Katherine Harris declares that if she is not actually God herself - she is mostly certainly an agent of God.

Even more then the Supreme Court it is Katherine Harris who made the pResidency of George W. Bush a reality. In the months leading up to the 2000 election she oversaw the removal of tens of thousands of eligible African American voters from the voter rolls. She is the one who fought against recounts. It was she who refused to certify recounts of counties that showed an increase in Gore votes. And now we know why:

Harris: Separation of church-state 'a lie'

Separating religion and politics is "so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers," Harris said.

The idea that America has rulers is pretty offensive too, but back to the original point of the post. God is the one who chooses our rulers, and Harris choose Bush. Harris is God - QED

For more offensive ideas, let's listen to other Harris statements:

She warned that if voters do not send Christians to office, they risk creating a government that is doomed to fail.

"If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin," she told interviewers, citing abortion and gay marriage as two examples of that sin.

Doing so, she said, "will take western civilization, indeed other nations because people look to our country as one nation as under God and whenever we legislate sin and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don't know better, we are leading them astray and it's wrong..."

Here's my prediction, on election night the polls will show the Harris is 10 to 15 points behind her competitor. But yet when the Diebold machines finish counting the votes we will all discover, surprise, Harris won. A miracle.

Update: Mildly updated for slightly better use of English - thanks to commenter.

- rob 12:48 PM - [PermaLink] -

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I'm sure I've posted this before - but as the 2006 elections draw near we have to be reminded that the elections are controlled not by citizens but by corporations that have vested interests in keepin ght status quo.

Don't want anyone looking into what's going on with all the money - don't cha know.

Ghost in the Machine: a collection of e-voting factsSelected facts from the excellent post that you should read:

• ES&S and Diebold count 80% of all votes in America.
• ES&S managed many aspects of the 2004 election, including voter registration, printing of ballots, the programming of their voting machines, tabulation of votes (often with armed guards keeping the media and members of the public who wished to witness the count at bay) and the first reporting of the results -- for 60 million voters in 47 states.
• The vice president of E.S.&S. and the president of Diebold are brothers.
• One of the longest-serving Diebold directors is W.R. "Tim" Timken. Since 1991 the Timken Company and members of the Timken family have contributed more than a million dollars to the Republican Party and to GOP presidential candidates such as George W. Bush. Between 2000 and 2002 alone, Timken's Canton-based bearing and steel company gave more than $350,000 to Republican causes, while Timken himself gave more than $120,000. In 2004, he was one of George W. Bush's campaign Pioneers, and pulled in more than $350,000 for the president's reelection bid.
• Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of AIS, which later became ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines in Nebraska in what was a major upset.
• Senator Hagel, who was on the short-list of G.W. Bush's VP candidates, was caught concealing information about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee, even though he was officially absolved of improperly hiding information.

Also read: The Sale of Electoral Politics

Diebold has now taken steps to use an outside organization, Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC) of San Diego, to take responsibility for security issues within their software. But this presents yet another conflict of interest. A majority of officials on the board are former members of either the Pentagon or the CIA, many of whom are closely allied with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Members of the board of directors include:

• Army Gen. Wayne Downing, former chief counter-terrorism expert on the National Security Council;
• Former CIA Director Bobby Ray Inman;
• Retired Adm. William Owens, who served as former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and now sits on Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board;
• Robert Gates, former director of the CIA and veteran of the Iran Contra scandal.

Additionally, SAIC has had a plethora of charges brought against them including indictments by the Justice Department for the mismanagement of a Superfund toxic cleanup and misappropriation of funds in the purchase of F-15 fighter jets.
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Another issue, which is receiving no public scrutiny, is that by taking the control over the electoral process away from local officials and placing it in the hands of a very small number of for-profit corporations, we are effectively privatizing America's most public endeavor.

- rob 5:55 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Does Bush have any Texas business friends that aren't crooks?

They know the truth about Bush's Presidency - it isn't ideological, it is fiscal.

This administration has allowed (and facilitated) the biggest plunder of our public funds in the history of this nation. That is why crooks supported him so.

The Wyly way to keep the public in the dark

A basic protection for American investors is that corporate executives must tell the world when they trade stock in the companies they run.

But what happens when two executives set up foreign trusts that do the trading, keep the transactions secret for years and then claim they thought everything was proper? Will the government look the other way, or will the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department seek to show that the law cannot be danced around?

