Friday, June 30, 2006

BEHIND OUR BACKS REVISITED

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I had to start a new post to add the unbelievable well written articles that I am coming across, on the same
subject as my previous post "BEHIND OUR BACKS, ON THE ROAD TO BARBARISM".

This next read is from Maureen Dowd. She is by far, one talented writer and she happens to be on our side.
Please read her "TEACHING REMEDIAL DECENCY" It is absolutely heart wrenching. WHEN WILL IT END?

FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, BRING THEM HOME NOW! thinkingblue

Teaching Remedial Decency

By MAUREEN DOWD

Before the war, America railed against the Iraqi leader for slaughtering
innocent Iraqis. Now the Iraqi leader is railing against America for
slaughtering innocent Iraqis.

Iraq is blustering about sending away American troops to make life
better for Iraqis, after American troops were sent in to make life
better for Iraqis.

With fury swirling over the Haditha massacre and the shooting on
Wednesday of two women, one of whom might have been pregnant and on the
way to a hospital, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki laced into the
American military, accusing it of regular attacks on civilians that were
"completely unacceptable" and pledging his own inquiry on Haditha.

"They crush them with their vehicles and kill them just on suspicion,"
he said, adding that some in the military "do not respect the Iraqi
people," and that assaults on unarmed civilians will help determine how
long American troops are welcome in Iraq.

Bold talk from a tenuous government dependent on U.S. forces to prop it
up during a sectarian bloodfest.

It's a bitter irony. And not even a terribly illuminating irony, since
Saddam truly had a regime of butchery and the American military is not
in the business of atrocity, even if an undeniable atrocity was
committed and even if the war has become something of an atrocity.

"It's one of those things where we have become the enemy," John Murtha
said ruefully on CNN.

American troops are under spectacular emotional pressure. They go out
every day, not knowing Arabic, not understanding the culture, not
knowing who the insurgents are, not knowing when they can go home or
which of their buddies will be blown up before their eyes by an unseen
enemy.

The troops were not trained for a counterinsurgency, because Bush hawks
ignored the intelligence reports that predicted an insurgency and civil
war. These kids were turned into sitting ducks because the neocon con to
sell the war needed a gauzy prediction of Iraqi gratitude and a quick
exit.

It is admirable that the Marine commanders want to morally sensitize the
troops while they are in such a hostile environment, but it also seems a
bit absurd, sending them to summer school in "core values."

There's no way to teach someone not to shoot an unarmed woman or child.
If somebody doesn't already know why they shouldn't murder a baby, it's
not clear that a refresher course will help.

The problem with brushing up on core values is that if you don't know
them by a certain point you can't learn them. You can't teach remedial
decency, any more than you can teach remedial ethics to White House
officials who vindictively leak information about critics of the war
after vowing not to leak.

As Norman Schwarzkopf said, in a quote that is part of the military's
slide show on core warrior values: "The truth of the matter is that you
always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it."

From Reverend Dimmesdale to Bill Bennett to President Bush, people who
righteously preach values and aspire to be moral exemplars often get
bitten in the end.

The world is now looking askance at American values, even though W. ran
on a platform of restoring values to the Oval Office and was propelled
to victory by "values voters."

Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld engineered the invasion of Iraq in part
to revive what they saw as lost American values. They wanted to stiffen
the squishiness about using force left over from Vietnam and the moral
ambivalence left over from the do-what-feels-good 60's.

In their worry about a spineless America, they made America all spine —
overly vertebrate. They started thinking with their spine.

They wanted everyone to be afraid of us, and now nobody's afraid.
Certainly not the nutty president of Iran, whom the administration is
forced to kowtow to, now that the American military is not a fearsome
force in potentia, but a depleted, demoralized and disparaged force
trapped in Iraq trying to police a civil war.

The invasion that was supposed to help terrorism has made it worse. The
invasion that was supposed to make America more feared and beloved has
made us more hated. The invasion that was supposed to banish
post-Vietnam syndrome has revived it.

The virtuecrats of the right thought they would demonstrate American
virtue to the world as they imposed American democracy. But now, with
murder charges expected against some marines, and a cover-up
investigation under way, the values president is running a war that
requires a refresher course on values. A bitter irony.


CLICK HER TO GO BACK TO "BEHIND OUR BACKS" ONE


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THE IMPEACHMENT OF GEORGE W BUSH.


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CAROLYNCONNETION - I've got a mind and I'm going to use it!

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

BEHIND OUR BACKS, ON THE ROAD TO BARBARISM

I believe Bush and his neoconservatives are fascists in conservative clothing. So obvious are they with their arrogant power grabs and total disregard as to what is good for WE THE PEOPLE. Actually, they are harming America and sending us all to HELL IN A HANDBASKET.
But my belief in this was somewhat
WATERED-DOWN, (after all, I really don't know what goes on behind closed capital doors and being a liberal I am always ready to give anyone
THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT) that is until today.





Now without a doubt, I KNOW they are taking us on the route Hitler took his country (Just like Hitler, Bush refers to America as HIS to do with whatever he pleases...) just read this from CAPITAL HILL BLUES ...

"With every revelation, we learn more and more just what a dangerous despot Bush is, a madman with the power to wage war at will, destroy the Constitution on a whim and invoke his own perception of unchecked Presidential power by ignoring the system of checks and balances that used to be part of our system of government."

Or this from scottsmith blog ...

"You know, I get the impression that George W. Bush really doesn't understand the concept of checks and balances as it relates to government. I think he really believes his government is an autocracy, and has used the attacks of 9/11 to justify an alarming abuse of power by the executive branch. Bush believes that, since we are at war, the Constitution essentially grants him unlimited power to protect America. But we're not at war -- Congress hasn't declared war -- and what we're supposedly at war with is a noun. Terrorism. Ostensibly to prevent another 9/11 attack from happening. However, the Bush administration does not strike me as a bunch of people with their act together, and they are power-mad. Secret military courts, holding
suspects indefinitely without benefit of counsel, suspending the Fourth Amendment in the hunt for Al-Qaeda terrorists -- all this and more to present the illusion of safety, the illusion of security. Despite all of our efforts, Osama Bin Laden remains at large, and the Bush dministration would rather just put their collective heads in the sand and pretend the man doesn't exist anymore. For all we know, he is regrouping with his operatives in planning another attack. And what we do know about Al-Qaeda is that they our patient, willing to wait years before carrying out an attack, and the 9/11 Commission recently gave the Bush administration poor marks in homeland security preparedness. The report, issued on Dec. 5, 2005, gave the administration "more F's than A's," 41 grades in all to measure the progress of the administration in implementing security proposals by the 9/11 Commission... I have my
doubts that any report concluding that what the Bush administration's wiretapping program was illegal would result in any change in the program. Bush will do what he wants, for as long as he wants, while there is a Republican majority in Congress. There seems to be only a handful of Republicans who have openly criticized Bush and his administration's programs. Benjamin Franklin quite possibly had predicted the state of U.S. politics, circa 2006, when he said, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." And thanks to the sheep of the "red" states, who blindly support Bush as if he were royalty, our government is moving slowly but surely down that path. Welcome to the Bush autocracy."


I am telling you AMERICA, this is not just gibberish from disgruntled liberals... This is a dreadful, frightening situation. Please read this from BUZZ FLASH'S MAUREEN FARRELL...

"God Is With Us": Hitler's Rhetoric and the Lure of "Moral Values" by Maureen Farrell

"God does not make cowardly nations free." -- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

A couple weeks ago, while asserting that the Founding Founders intended for the U.S. government to be infused with Christianity, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that the Holocaust was able to flourish in Germany because of Europe's secular ways. "Did it turn out that, by reason of the separation of church and state, the Jews were safer in Europe than they were in the United States of America?"

