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August 4, 2005
WB: Bombs Away
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Didn’t Joseph Stiglitz say that he felt one of the biggest blunders to happen while he was in government in the 1990s was privatising the firm which manufactures US weapons-grade uranium and plutonium?
Heartily agree with your post, but I think this sort of lunacy has been going on for quite a while, just because so many very rich companies feel that they can make money out of this sort of lunacy. After all, the odds are that their CEOs will not be around when the nukes go off.
Posted by: MFB | Aug 4 2005 7:54 utc | 1
Fans of Dr. Lecter will recall that it was the custom in medieval Europe to hang embezzlers and con men up by one foot, sometimes with mock bags of coin to burden them.
Paintings and cards of hucksters and thieves were often painted on city walls to mock and shame the crook publicly.
Such pittura infamante appear among modern Tarot cards to this day, portending infamy and ruin, in this world and the next.
The inverted human figure, hanging or falling, symbolizes the very opposite of sanctity, virtue, trust, honor — it represents base treachery, banal evil and unbounded lust for money.
Images of Lucifer falling headfirst from heaven, Pope Nicholas III stuffed headfirst into a a rock in Dante’s Inferno, and a plethora of medieval frescoes throughout Europe show this imagery of the hellbound sinner hanging — or falling — inverted.
Scorched and ridiculous, like a slug in the sunlight, driven to utter ruin by his own character. The natural and normal end of frauds, cheats and thieves.
Mussolini and his whore, Claretta Petacci, and a baker’s dozen of prominent Fascists were hung in this manner from the girders of a Milan gas station in late April, 1945.
Patriots at the scene, though, felt Mussolini had stolen so immensely from the Italian people that they tied up each of his feet separately, hanging him by his heel times two, departing from tradition in fervor of its expression. Once was not enough.
I know that there is a corner of Cheney’s black and dying heart that knows such an end is his due. In his lusting grasp for more money than he can spend in a thousand lifetimes, he has become a caricature even of venal sin.
He is right to fear retribution from we, the people. When we get our hands on him, it will be no prettier than what was done to Il Duce in the Piazzale Loreto. Cheney thinks we’ll never actually come for him. If we do, he’ll hide. Work a deal. Figure the angles. Get away with it.
He won’t get away. It is the tragedy of the trickster that he works his own ruin in the very act of stealing his spoils.
The crimes they have committed so far will sink Cheney and Rove in due course. The crimes they have yet to commit will only hasten the day.
But until their day comes, they grasp, and then grasp further, not knowing how to stop, or slow down, or control the many monsters they’ve unleashed in this world.
Like Bennito and Claretta, he and Rove must run before the beasts they have set loose, staying just in front of a tide of blood and gluttony and calling it inspired leadership.
But lo, the beasts grow in strength and numbers, in tooth and claw, and these very mortal men will now find there is not enough food for them to be found. The whole world is not enough.
That is when they will end up hanging by one foot, spat upon and beaten by American patriots.
Mussolini also, claimed to be writing history anew. Yet his money, and power, blinked out like a light switch killing a crystal chandelier. Like it was never there.
Dubya? Pshaw. He’s never been anything more than Cheney’s Amazing Meat Puppet, right from the early days when Cheney was “interviewing running mates” for him.
Nah. Bush will simply be hung among the baker’s dozen hanging alongside Cheney and Rove.
Those two are the real President and real Vice President; those are the men who ruin our country, for more and then more.
Those two we must hang twice.
antifa | 08.04.05 – 3:55 am | #
Posted by: Antifa | Aug 4 2005 8:02 utc | 2
While they may be aiding and abetting I am convinced that there is absolutely no way that Bob and Doug could pull it off alone.
Especially if they have already gone a few rounds of the the Beer Hunter.
Thus, I’m betting the real mastermind behind any nefarious Canuckistani manipulation of .gov uranium must be that noted screamer and evil Randian, Geddy Lee.
See, Valerie and those other folks at Buckminster and Fuller or whatever it was don’t need those pesky old jobs after all!
Posted by: cymack | Aug 4 2005 11:49 utc | 4
Hey Billmon, maybe it is a nefarious plot by the Canadians.
America gets nuked and goes ape shit and Canada and Mexico seize the border states in the Chaos leaving a rump Jesusland to celebrate Armageddon.
