Sunday, September 30, 2007
22 WAYS TO BE A GOOD DEMOCRAT:
1. You have to be against capital punishment, but support abortion on demand.
2. You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity.
3. You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans are more of a threat than U.S. Nuclear weapons technology in the hands of Chinese and North Korean communists.
4. You have to believe that there was no art before Federal funding.
5. You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical documented changes in the earth's climate and more affected by soccer moms driving SUV's.
6. You have to believe that gender roles are artificial but being homosexual is natural.
7. You have to believe that the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of federal funding.
8. You have to believe that the same teacher who can't teach fourth graders how to read is somehow qualified to teach those same kids about sex
9. You have to believe that hunters don't care about nature, but loony activists who have never been outside of San Francisco do.
10. You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn it.
11. You have to believe that Mel Gibson spent $25 million of his own money to make "The Passion of the Christ" for financial gain only.
12. You have to believe the NRA is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is good because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.
13. You have to believe that taxes are too low, but ATM fees are too high.
14. You have to believe that Margaret Sanger and Gloria Steinem are more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Edison, and A.G. Bell.
15. You have to believe that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas and set-asides are not.
16. You have to believe that Hillary Clinton is normal and is a very nice person.
17. You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried is because the right people haven't been In charge.
18. You have to believe conservatives telling the truth belong in jail, but a liar and a sex offender belonged in the White House.
19. You have to believe that homosexual parades displaying drag, transvestites, and bestiality should be constitutionally protected, and manger scenes at Christmas should be illegal.
20. You have to believe that illegal Democrat Party funding by the Chinese Government is somehow in the best interest to the United States .
21. You have to believe that this message is a part of a vast, right wing conspiracy.
22. You have to believe that it's okay to give Federal workers the day off on Christmas Day but it's not okay to say "Merry Christmas."
Ready to vote???
H/T Richard Smith
This is a turnrepost
Good Grief!
Topless (and not in Seattle)
ARRGH
I say if you want to get attention don't force people to look away.I saw something similar in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1994. I couldn't for the life of me tell you what that demonstraion was about. It put me off conjugals with my 28 year old wife for a week.
I'm no prude--I enjoy looking at pretty women. This just makes me want to watch the sidewalk in front of me. Is there no one to advise these ill-advised persons?
This a stomach-turning turnpost
Moments
Are these what have come to define my life?
No. Not just the attack of September 11, 2001.
November 22, 1963: It was two weeks to the day after my 9th birthday. The principal broke in on the 4th grade classroom's loudspeaker to announce an assembly--not in the auditorium/gymnasium but in the front courtyard. When the school had gathered with the flag overhead we were told that President Kennedy had been shot and later pronounced dead. The flag was lowered to half-staff and we had early dismissal. I walked the half-mile home in a childish state of bewilderment. Minutes later my sister, a senior in H.S., came home and burst into tears.
It was my first encounter with evil.
_____________________________________
I've been following the runup to this event for weeks mostly at Gates of Vienna but an Aussie Blogger beat even the Baron at posting the results.
Scary[Hit the link for some very good photos]
Arrests at Brussels Islam protest
BRUSSELS, Belgium: Police arrested two leaders of a Belgian far-right party Tuesday for staging an illegal protest against the "Islamization of Europe," six years to the day after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
Police scuffled with some of the 200 people who converged on two squares in the EU district of Brussels to protest against what they perceived as the rise of Islam as a significant political force across Europe. Officers handcuffed two leaders of the far-right Flemish Interest Party, which is very critical of Muslim immigrants, and took them away in police vans.
Protesters sought to use the Sept. 11 anniversary to point out that Islam threatens democracy and the rule of law in Europe.
The demonstration was initially planned by Stop Islamization of Europe, a loose alliance with roots in Germany, Britain and Denmark, which had predicted that 20,000 people would come to Brussels from all over Europe.
Brussels Mayor Freddy Thielemans banned the protest last month, calling SIOE an inflammatory group and its proposed demonstration a threat to public order. An appeals court upheld the ban Aug. 29.
