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And, yes, I DO take it personally: 08/26/2007 - 09/02/2007
Mandy: Great blog!
Mark: Thanks to all the contributors on this blog. When I want to get information on the events that really matter, I come here.
Penny: I'm glad I found your blog (from a comment on Think Progress), it's comprehensive and very insightful.
Eric: Nice site....I enjoyed it and will be back.
nora kelly: I enjoy your site. Keep it up! I particularly like your insights on Latin America.
Alison: Loquacious as ever with a touch of elegance -- & right on target as usual!
"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it."
- Noam Chomsky
Send tips and other comments to: profmarcus2010@yahoo.com

And, yes, I DO take it personally

Saturday, September 01, 2007

"The importance of timely action in terminating the Bush-Cheney administration is brushed aside as ... crazy"

it's far from crazy, and, for anyone with a clear-thinking head on their shoulders, it's the single most important issue the united states has ever faced... i'm glad robert parry has the huevos to step out and say what desperately needs to be said...
If one were simply considering what was “good for the country,” a reasonable idea might be to arrange a choreographed Agnew-Nixon pas de deux, with Cheney stepping down first (as Vice President Spiro Agnew did in 1973), a replacement vice president quickly getting approved, and then Bush bowing out (as President Richard Nixon did in 1974).

Since Virginia’s 80-year-old Republican Sen. John Warner has just announced he is leaving the Senate, he might make an excellent candidate for “caretaker” president, someone who could finish up Bush’s term and implement a bipartisan strategy for extricating U.S. forces from the Iraqi quagmire.

[...]

In a nation that cared more about its soldiers and its long-term interests, the news shows and the political class would be exploring how these present-and-future disasters might be averted or reversed, how Bush and Cheney could be presented with “an offer they can’t refuse,” either resign or face the humiliation of bipartisan impeachment.

But the United States, circa 2007, doesn’t appear capable of acting expeditiously on behalf of its citizens or its national interests.

The importance of timely action in terminating the Bush-Cheney administration is brushed aside as unworthy of discussion, impossible, crazy. It is far simpler to condemn Larry Craig for his stall-to-stall footsie with a plainclothes cop than to hold Bush and Cheney accountable for an illegal war and a variety of other high crimes and misdemeanors.

So the drift toward the precipice continues with almost no one taking note of the chasm below.

god willing, some of those who REALLY have the good of the country at heart will step forward and tell 'em they gotta go...

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Sign taped to hand dryer

push this button for a few comments from karl rove...
President Bush will be viewed as a far-sighted leader who confronted the key test of the 21st century.

speaking for myself, i prefer to use the paper towels...

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A big, bold, very serious McClatchy headline

Experts: Fixing Justice should be on Bush's agenda

it is to laugh... one of the most thankless jobs, as well as the one with the all-time worst record for achieving any results whatsoever, is offering advice to the bush administration... if bush had wanted a FUNCTIONAL - by any NORMAL definition of the term - department of justice, he wouldn't have appointed gonzo... therefore, you have to ask yourself, what IS bush's definition of "functional..." i propose that it looks very much like the doj looks right now... advising him to "fix" something he doesn't consider "broken" is an exercise in abject futility...

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Paul Craig Roberts should just chill, it's only the CONSTITUTION

he's getting shrill again...
The media is silent, Congress is absent, and Americans are distracted as George W. Bush openly prepares aggression against Iran.

US Navy aircraft carrier strike forces are deployed off Iran.

US Air Force jets and missile systems are deployed in bases in countries bordering or near to Iran.

US B-2 stealth bombers have been refitted to carry 30,000 pound "bunker buster" bombs.

The US government is financing terrorist and separatist groups within Iran.

US Special Forces teams are conducting terrorist operations inside Iran.

US war doctrine has been altered to permit first strike nuclear attack on Iran and other non-nuclear countries.

