Road Waste

It's the dirty little secret of being on a road trip - the amount of garbage that you will accumulate whether you like it or not. It doesn't matter how conscious you are about recycling and being frugal, the fact of the matter is you'll wind up tossing out more crap than if you stayed at home.

Mr's Lipstick and I tried our best to take every conceivable thing we needed for three weeks in the desert but of course there are always those little niggling needs that have to be met, and bought. Plus all the packaging from fresh food and drink. That's not even mentioning all the damn gas that's burned by pulling a small trailer for thousands of miles. I've got to admit to a dichotomy of satisfaction/guilt over the mounds of trash generated on the road. I know it sucks, but damn this is fun to do.

The best states know this and plan for it with plenty of places to dispose of it all. The worst states to travel in plan only as far as cleaning up the messes after the fact, as evidenced by garbage strewn everywhere. Colorado is where we're at right now and they do a good job. Nevada may be the finest state to travel long distance with they're good roads, fine state parks, liberal overnight permission and the trash collection. They may be the best travel state of all.

New Mexico is next, time to see how enchanted they are with their highways and byways.

Bushcronium

A major research institution has just announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element has been named Bushcronium.

Bushcronium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an Atomic mass of 311. These 311 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Since Bushcronium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected, as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Bushcronium causes one reaction to take over 4 days to complete when it would normally take less than a second.

Bushcronium has a normal half-life of multiples of 4 years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Bushcronium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to believe that Bushcronium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as Critical Morass.

When catalyzed with money, Bushcronium activates Foxnewsium, an element which radiates orders of magnitude, more energy, albeit as incoherent noise, since it has 1/2 as many peons but twice as many morons.

I'll Still Refuse To Trust MSM

Just wanted to post something about my computer before My wife and I leave, as a public service.

It's a Dell Inspiron 6000 that's barely a year old. It was sold as having lots of bells and whistles and on paper it's capabilities are impressive for around $2000. Three days before leaving on a vacation it decided to fail with the AC adapter. It would boot up with the battery but not the cord, and if you plugged the adapter in the screen would go blank. I brought the cord and adapter in to Radio Shack and it tested fine so the machine had malfunctioned. Then I contacted Dell.

Knowing that the chances of getting a customer service agent without a thick accent was slim to none I opted for online chat. After some back and forth the agent said he would send a new motherboard and cord to a repair tech who'd come to my house and install it. He came today. The computer now boots up not at all. Dead. No WiFi for us.

Back to the online chat. The first agent, one Gunjan_143463, wanted me to pull the hard drive. Umm, no That's ridiculously unacceptible to expect customers to do that. One spark, one misstep and you lose big time. Adios Gunjan.

The next agent, one SHAVETA_146442, tried to go the same route as the other person but I stopped him and told him what I wanted. I wanted to take it to a Dell approved repair joint to get fixed in the first big town on our trip. Wouldn't go for it. Imagine that - Dell wants YOU to dig into your rig's insides but won't let you take the time and effort to take it in to a repair shop until, get this - the same incompetent ass that came and trashed my machine today will come back and do it again Two More Times. Then it can go in.

Bottom Line - Screw Dell, folks. I won't see a usable computer for months now, if ever. That vaunted customer service was all a myth anyway. Go with HP.

Music To Watch Jesus Camp By

They want you to know god really hates you.

The Naked Face Of Fascism For All The World To See

With a nod to their despotic counterparts in the Levant, the illustrious commanders of our expeditionary forces started the partitioning of Baghdad into an open air prison. It can be looked at as a microcosm of the fascist agenda for the entire region - breaking formerly coherent states into smaller, toothless and more easily controlled cantons. It's also a symbol of how the US views Sunni - Shiite relations; the more permanent the division the better. All those deadly false flag bombings successfully laid the propaganda cover for this atrocity.

"U.S. commanders in northern Baghdad said the 12-foot-high barrier would make it more difficult for suicide bombers to strike and for death squads and militia fighters from sectarian factions to attack one another and then slip back to their home turf. Construction began April 10 and is expected to be completed by the end of the month."

One doesn't have to wonder what the Iraqi people in the city think about this. Just put yourself into the shoes of some guy who has to face endless traffic jams, snarling dogs, barbed wire and checkpoints manned by surly foreigners just to get to a job or home to his family. It's opposed by all who live in the city - snipers opened up on one construction crew and it has to be erected under cover of darkness.

"The Baghdad wall, which will be 12ft (3,5 metres) high, is being built by US paratroopers who left Camp Taji, about 20 miles north of the city, on the first night in a dozen trucks carrying stacks of huge concrete barriers, each weighing 14,000 pounds (6,300kg). Cranes, protected by tanks, winched them into place. Building has continued every night since."

Of course this is the current zionist philosophy at work in Palestine, a fact that's not lost on Iraqis - "Are we in the West Bank?" asked Abu Qusay, 48.
"I feel this is the beginning of a pattern of what the whole of Iraq is going to look like, divided by sectarian and racial criteria," Abu Marwan, 50, a Shiite pharmacist, said.

It's inconceivable that we've come to this, but here we are. If corralling people into a walled off concentration camp where their lives are highly regulated as sub citizens isn't fascism I don't know what is. Chris Floyd nails it:

"Even the most savage pre-war critics of the Bush Faction's aggression against Iraq -- and I was one of them -- did not foresee that it would come to this: the Iraqis literally being imprisoned in their own cities, walled up behind tons of concrete and bristling concertina wire, forced to run a gauntlet of armed guards and proffer ID cards simply to reach their own homes. Any sentient being knew that Bush's bullshit about "liberation" was a transparent hoax to cover a brutal rape of Iraq; but I never thought he would actually herd the survivors into walled camps and set up ethnic ghettos in the heart of the ancient capital, like the Nazis partitioning Warsaw or Cracow. But that's precisely what's happening now -- to the deafening silence of the American Establishment and the Democratic "opposition."

I'm Taking A Break

Gonna try something new.

As if it mattered, Mrs Lipstick and I are going on a much needed road trip. Before war with Iran, before anticipated financial Armageddon with gas prices in the stratosphere, while american society is in meltdown, we're going on vacation. Our destination will be red rock canyon country of the southwest. We'll be hiking, camping, 4 wheeling, taking pictures and gawking for several weeks.

Here's my take about blogs. I find vanity blogs to be annoying and boring, except to the blogger her/himself who finds his/her personal life to be utterly fascinating and to mouthbreathers who haven't got lives of their own. You know, most of the MySpace action probably. Relationships and pop culture. I very rarely write about personal experiences because I don't care about other personal experiences except when they relate to broader issues that can affect us all.

With possibly no serious laptop with me and having very little time for world news on the road it ain't going to be easy to compose blog posts. But if I do I'm going to try to meld mundane personal experience into a larger significance in a William Least Heat-Moon sort of way. (yeah, sure)

Now I've got to get 1000 miles behind me.

Dean McCain Criticized For His I've Got A Scream Bomb Iran Gaff

MoveOn.org is releasing this ad featuring manchurian candidate McCain titillating a crowd of brain dead Good Germans:

"Please, I was talking to some of my old veterans friends," he told reporters. "My response is, Lighten up and get a life."
When reporters asked if the joke was insensitive, McCain said: "Insensitive to what? The Iranians?"

"It comes as no surprise that America's most liberal interest group would attack John McCain's belief that we cannot allow Iran to destroy Israel," McCain campaign spokesman Matt David says in an e-mail just sent to reporters."

And AIPAC is just another lobby.

We Are All Hokies

Virginia Tech merchandise flies off of shelves

"BLACKSBURG, Va., April 19 Sellers of gear bearing the Virginia Tech Hokies name or logo say sales have skyrocketed since the mass shooting at the school.Derek Thompson, who owns the Web site HokiePlanet.com, said between 400 and 500 orders for Virginia Tech shirts, hats, bracelets and other gear poured in between Monday's shooting and Wednesday afternoon -- a stark contrast to the average 5 orders a day he normally receives this time of year, The Washington Post reported Thursday."



