PBS Now interviews Haj Ali, the man under the hood in the infamous image above, a local mayor picked up in a sweep and tortured. "99% of the people brought in are innocent, but with all the insults and torture, it makes them ready to do just about anything." (story) .   .   . Iraq War Cost (JavaScript Error) More details: click here. .   .   .

King Gyanendra's coup has precipitated a humanitarian crisis in Nepal, according to the UN.

Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen... "Palpatine, who is really Darth Sidious, manipulates the Senate and enlists the Jedi Council's patriotism to "defend" the Republic against a "separatist" army that he secretly directs. The purpose of the orchestrated war is to erode liberty in the name of security. The naive Jedi catch on too late and are decimated. The Republic falls." Is Bush a Sith Lord? by Paul Craig Roberts

A Vet at Bush's VFW speech 8/22/05 [photo:Pizac]

Update: 6/15- Mukhtaran Bibi released... (following Kristoff's piece in the times)... Musharref still holds her passport...(latest 6/19)

"I even take the position that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged... But it is blindingly clear that judges have no greater capacity than the rest of us to decide what is moral." -Supreme Court Justice Scalia at a Harvard gathering.(...ref)

Dorm: Clothing Optional "There's an exhibitionist part of me. If I feel the need to take off my pants, I take my pants off. It's kind of cool that there is a place you can do that." (NYT ... and here)

U.S. World's Leading Incarcerator 1 of 138 US residents is resident in jail or prison, as of June 2004. More than 12% of black males in their late twenties are in jail (as opposed to 1.7% for same-age whites). The US has once again the world's highest incarceration rate, at 726 per hundred thousand; England is 142, and China 118. France is 91, and Japan is 58 per hundred thousand. (article)

Darwin Student Survey A majority of US students do not believe evolution is a scientific theory... (see full size survey chart)

unretouched photo

Homeland in Security "April 25, Gregory Despres (in photo above) arrived at a U.S.-Canadian border station carrying a homemade sword, a hatchet, a knife, brass knuckles and a bloody chainsaw . U.S. customs agents confiscated the weapons and fingerprinted Despres. Then they let him into the United States. The following day, a gruesome scene was discovered in Despres' hometown of Minto, New Brunswick: The decapitated body of a..." (continue)

"A tormenting thought: as of a certain point, history was no longer real. Without noticing it, all mankind suddenly left reality..." -Elias Canetti

"My view is that Fox News is a propaganda outlet of the Republican Party and that I don't comment on Fox News." Dr. Dean, Chicago, 6/12 "Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices." Voltaire

Introducing The DREAD New supergun from Trinamic Technologies, can deliver a stream of custom projectiles at 120,000 rounds per minute, one third of an inch apart, with no recoil. This seems to be more of a targeted demolition engine; or a crowd decapitation device. Yet another testament to the genius confluence of the free-market and the free-fire zone... (story and quicktime)

One-Two Punch- Rita Takes Aim
Sept 22: Rita follows on the same track Katrina took, and becomes one of the most powerful storms ever seen... heading for Galveston. Second chance for beleaguered Bush administration to get it right and erase the bad memories of Katrina? So hopes no doubt Karl Rove, placed in charge of reconstruction... of, I guess, the administration's credibility? Good luck.
Sept 23 update: New Orleans Flooded Again by Rita



