Too little, too late...

By Layla Anwar

We have a popular saying in Iraq and it goes this way "Ba'ad Kharaab Al-Basra"??!!How to translate that? Literally it means "After the destruction of Basra" ?!Kharaab comes from the verb kharraba, which means to destroy something that worked before, to irreparably damage it...Kharban-the adjective, means damaged, rotten, not functional, not working, failed...Simply put, kharraba means to screw up something so badly, rendering it useless...So this proverb is used when someone comes along with either an admission, an apology, or to rectify some wrong after colossal damage has been inflicted...So you tell the person in Iraqi "What's the use, after the destruction of Basra?!"In the same vein, the latest admissions from Mc Lellan ex-press spokesman for the White House and from other media voices like this CNN reporter, who both finally admitted that their reporting on Iraq, was "less than candid". In other words they fucking lied...The CNN reporter added that they were "forced" to report in a particular fashion that was not detrimental to your government's image.Excuse me, but am I supposed to feel better now or what ?For 5 fucking years, no for 18 years, you've been buying the lies and suddenly you admit that it was "less than candid" and am supposed to feel OK with it ?Like what do you expect me to do? Rush and embrace you for your "honesty"? Or maybe you expect me to forget our ruined lives and our filled to the brim graves ?Or maybe being the fucking hypocrites that you are, you expect me to say "well after all, there are some good people left in America. It's not their fault really, they were forced..."Oh, the bullshit! Oh, your bullshit that knows no limits. Oh, you compulsive liars, bad faith, deceitful, dishonest lot !You did the same thing in Vietnam. After over 10 years of murder and mayhem, you took to the streets with your flowers and peace signs and cried about "poor" Vietnam.It took you 10 fucking years. And you only moved your big fat asses after your brave boys came back in body bags and you could not stop the counting.All throughout the 10 years, the pictures of the napalm burned kids did not move you, oh no they did not...you were too busy singing in Woodstock thinking you're so fucking cool...when you were and are nothing but a screwed up bunch of mental retards and morons...And do you think you learned anything ? Nothing. You learned nothing and you will never learn. You only learn the hard way, when you get your asses kicked big time and people start talking your language. This is when you open those rotten ears of yours and listen.The problem with you people and I've experienced over and over, you mistake the words and demeanor of basic human civility for weakness. You know nothing about civility or civilization, you understand only one language - violence. Because that is the only language you are proficient at.And I being a "good Muslim", I follow the saying of our Prophet who said "talk to people in the language they understand".So you come now and tell us that the whole thing was dishonest? "After Kharaab Al-Basra"? Ya awlad al Kalb - sons of dogs. But dogs are too noble to be compared to you. You are less than dogs. Less than animals. Less...much less. You are scum and vermin. God, I fucking hate your hypocrisy ya awlad al sharmoota - you sons of whores.You sons of a thousand whores, will your fucking Mc Lellan or your CNN marry the 3 million widows ? Or feed the 5 million orphans ? Or bring back the 5 million refugees home ? Or heal our cancer patients from your criminal weapons of mass destruction? Or grow a limb and an eye back to the 1000's lost, from your bombs ? Or maybe your admission will revive the 1 million plus, dead ? Or restore our 7'000 years old archaeological sites, homes, buildings, fields, infrastructure, electricity and water ? Or maybe you short lived fake, phony meaculpa will disarm the sectarian pathological turbaned shits who are ruling us now-thanks to you ?I am too angry to finish this post...and there is nothing left to finish...you bastards. I hate your fucking guts all of you.

Smokey says "Yes, we can!"

For His Treatment of Children in the ‘War on Terror,’ Bush Is a War Criminal

By Dave Lindorff22/05/08 "Commondreams" -- - Surely nothing that President Bush has done in his two wretched terms of office — not the invasion and destruction of Iraq, not the overturning of the five-centuries-old tradition of habeas corpus, not his authorization and encouragement of torture, not his campaign of domestic spying — nothing, can compare in its ugliness as his approval, as commander in chief, of the imprisoning of over 2500 children.According to the US government’s own figures, that is how many kids 17 years and younger have been held since 2001 as “enemy combatants” — often for over a year, and sometimes for over five years. At least eight of those children, some reportedly as young as 10, were held at Guantanamo. They even had a special camp for them there: Camp Iguana. One of those kids committed suicide at the age of 21, after spending five years in confinement at Guantanamo. (Ironically and tragically, that particular victim of the president’s criminal policy, had been determined by the Pentagon to have been innocent only two weeks before he took his own life, but nobody bothered to tell him he was slated for release and a return home to Afghanistan.)I say Bush’s behavior is criminal because since 1949, under the Geneva Conventions signed and adopted by the US, and incorporated into US law under the Constitution’s supremacy clause, children under the age of 15 are classed as “protected persons,” and even if captured while fighting against US forces are to be considered victims, not POWs. In 2002, the Bush administration signed an updated version of that treaty, raising the “protected person” age to all those “under 18.”Treaties don’t mean much to this president, to the vice president, or to the rest of the administration, but they should mean something to the rest of us.But capturing and imprisoning children isn’t even the worst of this president’s war crimes when it comes to the abuse of the young. Under Bush’s leadership as commander in chief, the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan has been considering any male child in Iraq of age 14 or older to be a potential combatant. They have been treated accordingly — shot by US troops, imprisoned as “enemy combatants,” and subjected to torture.In the 2004 assault by US Marines on the city of Fallujah, things were even worse. Dexter Filkins, a reporter for the New York Times, reported that before that invasion, some 20,000 Marines encircled the doomed city, which the White House had decided to level because it harbored a bunch of insurgents and had angered the American public by capturing, killing and mutilating the bodies of four mercenaries working for US forces. The residents of the 300,000-population city were warned of the coming all-out attack. Women and children and old people were allowed to flee the city and pass through the cordon of troops. But Filkins reported that males determined to be “of combat age,” which in this case was established as 12 and up, were barred from leaving, and sent back into the city to await their fate. Young boys were ripped from their screaming mothers and sent trudging back to the city to face death.In the ensuing slaughter, as the US dumped bombs, napalm, phosphorus, anti-personnel fragmentation weapons and an unimaginable quantity of machine gun and small arms fire on the city, it is clear that many of those young boys died.This was a triple war crime. First of all, it was a case of collective punishment — a practice popular with the Nazis in World War II, and barred by the Geneva Conventions. The international laws of war also guarantees the right of surrender, so those men and boys who tried to leave, even if suspected of being enemy fighters, should have been allowed to surrender and be held as captives until their loyalties could be established. The boys, meanwhile, were “protected persons” who were by law to be treated as victims of war, and protected from harm.Instead they were treated as the enemy, to be destroyed.For these crimes, the president should today be impeached by the Congress and then tried as a war criminal.After watching this Congress cower from its responsibility to defend the Constitution, I have little hope of that happening. But I do harbor the hope that once Bush has left office, some prosecutor in another country — perhaps Spain, or Canada or Germany — will use the doctrine of universal jurisdiction to indict him for war crimes, and, should he leave the country for some lucrative speaking engagement, arrest him, the way former dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested by a Spanish prosecutor on a visit to the UK.For his abuse, imprisonment and killing of children, this president should stand trial for war crimes.Dave Lindorff’s most recent book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net.

Iran, Venezuela launch common bank

Venezuela has declared that it is establishing a common bank with Iran to finance economic development projects in the two countries. The bank, to be based in Tehran, will have an initial capital base of 1.2 billion dollars, with each nation providing half of the funds, AFP reported on Tuesday. It follows up on a March 2007 agreement the two countries signed. The relations between the two countries has elevated to an unprecedented level during President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's term. Last month Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said unity and cooperation between Tehran and Caracas has gotten the 'US imperialism' riled up. "The two countries' cooperation has turned into a great unity between the Iranian and Venezuelan nations and this annoys the US imperialism," he said.

