The "Boy! Am I EVER Pissed Off!" Blog

Excerpt:General Motors Corp. and the United Auto Workers are negotiating this weekend over GM's plan to cut health care costs and could announce an agreement as soon as Monday, an industry analyst said on Saturday.

Everything is getting more expensive. Oil, for instance. The price of which has been run up on purpose.

Excerpt: The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) today exposed internal oil company memos that show how the industry intentionally reduced domestic refining capacity to drive up profits, RAW STORY has learned.

Cotton.

Excerpt: Cotton futures soared Monday as uncertainty over the cotton crop and production capabilities of earthquake-ravaged Pakistan sparked massive fund and speculative buying.

Inflation is at an all-time high.

Excerpt: Worldwide concerns about inflation were stoked on Friday by official figures showing US prices rising at their fastest rate for 14 years and warnings from European central bankers about wage increases.

And in a little discussed, but potentially devastating development, there's trouble in the derivative markets.

Excerpt: The esoteric world of derivatives was rocked by scandal yesterday when leading futures brokerage Refco, which has substantial operations in London and New York, said it had discovered that chief executive Phillip Bennett owed the company $430m (£250m) and that none of its accounts dating back to 2002 could be relied upon for their accuracy.

(Here's a link to an article about derivatives and how they affect our market.)

Finally, Bush's base is turning on him.

Excerpt: [F]ive years into Bush's presidency, [fiscal] conservatives are still waiting for Wimpy to pay them on Tuesday for a hamburger today

And George's solution to the economic blues? Cut taxes, not on wages, but on investments.

Excerpt:The financial-services industry is poised to emerge a big winner from the recommendations of President George W. Bush's tax advisory panel, where a consensus is building to eliminate or reduce taxes on investment income.

The definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.

Speaking of repeating mistakes.

Halliburton gets another contract.

Excerpt; The Arlington-based Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, was awarded a $33.6 million contract Sept. 30 for emergency reconstruction of military bases in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, RAW STORY has learned.

The same guys who lost control of 400 gallons of acid.

Excerpt: Authorities in Mesa County are working to clean up hundreds of gallons of acid that fell from a truck early Wednesday morning.

Of course, Halliburton has nothing over Big Pharma when it comes to corporate greed and sheer evilness.

Excerpt: But Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Roche, which acquired rights to the drug from Gilead Sciences Inc. of Foster City in 1996, said Wednesday it had no intention of letting others make it.
"Roche ... fully intends to remain the sole manufacturer of Tamiflu,'' said company spokesman Terry Hurley.

Just so you know, the active ingredient in Tamiflu comes from the Star Anise spice.

Assassinated

What did this guy find out about how bad we've been treating the Iraqis?

Excerpt: The body of Captain Ken Masters, the commander of 61 Section of the Special Investigations Branch (SIB), was found in his bed at the airport at the weekend. The death is being investigated by the SIB. Defence sources said the death was "not due to hostile action and also not due to natural causes".

Hmmm. This might be a hint.

Excerpt: A senior United Nations official has accused US-led coalition troops of depriving Iraqi civilians of food and water in breach of humanitarian law.

Remind you of anything?

The Administration is now requiring loyalty oaths from Park Department officials.

Excerpt: The National Park Service has started using a political loyalty test for picking all its top civil service positions, according to an agency directive released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Under the new order, all mid-level managers and above must also be approved by a Bush administration political appointee.

And still, no outrage from citizens.

Excerpt:But even more shameful is the fact that there are people who seem not to care that such things are taking place in our country; a rather ignorant crowd of jingoes more comfortable choosing to sit back pretending that everything will be just fine, a people with apparently little regard for the facts. As a behavioral scientist, I am grieved at what appears to be a near pandemic of disinterest in what is happening to our country.

Ahhhhh, sweet cronyism.

Allawi, our hand-picked lackey, might've had something to do with the missing $1 billion.

Excerpt; Iraq has issued arrest warrants against the defense minister and 27 other officials from the U.S.-backed government of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi over the alleged disappearance or misappropriation of $1 billion in military procurement funds, officials said Monday.

War prep: Venezuela

Chavez is looking out for his ass.

Excerpt:Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered a U.S.-based Christian missionary group working with indigenous tribes to leave the country Wednesday, accusing the organization of "imperialist infiltration" and links to the CIA.

Missionary groups in South and Central America are notorious for being CIA fronts. And well he should be on guard.

Excerpt:The "unconventional" oil reserve of South America is the Venezuelan Orinoco heavy oil belt with one to four trillion (with a "T") barrels of oil.

It's not like he hasn't had any clues.

Excerpt:Intelligence agencies are revealing that US private military contractors, active in Colombia "under various contract umbrellas, including counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency" are building up to yet another attempted coup d'etat against Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez.

