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CHARLIEEEEE

Yes, the danger must be growing, For the rowers keep on rowing,
And they're certainly not showing, Any signs that they are slowing!
(Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)

“And they’re certainly not showing any signs that they are slowing.” This administration is certainly not showing signs of slowing their march toward totalitarianism and fascism and the “dangers must be growing, for the rowers keep on rowing.” And we, the people are rowing as fast as we can. When one is quiet, very quiet, stepping away from the din of the “white noise” and the smoke and mirrors thrown in our way, things become a bit clearer and the wheels are about to come off.

Once again, I am drawing comparisons from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory for that story represents all we are observing within the context of today’s events. The little girl who never listened to anyone and chewed gum she was told not to chew and she blew up into a giant blueberry and had to be “juiced.” The gluttonous little boy, trying to slurp up as much out of the chocolate river, fell in and was sucked up into the chocolate tube; he was almost too fat to be retrieved. Another little boy, a wanna be cowboy, living a life through TV and not living life, turned into electronic pixels floating in the air because he wanted to be a part of the TV. My favorite was greedy little Victoria, used to having everything and used to having her own way, trying to steal the goose who laid the golden egg and was thrown down the chute for “bad eggs.”

But it’s Charlie who was the honest and sincere one, and even he could not help succumbing to the magic of Willie Wonka’s candy inventions. In spite of being warned, Charlie drank the fizzy water. As he filled with bubbles, he and his grandfather quickly rose toward the giant fans in the ceiling which threatened to chop them in half, only by expelling very loud belches were they able to float downward toward the floor. Enter Patrick Fitzgerald.

Mr. Fitzgerald has been laboring under the “bubbles’ of the White House as Neptune joined his Venus, possibly clouding his view of the presidency and clouding his view of this investigation. The President of the United States is different than the “presidency,” and oft times, under Neptune, we confuse them as one in this country. That confusion last reigned during the Iran/Contra affair when the country gave Ronald Reagan a pass on the whole criminal mess as Neptune opposed the US Venus/Jupiter conjunction in Cancer. As a country, with the Nixon resignation fresh in our mind, we confused the man in office with the “office,” and did not demand accountability of the man holding the “office.” It’s always Neptune contacts to the US chart or a person’s chart that glosses over the waving flags that say “this is a mistake, beware.” We so fall into illusion that we give our power away to whoever or whatever. Neptune is the planet that is responsible for the saying “move along, nothing to see here,” and we move as if in a fog. When the aspect finally moves away and the bubbles clear, we can see that all is not what we thought. So it is with our “Charlie” Patrick Fitzgerald and his clearing will have profound effects on the US as Neptune also moves from the inconjunct to the US Sun.

We don’t know exactly what he is doing or who he might be doing it to, but Neptune finally moves away from his Venus the end of November, 1st of December, and he will begin to see the clear and present danger in weeding his way through the Libby/Rove/Cheney/Bush/Hannah/Wurmser etc mess. As he awakens from his illusion of “justice for all,” he might easily begin playing Hardball by January.

There is a sense of implosion from within, a scattered energy and the time period around the week of January 15th (give or take a few of days) is one of the most dangerous and apprehensive periods of time in 2006, for the office of the presidency of this country, as a grand fixed square involving the Moon, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune sets off the 1999 Grand Fixed Eclipse Square, and sets up a stress aspect to the mid-heaven of the US Presidency Chart. (Washington’s Inauguration – 04/30/1789 12:15 pm, New York, New York) January’s Grand Cross will also activate a NN/SN, Moon, and Pluto T-square in the chart of the Republicans just as the 1999 eclipse started their present journey, this Grand Square will rock their world.

Throughout history there have always been a group of people who believed they were entitled to it ALL. They have burned women at the stake, threw them into mental institutions on a whim, turning a whole groups of people into slaves to put more free money and power into their coffers. I don’t know exactly what astrological characteristics they have had in common over at least the last 2,000 years, to create their belief in their superiority. Neither do I know what astrological characteristics the populace has in common to have let them maintain their illusions of superiority. Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Black Holes, Fixed Stars and Asteroids keep going around the Zodiac (well not Fixed Stars) elevating and de-elevating every group of people, the rich, the poor, the super-rich and the super-poor. There are times that we change social positions and we call that “good luck” or “bad luck,” but the attitudes money and power bring or take away remain the same, a sense of superiority or inferiority and/or combination of the two. One will create problems for the other.

The Christian and other Religious Movement, Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, Children’s Rights or any variations of the same themes are the periods of time when the “planets” have brought the average person to the top of the value wheel. I am sure you can name the times, including now, that brings the “elite’ to the top, but the wheel does turn and I cannot find a single period of time in history when the wheel didn’t turn. Will it always be the rich against the poor or the poor against the rich? There has never been a proper balance in history; there has never been an even playing field in this country or any other. Society is and has been addicted to the expression of social order with winners and losers.

Given the seeming lust and enjoyment men and now women have toward torture and killing, it would appear we are all too easily led down whatever path money or power take us, and yet with all the disasters around us and all the disasters that might be coming the world’s way, I believe we are on the dawn of a new age, a new consciousness. The “field” seems to be blank right now, with no direction to go. Some have already shifted into another consciousness many others are ready. The important thing to remember is the “field of the future is blank” and it’s ready for each one of us to write our future upon that field and thus the future of society.

This is what Neptune has brought to us. In 2000, when Neptune went over the South Node for the US, and basically started the process of washing away all that came before Neptune’s passage. (the last time Neptune was on the US SN the concept of Fascism was brought to our shores through the Illuminati and Skull and Bones. Pluto moving past the 1st house cusp of the US, supported the movement away from our past and into the future. What we are witnessing with this daily obscene lies and greed and self-righteousness is the past and cannot support itself much beyond 2012, if that long.

In the Inaugural Chart for 2001 (Jan. 20, 2001, 12:03pm, Washington) Mars was conjunct the North Node and Jupiter for the Republicans, an indication of a new start, new opportunities for them. Considering the fact that their NN opposed their Pluto and squared their Moon, the desire to take all they could get was overwhelming. Sadly they did not use their Pluto to build something for the greater good of all. Now T-Mars is conjunct their South Node, going back and forth in its retrograde path and conjunct their Pluto, with T-Neptune squaring it all, the potential of all the present day GOP efforts being washed away is great.

They’ve become tiresome, these people who would lead us. Their hypocrisy, their lies, their greed, their “million dollar” Congress, is tiresome. Even the Late Night jokes have kind of a stench, as if the obscenity of them isn’t funny while people die because of them. The mood in the country has changed.

In January of 2005 I said that Congress, both parties, don’t understand how angry people are out here, I said that Ohio wasn’t done (and it isn’t), this spring finds the state rocking with scandal beyond their imagination. Last month I said that Patrick Fitzgerald in one way or another has shined a huge spotlight on the corruption and slime that have taken over this government and I am sad to say the corruption extends into the Democratic Party. Corruption has become a political way of life for the parties, the media, the hanger-on’s. They don’t really know how to do business any other way. Look for the few honest and good men to speak out and continue to speak out, the rest will try to stay in the shadows. I am wondering when Hillary will be given the go-ahead by the DLC and her husband to suddenly see this war as wrong. Should be soon, or she will be the only Democrat and maybe Republican to side with this administration on the war.

January 15, 2006 won’t just be dangerous for the “presidency” it will be a dangerous time around the world and leave the world with much to think about. In the US, we are not tired of this administration, we are over this administration. We are over the fear and most important we no longer trust them. No more than 30 percent would trust them with their health, their money, their safety. Katrina took care of that and we will never “go home” again to this administration.

Scooter Libby – May or may not serve jail time for the Plame outing, no matter how romantic a proposition that might be for him but his reputation will be completely destroyed. Saturn will keep doing a number on him right on through to spring. He won’t turn or “flip” at least not on Dick Cheney, but he might on Karl Rove.

Karl Rove – Will be indicted, if not for Plame for Abramhoff, as will Hastert, Delay, Reed, and a host of others. He loses his “political genius” status. In time, in a few years Karl Rove will lose everything.

Dick Cheney – Will either resign because of poor health (or to spend more time with his family) or his health will truly be so poor he will have to resign.

George Bush – Will not be able to raise his “political capital” again. Impeachment, if there is any impeachment, will come after 2006. George Bush will either clean house or will withdraw more and more into his own self-made prison. There is a potential for a public meltdown in 2006.

Elections – lots of new faces as candidates this year and they could win, 2006 would be the year for political upsets in the US.

DNC – will have to move away from the DLC or the present day Democrats don’t have a chance. The DLC’s idea of the “center” hasn’t changed since 1992 and the “center” has changed. What constitutes a “moderate” has changed as they have seen their tax dollars erode to the war, and their “rights” erode away to a Patriots Act they didn’t choose. They want the borders closed, fraud investigated, money returned etc. They aren’t the same 1992 “center.”

Iraq – Gets worse and will be George Bush’s waterloo just as it was Saddam’s.

Syria – Next war but not until next spring or fall, funny how Islam fanatics attacked Islamists in Jordon – hummmmm.

Scandals – They just keep coming and people keep moving further and further away from Washington, trying to keep their lives going.

Hillary – I do not think she will get the “nod” to run in 2008. She could soon (by summer) have something happen to her that makes running impossible. Some kind of loss or emotional pain is on her horizon.

US – Chaos will reign at least until spring, making sure we are really sick and tired of all this as Uranus lines up for it’s last square to the US natal Uranus in February, and T-Mars conjuncts a few days later. Expect the unexpected and stay centered with your family and friends. Keep busy with your own picture of the world, picture corruption gone. I don’t think the US will be attacked in a major way, at least not after January, but I do think the flu season will be rough.

Right Wing Christians – will continue to lose ground as the religious spokespeople for the world. Pluto coming to the Galactic Center will take care of that one. I don’t know if Pat Robertson or James Dodson loses their constituency (they will lose some) but they become more and more ridiculous figures.

Politicians – Politicians will be scrambling to find out what the people want, because they don’t really know.

For fun watch Grover Norquist, Tom Delay, Bill Frist, Jack Abramhoff (and all the lives he has touched) the players in this little game of “cool and corrupt” are on the table, look for new names and some familiar oldies.

The play isn’t over, but the curtain is beginning to fall and the audience is becoming ever so bored with the play. It isn’t that they won’t continue to inflict damage on humanity but we are going into a period of time where the shocks will come as we find out everything they’ve done. The sewer that Neptune kept hidden will begin to rise for all to see.

Willie Wonka was a story filled with Piscean and Neptunian imagery; it’s a perfect story here at the end of the Piscean Age, as we watch the worst of Pisces energy spewing out all over the world as Pisces is “gutted’ before a New Age comes forth. Hard as it is to believe that something good can come of something so vile, so destructive as what we’ve witnessed in the last several years, but the opportunity for a different but better America can potentially rise. We are a long way from a bright future in America, but oddly, we are now today closer to the light than the dark. America is coming out of the dark for the first time in over 100 years.

Sally Cheyne McDonald on Nov 13 | Link
Comments



Full Moon in Taurus
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
4:57pm PST
23º 46'

Taurus is a show-me sign; a grounded, earthy, full-body experience. The Moon in Taurus is big reminder that it is our actions here on earth which matter most for bringing an end to the suffering and pain humans cause each other, our animal and plant brothers and sisters, and our collective Mother, the Earth. How we walk through life, how we treat other life forms makes the difference between ignorance and enlightenment. What the Moon in Taurus wants most to convey is the message that all the wisdom of the universe is already present in your body; particularly in the human brain. There is nowhere to go, nothing higher than the multileveled intricacy of the brain we have each been gifted. Enlightenment is ever-present; lying dormant, waiting for each of us to awaken, through meditation, the totality of the pre-frontal lobe's synaptic connections. This is a powerful Full Moon to gather with others and commit to realizing your birthright: an enlightenment that is embodied, selfless and deeply committed to ending the physical suffering of all other sentient beings.

http://www.astrowisdom.com/thisfullmoon.htm

Posted by: wv on November 13, 2005 01:50 AM

Speaking of bubbles...Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble..and into that galactic boiling pot all the newts, snakes and vermin we've been living with will be dumped, creating such a toxic stew that they'll all have to be stored into steel chambers for safe containment.

This is a keeper Sally, brilliant in its scope, and the hope that comes with it. No chocolate factory for you my girl but Orville R. has a treat you might enjoy when Neptune takes it's fishy influence away.

Posted by: M. on November 13, 2005 01:58 AM


Great article Sally - full of hope!

Posted by: wv on November 13, 2005 02:06 AM


The American body politic laid low
Washington (George) led the way in political rhetoric. Now Washington (DC) leads the way in crises and scandals

Henry Porter
Sunday November 13, 2005

Observer

Watching Dick Cheney on US TV, I tried to remember a quote from George Washington's farewell address in which he outlined all the dangers which might encircle the new republic. So I looked up the speech and found myself captivated by the beauty of the language and by Washington's wisdom and knowledge of human nature. It is right to call it one of the great works of civilisation.
Language is the man. Washington's virtue, his learning, courage and experience shine in every phrase of that address, just as President Bush's inadequacy is laid bare whenever he tries to explain his policies. If a politician cannot write or speak fluently, you can bet he or she is not thinking fluently, perhaps not even thinking at all.

I would guess Bush falls into the latter category. He has plenty of reflexes, of the loony patriotic and religious kind, but no reflection. When you listen to him stumbling at the microphone, there is no sense of anything but the most average of intellects. It is not that he is lacking Washington's powers of expression; it is that he has nothing to say, for, in truth, the interior dialogue of George W Bush is little more than random flares of static.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5332131-102273,00.html

Posted by: wv on November 13, 2005 02:25 AM

Oh, Cap'n Sally! To have my country back again!!! Sure, much of what we had was an illusion, but we could always struggle toward the future, struggle to realize the promise. Oh, to have that back!

A wooden Buddha in my living room and this wonderful article on my computer. Life is good.

Posted by: shylurker on November 13, 2005 03:40 AM

Sally
WOW what a wonderful article i didn't want it to end. i'm heading back to re-read...your astro-comments help me see. thank you.

Posted by: tseka on November 13, 2005 04:00 AM

Sally,
Thanks so much for your article. Brilliant.

Funny, in all of this...having become used the cess pool of this administration and its spawn, nothing you said about possiblities regarding them rocked my boat. These last 5 years have frustrated us tremendously and impelled us all into grounded action. I feel hopeful, for once.

The possible war with Syria that you mentioned DID rock my boat. Vague rumblings of more US idiocy. God, I hope not. Bashir Assad is a fool, but I really cannot stomach another war in the region with all our sanctimonius raging against Hizbollah, Al'Quaida and other "demons" like the Iranians. I don't want to see this administration give itself another excuse to maim, kill, pillage, torture, lie, demonize and terrify...and therefore give itself reason to go on living.

Wisdom, wisdom...where is wisdom? What planet or planets represent wisdom. Saturn?


Posted by: Beasley on November 13, 2005 04:21 AM

You mention the 1999 eclipse, it certainly feels like somehow that event laid the ground for what comes next. i keep returning to the eclipse chart looking at it trying to see the pattern and am watching closely mars retro now active along those taurean points....Maybe as WV's post suggests the full moon will show us more.

Pluto has been rolling over a lot of my personal planets so it probably colours my perception but Pluto moving through the galactic center suggests huge transformative change for all humanity. And perhaps it really began when Pluto reached the great attractor? Was that when we all noticed how time had sped up?
I like your advice to keep a clear image of what we want.
one image: a seed is secure safe, growing through the dark, unknown requires courage, trust, busting into the light is freedom, flowering, and fragrance ahhh what is fragrance? love? Did we forget that love rides on the wings of trust anc courage?

Posted by: tseka on November 13, 2005 04:38 AM

Wouldn't wisdom be represented by Scorpio thru ( & including) Pices? Pluto ( scorpio) opens the unconscious, Jupiter (Sag) is the higher octave of mercury...Saturn ( Cap) is the teacher, restrainer, builder, Uranus (Aquarius) sudden flashes of insight,.....& Neptune (Pices) blends it all together & distributes it into infinity?
I feel more positive about the future reading this article..........

Meanwhile they are all piling on.

In an effort to find out how the now infamous 16 words about Iraq seeking uranium from Africa, which turned out to be false, made it into President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, Congressman Maurice Hinchey of Hurley has introduced a House resolution that would require the White House to present Congress with all drafts and documents related to the crafting of that speech.
http://www.midhudsonnews.com/News/Hinchey_uranium-13Nov05.htm
PQ

Posted by: Pat QOP on November 13, 2005 05:06 AM

Every sign and every planet has its own brand of wisdom when the energy is used at a high level and not the lowest. It's being able to use them all together and absorbing their lessons that brings wisdom. It's not just one planet or just one sign that brings wisdom, it's all of them together.

Posted by: Sally on November 13, 2005 05:28 AM

Hopeful article, Sally. The last line was intriguing. Do you mind if I ask what astrological indicators indicate that 'America is coming out of the dark for the first time in over 100 years?'

Posted by: Mark on November 13, 2005 06:14 AM

Hi Mark, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are all in universal signs and Pluto is getting ready to go over the Galactic Center at 26 Sagittarius, first time in over 250 years. Mars in the US Chart will go retrograde by progression for the 1st time ever in our history. Now, the three outer planets will strip away from us everything we don't need to self-actualize as a true part of global unity. For more than 100 years what we thought was the US was a pack of lies, marketing, spin. Corruption has been a part of this government for a long time and nothing has been done about it, all the cards are tumbling down and we are getting closer and closer to authenticity as a country. We will be forced into it, we are very close to looking up from our own self-centered needs and accepting that we are a part of a global community.

Posted by: Sally on November 13, 2005 06:25 AM

I've always though that the blinding action of Neptune is for the purpose of leading us to develop an alternate vision. When Neptune moves, we can see more clearly and inclusively than before.

Posted by: on November 13, 2005 06:41 AM

Your website helped me realize that anger, greed and ignorance has been poisoning our nation's politics for my entire life (I'm over 60). But the darkness of this current government is so extreme
that I am now at last hopeful that the "pendalum" is finally turning... And I've learned a lot about astrology. Thank you, Sally !

Posted by: Tom on November 13, 2005 08:48 AM

Sally, what a great predictive article! You've laid it out so clearly, and I thank you for that. I hope Hillary's emotional upset has nothing to do with Bill Clinton.

Questions:

Any chance the media will be called to account for their complicity?

Is there a chance Al Gore will play a more prominent role?

On the 15th Uranus and Pluto lines run right down the Mississippi Valley. Does this indicate that this New Moon stimulates dangerous energy there?

http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/prepare/factsheets/NewMadrid/

Posted by: Pat C on November 13, 2005 11:40 AM

Sally,

You bring up a good point. Soon it will be time to look at the new faces coming in.
I almost feel like I have more input in this process than I used to.

