Friday, December 21, 2007

NASA Delays Mars Scout Mission to 2013


WASHINGTON - NASA announced today that the next mission in the Mars Scout program, originally planned for launch in 2011, is now targeted for launch in 2013. The schedule slip is because of an organizational conflict of interest that was discovered in one of the mission proposal team's Phase A Concept Study.

read more | digg story


peAce...
topbop!

Thursday, December 20, 2007

...5 million Iraqi orphans...


"Iraq's anti-corruption board revealed on Saturday that there were five million Iraqi orphans as reported by official government statistics, urging the government, parliament, and NGOs to be in constant contact with Iraq's parentless children. "

read more... and the original press release...

So "freedom" at all costs?


peAce...
please!

topbop!

Bush, Maliki Break Iraqi Law with U.N. Mandated Occupation

On Tuesday, the Bush administration and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pushed a resolution through the U.N. Security Council extending the mandate that provides legal cover for foreign troops to operate in Iraq for another year.

read more | digg story

peAce...now!
topbop!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Homeland Security Presidential Directive Number 12


...from culturekitchen... "This is Bush America. You can voluntarily give up your civil liberties or voluntarily choose to lose your job. Those are your “choices.” Is this is what they mean when they say “get government off our backs?”

Keep in mind that Homeland Security Presidential Directive Number 12 is NOT A LAW. Congress and the Supreme Court have had no say in it or in its implementation (covered under FIPS 201 (PDF)). It is a declaration made by Bush, not a law legislated by Congress.

Let me ask you this: When the President of a nation can make a unilateral declaration that invalidates laws passed by Congress (e.g. the Privacy Act of 1974), laws passed by the States, and the Constitution itself, what do you have: a.) a democracy, b.) a republic, c.) a dictatorship? The answer is “c.” President Bush Presidential Boots When laws and the Constitution are subservient to the directives of a single individual, it is a dictatorship. I am sorry. But I cannot interpret this in any other way. Call it a nascent dictatorship if you prefer. But we now have a system where a directive by a single individual takes precedence over law (Federal and State) and Constitution. THAT is about as un-American as you can get."




So here we stand in America at a crossroads...


peAce...
topbop!

Thursday, November 29, 2007

U.S. led invasion of Iraq: biggest single act of mass murder of the late 20th century and the 21st century


...from John Pilger, antiwar.com:

"In October 2006, the Lancet published research by Johns Hopkins University in the US and al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad which calculated that 655,000 Iraqis had died as a result of the Anglo-American invasion. A Freedom of Information search revealed that the [United Kingdom] government, while publicly dismissing the study, secretly backed it as comprehensive and reliable. The chief scientific adviser to the Ministry of Defense, Sir Roy Anderson, called its methods "robust" and "close to best practice." Other senior governments officials secretly acknowledged the survey's "tried and tested way of measuring mortality in conflict zones." Since then, the British research polling agency, Opinion Research Business, has extrapolated a figure of 1.2 million deaths in Iraq. Thus, the scale of death caused by the British and US governments may well have surpassed that of the Rwanda genocide, making it the biggest single act of mass murder of the late 20th century and the 21st century."


oh! why not...
peAce?
topbop!

Thursday, November 08, 2007

...the have mores...



George W. Bush - NEW YORK, Oct. 20, 2000, Alfred E. Smith memorial dinner, a fundraiser for Catholic charities hosted by the Archbishop. To the diamond-studded $800-a-plate crowd… "This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-mores, some people call you the elites; I call you my base."

This post is a bit of stream-of-consciousness... a riff on how things are, really... hope you find food for thinking...
topbop!


How will we keep the vassals toiling to our ends?

We will create a system above their heads from which we will conduct businesses to suspend desirable things attainable based on an arbitrary and imaginary value in the form of a monetary system. This will enable us to enslave the population in the pursuit of these things that we cause to be created by employing them to create them. Of course the actual workings of the harvesting system will be concealed behind a confusing network of laws and regulations. Our profits, explicit and implicit taxation, banking interest and governmental fees represent the winnowing edge of our great machine. We will create an ownership society where we will establish the illusion of ownership of land. We will possess and deploy weapons of planetary obliteration while arresting and incarcerating people for writing poetry contrary to our views of the world order...

How will we keep them contained on the physical plane and inactive on the spiritual plane?

We will stimulate their lusts and desires with packaging and advertising. We will consume their concern with fear mongering and war-making. We will confuse them with weapons of mass distraction like terrorism, real and otherwise. We will appear to align with the spirit of all that is right while all the while siding with the spirit of all that is right for us. The spiraling price of oil is making certain people, a small percentage of the world population, very, very wealthy…

How do we seize even more control?

We will declare martial law. We will pretend to tell other world leaders to stop oppressing their own people in vastly different ways depending on whether they are our “allies” or not, at the moment. In one case we will invade a former allies country and arrange their hanging. In another, the reprehensible and oppressive military government oppression of a current ally is rampant. Blockage of opposition party efforts via imprisonment of the entire cadre of organizers, along with obvious direct interference with basic rights and liberty, is met with a request to stop wearing your military uniform. We will use their artificially stimulated fear alert levels to raise the level of distrust throughout society. We will jail border guards for shooting at drug smugglers while never explaining how two DC9 jets, both with recent history of CIA ownership and CIA flight plan destinations crash with several tons of cocaine abroad each… Then pass the p.a.t.R.I.O.T.a.c.t. and ignore FISA, that's how.

Where does this all lead?

