British troops videoed 'beating Iraqis' - "The MoD has repeatedly given assurances that Iraqis who are captured are treated with respect and decency by British troops." -- Watch the above video and then decide if the captured Iraqi children are being treated with respect and deceny.
US prepares military blitz against Iran's nuclear sites - "Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb."
Iran is prepared to retaliate, experts warn - "Iran is prepared to launch attacks using long-range missiles, secret commando units, and terrorist allies planted around the globe in retaliation for any strike on the country's nuclear facilities, according to new US intelligence assessments and military specialists." -- Um, duh.
A terrorist on every corner? - " PRESIDENT BUSH and Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales insist that the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping of American citizens is a necessary "terrorist surveillance program." And polls show that most Americans support permitting the government to tap the phone calls and e-mails of those considered "suspicious." But what exactly does that mean? A close look suggests that the feds' definition of a "suspected terrorist" may not meet the laugh test."
The Real Cost of Homeland Security - "Statistically speaking, the terrorist threat to America has always been low. So why are we spending such vast amounts on ineffectual 'Homeland Security'? ... As political scientist John Mueller notes, in most years allergic reactions to peanuts, deer in the road, and lightening have all killed about the same number of Americans as terrorism. In 2001, their banner year, terrorists killed one twelfth as many Americans as the flu and one fifteenth the number killed by car accidents."
CIA chief sacked for opposing torture - "The CIA’s top counter-terrorism official was fired last week because he opposed detaining Al-Qaeda suspects in secret prisons abroad, sending them to other countries for interrogation and using forms of torture such as “water boarding”, intelligence sources have claimed." -- When will the madness stop? Who will stop it?
Revealed: the terror prison US is helping build in Morocco - "The construction of the new compound, run by the Direction de la Securité du Territoire (DST), the Moroccan secret police, adds to a substantial body of evidence that Morocco is one of America’s principal partners in the secret “rendition” programme in which the CIA flies prisoners to third countries for interrogation."
Three journalists face prison for revealing existence of secret CIA prisons in Europe - "Reporters Without Borders has appealed to the Swiss justice and defence ministers to drop complaints against three journalists who revealed the existence of secret CIA prisons in Europe."
Do Bush supporters hate their country? - " Sometimes the people who still fervently support George W. Bush seem just plain stupid, and other times it seems they must be dishonest and even malevolent, harboring a hatred for their country that allows them to support misguided ideas and private agendas over the public good."
New Poll Shows Growing Number of Americans Are Fucking Idiots - "In a new AP/Ipsos poll, 48 percent of Americans now support Bush's illegal wiretapping and surveillance, up from forty two percent last month. This is due in part to a propaganda campaign played throughout the corporate media preying on people's ignorance of the law and their fears of a terrorist attack. What wasn't divulged was that Bush was spying on antiwar protestors and religious groups such as the Quakers."
Google Copies Your Hard Drive - Government Smiles in Anticipation - "Google today announced a new "feature" of its Google Desktop software that greatly increases the risk to consumer privacy. If a consumer chooses to use it, the new "Search Across Computers" feature will store copies of the user's Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents on Google's own servers, to enable searching from any one of the user's computers. EFF urges consumers not to use this feature, because it will make their personal data more vulnerable to subpoenas from the government and possibly private litigants, while providing a convenient one-stop-shop for hackers who've obtained a user's Google password."
Is our mission about preserving our way of life, or helping U.S. extend its supremacy? - "Take the question: Why are there so many suicide bombers in the Muslim world? Of course, there's a rote answer to this that we hear all the time: Muslims have a culture of death; their blind rage against our freedom leads them to sacrifice their lives to spite us. Another explanation — one you rarely hear — is that they're blowing themselves up to fight military incursions into their lands. (In this sense, they're not that different from people throughout history who sacrificed their lives to defend territory against foreign armies.) One person who's been saying this — and getting little attention — is Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago. Based on the comprehensive databank he's developed as director of the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism, Pape concludes there's been a strategic goal common to nearly every act of suicide terrorism in the past 25 years: "To compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland.""
Disappointing Democrats Deliver Again - "Proving once again that party loyalty affects the reasoning part of the brain, the Democrats are introducing legislation, HR 4694 that will cut private funding for candidates running for House seats. It will also mandate public funds for candidates of the "two major parties" (there are two major parties?)Let me see, corruption, cronyism, incompetence and crimes being committed by the Republicans in Washington DC and this is the best they can do?Obviously, the Democrats are feeling threatened and know they can no longer hold on to their base as they are no longer an opposition, party, merely a mirror of the Republicants."
Buy a hybrid, save a guzzler - "The more time you spend looking at the economics of the hybrids, the less comfortable you get. ... The hybrid, then, is just about the perfect example of what's wrong with our energy policy. It's a Band-Aid that does a lot less to help the Earth than we like to tell ourselves. When Vice President Dick Cheney dismissed conservation as "a sign of personal virtue" a few years back, a lot of environmentalists were disgusted. But that, sadly, is what a lot of well-meaning hybrid owners are driving: an expensive symbol that they're worried about our planet, rather than a true solution. ... The Department of Transportation makes the fuel-economy rules--the ones that actually matter--and it's not planning any changes. It will proceed with the fiction that the Prius gets 55 miles to the gallon. This is our energy policy."
$521,000: The average pay of Goldman Sachs employees and that includes secretaries - "They call it Goldmine Sachs. And well they might. Because the Wall Street giant has become the first major investment bank to see its average salary top half a million dollars."
How MUCH is your TIME worth? - "In light of the recent revelation that "the average pay of Goldman Sachs employees [including] secretaries" is $521,000, I think it's appropriate to ask why the fuck do bankers make so much, while others make so little? ... You have to be wondering WHY? What on earth do bankers do with their TIME that merits this kind of compensation when others are lucky to get minimum wage? The bankers who manufactured this grotesque system KNOW that the only way they can make themselves filthy rich is off the backs of others."
NBC Puts On 2-Week Commercial for US Power - "Watching an American production of a world sporting event these days may be embarrassing. It is simplistic. It is supremacist. It is promotional to the core. But it is also instructive. NBC covers the Olympics the way American neocons do foreign policy: The world is 95 percent America, 3 percent water, and 2 percent everything else."
Quote of the Day
"I believe, that as a species, human beings define their reality through misery and suffering."
~ Agent Smith, The Matrix
No comments:
Post a Comment