No Relief in Sight

The news is truly ugly today. War clouds gathering on the Black Sea. More talk of war between Israel and Syria. Allegations that the sex chat and subsequent resignation of Florida Rep. Mark Foley is just the tip of a republican pedophile ring. Fallout from the "elimination of habeus corpus" legislation is starting. Afghanistan and Iraq get worse by the hour. Looming financial collapse. It ain't pretty.

Time for some eye candy boogy. Turn it up, go ahead and dance.

ESPN Faked Stadium Cheers For Bush Sr

From davefromqueens at Kos:
"It started with right winger Mike Tirico announcing George Bush Sr. to the crowd. Instantaneously you could hear an echo of cheers and not a single boo from the audio. But if you listen carefully to the audio, that audio was not live. ESPN shut off the sound of the Superdome crowd for a few seconds and played this audio of fake cheers. About ten seconds later ESPN had to shut their fake tape off and go to the NFL official on the field for the coin toss. That's when you could hear the REAL crowd noise. The audio on the field was a couple of hundred feet away so ESPN was probably thinking that crowd noise could not be picked up. ESPN was wrong."

Apparently the stadium thundered with boos from the crowd, which is to be expected. I'm going to hunt around for the audios. Jeebus if true I hope ESPN gets humiliated for this.

United States Of Torture

Another tumble down the slippery slope of fascism.

Congress is falling all over itself to allow the stench in the White House to destroy the United States as we knew it, and to force us to live in a militarized, tyrannical hell. I guess mindlessly intoning 9/11 and national security was enough to convince the lobotimized, spineless traitors to pass laws that directly contravenes the constitution and all the humanity that we supposedly stood for.

This isn't creeping totalitarianism, it's a full speed sprint.

Thinking that allowing some guy's testicles to be crushed, his fingernails to become a memory or freezing him to death for information or for just plain fun was run of the mill activity in the Soviet era:

"I still shudder recalling Lubyanka’s underground cells, grim interrogation rooms, and execution cellars where tens of thousands were tortured and shot. I sat at the desk from which the monsters who ran Cheka (Soviet secret police) — Dzerzhinsky, Yagoda, Yezhov, Beria — ordered 30 million victims to their deaths.
Prisoners taken in the dead of night to Lubyanka were systematically beaten for days with rubber hoses and clubs. There were special cold rooms where prisoners could be frozen to near death. Sleep deprivation was a favourite and most effective Cheka technique. So was near-drowning in water fouled with urine and feces."

The mistake is to assume that it's just going to be some other, probably dark skinned guy with a funny name who'll be the recipient of such treatment. It'll be wise to recall Niemöller and his famous "first they came" poem, because our overlords aren't going to stop until they have the ability to declare anybody a terrorist.
And why may you, kind reader, be branded a terrorist by the fascists some day? Not for being a threat to the country and it's people, but for being a threat to the fascists themselves.

Now that torture to retrieve information is legal, Let me be one of the first to suggest that the highest officeholders in the land be taken into custody and waterboarded to find out their roles in perpetrating 9/11.

The Only Question is When

The wider war in the middle east will commence, that is. I'm not the only one who's been convinced the fascists will provoke a full blown war with Iran. US forces are already operating inside that country, preparing targets and stirring up local subversion to Tehran. When this flares into open warfare, and I'm convinced it's only a matter of timing, it will have been the most telegraphed conflict in modern history, the most easily foreseen. The state of world affairs is swirling the bowl which is just how our Lords of Chaos want it. Too many people are waking up to the horrors unleashed by the fascists, which is why they're about to pour it on again.

Bob Moriarty sees it coming too - Fear the October Surprise
"In any case, the world is in for another six weeks of the greatest danger of nuclear war since the dark days of October of 1962. George 2nd is madder than a hatter. There is a good chance this administration will do anything to prevent the Democrats for taking either the House of Representatives or the Senate. It's entirely possible that Karl Rove will incinerate America before allowing the investigations that would be part and parcel of a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives. They are the ones who vote on Impeachment and it's clear to anyone who listens to Americans speak these days, if we lived in a democracy, Bush would be toast."

Karl Rove is even openly promising some variation on SHTF next month.

It was speculated that the proposed Iranian oil bourse would prompt an attack to keep the dollar tied to world oil trades and that may still be true. The petrodollar is also threatened by Russia selling it's oil in rubles so the fascists may figure now they've got nothing left to lose. Israel is keeping the pressure on for the US to engage Iran militarily. It's possible that all the tough talk has backed the fascists into a corner where they have to put up or shut up all of their threats and supposed deadlines.

There are a lot of things propelling this headlong rush to an inferno in the middle east and possibly even global conflagration, but I think there are two other overlooked reasons why Iran will be struck.