Penn State to wear V Tech colors at their Blue and White Game

What is a 'nittany' anyway?

Scammers preying on tragedy

"Security researchers are warning people to be watchful for phishing scams and malware attacks that take advantage of this week's tragedy at Virginia Tech."

The Worst School Murders In US History

Happened just about eighty years ago on May 18, 1927. It seems that an early version of an anal, tax hating republican decided to end it all and take as many people with him as he could. He may also even be the first suicide car bomber ever.

"On the morning of May 18, Kehoe first killed his wife and then set his farm buildings on fire. As fire fighters arrived at the farm, an explosion devastated the north wing of the school building, killing many of the people inside. Kehoe used a detonator to ignite dynamite and hundreds of pounds of pyrotol which he had secretly planted inside the school over the course of many months. As rescuers started gathering at the school, Kehoe drove up, stopped, and detonated a bomb inside his shrapnel-filled vehicle, killing himself and the school superintendent, and killing and injuring several others. During the rescue efforts, searchers discovered an additional 500 pounds (230 kg) of unexploded dynamite and pyrotol planted throughout the basement of the school's south wing."

Sniggering Pig People Enjoy Enjoy Thoughts Of Murder

And this sick individual wants to be president.

What Sort Of Relationship Did The Government Have With Cho?

That they would have files on him. Glen Greenwald points out an interesting passage buried in an ABC report on the Virginia Tech shootings:

"Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can find no record of such medication in the government's files. This does not completely rule out prescription drug use, including samples from a physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in the federal database, but the sources say theirs is a reasonably complete search."

Just like in all the other high profile, media frenzied shootings, we aren't being told the truth nor the whole story. I can't pretend to figure out what really went on with all the strangeness and inconsistencies, but I do resonate with Kurt Nimmo on the event:

"..the largest massacre in American history, carried out on the campus of a prestigious engineering school, will certainly jack up the fear ratio—to say nothing of launch yet another salvo at the Bill of Rights, two things certain to please our control freak rulers.
Cui bono?"

What Will Happen If Guns Are Banned?

Paul Craig Roberts surmises it won't be pretty.

"The tragic murders of Virginia Tech students, apparently by an insane person, will prompt new attempts to ban private ownership of guns. Once guns are banned, crime will explode. Households and vulnerable members of society will lose the ability to defend, which will invite more intrusions and attacks. Knife crimes will rise as they have in Great Britain.
Gun prohibition will create a new industry for criminals--gun running and black market sales. Police will conduct stings by posing as black market gun dealers and entrap innocent citizens driven by fear and threat to secure means of personal protection.
A large industry of family businesses dedicated to meeting the needs of shooters, who would never shoot at anything but a paper or clay target, will be wiped out. Gun clubs will close their doors.
Collectors of valuable Winchesters and Colts, beautiful pieces of Americana, will have to give them up or be at risk of prison sentences.
Gun banners might be surprised at the number of Americans who provide parts and repairs for firearms that have been out of production for 70 or 80 years. Other businesses provide components from which dedicated hobbyists fashion ammunition that is no longer commercially produced."

Lots of businesses would shut, jobs would be lost and livelihoods destroyed. Crime would indeed skyrocket as all of a sudden the whole country would become a soft target. The growing percentage of older people in our society would know fear every day of their lives. But that wouldn't be the worst of it.
In order to make a draconian switch to a gun less society, our despotic authoritarians would need to make gun possession, especially when committing a crime, a felony with severe penalties. At that point the murder rate would go through the roof because criminals wouldn't have anything to lose and would be more prone to kill. With no guns people also would still find a way to hurt and kill one another. But this still wouldn't be the worst of it.

We would be at the mercy of an out of control and despotic government. Deterring would be tyrants would no longer be an option. A large portion of the 80,000,000 + gun owners in this country simply wouldn't give up their weapons. The spectacle of the first few highly publicized raids with SWAT like teams busting into homes would set off a civil war and america would tear itself apart. That's not a future I'd want to live in.

It's Not Just Bees That Are Disappearing

The news is really bad from Costa Rica where biologists are reporting a massive die off of amphibians and reptiles.

"Chilling new evidence suggests amphibians may be in worse shape than previously thought due to climate change. Further, the findings indicate that the 70 percent decline in amphibians over the past 35 years may have been exceeded by a sharp fall in reptile populations, even in otherwise pristine Costa Rican habitats. Ominously, the new research warns that protected areas strategies for biodiversity conservation will not be enough to stave off extinction. Frogs and their relatives are in big trouble."

Something else besides a fungus called chytridiomycosis, which is causing problems elsewhere in Latin America, is doing it. 1/3 of all amphibian species are threatened with extinction.

Who Was This Guy?

Anybody know? He was taken down yesterday morning on the V Tech campus, as you can see by the architecture. Were the cops arresting all asian males?

New Border Security

In The Know: The U.S. Moat

Stick To Your Guns

The tragedy at Virginia Tech underscores one crucial thing. We're on our own when it get's right down to it.

When I was a kid there wasn't any stigma attached to guns. My friend and I would take our daisy BB guns and walk down the streets in town to the state park for some plinking and no one batted an eye. Not mine, but some schools had shooting programs and students would stow their rifles in their lockers. I've owned guns since before I was a teenager. In my wallet is a license to carry concealed and most often I do. I say this to set the stage for my comments about what happened today.

It doesn't matter how things changed since those more innocent days but we can all agree that things changed for the worse. Maybe it's the media's fault, maybe the government and it's machinations are responsible, possibly we've lost direction as a species or it's TV. Our society sucks and it's getting worse. No getting around the fact that there are a lot of sick people now and possibilities abound for ugly situations today like at that school. You can't stop those people from being sick and creating those situations. And depending on others to protect you in those situations is a lost cause.

Again and again in court, rulings show that cops have "no constitutional obligation to protect individuals from private individuals." No cop, no soldier, no authority is supposed to look out for you. It's up to you to protect you. Whether it's supposed to be that way or not, that's the society we're living in.

Which is why any law that prevents you from doing that is an unjust law. unfortunately one such unjust law was the campus policy at Virginia Tech which prohibited students from concealed carry. Every time one of these mass murders happens you have to wonder how it would have played out if one of the victims was armed and could stop the blood letting. If you haven't you should listen to one Suzanna Hupp, who watched her parents get shot at Luby's restaurant in Texas:

"Even if you choose not to have a gun, as the bad guy who ignored all the laws is getting close to you and as he levels that firearm at one of your children, don't you hope the person next to you has chosen to carry a gun and knows how to use it?"

We might be getting into one of those shooting spree periods where gun control is going to be yakked about yet again. But now more than ever with the threat of authoritarian excess and people going mad from living in a sick culture, hang onto your weapons.
If you haven't seen Dr Hupp's testimony at a senate hearing where she relates her story and put's the execrable senator Shumer on notice, this is it:

Health Care In Occupied Iraq

More women are scheduling C sections because if you go into labor at night you can't go to a hospital because of curfews.
Plus, there's no guarantee of seeing professionals:

"The Iraqi Medical Association estimates as many as 12,000 of the 34,000 doctors registered before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 have left the country in the past three years. The IMA says assailants have murdered at least another 2,000 Iraqi physicians, and kidnapped roughly 250 others during that period."

Gee, I wonder who's killing Iraqi doctors and other professionals?

"The cold-blooded nature of the assassinations leaves many wondering exactly who is responsible for this ongoing campaign. The Iraqi resistance denies it is responsible, and those interested in liberating Iraq from the occupation have no motive to carry out such wide-scale killings.
Osama Abed Al-Majeed, the president of the Department for Research and Development at the Iraqi Ministry for Higher Education, has accused the Israeli secret service, Mossad, of perpetuating the violence against Iraqi scientists. A June 2005 report by the Palestine Information Center claims that Mossad, in cooperation with U.S. military forces, was responsible for the assassination of 530 Iraqi scientists and professors in the seven months prior to the report’s publication."

