UNSCOM wepons inspector - Bush will invade Iran June 05

Why the fuck am I not surprised?

"On Friday evening in Olympia, former UNSCOM weapons inspector Scott Ritter appeared with journalist Dahr Jamail. -- Ritter made two shocking claims: George W. Bush has "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June 2005, and the U.S. manipulated the results of the Jan. 30 elections in Iraq...." [ufppc.org]
==============================================
Shout-out to Hunter S Thompson. He was cool. Had a fucking inspired life. Died. -- 67yrs, is actually not too bad, Trust me.

Tatoo Democratic Senators' balls with "LIBERAL"

The Republicans, I am sort of getting numbed to their evil ways. I mean take the Governator and his lies and false promises, straight out of the Republican/dubya textbook. That the governator is a lying operator no longer comes as a surprise.

What really gets my tities in a wringer is Senate Democrats who seemingly are shit-scared of standing for what they stand for. I am not cynical enough to think Kerry and other Senate democrats don't believe in anything, but they are fucking petrified of saying precisely what they stand for. The whole, sans cojones theme again.

In another example of eunuch-ified Democratic leadership, Tim Curry wonders why the Abu Ghraib torture scandal han't had much political traction. Chertoff, Chavez, Rumsfeld and now Negroponte are all fucking reprobates, from a moral code point of view. These folk either sanctioned torture or knew of it and turned a blind eye. Wonderful.

Now , enter Democratic Senators. Why the fuck would you vote to confirm these bastards? Why, Why? Why the fuck does Lieberman support Condi Rice? Why did Kerry not make an issue of Abu Ghraib. Actually let's start with, why won't these fuckers even say, "yes, I am fucking liberal, who by the way lives in a liberal democracy - the last time I checked. GWB can "advance liberal democracy is Iraq, and yet disdainfully refer to Kerry as the "Liberal Senator from Massachusettes." And Kerry instead of shooting back, tries to deny his liberal credentials.

Totally fucked-up. Why becuase the GOP owns the language? If black people can call themselves niggas, then fucking liberals can call themselves such. Liber-arse, anyone?

They won't stand for what they stand for because, "it's not a election winning strategy." And they wonder why they don't win. Not standing for shit is not a winning strategy either. They won't castigate Bush, Condi and all thse fuckers, because - they might appear unhinged. For fuck's sake, with everything that has gone on under this Administration, they should be unhinged, unsetteld even deranged, if they have even the remotest sense of what is right,just and ethical for the people they represent.

Here's what I want to sort this out at the basest level. I want a tatoo artist, not a particularly good one either. I want him taken to Capitol Building. I want all the Democratic Senators --and Congressmen, might as well add those fucks too-- to drop their pants and show me their balls. (not sure what to do with the women; Boxer has balls though). Upon us finding such things, if indeed they exist, I want them tatoo-ed in CAPS: LIBERAL. I also want their asses tatoo-ed likewise. This way, whenever they bonk (either way), somebody is reminded of who they are. It might catch on. They themselves might start to say who they are and stand for what the stand for.

Because at this rate basically, the Democrats fuck me off even more than Republicans.

On unrelated note, I've said it before, they should be calling Republicans names, "moral ineptitude" comes to mind. deceitful, mendacious, con-artist, masters of the bait-and-switch, moral reprobates, ethical-degenerates. You can't vote to confirm people you've at worst publically tarnished in this way, it makes you look creepy. You see what I am getting at - you leave yourself no option but to be true to what you say.

Music is a Strange Thing, Death a Bitch

(I never post terribly personal things, but I will make an exception here)
I am sitting in my office, I haven't had much sleep in the last 24 hour s or so, but I feel amazingly good nonetheless.
I am about to whisk off to the gym befofre the night-shift. Actually there won't be a night shift tonight I am going out.


