Monthly Archives: March 2008

The Real Eisenhower

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Did US President Eisenhower ‘warn’ us about the military industrial complex, or did he build the damn thing into a monster? Ira Chernus answers this question well in his commentary, Published on Tuesday, March 18, The Real Eisenhower: Planning to Win Nuclear War
 
It’s time to tell the truth about ‘Ike’. It’s time for a less delusional Peace Movement still tied to ‘Americana, ‘honoring the troops’ and the American flag, and ‘prayer’. Why hobble the movement with false idols like Eisenhower? Why hobble it with false history?

Kristallnacht next, if we get it wholesale

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Top Torah Sage and practical businessman
“According to Jewish law, it is completely forbidden to hire Arabs, especially in yeshivas; there is a concern of endangering lives… After all, we are at war with them…and are there not Jews that can work and make a living?”
 
Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky added that Jews should refrain from employing any non-Jews, not just Muslim Arabs, and instead grant livelihood to Jews, “unless there exists a huge disparity between the costs of the labor.”

4,000th US casualty proves not enough

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Just Foreign Policy Iraqi Death EstimatorWe’re fast approaching the 5th Anniversary of the Iraq occupation. Coincidentally we are 10 official US casualties away from the 4,000 milestone. While focusing on American deaths may grab the public’s attention, no emphasis is still being made to chart Iraqi casualties. The absurd difference between best estimates and what collateral damage our administration will concede, opens critics to ridicule as extremists. Over a million versus thirty thousand. I’ll hold a candle in Acacia Park to commemorate the Iraqi civilian count, however minimized, but I have not one more ounce of memorializing in me for the soldiers who should have refused deployment long ago, and are over there still driving up the civilian death count.

Fed makes emergency donation…

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In terms of a rate slash, on a Sunday evening. Because it’s Monday in the asian markets and now the London and Zurich and Paris and Berlin markets…

In six hours the markets on Wall Street are going to open, just from what’s already happened in Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, HongKong, and Shanghai, and is rolling across the continents like a huge tsunami of Economic Doom, and early trades here, the Market is going to take a 200 point hit at opening bell.

In a sick ironic twist, the Bear Market is actually as of today a reaction to the Fed bailing out the Americans, the rate slash made it possible for J.P.Morgan/Chase to buy up … Bear …

The markets are now skittish across the world because “the Housing Bubble” the “we overbuilt for a decade and now the market is adjusting mr Bush was babbling about on Tuesday, is only the tip of a very large pimple.

So they cheated, lied, swindled and outright stole, and then got several Tax breaks on top of that… selling the debt on the Predatory Lending to finance other scams… and still other scams….

Did I mention the Chase group in that? why yes I did… they’re the ones who appointed Wolfowitz to be head of the World Bank just last year.

Now, I’m reasonably certain that Mr Bush had plans for what to do when the airborne fecal mass contacts the rotary atmospheric circulation device…

Plans that no doubt involved a quick resignation and being whisked off on the first available flight out of the country, with suitcases full of cash,…

…then spending the rest of his unnatural life in some Mediterranean villa, sitting around the pool drinking martinis with other exiled dictators…

Hey, there’s a Job Opening for him in Afghanistan, and he’s already expressed interest in filling the position!

Meanwhile the victims of this massive ripoff won’t get reimbursed anything.

The thieves who created the problem will have taken too much of the money for any to be left over, to distribute to their victims…

If all this sounds cynical and bitter, that’s only because I’ve calmed down a bit.

I was enraged, vengeful and hate-filled before.

And they wonder why people throw airplanes at their buildings.

The contractors losing people in Iraq

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We’ve all heard of Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, Custer Battles et al. Who are the other contractor / profiteer / mercenaries in Iraq? Here’s a partial list, sorted by most recent fatality.

