just loverly, Bea.
I heard this story on All Things on NPR last night.

The foundation says a core of evangelicals are gaining influence at the Pentagon, and violating military policies. It cites Wednesday-morning prayer sessions in the Pentagon’s executive dining room, which features speakers from the Christian Embassy.

Posted by: beq | Dec 12 2006 12:39 utc | 3

…Wednesday-morning prayer sessions in the Pentagon’s executive dining room
You nearly made me choke on my coffee there beq. What the hell is happening to this country???

Posted by: Bea | Dec 12 2006 12:43 utc | 5

Many mistakes made as well but I think we should just start calling them what they really are.
Crimes.

Posted by: beq | Dec 12 2006 12:53 utc | 7

High crimes at that.
Misdemeanors, my ass.

Posted by: Sizemore | Dec 12 2006 13:23 utc | 9

The typical life span of an international monetary system is 30 to 50 years

Over the centuries, monetary systems have come and gone–such as the international fractional gold reserve system that ended in 1971. There is a pattern of events leading up to these transitions. The typical scenario for a transition from one monetary system to another is as follows.
The old system is organized around the ability of the main players in the system to produce internationally valued real-goods output for export and capital goods used as reserves at little or not cost. Imbalances build up in the system because the ability of economies in it to produce goods for export to earn foreign exchange revenues, relative to capital goods for export, changes over time. The main players in the system are not motivated to re-organize the system to accommodate these imbalances because the transition costs from the old system to a new system are higher than the apparent benefit, and the political costs tend to be highest for the largest player in the system. The largest player and the others are motivated to work for many years to find ways to sustain the old system in a state of imbalance.
In the current instance, the most likely system to arise from the current unilateral US dollar based system is a multi-lateral dollar-euro-yen reserve system. Getting there from a unilateral dollar based system to a multi-lateral dollar-euro-yen system minimally requires that the EU develop a euro bond market nearly as liquid and transparent as the dollar bond market, and that the EU change trade policies 180 degrees to begin running trade deficits. These two requirements alone are significant transition cost barriers to a planned transition. As a result, the US, Asia and the EU continue to make concessions to maintain the system as it grows further out of balance over time. The investments and changes in mindset and practice required to create a new system have only happened in the past as a response to a systemic monetary crisis.
The typical life span of an international monetary system is 30 to 50 years. An unbalanced system can continue for many years, until one day an event that is mundane under circumstances of greater global balance causes one of the major players in the system to calculate that the cost of breaking from the others and absorbing the transition costs of moving to a new system is lower than either staying with the old one or waiting until the inevitable crisis occurs. This is how the fractional gold reserve system ended, when Charles de Gaulle in the late 1960s demanded re-payment of gold owed to France by the US, after he decided that the US–then running what was considered a large trade deficit–intended to depreciate the dollar and pay its trading partners back with cheap dollars. Nixon responded by taking the US off the fractional gold standard and defaulting on US debts in 1971, just as de Gaulle had feared. Nixon also devalued the dollar not just once, but twice, later that same decade. A more principled US President might have heeded the advice of economic adviser Milton Friedman and not have done any of these things. Which brings me to the main point here: the outcome of global imbalances is primarily determined by national leadership–who the leaders are in the system and how they are likely to behave in a crisis.
Charles de Gaulle had accurately sized-up Nixon, but sometimes miscalculation precipitates crisis, such as when the US attempted to bale out Great Britain in the late 1920s to try to preserve the international gold standard based monetary system. The question today is, how do China’s President Hu Jintao and Japan’s Pre Prime Minister Shinzo Abe think about Bush? If the dollar and the US economy came under duress because of trade balances, can Bush be expected to act unilaterally or internationally? If the other main players calculate that a unilateral response is likely, then they may be motivated to jump the gun, as de Gaulle did. Alternatively, a player at the periphery of the system with international aspirations and strained political ties with the US, such as Russia, may form a block to threaten to break with the system, and either receives political and economic concessions within the context of the system or forces a fundamental change in the system.
We keep a close eye on Russian-U.S. relations as well as China-U.S., then, as that is at least for now the hot spot for a international monetary crisis.

In the event of a collapse of the “dollar,” here are the powers that the Executive may exercise as per this 1973 U.S. Senate Report.
PROVISIONS OF FEDERAL LAW
NOW IN EFFECT DELEGATING TO THE
EXECUTIVE EXTRAORDINARY AUTHORITY
IN TIME OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY

Under the powers delegated by these statutes, the President may:
seize property; organize and control the means of production; seize commodities; assign military forces abroad; institute martial law; seize and control all transportation and communication; regulate the operation of private enterprise; restrict travel; and, in a plethora of particular ways, control the lives of all American citizens.

Somebody mentioned it earlier and I share this assessment. Bush is planning to implement his ‘Executive Orders’ and abandon Congress and Senate. First they will attack Iran, then in the following economic chaos they will declare a national state of emergency and with it Martial Law.
And in the ensuing chaos, they will
usher in a new era the new system, the New World Order the Amero dollar.
Emergency Powers Statutes
(Senate Report 93-549)
As someone else recently stated, “…prisoners are needed for the next stage of the USA’s economic development. Who’s going to take the manufacturing jobs from the Chinese? Prisoners.
The USA is clearly headed for a two-tier society: one in which there are prisoner-slaves, and free-wealthy.”
I can’t seem to find it now, but I had a quote from an interview with Grover Norquest, something to the effect of “Tavistock Institute in London, Rand Corp. in Santa Monica, Calif., Systems Development Corp. in Santa Monica, Stanford Research Corp.in Sunnyvale Calif., Frankfurt Institute in Frankfurt Germany, and several others elite contol run directly by Rothschilds and a few other powerful men in cluding the PNAC, all whose collective mission statement is to break the American economy, so as to do away with the welfare State, all social programs, and privitize everything.
As mad and rediculous as all this sounds, all indicators point in this direction, if not stopped. Otherwise, welcome to The North American Union NAFTA Super-Highway and the Amero.
There will be much bleeding, “wailing and gnashing of teeth”.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 12 2006 14:46 utc | 11

In 2005, I remarked that none of the indicted Enron execs would ever see the inside of a prison. At least Jeff Skilling won’t have to resort to faking his own death.