The population of the world is growing. Growing at an ever-faster rate. As the population grows, and more and more of that growing population enters industrialized society, there is more and more consumption of water, food, resources, and the very fabric of our planet. Also, because our technology base is so ecologically dirty, more and more spewing waste and polluting effuse is produced. Arable, habitable land and natural resources on the earth are finite, so, as far as we, the ruling elite class can see, the population that the world can sustain is limited, and also finite... The world, we believe, is in actuality only sized to sustain human beings in a really long term way up to some number of individuals, say X or so. The logical extension of this line of reasoning is that it will come down to a struggle to survive at some point, should the population continue to grow, unchecked…

07/01/07 6,602,274,812
08/01/07 6,608,818,475
09/01/07 6,615,362,139
10/01/07 6,621,694,717
11/01/07 6,628,238,381
12/01/07 6,634,570,959
01/01/08 6,641,114,623
02/01/08 6,647,658,287
03/01/08 6,653,779,780
04/01/08 6,660,323,443
05/01/08 6,666,656,022
06/01/08 6,673,199,685
07/01/08 6,679,532,264...

So perhaps it should be obvious, in a rather subtle way, that if you follow the argument thru, an unprovoked war that kills off a million or so people and destroys an entire nation filled with the treasures of antiquity in a far-away land is a worthwhile endeavor for this nation that would appear to fashion itself towards actions to survive by the weight of its Billy club.

What is next...?



certainly...not...peAce...?
topbop!

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

...sign of plans for an attack on Iran...

Buried in the $196.4 billion supplemental war spending proposal that Bush submitted to Congress on Oct. 22 is a request for $88 million to modify B-2 bombers so they can drop a Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, a conventional bomb still in development that is the most powerful weapon designed to destroy targets deep underground.

This appropriation will support a new contract with the builders of the B-2, Northrop Grumman. Some Democrats are worried that President Bush’s funding request to enable B-2 “stealth” bombers to carry a new 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bomb is a sign of plans for an attack on Iran. James P. Moran, D-Va., a senior member of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, said he did not believe the MOP could be used in Iraq or Afghanistan and cited Iran as the potential target for the bomb. He said he would oppose the funding. "That's a clear red flag," Moran said. Jim McDermott, D-Wash....said the funding request was the latest of many signs that indicated Bush was contemplating an attack on Iran. McDermott said such a scenario was his "biggest fear between now and the election."




"We are not authorizing Bush to use a 30,000-pound bunker buster," he said. "They've been banging the drums the same way as they did in 2002 with Iraq."




peAce...please!
topbop!

Monday, November 05, 2007

Pakistan arrests hundreds...


Pakistani police arrested hundreds of lawyers, human-rights activists and opposition politicians Sunday in an apparent bid to ward off protests over President Pervez Musharraf's weekend declaration of a national state of emergency and firing of the country's Supreme Court chief.

In Islamabad, aides to General Musharraf — who had dismissed pleas on Friday from Sec. of State Rice and Adm. William J. Fallon, the senior military commander in the Middle East, to avoid the state-of-emergency declaration — said they had anticipated that there would be few real consequences. They called the American reaction “muted,” saying General Musharraf had not received phone calls of protest from Mr. Bush or other senior American officials. In unusually candid terms, they said American officials supported stability over democracy. Could this have been a better choice in Iraq?

Extremism and oppression are okay when imposed by a dictator who is currently on the U.S. State "Friends" list...



peAce...
topbop!

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

"Red Fridays"



Someone sent this to me. I am not certain who originated this as it came to me without the original message. Let's appreciate those who volunteer to protect us. They do not choose the mission, they just seek to carry it out.


Will you give this to my Daddy?

Last week I was in Atlanta , Georgia attending a conference. While I was in the airport, returning home, I heard several people behind me beginning to clap and cheer. I immediately turned around and witnessed one of the greatest acts of patriotism I have ever seen.

Moving thru the terminal was a group of soldiers in their camos. As they began heading to their gate, everyone (well almost everyone) was abruptly to their feet with their hands waving and cheering.

When I saw the soldiers, probably 30-40 of them, being applauded and cheered for, it hit me. I'm not alone. I'm not the only red-blooded American who still loves this country and supports our troops and their families.

Of course I immediately stopped and began clapping for these young unsung heroes who are putting their lives on the line everyday for us so we can go to school, work and home without fear or reprisal.

Just when I thought I could not be more proud of my country or of our service men and women, a young girl, not more than 6 or 7 years old, ran up to one of the male soldiers. He kneeled down and said "hi."

The little girl then asked him if he would give something to her daddy for her.

The young soldier, who didn't look any older than maybe 22 himself, said he would try and what did she want to give to her daddy. Then suddenly the little girl grabbed the neck of this soldier, gave him the biggest hug she could muster and then kissed him on the cheek.

The mother of the little girl, who said her daughter's name was Courtney, told the young soldier that her husband was a Marine and had been in Iraq for 11 months now. As the mom was explaining how much her daughter Courtney missed her father, the young soldier began to tear up.

When this temporarily single mom was done explaining her situation, all of the soldiers huddled together for a brief second. Then one of the other servicemen pulled out a military-looking walkie-talkie. They started playing with the device and talking back and forth on it.

After about 10-15 seconds of this, the young soldier walked back over to Courtney, bent down and said this to her, "I spoke to your daddy and he told me to give this to you." He then hugged this little girl that he had just met and gave her a kiss on the cheek. He finished by saying "your daddy told me to tell you that he loves you more than anything and he is coming home very soon."

The mom at this point was crying almost uncontrollably and as the young soldier stood to his feet, he saluted Courtney and her mom. I was standing no more than 6 feet away from this entire event.

As the soldiers began to leave, heading towards their gate, people resumed their applause. As I stood there applauding and looked around, there were very few dry eyes, including my own. That young soldier in one last act of selflessness, turned around and blew a kiss to Courtney with a tear rolling down his cheek.

We need to remember everyday all of our soldiers and their families and thank God for them and their sacrifices. At the end of the day, it's good to be an American.

RED FRIDAYS ----- Very soon, you will see a great many people wearing Red every Friday. The reason? Americans who support our troops used to be called the "silent majority". We are no longer silent, and are voicing our love for God, country and home in record breaking numbers.

