Let us be grateful to people who make us happy:
They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
– Marcel Proust
They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
– Marcel Proust
Recent Posts
- Day Five: The Fascist Regime Came for the Inspectors General
- Day Four: Fascist Regime Comes for the Transgendered and Native Americans
- Day Three: Fascist Regime Assaulted Health Information and Agencies
- Day Two: Fascist Regime Shuts Down Spanish Language White House Website
- Day One: Fascist Regime Gets Laken Riley Act
aknowledges how convenient it is that they have access to reporters phone records ABC
Yep, if the news reporters actually report anything remotely like real news, they can expect to be tracked down and punished for it…and I don;t think it’s limited to just looking at the phone records, do you?
I hope that these revelations keep coming. This drip, drip of bombshells is finally sinking in with the American people, I think. It’s to the point that you can’t believe one word the Bush Admin utters. If the next revelation is that all internet activity is also monitored (and we all know it is), it will follow that they are also tracking work history, medical records and eventually DNA, biometric identity cards, and maybe tracking implants. If that doesn’t make a person nervous, then they are braindead. Whether it’s enough to jog the media into reporting the truth remains to be seen.
Apparently Karl and Laura have been living in the same bubble: AP/Yahoo
So, Rove expects people to fall for this crap? People like the president and all his lies, law breaking, and corrupt cronies, it’s just this pesky little war thing bringing him down? WTF?
And the AP is happy to disseminate this stuff…
Looking more and more like it’s going to be on the ballot come November: WashPo
Good for them.
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In a press conference, Ayaan has divulged her decision to step down as Dutch member of parliament.
Many reasons for her decision:
See my diary :: Ayaan Hirsi Ali Steps Down as Dutch MP
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
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For the first time since losing power in December 2001, the Taliban has publicly executed a convicted murderer. Speaking from an undisclosed location, a Taliban spokesman told ABC News that the condemned murderer was executed in the presence of a large number of people in the town of Gizab in the Urozgan province. The prisoner was killed by gunshots fired by a relative of his victim.
[snip]
The spokesman said the execution shows the level of Taliban control in Urozgan. There the Taliban has the power to arrest and try criminals and publicly implement decisions of its Shariah courts.
The one trick pony media can’t seem to concentrate long enough to report on how Afghanistan is slipping back under Taliban control. Another day, another failed state, another Bush failure.
Redirecting the Mississippi River has been proposed as a way of restoring sediments to depleted, eroding wetlands and providing better protection to New Orleans from hurricanes, but additional study is needed to determine the best way in which to do so.
Democrats on the House Science Committee said Monday they want the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a deputy undersecretary of Commerce removed from their jobs due to their gross mismanagement of a major weather satellite program. At issue is the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, or NPOESS, the next generation of civilian/military weather forecasting spacecraft. Legislators in both political parties consider the project a financial disaster. In March 2005, NPOESS was budgeted at $6.8 billion, but current cost estimates have ballooned to $13.8 billion. NOAA’s entire annual budget is $4 billion. NPOESS also is at least three years behind its targeted year for becoming operational: 2009. NPOESS is intended to provide accurate forecasts up to seven days in advance.
Global warming has had a more devastating effect on some of the world’s finest coral reefs than previously assumed, suggests the first report to show the long-term impact of sea temperature rise on reef coral and fish communities. “Reefs can sometimes recover after disturbances, but we have shown that after severe bleaching events, collapse in the physical structure of the reef results in profound impacts on other organisms in the ecosystem and greatly impedes the likelihood of recovery,” researchers said. “Unfortunately it may be too late to save many of these reefs but this research shows the importance of countries tackling greenhouse gas emissions and trying to reduce global warming and its effect on some of the world’s finest and most diverse wildlife.”
The Supreme Court sided with the environment over electric power Monday, ruling that state regulators may require a steady flow of water over power dams to benefit fish and kayakers. The unanimous decision holds that states may protect the health of their rivers, even though hydroelectric dams are regulated exclusively by the federal government. And the Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will review a controversial federal court ruling that environmentalists had said would weaken pollution-control requirements for aging power stations across the country. In a one-line order, the justices said they will hear Environmental Defense’s appeal of a June 2005 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, based in Richmond, which said that Duke Energy Corp., a North Carolina utility, could operate refurbished power plants even though their total annual emissions would go up.