I am listening to Roberta Flack's, "I'm the One." It arrived in the mail yesterday and I eventually copied onto my Creative Player today.
I have never heard any of these songs, since my father died. When I last listened to these songs music my father was alive. It's been more than five years, and it's heart-wrenching.
Part of me wants to switch it off, because of the sheer pain of it, but hearing my father sing along to "till the morning comes" ... I can't stop listening. Of course, I blooody teary eyed. I can't even sing along, though I want to, that's all I want to do. As soon as I start to sing, I choke with tears, snort the works.

I have to stop and cry it out properly.


Okay, nose blown too.

Someone might knock at the door wanting something as meaningless as a reference or sticky tape. Fuck them, I am not opening the door.

I have been thinking about this a lot, lately. My father left me things you can't really take away. I mean an inheritance can be wasted and evaporate. Phoosh in no time. But, the best music I listen to is still the music my father educated us into. You kno,he used to literally "force" us to listen certain jazz artist especially. He's make us sit there, while he was playing the record, and with him standing, 'walking" us through the different solos.... motioning with hands. To this day, when I hear, Sketckes of Spain, Miles Davis that memory is etched somewhere in my soul. You can't take away a love for Miles Davis. That shit's priceless.

Now, the tune "In the Name of Love" is on. That was another one my father loved - to hum/sing along. In the end, it bridges and goes:

"I know" (I know)
Baby when you feel ( when you feel)
you can't let go (caaann't let go)
In the name of Love ....

I know (I know)
When you gotta have (when you gotta have)
You can't say no
In the name of Love...

He would strain to take his voice to a higher pitch but, he'd still carry it. Imagining or hearing him do that again so vividly is like music and a million swords to my heart all at once.


"Somethings Never Change
Somethings Sometimes Do"

He'd sing that one too.

"just the gaming of the system for the concentration of power." HW Press Sec.

"...There are no journalists, just the gaming of the system for the concentration of power" - WH Press Secretary, Scott McClellan, reacting to the Gannon affair.

Rightoh then.

I couldn't be fagged following the story, actually I haven't had the time. But this is a nice summary of the Gannon controversy from the Guradian, from whence the qoute comes..

Full Gurdian Excerpt, by McClellan:

"Spin" seems quaint. "In this day and age," said press secretary McClellan, waxing philosophical about the Gannon affair, "when you have a changing media, it's not an easy issue to decide or try to pick and choose who is a journalist." It is not that the White House press secretary cannot distinguish who is or is not a journalist; it is that there are no journalists, just the gaming of the system for the concentration of power.

Actually, this is not new from this administration, Jay Rosen on his pressthink blog has an incredible analysis of this crew's epistemological view of the media (here). and this statement from McClellan is spot-on consistent with it .

Confessions of an Economic Hitman

Ad this to the list of "to read" From AlterNet

John Perkins, economic hitman, explains what the fuck makes me basically fucked-off.

George Monbiot fucking rocks

Visit: www.monbiot.com

The guy is just bad-ass good.

Read his "careers advise" bit too.

My dad would keel over laughing....

This from Josh Micah Marshall, whom I like reading usually, but find the exclusive focus on Social Security a little laborius - for the amount of time I have and theo ther things, I'd like to know. Anyway, back to the point, he cites a conersatio beween Bush and a reporter on SS:

When a reporter asked him about this at the conversation in the White House yesterday, he said this ...

"The tendency in Washington is, ‘OK, Mr. President, you play your cards now and we’ll decide if we’re going to play ours. I’m not going to do that. I’m keeping them close to the vest."

This just kills me, with laughter. If I were the reporter I couldn't keep a straight face.

Say, what? "Dude, first of all you are Washington. Stop pretending you are a fucking outsider. Washington is you, now.

How can a President be an Outsider? For christ sakes even Clinton is an insider now. What more this idiot and his family?

Second, dude, you are proposing a revolutionary change to the primary social welfare provisio and you want to play "riddle me this?" with it. You want the people to second guess who and how the fuck you are going to execute your Night of the Long Knives. Will we survive, it? Maybe, maybe not, but it's okay: no need to panic, because it may not be that bad, right?

It's actually quite a cunning plan, if we don't really know who is going to come out dead or alive from it, metaphorically and actually, there's no need to take up arms against, right? Brilliant.

