Saturday, September 30, 2006

New 9/11 Bombshell | There Had Been Major Warnings

What many of us suspected Bushco had been warned and knew something BIG may be coming at the United States in the Summer of 2001. Atrios thinks that may be the reason for Bush's "My Pet Goat" moment in that Florida classroom when he sat there for minute after minute with that book in his hand. It's a good theory and at least would explain his sitting there doing nothing for those LONG minutes while citizens were dying.
Here's Atrios:
"I've long believed that the My Pet Goat moment had a simple explanation. For perhaps the first time in his life George Bush, just for a moment, felt a tiny bit of personal responsibility for something that went horribly wrong under his watch. It was not a nice feeling. They were warned, strongly, and they did nothing. Absolutely nothing."

For historical purposes(of course) I've linked that moment through Youtube:


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Editor & Publisher

Woodward Excerpt Appears in 'Post' With New
9/11 Bombshell


...Far more startling, is a separate sidebar/excerpt on a pre-9/11 warning, also mentioned briefly in the early "scoops" but not in this depth.

The Post also reveals today that the 9/11 Commission was not told about this meeting.

The Woodward excerpt describes how, on July 10, 2001, CIA Director George J. Tenet met with his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, at CIA headquarters "to review the latest on Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Black laid out the case, consisting of communications intercepts and other top-secret intelligence showing the increasing likelihood that al-Qaeda would soon attack the United States. The mass of fragments made a compelling case, so compelling to Tenet that he decided he and Black should go to the White House immediately."

Tenet called Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser. "For months," Woodward writes, "Tenet had been pressing Rice to set a clear counterterrorism policy... that would give the CIA stronger authority to conduct covert action against bin Laden.... Tenet and Black hoped to convey the depth of their anxiety and get Rice to kick-start the government into immediate action.

"Tenet had been losing sleep over the recent intelligence. There was no conclusive, smoking-gun intelligence, but there was such a huge volume of data that an intelligence officer's instinct strongly suggested that something was coming....

"But Tenet had been having difficulty getting traction on an immediate bin Laden action plan, in part because Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had questioned all the intelligence, asking: Could it all be a grand deception?

"Woodward describes the meeting, and the two officials' plea that the U.S. "needed to take action that moment -- covert, military, whatever -- to thwart bin Laden."

The result? "Tenet and Black felt they were not getting through to Rice. She was polite, but they felt the brush-off. President Bush had said he didn't want to swat at flies.

"Tenet left the meeting feeling frustrated.
Though Rice had given them a fair hearing, no immediate action meant great risk.
Black felt the decision to just keep planning was a sustained policy failure.
Rice and the Bush team had been in hibernation too long....


Go to Editor & Publisher for original.

Friday, September 29, 2006

Wear A Yellow Ribbon on Your SUV

From those Asylum Street Spankers. Warning: Crude and not quite work safe.

The Storm Trooper War on Drugs & People

Hey with dubya's new laws they can just black bag 'em and disappear 'em next time. I really think Police chief Herr Michael Seber will enjoy that.
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from MPP(Marijuana Policy Project)

Children Handcuffed In Police Drug Raid
Mike Goodwin
SCHENECTADY -- A police strike team raided a woman's Prospect Street apartment and handcuffed her children and killed her dog early Tuesday in a $60 pot bust. The woman called it excessive force and a case of mistaken identity, but officers said they stormed the home for a good reason: One of her sons was selling marijuana there.
The Police Department's tactical squad knocked down the front door of the upstairs apartment at 110 Prospect St. and flooded into the apartment shortly after 6 a.m.
"I heard a big boom. My first reaction was to jump out of bed. We were trying to find where our kids were at and all of a sudden we had guns in our faces," said 40-year-old Anita Woodyear, who rents the second-floor flat.
During the ensuing chaos, police handcuffed two of the woman's children, Elijah Bradley, 11, and 12-year-old Victoria Perez, and shot at her dog in the kitchen before killing it in the bathroom, Woodyear said.
"That seems like an awful lot of firepower for marijuana," said Fred Clark of the Schenectady chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "That's like spending $125,000 for $5."
Woodyear said she suspected police had intended to search a neighboring home, but had the wrong address on the search warrant. Neighbors said they suspect illicit drugs are dealt at other homes on the block.
"No apology, no 'sorry about your dog,' " she said.
But police said they have no reason to apologize. They said they raided the house because Woodyear's 18-year-old son, Israel M. Bradley, sold three plastic bags of marijuana there for $40 on Sept. 15. They allege he sold two other bags of marijuana in the house for $20 on Aug. 28, they said.
In addition, police said Bradley was carrying marijuana in the home on Sept. 1. "We had the absolute right house. We had the absolute right target," said Assistant Chief Michael Seber.
Police said Bradley was one of several drug dealers they have under investigation on Prospect Street.
"The whole street is a mess right now. We'll be back," Seber said.

..
Continue with Herr Seber's war on common sense:

Quote of the day | "They All Look the Same to Me"

"massa" Lott

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"What's wrong with these people, Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion? Why do they hate the Israeli's and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me."
--Trent Lott

Abramoff and the White House crooks


ABC(Always Been Conservative)News

Something else for the "News" Media to quickly ignore. Right Katie?
From Americablog:
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Hundreds of contacts between top White House officials and former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates "raise serious questions about the
legality and actions" of those officials, according to a draft bipartisan report prepared by the House Government Reform Committee.
The 95-page report, which White House officials reviewed Wednesday evening but has yet to be formally approved by the panel, singled out two of President Bush's top lieutenants, Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman, as having been offered expensive meals and exclusive tickets to premier sporting events and concerts by Abramoff and his associates.
In total, the committee was able to document 485 contacts between White House Officials and Abramoff and his lobbying team at the firm Greenberg Traurig from january 2001 to March 2004, with 82 of those contacts occurring in Rove¹s office, including 10 with Rove personally. The panel also said that Abramoff billed his clients nearly $25,000 for meals and drinks with White House officials during that period.
Rove, Mehlman, and other White House officials have denied having any close relationship with Abramoff, despite the fact that Abramoff was a "Pioneer" who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Bush's White House campaigns.
"The documents depict a much closer relationship between Mr. Abramoff and White house officials than the White House has previously acknowledged," committee staff wrote in a three-page summary that accompanied the report. Reps. Tom Davis (R-Va.) and Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman and ranking member of Government Reform, this summer subpoenaed e-mails and billing records from Greenberg Traurig and other firms, including Alexander Strategy Group, which was run by one-time aides to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas). They examined more than 14,000 pages of documents from Greenberg Traurig, including 6,600 pages of billing records and 7,700 pages of e-mail.
During the period examined by the committee, Bush administration officials repeatedly intervened on behalf of Abramoff's clients, including helping a Mississippi Indian tribe obtain $16 million in federal funds for a jail the tribe wanted to build.
Abramoff was able to block the nomination of one Interior Department official using Christian conservative Ralph Reed as a go-between with Rove, according to e-mails between Abramoff and Reed.

