ANYBODY ELSE GET THIS PATHETIC BARBOUR PROPAGANDA?













Haley must not have worked too hard to save "our" military bases. Naval Station Pascagoula was closed on Barbour's watch. The base officially closed November 15, 2006.

Of course, what would Republican propaganda be without the ol' ellipsis gambit. One Barbour quote on the mailer is printed this way:

"...to take the lead role, we'll relish it and take it on with dogged determination." Clarion-Ledger 1/19/04

Now, Barbour said this not quite a week after his inauguration (on January 13, 2004). Well he didn't quite say it like that. Here's the full quote, according to the Clarion-Ledger:

"If the Legislature sees fit for us to take the lead role, we'll relish it and take it on with dogged determination," Barbour said last week.

See anything different in the two quotes? Barbour acknowledges that saving "our" military bases is not something he can do by himself--he must work with the legislature. So apparently Barbour, unlike Dumbya, realizes he's not "The Decider."

So Barbour not only is "weak" according to Republican principles, he couldn't save Naval Station Pascagoula. Yet he's trying to turn this weakness into a strength, another classic Rove-ian Republican gambit.

He seems to think that a picture of himself hauling his fat ass onto a military Jeep in front of a few hundred assembled soldiers will make the public forget that we actually lost a military base--and the jobs that go along with it--during his time in office.

Unfortunately, he's probably right...

Ever heard of Vieques?

I had not, until I got this mailer from Whaley. I'll let Wikipedia give us the background:

From 1941 to May 1, 2003, the United States used Vieques, Puerto Rico, for naval training and testing. Some current studies show drastic increases in health problems which may or may not be related to toxic materials left on Vieques from the Navy’s occupation. The people of Vieques demand the U.S. clean up the toxic materials they left behind; but the Navy argues that residents of Vieques have not been negatively affected by the 60-year occupation, and that data showing high cancer rates, high infant mortality, vibroacoustic disease, and radiation contamination is misguided [1]. Whether or not the U.S. should be forced to further clean up the island still remains an issue.

Sounds like pretty nasty business, and unfortunately, pretty standard operating procedure.

Here's how the Barbour campaign frames the same facts surrounding Eaves' involvement in Vieques:













Haley's mailer has had the complete opposite effect on me of what he surely intended. I learned that John Arthur Eaves stands up for the little guy against the military-industrial complex. That probably means that Eaves will stand up for the little guy in Mississippi, which is exactly the opposite of what Whaley and his corporate, lobbyist buddies want.

Read what Eaves had to say about Vieques:

“Simply put,” adds Eaves, “everything that our military has used—with the exception of the nuclear bomb—has been first tested on Vieques.”

A researcher quoted in the same article describes the horrors visited upon Vieques this way:

“They started bombing the island in 1941, so the weapons they’ve used have evolved over time,” says Browning. “They’ve used everything from [small] bombs—50 pounds to 100 pounds—up to 3,000 and 5,000-pound bombs. Just the sheer size of the bombs would do damage to the island and shake it and damage the structure of the house and cause a lot of nervous problems in the children.” He compares the effects of the largest bombs to earthquakes.

From the 1950s through the 70s, Browning says, Vieques was also the main chemical weapons testing ground.

“We know by the navy’s admission that they’ve used depleted uranium here. They’ve used napalm. They’ve done all kinds of electronic and radiological testing. They’ve have dispersed chemical sprays [and] defoliants, possibly Agent Orange. This island for 60-plus years has been in a state of war.”

Puerto Ricans are Americans!

Now keep in mind that Puerto Ricans are American citizens. So Barbour is trying to take Eaves to task for defending American citizens! Is there anything more outrageous? Why should Barbour try to use Eaves' defense of American citizens against him?

Clearly, it's because Barbour doesn't want American citizens to be defended. He wants them to be servile, sick, and poor. Do us all a favor and vote his fat ass out of office. Please--for the sake of all Mississippians, who, after all--are also American citizens.

WHO GAVE IRAN NUCLEAR PLANS? THE UNITED STATES, OF COURSE!

Today George Bush had this to say:

"So I've told people that, if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

For one thing, if one is interested in avoiding WWIII, one ought to tone down one's rhetoric about attacking Iran. And also toning down one's shows of force in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere.

For another thing, Bush acts like he's clueless that we gave Iran plans for nuclear weapons in 2000. Did no one read James Risen's "State of War" to Dumya? Here's a little refresher:

"The CIA may have helped Iran to design a nuclear bomb through a botched attempt to channel flawed blueprints to Tehran's weapon designers, according to a new book on the US "war on terror".
In an excerpt from State of War, printed today in G2, the author and New York Times intelligence correspondent, James Risen, writes that the abortive operation misfired when a Russian defector on the CIA payroll, chosen to deliver the deliberately flawed nuclear warhead blueprints to Iranian officials in February 2000, tipped them off about the defects.

The operation, codenamed Merlin and approved by the Clinton administration, was intended to send Iranian scientists down a technological dead end, according to this account. They would spend years building a warhead which would fail to detonate. Instead, Risen writes, the operation may have helped Iran to "accelerate its weapons development" by extracting important information from the blueprints and ignoring the flaws."

