Billmon also has some Good News

Just stumbled over this piece of good news:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush holds a 49-to-43 percent edge over his Democratic rival in the latest CNN/Time poll, conducted Wednesday and Thursday.

The poll of 2,060 adult Americans, including 1,076 likely voters, has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points and is thus in essential agreement with a CNN/USA Today/Gallup tracking poll also released Friday. That poll gives Bush a 52 percent-39 percent edge. More important, both polls show the same snapshot of the current state of the presidential campaign: a solid advantage for Bush.

CNN/Time poll: Bush holds edge

Billmon finds more analogies.

Billmon on Osama’s Endorsement for Bush:

… a boogeyman with which to frighten that last sliver of undecided voters into rejecting change. Al Qaeda, it seems, has evolved into one hell of an effective 527 organization.

Your comments on The Future Belongs to Me

News and views…

It’s not going as planed for Bush. The media has turned a bit around and finally remembers its task to reveal facts and opine for decency. Yes, their propaganda for the Iraq war did fall apart, yes, they screwed up the execution of the war, yes, they are robber barons. But where does the press asks the real questions? Why does the US feels the need to be a superpower. Why is there the need to be the bully? Still 170 degree to turn folks.

Why is a report about 100,000 Iraqi war death – in just 18 month – published in the UK Lancet and not in the States? Why is anybody astonished about these numbers? Hersh has been asking this for weeks and month:

Since June 28, the bombing has gone up exponentially. Bombing, bombing, bombing. Civilian targets, civilian neighborhoods.

But I don’t see anyone in the press worrying about it. I don’t see them demanding to know how many sorties we’re flying – have they grown? Are more bombs being dropped? What’s the tonnage? We don’t know any of that, do we?

And its not only Iraqis dying. GIs dying in the war are only reported when they die in Iraq. As most severely wounded are flown out of Iraq within 24 hours, there must be some number of them dying from their wounds later. Where are they counted? How big is that number? One hundred? One thousand? More? Does anybody ask this question?

John Pilger in the New Statesman sees “Americanism” endangering the world, no matter who wins this election. There is only one hope

Perhaps those millions of worried Americans who are currently paralysed by wanting to get rid of Bush at any price will shake off their ambivalence, regardless of who wins on 2 November. Then, as during the civil rights campaign, the Vietnam war and the great movement to freeze nuclear weapons, will a giant awaken?

It’s an open question. Mosh makes me believe that there is a chance for this to happen. But how long will it take and how many people will have to die before?

SEATTLE – The Bush administration has proposed giving dam owners the exclusive right to appeal Interior Department rulings about how dams should be licensed and operated on American rivers
…
The proposal would prevent states, Indian tribes and environmental groups from making their own appeals, while granting dam owners the opportunity to take their complaints — and suggested solutions — directly to senior political appointees in the Interior Department.
…
Dam owners “would be facing an extremely high cost and very uncertain benefits,” said Lynn Scarlett, the assistant secretary at Interior for policy, management and budget who approved the proposed rule. “Giving them some ability to voice their concern and present alternatives seemed appropriate.”
…
[The proposal] will be open to public comment until Nov. 8. The department can then, with the approval of the Office of Management and Budget, issue a final rule that has the power of law.

Further proposals, pairing future government rulings and the exclusive rights to appeal them, are to be published in next months Federal Register. Some possible pairings mentioned in the press conference were:

Ruling on / Exclusive Right to Appeal
– abortions / priests
– car driving / car owners,
– torturing / torturers,
– air quality / polluters,
– dams / dam owners,
– marriage / married couples,
– milk quality / diary farmers.

http://www.georgewbush.com results in:

BBC: Bush website blocked outside US

Surfers outside the US have been unable to visit the official re-election site of President George W Bush.

The BBC article suggests costs as a factor, but I don´t buy that. Foreign traffic is usually neglectible compared to US traffic plus they are running on the Akamai network which has local cache servers in all major countries.

The server is reachable from outside of the US with the URL http://origin.georgewbush.com

Some art makes me weep, this does. Please watch this video:

Don’t matter what color, all that matters is we gathered together
To celebrate for the same cause, no matter the weather
If it rains let it rain, yea the wetter the better
They ain’t gonna stop us, they can’t, we’re stronger now more then ever,
They tell us no we say yea, they tell us stop we say go,

Rebel with a rebel yell, raise hell we gonna let em know
Stomp, push up, mush, fuck Bush, until they bring our troops home come

on just . . .

No more blood for oil, we got our own battles to fight on our own soil
No more psychological warfare, to trick us to thinking that we ain’t loyal
If we don’t serve our own country, we’re patronizing a hero
Look in his eyes its all lies
The stars and stripes, they’ve been swiped, washed out and wiped
And replaced with his own face, Mosh now or die
If I get sniped tonight you know why,
Cause I told you to fight.

Hear the rhythm to really get the lyrics. Watch that video. Strong, very very very strong stuff. There´s some hope.
Lyrics are here

Hi Karl,

It is already the 27th and there still isn’t that surprise. What has happened? You are so good with this stuff so why is there nothing on Fox?

We need a really big one now. The polls show we may lose and all these lawyers and judges are unreliable – they just aren’t the base.

Just talked to Diebold. They have trouble with their vote balancing algorithms – had to take’em out. Now we need direct database access. What a screw up.

Sharon did win his “pay-Gaza-settlers-to-annex-West-Jordan” vote yesterday. No need for him to blow up Teheran now. That bastard is totally unreliable.

Why do the Brits take so long to get to Falluja? Do they expect US to take the casualties? A week before the election? Blair needs a butt kick – Allawi too – talking of “major neglect” – who does he think he is? Have Rummy call them.

