"It is incredible, the government had no evacuation plan ... the first power in the world and it left its own population adrift."
Looting chaos hits New Orleans relief effort
Mayor Ray Nagin ordered 1,500 police officers to leave their search-and-rescue mission Wednesday night and return to the streets to stop looting that has turned increasingly hostile as the city plunges deeper into chaos.
Declaring that freedom is "untidy," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday the looting in Iraq was a result of "pent-up feelings" of oppression and that it would subside as Iraqis adjusted to life without Saddam Hussein.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The assistant secretary of the Army resigned Wednesday, with congressional aides saying Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had him fired for questioning proposed budget cuts for the Army Corps of Engineers.
Authorities are avoiding airdropping provisions into New Orleans — the traditional way of supplying disaster victims — out of fear of sparking riots, a state official said.
The Rebellion of the Talking HeadsNewscasters, sick of official lies and stonewalling, finally start snarling.
WASHINGTON - September 2 - Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) gave the following speech today on the House floor during a special session to provide relief money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina:
The 17th Street levee that gave way and led to the flooding of New Orleans was part of an intricate, aging system of barriers and pumps that was so chronically underfinanced that senior regional officials of the Army Corps of Engineers complained about it publicly for years
The Administration wants out of a multinational agreement to spend at least 0.7% of U.S. GDP on development assistance for poor nations
Evacuations were halted at the Superdome before dawn Saturday, leaving several thousand people trapped in squalor as authorities diverted buses to help some 25,000 refugees at the New Orleans Convention Center.
At one point Friday, the evacuation was interrupted briefly when school buses pulled up so some 700 guests and employees from the hotel could move to the head of the evacuation line — much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the Superdome since last Sunday.
Saturday, September 03, 2005
New Orleans Going To War
(will someone please tell me that this general is not comparing new orleans to somalia, because they are both dominated by black populations or because this general is saying that it is black people who are the problem. please. someone?)
NEW ORLEANS — Combat operations are underway on the streets “to take this city back” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“This place is going to look like Little Somalia,” Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force told Army Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops under his charge prepared to launch a massive citywide security mission from a staging area outside the Louisiana Superdome. “We’re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control.”
NEW ORLEANS — Combat operations are underway on the streets “to take this city back” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“This place is going to look like Little Somalia,” Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force told Army Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops under his charge prepared to launch a massive citywide security mission from a staging area outside the Louisiana Superdome. “We’re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control.”
Friday, September 02, 2005
Sandra Bullock Gets ScarySquirrelMan And Spammers Can Keep Their Sorry Loser Asses Off My Blog
because it's my friggin' birthday i am posting this beautiful woman again. why? screw you, i got my reasons. and she makes all of my problems disappear for at least a little while when i gaze upon her visage. she is one of a very, very few number of actresses who actually get it onscreen. she understands "be natural" and "don't try to be what you can't" and "scarysquirrelman loves it when you snort while laughing".
just watched "miss congeniality 2" this morning at 1, because i couldn't sleep. it is good, but not as good as the first. dietrich bader did his best, but he was no michael caine. benjamin bratt is gone and good riddance, because he was on my hit list of men who are not allowed to touch lips with sandra (johnny depp, benicio del toro, john cusack and hugh grant are. in fact, it would give me a major boner to my chin if they did. being as sexually secure as i am in my lifestyle allows me to be candid). william shatner is as good as he ever was, the airport girlie fight was great and sandra bullock is gorgeous.
before that, i watched "the jacket" with adrien brody and keira knightly. a cool, weird, semi-scifi, redemption story. one complaint, though: no boobies. keira is almost as fine looking a woman as i've ever seen (bend it like beckham, pirates of the caribbean, love actually which may be my favorite christmas movie that i can watch any time of year) besides sandra, audry hepburn and audry tattou. but i need to see her babymakers one time before i die without having to resort to crap like "doctor zshivago" (or however that pretentious piece of crap is spelled). booooorrrrring. by the way, "bend it like beckham" is a hell of a good story. while i'm "on it" so is "whale rider", which sounds like porn, but isn't so much.
today, i left work early in order to drink away all of the useless 40 year old brain cells that i will no longer be accessing and watched "sin city". "from dusk til dawn" meets "pulp fiction" meets "kill bill" and throws in about 7 bad b movie flicks from the 50's. all in all, a grand time. two dicks way up. all of the actors did very well. brittany murphy, in particular, was excellent. i'd give it two giant cocks up the pooper, but the only boobies were so fake as to not be attractive. were i 18 it wouldn't matter. tits are tits at that age. but i'm FORTY ONE!!! and i can only appreciate the real thing, baby. actually, the real thing might make me dizzy. it's been a while. my blood pressure is higher than it should be and i don't know what blood loss to all of my joints but one would do to me for more than a minute or so. hookers might call me a dream date, but i prefer "efficient and end-result orientated". looks better on the old resume. plus, no employer will know just what i like to do when i'm on the road for the company. call it team spirit if you will.