Posted by: Monolycus | Dec 12 2006 15:40 utc | 13

James Baker’s Double Life: A Special Investigation

James Baker’s Double Life: A Special Investigation
Naomi Klein
When President Bush appointed former Secretary of State James Baker III as his envoy on Iraq’s debt on December 5, 2003, he called Baker’s job “a noble mission.” At the time, there was widespread concern about whether Baker’s extensive business dealings in the Middle East would compromise that mission, which is to meet with heads of state and persuade them to forgive the debts owed to them by Iraq. Of particular concern was his relationship with merchant bank and defense contractor the Carlyle Group, where Baker is senior counselor and an equity partner with an estimated $180 million stake.
Until now, there has been no concrete evidence that Baker’s loyalties are split, or that his power as Special Presidential Envoy–an unpaid position–has been used to benefit any of his corporate clients or employers. But according to documents obtained by The Nation, that is precisely what has happened. Carlyle has sought to secure an extraordinary $1 billion investment from the Kuwaiti government, with Baker’s influence as debt envoy being used as a crucial lever.
The secret deal involves a complex transaction to transfer ownership of as much as $57 billion in unpaid Iraqi debts. The debts, now owed to the government of Kuwait, would be assigned to a foundation created and controlled by a consortium in which the key players are the Carlyle Group, the Albright Group (headed by another former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright) and several other well-connected firms. Under the deal, the government of Kuwait would also give the consortium $2 billion up front to invest in a private equity fund devised by the consortium, with half of it going to Carlyle.

Snip:

The goal of maximizing Iraq’s debt payments directly contradicts the US foreign policy aim of drastically reducing Iraq’s debt burden. According to Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University and a leading expert on government ethics and regulations, this means that Baker is in a “classic conflict of interest. Baker is on two sides of this transaction: He is supposed to be representing the interests of the United States, but he is also a senior counselor at Carlyle, and Carlyle wants to get paid to help Kuwait recover its debts from Iraq.” After examining the documents, Clark called them “extraordinary.” She said, “Carlyle and the other companies are exploiting Baker’s current position to try to land a deal with Kuwait that would undermine the interests of the US government.”
The Nation also showed the documents to Jerome Levinson, an international lawyer and expert on political and corporate corruption at American University. He called it “one of the greatest cons of all time. The consortium is saying to the Kuwaiti government, ‘Through us, you have the only chance to realize a substantial part of the debt. Why? Because of who we are and who we know.’ It’s influence peddling of the crassest kind.”

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 12 2006 17:07 utc | 15

imagine…
what would ppl here do, if they had the power, to change the world or the U.S. or where ever you are and make a better world? …a more just world?
to me, education is the issue that impacts upon every other. Going back to Emmanuel Todd, his figures on the value of education for females, for instance, seem to show that educating females results in a more egalitarian society, with lower birth rates (which is good for the whole planet) and a more hopeful future…across cultures.
men can also learn that women who are not kept subserviant can be good for their lives, as well…tho this is a difficult one because of male fears (which, imo, is as close to totally cultural as issues like this get…and stems from religion and older fears of paternity/property.)
but how do ppl get past these initial fears and resistances?
anyway, to me, this is one of the basic issues that deals with poverty and racism and incarceration and hatred and fear and killer capitalism.
what do you all say?

Posted by: fauxreal | Dec 12 2006 18:03 utc | 17

Geez, I guess I’m caught up in the game too, of pushing books. Just listened to a short interview with Charles Derber by Thom Hartmann, and while it was an excellent interview, and I will buy the book, I am disturbed. I have mentioned before, that it seems all these so called progressive outlets, new programs what have you, all the way from Democracy Now, freespeach radio, to the Stephen Colbert’s and Daily shows all have AN AGENDA of pushing authors and books, however these things give us great information (like our favorite blogs), I can’t help but think they stop us in some way from action. We’re busy accessing (reading about) the problem while the house burns down.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 12 2006 18:36 utc | 19

Hezbollah trainers are attached to the Shiite militias. Combined with a tour through American boot camp, the Mahdi militia will assure that Sadr City is a death trap for tanks.
this is probably the thinking behind the ’embedded american troop’ scenario under the stupidly transparent guise of ‘training’ it is much more ‘handling’ , monitoring.

Posted by: annie | Dec 12 2006 18:46 utc | 21

fun and games anyone?

Posted by: annie | Dec 12 2006 19:13 utc | 23

It’s Edward Munch’s birthday… put your mouse over the image and the message comes up… any time I wonder what Google is trying to say, the mouse reveals!