The devastated health of Iraqi children:

"The combination of sanctions, war and occupation has resulted in Iraq showing the world's worst evolution in child mortality: from an under-five mortality rate of 50 per 1000 live births in 1990, to 125 in 2005. That means an annual deterioration of 6.1 per cent -- a world record, well behind very poor and AIDS- affected Botswana. At the outset of the 2003 war, the US administration pledged to cut Iraq's child mortality rate in half by 2005. But the rate has continued to worsen, to 130 in 2006, according to Iraqi Health Ministry figures."

Flash back to November 6, 2004 - US levels hospital in Falluja:

"These are the kind of preliminary operations which would be carried out before a full-scale assault on Falluja, our correspondent says.
The air strikes reduced the Nazzal hospital, run by a Saudi Arabian Islamic charity, to rubble. Hospital officials quoted by Reuters news agency say all the contents were ruined."

So, what's family planning like in Iraq?

"Salam, who gave birth to her second child — a 7-pound boy — on April 3, says she and her husband are unlikely to have more children because of uncertainty about Iraq's future. "It's better to have a smaller family now because it's easier if you decide to leave the country," she says."

Dicey Times

Our warmongering cabal did not have a good week.

They were shown up by Speaker Pelosi in how to actually do diplomacy by making a trip to the middle east and actually talking to governments. BushCo prefers to hold press conferences and bark orders. Much as I dislike Pelosi and her cowardly democrat cohorts, her possible upcoming trip to Iran would be a good thing for us and bad for the war criminals.

Somehow no one wants to be the Deciderer's War Czar.

Iraq subjugation architect and BushCo pal Paul Wolfowitz might be going down as World Bank honcho. Strangely, it's because of a scandal involving a girlfriend rather than a boyfriend.

Their bloody adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to spiral out of control and the military is seething with resentment over the latest extended tours.

The commission on veterans' health care is reopening the gaping wound of vet mistreatment.

Abu "I have nothing to hide" Gonzales is being roasted for the fired attorneys and will be grilled by the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. The punk may actually go.

Rove.

What's a nascent fascist regime to do when faced with troubles at every turn? Well, public perception trumps policy, according to the cabal, so big events that take their problems off the front page essentially solve them by redirecting attention. Our criminal cabal has no problem creating big events. Some say they like to do so at propitious times and dates to enhance their value and impact. Some say doing things at particular places does the same thing.

In the 90s three ugly events happened within six years, curiously about the same exact time - the Branch Davidian holocaust, Columbine killings and Murrah building demolition on April 19 and 20.

Friday is April 20. It's also Hitler's birthday. Just sayin'.

Bye Bye Bees, Hello Bedbugs

Bedbug Epidemic

"They’re baaaaack! Bedbugs by the billions, invading homes, apartments, dormitories, hotels, and just about anywhere humans lay down to sleep. This renewed pest-related plague was first noted in 2003. It has now spread to all fifty states.

(...)

The quarter-inch long bugs feed primarily on humans at night when they are asleep. Some people have no reactions to the bites, but others experience swelling and redness where they are bitten. While bedbugs do not spread disease, they do leave behind tiny droppings of blood and give off a sickly sweet odor.Bedbugs can live for more than a year without eating and can withstand a wide range of temperatures from nearly freezing to almost 113 degrees Fahrenheit. This increases the difficulty of eliminating them. Female bedbugs lay from 200 to 500 eggs, attaching them with a glue-like substance. They hatch in about ten days. Though they do not grow larger than a small seed, they go through five nymph stages, each of which requires a single blood meal before molting. They can suck up to six times their weight and feeding takes from three to ten minutes. Bedbugs produce three to four generations within a year’s time."

The Times Should Rename This Story "We Will Not Be Another Iraq"

Eye on Iran, Rivals Pursuing Nuclear Power

"Two years ago, the leaders of Saudi Arabia told international atomic regulators that they could foresee no need for the kingdom to develop nuclear power. Today, they are scrambling to hire atomic contractors, buy nuclear hardware and build support for a regional system of reactors.

So, too, Turkey is preparing for its first atomic plant. And Egypt has announced plans to build one on its Mediterranean coast. In all, roughly a dozen states in the region have recently turned to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna for help in starting their own nuclear programs. While interest in nuclear energy is rising globally, it is unusually strong in the Middle East.
“The rules have changed,” King Abdullah II of Jordan recently told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “Everybody’s going for nuclear programs.”

After delivering that news to us the Times then falls back into it's comfortable stenographer-with-amnesia mode and delivers the White House drivel that it's Iran that's making the middle east nervous. Referring to the same sort of uneasiness when Israel pursued nuclear energy, the inane case is made that all the neighboring countries are now going to try to get the bomb because Iran might sort of, kinda get the bomb at some point. 'Diplomats and analysts' even go so far in declaring that this rush to go nuclear vindicates the US and it's saber rattling toward Iran.
Quoting no Arab source but a guy actually named Christian, the Times wants you to believe all the Gulf nations would secretly do the happy dance if the US pulls the trigger:

"But many diplomats and analysts say that the Sunni Arab governments are so anxious about Iran’s nuclear progress that they would even, grudgingly, support a United States military strike against Iran.
“If push comes to shove, if the choice is between an Iranian nuclear bomb and a U.S. military strike, then the Arab gulf states have no choice but to quietly support the U.S.,” said Christian Koch, director of international studies at the Gulf Research Center, a private group in Dubai."

Well, when you see bullshit you've got to call it as you see it. If you take a look at history you'll find that Iran hasn't threatened or invaded any neighboring country in hundreds of years. It was at war with Iraq in the 80s because the US pushed Saddam to invade it in a not-so-secret policy of let's you and him fight. In fact the only time there were tense relations between Iran and the arab Gulf nations was the period of the Shah's rule after the CIA overthrew democratically elected Prime Minister Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh and installed the Peacock Throne. Nixon wanted the Shah to be his 'policeman of the middle east' and supported his militarized, autocratic rule.

It's not Iran who's the threatening power in the area. The US invaded Iraq because of lies and proceeded to turn the country into a hell on earth. The Gulf nations can see with their own eyes what the US is willing to do to a nation that doesn't have the means to defend itself. They can also see what the only real nuclear power in the middle east is willing to do to it's neighbors when Israel bombed the living crap out of Lebanon last summer. They can understand deterrance as well as anybody, and they can see who's the real threat.

They can see through the lying garbage about Iran that The US, Britain and Israel spews out, they can hear the hegemonic rhetoric and can see the imperious meddling. The arabs know who used weapons of mass destruction on them in the past and who's using them right now. They know full well what country will commit acts of war in the region to stifle progress of it's neighbors and they realize it's time to take action to defend themselves. The arab nations can see the handwriting on the wall and are going to try to become nuclear powers thanks to the real actions of the real axis o' evil, not because of imaginative propaganda. The Times is being just a conduit for more lies from the criminal cabal about Iran just like it passed on to us the lies about Iraq.

Maher Clears Up Where The Maladministration Gets It's Pig People

It explains a lot.

Not Friendly Fire

This story has been around awhile, and the allegations aren't new. But there are aspects to this that strongly suggest deliberate murder.

Pat Tillman : Executed by His Own Government?

"Circumstantial evidence, primarily illogical actions at very high levels of the administration, suggests more than a cover up of a “friendly fire” accident (a common mistake during war.)

Had Tillman been accidentally shot by one of his own unit the whole matter could have been put to rest by holding a few harsh court marshals of those immediately involved, and issuing profuse apologies to everyone. But, America’s most famous volunteer soldier was, according to his brother and constant companion, on the verge of whistle-blowing the bankruptcy of US policy in Iraq.