The people who voted for this bastard....well, you get what you vote for. Which leads me to conclude, it's not Dubya that is the villlage idiot, it's the people he is fooling.

Would you like a penis with your Ketch-up, ma'am?

Never has ketch-up been this interesting, and it has had a long run.
I will never be able to look at a bottle of ketch-up in the same way again.

Naomi Klein: Sorry George, but Iraq has given you the purple finger

She is fucking great. Always. And Now
When she writes, you sense a worldy, well-travelled writer. She just fucking gets it, everytime. All these other idiots, can't assess anything outside of their own worldview or culture.

Great piece.

We can wear our droopy pants afterall.

Follow the saga. BBC: Virginia drops droopy pants bill end of saga.

Morons.

NYT: 9/11 Report Cites Many Warnings About Hijackings

Of course, it does.

It's very simple. If the FAA, CIA or WH are populated/worked by the kind of human talent (or lack thereof) that populates the majority of modern organizations, which they are-- think your own place of work-- you just know: they don't do shit well to prevent calculated offensives. They operate on the basic assumption that today will be the same as yesterday. So, there: petty political squables and "rules" = main priorities. And rules, they operate on the validity of yesterday. This is not going to change: organizations have a life of their own, fucking get used to it. It always fucking amazes me that "progress" and breakthroughs actually happen.

Anyway, if Osama cooks another plan, expect that it will succeed, cos learning is a fucking painful business. You have to admit to the possibility of being totally wrong to embark on learning. Why the fuck do you think the US is still fighting so-called "insurgency elements" in the Iraq.


Report from NYT
full transcript below - preserved for posterity

9/11 Report Cites Many Warnings About Hijackings
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 - In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal aviation officials reviewed dozens of intelligence reports that warned about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations, according to a previously undisclosed report from the 9/11 commission.

But aviation officials were "lulled into a false sense of security," and "intelligence that indicated a real and growing threat leading up to 9/11 did not stimulate significant increases in security procedures," the commission report concluded.

The report discloses that the Federal Aviation Administration, despite being focused on risks of hijackings overseas, warned airports in the spring of 2001 that if "the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners, but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable."

The report takes the F.A.A. to task for failing to pursue domestic security measures that could conceivably have altered the events of Sept. 11, 2001, like toughening airport screening procedures for weapons or expanding the use of on-flight air marshals. The report, completed last August, said officials appeared more concerned with reducing airline congestion, lessening delays, and easing airlines' financial woes than deterring a terrorist attack.

The Bush administration has blocked the public release of the full, classified version of the report for more than five months, officials said, much to the frustration of former commission members who say it provides a critical understanding of the failures of the civil aviation system. The administration provided both the classified report and a declassified, 120-page version to the National Archives two weeks ago and, even with heavy redactions in some areas, the declassified version provides the firmest evidence to date about the warnings that aviation officials received concerning the threat of an attack on airliners and the failure to take steps to deter it.

Among other things, the report says that leaders of the F.A.A. received 52 intelligence reports from their security branch that mentioned Mr. bin Laden or Al Qaeda from April to Sept. 10, 2001. That represented half of all the intelligence summaries in that time.

Five of the intelligence reports specifically mentioned Al Qaeda's training or capability to conduct hijackings, the report said. Two mentioned suicide operations, although not connected to aviation, the report said.

A spokeswoman for the F.A.A., the agency that bears the brunt of the commission's criticism, said Wednesday that the agency was well aware of the threat posed by terrorists before Sept. 11 and took substantive steps to counter it, including the expanded use of explosives detection units.

"We had a lot of information about threats," said the spokeswoman, Laura J. Brown. "But we didn't have specific information about means or methods that would have enabled us to tailor any countermeasures."

She added: "After 9/11, the F.A..A. and the entire aviation community took bold steps to improve aviation security, such as fortifying cockpit doors on 6,000 airplanes, and those steps took hundreds of millions of dollars to implement."

