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News that Caught My Eye

News that Caught My Eye

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But eventually let it go….

A child diagnosed with autism every 20 minutes? I have to wonder at what point and for what reasons doctors started giving so many vaccines at once anyway. How would they be able to determine which of the vaccines caused a negative reaction if there was a problem? And parents – are adults so cowed by physician authority that that would so easily allow so many shots at one visit? I refused that plan for psychological reasons. One, two – that’s fine. But three, four, five, six? That’s too much for a baby or little child. Ben never had more than two vaccines in a single visit. It’s just too much. I always suspected that so many vaccines at once might have created immune-system overload, too – just too much information at once. The question of preservatives (possibly with mercury?) raised the bar – all the more reason not to create a toxic load.

Here’s an interesting interview about one of my pet peeves. Doesn’t it just make sense that our diet ought not to rely so heavily upon foods that never rot? What about moderation in all things? I favor a varied diet. I tend to use olive oil or butter, not margarine or sprays. I prefer whole milk, and I use real unbleached sugar. I’m not an earthy-crunchy fanatic – I also eat some junk food and some fake food. But don’t offer me any of that non-dairy cream or no-calorie candy. I’ll drink a Coke – but not a diet Coke. I eat what I want – in moderation. I have deep suspicions about what some of the chemicals do to our bodies.

So, President Bush is going to veto the anti-torture bill that has passed both the Senate and the House? I don’t know how Republicans maintain this mythology about how they are the patriotic party…

Job Loss for February Much Higher than the 63,000: The actual employment report suggests “a comprehensive job loss of 113,000 and in terms of dollars earned, a whole lot more.” They’ve been misrepresenting these numbers for a while now. If you lose a professional job and take a part-time position at Walmart or Home Depot, you don’t affect the job numbers at all as far as I can see…

Defense contractor United Technologies has made a sudden buyout offer for the Diebold company, at 66% more than the current stock value. In the face of Diebold’s refusal, United is insisting that the deal will go through in 60 days. “Hmmm. Defense contractor attempts a takeover of the major manufacturer of hackable voting machines with the stated plan of closing the deal before the November national elections. What could their intention possibly be?”

On December 20, 2007, President Bush signed routine postal legislation. In a “Signing Statement”, the President claims Executive Power to search the mail of U.S. citizens inside the United States without a warrant, in direct contradiction of the bill he had just signed. As a people, we seem beyond twitching an eyelash over items like these. Sigh.

Some people are starting to do more than twitch, however. The military recruiting station in Times Square was bombed. The news reports say that the bomber was on a blue 10-speed bike, wearing a hooded sweatshirt and dark pants. I’ve read a lot of theories, but personally I’ve been wondering about whether it might have been an Iraq veteran – no-one else would have more reason, or more skill. The target was pretty specific, with only property damage; in other words, it was a statement, not an attack. There are some efforts to tie the event with Canada border crossing incident in which a backpack containing a picture of Times Square was left behind. I think that’s pushing it… I would be very surprised if it wasn’t an American, but we’ll see how the investigation goes. Meanwhile, start rolling your eyes now. On Fox News (where else?) the infamous Oliver North was given a forum for his opinion on the matter. It’s all Pelosi’s fault. Uh-huh…

Right-wing misogyny is raising its head evident in the latest attempt to control the sexuality of the American female. Amanda Marcotte’s post on The Great Texas Dildo Wars is a must-read. “So this is completely, 100 percent about babies. No misogyny, control issues or wariness of female sexuality has any part to play in this.”

Don’t miss Colbert video on the AT&Treason immunity deal. It’s deliciously fun.

Last, there is the latest Iraq cost sheet:

U.S. military killed in Iraq: 3,973
Number of U.S. troops wounded in combat since the war began: 29,203
Iraqi Security Force deaths: 7,924
Iraqi civilians killed: Estimates range from 81,632-1,120,000

Internally displaced refugees in Iraq: 3.4 million
Iraqi refugees living abroad: 2.2-2.4 million
Iraqi refugees admitted to the U.S.: 3,222

Number of U.S. soldiers in Iraq: 155,000
Number of “Coalition of the Willing” soldiers in Iraq:
February 2008: 9,895
September 2006: 18,000
November 2004: 25,595

Army soldiers in Iraq who have served two or more tours: 74%
Number of Private Military Contractors in Iraq: 180,000
Number of Private Military Contractors criminally prosecuted by the U.S. government for violence or abuse in Iraq: 1
Number of contract workers killed: 917

What the Iraq war has created, according to the U.S. National Intelligence Council: “A training and recruitment ground (for terrorists), and an opportunity for terrorists to enhance their technical skills.”