A FRIEND'S RESPONSE TO MY NIST POST

My friend LarryG commented on my last post. I'll reproduce his comments in italics and respond:


1. Is there a copy of the letter of correction they are referring to available to read?

I don't know for sure, but I assume the letter to which NIST is responding is available online or publicly available somewhere. Okay, I think this is it. Here's a sample of what the Jones, et al. letter said that NIST's recent reply was addressing:

"Under the NIST IQS, no initial request for correction will be considered
concerning “disseminated information the correction of which would serve no useful
purpose.” (See NIST IQS, Part III(B)(3).) This exception clearly does not apply to this Request. The horrendous attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 were the worst attacks on American soil since Pearl Harbor, and perhaps the worst such attacks in the history of the United States. Approximately 3,000 people died on 9/11, and the vast majority of those died in the World Trade Center. In fact, family members of two of the Requesters herein died in the WTC Towers. Accurate, reliable information regarding the 9/11 attacks is imperative to the future of the United States because it is an essential part of any rational planning process and policy aimed at ensuring that such an attack never happens again.

NIST was statutorily tasked with telling the American people, the 9/11 victims’
family members, independent researchers, and the U.S. government how and why the WTC Towers collapsed, which would form the basis for future government policy. If NIST, through the WTC Report, has given inaccurate, unreliable information about the destruction of the WTC Towers, the implications would stretch across the entire architectural, political and social landscape.

Initially, inaccurate information and/or incorrect analysis by NIST would lead to
improper building codes, standards and practices. These improper building standards could, in turn, lead to needless deaths if such standards are too lenient, or unnecessary expenses if the standards are too strict.
In addition, there are immense political and social ramifications that stem from
NIST’s inaccurate information and analysis. For example, if the destruction of the WTC Towers was caused solely by the actions of foreign terrorists, but the quality of the data and information disseminated by NIST fails to meet the basic requirements of the DQA, then millions of Americans will needlessly doubt their government.

Consequently, Americans’ trust in their government will unnecessarily be undermined. On the other hand, if NIST is incorrect and airplane damage and resultant fire alone cannot explain the destruction of the WTC Towers, it would mean that the assumption that foreign terrorists alone carried out the destruction would become a matter of dispute. The importance of resolving this question is undeniable given that the destruction of the buildings, and the resulting deaths of almost 3,000 American citizens influenced, and continues to influence, national decisions of the gravest magnitude.

Thus, the importance and usefulness of having accurate, reliable, objective data
regarding the destruction of the WTC Towers cannot be overstated, and, in either case, an important and highly useful purpose will be served by NIST disseminating information that complies with applicable information quality standards. (pp. 3-4)"

2. The paragraph just before the one you cite states"In the case of the WTC Towers, NIST has established that the failures initiated in the floors affected by the aircraft impact damage and ensuing fires resulted in the collapses of the towers. This conclusion is supported by large body of visual evidence collected by NIST."

LarryG makes a good point here. NIST reasserts its conclusion that the airplane impact and the resultant fires brought down the twin towers. But then they go on to say in the next paragraph that they can't fully explain the collapses.

That might be a reference to the computer models mentioned in the paragraph that LarryG pointed out, which is also quite interesting. NIST notes that Jones, et al. criticized NIST for not using computer models to analyze the collapses. NIST says that they did in fact use computer models but that they only did so to "the point where the buildings reached global instability."

They then apparently abandoned the computer modeling at that point. That is to say, they did not allow the computer models to mimic the collapse. They only allowed the computer models to analyze conditions up to the point where collapse was more or less inevitable.

Now why would they do that? Perhaps it's because they did let the computer models analyze the collapse and the computers showed that a building cannot fall at virtual free fall speed following the path of most resistance, as they would have us believe. Seeing that the computer models invalidated the official story, perhaps they thought that the computers had been misprogrammed. Or perhaps they were ordered to cover up their findings. Who knows?

What we do know is that NIST defends their abandonment of computer modeling after a certain point with a very weak argument:

"At this point, because of the magnitude of the deflections and the number of failures occurring, the computer models are not able to converge on a solution."

Say what? They expect us to believe that these computers cannot explain a building collapse? So the government has computers which can analyze mounds of data, map the human genome, and do all kinds of wonderful and complex things but when it comes to analyzing the collapse of a structure built in the 70s, these computers are clueless?
Come on!

And not only would they have us believe these computers can't analyze a building collapse, they say it's because of all the complicating factors, i.e., the "deflections and the number of failures occurring." That's precisely why a computer is ideal to analyze such things--because there are so many factors to take into account.

And that's to say nothing of NIST's avoidance of the collapse of WTC 7, which was not hit by a plane at all.

3. Two paragraphs after the one you cite they talk about the theory of explosives. They basically cite that after all the interviews they could not find anything to suggest that there were explosives.

NIST dismisses the use of explosives based on their interviews and analysis. This is simply ludicrous. There is no shortage of eyewitnesses who say they heard or felt explosions in the twin towers. Even firefighters say they saw and heard explosions, which NIST acknowledges.