And talking about Rummy, his shop is leaking like a sieve. $70 billion request, 30,000 more troops for Iraq, those damned explosives. Can´t he even shut up his Generals.

So where is the surprise? We can have Fox, God and whoever speaking for us, but we need an initiative, a spark, a surprise. We need one!

Don’t tell me there isn’t any coming up. That one would be really bad.

by Harrow

Since Saddam’s government was toppled, Iraqis have endured a series of events that have eroded their faith in the Americans. First it was the mass looting and inability to enforce law and order, then the indiscriminate sacking of soldiers and low-level Baathists, later the abuses at Abu Ghraib and several ferocious battles that caused widespread collateral damage. Before things started going truly and horribly wrong last April, polls showed a small majority of Iraqis were still supportive of the American presence. And yet, even early on, there was a noticeable difference between the attitudes of the three major ethnic groups, with the Kurds being strongly supportive, the Shia lukewarm and the Sunni Arabs opposed.

Cont. reading: Divide and Rule

Doug Noland of Prudent Bear started his weekly Credit Bubble Bulletin on Friday with the words “It has the feel of an unfolding bear market.” Martin Goldberg, author at Financial Sense, titled his Thursday market wrap-up “Something big is about to happen.”

For years the US has over consumed and under saved. Foreigners have financed the difference between consumption and savings so far, confident in US politics and the US economy. This is changing.

Cont. reading: Red Lights Flashing

LA Times has an analysis by Neal Gabler on Rovism. Even without the religious extremes taking over the Republican party, as has been discussed here in recent threads, the piece finds that the concepts applied by Rove in and of themself constitute a theocratic scheme.

This election is about Rovism — the insinuation of Rove’s electoral tactics into the conduct of the presidency and the fabric of the government.
…

Cont. reading: Rovism

Welcome …

Fri Oct 22, 2004 06:21 AM ET

Washington DC (RBN)

The US government has extended its strategic communication campaign to remind “Old”-Europeans of the danger of terrorism. The advertising and influence campaign, which has be running for one year, recently launched into a new phase.

“We need to get more determination to actively fight the war on terror into the European mind” a senior administration official said. “There is no way we will ever have German or French troops in Iraq or Iran if we can not stir up the popular fervour,” he added.

The campaign with the slogan “There is no future in terrorism” began in November 2003 with full page advertisements in leading newspapers in ten Western European countries. Additional newspaper ads were launched in March 2004 and in October. New committed funds now allow for 30 seconds TV spots with powerful scenes of nuclear, biological and explosive attacks to be broadcasted.

The advertisement campaign is supervised by VALE International LTD, a group of international professional advertising and public relation consultants under the leadership of Norman Vale, a long time professional in international marketing.

VALE International has established a European entity under the label of “European Security Advocacy Group”. The website www.esag.info promises “sustained effort to change people’s attitudes and behaviour” and to “raise people’s concern about the disastrous threat terrorism poses to world peace”.

The strategic communication effort is estimated to have cost $20 million. “We intend this to get us at least one division of European troops into Iraq. That could save us a billion a month,” one official said. “It is the cheapest imaginable way to free our troops for other commitments.”

Related links:
European Security Advocacy Group
VALE INTERNATIONAL LTD
Bjørn Stærk has the TV ads and more information

Mon Oct 25, 2004 03:12 AM ET

BAGHDAD (RBN) – Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been captured after a firefight at a roadblock north of rebel-held Falluja. The announcement was made early Monday morning at an hastily arranged news conference by Falah Hasan Al Naqib, Iraqs Interior Minister.

“We have heard those reports and we do believe they are true,” Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, told RBN. “We are in contact with the marines based around Falluja,” he said.

An Iraqi defense ministry spokesman also confirmed the report.

Zarqawi is believed to have been among 5 militants seized at a U.S.-led roadblock operation on their way north from Falluja. One man resembled Zarqawi and DNA tests are being conducted, the sources said. There were no further details.

Another senior U.S. officer also confirmed the report. “There was a short firefight and several of the terrorists are wounded,” Lieutenant Colonel Eric Schnaible told RBN. “Zarqawi seems to be unharmed,” he added.

Zarqawi, with a $25 million price on his head, is the United States’ main enemy at large in Iraq and is blamed for some of the worst insurgent violence against the U.S.-backed interim Iraqi administration.

Zarqawi’s Tawhid and Jihad group claimed responsibility for suicide bombings last Thursday that killed up to four Americans in the heart of Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, seat of the government and home to the U.S. and British embassies.

A spokesman of President Bush in Washington would not confirm the report but refered to an exclusive life interview with the President by Charlie Gibson scheduled for today’s “Good Morning America”.

Congratulations to the Red Sox for winning the American League. The next step is to play and win the World Series now.

After the US baseball team did not make the qualification for the 2004 Olympics, playing the World Series is quite an achievement.

There is also this contest about being leader of the free world where an underdog may win this year. Let’s take the Red Sox win as a good omen.

Wed Oct 20, 2004 11:59 AM ET

Washington (RBN) – President Bush caught the flu and will rest in the White House until further notice. “The President came down with a nasty variant of a regular flu virus and suffers from a cold and intermediate headache,” spokesman Scott McClellan announced. “His doctors asked the President to refer from further travel and the President has agreed,” he added.

The announcement came shortly after the President had attended a campaign strategy lunch at an institute in Rancho Mirage, California. Witnesses said the President fainted while picking up a heavy brown bag that has slipped out of his hand on the way back from the meeting to his official limousine. The President is currently aboard Air Force One flying back to Washington DC.

Unlike Congress the President had refrained from a flu shot after a recent shortage in flu vaccine has resulted in accusations of administration mismanagement.