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ABBREVIATIONS FOR SITES I OFTEN STEAL NEWS ITEMS FROM:

u = Progressive Review's Undernews

PUBLIC AFFAIRS/HISTORY READING:
(r) = re-reading

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The Buying of the President 2004: Who's Really Bankrolling Bush and His Democratic Challengers -- and What They Expect in Return

Arrogant Capital

Sam Smith's Great American Political Repair Manual: How to Rebuild Our Country So the Politics Aren't Broken and Politicians Aren't Fixed

American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush

Death in the Air: Globalism, Terrorism & Toxic Warfare

The Velvet Coup: The Constitution, the Supreme Court and the Decline of American Democracy

Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of the Free Press

Amazon Light

Just consider what current events will sound like two thousand years from now -- the greatest nation on Earth bombing some of the smallest and weakest for no clear reasons, people starving in parts of the world while farmers are paid not to plant crops in others, technophiles sitting at home playing electronic golf rahter than the real thing, and police forces ordered to arrest people who simply desire to ingest a psychoactive weed. People of that era will also likely laugh it all off as fantastic myths...

It is time for those who desire true freedom to exert themselves -- to fight back against the forces who desire domination through fear and disunity.

This does not have to involve violence. It can be done in small, simple ways, like not financing that new Sport Utility Vehicle, cutting up all but one credit card, not opting for a second mortgage, turning off that TV sitcom for a good book, asking questions and speaking out in church or synagogue, attending school board and city council meetings, voting for the candidate who has the least money, learning about the Fully Informed Jury movement and using it when called -- in general, taking responsibility for one's own actions. Despite the omnipresent advertising for the Lotto -- legalized government gambling -- there is no free lunch. Giving up one's individual power for the hope of comfort and security has proven to lead only to tyranny.

from Rule by Secrecy by Jim Marrs

You had to take those pieces of paper with you when you went shopping, though by the time I was nine or ten most people used plastic cards. . .It seems so primitive, totemistic even, like cowry shells. I must have used that kind of money myself, a little, before everything went on the Compubank.

I guess that's how they were able to do it, in the way they did, all at once, without anyone knowing beforehand. If there had still been portable money, it would have been more difficult.

It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time.

Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control.

I was stunned. Everyone was, I know that. It was hard to believe. The entire government, gone like that. How did they get in, how did it happen?

That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even an enemy you could put your finger on.

. . . Things continued on in that state of suspended animation for weeks, although some things did happen. Newspapers were censored and some were closed down, for security reasons they said. The roadblocks began to appear, and Identipasses. Everyone approved of that, since it was obvious you couldn't be too careful. They said that new elections would be held, but that it would take some time to prepare for them. The thing to do, they said, was to continue on as usual.

from The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

By the time Oscar reached the outskirts of Washington, DC, The Louisiana air base had benn placed under siege.

The base's electrical power supply had long since been cut off for lack of payment. The aircraft had no fuel. The desperate federal troops were bartering stolen equipment for food and booze. Desertion was rampant. The air base commander had released a sobbing video confession and had shot himself.

Green Huey had lost patience with the long-festering scandal. He was moving in for the kill. Attacking and seizing an federal air base with his loyal state militia would have been entirely too blatant and straightforward. Instead the rogue Governor employed proxy guerrillas.

Huey had won the favor of nomad prole groups by providing them with safe havens. He allowed them to squat in Louisiana's many federally declared contamination zones. These forgotten landscapes were tainted with petrochemical effluent and hormone-warping pesticides, and were hence officially unfit for human settlement. The prole hordes had different opinions on that subject.

Proles cheerfully grouped in any locale where conventional authority had grown weak. Whenever the net-based proles were not constantly harassed by the authorities, they coalesced and grew ambitious. Though easily scattered by focused crackdowns, they regrouped as swiftly as a horde of gnats. With their reaping machines and bio-breweries, they could live off the land at the very base of the food chain. They had no stake in the established order, and they cherished a canny street-level knowledge of society's infrastructural weaknesses. They made expensive enemies. . .

Louisiana's ecologically blighted areas were ideal for proles. The disaster zones were also impromptu wildlife sanctuaries, since wild animals found chemical fouling much easier to survive than the presence of human beings. After decades of wild subtropical growth, Louisiana's toxic dumps were as impenetrable as Sherwood Forest.

from Distraction by Bruce Sterling

and s-integrator

Friday, May 16, 2003

Decent collation of updated links on post-war Iraq & Afghanistan, by the Project on Defense Alternatives

8:41 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Deflation becomes a mainstream thang

Some previous links on the subject.

