I love the internet weekly!

What we Should Have Done in 2000

Kitten Killer Frist failed to follow disclosure rules

Frist and his wife are the sole trustees in charge of a family foundation bearing the senator's name, according to Internal Revenue Service forms. However, he has not been listing that position on his Senate disclosure forms, which are made public every year.

"Killing people is like squashing an ant:"

Officer refuses to take part in war

Reservist officer Captain Amir Paster was sentenced on Sunday night to 28 days in a military prison for refusing to take part in the fighting in Lebanon. It was the first case of refusal to serve in the army since hostilities in Lebanon erupted.

Paster, 28, arrived at his base after being drafted and told his soldiers that he refused to take part in operations that harm innocent civilians.

The IDF spokesman strongly condemned Paster. "We view any case of refusal in the utmost severity. So far, the IDF has drafted a very large reservist contingent, the vast majority of whom have reported for duty," the army said.

Why Do the Feds Want to Track College Students?

Does the federal government need to know whether you aced Aristotelian ethics but had to repeat introductory biology? Does it need to know your family's financial profile, how much aid you received and whether you took off a semester to help out at home?

The Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education thinks so. In its first draft report, released in late June, the commission called for creation of a tracking system to collect sensitive information about our nation's college students. Its second draft, made public last week, softens the name of the plan, but the essence of the proposal remains unchanged.

NATO takes charge in southern Afghanistan

Appeal to freeze Rakon exports for Israeli bombs

Carlyle plans $1bn push into Mideast

World Bank Fact Sheet/ World Wide Globalization tools of Oil companies and Such, set up to screw human rights

• What is the World Bank?
• What is the IMF?
• Why are they so important?
• What are structural adjustment programs (SAPs)?
• Is structural adjustment working?
• If structural adjustment doesn't work, then why are they promoting it?
• What about Third World debt?
• What is the relationship between debt and structural adjustment?
• Who makes the decisions?
• How do companies benefit from the lending programs at the World Bank?
• Why is this bad?
• Can they be reformed?
• How can I make a difference?

Qana Where Christian myth says Jesus turned water into wine and Israel turns life into death

Enviro ruin from Russia pipeline break

Russia is the world's second-biggest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia. The pipeline carries about a one-third of Russian oil exports, mostly to Europe.

Vandals scratched a swastika into one of the slabs of Berlin's Holocaust memorial

John Bolton Prevents Kofi Annan's call for an immediate Ceasefire

Israel Gunning for Syria Next

Images of Lebanese Death Intensify Arab Anger

Israel denies breaking Lebanon bombing suspension

The Israeli government is everything it claims Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas are, only WORSE.

Israeli War Criminals Carry Out Airstrikes in Lebanon Despite Cessation

Picture of aborted fetus to be flown over Cleveland

A picture of aborted democracy would be more pertinent

Scientist publishes 'escape route' from global warming

[...]

Professor Crutzen has proposed a method of artificially cooling the global climate by releasing particles of sulphur in the upper atmosphere, which would reflect sunlight and heat back into space. The controversial proposal is being taken seriously by scientists because Professor Crutzen has a proven track record in atmospheric research.

A fleet of high-altitude balloons could be used to scatter the sulphur high overhead, or it could even be fired into the atmosphere using heavy artillery shells, said Professor Crutzen, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany.

[...]

Goose Queen Condi Rice Sidles Up to Ehud Elmert

Condi's idea of diplomacy is to goose all the players, some more than others. Here she is sidling close to Huddie.

I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die

But when they grew up they voted for Reagan in DROVES.

Chain Smoking, heavy drinking Jew Hater and Self righteous Homophobe Mel Gibson is dickhead of the week

Pakistan nuclear upgrade worries India

US Spreading Nuclear Weapons Around the World

Cities are considering water restrictions, and food prices are rising

Bills Soar As Many Hit Gap in Drug Plan

The calls are starting to come in from shocked or angry seniors. They have just learned that their Medicare drug plans are maxing out on early coverage and that they must now spend $2,850 from their own pockets before coverage will resume.

"I can't pay for my medications," one man told Howard Houghton of the Fairfax Area Agency on Aging the other day. "What do I do?"

Hey maybe the drug companies who had this medicare drug benefit legislaltion hand crafted to enrich them at the expense of the nation's elderly could chip in.

Drunken Frat Boys or just more unscrupulous repiglikkkan scum?

A new study reports that a pilot project in Miami-Dade to privatize the dental care of poor children resulted in a huge drop in treatment.

Ex Coulter Bang-Arama-Thon Lesbot Love Interest and Faux Human Being

The 'Peculiar' Disappearance of Iraq Coverage

"CNN will surely remind us today that it is Day 19 of the Israel-Hezbollah war — now branded as Crisis in the Middle East — but you won’t catch anyone saying it’s Day 1,229 of the war in Iraq. On the Big Three networks’ evening newscasts, the time devoted to Iraq has fallen 60 percent between 2003 and this spring, as clocked by the television monitor, the Tyndall Report. On Thursday, Brian Williams of NBC read aloud a 'shame on you' e-mail complaint from the parents of two military sons anguished that his broadcast had so little news about the war.

Let Us Pray

Regulators hold approvals of big-company banks

Bank regulators have halted for six months any new approvals of the sort of industrial banks that Wal-Mart, Home Depot and 12 other companies are seeking to own.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. imposed the moratorium on approving the industrial loan corporations, or ILCs. Nearly 100 members of Congress from both parties recently asked the FDIC to give lawmakers a chance to consider legislation that would block commercial companies from owning the corporations.

Yeah, just what we need. More consolidation, more control by the few. At least someone is trying to stop it in this story, but these behemoth companies will probably run screaming to the courts to fight this.
The right wing won't stop until the country is completely destroyed and there is no competition left.
It ought to be soon.

Big Fucking Deal. McCain's son to join Marines

I don't for one minute believe this fortunate son will be put in harm's way for even a second.
McCain is running for president and this country is probably stupid enough to elect the unscrupulous fake maverick, fake moderate millionaire who has done nothing but pursue the interests of the rich and powerful in his time in the senate.
This is campaigning.

The percentage of members of Congress with children serving in the military is only slightly above 1 percent. Sens. Christopher Bond, a Missouri Republican, and Tim Johnson, a South Dakota Democrat, have had sons serve combat missions in Iraq, Time said.

U.S. Hid Cost of Iraq Projects

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 29 — The State Department agency in charge of $1.4 billion in reconstruction money in Iraq used an accounting shell game to hide ballooning cost overruns on its projects there and knowingly withheld information on schedule delays from Congress, a federal audit released late Friday has found.

France, Lebanon to deploy on border with Israel

37 children killed by Israeli airstrikes in Qana

Lebanese officials: Israeli airstrike kills dozens of civilians

516 Reported Killed in Lebanon, Israel

IN LEBANON:
At least 458 have been killed -- including 403 civilians confirmed dead by the Health Ministry, 20 Lebanese soldiers and at least 35 Hezbollah guerrillas. The health minister says 58 others are known to be buried under the rubble of buildings and 150 more are missing and believed dead.
Among the civilian deaths are 8 Canadians, 2 Kuwaiti nationals, 1 Iraqi, 1 Sri Lankan, 1 Jordanian.
Among the latest deaths:
* A woman and her five children in a strike on their house outside Nabatiyeh.
* A man in another house damaged in the same strike.
* Six bodies pulled out of a house hit by a strike the day before in Ain Arab
IN ISRAEL:
Fifty-two Israelis have been killed, including 33 members of the military and 19 civilians, according to authorities. More than 55 soldiers have been wounded, and more than 335 civilians, according to rescue officials.

OTHERS:
* Four U.N. military observers killed when Israeli bomb hit their post.
* A Nigerian civilian employee working with U.N. observers and his wife, also Nigerian, killed in border fighting.

Lebanon Asks Rice Not to Visit Lebanon

The Lebanese government asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday to put off a visit to Lebanon after an Israeli airstrike that killed more than 50 people.

How American of Them

Any notion you had that Israel is not run by a band of murderers as rapacious and greedy as the ones who run US ...

Collective Punishment Goes on and on in Lebanon

Israel rejects U.N. request for temporary cease-fire for humanitarian relief

Yes, well they are the ones who blocked it when the dems tried to raise it

GOP confident of minimum wage increase

GOP ties tax cut to minimum wage hike

Denmark 'happiest place on earth'

The Passion of the Embryos

HOW time flies when democracy is on the march in the Middle East! Five whole years have passed since ominous Qaeda chatter reached its pre-9/11 fever pitch, culminating in the President's Daily Brief of Aug. 6, 2001: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."