Only 200 or so protesters showed up Tuesday for a protest lasting only 30 minutes. The demonstrators faced more than 100 police, backed up by water cannons and helicopters, who closed off streets around the EU headquarters.
This guy , Shiva, gets it. Following are his brief but eloquent closing remarks:
This is scary,He's referring to the 'modoggie' art of Lars Vilks, a Swedish artist. There's a boatload of modoggie info at Gates of Vienna.
from a population of 490,426,060 only 200 or so protesters showed up Tuesday for a protest lasting only 30 minutes.
Yet a few weeks ago several hundred muslims showed up to protest about a few drawings in a Swedish town, that most people had never heard of before.
UPDATE with video from yesterday.
Still pix are followed by video
________________________________________________
The following 16 years saw me facing mostly the petty evils of childhood's transition to young adulthood. There were other assassinations--Dr. King followed by Robert Kennedy--and other far-away evils--the massacre at My Lai (all this in the first half of 1968, BTW) and the Munich Olympics massacre of 1972--but they were far-away events and meant little to me.
November 4, 1979: I was with Manny's band in a week long engagement at a supper club in Pennsylvania. I returned to my hotel room well-pleased after getting a fine deal on a pair of Nunn Bush dress loafers (PA has no sales tax on apparel) when I flipped on the TV to learn of the Embassy takeover.
I was just days away from attaining the quarter-century mark when 'students' attacked and captured the US embassy in Tehran. By this time I had shed the teenage liberalism inspired by the antiwar movement and understood better what was at stake. This was an act of war and that peanut farmer better do something and quickly.
But no. As the US fell deeper into our national malaise one failed rescue attempt was mounted but it would take an election to end the 444 days of nightmare.
In hindsight I wonder if the stated hatred of Carter for giving safe haven to the Shah had less to do with the timing of the hostages' release--Inauguration Day, 1981--than some less-than-veiled threats of the incoming administration's intentions.
__________________________________________
I had to give the counter demonstration to September 9th's Muslim Day Parade a pass.
But the mighty Atlas of Atlas Shrugs fame represents for me and many, many others.
So I headed downtown on the #6 and who should jump on my train with a ton of signage? Joe Kaufman. How cool is that? Got to the staging area and the Islamazis were already set up across the street from us. If there is one thing that is obvious, it is the Islamazis are emboldened, empowered and "will not be stopped." There is a very palpable self confidence.WARNING! Video is noisy and features (throat clearing sound) spirited singing. Go Pamela!
________________________________________
My "antennae of evil" is now well lit.
The following years see the outrages that define the last 25 years. From the airplane hijack related execution of my fellow Marylander Robert Stethem to the cruise ship hijack and subsequent murder by throwing overboard in his frikkin wheelchair of Leon Klinghoffer. Near simultaneous bombings at airports in Vienna, Austria and Rome, Italy.The first Intifada as I begin my international career. Four years on and the first World Trade Center attack takes place on Friday (Muslim 'sabbath'), February 26, 1993. I don't learn of it until my ship reaches port in San Juan and I open the local paper at a Hooters while waiting for my wings order.
__________________________________________
The next years feature the debacle in Mogadishu ('93), Bosnia ('93-'96), Khobar towers bombing ('96), embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya ('98) and the USS Cole in October, 2000.
Moments upon moments
___________________________________________
September 11, 2001, is still more vivid to me than the births of my children.
How fucking sick is that?
I roused before 7 A.M. and fixed breakfast (oatmeal) for the turnettes and turnson. The Queen of Seoul dropped the twins at kindergartren on her way to work and I was alone with our son. It was an absolutely glorious, cloudless late-summer day in the northeast.
(I wasn't working. I mean that on multiple levels. For over a year my young and dynamic physician had tried a host of diagnostic tests to find the source of my exhaustion. He finally ordered a sleep test and I was found to be suffering from profound sleep apnea, a condition that renders a person unable to get decent sleep.
But it was too damn late and the Q of S had made her decision. I was a 'losing proposition'.
(There was a significant uptick in the divorce rate following 9/11.)
7:51 A.M. My morning radio show reports an airplane has struck the WTC. I turn on the TV.
