'They are always inciting domestic elements to commit incidents such as the recent bombings,''

Two bombs hit Iranian oil cities

Two bombs exploded in the southern Iranian cities of Dezful and Abadan wounding at least six people, officials said.

The bombs were planted in the governor's office in both cities, which lie in the province of Khuzestan, the heartland of Iran's oil industry, that has seen tensions between Iranian authorities and the Arab minority over the last year.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombings, the latest in a string of attacks and violence this year in Khuzestan, which borders Iraq and contains most of Iran's Arabic-speaking minority.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking to reporters in Kuwait, said: ''The presence of occupation (forces) in Iraq leads to the deterioration of the security situation in the region, but Iran is a strong country and we will make those who try and mess with us regret it.''
now who coulda done that?

The Case for Impeachment

By Lewis H. Lapham.
A country is not only what it does—it is also what it puts up with, what it tolerates. —Kurt Tucholsky

On December 18 of last year, Congressman John Conyers Jr. (D., Mich.) introduced into the House of Representatives a resolution inviting it to form “a select committee to investigate the Administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.” Although buttressed two days previously by the news of the National Security Agency's illegal surveillance of the American citizenry, the request attracted little or no attention in the press—nothing on television or in the major papers, some scattered applause from the left-wing blogs, heavy sarcasm on the websites flying the flags of the militant right. The nearly complete silence raised the question as to what it was the congressman had in mind, and to whom did he think he was speaking? In time of war few propositions would seem as futile as the attempt to impeach a president whose political party controls the Congress; as the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee stationed on Capitol Hill for the last forty years, Representative Conyers presumably knew that to expect the Republican caucus in the House to take note of his invitation, much less arm it with the power of subpoena, was to expect a miracle of democratic transformation and rebirth not unlike the one looked for by President Bush under the prayer rugs in Baghdad. Unless the congressman intended some sort of symbolic gesture, self-serving and harmless, what did he hope to prove or to gain? He answered the question in early January, on the phone from Detroit during the congressional winter recess.
Harper's Magazine.

Trafficking in Persons Report (2005), UAE

The United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) is a destination country for women trafficked primarily from South, Southeast, and East Asia, the former Soviet Union, Iran and other Middle Eastern countries, and East Africa, for the purpose of sexual exploitation. A far smaller number of men, women, and teenage children were trafficked to the U.A.E. to work as forced laborers. Some South Asian and East African boys were trafficked into the country and forced to work as camel jockeys. Some were sold by their parents to traffickers, and others were brought into the U.A.E. by their parents.

A large number of foreign women were lured into the U.A.E. under false pretenses and subsequently forced into sexual servitude, primarily by criminals of their own countries. Personal observations by U.S. Government officials and video and photographic evidence indicated the continued use of trafficked children as camel jockeys. There were instances of child camel jockey victims who were reportedly starved to make them light, abused physically and sexually, denied education and health care, and subjected to harsh living and working conditions.

Some boys as young as 6 months old were reportedly kidnapped or sold to traffickers and raised to become camel jockeys. Some were injured seriously during races and training sessions, and one child died after being trampled by the camel he was

riding
bush is with the slave traders

Ford Motor charged as accomplice in Argentina’s “dirty war”

By Bill Van Auken
25 February 2006

Ford Motor Company has been charged in an Argentine court with playing a direct part in the illegal detention, torture and “disappearances” of its own workers under the dictatorship that ruled the South American country from 1976 to 1983.

The US automaker is accused in both a criminal and a civil lawsuit filed this week of carrying out “management terrorism” under the military regime in order to suppress worker militancy at its Argentine production plants.

The lead plaintiff in the case, Pedro Norberto Troiani, was a union delegate at the automaker’s plant in General Pachecho, outside Buenos Aires, in 1976, when the Argentine military seized power in a US-backed coup. He is suing on behalf of more than two dozen of union committee members and other workers who were seized at gunpoint by security forces, many of them as they worked on Ford’s assembly lines, others at their homes.

“Some of us were kidnapped by the security forces inside the factory and transferred to a makeshift clandestine detention center set up at a sports area of the factory,” Troiani, now 64 years old, recalled. “There, they hooded us and beat us; we suffered mock executions and were tortured,” he said, adding that their captors shocked them with an electric probe.
illegal detention, torture and “disappearances” link

"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing
because he could do only a little."
(Edmund Burke, political thinker, 1729-97)

Broaden the definition of terrorism

harry belafonte calls a terrorist a terrorist

grab this clip pretty powerful

doing what i do best, eating

Jesse Donald Knotts a.k.a. barney fife

Don Knotts, the skinny, lovable nerd who kept generations of television audiences laughing as bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on "The
Andy Griffith Show," has died. He was 81.


Knotts died Friday night of pulmonary and respiratory complications at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, said Paul Ward, a spokesman for the cable network TV Land, which airs "The Andy Griffith Show," and another Knotts hit, "Three's Company."


good bye barney thanks for the million laughs

No Iraqi battalion capable of fighting without U.S. support

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The only Iraqi battalion capable of fighting without U.S. support has been downgraded to a level requiring them to fight with American troops backing them up, the Pentagon said Friday.

The battalion, made up of 700 to 800 Iraqi Army soldiers, has repeatedly been offered by the U.S. as an example of the growing independence of the Iraqi military.

The competence of the Iraqi military has been cited as a key factor in when U.S. troops will be able to return home.

"As we see more of these Iraqi forces in the lead, we will be able to continue with our stated strategy that says as Iraqi forces stand up, we will stand down," President Bush said last month.
cnn link

U.S. Aligned With Iran in Anti-Gay Vote

some repression is just right! and damnit if these gays keep it up i think jail is way too good for 'em

United Nations: U.S. Aligned With Iran in Anti-Gay Vote
Rice Must Explain Repressive UN Ban on LGBT Rights Groups

(Washington, D.C., January 25, 2006) - In a reversal of policy, the United States on Monday backed an Iranian initiative to deny United Nations consultative status to organizations working to protect the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, a coalition of 40 organizations, led by the Human Rights Campaign, Human Rights Watch, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, called for an explanation of the vote which aligned the United States with governments that have long repressed the rights of sexual minorities.

“This vote is an aggressive assault by the U.S. government on the right of sexual minorities to be heard,” said Scott Long, director of the LGBT rights program at Human Rights Watch. “It is astonishing that the Bush administration would align itself with Sudan, China, Iran and Zimbabwe in a coalition of the homophobic.”
coalition of the homophobic link

Criticizing President Bush = Hating America

everyone out of lockstep with the bush king is against america and for the terrorists EVERYONE damnit


Now William F. Buckley Jr. Hates America
Posted by Jon Ponder | Feb. 25, 2006, 10:07 am

Remember the equation set forth by the GOP message machine:
Criticizing President Bush = Hating America

The latest America-hating critic of Dear Leader is the elder statesman of conservative fantasists himself, William F. Buckley. Under the headline “It Didn’t Work,” he writes:

One can’t doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed… And the administration has, now, to cope with failure..

Mr. Bush has a very difficult internal problem here because to make the kind of concession that is strategically appropriate requires a mitigation of policies he has several times affirmed in high-flown pronouncements. His challenge is to persuade himself that he can submit to a historical reality without forswearing basic commitments in foreign policy.

He will certainly face the current development as military leaders are expected to do: They are called upon to acknowledge a tactical setback, but to insist on the survival of strategic policies.

Yes, but within their own counsels, different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat.

So Buckley is one of those cut-and-runners, huh? He’d better watch out for Swiftboaters. Bushistas don’t take kindly to this kind of talk. The next thing you know, they’ll be questioning his conservative credentials.
terorist lovers

"silence coerced by law - the argument of force in its worst form."

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

Protecting The Rights
Of A Holocaust Denier
Ultimately Protects Us All
Free speech, even if it hurts


By Michael Shermer
2-24-6

'More women died in the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber at Auschwitz."

Is this line more offensive to Jews than an editorial cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammad with a turban bomb is to Muslims?

