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The Vidiot's
weekly blog:
What
pissed me off this week? 1/23/2006
(updated
every Monday at some point during the day)
...'cause
I'm angry and my friends are sick of listening to me...
Free stuff can be found here
Mirror (in case geocities is wacky or, in case of trouble in New York,
check it for messages): http://129.79.148.33/vidiotcontact/
Too bad this
Gore didn't run for office, huh? (Transcript here.
Video highlights here.)
And when he was attacked for being hypocritical, he responded in a feisty
and timely manner. (If you know anyone who missed reports about the
speech, don't be surprised. There's a reason: It was largely
ignored by the MSM.)
Gore called for
an independent council to investigate Bush's wire-tapping. Will it happen?
Probably not. I watched Conyers' unofficial
wiretap hearing on CSPAN last Friday. It was nice and all, glad to
hear them all talk about it, but it accomplished nothing really. Until
and unless we can take back the House and Senate this fall, we run a 0%
chance of holding hearings on anything substantial. And now the misnamed
"Justice Department" issued a report saying the wiretapping
is legal. Well fine then. That decides it. It's legal. They said so.
Nothing to see here. Move along. Nobody
was hurt.
Videos of
the Week: It's
Jerry Time
Cool Gadget
of the Week: Rubberband
Machine Gun
Blog Entry
of the Week: NSA,
Alito, Black Ops and the Unitary Executive
Death of
the Week: Mechanic
sucked into jet engine
Funny Blog
of the Week: Patriot
Boy
Blog of
the Week: Blog
from Bolivia
Site of
the Week: Fractals
Oh for Heaven's
Sake of the Week: Catholic
group wants kids banned from Da Vinci film
Prediction
of the Week: Computers
in the Future
Constructing
our reality. Don't
you feel like they're priming
the pump?
Excerpt: There
is a "very high" probability that a terrorist group will strike
using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, a senior U.S. counterterrorism
official said in comments published Tuesday.
Everything is being made out
to sound so imminent.
Excerpt: World
renowned investigative reporter and terror expert Kenneth R. Timmerman,
author of the bestselling book "Countdown to Crisis: the Coming
Nuclear Showdown with Iran," and Carl Limbacher, reporter for NewMax.com,
reveal that the US and Israel will destroy Iran's nuclear facilities
in less than 10 weeks from now.
"Boo!" said bin Laden,
unconvincingly.
Excerpt: The reason
the tape is as phony as Niger yellowcake documents and Saddam's weapons
of mass destruction is as plain as day. Bin Laden quotes from the introduction
of a book written by long-time Washington, DC progressive author and
journalist and a friend of mine, Bill Blum. Bill was once an editor
and contributor to Covert Action Quarterly, a magazine devoted to exposing
CIA operations like the arming, funding, and training of Bin Laden and
his mujaheddin guerrillas during the Afghan-Soviet war.
(Lot of words to come from
a dead
man, huh?
And even though it's pretty
obvious the Iran couldn't
do much of anything for years.
Excerpt: I've seen
this coming for a while now. Despite the fact that Iran is still probably
years away (ten years away according to a recent NIE) from producing
even one nuclear weapon, right-wing threat mongers are trying to convince
the public that even one Iranian nuclear weapon could bring America
to its knees.
No matter how
hard they try to make us think they are capable of nuclear mayhem.
Excerpt: Tehran
plans a nuclear weapons test before March 20, 2006 ñ the Iranian
New Year, moves Shahab-3 missiles within striking range of Israel
It's also obvious that this
administration needs something bad to happen in order to justify attacking
Iran. One their end, they're doing
as much as they can to shove Iran into a corner.
Excerpt: Condoleezza
Rice on Wednesday brushed aside suggestions about a possible resumption
of negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program.
(Prediction: There will be
a terrorist attack in Italy.)
Why the rush? I'll give you
one
guess.
Excerpt: The Iranian
government has finally developed the ultimate "nuclear" weapon
that can swiftly destroy the financial system underpinning the American
Empire. That weapon is the Iranian Oil Bourse slated to open in March
2006. It will be based on a euro-oil-trading mechanism that naturally
implies payment for oil in Euro. In economic terms, this represents
a much greater threat to the hegemony of the dollar than Saddam's, because
it will allow anyone willing either to buy or to sell oil for Euro to
transact on the exchange, thus circumventing the U.S. dollar altogether.