Last local election I felt the joy of involvement when what I voted for passed.

Posted by: jm on November 13, 2005 11:51 AM

Cap'n Sally, I'm back on one of my favorite hobby horses now and wonder if the "over 100 years" marker might have origins in the definition of a corporation as a person by the Supreme Court in 1886. That started us off on the path of corporate rule, and all its attendant horrors, big time.
http://www.ratical.org/corporations/SCvSPR1886.html

Posted by: shylurker on November 13, 2005 02:27 PM

This article was packed with gems, Sally. It sings and i'm dancing!

On a personal level, i have felt a shift taking place that embodies the hope you speak of. People once adamant about their support for the Neptune obfuscation are now seeing and saying "this is wrong." I've heard it over and over. This has, to me, signaled the beginning of a greater shift in consciousness. When there is another "event," the shift will become more visible. The king and his minion, the greed, the need for power at any cost will clearly be revealed.

But, what seems most potent about Charlieeeee are the indications that our former convinctions (right makes might, greatest nation on earth, etc., etc.) will also transform. For the health of the planet, it's not only time, but necessary if we are to survive. Period.
karen

Posted by: karen on November 13, 2005 02:37 PM

Exactly Shylurker! my thought as well re: corporatioins as individuals. My son says the solution could be quite simple if we the people ever take the government...the congress has a dictionary that defines terms, all we need to do is re-define individual (human) and individual (corporate) perhaps as entitiy. Years of law require corporations as individuals in order to do business and create partenerships. I wonder if it could really be that simple. i see how there has been such effort to redefine individual to include unborn so perhaps....

Posted by: tseka on November 13, 2005 02:50 PM

Yes, tseka, and isn't it amazing that corporations can create partnerships easily but individuals of the same gender have great difficulty in getting their personal partnerships (i.e., civil unions or "gay marriage" or whatever term you wish) recognized under and protected by law?

Posted by: shylurker on November 13, 2005 03:59 PM

PatC you asked if the media would be held to account. they already are being held to account, the slings and arrows are being thrown at them daily, they are the object of comedians jokes, you mean will they go to jail? Doubtful, any more than Russian, German, or any other country that has gone through this, no more than "the people" who "saw" what was happening and didn't stand up to the situation in a real active way.I often wonder how many Russian, German, Iraqi's silently fought the dictatorship of their countries for years trying to save themselves. I don't wish to paint another illusion, but a picture of what I see as our possibilities. The United States will never be (in our lifetime) what it was and we will keep on losing ground financially, but so will they. Innovation is what we need and we need the help of other countries, the cooperation of other countries. The Middle East is a mess and those people will eventually come for us. I don't think Islamists bombed Jordon, I think the world wide terror group (made up of other countries as well as the US) must be broken or revealed. We are not in a "live happily ever after" period of time.

There are several hot spots throughout the world right now that the Dec./Jan aspect could impact, I don't know that the Mississippi is in any more or less danger than some of these other hot spots, keep an eye on Richard Nolle's site,(Astropro) he does a great job on weather related astrology.

I am glad this article made anyone feel hopeful, because I am hopeful, more than I've been since 2000 and at the same time, I know we are not finished with this process and I know there will be more restrictions, more damage done to this country, economically and environmentally, and I know there are still millions who don't see what's happened, but I also know somehow the energy has shifted.

I don't see Al Gore getting back into public politics in too big a way, not even a behind the scenes kind of politics. I feel quite confidant however that the party (for good or for ill) that was supposed to be in office in 2000 will be in 2008. However, if you look carefully there haven't been any real leaders emerge from the Dems. except the Black Caucus. Not too many brave people there, not too many who will seemingly try to fight their way out of this mess.

These politicians and spin doctors and lobbyists just think they are too clever by half and we are their toddies, we, the people have to show them we are not and at the same time look and listen carefully to anyone they throw up there for us to elect.

Posted by: Sally on November 13, 2005 04:05 PM

Thank you Sally. Again, very clear and helpful!

Howard Dean was just on Meet the Press. He was really really good. getting all the most important points clearly! If I were a Republican, I'd be very worried. Dean called them the most corrupt adminstration and the most inept. He didn't trip once.

Tseka, I am in complete agreement with your son.

Posted by: Pat C on November 13, 2005 04:33 PM

Hurrah for Howard. WV sent me an article regarding the sexual abuse by priests in Ireland and some in parliament are calling for severing ties with the Roman Catholic Church. That's what should have happened in the US. I have been continually struck by the lack of outrage among the "faithful" in this country regarding the sexual abuse here. Somehow the people in the US have just become what? Lazy, afraid, lackluster, what? Our leaders, our people do not actively stand up to abuse or even question it much. The Catholic church should have been thrown out until they got this cleared up to everyone's satisfaction, this present administration should be thrown out until the lies and stealing and fraud is cleaned up. Strange, really strange.

Posted by: Sally on November 13, 2005 05:16 PM

Throw out the Catholic Church?? You betcha!!!

But you know Sally, they are so "intertwined" I have a hard time seeing that happen. I'll give some serious time visualizing it though. If they can't even protect the children of the Church from their own priests, they are simply manifesting violent crime. That's not a good thing coming from a man you call "Father".

Posted by: Pat C on November 13, 2005 05:35 PM

Pat C you just brought something up that has always puzzled me. That is, how DOES the Catholic Church have validity? One of Christ's teachings was something like. . .you shall have no FATHER other than the one in heaven. . .or something to that effect. Yet, millions call the pope father. He certainly isn't mine. And, i'm certain all the abuse victims have far different names to call their abusers and the "father" who sanctioned it.

karen

Posted by: karen on November 13, 2005 05:52 PM

* "I need some soldiers"
http://www.americancomedynetwork.com/FLASH/soldiers.htm

Posted by: JoannaOregon on November 13, 2005 06:01 PM

Sally....I can't tell you how wonderful your article is, how insightful, and better yet, pretty much how I see things on an energy level....it is nice to see the parallels, and even better to realize that I am bored with the creeps....I didn't actually see that very well. Boredom is ever so better than hairpulling screeching rage. Oh....done that already..!

just wondering in your last post whether being a 'toddie' is more fun than being a 'toadie' would be?

Posted by: on November 13, 2005 06:05 PM


Thinking about a new leader?

Southern star
Virginia Gov. Mark Warner has crossover appeal -- he can talk NASCAR without getting laughed out of town. Can he help Democrats win the White House?

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Tim Grieve

June 13, 2005 | RICHMOND, Va. -- As you drive south from Washington on Interstate 95, the high-tech corridors of northern Virginia give way to green grass and rolling hills and something that begins to look like the South. Pickups start to outnumber Volvos and VWs, and Starbucks gives way to the "scattered & smothered" comfort of Waffle House.

It's a long way from Washington to Richmond -- and even farther to the rural counties of southern Virginia -- but Mark Warner has covered the ground. The Democrat, a 50-year-old multimillionaire venture capitalist from Indiana by way of Connecticut, got himself elected governor of Virginia in 2001 in large part by reaching out to rural voters who were supposed to be in the Republicans' pocket. Warner sponsored a NASCAR team, used a bluegrass song as his campaign theme, and appealed directly to gun-loving hunters and sportsmen -- and it worked. John Kerry, he is not.

Posted by: wv on November 13, 2005 06:06 PM


OOopps - forgot the link...

http://www.salon.com/news/lotp/2005/06/13/virginia_governor/print.html

Posted by: wv on November 13, 2005 06:07 PM

Pat C....I, too, believe Al Gore has done his politics....he has what he has always wanted now....he paid his dues, and I don't believe he will ever go back to DC in that capacity. I would even argue that he will have a more lasting influence doing what he has always loved....journalism, real thinking, the internet, the possiblities of the future.

Seems to me that politics is now about failed plutocrats.....and a new generation will need to take up the cudgel......eerrrrrr...banner.

Tseka...what a brilliant insight your son has had about corporations....!

Posted by: on November 13, 2005 06:10 PM


November 13, 2005
Irish Report on Sexual Abuse by Priests Stokes Outrage
By BRIAN LAVERY
DUBLIN, Nov. 12 - An independent report on sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests in Ireland has led some members of Parliament to call for a severing of the formal ties between the Irish government and the Roman Catholic Church and has led the justice minister to promise new child-protection laws and a nationwide audit of how the church handles such cases.

The report, by a three-member panel appointed by the Irish government, showed that the Catholic Church hierarchy in Ireland was only one part of a system that enabled cover-ups allowing known sexual predators to retain their positions within the church - and their access to young victims.

Before 1990, the panel found, the police were reluctant to investigate claims of sexual abuse by the clergy because they were fearful of challenging the privileged position of Roman Catholic Church authorities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/international/europe/13ireland.html

Posted by: wv on November 13, 2005 06:14 PM

Tom...welcome to the astro port in a storm....I, too, am over 60....and have been depressed politically (except in the Clinton years, when I could breathe a sigh of relief while striking back at all the crap the rethugs I knew threw at me - at least it was an ACTIVE time!) since Reagan's election.

Sally and the other contributers have been filling in the hologram we live in with the antidote to our depression....the idea that the worm, and the wheel, turn eventually. And that the wheel of justice grinds exceedingly fine....if slowly. They provide the breadcrumb clues to the way out of the cave. Geeze, I am just full of cliches today.

Posted by: on November 13, 2005 06:16 PM


MOLLY IVINS

RELEASE: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2005, AND THEREAFTER

AUSTIN, Texas -- I can't get over this feeling of unreality, that I am actually sitting here writing about our country having a gulag of secret prisons in which it tortures people. I have loved America all my life, even though I have often disagreed with the government. But this seems to me so preposterous, so monstrous. My mind is a little bent and my heart is a little broken this morning.

Maybe I should try to get a grip -- after all, it's just this one administration that I had more cause than most to realize was full of inadequate people going in. And even at that, it seems to be mostly Vice President Cheney. And after all, we were badly frightened by 9-11, which was a horrible event. "Only" nine senators voted against the prohibition of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of persons under custody or control the United States." Nine out of 100. Should we be proud? Should we cry?

http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=miv

Posted by: wv on November 13, 2005 06:21 PM

Thanks for responding to my post, Sally.

I would love to see you write an article at some point about the potential Dem candidates and if they have any real chance of winning in '08.

And, yes, I'm particularly interested in seeing if Mark Warner has that connection to the people of the US.

Posted by: Mark on November 13, 2005 10:35 PM

Regarding my post above...I meant WHO might have a chance to win in '08.

Posted by: Mark on November 13, 2005 10:36 PM


Democratic Leadership Council drafts right-wing platform for coming elections
By Joseph Kay
28 July 2005
Back to screen version | Send this link by email | Email the author

The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) held its annual convention in Columbus, Ohio, last weekend, outlining its program for the upcoming 2006 mid-term elections and the presidential election in 2008. Speeches at the meeting and documents published in advance indicate that the Democratic Party plans to run an extremely right-wing campaign, particularly on the issues of “national security” and the war in Iraq.

Formed in the mid-1980s, the DLC is a dominant influence within the Democratic Party. It has been the main source of the “new Democrat” movement that has pushed the party to the right over the past two decades.

The main speaker at the convention was New York senator and former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. Clinton accepted a post to head the council’s new “American Dream Initiative,” in which capacity she will travel the country promoting the DLC’s views. This positions her as the frontrunner for the party’s nomination in 2008. In courting the DLC, Clinton is following in the footsteps of her husband, who chaired the council from 1990 to 1991, before running for office.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/dlc-j28_prn.shtml

Posted by: wv on November 13, 2005 11:39 PM


Peretz threatens to bring down Sharon :

New Labour Party chief Amir Peretz threatened on Sunday to bring down Ariel Sharon's coalition government next week unless the prime minister meets him quickly to agree on a date for an early election.

http://tinyurl.com/92428

===
Uri Avnery: A Great Miracle:

For the first time, the Labor party is headed by an authentic representative of the North African community - not an "ethnic" politician, but a national leader who is proud of his roots.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10982.htm

Posted by: wv on November 14, 2005 12:29 AM

I can't remember......do we have the chart for the DLC?, as well as the original Dem party.
And if a new party were formed under these aspects, would it flourish?
Listening to Dashle, on Road to the WH Cspan. Not clear if he's running or boosting Harkin. But, he's going to bring the Nat Guard Home, send 20,000 troops into Afghanistan, to find Osama & squelch the opium production. And gave a final date for bringin all troops home but I was too busy typing to catch it.
Hey, he's sounding rather revolutionary............outlining all the things we want to hear! Now he's finished
& the talking fetus ( Rove)
is back talking to the Federalist Society! Let me go turn this
off!!!!!!

Posted by: Pat QOP on November 14, 2005 03:41 AM

PatQOP, the DLC was started in 1985, but have not found a date to narrow it down further, not even on the IRS non-profit 501 (c) (4) (which is what they are) site. They started formulating the DLC in 1984 and if I remember correctly it was like Jan. or Feb. that they received their non-profit status and were actually an organization, but I cannot be sure my memory serves me that well.

The original Democratic Party's chart is May 13, 1792 Philadelphia, PA.

Tom, we looked at all the candidates charts for the 2004 election. Howard Dean had the best aspects for Election Day, but a very difficult time getting to 2004 and as you know he didn't make it. I don't think Hillary Clinton will make it, Mark Warner does have a connection to the US chart but not the best or nicest connection, and he is coming up on a very difficult spring, and something in 2007 that could put him completely out of the running. It's really too early to match up candidates to the 2008 election. I do think however, that the party that actually won in 2000 (the Dems) will be returned to office. The night of the 2000 Election Mercury was retrograde at 29 Libra, and it will be direct at 29 Libra at the 2008 Election. That would indicate a return to what was supposed to be.

Posted by: Sally on November 14, 2005 05:28 AM

I think we are in the beginning of Pluto in Capricorn heralded by Katrina.
I can already feel it in the streets where people are expressing a new sombre tone and acting with some caution and decorum.

As the massive wound, the devastation of one of our once great cities, sits and waits, we have a view of what is up ahead. All the destroyed archives, architecture, and daily traditions enacted in the streets. New Orleans has a North Node in Capricorn and it was always about the preservation of traditions, even down to the naming of its musical outlet, Preservation Hall. Now we will begin the process of deciding what in our culture should be preserved and what should be discarded. How are systems should be carried forth, how they should be altered if saved. Things like the institution of marriage and our philosophy of taxation, which is how this nation began... wanting control over our government in exchange for our taxes.

Our foreign adventurism climaxed with Pluto through sagittarius. The PNAC plan for an American Empire is over, a complete failure. I think the days of traditional geographic empires are over in general. They are impossible to maintain now as resources are dwindling. We will have to turn toward conserving and renewing, not depleting. Iraq has taught us so much. How fitting that this attempt would occur in the birthplace of civilization in the area that created two of the greatest empires in history...the Ottoman and the Persian. Unschooled children among the experts. The british weren't much help still reeling from being whacked by their subjects the last go round.

The failed venture brought neglect to our infrastructure and a weakening that we now will have to deal with. I think the whole world will be involved in the the global resource issue and a lot of innovation will be needed. Uranus will be in Taurus trining the Pluto in its last years. a good time to implement these innovations.

Capricorn trims the fat, and strengthens the bone. There will be so much Saturn/Capricorn energy with the Pluto return and the opposition to our Cancer planets and square to our Saturn in Libra, our Saturn placement being one of our aces, in my opinion. Capricorn will not tolerate corruption because it hinders and eventually stops the functioning of the system that harbors it. Capricorn wants a smooth running operation from bottom to top. In a way, this breakdown is a good place to start anew. Whatever weak links fall in the near future will be for the best as the corruption surfaces and is removed. I already see the building up happening locally now, with an unmistakable renewal of interest and participation among the people. I can tell by the conversations in the streets.

Remember, Saturn in mythology ruled over a Renaissance.

Posted by: jm on November 14, 2005 05:31 AM

OMG, Sally!

The 29 Libra factor! How incredible. Thank you so much. Fairness, balance and justice.

Posted by: jm on November 14, 2005 05:34 AM

Facinating.

Posted by: Mark on November 14, 2005 05:49 AM

I would be remiss if I did not bring this to the attention of all my readers. What you read, post, or research will be identified and recorded by the government from tomorrow forward.

http://slyck.com/news.php?story=990

Posted by: Sally on November 14, 2005 06:43 AM

Vote. Autumn of Discontent - The latest NEWSWEEK poll shows serious political trouble for Lushie.
i http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10013594/site/newsweek/

Posted by: JoannaOregon on November 14, 2005 07:15 AM

It is indeed the beginning of Pluto in Capricorn, jm. I attended a forum here in the Cleveland/Northeastern Ohio over the weekend. The cause? Regional Governance. It was the first major step in laying the groundwork for restructuring and consolidation of government and services in this region to eliminate inefficiencies and maintain our economic viability.

However, as time (and Pluto) move forward, with issues like Peak Oil looming just over the horizon, I think this process will pick up steam by necessity, as we may be forced to develop and implement solutions with little or no help from the dreadfully-corrupt Ohio and US governments. Is it far-fetched anymore to even think that multi-county metropolitan areas like Clevelnd might, in the wake of a US federal government decline and collapse, end up as an autonomous city-states?

http://www.voiceschoices.org/

I suspect that Cleveland is not the only region that has seriously begun to examine this sort of undertaking. Look about your own region to see if similar conversations or events are taking place.

--

Other signs of Pluto in Capricorn? Big Brother/Police State government -- see Sally's post immediately above this one as an example; The rise of surveillance cameras EVERYWHERE. Conservative styles of dress, and conservative dress, period: There will be far fewer exposed midriffs with pierced belly-buttons and tattoos. The suit will comeback for both sexes with a vengeance. (Even discount retailers Target and Wal-Mart are carrying them now.) The emergence of "Neo-Formalism" in everything from dining-out (formal restaurants make a comeback?) to dancing (anyone see "Dances with The Stars?"). People will be more apt to "dress up" just to go out in public.

Posted by: NEOBuckeye on November 14, 2005 07:29 AM

NEO,

I think one of the main things which you just illuminated is the question of centralized control versus local. I think there will be toppling from above because of the impossibility of maintenance and a picking up of the slack from below. We'll eventually be better off with less help from the federal government as he who controls the purse, controls the person. The more we finance ourselves locally, the more autonomy we will have.

Posted by: jm on November 14, 2005 07:50 AM

If we could develop a pyramid like structure we would be so solid, with a huge strong base of power from the bottom moving up to the tip. We are all lopsided, imbalanced and out of control, and however it unfolds, organization should return by the end of the transit. I'm wondering how power was distributed when the government first started.

