All Aircraft Are Not Involved

It's looking good for Obama. Thank God. It was getting easy to figure there would be no theft this time. The polls were giving Obama a huge lead. This Sarah Palin lady did not help McCain. If Johnny had picked Ron Paul, who knows, maybe the Republicans could have pulled off another heist. Word is that Obama has taken Ohio. I guess we'll have to see what happens with the smaller races, like with Al Franken in Minnesota. Are the Republicans gonna steal races in the House and Senate, while the masses of people are simply relieved to have the nice guy winning the presidency over the nasty grump?


A couple referendums of interest from Massachusetts:

The repeal of the income tax did not pass. Phew. That would have bankrupted the state overnight or something like that.

Weed: Right now it is 65% to 35% to decriminalize marijuana possession. Anyone with less than an ounce will only get a fine. I'm not sure what the deal will be with people smoking in public. So none of you neighbours of mine start toking at Fenway again until we get that figured out.

There is one more where the dog tracks might be outlawed. They should be. Those greyhounds have a tough life.

I am back on high speed internet. I do not recommend Dial Up to anyone. I am paying the same price as dial up for half a year, then the bill will only be ten extra dollars a month. This isn't as high speed as my comcast days, but it is close enough. So good people, any of you on dial up, take it from me, round up the extra ten bucks. The internet is just not the same with dial up.

That being said, I will be able to blog more often than I have been. It will never be like the old days when I was pumping out tons of posts and doing a lot of leg work to out paid trolls and their disinformation. But I am back in the game.

Our lives are filled with much propaganda. The biggest example of this is with how the word terrorism has become distorted. Vocabulary is a big part of our lives. Terrorism is real, I am not saying otherwise. But is Al Quaeda for real? In that, is it really a big time player disrupting civilisation?

A look into history will show that the CIA helped form that group. One needs to go back to the Afghan-Soviet War to understand this.

But what about state-sponsored terrorism? Doesn't that exist and pose an astronomically greater danger to us? I believe so. When World Wars have been allegedly fought to maintain boundary lines, what does it say about the US' illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan?

What about the Middle East? Surely the Palestinians and others have engaged in hard core terrorism. But one could easily ask what are the roots of terrorism. If states like Israel treated its people better without the apartheid-like conditions, would there be this Intifada?

I lived a bit in Ireland. I got to learn firsthand what the Middle East is probably going through. In the North, the Irish have been treated like second hand citizens. In a way, the "troubles" have had more to do with economics than with religion. Perhaps the problems of the world boil down to more of civil rights problems than any kind of religious conflict. With terrorism, I advise folks to consider the question of why do they hate us. Or think of it as the fable of the elephant with a thorn in its foot. If we remove the thorn, won't the angry being relax and no longer pose a physical threat?

And what about welfare? The closed-minded are bombarded with the notion that useless eaters are driving economies into the ground by siphoning off of government tits. But what about corporate welfare? What about our wasteful and murderous promotion of a military economy?

We need to stop buying into the status quo. That means that we are in a long-term struggle for peace and justice. That means we can never give up promoting the truth and real values.

How many innocent Iraqis are dead as a result of 9/11? What is the ratio of those Iraqis to the 3,000 Americans who died in New York? What's going on in the Middle East is similar. Personally, I never bought into the eye for an eye nonsense. Nonetheless, both Israel and the US go far beyond an eye for an eye along with a total disregard for the worth of every person.



Israel says its army is fighting war to the bitter end against Hamas
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem and Ewen MacAskill in Washington
29 December 2008

{excerpts}

The toll of Palestinians killed in Israel's three-day bombing campaign in Gaza rose yesterday to at least 335 as Israeli jets bombed a university's science laboratories and hit the interior ministry in a widening series of air strikes....

The number of rockets fired from Gaza increased to at least 60 yesterday, killing three Israelis. An Israeli soldier also die in a mortar atttack. At least 19 civilians in Israel have now been killed by rockets fired from Gaza in the past eight years. "The continuing aim of the [Israeli] operation is to vastly decrease the capability of Hamas to launch rockets on Israeli civilians and to improve the long-term security situation along Israel's border with Gaza," Captain Benjamin Rutland, an Israeli military spokesman, said.