If so, then it is likely that almost everyone will eagerly adopt this
euro oil system
(Here's
one article on the bourse and here's
another.)
Meanwhile, Syria and Iran are
forming their
own mini-NATO.
Excerpt: Syrian
President Bashar Assad and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
closed ranks in talks between the two allies on Thursday, both nations
facing growing international pressure.
How much you want to bet Russia
and China are part of it?
And this
latest comment by France:
Excerpt: In the
broad address, Chirac warned unspecified "leaders of states that
would use terrorist means against us" that they could face "a
firm and fitting response." Analysts and presidential aides said
he had no specific country in mind, but newspaper editorialists widely
read them to be directed at Iran, and possibly North Korea.
At whom was it REALLY directed?
Well, it's part of the narrative
they want us all to be swallowing: Iran is evil. They can bomb us at any
time. Terrorism
is real...
Excerpt: Terrorism
is the weapon used in a new type of war. At the same time, international
terrorism, in complicity with the media, becomes the manager of global
processes. It is precisely the symbiosis between media and terror, which
allows modifying international politics and the existing reality.
So when some sort of staged
terror event followed by war happens, it's perfectly logical and believable
and not out of the blue.
But remember, al
Qaida means "base" or database which means its probably
just a database of guys the CIA has used to destabilize various and sundry
regimes.
Excerpt: But the
Arabs commonly used the short word Al Qaida which is the Arabic word
for "base." The military air base of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
is called 'q eidat 'riyadh al 'askariya.' Q eida means "a base"
and "Al Qaida" means "the base."
"In the mid-1980s, Al Qaida was a database located in computer
and dedicated to the communications of the Islamic Conference's secretariat.
I-Spy
something stupid "Narrowly
targeted" my ass.
Excerpt: In a wide-ranging
defense of the National Security Agency's controversial surveillance
program, the government's No. 2 intelligence official said Monday that
the spy agency's operations are not a drift net over U.S. communities.
Yeah. It was so narrow you
could drive Oprah's
ass through it.
Excerpt; One of
the most noteworthy comments was that the Government had specified 60
Terabytes of monthly storage for digital versions of conversations.
MONTHLY!
At about 11k per call, that is about 6 million conversations per month.
And they want more!
Excerpt: In particular,
the Bush administration wanted one million random web addresses and
records of all Google searches for a one week period. The government
apparently wants to estimate how much pornography shows up in the searches
that children do.
Yeah. Child porn MY ASS!
This has me so pissed off I
can't think of any other word but "ASS"!
Choose
this! Make no mistake.
The Alito thing is all about killing
off Roe v Wade.
Excerpt: President
Bush told abortion opponents Monday that they are pursuing "a noble
cause" and making a real difference in the campaign to recruit
more Americans to stand on their side.
Call your senator now and tell
them to vote no on Alito.
A-ha!
I've been saying forEVER that
the author of the Niger forgeries was Michael Ledeen. Now, there's even
more
evidence (however circumstantial) that I'm right!
Excerpt:A controversial
neoconservative who occasionally consulted for the Bush Defense Department
has confirmed that he was a contributor to the Italian magazine Panorama,
whose reporter first came across forged documents which purported that
Iraq was seeking to obtain uranium from Niger.
My, but I'm a clever little
monkey. Good thing Fitzgerald
is looking into it.
Excerpt: They said
the questions Fitzgerald asked them about the Niger documents suggested
to them that the special prosecutor was putting together a timeline.
They said they believe Fitzgerald wants to show the grand jury how some
people in the Bush administration may have conspired to retaliate against
former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, an outspoken critic of the administration's
pre-war Iraq intelligence.
No telling how high
this thing might go.
Excerpt: "When
The Washington Post published a list of the people whom Karl Rove, President
George W Bush's closest advisor, regularly consults for advice outside
the administration, foreign policy veterans were shocked when Michael
Ledeen popped up as the only full-time international affairs analyst."
Asia Times -Veteran neo-con adviser moves on Iran
Let's
be clear. The Abramoff
scandal is not
about lobbying.
Excerpt:Lawmakers
are about to bombard the American public with proposals that would crack
down on lobbyists. Several prominent plans, including one outlined yesterday
by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), would specifically ban
meals and privately paid travel for lawmakers. Or would they?