On top of that, the right-wing, moonie-owned rag, The Washington Times, is pumping up the rhetoric.

Excerpt: The Venezuelan government has made overtures to various countries about obtaining nuclear technology, according to U.S. officials, who worry that President Hugo Chavez might be taking the first steps in a long road to develop nuclear weaponry.

Another gem from the Moonie Times.

Excerpt: Critics of Mr. Chavez, a former lieutenant colonel of paratroops, say he is imitating the Cuban military by giving himself direct command over a force more loyal and ideological than the regular army.

Durr

I could've told them this.

Excerpt: New international climate data show that 2005 is on track to be the hottest year on record, continuing a 25-year trend of rising global temperatures.

I mean, here in NYC, it was warm all the way through September.

Media & Stuff

Treasongate.

The whole outing of Valerie Plame thing strikes at the root of the United States' foreign policy under GW Bush.

How? you may ask?

I'll tell you.

What do we know so far? Initially, the focus of late was on Karl Rove, that gelatinous evil genius we've all come to respect and loath. He's GW's right hand, left hand, and well, everything in between. A Rove indictment would look pretty incriminating for GW (and GW knows it. Remember, Bush is already lawyered up.). (As an aside, rumor has it Andy Card is behind toppling Rove. Card just doesn't have the brain power to succeed, yet, he's trying.) And now, rumors of Cheney resigning and being replaced by Condi are swirling around Dick Cheney at the moment. Seems his close associate, John Hannah (on loan from John Bolton no less -- and John Bolton, I'll remind you, paid a visit to Ms. Miller while she was in jail) is singing like a canary. It may also be because Libby, who is tied in with Judith Miller's testimony, is Cheney's Chief of Staff and the two of them are like tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum. Meanwhile, the media is trying to make it seem like the CIA is going after Cheney for payback. While there may be an element of truth to that, I doubt very much that's the main reason.

So, on the surface, we have a leak of major proportions. Perjury. Outing of a covert agent. Two very close associates of GW and Cheney are under intense scrutiny. Rumors are swirling. Schadenfruede is thick. It's a Watergate of massive proportions, just on its surface.

Now, let's dig a little deeper, shall we?

What started this whole thing? It was this NYT op-ed piece by Joseph Wilson on what he didn't find in Niger. And what didn't he find in Niger? He didn't find uranium. Remember uranium? Those 16 words from the State of the Union address? That said Iraq had tried to purchase uranium in Niger? Well, funny thing that. Seems that the information they based those words on was bogus. Fabricated. But using the information, faulty as it was, was part of a larger campaign to sell the idea of the Iraq war to the public.

Now, put yourself in Cheney and Bush's shoes at the time. Here they were, trying to convince the American people that war with Iraq was the right thing to do. They even assembled a group of 21 people called the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) who, in close conjunction with the Office of Special Programs (OSP), was tasked with generating propaganda (a.k.a. lies) for the administration. Cheney was part of that group, along with a bunch of others like Condi, Rove, Matalin, and Libby. So, here they were, in the throes of their propaganda campaign and they get wind of this guy Wilson's report (possibly from Bolton who was at the State Department at the time). They do research on the guy. They find out that 1) he's a bit of a maverick and 2) his wife works for the CIA. BINGO. That's the ticket, they think. In typical Rovian style, they set up one point of the whole story to knock about -- that Wilson's wife got him the gig in Niger -- to discredit the whole story. It's so Rove. Anyway, they use their watergirl, Judy Miller, to transfer the information to someone (Novak?) and viola! you have made history.

But beyond wanting war with Iraq, what was it about Wilson's information that was so threatening? Perhaps it was the forged documents. Just who forged those documents? This is the question that is at the crux of the controversy. And one guy's name keeps popping up: Michael Ledeen. And who is Ledeen exactly? Well, he has close ties with the OSP and Larry Franklin, (who you might recall, was just indicted) and Harold Rhode. Rhode, along with Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, set up the beginnings of the OSP shortly after the 9/11 attacks as part of the Department of Defense's (DoD) Near East and South Asia bureau (NESA). Who runs the DoD? Rumsfeld. Who's Rumsfeld tight with? Cheney.

I swear, all of these guys are in cahoots.

So, Ledeen and Rhode made many trips to Italy and met with members of SISME, around the time the documents would've been forged. SISME is the Italian secret service which is the foreign intelligence agency responsible for informing us of the existence of the Niger documents.