However, NIST does not offer any reason why they discount the possibility of the use of explosives. They simply say:

"Taken as a whole, the interviews did not support the contention that explosives played a role in the collapse of the WTC Towers."

There you go--cut and dried. NIST says the interviews don't lead one to the conclusion that explosives were used. I'd say the exact opposite is true, that taken as a whole, the interviews do support the contention that explosives played a role.

4. Even though they state that they cannot explain the total collapse in one paragraph, they state in the end that they are sticking to their original assertions. I think what they mean by "unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse" is that they could not satisfy the letter writers request for additional data and not that they did not have a valid explanation.

I guess. I think they would like us to believe they have a valid explanation.

5. This letter is hard to read (even for an engineer)and I find a few grammatical mistakes in it as well. Just makes me a little curious as to the authenticity of it. However I have no evidence to support that assertion. Just an observation on my part.

I agree that the letter was kind of dense and obtusely worded in a lot of places. I don't doubt its provenance, but then again, who the hell knows?

6. With regard to the cell phones: Although I use cell modems in my electrical designs, I don't know about their ability then or now to perform at high altitude. Has this been tested in real life?

According to David Ray Griffin, here's the deal with the cell phone calls:

"However, as I reported in the Revised and Updated Edition of my book, the FBI had in 2006 presented, as evidence in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui (sometimes called “the 20th hijacker”), a report on phone calls from the four airliners. According to this report, there were only two cell phone calls from United 93, and they were made at 9:58, shortly before the plane crashed, when it was down to 5,000 feet. When the FBI had to present evidence in a court of law, therefore, it would not claim that any high-altitude cell phone calls had occurred. (These two low-altitude calls from Flight 93 were, according to the FBI report, the only two cell phone calls made from all four flights)."

Griffin also points out that in 2006, American Airlines (the airline on which Barbara Olson was flying) stated that their 757s did not have seat-back phones in 2001. Therefore, Olson could not have used one to call her husband. And again, the FBI's evidence in the Moussaoui trial showed that although Olson did attempt a cell phone call, it did not go through.

In Ted Olson's telling of the phone calls, he apparently went back and forth on what type of phone Barbara used to call him. He finally settled on onboard, seat-back phones which we now know, by the airline's own admission, were not available on the plane Barbara was in.

NIST SAYS THEY CAN'T EXPLAIN WTC COLLAPSES

In the first paragraph on p. 4 of a letter from NIST to Steven Jones, Kevin Ryan, and some 9/11 family members, NIST says the following:

"Your letter contends that NIST's report violates the Information Quality Standard of 'utility.' NIST believes that the report has utility. In fact, the codes and standards bodies are already taking actions to improve building and fire codes and standards based on the findings of the WTC Investigation. As we mentioned previously, we are unable to provide an explanation-of the total collapse."

So the 9/11 conventional wisdom, the "man on the street" would tell you that the twin towers fell because of fire caused by being hit by planes full of jet fuel. However, NIST--the National Institute of Standards and Technology, part of the Department of Commerce--will not say that. NIST says they don't know why the builidings collapsed.

9/11: What we thought we "knew"

So another federal agency screws up the official 9/11 myth. Let's see where that leaves us:

1. Fire and jet crashes did not cause fall of Twin Towers (NIST)
2. Osama bin Laden did not "commit" 9/11 (FBI)
3. All high-altitude cell-phone calls on 9/11 were impossible (FBI)
4. Barbara Olson never reached Ted Olson on the phone (FBI)

Very interesting, yes?

THIS IS AMUSING--AND SCARY AS HELL

SIGNS, SIGNS, PART THE SECOND!

Well, I got a call from Parker Dykes himself today! I had sent him an email about my last post, which he actually checked out! I totally didn't expect to hear from him--I thought maybe if he or someone on his campaign actually read the email I sent, the most they might do is email me a form letter of some sort. But Dykes actually called me!

Now, I don't live in Dykes' district, but if you do and are reading this, why not vote for someone who knows what's really going on in the world? Someone like say, Parker Dykes!

I told him something on the phone that I'd meant to write in my last post. I told him that his signs let you know the about this guy's cojones--that is, he actually takes a stand right there on his campaign signs. For that reason alone, his signs stand out, never mind that they actually have great messages.

Like Dykes told me, a lot of signs, if they have any message besides a name, will say something like "Strength. Integrity. Candidate X" or whatever. Well, Dykes not only has strength and integrity, he lets you know where he stands in no uncertain terms--he wants to stop the new world order. He wants to bring the troops home. He wants to stop the national ID card. And so forth.

So here are some of the other signs I took some pictures of:















Hey, I'm no gun nut. But I also think it's true that if we let the government disarm us, we'll be powerless (even more so than we already are) to fend off the tyranny they will try to foist on us probably sooner rather than later. And those of us who suffered damage in Katrina know that FEMA is not really your friend. Hell, even those who had no damage in Katrina know that by now...





