Sept 3, 2005
The Bush Crew and the Republican hacks and corporate lackeys in Congress have had a long run of more or less successfully bamboozling the press, the voters, and the country.
This week, the mask fell.
The much-bullying Bush administration has exposed itself as incompetent, mean-spirited, and completely out of touch with reality. FEMA and the Dept. of Homeland Security, now managed by Bush cronies, utterly failed, and were even reported to have obstructed early relief efforts undertaken by local authorities and private groups, while thousands more were dying each day of this horrifying week. Indeed, long before any federal relief reached the city, Halliburton was already awarded a contract for the cleanup of 3 naval bases wrecked by the storm. First things first.
Now administration officials are scrambling to cover their butts, spinning bullshit and deceptive excuses... No-one could have imagined the levees would break... like no-one could've predicted the strength of the Iraqi insurgency, or the absence of WMD there... like no-one could have foreseen that terrorists would use planes against buildings...
But this time, it won't wash. This time, the jig is up. Bombardier machismo and free-market flippancy are useless here. Here, you have to really care about people, you have to remember the poor and include them in the plan, you have to think reality and plan ahead, you have to have exceptional people in your cabinet, like James Lee Witt, much-respected head of FEMA until Bush came in and replaced him with his campaign manager, Joe Allbaugh, who was in turn replaced by another political hack, Michael Brown, a man fired five years previously from his last job as commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association; you have to listen to the scientists, engineers, and experts instead of your corporate lobbyists, and you have to stop bullshitting everyone, including yourself....and there's no sign of any of this in the upper levels of the Bush administration. But in New Orleans, unlike Iraq, these imposters can't hide behind our flag, wrapping themselves for protection in a false jingoistic patriotism. On the Gulf Coast, the truth has been exposed, and there are no excuses. -Editor, Dvmx

Katrina, A Huge Disaster
1,000+ dead, thousands still stranded weeks later; damage over 200 billion
Latest: Bush to Personally Lead Inquiry (!)...

Must see- Interview with a Refugee

New Orleans Lost to Floodwaters; Troops Sent in Friday to Quell Anarchy, Bring Food, Water, Medecines; Evacuation Finally Speeds Up
Following the long-feared direct hit from a huge hurricane, the levees broke and New Orleans sank beneath the waters.... 8 to 20 feet deep in places; a soup of toxic chemicals, sewage, debris, bodies, snakes, crocodiles, west nile virus-bearing mosquitos, bacteria, parasites...With looted guns, roving gangs threaten refugees unable to leave; superdrome situation grave; shots fired at rescue helicopters; last functioning hospital evacuated after armed attacks; 3000 military police called in; President calls for "zero-tolerance"; rescue units to have armed escorts.
New Orleans Mayor Nagin Furious with the Feds: Listen to interview...
Latest: NOLA.com

We Don't Do Body Counts
FEMA spokesperson: "We have requested that no photographs of the deceased be made by the media". (story)
First Rule of Bush: Never let anyone count the victims of your failures.

Baghdad Comes Home: (AP) Lt. Gen. Steven Blum of the National Guard said 7,000 National Guardsmen arriving in Louisiana on Friday would be dedicated to restoring order in New Orleans. He said half of them had just returned from assignments overseas and are "highly proficient in the use of lethal force." He pledged to "put down" the violence "in a quick and efficient manner."
Gov. Kathleen Blanco called the looters "hoodlums" and issued a warning to lawbreakers: Hundreds of National Guardsmen hardened on the battlefield in Iraq have landed in New Orleans. "They have M-16s and they're locked and loaded," she said. "These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so, and I expect they will." (AP)
"They killed a man here last night," Steve Banka, 28, told Reuters. "A young lady was being raped and stabbed. And the sounds of her screaming got to this man and so he ran out into the street to get help from troops, to try to flag down a passing truck of them, and he jumped up on the truck's windscreen and they shot him dead."
"Wade Batiste, 48, recounted another tale of horror: 'Last night at 8 p.m. they shot a kid of just 16. He was just crossing the street. They ran him over, the New Orleans police did, and then they got out of the car and shot him in the head.' The young man's body lay in the street by the Convention Center's entrance on Saturday morning, covered in a black blanket, a stream of congealed blood staining the street around him. Nearby his family sat in shock.'
"'There are rapes going on here. Women can't go to the bathroom without men. They are raping them and slitting their throats. They keep telling us the buses are coming but they never leave', a girl said through tears. People here said there were now 22 bodies of adults and children stored inside the building, but troops guarding the building refused to confirm that and threatened to beat reporters seeking access to the makeshift morgue.People trying to walk out are forced back at gunpoint - something troops said was for their own safety. 'It's sad, but how far do you think they would get,' a soldier said."
Cursor.org reports: "Denying a Reuters photographer entry to the New Orleans convention center, a National Guardsman said, 'It doesn't need to be seen, it's a make-shift morgue in there. We're not letting anyone in there anymore. If you want to take pictures of dead bodies, go to Iraq.'
One day after Halliburton was awarded a contract to repair naval facilities damaged by Katrina, a Brig. Gen. said New Orleans 'is going to look like Little Somalia ... This will be a combat operation to get this city under control,' reports the Army Times, which refers to a fight against 'the insurgency in the city...'"
If all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail...
Reuters reports: "Buses had arrived for the people trapped at the Louisiana Superdome stadium, a mile to the north, but it seemed the Convention Center, a lesser landmark, had been forgotten. The latest rumour was that the buses would come later that afternoon, but that would already be too late for up to a dozen people who had died waiting. Two of the bodies had been dumped by an employees' entrance. They were both old and frail women. One had died in her wheelchair; a blanket had been thrown over her face. The other woman had been wrapped in a sheet. A man walked past the bodies dragging a pallet loaded with big bottles of ginger ale, some plates and a frying pan. To the rest of America watching the tragedy unfold on their televisions, he was one of the looters, denounced by President Bush. But to the people inside the convention centre, he was one of a band of heroes keeping them alive. "The people who were going into the stores would give us water and food, said Edna Harris, Henry Carr's aunt. "There would be ladies with babies and they had no milk, and these guys would break in and bring them milk."