Who are those Wyly brothers?

Another Bad Batch of Bush Money

Wyly Brothers -- Top Bush Patrons. According to a 1999 by the Center for Public Integrity the Wyly Brothers were the 9th largest patron of Bush's political career. During the 2000 election Charles Wyly was a fundraising Pioneer, an elite group of fundraisers who raised at least $100,000 for Bush's election. The Wyly brothers both gave $5,000 to Bush's recount committee in 2000 and both gave the maximum amount, $2,000, to Bush's reelection campaign in 2004. [www.politicalmoneyline.com, www.whitehouseforsale.org]

Wyly Brothers Donated to Notorious Shadow Organizations, In Attempts to Influence Elections. During the 2000 election the Wyly brothers used $2.5 million dollars of their money to establish Republicans for Clean Air. The group ran brutal attack ads against Arizona Senator John McCain in the 2000 Republican primary. During the 2004 election the Wyly brothers donated $10,000 to the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," which ran ads attacking Democratic Presidential Candidate John Kerry's service in Vietnam.

Here's what McCain said about the Wyly brothers back in the day when he was occasionally honest:

2000: McCain To "Sleazy" Wyly Brothers: "Take Your Dirty Money Back To Texas."

In response to ads run against him in 2000 by "Republicans for Clean Air," a group funded by Texans Sam and Charles Wyly, McCain called the Wylys Bush's "sleazy Texas buddies," called the group "disgraceful" and their money "dirty." McCain said, "We're struggling against $ 2 1/2 million in attack ads by the Bush campaign and their cronies. It's a disgraceful thing they've done. And I believe that the people of New York and Ohio and California, where these attack ads are running, will say, 'There's no place in American politics for that, take your dirty money back to Texas.'"

- rob 5:45 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Like a good neighbor State Farm is there - to steal you blind while you are away from home.

Exclusive: Whistleblowers Say State Farm Cheated Katrina Victims

State Farm Insurance supervisors systematically demanded that Hurricane Katrina damage reports be buried or replaced or changed so that the company would not have to pay policyholders' claims in Mississippi, two State Farm insiders tell ABC News.

- rob 3:48 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Here it comes

from: Talking Points Memo

I find myself reading the House Intel report (PDF) on Iran and wondering why the missile range graphic shows the missiles being fired from Kuwait rather than, say, Iran. Note also that the outer circles describes the range of a missile that doesn't exist.

Go to the pdf to see if for yourself - it is as plain as day.

bah - I'll just show it here:



Note that the 4th outer circle is the Shahab-4 which is perhaps underdevelopment.

Iran is a real threat - but so is ill-informed legilators looking to a war to help with their re-election.

- rob 3:19 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Liquids on a Plane!

The geeks chime in: Mass murder in the skies: was the plot feasible?

Binary liquid explosives are a sexy staple of Hollywood thrillers. It would be tedious to enumerate the movie terrorists who've employed relatively harmless liquids that, when mixed, immediately rain destruction upon an innocent populace, like the seven angels of God's wrath pouring out their bowls full of pestilence and pain.

Take Back Control of your Servers with IBM System p
The funny thing about these movies is, we never learn just which two chemicals can be handled safely when separate, yet instantly blow us all to kingdom come when combined. Nevertheless, we maintain a great eagerness to believe in these substances, chiefly because action movies wouldn't be as much fun if we didn't.

Now we have news of the recent, supposedly real-world, terrorist plot to destroy commercial airplanes by smuggling onboard the benign precursors to a deadly explosive, and mixing up a batch of liquid death in the lavatories. So, The Register has got to ask, were these guys for real, or have they, and the counterterrorist officials supposedly protecting us, been watching too many action movies?
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The al-Qaeda franchise will pour forth its bowl of pestilence and death. We know this because we've watched it countless times on TV and in the movies, just as our officials have done. Based on their behavior, it's reasonable to suspect that everything John Reid and Michael Chertoff know about counterterrorism, they learned watching the likes of Bruce Willis, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Vin Diesel, and The Rock (whose palpable homoerotic appeal it would be discourteous to emphasize).

It's a pity that our security rests in the hands of government officials who understand as little about terrorism as the Florida clowns who needed their informant to suggest attack scenarios, as the 21/7 London bombers who injured no one, as lunatic "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, as the Forest Gate nerve gas attackers who had no nerve gas, as the British nitwits who tried to acquire "red mercury," and as the recent binary liquid bomb attackers who had no binary liquid bombs.