Apparently it is, because the editorial cartoonists are still free, whereas the man who made this statement - British author David Irving - was sentenced this week to three years in an Austrian jail for violating a law that says it is a crime if a person "denies, grossly trivializes, approves or seeks to justify the National Socialist genocide or other National Socialist crimes against humanity."
freedom of speech isn't free

Sec. 2385. Advocating overthrow of Government

18 U.S.C. §2385 (as of Jan. 2, 2001)
TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
PART I - CRIMES
CHAPTER 115 - TREASON, SEDITION, AND SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES
Sec. 2385. Advocating overthrow of Government

Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or

Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or

Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof--

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

As used in this section, the terms "organizes" and "organize", with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons.

THE SMITH ACT OF 1940

THE SMITH ACT OF 1940
54 Stat. 670, 671, title I, §§2-3 (June 28, 1940),
current version at 18 U.S.C. §2385

Sec. 2. (a) It shall be unlawful for any person--

(1) to knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise, or teach the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government;

(2) with the intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any government in the United States, to print, publish, edit, issue, circulate, sell, distribute, or publicly display any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence;

(3) to organize or help to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any government in the United States by force or violence; or to be or become a member of, or affiliate with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof.

(b) For the purposes of this section, the term "government in the United States" means the Government of the United States, the government of any State, Territory, or possession of the United States, the government of the District of Columbia, or the government of any political subdivision of any of them.

Sec. 3. It shall be unlawful for any person to attempt to commit, or to conspire to commit, any of the acts prohibited by the provisions of this title.

its ok in iraq iran venezuala north korea etc etc etc..........? fuck off

Buying revolution in foreign lands

US Dusts Off Old Plans For Iran
When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week asked Congress for an extra $75 million to organize and support non-violent opposition in Iran it was as though someone had resurrected the old files on the Reagan administration's successful campaign to undermine the Polish regime, and the even earlier files on the U.S. role in the Hungarian uprising which is being remembered this year on its 50th anniversary.

The latter tragic story is quickly told. In Oct. 1956 the Hungarians rose up against the Soviet occupying forces and fought them street by street for nearly three months but were ultimately -- and inevitably -- crushed by the sheer force of the Red Army. Throughout, the United States encouraged the rebels through broadcasts by Radio Free Europe and Voice of America, and encouraged the resistance with vague promises of help, but American help never came.

A quarter of a century later the story of U.S. clandestine help for the Polish independent trade union Solidarnosc (Solidarity) was another story with a different ending; and when Rice and State Department officials explained what was planned "to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom and democracy in their country," as Rice put it, observers with long memories has a sense of having seen it all before.
link

"I think we can agree that the conduct uncovered in this case is among the most ghastly imaginable,''

Funeral Homes Sold Body Parts in 'Ghastly' Case
NEW YORK (AP)—The owner of a biomedical supply house and three others were charged with selling body parts for use in transplants in a scheme a district attorney called "something out of a cheap horror movie.''

Prosecutors said Thursday the defendants made millions of dollars obtaining bodies from funeral parlors in three states and forging death certificates and organ donor consent forms to make it look as if the bones, skin, tendons, heart valves and other tissue were legally removed.

The indictment was the first set of charges to come out of a widening scandal involving scores of funeral homes and hundreds of bodies, including that of "Masterpiece Theatre'' host Alistair Cooke, who died in 2004. The investigation has raised fears that some of the body parts could spread disease to transplant recipients.
kick when there up kick em when thier dead

Planet's Population to Hit 6.5 Billion Saturday

A population milestone is about to be set on this jam-packed planet.

On Saturday, Feb. 25, at 7:16 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, the population here on this good Earth is projected to hit 6.5 billion people.

Along with this forecast, an analysis by the International Programs Center at the U.S. Census Bureau points to another factoid, Robert Bernstein of the Bureau's Public Information Center advised LiveScience. Mark this on your calendar: Some six years from now, on Oct. 18, 2012 at 4:36 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, the Earth will be home to 7 billion folks.
move over

U.S. District Court Judge Jose Linares signed an order demanding to know why the government did not carry out a full investigation...

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The Bush administration was ordered by a U.S. federal judge on Friday to explain why it did not give New Jersey officials documents and information Washington had about a deal allowing an Arab company to take over management of a container terminal in Newark.

U.S. District Court Judge Jose Linares signed an order demanding to know why the government did not carry out a full investigation into the change of ownership of the container terminal at Port Newark.

The judge set a hearing for Wednesday and said in the order he would issue a preliminary injunction blocking the deal, pending a full investigation, unless he was satisfied with Washington's answers.

The judge asked in the order that federal officials explain why New Jersey officials were not given the same documents and information that Washington used to approve the deal, under which state-owned Dubai Ports World would take over management from the British company P&O.

On Thursday, the State of New Jersey sued the federal government to block the deal on the grounds it violated the 10th Amendment, which says states control anything not explicitly mentioned in the U.S. Constitution.

Earlier, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine urged the governors of states with ports affected by the deal -- Louisiana, New York, Florida, Connecticut, Maryland and Pennsylvania -- to join the lawsuit.

Democrat Corzine issued the invitation in letters to each governor, saying the lawsuit "will seek to enjoin this sale of vital assets to a foreign nation without our states having had the opportunity to determine the extent of the threat to the safety of our citizens."

The latest developments came as a second lawsuit was filed in New Jersey over the controversial deal.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey filed a lawsuit on Friday to stop the change of management of its container terminal at Port Newark in New Jersey.

The authority, jointly owned by the states of New York and New Jersey, said the deal violates the terms of P&O's lease.

The transaction is part of a $6.85 billion deal under which the United Arab Emirates company Dubai Ports World DPW would manage terminals at six major U.S. ports. Continued ...
judge stay out of small planes

firstfruits

February 24, 2006 -- NSA expands surveillance of journalists. According to NSA sources, the signals intelligence agency, which has been at the center of a political storm over President Bush's warrantless wiretaps of U.S. citizens, has expanded the surveillance of journalists identified by the Bush administration as alleged recipients of classified information. The surveillance database, part of the intelligence community's "Denial and Deception" operations and once known as "Firstfruit" until WMR revealed its existence last May, now includes transcripts of phone calls and e-mails between journalists and their contacts and associates.
NSA sources revealed that the renamed Firstfruit database now contains signals intelligence intercepts, in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), U.S. Signals Intelligence Directive 18 (USSID 18), and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, of individuals who have communicated via phone, fax, and email with journalists who include James Bamford, James Risen, Seymour Hersh, Vernon Loeb, Bill Gertz, John C. K. Daly, and this editor, Wayne Madsen, among a growing list of others.
NSA's spying on this editor must entail some surprises for the White House. Although they and their right-wing minions consider this site "fringe" and "conspiratorial," they must be surprised at the number of calls and e-mails received by this editor from such "mainstream media" outlets as the New York Times, CBS News, CNN, Fox, MS-NBC, Boston Globe, Salon, Knight-Ridder Tribune, and yes, even Rupert Murdoch's British flagship publication, The Times of London. Why does a "fringe" web publisher deserve the high-level attention of the Bush administration and its law-violating intelligence officials? Perhaps its because the Bush administration has damaged the U.S. intelligence infrastructure to the point where this web site is now a primary steam vent for U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials who've had enough of the neo-cons and their GOP enablers.

lunatic fringe link

talking crimes nets suspension for london mayor

more bullshit offensive speech made punishable by jewish thought speech police.

Mayor is suspended over Nazi jibe

Mr Livingstone said he was expressing his honestly-held view
London's mayor has been suspended from office on full pay for four weeks for comparing a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard.

The Adjudication Panel for England ruled Ken Livingstone had brought his office into disrepute when he acted in an "unnecessarily insensitive" manner.

The ban is due to begin on 1 March and the mayor's deputy Nicky Gavron will stand in for Mr Livingstone.

The mayor said: "This decision strikes at the heart of democracy."

He added: "Elected politicians should only be able to be removed by the voters or for breaking the law.link: fuck off offensive speech police

'It's not a natural condition but must be manipulated to get people to join unpopular realities.''

Watchdogs Urge Full Probe of Bush Propaganda Spending
by Niko Kyriakou


SAN FRANCISCO - Media reform groups are calling for a deeper investigation of Bush administration advertising and propaganda efforts following the release of a report that concludes the White House has spun a web of public relations (PR) contracts larger than previously thought.