"We are doing the best we can with the resources we have, but almost all of our guys are in Iraq." - National Guard soldier who asked not to be named for fear of punishment. (Reuters: Rapes, Killings, Hit Katrina Refugees)

Gulf Coast Devastated; Worst US Natural Disaster Ever
"looks like Hiroshima"- Louisiana Gov. Hale Barbour
25-50 foot storm surges, 140-200 mph winds, demolish scores of communities, toss drilling platforms onto bridges, semis into hotel lobbies; area petro-chemical industry paralyzed; gas over $3 a gallon, spiking over $9; gas shortages looming.
Much of Mississippi and Louisiana National Guard troops and equipment deployed now in Iraq...(ref)
On the way back to Washington from his Texas vacation in Air Force One, President Bush did 'a flyover' of the disaster scene: "In my flyover, I saw a lot of destruction on major infrastructure. Tens of thousands of homes and businesses are beyond repair. A lot of the Mississippi Gulf Coast has been completely destroyed."
Bush has asked his father and Bill Clinton to help raise money for the victims, as they did for the tsunami victims earlier this year.(story)

Bush: "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."
(Actually many people have been worrying about just that, and quite publicly for many years- Didn't he say the same thing about the Iraqi resistance? Or was it not finding the WMD there? Wait I know- it was 911!)

New Orleans Times-Picayune Reported in 2004 That Funds to Reinforce Levees Were Cut 80% to Help Finance Iraq War
This story and latest blogging here
White House Press Secretary McClellan responds [sic]
WaPo: "Disasters Keep Coming but FEMA Phased Out"
Chicago Tribune Details Bush Funding Cuts for New Orleans Flood Protection
FEMA ranked hurricane scenario highly likely in '01- Houston Chronicle, 12/01
Paul Krugman on this catastrophic scandal: "Can't Do Government"

Harsh Irony: Global Warming-Heated Gulf Surface Waters Fed Monster Storm's Sudden Growth; Devastation is Wreaked on Petroleum Industry

Taipei's Taiwan News:
"New Orleans may go down in history as the first major city in an advanced country to be lost to the process of global warming... We sincerely hope that the Bush administration will take the call from Hurricane Katrina and reconsider its energy and environmental policies and replace ostrich-like escapism with leadership in the global effort to deal with the crisis of global climatic change. "
Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao:
"This Katrina hurricane is a 'warning' by God over President Bush's reactionary behaviour on the Kyoto Protocol. The US government should wake up from this big disaster, truly take up its responsibilities as a great nation, and become the forerunner in protecting the global climate."

