Mexico about to explode?

The Mexican fascists are trying to shut down their opposition, but a million people came into the streets today. I think, though I can't be sure, that this judge will not indict the mayor. An indictment would remove the strongest opposition to incumbent Vincente Fox from the upcoming Presidential election ticket, and would also force him to step down as mayor of Mexico City.

I get the feeling that with things being as bad as they are here in America, down in Mexico they must be significantly worse. A move by the fascists, it seems to me, would mean tanks in the streets. Maybe a compromise will be reached that allows the mayor to remain mayor, but still kicks him out of the next presidential election? That would probably be enough to satisfy fascist Fox and pacify the population enough to keep them from rioting.

Mexico is not like Ukraine. Too many Americans speak the language. They're too close to us. We're connected. They're almost a 51st state. Mass state violence would no longer work. We'd get it on camera, and Fox would be condemned worldwide - but most importantly from the U.S. citizenry - and forced to leave office.

Really need to practice my Spanish so I can make out all the wire reports and independent media coming out of Mexico...

1,542 and counting

This WaPo online exhibit helps us keep track of all the U.S. enlisted folks who've paid the ultimate price for Bush's games. 1,542 right now. That's just the dead - not the injured, severely injured, brain-damaged, crippled, emotionally destroyed, etc.

Read through the list. Every po-dunk town in America. Young. Old. Roadside bombs. Over, and over, and over again. Roadside bombs. All. Day. Long.

Guys inside military vehicles hitting some rough spots in the road, flipping the vehicle into some ditch that is filled with water. The exhibit doesn't explicitly state 'drowning', but that's the implication. And that has to be a horrific way to die - being completely disoriented, gasping for air inside a cramped, dark container vehicle, uselessly pounding on the metal coffin that now guarantees to bring you to your maker. You're scared, but you're still conscious - you work furiously for a minute or so, before you just have to take a breath - but that breath only gets you a mouth and throat full of water. Water fills your lungs, and soon - hopefully - you black out. And then you die.

What on God's green earth are we still doing there?

UPDATE: Let's not forget, with Rummy running this war, you're just as likely to get your head blown off. Rumsfeld and this entire administration should be jailed for life - at least.

UPDATE: Had another thought today on Rummy. Rummy's goals in Iraq and elsewhere do seem a bit ambiguous, and perhaps it's a little difficult to believe that he's not actually trying to downsize our military force by killing them off, but there's another explanation - sabotage. That's right. But not sabotage for its own sake - but for the sake of humanity - the larger goals of humanity - the propagation of the species.

In this scenario, Rummy has actually seen the light - he now knows that the U.S. is its own worst enemy, and is also the biggest threat to the 'civilized' world, and the human race. But he doesn't tell anyone, because he knows he'll get shitcanned as soon as he mentions that he's landed back on earth with the reality-based community. To prevent the neocons and the theocracts from bringing about Rapture, Rummy sets about strengthening the insurgency with particular care not to make it too obvious what his true goals are. He doesn't actually deliver massive amounts of weapons into the hands of the insurgency leaders - he just leaves them unguarded. He doesn't purposely lose battles, he just makes sure that our troops are undermanned and underequipped to handle the job. He doesn't explicitly reduce the fighting capability of the forces in theatre, he just keeps the troops on ever-longer deployments to destroy their morale, and with it their fighting effectiveness.

In this 'sabotage scenario', Rummy's got it tough - he has to straddle the line between incompetence and hardline ideology - both of which will keep him in strong favor with the current regime. Importantly, he knows he has to continue to make corporations aligned with the Bush administration lots of money - lots. He knows happy corporations yield happy politicians and happy media coverage, and all of that allows him to stay in power and get the U.S. ever-closer to defeat. So far he's achieved this sustaining goal in spades.

The question is, at what point does Rummy manage to pull off his own Tet offensive - the insurgent attack that breaks the will of the American people for this war? And how many GI's does he need to have killed/maimed/kidnapped/tortured to jolt the American people out of their stupor, without provoking them so much that they nuke Baghdad after clearing the green zone of U.S. personnel? (Of course, he knows that Truman dropped the bomb on American POW's in Hiroshima, so the Bushies would probably do the same in Baghdad.) 200 GI's? About as many as Reagan's disaster in Beirut (241)? 500? Maybe a Clintoneque Somalia-like moment with several U.S. marines being dragged, partially conscious and bloodied, through the streets of Baghdad, as the world watches - in the latest and greatest of reality tv shows since the first day of the illegal invasion of Iraq was televised to the world?

