio station, McKinney said: "We know there were numerous warnings of the events to come on September 11th. . . . What did this administration know and when did it know it, about the events of September 11th? Who else knew, and why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered? . . . What do they have to hide?"

And Now From the March 25th, 2002 KPFA Interview

We know that there were several warnings that were given prior to the events of September 11. What did this Administration know, and when did it know it about the events of September 11? Who else knew and why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered? What do they have to hide?

Agian from the Washington Times

She suggested that the administration was serving the interests of a Washington-based investment firm, the Carlyle Group, which employs a number of high-ranking former government officials from both parties. Former president George H.W. Bush -- the current president's father -- is an adviser to the firm. McKinney said the war on terrorism has enriched Carlyle Group investors by enhancing the value of a military contractor partly owned by the firm.

And Now From the March 25th, 2002 KPFA Interview

Then the other issue that saddens me is the fact that the former President, president Bush's daddy, sits on the board of the Carlyle Group. And so we get this presidency, of questionable legitimacy, requesting a nearly unprecedented amount of money to go into a defense budget for defense spending that will directly benefit his father.

The father sits on the board of an organization called the Carlyle Group.

Well, it would seem to me that the Washington Times not only quotes Mckinney fairly accurately, but also paraphrased her allegations of the Carlyle Group’s involvement accurately as well.

She was beaten in the August 2002 Democratic primary. More precisely, she was beaten to death, politically, by the fabricated quote
-Greg Palast

So was it a fabricated quote, or can’t the “investigative journalist” Greg Palast find a copy of the transcript and doing shoddy journalism, or is Palast lying in order to validate his own bullshit theory about why Cynthia Mckinney was so harshly [and bi-partisanly I might ass] attacked?

Clearly, from a reading of the KPFA’s transcripts, the quote does indeed exist and was accurately reported by both the Atlantic Journal Constitution as well as the Washington Post. I also doubt that Palast had any trouble finding a copy of the Flashpoints interview, because I [John Q Public] had absolutely no problem obtaining a copy a of it.

This leads us to one conclusion: Greg Palast is quilt of what he alleges Cynthia Mckinney’s detractors of, fabricating stories to validate a theory.

For the life of me, I cannot believe why he would do this, but it will be interesting to see if he responds to any of my e-mail requests for further clarification.

I suppose the the tile to this post “The Screwing of Greg Palast” might not be appropriate after all. Screwing implies that I have somehow willfully and maniacally besmirched the good name of a fine Journalist. Evidently Palast has done that all on his own.

2003-07-16T22:57:00.000-05:00

The More Things Change...

Well, you know how that saying goes, but have a read anyways.

Ralph Peters

Democrats attack the Republican president over a continuing conflict, insisting it cannot be won, as they position themselves for upcoming elections.

The president acts vigorously in response to a threat to our national survival - exacerbated by the fecklessness and timidity of his predecessor in office. His critics are outraged and unforgiving.

A retired general is one of the contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, although the Army realizes it's winning and continues to support the president.

Continental European powers, especially France, tacitly back Washington's enemies, jockeying for financial advantage - even approaching open support for the enemy's leader.

Domestically, subversives and traitors are arrested. Some are handed over to military tribunals. Civil libertarians argue that the U.S. Constitution is being destroyed.

The nation's intellectual elite cannot bear the president's Western simplicity, rustic mannerisms and lack of polish.

The media attack the president savagely, making fun of his lack of sophistication and even his appearance. Cartoonists lampoon the man even more fiercely than his policies. Leading newspapers and journals insist that his policies are disastrous and that he is unfit to lead the nation.

Even the British media portray the president as a dangerous lunatic, out of control.

On Capitol Hill, self-interested members of Congress establish a committee to investigate the president's handling of the war, as well as alleged distortions and corruption in his administration.

The president's secretary of state is accused of failure and ineptitude, while the cabinet member responsible for the Army has a knack for angering everybody.

The verdict of the intelligentsia is unanimous: This president is leading the nation into disaster.

Yet, the people continue to support the man, admiring the very qualities the intellectual elite despises. The president continues to do what he believes is necessary for the nation's security and survival, ignoring his exasperated critics.

President Bush? No.

Abraham Lincoln.

And the approaching elections were those of 1864, not 2004.

And the rest is well worth the read .

2003-07-10T22:12:00.000-05:00

The Kyoto Accord: How to kill an economy 101

By Iain Murray over at Tech Central Station

Yet because the climate change alarmists have frightened some lawmakers into assuming that drastic austerity measures are the only way to avoid a putative disaster in 100 years time, we are faced with the possibility of this thriving economy being forced to wear a hair shirt over the next decade. The EIA also released at the end of last month its analysis of the McCain-Lieberman "Climate Stewardship Act," a bill currently being considered by the Senate as part of the comprehensive energy bill. This bill, if enacted, would introduce a system of "cap and trade" credits, whereby from 2010 entities in the commercial, industrial and electric power sectors would not be allowed to produce more than a certain "capped" level of carbon dioxide emissions. However, bodies that produce less than their cap would be able to trade their allowances, thus creating a new economic market of credits and allowances from which they could profit. It is worth remembering here that Enron was pushing for just such a scheme.

The impact of such a scheme on the economy, the EIA found, would be far-reaching. As a result of price increases, the average household's energy bill would increase by $444 per year by 2025, although a new bureaucracy called the Climate Change Credit Corporation would issue rebates, assistance and other payments in a form of energy welfare to offset much of these costs.

Yet the impact on the economy as a whole can not be made up by hand-outs from government. When the system comes into operation, the economy would be severely affected resulting in job and output losses in the short-run. Because of this shock, real disposable income would drop by almost 1 percent per person by 2011, and would take fifteen years to return to 2000 levels. By 2025, the average person will have lost almost $2,500 as a result of McCain-Lieberman. The effect on GDP is even more startling, with the nation losing $507 billion in real terms over the next twenty-two years. By 2025, the country's GDP will be $106 billion lower in real terms than would have been the case without McCain-Lieberman.

The America that Senators McCain and Lieberman want us to live in is a poorer country in every sense of the word. People will be poorer than they are today and travel less, the economy will be struggling to recover to today's levels, and the outlook for jobs for an expanding population will be poor. Environmentalists who think this is a fair price to pay for their unproven theory that global warming will endanger us might also reflect that the EIA estimates that nuclear power generation will increase by 50 percent.

Yet, if current trends persist, technological progress will have reduced emissions per unit of GDP by 55 percent from 1990 levels by 2025. It might seem wiser to continue along this path, rather than crippling our economy and putting thousands out of work.

2003-07-10T22:08:00.000-05:00

I think I have made a romantic match

I should send this over Scott Peterson, something tells me that the two have quite a bit in common.

JULY 10--Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who killed her two boys by driving her auto into a lake while the children slept in their car seats, has placed an online personal ad seeking pen pals who are "not judgmental" and want to write to a convicted murderer who considers herself "sensitive, caring, and kind-hearted." The 31-year-old inmate placed the ad, which you'll find below, last month and included a picture showing her dressed in a standard-issue South Carolina Department of Corrections prison uniform. Smith, serving a life sentence for the October 1994 murder of sons Michael, 3, and Alex, 14 months, notes in the ad that she loves "rainbows, Mickey Mouse, the beach, the mountains, and waterfalls." She adds, "I have grown and matured alot since my incarceration, but I will always hurt for the pain I've caused so many, especially my children." (1 page)

2003-07-08T00:52:00.000-05:00

The joys of living under Saddam Hussein

By William Blum, revered left wing author .

Take the children out of the room. What follows is a kind word about Saddam Hussein. During his reign, when the war with Iran and US bombings and sanctions made it feasible, the Iraqi people had free education all the way through university and medical school, free medical care, regular food packages for those in need, women's rights superior to anything in the Arab world, and religious toleration for Christians and other non-Muslims.

My God it was a utopia!

And his take Cuba.

Cuba has recently been heavily criticized, by various shadings of leftists as well as by those to the right, for its sentencing a number of "dissidents" to prison because of their very close political and financial connections to American officials. Critics say that Cuba should not have over-reacted so, that these people were not really guilty of anything criminal.

I especialy love the sneering emphasis on "dissidents".

While I personally think that the Cuban trials were too quick and that some of the sentences were too long, we have to keep in mind that before the United States invaded Iraq there was extensive CIA and US military liaison on the ground with Iraqi dissidents and lots of propaganda to soften up the population -- propaganda beamed into Iraq with the indispensable help of other Iraqi dissidents.

The United States has been on a ferocious rampage of bombing, invasion, taking over countries and threatening the same to others. The US ambassador to the Dominican Republic declared: "I think what is happening in Iraq is going to send a very positive signal, and it is a very good example for Cuba." An advisor to Florida Governor Jeb Bush, speaking of Fidel Castro, said: "The administration has taken care of one tyrant already. I don't think they would vacillate about taking care of another one." There was in this same period a wave of violent hijackings of Cuban planes and boats.

Can Cuba be expected to ignore all this? Is Washington's work with Cuban dissidents to be seen as a purely harmless undertaking? Not done for a purpose? How can Cuba not feel extremely threatened, even more than the usual threat of the past 44 years? How can they not take precautionary measures?

Interesting that someone who routinely criticizes the US for racial profiling in airports and well everything really, would justify the arrest and executions of dozens of Cubans for no other reason than speaking out against Castro.

But what else would we expect from Blum who once wrote that the true intention behind the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was” to protect a fellow progressive regime in Kabul”.

2003-07-08T00:15:00.000-05:00

Ohh Yeah!

That blowhard prick Mike Malloy has a new website and discussion forum.

I have signed up and am currently taking wagers and giving odds on how long till his Stazi have me booted.

2003-07-08T00:09:00.000-05:00

The Iranian revolution update

You know, a while back I commented on Andrew Sullivan’s observation that the left seemed to be ignoring what was going on in Iran.

Well, as usual, the rank hypocrisy and hate of country that many within this community of “free thinkers” shows, has not let me down.

Simon Jones, Canadian freelance journalist and the head of Greenpeace’s office in soviet era Moscow, clues us into the reasons why true “progressives” must not be impressed by the goings on in Iran and why they need to support the 1979 revolution.

Which brings me to Iran. It is best described as a socialism-averse socialist state, but one where the 'reformers' are hell-bent on jettisoning the remnants of socialism and obediently following the dictates of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Strangely, the 'reformers' do not seem to be aware there is a massive world movement against US imperialism and globalization afoot, which should ideally constitute their natural allies.

Iran’s human rights record is without a doubt the best of the lot. It has a healthy independent culture, and is eager to rejoin the world.

During the Cold War, I was mocked as a Sovsymp for promoting detente. Call me an Iransymp, or worse yet, an Ayatollahsymp if you like. 'Sticks and stones ...,' I always used to say. But be clear: my 'ideology' is anti-imperialism, critical support, sympathy, open-mindedness.

Ironically, despite its denunciations of communism, the Iranian revolution produced many quasi-socialist features: the nationalization of banks, prohibition of interest, and '4-year' plans. Education and health care are also state-provided. Importantly, the currency is not part of the international speculative system and is state-fixed. These advantages over an IMF-produced economy are not to be scoffed at. Just ask Argentina.

Well that’s news to me, but it gets even better!

Let us review our past in this respect. The attitudes of progressives towards the Soviet Union were at best disdainful, at worst downright hateful, except for a very few brave 'naÑOfs' as Einstein [/cite1]. Sure, it was far from a perfect place, but it was one not based on the world capitalist system, and Western imperialism spent 70+ years actively trying to undermine it. If the peace movement had only been able to reach out more resolutely to allay well-grounded Soviet fears of subversion, and perhaps even promote some modest democratization (not just Westernization), we would still have a powerful counterweight to capitalism, and, hey, maybe by now even a half-decent one.

So you see, the reason the left must support Iranian tyranny is because they failed to support the Soviet Union with enough diligence. When, according to Simon, the left abandoned the USSR [which most really did not do, but that’s besides the point] they lost their best last hope for creating a counterweight to capitalism, which would show us the way.

Simon seems to see Iran as the lefts last hope for finding an alternative to capitalism.

I must say, these people get more and more morally bankrupt every day.

2003-07-08T00:05:00.000-05:00

Celebrate What?

After boycotting any 4th of July events, those "true patriots" over at Democrats.com have another way of showing their love of country.

Please join Democrats.com

for a reception and dinner
to celebrate Bastille Day
on Sunday July 13th

at Lavandou in Washington, DC

Please join us for drinks, dinner and discussion at the highly praised French restaurant Lavandou, 3321 Connecticut Avenue, NW, which is near the Cleveland Park Metro stop. (If you are too far from Washington to attend please visit our community site and volunteer to organize one in your community.)

That’s right! Lets celebrate the French hate for the United States!

I hope they go blind from all the antifreeze in their French wine.

2003-07-04T01:59:00.000-05:00

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, July 4, 1776

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:Sutton Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

2003-06-29T22:19:00.000-05:00

Oh Dear God!

Although I would agree that a granola eating hippie like Dennis Kucinich needs all the help he can get in his presidential bid, people like this only enhance the Kucinich stereotype.

2003-06-29T22:06:00.000-05:00

Back from BWCA Vacation

And I would highly suggest it to anyone who enjoys the outdoors.

Just remember a fishing pole, because I have never caught more fish in my life.

2003-06-19T17:52:00.000-05:00

Cynthia McKinney Revisited

Greg Palast seems to think that former [ha ha!] congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was smeared by evil rightwing agents.

Yow! And why is McKinney dangerous/loony/disgusting? According to NPR, “McKinney implied that the [Bush] Administration knew in advance about September 11 and deliberately held back the information.”

The New York Times’ Lynette Clemetson revealed her comments went even further over the edge: “Ms. McKinney suggest[ed] that President Bush might have known about the September 11 attacks but did nothing so his supporters could make money in a war.”

That’s loony, all right. As an editor of the highly respected Atlanta Journal Constitution told NPR, McKinney’s “practically accused the President of murder!”

Problem is, McKinney never said it.

That’s right. The “quote” from McKinney is a complete fabrication. A whopper, a fabulous fib, a fake, a flim-flam. Just freakin’ made up.

Palast is referring to the spin put on McKinney’s March 25th, 2002 interview with Dennis Bernstein on KPFA.

Made up, or is Palast the one shoveling the bullshit?

I have just called KPFA radio and ordered a copy of the tape.

For Palast’s sake, he better be right, or he is going to look like one big asshole [again considering his love affair with revisionism].

Can’t wait.

2003-06-19T15:47:00.000-05:00

The Iranian Revolution

The protests which have been taking place over the past several days in Tehran and all over Iran, gives me hope that perhaps the first modern Islamic Republic’s time may be at an end. Slightly over half of Iran’s population under the age of 21, the majority of the Iranian population had no direct knowledge of the 1979 revolution and subsequent installation of the Ayatollah Khmoeni. Couple this with Ayatollah unfriendly Iranian ex-pats broadcasting uncensored news into Iran and a large number of normaly rebelous youth youth begin to ask why they have to live like dogs under the heels of the Mullahs.

One would think that a grassroots, student led protest movement for democracy would get more attention from the left.

Well, you would be wrong, as Andrew Sullivan points out.

Something truly extraordinary has been going on in Iran these past few months and especially in the past couple of weeks. A grass-roots, student-run, anti-theocracy movement has reached some sort of critical mass. The enemy is the religious right of Iran, the group of murderous mullahs who have run their country into the ground and now have to answer for their godly tyranny to a new and populous generation of under-30s. Suddenly, we have the possibility of regime change in a critical country without war and without the intervention of the United States.

You'd think that this would be the central story on the left in this country. As blogger Don Watkins explained: "Here are a bunch of brave souls fighting a tyrannical regime through the old liberal favorite of massive protests. Here's the chance for them to get behind the cause of freedom without having to support war."

So take a look at Indymedia, one of the activist left's prime Internet Web sites. Blogger Meryl Yourish did. What did she find on the armed struggle against theocracy? Nada. Zilch. The top stories on San Francisco's Indymedia site were as follows: "Rally & March Against War in Iraq, Philippines & the INS; Anti-war Movement Audio Retrospective -- The Struggle Against Empire; Thousands at punk rock heroine Patti Smith anti-war benefit; Beat Generation Bookstore's 50th Anniversary Draws Huge Crowd."

Makes you wonder just how commited to democracy and freedom these people are if they can so casually and deliberately ignore what may be the most important political story to come out of the Mideast in quite some time.

2003-06-11T18:15:00.000-05:00

Another reason to shit can forced retirement.

What is most interesting about this guy is that even though he retired back in 1996 [at the age of 80!] he does not wast his time on the golf course.

Octagenarian inventor's vest repels armor-piercing bullets

Based on Norman Shorr's way of thinking, the best way to stop armor-piercing bullets and rocket-propelled grenades isn't with clad-metal armor. Using engineering chutzpah, Shorr is proving that crime and terrorism can be repelled better with plastic, glass and marbles.

The 86-year-old Mt. Lebanon man, who holds a doctorate in engineering, and his associate, Richard Parobeck of Brackenridge, relish the skepticism they generate when they describe Shorr's lightweight glass-plastic laminates and compounds that repel armor-piercing bullets and rocket-propelled grenades.

His new-age bulletproof vest can protect a person against any handgun bullet, and he's working on a composite material he hopes will protect infrastructure against terrorist attacks.

During test firings at the H.P. White Laboratory in Street, Md., 16 Kozap bullets -- described by Shorr as the world's hardest 9 mm armor-piercing handgun projectiles -- were fired at his 6 1/2-pound vests without one failure. The laboratory tests bulletproof vests to determine whether they meet National Institute of Justice standards.

2003-06-09T17:59:00.000-05:00

Finnish Human Shield Finally Gets it

Well, sort of. Teijo Virolainen a Finnish human shield was left rather surprised and confused at wars end. Aside from the fact that he was one of only a small handful of non-Muslim human shields, the war has left him with some mixed feelings .

When he talked to people on the street, Teijo noticed that they were speaking quite differently than before. Most of the people turned out to oppose Saddam. It was a very confusing experience.

Some were clearly happy that the Americans were there.

"We were surprised about that. If they had wanted the Americans to come here, and we were against the Americans, and now we... It was all very complicated."

Not that complicated Teijo, but compare this to what poor Teijo said before the war began.

Virolainen sees the personality cult of the Iraqi leader as mainly symbolic. "When people shout slogans in favour of Saddam Hussein, they are actually shouting for Iraq. I do not see this country as a police state. The Iraqi people really are free", Virolainen ponders.

"One thing that has become quite clear to me is that Iraq cannot be occupied. To do so it would be necessary to kill every citizen, because everyone here wants to defend this country to the last."

Defend it to the last indeed. Poor Teijo watched too much Iraqi TV.

2003-06-06T14:35:00.000-05:00

June 6 1944

Two kinds of people are staying on this beach - the dead and those who are going to die. Now let’s get the hell out of here!
Colonel George A Taylor Omaha Beach

In case you did not know, today is also the 59th anniversary of D-Day.

2003-06-06T14:07:00.000-05:00

Al Jazeera, the most trusted news source in the Arab World

Many call Al Jazeera the CNN of the Mideast, and considering CNN’s admission that it intentionally refused to disclose egregious human rights abuses in order to maintain a presence in Baghdad, they may have a point.

Al-Jazeera TV chief sacked
May 28 2003

The director general of the controversial Arab satellite television Al-Jazeera has been sacked, Qatari sources said yesterday, amid allegations he worked with Saddam Hussein's intelligence services.

