Iraq War deserters are fleeing to Canada and speaking out against the war

I don't have much time for commentary, but this article speaks for itself. It's a great one. Here are some excerpts:

Anderson says that even the small talk was difficult to tolerate. “I hate Iraqis,” he quotes his peers as saying. “I hate these damn Muslims.” At first he was puzzled by such talk. “After a while I started to understand. I started to feel the hatred myself. My friends were dying. What am I here for? We went to fight for our country; now we’re just fighting to stay alive.” In addition to taking shrapnel from a roadside bomb – the injury that earned him the Purple Heart – Anderson says he often found himself in firefights. But it was work at a checkpoint that made him seriously question his role. He was guarding the “backside” of a street checkpoint in Baghdad, he says. If a car passed a certain point without stopping, the guards were supposed to open fire.

“A car comes through and it stops in front of my position. Sparks are coming from the car from bad brakes. All the soldiers are yelling. It’s in my vicinity, so it’s my responsibility. I didn’t fire. A superior goes, ‘Why didn’t you fire? You were supposed to fire.’ I said, ‘It was a family!’ At this time it had stopped. You could see the children in the back seat. I said, ‘I did the right thing.’ He’s like, ‘No, you didn’t. It’s procedure to fire. If you don’t do it next time, you’re punished.’”

Wow, thanks, Commander Psychopath. A soldier's gotta follow orders, but there comes a time when he needs to refuse to take an unjust order. Every soldier is supposed to have a moral compass to guide him, whatever his CO might say. It's a last line of defense against tyranny, something Germany didn't have in Hitler's time. The right to refuse to take an illegal order is a fundamental human right.

We was going along the Euphrates river,” says Joshua Key, detailing a recurring nightmare that features a scene he stumbled into shortly after the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003. “It’s a road right in the city of Ramadi. We turned a sharp right and all I seen was decapitated bodies. The heads laying over here and the bodies over there and US troops in between them. I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, what in the hell happened here? What’s caused this? Why in the hell did this happen?’ We get out and somebody was screaming, ‘We f***ing lost it here!’ I’m thinking, ‘Oh yes, somebody definitely lost it here.’” Key says he was ordered to look for evidence of a firefight, for something to explain what had happened to the beheaded Iraqis. “I look around just for a few seconds and I don’t see anything.”

Then he witnessed the sight that still triggers the nightmares. “I see two soldiers kicking the heads around like soccer balls. I just shut my mouth, walked back, got inside the tank, shut the door, and thought, ‘I can’t be no part of this. This is crazy. I came here to fight and be prepared for war, but this is outrageous.’”

He’s convinced that there was no firefight.

Uh.... I don't know what to say about this. Is this winning hearts and minds?

There are psychopaths in every army. The problem with war is that it allows them to do what they really want instead of pretending to be a normal human being instead of a monster. War hurts everyone, but I think it hurts good men more. A psychopath is more likely to enjoy war. Clearly the guys playing soccer with severed heads are having a good time.... which makes me wonder what the fuck is wrong with their souls.

Key seems still in shock at the utter senselessness of it all. “Why did it happen and what was the cause for it? When I asked that question, I was told, basically, ‘You didn’t see anything, you know?’ Nobody asked no questions.” Assigned to raid houses, Key was soon appalled by the job. “I mean, yeah, they’re screaming and hollering out their lungs. It’s traumatic on both parts because you’ve got somebody yelling at you, which might be a woman. You’re yelling back at her, telling her to get on the ground or get out of the house. She don’t know what you’re saying and vice versa. It got to me. We’re the ones sending their husbands or their children off, and when you do that, it gets even more traumatic because then they’re distraught. Of course, you can’t comfort them because you don’t know what to say.”

While the residents are restrained, the search progresses. “Oh, you completely destroy the home – completely destroy it,” he says. “If there’s like cabinets or something that’s locked, you kick them in. The soldiers take what they want. Completely ransack it.” He estimates that he participated in about 100 raids. “I never found anything in a home. You might find one AK-47, but that’s for personal use. But I never once found the big caches of weapons they supposed were there. I never once found members of the Ba’ath party, terrorists, insurgents. We never found any of that.”

It goes on like this.

What the hell are we doing over there?

I think the people who support this war need to remember what war does to the souls, minds and bodies of the soldiers who have to fight it. When you send a soldier to fight and die in combat, you'd better have a damn good reason to do so. That's the deal -- they defend our country with everything they've got and we don't send them into harm's way unless we're positive it needs to be done.

I get the feeling that we're in Iraq because somehow their country ended up ontop of our oil. Maybe we should be up-front with the troops and tell them why they're really there, instead of feeding them all this "spreading democracy" bullshit. There's lots of places that don't have democracy. We just happened to invade one that has a shitload of oil. Go figure.

I don't blame the soldiers for wanting to believe the democracy lie while they're over there -- whatever gets you through. But when they come back home and start to count the cost, they soon discover that there's a lot that doesn't add up.

Cheney's Finances Reveal He's Betting on a Bad Economy

According to Kiplinger's, the Cheneys, who may be worth close to $100 million, have invested the vast majority of their wealth overseas, in markets that do not fluctuate based on the U.S. dollar. Cheney's money is not in a blind trust.

read more | digg story

[/digg]

From Digg, as an FYI.

Here I am betting on a good economy and Cheney (the supposed patriot) is putting all his money in safe European investments?! What does he know that we don't?

A new study reveals that taller people are smarter

As a tall person, I wholeheartedly endorse the findings in this study.

"As early as age three -- before schooling has had a chance to play a role -- and throughout childhood, taller children perform significantly better on cognitive tests," wrote Anne Case and Christina Paxson of Princeton University in a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Oh man, I have some short friends who would loooove to hear about this. :-)

"As adults, taller individuals are more likely to select into higher paying occupations that require more advanced verbal and numerical skills and greater intelligence, for which they earn handsome returns," wrote the researchers.

For both men and women in the United States and the United Kingdom, a height advantage of four inches equated with a 10 percent increase in wages.

But the researchers said the differences in performance crop up long before the tall people enter the job force. Prenatal care and the time between birth and the age of 3 are critical periods for determining future cognitive ability and height.

Since I'm 6' 3" I should ask for a raise! Of course, 4 inches is a lot of height for a 10% increase in salary. Man, if that's the case, I wish I was 7' 3"! Hahaha! Kidding of course; I know a guy who's over 7 feet tall, and it doesn't seem like that much fun. Sure, he has no problem seeing the stage at concerts, but anybody behind him is probably plotting his literal downfall.

It's a short person's world out there. I have to duck a lot. When I was looking for houses I had to pass on a couple simply because the top floor was only 6 feet high, leaving me a few inches too tall to stand up straight. Many of the houses I looked at were over 100 years old, which may have something to do with it. People must've been midgets back then! Well, as the study makes clear, a lot of my height advantage has to do with good nutrition, especially during the first 3 years.

You can find the full paper here.