Again, Rummy knows he has to stay in power long enough to make sure that America is well into the jaws of defeat in Iraq before he 'retires for personal reasons' at the behest of the corporate White House. How does he do it? Time will tell. All eyes on Rummy.

A Doctor In Favor of Malpractice Suits?

Seems so:

Most medical malpractice litigation is frivolous. That's what defense attorneys, insurance companies and even the U.S. president would have you believe. Some 80 percent of cases are, after all, resolved in favor of the defendant doctor.

But little is made of the advantages that doctors take into a courtroom. Physicians are apt to prevail in these cases because of their professional culture of silence, which can make it difficult for injured patients to secure reliable expert witnesses who will testify on their behalf. Nor is there any acknowledgement of the countless people who are unaware that injuries they have sustained in the hospital should rightly be blamed on medical negligence or error. As a neurosurgeon with some 50 years of clinical experience, I can say from first-hand observation that it's often not the patients' claims that are frivolous, but rather the manner in which those claims are treated.

I like this guy...

Paris on the Potomac

DC definitely reminds me of Paris, but I'd only just now heard of this ... festival(?) ... which has been going on since Februrary, apparently, and is supposed to last through the end of May. The website has this blurb:

Paris on the Potomac is a citywide celebration that honors the longstanding cultural ties between two world capitals: Washington, DC and Paris. From Valentine’s Day through Memorial Day 2005, more than 100 French-themed exhibits, performances, walking tours, lavish restaurant experiences and romantic hotel packages highlight Paris’s influence on Washington, DC’s arts, culture and culinary scene. Paris on the Potomac is produced by The American Experience Foundation in partnership with the Washington, DC Convention & Tourism Corporation and Cultural Tourism DC and the Embassy of France and is sponsored by Metro and the Sofitel Lafayette Square. ParisOnThePotomac.org 1-800-422-8644, ext. 1789.

Don't know much about Paris on the Potomac, but seems like it might have some good info for you cheese-eaters...

Maurice Clarett Drafted by Denver!

That's awesome news.

Let's hope he flourishes in Denver. If he does you can expect all the haters to scream "it's the system! the system!", but they can't have it all ways.

People who hate Clarett because he's black, or because he fought the system, will probably always hate him. But that's their problem - not ours.

If you're down with justice, then check out my extended tirade on DraftClarett.org.

Scalia Gets eFF'ed in the A!

I just watched that South Park episode again. Hilarious. The title of the episode serves us well as we help illuminate the fact that inJustice Scalia, a sitting member of the U.S. Supreme Court (& duck hunter extraordinaire), just got served.

This uber-sized smackdown that a gay NYU law student (Eric Berndt) put on Scalia is one of the most convincing and moving pieces of writing I've read in a long time:

Although my question was legally relevant, as I explain below, an independent motivation for my speech-act was to simply subject a homophobic government official to the same indignity to which he would subject millions of gay Americans. It was partially a naked act of resistance and a refusal to be silenced. I wanted to make him and everyone in the room aware of the dehumanizing effect of trivializing such an important relationship. Justice Scalia has no pity for the millions of gay Americans on whom sodomy laws and official homophobia have such an effect, so it is difficult to sympathize with his brief moment of "humiliation," as some have called it. The fact that I am a law student and Scalia is a Supreme Court Justice does not require me to circumscribe my justified opposition and outrage within the bounds of jurisprudential discourse.

Read the whole thing.

The Nation's reprint of the Eric Berndt's open letter is titled 'Debriefing Scalia'. Hilarious.

Debriefed. Served. eFFed in the A. Humiliated. Gotten the best of. Overpowered. Shamed. Shown to be the coward he is. Antonin Scalia - Astroglide's new biggest fan.

Who pays for contractors' health care?

Juan Cole pointed out this AP report, from the Times of India. The ambiguous report says a blast "injured four US contract workers". In this case, the report doesn't sound as though the four contract workers were just scraped up, but I imagine they could have easily been severely injured since others actually died in the incident.

So, who takes care of injured contractors? Am I, as a U.S. taxpayer, footing the bill for mercenaries and other military contractors in Iraq? And what about non-U.S. citizen contractors who are working with U.S. companies? Do they get medivac'ed to the nearest non-U.S. military hospital, or am I paying for their care in the green zone? If I'm not paying for their care, how not? Is the U.S. military actively billing CACI and other torturers for medical care their staff receives?

