william blum was on c-span’s washington journal earlier saturday. took viewer questions for ~45 minutes. transcript is here.

Posted by: b real | Jan 29 2006 5:04 utc | 4

Corporate Wealth Share Rises for Top-Income Americans

In 2003 the top 1 percent of households owned 57.5 percent of corporate wealth, up from 53.4 percent the year before, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the latest income tax data. The top group’s share of corporate wealth has grown by half since 1991, when it was 38.7 percent.
In 2003, incomes in the top 1 percent of households ranged from $237,000 to several billion dollars.
For every group below the top 1 percent, shares of corporate wealth have declined since 1991. These declines ranged from 12.7 percent for those on the 96th to 99th rungs on the income ladder to 57 percent for the poorest fifth of Americans, who made less than $16,300 and together owned 0.6 percent of corporate wealth in 2003, down from 1.4 percent in 1991.

Posted by: b | Jan 29 2006 9:25 utc | 6

CIA Expands Use of Drones in Terror War

Despite protests from other countries, the United States is expanding a top-secret effort to kill suspected terrorists with drone-fired missiles as it pursues an increasingly decentralized Al Qaeda, U.S. officials say.
…
Little is known about the targeted-killing program. The Bush administration has refused to discuss how many strikes it has made, how many people have died, or how it chooses targets. No U.S. officials were willing to speak about it on the record because the program is classified.
Several U.S. officials confirmed at least 19 occasions since Sept. 11 on which Predators successfully fired Hellfire missiles on terrorist suspects overseas, including 10 in Iraq in one month last year. The Predator strikes have killed at least four senior Al Qaeda leaders, but also many civilians, and it is not known how many times they missed their
…
High-ranking U.S. and allied counter-terrorism officials said the program’s expansion was not merely geographic. They said it had grown from targeting a small number of senior Al Qaeda commanders after the Sept. 11 attacks to a more loosely defined effort to kill possibly scores of suspected terrorists, depending on where they were found and what they were doing.
“We have the plans in place to do them globally,” said a former counter-terrorism official who worked at the CIA and State Department, which coordinates such efforts with other governments.
“In most cases, we need the approval of the host country to do them. However, there are a few countries where the president has decided that we can whack someone without the approval or knowledge of the host government.”

Whack?!

Posted by: b | Jan 29 2006 11:00 utc | 8

I guess these unmanned drones will soon become very popular amongst other States and their military planners, right down to the poorer ones. Relatively easy to make, cheap und expendable, easy to deploy. What does it take you reckon to get one made and useable? Does it take a special military satelite to control them over larger distances or can it be done via a commercial phone sat?
Soon they’ll be circling over US cities, officially as part of the War on Drugs, ready to take out suspected drug labs or dealers, or at least report on movements, you know, to fight the enemy within.

Posted by: Rondo | Jan 29 2006 13:40 utc | 10

group accuses U.S. officials of lying about 9/11

      Last fall, Brigham Young University physics professor Steven E. Jones made headlines when he charged that the World Trade Center collapsed because of “pre-positioned explosives.” Now, along with a group that calls itself “Scholars for 9/11 Truth,” he’s upping the ante.
      “We believe that senior government officials have covered up crucial facts about what really happened on 9/11,” the group says in a statement released Friday announcing its formation. “We believe these events may have been orchestrated by the administration in order to manipulate the American people into supporting policies at home and abroad.”
      Headed by Jones and Jim Fetzer, University of Minnesota Duluth distinguished McKnight professor of philosophy, the group is made up of 50 academicians and others.
      They include Robert M. Bowman, former director of the U.S. “Star Wars” space defense program, and Morgan Reynolds, former chief economist for the Department of Labor in President George W. Bush’s first term. Most of the members are less well-known.