Posted by: jm on November 14, 2005 08:08 AM

"Big Brother/Police State Government"?!?! Big Brother can go stick it in a thimble! I've had quite enuf of Big anything or, for that matter, "Dressing Up!" for the appearance-only crowd. Well, not that I've tried to please them anyway. "They" can stick "dressing up" in a thimble, too.

Besides which, pluto is about transformation... not doing the same old thing. We've already done the totalitarian/fascist old pluto thing.

Posted by: JoannaOregon on November 14, 2005 08:51 AM

I think Pluto in Capricorn will be about being more practical. Here in the US that might be about paying for the national debt and the retiring baby boomers. The US will have to work with he world and vise versa, so institutions like the UN may come back in style. I also think that moderates in parties are overdue for a comeback. I would also hope for a rebuilding of NOLA, lower Manhattan and the economy at large coming into play.

Posted by: Michael from NYC on November 14, 2005 08:58 AM

This kind of thing may be far more likely imo...

*The Shift: The Revolution in Human Consciousness by Owen Waters http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1932336222/104-7184293-1450304

Posted by: JoannaOregon on November 14, 2005 09:11 AM

GO JOANNA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: jm on November 14, 2005 11:20 AM

On the thimble thing!

Posted by: jm on November 14, 2005 11:21 AM

Michael, I completely agree on the retiring boomers...old age...Capricorn.

I think in light of the amount of work that needs to be done to get our government vital and strong, there might be a coordination between the two parties just for logistic reasons. More can get done if they work together. That would probably mean, as you say, a strong voice and compromising skills from the moderates.

Posted by: jm on November 14, 2005 11:29 AM

If memory serves me Philadelphia ( once the Nation's capital is Capricorn) will it play a role in coming years?

What's happening in Mongolia? Why is the pRez going there this week?
Rumsfeld was there not long ago.
Another reason to be glad Corzine won. Forrester is now whinning that it's the pRez's fault he lost the election.
On the msnbc poll page posted by Joanna O, the photo of Himself heading out for a bike ride, bears a remarkable resemblance to Tweedle Dum!
PQ

Posted by: Pat QOP on November 14, 2005 12:15 PM

SCHWARTNEGGER TO CHINA TOO! As well as the Gov of Minnasota Pawlaney (R?).
Wazzzzzup?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/11/14/china.arnold.ap/index.html
PQ

Posted by: Pat QOP on November 14, 2005 01:02 PM


and Jesus wept!

Sen. Clinton: I support W. Bank fence, PA must fight terrorism

By Lily Galili and Roni Singer, Haaretz Correspondents, and Haaretz Service

U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton said Sunday that she supports the separation fence Israel is building along the edges of the West Bank, and that the onus is on the Palestinian Authority to fight terrorism.

"This is not against the Palestinian people," Clinton, a New York Democrat, said during a tour of a section of the barrier being built around Jerusalem.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=644798

Posted by: wv on November 14, 2005 02:03 PM


Voice of the White House November 11, 2005
TBR News.org – November 11, 2005

“Government offices are packed to the Plimsoll line with reams of reports, memos, plans, suggestions and enough generally useless papers to cover the State of California three times over. I have been reading a very high-level report, never mind its source, that sheds a very bright light on the past, present and the future of the United States’ actions in the Middle East. This report runs to about 150 pages and is filled with maps, charts, excerpts of intelligence intercepts from England, Russia, Iran, China, Turkey and Israel. It is one of the most revealing documents I have ever read but if I printed it in toto, I would be down at Gitmo in an orange jumpsuit being waterboarded by the beady-eyed perverts from the CIA’s Torture Brigade. This is an excerpt with only one lone map but I assure you that it is very important reading.

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/print.asp?ID=3812

Posted by: wv on November 14, 2005 02:58 PM

From wv's post at 2:03 pm:

'"This is not against the Palestinian people," Clinton, a New York Democrat, said during a tour of a section of the barrier being built around Jerusalem.'

What a patently stupid thing to say. And this person wants to be preznit!

Posted by: shylurker on November 14, 2005 03:05 PM

MERCURY RETROGRADE TOMORROW!!!!!

Sounds as if Ms. Clinton has signed on to the Bush (War) and Sharon (Zion) agenda. She has Saturn squaring her Scorpio and Saturn square personal planets often times plays out at "picking the wrong team." It puts a person off their "game" so to speak, and difficulty reading the signals of the people around you. This square to her Scorpio and conjunction to her Leo planets go on for a couple of years. Hillary could easily find herself on the wrong side of the issues and be blind sided.

Posted by: Sally on November 14, 2005 03:26 PM

Hillary has also been accepting campaign parties/money from conservative groups.

..........


http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002008.htm

Plaintiffs Blocked During Discovery Phase of New Mexico '04 Election Lawsuit Kept From Inspecting Voting Machines as Promised Process So Far Has Revealed Votes Changed from One Candidate to Another, Disappearing All Together...

We've failed to report too terribly much on it to date, but there is a very important lawsuit quietly proceeding in New Mexico which is challenging the results of the...

We've failed to report too terribly much on it to date, but there is a very important lawsuit quietly proceeding in New Mexico which is challenging the results of the 2004 Presidential Election there. The final result of that election was very close, and Election Reform advocates -- and indeed a great deal of evidence -- suggest that something was amiss there. Michael Collins wrote a good article about the suit a couple of weeks ago for New Zealand's SCOOP.

Yesterday, VoterAction.org sent out an email about some roadblocks that the plaintiffs are suddenly facing in the discovery phase of the trial. They were supposed to have been allowed to have experts inspect -- for the first time -- the Electronic Voting Machines that were used in the '04 Election, along with the actual results that they gave.

All of a sudden, Voter Action says, the county clerks have flat-out refused to permit the inspections by the plaintiffs' experts

More...

Posted by: Pat C on November 14, 2005 03:47 PM

Blatant election irregularities in the city of Detroit have attracted the attention of Black Box Voting. BBV recognizes a problem that some of us have been complaining about for a long time, namely, the negligence of Michigan's Secretary of State. BBV has filed a FIFO request with the Michigan SOS, but doubts they will get satisfactory answers from Chris Thomas, deputy in charge of elections:

BBV predicts that "1) Thomas will block any effort by citizens to review ballots, based on his previous behavior. 2) He will recommend destroying the ballots within 30 days, since this is not a federal election. This leaves only the less complete record, the audit trail documents requested by Black Box Voting....

Black Box Voting focuses on issues of voting machine security and accuracy, timely production of key elections public records, and citizen access to and oversight of the elections process. Michigan has managed to hit the trifecta, showing evidence of problems in all three areas.

This might be a good time for citizens of the state of Michigan to take an even more proactive stance towards monitoring elections, especially monitoring the tallying after polls close, perhaps modeling efforts on Ohio, Florida, San Diego, or Alameda County activist groups, who are making a real impact on election integrity..." http://tinyurl.com/7lbg2 (also posted to Elections 2005)

...........

"...the possible explanations for the staggering defeats of Issues Two through Five boil down to two: either the Dispatch (newspaper)polling---dead accurate for Issue One--was wildly wrong beyond all possible statistical margin of error for Issues 2-5, or the electronic machines on which Ohio and much of the nation conduct their elections were hacked by someone wanting to change the vote count.

If the latter is true, it can and will be done again, and we can forget forever about the state that has been essential to the election of every Republican presidential candidate since Lincoln.

And we can also, for all intents and purposes, forget about the future of American democracy." Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1112-21.htm

Posted by: Pat C on November 14, 2005 03:52 PM


by Peter Daou
It's the Proportionality, Stupid: With the debate about the Iraq debate raging, the lying about the lying, the rationalizing of the rationale, the rewriting of the rewritten, the un-American accusations of un-Americanism, the entire Iraq issue is really much simpler than the uproar would suggest. In a word, the administration's actions and words were out of proportion to the magnitude, urgency, and primacy of the threat.

It wasn't about how many people believed Saddam had WMD. Many did. It wasn't about the world changing after 9/11. It did. It wasn't a question of Saddam's brutality. Everyone knew how brutal he was. It was about the b.s. It was about the rhetoric not matching the reality. Sometimes it doesn't take access to classified material or secret memos or intelligence briefings, or abstruse arguments about foreign policy and national security and military strategy. Sometimes it just takes a good b.s. detector to know you're being conned. During the run-up to the invasion, the war's opponents operated on a simple principle: if it walks like a bull and snorts like a bull, it's probably bull.

Bush, Condi, Cheney and Rummy's grim-faced, apocalyptic pronouncements were like something out of a third rate horror flick. Talk of mushroom clouds from Iraq while North Korea and Iran flaunted their nuclear programs unanswered defied credulity. And talk of an enormous invasion and occupation - starting with shock and awe - on humanitarian grounds, while places like Darfur experience mass slaughter and children starve and die of preventable diseases unaided across the planet and other dictators rule unchecked, well, that wasn't believable then and it isn't now..

A couple of weeks ago, I explained the position of the anti-war crowd like this: "Here we were, more than a decade after the first gulf war, two years after 9/11, and Saddam hadn’t attacked us, he hadn’t threatened to attack us. And then suddenly, he was the biggest threat to America. A threat that required a massive invasion. A bigger threat than Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Iran, Bin Laden. A HUGE, IMMEDIATE threat. It simply defied belief. What’s amazing is that anyone bought into it." There were moments during Bush's wild-eyed speeches that many Americans wanted to look him in the eye and say, "you really expect us to believe that?" If you make doomsday predictions and take the country to war on the basis of those predictions, at least make them realistic.

Now that millions more Americans have copped on to the con job, and cold, hard reality has turned their gaze inward, we're seeing pro-war bloggers and pundits and politicians come unhinged. We're getting heart-tugging rhetoric about terror and freedom and liberation. We're being warned not to rewrite history. We're seeing a furious effort to stop the inexorable solidification of conventional wisdom.

But in the end, it boils down to proportionality. The mark of a false statement is the dissonance between the statement and reality. The greater the dissonance, the bigger the falsehood. Millions of Americans sensed the disconnect between the administration's hair-raising Iraq prognostications and what they saw with their own eyes. And millions more are seeing the disconnect now. Sadly, it's too late for the thousands who've lost their lives....and the thousands more who will until this nightmare is brought to an end.

COMMENT (7)

Posted by: wv on November 14, 2005 04:14 PM

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=36336

Mouly and LeVine, As the World Burns

Semantic Attacks...and....Assimilate or Die

Posted by: Pat C on November 14, 2005 04:18 PM

Now the WH is using its web site to attack Washington Post.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051113.html

Posted by: Pat C on November 14, 2005 04:21 PM

wv... is there a URL for the piece by Peter Daou other than Salon?

Posted by: JoannaOregon on November 14, 2005 06:10 PM

Thank you, Pat!!

Posted by: JoannaOregon on November 14, 2005 07:14 PM

You're welcome Joanna!

Posted by: Pat C on November 14, 2005 07:35 PM

Sally, another great article.

tNeptune on my ASC has been sending weird dreams. My dream version of the Wizard of OZ is that the big white house comes out of the tornado and squashes Rove.

Posted by: Jill G on November 14, 2005 08:31 PM

Thanks, Sally, for this site and for another wonderful enlightening article.

Hilary Clinton, in my opinion, is too "politic" and cautious by half. What we need now is some "hell for leather" gallop for the Truth, and damn the consequences.

Actually, I would like Howard Dean to run again.

My Due Diligence:

http:/www.mydd.com/

has some good info on the torture subject.

"...torture doesn't work. Is that some liberal fringe claim? No. Here's what it says about the use of torture in the Army Field Manual:

"The use of force, mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to unpleasant and inhumane treatment of any kind is prohibited by law and is neither authorized nor condoned by the US Government. Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear."

Well, yes! Duh.

Posted by: Barbara on November 14, 2005 09:19 PM

I say 35, do I hear 30, 27 ladies and gentlemen, I have 25 over there, do I hear 20?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-14-poll_x.htm

Poll numbers are down and 7 out of 10 people don't want to vote for a legislature who agrees all the time with Bush.

Posted by: Sally on November 14, 2005 10:15 PM

6.9 earthquake in the ocean east of Japan. Tsunami warnings issued. It occurred at 6:39am local time.

Posted by: Pat C on November 14, 2005 10:17 PM

They've upped it to 7.2, and it was fairly deep in the ocean.

Posted by: Pat C on November 14, 2005 10:19 PM

Bush on his way to Kyoto via Alaska. Hmmm

Posted by: Pat C on November 14, 2005 10:28 PM


Great reading on this site...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

Posted by: wv on November 14, 2005 11:18 PM


Hillary Clinton: 'This [Wall] is Not Against Palestinians'


or To Arik With Love,
Hillary and Condi


Hillary Clinton and Condoleeza Rice didn't meet each other in Palestine although they were in the vicinity at the same time; rather, the two American pols had a "meeting of the minds" when it came to Ariel Sharon's brutal policies. I am sure that the Palestinians are reassured by Ms. Clinton's gibberish that the wall is not against them. And I am sure that they are duly edified that they must 'change their attitudes about terrorism.' I'd like to know what other ethnic group Clinton could stereotype so callously and get away with it. What craven, self serving claptrap:

“This [wall] is not against the Palestinian people. This is against terrorists. The Palestinian people have to help prevent terror. They have to change their attitudes about terrorism, starting with the Palestinian Authority and going through Palestinian society.”

Not to be outdone, we get the reiteration of her boss's incredulous 'Sharon is a man of peace' from Condoleeza Rice.

Addressing Sharon at a U.S.-Israeli symposium Sunday, Rice struck an unusually personal tone, saying: "President Bush and I admire your personal courage, your leadership and the crucial contribution to peace that you are making."

Both of these women should be vilified by every human rights organziation in the world for their blatantly immoral comments regarding the human rights of Palestinians. And it is time the US taxpayers see them for what they are: self-serving politicians with little regard for the human and civil rights of their fellow men and women.


# posted by umkahlil @ 12:37 PM

Posted by: wv on November 14, 2005 11:49 PM

Dear Sally, What an excellent all-encompassing article. Thank you for sharing your unique skills with us all. Your inclusion on the changes in mass consciousness are like music to my ears.
So the Republican Party is not finished with it's implosion. My, my!
To All: I just want to say in response to some of the speculation here on the near-future political changes that I do sincerely hope that we can establish an awareness of "equality" as the base line from which the parties interact. This would require a tremendous amount of maturity on the part of our politicians. I hope that we have not come this far, with all we have endured, to be left with another hierarchial structure whether from the top down or the bottom up. This frame of thinking would indicate to me an old paridigm that will not be conducive to the new energies many of us are experiencing.

Posted by: Beverly on November 15, 2005 12:00 AM

Hillary is the furthest thing from a leader I've seen. She always strikes me as being totally confused.(Doesn't she have a 29 degree Pisces Moon?)

Had she shown courage and leadership when her husband so hideously humiliated her and her daughter in public, and made a complete mockery of the office of President, she would have parted ways with him and had a real chance in politics. No matter what people say, where the truth lurks, he is a liability.
Bill Clinton is not doing well. They would do best by dealing with their own problems and leave us alone to deal with ours.

I'm tired of elevating attention starved fools longing for pop stardom into positions of leadership.

Posted by: jm on November 15, 2005 12:04 AM

Looking just a bit down the road… Call it Revolution. Call it “The Fourth Turning”. Whatever you call it, it is very much closer than you may realize—and steadily approaching.

http://www.palden.co.uk/palden/pal-4tin.html

The first decade of the 2000s is likely involve getting on with the situation at hand, integrating changes made so far and moving things forward. Probable rapid progress of events and trends. From late 2006-2010 comes a series of Saturn aspects: oppositions to Neptune (2006-7, Leo-Aquarius) and Uranus (2008-10, Virgo-Pisces), and a square to Pluto (2009-10, Libra-Capricorn). These will present viability-challenges, forcing manifest solutions and possibly causing considerable hardship or confrontation with factual realities. The sequence might bring dislocations of power in 2006-7 and transition and healing in 2008-10, with much reorganisation and crunchy grating added. This is a likely shock period, partially disappointing and partially catalysing concrete actions and policy-changes for later benefit.

2009 sees Uranus semisextile (30°) Neptune, promising the emergence of definite developments arising out of 1993, plus a melting of barriers to change. Then comes action. In 2012-15, Uranus forms a square (90°) to Pluto (Aries to Capricorn). This is the opening square after the conjunction of 1965-66 – a major test of what was seeded over 45 years before. This suggests a Big Problem – but if there is the will to confront it positively, it promises great breakthrough. This could be an exceptionally trying time, a material test of our ability to overcome massive hurdles. Technical and organisational implications are involved, and many new factors will jump in – it’s a time of potential shock.

The innovations and ideas of the 1960s (microchips to therapies) will either come to work now, or will fail to carry the day. It’s a time of emergency and crisis – the edge. It will demand much effort and definite results or big adjustments to new, shocking realities. This could also bring a major setback which, in the longterm (by the 2040s) could bring great benefit. Be it setback or breakthrough, the issues will hang around questions of force, science and technology, resources, land, finance, warfare – and more about institutions. There could be rebellion too. This is a decisive turning-point. Not easy.

Posted by: NEOBuckeye on November 15, 2005 12:25 AM

Meanwhile, the battle against the faked intelligence is raging in Congress today. This would be a great one to win.
As our progressed Mars goes retro and we use some sense about war declaration.
Mars in Libra. War and peace.

Posted by: jm on November 15, 2005 12:26 AM

Is it safe to say that all things Bush and NeoConservative will likely soon be swept away as far more pressing issues rise up and demand our attention? How I wish the Dems could see what I suspect that all of us here already know: Viable solutions to Fossil Fuel Energy shortages (i.e. Peak Oil) are going to be absolutely critical to our survival as a civilization. Bush and the Republicans don’t have the answers. They are only a big part of the problem! If the Dems jump on this in 2006 -- Diebold be damned -- they will decimate the NeoCon/PNAC movement, and sweep the GOP from elected office.

I see the coming Uranus-Pluto Square as a very critical juncture in time when we will no longer be able to deny the reality of Peak Oil and other limited resources that we have extremely foolishly built up our modern civilization to depend upon. In the mid 2010s, we will be required to implement viable, effective solutions, or else we will all pay a very terrible price.

Posted by: NEOBuckeye on November 15, 2005 12:31 AM

I agree Neo, about the coming Uranus Pluto. That will be the time to take the step into the future, the untested, and the unknown, keeping the Capricorn lessons that work.

I still think Uranus in Taurus after that will bring awareness and practical solutions.

