If there is any one thing, one action, that upsets me more than any other about the grossity of this administration it is the whole Plame incident. I read Wilson's book first and that's what drew me to this thing.

I feel like outing a CIA agent is the most dispicable(sp) and dishonorable action that any one person or people could have possibly done. There is NO punishment that I can come up with that would be severe enough.

Thanks for posting this. David Brooks on PBS last night said he felt the Plame affair had "no political traction..."

Thank you Sally, wonderful article...

You do feel when looking at it with a little step back how ridiculous childish indeed they are, such foolish men who commit such deep crimes..

Power Carried to Extremes; Expansionism, Anything Goes = Pluto in Sagittarius... Suits the Bush-Cheney-Rove-Rumsfeld Misadministration rather well.

Limits to Power; Restrictions, Structure and Accountability = Pluto in Capricorn... where this is all heading.

Even if not for another 2 years, with Pluto transiting the late degrees of Sag, there is already a noticeable shift in the way power is expressed, and accountability is starting to emerge to confront those whom have been able to successfully dodge it while Pluto visited the eariler degrees of Sag.

Factor in the mutual reception between Neptune in Aquarius (distortions, disillusionment, fog over the people) and Uranus in Neptune (revolutionary distortions and illusions) and I doubt if the Bush Presidency could have taken place at a "better" time.

On a slightly different note, I see DUers betting whether McCain or Rice will take Cheney's place when he is finally forced to resign in disgrace, plus concerns that s/he will have a leg up to win the White House in 2008 and pardon everyone.

I honestly don't think either one will replace Cheney, much less have a sure-fire chance at winning the White House in 2008. For McCain to become Vice President would mean him having to give up his Senate seat. Arizona's governor is a Dem, and it would be hard to imagine her not taking advantage of a vacancy in AZ to give the Democrats one more seat in the Senate. McCain is still strategically more important to the GOP where he is.

Rice might be somewhat more likely a choice to replace Cheney since she's so well-favored by Bush, but her nomination and the path where it may lead in 2008 will surely stir up some of the more openly racist and misogynistic members of the GOP who would rather not see a woman or an African-American -- much less a combination of the two -- in high office. Plus, she's way too close to Bush, and will suffer politically for that same reason if Bush himself is impeached and/or somehow forced out of office.

To those who worry about Bush and Co. being pardoned by some GOP drone who might get to take his place, I have two words to say: The Hague. Even if Bush and Co. are absolved for their crimes in the US, Presidential Pardons only apply to the US itself, so he and his gang could very easily face international criminal charges if they are ever caught outside the US.

The Iran Plans

One of the military's initial option plans, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon

By Seymour M. Hersh

Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12645.htm

Belligerent Until the Bitter End

If You Can't Win One War, Start Another

By Paul Craig Roberts

The Bush regime currently has wars underway in Afghanistan and in Iraq and can bring neither to a conclusion. Undeterred by these failures, the Bush regime gives every indication that it intends to start a war with Iran, a country that is capable of responding to US aggression over a broader front than the Sunni resistance has mounted in Iraq.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12652.htm

A Culture of Corruption

Let's Save Our Democracy by Getting Money Out of Politics

By Bill Moyers

Money is choking our democracy to death. Our elections are bought out from under us and our public officials are doing the bidding of mercenaries. So powerful is the hold of wealth on politics that we cannot say America is working for all Americans. The majority may support such broad social goals as affordable medical coverage for all, decent wages for working people, safe working conditions, a secure retirement, and clean air and water, but there is no government "of, by, and for the people" to deliver on those aspirations.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12647.htm

Talk about a livid USian symbol of USian everlasting childishness & diaper-crapping...

* Hefner at 80: Playboy Relevant As Ever

On the Eve of His 80th Birthday, Hefner Says Playboy Is As Relevant As Ever Amid Gov't Crackdown http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=1822031&entertainment=true

Interesting way unraveling this sordid Plame affair, Sally. And this: "George is a symbol of this country and our past tendencies to believe we were and are the best, a symbol for our own behaviors and beliefs. . ." is a twister. That belief -- that Americans were the best -- became cemented during the 1940's and 50's. Apple pie, flag waving, and moral certitude were the days' hallmarks. The absurdity of that -- without reflecting on and acting on our responsibilities to be good stewards of the planet -- are now playing out.

* All one beneath a dancing sky

About 15 years ago, as I was going to bed about midnight, I glanced out my window & was horrified to see the glow of what appeared to be a terrible fire behind Mt Hays across the valley. The entire sky was lighted up with a bright crimson glow that shimmered & flared alarmingly.

I stared out the window and tried to determine the degree of danger. Was it the village of Port Edward, British Columbia, or was it indeed a forest fire that might well spread over the mountain & threaten our homes? Then, off to the NE, I saw a sudden flash of pale, mint green that dropped in iridescent corrugated sheets.

Suddenly, I realized what I was seeing - the northern lights.

The manifestation suddenly increased in intensity, & I realized I'd never seen such an active or brilliant display. Even tho I knew my neighbors would probably not take kindly to being awakened, it also seemed somehow selfish to experience such overwhelming & rare natural beauty without sharing it.

First I phoned my Korean neighbors, the Yohms, because I thot they'd perhaps never seen the aurora borealis. Mrs Yohm was sleepy but delighted. I hesitated before I called the Renieros. A forceful & lively person, Mrs Reniero intimidated me a bit because she minced no words.

I really didn't want to get on her "bad side," but I took my courage in hand & called anyway. She was miffed at being disturbed, but when I explained the reason for the call, her tone changed.

The Scherres were asleep, too, &, at first, were no more enthusiastic than the others. But in short order all the neighbors were gathered outdoors in front of my house. It was cold & getting colder. Standing there in bathrobes, jackets, or coats, we were all uncomfortably chilly. But we felt warmed by the lights, as they played in increasingly brilliant & varying colors.

Then suddenly, directly above our heads, bands of bright white light & luminescent grayish-blue arcs - that appeared to touch the ground - streamed at regular intervals, as if we were all standing inside a gigantic star sapphire.

Outside the great dome that surrounded us, magnificently dazzling blues, greens, & yellows danced & quivered. Beyond that, the flaming scarlet that had first taken my notice glowed & flared - a shifting, surreal canvas of mercurial ice & deep-red velvet.

Mrs Yohm thanked me in her gentle Korean accent, & I asked if she thot the colorful display was worth being awakened for. "Oh, yes!" she quickly answered. "It so very beautiful!" Mrs Reniero was standing next to us & added: "I thot you were just crazy calling us like that, but I've never seen something like this."

There we were in our little cul-de-sac, a group of shivering neighbors stunned by the grandeur of the universe. And in us, I saw something even more glorious & remarkable than the brilliant sky. It was the wonder of living where people of such differing backgrounds - Korean, American, Italian, Croatian, German, & Mexican - shared the spectacle together, as neighbors, living in peace. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0327/p18s02-hfes.htm

* BRITTONS NECK, SC, Mar 28 — Timber companies & conservation organizations have been working to arrange & announce a cascade of deals transferring large, unbroken swaths of forestland into the hands of govt, nonprofit — or even commercial — groups that are committed to keeping them free from development. ... http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/us/02protect.html

* Oslo's sewage heats its homes

OSLO (Reuters) - In an extreme energy project tapping heat from raw sewage, Oslo's citizens are helping to warm their homes and offices simply by flushing the toilet. ... Similar heat pumps can be run on any stable source of water--in Paris the Seine River is tapped to run air-conditioning systems. Sea water can also be exploited.

Sewer power is less polluting than burning fossil fuels but more than renewable energy like wind power. About a third of the heat energy comes from electricity to drive the system & the other 2/3 is the heat from the sewer. "Oil prices have an impact on investment willingness, but more important is the ratio of fuel price & electricity price," Axell said. "A high fuel price & a low electricity price is a strong driver to invest in heat pump technology." ... At the opening ceremony for the plant, Oslo mayor Per Ditlev-Simonsen was given a new toilet seat for his office. "It will be an inspiration," he said. ;O) http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060407/sc_nm/environment_sewers_dc

Hello, I am still happy about the Tom Delay thing and I can get happy about the Bush is in more trouble thing with the planning of the Iraq war before the 9/11 thing. When are we going to get to the real thing, the Bushies blew up the 3 buildings in New York, the Pentagon and the airplane in the field. I have been following it and you know I am in China so if you talk to me you will go on a list of my favorite people and Bush's not so favorite people. I had hoped I could a teaching job in Mexico. I might even return to Texas someday.bjt

* First Images from Mars Orbiter's High Resolution Camera Wow Researchers http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060408/sc_space/firstimagesfrommarsorbitershighresolutioncamerawowresearchers;_ylt=ApZfHz585hxZ.vasNqY6DEAiANEA;_ylu=X3oDMTA4NmhocGZ1BHNlYwMxNzAw

* New Red, Blue Rings Found Around Uranus http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060408/ap_on_sc/rings_of_uranus;_ylt=ArESS5iyhrnzjjwHTMNmq8ciANEA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MzV0MTdmBHNlYwM3NTM-

I have no idea what mistakes might be in the last article, I was struggling to keep my head up off my computer board at midnight. It's just that there were so many posts on the last thread I knew I had to get something up for folks to read, to think about. We may soon find out more about this from Rome as Berlusconi falls from power (if he loses this week) To me, the most interesting question of this whole thing is what would make a couple of burglers think in Jan. of 2001 that forgeries of Iraq buying yellow cake would be valuable 18 months later.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2125630,00.html

Bush will get out of this thing with Plame because they figure they can do anything and we cannot do a thing about it, sadly the voice of the people is of no power today and once we (the people) figure that out our voices will be getting much louder for his complete removeal.

Fear of Chinese guns
Best defense is not to offer any offense

- Joseph S. Nye Jr.
Sunday, April 9, 2006

With China's defense budget set to increase by 14 percent next year, U.S. analysts are divided about the future of the U.S.-China security relationship.

John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago has flatly proclaimed that China cannot rise peacefully and predicted that "the United States and China are likely to engage in an intense security competition with considerable potential for war."

Others, like Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment, point out that China has engaged in good neighbor policies since the 1990s, settled border disputes, played a greater role in international institutions, and recognized the benefits of using soft power.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/04/09/ING9JI4LOQ1.DTL&type=printable

I'm not so sure The Imposter in Chief is going to get away with anything...

As I further study the horrific Solar Return coming up...that Saturn in the 8th, and his natal 1st house in the 8th, sqr Moon/Jupiter in the 10th...this guy has a Moon/Jupiter signature in his natal chart in the 3rd in Libra, next to Neptune and Chiron. He has never used the combination well...given to arrogance and misrepresenting the facts. This time the Moon/Jupiter is in Scorpio...ruled by different planets. And they are not the nice quiet Libra type planets. Furthermore, Pluto is on the ascendent...5th house of Sag at the Ascendent of his Solar Return Chart. I think his words are going to bite him... not in the mouth, shall we say. Already the themes are gathering. Libby's situation helps...

http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_3689773

The story about the little boy is now confirmed...

I remember how volatile I was when I was fourteen. I was also a little too liberal for my conservative community too. Something like this would have sent me over the edge.

What is it they don't remember about being fourteen and not knowing that you can survive even the worst at times? And learning not to completely trust authority comes a few years later-you learn that they can lie. But a 14-year old doesn't have that level of skepticism yet.

And how can anyone threaten anyone of any age with three years of jail for protest? How heartless can you be, and how equally senseless too?

Sally, you said:

"To me, the most interesting question of this whole thing is what would make a couple of burglers think in Jan. of 2001 that forgeries of Iraq buying yellow cake would be valuable 18 months later."

I think this is a rhetorical question on your part because you probably already know at least some of the answer, but I would like to give my view on this to see if you don't agree we are thinking the same thing.

Before Bush was elected he and his brother and Cheney and others had the PNAC plan all signed and ready to go, as we know, but what isn't written in stone in this document is exactly how they planned to implement this eventuality.

If we assume that the war in Iraq was already planned from the time of the drawing up of the PNAC document and we remember that Emperor George said his father made the mistake of not invading Iraq earlier (this was in an interview before he was elected) then it makes sense that they would set out to 'set up' the manufactured data to make Saddam look like a real threat.

From the moment Bush took office in January 2001 they acted just like a steamroller going full throttle dismantling anything that would possibly stand in their way of implementing their plans. There's no telling what other crimes they committed since before they took office, but I believe we will find out in the fullness of time.

Oh, I do love this article, Cap'n Sally. That whole Niger break-in is most interrrrrrestin', ain't it? I wish Joshua Marshall would let us in on more of what he knows, but I guess his is tied up with the pub he was working for on the story.

In the meanwhile, y'all'll be very surprised at how well things are going in NC:
Poll: Should Smirky be impeached?
http://www.northcountytimes.com/
Go hep 'um out now, y'heah?