The untimely death of Tillman could not have been timelier for the top civilians in charge of making war, but covering for an assassination is not so simple."

Boston Phoenix Ranks Coulter One Of World's Unsexiest Men

He gets number 80.

TWO FUGLY DUDES O'Reilly (#16), Coulter (#80)

Divide And Conquer

Again and again we're told about "suicide bombings" in Iraq and Afghanistan, when people supposedly strap their bodies with explosives and blow themselves and others up. The corrupt MSM dutifully parrot the official pronouncements with obedient servility. The unquestioning sheep munch their pizza. The myths keep growing about the occupations and people continue to suffer and die.

But we should all realize by now that in Bushzarrowland things just ain't what they seem.

A favorite tactic of the ziofascists is false flag terror, which they've perfected into a fine art form. What if a lot of those suicide, or homicide bombings according to Fox newspeak, are something else entirely? What if they're deliberate murders to confuse and enrage and drive people to hate each other? To make us think situations are completely different than reality on the ground?

You won't hear about them in the MSM, but there are plenty of well documented instances of deliberate, violent and completely misleading actions taken by the supposed good guys in Iraq. Meaning blowing things up and murdering innocents to achieve a hidden purpose. They don't fool the Iraqis, they're meant for american consumption. So just like before that golden mosque was blown up in Samarra to help sectarian violence along last year, a lot of suspicious activity occurred before that bridge was blown up and literally divided the two halves of Baghdad separated by the Tigris river.

"Iraqirabita quoting an eyewitness lives in Al-Atafiya – western side of the river says she woke up 07,10 this morning because of the unusual sounds of Americans helicopters above the river Tigris.
"I thought that this a beginning of an raid in our neighborhood, to be sure I went upstairs to see where are these helicopters are heading to.
I saw with my own eyes a helicopter firing two missiles, I heard an explosion, then I saw the bridge collapsed."

Interesting that reports say the bridge was blown up in two places, quite a feat for a suicide bomber:
"The al-Sarafiya bridge connected two northern Baghdad neighborhoods _ Waziriyah, a mostly Sunni enclave, and Utafiyah, a Shiite area.Police blamed the attack on a suicide truck bomber. AP Television News video showed the bridge broken in two places _ perhaps the result of two blasts."

Interesting also that with this hideous plan to turn the city into a concentration camp by building walls and restricting traffic, a "suicide bomber" goes ahead and helps the occupation by cutting one of the ways to get from one side of the city to the other.

You betcha.

Better Stock Up On The Pork 'N Beans

And I say that half jokingly.

Heavy freeze wiped out California crops - January
Wonder why the price of lettuce and celery tripled?

Extended freeze killed midwest fruit crops - April 10
"A freeze of historic proportions has wiped out the fruit crops of many Midwest U.S. farmers, agriculture officials said.
"Everything is dead," Otto Thierbach said of his 46-acre peach, apple, blackberry and blueberry farm in Marthasville, Mo."

Heavy crop losses reported in Southeast - April 12
"Heavy crop losses have been reported throughout the Southeast after last weekend's frigid temperatures, and farmers are bracing for another expected cold snap next week.
In South Carolina, at least 90 percent of the peach crop was destroyed and officials said Wednesday they would seek federal aid.
"This is comparable to a hurricane," Agriculture Commissioner Hugh Weathers said of the damage to the state's $40 million-a-year industry. "Growers say we'll be fortunate to get 10 percent of a crop."

No bees, no food - now
The bees are gone.
"Without bees, our flowers, fruit and vegetable crops cannot pollinate, and we will all starve to death."

Food prices ready to soar worldwide

The Parliament Bombing

"A member of the parliament, Jalaluddin al-Saghir, was being interviewed by a reporter from Alhurra TV when the bomb exploded, and the network's video crew caught his reaction to the blast as well as the smoky, chaotic aftermath inside the building as people tried to determine who had been hurt."

h ↑ t to E&P

Mr O'Reilly, Do You Work For The CIA?

Kurt Nimmo sends BillO an email.

"Mr. O’Reilly:
I am, of course, not surprised you did not respond to my last email, or the one before that. Naturally, a man of your stature and influence need not reply to critics, especially small fish critics from the blogosphere. Even so, I believe it is worth a try to send yet another email your way, however futile the attempt, and ask yet another question.

Mr. O’Reilly, do you work for the CIA, or have you ever worked for the CIA?

I ask this after reading an entry posted on Wikipedia, the online dictionary. It appears the journalist Carl Bernstein has evidence you worked for Operation Mockingbird, the CIA’s operation to “influence the domestic and foreign media,” as Wikipedia deems it. I believe the word “influence” is incorrect here, as the CIA and other government agencies have taken over the corporate media lock, stock, and barrel. In the Soviet Union, TASS became the official mouthpiece by decree of the USSR Central Executive Committee Presidium. In America, the process was a bit more subtle and protracted, albeit the result was pretty much the same..."

US Reverts To Failed Tyrannical Measures

Yeah that ol' surge is working just wonderfully, with fierce opposition to the continuing, never ending occupation in Iraq. I guess that bombing in the heart of the green zone is also a sign that peace and security is just around the corner. But just to make sure this bright future will come to pass our brilliant conquerors plan to dredge up tactics used in the past to try to pacify people who resent foreigners telling them what to do - Baghdad will be turned into a large concentration camp.

Think about the sheer stupidity and ugliness of this. This isn't out of concern for the city's six million people, this is a brutal and totalitarian attempt by the military to control resistance to the occupation. But it won't work and will only make things worse for the invaders in the long run. Resentment will turn to seething hatred and the ranks will fill to bursting in the armed resistance.

It's the physical manifestation of idiots believing their own propaganda. We've been told ad nauseum that the 'insurgents' are somehow distinct from average Iraqis yet aside from the false flag black ops bombings the homegrown violence in Iraq is aimed at the occupation. Which means that average Iraqi citizens are taking up arms. (Just like any patriot here in america would do.) As Robert Fisk puts it, the insurgents "come from the same population centres that will be "gated" and will, if undiscovered, hold ID cards themselves; they will be "enclosed" with everyone else."

This imperious despotism has a filthy, racist history from another glorious war of conquest. In Vietnam a 'strategic hamlet" program was forced on the people of that country. Six million peasants were eventually rounded up and locked into guarded concentration camps, and because their villages were constructed from local vegetation they were usually burned. When this despicable program failed miserably the brilliant strategists all blamed logistics and execution, never taking into account the fact that people generally don't take too kindly to such treatment. Today's brilliant minds haven't seemed to grasp that reality either.

Emmanuel Goldstein Comes To Africa

It truly IS peculiar that Al Qaeda seems to show up whenever the fascists need them the most.
They release their recordings just in time to try to influence elections, blow things up to get people at each others' throats and serve to remind and refrighten us about the threat of more 9/11 style events.

Of course that's because Al Qaeda is mainly just the front group for ziofascists, in existence to provide the needed backdrop to justify the resource grab and militarization so much in play these days. Whenever I hear about bombings and AQ in the same breath it's a sure bet to me that that corner of the world is about to enjoy the tender attention of our overlords, and especially when the operation targets lots of innocent people in the streets. Such was the case for what just happened yesterday in Algeria.

"With a suicide attack in the heart of Algiers, you have an escalation to a new level," said Jean-Louis Bruguiere, France's top antiterrorism magistrate. "It's unquestionably an attempt at destabilization and a sign of the emergence of Al Qaeda in the Maghreb as an organization."

Right on cue there, monsieur Bruguiere. Nothing like making sure the rubes get the message in no uncertain terms that the mysterious, omnipresent boogeymen are associated with this latest outrage, to plant that thought in our heads so we solemnly nod along with our leaders when they rail 'bout them terrists.