(I remember that a rather large military plane flew into the Empire State building in fog during WWII.)
I call Q of S at work and tell her to get close to a TV.
A fraction of an hour later witness the 2nd plane hitting the north tower.
This is now intentional. This is now an assault--a deliberate attack.
I can't sit. I pace the living room glancing at the TV. Thankfully the turnson is preoccupied with his toys as I fret.
Then the Pentagon and reports of the downing of United Flight 93. (Initial reports were that we, US assets, shot down that plane at Shanksville. I don't doubt those initial reports nor do I blame my government for the action or the subsequent spin. This informed opinion in no way diminishes the incredible respect and regard I hold for the heroes on that flight.)
My eyes are leaking. They're not tears of sadness. They are tears of unrequited rage. I want to strip down, to don the blue woad and give my war cry. I desperately want to hit something but I have to be responsible for my not-quite-2 year old son.
Then come the images on TV that forever burn on the internal screen of my permanently scarred psyche. This evil, this abomination that could make my brothers and sisters choose to fall rather than be cremated alive.
Local radio reports that parents are picking kids up from schools. So I pack the turnson into his stroller and walk the half-mile to the turnettes' elementary in an adult state of contemplation on the nature and scope of evil.
Terror is fearing for your own life. Horror is the very human response to witnessing other people's terror.
Six years later I want to hit something. My eyes are still leaking tears of impotent rage. God, help me.
This turnpost was originally published at RR on 11 September 2007
Friday, September 28, 2007
We did it.
Quick trip to the market and back to try and eke some more brain music out of this Steinway.
Mundane. Not blogworthy.So...something must be percolating--I mean, I think I have an idea of what's compelling and what's not.
Sometimes you see and don't notice. Sometimes you do.
What I noticed was that handicap parking spots are proliferating. The ones threatening fines if you park there without the special license plates or the rear-view mirror hangie thing. I'm pretty sure there would be no more than two for that size store 25 years ago. There are easily a dozen today (filled btw). Ten or fifteen years from now...?
Have you ever had the experience of standing on line at a movie box office and finding that, except for you and one other parent with a child, every person was 50 or older. I never had before. Add in that it's rated PG and there was no advertising budget yet the majority of seats were filled for a matinee on a glorious first day of autumn.
Turnson will be eight next week. I wanted a father-son day. The twin tween turnettes are soon to be twelve, and I have become a great big doofus (only slightly less retarded than their little brother) in their eyes.
I had planned to take him fishing with his brand new Ugly Stik. But Saturday evening I heard about a film on a weekend radio chat show that changed my plans--especially because it was playing in only one venue and only until Thursday. It was Sunday or wait for the video release. And it was playing in the sole surviving movie palace in the region.
OK. Show of hands. How many of you have heard or read about In the Shadow of the Moon? The Ron Howard film...the winner of the 2007 People's Choice Award at Sundance...the film that documents mankind's greatest technological achievement?
So in a fit of nostalgia for myself and for the sake of Turnson's understanding of our family we leave the beautiful sunshine to sit in a dark place for 90 minutes. Because my living father was there in early days at Canaveral doing engineering work--telemetry and guidance.
Dad is typically taciturn; much of his long life holds memories that don't bear saying out loud--the kind of memories of an impoverished southern family with too many children and too much responsibilty shouldered by the older boys. He's the only surviving male. When he speaks about the past it's more often about running 'shine to the mills or terrapin hunting with his father. Turnson won't get the story of the fisrt decade of the Space Program from his Grampa.
The curtains drew (yeah! curtains) and Turnson asked if this was going to be a play.
Wait for it, son.
The show started with a piece of film archived for 45 years by this movie house--turns out JFK made a short subject for limited distribution to select theaters on the Bill of Rights. He would be the last president to address the nation on film.
In the Shadow of the Moon begins with narration. It's the simple narrative of the living men that went there, did that, and got a patch instead of a t-shirt. Told in their words and nothing but real images and clips, the story unfolds at its own pace.