Condoleeza Rice attended a performance of "Spamelot" in New York Wednesday night, as thousands were dying; after the show, when the lights went on, she was booed. Undaunted, she was seen Thursday at Ferragamo's, spending several thousand dollars on some shoes; a shopper approached her and shouted, "How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!" Rice had security physically remove the woman; She flew back to DC that night.

Barbara Bush, on a tour of relief centers in Houston with her husband, the first president Bush: "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is that they want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality... And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, ah- this is working very well for them." (ref)
Reminds one of The Idiot Mother's wisdom on Iraq, spoken the day the invasion began: "Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?" (ABC's "Good Morning America" March 18, 2003).

Meanwhile in Iraq...
1000 dead in Iraqi Shia Bomber-Scare Stampede
Tensions were running high after mortars had fallen among the dense crowds at the Shia celebration; when someone shouted there was a suicide bomber, a stampede began which caused some 1000 deaths, mostly women and children... The worst single toll of the war.

"...a car bomb exploded at an Iraqi-American base in Iraq, killing 10 including an American soldier and a private contractor. American troops responded by accidentally killing three Iraqi National Guardsmen." - News report, August 21, 2005, reported on "Democracy Now".

Seymour Hersh on Jon Stewart, 9/01: Intelligence from Iraq indicates big insurgent offensive coming..(Daily Show)

More Condi Funnies

O'Reilly: The truth of the matter is our correspondents at Fox News can't go out for a cup of coffee in Baghdad.
Rice: Bill, that's tough. It's tough. But what - would they have wanted to have gone out for a cup of coffee when Saddam Hussein was in power?
Unbelievable? Here's the clip

Desperate First Housewife: Mrs. Bush to Invade Wisteria Lane
Laura Bush will make several guest appearances on the ABC hit comedy "Desperate Housewives" this fall. sources close to the First Lady say that she's very excited about making the transition from spokes-model to full-fledged actress. "This is one of her favorite shows and she is just thrilled that the producers have asked her to be part of it," In return, scripts have been rewritten to appeal to focus groups of "traditionalist viewers" (... Story)

American Taliban
Tele-Mullah Issues Death Fatwa
on Venezuelan President
Has the bizarre little hedgehog of the 700 Club gone utterly mad? The press point out his previous fatwas: the 2003 'nuke the state department' and his earlier 'feminism leads to lesbianism and witchcraft'. Say what? He's a Christian Leader? Which Bible are you reading? (latest news) (Download the fatwa film clip here)

Brigadier General Joyce Karpinski Blows the Whistle on Rumsfeld, Miller for Torture at Abu Ghraib
"The truth has been uncovered, but it's been suffocated and it has not been released with the results of the investigation.... McClellan and Rumsfeld can get up on their high horse and say that there've been no fewer than 15 investigations that were conducted. But every one of those investigations is under the control of the Secretary of Defense. And every one of those investigations is run and led by a person who can lose their job under Rumsfeld's fist." (...story)

Harvard Business School Professor Tsurumi: Bush was a Punk
"I don't remember all the students in detail unless I'm prompted by something. But I always remember two types of students. One is the very excellent student, the type as a professor you feel honored to be working with. Someone with strong social values, compassion and intellect -- the very rare person you never forget. And then you remember students like George Bush, those who are totally the opposite." and "...behind his smile and his smirk, ... he was a very insecure, cunning and vengeful guy." ( story..)