Democrats who voted for Bush torture

Democrats in favor of Buchco Torture:
Carper (Del.)
Johnson (S.D.)
Landrieu (La.)
Lautenberg (N.J.)
Lieberman-of course(Conn.)
Menendez (N.J)
Pryor (Ark.)
Rockefeller (W. Va.)
Salazar (Co.)
Stabenow (Mich.)
Nelson (Fla.)
Nelson (Neb.)

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Rogue president & enablers

Tristero says it about as well as anyone. What we have is a rogue president pushing the envelope to dictatorial powers and an appeasing and enabling Republican Congress.
From Hullabaloo here's the word:

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Rogue Presidency

Yes, the NY Times gets it. But it's not telling the whole truth. The truth is that the United States government is presently holding, torturing, and even murdering countless numbers of people who have no chance in hell of obtaining a lawyer, let alone anything resembling a trial. The government is doing this under the direct orders of George W. Bush. There is no law, no bill, and no legislature who can stop him. If Congress were to pass a law unequivocably banning torture and send it to him, he'd use it for toilet paper. If the Supreme Court were to rule against Bush in the harshest and bluntest language, he'd yawn. The truth is that there is a rogue presidency and there has been, since January, 2001 (earlier, if you count the stolen election). Certainly, everyone in Washington knows it, but no one dares to admit it. The bill legalizing torture merely enables Congress to pretend they still have some influence over an executive that from day one was governing, not as if they had a mandate, but as if Bush was a dictator. If, for some miracle, the bill didn't pass, every congress-critter knows Bush would keep on torturing. Better to vote to pass and preserve the appearance of a working American government, the thinking goes. For the very thought that the US government is seriously broken - that the Executive is beyond the control of anyone and everyone in the world - is such a truly awesome and terrifying thought that it can never be publicly acknowledged. If ever it is, if the American crisis gets outed and Congress and the Supremes openly assert that the Executive has run completely amok and is beyond control, the world consequences are staggering. It is the stuff of doomsday novels.

Continue:

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Ky. Sen. Geoff Davis and Repubicans want to strip search your kids

Another Huge reason for voters in Kentucky's 4th district to vote for Democrat Ken Lucas and get rid of crazy Geoff "strip search" Davis.

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Drug Policy Alliance

House Approves Strip Search Bill
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
A bill approved by the U.S. House yesterday would require school districts around the country to establish policies making it easier for teachers and school officials to conduct wide scale searches of students. These searches could take the form of pat-downs, bag searches, or strip searches depending on how administrators interpret the law.
The Student Teacher Safety Act of 2006 (HR 5295) would require any school receiving federal funding--essentially every public school--to adopt policies allowing teachers and school officials to conduct random, warrantless searches of every student, at any time, on the flimsiest of pretexts. Saying they suspect that one student might have drugs could give officials the authority to search every student in the building.
DPA supporters and others who opposed this outrageous bill called their members of Congress this week to express their disapproval. However, House leaders circumvented the usual legislative procedure to bring the bill to a quick vote. It did not pass through the committee process, but went straight to the House floor. There, it was passed by a simple voice vote, so constituents cannot even find out how their Representative voted.
The bill moves next to the Senate, but it is unlikely to be considered there this session.
Bill Piper, DPA's director of national affairs, said, "It looks like this bill was rushed to the House floor to help out the sponsor, Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY/4th), who is in a tight re-election race. This vote lets him say he's getting things done in Washington. But I would be surprised to see a similar push in the Senate."
HR 5295 is opposed in its current form by several groups, including the Drug Policy Alliance, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, the ACLU, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Parent Teacher Association, the American Association of School Administrators, and the National School Boards Association.
DPA will be watching the bill so that if and when it does come up again, this wide array of opponents can mobilize to stop it.
Continue at drugpolicy.org

My America is better than this.

Illustration stolen from AMERICAblog.

Yes we are -- We're also better than the Neocon Bushistas and dubya, "Bringing back the Inquisition one torture at a time" Bush.

That "Pale blue dot" again


The Cassini Spacecraft peeks around Saturn to snap this picture of earth. The tiny dot near the middle right of the photo is our little planet. The image inset is a magnification with our moon as a slight elongation in that image. Our vast oceans make the earth's image somewhat blue.. Found here.

Once again I'll let Carl Sagan say it:
"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Are We Really So Fearful?

A perceptive essay. Every pro-torture Republican and president "thumbscrews" should read it although I think it would be lost on them. Go here for the full original. Thanks to Woods Lot and truthout.

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Are We Really So Fearful?
-Ariel Dorfman

....He confessed to anything and everything they wanted to drag from his hoarse, howling throat; he invented accomplices and addresses and culprits; and then, when it became apparent that all this was imaginary, he was subjected to further ordeals.

There was no escape.

That is the hideous predicament of the torture victim. It was always the same story, what I discovered in the ensuing years, as I became an unwilling expert on all manner of torments and degradations, my life and my writing overflowing with grief from every continent. Each of those mutilated spines and fractured lives -- Chinese, Guatemalan, Egyptian, Indonesian, Iranian, Uzbek, need I go on? -- all of them, men and women alike, surrendered the same story of essential asymmetry, where one man has all the power in the world and the other has nothing but pain, where one man can decree death at the flick of a wrist and the other can only pray that the wrist will be flicked soon.

It is a story that our species has listened to with mounting revulsion, a horror that has led almost every nation to sign treaties over the past decades declaring these abominations as crimes against humanity, transgressions interdicted all across the earth. That is the wisdom, national and international, that has taken us thousands of years of tribulation and shame to achieve. That is the wisdom we are being asked to throw away when we formulate the question -- Does torture work? -- when we allow ourselves to ask whether we can afford to outlaw torture if we want to defeat terrorism.

I will leave others to claim that torture, in fact, does not work, that confessions obtained under duress -- such as that extracted from the heaving body of that poor Argentine braggart in some Santiago cesspool in 1973 -- are useless. Or to contend that the United States had better not do that to anyone in our custody lest someday another nation or entity or group decides to treat our prisoners the same way.

I find these arguments -- and there are many more -- to be irrefutable. But I cannot bring myself to use them, for fear of honoring the debate by participating in it.

Can't the United States see that when we allow someone to be tortured by our agents, it is not only the victim and the perpetrator who are corrupted, not only the "intelligence" that is contaminated, but also everyone who looked away and said they did not know, everyone who consented tacitly to that outrage so they could sleep a little safer at night, all the citizens who did not march in the streets by the millions to demand the resignation of whoever suggested, even whispered, that torture is inevitable in our day and age, that we must embrace its darkness?

Are we so morally sick, so deaf and dumb and blind, that we do not understand this? Are we so fearful, so in love with our own security and steeped in our own pain, that we are really willing to let people be tortured in the name of America? Have we so lost our bearings that we do not realize that each of us could be that hapless Argentine who sat under the Santiago sun, so possessed by the evil done to him that he could not stop shivering?

