July 2008 archive

You Can Lie To Me If You Like

Just As Long As You Tell The Truth

Committee Questions State Dept. Role in Iraq Oil Deal

By JAMES GLANZ and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

Published: July 3, 2008

Bush administration officials knew that a Texas oil company with close ties to President Bush was planning to sign an oil deal with the regional Kurdistan government that ran counter to American policy and undercut Iraq’s central government, a Congressional committee has concluded.The conclusions were based on e-mail messages and other documents that the committee released Wednesday.

United States policy is to warn companies that they incur risks in signing contracts until Iraq passes an oil law and to strengthen Iraq’s central government. The Kurdistan deal, by ceding responsibility for writing contracts directly to a regional government, infuriated Iraqi officials. But State Department officials did nothing to discourage the deal and in some cases appeared to welcome it, the documents show.

Risk to U.S. troops seen if Israel strikes Iran

Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael Mullen says a new conflict could entangle and strain soldiers already in the region.

By Peter Spiegel, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

July 3, 2008  

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military’s top officer warned Wednesday that an Israeli airstrike against Iran would make the Middle East more unstable and could add to the stress on overworked American forces in the region.

The comments by Navy Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came days after he visited Israel and amid growing international concern that Jerusalem is actively considering such an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Mullen spoke at a Pentagon news briefing shortly after President Bush addressed the subject. Bush was asked at a Rose Garden news conference whether he would strongly discourage Israel from an attack, but he sidestepped the question, saying only that he believed the best way to deal with the Iranian nuclear program was through multilateral negotiations.

USA

FBI might use profiling in terror investigations

Critics worry the change would single out Muslims, Arabs or other groups

Associated Press

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims, Arabs or other racial and ethnic groups.

Law enforcement officials say the proposed policy would help them do exactly what Congress demanded after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: Root out terrorists before they strike.

Although President Bush has disavowed targeting suspects based on their race or ethnicity, the new rules would allow the FBI to consider those factors among a number of traits that could trigger a national security investigation.

So corrupted indeed and debased was that age by sycophancy that not only the foremost citizens who were forced to save their grandeur by servility, but every exconsul, most of the ex-praetors and a host of inferior senators would rise in eager rivalry to propose shameful and preposterous motions. Tradition says that Tiberius as often as he left the Senate-House used to exclaim in Greek, “How ready these men are to be slaves.” Clearly, even he, with his dislike of public freedom, was disgusted at the abject abasement of his creatures.

Tacitus, The Annals, via IOZ.

Come along if you care,

Come along if you dare,

Take a ride to the land inside and you’ll see

How happy life could be

If all of mankind

Would take the time to journey to the centre of the mind

Amboy Dukes

All pics from the Vaults of Erowid.  They have the greatest collection of visionary art on the planet.   (Thumbnail Gallery – broadband recommended)

Erowid has a couple galleries of blotter art worth checking out too.    Avoid clicking these links if you have a tendency to suffer flashbacks.  

NOTE: All of the material is copyrighted but I know the people that run the site and they gave me permission to use the images as long as I link back to the page I found the picture on.   Clicking on the picture will take you to a bigger version of the image in most cases.  

Everyone grab a pony and take a ride.    

Have I gone soft.

Did I underestimate some of the finer points of how only a few of the most elite wealthy and most powerful of the worlds elite scumbags would have an easier time of it simply because there would be less people to deal with.

Are people, could people be that evil.

Here is an analysis of what war in Iran might look like.  Some of it’s points will step upon issues many will recoil at but still radicalizing the entire middle east just could be the final legacy of Bush, the third anti-christ.

“We continue to believe that someone important someplace cares and will do something before our situation becomes impossible.” Fools Crow from “Fools Crow,” by Thomas E. Mails. p. 217

It’s gone from bad,

BBC is now reporting:

The Colombian authorities say they have rescued Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans held by rebels in Colombia.

Ms Betancourt, a French-Colombian politician, has been held for more than six years by the rebel Farc group and is said to be in very poor health.

She is the group’s highest-profile hostage and the French government has made securing her release a priority.

