Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani calls for a cease-fire, points in direction of U.S.

Oh shit. Sistani is the only reason Iraq is going as well as it is. I know that sounds retarded, but he's the only person keeping it from full-blown chaos! Okay, it's that bad already, but if al-Sistani withdraws his support of the U.S. invasion everything will crumble.

Sistani is the number one cleric of Iraq (at least for the Shiite majority), sort of like the pope of Iraq or something. If he says "attack Americans" we're going to see U.S. casualties skyrocket. We need him on our side, for our troops' sake.

Iraq's top Shiite cleric demanded an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon, warning Sunday that the Muslim world will "not forgive'' nations that stand in the way of stopping the fighting.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued the call following the Israeli airstrike that killed at least 56 Lebanese, mostly women and children, in the village of Qana. It was the deadliest attack in nearly three weeks of fighting.

"Islamic nations will not forgive the entities that hinder a cease-fire,'' al-Sistani said in a clear reference to the United States.

Oooohhh, he's talking shit about our pathetic excuse for a diplomatic effort over in the Middle-east. Was Condi Rice even trying to make peace or was she just over there stalling for time?

To be sure, Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, started her tour of the region in Beirut, giving that warred-over capital a brief respite. But no sooner had she moved to Jerusalem than Israel resumed massive air strikes on Beirut's teeming southern suburbs, the heartland of Hizbollah, the heavily armed Shia Islamist group.

The message she brought to both parties was that there would be no return to the status quo ante. Hizbollah had to pull back from the border, disarm and hand back the two Israeli soldiers it seized two weeks ago, precipitating the crisis.

The chances of this happening are virtually nil, as Israel should know. Hizbollah was spawned by the Israeli invasion of 1982, and its shrewd but implacable guerrilla warfare forced Israel finally to abandon its occupation in 2000. Ignoring the hard reality of the region, Washington appears to believe diplomacy is about achieving Israel's unrealisable war aims by other means.

The U.S. effort so far has not been a genuine attempt to achieve a cease-fire or a lasting peace. It's been a charade, a phony, a fake pageant of pretending to want peace. The neocons want war. War is the only thing that will save them.

It's not even a fair negotiation strategy to allow the U.S. to intervene when it's clear that Israel is our dog in this race. We stand to gain from their actions and we give then diplomatic and international cover, which enhances their stand against Hezbollah. The Europeans would perhaps be a better group to try and negotiate peace, but everyone looks to America. It's a shame our government is so cruel and contemptable.

But we risk alienating a powerful "ally" in al-Sistani. Now the choice is clear: continue our shameful pseudo-attempts to bring peace and we will face increasing pressure in Iraq from the Shia majority.

But the point is that fighting could now easily spread, and not just by sucking in Hizbollah's patrons in Syria and Iran. Israel's assault on Shia Lebanon has inflamed the Shia majority in Iraq - the community preventing the total meltdown of the US occupation. Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army, modelled on Hizbollah, which fought alongside it in the 2004 siege of Najaf, is itching to launch a new uprising. Even Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of the Shia who has held the Iraqi ring, is reportedly on the verge of withdrawing his tacit but vital support for the American project.

If he withdrawls his already-unenthusiastic support for America's war then this whole thing falls apart into a regional war that will probably escalate into World War IV.

That's horrible!

That's tragic!

That's.... exactly what the neocons want.

Ledeen lies about his record on Iran invasion

But Think Progress has the real scoop:

Ledeen makes a similar argument is his own response to Bramford, claiming “I’ve openly and consistently opposed military invasion.”

Actually, writing for the National Review on July 11, Ledeen said the United States should attack Iran:

"But one thing I do know: I would insist that my soldiers have the right of 'hot pursuit' into Iran and Syria, and I would order my armed forces to attack the terrorist training camps in those countries."

Oops. Looks like Ledeen has been blabbing everywhere about his desire to invade Iran.

Should it really surprise us that a warmonger is also a dirty liar? He's not even a very good liar, but we can give him points for boldness. He, like Hitler, understands the importance of The Big Lie. Getting us into Iran? That would be a really big lie.

Sen. Pat Roberts still stalling on Iraq Pre-War Intelligence Report

Pat Roberts has a difficult job; he has to do exactly nothing while making it look like he's working hard. Right now it looks like he's got the "do nothing" part down, but he's not very adept at making it look like he's working:

When angry Democrats briefly shut down the Senate last year to protest the slow pace of a congressional investigation into prewar intelligence on Iraq, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) claimed a rare victory.

Republicans called it a stunt but promised to quickly wrap up the inquiry. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which is overseeing the investigation, said his report was near completion and there was no need for the fuss.

That was nine months ago.

The Republican-led committee, which agreed in February 2004 to write the report, has yet to complete its work. Just two of five planned sections of the committee's findings are fully drafted and ready to be voted on by members, according to Democratic and Republican staffers. Committee sources involved with the report, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they are working hard to complete it. But disputing Roberts, they said they had started almost from scratch in November after Democrats staged their protest.

That's funny. Before the Democrats protested he hadn't done jack shit! Now 2 sections are done, but I'm betting that the 2 sections completed are the most harmless. Any sort of competent or thorough investigation would reveal far more than Roberts is prepared to show us. He's a cover-up guy. This is a cover-up. At most he will put a few mildly damaging bits in there to make it seem like he has teeth. He's a naked partisan, sucking at Cheney's wrinkled, wart-filled little cock with his toothless mouth.

The Republicans cannot be trusted to investigate themselves.

Part of the investigation that focuses on the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, which was run by former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith, is on hold, staff members said, pending a separate inquiry by the Defense Department's inspector general.

Feith is the guy charged with justifying the invasion of Iraq by the neocons. He did his job and he did it well. Now they will go to great lengths to provide cover for him. They will lie, obstruct, assassinate, and stall to make sure the public doesn't learn what really went on in Feith's dungeon.

This is all part of a complex political dance, most of it designed to lull the public to sleep and assure us that we have a responsive and non-criminal government when the reverse is actually true.

Everybody knows that our excuses for the Iraq War were manufactured in the Office of Special Plans. Everybody knows those excuses were bullshit, there were no WMDs (except the ones we gave Saddam) and Iraq was not a threat to us (just as Iran is not a real threat). That doesn't matter. Nobody has the political will or power to take on the Bush administration and start throwing people in jail. Until the likely-to-be-fraudulent elections in November we don't have a prayer of seeing real action on this investigation. Only if the neocons don't manage to successfully rig the election will we see action. Let's hope they fuck up and don't stuff enough ballot boxes.

At this rate it looks like they will have to stuff a lot of ballot boxes.

Legalize Drugs to Quell the Violence? Won't somebody think of the CIA's feelings?!

AlterNet's Norm Stamper calls for legalization to end the growing violence in Mexico and in America caused by drug prohibition:

In the mid-'90s, the Arellano brothers' drug cartel ruled Tijuana, perched atop the hierarchy of Mexico's multibillion dollar illegal drug trafficking industry. Using cars, planes and trucks -- and an intimate knowledge of NAFTA -- the Arellanos transported hundreds of tons of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine into American cities.

They enlisted U.S. drug gangs. In 1993, in my last days as San Diego's assistant police chief, the local gang Calle Treinte was implicated in the Arellano-inspired killing of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo. The Arellanos bribed officials on both sides of the border, spending over $75 million annually on the Mexican side alone, to grease their illicit trafficking.

And they enforced their rule not just with murder but with torture. If Steven Soderbergh's gritty 2000 film "Traffic" caused you to squirm in your seat, the real-life story of Mexican drug dealing is even more disquieting. The brothers once kidnapped a rival's wife and children. With videotape running, they tossed two of the kids off a bridge, then sent their competitor a copy of the tape, along with the severed head of his wife. Another double-crosser had his skull crushed in a compression vice. And who can forget the carne asada BBQs, where the Arellanos would roast entire families over flaming tires?

Whenever you hear horrible stories like this one, remember who is at least partly to blame for this situation: Politicians who support drug prohibition because they think it makes them look "tough on crime" when the policies they support are actually just tough on liberty. Prohibition simply creates attractive (black) markets for criminals and sociopaths. If drugs were legal, they would be under the control of Walgreens, not the Arellano brothers.