Prolog Middle East, Wackenhut Services, Tetra Tech EC, DynCorp International, Armor-Group, L-3 Communications, Erinys International, Aegis Defence Services, CSS Global, BLP International, Odebrecht, Unity Resources Group, National Democratic Institute, The Sandi Group, Blue Hackle, Securiforce International, ECCI, Special Operations Consulting-Security Management Group Inc, The Olive Group, Falcon Security, Lear Siegler Inc, EOD Technology, Inc., Cochise Consultancy, Inc., AIM Group, MPRI, Tetra Tech, Genric, SOC-SMG, Hart Security Company, Torres International, Danubia Global Incorporated, Kroll Incorporated, MVM Inc., Triple Canopy, Inc., Lucent Technologies Inc, Titan Corp, GRS Security, Control Risks Group, USA Environmental Inc., Lloyd-Owen International, CTU Consulting, Kuwaiti company, Edinburgh Risk Inc, Qatar International Trading Company, Janusian Security Risk Management., Steele Foundation, Bearing Point, Inc., CLI USA, Global Risk Strategies Limited, Taehwa Electric Co, Gorkha Manpower Company, Eurodelta d.o.o, Omega Risk Solutions, Gulf Services Co., MayDay Supply, Morning Star Co., Soufan Engineering, Siemens, Ulasli Oil Company, Bilintur, Al Tamimi group, InterEnergoServis, United Defense Industries, Readiness Mgmt. Svcs., Johnson Controls, Gana General Trading Co., Al-Atheer, Granite Services, Inc., General Electric, Titan National Security Solutions, Environmental Chemical Corp. International, Control Risks Group, Yuksel Construction, Prime Projects International, Meteoric Tactical Solutions, Bidepa, SOMAT, Chemoprojekt, Ensto Utility Networks, Air-Ix, SAS International, Ultra Services.Irex Corp., Omu Electric Co., Washington Group, Proactive Communications Inc, ToiFor Kft, IAP Worldwide Services, Sub-Surface Engineering, Bechtel, National Response Corp. of Long Island, Tetra Tech EC.

Right-to-Work-for-Less goons circulating

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As crowds collected to see the parade yesterday, vultures circled Acacia Park to collect signatures for their RIGHT-TO-WORK [FOR LESS] BALLOT INITIATIVE. Sure enough, they were describing it as a proposal to give employees the right to decide if they want a union. As opposed to a law which would further hamper the ability to organize unions, backed nationally by corporate interests, and backed locally by American Furniture Warehouse slime-ball Jake Jabs. The two petitioners I saw were young men, who spoke glibly when I interjected that their proposal would do the opposite of what they claimed. The UFCW hopes you can call their FRAUD WATCH HOTLINE if you witness this kind of misrepresentation. Call 303.936.0766 to report fraudulent petitioners. I would snap a cellphone pic of the miscreants and threaten to post it if they do not amend their sales pitch.

Thousands march against war in Portland, Oregon

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The main pacifist oriented Peace Coalition in the country (United for Justice with Peace) didn’t want any Spring antiwar actions to be held that would be organized by anybody other than themselves.

They used the excuse, to try to block these demonstrations from being organized by others (ANSWER), by saying that they would comply with an anti- Iraqi war vet group’s request, that had asked that no Spring protests at all be held that might take attention away form the Winter Soldier testimony they had planned. Lo and Behold!, now this same group is planning vigils throughout the entire country to ‘commemorate’ the official 4,000 dead US soldier count that the Pentagon issues. Slippery… Seems like the Spring action ban was only for others to obey.

One area went ahead and ignored this ban on Spring Peace actions, and that was in Portland, Oregon. There, thousands of antiwar people marched through downtown in an action that has gotten little national coverage, since it was done mainly in isolation from other local areas that did nothing. Shame on the Democrats and Pacifists of United for Justice with Peace for braking the antiwar movement so during this election year. It hardly was a responsible thing to do at all, if you were truly opposed to all the US government’s wars? Instead, the concentration is on by these people to get any Democrat at all, into the Presidency.

Leaders of anti- Colombian government demo of March 6 assassinated

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While attention is elsewhere, the US continues to wage war in South America and it does so using the terrorism of its death squads. And even more pathetic is the US media’s support for this war, as they spread misinformation and lies and blanket out real info about how the US government is waging this war, using murder and torture at will of its political opponents.