Posted by: jm on November 15, 2005 12:40 AM

Yea, verily, jm... what's up with that?!?!? Some ameriCOs always lookin' for Big Daddies & Pop (pun intended) Stars to tell them what to think & what to do. WhaddaHOOT!! It's really embarrassing is what it is. And besides that, it Sells Stuff. I'm keeping an eye on this year's "Holiday Sales" (incl in the GNP). Big Biz used to crow about how they raked it in during that time. Last 3 or so years, they been noticeably quiet. I don't think GNP has been "watered" lately by xmas.

Posted by: JoannaOregon on November 15, 2005 12:42 AM

Speaking of the Vatican (well we were at some point above), apparently it equates being gay with being a child rapist. What gives with these people?

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--gaypriests1112nov12,0,3989861.story?coll=ny-homegarden-headlines&track=mostemailedlink

Posted by: shylurker on November 15, 2005 12:43 AM


a more realistic view of Tom Delay's mug shot...

http://www.cafepress.com/thewhitehouse/866007

Posted by: wv on November 15, 2005 12:53 AM

ane Hamsher at Firedoglake

Well the war party neatly jettisoned habeas corpus with nary an hour's debate today. Is it a great day to be an American or what? But before they all go celebrate by rolling around naked in a greasy pile of cash while The Fountainhead plays in the background, Philippe Sands -- counsel for Human Rights watch -- raises the specter of August Pinochet and warns that those who are complicit in enabling torture (no names, please) might think twice about international travel any time soon:

The convention sets up an elaborate enforcement mechanism. The United States and the 140- plus other countries that have joined the convention agree to take certain actions if any person who has committed torture is found on their territory.
Con't http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/11/innocents-abroad.html

Posted by: Pat C on November 15, 2005 01:48 AM

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/14/opinion/14blochemarks.html?hp

The Pentagon effectively signed off on a strategy that mimics Red Army methods. But those tactics were not only inhumane, they were ineffective. For Communist interrogators, truth was beside the point: their aim was to force compliance to the point of false confession.

Fearful of future terrorist attacks and frustrated by the slow progress of intelligence-gathering from prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Pentagon officials turned to the closest thing on their organizational charts to a school for torture. That was a classified program at Fort Bragg, N.C., known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape. Based on studies of North Korean and Vietnamese efforts to break American prisoners, SERE was intended to train American soldiers to resist the abuse they might face in enemy custody.

Posted by: Pat C on November 15, 2005 02:12 AM

Pombo's Poison Pills
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111405A.shtml
Kelpie Wilson: Buried in the bowels of the budget bill is a stunning poison pill - one of the biggest land grabs in history. Engineered by the Chair of the House Resources Committee, Mr. Richard Pombo, this pill is disguised as a modification to mining law. It would transfer up to 350 million acres of public land into private ownership in order to fund a $70 billion tax cut for the rich. The only appropriate response is to regurgitate this poison pill all over their slick designer shoes.

Posted by: Pat C on November 15, 2005 02:45 AM

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200511/ways_and_means.asp

Ways and Means: Closed-Door Democracy
A stealth effort to keep you in the dark

Posted by: Pat C on November 15, 2005 05:47 AM

That side profile of DeLay could almost pass for Batman's Joker.

That's a scary thought.

Posted by: NEOBuckeye on November 15, 2005 08:08 AM


Finally Medical Journal Admits the Truth About Bird Flu


The British Medical Journal recently featured an editorial on the bird flu in which they state the following:

The lack of sustained human-to-human transmission suggests that this AH5N1 avian virus does not currently have the capacity to cause a human pandemic.

Theoretical Speculation

While they do go on to say the virus could mutate with a influenza A virus and has the potential to acquire the means for rapid human to human transmission, it does not have this ability now; the preparation and warnings are entirely about a theoretical speculation.

http://www.mercola.com/display/PrintPage.aspx?docid=31303&PrintPage=yes

Posted by: wv on November 15, 2005 01:59 PM

Hmmm.... Courage and leadership.... We haven't seen much from the Democrats and certainly not the contemptable Kerry, hapless Edwards and guns-shy Dean. As Sally has stated,other than Reid, Conyers(and other black caucus menbers)and a few others they are lost in the corruption of big money and agenda focused polls. I am truly independent of the process called politics as neither party is an option.

Posted by: on November 15, 2005 02:18 PM


The US used chemical weapons in Iraq - and then lied about it
Now we know napalm and phosphorus bombs have been dropped on Iraqis, why have the hawks failed to speak out?

George Monbiot
Tuesday November 15, 2005

Guardian

Did US troops use chemical weapons in Falluja? The answer is yes. The proof is not to be found in the documentary broadcast on Italian TV last week, which has generated gigabytes of hype on the internet. It's a turkey, whose evidence that white phosphorus was fired at Iraqi troops is flimsy and circumstantial. But the bloggers debating it found the smoking gun.
The first account they unearthed in a magazine published by the US army. In the March 2005 edition of Field Artillery, officers from the 2nd Infantry's fire support element boast about their role in the attack on Falluja in November last year: "White Phosphorous. WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE [high explosive]. We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5333320-103677,00.html

Posted by: wv on November 15, 2005 02:29 PM


Spanish police expose more CIA links to secret flights of detainees
· 42 operatives traced going through Palma airport
· Names unearthed match Italian and German inquiries

Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Tuesday November 15, 2005

Guardian

Spanish police have traced up to 42 suspected CIA operatives believed to have taken part in secret flights carrying detained or kidnapped Islamist terror suspects to interrogation centres and jails in Afghanistan, Egypt and elsewhere.
A Spanish police report seen by the New York Times provides the names of the mainly American crew and passengers of a dozen suspect flights that landed in Palma de Mallorca in 2003 and 2004. The flights were allegedly part of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" programme, in which, say human rights groups, suspected extreme Islamists are taken to be interrogated in countries where US human rights rules on torture do not apply.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5333446-110878,00.html

Posted by: wv on November 15, 2005 02:35 PM


November 15, 2005

Editorial

Strange Behavior at the F.D.A.

Congressional investigators have documented some highly suspect maneuvering behind the Food and Drug Administration's decision last year to reject over-the-counter sales of the controversial morning-after contraceptive known as Plan B. The investigation, by the Government Accountability Office, stopped short of asserting that political considerations had led agency officials to overrule their own experts and outside advisers. But the most plausible inference one can draw is that politics or ideology was allowed to trump science as higher-ups at the agency searched for rationales to keep access to the contraceptive restricted.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/opinion/15tue2.html?pagewanted=print

Posted by: wv on November 15, 2005 02:46 PM


November 15, 2005

Editorial

Decoding Mr. Bush's Denials

To avoid having to account for his administration's misleading statements before the war with Iraq, President Bush has tried denial, saying he did not skew the intelligence. He's tried to share the blame, claiming that Congress had the same intelligence he had, as well as President Bill Clinton. He's tried to pass the buck and blame the C.I.A. Lately, he's gone on the attack, accusing Democrats in Congress of aiding the terrorists.

Yesterday in Alaska, Mr. Bush trotted out the same tedious deflection on Iraq that he usually attempts when his back is against the wall: he claims that questioning his actions three years ago is a betrayal of the troops in battle today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/opinion/15tue1.html?pagewanted=print

Posted by: wv on November 15, 2005 02:50 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/14/AR2005111401018_pf.html

Another Set of Scare Tactics
By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Mr. President, it won't work this time.

With a Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll finding 57 percent of Americans agreeing that George W. Bush "deliberately misled people to make the case for war with Iraq," the president clearly needs to tend to his credibility problems. But his partisan attacks on the administration's critics, in a Veterans Day speech last week and in Alaska yesterday, will only add to his troubles.

Bush was not subtle. He said that anyone accusing his administration of having "manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people" was giving aid and comfort to the enemy. "These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will," Bush declared last week. "As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them."

You wonder: Did Patrick Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the Valerie Plame leak investigation, send the wrong signal to our troops and our enemy by daring to seek the indictment of Scooter Libby on a charge of perjury and obstruction of justice? Must Americans who support our troops desist from any criticism of the use of intelligence by the administration?

More....

Posted by: Pat C on November 15, 2005 03:10 PM

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051115/ap_on_re_mi_ea/un_iraq

U.N. Report Cites Multinational Forces

The Iraqi army and multinational forces violated international law during military operations in western Iraq last month by arresting doctors and occupying medical facilities, a U.N. report said Monday.

The five-page report, from the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq, said military operations by the two forces had "a negative impact on human rights" and cited figures that more than 10,000 families have been displaced in two restive provinces — Anbar and Nineveh — alone.

Covering the period of Sept. 1 to Oct. 31, it said the United Nations has repeatedly sought to draw attention to the issue of detained doctors and occupied medical facilities during October military operations in Anbar.

"Such actions are contrary to international law governing armed conflict and in any event they constitute a denial of the protection of international human rights law," the report said.

More....

Posted by: Pat C on November 15, 2005 03:11 PM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/chillin-with-chalabi-my_b_10651.html

Chillin' with Chalabi: My Journey into the Surreal

Posted by: Pat C on November 15, 2005 03:12 PM

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10045146/

Iraqis say soldiers threw them in lions’ den

Businessmen were detained by U.S. forces

Updated: 12:02 a.m. ET Nov. 15, 2005

WASHINGTON - Two Iraqi businessmen, who were imprisoned by U.S. forces in Iraq, claimed Monday that American soldiers threw them into a cage of lions in a Baghdad palace, as part of a terrifying interrogation in 2003.

“They took me behind the cage, they were screaming at me, scaring me and beating me a lot,” Thahe Mohammed Sabbar said in an interview. “One of the soldiers would open the door, and two soldiers would push me in. The lions came running toward me and they pulled me out and shut the door. I completely lost consciousness.”

More...

Posted by: Pat C on November 15, 2005 03:14 PM

Great posts, all, esp. Pat C and WV, although I must confess I snicker whenever I read the words "Bush" and "intelligence" in the same
paragraph...call me juvenile if you must,but I prefer to think I'm easily amused....

Posted by: Garry on November 15, 2005 03:20 PM

http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/3117/1/396

ALERT: EPA Proposes Rollback on Toxic Pollution Reporting
EPA recently announced plans that would essentially dismantle its Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), the nation's premier tool for notifying the public about toxic pollution. The TRI annually provides communities with details about the amount of toxic chemicals released into the surrounding air, land, and water. The information enables concerned groups and individuals to press companies to reduce their pollution, resulting in safer, healthier communities. Despite the program's widely hailed success, however, EPA is proposing to significantly rolling back the program's reporting requirements.

The EPA has proposed three changes, each of which would dramatically cut information available to the public on toxic pollution. The agency is proposing to:
Move from the current annual reporting requirement to every other year reporting for all facilities, eliminating half of all TRI data;
Allow companies to release ten times as much pollution before being required to report the details of how much toxic pollution was produced and where it went;
Permit facilities to withhold information on low-level production of persistent bioacculuative toxins (PBTs), including lead and mercury, which are dangerous even in very small quantities because they are toxic, persist in the environment, and build up in people's bodies.

More...

Posted by: Pat C on November 15, 2005 04:31 PM


from Drudge

Bush rarely speaks to father, ‘family is split’
Tue Nov 15 2005 11:23:51 ET

President Bush feels betrayed by several of his most senior aides and advisors and has severely restricted access to the Oval Office, INSIGHT magazine claims in a new report.

The president’s reclusiveness in the face of relentless public scrutiny of the U.S.-led war in Iraq and White House leaks regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame has become so extreme that Mr. Bush has also reduced contact with his father, former President George H.W. Bush, administration sources said on the condition of anonymity.

“The atmosphere in the Oval Office has become unbearable,” a source said. “Even the family is split.”

INSIGHT: Sources close to the White House say that Mr. Bush has become isolated and feels betrayed by key officials in the wake of plunging domestic support, the continued insurgency in Iraq and the CIA-leak investigation that has resulted in the indictment and resignation of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff.

The sources said Mr. Bush maintains daily contact with only four people: first lady Laura Bush, his mother, Barbara Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes. The sources also say that Mr. Bush has stopped talking with his father, except on family occasions.

Posted by: wv on November 15, 2005 05:14 PM

Hi folks-

Been lurking with interest. Here's something you might find interesting.

A confidential memo circulating among senior Republican leaders suggests that a new attack by terrorists on U.S. soil could reverse the sagging fortunes of President George W. Bush as well as the GOP and "restore his image as a leader of the American people."

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7639.shtml

Posted by: Jase on November 15, 2005 05:15 PM

Poll: Your opinion on withdrawing troops from Iraq?

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20051115044809990006

Posted by: shylurker on November 15, 2005 05:19 PM

Welcome Jase and thanks for the link. I saw that the other day and it's the topic of conversation on the talk radio this morning in Colo. What will they do to keep us terrified? I don't put anything past them, and I am wondering how our government could A) continually lie B) do what ever or say what ever to keep people divided C) be so seemingly against this country. I just can hardly get my mind around it all.

Posted by: Sally on November 15, 2005 05:41 PM

I have gone though several stages in thinking as I continue to watch this mess unfold. First stage in Dec. 2000 was "America has been taken over by a bunch of bullies" Second stage at 9/11, "America has been taken over by a fascist coup" varying stages followed after that such as "america has been taken over by evil morally bankrupt fascists" or America is stupid and has been easily taken over by stupid people. Now I think America has been taken over by fascists who are so stupid, beyond the pale, that we think they know what evil they are doing.

Read this, the brilliant Karen Hughes, a representative of this administration fell flat on her face because of ignorance, egotism, and arrogance. These people don't know the world has changed since 1950/1960. Their "evil brilliance" has been freeze dried back in school and they weren't curious enough or didn't care enough to find out how the world has changed.

http://www.watchingamerica.com/thestar000001.shtml

Posted by: Sally on November 15, 2005 05:57 PM

Well Daykeeper Journal had predicted that today would be a wild energy day for the Mississippi Valley and it's unfortunately happening. They are suffering severe storms that are traveling at 75mph.

From Daykeeper Journal:

"Uranus and Pluto lines run right down the Mississippi Valley. This indicates that this New Moon stimulates much energy there."

Posted by: Pat C on November 15, 2005 07:27 PM

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/11/15/halliburton_katrina/

Gulf Coast slaves

Halliburton and its subcontractors hired hundreds of undocumented Latino workers to clean up after Katrina -- only to mistreat them and throw them out without pay.

Arnulfo Martinez recalls seeing lots of hombres del ejercito standing at attention. Though he was living on the Belle Chasse Naval Base near New Orleans when President Bush spoke there on Oct. 11, he didn't understand anything the ruddy man in the rolled-up sleeves was saying to the troops.

Martinez, 16, speaks no English; his mother tongue is Zapotec. He had left the cornfields of Oaxaca, Mexico, four weeks earlier for the promise that he would make $8 an hour, plus room and board, while working for a subcontractor of KBR, a wholly owned subsidiary of Halliburton that was awarded a major contract by the Bush administration for disaster relief work. The job was helping to clean up a Gulf Coast naval base in the region devastated by Hurricane Katrina. "I was cleaning up the base, picking up branches and doing other work," Martinez said, speaking to me in broken Spanish.

Even if the Oaxacan teenager had understood Bush when he urged Americans that day to "help somebody find shelter or help somebody find food," he couldn't have known that he'd soon need similar help himself. But three weeks after arriving at the naval base from Texas, Martinez's boss, Karen Tovar, a job broker from North Carolina who hired workers for a KBR subcontractor called United Disaster Relief, booted him from the base and left him homeless, hungry and without money.

"They gave us two meals a day and sometimes only one," Martinez said.

He says that Tovar "kicked us off the base," forcing him and other cleanup workers -- many of them Mexican and undocumented -- to sleep on the streets of New Orleans. According to Martinez, they were not paid for three weeks of work. An immigrant rights group recently filed complaints with the Department of Labor on behalf of Martinez and 73 other workers allegedly owed more than $56,000 by Tovar. Tovar claims that she let the workers go because she was not paid by her own bosses at United Disaster Relief. In turn, UDR manager Zachary Johnson, who declined to be interviewed for this story, told the Washington Post on Nov. 4 that his company had not been paid by KBR for two months.

Posted by: Pat C on November 15, 2005 07:31 PM

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=36399

Tomgram: Klare, What Are They Cooking Up in the White House?

We know one thing about the Bush administration, despite the President's Veterans Day speech on the "irresponsibility" of "rewriting history," he and his top officials -- possibly the greatest gamblers in our history -- had no hesitation about writing their own ticket to history and rejiggering the facts wherever necessary in the run-up to war. History like intelligence was seen a malleable thing, something that would, in the end, go to the victor anyway. It could be whatever they desired it to be, whatever they thought would best help them panic the American people and Congress into backing an invasion of their country of choice. And it could be brought to bear whenever they thought it most useful -- or, in White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card's now infamous September 2002 formulation (speaking of the timing of promoting an invasion of Iraq), ``From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August.''

They had no qualms about elbowing the CIA aside, or using forged, unreliable, or clearly inaccurate intelligence, or simple disinformation, or just repeating endlessly things they certainly knew to be fictions in order to make Democrats (who knew better) run for their lives and put a full-court press on the media. They were happy to raise rhetorical mushroom clouds over all-too-real American cities to panic Americans into their war of choice.......

Wag the Dog

Crisis Scenarios for Deflecting Attention from the President's Woes

In the 1998 movie Wag the Dog, White House spinmeister Conrad Brean seeks to deflect public attention from a brewing scandal over an alleged sexual encounter in the White House between the president and an all-too-young Girl Scout-type by concocting an international crisis. Advised by a Hollywood producer (played with delicious perversity by Dustin Hoffman), Brean "leaks" a fraudulent report that Albania has acquired a suitcase-sized nuclear device and is seeking to smuggle it into the United States. This obviously justifies an attention-diverting military reprisal. The press falls for the false report (sound familiar?) and all discussion of the president's sex scandal disappears from view -- or, as Brean would have it, the "tail" of manufactured crisis wags the "dog" of national politics.

As Brean explains all this to the White House staff in the film, American presidents have often sought to distract attention from their political woes at home by heating up a war or crisis somewhere else. Now that the current occupant of the White House is facing roiling political scandals of his own, it stands to reason that he, too, or his embattled adviser Karl Rove (not to speak of his besieged Vice President, Dick Cheney) may be thinking along such lines. Could Rove -- today's real-life version of Conrad Brean -- already be cooking up a "wag the dog" scenario? Only those with access to the innermost sanctum of George Bush's White House can know for sure, but it is hardly an improbable thought, given that they have done so in the past.

It bears repeating that this administration -- more than any other in recent times -- has employed deception and innuendo to mold public opinion and advance its political agenda.....