Harris is like Cruella Deville, the cartoon one from the Disney Animated

Hezbollah Not on Russia's Terrorist List

MOSCOW -- Russia on Friday published a list of 17 groups it regards as terrorist organizations, but did not include the Palestinian militant movement Hamas or Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrilla group, both regarded as terrorists in Washington.

Separately, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Hezbollah must have a say in any agreements in the Middle East crisis, Russian news agencies reported -- another sign of differences between Russia and the United States about the region.

Bush Doesn't Get Credit for the great economy he Runs according to republican media shills

Oil prices plunged and the dollar fell sharply last night amid fears that the US economy is buckling under the weight of rising interest rates and the threefold increase in oil prices.

Wall Street was urging the Federal Reserve to hold back from an expected rise in interest rates next month after the commerce department in Washington reported that the growth rate in the world's biggest economy more than halved in the second quarter of 2006.

Evidence of a marked slowdown in the housing market - the mainstay of the economy in recent years - and an end to the government spending spree to rebuild the southern states devastated by Hurricane Katrina meant the economy was expanding at an annual rate of 2.5% in the three months to June. In the first quarter, growth was an annualised 5.6%.
[...]

Did Condi Goose Kofi?

The Globalization of Poverty

[...]policies of economic globalization such as free trade, financial
liberalization, deregulation, reduced government spending, and
privatization concentrate wealth at the top, removing from governments
and communities the very tools needed to ensure equity and to protect
workers, social services, the environment, and sustainable livelihoods.
In this way, economic globalization and its institutions—including the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the World Trade
Organization, and the North American Free Trade Agreement, have created
the most dramatic increase in global inequality—both within and between
nations—in modern history and have increased global poverty.
[...]

Cancer risks linked to common pollutant

House bans MySpace, other social networking sites from public libraries

Repiglikkkans will soon protect us right out of all our rights and liberties.

They're already in bed with us, tracking our credit card purchases, tracking our calls, reading our emails, inserting RFID chips in our licenses and pass ports, tracking us through cell phones, handing our personal data over to private companies and now here they go again, insisting that taxpayers can't have what taxpayers already paid for.

Too bad they aren't so vigilant about what corporations are putting into our food, air, water and brains. They seem to be obsessed with not allowing corporate "rights' to be curtailed ina ny way.

Who knew a corporation had rights?
Not our founders.

Graphic Images depicting the reality and horror of Israel's Invasion and destruction of Gaza

I'm not posting them, but I've linked them.

Map Showing Israeli Bomb Strikes in Lebanon

US 'outrage' over Israeli claims

It should say fake outrage.

Why the Black Outs? A Power Grid Neglected by Deregulation

[...]
Rather than pandering to an electric industry that gave more than $47 million in campaign contributions to federal candidates since 2001 (with 66 percent of that total going to Republicans) Congress needs to restore reliability and affordability to our electric power system. Three steps to improving our system include:

• Providing incentives and assistance to states to help utilities re-acquire generation assets divested during deregulation;
• Promoting decentralized power sources such as distributed generation and wind and solar energy; and,
• Investing in energy efficiency technologies, such as building weatherization, to reduce electricity demand.

[...]

More Bush Big government trying to Purge Food Safety Rules. Risking Public is what GOP does best

[...]

Feinstein and Boxer – backed up by a letter signed by 37 state attorneys general who oppose the measure – said that the federal government is not equipped to do the food-safety regulation that has always been done by the states. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also opposes the bill, they said.

"This is candy with lead in it, dangerous lead," Boxer said pointing to the lollipops and other treats in the bowl on the witness table. "This is a photograph of lead-tainted candy being given to little children," she added, referring to a blow-up of a picture that appeared as part of The Orange County Register's series last year on lead in candy.

"In our state, we have blocked this, and the federal government has no such law," Boxer said.

[...]

More environmental driven Emergencies and destruction retard in Chief says would be too expensive to prevent

Flying reptile mystery 'solved'

You thought this was about Condi and Bush and Anderson Cooper jetting around the world didn't you?
Sorry. Those self obsessed pricks aren't as morally evolved as the average reptile. This is about creatures who lived in another geologic age, one not quiet as warm as the one human beings are presently busy bringing to earth.

UK scientists say they have solved the mystery of why prehistoric flying reptiles grew crests on their heads.

Heatwave hits vegetable supplies. Will a constipated World grow less Violent?

Just can't pass this up:-)

Slide show of Chicago Gay Games

There are almost 300 million people in the United States. Almost.

VIDEO: Bolton More Committed To Right-Wing Think Tank Than Stopping Genocide

Today Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) questioned U.N. Ambassador John Bolton about his failure to attend the U.N. Security Council mission to Sudan in early June. Bolton responded that he had “ a personal commitment in the United Kingdom” and couldn’t “break the commitment” to address the ongoing genocide in Sudan. Watch it:

N Korea spurns talks offer

[...]
At a conference, North Korea struck a defiant tone as US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and top diplomats from other regional powers prepared to discuss Asian security matters without their counterpart from Pyongyang.
[...]

Somalia Militia Gets Military Equipment Delivery

The "hiding among civilians" myth

Throughout this now 16-day-old war, Israeli planes high above civilian areas make decisions on what to bomb. They send huge bombs capable of killing things for hundreds of meters around those targets to destroy them, and then blame the inevitable civilian deaths -- the Lebanese government says 600 civilians have been killed so far -- on "terrorists" who callously use the civilian infrastructure for protection.

But this claim is almost always false. My own reporting and that of other journalists reveals that in fact Hezbollah fighters -- as opposed to the much more numerous Hezbollah political members, and the vastly more numerous Hezbollah sympathizers -- avoid civilians like the plague. Much smarter and better trained than the PLO and Hamas fighters, they know that if they mingle with civilians, they will sooner or later be betrayed by collaborators -- as so many Palestinian militants have been.
[...]

Economic growth slows abruptly in second quarter

Army dismisses gay Arabic linguist 'outed' by anonymous e-mails

Makers of 'Kazaa' settle piracy suits

PBS Chief: Stations Imperiled by FCC Rules

6.1 Quake Rattles Taiwan, No Casualties Reported

U.N. rights body tells Beacon of Freedom U.S. to shut "secret" jails

Pension overhaul bill suffers new setback

Key GOP lawmakers, seeking to keep tax cuts, boycott negotiations.

See John Bolton starring in New PBS Soap Opera Adolph loves Wagner

in which Bolton is well cast as Adolph Hitler and Dick Cheney is badly cast as Richard Wagner. Bolton is so natural in the part he doesn't even have to act.

Brought to you by corporate sponsers, Exxon-Mobil, Lockheed Martin, Halliburton and Bechtel Group

Lebanon official says 600 civilians killed

Collective Punishment at its finest.

Exxon makes $1,318 a second

US House approves India nuclear deal

Total Decentralization. Politics right wing style

Emergency Signs Used to Promote Fish Fries

July 27, 2006, 8:20 PM EDT

NEWPORT, Ind. -- State homeland security officials have warned Vermillion County to stop using electronic emergency message boards to advertise fish fries, spaghetti dinners and other events.

Homeland Security, which bought the 11 signs for $300,000, said the county could risk losing federal money. The county has stopped using the signs for the community announcements, and commissioners plan discuss the matter next week.
[...]

We run the county," Commissioner Tim Wilson said. "We make decisions to run the county on what's best for us. Did we misuse (the signs)? Or did we just run the county as we saw fit?"

Israel says UN can't be part of probe of deadly attack on post

Israel was asked to spare UN post

Death Toll From Calif. Heat Hits 90 - 12 Dead In Missouri Heat Wave

(AP) Corpses piled up at the morgue and aid workers went door-to-door, checking in on elderly people in hopes of keeping the death toll from California's 12-day heat wave from rising.

Yes, the elderly and infirm suffer the new deregulated energy system and cruel lack of social welfare programs disproportionately.

U.S. Extends Religious Rights Sanctions Waiver For Saudi Arabia

Al-Qaida Calls for Holy War Against Israel

Looks like American Israeli strategy is succeeding. Now they'll have an excuse to crush more Arabic speaking countries and blame it on the war on terrorism.

Feds Investigating Abramoff HAVA connection

Israeli strike hits aid truck

Controlled by Oil companies

And not really a solution.

CIA: Civil Liberties Hurt al Qaeda Hunt

Typical fascist whining.

Cassini finds evidence of hydrocarbon lakes on Titan

Beijing yesterday strongly condemned an Israeli air raid in Lebanon

23 more Palestinians, at least half civilians, killed in Gaza

Profits up 65 percent at oil giant. ConocoPhillips earnings top $5 billion in quarter

Right-Wing ‘Guide to World War III’: ‘Kill ‘Em All, Let Allah Sort ‘Em Out’

GrasstopsUSA is no fringe group. Its executive director, Christopher Carmouche, sat on the exclusive host committee for last year’s high-profile “tribute” to then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) (along with luminaries like Grover Norquist), and was a member of the National Coalition to End Judicial Filibusters, the conservative umbrella group run by Manuel Miranda, former staffer to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN).