When Tehran announced they were going to start enriching uranium for electric power, the zionazis siezed on that excuse to spread the lie about WMDs just like the lead up to the invasion of Iraq. There's another side to this story. In the enrichment process for every ton of uranium produced and enriched about 250 lbs is the desired product U-235, while the rest is U-238, or depleted uranium.
The military saw the potential for tipping projectiles with this extremely dense metal in the 50's and first used it liberally in the Gulf War. They since used it widely as it's the optimum munition against heavy armor and buildings. Only about 8 countries have stockpiles of DU that can be effectively made into munitions. It's possible the US military wants to keep it's overwhelming advantage in this area, and prevent Iran from joining this exclusive club.

The other reason we might be on the cusp of fresh horror has a lot to do with american politics, past and present. With the midterm diebold selection process coming up, the fascists must keep the people traumatized, fearful and rallied around the codpiece. Any outbreak of warfare effectively makes that happen.
Iran holds a secret, though, that if exposed would enrage the population against the repugs beyond the point that Rove and his manipulations could contain it.In November, 1979, students empowered by a new Iranian regime stormed the US embassy in Tehran and took 66 hostages in what quickly turned into a crisis that lasted 444 days. The presidential election in november the next year between Reagan and the incumbent Carter was consumed with this issue. Obviously there were no touch screen vote machines to tweak back then and the Reagan team was terrified that Carter would secure the hostages' release, then win the election.Iran was then at war with Iraq and needed munitions and spare parts. The Reagan people, including soon-to-be vice president G.H.W. Bush decided to cut a deal with Iran:
"According to the October Surprise theory, members of the Reagan-Bush campaign cut a secret deal with the Ayatollah Khomeini, to keep the hostages from being released before the November 4, 1980 presidential election."
Iran got a lot of weapons, the american election happened and Carter lost, the hostages were released by the Iranians minutes after Reagan took the oath of office.

I'm sure Ahmadinejad has all kinds of audio and video of those negotiations. Just what would the fascists do to keep us from knowing it?

+++++++

Also - Why Bush Will Nuke Iran by Paul Craig Roberts.

The Propaganda Machine At Work

"Special" editions for the dead-from-the-neck-up home audience.

Environmental Catastrophe in Lebanon

The vicious attack by Israel has made it impossible to live in many places in the country.

"The environmental issues started with the five-week attack on thousands of Lebanese homes and buildings. The fires from the attacks caused large clouds of smoke that experts reported containing contamination with the potential to create hormonal and respiratory problems in humans. The mid-July Mediterranean oil spill has been burning since. The oil gradually is spreading north to Syria and Turkey as well."

The oil spill is a direct result from Israel bombing Lebanon's oil depots and power plants.
But the most despicable crime was the use of depleted uranium munitions, the de facto zionist nuclear warfare. Not counting Nagasaki and Hiroshima, this marks the fifth nuclear war the fascists have waged, starting with Gulf War 1, contaminating yet more of the world's surface and dooming countless generations to genetic mutation, deformity and sickness.
Depleted uranium has a half life of 4.5 billion years.

Bush Approval Directly Tied To Gas Prices

Forget about the carnage in Afghanistan and Iraq, forget about our constitution being used as toilet paper, that our fascists pulled off 9/11, the disintegration of our infrastructure, that we've been transformed into a police state. All that stuff may be true but the overriding concern for most people is how much they spend on gasoline. And that seems to be directly related to how favorably they view Bush.



Look at the spikes and dips in gas prices and the corresponding reverse direction of Sockpuppet's approval rating a short time later. I've seen graphs comparing approval to other things but this, if it's correct, matches much closer. The general consensus that people vote with their wallets seems to be true.

What this means is that manipulating the price per gallon can influence how voters approach elections. Electoral outcomes are now almost totally predetermined since rigging the computerized vote count is child's play. Our overlords have any number of ways to fix the vote count. The task before them is to make it seem like there's a close contest that could swing either way, so when some races end in unexpected wins it appears more legitimate. Expect the price of gas to drop even further before November, toss in some Osama tapes, mix with a false flag lollapalooza and Voila!
The murderous scumbags aren't going anywhere.

Space Tourist Can't Display Flags

Anousheh Ansari is an foreign born, naturalized american who happened to be rich enough to buy a trip into space.



She wanted to display small insignias of both her native country and her adopted country. Both american and russian space officials didn't want her to do that. Seems displaying national flags is now forbidden.



A month ago it wasn't an issue - US and Iranian flags to go into space with female tourist



It sure wasn't an issue in 2002 when a guy named Mark Shuttleworth (what a propitious moniker for a guy to hitch a ride on the space shuttle!)



