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| If Ignorance Is Bliss.....
Then Surely It Must Be Folly To Be Wise!"If ignorance is truly bliss, then why do so many Americans need Prozac?" I'm starting to blog again. However I will ruffle some feathers so if it pisses you off so be it, and if you have something constructive to add do so. If you just want to be bitchy then be forewarned. It's just a button push away from blogville to banville.
Now if you're wondering why so many posts on January 12, 2007, read just pissed off at Aff
Come See
Blog World
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UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico
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Posted:Nov 21, 2007 1:58 pm
Last Updated:Nov 23, 2007 4:23 pm
1832 Views
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Many of you will recall that on July 8, 1947, almost exactly 60 years ago, witnesses claim that an unidentified flying object (UF with five aliens aboard crashed onto a sheep and cattle ranch just outside Roswell, New Mexico. This is a well-known incident that many say has long been covered up by the U.S. Air Force and other federal agencies and organizations.
However, what you may NOT know is that in the month of March 1948, nine months after that historic day, the following people were born:
Albert A. Gore, Jr.
Hillary Rodham
John F. Kerry
William J. Clinton
Howard Dean
Nancy Pelosi
Dianne Feinstein
Charles E. Schumer
Barbara Boxer
See what happens when aliens breed with sheep? Certainly hope this piece of information clears up a lot of things for you. It did for me.
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Bush Carries Two Hogs
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Posted:Nov 21, 2007 1:21 pm
Last Updated:Nov 25, 2007 8:07 pm
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Last Tuesday, as Bush got off the helicopter in front of the White House, he was carrying a baby piglet under each arm.
The squared away Marine guard snaps to attention, salutes, and says: "Nice pigs, sir."
The President replies "These are not pigs, these are authentic Arkansas Razorback Hogs. I got one for Hilary Clinton, and I got one for Condi Rice ."
The squared away Marine again snaps to attention, salutes, and says,
"Excellent trade, sir." 
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Saving George Bush
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Posted:Nov 21, 2007 1:09 pm
Last Updated:Nov 23, 2007 4:23 pm
1826 Views
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George W. Bush was out jogging one morning along the parkway when he
tripped, fell over the bridge railing and landed in the creek below.
Before the Secret Service guys could get to him, 3 who were
fishing pulled him out of the water. He was so grateful he offered the
whatever they wanted (courtesy of the American Taxpayer, of
course).
The first says, "I want to go to Disneyland." George W. says, "No
problem. I'll take you there on Air Force One."
The second says, "I want a new pair of Nike Air Jordan's."
George W. says, "I'll get them for you and even have Michael sign them!"
The third says, "I want a motorized wheel chair w/a built in tv &
stereo/headset!" Bush is a little perplexed by this and says, "But you
don't look like you're handicapped."
The says, "I will be after everyone finds out I saved you from drowning!"
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Diamonds and Pearls and... Ron Paul
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Posted:Nov 20, 2007 10:28 am
Last Updated:Dec 12, 2007 10:59 am
2412 Views
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At the recent farce of a democratic debate- in an obviously scripted moment- a cosmeticized and coiffed twit of a contemporary,bimbo extraordinaire stepped up and asked candidate Clinton which she preferred, "diamonds or pearls?" then Clinton, in mock surprise, as fabricated as her over-the-top threats against Iran and sundry, did a little Cosmo-magazine dance of parity concerning the relative value of these shiny stones. This little tidbit has been replayed ad nauseum in the succeeding days and it perfectly sums up the bankrupt state of the culture; what those promoting such banality would have us understand the culture to be. It was a Kodak moment.
Quite accidentally, I am 'so totally sure'; the in house crowd was stacked with Clinton backers who made strange animal noises of disapproval every time Obama and Edwards chose to attack inconsistencies in Clinton's positions. The whole affair was tailored like a cheap suit. Consistent with the taste of the whole, the suit was assumed to be Armani; a fraud in mufti in the same way that CNN pretends to be a news channel instead of an unintentional lampoon of the same; when it is not perniciously serving the interests of its masters.
Except for Kucinich- who mixes strange with truth and makes me wonder- all of the candidates looked about as genuine as a Miss America contestant. The fix is in and it goes down like Jello Pudding with the same end effect. Once something becomes a total joke all you need is the looping laugh track and a runaway pig's bladder. More and more it all seems as if Rupert Murdoch's vision of life has become reality. It's like dressing up Baron Samedi in the clothes Jon Benet used to wear. one size fits all. One news channel, all the same channel, all the same lies;"one ring to bind them all and in the darkness find them."
Can something that has become such an absurdity ever regain any authenticity again? Was it always bullshit? Shouldn't somebody put red noses on the clowns at Mount Rushmore? "Not with a bang but a whimper." Does the actual meaning of that phrase apply to sex and does the translation work out to the promise of a desired union culminating in the laying on of a lash upon the trembling collective ass desensitized to anything but the revelation of pain promising a pay per view relief? They certainly seem immune to what they've supported, allowed and turned a blind eye to all along the way.