Scalia asked a congregation
at Manhattan's Shearith Israel synagogue. "I don't think so."

One might expect regular citizens to be ignorant of history, but a Supreme Court Justice? Does he imagine that the phrase "Gott mit Uns" was a German clothier's interpretation of "Got Milk"?

If photographic evidence of the Third Reich's Christian leanings were not enough, Hitler's own
speeches and writings
prove, at the very least, that he presented many of the same faith-based arguments heard in America today. Religion in the schools? Hitler was for it. Intellectuals who practiced "anti-Christian, smug individualism"? According to Hitler, their days were numbered. Divine Providence's role in shaping Germany's ultimate victory? Who could argue? In other words, there is enough historical evidence to color Scalia deluded. Writing for Free Inquiry, John Patrick Michael Murphy explained:

"Hitler's Germany amalgamated state with church. Soldiers of the vermacht wore belt buckles inscribed with the following: "Gott mit uns" (God is with us). His troops were often sprinkled with holy water by the priests. It was a real Christian country whose citizens were indoctrinated by both state and church and blindly followed all authority figures, political and ecclesiastical.

Hitler, like some of the today's politicians and preachers, politicized "family values." He liked corporeal punishment in home and school. Jesus prayers became mandatory in all schools under his administration. While abortion was illegal in pre-Hitler Germany, he took it to new depths of enforcement, requiring all doctors to report to the government the circumstances of all miscarriages. He openly despised homosexuality and criminalized t."

For anyone wanting even more proof, Mein Kampf is chock full of the Fuhrer's musings on God. ("I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord," Hitler wrote). But anti-Semitic rants aside, some of Hitler's religious musings are interchangeable with Mr. Bush's.

Hitler was raised a Catholic and spoke of his faith in God, yet, singling out his rants against religion, politicians and pastors continue to characterize him as a pagan barbarian. Such distortions are convenient -- particularly in an age where propaganda concerning "moral values" is readily gobbled up and Christian nation legislation waits in the wings -- but, to paraphrase the Bible, overlooking the truth will not make us free.

calia, who also cited the Bible to claim that government "derives its moral authority from God," is hardly alone in his assertions. Leo Strauss, the philosopher who has influenced neoconservativism, and by proxy, George Bush's America, felt that religion, like deception, was crucial to maintaining social order. Meanwhile, neoconservative kingpin Irving Kristol has argued similar points -- bragging about how easy it is to fool the public into accepting the government's actions while arguing that America's Founding Fathers were wrong to insist on the separation of church and state. Why? According to Jim Lobe, it's because religion, as Strauss and his disciples see it, is "absolutely essential in order to impose moral law on the masses who otherwise would be out of control."

We must all stay very vigilant and watch every move these despots are making in front of our eyes or BEHIND OUR BACKS... OR... we will follow the people of Germany in the history books and future generations will read, not only, The Descent Into Barbarism the story of how Germany, a stable and modern country, in less than a single lifetime led ... the Third German Empire... ending with the demise of Nazi
Germany
in 1945.


BUT ALSO... "DESCENT INTO BARBARISM...THE STORY OF HOW AMERICA, A STABLE AND MODERN COUNTRY, IN LESS THAN A SINGLE LIFETIME LED... the BUSH EMPIRE CHANGED AMERICA, INTO A MURDEROUS DISASTER ... ENDING WITH THE DEMISE OF NEOCON AMERICA IN 2020... Amen,thinkingblue

PS: Please read the following articles very carefully, they all give clues as to what is in store for us all in FASCIST AMERICA and upon digesting this information... Any person who will still vote in November 2006 for a politician who supports this fascist regime... I say to you..."YOU WILL BE TO BLAME FOR AMERICA'S DOWNFALL!"
Bye-Bye Miss American (First Amendment) Pie
by Doris Colmes

Deputy District Attorney Richard Ceballos was outraged. He had just been disciplined after writing internal memos alleging that a police officer had blatantly lied in order to obtain a search warrant. But, when he continued to urge his supervisors to dismiss this pending criminal case because of the very specific police misconduct involved, Caballos’s advice was not only rejected, but he was transferred to a lesser job farther from his home, and denied a promotion.


The result of Caballos’s indignation with the apparent collusion between the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Court System was a lawsuit against county officials in which he alleged that those county officials, including then district attorney Gil Garcetti, had retaliated against him for speaking out within his office.

As reported by David G. Savage of the Los Angeles Times, the case did not fly in Los Angeles County, and, eventually, wound up at the Supreme Court.

So, what’s the big deal about this kind of thing? Happens all the time:Employees find something either unethical or illegal being done by their employers, "blow the whistle," the problem gets fixed and everyone breathes a sigh of relief.

Not this time: This time, the entire First Amendment was eliminated. When the Supreme Court was done with this case, the Constitutional Rights of the First Amendment which provides Americans with freedom of speech, was no longer available for public employees outraged by the misdeeds of their employers or co-workers.

As stated in Public Citizen on June 1, 2006, the Supreme Court came to a 5-4 decision in the case of Ceballos v Garcetti, deciding that, as of May 29, 2006, when this edict was handed down, government whistle-blowers will no longer be protected by the First Amendment

The Miami Herald, on June 5, 2006 said it all: "Informed, courageous workers who dare to point out malfeasance or dangerous conditions in their workplace do not have First Amendment protection for free speech in statements they make ‘pursuant to their official duties.’ This includes reporting any and all levels of guilt in every governmental system, including police, courts, public education and healthcare, along with all the others. Now, if someone inside the government rips us off, oh well, we’re just the taxpayers and therefore expendable.

Thus, for example, if a co-worker sees a public education official sexually abuse a child, or sees his cop cohorts stealing weed from the evidence room and then "lightin’ up" in the cruiser, it’s a no-go. And, if a worker within the welfare system witnesses the misappropriation of funds by a criminal employee, to the point that there is a significant cut in aid for the starving children of a homeless family, there will be no recourse. It is "put up with it and shut up about it" all the way.

Let’s take a look at the Court which handed down this edict: In the majority were
Samuel A. Alito, Jr. (the court’s newest justice), as were Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.

The Bush administration, also, backed this decision wholeheartedly, citing "The U.S. Government’s interest as ‘the nation’s largest public employer.’"

Stephen Kohn, board chairman for the National Whistleblower Center, said, "It’s a devastating decision that, in practice, obliterates protections for about 90% of public workers."

When Justices Scalia, Alito, Roberts, Kennedy and Thomas finalized the removal of First Amendment protection to over that 90% of public workers cited by Stephen Kohn, they effectively shut down all ability to bring to public knowledge any misdeeds whatsoever committed by our government
and/or its employees.


So, why am I raising such a fuss about all of the above? Well, folks, once again, what is happening here and now in the United States of America – our beloved democracy – is exactly what happened in 1930’s Germany. In their final step towards complete empowerment, the Nazi party managed to
take over Germany’s courts. Once that was done, no one, not anyone anywhere in that country, had recourse to the legal system to pursue individual rights.

Loyalty oaths take precedence: Do these oaths define loyalty to whatever branch of corporation or government has hired the person – no matter how insanely or criminally corrupt it becomes? Or do these oaths define loyalty to the ethics, truth and honor that make for a stellar and valuable employee?
In Nazi Germany, loyalty oaths meant choosing either blind obedience or choosing death. The SS (Schutzstaffe, translation: "Protective Squadron") was formed as an elite unit, with its own ranks, insignia and uniforms, the duties of which were to protect Adolf Hitler personally and also to administer the concentration camps. At enrollment into their deliberately secretive training, each new, young SS candidate was given a little German Shepherd pup to mentor, train, play with and nurture: Making these pups become trusted and beloved companions was more than encouraged, it was applauded by the commanders.