More....links within text

Posted by: Pat C on November 15, 2005 10:03 PM

* bush in the bunker: Reduces access, rarely speaks to father http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=117003

Posted by: JoannaOregon on November 15, 2005 10:57 PM

http://www.mfa.gov.yu/FDP/iht081203_e.html

UN takeover of Internet? Some are 'not amused

Posted by: Pat C on November 15, 2005 11:34 PM

I think they are extremely stupid. They left their tracks all uncovered. And I think, contrary to popular opinion, they are unskilled politicians.

They move in disjointed ways and miscalculate, too fast, too cornball thinking the public is overwhelmingly that way, and they are transparent, which is our saving grace. Others before have done the same kinds of things under better cover, but now we can see.

I think they've lost their brief period of momentum and even if they try some heinous thing, it will flop. The potency is gone, and actually being transferred to the people as we come for them in angry mob mode. They probably have no chance.

If we gain anything right now, it would be the conquering of our fear. No matter what they try, we can handle it.

Grace and rhythm go a long way.

Posted by: jm on November 16, 2005 12:06 AM

Besides, to build an empire and enslave a population takes tremendous tight organization. Great skill in administration. Huge. Do you think they have that? They've banked on our paralysis, but that's diminishing. They are being attacked from all fronts now, including from within. The timing is perfect.

Keep going and we've got them.

Posted by: jm on November 16, 2005 12:21 AM

Birthdates of some of the likely '08 candidates:

Dem --
Sen. Evan Bayh: 12/26/1955
Gov. Mark Warner: 12/15/1954
Sen. Russ Feingold: 03/02/1953
Sen. John Edwards: 06/10/1953
Sen. Hillary Clinton: 10/26/1947
Gov. Bill Richardson: 11/15/1947
Gov. Tom Vilsack: 12/13/1950
Sen. John Kerry: 12/11/1943
Gen. Wesley Clark: 12/23/1944


Rep --
Sen. George Allen 03/08/1952
Sen. John McCain 08/29/1936
SecState Condi Rice 11/14/1954
Sen. Mitt Romney 03/12/1947
Gov. George Pataki 06/24/1945
Mayor Rudi Giuliani 05/28/1944
Sen. Sam Brownback 09/12/1956
Gov. Mike Huckabee 08/24/1955


Posted by: 2yums on November 16, 2005 12:33 AM


There is an old adage that says that every 12
years the taller candidate, with a double letter
in their name is the winner. It happened in 1960
and in 1996.

Not necessarily proven in my lifetime

Posted by: wv on November 16, 2005 12:51 AM

Really, wv? Well, well. Does that include first and last before I start to calculate?

Posted by: jm on November 16, 2005 12:59 AM


Pat C

That internet story is 2 years old...what has
happened since then???

Posted by: wv on November 16, 2005 01:19 AM


jm

well you can go back to Harry S Truman in 1948

and Roosevelt in 1936, Warren G Harding in 1924(?)

and Woodrow Wilson in 1912. You can go back from
there, I have never checked it out.

Posted by: wv on November 16, 2005 01:23 AM

Well what an idiot I was. The story is current, and I went looking for it in Google News. Since it's happening right now, I didn't look at the date. Oy.

Posted by: Pat C on November 16, 2005 01:25 AM

Thanks, wv. According to your predictive method that leaves us with some good and some rather abominable choices.

We'll see how the cookie crumbles.

Posted by: jm on November 16, 2005 01:32 AM

I heard the story on Lou Dobbs. I can't find it on CNN, but here is a more recent article.

http://www.capmag.com/news.asp?ID=1474

Posted by: Pat C on November 16, 2005 01:37 AM

Would the Peak Oil doom-and-gloomers please get over it? Oil is a constantly-replenished resource from deep within the earth: abiotic, not the mish-mashed residue of dinosaurs.

The oil cartel is playing the same con game as the diamond cartel.

See Black Gold Stranglehold by Corsi and Smith.

Posted by: Dawn on November 16, 2005 02:06 AM

for those who would like a link to Dawn's assertion here's one:
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47018

Posted by: tseka on November 16, 2005 03:02 AM

Why are they all going to China and, particularly, why are they going to Mongolia? Even Rummy went there recently. Torture facilities, oil, space for military installations or pipelines?--or do they see a major future market for horses (those Mongolian ponies are something else again) as the oil dries up?

Inquiring mind wants to know.

Posted by: shylurker on November 16, 2005 03:26 AM

While i'm wandering through the briar patch of stories whether from Sierra Club or Fed Gov, i am continuously applying the FEAR and FUD tests.
FEAR: False Evidence Appearing Real
FUD: Fear Uncertainty and Doubt...example being Y2K and other apocolyptic pronouncements.
How much we are manipulated...
It isn't easy finding truth, is it?

PS my sources say ICANN is probably safe since high level root servers are in US.

Posted by: tseka on November 16, 2005 03:36 AM

ja Shylurker my guess is the oil pipeline projects that are now being cut with China and Russia. More biz for Haliburton perhaps under a chinese proxy?
Makes me wonder about all the US tax dollars funneled into the Iraq project a little sleight of hand????
here's some projects in the pipe so to speak
http://www.pipewire.net/

Posted by: tseka on November 16, 2005 03:47 AM

But even Ahhhhhhhhhnold is going there. He and Maria are in China now, but apparently have separate itineraries. She'd do herself a big favor if she'd manage to have a separate itinerary from the thing for the rest of her life.

Posted by: shylurker on November 16, 2005 03:59 AM

Well maybe when your popularity dips so low a junket to mongolia makes sense?

Posted by: tseka on November 16, 2005 04:16 AM

a short search reveals that Kellogg Brown and Root have contracts with PetroChina which has and is continuing to build pipeline in northern inner mongolia. Looks like oilbiz....even though Arnold is toting a solar panel around talking about alternative energy...

Posted by: tseka on November 16, 2005 04:31 AM

Another big pile of it has just hit the fan. Go to talkingpointsmemo.com and check out the latest post (11:17).

Maybe they'll all just stay in Mongolia?

Posted by: shylurker on November 16, 2005 05:03 AM

Hi all

Wanted to share a dream I had the other night with everyone. In the dream, Georgeie W. commited suicide because of the mounting US crisis regarding Plame, Iraq etc. It was exceptionally real and the feelings lingered long after I awoke. I am a fairly psychic person with a pretty good track record when it comes to dreams, premonitions,etc. The dream made me think of Hitler who killed himself when his horrible facist world finally began to crumble around him. I beleive W is a dry-drunk with a brain fried by coke use. Added to that I believe he is has some learning disabilities and/or suffers from Narcissitic Personality Disorder or some other DSM IV-type personality disorder. The only pain he seems to feel is his own, and he totally lacks empathy. Now that he can no longer swagger around with his "Mission Accomplished" BS and call himself a war-time president, I think his inner world is starting to crumble. The scrutiny that is coming to bear on him and his thugs re" Plame, the false intel for the war etc., I think is crushing him. It would be consistent with someone of his obvious mental health flaws to choose to off himself rather than face the truth. Given the "Zero Year/Tecumsah's curse theories and other astrological sign posts on this I don't think it is out of the realm of the possible. Does anyone have any astrological/psychic inputs on this? Timing, triggers, etc?

I live near the D.C. area, read the Washington Post everyday (great paper and they have a good web site), and I can tell you the smell of fear from Capitol Hill is palpable. If you're the least bit psychic, it's positively a scream in your head!

Fasten your seat belts kids, it's gonna be a bumpy ride!
Swamp

Posted by: Swamp on November 16, 2005 05:32 AM

How many wheels does the Smirky&Co vehicle have? Another one just fell off:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501842.html

Swamp, I can't answer your question because I'm too ignorant and unlearned in the matters you mentioned. But I gotta say that with all these wheels falling off this vehicle it is indeed gonna be a bumpier and bumpier ride. Why, they lost two tonight alone! They'd better be bringing back some ponies from Mongolia. Nothing left to ride around in back in DC.

Posted by: shylurker on November 16, 2005 06:08 AM

Peak Oil is real enough, Dawn. When we chug it right out of the Earth by millions and millions of barrels each day, at an ever increasing rate, doncha think we might at some point exceed what the Earth is capable of replacing?

We've got maybe a few more years before the peak hits. Maybe it has indeed already hit. At any rate, I don't think there will be much debate about it once the Uranus-Pluto Square transit takes place early next decade.

I'm hardly doom and gloom about Peak Oil. Big Oil needs to give up the ghost. It's way too powerful, and I personally believe that there are many better things that await us on the other side of this nasty addiction.

Posted by: NEOBuckeye on November 16, 2005 08:24 AM

TaHA!! Lil cancerian bushaTerribleInfant 'loves" them "black-leather" moms. http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002485.html

Posted by: JoannaOregon on November 16, 2005 08:36 AM


Pat C

They came to an agreement last night in Tunis
US retains control of internet.

Posted by: wv on November 16, 2005 01:23 PM


Here's the story from the BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4442336.stm

Note side stories.

Posted by: wv on November 16, 2005 01:23 PM


If true, we're in deep do do

Esquire: Clinton is world's "most influential man"


Email this Story

Nov 15, 6:29 PM (ET)


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton is "The Most Influential Man in the World," according to Esquire magazine.

The magazine has designated him as "the most powerful agent of change in the world" despite his lack of electoral standing and the fact he was laid low by a heart attack ahead of last year's presidential election.

The magazine highlights Clinton's accomplishments in its December issue, which goes on newsstands on Thursday, profiling the world's "Best and Brightest" men and women.

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20051115/2005-11-15T232919Z_01_MCC584482_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-CLINTON-DC.html

Posted by: wv on November 16, 2005 01:40 PM


Woodward testifies in CIA leak case
Editor says senior administration official told him about Plame

Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward
Meet The Press via Reuters file

By Jim VandeHei and Carol D. Leonnig

Updated: 7:23 a.m. ET Nov. 16, 2005
Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward testified under oath Monday in the CIA leak case that a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her position at the agency nearly a month before her identity was disclosed.

In a more than two-hour deposition, Woodward told Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald that the official casually told him in mid-June 2003 that Plame worked as a CIA analyst on weapons of mass destruction, and that he did not believe the information to be classified or sensitive, according to a statement Woodward released yesterday.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10057145/

Posted by: wv on November 16, 2005 01:50 PM

For your "Wheel of Justice Grinds Slowly" file:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1102AP_Chile_General_Sentenced.html

If they keep adding on eight-, 10-year sentences for each person this creature killed over all those years, he'll never emerge from prison. They'll just have to entomb him in his cell.

Posted by: shylurker on November 16, 2005 02:32 PM

"They came to an agreement last night in Tunis
US retains control of internet."

Thanks wv!

Posted by: Pat C on November 16, 2005 02:56 PM

NEOB, all-
Respectfully, I think I agree with Dawn, because "peak oil" remains a theory at best.

Please see the stories at this link
http://www.freeenergynews.com/Directory/Theory/SustainableOil/

and ask yourself "Who benefits?" when reading this article:
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=63&contentid=2819&page=2

I'm not trying to start a flame war, just asking questions, that's all!!!

Posted by: Garry on November 16, 2005 03:00 PM

Pentagon Admits Use of White Phosphorus on Iraqis
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111605Z.shtml
Pentagon officials acknowledged Tuesday that US troops used white phosphorus as a weapon against insurgent strongholds during the battle of Fallujah last November. But they denied an Italian television news report that the spontaneously flammable material was used against civilians.

........

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8046

The Senators' Rebellion
Antiwar momentum is building: let's put it to good use

........

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/10/12/192844/71

Miller's Involvement: Possible explanation from Sydney Blumenthal?

........

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/11/bobby-has-secret.html

Bobby Has a Secret

Atrios put up a post about Woodward's appearance on Larry King the night before Fitzgerald announced the Libby indictments, where Michael Isikoff asks him about a "bombshell" revelation that he was supposedly sitting on. Woodward poo-poohs the whole thing. But it jogged my memory, because that night I remember hearing that same rumor and I took it seriously enough to call both Arianna and the NYT about it, and I could not remember for the life of me where I heard it.
........

http://billmon.org/archives/002339.html

Judy Woodward
Or should I call him Little Mister Run Amok?

Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward testified under oath Monday in the CIA leak case that a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her position at the agency nearly a month before her identity was disclosed . . .

.........


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501842_pf.html

Document Says Oil Chiefs Met With Cheney Task Force
By Dana Milbank and Justin Blum

A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 -- something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress.

..........

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/111505.html

Bush's Rewriting of History
By Robert Parry

For decades, the well-connected Bush family has been treated like a kind of American royalty in which a petulant king or prince can stamp a foot and insist that whatever the evidence says the truth is otherwise. Their subjects are expected to bow in acquiescence, while dissenters can expect a good thrashing.

*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051116/ap_on_go_co/sept11_aid;_ylt=AiWm_WDgXUZhr0mKA2uK7NFvzwcF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

N.Y. to Lose $125 Million in 9/11 Aid

Congressional budget negotiators have decided to take back $125 million in Sept. 11 aid from New York, which had fought to keep the money to treat sick and injured ground zero workers, lawmakers said Tuesday.

New York officials had sought for months to hold onto the funding, originally meant to cover increased worker compensation costs stemming from the 2001 terror attacks.

But a massive labor and health spending bill moving fitfully through House-Senate negotiations would take back that funding, lawmakers said.

Posted by: Pat C on November 16, 2005 03:04 PM

Sally, please feel free to delete my post. One of the links stretched the page. I tried using a * in front to cause it to wrap, but nooooo. My apologies to everyone.

Posted by: Pat C on November 16, 2005 03:07 PM

Woodward is Disgraced

by BooMan

Wed Nov 16th, 2005 at 08:40:42 AM EDT

Woodward and Bernstein were heroes of mine as soon as I saw All the President's Men. I was probably ten years old when I first saw the movie. It made a permanent impression on me and, looking back, it informed my whole moral universe. The President is not above the law, he can't ignore the courts, and he serves at Congress's pleasure.

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/11/16/84042/938

Posted by: Pat C on November 16, 2005 03:15 PM

Did you folks see this? On the Sunday McLaughlin Group, Pat Buchanan not only acknowledged that the Iraq War is destabilizing the entire region of the Middle East, but added that it was in fact the objective all along. Can you say PNAC?
http://dailydissent.org/video/mclaughlin111305.wmv

Posted by: Jill G on November 16, 2005 06:43 PM

Shylurker,
You asked why Bushco is heading for Mongolia. The answer is lumber. Mongolia has had laws about leaving the forests alone since Ghangis Khan. Millions of acres of pristine ancient forests may be doomed. I hope the Mongolians stop them.

Posted by: Jill G on November 16, 2005 06:54 PM

December should bring even more discoveries of "remains" in NOLA as people are allowed to return. This is hideous and unforgiveable:
http://scoutprime.blogspot.com/2005/11/black-bodies-remain-stillpart-ii.html

Hope all is going well with you, Sharon. We haven't heard in a long time now. (Hint. Hint.)

Jill G, I do hope the spirit of Ghenghis Khan will prevail and the people of Mongolia continue to preserve their beautiful forests.

Posted by: shylurker on November 16, 2005 07:12 PM

Tseka, my cousin Les is an oil reclamation engineer and in the late 90's spent about 3 years in Beijing (yes, worked for KBR)....so I know the oil route article has its roots in the work he and others did then.

Swamp....your dream reminds me so much of the vision thing I had several months ago (posted here more than once)where the entire administration was gathered for a cocktail party in the Capital Rotunda, and as waiters severed trays of tidbits and champagne, the Secret Service and various military branch soldiers surrounded the lot of them and drew their weapons and fired (it was like watching a movie from behind the line of SS men, full color, no sound - I was 'hearing' the thoughts of these men). When all were dead in a heap, they all put their guns down and walked away. Without being stopped.

this may have been the precursor to your present dream! interpret at will!

Posted by: on November 16, 2005 07:39 PM

Mongolia. Ah-ha:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10069069/

They just might be asking for it, Jill G. Sigh.

Posted by: shylurker on November 16, 2005 08:48 PM

Oh, I forgot. Does anyone have any astro knowledge about Mongolia? That might be quite interesting given the recent curious and keen interest in it by Smirky&Co (including Ahhhhhhhnold).

Posted by: shylurker on November 16, 2005 08:50 PM

OH HELLO!
My ISP has been down for 48 hours ( not their fault they say but the phone co. Verizon)
No one I've talked to in that time is even curious about why they are converging on Mongolia. Or that the Senate is mounting a full scale rebellion!
So nice to be with "like minds"!
In frustration I " worked" my 500 - some TV stations ......................................... not much there!
I did watch the 700 club ( Pat Robertson's show) Totally out of it! To my dismay he is sponsored by Home Depot. Tears.........love that store, now have to boycott. There aren't many alternatives left are there?
Hope this goes thru, I'm still disconnecting from the Internet every 10 min.
PQ

Posted by: Pat QOP on November 16, 2005 08:53 PM

more about oil:
http://www.newswithviews.com/Ryter/jon110.htm

Posted by: Garry on November 16, 2005 09:01 PM

Wonder if the sheeple are finally becoming aware? This chemtrail stuff is not my imagination. Almost every day I see the damn planes flying and obliterating the sunlight with their trails. Just look up. Just look up. Be aware of your environment.

http://www.lasvegastribune.com/20050819/headline1.html

Posted by: Patricia on November 16, 2005 11:26 PM

Hej Pat QofP
Here's a toast to you.
***Skal***Skol***
i saw where Sen. Olympia Snowe, your gal from Maine, blocked the Senate Finance Committee from approving a $70 billion tax-cut package. I know you have been "on them".
We love it when the effort pays.

Posted by: tseka on November 17, 2005 12:16 AM

Sally, Please delete this posting if you think it inappropriate.

Patricia: Hello, since you brought it up I am going to say a few words on chemtrails which I have wanted to do for the last two years but didn't think it appropriate on a political astrology site eventhough I am sure we could find astrological indications/correlations. Neptune (gas,clouds,chemicals) Aquarius (sky,planes, air, atmosphere,technology)
They are real! The number of so called con-trails could never be a reality with the number of jets needed to take-off and land from major airports on a continuous, nonstop basis. Furthermore, CONTRAILS EVAPORATE WITHIN A MATTER OF SECONDS. I have never seen condensation (contrail) from a passenger/or military aircraft extend completely accross the horizon. This is what my neighbors and co-workers tell me though, that they are from passenger airliners. Just garbage, from people who have no interest in what is going on around them, nor the curiosity to investigate the matter. Internet if googled will show ample evidence on chemtrail spraying in Iraq even, shortly after the war began.
I do not seem to be affected in a negative way by them as some people are.
Now, this is strange.....U.S. Postal System is coming out (may have already) with a series of beautiful postage stamps displaying all the grid, fluff, and pretty colors of the chemtrails. They are being promoted in textbooks in grade schools and on the stamps as "as means of providing a screen/filter against radiation in an effort to reduce global warming." This propaganda is being taught to our children. The issue is becoming rather "commonplace" and "normalized" to get our acceptance. I don't know what to think of all this. Spraying was massive and non-stop, 24 hrs. the day Katrina hit, eventhough I had noticed a significant slacking off during the summer. Summer 2004 was continuous with huge grid patterns and beautiful colors (chemical reaction) in the evening during sunset. The grids are "supposed" to set up an energy frequency patterns through the chemicals to allow HAARP to conduct (Aquar.... .like electrical conduction) it business. I just can't believe this stuff, but when considered against the Military's plan to "own the weather by 2025, it would make sense. So much stuff going on, I just can't keep up with it all.