The Soviets beat us to get there first, of course. Gagarin was undoubtedly a hero. But four weeks later we shot Alan Shephard into space for fifteen minutes. That's what we called them then--space shots.
The race was on
JFK challenges the US to land a man on the moon before the decade was out. Because we could. But also because one of the oldest military doctrines is take and hold the high ground.Little of the film relates the Mercury and Gemini missions. This is the story of Apollo, specifically Apollo 8-17. Apollo 8-10 reached lunar orbit. Told by the men that did it.
from ABC.com-Yeah, baby--we're definately aging when the young heroes of Apollo are seniors. It means lots more handicap parking.
In all of time, only 24 human beings have flown to or around the moon, looked back, and seen Earth as a small blue sphere in the blackness of space.
Their numbers are dwindling. Of the 12 who walked on the moon's surface, only nine are alive today, and the youngest is 71.
See this movie. Buy it when the DVD is released. Apollo 11 launched 15 july 1969 from what was by then called Cape Kennedy. Thousands watched from the ground but tens of millions watched on live TV.
Here's a taste.
My September 11 post Moments described how sometimes I view my life by those evil events--going all the way back to JFK's assassination when I was nine.
Well...September 11 tends to be a black day of the soul for me and I wasn't really thinking about some of the great events that have also marked me.
1969
A wild ride, indeed. Summer, especially so. August had the most. Manson Family, Chappaquiddick, Woodstock.
On the evening of July 20, my local rock band opened a concert at the big civic center (no matter how big the headline act was, it always started with a local band). Delaney, Bonnie and Friends performed and then it was time for the headliner--Blind Faith.
Backstage was a bit oif a madhouse. Roadcrews and performers waiting their turn.
I was fourteen.
A few minutes into Blind Faith's performance there was an announcement. It was decided that Delaney, Bonnie et al would fill in while the headliners broke for something special.
I was still backstage and a makeshift table with a rabbit-eared 13 inch set was placed in front of the concrete stairs. Way better than crowding around--it was 'stadium seating' on the fly.
When the images began I had the urge to fiddle with the antennae, but the picture was as good as it was going to get. Next to me sat Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker was directly behind him. Try to understand--these musicians were heroes to me--this was the most exciting night of my life so far. Sharing this moment of pride in the US accomplishment with superstars from the UK was bliss. I said to myself, "We did it."
When the weight of those first words spoken from the surface of another celestial body were understood everyone erupted in handshaking and backslapping. There was a chorus of American and North of England accents shouting, "WE DID IT!", and I kept the thought to myself that, "No Eric--we, the US did in fact DO IT."
Juvenile, huh?
Near the end of In the Shadow of the Moon the narrative relates that on the world tour of the Apollo 11 crew that wherever they went--Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia--they heard over and over those words, not "Congratulation, men, you did it.", but rather, "We did it."
After all, Neil Armstrong did say, "...One giant leap for mankind."
On the short walk to the car, Turnson asks, "Why haven't we ever gone back?"
This is a turnpost
Thursday, September 27, 2007
If you or anyone you know is feeling down
Watch this.
A 'left click' of inspiration.Save it for that 'blue' day. Bookmark it. This is a forever keeper.
Randy Pausch
The best of us.
So much is writ of late regarding the twisted values of academe (umm, Columbia U.) that we may all miss the indisputable fact that some of our finest minds--indeed, our finest characters-- do choose to make a difference by way of teaching.
Of course. to truly teach one must be a superior communicator. That requires an elegance and clarity of thought coupled with the ability to put said thoughts into words.
But even more--one must be able to organize a set of learning statements in such a way as to lead the student from point a to point n.
May all of our children have at least one like Randy Pausch to inspire them.
This is a turnpost
Wimmen
Even the lonesomest, desperate and ignorant cowpoke knows certain things about a woman.
If you feel you must compare her to another, make damn sure it elevates her and does not denigrate her.
i.e. "You're much prettier that Scarlett Johannsen" or "You're a much better cook than my mother".
The dumbest cowboy would never say something to a $2 whore like "You're worse in the sack than my new goat".
But consequent to generation after generation of first-cousin marriages, one can pretty much expect the result of what happens when less than two brain cells can rub up against each other.