The national ID is supposed to serve many purposes, all of them ostensibly good: stop terrorism, stop voter fraud, etc. But guess what--there's about as much terrorism in the U.S. as there is voter fraud, and there ain't much of either one! The problems with both terror and voter fraud in the U.S. is that those things are created by the government, i.e., 9/11 or Bush v. Gore.

And the national ID card will be one more way to control us, or perhaps the ultimate way to control us, as a conservative Tennessean explains here.

Looks like Blogger is having trouble with picture uploads--and I've got two left. Guess I'll have to do a part 3...

SIGNS, SIGNS, EVERYWHERE THERE'S SIGNS...

There's a candidate named Parker Dykes running for a seat in District 35 of the Mississippi Senate, and I know this because of his (possibly intentionally) amateurish yet highly provocative and legible signs along Mississippi Highway 49.

The first one I saw was a few weeks ago, and it said:

DEPORT ALL ILLEGALS

DYKES FOR SENATE

I thought, "Great, the xenophobia and racism isn't even masked anymore." Then I forgot about it--until I had to go to Jackson two days in a row this week. I saw more of Dykes' signs and found that I agreed with a lot of his statements. I changed my mind about Dykes and now understand more of where he's coming from with his "Deport all illegals" slogan.

I decided I had to get pictures of these signs, so here are some of them (some were taken as I drove past, some I was able to stop and focus on):










This one says "We are losing our freedoms." No shit! Bye bye, habeas corpus. Bye, bye privacy. Bye bye, freedom of speech. Who could disagree with such a statement?























I've been listening to Alex Jones a lot lately. I even joined prisonplanet.tv and am looking forward to "Endgame"--it comes out on my 11th wedding anniversary! But I digress--Dykes is obviously a Jones fan as well. And since the New World Order is basically what I have been calling "the corporatocracy," I want Parker Dykes and others to stop it. So again, I am in full agreement! I wish I lived in his district or he in mine so I could vote for him!









"Bring Our Troops Home!" A sentiment very near and dear to my heart. I doubt any of the other candidates for ANY state office would say such a thing! I love the fact that there is a sign on 49 just outside of Jackson that says we should bring our troops home! This Dykes character has, well...character. And balls! No BS or mincing words for this guy!

I'll post part 2 of the Dykes for Senate pictures soon...

9/11: THE FBI FUCKS UP THE OFFICIAL CONSPIRACY THEORY

First off, the FBI wanted poster for Osama bin Laden doesn't mention 9/11. By now, the organization has had over 6 years to modify this poster or correct their "error." But...they haven't. According to the website, the poster was last revised in November 2001.

Just read an article today by David Ray Griffin in which he points out how the FBI has further fucked up the official conspiracy myth, by admitting that all the high-altitude cell phone calls were fake.

"Loose Change" makes this same point, but the FBI lends the ultimate credibility to the claim. Griffin explains it thusly:

"However, as I reported in the Revised and Updated Edition of my book, the FBI had in 2006 presented, as evidence in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui (sometimes called “the 20th hijacker”), a report on phone calls from the four airliners. According to this report, there were only two cell phone calls from United 93, and they were made at 9:58, shortly before the plane crashed, when it was down to 5,000 feet. When the FBI had to present evidence in a court of law, therefore, it would not claim that any high-altitude cell phone calls had occurred. (These two low-altitude calls from Flight 93 were, according to the FBI report, the only two cell phone calls made from all four flights)."

The FBI's evidence also proves that Barbara Olson never completed a call to her husband Ted, the solicitor general.

Griffin explains again:

"Olson reported that his wife had called him twice from American Airlines Flight 77, stating that hijackers with knives and boxcutters had taken over the plane. Besides providing evidence of hijackers, this call also provided the only evidence that Flight 77 was still aloft (it had disappeared from radar and there had been reports of an airliner crash nearby). Although Olson went back and forth on the question of whether his wife had used a cell phone or an onboard phone, he finally settled on the latter...

American Airlines in 2006 [said] that their 757s in 2001 had had no onboard phones, so that anyone calling out from Flight 77 had needed to use a cell phone. Barbara Olson, therefore, could not have used a passenger-seat phone. That left open, of course, the possibility that Ted Olson was correct when he said that his wife had used her cell phone.

However, the evidence from the Moussaoui trial ruled out this possibility. In its report on AA 77, it listed one attempted call from Barbara Olson, which was “unconnected” and hence lasted “0 seconds.”

This was an astounding discovery. The FBI is part of the Department of Justice. And yet it had undercut the testimony of the DOJ’s former solicitor general, saying in effect that the two calls that he reported had never happened."

Still think that 9/11 was pulled off by 19 guys with boxcutters and poor piloting skills? The FBI itself casts doubt upon that story--maybe we all should take a cue from them.

SADDAM: THE $1 BILLION OFFER

Saddam offered to leave Iraq in exchange for $1 billion. Bush himself said that Saddam could leave the country and the invasion would be called off (no one took that seriously, but still, he said it).

We've spent over 500 times that on our invasion and killed over a million people and lost tens of thousands in deaths and injuries (the cost of which will be in the billions as time goes on).