We are not organized, boisterous or over-bearing. We get no liberal media coverage on TV, to reflect our message or our opinions. Many Americans, like you, me and all our friends, simply want to recognize that the vast majority of America supports our troops.

Our idea of showing solidarity and support for our troops with dignity and respect starts this Friday -and continues each and every Friday until the troops all come home, sending a deafening message that.. Every red-blooded American who supports our men and women afar will wear something red.

By word of mouth, press, TV -- let's make the United States on every Friday a sea of red much like a homecoming football game in the bleachers.

If every one of us who loves this country will share this with acquaintances, co-workers, friends, and family. It will not be long before the USA is covered in RED and it will let our troops know the once "silent" majority is on their side more than ever; certainly more than the media lets on.

The first thing a soldier says when asked "What can we do to make things better for you?" is...We need your support and your prayers.

Let's get the word out and lead with class and dignity, by example; and wear something red every Friday.

IF YOU AGREE -- THEN SEND THIS ON.
IF YOU COULD CARE LESS THEN HIT THE DELETE BUTTON --- IT IS YOUR CHOICE.
WE LIVE IN THE LAND OF THE FREE, ONLY BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE.
THEIR BLOOD RUNS RED---- SO WEAR RED! --- MAY GOD HELP AMERICA TO BECOME ONE NATION, UNDER GOD.

HAVE A GREAT DAY








peAce...
topbop!

Sunday, October 21, 2007

...the "truth" about Iraq, part III...

A principal architect of Iraq’s interim constitution, who resigned in August as one of the country’s top diplomats, has laid out a devastating critique of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the U.S. occupation, telling NBC News that, functionally, “there is no Iraqi government.” Has the U.S. remade Iraq in it's own image? "The Iraqi government is an illusion", said Istrabadi, who is now a visiting professor at the Indiana University Law School. “You’ve got patently incompetent men appointed to important positions.”

...read full story...

Feisal Istrabadi was Deputy Permanent Representative of the Iraqi Mission to the United Nations, which position he held from 2004 until recently. In 2004 he was also appointed as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at the Iraqi Ministry for Foreign Affairs. As a legal advisor to the Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. al-Istrabadi negotiated U.N. Security Council Resolution 1546 (June 2004). He was also a principal legal drafter of the Law of Administration of the State of Iraq for the Transitional Period, i.e. the transitional constitution of the country (2003-2004) and author of the bill of Fundamental Rights. Before engaging in the reconstruction of Iraq, Mr. al-Istrabadi had been a practicing barrister in the United States for 15 years, with approximately 70 jury and bench civil trials in federal and State courts, and numerous administrative hearings. He is a Senior Fellow for Legal Reform and Development in the Arab World, the International Human Rights Law Institute, College of Law, DePaul University, Chicago.

Ambassador Istrabadi holds a JD degree from Indiana University and a Master of Laws degree from Northwestern University.



peAce...was a better choice...
topbop!

Thursday, October 18, 2007

...the "truth" about Iraq, part II



"September 2007 - More than 1,000,000 Iraqis murdered..."

"In the week in which General Patraeus reports back to US Congress on the impact the recent ‘surge’ is having in Iraq, a new poll reveals that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003."

... full story

Do the math... 1,000,000 Iraqi civilian deaths divided by 2,974 fatalities on 9/11 yields 336 and 1/4 lives lost in Iraq for each life lost in America on 9/11. And Iraqis did not even cause 9/11!!! Look for "evil insanity" in the dictionary and this will be there as a prime example of it's meaning!


why not...
peAce?
topbop!

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

...the "truth" about the U.S.A.



...from the Carpet Bagger:

"For six years, we’ve been warned that the Bush administration needs sweeping new authority, free of checks and balances, in order to keep us safe. Officials, without warrants, should be able tap Americans’ phones and read their emails. The Patriot Act was absolutely necessary. Torture policies should be written and practiced in secret. Habeas corpus need no longer be a guiding principle. We’re all used to words and phrases like “rendition,” “enemy combatants,” and “indefinite detention.”

All of this is completely justifiable, we’ve heard, because there are dangers lurking in every corner and terrorists in our midst. But it appears there may be a disconnect between what we’ve been told and what is true.

Six years of investigations and prosecutions have turned up little evidence of Islamic jihadists at work in the United States, according to a study released Monday.

The study, conducted by New York University’s Center on Law and Security, tracked 510 cases billed as terrorism-related when arrests were made.

But it found only 158 of those people arrested since al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, attacks were prosecuted for terrorism.



And how many people were convicted of planning attacks within the United States? Four, including Zacarias Moussaoui and “shoe bomber” Richard Reid."



...wouldn't you prefer...
peAce?

topbop!

Saturday, October 13, 2007

The "truth" about Iraq...

"... nightmare with no end in sight..."





Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the former top commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, slammed the handling of the war and gave a bleak assessment of the current situation in Iraq.

“There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight,” Sanchez told a convention of military journalists on Friday.

In sharp words for President Bush, he said: “From a catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan to the administration’s latest surge strategy, this administration has failed to employ and synchronise its political, economic and military power. National leadership continues to believe that victory can be achieved by military power alone.”

He also accused the Bush administration of failing to “communicate effectively the reality to the American people” of the situation in Iraq. He labelled US political leaders as ‘incompetent’ and ‘corrupted’, adding that "...they would have faced courts martial for dereliction of duty had they been in the military."

“The administration, Congress and the entire inter-agency, especially the State Department, must shoulder the responsibility for this catastrophic failure and the American people must hold them accountable.”

“There has been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders,” he said, adding later in his remarks that civilian officials have been “derelict in their duties” and guilty of a “lust for power.”

Continuing changes to military strategy alone will not achieve victory, rather it will only “stave off defeat,” he said.

...read more... Stars and Stripes


...how about...
peAce..?
topbop!