anyway, where was i? oh yeah, drinking away old memories no longer needed. so, after i got off work i went to drug fair and bought a half rack of corona. two steps after purchasing and crossing the whoosh doors the cardboard went karrriiiiipppp and the bottles smashed onto the cement. i finally understood the heineken commercial where those bottles break and a guy somewhere else rolls over and tells his babe not to touch him. i watched the twelver leak and wondered if i should demand a replacement. after a few moments of silence for the dead i put it on the asphalt where it would dry out quicker. then i noticed my leg was leaking as well. somehow, a bottle shard had made its way out of the box and jumped up my leg, leaving a trail of cut 8 inches long. very shallow, but still red. the little shard had popped out and up, which is a little weird. i later found a bit of blood on my shorts where the glass landed after doing its shuttle impression. the drug fair folks were nice enough to give me a new twelver and aplogize even as i was telling them it wasn't their fault at all. what a great white trash moment.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
The boxes are stacked eight feet high and line the walls of the large, windowless room. Inside them are new body bags, 10,000 in all. If a big, slow-moving hurricane crossed the Gulf of Mexico on the right track, it would drive a sea surge that would drown New Orleans under 20 feet of water. "As the water recedes," says Walter Maestri, a local emergency management director, "we expect to find a lot of dead bodies."
from Scientific American in October of 2001 comes this prescient article. we have evidently known for a long, long time what would happen if a large hurricane were to hit Louisiana and yet we (as a government) have done worse than nothing. we gutted federal disaster relief to one of the few areas everyone knew would suffer the most.
from Scientific American in October of 2001 comes this prescient article. we have evidently known for a long, long time what would happen if a large hurricane were to hit Louisiana and yet we (as a government) have done worse than nothing. we gutted federal disaster relief to one of the few areas everyone knew would suffer the most.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Say Nope To Dope
"heh. reading a book with y'all. great fun. reminds me of my ranch when the help would milk the cows and i could read Reader's Digest to 'em. made me laugh. so, uh, i just want y'all to know that i'm down with y'all. good americans. all of ya. proud of ya. uh, some of ya have got piercings on ya. shiny metal stuff. just, uh, want ya to know that, uh, even though i believe self-mutification is a sin and all that, it's not as bad as some things. y'all could get an abortion or do drugs or something. eat your boogers. that would be badder. uh, but i was thinking on the way here way up on air force one that your problems are real small. especially from up there. that's like 300,000 feet or something. way high. and getting high is bad. so don't do it. just say, uh, nope to dope. because you'll never get to be me if you loose your way. and when you loose your way, then it's the highway.
so, why is clifford red? and he's big, too, huh? i never got to read this in tenth grade. now i know why. it's, uh, a real big book.
but i want to, uh, go to what i talked to before. y'all got metal on you. you know ya couldn't get by my new airport stuff with that, right? i mean, you, uh, would probably half to get half nekkid to pass. and that's not cool with this fool. heh. but i wanted to talk on this fartherer, because i did a thing when i was in my twenties, like you, that i ain't proud of, but i still got. ya see, during my hazy frat days when i was puttin' stuff in my body that can't be proved, so put your hand down young man, i got me a souveneir from a night spent with my daddy's buddies. took me out on the town, heh, and got me all fucked, i mean energized, up and we found a parlor. called 'em parlors in those innocent days. so, i want you to know that i am down with your lack of moral compass, because i still have a dick chainy.
whoops, national security is calling me. gotta go and do important things. that's what bein' pregnitent is all about, important things. signin' bills an' cuttin' off funding. good, strong leader stuff. y'all have a good class now an' remember that killin' babies is for libruls and commies."
so, why is clifford red? and he's big, too, huh? i never got to read this in tenth grade. now i know why. it's, uh, a real big book.
but i want to, uh, go to what i talked to before. y'all got metal on you. you know ya couldn't get by my new airport stuff with that, right? i mean, you, uh, would probably half to get half nekkid to pass. and that's not cool with this fool. heh. but i wanted to talk on this fartherer, because i did a thing when i was in my twenties, like you, that i ain't proud of, but i still got. ya see, during my hazy frat days when i was puttin' stuff in my body that can't be proved, so put your hand down young man, i got me a souveneir from a night spent with my daddy's buddies. took me out on the town, heh, and got me all fucked, i mean energized, up and we found a parlor. called 'em parlors in those innocent days. so, i want you to know that i am down with your lack of moral compass, because i still have a dick chainy.
whoops, national security is calling me. gotta go and do important things. that's what bein' pregnitent is all about, important things. signin' bills an' cuttin' off funding. good, strong leader stuff. y'all have a good class now an' remember that killin' babies is for libruls and commies."