Posted by: crone | Dec 12 2006 20:50 utc | 25

apologies upfront – feeling a bit silly tonite
b’s post asking if bin laden has come home, combined w/ the recent rise in news feeds on al qaeda-related stories, set off an alarm when i came across this bit of intel

Sesame Workshop is hailing its strong presence in the Middle East, with three localized versions of Sesame Street—in Egypt, Jordan and Palestine—slated to be on the air in 2007.
Sesame Workshop Expands Middle East Activities

most western consumers are likely already well aware of the nefarious associations of one of the original programs characters – evil bert, one-time henchman to UBL in a well-publicized brouhaha back in 2001. obviously another western black op/recruitment in the making. keep an eye on that bert character. don’t trust him around the kids. lotta pressure to build the next al qaeda.
now this is silly (my flash harry contribution)
N.J. woman collects Silly String for serious mission in Iraq

In an age of multimillion-dollar, high-tech weapons systems, sometimes it’s the simplest ideas that can save lives. Which is why a New Jersey mother is organizing a drive to send cans of Silly String to Iraq.
American troops use the stuff to detect tripwires around bombs, as Marcelle Shriver learned from her son, a soldier in Iraq.
Before entering a building, troops squirt the plastic goo, which can shoot strands about 10 to 12 feet, across the room. If it falls to the ground, no tripwires. If it hangs in the air, they know they have a problem. The wires are otherwise nearly invisible.
…
The military is reluctant to talk about the product, saying that discussing specific tactics will tip off insurgents.

if i weren’t laughing, i’d probably be cryin’

Posted by: b real | Dec 13 2006 5:49 utc | 27

The “mist on a plane” terror turns out to have been none:
Pakistan Court Drops Charge in London Plot Case

A Pakistani court dropped terrorism charges on Wednesday against a Pakistani-British dual national who was suspected of being a key figure in a plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic Ocean, his lawyer said.
British police said in August they had foiled a plot to carry out suicide bombings on flights from London to the United States.
Days later, Pakistan announced it had arrested a “key person” in the plot, Rashid Rauf, who a Pakistani official said had been in contact with an al Qaeda operative in Afghanistan.
Rauf’s lawyer, Hashmat Habib, said an anti-terrorism court had found no evidence of terrorism against the suspect.
“The court has dropped charges of terrorism against him,” Habib told Reuters.

But nobody shall ever carry water again when going on a flight …

Posted by: b | Dec 13 2006 10:01 utc | 29

They Only Look Dead

If disrespecting the neoconservatives is emerging as a minor national sport, it should be enjoyed, and tempered, with realism.
Extricating themselves from the Bush embrace will be awkward and risks burning the faction’s bridges to more conventional Republicans.
But I predict that they will manage it. Despite the obituaries now being written, neoconservatism will not soon be over with and certainly won’t disappear in the way that American communism or segregation have. The group has always been resilient and tactically flexible.
Recall the state of neoconservatism in the early 1990s. The neocons could point with pride to their role in the Reagan presidency—though America’s Cold War success owes as much to the times when Reagan ignored their advice as when he took it. George H.W. Bush granted a presidential pardon to Iran-Contra figure Elliott Abrams, allowing him to continue his career.
In 1992, a significant group of neocons signed on as advisers to Bill Clinton, and the Democratic standard-bearer, eager to shed the McGovernite label neoconservative publicists typically draped around his party, entertained their counsel during the campaign.
But if Bush has failed them, what options remain? Joe Lieberman has less national appeal than Henry Jackson did, and once you have been embedded in the Pentagon and the vice president’s office, forays from the Senate will seem a weak brew. John McCain is another matter, and if Americans can be persuaded that the solution to their Middle East, terrorism, and other diplomatic dilemmas lies in more troops and invasions, neoconservatism will have springtime all over again.
What won’t be dropped is the neoconservatives’ attachment to Israel and the tendency to conflate the Jewish state’s interests (as defined in right-wing Israeli terms) with America’s. So one can look forward to neoconservative agitation on two fronts: a powerful campaign to draw the United States into a war to eliminate Iran’s nuclear potential and an equally loud effort in support of maintaining Israeli dominance over the West Bank and denying the Palestinians meaningful statehood. Those who argue effectively for a more even-handed American policy towards Israel and Palestine will risk the full measure of smears linking them to historical anti-Semitism. The archetypical neoconservative argument will no longer be Bob Kagan and Bill Kristol’s call for American “benevolent global hegemony,” but Gabriel Schoenfeld’s attack on John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in Commentary, an essay that sought to connect the pair’s work to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
So one can see why the movement’s obituaries are being written. But the group was powerful and influential well before its alliance with George W. Bush. In its wake it leaves behind crises—Iraq first among them—that will not be easy to resolve, and neocons will not be shy about criticizing whatever imperfect solutions are found to the mess they have created. Perhaps most importantly, neoconservatism still commands more salaries—able people who can pursue ideological politics as fulltime work in think tanks and periodicals—than any of its rivals. The millionaires who fund AEI and the New York Sun will not abandon neoconservatism because Iraq didn’t work out. The reports of the movement’s demise are thus very much exaggerated.