* Washington's First and Last Lesson: Power Is Fleeting

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/weekinreview/09stolberg.html?ex=1302235200&en=318e91f49f2799f6&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Here's a nice little tidbit toward the rekoning.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1181587,00.html

"Why I Think Rumsfeld Must Go
By LIEUT. GENERAL GREG NEWBOLD (RET.)

...and another.

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2006/1916

Are mainstream churches finally standing up to the GOP’s hateful “Christian” blitzkrieg?
by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

Hi Betsy,
I've been thinking about you, & missing your posts!
I get CCTV on Dish & have watched several documentries, about the very interesting,architecture going up in Beijing, to prepare for the Olympic Games.
PQ

Great article Nancy, but I've got a question for everyone about the Plame affair, specifically as it relates to this: wasn't the guiding statute for the Plame Affair passed in 1982(sources I've found say June 23rd 1982) when GHWB was Vice(lol)
Pres.? And how does this tie into the father/son interpersonal dynamics? I haven't really seen anybody mention this aspect of the case.
Thanks, and peace all!!
G

I just had to deal with the damn taxes... included a copy of bushaholic giving us all the finger. I hope they don't mind. ;O)

Garry, there is the Espionage Act of 1917 and then there is the The Intelligence Identities and Protection Act of 1982. According to John Dean "it is probable that Bush broke them both."

http://www.yuricareport.com/Impeachment/DeanOnWilsonLeakWorseThanNixon.html

In my high school civics class in 1960, we were taught that it was illegal to leak the name of a covert CIA or FBI agent, and could be punished by death. In 1960 they were teaching the seriousness and illegality of leaking the name of a secret agent. It's serious because they could be murdered as well as the people they've talked to, it places the whole operation in extreme danger. And that was based on the 1917 Act.

When George Sr. was head of the CIA and we were still in the Cold War, a covert operator's name was revealed, he and his European contacts were killed. Bush was furious, it was believed to be another CIA agent who revealed it, but they couldn't prove it. Nonetheless, Bush fired him and he was blacklisted (can't remember his name)and in 1982 the other law was enacted.

While I don't believe Bush Sr. to have clean hands, neither do I believe he supports his son in the actions he has taken over the last several years. I think he is caught between being a parent of an adult child and what he believes to be wrong.

Oh Joanna i needed that laugh! thank you.

Final Jeopardy

Asking the Right Question About the President's Involvement in the CIA Leak Affair - By Elizabeth de la Vega

Oops here is the link.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=76008

i have been focused elsewhere over the past many days so if this has been posted here my apologies. It was sent to me by wonderful artist and friend of this site Judi G. It harmonizes well with much of JM's writing and of course of many others here. Some may think that art images are not relevant to politics but i would argue that art and artists have carried culture into the image of its futureself over and over.

I was thinking of your magpies Sally.
Perhaps we are all dreaming the future.

Here is soulsinging.
http://www.ashesandsnow.org

beautiful, absolutely.

You're very most welcome, tseka... thank you for your laugh.

Thanks for the reply Cap'n Sally and sorry for incorrectly crediting Nancy with this article! Too tired today. Good night all!!!
Peace
G

Thanks for the timely article, Sally. It was so great to come on-line this morning and read it. Interestingly Josh Marshall is also writing about the fake yellowcake documents and says today's article about them in the London Times is a coverup.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com

Betsy--so glad to read your post. Stay in touch! I have been thinking so often of your observations of Bush in Austin.

I might have just dismissed Wayne Madsen's or Capitol Hill Blue's reports about Bush's erratic behavior as wishful thinking if it weren't for your eyewitness observations.

After posting went to Wayne Madsen's site and he writes that the London Times yellowcake Italian forgery article is neocon disinformation.

In case anyone missed this remarkable bit of as above so below "space" news...

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060315_dna_nebula.html

Tseka and judi g...These images are so stark and minimalistic and remind me of some of the great artistic movements of the last century, especially in photography, film, and modern dance. We are long due for some innovation again. My own work is simple and elegant and is often a hard sell but this gives me confidence in sticking to my love of the clear and articulate statement, easy on the frills and trills of too many notes. The empty space is where the drama and anticipation lie.

Last night I saw some of the most intriguing video footage of elephants I have ever seen. I was hypnotized. I read that in the tsunami, the elephants went to higher ground but returned as soon as they could to carry children off to safety in their trunks.

I could not agree with you more, tseka, about art and its political relevance concerning our future. It's all about vision and trying to express the best part of our nature. I can never despair as much contact as I've always had with this part of life. The redemptive path is always available. Thank you so much for the reminder.

Neo..."Power Carried to Extremes; Expansionism, Anything Goes = Pluto in Sagittarius... Suits the Bush-Cheney-Rove-Rumsfeld Misadministration rather well.

Limits to Power; Restrictions, Structure and Accountability = Pluto in Capricorn... where this is all heading."

Beautifully stated comparison.

And Joanna... wonderful about the DNA. I think Art mentioned that in his last article. That also keeps me from despair knowing the cosmic connection is so real it is tangible, as our modern day physicists are finding out rapidly. In five years a space probe is going up that the scientists promise will answer the question definitively about the origin of the earth.

Christian Coalition Shrinks as Debt Grows

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/09/AR2006040901063.html

---

How very timely... As I mentioned earlier, the political machinations that carried the Reactionary, "Christian" Fundamentalists into power are now breaking down, as the Plutonian rot now sets in at the deepest levels/late degrees of Sagittarius. Once they are finally dislodged from power and authority, religious extremists will not soon find an easy way back in, as their time in the Pluto cycle is drawing to a close.

Thank God!

---

The once-mighty Christian Coalition, founded 17 years ago by the Rev. Pat Robertson as the political fundraising and lobbying engine of the Christian right, is more than $2 million in debt, beset by creditors' lawsuits and struggling to hold on to some of its state chapters.

In March, one of its most effective chapters, the Christian Coalition of Iowa, cut ties with the national organization and reincorporated itself as the Iowa Christian Alliance, saying it "found it impossible to continue to carry a name that in any way associated us with this national organization."

"The credibility is just not there like it once was," said Stephen L. Scheffler, president of the Iowa affiliate since 2000. "The budget has shrunk from $26 million to $1 million. There's a trail of debt. . . . We believe, our board believes, any Christian organization has an obligation to pay its debts in a timely fashion."

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/09/AR2006040901063.html

Another sign of the U.S. Progressed Mars turning Retrograde:

--

Young Officers Leaving Army at a High Rate

Young Army officers, including growing numbers of captains who leave as soon as their initial commitment is fulfilled, are bailing out of active-duty service at rates that have alarmed senior officers. Last year, more than a third of the West Point class of 2000 left active duty at the earliest possible moment, after completing their five-year obligation.

It was the second year in a row of worsening retention numbers, apparently marking the end of a burst of patriotic fervor during which junior officers chose continued military service at unusually high rates. Mirroring the problem among West Pointers, graduates of reserve officer training programs at universities are also increasingly leaving the service at the end of the four-year stint in uniform that follows their commissioning.

To entice more to stay, the Army is offering new incentives this year, including a promise of graduate school on Army time and at government expense to newly commissioned officers who agree up front to stay in uniform for three extra years. Other enticements include the choice of an Army job or a pick of a desirable location for a home post.

The incentives resulted in additional three-year commitments from about one-third of all new officers entering active duty in 2006, a number so large that it surprised even the senior officers in charge of the program. But the service's difficulty in retaining current captains has generals worriedly discussing among themselves whether the Army will have the widest choice possible for its next generation of leaders.

More: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2217610

Chuckle, chuckle, Neo. Thank God is right. I suspected this. Pluto rules wealth and the traditional churches are the losers. Next come the corrupt corporations.

I think we are entering an entirely new military phase which might be centered around self defense rather than aggression. And maybe a new kind of conscription with alternative service an option.

As the Saturn in Leo fall of kings progresses and we say our good-byes to Bush and his friends, we do have an opportunity, believe it or not. It can get truly exhausting fighting the anxiety surrounding all the horrible events, fears about upcoming wars, confusing predictions as to what the future will bring, and just the daily stress of life. A good nap often works. But I think what is happening right now is far better than impeachment as these lowly creatures have to stand up in front of their utter and dismal failures. If we cut them out it would be like the hydra, and another one would appear. So I think this is a testament to our advancement in that we are ready to face the deep corruption of our national leadership which has been developing for a long, long time. As Neo says, the deep rot is now being reached at the end of Pluto in Sag.

Impeachment, imprisonment, and the like might come but now is the time to take a long hard look at the present situation. I see so much of a difference from even a year ago in how much wiser this country is. I believe a lot of learning has come to us as a whole, even though so many lag behind and are clinging to illusions.

The opportunity now is how we can apply this information to the leaders asking our permission to govern next. Delay's departure is symbolic, and the Republican Party is at a huge loss as the budget vote failure last week revealed. They just gave up and closed up shop.

Saturn has just turned direct and will cross our North Node at 6 degrees for the last time in 30 years. The failure of leadership couldn't be more clear. And right now I think we are in a moment of truth. I know something can be gained. I know how much this country desires a President she can be proud of.

The corruption in our whole government will take a long time to deal with as Pluto transits Capricorn, but we can get started at any moment. After the nap.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12659.htm

Women

Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan is the mother of Smadar Elhanan, 13 y/o when killed by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem in Sept 1997. Below is Nurit's Address to the European Parliament

Thank you for inviting me to this today. It is always an honour and a pleasure to be here, among you (at the European Parliament).

However, I must admit I believe you should have invited a Palestinian woman at my stead, because the women who suffer most from violence in my county are the Palestinian women. And I would like to dedicate my speech to Miriam R'aban and her husband Kamal, from Bet Lahiya in the Gaza Strip, whose five small children were killed by Israeli soldiers while picking strawberries at the family's strawberry field. No one will ever stand trial for this murder.

When I asked the people who invited me here why wouldn't they invite a Palestinian woman the answer was that it would make the discussion too localized.

I don't know what is non-localized violence. Racism and discrimination may be theoretical concepts and universal phenomena but their impact is always local, and real. Pain is local, humiliation, sexual abuse, torture and death, are all very local, and so are the scars.

It is true unfortunately, that the local violence inflicted on Palestinian women by the government of Israel and the Israeli Army, has expanded around the globe. In fact state violence and army violence, individual and collective violence are the lot of Muslim women today, not only in Palestine but wherever the enlightened Western world is setting its big imperialistic foot. It is violence which is hardly ever addressed and which is halfheartedly condoned by most people in Europe and in the USA.

This is because the so-called free world is afraid of the Muslim womb.

Great France of la liberté l'égalité et la fraternité is scared of little girls with headscarves, Great Jewish Israel is afraid of the Muslim womb. Its ministers call it a demographic threat. Almighty America and Great Britain are infecting their respective citizens with blind fear of the Muslims, who are depicted as vile, primitive and blood-thirsty, apart from their being non-democratic, chauvinistic and mass producers of future terrorists.

This in spite of the fact that the people who are destroying the world today are not Muslim. One of them is a devout Christian, one is Anglican and one is a non-devout Jew.

I have never experienced the suffering Palestinian women undergo every day, every hour. I don't know the kind of violence that turns a woman's life into constant hell. This daily physical and mental torture of women who are deprived of their basic human rights and needs of privacy and dignity, women whose homes are broken in at any moment of day and night, who are ordered at a gun-point to strip naked in front of strangers and their own children, whose houses are demolished, who are deprived of their livelihood and of any normal family life. This is not part of my personal ordeal. But I am a victim of violence against women insofar as violence against children is actually violence against mothers. Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghan women are my sisters because we are all at the grip of the same unscrupulous criminals who call themselves leaders of the free enlightened world and in the name of this freedom and enlightenment rob us of our children. Furthermore, Israeli, American, Italian and British mothers have been for the most part violently blinded and brainwashed to such a degree that they cannot realize their only sisters, their only allies in the world are the Muslim Palestinian, Iraqi or Afghani mothers, whose children are killed by our children or who blow themselves to pieces with our sons and daughters. They are all mind-infected by the same viruses engendered by politicians. And the viruses, though they may have various illustrious names such as Democracy, Patriotism, God, Homeland, are all the same. They are all part of false and fake ideologies that are meant to enrich the rich and to empower the powerful.

We are all the victims of mental, psychological and cultural violence that turn us to one homogenic group of bereaved or potentially bereaved mothers. Western mothers are taught to believe their uterus is a national asset just like they are taught to believe that the Muslim uterus is an international threat. They are educated not to cry out: "I gave him birth, I breast-fed him, he is mine, and I will not let him be the one whose life is cheaper than oil, whose future is less worth than a piece of land."

