La Puce Enigmatique/The Enigmatic Flea

Where is The Flea?

2006-12-07T01:40:00.000+09:00

Truth is, I got tired of "preaching to the converted". The Flea retired and has taken up meditation. Too many photos of dead babies. Too many lies and too many people biting, hook like and singer, into the lies.The Democrats have the ball but it is so hard to tell any difference, other than two falls from grace.The mad man in the whitehouse still hold the leash to his lap dog little johnny and

Stop Killing Babies!

2006-07-31T15:29:00.000+08:00

A Petition To: Australian Prime Minister John Howard & Members of Australian Parliament We, the undersigned Citizens and Residents of Australia and the World, stand together to condemn the atrocities being committed by the Israeli military against the peoples of Lebanon, and call on Prime Minister John Howard and his Government to stand together with us and call for an immediate cease

Moving

2006-07-20T13:02:00.000+08:00

JR and The Flea are relocating to YourDemocracy. Please look for us there. Thank you for your support.The Flea

"aussie tony" fingered .....

2006-07-16T21:54:00.000+08:00

‘Downing Street was last night plunged into panic amid claims Lord Levy had pointed the finger of suspicion at Tony Blair following his arrest over the 'cash-for-peerages' inquiry.In an emergency summit with party chairman Hazel Blears following his arrest last week, Levy insisted he would tell everything he knew about Labour's secret loans operation, even if his revelations propelled the Prime

Israeli Jets 'incinerate' family

2006-07-16T12:38:00.000+08:00

"My God, my God. I can't make out the faces of my children. They are burnt black... Which ones are my children? My God, Israel is the enemy of mankind."ELEVEN children and seven adults were killed overnight in southern Lebanon, their bodies consumed by flames when an Israeli warplane opened fire on the convoy they were in, UN peacekeepers and hospital sources said.Their charred remains were

speaking ill of the dead .....

2006-07-14T12:56:00.000+08:00

It’s often been said that it’s inappropriate to speak ill of the dead.But during Ken Lay’s funeral yesterday, the Reverend Dr. Bill Lawson gave new meaning to that tradition.The crazy Reverend compared Ken Lay with civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr & Jesus Christ, & said “his name would eventually be cleared.""History has a way of vindicating people who have been wronged." said Lawson.We

update from hell .....

2006-07-12T17:56:00.000+08:00

‘Pretend you live in Iraq. The day starts, as it usually does, with you wondering what will happen because of the bombings and killings the day before. Several members of a Shiite family were mowed down by gunmen in the Dora neighborhood of Baghdad yesterday, and three others were shot to death in an ice cream shop. A Sunni cleric was shot to death yesterday, and several people died when a

crazy uncle pat .....

2006-07-09T18:47:00.000+08:00

‘US evangelical leader Pat Robertson labels Islam, "a bloody, brutal kind of religion," on the Christian Broadcasting Corporation’s televised 700 Club. Commentator Ann Coulter writes in the Jewish World Review that "[T]he government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport." Civilized people would like to believe that Coulter is an anomalous hatemeister,

The Greatest Treason of a Democratic Society

2006-07-08T09:47:00.000+08:00

In the winter of 1933, before Franklin Roosevelt's first inauguration on March 4, there was a clamor in the United States for a military dictatorship. The banks were closing, a quarter of Americans were unemployed, rebellion threatened on the farms. Only drastic reforms, mandated by the president's power as commander in chief, would save the country. Something like the fascism of Mussolini's

Economic Rationalism a Matter of Faith?

2006-07-06T22:58:00.000+08:00

The Australian Government has sacrificed millions of people on the altar of the market, preferred to help the rich over the poor, and has made human rights negotiable, outgoing Uniting Church president Dean Drayton said in his farewell speech yesterday.Dr Drayton, the president of Australia's third-biggest church for the past three years, stepped down with a blast for the Government, calling it

another deep trough .....

2006-07-06T20:13:00.000+08:00

‘Five major military contractors are competing to design a system to tackle up to two million undocumented immigrants a year in the United States. Boeing, Ericsson, Lockheed, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon are working on proposals that focus on high technology rather than high fences, but ignoring some of the fundamental problems of immigration.At each checkpoint along the path to citizenship or

pre-emptive diplomacy .....