Thank God it's the weekend

This will probably be the most insightful blog post yer gonna get... which is to say "not very." I'm just glad it's the weekend and I finally have some time to relax. I'm going to a party later on tonight, so I'll be incommunicado.

Gearing up for the big move. I know I haven't talked about it much on the blog, but I'm closing soon. Less than a week away! Pretty fuckin' freaky, but it's also very exciting. As such, blogging may be slower and sporatic for the next week or two. I'll try to post anything interesting that comes my way, but don't expect much commentary. You'll have to imagine what my rants and obscene blatherings would've been.

Shit, as I type, I'm remembering things I need to do...

Want the terrorists to win? Then be afraid and surrender your rights

I've never understood how the people who claim to be fighting the terrorists (Bush & co.) are the same ones who urge us to give up our civil liberties in order to do so.

I mean, I understand why Bush argues that: He's evil, he hates freedom and wants to turn America into a dictatorship. What I don't understand is why anybody actually falls for it. How stupid do you have to be?

I don't give a FUCK how many people the terrorists kill. I'm not giving up even one of my rights. Not a single one. Or else the terrorists win. (And if you've been reading this blog you should know who the real terrorists are... the same people arguing we should give up our liberties).

There's a new article in Wired that lays it down quite well:

The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further a political goal and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists kill are not the targets; they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets or buses is not the goal; those are just tactics.

The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act.

And we're doing exactly what the terrorists want.

It's very simple: The goal of terrorism is terror. If you feel afraid -- terrified -- after a terrorist attack, then the terrorists have done their job. Don't let them win! Don't give in to fear.

I know it's hard to stare death, destruction and suffering in the face and laugh, but you must do it in order to stay free. And what scares me much more than death is the idea of living in slavery/tyranny.

We can't allow the terrorists to dictate the rules of the game or they will win. We've got to be rational about this: You're much more likely to die in a car crash than a terrorist attack. By a factor of 10+. Yet, do we hesitate to jump in a car and drive? You've mastered your fear when it comes to driving -- master your fear when it comes to living! Don't live in fear of death or terrorism. We can't give in to fear or the terrorists win. It's that simple.

The next time somebody tells you we should give up rights and liberties so that we can better defend against the terrorist threat, ask yourself: Whose side is he on? Isn't he playing into the terrorists' hands? Isn't the terrorists' goal to make us afraid and to trick us into acting on that fear?

Fear is the mind-killer. It won't be easy, but we must overcome our fear if we want to survive as a society. We can't let the terrorists push us around. It might seem sick, greeting a terrorist attack with a yawn, but that's what we have to do.

You know what pisses off a terrorist more than anything? Being ignored.

Seriously. They're already resigned to death. There's not much you can do to hurt them... except ignore them. They really hate that. Then they died for nothing!

Terrorism: It only works if you let it work on you. You have the power to make terrorism useless. Don't give in to fear!

Star Wars characters in Da Vinci's "The Last Supper"

Click on it for a larger view. Yes, that's Luke as Jesus. Mmm.... sooo blasphemous. I love it!

The artist is clearly a talented guy.

I'm glad that he used Leia in Mary Magdalen's spot -- I'm convinced that The Da Vinci Code is right and that it's a chick! No way is that a male apostle.

US thinks of sticking RFID chips inside troops

The Florida company which makes implanted RFID chips is lobbying the US government to stick them under the skin of 1.4 million US soldiers. According to the DC Examiner, VeriChip is hoping to convince the Pentagon to allow them to insert the chips under the skin of the right arms of military personnel instead of the traditional dog tags.

Very creepy shit. Unfortunately, this is the type of thing the Bush administration loves. They would love to have real-time tracking of every soldier under their command. That would make war even more like a video game than it already is.

read more | digg story

Kinky Friedman for Governor of Texas: Why the hell not?

I'm not from Texas, but I'm throwing my political weight (think: feather) behind Kinky Friedman. He's running for guv this year if ya didn't know, and he's actually picking up some decent poll numbers (around 20% last I checked) as he campaigns around Texas.

Now Kinky, who is running as an indepedent, has chosen Willie Nelson as his energy czar:

Friedman said the country singer/songwriter and benefactor of biodiesel was a natural choice to lead a state energy department or commission, which he wants to create. He also said Nelson "would never have his hand in Texas' pocket."

"My plan is to appoint the best people I can find, get out of the way and let them work ... people whose only agenda is to do the right thing for the people of Texas," Friedman told the Fort Worth Rotary Club. "... I really believe that musicians can better run this state than politicians."

A Texas biodiesel supplier partnered with Nelson to develop the BioWillie brand of the clean-burning fuel for truckers. It is made from used vegetable oils or soybeans and is blended with diesel, and does not require modification to diesel engines.

Hell yeah! Now this is a campaign I can get behind! Willie Nelson is cool. Kinky is the perfect governor for a state that's been churning out nothing but Bush cronies for decades. It's time to either elect Kinky or get yer ass kicked out of the union, Texas!

Kinky is right. Musicians would be better at running any state than politicans. Look how infested with politicians we are currently -- where has it gotten us? Now, some might say I'm biased as a musician myself, but I'm not running for anything, and I don't live in Texas. I just see Kinky as being the best man for the job.

Kinky's a funny guy, but he has real plans for the state; not just jokes:

Friedman, who unveiled his energy plan Thursday, said he plans to have 35,000 school buses running on biodiesel fuel, as well as his own vehicle. He said as it catches on, some 7 percent or 8 percent of Texans will be trying biodiesel, resulting in lower prices at gas stations because of supply and demand.

"What you're going to see is Texas finally leading the way instead of following behind all the time, being first in something besides executions, toll roads and property taxes," he said.

I think it's a great idea to start using more biodiesel. The oil-lobby has owned Texas for years -- it's time to take Texas back from this entrenched special interest groups!

Here in Minnesota we elected Jesse Ventura back in '98. He actually did a good job -- I just used the light-rail system the other day. That was a plan that had been around awhile, but nobody really pushed it through. Jesse helped make it a reality.

Of course, Jesse got attacked on all sides. All the fucking useless partisan pieces of shit made sure to write in every day about how awful Jesse was -- mostly because he wasn't kowtowing to their preferred special interest. Fuck those partisan shitbags. I HATE partisan politics. I prefer independents. The Democrats and Republicans suddenly become best buddies when facing off against an independent.

There's really only one political party: The Corporate Party. Democrats and Republicans are simply different factions within the One Party. Our only hope for true representation (i.e. candidates who aren't corporate servants) is electing independent and third party candidates. In MN, that means Peter Hutchinson. I'm not sure I'll vote for him; he's not as fun as Kinky, but at least he's not a Corporate-crat.

Kinky for president!

Rigorous Intuition breaks the JonBenet case wide open

Sometimes I wonder why I even blog. Rigorous Intuition is so fuckin' good that it makes all other blogs out there look like crap. Still, I ramble on.

As usual, Jeff Wells has some great insights into the crime and some new information that I'd never heard before. If you're interested in the disturbing truth and the horrifying implications, head on over to Rigorous Intution.

