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May 18, 2006
OT 06-43
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Silverstein (Harpers): “Fairy Tales”
A number of current and former intelligence officials have told me that the administration’s war on internal dissent has crippled the CIA’s ability to provide realistic assessments from Iraq. “The system of reporting is shut down,” said one person familiar with the situation. “You can’t write anything honest, only fairy tales.”
Two CIA station chiefs Bagdhad fired/demouted after writing realistic reports, one promoted after writing a fairy tail.
Killing the messengers …
narcosphere: Interior Dept. Starts Arizona Border Fence Project
The U.S. Dept. of the Interior earlier this week issued a call for bids to build a fence along the border with Mexico, preceding House passage of legislation on Wednesday and Senate approval just a few hours ago (May 18) to erect 370 miles of such border-protection fencing.
In a move apparently designed to appease the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps — a private citizens group that voluntarily patrols segments of the region – the Interior Dept. is focusing its efforts along a 9.4-mile stretch of land in Cochise County, Arizona.
The Minutemen have been particularly vocal about this region, viewed by some as one of the busiest illegal entry points on the U.S. southern border. The group has pledged to raise funds to privately build its own fence, which it claims is necessary in the continued absence of government construction or troop-deployment. It has vowed to start putting up a security fence on private land beginning May 27.
According to a May 16 procurement notice posted to the FedBizOpps contracting database, Interior is soliciting bids to tear down 5.4 miles of existing fence wire, leave the fence posts intact, and put up nearly 50,000 feet of new 4-strand barbed wire fencing.
chris floyd: Border Lords: Immigration Plan is Crony Pork Bonanza
My, my, my, isn’t this a surprise! It turns out that George W. Bush’s “Secure Border Initiative” to “control illegal immigration” is actually just a great big pork trough for his cronies and benefactors in the weapons biz to cash in big-time off the suffering and poverty of dusky foreigners. Now where have we seen that before?
The NYT reports that Bush is limbering up the federal checkbook to funnel even more millions to masters of war like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, still feasting sumptuously off the bloated corpse of conquered Iraq. These fine purveyors of contemporary “defense” (who says irony is dead?) will soon string the border with all manner of hugely expensive high-tech gizmonics designed to keep the hemisphere’s most desperate and vulnerable people from crossing over to take the slave-wage, no-benefit, no-protection jobs offered to them by, well, Bush’s cronies and benefactors in big business and among the wealthy elite (whom he has recently larded with more tax-cut largess). It’s a neat scam, really, a win-win situation: your corporate cronies get even more loot from the public treasury – and they still get the cheap Latino labor that keeps them in clover.
nyt: Bush Turns to Big Military Contractors for Border Control
The quick fix may involve sending in the National Guard. But to really patch up the broken border, President Bush is preparing to turn to a familiar administration partner: the nation’s giant military contractors.
Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, three of the largest, are among the companies that said they would submit bids within two weeks for a multibillion-dollar federal contract to build what the administration calls a “virtual fence” along the nation’s land borders.
Using some of the same high-priced, high-tech tools these companies have already put to work in Iraq and Afghanistan — like unmanned aerial vehicles, ground surveillance satellites and motion-detection video equipment — the military contractors are zeroing in on the rivers, deserts, mountains and settled areas that separate Mexico and Canada from the United States.
…
Through its Secure Border Initiative, the Bush administration intends to not simply buy an amalgam of high-tech equipment to help it patrol the borders — a tactic it has also already tried, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, with extremely limited success. It is also asking the contractors to devise and build a whole new border strategy that ties together the personnel, technology and physical barriers.
…
The effort comes as the Senate voted Wednesday to add hundreds of miles of fencing along the border with Mexico.
…
“We are launching the most technologically advanced border security initiative in American history,” Mr. Bush said in his speech from the Oval Office on Monday.
Under the initiative, the Department of Homeland Security and its Customs and Border Protection division will still be charged with patrolling the 6,000 miles of land borders.
The equipment these Border Patrol agents use, how and when they are dispatched to spots along the border, where the agents assemble the captured immigrants, how they process them and transport them — all these steps will now be scripted by the winning contractor, who could earn an estimated $2 billion over the next three to six years on the Secure Border job.
…
The government’s track record in the last decade in trying to buy cutting-edge technology to monitor the border — devices like video cameras, sensors and other tools that came at a cost of at least $425 million — is dismal.
Because of poor contract oversight, nearly half of video cameras ordered in the late 1990’s did not work or were not installed. The ground sensors installed along the border frequently sounded alarms. But in 92 percent of the cases, they were sending out agents to respond to what turned out to be a passing wild animal, a train or other nuisances, according to a report late last year by the homeland security inspector general.