Example in point, is how the American media highlighted US coverage of pro- Colombian government demonstrations throughout Colombia against the FARC opposition group, yet ignored the massive demonstrations throughout the same country against the death squad arming, US backed Colombian government. Don’t expect to see much about how the Colombian government murdered the leaders of this demonstration, a mere week after they were held.

See the reportage, Organizers of Colombian march against death squads killed

Instead, the US media will continuously highlight the joint US-Colombian governments’ cooperative campaign to topple the current governments of Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia,and Nicaragua. The center of this campaign will be to bellicosely confront, threaten military intervention, and to try to organize coups to topple Chavez and Raul Castro, of Venezuela and Cuba respectively.

Right now, unfortunately, we have a ‘Peace Movement’ in the US that cannot really even find Mexico on a map, let alone the other countries of Latin America threatened by the bipartisan thugs in D.C. This US war against Latin America is heating up though, and we need to pay attention to what’s going on. The US government pulled the triggers that killed these organizers of peaceful demonstrations against the US government organized, Colombian death squads. And it will pull the trigger again and again in its ongoing efforts to control all of Latin America, if a real opposition to these wars is not begun to be built soon.

Miniature chartreuse green peace flags

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Reprinted from PPJPC.ORG:
 
These little peace flags were such a hit at the parade. And they came together without too much fuss. This being an election year, perhaps others will be seeking to make these affordable 6 x 7 inch flags on 12 inch dowels.
 
You’ll need one yard of fabric for every 36 flags. Dowels of 3/16 inch diameter come 20 to a bag. You’ll expend one glue stick for every 10 flags. 		 

For equipment, you need an inexpensive glue gun and a quilter’s fabric cutting ensemble which includes the standard 18in x 24in cutting mat, 6in x 24in acrylic ruler, and 45mm rotary cutter. This method of cutting the material will prove indispensable. I’m not kidding. At every cut, you’ll be unable to contain yourself from audibly expressing how easy it is.

If you plan to print an image on your flags, the silk screen process will be far and away the cheapest. In such case, a common screen used for t-shirts will accommodate 4-up, aligned horizontally. This means you’ll get four flags per screen pull. Take note that the heat-drying process used in silk screening will require that you choose a predominantly COTTON fabric.

For the silk-screening, you’ll need first to cut your fabric into 12in x 14.6in panels. This can be done in TWO CUTS. Take the material you’ve purchased, leave it folded as it came off the bolt. For the uninitiated, a fabric yard represents 36in by 44in which folded in half means a 22in length. Using the cutting mat to measure the fabric, cut a 12 inch strip. This will produce a 12in x 44in piece. Leaving it doubled over, make the second cut at 14.6in which effectively divides it into 3 equal pieces.

Repeat until you’ve got a tidy pile of near-squares ready for printing. You may find it much easier to cut all the strips first, then make the dividing cuts.

You’ll note that as a result, 2/3 of your panels will have a factory hem on one side. Since you’ve no intention of hemming these flags, it will be of interest to exploit that single protected edge to forestall fraying. Sort your panels so that the factory edge is on the same side in the pile. Again you can keep this in mind right after you’ve cut the panels. This is explained out of order in the interest of clarity. You’re doing this to be helpful for when the printer handles the panels.

The printer will want to set the screen to offset the image to the right of the center, to allow for the fabric needed to wrap around the stick. This calculation will have to be made when you create your printed image. Since the stick will be glued to one side of the flag, it will be best to position the factory hem on the opposite side to achieve the maximum benefit, thus, the right side.

Once the panels are printed, you can cut them into individual flags. This will require another TWO CUTS, and this time you can cut them four panels at a time, depending on the sharpness of your blade. Just make sure your panels are all oriented the same direction, then cut them into equal quarters.

Next, with the printed image facing down, apply a bead of hot glue in a strip 1.5 inches inside the post edge, you can do this with two squeezes of the gun, then apply a third squeeze in a squiggly line between your first bead and the edge.