The report, like previous commission documents, finds no evidence that the government had specific warning of a domestic attack and says that the aviation industry considered the hijacking threat to be more worrisome overseas.

"The fact that the civil aviation system seems to have been lulled into a false sense of security is striking not only because of what happened on 9/11 but also in light of the intelligence assessments, including those conducted by the F.A.A.'s own security branch, that raised alarms about the growing terrorist threat to civil aviation throughout the 1990's and into the new century," the report said.

In its previous findings, including a final report last July that became a best-selling book, the 9/11 commission detailed the harrowing events aboard the four hijacked flights that crashed on Sept. 11 and the communications problems between civil aviation and military officials that hampered the response. But the new report goes further in revealing the scope and depth of intelligence collected by federal aviation officials about the threat of a terrorist attack.

The F.A.A. "had indeed considered the possibility that terrorists would hijack a plane and use it as a weapon," and in 2001 it distributed a CD-ROM presentation to airlines and airports that cited the possibility of a suicide hijacking, the report said. Previous commission documents have quoted the CD's reassurance that "fortunately, we have no indication that any group is currently thinking in that direction."

Aviation officials amassed so much information about the growing threat posed by terrorists that they conducted classified briefings in mid-2001 for security officials at 19 of the nation's busiest airports to warn of the threat posed in particular by Mr. bin Laden, the report said.

Still, the 9/11 commission concluded that aviation officials did not direct adequate resources or attention to the problem.

"Throughout 2001, the senior leadership of the F.A.A. was focused on congestion and delays within the system and the ever-present issue of safety, but they were not as focused on security," the report said.

The F.A.A. did not see a need to increase the air marshal ranks because hijackings were seen as an overseas threat, and one aviation official told the commission said that airlines did not want to give up revenues by providing free seats to marshals.

The F.A.A. also made no concerted effort to expand their list of terror suspects, which included a dozen names on Sept. 11, the report said. The former head of the F.A.A.'s civil aviation security branch said he was not aware of the government's main watch list, called Tipoff, which included the names of two hijackers who were living in the San Diego area, the report said.

Nor was there evidence that a senior F.A.A. working group on security had ever met in 2001 to discuss "the high threat period that summer," the report said.

Jane F. Garvey, the F.A.A. administrator at the time, told the commission "that she was aware of the heightened threat during the summer of 2001," the report said. But several other senior agency officials "were basically unaware of the threat," as were senior airline operations officials and veteran pilots, the report said.

The classified version of the commission report quotes extensively from circulars prepared by the F.A.A. about the threat of terrorism, but many of those references have been blacked out in the declassified version, officials said.

Several former commissioners and staff members said they were upset and disappointed by the administration's refusal to release the full report publicly.

"Our intention was to make as much information available to the public as soon as possible," said Richard Ben-Veniste, a former Sept. 11 commission membe

Sadly, Yes. This is State I live in.

You know you live in red-state moronic bliss, when you face the prospect of being fined $50 for an otherwise fashion statement. Unfuckingbelievable.
These people can't be serious. Aren't there real fucking problems in Virginia? I know, widespread unbridled bigotry - criminalize that motherfuckers.

Seriously, are legislators in the business of telling people what to wear? What about the First Amendment? I write what i like, I wear what I like, especially when it offends bigots.

I actually particularly like showing my underwear; have you seen the state (and cost) of underwear these days? You'd be mad not to show it. CK, UA, anayone?

I have to see this to believe it. I do own several jeans that could have me flouting the law ----hehehe, criminal in the making--- so maybe I will see. I wonder if they'd fine you for jogging in a tank top? This has the settings of all kinds of unsolicited police harassment.

The Emperor's New Hump", Debate Bulgegate

Even I missed the truth behind the bulge-gate. THE NYT actuallyhad evidence that Bush was using a cueing device and they killed it. It (all of it) has gone to the fucking dogs.

Oh and this confirms just how wimpish the Kerry campaing was. Totally, sans fucking cojones.

What Oil for Food; Where's the $9 billion nicked from the Iraqis

Meanwhile, George Monbiot here - on the oil-for-food program and the $9 billion that the Coalition Provisional Authority nicked from the Iraqis.