At issue are agreements to produce everything from advertisements to video news releases--government-vetted spots designed to air alongside and to be indistinguishable from regular televised news reports.

Critics of the state-sponsored content said it constitutes part of a broader government attack on press freedom and that it amounts to a subversion of democracy.

''When elected public servants use taxpayer dollars to manipulate or deceive the very people whose consent they require for their legitimacy, our public servants then become our masters,'' said Sanho Tree, a fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies.

The official Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported last week that government agencies have spent about $1.6 billion over the past 30 months on PR and advertising contracts. Investigators said they found no breach of the law and added that all spent funds came from the agencies' budgets.

The document overlooked considerable government spending to cast President George W. Bush's policies in a favorable light, media reformists said, because it covered neither all types of PR spending nor all federal agencies.link

Piss down my back comments

To change things up abit a few weeks ago I remodeled my comments section. I changed from plain "comment" to "piss down my back and tell me its raining". This small change in verbiage has drastically reduced my comments from 3 in 4 weeks (including the highway construction spam)to one in 4 weeks and that one a begged a known reader into leaving to acknowledge that he actually went to itwassooted. What I find really fookun amazing is I'm not even getting highway construction spam. Yeah comments would be a nice way to see if you are blogging invisible;y or not, but really who should fookun care I'm not Eric severied or Edward r murrow. I'm what I said I am a short fat bald white guy with nothing new to say. There are prolly 100 million of us world wide and non of us are entertaining enough to write a comment anonymously on a blog. Rehashing news stories is my mainstay incase one of the 7 viewers that accidentally happen by may have missed it that particular week. Pithy isn't easy. pissy might be easier but not on a long term basis. snarky is like every couple weeks. Mostly I'm tired and typing is a business I have to sit forward and actually concentrate on. Rehashing news that I read involves like three mouse clicks a one space bar push and maybe embed a picture another two or three clicks. No sitting up facing forward acting civilized involved. Just pure lounge power.
I prolly put in as much news blogging effort as Judith miller did at the new York times writing fake columns to trick stoopid readers. But I did it in my underwear most days she probably did it totally nekkid with scooter libby's cock in her ass............................
edit: i forgot to mention that when i signed up to get a new blog comment script maker, i forgot what my loggin was and password to be able to edit and change the damn thing. i do that quite often and just abandon the program or service that i orginally registered for. in case you may wonder, i would.

Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin,

Another U.S. "Christian" evangelical spy nabbed. Caught just prior to Ugandan election.

February 23, 2006 -- More evidence surfaces of Christian evangelicals being folded into U.S. intelligence operations. WMR has previously reported on Christian evangelical groups, linked to an entity called Mission Aviation Fellowship, being involved in off-the-books operations in Afghanistan involving transporting Afghan warlords and high-grade heroin.

Two days ago, just before Uganda's first multiparty elections in 20 years, Ugandan police arrested Peter Waldron, a 59-year old U.S. citizen from Wyoming, was arrested In the Kisugu suburb of Kampala along with three Ugandan nationals and a citizen of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Waldron had a business card that identified him as founder of City of Faith Ministries, Inc. and an adviser to an organization called Contact America Group. Waldron was also identified as a freelance journalist, a photographer, and a correspondent for a newsletter called The Africa Dispatch. Waldron had billed himself in an interview with The New Republic as a preacher and information technology consultant. Waldron told the magazine that he was a former member of the U.S. military who became a missionary. He also claimed he was a radio talk show host, Republican Party campaign adviser, and GOP lobbyist. Waldron had worked with the Ugandan Health Ministry since 2002.hot hot hot

So based on the odds, where the shit is the Global War on Ladders and Lightning?

Besides, according to Foreign Policy magazine, your odds of dying in a terrorist attack on American soil are 1 in 88,000. According to the same study, you're more likely to die from a fall off a ladder than you are from a terrorist attack.

A Live Science study concluded you're more likely to be struck by lightning (1 in 83,930) or legally executed (1 in 58,618). Your odds of committing suicide are 1 in 121. You're more likely to kill yourself than to be killed by a terrorist! Cancer is the second deadliest threat to you, yet Bush/Cheney has relaxed rules against spewing cancer-causing chemicals into your air and water.

Bob Cesca link

"To allow the Bush administration to evade accountability and continue to hide

Judge dismisses Canadian deportation suit

By TOM HAYS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

NEW YORK -- A federal judge has tossed out a civil rights lawsuit filed by a Syrian-born Canadian man who claimed U.S. counterterrorism officials deported him so he could be tortured in Syria.

Maher Arar had sued the officials in 2004 in what was believed to be the first case challenging extraordinary rendition - the policy of transferring foreign terror suspects to third countries without court approval.

U.S. District Judge David G. Trager rejected arguments that Arar was protected by the Torture Victim Prevention Act, which allows U.S. courts to assess damages for human rights abuses committed abroad.

Trager said that as a non-citizen, Arar couldn't demonstrate that he has a viable cause of action under that statute.

Citing "the national security and foreign policy considerations at stake," the judge said Arar had no grounds in a U.S. court to claim his constitutional right to due process was violated.

Arar, 35, holds dual Syrian-Canadian citizenship and was traveling on a Canadian passport when he was stopped in New York during a layover while returning to Canada from Tunisia. He was held for 12 days before being sent to Syria on suspicion of being a member of al-Qaida, an allegation he denies.
torture us all link

Hall of Fame broadcaster Gowdy dies

Voice of the Red Sox' loses battle with leukemia
By Mike Petraglia / Special to MLB.com

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- The unmistakable Hall of Fame voice of the Red Sox and a national baseball audience for a generation has passed away.

Curt Gowdy, enshrined in Cooperstown in 1984 as a Ford C. Frick Award winner, died Monday after battling leukemia while living in his West Palm Beach, Fla., home. He was 86.

Gowdy broadcast 13 World Series and 16 Major League All-Star Games.

The Wyoming native made his debut in 1944 broadcasting a football game atop an orange crate in sub-zero weather. His enthusiasm quickly caught on and earned him a job broadcasting the New York Yankees alongside Mel Allen in 1949
Curt Gowdy

“outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.”

THE MEMO
How an internal effort to ban the abuse and torture of detainees was thwarted.
by JANE MAYER

One night this January, in a ceremony at the Officers’ Club at Fort Myer, in Arlington, Virginia, which sits on a hill with a commanding view across the Potomac River to the Washington Monument, Alberto J. Mora, the outgoing general counsel of the United States Navy, stood next to a podium in the club’s ballroom. A handsome gray-haired man in his mid-fifties, he listened with a mixture of embarrassment and pride as his colleagues toasted his impending departure. Amid the usual tributes were some more pointed comments.

“Never has there been a counsel with more intellectual courage or personal integrity,” David Brant, the former head of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, said. Brant added somewhat cryptically, “He surprised us into doing the right thing.” Conspicuous for his silence that night was Mora’s boss, William J. Haynes II, the general counsel of the Department of Defense.

Back in Haynes’s office, on the third floor of the Pentagon, there was a stack of papers chronicling a private battle that Mora had waged against Haynes and other top Administration officials, challenging their tactics in fighting terrorism. Some of the documents are classified and, despite repeated requests from members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee, have not been released. One document, which is marked “secret” but is not classified, is a twenty-two-page memo written by Mora. It shows that three years ago Mora tried to halt what he saw as a disastrous and unlawful policy of authorizing cruelty toward terror suspects.

The memo is a chronological account, submitted on July 7, 2004, to Vice Admiral Albert Church, who led a Pentagon investigation into abuses at the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It reveals that Mora’s criticisms of Administration policy were unequivocal, wide-ranging, and persistent. Well before the exposure of prisoner abuse in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, in April, 2004, Mora warned his superiors at the Pentagon about the consequences of President Bush’s decision, in February, 2002, to circumvent the Geneva conventions, which prohibit both torture and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.” He argued that a refusal to outlaw cruelty toward U.S.-held terrorist suspects was an implicit invitation to abuse. Mora also challenged the legal framework that the Bush Administration has constructed to justify an expansion of executive power, in matters ranging from interrogations to wiretapping. He described as “unlawful,” “dangerous,” and “erroneous” novel legal theories granting the President the right to authorize abuse. Mora warned that these precepts could leave U.S. personnel open to criminal prosecution.
link to rest of the memo story

Chavez Warns Rice, 'Don't Mess With Me, Girl'

Venezuelan Leader Responds to U.S. 'Inoculation' Plan

CARACAS, Venezuela (Feb. 19) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday warned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice not to "mess with" him days after Rice described Venezuela as a menace to regional democracy in the midst of tense diplomatic relations between the two countries.