Why Not Walken?
With the 911 spell finally fading, the reality of the mad war in Iraq is sinking in, the Busheviks' poll numbers are sinking fast too. With Bush at 36%, but no anti-war democrats in the 2008 lineup, Christopher Walken, at least, has seen an opportunity... and has announced his candidacy.
"Our great country is in a terrible downward spiral. We're outsourcing jobs, bankrupting social security, and losing lives at war. We need to focus on what's important-- paying attention to our children, our citizens, our future. We need to think about improving our failing educational system, making better use of our resources, and helping to promote a stable, safe, and tolerant global society. It's time to be smart about our politics. It's time to get America back on track."(Walken2008.com)

British MP George Galloway
Announces September Anti-War Tour
of United States to Speak Against War in Iraq. Dates:
Boston (September 13), New York (September 14), Toronto (September 16 and 17), Madison (September 18), Chicago(September 19), Seattle (September 20), San Francisco (September 21), and Los Angeles (September 22) in the run up to the national anti-war march planned for Washington, D.C., on September 24, where he will address the march as well as speak at a large indoor event after the protest... (more

Update: Lawyers for Sibel Edmonds, the former translator for the FBI, have petitioned the Supreme Court to hear her case.
A 10 page story on Sibel Edmunds in September's Vanity Fair claims she discovered that Turkish groups had arranged for tens of thousands of dollars to be paid to the campaign funds of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican. (story)
(Catch-up: Edmonds claims that she was fired in retaliation for reporting security breaches and possible espionage within the bureau. The FBI hired Edmonds, who is fluent in Turkish, Farsi, and Azerbaijani, shortly after the 9/11 attacks. She was fired in 2002 and filed a lawsuit later that year arguing that her firing was in retaliation for blowing the whistle on other FBI officials.)

Amnesty Names "High-Level Torture Architects"
Calls on all governments to investigate and, if warranted, arrest and prosecute Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Tenet, Feith, Miller, Sanchez and others
"We have documented that the use of torture and ill treatment is widespread and that the US government is a leading purveyor and practitioner of this odious human rights violation...
"The refusal of the US government to conduct a truly independent investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and other detention centers is tantamount to a whitewash, if not a cover-up, of these disgraceful crimes...
"The government's investigation must climb all the way to the top of the military and civilian chain of command...
"If the US government continues to shirk its responsibility, Amnesty International calls on foreign governments to uphold their obligations under international law by investigating all senior US officials involved in the torture scandal. And if those investigations support prosecution, the governments should arrest any official who enters their territory and begin legal proceedings against them...
"Foreign governments that are party to the Geneva Conventions and/or the Convention against Torture... have a legally binding obligation to exercise what is known as universal jurisdiction over people accused of grave breaches of the Conventions. Governments are required to investigate suspects and, if warranted, to prosecute them or to extradite them to a country that will. Crimes such as torture are so serious that they amount to an offense against all of humanity and require governments to investigate and prosecute people responsible for those crimes- no matter where the crime was committed...
"Amnesty International's list of those who may be considered high-level torture architects includes Donald Rumsfeld... Douglas Feith... George Tenet, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Major General Geoffrey Miller, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez..."
Amnesty International Statement, May 25, 2005

The Downing St. Memo
Here's The Memo in pdf - and here in html

This story is growing as it's ramifications sink in... Follow the logic: War crime numero uno is the premeditated invasion of another country which posed no threat. Iraqi troops were not menacing our borders, nor did Iraq have any means of attacking America by sea or air. In order not to be war criminals, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld needed to conjure a comparable "imminent threat" to claim justification for a pre-emptive attack. The supposed convergence of Saddam's stockpiles of WMD and his alleged contacts with Al Qaeda provided the scenario. After the invasion and occupation, once it was clear there never were any WMD, or contacts with Al Quaeda, the Bush administration claimed to have been misled by faulty intelligence, but insisted they'd acted in good faith. The significance of the Downing St. Memo is that it puts the lie to the 'faulty intelligence' alibi; they had decided to invade Iraq, facts and intelligence would be "fixed" to create support for this objective. There it is, clear as day, in a top-secret eyes-only minutes of a meeting of Blair, Jack Straw et al, where the head of MI6, Dearlove, summarized the situation in Washington, from where he had just returned. This is the 'smoking gun' which underpins and assembles all the fragmentary reports we have had over the last two years. So Bush made a deceitful case to Congress, asking them to 'trust' him, though he knew he was lying, in an official request for war authorization in Oct 2002? Uh-oh. Can you hear the "i" word?...