Global Peace Index: Israel hits rock bottom

Economist Intelligence Unit ranks Israel 136th out of 140 countries, alongside Afghanistan, Chad
Reuters Published: 05.20.08, 23:38 / Israel News
Iceland is the world's most peaceful nation while Israel ranked 136th out of 140 nations, according to the "Global Peace Index," compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
The study ranked the United States 97th out of 140 countries according to how peaceful they were domestically and how they interacted with the outside world.
The United States slipped from 96th last year, but was still ahead of foe Iran which ranked 105th. It, however, lagged Belarus, Cuba, South Korea, Chile, Libya and others which were listed as more peaceful.
Iraq, which the United States invaded in 2003, leading to the toppling of Saddam Hussein, ranked lowest on the index. Afghanistan was also in the bottom five, along with Sudan, Somalia and Israel.
Russia ranked 131st
Commenting on the US ranking, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said to realize a more peaceful and prosperous world, "often times, you have to do difficult things and a lot of times, people don't agree with them. They don't like them."

"A lot of times you fall down in these lists but at the end of the day it is in defense of democracy and the way of life we have enjoyed over the past several decades," he added.
The index looks at 24 indicators of external and internal measures of peace, including UN deployments overseas and levels of violent crime, respect for human rights, the number of soldiers killed overseas and arms sales.
The Group of Eight major economic powers were a mixed bag. Japan ranked fifth, Canada 11th, Germany 14th, Italy 28th, France 36th and Britain 49th. Russia was near the bottom at 131st, the only one in the group below the United States.
The index was launched under the auspices of the Institute for Economics and Peace, a new think tank that looks at the relationship between economics, business and peace.
Supporters of the index urged policymakers to focus more on education, wealth, and well-functioning government and pointed to the role of business in creating more stability.

Alabama sheriffs feed inmates on $1.75 a day

If ever you go to jail, don't go to jail in AL, unless you want to lose weight on a cheap diet:

By JAY REEVES, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 20 minutes ago

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Back in the day of chain gangs, Alabama passed a law that gave sheriffs $1.75 a day to feed each prisoner in their jails, and the sheriffs got to pocket anything that was left over. More than 80 years later, most Alabama counties still operate under this system, with the same $1.75-a-day allowance, and some sheriffs are actually making money on top of their salaries.

But exactly how much is something of a mystery because state auditors do not have access to sheriffs' private accounts.
How could anyone turn a profit feeding men and women for an entire day on less than the price of a Coke and a bag of Fritos? Sheriffs practice Depression-style frugality and rely on such things as day-old bread, cut-rate vegetables and cheap inmate labor.
Critics charge that Alabama is, in effect, paying law enforcement to skimp on food and may be rewarding sheriffs for mistreating prisoners.
"It's a bad system, and it ought not be that way," said Buddy Sharpless, executive director of the Association of County Commissions of Alabama.
A prisoner advocate said he constantly hears complaints about jail food.
"Most of it is like powdered food, and the portions are minimal in the county jails," said the Rev. Kenneth Glasgow, who visits Alabama jails to register prisoners to vote.
The few sheriffs who would discuss the arrangement defended it as cost-effective for their counties and disputed any suggestion they are making a lot of money.
"If you've got the most lucrative food account in the state, you're not getting rich," said Limestone County Sheriff Mike Blakely.
They noted, too, that it's not all gravy for them: The system makes them personally liable for budget shortfalls and, possibly, lawsuits over jail food.
The head of the Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts, Ron Jones, said state auditors cannot determine how much some sheriffs are making off the system because the lawmen put the money in personal accounts.
In Morgan County, which includes Decatur, a state audit found that Sheriff Greg Bartlett spent $163,991 feeding inmates and personally received an additional $103,947 for two years ending in May 2005. But Jones said there was no way for auditors to determine how much of the money that went to the sheriff was profit, because sheriffs may be buying food out of their own pockets. Bartlett did not return calls for comment.
When Etowah County Sheriff James Hayes died in October, thousands of dollars in jail food money went to his estate because it was kept in his personal accounts.
His successor, Todd Entrekin, said he and his wife took out a personal loan for $150,000 the day he took office to purchase jail food until his first state payment came through.
"It's the most money I've ever borrowed in my life, even more than for my house," Entrekin said.
According to legislative researchers, the $1.75-a-day-per-inmate system in Alabama dates to 1927, back when sheriffs and other county officeholders in many states were paid fixed fees for services performed and were allowed to keep whatever was left over.
All but 12 of Alabama's 67 county jails remain on the fee system, with the state paying a total of $5 million to 55 sheriffs last year.
National corrections groups said they do not know of any other states with a system like Alabama's, though some individual counties may use a fee system.
The $1.75 fee was fairly generous at the time, with a reasonable profit built into it for the sheriffs. Besides the $1.75, sheriffs get additional state payments of as much as $11.25 a day for the entire jail. But in a jail with hundreds of inmates, that works out to just a few extra pennies per person for food.
By comparison, the government pays schools $2.47 for serving a single free meal under the National School Lunch Program for low-income students.
Cherokee County Sheriff Jeff Shaver said he has figured out how to feed prisoners on $1.75 a day and still turn a little profit, and he doesn't get complaints about the grub.
"These people eat better here than they eat on the street, and they eat three times a day," Shaver said.
He said he is constantly on the lookout for good deals on food, pays two cooks and supplements their work with trusty labor, and wastes nothing, turning today's leftovers tomorrow's soup.
Blakely, the Limestone County sheriff, said he searches for deals on fresh vegetables, eggs and milk. Prisoners get three meals on weekdays, two on weekends and holidays. "They get a lot of beans, but we feed them meat every day," Blakely said.
The menu on a recent day in the Limestone County Jail was two pancakes and syrup, sausage and milk for breakfast; peanut butter sandwiches, chips and Kool-Aid for lunch; and white beans, turnip greens, fried squash, cornbread and sweet tea for dinner.
Blakely and Shaver would not say exactly how much money they make off the jail food system but said it is not a lot. Entrekin said he has not been sheriff long enough to say whether he is turning a profit for himself.
Blakely said prisoners who enter the jail late at night on charges such as drunken driving and make bail early the next day without eating a meal help the bottom line because the state pays for two days of food — $3.50 — without the sheriff having to spend a cent.
Inmate William Howell said state prisons offer more food than Blakely's jail. But he said the food in state prison isn't nearly as good.
"It's not like they go down to the bread store and catch it coming out of the oven, but it's good," Howell said. "We've got it good here."

Biden calls Bush comments 'bullshitt'

From CNN Congressional Producer Ted Barrett

Biden had some strong words for the president.
(CNN) — The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Joe Biden, D-Delaware, called President Bush’s comments accusing Sen. Barack Obama and other Democrats of wanting to appease terrorists "bulls**t” and said if the president disagrees so strongly with the idea of talking to Iran then he needs to fire his secretaries of State and Defense, both of whom Biden said have pushed to sit down with the Iranians.
“This is bullshit. This is malarkey. This is outrageous. Outrageous for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, sit in the Knesset…and make this kind of ridiculous statement,” Biden said angrily in a brief interview just off the Senate floor.
“He’s the guy who’s weakened us. He’s the guy that’s increased the number of terrorists in the world. His policies have produced this vulnerability the United States has. His intelligence community pointed that out not me. The NIE has pointed that out and what are you talking about, is he going to fire Condi Rice? Condi Rice has talked about the need to sit down. So his first two appeasers are Rice and Gates. I hope he comes home and does something.”
He quoted Gates saying Wednesday that we “need to figure out a way to develop some leverage and then sit down and talk with them.”