Well maybe not.
Looks like de-regulation has its limits. Who knew the Republicans were so whorish. So easy to buy. As for the Canadian company, what can I say, you are looking at the dark side to the Canadian Character that is as hard and uncaring as anything to come out of the American frontier. Canada is the worlds dominant nation in the mining industry. Canadian-based companies conduct about 40 percent of all mineral exploration undertaken in the world.
And if you think of the kind of values that the act of running a mine generates. Well let’s just say it is a hard hearted business.
Posted by: Scott McArthur | Aug 4 2005 14:35 utc | 5
Remember the incident when a nuclear reactor was stolen from an abandoned hospital in Brazil in 1987?
That sort of thing couldn’t possibly happen in an age of international terrorism, could it?
Posted by: Dismal Science | Aug 4 2005 16:33 utc | 6
This has to be the best line I have read anywhere in months:
Think about it: the McKenzie brothers with nukes.
And then topped with the lovely Milo Minderbinder reference.
Close to perfect on this subject that virtually no one else is talking about and everyone should be.
Damn, I donated money to Blanche Lincoln. Despite the D next to her name, I’ll be rethinking that next time.
Posted by: PKMaxwell | Aug 4 2005 17:11 utc | 7
Just so, you know, this gets put in context, you all are aware that Canada is like the world’s largest producer of uranium, right? Nordion is a commercial spin-off of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, is subject to the jurisdiction of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and it has 50 years of history under its belt (prior to becoming Nordion).
I also hate to break the bad news, but Bob and Doug don’t need Nordion’s help in building nukes. We have enough in-house experience, facilities and raw materials that it was estimated back in the 80s that Canada, if it wanted to, could start producing Hiroshima-type uranium gun weapons within 6 months.
Posted by: Keith | Aug 4 2005 20:01 utc | 8
if it wanted to, could start producing Hiroshima-type uranium gun weapons within 6 months. — Keith
Just tell us that you’re not a McKenzie cousin.
Seriously, I assume from Billmon’s orignal post that he’s well aware of both Nordion’s history and potential as well as the potential misuse of nuclear materials and expertise native to Canada. If he’s not, he’s a hell of a good guesser.
I’m not casting aspersions toward any of my Canadian friends or family but I’d just as soon Bob and Doug keep their Genie in the bottle.
They definitely don’t need the help of the US Congress twisting the cork.
Posted by: PKMaxwell | Aug 4 2005 20:44 utc | 10
Nordion is a commercial spin-off of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, is subject to the jurisdiction of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
That definitely makes me feel better — despite the thick coating of sleaze on the whole deal. But, according to the Post, the “Arm Osama Amendment” allows the export of weapons-grade uranium not only to Canada, but to the European Union. And once it gets to the EU, it could be sold on to any OTHER EU country without notification to the US. This includes former East bloc countries like Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Latvia and Lithuania — as well as Cyprus and Malta. A few more years, and we might need to add Romania and Bulgaria to that list.
The bottom line: Do we really want weapons-grade uranium in the hands of private companies around the world? The technology to enrich uranium is complicated and expensive, but once you have the stuff, building a crude warhead is probably within reach of a terrorist group with access to people who have done it before (cough Pakistan cough) The plans are out there — the Progressive magazine printed some a few decades back, as I recall.
So why do anything that would in any way facilitate the spread of weapons-grade uranium, unless it was absolutely necessary? Which, according to the Post, it isn’t.
Posted by: Billmon | Aug 4 2005 20:55 utc | 11
Do we really want weapons-grade uranium in the hands of private companies around the world?
Do we really want weapons-grade uranium in the hands of rogue governments, like our own?
Posted by: truffula | Aug 5 2005 5:38 utc | 12
Glad some of you all feel better regarding the the nordion part of the equation.
The MDS side does not quell my concerns.
Because essentially MDS is a junior Monsanto wannabe.
And we all know how benign burgeoning biotech/medical service conglomerates grasping for the big pharma brass ring in the sky can be.
Right?
why worry? i’d feel much safer if bushco had no access to nuclear arms. they are the most dangerous pricks on the planet.
Posted by: lenin’s ghost | Aug 5 2005 6:09 utc | 14