Articles of Impeachment

Yesterday on the floor of the House of Representatives, Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) introduced a 35-count impeachment resolution against President George W. Bush. The detailed indictment outlines a litany of high crimes and misdemeanors and shows why George W. Bush deserves to be impeached and removed from office for violating his oath of office and his Constitutional duty that the laws be "faithfully executed."

Kucinich's impeachment resolution comes after revelations contained in the Senate Intelligence Committee's report that confirmed, once and for all, (and with the vote of two Republican Senators), that President Bush lied the American people into war.

Big news, right?

Not according to this morning's newspaper where the front page featured: plans for a suburban minor league baseball stadium; flooding in Wisconsin; poisonous tomatoes (though no cases of illness have been reported ... yet); a continuing series on sexual offenders; and a little piece explaining that it stinks to live next to a cattle feedlot.

Nope. You had to go all the way to Russia to find coverage of the articles of impeachment against George Bush: U.S. congressman moves to impeach Bush - Novosti (Russian news Agency)

Who ya gonna trust?

The United States is holding hostage some $50 billion of Iraq’s money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. We've refused to even consider giving them their money until they agree to three conditions:

1) more than fifty permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq;
2) allow American forces to continue to carry out arrests of Iraqi citizens and conduct military campaigns without consultation with the Iraqi government; and,
3) guarantee legal immunity for American soldiers and contractors.

The Federal Reserve holds Iraq’s financial reserves as result of the international sanctions against Saddam Hussein.

What is more, U.S. negotiators are threatening to permanently remove tens of billions of dollars of Iraq’s money as settlement of outstanding court judgments dating back to the 1980s unless Iraq immediately accepts the highly controversial military deal.

U.S. holding Iraqi funds for security deal - U.P.I.

100% Disabled

John McCain is 100% disabled, according to the U.S. Navy, and collected a U.S. government disability pension of $58,358 (tax free) last year. He's drawn that pension for more than 30 years even though his net worth is in excess of $150 million.

Last week the Presumptive Republican Presidential Nominee voted against veterans' benefits legislation explaining that, because a college tuition benefit would be available after three years of service, the legislation would "encourage more people to leave the military after they have completed one enlistment... at a time when the United States military is fighting in two wars."

Of course none of that was front page news. Instead the big news was the Obama's fist pound, headlined on Fox News as "A terrorist fist jab."

We're all 100% disabled.

I wonder

Like the unfolding of one of those spy thriller novels, I can't help wonder what form it will take.

A plane crash? Dramatic and, initially at least, no one to blame for the sad tragedy. Of course there would be an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board that could drag on for years.

An assassination? What it lacks in subtlety it more than makes up in efficiency and effectiveness. And heaven knows the American people are all too willing to accept lone gunman cover stories.

What about a suicide bomber? Now there's a nice current events twist.

A crazed Islamofascist brings down the young, attractive, and energetic best remaining hope for change in America.

Then there would be a period of unrest, rioting in the streets all across the country.

Strong leadership would be required to restore order, to protect the citizens.

Indeed, the Bush administration's maneuvering to suspend posse comitatus and allow the deployment of military forces in the streets of American cities would seem down right prescient.

And the foresight to contract Halliburton to build detention centers around the country? Sheer brilliance.

But it's only a novel. Thank goodness it can't happen here.

The Power of Ownership

The system is broken. Most Americans understand it's broken. So let's quit wasting time and energy talking about whether or not it's broken. Instead let's get on with the important work of fixing what's broken.

Ah, but can the system be fixed? Are our pleas to those in power to "fix it" going to produce results?

"Please, Senators, could you create some better policies for the poor?"

"Congress, would you please try to create a little more balance between the rich and the poor?"

"Mr. President, sir, could you please stop sending our children to die in a pointless war and instead do something to get a few of our jobs back?"

Guess what. They're not going to do it. It really doesn't matter much whether it's a simple majority of Democrats, or a super majority, or total control. They aren't going to do it because they are a part of the problem. They're all beneficiaries of the way things are. John Edwards dared speak of "two Americas." As a consequence he was ignored and eventually run out of the race.