Gaza tactics and long-term goals divide Israeli military analysts
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
Tuesday 30 December 2008

{excerpts}

Shlomo Brom, a retired Israeli general and a military analyst at the Institute for National Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv, said the point of the conflict was for Israel to exact the best conditions for a future ceasefire with Hamas, the Islamist movement which controls Gaza after winning Palestinian elections three years ago.

"The military operation is changing the dynamic, making it clear to Hamas that it is going to pay a very high cost for violations of the ceasefire," Brom said. "I think Hamas deluded itself by thinking Israel is kind of paralysed because of its political system or the possible reaction of its population to some suffering." ....

Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister, told Fox News on Saturday when the bombing began: "For us to be asked to have a ceasefire with Hamas is like asking you [the US] to have a ceasefire with al-Qaida." ....

Yossi Alpher, a former official at Mossad and a military commentator, agreed that Israel was seeking a ceasefire on more acceptable terms. But he was critical of the tough economic blockade Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip in recent years, limiting imports to humanitarian supplies and preventing all exports, a policy that has all but wiped out private industry and brought Gaza's economy to collapse. "The economic siege of Gaza has not produced any of the desired political results," he said. "It has not manipulated Palestinians into hating Hamas, but has probably been counter-productive. It is just useless collective punishment."

He said that in future Israel would have to choose either to recognise Hamas was around to stay and to talk to the movement, however unpalatable that might be for most Israelis, or to fully reoccupy the Gaza Strip, topple Hamas and bear all the costs involved.

Some have even spoken publicly against the current bombing in Gaza. Tom Segev, one of Israel's most respected historians, has been particularly critical, arguing that the premise of bombing to secure a peace agreement was false.

"Israel has also always believed that causing suffering to Palestinian civilians would make them rebel against their national leaders. This assumption has proven wrong over and over," Segev wrote in yesterday's Ha'aretz newspaper. "Since the dawn of the Zionist presence in the land of Israel, no military operation has ever advanced dialogue with the Palestinians."

{on edit- I hope this looks the way you want it to, Uri. I also fixed a word or two. I might have a comment or two on your links, when I get the chance. Take care, socrates}

FBI Director Warns of Terror Attacks on U.S. Cities
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/23/AR2009022301850.html?hpid=topnews

New High In U.S. Prison Numbers:2.3 million
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/02/28/ST2008022803016.html

Millions of people “vanished” in U.S. population records in the 1930s
http://www.russiatoday.com/Art_and_Fun/2008-10-23/Millions_of_people_vanished_in_US_-_historian.html

Rule by fear or rule by law?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/04/ED5OUPQJ7.DTL

{excerpt}

Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of "an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.

Guardsmen to conduct urban training at Arcadia in April
http://www.carrollspaper.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=7451&TM=30761.17

State Department Floating Ammo Import Ban?
http://virginiashootingsportsassociation.blogspot.com/2009/02/state-department-floating-ammo-import.html

A stunning Russian Foreign Ministry report is stating today that the President Obama has secretly ordered the ‘immediate’ opening of America’s vast gulag of concentration camps, built since 2001 and estimated able to hold a further 1 million of their citizens, which is aside from the 2.3 million currently imprisoned in what has become the World’s largest Prison Nation in all of history, in what they are calling Project ENDGAME.

Honestly, my dear fellow brethren, the only comment I can think of is get out of the UNITED STATES for as long as you can.

Yes you can. And if you do choose a place in the southern hemiphere.

I'll only say Uri, that you're free to think what you want and to surf the web however you may. Personally, I think there is a lot of tinfoil out there, and we need to be careful not to jump to any preconceived conclusions. Not attacking you here, but I do think most topics are impossible to figure out in a day or two. We need to consider the source at all times. Thank you for joining the forum and contributing. Hopefully, the place will pick up with dialogue.