Here in Thailand many ex-pats are heard to snicker at the Thais’ belief in “ghosts”. I am more likely to snicker at ex-pats and am always reminded of Transylvania and its “undead” who come back to suck the blood of the living, who cannot stand the light of day, who must be immobilized if not eliminated with a stake driven through their hearts.
Is this not all a wise metaphor for the omnipresent evil of greed, how it lasts through the lifetime of a particular “carrier”, how it comes back every generation to suck the blood of the living.
Are not the neocons like like the Draculas?
Must we not drive stakes through their hearts less they rise again, after Iran-Contra, after Iraq, after Iran…

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 13 2006 14:27 utc | 31

Great piece in The Rolling Stone:
Paul Kurgman: The Great Wealth Transfer

The reason most Americans think the economy is fair to poor is simple: For most Americans, it really is fair to poor. Wages have failed to keep up with rising prices. Even in 2005, a year in which the economy grew quite fast, the income of most non-elderly families lagged behind inflation. The number of Americans in poverty has risen even in the face of an official economic recovery, as has the number of Americans without health insurance. Most Americans are little, if any, better off than they were last year and definitely worse off than they were in 2000.
But how is this possible? The economic pie is getting bigger — how can it be true that most Americans are getting smaller slices? The answer, of course, is that a few people are getting much, much bigger slices. Although wages have stagnated since Bush took office, corporate profits have doubled. The gap between the nation’s CEOs and average workers is now ten times greater than it was a generation ago. And while Bush’s tax cuts shaved only a few hundred dollars off the tax bills of most Americans, they saved the richest one percent more than $44,000 on average. In fact, once all of Bush’s tax cuts take effect, it is estimated that those with incomes of more than $200,000 a year — the richest five percent of the population — will pocket almost half of the money. Those who make less than $75,000 a year — eighty percent of America — will receive barely a quarter of the cuts. In the Bush era, economic inequality is on the rise.
…

Posted by: b | Dec 13 2006 18:43 utc | 33

First the Pirates destroyed our factory jobs so they could steal the money paid to Americans in wages. … Now they’re destroying the jobs of lawyers…Let’s Offshore The Lawyers: DuPont is farming out legal services to Asia—and saving a bundle
…
…But DuPont figures 70% of the labor in a typical insurance or liability case can be outsourced.
Vampires who grow fat in the finance industry, like Billmon, will love this.

Posted by: jj | Dec 13 2006 19:29 utc | 35

keith harmon snow on guns & butter today [archive of this show will be up at the link later]
Mining Apocalypse: Terrorism and Private Profit from the Horn to the Heart of Africa”

Interview with journalist and genocide investigator, Keith Harmon Snow. A French judge has brought indictments against top officials in Paul Kagame’s Rwandan government regarding the 1994 downing of the plane carrying the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, which is routinely cited as the flashpoint for the “Rwandan genocide”. We take a look at the Rwandan genocide and the Second Congo War. Keith Snow is releasing his UNICEF/United Nations sponsored investigation into the genocide in Ethiopia of the indigenous Anuak people in the Gambella region of southwest Ethiopia.

kpfa

Posted by: b real | Dec 13 2006 21:05 utc | 37

Torture memos will be made public

Leahy indicates that the document—acknowledged to exist in November by the Justice Department after a FOIA request by the ACLU—should have been sent to him many months ago, when he asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to provide him with all memos concerning detainee treatment.
That memo—a companion of sorts to the infamous Bybee memorandum, which broadened the range of permissible detainee questioning techniques—is said to outline actual interrogation procedures that have been approved by the Executive Branch. Many suspect that some of the procedures will be found to be forbidden by the Geneva Convention against Torture.
“I want to find out what is in the…memo,” he indicated at a forum at Georgetown University. “I intend to continue to try to get it. I would hope we could get these without a subpoena.”……
During Leahy’s hour-long talk, he pledged to work to see habeas corpus rights that were removed by the recently passed Military Commissions Act of 2006 restored, as well as to put an end to the warrantless wiretapping policies instituted by the Bush Administration after September 11, 2001.
When asked in a question and answer session whether and when he’d summon Attorney General Gonzales to testify before the Judiciary Committee, Leahy said that during a lunch with the Attorney General, he’d told him that he could “expect an invitation,” and declared that he would not “accept answers like ‘I can’t answer that’, or ‘we’ll get back to you’ because, of course, they never get back to you.”
When pressed to say what he would do if faced with evasive responses such as those from Justice Department officials, Leahy said he would use his subpoena power to make sure he obtains all the information he seeks. “I expect to get the answers. If I don’t then I believe we should subpoena…If the president wants to claim executive authority, let him do so and then we can go from there.”

Posted by: annie | Dec 13 2006 21:35 utc | 39

he’s the tall good looking one in that clip for those unfamiliar with Mr. Boyle.

Posted by: gmac | Dec 14 2006 0:53 utc | 41

LOL. I just started at the top of this thread again…and there’s Bea’s post. sorry.

Posted by: fauxreal | Dec 14 2006 4:02 utc | 43

Been a little busy lately, so I haven’t had too much time to chime in about things or keep up-to-date with other people’s chimings (although I can see it’s been a real Carol of the Bells in these parts). I apologise in advance if I link to anything that’s already been covered. Like this.
Today’s theme involves creating accounting… no, I’m not talking about money (although I could probably find stories along those lines in my sleep)… the question is: “Where do you find enough human beings to make a shrinking group appear as if it’s bigger than it actually is?” (We’ll call this the “Puffer Fish” school of politics).
Okay, as long as there is money to be had to do it (read: “How to Occupy a Nation On $25,000 a Day”), it’s becoming obvious that the US is not going to be pulling out of Iraq any time soon. That’s fine for a politician whose job of polishing a chair with their ass doesn’t usually involve being blown up by an IED during the course of an average day, and it would seem counterintuitive that many people would sign up for a career that increasingly does have that little caveat in the job description. Fortunately, there seems to be no trouble drumming up support and finding boots for Iraqi ground as long as the US, just as it did with the term “victory”, continues to lower its bar. See: Military meets, exceeds recruiting goals.