A Generation Defined by War

By HAMDAN A. YOUSUF and DANIA S. AHMED14/05/08 "Counterpunch" -- -We are a generation defined by war. Shattering the idyllic innocence of our youth, September 11th fell upon us like a convulsion, bringing us face-to-face with the catastrophic consequences of American foreign policy. New terms were shoved down our throats, the media playing its part to inculcate them into our daily lives: terrorism, patriotism, red alert, liberation, and homeland security all became part of our vocabulary. Like deer caught in headlights, we struggled to come to terms with this overnight upheaval in our worldview."Muslims are terrorists," we were told. "They want to destroy us." Paralyzed and in shock, we asked, our voices full of trepidation, "We are Muslims. Do we want to destroy us?" We were told to keep quiet and b good citizens—not asking too many questions and submitting to authority. And so, the war generation came of age.The years passed, thousands more Americans died, hundreds of thousands of the 'other' were bombed out of existence, and the perpetrators of September 11th were never found. "How does this story end?" you might be tempted to ask. And that's just it. It doesn't. Nearly seven years after the onset of the 'War on Terror,' the broken record of American imperialism continues to play. Only we've gotten so used to hearing it that many of us have learned to tune it out.The idea of America as a hegemonic power, exerting its influence all over the world, dominating and conquering at any cost is nothing new. The genocide of millions of Native Americans and the enslavement of the black race bears witness to the blood-drenched nature of our past. The most horrifying of crimes were justified with the obscene claim that the oppressors were acting in the best interests of those they oppressed. Thus, the extermination of an entire people was 'manifest destiny' while the colonization of Africa was actually a 'civilizing mission.' One would like to think that we have made great strides towards overcoming this legacy, but as the events of the past few years demonstrate, that might be wishful thinking.After it became clear that Iraq posed no threat to the United States, the Bush administration seized upon a new justification for the war: to liberate the Iraqi people. One would have expected that five years of bloody occupation would have demonstrated the fallacy of imperialism in the name of liberation. Yet, despite costs of over $500 billion and unimaginable loss of life, some continue to advocate a continued American presence in Iraq for as long as a hundred years. More disturbingly, the same faulty logic that was used to justify the war in the first place seems to be alive and well.In a speech at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in March, Mr. Bush spoke almost messianically of a "call to offer freedom to others who have never known it." "You and I know that freedom has the power to transform lives," he says, almost as if lamenting the deprived state of the rest of the world. The rest of the world is thus defined not only by the absence of freedom but by the utter inability to even comprehend what freedom entails. To adapt from the words of that commercial we all grew up watching, not only does Mr. Bush have the Trix, he's the only one who even knows what Trix are. But not to worry: the president is more than happy to share his Trix with the less fortunate children of the world."Freedom is not America's gift to the world," Mr. Bush reminds his audience. "It is God's gift to humanity." Thus, by offering "freedom" to the rest of the world, Mr. Bush is only doing God's work. The import of such religiously charged rhetoric is surely not lost on the president's base of fundamentalist Christians. Of course, America's offer of freedom comes at the point of a gun; 'be free or die' could be the motto of the neo-imperialist worldview. "These murderers were not instruments of a heavenly power," the president is quick to reiterate. "They were instruments of evil." The implication is eerily soothing yet profound at the same time: unlike her enemies, America is an instrument of heavenly power.In the twilight zone that has become our modern political landscape, it is at times difficult to determine who is copying off of whose paper—whether it is the "Islamofascists" who have appropriated the religious right's defense of violence in the name of God, or if it is the other way around. If the "War on Terror" was merely a thought experiment in the use of rhetoric and propaganda, one might avoid making much of it.However in a world where those in power have both the means and motivation to impose their dangerous beliefs on the rest of the world, we must be concerned. It is one thing to believe that "freedom" should be spread and quite another to devote the entire resources of a nation to achieving this objective on a global scale. And of course, it is always the innocent who get caught in the crossfire.Meanwhile, an entire religion is tarnished with the brush of terror and an entire people infantilized and condemned to an eternity of nothingness until they can be liberated by Mr. Bush's heavenly armies. The year is 2008 and this is America. When will this nightmare end?As Mr. Bush's term nears its end, we find ourselves with little reason for optimism—some of the candidates shamelessly support our current course, while others have little to offer besides words and empty promises of 'hope.' And so, the broken record continues. The American people must wake up. If we are unable to stop this record, the least we can do is emerge from our shell of self-delusion and hear it playing. Hamdan A. Yousuf, a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University, is a research assistant in cognitive neuroscience at Columbia University.Dania S. Ahmed is a student in psychology at Barnard College.

All the President's Nazis (real and imagined): An Open Letter to Bush

By Larisa Alexandrovna

Dear Mr. Bush,
Your speech on the Knesset floor today was not only a disgrace; it was nothing short of treachery. Worse still, your exploitation of the Holocaust in a country carved out of the wounds of that very crime, in order to strike a low blow at American citizens whose politics differs from your own is unforgivable and unpardonable. Let me remind you, Mr. Bush, of your words today:
"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said at Israel's 60th anniversary celebration in Jerusalem.
"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said in remarks to Israel's parliament, the Knesset. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."
Well Mr. Bush, the only thing this comment lacked was a mirror and some historical facts. You want to discuss the crimes of Nazis against my family and millions of other families in Europe during World War II? Let me revive a favorite phrase of yours: Bring. It. On!The All-American Nazi
Your family's fortune is built on the bones of the very people butchered by the Nazis, my family and the families of those in the Knesset who applauded you today:
WASHINGTON -- President Bush's grandfather was a director of a bank seized by the federal government because of its ties to a German industrialist who helped bankroll Adolf Hitler's rise to power, government documents show.
Prescott Bush was one of seven directors of Union Banking Corp. (search), a New York investment bank owned by a bank controlled by the Thyssen family, according to recently declassified National Archives documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
Fritz Thyssen was an early financial supporter of Hitler, whose Nazi party Thyssen believed was preferable to communism.
--snip--
Both Harrimans and Bush were partners in the New York investment firm of Brown Brothers, Harriman and Co., which handled the financial transactions of the bank as well as other financial dealings with several other companies linked to Bank voor Handel that were confiscated by the U.S. government during World War II.
Union Banking was seized by the government in October 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act.
Oh, but there is much more too:
The two Holocaust survivors suing the US government and the Bush family for a total of $40bn in compensation claim both materially benefited from Auschwitz slave labour during the second world war, Kurt Julius Goldstein, 87, and Peter Gingold, 85, began a class action in America in 2001, but the case was thrown out by Judge Rosemary Collier on the grounds that the government cannot be held liable under the principle of "state sovereignty".
I cannot think of one Democrat who can boast this kind of lineage. Can you? No, I don't think so. But you can lie brazenly and attack a sitting US Senator on foreign soil by comparing him to Nazi sympathizers? Let us continue down memory lane to help those who applaud you understand just what it is they are celebrating.