A good friend of mine in Hawaii said to me on the phone yesterday, in relation to the 'spontaneous' diamonds and pearls exchange, that it sets up a strange counterpoint to the millions who are starving and dying and wracked in innumerable ways; this loathsome and cloying fascination with baubles. This is the sum of the American Dream,an obsession with cosmetic trivia, the fascination of a people with cold gems that are coveted by cold hearts, by people who cannot feel.
I listen to Ron Paul speak and the difference between he and they in gravitas and honesty is instant satire. What are they going to do about Ron Paul? My friend said that they are going to have to kill him. I hope that isn't true but it does look like they won't be able to discredit him. He's surrounded by psychopaths in his own party and vaudeville clowns in the other. It's turning into a combination American Idol B-slasher flick.
I don't agree with everything Ron Paul says but I don't expect to. I'm not an expert when it comes to governing a nation; much less the most powerful and ridiculous nation on Earth. Everything I know about government I learned from Lao Tzu and I've never bothered to learn more. He says it all. However, Lao Tzu's solutions to the needs of government are diametrically opposed to the bombastic, self interest of the present collection of pandering clowns. I guess I've used 'clowns' a few times already but I can't think of a more appropriate term. Every one of them looks to me like they should be running around with a seltzer bottle chasing Clarabelle. It's no surprise that the present resident of the White House is also a clown of the John Wayne Gacy variety. Sometimes I close my eyes and I see a chimpanzee dressed in a summer party dress being chased around the Lincoln bedroom by a tumescent James Gannon in lederhosen; Karl Rove in the corner with a feather duster up his ass. What are we to expect from those seeking to replace him who never had the courage to stand forth and say what needed to be said?
I keep thinking of that line from Apocalypse Now; "The horror! The horror!" I can't see where any of this is headed but I know that I don't want to go there. It astonishes me; this 'business as usual' motif that threads it's way through the increasingly more intense warning signs of wildfires, cyclones, floods, riots, murderous assaults, tazerings, lying disinfo and do I really have to go on? Where am I going with this? The evidence shows a world in upheaval undergoing massive transformation, politically, socially, in the natural world, no one seems to have a handle on anything and the present leaders of much of the so-called free world are waving the tired specter of terrorism and pushing corporate inspired fascism as a solution, while whatever small- disorganized terrorism there may be is caused by and often engineered by the very forces declaiming it. It's a shell game. Meanwhile Mother Earth doesn't seem too happy; whatever the reasons may be. Think about it.
Bad writers are on strike, as if anyone would miss the septic flow of their input and the industry says that it will get by on 'reality' (snicker) shows, it is to weep. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands are dying in real reality shows but no one is watching. The price of oil is shooting through the roof and impacting every area of the world's economies. Transit unions are striking, Pakistanis are revolting, thousands of Buddhist monks are buried in the Myanmar jungles and for some reason, you have to laugh, Chinese manufacturers are soaking 's toys in GHB, and its business as usual.
Ron Paul is the only sane voice I hear that is also uncompromising. I don't generally support political candidates but I know the difference between seeking balance and deliberately seeking imbalance. I know the difference between reasonable perspective in pursuit of the common good and ruthless efforts for the benefit of the few. Ron Paul is saying a lot of the right things and his history seems to indicate that he is sincere and informed. He actually appears to be human. Dr. No? More people should be saying "No."''''instead of being Yes-men for any and every oppressor of human good; every profiteer on the backs of the people. More people should be saying, "I don't know." rather than having answers for every question they get and all of those answers tailored to the fears of the largest interest group they could poll, or the richest minority group whose desires they anticipate
Diamonds and pearls, Vampires prefer diamonds and pigs trample pearls, so what have you got? Blood-sucking swine?
From what I can see, Ron Paul represents those still capable of reason in this most unreasonable and selfish culture. Does he actually represent this in essence? How would I know? I can see the road he walked to get here and whatever he may truly be he's a lot more viable than any of the rest. He's possibility and the promise of hope. He's the sort of man who might well be made great by the power of office. I think it unlikely that would be true of the others; the others are bought and sold long ago.
As much as I am impressed with Ron Paul; if only by comparison with the competition, I am easily as impressed by his supporters... I like the sort of people who talk about him. I like their intensity and intelligence. I like their independence and I like their dreams as seen reflected in their candidate of choice. It's an unlikely event but stranger things have happened. If by some miracle of circumstance and fate, Ron Paul were to be elected then I think that speaks well for humanity and for the future. I'd be very impressed.
As far as diamonds and pearls go, I hope in my life that I continue to spend as little time with those who love them as I do now. I hope one day the value mistakenly given to lifeless trinkets gets put back on the most valuable of life's creations, one another.