Dredd's got a new goody:

Here Come The Torture Investigations

{excerpts}

Who knows where that will lead, but some of the talk is that it will be a trickle down investigation. Meaning that the top eschelons will be looked at first. That would include professor Yoo and judge Bybee....

They wrote the infamous "torture is ok" memos, which were thereafter classified, so no one could see them.

Those memos approved of and tried to give legal authority to the president's right to torture detainees. Detainees who are American citizens and those who are not citizens.....

Let the justice begin.

Cross-posted from Dredd's Blog:

Me wrote:Nice job, Dredd.

I think I might copy and paste this one for my humble blog/forum.

While the stocks have dropped below 7000, here is news that the "CIA destroyed nearly 100 interrogation videotapes.

All the stuff that went on before 9/11, including this one and the plans to go after Iraq {WHIG}, makes it tough to disregard that at a minimum 9/11 might have been a let it happen on purpose.

I'm glad I didn't get into the 9/11 ct too much. "Chemtrails" were tough enough to forge through.

Here is Dredd's entry that I referred to.

Dredd wrote:Spying On US 7 Months Before 911?
March 2, 2009





The Bush II regime has stated over and over that they spied on us after 9/11 without warrants.

They say they did so because the president has those "special war powers" under Article II of the US Constitution.

The story goes that in time of war, since he is commander in chief, he does not need congressional approval or judicial approval to do wiretaps or other searches.

That is not the general legal consensus however.

Be that as it may, remember that before 9/11 there was no war and therefore no special super duper presidential war powers. There was no war till quite a while after 9/11.

We have discussed spying on Americans and other intelligence gathering here, here, and here.

Now there is sworn testimony in court that such spying on Americans was happening well before 9/11:

Startling statements from former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio's defense documents alleging the National Security Agency began building a massive call records database seven months before 9/11 aren't the only accusations that the controversial program predated the attacks of 9/11.

(Wired). The complaint filed in one court case, at paragraphs 81 and 82 alleges:

81. Within eleven (11) days of the onset of the Bush administration, and at least seven (7) months prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001, defendant ATT began development of a center for monitoring long distance calls and internet transmissions and other digital information for the exclusive use of the NSA.

82. The center was put into development by ATT following a proposal by the NSA for the construction and development of a network operations center identical to ATT’s own network operations center located in Bedminster, New Jersey for the exclusive use of the NSA.

(Link To Complaint in PDF format). All that might be fine if there had been a court ordered search warrant pursuant to the Fourth Amendment.

There wasn't and that is why the plaintiffs sued.

Dredd was one of the original BradBloggers. Both of us became disenchanted with Brad's place around the same time. About a month or two ago, he started up his new place. It really is a good place to find some news. He made some good points recently about how impeachment of GW, Cheney, and others just wasn't logistically possible the last few years.

The key to Dredd is that he is an individual. He is thoughtful and cannot be pigeon-holed into accepting any type of groupthink. He is covering the Bush Administration secret memos. He is giving me hope that the wheels of justice are starting to turn. Anyway, I recommend his place as a blog stop for folks who are tired of having their chains yanked by the zeitgeist. He also doesn't allow any hate speech. So folks now have another place to go, where they needn't worry about scripted drama or any other stuff that appears to be trying to tweak us in a social-psychological manner. You can even drop down some posts. Pockets of awareness are our best chance to make any use of the internet as being a positive force for social change.

http://blogdredd.blogspot.com


Today's news courtesy of the Boston Globe:


Mass. unemployment rate jumps to 7.4 percent
Robert Gavin, Globe staff
March 5, 2009


{excerpt}

The Massachusetts unemployment rate in January jumped above 7 percent for the first time in nearly 16 years as the state's employers slashed nearly 5,000 jobs, the state Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development reported today.

I've always been suspicious of the unemployment stats. I don't think they take into account everyone who is unemployed. They seem to find ways to chip away at the totals, such as with saying certain people have dropped out of the workforce, that they have given up. There is also the problem with folks being underemployed and/or not getting any benefits such as with health care.