Anyway, Shuttleworth was a south african. He had a great time for his money spent.



But Ansari was born in Iran, which will soon be bombed back to the stone age, so a little badge with both the american and iranian flags sent too much of a positive image of cooporation between the two countries. But it seems space officials were more than happy to collect her reported $20 million.
Here's the insignia she designed to wear.

Big Brother is Shouting at You

Britons by far are the most scrutinized people on the face of the planet. There are over 4 million security cameras in their country or about one for every 14 people. Since fascism is never satisfied with the level of control it exerts, those cameras are starting to tell you how to behave.

"Big Brother is not only watching you - now he's barking orders too. Britain's first 'talking' CCTV cameras have arrived, publicly berating bad behaviour and shaming offenders into acting more responsibly.
The system allows control room operators who spot any anti-social acts - from dropping litter to late-night brawls - to send out a verbal warning: 'We are watching you'."

Of course the fascists will tell you it's all for public safety.
Don't you just feel safer knowing some government snoop is watching your every move? Aren't you glad you're a suspicious suspect and presumed guilty until proven innocent? The overlords have already started to hide the cameras with plenty of cases of abuse, presumably meaning they watch people in bathrooms and fitting rooms. And just the fact that some disembodied voice can boom out commands to you at any moment should make any freedom lover's blood boil.

If they pull that shit in this country I guarantee there will be a big increase in baseball bat sales.

Arguing for Depravity

Alternet has a video of Sockpuppet's press conference where he incoherently demanded to rewrite rules of human behavior. He appeared to be in a cocktail haze of drugs - some speed to get his mojo going, some tranks and a little of his usual psycho meds.



Here's the comment I left there:
"What a shocking display of mental instability and sick projection. This unbalanced man-child fronts the most despicable cabal of twisted sociopaths the world has ever seen. When this flailing imbecile talks about "they're comin' again" he means the next phoney Al Qaeda synthetic terror attack that his boys are going to pull on us. It's as transparent to me as the idiotic attempt to convince us that he read Camus."

The Rude One chimed in on the same sorry spectacle. From his website:
"We're in the midst of one of the most degrading debates in the history of the nation. Our goddamned President just spent the better part of an hour in a press conference today whining like a little bitch in the rain about losing his favorite squeaky toy.
(...)
The most frightening aspect of the press conference was not the sight of the ostensible leader of the "free" world screeching and jabbing like chicken that got into the meth stash. No, it was Bush's insistence that captured American soldiers are just a "hypothetical." Pressed by David Gregory on whether he could abide another country saying it was interpreting the Geneva Conventions however it wanted when it came to treatment of a hypothetical American, Bush simply said that it was okay by him if it was like what he wants: "I am saying that I would hope that they would adopt the same standards we adopt." GI, get ready for your waterboarding."

I dunno, maybe Precious Leader should hire a translator to help get his message across -

Jon Stewart explores the misuses of the question mark?

Spike Lee's "When The Levees Broke" is Online

The links to the YouTube videos are posted by Ajit at Ticklebooth.

I'm surprised and pleased to find this. I don't turn the television on very often and don't have a cable connection, but I very much wanted to see this production. It's well made, powerful and deeply moving according to every critic I've read. I'm looking forward to it.

Thanx to BoingBoing

Record area cleared of landmines

"A greater area was cleared of landmines last year than ever before, according to a new report from a group that monitors the use of the weapons.
(...)
Since 1997, 151 countries have joined a treaty banning the use of landmines.
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) said that 740 sq km (286 sq miles) of land - an area the size of New York City - had been demined.
More than four million landmines and other explosive devices were removed and destroyed.
Almost all of the victims were civilians, many of them children.



IDF commander: We fired more than a million cluster bombs in Lebanon

"What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs," the head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon said regarding the use of cluster bombs and phosphorous shells during the war.
(...)
The cluster rounds which don't detonate on impact, believed by the United Nations to be around 40% of those fired by the IDF in Lebanon, remain on the ground as unexploded munitions, effectively littering the landscape with thousands of land mines which will continue to claim victims long after the war has ended.
Because of their high level of failure to detonate, it is believed that there are around 500,000 unexploded munitions on the ground in Lebanon. To date 12 Lebanese civilians have been killed by these mines since the end of the war."

Lying Liars at it Again

Where have we seen this sort of bullshit before? Oh yes, it was just before the US invaded Iraq.

IAEA protests "erroneous" U.S. report on Iran
VIENNA (Reuters) - U.N. inspectors have protested to the U.S. government and a Congressional committee about a report on Iran's nuclear work, calling parts of it "outrageous and dishonest," according to a letter obtained by Reuters.
The letter recalled clashes between the IAEA and the Bush administration before the 2003 Iraq war over findings cited by Washington about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that proved false, and underlined continued tensions over Iran's dossier.