Quickly place the wood dowel against the middle of the squiggly glue and rotate it such that it draws the edge of the material up and around the dowel to meet the thick line of glue. Press the fabric together for a couple seconds to feel the glue making contact. You’re done.

Cost per flag: At $2.99/yard, fabric for each flag costs 8¢. Dowels were 5¢ each. Figure the glue at 2¢ per flag. Depending on your printing costs, probably you can calculate each impression to cost 25¢. Which means, not counting your labor, the flags cost $0.40 a piece. If you are thinking to make several thousand, perhaps this cost still appears prohibitive. But imagine you’ll end up with a very finished looking product which your recipients will take home as keepsakes.

A soldier gets home, walks into a bar…

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There’s a soldier’s witticism being attributed to General Tommy Franks, which goes like this: “When you men get home and face an anti-war protester, look him in the eyes and shake his hand. Then, wink at his girlfriend because she knows she’s dating a pussy.” Is it an old Vietnam era joke? It would surprise me if vets still laugh at it. This has the smell of gung-ho recruiting, pre-Iraq. Let’s see what ol’ Tommy left out:

When you men get home
-IF you get home. If it’s even YOU who gets home. Or if you even go HOME. Many vets linger at the bases, or become itinerants, too ashamed to return to their hometowns and face their families.

…and face an anti-war protester
-Unlikely. I’ve yet to be faced with a soldier who’s come back ready to stand tall for what he did.

…look him in the eyes
-if you can, if that faculty is unimpared, or if you can reach eye-level from your wheelchair.

…and shake his hand
-Requires hand. Will your anti-war compatriot touch your hand, bloody as it is with war crime, porn jism, and dumb-bastard cooties?

…Then, wink at his girlfriend
-Can she see you wink from behind your dark wraparound sunglasses which you wear because you think they obscure your guilty mug? You’re Joe Camel now, a cartoon sense of self, disconnected you hope, from the deeds you’ve perpetrated and the inhumanity you’ve witnessed.

…because she knows she’s dating a pussy
-She’s dating a pussy who isn’t contaminated with DU, Anthrax, PTSD; who won’t wake up in the night and kill her; who won’t give her a deformed baby; who won’t spread an STD contracted from your buddies with whom you gang-raped a fellow soldier; who won’t spend the next ten years in and out of veterans facilities. If you don’t kill yourself sooner or ride your motorcycle crotch-rocket into a truck.

When Good Ol’ Tommy Franks was wisecracking, he was asking you to visualize your pre-war self facing your fellow citizen, not your post-trauma broken self. And Franks knew full well which would be making it home. Don’t think that war guilt is unintentional. It’s great for the Department of Defense bottom line. Re-enlistments are more likely, and the mentally-disabled hinder their own recovery. As soon as you are of no good to the Army, soon enough your ailments will assure they won’t have to pay your pension for very long.

Betrayus redux

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So, now, the one general Bush could find willing to be his bag-man and “take one for the Team” is apparently not happy taking one for the Team, and taking another one for the Team, and then taking another one…

Apparently, the Surge is not working as splendiferously as Mr Bush lies to us. It’s gotten so bad the trained liars are circumventing the story by screaming about shit that means absolutely nothing, but does keep our minds off the fact that the situation in Iraq sucks much dog. And now even Petraeus is saying it.

The latest “scandal! Outrage! there must be Blood shed!” is about a presidential candidates preacher saying that (gasp!) there’s RACISM IN AMERICA!

Hard to follow an act like that. WC Fields or Foy or one of those Last of the Vaudevilleans, great actors, said you should never try to follow an act involving animals or children. I guess the Chimp and his ministry of Lies kinda qualify as both.

But the slaughter goes on… sure, you can keep the boot heel firmly on the necks of the conquered, provided you’re willing to spend the economy of your entire nation to do it.

Then one day, you have to let up, you can’t keep the boot heel on the neck forever. Physical and logistical impossibility.