Filed under: Radical Right, Middle East

Posted by Nico

Today's Biblical Inerrancy

judges 15:15
Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men.

Iraqi Oil

Young vets joining unemployment lines

WASHINGTON Young veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are having a harder time finding a job than their peers who didn't serve in the military.

We Amuricuns love our troops.

To show how much we love them we put big yellow magnetic "ribbons," or foxy camouflage ones, on the backs of our trendy, gas guzzlin; Chevy Suburban Tahoe Ford Expeditions, right up next to our red, white and blue Bush Cheney bumper stickers, the candidates we support so we can kick some AaaaRab ass and not feel so afraid all the time and still never have to think, and have more wars for resources while we whittle away at veterans benefits and rape and pillage the economy so there is less opportunity and growing income inequality for those who typically do the fighting.

Slap on a magnet. That's all the political action you ever need to take. That and tithing at the local Calvinist tabernacle of warrior Jesus.

Israel using chemical weapons: doctors

Amazon rainforest 'could become a desert'

And that could speed up global warming with 'incalculable consequences', says alarming new research

Chicago City Council OKs 'living wage'

Job memo cites effort to oust Democrats

A field representative for Gov. Ernie Fletcher said in a memo to him in May 2004 that the replacement of Democrats in state civil service jobs was progressing, according to documents filed by prosecutors yesterday.

Venezuela Signs $3Bln Military Hardware Deal with Russia

Fresh Cold War revving up to go with the hot ones. All are good for Business. Just look at Lockheed and Raytheon

ConocoPhillips refinery idle after storms

Go figure.

Exxon Mobil Profit Climbs on Gains in Prices, Output

European Stocks Rise on Volkswagen, DaimlerChrysler Earnings
July 27 (Bloomberg) -- European stocks climbed to the highest in two months after Volkswagen AG, the region's biggest carmaker, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and DaimlerChrysler AG reported earnings that beat analysts' estimates.

Raytheon Mulls Aircraft Unit Sale as Earnings Rise (Update2)
July 27 (Bloomberg) -- Raytheon Co., the world's largest missile maker, said it may sell or spin off its aircraft unit and posted a 54 percent gain in second-quarter profit on rising weapon sales to the U.S. and allied nations.

Credit Suisse has been hired to help consider options for the business including a sale, stock offering or spinoff, the company said today in a statement. Raytheon also increased its earnings forecast for this year after net income last quarter rose to $310 million, or 69 cents a share.

Mexican Leftist Says He Is President, Vows Protests

Goddamn Leftist is a dirty word in Amerikkka. We only want right wing extremists here, obviously.

Man Arrested For Shooting Photo Of Police Activity

Notes from the police state

This is another very disturbing recount of police abuse of authority.

Homeland Security Contracts Abused

Well DUH.
Of course.
That's what such contracts were created for, to funnel money to Bush fan war mongers.

Homeland security is not going to keep the country safe. It isn't designed for that at all. National Security and safety are what foreign policy must do. And since the Chimp in chief has pursued a foreign policy guarenteed to create more terrorists, you just have to conclude DHS is about the economic restructuring the corporatists have already succeeded in implementing to a huge degree.

Department of Homeland Security takes your taxes and passes them around to offense defense corporations who, step by step, make your life less private and your society more totalitarian.

I even got her autograph in one of my journals

save the country

Tax Cuts May Come At a Price, Study Says

Yeah, infrastructure, housing, social programs, education, health care, safety regulation, funding for arts (republicans don't fund art because art helps people to think complexly and complex thought is anathema to goosestepping, sexually obsessed, self righteous, bible pounding republican idiots who like to paint a black and white world of evil doers versus Jesus lovers in order to sell their stupid ass agenda of death, destruction and totalitarianism).

All spending of tax money must involve taking the productivity of the country and funneling the wealth citizen energy creates up to the top .01% through such devices as the "War on Terror" and other weapons in the class war.

Greek protesters topple Truman statue in anti-war demo

White House Holds One-Year ‘Celebration’ of Energy Bill With Industry Reps

White House Holds One-Year ‘Celebration’ of Energy Bill With Industry Reps

One year ago today, Congress finalized the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which lavished $14.5 billion in tax breaks on energy firms, nearly 60 percent of which went to “oil, natural gas, coal, electric utilities and nuclear power.”

One year ago, the average national gas price was $2.14. Today, it’s $3.00. The country is no closer to ending its addiction to oil, and fuel economy standards are still stuck at 27.5 miles per gallon (where they’ve been for 20 years). Meanwhile, “five of the world’s largest energy companies are expected to report combined second-quarter profits next week of more than $30 billion.”

For most Americans, this is no reason to celebrate. But most Americans aren’t “Representatives of industries who are benefiting from tax incentives available through the Energy Policy Act of 2005.” Those industry reps are holding a “celebration” of the bill on Capitol Hill today with Energy Secretary Bodman, according to a press release obtained by ThinkProgress:

Hurricane fears could pump up fuel prices

Israel Seeks to Establish New Buffer Zone (illegally acquire more territory through force)

Breach of Faith' is New Orleans' story

As her New Orleans house succumbs to rushing waters and slumps off its foundations, Peters perches on a rooftop mattress, clinging to her daughter and waiting to die. She shouts a wrenching incantation into the howling wind: "Come by here, Lord. Come by here, Lord. I need you, my Lord. Come by here

Gotta get this book

The Real Object of Coulter's Lust is falling even Further Behind

Poll: Nelson widens lead slightly over Harris in Senate race

Ann Coulter's Most Recent Lover

Molecular Biology

Coulter Engaging in Psychoanalysis Now

Political commentator Ann Coulter is taking on former President Bill Clinton's sexuality.

In a taped segment on Tuesday night's edition of CNBC's "The Big Idea With Donny Deutsch," Coulter said that she believes the former president's behavior shows "some level of latent homosexuality."

video at the link

Coulter: Yeah. I mean, not sort of just completely anonymous -- I don't know if you read the Starr report, the rest of us were glued to it, I have many passages memorized. No, there was more plot and dialogue in a porno movie.
Well she ought to know about porno movies. I bet she loves 'em, and the more humiliating and abusive to women the more she loves them, the drag queen shrew.
And I hate Clinton.

Ann must not know the GOP is the party of the latent homosexual male.
Well, maybe not. I don't think closet cases are actually considered "latent." So the GOP is actually the party of the closet case.

Any republikkkan that doesn't hate homosexuals always lets you know right away, especially the openly gay ones - yes, they exist - as this is a big deal to them. Sorta like the way the same bunch are quick to offer black coworkers water melon, grits and greens and talk about "good ones."
Considering the sexual politics of the GOP I suppose Coulter can think of no worse insult than this. But I don't get how "she" draws any conclusions about sex because WHO WOULD FUCK HER? What man or woman or goat? No wonder she's reading the Starr report to get her jollies off.

Climate change experts predict drop in Lake Erie water levels

A Different view of Hezbollah

Five Myths that Sanction Israel’s War Crimes

Rape victim denied morning-after pill

And soon Jesus and his legions of woman haters will deny her an abortion.

Sandinista Aims for Comeback in Nicaragua

Guess the US didn't murder them all. Oliver North must be beside himself.

Congress and the Israeli Attack on Lebanon: A Critical Reading

Rewards roll in for homeless man who found bonds worth nearly $21,000

I've never shared the Calvinist craziness that the poor are bad, though large segments of America does embrace this idea. People seem to be shocked that this homeless man isn't a thief. A cursory glance at modern America would indicate the thieves are mostly wealthy and often in politics, either holding office or buying those who do.

This pretty Much clinches it for me that the attack on UN observers by Israel was deliberate

Danny Ayalon is delusional and completely unable to speak truthfully about anything. I wish Annan would tell him to go fuck himself, but he probably won't.

50 percent of U.S. says Iraq had WMDs

Who are these idiots? Where do they get their disinformation? ( I wish the pollsters would have asked responders that question. I'd be willing tobet a high number of those who think Saddam was loading WMD are FOKKKS News Faithful)

I hardly know how to think about such stupidity. What is it they have lodged up their asses so high it is disrupting their brain functions? I bet it is pig lipstick.

Hillary Clinton Repiglikkkan operative

sounds like BushCo and the Israeli Nutcases invading Lebanon

This item is one of Robert J. Lifton's eight essential elements of a brainwashing program, and one of Margaret Thaler Singer's five required conditions for a "thought reform" program.