For some real terror, picture twenty guys who understand op-sec, who are patient, realistic, clever, and willing to die, and who know what can be accomplished with a modest stash of dimethylmercury.

You won't hear about those fellows until it's too late. Our official protectors and deciders trumpet the fools they catch because they haven't got a handle on the people we should really be afraid of. They make policy based on foibles and follies, and Hollywood plots.

Meanwhile, the real thing draws ever closer.

Do read the whole thing.

More info on Dimethylmercury here.

- rob 6:12 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Do something.

Sign the petition: End Genocide in Darfur

Dear President Bush:

You said that genocide would not happen on your watch. Please make good on that promise and lead the effort to create a NATO force to stop the genocide in Darfur.

- rob 6:06 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Eric Rudolf's in training

A couple of posts below about up our homegrown terrorists and our homegrown religious extremist terrorists remind me of a post I never got around to posting a couple of weeks back (let's face it there were a lot of days recently were I never get around to posting). Basically it is about getting them while they are young.

American Madrassas

Saw a screening of a documentary called Jesus Camp. It focuses on a woman preacher (Becky Fischer) who indoctrinates children in a summer camp in North Dakota. Right wing political agendas and slogans are mixed with born again rituals that end with most of the kids in tears. Tears of release and joy, they would claim — the children are not physically abused. The kids are around 9 or 10 years old, recruited from various churches, and are pliant willing receptacles. They are instructed that evolution is being forced upon us by evil Godless secular humanists, that abortion must be stopped at all costs, that we must form an “army” to defeat the Godless influences, that we must band together to insure that the right judges and politicians get into the courts and office and that global warming is a lie.
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Awareness of the rest of the world is curtailed — one can only view or read that which agrees with the agenda.
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There were some perfect sound bites — at one point Pastor Fischer instructs the little ones that they should be willing to die for Christ, and the little ones obediently agree. She may even use the word martyr, which has a shocking echo in the Middle East.
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In another scene a cardboard cutout of George W. Bush, with his trademark smirking smile, is brought out and the children are urged to identify — many of the little ones come forward and reverently touch his cardboard hands.

(yes that piece was written by David Byrne of Talking Heads fame).

There is a need by some in the right to diefy Bush - as goofy as that idea is. I’m not making that up – it is a concerted effort:

Faith in the White House

More than any other campaign artifact, it clarifies the hard-knuckles rationale of the president's vote-for-me-or-face-Armageddon re-election message. It transforms the president that the Democrats deride as a "fortunate son" of privilege into a prodigal son with the "moral clarity of an old-fashioned biblical prophet." Its Bush is not merely a sincere man of faith but God's essential and irreplaceable warrior on Earth. The stations of his cross are burnished into cinematic fable: the misspent youth, the hard drinking (a thirst that came from "a throat full of Texas dust"), the fateful 40th-birthday hangover in Colorado Springs, the walk on the beach with Billy Graham. A towheaded child actor bathed in the golden light of an off-camera halo re-enacts the young George comforting his mom after the death of his sister; it's a parable anticipating the future president's miraculous ability to comfort us all after 9/11. An older Bush impersonator is seen rebuffing a sexual come-on from a fellow Bush-Quayle campaign worker hovering by a Xerox machine in 1988; it's an effort to imbue our born-again savior with retroactive chastity. As for the actual president, he is shown with a flag for a backdrop in a split-screen tableau with Jesus. The message isn't subtle: they were separated at birth.

But any religion that wants to align itself in fact meld with state power is willing to sacrifice its soul. i.e. when religion becomes powerful in also becomes immoral. That is the quandary of morality via power. TCS has hit on this before.

A great source of evil is an institution. Institutions are not evil in and of themselves, of course not, society needs institutions, it’s a mandatory ingredient. But an institution diminishes personal guilt. When you work at an institution and do horrible things, you are just doing your job. When you combine institutions with religion (like the laundries) you create an opportunity for true evil to arise, now your horrid acts are not just your job, they are acts of a greater good. One does not feel guilty of beating a young girl if this beating will save the girl's soul (but alas, look what it does to both their souls).