A large region of central Hungary is turning into desert as a result of irrational communist planning and climate change, threatening the livelihood of 300,000 people, an expert advising government said. Wetlands and lakes were drained to increase the area available for agriculture, but the porous sandy soils do not retain moisture and groundwater levels have dropped dramatically.
Three major hurricanes will strike the United States this year, with the storm-battered Gulf Coast most at risk in June and July, the forecasting firm AccuWeather predicted Monday.
Spawn of Satan Speaks! The long-simmering feud between national environmental groups and Rep. Richard Pombo, R-CA, has spilled onto the powerful House committee chairman’s Web site. Environmentalists contend Pombo is improperly torching his political adversaries and spreading lies on the committee’s taxpayer-funded Web pages. “Propaganda is legal,” said Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope, “but the taxpayers shouldn’t be paying for it.” House rules bar the use of political material on its Web sites. But regulators typically define “political” as a plea for votes rather than contentious policy debates. As long as the site doesn’t use the magic words, “Vote for me,” it’s unlikely to run afoul of the law, said ethics expert Bob Stern at the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles.
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TAKING Basra was unexpectedly easy for the British army during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
[snip]
It is hard to think of a starker contrast with the murderous hostility which the British military faces in the city today.
The RAF Lynx helicopter shot down last week by a shoulder-launched missile is a stark illustration of how bad the situation has become. When troops rushed to retrieve the bodies of their five comrades, they were showered with stones and abuse. This is now the norm. British troops who once kept the peace in Basra now seldom venture outside their garrisons. They use helicopters as air taxis; it is too dangerous for them to travel by road. This, not the events of April 2003, marks the fall of Basra.
In Prime Minister Tony Blair’s parallel universe, the loss of the Lynx and its crew was an “isolated incident” that has been “magnified” by the media (to use the words scripted for Des Browne, the new Defence Secretary). Indeed Mr Blair would have us believe that Basra is stable enough for troops to begin their withdrawal from southern Iraq. Last week, we were told the Iraqi security forces were now 250,000 strong, with 150,000 in the army. What coalition propagandists did not tell us – though everybody knows it to be so – that within these figures lie thousands of militiamen in uniform, waiting for the time when coalition troops leave and they can start the business of fighting each other in civil war.
Wow. The British media has more balls than their US weenie counterparts.
Juan Cole has more on the fall of Basra:
Al-Zaman/ AFP report that the security situation in Basra has collapsed in the wake of the killing by persons dressed as Iraqi policemen of Shaikh Hasan Jarih al-Karamishi, the head of the al-Karamisha tribe in Basra. Firefights subsquently broke out in several districts of the city at a time of political vacuum in the central government.
[snip]
Al-Zaman’s sources told it that Basra is in chaos and dominated by militias and lawless gangs. Automobiles with darkened windows cruise the streets, armed militiamen within, who impose their law on the city. These sources blamed Kuwait and Iran for the situation, alleging that their intelligence services are funding and arming the Iraqi militias for their own purposes. Tribal firefights between the Marsh Arab Al-Bait Sa’idah tribe and the Bani Mansur are common– as is fighting between Bani Ammar and Al-`Ashur. The sources say that Basra is without authority save that of the militiamen. The major political parties are unable to dampen down the violence because they are so divided against one another.
Basra is boiling these days and tempers run hot, with highs of 106 degrees Fahrenheit (41 C.). It gets no electricity for most of the day, especially in the al-Hayaniyah and Abu al-Khasib districts, where there are demonstrations every evening against the lack of services.
Juan Cole has long since ceased to ponder whether there is a civil war going on in Iraq; he now reports daily on that civil war. Iraq continues to deteriorate, there is still no government formed, and Iran and Turkey are on the northern Kurdistan border ready to fight the PKK. (The PKK is based in Northern Iraq and has been making trouble in the Kurdish areas of those countries)
Iraq is a mess.
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WASHINGTON D.C. (WaPo) May 16 — The United States is banning U.S. arms sales to Venezuela because officials believe that country’s leftist government is not being helpful in combating terrorism, the State Department said yesterday.
The decision to impose the embargo resulted from “a hard-eyed assessment of whether or not a country is cooperating with the United States in fighting terrorism,” said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. “And in this case, the answer came back no.”
He said the administration was particularly uneasy about Venezuela’s close relations with Iran and Cuba, which the United States considers state supporters of terrorism.
Venezuela also is proceeding with plans to purchase 33 military helicopters from Russia, including 10 gunships, as well as a Chinese-made defense communications network, Jane’s Defence Weekly reported last month. Its air force is considering buying an unspecified number of Sukhoi Su-25 ground-attack jets, the trade publication said.