But even more importantly, even if by some miracle our elected officials did take bold action on these issues, it would not solve the problem. As important they are, the current issues framed by even the most progressive of our public officials are just bandaids.

We need to stop asking for bandaids after the wounds are inflicted. We need to stop being victims. We need to restore power to people. In order to do that we need to take power away from the corporations. The huge inequities of today will be repaired only when human beings make the decisions instead of those seeking only profits for the companies they run.

We need to purge our so democracy of every policy or law that gives more power to one citizen (or corporation) than any other citizen. What's wrong with America comes down to one real issue: Power.

Disowned by the Ownership Society - Naomi Klein

Poppin' Fresh

I wonder what the coverage would have been if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama had said something like this:

"When I was in college, we used to take a popcorn popper - because that was the only thing they would let us use in the dorm - and we would fry squirrels in a popcorn popper in the dorm room."

But instead it was Republican Presidential contender Mike Huckabee, and so there was hardly a mention.

Mike Huckabee plays up charm in S.C.

Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007

H.R. 1955 creates a government commission to investigate Americans who "adopt or promote an extremist belief system" for the purpose of "planning or threatening the use of force" in order to advance "political, religious or social change."

Sounds reasonable enough, huh? But wait. In other words, you don't actually have to commit a violent act or other crime. Merely thinking about committing a future crime, combined with an ideology that falls outside the mainstream, makes you a criminal under this law.

And this is scary: H.R. 1955 was introduced by California Democrat Jane Harman and promptly passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 404 to 6. Now it's off to the Senate where there is little opposition.

But have you seen any media coverage of this? Not a word. Search the Internet and you'll find only a few mentions on fringe web sites about H.R. 1955. And nobody is talking about this Orwellian thought crime law. Don't kid yourself, the commission created by H.R. 1955 will inevitably be tempted to exaggerate the extent of the homegrown terrorist threat in order to ensure increased funding, and its findings will be used to justify additional laws prohibiting Americans from engaging in whatever is determined to be "extremist" political dissent.

Don't take my word for it. Read the Library of Congress summary.

"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

Bush Wants You -- in Jail

George W. Bush has proposed legislation that would give his administration the power to lock-up ordinary Americans in the prison at Guantanamo Bay and throw away the key. In draft legislation prepared in response to last month's Supreme Court decision against the use of military tribunals for US prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Bush proposes to extend the practice of indefinite detention and summary trial by military commissions to include ordinary American citizens.

The Washington Post reports, based on leaks from those with access to the draft, that the bill would legalize military tribunals as decreed by Bush in 2001, and, for the first time, make US citizens subject to such summary proceedings.

The tribunals, "courts" consisting of active-duty military personnel under orders of the President as Commander-in-Chief, would have the power to impose death sentences based on secret evidence and in proceedings from which the defendants could be excluded whenever military judges decided this was "necessary to protect national security."

This morning's front page of my daily news included stories on: the war on Lebanon, the continuing heat wave, a missing Alzheimer's patient, and the news that the local baseball team is switching radio stations after 40-odd years. Oddly, nowhere in the entire paper will you find the news that George Bush wants Donald Rumsfeld to be able to arrest and jail you and then convict you in secret.

White House Proposal Would Expand Authority of Military Courts - Washington Post

But did we at least have a good time doing it?

US National Debt by Presidential Term, Percentage of GDP,1976-2005

Honestly, I expect history will record my generation as the worst stewards since the Gilded Age. No vision, little thought, and, for chrissakes, no responsibility. My first political science professor, Keith Shirey (probably paraphrasing C. Wright Mill), used to say that American Conservatism is based on an "I got mine, up yours" philosophy. He was right. But that was then. Our generation has succeeded in making greed and selfishness into a national obsession.

Take just these three, juxtaposed in my morning's local paper:

"UnitedHealth Moves to Stop Exec Options" A local hero and "philanthropist" has decided that his company should stop awarding stock options, now that he's accumulated $1.5 billion worth of them. Of course he "added shareholder value," (while health care costs became a national embarrassment and crisis) and has given tens of millions to charity (nearly 1%!), so that's the end of it.