The All-American Nazi
Your family's fortune is built on the bones of the very people butchered by the Nazis, my family and the families of those in the Knesset who applauded you today:
WASHINGTON -- President Bush's grandfather was a director of a bank seized by the federal government because of its ties to a German industrialist who helped bankroll Adolf Hitler's rise to power, government documents show.
Prescott Bush was one of seven directors of Union Banking Corp. (search), a New York investment bank owned by a bank controlled by the Thyssen family, according to recently declassified National Archives documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
Fritz Thyssen was an early financial supporter of Hitler, whose Nazi party Thyssen believed was preferable to communism.
--snip--
Both Harrimans and Bush were partners in the New York investment firm of Brown Brothers, Harriman and Co., which handled the financial transactions of the bank as well as other financial dealings with several other companies linked to Bank voor Handel that were confiscated by the U.S. government during World War II.
Union Banking was seized by the government in October 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act.
Oh, but there is much more too:
The two Holocaust survivors suing the US government and the Bush family for a total of $40bn in compensation claim both materially benefited from Auschwitz slave labour during the second world war, Kurt Julius Goldstein, 87, and Peter Gingold, 85, began a class action in America in 2001, but the case was thrown out by Judge Rosemary Collier on the grounds that the government cannot be held liable under the principle of "state sovereignty".
I cannot think of one Democrat who can boast this kind of lineage. Can you? No, I don't think so. But you can lie brazenly and attack a sitting US Senator on foreign soil by comparing him to Nazi sympathizers? Let us continue down memory lane to help those who applaud you understand just what it is they are celebrating.
The All American Traitor
You family did not stop with supporting fascists and Nazis abroad, did they Mr. Bush? Surely you must know of your grandfather's role in the treasonous plot of 1933 to overthrow democracy in America? Let me remind you.
Grandpa Bush - that is to say, your grandfather - wanted fascism imported into the United States, or as you now call this type of transformation, "exporting democracy." Prescott went so far as to subsidize a coup attempt in order to achieve his dream of a fascist America (see BBC report below):
Document uncovers details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by right-wing American businessmen. The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush's Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression. Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American
In other words, not only was your grandfather a self-professed fascist, he was a Nazi sympathizer and a war profiteer who should have stood trial at the Hague instead of buying his way into the US Senate. He was also a traitor, twice over.
Now clearly the crimes of Prescott Bush are not your fault, Mr. George W. Bush. Let us therefore judge your actions and words on their own merit.
Iraq is your Poland
Your reminiscence today about the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany should have been seen as your own condemnation of your own abhorrent actions against Iraq. The morbid irony of what you said will likely never register with your or your speechwriter. To truly grasp the grotesqueness of what you said requires that you have both a conscience and some understanding of history. We know you possess neither.
I will therefore make your history lesson brief, but to the point. The unprovoked attack on Poland by Germany was a war crime just as your attack against Iraq - based on lies - is a war crime. This is not my opinion. This is not a political attack. This is a fact. Consider the words of the esteemed former chief prosecutor in the Nuremburg trials, Benjamin Ferencz, regarding your war of aggression against Iraq:
"...Prima facie case can be made that the United States is guilty of the supreme crime against humanity, that being an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation."
Moreover, your reckless verbiage and partisan pandering using something as tragic and criminal as Germany's war of aggression against Poland is an insult to all victims of those atrocities.
My grandfather's sister and parents were having supper in their Warsaw home when a German bomb erased them from this planet. Your evoking the German atrocities against Poland in order to play dirty politics against Democrats is as offensive to me as if you had pinned a swastika onto your lapel.
Even your own words appear to be penned by Hitler's ghost all the while you imply that Democrats are Nazis and/or terrorists - something you have done over and over. Your lies and Hitler's lies even have the same purpose.
When you, Mr. Bush, said "see in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda," were you aware of Adolph Hitler's eerily similar statement? Hitler said "If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed."
Yet if words alone were your only weapon and words strung together into lies your only crime, you might be seen as simply the loathsome, unethical dilettante and despot that you are. Unfortunately, your crimes are many and so similar to those of the Nazi regime that at times one wonders if you are not yourself reenacting that very history you used today as an insult against a political opponent.
Your very own concentration camps
You ordered the creation of secret camps all over the world and on US territory where you also authorized the torture of countless men, women and children is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, international law, and domestic law. In other words, you authorized war crimes.
We don't know the number of people you have had disappeared, tortured, and possibly murdered. Although we have some idea of what these numbers may be, I doubt the full truth of it all will ever be known.
In 2005, I had a CENTCOM document leaked to me illustrating that since the start of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, more than 70,000 men, women, and children have been detained at one of your various camps Mr. Bush. We don't know what happened to them, if they were tortured, raped, or murdered. What we do know is that less than 2% of those 70,000 had any sort of charge brought against them in a court of law. None of those alleged crimes, by the way, were acts of terrorism. We don't know if that 70,000 figure was the actual and full count of detainees in US custody around the world in 2005. But it is safe to say that in the last 3 years since this document was published, the number of detainees has likely grown.
What we also now know, in great horror, is that at least one of your camps had a crematorium in it, which some of the US soldiers stationed there suspected was used for burning bodies:
"We had some kind of incinerator at the end of our building," Specialist Megan Ambuhl said. "It was this huge circular thing. We just didn't know what was incinerated in there. It could have been people, for all we knew--bodies." Sergeant Davis was not in doubt. "It had bones in it," he said, and he called it the crematorium. "But hey, you're at war," he said. "Suck it up or drive on."
What we also now know is that Dick Cheney and senior members of your administration carried out a plan of torture and abuse that violated international and domestic law with regard to human rights, down to the type of torture tactics that would be used against prisoners in our custody. This plan, we now know, was approved by you.
Has the mirror cracked yet from this much fact or are you still peering into the political sphere hoping to ascribe your own crimes to others? It won't work. It never has and it certainly won't work now. We know far too much about you and yours.
I could continue listing the litany of your crimes, both against the United States and against foreign nations. I won't. We know what you are and what you have done. Having roughly 1,000,000 dead Iraqis under your belt should have shamed you into the parasitic hole you came out of, attaching yourself to the blood of this nation and sucking it dry. Instead, you parade around, the globe-trotting horror show and anti-Semite that you are.

Yes, you are an anti-Semite
Would you say no, you are not an anti-Semite? Consider your own words when you thought no one was keeping score:
"You know what I'm gonna tell those Jews when I get to Israel, don't you Herman?" a then Governor George W. Bush allegedly asked a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman.
When the journalist, Ken Herman, replied that he did not know, Bush reportedly delivered the punch line: "I'm telling 'em they're all going to hell."
Only an anti-Semite would think this type of humor is acceptable. Did you tell the Jews of Israel they were going to hell? No, instead, you told them that American Democrats are Nazi sympathizers and in an act of sheer indecency, the right wing Likud party orchestrated the greatest applause you ever got. For shame!
What this blind adoration finally proves to me is that the right-wing regime that has overtaken Israel cares nothing for its people, its heritage, and the tragic history that they now honor by applauding a man whose family-fortune was built on the bodies of their loved ones. Like their Republican (and Lieberman) counterparts in the United States, Likud does not represent its people, rather, it represents its owners. Likud has traded Israel, its Jews, their heritage and history for the same golden calf purchased and sold by the far-right wing in the United States.
I am ashamed of you Mr. Bush. I am ashamed of those who applauded your political porn played out against the hallowed backdrop of the Holocaust. I am ashamed of those reporters with you, who between them could not muster the moral courage to call you out on your ugly rhetoric and ask you about your own family Nazi ties. You are, sir, the most abhorrent human being of my lifetime. I dare say, in the lifetime of this nation.

Gazeta Mercantil: Dollar

Divers find Caesar bust that may date to 46 B.C

1 hour, 26 minutes ago
PARIS - Divers trained in archaeology discovered a marble bust of an aging Caesar in the Rhone River that France's Culture Ministry said Tuesday could be the oldest known.
The life-sized bust showing the Roman ruler with wrinkles and hollows in his face is tentatively dated to 46 B.C. Divers uncovered the Caesar bust and a collection of other finds in the Rhone near the town of Arles — founded by Caesar.
Among other items in the treasure trove of ancient objects is a 5.9 foot marble statue of Neptune, dated to the first decade of the third century after Christ.
Two smaller statues, both in bronze and measuring 27.5 inches each also were found, one of them, a satyr with his hands tied behind his back, "doubtless" originated in Hellenic Greece, the ministry said.
"Some (of the discoveries) are unique in Europe," Culture Minister Christine Albanel said. The bust of Caesar is in a class by itself.
"This marble bust of the founder of the Roman city of Arles constitutes the most ancient representation known today of Caesar," the ministry statement said, adding that it "undoubtedly" dates to the creation of Arles in 46 B.C.
Among other things, researchers are trying to uncover "in what context these statues were thrown into the river," said Michel L'Hour, who heads the Department of Subaquatic Archaeological Research, whose divers made the discovery between September and October 2007.
The site "has barely been skimmed," L'Hour told The Associated Press, adding that a new search operation will begin this summer.
He said the Arles region, in the Provence region of southern France, with its Roman beginnings, and the Rhone are "propitious" for discoveries.
Albanel called the find "exceptional" and said that the Caesar bust is "the oldest representation known today" of the emperor.
Divers also found a huge marble statue of Neptune, dated from the third century.