At graduation, after more than a year-long training period, these S.S. candidates were lined up, with their young dogs sitting obediently at their feet, and were ordered to shoot them. Right then and there. Shoot them dead. And why? It was a simple test of loyalty. Either you live up to your loyalty oath and shoot the damn dog, while – finally – understanding what is meant by "blind obedience" or we do away with you, since you are obviously not a good Nazi. No dogs ever survived. And, thus, when it came to killing kids in the streets, or torturing people in those concentration camps, these men simply followed orders. They had learned the lesson of blind obedience well.

Is this what we are fostering here? Loyalty to a government that is obviously no longer the democracy for the people and OF the people that it started out to be?

Fascism, like fog, creeps in silently till all views are obliterated. One tiny little step at a time, on those proverbial cat’s feet which don’t show claws until it’s too late – until the courts are taken over and there is no further recourse for anyone. All this began well before May 29, 2006. Free speech, for example, had been ruled as permissible only in designated "free speech zones" – on pain of being arrested – just prior to last election’s party conventions. And now, the courts have been preempted. But the clincher for fascism, for dictatorship becoming a fact of life in America, has to do with those infamous "signing statements."

What is a "signing statement?" According to John W. Dean, former presidential counselor: "Suppose a new law requires the President to act in a certain manner – for example, report to the Congress on how he is dealing with terrorism. Bush’s signing statement will flat out reject that law, and state that he will construe the law ‘in a manner consistent with the President’s constitutional authority to withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive, or the performance of the Executive’s constitutional duties.’ The upshot? It is as if no law had been passed on the matter at all." (Findlaw.com, January 13, 2006) Since coming into office, President Bush has negated well over 750 (!)congressional bills that have reached his desk, simply because he didn’t like them. Using "signing statements" simply bolsters presidential powers. Are these powers now verging on dictatorship? Is the blatant arrogance of simply "signing away" laws of which he does not approve a rather significant "goose-step" in the march towards fascistic despotism? You decide.

And, just as in 1930’s Germany, there is no protest. Some eyeball rolling perhaps – and then back to watching "American Idol." But that’s what Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda maestro counted on: A nation of "Sheeple" whose primary value system is "NIMBY," ("Not In My Back Yard.") Meaning that, unless an individual employee is directly affected by not being able to speak up and inform others of governmental misdeed which he/she has directly witnessed and of which he/she has proof, it don’t matter a bit.


What’s next? Will persons be arrested for writing articles of dissent? Will persons be "disappeared" for exposing corruption à la Patrick Fitzgerald in the Plame incident? Hey, why not? That is exactly what happened in Nazi Germany: Dissent, speaking out, became a crime. And bringing one’s cause to court simply caused amusement for the judges. Just Google Pastor Niehmueller….(that is, if our courts decide that we will still be allowed uncensored access to Google within the foreseeable future.)

June 26, 2006

Doris Colmes, MSW, [send her mail] is an independent writer in Portland, Oregon. Her book, "The Iron Butterfly" was published in 2002,and she received the Kay Snow Award for non-fiction in 2003. She can be reached via:
www.doriscolmes.com.

Copyright © 2006 LewRockwell.com

If that isn't enough to scare the BEJESUS out of you... Wait until you read this next COMMENTARY. thinkingblue

------------------------------------------------------
Presidential power grab; Bush picks and chooses the laws he'll enforce or ignore

David Sarasohn, THE OREGONIAN Saturday, June 24, 2006
Lawyers, for obvious reason, like to know what the law is.

They like to know what the legislators who wrote the laws intended, and what the courts think the laws mean.

Which may be why they get nervous when President Bush says none of that matters.

"When the president's method of dealing with legislation he doesn't like is to say that he doesn't intend to enforce it," said Michael Greco, president of the American Bar Association, "that has a very serious implication for the separation of powers in our country."

Why study law when all you need to know is how the president feels about it?

Which is why, earlier this month, the ABA board of governors voted unanimously to name a task force to look at Bush's breathtaking use of
signing statements on 750 laws,explaining which parts he planned to follow and which parts he planned to flip into the presidential wastebasket.

So far, Bush has issued more signing statements than all previous presidents put together
— with almost three years of legislative picking and choosing to go. By 2008, the federal statutes could look like a set of paper doll cutouts.

So far, among the signing statement greatest hits, the president has waved off congressionally enacted language that protected federalwhistle-blowers, that required the government to report its uses of the Patriot Act to Congress and that created a strong inspector general in Iraq.
But when asked what signing shrug-offs particularly bothered him, Greco immediately noted the
president's scissoring out Sen. John McCain's amendment against torturing prisoners.

"There you have an example of Congress agonizing over an issue, debating it, reaching a decision on behalf of the American people," Greco said, "and the president says,

'I'm not going to enforce it.'

Which is not the way his law books say it's supposed to work, and why the ABA president sees "serious constitutional issues."

So far, Bush is the first president since Jefferson to go this long without vetoing a bill. But as Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe points out, "In a way, these are better than vetoes."

Unlike a veto, a signing statement lets the president keep what he wants and drop the rest, and Congress can't override it.

Best of all, "signing statements generally pass without notice in the public, and there's a good chance nobody will notice," Savage wrote.

Compared with all those advantages, what's a few constitutional problems?

That's the question for the ABA panel, the highest-powered legal group since the O.J. Simpson defense team.

It includes the dean of Yale Law School, the former dean of Stanford Law School, a former FBI director, a former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and former Rep. Mickey Edwards, R-Okla.,who declared:

"I think one of the most critical issues for the country right now is the extent to which the White House has tried to expand its powers and basically tried to cut the legislative branch out of its own constitutionally equal role."

Of course, this does leave the question of what Congress has been doing while its constitutional powers have been pruned like a laurel hedge.

Last month, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, expressed surprise at the extent of "presidential signing statements where the president seeks to cherry-pick which parts of the statute he will follow," and declared that he would hold a hearing on the subject.

But since then, Specter has said that signing statements will be just one among a number of issues that he wants to take up the next time the attorney general comes by the committee.

The president's extensive use of signing statements to pick the laws he'll enforce and the laws he'll ignore may make it hard to be a lawyer, or an article of the Constitution or a branch of government allegedly equal to the executive.

But as Savage points out, the tactic offers the president lots of benefits: It greatly expands his power, and mostly nobody even notices.

Savage didn't even mention the greatest advantage of signing statements:

Congress lets the president get away with it.

Sarasohn is an associate editor at The Oregonian of Portland, Ore. He can be contacted at davidsarasohn(at)news.oregonian.com)


One more article to awaken awareness TO THE FEAR FACTOR going on in our beloved country... thinkingblue
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June 26, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Playing Politics With Iraq
By BOB HERBERT

CLCIK HERE TO GO TO ARTIST'S SITE
If hell didn't exist, we'd have to invent it. We'd need a place to send the public officials who are playing politics with the lives of the men and women sent off to fight George W. Bush's calamitous war in Iraq.

The administration and its allies have been mercilessly bashing Democrats who argued that the U.S. should begin developing a timetable for the withdrawal of American forces. Republicans stood up on the Senate floor last week, one after another, to chant like cultists from the Karl Rove playbook: We're tough. You're not. Cut-and-run. Nyah-nyah-nyah!

"Withdrawal is not an option," declared the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, who sounded like an actor trying on personas that ranged from Barry Goldwater to General Patton. "Surrender," said the bellicose Mr. Frist, "is not a solution."

Any talk about bringing home the troops, in the Senate majority leader's view, was "dangerous, reckless and shameless."

But then on Sunday we learned that the president's own point man in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, had fashioned the very thing that ol' blood-and-guts Frist and his C-Span brigade had ranted against: a withdrawal plan.

Are Karl Rove and his liege lord, the bait-and-switch king, trying to have it both ways? You bet. And that ought to be a crime, because there are real lives at stake.