"Don't mess with me Condoleezza. Don't mess with me, girl," Chavez said during his weekly Sunday broadcast, sarcastically offering her a kiss and jokingly referring to her as "Condolence."

The warning comes days after Rice described Venezuela as one of the "biggest problems" for the Western Hemisphere and promised to develop regional alliances as part of an "inoculation" strategy to expose what the State Department calls anti-democratic behavior in Venezuela.

Chavez has repeatedly accused Washington of trying to topple him, and says the United States will attempt to sow chaos this year as he launches a re-election bid.

Diplomatic relations between the United States and Venezuela, the world's No. 5 oil exporter, have been strained since Chavez accused the United States of plotting a coup d'etat that briefly ousted him in 2002.

The State Department says Chavez is using the nation's bountiful oil wealth to meddle in the affairs of neighboring countries, and has slammed him for boosting ties to U.S. foes like Cuba and Iran.

Tensions between Washington and Caracas increased in February after Chavez expelled a U.S. naval attache for alleged espionage. The State Department responded by expelling a top Venezuelan diplomat.
link to chavez telling condibitch to back the fuck up

CITGO Petroleum Corporation is distributing heating oil at discounted prices this winter

CITGO's Low Cost Heating Oil Program


From our hearts to your hearths


CITGO Petroleum Corporation is distributing heating oil at discounted prices this winter as part of an initiative aimed at helping poor communities in areas of the country most affected by cold winters.

The initial program was launched in communities in the Boston area and in the Bronx, in New York City.

The first phase of the program, in Boston, will offer up to 12 million gallons of heating oil with discounts from market prices. The value of these discounts is nearly $10 million at current market prices. This initiative has been made possible with the full support of CITGO's parent company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), the state oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela link to discounted oil from "hitler"???

“We Have Created the World’s First Truly Global Empire”

Self-Described Economic Hit Man John Perkins:

“We Have Created the World’s First Truly Global Empire”

Most of the people in the United States have no idea that we've created this empire and, in fact, throughout the world it's been done very quietly, unlike old empires, where the army marched in.

This is a must listen interview. Broadcast 02/15/06 on Democracy Now!

AMY GOODMAN: We turn to someone on the inside who decided to speak out, and he is John Perkins, has written the book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. He came into our studios to talk about his former work, going into various countries to try to strong-arm leaders into creating policy favorable to the U.S. government and corporations, what he called the “corporatocracy.” John Perkins says he was an economic hit man. I began by asking him to explain this term.

JOHN PERKINS: We economic hit men, during the last 30 or 40 years, have really created the world's first truly global empire, and we've done this primarily through economics, and the military only coming in as a last resort. Therefore, it's been done pretty much secretly. Most of the people in the United States have no idea that we've created this empire and, in fact, throughout the world it's been done very quietly, unlike old empires, where the army marched in; it was obvious. So I think the significance of the things you discussed, the fact that over 80% of the population of South America recently voted in an anti-U.S. president and what's going on at the World Trade Organization, and also, in fact, with the transit strike here in New York, is that people are beginning to understand that the middle class and the lower classes around the world are being terribly, terribly exploited by what I call the corporatocracy, which really runs this empire.

click here for transcript and recorded interview with amy goodman

A shocking 37 million Americans live in poverty. That is 12.7 per cent of the population -

the highest percentage in the developed world.

Americans have always believed that hard work will bring rewards, but vast numbers now cannot meet their bills even with two or three jobs. More than one in 10 citizens live below the poverty line, and the gap between the haves and have-nots is widening

Paul Harris in Kentucky
Sunday February 19, 2006
The Observer


The flickering television in Candy Lumpkins's trailer blared out The Bold and the Beautiful. It was a fantasy daytime soap vision of American life with little relevance to the reality of this impoverished corner of Kentucky.

The Lumpkins live at the definition of the back of beyond, in a hollow at the top of a valley at the end of a long and muddy dirt road. It is strewn with litter. Packs of stray dogs prowl around, barking at strangers. There is no telephone and since their pump broke two weeks ago Candy has collected water from nearby springs. Oblivious to it all, her five-year-old daughter Amy runs barefoot on a wooden porch frozen by a midwinter chill.

It is a vision of deep and abiding poverty. Yet the Lumpkins are not alone in their plight. They are just the negative side of the American equation. America does have vast, wealthy suburbs, huge shopping malls and a busy middle class, but it also has vast numbers of poor, struggling to make it in a low-wage economy with minimal government help.
trickle this down nascar dad,link

The truth is useless

"The truth is useless. You have to understand this right now. You can't deposit the truth in a bank. You can't buy groceries with the truth. You can't pay rent with the truth. The truth is a useless commodity that will hang around your neck like an albatross all the way to the homeless shelter. And if you think that the million or so people in this country that are really interested in the truth about their government can support people who would tell them the truth, you got another thing coming. Because the million or so people in this country that are truly interested in the truth don't have any money."- Jeb Bush (Florida governor, brother of George W. Bush)

Shani Davis the first black athlete to win an individual gold medal at the Winter Games.

Blades cut historic path
Davis first black athlete with solo gold in Winter Games
By Randy Harvey
Sun Reporter
Originally published February 19, 2006
TURIN, Italy // Even as a child on Chicago's South Side, Shani Davis told friends he wanted to win speed skating's 1,000 meters at the Winter Olympics. He doesn't remember the reason he chose that event, but he must have had some sense of destiny because he won the race yesterday at the Oval Lingotto, becoming the first black athlete to win an individual gold medal at the Winter Games.

American Vonetta Flowers was the first black athlete to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics with her victory in the bobsled four years ago in Salt Lake City, and Canadian hockey player Jarome Iginla later in those same Games became the first black man to win a winter gold medal.


But while Davis, 23, accepted his role as a pioneer, he didn't particularly embrace it.

"It's what people make of it," he said. "If people in America are excited and thrilled to have a black Olympic champion in speed skating, then I'm happy that I can make people happy."
link

"I don't permit staffers to have relatives lobby the office,"

Specter asks ethics panel to look at aide's role in funding

By Matt Kelley, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Sen. Arlen Specter on Thursday asked the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate whether a top aide improperly helped direct nearly $50 million in Pentagon spending to clients represented by her husband.

The Pennsylvania Republican asked for the review of legislative assistant Vicki Siegel Herson's actions after USA TODAY reported Thursday that his office inserted 13 provisions into spending bills benefiting clients of her husband, Michael Herson, a registered lobbyist. (Related stories: 6 clients got projects | Senate aide's spouse gets a windfall)

Specter, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he believes he and Siegel did nothing wrong. He said neither Herson nor anyone from the firm he heads, American Defense International, had lobbied his office.

Specter acknowledged that he inserted the spending provisions — known as "earmarks" — into Pentagon budget bills as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He said he didn't know the earmarks were going to Herson's clients.

Five companies and Drexel University, all represented by Herson, have received $48.7 million in earmarks during the past four years. Those six clients paid Herson's firm about $1.5 million from 2002 through last July, lobbying disclosure reports show.

Specter said he didn't know whether Siegel, who was his top appropriations aide until about six months ago, had recommended the earmarks to him.

"I don't think she would have made any recommendations where she knew her husband had a client involved," Specter said. "That would have been a blatant conflict of interest and inappropriate, and I don't think that happened."
don't think that happened link

U.S. Officials Give Terrorists Classified Information

Federal prosecutors involved in the government’s signature domestic terrorism case against a Muslim charity, mistakenly gave highly classified intelligence materials to the terrorists’ defense attorneys.

Arguing for the return of the sensitive counter-terrorism information, government officials wrote that “its disclosure and dissemination could have profound national security and foreign policy implications.”

The case involves the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation, once the nation’s largest Muslim charity and a front for the militant wing of Hamas. After a lengthy investigation, the Treasury Department froze the so-called charity’s assets in December, 2001 and the Justice Department won indictments against seven Holy Land officials.