Mohammed Jassem al-Ali had held the top job at the Doha-based station since it launched the Arabic-language channel in 1996.

Al-Jazeera and Ali have been accused by Western media of collaborating with the former regime in Baghdad.

Ali visited Iraq before the US-led war and met Saddam during an hour-long interview.

Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the American-backed Iraqi National Congress, has accused several Al-Jazeera journalists of working for Iraqi agencies, based on documents found in state archives in Baghdad.

Ali, who has denied the charges, could not be contacted.

A replacement was expected to be announced shortly, the Qatari sources told AFP.

Al-Jazeera enjoyed a special status in pre-war Iraq, being allowed to work independently of the information ministry, which strictly controlled foreign media.

2003-06-04T23:40:00.000-05:00

Why did they want us to loose?

Before and during our quick and relatively painless victory over Saddam and his Bathist thugs, many voices were heard to be screaming “quagmire”, “Arab street anger”, “terrorism rising”, “a million Mogadishus” [personally, that was by far the most disgusting] and dozens of other slogans prediction eminent doom for allied forces in Iraq. I remember flipping through an old copy of Newsweek at my gym last evening and reading in the arrows up/down section that Rumsfeld was a “childish for thinking his roadmap for the war would work”. This issue also happened to be the April 2nd issue. But never the less far too many voices were rooting for an Iraqi victory and relishing in the unraveling war strategy of the dastardly neo-cons.

In fact, if all you did was tune into the Arab and European press to see how the war was going, the revelation that Iraq actually lost would have come as quite a surprise to you.

And why does the left still scream for a US defeat in postwar Iraq? Whether you read the headlines over at the stalwarts of leftist mindspeak [The Nation, AlterNet, Motherjones, Salon, Commondreams etc…], or in discussions with anti-war types there seems to be this irrational exuberance, to borrow a phrase, over anything, big or small that seems to go wrong. Every time a chopper goes down, every time a soldier is killed, whenever an Iraqi riot ends in a shooting, there seems to be this knee jerk reaction to proclaim it from the tops of the mountains, follow with the “I told you this would happen”.

It almost smacks of schadenfreude, a malicious satisfaction in the misfortunes of others, the way they dangle these things in the faces of the public. What they don’t realize however is that in the grand scheme of things the misfortune of the their opponents is also their own misfortune.

Sound preposterous you say, well then hear what Gary Kamiya Salon.com’s executive editor had to say.

I have a confession: I have at times, as the war has unfolded, secretly wished for things to go wrong. Wished for the Iraqis to be more nationalistic, to resist longer. Wished for the Arab world to rise up in rage. Wished for all the things we feared would happen. I'm not alone: A number of serious, intelligent, morally sensitive people who oppose the war have told me they have had identical feelings.

Kamiya’s comments say much about this new “peace and justice” coalition that has been built [more like scavenged] over the past 18 months or so. They believe that if all went/goes smoothly in Iraq, that it will mean a re-election for Bush. They seemed to be so focused on their hate for the Administration that they will stop at nothing, and I mean nothing, to discredit it.
Its pettiness on such a disgustingly low level that it sickens me.

2003-06-03T00:36:00.000-05:00

From the Files of . . . . . .

Forget the facts, we already have our minds made up. Courtesy Deborah Blum of the LA times .

From his Pentagon podium, Army Col. James Naughton expressed unreserved admiration for the big silver-colored bullets. Or at least for their ability to take out the enemy.

You might think of this as just another chest-beating exercise by us American warrior types. But Naughton and his colleagues in the U.S. military have a particular need to praise — or rather defend — depleted uranium bullets. The real purpose of the recent briefing was to counter "misinformation." Translated, that means other people don't like our choice of tank-killer devices.

The critics, ranging from environmentalists in Europe to scientists in the Middle East, say that in all our recent engagements — the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Kosovo, Bosnia and now the latest Iraqi conflict — we left our poisonous, uranium-dusted footprints all over other people's homelands. They worry that the chunks of radioactive litter scattered across former battlefields have already caused a variety of illnesses. They worry, too, about the potential for future harm.

This image of the U.S. as a major military polluter is not the one we want to cultivate abroad. And the Pentagon doesn't seem to like making nice in response. Naughton, for instance, snappily suggested that Iraqi critics are merely political subversives: "They want it to go away because last time we kicked the crap out of them. I mean, there's no doubt that DU gave us a huge advantage so wouldn't it be great if we [the Iraqis] could convince the world to make the U.S. give up DU?"

As always, it's a mistake to think of a battleground as something that can just be tidied up. What conflict hasn't produced decades' worth of hazardous war souvenirs? You can still occasionally dig up the rusting bullets of our 19th century Civil War in the mountains of the Southeast. There remain regions in France still marked by the chemical poisons of World War I. The land mines placed in wars, small and large, continue to maim the innocent in Asia and Africa. And in Japan, the destructive effects of World War II's ultimate radioactive weapon may be repaired, but they have certainly not been forgotten.

Should DU bullets be classed in this company? Rationally, of course, there's no comparing antitank munitions with the legacy of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan, "Fat Man" and "Little Boy." Some remnant tons of slightly radioactive metal should barely flicker on the environmental threat meter. If the rest of the world would just be more rational, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

That kind of exasperated reasoning approaches the position of the Pentagon and, in fact, many independent scientists. Robert L. Park of the American Physical Society is downright sarcastic on the question: "I always figured it would be a lot better to be shot with a uranium bullet than a dum-dum — it should make a good clean hole. Physicists don't spend much time worrying about natural uranium, and DU is even less radioactive by about 40%."

There's another way to look at depleted uranium, and that's as a problem that can really, really linger. Uranium 238, the primary heavy metal in DU bullets, has a radioactive half-life of 10^9 years. Wimp radiation or not, the fragments and shells and uranium-loaded bits and pieces are the kind of war souvenirs that can bother people for a long time, making them edgy about us, our battle tactics, and what we casually leave behind.

It also means we can end battles quickly, surely a good thing. If by doing that DU bullets save lives, and if the radiation is a minor issue, it's fair to ask why other people dislike them so much. For one thing, radiation is only part of the problem. Like other heavy metals, such as lead, depleted uranium is chemically toxic. Absorbed by the body, heavy metals can damage kidneys, break down nerves and cause chemically induced cancers. The Pentagon actually considers this a greater risk. Military doctors have been watching Gulf War veterans, braced for those illnesses. But they haven't uncovered such signs of evil.

In the 12 years of testing, they've found no such poisoning, no radiation-linked cancers, no patterns of uranium-sparked disease. United Nations studies conducted in Kosovo and Bosnia came up similarly empty on health effects. That doesn't mean these are benign materials. Studies in cell cultures and microorganisms show even low-level toxicity does harm at the cellular level, that even wimp radiation kills and deforms cells. A few studies have suggested DU might be worse than passive metals like lead, that the radiation and toxicity could work together to cause genetic damage. Perhaps. So far, though, only the Iraqis have noted severe effects in humans, from birth defects to cancers, but they have also refused to allow the United Nations to independently verify the claims.

So give us some credit here. One of the reasons this hasn't been a high-profile issue in this country is that no one has produced consistently convincing reasons for worry. And then take some credit away — we haven't responded to the real issue behind the criticism. The rest of the world doesn't trust us on this one. Not even our allies: "But what if they [the Americans] are wrong?" the British science magazine New Scientist asked in April.

When it comes to depleted uranium weapons, I vote for the high moral ground. Let's acknowledge that perception of risk can sometimes be as frightening as risk itself. Let's invite U.N. environmental inspectors to do an independent assessment in Iraq. And as a matter of principle, let's clean up our mess. It may look like it's someone else's problem. But it's really ours.

I see, so the experts claim DU to be safe, by your own admission. Field studies in Kosovo and Bosnia turned up nothing, also by your own admission. The Iraqi claims of DU poisoning cannot be independently verified, once again by your own admission. You even go so far as to claim that it may just be the perceived risk of DU poisoning that is causing all the hubbub but you still see it as a ‘threat’?

That is indeed a case of don’t argue me with the facts, because my mind is already made up.

And this is the caliber of a Pulitzer prize winning journalist?

2003-05-28T17:52:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, its not what you say but rather how you say it.

Take, for example, a recent article in the Times UK about Qurna, in southern Iraq, the alleged historic site of the biblical Garden of Eden.

War Takes Its Toll on the Garden of Eden
by Anthony Browne

PARADISE is not what it used to be. Dozens of dead fish float by in a river that reeks of sewage. Dirty sheep chew at the few tufts of grass that survive in the baking earth. Litter swirls around in the dust. The graffiti screams in Arabic: “Down with America! Down with Israel!” Welcome to the Garden of Eden. Or, as the locals call it, Janat Adan.

In its center, the showpiece: the Adam tree, no longer bearing apples, now just a dead, gnarled trunk that rises out of cracked concrete. There is no serpent hanging from its branches, but children, who use it as a climbing frame.

Qurna has attempted to cash in on being the birthplace of mankind, but has been frustrated by war. “Before the Iran-Iraq War, there were many tourists. But no one has come since. The last time I saw a tourist was 1980,” Mr al-Moussawi said.

Saddam tried to help out after the war ended by building the Qurna Tourist Hotel next door to the garden, but still no one came.

Although the article does not specifically state as much, after reading this piece one might be inclined to believe that the most recent war in Iraq is to blame for the near complete destruction of this landmark. One might also believe that Hussien himself attempted to revive the region around Qurna and the Garden of Eden.

But unfortunately, that would be bullshit, and it also seems that Browne left just a little out.

During Iraq's war with Iran, the marshlands in and around Qurna became a launch pad for attacks by Iranian armed forces. Iraqi army deserters and political opponents also took refuge in the marshes, causing Saddam's government to accelerate a land reclamation project started decades earlier to drain waterlogged farmlands to the north and west.

After Shiite Muslims launched an unsuccessful uprising in the area at the end of the 1991 Gulf War, the project was extended to drain the marshes themselves. Saddam's regime bombed districts to clear out residents, then sent troops to secure the areas.

More than 30 dams were built, reducing the water level downstream and eliminating the seasonal floodwaters that nourished the marshes.

So, what was this a case of a gross and deliberate misrepresentation of the facts or was it just an “oversight”.

2003-05-28T16:09:00.000-05:00

How to Destroy A Country

Although two years old, this article by Colonel Dan of the Sierra Times, is as timely today as it was then.

If you were a nation intent on bringing down a powerful rival whose philosophy, as originally founded, was strong and entirely opposite from your own—a country that you would not want to confront militarily from the outside—how would you go about it? The answer is simple—help them destroy themselves from the inside.

Although taking longer than a military victory and thus requiring the patience of the Orient, the destruction would be just as effective if not more so. When you destroy from within, you do it by using that country's own people, no blood is spilled in combat and the physical infrastructure is left undamaged.

In any country, there are but a few key areas that determine how the citizens of that country mature, live, and develop their beliefs. These are the focal points that must be attacked. In his book,On War,Clauswitz referred to this concept of identifying and then focusing on a few select points as attacking the center of gravity.

The center of gravity is that key element, which if controlled or destroyed, would most hurt your opponent and thus is the critical factor to achieving your objective. In this case, when taking control of or destroying a country from within, the key is to attack and control the mind of the inhabitants—you must shape the way people view life and the values upon which their life is based. Shape the mind and you control their direction. Control their direction and you can lead them down a pathway to hell.

The three centers of gravity I would choose to shape in orchestrating a country's destruction from within are its perception of current truth, its political philosophy and its future generations. How? By controlling the influential people in those three centers of gravity.

To shape current truth, control the media: Most people absorb what they know about life from the major media centers these days. The media paints the picture for all to see. If that picture constantly distorts the truth, lies become accepted as truth, i.e. tell enough lies repeatedly and soon those lies are accepted as fact. Spin and concoct, distort and influence using the public platforms we know as television, radio and print and you can influence, sway and control the mind of the vast majority of a population in any subject area you choose—to include pitting one group against another in order to foment internal discord. This is a much easier task if many have become lazy, unthinking and apathetic.

To shape the political philosophy, infiltrate the government: Whenever and wherever possible place those sympathetic to your philosophy into office at all levels—the higher, the better—so they can sway the direction of the country within every function of government, promising solutions and benefits for all. In such a way you can tilt legislation toward incrementally increasing the control of and dependency on government—a government that you are shaping. You can also use this approach to weaken the military through massive cuts coupled with over extension, thus degrading force morale. A country without a strong military is like a bull without horns or a tiger without claws—defenseless and vulnerable.

To shape future generations, control the schools: Incrementally indoctrinate the children with principles that are sympathetic to your philosophy. Make future generations weak in mind, body and spirit. Avoid teaching children the basic facts about their own history, constitution or rights. Teach them that natural aggression is wrong and docile submission is right. Teach them that any basis of a moral foundation, like the principles of religion, is a weakness to be avoided in the name of freedom and also redefine the concept of patriotism to support your views. Teach them to cast off old values in the interest and name of sensitivity—after all, we wouldn't want to selfishly offend anyone with our old fashioned or traditional beliefs now would we? And guns, guns are wicked, dangerous, and socially unacceptable—an evil that must be eradicated from society—for the good of the children of course.

Through patient manipulation and clever coordination of those three centers of gravity, you can, in time, weave the downfall of even the most powerful nation, using the citizens to orchestrate their own destruction.

The ironic part is, that in just a few short generations, the indoctrinated masses will be convinced this trail which has been shaped for them is truly the enlightened path for mankind and they will unwittingly look forward to the trip! You have thus taken control of a powerful rival without firing a shot or spilling a drop of your own blood.
Does this sound like anything that might be going on in America these days?

Just the view from my saddle…

The Colonel

2003-05-28T16:00:00.000-05:00

Sauce For the Goose . . . .

Below is a picture of the former 11th congressional district on Georgia. Specifically constructed to bring together a democratic majority in a voting district. This specific example was later found to be unconstitutional, but it is by no means an isolated example.

For the past fifty years Democrats have held and grown their margins in congress and state legislators through a process called gerrymandering. After every census, state legislatures determine how geographic regions will be placed together for the purpose of federal and local representation. This is how, in large part, the democrats have been so successful in maintaining their monopoly in the US congress from the late 20’s until 1994.

Control the state legislatures, and you can shape, in large part, the makeup of congress. Control the makeup of congress ....... well I am sure that the well educated readers of this site can see where that goes.

There was always a great deal of complaining about this, but not much else.

Now that the ball is in the other end of the court, certain elements of the press would have us believe that this is something new and unprecedented, a “threat to the very democratic institutions of this nation”.

Like Robert Jensen from Newsday

When 51 Democratic members of the Texas House of Representatives left for Oklahoma earlier this month to derail a Republican redistricting plan, they did something that - for Democrats these days - seems radical: They stood up for themselves and for the democratic process.

Stood up for themselves and the democratic process, or the Democratic process?

Sauce for the goose is now sauce for the gander, and the left is running for the hills.

2003-05-26T19:44:00.000-05:00

Happy Memorial Day

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

George Orwell

"If you are able, save for them a place inside of you and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go.

Be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have always. Take what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own.

And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind."

Major Michael Davis O'Donnell
January 1st, 1970
Dak To, Vietnam
Listed as KIA February 7, 1978

2003-05-16T18:16:00.000-05:00

Being a Leftie means never having to admit you are wrong.

I found this gem over at Commondreams.

And having a good mix of people born in all parts of the world, of all religious faiths and cultures, living in the United States can be an excellent defense against terrorist attacks. In a diverse, multicultural U.S., such attacks are bound to kill many people with whom the terrorists feel an affinity.

A diverse population, of course, does not guarantee terrorists will not attack. People of Islamic faith and middle eastern origin were among the innocents killed on September 11. But as the number of immigrants goes up, deterrence should increase. And a well designed campaign to inform the world about our diversity could improve deterrence still further.

Hmm, I wonder what percentage this idiot thinks would be needed? Judging by the recent bombing in Riyad , the fact the vast majority of the victims were Arab, did not prevent jack shit.

7 Americans
7 Saudis
2 Jordanians
2 Filipinos
1 Lebanese
1 Swiss

But then again, being a bleeding heart piece of shit, means never having to say you are wrong, or even sorry for that matter.

2003-05-13T00:29:00.000-05:00

Oh my God, they killed . . . . . . . . . .

Separated at birth?

2003-05-13T00:17:00.000-05:00

Hiatus

I know, I know, I haven't updated much in the past month, but it has been relatively hectic.

2003-05-02T15:03:00.000-05:00

Oh, the Humanity!

It was the Final Sacking of Baghdad, as Robert Fisk called it. 170,000 priceless pieces of Iraqi antiquities that spanned the beginning of civilization, all lost.

How telling that U.S. forces so carefully protected Iraq's oil fields while ignoring the looting of Baghdad's internationally renowned museum. The complete, and by all accounts preventable, destruction of one of the world's most significant collections of antiquities is a fit metaphor for current U.S. foreign policy, which causes more serious damage through carelessness than calculation.

Robert Sheer, LA Times

But was it true? Apparently not
. The number of missing pieces from the National Museum of Iraq has fallen from 170,000 to 25.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 30 — Even though many irreplaceable antiquities were looted from the National Museum of Iraq during the chaotic fall of Baghdad last month, museum officials and American investigators now say the losses seem to be less severe than originally thought.

Col. Matthew F. Bogdanos, a Marine reservist who is investigating the looting and is stationed at the museum, said museum officials had given him a list of 29 artifacts that were definitely missing. But since then, 4 items - ivory objects from the eighth century B.C. - had been traced.

"Twenty-five pieces is not the same as 170,000," said Colonel Bogdanos, who in civilian life is an assistant Manhattan district attorney.

Sounds to me like someone over exadurated just a bit.

2003-05-02T15:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Mayday!

"Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy."
Mao Zedong (1893-1976)

Ecuadorian workers hit an unidentified man during a May Day march, in Quito, Ecuador, Thursday, May 1, 2003. The fight was started because of a disagreement on their political positions.

A masked May Day protester throws stones at German riot police from atop of a burning car after peaceful May Day protests turned into fierce street fights in Berlin May 1, 2003. German riot police used tear gas and water cannon as violent protesters marred May Day rallies in some European cities. Photo by Michael Dalder/Reuters

2003-04-16T23:47:00.000-05:00

Joke of the Day

Not quite sure where it originated from, but enjoy anyway.

A large group of Iraqi soldiers are moving down a road when they hear a voice call from behind a sand dune....

"One U.S. Marine is better than ten Iraqis"

The Iraqi commander quickly sends 10 of his best soldiers over the dune, whereupon a gun-battle breaks out and continues for a few minutes then silence.

The voice then calls out...

"One Marine is better than one hundred Iraqis"

Furious, the Iraqi commander sends his next best 100 troops over the dune and instantly a huge gunfight commences.

After 10 minutes of battle, again silence.

The Marine's voice calls out again....

"One Marine is better than one thousand Iraqis"

The enraged Iraqi commander musters one thousand fighters and sends them across the dune.

Cannons, rockets and machine gun fire ring out as a huge battle is fought.

Then silence.

Eventually one wounded Iraqi fighter crawls back over the dune and with his dying words tells his commander...

"Don't send any more men....

It's a trap.... There's two of them!!"

2003-04-11T16:07:00.000-05:00

Not that I am one to gloat, but………………

This is perhaps the finest piece I have found from the hard left about the aftermath of the war in Iraq.

It comes to us from Barry Stoller, editor of the ProletarianNews
.
What a goddman dismal day. Just like the Six Day War or the fall of the Berlin wall.

