News -- February 9, 2006

Bush Rebukes Muslim Violence, Chides Press - "President Bush condemned the deadly rioting sparked by cartoons of the prophet Muhammad on Wednesday, and his secretary of state accused Iran and Syria of trying "to inflame sentiments" across the Muslim world." -- And that may be the reason for all the comotion. The U.S. continues to paint Iran and Syria as not worthy of being allowed to exist on the face of the Earth. Nevermind that they have just as much of a right to exist, as well as to believe in what they choose to believe in, as the rest of the humanity.

Power: It's Ours to Give, Not His to Take - "When the leader believes he needs more power, he must go to the people or their representatives and ask them for it. The power in our democratic form of governance, after all, resides with the people. It’s ours to give, not his to take. President Bush didn’t do that. Acting in secrecy, he simply took the power he wanted for his own. That’s how dictators in banana republics operate. That’s the issue here. It’s that simple."

'Tough choices' for whom? - "However, when the wealthy and powerful speak of ''tough choices,'' the true meaning of the phrase is turned into a cynical code, meaning: making choices that will not directly affect the decision-maker, but will make life tougher for those already in a tough situation. ... How come you never hear politicians talking about the ''tough choice'' of not giving away billions of dollars in tax breaks for corporations and the super rich? ... When politicians make the ''tough choices'' that Pence speaks of they understand their own lives are not at stake. What they're really saying is: Look at the foresight and courage I have. This won't be easy but I'm going to persevere through the pain (despite the fact that the pain will actually be felt by someone else). That's not a real ''tough choice.'' ... The real tough choice we, the people, have ahead of us is deciding whether to keep electing people who choose to balance budgets on the backs of those who lead the toughest lives in this country while giving tax give-aways to the rich in the hopes that the crumbs will eventually fall from the table."

Democrats assemble an army of veterans to beat Bush - "ANDREW HORNE, clear-eyed, clean-cut and ramrod straight, never wanted to be a politician. But then something happened to the Marine Reserves lieutenant colonel who once supported the invasion of Iraq. He was sent to fight there. It was an experience that turned him vehemently against President Bush and a war he now believes can never be won definitively. “Iraq is a symptom of what’s wrong with this Administration,” Mr Horne told The Times over coffee near his Kentucky law office. “It’s hubristic. It’s wedded to political cronyism. It hides the truth. It ignores advice. I want to go to Washington to be part of a solution.”"

The Art of Saying Nothing - "We thought President Bush's two recent Supreme Court nominees set new lows when it came to giving vague and meaningless answers to legitimate questions, but Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made them look like models of openness when he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday about domestic spying. Mr. Gonzales seems to have forgotten the promise he made to the same panel last year when it voted to promote him from White House counsel to attorney general: that he would serve the public interest and stop acting like a hired gun helping a client figure out how to evade the law."

Yet Another Bush Lie - "George W. Bush has assured Americans that they can relax about his warrantless wiretapping because the program is reviewed by lots of lawyers and intelligence professionals. What he doesn’t say is that officials who object too much find themselves isolated, ridiculed and pushed out of their jobs."

Snapshot of death - "Click on the picture to enlarge. The actual number of deaths is likely to be much higher. The map is based on data from the American, British and Iraqi governments and news reports. The number killed by US strikes in particular seems low."

It's Your War! You Go Fight It! - "According to the Denver Rocky Mountain News, a survey of high school students in Jefferson County, Colorado, just west of Denver, revealed that 25 percent of them opted out of allowing military recruiters to contact them. This is up from 13 percent one year before. In highly affluent Douglas County, south of Denver, the number is 55 percent. As one high school junior in Boulder told "the Rocky": “The whole getting-shot-at thing - I have better things I want to do.” This survey comes on the heels of a recent Pentagon study stating that the US Army “has become a ‘thin green line’ that could snap unless relief comes soon.” I know exactly where the Army can find such “relief.” Millions of Americans who support America’s policy of perpetual war have never served one day in the military. Most of the pundits, politicians and policymakers who promote and vote for America’s troop presence in 130 countries, as well as the Iraq war and – this is a safe bet – a war with Iran, fall into this category. For some "sacrifice" means reading an e-mail from a Democrat."

Intelligence - "I'm going to say something very dangerous: most people are so quick to accuse someone else for problems they see going on around the world, but Muhammad-forbid we look in the mirror."

US plans massive data sweep - " The US government is developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of terrorist activity. The system - parts of which are operational, parts of which are still under development - is already credited with helping to foil some plots. It is the federal government's latest attempt to use broad data-collection and powerful analysis in the fight against terrorism. But by delving deeply into the digital minutiae of American life, the program is also raising concerns that the government is intruding too deeply into citizens' privacy. ... ADVISE "looks very much like TIA," Mr. Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation writes in an e-mail. "There's the same emphasis on broad collection and pattern analysis." ... "This sort of technology does protect against a real threat," says Jeffrey Ullman, professor emeritus of computer science at Stanford University. "If a computer suspects me of being a terrorist, but just says maybe an analyst should look at it ... well, that's no big deal. This is the type of thing we need to be willing to do, to give up a certain amount of privacy." Others are less sure." -- Count me as one of the "others."

Military role in space said set to expand - "The military's role in deterring attacks on commercial satellites is set to be strengthened in the first broad overhaul of U.S. space policy in a decade, a U.S. official said on Wednesday."

City Chatter: The Terrorists of Tiny Town: Homeland security keeping our country safe from kindergarteners (hey, they could be Al Qaeda...) - "The kindergarten class at Lakewood’s Taft Elementary was planning a field trip to NASA Glenn Research Center. It’s a popular trip because it’s free, because the NASA staff already has age-appropriate tours that fit well with school curriculum, and, well, it’s outer space, for pete’s sake. They’ve got rocket ships. And NASA works the education angle hard. According to the agency, “A major part of the NASA mission is ‘To inspire the next generation of explorers . . . as only NASA can.’” And of course they talk about math and science. NASA says about 400 school groups took tours last year. But school principal Margaret Seibel says this year’s trip for Taft kindergarteners — we’re talking 6-year-olds here — had to be canceled due to homeland security concerns. Since new security regulations went into effect in May 1, 2005, access to the Visitor Center is restricted to United State citizens. All others might be terrorists. No tourists from France, no exchange students from Tokyo and, no foreign national kindergarteners on field trips. “I was told they would not make any exceptions,” Seibel says. Because two kids in the kindergarten class are not U.S. citizens, the teacher had to cancel the trip." -- No comment.

Israel plans to build 'museum of tolerance' on Muslim graves - "Skeletons are being removed from the site of an ancient Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem to make way for a $150m (£86m) "museum of tolerance" being built for the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre. Palestinians have launched a legal battle to stop the work at what was the city's main Muslim cemetery. The work is to prepare for the construction of a museum which seeks the promotion of "unity and respect among Jews and between people of all faiths"."

Fawlty England fans risk jail - "England football fans could be jailed if they do the Basil Fawlty goosestep during the World Cup Finals in Germany. Using Nazi symbols or actions is illegal in Germany and authorities say the same tough penalties given to right wing extremists will apply to fans who copy the salutes - even if done in jest. Christian Sachs, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said: "It doesn't matter if someone is doing the goosestep, raising their arm in the Hitler greeting or handing out swastikas, these are all crimes in Germany and can be punished with up to three years in jail.""

Group alleges Yahoo! complicit in Chinese dissident arrest - "A freedom of speech group has accused Yahoo! of complying with the Chinese government's program of cracking down on dissident political speech on the Internet."

Chips that really get under your skin - "Without the white headphones, how will anyone know you're listening to an iPod? Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) weren't concerned with such weighty questions when they developed a chip that allows you to listen to an iPod using your forearm as the transmission wire for the audio signals. The chip was detailed in one of several presentations during a session called "Silicon in Biology" at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) here Thursday."

News Corp profit tops one billion US dollars - "News Corp. announced a profit of 1.08 billion dollars in the just-ended quarter, nearly triple the result from the same period a year ago." -- Go ahead, try to fathom one billion dollars.

6-Year-Old Accused Of Sexual Harassment - "It's a case of sexual harassment -- involving first-graders. A boy at Downey Elementary in Brockton, Mass., was suspended from school for three days last month after school officials said that he sexually harassed a girl in his class."