Hurricanes, Floods, Drill Rigs And The Oil Gestapo
"At least 20 oil rigs and platforms are missing in the Gulf of Mexico and a ruptured gas pipeline is on fire after Hurricane Katrina tore through the region, a US Coast Guard official said. "
...um, just missing? like they were there yesterday, but today they seem to have moved somewhere else? like the companies that own the rigs didn't bother to have an environmental assessment done before building them so that (in the case of a large hurricane) their legs would stay anchored? seems to me that our wonderful government is not the only entity to misunderestimate the perils of living and working within that great locale "anywhere within 1000 miles of the hurricane corridor". we teach our children to not live within 5 miles of a mobile home park in the midwest, because that park is a tornado magnet. but we don't seem to be so concerned about oil rigs in the gulf of mexico.
wow. 20 of them just gone. missing. presumed drowned. what the fuck, folks? we're the world's leader in engineering (and, yes, it is in part because we steal a lot of brain matter from india and japan), so why didn't we foresee this and makes the appropriate moves? louisiana is a conduit for water belonging somewhere else. new orleans has been living under the threat of something like this for a long time. mobil, exxon and shell have been raking in record profits for the last two years as supplies have dwindled (and spent money on commercials telling us why it isn't their fault). now, the south is suffering and disease may be on the upswing due to floodwaters, coffins, broken sewers and the general exodus of those who stayed too long. but the let's see how much money the oil giants kick in to the kitty to help these poor folk out. or do they continue telling us that they feel our pain and there's nothing they can do about it? remember that iraq is producing oil, but we're seeing none of it. easy way to push the alaska drilling for a paltry million barrels a day? we'll see. but i do think that new orleans and its surroundings will become political pawns in the domestic oil fight.
...um, just missing? like they were there yesterday, but today they seem to have moved somewhere else? like the companies that own the rigs didn't bother to have an environmental assessment done before building them so that (in the case of a large hurricane) their legs would stay anchored? seems to me that our wonderful government is not the only entity to misunderestimate the perils of living and working within that great locale "anywhere within 1000 miles of the hurricane corridor". we teach our children to not live within 5 miles of a mobile home park in the midwest, because that park is a tornado magnet. but we don't seem to be so concerned about oil rigs in the gulf of mexico.
wow. 20 of them just gone. missing. presumed drowned. what the fuck, folks? we're the world's leader in engineering (and, yes, it is in part because we steal a lot of brain matter from india and japan), so why didn't we foresee this and makes the appropriate moves? louisiana is a conduit for water belonging somewhere else. new orleans has been living under the threat of something like this for a long time. mobil, exxon and shell have been raking in record profits for the last two years as supplies have dwindled (and spent money on commercials telling us why it isn't their fault). now, the south is suffering and disease may be on the upswing due to floodwaters, coffins, broken sewers and the general exodus of those who stayed too long. but the let's see how much money the oil giants kick in to the kitty to help these poor folk out. or do they continue telling us that they feel our pain and there's nothing they can do about it? remember that iraq is producing oil, but we're seeing none of it. easy way to push the alaska drilling for a paltry million barrels a day? we'll see. but i do think that new orleans and its surroundings will become political pawns in the domestic oil fight.
Half Nekkid Thursday
L.A. Times Interview With A Real Nutjob
Getting Agnostic About 9/11
A society of nonbelievers questions the official versionMARK EHRMAN
Anyone who types the words "9/11" and "conspiracy" into an online search engine soon learns that not everybody buys the official narrative of what took place on Sept. 11, 2001. As a professor emeritus at the Claremont School of Theology, 66-year-old David Ray Griffin would seem to have more affinity for leather elbow patches than tin hats, yet after friends and colleagues prodded him into sifting through the evidence, he experienced a conversion. Now he's spreading the bad news. Griffin compiled a summary of material arguing against the accepted story that 19 hijackers sent by Osama bin Laden took the aviation system and the U.S. military by surprise that awful day in his 2004 book "The New Pearl Harbor" (published by Interlink, a Massachusetts-based independent publisher covering areas including travel, cooking, world fiction, current events, politics, children's literature and other subjects). He recently followed up with the book "The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions" (Interlink), a critique of the Kean commission document in which he suggests that a chunk of the blame for the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil lies closer to home than the caves of Afghanistan. We contacted him at his Santa Barbara-area home for a report on his journey from mild-mannered scholar to doubting Thomas.How did you join the ranks of those questioning the official account of the 9/11 events?