9/11 Every Day For Over 10 Years

Many will dispute the 1 million casualty estimate. They will do so because it's a conscience-pricking number. That number of deaths, proportionally speaking, is equivalent to a 9/11 casualty rate EVERY DAY in Iraq for over 10 years.

But suppose you argue that the 1 million casualty figure is impossibly high. OK, let's cut it in half--that's an equivalent 9/11 every day for 5 years in Iraq. Or take a fifth of that--an equivalent 9/11 every day for one year (this illuminating device stolen directly from Arthur Silber).

Support Our Troops--They're Fighting For Our Slavery

So Saddam offered to leave if we'd pay him 1/500 of what we have ended up paying. SO FAR.

But they turned him down. Because the war wasn't about bringing democracy to Iraq. It was about extending the arm of the corporatocracy and using the war as an excuse to increase the power of the government at home while decreasing our civil liberties.

And now that we're in Iraq, we'll be there for decades. They aren't building the largest embassy in the history of the world just for shits and giggles, you know. They're building it to keep us in endless war, which is "patriot" code for endless slavery.

WHO IS THE "STATE SPONSOR OF TERROR?"

Isn't this the pot calling the kettle black?

"Ahmadinejad's trip to New York ignited a debate this week over his rejected request to lay a wreath at ground zero. The State Department calls Iran a state sponsor of terror, and politicians and families of Sept. 11 victims were outraged that its president might visit the site of the 2001 terror attacks."

The United States is the biggest "state sponsor of terror." Our invasion of Iraq has now killed over 1,000,000 people. That's 1/25 of the population of Iraq. And that's just for starters. We overthrew Mossadegh in 1953 through the use of terror attacks and we're still doing that today:

"As earlier reported on the Blotter on ABCNews.com, the United States has supported and encouraged an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, that has conducted deadly raids inside Iran from bases on the rugged Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan 'tri-border region.'"

In other words, we're sponsoring terror. Here's some more about our sponsorship of terrorism:

"TEHRAN, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- Explosive devices and arsenals used in a terrorist attack in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan on Wednesday came from the United States, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Saturday.

Relevant documents, photographs and film footage, which show that the explosives and arsenals used in the attack were American, would soon be made public, an "informed source" was quoted as saying.

The source further pointed out that Jundallah, a shadowy Sunni militant group, had several plots for assassinating Sunni and tribal leaders to sow discord and foment conflicts between the Shiite and Sunni citizens in Sistan-Baluchestan province."

We're not the good guys. In fact, there are no good guys--only varying degrees of bad guys. Seriously, is that how one "fights terror?" By engaging in it?

AND SO BEGINS WWW III...

...and so ends our republic.



When the British wanted to invade Iran some 50-odd years ago, the American press wasn't much in favor of such a plan, according to "All The Shah's Men." According to author Stephen Kinzer, they knew that war with Iran would not be good:

"The Philadelphia Inquirer warned that a British invasion of Iran might bring 'a quick outbreak of World War III.'(p. 113)"

Kinzer goes on to note that:

"A popular CBS commentator, Howard K. Smith, asserted that many countries in the Middle East and beyond supported Iran, and that an invasion might 'stir all the Southern Asians to a rebellion against the Western foreigner and cause serious trouble for both Britain and the United States.'(p. 113)"

How have we managed to regress instead of progress in the last 50 years?

Hope we can all afford the gas prices that are about to shoot up along with the cost of anything else that is brought to market by a vehicle that uses gas.

Which of course is only everything.

ASK A QUESTION, GET TASERED AS JOHN KERRY LOOKS ON--WTF?

Ummm...watch this video of a student being Tasered after asking John Kerry some pointed questions. If you're not disturbed, ask yourself why? Why should a student be Tasered for asserting his First Amendment rights as police officers try to deprive him of those rights? Either we have a First Amendment or we don't, and this video makes it fairly clear that we don't.

As I watched it, I was reminded of the Who concert in Cincinnati at which people were trampled to death as the band played on. Kerry goes on speaking as if nothing is happening. The audience members sit passively as the First Amendment is raped.

I asked myself if I would sit passively like that, and you know what? I'm afraid I probably would. What is one supposed to do in that situation? You can't call the cops--it's the cops that are running roughshod over the Constitution. If you try to intervene, they'll slap some charges on you.

It seems to me that Kerry could have appealed to the cops to stop what they were doing. He's a United States Senator, for God's sake--surely the cops would've listened to him. All Kerry had to do was shout out "Stop that! Let this man hear answers to his questions! Leave him alone! He's merely exercising his First Amendment rights!"

But Kerry did no such thing...

9/11 LIES VS. 9/11 TRUTH

Hmmm. 6 years since 9/11. I have to admit that even I went jingo there for a while. I bought into the lie. But I remember why I did--I didn't pay enough attention. I let myself be manipulated by the official story.

And it's hard not to be manipulated if you don't have your bullshit detector set on maximum sensitivity at all times. That's why the official line is that "conspiracy theories" are crazy. Bush himself said we shouldn't "tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th; malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty," blah blah blah.