Obama vows to push through health overhaul
Foon Rhee, deputy national political editor
March 5, 2009

Opening his healthcare summit, President Obama vowed this afternoon to try to enact comprehensive reform by the end of the year, saying that Washington has ignored the problem for far too long.

Declaring that the "exploding cost" of healthcare is one of the greatest threats to the "very foundation of our economy," he said that sweeping change is a "fiscal imperative" as well as a moral one, noting that the ranks of the uninsured has grown by 8 million to about 46 million....

I am a proud socialist. I believe that everyone should have the inalienable rights to food, shelter, education, health care, and whatnot. Now, that doesn't mean I am saying people should get a free ride. And anyone who is saying that Obama is socialist, to be blunt, has no clue. Socialism isn't a bad thing. Like with chemtrails, it is only a word. But with disinfo, words take on completely different meanings than they should. Our #1 problem is the military industrial complex. If we take the squandered trillions put into blood and destruction, if we then put those funds into humane undertakings, just imagine how beautiful everything could be. So next time you are having fun reading so-called political debate at major forums such as Daily Kos and Democratic Underground, ask yourselves why progressives and peaceniks aren't wanted at the political dinner table.



The Globe looks kind of weak for news. Let's find something from The Guardian.



Sudan aid purge puts thousands at risk
Xan Rice in Nairobi
Thursday 5 March 2009

Thousands of lives are in immediate danger after the Sudanese government continued a purge of international aid organisations after accusing them of colluding with the international criminal court, aid workers warned today.

At least 13 agencies, including Oxfam, Care and Medecins sans Frontieres, have been expelled from northern Sudan since the ICC issued President Omar al-Bashir with an arrest warrant yesterday .

Today police and officials from the state Humanitarian Aid Commission swarmed over the affected organisations' offices in Khartoum and Darfur, confiscating laptops and mobile phones, and even escorting staff to banks to verify account numbers.

The unprecedented action has shocked aid workers in Darfur, which hosts the world's biggest humanitarian operation.....

Also, How we all lost when Thatcher won
Billy Bragg
5 March 2009

If that name sounds familiar, he is a famous singer and activist.


Billy Bragg on Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson

Excerpts from The Guardian. To get the real news, one must seek help from other nations.

Obama's battle for Muslim hearts and minds
Joy Mead
Monday 8 June 2009

In his speech (Barack Obama pledges new beginning between US and Muslims, 4 June), President Obama preaches to the Palestinians living under a brutal military occupation that they "must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed." Yet, earlier in his speech, he proudly speaks about how the US was "born out of revolution against an empire". He continues: "We were founded upon the ideal that all are created equal, and we have shed blood and struggled for centuries to give meaning to those words - within our borders, and around the world." The founding fathers sacrificed their lives in a violent war of independence to liberate their country from a foreign power. Why then should the people of other nations today enslaved by a foreign power be condemned for the same action?

While President Obama highlights Palestinian human bomb attacks, he fails to even make a passing reference to the recent slaughter of 1,300 civilians by the Israeli army in Gaza. Instead, Israel's only crime is reduced to continuing to build colonial settlements. Perhaps, as Israel too was born out of a revolution against the same empire the Americans fought, its violence is justifiable....

Bernard Barker
CIA agent caught in the Watergate burglary that led to Nixon's fall
Michael Carlson
Monday 8 June 2009

On 7 June 1972, alerted by a night-watchman who had spotted a lock taped open, Washington police arrested five men inside the headquarters of the Democratic party at the Watergate building. Their leader, the CIA agent James McCord, was security chief of Richard Nixon's re-election campaign, and was quickly traced to a group of White House operatives known as the "plumbers", because they fixed leaks. The subsequent toppling dominoes eventually forced Nixon's resignation in August 1974, just ahead of impeachment.