All of us are terrorized by mind-infecting education to believe all we can do is either pray for our sons to come back home or be proud of their dead bodies.

And all of us were brought up to bear all this silently, to contain our fear and frustration, to take Prozac for anxiety, but never hail Mama Courage in public. Never be real Jewish or Italian or Irish mothers.

I am a victim of state violence. My natural and civil rights as a mother have been violated and are violated because I have to fear the day my son would reach his 18th birthday and be taken away from me to be the game tool of criminals such as Sharon, Bush, Blair and their clan of blood-thirsty, oil-thirsty, land-thirsty generals.

Living in the world I live in, in the state I live in, in the regime I live in, I don't dare to offer Muslim women any ideas how to change their lives. I don't want them to take off their scarves, or educate their children differently, and I will not urge them to constitute democracies in the image of Western democracies that despise them and their kind. I just want to ask them humbly to be my sisters, to express my admiration for their perseverance and for their courage to carry on, to have children and to maintain a dignified family life in spite of the impossible conditions my world is putting them in. I want to tell them we are all bonded by the same pain, we are all the victims of the same sort of violence even though they suffer much more, for they are the ones who are mistreated by my government and its army, sponsored by my taxes.

Islam in itself, like Judaism in itself and Christianity in itself, is not a threat to me or to anyone. American imperialism is, European indifference and cooperation is and Israeli racist and cruel regime of occupation is. It is racism, educational propaganda and inculcated xenophobia that convince Israeli soldiers to order Palestinian women at gun-point to strip in front of their children for security reasons; it is the deepest disrespect for the other that allow American soldiers to rape Iraqi women, that give license to Israeli jailers to keep young women in inhuman conditions, without necessary hygienic aids, without electricity in the winter, without clean water or clean mattresses and to separate them from their breast-fed babies and toddlers. To bar their way to hospitals, to block their way to education, to confiscate their lands, to uproot their trees and prevent them from cultivating their fields.

I cannot completely understand Palestinian women or their suffering. I don't know how I would have survived such humiliation, such disrespect from the whole world. All I know is that the voice of mothers has been suffocated for too long in this war-stricken planet . Mothers' cry is not heard because mothers are not invited to international forums such as this one. This I know and it is very little. But it is enough for me to remember these women are my sisters, and that they deserve that I should cry for them, and fight for them. And when they lose their children in strawberry fields or in on filthy roads by the checkpoints, when their children are shot on their way to school by Israeli children who were educated to believe that love and compassion are race- and religion-dependent, the only thing I can do is stand by them and their betrayed babies, and ask what Anna Akhmatova, another mother who lived in a regime of violence against women and children, had asked:

Why does that streak of blood, rip the petal of your cheek?

* xian Coalition Shrinks as Debt Grows

In an era when con xians enjoy access/influence thruout the fed govt, the organization that fueled their rise has fallen on hard times. The once-mighty xian Coalition, founded 17 yrs ago by the Rev Pat Robertson as the political fundraising & lobbying engine of the xian right, is more than $2 mn in debt, beset by creditors' lawsuits & struggling to hold on to some of its state chapters.

In March, one of its most effective chapters, the xian Coalition of Iowa, cut ties with the natl org & reincorpo'd itself as the IA xian Alliance, saying it "found it impossible to continue to carry a name that in any way associated us with this natl org." ... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/09/AR2006040901063.html

Since Capricorn is rather geezery anyway, my hope is that the coming pluto in cap signals the end of the everlasting era of patriarchy & its hosts of nasty old wargeezers... or geezeryness in general. That'd be good. ;O)

MSNBC just (9:15 am EDT) announced that Berlusconi was trailing in the exit polls. My my.

Poll: Dems or Repugs stronger on national security?

This poll desperately needs some help.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

This is a must see. Plus, it has lots of pictures.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/10/1936/74217

TaHA to THIS... as well!

* France to scrap controversial job law

France will scrap a youth job contract that has provoked weeks of mass street protests and a political crisis for the govt. ... http://www.ndtv.com/morenews/showmorestory.asp?slug=France+to+scrap+job+law&id=86768

* Italy turns against [plutie oligarch] Berlusconi

Romano Prodi's centre-left Union coalition was given a 5 percentage pts advantage over Silvio Berlusconi's House of Freedoms alliance in Italy's general election, according to two preliminary polls pub'd shortly after polling stations closed. ... http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=90126

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041006Z.shtml

Bush and Cheney Discussed Plame Prior to Leak

In early June 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney met with President Bush and told him that CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson was the wife of Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson and that she was responsible for sending him on a fact-finding mission to Niger to check out reports about Iraq's attempt to purchase uranium from the African country, according to current and former White House officials and attorneys close to the investigation to determine who revealed Plame-Wilson's undercover status to the media.

Other White House officials who also attended the meeting with Cheney and President Bush included former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, her former deputy Stephen Hadley, and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove.

This information was provided to this reporter by attorneys and US officials who have remained close to the case. Investigators working with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald compiled the information after interviewing 36 Bush administration officials over the past two and a half years.

The revelation puts a new wrinkle into Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's two-year-old criminal probe into the leak and suggests for the first time that President Bush knew from early on that the vice president and senior officials on his staff were involved in a coordinated effort to attack Wilson's credibility by leaking his wife's classified CIA status.

Now that President Bush's knowledge of the Plame Wilson affair has been exposed, there are thorny questions about whether the president has broken the law - specifically, whether he obstructed justice when he was interviewed about his knowledge of the Plame Wilson leak and the campaign to discredit her husband.

Details of President Bush's involvement in the Plame Wilson affair came in a 39-page court document filed by Fitzgerald late Wednesday evening in US District Court in Washington.

Fitzgerald's court filing was made in response to attorneys representing I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, who was indicted on five counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and lying to investigators for not telling grand jury he spoke to reporters about Plame Wilson.

More...

April 10, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Yes He Would
By PAUL KRUGMAN
"But he wouldn't do that." That sentiment is what made it possible for President Bush to stampede America into the Iraq war and to fend off hard questions about the reasons for that war until after the 2004 election. Many people just didn't want to believe that an American president would deliberately mislead the nation on matters of war and peace.

Now people with contacts in the administration and the military warn that Mr. Bush may be planning another war. The most alarming of the warnings come from Seymour Hersh, the veteran investigative journalist who broke the Abu Ghraib scandal. Writing in The New Yorker, Mr. Hersh suggests that administration officials believe that a bombing campaign could lead to desirable regime change in Iran — and that they refuse to rule out the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

"But he wouldn't do that," say people who think they're being sensible. Given what we now know about the origins of the Iraq war, however, discounting the possibility that Mr. Bush will start another ill-conceived and unnecessary war isn't sensible. It's wishful thinking.

As it happens, rumors of a new war coincide with the emergence of evidence that appears to confirm our worst suspicions about the war we're already in.

First, it's clearer than ever that Mr. Bush, who still claims that war with Iraq was a last resort, was actually spoiling for a fight. The New York Times has confirmed the authenticity of a British government memo reporting on a prewar discussion between Mr. Bush and Tony Blair. In that conversation, Mr. Bush told Mr. Blair that he was determined to invade Iraq even if U.N. inspectors came up empty-handed.

Second, it's becoming increasingly clear that Mr. Bush knew that the case he was presenting for war — a case that depended crucially on visions of mushroom clouds — rested on suspect evidence. For example, in the 2003 State of the Union address Mr. Bush cited Iraq's purchase of aluminum tubes as clear evidence that Saddam was trying to acquire a nuclear arsenal. Yet Murray Waas of the National Journal reports that Mr. Bush had been warned that many intelligence analysts disagreed with that assessment.

Was the difference between Mr. Bush's public portrayal of the Iraqi threat and the actual intelligence he saw large enough to validate claims that he deliberately misled the nation into war? Karl Rove apparently thought so. According to Mr. Waas, Mr. Rove "cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged" if the contents of an October 2002 "President's Summary" containing dissents about the significance of the aluminum tubes became public.

Now there are rumors of plans to attack Iran. Most strategic analysts think that a bombing campaign would be a disastrous mistake. But that doesn't mean it won't happen: Mr. Bush ignored similar warnings, including those of his own father, about the risks involved in invading Iraq.

As Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace recently pointed out, the administration seems to be following exactly the same script on Iran that it used on Iraq: "The vice president of the United States gives a major speech focused on the threat from an oil-rich nation in the Middle East. The U.S. secretary of state tells Congress that the same nation is our most serious global challenge. The secretary of defense calls that nation the leading supporter of global terrorism. The president blames it for attacks on U.S. troops."

Why might Mr. Bush want another war? For one thing, Mr. Bush, whose presidency is increasingly defined by the quagmire in Iraq, may believe that he can redeem himself with a new Mission Accomplished moment.

And it's not just Mr. Bush's legacy that's at risk. Current polls suggest that the Democrats could take one or both houses of Congress this November, acquiring the ability to launch investigations backed by subpoena power. This could blow the lid off multiple Bush administration scandals. Political analysts openly suggest that an attack on Iran offers Mr. Bush a way to head off this danger, that an appropriately timed military strike could change the domestic political dynamics.

Does this sound far-fetched? It shouldn't. Given the combination of recklessness and dishonesty Mr. Bush displayed in launching the Iraq war, why should we assume that he wouldn't do it again?

Today this war hits close to home for one of my employees - she has been told over the weekend that her son will be deployed to Iraq in the coming weeks. I can't imagine what she is feeling right now. How heartbreaking all this is.

Another person speaks out. I hope many more follow:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1181629,00.html

Thank you Sally for another excellent article.

Soldiers to be shipped to Iraq/Afghan--at this late date--reminds me of the Jewish folk, as an example, meekly climbing on the cattle cars to be shipped to the gas chambers. It makes me ill. There're plenty of other options... there really are.

Re: all the excellent posts above -- why, why, why hasn't the horror -- committed by this administration -- fully sunk in yet? Maybe it's because it defies reality. Need to create more "political capital?" Bomb the innocent.

Joanna, i wish i would have thought of that! (Sending that gnarly photo :0)

Also, Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan is my hero, and i have few.

Bush fooled us once when he went to war with Iraq. Shame on him.

Now he's trying to fool us twice with his buildup to war with Iran. Will we be fools again?

If rape is a crime of power and control then Bush has turned the US into the world's rapist and his is the diseased mentality that justifies the use of phallic weapons to crush and destroy what he can't have any other way.

Mars going retrograde will be like putting the rapist behind bars.

Along those lines, Goldensilence, here's Ann Coulter's beauty secret.
http://blogs.salon.com/0002874/stories/2003/11/22/annCoultersBeautySecret.html

Let's make fun of Billy O too.
http://blogs.salon.com/0002874/stories/2003/11/04/billOreillysArmyOfKillerRobots.html

More disintegration................
Senator Collins aide told me today that the corporations
who have outsourced call centers to India, are experiencing, regret and dissappointment with the outcome/efficiency level!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Like the dot coms, running on air until the bubble burst!)
some interesting reading below...( be sure to read the comments)
Rich Procter: 'Wargasm II — Bush legacy edition!'

Read that last statement again slowly and carefully. The Bushies believe that a massive preemptive air assault on Iran, including the use of nuclear weapons will produce regime change, and a government more favorable to the United States
and............
Greg Palast: 'Gangster government'
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/

Did anyone catch the pRez. fielding tough questions from the students from John Hopkins Institute, School of International Social Studies..........on CNN, they'll rerun it .or you can get the transcript from their website ( or watch their podcast.)
Interesting transition.the deer in the headlights is gone; he was comfortable , HUMEROUS & AT EASE
( although dealing in pure fantasy at times) Remarkable to watch!
PQ

Wolf Blitzer is covering the dozens of marches across the US on his show.

He just said it was the awakening of a sleeping giant.

Wow. The MSM actually doing its job?

Goldensilence, meant to tell you--just love the phrase "self-entitled" and have been using it in letters, etc.

My daughter's favorite dining places--both tacaquieras (sp?) in Atlanta are closed today in solidarity with a march by local Latinos.

Yesterday afternoon came across a cable station showing movie "A Day Without A Mexican". Wonderful movie, which I totally recommend. But my movie maven friend can't find anything about it. I'll google later.

Tonight at Emory University in Atlanta General (Ret) Wesley Clark will be speaking and I plan to attend. Report later.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060410/ap_on_go_pr_wh/election_phone_jamming_1

Phone-Jamming Records Point to White House

Sally, sent you an email on the problems showing up with your full article page and the Links page (I've always had problems with that one, the margins cut off the type)...

You wrote about wondering how the forgers knew even before the election that it would need these Niger docs...HA...well, how did the son of a prominent New Hampshire repub (high up) know that we should all go out (Sept, 2000) and buy stocks in defense contractors because GWB WOULD BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT, as he said to everyone on a stock message board ....? Indeed, it is pretty clear how they knew....as it is pretty clear to us now and then what happened.