The first significant cut under General Casey's plan, according to an article by Michael Gordon in yesterday's Times, would occur in September. That, of course, would be perfect timing for Republicans campaigning for re-election in November. How's that for a coincidence?

As Mr. Gordon wrote: "If executed, the plan could have considerable political significance. The first reductions would take place before this fall's Congressional elections, while even bigger cuts might come before the 2008 presidential election."

The general's proposal does not call for a complete withdrawal of American troops, and it makes clear that any withdrawals are contingent on progress in the war (which is going horribly at the moment) and improvements in the quality of the fledgling Iraqi government and its security forces.

The one thing you can be sure of is that the administration will milk as much political advantage as it can from this vague and open-ended proposal. If the election is looking ugly for the G.O.P., a certain number of troops will find themselves waking up stateside instead of in the desert in September and October.

I wonder whether Americans will ever become fed up with the loathsome politicking, the fear-mongering, the dissembling and the gruesome incompetence of this crowd. From the Bush-Rove perspective, General Casey's plan is not a serious strategic proposal. It's a straw in the political wind.

How many casualties will be enough? More than 2,500 American troops who dutifully answered President Bush's call to wage war in Iraq havealready perished, and thousands more are struggling in agony with bodies that have been torn or blown apart and psyches that have been permanently wounded.

Has the war been worth their sacrifice?

How many still have to die before we reach a consensus that we've overpaid for Mr. Bush's mad adventure? Will 5,000 American deaths be enough? Ten thousand?

The killing continued unabated last week. Iraq is a sinkhole of destruction, and if Americans could see it close up, the way we saw New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, they would be stupefied.

Americans need to understand that Mr. Bush's invasion of Iraq was a strategic blunder of the highest magnitude. It has resulted in mind-boggling levels of bloodshed, chaos and misery in Iraq, and it certainly hasn't made the U.S. any safer.

We've had enough clownish debates on the Senate floor and elsewhere. We've had enough muscle-flexing in the White House and on Capitol Hill by guys who ran and hid when they were young and their country was at war. And it's time to stop using generals and their forces under fire in the field for cheap partisan political purposes.

The question that needs to be answered, honestly and urgently (and without regard to partisan politics), is how best to extricate overstretched American troops — some of them serving their third or fourth tours from the flaming quicksand of an unwinnable war.

<http://select.nytimes.com/2006/06/26/opinion/26herbert.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

This piece was so good I had to write to Mr Herbert: thinkingblue
Dear Mr. Herbert, Thank you for writing such a poignant Op Ed Piece... "Playing Politics With Iraq". Sometimes, I feel like I am living in a foreign place. I don't understand why people can't see what is happening to us, We The People of the United States, the backbone of this country. Why do so many rationalize away the atrocities these madmen in high offices have perpetrated upon us. It's as though the whole country have become lemmings and are following one another into oblivion, as the neocons watch and can hardly hold back the paroxysm of joy at such a site. thinkingblue.blogspot.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I put a link to this forum above but it was so superb, I had to place a partial text from it here: Please click the link below to read more...thinkingblue

Complacency and the Fouth Ammendment
Friday, April 27, 2001 - The U.S. Supreme Court, by the narrowest of margins, has all but nullified the Fourth Amendment of the nation's Constitution.

Any cop, in any town, at any time, at any place, for any reason can now order the driver of a vehicle to pull over to the curb and submit to a total search of his (or her) property - pockets, purse, clothes, car trunk, glove compartment, suitcase, briefcase, ashtrays, cargo trailer. And, possibly, the garage and house.

Welcome to tyranny.

If a mom is seen by a policeman driving her children home from soccer, but her kids aren't wearing seat belts, she can be stopped, handcuffed and hauled to jail. Her car and all of her possessions, including her children, can be confiscated, searched and held by the state.

That's now the law of the land. And if they can invade our vehicles on such flimsy grounds, how safe are our homes?

Millions of American soldiers died on battlefields - from the Revolutionary

War to the Civil War to two world wars to Vietnam - for Americans' freedom.

And then, on April 24, 2001, millions of other Americans were denied that freedom, by a 5-4 vote of nine black-robed justices who have never heard the sound or felt the percussion of an enemy's assault.

The Cold War is over, the foreign guns have been silenced.

The enemy now is among us, stalking our homes, our neighborhoods, our towns and our cities from within our own borders.

Our freedom no longer is defining us; it is diminishing us.

We are so neglectful and ungrateful of our freedom that it has abandoned our sense of values.

We have become too comfortable.

Yes, we have - all of us, you and I.

We argue about things like growth and traffic congestion and student achievement and the daily stock-market closings and day-care moms and weather reports and interest rates and vacation plans and Oscar nominations and the barking dog down the block, yet we don't pay even the slightest attention to things that are really important.

Things like the Supreme Court saying it is OK for a policeman to arrest a woman - while her kids are watching their mom being handcuffed as a common criminal - for the $50 offense of not having her children strapped into their seat belts.

And, while they're at it, the cops can search her car, her purse, her clothing and her body.

And not just hers.

Yours, too.

This is why we fought world wars in the name of freedom and our Constitution?
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This posting is going to go on forever... I keep getting articles that are too important to let go... Please read this next one by Harroon Siddiqui... It's a winner. thinkingblue

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Nobel Laureate Flays Bush

By Haroon Siddiqui
The Toronto Star
Thursday 01 June 2006

Gunter Grass, celebrated German novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, sculptor and commentator, is a living legend. When this Nobel laureate speaks, people listen.

His address in Berlin to the annual Congress of International PEN, the worldwide organization of writers, had been much anticipated, especially given his long admonition to intellectuals
to speak up on the political and moral issues of the day.

He himself has done so all his life, most famously against the Nazi past and contemporary neo-Nazism and xenophobia. He has not always been right, of course, having opposed post-Cold War German unification.

Grass, at 78 still spry and energetic, quickly gets into his topic, "The hubris of the world's only superpower," and proceeds to offer a sweeping critique.

His words find resonance among the writers gathered here, including another Nobel laureate, South African novelist Nadine Gordimer.

"Armed force is used by this superpower to defeat the terrorism it is itself responsible for," Grass says, citing Osama bin Laden, the by-product of American support
for Afghan jihadists in the 1980s. "The war (on Iraq), deliberately started in blatant disdain of the laws of civilized societies, produces still more terror."

Yet George W. Bush is searching for new enemies and targets.

"Dictatorships, and there are plenty to choose from, are referred to as rogue states and threatened vociferously with military strikes, including the deployment of nuclear weapons. But it only further stabilizes the fundamentalist power systems in those countries.

"Whether the term 'axis of evil' is used to refer to Iran or North Korea or Syria, politics could not be more stupid and hence more dangerous. Yet the entire world is watching and pretending to be powerless."

Grass quotes liberally from the blistering speech given last year by British playwright Harold Pinter in accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature: "The United States supported and, in many cases, engendered every right-wing military dictatorship in the world after World War II - Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador and, of course, Chile ...

"Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place in those countries ... but you wouldn't know it. The crimes of the U.S. have been systematic, constant, vicious, and remorseless but very few people have actually talked about them.

"You have to hand it to America. It has exercised quite a clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's brilliant, even witty, a highly successful act of hypnosis. How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal?"

Having cited Pinter, Grass adds his own condemnation of "the hypocritical method of keeping the body count" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Although we meticulously keep count of the victims of terror attacks - terrible though their number is - nobody bothers to count the dead caused by American bombs or rocket
attacks."

The death toll from America's "three Gulf Wars," as he called it - "the first one having been fought by Saddam Hussein against Iran, with support from the United States" - runs into
hundreds of thousands.

"In Western evaluation, not only are there first-, second- or third class
citizens among the living, but also among the dead."