Or worse, maybe today was the Arab version of the Soviet collapse. Certainly the PR department at the Pentagon is playing it that way.

And to think Muslims thought the Soviet collapse was good news. Liberals and anarchists, too. Well, fuckin' idiots, take a bow and enjoy the 'new world order'!

Commies, Muslims, leftists, Palestinians, oppressed of the world - we're screwed. As of today, we are SERIOUSLY on the run.

We have got to get it the fuck together. Together. Together. TOGETHER.

Marching in the streets with banners and puppets - well, that takes resistance only so far. Throwing stones, that's a bit better. But it's not enough. Ask anyone in Jenin.

Liberals, we know you're not REALLY with us. You'll be the first to crawl back to the Satanic Democrats.

If it was Gore bombing Baghdad, you'd be wringing your hands and making your lame-ass excuses. I remember Belgrade, you finks; I remember Somalia, too. Not to mention Vietnam; you think Nixon started that war?

I repeat: Commies, Muslims, leftists, Palestinians, oppressed of the world - we have got to get it the fuck together. Amerika sucks. It has GOT TO GO!

WE MUST ORGANIZE!!.

A dismal day? Like the fall of the Berlin Wall? Man, someone really needs to see a freaking shrink.

2003-04-11T15:54:00.000-05:00

Picture of the Day

Gone Fishin

2003-04-11T15:40:00.000-05:00

Guns for me, but not for thee

in what could only be described as the epitome of hypocrisy, gun control advocate Sean Penn's car was stolen along with two loaded handguns he kept in his car.

Actor Sean Penn's car - with two guns inside - was stolen earlier this week from a busy Berkeley, California, street while he was eating lunch at a nearby restaurant.
The black 1987 Buick Grand National had a loaded 9 millimeter Glock handgun and an unloaded .38-caliber Smith And Wesson revolver inside, say detectives.

2003-04-04T01:18:00.000-06:00

Funniest thing I heard all week

While writing about the evils of the New McCarthyism underway in the US , Sally T. Grant, president of the Board of Governors of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, made one of the most ludicrous statement I have heard.

Cold War anti-communist hysteria in the 1950s saw Americans jailed simply for studying the works of Marx and Lenin.

I also enjoyed here hat tip to Charles Schenck, head of the US socialist party during the First World War.

[You could just imagine my surprise to hear an ACLU’er defending Soviet spies.]

Now many people, including myself, have misgivings about many provisions in the US Patriot Act, but to make a statement like that ……… well bullshit is the only thing that comes to my mind.

2003-04-03T13:15:00.000-06:00

Professor Mogadishu

Nicholas De Genova, the now infamous Columbia professor who called for “a million Mogadishus” to stop advancing coalition troops in Iraq at a "peace teach in" , has recently canceled a speaking engagement at the Brecht center in New York.

The irony of De Genova speaking at the Brecht center did not escape me.

For those of you who do not know who the Brecht Center's namesake is, here is what Michael Moynihan over at the Politburo dug up on Mr Bertolt Brecht .

A brief synopsis: Bertolt Brecht’s was a doctrinaire Stalinist; a paladin of authoritarian communism, a blind follower of Soviet mandated terror and a happy recipient of the hilariously misnamed "Stalin Peace Prize." After a brief period of exile in bourgeois America, he was dragged before the House to spill the beans on friends and comrades in the CPUSA. While ordering Brecht to appear before HUAC raises obvious civil liberties issues, the ex-pat playwright's apolitical public face was a lazy, dishonest dodge. As former FBI agent Elmer Linberg recently told the New York Times, Brecht often met with NKVD sleeper agents in California: "[Thomas Mann] told us about several people in close touch with the Russians, among them Brecht. Every time Soviet intelligence agents came to Los Angeles, they would go and be with Brecht for several sessions. Mann told us that [but] we already knew from surveillance of Brecht."

After the HUAC imbroglio, the hero of agitprop theater quickly settled in the Russian puppet state of East Germany where he quickly curried favor with local commissars, securing a (comparatively) posh post in the nascent DDR theater world. In 1953, tired of living under the Russian boot heel, the East erupted in spontaneous, anti-Communist demonstrations. Soviet tanks responded by firing upon their imprisoned subjects, killing hundreds and ultimately imprisoning over 6,000 political "undesirables." In response to the uprising, Brecht sent a letter to the Politburo offering his support to the government, as the bloodied, undaunted protestors chanted "Death to Communism" and "Long live Eisenhower."

2003-04-02T22:13:00.000-06:00

Whoops!

A reader informs me that the piece I posted from Dennis Miller was actually written by Larry Miller of the Weekly Standard. Seems that this has even generated enough of a ruckus to make into Snopes.com.

Go check it out for a full explanation.

2003-04-01T16:33:00.000-06:00

One more post for the Day.

Wow, I just checked my sitemeter and would like to thank everyone who is tuning in. My traffic is roughly tripple what it would normally be.

Its really tough when you think that you are just talking to yourself.

2003-04-01T16:30:00.000-06:00

Dennis Miller on Israel

I think this should be mandatory reading in every classroom in the Middle East.

A brief overview of the situation is always valuable, so as a service to all Americans who still don't get it, I now offer you the story of the Middle East in just a few paragraphs, which is all you really need. Don't thank me...I'm a giver. Here we go:

The Palestinians want their own country. There's just one thing about that: There are no Palestinians. It's a made up word. Israel was called Palestine for two thousand years. Like "Wiccan," "Palestinian" sounds ancient but is really a modern invention. Before the Israelis won the land in war, Gaza was owned by Egypt, and there were no "Palestinians" then, and the West Bank was owned by Jordan, and there were no "Palestinians" then.

As soon as the Jews took over and started growing oranges as big as basketballs, what do you know, say hello to the "Palestinians," weeping for their deep bond with their lost "land" and "nation."

So for the sake of honesty, let's not use the word "Palestinian" any more to describe these delightful folks, who dance for joy at our deaths until someone points out they're being taped. Instead, let's call them what they are: "Other Arabs Who Can't Accomplish Anything In Life And Would Rather Wrap Themselves In The Seductive Melodrama Of Eternal Struggle and Death."

I know that's a bit unwieldy to expect to see on CNN. How about this, then: Adjacent Jew-Haters." Okay, so the Adjacent Jew-Haters want their own country. Oops, just one more thing. No, they don't. They could've had their own country any time in the last thirty years, especially two years ago at Camp David. But if you have your own country, you have to have traffic lights and garbage trucks and Chambers of Commerce, and, worse, you actually have to figure out some way to make a living.

That's no fun. No, they want what all the other Jew-Haters in the region want: Israel. They also want a big pile of dead Jews, of course -- that's where the real fun is -- but mostly they want Israel. Why? For one thing, trying to destroy Israel - or "The Zionist Entity" as their textbooks call it -- for the last fifty years has allowed the rulers of Arab countries to divert the attention of their own people away from the fact that they're the blue-ribbon most illiterate, poorest, and tribally backward on God's Earth, and if you've ever been around God's Earth, you know that's really saying something.

It makes me roll my eyes every time one of our pundits waxes poetic about the great history and culture of the Muslim Mideast. Unless I'm missing something, the Arabs haven't given anything to the world since Algebra, and, by the way, thanks a hell of a lot for that one. Chew this around and spit it out: Five hundred million Arabs; five million Jews.

Think of all the Arab countries as a football field, and Israel as a pack of matches sitting in the middle of it. And now these same folks swear that if Israel gives them half of that pack of matches, everyone will be pals.Really? Wow, what neat news. Hey, but what about the string of wars to obliterate the tiny country and the constant din of rabid blood oaths to drive every Jew into the sea? Oh, that? We were just kidding.

My friend Kevin Rooney made a gorgeous point the other day: Just reverse the numbers. Imagine five hundred million Jews and five million Arabs. I was stunned at the simple brilliance of it. Can anyone picture the Jews strapping belts of razor blades and dynamite to themselves? Of course not. Or marshaling every fiber and force at their disposal for generations to drive a tiny Arab State into the sea?

Nonsense. Or dancing for joy at the murder of innocents? Impossible. Or spreading and believing horrible lies about the Arabs baking their bread with the blood of children? Disgusting. No, as you know, left to themselves in a world of peace, the worst Jews would ever do to people is debate them to death.

Mr. Bush, God bless him, is walking a tightrope. I understand that with vital operations coming up against Iraq and others, it's in our interest, as Americans, to try to stabilize our Arab allies as much as possible, and, after all, that can't be much harder than stabilizing a roomful of supermodels who've just had their drugs taken away.

However, in any big-picture strategy, there's always a danger of losing moral weight.We've already lost some. After September 11 our president told us and the world he was going to root out all terrorists and the countries that supported them. Beautiful. Then the Israelis, after months and months of having the equivalent of an Oklahoma City every week (and then every day) start to do the same thing we did, and we tell them to show restraint.

If America were being attacked with an Oklahoma City every day, we would all very shortly be screaming for the administration to just be done with it and kill everything south of the Mediterranean and east of the Jordan. (Hey, wait a minute, that's actually not such a bad id . . .ooh, that is, what a horrible thought, yeah, horrible.)

2003-04-01T16:23:00.000-06:00

The Daily Outrage

This is the title of a series of articles from Matt Bivens over at the Nation Magazine . Instead of being filled with real outrages like US Marines being publicly executed and hanged in Iraq or Iraqi civilians being gunned down by Iraqi militia in Basra, Bivens tends to concentrate on other “outrages”, like prayer packets for US soldiers.

The Nation magazine, as many of you may well know is a stalwart of any good liberal, prominently display on every coffee table in Berkeley and Amherst. From proclaiming Joe Stalin as its “Man of the Decade” in 1940, to its tireless and relentless defense of convicted Soviet spies like the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss, the editors and writers at the Nation have always brought lefties insightful pieces of horseshit to spark conversations at dinner parties and teach ins across the North East.

No wonder Hitchens ditched this rag.

2003-04-01T15:31:00.000-06:00

When Johnny Apple says we're thwarted, we must be on the verge of winning.

Great article by By Jack Shafer of slate

In Part 1 of the wartime news cycle, the press stands slack-jawed at the withering display of U.S. air power and high-technology battle gear (Kosovo, Afghanistan, and now Iraq). Bombs have gotten smart! the press writes. In Iraq, the bombs have become so smart, many of them have earned advanced degrees in their spare time. Geniuses at the Pentagon are revolutionizing warfare with amazing tactics. Special ops are the ultimate force multiplier. The locals are about to rebel. And so on.

Having exhausted that vein, the press demands a new angle, and the vagaries of war supply them with Part 2 of the cycle. Victory wasn't as instant as we were led to believe! U.S. forces have "bogged down"! The early blitzkrieg could not be sustained, and U.S. forces are increasingly vulnerable to counterattack. The uprising has failed to gel. You can't win a war from the air; you need lots more troops on the ground.

After bogging down in the "bogged down" angle, the press stages a rally in Part 3. They discover that Milosevic, Bin Laden, Saddam, et al., are the real geniuses. The enemy commanders are cum laude graduates of the international war college and masters of the art of asymmetrical warfare as practiced in Vietnam, Northern Ireland, and Israel. The enemy is fighting the battle on its terms. Unnamed sources in the Pentagon fret about the previously lauded American tactics. Apple furnishes the boilerplate:

"We underestimated the capacity of his paramilitary forces," said a senior uniformed officer at the Pentagon. "They have turned up where we did not expect them to, and they have fought with more resourcefulness than we expected them to demonstrate."

In Part 4 the press informs us with great surprise that Saddam wasn't the only warrior who learned from past battles. Unconventional warfare turns out to be unconventional for a reason: It is a superb form of suicide. Reporters pretend they never doubted the outcome. The United States wins and promptly loses interest in the region. So does the press—until the next war cycle and Johnny Apple's prognostications.

2003-04-01T15:19:00.000-06:00

The Ugly American?

Sometimes we Americans can be childish [freedom fries, Paris jokes] but never have I seen the flags of other nations burned or effigies of their leaders and soldiers dragged through the streets.

You want to see what "ugly" really is? Have a read.

Iraq protesters deface British war monument in France

Vandals have defaced one of the biggest British war cemeteries in northern France with graffiti condemning the US-British invasion of Iraq, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) said.

Insults aimed at British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W Bush were sprayed in red paint over a monument to Britain's dead from World War I and discovered by a gardener last Thursday.

"It was removed by the afternoon but not before a couple of coach loads [of visitors] had been through and seen it - we are pretty hacked off and I am pleased to say the French authorities are too," Tim Reeves said, the CWGC's representative in France.

The words "Rosbifs [British] go home! Saddam Hussein will win and spill your blood" were painted in French over the base of the cemetery's main monument - an obelisk topped by a cross.

On one side was a swastika and the words "death to the Yankees".

Also daubed were the words "dig up your garbage, it is fouling our soil," and "Bush, Blair to the TPI (International Court of Justice)".

Some 11,000 British dead are buried at Etaples, which lies on the Channel coast around 24 kilometres south of Boulogne.

It was the site of several hospitals during the 1914-1918 war.

A judicial inquiry has been opened.

"This violation of a burial place, scandalous in itself, is an attack on the memory of the sacrifice made by the British and American soldiers who contributed to the liberation of our soil," local member of parliament, former Socialist arts minister Jack Lang said.

"Our disagreement with the British and American governments [on Iraq] can in no way justify any assault on the memory of men who sacrificed themselves for our country," he said.

2003-03-31T23:45:00.000-06:00

For the sake of every Frenchman, lets hope there is nothing to this

via Ben Shapiro, Townhall

The other day, I received a letter from a U.S. Air Force officer stationed on a base in Saudi Arabia. He wrote that coalition commanders expelled French soldiers from his base late last week. The French had apparently been caught hacking into the U.S. secret computer system. Their rooms had been evacuated, and British and American troops were allowed to move their own belongings into the plush surroundings the French had previously enjoyed. The officer reported that the information was 60-70 percent reliable, as a couple of semi-reliable sources had corroborated the story.

This story has been kept under tight wrap by the governments involved -- perhaps because the information is false. But if the French troops were indeed removed from the base for spying on the U.S. military, relations between our countries will have reached a new low.

This latest breach of international relations would be the logical culmination of a pattern of deceit and treachery. After stifling a United Nations vote on any resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, France has frustrated U.S. goals as much as humanly possible. On March 24, the French refused the United States' request that France expel Iraqi diplomats and freeze the French-held funds of the Saddam Hussein regime.

French President Jacques Chirac pledged to oppose any U.S.-led effort to gain an "after-the-fact" U.N. resolution condoning our campaign to disarm Iraq. In a letter to fellow peacenik Pope John Paul II, Chirac reiterated his commitment to "defend the primacy of law, justice and dialogue between peoples." Chirac's commitment to law and justice ends where physical force begins; Chirac said that he "deeply (regrets) the start of armed operations." Despite France's opposition to the war, the French maintain that any post-war mess must be cleaned up with the help of the United Nations, aided by -- you

guessed it -- France.

The French government has also made untiring efforts to paint Saddam Hussein and his gang of brutal thugs as victims of imperialist aggression. Over the weekend, the Iraqi military allegedly murdered some American POWs and taped interrogations of several others, a few of whom were wounded at the time. Al-Jazeera, the Qatari television channel, broadcast the footage of the interrogations that was distributed by the Iraqi government. While the video made clear the brutality of the Iraqi regime, the French did not react with shock or horror at the prospect of American POWs being killed, wounded or forced to undergo severe humiliation in violation of the Geneva Convention. Instead, the Higher Audiovisual Council (CSA), the French broadcast watchdog, chastised Al-Jazeera head Michael Kik for putting the tape on television and revealing Iraqi war crimes.

Now, the French military has allegedly been expelled from a coalition base in Saudi Arabia for spying on the uncultured Americans. Can the French sink any lower?

The sad truth is that they can. Jacques Chirac's approval ratings are sky high; anything anti-American goes over like gangbusters with the French public. And that anti-American sentiment is likely to become more and more severe with the growth of the militant Muslim population in France. France currently has 5 million Muslims, totaling somewhere between 5 percent and 10 percent of its population. The highly polarized Muslim community has gained enormous prominence in France, especially because other ethnic groups are reproducing at relatively low rates while Muslims are having many children. At some point in the future, if demographic trends hold, France could become a majority Muslim state -- and a dangerous foe to the United States.

2003-03-31T23:34:00.000-06:00

Privatize it!

One of the underlying fears that the anti-war crowd has about the ultimate outcome of the war in Iraq is that Iraqi oil will fall into the hands of private companies. The evil globalization minded corps will rape Iraq of her natural resources and use the money to open genetically modified mink farms. Or so they claim. Although private commercial interests already drill and manage nearly every oil field in the Middle East [with the French and Russians exclusively in Iraq], all profits from petrol go directly to the governments [i.e. dictators] of the respective nations.

What’s so wrong with that you might be tempted to ask.

Everything.

Think about it. Everything in the world revolves around the golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules. How can despots rule every single oil producing nation in the Middle East? Simple, command economies are ripe for dictatorial control. Not one nation that subscribes to the command economic model is democratically run, and the nationalization of large industries is a pretty good indicator of a dictator in the making [remember Cuba]?

Although the Middle East oil caliphates do not fit perfectly into the command economy model, the vast majority of all economic activity [over 75%] in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, etc.. is run managed and owned by the respective dictators of those nations. So while the average Saudi is unemployed and lives in squalor, Shake Shitsonmyself’ drives around in one of his 85 Bentleys swilling on bottles of Louis XIV cognac while getting hummers from hookers in hotpants. And when the average Arab wonders why he is in such poor shape, Shake Shitsonmyself’ uses his state owned media to blame it on the Zionist and Western Crusading Infidels.

With all the oil in the hands of a few monarchs, dictators, and Ayatollahs, it concentrates far too much power in the hands of far too few people. Entire economies are controlled Soviet style [with Soviet results] by a small cadre of royals and despots. People who use nearly all of that wealth to build billion dollar palaces with gold plated urinals.

But how to ensure that a good deal is brokered?

The Alaskan model comes to mind. Invite oil companies to come into Iraq, [or better yet maybe some enterprising Iraqis will start one of their own] bid on developing the petroleum reserves and mail every Iraqi a royalty check every year.

Privatized oil resources will be better able to compete with non-privatized sources, providing Iraqis with even more money. It will also lower and stabilize oil prices worldwide. With stable oil prices, and market controlled oil resources in the Middle East, it may not be the hot spot it is now.

2003-03-31T21:40:00.000-06:00

Note to self:

Don’t let the headline of my story conflict with the content.

'NO WARNING SHOTS': US TROOPS KILL 10 WOMEN, KIDS IN VAN...

Or so goes the sensationalistic banner headline at Commondreams.org.

But the article seems to contradict this.

Several said they accepted the platoon leader's explanation to Johnson on the military radio that he had, in fact, fired two warning shots, but that the driver failed to stop. And everybody was edgy, they realized, since four U.S. soldiers were blown up by a suicide bomber Saturday at a checkpoint much like theirs, only 20 miles to the south.

Its all good an well that they want to whip their fellow usefull idiots into action through bullshit editorials from the likes of Pravda, Noam Chomsky and Norman Solomon, but have they sunk so low that they now have to blatantly lie about what is going on?

I guess so.

2003-03-30T20:50:00.000-06:00

A word to Delta Force

To any member of Delta Force currently in Baghdad and reading this, please use extra brutal force when you repeatedly pistol whip Peter Arnett and Robert Fisk, now currently in Baghdad with you.

Ehh, what the fuck, just shoot em.

2003-03-30T20:48:00.000-06:00

This just uncovered in the Pentagon’s collection of secret WWII archives.