Illegal drugs are expensive precisely because they are illegal. The products themselves are worthless weeds -- cannabis (marijuana), poppies (heroin), coca (cocaine) -- or dirt-cheap pharmaceuticals and "precursors" used, for example, in the manufacture of methamphetamine. Yet today, marijuana is worth as much as gold, heroin more than uranium, cocaine somewhere in between. It is the U.S.'s prohibition of these drugs that has spawned an ever-expanding international industry of torture, murder and corruption. In other words, we are the source of Mexico's "drug problem."

The remedy is as obvious as it is urgent: legalization.

Regulated legalization of all drugs -- with stiffened penalties for driving impaired or furnishing to kids -- would bring an immediate halt to the violence. How? By (1) dramatically reducing the cost of these drugs, (2) shifting massive enforcement resources to prevention and treatment and (3) driving drug dealers out of business: no product, no profit, no incentive. In an ideal world, Mexico and the United States would move to repeal prohibition simultaneously (along with Canada). But even if we moved unilaterally, sweeping and lasting improvements to public safety (and public health) would be felt on both sides of the border. (Tragically and predictably, just as Mexico's parliament was about to reform its U.S.-modeled drug laws, the Bush administration stepped in, pressuring President Vicente Fox to abandon the enlightened position he'd championed for two years.)

Stamper makes an excellent and well-thought-out call for legalization, but he's missing part of the puzzle. The missing piece helps to explain why legalization won't happen any time soon: The government is well aware of the problems caused by drug prohibition and that's exactly the way they want it. They don't want crime free cities (how could they strip us of our rights and frighten us if our cities are peaceful?), they don't want cheap recreational drugs (how else could they make so much money without informing Congress of where it came from?) and they certainly don't want to get rid of drug dealers (how else could they arrest any black person at any time?).

The elephant in the room has a kilo of coke jammed up his trunk and none of us are supposed to mention that fact. The Bush Crime Family has depended on the income delivered by drugs for years. This shouldn't come as a surprise if you know that George Bush Senior ("Poppy Bush" as he is called) used to be the Director the CIA, an organization that is notorious for smuggling drugs, protecting drug kingpins, selling drugs to fund black ops and generally behaving like a bunch of state-sponsored terrorists... cause that's what they are.

The CIA needs drugs to be illegal. They have to fund their illegal, terroristic black ops somehow: How are we supposed to assassinate foreign leaders, execute coup d'États, prop up right-wing dictators and generally spread fear around the globe if some goddamn hippies are goin' around talking about drug legalization?! What the fuck?! Don't you know how hard it is to spread fascism and evil without a slushfund?

Good point. America, the choice is soooo much harder than it seems: If we legalize drugs we might inadvertantly make the CIA less evil and impede its ability to launch terrorist attacks against its enemies, foreign and domestic! Oh noooo!!!!!

Holy fuck, it's hotter than Jessica Alba today

Damn! Smokin' hot!

Er, the weather that is. It's 97 degrees here in Minnesota. It's supposed to hit 101 tomorrow and 103 on Monday. There's a dude outside fryin' up a pan of bacon on my car's hood.

Anyway, I just slept 13 hours and I don't feel like doing much... except Jessica Alba!

California's sending us all their heat when what we really wish they'd send us is Jessica Alba!

Wake up, America!

Wake up America! Stop the New World Order. What a great fuckin' picture, eh? Click on it for a larger view. So what's funnier? Condi Rice in "blackface" or Rumsfeld looking like he's dead, but reanimated somehow? I love this artwork, man. Great stuff. The generals in the rear, to the right, look particularly psychotic. This guy has some mad skillz! Head over to Mark Bryan's site for more fucking sweet pics. Here's another one in the same vein:

It's called General Monkey Brains. Appropriate for this blog, yes? Monkeys are always funny -- I keep telling you.

Okay, one more. I can't resist:

It's called, El Fin de Bozo and it's fucking hilarious for reasons I can't fully explain. But c'mon, a clown drive-by shooting is just funny as is. LOL!

Ahh... now that's what I call art!

Workin' like a muthafucka

Been really busy lately. I worked an 11-hour day yesterday so I didn't have time to post. Sorry about that. Mostly, I'd like to apologize to myself for that shift. Anyway, I took the day off! Yay! In fact, I took Monday off, too. This way I can relax a little bit and get a 4-day weekend. I will also be concentrating on my house hunting endeavor. Wish me luck!

I'll be back in a second with another post. Great picture I found, you've gotta check it out.

Michael Ledeen's Echoes of Iran-Contra, and the Plan for the War on Iran

One of my favorite investigative reporters, James Bamford, has a new piece in Rolling Stone detailing the build up to the near-inevitable War on Iran. There are many choice bits, but let me show you this one first:

In November 2003, Rumsfeld approved a plan known as CONPLAN 8022-02, which for the first time established a pre-emptive-strike capability against Iran. That was followed in 2004 by a top-secret "Interim Global Strike Alert Order" that put the military on a state of readiness to launch an airborne and missile attack against Iran, should Bush issue the command. "We're now at the point where we are essentially on alert," said Lt. Gen. Bruce Carlson, commander of the 8th Air Force. "We have the capacity to plan and execute global strikes in half a day or less."

The War on Iran has been planned for years. As the article makes clear, the planning began before 9/11, hell, even before Bush even became president. This is deliberate, methodical warmongering on the part of the neoconservatives.

They're building an empire.

I guess some Americans may be okay with that. I'm not. There's a little "problem" with empires: They are ruled by an emperor. In other words, they are not democratic in nature. They are not "republics" like ours. They are antithetical to the American Way and everything we stand for.

And it's not like this some big fucking secret, although many people I know are shocked -- SHOCKED! -- when I tell them we're going into Iran. I guess that's what happens when you rely on mainstream news sources for information. Everybody who's anybody knows we're going into Iran. The neocons don't even bother to hide the fact that they're going to get us into Iran one way or another:

Stout and balding, with a scruffy white beard, [Michael] Ledeen is sitting in the living room of his white-brick home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, smoking a Dominican cigar. His Airedale terrier, Thurber, roams the room protectively. In his first extensive interview about the covert Pentagon operation, Ledeen makes no secret of his desire to topple the government in Tehran. "I want to bring down the regime," he says. "I want the regime gone. It's a country that is fanatically devoted to our destruction."

Michael Ledeen, for those of you who don't know, is a complete fuckwit who also happens to be one of the preeminent neoconservative "intellectuals" (their word, not mine) who guides neoconservative policy, rather like Irving Kristol. Ledeen is a fucking idiot, but that's what makes him perfect as a neocon guru. He doesn't let facts get in the way; he's mentally agile enough to route around or rationalize anything under the sun in order to justify the dictates of the leaders of the group.

Ledeen, as the article makes clear, was one of the major players in the Iran-Contra scandal. So, he certainly has experience with Iran, law-breaking and war, which is really all you need to become a shining star in the neocon constellation (apparently).

Interestingly, the Iran-Contra affair also involved hostages (Americans this time) held by Hezbollah. The Reagan administration arranged to sell weapons to Iran in exchange for Iran pressuring Hezbollah into releasing the hostages. The money from the arms sales would go to fund the Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries ("Contras") fighting to overthrow a democratically-elected leftist government (the Sandinistas). The Contras were also funded by other means, including massive cocaine smuggling coordinated by the U.S. government. Not just into other countries -- into ours! So yes, the U.S. government has engaged in drug smuggling, arms dealing, and funding "terrorist" groups (the Contras were not gentlemen), all in the name of overthrowing democratically-elected governments in South America. Boy, don't you just wanna start singing America the Beautiful?!

They say history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. I can only hope that this will be the farce time, but I think we've gotta get through the tragedy bit first. Shit. Well, here we are again, dealing with the dark side in order to accomplish some dark and hideous task in the name of freedom (ostensibly), but really in the name of more power for our ruling elite. Ain't politics great!?!?!

If you think our illustrious leaders have changed their stripes and will pull back from the brink, you're fucking dreaming. They will do no such thing unless we grab them by the neck. That's why it is so important, So, SO important that when the time comes we protest -- huge rallies, massive rallies -- until the Bush regime has no choice but to surrender.

Unfortunately, the situation in Lebanon makes that more difficult. The Israelis and the neocons are trying to drag us into World War IV gradually so we won't even know for sure that we're in it until it's too late. A good plan. But we've got to stop it. We can't make the same mistakes we've made in Iraq (such as, ya know, invading). Our troops are already stretched thin; we can't afford to have another war, another country to pacify. Things are spiraling out of control already.

We have to stop this war before it's too late.