Posted by: Beverly on November 17, 2005 01:34 AM

Now Beverly, why would I think this is inappropriate. There are a lot of folks who think they are bad and have left sticky stuff when they go by, but not everyone thinks they are bad and I've certainly seen information such as your post above. I do not think your information is inappropriate.

Posted by: Sally on November 17, 2005 02:26 AM

Hi Shylurker,

Thanks for always asking about me. I have been lurking, as they say, keeping up with the posts, and, otherwise trying to get my life together, create some beauty, order, and meaning amid the now abating chaos, and, possibly, grow my real estate career (now part-time). We also have my stepson here (a very sweet guy who's a typical American 24 y.o. - reminds me a lot of myself with my same issues) 4 dogs and a cat, and are spending our time helping family with hurricane-related problems, and pressuring contractors for estimates for our insurance claims. Yet, I deeply know that our lives are charmed as compared to the lives of many others.

As you might guess, it's a bit strange living here now. New Orleans needs so much TLC, direction, and positive energy and strength. My husband, Myron, firmly believes that we cannot rely on the federal government to get us well -- we need to come up with a system to tax energy use. The bottom line is we need Category 5-safe levees and good, affordable housing to draw the people back (as well as attract new ones). However, until that happens, we'll have to keep our spirits strong and open to the feeling and learning that comes with this experience. Knowing that there was incomplete removal of bodies is so disturbing. On one hand, there are so many abandoned homes that it is a massive job. On the other, why did they send so much of the National Guard home when they could have done the job? It emphasizes feelings of neglect, powerlessness, ineptitude --- like New Orleans is an unloved child. Actually, part of this city's charm is that it's almost European in it's joy of life, rather than having the pushy, driven style of more together cities like New York. It's the poverty, poor education and dilapidation that are discouraging, a condition due to both underfunding and the forces of nature that cause mold, building sinking and degradation. I try to be compassionate about the reasons this situation happened. And people are very excited and focuses now on the possibility of us getting it "righter" this time (we're already righteous!). There are a lot of groups studying solutions and people banding together to create a plan - planners, architects, activists, engineers from the Netherlands, many concerned people like my husband who want to make the reconstruction a good one.

So that's what's happening with me.

Sending love and light to all of you.

Sharon

Posted by: Sharon on November 17, 2005 03:02 AM

Thank you tseka! Yes I'm playing hardball now, threatening the Senators with voting against them in the next election!
What bothers me is the silence of the Democratic Reps. in Maine???? They seem to be working more for the good of the state citizens, although they are both quite savy to the ineptitude of the Administration. ( Have heard that direct form the donkey's mouth) Perhaps they are waiting for just the right moment to launch into battle???
Contrails..................chemtrails...................
One Sat night I called the Bangor airport to ask if the flight pateterns were normal..... The ones I see go in a linear pattern west to east. ( the northern air route to Europe, as seen on the charts in the pocket behind the airline seats.) That particular night I questioned why commercial airliner flights would go so frequently, one on the tail of the other???????? 12 in 1/2 hour?????? It would seem safer to allow a little more time & distance between commercial flights. The planes are so high I can't really see them, and the trails go from west horizon to east horizon. Can't see how it spreads because it is usually just after dusk.
I have been plagued with allergies for the past 6 months, & attributed it to the abnormal stresses I have been through.
PQ

Posted by: Pat QOP on November 17, 2005 03:10 AM

Hi SHaron,
I think of you often, and think of you when they show NO on TV. I can pick up a small piece of the excitment, and am rooting for " real reconstruction"!
That the city was more European in it's flavor, was part of the equation............. too "quaint"............ Murikan cities are supposed to be pushy & flashy!
Glad you are well & in good spirits!
PQ

Posted by: Pat QOP on November 17, 2005 03:23 AM

Has anybody checked this out?

Now defunct CPA officials involved in a web or corruption and bid rigging in Iraq...

http://www.msnbc.com/id/10074995/

Posted by: Beasley on November 17, 2005 03:50 AM

Sharon, how wonderful to hear from you. I do love your "snapshots" from a NOLA that seems to be on the brink of rising once again. Only this time, with folks such as yourself and Myron joining together with other progressive, energetic and dedicated citizens, to make the new NOLA much more liveable, secure and enjoyable. Astrologers, how much of a "phoenix" character is there for NOLA? Hats off to all of you, Sharon, and many thanks for keeping us posted.

Posted by: shylurker on November 17, 2005 04:14 AM

Garry,

I am quite aware of the abiotic oil replentishing theory. I don't entirely rule out it's validity. However, in either case, we have a major crisis on our hands in the form of corrupt interests extremely bent on maintaining a status quo in which they control the quintessential source of the world's energy.

If Peak Oil is legit, and we really are running out of oil, then it is imperative that we break Big Oil's choke hold on energy and our government, and undertake a massive "Manhattan Project" level development of alternative fuels and energy.

If Abiotic theory is legit, and we really have more oil than we know what to do with, it is no less imperative that we break Big Oil's choke hold on energy and our government, and undertake a massive "Manhattan Project" level development of alternative fuels and energy.

Do you understand where I am coming from? It's the monopoly of interests vested in maintaining the status quo that we must bring down and smash once and for all. And then we must make it impossible for any one individual or interest to ever again wield the destructive power that corporations now hold over humanity and our world. For far too long, oil has been the source of this power. We cannot afford to allow it to remain so.

My apologies if this is off topic, Sally. But in the larger context of things, I felt that I needed to make this point.

Posted by: NEOBuckeye on November 17, 2005 07:54 AM

NEOB--
Awesome post, I KNEW we were ultimately on the same page. I agree 100% with what you posted. My main point in posting the abiotic oil info was just to play devil's advocate on the peak oil thing.

But, again, you are 100% correct--either way, we the people need to get the control of energy (in whatever form) back into our own hands.

Posted by: Garry on November 17, 2005 01:50 PM

Posted over on Salon:

Steve Soto at The Left Coaster lays it out in a nice package.

Wednesday :: Nov 16, 2005

Hadley Was Woodward's Source - Bad News For Bush

There are so many ways that this revelation is lethal for the Bush White House.

If Hadley came forward to tell Fitzgerald that he was releasing Woodward from any pledge of confidentiality, what and who prompted Hadley to do this? Did Scooter or Cheney force Hadley’s hand, knowing that Libby wasn’t the first to talk with reporters about Plame’s identity? Remember that just before the Libby indictment, there were stories that Hadley assumed he would be indicted.

Nothing in Woodward’s story changes the fact that Scooter allegedly lied to the FBI and grand jury, but it does give Libby a chance to plea to something lesser now if he is motivated to do so. And please, spare me the line that Woodward only knew from Hadley that she was an analyst working on WMDs, because the guy who wrote “Veil” would also know from this that she would be working on the Directorate of Operations side of the Agency, in other words, the NOC side.

If Hadley was in fact the first administration official to talk to a member of the media about Plame’s identity, and knowingly revealing that she was a possible covert operative due to her assignment in the Directorate of Operations, how plausible is it that his boss at the time didn’t know about this either. You know, his boss, the current Secretary of State?

And which is worse for Bush: the fact that he knowingly promoted two people to senior positions in the government (Secretary of State and NSA) who may have been involved in this, and lying about his knowledge of this all this time to the American people in advance of a presidential election, or not knowing any of this was going on right underneath his nose for the last two years. And tell me again why, if Bush did know this, did he let both Condi and Hadley keep their security clearances, to this day?

This definitely pulls the whole thing inside the Oval Office, and “high crimes and misdemeanors” is back in the lexicon. The president's current NSA talked to a reporter about the identity of a critic's wife, who happened to work at the Agency on WMDs, and we are supposed to believe that Condi, our current Secretary of State and the NSA at the time kept this information from Bush?

And that's all before we find out if the Chief of Staff was involved also.

embeds at http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/006039.php

Posted by: Pat C on November 17, 2005 02:43 PM

WASHINGTON - In the sharpest White House attack yet on critics of the Iraq war, Vice President Dick Cheney said on Wednesday that accusations the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to justify the war were a “dishonest and reprehensible” political ploy.
Cheney called Democrats “opportunists” who were peddling “cynical and pernicious falsehoods” to gain political advantage while U.S. soldiers died in Iraq.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10078197/

A poll on Cheney's comments is here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10081548/

Posted by: Pat C on November 17, 2005 02:50 PM


CNN reports Rep. Murtha (R) PA to call for
all troops to be removed from Iraq within 6 months. Press Conference due any minute.

They must be running scared.

Posted by: wv on November 17, 2005 03:40 PM


Sorry, he's a Democrat, and his message is powerful. We should all send him a email supporting him.

http://www.house.gov/murtha/contact.shtml

Posted by: wv on November 17, 2005 04:07 PM

http://salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/11/17/bush_history/

Bush's betrayal of history

Defiant of rising political blowback on Iraq, Bush blasts his truth-telling critics as traitors to the cause.

By Sidney Blumenthal

One year ago, after his reelection, President Bush brashly asserted, "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style." Twelve months later, Republicans were thrashed in elections for the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey. In St. Paul, Minn., the Democratic mayor who endorsed Bush for reelection a year ago was defeated by another Democrat by a margin of 70 to 30 percent. Then Republicans in Congress split into rancorous factions and failed to pass Bush's budget. That was followed by the Senate's rejection of Bush's torture and detainee policy and by overwhelming passage of a resolution stipulating that the president must submit a strategy on withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

The turn in public opinion against Bush has been slowly considered and is therefore also firm. Now a majority believes his administration manipulated prewar intelligence to lead the country into the Iraq war, and nearly two-thirds disapprove of how he has handled the war. His political capital appears spent with more than three years left in his term. He has retreated from the ruins of his grandiose agenda into a defense of his past.

More....

Posted by: Pat C on November 17, 2005 04:10 PM


THE FALSE PANDEMIC PROPAGANDA

(The current "Bird Flu Pandemic" terrorist-scare-tactic is based on confusing viruses with bacteria as a source of disease. Bacteria are living single-celled animals which reproduce and thrive. Viruses are tiny strings of DNA or RNA molecules which are NOT alive. Since they are not alive they cannot thrive or reproduce.

Viruses make copies of themselves similar to the way crystals grow. They can only grow when immersed in a fluid containing the raw amino acids which make up the virus. This is only inside an animal or human host cell in which the cytoplasm fluid is rich in amino acids.

A virus from a bird cannot enter into any human cells. The bird virus must first enter into a pig cell, which can then enter into the similar cell-type human cell. A virus does not make its own surface coating but "steals" it from the infected host cell. The cell-type of pig lung cells is similar enough to human lung cells that a pig influenza virus (from a bird) can infect a human.

Thus, Bird Flu can never infect a human without first infecting a pig. The only exception is modern "criminal" scientists who take deadly bird Viral DNA and manually insert it directly into a human protein coating. Could this explain the mysterious deaths or murders of 78 bio-researchers in recent years? Did they know too much.

For more information See: "Fever and the Mystery Disease SARS" and "Murder in the Medicine Cabinet"

http://www.brojon.org/frontpage.html

Posted by: wv on November 17, 2005 04:35 PM


Finally Medical Journal Admits the Truth About Bird Flu


The British Medical Journal recently featured an editorial on the bird flu in which they state the following:

The lack of sustained human-to-human transmission suggests that this AH5N1 avian virus does not currently have the capacity to cause a human pandemic.

Theoretical Speculation

While they do go on to say the virus could mutate with a influenza A virus and has the potential to acquire the means for rapid human to human transmission, it does not have this ability now; the preparation and warnings are entirely about a theoretical speculation.

http://www.mercola.com/display/PrintPage.aspx?docid=31303&PrintPage=yes

Posted by: wv on November 17, 2005 04:40 PM


Rumsfeld To Profit From Bird Flu Hoax


By Dr. Mercola

Finally, the pieces of the puzzle start to add up. Not long ago, President Bush sought to instill panic in this country by telling us a minimum of 200,000 people will die from the avian flu pandemic, but it could be as bad as 2 million deaths in this country alone.

This hoax is then used to justify the immediate purchase of 80 million doses of Tamiflu, a worthless drug that in no way shape or form treats the avian flu, but only decreases the amount of days one is sick and can actually contribute to the virus having more lethal mutations.

http://www.mercola.com/display/PrintPage.aspx?docid=31141&PrintPage=yes#

Posted by: wv on November 17, 2005 04:44 PM


Woodward: From Watergate Hero to Plamegate Goat (110 comments )

Bob Woodward. What a career arc. From exposing a presidential cover-up in Watergate to covering up his role in Plamegate. And being forced to apologize to his own paper. And asking a colleague, Walter Pincus, not to mention Woodward’s role in the story. And failing to tell his editor that he had vital information about a major story.

And, to bottom it out, doing the TV and radio rounds, minimizing the scandal as “laughable,” “an accident”, “nothing to it” and denigrating Fitzgerald as “disgraceful” and “a junkyard dog” without ever once divulging that he was not just an observer of the CIA leak case but a recipient -- perhaps the first -- of the leak.

Hear that hissing noise? That’s the sound of the air being let out of Woodward’s reputation. Especially now that he’s decided to challenge Pincus to a round of credibility one-on-one. My money’s on Pincus, who was appropriately skeptical about the administration’s WMD claims while Woodward was writing hagiography about the brave president and his fearless aides.

It's hard to know who's happier today, Scooter Libby or Bill Keller.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/woodward-from-watergate-_b_10773.html

Posted by: wv on November 17, 2005 04:58 PM


Joanna of Oregon - are you writing under a nom
de plume?

Senator Waxman attempted to floor an investigation into the Bush government conducting information warfare (information domination, management perception operations) upon and against the American people.

Predictably, his counterparts in republican reich killed it.

Anyone who reads knows the socalled MSM are complicit parrots beholden to, or on the payroll of the Bush government.

The socalled MSM has abrogated it's responsibilty, and betrayed it's principles and standards for craven access to anonymous sources, the WH press room, imbedded rides on Humvee's, oppulent diners, and seats on Air Force One or Two.

The Rove/republican reich/fundamentalist christian sloganeers, propagandist, and disinformation covens in concert with the complicit parrots in the socalled MSM obediently pimp, - I mean mass market the Bush government's deceptive and hollow party line on one hand, - and refuse to investigate, vet, or question the Bush government's festering litany of failures, abuses, derelictions of duty, grotesque mismanagement, and wanton profiteering on the other.

Any opposition, alternate opinion, dissent, or challenge to the Bush governments' high priests or wayward policies is robopathically savaged, slimed, and dismissed as the product of anti-American, pinko, giving aid and comfort to the enemy, lunatic, spawns of the devil.

Woodward, like Miller, Cooper, Novak, the entire partisan coterie of gospel according to Fox disinformation warriors and propagandists, and the complicit parrots in the socalled MSM are shameless stooges of the Bush government. These stooges, like their neo-fascist masters have ruthlessly deceived America and betrayed the public trust.

We swim in an ocean of lies.
Posted by: TonyForesta on November 16, 2005 at 07:12pm

Posted by: wv on November 17, 2005 05:37 PM

Bob Woodward has always bothered me....now if he were really Dustin Hoffman, I would applaud, but he turned into this fawning bush apologist....this to me, the Woodward revelations, will become something notorious, I am sure...anyone got his birthdate?

Posted by: on November 17, 2005 05:48 PM


GALLOWS HUMOR

One night, George W. Bush is tossing restlessly in his White House
bed. He awakens to see George Washington standing by him. Bush asks
him, "George, what's the best thing I can do to help the country?"

"Set an honest and honorable example, just as I did," Washington
advises, and then fades away.

The next night, Bush is astir again, and sees the ghost of Thomas
Jefferson moving through the darkened bedroom. Bush calls out, "Tom,
please! What is the best thing I can do to help the country?"

"Respect the Constitution, as I did," Jefferson advises, and dims from
sight.

The third night sleep is still not in the cards for Bush. He awakens
to see the ghost of FDR hovering over his bed. Bush whispers,
"Franklin, What is the best thing I can do to help the country?"

"Help the less fortunate, just as I did," FDR replies and fades into
the mist.

Bush isn't sleeping well the fourth night when he sees another figure
moving in the shadows! It is the ghost of Abraham Lincoln.

Bush pleads, "Abe, what is the best thing I can do right now to help
the country?"

Lincoln replies, "Go see a play..."

Posted by: wv on November 17, 2005 05:49 PM

Cheney called Democrats “opportunists” who were peddling “cynical and pernicious falsehoods” to gain political advantage while U.S. soldiers died in Iraq.

Or as we say in human relations class....that old proverb....he who points the finger at others forgets that he has 3 fingers pointing back at him....

Randi Rhodes was talking about this yesterday....how everything they say they are doing they are not, and everything they accuse the opposition of doing and being...THEY ARE DOING....

Snarley is one of those people you can only look at in a mirror.

Posted by: on November 17, 2005 05:52 PM


Chemtrails Are Over Las Vegas

Marcus K. Dalton
Tribune Media Group

Part 1

Editor's Note: Las Vegas residents are increasingly noticing the appearance of chemical trails overhead. They appear EVERY weekend without fail, the only exception being the two weeks after September 11, 2001. Such "chemtrails" are substantially different in appearance to the normal condensation trails left by jet airliners. The difference is that while condensation trails are composed of water vapor that dissipates rapidly, "chemtrails" linger much longer and spread out over time to eventually cover the sky with a thin haze. This week the Las Vegas Tribune begins a two-part article to examine the undeniable and mysterious phenomena of Chemtrails Over Las Vegas.

Last year a concerned reader wrote to the Idaho Observer: "Driving across Idaho and Nevada we saw normal condensation trails in the skies above north Idaho and we were habitually looking up as we drove toward Las Vegas. We had noticed that the sparsely populated areas in Nevada had brilliantly clear blue skies and that the occasional airplane left vapor trails that dissipated normally. But as soon as we neared Las Vegas, in the skies directly above the city, we watched what appeared to be a military C-135 Transports spraying something over the populated areas. When the planes were no longer directly over Las Vegas, they continued flying leaving a vapor trail that dissipated normally."