According to figures released Tuesday by the Pentagon, the Navy signed up 2,887 recruits last month, or 100 percent of its goal; Marines signed up 2,095, or 104 percent of its 2,012 target and the Air Force signed up all 1,877 it was seeking.
The Army also met its goal in the 2006 budget year after missing its target in fiscal year 2005 for the first time since 1999. It added recruiters and offered recruits bonuses to help attract more to the service.
The Army has been recruiting about 80,000 people a year, setting differing monthly goals depending on the time of the year.
Though the active services are doing well, recruiting has lagged for the Army Reserve and Navy Reserve, officials said.
The Army Reserve last month signed up 1,888, or just 79 percent of its 2,376 goal and the Navy Reserve signed up 687 recruits, or just 91 percent of its 755 goal.

While these seem like pretty solid numbers coming from the same sources who managed to underreport Iraqi violence by a factor of ten, what the article manages to avoid discussing is the quality of those numbers (“Are you over 40 with no job prospects? Have a police record of gang-related violence? Those voices in your head still telling you to burn things? We’ve got someone who’d love to speak with you!”)
Taking a cue from the US military, there are other groups out there whose ranks can be padded with a little creative “looking-the-other-way” (And now I am talking about people who polish chairs with their asses for a living… and they probably do other things with that part of their anatomies, but they try to keep that kind of talk out of the headlines): GOP has room for gay rights backers.

Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, among the most conservative of the potential Republican presidential candidates, said Tuesday there’s room in the GOP for candidates who favor gay rights, but he warned that such politicians wouldn’t be welcomed by the party’s conservative base.
“It’s a big-tent party and has been for a long period of time, particularly since Ronald Reagan talked about this being a party of different viewpoints,” said Brownback. “If somebody agrees with you 80 percent of the time, he’s not your enemy.”

How magnanimous. I can just see the GOP interview process: “Let’s take a look at his C.V… he’s an evil, homocidal maniac who endorses torture and corporate irresponsibility… doesn’t respect the sovereignty of other nations… history of reckless spending… wait, WHAT’S THIS? A glimmer of tolerance for the rights of others?? Hmmm… well, I suppose we can still take this guy’s money.”
Of course, the GOP has other, more cynical, ways to fill its depleting representation as well. Consider the case of Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD). The Republican vultures are already starting to circle. Whether Senator Johnson did or did not actually have a stroke seems to me to be almost irrelevant in this story… the GOP still has Dick Cheney in its ranks and he’s been legally dead for years.
Hell, you don’t even have to be an American citizen to be a member of the US GOP… any old power-hungry, rich bastard with a healthy dose of contempt will do. Tony Blair and Angela Merkel have opened up neoconservative doors for quite awhile now… just toss ’em the occasional bone or give ’em the occasional backrub and you’ll have them eating right out of your hand.
God bless the puffer fish. Without its shining example, neocons might just have no option except to cave in to reason and common sense.

Posted by: Monolycus | Dec 14 2006 4:47 utc | 45

sorry for fudging your name above. i didn’t intend to post that. and i discovered a flaw in the spam check.

Posted by: b real | Dec 14 2006 4:54 utc | 47

Merry Christmas

Posted by: dan of steele | Dec 14 2006 7:46 utc | 49

thanks dan, i love that! i recieved it via email from a friend the other day. played it a few times. kudos to you for posting it.

Posted by: annie | Dec 14 2006 8:35 utc | 51

Where have they learned that? Japan’s Leaders Rigged Voter Forums, a Government Report Says

But a government report released Wednesday concluded that two-thirds of the town meetings organized by the Japanese government since 2001 were Soviet-style performances with people paid to ask planted questions — favorable to the government.
…
Out of 174 meetings, 115, or 66 percent, were staged in some fashion. In 71 meetings, organizers mobilized participants and, in at least one case, excluded a perceived troublemaker who had spoken in a loud voice and held posters in previous meetings. In 29 meetings, government officials posing as audience members asked questions; in 15, organizers coached audience members.
In total, 65 people were paid $43 each to ask questions, according to the report, which was commissioned after earlier revelations about planted questions.
The prearranged questions raised concerns that “public opinion was being misled in order to instill government policy,” the report said.

Posted by: b | Dec 14 2006 9:33 utc | 53

Pentagon = Christian Embassy

Posted by: b | Dec 14 2006 11:34 utc | 55

b:
That Xtian Embassy video is revolting. To read about it is bad. To watch it is to realize that it’s a done deal. The United States Armed Forces have been converted into a teleban. And they like it.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 14 2006 12:41 utc | 57

Jimmy Carter and Israel’s Apartheid
by Margaret Kimberley

Congressional Black Caucus members play by the rules as much as their colleagues do. John Conyers was so vexed by Carter’s book that he felt compelled to publicly state his annoyance with the former president.
Conyers said that the use of the word apartheid in the book’s title “. . . does not serve the cause of peace and the use of it against the Jewish people in particular, who have been victims of the worst kind of discrimination, discrimination resulting in death, is offensive and wrong.”
So great was Conyers’ angst that he even called Carter and asked him to change the book’s title.
While Jimmy Carter has to put up with being called a bigot, Israeli bigots and advocates of ethnic cleansing get the red carpet treatment in the United States.
Avigdor Lieberman was born in the former Soviet Union. Because he is Jewish, Israeli law allowed him to have full citizenship rights that Palestinians do not.
Lieberman is now in Israel’s cabinet with the newly created title of Minister of Strategic Threats, and quite openly calls for the assassination of Hamas officials, the expulsion of Israeli Arabs and the murder of Palestinian prisoners.
Despite his hateful rhetoric, another former president, Bill Clinton, and a presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton, have no fear of giving Lieberman the royal welcome to the United States. They planned to join Lieberman at a Brookings Institution conference entitled, America and Israel: Confronting a Middle East in Turmoil.
The conference was private, and no Arabs were invited, just the Israelis who want to kill them and Americans who know the rules of getting and staying in power.