Jeff also found this excellent resource for the investigtation. Here's a sampling:

In his August 6, 1998 resignation letter, Boulder Detective Steve Thomas openly accused then police chief Tom Koby and other officials of sabotaging the case: "During the investigation detectives would discover, collect, and bring evidence to the district attorney's office, only to have it summarily dismissed or rationalized as insignificant. The most elementary of investigative efforts, such as obtaining telephone and credit card records, were met without support, search warrants denied. The significant opinions of national experts were casually dismissed or ignored by the district attorney's office, even the experienced FBI were waved aside." Thomas was ordered not to question certain witnesses, "and all but dissuaded from pursuing particular investigative efforts. Polygraphs were acceptable for some subjects, but others seemed immune from such requests. Innocent people were not "cleared", publicly or otherwise, even when it was unmistakably the right thing to do, as reputations and lives were destroyed. Some in the district attorney's office, to this day, pursue weak, defenseless, and innocent people in shameless tactics that one couldn't believe more bizarre if it were made up."

The more I look into this case, the more it seems like a child-sex ring was involved, and that the investigation was headed off because some powerful people were involved. John Mark Karr's "confession" seems more suspect by the minute. What's he playing at?

Certainly, he's not innocent. He is a pedophile. But is he really guilty of this particular crime? Maybe he was part of the child-sex ring. Maybe he's just a convenient patsy.

The more I look into this case, the more things look bad for the Ramseys. It almost seems like they offered their daughter up as a sacrifice to the rich and powerful in order to gain more status for themselves. I hope that's not the case, but she was found in their own home. What kind of Christmas party was that?

More fascism: Cops arrest a guy trying to get a form to file a complaint against an officer -- Police brutality at its most ironic

These cops apparently don't want this guy to fill out a form. He tries to get the form but is told to wait for a supervisor. Then the cops slam his head against the plexiglass as they arrest him for refusing to bug off. As the video makes clear, the cops violated their own regulations concerning the distribution of said form.



The town in question? The ironically-named Independence, Missouri. Glad I don't live there.

Support Justice! Fuck police brutality! For more information, visit PoliceAbuse.org.

Amazing solo-acoustic cover of Outkast's Hey Ya

It's an awesome cover. Check it out:



Andre 3000 just shit his pants.

Dude's name is Mat Weddle. He's in a band called Obadiah Parker. I hope to see Mat and Andre 3000 perform this song together on stage. What say we try to arrange that via the power of the internet?

Awesome Flash flick: Animator vs Animation

This guy has been using Flash way too long:


Animator vs. Animation by *alanbecker on deviantART

Fascism in the streets: Miami cops shoot peaceful protestors and laugh about it

Check out this YouTube video (crank the sound, especially when the police captain (John Brooks) is speaking to his "troops"):



This is some really sick shit. You call this America? George Orwell's America, maybe. George Bush's Amerika, definitely.

You know, the lady who was shot was carrying a sign saying "FEAR Totalitarianism." The cops proved her point when they shot her while her back was turned. Then they shot her again while she was cowering behind the sign.

Thanks for making it clear, Miami PD: We do live in a totalitarian state. In fact, we live in a terrorist state. Just think if the protestors started shooting rubber bullets back at the cops. The cops would call the protestors terrorists, right? So, if the protestors tactics are terrorism, then it follows logically that the cops are terrorists as well, using their own definition.

Based on the captain's pep speech, the cops considered it a battle, even though "the other side" never fought back or used weapons. This is nothing more or less than fascism in action. It's shameful. Cops are supposed to protect us, not oppress us! The cops are the ones subscribing to an "us versus them" ideology. Certainly their actions will inspire that same ideology in the protestors who witnessed the cops indiscretions. Terrorism begets terrorism.

NSA wiretapping program deemed unconstitutional by federal judge!

Yes! Best news I've heard all day! Think Progress has the scoop:

Fox News reports a federal district court in Detroit has ruled that the Bush administration’s NSA warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.

Hell yeah!! I wonder what the neocons' next move will be. The judge has issued an injunction (pdf) (I'm glad to see James Bamford is one of the plaintiffs).

Only problem is: How will we ever know for sure that they've stopped the program? We didn't know when they started it -- it was revealed only recently. What mechanism do we have for ensuring that the NSA doesn't simply change the name of the program and ignore the judge's order?

The NSA is a rogue agency. We need Congress to crack it wide open and see what it's been hiding all these years.

JonBenet Ramsey's murderer finally caught

I shouldn't even defoul this blog with such news, but here ya go:

In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, John Mark Karr said that he contacted JonBenet's mother, Patsy, before she died of cancer in June to express his remorse for the killing.

"I conveyed to her many things, among them that I am so very sorry for what happened to JonBenet," Karr said as U.S. and Thai authorities escorted him from his Bangkok hotel, where he spent over an hour packing his belongings.

Karr said it was his understanding that Patsy Ramsey read letters that he sent to her. He said JonBenet's death was "an accident."

"It's very important for me that everyone knows that I love her very much and that her death was unintentional," said Karr, who sweated and stuttered occasionally as he spoke in a quiet voice.

Karr, 41, was arrested Wednesday, halfway around the world from Boulder, Colo., where JonBenet's body was found beaten and strangled in her parent's basement on Dec. 26, 1996.

This guy sounds like a sick fucker. He says he loved her -- is that why he drugged, raped and murdered her?

Well, at least this fucking psychopath was finally caught. I can only imagine what the pedophile was doing in Bangkok. Let's hope he didn't "love" any children over there, but that seems a little unlikely.

Does this mean the parents are not guilty?

Well, no. They turned their daughter into a prepubescent pinup, which is what attracted this psycho in the first place. While I don't think they should be jailed, I think they have to look at their own motivations for the whole beauty pageant illusion they draped her in. How much of it was a selfish desire to have the cutest daughter in the world? I'm sure JonBenet loved the attention, but parents are supposed to look out for their kids, not parade them around like a hunk of meat before the lecherous eyes of a million perverts.

Oh, and they should be chained upside-down in a hideous dungeon for naming their daughter "JonBenet." I mean c'mon! Could you be any more pretentious?! Ack!!

Ultimately, though, the crime rests on the shoulders of John Mark Karr. What a fucking tragedy.

UPDATE: Karr was probably a patsy. RigInt has blown this wide open.

What's goin' on? Softball and macaca

What's going on in your world? There's a lot of news out there, but I don't feel like aggregating it today. I could link to stuff like Sen. George Allen's little "macaca" faux paux, but I think you can find it. What a dumbass. And he's pretty clearly a racist; this isn't the first time he's been accused of this sort of thing.

Oh man. So tired. Got up at 5 am today for a client thing. Didn't go well.

The good news is that my softball team won last night. Although I sucked at the bat I managed to get the final out (barely) to allow us to hold onto a narrow victory: 13 to 12. I was fucking stoked. I thought we played really well -- a great way to start the fall season.