Bush's Plan for "Serial War" revealed by General Wesley Clark

"[The] Five-year campaign plan [includes]... a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan" (Pentagon official quoted by General Wesley Clark)

read more | digg story

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This should come as a surprise to no one who reads this blog regularly. For the rest of the world, it might be a bit of a shock. Alas, it's hard to prove that we are in "Imperial" mode. Neocons on Digg have simply attacked Clark's character rather than dealing with the revelation.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink
You can lead a person to truth, but you can't make him think.

Congress to sue the President

I am not making this up. Arlen Specter is planning on introducing a bill that will allow Congress to sue President Bush for his abuse of "signing statements" that increasingly look like an end run around Congress:

"We will submit legislation to the United States Senate which will...authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of those signing statements with the view to having the president's acts declared unconstitutional," Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said on the Senate floor.

Specter's announcement came the same day that an American Bar Association task force concluded that by attaching conditions to legislation, the president has sidestepped his constitutional duty to either sign a bill, veto it, or take no action.

Bush has issued at least 750 signing statements during his presidency, reserving the right to revise, interpret or disregard laws on national security and constitutional grounds.

"That non-veto hamstrings Congress because Congress cannot respond to a signing statement," said ABA president Michael Greco. The practice, he added "is harming the separation of powers."

Bush has challenged about 750 statutes passed by Congress, according to numbers compiled by Specter's committee. The ABA estimated Bush has issued signing statements on more than 800 statutes, more than all other presidents combined.

Signing statements have been used by presidents, typically for such purposes as instructing agencies how to execute new laws.

But many of Bush's signing statements serve notice that he believes parts of bills he is signing are unconstitutional or might violate national security.

A line-item veto has already been declared unconstitutional. Why does Bush think he can get away with this? Probably because the Republican-led Congress has let him get away with everything else so far.

This is great news, but Specter cannot be trusted. He's already trying to let the President weasel out of punishment (and court) for his unchecked wiretapping and his end run around of the FISA court (notice a pattern here?). But hopefully Specter will show spine for once.

But I wouldn't count on it. Change is gonna come, but it's gonna have to come from us, the common people. We need to take to the streets.

New business model for selling/discovering music launched with Amie Street alpha

Amie St. is a new online store for selling tunes by independent artists. The best part: it takes a new approach in letting users decide how much a song costs based on how many recommendations they give it. Even better: The music is all in MP3 format and it is NOT encumbered by shitty DRM (digital restrictions management).

Tech Crunch has more on the new store and its founders:

Artists can upload their music to Amie Street for promotion and sale. Users form social networks with friends, listen to, and purchase music. All songs are DRM-free in MP3. Songs appear to be at 192kpbs quality level, although it may just be whatever the artist uploads.

All songs are free to start. Prices fluctuate over time based on demand for the song - currently the highest priced song, “Against the Wall” by Danny Ross, is $0.36. 273 songs have been uploaded so far. This demand based pricing model seems like a good way to sell music.

I hope this business model takes off! I will be adding my music to the store once we've got an album to sell, if not before. I've got a couple tracks layin' around. We'll see. For now, it's pretty exciting and all-in-all, a great thing for independent artists.

12th Day of the War in Lebanon

We are entering the 12th day of the war. A few questions have been bouncing around in my mind:

1. Is President Bush doing everything he can to resolve the crisis?

2. What is Israel's plan?

3. When will this war wind down?

4. What will we do if it doesn't?

It's hard to know what's going to happen. Israel seems to be the one keeping it going, although Hezbollah militants are fighting back and launching rockets at Israel. But at this point in the conflict, it's starting to get blurry about who started what and where the lines are. The best time to stop a war like this is in its infancy. We must end the hostilities now. Bush is sending Condi Rice to the region to press for.... not a ceasefire. That's right folks: a ceasefire is not on the agenda. Some are saying the war has been "approved" by the U.S. for another week.

It doesn't seem to be on Israel's agenda either. They have apparently been calling (automatically, using a recording) Lebanese citizens and telling them to vacate the region south of the Litani River.

This war will continue because it is beneficial to certain parties. Not the Lebanese civilians under fire. But "certain parties" in the U.S. and in Israel. Will they end what they have begun?

Working too hard

Got this at work today from a friend:


Luckily I didn't have one of those smashing-my-face-against-the-keyboard days. Pretty gruesome, ehh?

Don't work too hard. Happy weekend!

Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson rescues British citizens from Beirut

Bruce is an all-around cool guy in my book. He's got a big mouth, but that's a lead singer thing. Anyway, it's great to hear he's helping out:

Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson reportedly came to the rescue of hundreds of British citizens stranded in war-ravaged Beirut. Dickinson who is also a jet pilot, flew a Boeing 757 to Cyprus where he scooped up the evacuees and flew them back to Gatwick. No word on whether Dickinson cranked “Run to the Hills” on the PA.

"Run to the Hills"? Wouldn't it be "Aces High"?! Or hell, even "Tailgunner"! But "Aces High" has that great line, "Got to get airborne before it's too late!" Hell, let me post the video in honor of Bruce's heroics.

U.S. & U.K. squash calls for a cease-fire in Lebanon, support Israeli strikes

Proving once again that they are not interested in attaining peace in the Middle East, the neocons and their UK allies have rejected UN calls for a cease-fire and expressed support for Israel's actions:

Criticism has mounted that the two countries are blocking the 15-nation Security Council from endorsing the UN secretary-general’s call for an immediate suspension of fighting.

More than 300 Lebanese civilians and nearly 30 Israelis have died since the fighting started, and half a million Lebanese civilians have been displaced. Israel has warned that it is now preparing a ground invasion to eradicate Hezbollah strongholds in the south of Lebanon, a move that can only add to the misery of the civilian population.

The British and American proposal called for the Security Council to express its intention "to create the conditions for a permanent solution and to bring about an immediate end to hostilities." It also called on all sides to exercise restraint and to allow humanitarian access.

The neocon position is merely a stalling tactic. "Create the conditions for a permanent solution?" How are they supposed to do that in the midst of open war? The ceasefire is necessary first step. You can't replace the brakes on a car while you're driving it.

It's clear that peace is not the goal of the Bush administration. Let's hear it straight from the mouthpiece of the neoconservative movement:

William Kristol, writing in the neo-conservative US magazine Weekly Standard, does not see the crisis in Lebanon as a local war requiring a local solution. Rather, he depicts the conflict as part of a global struggle between Islam and “liberal democratic civilization.”

“What’s happening in the Middle East, then, isn’t just another chapter in the Arab-Israeli conflict. What’s happening is an Islamist-Israeli war. You might even say this is part of the Islamist war on the West.”

Kristol called upon the US government to focus less on Hamas and Hizbollah and more “on their paymasters and real commanders - Syria and Iran." The United States needs to forcefully reassert its power in the region and “pursue […] regime change in Syria and Iran,” even considering “a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.”

The US has stood aside for too long, making itself appear weak in the eyes of its Islamist enemies, Kristol said.

Weakness, to Kristol, is the failure of the U.S. to rule the world with an iron fist. This man is a fascist.

Kristol is trying to start a war between the West and Islam. That seems to be the plan, anyway. He accuses the Islamists of waging a war on the West. Is he fucking serious? The Islamic nations would never try that -- they would get crushed. Kristol is, as usual, lying out his ass. He's got it exactly backwards. Fascist Westerners like him are trying to wage war against Islamists because they know the West will win, thus gaining more power for him. He knows he's full of shit. These guys are some really cynical assholes.

So, I hope you like war. 'Cause there's a lot more of it on the way as long as the neocons are in charge.

Israel is hinting at a "full scale invasion" of Lebanon to track down Hezbollah militants

Things are heating up in Lebanon:

Israeli troops met fierce resistance from Hezbollah guerrillas Thursday as they crossed into Lebanon to seek tunnels and weapons for a second straight day, and Israel hinted at a full-scale invasion.

Israel warned residents to "immediately" flee a nearly 20-mile swath of south Lebanon along the border. Its warplanes also launched new airstrikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, shortly after daybreak, followed by strikes in the guerrillas' heartland in the south and eastern Bekaa Valley.

This is getting pretty bad. Hezbollah seems to be launching rockets at Israeli towns, which certainly isn't helping the Lebanese government arrange a ceasefire. The Lebanese government is in tatters anyway, so if we want to see an end to the crisis it will need to come from the international community.

The United States House of Representatives' response was swift: They passed a non-binding resolution supporting Israel's right to blow the living shit out of everything in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and anybody else who we don't like. Whoopee.

