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What You Read …
NEW BEDFORD (RBN) – A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of George Orwell’s tome on totalitarianism called "1984."
Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library’s interlibrary loan program.
The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand’s class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents’ home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.
The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a "watch list," and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further.
"I tell my students to go to the direct source, and so he asked for the official version of the book," Professor Pontbriand said. "Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring inter-library loans, because that’s what triggered the visit, as I understand it."
Agents’ visit chills UMass Dartmouth senior
Conundrum Wrapped in a Riddle
Life today is so much a conundrum wrapped in a riddle.
The pond is frozen an inch thick, yet yesterday I found a
blooming pink snapdragon in the garden. The moon is
high and the sun is low, heading towards solstice, and
yet this morning, there was a fat robin in the yard. Spring!
An overwhelming weight of evidence shows George Bush
not only acted on bad intelligence, but gynned that all up,
“sexed up” Downing Street, “yellow caked” Nigeria, and
was warned as early as 1998 by credible sources that
OBL was planning to hijack commercial airliners. Yet we
are still there, thrashing through one pedantic highschool
charade after another, killing and torturing more innocents
than Saddam ever did in his entire thirty years in power,
paving the way for a total domestic lockdown in the US.
“All I want for Christmas is my $100,000,000,000,” George
sings, as though the $80,000,000,000 Congress gifted him
in October wasn’t sufficient. How the hell do you spend an
$80,000,000,000 treasure in only three months? There’s
maybe 150,000 troops at $2000 a month and say $200 a
day per diem expenses, although that’s being generous,
and let’s say we add 60% for their veteran’s benefits and
25% for employer paid benefits, that’s $4,500,000,000.
Add in 100,000 mercenaries, by various estimates, making
$800 a day, by various accounts, and their per diem, but no
other benefits, that’s $9,000,000,000, twice what our troops
are making for making a show of force while mercenaries
are deployed in safer assassination and torture roles.
And there’s the equipment fuel override, at $3 a gallon, and
wear and tear, but remember, the chain of command, and
the equipment capital costs are all carried under the $1/2T
Pentagon budget already. Let’s say three months of flying
helicopter and blowing up $1M missiles costs $10B in
three months. I would have a very hard time believing that
figure could possibly be that high, but let’s use it.
Troops $4.5B in three months.
Mercenaries $9.0B in three months
Equipment, Fuel, Ammo $10.0B in three months
That’s less than $25B. Where the *hell* did the other
$65B go?! Baaksheesh? Civil reconstruction?! We know
the reconstruction contracts are separately funded and
amount to less than $2B accomplished. Where the *hell*
did the other $65B go? With a total *ANNUAL* expense
of only $100B to prosecute the war in Iraq, again, over
and above the $450B the Pentagon sucks down to sit
there along the Potomac and process defense contracts,
where the *hell* is that $100B Christmas present going?!
How the *hell* did FEMA spend $32B in New Orleans
with nothing to show for it? Where in the *hell* is the
$25B FEMA/DHS gets paid *every year* for emergency
preparations? What the*hell* is Congress doing to US?
Where the *hell* ares our hard-earned, blood taxes going?
How are we going to pay down our now $8,000B deficit?!
And how the *hell* is that ‘sustained economic recovery’?!
Is the Executive diverting our Iraq payments into the US
stock and bond markets to keep them afloat in the face
of overwhelming pull-out by ASEAN, Gulf emirates and EU?
Are we bankrupt, and already rolling that bankrupcy over?
Is DHS taking over domestic intelligence in order to suppress that knowledge.
Clik … clik … ‘testing, testing’, my phone went last week, somebody whispering on the line.
Are we being bugged by FBI/DHS, preparatory to rousting and then FEMA internment-camping all US Bush policy dissenters and refusniks?
It’s a conundrum wrapped in a riddle.
Posted by: Loose Shanks | Dec 18 2005 17:31 utc | 6
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