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Complicity & Contempt
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Posted:Nov 18, 2007 11:00 am
Last Updated:Nov 18, 2007 6:45 pm
2049 Views
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The United States has become a criminal enterprise led by a 'government' in league with criminality at the highest levels of this land. Since the 'election' of the current congress, almost a year ago-investigations have been reinitiated, supposedly to get to the bottom of the larger aspects of what appears to be apparent criminality throughout the government. To date those investigations have not yielded the necessary documentation required to bring charges against any of the key players-except that by these failures in both the congress and the courts, what has become clear is that they too are 'complicit' and are co-equal partners in the crimes of the administration.
What has become of all the inquiries regarding the illegalities of Dick Cheney, from his office inside the Matrix of this War upon the US and the world? Cheney has created an entirely secret shadow government: he is directing a completely asymmetric war policy that has broken with all sanity, and in which he continues to move ahead with his War-on-Iran, regardless of the global consequences-yet the congress refuses to charge him with contempt of congress. And Cheney is not alone Rumsfeld, Rice, and Bush have all acted well beyond the law, blatantly defying the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions and the will of the majority of the people, as they and congress, have each failed to prosecute those behind this failed series of wars throughout the Middle-East.
The theft and disappearance of Trillions of dollars remains unexplained, while the policies of the nation at home remain unfunded. There is nothing secure about 'living' in this USA that is no longer secure or even viable in the wider world-while we continue our freefall into bankruptcy and disrepute around the world. That election in November of 06 was supposed to mark a turning point-and all we got was more war not less, more troops sent in, instead of the withdrawal that was being sought by the majority of those who voted: and if anything far more new money was committed to continuing the wars, rather than the cut-off of funds that voters thought that were demanding; now more than a year ago.
To be labeled "criminal," simply means to operate outside the established laws. This congress and the courts have now conjoined with the executive in blatantly defying the Constitution of the nation-in their pursuit of something that was never envisioned by the founding documents of the nation. The Constitution founded a co- equal three branch government not a government with only one ruler: Not a "Decider" free from any checks or balances that could limit his actions or restrain his absolute rule.
Words no longer seem to have any meaning, because "real or legal consequences" have become part of what the administration refers to as 'quaint relics of our distant past.' Yet this is only a small part of how we have become a criminal enterprise.
During the Vietnam War the body-bags containing many American soldiers were shipped home with heroin packed inside the remains of those killed in that war. It was the perfect 'hiding place' to escape US customs or official notice, and it was a callous act that might be behind why the dead from this war have been 'protected' by an official act of secrecy declared by the Decider. After all, the Heroin in this war comes not from the Golden Triangle near Vietnam, but from the Poppy fields of Afghanistan that are now almost back to 100% production. This instance was the source for this aspect of that story.
Given that we now know that the government has been lying about the actual number of dead from the Middle East, thanks to Mike Whitney:
"The Pentagon was covering up the real magnitude of the "suicide epidemic". Following an exhaustive investigation of veterans' suicide data collected from 45 states; CBS discovered that in 2005 alone "THERE WERE AT LEAST 6,256 AMONG THOSE WHO SERVED IN THE ARMED FORCES. THAT'S 120 EACH AND EVERY WEEK IN JUST ONE YEAR."
That is not a typo. Active and retired military personnel, mostly young veterans between the ages of 20 to 24, are returning from combat and killing themselves in record numbers. We can assume that "multiple-tours of duty" in a war-zone have precipitated a mental health crisis of which the public is entirely unaware and (for) which the Pentagon is in total denial.
If we add the 6,256 suicide victims from 2005 to the "official" 3,865 reported combat casualties; we get a sum of 10,121. Even a low-ball estimate of similar 2004 and 2006 suicide figures, would mean that the total number of US casualties from the Iraq war now exceed 15,000.
That's right; 15,000 dead US servicemen and women in a war that--as yet--has no legal or moral justification.
CBS interviewed Dr. Ira Katz, the head of mental health at the Department of Veteran Affairs. Katz attempted to minimize the surge in veteran suicides saying, "There is no epidemic of suicide in the VA, but suicide is a major problem."
Maybe Katz (was) right. Maybe there is no epidemic. Maybe it's perfectly normal for young men and women to return from combat, sink into inconsolable depression, and kill themselves at greater rates than they were dying on the battlefield. Maybe it's normal for the Pentagon to abandon them as soon as soon they return from their mission so they can blow their brains out or hang themselves with a garden hose in their basement. Maybe it's normal for politicians to keep funding wholesale slaughter while they brush aside the casualties they have produced by their callousness and lack of courage. Maybe it is normal for the president to persist with the same, bland lies that perpetuate the occupation and continue to kill scores of young soldiers who put themselves in harm's-way for their country.
It's not normal; it is a pandemic---an outbreak of despair which is the natural corollary of living in constant fear; of seeing one's friends being dismembered by roadside bombs or being blasted to bits at military checkpoints or finding battered bodies dumped on the side of a riverbed like a bag of garbage.
The rash of suicides is the logical upshot of Bush's war. Returning soldiers are traumatized by their experience and now they are killing themselves in droves. Maybe we should have thought about that before we invaded."