Bush's war threats against Iran have intensified during the course of this year. The American people are being fed a repeat of the lies used to justify naked aggression against Iraq.

golly gee... what's "distracting" us...?
Meanwhile the US media focuses on whether Republican Senator Larry Craig is a homosexual or has offended gays by denying to be one of them. The run-up for the public's attention is why a South Carolina beauty queen cannot answer a simple question about why her generation is unable to find the United States on a map.

oh... THAT... but, doggone it, sex in public toilets is just so FASCINATING, so TITILLATING, so, so... and being able to poke fun at a dumb blonde... i mean, how AMERICAN can you get...? isn't that kind of thing what we watch all those reality shows for...? c'mon, roberts... lighten up... it's the dog days of summer, fercryinoutloud... oh... what's that you say...?
Whatever form of government Bush is operating under, it is far outside an accountable constitutional democratic government. Bush has transitioned America to caesarism, and even if Bush leaves office in January 2009, the powers he has accumulated in the executive will remain. Unless Bush and Cheney are impeached and convicted, there is no prospect of the US Congress and federal judiciary ever again being co-equal branches of government.

there we go with that CONSTITUTION business again... what're we s'posed to do about it...? i mean, what's gonna happen is gonna happen, right...? no use getting all hot and bothered about something we can't do anything about anyway... which reminds me, i need to go get another cuppa coffee...

p.s. please note... i believe this post is the first time larry craig has been mentioned on this blog...

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Friday, August 31, 2007

Bad cold - light posting

i came down with a rip-roaring, sneezing my head off, runny nose, watery eyes, head stuffed up, old-fashioned cold on tuesday that i am still in the process of shaking off... i almost never get sick so this is highly unusual and takes me back to the kind of colds i would get as a kid that would keep me home from school... anyway, hopefully by tomorrow, i will be back in posting shape...

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Chau, Snowjob

in all seriousness, if it's his cancer that's making a resurgence, i wish him well...
White House press secretary Tony Snow will step down Sept. 14, 2007, Fox News reported live on air Friday. CNN quickly confirmed.

Snow will be replaced by White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino, who has occasionally done briefings for the President.

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Wednesday, August 29, 2007

AlterNet Drug Reporter



Pot Growers Are New Target in "War on Terror"

Under Bush, terror has become a justification for any and every abuse of power.

When is enough enough? Is there no end to the lunacy? How far are we willing to let this moronic management, we call the Executive Branch, go?

Last time we checked in on the bizarro nexus between cannabis and terrorism, it was none other than actor/director Tommy Chong who was feeling the Bush administration's post-9/11 wrath. In fact, the stoner icon, whose fabled act was concurrently resuscitated for Fox's drugged and confused comedy hit, That 70s Show, was being slapped by John Ashcroft with a nine-month prison bid, a $20,000 fine and over $100,000 in seized assets for selling bongs. The terrorism connection? He was sentenced on Sept. 11, 2003. And if you think that's a specious connection, it's only gotten worse since. In fact, over the last few years, "terrorist" has become an epithet for all seasons.

In 2003, Iraq occupation architect Richard Perle slapped investigative journalist Seymour Hersh with the term, saying, "Look, Sy Hersh is the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist, frankly." As if filing a story about the doomed occupation of a sovereign state in the pages of the New Yorker was the same thing as flying a 747 into the World Trade Center.

In 2004, Secretary of Education Rod Paige called the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers union, "a terrorist organization" because of what Paige defined as the "obstructionist scare tactics" used by its lobbyists. Because we all know it's every educator's dream to buck the systemby blowing themselves up in front of their students.

And just this month, the Bush administration decided to employ the term to legally target the entire Iranian Revolutionary Guard, a sovereign nation's standing army numbering in the hundreds of thousands. When you want a war that badly, you'll pretty much do or say anything to get it.

So how does the Bush administration get away with crying terrorist at every opportunity? Say hello to the Military Commissions Act. Thanks to this 2006 piece of legislation, terrorism has become the basis of American foreign and domestic policy. Yes, the term has become equivalent to everything from ideologically driven violence to petty theft, and can be used to incarcerate, exterminate or character assassinate anything in sight.

It's no wonder then that federal officials are now revisiting their previously failed effort to link terrorism to cannabis, the only real cash cow in the government's so-called War on Drugs. Only difference is, this time, they don't have Tommy Chong as a scapegoat.