Effect on al Qaeda of the Iraq War, according to International Institute for Strategic Studies: “Accelerated recruitment”

The bill so far: $526 billion
Cost per day: $275 million
Cost per household: $4,100
The estimated long-term bill: $3 trillion

What $526 billion could have paid for in the U.S. in one year:
Children with health care: 223 million or
Scholarships for university students: 86 million or
Head Start places for children: 72 million

Cost of 22 days in Iraq could safeguard our nation’s ports from attack for ten years.
Cost of 18 hours in Iraq could secure U.S. chemical plants for five years.

Iraqi Unemployment level: 25-40%
*U.S. unemployment during the Great Depression: 25%
70% of the Iraqi population is without access to clean water.
80% is without sanitation.
90% of Iraq’s 180 hospitals lack basic medical and surgical supplies.

79% of Iraqis oppose the presence of Coalition Forces.
78% of Iraqis believe things are going badly in Iraq overall.
64% of Americans oppose the war in Iraq.

Voted

Voted

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Voted in DeKalb Country in the Georgia primary today.

I’d like to wave good bye to Gov. “Let’s castrate the dogs under the Confederate flag” Perdue.

I felt tainted just touching the Diebold machine.

There were only 4 other people voting, one of them my hubby, in a room with about 20 machines.

Liar Liar – What more proof?

Liar Liar – What more proof?

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Yesterday I wrote a very long and detailed post on the Plame leak situation. It had quotations and it had links. It had the whole history, the timeline, and it had several compelling points. Just as I was about to publish it, a site in another window crashed my browser. Bummer. I have really got to start writing these things offline. I’m just too disheartened to reconstruct the whole blasted thing. Since you can easily look up everything to do with it, I’ll just contribute my own thoughts to the public conversation.

I believe that Plame was outed intentionally, which is a felony crime if not outright treason. Either Cheney or Bush authorized it. I actually suspect that it was Cheney (with Rove?), and that the official story is a backdated version for coverup purposes. The outing of Plame was meant to punish Plame’s husband (Wilson) for stating the truth – and it was also a message to the intelligence community that they had better give them the “intelligence” that is wanted, rather than assessing reality.

Although people within the administration knew that Bush’s claims weren’t true – and there were efforts to remove them (including by Tenet), these claims kept getting re-added to Bush’s State of the Union speech, which was delivered. It was just one of the ways in which Americans were manipulated – playing on their fears to drum up support for our illegal and unethical invasion of Iraq. This has proven to be a disaster, and all of the people who were demonized for speaking their minds at the time have been proven correct. We took over in Iraq for reasons that will become abundantly clear in future, if they aren’t clear enough to you already (hint – permanent bases on the oil pipeline, Cheney’s secret energy meetings, Enron, Halliburton, record oil profits, corruption, fraud…).

Neither American lives nor Iraqi lives (remember, we’re “rescuing” them?) matter enough to this administration for them even to answer the basic question of what cause our soldiers are fighting for. Modus operandi: when in doubt, change the subject – when in doubt, use doublespeak – when in doubt, use your media assets or run commericals as news – when in doubt, change the “reason” we’re there – when in doubt, hide everything. If they had nothing to hide, we’d be getting a lot more information instead of being under surveillance ourselves.

To claim that “declassifying” Plame and leaking her CIA status to their kiss-butt reporter friends (remember, it wasn’t a White House press release) was in the interests of national security is an outright lie.

Tell me – how does disrupting a valuable source of intelligence, undoubtedly along with others who could be tied to her, help our national security? Isn’t it obvious that it is actually a serious breach of our national security? I wonder how many people died as a direct result, and how much real intelligence has been squandered. It is a felony for good reason.

When he was asked about this leak, he stood up and said he’d get to the bottom of it, that whoever was responsible would be fired. Fire Cheney and yourself, Mr. President. Resign. If there wasn’t anything wrong with what your administration did, you would have explained yourself at the time, not years later when Libby was in court.