2006-07-06T20:00:00.000+08:00

‘On May 31st, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced what appeared to be a major change in U.S. foreign policy. The Bush Administration, she said, would be willing to join Russia, China, and its European allies in direct talks with Iran about its nuclear program. There was a condition, however: the negotiations would not begin until, as the President put it in a June 19th speech at the U.S

oooops .....

2006-07-06T19:55:00.000+08:00

‘Something has gone terribly wrong in Afghanistan. The heaviest fighting there since the 2001 U.S. invasion has recently erupted. Many Americans, who were then assured by neocons and their media trumpets that their nation had triumphantly won the war in Afghanistan and crushed the Taliban, are dismayed and bewildered.In 2001, unable to withstand high-tech U.S. forces, Taliban’s leader, Mullah

milestones to millstones .....

2006-07-06T19:45:00.000+08:00

‘Three years into an occupation of Iraq replete with so-called milestones, turning points and individual events hailed as “sea changes” that would “break the back” of the insurgency, a different type of incident received an intense, if ephemeral, amount of attention. A local human rights worker and aspiring journalist in the western Iraqi town of Haditha filmed the aftermath of the massacre of 24

birthday girl .....

2006-07-04T19:04:00.000+08:00

The rockets red glare,Bombs bursting in air,Gave proof through the nightThat our flag was still there. Oh, say does thatStar spangled banner yet wave,O'er the land of the free,And the home of the brave. ‘When I look at the star-spangled banner I think of my son who began wearing a uniform with the flag on it from the time he went into scouting at the age of 6. I also think of one of

state terror .....

2006-07-04T16:14:00.000+08:00

‘A black flag hangs over the "rolling" operation in Gaza. The more the operation "rolls," the darker the flag becomes. The "summer rains" we are showering on Gaza are not only pointless, but are first and foremost blatantly illegitimate. It is not legitimate to cut off 750,000 people from electricity. It is not legitimate to call on 20,000 people to run from their homes and turn their towns into

so much for "mission accomplished" .....

2006-07-01T20:36:00.000+08:00

‘A report by a Paris-based international security and policy advisory group, the Senlis Council, says that the US-led mission in Afghanistan is failing because US policies on eradicating the Afghan poppy crop aren't working. The Independent reports that the group, which specializes in drug policies, predicts violence in the south of the country will escalate because the Taliban has been so

tearful lies .....

2006-06-29T20:10:00.000+08:00

‘Bullshit alert! After watching George Bush and Dick Cheney weep and wail over the "damage" done by the New York Times for reporting that financial data is being dumped into the CIA as part of an effort to find terrorist networks, I kept waiting for Darryl Hannah to pop up and say: "Live, from New York, it's Saturday Night." Does George have Alzheimer's Disease? Has he forgotten

update from torture central .....

2006-06-29T19:30:00.000+08:00

‘As new reports detail further abuse by the U.S. military of its prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, a behind-the-scenes battle is being fought between the U.S. departments of state and defence about whether a key section of the Geneva Conventions should be included in new rules governing Army interrogation techniques. The Pentagon is pushing to omit from new detainee policies a central

what to tell our children .....

2006-06-26T08:22:00.000+08:00

In Alabama, 15 year-old Ava Lowery asks ….. What Would Jesus Do?

straight from asylum central .….

2006-06-25T17:09:00.000+08:00

‘Which brings us back to the unbalanced Abu Zubaydah. "I said he was important," Bush reportedly told Tenet at one of their daily meetings. "You're not going to let me lose face on this, are you?" "No sir, Mr. President," Tenet replied. Bush "was fixated on how to get Zubaydah to tell us the truth," Suskind writes, and he asked one briefer, "Do some of these harsh methods really work?"

spotting the "real" terrorists .....

2006-06-25T17:07:00.000+08:00

‘The Bush administration finally took action against alleged terrorists living in plain sight in Miami, but they weren't the right-wing Cuban terrorists implicated in actual acts of terror, such as blowing a civilian Cuban airliner out of the sky. They were seven young black men whose crime was more "aspirational than operational," the FBI said. As media fanfare over the arrests made the seven

more "aspirational prosperity" .....