Whatever the number of dead really is, the War on Iraq is a direct outgrowth of the Vietnam War that gave the War Department a template for exactly how our wars of conquest could be waged. right down to how those wars could also be used for illicit profits as well as for privatized corporate windfalls that have no equal in history or in human memory. So ask yourself again - Why did the US classify the deaths of servicemen and women coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place!
Bush was asked before the war what the fall of Saddam would cost. He had no answer then, but we're beginning to understand some of the true costs now. . .
For too many Americans the Vietnam War is way beyond ancient history-it is barely even an event for far too many. But for those that might want more context "Apocalypse Now" (the film) can quickly bring you up to date. It's a film and an epic piece of entertainment. A re-creation not meant to be taken literally as part of the actual military history. However the theme of the film clearly outlines why the Decider chose to use mercenaries for the most disgusting aspects of his War on Iraq: Because it is clear that the War-on-Terror is a direct outgrowth of the misbegotten hell that was called "the Vietnam War."
Not unlike the fabled mystic-character, updated from Joseph Conrad's" Heart of Darkness" (a 19th century exploration of the limits of human capacities); the screenplay for "Apocalypse Now" probes the mindset behind that same madness in the 20th century. Is it possible that the Cheney-Bush wars will eventually divulge the latest version of these dark and twisted thoughtforms in the 21st century? One thing is certain: when major-powers are misused the results are usually catastrophic, and in this instance, this Complicity in criminal behavior has resulted in Contempt, not only for law & order, but for the roots of freedom and humanity as well.
There is more than enough evidence to charge Cheney and others with Impeachable offenses immediately. If this Congress will not issue Contempt of Congress citations for the Vice-President and his secret government officials then why are we paying these criminals who are obviously complicit in their crimes against us!
Either we have laws clearly stated that are obeyed, or we do not. What we have now are laws that only apply to the little-people in this country. For the owners of this society there are no longer any laws by which they might actually be controlled or even inconvenienced. Americans need to demand that their government forego it's "vacation" and lift the veils of secrecy: Arrest those that have put those cloaks in place, because as was said of Vietnam: "It's the judgments that defeat us" because the stench of lies is what these wars create!
Free people are only free when they are willing to challenge those that would take away their freedoms with the stroke of an illegal order or an Executive Decree.
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Desecration
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Posted:Nov 18, 2007 9:07 am
Last Updated:Nov 18, 2007 6:43 pm
1880 Views
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"There is no anti-depressant that will cure a depression that's spiritually based, for the malaise doesn't originate from brain dysfunction, but from an accurate response to the desecration of life."
--Dr. David R. Hawkins, Power Vs. Force
What I am about to tell you is horrific, or worse. Not tantalizingly scary like a "haunted house," not distasteful like a rude joke emphasizing the lower bodily functions, not even "shocking" or "sickening" (descriptives best reserved for Rob Zombie movies and the menu at Taco Bell). The author Isak Dinesen commented, "I don't believe in evil, I believe only in horror. In nature there is no evil, only an abundance of horror: the plagues and the blights and the ants and the maggots." Of course, horror exists in (and virtually defines) nature, but the deliberate, unnecessary, brutal theft of a life -- ANY life -- moves beyond the impersonal horror of biologic decay and death, to the realm of DESECRATION, a strictly human behavior that cannot reasonably be characterized as "natural."
According to the ABC news affiliate KATU (Portland, OR), police recently booked two teenage boys on charges of aggravated animal abuse, after they allegedly scalded a kitten with hot water, then cut off its head with a hatchet. The website KATU dot com reports: "The cat, a black and white named White Socks, belonged to 19-year-old Shaina Nelson. She told KATU News that she came back to her southeast Portland apartment Thursday night and faced the alleged killer.
"'He jumps over the fence...and he goes, 'The cat's dead,'' Nelson said. 'And he had no emotion on is face. No. Nothing. He had no emotion at all.'"
Ironically, the young woman had reportedly been helping out the two suspects, offering them a place to stay in her home. The suspects (allegedly) responded to her kind gesture by inflicting unimaginable pain on her cat and then decapitating it.
KATU.com also reports, "The suspects reportedly told police they wanted to put the cat out of its misery after they burned it."
Above, you can see the mug shots of the two suspects, aged 19 and 18. Just as described by Ms. Nelson, the vacant eyes and slack expressions reveal...precisely nothing. No intelligence, no warmth, no personality, not even a spark of angry defiance. Nothing. Nothing.
I'm not so arrogant as to presume what kind of lives these alleged torturers and killers have led. Maybe they are both victims of unimaginable abuse and thus feel compelled to reenact their sufferings on others. Perhaps they, like countless millions of American youngsters, have been neurologically, emotionally, and spiritually impaired by rancid cultural agents, including pervasive media violence, psychotropic medications, chemical-laden fast foods, aspartame, fluoride, cell-phones, a collapsed education system, shopping malls, Hannah Montana, etc., ad nauseam. The Internet is an astounding database for evidence of this cultural apocalypse, and I don't feel the need to elaborate on it here.