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(Mail&Guardian Online) May 16 — The US claimed that a €1.3-billion arms deal with Chávez, who is a vocal supporter of Cuba’s Fidel Castro and a fierce critic of the Bush administration, could destabilise the region. The deal, due to be signed in Caracas on Monday, includes four coastal patrol ships, four corvettes, 10 C-295 transport planes and two maritime surveillance planes. It would be a massive boost to Spain’s ailing shipyard industry and to the rest of its defence industry.
● London: Meet President Chavez – He calls Bush ‘Hitler’ and Blair ‘the pawn’.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
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Skeletor Strikes:
On the occasion of President Bush’s announcement he will post the National Guard along the southern U.S. border, CQ’s Patrick Yoest finds this gem — DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff pooh-poohing the idea less than six months earlier on the O’Reilly Factor:
“Well, the National Guard is really, first of all, not trained for that mission,” Chertoff told O’Reilly. “I mean, the fact of the matter is the border is a special place. There are special challenges that are faced there.”
Chertoff added that that it would take a huge amount of National Guard troops, that they would need new training. But couldn’t the National Guard pull it off, O’Reilly asked?
“I think it would be a horribly over-expensive and very difficult way to manage this problem,” Chertoff said. “Unless you would be prepared to leave those people in the National Guard day and night for month after month after month, you would eventually have to come to grips with the challenge in a more comprehensive way.”
I guess Skeletor thought that no one would notice this. Unbelievable! This is from TPMMuckraker, who always have the dirt.
The CNN channels have been doing their usual administration ass-kissing this morning. Robin Meade once referred to last night’s speech as a “rare” foray into prime time, ignoring the dozens of such speeches Bush has given in the last year.
More importantly , CNN and Headline News have repeatedly touted a poll they ran last night showing the percentage of people who agreed with Bush’s position on immigration went from 42% to 67% after they saw him speak. From the way they’re talking, you would think just about everyone agrees with the President on this rather than the other way around.
I’m getting extremely sick of these insta-push-polls designed to frame the discussion on issues. Time/Warner is a huge corporation, and trying to influence the public in favor of the position that is most financially advantageous to their bottom line is a complete abdication of the principles of journalism. Scumbags.
Here’s a little gem from the desert
Could be a trend. A new auto-repair shop’s just opened here in our mountain valley, to draw business from the overpriced, Republican-owned shop (of questionable integrity) that’s long been our only pro resource.
The name? T & A (for ‘true & accurate’).
That is hilarious.
It is shit like this that turns my stomach inside out. I have to pass on the fact that these ppl are saying shit such as this. Talk about lying and evil ppl!!!!!!!!!!!! This is why I am in a pissed mood here today and at my house…I guess I will have to delete them all when they show up in my mail box…otherwise I will be a nonhuman for reading shit such as this on a daily basis…How I distrust the other party!!!!!!!!!
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Our immigration system is broken. And we need your help to fix it.
In his address to the nation last night, President Bush showed the way to getting real results on this difficult issue. We need your help today to stand up in support of the President’s bold plan. Sign the petition and call your Senators and Representatives to demand immediate action on comprehensive immigration reform.
Our nation faces a long-term problem that requires a long-term solution. As the President outlined, America needs real reform that includes:
Dramatic increases in manpower and technology at the border
A system of controlled, temporary, and legal entry into the United States that meets our economic needs and relieves the pressure of illegal immigration at the border. No amnesty.
Holding employers who hire illegal immigrants accountable, with beefed-up ID requirements – no excuses.
Harry Reid and Senate Democrats have played partisan politics and resisted these basic reform principles and have attempted to block border security legislation at every turn. Every day of Reid’s obstruction is one more day with a broken system that isn’t working.
Sign our petition to demand solutions, not politics. And call your Senators and Representatives to tell them that you support the President’s plan for real border security.
America is a nation of laws. We are also a welcoming nation, one that moves forward confidently in the tradition of Ronald Reagan, who called America a “shining city on the hill” with the doors “open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.” There is no contradiction between these American values. Together, we will secure the border and welcome those who wish to come here legally and build a better life.
This is a decisive moment. The time for action on immigration reform is now.
Sincerely,
Ken Mehlman
Chairman, Republican National Committee
Republican National Committee
310 First Street, SE | Washington, DC 20003
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