Army Reports Flaws in Stryker Transport

Wow. I'm really surprised by this new information about the Stryker that we've never, ever seen before.

I'm tellin ya, I am not convinced that Rumsfeld is not trying to kill our soldiers. I'm serious. At some point you have to say to yourself, where does incompetence and arrogance end, and sabotage begin? We already know that there was at least one group of people actively assisting Israeli and Iranian spies who were operating within the Pentagon with approval from Rumsfeld or his direct reports. That is treason. Why would be surprised to find out that Rumsfeld has actually designed-in a certain number of casualties? He does want a 'transformed military', and that, in part, means fewer soldiers - so maybe he just thought he get them killed on the battlefield instead of just kicking them out of the military? Maybe that's why he withheld, and continues to withold, body armor from getting to the troops? It's a good way to get guys killed outright, and if they're not killed outright, then insufficient armor can make sure they're severely wounded and/or brain-damaged, thus allowing the army to legally kick them out of the force without the Republican-war-base getting all uppity. Plausible. Certainly more plausible than any of the reasons that Rumsfeld has offered for not getting the armor to our troops - reasons which have been proven to be lies, but which the liberal media somehow fails to point out.

I don't pretend to know how these folks' brains operate - I report, you decide.

And, let's face it - $11 billion dollars is nothing to sneeze at. That's enough hometown business to keep reps of both major parties happy for a long, long time - ensure my re-election and I'll be quiet about Stryker - sure. In fact, I'll be quiet about a whole bunch of things for that.

Props to POGO for more good work.

UPDATE: Turns out Rummy didn't want the Strykers. The only reason I could find was that he didn't think they were light and/or fast enough - they weren't 'transformational' enough for Rummy. My gut is that he just wanted to crash anything that Shinseki was a part of. Rummy stole Shinseki's 'transformation' term for himself. Shinseki had originally started using the term in 1999 (I think), and talked about moving the Army to a lighter, meaner, faster, more flexible force. But being a soldier, Shinseki didn't want to jeopardize American security by recklessly cutting the Army's troop levels by 20% overnight so as to fund high-tech gizmo research for this new, faster army, as did the asshole, Rummy. Rummy had the chance to stop al Qaeda in Afghanistan and blew it, so his ability to maneuver now, on the political front, is akin to the maneuvability he afforded his very-limited military in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan.

Rummy hated Shinseki from Rummy Day 1, apparently. Think Rummy was just jealous - plain and simple. Rummy had no military experience, was aging, decrepit-looking, and was otherwise totally intimidated by Shinseki, who obviously knew what he was talking about, and was very well respected inside the military, unlike Rummy. And asshole Republicans supported Bushco as they had Shinseki fired for giving accurate estimates of troop deployment levels that would be required to stabilize Iraq after the invasion. Assholes.

Frank Speiser vs. Ann Coulter

Ran across an article from LewRockwell.com, entitled Noam Chomsky vs. Noam Chomsky, which we'll attack in a minute, but first, some background. I'd quickly come to expect decent writing from this website, but when I started reading this article all I could think was 'Ann Coulter would be proud'. Then I thought, well, maybe the author, Frank Speiser, is trying to 'out-hate' Coulter - thus the title of this post.

LewRockwell.com is a site I'd been meaning to point out as having some unique, honest views about politics and the Iraq War, in particular. These particular brand of libertarians are closely aligned, it seems, with the Republicans when it comes to being viciously pro-big business/anti-worker, but they are also viciously anti-war. Makes for an odd combination, or could, until you understand more about their line of reasoning.

'These libertarians' are those of the 'Austrian economics' school of thought - whose braincenter appears to be Mises.org, named after the creepy-looking old dude whose face they plastered all over their website. What 'Austrian economics' means, exactly, you'll have to figure out for yourself, because it's over my head, but here's what I gather of these folks' general philosophy: Freedom, freedom, freedom.

I'm down with that part of their philosophy, but my problem with them is that is all there is to their philosophy. As an individual, you have the freedom to do whatever you want. Therefore, corporations must be free to do whatever they want. And war inherently (somehow?) limits our own personal freedoms (and that of corporations?), and so war must be stamped out.

So, their anti-war stance has nothing to do with justice, or respect for human life, or anything like that - it is total personal freedom, alone, that is at stake. Total personal freedom is the highest achievable goal, and therefore it is total personal freedom which must be achieved before any other considerations can be made - including, say, considerations for bringing about a just society.