The following is a transcript of an interview given by General Dwight D Eisenhower on June 19, 1944.

Reporter: General Eisenhower, my sources in Washington have leaked a confidential planning document on this so called “D-Day” and according to this planning document, the Normandy beach head was supposed to be secured and a breakout from the beachhead was supposed to be achieved by no later than the 15th. Some have even called this operation the beginning of the Allied quagmire.

Does this lack of progress concern you?

General Eisenhower: Resistance has been stiffer than anticipated, but our forces have done amazingly well in face of such fierce opposition.

Reporter: Yes, that may be true General, but you must admit that initial estimates of your timetable have not panned out to be true, isn’t this correct?

Eisenhower: Once again, I must inform you that estimates of a military operation this large are just estimates and can be changed according to developments. No battle plan is static and is subject to change as the situation warrants.

Reporter: Back to the start of this so-called “D-Day”, allied casualties were 3,488 KIA; 12,785 WIA. Some have called for your resignation over this blunder that turned into a bloodbath. What do you have to say your critics?

Eisenhower: Once again, although resistance was stiff the beach was taken through individual and collective acts of bravery and self-sacrifice.

Reporter: As far as civilian casualties go, reports point to the slaughter of 10,000’s of innocent Frenchmen, many just poor helpless children due to your indiscriminate and inhuman use of aerial bombing and sea based artillery strikes. Does the Allied command have any contingency to avoid these casualties?

Eisenhower: Listen, this is the most crucial battle in the war, and although targets are selected based on military importance, civilian casualties in a battle this large are going to be unavoidable.

Reporter: Lastly, I had an exclusive interview with Heinrich Himmler this morning and he claimed that Germany would never fall to the imperialistic Allied forces waging a racist and unjust war against the noble and kind Third Reich. What is your reaction to this?

Could anyone even imagine this taking place 60 years ago?

We all know the outcome of the battle that began on June 6th, 1944. More than any other event, it signaled the beginning of the end of the Third Reich.

Although everything did not go “exactly as planned” the outcome was the same.

500 of miles in 7 days, a kill ratio of over 500 to one, 50 miles from Baghdad, complete and total air supremacy, and all in 10 days.

This is not a war game or a fucking made for TV movie.

If that’s a quagmire, then call me a fucking Sally.

2003-03-20T20:17:00.000-06:00

One last post

I guess I could not leave well enough alone.

This one comes to us from the Vodka Pundit

Follow the Money

StrategyPage details who really armed Saddam , by tracking how much money he owes to different countries. The top three dealers?

Soviet Union- Over 25 billion dollars
France and China – at least five billion dollars each.

Is it any coincidence that these are three of the loudest voices against us getting into Saddam's filing cabinets?

NOTE: If you're curious, Saddam owes the US less than a quarter million dollars -- and we're usually pretty easy about giving credit.

2003-03-20T17:31:00.000-06:00

One Week Off

Well, although it may seem strange now, I planned a vacation starting tomorrow, and I will not be blogging for about 9 days [well I might sneak in one or two here and there].

Once again, let me express my sincerest wishes for a brief and decisive conflict, and to all my readers in the armed forces, good luck and God Bless.

Oh, and Sarge. I cant remove my old email from my template!! I desperately need your help o' brainy computer guru!

2003-03-20T17:27:00.000-06:00

At War Today

It seems that US and British forces came under attack by several Iraqi scuds today. You know the ones Hans Blixs said did not exist. The weapons that have been prohibited since 1992. The missiles that the whiney bitches over at Communist, er I mean Common Dreams continue to call weapons of mass distraction [implying that they are not there].

Iraqi forces have launched their first retaliatory strike at US forces by firing a scud missile at northern Kuwait.

A Kuwaiti defense ministry spokesman said a U.S. Patriot anti-missile defense battery brought down two Iraqi Scuds.

Neither missile was believed to have been carrying chemical or biological weapons.

Too bad guys, you almost had some people fooled. But shhhhhhhh, no one tell Norman Solomon or Michael Moore.

What other surprises lay in store for us? I hope we don’t have to find out.

Strikes in Afghanistan on Taliban and Al’Queda remnants to show them that a two front war is not only very possible, but will be done.

2003-03-20T00:56:00.000-06:00

Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war

As I sit here behind the relative comfort and safety of my computer screen, halfway around the world the first war of the 21st century begins.

Seems almost ridiculous to have six months of intense media coverage and debate on a war than will most likely be over in six days. The anxiety that everyone is feeling over this has almost gotten to be too much.

I watched the Iraqi press release on CNN a few minutes ago and that has got to be the worst Saddam Hussein impersonator I have ever seen.

Who the hell was he trying to kid?

Why war? How does it get to this point? Why does mankind always have to resort to such destructive, barbaric ways to settle a conflict?

We are weak, constantly putting short term interests over long term threats. Constantly “negotiating” and “containing” and “playing nice” with individuals and organizations with which we have nothing in common with.

I realize that hindsight is 20/20, but hopefully we will pay more attention in the future.

Hopefully, from this day foreword, we just may realize that the enemy of our enemy is not necessarily our friend. We may as a world, just might grow the collective balls and stomp these assholes in the larval stage instead of waking up in the middle of the night and looking down the barrel of a gun.

Just surfed over to Indymedia, God damn, what a bunch of pansies. I don’t think I have seen the Indymidiots this riled up since they heard the Soviet Union no longer existed.

Here is one of the best ones I have seen this evening.

And what about the “Peace Movement" ™ ? Fuck them! I don’t know if there is a group of more insincere, more transparent, more duplicitous people on this earth. I saw a flock being interviewed by CLTV in front of the Dirkson Federal Building in Chicago tonight and the one on the camera had a Red Army Faction T-Shirt on.

Give me a break.

They will pay for the bullshit they have been cramming down people’s throats for the past year or so. When the truth comes out they will be so humiliated for their tactic support of Hussein that I truly hope it discredits them to the mainstream. When people see how happy the Iraqis are to have that son of a bitch dead, and when we find out the real extent of his Permanently!

I just sincerely hope they don’t destroy the morning commute.

With any luck this war will be over within a week. Delta will have killed or captured Saddam Hussein, the man ultimately responsible for this, and all this will die down.

Maybe the worst case scenario will happen. Saddam will use chemical and biological weapons and turn a coalition victory into a phyric one. Hundreds of thousands of innocent dead.

Who knows, but I would put my money on the better of two outcomes. Or mabey that’s just wishful thinking.

But make no mistake, no one, most especially myself ‘wants’ a war, sometime it just comes down to this. I feel sorry for the Iraqis who have to go through this, and for those who will die. I feel sorry for the members of our armed forces who are in harms way and may also pay the ultimate sacrifice to make the world a safer place.

War should always be one of the last resorts, but make no mistake, it should always be a resort.

I just pray that it will be short.

2003-03-19T15:33:00.000-06:00

Why the Left Loves Osama [and Saddam]

You know I had touched on this subject back in June , when I first started my weblog.

Pipes puts a great twist on it by incorporating the "dependencia theory" and how the left sees nowhere else to turn to to fight capitalism except for Saddam.

More recently, it appears that none of the millions of antiwar demonstrators have a bad word to say about Saddam Hussein nor an iota of sympathy for those oppressed, tortured and murdered by his regime. Instead, they vent fury against the American president and British prime minister.

Why is the Left nonchalant about the outrages committed by al Qaeda and Baghdad?

Lee Harris, an Atlanta writer, offers an explanation in a recent issue of the Hoover Institution's journal, Policy Review. He does so by stepping way back and recalling Karl Marx's central thesis about the demise of capitalism resulting from an inevitable sequence of events:

* Business profits decline in the industrial countries;

* Bosses squeeze their workers;

* Workers become impoverished;

* Workers rebel against their bosses, and

* Workers establish a socialist order.

Everything here hangs on workers growing poorer over time - which, of course, did not happen. In fact, Western workers became richer (and increasingly un-revolutionary). By the roaring 1950s, most of the Left realized that Marx got it wrong.

But rather than give up on cherished expectations of socialist revolution, Harris notes, Marxists tweaked their theory. Abandoning the workers of advanced industrial countries, they looked instead to the entire populations of poor countries to carry out the revolution. Class analysis went out the window, replaced by geography.

This new approach, known as "dependencia theory," holds that the First World (and the United States above all) profits by forcefully exploiting the Third Word. The Left theorizes that the United States oppresses poor countries; thus Noam Chomsky's formulation that America is a "leading terrorist state."

For vindication of this claim, Marxists impatiently await the Third World's rising up against the West. Sadly for them, the only true revolution since the 1950s was Iran's in 1978-79. It ended with militant Islam in power and the Left in hiding.

Then came 9/11, which Marxists interpreted as the Third World (finally!) striking back at its American oppressor. In the Left's imagination, Harris explains, this attack was nothing less than "world-historical in its significance: the dawn of a new revolutionary era."

Daniel Pipes

2003-03-19T15:15:00.000-06:00

More from Little Green Footballs on Rachel Corrie, "Peace Activist"

With "Peace Activists" like Mrs Corrie, what do we need armies for?

Rachel Corrie was emphatically not a “peace activist.” She sided with terrorists and criminals, and advocated—in fact, was excited by—violence and mass murder. In her diary entry for February 10, she lavishes praise on suicide bombers:

I would also like to ask you, and those to whom you pass this on, to think about the relative positions of the fighters and occupiers in this monumentally unequal struggle. While the huge force of Israelis have every technical aid invented by the US war machine, the few young fighters have NOTHING BUT THEIR WEAPON (and this not the most modern) - no helmet, bullet proof vest, radio contact or other protection. No back-up, no plane, helicopter, tank, APC, searchlight, dogs, flares, ambulance or refuge - put all the Israeli/American propaganda aside for a few minutes and try to imagine, please, the courage it requires to do what these youngfighters do, knowing that the odds are against escape and that, every time they do succeed in evading death, the odds against a further survival are shortened. Even if the operation is a success the price is always high.

Two days before she wrote this, one of the “young fighters” she admired so much got on a bus in Haifa and blew himself up—murdering 16 people, most of them teenagers.

That’s the “operation” she wrote about.

2003-03-16T23:47:00.000-06:00

Rage Against the Machine:

Rage = 0
Machine = 1

Rachel Corrie shows Palestinian proto-terrorists how best to burn a US flag.
[Thanks to Little Green Footballs for the pic]

Although stupidity is not a crime, it rarely goes unpunished.

Israeli army bulldozer crushes US peace protester in Gaza Strip

Peace campaigner killed as Israeli army destroys homes in Palestinian refugee camp

An Israeli army bulldozer crushed an American peace activist to death in the Gaza Strip yesterday in what witnesses described as a deliberate killing. Rachel Corrie, 23, died as she attempted to prevent the military destroying homes in the Rafah refugee camp, one of the most dangerous in the occupied territories.
"She was standing on top of a pile of earth," said another activist, Richard Purssell, who was a few feet away. "The driver cannot have failed to see her. As the blade pushed the pile, the earth rose up. Rachel slid down the pile. It looks as if she got her foot caught. The driver didn't slow down; he just ran over her. Then he reversed the bulldozer back over her again. She was very courageous."

Other activists said the bulldozer had approached from several metres away and that Ms Corrie, who was wearing a brightly coloured jacket, was waving and they were shouting at the driver to stop but he ignored them.

Witnesses said another protester had been slightly injured about half an hour earlier when the same bulldozer knocked him into barbed wire.

Ms Corrie was one of eight foreign volunteers - four from the US and four from Britain - with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) seeking to block house demolitions.

You know, although I feel sorry for her family, and that her idiocy cost her life, you gotta wonder what the hell she was doing there?

2003-03-16T22:09:00.000-06:00

The 11th Commandment: Thou Shall Cover Thine Own Ass

And so it begins.

I guess they know that they have lost the battle of words. War with Iraq will start soon, and the bullshit arguments that have been given to stop the war will be shown to be the lies that they are.

After Iraq is put down and Saddam Hussein is nothing more that a naked child sitting in a prison, or worse, the truth once and for all will be known. The true extent of the weapons programs, the complicity of ‘key official’ violating sanctions, and all the assorted horror stories if the Iraqi regime will be made known.

But like the 11th commandment compels us to do, the most rabid of the rabid are now scrambling for some CYA.

Already there are vague, unconfirmed stories of preliminary manufacture of the necessary smoking guns that can be deployed by undercover teams as U.S. troops advance and then dramatically disclosed to the hungry press. For those who entertain doubts about the likelihood of the United States or its ally Britain manufacturing necessary "evidence," consider the recent explicit charge of forgery leveled by Mohammed ElBaradei, the chief UN inspector looking for evidence of nuclear capability in Iraq.

Alexander Dickrub, I mean, Cockburn

Bunkers allegedly containing chemical weapons will be cordoned off – too dangerous for any journalist to approach, of course. Perhaps they actually do contain VX or anthrax. But for the moment, the all-important thing for Washington and London is to convince the world that the causus belli was true – and reporters, in or out of military costume, will be on hand to say just that.

Robert “I like to be beaten by Pakistani mobs” Fisk

Desperately scrambling to maintain some kind of credibility, they now have to resort to “unconfirmed stories” and their flock will eat it up.

2003-03-16T21:37:00.000-06:00

“Moment of Truth”

Tomorrow is St Patrick’s day. As anyone from Chicago will tell you, it’s a big freaking deal around here. For those of you who don’t know, tomorrow honors St Patrick, the man who drove the snakes [pagans] from Ireland.

I find it interesting that tomorrow, President Bush will begin to drive the snakes from Iraq .

2003-03-16T21:32:00.000-06:00

Freudian Slip?

While watching the anti-war protests on C-SPAN the other evening, I was taken aback by the comments of ANSWER’s main organizer for the DC protest Larry Homes,

These protests, these actions, this movement will not stop until our demands are reached. Not just the war in Iraq, but for all movements for people’s liberation worldwide, this is just the beginning.

If I did not know any better, that sounds almost like a terrorist Fatwa.

Besides being one of the main front men for ANSWER, Holmes is also the media director for the World Workers Party .

2003-03-12T13:57:00.000-06:00

New email

In an order to reduce the spam, i have changed my email

m_hanson76@hotmail.com

2003-03-11T14:28:00.000-06:00

Well isn't this cute

LA HABRA -- Antiwar protesters burned and ripped up flags, flowers and patriotic signs at a Sept. 11 memorial that residents erected on a fence along Whittier Boulevard days after the terrorist attacks in 2001 and have maintained ever since.

However, although officers witnessed the vandalism Saturday afternoon, police did not arrest three people seen damaging the display because they were "exercising the same freedom of speech that the people who put up the flags were,' La Habra Police Capt. John Rees said Monday.

"For this to be vandalism, there had to be an ill-will intent,' he said.

Rees said in order for police to take any action, the owner of the fence would have to file a complaint.

Jeff Collison, owner of The RV Center in La Habra, who has allowed residents to add patriotic symbols to the fence on his property, said he just might do that.

"Their free speech stops at destruction of private property. If they are allowed to come on my property and burn flags, does that mean I can go to City Hall or the police station and light their flags on fire because that is freedom of speech? To me, this is vandalism,' Collison said.

Some residents Monday hung signs criticizing those who destroyed the display.

Tracey Chandler, a Whittier mother of four who has maintained the spontaneous memorial since it was created by other area residents soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said she was shocked by the destruction.

"They trashed 87 flags, ripped 11 memorial tiles made by myself and my children out of the ground and glued the Bob Dylan song to a sign that said, 'America, land of the brave, home of the free,' ' she said.

The Bob Dylan song she referred to is "With God on Our Side,' an antiwar anthem of the 1960s.

"It's unbelievable, because there were absolutely no political messages on this fence. It was all about supporting our troops, which could mean bringing them home, and about remembering 9-11.'

Les Howard, a sociology professor at Whittier College, said the incident might be an indication of some confusion among people trying to stop a possible war against Iraq but uncertain how to express their sentiments. However, he said he does not condone the destruction of symbols important to those who erect them.

"Some think (the best way to support the troops) is to not question their role. Some think the best way is to pursue all means possible to avoid putting them in danger,' he said. "That still does not excuse any desecration of people's symbolic participation.'

Chandler said she plans to rebuild the Sept. 11 memorial.

"We are going to rebuild this memorial, and it will be brighter, bigger and better than ever,' Chandler said.

2003-03-10T00:05:00.000-06:00

Broken Records at Mother Jones

A recent article from Mother Jones has been getting quite a bit of play by the left as of late. The Thirty Year Itch, by Robert Dreyfus, outlines what Dreyfus believes to be a long term plan to seize all petroleum reserves in the Middle East and control the world.

If you were to spin the globe and look for real estate critical to building an American empire, your first stop would have to be the Persian Gulf. The desert sands of this region hold two of every three barrels of oil in the world -- Iraq's reserves alone are equal, by some estimates, to those of Russia, the United States, China, and Mexico combined. For the past 30 years, the Gulf has been in the crosshairs of an influential group of Washington foreign-policy strategists, who believe that in order to ensure its global dominance, the United States must seize control of the region and its oil.

Today, a growing number of Washington strategists are advocating a direct U.S. challenge to state-owned petroleum industries in oil-producing countries, especially the Persian Gulf. Think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and CSIS are conducting discussions about privatizing Iraq's oil industry. Some of them have put forward detailed plans outlining how Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other nations could be forced to open up their oil and gas industries to foreign investment.

Just which companies would get to claim Iraq's oil has been a subject of much debate. After a war, the contracts that Iraq's state-owned oil company has signed with European, Russian, and Chinese oil firms might well be abrogated, leaving the field to U.S. oil companies. "What they have in mind is denationalization, and then parceling Iraqi oil out to American oil companies," says Akins.

"One of the major problems with the Persian Gulf is that the means of production are in the hands of the state," Rob Sobhani, an oil-industry consultant, told an American Enterprise Institute conference last fall in Washington. Already, he noted, several U.S. oil companies are studying the possibility of privatization in the Gulf. Dismantling government-owned oil companies, Sobhani argued, could also force political changes in the region. "The beginning of liberal democracy can be achieved if you take the means of production out of the hands of the state," he said, acknowledging that Arabs would resist that idea. "It's going to take a lot of selling, a lot of marketing," he concluded.

The main thrust of the article is to convince the reader that the main goal of the war is to denationalize the oil industry in the Middle East and then replace it with a US controlled oil infrastructure. This would provide the US with a lever to control Western Europe as well as Asia.

Interesting thesis, but what’s his evidence?

Dreyfus extensively quotes former US/Middle East diplomat James Akins, to back up his claims that a war in Iraq, (as well as Afghanistan) were a prelude to the construction of this US global Hegemony.

Although Akins appears to be a credible source, Atkins claims that in 1975 former US secretary of State Henry Kissinger wanted to commit genocide in Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia and repopulate the region with Russian Jewish exiles.

Now Henry Kissinger may be a lot of things to a lot of people, [I would consider him the king of Realpolitik], but to think that he had a secret plan to exterminate every Arab in the middle east and then repopulate it with Russian Jewish exiles to solve the oil crisis does not even pass the laugh test.

The other main thrust of the Dreyfus article is an attempt to link American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and Center For Strategic & International Studies [what Dreyfus believes to be “right-wing” think tanks] and administration officials in a grand scheme to privatize oil assets.

Conservative think tanks advocating the privatization of OPEC oil resources in order break up monopolistic cartels and allow market forces to dictate oil process instead of a handful of Arab sheiks?

Well no shit Mr. Dreyfus! Economic enterprises not owned by the state is a pretty key concept in free market ideology.