Friday, October 12, 2007

Emmett Till 1955=Martin Lee Anderson 2006

Emmett Till was a fourteen year old African-American boy from Chicago, Illinois brutally murdered in Money, Mississippi, in 1955. His death mobilized the civil rights movement. Martin Lee Anderson died in January 2006 after he collapsed during forced exercise and was hit by guards at a boot camp for juvenile delinquents in Panama City, Florida.



What has the 2006 death of Martin Lee Anderson brought out into the light? Same thing still happening 20+ years later... A process takes time to unfold...

...and now this... "Guards acquitted in teenager's 'boot camp' death"


peAce...someday...we pray...
topbop!

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Blackwater = U.S. terrorists?



Blackwater is a private security contractor working for the U.S. government in Iraq and Afghanistan. The record of their actions, if performed by a group that was not employed by the U.S., would be labeled as "terrorism". By extension, the U.S. State Department would be a government that "supports terrorism".

In a document published by the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, the Committee writes the following:

"Blackwater Shootíng Incídents. Incident reports compiled by Blackwater reveal that Blackwater has been involved in at least 195 "escalation of force" incidents in Iraq since 2005 that involved the firing of shots by Blackwater forces. This is an average of 1.4 shooting incidents per week. Blackwater's contract to provide protective services to the State Department provides that Blackwater can engage in only defensive use of force. In over 80% of the shooting incidents, however, Blackwater reports that its forces fired the first shots. In the vast majority of instances in which Blackwater fires shots, Blackwater is firing from a moving vehicle and does not remain at the scene to determine if the shots resulted in casualties. Even so, Blackwater's own incident reports document 16 Iraqi casualties and 162 incidents with property damage, primarily to vehicles owned by lraqis. In over 80% of the escalation of force incidents since 2005, Blackwater's own reports document either casualties or property damage."

"The reports describe multiple Blackwater incidents involving Iraqi casualties that have not previously been reported. In one of these incidents, Blackwater forces shot a civilian bystander in the head. In another, State Department officials report that Blackwater sought to cover up a shooting that killed an apparently innocent bystander. In a third, Blackwater provided no assistance after a traffic accident caused by its "counter-flow" driving left an Iraqi vehicle in "a ball of flames." Blackwater also reports engaging in tactical military operations with U.S. forces."

"In addition to Blackwater, two other private military contractors, DynCorp International and Triple Canopy, provide protective services to the State Department. Blackwater reports more shooting incidents than the other two contractors combined. Blackwater also has the highest incidence of shooting first, although all three companies shoot first in more than half of all escalation of forces incidents.

State Department Responses. Documents provided by the State Department raise serious questions about how State Department officials responded to reports of Blackwater killings of Iraqis. In a high-profile incident in December 2006, a drunken Blackwater contractor killed the guard of Iraqi Vice President Adil Abd-al-Mahdi. Within 36 hours after the shooting, the State Department had allowed Blackwater to transport the Blackwater contractor out of Iraq. The State Department Charge d'Affaires recommended that Blackwater make a "sizeable payment" and an "apology" to "avoid this whole thing becoming even worse." The Charge d'Affaires suggested a $250,000 payment to the guard's family, but the Department's Diplomatic Security Service said this was too much and could cause Iraqis to "iry to get killed." In the end, the State Department and Blackwater agreed on a $15,000 payment. One State Department offrcial wrote:
"We would like to help them resolve this so we can continue with our protective mission. "The State Department took a similar approach upon receiving reports that Blackwater shooters killed an innocent Iraqi, except that in this case, the State Department requested only a $5,000 payment to "put this unfortunate matter behind us quickly." There is no evidence in the documents that the Committee has reviewed that the State Department sought to restrain Blackwater's actions, raised concems about the number of shooting incidents involving Blackwater or the company's high rate of shooting first, or detained Blackwater contractors for investigation."




If these actions were done by those opposing the will of the United States, the perpetrators would be labeled "terrorists" and hunted down to be "killed or captured". Their demise would be reported with great fanfare on Fox News and CNN. Please look at what this administration is doing in YOUR name...


peAce...now!
topbop!

Thursday, October 04, 2007

more guns, more guns...


Iraqis to Pay China $100 Million for Weapons for Police...

"Iraq has ordered $100 million worth of light military equipment from China for its police force, contending that the United States was unable to provide the materiel and is too slow to deliver arms shipments, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said yesterday.

The China deal, not previously made public, has alarmed military analysts who note that Iraq's security forces already are unable to account for more than 190,000 weapons supplied by the United States, many of which are believed to be in the hands of Shiite and Sunni militias, insurgents and other forces seeking to destabilize Iraq and target U.S. troops."

"In 2004 and 2005, the United States bought 185,000 AK-47s from an Eastern European country -- after Iraqis rejected U.S.-made M-16 assault rifles -- as part of a $2.8 billion program to deliver military equipment to Iraq. But a recent Government Accountability Office report said that 110,000 of them were unaccounted for, with about 30 percent of all arms distributed to Iraqi forces by the United States since 2004 missing."

This will certainly assist with the police state being created in Iraq.


full story here...





peAce...
topbop!

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

...whose country is this anyway?

Our Leader




According to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, "Only about 25 percent of Americans support the administration's $190 billion war funding request; 70 percent want the proposed allocation reduced..."

Did anybody else have a class called "Civics" when they were in school? If I remember my lessons from that class correctly, I would say our democracy is dysfunctional, no, worse, it has been hijacked.

"Overall, 55 percent of Americans want congressional Democrats to do more to challenge the president's Iraq policies, while a third think the Democrats have gone too far. The level of agitation for more action in opposition to the war has not dissipated since August 2005, when Democrats were the minority party in Congress."


...read more here...

...the article @ washingtonpost.com



pay attention America!!!

peAce.... is better...
topbop!

Monday, October 01, 2007

...don't diplomats do diplomacy anymore?