In the US she'd be featured on Inside Edition and Entertainment Tonight not to mention a guest spot on Jay Leno.The sad, sad story of Stuart Pid
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian doctors have reattached a man's nearly severed penis after his first wife, enraged by his comparison of her sex skills with those of his younger second wife, decided to chop it off with a kitchen knife.
The man, a 43-year-old Indonesian worker in southern Johor state, was lying in bed with his 48-year-old wife talking about his newly wed second wife, who is in her 30s, when the incident happened, the New Straits Times newspaper reported.
Despite his shock and pain, the man managed to pull on his trousers and ride his motorcycle to a nearby hospital, where doctors had to put in 11 stitches to reattach the organ.
The man later complained to police, who arrested the woman and plan to charge her with voluntarily causing grievous hurt with a dangerous weapon, which carries the penalty of a three-year jail term and a fine, the newspaper reported.
I'm not terribly impressed with the wimmen's movement in the West--horrible statistics of abortion, for instance. But a little bit of that movement might just propel the Muslim world out of the 7th century.
This is a turnpost.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Spiked
- spike 1 |spīk|
noun - 1 a thin, pointed piece of metal, wood, or another rigid material.
• a large stout nail, esp. one used to fasten a rail to a railroad tie.
2 a sharp increase in the magnitude or concentration of something : the oil price spike.
- • each of several metal points set into the sole of an athletic shoe to prevent slipping.
• ( spikes) a pair of athletic shoes with such metal points.
• short for spike heel .
• informal a hypodermic needle.• Electronics a pulse of very short duration in which a rapid increase in voltage is followed by a rapid decrease.
• Baseball injure (a player) with the spikes on one's shoes.
• (of a newspaper editor) reject (a story) by or as if by filing it on a spike : the editors deemed the article in bad taste and spiked it. ...
You may recall a year ago that ABC's docudrama The Path to 911 was almost not aired due to protests (by Guess Who) that it would be unfair so close to the critical '06 elections. At the last minute, Clinton operatives did succeed in forcing some critical edits to rewrite history, so to speak, and it did broadcast on September 10th and 11th, 2006.
So the question is why does ABC refuse to publish? This punishes UHP and the writer, Cyrus Nowrasteh, director, David L. Cunningham, actors Donnie Wahlberg and Harvey Keitel, et al. More importantly, it is a loss of revenue to ABC and its shareholders. [Might there be a possible class action on the part of ABC shareholders?]
The answer to this question may be somehow related to this:
Read the rest here.Clinton campaign kills negative story
By: Ben Smith
Sep 24, 2007 03:43 PM EST
Updated: September 24, 2007 09:39 PM EST
Early this summer, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign for president learned that the men’s magazine GQ was working on a story the campaign was sure to hate: an account of infighting in Hillaryland.
So Clinton’s aides pulled a page from the book of Hollywood publicists and offered GQ a stark choice: Kill the piece, or lose access to planned celebrity coverboy Bill Clinton.
Despite internal protests, GQ editor Jim Nelson met the Clinton campaign’s demands, which had been delivered by Bill Clinton’s spokesman, Jay Carson, several sources familiar with the conversations said.
GQ writer George Saunders traveled with Clinton to Africa in July, and Clinton is slated to appear on the cover of GQ’s December issue, in which it traditionally names a “Man of the Year,” according magazine industry sources.
And the offending article by Atlantic Monthly staff writer Josh Green got the spike.
CAN IT REALLY BE that media giant ABC and popular men's (mostly fashion and lifestyle) magazine GQ are truly fearful that lack of access to the Clintons will negatively impact ratings/sales?
I dunno.
Seems to me that pols require media saturation and, whereas GQ is probably not a major player in forming and maintaining public opinion ABC, on the other hand, is. It's an institution and, although all the networks' days may be numbered (a blog for another day), it surely predates and will outlast any political dynasty. In other words, the Clintons need one (all) of the Big 3 more than any one neeeds particular access to the Clintons--at least for now.