Conservatives with ties to these think tanks in key policy roles within the Bush administration?

Well no shit Mr. Dreyfus! If it was not for think tanks, politics, and academia, policy wonks would not have much to do.

But I also think that Dreyfus’ fixation on privatization seems to follow in line with the standard group-think mindset of the left.

Now before someone out there begins whining at me for red-baiting, this is hardly the first time Dreyfus had taken this point of view.

there is little or no evidence in the history they cite that the socialist movement would have propelled America toward an undemocratic form of government. Instead, it looks as if the actors in this drama were merely fighting for social democracy, equality, and justice--and lost. Would it be such a bad thing if a new generation of progressive activists took inspiration from our resilient American-style socialists? We can learn from their failures, but, seeing them as more than ghosts from a distant past, we can learn also from their passion, their willingness to confront power, and their soaring hopes for a better society.

but my favorite Dreyfus Article would have to be The Phantom Menace, which appeared in the September/October 2000 edition of Mother Jones. Here are some of the choicest pieces.

The problem is, the threat of such an attack appears to be no more real than the mock terror in Portsmouth. According to data collected by the State Department and the FBI, terrorism worldwide (in all its forms, including old-fashioned bombs, guns, and airplane hijackings) has plummeted since the end of the Cold War -- and in the United States, it is virtually nonexistent.

Those "worst-case scenarios" have provided the military and defense agencies with a much-needed rationale to sustain high levels of spending in the wake of the Cold War. With so much money being spread around, virtually every agency of the U.S. government is fast developing an antiterrorism program to cash in. And in an ominous move, the Clinton administration has given the Pentagon and the FBI sweeping new powers that threaten to erode civil liberties. Counterterrorism laws have allowed the FBI to expand surveillance of American dissidents and U.S. backers of Third World guerrilla groups, while U.S. armed forces have set up special commands that enable uniformed soldiers to erect domestic roadblocks, make arrests, and engage in house-to-house searches in response to an alleged terrorist act or threat.

In effect, the Clinton administration has used what it concedes is an unlikely threat of a terrorist attack to create an unprecedented partnership involving the military, intelligence agencies, and domestic law enforcement. "

Terrorists were a well-known threat to American embassies and other targets abroad, and the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center by Islamic fundamentalists brought the danger home. Now the generals and spymasters had a new enemy -- and new ways to bolster their declining budgets.

With such a steady diet of horror stories, it's no wonder the public has come to regard the threat of terrorism as very real. In a 1998 poll conducted for the Henry L. Stimson Center, a national security think tank, more than three-quarters of those questioned said they consider a nuclear attack by terrorists "likely." Among potential nuclear threats to the United States, terrorist groups were ranked as the greatest danger, ahead of China, Iraq, Iran, and Russia. "People have transferred their fear of communism to fear of terrorism," says John Parachini, executive director of the Washington office of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, a research organization specializing in arms control.

Yet the government's own data suggest that the fear is out of proportion to the threat. According to the State Department's "Patterns of Global Terrorism," terrorism is actually on the decline. In the 1980s, the administration recorded a yearly average of 562 terrorist attacks worldwide. In the 1990s, the annual figure dropped by a third to 382.

Indeed, some critics charge that cases of foreign terrorists striking within the United States are so rare that the FBI has been slow to publish its annual report, Terrorism in the United States. In June, the bureau finally released the 1998 edition, blaming the delay on troubles in compiling data. But some suggest that the FBI knows the figures undercut its case for increased antiterrorist funding. "I think they'd be embarrassed about how little there is," says Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology.

According to a recent study by the Monterey Institute for International Studies in California, only one American has died this century from a terrorist attack using nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. In 1973, a school superintendent in Oakland was killed by a cyanide-laced bullet -- fired not by a shadowy foreigner, but by a member of the California-based Symbionese Liberation Army.

The main reason terrorists haven't used weapons of mass destruction is simple: Such devices, which involve complex and dangerous technologies, are not easy to acquire or use.

Many proponents of the antiterrorist mobilization make it seem as if would-be bombers could simply cobble together apocalyptic weapons using supplies found at the neighborhood hardware store. D.A. Henderson, head of the Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies at Johns Hopkins University, insists that well-connected criminals could construct an anthrax weapon for less than $1 million by hiring former Soviet scientists and buying Russian equipment. "There is some reasonable certainty that we will have a significant bioterrorism event within the next 10 years," Henderson says. "It's just a matter of time."

The antiterrorism drive has done far more than funnel money into federal agencies: It has also quietly expanded the government's powers to spy on political organizations. Key provisions of the Antiterrorism Act of 1996, which civil liberties groups call "one of the worst assaults on the Constitution in decades," made it a felony to raise money for organizations deemed "terrorist" and repealed laws preventing the FBI from investigating organizations simply because of their political activities.

That's exactly what the FBI did in its COINTELPRO program during the 1970s and in its operation against Americans who supported the rebels in El Salvador during the 1980s. Had the provisions of the Antiterrorism Act been in place then, the FBI could have investigated and arrested U.S. backers of Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress, which would have met the criteria to be deemed "terrorist."

It’s a common them for leftists like Dreyfus. For years they told us that communism was just another way of doing things and Marxist societies posed no threat to us. Genocide was not integral to the operation of a well oiled Marxist society, they were in no way shape of form interested with hostilities with the west, and most of all the fear against these societies based on “justice” and “fairness” was manufactured to justify large military expenditures and the repression of dissidents.

We all know now that this bit of historical revisionism is bullshit.

Just as we all know that 9/11 shattered Dreyfus’ claim in September of 2000 [ironic ehh?] that terrorism was nothing more than a “Phantom Menace” being generated to beef up security.

Anyone want to wager what will come of Dreyfus’ newest allegations?

Any takers?

2003-03-07T11:15:00.001-06:00

European Opposition

Found this link over at InstaPundit
and I think it beautifully summarizes the French position:

In recent weeks, France has led resistance at the United Nations and in world forums against U.S. pressure to begin war against the government of President Saddam Hussein. Today its foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, issued a new challenge to Washington, coming together with his counterparts from Russia and Germany to declare that their governments will block a pro-war resolution in the U.N. Security Council.

"This is not about Saddam Hussein, and this is not even about regime change in Iraq or even the million people killed by Saddam Hussein or missiles or chemical weapons," Pierre Lellouche, a legislator who is close to Chirac, said in an interview. "It is about what has become two conflicting views of the world.

"It's about whether the United States is allowed to run world affairs and battle terrorism and weapons proliferation essentially with a small group of trusted allies," or whether many nations should have a say, he said.

So who do you trust? The UN who has Colonel Momar Quadafi of Libya as the chairman of the UN commission on human rights?

2003-03-07T11:15:00.000-06:00

Magnequench Inc

Insight recently published an article detailing the sale and transfer of Magnequench Inc, a high tech rare earth magnet firm, to Chinese ownership. Seems as if the sale was simply a precursor to the transfer of the firm, as well as its proprietary technology into the waiting hands of the Chinese army.

Outraged U.S. technology experts and documents obtained by Insight indicate that the acquisition and subsequent transfer of high-tech rare-earth-magnet equipment and technology to the People's Republic of China is the result of a long-range espionage plan by the late "Paramount Leader" Deng Xiaoping directly involving two of Deng's sons-in-law.

The revelations come as Magnequench Inc., a company partially owned by the San Huan New Materials and Hi-Tech Co. – itself at least partially owned by the PRC government – prepares to shut down a factory in Valparaiso, Ind., that produces critical parts for U.S. precision-guided weapons. The company then plans to ship the machine tools to China. Insight has learned from technology experts, plant insiders, internal PRC documents and historical records that the PRC had targeted the U.S. technological advantage in exotic materials and manufacturing and developed a long-term plan to acquire it in the United States and export a crucial U.S. military advantage to the communist-controlled mainland.

In 1995, San Huan New Materials and China Nonferrous Metals Industrial Corp. partnered with a U.S. investment firm to buy Indiana-based Magnequench from General Motors Corp. Insight has learned that the president of China Nonferrous Metals Industrial, Wu Jianchang, is married to Deng Lin, the eldest daughter of the late Deng Xiaoping. The chairman of San Huan New Materials, Zhang Hong, now chairman of Magnequench, is the husband of Deng Nan, second daughter of Deng Xiaoping. Deng Nan also is vice minister of state on science and technology for the PRC.

Though blocked by secrecy rules from going public, government officials expressed alarm about allowing the Chinese government access to strategic technology now being used to produce critical neodymium-iron-boron magnets for servos used in U.S. guided missiles and smart bombs. An even more critical technology, according to experts, was exported to the PRC in 1999 by Magnequench. That transfer included high-tech equipment used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, raising additional concern because of China's record of proliferating nuclear technology to rogue nations.

But after looking into this for a few minutes this morning, I was happy to see that someone, Congressman Pete Visclosky (D-In) and Senator Evan Bayh (D-In), was doing something about this.

2003-02-26T14:43:00.000-06:00

Pick of the day

A great piece from Zontics

guess it depends on your definition of "free"

Molly Ivins could barely contain her glee when Reporters Without Borders ranked the U.S. only 17th in the world press freedom rankings. I wonder how Ms. Ivins would feel if the U.S. treated reporters who criticize President Bush the way that France treats UK papers who criticize Chirac:

The Sun could be forced to pay a £30,000 fine after branding the French president Jacques Chirac a "worm" in a special French edition handed out on the streets of Paris.
"CHIRAC EST UN VER" declared the Sun's front-page splash in the best "up yours Delors" tradition. The page featured a graphic illustration of a worm with the head of the French president emerging from a map of France.

The tabloid's controversial stance breaks a French law that makes it a criminal offence to insult the president. Breaking the law carries a fine up 45,000 euros.
Did I mention that Reporters Without Borders listed France as number 11 in their rankings.

While I'm on the subject, here's what RWB said were the criteria for their rankings:

The index was drawn up by asking journalists, researchers and legal experts to answer 50 questions about the whole range of press freedom violations (such as murders or arrests of journalists, censorship, pressure, state monopolies in various fields, punishment of press law offences and regulation of the media). The final list includes 139 countries. The others were not included in the absence of reliable information.

I don't know who the hell they asked to rank the U.S., but I have a feeling that our respondents were a lot more self-critical than the French respondents.

2003-02-25T14:48:00.000-06:00

My Take on the War Protest

Yes, yes I know it was a week and a half ago and nearly everyone in the blogshere has had their say on the subject [most of which were very well done I might add], but I guess I just could not let it go.

I spent that weekend in beautiful Keystone Colorado skiing its many runs and consuming vast quantities of Fat Tire and Coors and I honestly completely forgot about the protest. The only time the conversation went even remotely close to politics was when I spent the majority of Sunday skiing with two Air Force academy students.

I had a conversation with my sister the other night and we got to discussing the war and the protests when she told me that “Bush was a dickhead”. Now, she now lives in Sydney Australia, and is constantly exposed to a steady stream of Comrade John Pilgeresque mainstream left wing media bullshit, but I think that that one statement sums up the vast majority of the “mainstream” anti-war movement: its more about hating W than it is about opposing military action in Iraq.

Now I know that the protestors will deny this they will say its not about George Bush.

Bullshit!

They also claim that the protest are in no way supportive of Saddam Hussein,

Bullshit!

They will say that this is not about any latent anti-American sentiment.

Bullshit!

Some claim that this is ‘grassroots’ and is not just made up of the ex-Vietnam protest groupies.

More bullshit!

And, above all, this is not a collection of the hard-left, Marxist, ‘usual suspects’ which full the ranks of nearly every protest of this sort.

But you only have to scratch the surface to see what its all about.

Its not about war, these things rarely are.

2003-02-23T17:04:00.000-06:00

Goldberg hits this nail on the head

Why will a liberal talk radio channel fail? Why do conservatives dominate this form of the media?

Conspiracy or simple market realities? I think Jonah Goldberg handled this issue rather well.

Another reason why talk radio is right-wing is that most of America, or talk-radio-listening America, believes the mainstream media is liberal. They believe this because, well, it's true. And talk radio serves as a truth squad for people who don't trust Peter Jennings. Sure, the press isn't as liberal as Eric Alterman and the guys at The Nation would like it to be, but then again the Democratic party isn't as liberal as The Nation would like it to be. In other words, if you think Dick Gephardt, Joe Lieberman, and John Kerry are too right-wing, of course you're going to think the New York Times isn't liberal.

But let's not squabble about the liberal-media thing. Been there, done that, got the snow globe.

What's funny is that Franken's backers are banking on precisely what Franken shockingly didn't know until recently: Conservatives are more entertaining than liberals. Oh, of course it's true that professional — and very funny — entertainers and comedy writers tend to be liberal. But the key here is that they are professional entertainers, not professional liberals. And therein lies all the difference.

2003-02-23T16:59:00.000-06:00

France to the World: How dare you say we condone brutal dictators!

Unless you are speaking of Saddam Hussein or Robert Mugabe .

Robert Mugabe fuelled controversy over his invitation to the Franco-African summit in Paris yesterday when he heaped praise on President Chirac for the “tremendous hospitality” he had received.

His words appeared to discredit M Chirac’s claims to have given the Zimbabwean President a dressing-down over his human rights record at a private meeting on Thursday night. They added to speculation that M Chirac’s real aim in issuing the invitation had been to woo Zimbabwe’s President as part of his attempt to extend French influence into Anglophone Africa. Mr Mugabe, who was put up with his wife and entourage in a luxurious Paris hotel at the French Government’s expense, said: “We felt at home here.”

He told Radio France Internationale in an interview shortly before flying back to Harare: “We have received tremendous hospitality, and we are leaving with a very good impression of France.” His remarks will be an embarrassment to M Chirac, who said he had invited Mr Mugabe to Paris despite a European Union travel ban so that he could tell the Zimbabwean President “face to face” of his concerns.

If France’s head of state did criticise Mr Mugabe, the message did not get through. In a long, rambling answer to the radio interviewer, Mr Mugabe praised M Chirac for overriding objections to his invitation from Britain and other EU countries. “It has been an excellent summit, truly excellent,” Mr Mugabe said.

“President Chirac insisted that we should come because some other members of the European Union did not want President Mugabe here. He had to put his foot down on principle, and we regard him as a principled person, absolutely principled. He is the kind of leader we regard as very important, given the state of the international community.”

But please read the reast, its quite a revealing look at Chirac’s character.

2003-02-23T16:57:00.000-06:00

Kucinich, more like a real Democrat every day

Whatever your stand on the abortion issue, it would be safe to say that consistency is key in any position. After all, it was most likely due to Al Gore’s gun control flip flop that cost him his home state of Tennessee.

Now that Comrade Dennis Kucinich is a presidential hopeful, we see this once ‘principled’ politician flip on abortion just so he can curry favor with the DNC and the left in general.

During his eight years in the House, Kucinich voted with abortion-rights advocates barely 10 percent of the time. Twice in the past three years, the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, now known as NARAL Pro-Choice America, gave him a rating of "zero."

On the stump this past week, and in an interview with The Chronicle, Kucinich now describes himself as "pro-choice." He said he has undergone a slow evolution that has led him to the conclusion that legal abortions are not only constitutionally sound, but also fundamental to a woman's equality.

A slow evolution eh?

2003-02-20T00:48:00.000-06:00

Winnie Mandela as a Human Shield in Iraq?

Would this be the same Winnie Mandela, former wife of Nelson "How to be a Good Communist
” Mandela, who had three teenagers tortured to death?

Why, I do believe it is.

I tell you, this anti-war movement gains more credible people every single day!

2003-02-20T00:23:00.000-06:00

Apparently not all celebs are jackasses

PEMBROKE, N.C. (AP) - Actor James Earl Jones, the deep voice behind Darth Vader of the "Star Wars" movies, said he doesn't oppose U.S. military action in Iraq, provided the country gets involved as soon as necessary and stays to finish the job.

"We can no longer play games," Jones said Tuesday at the Givens Performing Art Center. "I was not against the war in Bosnia. I was against it taking so long. I was not against the war in Somalia. Again, it took too long, and we didn't finish the job. We should've stayed and finished the job. About this pending war, I just think we should've finished that war the first time." Jones, who spoke as part of the distinguished speaker series at UNC Pembroke, also touched on other serious subjects.

From a man who knows a little about the dark side.

2003-02-18T14:45:00.000-06:00

Miracles do Happen

This is the first time I have ever agreed with something Robert Fisk has written .

I wanna tell you that the cause of this problem is the fucking medieval Arabs and their wish to enslave us all – and I tell you that it is because we want to save the Jews from the fucking savage Arabs who want to throw them into the sea that we are about to fuck Saddam. And that is the fucking truth.

But unfortunately Fisky was just repeating some “redneck reality” he overheard during the taping of a show he was doing in Austin Texas.

Naturally though, anyone who would support military action in Iraq must be some loudmouthed, racist, ill educated, redneck.

You would almost think that after Fisk received his own dose of ‘redneck reality’ in Pakistan where he was nearly beaten to death by a mob, he might just come around. But I suppose miracles don’t happen that often.

2003-02-11T16:13:00.000-06:00

Hysteria Watch

Mythology and iconography aside, I believe that -- beyond our wealth -- there is less and less that distinguishes the capacity of Americans to live their ordinary lives from people in Indonesia under Suharto, or Chile under Pinochet, or the Philippines (for 50 years, a U.S. colony) under Marcos. Or Iraq under Saddam Hussein, or Russia under Stalin, or Germany under Hitler. In all of these cases, the vast majority of people lived their lives with only a peripheral nod to the abuses of their government; politics was something people simply tried to ignore, lest they, as with an occasional neighbor, simply disappear.

Geov Parrish

Aside from the ludicrous nature of Parrish’s [as well as his fellow travelers] allegations, what really pisses me off about people like him is the comfortable isolation in which they live and make these comments.

There is this total bullshit argument about the repression of dissent that is so ridiculous that it does not even pass the laugh test.

They sit in their large comfortable homes, sipping organic tea, eating their organic salads, zooming from protest to protest in their BMW’s and Volvo’s all the while decrying the ‘conditions’ in which they live in. The have the nerve to compare the US to Chile, the USSR, and Iraq without any realization what that really means [I also find it interesting that Parrish failed to mention some of the more enlightened leftwing dictatorships he shilled/shills for like North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc].

How many of these persecuted dissenters have really experienced true repression?

How many of them have experienced state sponsored famines like those in North Korea?

How many of them have been imprisoned for owning prohibited books such as Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations like the Cubans?

Have any of them had their wives and daughters raped and killed for protesting the government like they do in Iraq?

Do they know of any friends who have been sent to re-education facilities [slave camps] to purge them of counter-revolutionary ideals like Vietnam?

How many of them were rounded up in stadiums and executed or tortured for their political beliefs like what happened in Chile?

There is this notion that somehow because the vast bulk of American body politic does not believe in their ideology and frequently mocks and marginalizes them, that this is somehow a grand conspiracy to crush political dissent through any means necessary.

They see conspiracies all around them to explain their wide scale rejection and self-marginalization.

After all, they are so smart and so determined to create a utopia here on earth that the only people who would oppose them are the powers that be, and these powers that be manipulate the average ordinary man into submission through propaganda and force. No honest person would resist submitting to their kindness and compassion unless they were being coerced not to. Right?

Give me a break.

The cancellation of Donahue and the fact that clowns like Noam Chomsky aren’t on the 11:00 news does not mean that political repression is widespread.

Just because people do not like what you have to say does not mean you are being oppressed. You still have the right to your precious “teach-ins”, marches, rallies and all your assorted outlets of expression.