Another good, strong dose of the truth from Black Agenda Report.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 14 2006 13:59 utc | 59

For anyone who hasn’t yet heard this, Democratic Senator Tim Johnson (Democrat of South Dakota) was hospitalized and underwent brain surgery yesterday. His condition is said to be critical but he pulled through the surgery well and it was successfully. The link has more details on what caused bleeding in his brain.
This has potentially enormous political ramifications: If Johnson cannot serve out his term, then the governor of his state (who is a Republican) gets to appoint a replacement of any party he chooses. He would presumably appoint a Republican, which would mean the Democratic majority in the Senate would be eliminated — at 50-50. On top of changing the overall vote balance (since Cheney can break any tie with his vote), this would require a complete restructuring of all the Senate committee appointments.

Posted by: Bea | Dec 14 2006 16:26 utc | 61

To be fair, I didn’t describe all the restructuring details, having assumed that people would follow the link and read the Raw Story account of it.
It’s worthwhile of you to add the emphasis. Carry on.

Posted by: Monolycus | Dec 14 2006 16:41 utc | 63

Long but insightful:
Guardian: The breakup of the Soviet Union ended Russia’s march to democracyPutin’s Russia can only be understood in the light of the national collapse triggered by the dissolution of the USSR

It is hard to imagine a political act more extreme than abolishing what was still, for all its crises, a nuclear superpower state of 286 million citizens. And yet Yeltsin did it, as even his sympathisers acknowledged, in a way that was “neither legitimate nor democratic”.
Having ended the Soviet state in a way that lacked legal or popular legitimacy – in a referendum nine months before, 76% had voted to preserve the union – the Yeltsin ruling group soon became fearful of real democracy. And indeed Yeltsin’s armed overthrow of the Russian parliament soon followed.
The economic dimensions of Belovezh were no less portentous. Dissolving the union without any preparatory stages shattered a highly integrated economy and was a major cause of the collapse of production across the former Soviet territories, which fell by almost half in the 1990s. That in turn contributed to mass poverty and its attendant social pathologies, which are still, in the words of a respected Moscow economist, the “main fact” of Russian life today.
And, as a one-time Yeltsin supporter wrote later, “almost everything that happened in Russia after 1991 was determined to a significant extent by the divvying-up of the property of the former USSR”. Soviet elites took much of the state’s enormous wealth with no regard for fair procedures or public opinion. To enrich themselves, they wanted the most valuable state property distributed from above, without the participation of legislatures. They achieved that, first by themselves, through “spontaneous nomenklatura privatisation”, and after 1991, through Kremlin decrees issued by Yeltsin.

Posted by: b | Dec 14 2006 17:04 utc | 65

2001: Florida under martial law?
WHO KNEW? Jeb Bush signed Florida TWO YEAR emergency order 4 days BEFORE ATTACK

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 14 2006 22:25 utc | 67

I know this twisted bitch is not representave of Americans. She is, however, a profound insult to everyone. It’s a pity that there is no heavan or hell.

Have things changed on the ground in Iraq? Are our troops being routed? Hardly. The number of U.S. fatalities has gone from a high of 860 deaths in 2004 to 845 in 2005, to 695 through November of this year. If the Islamic fascists double their rate of killing Americans in the next month, there will still be fewer American fatalities in Iraq this year than in the previous two years.
Admittedly, it would be a little easier to track our progress in Iraq if the Pentagon would tell us how many of them we’re killing, but apparently our Pentagon is too spooked by the insurgents posing as civilians to mention the deaths of our enemies.
Moreover, it might seem churlish to mention the number of Islamic lunatics we’ve killed during the holy month of Ramadan. Half the time we do anything to them, it’s “the holy month of Ramadan.” It’s always Ramadan. When on Earth is Ramadan over?
It’s true that no one anticipated that al-Qaida sympathizers would stream into Iraq to fight the Great Satan after Saddam fled to a spider hole, but that’s because everyone expected al-Qaida to be fighting us here.
Like “Peking,” that’s something else we can’t say anymore: the amazing absence of another 9/11-style terrorist attack in the past five years. The heart of the insurgency in Iraq is, by definition, composed of Islamic terrorists who hate the Great Satan, own an overnight bag and are willing to travel to kill Americans. But don’t worry: The Iraq Surrender Group feels sure they won’t come here if we pull out of Iraq.
If absolutely nothing changed in Iraq over the next few years — if it didn’t continue to get better and if the savages never lost heart (I’m assuming they subscribe to “TimesSelect”) — by 2010, 6,000 brave American troops will have died to prevent another 9/11 terrorist attack on American soil for a decade.
If that’s a war Americans think we’re “losing,” Osama bin Laden was right: We are a paper tiger.
COPYRIGHT 2006 ANN COULTER http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/printer_friendly.cgi?article=161

She also has a sidebar:-

Rest In Peace Augusto Pinochet! –
In addition to his great economic policies, making Chile the envy of the continent, see this from the NYT obituary, Dec 11:
“In 1974, General Pinochet elevated himself to president, reducing the rest of the junta to a consultative role. He appointed military officers as mayors of towns and cities throughout Chile. Retired military personnel were named rectors of universities, and they carried out vast purges of faculty members suspected of left-wing or liberal sympathies.”