So maybe more is going on than just threats of withholding access. Maybe it's more like the '90s and the filth we only got a glimpse of when the occasional spotlight was rapidly and willfully turned away from the scurrying roaches and their bulwark of sycophants currying favor at the expense of the public.
This is a turnpost.
Monday, September 24, 2007
AARP
The NGO, the Lobby, and the Parties of Choice
Featuring a logo combining the symbols of the parties and what could be called an elephass or a jackassephant the newest media offerings from lobbying giant AARP have little to do with retired persons and less to do with balancing Democrat and GOP agendas.Looks for all the world like an ad for HillaryCareTM to me.
a turnpost
Sunday, September 23, 2007
U.N.
Note: This blog is dedicated to one issue--doing my part in getting the nonreality-based folks out of power. Socialists calling yourselves 'progressives'--beware. Truthers--quake. I'm out to be the QuellTM for you head lice.
Simple, tovarish--we'll just expunge the record.
Countries dedicated to freedom, countries that guarantee human rights, countries that have regard and respect for their citizens are overwhelmed in the U.N. by those that do not. Giving those countries that do not a forum, a platform from which to spew their venomous agendas is neither benign nor harmless.
IT IS SHAMEFUL.
That the handful of nations that meet the definition of civilization should be placed on the same level as readily recognizable thugs and tyrants is abomination. Giving blessings and creedence to such is a mistake readily remedied.
US out of the U.N.
U.N. out of the US.
Form a United Free Nations and be done with those that would not be free. They're a burden ill-afforded.
A turnpost pamphlet.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Saddam's WMDs
Bush Lied, People Died
Great chant. Says it all, right? Every single Western intel agency made the claim but certain American apperati had their second-guesses and the dead tree media went with that after not much was found in early days.But there was a relatively long run-up to the invasion of Iraq in March of '03 and there are many credible reports of Russian directed convoys heading westward. What were they carrying?
In 1991 Saddam's air force was welcomed in his avowed enemy's (Iran) homeland. No friends of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon are the probable hosts of the chemical WMDs of Iraq.
Proof of cooperation between Iran and Syria in the proliferation and development of weapons of mass destruction was brought to light Monday in Jane's Defence Weekly, which reported that dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 accident in Syria.Alleged my ass.
According to the report, cited by Channel 10, the joint Syrian-Iranian team was attempting to mount a chemical warhead on a Scud missile when the explosion occurred, spreading lethal chemical agents, including sarin nerve gas.
Reports of the accident were circulated at the time; however, no details were released by the Syrian government, and there were no hints of an Iranian connection.
The report comes on the heels of criticism leveled by the Syrians at the United States, accusing it of spreading "false" claims of Syrian nuclear activity and cooperation with North Korea to excuse an alleged Israeli air incursion over the country this month.
On Sept. 6, something important happened in northern Syria. Problem is, no one knows exactly what. Except for those few who were involved, and they're not saying.Most of the above is accurate. It gets better.The NorK freighter, allegedly delivering cement to a desert country, had false-flagged to a S. Korean registry before entering the Med. After delivery (and sometime following 6 September) the ship disappeared.
We do know that Israel carried out an airstrike. How then do we know it was important? Because in Israel, where leaking is an art form, even the best informed don't have a clue. They tell me they have never seen a better-kept secret.
Which suggests that whatever happened near Dayr az Zawr was no accidental intrusion into Syrian airspace, no dry run for an attack on Iran, no strike on some conventional target such as an Iranian Revolutionary Guard base or a weapons shipment on its way to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Circumstantial evidence points to this being an attack on some nuclear facility provided by North Korea.
Three days earlier, a freighter flying the North Korean flag docked in the Syrian port city of Tartus with a shipment of "cement." Long way to go for cement. Within days, a top State Department official warned that "there may have been contact between Syria and some secret suppliers for nuclear equipment." Three days later, the Sept. 19 six-party meeting on dismantling North Korea's nuclear facilities was suddenly postponed, officially by China, almost certainly at the behest of North Korea.
Apart from the usual suspects - Syria, Iran, Libya and Russia - only two countries registered strong protests to the Israeli strike: Turkey and North Korea. What business is this of North Korea's? Unless it was a North Korean facility being hit.