The Farc group has been fighting to overthrow the Colombian government for more than 40 years.

The Colombian military said some 15 hostages had been rescued in total on Wednesday, among them 11 Colombian soldiers.

Please join me in Colombia.

1. The NY Times reports that a Deepening cycle of job loss is seen lasting into 2009. “Joblessness has accelerated, and employers have slashed working hours even for those on their payrolls, shrinking the size of paychecks just as workers need them the most.”

   “It’s a slow-motion recession,” said Ethan Harris, chief United States economist for Lehman Brothers. “In a normal recession, things kind of collapse and get so weak that you have nowhere to go but up. But we’re not getting the classic two or three negative quarters. Instead, we’re expecting two years of sub-par growth. Growth that’s not enough to generate jobs. It’s kind of a chronic rather than an acute pain.”

   Nationally, unemployment, not including the jobless, those bumped down to part-time, and those who have given up looking for work, was 5.5 percent in May. “Add in those people and the so-called underemployment rate rises to 9.7 percent”.

2. The Washington Post reports Whistle-Blower suits languish at the Justice Department.

   More than 900 cases alleging that government contractors and drugmakers have defrauded taxpayers out of billions of dollars are languishing in a backlog that has built up over the past decade because the Justice Department cannot keep pace with the surge in charges brought by whistle-blowers, according to lawyers involved in the disputes.

   The issue is drawing renewed interest among lawmakers and nonprofit groups because many of the cases involve the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, rising health-care payouts, and privatization of government functions — all of which offer rich new opportunities to swindle taxpayers…

   At issue in most of the cases is whether companies knowingly sold defective products or overcharged federal agencies for items sold at home or offered to U.S. troops overseas. Under the Civil War-era False Claims Act, workers who file lawsuits alleging such schemes cannot discuss them or even disclose their existence until Justice decides whether to step in.

   So the lawsuits are sealed until the Bush Justice Dept. decides to look at them… effectively giving them reason to drag their feet.

3. According to the LA Times, the U.S. spies on Iraqi army. “The stepped-up surveillance reflects breakdowns in trust and coordination between the two forces. Officials said it was part of an expanded intelligence effort launched after American commanders were surprised by the timing of the Iraqi army’s violent push into Basra three months ago.”

   “It suggests that we don’t have complete confidence in their chain of command, or in their willingness to tell us what they’re going to do because they may fear that we may try to get them not to do it,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a website about intelligence and military issues…

   “The bad news is we’re spying on Iraqis,” said the former military official. “The good news is that we have to.”

   See? Anyway you slice it, it’s all Good News from Iraq™.

4. The Star Tribune notes that Clotheslines: Public opinion on clotheslines is becoming more favorable. “Clotheslines save money, conserve electricity and burn calories.” But, “They have also been banned in several suburbs and neighborhoods” because HOAs believe hanging laundry is “low-class” and disgusting. HOA members believe clotheslines lower property values. “Homeowners associations all over the U.S. and Canada restrict clotheslines to the back yard, or ban them outright.”

   “Lately, though, there have been signs that public opinion is starting to swing the other way. Towns and associations are starting to reverse those laws — primarily on the East Coast and in Canada. In April, for instance, the premier of Ontario grandly lifted the ban for the entire province. Southampton, N.Y., on Long Island, repealed its six-year-old ban in late May.”

   A positive sign. Terra Pass blog has a spreadsheet you can use to estimate how much money and C02 you could save by line drying your clothes.

Color me astonished!  I’ve never been a Hitchens’ fan.  In fact, if anything, I’ve loathed the man.  But even “broken clocks are right twice a day” and in this case, Hitchens gets it right.  Bush apologist, right-winger Hitchens decided to undergo waterboarding to see whether he would be convinced that it was torture.  He wrote about his experience in Vanity Fair:

“…Here is the most chilling way I can find of stating the matter. Until recently, “waterboarding” was something that Americans did to other Americans. It was inflicted, and endured, by those members of the Special Forces who underwent the advanced form of training known as SERE… But it was something that Americans were being trained to resist, not to inflict….”

More below the Fold: