"The man who murdered Osam Bin Laden"

Watch how quickly this story gets buried over the course of the next few days:

Osama Bin Laden murdered? When did that happen?

In an interview last month with David Frost for the BBC, Benazir Bhutto named "Omar Sheikh, the man who murdered Osama Bin Laden" as one of those conspiring to assassinate her. The interview is available (as of now) on YouTube. The statement is at about 6:10 in the 14:38 minute piece.

Osama Bin Laden murdered? If that's true, why in the world are we still in Iraq?

And hey, murdered by Omar Sheikh?

Isn't that the same guy convicted for murdering Daniel Pearle the Wall Street Journal reporter? And wasn't Pearle said to be investigating the case of Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, and links between Al Qaeda, the Pakistan intelligence agency (ISI), and our very own CIA?

Seems like front page news.

But other than Mike Malloy and a few others dwellers of the lunatic fringe, nobody's talking about this.

"Murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy." That's who President Bush said did this.

No doubt, he's right.

It's absolutely huge

Representative Michele Bachmann on her recent visit to Baghdad:



"It’s absolutely huge! I turned to my colleagues and said there's a commonality with the Mall of America, in that it's on that proportion. There's marble everywhere.

The other thing I remarked about was there is water everywhere. He had man-made lakes all around ... "

Without a single shot

I remember, a couple of years ago, when I came back from dinner with an economist fired of mine who'd scared the willies out of me talking about how easy it would be for the developing nations to launch an economic war on the US and how utterly defenseless we'd be. But my economist friend was an alarmist by nature and, after a few weeks, it was easy to dismiss his ravings about international currency exchange.

But now, this story: OPEC to Consider Non-Dollar Reserves (which, by the way, received little to no coverage by the mainstream media).

What if, let's just say, a couple of nations like, maybe, Iran and Venezuela for example, were feeling threatened by George Bush and the United States? What could they do? Launch a military attack on the US? Not likely. But they might be able to convince the OPEC oil ministers that "They get our oil and give us a worthless piece of paper," in the form of US dollars.

And what would happen then if OPEC decides that henceforth it will only accept Euros in payment for oil. Probably nothing. In fact not a problem at all. Just as long as long as my employer also agrees to pay me in Euros instead of worthless pieces of paper.

But I'd still get paid in US Dollars, of course. And the US would be brought to its knees without a single shot fired.

Oh no! Not another story on global warming!

Last Saturday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a Nobel Prize winning worldwide collaboration of the best earth scientists on the planet, released the culmination of their five-year study of causes, effects, and solutions for climate change.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of college football games on Saturday and the President had already decided to use his weekly radio address to attack various of his domestic enemies for moving too slowly to provide more funding for his war on Iraq and for having the audacity to try to restore some measure of progressivity to the U.S. tax system.

And so the IPCC report got buried on the back pages ... at least in America:

The fair and balanced folks at Fox news didn't cover the IPCC report at all, instead carrying an AP wire story letting its viewers know all they needed to know, that the liberal "
UN Panel Gives Dire Warming Forecast."

Meanwhile, here in what's left of America, that bastion of the liberal media, the New York Times, toned it down for domestic audiences, saying "U.N. Chief Seeks More Climate Change Leadership." (Curiously enough, the NY Times used the same colorful photo of the Greenland ice sheet breaking up as did the Herald Tribune.)

But this headline, "Alarming UN report on climate change is too rosy many say," in the International Herald Tribune (London), was fairly typical of the way in which the rest of the world heard the story.

The report itself is as clear a warning as can be:

1) global warming and the resulting climate change is a fact
2) the primary cause is carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels
3) conditions are getting worse even faster than we imagined
4) only if we start now is there a chance to save the planet

Justice can be black ... or white

Thank heavens they finally indicted Barry Bonds <black man> for lying to Federal prosecutors and a grand jury. It's about time! And, what is more, they released Bonds' trainer <white man> who had been jailed for refusing to testify against Bonds. Barry Bonds Indicted on Perjury, Obstruction Charges (San Jose Mercury News)

Perhaps now we can finally start indicting a few members of the Bush Crime Family <white men> for perjury and obstruction of justice.

Oh, wait! We already tried that, didn't we? And what happened? Yes, that's right, after he was tried and convicted of the same crimes of which Barry Bonds is now accused, Scooter Libby <white man> was pardoned by George W. Bush <white man>.

If convicted, do you suppose George W. Bush pardon the black man? Don't bet on it. Instead there will be a speech about role models and the importance of justice.

But all of this is probably missing point. Between the Bonds story and the pending trial of O.J. Simpson <another black man> there'll be little time for the mainstream media to focus on other news like the spiraling tragedy in Iraq, the meltdown of the credit markets, or the fact that the Bush administration appointed the brother of a Blackwater officer <white men> to investigate Blackwater's fraudulent dealings.