The last post/link contains the economic dish from Robert Prechter, and you need an account to access it since it's so old. Use -- username: pretalk / password: canvas -- to access CBS Marketwatch.

8:35 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

From Antiwar:

A Saudi dissident claims broad support for al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, and US intel says they've infiltrated nearly all levels of Saudi military and security forces. So why did we invade Iraq -- I forget. . .?

In an atypical burst of defiance, the House Armed Services Committee rejected shrubco's attempt to resurrect nukes as tactical weapons. Meanwhile some Senators are not watching the news -- and have somehow discovered that the situation in Iraq isn't going too well.

From the "Terror = Security" file:

Homeland Security was used to track the AWOL Demos in Texas/Oklahoma.

Portland Police are asking the public to snitch on antiwar protesters.

Have a Happy Safe Weekend.

We'll be watching. . . .

2:45 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

"The metaphors proliferated as the proof evaporated"

Crack NYT "reporter" Judith Miller is consultant for rabid wingnut Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum [GNN]
Miller also at one point had a professional link to publicist and lecture agent Eleana Benador, who, according to The New York Observer, also once represented the Middle East Forum. In "WorkingforChange.com" last October, Bill Berkowitz said that Benador was the media contact for Pipes' May 2000 study that urged a potential U.S. war on Syria. At first Benador denied representing Miller; pressed on the matter, she terminated the call. She subsequently did state that she represented Miller for speaking engagements at one point, but she did not remember when the relationship ended.

Miller's link to Benador is of interest since, as Benador's website indicates, she represents the cream of the war-in-Iraq crop of pundits and speakers, including Richard Perle, James Woolsey and Martin Kramer, the editor of the forum's, "Middle East Quarterly." Another Benador client, the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Ledeen (he occupies the "Freedom Chair"), distinguished himself by his recent statement to Knight Ridder Newspapers that, "Americans believe that peace is normal, but that's not true. Life isn't like that. Peace is abnormal." In a recent National Review Online article, Ledeen wrote that Bush "must insist that we take the battle to the terror masters [in Iran and Syria], extend freedom throughout the region, and thereby win the war." [link added]

8:51 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Christian Science Monitor reporter finds "significant contamination" by DU in Baghdad

8:39 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Micro$oft discounting move against Linux may be illegal in Europe

8:25 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Authorities counter Italian mafia move to use videophones to sway vote

8:08 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sadly, a museum in Cincinnati dedicated to the Underground Railroad of the slave era has become a contentious issue in the city's ongoing racial troubles [History News Network]
"Museums can be healing tools - I've seen it happen," said the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, the civil rights legend who in the '60s transformed the civil rights movement from a Southern skirmish into a national crusade that forced America to examine its soul. The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in his native Alabama has "used the past to change the future" in what once was arguably the most racist city in America, Shuttlesworth said.

But its critics dismiss the museum as a case of misplaced priorities, or a patronizing effort to paper over Cincinnati's deep-seated police-community, economic and racial problems with an image-building "Disneyland on the river." Think of how far the nearly $2 billion in public and private dollars being spent on the museum, two new sports stadiums and other riverfront projects could have gone, they say, toward revitalizing poor inner-city neighborhoods where decent housing and jobs are as elusive as hope.

12:27 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

The 10 Worst Corporations of 2002 [u]

12:03 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Thursday, May 15, 2003

Congress gives Disney's theme parks no-fly status, a first for a corporation -- but not the last, I'm sure [u]

After all, corporations are more important than citizens, right?

11:46 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

"I just wake up in the morning and tell myself, 'There's been a military coup,' and then it all makes sense"

-- a State Dept. official on the Pentagon's "hijacking of foreign policy" [Undernews]

11:36 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

"This is a toxic vaccine. We should only use it in people who need it."

Now shrubco does an about face on smallpox vaccine

11:16 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

"...somebody has to take governments' place, and business seems to me to be a logical entity to do it" - David Rockefeller, 1999

Bilderbergers converge on Versailles

9:56 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Some search referrals
petrochemical & plastic safety slogan
pics of cartoon deserts and cowboys
polygraph paxil
edwin starr's looks and actions
email addresses of cobblers in china 2003
alibris marines support wishlist
television "oil wrestling"
free plastic canvas grid groups
"many uses of urine"
ethnography surveillance retail security
clandestine laboratory pics
Sequoia christian voting employee
lucille ball's poodle
kokomo police snitch list
islamic rap statesmen
high crime rate in cities that have proles and
"refusing to kill gooks"
shrub orwell marijuana kill

8:18 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Wednesday, May 14, 2003

"Citizen reporter" news service Ohmynews big hit in Korea

11:09 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Financial subsidence

John Sinclair and the derivatives bubble
1. They are totally unfunded.