Posted by: DM | Dec 15 2006 3:13 utc | 69

Tears of Rage; Tears of Grief

There will likely be no Pentagon investigation of the latest mass killing in Ishaqi. Certainly there will never be an independent probe that could establish the truth of what really happened in that midnight hour. If it involved ordinary troops and not Bush’s shadowy death squads and hired guns, it was probably not, technically speaking, an atrocity, not a planned murder of civilians, but a simple skirmish with hostile forces in the dark – terrorists, insurgents, militiamen, gangsters – or with innocent homeowners defending their property, or maybe an inextricable mix of the two. It was just another night in Iraq, another raid, another blood-letting, another outcry of anguish.
Meanwhile, the makers of the true atrocity, the great atrocity – the unprovoked, unsanctioned, unnecessary act of aggression responsible for all the mass Iraqi deaths in Ishaqi and across the land, all the dead and maimed Americans, all the ruin, all the senseless pain and suffering – will be making the rounds of sumptuous Christmas parties in the coming days. They’ll be feasting and toasting, dancing and laughing, swathed in the pomps of wealth and power, forever secure against the consequences of the evil they have done.

Chris Floyd recounts the recreation of the Salvador Option in Iraq and the unending stream of murders that continues to issue forth ever since.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 15 2006 4:26 utc | 71

dang. ecuador’s new prez, rafael correa, is coming out of the gate w/ all cylinders firing
Ecuador riled by coca spraying

Rafael Correa, the Ecuadorian president-elect, has said that Colombia’s renewed programme to spray coca plantations on the border was a “hostile act”, increasing tensions between the South American neighbours.
…
“We consider it a hostile act by the Colombian government, we cannot accept fumigation on our northern frontier,” Correa, who was elected last month, said in Buenos Aires on Wednesday.
…
“Colombia’s government has supposed studies, without much basis, that say it’s not harmful, but ethics demand that as long as there is not certainty you should not use the product.
“The planes pass to the Ecuadorian side of the border, and I insist they kill crops and sometimes Ecuadorian farmers.”
Correa said he would seek the backing of other South American governments to pressure Colombia to stop spraying coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine.

precautionary principle. excellent choice.
Ecuador Correa aims to restructure all gov’t debt

Ecuadorean President-elect Rafael Correa vowed on Thursday to restructure all types of foreign debt, and the country’s volatile internationally traded bonds fell sharply on the news.
“We’re going to restructure in the three debt segments — commercial debt, multilateral debt and bilateral debt,” he said in a news conference in Buenos Aires in response to questions on the country’s public sector debt which stands at more than $10 billion.
…
Asked at a news conference in Buenos Aires whether the restructuring would be friendly, Correa said “I hope it will be friendly, but for us the priorities are very clear: life before debt.”

bravo! maybe he can talk some sense into daniel ortega up north in nicaragua. here’s a useful analysis of ortega’s victory & a sketch of his current fsln platform & obstacles
A Very Mixed Message Out of Managua: Nicaragua’s Elections: A National Turning Point?
among the things that don’t sit too well w/ his return is that ortega invited the U.S. to join in the construction of a new canal across Central America through Nicaragua. huge potential mistake that would be worse than his agreeing to take on all somoza’s incurred debts back in ’79. the panamanians still can’t keep the fuckers out.
steve rendell, over at fair, has a good recap on the u.s. corporate, erm capitalist media’s ideological artistic-license whenever the topic of hugo chavez comes up
The Repeatedly Re-Elected Autocrat: Painting Chávez as a ‘would-be dictator’

The Times anti-Chávez campaign was manifest in a recent book review (9/17/06) of Nikolas Kozloff’s Hugo Chávez: Oil, Politics and the Challenge to the United States, in which Times business columnist Roger Lowenstein rebuked the author for praising the Chávez government, explaining that Chávez “has militarized the government, emasculated the country’s courts, intimidated the media, eroded confidence in the economy and hollowed out Venezuela’s once-democratic institutions.” But Lowenstein failed to provide much evidence for his charges—a frequent characteristic of Chávez bashing—or to note that similar charges can be made against other governments, including one much closer to home.

and finally, given the recent claims that another global-energy player has been ‘consolidating his power’, he’s not too happy w/ that mendacious miscreant dictator closer to home
Putin reported ‘furious’ over US payment for Lebanon war, CIA Egypt terror ring

Reports from the Kremlin today are portraying President Putin as being ‘furious’ with the American War Leader Bush over his breaking of a promise to the Russian President to not provide US funding to the Israelis for their Lebanese War. Less than 3 weeks after making this promise the United States used a little known provision in their security agreements with Israel to fully pay for the war…
…
In an even greater affront to Russia, and its supposed Middle Eastern ally Egypt, these reports also accuse the United States of operating a CIA/French Intelligence backed terror ring on Egyptian territory for the recruitment of foreign fighters to be deployed in the Iraqi and Afghanistan wars, but which Egyptian authorities had infiltrated and arrested the American and French Ringleaders…

Posted by: b real | Dec 15 2006 5:22 utc | 73

more news related to b real’s pravada link..
Egypt releases details on American man