Which raises alarms for many reasons. First, it would undermine the whole North Korean disarmament process. Pyongyang might be selling its stuff to other rogue states, or perhaps just temporarily hiding it abroad.
Second, there are ominous implications for the Middle East. Syria has long had chemical weapons, but Israel will not tolerate a nuclear Syria.
Tensions are already extremely high because of Iran's headlong rush to go nuclear. In fending off sanctions and possible military action, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has chosen a radically aggressive campaign to assemble, deploy, flaunt and partially activate Iran's proxies in the Arab Middle East.
Iran's assets in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq are poised and ready. Ahmadinejad's message is this: If anyone dares attack our nuclear facilities, we will fully activate our proxies, unleashing unrestrained destruction on Israel, moderate Arabs, Iraq and U.S. interests - in addition to the usual, such as mining the Strait of Hormuz and causing an acute oil crisis and worldwide recession.
This is an extremely high-stakes game. The time window is narrow. In probably less than two years, Ahmadinejad will have the bomb.
The world is not quite ready to acquiesce. The new president of France has declared a nuclear Iran "unacceptable." The French foreign minister warned that "it is necessary to prepare for the worst" - and "the worst, it's war, sir."
Which makes it all the more urgent that powerful sanctions be slapped on the Iranian regime. Sanctions will not stop Ahmadinejad.
The Israeli's have a well-deserved reputation of quietly taking care of business. In the age of satellite recon there's only one way of disappearing a surface ship--turn it into a sub.
Back to Saddam's WMD.
Read the rest here‘I found Saddam’s WMD bunkers’
Melanie Phillips
It’s a fair bet that you have never heard of a guy called Dave Gaubatz. It’s also a fair bet that you think the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has found absolutely nothing, nada, zilch; and that therefore there never were any WMD programmes in Saddam’s Iraq to justify the war ostensibly waged to protect the world from Saddam’s use of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
Dave Gaubatz, however, says that you could not be more wrong. Saddam’s WMD did exist. He should know, because he found the sites where he is certain they were stored. And the reason you don’t know about this is that the American administration failed to act on his information, ‘lost’ his classified reports and is now doing everything it can to prevent disclosure of the terrible fact that, through its own incompetence, it allowed Saddam’s WMD to end up in the hands of the very terrorist states against whom it is so controversially at war.
You may be tempted to dismiss this as yet another dodgy claim from a warmongering lackey of the world Zionist neocon conspiracy giving credence to yet another crank pushing US propaganda. If so, perhaps you might pause before throwing this article at the cat. Mr Gaubatz is not some marginal figure. He’s pretty well as near to the horse’s mouth as you can get.
Having served for 12 years as an agent in the US Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations, Mr Gaubatz, a trained Arabic speaker, was hand-picked for postings in 2003, first in Saudi Arabia and then in Nasariyah in Iraq. His mission was to locate suspect WMD sites, discover threats against US forces in the area and find Saddam loyalists, and then send such intelligence to the Iraq Survey Group and other agencies.
Between March and July 2003, he says, he was taken to four sites in southern Iraq — two within Nasariyah, one 20 miles south and one near Basra — which, he was told by numerous Iraqi sources, contained biological and chemical weapons, material for a nuclear programme and UN-proscribed missiles. He was, he says, in no doubt whatever that this was true.
This was, in the first place, because of the massive size of these sites and the extreme lengths to which the Iraqis had gone to conceal them. Three of them were bunkers buried 20 to 30 feet beneath the Euphrates. They had been constructed through building dams which were removed after the huge subterranean vaults had been excavated so that these were concealed beneath the river bed. The bunker walls were made of reinforced concrete five feet thick.
All this will mean less than nothing to the non-reality based crowd (now amounting to almost 1/2 of Americans) more interested in Sean Kennedy's irrefutably reliable gaydar regarding Hillary's non-lesbian status or O.J.'s (according to Vegas odds-makers) 5 to 6 odds of beating his latest rap.
What's that say about the current state of our society?
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