I would've thought that a solemn declaration of solidarity with the victims on both sides would've been more appropriate. But I guess war is big business. And business is good.

Meanwhile, religious nuts are eagerly awaiting the rapture. Boy Jesus is gonna be impressed... with their selfishness and stupidity. Did he say anything in Revelation about killing people and supporting war so that he can come back quicker? I don't remember reading that part...

Super Mario Bros. 2 and Doki Doki Panic

If you're an old-school gamer geek like me you probably played and loved Super Mario Brothers 2. But the version that was released in the States is completely different from the Japanese version. Nintendo actually rebranded a game called Doki Doki Panic as a Mario game and released it in the U.S. In my opinion, it's a much better game than the Japanese SMB2.

But don't take my word for it. Check out both Doki Doki and Super Mario 2 (Japanese) at this location.

Daniel Ellsberg, leaker of the Pentagon Papers points to government involvement in 9/11 conspiracy

InfoWars has an interview with Daniel Ellsberg on the coming war with Iran, the government's involement in false flag terror attacks and more.

This may seem like some heavy shit, but Ellsberg knows a thing or two about the government. Daniel Ellsberg is the guy who leaked the Pentagon Papers back in 1971. The Nixon Administration made his life a living hell and tried to track him down and put him on trial, or kill him. The New York Times was ordered by President Nixon to cease publication of anything related to the Pentagon Papers immediately, which sparked a case that went to the Supreme Court. The Court decided in favor the Times allowing further publishing.

Ellsberg knows what the government's capable of; he used to help them come up with their crazy schemes as a military analyst for the RAND Corporation. He eventually used his access to leak documents providing an important insight into the government's inner workings which revealed a contempt for "the public" and a sinister resistance to accountability or oversight. Also revealed were attempts to goad enemies into firing on us, including the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

In recent years Ellsberg has been arrested many times as he's protested various government lies and atrocities. Now he's joining a growing group of people including scholars, engineers, pilots and military officers who are questioning the events of 9/11. Of the upcoming war with Iran Ellsberg says:

If there’s another 9/11 or a major war in the Middle-East involving a U.S. attack on Iran, I have no doubt that there will be, the day after or within days an equivalent of a Reichstag fire decree that will involve massive detentions in this country.

I urge you to do some research and consider the possibility that our government may have had forehand knowledge of the attacks -- and the even more horrible possibility that the government was complicit and an active partner in the attacks.

We have to think about this before the War on Iran. We can't let the Bush Administration and its neo-conservative masters take our rights -- our lives -- away from us so easily. If these allegations are true then we are dealing with a government far more ruthless and psychotic than most Americans realize.

Quite frankly, I'm nervous even publishing this post. But people are starting to speak out, including celebrities Charlie Sheen, Richard Linklater (who claims to have convinced Bruce Willis), Tom DeLonge (from Blink 182) and scholars/researchers like James Fetzer, Dr. Steven E. Jones, Michael Ruppert and many more. It seems that Hunter S. Thompson was researching 9/11 when he died. Strange that he would kill himself before finishing his inquiry, isn't it?

We shouldn't have to feel afraid of our government. We shouldn't have to deal with government censorship and lies and terrorism carried out against its own people. I hope that the government didn't really have any involvement.... but I know how these fascists work. 9/11 is a perfect 21st century Reichstag Fire. Cui Bono?

And if Iran somehow manages to "attack us" will the government declare martial law like Ellsberg says? How important is freedom to the Bush cabal? Do you really think that they will go to bat for regular people or do you think they will use the crisis to expand the government's power? What's to stop them from increasing the government's powers to overtly totalitarian levels after our system of checks and balances has been stripped away in order to fight "The War on Terror"?

In a way, it doesn't matter whether the government is behind the attacks or not. They're so busy getting rid of our rights that it's a moot point.

I guess the terrorists -- whoever they are -- have won.

Grudge Match: Kevin Smith versus Joel Siegel

Film critic and all around smarmy punster Joel Siegel has managed to piss off Silent Bob, er... Kevin Smith, filmmaker and fart joke master. From Smith's website:

So last night, at a press screening of “Clerks II” in New York City, “Good Morning America” movie critic Joel Siegel decided he’d had enough of my shenanigans, and walked out of the flick at the forty minute mark. You’d imagine this would bother me, and yet, I’m as delighted by this news as I was with the eight minute standing ovation “Clerks II” received in Cannes.

I mean, it’s Joel Siegel, for Christ’s sake. As Paul Thomas Anderson once said of the man, getting a bad review from Siegel is like a badge of honor. This is the guy who stole his mustachioed critic shtick from Gene Shalit years ago, and still refuses to give it back. This is a guy who seemingly prides himself on being “punny” - that is, he likes to add his own nyuk-nyuk wordplay into the reviews he writes/gives.

For “Pirates 2″, he made us all titter with “Yo, Ho, Ho and a Bottle of Fun”.

Oh man, I'm rollin'. That was so funny. How long did it take Siegel to think up that one? Days? Weeks? Months? Fucking tool. Sorry, I'm not very objective in this fight. Siegel is a kiss-ass dumbshit and I really like Smith's films, so I am very biased. But check this part out:

Apparently, rather than quietly exit, both Joel and his Cum-Catcher (my slang for the fancy kind of mustache he sports) made a big stink about walking out, calling as much attention to himself as possible, and being generally pretty disruptive.

Check this shit out: roughly forty minutes into the flick, when Randal orders up the third act donkey show, Siegel bellowed to his fellow critics “Time to go!'’ and “This is the first movie I’ve walked out of in 30 fucking years!'’

Read Kevin's site for more evisceration.

...Wait, "third act donkey show?" Well, maybe I should withhold judgment. Oh hell, donkeys aren't as funny as monkeys, but they're close. Pretty damn close.

Anyway, Clerks II sounds pretty good. I'll check it out one of these days. Maybe not on the big screen, but I'll see it.

Man, for $8.50 that better be the best damn donkey show ever. I somehow managed to pay only $4.50 for Pirates II and I still felt like I got ripped off since there was only $1.25 worth of plot. I suppose Keira Knightly makes up for the rest...

I look forward to the next round of this fight in which Joel Siegel threatens to "pun-ish" Kevin Smith physically.

Stop World War IV

Ex-CIA Director Woosley calls for strikes on Syrian and Iran

Think Progress has this escalation of the insanity of war and profiteering:

WOOLSEY: Without talking to Lebanon about it, frankly, John, I think we ought to execute some air strikes against Syria, against the instruments of power of that state, against the airport, which is the place where the weapons shuttle through from Iran to Hezbollah and Hamas. I think both Syria and Iran think that we’re cowards. They saw us leave Lebanon after the ‘83 Marine Corps bombing. They saw us leave Mogadishu in 1993. They saw us back off in 1991 when we had Saddam on the ropes and there were revolts in 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces, and we stood there. I think they think Israel, similarly, by backing out of Lebanon a few years ago, and by backing out of Gaza, they’re fielding their oats. In that part of the world, the most dangerous thing to do is look like cowards in the face of these totalitarian groups.

QUESTION: Mr. Woolsey, are you saying that we should be hitting Syria? We should be hitting the airport? We should be hitting Bashar Assad’s office?

WOOLSEY: Yes. The last thing we ought to do now —

QUESTION: You mean we the United States, not Israel?

WOOLSEY: Yes, yes. The last thing we ought to do now is to start talking about cease-fires and the rest.

My Thug Side: My God, the man is talking about cease-fires?!!!! hang him!! Kill the fucking hippy who dares to argue for restraint!! Ain't that right, Mr. Woosley? [/thug]

Man, these fucking neocons are serious about this World War IV shit.

You might be surprised at this shit, but I am not. There is a dirty secret out there in the defense industry and the media and Washington: War is Big Business. These people are heavily invested in the military-industrial complex. They want war because they will benefit from it. No other reasons are as compelling as that one. And they know they can get away with it, too.

"The last thing we ought to do now is to start talking about cease-fires..." That's what he said. That's what he fucking said.

War is Big Business.

The military-industrial complex feeds on the strife, the money, the blood. It needs it. This beast is some amoral demon that we created to win the last great war. It didn't leave after the war ended. It stayed. It fed. It grew stronger and bigger, it hooked into everything, every aspect of society. The military needs it. The government needs it. The business interests need it.

We will go to war to feed the beast. Let there be no confusion. If we enter Iran and Syria, there is no turning back from that. It's all-out war with the Islamic nations and anybody else who doesn't like us. World War IV.

