Let's talk

FIRST - Our Government

Let me tell you...Republican, Democrat, it doesn't matter. Our political system is in shambles. It is true; our 2 party system amounts to 1 party. We're getting nowhere. I have to say perhaps we're better with the likes of Jesse "the mind" Ventura, Pat Buchanan, Ralph Nader, etc. (personally, I vote for Ventura).

Please folks, weigh in.

To continue....

Public schools - who believes they are worthwhile? I assume no one does. What I found most disturbing in school was not the fact that college was easy, nor the fact that people were semi-illiterate, no, it was the fact that the people I saw had no critical thinking skills. It took a philosophy class to open my eyes. Specifically, it was the "philosophy of Ethics" class. Yes, it was a sad situation; people had no idea how to think...Disgusting.

Weigh in.

Thanks

Spin as you'd like, but coincidence is highly unlikely

As I am always quick to mention...driving around will kill you before anything

By Ryan Singel| Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Sep, 11, 2006

Sept. 11, 2001 was undoubtedly one of the darkest and deadliest days in United States history. Al-Qaida's attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center killed 2,976 people, and the country recoiled in horror as we witnessed the death of thousands of Americans when the towers fell.

In the five years since that shattering day, the government has spent billions on anti-terrorism projects, instituted a color-coded alert system that has never been green, banned fingernail clippers and water bottles from airplanes, launched a pre-emptive war on false pretenses, and advised citizens to stock up on duct tape and plastic sheeting.

But despite the never-ending litany of warnings and endless stories of half-baked plots foiled, how likely are you, statistically speaking, to die from a terrorist attack?

Comparing official mortality data with the number of Americans who have been killed inside the United States by terrorism since the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma reveals that scores of threats are far more likely to kill an American than any terrorist -- at least, statistically speaking.

In fact, your appendix is more likely to kill you than al-Qaida is.

With that in mind, here's a handy ranking of the various dangers confronting America, based on the number of mortalities in each category throughout the 11-year period spanning 1995 through 2005 (extrapolated from best available data).

S E V E R E Driving off the road: 254,419 Falling: 146,542 Accidental poisoning: 140,327

H I G H Dying from work: 59,730 Walking down the street: 52,000. Accidentally drowning: 38,302

E L E V A T E D Killed by the flu: 19,415 Dying from a hernia: 16,742

G U A R D E D Accidental firing of a gun: 8,536 Electrocution: 5,171

L O W Being shot by law enforcement: 3,949 Terrorism: 3147 Carbon monoxide in products: 1,554

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Sources: National Highway and Safety Agency (.pdf), National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 50, No. 15 (09/16/2002) (.pdf), US Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Insurance Information Institute.

1927, 2006: History repeats itself?

Drowning of New Orleans »

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THE YEAR THE LEVEES BROKE

Published by Greg Palast August 24th, 2006 in Articles

By Greg Palast in New Orleans

What is the unreported cause of the majority of the 2,000 deaths that occurred after the levees broke last year on August 29? Catch Greg Palast’s investigative expose this Monday on Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! And on Tuesday, watch his one-hour Special on LinkTV. Listings at LinkTV.org.

The Year the Levees Broke

America went through a terrible year. The levees broke in New Orleans. When bodies floated in the streets, the Republican Congress saw an opportunity for more tax cuts and consolidation of the corporatopia they had created for their moneyed donors. The Democratic Party was clueless, written off, politically at death’s door.

The year was 1927.

Back then, when the levees broke, America awoke. Public anger rose in a floodtide, and in that year, the USA entered its most revolutionary period since 1776. The thirty-four-year-old utility commissioner of Louisiana, Huey P. Long, conceived of a plan to rebuild his state based on a radical program of redistributing wealth and power. The ambitious Governor of New York, Franklin D. Roosevelt, adopted it, and later named it The New Deal. America got rich and licked Hitler. It was our century.

It’s 1927 again.

But this time, the Haves and Have-Mores have something better for you than a New Deal. They are offering “opportunity” — a lottery ticket instead of a guarantee. Like double-or-nothing in the stock market instead of Social Security — will the suckers go for it? There’s one born every minute. I can’t believe they’re the majority, but at last count, they numbered over 59 million. And they vote.

Years from now, in Guantanamo or in a refugee relocation “Enterprise Zone,” your kids will ask you, “What did you do in the Class War, Daddy?” We may have to admit that conquest and occupation happened before we could fire off a shot.

The trick of class war is not to let the victims know they’re under attack. That’s how, little by little, the owners of the planet take away what little we have.

On Tuesday, your President, George W. Bush, will return to New Orleans, on the anniversary of the levee breach.