Barbara, I saw that movie. The best part was not that the jobs the Mexicans filled were not done and the extent of the jobs (from doctors to gardeners, journalists to politicians), but that people really missed them in their lives. How happy everyone was when they all reappeared!

On May 1 they are planning a boycott day in which they plan to close their own business, not buy from any other business, stay away from their jobs and keep their children out of school. I know this because I googled the immigration issue and came up with this URL:
http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/

JudiGem! Do you have a link to that bombshell? I'd love to read that!!!

Garry, I owned stock in an internet company which my daughter worked for. (Engage) and it was on the stock message board...the stock went to a penny stock...it was all a bubble. I tried to figure out how to save the exchange but never did. It made me furious (he was VERY right wing, anti abortion, etc...very rethug/xian). It gave me chills - I had elicited his indescrete message because he had gotten so angry with my libral attitudes (I was the ONLY one it seemed who was....) This was the Raging Bull stock message boards site.

This is from an absolutely excellent poster on Salon named Columbian Supreme.

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635198488,00.html

Physicist says heat substance felled WTC

Extremely hot fires caused structures to fail, BYU expert says

excerpt;
By Suzanne Dean
For the Deseret Morning News
EPHRAIM — A Brigham Young University physicist said he now believes an incendiary substance called thermite, bolstered by sulfur, was used to generate exceptionally hot fires at the World Trade Center on 9/11, causing the structural steel to fail and the buildings to collapse.

"It looks like thermite with sulfur added, which really is a very clever idea," Steven Jones, professor of physics at BYU, told a meeting of the Utah Academy of Science, Arts and Letters at Snow College Friday.

The government requires standard explosives to contain tag elements enabling them to be traced back to their manufacturers. But no tags are required in aluminum and iron oxide, the materials used to make thermite, he said. Nor, he said, are tags required in sulfur.

...He ticked off several pieces of evidence for his thermite fire theory:

First, he said, video showed a yellow, molten substance splashing off the side of the south Trade Tower about 50 minutes after an airplane hit it and a few minutes before it collapsed. Government investigators ruled out the possibility of melting steel being the source of the material because of the unlikelihood of steel melting. The investigators said the molten material must have been aluminum from the plane.

But, said Jones, molten aluminum is silvery. It never turns yellow. The substance observed in the videos "just isn't aluminum," he said. But, he said, thermite can cause steel to melt and become yellowish.

Second, he cited video pictures showing white ash rising from the south tower near the dripping, liquefied metal. When thermite burns, Jones said, it releases aluminum-oxide ash. The presence of both yellow-white molten iron and aluminum oxide ash "are signature characteristics of a thermite reaction," he said.

Another item of evidence, Jones said, is the fact that sulfur traces were found in structural steel recovered from the Trade Towers. Jones quoted the New York Times as saying sulfidization in the recovered steel was "perhaps the deepest mystery uncovered in the (official) investigation." But, he said, sulfidization fits the theory that sulfur was combined with thermite to make the thermite burn even hotter than it ordinarily would.

Jone's paper is peer-reviewed. You can find it here:

http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html

Far out...Raging Bull has a politics site...and the 2nd article down is the one on phone jamming records in NH which kept Dems from voting....! how synchonius (I know, its not a word, but it sounds good)this is...

Barbara,

A Day Without A Mexican is availbalek on Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002VEZ3U/002-2371802-4530441?v=glance&n=130

One of the things you might want to be aware of in the Bill that got stalled in the Senate is the portion on global in-sourcing quotas for American techinical jobs. It allowed the quota to be raised 20% automatically, no discussion, each time the quota is reached. Now that isn't directly related to the Mexican border, but is part of that Bill, and if passed, becomes law.

Tseka, thanks for the boost about the Ashes and Snow site. It was VCZ who sent that site....it is really extensive, beautiful and amazing.

Wow...more and more on the WTC collapse...while the
'wingers rant on calling us all sniveling and complaining 4th graders. I found this quote at Ranging Bull..
George Orwell describes Republican Sociopathy:

"[W]e are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield." — George Orwell

OMG...Ann Coulter's beauty secret....that is hysterical....

Maybe the chimp could use her as the sacrifice for good luck the night before he nukes Iran...

Judi, that Orwell quote is perfect! It's should be the battle cry for Democrats.

'Self-entitled' also lends itself nicely to more specific modifications with words tacked in front like 'snidely', insufferbly, blatantly, erroneously, ignorantly, destructively, simplistically, stupidly, etc. Each adjective zeroes in on very specifically descriptive types of actions and people, and which need no further explanation.

Ta-Da!

Anyone else feel like we are sitting on a powderkeg waiting to blow? Something wierd is about to go down. There is too much happening at the same time, war, immigration issues, the economy, Chimpy the Dictator, lies, deception, rising gas prices, rising food prices, vanishing middle class, Darth Chainsaw, Iran and the rest of whoever they decide to attack, etc. etc. etc..

I'm sure things are progressing to the point where a lot of things can no longer continue the way they are now, but what is going to happen when that point comes? That's what is scary.

People are mad about what is going on, but no one is doing anything about it and that is what amazes me more then anything else.

"Maybe the chimp could use her as the sacrifice for good luck the night before he nukes Iran..."

It probably wouldn't give he any luck, but the world would be rid the bee atch.

He should have been him. And rid of instead of...oh well...sleepy fingers.

Wow again, JudiGem!!!
Was this mystery rightwingnut poster a famous or name guy we would recognize? And did he elaborate on how he knew this would happen?

Judi, how funny, I wasn't really asking a question with that remark, just a bit of tongue in cheek. I did get your email regarding your problems (and a few others) with the page, guess you didn't receive my reply. I checked with several experts tonight and they all said it was a browser problem. It seems to work fine with internet explorer but not with Mozilla or browsers like that. So you can set your browser to internet explorer and that should fix your problem with the page.

Very interesting interview I heard last nite on my trusty radio station in line with the comment above about the Indian workforce.
A professor of something or other said that the Chinese are proving to be a disappointment to the corps. The people know they are being used and have been difficult to rely on. They aren't coming as cheap as they were and have been mined on the coasts. So the corps are having to move further inland to try to keep up with their greed for cheap (slave) labor. Something is afoot with our dear Pluto.

I find this all so interesting.

People all over the world have been demonstrating with destruction and killing frequent occurrences...Paris and all over the ME and Asia.
Thousands and thousands of people are now demonstrating in the US and as far as I've heard, not one report of violence.

I think you are onto something, jm. (And welcome back, if I didn't already tell you so) Corporations are becoming more and more desperate for cheaper and cheaper labor in the grand "race to the bottom". The CEOs, or "Neo Kings" figured if they could export American jobs to developing countries with much lower standards of living, that they could eke out larger profits from not having to devote as much overhead to wages, tack a few more cents onto their stocks, and earn huge multi-million dollar personal bonuses at the end of the all-important quarter or year.

It's nothing but pure greed, of course. And it would be working out perfectly for the corporatists in their eyes, if the Indians, Chinese, Irish, Latinos and such weren't proving to be far more formidable and cunning workforces than the mere docile sheeple that too many native-born Americans have become. We learn now that Indian workers staffing all those outsourced call centers just aren't as "efficient" as slave-driven, dollar-chasing Americans, and that the Chinese simply aren't "productive enough", both nations having apparently caught on to the corporatist scheme.

The story is similar in other outsourcing destinations as well, and the corporatists will sooner than later come to realize -- or receive a hard reality check -- that people in all countries and corners of the world want and will demand fair wages, accomodations and a genuine stake in the business (i.e profit sharing). All of these demands can and should accompany a modest amount of productivity and leisure time, European Style, and will still make for a profitable company, if not more so. CEOs and high-level executives do not do anything worthy of being paid the ludicrous, astronomical salaries and bonuses that they now receive, and in reality, based upon their actual contributions to the company, probably should be paid not much more than the average entry-level employee.

But this struggle, of workers versus the corporations, is likely to play itself out over the next couple of decades, with the corporations themselves growing particularly more powerful and menacing over the next few years. However, the fatal flaws in their conquest for global rule are already known to people around the world. Should we all band together and stand up to the corporatists, the globalist "race to the bottom" and big business run amok will essentially be checkmated, which is precisely what they fear most.

PHOENIX FIVE EARTH CHANGES BULLETIN
April 5, 2006 by MW Mandeville (Black Canyon City, Arizona)

BULLETIN ITEM: Scholar's For 911 Truth On The March

From: "Kimber"
Subject: Fall guys
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 02:59:34 -0700

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/3/prweb357922.htm

Scholars Question Cheney's Role in 9/11

[Link] Download this press release as an Adobe PDF document.

Experts conclude Vice President possessed foreknowledge and suggest
Moussaoui trial a "distraction".

Duluth, MN (PRWEB) March 13, 2006 -- A society of experts and scholars
contends that the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui -- for willfully
concealing advance knowledge of the events of 9/11 -- has the status of a
Soviet-style "show trial" and functions as a diversion from the real
culprits. The nonpartisan group, Scholars for 9/11 Truth, asserts that the
evidence implicating Vice President Dick Cheney of that very offense is more
obvious and compelling. If they are even remotely correct, then the alleged
terrorists appear to have been cast in the role of "patsies."

The experts base their conclusion on testimony presented to the 9/11
Commission by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta on May 23,
2003, which was omitted from its final report, and on related events at the
Pentagon. Members of the society will present their findings during a press
conference to be held at 1 PM on Tuesday at the United States Courthouse in
Alexandria, VA, the location of a trial to determine whether Moussaoui, who
is called "the 20th hijacker", should serve a life term or receive the death
sentence.

"Mineta's testimony is devastating," observed James H. Fetzer, Ph.D.,
McKnight Professor at the University of Minnesota. Fetzer is the founder and
co-chair of the scholars' society, which recently joined with Judicial Watch
in calling for release of documents, films and videos, and physical evidence
withheld from the public by the administration. "It pulls the plug on the
Commission's contention there was no advance warning that the Pentagon was
going to be hit."

According to Secretary Mineta's testimony, which is in the public domain,
when he (Mineta) arrived at an underground bunker at the White House (known
as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center), the Vice President was in
charge. "During the time that the airplane was coming in to the Pentagon",
he stated, "there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice
President, 'The plane is 50 miles out.' 'The plane is 30 miles out.'

"And when it got down to, 'The plane is 10 miles out,'" Mineta continued,
"the young man also said to the Vice President, 'Do the orders still stand?'
And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said, 'Of
course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?'"
One way to construe these remarks could be that the orders were to shoot
down the plane.

The scholars suggest that that is an implausible interpretation. The
Pentagon, they observe, may be the most heavily defended building in the
world. If the orders had been to "shoot it down," then no doubt it would
have been shot down. Moreover, there would have been no apparent reason for
the young man to have expressed concern over whether or not "the orders
still stand." Shooting it down, under the circumstances, would have been the
thing to do.

"The only reasonable interpretation of the orders," Fetzer observed, "is
that the incoming aircraft should not be shot down, which would have been an
obvious source of anxiety for an aide. Since it contradicts the official
story about the Pentagon," he added, "it had to be suppressed and was not
even included in The 9/11 Commission Report." And other scholars, including
Professor David Ray Griffin of Claremont Graduate University, have drawn the
same conclusion.

Philip J. Berg, Esq., Former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania and a
past candidate for Governor, Lt. Governor, and U.S. Senate from
Pennsylvania, who is a member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, added, "Those who
made it happen were obviously in the position to know that it was going to
happen and therefore could have sounded a warning alarm. The case against
Cheney is more powerful than the case against Moussaoui. No one is more
culpable than the perpetrators. If Moussaoui deserves the death penalty,
what does our Vice President deserve?"

Berg also represents William Rodriguez, a WTC witness, in a RICO lawsuit
against officials in the administration for complicity in the events of
9/11, being U.S. District Court (Philadelphia) Case Number 04CV4952. Other
members of the society include Robert Bowman, head of the "Star Wars"
program in both Democratic and Republican administrations; Morgan Reynolds,
former Chief Economist for the Department of Labor in the Bush
administration; Andreas von Buelow, former assistant defense minister of
Germany; and Griffin, a noted theologian and author of The 9/11 Commission
Report: Omissions and Distortions.

Members of the society point to other indications of advance knowledge,
which include volumes of put-options placed by betting that the stock value
of United and American Airlines would drop. The SEC has detailed information
about those who placed the options, which it has not released to the public.
"Time and time again," Fetzer remarked, "evidence that would expose the
official account to be a deception and a hoax intended to manipulate the
nation has been concealed."