NASA Telescope Spots Mega Solar Systems - "Scientists have found evidence of two mega solar systems - giant stars enveloped by what appear to be huge disks of planet-forming dust, they said Wednesday. The appearance of cloudy disks around stars are believed to represent current or future planetary systems. ... The new stars are believed to be 30 to 70 times more massive than the sun."

Oldest Known Tyrannosaur Found - "Paleontologists have unearthed two fossilized dinosaurs believed to be the oldest ancestors of the tyrannosaur family, researchers announced Wednesday. The new species had a cranial crest and was likely covered in feathers, but was only a third the size of its famous cousin, Tyrannosaurus rex. Still, the discovery sets back the clock on the tyrannosaur family by at least 30 million years."




Quote of the Day
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

News -- February 8, 2006

Hawks have warplanes ready if the nuclear diplomacy fails - "IT IS the option of last resort with consequences too hideous to contemplate. And yet, with diplomacy nearly exhausted, the use of military force to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme is being actively considered by those grappling with one of the world’s most pressing security problems." -- These are sad times we live in.

Who's the Bigger Hawk, George or Hillary? - "You'd have to pull out a microscope to differentiate between George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton. Both want a continued occupation of Iraq. Both want sanctions on Iran. And they both claim to want democracy in the Middle East. Yet neither will accept a democratic outcome if it doesn't favor U.S. interests."

Poll: Growing Number of People Fear Iran - "Americans' fears about Iran have grown sharply over the last few months as efforts by the United States and Europe to slow Tehran's nuclear program have been firmly rejected, a poll found. More people in this country now rate Iran as the biggest threat to the U.S., 27 percent, than say that about any other country, including North Korea, China and Iraq, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press." -- The propoganda appears to be working.

Strong Leads and Dead Ends in Nuclear Case Against Iran - "CIA analysts, some of whom had been involved only a year earlier on the flawed assessments of Iraq's weapons programs, initially speculated that a third country, such as Israel, may have fabricated the evidence. But they eventually discounted that theory."

U.S.: Iran sanctions without UN backing would be legitimate - "Imposing economic sanctions on Iran without United Nations backing would be legitimate if other efforts failed to convince Tehran to halt uranium enrichment, a senior U.S. State Department official said on Monday." -- Another unilateral move by a rogue country.

"You know what happened to Nixon when he broke the law" - "White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan got in a heated row with a White House correspondent at Monday's press briefing over President Bush's warrantless domestic spying program."

Paying The Iraq Bill - "Shortly before the current Iraq war, when Bush administration economist Larry Lindsey suggested that the costs might range between $100 and $200 billion, other officials quickly demurred. For example, Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels put the number at $60 billion. It now appears that Lindsey’s numbers were a gross underestimate. Concerned that the Bush administration might be misleading everyone about the Iraq war’s costs, just as it had about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and connection with Al Qaeda, I teamed up with Linda Bilmes, a budget expert at Harvard, to examine the issue. Even we—opponents of the war—were staggered by what we found, with conservative to moderate estimates ranging from slightly less than a trillion dollars to more than $2 trillion."

How offensive - "No one has a right not to be offended. Getting all worked up over imaginary harm distracts from the very real harm that is happening all around us."

Someone Get Bush a Gross Of Toilet Paper......... - ".......so he'll stop wiping his ass on the Constitution."

Newfane Resolution Seeks to Impeach President - "Among votes to approve the budget and education spending at Town Meeting, residents will wade into national waters and vote from the floor for the impeachment of President George W. Bush."

Every move you make ... they'll be watching you - "It's getting harder to cover your tracks as even the most everyday activities -- from running a Google search to using the E-Z Pass lane -- leave a lengthy digital trail."

We are moving ever closer to the era of mind control - "The military interest in new brain-scanning technology is beginning to show a sinister side."

Sweden plans to be world's first oil-free economy - "Sweden is to take the biggest energy step of any advanced western economy by trying to wean itself off oil completely within 15 years - without building a new generation of nuclear power stations." -- This is progressive thought.

Exxon: America will always rely on foreign oil - "The United States will always rely on foreign imports of oil to feed its energy needs and should stop trying to become energy independent, a top Exxon Mobil Corp. executive said on Tuesday." -- This is not.

Young and old losers in President's budget - "The US President's $US2.8 trillion ($3.74 trillion) 2007 budget, proposed to Congress on Monday, would increase military spending by 4.8 per cent to $US439 billion, while cutting 141 government programs."

Election officials fear '06 season of the glitch - "More than 30 million Americans will be looking at new and unfamiliar voting machines when they cast their ballots this year, perhaps the most rapid changeover of voting equipment in history. With that change comes an increased risk of errors and confusion, election officials say."

County To Suspend 'Cheating' Sheriff's Deputies - "Sheriff's deputies who get caught cheating on their spouses or sleeping with another person's spouse in Pinellas County, Fla., will be suspended from work for the behavior, according to a Local 6 News report."

Calif. County Bans Tattoos for Employees - "Public employees in San Bernardino County are being asked to cover up tattoos and remove visible facial piercings in the workplace. A dress code adopted by the county Tuesday also bans jeans and T- shirts with logos."

Study Finds Low-Fat Diet Won't Stop Cancer or Heart Disease - ""They should put a stop to this era of thinking that we have all the information we need to change the whole national diet and make everybody healthy.""

Flu Shots and Alzheimer's Disease - "According to Hugh Fudenberg, MD, the world's leading immunogeneticist and 13th most quoted biologist of our times (nearly 850 papers in peer review journals): If an individual has had 5 consecutive flu shots between 1970 and 1980 (the years studied) his/her chances of getting Alzheimer's Disease is 10 times higher than if he/she had one, 2 or no shots."

Japan lab develops humanoid robot that can run house errands - "Though his movement is a bit stiff, slow and voice monotonous, he willingly turns on the television with a chest-mounted remote control, and brings a can of drink for you. Within years, a humanoid robot HRP-2, currently under development by a Japanese national technology institute, could be a little domestic helper."

American dream putting homeowners in deep debt - "If your home is a castle of debt with ramparts of low-cost loans to keep the empire secure and separated from economic reality, you are not alone. In this, the golden age of financing, Americans have been encouraged to borrow and to trade up and up to more-expensive houses and lifestyles -- but the bill is coming due."




Quote of the Day
"You can prove your point, but your kids will still be dead."
~ Roger Waters (Folded Flags)

News -- February 7, 2006

Israel: 'Iran is world's most serious threat since WWII' - "Israel's Ambassador to the United States Danny Ayalon said on Tuesday morning that Iran is the biggest problem facing the world since World War II."

Nuclear War against Iran - "The launching of an outright war using nuclear warheads against Iran is now in the final planning stages. Coalition partners, which include the US, Israel and Turkey are in "an advanced stage of readiness"."

Iran and the jaws of a trap - "Judging from the rather frantic behind-the-scenes efforts of Russia and China in Iran, they seem to appreciate that the Iranian leadership is in for a big and probably deadly surprise. The Bush administration has not only handled its Iran dossier much more skillfully than Iraq, but also managed to set up Iran for a war it can neither win nor fight to a draw."

U.S. may have to go it alone in Iran - "Policy experts warn that the United States may not be able to rely on perennial ally the United Kingdom for support over Iran's nuclear program."

Don't Be Fooled This Isn't an Issue of Islam versus Secularism - "What we're witnessing is the childishness of civilisations. ... In any event, it's not about whether the Prophet should be pictured. The Koran does not forbid images of the Prophet even though millions of Muslims do. The problem is that these cartoons portrayed Mohamed as a bin Laden-type image of violence. They portrayed Islam as a violent religion. It is not. Or do we want to make it so?"

Danish paper rejected Jesus cartoons - "yllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that have caused a storm of protest throughout the Islamic world, refused to run drawings lampooning Jesus Christ, it has emerged today. The Danish daily turned down the cartoons of Christ three years ago, on the grounds that they could be offensive to readers and were not funny." -- Hmmm. So, the Muhammad cartoons are not about free speech but rather a planned agenda.

Muslim Riots Aid Neo-Con Global Agenda - "The riots that are currently sweeping across Europe and the Middle East in response to caricatures of Mohammed that were originally printed in Danish newspapers are staged managed and are helping the Neo-Cons advance the "clash of civilizations" that they need to impose world order and imperial hegemony."