Ashcroft and Bush must know that separation and Church and State is both for the good of the people and the good of religion. No one wants to see their religion used for such wickedness as described above. But if a church (any church) becomes the defacto law in this nation the Taliban will happen here. Afghanistan isn’t a victim of Islamic law gone mad, it is a victim of religious law gone mad. That wouldn’t happen with Protestants you say? Please ask the victims of witch burnings on their opinion of that.

Separation of church and state saves the soul of both.

Freedom of religion allows the religions to flourish in decency. Undo influence of any religion draws that religion to evil.

So back to the original gist of this post – what are these churches doing creating salvation by creating enemies, anger, hate and a lust for power?

They are creating holy warriors. And I’m not entirely facetious when I say the training has begun: The Purpose Driven Life Takers

Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state - especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is "to conduct physical and spiritual warfare"; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice. You have never felt so powerful, so driven by a purpose: you are 13 years old. You are playing a real-time strategy video game whose creators are linked to the empire of mega-church pastor Rick Warren, best selling author of The Purpose Driven Life.

It’s a real game.

- rob 6:01 PM - [PermaLink] -

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"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?" - G.W. Bush

Yeah - people who study evolutionary biology would only help us learn more about, and be prepared for, things like the Avian Flu.

It's not like they understand the banana.

Educators Question Absence of Evolution From List of Majors Eligible for New Grants

Like a gap in the fossil record, evolutionary biology is missing from a list of majors that the U.S. Department of Education has deemed eligible for a new federal grant program designed to reward students majoring in engineering, mathematics, science, or certain foreign languages.

That absence apparently indicates that students in the evolutionary sciences do not qualify for the grants, and some observers are wondering whether the omission was deliberate.

The question arises at a time when evolution has become a political hot potato at all levels of education. While the theory of evolution has overwhelming support from scientists, some conservative Christian groups argue for alternative explanations of the origins of life, including "intelligent design," which holds that an intelligent agent guided the creation of life.

Why don't we drop edumacation all the way - and learn from guys that explain the world like this: The Amazing Banana (you tube video)

- rob 6:37 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Another Bush Success Story

Iran's Mideast influence boosted by "war on terror"

LONDON (Reuters) - Iran's standing in the Middle East has been bolstered by President George W Bush's "war on terror" and its power will continue to grow unless stability is restored to its neighbors, a top think tank said on Tuesday.

London's Royal Institute for International Affairs said wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Israel's conflict with the Palestinians and with Lebanon's Hizbollah had put Iran "in a position of considerable strength".

"There is little doubt that Iran has been the chief beneficiary of the war on terror in the Middle East," the RIIA said in a report on the region

- rob 6:08 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Since I haven't mentioned it in a while - the excellent get your war on is still being updated.



Get Your War On definitely is not everyone's cup of tea (you can probably judge that by yourself from the above cartoon), but it is horribly biting, insightful, and uses cynicism as a shield - recommended.

- rob 5:14 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Just thought I'd post this as yet another example of the general lawlessness creeping into our system of law.

Daily Kos: Texas Attorney General's Office Defies Federal Judge's Request to Return Evidence

"It may be a criminal matter, and we're going to have to turn this over to the appropriate people. The arrogance of taking those documents from a federal court supervised depository is astounding.' - U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott sent four armed guards to a federal depository where the records were stored. The X-rays are part of an ongoing investigation into possibly fraudulently diagnosed lung disease. The investigations are being conducted by a congressional committee and the U.S. attorney general as well as Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.

- rob 12:51 PM - [PermaLink] -

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The Bush Administration has pushed their idolation of their "neo-con" movement to paranoia and dementia.

They are more fightened by tree huggers then actual right wing domestic terror groups, because the dangerous folks are closer (supposedly) to their political philosophy.

Meanwhile we are made less safe by a Department of Homeland Security completely unprepared for legitimate dangerous while frightened by dangerous vegans.

Really vegans don't get enough fat or protein to hail a cab much less mount an act of terrorism. Any voilence from a vegan is because they are hungry and their blood sugar is low.

So the Department of Homeland Security makes sure everone is ready for lots of flyers (and not real dangers).

DHS Warns Companies Of Evil Terrorist "Flyer Distribution"

...the Homeland Security Department warns U.S. businesses of the threats they face from animal rights group and "eco-terrorists." Such radical extremist groups may use several tactics -- each devastating in its own way -- including:

- "organizing protests"
- "flyer distribution"
- "inundating computers with e-mails"
- "tying up phone lines to prevent legitimate calls"
- "sending continuous faxes in order to drain the ink supply from company fax machines"

That's right. If the ink runs out of your fax machine, that means the terrorists have won.