2006-06-24T08:08:00.000+08:00

‘Chief executive officers in the United States earned 262 times the pay of an average worker in 2005, the second-highest level in the 40 years for which there is data, a nonprofit think-tank said on Wednesday. In fact, a CEO earned more in one workday than an average worker earned in 52 weeks, said the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. The typical worker's

it's not looking good .....

2006-06-24T08:06:00.000+08:00

‘Perhaps it’s time to offer a short refresher course in Guerrilla War 101: - Air power works against you, not for you. It kills lots of people who weren’t your enemy, recruiting their relatives, friends and fellow tribesmen to become your enemies. In this kind of war, bombers are as useful as 42 cm. siege mortars.

political sorcery .....

2006-06-24T08:04:00.000+08:00

‘In other words, everything that George W. Bush says he wants from the Iranians now, he could have had for the asking – three years ago. What then can we conclude from the rejection of this extraordinary initiative? The answer is obvious: that the Bush Faction is not really interested in curbing nuclear proliferation or defusing the powder keg of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and the regional

bushit .....

2006-06-22T16:58:00.000+08:00

‘"Dictatorships, and there are plenty to choose from, are referred to as rogue states and threatened vociferously with military strikes, including the deployment of nuclear weapons. But it only further stabilizes the fundamentalist power systems in those countries. "Whether the term `axis of evil' is used to refer to Iran or North Korea or Syria, politics could not be more stupid

guantanamo shame .....

2006-06-21T18:26:00.000+08:00

Speech to the House of Representatives by Peter Garrett MP, Member for Kingsford Smith & Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts June 15, 2006 It has been a week where the consciences of government members in this parliament have been challenged-challenged because our opportunity to participate in full and extensive debate, which is the

“aussie tony” & the value of big business …..

2006-06-19T07:35:00.000+08:00

‘Britain has secretly honoured a raft of senior US military and business figures in the past three years, it emerged last night. The recipients include General Tommy Franks, the man responsible for the "Shock and Awe " Iraq war attack plan, and Riley Bechtel, head of the Bechtel Corporation. Mr Bechtel, the billionaire head of the US-based engineering giant, was handed a CBE

the war on 'terra' .....

2006-06-14T16:34:00.000+08:00

‘The US-led "war on terror" is increasing the risk of terrorist attacks and distracting governments from greater threats to global security such as climate change, a think-tank warned in a report. The Oxford Research Group urged countries, especially the United States and Britain, to rethink their security policies to counter future instability. "The war on

more phoney diplomacy .....

2006-06-13T14:29:00.000+08:00

‘Despite claims that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has regained the diplomatic initiative from Iran with a conditional offer to join multilateral talks with Tehran, the real story behind the policy shift is that the administration has suffered a decisive defeat of its effort to get international sanctions for possible military action against Iran. U.S. officials and

on crazy fundamentalists .....

2006-06-13T13:46:00.000+08:00

‘Gandhi once said if Christians lived according to their faith, there would be no Hindus left in India. He knew how powerful the fundamental tenets of Christianity - fighting poverty, caring for the least among us, loving your enemies, eschewing materialism and embracing humility - could be if everyone who called themselves a Christian truly followed them. The new documentary,

furballs inc .....

2006-06-13T10:08:00.000+08:00

Meanwhile in the parallel universe of conservative bed-time history for right-wing raised kiddies... From the New York Times Bush Discusses Iraq With Top War Commanders ….. CAMP DAVID, Md. (AP) -- President Bush declared Monday to a nation weary of war that democracy in the Middle East is worth the high price to the United States. He also said Iraq's

phoney feral amerika .....

2006-06-12T12:02:00.000+08:00

‘The last few weeks have seen disastrous news breaking over the Bush administration, like Katrina come again. This time, though, it's not hurricane winds and surging seas, but waves of innocent blood overtopping the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates to turn the White House crimson. Report after report of horrific atrocities - long held back by a levee of lies, fear, obfuscation and the

the dixie chicks .....