--Ariel Dorfman

Documentary | How to sell a war

War is $ell:
Documentary by Brian Standing that answers very important questions in this day and age. How do you sell a war? How do the techniques of government propagandists, public relations consultants and commercial advertisers work, and why are they so effective? How did the United States become a master of domestic war propaganda over the course of the twentieth century?

Found here

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

EXCERPTS OF DELETED SCENES FROM THE PATH TO 9/11

Damn I knew there was more to it than that. From Whitehouse.org.

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SCRIPT EXCERPTS OF DELETED SCENES FROM ABC'S FAIR & BALANCED DOCU-DRAMA, THE PATH TO 9/11
TM Declassified Memorandum

THE PRESIDENT:
Good evening. As you know, the ABC television network, while usually revoltingly liberal, recently saw fit to produce a quality, all-American piece of hot 9-11TM patrio-porn, scheduled for broadcast one hour from now. Tragically, in response to whiny protests from my predecessor and his staff, Disney is VICIOUSLY GUTTING key scenes from this fine work of art.

DELETED SCENE #1:
INT. OVAL OFFICE - NIGHT
Bill Clinton and Monica
Lewinsky sprawl naked across the Old Resolute desk, feeding each other glazed
Dunkin' Donuts Munchkins from an enormous crystal punchbowl. Monica's floppy
lady parts are puffing away at a cheap cigar.
MONICA
Don't you want to
ignore the safety of America's children to taste my cigar, Handsome?
PRESIDENT CLINTON
That meaty humidor of yours turns all them
Hav-A-Tampas into Hav-A-Tampons!
MONICA
Isn't it time for your security
daily briefing?
PRESIDENT CLINTON
You've already debriefed me with your
gopher teeth, baby. Now, why don't you slip those incisors behind your warm, wet
lips and suck the life out of Bill Junior here while I lay back on this desk and
neglect to heed the obvious warnings of impending doom from Islamo-fascists?
(motions downward)

Continue:

Olbermann on the Wallace attempt to sandbag Bill Clinton












Go Here:
Keith Olbermann on that Clinton/Fox interview where the sleazy Chris Wallace attempts the work of his masters and trys to pin Bin Laden on Clinton. I would say Wallace's father would be ashamed but then again I'm not that fond of the father either. Anyway, watch Olbermann's commentary at Crooks and Liars it's a thing of beauty and of course hate Faux News 'cause it's the right thing to do.

Monday, September 25, 2006

A conversation on Jesus Camp | Bill Maher

Wanted to throw this on. Bill Maher and a panel discuss the documentary "Jesus Camp". Whether you've seen it or not, or whatever you believe on the subject it's a great conversation about religion and people's beliefs in general.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Video here.

From Crooks & Liars and Maher's show Real Time:

Rumsfeld's secret talks with the Canadians

Crazy(like an evil fox) Donnie Rumsfeld gets around. Now he's leading secret talks with the Canadians. They're secret because.. well.. because our "News" media doesn't want to tell you about it. So there. This is from here, here, here and many other fine sources.
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pic

Rumsfeld Leads Secret Talks on North American Merger
Unbeknownst (and unreported) to citizens of Canada, the United States and Mexico, top government, military, and corporate leaders from all three nations secretly met in Banff this past week to pursue discussions on the merging of North American security, economy and defense.Among the officials attending were Donald Rumsfeld US Secretary of Defense; Stockwell Day Minister of Public Safety, Government of Canada; NORAD; corporate executives from Chevron, Suncor Energy and Lockheed Martin; government officials from departments of energy, trade and military; and chief ambassadors from all three nations.Staggeringly, almost no major media outlet has picked up this meeting or covered its agenda. Perhaps because the nature of that agenda has intentionally been kept secret.

Court Reinstates Roadless Rule

I almost let this slip by me. It certainly needs to be noted and applauded. Thanks to Conscious Earth for the heads up. This is from Earth Justice.
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Photo here
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Court Reinstates Roadless Rule
Almost 50 million acres of national forests and grasslands once again protected

San Francisco, CA -- A federal district court today ordered reinstatement of the Clinton era roadless rule to protect almost 50 million acres of wild national forests and grasslands from road building, logging, and development. The court order is a stunning victory for all Americans who value America's great natural areas and reverses the Bush administration's efforts to open these last great natural areas to development interests.
According to the court, "Defendants are enjoined from taking any further action contrary to the Roadless Rule without undertaking environmental analysis consistent with this opinion." The court noted that in adopting the Rule which the court reinstated today, the Forest Service itself found that the Rule was "necessary to protect the social and ecological values and characteristics of . . . roadless areas from road construction . . . and timber harvesting activities. . . . Adoption of [the Roadless Rule] ensures that inventoried roadless areas will be managed in a manner that sustains their values now and for future generations."

Continue:

Newsweek | Media Blinders of the Week

Newsweek, News for Sheeple. This sums up the US "News" media perfectly and tells you all you need to know about why dumbya still has a 37% approval rating in this country. It's all about distraction, smoke and mirrors. The covers of Newsweek in this country and the world. I found this at Rising Hegemon via Atrios:























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Friday, September 22, 2006

Beating the Torture Prez

Ian Welsh at The Agonist says it much better than I could. How to beat the Republican Grand Old Torture Party at the winning hearts and minds campaign. Do I think the Democrats will do what Ian suggests, Hell No! This is the Democratic go along to get along party after all. A few may complain and whine a bit. The rest will try to be as inconspicuous as possible-not a squeeck as they give that simpering dilletante dubya our constitution to wipe his butt with. If they love my country they'll do what Ian's telling them to do.
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Winning the Torture Fight

Look. Here's the scenario the Dems are scared of. They filibuster the torture act. Rove already has some 9/11 families lined up. They come out with ads saying "Democrats are weak on national security. They don't want to protect us. They don't understand the world changed on 9/11. They're weak"
This is beatable.
Strength is what strength does.
The message is simple
"America stands against torture. Anyone who wants us to torture is anti-American"
And you haul out your own passel of 9/11 families.
Doesn't anyone know how to play the bloody game? These people telegraph their moves by months to years. We know they have 9/11 families as their backstop.
Run our own ads -
1) Our 9/11 survivors (yeah, they don't all support torture by a long shot) saying "my husband didn't die so he could be used an excuse for George Bush to hang people from chains"
2) Run an add saying "America isn't about raping children to break their mothers who are listening to their screams. But George Bush wants to protect torturers from being tried in court. A Democratic America doesn't torture. Choose your America in November."
This isn't a fight that can't be won, but you've to actually be willing to fight and
get down in the mud.
Make people choose. And if they want to get into an argument about the details of what torture has happened, let's have that fight.
"No no, when we hit our wives, we're careful not to hit them where it leaves
visible bruises." Really, let's make the election about it. Grind it into the
Republicans faces.
Stop running from this fight.