New Rule

It’s the talk of the world. This may amuse you. It’s going to—when I was asked by a academic journal to say if I were to hold the power for one day as president, what—and I would have kind of absolute power to introduce a law, what law that would have been? My immediate answer was not as some humanist suggested, since United States at least thinks they are a global empire, so let every adult in the world be allowed to vote; my advice would be the opposite one: let’s everybody in the world, except US citizens, be allowed to vote and elect the American government. I think it would have been much better for you, even, because we all outside the United States would project our desires into how you should be. I think it would have been better, so that only non-Americans vote for—I know this is a nightmare from Pat Buchanan or somebody like that.

6 stupidly simple steps to save billions of gallons of gas

By Hank Green Posted Wed May 7, 2008 12:58am PDT
OK, gas prices are getting out of hand, and carbon emissions have been out of hand for a long time. So let's kill two birds with, well, five stones.
We generally focus on high technology here at EcoGeek, and how we can save energy with smart designs. But sometimes, there are simpler ways.
An absolutely tremendous amount of gasoline could be saved in America with some very simple measures. Such as:
1. Lose some weight = 900 million gallons of gas Americans weigh about 24 more pounds per person than we did in the 1970s. That weight, when we're driving, has to be moved around with our cars. Multiplied over the three trillion miles driven in America each year, suddenly we need a lot of gas to move around our extra chub. If we could (preferably through walking and biking) lose those 24 lbs. and reach 1970s sizes, America would used nearly one billion gallons of gas less than we currently do.2. Intelligent traffic lights = 1,000 million gallons of gasStudies have shown that altering traffic lights to ensure maximum flow can reduce gasoline consumption in cities by between 10% and 20%. Already, lots of places have traffic light systems that use sensors to detect when and how often to change lights.
But a great deal of traffic infrastructure is still extremely primitive, and most of it is programmed by hand. Researchers have begun to attempt to create traffic lights that can make decisions for themselves. Stoplights might soon communicate with other nearby lights about when they plan on changing, how much traffic they've seen, and what's working for them recently to keep traffic flowing. They will even be able to remember what worked in the past, and use those same techniques in the future. 3. More expensive gas = 450 million gallons of gas (so far)OK, this isn't necessarily the best solution to our problems, especially since most people who really need to drive can't afford to pay much more for gas. But 2007 showed the first decrease in the number of miles traveled since the gas crisis of the '70s. As gas prices sored to upward of $3 per gallon, people actually drove less. The amount driven dropped by about 10 billion miles. At an average fleet efficiency of 22 mpg, that's 450 million gallons of gas saved.
4. Drive a little slower = 600 million gallons of gas (just for semi trucks)Recently, with diesel prices topping $4, Con-Way Freight, owner of one of the largest truck fleets in America, decided that it would decrease the maximum speed its drivers could drive from 65 mph to 62 mph. This will save the company 3.2 million gallons of fuel per year. And that's just ONE trucking company going 3 mph slower! If this were expanded to all 1.5 million semis on American roads, it would save 617 million gallons of fuel!
If it the national speed limit were lowered to 65 mph, the savings would be extreme. Already, the U.S. trucking industry is calling for a decrease in the national speed limit, first because the difference in speed between trucks and cars creates possible safety issues. And because it would ultimately decrease the price of fuel.5. More people per car = 1,500 million gallons of gasIf every car in America that transported one person instead transported two people, we'd save about 8 billion gallons of gas per year. But we'll aim lower. If just 20% of these solo-driver trips became two-passenger carpools, we'd use 1.5 billion fewer gallons of gas per year.6. Increase mileage to 35 mpg = 55,000 million gallons of gas by 2015This needs to be said. The current average fuel economy of an American car is 22 mpg. It would be lower if there were no law in place requiring that efficiency. The auto industry has been fighting any increase for decades. We finally have a law on the books that will increase the average to 35 mpg by 2020.
But if we, in America, had 35-mpg cars today, like they currently do in Europe, we would use 55 BILLION less gallons of gas. Looking back through the rest of the list, this trivializes the rest of the options.
Each of these measures would, without a doubt, help us deal with the supply shortages and environmental implications of our massive oil addiction.

Yelling too loud can make you lose your hair

Who Pays the Opposition Students in Venezuela?

L'institut du CATO distribue de l'argent aux etudiants opposant Chavez pour promouvoir la Democratie au Venezuela:

By Pablo Roldan and Mauro Vanetti Thursday, 08 May 2008It is not true that US imperialism does not help the Third World! One of its agencies, the Cato Institute based in Washington DC, just signed a cheque for $500,000 (yes: half a million bucks!) to a young Venezuelan. Yon Goicoechea has been awarded the "Milton Friedman Liberty Prize", for his merits in the promotion of "Individual Liberty, Free Markets, and Peace". Well, we have to admit that Mr Goicoechea is not exactly a poor boy from a Caracas slum. He is a law student at the expensive Andrés Bello Roman Catholic University in Caracas, whose fees are 5,820 Bolivares Fuertes (officially equivalent to $2,710) per year, a very high price in Venezuela. Nevertheless, this badly needed financial aid was honestly earned by Mr Goicochea for the good job he did in the cause of the free market (i.e. capitalism) and democracy (i.e. conspiracy against the elected government of Hugo Chávez). The reason he is considered a hero by the Cato guys is that he is the leader of the "students' movement" that opposes the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela.Yon GoicoecheaRight-wing and Anti-DemocraticThe main activities of this movement have been organising demonstrations (and clashes with the police), with the typical display of inverted Venezuelan flags and an overwhelming presence of white-skinned people, on the following issues:*In favour of the private right-wing TV channel RCTV, that supported the coup against Chávez in April 2002;*Against progressive reforms in the universities (e.g., equalising the weight of students' and teachers' votes in elections for university institutions) and promotion of affordable universities for the poor;*Against the progressive reforms proposed by the Constitutional Referendum held on December 2, 2007.There is no need to comment on the recurrent accusations about "erosion of human and civil rights" or "a constitutional reform that would have turned the country into a dictatorship". In the current war that the US ruling class and the nation's government are waging against the Bolivarian government of Venezuela, those statements have the same character as the old stories told by the British and American governments during the First World War about German soldiers cutting off the breasts of Belgian women - they are purely war propaganda fabrications.Fabrications that our free and independent media, watchdog of democracy and freedom, waste no time in reproducing: "Venezuelan student leader who challenged Chávez wins prize", says Associated Press; "Student who challenged Chávez wins $500,000", announces US Today; and CBS tells us "Venezuelan student leader wins award for challenging Chávez". The movement has also been defined as "non-violent" in the award ceremony, but first-hand accounts by revolutionary students tell quite a different story (see Opposition Violence at Venezuelan university - What Really happened at the UCV).In the muddied waters of CIA platforms and "neo-liberalism", "free-market libertarianism" or however Friedman's intellectual miscarriage is labelled, there can be no irony in the fact that an award for "Advancing Democracy" is conceded to someone who is attempting to destabilise, and eventually overthrow by any means possible, the democratically elected government of Venezuela, a country where, according to the Andean Commission of Justice (Comisión Andina de Justicia) - a body not very friendly to the Bolivarian revolution - 77% of people believe in democracy and 59% are satisfied with the levels of the democracy they experience, the highest rate in the region, and probably in the continent, if not the world.Could it be otherwise when there have been over 11 democratic elections since Chávez was voted in? These were local, regional and national, including a recall referendum on the president himself, and all were declared free, clean and fair by such pro-revolutionary bodies as the Carter Centre or the European Union. The government was also (unfortunately) defeated in the last constitutional referendum - which would be unheard of under a dictatorship.Remote-controlledAfter spending weeks denouncing the totalitarian character of the "Chávez regime", Yon Goicoechea and his friends demanded their "right" to be heard at the National Assembly. Contrary to what they were expecting, the National Assembly invited them, along with students belonging to revolutionary organisations, to express their concerns and debate about free speech and freedom of the press; never before had a student representative been invited into the National Assembly.The session opened with Douglas Bravo, a student opposition leader from the Metropolitan University, a private and notoriously elitist centre. He read out his speech, which was as vague as it was well written. On the one hand, he promised to continue the fight for the RCTV to the very end. On the other, he hinted to the possibility of a national reconciliation process if the revolutionary government stopped being a revolutionary government and behaved as every respectable government is expected to behave, defending the interests of the capitalist and landlords.At the end of his speech he said in a declamatory way: "a dream of a country in which we can be taken into account without the need to wear a uniform", at which point he and his friends took off the red T-shirts they were wearing and revealed a series of pro-RCTV slogans. They started to withdraw from the Assembly, but revolutionary students convinced them to stay and, at least, listen to the intervention of Andreína Taranzón, a revolutionary student from the Central University of Venezuela.Taranzón finished, and here came our hero. Yon Goicoechea took on the speaker's role, but having already done their show for the media, he did not feel like debating anything. Goicoechea announced that the opposition party was leaving. "We did not come to this Assembly to play at being politicians, we are students", said Goicoechea, "Having spoken once and listened once, we leave". And they left, leaving behind the script of the speech read earlier by Douglas Bravo.The script was signed by ARS Publicity, part of Globovision's business group. Not only was the speech scripted, but also its performance. César Trompiz, a revolutionary student from the Bolivarian University, read out the last sheet of the script: "A dream of a country in which we can be taken into account without the need to wear a uniform [take off the t-shirt] with no more to say [pause] so far".These "oppositionists" are not just generously funded by the oligarchy, they are also remote-controlled!Tools of World CapitalismMr Goicoechea has been long praised by the Western press for his role in giving the Venezuelan opposition a "fresh" image and a new, relatively clean, face. Among the Goicoechea enthusiasts we also find the editorial board of Playboy-Venezuela, who put him (not his picture, that space was already occupied by a half-naked girl) on the front page of this, er..., serious political magazine.The talent scouts who have hailed him the champion of anti-Chavism are not such an innocent group. The board who appointed Yon as a modern-day capitalist hero has an interesting composition:*Kakha Bendukidze, a Georgian leading politician and good friend of the White House, who profited out of the US-backed privatisation and destruction of the Soviet planned economy.*Ed Crane, president of the Institute, member of the Mont Pelerin Society, a freemasonry-like think tank founded by rabidanti-socialist economist Friedrich von Hayek. He is a vocal supporter for the abolition of the Social Security insurance system in the US, because the sick, old and disabled, if poor, should be given the freedom to die without any government interference in their health conditions.*Francisco Gil Díaz, Mexican minister of finances until 2006, now hired by the giant banking group HSBC (the largest capitalist company in the world).*The capitalist Charles G. Koch (Koch Industries), who's been described as "the world's most successful private billionaire".*Another European neo-liberal ultra-rich ideologue known by the name of Karen Horn.*Andrew Mwenda, a Ugandan journalist who opposes sending aid to Africa and debt relief for the highly indebted countries.*Mary O'Grady (The Wall Street Journal) and Fareed Zakaria (Newsweek), two other journalists on the payroll of Big Business.*Rose Director, the widow of the laissez-faire economist Milton Friedman and a lunatic "libertarian" economist herself.*Another individual who has won a Friedman "award" was Hernando de Soto, who was economic adviser in promoting the "Fujishock" in Perú, a packet of shock economic measures during the Fujimori dictatorship (free market and dictatoirship!).Milton Friedman gave good economic advice to the dictator Augusto Pinochet who strictly collaborated with his pupils, the Chicago Boys, while he was in charge of dramatically worsening the living conditions of Chilean workers, killing and torturing thousands in the process. Receiving the Friedman Prize must have been a great honour for Yon Goicoechea. Who knows, a future career as a Venezuelan Pinochet is still possible for this brilliant advocate of capitalist freedom!RENEGADE EYE