To say the least, not in line with my thinking, but, to each their own.

That's just my interpretation of what they're about, but the Mises.org FAQ is pretty informative - has a lot of good links to explain it for themselves.

I've actually read about 30 or so articles from Mises.org and LewRockwell.com - Rockwell being the current Prez of Mises.org, I believe - and most of the articles have been good - even very good. There were a couple I read recently about the virtues of the corporation and the Godliness of Microsoft (seriously), but most other stuff (anti-war, anti-fascism, etc.) has been tight.

Which brings us to the contested article I saw at LewRockwell.com. When I saw the headline I felt two things: 1) Shoot, I wonder if today is the day that someone finally makes a case that Chomsky is wrong or inconsistent about something, anything, please!, and 2) Shoot, today probably won't be the day for the same set of reasons that all the other days weren't 'the days' - Chomsky is, in my opinion, outrageously consistent and so damn right about nearly everything, and his would-be critics are so busy fuming that they can hardly string together coherent arguments, much less hope to win an intellectual battle with the heavyweight of all heavyweights, Chomsky.

I admit to being disappointed at the thought of Chomsky getting ripped. He's been such an incredible advocate for human rights for so long - I think it's only natural that we all want our personal heroes to remain unscathed by criticism. I also admit to being disappointed at the thought of yet another hapless Chomsky critique.

Well, here's my response to the author of the piece:

Your article is daft. If I didn't look up to double-check the site name, I would have thought I was at the fascism-supporting FreeRepublic.com.

You've distorted Chomsky's remarks, found controversy where there is none, engaged in unseemly personal attacks against your 'enemies' (a wanton, yet effective propaganda technique), and generally lowered the level of prose I've come to expect from LewRockwell.com (not that it was supremely high to begin with, but at least I could count on some thoughtful remarks).

Here are just a couple of points where you have gotten off the Ann Coulter-esque name-calling warpath long enough to try and make a point:

"Not only because he betrays any concept of standing for fairness in support of a draft"

This goes in the 'Frank just makes sh*t up' category. Unless you have some other secondary sources that you didn't refer to in your article, there is no justification for this claim.

"How can Mr. Chomsky possibly NOT be opposed to the draft?"

Let me help you out with that one, dog. From your own article: "The underlying theory Chomsky espouses, is that a citizen’s conscript army would not be willing to inflict the atrocities we see going on today." It follows that an unwilling army would make waging a war of atrocities impossible...thus bringing the end of the war. Got it?

Your passion for being loud has co-opted your ability to make a rational argument. Go ahead and try this article again as I'm guessing you do have something meaningful to contribute to the debate.

Yes, I'll be happy to look it over for you.

Links:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/speiser1.html

This article was truly a piece of shit. Personal attacks galore.

Then I read a reference about someone from the Mises/Rockwell crew giving an interview to FrontPageMag.com - the violently right-wing/fascist online zine. Giving interviews is not against the law, but I think it'd be a good idea to stay about from a hate rag whose readership, at least, loves to talk about nuking the entire Middle East.

UPDATE: Email from Frank Speiser, at his request:

Hi Peter,

I appreciate your offer to help out, but I am going to
stick with what I've got.

Even pretending to advocate a draft in a rope-a-dope
move is philosophically dishonest.

I'me definitely no fascist, though. I am not sure how
you got that.

One further note: usually, it is spelled "dawg".

-Frank

He's right about one thing - I think it is 'dawg'. :)

Cowardice by any other name...

The Sideshow tipped us off to this buyer's remorse blog post . Miss "I'm too cool to protest" is shocked that her boy, George, is turning out to be the asshole we all said he was.

So I blasted her for her craven and irresponsible takes and she responded by cutting short my comment, part of which included links to three different sources where she and her too-cool-to-protest friends could get a whole lot less ignorant. I've reproduced the part of my comment that Miss Too-cool-for-all-of-you has not cut (yet) from her site, and I've added back my guesstimation of the original:

This is the most ridiculous post, from someone who is apparently attempting to be serious, that I've ever read. All the whining is abhorrent:
* being over on the left was terrible
* i don't like john kerry
* this is not an apology, i'm in the middle!

what kind of garbage is this? this is why you voted for Bush? the u.s. military is raping the citizens of another country - figuratively and literally - and you vote for Bush because you don't 'like' Kerry? do you not know about Abu Ghraib? do you not?

how many innocents have to be killed? how many have to have their heads dunked in feces and urine before you say, 'You know what, I really don't think that's what I want to be a part of'?