There is nothing new under the sun. A Republican president going for the photo op as the Mississippi rolls over New Orleans. It was 1927, and President Calvin Coolidge sent Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, “a little fat man with a notebook in his hand,” who mugged for the cameras and promised to build the city a wall of protection. They had their photos taken. Then they left to play golf with Ken Lay or, rather, the Ken Lay railroad baron equivalent of his day.

In 1927, the Democratic Party had died and was awaiting burial.
As The Depression approached, the coma-Dems, like Franklin Roosevelt, called for, of all things, balancing the budget.

Then, as the Mississippi waters rose, one politician, the state’s electricity regulator, stood up on the back of a flatbed truck rigged with loudspeakers, and said, roughly,

“Listen up! They’re lying! The President’s lying! The rich fat jackals that are drowning you will do it again and again and again. They lead you into imperialist wars for profit, they take away your schools and your hope, and when you complain, they blame Blacks and Jews and immigrants. Then they drown your kids. I say, Kick’m in the ass and take your share of the wealth you created.”

Huey Long was our Hugo Chavez, and he laid out a plan: a progressive income tax, real money for education, public works to rebuild Louisiana and America, Social Security old age pensions, veterans benefits, regulation of the big utility holding companies, an end to what he called, “rich men’s wars,” and an end to the financial royalism of the elite One Percent.

Huey Long even had the audacity to suggest that the poor’s votes should count, calling for the end to the poll tax four decades before Martin Luther King succeeded in ending it. Long recorded his motto as a musical anthem: “Everyman a King.” The waters receded, the anger did not, and, in 1928, Huey “Kingfish” Long was elected Governor of Louisiana.

At the time, Louisiana schools were free, but not the textbooks. The elite liked it that way, but Long didn’t. To pay for the books, the Kingfish levied a special tax on Big Oil. But the oil companies refused to pay for the textbooks. Governor Long then ordered the National Guard to seize the oil fields in the Delta.

It was Huey Long who established the principle that a government of the people must protect the people, school them, build the infrastructure, regulate industry and share the nation’s wealth — and that meant facing down “the concentrations of monopoly power” of the corporate aristocracy — “the thieves of Wall Street,” as he called them.

In other words, Huey Long founded the modern Democratic Party.

FDR and the party establishment, scared witless of Long’s ineluctable march to the White House, adopted his program, albeit diluted, called it the New Deal and later the New Frontier and the Great Society. America and the party prospered.

What happened to the Kingfish? The oil industry and local oligarchs had few options for responding to Governor Long’s populist appeal and the success of his egalitarian economic program. On September 8, 1935, Huey Long, by then a U.S. Senator,
was shot dead. He was 42.

It’s 1927 again.

**********
Excerpted from Greg Palast’s just-released New York Times bestseller, “ARMED MADHOUSE: Who’s Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal ‘08, No Child’s Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War.” Go to www.GregPalast.com.

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From FARK - The headline says it all

Arab-American woman opens a can whoopass on Al-Jazeera - hosts don't rallize what whoopass is until it is too late

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30p / 10:30c

The Colbert Report: James Webb

Stephen interviews former Secretary of the Navy turned novelist turned U.S. Senate candidate James Webb.

Very interesting read about George Bush and war in the Mid-East....George H.W. Bush 1990 that is

New York Times Articles

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...And the Horrors of a Desert War

September 23, 1990
Page E21

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ARLINGTON, Va. — President Bush has not only embarked on his own voyage into the Persian Gulf, that Bermuda Triangle of Presidencies. Unlike his two immediate predecessors, he has dragged more than a hundred thousand of our troops with him. And as the President struggles at home, our troops have been learning to cope with a sun that can melt electrical wiring, sand so fine that few filters can keep it out of gear boxes and a growing ennui that seeps through even the most careful monitoring of the press corps.

The debate over our role in the Persian Gulf crisis has focused on national, rather than specific military goals. The fundamental questions, upon which all others inevitably rest, have not been addressed. Why did we send such a huge contingent of ground troops in the first place? And under what conditions are we going to use them or bring them home?

Answers are not forthcoming. Military officials intimate that the question would expose tactical options. Administration officials talk in vague terms: Defense Secretary Cheney is telling us to prepare for a commitment that may take years. Others have been quoted as saying we may be there for a decade. At the same time we are being reassured, amidst many loud calls to initiate a war with Iraq, that the U.S. military commitment is wholly defensive.

As one who opposed the Reagan Administration's overt tilt toward Iraq which caused the Persian Gulf problems in 1987 and 1988, I have no desire to give consolation to Saddam Hussein now that he is getting the attention he deserves. But if our experience since World War II tells us anything, it is that justifiable national goals are too frequently lost through unfocused and ineffective military policy. And the strongest likelihood is that our ground buildup in Saudi Arabia is the product not of conscious strategy, but of an initial overreaction that compounds itself with the arrival of every C-5 transport.