It has been reported that the "chemtrails" contain

http://www.lasvegastribune.com/20050819/headline1.html

Posted by: wv on November 17, 2005 05:53 PM


Chemtrails - Coming Out Of The Closet?
Marcus K. Dalton
Tribune Media Group

Last month the Tribune featured a 2-part story titled Chemtrails Over Las Vegas wherein we reported on the purposeful spraying of noxious chemicals overhead. Prior to our story the chemtrail sightings were occurring daily, and then suddenly all chemtrail activity in the Southern Nevada skies stopped abruptly.

Such "chemtrails" are substantially different in appearance to the normal 'condensation' trails left by jet airliners. The difference is that condensation trails are composed largely of water vapor that dissipates rapidly while "chemtrails" linger much longer and spread out over time to eventually cover the sky with a thin haze.

Nearly seven years after extensive "lay downs" of lingering and spreading white plumes were first reported smearing skies over across North America, Europe is in an uproar and Washington could be close to coming clean about chemtrails.

http://www.lasvegastribune.com/20050819/headline1.html

Posted by: wv on November 17, 2005 05:57 PM


Both parts of the Chemtrails story are here

http://nc.indymedia.org/news/2005/11/17113.php

Posted by: wv on November 17, 2005 06:00 PM

The former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, a member of the Defense Policy Board, always notable for his visions, has compared George W. Bush in his travails to Abraham Lincoln before Gettysburg. Gingrich, who has recently written a series of counterfactual novels depicting a Southern triumph in the Civil War, communicated his latest flight of fancy to a longtime former diplomat who has served under Republican and Democratic administrations alike. The diplomat, who asked to remain anonymous, recounted their conversation to me. "We are at war," insisted Gingrich. "With whom?" the diplomat asked. "The Democrats," Gingrich replied without hesitation. For Gingrich, ever the Republican guru, history is a plaything of the partisan present.
http://salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/11/17/bush_history/print.html

Posted by: on November 17, 2005 06:08 PM


A Positive story about Hillary...

Hillary Is Your Friend. Hillary Is Your Friend. Hillary Is--
Clinton attacks her likability problem with some of New York's toughest guys

by Kristen Lombardi
November 15th, 2005 11:57 AM


These days, the scene has become almost natural: Hillary Clinton, New York's junior senator, and a phalanx of firefighters and police officers, all standing united at some government venue, all demanding action on some 9-11 issue.
Last Thursday, Clinton's office staged a press conference to highlight her latest crusade for New York's bravest and finest. This time, the venue was the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. And this time, the 9-11 issue was the $125 million in aid for sick ground-zero workers, many of them uniformed firefighters and cops. The money was included in a promised $20 billion package for New York three years ago, but the Bush administration would like to rescind it. At the podium, Clinton blasted Bush "bureaucrats" for trying to back out of the president's pledge. "It's not right," she said, "and we must not let it happen."

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0546,lombardi,70022,6.html

Posted by: wv on November 17, 2005 06:59 PM


Most of what you want to know about HAARP and
weather control....

http://www.crystalinks.com/haarp.html

Posted by: wv on November 17, 2005 07:03 PM

Alert: EPA is trying to propose again testing chemicals pesticides on orphans newborns and mentally handicapped children, public comments close on Dec 12, one may take action here,

http://www.organicconsumers.org/epa6.cfm

Posted by: Pat C on November 17, 2005 07:40 PM


More Fiore...

http://www.sfgate.com/comics/fiore/

Posted by: wv on November 17, 2005 07:45 PM


Murtha calls for immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq

Edward Epstein, Chronicle Washington Bureau

Thursday, November 17, 2005


(11-17) 10:52 PST WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In another sign of rising discontent in Congress over the war in Iraq, perhaps the House's most influential Democrat on military issues called today for the immediate withdrawal of all American forces from that nation.

"The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It is time to bring them home," said Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a former Marine intelligence officer in Vietnam and the senior Democrat on the House appropriations subcommittee that oversees military spending.

"The war in Iraq is not going as advertised,'' said Murtha, who in October 2002 voted for the resolution authorizing President Bush to take military action to oust Saddam Hussein. "It's a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public is way ahead of the members of Congress.''

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/17/MNGV2FPT755.DTL

Posted by: wv on November 17, 2005 07:52 PM

Poll: Did Smirky&Co mislead the public about the reasons for going to war?

Pls vote: http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20051116234009990008

Posted by: shylurker on November 17, 2005 07:56 PM

Sally, Thank you for your thoughtful comments about my post on chemtrails. I personally feel that the subject matter does not belong on this site, and was seeking your good judgement....that is all. I can't say as I have ever seen the subject posted on here, conspiracy stuff yes, which I like to look over, but not specifically chemtrails. But I felt and have felt for a long time that I needed to talk about this and found the opportunity with Patricia's post. I have never found any on-going conversation on other sites devoted to this subject to be of any help to me. I am very happy that you did not find it objectionable. Now that I think about it somemore, Dennis Kucinich was "required" (actually forced) to change the wording (originally described as chemtrails) in the legislation he introduced in the last Congress on the use of space weapons. This information is freely available on the internet to those who might be interested. So the politicians are aware of this issue but they and the news media continue to invalidate legitimate concerns. Did you all know that Scott Stevens, of weatherwars.info was asked to leave his job (was fired he told Coast to Coast's Nori or Bell ) as weatherman with his local T.V. station after he talked, live, on-air during Katrina that weather was being manipulated. I do not feel inspite of of news piece here or there that the issue is becoming more mainstream. Still too much kept in the dark about this insidious program as far as I am concerned.

Now, can any of you help me with this question which must have an apparent obvious answer which I just can't seem to uncover in my reading on Bob Woodward's current dilema?

How did Fitzgerald know to supeona him?
Was his name included in the indictment? (I have only read some of it)
Did he volunteer on his own? Walter Pincus?
Anyone know anything about this?

Posted by: Beverly on November 17, 2005 08:18 PM

What a wonderful birthday present for Dr. Dean!!!!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051117/ap_on_go_co/congress_spending;_ylt=AntSqkIDjXwqV9rqF6F63Yys0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OXIzMDMzBHNlYwM3MDM-

Posted by: shylurker on November 17, 2005 08:27 PM

Beverly, I of course haven't a clue who gave Fitzgerald a clue about Woodward. Given what Woodward did to Tenet though, and given what Smirky&Co have done to the CIA, well, some day we'll find out and I won't be surprised if it doesn't come down to the CIA (I mean the good guys inside that agency).

Posted by: shylurker on November 17, 2005 08:31 PM

Thanks Shylurker, Apparently that information is being maintained within the leak-proof confines of Fitzgerald's court. There is much speculation on who told Woodward of Plame's identity, but no speculation on who told Fitzgerald.....which is o.k. with me. I just thought I was missing something. It is getting stranger and more complicated all the time, same as Abermoff, and Coingate.

Posted by: Beverly on November 17, 2005 09:54 PM

Cheney grabbed with his greediness at the bait. This will only activate the debate further and draw media attention to the Democratic critics. We all know where the public stands now. The clips I heard had him sounding desperate and bitter. I remember when he used to be scary. Authoritarian.

Posted by: jm on November 17, 2005 11:19 PM

Hi all! Grren student of Astrology and 1st time post here....As a part of the gathering energy for the transformation of the US and the global repercussions of that transformation, on January 4 0f 06 Uranus will transit (1* waxing) the US midpoint between Chiron and Pluto. The Chiron energy intersts me as the portal to the next level on the spiral of order with Pluto providing the order of energy (nuclear metaphor) to power the change......Following the money, Ravi Batra supports the idea the next evolution in monetary socio-economics will bring more democracy to global money.....given all that, I though the following post from the USAGoldForum of 11-15-05 msg# 137989 might be of interst:.........(snip)
I foresee a great economic conclave coming within the next five years where the dollar's epitaph (in current form) will be written and a new monetary system introduced. It will contain many of the earmarks of the system recommended at least inferentially by Nobel Prize laureate Robert Mundell -- a system where gold plays a central role as the "reserve of last resort." He has not written copiously about the matter, but he has written enough to make an important impact and give direction. A great number of words is no substitute for deep insight.

Gold will be revalued (as FOA and Another foresaw) at a very high dollar price in order to stabilize the system and start all the participants on an equal footing. However, gold's role will not be as the anchor in a gold standard system. That is impossible at this juncture given the computer (silicon) based nature of our economic and financial systems. That has been a great innovation and cannot be discarded. It will be as a reserve alternative drawing on its inherent strength as an asset detached from any single nation state and not subject to its price control. The IMF will return its gold to the contributors and the United States may be forced to part with a portion of its reserves in order to balance the system. This will come as a blow to the United States but it will recover quickly as its inherent economic strength is reasserted, the domestic mining industry restarts, environmental innovations are introduced, and gold production begins to flow again to the Treasury.

Central banks will not loan gold because it will be too valuable as a reserve asset to risk having it off the books, or hanging in the financial ether as a "receivable." It will come as part of the economic evolution and not through legal mandate. Bullion banks short gold will pay an dollar enormous price to balance their books. (It would be in their best interest to balance those books now and not wait for the revaluation.) Mining companies similarly short gold will be enslaved as gold producers producing for those to whom they owe their production. Those free of the forward sale burden will prosper. Central banks that have loaned out their gold will call it back. They will compete with everyone else for the available new gold supply. The price or value of gold will be the centerpiece around which all other values are arranged, and the value of gold will be returned to being set by the supply/demand function of the marketplace.

The issuance of any national debt will be strictly regulated at proscribed levels and most of the great nations will adopt legislation and constitutional guarantees outlawing deficit spending except at mutually agreed levels. The promise of the Merkel government announced this morning, that Germany would bring its budget imbalance in line to EU expectations, is the beginning of an important trend. The more solid your adherence to these principles the better your credit rating, and the United States will be forced to play under the same rules. The more gold by weight you own in this system the more able you will be to expand your economy as a nation state (or your own economic activities as an individual owner). There will be a value to latching onto mine production and the nation states will vie to secure that production from the mining companies. Nation states will gain gold by producing things of value -- goods and services -- and selling them overseas. They will lose gold by failing to produce for export and having to defend their currencies by selling first primary currency reserves and ultimately, if that doesn’t remedy the situation, gold reserves. Failure to do so would ultimately cause a nation state’s credit rating to drop until it could no longer borrow. Those who now feel that the United States would collapse under such an imposition have no understanding of the ability, tenacity and innovation of the American people. The United States will make the necessary adjustments and dominate this system like it has the last two.

The fractional reserve banking system will remain in place largely as it is. The imposition of a savings based society, rather than a consumer based society, will force a change in the way banks operate, but the system itself will look pretty much like the system we all use today. The various nation states will find it in their best interest to agree on a free-trade system in which no nation state holds an advantage over the other. The World Trade Organization will be scrapped as too cumbersome and an illusion of free trade. The United States will force a new agreement with the full understanding that if it doesn’t, it will fail economically. There will be no such thing as a currency advantage. The various central banks will migrate more towards currency boards than activist practitioners of monetary policy, but retain their function as regulators and arbiters of the financial system. Nation states failing to adhere to strict standards of free and fair trade will be tried and if guilty fined heavily by a new international organization which will in turn deposit the funds collected to finance growth in other areas of the world which would ultimately rise up to challenge the offending nation state[s]. The distribution of the funds will be strictly policed to avoid corruption and fraud. All participants in the great conclave will agree by preamble to the notion that it is impossible for an international monetary system to remain robust in which one nation acts as the consumer of last resort (with its currency as the international reserve) and all others act as producers competitively devaluing their own currencies in order to make their products cheaper in stores and catalogues of the consumer nation.

In the end, gold simply will be re-recognized for what it has always been -- the most direct, liquid and purest form of wealth. It will be seen by individuals and nation states as wealth itself.

I do not think I have to go to great elaboration for most of the people reading this post as to the potential benefits for the gold owner under this scenario. I emphasize that given the situation as it is and the historical progression, I would think the chances of things unfolding more or less along these lines are very good. Why do I speak with such confidence? I do so because it is an equitable system and we are progressing along these lines even as you read this forecast.

________

Failure to adapt a system with these or similar characteristics would constitute a transformational failure of western civilization similar to what occurred just before, during and after the collapse of Rome. That is the period of history which most closely resembles our own. Gold ownership under such a collapse will be one of the only saving graces. I do not hope for this failure, but I do not discount it. It is patently clear that we, as an international civilization, cannot remain on the course we are currently navigating. It is heading for rocky shoals and destined for shipwreck. The time has come to steer a new course, for all nations to recognize that we cannot go on as before, and that it is time to abandon the past, alter direction, and strike out anew. History will record it as an act of courage and perhaps the saving grace of Western civilization. (snip) See @ http://www.usagold.com/cpmForum/archives/15200511/default.html

Posted by: Captain on November 17, 2005 11:23 PM

 Reid: We Need Answers and a Way Forward in Iraq, Not Another Cheney Attack Speech (from the Senate Floor!)
    Senator Harry Reid
    t r u t h o u t | Statement
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111705A.shtml

Posted by: on November 17, 2005 11:26 PM

Interesting view here:

>>Roll Call’s Morton Kondracke writes that “Democratic accusations that Bush lied to get the United States into the Iraq war would seem to lead logically to demands for his removal from office.” Kondracke thinks that Kerry’s mention earlier this week of Republicans’ effort to impeach Clinton “was a trial balloon, designed to get the idea out on the table without having to accept responsibility for actually recommending it… To be sure, no party leader has mentioned impeachment, but it’s clear that Democrats are eagerly searching for ’smoking guns.’”>

Posted by: jm on November 17, 2005 11:37 PM

Captain
glad to meet you here.
My son has been studying currencies and we have been having interesting conversations which parallel yoru post. Like you, we have been speculating a new monetary system for the US -thanks for the astrology. Perhaps Sally or others can add to your thought. My son and i are tending toward a standard that i believe Clinton porffered at one of the G7 meetings (if memory serves) when Indonesia was failing financially...and here again this is memory not a clear recall...establishment of a monetary system based on real commodity; having four regional currencies at a par based on regional commodity that could be traded thus eliminate the oil currency or the gold currency or any one base currency.
Any other AWers have thoughts on this???

Posted by: tseka on November 18, 2005 12:05 AM

Tseka...sure wish I understood any of the monitary conversation. But I don't.

Posted by: judi G on November 18, 2005 12:38 AM

Very, very, very good development.

Tonite on Hardball, Kerry said this:

>>The war on terrorism — war on terror. I mean, the war against the extreme Muslim ideology, extremists, is far more complicated than that.<<

Finally. Call it what it is and irradicate this phony War on Terror.

Posted by: jm on November 18, 2005 01:01 AM

Should we send Rep Murtha white roses ( for peace)?
He's 180o from Kuchinich!! ( re: personality profile!)
It's high time!
PQ

Posted by: Pat QOP on November 18, 2005 01:05 AM

http://www.mediabistro.org/fishbowlDC/newspapers/a_leaky_post_newsroom_28379.asp#more

On the Woodword/WashPost blogs which have been leaked, a blog discussion of great interest...

Posted by: judi G on November 18, 2005 01:06 AM

And what else has Patrick Fitzgerald been busy with? here's an interesting read of today's indictment of Lord Black.

++Mr Fitzgerald announced the charges with Robert Grant, special agent-in-charge of the Chicago office of the FBI. Mr Grant said: “The frauds alleged in the indictment were blatant and pervasive: they extended from back rooms to the board room, and from Park Avenue to the South Pacific. Our job is to protect investors from Wall Street to LaSalle Street and in other global financial markets.”

“defraud . . . public shareholders of money, property and their intangible right to honest services”. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-2-1877900-2,00.html

i especially like his assertion that one has "intangible right to honest services" !!!!

Posted by: tseka on November 18, 2005 01:24 AM


A Public Service Message...

http://www.yucs.org/~ephraim/bushlip/

Posted by: wv on November 18, 2005 01:31 AM

Support grows in Congress to allow testimony from 'Able Danger' on pre-9/11 intelligence
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Support_grows_in_Congress_to_allow_1117.html


Who knew we'd enjoy Mars and Merc retro so much?

Posted by: tseka on November 18, 2005 01:43 AM

ah WV you made my day! and it has been one fine day!

Posted by: tseka on November 18, 2005 01:52 AM

Ah,I see by the posting time that it is Nov. 18...


HAPPY BIRTHDAY SALLY

may the next 39 be as much fun!!!

Posted by: wv on November 18, 2005 02:33 AM


Geneticists claim ageing breakthrough but immortality will have to wait
· Organisms live six times longer in laboratory tests
· Cells genetically 'tricked' into slow-ageing mode

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Friday November 18, 2005

Guardian

A genetic experiment to unlock the secrets of the ageing process has created organisms that live six times their usual lifespan, raising hopes that it might be possible to slow ageing in humans.
The geneticists behind the study say the increase in lifespan is so striking, they may have tapped into one of the most fundamental mechanisms that controls the rate at which living creatures age.

The tests were carried out in single-celled organisms, forcing them into what the researchers refer to as an "extreme survival mode". Instead of growing quickly and showing signs of ageing, the organisms became resilient to damage and were better able to repair the genetic defects that build up with age, often leading to cancer in later life.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5336239-117780,00.html

Posted by: wv on November 18, 2005 02:46 AM

And human organisms are to stay 6x longer in a present form for what now?! Mother Nature is never good enuf or wise enuf. In fact, Stupid Mother Nature not Cosmic Consciousness but is a "natural resource" to be "controlled" & "mined" by a Special Few Six Times Mites for more & more of whatever the "money" thang happens to be at any given time. I see... "overcrowding" ain't the problem... it's the "not enuf" egotistical mites crawling around on the Cosmic Chicken that's the problem. Gots to have lossa mites to kill lossa other mites forever n' ever... aMen. Sho' is grand... THAT cosmic vision thing.

Posted by: JoannaOregon on November 18, 2005 03:23 AM

Ahhh. You've captured the essence of the dark force, Joanna. It's the first step to overcoming them. Lead on....

Posted by: Pat C on November 18, 2005 03:51 AM

Happy birthday on Friday Sally! You share the same day and month with my better half. It's quite a day!

Posted by: Pat C on November 18, 2005 03:52 AM

Sally happy birthday!!!
May all the blessings you offer us here be multiplied and returned to you a hundredfold on everyday not just this.

Posted by: tseka on November 18, 2005 04:04 AM

Dearest Sally, wishing you the happiest of Birthday.