Oh wait, we still haven’t really gotten an explanation from the mouth of the king. His sycophant messengers have just given us some spin, that’s all.

Whatever voting machines haven’t been hijacked yet will tell you our judgment – if that matters anymore. We’ve seen what the interests of the American people mean to you – that is, nothing at all.

Take a good look around. Our land and water are being polluted. Corporate interests are all but writing our laws. Our system isn’t functioning – ask people from New Orleans, ask people who have to face new interest rates, ask people who are working part-time in more than one job, ask people trying to navigate Medicare and Medicaid, ask the children who are left behind or who graduate from our schools with a substandard education. Many people who believe they are religious have been hookwinked into following false prophets who would like to see this country turned from the land of the free into a pseudo-christian theocracy – money-grubbers of hate and corruption are even attempting to start ’em young with home schooling and bible classes in the public schools. People openly assert claims of empire and world domination. Now you’re deliberating whether we might use nukes on Iran? So what, we’re worse than Hussein now? Wasn’t that the ultimate no-no? Oh, and didn’t you just make a deal on that very topic? What was that all about?

I’m watching to see what happens in November. We know about the election fraud, the hidden programming in the voting machines. We know that even now Diebold technicians are making the rounds. With popularity in the 30-40 percent range, it would be very strange if the Republicans retained control of both houses, wouldn’t it?

So what’s on the menu? Planning to blow up a few more towers? Maybe a Bin Laden sighting in Chicago? A nuclear meltdown in Florida? A small dirty bomb in some suburban neighborhood?

Contact your congresspeople – it’s time for them to show some spine. We still – so far – have only the soft version of fascism. There is still a chance to use our democratic system the way it was intended.

Wherever you are, do whatever you can – while you still can.

How can anyone still support this President, this Vice-President, these cronies of theirs? What more proof do you need?

Vote. Vote. Vote.

Criminal Source and Accountability

Criminal Source and Accountability

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Cozy with the Bush administration, Judith Miller may go to jail to protect their leakers (Rove and whoever is intended eventually to take the fall for his action – wherever will they find another Ollie North?). Normally I would be on the side of journalists to protect their anonymous sources, but in this case it is obstruction of justice to do so. I don’t think journalists should be accomplices to all this, and I don’t believe that’s what investigative journalism is all about. Of course, I don’t see a whole lot of investigative journalism anymore. There seems to be more of the “verbatim recitation of press release” style – not much in the way of helping the public to make even the most basic distinctions. Throw a few images together and you can make anything look like anything – like the falling statue of Hussein – let’s see a pan-out of the whole square, the context.

Ironically, Judith Miller says she is going to jail to defend “a free press” – could it be more absurd? What a strange Orwellian precedent! Watch for it to be used in future.

So anyway, “Bioterrorism Judy” has to decide which is worse – go to jail or risk the wrath of her sponsors/sources/demons/whatever they are. She was instrumental in spreading the word that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. I actually read her book while I was writing my dissertation, so I think I understand how she could have been pulled in…

Meanwhile her colleague somehow walks. Very strange.

I wonder what “reporter’s notes” were actually turned over and how the corporation would even have those notes to begin with?

Outing the classified information of Plame as a CIA agent is in fact an act of treason under the law. Her work, and the work of others was hopelessly compromised and their lives were endangered (and perhaps even lost, how would we know?) because of this spiteful act. We could have used them to get better intelligence, to better protect the USA. That this was done in a sneaky way, and simply to punish her husband’s truth-telling to power (he was right about there being no WMDs, remember?) simply underlines the unethical quality of this administration. Hypocrites – whispering to the press to manipulate us, while publically condemning leaks. Please.

Meanwhile, there is simply no accountability of the governing to the governed. No-one from on higher up has even been held responsible for the war crimes in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo – and if Alberto G. comes up for nomination, just remember who crafted the new policies for torture. Can you still call this a democracy or even, as my few remaining conservative friends remind me, a “representative republic”? Wake up sheeple!

We still have mechanisms in this contry to change things. Don’t let it get to the point of revolution. Before the 2006 election, we need to take control of our electoral apparatus. Review the new information at http://www.blackboxvoting.org about the voting machine as a “a house with an unlockable revolving door.”