By far the coolest way to test your bandwidth that I've ever seen

Visit Speedtest.net to check your bandwidth in style!

It has some very sweet graphics and animation and it allows you to test your connection to various servers all over the world (mostly in US, UK and Australia).

Castro's condition appears to be poor; Cuban leader probably dying

At least that's the gist I took away from this story in the Miami Herald:

Also on Sunday, a statement released in Castro's name strongly hinted that his condition remained serious and his prognosis could be grim.

The statement urged Cubans to ''be optimistic,'' but it also make clear that any recovery would take quite some time and Cubans should prepare themselves ``to confront any adverse news.''

Among older generations of Cubans, the term ''adverse news'' often is used as short-hand for "a death in the family."

So, basically they're saying: he could kick off at any time.

I don't know how to take that news. He might have less than a week in him. What does that mean for Cuba? What does that mean for the United States? A lot is yet to be seen. Castro ruled Cuba absolutely and for over 45 years.

He was brutal, and a dictator, but I can understand his reasons. The U.S. was acting as an imperial power, setting up puppet governments like that of Batista, and generally raping the land and the people. Castro stood up to the U.S., and for that he is a hero to his people and many others, like Hugo Chavez. But like Chavez, Castro is too autocratic. Bost leaders strangle democracy as they spread their power -- and that cannot be forgiven too easily.

It remains to be seen what happens to the Cuban people, but I wish for them the best of both worlds: a government strong enough to repel of U.S. imperialism and tolerant enough to allow democratic freedoms such as fair elections and free speech.

I'm sure the Cubans would appreciate it if the peaceful folk here in the U.S. took back our government from the imperialist, neo-fascist, liars and mass-murderers who currently run the place.

The newest YouTube star (not Brookers) is a 79 year old widower

His name is Peter. Somehow, his videos have caught on and his popularity has shot up to the level that Reuters is now covering his ascent to internet fame.

I'll post one of his videos below. He shows off his video editing skills, along with his love of motorcycles and the blues. He begins a series of videos that tell the story of his life: Telling it all, part 1.

How to create an Army of Zombies to do your bidding

No, this doesn't have anything to do with prime-time television, the Bush administration and the T-virus. But it could.

Instead, it's a medical odyssey involving a poison called Tetrodotoxin, a secret society using the poison on unsuspecting peasants and some hard science:

When Clairvius Narcisse entered the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, he appeared to be suffering from malnutrition, high fever, and aches throughout his body. His condition deteriorated rapidly as he developed respiratory problems, became unresponsive, and then slipped into a coma. Two days later, on May 2, 1962, he was declared dead by two attending physicians. His sister, Angelina, identified the body, and another sister, Marie Claire, authenticated the death certificate by placing her fingerprint on it. The next day Angelina, Marie Claire, and the rest of the family buried Clairvius in a small cemetery near their village of l’Estere. Here the saga of Clairvius Narcisse should have ended, but 18 years later, in 1980, a shuffling, vacant-eyed man approached Angelina in the village marketplace and identified himself as her brother, Clairvius. His family and many villagers recognized him immediately, and he told them a fantastic tale of being dug up from his grave, beaten to his senses, and led away to work as a slave on a remote sugar plantation. Though surprised, the villagers accepted his story because they believed that the power of voodoo magic made such things possible. It was clear to then that Clairvius Narcisse had been a member of the living dead—a zombie.

Okay, you're probably thinking that this is total bullshit by now. But keep reading (and read the whole article) to find out what's really going on here.

Somehow, Narcisse received a dose of the zombie powder. He became ill, went to the hospital, became paralyzed, and “died.” He later said that he was conscious throughout and heard himself pronounced dead. After burial, he was dug up, beaten “to prevent his spirit from reentering his body,” and led away to a distant plantation. According to some accounts, zombies are fed a paste made from datura stramonium—the zombie’s cucumber—that contains tropane alkaloids capable of inducing a psychotic state. Continued doses could keep a zombie confused and docile during his new life as a slave.

In the case of Narcisse, the slave owner died after 18 years, and Narcisse regained his freedom by simply wandering away from the plantation.

Narcisse was smeared with "zombie powder" that appears to come from the puffer fish, or some other source of the tetrodotoxin:

The liver and reproductive organs of the puffer fish contain tetrodotoxin, an extremely powerful nerve poison. Only 0.00000065 g of tetrodotoxin is required to kill an adult, making it about 1000 times more toxic than cyanide.

The effects of tetrodotoxin are well documented in Japan, where the highly prized dish fugu is prepared from the raw flesh of the puffer fish. Chefs must be specially trained and licensed to prepare fugu. Even so, during the 1980s, nearly 200 Japanese diners have paid the ultimate price to satisfy their craving for fugu.

“It is a terrible death,” reports on fugu devotee. “Even though you can think very clearly, your arms and legs become numb and you cannot sit up. You cannot speak, cannot move, and soon cannot breathe.”

Sounds like fun! We'd better make sure the Bush administration doesn't find out about this stuff or we'll start receiving this in the mail with our anthrax letters.

Null & void: An Update on Mexico's contested election

Over at Greg Palast's crib:

Here’s the conundrum: The nation’s tens of thousands of polling stations report to the capital in random order after the polls close. Therefore, statistically, you’d expect the results to remain roughly unchanged as vote totals come in. As expected, AMLO was ahead of the right-wing candidate Calderon all night by an unchanging margin — until after midnight. Suddenly, precincts began reporting wins for Calderon of five to one, the ten to one, then as polling nearly ended, of one-hundred to one.

How odd. I checked my concerns with Professor Victor Romero of Mexico’s National University who concluded that the reported results must have been a “miracle.” As he put it, a “religious event,” but a statistical impossibility. There were two explanations, said the professor: either the Lord was fixing the outcome or operatives of the ruling party were cranking in a massive number of ballots when they realized their man was about to lose.

It's worth checking out this story for the graph alone.

It doesn't look good for Mexico. The TRIFE has only agreed to examine 9% of the ballots cast in the election. This election was stolen right out from under Mexico's nose, and the people know it. But what can they do when the entrenched power structure refuses to relinquish their grip on the government?

Things are not so different here in the U.S. The only problem, as Palast makes clear, is that we don't even have a complete paper ballot record because of electronic voting:

Does this mean US activists should give up on the fight for paper ballots and give in to robo-voting, computerized democracy in a box. [sic] Hell, no! Lopez Obrador has put hundreds of thousands in the street week after week demanding, “voto por voto” — recount every vote. But AMLO’s supporters can only demand a re-count because the paper ballot makes a recount possible. Were Mexico’s elections held on a Diebold special, there would be no way to recount the electrons floating in cyberspace.

When are people going to wake up to the fact that electronic voting cannot be trusted?

Oh well. The elites find a way to win no matter what. They hold all the cards except popular support. I guess there's not much we can do but make it hard for them by bringing out the vote.

As for Mexico, it seems clear to me that this election should be declared "null and void" and a revote scheduled immediately. Will the TRIFE lay it on the line for democracy? We'll have to wait and see.