The totalist environment draws a sharp line between those whose right to existence can be recognized, and those who possess no such right. In thought reform, as in Chinese Communist practice generally, the world is divided into the "people" (defined as "the working class, the peasant class, the petite bourgeoisie, and the national bourgeoisie"), and the "reactionaries" or "lackies of imperialism" (defined as "the landlord class, the bureaucratic capitalist class, and the KMT reactionaries and their henchmen").
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China, by Robert Jay Lifton, M.D.; W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1963, page 433.

• The cult decides whether people are good or bad, and the cult defines what "good" and "bad" mean.

• The cult decides whether people deserve to live or not.

• The cult decides whether people deserve to go to Heaven or not.

• The cult decides what the truth is.

• The cult has an elitist world view, and declares that only cult members are "good enough", however the cult defines "good".

• The cult dispenses conditional love and conditional approval, often while simultaneously bragging that it offers newcomers "unconditional love" and "complete acceptance". The conditional approval depends on obedience and conformity to the cult's rules.

• And of course the cult practices shunning and ostracism of those who leave -- "deserters" who have committed "the ultimate sin" -- leaving -- which the phony guru will call something like "betraying the cause". Splitters are declared to be evil immoral people (who have no right to live).

Texas, Illinois Vie for Power Project

I liked her Diaries when I was a teen

Iran: The Next War

Check out the Bling

Bush Administration Set to Log Oregon Old Growth Forest

A History of Tyre

Trapped Americans and Tyre, an old, old city, is being bombed again today

Bush again leaving Americans to die because the federal government only exist for Grover Norquist reasons - to cause war, occupy other countries and enrich Lockheed, Halliburton Raytheon and other repiglikkkan concerns.

Oh yeah, and these folks aren't quite white either.

Gee I wish they'd say if it was one of our rapist and murderes who did it

Ancient Statue Looted in Iraq Is Returned
By Associated Press

July 26, 2006, 10:00 AM EDT

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A prized statue of an ancient king that was stolen during widespread looting in Iraq following the U.S. invasion three years ago has been returned to the country's government, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

Israel Needs to Be Stopped

Israeli gunboats fire, stop Turkish evacuation ship: minister
Published: 7/25/2006

ANKARA - Israeli gunboats fired warning shots at a Turkish ferry helping evacuate Australians from Lebanon and held it for several hours, Transport Minister Binali Yildirim said here Tuesday.

Terrified Lebanese villagers find refuge at hospital - but little else

If this doesn't make you puke you must be starving

Kuala Lumpur, July 26: The best-kept secret in global diplomacy is out . US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice will perform a piano recital at the annual gala of Asia�s top security meeting, diplomats and reports said.

The Asean Regional Forum this year has a heavy agenda with conflict raging in the West Asia, a missile crisis on the Korean peninsula, and fury over Burma�s refusal to embrace democratic reforms. But foreign ministers from the 26-nation grouping will have some light relief at the traditional gala dinner during which the world�s top diplomats put aside protocol and perform hilarious skits and musical routines. US secretaries have been particularly keen to poke fun at themselves, with Colin Powell belting out "YMCA" two years ago and Madeleine Albright donning bowler hat and tuxedo in a show-biz turn.

Ms Rice however � a trained pianist with a famously serious demeanour is expected to perform a work from one of her favourite composers, who include Brahms and Shostakovich, the New Straits Times said.

It wouldn't be the first time US troops deployed in Lebanon

Shell Shuts Off Some Nigerian Oil Output

Production difficulties in Nigeria, Iraq and the Gulf of Mexico have unsettled oil markets at a time of rising global demand and a limited supply cushion.

Production difficulties?
Ah, they must mean political upheaval caused by wealthy global business men involved in oil and war machines pushing for more political instability to enrich themselves even further. Billions a month just aren't enough.

UNICEF: 600 Congolese Children Die Per Day

BP Reports $7.3 Billion Profit in 2nd Quarter

LONDON (AP) -- Oil company BP PLC said Tuesday net profit rose 30 percent in the second quarter, as soaring world oil prices counterbalanced lower oil and gas output. Chief Executive John Browne also announced that he would step down at the end of 2008.

BP, one of the world's largest oil companies, posted a net profit of $7.3 billion for the three months ended June 30, up from $5.6 billion a year earlier. Revenue rose 24 percent to $73.5 billion from $59.3 billion.

Terrorist List

A five-year-old Palestinian girl was the youngest casualty on Monday when an Israeli artillery shell landed in the north of the Gaza Strip.

The girl died when the shell landed on her house near the town of Beit Lahiya, three other people were wounded.

In another attack a 60-year-old woman and her grandson were left dead after a shell hit their donkey cart.

Attack on UN observers by Israel looks deliberate: Annan

Bolton, Nazi Dirtbag, Recess appointment as U.N. ambassador ‘polarized the situation’

Iraqi Parliament Speaker Says Invasion and Aftermath Are the ‘Work of Butchers’

I agree.

Warmer Waters Disrupt Pacific Food Chain

[...]
But the steep decline of one bird species for the second straight year has rekindled scientists' fears that global warming could be undermining the coastal food supply, threatening not just the Farallones but entire marine ecosystems.

[...]

ABA Blasts the Specter NSA Bill-Calls for Congress to Wake Up!

Feingold introducing health care plan

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Russ Feingold said Monday that he will push legislation that would set up pilot projects to help states provide universal health coverage.

"The time has come to see if we can get across our ideological differences — which are serious — and to see if we can at least get off the dime with the idea of pilot projects," Feingold, D-Wis., told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "I thought it was time basically to break a logjam."

Hoorah Chicago!

Home sales now a 'buyer's market'

SAUDI ARABIA: KING ANNOUNCES 1.5 BILLION DOLLARS FOR LEBANON

Will Mexican Oil Soon Be Tapped Out?

391 Killed in Lebanon, 41 in Israel

Here's some hopeful, blatant Propaganda in the quest for PNAC

Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land

N Korea blasts 'imbecile' Rice

A kind and generous assessment of this disturbed loon. Never mind the classical music, she loves the bling.

Sexual Harassment: Ewwww. Again

Lebanese hospital struggles with wounded

Venezuela’s Chavez Visits Russia, Belarus

This man is Insane

How Orwellian for Cheney to push the idea that Israeli aggression against Lebanon which - by every sane person's reckoning - will accelerate terrorism is a reason to vote for more neoconservative policies of empire with preemptive invasion and occupation.

"If anyone thinks the conflict is over or soon to be over, all they have to do is look at what's happening in the Middle East today," he said.

Yes, because they green lighted it.
American fascists are in league with Israeli fascists.
Amerikkkans vetoed a ceasefire not because Israel was under grave threat from Hezbollah, but because both rogue governments want to use this invasion of Lebanon as a shoe horn into Iran. They're trying to drum up public sympathy for an attack on Iran that the world does not condone.

Yep. Iran is the new Iraq. Except Iran is not a beaten down 3rd world country that can't fight back.

Yeah, it is all about Iran. This was underscored for me yesterday when I saw creepy, lying, swaggering war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu on Wolf Blitzer claiming that Iran attacked Israel with missiles and has missiles that can reach Europe (implying they are ready to launch) and is working on arming nuclear missiles to send to the eastern seaboard of the United States.
Of course Blitzer didn't ask him for proof of those allegations and the casual viewer will register that horseshit as truth.

If Israel wishes to stop terrorist organizations rising against it, it will stop aggressing against the Arabs. Period. Terrorism suits the Israeli government as it justifies their expansionist policies.

Just like terrorism suits Bush for similar reasons.

That is why both governments pursue policies that increase terrorism. All the talk about protecting their populations from terrorism is CRAP. Anyone killed by a terrorist is just collateral damage in their war on reason, justice and truth.

Terrorism is what happens when you systematically destroy other people, when you violently, relentlessly stamp out any democratic movements and keep a region as chaotic as we have kept the middle east, when you eradicate political power and choices and demoralize a population, strip them of prerogative, call them animals, ignore their viewpoint, sneer at their culture, round them up and imprison them offering them fewer rights than you offer others, ethnically cleanse them. murder them.

How many decades have we been interfering, overthrowing, assassinating, establishing and supporting homicidal dictators and thugs there, doing business with a violent criminal element of those countries while populations be damned, supporting Israel which constantly violates international law, constantly abuses and murders the Palestinians, has previously invaded Lebanon, etc.? What Arabic speaking country has America or Israel not undermined or assaulted?

Cheney and Netanyahu are telling the same BIG lie. Olmert is telling it. Bush is telling it. Wolf Blitzer is telling it. Colonizing, occupying powers have always told the lie of their superiority. These guys are nothing new, but their weapons are far more deadly. History is full of war criminals and kings who have told these same lies in order to get what they want regardless of the horrible consequences.

Amerikkka wants a PNAC empire in the middle east with Israel as prefect. Chasing it will give them the perpetual war they can use an excuse to rule any way they want, to strip us of rights, to take all our pennies for their war profiteers, as they bring the world down around our ears.