"Stadium debate also puts Dome's fate up in the air" The legislature is changing the state tax code so that the sales tax can be increased without a public vote in order to finance three new sports stadia to the tune of a billion dollars. Vikings, Twins, and Gophers will all get new while county social workers have to tell foster parents there's no money to help them care for crack babies.

And, finally, "Editorial: Tobacco fee ruling is needed very soon" Timmy the Boy Governor signed a "no new taxes" pledge and so insisted that we call the new $0.75/pack cigarette tax a "health impact fee" rather than a tax. Big Tobacco (who had previously paid the state billions of dollars (which Timmy spent in his first term in order to avoid raising taxes)) said, "Whoa! We've got a settlement that says that MN will never charge a fee to offset the impact of our product." And, of course, BT is right. They've already won in the lower courts and will again, putting a $400MM/year hole in the state's budget. But not to worry, Timmy is running for VP.

Like Van Morrison, each morning I get my daily brief and stare out at the world in complete disbelief. It's not righteous indignation that makes me complain, it's the fact that I always have to explain.

Do you think it's possible to hide from one's own children? Sooner or later they're going to tire of my playful demeanor and old jokes. First they'll humor me, but when they figure out what a mess I've made--and that it's all going to be left for them to clean up--they'll turn on me for sure.

The Sting

His Government charged him with money laundering -- acting as a conduit for cash sent to terrorists that had attacked his country. As far as he knew, the charges cwere the result of a sting operation involving agents of his Government who pretended to be interested in sending money to terrorists.

Believing in his constitutional right to confront his accusers and review the evidence against him, and assuming that he would be afforded the opportunity for a fair trial, he hired a good lawyer to defend himself in his Government's Federal Courts.

Upon reading a story in the New York Times suggesting that his Government's case was based upon evidence obtained illegally by eavesdropping on his telephone calls, his lawyer asked the his Government's Federal Court to dismiss the charges if his Government had acted illegally.

And then things got really weird.

First his Government held a secret meeting with the Judge of his Government's Federal Court. His Government had evidence, it said, that had to be kept secret in order to protect the people from terrorists. Neither he nor his lawyer were allowed to attend the meeting between his Government and the Federal Judge, and they were prohibited from ever seeing the evidence his Government said it had.

As a result of the evidence that only his Government and the Federal Judge knew about, his motion to dismiss his Government's charges against him was denied and the Federal Judge ordered the trial to go forward. But even the order of the Federal Judge was sealed, preventing the man and his lawyer from ever knowing the reasons why the Federal Judge and his Government denied his request.

Is this America?

Judge Won't Drop Charges in Mosque Sting -- New York Times

Thoughtcrimes

In a crackdown "not seen since the Nixon years," the White House aggressively moves to prosecute journalists. (Nevermind that this is the same administration that exposed a CIA covert agent for its own purposes. They have no sense of irony at all.) The Bush Justice department dispatches agents all over the country to apprehend reporters and journalists suspected of, in Bush's words, "helping the enemy."

Meanwhile, thousands of Federal Court cases are kept secret. The number of Federal cases sealed by the Bush administration has doubled in the last two years. Secret indictments. Secret trials. Secret plea bargains and verdict. And when a journalist asks about the Bush Secret Courts the answer is, "It's a matter of nation security. What's your name."

In 1948 George Orwell wrote what some say was a commentary on post World War II Europe and others say was a remarkably prescient bit of science fiction:

He had committed -- would still have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper -- the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed for ever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.

It was always at night -- the arrests invariably happened at night. The sudden jerk out of sleep, the rough hand shaking your shoulder, the lights glaring in your eyes, the ring of hard faces round the bed. In the vast majority of cases there was no trial, no report of the arrest. People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word.

1984, Chapter One

Thank goodness Orwell wasn't writing about the United States in 2006, right? Certainly we're a country that loves freedom far too much to allow something like that to ever happen, right?

Be very... thoughtful... in how you answer.

White House Trains Efforts on Media Leaks
Sources, Reporters Could Be Prosecuted - Washington Post

Thousands of federal defendants' cases kept secret - Grand Forks Herald

Religious Totalitarianism

Tony Blair joins George W. Bush in proclaiming that god told him to invade Iraq.

Violence continues weeks after it became widely known that a Danish newspaper solicited and then published cartoons blasphemous to another's god.

And then twelve internationally renown writers and intellectuals publish a manifesto calling for the rejection of "Islamist Totalitarianism."

At the risk of offending the international intelligentsia, the authors of the manifesto got it only about half right. We stand today at the brink of worldwide crisis brought on by a totalitarian movement, but it is religious totalitarianism of all sorts, not just Islamic totalitarianism, that threatens civilization.

And so, acknowledging the efforts of the wise men who wrote the manifesto and with apologies for presumptuousness, here follows an improved version:

Manifesto: Together facing the new totalitarianism

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: religious totalitarianism.

We, the free-thinking people of the planet earth, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, triggered by the Bush/Blair religious war on Iraq and exacerbated by the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilizations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, religious totalitarianism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. All religious totalitarianism, whether Islamist or Christian, is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man's domination of woman, the religious totalitarian's domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.

We reject cultural relativism, which consists in accepting that men and women of a particular religious culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of being "god-less," an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.

We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.

Blair: 'God will be my judge on Iraq' - Independent (UK)

A Manifesto Against the New Totalitarianism - Jyllands-Posten (Denmark)

Impaled by the Media

A vampire is running for governor of the North Star State. How would we know? Jonathan "The Imapler" Sharkey held a news conference last week announcing his campaign for governor and let us know he's a vampire.

Sharkey seems quite earnest and, although he really needs a good Web designer, his call for impaling criminals just might catch on.

Chances are no one would ever have heard of Jonathan the Imapler except that a local TV station decided that it would be a fun story, and so they covered the news conference where, in addition to announcing his candidacy, he explained that he's a moderate sort of vampire, "I'm a Satanist who doesn't hate Jesus, I just hate God the Father," and who drinks only his wife's blood.

And then the reporter mentioned that the Impaler's wife is, herself, a pagan ...

... and two days later she was fired from her job as a school bus driver,

... and a day after that they were evicted from their home.

Thank god they weren't gay.

Impaler to Run for Governor - KSTP

Princeton Witch Disputes Hiring - KSTP

Remote Control

Mechanically, quietly, and unfettered by any sense of mercy or conscience, the Hound hunts down and kills any enemy programmed into it. Sheer efficiency makes the Hound a potent tool in the war and it affords the safety of distance, both physical and emotional, from the real results of their actions.

The mechanical Hound is one of the most vivid images from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.

"The mechanical Hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the fire house. The dim light of one in the morning, the moonlight from the open sky framed through the great window, touched here and there on the brass and copper and the steel of the faintly trembling beast. Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylon-brushed nostrils of the creature that quivered gently, its eight legs spidered under it on rubber padded paws.

Nights when things got dull, which was every night, the men slid down the brass poles, and set the ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the hound and let loose rats in the fire house areaway. Three seconds later the game was done, the rat caught half across the areaway, gripped in gentle paws while a four-inch hollow steel needle plunged down from the proboscis of the hound to inject massive jolts of morphine or procaine."

A U.S. Air Force National Guard pilot flies a Predator, equipped with powerful cameras and missiles, that flies continuously over the area in and around Iraq. Here he sits in a control room in a hardened hangar at a U.S. Air Force base hundreds of miles away from the target. Most likely neither he nor his commanding officers have ever visited Bajur in Pakistan, and certainly no U.S. Senator has ever been there.

"Now, it's a regrettable situation, but what else are we supposed to do? It's like the wild, wild west out there. The Pakistani border's a real problem," said Senator Evan Bayh, noting that the "real problem" lay with the Pakistani government's inability to control that part of its country. "So, regrettably, this kind of thing is what we're left with."

Senator Trent Lott added, "I would have a problem if we didn't do it. There's no question that they're still causing the death of millions of -- or thousands of -- innocent people and directing operations in Iraq. Absolutely, we should do it."