"President thumbscrews" gets his torture

Surprise! John "maverick" McCain has ended his publicity stunt and has caved. President torture gets to imprison, spy on, blackbag, torture and pretty much do what he's wanted all along. He's moved a long way from blowing up frogs with firecrackers in Texas hasn't he? Hello Gulags! This is from Charles Pierce at American Prospect via Atrios.
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THE SILENT PARTY

You worthless passel of cowards. They're laughing at you. You know that, right?

The national Democratic Party is no longer worth the cement needed to sink it to the bottom of the sea. For an entire week, it allowed a debate on changing the soul of the country to be conducted intramurally between the Torture Porn and Useful Idiot wings of the Republican Party, the latter best exemplified by John McCain, who keeps fashioning his apparently fathomless ambition into a pair of clown shoes with which he can do the monkey dance across the national stage. They're laughing at him, too.

The New York Times has the right of it
here, limning the pathetic gullibility at the heart of the "compromise." There is nothing in this bill that President Thumbscrews can't ignore. There is nothing in this bill that reins in his feckless and dangerous reinterpretation of the powers of his office. There is nothing in this bill that requires him to take it -- or its congressional authors -- seriously. Two weeks ago, John Yoo set down in The New York Times the precise philosophical basis on which the administration will sign this bill and then ignore it. The president will decide what a "lesser breach" of the Geneva Conventions is? How can anyone over the age of five give this president that power? And wait until you see the atrocity that I guarantee you is coming down the tracks concerning the fact that the president committed at least 40 impeachable offenses with regard to illegal wiretapping.

And the Democratic Party was nowhere in this debate. It contributed nothing. On the question of whether or not the United States will reconfigure itself as a nation which tortures its purported enemies and then grants itself absolution through adjectives -- "Aggressive interrogation techniques" -- the Democratic Party had…no opinion. On the issue of allowing a demonstrably incompetent president as many of the de facto powers of a despot that you could wedge into a bill without having the Constitution spontaneously combust in the Archives, well, the Democratic Party was more pissed off at Hugo Chavez.

This was as tactically idiotic as it was morally blind. On the subject of what kind of a nation we are, and to what extent we will live up to the best of our ideals, the Democratic Party was as mute and neutral as a stone. Human rights no longer have a viable political constituency in the United States of America. Be enough of a coward, though, and cable news will fit you for a toga.
Continue:

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Geoff Davis - Loan Shark's best friend

Found at Crooks & Liars and Think Progress. Geoff Davis is just another conservobot KY politician ala Jim "I used to play baseball" Bunning and Mitch "Mo Money" McConnell
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Conservative Congressman Blocking Crackdown on Predatory Lenders Targeting U.S. Troops

Predatory lenders are seriously harming the U.S. military, and one member of Congress is fighting to keep it that way.
A Pentagon report last month found that as many one in five U.S. service members “
are being preyed on by loan centers set up near military bases” that can charge interest of 400 percent or more. Increasingly, soldiers have debt levels so high they are barred from serving overseas; others suffer from “bankruptcies, divorces and ruined careers.” (More facts HERE.)
The Pentagon has joined consumer, military, and veterans groups in backing a bipartisan amendment from Sens. Jim Talent (R-MO) and Bill Nelson (D-FL) that
places a cap of 36 percent on high interest rates for short-term payday loans to military members.
But one conservative congressman, Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY), is trying to gut the amendment. Davis has proposed his own language — praised by the payday lending industry — that sets no real limits on predatory lenders. One of Davis’s aides
admitted last week that he consulted on the legislation with “CNG Financial of Mason, Ohio, one of his top campaign donors and owner of national payday lender Check ‘n Go.”
Today may be the last day to stop Davis in his tracks. Call his office now and tell him to stop enabling predatory lenders who are hurting the U.S. military.
Call now:
Davis’s office:(202) 225-3465
Toll-free congressional switchboard

ask for Davis’s office):(866) 808-0065

--
Let Think Progress know here. Of course the best thing you could do if you're in this district is to vote for Ken Lucas and get rid of this clown. At the moment "Loan Shark" Davis has a large money advantage(wonder where that money came from) if you can give to the Democrat Ken Lucas's campaign.

World needs to speak up for Medical workers in Libya

This shouldn't be up to just world scientists and educators. World leaders and people need to demand justice in this case also.
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Libya's travesty
....

Six medical workers in Libya face execution. It is not too late for scientists to speak up on their behalf. Imagine that five American nurses and a British doctor have been detained and tortured in a Libyan prison since 1999, and that a Libyan prosecutor called at the end of August for their execution by firing squad on trumped-up charges of deliberately contaminating more than 400 children with HIV in 1998. Meanwhile, the international community and its leaders sit by,
spectators of a farce of a trial, leaving a handful of dedicated volunteer
humanitarian lawyers and scientists to try to secure their release.

Implausible? That scenario, with the medics enduring prison conditions reminiscent of the film Midnight Express, is currently playing out in a Tripoli court, except that the nationalities of the medics are different. The nurses are from Bulgaria and the doctor is Palestinian
.

Despite the medics' plight, the United States agreed in May to re-establish diplomatic relations with Libya, 18 years after the bombing of an airliner over Lockerbie in Scotland that killed 270 civilians. Many observers had expected a resolution of the medics' case to be part of the deal. And the European Union has given Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, red-carpet treatment at the European Commission in Brussels.
Continue here and here to start:

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Clinton on Rove: "I am sick of Karl Rove's bullshit."

From the Huffington Post is an interesting write-up of the veeerrrryy long David Remnick story on Bill Clinton. Which apparently from the outtakes is a feast. Here's some highlights.

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What do you get when you send esteemed and erudite New Yorker editor David Remnick around the world with the wildly popular former president of the United States, Bill Clinton, to talk about his life, work, legacy, and not-at-all-controversial-or-in-the-news-lately wife Hillary ? Quite a lot, actually: A massive 23-page story
..
Here is a non-exhaustive list of nuggets from the piece; those looking for a precis can find one of sorts in the New Yorker PR dept's aforementioned 1,066-word account, as well as a New Yorker Q&A with Remnick here.
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Clinton on Rove: "I am sick of Karl Rove's bullshit."
Clinton on the Kerry campaign: "Like a deer caught in the headlights."
Clinton on watching the World Cup Final in Berlin: "I'm totally psyched for this."
Clinton on the vote to go into Iraq: "I'm sick and tired of being told that if you voted for authorization you voted for the war. It was a mistake, and I would have made it, too....The administration did not shoot straight on the nuclear issue or on Saddam's supposed ties to Al Qaeda prior to 9/11."
Chelsea on her father's handling of the AIDS crisis after writing a thesis on the subject at Oxford: "I gave you a grade," she told her father. "What did I get?" Clinton asked. "C-plus." Her rationale: "You didn't do nearly enough. But you did more than anyone else in the world."
Clinton on dying: "I've reached an age now where it doesn't matter whatever happens to me...I just don't want anyone to die before their time anymore."
Hillary on that weird NYT story about their marriage: "I'm endlessly fascinated by people's fascination with us, but that's not something I'm going to spend much time on."
Bill on that weird NYT story about their marriage: "I think it got pretty well the response that it deserved."
Apparently, Hillary Clinton loves giraffes; accordingly, her husband bought her a giant wooden one which Remnick estimated was "seven, eight feet tall." (The NYT is no doubt working out the symbolism.)
Clinton on WaPo's Susan Schmidt: "A Xerox machine for Ken Starr."
Clinton on puncutality, as expressed in being 15 minutes late to meet with Nelson Mandela, per Remnick: "Astonishingly, he will make anyone wait for him, even a global patriarch who is presumably his moral hero."
Clinton on the Bush administration: "It just makes me mad...I just wish I were there trying to articulate an alternative vision."
On the fact that he is not: "You have to bloom where you're planted."