As for Bush and Tony Blair, he says, "whenever their lies lack persuasive power, they put God into harness.

Hypocrisy is written all over their faces.

They are like the priests and missionaries of old who used to bless weapons and carry death with their Bibles into distant countries."

The enormity of U.S.-initiated death, destruction and torture, places a burden on the citizens of democracy to be more vigilant: "Who wanted this war? What are the lies that have
disguised its true purpose? Who profits from it? Whose shares go up because of it?"

In a post-speech interview, I ask Grass about governments ignoring the electorate between elections, as those did in Britain, Italy and Spain, which joined the war on Iraq despite
overwhelming public opposition.

"In the last 10 years, lobbies have become stronger than the government, in the U.S. and other democracies," Grass responds. "They cannot change policy, for example, on health without the pharmaceutical industry, or farming policy without the farm groups. Lobbies are too powerful," the most powerful being the ones wanting war.

Even though Germany resisted the Iraq war, there has been a change of atmosphere since the election of a conservative government (just like in Canada).

"There are voices in this country saying, 'the U.S. is our ally, we have to stand by it, we have to do this and we have to do that for it.

"I hope it will not develop like that in Canada," Grass says.
--------
Haroon Siddiqui, the Star's editorial page editor emeritus, appears Thursday and Sunday.

```````````````````````````````````````````````````

Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it. But no one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of
truth. –Mahatma Gandhi
CLICK HERE TO GO TO THIS SITE NEOCON TORTURE RHETORIC ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This so-called ill treatment and torture in detention centers, stories of which were spread everywhere among the people, and later by the prisoners who were freed… were not, as some assumed, inflicted methodically, but were excesses committed by individual prison guards, their deputies, and men who laid violent hands on the detainees.
Can anyone tell me who said that? Was it:
A) George W. Bush
B) John Ashcroft
C) Donald Rumsfeld
D) Someone else


If you answered “someone else", you’d be right. It was Rudolf Hoess, SS Kommandant of the infamous Auschwitz death camp where over 2.5 million people were murdered.
Conservatives, who love to call Liberals whiny, get whiny as hell when the Bush administration is compared to Nazi Germany, or to fascism in general. Guess what, though? The comparisons are beginning to come through more and
more. From ON THE ROAD TO TYRANNY!


http://thinkingblue.blogspot.com
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CLICK HERE OR BELOW PICTURE TO SEE JON STEWART HILARIOUS TAKE ON THE MIAMI SEVEN

TDS: The Miami Seven
Jon Stewart takes a look at the case known to many as "The Miami Seven." He examines the careful and decisive evidence told to us by Alberto Gonzales:

Gonzales: These individuals wish to wage a quote: "full ground war against the United States."

Stewart: Seven guys? I’m not a general. I am not anyway affiliated with the military academy, but I believe if you were going to wage a full ground war against the United States, you need
to field at least as many people as say a softball team.

Please Alberto, don’t take any questions-you were doing just fine up until then. That was followed up by some careful analysis of the men involved in the plot.

A: One of the individuals was familiar with the Sears Tower- had worked in Chicago and had been there-so was familiar with the tower, but in terms of the plans it was more aspirational rather than operational.

Stewart: No weapons, no actual contact with al-Qaeda, but one of them had been to Chicago…

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PICTURES SAY A THOUSAND WORDS...

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Sunday, June 25, 2006

My God, BRING EM HOME!

The right (wing) seems to be NOT SO RIGHT on anything of importance like the pursuit of happiness, freedom AND WAR!... All the wool that has been pulled over their eyes by their trusted leaders (POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS) has blinded them to OUT AND OUT RAGE!

Good God, I wished these people could get pissed off about all the disparities and insults this neoconservative plutocracy has brought upon the average working American...!!! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THEM...??? THEY SEEM TO WANT TO VENT THEIR HATE ONLY AT DEMOCRATS AND LIBERALS... LIKE POOR MISGUIDED SHEEP, THEY DO NOT REALIZE WHERE THE HATE BELONGS????

If what happened to the two soldiers who were bestially TORTURED TO DEATH doesn't make their blood boil... nothing will... and all over the Internet I see rationalizations that the torture had nothing to do with how the bush-shits handled the Iraq war fiasco... Such as this from the RIGHT WING HOWLER

OUR CAPTURED SOLDIERS ARE DEAD
by @ 12:14 pm. Filed under TERRORISM, MILITARY
The barbarous, pig fellating, goat fornicating terrorists shouting “ALOHA SNACKBAR” while buns-up, kneeling 5 times a day tortured and brutally killed our two captured soldiers.

Meanwhile, the LameStream Media and their sycophants on the left (to include Democratic
Congress-Critters) will soon be out in force telling us, “We told you so! Killing Zarqawi led to this!”

All the while, no one in the media will DARE call the UN Human Rights Council or AmNasty Internatshithole on the carpet demanding to know why it is OK for terrorists to do this but when we accidentally drop one of these camel fornicators’ korans or put panties on their heads, we are torturers and abusers of human rights and violators of the Geneva Convention. Why is it the Geneva Convention and Human Rights only apply to us? I thought prisoners of war were supposed to be accorded certain rights?

Where is the outrage?

It is way past time that our military ought to adopt a new approach to this war: when terrorists are captured, we ought to bring out the video cameras, torture the piss out of these bastards, flay the skin off their bodies with a cat o’ nine tails, dunk them in salt water and when they scream, rip their tongues out and shove it up their asses. Then we should just cut their heads off.

All on video.

Then put on DVD and distributed along with free DVD players to entire communities.

We need to let these scumbags know we can also play their game.

HOLY COW, AN ANN COUTER WANNABEE!

I wish I could get inside of one of these delusional minds on the right and see how the hell they come to such cockamamie conclusions.

I guess to them Bush's pathetic apology for his macho cowboy lingo of "BRING EM ON"...and also his lightly mentioned regret over the ABU GHARIB tortures, exonerates him from feeling guilt about the barbaric way these poor boys had to die. (AS IF HE DID NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS HELL IN IRAQ)

They may not be pissed at Bush and his merry band of neoconservatives... but
CLICK HERE TO GO TO SEEDS OF DOUBTI'M PISSED, for sure! I believe this administration is responsible for every BLOODY incident in this stinking war. Take for instance...

It was reported that the Pentagon has decided to remove a reference to Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions from a new edition of the Army Field Manual on interrogation. That article bans torture and cruel treatment as well as "outrages on personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment." The change, which would reverse decades of military policy, follows President Bush's declaration in 2002 that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to "unlawful combatants" such as terrorists. FROM HARPER'S WEEKLY which I posted on thinkingblue blog.

That was an absolute setup for these two young men to suffer their "Bush cowboy lingo" and "neocon ideology" destined fate... But you don't hear that from the brainwashed, WAR GONG-HOERS on the Right... all you get is this:

"Our son, as far as we're concerned, he has died for the freedom of everybody in the United States," Tucker's father, Wes Tucker, said in an interview on NBC's "Today" show Wednesday.
He talked with pride about his son's enthusiasm and devotion to his work, but while he was grieving, he said he also understood that his son was a soldier in a war.

HUH? I feel the most profound sympathy for these families but it does not stop me from asking: What planet do you people come from...????

Can such trite rhetoric really make you feel at peace with how your sons died and for what????

When I envision someone I love, suffering such a horrific doom, I WANT TO KILL SOMETHING... would probably windup being ME... for I couldn't ever continue with life while envisioning the hours upon hours of agonizing pain and fear my loved one went through ...

These two young men died a thousand times before it was over!!!!

It seems to me, the minds on the right can't empathize or FEEL ...(THEY ARE TOO WELL VERSED IN THE ART OF RATIONALIZATION WHICH KEEPS THEIR FALSE BELIEFS FROM SEEMING FAUX!) It will probably take a long, long time (if ever) before these "blinded by the right" souls, will ever see any light or realize WHERE TO PLACE BLAME... Too, too sad!

WHY AREN'T WE ALL OUTRAGED, BOTH LEFT AND RIGHT AT A GOVERNMENT WHO TAKES GOING TO WAR SO LIGHTLY?