No one is going to take that away from you, most certainly myself.

But cut the poor oppressed me bullshit. Not only does it make you look look like a pack of fucking clowns, it minimizes the experience of those who truly have been persecuted throughout history.

2003-02-10T19:35:00.000-06:00

Ranger Tillman

Last June, former Arizona Cardinal defensive back, Pat Tillman joined the Army
in hopes that he and his brother would manage to become part of the elite US Army Rangers.

It seems as if he has done it.

For those keeping score, Tillman and his brother, Kevin, are now full-fledged Army Rangers. They completed infantry training. They became certified airborne parachutists. And just before Christmas, they graduated from RIP, the Ranger Indoctrination Program that separates great men from the really good ones.

Of course, no one doubted Tillman would get to this point when he walked away from the decadent life of a professional athlete and a contract that would've paid him $3.6 million over a three-year period.

After he told a friend at Arizona State that life had become "too (bleeping) easy," no one thought Tillman wouldn't succeed at scaling mountain cliffs, slogging through dangerous swamps and jumping five times out of a perfectly good airplane.

But it's a different world now. If the United States attacks Iraq in the coming weeks, chances are good that Rangers will be first on the scene. And that could mean deployment of the Tillman brothers, who are now part of the 75th Ranger Regiment, a brotherhood of three battalions and 2,300 men.

"He will move with his unit for whatever that unit is involved in, be it training or real world," said Carol Darby, spokesperson for the Army Special Operations command. "He's a full-fledged Ranger now. He's ready for combat."

Good for him.

2003-02-10T19:23:00.000-06:00

Strange coincidence?

After reading about the Miguel Estrada nomination to the US Court
of Appeals for the DC Circuit, and the threats to filibuster a vote on the Senate floor for his nomination, I decided to look a bit deeper into who he was and why the opposition was so strong and vocal.

It seems that the usual list of organizations [People for the American Way, NOW, etc. etc] were behind the attempts to block his filibuster, and then I found this on the Move On website .

BLOCK ESTRADA NOMINATION

As we mourn Columbia, and as the drumbeat for war intensifies, we face another crucial challenge – this week is the key to whether the Bush administration will succeed in packing our courts with right-wing ideologues. We need your help.

Our best hope is to demand that Democrats dig in and filibuster extremist nominations. The first test vote will be on Miguel Estrada, a stealth right-wing extremist who has never served as a judge, and who has taken pains to hide his views on the law from the public. Yet Estrada has been nominated to the second-most powerful court in the country, and is widely thought to be Bush's top choice for a seat on the Supreme Court.

The Senate will consider the Estrada nomination early this week. Please call your Senators now.

As you know, federal judges decide the law in key areas including reproductive choice, the environment, elections, civil & constitutional rights, health care, and privacy. President Bush recently nominated 30 people for federal judgeships. If confirmed for lifetime appointments, these judges will have an impact on our lives for decades to come.

We saw Estrada coming, and on January 23rd MoveOn members, in partnership with Working Assets and People for the American Way, held meetings in Senate offices around the country on the nominations. Then last week, we flooded the phone lines of wavering Senators. As a result, the committee vote was along party lines, setting up the possibility of filibuster on the Senate floor.

[The message continues on for some length.]

Move on is an organization founded during the Clinton Impeachment by two Silicon Valley residents, and continues today to act as another arm of various liberal causes.

To my surprise, I found the same exact message on the website for the CPUSA [Communist Party of the United States of America].

Coincidence, or do birds of a feather really flock together?

2003-02-05T23:39:00.000-06:00

A ‘different’ take on Powell's speech at the UN

From our friends at Indymedia, the intellectual heavyweights of the left.

After that miserable performance... (english)
Uncle Tom 6:20pm Wed Feb 5 '03
comment#234503

...the 'house negro' should be sent packing back to the cotton fields...

The man is a disgrace to his race!

Truly insightful!!

2003-02-05T23:31:00.000-06:00

The Left’s Take on the Columbia

I would have hoped that’s some of these fucks would have had the courtesy to keep the politicking to a minimum, but I suppose I should not be too surprised.

Jake Bashir, Counterpunch

Does anyone believe that there is a real need for anyone to actually be present on these flights? Remote controlled robots could have controlled any experiments. Not a single individual on that mission was necessary for its completion. The selection of each individual served an ideological or bureaucratic political purpose. Merit is irrelevant; NASA has the entire world to choose from, they can get whoever they want including talented British or Canadian Pakistanis or Muslim African Americans, Iranians or Arabs.

- It was not lost on anyone in the Muslim world, that the Israeli, Ilan Ramon, was the pilot who bombed the Iraqi nuclear power plant in 1981.

- The Christian piousness of the African American was noted in almost every article.

- And how could one ignore the significance of a Hindu woman on this mission

Columbia was not the Enterprise. It was not noble or peaceful or transformative of the human spirit. It was destined to be crass war propaganda whether the crew lived or died.

Cancel the Show

After reading that the word dickhead comes to mind.

Geov Parrish workingforchange.com

As has been endlessly reported, the Columbia's science-oriented mission in its last, ill-fated voyage was a rarity these days. Such reports rarely explained why science is such a low priority for the modern NASA: It has become an agency almost entirely given over to military, and secondarily corporate, priorities. Those priorities are on display each time satellite imagery enables the United States to send precision bombs down some Iraqi air vent or on to some Afghan wedding party. The civilian commercial priorities will be on increasingly visible display in coming decades, as mechanized missions begin exploring, and exploiting, the mineral wealth of the rest of our solar system.

Ever since the first Star Wars research funding, NASA has steered sharply away from the program remembered by most Americans (and most of the rest of the world) over the age of about 45. At one time, the American space launches, especially the moon shots, were widely seen as representing the aspirations of not just the United States, but all humanity. Now, the U.S. space program is mostly more pedestrian and parochial: an effort to seize the military high ground and to ensure for American companies the wealth of all the planets, including ours.

That’s right, its all the fault of that nasty ol military industrial complex. Bravo Geov, bravo.

James Ridgeway

Critics say we're continuing to dump billions into a program that never amounted to much to begin with. "It's unfortunate that lives were lost in a mission that did not advance science in a meaningful way, and that is exactly what we have to avoid in the future," Francis Slakey, a Georgetown University physics professor who writes on space issues, told the Voice.

Done right, manned space travel may simply cost more than it's worth. Over and over, critics have argued that unmanned flights are the safest and most efficient way to probe space. But as NASA poured money into its publicity-generating junkets, financing for unmanned missions suffered. The grand idea was to build a space platform that could serve as the starting point for sending people to Mars. In the meantime shuttle crews occupied themselves with more workaday tasks, like conducting experiments into the effects of weightlessness on kidney stones.

Now Jim, just because a manned space flight program wont hasten the building of a dictatorship of the proletariat you so eagerly dream of, that does not make it a bad idea.

Dr. Jerry Kroth, Counterpunch

The loss of the Columbia space shuttle is suffused with symbols begging for attention. Columbia is named, in part, after Christopher Columbus and symbolically points to the very discovery of the American nation. Strangely, on the threshold of America's preemptive invasion of Iraq to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction, the shuttle's hold contained the first Israeli astronaut who in 1981 himself participated in a preemptive attack on an Iraqi nuclear reactor to eliminate its capacity for developing weapons of mass destruction. An uncanny echo, but certainly not the only one.

As we are on the precipice of a war with Iraq, the whole Arab world screams that it is not Iraq but America's relationship with Israel and the Palestinian crisis that is the root cause of all Arab anti-American sentiment and certainly all terrorism. Suddenly the Columbia crashes with an Israeli astronaut over George Bush's home state as debris rains down on "Palestine, Texas." One cannot help but hear these mysterious reverberations.

I have heard about historical revisionism before, but I gotta upgrade my bullshit meter to swallow that.

Yoichi Clark Shimatsu, Alternet

Ramon was a living symbol of Israeli-American aerospace cooperation, which has included the Arrow interception technology incorporated into Patriot missiles (used in the Gulf War) and the sale of U.S.-built F-16s and helicopter gunships sent by the Ariel Sharon government to attack Palestinian villages in the West Bank.

Ramon was no bystander in the Mideast conflict. He received flight training at a U.S. Air Force base in Utah in the 1970s, became a pilot in the Israeli Air Force and was part of an Israeli bombing mission that destroyed an Iraqi nuclear power plant in 1986.

His military role aboard Columbia went beyond symbolic value. Ramon's research mission involved dual-use technology, an Israeli-built multi-spectral camera that probes the effect of sandstorms on climate change. The all-weather camera is also a key technology for military spy satellites and unmanned drones searching for targets obscured by dust, smoke and clouds. These murky atmospheric conditions exactly fit the scenario of the looming war against Iraq.

After all, someone had to tie Iraq/Zionism into this.

You know, sometimes I think I should just rename this site to www.Dildo-watch.com.

I kind of like the sound of that.

2003-02-04T17:41:00.000-06:00

This is so fucking funny!

You have to see it for yourself.

2003-02-04T17:13:00.000-06:00

High God Damn Time!

Pentagon adviser: France 'no longer ally'
By Martin Walker
UPI Chief International Correspondent
From the International Desk

WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- France is no longer an ally of the United States and the NATO alliance "must develop a strategy to contain our erstwhile ally or we will not be talking about a NATO alliance" the head of the Pentagon's top advisory board said in Washington Tuesday.

Richard Perle, a former assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration and now chairman of the Pentagon's Policy Advisory Board, condemned French and German policy on Iraq in the strongest terms at a public seminar organized by Iraqi exiles and American Middle East and security officials.

"France is no longer the ally it once was," Perle said. And he went on to accuse French President Jacques Chirac of believing "deep in his soul that Saddam Hussein is preferable to any likely successor."

French leaders have insisted the country will oppose any military action against Iraq without a second resolution by the United Nations Security Council, where it holds one of five crucial veto powers. Last November France did vote for Resolution 1441, which promised "serious consequences" if Iraq did not cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors verifying that Iraq has indeed dismantled its programs for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

"I have long thought that there were forces in France intent on reducing the American role in the world. That is more troubling than the stance of a German chancellor, who has been largely rejected by his own people," Perle said, referring to the sharp electoral defeat suffered by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's party in state elections Sunday.

Perle’s last comment is one that I have been kicking around for quite a while.

One of the whole concepts behind the EU was to create a European center of diplomatic, economic and economic power. What better way for the new EU to assert itself diplomatically than to block the United States over Iraq.

It would not only ensure France of continued, and nearly exclusive, economic ties between Baghdad and Paris, but it would also be a kind of diplomatic coming out party. A show of force for the new EU and its two largest members: France and Germany.

This new declaration by Perle as well as a letter in support of the US position from the leaders of EU members Britain, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Denmark, plus future members Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic seem to be fragmenting France and Germany’s dominance over the EU.

What to make of this? I guess only time will tell.

2003-02-04T00:40:00.000-06:00

Funniest thing I read all day

I hope he did not write this with a straight face

But, in this case, the main target of his article is "International A.N.S.W.E.R.," a left leaning activist group with many goals, one of which is the prevention of war. He accuses this group of being a "front group for the communist Workers World Party. The Workers World Party is, literally, a Stalinist organization." He offers no proof for any of this.

He then goes on to say that International A.N.S.W.E.R. supported the butchers of Tiananmen Square, that it supports Saddam Hussein, that it supports North Korea in its efforts to enforce mass starvation on its citizens, that it supported Slobodan Milosevic, that it supports the mullahs of Iran, the narco-gangsters of Colombia and the bus-bombers of Hamas. None of this is valid, but the fact it has been written in an allegedly trustworthy newspaper will give it the currency of truth and will almost certainly persuade those who are unwilling to think carefully in the first

Paul Harris
YellowTimes.org Columnist (Canada)

Harris’ main beef is with the addition of Michael Kelly to the Washington Post. Most feel the Post is a relatively left of center paper and he is infuriated that they would hire a neo-con like Kelly.

And so how does he criticize him? By trying to white-wash the fact that International A.N.S.W.E.R. is not a front for the Worlds Worker’s Party.

But even such radicals as those over at Infoshop see the true Stalinist nature of International A.N.S.W.E.R.

A "front" group is any group or organization which is created by a parent group, which subsequently hides its involvement with the front group. The reasons for creating front groups vary. Right wing political groups frequently create fake environmental organizations. In the case of the Workers World Party, they create front groups because they understand that their politics alienates many working people. It's easy to get involved with a benign group called "the International Action Center," which people don't associate with the Stalinist politics of the WWP. However, the IAC's ties to the WWP have become widely exposed, which perhaps explains why the WWP/IAC people created the A.N.S.W.E.R. anti-war coalition.

The Worker's World Party is responsible for the following front groups: the International Action Center, A.N.S.W.E.R. anti-war coalition, Mumia 2000, Iraq Sanctions Challenge, National Peoples Campaign and the People's Video Network.

What evidence do you have that A.N.S.W.E.R. is a front group for the WWP?
Given that authoritarian sectarian groups tend to stay with the tactics that work for them, it's quite simple to trace the connections between the WWP and A.N.S.W.E.R. Sometimes this is as easy as looking at which groups are individuals are involved when a group starts. Another easy method is to look at who speaks to the media at A.N.S.W.E.R. press conferences. In the case of A.N.S.W.E.R., WWP member Brian Becker is frequently the spokesperson for A.N.S.W.E.R. at press conferences and in media interviews. The beauty of front groups is that they can establish media credibility for a leader who can hide their links with the more politically problematic parent group. You can also look at who speaks at A.N.S.W.E.R. sponsored events: you will find activists such as Larry Holmes, Ramsey Clark, and Leslie Feinberg who all identify themselves as being part of front groups run by the WWP. Feinberg has identified herself as being a member of the IAC, when in reality she is the editor of Workers World, the newspaper of the WWP.

I eagerly await his reply.

2003-02-01T17:24:00.000-06:00

Commonplace, but never ordinary

Back in the middle ages, people built large magnificent cathedrals. Although a smaller more simple structure would have been sufficient, these were symbols of faith. Faith in the supreme and a faith in the future.

NASA is very much one of our modern cathedrals. When we dedicated ourselves to building a manned space flight program, we dedicated ourselves to the idea that we humans have a future and we are willing to invest in that future. Sure, we could do most of the work NASA does with robots and probes, but that’s not the entire point of the program. We put people in space at great risk to their own safety because we believe we have a future there and that man has a future in general, and pioneers are always at risk.

These people were some of the best we as a country and as a world have produced. Dedicated, intelligent, hard working, focused and brave.

It’s a shame that they had to pay the ultimate price for their dedication.

Commander Rick D. Husband

Born July 12, 1957, in Amarillo, Texas. Married. Two children. He enjoyed singing, water and snow skiing, cycling, and spending time with his family.
After graduation from Texas Tech University in May 1980, Husband was commissioned a second lieutenant in the USAF and attended pilot training at Vance Air Force Base (AFB), Oklahoma. He graduated in October 1981, and was assigned to F-4 training at Homestead AFB, Florida. After completion of F-4 training in September 1982, Husband was assigned to Moody AFB, Georgia flying the F-4E. From September to November 1985, he attended F-4 Instructor School at Homestead AFB and was assigned as an F-4E instructor pilot and academic instructor at George AFB, California in December 1985. In December 1987, Husband was assigned to Edwards AFB, California, where he attended the USAF Test Pilot School. Upon completion of Test Pilot School, Husband served as a test pilot flying the F-4 and all five models of the F-15.
Husband was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in December 1994. He reported to the Johnson Space Center in March 1995 to begin a year of training and evaluation.

Pilot William C. McCool (COMMANDER, USN)

Born September 23, 1961 in San Diego, California. Married. He enjoyed running, mountain biking, back country hiking/camping, swimming, playing guitar, chess.

Eagle Scout; graduated second of 1,083 in the Class of 1983 at the US Naval Academy; presented “Outstanding Student” and “Best DT-II Thesis” awards as graduate of U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, Class 101; awarded Navy Commendation Medals (2), Navy Achievement Medals (2), and various other service awards.

Selected by NASA in April 1996, McCool reported to the Johnson Space Center in August 1996. He completed two years of training and evaluation, and is qualified for flight assignment as a pilot. Initially assigned to the Computer Support Branch, McCool also served as Technical Assistant to the Director of Flight Crew Operations, and worked Shuttle cockpit upgrade issues for the Astronaut Office.

Mission Specialist Kalpana Chawla

Born in Karnal, India. Chawla enjoyed flying, hiking, back-packing, and reading. She held Certificated Flight Instructor's license with airplane and glider ratings, Commercial Pilot's licenses for single- and multi-engine land and seaplanes, and Gliders, and instrument rating for airplanes.

Graduated from Tagore School, Karnal, India, in 1976. Bachelor of science degree in aeronautical engineering from Punjab Engineering College, India, 1982. Master of science degree in aerospace engineering from University of Texas, 1984. Doctorate of philosophy in aerospace engineering from University of Colorado, 1988.

Selected by NASA in December 1994, Kalpana Chawla reported to the Johnson Space Center in March 1995 as an astronaut candidate in the 15th Group of Astronauts. After completing a year of training and evaluation, she was assigned as crew representative to work technical issues for the Astronaut Office EVA/Robotics and Computer Branches.

Mission Specialists David M. Brown, (CAPTAIN, USN)

Born April 16, 1956 in Arlington, Virginia. Single. Enjoyed flying and bicycle touring. Was a four year collegiate varsity gymnast. While in college he performed in the Circus Kingdom as an acrobat, 7 foot unicyclist and stilt walker. His parents, Paul and Dorothy Brown, reside in Washington, Virginia.

Brown joined the Navy after his internship at the Medical University of South Carolina. Upon completion of flight surgeon training in 1984, he reported to the Navy Branch Hospital in Adak, Alaska, as Director of Medical Services. He was then assigned to Carrier Airwing Fifteen which deployed aboard the USS Carl Vinson in the western Pacific. In 1988, he was the only flight surgeon in a ten year period to be chosen for pilot training. He was ultimately designated a naval aviator in 1990 in Beeville, Texas, ranking number one in his class. Brown was then sent for training and carrier qualification in the A-6E Intruder. In 1991 he reported to the Naval Strike Warfare Center in Fallon, Nevada, where he served as a Strike Leader Attack Training Syllabus Instructor and a Contingency Cell Planning Officer. Additionally, he was qualified in the F-18 Hornet and deployed from Japan in 1992 aboard the USS Independence flying the A-6E with VA-115. In 1995, he reported to the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School as their flight surgeon where he also flew the T-38 Talon.

Selected by NASA in April 1996, Brown reported to the Johnson Space Center in August 1996. Having completed two years of training and evaluation, he is eligible for flight assignment as a mission specialist. He was initially assigned to support payload development for the International Space Station, followed by the astronaut support team responsible for orbiter cockpit setup, crew strap-in, and landing recovery. He is currently assigned to the crew of STS-107 scheduled to launch in 2003.

Mission Specialist Michael P. Anderson (Lieutenant Colonel, USAF)

Born December 25, 1959, in Plattsburgh, New York. Considered Spokane, Washington, to be his hometown. Married. He enjoyed photography, chess, computers, and tennis.

Distinguished graduate USAF Communication Electronics Officers course. Recipient of the Armed Forces Communication Electronics Associations Academic Excellence Award 1983. Received the USAF Undergraduate Pilot Training Academic Achievement Award for Class 87-08 Vance AFB. Awarded the Defense Superior Service Medal, the USAF Meritorious Service Medal, and the USAF Achievement Medal with one oak leaf cluster.