Unable or unwilling to solve the nation's crippling meth addiction or its hypocritical dependency on prescribed narcotics like oxycontin, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) recently rang the terrorism alarm to nail pot growers in Redding's Shasta-Trinity National Forest in California. Along the way, ONDCP "czar" John Walters showed off not only the Bush administration's love of twisted terminology but also its subcultural savvy by coining a memorable phrase of his own.

"We have kind of a reefer blindness," Walters explained during a Redding press conference on the ONDCP's Operation Alesia, a cannabis-eradication program coordinated by the California National Guard's Counterdrug Taskforce and the Shasta County Sheriff's Office. Walters followed that clever turn of phrase with the reliable terroristdesignation to describe the armed growers cultivating cannabis in Shasta County. "These people are armed; they're dangerous. [They're] violent criminal terrorists." He even went so far to argue that the "terrorists" growing weed in Shasta County, as the Redding Record Searchlight reported, "wouldn't hesitate to help other terrorists get into the country with the aim of causing mass casualties."

[...]

"Most of the increase can be attributed to the proliferation of foreign Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTOs), mostly Mexican in origin, which operate in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest and throughout California and much of the United States," Odle explained to me by email. "Frequently using illegal aliens residing outside the United States, or recently smuggled across the [sic] boarder, these Mexican criminal groups establish, maintain and protect an increasing number of clandestine operations."

Yet, predictably, Odle couldn't explain what made them terrorists.

"Some DTOs have been linked by law enforcement and investigations to terrorist organizations and pose a substantial and increasing threat to national security," he added in a subsequent email. "Our primary concern here on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest is the safety of our forest visitors and agency employees and the negative impacts marijuana has on the environment and natural resources, no matter what name is given to the DTOs that are illegally growing marijuana on America's public lands."

[...]

Plus, there are enough holes in the argument to plant your own cannabis seeds. To start with, cannabis may be many things, but it is far from an environmental negative. It has been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years, can grow in almost any climate, and is a naturally occurring dioecious perennial. (In other words, it's not fossil fuel.)
Further, Odle's claim that safety is Shasta's first concern is understandable, but he offered no examples of violent activity by any of the area growers to legitimize the ONDCP's inflammatory language. Sure, the fact that "some" DTOs have been linked to terrorist organizations is educational, but as with everything the ONDCP touches, specifics are elusive and generalizations are everywhere.

I pressed Odle for further clarification on the terrorism question. But instead of al Qaeda, all I got was more obfuscation. And more Mexicans.

Wait, now, this is MY favorite part.
We're going to need help soon, if the recent white papers on drug abuse from the ONDCP are any indication. Because they've enlisted God for help in beating back the devil weed, as their fact sheet "Marijuana and Kids: Faith" explains: "Religion and religiosity repeatedly correlate with lower teen and adult marijuana and substance use rates and buffer the impact of life stress which can lead to marijuana and substance use. ... Other studies show that teens who don't view faith as important are up to four times more likely to use marijuana."

In other words, smoke up, heretical terrorist! You're not only fueling al Qaeda's mass murder by purchasing weed cultivated by illegal Mexicans in the rural public lands of the world, but you're also turning your back on God in the process. As well as replacing the Bush administration's real world with your selfish virtual reality in which cannabis is a relatively harmless, naturally occurring plant that can chill you out as much as it can fill you out. A massive, multiplayer simulation where pot is a viable medicinal alternative to synthesized painkillers like oxycontin, which ease your agony by killing you off altogether.

According to the Bush administration and its politicized ONDCP, you need to unplug from that moonbat matrix and start praying. Fast. Or else.

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More embarrassing stats

ya gotta love privatization... see how well it's working for us...?

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$50B more for Iraq? No, no, no, no, no, no...!

the man is insane for asking, and anybody who takes him seriously should be institutionalized right along with him...
Bush Wants $50 Billion More for Iraq War

President Bush plans to ask Congress next month for up to $50 billion in additional funding for the war in Iraq, a White House official said yesterday, a move that appears to reflect increasing administration confidence that it can fend off congressional calls for a rapid drawdown of U.S. forces.

and, of course, it's on page one of the wapo...