The term "conspiracy theorist" is usually meant in a pejorative sense, but why? Why, when there are in fact many conspiracies that are confirmed daily? It's because they want to manipulate you the way I was manipulated. I shouldn't have been so easily manipulated about 9/11. I should have looked for the real story from the very beginning.

But my good friend Joe Given of Techno Slavery woke me up. He gave me a copy of "Loose Change." If you haven't seen it, watch it. Of course, by then my jingoism had abated and I could think clearly again.

I opposed the Iraq war from the minute I heard about it. My wife and I put a makeshift sign in our yard--it was made from an old door and spray-painted "No War In Iraq" on it and put it out front. I don't know why we never took a picture of it. We used the door so that no one could or would just drive by the house and quickly snatch it out of our yard.

Bullshit Detectors--On!
Anyway, whatever. As you can probably tell, I don't have a whole lot to say about this except that your bullshit detector must alway be on. Like when it comes to talk about going to war with Iran because they somehow threaten us. Or when Bush says he'll bring home 30K troops by next summer (if the progress he wants has been made). Both of those are complete and utter bullshit.

In that Bush story, notice some other bullshit. At the very bottom of the story, there is this statement about the Petraeus hearings (more heaps of steaming bullshit):

The hearing fell on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Does the AP really believe or really expect us to believe that the Petraeus hearings "fell on the anniversary" of 9/11 just by chance? That sir, is utter bullshit. Just like it's utter bullshit that the new "bin Laden" video or Bush's announcement of a possible troop withdrawal all just happened you know, by chance, to fall on or very near the sixth anniversary of 9/11. It's complete bullshit.

"BIN LADEN" VIDEO OBVIOUSLY FAKE

Mos Def was badass on this topic:



The "bin Laden" video freezes at 1:58 while the audio continues for 10 + minutes. The video then unfreezes at 12:30 and syncs with the audio again--it's a fake, and not even a GOOD fake.

Also, the London Telegraph is reporting that "American spy chiefs" say American Adam Pearlman wrote "large sections" of the script that "bin Laden" reads in the video.

CONFIRMED: BUSH KNEW IRAQ DIDN'T HAVE WMD

In Salon magazine, Sidney Blumenthal reports that on 9-18-02, George Tenet briefed Bush on the fact that the CIA had confirmed that, according to Saddam's foreign minister at the time, Iraq had no WMD.

The foreign minister's name is Naji Sabri, and he turned informant for the CIA prior to the war. The account of the Sabri saga was first told by former CIA operative Tyler Drumheller in 2006 and has now been confirmed by two other former CIA agents:

"Now two former senior CIA officers have confirmed Drumheller's account to me and provided the background to the story of how the information that might have stopped the invasion of Iraq was twisted in order to justify it. They described what Tenet said to Bush about the lack of WMD, and how Bush responded, and noted that Tenet never shared Sabri's intelligence with then Secretary of State Colin Powell. According to the former officers, the intelligence was also never shared with the senior military planning the invasion, which required U.S. soldiers to receive medical shots against the ill effects of WMD and to wear protective uniforms in the desert.

Instead, said the former officials, the information was distorted in a report written to fit the preconception that Saddam did have WMD programs. That false and restructured report was passed to Richard Dearlove, chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), who briefed Prime Minister Tony Blair on it as validation of the cause for war."

Again, it's obvious that this war is, was, and will be based on LIES. We must end it now.

FREE SPEECH OUTLAWED IN MS CODE 97-45-17?

The more I think about it, the more I have to ask whether or not the law under which Yuri Wainwright was charged is an attempt to outlaw "free speech."

Why would I say this? Consider the following:

1. The term "injury" isn't defined in the chapter in which this anti-free-speech law in contained.
2. Any "message" posted in "any medium of communication" is subject to this law.
3. The "injury" claim can come from "any person," not just the person who may or may not be mentioned in the "message."

The only mitigating factor, the only part left up to a jury, is whether or not the "message" is "for the purpose of causing injury to any person." Intent, I would think, is fairly difficult to prove. But not impossible--all it would take is a slick lawyer making a case to a dumbed-down jury.

What is "injury?"

Since "injury" isn't defined in the code, how is that word defined in say, the dictionary? Dictionary.com lists a legal definition of injury as:

4. Law. any wrong or violation of the rights, property, reputation, etc., of another for which legal action to recover damages may be made.

So according to this definition, a person's reputation can in fact suffer "injury." At what point does injury to a reputation become illegal? It would be helpful if this law would tell us, but it does not. We know that Yuri Wainwright was not satisfied with the quality of his education. If he posted a message that said "I think the University of Southern Mississippi's architecture department is useless," could that be construed as causing "injury" to the reputation of the university and/or one of its academic departments? Of course it could--and probably should.

But is it illegal--or more precisely, should it be illegal to express one's opinion about the architecture department? I should think that this goes to the very essence of the First Amendment. For example, if I say that "George W. Bush is a moron and is unfit to be president," could I, under MS Code 97-45-17, be charged by not just Bush, but any and/or all of his supporters who feel that I have injured Bush's reputation as well as the reputations of his supporters? I'd argue that yes, under the vague language of this law, I could be prosecuted for saying that.