Does Woosley really know what that means? He must know there will be sacrifices. And these wars the elite start, they tend to get out of control. Who knows where the cards will lay when the time comes. Does he really want to bet it all on this horse?

The neocons -- Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, Woosley -- they all want war. That is all there is to say about them, about their character. If you've ever wondered why I give them so much shit -- this is why! They want to bring about this horrible and dangerous war in a last stakes gamble to get more control. They are evil.

I can't believe it's already coming to this. We have to get ready. We have to mobilize, we have to rally and strike and disobey! We have to stop this war like we should've stopped Iraq! This will be Iraq but 10 times worse.

Does anybody receive my signal? Is America still asleep? Distress code: 9.11.1984. Send word if you are still there, over! Are we going to stop this war, or are we gonna let it happen?

James Dobson is a fanatic psycho because of his fucked up childhood

So says this blog:

Even more alarming, Dobson admits in one of his books that as a child he arranged a fight between two mismatched dogs. The battle involved a tenacious bulldog and a "sweet, passive Scottie named Baby," and Dobson provoked it by throwing a tennis ball toward Baby. He writes what happened next: "The bulldog went straight for Baby's throat and hung on. It was an awful scene. Neighbors came running from everywhere as the Scottie screamed in terror. It took ten minutes and a garden hose for the adults to pry loose the bulldog's grip. By then Baby was almost dead. He spent two weeks in the animal hospital, and I spent two weeks in the doghouse. I was hated by the entire town."

As any child psychologist will tell you, this type of cruelty toward animals is a sign of a serious psychological disturbance.

There's a lot more. Check it out for the full tale of woe. Basically, his parents were complete hardasses and they treated him like shit, and he was a pathetic child who acted out and was violent towards others.

So now he's some big shot minister, huh? Great. Can you imagine for a second, James, that maybe other people had fucked up childhoods too? And that maybe they reacted differently than you? Or even weirder -- that some people didn't have messed up childhoods? Maybe some of us don't need your strict rules to behave kindly.

I have no problem with Dobson having weird beliefs and a strict interpretation of the Bible. That's fine. But when he tries to push his beliefs onto others and tries to turn our great nation into a fucking theocracy, then we got beef.

So, sucks to be you with your crappy childhood, James. But leave the rest of us out of it.

More on telepathy, psychic abilities and skeptics of paranormal activity

I was reading about the study on telepathy over at the usually extremely skeptical slashdot and there were actually some good links and ideas from people open to the idea of "paranormal" abilities, which are really just abilities that modern science has not yet been able to fully explain.

One poster pointed to this article as evidence that serious scientists are studying psychic abilities and having some success in proving that certain people have these abilities:

But what few may realize is Dubois' prime power - making contact with people after death - has been subjected to three years of UA research scientifically designed to determine if she is an authentic "medium" or a fraud.

Although the studies have stirred controversy nationwide and have been slammed by several skeptics, the Harvard-trained UA professor who ran them strongly defends their legitimacy, as does Dubois.

"There is no question this is not a fraud - some people really can do this, and Allison is one of them," said psychology professor Gary E. Schwartz, who directs the UA's Human Energy Systems Laboratory where the experiments with Dubois and other well-known mediums - including John Edward of TV's "Crossing Over" fame - have been conducted.

"Many people claim to do this, and there are clearly frauds out there. Allison was repeatedly tested and passed every test.

"As a scientist, I approach all this as an agnostic - I don't believe it; I don't disbelieve it. After testing her under conditions that ruled out the possibility of fraud, I came to the conclusion she's the real deal."

That's exactly the attitude you need to have to investigate something like the paranormal. You can't assume it exists and you can't be a raving nut like James Randi who refuses to even entertain the possibility of paranormal activity. You need to keep an open mind, unclouded by bias.

As I said, paranormal is just something observed that hasn't been proved or thoroughly debunked yet. Randi thinks of himself as a debunker, but he's not objective. Later on in the article Schwartz deals with Randi:

Perhaps more entertaining is the ongoing public feud Schwartz has with the flamboyant magician and professional skeptic James Randi, who has offered $1 million to "anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event."

Randi even wrote a letter to the University of Arizona Foundation in 2001, asking the university to submit Schwartz's research data to an independent panel for evaluation, to see if the UA might win the $1 million.

In one critique, Randi called Schwartz "an academic who has abandoned reason to accept everything and anything offered him by scammers from John Edward to the gypsy down the street."

Schwartz rejected Randi's million-dollar bait.

"I refused for the same reason all serious scientists in America and Europe have refused. The process of this prize lacks scientific credibility and integrity," he said. "This guy is not a scientist - he is a mediocre magician who loves the public eye."

Booyah! It's true: Randi is fucking clownshoes. He's a sideshow, and he has too much vested interest in keeping his money. How can he claim to be a scientist if he's offering huge cash prizes? That's not science. The reward is the discovery itself, not a million bucks.

Besides, James Randi asks you to take a great many things on "faith." He assumes that psychics and mediums are frauds and hucksters before he even hears their claims. This is not science. This is not even rational. It's faith. Randi has "faith" that there are no paranormal abilities. It's an article of faith for him that every claimant is a fraud.

Personally, I prefer to keep an open mind.

Apparently, so does the CIA. The Central Intelligence Agency has been experimenting with "remote viewing" for decades. Here's the abstract:

In July 1995 the CIA declassified, and approved for release, documents revealing its sponsorship in the 1970s of a program at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA, to determine whether such phenomena as remote viewing "might have any utility for intelligence collection" [1]. Thus began disclosure to the public of a two-decade-plus involvement of the intelligence community in the investigation of so-called parapsychological or psi phenomena. Presented here by the program's Founder and first Director (1972 - 1985) is the early history of the program, including discussion of some of the first, now declassified, results that drove early interest.

It's probably been reclassified by now, but at least some data got out and onto the net.

My main problem with "skeptics" is their irrational behavior and scientifically unsupported claims -- all of which are ostensibly meant to prove the superiority of sound science. Talk about ruining your own case. Take a look at this example of "logic" by some leading skeptics:

Hyman's research has included examination of alleged psychic readings and critiques of parapsychological experiments. He acknowledges that Schwartz has excellent academic credentials but blasts his medium research.

"Probably no other extended program in psychical research deviates so much from the accepted norms of scientific methodology as this one."

After reviewing Schwartz's book, "The Afterlife Experiments," he said readings by Schwartz's "star mediums," like Dubois, "strike me as no different in kind from those of any run-of-the-mill psychic readers and as completely consistent with cold (fake) readings."

He criticized Schwartz for other research errors, such as using only subjects "predisposed" to believe in this phenomenon and for "inappropriate statistical tests."

In response, Schwartz said Hyman ignored and omitted facts that do not support his biases. "This is like a skeptical sports reviewer focusing on Michael Jordan's few air balls and fouls, and drawing the conclusion that Jordan can't play basketball," he said.

Excellent response by Schwartz. Hyman is blantantly ignoring everything that doesn't fit into his worldview, then Hyman turns around and blasts Schwartz for the failures in his model.

Basically, Hyman's logic seems to be that if the psychics (and the researchers) fall short of infallibility in any way, then that means they are total frauds in every way. That's not logic. From perusing A List of Fallacious Arguments, it would seem to point to "Moving The Goalposts (Raising The Bar, Argument By Demanding Impossible Perfection)" or maybe "Argument By Selective Reading". Either way it's a crutch for someone who can't make a decent argument without resorting to fallacy. I thought Hyman was supposed to be defending rational thought. Instead he is abusing it to defend his preconceived notions. I should also note that the list above comes from a skeptic -- one who appears more reasonable than Hyman or James Randi.

Anyway, I don't expect that we'll "prove" psychic powers are real anytime soon, but I think it's worth exploring whether certain people have the gift. Actually, I had an interesting idea about how to prove the old cliche "mind over matter" isn't just a cute saying: Study a bunch of psychics like Dubois in a controlled environment. Then, for some psychics, bring in some flaming skeptics like Randi and see if Randi's uncontrollable hatred and bias actually affects the accuracy of the psychic, just by being in the same room.

Could it be that skepticism is a psychic power?! :-)

Researchers test for telepathy using virtual reality system

In order to accurately test for the existance of telepathy (and not be made fun of by other scientists) the researchers at The University of Manchester have created a virtual computer world to control for variables normally outside of their control:

The system, which immerses an individual in what looks like a life-size computer game, has been created as part of a joint project between The University's School of Computer Science and School of Psychological Sciences.