David Letterman, apparently said something to the effect-

Don't worry about the missing $9 billion, they know where to it is: it's right there next to the WMDs

WaPo calls it, "A Breathtaking Budget"

In its editorial the Wapo reacts, for a fucking change, passionately against the fucked-up budgetary proposals of this maddening Twitchy crowd. When are the masses going to fucking wake up, I wonder? There's no stopping Dubya. He continues to fuck them.

Here's the full editorial (WaPo):

A Breathtaking Budget
Tuesday, February 8, 2005; Page A22

THERE ARE TWO ways to treat a president's budget proposal. The realistic, even cynical, method is to unmask the various bits of budget gimmickry involved, to assume that some aspects are dead on arrival, and to view the document as the administration's opening gambit in a long political chess match. The other is to take it seriously, as the administration's idealized vision of what government should be. Either way, the fiscal 2006 budget proposed yesterday by President Bush is breathtaking -- in the first approach as farce, in the second as tragedy.

First, the farcical aspects: To meet its claimed target of cutting the deficit in half by 2009, the new budget omits the cost of the war in Iraq; the cost of the president's proposed private accounts for Social Security; and the cost of correcting the alternative minimum tax, which is hitting growing numbers of middle-class taxpayers rather than the rich it is intended for.

To make its already unaffordable tax cuts permanent, the administration wants to change the budget-scoring rules so that the cuts show up on the score card as cost-free. In fact, making them permanent would cost $1.1 trillion over the next 10 years. To obscure the real-world consequences of its unrealistic spending caps for discretionary programs, the administration has neatly avoided the inconvenience of specifying where, in future years, the necessary cuts would be made. It eliminated the traditional tables from the budget documents showing what spending would be in those programs beyond next year.

As to the tragic: Budget austerity is wise, but cuts as draconian as the administration proposes are not necessary and would fall too heavily on those who can tolerate it least. Under the administration's discretionary spending caps, spending for defense and homeland security would be permitted to grow, as it must; for example, military spending (and this doesn't include the costs of war in Iraq) would rise from $400 billion this fiscal year to $419 billion in 2006 to $492 billion in 2010. By contrast, other discretionary spending would be trimmed, from $391 billon this year to $389 billion next year and frozen at that level through 2010. Given expected inflation, this would mean a cut, in real terms, of 14 percent by 2010 in such areas as housing, environmental protection, education and transportation.

If implemented, this would bring a dramatic restructuring of federal spending. In 2002, spending for programs other than defense and homeland security accounted for about half of discretionary spending; by 2010, that would fall to just 42 percent. Interest payments on the national debt would amount to just $75 billion less. The administration also wants to make cuts in entitlement spending -- some of them laudable, albeit politically unlikely, cuts in agricultural subsidies, others more worrisome, particularly the $45 billion over 10 years that is to be cut from Medicaid, the shared federal-state health care program for the poor and disabled. Food stamp benefits would be eliminated for 200,000 to 300,000 people, and a freeze in child-care funding would cut the number of low-income children receiving help by 300,000 in 2009.

The administration and its allies depict these cuts as the unhappy but inevitable consequence of tough budgetary times. "This is not a time when we can have guns and butter in excess. We're going to have a fair amount of butter," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-N.H.). "But it's just not going to be at the level that it might have been in the past if we weren't at war." This maddeningly blinkered mindset ignores the impact of the Bush tax cuts, which were at once unaffordable and tilted to the wealthiest Americans. Next year alone, the cost of the administration's already enacted tax cuts will be $192 billion, not including added interest.
"It's a budget that sets priorities," Mr. Bush told reporters yesterday. That it does. The problem is that some of those priorities are flat wrong.

AlterNet: War on Iraq: It Wasn't Worth It

Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq was bumped from Larry King Live to make way for the MJ Trial. Did I mention, I fucking hate Larry King?