Bernard Barker, who has died aged 92 of lung cancer, was arrested hiding under a desk, with $2,500 in new $100 bills in his pocket. A Cuban-American, he, like McCord's other three accomplices, was a veteran of the CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion, representative of the shadowy ties to which Nixon, on his infamous Oval Office tapes, referred as "that whole Bay of Pigs thing".

Working for the CIA under E Howard Hunt, Barker organised a brigade of Cuban exiles for the ill-fated 1961 invasion aimed at overthrowing Fidel Castro. In the wake of its failure, President John Kennedy's lack of support incensed the Cuban exile community, and is often cited as a possible motive behind his 1963 assassination. Many conspiracy theories link Barker to the assassination: he was accused by at least one Dallas police detective of having been the man on the grassy knoll showing secret service credentials and keeping the public away from the spot some believe hid the gunman who fired the fatal shot. Barker dismissed such claims, insisting Castro was behind Kennedy's killing.

Hunt again recruited Barker for the plumbers, codenamed Operation Gemstone, to direct "black ops" against Nixon's political enemies. Barker took part in the 1971 burglary of the offices of a psychiatrist who had treated Daniel Ellsberg, looking for material to discredit the man who had leaked the so-called Pentagon Papers....

America's cybersecurity threat

The US is right to improve its cybersecurity defenses. But would it respond to cyber-attacks with military force?

Matthew Harwood
Sunday 7 June 2009

Across the world at this moment, computer networks are being hacked and attacked. These cyber exploits range from the teenage gamer cracking websites for fun to the criminal syndicate stealing payment card data for easy money to foreign intelligence agencies looking for state secrets they can exploit to beat their adversaries economically and militarily.

President Barack Obama understands this cyber-threat. On Friday, he announced his decision to create a new cybersecurity office at the White House led by a cybersecurity coordinator and released his 60-day review of the government's cybersecurity posture (pdf). The cyber-tsar, whom many think will be Melissa Hathaway, who oversaw the writing of the review, will be tasked with taking its recommendations and securing not only government information networks but America's digital infrastructure, which is overwhelmingly controlled by private businesses.

The first key to Obama's cybersecurity strategy will be creating a public-private partnership framework, where information flows freely from the government to network operators and service providers and vice-versa, to steel against rising threats and minimise the damage done by cyber-attacks....

Have it your way: Burger King franchise cites cockroaches and Oz in defence of 'global warming is baloney' signs


Burger King franchise calls global warming 'baloney'. Photograph: www.memphisflyer.com



http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa

It's illegal for anyone to steal someone's identity. One can't excuse it as parody or satire.

Keeping you posted: Social networking sites help sports figures stay in touch with fans
By Shira Springer
Globe Staff / July 3, 2009

{excerpt}

La Russa sued Twitter because someone created a fake account using the manager’s name and gave the false impression La Russa was tweeting. The fake tweets made light of La Russa’s 2007 drunken driving arrest and the deaths of two Cardinals pitchers. The suit claimed the fake tweets hurt La Russa’s trademark rights.

“There is some good law to the fact that you cannot impersonate somebody and call it a parody and get away with it,’’ said La Russa’s attorney, Gregory McCoy. “You have to be that person, if you’re holding yourself out as the person. If you’re not, then both the publisher and the carrier of that information can be sued and have it shut down. As a consequence of that, various sites are going to develop better policing mechanisms and timely responses.’’

I am taking action against the person or people who have been doing the very same thing to me. I have been getting cyberstalked. No one is above the law. I'm not gonna get into the nooks and crannies right now of what has been done to me. I'm gonna take care of this in real life through the police and if need be, the courts. It may take a while before I can share the details. Hopefully someday soon, the full story will be revealed. I'm working on it.

Jimmy Carter's legend continues to grow after he quit his church over their sexist ideology. Here's a woman's take on the story. Here is Jimmy Carter explaining why in his own words. Good for him. If a man of his character can reach the highest position of power in America, then indeed there is hope that the planet can be saved.