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A smidgen of truth sees the light of day in the LA Times

who would have thunk it...?
Bush again talks tough on Iran, Iraq

The U.S. must succeed in Baghdad to keep extremists from controlling a key part of the world's energy supply, the president says.

every once in a while, it slips through, even though the CORRECT phraseology would have been, "...to keep the U.S. IN control of a key part of the world's energy supply..."

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Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Light Cast Into The Shadows From An Insider

Another great article from a financial industry insider, Ann Berg. Courtesy of the Information Clearing House.
Crackpot Realists and Permanent War

By Ann Berg

08/28/07 "Antiwar" -- -- While economic pundits point fingers at loose lending for the malodor in the housing market that is now filling the noses of financiers, they miss the primary cause: permanent war. Permanent war has caused the nation's institutions – political, social, and economic – to be organized into an impervious structure without which war could not be tolerated or financed.

Although 9/11 pushed the war machine into high gear, political centralization and the structuring of American society around war first gained a foothold during World War II. In 1956, five years before President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in his farewell address of the ascendancy of the military-industrial complex (a phrase that originally included the word congressional), the anti-imperialist C. Wright Mills described the triad of power in his book The Power Elite. Stressing how the military entered the political and economic spheres only temporarily during the First World War, he related how modern warfare and its need for massive industrial capacity – along with support from the technological and scientific communities – propelled the military to new heights of influence. Wrote Mills:

"For the first time in American history, men in authority are talking about an 'emergency' without a foreseeable end. … The only seriously accepted plan for 'peace' is a fully loaded pistol. In short, war or a high state of war preparedness is felt to be the normal and seemingly permanent condition of the United States."
[...]

Please read the rest of the article at ICH. Also, take note of Ann Berg's credits. She is no outsider or extremist.
"The Power Elite", by Mills, is an outstanding read as well.
Bottom line, none of what is going on today is new. This has all been setup for decades, we were just too fat and happy to notice.
Now that the Elites have globalized their assets, they no longer need the US economy to sustain them. We may indeed be at the final stage of our economic imperialism, with financial ruin in the west just around the corner.
Or, we could just keep killing people and stealing their wealth.
I'm not comfortable with that, I have too many friends from those countries that we would potentially attack, just so we can prop up our economy.
The Republicans and Democrats must go. They have no shame and no respect for the Constitutional Republic.

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Stats to make you proud - NOT!

i would be both ashamed and embarrassed to share this with my friends in other countries...
The United States has 90 guns for every 100 citizens, making it the most heavily armed society in the world, a report released on Tuesday said.

U.S. citizens own 270 million of the world's 875 million known firearms, according to the Small Arms Survey 2007 by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies.

About 4.5 million of the 8 million new guns manufactured worldwide each year are purchased in the United States, it said.

"There is roughly one firearm for every seven people worldwide. Without the United States, though, this drops to about one firearm per 10 people," it said.

what is it about guns...? i honestly do not get it...

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"A 'massive' attack against Iran, requiring little contingency planning and without a ground invasion"

this is the story larisa's been slaving away on to meet deadline...

from raw story...

"Considering a war with Iran: A discussion paper on WMD in the Middle East" [PDF] – written by well-respected British scholar and arms expert Dr. Dan Plesch, Director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, and Martin Butcher, a former Director of the British American Security Information Council (BASIC) and former adviser to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament.

Plesch and Butcher examine "what the military option might involve if it were picked up off the table and put into action" and conclude that based on open source analysis and their own assessments, the US has prepared its military for a "massive" attack against Iran, requiring little contingency planning and without a ground invasion.

The study concludes that the US has made military preparations to destroy Iran’s WMD, nuclear energy, regime, armed forces, state apparatus and economic infrastructure within days if not hours of President George W. Bush giving the order. The US is not publicising the scale of these preparations to deter Iran, tending to make confrontation more likely. The US retains the option of avoiding war, but using its forces as part of an overall strategy of shaping Iran’s actions.