2. Their financial integrity is determined by the balance sheet of the losing side of the derivative if and when called upon to perform.

3. They have no regulator whatsoever.

4. Unregulated markets always attract unregulated people.

5. The original inventors of active derivatives were sent jail in the southern district of New York Federal Court as an award for their invention....

Then again Sinclair's "commodities and foreign currencies trading" aren't what I would call the moral high ground either. . .

3:04 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

More Hersh on shrubco's private "intel" group
The Pentagon group's idea was, essentially: Let's just assume that there is a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq, and let's assume that they have made weapons of mass destruction, and that they're still actively pursuing nuclear weapons and have generated thousands of tons of chemical and biological weapons and not destroyed them. Having made that leap of faith, let's then look at the intelligence the C.I.A. has assembled with fresh eyes and see what we can see. As one person I spoke to told me, they wanted to believe it was there and, by God, they found it.
Also from Cooperative Research -- a fundraising 2-CD music comp.

2:18 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Evidence Flight 93 was brought down by fighter jet suppressed
Susan Mcelwain, 51, who lives two miles from the site, knows what she saw - the white plane rocketed directly over her head.

"It came right over me, I reckon just 40 or 50ft above my mini-van," she recalled. "It was so low I ducked instinctively. It was travelling real fast, but hardly made any sound.

"Then it disappeared behind some trees. A few seconds later I heard this great explosion and saw this fireball rise up over the trees, so I figured the jet had crashed. The ground really shook. So I dialled 911 and told them what happened.

"I'd heard nothing about the other attacks and it was only when I got home and saw the TV that I realised it wasn't the white jet, but Flight 93.
Or is this just more disinfo, and the planes were controlled from the ground?

1:54 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Iraqi TV censored by US [GNN]
U.S. officials made no comment on the censorship allegations. They had earlier said the station would be a welcome change from the Saddam era.

"This is not American propaganda. This is the first time in 25 years Iraqis are getting TV that is not propaganda," said Robert Teasdale, a U.S. adviser to the network.

But North said the U.S.-led administration's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) had requested the station's news programs be reviewed by the wife of Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader and a major figure in the postwar politics of Iraq.

"Could you imagine a political leader being able to check the content of any Western media?" North said.
Oh ~~you mean like the New York Times and the CIA~~ no, never happen here.

1:47 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Is Graham point-man in shrubco bring-down on 9/11 complicity?
Congressional Quarterly's Craig Crawford, who has been covering Graham's crusade closely, told WABC Radio on Tuesday: "I think Bob Graham has a smoking pistol on the Bush administration. The problem is that what [Graham] knows - and he knows some very damaging stuff about the Bush administration's failures before 9/11 to prevent 9/11 - he can't talk about because it's classified."

1:44 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Fascist image-sculptors at Burson-Marsteller to re-tool Chalabi & co [American Samizdat]
The company has represented deposed Romanian despot Nicolae Ceaucescu, the repressive Indonesian and Nigerian governments, Union Carbide after the Bhopal disaster, Monsanto, Phillip Morris and GlaxoSmithKline.

In one notorious incident in the late nineties, B-M published a "study" which calculated that dead smokers actually bring profit to the state treasuries of nations. The "study" provided figures and a press conference was organized in Prague, Czech Republic. The company ended up apologizing to the Czech government after public outcry.

1:40 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

2 lawyers bring 4 key lawsuits on First Amendment violations by D.C. police during protests [American Samizdat]
Two undercover D.C. Police officers have infiltrated local protest groups, an assistant chief testified recently. A federal judge has given the District one month to identify the officers' aliases so plaintiffs can tell whether their rights have been infringed. A city lawyer said the surveillance is necessary not because of suspected criminal activity but because police need to know whether more officers are required for upcoming marches. Two other infiltrators were unmasked by activists, who say one suggested planting bombs on Potomac River bridges.

[...]

The causes vary but the complaints are the same: That the D.C. police collaborate with the FBI and other federal agencies to suppress dissent. And that the police engage in preemptive mass arrests, spying and brutality.