But it’s not really as sad and pathetic as it seems…

actually, it’s much much worse…

Maybe that’s part of the reason Bush is willing to put the already overstretched military, most of the combat-ready brigades are already in the line of fire, in the line of Further and More intense Fire with his really stupid idea to jump a nation with 5 times the population of the nation they can’t govern effectively.

Some of the Military in town here have called this “sedition” to say things like that.

The actual charge of sedition is to teach the violent overthrow of the government and laws of the united states.

George Bush has not only TAUGHT this doctrine, he and his Gang of Thugs have accomplished it. And put in place a system wherein they might be able to make their Terroristic Dictatorship permanent.

Soldiers and Airmen read this, I know because when I first looked for the blog (not knowing the name) I googled “camp casey colorado springs” and got a discussion forum for soldiers, who were saying that we are seditious.

Fellas, your Commander in Thief is the one committing sedition. You guys swore the same oath I did, and incidentally, the one Bush swore once when he joined the National Guard and twice as POTUS, to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign AND Domestic. That would be the same Constitution he and his group of thugs Openly Declared they would eliminate, by whatever means they considered necessary. The one Bush called “just a piece of goddamned paper” in one of his Imperial Hissie Fits when he was informed that the actions he was proposing were unconstitutional.

He wants to use you as instruments of his Imperial Will, and is willing to make a burnt offering of YOUR blood in the sands of Arabia, but, if you notice, not HIS blood.

To deny this, or denounce this, you first have to read it. Some of your officers will want to suppress this idea by mocking it into disappearing. Or use your muscle to Threaten it into disappearing.

The Romans tried that with Judaism and Christianity.

How’d that work out for y’all?

And I say that because you are the heirs to that empire. Have fun trying to destroy an idea.

You’ll drive yourselves mad trying.

Ask your General with the name of a Roman Legionnaire.

Ask your president whose foreign policy is an exact copy of that offered by Emperor Caligula “Let them hate, so long as they Fear”.

Tibetans riot in China

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Tibetans inhabit the poorest province of China, and the average income is only about $400 per year. The Tibetans are an oppressed minority in a capitalist China run by a single party, the very much corrupted Chinese Communist Party, and they occupy a terrain that is a gigantic part of China yet that is very sparsely populated. That makes them a perfect target for US and European manipulation, in the West’s war to marginalize China away from their own control of world power.

Many Western intellectual types are fond of Buddhism, which they see as a peaceful and nonviolent alternative to the dominant religion of their own countries, which is Christianity. They associate Tibet with Buddhism. They love the Dalai Lama, the leader of the Tibetan aristocracy in exile, who is also considered a spiritual Buddhist leader. These Western intellectuals think that all that is Tibetan relates somehow to their beliefs that non-violence is the only method to bring about change in the world, or to achieve inner peace.
However, the rioters in Tibet do not support much anything at all to do with that philosophy. These Buddhist monks and their supporters attacked stores, and burned cars in the streets. They rioted.

see… Dozens killed in Tibetan protests

This event had more in common with the LA riots than with any peaceful, supposedly non-violent religion. This was the action of not only an outraged ethnic grouping, but also a relgious grouping that thinks it is getting a raw deal from the dominant ethnic group. They probably are, but the Western governments are no more concerned about Tibetan welfare than they are about Albanian welfare.

Still, the US and European government see Tibet as a grand opportunity to manipulate Western opinion against Chinese nationalism, in favor of their own nationalisms. That is simply a fact.

See video of riots…. Cars burn in Tibet riots Hardly just ‘non-violence’ in action.

What they didn’t want to see last year

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St Patricks Day Seven minus Elizabeth Fineron and Eric Verlo
What they didn’t want you to see last year… no thrown bottles, no jeers, but crowds cheering for peace! Channel 11 reported “their message was still not received well by everyone” but interviewed only a single detractor who asserted that we weren’t supporting the troops. One out of thousands of friendly waving peace signs. A statistical lie.