I was rather slow getting on board. For the first year and a half I just accepted the conventional view, really the blowback thesis, that this was blowback for our foreign policy. When a colleague suggested to me about a year after 9/11 that he was convinced our own government or forces within our own government had arranged it, I didn't accept that. Then several months later another colleague sent me [a link to] a website that had a timeline. Once I started reading that and saw all those stories drawn from mainstream sources that contradicted the official account, I decided I needed to look into it more carefully, and the more I looked, the worse it got. I considered it an obligation to kind of organize, compile the evidence and put it out there for the public.The Internet is full of 9/11 conspiracy theories. What have you contributed to the discussion?My main contribution has been the second book, [showing] that the 9/11 commission report is not worthy of belief, and the implication of that is that they were covering up the government's own guilt.What would constitute a "smoking gun" against the official 9/11 account?There are many. By just ignoring them, the 9/11 commission implicitly admitted they couldn't answer them. The towers coming down into a pile only a few stories high is a smoking gun. Many laws of physics had to be violated if the official story about the collapses is true. [The collapses] had all the earmarks of a controlled demolition by explosives. One of those is total collapse into a small pile of rubble. The fact that Building 7 [a skyscraper near the towers] collapsed when it had not been hit by an airplane, and collapsed in seven or eight seconds, that's a smoking gun. The fact that standard operating procedures were not followed that morning, and we've gotten three different stories now by the U.S. military as to why they did not intercept the planes, that's a smoking gun. The Secret Service leaving the president and themselves wide open to being attacked by [not responding immediately], that's a smoking gun. I can't say one is bigger than the other. You've got six or seven that are equally big.Critics of the official 9/11 account seem to draw sinister inferences from instances where people, buildings or physical objects didn't react or behave as one might expect in theory. For example, if the hijackers were devout Muslims, why were some drinking, eating pork chops and cavorting with lap dancers? Doesn't real life unfold inconsistently, even bizarrely? That's true, but the 9/11 commission simply ignored those questions. They're creating this image of fanatics who were so devout and convinced of the truth of their religion that they were ready to meet their maker, yet here's all this evidence that suggests they were not devout at all. [The commission] simply ignored evidence.Dissenters also seem to find it suspect that in a dire emergency, individuals and agencies bumbled, fumbled, delayed, dropped the ball or choked. Won't that occur in any emergency?Well, of course, that is the official theory. It's a coincidence theory that just happened to be that on those days, everybody became terribly incompetent. Take the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration]. They've got these standard procedures: If a plane goes off course, if you lose radio contact or lose the transponder, you call the military. On this day we're told these FAA officials hit the trifecta. They got all three of these things, and yet they would stand around debating, "Should we call the military? No, I don't think so." And when they finally call, the people at headquarters won't accept their calls because they were in conference or wouldn't pass the call on. They have roughly about 100 hijack warnings a year where planes have to be scrambled, but suddenly they become just all thumbs. The whole thing is just implausible. The other thing is, if you've got accidents, screw-ups, some ought to go one way and the others the other way. Here everything goes the same way. Everybody fails to do their jobs in relation to something to do with 9/11. With others, you have alleged that inconsistencies, omissions or lies in the 9/11 record point to a cover-up, or even collusion or orchestration, by the American government. What would motivate such a scenario?You've got liberal Democrats and Republicans and Independents who are appalled by what Andrew Bacevich [a professor of international relations at Boston University] called "the new American militarism" in the book "American Empire." New meaning, qualitatively different than before. This post-9/11 push to a new level has made the world an enormously more dangerous place. Many people apart from thinking about 9/11 as an inside job have decided that the United States is doing what [Princeton University emeritus international law professor] Richard Falk calls a "global domination project." Chalmers Johnson [Japan Policy Research Institute president], a previous conservative, now says that we have become a military juggernaut intent on world domination.Have you followed polls on what the public believes about 9/11?There was a Zogby poll in New York. The question asked was, do you believe the government had advance knowledge of the attacks and consciously let them happen? Forty-nine percent in New York City said yes. I believe it was 43% statewide. That is a pretty remarkable figure. In this country there has not been a poll that asked, do you believe the government actually planned and orchestrated the attacks? The question has been raised in Europe and Canada and has gotten to somewhere around 20%. It would be interesting to have such a poll in the United States.Conspiracy theorists are often dismissed as marginal types. Where do your views on 9/11 place you in the eyes of your peers in academia? One thing to point out is, the official account itself is a conspiracy theory. It says that 19 Arab Muslims under the influence of Osama bin Laden conspired to pull off this operation. The question is not whether one is a conspiracy theorist about 9/11. It's which conspiracy theory do you find most supported by the evidence?Does your role as a 9/11 dissenter depart from your life's work as a scholar and theologian?At first glance it may seem strange, but the task of a theologian is to look at the world from what we would imagine the divine perspective, [which] would care about the good of the whole and would love all the parts. [So] 9/11, if it was brought about by forces within our own government for imperial reasons, is antithetical to the general good. Evil has been a subject of your academic writing. It's also been a recurring theme in administration rhetoric. Is that strange? In these politicians' mouths, it's used to describe certain groups and organizations when it's politically convenient to do so, and then to overlook even greater evil when it's politically convenient to do so. If you understand the divine as an all-powerful and wrathful creator who seeks vengeance, and uses overwhelming power to destroy its enemies, why then, if you've got the political power, you're probably going to think you're acting like God if you do that. The [Christian] church during the early centuries was anti-empire. Rome was the enemy. With Constantine, the empire accepted Christianity, and Christianity started accepting empire and all that entailed. There has been a long history of support for militarism, so from that perspective, it's not so strange.Prior to your 9/11 work, did you have an anti-establishment streak?I never burned my bra. I was fairly critical like a lot of Americans are, but I don't think people would have looked at me and said, "There's an anti-establishment guy."Do you get hate mail?I've had a few people suggest I need to see a psychiatrist, and one psychiatrist in L.A. even kindly offered his services.