A more recent test with an unmanned aerial vehicle bought by the department got off to a similarly troubling start. The $6.8 million device, which has been used in the last year to patrol a 300-mile stretch of the Arizona border at night, crashed last month.
sam smith: Bush Calls Up National Guard To Help In Campaign
The abuse of the National Guard for political purposes is not unique to George Bush. Ronald Reagan, for example, used the scam of training to mobilize National guard troops for his war against Nicaragua. GOP governor Perpich of Minnesota and Democratic governor Dukakis of Massachusetts went to the Supreme Court to try to stop this on the grounds that the Constitution gives authority for Guard training to the governors. A number of governors backed the pair in this unsuccessful effort. One of the exceptions was Bill Clinton of Arkansas. Clinton, who already had close ties to Reagan administration thanks to enabling CIA operations out of his state, happily dispatched his Guard to Honduras, even sending his own security chief, Buddy Young, along to keep an eye on things. Winding up its tour, the Arkansas Guard declared large quantities of its weapons “excess” and left them behind for the Contras, a clever if sleazy way of getting around the hassle of congressional budgeting.
It is in this cynical tradition that Bush has been treating the Guard as his personal political toy, killing its troops to make Iraq turn out better and now calling them up for border patrol to help out in this fall’s political campaign.
The increasing federalization of the National Guard has not bothered federally-oriented liberals but has definitely played a role in the downfall of the first American republic. Once, every president understood that there were a large number of states with their own militias that wouldn’t stand quietly by during an attempted coup. The weakening of state control of the Guard has paralleled the weakening of democracy in the U.S. Bush is taken heavy advantage of this weakness.
Posted by: b real | May 18 2006 21:33 utc | 2
Americans behind bars | FP Passport
“Seven tenths of a percent of America is behind bars. That doesn’t sound like much, right?”
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 18 2006 22:18 utc | 3
@
Killing the messengers …
b, that is the least of it. Todays Senate hearing Gen. (probable cause) Hayden decked out in full military regalia, let slip that due to the Bush ‘idea war'(sic) the Goss purge has left us with only one in four experienced anaylists in the CIA all chiefs no middle managment the rest workers bee’s. I find this deeply disturbing and frightening beyond belief.
It is the same Team B bullshit on a much deadlier scale; a direct consequence and method of their ideological war i.e., as Adam Curtis in his documentary titled “The Power of Nightmares said, Hyping Terror For Fun, Profit – And Power.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 18 2006 22:52 utc | 4
Airbus landed that elephant at Heathrow today.
Amid all that hype etc I was just thinking that with peak oil looming (or maybe upon us), this will be the airlines answer to instead of say 20 flights per day by Aer Lingus (for example) between Dublin and London, there is now just four.
Good spin to justify the Elephant, but I saw (I think) today an advert in the Guardian that Emirates have bought 23 of these monoliths.
Talking with my brother this evening about the world’s problems…….. price of a cup of coffee in Dublin… average €2, price of a cup of Jet A1, €.20 cent.
Those Arab Emirates have a plan methinks.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | May 18 2006 23:02 utc | 5
Added bonus: Border walls built by military contractors to keep ‘dusky foreigners’ out can later be used to keep dissident citizens or, more likely, debt-indentured ‘servants’, in.
Posted by: gylangirl | May 18 2006 23:05 utc | 6
@Uncle, did you hear Bensky’s excellent post-hearings interviews/discussions?
(Apologies in adv. for length of this post.)
I didn’t catch all of them, but from the first hour, I want to share two very important points that may be getting lost in the info overload that’s amplified to madness by the web.
Firstly, no matter how cynical one is, or how much Chomsky/Herman one has read, it was So Chilling to hear a CIA guy, a self-described Conservative, Who Used to Brief the President for christ sakes, back when we had one, Chimpy’s Daddy in fact – yes, Ray McGovern – say that “We no longer have a free press to speak of”.
Let that sink in.
I would add, that whereas Chomsky & Herman in used to say that the press used to reflect both elite opinion, and splits w/in elite opinion, now it only reflects the Clique in Power, w/very minor exceptions, despite the fact that they’re bankrupting the nation & destroying the Republic.
The second impt. point today, you touched upon. The gutting of the analytical branch of the CIA. McGovern agreed w/Stansfeld Turner, who he called the last good head of CIA, that now it’s so gutted it should be shut down entirely. But a point that’s getting lost is that it no longer reports to the President. Ok, we know that. But here’s the point, it reports to negroponte, a Political Appointee, so the whole process is entirely politicized – in short they just have hacks there to gather whatever they are ordered to gather. So, there’s no institutional source of information to short-circuit the fantasies of Sadistic MadBoys.