Instead, I would like to encourage the reader to join me in a moment of honest self-inquiry. Please ask yourself, how does it make you feel to learn of the torture and death inflicted on this animal?
Do you feel angry? Disgusted? Sad? If you are of sound mind and possess even the vaguest respect for non-human life, I'm going to assume that you feel all of the above. (Let me say parenthetically, what constitutes "respect for life" may be a matter of some debate, but it is a clinical FACT that the torture of animals indicates deep-seeded mental illness, and is a reliable indicator of future violence against HUMANS.) So if we can agree that anger, disgust, and sadness are healthy and appropriate reactions to the desecration of animal life, let us go a step further and wonder, why?
Here is a fact that is curious (at least to me): While a domestic animal like a kitten can be a source of great joy and satisfaction for its owner, it does not serve any utilitarian function in human life. In fact, cats as pets tend to create significant burdens -- scratching up furniture, peeing on rugs, killing frogs and mice and birds and leaving shredded torsos on their owners' doorsteps, meowing at all hours, getting pregnant and birthing massive litters, not to mention the vet and food bills that will soar into the tens of thousands before Chester or Abby finally expires.
From a neo-Darwinian materialistic perspective, the human instinct to love and nurture a weak, defenseless animal makes little if any sense. animals only serve our brute survival by providing food, transportation, protection of home and body, and a few other utilitarian chores (none of which are provided by cats and many other common house pets). How did this joyous, irrepressible affection for essentially "useless" animals "evolve" in a world supposedly dominated by Survival of the Fittest?
Some might argue that the adoration most humans feel for "cute" and "fuzzy" creatures is just a sloppy quirk of the mammalian brain, nothing of any significance. But consider that a lot of people love their pets like they do their own . Some would unhesitatingly risk their own lives to to save the life of an animal -- ANY animal. A human being who feeds a starving kitten is not serving the interests of his own body or the interests of his "tribe." And yet for most, the choice to aid a helpless animal isn't a "choice" at all, but simply the very obvious Right Thing to Do. Because it FEELS right. And the alternative feels terrible.
If you meet a friendly while you're walking through a park, you don't bother with inane formalities like introductions and handshakes. You just say "Hi there!" and treat him with a touch of affection, as if he were a lifelong friend. We love animals so fiercely because we share with them an easy communion that is almost impossible to achieve with other humans. People have egos, and egos are ugly, defensive, fearful, and more dangerous than the most rabid or feral cat. My ego is offended by your ego, and vice versa. I'm not saying that animals are "superior" to humans in any way. I'm saying that the guileless stare of a kitten or a puppy is a perfect mirror reflecting back one's own true essence.
This essence is more than a body, more than humanness, more than animalness, more than instinct and desire and survival and death. It is lovingness, and it is sacred. For a sane person, the act of loving and nurturing an animal is wholly selfish, because of the fullness it provides in one's own heart. Because like attracts like. And that likeness is love.
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One Sentence Says It All
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Posted:Nov 14, 2007 5:50 pm
Last Updated:Nov 20, 2007 8:42 am
2484 Views
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"From the emergence of the Zionist Neocons as an ideological power base dominant over U.S. foreign policy, to destruction wreaked on the Bill of Rights by illegal surveillance of citizens, to the senseless creation of the bureaucratically monstrous Department of Homeland Security and passage of the Patriot Acts, to the initiation of "wars of choice" leading to the devastation of two nations and the killing or displacement of perhaps a million Middle Eastern non-combatants, to violation of international treaties and conventions against wars of aggression and torture of prisoners, to presiding over an economy ruined by the continued export of manufacturing jobs and the creation and deflation of the housing bubble, to the wrecking of the federal budget by over a trillion dollars of wartime expenditure, to the abandonment of the city of New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina, to tax cuts for the most wealthy while the income of the middle class has drastically eroded, and to threats to start another war, this time against Iran, based on deceptions similar to those which preceded the Iraq invasion, the Bush/Cheney administration has brought the U.S. to the brink of catastrophe."
Welcome to Amerika, You Amerikans deserve it.
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Thanks Grandad
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Posted:Nov 11, 2007 10:33 am
Last Updated:Nov 15, 2007 6:45 am
1768 Views
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For buying Gold for $32.00 an ounce, Yuh done well.
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Why I put my money in Gold
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Posted:Nov 11, 2007 10:26 am
Last Updated:Nov 16, 2007 7:04 am
1930 Views
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What a week for the stock market. On Wednesday the market took a 360 point nosedive followed, two days later, by a 220 point belly-flop. By the time it was over, the trading pits looked more like a sausage-packing plant than the world's financial epicenter. After the bell, downcast traders could be seen tiptoeing through the carnage on their way to the local liquor store to load up on "Stoly" and boxes of Franzia---anything that would steady their nerves and put the week behind them.
Everyone could see it coming; the train-wreck. It was mostly carry-over from the night before when Asian stocks took a thumping on reports of slower growth in the US and growing troubles in the credit markets. That put the first domino in motion. Fed chief Bernanke's announcement that the economy will face "a sharp slowdown from the housing market's contraction" and an "inflationary surge from sharply higher oil prices and the weaker dollar", didn't help either. His remarks triggered a blow-off in the currency markets while equities were frog-marched to the chopping-block.