2006-06-11T08:07:00.000+08:00

a simple inconvenience .....

2006-06-10T08:42:00.000+08:00

‘Two brothers arrested following a controversial anti-terror raid during were last night released without charge. Mohammed Abdul Kahar, 23, and Abul Koyair, 20, had been held in connection with an alleged chemical bomb plot after an armed operation at their home in Forest Gate, east London, last week. Mr Abdul Kahar was shot and wounded during the raid. Our little rodent positively salivated at the news, along with his co-conspirators, “aussie tony” & the great decider. Howard claimed: “The reported death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is great news for the people of Iraq, the real victims

those crazy europeans .....

2006-06-09T14:00:00.000+08:00

‘OK. Where I come from in the ol' US of A, three strikes and you're out. Were Americans the only people in the world taking terrorism seriously? On the US side of the pond, security experts are hard at work wiretapping telephones, posting a strong police presence in public locations and constantly reminding people to be afraid of terrorists.

the unravelling .....

2006-06-09T13:59:00.000+08:00

‘Military commanders in the field in Iraq admit in private reports to the Pentagon the war "is lost" and that the U.S. military is unable to stem the mounting violence killing 1,000 Iraqi civilians a month. Even worse, they report the massacre of Iraqi civilians at Haditha is "just the tip of the iceberg" with overstressed, out-of-control Americans soldiers pushed beyond the

husbands, fathers, brothers & lovers .....

2006-06-09T13:57:00.000+08:00

‘Dead women. Fifty-four dead women. Has it really come to this? We know that American women die everyday. They die in hospitals, nursing homes, bedrooms, and cars. They die by accident, disease, murder, suicide, or natural causes. But why should any American women die in Iraq fighting a war? Yes, women. It is horrible enough when young men in the prime of their life have their

back down the looking glass .....

2006-06-09T13:56:00.000+08:00

‘Now, to see the situation as it is, turn that telescope around. Every firefight we win in Iraq or Afghanistan does little for our pride, because we are so much stronger than the people we are defeating. Every time we get hit successfully by a weaker enemy, we feel like chumps, and cannot look ourselves in the mirror (again, with IED attacks this happens quite often). Whenever we use our superior

one of the gang .....

2006-06-08T10:03:00.000+08:00

A video documentary by Jacques Charmelot & Arnaud Hamelin ….. An historical account of the relationship between America and Saddam Hussein. Reveals the complicity of America in Saddam's atrocities. Forty years of secrets, incomprehension and incompetence led to the occupation of Iraq. Saddam: America's Best Enemy

so tired of bushit .....

2006-06-08T09:49:00.000+08:00

‘The British public has become increasingly cool towards American policy and critical of its role in the world after the sustained violence in Iraq. A Populus opinion poll in The Times indicates that fewer than half the public believe that America is a force for good in the world, and nearly two thirds believe that Britain’s future lies more with Europe than with the US. This month will mark the 16th month that the position has stood vacant, with former Ambassador, John Thomas Schieffer, having packed-up his BBQ & headed-off to Japan back in February 2005. After forgetting about the position for more than a year, the Bush administration announced

theatre of the absurd .....

2006-06-03T22:15:00.000+08:00

‘Don’t be misled and believe this is a genuine step forward as surely it’s not. It’s simply just the latest ploy and example of US deceit designed to solidify support among its European allies, as well as try to convince the Chinese and Russians to come aboard. It’s unlikely they will as those two countries would have a lot to lose should they agree to what the US, in fact,

the peoples' privilege .....

2006-06-03T21:56:00.000+08:00

86: The percentage of Americans who believe “the FBI should be allowed to search the office of a member of Congress, if it has a warrant”, according to a new ABC News poll. The poll found this view to be "broadly bipartisan."

conning condi's diplomatic values .....

2006-06-02T16:21:00.000+08:00

‘With an arrogance bordering on intimidation, the administration of George W. Bush wishes to impose its will onto Chile's sovereignty and force that country to impede Venezuela's admission to the United Nations Security Council. That attempt came to light on Sunday, April 28, when the Chilean daily La Tercera published a report - based on Chilean diplomatic sources - titled "

unfortunate success .....