Posted by: annie | Jan 29 2006 19:55 utc | 12

Looks like Google is being swift boated big time.
The only thing that the Plame affair seems to have done to Karl Rove is encourage him to go straight for the dollars, now that the hold on power may be slipping.
The Google attack has obviously taken quite a while to put together. This synchronicity of events can hardly be accidental.
Google: Trials of an internet giant
Fast, funky and free, it became the way to search the web. But now it stands accused of censorship, exploitation and violating the privacy of its users

“It has been the week from hell for Google. Once the much-loved and unblemished hero of the web, the giant internet group has suffered a series of blows that have exposed for the first time its feet of clay. The company that stood for “freedom of the net” is accused of humiliatingly submitting to Chinese censorship, conniving at the suppression of freedom in Tibet, exploiting the work of American writers and of running what is arguably the biggest porn and violence website in the business. The Association of American Publishers joined Agence France-Presse in suing to protect their copyright, and the US government complained that Google’s much-praised satellite maps are too spy-friendly.
And that’s not all: Google faces a batch of lawsuits from companies that once benefited from its search engine and which were then consumed by it. It also faces suits from the US government. There are disputes over breaches of copyright, trademark infringement and invasion of privacy. Some of Google’s aggressive gambits into new businesses have brought angry responses from incumbents, such as Microsoft and Apple, many of which are now allying to stop the steamroller in its tracks. In media-land last week it was Stop Google time, as newspaper groups began talking seriously about locking their content away from Google’s “spiders”, which raid their sites many times a day, “stealing” their copy to sell on to someone else.”

Of course the most damning of the accusations aren’t dealt with in any real substance.
My own favourite is “exploiting the work of American writers and of running what is arguably the biggest porn and violence website in the business”
Do many remeber what search engines were like before Google came along? The first 3 pages of ‘hits’ were nothing but porn links. It was what was making the net unusable, I used to have a piece of software that would interrogate all of the frequently useless search engines.
It would consolodate the results, rip out the porn links plus the most blatant of the ‘bullshit’ links and in that way it was possibble to get close to what you were looking for.
However that was by no means as good as even the first iteration of Google. It was Google that gave us the confidence to let our kids go web surfing without some intrusive, censorious and censoring ‘Net Nanny’.
Anyway absolutely no evidence is offered in the article to support these allegations.
Doubtless if asked, the authors would repeat the oft reported line that “over 50% of all queries are sex related”.
Ah doesn’t that indicate the ‘problem’ is with the customers and not with Google?
But doesn’t say that.
Hmmmm.
Even that stat must be questioned.
It first came into wide currency a couple of weeks ago, when Google was refusing to turn it’s searches over to the US government.
So the payback/blackmail has begun.
Except there is a lot more to this than just getting google to ‘assume the position’, nice and wide, with KY conveniently located.
The bit about “American Writers” is an almost certain indication that this story in an English newspaper was originally out of the US. Otherwise it would be just “writers” or “the world’s writers”.
Who are likely to be advantaged by the new book search?
The digital storage of the printed word means that consumers are going to be able to access writer’s books more easily; then buy them if they desire.
Remember Google is only going to make a few hundred words of each work available.
Google tried to present a model where the writer/copyright holder of a work did get paid, but the big publishing houses admitted that the details of who actually held copyright to something like 90% of printed material were either unavailable, or in dispute!
They claimed it wouldn’t be economically viable to use that model.
The publishing combines had a better idea.
The one that has kept most musicians poor while publishers get fat.
That model is of an organisation set up to represent the publishers (and on paper anyway, the artists).
A fee is paid when a work is accessed, or in the case of the mucic industry performed or broadcast.
Using a complicated formula, that fee is then divided up amongst the publishers, authors and other copyright holders.
Of course if the work hasn’t been released through one of the gang of publishers who now control world distribution, then it is unlikely that copyright holders will get a brass razoo. Neat eh.
The support of the media in the Fuck Google Over enterprise is enlisted using the greed underlying this statement:
“In media-land last week it was Stop Google time, as newspaper groups began talking seriously about locking their content away from Google’s “spiders”, which raid their sites many times a day, “stealing” their copy to sell on to someone else.”
When someone accesses an article through Google; the fishwrap turned spammer that most rags have become, doesn’t get as many “click-thru’s” as it would if the article were accessed directly on the rag’s web-site.
Nowadays the situation is a bit more complicated.
In regard to what ‘income generators’ the reader is exposed to that is, still, the principle is the same.
The media outlets are concerned that consumers are generating income for Google off of ‘their’ content.
Forget for a moment that without Google many of these sites would get few visits at all.
In the main, they have been designed and managed by people more comfortable with inkstained hands covered in paper cuts.
Can any of us imagine how much harder it would be to get to the bottom of any story if we couldn’t search for all related links, particularly, links that may give the same incident a different perspective.
That is how many of us try to get some sort of realistic view of ‘what really happened’.
We would be back to the ‘push’ media model of the 19th and 20th centuries where people are reliant on a kindly cigar smoking editor, or a sleek suited publisher of the Murdoch ilk, to determine what it is they need to know.
And this mob are giving Google a hard time for putting restrictions on some of the China access.
Not that I condone that, however let us not forget when Microsoft, Yahoo and Murdoch’s News Corp bent over for China on demand, no one in the establishment media let out a whimper.
Google held out for as long as they could. For that they are in trouble with their users?
Hmm I don’t think so. Perhaps if some of these critics had withstood the pressure as well, Google wouldn’t have been pushed into submission.
Let’s be clear about this. You won’t find me telling the world that Google is some warm and cuddly entity trying to save us all.
They are a corporate business unit and should be regarded as such (ie a parasite), but at least they are attempting to keep some ethics, unlike the rest of the $5 hookers and their pimps who pervade web space.
This article raises so many issues about the future of the alleged ‘knowledge based society’ that I could expound for days but perhaps some others may care to pick out their own ‘most worrisome bits’.
Although the article has been sourced in the US it has also been ‘massaged’ to suit Independent readers.
eg
“To be fair, none of its critics seemed to care that Google had actually held out longer against the Chinese than any other media group. Microsoft and Yahoo! surrendered a year ago, CNN is often seen as a Chinese mouthpiece and even Rupert Murdoch, in his search to get his Star TV established in China, sold his highly profitable South China Morning Post for fear it would anger the Chinese”
Now this particular ‘rag’ which is owned by Irish Murdoch wannabe Tony O’Reilly* knows full well that a large proportion of it’s readers are aware of this already.
So in true media spin style ,they drop it into the discussion, take a ping at Murdoch and then carry on as if what they had just said was totally irrelevant, and resume swinging at Google.
The energy levels are particularly low this am, readers will be relieved to hear that I’m not going to do a complete deconstruction of this ‘story’.
I have left plenty for others to dissect and run with.
Hopefully this missive won’t clag too many on dial-up.
* O’Reilly was one of the ‘innovators’ who introduced pay per view for his best journalists; eg Robert Fisk.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 29 2006 22:45 utc | 14