Funny thing, though, about this bombing and other signs of "emergence" in Africa. Back on Feb. 6 "Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced the creation of AFRICOM, which will ultimately be responsible for all of Africa except Egypt, which has existing military ties with U.S. Central Command. AFRICOM’s purpose is to make Africa the primary concern of one combatant command instead of a “secondary or tertiary” concern for three other commands.."
In other words Africa was soon to be the front lines in the war on terror. Of course just like in Somalia, which got extra special attention late last year and then suffered a US backed invasion earlier this year, timing is important. It's ever so convenient to have bombs going off and blamed on AQ just when you need validation for your sudden interest in the area.

Think maybe oil has something to do with shifting much of this 'war on terror' to Africa? You bet it does. The author of "Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil", John Ghazvinian, lays out several reasons why you're going to see a lot more scurrilous pandemonium and military madness in that continent. The sweet quality of the oil, the fact that most new finds are off shore and the countries there are non members of OPEC and are likely to be compliant producers all make Africa pretty appealing to the overlords. In other words you're likely to see a lot more bombs going off in a curiously timely fashion a la Algeria. After all they don't call it the global war on terror for nothin'.

Goodbye Kurt, See You Soon

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

Turkey Invades Iraq

While MSM is engaged with all things Imus, Rense continues to be an excellent source of informative and pertinent news. Today they posted a highly important factoid that Turkey just crossed their border with Iraq and is engaging Kurdish forces. For weeks now Turkey has been seething about america's biggest ally in the region, the Kurds, and have threatened all out war. They're clearing mines and interdicting supply routes in what may be a significant invasion what with it's 200,000 troops massed on the border.

"The Turkish army crossed 20 kilometers into Iraq in an effort to destroy camps located to the east of Zaho. Elsewhere in northern Iraq security forces went 30 to 40 kilometers in, up to the rural areas of the Haftanin, Sinaht and Pirbela provinces."

This is pretty damn important stuff, considering that the US is pouring it's lifeblood and treasure into Dune, so I decided to graze the MSM swamp to see how it's being covered.

Not a peep about it on CNN, top result in a 'Turkey' site search netted me Merriam's Turkey Hunting, NE Washington.

ABC site search - Student in Hedge Fund Scam Gets 3 1/2 Years, may get deported to Turkey.
Imus!

At BBC not a word about a cross border incursion but you can get Not a feathered friend:
"An East Riding resident has complained that her garden is being ruined by a turkey."

MSNBC - now we're getting somewhere - Turkey warns Iraq's Kurds over threat - yet it's three days old. Imus!

At CBS, something about an aborted possible Turkish jetliner hijack.
Katie!

Ancient Cold War Relic Marches On

Doing his best to continue provoking future adversaries, Little Boots signed the bizarrely named "NATO Freedom Consolidation Act" into law yesterday. The outdated organization is going to expand it's roster with Albania, Croatia, Georgia, Macedonia and Ukraine. Albania!

This is just garbage for a number of reasons. NATO was formed decades ago ostensibly as a defensive alliance to counter a Soviet invasion. Whatever use it had evaporated when the Soviet Union imploded. It's entire reason to exist disappeared. In the late 90s it desperately floundered around trying to find some new missions to justify it's continuance and after a good amount of bullshit propaganda, bombed the hell out of Yugoslavia. Now it's an interventionist enforcer that muscles it's way into "economic, social and political difficulties...ethnic and religious rivalries, territorial disputes, inadequate or failed efforts at reform, the abuse of human rights, and the dissolution of states," as it stated in 1999.

Enticing lots of new countries to join is a direct provocation to Russia. Expanding NATO means construction of more new bases right up to Russia's borders. Anybody remember the Domino Theory from years past? One of those phony excuses to scare americans into thinking the Big Bad Commies were grabbing more and more small countries until they'd wind up in Cincinnati. This is a true Domino Theory, only in reverse.

But here's the real scam. There's a stipulation that NATO countries have to come up with sizable investments in new military equipment and a lot of the newest members can't pony up. No problem says the Deciderer, we'll give you subsidized loans (meaning piles of our tax dollars) to buy the stuff. Guess who eventually profits? The Deciderer's buddies, as naked corporate welfare rears it's ugly head again. Hmmm, think Halliburton can take some time off from raking in the cash in Iraq to go rake in the cash building those new bases?

And then there's always the threat that NATO would actually set it's sights on this country. With our military currently being destroyed by design, and economic meltdown a looming certainty, I wouldn't bet against it. Better bone up on your Albanian.

Iran Producing A Film About The Sailors

Iran film 'to tell sailors' tale'

"The Iranian military says it will soon release a film documenting the arrest, interrogation and statements by UK sailors held in Iran for two weeks.
It said it was a huge scandal for the UK military that some of the sailors had been allowed to sell their stories.
The military will release a CD and book about the arrest of the sailors - or, as it calls them, "British aggressors".
The statement came from the culture and propaganda office of the joint chief of staff of Iran's armed forces.
The suggestion is this film will prove Iran's contention that it treated the sailors well and they confessed to entering Iranian waters of their own volition."

The British government and the Defence Ministry really, really screwed the pooch with this sorry affair. All signs point to it being a contrived incident that may have been staged to foment war - the captain in charge had an interview with Sky News five days before the kerfluffle where he admitted they were spying on the Iranians, they knew they were in at least disputed water, the attack helicopter that should have been overhead protecting them abruptly left at a crucial moment.

The Brits, throughout, changed their stories, hemmed and hawed, reversed decisions and basically looked like lying jackasses as the whole world looked on. The Iranians, on the other hand, maintained composure and never waffled. Their version of events never changed and now they're going to lay it all out with evidence for people to see and make up their own minds as to who to believe. Good on them.

OK, Safe To Bomb Now

Halliburton no longer in Iran

"Oilfield services provider Halliburton Co. said Monday it has completed all contractual commitments and is no longer working in Iran. According to AP, the company had announced in 2005 it would accept no new contracts in Iran but would honor existing agreements.

The company's announcement came on the same day Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country was now capable of producing nuclear fuel on an "industrial scale,'' expanding a nuclear program that has drawn UN sanctions and condemnation from the West."

From freewayblogger

Panda Not Cooporating At National Zoo

Says she won't bring little pandas into a captive world. :)

Controversy In Captivity

Why The Brits Were Told To Shut Up

After an initial green light to sell their experiences to the media, which has a long tradition in Great Britain, the Defence Ministry slapped a gag order on the ex captives and banned them from telling their stories. To me this is just more indication the British government is as duplicitous and corrupt as our own. Whether their provocations in the Gulf were meant as a casus belli or not, any positive propaganda they hoped to milk out it all evaporated early on. Now it's just a cover up. The Defence Ministry feared that the real treatment of the sailors in Iranian custody wouldn't jive too well with the phony boo hoo tales of woe they they forced the ex captives to lie about.

Sure the Iranians will cherry pick the moments they want to record for the world to see - for instance we'll never get the tenseness of them being questioned in the briefing rooms. However as a thinking human being I can look at these videos and see a completely different atmosphere than the lie the Defence Ministry is insisting is the truth. Unless the Iranians are standing off with machine guns camera barking "Look HAPPY or DIE!" and the sailors are world class actors, these guys were relaxed.

Sure You Want Fries With That?

Morgan Spurlock of "Super Size Me" fame examines the timeless Golden Arches' side dish that's just as viable today as when they first offered it in the early 1950s.