All they want next is to go after Iran.

Seizures of Canadian Drugs Rise

WTO global trade talks collapse

The Idiot in Chief in Action

I never expected to agree with these 2 jerks, but here we are

Halliburton

Yes, but it only raised suspicion years into the war graft and corruption because our go getter media thought information about Natalie Hollaway was far more important.

War Crimes

Axis of Idiocy war crimes against Lebanon continue unabated, and with the staunch support of conservative politicos, ironically even ones who look, think and act a lot like Adolph Hitler.

The bombings are so extreme, so clearly targeted at the civilian population of Lebanon that the carpenters are running out of wood for coffins. And the punditry is chanting Iran Iran Iran in an effort to divert public attention and propagandize support for a new Iraq.

Noted transexual look a like kill crazy cultist coulter has called for wiping out all of south Lebanon while condi says a ceasefire is futile, and she will focus on bringing the military aggression to Syria

Senator Bill Wall eyed Kitten Killer Frist Family Business to be sold for 21 Billion

FOUR US soldiers accused of murdering suspected insurgents during a raid in Iraq said they were under orders to "kill all military-age males".

Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War

Under pressure, FDA moves to ensure independence of outside advisers

WASHINGTON (AP) - Outside experts who advise the government on drugs and other regulated products often have financial ties to industry, creating the potential for conflicts of interest.

Fucking nut and corrupt right wing Activist jurist Scalia claims Court must follow president's wishes

Castro, Chavez visit Che Guevara home in Argentina

[...]
Guevara, whose bearded image has become an international symbol of rebellion, helped Castro lead the Cuban revolution in 1959. Eight years later, he was captured by the CIA and executed in Bolivia, where at age 39 he was fighting to spread socialist revolution.
[...]

Stephen Hawkingcriticised President George Bush and European governments who want to stop the funding of research with embryonic stem cells

conservative Political group sells policy with a catch

A conservative group in Washington has gained members and revenue by enrolling people who thought they were just buying insurance policies, it was reported.
[...]
Former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, heads FreedomWorks.
[...]

Archaeologist: Cattle first kept in Sahara

An archaeologist who has spent decades studying sites in the Sahara says nomads who roamed the area millennia ago were the first to domesticate cattle.

At the time, what is now desert was a vast savannah with a humid climate, Dr. Stefan Kropelin of the University of Cologne told the BBC. When the climate changed and the area became one of the driest places on Earth, its inhabitants moved into the Nile Valley.

[...]

Iranian woman blazes trail into space

Anousheh Ansari, who grew up in Tehran and watched reruns of Star Trek, is set to become the world's first female space tourist.

Sounds Like The US

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Times are hard and getting harder in Zimbabwe, where people too proud to cry about hunger, joblessness and misrule could soon find it too dangerous to joke about them.
[...]
The government denies any sinister intent, saying it is putting its anti-terrorism legislation in line with international practice. But Zimbabwe is not on the front lines of the war on terror, and government agents could use the proposed powers to monitor the communications of the political opposition, journalists and human rights activists who are critical of President Robert Mugabe.

Secret police and intelligence agents could violate attorney-client privilege, track financial transactions and negotiations, and eavesdrop on anyone's private life. Anytime a Zimbabwean visits a Web site, makes a deal or tells a joke, Big Brother could be listening or watching.
[...]

Global Drowning in Phillipines - Typhoon Kaemi

Marines Recruiting Through My Space

Saudis ask Bush to call off Israel

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said that during an Oval Office meeting with Bush, he gave the president a letter asking that Bush help seek an immediate cease-fire in the Middle East conflict. The meeting came on the 12th day of fighting in which Israel has bombed south Beirut and other targets while Hezbollah has rained hundreds of rockets on northern Israel.

Report: IRS to cut audits on wealthiest

WASHINGTON, July 23 (UPI) -- The Bush administration plans to cut nearly in half the number of auditors who review tax returns of some of the wealthiest U.S. taxpayers.

Plans call for eliminating 157 of the Internal Revenue Service's 345 estate tax lawyers, The New York Times reported. The cuts will affect audits of taxpayers who are subject to gift and estate taxes when they transfer assets to their children and others, the newspaper said.

IRS Deputy Commissioner Kevin Brown told the Times he ordered the staff cuts because the number of Americans who are subject to the estate tax has fallen under the Bush administration.

However, six IRS estate tax lawyers whose jobs are at risk told the newspaper the cuts are part of a behind-the-scenes move at the IRS to shield people with political connections and complex tax-avoidance devices from thorough audits.

Blackouts as US temperatures soar. FAILING INFRASTRUCTURE destroyed for profit for the few

"Hundreds of thousands of people in different parts of the US continue to be affected by power outages as temperatures soar to record highs.

In California, where temperatures reached 50C (122F) in places, the heat was blamed for at least four deaths.

The power grid was unable to cope with the increased demand for electricity, leading to widespread cuts."
[...]

Lying Misogynist flat worlders

Federally funded "pregnancy resource centers" are incorrectly telling women that abortion results in an increased risk of breast cancer, infertility and deep psychological trauma, a minority congressional report has charged.

The report said 20 out of 23 federally funded centers contacted by staff investigators requesting information about an unintended pregnancy told false or misleading information about the potential risks of an abortion.

[...]

California roasts in record-breaking heat

Emergency declared as power reserves dwindle, a consequence of deregulation and destroyed infrastructure.

New questions over death of Iraq Weapons Inspector David Kelly

"What's left of my country?"

The family is among more than 200,000 Lebanese fleeing to Syria, the Syrian Red Crescent said.

Scores of people on foot stood in line to enter Syria. Scores more waited in cars - a collection of mostly well-used vehicles overflowing with whatever the refugees could carry.

"What's left of my country?" Rahad asked.

Others waiting with him Saturday listened as he shouted in frustration.

"I will take a bomb and put it on me...and explode it if I could find any Israeli. I would explode it and kill myself and them."

He gestured as if stuffing a bomb inside his sweat-stained shirt.

"I am not a terrorist but today, if I could, I would blow myself up. It is enough."

So much for Checks and Balances. GOP Plans to Destroy judiciary

It Just Keeps Getting Better

Twenty-five illegal immigrants employed as contract workers at this Air Force base were arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

The Destroyed Infrastucture

1,500-Year-Old Byzantine Port Discovered

Putin plan to shut out US oil giants

The Russian leader is expected to favour Norwegian companies and reject bids by America's Chevron and ConocoPhillips after failing to secure backing from the United States for his country's attempt to join the World Trade Organisation.

The tit-for-tat snub will be a blow to US companies scrambling for access to Russia's huge gas reserves at a time of high energy prices. It comes after Putin failed to resolve differences with US President George Bush over trade and human rights at the G8 conference in St Petersburg last week.

Mexico: Apparel manufacturing jobs are in a steep decline

A GUASCALIENTES - She works long hours on her feet in a noisy, windowless factory and makes only $6.80 a day , 45 cents more than most workers there because she embellishes denim jeans with dainty flowers. But Yesenia Garcia, 27, is glad to have a job.

The globalizationg, right wing, free trade ownership society thinks she is overpaid so will move their factory to a more economically efficient, totalitarian place such as China.

When workers take to the streets in China, like they do now and then in Mexico, the Chinese government arrests and imprisons them or shoots them. Things are made very cheaply in China and our American branded international businessmen and political "leadership" like that kind of labor ( SLAVE).
Imagine! They sell you blue jeans for 40 dollars which it costs them a dollar to produce.
Free trade. Outstanding.
The next time George Bush tells you democracy and "free markets" are the same thing, think about that, that preference he has for goods made in China and oil produced by monarchies and dictators.

According to figures from the Mexican labor secretariat, the nation has lost 813,000 manufacturing jobs in the six years of President Vicente Fox's administration.

The Gap, Old navy etc., not just walmart and Tom Delay, insist slave labor is good for business.
Because they and their friends demand 100 million dollars a week in profit, instead of 97 million, human needs don't matter.
Besides, John Calvin told the republican protestants swarming the US congress that all tainted, sin-stained humans must lift themselves out of damnation and poverty through Jesus.
Poverty is a sign of spiritual decay, an expression of negative judgment by God. Any kind of law restricting trade or supporting fair labor practices is an affront to god. There is no political or social issue at work, just the character and spiritual quality of the humans in question. That's why NOLA was drowned by Katrina. It's people were bloated with sin of the very worse kind, sexual sin. It is much more comforting to Jesus for you to kill your neighbor than fuck your neighbor,.
Just ask the leaders of the right wing.

Yep, nothing else matters but accepting Jesus and if you'd just do that your salary might rise to 7 dollars a day and even if you died in an environmental disaster you'd go to heaven with gold paved streets.