Enron trial opens Monday
Tommorow. Of course, I predict he’ll (kennyboy)will walk.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 30 2006 3:22 utc | 16

On my Reuter’s scour I bumped into this Army forces 50,000 soldiers into extended duty:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Army has forced about 50,000 soldiers to continue serving after their voluntary stints ended under a policy called “stop-loss,” but while some dispute its fairness, court challenges have fallen flat.
The policy applies to soldiers in units due to deploy for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The Army said stop-loss is vital to maintain units that are cohesive and ready to fight. But some experts said it shows how badly the Army is stretched and could further complicate efforts to attract new recruits.
“As the war in Iraq drags on, the Army is accumulating a collection of problems that cumulatively could call into question the viability of an all-volunteer force,” said defense analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute think tank.

On the surface this article tell us nothing new, apart from the running total, the score 50,000. That’s how many people have been forced into involuntary servitude.
Hey republicans What was that bizzo about Lincoln,A. former POTUS which your party claims abolished slavery?
Anyway as I keep harping, the changes to the way that executions under the Military Code of Justice are to be carried out, means that it won’t be long now before Massa lynches one of the 50,000 slaves. The way that state sanctioned murder is implemented outside the military could lead one to the conclusion that there is a high likelihood that a Trigger Nigger could be lynched soon.
Uncle Scam first posted the last link. If you haven’t checked it out I suggest you do. As well as hearing straight from someone who’s in the middle of it, the writing will knock you over.
You can see how Amerika is wasting brilliance, long before he/she shoved a rifle into this bloke’s hands.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 30 2006 11:20 utc | 18