Anderson graduated form the University of Washington in 1981 and was commissioned a second lieutenant. After completing a year of technical training at Keesler AFB Mississippi he was assigned to Randolph AFB Texas. At Randolph he served as Chief of Communication Maintenance for the 2015 Communication Squadron and later as Director of Information System Maintenance for the 1920 Information System Group. In 1986 he was selected to attend Undergraduate Pilot Training at Vance AFB, Oklahoma. Upon graduation he was assigned to the 2nd Airborne Command and Control Squadron, Offutt AFB Nebraska as an EC 135 pilot, flying the Strategic Air Commands airborne command post code-named "Looking Glass". From January 1991 to September 1992 he served as an aircraft commander and instructor pilot in the 920th Air Refueling Squadron, Wurtsmith AFB Michigan. From September 1992 to February 1995 he was assigned as an instructor pilot and tactics officer in the 380 Air Refueling Wing, Plattsburgh AFB New York. Anderson has logged over 3000 hours in various models of the KC-135 and the T-38A aircraft.

Selected by NASA in December 1994, Anderson reported to the Johnson Space Center in March 1995. He completed a year of training and evaluation, and is qualified for flight crew assignment as a mission specialist. Anderson was initially assigned technical duties in the Flight Support Branch of the Astronaut Office.

Mission Specialist Laurel B. Clark (Lieutenant Colonel, USAF)

Born in Iowa, but considered Racine, Wisconsin, to be her hometown. Married with one child. She enjoyed scuba diving, hiking, camping, biking, parachuting, flying, traveling. Her parents reside in New Mexico.

Navy Commendation Medals (3); National Defense Medal, and Overseas Service Ribbon

EXPERIENCE: During medical school she did active duty training with the Diving Medicine Department at the Naval Experimental Diving Unit in March 1987. After completing medical school, Dr. Clark underwent postgraduate Medical education in Pediatrics from 1987-1988 at Naval Hospital Bethesda, Maryland. The following year she completed Navy undersea medical officer training at the Naval Undersea Medical Institute in Groton Connecticut and diving medical officer training at the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center in Panama City, Florida, and was designated a Radiation Health Officer and Undersea Medical Officer. She was then assigned as the Submarine Squadron Fourteen Medical Department Head in Holy Loch Scotland. During that assignment she dove with US Navy divers and Naval Special Warfare Unit Two Seals and performed numerous medical evacuations from US submarines. After two years of operational experience she was designated as a Naval Submarine Medical Officer and Diving Medical Officer. She underwent 6 months of aeromedical training at the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute in Pensacola, Florida and was designated as a Naval Flight Surgeon. She was stationed at MCAS Yuma, Arizona and assigned as Flight Surgeon for a Marine Corps AV-8B Night Attack Harrier Squadron (VMA 211). She made numerous deployments, including one overseas to the Western Pacific, practiced medicine in austere environments, and flew on multiple aircraft. Her squadron won the Marine Attack Squadron of the year for its successful deployment. She was then assigned as the Group Flight Surgeon for the Marine Aircraft Group (MAG 13). Prior to her selection as an astronaut candidate she served as a Flight Surgeon for the Naval Flight Officer advanced training squadron (VT-86) in Pensacola, Florida. LCDR Clark is Board Certified by the National Board of Medical Examiners and holds a Wisconsin Medical License. Her military qualifications include Radiation Health Officer, Undersea Medical Officer, Diving Medical Officer, Submarine Medical Officer, and Naval Flight Surgeon. She is a Basic Life Support Instructor, Advanced Cardiac Life Support Provider, Advanced Trauma Life Support Provider, and Hyperbaric Chamber Advisor.

Selected by NASA in April 1996, Dr. Clark reported to the Johnson Space Center in August 1996. After completing two years of training and evaluation, she was qualified for flight assignment as a mission specialist.

Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon. (Colonel, Israel Air Force)

Born June 20,1954 in Tel Aviv, Israel. Married to Rona. They have four children. He enjoyed snow skiing, squash. His parents reside in Beer Sheva, Israel.

In 1974, Ramon graduated as a fighter pilot from the Israel Air Force (IAF) Flight School. From 1974-1976 he participated in A-4 Basic Training and Operations. 1976-1980 was spent in Mirage III-C training and operations. In 1980, as one of the IAF's establishment team of the first F-16 Squadron in Israel, he attended the F-16 Training Course at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. From 1981-1983, he served as the Deputy Squadron Commander B, F-16 Squadron. From 1983-1987, he attended the University of Tel Aviv. From 1988-1990, he served as Deputy Squadron Commander A, F-4 Phantom Squadron. During 1990, he attended the Squadron Commanders Course. From 1990-1992, he served as Squadron Commander, F-16 Squadron. From 1992-1994, he was Head of the Aircraft Branch in the Operations Requirement Department. In 1994, he was promoted to the rank of Colonel and assigned as Head of the Department of Operational Requirement for Weapon Development and Acquisition. He stayed at this post until 1998.

In 1997, Colonel Ramon was selected as a Payload Specialist. He is designated to train as prime for a Space Shuttle mission with a payload that includes a multispectral camera for recording desert aerosol. In July 1998, he reported for training at the Johnson Space Center, Houston. He is currently assigned to STS-107 scheduled to launch in 2003.

2003-01-20T16:59:00.000-06:00

More from the "peace" protests of last weekend

Via ChronWatch

''Y'all ROCK down there in the Bay Area! We had a radical march here today, and it was pretty cool, and some folks then went out and broke windows at the Military recruiting station (i guess it might've been people from the march, but i don't really know), but we didn't do any of the GREAT shit y'all did down there. ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE! SMASH CAPITALISM!'

Now repeat after me: this is about love, peace and good karma, there are no ulterior agendas and we do not Support Saddam Hussein.

2003-01-20T16:54:00.000-06:00

More Proclamations of Greatness about the “Great Leader Kim Jong Il”

This piece of horseshit from Alexander Cockburn . comes to us via Counterpunch.

Is the North Korean response so mysterious? It's not as though North Koreans have listened to some pretty serious nuclear saber rattling before. In the winter of 1950 General Douglas McArthur asked the Joint Chiefs to give the go-ahead to his plan to drop "between thirty and fifty atomic bombs" across the neck of the Korean peninsula. The Joint Chiefs, according to the account given by Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings in their book Unknown War, came close to giving him the green light. Late in 1951, in Operation Hudson Harbor, a lone B-52 was sent over Pyongyang, as if on a nuclear bombing run.

Wow! That must mean that the Air Force had in its possession a time machine to transport the lone B-52 over Pyongyang in 1951 because the B-52 did not enter service with the Strategic Air Command until 1955. But I am sure that was just more of the disgustingly common ignorance that Cockburn is infamous for.

Operation Hudson Harbor, which Cockburn cites is a left wing fantasy with absolutely no documentation. The information from Operation Hudson Harbor comes from a book Cummings and Halliday wrote in 1988, Korea: The Unknown War, which sites "unnamed North Korean military officials" as the source of this information. So we can guess about the credibility.

But that's no surprise considering the views of Cumings and Halliday. Cumings boosted North Korea in a 1981 New York Times op-ed: "North Koreans are proud of their 'workers paradise' and its economic accomplishments....North Korea is a proletarian country pursuing self-reliant development, yet Mercedes sedans abound in the city...Kim Il Sug provides 11 years of compulsory, free education. The virtues that are inculcated are hard work, self- reliance, diligent study -- all familiar to Americans." Cumings wrote in a 1986 Nation article: "U.S. leaders are by no means Nazis. Nonetheless, when all the extenuating circumstances and special pleading are over and done with, a few generations hence, it will be seen that Americans visited mass slaughter on the Korean and Vietnamese peoples."

The North Koreans made the usual mistake of believing Bill Clinton, who signed onto a deal brokered by Jimmy Carter in 1994, known as the Geneva "Agreed Framework". North Korea would drop its plutonium based nuclear program, and would get in return two electricity-generating light-water reactors. The US also pledged tit would move towards normalization of political and economic relations. The US Congress wouldn't sign on, and so nothing happened. Then President George Bush broke off all discussions. North Korea, with a million or two already starved to death, 200,000 out of a population of 23 million in labor camps, and saddled with terror and leader-worship, started to play their lone nuclear card once more. And one has to say, they're playing it pretty deftly. The man who seems to have made an utter hash of things is President George Bush.

Nothing happened because that nasty old Shrub broke off all discussions?

The Shinpo plant timeline chronicles Shinpo plant timeline chronicles over 8 years of consortium work on the project.

Ground breaking ceremony for Shinpo Nuclear, 1997

And the fucking construction on Shinpo continues to this very day!!!!

So Alex, who has made an utter hashing of things?

2003-01-20T13:07:00.000-06:00

Remember, this wasn't your fathers protest

Or so I was told over and over by news outlets.

Chairman Mao! Right on baby!

I wonder if she got this as a token of appreciation from one of Saddam's rape teams ?

Ahhh, the good old days of Uncle Joe.............

I am sure that many of the people who attended the protests this weekend are pacifists in the truest sense of the word, but what about the rest of them? I am not referring to a tiny minority of the protestors, but the vast bulk of those who organize and participate in these events. Sure, they talk a good game about stopping war and helping the poor, where were they for some of the most of the cold war?

Where were these "progressives" and "pacifists" in 1950 when North Korea invaded the South killing millions? That’s right they supported this action.

Where were these "progressives" and "pacifists" in 1956 when the Soviet Union brutally cracked down on the Hungarian independence movement? They supported this action as well.

Where were these "progressives" and "pacifists" in 1976 when Pol Pot dedicated himself to turn Cambodia back to year zero? According to them, it was not happening and was a campaign of lies against a progressive regime.

Where were these "progressives" and "pacifists" in 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan? Nowhere to be seen.

Where were these "progressives" and "pacifists" in 1981 when the Iraq invaded Iran? Dont recall many human shields being sent over to Tehran for that one.

Where were these "progressives" and "pacifists" in 1989 during the Tiananmen Square massacre? Oh, that’s right, this was an appropriate action against counter revolutionaries.

Thanks to Bill Herbert for finding this jem.

Most of those who marched over the weekend were not there to stop war, they were there to stop one war and start another.

2003-01-17T00:23:00.000-06:00

This almost made me vomit

It was bad enough when all Ted Rall did was draw horse shit cartoons, but then he decided to apply his “wit” to the realm of political commentaries.

Rall’s antics have become legendary cannon fodder for bloggers of all stripes and his latest.GEORGE RYAN, AMERICAN HERO , was almost too much for me.

George Ryan hasn't been much of a governor, but he's one hell of a patriot.

The end of his term finds him facing possible indictment on corruption charges, and his departure brings to an end 30 consecutive years of Republican rule at the Illinois governor's mansion. "If he found Osama bin Laden, it would not be his legacy--it would be the scandal he has endured throughout his entire term as governor," notes Paul Green, professor of public policy at Roosevelt University in Chicago.

Nonetheless, Ryan is a case study of principled integrity triumphing over personal and political flaws.

With three days left in office, Governor Ryan delivered the greatest attack on America's death penalty since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the practice in 1972. He cleared Illinois' death row on Jan. 11, sending all 167 inmates back to prison, declaring: "Each and every one of those cases raised questions not only about the innocence of people on death row, but about the fairness of the death penalty system as a whole."

This ‘principled integrity’ Rall hails seems to have come to Ryan in an recent epiphany of sorts, because he sure as shit did not have an ounce of it in his political career.

Just ask the Willis family.

The Willis family knows George Ryan, but not for any of the reasons Rall points to. They were not spared the cruel fate of the state of Illinois putting them to death by lethal injection by the compassionate and loving hand of George Ryan.

In 1994, the Rev. Duane Scott Willis, his wife and their seven children were heading home from a trip to a relatives house in Wisconsin. They were involved in an accident with a semi driven by Ricardo Guzman. Six of the Willis children died in that accident.

It was later revealed that Ricardo Guzman had illegally obtained his CDL from his company which had made a generous contribution to then Secretary of State George Ryan in exchange for Guzman’s license.

Perhaps Ryan should have been thinking about innocent people dying by the Sate of Illinois negligence and corruption long before he did.

No one has yet to prove that anyone innocent had been executed in Illinois.

That is unless you count the death sentence George Ryan’s greed and corruption put on the Willis family 9 years ago.

But what the hell, let Rall have his fantasies.

2003-01-15T12:14:00.000-06:00

The Latest from the We Love Kim Il Sung II fan club

North Korea has kicked UN officials out of its country, removed the cameras in its Yongbyon nuclear complex, abrogated the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and torn up a 1999 agreement to stop testing long-range missiles. It has said that any attempts by the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on North Korea would be viewed as a declaration of war. From this perspective--the portrayal of the current crisis in the U.S. media--North Korea appears to be a rogue nation ruled by a madman.

The reality is somewhat different. A little history can help us understand what North Korea is doing and why.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, North Korea was left to fend on its own economically. Formerly dependent on the USSR for fuel oil to power its generators and food imports, North Korea had to quickly develop its export market and a way to generate electricity, or face collapse. This marked the beginning of the North Korean nuclear program, initially an attempt to generate power.

Maria Tomchick writing for Counterpunch

Tomchick’s article on North Korea's nuclear program revolves around the notion that the Yongbyon nuclear facility generates electricity.

It is, in fact, a reactor designed to produce weapons grade waste and not electricity.

The Yongbyon facility does not have any electrical power generation equipment or the means to transmit any electricity it could potentially generate. All power needed on site comes from two 2,000kW diesel generators.

I find it interesting that someone who writes for Eat The State!, a self described anti-authoritarian newspaper, would be a shill for the most authoritarian nation on this planet.

2003-01-11T15:52:00.000-06:00

John Lee Malvo, abused orphan not a serial killer

Well at least that’s how Makeda Mikael, former Chief of Staff to Lester Bird, now Prime Minister of Antigua, sees it .

From all reports Muhammad passed the child off as his son and behaved accordingly. Equally the boy called him father and behaved towards Muhammad as if he really was his father, loving Muhammad as a son should. His newfound religion, Islam, only made them closer and the military training and fitness regimen readied him for his holy war. The boy was clearly brainwashed, outside of his cultural milieu, totally dependent in all on America and on one man - John Allen Muhammad. John Lee Malvo now needs the urgent help of the fair-minded in America, who can see past the deed even as in the Patty Hearst affair - except that Malvo is a poor, abandoned, black youth, a minor, an illegal immigrant on false documents, from a Third World country, whose bad luck was to find an American Dad who promised him a wonderful life in America.

Brainwashed by Muhammad? Perhaps, but it still does not exonerate him from killing 19 people including an 11 year old child.

A very reasonable case could be made, and was, that Charles Manson brainwashed his followers, but they were all still held legally accountable for their actions in court.
I say stick them both with the needle and serve this apologist prick Makeda Mikael another cup of shut the fuck up.

2003-01-10T16:43:00.000-06:00

Reason 4,568,201

That you should never let me babysit a cat.

Hey there tiger!

Who ordered the 30 pack?

2003-01-10T15:52:00.000-06:00

New Link

For those of you who despise Democratic Underground as much as I do, enjoy.

http://dumonitor.blogspot.com

2003-01-10T15:49:00.000-06:00

Man what a Pussy

But then again it is the San Fransico Gate.

Written during last summer's "Fleet Week".

Pretty Blue Angels Of Death
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

This is why many people I know loathe the Blue Angels, despise what they represent, their wastefulness and aggro-military machismo and how they impact the environment and scare the aforementioned elderly and by the way whatever the hell is in that funky oil-smoke the planes always discharge for special effect can't be all that healthy.

And hence many people refuse to watch the show; they curse the roar and the flyover surprises and the entire Bay Area military connection, find it more than a little sad and strange that we see such entertainment value in what is essentially a bunch of incredibly expensive and noxious weapons of war.

Aggro-military machismo?!? Somone needs to get this pansy a Schlitz and take him to a fight nite.

2003-01-10T15:38:00.000-06:00

El Dildo Bandito

A little dated, but I just found this today, but considering it happened in DPRB [Democratic People's Republic of Boulder Co.], it did not suprise me. The library in question, by the way, refused to hang an American flag because it deemed it to be possibly offensive to patrons.

Hang Male-Bashing Out to Dry

Robert Rowan is proud of stealing 21 ceramic penises that were part of a domestic violence art show at the Boulder Public Library in Colorado. The faux severed penises were strung on a clothesline under the title "Hanging 'Em Out to Dry."

The Boulder library is the same one that recently refused to display a ten-foot American flag in its entrance because some patrons might be offended. A smaller flag was draped in the wake of controversy.

Rowan was disturbed that his five-year-old daughter might see what he calls an "anti-male" and "pornographic" display while using the public library. On Veterans Day weekend, he carefully placed the genitalia into a garbage bag as library patrons watched. In their place, he left a calling card ? "El Dildo Bandito was here" ? and hung an American flag. Then Rowan called Denver's KOA radio station to confess. The police arrived at his home in the wee hours and ticketed him for "misdemeanor criminal tampering" which may lead to a $1,000 fine and one year in jail.

The library is using words like "censorship" and "intolerance" to describe Rowan's actions. But Rowan put his finger directly on the political issue when he pointed out the difference between private art galleries and public, tax-funded spaces.

2003-01-08T13:20:00.000-06:00

You know you're a dupe when even the Gaurdian UK slams you.

A few inconvenient facts about Saddam

David Aaronovitch
Wednesday January 8, 2003
The Guardian

Matt Barr is 21, the same age that I was the year the Vietnam war ended, and the last disgraced vestiges of American intervention were airlifted over the rooftops of Saigon. In the next few months, if the war against Iraq looks like going ahead, Matt plans to be part of a human shield protecting potential civilian targets. He is braver than I was at his age. I never offered to stand outside the central station in Hanoi as the B52s approached.
The idea is to "show solidarity" with the Iraqi people, who he visited in December 2001. "The people of Iraq are as human as we are," said Matt, "and yet many would die" if there were a war.

I saw Matt the other night on telly, and he's a lovely looking bloke from Sussex, with long plaited hair, who plays the electric guitar. But he has a problem that the Vietnam generation of protesters never had. Most of us were happy to see the National Liberation Front win out in Vietnam, and - whether we were right or wrong - thought Vietnam would be a better place if they did. We had wispy-bearded Uncle Ho. Matt, on the other hand, has Saddam Hussein.

He tries not to have him. Last spring, in the Winstanley lecture theatre in Trinity College Cambridge, Matt gave an illustrated talk about how the Iraqi people had suffered under UN sanctions. He used slides showing how downward infant mortality trends had been interrupted since the Gulf war. Then he talked about ordinary Iraqis and showed a slide of Baghdad at dawn. "Baghdad," he said, "is probably the most peaceful, mellow place I've ever been in my life. Everybody is so laid-back it's unbelievable."

He was right. It was unbelievable. According to Amnesty the regime was busily torturing and executing various enemies, real and imagined. Eyes were being gouged, genitals zapped, tongues ripped out and heads cut off. The torture of political detainees, said Amnesty "generally takes place in the headquarters of the General Security Directorate in Baghdad or in its branches in Baghdad. Torture also takes place in the headquarters of the General Intelligence (al-Mukhabarat al-'Amma) in al-Hakimiya in Baghdad."