* Any attack is likely to be on a massive multi-front scale but avoiding a ground invasion. Attacks focused on WMD facilities would leave Iran too many retaliatory options, leave President Bush open to the charge of using too little force and leave the regime intact.

* US bombers and long range missiles are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours.

* US ground, air and marine forces already in the Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan can devastate Iranian forces, the regime and the state at short notice.

* Some form of low level US and possibly UK military action as well as armed popular resistance appear underway inside the Iranian provinces or ethnic areas of the Azeri, Balujistan, Kurdistan and Khuzestan. Iran was unable to prevent sabotage of its offshore-to-shore crude oil pipelines in 2005.

* Nuclear weapons are ready, but most unlikely, to be used by the US, the UK and Israel. The human, political and environmental effects would be devastating, while their military value is limited.

* Israel is determined to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons yet has the conventional military capability only to wound Iran’s WMD programmes.

* The attitude of the UK is uncertain, with the Brown government and public opinion opposed psychologically to more war, yet, were Brown to support an attack he would probably carry a vote in Parliament. The UK is adamant that Iran must not acquire the bomb.

* The US is not publicising the scale of these preparations to deter Iran, tending to make confrontation more likely. The US retains the option of avoiding war, but using its forces as part of an overall strategy of shaping Iran’s actions.

When asked why the paper seems to indicate a certainty of Iranian WMD, Plesch made clear that "our paper is not, repeat not, about what Iran actually has or not." Yet, he added that "Iran certainly has missiles and probably some chemical capability."

Most significantly, Plesch and Butcher dispute conventional wisdom that any US attack on Iran would be confined to its nuclear sites. Instead, they foresee a "full-spectrum approach," designed to either instigate an overthrow of the government or reduce Iran to the status of "a weak or failed state."

nothing surprising here, really, but a great deal more detail, unfortunately...

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Evidently, the LA Times doesn't care if their stories contradict each other

see previous post...
Clement is expected to follow policies of Gonzales, Ashcroft
The acting attorney general, a longtime Republican, vigorously defends Bush's war on terrorism and limitations on due process.

By Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

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Like changing the driver of the DOJ bus is going to make a difference

stuff that makes me crazy...

both from the la times...

Gonzales' legacy of controversy
Questions linger about limits on civil liberties and influence of politics on justice.

Josh Meyer and Tom Hamburger, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

[...]

The controversies lingering beyond Gonzales' scheduled departure next month fall into two broad categories: whether he went too far in abridging civil liberties in the name of safeguarding the nation against terrorist threats, and whether he and his subordinates allowed political considerations to intrude improperly on the administration of justice.

lingering...? LINGERING...?? they ain't friggin' LINGERING...! they're as present and real as the nose on your face, and, trust me, neither are they QUESTIONS nor are they solely a function of alberto gonzales... abridging civil liberties and politicizing the executive branch are HALLMARKS of the bush administration, from george on down... the former was a condition of employment for every political appointee at the doj, and the latter a condition of employment for every political appointee in the executive branch, and BOTH ARE STILL IN FORCE... changing the driver of the doj bus is virtually meaningless as long as that bus is still following the road map laid out by the white house to drive the country off a cliff and render the u.s. constitution meaningless...

as if that wasn't bad enough, we also have this...

For Bush, an opportunity in a loss
Gonzales' departure may give Bush a shot at reviving his presidency because his Texas inner circle is gone, analysts say.

By Maura Reynolds and James Gerstenzang, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

[...]

In two weeks, the president has accepted the resignations of the two members of his staff who have drawn the most ire from the Democrats who now control Congress: Gonzales and political advisor Karl Rove. And that may give Bush a chance to salvage his relationship with Capitol Hill and the legacy of his second term.

oferchrissakes... get a goddam clue, willya...? anybody who believes bush is going to change a goddam thing is smokin' some really strong shit... first of all, rove may be out of the white house, but you can bet your ass that he's on the phone to george several times a day... gonzales was nothing more than a place-holder, a foil to confer a degree of legitimacy to the evil machinations of george, karl and dick, someone sent over to mind the doj store while his next level of political appointees looted it... you have to look at who's left... do you think for a minute that dick cheney and david addington are sitting there, throwing up their hands and saying, "well, what's a body to do...?" hell, no... they're still steering george's bus and they will continue to do so, by god, until they're forcibly stopped... anybody who sees the exit of rove and gonzales as a reason to breathe a sigh of relief and break out the bubbly had better think again...