That takes us to Obama. I'm not too happy with him, but I am a nobody. I don't like how he seems to be bailing out corporations, continuing with the fake war on terror, and not using his gravitas to compel prosecutions of our war criminals. The man's feet certainly should be held to the fire. Fake progressive domains such as Daily Kos and Democratic Underground are full of concern trolls who attack anyone doing that as being a right wing freeper troll. This is what I have been on about all this time, how real progressives and peaceniks are not wanted at the political dinner table. But now it can clearly be seen that Obama is a lot better than McCain or any other Republican. The Democratic Party is obviously the better of two evils. To have the good cop is always better than being stuck with the bad one.

Case in point is with the Middle East peace process. One of the worst things GW Bush did when he entered office was allow the Israeli government to take its feet out of the fire. Bush didn't just talk down the economy and pimp for the military-industrial complex, selfish corporations, and the spy factories. GW Bush wasn't some right wing aberration. There's a reason why progressives and peaceniks are situated on the left side of the political spectrum. The Republicans are bad news. To me, Obama is a Republican. If that party were more like him, and the Democratic Party returned to its core values, then things would get tremendously better. Then the two party system could be effective. This country needs to shift left not right like it has done.

Israel to demolish 23 illegal settlements in one day

Ian Black of the Guardian wrote:Israel is planning to remove 23 "illegal outposts" from the West Bank in the course of a single day in response to mounting US demands that it halt all settlement activity, it was reported today....

Israel has only twice evacuated Jewish settlements since the 1967 war: in 1981 when the Sinai desert was returned to Egypt, and in 2005, when Israel unilaterally withdrew troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip. Removing settlers from the West Bank will be far more controversial.

Israel has told the US it would remove "illegal" outposts built after March 2001. The current activity is in response to unprecedented pressure from Washington, where President Obama has departed sharply from the informal acquiescence of the Bush administration.

Obama launches campaign urging Congress to pass healthcare reform

Chris McGreat of The Guardian wrote:President Barack Obama has launched a vigorous campaign to force an overhaul of healthcare through Congress within weeks, and extend affordable medical insurance to all Americans, as the centrepiece of his domestic agenda is threatened by Republicans exploiting divisions in the president's party and rising public anxiety over the cost of reform.

Obama has accused his opponents of playing the politics of "delay and defeat" as he urges Congress to pass legislation before it goes into recess next month out of concern that if the process drags on late into the year public and congressional support will further erode. The Republicans are now openly attempting to stall the reforms and have said that they see an opportunity to deliver Obama a damaging political defeat...

Several bills working their way through Congress would expand health insurance through a new government scheme that would ensure 97% of the population is covered. An estimated 47 million Americans, one in six of the population, is without health coverage. The legislation would subsidise premiums for those on low incomes.

Under a bill before the House of Representatives, the new scheme would in part be paid for with a tax surcharge of between 1% and 5% on high earners. Employers will also be required to provide health benefits to workers or pay the government to do so....

Obama warned that his opponents are attempting to repeat the strategy.

"They explicitly went after the Clintons, said we're not going to get this done. So it was a pure political play, a show of strength by the Republicans that helped them regain the House. I think there are folks who think that we should try to dust off that old playbook," he said.


US president Barack Obama speaks in the Rose Garden at the White House.
Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty

related commentary


The Guardian in Pictures: Top 10 Apollo hoax claims (10 pictures)

1 / 10


Photograph: Nasa

Sceptic: The Stars and Stripes appears to be waving in the wind, which is impossible without an atmosphere. Some of those so-called scientists at Nasa should have done their homework a bit better

Believer: The flag did not need wind to move, and does not move in any of the videos unless touched. When it is set in motion, the lack of atmosphere and hence air resistance mean the flag takes a long time to settle

Finally, I think the shooting down of production of expensive fighter aircraft is mere economics yet is being pushed as some kind of condemnation of the military-industrial complex. I'm not buying it. Cut the military-industrial complex by at least 80%, dismantle the spy industries, end the fake war on terror, treat terrorism as crime rather than an excuse to engage in illegal wars, and prosecute all law breakers. America is not mean to be fascist. It is meant to be a beacon of light for democratic principles.