THIS UNNECESSARY WAR THE NEOCONS HAVE THRUST US IN, SHOULD MAKE US ALL ANGRY, INDIGNANT, CHOLERIC, IREFUL, FURIOUS, INCENSED, LIVID, MAD, RABID, WRATHRUL AND MAKE ALL OF US WANT TO SHOUT IN UNISON... MY GOD, BRING EM HOME NOW! thinkingblue

PS: Please click the below picture to hear Bruce Springsteen sing

"BRING EM HOME"

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ps2: Have you seen the series on PBS by Bill Moyers... Bill Moyers talks about faith, reason and his new PBS special The first interview was with Salman Rushdie ... well worth a look... http://www.pbs.org/moyers/ thinkingblue

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tip of the iceberg
Enron shows depth of corporate greed
By Milt Neidenberg
Published May 31, 2006 10:30 PM

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I clicked on my daily email from GotLaughs.com, which I do from time to time... Each morning when I open my mail service I find, so much out there to read and digest, usually gotlaughs and i.euniverse.com does not get much attention from me. But Rump Ranger caught my eye, and so, being the curious person I am... I thus CLICKED AWAY!

At any rate, GotLaughs does not shun away from the vulgar, which is obvious in RUMP RANGER. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a bit of deficiency in taste from time to time, especially when sprinkled with humor as in this little cartoon, of Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling in prison, illustrates.

These two crooks certainly do not deserve any pardons or sympathy from the public... They screwed us EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE and not once did they feel culpability until THEY WERE CAUGHT! thinkingblue

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CLICK TO GO seeds of doubt dot com

THE IMPEACHMENT OF GEORGE W BUSH.

Today's posting goes and on... NO END IN SITE:

DESERT RATS LEAVE THE SINKING SHIP WHY RUMSFELD SHOULD NOT RESIGN

Friday Apr 14, 2006By Greg Palast Well, here they come: the wannabe Rommels, the gaggle of generals, safely retired, to lay siege to Donald Rumsfeld. This week, six of them have called for the Secretary of Defense's resignation. Well, according to my watch, they're about four years too late -- and they still don't get it. I know that most of my readers will be tickled pink that the bemedalled boys in crew cuts are finally ready to kick Rummy In the rump, in public. But to me, it just shows me that these boys still can't shoot straight. It wasn't Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who stood up in front of the UN and identified two mobile latrines as biological weapons labs, was it, General Powell? It wasn't Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who told us our next warning from Saddam could be a mushroom cloud, was it Condoleeza? It wasn't Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who declared that Al Qaeda and Saddam were going steady, was it, Mr. Cheney? Yes, Rumfeld is a swaggering bag of mendacious arrogance, a duplicitous chicken-hawk, yellow-bellied bully-boy and Tinker-Toy Napoleon -- but he didn't appoint himself Secretary of Defense. Let me tell you a story about the Secretary of Defense you didn't read in the New York Times, related to me by General Jay Garner, the man our president placed in Baghdad as the US' first post-invasion viceroy. Garner arrived in Kuwait City in March 2003 working under the mistaken notion that when George Bush called for democracy in Iraq, the President meant the Iraqis could choose their own government. Misunderstanding the President's true mission, General Garner called for Iraqis to hold elections within 90 days and for the U.S. to quickly pull troops out of the cities to a desert base. "It's their country," the General told me of the Iraqis. "And," he added, most ominously, "their oil." Let's not forget: it's all about the oil. I showed Garner a 101-page plan for Iraq's economy drafted secretly by neo-cons at the State Department, Treasury and the Pentagon, calling for "privatization" (i.e. the sale) of "all state assets ... especially in the oil and oil-supporting industries." See it here. The General knew of the plans and he intended to shove it where the Iraqi sun don't shine. Garner planned what he called a "Big Tent" meeting of Iraqi tribal leaders to plan elections. By helping Iraqis establish their own multi-ethnic government -- and this was back when Sunnis, Shias and Kurds were on talking terms -- knew he could get the nation on its feet peacefully before a welcomed "liberation" turned into a hated "occupation." But, Garner knew, a freely chosen coalition government would mean the death-knell for the neo-con oil-and-assets privatization grab. On April 21, 2003, three years ago this month, the very night General Garner arrived in Baghdad, he got a call from Washington. It was Rumsfeld on the line. He told Garner, in so many words, "Don't unpack, Jack, you're fired." Rummy replaced Garner, a man with years of on-the-ground experience in Iraq, with green-boots Paul Bremer, the Managing Director of Kissinger Associates. Bremer cancelled the Big Tent meeting of Iraqis and postponed elections for a year; then he issued 100 orders, like some tin-pot pasha, selling off Iraq's economy to U.S. and foreign operators, just as Rumsfeld's neo-con clique had desired. Reading this, it sounds like I should applaud the six generals' call for Rumfeld's ouster. Forget it. For a bunch of military hotshots, they sure can't shoot straight. They're wasting all their bullets on the decoy. They've gunned down the puppet instead of the puppeteers. There's no way that Rumsfeld could have yanked General Garner from Baghdad without the word from The Bunker. Nothing moves or breathes or spits in the Bush Administration without Darth Cheney's growl of approval. And ultimately, it's the Commander-in-Chief who's chiefly in command. Even the generals' complaint -- that Rumsfeld didn't give them enough troops -- was ultimately a decision of the cowboy from Crawford. (And by the way, the problem was not that we lacked troops -- the problem was that we lacked moral authority to occupy this nation. A million troops would not be enough -- the insurgents would just have more targets.) President Bush is one lucky fella. I can imagine him today on the intercom with Cheney: "Well, pardner, looks like the game's up." And Cheney replies, "Hey, just hang the Rumsfeld dummy out the window until he's taken all their ammo." When Bush and Cheney read about the call for Rumsfeld's resignation today, I can just hear George saying to Dick, "Mission Accomplished." Generals, let me give you a bit of advice about choosing a target: It's the President, stupid. ********** Read more about the untold story of General Garner and the secret war plans in ARMED MADHOUSE, by Greg Palast, to be released June 6. View Palast's interview with Garner for BBC Television at http://www.gregpalast.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LOSER NATION Tuesday Apr 11, 2006 by Greg Palast


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Thursday, June 15, 2006

THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE UGLY, THE RIDICULOUS

Harper's weekly is an on-line magazine with brief thumbnail accounts of some events taking place on this crazy Earth of ours. In so many sentences you will learn news not shown or reported by the mainstream media. Please read below the review (with pictures I've added from the Internet, plus some enlightening or entertaining links attached) and learn, a few good, bad, ugly, ridiculous and doleful facts from around the world. thinkingblue

HARPER'S WEEKLY

June 13, 2006
WEEKLY REVIEW

United States forces succeeded in killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, with two five-hundred-pound bombs that were dropped on a safe house north of Baghdad. Zarqawi reportedly survived the bombing at first and even tried to get away but was strapped to a stretcher, where he died. The U.S. military denied reports that American soldiers had beaten the dying terrorist. "He died while American soldiers were attempting to save his life," said General George Casey. Al Qaeda promised torespond with "major attacks." Tom DeLay, the former Republican majority leader who was forced to resign because he is corrupt, said farewell to the House of Representatives. Dozens of Democrats walked out during his speech. "I did a good job," DeLay said. "I helped build the largest political coalition in the last 50 years." Texas executed an axe murderer, and it was reported that scientists have created a new type of synthetic snakebite antivenom. Florida's wildlife officials decided to remove the manatee, which has a mild taste that readily adapts itself to recipes for beef, from the state's endangered-species list. A new Gallup poll found that Muslim women are generally happy with their lot and think that Western values lead to moral decay, pornography, and promiscuity. New computer viruses were exploiting World Cup fever, and British scientists claimed that men drink heavily at sporting events in order to compensate for their masculine shortcomings.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN HOW TO DRAW A COWBOY
President George W. Bush traveled to Artesia, New Mexico, to address the Border Patrol Academy and suggested that immigrants had better learn to speak good American.
"I knew I was in pretty good country when I saw all the cowboy hats," he said. "And I think I saw one guy spitting in a can."