I was supposed to be on the Larry King Live show Monday night. I was asked to be on the show to offer my opinion on the election in Iraq from the perspective of a mom whose son was killed in the war prior to the elections. One of the questions I was going to be asked was: Do I think my son's sacrifice was "worth it?" Well, I didn't get a chance to be on the show that night because I was bumped for something that is really important: The Michael Jackson Trial.
....

The rest of the letter: here. (alternet)

She concludes, thus:

Well, I was bumped from the show anyway. Now that Scott Peterson has been convicted and sentenced for his crimes and Laci and Connor's families have the justice they deserve, we have the new "trial of the century" to keep our minds off of the nasty and annoying fact that we are waging an immoral war in Iraq. We can fill our TV screens and homes with the glorified images of the Michael Jackson molestation trial. We can fill our lives with outrage over MJ's victims and hope they get justice; not even questioning the fact that George Bush, his dishonest cabinet, and their misguided policies aren't even brought to the court of public opinion. We won't have to confront ourselves with the fact that the leaders of our country and their lies are responsible for the deaths of 1,438 brave Americans, tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis and the loss of our nation's credibility throughout the world. That might mean we would have to turn off our television sets and do something about it.

In answer to the original question Larry: No, it wasn't worth it.

So apparently, MJ is the next installation of TV endless drivel: the opium of the American masses. See, I don't have cable anymore. Actually, my TV is not even plugged-in at the moment. I recently moved, again. I wonder if I should bother. I miss the Daily Show, though and the Soccer/Rugby Channel - damn I really miss that.

Vote Global Warming Deniers for Flat Earth Award

This is a fantasic idea. (alternet).

I believe, I willcast my vote for Rush. Nothing fucks me off more than these modern-day flat-earthers.

Mandela calls for action on 'unnatural' poverty

Like I said, bomb poverty.

This speech by Mandela is moving.

I Have Never liked that Bitch, Rice.

Even in the first term, never liked her, thought she was grossly over-rated. This article is interesting. Erin Aubry Kaplan (I must look her up) gives her take on Rice and the New Black Paradigm. Interesting Read. I like the joke she retells about black history month, coming in Feberuary: It's the shortest month of the year.

Kaplan is right - I am certainly a cynic. For me it's very simple: I don't trust black people who are conservative. Black women who are conservative are a fucking abomination. Conservatism is about preserving the status quo, leaving power whence it resides; or better still, giving more power to those who already have it. Conservatives don't like change; they abhor radical change. How can you be black, or ancora peggio, be black and female, and be against socio-econo-political change. It's fucking madness. I hope she gets hit by a huge polluting truck, fucking liar. Other Black people who have forgotten where they came from also deserve the same fate: close encounters with a brakeless truck.

It always amuses me how white people are so quick to defend these demented fucks. That the demented ones then derive sustained validity from such support is more evidence of the madness. What the fuck do you expect white people to do, call you names for supporting the status quo?

That fuck from MSNBC, Scarborough Cunt-y, had something to say abou Rice and the feminist movement rejecting her, yadi, yadi, yada - and thus how irrelevant the movement had become. Like, fuck you bitch! What has Condi done for women? or black women. What the fuck has Condi done for anybody, except Bush?

I've said it before, I think she is screwing him on the sly. Why do you think Laura, the matronly, southern-belle has lost 20-pounds, and botoxed-out? it's not because, she is screwing Dick, he's allergic: he'd die.

More enviro stuff: This fucks me off, immensely

I get really upset whenever I hear this. It's been known for a while now that the Southern Hemisphere bears the greatest burden of the global-warming deletirious effects. But here, you have loudmouthed, global-warming denier pundits, who tell people there's no such a thing. And people believe them of course: it's much easier to live with yourself if you believe these fuckers.

You have President Twitchy's environmental policies, or should i call them, corporate-giving policies, re-fucking-elected. You have this functional-illiteracy: ignorance. You have people driving industrial/ military trucks to commute to work; people here drive a few blocks to get to the store/campus, when there are buses, bicycles, and legs: I hope they all fucking die of severe heart attacks, sooner rather than later. Justice.