A society of nonbelievers questions the official versionMARK EHRMAN
Anyone who types the words "9/11" and "conspiracy" into an online search engine soon learns that not everybody buys the official narrative of what took place on Sept. 11, 2001. As a professor emeritus at the Claremont School of Theology, 66-year-old David Ray Griffin would seem to have more affinity for leather elbow patches than tin hats, yet after friends and colleagues prodded him into sifting through the evidence, he experienced a conversion. Now he's spreading the bad news. Griffin compiled a summary of material arguing against the accepted story that 19 hijackers sent by Osama bin Laden took the aviation system and the U.S. military by surprise that awful day in his 2004 book "The New Pearl Harbor" (published by Interlink, a Massachusetts-based independent publisher covering areas including travel, cooking, world fiction, current events, politics, children's literature and other subjects). He recently followed up with the book "The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions" (Interlink), a critique of the Kean commission document in which he suggests that a chunk of the blame for the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil lies closer to home than the caves of Afghanistan. We contacted him at his Santa Barbara-area home for a report on his journey from mild-mannered scholar to doubting Thomas.How did you join the ranks of those questioning the official account of the 9/11 events?
I was rather slow getting on board. For the first year and a half I just accepted the conventional view, really the blowback thesis, that this was blowback for our foreign policy. When a colleague suggested to me about a year after 9/11 that he was convinced our own government or forces within our own government had arranged it, I didn't accept that. Then several months later another colleague sent me [a link to] a website that had a timeline. Once I started reading that and saw all those stories drawn from mainstream sources that contradicted the official account, I decided I needed to look into it more carefully, and the more I looked, the worse it got. I considered it an obligation to kind of organize, compile the evidence and put it out there for the public.The Internet is full of 9/11 conspiracy theories. What have you contributed to the discussion?My main contribution has been the second book, [showing] that the 9/11 commission report is not worthy of belief, and the implication of that is that they were covering up the government's own guilt.What would constitute a "smoking gun" against the official 9/11 account?There are many. By just ignoring them, the 9/11 commission implicitly admitted they couldn't answer them. The towers coming down into a pile only a few stories high is a smoking gun. Many laws of physics had to be violated if the official story about the collapses is true. [The collapses] had all the earmarks of a controlled demolition by explosives. One of those is total collapse into a small pile of rubble. The fact that Building 7 [a skyscraper near the towers] collapsed when it had not been hit by an airplane, and collapsed in seven or eight seconds, that's a smoking gun. The fact that standard operating procedures were not followed that morning, and we've gotten three different stories now by the U.S. military as to why they did not intercept the planes, that's a smoking gun. The Secret Service leaving the president and themselves wide open to being attacked by [not responding immediately], that's a smoking gun. I can't say one is bigger than the other. You've got six or seven that are equally big.Critics of the official 9/11 account seem to draw sinister inferences from instances where people, buildings or physical objects didn't react or behave as one might expect in theory. For example, if the hijackers were devout Muslims, why were some drinking, eating pork chops and cavorting with lap dancers? Doesn't real life unfold inconsistently, even bizarrely? That's true, but the 9/11 commission simply ignored those questions. They're creating this image of fanatics who were so devout and convinced of the truth of their religion that they were ready to meet their maker, yet here's all this evidence that suggests they were not devout at all. [The commission] simply ignored evidence.Dissenters also seem to find it suspect that in a dire emergency, individuals and agencies bumbled, fumbled, delayed, dropped the ball or choked. Won't that occur in any emergency?Well, of course, that is the official theory. It's a coincidence theory that just happened to be that on those days, everybody became terribly incompetent. Take the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration]. They've got these standard procedures: If a plane goes off course, if you lose radio contact or lose the transponder, you call the military. On this day we're told these FAA officials hit the trifecta. They got all three of these things, and yet they would stand around debating, "Should we call the military? No, I don't think so." And when they finally call, the people at headquarters won't accept their calls because they were in conference or wouldn't pass the call on. They have roughly about 100 hijack warnings a year where planes have to be scrambled, but suddenly they become just all thumbs. The whole thing is just implausible. The other thing is, if you've got accidents, screw-ups, some ought to go one way and the others the other way. Here everything goes the same way. Everybody fails to do their jobs in relation to something to do with 9/11. With others, you have alleged that inconsistencies, omissions or lies in the 9/11 record point to a cover-up, or even collusion or orchestration, by the American government. What would motivate such a scenario?You've got liberal Democrats and Republicans and Independents who are appalled by what Andrew Bacevich [a professor of international relations at Boston University] called "the new American militarism" in the book "American Empire." New meaning, qualitatively different than before. This post-9/11 push to a new level has made the world an enormously more dangerous place. Many people apart from thinking about 9/11 as an inside job have decided that the United States is doing what [Princeton University emeritus