And any and all attempts to
frame it as such is disingenuous at best. All these lobbying bills that
are being offered up are useless. It's about buying influence. It's about
people -- elected officials usually -- accepting
money in return for favors.
Excerpt: Nothing
is illegal about government contractors giving political money to lawmakers
who help them, unless both sides agree to exchange campaign donations
for votes.
There are plenty of laws on
the books that say that those people can't accept money or gifts and can't
do favors for donations. Those laws just have to be enforced. The argument
is NOT about changing lobbying rules. It's about enforcing laws that are
already on the books AS WELL AS enforcing a code of ethics because MY
WORD these people are ethically challenged!
Excerpt:On Air
America, Slaughter alleged that "day traders" in the offices
of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and former House Majority
Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) had aided such investors. She mentioned as a
specific example that individuals got advance notice that an asbestos
bill was not going to emerge from the Senate
(Go ahead, read that whole
article, and then read this
one and just try to absorb what was happening there. Go ahead. I'll wait.
Now, take your shot of scotch and continue reading.)
Also, any attempt to frame
the Abramoff thing as a bipartisan one is bogus on its face. The issue
is bipartisan to be sure. Dems and Republicans BOTH
take money and perform favors (any analogy to them being whores is not
accidental).
Excerpt: Here are
the facts: polls show the American people see both parties as equally
corrupt. In response to the Abramoff/Cunningham/ DeLay scandals, both
parties have offered what they bill as "reforms." It is true
- the GOP's "reforms" deliberately leave open gaping loopholes,
while the Democrats' do not. But that's not really important, either
substantively or politically, because the truth is, you cannot fix a
system if you allow it to continue as a system of legalized bribery,
and you cannot take back congressional majorities if, like the Democrats,
you propose solutions that are easily blurred by the majority.
But Abramoff problem is a uniquely
Republican
problem --
Excerpt:Argue in
unison that the GOP is the party of corruption, while aggressively countering
GOP efforts to cast the scandal as bipartisan by hammering away at Abramoffís
exclusively Republican donations and spotlighting the GOP-built K Street
Project machine.
as well as a Bush
problem.
Excerpt:The President's
memory may soon be unhappily refreshed. TIME has seen five photographs
of Abramoff and the President that suggest a level of contact between
them that Bush's aides have downplayed. While TIME's source refused
to provide the pictures for publication, they are likely to see the
light of day eventually because celebrity tabloids are on the prowl
for them. And that has been a fear of the Bush team's for the past several
months: that a picture of the President with the admitted felon could
become the iconic image of direct presidential involvement in a burgeoning
corruption scandal like the shots of President Bill Clinton at White
House coffees for campaign contributors in the mid-1990s.
No matter how hard they try
to make you think otherwise.
Excerpt: Then comes
the next line -- that Democrats are trying to link Abramoff with Republicans.
This is like when Republicans tried to link James Carville to Democrats.
Link him to Republicans? He's been a professional Republican and major
GOP power-player for a quarter-century.
The fact that Bush (via his
puppy McClellan) is refusing
to answer questions about just who met with Abramoof and how many contacts
there were with Abramoff in the White House just pisses me off. Refusing!?
Who the hell does he think he works for??!!
Excerpt: Abramoff
had "a few staff-level meetings" at the Bush White House,
presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday. But he would not
say with whom Abramoff met, which interests he was representing or how
he got access to the White House.
Going
South Bush has
lost control of South America. Argentina
has paid off it's debt and is no longer beholden to the IMF (and by extension,
US business interests).
Excerpt: In 2001,
the economy of Argentina was declared dead but it has suddenly come
alive and paid off a massive $9.5 billion debt to the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) almost two years ahead of schedule. The payment,
which was announced on Jan. 3, represented a third of the country’s
federal reserves and was aimed at once and for all breaking the financial
stranglehold the IMF and its lending partners— the Paris Club,
international banks and private lenders—have had for decades on
that nation.
And neither is Brazil.
Excerpt:Brazilian
president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Monday said that by settling
its debt with the International Monetary Fund, Brazil will be able to
substantially increase its investments in social projects.
Meanwhile, Chile
has elected a socialist president.