Three detainees at the American prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, committed suicide using nooses made from clothing and bedsheets. "They have no regard for human life, neither ours nor their own," said Navy Rear-Admiral Harry Harris. "I believe this was not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetric warfare against us." All three men had been in the camp for about four years and had recently engaged in a hunger strike. The attorney for Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, one of the marines charged with the Haditha massacre, asserted that the massacre, though "tragic," was nonetheless "lawful" and was the result of following "the
rules of engagement and standard protocol."



CLICK HERE TO SEE THIS AMAZING ART

It was reported that the Pentagon has decided to remove a reference to Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions from a new edition of the Army Field Manual on interrogation. That article bans torture
and cruel treatment as well as "outrages on personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment." The change, which would reverse decades of military policy, follows President Bush's declaration in 2002 that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to "unlawful combatants" such as terrorists.



A report by the Council of Europe charged that European countries (including Germany,
Spain, Sweden, Greece, and Italy) served as a "global spider web" for the CIA's secret abduction and unlawful transfer of terrorism suspects to its network of torture camps around the world. The United States issued a report on the global sex trade and rebuked Germany for being "a source, transit, and destination country" for prostitutes. Donald Rumsfeld, the American secretary of defense, traveled to Vietnam, where he complained that Russia is a bully and China is secretive; he also observed that when Vietnam's first university was founded in 1070 American Indians were still living in mud huts. "That's impressive," he said. Indonesia's defense minister scolded Rumsfeld for being overbearing. President Vladimir Putin of Russia had lunch with Henry Kissinger, who said afterward that he has confidence in "Russian evolution." "What if my grandmother had certain sexual attributes?" Putin asked a reporter. "Then she would would be my grandfather." A new study found that the quality of men's sperm deteriorates as they grow older and could lead to an increase in dwarf babies.

Armed gunmen abducted more than 50 bystanders at a Baghdad bus stop, and it was announced that May was the deadliest month for Baghdad residents since the beginning of the American occupation. A total of 1,398 bodies were found throughout the city, alongside roads, in garbage dumps, and in abandoned cars, though many others have been abducted, never to be seen again. British special forces were being trained to use strap-on "batwings" rather than parachutes; the lightweight carbon wings permit the soldiers to be dropped at high altitudes and then glide for more than 100 miles before landing. The Senate failed to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and Macy's removed two gay-pride mannequins from a Boston display window after the store received complaints. It was reported that the United States carried out 750 air strikes in Afghanistan last month and that plans were being made to send United Nations troops to Darfur. Serbia declared itself to be a sovereign state. Javier Solana, Europe's foreign-policy director, formally offered Iran a package of incentives designed to persuade the Islamic state to give up its nuclear ambitions; that same day, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran restarted its uranium-enrichment program. An Israeli artillery shell killed at least seven civilians, including five members of one family (including young children aged ten, three, and one) who were picnicking on a beach in Gaza. Israeli officials expressed regret and said that the shell had been aimed at a target 400 yards away from the picnic. Hamas declared that it would no longer abide by a 16-month-old cease-fire and fired a rocket into Israel. The Army Corps of Engineers admitted that its incompetence was largely to blame for the destruction of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. The Food and Drug Administration asked restaurants to help Americans eat less. "We must take a serious look at the impact these foods are having on our waistlines," said a health-promotion official named Penelope Slade Royall. Whole Foods was concerned about the well-being of its fresh lobsters, and the New York Times reported that tar-paper shacks have been selling briskly in South African shanty towns. A group of high school students in Florida found a real corpse at a fake crime scene. American conservationists were airlifting endangered frogs out of Panama in their luggage. Surgeons in Shanghai successfully removed a baby boy's third arm.
-- Roger D. Hodge
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HARPER'S WEEKLY
June 6, 2006

WEEKLY REVIEW

In Iraq, a car bomb in Basra killed at least 33 people, a mortar attack in southern Baghdad killed 9 people, and 8 U.S. soldiers died. Police found 22 bodies with bullet wounds and signs of torture in Baghdad; northwest of the city, at an improvised checkpoint, 19 civilians were dragged from their cars and shot. Twenty-one Kurds and Shiites, many of them high school students, were ordered off a bus and executed in Ain Laila. In Baquba 7 policemen were killed, and the heads of 8 Sunni men were found in Dole banana boxes. Six more policemen were killed in Mosul. A Baghdad pet market was bombed, killing 5 people and several doves. It was reported that a U.S. Marine had been traumatized by his experiences cleaning up and documenting the alleged massacre of civilians by other marines in Haditha. "He called me many times," said the marine's mother, "about carrying this little girl in his hands and her brains splattering on his boots." A U.S. soldier was sentenced to 90 days' hard labor for threatening a prisoner at Abu Ghraib with a dog in 2003.
"You can . . . end up losing the whole dang war," said the prosecuting attorney, "basically for boneheaded decisions and misjudgments." The United States announced that it would join 5 other nations in demanding that Iran immediately suspend uranium-enrichment activities, although the country would in the future be allowed to develop some civilian nuclear technologies. Iran said it would refuse to engage in talks unless all conditions were dropped, and Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the United States could endanger its oil supply if it makes a "wrong move" toward Iran. Iran's military was reported to have planned a campaign of decentralized guerilla warfare in the event of a United States invasion, and oil rose to $73 a barrel. John Allen Muhammad, the Beltway Sniper, was sentenced to 6 consecutive life sentences.

It was determined that New Orleans was sinking faster than previously thought. A potent drug cocktail killed at least 48 people in Detroit, monsoon storms killed more than 40 people in and around Bombay, and an earthquake in Iran killed one little girl. President George W. Bush named Goldman Sachs Group Chairman Henry Paulson Jr as the new Secretary of the reasury, and an Ohio coin dealer named John Noe pleaded guilty to charges that he illegally funneled more than $45,000 to Bush's reelection campaign. British police were patrolling seaports and
airports in order to prevent football hooligans from attending the World Cup in Berlin, and the European Court of Justice ruled that E.U. airlines are not required to provide passenger data to the United States. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered 1,000 National Guard soldiers to the Mexican border. The United States declared a moratorium on wind farms in Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Ted Nugent denied both poking his erect penis through a map of West Virginia and urinating on a nun. It was reported that Umberto Billo, a Venetian hotel porter, had slept with 8,000 women, and the worldwide rate of HIV infections stabilized for the first time in history. Montenegro declared independence from Serbia, and the first wild bear seen in Germany since 1835 continued to attack farm animals and elude capture. "For security purposes," said Bavarian Environment Minister Werner Schnappauf, "the permission to open fire must be maintained." Authorities said the brother of the bear had killed Swiss sheep last summer. Elizabeth Taylor denied reports that her health was failing, and archaeologists in Rome dug up a 3000-year-old female skeleton.

Researchers studying a shipwreck off Cape Cod discovered the remains of a nine-year-old pirate named John King, the Vancouver Zoo was charged with cruelty to a hippo, and officials in south India said that they had captured an alcohol-abusing, homicidal rogue elephant named Master Killer. In China doctors were trying to determine which left arm to remove from a three-armed baby. In New Jersey a 13-year-old girl was arrested for attempting to kill her 91-year-old neighbor; in Washington, D.C., a 13-year-old girl won the Scripps National Spelling Bee by correctly spelling "Ursprache"; and in New York City a 13-year-old girl (who may be an exotic dancer) abducted a 3-year-old boy. Dutch pedophiles founded a political party that will push to lower the Netherlands' age of consent from 16 to 12, and eventually to scrap it altogether. "A ban," said a party co-founder, "just makes children curious." British scientists powered a small fan by feeding chocolate to bacteria, an Ohio man was awarded a patent for a cordless jump rope, and a Japanese acoustics expert recreated the voice of the Mona Lisa. "My true identity," said the virtual Mona Lisa, "is shrouded in mystery." Pakistan banned "The Da Vinci-CODE."