Gorbachev: US could start new Cold War

"The Americans promised that Nato wouldn't move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War but now half of central and eastern Europe are members, so what happened to their promises? It shows they cannot be trusted."
For a man hailed as one of the heroes of the 20th century, Mr Gorbachev, now 77, often sounded like the ageing hardliners he struggled against in the Kremlin during the 1980s.
He railed against a "military-industrial complex" that he insisted was the "real government" of the US and, quoting a Russian documentary on state television, suggested that Margaret Thatcher had supplied weapons to Chechen terrorists.
Still, while Mr Gorbachev may be delighted by the rebirth of what many see as Russian imperialism, many wonder whether he approves of the way in which Mr Putin has eroded freedom of expression to such an extent that some claim glasnost is dead.
"I do not think that glasnost is dead in Russia," he said.
"There is a phenomenon in the West to criticise Putin's domestic record. But in Russia he has mass support. His popularity ratings are 70 to 80 percent.
"Is this not democracy?"

Iran says explosion in mosque last month was deliberate

By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer
Thu May 8, 3:01 PM ET

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran said Thursday that a bomb, not an accident, caused last month's explosion in a mosque that killed 14 people and injured more than 200.
Immediately after the April 12 blast in the southern city of Shiraz, Iranian officials said it was caused by a homemade bomb. The following day, the government changed its account and said the explosion was an accident caused by ammunition leftover from a recent military exhibition in the mosque.
But Thursday's report by the official news agency IRNA again said the explosion was no accident — and those responsible had ties to the West.
"The group that planted the bomb had been in contact with some western countries, particularly Britain and the United States," IRNA quoted Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi as saying.
Iranian security agents have detained six suspects but the main suspect was sill at large, Ejehi told reporters late Wednesday.
The ministry previously did not make any information on the case public, he said, apparently in order not to tip off the suspects.
Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi also suggested Wednesday that foreign countries were somehow involved in the explosion.
"The explosion was sabotage and a plot by enemies of the Iranian nation — monarchists who have been supported by the countries that claim to be fighting terrorism and defending human rights."
Neither official named any particular group as responsible for the attack nor said how the attackers were linked to the West. No one has claimed responsibility.
Iran has repeatedly accused the U.S. and Britain of backing militants and ethnic opposition groups to destabilize the Tehran government. Both countries have denied the accusations.
Tensions between Iran and the West have grown over U.S. allegations of Iranian involvement in attacks on American troops in Iraq and over suspicions that Tehran is trying to develop nuclear weapons.
Bombings are unusual in Shiraz, where tourists come to see the ruins of nearby Persepolis, an ancient Persian kingdom that was a center for ceremonies and worship.
The mosque is part of the Rahpouyan-e-Vesal cultural center in Shiraz, about 559 miles south of the capital, Tehran.
The blast went off as the mosque's cleric was delivering a weekly speech denouncing the Bahai faith and Wahabism — an austere brand of Sunni Islam practiced mostly in Saudi Arabia, according to local news reports. Such speeches are not unusual in Iranian mosques.
The mosque was packed with about 1,000 worshippers at the time of the explosion.

John McCain's Spiritual Guides

Tanx to Datta

Civil war in Beirut Lebanon

A friend (Boudi) sent me terrible news from Lebanon:

There is an outbreak of civil war, and it started like 2 hours ago with Haraket Amal (Shiite anti government) vs Tayyar al Mostakbal (mini Hariri). It's pretty bad in Ras Al Nabeh right now. There are hunters on a building with RPG launchers. The fight is taking part into the area of Osman ben Afan Musk, Bshara el khoury Area, Mohamad al hout St.A helicopter that belongs to the lebanese army was seen in the area.
Until now there is no wounded people, but so far there is huge loss in materials.
The political movement of tayyar al mostakbal belongs to hariri,and special fighters (sunni extremists) were ordered from akar far north Lebanon to go fight at the moment in Beirut agaist the shi'ite party of Amal and Hizbullah.Many buildings and cars were damaged, some buildings are being evacuated, no civilian loss at the moment.My friend Boudi is going to send you guys a text in english narrating about the situation

P. Sainath: Globalizing Inequality

Full video length here

Nicolas Sarkozy

I found this pic on a french blog. It's the same thing than in the US, this guy has been elected, and french people hate him with a passion.

Diebold and the Democracy

Amérique, La Pseudo-Démocratie et Diebold
Uploaded by littlehorn

Les citations du jour

Aux USA la pensee libre nous empeche de penser librement. Voir le lien.