...nincompoop"Former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told Tory delegates in Britain Sunday that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities in the country."

"If we were to strike Iran it should be accompanied by an effort at regime change ... The US once had the capability to engineer the clandestine overthrow of governments. I wish we could get it back," he said.


...more lunacy from the lunatics...

read story here...



how about we try peAce...?
topbop!

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

State Department Inspector General target of congressional probe




According to seven current and former officials, State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard, pictured to the right, has repeatedly interfered with on-going investigations to protect the State Department and the White House from political embarrassment.

House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry A. Waxman, D-CA wrote a letter to Mr. Krongard describing the allegations and asking for his cooperation in the Committee’s investigation. According to the letter:

"Since your testimony at the Committee’s hearing on July 26, 2007, current and former employees of the Office of Inspector General have contacted my staff with allegations that you interfered with on-going investigations to protect the State Department and the White House from political embarrassment...

The allegations made by these officials are not limited to a single unit or project within your office. Instead, they span all three major divisions of the Office of Inspector General — investigations, audits, and inspections. The allegations were made by employees of varied rank, ranging from line staff to upper management..."

Some of the specific allegations include the following (from oversight.house.gov):

- Although the State Department has expended over $3.6 billion on contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, you refused to send any investigators to those countries to pursue investigations into wasteful spending or procurement fraud and have concluded no fraud investigations relating to the contracts.
- You prevented your investigators from cooperating with a Justice Department investigation into waste, fraud, and abuse relating to the new U.S. Embassy in Iraq and followed highly irregular procedures in exonerating the prime contractor, First Kuwaiti Trading Company, of charges of labor trafficking.
- You prevented your investigators from seizing evidence that they believed would have implicated a large State Department contractor in procurement fraud in Afghanistan.
- You impeded efforts by your investigators to cooperate with a Justice Department probe into allegations that a large private security contractor was smuggling weapons into Iraq.
- You interfered with an on-going investigation into the conduct of Kenneth Tomlinson, the head of Voice of America and a close associate of Karl Rove, by passing information about the inquiry to Mr. Tomlinson.
- You censored portions of inspection reports on embassies so that critical information on security vulnerabilities was dropped from classified annexes and not disclosed to Congress.
- You rejected audits of the State Department’s financial statements that documented accounting concerns and refused to publish them until points critical of the Department had been removed.


more here...
and here...



peAce...
topbop!

Monday, September 17, 2007

To Those Who Seek a Greater Understanding...


...of what shameful blunders were committed in the execution of the catastrophic blunder that was the invasion of Iraq, I offer these words from "Iraq : The rise of the resistance", by Anne Alexander and Simon Assaf: "In early November 2004 US troops destroyed the city of Fallujah. Countless civilians and an untold number of resistance fighters perished in the assault. The city of mosques lay in ruins, but the rubble also buried US and British plans for a stable occupation. On the eve of the attack on Fallujah the military told the soldiers that they were facing their biggest battle since the assault on the Vietnamese city of Hue in 1968. Iraq had become America’s new Vietnam."


peAce...is most always a better first choice...
topbop!

Video: Sally Fields UNCENSORED Speech, not FOX News!!!

Sally Field Censored At EMMYS by FOX News... Here is the vidoe of Canadian broadcaster CTV who did not censor Sally Fields. What is so offensive in the words Sally said that FOX News deemed something was not suitable to broadcast...? And why did they want to cut out the expression of a pro-peAce point of view? Wake up America?peAce...topbop!

read more | digg story

Sally Field Censored At EMMYS by FOX News...



Above is the uncensored video. What is so offensive in the words Sally said that FOX News deemed something was not suitable to broadcast...? And why did they want to cut out the expression of a pro-peAce point of view? Wake up America...!



...and here is the version that FOX News "sanitized" in the service of their objectives...


peAce...
topbop!

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Martial Law: 190 Arrested at D.C. Protest



"We're occupying a people who do not want us there..."



"The protesters gathered earlier Saturday near the White House in Lafayette Park with signs saying "End the war now" and calling for President Bush's impeachment."



"Members of the Answer Coalition, the umbrella organization of activist groups behind the demonstration, are demanding an immediate troop withdrawal. Some of the protesters called for Mr. Bush’s impeachment. Speakers at the rally included familiar political and antiwar activists, among them Cindy Sheehan, Ralph Nader and Ramsey Clark.

Brian Becker, a national coordinator for the coalition, said in a statement: “What Bush really intends is to keep U.S. troops in Iraq for years or decades to come. He plans to move forward with a policy that will continue to kill thousands of U.S. service members and hundreds of the thousands of Iraqis.”

Several marchers said they were demonstrating against what they called the Bush administration’s false assertions about Iraq. Kim Druist, 39, a nurse from Plainsboro, N.J., who wore a camouflage shirt to represent solidarity with American troops, said she intended to be arrested to protest the testimony by Gen. David H. Petraeus earlier in the week in which he said there had been progress in Iraq. Ms. Druist referred to the statement as propaganda."

read story here...
more here...
and here.


let's give...
peAce...a chance!

topbop!

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Martial Law: 9/11 Rise of the Police State

Well all I can say about this fire-hose of information is...you be the judge...is Alex Jones the quintessential investigative reporter? ...or a whacko? ...you be the judge...



AEJ Productions
2 hr 35 min 42 sec - Feb 14, 2006
www.infowars.com

Martial Law: 9/11 Rise of the Police State was filmed primarily during the Republican Party's 2004 national convention in New York City. The Republican Party's choice to hold the event there drew both strong praise and strong criticism. Alex Jones' clear intent was that the people who were truly guilty of planning and carrying out the events of September 11, 2001 were coming back to the scene of the crime. In the film, Jones shows what he believes are signs of a growing police state: constant surveillance, a defined military presence, a militarized civilian police force, mass roundups and arrests of protesters, detention in a makeshift facility laden with asbestos which one interviewee called a "concentration camp", and threats of arrest for constitutionally legal activities. Many different views are presented, including one semi-humorous confrontation with a group of American communists.