American-style "Globalization" Bound to Go Bust - "As was known already, the World Social Forum denouncing the U.S. "neo-liberalist" policy was held in Caracas from Jan. 24 to 29. The forum discussed the construction of "socialism in the 21st century" and the ways of countering the U.S. strategy of "globalization" for aggression and plunder. A resolution calling on the international community to conduct a widespread movement against American-style "globalization" was adopted there. During the forum tens of thousands of delegates of political parties and public organizations from different countries made an international march in Caracas under the slogan of "Against War, Imperialism and Neo-Liberalism." This clearly proves that the struggle of progressives against American-style "globalization" has become an organized one with their clear direction and way of socialism."

Ex-President Carter: Eavesdropping Illegal - "Former President Jimmy Carter criticized the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program Monday and said he believes the president has broken the law."

FEMA CONCENTRATION CAMPS: Locations and Executive Orders - "There over 800 prison camps in the United States, all fully operational and ready to receive prisoners. They are all staffed and even surrounded by full-time guards, but they are all empty. These camps are to be operated by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) should Martial Law need to be implemented in the United States and all it would take is a presidential signature on a proclamation and the attorney general's signature on a warrant to which a list of names is attached."

Rumsfeld: Military must adapt - ""No nation, no matter how powerful, has the resources or capability to defend everywhere, at every time, against every conceivable type of attack," said Rumsfeld in remarks prepared for delivery to the Senate Armed Services Committee. "The only way to protect the American people, therefore, is to provide our military with as wide a range of capabilities, rather than preparing to confront any one particular threat.""

Lab officials excited by new H-bomb project - "For the first time in more than 20 years, U.S. nuclear-weapons scientists are designing a new H-bomb, the first of probably several new nuclear explosives on the drawing boards. If they succeed, in perhaps 20 or 25 more years, the United States would have an entirely new nuclear arsenal, and a highly automated fac- tory capable of turning out more warheads as needed, as well as new kinds of warheads." -- Because that's what we humans love to do; war, war, war, war, war, war, ...

Who Will Save America? - "Americans have forgotten what it takes to remain free. Instead, every ideology, every group is determined to use government to advance its agenda. As the government's power grows, the people are eclipsed. We have reached a point where the Bush administration is determined to totally eclipse the people. Bewitched by neoconservatives and lustful for power, the Bush administration and the Republican Party are aligning themselves firmly against the American people. Their first victims, of course, were the true conservatives. Having eliminated internal opposition, the Bush administration is now using blackmail obtained through illegal spying on American citizens to silence the media and the opposition party."

What more will it TAKE for Americans to AWAKE? - "These are the workings of a MADMAN. ... No, good Senator. It's unconstitutional. Our nation is being led at an accelerated pace to the arms of destruction. ... If this does not make your blood boil and your hair stand on end, then you should not call yourself American."

Doomsday For The Internet As We Know It? - "Several developments that are coming to the fore indicate a noticeable advance towards a government regulated, taxed and controlled system that spells doomsday for the Internet as we know it. ... The end game is a system similar to China, whereby no websites even mildly critical of the government will be authorized."

Councilman Wants To Ban Smokers From City Jobs - "Councilman Richard Contreras wants to ban smokers from taking jobs at City Hall, parks and even with the police department in Melbourne, Fla. Current workers would not lose their jobs but applicants would be asked about tobacco use and smokers would be dropped from consideration, according to the report."

A Million Little Pieces - "Man, I’d love to write a bestseller. Sell a million copies and appear on prime time TV. ... Even mediocrities who’ve never written anything before, who fuck up whole countries and leave them in a million little pieces (for future generations to fix), get huge book deals. George Tenet, former CIA director and Neocon yes man, received a $4 million book deal. Retired general Tommy Franks, who led the ill-advised US invasion, got $5 million. ...
So I’m in a million little pieces. Miffed over a million various lies that pass for truth, many I swallow myself. Miffed over my literary failings, certainly, but I can look myself in the mirror each morning and thank God I’m not Rumsfeld or Cheney. But mostly I’m miffed that the Bill of Rights is being ripped and torn into a million little pieces and that a million little future citizens will never put the pieces back together again. Not in my lifetime."

Drug combination prevents HIV infection in monkeys - "An injection of two drugs normally used to treat HIV patients completely protected monkeys from becoming infected with the AIDS virus, U.S. researchers reported on Monday."

Scientists hail discovery of hundreds of new species in remote New Guinea - "An astonishing mist-shrouded "lost world" of previously unknown and rare animals and plants high in the mountain rainforests of New Guinea has been uncovered by an international team of scientists."

'Banned' Aphrodisiac Soda To Be Sold In Stores - "A new soda promising to sexually arouse the person drinking it will soon be available in stores nationwide, according to a Local 6 News report. The drink, called Turn On, is made with guarana, ginseng and caffeine. The soda was banned in France and Denmark, but makers insist it is safe and works as an aphrodisiac. People who have tested the soda said it tastes like cherry soda."




Quote of the Day
"Life is just one damned thing after another."
~ Elbert Hubbard

News -- February 6, 2006

The hidden stakes in the Iran crisis - "The seizure of Iran by the USA would mean them taking control of both the East bank of the Persian Gulf and the Southern Caspian, including their reserves of oil and gas estimated to be the second largest in the world. ... At the same time, Iran is preparing « a world without Israel and the USA ». Tehran is optimistic about putting in place an oil spot market which doesn’t accept dollars. This is already working at an experimental stage. If no nation has officially announced its participation, many are encouraging participation through private companies acting as intermediaries. Now, the dollar is an overvalued currency whose value is maintained essentially by its role as a petro-currency. Such a spot market, once really up and running, would provoke a collapse of the dollar, comparable to hat of 1939, even if its transactions only amounted to a tenth of the world turnover. US power would be undermined by the falling dollar and, in time, Israel would also find itself bankrupt. Washington is then obliged to apply all its force to ensure that the major world powers break with Tehran. Short of war, the US must at least succeed in imposing economic isolation on Iran. Paradoxically, neither option seems possible. The US and Tsahal can hardly bomb Iran’s nuclear sites, since these are maintained by Russian advisers and technicians. Attacking Iran would imply declaring war against Russia. Furthermore, even if strikes were possible, Iran would not neglect to strike back at Israel with the devastating Thor-1 missiles sold to them by the Russians. The Shiites would make life even harder for the occupation forces in Iraq. If the US choose to use an economic blockade of Iran, this could easily be bypassed through Iran’s special relationship with China. Meanwhile, Iran would deny the West part of its oil supply, bringing about a rise in prices of 300% per barrel and a huge economic crisis."

Powell's Former Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson Calls Pre-War Intelligence a 'Hoax on the American People' - ""I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community, and the United Nations Security Council," says Wilkerson, who helped prepare the address."

Specter: Administration broke law - "Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says President George W. Bush's warrantless surveillance program appears to be illegal."

For Some, Spying Controversy Recalls a Past Drama - "As the Senate prepares to hold hearings on Monday on domestic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency, old Washington hands see a striking similarity to a drama that unfolded three decades ago in the capital." -- With some of the same characters.

Some companies helped the NSA, but which? - "Even after the recent scrutiny of the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance project approved by President Bush, an intriguing question remains unanswered: Which corporations cooperated with the spy agency?"

History repeats itself with U.S. wartime leaders - "Presidents have often asserted disputed powers in the name of national security."

Bush's $2.8T Budget Proposal Cuts Domestic Programs - "President Bush today proposed a $2.8 trillion budget for fiscal 2007 that would cut billions of dollars from domestic programs ranging from Medicare and food stamps to local law enforcement and disease control, while extending most of his tax cuts beyond their 2010 expiration date."

Russia Warns Against Conflict With Iran - "Russia's foreign minister warned against threatening Iran over its nuclear program Monday after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld reportedly agreed with a German interviewer that all options, including military response, remained on the table."

The rhetoric of democracy - "The constant association of the rhetoric of democracy with torture, preemptive war, secret prisons, and imperial expansion threatens to poison the word itself, just as the neo-conservative advocacy of "humanitarian" intervention in the interests of empire has rendered the term humanitarian itself suspicious."


The New Texas Family Planning - "Slashed budgets and anti-abortion politics undermine women's health care." -- I liked the picture.



White House Letter: Bush is thinking ahead, already, to retirement - "Most of what Bush said was an abridged version of the State of the Union address for local television markets. But he also wandered off into a loopy aside about why math and science students should not think of themselves as the "nerd patrol," declared once again that his foreign policy was in part based on an "Almighty" whose gift to the world was freedom, and mused about his age."