Current TV grows













Photo here
From BoingBoing that directory of wonderful things. Al Gore and Current are expanding(did I say that right).
Yahoo and Current TV are teaming up to launch four new internet "television channels" that comprise the new Yahoo! Current Network, and all four go live tonight.
Earlier today, Xeni spoke with former Vice President
Al Gore, internet godfather and co-founder of Current TV, about "Yahoo Current." Here's what he had to say:
Continue:

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Our "News" Media and our "torture" president

The Huffington Post on our "Torture" Prez.

--
Call It What It Is -- Bush Wants to Torture People

It's so annoying to read mainstream press articles where they dance around what the real issue is on "terror suspect interrogations." They use every euphemism in the book. Bush seeks "clarity" on interrogations. Bush wants "wider leeway" in interrogations. Bush wants "tougher interrogations."

Tougher interrogations, my ass. Bush wants to torture people.

Every single person writing those stories knows what this is really about. They are so queasy about writing the word down on paper, but they're perfectly willing to have a legitimate debate on whether we should actually do it. That makes no sense.
I wish the late Sam Kinison was
around now to shout at the reporters,
"SAY IT!!! JUST SAY IT!!!!"
It's torture.

Continue:

That 9-11 "docudrama"















From ol' Bartcop

Dubya likes torture - Simple as that

Eugene Robinson at the Washington Post gets it completely. What passes for leaders in the United States of America today are seriously and openly debating torture of prisoners.
Dubya, bringing back the inquisitions and the witch hunts one torture at a time.
---
Torture Is Torture
Bush's 'Program' Disgraces All Americans
--Eugene Robinson
..

It's past time to stop mincing words. The Decider, or maybe we should now call him the Inquisitor, sticks to anodyne euphemisms. He speaks of "alternative" questioning techniques, and his umbrella term for the whole shop of horrors is "the program." Of course, he won't fully detail the methods that were used in the secret CIA prisons -- and who knows where else? -- but various sources have said they have included not just the infamous "waterboarding," which the administration apparently will reluctantly forswear, but also sleep deprivation, exposure to cold, bombardment with ear-splitting noise and other assaults that cause not just mental duress but physical agony. That is torture, and to call it anything else is a lie.
...
It is not possible for our elected representatives to hold any sort of honorable "debate" over torture. Bush says he is waging a "struggle for civilization," but civilized nations do not debate slavery or genocide, and they don't debate torture, either. This spectacle insults and dishonors every American.

...
Link found at Suburban Guerilla

The Huffington Post had this to say:

Amnesty International begs Americans to stop dubya

We've reached a new low. Amnesty International has placed full page ads in Newspapers asking the American people to stop the totalitarian practices of the dubya government.
--






























The America We Believe in Would
Preserve Fair Trials and Humane Treatment

Recently the Supreme Court struck down the President’s Military Commissions and restored minimum Geneva Conventions protections to people in US custody, but now the President has asked Congress to authorize military commissions proceedings similar to those that were struck down. In addition, the President has asked Congress to codify the indefinite detention regime and to provide immunity for the CIA, civilian contractors, and Administration officials who may have violated the War Crimes Act. Act urgently to tell Congress to uphold fair trials and ensure those involved in human rights abuses are held accountable.

“Hotel Minibar” Keys Open Diebold Voting Machines"

I'm still not sure why everyone is so surprised at the ease of access for these Diebold machines. IMO it's planned so any otherwise dumb as a rock Republican operative can change the votes at will and end up with the old 51% Repub, 49% Dem outcome. They didn't dare make them to complicated.
--
“Hotel Minibar” Keys Open Diebold Voting Machines

Like other computer scientists who have studied Diebold voting machines, we were surprised at the apparent carelessness of Diebold’s security design. It can be hard to convey this to nonexperts, because the examples are technical. To security practitioners, the use of a fixed, unchangeable encryption key and the blind acceptance of every software update offered on removable storage are rookie mistakes; but nonexperts have trouble appreciating this. Here is an
example that anybody, expert or not, can appreciate..

The access panel door on a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine — the door that protects the memory card that stores the votes, and is the main barrier to the injection of a virus — can be opened with a standard key that is widely available on the Internet.

..A little research revealed that the exact same key is used widely in office furniture, electronic equipment, jukeboxes, and hotel minibars. It’s a standard part, and like most standard parts it’s easily purchased on the Internet. We bought several keys from an
office furniture key shop — they open the voting machine too. We ordered another key on eBay from a jukebox supply shop. The keys can be purchased from many online merchants.

Using such a standard key doesn’t provide much security, but it does allow Diebold to assert that their design uses a lock and key. Experts will recognize the same problem in Diebold’s use of encryption — they can say they use encryption, but they use it in a way that neutralizes its security benefits.

The bad guys don’t care whether you use encryption; they care whether they can read and modify your data. They don’t care whether your door has a lock on it; they care whether they can get it open. The checkbox approach to security works in press releases, but it doesn’t work in the field.
--
Security analysis of the Diebold voting machine:
From Freedom to Tinker and BoingBoing

Note:
[…]The security analysis includes a video and a detailed report. (There is a companion posting on the Freedom to Tinker site.) The video includes a demonstration of a mock election with a race between George Washington and Benedict Arnold. The votes are cast 4-1 in favor of Washington but the machine reports a 3-2 win by Arnold. The election-stealing software leaves no trace that the results are fraudulent. Significantly, the malicious software can be installed on a given machine in under a minute. The viral spread of the software can occur in multiple ways. In particular, it can spread when the election machines are initialized before an election with names of the candidates in each race.[…]

Monday, September 18, 2006

Anarchy in the UK

The Sex Pistols in a composite of Anarchy in the UK. Take this Tony Blair.

Accountability?

"Fifty-seven percent of the respondents said they think it would be good for the country "if the Democrats in Congress were able to conduct official investigations into what the Bush administration has done in the past six years."















From digby & CNN

Dying from terrorism | Far less likely than dubya tells you.

From Wired magazine. The chances you'll be killed in a terrorist attack? VERY slim actually. No matter what dubya tells you to keep you terrified. Best chance for cause of death? Driving off the road. Terrorism is near the last, right above carbon monoxide poisoning:
--


One Million Ways to Die
By Ryan Singel

Sept. 11, 2001 was undoubtedly one of the darkest and deadliest days in United States history. Al-Qaida's attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center killed 2,976 people, and the country recoiled in horror as we witnessed the death of thousands of Americans when the towers fell.