Iraq Vets mysteriously falling severely ill -- many blame depleted uranium

This sounds absolutely awful. A curse to live with until he dies -- but every day he lives he must wish for death.

It takes at least 10 minutes and a large glass of orange juice to wash down all the pills - morphine, methadone, a muscle relaxant, an antidepressant, a stool softener. Viagra for sexual dysfunction. Valium for his nerves.

Four hours later, Herbert Reed will swallow another 15 mg of morphine to cut the pain clenching every part of his body. He will do it twice more before the day is done.

Since he left a bombed-out train depot in Iraq, his gums bleed. There is more blood in his urine, and still more in his stool. Bright light hurts his eyes. A tumor has been removed from his thyroid. Rashes erupt everywhere, itching so badly they seem to live inside his skin. Migraines cleave his skull. His joints ache, grating like door hinges in need of oil.

There is something massively wrong with Herbert Reed, though no one is sure what it is. He believes he knows the cause, but he cannot convince anyone caring for him that the military's new favorite weapon has made him terrifyingly sick.

Can somebody tell me why we use depleted uranium? Yes, it's extremely dense material, but there are some major drawbacks. Foremost among them is the radioactivity part, coupled with a half-life of 4.5 billion years (which is approximately the current age of our planet).

Reed believes depleted uranium has contaminated him and his life. He now walks point in a vitriolic war over the Pentagon's arsenal of it - thousands of shells and hundreds of tanks coated with the metal that is radioactive, chemically toxic, and nearly twice as dense as lead.

A shell coated with depleted uranium pierces a tank like a hot knife through butter, exploding on impact into a charring inferno. As tank armor, it repels artillery assaults. It also leaves behind a fine radioactive dust with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

Depleted uranium is the garbage left from producing enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and energy plants. It is 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium. The U.S. has an estimated 1.5 billion pounds of it, sitting in hazardous waste storage sites across the country. Meaning it is plentiful and cheap as well as highly effective.

Reed says he unknowingly breathed DU dust while living with his unit in Samawah, Iraq. He was med-evaced out in July 2003, nearly unable to walk because of lightning-strike pains from herniated discs in his spine. Then began a strange series of symptoms he'd never experienced in his previously healthy life.

The article goes on to reveal how he found out about the DU poisoning. He started meeting other people from his unit with the exact same symptoms. Then the Dutch took over their old camp:

Dutch marines had taken over the abandoned train depot dubbed Camp Smitty, which was surrounded by tank skeletons, unexploded ordnance and shell casings. They'd brought radiation-detection devices. The readings were so hot, the Dutch set up camp in the middle of the desert rather than live in the station ruins.

The Dutch were smart. Their lives would be a hellish nightmare like Reed's if they had used Camp Smitty.

The veterans, using their positive results as evidence, have sued the U.S. Army, claiming officials knew the hazards of depleted uranium, but concealed the risks.

The Department of Defense says depleted uranium is powerful and safe, and not that worrisome.

Oh, the DoD says the depleted uranium is safe, eh? Okay, then they won't mind if we store a couple thousand tons of it throughout the Pentagon. Hey, it's safe, right? So why don't we put a few hundred pounds of it the offices of everybody in the Pentagon -- including the generals and Rumsfeld. I wonder how that would go over. Suddenly, they might just change their tune.

It's pretty sick, but the DoD under Rumsfeld simply does not care. He's willing to condemn these soldiers to a shitty lifetime of hell and suffering to achieve his war aims. That's the only thing that matters to the neocons. Soldiers are merely pawns to them.

The term depleted uranium is linguistically radioactive. Simply uttering the words can prompt a reaction akin to preaching atheism at tent revival. Heads shake, eyes roll, opinions are yelled from all sides.

"The Department of Defense takes the position that you can eat it for breakfast and it poses no threat at all," said Steve Robinson of the National Gulf War Resource Center, which helps veterans with various problems, including navigating the labyrinth of VA health care. "Then you have far-left groups that ... declare it a crime against humanity."

I'd like to see Rumsfeld eat a big chunk of DU for breakfast. That would be fucking funny. He already looks like some sort of undead skeleton creature... hmmm.... now that I think about it, maybe I shouldn't encourage him -- he might gain more unholy powers and start shooting lightning bolts out of his empty eye sockets, throwing cars at people and generally scaring the living shit out of all of us.

I think the people who deny the danger of DU must be part of Rumsfeld's Undead Zombie Army -- they know it's dangerous, but they don't give a fuck. It's not like they could honestly believe it's safe and friendly -- we use it in war after all. And what part of "depleted uranium" don't they understand? They know what uranium is, don't they? The depleted part only makes it slightly less radioactive. There are many well-known dangers associated with DU:

There are several studies on how it affects animals, though their results are not, of course, directly applicable to humans. Military research on mice shows that depleted uranium can enter the bloodstream and come to rest in bones, the brain, kidneys and lymph nodes. Other research in rats shows that DU can result in cancerous tumors and genetic mutations, and pass from mother to unborn child, resulting in birth defects.

Iraqi doctors reported significant increases in birth defects and childhood cancers after the 1991 invasion.

Iraqi authorities "found that uranium, which affected the blood cells, had a serious impact on health: The number of cases of leukemia had increased considerably, as had the incidence of fetal deformities," the U.N. reported.

Depleted uranium can also contaminate soil and water, and coat buildings with radioactive dust, which can by carried by wind and sandstorms.

Oh, well good thing there are no sandstorms in Iraq--.... uh, wait a minute. There are! In fact it's a fucking desert!

Man, don't you ever get tired of them lying to us? The neocons pretend to love the soldiers soooo much, but when you turn around and look at how they treat them you see that that can hardly be the case. They love having soldiers at their command. They love using soldiers to conquer their enemies. But do they just love soldiers? Clearly, the answer is "no."

About 30 percent of the 700,000 men and women who served in the first Gulf War still suffer a baffling array of symptoms very similar to those reported by Reed's unit.

Depleted uranium has long been suspected as a possible contributor to Gulf War Syndrome, and in the mid-90s, veterans helped push the military into tracking soldiers exposed to it.

But for all their efforts, what they got in the end was a questionnaire dispensed to homeward-bound soldiers asking about mental health, nightmares, losing control, exposure to dangerous and radioactive chemicals.

But, the veterans persisted, how would soldiers know they'd been exposed? Radiation is invisible, tasteless, and has no smell. And what exhausted, homesick, war-addled soldier would check a box that would only send him or her to a military medical center to be poked and prodded and questioned and tested?

It will take years to determine how depleted uranium affected soldiers from this war. After Vietnam, veterans, in numbers that grew with the passage of time, complained of joint aches, night sweats, bloody feces, migraine headaches, unexplained rashes and violent behavior; some developed cancers.

It took more than 25 years for the Pentagon to acknowledge that Agent Orange - a corrosive defoliant used to melt the jungles of Vietnam and flush out the enemy - was linked to those sufferings.