Approximately 100 participants will take part in the experiment which aims to test whether telepathy exists between individuals using the system. The project will also look at how telepathic abilities may vary depending on the relationships which exist between participants.

The test is carried out using two volunteers who could be friends, work colleagues or family. They are placed in separate rooms on different floors of the same building to eliminate any possibility of communication.

Participants enter the virtual environment by donning a head-mounted 3D display and an electronic glove which they use to navigate their way through the computer generated world.

Once inside participants view a random selection of computer-generated objects. These include a telephone, a football and an umbrella. The person in the first room sees one object at a time, which they are asked to concentrate on and interact with.

The person in the other room is simultaneously presented with the same object plus three decoy objects. They are then asked to select the object they believe the other participant is trying to transmit to them.

Sounds like a good plan. There's always a lot of hucksterism in paranormal circles so using normal people and placing them in a virtual world is a good control system. There really isn't another way to make scientists pay attention to the possibility of ESP and other abilities.

Personally, I think it's pretty obvious that humans have psychic abilities. Whenever I'm staring at a beautiful girl from across the room she almost always feels my gaze and looks at me. As long as people aren't really distracted (i.e. talking to someone else, reading, working) you can usually get them to look at you after staring at them for only a dozen seconds or so, even if they didn't know you were there and there was no line-of-sight. Try it next time you're at the mall.

Whether this experiment will be able to "prove" telepathic abilities exist is an open question. From the sound of it, they were more concerned with not being made fun of by other scientists. It's good that they're trying, but you have to wonder if they're taking the right approach. Scientists really hate the idea that there's something out there that they can't explain, can't be accurately measured or predicted and behaves in a way that can only be described as irrational. My question is: Why do you expect the universe to be easily explainable, rational and predictable? What evidence do you have that states that reality (all of it) should play by your rules?

until the 20th century, reality was everything humans could touch, smell, see and hear. since the inital publication of the charged electromagnetic spectrum, humans learned that what they can touch, smell, see, and hear... is less than one millionth of reality. -- Incubus, "New Skin"

What if "reality" doesn't play by your rules?

Massive crowds in Mexico protest stolen election

Close to a million people spilled out into the streets on Sunday to protest possible fraud in the recent presidential election:

Hundreds of thousands of protesters marched through the Mexican capital on Sunday to demand a manual recount in the disputed presidential election, led by a leftist candidate who says fraud cost him the presidency.

As a precaution, the Roman Catholic Church canceled Mass at the city’s downtown cathedral as supporters of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador began to overwhelm the central plaza to the sound of firecrackers and bands. Police officials in the pro-Lopez Obrador city government estimated the crowd at 900,000.

900,000 is a lot of people! Visit the linked article to see just how many people showed up. Why can't Americans get off their asses and protest when our elections are stolen. Good for Mexico!

Music video for Iron Maiden's new single The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg

What a weird song title - just who is Benjamin Breeg?

Here's the video, which will hopefully not get yanked offline:



Is it fuckin' cool?! I hope so; I haven't even watched it myself yet! That's how fast you're getting this.

Up the Irons!

Hot... so hot

Man, it was hot this weekend. We either hit 100 or got damn close to it here in MN. I'm lovin' it -- I much prefer hot weather to cold weather. I wish I could box and store this heat for the winter.

I love a good heatwave; makes you realize it's summer out. Mmm.. hmmm... Of course, today it was hot as hell out but I never even saw the sun. It was a weird day; thick clouds all around and rain in the morning, but the heat stuck around -- stick being the operative word as it was beyond humid out today. I played a couple hours of disc golf and when I was done my T-shirt felt like I had been swimming in it.

Global warming is fuckin' great!

Israel versus Lebanon and Hezbollah: a prelude to attacking Syria and Iran?

Perhaps you've seen news reports of Israel blowing the ever-loving shit out of Lebanon in a Middle East already drowning in tension. What's this all about? Is it really just about one captured Israeli soldier?

Jeff over at Rigorous Intution implies that Israel is working behind the scenes with American neocons to spark a war with Iran:

Israel's war upon Lebanon would be a disproportionate response if Israel were actually responding to the kidnapping of two of its soldiers. It isn't, of course. (If it were, we may have seen a limited cross-border incursion that resembled a rescue mission, rather than these blunt-force deep attacks on Lebanese infrastructure.) Rather the war, like most wars of aggression, is a response to the pathological necessities of the aggressor's ideology.

America's Countdown: Tehran has been stuck at 20 minutes and holding for a couple of months now, derailed by Iran's rational posture regarding its nuclear ambitions and the ongoing thwarting of anything approaching even the Bush administration's benchmark for a casus belli. Israel's hawks, by smashing in the back door, are baiting Iran to action, which would goad the US to crash through the front. Israeli military claims, trumpeted by FoxNews, that the Haifa rockets were fired by Iranian Guard units, and the absurd suggestion that Hezbollah intends to transport their captured soldiers to Iran, say forcefully that this isn't about Lebanon, though for now it will be mostly the Lebanese who perish.

Could it be that this war is just a provocation for Iran? Iran has already taken the bait by saying they will defend Syria if Israel attacks Syria. Israel has reportedly given Syria a 72-hour ultimatum to stop Hezbollah activity within its borders or face attack. Interestingly, this warning was revealed by a Pentagon official. Other neocons are insisting that Syria and Iran are behind the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier(s) that is the ostensible impetus behind the attacks.

Meanwhile, the right-wing talk show hosts are already saying that we're witnessing the beginning of World War III or World War IV, depending on how you count (I prefer WWIV). Since they are the mouthpieces of the ones planning and instigating these wars, I tend to believe them.

This is a dangerous game the neocons are playing. First, they accuse Hezbollah, Syria and Iran of making a dangerous bid for more influence (how does supposedly masterminding the kidnapping of one or two soldiers in Gaza gain you more influence? The neocons never seem to explain that line of reasoning), then they let Israel go nuts and bomb the hell out of whoever they want -- so of course they go after Hezbollah in Lebanon since Lebanon can't really fight back.

What's next according to the neocon plan? I'm guessing that Israel will try it's best to lure Syria into the fight. Syria would be stupid to fall for this, but if they are attacked I'm sure they will respond. Israel doesn't want to be seen as being the aggressor so I doubt they will simply invade. They need a pretext. Hezbollah provides that as a terrorist organization that is supposedly hiding in Lebanon and Syria. Israel can claim to be chasing fleeing Hezbollah fighters right into Syria.

That still doesn't absolve Israel's actions in the international community, however. They need something more. No doubt the neocons will try to manufacture some sort of excuse for Israel -- just as every other part of this exercise in preemptive warfare has been manufactured. If the neocons can't deke Syria and Iran into open warfare they'll have to go through the tiresome process of starting a Coalition of the Willing (part 2) and convincing the U.N. Security Council that we need to invade and conquer Iran before they attack us with their mighty turbans.

We just have to hope that Iran and Syria keep their cool while the pressure all around them mounts. They last thing they should do is make any threatening moves. That will only spell destruction for them and their people.

They need to stall for time before the neofascists manage to draw them into a fight. What they really need is, well.... us! We, the people of the United States of America, need to take back our government from the tyrant Bush and end his reign of terror across the globe. Only then will the situation return to some level of calmness. As long as Bush is in power the King of Terror rules.

Cats: cute and deadly

I found this video yesterday. It's a bunch of clips of cats doing funny, cute and stupid shit. A lot of it seems to revolve around attacking children (but not very ferociously) and getting stuck in unusual situations. Pretty funny stuff!



Ah, I love cats. So cute. Hope you enjoy!

Reverend compares Ken Lay to MLK and Jesus Christ at the Enron swindler's funeral

[from digg]
The Reverend Dr. Bill Lawson compared Lay with civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus Christ, and said his name would eventually be cleared. "He was taken out of the world right at the right time," he said. "History has a way of vindicating people who have been wronged."

read more | digg story
[/digg]

This is something that I saw and thought nothing of. .At first. ... But then I began to realize what a twisted world we live in if some "reverend" in a church of followers of Jesus Christ, has compared his saviour, his hallowed friend Jesus -- to Ken Lay, a man who duped and betrayed thousands, if not millions of people. What the fuck is this guy on?

Somebody get the reverend a fuckin' bible. If you can get that shit out of the bible, then you can truly get anything out of it. Did he not learn anything in seminary school? How can he compare a man like Lay to Jesus? The man was a crook! He screwed over his entire company and all the shareholders, and made millions in the process. What a fuckin' dick. 'nuff said.