In the five years since that shattering day, the government has spent billions on anti-terrorism projects, instituted a
color-coded alert system that has never been green, banned fingernail clippers and water bottles from airplanes, launched a pre-emptive war on false pretenses, and advised citizens to stock up on duct tape and plastic sheeting.

But despite the never-ending litany of warnings and endless stories of half-baked plots foiled, how likely are you, statistically speaking, to die from a terrorist attack?

Comparing official mortality data with the number of Americans who have been killed inside the United States by terrorism since the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah
Federal Building in Oklahoma reveals that scores of threats are far more likely to kill an American than any terrorist -- at least, statistically speaking.

In fact, your appendix is more likely to kill you than al-Qaida is.

With that in mind, here's a handy ranking of the various dangers confronting America, based on the number of mortalities in each category throughout the 11-year period spanning 1995 through 2005 (extrapolated from best available data).

--
Go to Wired News for graph.

Friday, September 15, 2006

9/11 Toxic Dust Whistleblower Raided By SWAT Team

Sounds like someone's holding a grudge.















--
9/11 Toxic Dust Whistleblower Raided By SWAT Team
Ground zero hero Major Mike McCormack says he was deliberately targeted for helping release documents on EPA government cover-up, says 75% of police, firemen believe 9/11 cover-up

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com

A 9/11 toxic dust whistleblower, a ground zero hero and one of the individuals influential in the release of documents proving a government cover-up that deliberately put police, firemen and rescue personel at risk, has been raided by a New York SWAT team - who ransacked his home for three hours after he was arrested.
Major Mike McCormack is a hospital technician and civil air patrol pilot who worked the ground zero site for eight days after the collapse of the twin towers. He is one of the real heroes of 9/11 and was the man who found the American flag that was later displayed as a token of unity atop the rubble.
Within hours McCormack was coughing up black mucus and within days he was coughing up blood as the toxic dust that was
deliberately covered up by the EPA poisoned his lungs along with all the other rescue workers, police and firemen who were being used in photo ops by Bush and his cronies while their very livelihoods were being endangered by a government cover-up.
McCormack now suffers from an extreme respiratory sensitivity, has a 5-millimeter metal nodule in one lung and has been forced to give up his passion of scuba diving.
McCormack is part of an organization
lobbying Congress to demand a response from the federal government to the toxic dust cover-up and just compensation for the heroes of 9/11 who were deserted by their own government while the Bush administration had the audacity to use the attacks to fulfil a pre-determined political agenda by exploiting the unity created by the events of that day.
McCormack now describes himself as "permanently ill" as a result of the "death sentence" that was imposed on him via the toxic dust cover-up and sees it as only a matter of time before he "takes the dirt nap," just as some of his friends who worked with him at ground zero have already done.
McCormack currently occupies a high position of employment in security with the federal government which at the moment he prefers not to divulge. He has many friends who were affected by the ground zero toxic dust, including New York City police and state troopers.
McCormack was part of the anniversary ceremonies on September 11 2006 and provided many hand-shaking photo-ops for numerous politicians, before returning to his family home in Pennsylvania that night. McCormack returned to his New York home the next morning in preparation to visit ground zero once again.
On the morning of September 12, McCormack's tenant opened the door to see half a dozen detectives outside who began asking questions and demanding to search the building. The detectives didn't have a warrant and needed McCormack's signature to conduct the search.
Having nothing to hide and wanting to assist the police, McCormack signed the paper and the detectives entered the house.
"Three minutes later as I'm walking out of my office with one of the detectives, I have a federal SWAT team that comes in....men in black and all of a sudden they have 9 millimeter handguns and MP5 machine guns aimed at my head," McCormack told the Alex Jones Show.
McCormack was ordered to leave the building as the 15-strong Darth Vader like SWAT team members verbally abused him and commenced ransacking his house for up to three hours "like a cyclone."
The reason for the raid was said to be as a result of a complaint that the odor of chemicals was smelled coming from the house. McCormack was essentially being treated as a potential terrorist.

Continue:

When the Levees Broke on Youtube

I've heard a lot of good things about Spike Lee's new documentary When the Levees Broke about Katrina/New Orleans. Well apparently it's now on Youtube. If you don't have HBO and/or don't want to get HBO for one documentary this will be worth checking out. Here from TICKLEBOOTH are the links:
--

Spike Lee remains as one of the most provocative and influential filmmakers, especially in the 90’s. Here are my favorites of Spike’s videos that can be found on YouTube.
Documentary
The biggest surprise was finding the entire version of When the Levees Broke, a 4 hour documentary on Katrina and New Orleans. This film is Lee’s best non-fiction work and the best Katrina related film I have seen. The film goes to the very roots of the Katrina disaster (the man-made one) following the trails of race, Louisiana oil and politics.
The entire film comes in 26 parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26.Also check out this montage submitted by a user: When the Levees BrokeAnother doc by Spike on the Gore and Bush 2000 Election
aptly titled We Wuz Robbed

Thursday, September 14, 2006

It's A Dream

I came across Neil Young's, "It's A Dream" song on his Heart of Gold DVD(which was excellent by the way). It's A Dream is from Neil's Prairie Wind cd. My favorite song at the moment, and in my opinion is up there with his After the Goldrush, and Harvest works. Fills you with an almost Impressionist type of longing and sadness.
I searched and found this video for it on Youtube, it's not the concert footage and basically appears be a homemade collage for the song. I don't think it does the song justice but it does throw in a nice surprise at the end, a snippet of "Crippled Creek Ferry".
Anyway Here 'tis:

Of course if you're on dial up. You'll have a LONG wait(if ever) for loading.

Researchers Show how to steal an election with Diebold

Of course you already knew they could do this right? I mean I think that's the whole point of Diebold "no-paper trail machine" right?















Princeton researchers show how to steal an election with Diebold machines
Princeton security researchers Ariel J. Feldman, J. Alex Halderman, and Edward W. Felten have taken apart one of Diebold's notorious voting machines and done a thorough security analysis of its workings. They showed that they could easily install software on the machine that would allow an attacker to steal votes from one candidate and give them to another -- they showed that this would be undetectable, and easily done. They've published a paper and an amazing, disturbing video showing how this could be done
...
Diebold insists that their machines are secure, and that they don't need voter-verified paper audit-tapes that keep a real-time log of the votes cast -- but this latest attack, which requires only a few minutes to execute, shows that America's votes should not be run on Diebold hardware.
More:
Online Policy Group v. Diebold, Inc.
Princeton University Center for Information Technology

Linked at BoingBoing

Celebrate Banned Books

In celebration of Banned Books Week (Sept 23-30) read a banned book.