When the Pentagon's track record is this great, how could I possibly question their motives or their truthfulness?! [/sarcasm]

It almost seems as if the Pentagon wants to have an Agent Orange-type chemical/munition in order to increase the suffering of their own. Hopefully they're not that sick in the head, but I think there is a case to be made for not using a munition on your enemy if there's a good chance that your own forces will be contaminated simply by being in the neighborhood. The military puts a lot of money into training and outfitting these soldiers; it seems reckless and stupid to treat them so poorly.

The Pentagon is like the kid who treats his toys like shit and then complains to Congress/mommy that he needs more money to buy more so he can treat those like shit, too. Let's hope, for the sake of all those soldiers suffering from DU-related ailments, that Congress doesn't bend over backwards for the little brat. But it always does.

Truce in the Mideast!

About time. You see what you can do when you actually try to accomplish something? I feel awful for all those poor civilians and soldiers who died with Bush and the neocons dithered.

Now that the fighting is (hopefully) winding down, we can start looking at the systemic causes.

This is a major victory for peace-loving people, and a major defeat for the war machine. Somehow, I doubt the war machine will take this lying down. They will make sure tempers flare again -- soon. We're still gearing up for Iran, after all.

It's only a matter of time.

Cheney is one sick fucker. He's a goddamn fascist; a satanic, criminal psychopath

And that's about the best thing I can say about him.

I'm sure you've all heard of the alleged plans to bring down 11 or 12 airplanes flying from Britain to the U.S., using liquid explosives. Well, I'm sorry, but I just don't buy it. I'm a cynical bastard, perhaps, but I think this whole story is full of shit. It stinks to high heaven.

Cheney, meanwhile, is standing up for his buddy, Joe "Loser" Lieberman. This is what he had to say, shortly after learning of the supposed terror attack plans:

Vice President Dick Cheney said on Wednesday that one thing he found disturbing about the defeat of Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic primary on Tuesday was that "our adversaries in this conflict, the al Qaeda types, clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people." (Cheney made the comments after he was briefed on the suspected terror plot, according to a senior administration official.)

What the fuck is he talking about? Did he just basically call the voters who chose Ned Lamont "al Qaeda types"? Or is he saying that "Lamont is the al Qeada candidate"? Either way, that's basically slander. Not to mention stupid.

I don't know if Cheney is aware that 60% of Americans polled recently said that we should begin troop withdrawals by the end of the year, but that the type of thing he should be aware of. So are 60% of Americans traitors? According to Cheney, yes.

You know, the neocons are always very quick to accuse anyone who disagrees with them of being a traitor. But we have a saying where I come from that goes, "Whoever smelt it, dealt it." Referring to farting, of course (this isn't the fucking NY Times). And I think that, crude as it is, it's often very correct. It is the neocons who are the traitors.

We are engaged in a war for the very soul of our great nation. These are dangerous times, and if we don't choose our fate wisely we will end up being ruled by a small cadre of psychotic fascists who use terror to achieve their political and financial goals. The neocons are evil, and somehow they've taken over our country. We have to get it back.

This story is but one small example of the lengths that the neocons will go to in order to hold onto their ill-gotten power. They will slander over half the nation, imply that anyone who disagrees with them is a "far-left extremist traitor" and cynically exploit terror threats to usurp more federal power.

We would not be in this situation if the media was doing it's job. This blog probably would not exist if the media was reliable and aggressive in its pursuit of truth. But it's not. The mainstream media has failed us again and again. They are failing us again today by not questioning the government's claims more aggressively.

Don't believe everything the government says. The government is utterly controlled by the evil neocons. It's time people wake up to that fact and vote accordingly.

Incredible photo: tungsten needle captured by a field ion microscope (FIM)

You know what the fucking sweet part is? You see those glowing red things that look like little marbles? Those are fucking atoms!!

Totally sweet, eh? Check out this page for a bigger view and more information.

U.S. Drug Czar John Walters Wants Random Drug Testing, Fascism in All Schools

[digg] America's drug tsar raised the stakes on drug testing in schools yesterday, suggesting that it could come to be seen as normal required and "responsible behaviour" in the same way that some US schools routinely test all pupils for tuberculosis.

read more | digg story [/digg]

Yes, but they don't arrest the students who test positive for tuberculosis. What an idiotic thing to say. There's more idiocy:

Mr Walters said cannabis use was not just a matter of personal choice and the expression of freedom in the same way as a preference for clothes and hairstyles. "We're still living as if substance abuse is a fashion statement," he said.

Taking a strong line against marijuana was "not being judgmental but showing that we care".

In other news: down is up, freedom is slavery and war is peace.

So by "care" he means "ruin the student's life", right?

Caring for him seems to involve random, unconstitutional, invasive searches of bodily fluids, a draconian, fear-based atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust, combined with a desire to put people in jail for as long as murderers because they may have used a plant that grows freely across the world. Am I getting this correctly?

Man, I would hate to be Walter's kid.

His string of sheer stupidity continues into the land of awful analogies:

The US policies were based on scientific evidence - some of it from the UK - that cannabis was linked to psychosis and schizophrenia. "We have a particular problem of our attitudes towards cannabis which hinders policy and hinders people going into treatment," he said.

"The attitude is that it's only marijuana. It doesn't help if your kids are playing Russian roulette that they are using a smaller calibre weapon."

This is some grade A bullshit, folks. As the Drug Czar he (probably) knows that cannabis is entirely non-fatal. It can't kill you. When you overdose on it, you fall asleep and wake up with a headache. Aspirin, meanwhile, can kill you. Alcohol kills you. Cigs kill you. Cannabis does not. In fact, the only way to die from cannabis is to get several hundred pounds of it, pack it up tight, suspend it from a height, and drop it on your head. In other words: blunt force.

Before I move on, notice where he talks about treatment in the quote above. Now, let's proceed to his next quote wherein he reveals even more hypocrisy:

Permitting such harm reduction measures gave the impression that "society allows a stance of it's OK to be an addict", he said.

Oh, I get it. Being an addict is bad and you should be arrested!! But what about treatment? Oh, maybe Walter's idea of treatment is spending 10 years in jail. How compassionate. Most sane, non-hateful people are gravitating to the idea of addiction as disease/disorder. The D.C. Establishment is the only group of people I know of pushing the idea of addict as criminal.

Quite frankly, Walters doesn't really have to make sense. Nobody really listens to him and it's not his job to make logical, coherent arguments. He's just an ideological attack dog. His job is to viciously defend the position staked out by his masters, much like how a junkyard dog guards his turf. The dog doesn't ask why and neither does Walters.

Of course, if you've been reading this blog, you know why: The CIA. If drugs aren't illegal the CIA won't be able to make the obscene profits necessary to fund its black ops. Drugs smuggling is only worth your time if drugs are a valuable commodity. If drugs are legal, they monetary value will drop by 90%, easy.