I encourage anyone who can and wants to join the “Scholars for 9/11 truth.”
(Unfortunately, or perhaps felicitously! you won’t be meeting me there, as my present employment bars me – my body from the head up belongs to the company store -).
The 9/11 truth movement, or rather its various factions, as it is very divided, was first a rather closed community – people were trying to investigate and make their minds up… About 2 years ago a tipping point hit, and most everywhere the feeling was, we can now attempt to sway people, gather new adherents, do publicity and propaganda, try for more public exposure, etc. Tireless activists pounded the pavement with fliers. Meeting after meeting gathered lonely adherents in dark halls. Soon DVDs were produced, as the written word, in the US, is, well, perhaps not very effective. And so on..
I’d love to write a history of all that, but what a job!
One obvious and necessary idea was getting any establishment, media, Gvmt. or just plain damn popular figures to publicly assume a doubting or revisionist stance. There are people watching TV and taking notes on possibles, on likelys, on hopes. One can spy on mainstream TV, by watching it. This aim is of course crucial; only when a certain tentative respectability is attained – or only when public discourse is opened up a little bit – will all the people who know in their guts something is wrong with the official version come out of the wood work, stop being afraid and silent.
What happens next is another chapter; because the situation is new. New, as, inter alia:
a) what is being pushed is revisionism, and not new ideas, or new readings of social reality (liberation movements, anti-war movements, etc.); not is it propaganda for traditionally existing povs’ (e.g. political ones), etc.
b) the internet and its powerful flow of information, which has an impact on some matters, not on others. How to use it to effect?
c) the 9/11 truth movement is ‘anti-fascist’ and ‘anti-terrorist’ through a straight anti-Gvmt. stance. (In fact the last element is so strong it does harm, I have argued often..) I can’t right now come up with another example, anyway the setting in ‘modernity’ (yuck, what a word) changes the picture.
d) in link with a), the distinction between box-cutter believers and avowed scoffers follows no traditional, known, charted, divisions. It is generally assumed that ‘leftists’ or ‘progressives’ are more prone to be sceptics – as the halo of “ Bush and Co. are scoundrels” may bleed over many issues. That may just be so, it is hard to tell. Arguments have raged. On the whole, I think not. Left gate-keepers have been efficient, and the natural pool for Gvmt. haters in the US (and elsewhere too) is the libertarian right, anarchists, etc. (I’m talking about people and not officials.) So all that presents a puzzle.
Some argue that ‘democracy’ has finally given (in certain specific conditions) people the opportunity to follow their instincts or ‘true values’ , ‘rational thinking’, rather than leaders, bosses, parties, etc.
I’ll leave it there.
this site gives general daily news – all topics – about 9/11:
9/11Blogger

Posted by: Noisette | Jan 30 2006 19:07 utc | 20

Noisette. there is an update on the first pdf file on your link that states Steven E. Jones the byu professor who i linked to earlier in the thread was going to have to close down his site due to university policy. i can understand the departure of backing after he came out w/the hypothesis the gov’t was involved last week. that’s a big jump, one i’m willing to make but i guess not byu. i just tried to link and the site still works, hmm.

Posted by: annie | Jan 30 2006 20:30 utc | 22

OT sort of thing – but I came across this quote today:-
“When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses
over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.” — Dresden James
Funny thing though, although this and other “Dresden James” quotes are rife on the internet – I can’t find any reference or evidence that there ever was/is anyone by the name “Dresden James”.
I’d be interested if any can find him. Meanwhile, maybe just an object lesson in only quoting if you know the source and not from a quotable quotes page.
OT – but whatever ..

Posted by: DM | Jan 31 2006 2:52 utc | 24

Just heard on the radio, Coretta Scott King has passed away.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jan 31 2006 12:14 utc | 26

Just heard on the radio, Coretta Scott King has passed away.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 31 2006 12:55 utc | 28

@Uncle – maybe she didn’t want to see the results of that.
Funny how the news headlines differ about her age. I guess she would have had a good laugh at this:
ABC News Coretta Scott King Dies at 79
Forbes Coretta Scott King Dies at 78