This video is copyrighted, but Alex Jones has permitted and encourged the distribution of these videos for non-profit, educational purposes. If you would like to help Alex Jones and/or have a hard copy, buy one from him by going through his website. It can be done online or through his office.


peAce...out...
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Wednesday, August 29, 2007

“We made a decision to arm guys who wanted to fight for their country,” General Petraeus said.

"Several federal agencies are investigating a widening network of criminal cases involving the purchase and delivery of billions of dollars of weapons, supplies and other matériel to Iraqi and American forces, according to American officials. The officials said it amounted to the largest ring of fraud and kickbacks uncovered in the conflict here."



..full story here.


"Operation Iraqi Freedom, it turns out, was never a war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. It was an invasion of the federal budget, and no occupying force in history has ever been this efficient. George W. Bush's war in the Mesopotamian desert was an experiment of sorts, a crude first take at his vision of a fully privatized American government. In Iraq the lines between essential government services and for-profit enterprises have been blurred to the point of absurdity -- to the point where wounded soldiers have to pay retail prices for fresh underwear, where modern-day chattel are imported from the Third World at slave wages to peel the potatoes we once assigned to grunts in KP, where private companies are guaranteed huge profits no matter how badly they fuck things up."

--- Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com
more...





peAce...not war profits...
topbop!

...remember 9/11/2001






...like the bumper stickers say,
       "Never Forget!!!"







peAce...
... is a better idea


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Friday, August 24, 2007

Threat Imminence Elicits Prefrontal-Periaqueductal Gray Shifts in Humans




"Humans, like other animals, alter their behavior depending on whether a threat is close or distant. We investigated spatial imminence of threat by developing an active avoidance paradigm in which volunteers were pursued through a maze by a virtual predator endowed with an ability to chase, capture, and inflict pain. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we found that as the virtual predator grew closer, brain activity shifted from the ventromedial prefrontal cortex to the periaqueductal gray. This shift showed maximal expression when a high degree of pain was anticipated. Moreover, imminence-driven periaqueductal gray activity correlated with increased subjective degree of dread and decreased confidence of escape. Our findings cast light on the neural dynamics of threat anticipation and have implications for the neurobiology of human anxiety-related disorders."

--- Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging,
Functional Imaging Laboratory,
University College London,
London WC1N 3BG, UK

full story here...

Thursday, August 23, 2007

"Iraq 'grave'..."

National Intelligence Estimate...?





"The unfolding pace and scope of security and political realities in Iraq, combined with our necessarily limited focus of analysis, contain risks: our uncertainties are greater, and our future projections subject to greater chances of error. These issues, combined with the challenges of acquiring accurate data on trends in violence and continued gaps in our information about levels of violence and political trends in areas of Iraq without a substantial Coalition presence and where Intelligence Community collectors have difficulty operating, heighten our caution."

Read it here...

"The level of overall violence . . . remains high; Iraq's sectarian groups remain unreconciled . . . and to date Iraqi political leaders remain unable to govern effectively," the new report said.

-- WashingtonPost.com

how about...



peAce...
topbop!

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Impeach? What For?


A good dozen reasons to impeach both President Bush and Vice-President Cheney for their War OF Terrorism.

How does one do it? Stay tuned!

In the interim, please visit the campaign originator's video, and post your video response. Let's make some noise and be heard!






peAce..now!
topbop!

read more | digg story

US citizen found guilty of aiding terror groups...


Jose Padilla and captors...

Rather than face an embarrassing Supreme Court review of his incarceration in 2005, the Bush administration hastily charged Padilla and co-conspirators Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi in a federal court. The trio was charged with conspiring to murder, kidnap and support terrorism overseas and two counts of providing material support to terrorists.

The verdicts did not address the allegation by then-attorney general John Ashcroft, who accused Padilla of planning a radiological attack on the United States, for which he was held without charges in almost complete isolation for 43 months.

Padilla’s defense lawyers claimed that three-and-a-half years of military detention, interrogation and alleged torture have left the 35-year-old unfit to stand trial. Judge Marcia Cooke ruled that the defendant was competent despite claims that Padilla – who was isolated and put under 24-hour surveillance – suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Although his mental health may no longer be in question, 72 hours of video footage containing Padilla’s final interrogation went "missing". The lawyers say Padilla was subject to 24-hour video surveillance during his entire military detention – except for 72 hours of missing tape.

"What could have been done to Mr. Padilla in those seventy-two, or so, hours that the government turned off the camera when for almost four years every one of Mr. Padilla's bowel movements were videotaped?"

-- Anthony Natale, assistant federal public defender for Padilla



Padilla's defense called no witnesses on his behalf and introduced no evidence. His lawyers adopted the risky strategy of suggesting to the jurors that prosecutors failed to prove he conspired with the others or provided material support to terrorists.

Failure to achieve a conviction would have been a major embarrassment for the Bush administration, given its portrayal of Padilla over the last five years as an extremely dangerous terrorist.

"We commend the jury for its work in this trial and thank it for upholding a core American principle of impartial justice for all. Jose Padilla received a fair trial and a just verdict."

-- Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council

"You need to understand, this is a Republican city. I'm not surprised of anything in this place any more."

-- Estela Lebron, Padilla's mother



peAce...
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CIA, FBI computers used for Wikipedia edits

"People using CIA and FBI computers have edited entries in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia on topics including the Iraq war and the Guantanamo prison, according to a new tracing program."

ABC News story...


In 1949, George Orwell told us there would be days like this...





peAce...
topbop!

Friday, August 17, 2007

Neo-Conned speech, Congressman Ron Paul...




This speech was given in Congress on July 10, 2003. Form your own opinion on his analysis of what forces are behind the major initiatives of our government....







peAce...
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...less than two percent of the insurgency is from outside Iraq...