international law professor] Richard Falk calls a "global domination project." Chalmers Johnson [Japan Policy Research Institute president], a previous conservative, now says that we have become a military juggernaut intent on world domination.Have you followed polls on what the public believes about 9/11?There was a Zogby poll in New York. The question asked was, do you believe the government had advance knowledge of the attacks and consciously let them happen? Forty-nine percent in New York City said yes. I believe it was 43% statewide. That is a pretty remarkable figure. In this country there has not been a poll that asked, do you believe the government actually planned and orchestrated the attacks? The question has been raised in Europe and Canada and has gotten to somewhere around 20%. It would be interesting to have such a poll in the United States.Conspiracy theorists are often dismissed as marginal types. Where do your views on 9/11 place you in the eyes of your peers in academia? One thing to point out is, the official account itself is a conspiracy theory. It says that 19 Arab Muslims under the influence of Osama bin Laden conspired to pull off this operation. The question is not whether one is a conspiracy theorist about 9/11. It's which conspiracy theory do you find most supported by the evidence?Does your role as a 9/11 dissenter depart from your life's work as a scholar and theologian?At first glance it may seem strange, but the task of a theologian is to look at the world from what we would imagine the divine perspective, [which] would care about the good of the whole and would love all the parts. [So] 9/11, if it was brought about by forces within our own government for imperial reasons, is antithetical to the general good. Evil has been a subject of your academic writing. It's also been a recurring theme in administration rhetoric. Is that strange? In these politicians' mouths, it's used to describe certain groups and organizations when it's politically convenient to do so, and then to overlook even greater evil when it's politically convenient to do so. If you understand the divine as an all-powerful and wrathful creator who seeks vengeance, and uses overwhelming power to destroy its enemies, why then, if you've got the political power, you're probably going to think you're acting like God if you do that. The [Christian] church during the early centuries was anti-empire. Rome was the enemy. With Constantine, the empire accepted Christianity, and Christianity started accepting empire and all that entailed. There has been a long history of support for militarism, so from that perspective, it's not so strange.Prior to your 9/11 work, did you have an anti-establishment streak?I never burned my bra. I was fairly critical like a lot of Americans are, but I don't think people would have looked at me and said, "There's an anti-establishment guy."Do you get hate mail?I've had a few people suggest I need to see a psychiatrist, and one psychiatrist in L.A. even kindly offered his services.
Oxycontin, Anyone?
we've talked about and linked to sick sites in the past. we've discussed the horrors of war and seen the graphic images. we've read the comments of those who don't see the dead as human. well, this site is a video clip. and it comes not from iraq or afghanistan or any of the many hotspots around the world. rather, it comes from seattle, a city i know well and love. it's a home video of two men being beaten outside a nightclub. most of it is the aftermath as the chickenshit "winners" stand around and pose for each other.
what's worse to me, though, is that these two men are soldiers back from iraq and rightwing nuts like rush limbaugh are telling people that they were attacked by anti-war leftists. in fact, their dates had been groped, they took offense and were beaten for it. they weren't in uniform and wore nothing to identify themselves as military. i'll wager that most of the thugs shown in the video don't even vote.
From the August 26 edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show:
LIMBAUGH: One final story before we go to the break. For those of you who still have an open mind about the anti-war left in this country, this story is out of Seattle. "Two soldiers who just returned from a year in Iraq were badly beaten in an attack outside Pioneer Square in Seattle. But, believe it or not, someone caught the beating on videotape and now police are asking for help identifying the suspects. The brutality of it all was captured on tape outside of Larry's Nightclub on First and Yesler on July 31. Police say the victims were with two women who had been groped by the suspects. One of the women threw a hotdog at the suspects and walked away. But they didn't get very far. The three suspects ran after then, began attacking the two men -- two soldiers who'd come home from Iraq. The graphic videotape shows both victims getting beaten over and over again and then after one of the victims loses consciousness, a suspect starts stomping on his head. Now, the cops want your help in catching these guys. Seattle Police Officer Sean Whitcomb said, 'We consider them very dangerous.' After not getting any leads, the Seattle police have just released the video to the media, even though it happened over three weeks ago."
I think it's been on television starting last night, so the video's been seen. "But clubs and business that the Seattle newspaper spoke with" -- ah, actually -- yeah, KOMO-TV is what this is -- have just received -- "wonder why the police waited for almost a month before making the tape public. Both victims suffered broken jaws. One suffered a broken arm. Both had other broken bones and several bruises." And the [KOMO] website published some still shots of the suspects from the, from the video. So, ah, once again, ah, the anti-war left, claiming to be a peace movement, illustrates itself to be anything but.
what's worse to me, though, is that these two men are soldiers back from iraq and rightwing nuts like rush limbaugh are telling people that they were attacked by anti-war leftists. in fact, their dates had been groped, they took offense and were beaten for it. they weren't in uniform and wore nothing to identify themselves as military. i'll wager that most of the thugs shown in the video don't even vote.