The government’s case relies heavily on secret surveillance, anonymous FBI informants and foreign intelligence. Evidence includes thousands of hours of wiretaps and more than one million pages of classified documents (Orlando Sentinel).

Ironically, the government spends millions of dollars annually to withhold information that should be made public under the Freedom of Information Act. That is precisely why the Texas Lone Star Times sarcastically asks how exactly did Hamas’ lawyers get 14 volumes of sensitive classified intelligence handed to them?

Money will cease to be the master and become the servant of humanity.

A website that has a good explanation of Lincoln's creation of the USA government's own money (the greenback dollar) can be found at THE HISTORY OF MONEY. Here's an excerpt:

...Predictably Lincoln, needing money to finance his war effort, went with his secretary of the treasury to New York to apply for the necessary loans. The money changers wishing the Union to fail offered loans at 24% to 36%. Lincoln declined the offer. An old friend of Lincoln's, Colonel Dick Taylor of Chicago was put in charge of solving the problem of how to finance the war. His solution is recorded as this. 'Just get Congress to pass a bill authorising the printing of full legal tender treasury notes... and pay your soldiers with them and go ahead and win your war with them also.'

When Lincoln asked if the people of America would accept the notes Taylor said. 'The people or anyone else will not have any choice in the matter, if you make them full legal tender. They will have the full sanction of the government and be just as good as any money; as Congress is given that express right by the Constitution.'

Lincoln agreed to try this solution and printed 450 million dollars worth of the new bills using green ink on the back to distinguish them from other notes. "The government should create, issue and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers..... The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government's greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprises, the maintenance of stable government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own government. Money will cease to be the master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power. The solution worked so well Lincoln was seriously considering adopting this emergency measure as a permanent policy. This would have been great for everyone except the money changers who quickly realised how dangerous this policy would be for them...." orwell today

Lincoln's policies after the Civil War would have destroyed the Rothschilds' commodity speculations

Here's an excerpt from ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION website describing the conspiracy of international bankers:

"This theory is that Abraham Lincoln was killed as a result of his monetary policies. John Wilkes Booth would be seen as a 'hired gun.' In its simplest terms, the theory is that Lincoln needed money to finance the Civil War. He was offered loans at high interest rates by bankers in Europe led by the Rothschilds. Rather than accept the loans, Lincoln found other means to fund the war effort. More importantly, the British bankers opposed Lincoln's protectionist policies. Some Englishmen in the 1860's believed that "British free trade, industrial monopoly and human slavery travel together." Lincoln's policies after the Civil War would have destroyed the Rothschilds' commodity speculations. After the war, Lincoln planned a mild Reconstruction policy which would have enabled a resumption of agriculture production. The Rothschilds were betting the other way on high prices caused by a tough Reconstruction policy toward the South. Lincoln was viewed as a threat to the established order of things, and he was assassinated as a result. The goal was to weaken the United States so the Rothschilds could takeover its economy. An article titled "The Rothschilds' International Plot to Kill Lincoln" was published October 29, 1976, in New Solidarity."

if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?"

Houston eyes cameras at apartment complexes

By PAM EASTON
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

HOUSTON -- Houston's police chief on Wednesday proposed placing surveillance cameras in apartment complexes, downtown streets, shopping malls and even private homes to fight crime during a shortage of police officers.

"I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?" Chief Harold Hurtt told reporters Wednesday at a regular briefing.

Houston is facing a severe police shortage because of too many retirements and too few recruits, and the city has absorbed 150,000 hurricane evacuees who are filling apartment complexes in crime-ridden neighborhoods. The City Council is considering a public safety tax to pay for more officers.

Building permits should require malls and large apartment complexes to install surveillance cameras, Hurtt said. And if a homeowner requires repeated police response, it is reasonable to require camera surveillance of the property, he said.

Scott Henson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Police Accountability Project in Texas, called Hurtt's building-permit proposal "radical and extreme" and said it may violate the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches.

Andy Teas with the Houston Apartment Association said that although some would consider cameras an invasion of privacy, "I think a lot of people would appreciate the thought of extra eyes looking out for them."
spy on me please

"you know, there’s been some controversy about whether or not this program is legal or is not legal. I think we need to get beyond that"

The White House announced its support for a legislative proposal by Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine to exclude Bush’s NSA wiretapping program from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. ThinkProgress explained earlier why the proposal is a bad idea. Tonight, on Fox News, DeWine explained his motivations:

You know, there’s been some controversy about whether or not this program is legal or is not legal. I think we need to get beyond that. And the vast majority of American people believe these calls need to be listened to. But we don’t want to have any kind of debate about whether it’s constitutional or not constitutional. So I think we need to put that beyond us.

The reason DeWine and the White House don’t want to talk about the program’s legality is because the program is illegal. DeWine is attempting to fix a problem that he hasn’t even properly diagnosed. Even Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter isn’t buying DeWine’s spin:

Unless they’re prepared to have a determination on constitutionality as to their programs, window dressing oversight will not be sufficient.

President Bush said today, “I mean, a lot of lawyers looked at this, and they said, you bet, Mr. President, it’s legal.” If he’s so confident about that, why is he so afraid to have a debate?
thinkprogress.org

Congress wanted to be certain that a U.S. government agency could not brainwash citizens as Hitler had in Germany

TITLE 22 > CHAPTER 18 > SUBCHAPTER V > § 1461
§ 1461. General authorization


(a) Dissemination of information abroad
The Secretary is authorized, when he finds it appropriate, to provide for the preparation, and dissemination abroad, of information about the United States, its people, and its policies, through press, publications, radio, motion pictures, and other information media, and through information centers and instructors abroad. Subject to subsection (b) of this section, any such information (other than “Problems of Communism” and the “English Teaching Forum” which may be sold by the Government Printing Office) shall not be disseminated within the United States, its territories, or possessions, but, on request, shall be available in the English language at the Department of State, at all reasonable times following its release as information abroad, for examination only by representatives of United States press associations, newspapers, magazines, radio systems, and stations, and by research students and scholars, and, on request, shall be made available for examination only to Members of Congress.
(b) Dissemination of information within United States
(1) The Director of the United States Information Agency shall make available to the Archivist of the United States, for domestic distribution, motion pictures, films, videotapes, and other material prepared for dissemination abroad 12 years after the initial dissemination of the material abroad or, in the case of such material not disseminated abroad, 12 years after the preparation of the material.
(2) The Director of the United States Information Agency shall be reimbursed for any attendant expenses. Any reimbursement to the Director pursuant to this subsection shall be credited to the applicable appropriation of the United States Information Agency.
(3) The Archivist shall be the official custodian of the material and shall issue necessary regulations to ensure that persons seeking its release in the United States have secured and paid for necessary United States rights and licenses and that all costs associated with the provision of the material by the Archivist shall be paid by the persons seeking its release. The Archivist may charge fees to recover such costs, in accordance with section 2116 (c) of title 44. Such fees shall be paid into, administered, and expended as part of the National Archives Trust Fund.

Sen. Arlen Specter helped direct almost $50 million in Pentagon spending during the past four years to clients of the husband of one of his top aides

Senate Aide's Spouse Gets a Windfall
by Matt Kelley

WASHINGTON - Sen. Arlen Specter helped direct almost $50 million in Pentagon spending during the past four years to clients of the husband of one of his top aides, records show.

Specter, R-Pa., used a process called "earmarking" 13 times to set aside $48.7 million for six clients represented by lobbyist Michael Herson and the firm he co-founded, American Defense International. The clients paid Herson's firm nearly $1.5 million in fees since 2002, federal lobbying records show.
link to gold mine

Section 2340B. Exclusive remedies

Section 2340B. Exclusive remedies

Nothing in this chapter shall be construed as precluding the application of State or local laws on the same subject, nor shall anything in this chapter be construed as creating any substantive or procedural right enforceable by law by any party in any civil proceeding. Source

Section 2340A. Torture

Section 2340A. Torture

(a) Offense. - Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.

(b) Jurisdiction. - There is jurisdiction over the activity prohibited in subsection (a) if -
(1) the alleged offender is a national of the United States; or
(2) the alleged offender is present in the United States, irrespective of the nationality of the victim or alleged offender.