Posted by: b | Jan 31 2006 14:49 utc | 30

Ok, Moonbats, I just scared myself, (and may need help) by finding the following e-mail: (I explain more below}
—
ENRON EMAIL CORPUS
[new search] user pass
[Back to search results for Abramoff in message subject]
[Jump to annotations for this message.]
From: ralph@censtrat.com
To: rshapiro@enron.com
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: 19 Dec 2000 15:19 PST
Subject: abramoff
Rick, good to see you today. excited about the prospects of the new office,
kitchen cabinet/advisory team, etc.
as we discussed, jack abramoff is joining barry richards’ law firm,
Greenberg Traurig, on january 1. richards was just named lawyer of the year
by the American lawyer while abramoff is arguably the most influential and
effective gop lobbyist in congress. i share several clients with him and
have yet to see him lose a battle. he also is very close to Delay and could
help enormously on that front. raised $ for bush. until december 31 he can
be reached at 202-661-3851. he assistant is Susan Ralston.
—
I found the above by happenstance, UCSB student Jeffrey Heer, whom has developed a visualization engine to analyze the ‘Enron Corpus'(PDF
and searchable
versions) of e-mails and correspondence. Heer independently found communication relationships that suggested fraud and mismanagement. Wired’s Ryan Singel has examined Heer’s software and its implications for corporate governance. However, on a whim I put in Abramoff’s name just to see what would happen and got the above. I pass it on here in hopes that others will do the same and if possible screen capture the results. I have also sent this info to SusanG at ePluribus Media to investigate. Can we get some moonbats on it too?
Yes, I’m paranoid
and also, wanted to get this out in a hurry on the blogsphere in case something happened. Go to it moonbats!

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 31 2006 17:17 utc | 32

More:
ENRON EMAIL CORPUS [new search] user pass
[Back to search results for Bush in message subject]
[Jump to annotations for this message.]
From: Rosalee Fleming
To: terry_pierce@enron.net
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: 03 Apr 2000 12:19 PDT
Subject: Re: Conversation w/President & Mrs. Bush
Hi Terry –
Ken Lay said that he would really like an update and more detail about the
“Digital Divide” and TFA. He is attending the Fortune Battle Royal and said
this fits right in with the subject. He will be leaving for Washington
tomorrow night.
Thanks.
Rosalee
Terry_Pierce@enron.net on 03/30/2000 09:59:59 AM
To: klay@enron.com
cc:
Subject: Conversation w/President & Mrs. Bush
Terry Pierce
Enron Broadband Services
Corporate Marketing
Sr. Manager/Special Projects
(713)345-8383 Office
(713) 503-0700 Cell
—– Forwarded by Terry Pierce/Enron Communications on 03/30/00 10:01 AM

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 31 2006 18:10 utc | 34

Excellent, thanks annie…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 31 2006 18:33 utc | 36

Thanks stoy, it may be nothing, but who knows… I’d love to see these jackals go down.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 31 2006 19:09 utc | 38