While the drastic loss in textiles and apparel is often attributed to competition from even lower-wage factories in China, economic development experts in Mexico say the country needs to do more to support export industries from financing to technological backing.

Yes, globalize even more. It's been so good for everyone on the planet. It's lead to war, class war, massive displacement of people, more pollution, mismanagement of resources, lack of social and political innovation and galloping totalitarianism pretty much everywhere but especially in the United States.

Bush administration remaking the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division

[...]

Several new hires worked for prominent conservatives, including former Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr, former attorney general Edwin Meese, Mississippi Senator Trent Lott, and Judge Charles Pickering. And six listed Christian organizations that promote socially conservative views.

The changes in those three sections are echoed to varying degrees throughout the Civil Rights Division, according to current and former staffers.

At the same time, the kinds of cases the Civil Rights Division is bringing have undergone a shift. The division is bringing fewer voting rights and employment cases involving systematic discrimination against African-Americans, and more alleging reverse discrimination against whites and religious discrimination against Christians.Continued...

Mighty US infrastructure Failing Due to republican Policy and republican Rule

The number of people who have been without power in Queens for five days now is actually closer to 100,000, not the figure of 2,000 customers that officials of Consolidated Edison had cited in previous days.
[...]

God the republicans are so unethical and so blatant

Fury Meets Katrina Hospital Arrests

BP pays out millions to Colombian farmers

A group of Colombian farmers has won a multimillion pound settlement from BP after the British oil and gas company was accused of benefiting from a regime of terror carried out by Colombian government paramilitaries to protect a 450-mile pipeline.

Many of the 1,000 farmers and their family members who worked on 52 farms affected by the development, say they have been since been forced to live in destitution in the surrounding towns.

They alleged that BP benefited from harassment and intimidation meted out by Colombian paramilitaries employed by the government to guard the pipeline. It was never alleged that BP had any involvement in any of the paramilitaries' activities.

[...]

Wild Bees And The Flowers They Pollinate Are Disappearing Together

Today's Narcissistic Bigot Zealot

Man behind the marriage amendment

Bolivia Begins Auditing Gas Fields

Bolivian government began auditing foreign-controlled gas fields on Tuesday as it moves forward with the nationalization of its vast natural gas reserves.

Israel Destroys Lebanon TV, Cellular Towers; Troops on Border

Banker linked to Parmalat scandal is found dead

Ex-Pentagon officials accused of contract fraud

The current suit names former acting Navy Secretary Hansford T. Johnson, former acting Navy Undersecretary Douglas Combs and Custer Battles LLC officials including founders Scott Custer and Mike Battles, who were barred in 2004 after billing the government for work that was never done and for padding invoices by much as 100 percent.

Also named were six companies connected to the contracting firm, including Windmill International Ltd., a worldwide contractor run by Combs and Johnson, and a Romanian company, Danubia Global, which purchased Custer Battles in 2005.

Eli Lilly Posts 2Q Profit of $822 Million

Jason McIntosh, a production technician at Eli Lilly and Company, examines Cymbalta 60mg pills in an Indianapolis file photo from Jan. 25, 2006. Eli Lilly and Co. swung to a profit in the second quarter after a loss a year ago that had included a hefty product liability charge. The drug company reiterated its full-year earnings outlook, but said it now sees 2006 sales growth at the low end of prior guidance.

Yep, done here. Let's BOMB IRAN!

"Iraq as a political project is finished," a top government official told Reuters -- anonymously because the coalition of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki remains committed in public to a U.S.-sponsored constitution preserving Iraq's unity.

"The parties have moved to Plan B," the official said, saying Sunni, ethnic Kurdish and majority Shi'ite blocs were looking at ways to divide power and resources and to solve the conundrum of Baghdad's mixed population of seven million.

"There is serious talk of Baghdad being divided into east and west," said the official, who has long been a proponent of the present government's objectives. "We are extremely worried."

[...]

More Death by Weather

The number of people killed in a storm that hit southern China last week has risen to more than 500 - more than double the original estimate

Another Bush Debacle Unfolding

Russia to Supply $1bn in Military Aircraft to Venezuela

Death toll from Indonesia tsunami hits 659

More troops to be deployed to Baghdad, general says

More Family Values

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- A Republican running for governor was arrested on suspicion of public intoxication following a GOP rally in Knoxville, sheriff's officials said.
[...]

US Claims Iranians witnessed N. Korean missile test

How convenient a revelation for other little republicans who want nothing more than to attack Iran.

Protesters Take Over Oaxaca, Mexico

Too bad Amerikkkans didn't respond this way when the Bush Crew stole 2 elections.

Report raps Pentagon for equipment sales

WASHINGTON - Undercover government investigators purchased sensitive surplus military equipment such as launcher mounts for shoulder-fired missiles and guided missile radar test sets from a Defense Department contractor.
Defense department CONTRACTOR?
What is that? Which one? Lockheed?

Thousands of items that should have been destroyed were sold to the public, the report said. Much of the equipment was sold for pennies on the dollar. You have to suppose that's because the tax payers all ready paid for it. Offense Contractors don't have fire sales.

In the report, the GAO said it had briefed Pentagon officials on its findings but that the Pentagon had no response because it had not had time to perform a detailed review.
That means Rumsfeld is napping again, like he was when he planned he Iraq occupation. Terminal satyriasis is exhausting you know.

Rep. Christopher Shays (news, bio, voting record), R-Conn., chairman of the
House Government Reform Committee's national security panel, will hold a hearing on the matter Tuesday. Earlier GAO reports also had found lax security controls over sensitive excess military equipment.
Ah, a republican heading a committee to investigate republicans. That ought to be a big cover up.

U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis

The United States IS actively aiding the bombing campaign, of course. The United States vetoed a UN cease fire based on some Orwellian double speak (war is peace) and probably requested, if not ordered Israel to invade Lebanon as a prelude to attacking Iran.

Every bit of MSM coverage claims Iran is arming and running Hezbollah, and excludes all salient facts about the 82 Israeli invasion as well as all the other information one needs to understand what and why Hezbollah is, and that it is growing exponentially because of this dumb ass attack.

And does the New York Times really believe Arab governments don't already understand the relationship between Israel and the United States? Is Judy "girl stenographer" Miller back in the NeoCon saddle?
[...]
The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran's efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.
[...]

I blogged this a few months ago. Apparently it is still ongoing.

FEMA muzzling La. trailer-park residents

By The Associated Press
07.20.06

MORGAN CITY, La. — Residents of trailer parks set up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to house hurricane victims in Louisiana aren't allowed to talk to the press without an official escort, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate reported.

In one instance, a security guard ordered an Advocate reporter out of a trailer during an interview in Morgan City. Similar FEMA rules were enforced in Davant, in Plaquemines Parish.

FEMA spokeswoman Rachel Rodi wouldn't say whether the security guards' actions complied with FEMA policy, saying the matter was being reviewed. But she confirmed that FEMA does not allow the news media to speak alone to residents in their trailers.

"If a resident invites the media to the trailer, they have to be escorted by a FEMA representative who sits in on the interview," Rodi told the newspaper for its July 15 report. "That's just a policy."

[...]

O'Reilly: "[A] lot of Jewish liberals" think "terrorists ... have the right to do whatever they want," such as "behead people on camera"

I know She Swine watched this with her hands down her pants. She recommended O'Reilly to me as someone with good, old fashion common sense. As if she knows what that is.

Kristol Suggests People of Iran Would Embrace U.S. Attack, Triggering Regime Change

Mideast Conflict Boosts Chances of Iran-US Showdown

Israeli Refusenik vs. Israeli Peace Party Member: A Debate on Israel's Assault on Lebanon

While a large part of the international community opposes Israel's offensive on Lebanon, polls conducted over the past week have shown that between 90 and 95 percent of Israeli Jews remain in support of Israel's actions, including members of the major Israeli peace parties. Yet as the assault continues into its tenth day, there are also many Israelis who have begun to speak out against their country's policies.

This week Staff Seargent Itzik Shabbat became the first Israeli soldier to refuse to participate in the attacks on Lebanon. The Israeli peace party, Meretz, which initially supported the military's actions, has more recently begun questioning the extent of the current violence, according to a spokesperson for Meretz head Yossi Beilin.

• Yonatan Shapira, a former Captain in the Israeli Air Force Reserves. In 2003 Yonatan initiated the group of Israeli Air Force pilots who refused to fly attack missions on Palestinian territories. He is also the founder of the organization Combatants for Peace.
• Uri Zaki, chairman of Young Meretz.

U.S. Arming of Israel: How U.S. Weapons Manufacturers Profit From Middle East Conflict

NY Power Outage, as many as 100,000 no power in Queens

No Wonder Bush Couldn't keep his Brush Cutter's Paws off Merkel

senator brownback is a vagina!