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Monday, August 27, 2007

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...!

< cough, snort > HAHAHAHAHA...! < wipes tears out of eyes > HAHAHAHAHAHAHA...!

ari fleischer...

Republicans were very hard on Janet Reno. Democrats were brutal to John Ashcroft and now Judge Gonzales. What’s happening is Congress is really politicizing the Justice Department, unfairly so and dangerously so, because there are so many important law important functions that go on there. It’s regrettable, both parties have done it.

what a very rovian thing to say... karl may be gone but his pupils have learned well...

(thanks to think progress...)

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"There has been little or no justice in anything Alberto Gonzales has ever done; except resign"

james moore on gonzo's resignation...

it's a shame that the highest ranking hispanic ever to serve in the federal government chose to serve the dark forces of the bush administration... i'm sure karl rove, in his evil machinations, thought gonzo was a prize trophy to parade around as a minority stuffed suit, clear evidence of the importance minorities held for george bush... there are outstanding hispanic and latino people out there, dying for a chance to serve their country and their people... let's open the door and let THEM have a crack at things, and never let another sock puppet like gonzo sully a proud and noble heritage...

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Patrick Fitzgerald - not Chertoff - for AG

just sayin'...

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"After months of unfair treatment..."

george... you're as much of a liar as your buddy, gonzo...

from bush's statement, just completed...

"... his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons."

no questions, of course, and only 120 seconds longer than gonzo's statement...

paul clement is acting...

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Police "helmet cams"

i just happened to have cnni on to watch gonzo's pathetic excuse for a resignation press "conference," when what comes on but a story about the police in plymouth, england, adopting helmet cameras to record events, apprehensions and crimes... lovely...

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I'm outta here and I'll tell you where you can put your questions

press "conference...?" uh... 60 seconds barely counts as a cameo appearance...

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A major breach in the firewall

what a difference a few weeks makes...

once upon a time...




today...




let's see what happens from here... the news conference is six minutes away...

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Gonzo out

so, now what...? chertoff...?
Embattled Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has resigned from his post, according to an administration official, ending a controversial cabinet tenure that included clashes with Congress over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys and the scope of efforts to spy on U.S. citizens.

The official said Gonzales submitted a letter on Friday saying he had decided to step down, but the announcement was withheld until he met with President Bush at the president's Crawford ranch. His resignation will be announced later today, the official said.

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John Edwards is on the right track - the system is broken and it's up to us to fix it

from his "corporate democrats" speech, via alternet...
Real change starts with being honest -- the system in Washington is rigged and our government is broken. It's rigged by greedy corporate powers to protect corporate profits. It's rigged by the very wealthy to ensure they become even wealthier. At the end of the day, it's rigged by all those who benefit from the established order of things. For them, more of the same means more money and more power. They'll do anything they can to keep things just the way they are -- not for the country, but for themselves.

[...]

You cannot deal with them on their terms. You cannot play by their rules, sit at their table, or give them a seat at yours. They will not give up their power -- you have to take it from them.

and there needs to be one HELL of a lot more emphasis on the following...
[I]t's time for the American people to take responsibility for our government -- for in our democracy it is truly ours. If we have come to mistrust and question it, it is because we were not vigilant against the forces that have taken it from us.

i had an online chat yesterday with an old friend... she's a reasonably intelligent person but, for reasons of small kids, a husband that loves football and hates the news, and no strong attraction to news on her part either, she only recently stumbled on all of the doubts and questions floating around out there about 9/11... she was asking me a lot of questions and i pointed her to some of the resources i've perused, and she was asking me whether or not i thought it was a conspiracy or even an inside job... i told her the same thing i say to everybody who asks that kind of question, "i believe everything and i believe nothing..." do i believe a 9/11 inside job is a possibility...? absolutely... do i believe it was...? i simply don't know...