Like Michael Moore said, you do owe people an apology - our troops, for starters. Just because you busied yourself watching Fox News doesn't mean you aren't culpable for the nightmare that is still unfolding. We are all responsible - even me - even Moore - but you owe a lot more. You've got some serious catching up to do.

Did you see today's cover of the USA Today? 2 years! 2 years! Still not enough body armor! You re-relected this guy! This information was available! You re-elected him! How do you sleep?!

And you still talk down about anti-war protesters. "I'll never be one of them," you say. Very big of you.

[admin note: I edited the rest of this post out because it was starting to annoy me. Too many exclamation points and too many links to blogs that I consider, how should I say this, irrational. ]

The red is Her Highness. Too cool to act overly concerned, of course, because this blogging thing is not my real thing, you know? As a voter, I helped start a war. Seriously!

Now, from memory, parts she cut from my comment:

Do you think we achieved some level of civil rights, women's rights, and the 40-hour work week because the government was feeling benificent one day? They only came about because citizens demanded it. You think the Vietnam war ended because our leaders were tired of making billions in helicopter sales? It ended because the anti-war protestors you despise demanded that it end.

How about ... stop sitting on your couch watching Fox News for a minute and say, read a book? Or maybe read some blogs? Or, shoot, even go see Fahrenheit 911 and try to comprehend what the movie is about? Go ahead. It won't hurt. I promise. Show at least as much bravery towards your lilly-livered combative keyboarding friends as our 18 YEAR OLD soldiers show every day in Iraq, and go see the movie.

It's time to earn your citizenship:

Lies My Teacher Told Me
link

Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/

Daily Kos
http://www.dailykos.com/

First, she mentions 'too many links to blogs'. Ummm ... what's French for ... 'LIAR'!? Only the 3rd link is a blog. She didn't know what the links were, and she didn't care. She was tired of getting berated. Good for her. She gets to cut my comment, turn off the computer, and go to bed. The troops she sent into the desert only wish they could turn off the hellacious physical and mental violence playing out in front of their domes right now.

Every blogger has the right to pull comments from their site which are inappropriate, have foul language, etc. I was purposely very careful not to use any foul language. I'm used to dealing with the left and occasionally libertarian side of the blogosphere where, more often than not, people accept criticism of all types. It's American. It's brave. It's responsible. It's proactive. It's open-minded. It's right.

On the other hand, to remove from oneself the possibility of true, meaningful, biting criticism, is to wallow in the cowardice that so exemplifies our ruling class. To cut a comment that is critical and hide behind the excuse that it was starting to annoy me is also blatantly dishonest. While Miss Cool may have been annoyed, this is not the reason she cut the links. She cut the links to keep herself from facing the horrible truth - that she is partly resopnsible for much death and horror. But she also wishes to salvage her good standing in the right blogosphere, where acting cool while sending others to die always takes precendence over admitting your faults and fuckups, and changing tack to do what's right by the country, and those you've sent to die.

Taking criticism is tough to do sometimes, especially when you're proven wrong. I've been there, as have many other brave Americans, yet this particular blogger - ASV - does not feel compelled to stand to post and accept that which is righteously being directed at her. This ASV blogger need only face 'incoming' in the form of electronic text, written on a page, flown across the internet, to a harmless, flickering screen in front of her face. No roadside bombs. No 360-degree attacks. No ambushes. No mortar rounds. No wounded, killed, armless, legless, sightless comrades. No coming face to face with dead, wounded, crying, screaming, starving Iraqi children, much less her 'enemy'. No packing up a comrade's belongings in a box to send home to his or her family. No lack of medical supplies. No lack of food and water. No lack of a secure place to sleep. And still ... still she just turns and says, "You know, this critical comment was bugging me. I've sent young men and women to their deaths. So? I still don't want to read this critical comment, and I sure as heck don't want anybody else to read it."

This is one of the most cowardly acts I can think of. Sitting at home, in front of the keyboard, afraid to take some criticism. Meanwhile, GI's you've sent to die, be maimed and/or traumatized are taking live fire, from real guns. As one American GI said, 'Someone must die. Someone must die." It's shameful in the extreme to push for war and then cower from criticism. Beneath contempt.

Maybe I'm only surprised because I don't know this ASV person to be one of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders, but maybe that has changed.

You've sent kids to their deaths, ASV. Kids. American kids. White kids. Christian kids. And others, too. But don't sweat it...can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, eh?