Waving from the school bus

Other coverage from KRDO-13, KVOA5/30 and Fox21 was more even handed. The peace message came from others like Kat Tudor with the Smokebrush toaster and its peace toast:

The usual compatible colleagues

And perhaps a new voice, now that the parade allows social messages:

Get Real Colorado

More to the Elliot Spitzer political hit

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“The Spitzer hit happened because Spitzer proposed to take over the three biggest bond insurers, and separate their mortgage backed
security business from their AAA business, after Moody’s down-rated all three AAA insurers to junk.” -quote from a CIA Yahoogroups post. Here’s the story I found from NakedCapitalism. The bond insurers, or monoline companies, were down-rated, and many cities have lost billions on municipal bonds, retirement funds etc… due to the sub-prime cancer…. Looks like Elliot Spitzer WAS threatening the monolines.

This Global Research article supports what Spitzer knew about the sub-prime debacle years ago. And what he tried to do about it.

Walks like a political hit… talks like a political hit… Who were clients (1) through (8)?

They must have threatened his family… for him to take this lying down. FBI dirty tricks…. high Bush/Cheney command at work? Sure. Always in these kind of political killings. They compromise someone, then blackmail, or threaten family, force them to resign, and the media complies… Not that Spitzer might not have had a weak spot for high priced call girls… but there is no history of this behavior from him. Someday the truth might come out fully. Some bulldog investigative person will expose all…

Bush does math…2nd verse…

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There’s a problem with the accounting of War Dead. We’re constantly told that we must be wrong about the number of “enemy” or civilian dead, but there’s more…

The 4000 combat deaths to date,… weeelllll … Mr Bush ordered a change in accounting, allowable statistics and other standards have been ‘tweaked” to reflect the notion that All Is Well and we’re somehow winning HIS war.

The incidental death count for coalition soldiers was over 10,000… until people who didn’t immediately die on the battlefield, committed suicide because of combat-induced PTSD, committed Homicide due to combat-induced PTSD… accidents, diseases they wouldn’t have caught on the streets of, say, Colorado Springs… “friendly” fire… died from their wounds while in the hospitals or being transferred to a hospital…
well, their deaths were suddenly NOT COUNTED.

This is nothing new, they used the same accounting standards during the Korean conflict and of course VietNam.

When this was brought into the open they changed the standard…

And, at a time when the casualty count was really really inconvenient for them… changed it right back.

Happy Romantic War, Mr Bush. You’re going to be unemployed in just over 10 months, maybe you’ll actually get to live your fantasy of going and fighting for your money.

Advising Hillary about advising Obama

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Weren’t they so cute, Mary Matalin and the bald guy, circa Election 1992, political advisers and marital partners, swinging for opposite teams, both obviously high-roller clever wits. It could have made a sitcom. Did it? I remember a Mork-n-Mindy-esque book cover. Mr. and Mrs. Smith of political hit-making, presumably. Now I hear there’s another Carville-Matalin academic dream pair advising the Democratic rivals. Christopher Edley and Maria Echaveste. He for Obama, she for Hillary. Isn’t that cute? Now wait a minute.

Are we to believe the stakes are so high, and political acumen such a rarity, that married couples have to divide their energies between political campaigns? Out of our entire population, or out of the small pool of “experts” consulted by the networks, the political campaigns have to hire professors whose partners are otherwise indisposed with the other side?!

In any other line of work, it would be called a conflict of interest. But in politics we’re supposed to think it’s a matter of tomayto or tomahto. Nothing you can’t resolve after the 9 to 5. At the end of the day, which candidate wins is a wash.

Probably we’re encouraged to make this comparison. But do you know any couple to survive even a mismatched allegiance to sports teams? The only way I know to stomach a partner’s at-odds political views is to have separate abodes. I’m thinking that elections have indeed become so sophisticated that in order to collude effectively, you have to have intimately briefed operators. What are they called? Bed fellows!

Competing businesses can’t even be caught meeting in the same hotel room without drawing an investigation into price fixing. Election fixing, even with Diebold’s collusion, has got to be quite a tenuous balancing act. You can’t have a Rove type working on both sides simultaneously, attending the meetings at least. But if you’ve got dueling advisers, perhaps they can coordinate the tempo, mood and fiddle, lest one side or the other fall out of step.