According to Fetzer, experts in the society of scholars, including pilots
and aeronautical engineers, physicists and mechanical engineers, have
established that flying these planes would have been beyond the "hijackers"
capabilities, that it would have been virtually impossible for cell phone
calls to have been placed during those flights, and that even the Saudi
Arabian Embassy has long confirmed that several of the accused "hijackers"
did not die on 9/11.

"It does not take rocket science to infer that, if these guys were killed in
the crash of these aircraft, then they cannot be alive and well and living
in Saudi Arabia," he remarked, "yet the FBI has not bothered to revise its
list of suspects." Other studies available on the society's web site at
www.st911.org indicate that the passenger manifests for the four flights did
not include the names of the hijackers nor were autopsies conducted on them.

"A growing body of evidence supports the inference that these 19 men were
patsies for forces within the United States government," Fetzer concluded.
"This trial appears to be yet one more illustration of Karl Rove's policy of
'creating our own reality' to serve the political goals of the
administration, even when it comes at the cost of the lives and the security
of the American people. The idea that Bush is 'the security president' is
just a cruel joke!"

Documentary support for the conclusions reported here may be found at the
Scholars for 9/11 Truth web site at www.st911.org.

For Further Information:

James H. Fetzer, Ph.D.
Founder and Co-Chair
Scholars for 9/11 Truth
(218) 726-7269 (office)
(218) 724-2706 (home)
(218) 726-7119 (fax)
http://www.st911.org

Philip J. Berg, Esq.
706 Ridge Pike
Lafayette Hill, PA 19444
(800) 993-7445 (office)
(610) 834-7659 (fax)
(610) 662-3005 [cell
http://www.911forthetruth.com

Best Wishes, Michael Wells Mandeville,
The Hills of Arizona USA at mwman@earthlink.net
Master Website Index is at: http://www.michaelmandeville.com

Okay all, I know we're not sure about the veracity of this site, but please read and form your own opinions...some of it sounds like truth to me, but I'm not vouching for it......

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=4387

Pages: 1 | 2 next

The Atlantic Monthly | May 2006

The Nuclear Power Beside Iraq

Now that Iran unquestionably intends to build a nuclear bomb, the international community has few options to stop it—and the worst option would be a military strike
by James Fallows

.....

year and a half ago, Iran’s nuclear ambition constituted a threat but not yet a world crisis. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had not yet been elected president of the country, nor begun his declarations that the Holocaust never occurred and that modern Israel must be “wiped from the map.” The mullah-dominated Iranian government was still evasive and uncooperative rather than flatly defiant when the United States and Europe demanded supervision of its nuclear programs by the International Atomic Energy Agency. It might even look favorably on the face-saving compromise the Russian government talked about, under which Iranians could build just about any nuclear power plant they wanted, thereby satisfying their announced desire to move beyond reliance on oil—as long as they left the reprocessing and enrichment of spent fuel, and therefore the potential for building nuclear weapons, in Russian hands on Russian soil.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200605/fallows-iran

jm, I know there was some violence in DC, but it wasn't widely reported.

jm, I know there was some violence in DC, but it wasn't widely reported.

Posted by: Pat C on April 11, 2006 02:25 PM

Link please

--------

One of the things you might want to be aware of in the Bill that got stalled in the Senate is the portion on global in-sourcing quotas for American techinical jobs. It allowed the quota to be raised 20% automatically, no discussion, each time the quota is reached. Now that isn't directly related to the Mexican border, but is part of that Bill, and if passed, becomes law.

Posted by: Pat C on April 11, 2006 12:13 AM

--------

Link please

hmmm....more interesting stuff here today too:
http://www.jmccanneyscience.com/

* Field Poll: [bushadruggie] approval rating drops to 32%

bush's approval ratings have continued to reach new lows among CA voters, according to a new Field Poll. The survey found voters' sour mood extended to Congress, which had an even lower approval rating than [rez]. And those surveyed gave the most pessimistic assessment of the country's general direction than any recorded since 1992.

Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo said it was unusual for voters to express such a dismal view of [rez], Congress & the nation's direction at the same time. "That doesn't portend well for perceptions of ["leadership"] in govt," DiCamillo said.

bush's approval ratings have been on a slide in CA for 2 yrs. The latest survey, taken during the 1st wk of Apr, found that his approval rating had slipped to 32%, down from 38% in Feb. An addl 62% of voters said they did not like the job [rez] was doing, up from 56% in Feb. 6% said they had no opinion.

The Field Poll's Apr prez approval ratings are the lowest since [rez]'s father, the 1st bush, garnered only 37% approval among CA voters in 1992, DiCamillo said. Prez Nixon scored the all-time lowest approval rating among CA voters - 24% - during the Watergate scandal in 1974. ...
http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/14241643p-15061076c.html

Joanna, just looked at Bob Fertik's site (democrats.com) blog and he posted the WAPO's inculsion FINALLY of the question of impeachment in their polls....got similar numbers
http://www.democrats.com/wapo-impeachment-poll-1

here is another interesting site:http://www.unitednorthamerica.org/index.htm

Gore's documentary on global warning.

And Inconvenient Truth

http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount_classics/aninconvenienttruth/trailer/

Hi JudiGem, saw your post on the united north america. What a horrible idea. If I were Canadian I would oppose it with all my might. It's a huge resource grab and another "rung" on the ladder to the "New World Order". His arguments are so childish and self-serving anyway. Bah! Humbug!

From P Glass

Leaking Legitimacy

Bush needs to explain his role in the leaks to the media

THE HARVARD CRIMSON
Published On Monday, April 10, 2006 11:47 PM

By THE CRIMSON STAFF

Another crumb of controversy fell from the figurative plate of yellowcake last week, when a court filing revealed former vice-presidential aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s accusations against both Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush. The prosecution’s filing said that Libby told a grand jury that Bush had authorized Cheney to leak specific classified information that supported the administration’s views on Iraq, namely that Saddam Hussein had attempted to acquire uranium ore from Niger.

Libby is now on trial for lying and obstructing an investigation of the leak of the identity of Valerie Plame, an undercover Central Intelligence Agency officer working in Niger. Despite the fact that Bush is not on trial, the revelation that Bush ordered selective leaks raises worrisome questions about his methods of pushing for the invasion of Iraq, especially given the contested nature of the leaked information. And considering the notoriously strong loyalties of Bush’s staffers, we believe that Libby, in turning against the president, is presenting allegations that are at least plausible.

If Libby is indeed being honest, and the commander-in-chief was also the “leaker-in-chief,” then Bush chose a dishonorable path to push his agenda. The administration only released information to journalists that it viewed as sympathetic to the president’s goals (such as New York Times reporter Judith Miller), which exemplifies Bush’s desire to manipulate public opinion.

This is not to say that what the president did is illegal. It is within the president’s power to declassify information as he sees fit. But it is disappointing that he chose to selectively notify those who were bound to support his position by highlighting this new “evidence.” Ironically, he has routinely chastised members of his own administration for their own leaks of internal White House activities to the press. In a time when Bush’s popularity and legitimacy have eroded, Libby’s testimony implicitly attacked one of the last strongholds for Bush’s presidency: his supposed honesty. The White House has responded to Libby’s words with silence. This is not what we expected from the man who once stated that “a President must mean what he says.”

If the President has something to say or declassify, we strongly support open press conferences where he can face the entire press, regardless of their opinions. When our president wants to share information with the nation, he should always be open and honest, and Bush’s behavior in this situation only decreases our faith in our leader.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=512610

Well, I didn't enjoy reading this, but we must all be aware that it still exists in the realms of possibility........
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HD11Ak03.html

Poll: Does Smirky give a fig about the middle class?
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight/

Go vote. You'll enjoy it.

I'm not at all certain that another war will save Bush and the Greedy Oil Party this time, Garry. Iraq is such a mess now, and I think even Republicans and conservatives are finally waking up to see that we have mostly lost sight of whatever purpose or direction carried us there in the first place. If Iran is set up to appear to make the first strike against us, then perhaps some support will return to Bush.

But as it was Bob, I believe, who pointed out a couple of threads ago, this administration is getting so desperate that they've become rather sloppy and ineffective in their propaganda. Any event staged at this point to incriminate Iran in an attack against the US will likely have holes so gaping that unavoidable questions will be raised.

In short, Iran will be Bush's Waterloo and the destruction of his Presidency, if not the Republican Party and even perhaps the U.S. Government. How far he will be allowed to follow through with this madness remains to be seen, but I believe that very few people in the Republican Party will be celebrating on election night this November.

It seems that the Australians have more gall to tell the truth than we do in the USA and Canada. Why do we cater and worry about offending people who want to see us destroyed.

Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia, as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks. A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to Australia at a special meeting with Prime Minister John Howard, he and his ministers made it clear that extremists would face a crackdown.

Treasurer Peter Costello, seen as heir apparent to Howard, hinted that some radical clerics could be asked to leave the country if they did not accept that Australia was a secular state and its laws were made by parliament. "If those are not your values, if you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you," he said on national television.

"I'd be saying to clerics who are teaching that there are two laws governing people in Australia, one the Australian law and another the Islamic law, that is false. If you can't agree with parliamentary law, independent courts, democracy, and would prefer Sharia law and have the opportunity to go to another country, which practices it, perhaps, then, that's a better option," Costello said.

Asked whether he meant radical clerics would be forced to leave, he said those with dual citizenship could possibly be asked to move to the other country. Education Minister Brendan Nelson later told reporters that Muslims who did not want to accept local values should "clear off.”

"Basically, people who don't want to be Australians, and they don't want to live by Australian values and understand them, well then they can basically clear off," he said. Separately, Howard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying he supported spy agencies monitoring the nation's mosques. Canada and United States …ARE YOU LISTENING??

Australia - The Right to Leave Our Country - YOU have the right ...the right to leave! This was after Sydney not wanting to offend other cultures by putting up Christmas lights. After hearing that the State of South Australia changed its opinion and let a Muslim woman have her picture on her driver's license with her face covered.

This prompted this editorial written by an Australian citizen, published in an Australian newspaper. Quote: IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT! Take It Or Leave It! I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians.

However, the dust from the attacks had barely settled when the 'politically correct' crowd began complaining about the possibility that our patriotism was offending others. I am not against immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a better life by coming to Australia. However, there are a few things that those who have recently come to our country, and apparently some born here, need to understand.

This idea of Australia being a multicultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity. As Australians, we have our own culture, our own society, our own language, and our own lifestyle.

This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials, and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom. We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, learn the language!

Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing, political push but a fact because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.

We will accept your beliefs and will not question why, all we ask is that you accept ours and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us.

If the Southern Cross offends you, or you don't like “A Fair Go,” then you should seriously consider a move to another part of this planet.

We are happy with our culture and have no desire to change, and we really don't care how you did things where you came from. By all means keep your culture but do not force it on others. This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this.

But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, "THE RIGHT TO LEAVE!"

If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country that accepted you!

wv, the Australian message is so obviously logical and reasonable that it's a wonder that it even needs to be put in words.

But then, Australia wasn't colonized by a persecuted religious group (our fundamental Christians make you wonder why they were persecuted don't they?). The original inhabitants were sent there by Great Britain as convicts. Shows to go that the founding of a country makes a difference.

Well, and then there were the several million aboriginal Peoples with THEIR own customs, language, & ways of being that didn't seem to concern the English whatsoever, who sent their convicts there. And I don't imagine they were good guests. Noosirreeeeee!

Appears that pink supremacists are getting a taste of what they've been dishing out to others for centuries. How is that? "What goes around comes around." AAAANNND... the aborinal Peoples apparently have to put up with ALL of 'em to this very day. I have noooo sympathy for pinkie... he can hypocritically yowl all he wants... times they are a'changin'. Same goes for the US. ;O)

From this week's www.aaiusa.org/countdown/countdown.htm

Are We There Yet?

The new conventional wisdom in Washington is that Iraq is on the brink—but hasn't yet reached—civil war. This leads to the inevitable question, will we know when we're there? Is it akin to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's description of pornography—will we know it when we see it? A recent report from the Boston Globe offers some stark numbers to back up the growing cadre of political analysts who argue that Iraq is already engulfed in civil war. "Nearly eight times as many Iraqis died last month in execution-style sectarian killings as in terrorist bombings carried out by insurgents," reports the Globe. Recent news accounts challenge the perception that most of the violence is being perpetrated by a Sunni-led insurgency. "Victims, an average of 36 per day, included Sunni men found with holes drilled through their heads and Shi'ite men with the words 'traitor' written or carved across their bodies." This rise in sectarian tension also complicates US withdrawal plans as the "same militias that provided new recruits for the US-trained police and military are now being accused of murder." For those who lived through Lebanon's civil war, this is horrible deja vu.

Poll: Should Smirky have immediately told about his role in the Plame declassification?
http://www.capitalnews.org

Go vote.

Remember how, not too many months ago, we were lamenting about the relatively few of us being in our little boats on a vast sea? Talk about a sea change! Just look at the poll results.