One consequence of this, not discussed by McGovern et al. today – of course – is that there is no institution capable of internal coup d’etats – cf Richard Nixon.
What was not discussed is why they’ve destroyed the Analytical Div. of CIA. The best exposition of that is here – scroll down to Tues. 5/2. This is a must listen to interview w/Craig Murray, former Brit. Ambass. to Uzbekistan. He’s the guy who quit/was forced out of the Foreign Service for objecting to torture.
Shortly after I heard this interview, Tante Aime had that superb post – elevated to a thread – about how no one cares. Well, this guy does, enough to be relieved to be living in a small 2 bdr. flat rather than the palace he previously inhabited rather than aide & abet people being tortured in his name.
In this interview he thoroughly exposes the so-called “war on terra” as a fig leaf for the Oil Wars. He discusses how they went into Uzbek. to protect oil/gas deals kennyboy lay signed when georgie was Texas gov.
He tells a very touching story of the Uzbek Mother who came to him w/pictures of her son. He was returned to her for burial. It’s like something out of a “fairy tale”. She was told not to open his casket, which was to be buried the following day. Being a Good Mother of Grimmsian Dimensions, she waited until the boy the state sent to guard it to be sure she didn’t open it, fell asleep. Then she not only opened the coffin, but took detailed photos. She took the photos to the accidentally Good Ambassador & asked what happened to her son. Unbelievably he took his job seriously as a defender of civilization, and promptly send them to the Pathology Lab @Univ. of Glasgow. They reported that he had been beaten, etc. etc. & finally drowned in boiling liquid. …
He explained the way this works is that the crap that’s extracted under torture is put into intel. rpts. as “a the intel. service of a friendly country reports…”. This total bullshit Goes to the Highest Level of Governments – Pres, SecDef, Congress. There is Zero Mention that this was extracted under torture.
Hence, no wonder they’re gutting the analytical division of the CIA. It would be a counterpoint to this garbage. Clearly the MadBoys who’ve taken over decide on what they want to do. Then torturers around the world are enlisted to torture “corroborating evidence” from poor innocent nobodys.
So, what does it mean for “Congress to declare war on Country X”. Just as there will be no more exit polls to tell us that elections have been rigged (check bradblog/mark C. Miller for info. on yesterday’s Pa. primary), so there will be no more information on what’s really happening in the world, to tell us after the next invasion that the “pres.” lied us into another war.
Another fascinating story was in response to the last question. Bernstein asked him for a sample of the things the Brits censored from his bk. (He assured us that he’ll post on his website everything that’s been censored out.) He told this – for those who still believe there is a Real “war on terra”. An “intelligence” report crossed his desk about an Al Q- training camp at such & such location. He was curious to see what they were up to, so he headed up there. What did he find? Basic Training…a McDonalds…a MultiPlex…what was there??? Absolutely Nothing…air..earth…Nada…
Posted by: jj | May 19 2006 0:48 utc | 7
So, given the above, who will Kissinger, Scowcroft -who promised to move to Impeach chimpy if he tried to invade Iran, and he said this in a public speech around time of Iraq invasion – Brzez. enlist to help them thwart Iran invasion???
Posted by: jj | May 19 2006 1:02 utc | 8
It is official now:
Colin Campbell’s blog
“Submitted by Colin Campbell on Tue, 2006-05-02 06:42.
May 2nd 2006
Peak of Regular Conventional Oil was passed:
Routine work on the database and depletion modelling continues, leading to an updated evaluation through 2005. It is an endless task to capture all the information that comes in and properly evaluate it. It suggests that the Peak of Regular Conventional Oil was passed in 2005 and that the peak of All Liquids will come around 2010….”
Posted by: gylangirl | May 19 2006 2:06 utc | 9
It suggests that the Peak of Regular Conventional Oil was passed in 2005 and that the peak of All Liquids will come around 2010….”
It’s unclear what he means by “all liquids”, since head of UCB’s Renewable Energy Research Lab said there is 17x as much lower grade oil, as there was of the top grade stuff – enough to last for centuries.
Now everything is Political and can’t be believed, any more than their inflation figures, election figures, or political threat analysis. It’s all of a piece. They need a cover for their war on the middle class, so anything goes, no matter how shoddy the research, as long as it fits w/the new agenda.