Also in mellow Baghdad, shortly before Matt's visit, the assassination (almost certainly by the regime) of a Shia leader and his two sons had led to riots in the Saddam City suburb, in which 100 people were killed. In October 2000 a woman obstetrician was beheaded in the capital on charges of prostitution, though Amnesty notes that the real reason may have been her criticism of corruption within the Iraqi health services. This was followed by the decapitation of dozens of women - suspected prostitutes - without any judicial process. Amnesty reports that members of Feda'iyye Saddam, the Saddam militia, "used swords to execute the victims in front of their homes", mostly in laid-back Baghdad.

Incidentally, this militia was recently invoked by the Labour MP, George Galloway. "You know," he told IraqJournal.org somewhat jauntily, "the Iraqi youth are not less than the Palestinian youth, who are facing the Israeli occupation forces every day. And ultimately they'll have their bodies as weapons, just like in Palestine. The Saddam militia, which is several million strong, are the suicide bombers of tomorrow against the occupation forces."

Perhaps. But it is one thing to behead unarmed women in front of their appalled neighbours, and quite another to explode yourself in the middle of a column of marines. And that raises a second problem for those of us who do not want war, but who loathe the Iraqi government. The "Iraqi people" are constantly referred to by anti-war campaigners - but without any obvious consideration of what the Iraqi people themselves want. If I were an Iraqi, living under probably the most violent and repressive regime in the world, I would desire Saddam's demise more than anything else. Or do we suppose that some nations and races cannot somehow cope with freedom?

In Cambridge, when he had finished his talk, Matt was finally asked about Saddam's government. "The situation in Iraq," he said, "is bizarre, because when Iraq was committing its human rights violations they were being economically supported by the US and the UK ... So the first thing is you have got to get in there straight away - as soon as you hear about a violation you have got to sort it out."

I agree with that. The logic of which is that the invasion should have happened long ago. But, as someone who has opposed Saddam for more than 20 years, I have to say that this all cuts both ways. Where, after all, was the left movement against Saddam? Where was solidarity with the Iraqi people then? Who dared go to Baghdad?

2003-01-06T16:00:00.000-06:00

Hold on folks, cause it’s a brave new world out there!

I really wonder why there is such a huge fuss when we don’t ratify UN treaties.

Authorities warn teachers after student cites Euro Convention

The day has finally come when students are claiming that after-school detentions are violations of their human rights.

The government of Scotland is now warning hundreds of teachers against holding unruly pupils after class, based on advice from their attorneys.

Four education districts covering major cities including Glasgow have issued the edict, and three others have already changed their procedures to require parental permission to keep kids after class.

According to the London Telegraph, the move comes after a 15-year-old high-school student sued education officials on the grounds that her detention violated the European Convention of Human Rights.

"If teachers treated pupils with more respect, they would show them more consideration in return," Freya Macdonald told the Telegraph.

"My friends still get detention, even though it is against the European Convention."

Macdonald is basing her case on three sections of the ECHR:

Article 5 says it's illegal to keep children in school against their will unless a court order has first been obtained;

Article 2 states every child has the right to an education;

and Article 3 protects children from any treatment deemed to be degrading.

The action is being strongly condemned by both politicians and the heads of teachers' unions.

"It is high time we started taking parents of the most unruly pupils through the courts ourselves," Bill Fitzpatrick, former president of the Scottish Secondary Teachers Association told the Telegraph.

"It may reach a point where our schools require resident police officers to protect staff from parents and pupils."

2003-01-03T15:50:00.000-06:00

WWMD?

Kudos to the Daily Rant

2003-01-02T17:42:00.000-06:00

Cannon Fodder

That’s what I like to refer to websites like CounterPunch and Common Dreams as, canon fodder. They provide endless material for weblogers, like myself, to dissect slam and mutilate, and they never let us down. From the notion that the Chechen kidnapping of 1000 Russian theater goers was an act of ‘domestic dissent’, to the claim that unless we give up our meat eating and live on farming communes growing turnips, the idiocy and self loathing of their contributors can surprise even me.

Christopher Hitchens has made the claim that the left is so out of it gourd that it sees Islamic terrorism and those who perpetrate it as the 21st centruries version of anti-imperialism.

David Horowitz has called them the Ayatollahs of anti-American hate.

Todd Giltlin said that in their attempt to oppose the war that the left looks more and more like they are condoning and supporting both the means and the ends of militant Islamic terrorism.

I think they are all right.

Take M. Shahid Alam’s, Professor of Economics at Northeastern University, latest at CounterPunch.

And so for five hundred years, European arms and capital advanced while the rest of the world retreated, vacating their political, economic and cultural space before the surge of Western power. It must be acknowledged, however, that they never retreated without a fight; they fought against constantly increasing odds; they hid in ambush after every defeat; they stole the weapons of their enemies; they plotted and mobilized for the next battle. Occasionally, they stalled the advance of Western arms; occasionally, they even won a few stunning victories. And, starting in the 1940s, they won back some breathing space.

But never in all these years did the victims succeed in attacking the aggressors on their home turf, in their fortified playgrounds, inside the lavish retreats where they enjoyed the spoils of their victories. Not once in all these years could the victims carry their resistance inside the citadel of the invaders. Though many peoples were crushed over these dim centuries, though many were driven into extinction, though many more were sold into slavery, though proud empires were laid waste, though ancient cultures were cast aside, not once could the victims breach the bastions, scale the citadels of Western power. Not once could the millions of Americans, Africans and Asians, whose lives were trapped in fear for centuries, bring fear to the homes of their tormentors. Inside their homes, the captains of plunder were safe, beyond the reach of the wrath and the retribution of their countless victims.

Never, that is, till September 11, 2001. On this fateful day, the victims had scaled the citadel of Western power, they had breached the impenetrable defense shield of the world's greatest power, they had cut through its security perimeter, and visited destruction inside its inner sanctum--they had desecrated the holy of holies. The terrorists had attacked two American icons--of financial and military power.

Does anyone really believe this horseshit? Could you honestly consider 19 upper class Arab men and their billionaire ringleaders ‘victims’?

It reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine a few days ago. Whenever this friend of mine begins a new romantic relationship, he has the annoying habit of ‘projecting’ his wants onto them. At first they are the smartest, most level headed, honest, pristine example of virtue and beauty he has ever met. He wants so desperately to believe that they are exactly what he wants in an ideal woman that he is often deluded to their imperfections and deficiencies [which exist in everyone].

Prof Alam, and his fellow travelers on the left, are so obsessed with this fight for ‘anti-imperialism’ that they will latch on to any organization which they believe will further it and contrive dozens of fanciful excuses for their behavior, even when all evidence says otherwise. They will project their wants and desires, their motivations and reasoning onto those who either directly or indirectly work for their ends. Regardless of the means they choose.

People like Alam praise militant Islamics because they see them as key to destroying the West and they are too cowardly to do the fighting themselves.

Only in America could someone like this collect a paycheck from the government.

2002-12-30T10:55:00.000-06:00

From the “What the Fuck Files”

This is almost too funny.

'Arms Inspectors' Bolster Canadian Anti-war Movement
by Mark Bourrie

OTTAWA- A Canada-based peace and disarmament group plans to launch ''weapons inspections'' in the United States to draw attention to its claim that the country is a dangerous rogue state.

The group, Rooting Out Evil, plans to assemble volunteer weapons inspectors at U.S.-Canada border checkpoints some time next year and says it has already found 'volunteers' for the campaign from Europe, North America and Asia. It is asking voluntary inspectors to sign up at its website - www.rootingoutevil.org.

I can see it now: these panty waist, tree huggers go to Bremerton Washington to ‘inspect’ a Trident sub, get shot, and take their case to the new UN International Criminal Court.

2002-12-30T10:37:00.000-06:00

Venezuela

For the past several weeks, Venezuela has been gripped in mass protests calling for new presidential elections. There have been daily protests and a massive work stoppage in almost all sectors of the Venezuelan economy [since Venezuela is a large exporter of crude oil, you may have felt this at the gas pump].

Many on the left have been besides themselves with grief over this and have filled their respective media outlets with powder puff pieces on Chavez.

It must be shocking for them to realize that protests can be used against them as well.

The Nation

As the general strike against President Hugo Chávez entered its third week in early December, a major TV channel broadcast statements by baseball hero Andres Galarraga and other celebrities calling on Venezuelans to put aside differences for the sake of peace. What was significant about the TV spots was that the channel, along with the rest of the Venezuelan media, has played a key role in promoting the strike as well as marches and acts of civil disobedience sponsored by the opposition. Galarraga's plea--made beside a statue of the Virgin Mary--reflects the conviction among the nation's 50 percent who are neither pro-government nor pro-opposition that Venezuela is on the brink of civil war.

Chávez counts on active support among popular sectors, specifically those lacking steady employment and labor benefits of any kind, who make up more than half the work force. He also counts on a more loyal armed forces than this past April, when a group of officers removed him from office for forty-eight hours. On the other hand, his radical rhetoric favoring the poor over the "privileged" has alienated the middle class, despite his recent efforts to create his own movement called "the positive middle class." The middle- and upper-class eastern part of Caracas has solidly supported the strike and its mobilizations

Alternet

CARACAS – "Where are they getting their money?" asks historian Samuel Moncada, as the television displays one opposition commercial after another. Moncada is chair of the history department at Central University of Venezuela in Caracas. We are sitting in one of the few restaurants that is open in the eastern, wealthier part of Caracas.

For two weeks during this country's business-led strike, the privately owned stations that dominate Venezuelan television have been running opposition "infomercials" instead of advertisements, in addition to what is often non-stop coverage of opposition protests.

MotherJones

One of the first to heed the call was Gloria Baroso. Only 40, Baroso has six children and four grandchildren, and has been on her own since her husband left home seven years ago. She runs a cooperative bakery in the El Carmen section of Petare, and also helps out as a nurse when people in the community take sick. Now she holds a seat on the new district council.

Baroso knows that before Chávez, it would have been unthinkable for a single mother who bakes bread for a living to hold elected office in Venezuela. In the street in front of the cooperative, she wipes her hands on her apron and sighs. Even before she joined the council, she had too much to do. "But it's worth it," she says. Already, she has seen a profound change. "The Venezuelan people are not the same people they were even a few years ago," she says. "We know our rights. And no matter what the rich do to Chávez, this is something they can never erase."

All these articles contain nuggets of truth: there is an extreme imbalance between the prosperity of the rich and poor in Venezuela, the government before Chavez was marked by corruption, and in some ways the governments had not been as pro-active in resolving some of these issues as it should have been.

For this reason, even many of the middle class had naively hoped that Chavez would try to deliver on his campaign promises to be fair to all the classes, but to try to correct the wrongs that had kept financial success from spreading more widely.

Unfortunately, and what the articles about Chavez have failed to mention, is that Chavez apparently has no understanding how economies work, places no value on jobs, and appears to be making Venezuela into his own little hacienda, spreading a new and sinister corruption throughout the land. Who he cannot buy, he threatens. If he wants to reward his cronies, he allows them to invade private property and confiscate what they want. He has violated just about every constitutional and human right imaginable, has created an illegal, armed paramilitary group (Bolivarian Circles) whose primary function is to terrorize the opposition, by any means necessary. It is also interesting to note that none of these articles mentioned the fact that Chavez himself masterminded a coup in 1992.

Considering that very few of the western pro-Chavez journalists have ever even been to Venezuela to investigate what they were writing about [what a novel idea], I decided to ask a real live Venezuelan what he thought of the whole situation.

Leo Cartaya

I've lived in Venezuela the last 19 years. I am a Cuban emigrant, and lived 24 years under Castro's communist regime, so I guess that entitles me to know what am I talking about.

Since first efforts of Mr. Chavez to get into political race, after been pardoned from his attempt to coup government, I recognized what he was after for. I immediately knew that he was just another leftist social resentful with his mind dangerously filled with some sort of marxist-castrist-who-knows-what-else obsolete and idiotic theories.

He didn't disappoint me. He fulfilled all my worst fears and more. But, the point is that he has a great frightful counselor, Mr. Castro, who instructed him well on all kind of propaganda diversion to make everybody thinks on how generous, thoughtful, humanitarian, patriotic, and blah, blah, blah he is.

If one thing, Castro and his advisors are good at, is to distort statements, facts, and History. And Chavez learned well his advises, besides the fact that each and every time he needs a special session, he flies to Havana to seek fresh instructions.

One of Chavez major keys features during his presidential campaign was to fight and eradicate the previous governments rampant corruption. This gained him lots of votes as no one before was much concerned to do so. Well, reality shows that right now, his government has way surpassed all those previous government corruption. The fistful of generals, and colonels that still support him are not moved by loyalty to the Constitution or that he was legally elected, they do it because all of them are immersed in the corruption spiral. The same goes to the official party delegates to the National Assembly. It is well known that several of them have purchased in cash brand new mansion for values that equals 450 times their monthly wages. And several others have juicy bank accounts in U.S., which in some cases mount to millions of american dollars. Can anyone explain me this sort of magic saving method that allows you to amass huge fortunes with modest earnings? I really doubt it.

In his first press conference after been elected, on Dec. 6, 1998; Chavez stated that he forbidden himself, after his first year in charge, to find even a single homeless child in Venezuela's sidewalks. Fact: Today you can find hundreds of elders, women, and children begging at most of the busy streets.

Chavez also promulgated a Native Minorities Law supposed to return them their dignity, and better opportunities, even one native descendant was appointed as vice president of National Assembly. Fact: Great number of native homeless families can be found begging in all major road crosses in Caracas.

During December 2001, Chavez's Government tried to pass a bill that gives them interference into the National Education System (Decree 1011). Same was widely rejected by the people and have to be disregarded.

To make short this recount, each and every step given by Chavez and his followers are directed to gain an absolute Castro like power. The difference is that Venezuelan people has lived too many time under really democratic governments - with their fails, no doubt about it - but that teached a number of generations the real ways and means to live in freedom and self determination.

He Invites anyone who reads this, and has further inquiries to contact him at: leocartaya@hotmail.com

2002-12-21T16:17:00.000-06:00

Thoughts of the day

I don’t normally blog on the weekends, but it has been a rather slow Saturday. Too cold to go out to the range and I am too lazy to work out today.

I must also apologize for the lack of new material as of late. Some jackass stole my laptop and I have been feverishly working to recreate all the process models I lost.

How the West Was Won and How It Will Be Lost

On October 22, 2002, Oriana Fallaci addressed an audience at the American Enterprise Institute. Following are short excerpts from her talk. Ms. Fallaci, a native of Florence, Italy and a life-long journalist, caused turmoil across Europe with the publication of her book The Rage and the Pride, calling the West to stand up to the Islamic world.

From Afghanistan to Sudan, from Palestine to Pakistan, from Malaysia to Iran, from Egypt to Iraq, from Algeria to Senegal, from Syria to Kenya, from Libya to Chad, from Lebanon to Morocco, from Indonesia to Yemen, from Saudi Arabia to Somalia, the hate for the West swells like a fire fed by the wind. And the followers of Islamic fundamentalism multiply like a protozoa of a cell which splits to become two cells then four then eight then sixteen then thirty-two to infinity. Those who are not aware of it only have to look at the images that the TV brings us every day. The multitudes that impregnate the streets of Islamabad, the squares of Nairobi, the mosques of Tehran. The ferocious faces, the threatening fists. The fires that burn the American flag and the photos of Bush.

“The clash between us and them is not a military clash. Oh, no. It is a cultural one, a religious one. And our military victories do not solve the offensive of Islamic terrorism. On the contrary, they encourage it. They exacerbate it, they multiply it. The worst is still to come.”

President Bush has said, “We refuse to live in fear.”

Beautiful sentence, very beautiful. I loved it! But inexact, Mr. President, because the West does live in fear. People are afraid to speak against the Islamic world. Afraid to offend, and to be punished for offending, the sons of Allah. You can insult the Christians, the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Jews. You can slander the Catholics, you can spit on the Madonna and Jesus Christ. But, woe betide the citizen who pronounces a word against the Islamic religion.

My small book is not tender with Islam. In certain passages, it is even ferocious. But it is much more ferocious with us: with us Italians, us Europeans, us Americans.

I call my book a sermon—addressed to the Italians, to the Europeans, the Westerners. And along with the rage, this sermon unchains the pride for their culture, my culture. That culture that in spite of its mistakes, its faults, even monstrosities, has given so much to the world. It has moved us from the tents of the deserts and the huts of the woods to the dignity of civilization. It has given us the concept of beauty, of morals, of freedom, of equality. It has made the unique conquest in the social field, in the realm of science. It has wiped out diseases. It has invented all the tools that make life easier and more intelligent, those tools that our enemy can also use, for instance, to kill us. It has brought us to the moon and to Mars, and this cannot be said of the other culture. A culture, which has produced and produces only religion, which in every sense imprisons women inside the burkah or the chador, which is never accompanied by a drop of freedom, a drop of democracy, which subjugates its people under theocratical, oppressive regimes.

Socrates and Aristotle and Heraclitus were not mullahs. Jesus Christ, neither. Leonardo da Vinci and Michaelangelo, and Galileo, and Copernicus, and Newton and Pasteur and Einstein, the same.

My book is also a j’accuse. To accuse us of cowardice, hypocrisy, demagogy, laziness, moral misery, and of all that comes with that. The stupidity of the unbearable fad of political correctness, for instance. The paucity of our schools, our universities, our young people, people who often don’t even know the story of their country, the names Jefferson, Franklin, Robespierre, Napoleon, Garibaldi. And no understanding that freedom cannot exist without discipline, self-discipline.

I accuse ourselves also of another crime: the loss of passion. Haven’t you understood what drives our enemies? What permits them to fight this war against us? The passion! They have passion! They have so much passion that they can die for it!

Their leaders, too, of course. I met Khomeini. I discussed with him for more than six hours in calm, and I tell you that that man was a man of passion. I never met bin Laden. But I have well observed his eyes. I have well listened to his voice. And I tell you that that man is a man of passion. We have lost passion.

Well, I have not. I boil with passion. I, too, am ready to die for passion. But around me, I see no passion. Even those who hate me and attack me and insult me do this without passion. They are mollusks, not men and women. And a civilization, a culture, cannot survive without passion, cannot be saved without passion. If the West does not wake up, if we do not refind passion, we are lost.

What disgusts me most about Fallaci is not what she has to say, in fact I agree 100% with her. What sickens me is the cold reception that it has received in Europe.

In a society which ‘prides’ itself on freedom of speech and thought, Fallaci had been arrested and put on trial in France [not that it should surprise anyone] for her most recent works. She eventually won the case, but it points to a deeper problem on the continent as well as in the Americas [well, mainly Canada].

We are so fucking afraid to abandon multiculturalism that we are, in effect, giving the farm away to these extremists. We are so busy trying to make nice with people who want to destroy what has taken 500 years to build, that we are enabling our own destruction.

Its liberal white guilt at its worst, and its going to get us all killed.

2002-12-18T14:48:00.000-06:00

File this under the mabey category

A Charlotte, NC, lawyer purchased a box of very rare and expensive cigars, then insured them against fire among other things. Within a month having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars and without yet having made even his first premium payment on the policy, the lawyer filed a claim against the insurance company. In his claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost "in a series of small fires." The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason: that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion. The lawyer sued....and won! In delivering the ruling the judge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous. The Judge stated nevertheless, that the lawyer held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure them against fire, without defining what is considered to be unacceptable fire," and was obligated to pay the claim. Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid $15,000.00 to the lawyer for his loss of the rare cigars lost in the "fires."

After the lawyer cashed the check, the insurance company had him arrested on 24 counts of ARSON!!!! With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the lawyer was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and was sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000.00 fine. This is a true story and was the 1st place winner in the recent Criminal Lawyers Award Contest.

and what's the moral of the story ................. never try to screw a bigger whore than you.