* Can You Say, 'Bienvenidos'? ["White"] Americans, & black Americans too, are going to have to get used to sharing this country--sharing it fully--with brown Americans. Things are going to be different. Deal with it.

The most important legacy of the histrionic debate over immigration reform will not be any piece of lege, whether enlightened or medieval. It will be the big demonstrations held in cities thruout the country over the past few weeks--mass protests staged by & for a minority whose political ambition is finally catching up with its burgeoning size. In the metaphorical sense, Latinos have arrived. ... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/10/AR2006041000987.html

I'm really not sure what "Latino" means or from where the term was obtained. Anyway, I would imagine they are a fair majority in the western hemispere. Pink males are only 39.+% of the population & that was 20 years ago in that census. Ummm... they are the minority & don't need to be running rough/killer/rape/burglar shod over everybody else... in fact, NObody needs to be running roughshod over anybody else... imo.

Amen Joanna...

Pluto in Sag has shown the underbelly of this country, and it 'ain't purty' --- illusions are dropping like lead... with a resounding thud that is rippling out and shaking the very earth underwhich most stand... change is acoming... and it's not asking whether we want it or not...

YUP YUP and more YUP Joanna...this country was settled on the backs of the native tribes, too....those escaping religious persecution in Europe also brought their own form of persecution and bidness with them...as I am descended from many of these families, I can say this...they, for the most part, but not ALL of them, treated the locals badly...and in return were also slaughtered until the preponderance of the anglos overcame the natives. That is now also what is happening now with Latin immigrants....sithout the slaughtering and reservations, of course...but who knows? Maybe those gated communities will just keep the wealthy white folk IN)

Of course, since one half of my family IS mexican american, I am prejudiced towards intergratiion. Most 2nd generation immigrants adopt local cultural norms...when allowed to...it is the mullahs of all stripes, religions and genealogy who insist that this country (and Australia) is ONLY for white people, Christians and their own peculiar form of religion.

I think the Austalian reaction is interesting....if only they were addressing the issue of insisting that foreigners follow parlimentary law. I wish THIS country would get that message, too.....follow our secular law....not form church/state law...which is what our ancestors were trying to elude. And the ones who didn't later got sent to Australia...but many criminals were brought here, too...don't forget that.

And hey...what about all those Sicilian guys....we wouldn't be watching the Sopranos, now would we, without them???? (humor only works when the oriignal gestalt has been revealed, of course)

I don't 'know' - but perhaps from Latin American? (Yes, that term (Latin America)was once used, way back in the dark ages when I was growing up!)

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/end.php

The End of the World....WV, this one's for you!

Poll: Do you-know-who's actions merit impeachment?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10562904

Go vote. It's a hoot.

Miss Sally asked me to post this very lovely piece... some of you got it email.

* With heart-powered consciousness comes
inspiration, love & creativity.

The pioneers within society - 1 in 4 adults - have already shifted to heart-powered consciousness while the others are finding their way & following suit as soon as they become ready.

The news media, meanwhile, appears to be under the impression that people find fear entertaining or compelling. They believe that a news story that engenders fear is exciting in that it grips the imagination. In reality, people are working thru their fears rather than being held captive by them. When you have seen enough news stories & moved on to the next stage of consciousness, then you turn the news off & set yourself free from the stimulation of fabricated fears.

Society, as a whole, works thru stages of consciousness. These stages, which were called memes by legendary social scientist Clare Graves, are patterns of development in social behavior. He discovered two tiers of memes & performed extensive research on the 1st tier of six memes. ...

... A world in transformation may seem chaotic at times because change does cause turbulence. When an established pattern of consciousness is disturbed by a rise in frequency, a choppy pattern appears, one which is searching for a new form. At this time, personal & societal discords can abound as old wounds arise seeking attn & resolution. As the frequency of consciousness rises even more towards the new level, the unsettled patterns morph into an entirely new pattern, one which is even more complex & beautiful than the one it replaces.

People reach heart-centered consciousness, the initial, meme six stage of heart consciousness in their own time. Then they take that next step into the spiritual tier of memes & experience the energy & drive of meme seven’s heart-powered consciousness.

With heart-powered consciousness comes the inspiration of a deeper sense of intuition, the emotional rewards of unconditional love, & a newfound level of inner creativity.

With inspiration, love & creativity, a new dimension of living is born, one which can truly help to create a new & heart-powered world.

The world is changing. Welcome to the New Reality!

http://www.infinitebeing.com/0604/hpc.htm

Gosh, that's good stuff, Joanna!

And very congruent with Rupert Sheldrake's revolutionary discoveries about forms, and collective beliefs.

I think you've got it, Jo... from roman catholism, who did litergy in Latin in Rome, whose priests came over to the "new world" to save them heathen while relieving them of their lives, resources, & children. That must be it.

But the "Latinos" are actually western indian... from the tip of Canada to the tip of S America... the original inhabitants, in all THEIR variety, that anglos have arrogantly thot were a "minority." Nope. They aren't. Amazing... really... particularly when & since pinkie has applied all his tricks of genocide. Oh... & how about the polynesian folk in Hawaii as judi mentioned. Anglo didn't belong there either... "taking over."

Goldensilence, your post re Australia reminds me again of the wonderful headline an Australian newspaper ran during the "impeach Clinton for extra-marital consensual sex" era:

"Thank God they got the Puritans and we got the convicts."

I've been following the meme talk for some time and I like them. I'm startled by how much progress has been made lately making me think there's something to this.

Neo...thanks for the warm welcome back. I find it impossible to stay away from American politics now in this exciting moment.
I love your analogy of the workers and corporatists to checkmate. Your well stated insights cover such a broad spectrum which is right up my street.
The game goes on and this is why I think that the attempt at world government at this stage will fail miserably. They can't trust one another enough to pull it off. You can count on it. Such a massive coup would entail great cohesion. Impossible for these types. I don't think they have enough knowledge of real power.

The deep decay of Pluto through Sag with this religious root canal going on now is especially important as we are nearing the end of the Age of Pisces and the religions of suffering based on a belief in an all powerful supreme being who can't be seen, identified, or empirically proven. The physicists are leading the way into the new age where I think our cosmic relationship will be more scientific and even more factual. Astrology fits this bill which is why I expect a big resurgence in use of this magnificent science. Astrology itself is changing now in preparation.
I think maybe the destruction of New Orleans karmically speaking might be part of this as there was so much abuse of spiritual power in superstition and hypnotic manipulation for personal greedy gain and often murder.
When the last pope died, who I believe abused power, I thought the next one would disappear into the woodwork, or the piles of gold as it is. And Australia's strong words certainly seem to be part of this.

With this Saturn in Leo and our leadership lesson, I've been thinking of the divine urge and how it connects. You can look at the symbolism and see so much. The royal king and great misogynist of the plains, the lion, is one. I'll never forget the lion in a zoo I once encountered, who was napping in front of the crowd at the edge of his enclosure. He was on his back, legs spread wide, with his rather sizable penis grandly displayed in the sun for all to admire. The people were suitably in awe as they filed by stopping for long looks at the spectacle. I was amazed. My Saturn/Pluto conjunction in Leo was in deep study.

The Sun is the center of our system as all the other bodies circle around it, and life depends on its energy. Maybe we are destined in the microcosm/macrocosm to also have a central source in the form of leaders. It's the divine aspect that can be problematic. It goes all the way back. The Egyptian kings who were worshipped as sun gods are a perfect example. The important thing to keep in mind is that all the planets are important too and are vital to the whole system, even little Mercury, the might messenger who forms the matrix of connection in our system. Maybe attributing too much power to our leaders trips us up and the ancient tendency to give them godly status.
Saturn bringing in earthly reality and the understanding of leaders simply as organizers and administrators might help. And simply men and women. As we see the divine George Bush lose his sun god status. His mission from Heaven shattered.

As Saturn comes into the opposition to Neptune we also have a chance to think about what an ideal leader would embody. Just in case there is something closer in the offing. Harry Taylor asked for grace and humility.
I'm looking for grace.

This I love from Joanna's post.

"The news media, meanwhile, appears to be under the impression that people find fear entertaining or compelling. They believe that a news story that engenders fear is exciting in that it grips the imagination. In reality, people are working thru their fears rather than being held captive by them. When you have seen enough news stories & moved on to the next stage of consciousness, then you turn the news off & set yourself free from the stimulation of fabricated fears."
Could Iran be one?

Maybe if people could at least keep up with the news but not in the repetitious way that feeds the relentless fear. It seems like about 95% of what's reported is bad which doesn't seem to me to be an accurate representation of what's really happening.

In a way I think maybe we are held captive by our fears but the freedom from them is in our own hands.

* Christian Zealots: "Respect Our Bigotry!"

The 1st few paragraphs in the LA Times story xians Sue for Right Not to Tolerate Policies sums it up pretty well:

Ruth Malhotra went to court last mo for the right to be intolerant. Malhotra says her xian faith compels her to speak out against homosexuality. But the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she’s a senior, bans speech that puts down others because of their sexual orientation. Malhotra sees that as an unacceptable infringement on her right to religious expression. So she’s demanding that Georgia Tech revoke its tolerance policy.
With her lawsuit, the 22 y/o student joins a growing campaign to force public schools, state colleges & private workplaces to eliminate policies protecting gays/lesbians from harassment. The religious right aims to overturn a broad range of common tolerance programs: diversity training that promotes acceptance of gays/lesbians, speech codes that ban harsh words against homosexuality, anti-discrimination policies that require college clubs to open their membership to all. The Rev Rick Scarborough, a leading evangelical, frames the mvmt as the civil rights struggle of the 21st C. “xians,” he said, “are going to have to take a stand for the right to be xian."

THIS is the most pressing issue to these people, these xians ... they are CALLED by their Lord to spread hatred. The fact that other people in the society around them ask them to be civil, to show some respect when interacting with others is “discrimination” against them for their faith. In fact, they claim that policies that constrain them from spewing their bile result in a war on xians. ... http://66.232.56.61/ee/index.php?/fist/more/christian_zealots_respect_our_bigotry/

from Joanna's link:

" “xians,” he said, “are going to have to take a stand for the right to be xian."

Actually, what they want is for all of us to be xians, and they won't stop until we are...

tolerance is not in their vocabulary... it's our tolerance of their philosophy that has allowed them to grow like a cancer on humanity... they no more represent a 'Christ' like philosophy than Hitler did... btw, he also used religion, the xian one, to forward his agenda... "Gott Mit Uns" means God With Us and appeared on many Nazi soldiers belt buckles during WWII.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/mementoes.htm

In the Beginning was the Word (Am Anfang war das Wort)

A painting titled by Hermann Otto Hoyer depicts the glorification of Hitler in messiah-like fashion. The light over him falls on the listener. Hitler represents the bringer of light.

"In the Beginning was the Word" of course appears as the first words in the Gospel of John.

[at same link above]

think of the pictures of Dubya with halo round his head, before a cross, etc. etc.

Same script, different players...

jm...brilliant....RELIGIOUS ROOT CANAL...I am going thru a massive amount of dental work right now, although no root canals, just 25 year old fillings needing replacing, as they break of pieces of my teeth. Which is a nice metaphor for this religious root canal government.

I heard CA state att'y general Bill Lockyear on Air America this morning saying that Sec't of State of CA rethug Bruce MacPherson signed a PERSONAL statement with the Bush people with a number of other states including Louisiana, etc...(you get the picture) in which the voting rights of people will be suspended if the name on their driver's license disagrees in ANY way with their voter regs....in other words, if my voter reg says Judith V and my drivers license just says Judith, I will not be allowed to vote! No provisional ballot, nothing....and it is clearly against CA state law! Since the AG is the lawyer for the state, Lockyear said that MacPherson needs to violate his own handwritten agreement to comply with state law. Willie Brown asked him if he had advised Lockyear of this...and Lockyear laughed and said 'he hasn't asked"....Brown asked if Lockyear would defend him if asked, and he said no....he will have to hire his own lawyer at his own expense, as this is so egregious that there is no way to defend him.

So now we have State elected people signing agreements with the Bushy Feds even though it is illegal?

As Bob Welch said to Joe McCarthy..."Have you no shame sir? At long last, have you no shame?"

Sally..I don't have Internet Explorer. So that is why I don't use it....it isn't secure, as my Safari is. Just in case I didn't make that clear earlier....Netscape dropped support for my Netscape for Mac on Jan 1.

Anyway, it still is a simple piece of coding that could fix it, I understand.