Posted by: jj | May 19 2006 4:04 utc | 10
@jj
thanks, flashpoints is one of my fav programs. And yes, I heard McGovern today. In addition, McGovern also confirmed Scott Ritter, in that we already have US Marines in Iran working w/the MEK terrorist org. We’re already at war in Iran.
Be sure to listen this sunday, it promises to be a good one. Bensky will be doing a major indepth analysis of today’s hearings.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 19 2006 5:01 utc | 11
@jj:
(I can see your post as I write this, so no mistake this time!)
Since, for Campbell, ‘Peak Oil’ is defined in terms of extraction rate, it is actually possible that ‘all liquids’ might reach peak by 2010 — if, by then, the world is extracting them at the maximum rate we are likely ever to reach, then we would be at peak, albeit a very prolonged peak. Whether this will actually happen I am not competent to judge. Personally I’m hoping that the high cost of energy will finally start to knock some sense into us technolovores and there will be serious investment in other fuel sources… I’d be very happy if sixty years from now I can laugh at the way ‘peak oil’ came about because demand went way down, so extraction slowed…
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | May 19 2006 5:48 utc | 12
Monday’s WaPo gave an inkling of some of the ancillary costs of the oil wars/peak oil AKA now where did I put that bicycle/sailing boat/hot air balloon?
Malnutrition among Iraqi children alarming: survey
Malnutrition among Iraqi children has reached alarming levels, according to a U.N.-backed government survey showing people are struggling to cope three years after U.S.-forces overthrew Saddam Hussein.
by: Fredrik Dahl on: 17th May, 06
Nine percent — almost one in 10 — of children aged between six months and five years, suffered acute malnourishment, said the report on food security and vulnerability in Iraq.
“Children are…major victims of food insecurity,” it said, describing the situation as “alarming.”
A total of four million Iraqis, roughly 15 percent of the population, were in dire need of humanitarian aid including food, up from 11 percent in a 2003 report, the survey of more than 20,000 Iraqi households found.
Saddam’s 35-year rule was marked by ruinous wars — first against Iran in 1980-88 and then against U.S.-led forces in 1991 and again in 2003 — as well as crippling economic sanctions in the 1990s.
The aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion has seen widespread violence, with militant and sectarian attacks and killings preventing a return to normal life for many Iraqis and hindering humanitarian aid efforts.
“Decades of conflict and economic sanctions have had serious effects on Iraqis,” the report said. “Their consequences have been rising unemployment, illiteracy and, for some families, the loss of wage earners.”
The survey was conducted by the ministries of planning and health supported by the U.N. World Food Program and the U.N. Children’s Fund UNICEF.
David Singh, a spokesman for UNICEF’s Iraq Support Center in neighboring Jordan, said the number of acutely malnourished children had more than doubled, to 9 percent in 2005 from 4 percent in 2002, the last year of Saddam’s rule.
Many children in homes lacking sufficient food suffered from chronic malnutrition, the U.N. agency added.
“This can irreversibly hamper the young child’s optimal mental/cognitive development, not just their physical development,” Roger Wright, UNICEF’s special representative for Iraq, said in its statement.
Singh told Reuters: “Until there is a period of relative stability in Iraq we are going to continue to face these kinds of problems.”
The infant mortality rate in Iraq pre-invasion was already much higher than surrounding nations; due chiefly to the impact of years of sanctions. That seems like the ‘good times’ looking back now.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 19 2006 7:01 utc | 13
Western leaders are frustrating democratic elections in Palestine by withholding aid, and using collective punishment, an economic siege and starvation as political weapons in their efforts to get the Hamas government to accept their terms of business with Israel.
Never in the long struggle for freedom in apartheid South Africa was there a situation as dramatic as in Palestine today: even though children were killed for resisting a second-class education; the liberation movement’s leaders were locked up for decades on Robben Island; new leaders were assassinated; church leaders were poisoned; house demolitions and forced removals were frequent; and western governments told South Africans who their leaders should be, and what their policies should be.
…
Today western moral authority in the Middle East is gone, as much because of years of double standards in Palestine as because of the current disastrous war on Iraq. There is no excuse for not knowing the truth about what is now happening to the Palestinians. And the most recent diplomatic moves by the Quartet – the US, the EU, the UN and Russia – to alleviate suffering, while keeping up the ban on dealing with the Palestinians’ elected leaders, are totally inadequate.
Some plain speaking on the current crisis, and on what will happen without serious political intervention, shows why. The root problem is the intensifying Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Despite the international court of justice ruling it illegal, Israel’s 390-mile wall snakes on through the West Bank, taking another 10% of the land and providing for the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements.