The death toll from the 3 A.M. remote controlled air-strike included five children, five women and eight men. According to Pakistani intelligence Ayman al-Zawahiri, the "#2 al Quaeda" whom the U.S. said was the target of the attack, was not among the dead and had not been in the area.

The drone, the CIA and a botched attempt to kill bin Laden's deputy - The Observer (UK)

When Bush Signs Legislation the Joke's on Us

Magnanimously, George W. Bush appeared to concede and sign into law new legislation banning torture even though he'd fought the measure for more than a year. But, unnoticed, he simultaneously reserved the right to completely ignore the new law and continue unabated his program of secret renditions and admitted torture.

He accomplished this sleight of hand while secluded on his Texas ranch during the New Year's weekend by issuing a "presidential signing statement" setting forth the conditions under which he was willing to sign the new law. In other words, Bush was signing the legislation on the condition that it would be interpreted exactly the way he wants.

In the twisted logic of the Bush regime this means that if anyone even dreams that the new law might curtail Bush's expansive view of presidential power then he will simply insist that his signature is invalid because it violates the conditions he announced when he signed it ... and if the anti-torture law wasn't signed then it must have been vetoed ... and if it was vetoed then it never became a law ... and therefore, he's not in violation of the law since it never became law in the first place.

Presidential signing statements are not new. Ronald Reagan adopted the strategy and signing statements have proven useful when an administration needs to clarify what it believes the legislature's intention was. What is different now is the sheer number of times the Bush regime has issued its own interpretations of legislation. Reagan issued 71 signing statements in his eight years, George H. W. Bush 146 in four years, and Bill Clinton 105 in eight years.

However, George W. Bush has found it necessary to challenge the U.S. Congress' intent and re-state legislation to his liking more than 500 times in the six years of his regime.

"It's good to be the king," exclaimed the dim-witted Louis XVI as portrayed Mel Brooks in his film History of the World, Part I. Audiences at the time thought it was a comedy. But America under the rule of George W. Bush is no laughing matter, and it is clearly not a democracy.

White House Letter: How Bush tries shaping new laws to his liking - International Herald Tribune

It's a Great Day for Something

Almost silently the un-manned U.S. "Predator" aircraft flew in low over the neighborhood rooftops yesterday, bombing three homes in Pakistan and killing 17 people.

Hundreds of miles away, in an air-conditioned trailer, the U.S. pilot stared at a color monitor and flew the aircraft by remote control.

The breathless headlines in U.S. media said we were pretty sure we'd gotten the "#2 al-Qaeda."

Hours later the foreign press revealed that Ayman al-Zawahri, the target of the attack, was nowhere near the site. "Their information was wrong, and our investigations conclude that they acted on a false information," said a senior Pakistani official, "He was never there. This is what we know after a detailed probe."

Meanwhile, U.S. media reported that in Iraq insurgents shot down a U.S. helicopter killing two Americans. Not reported were the facts that these two bring the total number of U.S. dead to 34 so far this month and 2,214 since the U.S. invasion. And no mention was made of the estimated 27,814 Iraqis who have been killed during the U.S. war.

But today is a new day in the suburbs and it's going to be sunny and warm. A good day to drive the SUV to the gas station.

Today in Pakistan more than 8,000 tribesmen staged a protest to condemn the airstrike, which one speaker described as "open terrorism" and an intelligence official said that more than 30 were killed in the air attack but that the remains of some bodies had "quickly been removed" after the strike.

Maybe get a car wash too. That magnetic "Support Our Troops" ribbon is getting a little hard to read through all the grime.


al-Qaeda No 2 not at US air strike site - MidDay (India)

Police Track Down Quaker Terrorists

In the tireless quest to root out terrorists wherever they may hide, the National Security Agency used local police to infiltrate and track anti-war protesters as they prepared to demonstrate outside the NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland.

The target of this domestic surveillance was the a group called Baltimore Pledge of Resistance, affiliated with the local chapter of the American Friends Service Committee, whose members include many veteran city peace activists with a history of nonviolent civil disobedience.

There may or may not be an investigation, but the findings, of course, will be not be released to the public because we wouldn't want to tip off the terrorists, now would we?

NSA used city police as trackers - Baltimore Sun