Russian General Says US Continues Preperations For Military Action Against Iran - Interfax

"April 8, 2007 MOSCOW- Interfax-AVN - The release of the 15 British sailors and marines captured by Iran has robbed the U.S. of a pretext to attack Iran, but the U.S. has not given up plans to attack Iran militarily, said Col. Gen. Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy for Geopolitical Problems, a Russian think tank.
"Preparations to strike Iran's strategic facilities continue. Three major groups of U.S. forces are still in the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf. Altogether, they have up to 450 cruise missiles on alert," the general told Interfax-AVN.
"Military operations against Tehran will begin with the launch of at least two unexpected strikes using Tomahawk cruise missiles and air power in order to disable Iran's air defense capabilities," he said.
"According to our data, up to 150 aircraft are to be involved in each strike on Iran. Land-based air defense systems will be disabled in the first place, then mobile short-range systems, which Tehran has (including some 30 new systems)," he said. Primary targets will include command centers, air defense installations, the navy, airfields, ports and docking facilities, the general said.
"Nuclear facilities may be secondary targets. According to expert assessments, at least 20 such facilities need to be destroyed in order to stop Iran's nuclear program," Ivashov said. Ivashov did not rule out that nuclear weapons may be used against Iran."

There's no doubt that the US wants to stand offshore and just use the entire country as target practice. Just what the Iranians and their trading partners the Russians and Chinese will do in retaliation remains to be seen.

Mother Nature Takes Us To The Woodshed

April Freeze Threatens Crops

All Over The Place

Bad Wildfire Season A Comin'

Over Here Too

Maybe All The Hurricanes Will Put Out The Fires

The Southwest Gets Thirsty

While Corporations Want You To Plant Suicide Seeds

While all The Bees Disappear

Sun Is Final Arbiter Of Our Weather

And The Sun Is About To Go Fucking Nuts

America's Dictator

It's hard to pin down any predictions about who's going to be installed as the next president. I thought for a while that our overlords were toying with Hillary as sort of a good cop act after after a particularly bad cop episode. With the repugs' reputation in free fall it might be plausible for them to choose a democratic team to make it look like the government cares and all that, all the while expanding domestic control. I say install because the electoral system is permanently corrupt and broken on a national level.

But now I'm leaning toward them picking Giuliani, despite the massive perfidious baggage he brings. I'm thinking he's going to be the one for several reasons.

We're about to enter into very tough times. Aside from the disastrous fallout from any wider war in the middle east, financially we're going down the tubes. The weather is going to hit us hard as we enter into this next solar maximum. The 9/11 masterminds could be about to wallop us with a replay. Hell, even the honeybees are disappearing, which could turn out to be far worse than people realise. Giuliani has this undeserved reputation as being a steady and strong leader during crises so he may be chosen for the role to get a majority of the sheep lined up behind him when things go to hell in a hand basket.

The crisis where he supposedly triumphed and what he loves to brag about is of course 9/11, imprimatur of all the corrupt fascism that followed. Rudy boy was very instrumental in ensuring local success of that operation, and the overlords will reward efforts along those lines. After all, Clinton secured the cocaine/guns pipeline during the 80s when an airport was needed for smuggling to and from the Contras and I believe he was given the presidency partly because of his loyalty. Far from being the steady rock that pulled New York together on Black Tuesday, Giuliani was the vicious enforcer that made sure that day and the aftermath went smoothly.

*After the first attempt to bring the WTC down in 1993, Giuliani had a command center built on the 23rd floor in WTC 7 and illegally stored 6000 gallons of diesel fuel for 'emergencies', thus creating a fine excuse for it's eventual demolition collapse. The building housed the Securities & Exchange Commission as well as an IRS office and thousands of pending cases conveniently went poof.

*He knew the towers were going to come down beforehand and because of faulty radios allowed the firemen and cops to die.

*Banksters were frantic to get the damned stock exchange back up and running. Giuliani lied about the air quality in lower Manhattan and condemned thousands to a lifetime of sickness:
"The air quality is safe and acceptable. I know there are people concerned and worried about it, but that's just the reality,"
Rudolph Giuliani, 9/28/01

*He speeded up the pace of the cleanup, even though it was a massive crime scene with crucial evidence that was hurriedly turned to scrap to be melted in China or buried in a dump. Rather than try to retrieve any more victim remains, about 6 weeks into the cleanup he ordered the bulldozers in to 'scoop and dump' which caused a riot between his cops and firefighters, who wanted to find every buried colleague.

It's interesting to remember that Giuliani was generally disliked as mayor of NY before 9/11. Heavy handed police tactics with itchy trigger fingers, racial profiling and a war against street artists made a lot of people despise him. At times he was labelled a dictator. His personal life was a mess with financial woes, conflicts of interest and lawsuits aplenty, along with a failed marriage that forced him to move in with some buddies. But his mythic redemption started and he suddenly became 'America's Mayor' with 9/11. Forget about his crimes from back then listed above; he became Times Person Of The Year for 2001 which featured this treacly slop:

"He left the TV on through the night in case the terrorists struck again, and he parked his muddy boots next to the bed in case he needed to head out fast. But he was not going to be doing any sleeping. Lying in bed, with the skyscrapers exploding over and over again on his TV screen, he pulled out a book--Churchill, the new biography by Roy Jenkins--turned straight to the chapters on World War II and drank in the Prime Minister's words: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.
There is a bright magic at work when one great leader reaches into the past and finds another waiting to guide him."

So along with being a successful water carrier for the fascists Giuliani obtained a new and improved public persona from the corrupt MSM. They got away with overlooking his shameful behavior and pretend he's a trusted servant of the people. I've watched how he's automatically tagged as the front runner for the GOP nomination despite his lousy reputation with New Yorkers, all his considerable baggage and his current wife's ugly history of dog operations. But I think our ruling class will want a guy in power who's not going to be afraid to pull some strong arm tactics and shady deals when necessary, and he's got the resume to prove it. Aren't people rewarded for service to the agenda instead of civil service these days? That's why at this early stage I think they're going to install Giuliani, even if it pisses off the Ferret People.

Heckuva job, Rudy.

Pentagon Officer Created Phony Intel On Iraq/al-Qaeda Link

Well jeepers, of course they did. That's because 'Al Qaeda' is a phony manufactured intelligence front, a CIA construct dating back to the late 70's. It's an 'islamic' false flag organization that enables the CIA to commit crimes in the name of muslims.

Let me just ask a question. Before the US invaded and occupied Iraq, was there any evidence of 'Al Qaeda' in Saddam Hussein's Iraq aside from the fevered imagination of lying warmongers? No, because the US hadn't invaded and controlled the country yet. As soon as the US invaded and controlled the country we wound up with 'Al Qaeda in Iraq', a CIA front which gives the US and Israel the excuse it needs to continue the occupation and establish bases to control the region.

The intelligence agencies are using it's AQ front to create fear and hatred of muslims worldwide. AQ pops up just when the fascists need them the most, and fake AQ cells are created whenever the need arises to justify atrocities.

Fear is the fascists' greatest weapon for control, so fear is what we get to keep us in line. Of course those incidents that inevitably happen to remind us about the boogeymen are perpetrated by the very people who promise to protect us. The mainstream media is complicit in this protection racket; the information outlets are corrupt with intelligence operatives so we'll never get the truth, only more invented lies.

Remember the Peace Dividend? That will o' the wisp commodity that we were all looking forward to during that fleetingly giddy time after communism collapsed? All that money that could be redirected from defense spending to actually improve life in the United States? That threat to corporate profit was conveniently done away with the manufactured rise of the big bad Islamic Threat, which neatly took the stage after the Commie Threat got the hook.

9/11 was the inside job that fingered Islam as public nightmare #1 and 'Al Qaeda' is the media construction that the fascists use to get away with murder.

And it was a very useful tool to excuse the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

US Releases World Class Terrorist

In another move that shows in no uncertain terms that the "Global War on Terror" is a fake scam, a very real terrorist will be released from custody to live with his wife in Miami.