Should I be able to be prosecuted for saying that? I'd like to think that the First Amendment and related judicial precedents would render the very question inane, but 97-45-17 seems to render the likelihood of my prosecution for such a statement a very open question indeed.

Was Wainwright in fact arrested for something that's been "hiding in plain sight" on his MySpace page? In his "About Me" section, he says the following:

"Yuri switched his alliterative identity of a pothead philosopher to an alcoholic architect. As soon as he graduates from a rinky dink excuse for a school(with good teachers, amazingly), he will promtly move to a different place where the scenery doesnt quite match the morass of its inhabitants."

The University of Southern Mississippi is not mentioned by name on Wainwright's page. But someone with an axe to grind against Wainwright could conceivably argue that he caused injury to the university's reputation among people who knew he was USM student, including the faculty member who supposedly turned him in.

Is that far-fetched? Well, consider the fact that, according to the Hattiesburg American, Wainwright "has been placed on interim suspension by Southern Miss." For that status to apply to Wainwright, all that must happen is that
"the president of the university or a designated administrator determines that the presence of a student would reasonably constitute clear and present danger to the university community or property" (Section 11 of USM Student Handbook). Would someone bad-mouthing the university "reasonably constitute" a "clear and present danger" to the university? Probably not. Unless Wainwright saw something involving a professor that he wasn't supposed to see and let it be known that he was going to go public or something. Or something similar--who knows?

But I'm getting away from my point. It strikes me that 97-45-17 of the MS Code is unconstitutional and should be struck down. Maybe Wainwright's case will help that happen--if they ever get off their ass and try him.

EVERYONE IN THE UNITED STATES SHOULD CARE ABOUT YURI WAINWRIGHT'S CASE...

New story about the lack of information in the Yuri Wainwright case today...

Here's what I wrote about it at the Hattiesburg American forum...

Stonewalling=Lack of guilt?

Wainwright has been rotting in jail for over four months. It is long past time for "the law" to bring a case against him or let him go. I've said it before and I'll say it again--there is no way that this case can be as complicated as Weathers and Hopkins have made it out to be. Either Wainwright made a threat on the Internet or he didn't.

The stonewalling of Weathers and Hopkins makes it pretty clear that Wainwright did NOT make a threat on the Internet. After all, if Wainwright had written something that was clearly a threat, no one would've had any qualms about publicizing what it was that he wrote that was so bad.

How do we know this? By comparing Wainwright's situation to that of Tosin Oduwole, a student at Southern Illinois University.

Wainwright vs. Oduwole: Contrast & Compare

The police supposedly found a note in Oduwole's abandoned car that said:

"if this account doesn't reach $50,000 in the next 7 days then a murderous rampage similar to the VT shooting will occur at another highly populated university. THIS IS NOT A JOKE!"

Not only that, Oduwole had recently placed online orders for semiautomatic weapons. Oduwole also had a loaded gun in his dorm room.

Note that what Oduwole supposedly wrote appeared in the very first stories about his arrest. That's because in America, when someone is hauled off to jail for engaging in a constitutionally-protected activity--in this case, exercising the freedom of speech--the public has a right to know how that constitutionally-protected activity crossed a line if in fact a line has been crossed.

Why This Concerns Every American

Everyone in America should be concerned about Wainwright's incarceration and the authorities' apparent lack of justification for it. I don't care if Bob Hopkins is a smart, likable guy as I've repeatedly been told. He owes the university, nay, the Hattiesburg community, nay--the people of the United States some concrete reason for putting Yuri Wainwright behind bars on $1 million bond.

If they can put Wainwright in jail for over four months with no apparent end in sight to his incarceration, what's to stop them from putting any one of us in jail merely on their say-so? Apparently all that has to be done to take a citizen's freedom is to make a vague accusation under a (probably intentionally) vague statute (in Wainwright's case, it's "Posting of Messages through Electronic Media for Purpose of Causing Injury to Any Person," which is from MS Code 97-45-17).

Is that the impression John Mark Weathers and Bob Hopkins intend to leave for the citizens of this city, state, and country? I sincerely hope not--but what other conclusion are we to draw?

What, exactly, is "injury?"

Read the statute--it went into effect in July of 2003. It's likely that it hasn't even been tested in court yet. The standard it uses--that a "message" must "have the purpose" of "causing injury to any person"--is so vague that it could apply to anything. In fact, if Bob Hopkins or John Mark Weathers were to read this post, they might try to argue that this "message" has the purpose of "causing injury" to them, or their reputations, or their feelings, or whatever.

After all, what, pray tell, is meant by "injury?" How can it be proved whether or not a message "has the purpose" of "causing injury?" As far as I can tell by just using Google, MS is the only state with a statute like this. That doesn't mean other states don't have similar laws, I just can't find them easily/quickly.

Not only on the Internet

But also take note, the statute in question here is not limited to only the Internet. It says if you purposely create a "message" that has the purpose of causing "injury" (physical? social? mental? all of the above? any of the above?) to "ANY person," you could be charged under this act if you use "ANY means of communication."