U.S. Civilians Killed in Iraq Counted?

This Union Tribune article talks about American civilians who are killed in combat. Don't know what the numbers are, and not particularly anxious to find out, but the figures cited in the article don't seem low:

San Diego's Titan Corp. has sustained the highest number of casualties of 119 U.S. companies operating in Iraq, according to data released yesterday by the U.S. Department of Labor.

At least 136 Titan employees and subcontractors have died in Iraq since the U.S.-led war began in March 2003.

I guess that's one way for Rummy to keep the death count down.

I don't have too much sympathy for contractors who willingly go into the Iraqi deathtrap and get killed, but I do feel great sorrow for their families. On the other hand, the contractors going to Iraq are not coming from America's upper classes or middle classes - they are coming from the lower-middle classes. People living in the Bush/Reagan economies making $8/hr find out they have the chance to earn $50/hr or more and they just can't help but go. In some cases I'm sure it's pure greed, but in others, I suspect that many go being completely ignorant of the facts on the ground. I'd be interested to know how many of the folks that go over there get their news almost exclusively from Fox. 75%? Higher? If you think Iraq is not in flames, you'd probably be a lot more likely to sign up with one of the companies asking you to risk your life for their profits.

Maybe these folks think going to Iraq for a year or two at $50+/hr would help them retire early or something? I'm not sure. I would like to hear some stories from some contractors who've made it back to the U.S. in one piece, if they'd do it again, if they have done it again, and also get perspectives from families who lost their contractor-husbands. Does everybody think it was worth it? Is it all rah-rah-rah-America, or do they actually feel any sense of loss, or do the feel duped by Bush and Fox News?

On the kill numbers, I'm curious what the current numbers are for soldiers who made it back to the U.S. outside of a coffin - in some physical/mental state. How many thousands of returned Iraq vets are armless and/or legless and/or sightless and/or brain-damaged and/or nerve-damaged and/or crippled and/or clinically depressed and/or psychotic? And what percentage of them have sufficient health care? 20%? 25%?

How many have killed themselves? How many have killed family members?

U.S. making world safer...with fighters jet abroad...

Welcome to upside-downism personified, folks. We're selling fighter jets to Pakistan for money...doh! no, not for money, for strategic...something, or whatever. And then we're going to sell even more jets to India. And then we're going to sell more military shit to Pakistan. And then...

A little cold war in Asia would be *very* good business for the U.S. military industrial complex. The CNN report I saw mentioned at least one Texas Lockheed (or some other shit military company) plant that would be able to stay open past October only if it got a new order of fighter jets - the kind of fighter jets that kill people - so much for the sanctity of life during the Schiavo disaster.

I wonder who this senior administration official is?

"It is important for the Pakistani government feel secure," one official said. "It is in India's interest that Pakistan feel secure."

He's a fucking idiot, and he's a cowardly cowboy from Texas.

Yes, I guess that pretty much describes all the presidents to ever come out of Texas, but still, there's only one I can think of that could utter something so blindingly ridiculous as this - so simple - and still he fucks it up. The dude's brain is just gone, man - it's all fried up after being coke'd up and drown in alcohol for twenty years.

Drop the news on a Saturday night, at the height of the Schiavo disaster, and hope nobody catches it. Awesome.

Bush says it's a big kiss on the lips to Prez. Musharraf for all the wonderful work he's been doing to help us in the 'war on terror'. Yeah - I just don't even know where to begin with that one. Just read my lips - A.Q. Kahn. Weren't we supposed to be invading Iraq to prevent them from getting WMD, but we reward the country that's been spreading WMD technology more vigorously and successfully than any other country or entity at any other time in the history of the planet? Sounds about right for Bushco. [Oops - meguesses, though I really don't know, that the U.S. shared mucho WMD secrets with the Israelis over the years, but who knows? They had access to other western nuclear powers, like France and Germany.]

If you sell military technology to one of the two countries who feel threatened by one another, then my guess is that you're only going to escalate the race against each other to gain more military technology - which is exactly what Bushco is hoping for.

Like Michael Moore said years ago, before it was obvious and before it was cool - this is not about any 'war on terror' - this is about money, and power, and greed - plain and simple. Bushco has gotten the Rethug base to buy into it, so he knows they won't question this sale. The Limbaughs and Foxes will say how much it makes sense, etc. etc.