From the August 26 edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show:
LIMBAUGH: One final story before we go to the break. For those of you who still have an open mind about the anti-war left in this country, this story is out of Seattle. "Two soldiers who just returned from a year in Iraq were badly beaten in an attack outside Pioneer Square in Seattle. But, believe it or not, someone caught the beating on videotape and now police are asking for help identifying the suspects. The brutality of it all was captured on tape outside of Larry's Nightclub on First and Yesler on July 31. Police say the victims were with two women who had been groped by the suspects. One of the women threw a hotdog at the suspects and walked away. But they didn't get very far. The three suspects ran after then, began attacking the two men -- two soldiers who'd come home from Iraq. The graphic videotape shows both victims getting beaten over and over again and then after one of the victims loses consciousness, a suspect starts stomping on his head. Now, the cops want your help in catching these guys. Seattle Police Officer Sean Whitcomb said, 'We consider them very dangerous.' After not getting any leads, the Seattle police have just released the video to the media, even though it happened over three weeks ago."
I think it's been on television starting last night, so the video's been seen. "But clubs and business that the Seattle newspaper spoke with" -- ah, actually -- yeah, KOMO-TV is what this is -- have just received -- "wonder why the police waited for almost a month before making the tape public. Both victims suffered broken jaws. One suffered a broken arm. Both had other broken bones and several bruises." And the [KOMO] website published some still shots of the suspects from the, from the video. So, ah, once again, ah, the anti-war left, claiming to be a peace movement, illustrates itself to be anything but.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Rioting In The Only Safe Place In New Orleans
"Inmates at a prison in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans have rioted, attempted to escape and are now holding hostages, a prison commissioner told ABC News affiliate WBRZ in Baton Rouge, La."
now tht's what i call a story that won't sell. but it sounds like a made-for-tv movie.
now tht's what i call a story that won't sell. but it sounds like a made-for-tv movie.
I'm Just Sayin'...The Trilogy
this is sweeeeet, too. apparently, bush is willing to pass the buck onto former presidents (so long as they are democrats) as to why we are in the situation we are currently in. note that not one of his references comes from his father's tenure as head honcho:
"They looked at our response after the hostage crisis in Iran, the bombings of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the first World Trade Center attack, the killing of American soldiers in Somalia, the destruction of two U.S. embassies in Africa, and the attack on the USS Cole. They concluded that free societies lacked the courage and character to defend themselves against a determined enemy… After September the 11th, 2001, we’ve taught the terrorists a very different lesson: America will not run in defeat and we will not forget our responsibilities."
this is his speech from san diego today. all comments direct toward the democrat in charge. none toward bush, sr. or reagan. it's only the democrats who can get ya killed or taxed into eternity. it ain't reagan whose party talked the iranians into not releasing the hostages until the election was over. it's not grenada, guatamala, el salvador, nicaragua, kuwait, suadi arabia, bolivia, or any other place where we decided to place our feet. and then run when we realized the populace didn't like us so much.
"They looked at our response after the hostage crisis in Iran, the bombings of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the first World Trade Center attack, the killing of American soldiers in Somalia, the destruction of two U.S. embassies in Africa, and the attack on the USS Cole. They concluded that free societies lacked the courage and character to defend themselves against a determined enemy… After September the 11th, 2001, we’ve taught the terrorists a very different lesson: America will not run in defeat and we will not forget our responsibilities."
this is his speech from san diego today. all comments direct toward the democrat in charge. none toward bush, sr. or reagan. it's only the democrats who can get ya killed or taxed into eternity. it ain't reagan whose party talked the iranians into not releasing the hostages until the election was over. it's not grenada, guatamala, el salvador, nicaragua, kuwait, suadi arabia, bolivia, or any other place where we decided to place our feet. and then run when we realized the populace didn't like us so much.
Just Sayin' Redux
this is good, too. bush and the terminator ain't hooking up during bush's campaign swing through the state, because both are having problems popularity-wise and don't need to hang out together. in other words, "why would i want my picture taken with someone who's doing as badly in the polls as me?"
I'm Just Sayin'
i'm just saying that it looks like he's flipping us off again.
i don't know. maybe it's just the new orleans crowd he doesn't like. i mean the other picture makes 'em look like immigrants anyways and what's not hate about them, right?
i don't know. maybe it's just the new orleans crowd he doesn't like. i mean the other picture makes 'em look like immigrants anyways and what's not hate about them, right?
Half Nekkid Thursday...Meet Dork Tuesday
here's a new game from the creators of Half Nekkid Thursday. it's Dork Tuesday. scan and show your dorkiest pictures every tuesday (starting next week), then comment on osbasso's site so everyone can come and enjoy your humiliation.
if i can get my fucked up, pissy little big lots scanner working...i'll be right there.
if i can get my fucked up, pissy little big lots scanner working...i'll be right there.