Now do you see what I'm getting at here? The thread dangling from the Plamegate controversy unravels until the naked truth is exposed: that the lies used to push this country into war were created by the very people who ran the propaganda campaign which included the people who run this country. They fabricated, lied and spun it as truth to our complicit and pliant media. Our foreign policy is based on lies. Lies that were created and disseminated with the full knowledge of this administration. I just laid it all out for you with simple hyperlinks. How awesome is that?

And I believe that had it not been for the blogs, none of this would've come out. Without the pecking and the prodding and the rumor swarms and thread pulling of the internet's users, none of this would have happened. And if there's not a major indictment forthcoming, I don't even want to think of what the blogosphere will do with it.

Comments?

News of the Weird

Actually, this one is psycho of the week.

Excerpt: Michelle Duggar just delivered her 16th child, and she's already thinking about doing it again.

They discovered 4000 year old chinese food leftovers. Had they just looked in my fridge, I could've saved them the trouble of digging.

Excerpt: Scientists have uncovered the world's oldest known noodles, dating back 4,000 years, at an archaeological site, Lajia, along the upper reaches of the Yellow river in north-west China. They were preserved in an upturned bowl among the debris of a gigantic earthquake. Until now, the earliest evidence for noodles has been a Chinese written description of noodle preparation dating back 1,900 years.

This PhD student is very into what he's doing.

Excertp: My banana slugs are just so damn cute! Below I have a mating video and pictures of slug penises. All part of my PhD thesis...

Maybe too into it.

Previous rants

What do we do about all of this crap? I have no idea. Part of me wants to start teach-ins at my local pub. Just go to the bar, rant and rave and inform the idiots who still think Brian Williams is telling them the truth. I sincerely believe that if we protected the voting rights of the underprivileged that any Democrat could SWEEP any election. I don't think Democrats are the answer. But they are at least a start.

At the very least, point your CNN-loving friends to my links page. Just getting started in reading alternate news sites gets people thinking. I have one friend who was very happy-go-lucky, thinking ol' Greta was telling the whole truth until I opened up his eyes a bit. Now, he's all depressed. He'll get over it. You gotta' get depressed before you get angry and you gotta' get angry before you can accomplish anything. We're all in mourning. We have to move through the steps. But we gotta' hurry it up.

Read. Inform. Spread the word. Even if it means your friends avoid you for awhile. If they really love you, they'll start to listen.

"POSSE COMITATUS ACT" (18 USC 1385): A Reconstruction Era criminal law proscribing use of Army (later, Air Force) to "execute the laws" except where expressly authorized by Constitution or Congress. Limit on use of military for civilian law enforcement also applies to Navy by regulation. Dec '81 additional laws were enacted (codified 10 USC 371-78) clarifying permissible military assistance to civilian law enforcement agencies--including the Coast Guard--especially in combating drug smuggling into the United States. Posse Comitatus clarifications emphasize supportive and technical assistance (e.g., use of facilities, vessels, aircraft, intelligence, tech aid, surveillance, etc.) while generally prohibiting direct participation of DoD personnel in law enforcement (e.g., search, seizure, and arrests). For example, Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachments (LEDETS) serve aboard Navy vessels and perform the actual boardings of interdicted suspect drug smuggling vessels and, if needed, arrest their crews). Positive results have been realized especially from Navy ship/aircraft involvement.

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Who am I?:

I am a biker chick who lives in NYC. This blog is about current events and my left-leaning, acerbic spin on those events. Nobody pays me anything to do this. Nobody tells me what to write. I will NEVER tout anything for anybody's money! EVER!

Use this instead of Google:

Clusty.com

These sites are good at culling stories from a multitude of media sites:

buzzflash.com
unknownnews.net
rawstory.com

Here are some excellent blogs:

Bartcop
Daily Kos
Atrios
Tacitus
Josh Marshall
Two Glasses
Brad DeLong
The Wonkette
Urban Survival
Greg Palast
Mark Crispin Miller

Link exchange:

Ilia Dreams Blog
Iraq War Blog
BushVote.com
Dommecile.com
Funny Farm

media-bias exposed:

dailyhowler.com

these are good 'left-wing' journalism sites:

onlinejournal.com
counterpunch.com
thenation.com
inthesetimes.com
tompaine.com
commondreams.org
truthout.com
guerrillanews.com

a little more to the left:

wsws.org
indymedia.org

different:

whatreallyhappened.com
almartinraw.com

more different :

surfingtheapocalypse.com

really different:

goroadachi.com/etemenanki/

and for godsakes, stay away
from FOX, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC.
It's ALL CRAP!!!
watch the BBC news
or ITN news instead.

if you must succumb to reading a newspaper:

www.guardian.co.uk

or any other paper in another fucking country. All of our newspapers are owned by the same idiots that own the TV stations (and whose companies are diversified in industries that support the war machine) so all of the news is all the same CRAP.