Google Book Search and the American Library Association have teamed up to offer searchable indices and library links to banned books
To Kill a Mockingbird. Of Mice and Men. The Great Gatsby. 1984. It's hard to imagine a world without these extraordinary literary classics, but every year there are hundreds of attempts to remove great books from libraries and schools. In fact, according to the American Library Association, 42 of 100 books recognized by the Radcliffe Publishing Course as the best novels of the 20th century have been challenged or banned.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Indicted KY governor Fletcher rewards backers

I think I'll start spelling corrupt, R-e-p-u-b-l-i-c-a-n.
--









From the Herald-Leader

Fletcher backer's firm gets contract
FRANKFORT - The state Transportation Cabinet has awarded a contract worth up to $100,000 to the Frankfort law firm of Larry Forgy, who has been one of Gov. Ernie Fletcher's most vocal supporters.

The Government Contract Review committee considered the personal-service contract yesterday for Forgy. It was one of 35 legal contracts worth $3.5 million from the cabinet that the panel questioned.

Two members of the committee voted for the 35 contracts, while six declined to vote. However, the contracts will go forward. If they had received a majority of "no" votes, they would have gone to the state Finance Cabinet for further consideration.

Sen. Ernesto Scorsone, D-Lexington, raised concerns at yesterday's meeting about the contracts, particularly the one for Forgy.

"Sounds like we are doing some business for the governor's friends," Scorsone said.

Forgy, a Republican who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 1995, has publicly defended Fletcher and his GOP administration throughout the lengthy investigation of hiring practices in state government.

Continue:

Republicans block attempt to stop Bush Spying on Americans















Photo here:

From truthout:

Senate Republicans blocked Democratic attempts to rein in President Bush's domestic wiretapping program Wednesday
Amid a sustained White House campaign to give the administration broad authority to monitor(spy on), interrogate(torture) and prosecute(kangaroo courts) terrorism suspects.
--

Republican party's top 5 goals(my picks add your own):
1. Unlimited power to the (Republican of course) President to torture and detain ANYONE he wants and wage war at will.
2. Spying on American citizens(and I suspect all non-Repub politicians/dissidents)
3. Destruction of Social Security and other social safety nets to the benefit of corporate brokers/bankers.
4. Corporatizing the environment/disasters/wars for profit.
5. Control of voting systems. They've nearly succeeded at and may already have perfected this. It would explain why they don't seem to worried about a Democrat using any of these executive powers they're
throwing on Der Bush.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Global Warming Warning Signs - Interactive Map

From The Conscious Earth. Here's a great interactive map that shows worldwide direct impacts of climate change such as heat waves and retreating glaciers, in addition to extreme weather events and fires.
A good counter point to the global warming solutions map posted earlier this week.

Teshekpuk Lake Wetlands going to the oil companies















[Photo: MSNBC]
It is one of the most remarkable wetlands on the planet.
Millions of waterfowl and tens of thousands of caribou are lucky
enough to call it home.

But their luck may run out as soon as Sept. 27, when our
government plans to sell the fragile habitat to the oil and gas
industry. The place is the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area in
Alaska, and you have a chance right now to protect this land -
public land - from destructive oil and gas development.

Teshekpuk Lake is one of the most important wetland complexes in
the Arctic, providing essential habitat for millions of birds
and caribou. Native people, conservation groups, scientists,
sportsmen's groups, and the general public strongly oppose the
oil and gas plan. Will you join the call before it's too late?


Go to The Wilderness Society to help or here for the web form.

9-11 | The Falling Man

From Woods Lot and Esquire:



















Do you remember this photograph? In the United States, people have taken pains to banish it from the record of September 11, 2001. The story behind it, though, and the search for the man pictured in it, are our most intimate connection to the horror of that day.
The Falling Man
Tom Junod Photograph by Richard Drew
At fifteen seconds after 9:41 a.m., on September 11, 2001, a photographer named Richard Drew took a picture of a man falling through the sky-falling through time as well as through space. The picture went all around the world, and then disappeared, as if we willed it away. One of the most famous photographs in human history became an unmarked grave, and the man buried inside its frame-the Falling Man-became the Unknown Soldier in a war whose end we have not yet seen. Richard Drew's photograph is all we know of him, and yet all we know of him becomes a measure of what we know of ourselves. The picture is his cenotaph, and like the monuments dedicated to the memory of unknown soldiers everywhere, it asks that we look at it, and make one simple acknowledgment.
That we have known who the Falling Man is all along. ...
(more)

Olbermann Blasts Bush

I watched quite a bit of the CSPAN2 memorial to the 9-11 victims last night. It was only friends and families of the victims reading the names and memorializing their loved ones. No photo-ops, no network "docudrama" spin. Just people still grieving for lost husbands & wives, sons & daughters. It was very touching, a fitting way to remember the dead.
From Crooks & Liars. Keith Olbermann blasts George W. Bush:










Video(C&L) or Youtube:
Partial transcript:

Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space.
And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.
And all the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and — as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul — two more in the Towers.
And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.
I belabor this to emphasize that, for me… this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.
And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft", or have "forgotten" the
lessons of what happened here — is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante
— and at worst, an idiot — whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or
a President.
However. Of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast — of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds… none of us could have predicted… this.
Five years later this space… is still empty.
Five years later
there is no Memorial to the dead.
Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.
Five years later this country’s wound is still open.
Five years… later this country’s mass grave is still unmarked.
Five years later… this is still… just a background for a photo-op.
It is beyond shameful.

Mickey Mouse, The 9-11 Co-conspirator

In honor of the Disney/ABC "hackumentary" which basically blames 9-11 on President Bill Clinton(& Hillary I imagine). From Aravosis and Youtube:

Monday, September 11, 2006

Make your own McDonald's Sign

Make up your own McDonald's sign here(mine is below) and write a letter to McDonalds.
--
















McDonald's often emphasizes its "long-standing global commitment to environmental protection and leadership." So why did they give away 42 million toy Hummers in Happy Meals? The fast-food chain that helped make our kids the fattest on Earth cut a deal with General Motors to sell future car buyers on the fun of driving a supersized, smog-spewing, gas-guzzling SUV originally built for the military.

Top 25 Censored news stories of 2007

On the other hand if you get your news from cable tv I'm sure you know all about Tom's new baby and Paris's D.W.I. Thanks to BoingBoing and Project Censored here's a list of the top ten censored (vouluntarily I'm sure) news stories -so far- of 2007.
--
Top 25 Censored news stories of 2007(So far)
#1 Future of Internet Debate Ignored by Media
#2 Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran
#3 Oceans of the World in Extreme Danger
#4 Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in the US
#5 High-Tech Genocide in Congo
#6 Federal Whistleblower Protection in Jeopardy
# 7 US Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afghanistan and Iraq
#8 Pentagon Exempt from Freedom of Information Act
#9 The World Bank Funds Israel-Palestine Wall
#10 Expanded Air War in Iraq Kills More Civilians
Go here for the rest.