1:35 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Fools who think they can get Congress to look past the next election file:

GAO chief warns on ballooning deficits

Or the average American to look past the weekend.

12:47 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Idiots afoot file:

House ready to approve shrubco initiative to research tactical nukes

This is just too stupid to discuss.

12:43 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Tuesday, May 13, 2003

Cali legislature discusses bill to extend "3 strikes" to corporate crime

3 strikes is a vile idea as it stands, and it would have virtually no effect on the plutocrats anyway.
For the three strikes rule to kick in, the company would have to then be convicted of a felony in a Californian court.

So far that hasn't happened.

In fact, supporters of the bill say they know of only one corporation, Teledyne, that has been convicted of three felonies in a 10 year period, although several others have committed two felonies in that time span.
Not that the little piggies aren't squealing. . .

9:38 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

What a fucking joke file:

Sham "independent" shuttle Columbia investigation committee makes civilian members NASA employees "so the panel can use government secrecy regulations to withhold testimony about the space shuttle disaster"

12:37 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Had to check if this was a hoax file:

59 Texas Demos flee to Oklahoma to protest Republican tax cuts -- and escape arrest
The quorum-busting boycott capped months of tension between Democrats and the newly-in-control Republicans over a bill to limit lawsuits and a GOP budget that would make deep spending cuts without raising taxes.

It also came just before scheduled debate on a congressional redistricting plan Democrats say was forced onto the agenda by Republican leaders in Washington.

GOP House Speaker Tom Craddick locked down the chamber so lawmakers who did show up could not leave. After a roll call, he ordered the missing lawmakers arrested and brought back to the chamber.

12:31 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Monday, May 12, 2003

Christian Aid charity posts list showing how "oil wealth has tended to bleed away into the pockets of officials, soldiers and other elites, warping a country's development and far too often leaving its citizens in poverty"

9:40 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Blair Cabinet member quits in protest of UK position on Iraq rebuilding

9:37 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Conspiracy Con 2003 speaker line-up

May 24-25 in the Bay area.

12:20 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Daily Russian atrocities in Chechnya

12:07 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sunday, May 11, 2003

Sharon under cloud of corruption allegations

11:53 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

"We came to bear country, we came loaded for bear and we found out the bear wasn't here."

US gives up search for WMD in Iraq, team sent home

No mention of this at all on the home page or "World" page of CNN's site (the latter has a pic of Powell shaking a smiling Sharon's hand); MSNBC has it listed 6th under "Top Stories," linking to the WaPo story.

Nothing on the New York Times home page either.

10:16 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

bushoccupation.com [ex-lion tamer]

1:12 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

A book club unites urban and suburban parents exploring racial tensions
It isn't that they haven't talked about racism before. It's their third meeting, and they're getting used to it.

But the book club is the only one of its kind in a part of the country as segregated today as it was at the start of the civil rights movement, where 10 parents from Boston and 10 from the suburbs are discovering, through the books they are reading and the stories they are sharing, just how different their experiences really are.

Without this group, the parents' only connection would be through their children, who attend the same elementary schools in Needham - a small, affluent, mostly white suburb an hour outside Boston.

The inner-city parents send their children to this suburb through METCO, Boston's voluntary busing system, in the hopes that they might get a better education. Many parents in Needham laud the program; without it, their own kids would be raised in schools with little diversity.

But, the parents realized, if their children are already dealing with the complexities of integration as early as elementary school, then they themselves have some catching up to do.

12:44 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

REVIEWS

from Sassafrass (9/23/02)
"Unconventional viewpoints at 'charging the canvas'

Opinions that will ruffle feathers, from someone who clearly knows their way around information and the blogosphere."

Blog of the Day
1/18/02

WEEKLY QUOTE

In the eyes of posterity it will inevitably seem that, in safeguarding our freedom, we destroyed it; that the vast clandestine apparatus we built up to probe our enemies' resources and intentions only served in the end to confuse our own purposes; that the practice of deceiving others for the good of the state led infallibly to our deceiving ourselves; and that the vast army of intelligence personnel built up to execute these purposes were soon caught up in the web of their own sick fantasies, with disastrous consequences to them and us.

-- Malcolm Muggeridge

Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.

-- Mark Twain

NOT IN OUR NAME
(link to list against Iraq War)

CULTURE LINK

Philip K. Dick

DEEPER NEWS LINK

PR Watch

charging the canvas

The Link Section