…
The Palestinians are having sanctions imposed on them for their political choice. But it is Israel, creating new facts on the ground to prevent the emergence of a viable Palestinian state, that should be facing UN sanctions. The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, should use his last months in office to call for sanctions to bring about the implementation of the ICJ ruling on the Israeli wall, the closure of West Bank settlements and the release of Palestinian political prisoners. And those who care for freedom, peace and justice must build a global Palestine solidarity movement to match the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s.
Why is there not more public discussion about the proposed Mexican wall (err… I mean, fence)? What a silly and useless waste of money. Is all these guys know is force and submission? What the hell is coming of this country?
Posted by: D | May 19 2006 13:42 utc | 15
Some good news (and the Moon rarely covers sports, so here goes):
Thierry Henry to stay at Arsenal:
“It’s not a surprise anymore, but I’m staying here at the club that I love,” he said. “In the past year the love the fans have shown me is more than amazing. After we lost on Wednesday I couldn’t let them down. My wife is English, London is my home town. The people I meet here welcome me with open arms. It would be difficult to leave a country like England, a country of passion where the stadiums are full all the time.
“I’ve never played in Spain and I never will. I’ve played in France and Italy but this is the best country to play football and this is my last contract. I enjoy playing away or at home, getting stick. It’s the passion I like. Here you can do your job in the right way – people here respect the player. It’s been amazing since I joined, there had been so much speculation about me leaving – I won’t lie, it crossed my mind. But I think with my heart and it told me to stay.”
Thank god for that.
Posted by: Dismal Science | May 19 2006 16:38 utc | 16
Patrick Smith, a pretty good writer who does an “Ask the Pilot” series for salon, gives his take on some of the 9/11 conspiracy theories.
Posted by: mats | May 19 2006 16:42 utc | 17
unfortunately, clear as day or as dark as night – reichsfuhrer rove will not be indicted today, tommorrow or ever, & the thug general hayden will become cia fuhrer – in the bloody triumvirate of the criminal negroponte
& pat fitgerald, really just robert mitchum trying to be gregory peck
Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 19 2006 16:49 utc | 18
one contention w/ smith’s ask the pilot article. he uses a straw-man argument – It’s not beyond reason that some aspects of the 2001 attacks deserve more scrutiny than the 9/11 Commission lavished on them. But those who most urgently wish us to believe so have done themselves no favors by expanding the breadth of their contentions beyond all plausibility. – when it’s not really necessary. he makes his case on the particulars, so, other than a personal/professional need to put as much distance as possible between himself & the fringe conspiracists, it’s not necessary for such broad slander.
on the subject of conspiracy theorists – the one’s that have been at it since the early 80’s must really be freakin’ these days. the bush admin national security strategy & their pnac co-horts exemplify a new world order w/ their objectives of “full spectrum dominance” and imperial hegemony. halliburton has the contract to build detention camps. people are voluntarily getting rfid chips embedded under their skin. the neocons use of the straussian logic to hide their true motives from all but an elite minority. bushco’s destruction of the constitution and the bill of rights. and now the govts pretense of an (illegal) alien invasion to further their de facto military state. surprising that some militia groups haven’t tried to take them out yet.
Posted by: b real | May 19 2006 17:18 utc | 19
@DS:
Yes there is something about British and German football that set them apart, I think, from the rest of the pack.
Posted by: Groucho | May 19 2006 17:29 utc | 20
Dismal Science-
you are free to start a thread on sports at Le speak. With world cup coming up, I think it might be a necessity.
the only sports I regularly try to watch are the world cup, the world (cough) series, and the ncaa playoffs..and I don’t always do that. but then, I’m a cubbies fan.
Posted by: fauxreal | May 19 2006 17:48 utc | 21
watched congressional ‘hearing’ on hayden – inn fiction you could not create such beasts
Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 19 2006 17:56 utc | 22
On those sham Hayden hearings, Dana Milbank does his fine sarcasm
The dictionary tells us that “oversight” can mean either watchful supervision or an omission caused by inattention. As it held a confirmation hearing for CIA nominee Michael Hayden yesterday, the Senate intelligence committee seemed to be operating under the latter definition.
…
@Faux:
I really liked the Chicago fire back in 2000 or 2001 when they had Stoitchkov and Ante Razov. Razov is apparently playing 2nd division in spain now.
Gave up on the Cubs when they traded Lee Smith–long ago.
Posted by: Groucho | May 19 2006 18:09 utc | 24
and the Moon rarely covers sports
Yeah, you are right. But I will cover the soccer/football championship. Some games will be played in my town. I like to watch the games and I am a regular at the brothel of the league, St.Pauli.