(c) Conspiracy. - A person who conspires to commit an offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties (other than the penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.

UNITED STATES CODE - TITLE 18

UNITED STATES CODE - TITLE 18
Section 2340. Definitions

As used in this chapter -
(1) ''torture'' means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) ''severe mental pain or suffering'' means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from -
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and
(3) ''United States'' includes all areas under the jurisdiction of the United States including any of the places described in sections 5 and 7 of this title and section 46501(2) of title 49.

Without fear, how could Americans be manipulated?

But Nixon left amid scandal and Ford came in, and Ford's Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld) and Chief of Staff (Dick Cheney) believed it was intolerable that Americans might no longer be bound by fear. Without fear, how could Americans be manipulated? And how could billions of dollars taken as taxes from average working people be transferred to the companies that Rumsfeld and Cheney - and their cronies - would soon work for and/or run?

Rumsfeld and Cheney Revive Their 70's Terror Playbook

thanks grannyc

by Thom Hartmann

Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are at it again.

Last week, Rumsfeld told the press we should be preparing for "the Long War," saying of the war this administration has stirred up with its attack on Iraq that, "Just as the Cold War lasted a long time, this war is something that is not going to go away."

The last time Rumsfeld talked like this was in the 1970s, in response to the danger of peace presented by Richard Nixon.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon returned from the Soviet Union with a treaty worked out by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the beginning of a process Kissinger called "détente." On June 1, 1972, Nixon gave a speech in which he said:
"Last Friday, in Moscow, we witnessed the beginning of the end of that era which began in 1945. With this step, we have enhanced the security of both nations. We have begun to reduce the level of fear, by reducing the causes of fear—for our two peoples, and for all peoples in the world."

But Nixon left amid scandal and Ford came in, and Ford's Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld) and Chief of Staff (Dick Cheney) believed it was intolerable that Americans might no longer be bound by fear. Without fear, how could Americans be manipulated? And how could billions of dollars taken as taxes from average working people be transferred to the companies that Rumsfeld and Cheney - and their cronies - would soon work for and/or run?

Rumsfeld and Cheney began a concerted effort - first secretly and then openly - to undermine Nixon's treaty for peace and to rebuild the state of fear.

They did it by claiming that the Soviets had a new secret weapon of mass destruction that the president didn't know about, that the CIA didn't know about, that nobody knew about but them. It was a nuclear submarine technology that was undetectable by current American technology. And, they said, because of this and related-undetectable-technology weapons, the US must redirect billions of dollars away from domestic programs and instead give the money to defense contractors for whom these two men would one day work or have businesses relationships with.

The CIA strongly disagreed, calling Rumsfeld's position a "complete fiction" and pointing out that the Soviet Union was disintegrating from within, could barely afford to feed their own people, and would collapse within a decade or two if simply left alone.

DP World said it won approval from a secretive U.S. government panel that considers security risks

thanks avedon

UAE Co. Poised to Oversee Six U.S. Ports
By TED BRIDIS (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
February 11, 2006 9:41 AM EST

WASHINGTON - A company in the United Arab Emirates is poised to take over significant operations at six American ports as part of a corporate sale, leaving a country with ties to the Sept. 11 hijackers with influence over a maritime industry considered vulnerable to terrorism.

The Bush administration considers the UAE an important ally in the fight against terrorism since the suicide hijackings and is not objecting to Dubai Ports World's purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co.

The $6.8 billion sale is expected to be approved Monday. The British company is the fourth largest ports company in the world and its sale would affect commercial U.S. port operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.

DP World said it won approval from a secretive U.S. government panel that considers security risks of foreign companies buying or investing in American industry.

The U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States "thoroughly reviewed the potential transaction and concluded they had no objection," the company said in a statement to The Associated Press. maybe the saudi bin laudens can help refurbish the ports for easier destruction later onlink to the sell out

We have no fear of the truth. But the truth needs help against those who seek to suppress it.

Here’s the background to the suit: “Welcome to TERRORLAND” revealed that at least seven of Mohamed Atta's closest associates in Florida weren’t Arab, but Austrian, German, and Swiss.

Through the simple expedient of interviewing eyewitnesses, we discovered the names of seven European men, all pilots, whose existence has neither been mentioned nor alluded to in press accounts or official statements.

Then last January, a German pilot named Stephan Verhaaren filed a lawsuit, claiming defamation for having been linked to Atta in “Welcome to TERRORLAND.”

Mohamed Atta’s former American girlfriend, Amanda Keller, identified Verhaaren as an associate of Atta’s, in highly credible testimony. Official documents we’ve obtained add credence to her account. MadCowMorningNews

CIA chief sacked for opposing torture

Sarah Baxter and Michael Smith, Washington


The CIA’s top counter-terrorism official was fired last week because he opposed detaining Al-Qaeda suspects in secret prisons abroad, sending them to other countries for interrogation and using forms of torture such as “water boarding”, intelligence sources have claimed.

Robert Grenier, head of the CIA counter-terrorism centre, was relieved of his post after a year in the job. One intelligence official said he was “not quite as aggressive as he might have been” in pursuing Al-Qaeda leaders and networks.

Vincent Cannistraro, a former head of counter-terrorism at the agency, said: “It is not that Grenier wasn’t aggressive enough, it is that he wasn’t ‘with the programme’. He expressed misgivings about the secret prisons in Europe and the rendition of terrorists.”
more on water boarding,click here

hey shut the fook up biotches

Rice: Nations Must Not Incite Protests
WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said Sunday that violent protests in the Muslim world over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad could "spin out of control" if governments refuse to act responsibly.
Rice, speaking from Washington on ABC television's "This Week," said
Iran, in particular, should be urging its citizens to remain calm — not encouraging protests against Western embassies.

"If people continue to incite it, it can spin out of control," she said of the protests. Last week, demonstrators in Iran attacked the Danish, French and Austrian embassies with stones and firebombs.
alright bitch, have you or anybody you know inside your super secret headquarters ever discussed fomenting revolution in iran? how about aiding agent prevacatours inside any country? have you or your minions ever funded directly or indirectly insurections in another country you wished toed your company line? does the state deparment have offices and agents around the world inciting soverign nations to behave in your impossed images? (you will never answer on super secret national security grounds.) if so the shut the fuck up about burning anything.
pot calls kettle black... again

where do all the made for teeeveee flag burnings come from?

Another media triumph Rendon brags about was the manipulation of media during the actual conflict. "If any of you either participated in the liberation of Kuwait City ... or if you watched it on television, you would have seen hundreds of Kuwaitis waving small American flags. Did you ever stop to wonder how the people of Kuwait City, after being held hostage for seven long and painful months, were able to get hand-held American flags? And for that matter, the flags of other coalition countries? Well, you now know the answer. That was one of my jobs," he told a National Security Conference in 1998.
faking up public opinion

230 years of the Republic is coming to an end because one beady-eyed prick in the White House

Imagery and Internet Analysis of the NSA and IXPs
By
OSIN
Project Quote: "You can tell a good spy by his ominous logo." -Calvin & Hobbes

Sector 001

You can view the imagery for the entire project here.

A special thanks to the GOP for providing the motivation to finish this project!
During the time I was working on Project 4, the FBI and Infragard project, I kept coming across references about their Carnivore program. For those of you who are not familiar with it, that program was the FBI's attempt to capture someone's Internet traffic coming and going from a particular ISP. There are more details about it below, but it caused such an outcry in the US that the FBI changed the name to something more innocuous, like DCS1000. By the time I was coming to the end of the FBI project, the media revealed via a leaked source that the NSA had been spying on Americans within the US and bypassing all Constitutional requirements of search warrants, even bypassing the secret courts that were set up for national security reasons. So, nearly 230 years of the Republic is coming to an end because one beady-eyed prick in the White House rationalized away our Constitutional rights in the name of national security. So, I thought it only proper to take a quick look at the Agency which raped the Fourth Amendment- the NSA.
link via cryptome to the rest

bug brother is listening

Last week the Greek Government went public about a major breakthrough at the heart of the system of VODAFONE GREECE. Unknown people, or agency, had installed illegal software and managed to by-pass the security instillations of ERICSSON's IMS (Interception Managment System) The cell phones of the Greek PM Kostas Karamanlis, several ministers, the National Defence Ministry, the Chief of the Police and the antiterrorist squad and a number of Greek members of leftist organizations were illegally intercepted.
watch what you say

He has called them spies of the CIA and colonialists.

