Bush lying again

Its tragically comical how short of a memory the average American voter has. King george (or curious george as some call him) continues his rampage of deceipt, this time being exposed for letting the CIA run secret prisons in other countries across the globe. This is just the latest in a long line of his misleading and outright lying to be exposed (among others: weapons of mass destruction, his ties to the greedy oil companies, protecting Karl Roves treason, domestic espionage, etc. etc. etc.).

"So whats so bad about this?" you might ask. For one, its a violation of international law. Second, prisoners are often flown to such third world countries as Egypt and Thailand, where horrific torture is practiced. Where once our higher standards were a source of domestic patriotism and foreign envy, the US is losing its legitimacy in world affairs by secretly condoning such behavior. Third, this policy undercuts the credibility of our allies abroad, making them appear to their constituents as mere puppets of a fascist regime.

How long will we continue to tolerate this deceipt, these blatant and obvious lies of a pseudo dictator within our midst? It is the responsibility of good men everywhere to stand against evil. Next time some idiot starts regurgitating Republican "talking points", remind them of how nearly every major thing King George has ever stated has turned out to be untrue. This man and his party must go.

Crocodile Hunter Dead

Steve Irwin, the champion of wildlife across the planet, best known at the Crocodile Hunter, was killed today. While working on a documentary about the Great Barrier Reef, an encounter with a stingray left him dead.

Despite his cheesy appeal to the youngest of audiences, his devotion to our natural world was monumental in steering public opinion towards a deeper understanding of our planet as a whole. Steve, your work was appreciated and you will be missed.

Hezbollah

"Lucky that we are dealing with Hezbollah today, and not in another two or three years." Ehud Olmert
link

Hezbollah (hezb allah or the party of "god") is a pristine example of radical Islamic fundamentalism. When I travelled thru the region years ago, my preconceived notions of Israeli oppression and occupation of a poor minority was quickly shattered by the reality that they live in hornets nest and *have* to do the things that they do. To take a softer approach in any way would quickly translate into the death of the Israeli nation.

Islam, like other strict monotheistic religions, torture the human spirit and trample on freedom. The difference being, it is much worse than the others. The most cruel branch of Islam is the Shi'a, which include most Iranians, Hezbollah, and yes, the majority of Iraqis (but we will save that for another day).

Israels rapid and underplanned withdrawal from southern Lebanon was followed not by a reward of peace, but a blistering series of attacks from a suddenly confident Hezbollah. Instead of securing the peace, they planned for war. With the help of their Iranian masters (the so called Syrian connection is somewhat dubious), there was a huge stockpiling of weapons and tactical training. As a result, Israel is getting barraged by over a hundred rockets everyday, some of which are technologically advanced (they struck the very ship with a radar guided missile that fired a shells trying to kill their leader for instance). Add to this the series of tunnels, IEDs, and fortifications, and it becomes clear why Israel is having such a difficult time making any serious inroads in its campaign.

Still, as quoted by Olmert above, in a few years time, there is little doubt that their fortifications would be even more extensive (including infiltration tunnels on par with the ones connecting Egypt and Gaza), their training would be much more thorough, and their weaponry quite advanced (like the Fajr-5, which could hit anywhere in Israel). To secure the peace for a nation that preserves real freedoms, Hezbollah must be crushed, completely, and irrevocably.

Exxon records record profits

Exxon is a demon, pure and simple. Raking in over 10 BILLION dollars in profits during times when we're all paying double or triple what gas at the pump should cost is evil. Thats pure profit for the corporation at the expense of you and I. Sure, they and the conservative policians in their pockets try to explain away gas prices as a result of "turbulence in the middle east" (like thats something new), "refineries getting hit by Hurricane Katrina" (funny how they spiked 6 months before and have stayed up ever since), and, get this, "normal market fluctuations". When does something ever shoot up in price from under a dollar to over $3 in 7 years (yes, gas averaged about 90 cents in 1999 during the Clinton presidency). I guess they need another tax break, like the multi billion dollar one King George and the Republicans granted them last year.

Bush lying yet again

"When America gives its word, it will keep its word,"

Well, anyone who actually has any type of coherent memory in the political realm remembers as short as 5 years ago, when our little dictator embraced our international agreements in such ways as:

1. unilaterally withdrawing from the AMD Treaty. This was *the* cornerstone of nuclear weapons peace accords which limited Anti Missile Defense systems with the former Soviet Union, thereby averting a runaway nuclear arms race. I guess if the former communist block is no longer a viable threat, our agreements signed in good faith no longer fall under the banner of any type of meaning.

2. the Chemical Weapons accords. Hell, why not throw in the towel on our banning of chemical weapons why we are at it? Maybe biological weapons will be the next glorious step in Bush's little empire.

Bush shows us over and over again that he is a liar that cannot be trusted. The only way that his administration has gotten away with this bullshit for so long is due to a masterful scheme of distraction (ever notice how when Bush's popularity ratings used to go down the terrorist attack meter used to go up?), media intimidation (fox nexs, conservative radio, religious right slander, etc.), and faith in the short memory of the American populace. I guess they might be on to something, because no matter what they do, nobody seems to notice or care. What a sad state of affairs our former democracy is in. Welcome to the New World Order of tyranny in America under a fascist empire. Like your freedom? Stand up for it!