Posted by: Janet on November 18, 2005 04:07 AM

Hot dog! Today is most special. I get to wish two people I wish I knew personally a HAPPY BIRTHDAY: our very own Cap'n Sally and Ho Ho, too. Whatta day!

Many many happy ones to follow, Cap'n Sally. Nothing else will do.

Posted by: shylurker on November 18, 2005 04:28 AM

Murtha speech

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/11/17.html#a5913

Posted by: Pat C on November 18, 2005 04:36 AM

May every year bring you blessings, Sally.

I know you have given us many.

Happy Birthday!

Posted by: Beasley on November 18, 2005 04:39 AM

Kind of interesting POLL with several questions. The one about torture alone is worth it. Do go participate, pls:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10087805/#survey

Posted by: shylurker on November 18, 2005 04:57 AM

Poll (good one!): Is Snarly correct to call the Dems 'opportunists' for denouncing Smirky&Co's war?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10081548/#survey

Posted by: shylurker on November 18, 2005 05:51 AM

Another one so soon, Sally? These relationships are starting to gain some length.

Happy Birthday, wise woman.

Posted by: jm on November 18, 2005 09:58 AM

Happy Birthday Sally. Thank you for all this knowledge you share with us.bjt

Posted by: Betsy on November 18, 2005 11:10 AM

Hi Sally,

May today be the happiest of days for you. Thank you for everything.

bob

Posted by: bob on November 18, 2005 11:28 AM

Birthday present for Sally:

Murtha's response to Cheney:

"I like guys who've never been there that criticize us who've been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done."

C-Span


Murtha speech here

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/11/17.html#a5913


Peace would be the best present, but it's in the works.

Posted by: Pat C on November 18, 2005 11:40 AM

http://www.counterpunch.org/

From Reporter to Courtier

The Long, Long Fall of Bob Woodward

It's been a devastating fall for what are conventionally regarded as the nation's two premier newspapers, the New York Times and the Washington Post. The Times's travails and the downfall of its erstwhile star reporter, Judy Miller, have been newsprint's prime soap opera since late spring and now, just when we were taking a breather before the Libby trial, the Washington Post is writhing with embarrassment over the multiple conflicts of interest of its most famous staffer, Bob Woodward, best known to the world as Nixon's nemesis in the Watergate scandal.

On Monday of this week Woodward quietly made his way to the law office of Howard Shapiro, of the firm of Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale and Doar, and gave a two-hour deposition to Plamegate prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, a man he had denounced on tv the night before Scooter Libby's indictment as "a junkyard dog of a prosecutor".

Woodward's deposition had been occasioned by a call to Fitzgerald from a White House official on November 3, a week after Libby had been indicted. The official told Fitzgerald that the prosecutor had been mistaken in claiming in his press conference that Libby had been the first to disclose the fact that Joseph Wilson's wife [ie Valerie Plame] was in the CIA. The official informed Fitzgerald that he himself had divulged Plame's job to Woodward in a mid-June interview, about a week before Libby told Miller the same thing.

More...

Posted by: Pat C on November 18, 2005 12:16 PM

Happy Birthday Sally, you are a treasure!

Posted by: soulchild on November 18, 2005 01:42 PM

Happy, Happy Birthday Sally!:)

Patricia

Posted by: Patricia on November 18, 2005 02:02 PM

Sally! The Happiest of Birthdays to a Great & Classy Lady! May you have a Great Year filled with Abundance, Health, Happiness, Prosperity and Endless MIracles and Blessings!

You are VERY LOVED!

Sharon

Posted by: Sharon on November 18, 2005 02:10 PM

TaHA!! That was a great comment from Murtha to cheney. Now it's time for cheney to say its regular "F*ck you!" in front of EVERY news camera! ... eh, Pat?!

Merry B'Day, Miss Sally!! Bright Blessings to ye!!

Posted by: JoannaOregon on November 18, 2005 02:25 PM

That loud ker-plunk you heard a little earlier was yet one more wheel coming off the SmirkMobile. This is a huge one, too:

http://channels.netscape.com/news/story.jsp?floc=ne-us-12-l2&flok=FF-AFP-uswashrpt&idq=/ff/story/7000%2F20051117%2F2010000001.htm&sc=uswashrpt

Posted by: shylurker on November 18, 2005 02:48 PM

I think Murtha has TWO purple hearts Joanna. I like to see the buzzard try!! :-D)))

(apologies to all buzzards)

Posted by: Pat C on November 18, 2005 02:49 PM

shy!!! What a gem that one is!!

Posted by: Pat C on November 18, 2005 02:59 PM

A MilkyWay of good wishes to Sally and belated birthday wishes to all the Scorpios on board.

Been on a deadline these days.

Posted by: bhakti on November 18, 2005 03:04 PM

A MilkyWay of good wishes to Sally and belated birthday wishes to all the Scorpios on board.

Been on a deadline these days.

Posted by: bhakti on November 18, 2005 03:04 PM

Extension of Patriot Act Faces Filibuster

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111805Z.shtml

A bipartisan group of senators threatened to derail the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act today, only hours after Congressional negotiators had seemed on the verge of an agreement to extend and keep largely intact its sweeping antiterrorism powers.

Posted by: Pat C on November 18, 2005 03:34 PM

Happy Birthday Cap'n Sally and many more to you too!!!

And greetings fellow AW'ers, let us hope our "little snowballs" of truth keep on rolling and getting bigger and more powerful....

Posted by: Garry on November 18, 2005 03:37 PM


Technology Summit Wraps Up in Tunisia

By MATT MOORE

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) - A crucial summit on expanding Internet access around the world ended Friday with a firm promise to narrow the digital divide - but little in government funding to make it happen.

The World Summit on the Information Society originally was conceived to raise consciousness about the divide between the haves and have-nots, and to raise money for projects to link up the global village, particularly Africa and Asia and South America.

But instead, it was overshadowed by a lingering resentment about who should oversee the domain names and technical issues that allow people from Pakistan to Peru surf Web sites for information, news and consumer goods.

http://channels.netscape.com/tech/story.jsp?floc=ne-main-9-l7&flok=FF-APO-1333&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20051118%2F0948537380.htm&sc=1333

Posted by: wv on November 18, 2005 03:41 PM

"...extend and keep largely intact its sweeping antiterrorism powers." That s/b PROterrorism powers imo.

Posted by: JoannaOregon on November 18, 2005 03:51 PM

The latest from Tom Flocco--be warned, this one has adult situations that will curl every hair on your head:

http://www.tomflocco.com/fs/SecretServIntelSay.htm

Posted by: Garry on November 18, 2005 04:07 PM

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10618

mr bush meet mr taft...

Michael Tomasky

Watching and reading George W. Bush's Veterans' Day speech last Friday confirmed my belief that it's a good thing Karl Rove wasn't indicted. If this is the best these people can do, Rove is doing Bush a lot more damage from his White House office than he would as an indictee.

The speech was humiliating to Bush and the United States of America on so many levels that I don't even know where to begin. OK, actually, I do. I'll begin with the outright lie.

My critics, Bush whimpered, "are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs."

No such thing ever happened. That bipartisan investigation -- the so-called "Phase II" probe into administration manipulation of pre-war intelligence -- is ongoing right now. It's taken this long to start because, as Laura Rozen reported in our October print issue, Senate intelligence committee chairman Pat Roberts dragged his feet; and, as Murray Waas reported in The National Journal online, once Roberts did haltingly begin the probe, Dick Cheney and his staff refused to turn over crucial documentation. The delays and stonewalls, of course, are exactly what led the Democrats to call the closed session of the Senate. The probe is finally proceeding -- but it sure hasn't "found" anything.

There is no other way to interpret Bush's sentence: It is a direct, unmediated, Nixonian lie. What kind of pathetic man would utter such a lie on Veterans' Day, when over 2,000 U.S. soldiers have died?

But what may be even more embarrassing is the old dissent-is-disloyalty saw: "These baseless attacks," Bush said, "send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will." In other words, criticizing my case for the war is giving comfort to the enemy.

Comfort to the enemy. Interesting phrase. It's been used before -- by a Republican; in fact, by "Mr. Republican," Robert A. Taft, who was speaking against the Roosevelt administration.

More...

Posted by: Pat C on November 18, 2005 04:10 PM


November 18, 2005

Editorial

The Congress From Nowhere

Say this for the sad-sack Republicans in Congress: they really know how to get things done when it comes to meaningless face-saving legislation.

The House's biggest accomplishment in recent days may be its decision to scratch those two notorious Alaskan bridges to nowhere, a $442 million chunk of highway pork that made a national laughing stock of the lawmakers - supposedly financial conservatives - who stuffed it into the budget.

The retreat provides a definitive example of the legislative hypocrisy now gripping Congress. It won't actually save money because the funds will be shifted to Alaska's general transportation kitty for who-knows-what disposal. Actually taking unnecessary money away from the home state of a powerful Republican senator is a lift far beyond the lawmakers' capacity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/18/opinion/18fri1.html?pagewanted=print

Posted by: wv on November 18, 2005 04:41 PM

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=/dean/20051118.html

An Open Letter To Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald From Former White House Counsel John W. Dean

Posted by: Pat C on November 18, 2005 04:44 PM

Another Poll: Is it time to withdraw US troops from Iraq?

http://www.cnn.com/

Posted by: shylurker on November 18, 2005 05:16 PM

I just heard on the 2:00pm NPR hourly news that Fitzgerald has request another grand jury. Tried to find it on npr website, but not listed there yet, so I was thinking I must have been making stuff up in my mind or misunderstood. But....it is true...see
huffingtonpost.com
their top story right now.

Posted by: Beverly on November 18, 2005 07:53 PM

Pat C., thanks to your post from counterpunch I now know how Fitzgerald learned of Woodwards involvement in the Plame scandal. Thank you.

Just a note on the article: If I am not mistaken I believe that Fitzgerald worded the indictment against Libby as the first "known" individual to leak Plames name. That word is very significant to me as it indicates that he can add or subtract to the findings as new information comes to light. I wish they would have acknowledged this in the article.

Posted by: Beverly on November 18, 2005 08:26 PM

A very Happy Birthday Sally,
Words are inadequate to express, how you are appreciated for your, inspired, creative, and stalwart leadership, through these chaotic times.
PQ

Posted by: Pat QOP on November 18, 2005 10:52 PM

Sally, sending you many happy birthday wishes and a great thanks for making AW possible for all of us!

all the best!

Posted by: on November 18, 2005 11:21 PM

Happy Birthday Sally. No matter what time you dine tonight, know that we Astroworlders are there raising our glasses to our brave Captain in a well deserved salute! Cheers!

Posted by: Jill G on November 19, 2005 12:02 AM

Fascinating poll results:
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight/

Go add yours and see!

Posted by: shylurker on November 19, 2005 12:18 AM

"Go Fitz!" Poll:

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20051118121109990006

We are on a roll, folks!! While the SmirkMobile is losing all its wheels, our Freedom Express keeps rolling along, gaining speed and spreading the message!

Posted by: shylurker on November 19, 2005 12:43 AM

Wow!
The greatest show on earth. I'm watching the house debate. ( live) Rep. Murtha's resolution to bring the troops home.
His press conference yesterday was magnificant....he began to cry when he told about the wounded soldiers he had been visiting. He then got tough and VERY direct about his reasons for withdrawl!
Go tune in! Each house member has 5 minutes to speak, it'll give you a lot of insight!
PQ

Posted by: Pat QOP on November 19, 2005 01:04 AM

Good will, good karma, and good times to the illustrious Sally, whose sallies into the esoterica provide us with so much wisdom.

Many, many happy returns and may you always be blessed!

Posted by: Baraka on November 19, 2005 01:21 AM

Fire and life have returned to the Chambers of Congress!!!!!

Hallelujah!

Posted by: jm on November 19, 2005 01:47 AM

Well! Bah Humbug!
Murtha's bill didn't go thru...was supplanted by a bogus cynical bill to bring the troops home now! No thought or intelligence!
No demand for a game plan or accountability.
Kuchinich made a fiery speech AGAINST the bill as did Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer.
All we will hear, afterward on MSM is that the Democrats VOTED IT DOWN!
One observation...where the HELL were the Maine Democratic Reps?????????????? ABSENT!
PQ

Posted by: Pat QOP on November 19, 2005 02:44 AM

That should have read bogus cynical, substitute bill planted by one of the repugs. ( from Georgia)
PQ

Posted by: Pat QOP on November 19, 2005 02:46 AM

Hi Sally, just wanted to get out of lurking mode and say Happy Birthday to you! You deserve the best having been such a lifeline to so many these past few years.

Just had to share this with everyone as it is sooooo goood!!!

George W. Bush Gives Me Hope
The astonishing collapse of the Bumbling One surely means healthy change is imminent, right?

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Friday, November 18, 2005

Here's the good news: It really can't get much worse.

We cannot afford any more wars. The environment has been sold to the bone. The national spirit has been beaten like an Alaskan baby seal and the GOP has worked our last nerve, passed through the karmic blood-brain barrier, reached saturation to the point where even moderate Repubs and gobs of intelligent Christians are finally saying, Oh my God, what have we done, and how did it all go so wrong, and how much Prozac and wine and praying to a very disappointed Jesus will it take to fix it?

Which is why I'm here to tell you hope abounds. In fact, George W. Bush gives me hope. He gives me hope because he has led the country into a zone where the only way to go -- morally, spiritually, economically -- is up. Is out. He gives me hope because after it has all appeared so bleak and ugly and lost for so many years, it would now appear that all laws of karmic and poetic and moral justice still hold true. And how reassuring is that?

more.....

http://sfgate.com/columnists/morford/

Posted by: Kathleen on November 19, 2005 03:03 AM

Thanks, Kathleen. Wonderful.

Posted by: jm on November 19, 2005 03:10 AM

Pat QOP,Thanks for those updates. When I read them I tuned in to CNN to try to catch up. Just now watching film of Murtha: "The American people are 'way ahead of us on this (Iraq)" and "I pass Arlington Cemetary everyday--those tombstones don't say Democrat or Republican--they say American." Oopps all--Murtha now speaking live! Tune in, CNN.

Sally, Happy Birthday. I wrote one of your predictions on my Dec. calendar: "Use great caution mid-Dec--mid-Jan." Yesterday when I was checking out December appointments I experienced an interesting eye/mind Freudian slip--I read the prediction as

"Use great cauldron mid-Dec--mid-Jan."

Posted by: Barbara on November 19, 2005 03:26 AM



Reprinted from NewsMax.com

Louis Freeh Charges 9/11 Commission Cover-Up
NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, Nov. 17, 2005
Former FBI Director Louis J. Freeh slammed the 9/11 Commission Thursday saying it ignored – or "summarily rejected" – the most critical piece of intelligence that could have prevented the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001.


Writing in the Wall Street Journal's opinion page, Freeh gave a blistering review of the Commission and says new revelations indicate it is "a good time for the country to make some assessments of the 9/11 Commission itself."


The former Bureau Director, who resigned his position just months before Sept. 11, 2001, points out that the U.S. government had learned of the identity of Mohammed Atta the year prior to the attacks. Atta was one of the ringleaders of the group, and piloted an American Airlines plane that slammed into one of the Twin Towers.

http://www.newsmax.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/11/17/122900.shtml

Posted by: wv on November 19, 2005 03:45 AM

Shylurker,
Your poll on Lou Dobbs has 85% for withdrawal within 6 months!
Meanwhile the House is discussing the bill put forward by Repug. They are sounding like the British Parliment!!!
PQ

Posted by: Pat QOP on November 19, 2005 03:53 AM

You guys will like this -

Here is an open letter from the poet Sharon Olds to Laura Bush
declining the invitation to read and speak at the National Book Critics
Circle Award in Washington, DC. Feel free to forward it along if
you feel more people may want to read it.

Sharon Olds is one of most widely read and critically acclaimed
poets living in America today. Read to the end of the letter to
experience her restrained, chilling eloquence.

Laura Bush
First Lady
The White House

Dear Mrs. Bush,

I am writing to let you know why I am not able to accept your kind
invitation to give a presentation at the National Book Festival on
September 24, or to attend your dinner at the Library of
Congress or the breakfast at the White House.

In one way, it's a very appealing invitation. The idea of
speaking at a festival attended by 85,000 people is inspiring! The possibility
of finding new readers is exciting for a poet in personal terms, and in
terms of the desire that poetry serve its constituents--all of us who need
the pleasure, and the inner and outer news, it delivers.

So the prospect of a festival of books seemed wonderful to me. I
thought of the opportunity to talk about how to start up an outreach
program. I thought of the chance to sell some books,sign some books and meet some
of the citizens of Washington , DC. I thought that I could try to find a
way, even as your guest, with respect, to speak about my deep feeling that
we should not have invaded Iraq, and to declare my belief that the wish to
invade another culture and another country--with the resultant loss of
life and limb for our brave soldiers, and for the noncombatants in their
home terrain--did not come out of our democracy but was instead a
decision made "at the top" and forced on the people by distorted language, and by
untruths. I hoped to express the fear that we have begun to live
in the shadows of tyranny and religious chauvinism--the opposites of
the liberty, tolerance and diversity our nation aspires to.

I tried to see my way clear to attend the festival in order to bear
witness--as an American who loves her country and its principles
and its writing--against this undeclared and devastating war. But I
could not face the idea of breaking bread with you. I knew that if I sat down
to eat with you, it would feel to me as if I were condoning what I see to be
the wild, highhanded actions of the Bush Administration.

What kept coming to the fore of my mind was that I would be
taking food from the hand of the First Lady who represents the
Administration that unleashed this war and that wills its continuation, even to the
extent of permitting "extraordinary rendition": flying people to other
countries where they will be tortured for us.

So many Americans who had felt pride in our country now feel
anguish and shame, for the current regime of blood, wounds and fire. I
thought of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the
flames of the candles, and I could not stomach it.

Sincerely,
SHARON OLDS

Posted by: Sharon on November 19, 2005 04:49 AM

PQ,

"They are sounding like the British Parliment!!!
PQ"

My thoughts exactly.

Posted by: jm on November 19, 2005 05:39 AM

Pretty good from Dennis K:

“Instead those who raise questions have their military service, or their honor impugned. They took John Kerry on a swift boat. But we will not let them take John Murtha on a swift boat, nor will they do it to the American people any longer as we are ready to stand up and to expose fakery when we see it.”

Posted by: jm on November 19, 2005 07:49 AM

I remeber Nancy saying (and probably Sally, also) that Congress would be caught up in stong oppositions this Fall, probably over the Supreme Court picks, but it is much more than that, and, although there is still a ways to go, it is so wonderful to see the tide turning. What a relief.

Posted by: Sharon on November 19, 2005 02:30 PM
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