The commercialisation of the championship is incredible and redicules.
For example – no cabs within a mile from the stadion, because some car manufacturer has bought some “exclusive right” to present his cars at the event.
Groucho- come on, you weren’t rooting for them in 2003? –you didn’t want a Cubs/Red Sox series? blasphemy!
I don’t watch city soccer too much. Where I live, there’s a pretty good college team that’s done well for more than twenty years in the ncaa. cheap tickets, too.
I was, by default, an Anderlecht fan, because my ex was recruited for the Jr. National team and that was his local favorite. He didn’t try to go pro…he came to the US to study instead, and then…well, oops.
Posted by: fauxreal | May 19 2006 19:23 utc | 26
Thanks for the invite to do a sports thread at Le Speak, faux, but I don’t think I’m really qualified.
I’m just a Johnny-Come-Lately to the glory that is the current Arsenal under Arsene Wenger – OK, he has his off days eg he wouldn’t let the Brazilian team members like Gilberto go to play in the Brazil vs Haiti match in Port-au-Prince, an incredibly important event for the Haitians, but we all wobble from time to time, non?
The team he has put together this season – almost as a fluke because of injuries to several first-team players – that took the European championship by storm has been amazing, and if the reduced-to-10-men Arsenal team had managed to beat Barcelona/Ronaldinho in Paris last Wednesday, it truly would have eclipsed the Steven Gerrard-led Liverpool fightback against Milan in Istanbul last year!
And Arsenal still have some tasty fellas waiting in the wings – Arturo Lupoli, Theo Walcott, to name but two.
Henry is a giant of the game. His paypacket (£110,000 a week) is patently absurd, but he is a gent nonetheless.
I don’t want to derail the Moon from the serious stuff, but sometimes…
I don’t have a tv at the moment (I listened to the European Cup Final on Radio London), so seeing any of the World Cup is going to involve frequent trips to the pub across the road to watch it there.
I shall be supporting plucky Trinidad as my aunt is from there.
Posted by: Dismal Science | May 19 2006 19:40 utc | 27
Dismal Science- why are you not qualified? It’s the back room of the bar. We’re shooting pool and smoking cigarettes and drinking pale ale –when we’re not discussing manure.
we peek into the Moon of Alabama room at the Whiskey Bar and see all the grimaces, the whiskey shots, and wonder how we got to be such dodgy blokes. 🙂
(blokettes?)
Here, I’ll start one in your honor: Dismal Science Presents: WCS Trinidad Gooooaal Post. I lifted your first post here and put it there, if you want to go there to talk sometimes.
Posted by: fauxreal | May 19 2006 19:57 utc | 28
sorry, but I don’t know if she/he is around right now…if so, please check your le speak mail because I’ve asked you another stupid question® about messing around with preset blog codes. –thx- fauxreal
Posted by: hey jonku | May 19 2006 20:01 utc | 29
Why is there not more public discussion about the proposed Mexican wall
D, it is just aweful, I never would have imagined that my country could stoop to such depths. the utter arrogance and ruthlessness that the wingnuts are using this trumped up crisis to suck a bit more federal money from the treasury into fatcat corporations is beyond belief. Perhaps it will create a few jobs along the border, first to put it up and then to take it down when people finally realize what they have done.
Reading excerpts from the Hayden hearing has completely demoralized me. I don’t see any of us getting out of this whole.
today I asked a woman I work with why she voted for Bush. She told me he seemed more genuine and human than Kerry. She is a very nice person yet holds these views which to me seem so completely out of whack with reality. What is there to do? I am really sick of it all.
how do we stay outraged all the time? it is tiring. I need to see some progress, somewhere….anywhere. all I see is a few people spinning their wheels and for the most part going in different directions. sorry for the ramble but the wall is just another layer of shit spread over us.