Garry...to go back to that NH post I made about the exchange I had with the man in NH prior to the 2000 election. I went back a year later and re read the messages, and still got the same 'chills'....I remember thinking, they KNEW they were going to war before chimp was selected, it is clear...I also seem to remember that his 'handle' was birdcage .....but I am no longer a member of Raging Bull and I doubt that those messages remain on the server after 6 years....
It is ironic that the phone jamming came from NH...probably he was one of the operatives....he was a full on rootcanal rethug Xian nazi. Kind of reminded me of Meryl Streep's role in The Manchurian Candidate....all knowing, all powerful, and sick.

Jo..that is a nice piece of analogy...especially when you factor in the fact that the connection IS the Bush family fortunes to Hitler...of which there is, of course, much to read on the internet....

And Joanna, Randi Rhodes went nuts on this whole Xian culture yesterday...just nuts....and she said the same thing, they believe that only Jaysus is able to forgive, do nice things, etc....everyone else is EVIL.

My cousin sent me an email this moring with some visuals in it done with positive/negative space...one of them was the word GOOD...and as it was handwritten with something like a thick Sharpie, the negaive spaces in eace letter read EVIL.

Should Defense Sec. Donald Rumsfeld resign?

http://capitalnews.org/

JudiG: McPherson was appointed by Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhnold.
"There were worries when interim governor Schwarzenegger appointed interim Secretary of State McPherson that numerous outside influences evident in the way McP reorganized the SoS office would alter the way the SoS function traditionally had been in CA, i.e., that McP would introduce national GOP politics into the SoS processes. Although McP had experience in the state legislature and was a moderate himself, and even though in CA the SoS position is a partisan post, CA deserves better than the kind of top-down rulings that McP has proven are his hallmark as SoS.
I look forward to Sen. Bowen’s brisk campaign and victory in these important times."
I hope Bowen wins. She cares. All this and ore at http://www.debrabowen.com/blog/?p=3

Ore, More--sorry.

HURRY! RUN FOR THE HILLS! THE MEXICANS ARE COMING TO GET US! IT'S AN INVAAAASION!

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3700605

Immigration action urged
Eight GOP state legislators want federal state of emergency declared.

"...Republicans who signed the letter said they considered the nonviolent rallies threats to law and order.

"We have been shocked by the blatant, coordinated, and anti-American demonstrations on behalf of illegal aliens throughout the country ... with little or no serious action on the part of the Federal Government to address the growing negative impact of illegal aliens, on the American people, or to protect all states from invasion," the letter said.

Please sign the Moveon.org petition against starting war with Iran. Thanks.

http://political.moveon.org/dontnukeiran/letter.html

Thank you oes. I just signed the petition.

It's incomprehensible that such action could be undertaken considering our gross incompetence in Iraq.

Hersh says the planning has gone past the initial stages and that the plans are in operation with a ground unit already in Iran marking out targets.

He also stated on "Fresh Air" this morning that key members of the U.S. Congress had been informed on the Iran plan and are lending support to the president's plans. It is imperative that our Congress do all in their power to avert such egregious behavior on the part of America.
Hersh is being attacked from every which way and is shameful. Rumsfeld even referred to his writing as "fantasyland."

http://www.npr.org
"Fresh Air" for Wednesday April 12, 2006

also: more Hersh with Wolf Blitzer
http://www.veredictum.com

I watched the above video last Sunday. It's a long one, about 30 minutes but can't find it now at the link listed. Crooks and Liars also carried it and can't find that now, eventhough it's listed in google already. Think Progess has a downloadable video file if intersted.
There are transcripts available too if anyone interested.

Joanna and Jo, speaking of the right to intolerance, just got to tell you this story:

My husband and I were a young couple in rural Arkansas. We didn't go to church.

Southern protestant Christians (I don't know about the others) are told it is their duty to "witness" to the unsaved. If they don't at least try for a conversion then those particular uncontacted damned souls may end up in hell because of their neglect of Christian duty. (Quite a guilt trip.)

Anyhow one Sunday after church let out, an older couple dropped by to visit us. The husband was embarassed, but the wife was adamant and issued a forceful invitation for us to attend their church.

My husband said, "thanks, but we don't go to church." The older man looked relieved that was over, and turned the subject to fishing.

But his wife wanted to give it one more try. She talked about the importance of reading the Bible.

"We read the bible," my sweetie said. "What was that we were reading last night, honey?"

"The Book of Job," I replied.

"Right! Job lost all his wealth because God was testing him. He lost his children because God was testing him. He lost his health because God was testing him.

"But he still had his wife--because God was testing him."

The older man broke into a big laugh that he stifled after a look from his spouse.

Thus ended the Sabbath visit.

Well... & then there's this! So which is it?!??

* Lies, damn lies & gwbush

No doubt about it. gwbush's lying, rotten, putrid, soulless destruction of a once-great nation called America is now open for all to see. bush is not just a liar. He's a serial liar who avoids truth at all costs because facts don't' support his perverted, twisted view of the world. Truth exposes his corrupt [regime] & lays bare his many crimes against the American people & the Constitution of the US.

Impeachment? Nah. Too good for this lowlife. Arrest the son-of-a-b**ch, lead him from the WH in chains, parade him down PA Ave & then lock him in stocks on the Wash Mall so everyone can see what happens when anyone thinks they are above the law of the land.

Today's Wash Post lays out yet another example of how bush lied to the American people, detailing a deliberate WH pattern of misinfo on the so-called "bio warfare" trailers captured soon after American troops invaded Iraq. Turns out the trailers had nothing to do with bio warfare. Intelligence officers in the field knew it. They told the WH. Yet bush ignored the truth & went before the American people to claim otherwise, trumpeting the trailers as "proof" that Hussein possessed WMD.

"I hate to admit it but it appears clear the [rez] of the US is a pathological liar," says political scientist Geo Harleigh, who worked in the Nixon/Reagan adm. "His pattern of deception exceeds anything we saw in the Nixon era."

Members of Congress - [necroporn] & Dem - admit the same thing, shaking their heads in disbelief while talking privately with supporters & political strategists. "The biggest threat any [necroporn] running for election or re-election this year faces is not from the Dems but from [rez]," says a GOP pol consultant who, for obvious reasons, begs for anonymity. "gwbush is a major liability to [necroporn]s in the mid-term elections."

When news broke last week that bush personally authorized a WH campaign of leaks aimed at discrediting Amb J Wilson - a campaign that led to the "outing" of Wilson's wife, a covert CIA operative - [necroporn]s scrambled for cover. Sun talk show producers tried w/o success to find a [necroporn] willing to go on the air & defend [rez]. ... http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_8449.shtml

Lovely story Barbara... and yes, it's that way throughout the South... your hubby has quite a sense of humor... sounds like a Sag, or one with a prominent Jupiter...

* A RECOVERING LIBERAL EXCLUSIVE Last week’s arrest of the 4th highest person in the vaunted Dept of Homeland Sec, Brian Doyle, brot back memories of other notable folks on the right who preached the Good Book but were really, really bad boys. You remember them, guys like Jim Bakker & Jimmy Swaggert who never flinched at taking their flocks’ money but somehow managed to use at least part of it for some sweet young stuff.

That got me thinking about other [necroporn] holier than thou folks who might be in the same boat. I asked a friend to do a bit of research on that subj, & here is the list that he put together;

[necroporn] County Constable Larry Dale Floyd was arrested on suspicion of soliciting sex with an 8 y/o girl. Floyd has repeatedly won elections for Denton County TX, constable.

[necroporn] judge Mark Pazuhanich of Wilkes Barre PA pled no contest to fondling a 10 y/o girl & was sentenced to 10 yrs probation.

[necroporn] Party leader Bobby Stumbo of Floyd County KY was arrested for having sex with a 5 y/o boy. ... http://recoveringliberal.com/?p=593

Thank you, Jo. Will look up chart, which I haven't visited in a long time. (Was widowed in my late 20s, but have a lot of really great memories.)

And Joanna--there is--or was--a site called Felonious Elephant listing outrageous crimes by Repugs.

I haven't visited there in a long, long time. Was wondering recently if maybe the guy who wrote it had given up due to overwork.

Will try to find out if the site is still active. Don't remember exact URL right now.

Barbara,

here's link (thanks to google!)

http://feloniouselephant.blogspot.com/

and it seems to be abandoned, last post June of last year...

Joanna, thanks for the mug shots... horrible isn't it... do people simply not care? or, have these guys confessed and been blessed... ???

Judi g

I think you made a wise choice getting your teeth fixed with the North Node in Aries and Saturn around your MC. A Mars in Aries needs her teeth. Especially since she can so often find herself champing at the bit!

Here is a twist in our Pluto in Sag saga....

"The Dalai Lama could be on the verge of a historic visit to the remote, mountainous homeland that the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader has not seen for nearly 50 years, following indications from the Chinese government that dialogue may, at last, be leading to a rapprochement".

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article355616.ece

To all here to whom this is old news, thanks for your tolerance.

Just want to mention this re GOP staffers soliciting children for sex:

Andew Vachss is an attorney whose only clients are abused children. Of course, there is no money in that so Vachss supports himself by writing novels. Burke, the protagonist of Vachss' novels, in one book, lured a bunch of child abusers into a warehouse and then blew it up with explosives.

So I expect that besides providing income, the novels provide an emotional release as well.

Anyhow, Vachss has some opinions about the wording used to describe sex involving children. As he says there are no "child prostitutes". Since children are not able to choose that life, they are not prostitutes--they are rape victims.

The media, Vachss believes, add to the problem by describing child victims the same way they would voluntary adults. And the general public repeats this unfair representation of children as voluntary or knowing participants.

This language thing is so important-- the feminists recognized it when they sought gender-neutral words such as mail-carrier instead of postman.

The words "had sex with" implies consent and I know that absolutely was not what was intended to be conveyed. An adult "having sex with" a 5-year-old, is raping the child.

I repeated the media words myself before I saw Vachss on tv explaining all this. And when I did, I certainly didn't mean to imply any culpability or consent by little children.

But this is important, folks. We need to complain to the media when they use wording equating child victims to voluntary adult sex participants.

A tiny bit of good news...

"The government has backed down in at least one battle over the Patriot Act by dropping a gag order imposed on a library that refuses to reveal a reader’s borrowing habits."

http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=11835923&src=rss/ElectionCoverage

"With their support deteriorating, Republicans now risk losing yet another group which supported them and got screwed in exchange–sportsmen. Field & Stream has an editorial on Bush and Cheney placing the energy industry over protecting the nation’s public lands:"

http://www.fieldandstream.com/fieldstream/columnists/conservation/article/0,13199,489794,00.html#

"Military recruiters were driven off campus from a job fair Tuesday morning at UC Santa Cruz. Four military recruiters hastily fled the job fair after a “raucous crowd of student protesters blocked an entrance to the building where the Army and National Guard had set up information tables.”

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/12/BAG3KI7INT1.DTL

Thank you for the link, Jo.

I'm not suprised the site is abandoned--the poor man who was listing Repug crimes no doubt just dropped from exhaustion. :-}

I think the Field and Stream editorial is highly significant. This respectable, conservative, down home American publication I think has always backed the Republican agenda. This reveals the depth of dissatisfaction in this country. But even more important than the administration's unpopularity is the fact that there might be some serious and honest dicsussion of environmental issues ahead. Maybe even a uniting of warring factions. And a lot of questioning of political allegiance, perhaps.

I so agree, Barbara, that words used are sooo important... esp these days. I have always, when discussing pedophiles & articles have used terrible word linkages like "sex with children"--which gives the notion there's a consenting "partner" there, to "sex on"... that's mucho more accurate & indicates the person is treated like a thing... an object. But it's certainly rape. But even the word "rape" is losing its intensity of meaning, by design I'm sure.

"I'm not suprised the site is abandoned--the poor man who was listing Repug crimes no doubt just dropped from exhaustion."

He could well have been freeped, too. That is a terrible experience, but neo-Brown Shirts are very trendy so apparently they get away with it.

Someone may be spilling the beans at the WH

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/4/12/24219/8100

http://salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2006/04/13/leaks/

The slow-motion trap

His presidency was built on secrecy and, we now know, on lies. The more Bush struggles to free himself, the more his past deceptions bind him.

By Sidney Blumenthal

................

http://salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/04/13/document_dump/

Bush's bogus document dump

The administration seeded its new public archive of Iraq documents with jihadist materials completely unrelated to Saddam.

By Fritz Umbach

* blair isolated on Iraq conflict as Berlusconi bows out

The defeat of [plutie] Silvio Berlusconi has left Tony Blair isolated in Europe as the last political leader supporting the war in Iraq. Mr Berlusconi had been the only ally of Mr Blair & [rez] bush in Europe after Jose Maria Aznar, the Spanish pm, was defeated in the aftermath of the Madrid bombings in Mar 2004. Mr Blair is likely to put a brave face on the defeat, altho many will see it as a further nail in his own political coffin. ... http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article357234.ece

Sheehan Returns to Protest Near Bush Ranch

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041306Z.shtml

Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan and hundreds of others have returned to Crawford, Texas, to protest the war in Iraq. The 5 days of vigils and rallies will be highlighted by a sunrise Easter service performed by the Reverend Joseph Lowery. Lowery cofounded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. TruthOut Managing Editor Scott Galindez will be reporting from Crawford.