FBI calls "eco-terrorists" top domestic threat

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee convened a hearing on "eco-terrorism" yesterday [over a year ago], anxious to warn the nation of a rising danger that has already killed ... well, nobody. Despite the unimpressive body count, a growing number of property crimes make fringe ecological and animal-rights groups the single greatest domestic terror threat facing the U.S., according to the FBI's John Lewis, who testified before the committee. He acknowledged that groups like the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front have not caused bodily harm, per se, but cited "troubling signs that this is changing," like "violent rhetoric."

Meanwhile...

Homegrown Terrorists

Right-wing extremists long have shown an interest in using chemical and biological weapons. Jessica Stern, formerly with the National Security Council, said in 2002 that they are “obsessed” with biological agents and have been trying to perfect their use for years.

The literature of the racist right is rife with references to biological agents, and authorities have evidence that many groups are actively trying to procure or produce these agents. The Feds were first put on notice about these efforts in 1972, when a Chicago-based white-supremacist group called the Order of the Rising Sun created as much as 40 kilograms of typhoid bacteria culture with the intent to contaminate water supplies in large Midwestern cities. The group’s goal was to eliminate “inferior” populations.

Since that time, investigators have uncovered a number of right-wing bioweapons plots. Among the most prominent cases was the 1995 conviction of Douglas Baker and Leroy Wheeler, members of the Minnesota Patriots Council, for planning to assassinate government officials with ricin. These two were the first people convicted under the Biological Weapons and Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989.

In 1998 the Feds arrested Larry Wayne Harris in Ohio for threatening to use biological weapons on U.S. officials. Harris, an activist with ties to the Christian Identity Church and Aryan Nations, was apprehended with three vials of the bacterium that causes plague. Identity teaches that Jews are the literal children of Satan, and people of color are subhuman “mud people.”
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The latest example of this right-wing obsession was the arrest and conviction in November [2003] of three people involved in a plot to explode a cyanide bomb capable of killing thousands of people. The conspirators, William Krar and Judith Bruey, both of Tyler, Texas, and Edward Feltus, a member of a right-wing paramilitary group called the New Jersey Militia, were caught last May with forged identity passes to the United Nations and the Pentagon and a variety of racist and anti-government pamphlets—including The Turner Diaries, the book that reportedly inspired Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

When investigators searched a storeroom rented by Krar and Bruey, they seized a cyanide bomb, chemicals and components for additional biological weapons, half a million rounds of ammunition, 65 pipe bombs and briefcases that could be detonated by remote control.

Okay all of this stuff is really old and I've posted much of it before. I dunno it just came to me again - my mind works like that.

- rob 12:48 PM - [PermaLink] -

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A new one for Plame to sue (and more power to here):

Calendars show Armitage met reporter

WASHINGTON - The No. 2 State Department official met with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in mid-June 2003, the same time the reporter has testified that an administration official talked to him about CIA employee Valerie Plame.

Official State Department calendars, provided to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act, show then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage held a one-hour meeting marked "private appointment" with Woodward on June 13, 2003.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has investigated whether Bush administration officials intentionally revealed Plame's identity as a one-time CIA covert operative to punish her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for criticizing the administration's march to war with Iraq.

Did we mention Bob Woodward is a schmuck who traded serving Washington Post readers (and American citizens) by revealing government corruption for joining in on the corruption for good quotes and access (plus it makes him feel special to go to all the good parties).

Meanwhile Atrios noticed this:

CNN just flashed up his schedule showing he met with Booby Woodward on June 13. But the real interesting question is why was he meeting with Tom Cruise, Tom Davis, and Kurt Weiland of the Church of Scientology? [later that day]

- rob 12:39 PM - [PermaLink] -

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A link to a CNN segment on E-Voting.

Crooks and Liars - E-Voting Flaws on Lou Dobbs

There was an interesting segment on Lou Dobbs last night regarding E-Voting, with Aviel Rubin, author of the book Brave New Ballot.
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Aviel gives great insight into the flaws with the e-voting machines and exactly how vulnerable they are to software flaws and/or attacks.

Finally the issue is getting some mainstream exposure - unfortunately too late for the 2006 elections. Maybe we can get trust worthy voting by 2008 (I can dream)?