Posted by: dan of steele | May 19 2006 20:59 utc | 30
& speaking as i do of beasts – the congress or what passes for it in those united states is now confronted with the problem of haditha
they will of course in their lazy way describe that these are just a few bad apples in the barrel – missing the point that the whole barrel is rotten & infecting everyone within it
they will of course lie & say how unique haditha is – but we will know that the reality is – that haditha is happening every day
the murder of innocents is standard operating procedure for the armies of the empire
they will want us to forget fallujah, nassorah – they will want us to forget basra & mosul, they will want us to forget that these massive armies of brute force & murder do not even control baghdad
watching a part of the chairman of the armed service committee’s ‘briefing’ where in fleisher/mcllelan/snow fashion he repeated over & over & over again – how heroic were his warrriors when what he is doing is turning young men & women into murderers in the same way that the political structure makes sacred corruption & the kickback
the way these swine speak so easily of murder & they are swine of the lowest order because theor greed is not the crime of visionaries gone mad but of profiteers trying to steal the last time
in time their whole clique should be treated without pîty & whether their name is abramoff or cheney or goss they should face the full force of their people’s fury
if only those people can wake from their dread/full sleep
Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 19 2006 21:16 utc | 31
the fool i saw was named duncan hunter & he had obviously spent time at the school of rudimentary & repetative rhetoric
over & over again – i cannot comment on an ongoing criminal investigation – despite the fact he is a spokesperson for an ongoing criminal activity
on & on he went about chains of command – officers good & true who loved liberty & objectivity while hiding the fact that each day these very men & women deprive the people of iraq & of afghanistan deprive the majority of people of the most basic liberties, they deprive them even of services, essential services
on & on he went about badges medals & honour rolls in a war that is marked & ought to be marked by the most deepest shame
the assassins & their errand boys will one day come falling to kingdom come
Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 20 2006 1:15 utc | 32
but suharto is gravely ill & that can’t be a bad thing
Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 20 2006 1:18 utc | 33
Ok RG, fer Christ’s sake:
Get in the spirit of things, and I’ll freely admit Dynamo Moscow kicks ass.
Posted by: Groucho | May 20 2006 1:34 utc | 34
yes groucho
that was what i was thinking during the briefing of the sd duncan hunter – how i would like to kick his head from one part of washington to the next but these guys are so good at ‘own goals’ that i will leave him too it
& in any case jack murtha is closer
Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 20 2006 1:45 utc | 35
I know RG, but everyone is very fatigued and demoralized.
I can imagine that the whole government apparatus , House, Senate, S Court also, could have a nice banquet of Biafrian or Irish babies, and all the MSM would wonder about were the seatings, party favors, etc, and if they could please have theirs medium rare.
Sometimes you just need a ###DAMNED BREAK from it.
Posted by: Groucho | May 20 2006 2:02 utc | 36
Hey, speaking of soccer, let’s hear it for champions Barcelona, the only major European club not to have a huge, ugly corporate ad defacing their jerseys. Sometimes, you just don’t need those extra millions of euros.
Posted by: Rowan | May 20 2006 3:34 utc | 37
some items that would be funny in different times
think progress: New Ads Funded by Big Oil Portray Global Warming Science as Smear Campaign Against Carbon Dioxide
…the Competitive Enterprise Institute – a front group funded by ExxonMobil and other big oil companies – launched two advertisements in response to Al Gore’s new movie, An Inconvenient Truth.
The first ad portrays global warming science as a vicious smear campaign against carbon dioxide. The ad, which despite appearances is not an SNL parody, helpfully reminds us that carbon dioxide is “essential to life” because “we breath it out.”
spin of the day: Pentagon Briefing Shows Guantanamo’s ‘Good’ Side
It must be hard to put the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in a positive light, following recent detainee suicide attempts and the United Nations Committee Against Torture’s recommendation that the camp be closed, but that’s what the Pentagon is trying to do. According to US News & World Report, “Officials from the Joint Chiefs of Staff Detainee Affairs Section have worked up a new briefing and made presentations in recent months to some 3,000 people, including media representatives and members of Congress, stressing the strategic value of detainees at the prison camp.” The briefing touts the camp’s “decent food, healthcare, and literacy training for the inmates. Notwithstanding allegations of psychological and physical torture, officials say the biggest threats faced by many detainees are … frequent sports injuries on Gitmo basketball courts.”
spin of the day: Berman’s Center for Union Smears Hits TV Screens
The new industry-funded front group from lobbyist Rick Berman, the Center for Union Facts, has launched its first TV ad campaign. The 30-second spot, running on Fox News and local markets, has “actors posing as workers” saying “sarcastically what they ‘love’ about unions,” like paying dues, union leaders’ “fat-cat lifestyles,” and discrimination against minorities. The ad campaign cost $3 million, which was raised “from companies, foundations and individuals that Mr. Berman won’t identify.” Another TV ad will be filmed in June.
Posted by: b real | May 20 2006 3:58 utc | 38
@b real:
Don’t forget the ads online about network neutrality claiming that the government is harming small businesses by even thinking about requiring common carriage. Yeah, all those poor little U.S. mom and pop phone companies, out there… yeah…
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | May 20 2006 4:19 utc | 39
Huffington Post – Air America MIHOP??
9/11 and other horrid events have probably been acts of those rogues in government intelligence agencies that only serve selected people in government to advance their political goals.