the reason i cite the chat with my friend was my amazement that, in august 2007, someone would not have already been aware of the 9/11 conspiracy theories... but, as i thought about it, i had to admit that there are probably lots of people in her position... they get what information they have from tv news and probably don't pay all that much attention to it even then... mostly, they just go about their daily lives and, as long as their own immediate world isn't disturbed, they don't bestir themselves to become any better informed...

so, what does this have to do with john edwards...? he says that american people need to take more responsibility for our own government, that we have not been vigilant... and, imho, that is a serious understatement... it's easy to play the part of victim... indeed, there's a strong victim mentality that underlies much of our society... but we must also remember, an outlaw presidency like bushco has managed to accrue the power it has because we, the people of the united states, have given it away... it's way past time to take it back...

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Comunidades y Viviendas

About a week ago, Larry, a contributor at Lydia Cornell, left this quote in the comment section at the Blog of Revelation. It so touched me, that I put it up as my Saturday Quote of the Week.

After thinking about it, I realized how apropos it was for Comunidades y Viviendas. The quote is from Alice Walker, of the Color Purple fame.

"When it is all too much, when the news is so bad meditation itself feels useless, and a single life feels too small a stone to offer on the altar of peace, find a human sunrise. Find those people who are committed to changing our scary reality. Human sunrises are happening all over the earth, at every moment. People gathering, people working to change the intolerable, people coming in their robes and sandals or in their rags and bare feet, and they are singing, or not, and they are chanting, or not. But they are working to bring peace, light, compassion to the infinitely frightening downhill slide of human life".
Alice Walker

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Sunday, August 26, 2007

Saturday photoblogging on Sunday

another weekend in buenos aires, more photos...

yesterday was mostly overcast but the sun broke through every now and then... it was nice enough for a walk in parque centenario and to capture a few photos of the argentina museum of natural science and the top of a monkey puzzle tree...


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(L) Main entrance, Argentina Museum of Natural Science
(R) Door detail, main entrance, Argentina Museum of Natural Science


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(L) Monkey puzzle tree, Parque Centenario, Buenos Aires
(R) Man with pigeons, Parque Centenario, Buenos Aires

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Let Gonzo stay, he's doing more good where he is

so, we trade one sneaky, lying, no-good, son-of-a-bitch for another...? color me not interested...
Might there be some trading up at the Justice Department? According to U.S. News and World Report, "buzz among top Bushies is that beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzales finally plans to depart and will be replaced by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff."

either one of them is an anchor around bush's neck, but i suspect gonzo might have a better chance of dragging george under than chertoff... let gonzo stay, i say...

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Victory vs. defeat in Iraq: the assumptions are wrong

a front page post at daily kos, entitled "who lost iraq," quotes extensively from an article by james dobbins in foreign affairs magazine... there are several terms that are used repeatedly in the post and in dobbins' article - success, failure, won, lost, mistake, victory, defeat... all of these words carry very strong connotations, and all of them are wrong...

asking who "lost" iraq only implies that it could have been "won"... talking about iraq as a "failure" only implies that it could have been a "success"... talking about "defeat" in iraq only implies that it could have been a "victory"... iraq is none of those... iraq cannot even be considered a mistake... rather, iraq is a deliberate, carefully pre-meditated lie, planned and executed to achieve precisely what it has achieved - an endless tableau of death and destruction that keeps money and power in the hands of those who most desire it... using those other words in connection with iraq only leads one to believe that, had we just had the right policies, the right people in place, the right tactics, the right planning, all would have turned out for the good...

as a country, we need to face the truth: the leaders of the united states require war as an integral part of their money and power agenda, period... unless and until we face that brutal reality, we have no hope of being the country we all believe we can be...

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Opus: Lola Granola as "Fatima Struggle"

at one point a few months ago, jim hinted around that opus might make a regular sunday feature... hey...! why not...?

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