Also, possibly importantly, the CNN quickly dropped a one-liner that said something about 'the direct transfer of technology'. It was like, let's see how Bush manages to pull this one off - meaning, this selling of a few jets is plainly a direct transfer of technology, and that direct transfer of (military) technology is against U.S. law or U.S. regulations of some type, and therefore it should not be allowed, of course, but of course, it will be allowed. The CNN guy - was it Dobbs or just someone doing a report on his show? - sounded incredulous - like he knew it shouldn't be done, it couldn't be done legally, but that it would be done because Bushco wanted it done. The CNN guy seemed to be amused at the thought of the lines of reasoning Bushco would employ to con his base this time.

Here's one - just tell them, the deal will make the world safer. No - no - not more dangerous - safer. Yeeeeeaaaahhhh.

Somehow, I think that Rethugs would not be so inspired with this new definition of safety were it France trying to sell figher jets to Osama bin Laden. "But do not worry, my American friends," the French leader would say, "it's going to make the world ... safer. Ouiaaaaaa."

30 Muslim workers fired for praying on job at Dell

That is not the headline that most of America saw, but that is what happened. I'm guessing what happened was some racist good 'ol boy/girl from Nashville decided he was going to get revenge for the 9/11 attacks, and told these Muslims they had a choice:

They told us, if we pray, we're going to be fired.

Of course, if you live in America and don't get your news from the internet, and maybe even if you do, you're likely to have seen a different headline: Muslims Quit Their Jobs Over Prayer Dispute. Now, this headline, while technically true, is completely misleading. The headline makes it seem as if some small tiff was responsible for these Muslim folks getting all bent, and being the vengeful and ungratfel people that all Muslims are, just decided to walk off the job because they had better things to do with their time.

With Dell being the world's largest PC manufacturer, and Muslims being so prominent in so many foreign countries where Dell operates, Dell had to quickly go into spin mode. Nonetheless, word hit the streets, and hit hard, especially in India where Dell has been talking new business. ExpressIndia.com, which gets its newswire feeds from Reuters India, had this headline: Nashville probes firing of Dell Muslim workers.

Some might argue that the Muslim folks should have stayed, prayed, and then suffered the indignity of getting told explicitly that they were fired, getting removed from the premises, ass before head, and all the rest. I guess it is possible that their managers were lying to them - only threatening to fire them if they prayed, but that is all besides the point - and hardly a defense. Do we really want all workers in the U.S. to think twice before deciding if their managers are actually lying to them or not? The point is that this racist manager took it upon himself/herself to break company policy - and possibly the law - and prevent these Muslims from praying. A little renegade whitebread manager who got his ass kicked a lot in high school and is too afraid to go fight Muslims on the battlefied thought he'd take his shots on American soil, where he was confident his chances were better. Coward.

Dell would not have come to the negotiation table if it weren't legally culpable for the mess - and legally culpable is bad business for any American-based, worldwide-operating business these days. FOX News only reaches so many racist Americans...the rest of the world is left to think for itself.

And maybe Dell would not have responded at all had the workers not sought the help of legal counsel from CAIR.

So, a settlement has been reached. Am I supposed to be happy now?

I want the name of the manager responsible for this travesty. I want his or her manager's name. I want them to be made public to humiliate them like they humiliated these Muslim workers. I want a public apology from this manager and from Dell. And if we can't get an apology from this manager, then he should be fired.

Time to stick up for the less powerful...

Maradona and soccer fitness...

With and without soccer, respectively:

   

Wow. Well, I guess that's also without, and with, cocaine addiction, too.

Point is that sports are great for staying fit because hopefully you're just having fun - not necessarily worrying about how many calories you need to burn.

UPDATE: We corrected the spelling of 'Maradona' (we used to have 'Maradonna').

Another Journalist Murdered by U.S. Troops

Listen, at some point people are going to realize that the U.S. military has a policy of killing people it doesn't like - and that includes journalists. Unlike 'insurgents', journalists are dangerous to the people in Washington - not physically, of course - politically; and that's why truth-telling journos must be eliminated - with much more urgency than quashing a few more 'bad guys'. It's really as simple as that.

That Eason Jordan was forced to resign after telling the people of the U.S. what the rest of the world already knew is par for the course in American 'journalism' today. When the next journalist 'accidentally' gets bombed into his or her next life, we'll hear the same excuses. The U.S. does not have a policy of targeting journos. Kinda sounds like...'the U.S. does not have a policy of abusing prisoners', doesn't it?