Europe's Defamation of the Prophet - "For thirteen centuries Europe has never fathomed Islam and has defamed the moral character of its Messenger Muhammad (pbuh)--9/11 was the cataclysmic excuse to re-launch the Inquisition against Muslims--“convert to our civilized aspiritual secularism where “sacredness” is dead or reap the political, economic, media, and military onslaught. If “God is Dead” in our society, so must your faith be killed.” Indeed the only freedom of speech left in the west is bashing Islam otherwise it does have its limits. In Europe you can be prosecuted for questioning the extant of the Holocaust or criticizing Israel’s policy given western indoctrination that such “freedom” is Anti-Semitic.” Israel and its bloody history is now the “Holy Grail” for the civilized west, the champions of human rights. Being civilized begins with education and manifests in rational behavior. The rampant ignorance of Islam in Europe leads to an irrational fear and thus prejudice. Descartes would turn in his grave if he knows that his motto has been transformed into “I don’t think, therefore I’m civilized.”"

was it WORTH it? - "Once you determine what's valuable to you, decide whether you're prepared to trade one thing that's valuable to you for something else that's valuable to you. Then see if you're prepared to trade what's valuable to you for what's valuable to someone else. Everything is relative. And as long as people insist on maintaining their own SUBJECTIVE values at the expense of someone else's we'll be forever embroiled in conflict."

Faith is a Moral Failing - "Let's be brutally honest. To describe FAITH as a "failure of reason" is a half-truth at best. There are those who assert that their religious convictions are grounded in reason and evidence alone. But I've never actually met such a rare creature myself. Even the most cunning Jesuitical sophistry seeking to rationally justify religion does not entirely leave out faith as a component. And not faith in the sense of "hope" or "confidence" or any other wishy-washy alternate definition. By "faith" in this context, I mean (and honest believers also mean) believing something because one chooses to believe it, without regard to the absence of evidence/reasons to believe."

Website bans Congress staff over alterations - "LEGISLATIVE aides, press officers, researchers and other Congressional staffers have been blocked from writing for the online encyclopedia Wikipedia after it was discovered that they were breaching the website's ethics code and removing politically inconvenient or embarrassing information about members of Congress."

Teens Reveal Too Much Online - "On websites such as MySpace, teenagers can find people around the world who share their love of sports, their passion for photography or their crush on the latest Hollywood star. But authorities say teens are increasingly finding trouble in an online environment where millions of people can, in seconds, find out where they go to school, learn their interests, download their pictures and instantly send them messages."

40 States Re-Examining Eminent Domain - "Is this the work of a cruel government? Or the best hope for resurrecting an ocean resort town that is finally showing signs of reviving after decades of hard times? Echoes of the debate are happening across the country, after a U.S. Supreme Court decision brought new attention to governments' ability to seize property through the tool of eminent domain. Some 40 states are re-examining their laws - with action in Congress, too - after the court's unpopular ruling."

Music fans tell industry: Cut prices, make better music - "While one-quarter of the nation's music fans say they've downloaded songs onto their computers — legally or otherwise — a new nationwide poll suggests music executives should look elsewhere to explain their business woes. Three in every four fans complain that compact discs are too expensive, and 58% complain that music in general is getting worse, according to the poll conducted for The Associated Press and Rolling Stone magazine. ... Many fans also say they just don't like what they're hearing. It may not be surprising to hear older fans say music just isn't what it used to be when they were growing up. But the poll also found that 49% of music fans ages 18-to-34 — the target audience for the music business — say music is getting worse."

Monetize Your Roof - "Click on the aerial view of a cityscape on Google Earth or Microsoft's Live Local, and most of us don't discern much more than a cluttered expanse of buildings and car-lined streets. But where others see a sprawl of empty rooftops, Colin Fitz-Gerald sees a cornucopia of unused advertising space."

Ray Bradbury: L.A.'s future is up in the air - " SOMETIME IN THE next five years, traffic all across L.A. will freeze. The freeways that were once a fast-moving way to get from one part of the city to another will become part of a slow-moving glacier, edging down the hills to nowhere."

Rat brain 'can smell in stereo' - "Rats can home in on smells using a method similar to the stereo processing of sounds, scientists say."




Quote of the Day
"History teaches us that man learns nothing from history."
~ George Frederick Hegel

News (Page 2) -- February 5, 2005

Time to Scrap the NPT - " There’s only one country that has ever used nuclear weapons. There’s only one country that has used nuclear weapons on civilian population centers. There’s only one country that has ever threatened to use nuclear weapons on non-nuclear countries. There’s only one country that has over 10,000 nuclear weapons many of which are on hair-trigger alert for enemies real or imagined. There’s only one country that has developed a regime of low-yield, bunker-busting, "usable" nuclear weapons; stating that they could be legitimately used, not to deter aggression or to stave off an imminent threat, but simply to eliminate the "suspicion" of weapons programs. There’s only one country that justifies unprovoked aggression (preemption) in its National Security doctrine; allowing it to attack any potential rival to its global dominance. There’s only one country that currently occupies a Muslim nation of 25 million inhabitants without any proof of an imminent threat, weapons-systems, or territorial aggression. The purpose of the NPT (Nonproliferation Treaty) is to reduce or eliminate the development of nuclear weapons. If it is to have any relevance at all it must be directed at nations that not only have weapons, but demonstrate a flagrant disregard for the international laws condemning their use. The IAEA should focus its attention on those states that have a clear record of territorial aggression, military intervention, or who consistently violate United Nations resolutions."

Nuclear Iran feared - "The U.S. and EU are exerting maximum diplomatic and psychological pressure on Iran to prevent it from enriching uranium in spite of its legal right to do so. Tehran remains defiant, but may yet compromise by shipping uranium to Russia for enrichment."

Can the President Order a Killing on U.S. Soil? - "In the latest twist in the debate over presidential powers, a Justice Department official suggested that in certain circumstances, the president might have the power to order the killing of terrorist suspects inside the United States."

U.S. is back in assassination business - "Under Presidents Reagan, Bush "41" and Clinton, the executive order prohibiting political assassination was maintained and honored. As has now been publicly revealed, the administration of Bush "43" secretly repealed the prohibition on assassination. In its place, under the omnipresent 9/11 rationale, the U.S. is back in the business of assassination. If a poll of Americans were taken, most would acknowledge the perplexing problem of torture and other abuses chronicled in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, very few, if any, would be aware of the change in policy on assassination. The news media have covered the problem of torture, to an extent that most viewers and readers are numb to the news. However, the more fundamental and certainly irreparable problem of political assassination has not been raised, discussed or examined. It is almost as if the code of the news media being embedded with the U.S. forces is their implicit agreement not to cover or mention something like planned political killing."

a PICTURE says a THOUSAND words - "This was a calculated move on behalf of a handful of people who stand to gain the most from an imminent military clash of civilizations."

Revealed: secret plan to keep UK troops permanently in Iraq - "BRITAIN is laying secret plans to maintain a permanent military presence in Iraq."

Why believe your LYING eyes - "Are these people on crack? Don’t they read the news? ... Either these people are hopelessly stupid, or they think that WE are."

Surveillance Net Yields Few Suspects - "Intelligence officers who eavesdropped on thousands of Americans in overseas calls under authority from President Bush have dismissed nearly all of them as potential suspects after hearing nothing pertinent to a terrorist threat, according to accounts from current and former government officials and private-sector sources with knowledge of the technologies in use. Bush has recently described the warrantless operation as "terrorist surveillance" and summed it up by declaring that "if you're talking to a member of al Qaeda, we want to know why." But officials conversant with the program said a far more common question for eavesdroppers is whether, not why, a terrorist plotter is on either end of the call. The answer, they said, is usually no."

What kind of 'patriot' supports a tyrant? - "Mr Bush eavesdrops on our conversations. He cooperates with no inquiry or oversight, on any matter from energy policy to the attacks of 9/11 to the response to Hurricane Katrina. He sternly lectures Americans on the limits of political debate, while imprisoning and torturing men, women, and children in secret prisons. He sends American troops to fight and die for nebulous, slippery causes that have nothing to do with defending America. And as he does all this and so much more, Bush's supporters cheer him on, and ask only what more freedoms and rights they can yield?"

Eye Scan Technology Comes to Schools - "As many as four adults can be designated to pick up each child in the district, but in order to be authorized to come into school, they will be asked to register with the district's iris recognition security and visitor management system. At this point, the New Jersey program is not mandatory."