Si le Pape n'avait jamais demarque une ligne imaginaire sur le globe pour separer les affaires des Anglais du commerce des espagnols au XVIieme siecle, alors l'Amerique Latine n'aurait jamais parle espagnol. Normal, a cette epoque on connaissait encore tres mal la geographie du territoire des Ameriques, tout s'est joue sur un coup de pot.

The All-White Elephant in the Room

By FRANK RICH"BORED by those endless replays of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright? If so, go directly to YouTube, search for “John Hagee Roman Church Hitler,” and be recharged by a fresh jolt of clerical jive.""What you’ll find is a white televangelist, the Rev. John Hagee, lecturing in front of an enormous diorama. Wielding a pointer, he pokes at the image of a woman with Pamela Anderson-sized breasts, her hand raising a golden chalice. The woman is “the Great Whore,” Mr. Hagee explains, and she is drinking “the blood of the Jewish people.” That’s because the Great Whore represents “the Roman Church,” which, in his view, has thirsted for Jewish blood throughout history, from the Crusades to the Holocaust.""Mr. Hagee is not a fringe kook but the pastor of a Texas megachurch. On Feb. 27, he stood with John McCain and endorsed him over the religious conservatives’ favorite, Mike Huckabee, who was then still in the race.""Are we really to believe that neither Mr. McCain nor his camp knew anything then about Mr. Hagee’s views? This particular YouTube video — far from the only one — was posted on Jan. 1, nearly two months before the Hagee-McCain press conference. Mr. Hagee appears on multiple religious networks, including twice daily on the largest, Trinity Broadcasting, which reaches 75 million homes. Any 12-year-old with a laptop could have vetted this preacher in 30 seconds, tops.""Since then, Mr. McCain has been shocked to learn that his clerical ally has made many other outrageous statements. Mr. Hagee, it’s true, did not blame the American government for concocting AIDS. But he did say that God created Hurricane Katrina to punish New Orleans for its sins, particularly a scheduled “homosexual parade there on the Monday that Katrina came.”"Mr. Hagee didn’t make that claim in obscure circumstances, either. He broadcast it on one of America’s most widely heard radio programs, “Fresh Air” on NPR, back in September 2006. He reaffirmed it in a radio interview less than two weeks ago. Only after a reporter asked Mr. McCain about this Katrina homily on April 24 did the candidate brand it as “nonsense” and the preacher retract it."

Al-Jazeera cameraman freed from Guantanamo after 6 years

By MOHAMED OSMAN, Associated Press Writer Thu May 1, 9:33 PM ET
KHARTOUM, Sudan - An Al-Jazeera cameraman was released from U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay and returned home to Sudan early Friday after six years of imprisonment that drew worldwide protests.

Sami al-Haj, who had been on a hunger strike for 16 months, grimaced as he was carried off a U.S. military plane by American personnel in Sudan's capital, Khartoum. He was put on a stretcher and taken straight to a hospital.
Al-Jazeera showed footage of al-Haj being carried into the hospital, looking feeble and with his eyes closed, but smiling. Some of the men surrounding his stretcher were kissing him on the cheek.
"Thank God ... for being free again," he told Al-Jazeera from his hospital bed. "Our eyes have the right to shed tears after we have spent all those years in prison. ... But our joy is not going to be complete until our brothers in Guantanamo Bay are freed," he added.
"The situation is very bad and getting worse day after day," he said of conditions in Guantanamo. He claimed guards prevent Muslims from practicing their religion and reading the Quran.
"Some of our brothers live without clothing," he said.
The U.S. military says it goes to great lengths to respect the religion of detainees, issuing them Qurans, enforcing quiet among guard staff during prayer calls throughout the day. All cells in Guantanamo have an arrow that points toward the holy city of Mecca.
Al-Haj was released along with two other Sudanese from Guantanamo Thursday. He was the only journalist from a major international news organization held at Guantanamo and many of his supporters saw his detention as punishment for a network whose broadcasts angered U.S. officials.
The military alleged he was a courier for a militant Muslim organization, an allegation his lawyers denied.
Al-Haj said he believed he was arrested because of U.S. hostility toward Al-Jazeera and because the media was reporting on U.S. rights violations in Afghanistan.
Al-Haj was detained in December 2001 by Pakistani authorities as he tried to enter Afghanistan to cover the U.S.-led invasion. He was turned over to the U.S. military and taken in January 2002 to Guantanamo Bay, where the United States holds some 275 men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban, most of them without charges.
Reprieve, the British human rights group that represents 35 Guantanamo prisoners including al-Haj, said Pakistani forces apparently seized al-Haj at the behest of the U.S. authorities who suspected he had interviewed Osama bin Laden.
But that "supposed intelligence" turned out to be false, Reprieve said in a news release.
"This is wonderful news, and long overdue," said Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve's director, who has represented al-Haj since 2005. "The U.S. administration has never had any reason for holding Mr. Al Haj, and has, instead, spent six years shamelessly attempting to turn him against his employers at Al-Jazeera."
Sudanese officials said al-Haj would not face any charges.
The U.S. Embassy in Khartoum issued a brief statement confirming the detainee transfer with Sudan and saying it appreciated Sudan's cooperation.
Al-Haj's lawyers said the 38-year-old has been on hunger strike since January 2007 to protest conditions and indefinite confinement at the prison.
Attorney Zachary Katznelson of Reprieve, who met al-Haj at Guantanamo on April 11, said he was "emaciated" because of his hunger strike. and had recently been having problems with his liver and kidneys and had blood in his urine.
"Sami is a poster child for everything that is wrong about Guantanamo Bay: No charges, no trial, constantly shifting allegations, brutal treatment, no visits with family, not even a phone call home," Katznelson said Thursday.
"Sami was never alleged to have hurt a soul, and was never proven to have committed any crimes. Yet, he had fewer rights than convicted mass murderers or rapists. What has happened to American justice?"
Al-Jazeera is based in Qatar and is funded by the royal family of the Persian Gulf nation. Its Arabic channel has been excoriated by the Bush administration as a mouthpiece for terrorists including Osama bin Laden.
Wadah Khanfar, managing director of Al-Jazeera Arabic, said of al-Haj's release: "We are overwhelmed with joy."
Al-Haj was never prosecuted at Guantanamo so the U.S did not make public its full allegations against him. But in a hearing that determined that he was an enemy combatant, U.S. officials alleged that in the 1990s, al-Haj was an executive assistant at a Qatar-based beverage company that provided support to Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Chechnya.
The U.S. claimed he also traveled to Azerbaijan at least eight times to carry money on behalf of his employer to the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a now defunct charity that U.S. authorities say funded militant groups.
The officials said during this period that he met Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, a senior lieutenant to Osama bin Laden who was arrested in Germany in 1998 and extradited to the United States. Officials did not provide details.
Reprieve identified the two other Sudanese Guantanamo detainees who were released as Amir Yacoub Al Amir and Walid Ali.
Reprieve also said Moroccan detainee Said Boujaadia, 39, was also released. He was flown home on the same plane as al-Haj, which made a stop in Morocco. The group said he was taken into custody in Morocco.