"A federal judge has ordered the release of a former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles wanted by Cuba and Venezuela for plotting the deadly bombing of a Cuban jetliner which killed dozens of people.
The judge ordered the Cuban-born Venezuelan national released on a 350,000 dollars bail on condition that he remain confined to his Miami home and submit to "electronic monitoring," according to a federal court order in El Paso, Texas.
Posada Carriles, a tough opponent of the Cuban President Fidel Castro, is accused of masterminding the downing of a Cuban jet off Barbados in 1976 in which 73 people were killed. He was arrested in Venezuela in 1976 and convicted in the case, but fled prison in 1985.

(Carriles also was involved with the failed 1962 Bay of Pigs invasion against Castro and is also accused of tourist bombings in Havana in 1997.)

He was also sentenced to eight years' jail in Panama in a bomb plot to assassinate Castro during an Ibero-American summit there in 2000, but was pardoned by outgoing president Mireya Moscoso.
Posada Carriles was detained by U.S. immigration officials in May 2005 for entering the United States illegally. Now the U.S. immigration authorities say the ruling disappointed them and they will arrest him as soon as he is out. Washington refuses to release Posada to Cuba and Venezuela, saying that he might be tortured. At the same time, the judicial system has refused to free him, calling him a threat to the national security. Declassified U.S. documents show that Posada Carriles worked for the CIA from 1965 to June 1976. He reportedly helped the U.S. government ferry supplies to the Contra rebels that waged a bloody campaign to topple the socialist Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 1980s."

This real terrorist, unlike the dead Osama that supposedly outwitted the multi trillion dollar defenses of the US from a cave in Afghanistan, has a track record that can be proven. Proven very easily because the records are in CIA files as he worked for them while terrorizing the people of Nicaragua. He managed the murder of Orlando Letelier, and Wikipedia categorizes it this way:
"His murder caused an international scandal as until 9/11, it was the most infamous act of international terrorism ever to take place in the capital of the United States."

This man was a valuable asset for the fascists which is why he gets the royal treatment and protection. Claiming he won't be extradited to aggrieved countries because he 'might be tortured' is ludicrous in the extreme considering this country's penchant for activities like that. How many more glaring examples are we going to see that proves we've been massively lied to about the phonied up war on terror?

Did Cheney Cover Up Losing Three Nukes?

Wayne Madsen is telling a head spinning tale of lies, lost nukes, black market smuggling and international intrigue worthy of James Bond. Nukes being clandestinely sold isn't such a far fetched idea, after all there was plenty of stuff from the Soviet arsenal that went missing, but this story seems to tie in to a lot other goings on:

"WMR has been told by a well-placed intelligence source in Britain that in early February 1991, the Pentagon sent out an emergency message rarely seen: three "Broken Arrows," or lost nuclear weapons in U.S. possession, were jettisoned in the Indian Ocean by a U.S. Air Force B-52, which had caught fire en route from Diego Garcia with three weapons of mass destruction being transported from South Africa after that nation began dismantling its nuclear weapons program. On a return emergency route back to the U.S. base on Diego Garcia, the crew of the aircraft disposed of the bombs to avoid a cook off of their heat-triggered fuses. The B-52 later crashed. The three bombs landed in shallow waters off the Somali coast. Rather than retrieve the weapons, Cheney and the Bush I administration sat on their hands."

Persians Were Meanies, Really

Well, it didn't take long for the freed British sailors and marines to understand that they had to claim the Iranians were swarthy beasts after all:

"ROYAL MARINE BASE CHIVENOR, England - British sailors and marines held for nearly two weeks in Iran were blindfolded, bound and threatened with prison if they did not say they had strayed into Iranian waters, a Royal Navy lieutenant who was among the captives said Friday.
Lt. Felix Carman, safely home with his 14 colleagues, said the crew faced harsh interrogation by their Iranian captors and slept in stone cells on piles of blankets. Unable to see and kept isolated, they heard weapons cocking."

Et cetera. I followed the events as they unfolded when the Brits were released and I seem to recall the well wishers present at the airport were quite disappointed when they arrived. Some stories even speculated that their homecoming was worse for them than being in Iranian hands, but they seem to have disappeared. The soldiers were whisked away before they had any opportunity to speak to anyone, apparently to be 'debriefed', meaning they had to get their stories straight and make sure the Iranians were to be seen as thugs.

Two questions beg to be answered about this story. Both involve our capacity to be fooled.

Are we supposed to believe the Iranians, knowing full well the military threat surrounding them, would take the chance and be so stupid to send a fleet of their gunboats well outside their territorial waters to abduct British soldiers at gunpoint? And are we supposed to believe that they would threaten, manhandle and abuse those arrested soldiers knowing full well that they might be released to tell their tale of mistreatment?

Of course that's not the story that the soldiers told during their arrest. They claimed that they indeed were in Iranian territory, and that they were treated quite well. Don't expect any of those guys to face charges for not following the name, rank and serial number routine. If they claimed at their trial that they were only telling the truth while in captivity it would make all this propaganda seem rather foolish, eh wot?

update - SOTT has a very good take on that stiff presentation where the soldiers read from prepared military memos. If you take the statements at face value, you'd come away from them thinking that in captivity they were blindfolded, shackled, dragged to frequent interrogation and forced to stay sleepless and frightened in cramped solitary confinement for 12 days.
Now, do you believe that prepared military statement or your own lying eyes?

DAY 5



DAY 7



DAY 11



DAY 12

O' Really Needs A Padded Cell

He tries to make hay from some drunk driver's ethnicity but Geraldo wouldn't let him.

This is the face of the right wing. Gaze upon and wonder.

Why Your GPS Will Want You To Drive To Hawaii

Solar Bursts May Threaten GPS

"The Global Positioning System, relied on for everything from navigating cars and airplanes to transferring money between banks, may be threatened by powerful solar flares, a panel of scientists warned Wednesday."


One of the most intense solar maximums in history coming up

"Evidence is mounting: the next solar cycle is going to be a big one. Solar cycle 24, due to peak in 2010 or 2011 "looks like its going to be one of the most intense cycles since record-keeping began almost 400 years ago..."

The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse

Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death are ready to ride.

"Bush is now the most unpopular president in American history – and he is trending lower. In the United Kingdom, Tony Blair is the least popular Prime Minister in that nation’s history, and he is dropping lower. In Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad presides over a regime deeply unpopular with his own people, making him the weakest head of government since the fall of the Shah three decades ago. In Israel, Ehud Olmert’s popular support has now slipped to the nearly unbelievable level of precisely two percent – and he is trending lower still now bound for a darkening gehenna of political mortification, tribulation and ultimately death as his approval rating drifts down to absolute zero.

While Bush, Blair, Olmert and Ahmadinejad all claim to be legitimate leaders of their people, the opinions of the peoples they govern deny them and their policies any right to the mantle of democracy. The people of America, Britain, Iran and Israel yearn for peace, while their weak and unpopular leaders yearn for war that might miraculously resuscitate their terminal regimes. These weakened leaders are separated from the will of the people, because they have strenuously exerted themselves in pursuit of the opposite path to the popular will."

photo swiped from Boing Boing

Latest Wingnutteryness

The brownshirt brigade loves outrage. They feed on it. They look for it. Seeing Pelosi in Syria gave them a great opportunity to stroke their indignation and gabble feverishly about her willingness to submit to terrorist chieftains.

I didn't think the speaker of the house should act like Israel's diplomat because Israel isn't the fifty first state. That being said though, whenever something makes the brownshirts squawk I recognize that it must be a good thing.

Pelosi traipsing around the middle east seems to be upsetting the warmongering agenda and talking with the leader of a country that's been in the crosshairs is never a bad thing. The fascists only like to bark orders at intended targets; they'd rather not talk to them as it humanizes them and makes it harder to shock and awe.

Web wingers saw that the White House was none too pleased with Pelosi and took the hint, so they piled on with relish and tried to make a mountain out of a molehill with some supposed message she was to deliver. It's a little hypocritical to denounce her visit to Syria when a contingent of republicans is there also. But they saved their drama queen outrage for her when she covered her head as a sign of respect for her muslim hosts. All over the righteousphere ™ if one holds ones nose and lifts the rock, you can hear the cries of anguish as the wingnuts fear that the US will now be seen as divided in our war with salamifascism. And how dare she project an image of humble sartorial subservience to people who speak a funny language and wear odd clothes in a strange way!