So we can thank the CIA for making it necessary to have a Drug Czar, who has turned around and endorsed mandatory drug testing for every single student. This guy might've heard of the "presumption of innocence" but obviously he didn't like the idea much. I also suspect that he's not a big fan of the 4th amendment. It's so much easier to rule people when everyone's treated like a potential criminal.

Goddamn Fascist.

Kiss him Goodbye: Lieberman Loses Democratic Primary to Ned Lamont in Connecticut

What happened to his "Joe-mentum"?

Lieberman is a sniveling Bush toady and he deserved to lose for that fact alone. His support for the War in Iraq is just more reason to kick him out.

It's actually an extremely rare event to kick a sitting senator out of his seat in a primary -- incumbancy re-election rates approach 98%. Joe must've really pissed some people off.

The AP has apparently called the primary in Lamont's favor, meaning Joe is being forced to make good on his threat to bolt the Democratic party (but I thought he looooved the Democrats so much!! [snort]) and run as an independent.

He could win as an independent, but I suspect that his partisan friends will pressure him to withdraw. I don't really see Lieberman as an independent -- he needs a circle of allies around him. I think he would do much better to join the Republican Party. Not that I would suggest that to anyone I didn't hate, but Joe and the Republicans are perfect together.

As for Lamont and the Democrats -- meh. We'll see if he can get elected to the Senate. I would like to see the Democrats start nailing Bush's balls to the wall, but I have my doubts. The Democrats are infested and corrupted with the same corporate dollar that the Republicans are. You can't truth either of them. And if Joe's an independent, that just proves you can't trust certain independents either.

In fact, an honest man has practically zero chance of ever getting elected.

Is it any wonder I'm cynical and depressed about the state of affairs in this country? We need another revolution.

Bush's poll numbers among the youth are extremely low

I'm talkin' 20 percent approval. More stats from the Bloomberg poll:

A Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll of Americans age 18 to 24 found Bush's approval rating was 20 percent, with 53 percent disapproving and 28 percent with no opinion. That compares to a 40 percent approval rating among Americans of all ages in a separate Bloomberg/Times poll.

... [snip] ...

For example, 26 percent of those age 18 to 24 who consider themselves religious approve of the job Bush is doing, compared with 12 percent of those who say they are non-religious. The poll surveyed 811 adults aged 18-24 and 839 minors aged 12-17. It was taken June 23 to July 2 and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

If early indications are a guide, Bush and the Republicans also have a challenge with the next wave of young voters. The poll found his approval rating was 21 percent among those age 12 to 17, with 44 percent disapproving and 35 percent having no opinion.

Hahahahaaaaa!!! Man, Bush can't even fool the fucking 12-year olds! Hahahahaaa... Oh man. That's too funny. Those are some looooow numbers. 12 percent of nonreligious 18-24ers approve of Bush. 12 percent! That's barely more than a fucking rounding error!

Glad to see the younger generation has Bush figured out. Too bad a bunch of the older folks haven't caught on yet. 40 percent seems high, actually; most of the polls I've seen indicated mid 30s at best and low 30s at worst.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter to -- certainly not to Bush. He's gonna do what he's gonna do. And the American public is too fat and lazy to rise up against their corporate oppressors, so that's not an issue. We'll just continue to take his shit. We can be all united in hatred of him, but it doesn't really matter.

I guess if we lived in a democracy, it might. But democracy is largely a sham in this country. Politicians don't go after democracy -- they go after votes! And votes can be pried from the voter in any number of ways, legal and otherwise. Once your political machine is no longer a hotrod, but a planet-sized monster like the Republican party, it's not really about democracy, it's about sucking votes into your octopus-like apparatus. Democracy, like freedom, is just something you talk to voters about. We don't live in a democracy; we live in a constitutional republic that has been taken over by dark forces.

I don't think the 12 to 17 year olds really understand the fact that we've had a de-facto coup by "moneyed interests". But I think a growing number of people -- especially the young -- are beginning to understand that:

• The system is rigged.
• Bush is a puppet.
• We are utterly owned by corporations.
• Money is the only thing that matters to most people.
• We're destroying our world and making a handsome profit doing it.
• TV is full of shit.
• They're not telling us everything.
• Politicians are professional liars.
• The Market is just gambling that's government sponsored/approved.
• If you refuse to play by the rules, the system will fuck you.
• More war, chaos and bullshit are on the way.

...And things are not always as they seem.

Power Wars - Republicans using fake "Legalize Marijuana" campaign to trick voters

Title says it all. Here's the story from the Central Valley IndyMedia:

As I’m filling out my name and address on the petition I notice that the young lady is filling out a very official looking form. Probably just the ballot initiative form, I think to myself. Then, she says "is it OK if I register you as a Republican?" "What?!?" I say "yes, I do mind! What are you doing?" She says that if I register Republican she will get an extra 10 cents. But, I complain, "I don’t want to re-register." She explains that this is just to update the records for the County Clerks office. I repeat that "I do not want or need to update my records." I am repeatedly told that it is OK and that they just want to update my voter registration records. She also tells me that she is working for the Republican party, being paid hourly, and that the ploy about the "10 cent bonus" was not accurate.

This Republican party employee goes on to tell me that she is there to attract people to the table that is set up in Fresno’s Courthouse Park, and that the legalize marijuana petition is just a prop. She confirmed that there is no ballot initiative to legalize marijuana. She said that the petition will be given to an elected official in Sacramento. I have my doubts about that.

Man, who can you trust when the Republican Party lets you down? [snort!] [snort!]

It looks like the Republicans are desperately using every trick in the book to make people register as Republicans so that their electoral ploys this November will look more plausible. I'll keep an eye for any of these fake campaigns in my neck of the woods.

At least the Republicans know how popular their drug policy is; which is to say, not at all! Both parties remain committed to the continuation of the failed War on Drugs, despite its unpopularity with voters. Gee, sounds a bit like Iraq, doesn't it?

These ideological wars aren't waged because they're popular -- though they may be at the start -- they are waged to serve as a distraction and a power amplification conduit. The distraction part is obvious, but the power conduit part is less recognized. These wars transfer massive amounts of political, financial and military power to certain people within the government; that is the point of these wars. Bush/Cheney's wartime expansion of executive power is the prototypical example for this type of power amplification, and it is repeated down the chain of command, at least where it's relevant. The Dept. of Education hasn't gained much power from the War in Iraq. But the Drug Czar, the FBI, DEA and the CIA have all benefitted hugely from the War on Drugs.

Of course, the fact that the War on Drugs and the War in Iraq don't make sense from a rational point of view also constitutes an unanncounced War on Logic. Many of the neocons' statements seem to portend an upcoming War on Reality. We can only guess at what comes after that. Perhaps a War on Everybody is in the works?

Before that war, we've got a series of additional wars that need waging. The War on Syria and the long-awaited War on Iran are coming down the pipeline shortly. What other wars will we need after that? Well, perhaps a War on Every Other Islamic Nation will be needed because I suspect they will assume they're next even if they aren't. And who can blame them? We've been invading Islamic nations for awhile now. If we go into Iran and Syria that will make 4 that we've taken out in the last half-decade.