- rob 12:19 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Today's question of the day:

Who forged the Yellow Cake documents?

for background: Yellowcake forgery

- rob 12:15 PM - [PermaLink] -

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6th Grader in Chief

hyuck hyck I farted.

And that my friends is my impression of the pResident of the United States.

Fomr this weeks US News and World Report: Animal House in the West Wing

He loves to cuss, gets a jolly when a mountain biker wipes out trying to keep up with him, and now we're learning that the first frat boy loves flatulence jokes. A top insider let that slip when explaining why President Bush is paranoid around women, always worried about his behavior. But he's still a funny, earthy guy who, for example, can't get enough of fart jokes. He's also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides, but forget about getting people to gas about that.

- rob 6:16 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush is obsessed with the idea that American's should not know anything about their government.

He didn't tell his kids about his DUI arrest because he thought that telling them the truth would encourage them to drink (is it me - or is that a good lesson on the ramifications of drinking - Bush makes sure to let all opportunities pass I guess).

Bush thinks that allowing Americans to know how much our government devoted to nuclear weapons in the Cold War will some how enourage Americans to make nuclear weapons?

Bush wants us to repeat history as he is damned if he's going to let us learn of our history.

Cold War Missiles Target of Blackout

that the government long provided even to its enemy the former Soviet Union: the numbers of strategic weapons in the U.S. nuclear arsenal during the Cold War.

The Pentagon and the Department of Energy are treating as national security secrets the historical totals of Minuteman, Titan II and other missiles, blacking out the information on previously public documents, according to a new report by the National Security Archive. The archive is a nonprofit research library housed at George Washington University.

"It would be difficult to find more dramatic examples of unjustifiable secrecy than these decisions to classify the numbers of U.S. strategic weapons," wrote William Burr, a senior analyst at the archive who compiled the report. " . . . The Pentagon is now trying to keep secret numbers of strategic weapons that have never been classified before."

- rob 6:22 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Maybe its from living in the NYC metropolitan area, or maybe its just from having worked at a building connected (via walkway) to the WTC for a year or so (and using WTC as a commute point in other years), but I'm not really interested (or ready I guess) in seeing the new Oliver Stone film "World Trade Center," but nonetheless I want to talk about a review of the movie.

Movie Review: World Trade Center (2006)

Like most, I entered the press screening for WORLD TRADE CENTER with much trepidation. I expected Director Oliver Stone to utilize the vehicle for anti-Bush, anti-war, left-wing liberal propaganda. He, along with many of his peers and comrades in Tinsel Town, have been quite vocal; spewing the mantra of those whose hatred for President George Bush supercedes their anger over the Muslim attacks of September 11, 2001. Imagine my surprise then, when the story that unfolded was of a conservative nature.

From my understanding it is a touching portrayal of real people on a horrible day. What's conservative about that? Does it say the people who did this were evil and wrong - no argument there. I'd say the percentage of liberals and conservatives who agree with that are equal. Sure there may be some insanely stupid "liberals" who believes 9/11 was justified by American actions over seas (it could be a reason - but not a justification), but for everyone one of those there is an insanely stupid "conservative" who believes 9/11 was an act of God for American actions here (support of equality, preaching tolerance, etc.). Nothing "conservative" or "liberal" about decrying the attacks and celebrating the heroes - I'd consider that "human."

Stone, to his credit does not use the movie as a forum, except to say remember the good people can do. But everyone leaving the theatre after watching WORLD TRADE CENTER will be reminded, once again, that we are at war, the enemy is real, we are not out of danger and there are far too many sympathizing with the enemy.

Ummm... whose sympathizing with the enemy?

I think the reviewer is implying that those that believe Iraq was a distraction from the real War on Terror are sympathizing with the enemy.

Or maybe the reviewer thinks critizing Bush’s politicizing of terror and 9/11 as sympathizing an enemy.

Or maybe the reviewer thinks statements like “The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home” are sympathizing with the enemy (even though that statement is from James Madison).

Yes, I think the reviewer may be so dim as to think that.

September 11, 2001 was when the war began? It wasn’t in February 26, 1993 with the World Trade Center bombing? What about the revelation of their follow up plots to bomb the United Nations, the Holland Tunnel, and the Lincoln Tunnel? How about April 18, 1993 with the bombing of our embassy in Beirut? What about the Oklahoma City bombing of April 19, 1995, How about the attempt to kill legislators from inside the Capital of the United States by terrorists wanting independence for Puerto Rico in February 26, 1954. Heck, what about the September 16, 1920 bombing of Wall Street by unknown terrorists.