Hmm Wonder where I put that constitution? Next to the toilet maybe?

It's A Wonderful Day in the Neighborhood.. Will You Be MINE?

Happy 14th Amendment Day!

[...]

But consider this. Until the 14th Amendment, the idea of human equality, extolled in the Declaration of Independence, appeared nowhere in the Constitution. The word "equal," when written in the original document, referred mostly to voting privileges for the states. In addition, the Constitution contained no definition of American citizenship, seemingly leaving the matter to the states.

Even the Bill of Rights itself only covered the federal government -- overreaching state governments could, and did, restrict free speech, freedom of religion, due process of law and other basic rights. In short, the Framers of 1787 set up a flawed confederation of insular states, each of which was free to oppress, and even enslave, some or all of its population.

No matter what we've been taught in civics class, that original system was a failure. Its flaws led directly to the bloodiest war in American history. After nearly a million deaths, the anti-slavery leaders of Congress set out in 1865 to re-create the United States as a nation, with a powerful central government, democratic institutions at every level and a list of rights no government, state or federal, could violate. Far more than the Framers of 1787, John Bingham, Thaddeus Stevens, William P. Fessenden and the other authors of the 14th Amendment designed the America we live in today. It was, in their vision, to be a unified nation. Local majorities in states were to be barred by federal power from oppressing religious, political or racial minorities. And immigrants were to be a part of the nation as fully as those native-born, considered equal before the courts.
[...]

Letters to Ha'aretz

House Government Reform Committee began inquiry into allegations White House officials doctored global warming reports to play down threat

Tropical Storm Beryl Make Landfall on Nantucket Bringing Steady, Driving Rain to Coastal Mass.

So much for kidnapping.

Israel set war plan more than a year ago
Strategy was put in motion as Hezbollah began increasing its military strength

Drug Errors Harm 1.5 Million A Year

CBS/AP) More than 1.5 million Americans are injured every year by drug errors in hospitals, nursing homes and doctor's offices, a count that doesn't even estimate patients' own medication mix-ups, says a report that calls for major steps to increase patient safety.

Topping that list: All prescriptions should be written electronically by 2010, the Institute of Medicine said. At least a quarter of all medication-related injuries are preventable, the institute concluded in the report it released Thursday.

Perhaps the most stunning finding of the report was that, on average, a hospitalized patient is subject to at least one medication error per day despite intense efforts to improve hospital care in the six years since the institute began focusing attention on medical mistakes of all kinds.
No wonder repiglikkkans want to take away the public's right to sue for medical malpractice, especially when you see how many health care conglomerates are repiglikkkan owned and operated..

One none to bright repiglikkan explained it to me this way - "if the Volvo garage screws up the brakes on your car you wouldn't expect to get 50 million dollars would you? "

I assumed he got that poor analogy from FOX or Limbaugh since both like to characterize "liberals" as Volvo drivers, but even though it was unoriginal I was forced to explain that a doctor taking your life or permanently destroying your health isn't the same as an automotive garage damaging your car, and that I didn't attach a dollar amount to life which would be very hard to do which is why a jury should determine that number on a case to case basis, and the injured or their survivors should always have their day in court.

This caused the republican, who likes to call George Bush " a real leader" to sputter, then prove he had no arguement by attacking me personally rather than of explaining and clarifying his position.

Each republican with whom I've hade contact is at least somewhat inarticulate, unable to use accurate analogy, more concerned about money than people, deeply authoritarian and a big believer in all kinds of racist, sexist, religious delusion. To man. Every one of them.

NAACP Takes Flight Into Heavy Maochism, Invites Plantation Master to Speak

Israel Says It's Mobilizing Several Thousand Reserve Soldiers

Dennis Hastert, a pig on an all expenses paid fishing trip in Alaska with oil industry lobbyists

Welcoming North Carolina to the the last century finally

More Global Warming is too expensive to fix

National Guard evacuating people in St. Louis

Elderly woman dies; 500,000 homes, businesses without power

More Wise Decisions from whacked out repiglikkkans seeking any manner of abuse, punishment, deat decay and apocalypse

USDA Scales Back Mad-Cow Testing

Scientists Plan to Rebuild Neanderthal Genome

Folded into homo sapiens? Or wiped out by us with our superior aggression?

The Kinder Gentler Nation Report

Feeding homeless outlawed
ACLU calls measure unenforceable

Earth faces 'catastrophic loss of species'

[...]
The planet is losing species faster than at any time since 65 million years ago, when the earth was hit by an enormous asteroid that wiped out thousands of animals and plants, including the dinosaurs. Scientists estimate that the current rate at which species are becoming extinct is between 100 and 1,000 times greater than the normal "background" extinction rate - and say this is all due to human activity.
[...]

Strapped for money, Army extends cutbacks

Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, said last week that in 2004 it cost $4 billion to repair or replace war equipment, but now it has reached $12 billion to $13 billion. "And in my view, we will continue to see this escalate," he said, adding that the Army is using up equipment at four times the rate for which it was designed.
[...]
The Army's 2006 budget is $98.2 billion, and the 2007 budget request not yet approved by Congress seeks $111 billion for the Army.

About 100,000 of the approximately 127,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are Army. Most of the rest are Marines.
[..]
Bush sure knows how to butter his pal's bread. What a fantastic way to reroute the wealth of the nation - a perpetual war on terror.

Experts: Al-Qaida is back

Ban of blogs stirs outrage from India to Silicon Valley

[...]
``A lot of people are saying, `Wait a minute. This can't be happening in India. China, yes. Pakistan, understandable','' said Fremont blogger Sabahat Ashraf, who has several blogs that attract readers from India but now can't be read in India. ``People are startled and distressed.''

Other Silicon Valley bloggers are baffled and angry over India's ban in recent days of blogs hosted by popular services used by Americans. The ban of 17 blogs and Web sites, which the government claimed fanned religious hatred, was unintentionally extended to millions of blogs when some of India's Internet service providers blocked entire domain names, instead of just the specific sites. Banned domains include Google's Blogger, Yahoo's GeoCities and Six Apart's TypePad services.
[...]

Marines' History in Lebanon Dates to '58

Global Warming 7/20/06

Undermining Public Schools At Tax Payer Expense

Targeting Terrorists or Why They Hate Us

The Injury Wal Mart inflicts is far bigger

State Sponsered Terrorism Targeting Civilian Populations

Graphic Images

Israeli Children Writing on Rockets

Islamic Religious Hypocrisy and the institutionalized, culturally sanctioned Abuse of Women

Oh yes, and the pious are blaming us. How is it the religious of any stripe are so unable to take responsibility for their actions?
I'd like to stuff Islam in a burlap bag with Christianity and drop them both in the river to drown.

A Unitary Governor Unfolding

The Corrections Corporation of America and the Geo Group

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) has locked up a big share of the private prison market. The company operates more than 60 correctional, detention, and juvenile facilities with a capacity of some 70,000 beds in about 20 states and Washington, DC. CCA contracts with federal, state, and local authorities to manage the facilities, about 40 of which are company-owned. CCA also owns three facilities that are managed by other companies. Federal correctional and detention authorities account for more than 35% of CCA's sales. The company provides rehabilitation programs for inmates of its facilities.

And what about our citizen social contract in which we agree that as a society we establish and enforce laws so that there is public oversight of our criminal justice and prison system, and public oversight of the administrative costs of privatizing out prison system? With prison for profit what incentives do those spooks who float back and forth between government jobs and private industry have to make prison more likely and more costly?

The increased numbers of people in prison, and the often absurd laws that imprison them make much more sense when you realize corporations are profiting from imprisoning people.

FBI investigates willful destruction of Bible

Those FBI agents need to read the First Amendment in which my Constitution gives me the right to shoot up a whole boat load of bibles, if I feel like it, burn them, wipe my ass on them or otherwise destroy them in any way I want, and film it, post it on You Tube or make a major motion picture of it much in the same way Mel Gibson made The Passion of Christ.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

More Vote Fixing

APN) ATLANTA –“You’ve got electronic voting machines. Many people called in and shared their concern. They pushed the button for Cynthia McKinney and Hank Johnson came up. It wasn’t one time, it wasn’t two times, it was many, many times,” Karen Fitzpatrick, who has been monitoring elections for US Rep. McKinney’s re-election campaign, told Atlanta Progressive News in an exclusive interview.
[...]

Oman Trade Pact Permits Foreign Ownership of U.S. Nat’l Security Assets

Colbert: Remember, these guys know war. They’re the ones that brought you the War on Christmas.