2006-06-02T12:15:00.000+08:00

‘Something that senior officials call the "war paradigm" is the Bush administration's central organizing principle. They do not use the phrase publicly, just among themselves, but they bend policy to serve it. After Sept. 11, 2001, they instantly adopted the war paradigm without any internal discussion. George W. Bush, who proclaimed, "I'm a war president" and insisted that he made decisions "

spinning our "new" core values .....

2006-06-02T08:10:00.000+08:00

‘Even before the final report is delivered, Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to order today that all U.S. and allied troops in Iraq undergo new "core values" training in how to operate professionally and humanely.Not only will leaders discuss how to treat civilians under the rules of engagement, but small units also will be ordered to go through training

in search of wmd .....

2006-06-01T17:47:00.000+08:00

‘The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) bans the development, production, stockpiling, acquisition and retention of microbial or other biological agents or toxins, in types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes. The Convention also bans weapons, equipment or means of delivery designed to use such agents or toxins for

latest rodent award .....

2006-06-01T14:38:00.000+08:00

‘US antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan denounced the Australian government for its participation in the Iraq war and called for the release of David Hicks from Guantánamo Bay and the closure of the notorious US military prison camp at a demonstration in Melbourne last Friday. Sheehan rejected US and Australian government claims that Guantánamo inmates “did not deserve civil

the growing stench of bushit .....

2006-06-01T09:04:00.000+08:00

‘Iran does not pose an immediate nuclear threat and the world must act cautiously to avoid repeating mistakes made with Iraq and North Korea, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said on Tuesday. Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the world shouldn't "jump the gun" with erroneous information as he said the U.S.-led coalition did

the miracle of snake oil .....

2006-06-01T08:47:00.000+08:00

‘Libya's "rehabilitation" as a country that has renounced WMD and state-sponsored terrorism - for which it will soon be rewarded with a real live American ambassador - provides an exquisite illustration of how the Bush administration is replacing its "spreading freedom" mantra with support for the "Global War on Terrorism. And Libya's role as an energy source has made the administration's job

freedom's kiss .....

2006-06-01T08:42:00.000+08:00

No Bravery

the importance of principles .....

2006-06-01T06:03:00.000+08:00

‘We have a Congress that jumped on the Executive’s war-making bandwagon and allowed the Executive to go to war without exercising its own legislative authority by questioning WMD claims that were bushwa. We have a Congress that, as occurred before with Viet Nam, lacks the brains and guts to exercise its own power to stop the war. We have a Congress that has itself done

kyoto revisionism .....

2006-05-31T12:06:00.000+08:00

‘President Bush’s new nominee for Treasury Secretary, Goldman Sachs Chairman Henry M. Paulson Jr., not only endorses the Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse emissions, but argues that the United States’ failure to enact Kyoto undermines the competitiveness of U.S. companies. Here’s a statement from the Nature Conservancy, where Paulson serves as chairman of the board: May Mars lose this fundamentalist power-drunk disciple and may Bacchus welcome him again...

more "bad apples" .....

2006-05-31T09:44:00.000+08:00

‘On November 19, 2005, Marines from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division based at Camp Pendleton allegedly killed 24 unarmed civilians in Haditha, Iraq, in a three to five hour rampage. One victim was a 76-year-old amputee in a wheelchair holding a Koran. A mother and child bent over as if in prayer were also among the fallen. "I pretended that I was dead when my

the unravelling .....

2006-05-30T15:20:00.000+08:00

‘Just when President Bush was trying to accentuate the positive in Iraq and declare a new beginning in the war on terror, a rash of bad news comes from multiple fronts in the global struggle. New details are emerging in the killings of two dozen Iraqi civilians at the hands of Marines. Anti-American protesters are staging riots in Afghanistan after a U.S. military convoy rammed

move over saddam .....

2006-05-29T22:03:00.000+08:00

‘People tell me that Saddam Hussein is a very bad man. Probably he is. Ok, really he is. He is egregiously immoral and ghastly. Should he be put on trial? Can such a trial be fair? This is where it gets complicated. If all heads of state who commit violent acts were to be tried as criminals, we would live in a very different world. It would be a world without governments as we

the racket .....