World Tracker turns anyone into a cellphone spy - " Forget those piddly wiretaps. The next frontier in warrant-free surveillance is upon us, and it's open to everyone. A UK service called World Tracker apparently uses cell tower data (or GPS, when available) to track the location of just about any GSM cellphone. Just enter the number you want to track into the service's handy Google Maps-based interface, and you'll be able to zoom in on the device's location, with accuracy somewhere between 50 and 500 meters."

News -- February 5, 2006

Frist says military action a posssibility against Iran - "Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Saturday night that the United States must be prepared to take military action against Iran if nonviolent means don't deter the country from building nuclear weapons."

Bush's 'Gulf Of Tonkin' Underlines Criminal Desperation For War - "This week's revelations that George W. Bush and Tony Blair considered staging a war provocation by painting a US spy plane in UN colors and flying it over Iraq, in the hope that Saddam would order it shot down, illustrates a desperate depth of criminality only rivaled by previous notorious historical examples."

Global Eye - "Last month, President George W. Bush murdered four children. This is not a controversial statement. There is no dispute about the facts. Indeed, Bush's own minions fully acknowledge -- even celebrate -- the deed. Nor has the political opposition or the national media offered the slightest objection to the principle of presidential murder. Strange, isn't it? While the American Establishment is now convulsed over the issue of a president ordering wiretaps without court approval, the same president's assertion of the right to kill anyone on earth he chooses without charges, trial or judicial review is readily accepted on all sides. Even when these "targeted assassinations" go horribly awry -- as in Pakistan last month, when 18 innocent people, including four children, were obliterated in their homes by Hellfire missiles, as The Observer reports -- there is no demur, no moral shock. Just tough talk about "doing whatever it takes" to defend civilization from the barbarians."

New Details Revealed on CIA Leak Case - "Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff told prosecutors that Mr. Cheney had informed him "in an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion" in mid-June 2003 about the identity of the CIA officer at the heart of the leak case, according to a formerly secret legal opinion, parts of which were made public on Friday."

The State of the Union's Mystery Suspect - "T-shirts, it turns out, aren't the only things that get you in trouble with the Capitol Police at the State of the Union address. Much has already been made of the fact that both anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan and Beverly Young, the wife of Republican Congressman Bill Young, were ejected from the speech for wearing shirts with political messages; ... But on the same evening that President Bush was lauding democracy and freedom, there was one other person in attendance whose rights were infringed upon. ... On Tuesday night, he told the congressman that the experience was "maybe just the price of being brown in America," Turner says."

neocons turn DEFIANT Ahmedinejad into National HERO - ""Issue as many resolutions like this as you want and make yourself happy. You can't prevent the progress of the Iranian nation," he said in comments carried by the official Islamic Republic News Agency.Arguably, the man has what it takes for international stardom. His defiant messages to an uncompromising imperial Goliath in a unipolar world is the equivalent of Michael Jackson's moonwalk on the world stage."

Chavez says Bush worse than Hitler - "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told a rally of thousands of supporters on Saturday that U.S. President George W. Bush was worse than Hitler and vowed to buy more arms to defend his nation as their diplomatic relations deteriorated." -- Only a stupid country, run by stupid people, would not try to obtain some type of weapons to deter an attack from the US.

Mohammed's appearance on South Park fails to spark outcry - "The episode, entitled The Super Best Friends, did not attract a single complaint from Muslim clerics when it was aired by Channel 4 in 2002 and 2003. The lack of protest is in stark contrast to the controversy over the recent newspaper publication of cartoons depicting Mohammed." -- So, is today's controversy organized? Who benefits from the current chaos?

French editor fired over Muhammad drawings - "Islamic tradition bars any depiction of the prophet to prevent idolatry. The drawings have prompted boycotts of Danish goods and bomb threats and demonstrations against Danish facilities, and have divided opinion within Europe and the Middle East. The cartoons include an image of Muhammad wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse, and another portraying him holding a sword, his eyes covered by a black rectangle. Angered by the drawings, Palestinian gunmen jumped on the outer wall of a European Union office in Gaza City on Thursday and demanded an apology. Masked gunmen also briefly took over an EU office in Gaza on Monday." -- It is a flaw in humanity that allows religion to have this much control over people.

The cartoon thatshook the world -- This page has five cartoons.

Fury over cartoons fuels fiery protests - "Rage against caricatures of Islam's revered prophet poured out across the Muslim world yesterday, with Muslims calling for executions, storming European buildings and setting European flags afire."

Blogging the Cartoon Muhammad - "Denmark's stock has dropped dramatically in the Muslim world this week. But in the controversy surrounding the Muhammad cartoons, neither side has comported itself with much dignity -- a fact bloggers are all-too-eager to point out."

Holograms help protect Super Bowl - "The U.S. government will deploy a new "Star Wars-like" hologram technology to help safeguard the Super Bowl on Sunday. As agents for Homeland Security monitor the dozens of security cameras mounted in Detroit's Ford Field, they'll see the images in three dimensions, according to James Fischbach, CEO of Intrepid Defense & Security Systems, the company that developed the LifeVision3D system."

If There is a Superbowl Terror Attack, It Ain't Arabs - "I was thinking just how "perfect" to the real conspirators this might be:"

The plutonium question - "For decades, the question about what to do with America's nuclear waste has had basically one answer: Yucca Mountain. Hold the waste at power plants until it can be shipped to that carved-out mountain lair in remote Nevada, where it can slowly and harmlessly decay for thousands of millenniums. But lawsuits and other political challenges make it doubtful that the facility will open in the next several years. Or maybe ever. So now the Bush administration and some congressional leaders are proposing a new way to reduce the radioactive risks of Yucca Mountain and possibly avoid building more repositories: recycling. What if, they ask, you could take the fuel that comes out of a nuclear reactor and instead of burying it in huge casks that must be guarded for centuries, you could recycle some of it and run it through a nuclear reactor again? Maybe even more than twice? What if that means less nuclear waste would be created and the stuff that is left over would be less radioactive? In theory, it's a powerful and elegant solution. This country has embraced recycling of other commodities. Why not nuclear fuel?"

Gallup: More Than Half of Americans Feel Bush Deliberately Misled Country on Iraq WMD - "Over half (53%) now say the administration "deliberately misled the American public about whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction," with 46% disagreeing. Gallup notes that this finding is "essentially reversed" from one year ago."

Army to troops: 'Avoid Marrying a Jerk' - "They are the Pentagon's new "rules of engagement" - the diamond ring kind. U.S. Army chaplains are trying to teach troops how to pick the right spouse, through a program called "How To Avoid Marrying a Jerk.""

Ability to Wage 'Long War' Is Key to Pentagon Plan - "The Pentagon, readying for what it calls a "long war," yesterday laid out a new 20-year defense strategy that envisions US troops deployed, often clandestinely, in dozens of countries at once to fight terrorism and other nontraditional threats."

How I stalked my girlfriend - "For the past week I've been tracking my girlfriend through her mobile phone. I can see exactly where she is, at any time of day or night, within 150 yards, as long as her phone is on. It has been very interesting to find out about her day. Now I'm going to tell you how I did it. ... And that, for me, was the clincher. Your mobile phone company could make money from selling information about your location to the companies that offer this service. If you have any reason to suspect that your phone might have been out of your sight, even for five minutes, and there is anyone who might want to track you: call your phone company and ask it to find out if there is a trace on your phone. Anybody could be watching you."

Snooping Bosses - "But it isn’t just the big snoop at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that you have to worry about these days. Chances are that your employer has already been monitoring you—not for ties to terrorist organizations, but for signs of insubordination, drug use, mental illness, or any other symptom of a “bad attitude.” Everyone claims to crave privacy: Hence, we generally close the door when we use the bathroom and lower the shades at night. But we surrender all rights to privacy when we go to work."

Politicos attack tech firms over China - "Politicians on Wednesday attacked Google, Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Yahoo for declining to appear at a briefing about China's Internet censorship and called for a new law to outlaw compliance with such requirements."

Postage is due for companies sending e-mail - "Companies will soon have to buy the electronic equivalent of a postage stamp if they want to be certain that their e-mail will be delivered to many of their customers. America Online and Yahoo, two of the world's largest providers of e-mail accounts, are about to start using a controversial system that gives preferential treatment to messages from companies that pay from 1/4 of a cent to a penny each to have them delivered. The senders must contact only people who have agreed to receive their messages, or risk being blocked entirely. The Internet companies say that this will help them identify legitimate mail and cut down on junk e-mail, identity-theft scams and other scourges that plague users of their services. The two companies also stand to earn millions of dollars a year from the system if it is widely adopted." -- And you can be sure it's more about the money than anything else.