Why James Dobson is Such A Nutcase

Progress in Iraq Where we were greeeted as liberators (my ass)

Iraq civilian toll spikes to nearly 6,000

By NICK WADHAMS Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS — Nearly 6,000 civilians were slain across Iraq in May and June, a spike in deaths that coincided with rising sectarian attacks across the country, the United Nations said Tuesday.

The report from the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq describes a wave of lawlessness and crime, including assassinations, bombings, kidnappings, torture and intimidation.

Hundreds of teachers, judges, religious leaders and doctors have been targeted for death, and thousands of people have fled, the report said. Evidence suggests militants also have begun to target homosexuals, it said.

Hezbollah threatens major Tel Aviv siege

BEIRUT, Lebanon, July 19 (UPI) -- As many as 500 Hezbollah missiles will target Tel Aviv soon, but residents will be given one hour's notice to flee, a Palestinian news agency reports.

The US government has lost track of the cost of the "war on terror"

Dozens Dead or Missing in N. Korea Floods

Ohio foreclosures continue climb

First Baghdad bank heist nets 1.4 billion

Britain 'had apartheid society'

[...]

"The native Britons were genetically and culturally absorbed by the Anglo-Saxons over a period of as little as a few hundred years," Dr Thomas added.

"An initially small invading Anglo-Saxon elite could have quickly established themselves by having more children who survived to adulthood, thanks to their military power and economic advantage.

"We believe that they also prevented the native British genes getting into the Anglo-Saxon population by restricting intermarriage in a system of apartheid that left the country culturally and genetically Germanised.

[...]

Germanized. Love that description.

Photos of War taken by Lebanese People

Chicago Weighs New Prohibition: Bad-for-You Fats

US orders nine warships to waters off Lebanon

[...]
Though only 124 Americans have been brought out so far, the State Department defended the speed of the evacuation, calling it "highly organized, very efficient, very active."
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Latest targets of air blitz: War Crimes, milk and medicine

BEIRUT: Israel switched gears in its military campaign against Lebanon Monday and Tuesday, launching a series of debilitating air strikes against privately owned factories throughout the country and dealing a devastating blow to an economy already paralyzed by a week of hits on residential areas and crucial infrastructure.

The production facilities of at least five companies in key industrial sectors - including the country's largest dairy farm, Liban Lait; a paper mill; a packaging firm and a pharmaceutical plant - have been disabled or completely destroyed. Industry insiders say the losses will cripple the economy for decades to come.

"I think the picture will be much worse than we can possible imagine when the whole thing ends, but the direct damage from yesterday's attacks to the industrial sector alone will take years to recover from," said Wajid al-Bisri, the vice-president of the Lebanese Association of Industrialists (LAI).

Deep Purple plans Lebanon performance

I wanna hear Highway Star!

Ralph Reed concedes defeat

And Now For Something Completely Different

Snow is a typical Fox News Prick. More Proof Bush is an Idiot if he thinks this rude, stupid boy can help his image

Snow To Helen Thomas: ‘Thank You For the Hezbollah View’

Amerikkka's Private Prisons Will Benefit

Venezuela plans to enter into a joint venture with China to manufacture oil drills, instead of buying them from U.S. companies

Israeli tanks enter Gaza refugee camp

free and Independent media

Former Time Inc. Editor-in-Chief Norman Pearlstine is to join elite private equity firm the Carlyle Group as a senior advisor, reports Keith Kelly. He will leave his current position as senior adviser to Time Warner to which he ascended after leaving the executive editorship of Time Inc.

"Pro-Life" Advocates Now Buying Abortion Centers to Close Them Down

Why Is Hezbollah Popular?

Why we need federal minimum wage laws or my target boycott has started

Target Threatens to Close Chicago Stores If Wage Proposal Passes

Bush Administration Charging for Evacuating Citizens from Lebanon. Privatization is no joke. But can they get their taxes back?

How much have they spent in Iraq?

The Department of State reminds American citizens that the U.S. government does not provide no-cost transportation but does have the authority to provide repatriations loans to those in financial need [emphasis mine]. For the portion of your trip directly handled by the U.S. Government we will ask you to sign a promissory note and we will bill you at a later date. In a subsequent message, when we have specific details about the transportation arrangements, we will inform you about the costs you will incur. We will also work with commercial aircraft to ensure that they have adequate flights to help you depart Cyprus and connect to your final destination.

The repiglikkkan governing philosophy that the federal government bear no financial or even managerial responsibility for anything other than war waging and domestic and foreign spying is made clear once again in this news story. Waging war is good for the personal economy of Bush Friends who own the offense industry.

Remember that "ranch" where mad drunk Dick the jackal Cheney shot Harry Wittington in the face? The Armstrong ranch? The Armstrongs with their lobbyist connections to offense defense Lockheed Martin, the company that has profited most from 9/11? The Armstrongs and their kind like all the wars Bush, the war time president and decider who makes decisions in the oval office with war on his "mind" is leading us into.

Even if Grover , Jackie A., Tom Terminal Satyriasis Delay, Ralph Closet Reed and other K street Muppets do eventually end up in the slammer where they belong, the damage will have been done, the infrastructure removed, all government functions INCLUDING REGULATION privatized and all decision making authority handed over to CORPORATIONS.

How wacked is that?.

The federal government will have been drowned in the hot toxic bath water of NOLA . Just like Norquist said.

Lebanon death toll passes 230

Democracy in Crisis - An Exclusive BRAD BLOG Interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

How Come the Government Officials who strummed Guitar while it happened haven't been arrested?

Arrests made for post-Katrina euthanasia

NEW ORLEANS, July 18 (UPI) -- New Orleans authorities have arrested a doctor and two nurses allegedly involved in some of the 45 deaths of hospital patients in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Sources told WWL-TV, New Orleans, the three staff members were booked at the Orleans Parish Prison Monday night and released by a judge on their own recognizance.

They were charged with being principal to second-degree murder, the report said.

[...]

Storms lash Midwest, thousands lose power

[...]

The violent weather caused blackouts in southern Wisconsin, central Michigan and northeast Illinois, where some 65,000 Commonwealth Edison customers were without power at mid-morning Tuesday, including 24,000 in Chicago, The Chicago Tribune reported.

More than 110,000 homes and businesses in Illinois suffered outages at the height of the storms. Winds near 70 mph were recorded in Chicago's northern suburbs.

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Juan Cole Excerpt

[...]
The Levant is now a joint US-Israeli sphere of Influence. Egypt and Jordan both have peace treaties with Israel and are non-NATO allies of the US. So they won't do more than politely disagree that Israel's wholesale destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure is useful. Turkey is part of the joint US-Israeli sphere of influence, with close military ties to both countries. Iraq is now working the American training wheels, in Bush's parlance, and although it has not formally joined the full US-Israeli sphere of influence, it has no military to speak of and basically its legs are broken. The Gulf monarchies have more or less acquiesced in the situation as well.

Syria and Iran are the only two significant dissenters. Syria is weak and isolated, having been expelled from Lebanon and having lost its Soviet patron a decade and a half ago. Iran is distant from the scene and although it might give some rockets and training to a group like Hizbullah, it does not have a history of direct military intervention in other countries anyway. The Lebanese should not hold their breath expecting succor from either quarter.
[...]

Bush Personally Blocked DOJ Investigation Of Wiretapping Program

Pick One. Global Warming or Lebanon? US Up to Eyebrows in Both

Hillary Clinton is Not My Candidate

On Monday, July 17, 2006, at Fox News headquarters in New York City, Rupert Murdoch hosted a fundraiser breakfast for Hillary Clinton. Then he rushed off to a fundraiser lunch for John McCain, and Hillary rushed off to announce her unqualified support for Israel's and Bush's war policies.
...

All Americans behind Israel, says Hillary Clinton
I'm not and I'm not behind her either.
If Hillary and Barack Obama are the future of the democratic party, the democratic party has no future and my energy will go to building the Green Party, the party the democrats love to hate because it exposes their right wing pandering and corporatist policies.

A Sampling of Arab TV Coverage of the Middle East Crisis

World Health Organization: Lebanese Residents Displaced by Israeli Bombardment Expected to Top 900,000

Tortured poisoned Chicken packing jobs at risk. You are what you eat. Really.

The meat processor, which employs 114,000 people worldwide, plans to eliminate 420 jobs while leaving vacant a further 430 jobs which are currently unfilled.
[...]
Jobs being eliminated include 140 positions in northwest Arkansas and 90 in Dakota Dunes and Dakota City, Nebraska. The remaining positions are at various locations throughout the company.
[...]

With sales of over $26bn Tyson is the world's largest protein processor with operations in beef, chicken and pork, as well as branded packaged foods.

But while US beef exports to Japan and South Korea remain restricted due to fears of BSE contamination, and domestic consumers are shying away from chicken following bird flu media hype, the outlook remains bleak for the food manufacturer.

[...]