2006-05-29T21:59:00.000+08:00

‘The first document is called Uncovering the Rationales for the War on Iraq: The Words of the Bush Administration, Congress, and the Media from September 12, 2001 to October 11, 2002. It was written by Devon M. Largio in 2004 as a thesis for a bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of Illinois. It is a total of 212 pages. Print it out and read it in its

just follow the money .....

2006-05-23T18:31:00.000+08:00

‘There's a story, perhaps apocryphal, that Pentagon planners wanted to name the invasion of Iraq, "Operation Iraqi Liberation." Only when someone realized that the acronym - OIL - might raise some uncomfortable questions, was "Operation Iraqi Freedom" born. Supporters of the Iraq war airily dismiss chants of "no blood for oil" as a manifestation of the antiwar crowd's naïveté.

tears of a somnolent majority .....

2006-05-23T17:08:00.000+08:00

‘We have reached a deplorable state where an injured horse elicits a stronger response than a dead or maimed fellow American. Recall for a moment the soldier cited in the film who lost both legs and an arm. He won’t ever again ride a bike as he did as an energetic young boy. He won’t be able to take leisurely evening strolls with his wife. He won’t be able to practice tackling

reflecting hubris .....

2006-05-18T19:20:00.000+08:00

‘Recently, a number - one billion - in the New York Times stopped me in my tracks. According to a report commissioned by the foundation charged with building Reflecting Absence, the memorial to the dead in the attack on the World Trade Center, its projected cost is now estimated at about a billion dollars and still rising. According to Oliver Burkeman of the British Guardian, "Taking inflation

the dark doppelganger .....

2006-05-17T19:02:00.000+08:00

‘But who is Osama bin Laden really? Let me rephrase that. What is Osama bin Laden? He's America's family secret. He is the American president's dark doppelganger. The savage twin of all that purports to be beautiful and civilised. He has been sculpted from the spare rib of a world laid to waste by America's foreign policy: its gunboat diplomacy, its nuclear arsenal, its

as long as it's elegant .....

2006-05-17T13:58:00.000+08:00

16 May 2006 TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTERTHE HON JOHN HOWARD MPADDRESS AT THE OFFICIAL ARRIVAL CEREMONYTHE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTONE&OE................................ Mr. President and Mrs. Bush, Mr. Vice President and Mrs. Cheney, ladies and gentlemen. Can I say to you, Mr. President, for myself and my wife, and I know all of the Australians present here today, how much we welcome

the domino theory .....

2006-05-14T17:40:00.000+08:00

‘Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove. During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA

the kettle talks back .....

2006-05-11T20:49:00.000+08:00

‘President Vladimir Putin took a swipe at the United States in his state of the nation address Wednesday, bristling at being lectured by Vice President Dick Cheney and comparing Washington to a wolf who ``eats without listening.'' During an emotional moment in the nationally televised speech, Putin used the fairy-tale motif on the need to build a fortress-like house and to

teflon don .....

2006-05-11T20:48:00.000+08:00

‘Nothing he says can be trusted. In 6 years, he’s never uttered a completely reliable statement, just convoluted pronouncements that have to be parsed by experts. That’s why it was so satisfying to see him skewered by Ray McGovern’s questions. McGovern had Rumsfeld backpedaling like he’d just been harpooned. Honesty has that kind of effect on people like Rumsfeld; that’s why they surround

more nuclear hypocrisy .....

2006-05-11T20:46:00.000+08:00

‘Brazil has inaugurated its first uranium enrichment facility to produce the type of fuel for nuclear power plants that Iran is running into trouble for attempting to produce. There are strong suspicions that the objective of the Iranian nuclear program is to eventually build a bomb, but Brazil has managed to assure the international community its intentions are industrial and commercial, not

the price of a bushit democracy .....

2006-05-10T14:23:00.000+08:00

‘One in three Iraqi children is malnourished and underweight, according to a report released by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Amman on 2 May. "Under-nutrition should not be accepted in a country like Iraq, with its wealth of resources," said UNICEF Special Representative for Iraq Roger Wright from the Jordanian capital, Amman. Wright added that ongoing insecurity served to

wings of justice .....