I'm sure all his Republican buddies still love Kenny Boy. Hey, they profited from his schemes too, and they knew when to get out -- when he was.

But what I find most interesting about this article, is actually the first section with the interview of Lay's stepson:

Lay's stepson David Herrold told the nearly full First United Methodist Church that Lay was wrongly convicted, and he was angry about the portrayals of his stepfather in the media.

"He did have a strong faith in God and I know he's in heaven, and I'm glad he's not in a position anymore to be whipped by his enemy," Herrold said.

"His enemy"? Who would his enemy be? The American people? The criminal justice system? His former cow-0rkers and shareholders? .... God?

Think about how messed up this guy and his rationalizations are. I don't know how he can justify Lay's actions and still continue to call himself a rational and intellectually honest person. Maybe he doesn't call himself that, I dunno. But what really intrigues me (and scares me) is the idea that people like Ken Lay and his stepson and the Reverend have a logical and moral system that is utterly divorced from my own, and from most of the rest of the country's. They exist in a moral plane of evil and amoral action.

Are there people who are... just, plain... evil?

A disturbing thought. One that needs closer examination.

But not too close.

Valerie Plame Wilson (ex-CIA) sues Dick Cheney for leaking her identity

Oh man, this is good stuff:

The CIA officer whose identity was leaked to reporters sued Vice President Dick Cheney, his former top aide and presidential adviser Karl Rove on Thursday, accusing them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Valerie Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador, accused Cheney, Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby of revealing Plame's CIA identity in seeking revenge against Wilson for criticizing the Bush administration's motives in Iraq.

This is great news. I think it's clear that Dick started this whole fiasco, so it's fitting that he would be sued for it. Will this be a civil suit? I would imagine so, but I'm not sure. If so that would mean she could really only nail him for cash, but it certainly would provide some negative PR for the Bush administration.

Nail the hypocritical fuckers. They're always complaining about leaks -- except when they're the ones doing the leaking.

Bush Attacked by Rabid Turkey!

What a fearsome attack by the turkey!! Bush is surely finished now. Whole swarms of turkeys will track him wherever he goes. He messed up big. They first thing they tell you is "don't piss off turkeys" in politics.

Okay, so I just found a picture and made that up. But Fox News makes up news all the time, so why can't I? And really, don't we all secretly wish that GW would be eaten alive by vicious swarms of malignantly insane turkeys prowling the earth searching for prey among the weak and stupid? I mean c'mon; everybody wishes that.

I think we've really learned a lot here today, children. Let's all prey for the president's immediate emasculation by turkeys in the hope that it will improve the sociopolitical milieu of our times. No doubt the current political paradigm is trending towards a cancerous expansion of power reminiscient of the archetypal slide into oligarchical totalitarianism so familiar in history that it calls for the only remedy that could be carried out forthwith, which is the president being fed to a ravenous squadron of rabid turkeys. Duh.

That's a great picture, though. Bush would be a funny guy if he weren't so sociopathic.

President Bush is infallible! He can do no wrong!

So says a Justice Department Lawyer To Congress: ‘The President Is Always Right’:

LEAHY: I don’t think the President was talking about the nuances of the law of war paradigm, he was saying this was going to tell him that he could keep Guantanamo open or not, after it said he could.

BRADBURY: Well, it’s not —

LEAHY: Was the President right or was he wrong?

BRABURY: It’s under the law of war –

LEAHY: Was the President right or was he wrong?

BRADBURY: The President is always right.

This is what I'm talking about when I bitch about fascism. This whole idea that our leaders are somehow infallible in completely antithetical to the American Way. We were raised with the notion that it's okay to question authority and then this dumbass comes around says that President Bush is "always right" by virtue of... what? His power? His name? I have no idea how Foolio plans on justifying that statement. It was probably just an idiotic one-off, but it points to an underlying authoritarianism in government. Remember, these are the people Bush surrounds himself with -- so of course they will kiss his ass. But saying he's infallible to Congress? That's just fucking nuts.

Besides, George Bush is, if anything, always wrong.

John Dean on Authoritarians and their Followers in the Neoconservative Movement

Great interview of John Dean. Scary stuff:



Olbermann and Dean go over the dramatic shift in neoconservativism towards authoritarianism. Dean says that approximately 23 percent of the population is ready to follow any strong, authoritarian leader right over the cliff. Logic, reality and American values don't enter into it; certain people are followers. According to Dean, the vast majority of those people are of a conservative mindset, and their loyalty is absolute, even to the point of betraying everything they stand for if Dear Leader demands it.

Also hinted at is the vested interest of the current government in ratcheting up the fear level by playing up nonexistant terrorism threats. There's a definite political advantage to keeping people afraid and it seems clear that the Bush/Cheney cabal have exploited this fact to strengthen their hold on power.

Watch the whole video for more. It's about 10 minutes and touches on a lot of interesting subjects.

Positive story about Psilocybin produces profound confusion by being fair and factual

Is today April Fools or something? I just read, on the AP wire, a completely positive story about 'shrooms (psilocybin) that didn't have any "drugs are bad! Just say no! Boo!!" bullshit. Okay, there was one line in there about not doing it, but the rest of the story was extremely reasonable, fair and accurate. What the hell is going on here? Did drug paranoia suddenly wear off when I wasn't looking? This is amazing. Check out the article for an informative look at the drug psilocybin, which is found in so-called "magic mushrooms":

Psilocybin's effects lasted for up to six hours, Griffiths said. Twenty-two of the 36 volunteers reported having a "complete" mystical experience, compared to four of those getting methylphenidate.

That experience included such things as a sense of pure awareness and a merging with ultimate reality, a transcendence of time and space, a feeling of sacredness or awe, and deeply felt positive mood like joy, peace and love. People say "they can't possibly put it into words," Griffiths said.

Two months later, 24 of the participants filled out a questionnaire. Two-thirds called their reaction to psilocybin one of the five top most meaningful experiences of their lives. On another measure, one-third called it the most spiritually significant experience of their lives, with another 40% ranking it in the top five.

About 80% said that because of the psilocybin experience, they still had a sense of well-being or life satisfaction that was raised either "moderately" or "very much."

Read the whole article for more.

I... I'm in shock. The mainstream media has produced an article that touts the spiritual awareness gained from ingesting a controlled substance?!

Seriously?!! Am I high?! Is this a prank? I'm flabbergasted! Where's the customary scare-tactics, fear-mongering, lies, distortions, half-truths, Republican-rhetoric, hate and demagoguery that I'm so used to? My whole worldview is shattered. Must've been a mistake over at the AP. The editor must be new. He didn't get the memo: You're only supposed to mock or lie about drugs in the mainstream media. If there's a positive scientific finding you're supposed to ignore it, not write up a glowing story on it! Jeez, somebody give this guy a copy of The Complete Works of Nancy Reagan.

I think I need to go lay down.

Sad news: Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett has died

I'm a huge Pink Floyd fan, so this one hits close to home. Syd's era isn't my favorite part of Pink Floyd's catalog, but he was really the cornerstone of the band. Everything they did after that point was influenced by Syd in some way or another. Pink Floyd's second masterwork, Wish You Were Here, is considered a concept album directed at Syd Barrett. It's one of my favorite albums and a fitting tribute to the genius that was Syd.

Looks like Syd may have died from complications related to his diabetes:

Syd Barrett, the troubled genius who co-founded Pink Floyd but spent his last years in reclusive anonymity, has died, a spokeswoman for the band said Tuesday. He was 60.

The spokeswoman - who declined to give her name until the band made an official announcement - confirmed media reports that he had died. She said Barrett died several days ago, but she did not disclose the cause of death. Barrett had suffered from diabetes for many years.

Barrett co-founded Pink Floyd in 1965 with David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Rick Wright, and wrote many of the band's early songs. The group's jazz-infused rock made them darlings of the London psychedelic scene, and the 1967 album "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" - largely written by Barrett, who also played guitar - was a commercial and critical hit.

However, Barrett suffered from mental instability, exacerbated by his use of LSD. His behavior grew increasingly erratic, and he left the group in 1968 - five years before the release of Pink Floyd's most popular album, "Dark Side of the Moon." He was replaced by David Gilmour.

I'm actually kind of surprised that Syd lived this long. He had long since fried his brain on LSD. Actually, that might not have been the case. Gilmour has speculated that his mental problems were deep-seated and that he would've flipped out either way. In Gilmour's eyes, the drugs just acted as a trigger, although Pink Floyd's sudden fame might have been even more disorienting for Barrett.