History

Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) once said,
"History never repeats itself, but it often rhymes."
Unfortunately, the patterns of yesteryear are often lost.
So this is a reminder to you of those years, a mere couple generations ago, when a nation was hijacked by ultra-conservative fanatics and led right over the cliff of destruction.

Bipartisan Report on Hurrican Katrina blames Bush

No big surprise. Those of us who actually paid any bit of attention to the disaster (other than the usual bullshit on Fox news and the other govt. propaganda stations), knew that Bush and his terrible conservative administration was to blame for mucking the recovery effort up. From appointing a horse breeder as the FEMA chief to not accepting foreign rescue missions (read my prev. posts on this subject), Bush has once again failed America. Yahoo! yanked a good article on this from the AP.

Last week, I finally went down to coastal Mississippi and New Orleans to see the area for myself. Half a year later, there is still massive devastation everywhere. Entire blocks around Biloxi and Gulfport are gone. You can tell where buildings once stood, but now there is nothing but rubble. Trees were uprooted and tossed into the bay, where they sit today. Structural damage is massive. I will post some pics when I get high speed internet access again to demonstrate the failure of the rebuilding effort.

Edit- here are a few pics

Milosevic Found Dead

After 4 years in a polically motivated kangaroo court set up by Nato (via bullying by the US), Milsevic was found dead today in his cell. Though I would likely be a dissident from his politics if I were Serbian, as an outside observer, I followed how he was brutally demonized and made a scapegoat for all of the troubles that erupted in the former Yugoslavia.

Let us begin at the beginning: the fall of communism. The Soviet Union was always weaker and less aggressive than the capitalist alliance (mainly the US, UK, and western Europe). The skillfully crafted breakup of the USSR into newly independent nations had ended the Cold War. With the main competition no longer any type of viable threat, the US govt started to move onto the nations that had been loyal to the communist bloc for so long. First target- Yugoslavia.

This was a ripe and easy target. A mishmash of different ethnicities and religions mangled into a relatively new nation (formed after WWII).
With intelligence and logistical support, independence movements suddenly began gathering steam (CIA fingerprints everywhere on this one). Slovenia was an easy one to give up, but by not cracking down (as most governments around the world do on a regular basis to squash independence movements), the Yugoslav government opened the door for the disintegration of the republic. Croation followed suite, and this is where the real problems started.

There are, or I should say *were* large areas inhabited primarily by ethnic Serbs within the borders of of Croatia, and these people were completely opposed to becoming a new minority in a new country. So the guns started firing, militias formed, and a small ember began to turn into a fire. When Bosnia, the most ethnically mixed of all declared its independence, the fire turned into an inferno.

Let me restate that none of these entities would have had the organizational skill or means to achieve independence had it not been for outside help (again, the CIA). This was pure punitive action taken to destroy the remnants of the communists in Belgrade, and replace them with western puppets, moving Yugoslavia into the hegemony of the US (instead of Russia). If Belgrade had instantly capitulated, have no doubt, we would still be looking at a united Yugoslavia today.

The Pentagon had a more difficult time justifying the Kosovo campaign. The KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) was a purely criminal and terrorist organization that was given a skillful whitewash. They were actively encouraged to stir up trouble, knowing that Belgrade would have to crackdown, as Kosovo is not just part of Serbia proper, but the cradle of their entire ethnic consciousness. Again, this turned into wonderful propoganda and was a precursor to the Nato bombing campaign in all of Serbia (including civilian targets, public bridges, media stations, and the carpet bombing of an entire ethnic Albanian village in which over a hundred died).

What could justify such an aggressive policy? Again, the Pentagon propaganda machine was thinking ahead, and made Milosevic the main demon for everything. "We HAD to act because of his barbarism". With the subsequent engineered "mass uprising" that removed the former communists from power, Serbias new leaders were given a choice: hand over Milosevic to stand trial at a new court made especially for this and receive hundreds of millions of aid, or face further punishment and get a continuation of the economic blockade.

So Milosevic was virtually kidnapped and sent off to face "justice" in a court never sanctioned or recognized by the only internation organization that would have the legitimacy for such a thing: the United Nations. He was subjected to 4 years of isolation and intimidation by this court, all to justify a war for a political game. They refused to let him travel to Russia for needed medical treatment, despite a guarantee by the Russian govt. that he would be returned immediately after. And now, he's dead. Congratulations new world order, this is what has become legal precedence in our times: might makes right. I guess he was just a smaller fish than the one that ate him.

Conservatives hurt our economy again

The insanely underreported story of the massive US budget deficits have led to a grave situation, a gargantuan total debt. A news article from a reputable news service in a foreign land (where such "trivial events are actually reported) was quoted as saying "the total accumulated debt is now close to its limit of $8.2 trillion". Will this news get any airplay? Doubtfully. Conservatives have an amazing way of keeping an iron grip on information and thought in the mass media. Still, at least now you know.

Muhammad cartoons part 3

Intellectuals Speak out Against Islamic Totalitarianism
Good to see that writers, journalists, and thinkers are standing up for freedom in the way bombs and threats never can.

Some excerpts:
"After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new global threat: Islamism," the manifesto says.

"We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all."

[The clashes over the cartoons] "revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values," the statement continues.

The writers said they refused to accept that Muslim men and women "should be deprived of their rights to equality, liberty or secularity in the name of respect for culture or tradition".

"Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present," the writers added, saying it is nurtured by fears and frustrations.