Chavez deadline for US preachers
By Greg Morsbach
BBC News, Caracas

The Venezuelan government has given a Christian missionary group from the US until Sunday to leave the country.

President Hugo Chavez has repeatedly called for the expulsion of the New Tribes Mission, saying they are American imperialists.
He has called them spies of the CIA and colonialists.

Most of the 160 evangelical preachers and their families have already gone back to the US, after he asked them to leave last October.

Only 30 New Tribes missionaries are still in Venezuela.

For the past 60 years, the New Tribes Mission, which has its world headquarters in Florida, has been trying to convert indigenous groups in Venezuela to Christianity.

It is a non-denominational Christian society which says it is only funded by private individuals, not by the US government.

Indigenous groups

The missionaries live and work in the remotest areas of the country, including the Amazon rainforest.

Their goal is find tribes untouched by so-called "civilisation" in order to convert them to Christianity.

So far New Tribes representatives have been preaching to 12 different indigenous groups here in Venezuela.

In return for agreeing to adopt the Christian faith, the indigenous people receive basic health care and literacy classes.

But a spokesman for New Tribes has told the BBC all the missionaries have left the tribal areas to comply with the Venezuelan government's demands.

However this may not be enough for Venezuela's Interior Ministry, which has called for the missionaries to leave Venezuela altogether.

bbc link

RAP LYRICS TRANSLATED

This paper was turned in by an Oakland High school student who received the highest honors at the school district’s Ebonics translation competition.

Assignment: Please translate the following Rap song lyrics from Ebonics to standard English.

notoriousbig_onemorechance.mid

Artist: Notorious B.I.G.
Album: Ready to Die
Song: One more chance (remix)
Lyrics:

First things first, I poppa, freaks all the honeys

Dummies - playboy bunnies, those wantin’ money

Those the ones I like ‘cause they don’t get nathan’

But penetration, unless it smells like sanitation

Garbage, I turn like doorknobs

Heart throb, never, black and ugly as ever

However, I stay coochied down to the socks

Rings and watch filled with rocks
fer schnizzler bizzler follow here to the translatin

First Photo of Bush and Abramoff

First Photo of Bush and Abramoff
White House had initially said there was no record of disgraced lobbyist at 2001 meeting
By ADAM ZAGORIN AND MATTHEW COOPER/WASHINGTON

Just how close was the relationship between the White House and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff? The Bush Administration again faced questions about those ties after an e-mail Abramoff sent a journalist friend surfaced last week in which Abramoff wrote that he had met President Bush almost a dozen times over the past five years, and even received an invitation to the President's Crawford, Texas ranch along with other large political donors. Bush "has one of the best memories of any politician I have ever met," Abramoff mused in the e-mail last month, adding that, He "saw me in almost a dozen settings, and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids." colour picture with rove

"We appreciate that conveying federal land out of public ownership is a sensitive issue,"

California ready to fight plan to sell forest lands
Cardoza: Using hard assets to fund schools 'ridiculous'







By MICHAEL DOYLE
BEE WASHINGTON BUREAU

Last Updated: February 11, 2006, 05:17:00 AM PST

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration on Friday proposed selling as many as 85,465 acres of national forest in California, prompting harsh reactions from lawmakers across the political spectrum.

The California land that could be sold includes isolated chunks of the Tahoe, Stanislaus and Sequoia national forests. They are part of a much larger administration package designed to raise $800 million for rural schools.

"We appreciate that conveying federal land out of public ownership is a sensitive issue," Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey told reporters Friday.

That's an understatement.save a tree impeach a bush

Although no official confirmation will be given of where super-bases will be located

The airbase at al-Asad is the biggest marine camp in western Anbar province. It is in the midst of the most rebellious region in Iraq, where thousands of insurgents have been killed in a series of operations over the past year.

But get "inside the wire" and this stretch of desert increasingly resembles a slice of US suburbia rather than the front line in a war zone.


Marines based in Iraq find time to watch the Super Bowl

Its restaurants include a Subway and a fast food pizza shop. There is a coffee shop, football pitch and even a swimming pool.

all your base are belong to us

Whistleblowers Are Not Protected, Mr. Goss

by Sibel Edmonds

Dear Mr. Goss, the timing of your recent op-ed in the New York Times interestingly coincides with the upcoming congressional hearing by the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats & International Relations on National Security Whistleblowers. Your comments are predictably consistent with the pattern of "preemptive strikes" you and the administration have been keen on maintaining. I do not blame you for your opposition to legislation to protect courageous whistleblowers, which will enable the United States Congress to reclaim some of its authority and oversight that it has given up for the past five years. No sir, you have all the right and reason to be nervous. However, I must take issue with your attempt to mislead the American public – another habit of your heart – by presenting them with false information and misleading statements.swiftboat sibel

"Third-Party Threat"

Congress Attempts to Kill the "Third-Party Threat"

Proposed Legislation Creates Treasury-Funded Campaigns for the Two Major Parties, Leaving Third Parties with No Means to Run


(Washington, D.C.) On February 1, congressional Democrats, led by Rep. Obey of Wisconsin, introduced a bill, H.R. 4694, that would end viable, third-party competition in races for the U.S. House of Representatives.



The bill, ironically named the "Let the People Decide Clean Campaign Act," would mandate public funds (taken from the U.S. Treasury) to candidates for the House of Representatives and forbid candidates from taking private funds such as contributions from individual donors.



The ambiguously-written bill provides funds for candidates of the "two major parties" but essentially scuttles any campaign efforts of third-party or independent candidates.

why am i threatened again?

Reindeers grazing over the winter on Varrio fells

Is Bush The Lifetime President?

bush is setting us up for an emporer for life?

live poker at the bike

i'm watching the loop of last nights action at the bike in california . pretty entertaining poker if you are inclined...

click here to watch

nasa secret transmissions smoking gun ufo revealed

During this end of the century the man became unaware of his on space and still beliave that we own the universe. Well , this cable guy manager find out stuning images of the space with cameras that belong nasa . Thanks to google we are about to make this video available worldiwde and martins stubbs must be happy with it. Canahan as well. The true is out there guys . The revalations of apocalipse is inside this movie .

Writings of a Finnish Military Expert on 9/11

The 9/ 11 Operation: A Summary

The 9/11 operation consisted of at least the following:

Military exercises by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) with 22 imaginarily hijacked planes on 9/11/2001, before and simultaneously with the 'real' hijackings. Some of the defense interceptors flew to Alaska, as far as possible from the cities that were being attacked............

call 1-800-go army

i brief view of operation unduring sleep

if you missed the war on fox news you can see a snippet or two here, be patient it will download in due time. while you wait go watch cavuto or o'really or shawn insannnity.................

Hi-Rez Baghdad Sniper Video (67MB)

(e) For rapid and favorable war termination on US terms.

The list of reasons field commanders can ask for permission to use nuclear weapons. Of the 8 possible reasons, only one is for retaliation. (From page III.2 (PDF p.47) of Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations) Only two of the eight (a) and (b) are mentioned in the Washington Post article.

Geographic combatant commanders may request Presidential approval for use of nuclear weapons for a variety of conditions. Examples include:

(a) An adversary using or intending to use WMD against US, multinational, or alliance forces or civilian populations.

(b) Imminent attack from adversary biological weapons that only effects from nuclear weapons can safely destroy.

(c) Attacks on adversary installations including WMD, deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical or biological weapons or the C2 infrastructure required for the adversary to execute a WMD attack against the United States or its friends and allies.

(d) To counter potentially overwhelming adversary conventional forces, includingmobile and area targets (troop concentration).

e) For rapid and favorable war termination on US terms.

(f) To ensure success of US and multinational operations.

(g) To demonstrate US intent and capability to use nuclear weapons to deteradversary use of WMD.

(h) To respond to adversary-supplied WMD use by surrogates against US and multinational forces or civilian populations.

above and from the left

"My participation in that presentation at the UN constitutes the lowest point in my professional life.