Friday, September 08, 2006

Youtube | Neil Young "Imagine"

ABC should dump their alternative history "docudrama" and show the "A tribute to heroes" from 2001 again. This is a bit of it. Dedicated to the memory of all those lost people who just went to work that day. I'd like to include in honor of our soldiers that dubya's feeding to the war machine. And yes to the people of Afghanistan and Iraq to.
Neil Young with "Imagine" shortly after the 9-11 attacks:

Funny of the mornin'

"If the evil president of Iran wants to meet Bush one-on-one so badly, Bush should agree. But the Bush team should arrange to have the meeting in a clam bar in Little Italy. Have Clemenza tape a gun behind the toilet. Order the cannoli, then go to the men's room. Get the revolver... Oh, wait, who am I kidding? This numb-nuts will just screw it up. Send Cheney."
---Bill Maher

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Senate Democrats pile on Disney/ABC

Now ABC's work of 9-11 fiction is getting a LOT more interesting. The Senate Democrats are starting to smell the Disney rat..er I mean mouse. Here's the letter sent to Disney they signed off on. Found it at Americablog. Lot's of good analysis there, and comments. the letter's to good to excerpt so I've posted the whole thing. The Democrats are deadly serious-as they should be. Sept. 11th hit us all, it shouldn't be used for propaganda purposes by ANY party. Especially by the party in power at the time.
--

Senate Democratic leadership threatens Disney with legal and legislative sanctions

September 7, 2006
Mr. Robert A. Iger
President and CEO
The Walt
Disney Company
500 South Buena Vista Street
Burbank CA 91521

Dear Mr. Iger,
We write with serious concerns about the planned upcoming broadcast of The Path to 9/11 mini-series on September 10 and 11. Countless reports from experts on 9/11 who have viewed the program indicate numerous and serious inaccuracies that will undoubtedly serve to misinform the American people about the tragic events surrounding the terrible attacks of that day. Furthermore, the manner in which this program has been developed, funded, and advertised suggests a partisan bent unbecoming of a major company like Disney and a major and well respected news organization like ABC. We therefore urge you to cancel this broadcast to cease Disney’s plans to use it as a teaching tool in schools across America through Scholastic. Presenting such deeply flawed and factually inaccurate misinformation to the American public and to children would be a gross miscarriage of your corporate and civic responsibility to the law, to your shareholders, and to the nation.

The Communications Act of 1934 provides your network with a free broadcast license
predicated on the fundamental understanding of your principle obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest. Nowhere is this public interest obligation more apparent than in the duty of broadcasters to serve the civic needs of a democracy by promoting an open and accurate discussion of political ideas and events.

Disney and ABC claim this program to be based on the 9/11 Commission Report and are using that assertion as part of the promotional campaign for it. The 9/11 Commission is the most respected American authority on the 9/11 attacks, and association with it
carries a special responsibility. Indeed, the very events themselves on 9/11, so tragic as they were, demand extreme care by any who attempt to use those events as part of an entertainment or educational program. To quote Steve McPhereson, President of ABC Entertainment, “When you take on the responsibility of telling the story behind such an important event, it is absolutely critical that you get it right.”

Unfortunately, it appears Disney and ABC got it totally wrong.

Despite claims by your network’s representatives that The Path to 9/11 is based on the report of the 9/11 Commission, 9/11 Commissioners themselves, as well as other experts on the issues, disagree.

Richard Ben-Veniste, speaking for himself and fellow 9/11 Commissioners who recently
viewed the program, said, “As we were watching, we were trying to think how they could have misinterpreted the 9/11 Commission’s findings the way that they had.”
[“9/11 Miniseries Is Criticized as Inaccurate and Biased,” New York Times, September 6, 2006]

Richard Clarke, the former counter-terrorism czar, and a national security advisor to ABC has described the program as “deeply flawed” and said of the program’s depiction of a Clinton official hanging up on an intelligence agent, “It’s 180 degrees from what happened.” [“9/11 Miniseries Is Criticized as Inaccurate and Biased,” New York Times, September 6, 2006]

Reports suggest that an FBI agent who worked on 9/11 and served as a consultant to ABC on this program quit halfway through because, “he thought they were making things up.” [MSNBC, September 7, 2006]

Even Thomas Kean, who serves as a paid consultant to the miniseries, has admitted that scenes in the film are fictionalized. [“9/11 Miniseries Is Criticized as Inaccurate and Biased,” New York Times, September 6, 2006]

That Disney would seek to broadcast an admittedly and proven false recounting of the events of 9/11 raises serious questions about the motivations of its creators and those who approved the deeply flawed program. Finally, that Disney plans to air commercial-free a program that reportedly cost it $40 million to produce serves to add fuel to these concerns.

These concerns are made all the more pressing by the political leaning of and the public statements made by the writer/producer of this miniseries, Mr. Cyrus Nowrasteh, in promoting this miniseries across conservative blogs and talk shows.

Frankly, that ABC and Disney would consider airing a program that could be construed as right-wing political propaganda on such a grave and important event involving the security of our nation is a discredit both to the Disney brand and to the legacy of honesty built at ABC by honorable individuals from David Brinkley to Peter Jennings.
Furthermore, that Disney would seek to use Scholastic to promote this misguided programming to American children as a substitute for factual information is a disgrace.

As 9/11 Commission member Jamie Gorelick said, “It is critically important to the safety of our nation that our citizens, and particularly our school children, understand what actually happened and why – so that we can proceed from a common understanding of what went wrong and act with unity to make our country safer.”

Should Disney allow this programming to proceed as planned, the factual record, millions of viewers, countless schoolchildren, and the reputation of Disney as a corporation worthy of the trust of the American people and the United States Congress will be deeply damaged. We urge you, after full consideration of the facts, to uphold your responsibilities as a respected member of American society and as a beneficiary of the free use of the public airwaves to cancel this factually inaccurate and deeply misguided program. We look forward to hearing back from you soon.

Sincerely,Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid
Assistant Democratic
Leader Dick Durbin
Senator Debbie Stabenow
Senator Charles Schumer
Senator Byron Dorgan

Disney/ABC's fictional 9-11 Drama continues

Apparently Disney/ABC's rewriting of history in their 9-11 story was sent out for pre-view to Rush Limbaugh, Rightwing bloggers and a host of other conservative-borgs/"journalists" but not to one Liberal/Progressive citizen. The best part? With all the smearing in this piece of fiction of the Clinton administration, guess who didn't get to preview it? That's right! Former President Bill Clinton, Madeliene Albright, Sandy Berger all requested copies and were refused.



















Sorry Mister President no copy for you!
Go to Eschaton, FDL, Think Progress and many fine Democratic/Progressive Blogs
everywhere.
Update: Faux News does a puff piece on it. You know what that means.
Write ABC and tell them to tell the truth about 9/11.

Here's a new Blog with the latest updates on this travesty.

Republicans | Killing doves for 9-11

What better way to remember 9-11 than shooting doves?



















This is an invitation to go DOVE shooting with a bunch of Republicans as a fund raiser for a GOP candidate.
Try not to shoot anyone in the face, unless you're V.P. Dick of course, and then the victem must apologize to you and your family. Kill something and make money at the same time, those rascally Republicans.
Link found here.

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