Ignorance is Strength

And now the Bush administration wants you to believe that although "anonymity" is a quaint and old fashioned idea, you can rest assured that your privacy will still be protected because the government and corporations will carefully guard all of your information.

"Too often, privacy has been equated with anonymity, but in our interconnected and wireless world, anonymity - or the appearance of anonymity - is quickly becoming a thing of the past," according to Donald Kerr, the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence.

If anonymity is no longer an option, then what? Well, according to Mr. Kerr we've got to "take into account national security concerns" first but, after that, we can all rest assured that we'll still have our privacy protected by government and corporations' strong commitment to keep citizens' personal information secure.

Oh. Good. So, not to worry that they are gathering all this information about me, I can count on them to never ever share it with anyone.

But then, I've got to wonder: If they'll never use this information for anything, then why collect it in the first place?

Oh. That's right. We've got to "take into account national security concerns."

Which gets us back to where we started, doesn't it? Someone somewhere is watching.

And it's probably coincidence that this week or next the Democratic controlled legislature is going to pass the Bush administration's bill granting Comcast, Verizon, and all the other telecommunications corporations complete immunity from legal liability for sending customers' private information to the government, thus putting an end to an unknown number of pending lawsuits accusing the companies of doing just that.

But I've nothing to worry about, right? I just need to keep these seditious questions from invading my mind.

Just keep chanting over and over again:

War is peace
Freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength

No More Turning Away

New York Times story House Fails to Override Child Health Bill Veto:

"Representative Pete Stark, the California Democrat who is chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, told Republicans: 'You don’t have money to fund the war or children. But you’re going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement.' "

White House press briefing:

"We won this round on SCHIP. ... I actually think that -- maybe I'm just -- it's like Alice that's fallen down a rabbit hole, I see the world in a different way. I think Republicans who stayed with the President are actually going to be very protected because of their strong stand about sticking to the principle of, one, poor children first and making sure that we're not raising taxes and that we're not having a program that's supposed to be for poor children be used to expand to government-run health care. I think that that bodes well for Republicans. "

Pink Floyd:

On the turning away
From the pale and downtrodden
And the words they say
Which we won't understand
Dont accept that what's happening
Is just a case of others suffering
Or youll find that you're joining in
The turning away

Its a sin that somehow
Light is changing to shadow
And casting its shroud
Over all we have known
Unaware how the ranks have grown
Driven on by a heart of stone
We could find that were all alone
In the dream of the proud

On the wings of the night
As the daytime is stirring
Where the speechless unite
In a silent accord
Using words you will find are strange
And mesmerized as they light the flame
Feel the new wind of change
On the wings of the night

No more turning away
From the weak and the weary
No more turning away
From the coldness inside
Just a world that we all must share
Its not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there'll be
No more turning away?

When the Revolution Comes

"When the revolution comes some of us will probably catch it on TV with chicken hanging from our mouths ... Some might even die before the revolution comes"
--Abiodun Oyewole, 1970*

"I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison."
--George W. Bush, 2007

* When the Revolution Comes
The Last Poets

When the revolution comes
When the revolution comes
When the revolution comes some of us will probably catch it on TV with
chicken hanging from our mouths
You'll know its revolution cause there won't be no commercials

When the revolution comes
When the revolution comes
Preacher pimps are gonna split the scene with the communion wine stuck in
their back pockets
Fagots wont be so funny then and all the junkies will quit their noddin and
wake up when the revolution comes

When the revolution comes
Transit cops will be crushed by the trains after losing their guns and
blood will run through the streets of Harlem drowning anything without substance
when the revolution comes

When the revolution comes
When the revolution comes
Our pearly white teeth froth the mouths that speak of revolution without
reverence
The cost of revolution is 360 degrees understand the cycle that never
ends
Understand the beginning to be the end and nothing is in between but space
and time that I make or you make to relate or not to relate to the world outside
my mind your mind
Speak not of revolution until you are ready to eat rats to survive

When the revolution comes
When the revolution comes
When the revolution comes guns and rifles will be taking the place of poems
and essays
Black cultural centers will forts supplying the revolutionaries
with food and arms when the revolution comes

When the revolution comes
White death will froth the walls of museums and churches breaking the lies
that enslaved our mothers when the revolution comes

When the revolution comes Jesus Christ is gonna be standing on the corner
of Lenox Ave and 125th St trying to catch the first gypsy cab out of Harlem when
the revolution comes
When the revolution comes
Jew merchants will give away matza balls and gifilta fish to anyone they
see with afros
Frank Shieffin will give away the Apollo to the first person he sees
wearing a blue dashiki when the revolution comes

When the revolution comes afros gone be trying to straightened their heads
and straighten heads gone be tryin to wear afros

When the revolution comes
When the revolution comes
When the revolution comes
But until then you know and I know niggers will party and bullshit and
party and bullshit and party and bullshit and party and bullshit and
party...
Some might even die before the revolution comes