The Shanghai market took the worst hit dropping nearly 5% before the trading-day ended. Taiwan and Hong Kong followed suit, sliding 3.9% and 3.2% respectively. Share prices in Japan fell 2%. The next morning, Wall Street crashed. It was a massacre.
This is a bear market now. The last bull was dragged from the Street on Friday with a harpoon in its chest.
The sub prime contagion has now spread beyond the US and Europe to markets in the Far East. No one is fooled by Bernanke's sunny predictions that the economy will bounce back next year with a strong showing in the first quarter. That's baloney and everyone knows it. The economy has stumbled down the elevator shaft and is just waiting to hit bottom. Consumer confidence is flagging, housing is falling, foreign capital is fleeing, and the greenback is one flush away from the sewage-treatment plant. Bernanke's soothing bromides are meaningless.
"I don't see any significant change in the broad holdings of dollars around the world. Dollars remain the dominant reserve asset and I expect that to continue to be the case," Bernanke said to the Congressional Economic Committee.
Really? So why is the greenback plummeting if people aren't dumping it, Ben? What an absurd comment. The dollar has lost 63% against the euro and dropped to record lows against a basket of world currencies Including Canada guess what even the Canadian Dollar towers above the US Dollar now. Foreign central banks and investors have been ditching it as fast as they can before it loses more value. The dollar's tumble has been the most dazzling currency-flame out in modern times and Bernanke is acting like he's still asleep at the switch. It's madness.
The greenback is getting clobbered by the Fed's "low-interest" snake oil and the gargantuan current account deficit. If Bernanke clips rates again to bail out the stock market, the dollar will slip into irreversible respiratory failure. Food and oil prices will shoot to the moon overnight and the remains of the greenback will be carted off to the nearest bone yard.
September's trade deficit was another blow to the waning dollar. The Census Bureau reported on Friday that the deficit clocked in at $56.5 billion. That's $684 billion per annum! Bush has been crowing about the "shrinking deficit", but the numbers are nothing to boast about. You're still borrowing more than You're producing. You're still living beyond Your means. The lower numbers just reflect the decline in home construction which is import-intensive. The fact is, Your addicted to debt-fueled consumption and have forgotten that, eventually, the trillions that You've borrowed from foreign creditors, will have to be repaid. If the dollar is replaced as the world's reserve currency, then You'll have to pay back $9 trillion of outstanding debt. You might as well hang out the "Foreclosed" sign right now and get fitted for Chinese workers-suits.
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The End Is Near - Supermodel Dumps Dollar
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Posted:Nov 9, 2007 1:23 pm
Last Updated:Nov 25, 2007 7:40 am
2463 Views
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The US dollar is still officially the world's reserve currency, but it cannot purchase the services of Brazilian super model Gisele Bundchen. Gisele required the $30 million she earned during the first half of this year to be paid in euros.
Gisele is not alone in her forecast of the dollar's fate. The First Post (UK) reports that Jim Rogers, a former partner of billionaire George Soros, is selling his home and all possessions in order to convert all his wealth into Chinese yuan.
Meanwhile, American economists continue to preach that offshoring is good for the US economy and that Bush's war spending is keeping the economy going. The practitioners of supply and demand have yet to figure out that the dollar's supply is sinking the dollar's price and along with it American power.
The macho super patriots who support the Bush regime still haven't caught on that US superpower status rests on the dollar being the reserve currency, not on a military unable to occupy Baghdad.
If the dollar were not the world currency, the US would have to earn enough foreign currencies to pay for its 737 oversees bases, an impossibility considering America's $800 billion trade deficit.
When the dollar ceases to be the reserve currency, foreigners will cease to finance the US trade and budget deficits, and the American Empire along with its wars will disappear overnight.
Perhaps Bush will be able to get a World Bank loan, or maybe one from the "Chavez bank", to bring the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Foreign leaders, observing that offshoring and war are accelerating America's relative economic decline, no longer treat the US with the deference to which Washington is accustomed. Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, recently refused Washington's demand to renew the lease on the Manta air base in Ecuador. He told Washington that the US could have a base in Ecuador if Ecuador could have a military base in the US.
When Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez addressed the UN, he crossed himself as he stood at the podium. Referring to President Bush, Chavez said, "Yesterday the devil came here, and it smells of sulfur still today." Bush, said Chavez, was standing "right here, talking as if he owned the world."
In his state of the nation message last year, Russian president Vladimir Putin said that Bush's blathering about democracy was nothing but a cloak for the pursuit of American self-interests at the expense of other peoples: "We are aware what is going on in the world. Comrade Wolf knows whom to eat, and he eats without listening, and he's clearly not going to listen to anyone." In May 2007, Putin criticized the neocon regime in Washington for "disrespect for human life" and "claims to global exclusiveness, just as it was in the time of the Third Reich."