Excerpt:Her rise
to power stunned many Chileans who thought a socialist single mother
jailed during Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship stood little chance
in this conservative Catholic country where divorce is a touchy issue.
And Ecuador
has more reasons to hate the US.
Excerpt:In the
midst of an Amazonian oil boom, classified documents reveal deep links
between oil companies and Ecuador's military.
Not so wacko,
huh?
Excerpt: Venezuela's
vice president on Monday told top U.S. Republican Sen. John McCain he
could "go to hell" for suggesting that "wackos"
were governing the oil-producing South American country.
Just
FYI Wondering how
Wolfowitz' tenure has been going over at the World Bank? Wonder
no more.
Excerpt: According
to one senior insider who feels as if Wolfowitz is gut-punching the
most talented teams at the bank and indicated that morale is plummeting,
"Wolfowitz just does not talk to his Vice Presidents. He speaks
to a few close advisors -- Kevin Kellems, Robin Cleveland, Karl Jackson,
some others -- but a lot of very good people are leaving."
Really. Not all that surprising.
I
double dog dare you. What
are you? Yeller'?
Excerpt: Fidel
Castro suggested the United States doesn't want to play Cuba in the
World Baseball Classic, which is awaiting word on whether the U.S. government
will let the island's players take part.
"We aren't afraid of anything," Castro said in a wide-ranging
speech late Tuesday. "It's very difficult to compete against us
in any area ... not even in baseball do they want to compete with Cuba."
Am not!
Excerpt: Cuba will
be allowed to play in the World Baseball Classic, after all. The U.S.
Treasury Department issued a license Friday allowing the Cubans to participate
in the 16-team tournament.
Gimme'
a break! They want
us to believe this
is an indication that Bush can think on his feet.
Excerpt: Bush has
been taking questions from audience members in recent speeches, and
the White House says none has been prescreened even though the sessions
are limted to invited groups.
And they barely mentioned that
the audience was HEAVILY pre-screened. Meaning someone like me wouldn't
have a snowball's chance of getting in there and asking a really important
question, like "How the hell do you sleep at night?"
Christ. Only in our lame ass
Main-Stream Media is it a story that the President of the country can
take unscripted questions AND answer them, and then turn it into a fawning
puff piece.
You know, I was doing fine
today. I was in an oddly amiable mood. And now this story just totally
screwed the pooch for me.
The president is a moron. THAT's
the story MSM. Now cover it!
News
of the Weird I wonder
if England has the lowest prostate cancer rate in Europe, seeing as they
put curry
in everything 'cause they have no cuisine to speak of.
Excerpt: But add
curry powder to the mix, the researchers say, and the vegetables and
spice are effective in treating established prostate cancers, the second-leading
cause of cancer death in American men.
Please tell me this
is a goof or a mistranslation.
Excerpt: On January
6, 2006, Henan Province's Dahe Daily newspaper reported that the local
police department was unable to take an ID photo of Ye Xiangting from
Yelou Village in the Yangzhuang Township of Wugang City, Henan Province.
No image of Ye Xiangting showed up in the computer photos, and there
is still no clear explanation for the result.
Of course, they tried to eat
them.
Excerpt: A slimy
jellyfish weighing as much as a sumo wrestler has Japan's fishing industry
in the grip of its poisonous tentacles.
Everyone needs a delicious
friend.
Excerpt: A rodent-eating
snake and a hamster have developed an unusual bond at a zoo in the Japanese
capital, Tokyo.
I'd vote for him, only because
he's honest and open about being evil.
Excerpt: One gubernatorial
candidate in Minnesota is giving a whole new meaning to the "dark
side" of politics. A man who calls himself a satanic priest plans
to run for governor on a 13-point platform that includes the public
impaling of terrorists at the state Capitol building.
He's cruisazy!
Excerpt:Tom Cruise has
reportedly stopped an episode of South Park that mocks him from being
aired in Britain.
And I thought having a newly
outed gay guy who loved techno music living over my head was bad.
Excerpt: Bertone,
54, doesn't just play loud music, authorities say. At all hours of the
day and night, he has blasted police radio broadcasts, shrill oscillating
tones, Spanish dance tunes and other noise from speakers he installed
on the outside of his home at 336 Lathrop Ave. Police said they could
hear the racket from 100 yards away.
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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