Interesting to see this kind of talk on Huffington. No?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 20 2006 5:33 utc | 40
It’s going to be funny when Chevaz yells”Mr. Bush Tear Down That Wall”!
Posted by: R.L. | May 20 2006 5:34 utc | 41
Been reading about the demands to put a disclaimer at the start of “The Da Vince Code”, stating that this is all fictional and has nothing to do with the facts of Christianity or history.
I agree that they should. And they should also be compelled to put a similar disclaimer at the beginning of every Bible, explaining that it is also fictional and has nothing to do with history or reality.
Posted by: ralphieboy | May 20 2006 7:18 utc | 42
Can’t be doing that Ralphie Boy, freedom of speech is a one way valve nowadays, a door that only opens out.
Ya start getting people to put the standard disclaimer in their words of war and misery and every fatgutted half-witted legislator talks about freedoom of speech. Yet put out a book that insinuates the words of war and misery may be fallacious and when every grifting backdoorman bullshitting preacher threatens, blackmails, and extorts you into submission he’s just exercising his freedom of speech as well.
Been spending a good part of today thinking about the people in Gitmo. Every now and then I get a flash of what it must be like to be held in Limbo like that.
“states of oblivion, confinement, or transition is derived from the theological sense of Limbo as a place where souls remain that cannot enter heaven, for example, unbaptized infants. Limbo in Roman Catholic theology is located on the border of Hell”
There have been many many suicide attempts and although the US govt likes to pass these attempts off as being akin to the type of acting out some adolescents fall prey to unfortunately statistics on self harm don’t bear that theory out. Ones like adult men don’t attempt suicide as often as others but when they do they are far more likely to be successful.
One of the reports the US govt put out which was meant to placate people people instead sent the cold fingers down the spine.
They claimed that in the 5 years of operation; incarcerating, all up, probably close to 2000 people, not a single prisoner had died at Gitmo Now that is damn close to impossible when the fact that many of them arrived still recovering from war wounds, some had been captured after many months living on the smell of an oily rag while on the run. They came from parts of the world where life expectancy is relatively low, and many people haven’t been vaccinated against some fairly common but highly infectious and dangerous diseases, etc, etc.
If it is true that none have died at Gitmo all that says is that the horror doesn’t let up even when someone is terminally ill. Anyone looking like they are about to shuffle of the mortal coil is hastily ‘transferred’ elsewhere to keep Gitmo mortality statistics at zero.
Now that is limbo; you’re not even allowed to die at Gitmo.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 20 2006 10:45 utc | 43
All the mistakes and the correct pointing on the idiots in a few paragraphs:
Misjudgments Marred U.S. Plans for Iraqi Police
Before the war, the Bush administration dismissed as unnecessary a plan backed by the Justice Department to rebuild the police force by deploying thousands of American civilian trainers. Current and former administration officials said in interviews that they were relying on a Central Intelligence Agency assessment that said the Iraqi police were well trained. The C.I.A. said its assessment conveyed nothing of the sort.
After Baghdad fell, when the majority of Iraqi police officers abandoned their posts, a second proposal by a Justice Department team calling for 6,600 police trainers was reduced to 1,500, and then never carried out. During the first eight months of the occupation — as crime soared and the insurgency took hold — the United States deployed 50 police advisers in Iraq.
Against the objections of Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, the long-range plan was eventually reduced to 500 trainers. The result was a police captain from North Carolina having 40 Americans to train 20,000 Iraqi police across four provinces in southern Iraq.
FWIW.
Saw Davinci Code last night. Horrid albino scenes like in the book. Otherwise, very many fast-paced plot twists and turns but a Very Cool ending.
DH is convinced that JC is coming back via descendent of his and MM’s ‘royal’ bloodline. Gylangirl is convinced that royal bloodlines are irrelevant; and that the self-appointed authoritarian heirs of the JC message are frauds who still supress the ‘perennial philosophy’ allegedly advocated by JC/MM.
Posted by: gylangirl | May 21 2006 1:49 utc | 45
I am just amazed at how people can get upset over a work of Fiction, and now a Hollywood film based on a work of fiction. Although the historical background is nothing that has not been kicking around in academic works for years, Catholic leaders seem to be upset that they have found an outlet in popular culture.
I must admit that I disagree with some of the conclusions drawn in the book: i.e., the world might be have been better off without the spread of Christianity.
But it is amazing what sort of resonance this book has found among its 50 million or more readers. I can only assume that a lot of them have some serious issues with Christianity and the Mother Church, and found passages in the book that really appealed to them.
Posted by: ralphieboy | May 21 2006 6:53 utc | 46