"Degradation of any prophet," said Minister of Culture Ghulam Jamal, "is tantamount to defamation of the rest." Two people died when a plane owned by Pat Robertson crashed off the coast of Connecticut, and a snake bit a woman at a Wal-Mart in Florida. "Thank goodness for sweat pants with elastic," said the woman, "because he tried to climb up my britches' leg."
CLICK TO SEE A WHOLE BUNCH OF SNAKES
A woman married a cobra in the Indian state of Orissa. "Though snakes cannot speak or understand," said the bride, "we communicate in a peculiar way."









A senior citizens' community in Washington was overrun by marmots. A cave in Israel was found to contain a complete ecosystem that had been sealed off for millions of years, geologists identified the impact site of a giant meteor that is suspected of having wiped out most life on earth a quarter-billion years ago, and an international team of scientists announced that the North Pole was once an ice-free area with tropical temperatures. "Basically," explained palaeoecologist Appy Sluijs, "it looks like the earth released a gigantic fart of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere." It was declared that Batwoman will be a lesbian.
-- Rafil Kroll-Zaidi

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HARPER'S WEEKLY
May 30, 2006

WEEKLY REVIEW

In Iraq over 66 people were killed in attacks, including two CBS News employees when their convoy was struck by a car bomb; a CBS correspondent was seriously injured in the same attack. In Baghdad two tennis players and their coach were killed for wearing shorts, and a Marine helicopter was shot down over the Anbar province. Soldiers were developing emotional relationships with their bomb-defusing robots. "Please fix Scooby Doo," said one soldier, "because he saved my life." Senator John Warner called for hearings into the killings of more than 20 civilians in Haditha by U.S. Marines in 2005, and it was reported that, since 2003, 8,600 British troops had gone AWOL in Iraq; 929 were still missing. Riots broke out in Afghanistan after a U.S. military truck went out of control and killed some civilians. Osama bin Laden released an audiotape in which he claimed that convicted terrorist conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was not involved in the September 11 attacks. "Brother Moussaoui was arrested two weeks before the events," said bin Laden, "and if he had known something--even very little--about the September 11 group, we would have informed the leader of the operation, Mohamed Atta, and the others . . . to leave America before being discovered." British MP George Galloway said that an assassin would be "morally justified" in killing Prime Minister Tony Blair. Seventy-five prisoners were on hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay prison, and a charity organization published a report claiming that 60 minors ages 14 and older have been held at the prison. President George W. Bush signed into law the Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act, which limits protests at military funerals. In Ontario, Canada, a man was arrested ten minutes after stealing a hand-held vagina. "He had used it," said a constable.

An earthquake in Indonesia killed more than 5,000 people, flooding in Thailand killed more than 100 people, and four Russian soldiers were killed in Chechnya. The government of Burma extended the house arrest of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi for an unspecified amount of time. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority to accept the goal of establishing a Palestinian state (and thus acknowledge Israel's right to exist); if Hamas does not comply, he said that he will call a national referendum on the issue. A gay-rights rally in Moscow turned violent when activists were attacked and beaten by anti-gay protesters. "Moscow," shouted the protesters, "is not Sodom!" In Germany, at the official opening of the Hauptbahnhof, the largest railway station in Europe, a man went on a rampage and stabbed 35 people. Because one of the first people he stabbed was HIV positive, concerns were raised that some of the subsequently stabbed may also become infected. A team of researchers in southern Cameroon said that they had found wild chimpanzees carrying the SIVcpz virus, thought to be the precursor to HIV. In Washington, D.C., police searched the 50 acres of office space in the Rayburn House Office Building to find that the "gunfire" that precipitated a several hour lockdown was actually a pneumatic hammer.

Former Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were found guilty of conspiracy and fraud, and in San Diego a man named Lawrence Christopher Smith was sentenced to 84 years to life in prison for shooting and killing a man named Dom Perignon Champagne. A Nebraska judge sentenced a man convicted of sexually assaulting a child to probation because the man is too short for prison. The Supreme Court voted unanimously that police may enter a house without a warrant in order to break up a fight. President Bush ordered that the documents seized by the FBI in a raid on the offices of Representative William Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat, must be sealed for 45 days, so that Congress and the Justice Department can determine exactly how material seized from Congressional offices should be reviewed. The Justice Department denied reports that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (who publicly criticized the FBI for raiding Jefferson's offices) was under investigation for his relationship with former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Hastert said that the FBI was planting stories in the media to discredit him. Jack Kevorkian was very ill and reportedly had less than a year to live. In Australia, a psychiatrist named Stephen Allnutt testified that financier Brendan Francis McMahon had believed he was helping animals when he mutilated 17 rabbits and a guinea pig while under the influence of
methamphetamine. "I wonder," McMahon reportedly said, "if I made a mistake because I never asked the rabbits?"

CLICK HERE TO SEE RABBITS DANCEScientists in North Carolina said that they could grow new, functional rabbit penises, and a jury in Illinois awarded a woman $5 million in compensation for her ruined vagina. In Norway a grevling, or badger, wrecked a man's bedroom. An analysis of FCC decisions found that the following terms or phrases are neither indecent nor profane:
"a lot of crap," "ass is huge," "ass," "bitch," "damn," "dick," "dickhead," "fire his ass," "for Christ's sake," "hell," "kick-ass," "kiss my ass," "my ass," "pissed off," "poop," "sex with adog," "singers that suck," "sit their asses down," "sucked," "up yours," "wiping his ass," and "you suck." NASA scientists claimed that they could extract oxygen from lunar soil,
CLICK TO SEE AMAZING ART PAT ROBERTSON

Pat Robertson claimed to have leg-pressed 2,000 pounds, and Senator Bill
Frist helped give a gorilla a root canal. A study found that most British men
are cry babies. A Sherpa stood naked on the summit of Mount Everest.



-- Paul Ford







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click here to get this book

In the good old days people used to sit on the porch and watch the grass grow or gaze at the stars. Nobody locked the front door of their house because they knew all the neighbors. Not many people had a car, but those that did never locked the ignition (back then cars didn't even have locks). People spent their evenings sitting in the living room with their family, knitting or whittling while listening to the radio.

That was a long time ago. The enormous increase in the population and the rapid advance of technology has changed all that. Too many people on this planet has made it into a dangerous place to live. If you don't get mugged or killed by criminals you die from the stress caused by annoyances like sound, light and air pollution.

People used to work for the same company their entire life and retire with a pension. Now technology and foreign competition has made job security a thing of the past. We don't even have secure family relationships. Half of our marriages end in divorce and family members are taking each other to court over a few hundred dollars.

People today are under incredible stress, and things are not going to improve any time soon. This ebook tries to provide some advise and practical steps you can take to survive in this crazy world. From stress management and career advice to money management tips and relationship advice, help is here.

I plan to keep updating and building this ebook with new ideas and information that will help you not just survive, but thrive in todays crazy world. We humans are strong and adaptable and can handle any thing life throws at us. So enjoy this ebook, while I go sit on the porch and watch the grass grow.

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