Even America's British allies regard President Bush as a threat to world peace and the second most dangerous man alive. Bush is edged out in polls by Osama bin Laden, but is regarded as more dangerous than Iran's demonized president and North Korea's Kim Jong-il.
President Bush has achieved his dismal world standing despite spending $1.6 billion of hard-pressed Americans' tax money on public relations between 2003 and 2006.
Clearly, America's leader and America's currency are poorly regarded. Is there a solution?
Perhaps the answer lies in those 737 overseas bases. If those bases were brought home and shared among the 50 states, each state would gain 15 new military bases.
Imagine what this would mean: The end of the housing slump. A reduction in the trade deficit. And the end of the war on terror.
Who would dare attack a country with 15 new military bases in every state in addition to the existing ones? Wherever a terrorist turned, he would find himself surrounded by soldiers.
All of the dollars currently spent abroad to support 737 overseas bases would be spent at home. Income for foreigners would become income for Americans, and the trade deficit would shrink.
The impact of the 737 military base payrolls on the US economy would end the housing crisis and bring back the 140,000 highly paid financial services jobs, the loss of which this year has cost the US $42 billion in consumer income. Foreclosures and bankruptcies would plummet.
If this isn't enough to turn the dollar around, President Bush's pledge not to appoint an Attorney General if Michael Mukasey is not confirmed offers more promise. If the Democrats will defeat Mukasey's nomination, there are other superfluous cabinet departments that can be closed down in addition to the US Department of Torture and Indefinite Detention.
The American empire is being unwound on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. The year is two months from being over, but already in 2007, despite the touted "surge," deaths of US soldiers are the highest of any year of the war.
The Taliban are the ones who are surging. They have taken control of a third district in Western Afghanistan. Turkey and the Kurds are on the verge of turning northern Iraq into a new war zone, another demonstration of American impotence.
Bush's wars have endangered America's puppet regimes. Bush's Pakistani puppet, Musharraf, is fighting for his life. By resorting to "emergency rule" and oppressive measures, Musharraf has intensified his opposition. When Musharraf falls, thanks to Bush, the Islamists will have nukes.
American generals used to say that the wars Bush started in the Middle East would take 10 years to win. On Oct. 31 General John Abizaid, former commander of US forces in the Middle East, put paid to that optimistic forecast. Speaking at Carnegie Mellon University, Gen. Abizaid said it would be 50 years before US troops can leave the Middle East.
There is no possibility of the US remaining the Middle East for a half century. The dollar and US power are already on their last legs, unbeknownst to Democratic leaders Pelosi and Reid who are preparing yet another blank check for Bush's latest request for $200 billion in supplementary war funding.
There isn't any money with which to fund Bush's lost war. It will have to be borrowed from China.
The Romans brought on their own demise, but it took them centuries. Bush has finished America in a mere 7 years.
Even as Gisele throws off the dollar's hegemony, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Columbia are declaring independence of the IMF and World Bank, instruments of US financial hegemony, by creating their own development bank, thus bringing to an end US suzerainty over South America.
An empire that has lost its backyard is finished.
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Home of the Brave?
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Posted:Oct 28, 2007 10:02 am
Last Updated:Nov 15, 2007 10:20 am
1997 Views
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Several years ago, I warned that as the Bush/Cheney administration sought to reduce politically problematic casualty rates in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would resort to increased use of air attacks to combat the growing insurgency in Iraq and the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.
I also predicted that the result of this switch in tactics would lead to higher civilian casualties in those two countries.
We're now seeing those results.
In the latest reports from Iraq, we had 15 women and slain, mostly in their homes by rockets and bullets fired from helicopter and fixed-wing gunships which were allegedly in pursuit of some supposed "al Qaeda" fighters, and as many as 17 civilians killed in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood when US forces called in air strikes after seeing a group of men they deemed to be hostile. Again those air strikes ended up killing more civilians than alleged enemy fighters.
The casual use of the term "air strikes" belies the horror of what is happening. It's one thing to call in air strikes during a battle out in the desert or the mountains, where the enemy is isolated and readily identified. It's another to call in the bombers and gunships in the heart of a densely populated city. Such tactics are guaranteed to kill innocent people in large numbers.
In Afghanistan, meanwhile, where there is even less media coverage than in Iraq, the casual slaughter of innocents by American forces has become routine--so much so that even British officials are complaining. The US command simply "regrets" the "loss of innocent life," making it sound like the after-effects of a natural disaster, when it fact the killings are the predictable result of the cold calculus of mass murder by a technologically advanced military inflicted on an impoverished Third World country. It is unacceptable to argue, as the Pentagon does all the time, that the enemy "uses civilians as shields." Maybe they do, but that's the reality, and the military has to accept it, not ignore it. If a gunman is holding a baby, you can't just shoot the baby and blame the gunman.
In both countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, the slaughter of civilians by US forces has been so outrageous that even their puppet leaders have been compelled to speak up, demanding that the US stop being so aggressive and indiscriminate.