Monday, August 29, 2005
Um, I Just Have To Post This In Its Entirety, Because It Shows Exactly Who We Voted For And What An Apology We Owe To Ourselves And Others
just so ya know, this article is from capitol hill blue, a real online newspaper. they don't make this shit up. the photo is real, the quotes are real. the alki-in-charge is real. i've been following his tirades for a long, long time. but this is the first actual, factual, pictorial proof that Shrub is out of fucking control. like nixon before him, when faced with mounting disapproval from the rank-and-file and the public-at-large he blames everyone but himself and those who created him.Bush's Obscene Tirades Rattle White House AidesBy DOUG THOMPSONAug 25, 2005, 06:19
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While President George W. Bush travels around the country in a last-ditch effort to sell his Iraq war, White House aides scramble frantically behind the scenes to hide the dark mood of an increasingly angry leader who unleashes obscenity-filled outbursts at anyone who dares disagree with him.
“I’m not meeting again with that goddamned bitch,” Bush screamed at aides who suggested he meet again with Cindy Sheehan, the war-protesting mother whose son died in Iraq. “She can go to hell as far as I’m concerned!”
Bush flashes the bird, something aides say he does often and has been doing since his days as governor of Texas.Bush, administration aides confide, frequently explodes into tirades over those who protest the war, calling them “motherfucking traitors.” He reportedly was so upset over Veterans of Foreign Wars members who wore “bullshit protectors” over their ears during his speech to their annual convention that he told aides to “tell those VFW assholes that I’ll never speak to them again is they can’t keep their members under control.”
White House insiders say Bush is growing increasingly bitter over mounting opposition to his war in Iraq. Polls show a vast majority of Americans now believe the war was a mistake and most doubt the President’s honesty.
“Who gives a flying fuck what the polls say,” he screamed at a recent strategy meeting. “I’m the President and I’ll do whatever I goddamned please. They don’t know shit.”
Bush, whiles setting up for a photo op for signing the recent CAFTA bill, flipped an extended middle finger to reporters. Aides say the President often “flips the bird” to show his displeasure and tells aides who disagree with him to “go to hell” or to “go fuck yourself.” His habit of giving people the finger goes back to his days as Texas governor, aides admit, and videos of him doing so before press conferences were widely circulated among TV stations during those days. A recent video showing him shooting the finger to reporters while walking also recently surfaced.
Bush’s behavior, according to prominent Washington psychiatrist, Dr. Justin Frank, author of “Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President,” is all too typical of an alcohol-abusing bully who is ruled by fear.
To see that fear emerges, Dr. Frank says, all one has to do is confront the President. “To actually directly confront him in a clear way, to bring him out, so you would really see the bully, and you would also see the fear,” he says.
Dr. Frank, in his book, speculates that Bush, an alcoholic who brags that he gave up booze without help from groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, may be drinking again.
“Two questions that the press seems particularly determined to ignore have hung silently in the air since before Bush took office,” Dr. Frank says. “Is he still drinking? And if not, is he impaired by all the years he did spend drinking? Both questions need to be addressed in any serious assessment of his psychological state.”
Last year, Capitol Hill Blue learned the White House physician prescribed anti-depressant drugs for the President to control what aides called “violent mood swings.” As Dr. Frank also notes: “In writing about Bush's halting appearance in a press conference just before the start of the Iraq War, Washington Post media critic Tom Shales speculated that ‘the president may have been ever so slightly medicated.’”
Dr. Frank explains Bush’s behavior as all-to-typical of an alcoholic who is still in denial:
“The pattern of blame and denial, which recovering alcoholics work so hard to break, seems to be ingrained in the alcoholic personality; it's rarely limited to his or her drinking,” he says. “The habit of placing blame and denying responsibility is so prevalent in George W. Bush's personal history that it is apparently triggered by even the mildest threat.”
Sunday, August 28, 2005
horrors!
why is it when i let friends get me lubricated i always seem to agree to impossible bets? i don't always know if i did agree, but it sure does seem like it. so, here i am again wondering how in the hell i'm going to come up with twenty pages of a horror story in 20 days. shit, just thinking about it is a horror story.
man, i either gotta sober up or stop reading the mail. both of them together promote dizziness.
i should explain. no, that would be bad. let me fabricate. you know the cute little booger from e.t.? the one with the jedi finger? what if he had hidden fangs? what if the other cute little booger (drew barrymore) was actually a baby werewolf? and she attacked e.t. in front of his friends? what if a nation of e.t.'s then descended on our planet and proceeded to poke and touch us with their fingers? and we submitted? and tried to kill all of the werewolves (except for baby drew)?
well, this is not going to be that story. this story is going to be...
man, i either gotta sober up or stop reading the mail. both of them together promote dizziness.
i should explain. no, that would be bad. let me fabricate. you know the cute little booger from e.t.? the one with the jedi finger? what if he had hidden fangs? what if the other cute little booger (drew barrymore) was actually a baby werewolf? and she attacked e.t. in front of his friends? what if a nation of e.t.'s then descended on our planet and proceeded to poke and touch us with their fingers? and we submitted? and tried to kill all of the werewolves (except for baby drew)?
well, this is not going to be that story. this story is going to be...
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