The Smoking Gun riding high on Frey expose - "Now that best-selling author James Frey has been thoroughly embarrassed by his onetime patron Oprah Winfrey, the muckraking news site The Smoking Gun has secured its place in celebrity takedown history."

NBC halts Britney'scrucifixion mockery - "Reacting to pressure from Christian groups, NBC canceled an episode of "Will & Grace" that featured Britney Spears as a conservative who hosts a cooking segment called "Cruci-fixin's" on a Christian TV network." -- Again, all in the name of religion.




Quote of the Day
"Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet."
~ Napoleon Bonaparte

News -- February 3, 2006

Bush told Blair we're going to war, memo reveals - "A memo of a two-hour meeting between the two leaders at the White House on January 31 2003 - nearly two months before the invasion - reveals that Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme. "The diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning", the president told Mr Blair. The prime minister is said to have raised no objection. He is quoted as saying he was "solidly with the president and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam"."

Revealed: Bush and Blair discussed using American Spyplane in UN colours to lure Saddam into war. - "Channel 4 News tonight reveals extraordinary details of George Bush and Tony Blair's pre-war meeting in January 2003 at which they discussed plans to begin military action on March 10th 2003, irrespective of whether the United Nations had passed a new resolution authorising the use of force."

U.S. agencies find no proof of looming al Qaeda attack - "Despite statements by senior al Qaeda leaders, U.S. intelligence agencies do not have information indicating the group is ready to conduct a major attack, U.S. counterterrorism officials said. The audio and video statements appear to be part of a propaganda campaign by the terrorist group to bolster morale in its ranks, the officials said." -- Or by the U.S. to whip the dissidents back into a fear induced stupor.

Bush approved multi-agency program to spy on Americans - "Although President Bush publicly claims he has limited spying on Americans by the National Security Agency to overseas phone calls involving members of al-Qaeda, privately he has authorized a massive multi-agency domestic surveillance operation that routinely pries into the lives of millions of Americans who have no involvement in terrorism or represent no threat to the security of the United States."

Avoiding the hard questions - "'I am a professional philosopher who has spent 35 years teaching logic, critical thinking and scientific reasoning,'' group co-founder and University of Minnesota professor James H. Fetzer told me. ``When I come to 9/11, it's not hard for me to determine what is going on. This is a scientific question. And it is so elementary that I don't think you can find a single physicist who could disagree with the idea that this was a controlled demolition.'' The group asks, for example,
• How did a fire fed by jet fuel, which at most burns at 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit, cause the collapse of the Twin Towers, built of steel that melts at 2,800 degrees? (Most experts agree that the impact of airliners, made mostly of lightweight aluminum, should not have been enough alone to cause structural failure.) How could a single planeload of burning jet fuel -- most of which flared off in the initial fireball -- cause the South World Trade Center tower to collapse in just 56 minutes?
• Why did building WTC-7 fall, though no aircraft struck it? Fire alone had never before caused a steel skyscraper to collapse.
• Why did all three buildings collapse largely into their own footprints -- in the style of a controlled demolition?
• Why did no U.S. military jet intercept the wayward aircraft?
• Why has there been no investigation of BBC reports that five of the alleged 9/11 hijackers were alive and accounted for after the event?"

Amazon.com Shares Plunge After Sales Miss Estimates - "Amazon.com Inc. shares plunged as much as 13 percent, the biggest drop since October, after quarterly sales and a 2006 profit forecast disappointed investors."

Homeland Security Tries New 3-D Technology At Super Bowl XL - "Hidden from public view at Super Bowl XL, live-action 3-D holograms created from signals streaming in from networks of electronic eyes will help Homeland Security Agency officials detect people and objects suspected of endangering the 65 thousand ticket holders crowding into Ford Field, and the thousands more celebrating in downtown Detroit. While officials may not go public with the details, the surveillance effort is likely to include:"

Bush on move is Guzzler in Chief - "The White House, Air Force and Secret Service keep a tight hold on the President's travel and mileage, but government and industry figures show that the Air Force One 747 jet gets less than the equivalent of a mile per gallon. The President usually travels with a backup 747 as well as a huge C-17 aircraft packed with the presidential limo and the Marine One helicopter, which flies Bush from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base and around destination cities. The C-17 gets even worse mileage than the 747s, and the chopper's mileage is pegged at .014 mpg. Once on the ground, the President travels in a gas-gulping convoy. At the heart of that convoy are two Cadillac limos and several Chevy Suburbans. ... Bush's 700-mile trip to give his State of the Union encore speech in Nashville yesterday cost $19,594.25 in fuel alone just for Air Force One, according to government figures. He will carry his message over the next few days to Maplewood, Minn., Albuquerque and Dallas before heading back to Washington. That's another 4,341 miles."

Did we elect you, or is this a brothel? - "I'm so glad these people run my world. ... Friends, countrymen, lend me your ears, I'm surrounded by lechers and drunks and gold diggers, and these, these I tell you, these are the men and women that are in control of our basic human rights, I tell you, these are the people we have elected. Dig the bomb shelters, prepare your saran wrap and duck tape, I tell you, take cover."

State of Delusion - "So President Bush's plan to reduce imports of Middle East oil turns out to be no more substantial than his plan — floated two years ago, then flushed down the memory hole — to send humans to Mars. But what did you expect? After five years in power, the Bush administration is still — perhaps more than ever — run by Mayberry Machiavellis, who don't take the business of governing seriously."

Dozens Dead After Egyptian Ship Disaster - "An Egyptian ferry carrying about 1,300 people sank in the Red Sea overnight during bad weather, and rescue ships and helicopters pulled dozens of bodies from the water Friday, an official said. About 100 survivors in lifeboats were rescued."

Tanker runs aground in Alaska, spills oil products - ""At this time we do not have an estimate as to the amount of product released," refinery owner Tesoro Corp. said in a statement."

Researchers see hope for sex disease vaccine - "Research into the vaccine was stalled 25 years ago, but recent advances in DNA knowledge have led to a promising candidate for a vaccine against Chlamydia trachomatis, researchers Harlan Caldwell and Deborah Crane said in interviews on Thursday."

US media at 'all-time low' - "Arabic-language media have an unprecedented chance to take over as the world's premier news source because trust in their US counterparts plummeted following their "shameful coverage" of the war in Iraq, a conference heard today. The US media reached an "all-time low" in failing to reflect public opinion and Americans' desire for trusted information, instead acting as a "cheerleader" for war, said Amy Goodman, the executive producer and host of US TV and radio news show Democracy Now!, at a news forum organised by al-Jazeera."

Busch blocks vote on marriage - "Democratic lawmakers in Maryland, determined to avoid a vote on homosexual "marriage" in an election year, closed the House yesterday to quash a constitutional amendment endorsing traditional marriage. In a move unprecedented in the modern history of the General Assembly, House Speaker Michael E. Busch abruptly recessed the chamber to block a vote on a proposed amendment that would define marriage as a union only of one man and one woman."

Unemployment Rate Declines in January - "Employers stepped up hiring in January, boosting payrolls by 193,000 and lowering the nation's unemployment rate to 4.7 percent, the lowest since July 2001."

Bush Bait and Switch - "Say one thing; do precisely the opposite. ... "AMERICA IS addicted to oil." It was a catchy line in President Bush's State of the Union speech. But in truth, few administrations have done more to feed America's oil addiction than this one -- and the same can be said for this Republican Congress. Welcome to the United States of P. T. Barnum, where there's a sucker born every minute."

FAQ: When Google is not your friend - "It's only a matter of time before other attorneys realize that a person's entire search history is available for the asking, and the subpoenas begin to fly. This could happen in civil lawsuits or criminal prosecutions. That type of fishing expedition is not legally permitted for Web mail providers. But because search engines are not fully shielded by the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act--concocted back in the era of CompuServe and bulletin board systems--their users don't enjoy the same level of privacy."

In Turkish Movie, Americans Kill Innocents - "In the most expensive Turkish movie ever made, American soldiers in Iraq crash a wedding and pump a little boy full of lead in front of his mother. They kill dozens of innocent people with random machine gun fire, shoot the groom in the head, and drag those left alive to Abu Ghraib prison - where a Jewish doctor cuts out their organs, which he sells to rich people in New York, London and Tel Aviv."