If you were being considered for a consultancy, wouldn’t you recuse yourself if your wife was already advising the competitor? If you didn’t offer up the info voluntarily, you could be liable for civil damages if it was found out.

But when it concerns politics, what? Never mind that your wife works for the other side. We need YOU. Oh, and you can tell us what she’s up to, without letting her in on the game. And make certain she isn’t playing you for the same. Or, your recruiters could make this pitch: The public loves a team couple. It dispels the wacky idea that politics have to do with class, or social differences.

Americans are such romantics. They believe (1) love conquers all, it even settles differences of opinion, and (2) that married couples are ultimately faithful to each other above all. One person playing double agent between rivals, betrays both naturally. But two people? They’re kept honest because they can’t lie to each other. Dirty politics become sanitized by Ward and June, each too much a patriot to betray each other.

Bush does math the same way he does English…

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Like “nukular” or “is our children learning”

Take for instance, the lies told to get us into Iraq errr Iran errrr D) all of the above. The crazy dictator who was poised to attack his neighbors, the threat to world security, the anthrax, smallpox, mousepox, yellow cake Uranium, and of course the 500 metric tonnes of Nerve Gas… 1,102,311.3 pounds… which is substantially more than Zero. zilch nada rien nix bupkis… (I checked the actual conversion on a units calculator).

Now, I never learned the formulae for Algebra or Calculus or even most Geometry. I know that Pie are round and Cornbread are squared.

I can do math intuitively. Most of the time it works.

A trillion dollars is 1 million squared. 1,000,000 x 1,000,000. it’s been pointed out that even a trillion mosquitoes would be hard to lose, misplace, hide…
…and they weigh less than a tenth of a gram.

(Except for the east Texas mosquitoes, the ones you carry an extra shotgun with you in order to provide Anti-aircraft fire against them… big as turkeys, and everybody gets a drumstick…)

But the low estimate is that a Trillion dollars is well, unACCOUNTed for. The money missing from the Republican party’s own trust fund is by their published estimate, $990,000, or 99% of a million.

And of course, having a cool Megabucks walk away without permission, and the Senators on the watchdog accounting agency give the investigators a blatantly forged document that’s allegedly an “internal audit”,
the Great Bunch of Guys who did this are the ones who say the missing funds are just under a mill…

and the regulators and investigators who say that it’s over 3 million, why they’re just lying…

A projected $5 Terabucks surplus has not only been wiped, but now is a $5 trillion deficit.

Bush’s own investments in Carlyle Group, heavily damaged by their predatory lending practices, coupled with quickly laundering the funds by selling the bogus mortgages, They just almost got wiped out but a miracle occurred, they got a bailout.

Not the people who lost their homes, no, they still have to “git out! Now!”…

Now, you don’t hear that very loudly spoken on the news… Just as a Deus ex Machina coincidence, that announcement was made while the Bush-anointed federal prosecutors were handcuffing the “Sheriff of Wall Street”, the most powerful overseer and regulator and, the one most outspoken against the Bush deregulation and the havoc it was known beforehand that it would cause..
Over a prostitution scandal.

That scandal kind of overwhelms the 220 Billion dollars that are being used to bail out a company in which the President of the United States has large holdings.

220 billion just as a coincidence is 8 months of budget for “tax & spend Democrat Liberal” Jimmy Carter.

His entire budget for his entire term of office came to just over a trillion. Which is just under a third of the budget for this year for Bush.

that’s one Very Bad error in basic math the BushMaster made.

More to follow…

Saint Patricks 2008 in Colorado Springs

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The 2007 St Patricks Day parade before le deluge.
Here’s the usual advanced notice: JOIN US TOMORROW AT THE 2008 StPATRICK’S DAY PARADE! The Justice & Peace will be staging at Monument between Tejon and Cascade, anticipating no trouble. Gathering at 11am, parade starts at noon, probably we’ll be setting off about 1pm. PEACE NOW. We’re slated to march 87th in the procession, several units behind the inflatable marine. Now that social issues ARE allowed, neither the junior soldiers nor Hooters are on the roster this year.