BUSH IS THE "BOY WHO CRIED NUKES," Part the Second...

So today Bush says the following:

"'Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust,' he told a veterans group here."

I sure wish the talking point I came up with almost a year and a half ago had been hung around Bush's neck--he's the boy who cried nukes. How can anyone still trust this asshole? How can anyone think that yet another war with a country who's never attacked us is a good idea?

Then he has the nerve to say this (from the same link as above):

'Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere, and the United States is rallying friends and allies to isolate Iran's regime to impose economic sanctions. We will confront this danger before it is too late,' he said.

Iran's actions threaten world security? Can the boy who cried nukes really expect us to believe that if and when Iran is able to successfully manufacture a single nuclear warhead, that that warhead would be a threat to the U.S.? To Israel? To anyone?

Let's think about this

Let's say that right now, at this very moment, the first Iranian nuclear warhead is rolling off an assembly line somewhere. So the fuck what. Who would they use it against? Why would they immediately fire off a rocket that contains their only nuclear warhead? The Iranians are not stupid--they don't want to get in the middle of a nuclear war.

But here's the thing--every reliable estimate says there is no possible way for Iran to create a nuclear weapon before George Bush leaves office, and not even for a few years after he leaves office. Not only that, Iran says they don't want nuclear weapons--they want energy. And frankly, I don't find that so far-fetched. Who wants a bunch of nuclear weapons sitting around that cost millions and billions to build, house, maintain, etc.--oh, that's right: our stupid ass. I don't know whether or not Iran has their own military-industrial complex that constantly demands to be fed, but I'm guessing they don't, at least not on the scale of ours.

The "holocaust" Bush foresees has nothing to do with non-existent Iranian ambitions for WMD. The holocaust will be when the military-industrial-neo/theocon-complex finally gets its way and we start bombing Iran. That's your holocaust right there: a third unnecessary war that will only demand that we surrender even more civil liberties (if not all of them). Oh, and it will likely engulf the entire world in either actual war or at least economic war.

Good night and sweet dreams!

I quit my job today

I told the bastards they could go to hell. I told them to take their job and shove it--they won't have ol' LHL to kick around anymore. Hopefully my other irons in the fire will continue to heat up until they're glowing bright orange...

GEORGE SHILL, SPOKESGEEK FOR THE CORPORATOCRACY


Who will speak for the voiceless corporatist?
George Will will.

Who will pimp the principle of socialism for the rich and the free market for the poor?
George Will will.

Who will rejoice in having our economy "insulated from democracy?"
George Will will.

Who will defend the "victimization of the many by the few?"
George Will will.

Who will openly advocate that "let the buyer beware" should be the guiding principle of our economy?
George Will will.

I wish George Shill would take his baseballs and his thesaurus and retire to Richistan and leave us alone.

Caveat venditor!

“BECAUSE OF IRAN”....

So as mentioned in previous entries, the New York Times reports that we have to arm the Middle East to the teeth “because of Iran.”

Let’s see, how many unwise actions has the U.S. justified over the years by saying (either in so many words or just through implication): We’re doing this “because of Iran.” If you can think of more examples, please feel free to leave them in the comments or email them to me and I will add them to the list, which follows:

“Because of Iran....”

1. We supported Saddam Hussein throughout the 80s

2. We had to invade Iraq in 2003–that’s a post-invasion justification

3. We have to stay in Iraq because if we don’t, Iran will take over

4. We’re losing the Iraq war

5. We have to put missile defense systems in Europe, to Russia’s chagrin

6. We have to sell arms to the Saudis, the people who attacked us on 9/11 (according to the official story)

I’m sure there are many more examples of this kind of warped thinking. But let’s debunk this idea that we’re forced, yes, forced into feeding the military-industrial complex all because of Iran.

Why “Because of Iran” excuses are bullshit:

1. We overthrew Mossadegh in 1953, using fake terror, fake stories in the press, etc.

2. We then installed the shah–we toppled a democratic government and replaced it with a monarchy, and the shah was not a nice ruler

3. We cut off diplomatic relations in 1979 because of the Tehran embassy hostage crisis, which was a direct result of our continuous support of the shah

4. We gave chemical and biological weapons to Saddam for him to use against Iran

5. Iran is a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which entitles them to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, among other things.

6. Iran expressed great sympathy for the U.S. after 9/11

7. Bush said Iran is part of the “axis of evil”

8. In 2003, Iran offered to open a dialogue with the U.S. and put everything on the table: support for Hezbollah, nuclear programs, recognition of Israel, etc.–Bush administration ignored Iran’s advances. You can read the offer for yourself here.

Looking at these lists, surely anyone can see that what we have done is use Iran as our bogeyman, our go-to country for demonization, overthrow, and weakening. Then when they naturally react against the things we’ve done to them, we say they’re evil and the biggest threat in the world.

We say they’re violent and outrageous and can’t be trusted. However, the Iranians know that’s just projection–that the U.S. is really the state that’s violent and can’t be trusted.