At the end of the day, if you still don't believe that the U.S. kills journalists deliberately, you have to ask yourself - how exactly does something like this happen? And why won't George let the Italians inspect the bullet-ridden car?

Of course, I can't imagine the Italian people are all that excited about the U.S. military killing more Italian civilians. Kinda forgot about that one, didn't ya? All that red stuff on the snow? It's part of what spilled out of the 20 people who were squashed to death, inside their cable car, after falling 370 feet to the ground, where they were horrificly and instantaneously squeezed from above and below, until their bodies literally burst. I guess the equivalent of getting thrown off the top of a 30-storey building will do that to a body. Who knew?

Vietnamese Citizens Sue Pentagon Companies

Good shit:

Vietnamese citizens who say they have suffered a life time of health problems after being poisoned by Agent Orange during the Vietnam war are suing the US chemical companies that provided the Pentagon with the toxic defoliant.

The case has huge implications. If successful it could open the way for claims against companies that produce weapons such as depleted uranium-tipped munitions which have been linked to cancer.

I highly doubt this case would be successful in the U.S., especially since it could have 'huge implications'. The Pentagon / DOW Chemical / Monsanto would fight it for another 20 years, by which time most of the victims would be dead. If the case ever got close to a finding against the killers they'd settle for some small amount of money if the remaining Vietnamese agree to keep quiet. Else, they'd promise/threaten the Vietnamese to appeal it until the end of time.

A couple of good lines in the article. First, is this, from the company/Pentagon lawyers:

Lawyers also stated that companies normally enjoyed exemption from criminal and civil liability for alleged war crimes.

That's the old 'hey, IBM sold computers and tabulating equipment to the Nazis to help them keep track of how many Jews and others they were exterminating (12 million people in all, 6 million of whom were Jews), and they didn't get punished, so neither should we!' Honorable.

But the judge said this:

"The fact that all power was centralised under Hitler did not permit all people operating under his orders to violate international law," he said.

Frickin liberal activist judges, man - tellin ya.

And this from...a Vietnam veteran?

Dave Cline, of the veterans group, Vietnam Veterans against the War, supported the action. He said US veterans had fought for years to receive compensation for 11 separate conditions and illnesses linked to Agent Orange.

"In Vietnam they say three million people still suffer," he said.

You mean, American citizens...soldiers....veterans....who fought in Vietnam for the elites of American society, and are championed during wartime, had to fight, upon returning 'home' to the United States...not only memories of the fierce Viet Cong resistance, not just raving anti-war types who spit on them and shouted obsceneties at them, but their own government? Who'd a thunk it?

And speaking of anti-war types, I don't know my Vietnam history, but I'm fixing to do some reading. In the meantime, I saw a snippet of the 'NATIONAL TEACH-IN ON IRAQ: How Can We End This War?' C-Span coverage on tv tonight. Aaaand, missed March madness while I was at it. But the few minutes I saw before I passed out was worth it - very informative. One of the speakers mentioned how U.S. soldiers started refusing to go on offensive operations. They would head out to the jungle and point their weapons towards the ground with a ribbon tied around their guns - or something like that. Thought that was a great story of resistance.

More Crooked Cops

DC Inymedia gives us the tip-off of an off-duty customs agent who shot and killed an unarmed 19-year old in Cali. The cop wasn't even arrested. There's supposed to be some sort of investigation going on.

There is a website set up for the cause.

US Exports $20 million of Shackles, Electro-Shock Technology

Saddam is bad because he has torture rooms. Or something.

4-Day Work Week

The Green Party needs to be taking the lead on this. It's very doable. Some refs: one, two, three.

BBCode (dKos mod) - Firefox Extension for Daily Kos

Thought I read somewhere on Daily Kos that someone had put together a Firefox extension that would allow for dKos-inspired commenting - specifically, something that would handle dKos's funky 'blockquote' formatting (it doesn't use the traditional <blockquote> tag, but a <div class="blockquote"> tag).

When I couldn't find the extension that I thought I'd read about I started to think about putting one together. I quickly failed in my attempt at starting a new extension from scratch. It should have been fairly simple, but the Javascript just handed me my ass. Need to find a decent Javascript debugger.

Then I found this extension called BBCode which did almost everything we needed it to do. So, I modified it. I believe the author, Jed Brown, is working on a mod that would make it extensible so folks like me don't have to hack any code at all - which would be nice.

It's not the purtiest, but it works, and though I didn't do all that much work (~24 hrs total), I'm still rightly proud of it.

Check the details here.