Top 10 Outrageous Quotes From McCain's Spiritual Advisers

Laughing Liberally To Keep From Crying
by Katie Halper
Before Jeremiah "Obama's Pastor" Wright spews even more nonsense, and quotes even more ambassadors, we want to shed some light on the brilliant gems uttered by some of McCain's own spiritual advisers, Pastor John Hagee and Reverend Rod Parsley. When Hagee endorsed McCain, because he is a man of principle, McCain said he was "very honored by Pastor John Hagee's endorsement." Reverend Parsley calls McCain a "strong, true, consistent conservative" and McCain calls Parsley "a spiritual adviser." Because the liberal media refuses to give any credit to McCain, it is up to us to be fair and balanced. So here are the top 10 Memorable Quotes said by McCain's religious advisers:

1. "Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist."
- Pastor John Hagee in his book What Every Man Wants in a Woman (Charisma House, 2005)

2. "The Quran teaches that [all Muslims have a mandate to kill Christians and Jews]. Yes, it teaches that very clearly."
-Pastor John Hagee

3. "I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans...I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are -- were recipients of the judgment of God for that...There was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades.... The Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the day of judgment." -Pastor John Hagee
4. "The military will have difficultly recruiting healthy and strong heterosexuals for combat purposes. Why? Fighting in combat with a man in your fox hole that has AIDS or is HIV positive is double jeopardy." - Pastor John Hagee on Don't Ask Don't Tell
5. "[Gay marriage] will open the door to incest, to polygamy, and every conceivable marriage arrangement demented minds can possibly conceive. If God does not then punish America, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah." - Pastor John Hagee
6. "It is impossible to call yourself a Christian and defend homosexuality. There is no justification or acceptance of homosexuality.... Homosexuality means the death of society because homosexuals can recruit, but they cannot reproduce." - Pastor John Hagee
7. "Only a Spirit-filled woman can submit to her husband's lead. It is the natural desire of a woman to lead through feminine manipulation of the man...Fallen women will try to dominate the marriage. The man has the God-given role to be the loving leader of the home." - Pastor John Hagee in his book What Every Man Wants in a Woman (Charisma House, 2005)
8. "I cannot tell you how important it is that we understand the true nature of Islam, that we see it for what it really is. In fact, I will tell you this: I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications. The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore." - Rod Parsley in Silent No More (Charisma House, 2005)
9. "Gay sexuality inevitably involves brutal physical abusiveness and the unnatural imposition of alien substances into internal organs, orally and anally, that inevitably suppress the immune system and heighten susceptibility to disease." - Rod Parsley
10. "Only 1 percent of the homosexual population in America will die of old age. The average life expectancy for a homosexual in the United States of America is 43 years of age. A lesbian can only expect to live to be 45 years of age. Homosexuals represent 2 percent of the population, yet today they're carrying 60 percent of the known cases of syphilis." - Rod Parsley

Hillary Clinton qui ne sait meme pas utiliser une machine a cafe

Les grands americains hypocrites (the great american hypocrytes)

Finalement un petit bijou de la literrature americaine a la soude caustique vient a la rescousse de notre jugement intellectuel sur les USA. Le livre s'appelle "the great american hypocrytes" ou il repasse en details toute la mythologie de la droite americaine conservatrice jusqu'aux neoconservateurs. Le livre tres provocateur de Glenn Greenwald nous donne d'excellents details sur le comportement des Americains, ou la durete de la droite americaine n'est en fait que du pipot, trahissant le principe fondamental des Americains, etant donne le standard et l'ethique de nos leaders penchant a droite qui n'ont jamais fait leur service militaire. Meme la reincarnation de John Wayne dont les Republicains se sont inspires du mythe du cow-boy n'echappe pas a la regle: John Wayne n'a jamais fait son service militaire et pourtant il est vu comme un "taugh guy" aux USA.

Finalement l'auteur ne nous fait pas oublier que le mythe de la droite republicaine defendant des ideaux n'est que pure fiction allant de la prostitution, a la pedophilie, en passant par les divorces et autres histoires de comportement accoutume aux drogues medicales (Rush Limbaugh en est le parfait exemple). Bref l'auteur repasse en revue toutes les failles des Republicains afin de remettre l'Histoire americaine a jour. Une petite merveille a ne pas rater, pour vous amusez l'esprit et pour vous rafraichir la memoire qu'apres toutes ces annees de pure folie, tout le monde n'adhere pas au systeme des Republicains.

Food inflation hits families hard - Congress

Americans spent an average of $1,926 on groceries per person in 2007, a 4.2% increase from the prior year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Alors la tout de suite je peux vous dire que si vous depensez 1,926 dollars par an en nourriture, et c'est la moyenne nationale americaine, et bien il ne doit pas y avoir grand-chose dans les assiettes. Il y a 2 Ameriques, l'Amerique du sur-alimente, et l'Amerique du pauvre. Lire le reste pour cette catastrophe alimentaire qui vient de frapper l'Amerique et le reste du monde. Vivement que l'on revienne au labourage, au moins on saura que l'on ne mange pas de la merde.

Thursday May 1, 4:35 pm ET By Aaron Smith, CNNMoney.com staff writer

Lawmakers on Thursday scrutinized the impact of soaring food costs on American consumers already stung by rising gas prices.
"The anxiety felt over higher food prices is going to be just as widespread, and will equal or surpass, the anger and frustrations so many Americans have about higher gas prices," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, which convened the hearing amid growing concern about food inflation.

Some lawmakers heaped blame on farmers - and the subsidies they receive - for helping to drive up food costs. Rep. Jim Saxton, R-N.J., called for "genuine reform" of the "nightmare of wasteful, outdated [farm] subsidies."
The meeting followed comments on Tuesday from President Bush, who referred to the farm bill in Congress as "bloated" and incapable of significantly reducing food prices.
The bill would cut the 51-cent-a-gallon ethanol subsidy to 45 cents, according to news reports. Farmers who make up to $2.5 million are eligible for subsidies, but the bill would drop eligibility to $1 million or less.
Tom Buis, president of the National Farmer's Union and a former corn farmer from Indiana, defended farmers before the committee.
"Everybody seems to be wanting to blame the farmer for everything bad happening in America and around the world," said Buis. "Some people think that profit should be a dirty word only for American farmers."
Corn farmers have been blamed for everything from the rising price of beer in the United States to pasta riots in Italy, Buis said. But, he added, half of all corn is used to cattle feed and much of it is used for soda syrup.
"To make the equation that corn is taking food out of people's mouths is a real stretch," Buis said.
Buis blamed oil prices as "the real culprit," and said the situation had been exacerbated by weather conditions affecting wheat growers around the world.
For his part, Schumer pointed to a number of factors for rising food costs. Surging energy and commodities were the "main culprits" in driving up food prices, he said, while also pointing the finger at the rising cost of corn grown for ethanol production.
"High gasoline prices don't just raise transportation costs - they increase demand for gasoline substitutes, mainly ethanol derived from corn," said Schumer.
Food costs hit middle America
Americans spent an average of $1,926 on groceries per person in 2007, a 4.2% increase from the prior year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The department projects another 4.5% increase in 2008, to $2,013.
Certain foods have spiked dramatically over the past year. The price of eggs surged nearly 30%, while milk and flour jumped more than 13% and rice rose nearly 10%, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Food inflation has become a global problem. This year, food riots have broken out in Egypt, Haiti, Yemen, Bangladesh and other nations. On Tuesday, the United Nations formed a task force to deal with the problem.
Even in America, the specter of hunger is growing for many low-income families, including former high-income earners who recently lost their jobs.
George Braley, senior vice president of America's Second Harvest, the largest hunger relief organization in the United States, testified that the rising prices are taking their toll, as annual donations to the organization "remain frozen" at $140 million.
"Costs are eating up our surpluses," said Braley. "We need to buy more food, but the money is not there. These are very discouraging times."
Many factors pushing up the price of food
Dr. Joseph Glauber, chief economist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said the price increase in 2007 for all food was the largest annual jump since 1990. He blamed it on worldwide economic growth, weather factors in parts of the world, restrictions on food exports and the relatively new biofuel industry.
In particular, he said the two-year drought in Australia has pushed up wheat prices, and said there have also been poor crops in Canada, Europe and the Ukraine.
Corn production has increased, with 93.6 million acres planted in 2007 - the biggest crop since the wartime harvest of 1944. Despite that, prices are projected to reach a record of between $4.10 to $4.50 a bushel in 2007-2008, up from $3.04 in the prior 12-month period, according to Glauber.
"Demand is expected to remain strong, supported by expanding use for ethanol," said Glauber, noting that 24% of the corn grown in the U.S. is being converted to ethanol.
Rising oil prices are feeding the demand for alternative sources of fuel. Oil prices were $111 a barrel on Thursday, up 75% from a year ago. Gasoline, at a nationwide average of $3.62 a gallon, is up 20% from a year ago, according to motorist organization AAA.