The problem is, if the US stops using its gunships and its fighter-bombers to do its fighting, it will have to either quit and go home, or put more troops out on patrol, where they are vulnerable to attack. In fact, the Pentagon may not even have that option. Already, it has been reported that troops in Iraq have coined the term "search and avoid" for missions where they go out under orders, but then spend their time avoiding danger.
What would one expect? The rank-and-file troops know that the war is lost in both countries, and that the American public doesn't support what they are doing anyhow, so who's going to want to die for that? You'd have to be a real chump to let yourself be killed just to provide political cover for a politically challenged president and vice president--especially a president and vice-president who famously ducked their own duty during the Vietnam War.
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Straitjacket Bush
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Posted:Oct 27, 2007 1:14 pm
Last Updated:Nov 15, 2007 5:01 pm
2034 Views
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The president's warmongering remarks on the Iranian threat suggest he is psychotic. Really.
Forget impeachment.
Liberals, put it behind you. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney shouldn't be treated like criminals who deserve punishment. They should be treated like psychotics who need treatment.
Because they've clearly gone mad. Exhibit A: We're in the middle of a disastrous war in Iraq, the military and political situation in Afghanistan is steadily worsening, and the administration's interrogation and detention tactics have inflamed anti-Americanism and fueled extremist movements around the globe. Sane people, confronting such a situation, do their best to tamp down tensions, rebuild shattered alliances, find common ground with hostile parties and give our military a little breathing space. But crazy people? They look around and decide it's a great time to start another war.
That would be with Iran, and you'd have to be deaf not to hear the war drums. Last week, Bush remarked that "if you're interested in avoiding World War III . . . you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." On Sunday, Cheney warned of "the Iranian regime's efforts to destabilize the Middle East and to gain hegemonic power . . . [we] cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its most aggressive ambitions." On Tuesday, Bush insisted on the need "to defend Europe against the emerging Iranian threat."
Huh? Iran is now a major threat to Europe? The Iranians are going to launch a nuclear missile (that they don't yet possess) against Europe (for reasons unknown because, as far as we know, they're not mad at anyone in Europe)? This is lunacy in action.
Writing in Newsweek on Oct. 20, Fareed Zakaria, a solid centrist and former editor of Foreign Affairs, put it best. Citing Bush's invocation of "the specter of World War III if Iran gained even the knowledge needed to make a nuclear weapon," Zakaria concluded that "the American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. . . . Iran has an economy the size of Finland's. . . . It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are . . . allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?"
Planet Cheney.
Zakaria may be misinterpreting the president's remark about World War III though. He saw it as a dangerously loopy Bush prediction about the future behavior of a nuclear Iran -- the idea being, presumably, that possessing "the knowledge" to make a nuclear weapon would so empower Iran's repressive leaders that they'll giddily rush out and start World War III.
But you could read Bush's remark as a madman's threat rather than a madman's prediction -- as a warning to recalcitrant states, from Germany to Russia, that don't seem to share his crazed obsession with Iran. The message: Fall into line with administration policy toward Iran or you can count on the U.S.A. to try to start World War III on its own. And when it comes to sparking global conflagration, a U.S. attack on Iran might be just the thing. Yee haw!
You'd better believe these guys would do it too. Why not? They have nothing to lose -- they're out of office in 15 months anyway. Après Bush-Cheney, le déluge! (Have fun, Hillary.)
But all this creates a conundrum. What's a constitutional democracy to do when the president and vice president lose their marbles?
The U.S. is full of ordinary people with serious forms of mental illness -- delusional people with violent fantasies who think they're the president, or who think they get instructions from the CIA through their dental fillings.
The problem with Bush is that he is the president -- and he gives instructions to the CIA and military, without having to go through his dental fillings.
Impeachment's not the solution to psychosis, no matter how flagrant. But despite their impressive foresight in other areas, the framers unaccountably neglected to include an involuntary civil commitment procedure in the Constitution.
Still, don't lose hope. By enlisting the aid of mental health professionals and the court system, Congress can act to remedy that constitutional oversight. The goal: Get Bush and Cheney committed to an appropriate inpatient facility, where they can get the treatment they so desperately need. In Washington, the appropriate statutory law is already in place: If a "court or jury finds that [a] person is mentally ill and . . . is likely to injure himself or other persons if allowed to remain at liberty, the court may order his hospitalization."
I'll even serve on the jury. When it comes to averting World War III, it's really the least I can do.
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Blocked Pics
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Posted:Oct 27, 2007 6:46 am
Last Updated:Oct 29, 2007 9:29 pm
2110 Views
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I wonder if it's possible to block A F F from messing with the blogs? I'm really getting fed up with the creitens that work for SumpPumpInc.messing with my blog posts half of which aren't allowed through as well as some really neat pics. to this I say Fuckem.
I wonder if the assholes working at A F F aren't the same hopeless old cunts that work for the 1-900 sex lines.
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To link to this blog (rm_swallow22us) use [blog rm_swallow22us] in your messages.
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