The Outrage!

Looks like cooler heads prevailed and those fifteen Brits are going home.

This morning two more powerful earthquakes shook the Solomon Islands where a killer 8.0 quake hit on Monday.
"People in buildings in the badly damaged town emerged quickly to see if there was any sign of a tsunami at sea, but no wave materialised."

Remember when american troops raided that consulate in what should by all rights be called Kurdistan and arrested those five Iranian military officials and are keeping them in detention, well, probably forever?
"There were expectations that the Iranians might be released on March 21, the start of the Iranian new year. After that date passed, some observers believe Iran may have opted for a tit-for-tat response in seizing the 15 British sailors.
If that is the case, the Iranians apparently don’t understand the rules of the game: that President Bush has the unilateral right to do whatever he wants in the world and any reaction is unjustified, if not an invitation to an American military retaliation."
It's only illegal when they do it you know.

And it's only terrorism when they do it.
"A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News."
Here are our good buddies.

A poster at DU points out that poisoning food in China isn't that rare at all. The wheat gluten that's killed our pets came from China.
The Chinese gluten/wheat is industrial espionage/sabotage

No amount of finagling with the sound system would have cancelled out the thunderous boos and catcalls so President Bunnypants had better things to do than throw out the first pitch of the season.
"With Bush's approval ratings stuck below 40 percent in recent polls, Lawrimore was asked whether the president feared he'd get booed. "No," she replied. "Certainly not."
40 percent?

Seen the movie 300 yet? Dan Savage thinks it's like it’s Ann Coulter on a meth binge.

McCain's Stroll

I had imagined this was the case, that the entire place was locked down, but hadn't found anything about it until now. Larry Johnson at Atlantic Free Press says there was a bit more than just doing a little shopping in that Baghdad market:

"While John McCain was excoriating the press in Baghdad yesterday for not presenting the "full story" about how swell things are in Iraq he neglected to mention the pre-visit security sweep that made that neighborhood stroll so safe. I am sure you have already heard about the 100 soldiers, the three Blackhawk helicopters and two Apache gunships that accompanied his entourage, but did you hear about the soldiers who swept the area before the American legislators and their security team showed up? Who cares about those mooks? They are expendable.
(...)
U.S. soldiers entered the neighborhood before the delegation arrived for its stroll. They searched for explosives, sent informants into the crowd, set up a perimeter, and secured the area before the Senators showed up with their 100 armed guards. And for what? To keep McCain, Graham and others safe. What happened to the Iraqi utopia John McCain so confidently insisted was there for eveyone to see? If the "true" picutre of Iraq was simply a matter of getting the news cameras pointed in the right direction then why did he need a security detail? If the peace and prosperity the Iraqi people are celebrating in safe neighborhoods is genuine then why wear body armor?"

But he didn't wear a helmet!

O'Donnel's Ominous Opinions

Everybody knows by now the furor that Rosie O'Donnell created by stating her opinions on the TV show "The View". It seems that expressing your judgments about 9/11 and asking legitimate questions needs to be vilified and condemned and marginalized by the brownshirted bootlickers. That's their job, you see.



Here's the way I see it - the fascists are scared. You can tell how much of a threat something or someone is to the fascist ideology by how much they go on the attack. And boy have they responded to Rosie. For her to express doubts about the idiotic 9/11 fairy tale cover story and trash the current Iran hysteria in the MSM means they have to crush this public dissent and try to make an example out of her. That's the fascist way; you must very publicly destroy the threat of a good example.

Just like the Dixie Chicks who dared to express a bad opinion of Precious Leader, Rosie will have to endure vicious bombasts, slander and threats to her life. The brownshirts are going to go all out on her because of several reasons. She's an easy target for them, to be sure; they'll pile on for her physical appearance and blunt delivery. And hey, she's a woman. She brought more viewership to The View.But the biggest reason Rosie is such a threat to them is when she's on TV and the type of audience her show attracts. Call it fascism's soft underbelly - stay at home wives, mothers and elderly - the type of folks who normally would never hear anyone state unequivocally that the WTC had explosives in them or that Iran isn't going to nuke us. Having those folks see an outspoken woman on the tube expressing opinions that are contrary to the authoritarian mindset must be giving BushCo nightmares.

So the reichwing pretends she's engaged in "hate speech" when she asks questions, or that she's a "loon" for not toeing the fascist line and they want to shut her up and get her fired.

But bad news for them, she's not going to let up.

Possibility That Human Food Was Contaminated Too

When I first heard about the pet food tainted by wheat gluten this was the first thing that crossed my mind:

"Tainted wheat gluten that triggered a massive nationwide pet food recall also ended up in processing plants that prepare food consumed by people, the Food and Drug Administration said yesterday. While agency leaders offered assurances that the nation's food supply remains safe, they said they cannot yet completely rule out contamination of human food by the suspect wheat gluten, which contained melamine, a chemical found in plastics and pesticides.
According to import records, the wheat gluten was shipped to the United States from Nov. 3, 2006 to Jan. 23 of this year and contained "minimal labeling" to indicate whether it was intended for humans or animals. The vast majority went to pet food manufacturers and distributors, according to the FDA. But some of the processing plants that remain under FDA scrutiny make both human and pet food."

Meanwhile just as the Walter Reed scandal became worse the more it was looked into, this case ofpoisoned pet food is shining a light on industry practices that are disgusting beyond measure.
This essay isn't for the sqeamish:

"The pet food industry, a billion-dollar, unregulated operation, feeds on the garbage that otherwise would wind up in landfills or be transformed into fertiliser. The hidden ingredients in a can of commercial pet food may include roadkill and the rendered remains of cats and dogs. The pet food industry claims that its products constitute a "complete and balanced diet" but, in reality, commercial pet food is unfit for human or animal consumption."

No, it doesn't expose the fact that you've been ripped off by buying "Savory Veal Slices in Gourmet Marinade" only to find out it's the same as Pricewise Meat Glop", although that's common enough. It exposes the unregulated rendering industry which has been a hidden crime and is threatened with unwanted exposure due to the current crisis. "As the public relations watchdog newsletter PR Watch observes, renderers "are thankful that most people remain blissfully unaware of their existence".

Be A Lying Sack, Lose Your Web Traffic

Seems as though being a fascist bootlicker has lost it's cachet. Curt at Politically Correct Apostate alerts us to the fact that people have better things to do than be insulted by brownshirted posers.

“President Bush is not the only one facing falling polling numbers. Conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly of Fox News' “The O'Reilly Factor” "is having to factor in his own losses when it comes to Internet traffic. Alexa.com, which tracks Web traffic, shows a sharp decline in the popularity of O'Reilly's website BillOReilly.com since March 2006."

Other conservative sites are losing audience this campaign season, too. Even the recent controversy over Ann Coulter's remarks about Sept. 11 victims did not boost traffic to her site. Ratings there have decreased 16 percent over the last three months. Ditto for Rush Limbaugh, who is down 14 percent, and even the revered conservative site The Drudge Report has fallen 10 percent."

So I went to Alexa and checked out the shitbags and yep, it seems fewer people want to pay attention to them. In the last three months:

O'Really - ↓ 39%

Limbacile - ↓ 40%

Mann Coulter - ↓ 27%

Malkin - ↓ 52%

Drudge - ↓ 33%

I agree that this doesn't reflect an overall change in people's political outlook, I think most people have taken their stand on how they view the world. Some decline is also to be expected in the spring as overall web use slackens off when the weather improves in the northern hemisphere. No, it's because these people are indecent slime whose efforts over time are increasingly rejected because you can't keep lying and expect to get away with it.