Either way, it's sad to see Syd go. I'm not sure that his life was all that great these days, though, so it may be a blessing for him to go peacefully. His stature in the music industry will only continue to rise with his passing. He founded one of the greatest rock and roll bands ever, and his creativity sparked their genius long after he was out of the group.

Let me be the first imagination-deprived blogger to say: Shine on, you crazy diamond.

The Fight for Mexico isn't over: Allegations of fraud and vote-rigging

The Mexican election battle is still going strong, despite claims of victory by the rightist candidate Calderon:

Despite what both Calderon and Lopez Obrador tell their supporters and what you read in press reports, the next President has yet to be officially declared. IFE is not the body responsible for officially announcing the next President. Rather, it is TRIFE (Electoral Tribunal) that will make an official announcement by early September, after addressing complaints filed by each party. The parties have four days to file their objections following the results of the tally sheet count — which was concluded last Thursday.

Last night, the PRD, Lopez Obrador’s party, delivered their official complaint to the tribunal.

TRIFE, a supposedly non-partisan, independent body, has the responsibility to examine irregularities brought forth to them. TRIFE, will therefore, have to consider facts such as:

• Why hundreds of thousands of ballots have yet to be included in any count;

• Why ballots have been found, literally, in the trash;

• Why there was a massive amount of “drop-off”, i.e. where people showed up to vote but did not cast a vote for president;

• Why, on Election Day, Casilla workers in places like Queretaro and Salamanca were caught on video, stuffing ballot boxes and changing tally sheets.

• The use and role of public expenditures on Calderon’s campaign;

• The intervention of the current President, Vicente Fox (a member of PAN), which benefitted Calderon, during the campaign, and which is illegal according to the Electoral Commission’s rules.

That's quite a list of accusations. It seems that there were serious irregularities, despite claims that the election was fair. It's not clear which party was behind the crimes, but it could well be all of them.

Still, many crimes like stuffing ballot boxes and refusing to count all of the votes cast point to a high degree of "access" to the ballots themselves. It is not beyond belief that PAN, the present ruling party, was behind much of the electioneering.

Whatever the case, I'm hoping for a quick and correct resolution to the crisis in Mexico. I hope people keep spilling out in the street. I heard that far more than the reported crowd of 100,000 came out to assemble in Mexico City. That's a good start, but they've got to keep up the pressure. Remember Ukraine and what their people did to preserve democracy. In November 2004 the Ukrainian people rose up. The American people did not.

Let's hope Mexico grabs the flame of liberty.

"We're in the business of rigging elections." Does that include Mexico?

The title references a quote from a North Carolina state senator:

But the court, in six opinions spanning 123 pages, rejected the broader challenge to the Texas plan, holding that there is nothing inherently unconstitutional about redrawing congressional maps in the middle of the decade in order to give one party a political advantage. The ruling opens the door for state lawmakers to redraw congressional maps whenever there is a shift in political power, instead of after the federal census at the start of each decade, as has been customary.

The ruling was a disappointment for reformers who hoped the court would rein in partisan gerrymandering, which has been blamed for a host of ills, from noncompetitive elections to increased animosity in Congress. Armed with sophisticated computer programs, legislators have drawn maps to create safe congressional districts with clear partisan majorities. And it has worked — two years ago, nearly 98 percent of House incumbents won re-election.

As one North Carolina state senator put it, "We're in the business of rigging elections."

Yep, and that's why we can't get rid of these clowns. They've used every trick in the book to make sure they are re-elected, as might be expected. Congress Critters are only human after all (okay, that might be open to debate in James Sensebrenner's case), but a 98 percent re-election rate for incumbents is unacceptable.

As another US News article makes clear, we may be living in "A Fake Democracy":

But redistricting isn't the only culprit. The skyrocketing cost of running for Congress is also stifling competition. In 1990, successful House challengers spent an average $282,000 on their campaigns, as measured in current dollars. In 2004, winning challengers shelled out an average $1.6 million each. At the same time, the chances of winning plummeted. In 1990, 16 challengers won. In 2004, just five did. "In the last election," says Sheila Krumholz, acting executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, "a challenger who spent less than a million dollars technically had zero chance of winning."

What kind of democracy is this if only rich people can get elected? At least we know the upper class is well (very well) represented; but what about the underclass? How can we call this a democracy when 90% of the people aren't represented in Congress at all?

What would explain why only five challengers managed to take office in the 2004 elections? I'll tell you: This government sounds more like an oligarchy than a democracy. From the article:

Two years ago, nearly 98 percent of House incumbents seeking re-election won, capping a decade of partisan stasis unmatched in U.S. history. "House elections ... are starting to take on all the suspense of contests for the old Soviet Union's central committee," writes Juliet Eilperin, author of the new book Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship Is Poisoning the House of Representatives. What happened to the institution the Founders designed to be more responsive to voters than any other? The answer has to do with redistricting, money, and an increasingly polarized "red"/"blue" America. At a moment when the Bush administration is aggressively pushing democracy abroad, there are serious questions about the health of the American democratic experiment at home.

Bush's focus on democracy in other places is a useful distraction while he steadily chisels it away back home. His actions have been opposed to democratic principles in almost every decision he made.

Dubya's "democracy"-export plan continues in Mexico, where there have been discoveries of uncommonly large amounts of blank ballots:

...That’s noteworthy in light of the surprise showing of candidate Senor Blank-o (the 827,000 ballots supposedly left “blank”).

We’ve seen Mr Blank-o do well before - in Florida in 2000 when Florida’s secretary of state (who was also co-chair of the Bush campaign) announced that 179,000 ballots showed no vote for the president. The machines couldn’t read these ballots with “hanging chads” and other technical problems. Humans can read these ballots with ease, but the hand-count was blocked by Bush’s conflicted official.

And so it is in Mexico. The Calderon “victory” is based on a gross addition of tabulation sheets. His party, the PAN, and its election officials are refusing Lopez Obrador’s call for a hand recount of each ballot which would be sure to fill in those blanks.

Blank ballots are rarely random. In Florida in 2000, 88% of the supposedly blank ballots came from African-American voting districts - that is, they were cast by Democratic voters. In Mexico, the supposed empty or unreadable ballots come from the poorer districts where the challenger’s Party of the Democratic Revolution (PDR) is strongest.

I wonder if they'll trot out the "they're too stupid to vote properly" excuse again? That's usually a winner. Speaking of winners, they're saying that Calderon is the winner, but I'm with Palast on this on; it's just not clear who the winner is yet. Count those "blank" ballots and maybe we'll have a clearer picture.

The Occupation of the Media

The American military occupies Iraq and, by extension, the Iraqi people. But it also occupies the American media, especially the embedded reporters. The military will go to great lengths to get a positive story, but if the story looks negative the military will do nothing to help the reporters. It's only logical, after all. Iraq is a dangerous place. So should we be embedding reporters at all since it's such a one-sided story?

The producer said that it was impossible to pursue stories frowned upon by the military—for example, on how the local population viewed the occupation and American troops—because she was not permitted to leave the base on her own. The height of absurdity came when the Tikrit compound came under serious attack one evening and the producer was asked by the Reuters bureau in Baghdad to phone in a report on the situation. “We couldn't find out anything [from the U.S. military],” she said, so Reuters had to cover the fighting from Baghdad, despite having a TV producer and reporter on the ground at the compound in Tikrit.

The producer frequently filmed foot patrols and nighttime raids. She said that for the latter, the military and the embedded journalists would drive for long stretches in pitch darkness. The raids themselves, she said, were blurry and confusing, and afterwards soldiers would round up suspected insurgents and sympathizers for interrogation. It was routine for the producer to wait in one room of a house while detainees were questioned in another. “Not always, but there were times when I would hear detainees screaming during the questioning,” she said. “I'm not sure what was happening but they were screaming loudly—they weren't just being slapped around.” Because she obviously was not permitted to film the interrogations, none of that material could be included in her pool feeds.

The war is corrosive not just to American ideals but to the spirits of our troops over there fighting. If they don't need to be placed in such an amoral situation then they should be thrust into that kind of world. Iraq was a war of choice. Dick Cheney's choice.

The military's occuption of the media as long as the media cowers at the idea of biting the hand that feeds it. We need more independent reporting in Iraq, although I sure as hell wouldn't want to be over there without support. Where can we find the real story of Iraq? From the sound of things, it's worse than we know.