Latest news and documents: AfterDowningStreet.org
Also: DowningStreetMemo.com
Rep. Conyers: Mens Rea and WMD

"Abundant evidence now exists in the public domain to convict George W. Bush of the crime of the century... This memo is the mother of all smoking guns... Why isn't Bush in the dock?"- Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, once Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. (article)

Iraq: Election Honeymoon Very Over
FOX News Sunday : "[Can] the Bush administration fairly be criticized for failing to level with the American people about how long and difficult this commitment will be?"
Condoleeza Rice: "The administration, I think, has said to the American people that it is a generational commitment to Iraq." (story)
Really! I remember something quite different... for example:
"...my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators... I think it will go relatively quickly...weeks rather than months." Vice President Dick Cheney, 3/16/03
"It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." Sec.Def. Donald Rumsfeld, 2/7/03

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) of the Foreign Relations Committee told U.S. News and World Report: "Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality. It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."

"Bin Laden does not want U.S. troops out. He wants to suck America in deeper in order to create revolutionary insurgency throughout the Middle East.The Bush administration is moronic enough to oblige bin Laden... "The neoconservatives are the greatest threat America has ever faced and they control the Office of the President, the Office of the Vice President, the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the police-state apparatus known as 'Homeland Security.'... Any day now, the neocons may orchestrate a scenario that will suck the U.S. into a wider war that America has no possibility of winning. If the American people had the slightest sense of their danger, they would demand immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and accountability for the liars who orchestrated the ill-fated U.S. invasion." (article)
Paul Craig Roberts, John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy, Research Fellow at the Independent Institute, former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury.

No Child Left Behind- Dragooning on the Rise
The No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to give Army Recruiters information on the children.
But recruiters had to "stand down" on May 19, due to mounting concerns about illegal practices employed to dragoon more young people into the services; one mother charges the Army with kidnapping her son. (story).
One mom's harrowing nightmare with recruiters: "When Marine Recruiters Go Way Beyond the Call" (Susan Paynter, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

PBS and NPR under republican attack, Moyers first to go
(PBS)...(NPR). Here's Bill Moyers' stirring speech at the National Conference of Media Reform

BBC's extraordinary documentary of the roots of terror and counterterror, "The Power of Nightmares" has been shown at Cannes to rave reviews. Watch it here online.

No sooner had a US Army investigation cleared pentagon brass of any wrongdoing in the widespread torture and sexual-sadism scandals than Rumsfeld shows up with Dolly Parton at the Grand Ole Opry to celebrate. Human Rights Watch is calling for a special prosecutor.
Dolly, meanwhile, is "reassuring fans she and Sandra Bullock did not lock lips in the movie 'Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous,' after sparking outrage among Christian groups." (story, WCOL Columbus)

A new Army report leaked to the Times details appallling cruelty and abuse of innocents at Bagram in Afghanistan. Afghan President Karzai, 'shocked', has called for "very, very, strong action" against the abusers. (story)
August: Feds still fighting court-ordered release of Abu Ghraib 2 tapes... said to show rapes and murders...

Last Best Chance
Warren Buffet joins Ted Turner, former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn, Tom Brokaw, the heads of the 9/11 Commission in backing and presenting the-made for-TV thriller "Last Best Chance", to communicate to the public the threat of loose nukes and nuclear terrorism (story).

Apocalypse Soon Robert S MacNamara "believes the United States must no longer rely on nuclear weapons as a foreign-policy tool. To do so is immoral, illegal and dreadfully dangerous." (story).
Related:
Cronkite: Media Failing on Nuclear Stories.
Nuclear Renaissance By Jonathan Schell
"U.S. and NATO nuclear policies are immoral, dangerous and destructive..."- Robert Strange MacNamara, at a conference May 24. (story)

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