The point is we’ve been at war with terrorists of all stripes for a long long time, and will be for a long long time.

It means that we have to have allies. We have to be prepared. We have to be vigilant. We have to go after those who have done such acts.

So far Bush hasn’t seemed to have done that. We have more enemies now. Katrina has proven we are not prepared. FBI and local officials complaining of so many voluminous “leads” from the NSA they feel they have no time to investigate potentially real threats proves we aren’t really being vigilant. And we all know how Bush’s obsession with Saddam let to the fiasco of Tora Bora and Bin Laden’s escape.

Is such a statement sympathizing?

Also do I some how not remember 9/11?

Do I not remember my wife having to spend that day with a neighbor because the neighbor hadn’t heard from her husband who worked at the World Financial Center.

Do I not remember the stories of the person who sits next to me at work who was in the building when it hit. Her stories of the fireball and screams – I pretty sure I recall those.

There are millions of folks in the New York area with stories like that - many more harrowing as they are not removed from the events as I was (and thousands upon thousands more stories in the DC area). We don't need some movie critic to remind us that it is important to remember.

What an asinine movie review.

Update: How could have I forgotten the Olympic bombing (maybe I need a movie): Our own home grown religious extremist terrorist. Only he was a Christian so that part was kind of downplayed. On July 27, 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia during the 1996 Summer Olympics Eric Rudolph planted a bomb killing two people and injuring 111 others.

I think it should be mentioned that Richard Jewell was a hero that day and I hope the media and FBI apologized for his mistreatment.

Update II: It looks like I was being generous when I said only a few wacky conservatives were saying 9/11 was America's fault. No it seems sitting Republican Senators believe America is responsible for the attacks on 9/11:

In a speech on the US Senate floor in March 2002, [OK Republican Senator] Inhofe explicitly suggested that the 9/11 attacks were a form of divine retribution against the US for failing to adequately defend Israel. “One of the reasons I believe the spiritual door was opened for an attack against the United States of America is that the policy of our Government has been to ask the Israelis, and demand it with pressure, not to retaliate in a significant way against the terrorist strikes that have been launched against them." He went on to cite the most important reason for defending Israel: “Because God said so.” (Congressional Record, 3/4/02)

Update III: I saw the movie. It is excellent. It might have weaknesses as a film, but you don't want to see them as the movie is all heart and hope. I don't see anything conservative about it. It is a movie of heroes. The NYC police, the Port Authority police (generally overlooked in discussions of the tragedy), the NYC Fire Department, and the those wonderful two marines. Is it conservative because the gung ho marine is probably conservative? I'm sure the marine is extremely conservative and he is a hero (though two can co-exist - heroism is about being human in the most inhuman times, its isn't politics) - that is what the movie is about. If anything the movie is about how the diversity of New York is what makes the city alive and wonderful. The irony is that many who want revenge over 9/11 (generally directed at "muslims") actually hate New York because it is a place of mulims, jews, hispanics, asians, whites, african americans, and hindus - and the city works.

- rob 6:17 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Silly MI5 and MI6 British Agents think security is more important than politics, they simply do not understand the world we live in.

Police hit out at FBI over leaks

Anti-terror police in Britain have made an angry request to their US counterparts asking them to stop leaking details of this month's suspected bomb plot over fears that it could jeopardise the chances of a successful prosecution and hamper the gathering of evidence.

The British security services, MI5 and MI6, are understood to be dismayed that a number of sensitive details surrounding the alleged plot - including an FBI estimate that as many as 50 people were involved - were leaked to the media.

- rob 2:59 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Seriously, a huge part of governing is prioritizing money and effort.

So is the US government spending more time on the JonBenet case then the Anthrax case? Just wondering.

Also wondering with cutbacks in essential services why does the suspect and 3 Homeland Security officers travel in Business class?

JonBenet suspect heads to U.S. in style

ABOARD THAI AIRWAYS TO LOS ANGELES - John Mark Karr, the suspect in the death of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey, sipped champagne and ate fried king prawns in business class Sunday after being put aboard a flight to Los Angeles to face charges in the United States.

As Karr wined and dined in style and chatted with the three U.S. officials escorting him....

- rob 1:18 PM - [PermaLink] -

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