CAIRO, Egypt – Security officials in Egypt released new details Monday about an American man in their custody on suspicion of links to a terror network which allegedly recruits Muslims to fight the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. ….
The American was arrested late last month along with 11 Europeans and an unknown number of Egyptians and Arabs from other countries who were accused of belonging to an Islamist terror cell plotting attacks.
…..
An Egyptian security official identified the American as Grey Warren, from Ohio, and said he came to Egypt earlier this year to study at Al-Azhar Islamic University, Sunni Islam’s most important seat of learning.
The official read the name from a security prosecutors’ document in Arabic and because of difficulties in transliteration, it was not known exactly how the man spelled his name in English.
…..
The Interior Ministry has said the suspects allegedly were living in Egypt under the guise of studying Arabic and had formed a militant cell that was plotting attacks.
“They were seeking to recruit others, teach them destructive beliefs, urging them toward jihad, and traveling to Iraq to carry out operations via other countries in the region,” the ministry said in a statement.
Security officials also said the suspects had a relationship with Omar Abdullah Hamra, the leader of the Islamic militant group Tawhid and Jihad, who killed himself by detonating an explosives belt while trying to cross into Lebanon from
Syria. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
After the arrest, Egypt’s leading newspaper, Al Ahram, citing government sources, also said the American was being questioned for possible links with al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.

those pesky cia guys

Posted by: annie | Dec 15 2006 8:11 utc | 75

‘Convert or die’ game divides Christians
Some ask Wal-Mart to drop Left Behind

Liberal and progressive Christian groups say a new computer game in which players must either convert or kill non-Christians is the wrong gift to give this holiday season and that Wal-Mart, a major video game retailer, should yank it off its shelves.
The Campaign to Defend the Constitution and the Christian Alliance for Progress, two online political groups, plan to demand today that Wal-Mart dump Left Behind: Eternal Forces, a PC game inspired by a series of fictional Christian novels that are hugely popular, especially with teens.
The series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins is based on their interpretation of the Bible’s Book of Revelation and takes place after the Rapture, when Jesus has taken his people to heaven and left nonbelievers behind to face the Antichrist.
Left Behind Games’ president, Jeffrey Frichner, says the game actually is pacifist because players lose “spirit points” every time they gun down nonbelievers rather than convert them. They can earn spirit points again by having their character pray.

Posted by: annie | Dec 15 2006 12:04 utc | 77

Continuing drama in Gaza:
Palestinian PM’s son injured, bodyguard killed in attack
[President] Abbas ‘regrets’ shots fired at Haniya convoy, to lay out plans for resolving standoff with Hamas.

The ruling Palestinian party Hamas has accused the presidential guard of trying to assassinate Prime Minister Ismail Haniya after an attack on his convoy that left his son injured and a bodyguard dead.
The shoot-out occurred as the convoy crossed into the Gaza Strip from Egypt late Thursday after waiting for hours at a border checkpoint that Israel had closed to keep him from returning home after a fundraising tour of Arab states.
One of Haniya’s bodyguards was killed and five people were wounded including his son, who serves as the prime minister’s political advisor, a government source said.
“We know who opened fire,” Haniya told journalists after arriving safely home in Gaza.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said the shots were “a planned attempt by Force 17 (the presidential guard) to assassinate brother Ismail Haniya.”
“We want (President) Mahmud Abbas to order that those responsible be found,” he added….
…Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said his initial regret was that the gunmen had missed their target….
In his Saturday speech, Abbas is expected to lay out his plans for resolving a months-long standoff with Hamas.
Abbas aides say the president is likely to call for early presidential and parliamentary elections, following the collapse of talks with Hamas over forming a unity government.

Posted by: Bea | Dec 15 2006 15:03 utc | 79

Sometimes, you run across things that are wrong on too many levels to even begin critiquing them. In those instances, all you can do is just offer them up, sit back, shake your head, and continue drinking.
Some people will simply never learn. Unfortunately, many of those folk seem to be policy makers.

Posted by: Monolycus | Dec 15 2006 15:50 utc | 81

secrecynews: Army Counterinsurgency Doctrine Charts a New Course

The U.S. Army has completed a long-awaited new manual presenting military doctrine on counterinsurgency. It is the first revision of counterinsurgency doctrine in twenty years.
In several respects, the new doctrine implicitly repudiates the Bush Administration’s approach to the war in Iraq.
“Conducting a successful counterinsurgency campaign requires a flexible, adaptive force led by agile, well-informed, culturally astute leaders,” the foreword states.
The new manual emphasizes the importance of planning for post-conflict stabilization, and it stresses the limited utility of conventional military operations.
“The military forces that successfully defeat insurgencies are usually those able to overcome their institutional inclination to wage conventional war against insurgents.”
A copy of the new 282 page unclassified manual was obtained by Secrecy News.

it’s a 13MB pdf file & is available at the link

Posted by: b real | Dec 15 2006 20:01 utc | 83

Count me in the Cannon camp…
Hopsicker on the “controlled demolition” theorists

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 16 2006 0:48 utc | 85

North American Union Leader Says Merger Just a Crisis Away

Robert Pastor, a leading intellectual force in the move to create an EU-style North American Community, told WND he believes a new 9/11 crisis could be the catalyst to merge the U.S., Mexico and Canada.
Pastor, a professor at American University, says that in such a case the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, or SPP – launched in 2005 by the heads of the three countries at a summit in Waco, Texas – could be developed into a continental union, complete with a new currency, the amero, that would replace the U.S. dollar just as the euro has replaced the national currencies of Europe.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 16 2006 3:40 utc | 87