Stark Raving Robertson - "Pat Robertson supports pre-emption: pre-emptive war and pre-emptive assasination. He shouldn't mind, then, if God just so happened to pre-empt his sorry ass--maybe not now, but one day--before he becomes too much of a danger to himself and the rest of the world. He has definitely lost it."

MySpace.com Subject of Sex Assault Probe - "Police are investigating whether as many as seven teenage girls have been sexually assaulted by men they met through the popular Web site MySpace.com. The girls, ages 12 to 16, are from Middletown and say they were fondled or had consensual sex with men who turned out to be older than they claimed. None of the incidents appeared to be violent, said Middletown Police Sgt. Bill McKenna."

Kid Writes Essay Threatening Bush, Oprah; Secret Service Investigates - "The boy's homework assignment for English class was to write what he would do on a perfect day. In addition to the president and Winfrey, the boy wrote that violence should be directed at executives of Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart, police and school officials said."

Students prostituting on campus for $10? - "An assistant principal of an Ohio high school where a 16-year-old developmentally delayed girl was forced into sex acts in the campus auditorium reportedly was warned a week before the incident that female students were collecting $10 for performing oral sex on males in the same location."

You Duly Have My Permission - "What I am is a compassionate, honest and knowledgeable third party willing to inject a large dose of common sense into the crises and drama that can blind us to our options. ... What's great about sex tech is that it is fostering a more sexually permissive society in which we can talk about this stuff without feeling unsafe or embarrassed. (If you don't think things are changing radically and globally, just look at the panic about sex in the extreme conservative political agenda, here and abroad.)"

Heroin hidden in puppies - "Colombian drug dealers smuggled heroin into the United States by surgically implanting the powerful drug into puppies, the Drug Enforcement Administration said on Wednesday." -- There are some fucked up people in the world.

New Exam Aims to Measure Tech 'Literacy' - "When it comes to downloading music and instant messaging, today's students are plenty tech-savvy. But that doesn't mean they know how to make good use of the endless stream of information that computers put at their fingertips. Educators and employers call those skills "technology literacy," and while everyone agrees it's important to have, it also is difficult to measure. Now a test that some high school students will begin taking this year could help. The ICT Literacy Assessment touches on traditional skills, such as analytical reading and math, but with a technological twist. Test-takers, for instance, may be asked to query a database, compose an e-mail based on their research, or seek information on the Internet and decide how reliable it is."

Deep Impact Team Reports First Evidence Of Cometary Ice - "The results, reported in an advance online edition of the journal Science, offer the first definitive evidence of surface ice on any comet."

Choose Your Poison - The Mind-Numbing Spectacle of Reality Television - " It's the way things are today - everybody wants to be a star. We're no longer satisfied with letting people who have actual talent entertain us, whether they be actors or musicians or athletes. The standards that existed years ago are gone. Now that network television's floodgates have been opened in the quest for cheaper ways to get bigger ratings, anyone with delusions of grandeur and a willingness to make a spectacle of themselves in front of millions can try to grab that elusive spotlight for their fifteen minutes of fame. And for those willing to sacrifice their dignity at the altar of the golden calf, there could be a healthy financial payoff at the end of it as well. What motivates a person to want to be a contestant on a reality program like Fear Factor, Survivor, or American Idol? Is it an unsatisfied need for attention or simply a case of greed, or maybe a combination of the two? What sort of person would allow themselves to be the brunt of a series of glorified hazing stunts for a mere payback of $50,000, of which they will only collect a portion of should they win - these are, after all, American programs and so subject to United States tax laws. It certainly can't be a sense of pride. Yeah, I was able to eat bugs and consume the entire raw contents of an ostrich egg without puking, and I'm going to put that on my resume so that everyone can admire my extraordinary abilities. It'll go down as one of my life's greatest achievements. ... That's real! Most "reality" television isn't. It's just embarrasing, and it's even more embarrassing that so many people are willing to watch this ridiculous sideshow, week after mind-numbing week."




Quote of the Day
"I'm so glad these people run my world."
~ Melanie Boyer

News -- February 2, 2006

Angry, skeptical Americans unimpressed with State of the Union speech - "Americans reacted with skepticism and anger at President Bush's fifth State of the Union address Tuesday night, reflecting a national mood that reflects serious reservations about the controversial war in Iraq, revelations about the administration's secret domestic spying program, and missteps following Hurricane Katrina." -- They need to get more pissed off.

Editorial: Astounding Hypocrisy - "Few in the Middle East will have heard George W. Bush’s State of the Union address without feeling exasperation and anger that this belligerent president appears to have no idea of how US policy in the region is riddled with double standards. It is now clear that this astonishingly ill-informed administration had not the slightest inkling that Hamas would win the Palestinian elections — let alone win so decisively. ... Now at least Bush’s perverse vision of the democratic process is patently clear. A democratic election must produce a government that is acceptable to the White House. Anything else will be rejected. The democratic voice of the people will be ignored unless it is singing the song that Washington wants to hear. This astounding hypocrisy undermines everything America says it is trying to achieve in the region and everything that America once stood for."

Pentagon Now Prepares to Fight Long War - ""Just as the Cold War lasted a long time, this war is something that is not going to go away," Rumsfeld said. He said this does not mean U.S. troops will be in Iraq indefinitely, but rather that the U.S. will be fighting violent extremists for many years to come." -- Yep, when you don't treat people fair, they get pissed off, and the U.S. has pissed off a lot of people.

Iran's message to the west: back off or we retaliate - "Iran's foreign minister yesterday threatened immediate retaliation over a move to refer its nuclear weapons activities to the United Nations security council in comments which deepen his country's confrontation with the international community."

Bush: US would defend Israel against Iran - "U.S. President George W. Bush vowed on Wednesday the United States will rise to Israel's defense if needed against Iran and denounced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for "menacing talk" against Israel." -- How did this one little spot on Earth become so important?

Fitzgerald Hints White House Records Lost - "Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is raising the possibility that records sought in the CIA leak investigation could be missing because of an e-mail archiving problem at the White House."

Every Sperm is Sacred - "I suppose the anti-abortion contingent is dancing in the streets at Judge Samuel A. Alito's confirmation to the U. S. Supreme Court, but it leaves me numb. It also leaves me confused. I could get behind any movement that takes as its starting point, "Thou shalt not kill." But these anti-abortion folks are the same ones who treasure capital punishment. They're the ones who scorn those of us who seek rehabilitation as well as retribution. ... Then there's the war-mongering. It's hard to take the Christian right seriously about being pro-life when the one thing they seem to agree upon is the right to bomb the hell out of Muslim countries - mothers, babies, fathers, dogs and cats - whether it's for oil, natural gas, religion or just because they have a different skin color or language. If the pro-life people were leading the anti-war movement, I would be a bit more reassured."

Opec issues warning on Bush oil pledge - "The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on Wednesday warned that President George W. Bush’s proposal to reduce US dependence on Middle Eastern oil could badly jeopardise needed investment in Gulf oil production and refining capacity."

Administration backs off Bush's vow to reduce Mideast oil imports - "One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally."

No End in Sight: Bush on Iraq - "Nothing highlights the chasm between the rosy picture President George W. Bush tried to paint in the State of the Union last night and the sober reality of ongoing war in Iraq than these two quotes: "2,245 Dead. How many more?" "My fellow citizens, we are in this fight to win, and we are winning." ... WINNING WHAT?"

Out of jail, into the Army - "Facing an enlistment crisis, the Army is granting "waivers" to an increasingly high percentage of recruits with criminal records -- and trying to hide it."

Canada developing secret military force - ""It will better enable us to counter, fight and defeat the terrorist threat at home and abroad," Barr told reporters yesterday after being sworn in as the first commander of the Canadian special operations forces command."

The End of the Internet? - "The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online. Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency."

Chinese professor hits out at Google - "A Chinese media professor strongly criticised Google today for caving in to Chinese government demands that it censor its own service, saying it was damaging to the prospects for a freer press in China."

Bill Gates: Web site censorship doesn't work - "Microsoft Corp Chairman Bill Gates said on Wednesday that government attempts to censor Web sites or blogs would fail since the banned information could get out in defiance of official efforts. ... "You may be able to take a very visible Web site and say that something shouldn't be there, but if there's a desire by the population to know something, it's going to get out," he said."