The Kuwaiti dilemma is not new. This is the third time since 1961 that Iraq has asserted, militarily, its claim to Kuwaiti territory. As such, positioning U.S. aviation units into Saudi Arabia with ground forces to defend them as appropriate as a short-term guarantee of Saudi sovereignty. But the huge buildup of forces began after it became clear that Iraq had no military design on Saudi Arabia. And couple with escalating rhetoric, it has created an intractable siege, with the survival of the President Bush, as well as Saddam Hussein, handing in the balance.

The U.S., whose interests in the region are far less than Kuwait's, Saudi Arabia's, Israel's, Europe's and Japan's, is carrying the overwhelming burden. True, others are involved in small scale -- the Egyptians, who stand to benefit to the tune of at least $7 billion in forgiven debts, the Syrians, traditional enemies of Iraq, who are sending a few thousand soldiers, other Arab nations whose royal families are also threatened, European and other allies who are throwing in a ship or two here, and a military unit there. We appear to have traded the promise of greater economic help to the Soviets for Mikhail Gorbachev's rather noncommittal statement of support.

And now we are out on the international hustings, asking for financial contributions for our effort. Mr. Bush hastens to assure us that this does not make our soldiers mercenaries, but anyone with a relative or loved one in Saudi Arabia will quickly argue that this is not a fair trade.

And what is the impact, strategically, of the introduction of all these ground forces? In grand sum, it can only be judged as negative.

Those who have called for massive, pre-emptive air strikes against Iraq must now contemplate the detriment of tens of thousands of American soldiers within range of Iraqi chemical weapons, as well as possible terrorist attacks from Iraq and now Iran.

Those who worry about the possibility of crisis in other parts of the world must recognize that a large percentage of American maneuver forces -- including as much as half of the Marine Corps -- are tied down in the waiting game in the desert.

Those who believe we should use these forces offensively should realize that this would galvanize the Arab world, invite chemical retaliation and an expansion of the hostilities, produce great numbers of casualties and encourage worldwide terrorism -- in short, open up a Pandora's box.

This is not to say that our soldiers and marines would not fight well. The Iraqi army is not a very good army; it is also war-weary. But it demonstrated against Iran the time-honored maxim that the armies of totalitarian nations are capable of absorbing huge losses -- recall the 3.7 million German soldiers who died in World War II, and the million Communist soldiers who died in the Vietnam war.

The President should be aware that, while most Americans are laboring very hard to support him, a mood of cynicism is just beneath their veneer of respect. Many are claiming that the buildup is little more than a "Pentagon budget drill," designed to preclude cutbacks of an Army searching for a mission as bases in NATO begin to disappear.

Others wonder about the predominance of Texans in the Administration, and the dual benefit that higher oil prices will bring to the Southwest: a more robust economy and the concomitant salvation of many S.&L.'s. Others, myself included, worry greatly about a military commitment that has taken on a momentum of its own -- or perhaps a hidden strategy.

General Colin Powell is said to have advised the President that the U.S. should take this sort of military action or it would no longer be a superpower. This calls to mind the Suez Crisis of 1956, after Egyptian leader Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. The British were reeling from a budget affected by the military costs of maintaining the Empire. The Suez Canal was vital for transporting oil. And Anthony Eden, the British Prime Minister who had great antipathy toward Nasser for his anti-British rhetoric, wanted him "destroyed."

Britain went forward, largely to preserve its place at the table of the great powers, drawing in the French and the Israelis. Their attack sputtered in the desert. The U.S., their banker, threatened to withhold support for the British pound if they did not cease their invasion. The Soviets moved into Hungary. And sure enough, when the dust settled, Britain was no longer a great power.

Too much is at risk, and too many questions remain for this buildup to continue without the Administration clarifying its direction. And if offensive action is in the cards, it should be taken only after the President receives a declaration of war from the Congress.

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James Webb, Secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration, was a Marine platoon and company commander in Vietnam.

Is this one of the Phoenix "Serial Shooter" suspects

I was doing some looking on google after the news came out. Looks like the shooter was also shooting photos of boxers (and more). Below is from his website. I didn't find any other Dale Hausners in Phoenix. (If anyone knows otherwise, and I got it all wrong let me know)

DALE HAUSNER'S BOXING AND MORE!

Dale Hausner with Middleweight Champion Bernard Hopkins

Welcome to my website!

I am a photographer in the Phoenix Arizona area, and have been for many years. I am experienced in weddings, birthday parties, dances, family photo shoots as well as one on one photography. Prices start at $60 for shoots for family portraits and $200 for weddings and parties. Please call for a free quote. Call a competitor first...then call me.

YouTube - Video Israel Doesn't Want You to See

YouTube - Video Israel Doesn't Want You to See: "Video Israel Doesn't Want You to See