Marx and Steinbeck

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Steinbeck Grapes of WrathKarl Marx died today in 1883. Though I consider communism to be largely a failed experiment, I do agree with many of Marx’ tenets. Here is the opening paragraph of The Communist Manifesto:

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

Today in 1939, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath was published. The following passage typifies the message of the book which made Steinbeck and his novel a capitalist-socialist battleground.

One man, one family driven from the land; this rusty car creaking along the highway to the west. I lost my land, a single tractor took my land. I am alone and I am bewildered. And in the night one family camps in a ditch and another family pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and the women and children listen. Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other…

When word of the book burnings, bannings, denouncements and death threats reached Congress, an Oklahoma representative rose up to “say to you, and to every honest, square-minded reader in America, that the painting Steinbeck made in this book is a lie, a black, infernal creation of a twisted, distorted mind.”

I don’t know if it makes me feel better or worse to know that truth that threatens the status quo has always been suppressed, and its proponents ever maligned. But remember that those on the fringe are the ones whose positions provoke a rethinking of assumptions, who spark epiphanies and change the course of human history. In the immortal words of another rabble rouser, Henry David Thoreau, Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. Yes, let’s!

Free wireless spots in Colorado Springs

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WiFiWhere to plop your laptop if you can’t make it home to post a bid. Independents predominantly, by area, and hours. Please contact us if you’ve been omitted. Cheers!

DOWNTOWN
Antlers Hilton – lobby, restaurant
4 S. Cascade Avenue – 955.5600
Boulder Street Coffee Roasters
332 N. Tejon St – 577.4291
Coffee Warehouse
526 S. Tejon Street – 227.8639
Dog Tooth Coffee M-F 6:30am-6pm, S-Su 8am-6pm
505 E. Columbia St – 632.0125
El Tesoro Restaurant
10 N. Sierra Madre St – 471.0106
Joanie’s Cafe
2224 N. Wahsatch Ave – 578.9200
McCabe’s Tavern
520 S. Tejon St – 633.3300
Phantom Canyon
2 E. Pikes Peak Ave – 635.2800
Pike’s Perk
14 S. Tejon
Poor Richard’s Wine Bar / Rico’s
322 N. Tejon St – 630.7723

WESTSIDE
Agia Sophia Coffee Shop M-S 8am-10pm, Su 1-7pm
2902 W. Colorado Ave. – 632.3322
Black Cat Books -Manitou Th-Tu 10am-9pm
720 Manitou Avenue – 685.1589
Colorado City Creamery
2602 W. Colorado Ave
6628A Delmonico Dr – 265.6556
CUCURU m 8-4, w-th 8-4, f-s 8-10, su 9-3
2332 W. Colorado Ave – 520.9900
Java Buddha Coffeehouse
2631 W. Colorado Ave – 633-JAVA
McDonalds
3021 W. Colorado Ave
Meadow Muffins
2432 W. Colorado Ave

SOUTH
Blue Star Bar & Grill
1465 S. Tejon St – 632.1086
Canyon Coffee & Cafe
1791 S. 8th St.
Cookie Crumbs
1753 S. 8th St
Pikes Perk
1616 S. 8th St

EAST
Colorado Springs Airport – main concourse
7770 Drennan Road
Jazzed on Java M-F 7am-4pm
2201 Saint Paul Dr – 578.1731
Raven’s Nest Coffee
330 N. Institute St.

NORTH
Black Forest Coffee Haus
11425 Black Forest Rd – 495.4804
Good Company Restaurant
7625 N. Union Blvd – 528.8877
Jazzed on Java
5550 N. Union – 264.0232
Pike’s Perk
5965 N. Academy Blvd, #203
5547 Powers Center Point

Beside the corporate joints Panera, Einstein Bros, Bear Rock, Peaberry, It’s a Grind, Dazbog, Borders or Starbucks.