Mapping veins as a human 'bar code' - "In Memphis, Tenn., a small medical supply company called Luminetx has developed a new method of palm-reading that it hopes will rival fingerprinting or retinal scans as a way to perfectly identify individuals. The technology is based on an infrared scan of the blood cells running through veins, which is then analyzed by a computer."

Supersize suit targets Borgata - "The litigation stems from the casino's controversial policy, enacted last year, that prohibits the “Borgata Babes” cocktail servers from gaining more than 7 percent of their body weight."

Man Sues Apple Over Potential Hearing Loss - "A Louisiana man claims in a lawsuit that Apple's iPod music player can cause hearing loss in people who use it."




Quote of the Day
"The human world is a mess."
~ Sebastian, The Little Mermaid

News -- February 1, 2006

Iran condemns nuclear 'bullying' - "Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said his country will not submit to "bullying" over its nuclear programme."

Bush calls for an optimistic America - "President Bush last night implored an unsettled nation to reject the idea that "our culture is doomed to unravel" and used his fifth State of the Union address to promise an end to America's oil "addiction.""

What an Idiot! Bush Jumpstarts the Alternative Energy Movement... - "When Gore Vidal endorsed last night’s demonstrations against Bush’s ridiculous I-am-the-state theatrical stunt, he added the pithy comment: “Go back to Crawford…. We’ll help raise the money for a library, and you’ll never even ever have to read a book.” As always, Vidal has perfectly framed the argument for resistance to this anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-thought, anti-agenda. And while the networks and pundits and media shills gawk and preen and profit off the spectacle of this horrific failure, this loser in the most profound sense of the term, this puppet plutocrat who brings nothing to the table except for his legendary ability to drink everyone under it—an as-yet-unindicted war criminal with more blood on his hands than the tyrants from whom he liberates the world in the name of (and at the direction of) his Lord and Savior—we must make our own noise, in the name of the unnumbered and unidentified dead whose corpses pave the way to Heaven for Bush and his psychopathic band of theocrats."

"Americans, the beatings will continue until morale improves" - "To:President George Bush February 1, 2006Mr. Bush (not my President), Regarding your speech tonight... As usual, my expectations were very low going into your speech, so I wasn't too disappointed when you followed through with the usual half-truths and other sheeple friendly nonsense. My only afterthought is that you could have done your whole 'Disgrace of the Union' speech in ten seconds or less, had you just told the truth: "Americans, the beatings will continue until morale improves". That would have summed things up accurately, because just when you think things can't get any worse and morale couldn't possibly get any lower in this country, you offer up seconds on craploaf in front of the whole world."

Decoding the State of the Union - "Never misunderestimate George W. Bush. Here's a President who's gutted the Treasury, eroded the environment, divided our society, ruined our reputation, frayed our military, undermined our security, inspired our enemies and overall weakened America. But there he stood tonight and delivered a State of the Union speech disconnected from the reality we are living in."

Masters of Understatement - "Only if by "invite debate" you mean "are flat-out untrue." Let's face it--he lied. Some excerpts from the article:"

Cindy Sheehan: What Really Happened - "As most of you have probably heard, I was arrested before the State of the Union address last night. I am speechless with fury at what happened and with grief over what we have lost in our country. There have been lies from the police and distortions by the press (shocker). So this is what really happened: ... I have some lawyers looking into filing a First Amendment lawsuit against the government for what happened tonight. I will file it. It is time to take our freedoms and our country back. I don't want to live in a country that prohibits any person, whether or not he/she has paid the ultimate price for that country, from wearing, saying, writing, or telephoning any negative statements about the government. That's why I am going to take my freedoms and liberties back. That's why I am not going to let BushCo take anything else away from me ... or you."

Most Iraqis Doubt US Will Ever Leave - "Large majorities of Iraqis believe that the United States has no intention of ever withdrawing all its military forces from their country and that Washington's reconstruction efforts have been incompetent at best, according to a new survey released here Tuesday." -- Many Americans believe the same thing.

Official: Army Has Authority to Spy on Americans - "“Contrary to popular belief, there is no absolute ban on [military] intelligence components collecting U.S. person information,” the U.S.Army’s top intelligence officer said in a 2001 memo that surfaced Tuesday. Not only that, military intelligence agencies are permitted to “receive” domestic intelligence information, even though they cannot legally “collect” it,” according to the Nov. 5, 2001, memo issued by Lt. Gen. Robert W. Noonan Jr., the deputy chief of staff for intelligence."

Standard & Poor's specialists predict global economic Armageddon - "Experts of Standard & Poor's forecast a global economic collapse. The collapse will be caused with the demise of the US dollar rate against the European currency by more than 30 percent. The dollar, specialists say, may lose almost 45 percent of its current value against the euro. However, it is obvious that even a 30 percent reduction will affect the international economy greatly."

Oil execs refuse to testify at Senate hearing - "Officials from six major oil companies have refused to testify this week at a Senate hearing looking into whether oil industry mergers in recent years have made gasoline more expensive at the pump." -- Hmmm. Actions speak louder than words.

Halliburton Detention Camps For Political Subversives - "In another shining example of modern day corporate fascism, it was announced recently that Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root had been awarded a $385 million dollar contract by Homeland Security to construct detention and processing facilities in the event of a national emergency."

Sweeping anti-abortion laws proposed - "Legislators in at least five states are proposing bold anti-abortion measures as the Bush administration reshapes the U.S. Supreme Court, a report said."

New Patriot Act Provision Creates Tighter Barrier to Officials at Public Events - "A new provision tucked into the Patriot Act bill now before Congress would allow authorities to haul demonstrators at any "special event of national significance" away to jail on felony charges if they are caught breaching a security perimeter."

The Only Hope For the World - " The world has gotten itself into a real jam. I mean a humdinger of a jam! As in John Paul Sartre’s existential drama, No Exit, which so nicely portrays the inescapability of self-chosen evil, the inevitability of a self-made Hell, there seems to be no way out for the world; no way for the inhabitants of planet Earth to escape what appears to be the inevitability of a hell of its own making….. World War III! Of course, as I tell my students…. the history of the world is the history of war, as armed conflict seems to have been a constant companion. From the beginning of time, it appears that we have “been at each other’s throats.” However, since that fateful day in 1945 when “Little Boy” gave us a glimpse of what was to come, things have never quite been the same. Before Hiroshima, the world was able to deal with man’s inhumanity to man, but with the advent of modern nuclear (or in the words of George Walker Bush… “nucular”) warfare, things have gone from bad to worse. No longer can we afford to dabble with our weapons of mass destruction. One more mistake, one more miscalculation, and the world will go up in flames!"

Federal borrowing raised to record level - "The government expects to borrow a record $188 billion in the January-March quarter, even more than it anticipated three months ago, the Treasury Department announced Monday." -- It's what we Americans do. We have no fiscal responsibility. What am I saying? We have no responsibility to anything, whatsoever.

Feds Want A Wiretap Backdoor In All Net Hardware and Software - "Thinks the federal government is too intrusive? You ain't seen nothing yet. An FCC mandate will require that all hardware and software have a wiretap backdoor that allows the government to tap into all your communications."

Gonzales Is Challenged on Wiretaps - "Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) charged yesterday that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales misled the Senate during his confirmation hearing a year ago when he appeared to try to avoid answering a question about whether the president could authorize warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens."

Feds' wiretapping rules challenged in court - "Universities, libraries and technology companies are asking a federal court to block controversial wiretap rules designed to facilitate police surveillance of the Internet."

The republican war on women - "I am unabashedly pro-abortion. Not just pro-choice, pro-abortion. ... The soul is bit of superstitious baggage that we still carry over from the dark ages. What is real is personality, and personality is not simple, but complex. It is formed through experience. It evolves over time, and it can dissolve bit by bit. ... And this after all is the real goal of the right wing fetishization of the fetus. A return to partiarchy. They are not even hiding it much any more. First abortion, then contraception, and even the acknowledgement of sexual harassment. The assault on feminism, which is ultimately simply the demand that women be recognized as people, with their own autonomous lives and a full share of human rights, has been so successful that even a majority of women today are embarrassed to identify themselves as feminists. The only thing to be embarrassed about--and this goes for men every bit as much as for women--is not being a feminist."

Shock Therapy, Version 2.0 - "Shock treatment for depression is making a comeback, and it no longer resembles a scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."





Quote of the Day
"Oh well, it's been a good day in Hell."
~ The Eagles