2006-05-05T14:10:00.000+08:00

from buzzflash ….. Stephen Colbert doesn't owe anyone an apology for telling the truth through the use of poised, barbed wit. No, George W. Bush owes the nation an apology for lying, failure, arrogance, intolerance and greed. The Washington press corps still thinks that they are working for Pravda under Soviet Rule or are Royal Court

principles of amerikan democracy .....

2006-05-01T23:01:00.000+08:00

‘George W. Bush has been more emphatic about spreading democracy than any president since Woodrow Wilson. Yet Bush’s policies have subverted elected governments, corrupted foreign elections, and tainted democracy itself. For most of the American media, however, Bush’s pretensions on democracy remain sacrosanct. When Bush took office in 2001, the U.S. already had a long

amerikan dictator .....

2006-04-30T22:25:00.000+08:00

‘Yet we now live in a nation in which the president has the omnipotent power to ignore all constitutional restraints on his power. That might not be the way the president and his legal advisors put it, but that is the practical effect of what they are saying to justify his powers. They effectively claim that the Constitution vests the president – as military commander in chief during the “war on

exxorbitant .....

2006-04-29T17:33:00.000+08:00

Exxon Mobil Profit Rises on Soaring PricesExxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, on Thursday reported that quarterly profit surged, driven by rising oil prices. Anger over gas prices is gaining traction in many midterm races around the nation as Democrats attack Republicans for being too close to oil companies. Exxon Mobil Profit Rises On

when the law looks the other way .....

2006-04-26T12:54:00.000+08:00

different shrub, same bush .....

2006-04-25T17:11:00.000+08:00

‘More precisely, this story could be called "The President’s Youngest Brother, Marvin Bush, and a Trail of Corrupt Government Officials from Page County, Virginia to Richmond." For most people, Page County, in the Shenandoah Valley, is a lovely and tranquil place. For others, Page County is a criminal profit center, humming with illegal activity.As a result of this illegal

the growing calls for impeachment …..

2006-04-25T11:10:00.000+08:00

‘Joining Illinois, California has become the second state in which a proposal to impeach President Bush has been introduced in the state legislature. And this one includes Cheney as well. California Assemblyman Paul Koretz of Los Angeles (where the LA Times has now called for Cheney's resignation) has submitted amendments to Assembly Joint Resolution No. 39, calling for the

exposing the double standard …..

2006-04-25T11:03:00.000+08:00

‘Jordan’s King Abdullah said Monday that Israel should disarm its nuclear weapons in the wake of international pressure on Iran to end its uranium enrichment program. The Jordanian monarch urged the international community to pressure Israel to close down its nuclear facilities, in an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais. He justified the remarks by saying

the back-end of the scam …..

2006-04-25T10:50:00.000+08:00

‘It is generally agreed that worldwide petroleum supply will eventually reach its productive limit, peak, and begin a long term decline. What should the United States do to prepare for this event? An objective look at the alternatives points to the Nation's untapped oil shale as a strategically located, long-term source of reliable, affordable, and secure oil. The vast extent of U.S. oil

nuke .....

2006-04-25T06:46:00.000+08:00

‘Twelve hours: one circuit of the sun from horizon to horizon, one course of the moon from dusk to dawn. What was once a natural measurement for the daily round of human life is now a doom-laden interval between the voicing of an autocrat's brutal whim and the infliction of mass annihilation halfway around the world. Twelve hours is the maximum time necessary for American

the amerikan way .....

2006-04-24T15:02:00.000+08:00

‘You ask about the motivations, and that is one of the patterns that comes through when you look at these things all together. There’s really a three-stage motivation that I can see when I watch so many of the developments of these coups. The first thing that happens is that the regime in question starts bothering some American company. They start demanding that the company pay

amerika's forgotten war .....