On C-SPAN's Washington Journal this morning, Major General Mixon, the US commander in northern Iraq, stated that "of the 6000 insurgents his forces have captured over the last 12 months in Iraq, less than 2 percent are non-Iraqis..."

This was in response to a phone-in question from a viewer on why securing the borders in Iraq was not a higher priority. Another viewer asked whether the General thought the remnants of the US military would mount an insurgency if the situation were reversed, that is, the US was invaded and occupied, the Presidents "regime" toppled and the military disbanded. His response was to cite a "real world scenario" in that the Confederate soldiers laid down their arms and went home at the end of the Civil War...

He declined to comment on the callers "hypothetical" question...






peAce is an option...
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Thursday, August 16, 2007

...you call this leadership...?

Politics is predictable... "...Take the election process, for example during the primary, the Democrats lean as far left and the Republicans as far right as possible, then for the general election, both of them take off towards the center and whoever gets there first wins..."

-- paraphrased quote from a former ambassador to Mexico, C-SPAN 7/16/2007 6:00 - 6:30 PM CDT USA












peAce...
topbop!

Thomas Jefferson, a fine example of a president...




























Our third President was the President of the Philosophical Society, a gathering of the greatest intellectual minds in the country, at the same time as he was President of the nation. He invented the numismatic indexing system still in use today. He signed into law the end of this country's participation in the foreign slave trade. He was responsible for the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark expeditions, and others that surveyed all the way to what is now California at a time when more than 80 percent of the nations people lived within 75 miles of the Atlantic Ocean. He even was strong on military defense, sending our navy and marines to confront pirates in the Mediterranean in a defensive projection of force where he deemed it neecessary.

Now, thats leadership, okay?







peAce...
topbop!

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

The Quiet Oil-for-Food Scandal


We aren't going to hear much about the corporations that paid bribes in the Oil-for-Food scandal because Bush's family, friends and closest advisors are in it knee-deep, along with some Democrats. One notable exception we are hearing about is Oscar Wyatt, pictured here.


"Wyatt's memorandum asserts that he has been singled out by the federal governement for prosecution even though a special U.N. panel led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker found that a large class of similarly-situated people and more than 2,000 companies had paid surcharges to the Iraqi government under the program, but had not been subjected to prosecution. Wyatt -- who has been a frequent and harsh critic of both Bush Administrations and the government's Middle East policies -- contends that the prosecution is punishment for Wyatt's outspoken views:

Here the government has singled out Wyatt for prosecution as a persistent and vocal critic of U.S. policy and support for commerce with Iraq, . . [. . .]

The government is now seizing its opportunity to silence Wyatt and vindictively punish him for his expression of these views. In a classic case of selective and discriminatory prosecution, the government has chosen to select only the most outspoken of its critics for prosecution for regulatory violations of the very embargo he strenuously has criticized.

Wyatt's memorandum goes on to argue that companies that paid the surcharges may have violated international norms, but they did not obtain or divert money or property from those whom the government has identified as the alleged victims."

-- Tom Kirkendall's Houston's Clear Thinkers


...update October 1 2007 - Oscar Wyatt pleads guilty in oil-for-food trial...



peAce...topbop!

more here...and...
read more | digg story

Monday, August 13, 2007

Dick Cheney on why America shouldn't invade Iraq (1994)






peAce...
topbop!

Ford's 200-mph, 770-hp Hydrogen Fuel Cell Record Breaker: How It Works

Expected to reach speeds in excess of 200 mph, the Fusion 999 is a joint venture between Ford’s Sustainable Mobility Technologies Group, Ballard Power Systems (fuel cell manufacturers), Ohio State University and its team of young Bonneville racers, and Roush Racing.

read more | digg story

peAce...
topbop!

Friday, August 10, 2007

...Marine murder charges dropped...

"Where the enemy disregards any attempt to comply with ethical norms of warfare, we exercise discipline and restraint to protect the innocent caught on the battlefield..."






read more...




peAce...okay?
topbop!

...Americas own suicide protest...



"We have become worse than the imagined enemy - killing civilians and calling it 'collateral damage', torturing and trampling human rights inside and outside our own borders."

To motorists on Chicago's Kennedy expressway on the morning of November 3, 2006, the fire was just an annoyance, slowing their journey into work. It appeared as if someone had set the city's sculpture of a giant flame, which stands by the road, on fire. Most of those commuters didn't hear for some time that it wasn't the sculpture on fire, but a 52-year-old anti-war protester, Malachi Ritscher. Many probably never heard about it.

...more here...



...what will it take before we choose...
peAce?

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Plastic Bags Are Killing Us

"The most ubiquitous consumer item on Earth, the lowly plastic bag is an environmental scourge like none other, sapping the life out of our oceans and thwarting our attempts to recycle it."

-- Katharine Mieszkowski



On a foggy Tuesday morning, kids out of school for summer break are learning to sail on the waters of Lake Merritt. A great egret hunts for fish, while dozens of cormorants perch, drying their wings. But we're not here to bird-watch or go boating. Twice a week volunteers with the Lake Merritt Institute gather trash out of the waters.peAce...topbop!

read more | digg story

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

...the work of the liberators continues...

U.S. air strike in Sadr City kills 13



"Hundreds of angry mourners chanted as they carried at least three coffins, draped in Iraqi flags, through Sadr City streets. Family members wept."

story here...





how about...

peAce?
topbop!

Monday, August 06, 2007

...what is happenning here? ...what will fall down next?


...our crumbling Infrastructure....now, even before construction completes?





Structure Collapse Reported at Fontainebleau...





peAce...
topbop!

...it was not enough to be unable to find Saddam's weapons...




"More than 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols distributed to Iraqi forces by the US are missing, feared fallen into the hands of insurgents, a congressional watchdog warned today."