b, I am aware of the above, I’m more interested in the visualization and search engine for e-mails which was just recently posted online.
One more, then I’ll wait to see if anything pops loose.
ENRON EMAIL CORPUS [new search] user pass
[Back to search results for Cheney in message subject]
[Jump to annotations for this message.]
From: cordia@cordia.com
To: klay@enron.com
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: 14 Nov 2000 06:01 PST
Subject: BUSH-CHENEY RECOUNT FUND
E-Mail to: Friends and Associates URGENT
From: Lou Cordia
Date: November 13, 2000
Re: President Bush or President Gore?
Governor Bush and Secretary Cheney won on election night by getting
more votes in Florida than Gore/Lieberman.
Governor Bush and Secretary Cheney won when the election night vote
was confirmed by an official recount in Florida.
The only legitimate remaining ballots to be counted are those from Floridians
who reside overseas, who post-marked their ballots on or before November 7th,
and whose ballots are received on or before November 17th.
However, it is obvious that Gore/Lieberman are trying to steal the election.
Like the Clinton/Gore’s years of public relations and legal distortions,
Gore/Lieberman
are looking for a “governing legal authority” to increase their probability
of victory.
They want four counties in Florida where Democrats significantly out-register
Republicans
to hand-count their ballots; and let the Democrats in charge of the recounts
“objectively”
decide what was in the mind of the voter when he/she did not completely punch
the ballot.
For example, if someone partially punched a hole in a ballot because he/she
started to vote
for Gore and then decided in the booth not to vote him or anyone, these
Democrats would
give the vote to Gore – that’s according to the second set of rules, as
changed during the
recount in Palm Beach County. Incidently, but not surprisingly, all three of
these Palm
Beach officials are Democrats.
What Gore/Lieberman Campaign Chairman Richard Daley is orchestrating is as
outrageous
as what his father did in 1960 in Cook County Illinois in stealing the
election from John Kennedy.
Point blank, Al Gore is not as honorable as Richard Nixon was in 1960 and
Gerald Ford was
in 1976 when both Republican candidates conceded the close elections despite
campaign
advisors’ requests for recounts. They put the interests of the country ahead
of their own
personal interest in the White House. They knew then that recounting ad
infinitum would
produce pluses and minuses in vote counts; but they trusted that the votes
would balance
out if all precincts were recounted. They believed in the integrity of our
elections, and knew
of the adverse consequences here and abroad of second-guessing our election
process.
If you are as upset as I am, then please help by making a contribution to the
Bush/Cheney
Recount Fund that has been set up to fight the Gore/Lieberman trial lawyers
and public
relations spin- miesters.
I am enclosing an admittedly less emotionally-charged letter from Bush/Cheney
Campaign
Chairman Don Evans and a response form. Please HELP TODAY.
______________________________________________
To: Mr. Louis J. Cordia
From: Donald L. Evans
Chairman, Bush-Cheney Campaign
Date: November 11, 2000
You were there when we began this campaign and we appreciate all that you have
done. I would like to ask for your help one more time on behalf of Governor
Bush
and Secretary Cheney.
It is now clear we must have the funding necessary to fight this legal battle
in Florida.
Governor Bush won on Election Day, a victory confirmed by a recount. Now,
the other
side is seeking yet a third count by hand.
The law allows us to open a “recount fund” which we have done this morning.
This
expensive legal process must be funded immediately. We need you to overnight
a check
for $5000, made payable to Bush-Cheney Recount. Please see the delivery
instructions
on the next page.
The check must come from personal funds. No corporate contributions are
allowed.
The contribution does not count against your annual federal giving limit of
$25,000.
We are not required to make these donations public. However, in keeping with
Governor
Bush’s “full disclosure” policy on financial contributions, these
contributions will be posted
on the Bush-Cheney website.
We respectfully ask that you limit the amount of your check to $5000. Should
we have
funds left over, we will refund them to each donor on a pro rata basis. If
you have any
questions regarding this contribution, you may contact Jack Oliver or Jeanne
Johnson
Phillips at (512) 344-4601.
Throughout the past two years, your friendship and support has meant a great
deal to
Governor Bush and to me personally. We thank you in advance for your
willingness to
help us during this important time in the life of our country.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Warm regards.
__________________________________________
PLEASE
(1) copy this contribution sheet and encourage your family, friends,
and business associates to contribute;
(2) mail each signed contribution sheet with your check(s) to :
c/o Donald L. Evans, Bush-Cheney Recount Fund,
301 Congress Ave. Suite 200, Austin TX 78701; and
(3) fax to Lou Cordia (703/212-9128) a copy of each signed contribution
sheet so
that I do not bother you with follow-up calls or faxes.
BUSH-CHENEY RECOUNT FUND REPLY FORM
ALL CONTRIBUTORS, PLEASE COMPLETE
Corporate and foreign national contributions are not
permitted under federal law. Only personal funds are
permitted. Contributions to Bush-Cheney Recount Fund
are not tax deductible for federal income tax purposes.
__________________________________________
Full name
__________________________________________
Spouse name
__________________________________________
Address
__________________________________________
City
__________________________________________
State Zip
__________________________________________
Home Phone
__________________________________________
Office Phone
__________________________________________
Fax Phone
__________________________________________
E-Mail
Check Contributions
The contribution to Bush-Cheney Recount Fund drawn on
check#___________ of the account named as _______________________,
represents our personal funds and is not drawn on an account maintained by
an incorporated entity.
_________________________________
Signature of Original Contributor
(must be signed by both spouses)
_________________________________
Signature of Spouse
Please make check payable to:
Bush-Cheney Recount Fund
Please mail or overnight express to:
Donald L. Evans
301 Congress Avenue, Suite 200
Austin, TX 78701
Please do not send more than $5000 per person.
In keeping with Governor Bush’s policy of “full disclosure”
of financial contributions, your name will be posted as a contributor
to Bush-Cheney Recount Fund on the Bush-Cheney website.
Any monies not expended for this purpose will be returned on a pro rata basis.
Paid for by Bush-Cheney Recount Fund. Contributions to Bush-Cheney
Recount Fund are not tax deductible for federal income purposes.
Annotations