War, war, war!! It's a dirty business, but it hasn't to be waged, doesn't it?

Well, what about the power amplification conduit I mentioned earlier? What about the incredible amount of power we've transferred to the Pentagon, the White House, NSA, CIA and all the corporations helping them wage the war? Doesn't it seem clear that they are addicted to power? They constantly need more of it. They feed, but they're still hungry. More power!

When does it end?

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. It ends with the War on Everybody.

Official Sept. 11th story falling apart: Widows slam 9/11 Commission on NORAD; Questions about War Games surface

A group of 9/11 widows are demanding a full and independent investigation into the crimes of September 11th after new allegations reveal that the Kean 9/11 Commission suspected that they were being deceived by the Pentagon. The 9/11 widows released a withering statement criticizing the Kean Commission for not properly investigating the attack from all angles:

"Recent stories in the Washington Post, the New York Times, as well as the release of the transcripts of the NORAD tapes in Vanity Fair, clearly show that the 9/11 Commission failed in its duties," says the widows' statement.

"Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate," reported Dan Eggan for The Washington Post.

"As one of its last acts before disbanding, in July 2004, the 9/11 commission made referrals to the inspector general's offices of both the Department of Transportation (which includes the F.A.A.) and the Defense Department to further investigate whether witnesses had lied," wrote Michael Bronner for Vanity Fair.

In light of these reports, the 9/11 widows "question the veracity of the entire Commission’s report."

"The fact that the Commission did not see fit to tie up all loose ends in their final report or to hold those who came before them accountable for lying and/or making misleading statements puts into question the veracity of the entire Commission’s report," the widows write.

"Furthermore, the lack of tenacity and curiosity, by the Commissioners themselves, to determine why NORAD had deceived them is unconscionable," the statement continues. "Knowing full well that the lack of military response was such a critical failure, begs the question of whether that same lack of tenacity and curiosity was applied to other critical areas of the 9/11 investigation."

Indeed. The 9/11 Omission Commission stank from day 1. For one thing, "day 1" was over a year after the attacks. The Bush administration stalled for over 400 days before finally backing down. The 9/11 Widows are probably the only reason we even got an investigation. The Bush Regime showed a distinct lack of curiosity and tenacity, too.

And of course, they initially wanted to have Henry Kissinger lead the Commission, which is a bit like having Joseph Goebbels lead the Nuremberg Trials. Luckily, Goebbels was dead by then. It's a shame we can't say the same about the war-criminal Kissinger.

The 9/11 Widows have exposed a progressive crumbling of the official story. I would say that that the official conspiracy (remember: the official story is a conspiracy theory, too. It states that 19 al-Qaeda members conspired to orchestrate the attacks) is in tatters. It's being attacked from all angles because it doesn't make any sense.

The 9/11 Commission looks increasingly like part of a massive coverup. The Commission knew that they were being lied to by somebody, but did they bother to follow up and demand the truth? According to the Washington Post, they dithered about it for awhile and then passed the buck:

Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources. Staff members and some commissioners thought that e-mails and other evidence provided enough probable cause to believe that military and aviation officials violated the law by making false statements to Congress and to the commission, hoping to hide the bungled response to the hijackings, these sources said.

In the end, the panel agreed to a compromise, turning over the allegations to the inspectors general for the Defense and Transportation departments, who can make criminal referrals if they believe they are warranted, officials said.

"We to this day don't know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us," said Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey Republican governor who led the commission. "It was just so far from the truth. . . . It's one of those loose ends that never got tied."

Although the commission's landmark report made it clear that the Defense Department's early versions of events on the day of the attacks were inaccurate, the revelation that it considered criminal referrals reveals how skeptically those reports were viewed by the panel and provides a glimpse of the tension between it and the Bush administration.

Tension? The Bush administration was tense before they even created the Commission. They were dragged, kicking and screaming into it. So yeah, there was tension there. The same kinda tension that a murderer feels when the cops are getting uncomfortably close.

A new level of tension must be ratcheting up over in the Bush White House as magazines like Vanity Fair creep closer to the truth and reveal dangerous amount of truth to a public that is starting to wake up to the serious questions that have been posed (mostly online) about the attacks of September 11th.

I wonder how many Americans are aware of the 5+ war games that were being played out on 9/11, many of which included simulated hijackings. At least one of these war games involved putting false blips on the screens of FAA air-traffic controllers. This led to incredible confusion not only at the FAA, but also at NORAD and NEADS (Northeast Air Defense Sector):

For the NEADS crew, 9/11 was not a story of four hijacked airplanes, but one of a heated chase after more than a dozen potential hijackings—some real, some phantom—that emerged from the turbulence of misinformation that spiked in the first 100 minutes of the attack and continued well into the afternoon and evening. At one point, in the span of a single mad minute, one hears Nasypany struggling to parse reports of four separate hijackings at once. What emerges from the barrage of what Nasypany dubs "bad poop" flying at his troops from all directions is a picture of remarkable composure. Snap decisions more often than not turn out to be the right ones as commanders kick-start the dormant military machine. It is the fog and friction of war live—the authentic military history of 9/11.

Once you realize that there were multiple simultaneous war-games on 9/11, some involving hijackings and others which diverted our air defense to other sectors, certain questions arise... Questions that may cause Americans to wonder if this was all some amazing coincidence or if something darker was involved. One has to wonder if Al-Qaeda has moles within the Defense Department, the CIA, FEMA, the National Reconnaissance Office, the Justice Department, and the City of New York. Oh and somehow the NSA, the FBI and the CIA would have to be totally unaware of that fact.

That seems a bit unlikely.

I'm not going to jump to any conclusions for you, but I will give you a list of the War Games of September 11th for your googling pleasure:

Northern Vigilance
Northern Guardian
Vigilant Guardian
Vigilant Warrior
TRIPOD II

And there was an exercise involving the NRO and the CIA which evacuated NRO offices. Apparently it involved a plane crashing into a building. Hmm...

If you want to know more about the war games on 9/11, check out Michael Ruppert's site for volumnous additional info, and a finger pointed at the man most likely responsible:

Dick Cheney.

More funny videos of cats doing stupid crap

This is what the internet is for, right? That cat that chased the bear has some huge balls. Kitty thinks he's a puma!

Sorry for the lack of updates

Been really busy lately. I have some potentially big news, but nothing that will concern 99% of you. Just tryin' to get by.

Life is very weird sometimes.... and no, I shan't elaborate. :-)

Fidel Castro in surgery - says he's in stable condition

Fidel Castro underwent surgery today, adding to the general sense of unease in the world. He is reportedly doing fine after surgery and in good spirits.

Fidel handed power over to his brother Raul during the operation.

What will Cuba be like after Fidel is gone? Only time will tell. Castro is 79 (soon to be 80) and in pretty decent shape for a guy his age. He's a brutal dictator, but at the same time, he's got a point about the U.S. wanting to swallow his country whole.

What does Fate have in store for us? I guess we watch and wait.