...read more...






peAce...
topbop!

Saturday, August 04, 2007

..."phony war" on terrorism...



"None of you should believe we are winning this war. There is no evidence that we are winning this war," the Georgia Republican told a group of about 300 students attending a conference for collegiate conservatives. [ newsobserver.com ]

Gingrich says war on terror 'phony'...




"Al-Qaida better positioned to strike the West"
--- DRAFT National Intelligence Estimate








peAce...
topbop!

Friday, August 03, 2007

"...there was no indication that the discovery was terror-related ..."



"New York authorities were questioning three men found in a bizarre submersible vessel floating just off Manhattan on Friday, according to local reports."

more at breitbart here...


...again, the quick official-sounding wording in the very first reports...


hmmmm...


peAce...
topbop!

...would you like fries with that?

Check out the Web Site
that the meat industry doesn't want you to see!








peAce...
topbop!

House Erupts in Chaos

House Erupts in Chaos - Looks like more dirty tricks in our government, this time the Democrats attempt to rig a vote and the Republicans adopt a nearly unprecedented protest and walk from the floor of the House chamber. First the Executive and the Judicial branch go cavalier with the rules, now the Legislative too? ...is this system doomed?

read more | digg story

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Minnesota I-35W Bridge Collapse 8/1/2007



"Officials say collapse had nothing to do with terrorism..." CNN

This message accompanied the very first reports of the disaster, reports so early they were filed by 'I-Report' as CNN terms them, or eyewitness video logs. How could "officials" arrive at this conclusion so rapidly? A growing number of the on-the-scene-as-it-happened ear-witnesses described "an explosion", or "big bang" or "very deep sound" that "was felt". Also, many eye-witness reports of a "plume of dust" or "geyser-like" spout of dust were given. The height estimates of the plume by individuals either at the scene to up to 1/4 miles away on a foot bridge that parallels I-35W ranged from 100 to 200 feet in the air. A structural engineer who was on the scene stated that he would expect that "a failure of all of the load-bearing elements across the full width of the span would be required" to result in the collapse of the bridge within 4 to 5 seconds, as was reported by people on the scene.

Okay, so here is another interesting fact. As the NTSB director on the scene was outlining their efforts, he mentioned that a computer simulation program had been made available to his department that had been written as part of a doctoral dissertation by a University of Minnesota graduate student. What was the program? A computer model of the I-35W bridge, that was able to demonstrate failure modes that the bridge would exhibit, based on specific element failure or failures. He described that laser transits would be used to take the exact measurements of the post-failure scene, then reverse-engineer via the program to identify which component or component failures would yield the scene left by the real life disaster. This should be very interesting.

"We don't know what caused this but ...a bridge in the middle of America should not just fall into a river."

-- D-MN Senator Amy Klobuchar

So why then would officials want America to believe no "terrorism" was involved, before any expert analysis had been started? Any ideas?


I have some. One thing I encourage you to read if you want background on what may have happened here: University of Minnesota Department of Civil Engineering Report MN/RC - 2001-10, March 2001. You can get a copy here. While this report indicates the bridge was not in trouble at the time, it illustrates the nature of the problem domain in this type of analysis.

To see an analysis of the bridge structure look here.







peAce...
topbop!

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

practice safe democracy...

Scientists’ Tests Hack Into Electronic Voting Machines in California and Elsewhere...

The reports said the investigators had created situations for each system “in which these weaknesses could be exploited to affect the correct recording, reporting and tallying of votes.”

read full story...





peAce...
topbop!

...liberators?



"I want America to go out," he said. "Today, tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, but out. I wish the American people didn't invade Iraq and hopefully it will be over soon."

-- Younis Mahmoud
Captain - Iraq Asia Cup Champion Soccer Team


full story here...


peAce...
topbop!

Monday, July 30, 2007

Bush and Turkey to secretly fight against Kurds

WASHINGTON -- The morass in Iraq and deepening difficulties in Afghanistan have not deterred the Bush administration from taking on a dangerous and questionable new secret operation. At a high level, U.S. officials are working with their Turkish counterparts...

read more | digg story


peAce...now...
topbop!

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Ward Churchill's Original Essay and Statement



Now that The University of Colorado Board of Regents has voted to fire Ward Churchill (see story here) those who would be informed should read his actual "Truth to Power" essay that ignited the affair. Claiming that his outspoken resistance to indefensible actions by the Power Elite was not the reason, you be the judge. This is operation of the virtual "Ministry of Truth" at it's best!





peAce...
topbop!




read more | digg story

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Power Of Induction - the best version of the MIT wireless energy experiment

The WiTricity story itself is nothing new, we all voted for it, but this guy at ScienceNews did a terrific write-up on the history of the efforts and how it came to pass now. Or maybe it isn't that terrific to you. That's why you get to vote.

read more | digg story

...now, wireless power transmission!





"Recharging your laptop computer -- and also your cell phone and a variety of other gadgets -- might one day be doable the same convenient way many people now surf the Web: wirelessly."

Research Paper


"The device that Soljačić and his collaborators put together had a disarming simplicity. On one side of the room, hanging from the ceiling, was a ring-shaped electrical circuit, about half a meter across, plugged into the wall. Hanging adjacent to the circuit, but with no physical connection to it, was a slightly larger copper coil looking like an oversize mattress spring. A few meters away hung a similar system with an ordinary light bulb attached to the circuit. When the physicists sent power through the first circuit, the bulb lit up."

Marin Soljačić Homepage



peAce...
topbop!

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

more flame fanning...



White House Homeland Security Adviser Frances Townsend

... President Bush's White House counterterrorism adviser said Wednesday that U.S. officials believe al-Qaida wants to launch "a mass casualty, spectacular event" in the United States but don't think it can do so. ...


The dirty tricks crowd aligned with the economic power elite continues its fear mongering... here...






peAce...
topbop!

Tuesday, July 17, 2007