2006-04-24T14:37:00.000+08:00

‘In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President Bush declared that the United States would launch a "War on Terrorism." In early October, U.S. airplanes began bombing Afghanistan and providing assistance to the Northern Alliance and other groups opposed to the Taliban regime. Within a few months, U.S. troops and their Afghan allies had succeeded in ousting the Taliban

a familiar double standard .....

2006-04-23T13:35:00.000+08:00

‘A major government watchdog group is charging that Muslim charities are being shut down for supposedly backing terrorist causes, while giant firms like Halliburton are receiving the full protection of U.S. law for allegedly breaking government sanctions against doing business with Iran - a country designated as a sponsor of terrorism. "There is unequal enforcement of

great moments of freedom .....

2006-04-23T12:55:00.000+08:00

‘Usually watching CNN with one eye as we blog from our undisclosed location doesn’t give us much new fodder, except for the occasional "stuck landing gear" crisis. But this week we were aghast at the coverage of Chinese President Hu Jintao at the White House. At an outdoor ceremony, Bush told Hu: China has become successful because the Chinese people are experiencing the

the village war criminal …..

2006-04-22T17:03:00.000+08:00

‘The CIA had evidence Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction six months before the 2003 US-led invasion but was ignored by a White House intent on ousting Saddam Hussein, a former senior CIA official said, according to CBS. Tyler Drumheller, who headed CIA covert operations in Europe during the run-up to the Iraq war, said intelligence opposing administration claims of a

delusions of the village idiot .....

2006-04-22T14:16:00.000+08:00

‘"I have fulfilled my destiny," the president says manically. He has just entered the nuclear launch codes that will trigger World War III. Seconds later, he emerges from a bunker. The Secretary of State squeezes between two soldiers. "Mr. President!" he shouts. "We have a diplomatic solution!" He smiles. "It's too late," he replies. "The missiles are flying. Alleluia. Alleluia." The same neo-conservative veto power also prevented the administration

the village idiot .....

2006-04-22T13:58:00.000+08:00

‘How extraordinary. Something is happening here that has never happened in America's history. A consensus is sweeping the nation. Not that the war in Iraq is wrong, or that oil companies are screwing us blue, or that the climate is going to hell, or that good-paying jobs are being replaced by low-paying jobs, or that our national health care system is a disgrace, or that that the rich are getting

koo-koo-ka-choo .....

2006-04-22T13:37:00.000+08:00

‘I am me & Rummy's he, Iraq is free and we are all togetherSee the world run when Dick shoots his gun, see how I lieI'm Lying... Sitting on my own brain, waiting for the end of daysCorporation profits, Bloody oil moneyI'm above the law and I'll decide what's right or wrong I am the egg head, I'm the Commander, I'm the Deciderkoo-koo-ka-choo’ I'm

apologies to the "Platters" .....

2006-04-21T22:47:00.000+08:00

The Great Decider(With Apologies to the Platters' "The Great Pretender") by Richard Cummings Oh yes I'm the great decider (ooh ooh)Pretending I'm deciding well (ooh ooh)My need is such I decide too muchI'm deciding but no one can tell Oh yes I'm the great decider (ooh ooh)Adrift in a

the great decider .....

2006-04-21T22:39:00.000+08:00

‘Last but not least, before deciding to bomb Iran's nuclear installations the Bush administration must seriously question whether the intelligence on which its decision is based is reliable. Those of us who have followed reports on the development of Iran's nuclear program know that the warnings from American and other intelligence agencies about Tehran building a bomb in three and five years

caution: scamsters at work .....

2006-04-20T19:56:00.000+08:00

‘The great liberator of Iraq was actually the hyena that cleaned out the nation. Piece by piece, Halliburton over here, a corrupt company over there, we have heard various individual cases of overcharging and fraud by American firms in the reconstruction of Iraq. Last weekend, a Globe story connected some of the dots of corruption. Of $20.7 billion in Iraqi bank accounts and oil revenues

a cry of reason .....

2006-04-20T19:43:00.000+08:00

‘Thirteen of the nation’s most prominent physicists have written a letter to President Bush, calling U.S. plans to reportedly use nuclear weapons against Iran “gravely irresponsible” and warning that such action would have “disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world.” The physicists include five Nobel laureates, a recipient of the National