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 31 2006 19:32 utc | 40

here
is the correct link , sorry

Posted by: annie | Jan 31 2006 20:55 utc | 42

Back to the war on Terra.
Will ‘cultural differences’ between US and UK military mean there will be a substantive change in the way that Afghanistan is ‘policed’ once the UK takes over the US role?
The article I’m about to link to suggests not. The only real difference will be that US forces tend to be more upfront about their murder. Safe in the knowledge that the population doesn’t really care ‘how many of the greasy ragheads have to be wasted’; the US military is more likely to ‘own’ the horrors they perpetrate.
On the other hand most of the population of the UK likes to imagine that they aren’t hurting anyone with their pathetic ‘relive the glory years’ attempt at resurrecting the “Empire”.
Consequently their military tells the most transparent lies safe in the knowledge that no one will delve too deeply lest an ugly side of their national psyche be revealed.
The fly in the ointment may be the UN and NATO. I don’t quite understand this as both US and UK are members of both, so surely the problem should be the same for both?
Apparently not.
Of course a cynic could argue that the UN/NATO stance is just more front, and that in effect, the chemical warfare in Afghanistan will continue.
For that is what this story is about:
Britain and US split over defeating Afghan opium trade

” Attempts to eradicate Afghanistan’s opium crop have abjectly failed and British soldiers who take part in such operations may face legal action, an international think-tank has said.
Britain is sending a task force of almost 6,000 troops to Afghanistan to fight the resurgent al-Qa’ida and Taliban and also take part in tackling the country’s poppy crops. These supply 90 per cent of heroin to this country and the UK is planning to spend £20m a year on eradication.
But at the eve of the London Conference on Afghanistan ­ co-hosted by Tony Blair, the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, and Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President ­ differences are emerging between Britain and the US.
American officials are pressing for aerial crop-spraying. But aid agencies and human rights groups point out that poppy fields are often adjacent to ones growing vegetables and wheat. British officials are against spraying. But a report by the Senlis Council, the think-tank, showed yesterday that the US administration was advertising for aerial spraying jobs in Afghanistan.”…..
…..” The British force being sent to Afghanistan will come under a Nato mandate which stipulates that troops deployed should concentrate on peacekeeping and training the Afghan police and army. Nato officials said that does not include opium eradication.
The UN has also warned about the dangers of foreign intervention. Antonio Maria Costa, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said the military “should not be involved in eradication. This should be run by the national authority” because crops destroyed could be “replanted in weeks”.
Mr Costa said the West had been the author of its own misfortune over heroin. “I see very little progress in the consumption side. We need prevention programmes in schools, testing on roads like breathalysers, and campaigns like anti-smoking campaigns,” he said.
British defence sources said last night that British troops would not be playing a direct part in opium eradication, but would be training and guiding Afghan government forces.

Those that have difficulty in the term chemical warfare when applied to aerial spraying of herbicides on alleged opium crops would be wise to drop by Vietnam and note that horrific birth defects are still occurring. Oftentimes 2 or 3 generations past the vietnamese family that was initially sprayed with a herbicide.
Once again lots of time and energy is put into “supporting our troops’ who had the misfortune of having ‘pissed into the wind’ and little or no interest in the fates of the people who were repeatedly ‘pissed upon’ with this rapacious and indiscriminate killer of most life forms.
As well as the ethical issue does this ‘program’ strike anyone else as being damn stupid?
If all of a family’s crops (both food and income generating) are destroyed, what can the family do to get back into the black? Grow opium that’s what! Not only is it simple to grow, it’s lifespan from grow to whoa is relatively short. This means that even families who had previously been able to withstand the call of seemingly ‘quick n easy’ cash are now at risk of succumbing.
“When will they ever learn?”

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 31 2006 23:43 utc | 44

Blair’s latest expedition is a Lawrence of Arabia fantasy

The occupation of Afghanistan has achieved the near impossible. It has turned the Taliban from opponents to supporters of the opium trade. This means that British troops will face a lethal alliance of growers, druglords and suicide bombers as they try to defy the global market economy. A local anti-narcotics policeman gets $90 a month if he is lucky. A kilo of refined heroin at the Afghan border is about $900. The task of Britain’s air assault brigade is somehow to reverse that tenfold differential.
The only possible consequence of the Helmand expedition is to drive growers and profiteers further into the arms of the Taliban. This will subsidise anarchy in a part of the world where the west has never been able to assert its will. Government policy is handing the region to terrorism on a plate. It is pursuing a vicious circle.

Posted by: b | Feb 1 2006 6:30 utc | 46