Powell's former chief of staff on Iraq intel: 'I participated in a hoax'

Muriel Kane
Published: February 5, 2006

In an interview that aired on PBS on Friday, Feb. 3, Colin Powell's former chief of staff claimed that the speech Powell made before the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, laying out a case for war with Iraq, included falsehoods of which Powell had never been made aware. He said, "My participation in that presentation at the UN constitutes the lowest point in my professional life. I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council."

Colonel (ret.) Lawrence Wilkerson, a veteran of the Vietnam War, served for many years as Powell's consultant and advisor. He stated in the interview that he was "intimately involved in the preparation of Secretary Powell for his five February 2003 presentation at the UN Security Council" and that neither CIA Director George Tenent nor the CIA analysts involved in furnishing Powell with the information on mobile biological laboratories that he would use in his speech gave any indication that there were disputes about the reliability of the informants who had supplied this information.

Wilkerson still sees this lapse as the result of a profound intelligence failure, saying, "I have to believe that. Otherwise I have to believe some rather nefarious things about some fairly highly placed people in the intelligence community and perhaps elsewhere."
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jerkin the circle

Despite a prior conviction on felony fraud that his Pentagon background check apparently missed, Mr. Stein was hired

this is standard operating procedure for the bush mis-administration, don't believe it? ask tom delay of jack or skooter.........

Guilty Plea and Wider Scheme Are Seen in Rebuilding of Iraq





By JAMES GLANZ
New York Times
Robert J. Stein Jr. could not have been clearer about his feelings toward the American businessman who was receiving millions of dollars in contracts from Mr. Stein to build a major police academy and other reconstruction projects in Iraq.

"I love to give you money," Mr. Stein wrote in an e-mail message to the businessman, Philip H. Bloom, on Jan. 3, 2004, just as the United States was trying to ramp up its rebuilding program in Iraq.

As it turned out, Mr. Stein had the money to give. Despite a prior conviction on felony fraud that his Pentagon background check apparently missed, Mr. Stein was hired and put in charge of at least $82 million of reconstruction money in the south central Iraqi city of Hilla by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the American-led administration that was then running Iraq.
bush graft link

people too busy to dance, sing and create culture.

The misplaced defense of free speech
By Aseem Shrivastava

"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."
- 19th-century Danish Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard

A mature sense of humor must be founded on the capacity to laugh at oneself, for it is by worlds easier to make a laughing-stock of others, especially when one persists in remaining ignorant of their sensibilities. This can become seriously
dangerous and lead to some absurd consequences when done in public.

This is the lesson one may draw from the events sparked by the publication of a series of frivolous cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper.

link


It is they, with their agendas for endless growth and prosperity (self-enrichment), who have enslaved everyone in their jobs (when they are lucky to have one), who have made people too busy to dance, sing and create culture. It is they who have sought cheap labor from North Africa, the Middle East and many poor parts of the world, often sending headhunters to these countries looking for workers cheaper than their own. It is they who have brought on the more or less rapid unraveling of the welfare state, robbing the working classes of the benefits of public services while levying more taxes from them (while reducing those that the rich pay), making them work harder, and pushing for an increase in the age for retirement. Much of this is meant to meet the competition from East Asia, especially totalitarian China, which was introduced to capitalism by president Richard Nixon and secretary of state Henry Kissinger back in the mid-1970s.

Many Americans Are Simply Dumber Than Bush

Two recent polls, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll and a New York Times/CBS News poll, indicate why Bush is getting away with impeachable offenses. Half of the US population is incapable of acquiring, processing and understanding information.

Much of the problem is the media itself, which serves as a disinformation agency for the Bush administration. Fox "News" and right-wing talk radio are the worst, but with propagandistic outlets setting the standard for truth and patriotism, all of the media is affected to some degree.
click here if yer a dumbass

The realities of an Iranian War are such that you know from the outset it will never take place

Preceding the Iranian fantasy we find that China and India have committed $200 billion towards Iran’s oil and natural gas industry, much of these investment d0llars having already been spent. These two Iranian oil and gas customers have large armies, navies, air forces and nuclear weapons to defend their investment. Most importantly what these two countries have is between them over a trillion d0llars of US and British oligarch investments that have been made in their two countries.
If war breaks out, at the stroke of a pen these investments will be nationalized by China and India. India was just told that Michael Dell of Dell Computer was hiring 5,000 people in India; Bill Gates was just in India getting ready to invest $4 billion, IC foundries are being set up in India and if these investments get nationalized it’s the Oligarchs not India who become the losers. This I can assure you will not be allowed to happen and the only way this doesn’t happen is there is no war.
fairy tale link

Grandpa 'Munster' dies at age 82

NEW YORK (AP) -- Al Lewis, the cigar-chomping patriarch of "The Munsters" whose work as a basketball scout, restaurateur and political candidate never eclipsed his role as Grandpa from the television sitcom, died after years of failing health. He was 82.

The actor was widely reported to have been born in 1910, but his son Ted Lewis said Saturday that his father was born in 1923.

there is no demur, no moral shock. Just tough talk about "doing whatever it takes" to defend civilization from the barbarians.

Global Eye
By Chris Floyd


Last month, President George W. Bush murdered four children. This is not a controversial statement. There is no dispute about the facts. Indeed, Bush's own minions fully acknowledge -- even celebrate -- the deed. Nor has the political opposition or the national media offered the slightest objection to the principle of presidential murder.

Strange, isn't it? While the American Establishment is now convulsed over the issue of a president ordering wiretaps without court approval, the same president's assertion of the right to kill anyone on earth he chooses without charges, trial or judicial review is readily accepted on all sides. Even when these "targeted assassinations" go horribly awry -- as in Pakistan last month, when 18 innocent people, including four children, were obliterated in their homes by Hellfire missiles, as The Observer reports -- there is no demur, no moral shock. Just tough talk about "doing whatever it takes" to defend civilization from the barbarians.

ITWASSOOTED

It remainds me of a conversation that took place in Oslo, Norway, a short time after the German invasion back in 1940. A German army officer was complaining to a Norwegian that Germany was under continious attacks. The Norwegian replied: "It`s odd that the attacks on you always happen in foreign countries!"

Colbert thanks all Americans for voting against their own interests.

Colbert thanks all Americans for voting against their own interests.

Video-QT



via

Damascus: Danish Embassy set afire

who gains from this "show of satire"? the imbicile that ran the cartoons said that allah isn't immune from satire and knew full well about the oncoming jihad? i say it was a well planned operation to inflame the zealots again and again to bring on the gawd damn clash of civilisations all these fucking zealots want. next stop canada? how will they do it in south america?

Thousands of outraged Syrian demonstrators stormed the Danish Embassy in Damascus Saturday and set fire to the building in protest of offensive caricatures of Islam's prophet.

Thick, black smoke was still rising from the three-story building as firefighters struggled tried to put out the flames.

The protest started out peacefully but as anger escalated, people broke through police barriers and used the concrete barricades protecting the embassy as ladders to climb inside the building and set it on fire.

"With our blood and souls we defend you, O Prophet of God," they chanted.
link to the fuckheads in cartoon ops

who needs big tits...

when you have an ass like this

It is possible to create an incident...

The paper's editor has told the BBC his intention was to show Muslims they were not exempt from satire.

let me jerk this circle too, is it possible that the publishing of these cartoons was a planned operation to spread the inflamation of religous zealotry to unefected nations to help rally support of a global fookun jihad? ask yourself who gains from doing this? would evil men court disasters just to gain support for their initiatives aroundf the globe? would a few more riots in europe help convince the old europeans that they can't be isolationistas in the global war on terror?

Annan urges calm in cartoon row

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has called for calm in a row over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that has seen protests erupt across the Muslim world.

Mr Annan said he shared the distress of Muslims upset by the cartoons but urged them to accept an apology from the Danish paper that first published them.

The paper's editor has told the BBC his intention was to show Muslims they were not exempt from satire.

Islamic tradition regards any depiction of the Prophet Muhammad as blasphemous.

'Great damage'

Kofi Annan said he was "distressed and concerned at the whole affair" and appealed for no-one to "inflame an already difficult situation".
burning down the theatre link at bbc