Joanna,

when ya think they're going to get that coffin nailed down? I've been looking for lying Tony to get ousted for years now... but he's still there (like the thief in the Oval Office here)

Ian Walsh at The Agonist

The Long Grey Suck

*http://agonist.org/ian_welsh/20060413/the_long_grey_suck

My daughter is making the same salary I did thirty (30) years ago, doing the same kind of work... seems Dubya has successfully whiled out FDR's New Deal, giving us (US) the Raw Deal...

According to my friend in the UK, Jo... in a parlimentary govt, the party is what gets voted in... not the "leader." The Peoples alternative to the labor party, the olie/plutie party, is not good, & the labor party knows it. The labor party is having similar probs to the Dems here... there's a small cabal of plutie-snools. The people detest tony &, she says (with a knowing sly smile), he will go. Actually, he's blocked at every turn, nobody gives him a break... she says he's going. I guess I believe her... no reason not to. But I DO tease her with "WHEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!" ;O)

too much coffee this a.m.? that word 'whiled' in my post above is supposed to be "whipped" :-)

Sorry...

From Tom Arthur over on Salon:

For researchers:

George W. Bush lived here
There is no "Bush mansion" in Midland, but a number of locations have historic significance. If you decide to photograph private homes, it is always best to ask permission first, and/or stay off the property.

George W. Bush - Midland childhood locations:

- Cowden Park (old baseball backstop south of house at 2703 Sentinel)
- Sam Houston Elementary School, 2000 W. Louisiana Ave.
- San Jacinto Junior High School, 1400 N. 'N' St.

Childhood homes:

- 1948 916 E. 17th St. Odessa*
- 1948 E. 14th St. (Rented) Odessa**
- 1948-49 1519 E. 7th St. (Removed) Odessa

- 1950-51 405 E. Maple Midland
- 1952-56 1412 W. Ohio Midland

- 1957-58 2703 Sentinel Midland
- 1959 Family left Midland and moved to Houston

*Betty Orbeck note 1/89, conversation with photographer who talked to Mrs. Bush
** Betty Orbeck note 7/99, info from Presidential Museum in Odessa

Later homes in Midland

- 1975 2008-A Bedford Ave. Midland
- 1976-77 2006-A Harvard Ave. Midland

- 1978-84 1405 W. Golf Course Road Midland
- 1985-87 910 Harvard Ave. Midland
- Bedford and 2006-A Harvard were rentals of apartments in back of main
home.
- 1405 W. Golf Course and 910 Harvard addresses include Laura W. Bush.

Midland Businesses & addresses:

- 1976-77 Bush Oil (probably 406 C&K Petroleum Building)
- 1978-80 oil producer or independent oil operator (514 Permian Building)
- 1981 Arbusto Energy, president
- 1982-84 Bush Exploration Co., president (probably 801 Petroleum Building, - 1982 only listed)
- 1985-87 Spectrum Seven Energy Corp, chairman of the board

===

http://www.midlandtxchamber.com

http://www.bushchildhoodhome.org/

Our Gobernator, Gropinator, Terminator, Stinkingator Schwarzenegger showing his love for the children of California and where it is on the list of his priorities.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-preschool13apr13,1,207093.story?coll=la-headlines-california&ctrack=1&cset=true

Governor Will Not Endorse Universal Preschool Initiative
By Peter Nicholas, Times Staff Writer
April 13, 2006

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign said Wednesday he would not endorse a universal preschool initiative that filmmaker Rob Reiner has championed, citing the governor's long-standing opposition to tax increases.

"Put simply, the governor does not support tax increases and is opposed to Proposition 82 because it will raise taxes," Katie Levinson, communications director for the Schwarzenegger reelection campaign, said in a statement.

more...

I expect prop 82 will pass in spite of his opposition what with all the Brown People Power getting a chance to tell the Man how they feel.

Italy's new PM (Romano Prodi) to do two things: pull Italian troops our of Iraq and send a civil contingent to Iraq to help in the reconstruction of the infrastructure and institutions. Another card falls...

http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7B0793C349-FA8E-43EA-81E1-1CA77414533C%7D)&language=EN

New Italian PM to Pull Iraq Troops
Rome, Apr 12 (Prensa Latina) Romano Prodi, the leader of the Union coalition, which won the latest elections in Italy, said on Wednesday that he will withdraw the Italian troops from Iraq when he takes office, claiming there was no justification for the US-led invasion of the Arab country.

In an interview with the French Le Monde daily, the Italian Prime Minister Elect said that he will fulfill his election promise of withdrawing his country´s troops from Iraq.

Following the pullout, an Italian civil contingent will be sent to Iraq to help in the reconstruction of the infrastructure and institutions, asserted Prodi.

The also former president of the European Commission reiterated that he always opposed the war against Iraq and thought there were other ways to solve differences with Baghdad.

Last July, the Chamber of Deputies agreed to extend the deployment of the Italian troops for another six months, though the center-left opposition along with the communists voted against.

As legislative elections are getting closer and pressures increase, the Italian government announced a reduction of its troops and 2,600 Italian soldiers of the 3,200 initially deployed remain in Iraq since last January.

First of all, Prodi will have to get in the chair... seems the present occupant doesn't want to concede the election... may be May before there is a decision from Parliament...

Italy in limbo as Berlusconi refuses to concede elections

13.04.2006 - 09:41 CET | By Honor Mahony

With prime minister Silvio Berlusconi refusing to concede defeat in the Italian elections, one of the EU's biggest member states could be left in a state of political limbo for weeks.

Mr Berlusconi, whose centre-right coalition narrowly lost the weekend's elections, is insisting that some 40,000 ballot papers be re-checked.

"The election result has to change because there was widespread fraud," said Mr Berlusconi who is arguing that there are problems particularly with votes from Italians living abroad.

"Did you think you were about to be free of me?" he went on to ask, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, Romano Prodi, the centre-left victor according to official counts, has admitted that he might not take power until May.

"The constitutional decision is that probably it will be the new president who will decide to give me the responsibility to govern. So we would have to wait until the second half of May," said Mr Prodi.

Con't http://euobserver.com/9/21381/?rk=1

pass the popcorn

And after Obrador, ( sp?) wins the Mexican election, this summer there will be another left leaning state, and over time, may make all this immigration hullabaloo, n/a. No one I talked to in New Bruswick the other day is very happy with PM Harper, but then he won in the western Provinces there.
It's moving right along.............
PQ

Poll about Scalia needs yr help:
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060412183009990005&ncid=NWS00010000000001

Arrrrrrgh! The results so far!

It just doesn't jive with current sentiment does it Shy? 53% think it's refreshing????

Even die-hard conservatives would give the question a second thought....at least I hope.

I hope this link works. It's a bunch of photos of Bush, being Bush.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=925313&mesg_id=925313

It's now six Generals calling for Rumsfeld to step down.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/13/iraq.rumsfeld/index.html

This article is dated 3-1-06 but there is breaking news today on the ethics complaint filed against Conyers by former chief staffer Sydney Rooks. http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/030106/news2.html

Ed Schultz talked about it today on his show and said that Rooks appeared on an interview with CNN
earlier. Conyers refused to go on interview with Schultz but his spokesman said that Conyers would release a statement to his website very shortly.

I would never support ethical violations by any elected official, even Conyers, but I sure hope this doesn't dampen his good prospects of becoming Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee come November. He has worked so hard.

Ya know, I don't know what is into me because I never care too much for celebrity, fame, People Magazine and the like so I don't go in for the nitty-gritty stuff and details of someone's personal life.

But this talk today of Ms. Rooks having to change the diapers of Mr. Conyers baby during her tenure on his staff just blew my mind. He is 76 year old for gosh sakes. Curiosity drove me to find out about where his wife is. I discovered that his wife's name is Monica, she is 41, probably 42 by now and was elected in Nov, 2005 to a city council seat in the city of Detroit. That is why he has a little baby! And another child named Chad I heard mention of.

wv, If you put this one up already, please pardon.
Listen to the Background Music!
http://www.markfiore.com/animation/special.html

I will defend John Conyers until he is proven to be anything but a true representative of the American people. My initial reaction is that he must be making some headway in his long term quest to get the Bush Administration to answer his letters and questions about the Downing Street Memo, and the Ohio Voting irregularities. Both of which are impeachable offenses.

The Babysitting and the working in political campaigns allegations are LAME! Is that the worst they can dig up on him (if it's even the truth).

Even if the allegations are true I don't care. Nothing he is alleged to have done constitutes a crime. Nothing.

The immigration wedge didn't work so now they drag out the old smear machine.

What Goldensilence said... Conyers will always be my knight in shining armour... he stood against these crooks when no one else would...

This is pure revenge because they are angry at being caught at their corruption and a preemtive strike at Conyers. I also imagine they want to make themselves look better since both parties do it.

Yada yada yada.

My thoughts too........Is Rooks another Linda Tripp?
The allegations JUST DON"T FIT THE REST OF CONYERS PERSONA!
It's a swift boat!
PQ

I do wonder if the American people will buy this distraction this time.

Anybody looked at Conyers progressions?

The transgressions by John Conyers took place years ago the most recent probably two years ago.
How can these errors be displayed on the same stage with lies to start a war, lies about the patriotism of the wounded vet running for congress,the unlimited pass for the undocumented White House gay sex worker posing as a jpournalist, the slander against John Kerry?
This is so much more of the old Rove. I don't care if Conyers has erred. I mean PLEASE!!! We are dealing with war criminals who are in this moment committing crimes against humanity. Our society is being dismantled by some very mean humans, we are in desperate danger. Misusing young people hired to work in one's office cannot be equated with these dangers nor can this type of misbehavior be equated with stealing elections, defrauding investors,etc.
I heard some of Ed Schultz and I must say I was reminded of other moments of mistrust I have had with his attitudes. I sometimes wonder where he is coming from.

The transgressions by John Conyers took place years ago the most recent probably two years ago.
How can these errors be displayed on the same stage with lies to start a war, lies about the patriotism of the wounded vet running for congress,the unlimited pass for the undocumented White House gay sex worker posing as a jpournalist, the slander against John Kerry?
This is so much more of the old Rove. I don't care if Conyers has erred. I mean PLEASE!!! We are dealing with war criminals who are in this moment committing crimes against humanity. Our society is being dismantled by some very mean humans, we are in desperate danger. Misusing young people hired to work in one's office cannot be equated with these dangers nor can this type of misbehavior be equated with stealing elections, defrauding investors,etc.
I heard some of Ed Schultz and I must say I was reminded of other moments of mistrust I have had with his attitudes. I sometimes wonder where he is coming from.

Forgive the double post. Long day , heavy hands I guess.

If the Dems take control of the House in November Conyers will become Chair of the Judiciary Committee --- the one that brings forth the article of impeachment...

This is a 'hit' job... by BushCO/mafia...

I try to stay away from speculation, ya know, but I wonder if some of the stuff these generals know and we don't isn't mind-boggling. Of course, it stands to reason that they would be extremely upset to watch their respective military services just fall apart from the rummy bungler. But then, again . . .. Dunno. Fascinating.
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Organized_campaign_seen_in_calls_for_0413.html

I don't know if what they say about Conyers is true or not, I suspect it might be true. Think of the CEO's who have their assistants pick out gifts for wives and/or girlfriends, pick their kids up from school etc. Maybe we need to stop projecting and expecting these people to be perfect and call them all on violations, it's the only way we will ultimately receive honest and ethical leaders. That said, it's almost laughable that they would call Mr. Conyers up on ethics charges in this administration who is openly, from top to bottom, practicing treason and corruption on a daily basis. Don't they have a committee for a "hand slap" when you ask a staffer to pick your kids up? They should, slap Conyers hand and lets get back to addressing treason and corruption

"If the Dems take control of the House in November Conyers will become Chair of the Judiciary Committee --- the one that brings forth the article of impeachment...

This is a 'hit' job... by BushCO/mafia...

Posted by Jo at April 14, 2006 04:00 AM"

Does that mean they are anticipating loss of power?

The Republican smear machine has grown like some star of a monster movie to unsustainable proportions, and taken on a life of its own. They've ruined so many, maybe they are desperate for fodder for this beast. After it has devoured everything in its path it will have no one left but its own creators.

And all the while, this machine has been the only path to their spurious victories. They've grown so dependent on it, any other kind of skill has atrophied. This might prove problematic. I don't think American politics could sink any lower.
If by some incredible quirk of fate, the public trend does shift to something resembling ethics, they will be at a serious loss.