Air Force Thinks We're Guinea Pigs

Yesterday air force head honcho Michael Wynne postulated that " Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before being used on the battlefield."



"If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation," said Wynne. "(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press."

Yo, dude, I am like so totally down with that. I mean like you've been spending untold billions of our tax dollars on all these exotic killing tools and we want to test them out ourselves, you know? To make sure that it was all worth it, dig? And we so do not want you to be vilified.

But I'll tell you what. We don't want to hog all the fun so we'll just make sure you and your family are first in line to test that microwave thingy, OK?

If You Liked This 9-11; You’ll Love The Next

It's a relief to be past the 9/11 spot on the calendar. I can't call it an anniversary, there's too much celebratory meaning in that word- I prefer remembrance. To the guilty murderers at the helm of this government it's a joyous occasion, although they pretended to be solemn and somber, serious and grim. 9/11 was their euphoric release from the restrictions of law, their intoxicating emancipation from oversight, their best Christmas morning ever. It kickstarted the War on a Generality to enable the theft of a nation.

Which is why the fascists are heavy on the mythologizing and refer to Black Tuesday over and over again.

At this five year milepost they smothered us in smarmy treacle and tried to bring back the glory days of fearfully rallying 'round the flag and stalwart leadership. And you know what? I think people have had it up to here with Bush, his sick , murderous agenda and all the lying pustules that surround him. I also believe that they've taken close notice of how the hypnosis has worn off, how their one trick pony is now so goddamn tiresome. So I'm not the only one that thinks their revulsive message is stagnant and we're going to get another sucker punch to recapture that climate of fear:

"Today’s anniversary of 9-11 promises to be another futile attempt to reengage the public and try to shore-up support. Bush can be expected to invoke the same stale imagery of dusty fireman and smoldering buildings while the bag-pipes wail in the distance. The nation will again be dumped into a bottomless pool of grief in the vain hope that their feelings will reinvigorate the war effort.
It won’t work."

+++++++

By the way - "Total projected cost of the war per U.S. household, based on a January estimate: $19,600[Joseph Stiglitz, Columbia University (N.Y.C.)]"

9/11

So five years ago today, as planes were flying into buildings, with widespread panic and shock, a full half hour after the first hit on the WTC, Bush said this to the children in that classroom:

"Hoo! These are great readers. Very impressive! Thank you all so very much for showing me your reading skills. I bet they practice, too. Don't you? Reading more than they watch TV? Anybody do that? Read more than you watch TV? [Hands go up] Oh that's great! Very good. Very important to practice! Thanks for having me. I'm very impressed."

According to Eric Alterman in the Nation.

They Lied

Disney and ABC lied when they responded to critics of this propaganda piece. They said"Lighten up, it's a docudrama."
Look how it's being advertised outside the country.

"Patriot Day"

TBogg serves up a public admonition:

No sex please, we're mourning

Just a reminder that Monday is Patriot Day, a totally made-up holiday where the citizens of the United States are asked to lower the flag to half-mast and observe a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m. eastern daylight time. Sleeping Americans on the west coast, where it will be 5:46 a.m., are requested to avoid snoring. In the event of unplanned "morning sex", it should be sad and grim and silent, in the manner best described by sex therapists as "Republican sex".

Your cooperation is appreciated.

Proof of Ohio Election Fraud Kept From The Shredder

Wayne Madsen notes that the heavily tampered-with ballots from 2004 were saved by a lawsuit:

"Pursuant to a federal law that permits the destruction of ballots, including absentee ballots, 22 months after a federal election, ballots from the 2004 Ohio election were scheduled to be destroyed on Sept. 2, but the intervention of Columbus-based attorney Cliff Arnebeck and the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights with the U.S. Court in Columbus resulted in a protective order being issued for ballots and voting records in all 88 Ohio counties. This decision upset the corrupt Ohio Republican Party and its gubernatorial standard bearer Kenneth Blackwell, the Secretary of State who helped engineer the 2004 electoral vote fraud coup in his state, who wanted to begin the document shredding process in Sept. 2."



Madsen seems to think that the democrats will prevail this november, and that John Conyers will ascend to the the chairmanship of the house judiciary committee, so all the ballots will be used as evidence in upcoming impeachment proceedings. The last two presidential cycles were flat out stolen by miserable scum would-be-tyrants, how he believes that this year will be any different is beyond me. I'll make a prediction - if the manipulators know that their shenanigans can't carry the day, we'll be on the receiving end of an October Surprise that will obviate any election.

Its Called The American Dream - Because You Have To Be Asleep To Believe It