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Tuesday, May 01, 2007

I saw Jeremy Scahill speak tonight on Blackwater

Well, I was going to re-read Orwell's 1984.
San Diego Coalition for Peace and Justice


I'm really glad that I decided to make the drive to see Jeremy Scahill speak instead. He seemed like a nice kid, and really sharp, and I'm glad that he came to San Diego. It's so nice to listen to a real reporter who cares about things that really matter to the American people.

Update 8:44 AM 5/2/2007
the the right-wing piece of crap fishwrap:
“Stop Blackwater” bumper stickers were offered at the event, and those in attendance were asked to send comments to the San Diego County Department of Planning and Land Use about their opposition to the project.

What the fishwrap "reporter" fails to mention is that the Department of Planning and Land Use gave the wrong e-mail address AND the wrong street address to people who wanted to lodge a complaint and keep Blackwater out .

Not to mention this: Last July, Blackwater hired as a lobbyist Nikki Clay, a longtime cheerleader for corporate welfare (Chargers, Padres) and former president of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce. Blackwater brought on the developer-friendly environmental firm of Mooney, Jones & Stokes, along with other companies to make up their project team. The team quickly snuggled up to the County, which was not playing hard to get.



Go see Jeremy speak.

Details
Author Jeremy Scahill

When: 6:30 p.m. today (5/2/2007)

Where: La Mesa Community Center, 4975 Memorial Drive, La Mesa
Dow Jones Options Trading Surged Prior to Offer by News Corp.
By Jeff Kearns


News Corp. offers $60 a share

Anniversaries today

Ahhh yes, four years ago today Cap'n Codpiece was cruel to the sailors on the Lincoln who could see land but couldn't get there because he wanted to strut around on their ship for photo-op. Halliburton is doing quite well: Welcome to Pottersville Mission Accomplished Year Four

Last year there were huge immigrant's rights marches across the country.

It seemed like an excuse for a bunch of kids to ditch school to me.

Will it happen again this year?

Immigration Activists Call for School Walkout on Tuesday Apr 30, 2007

I hope not.

More from KPBS today:
Immigration & Border

10:23 AM 5/1/2007 So far there are a few kids in NY walking out. Not a big deal.

And some in Detroit, Chicago, Oakland, Los Angeles,

11:13 AM 5/1/2007

Orlando

Phoenix and Tuscon

(Long Beach) Port Truckers Join May 1 Boycott

The kids are in school, at least it looks like it from California News reports. But money is lost when kids aren't in school:

Testing Dates for State Assessments 2006-2007
CAHSEE, STAR, CELDT, PFT, and CHSPE.

Dates for the 2007 administration of the grade 4 and 7 California Standards Writing Tests are:

Tuesday, March 6, 2007, with make-up on Wednesday, March 7 for all schools, programs, and tracks in session on these dates.

Tuesday, May 1, 2007, with make-up on Wednesday May 2 for schools, programs, and tracks not in session during March.

The testing window for the Aprenda 3 for grades 5-11 is March 15 through May 14, with make-up testing until May 25

I'm thinking the little shits don't want to go to Saturday School, and they've been warned.

Oh look, Ruben Navarrette Jr. proves once again that he is wrong every fucking time. What a flaming asshole.

No Ruben, non-immigrants have the same concerns as immigrants, feeding their family is one of them. When people come in illegally and work for less than subsistence wages they drive down our standard of living. That may make your business friends cream their jeans, but it pisses some of us off. Got it, fucktard?

Monday, April 30, 2007

How Much Iraqi Crude Oil is Being Stolen? Mystery of the Missing Meters

By Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch. Posted April 30, 2007.


Well actually this article was posted a month ago:

Mystery of the Missing Meters:
Accounting for Iraq's Oil Revenue
by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch
March 22nd, 2007


And I wondered how much oil was being stolen almost a year ago:

Memorial Day

Hmmmmm?

Gulf Times
"Daily newspaper published by Gulf Printing & Publishing Company
Doha, Qatar"

Call-girl scandal shocks US capital
Published: Sunday, 29 April, 2007, 08:29 AM Doha Time


Why do they give a crap about this in Qatar? Don't they use the foreign born "maids" for sex over there?

Ohhhhhhhh, yeah, maybe some high ranking US Military officers might, could, maybe be implicated in this?


Nahhh, the military never has a problem with prostitution, right?

Yeah, this fubaB* Administration will throw their asses under the bus too.

*fucked up beyond all Belief.

In Turkey, Fear About Religious Lifestyle

By SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: April 30, 2007

ISTANBUL, April 29 — When hundreds of thousands of protesters filled the streets of Istanbul on Sunday, it may have looked like a protest of government policy.

It was not.

Behind the slogans and signs of marchers in Istanbul on Sunday and in Ankara two weeks ago was something much more basic: a fear of the lifestyles of their more religious compatriots.

Turkish Markets Plunge on Army Threat Over Election (Update8)
By Ayla Jean Yackley and Steve Bryant
April 30 (Bloomberg) -- Turkey's lira fell the most in seven months and bonds and stocks slumped after the military threatened to block the ruling party's presidential candidate because of his support for Islamist causes.

Crisis pinches Turkey's pocket
POSTED: 1603 GMT (0003 HKT), April 30, 2007

A test for Turkish democracy
Simon Tisdall UK Guardian comment is free

The military may have overplayed its hand in challenging Abdullah Gul's candidacy for president.

Walkers World Turks Near Coup
By MARTIN WALKER
UPI Editor Emeritus
WASHINGTON, April 30 (UPI) --

Ummm, really now, just wtf is going on in Turkey?

Update 12:44 PM 5/1/2007 Crisis as Turkish courts overrule Parliament

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Still reading



This book is taking me forever to read.

It's difficult emotionally to read.

Especially chapter 14 .

Can you say flabbergasted?

That would be me.

Bill Moyers Journal

Last night I was delighted to watch Josh Marshall on Bill Moyers Journal. Yeah, Yeah, I know, Jon Stewart was on the show also. I live in the 50th Congressional district, Dukie Cunninghams's old stomping grounds and I was much more interested in what Josh Marshall had to say.

When the MSM was studiously avoiding investigating the Carole Lam firing, TPM and TPM Muckraker were on it.


Everyone with a healthy dose of skepticism in San Diego knows that the government here are pretty much puppets and the real power lies within the military-industrial-media-complex, the land developers, the frickin car dealers and ummm, RepugnantThuglicans.


This is completely unrelated, but this article caught my eye: Some US schools banning iPods to stop cheating.

Yeesh, what kind of rotten little shithead kids are we raising?

Friday, April 27, 2007

Woo hoo Sen. Mike Gravel

Riverbend is leaving Baghdad

read her post here: The Great Wall of Segregation...


Frankly, I'm surprised it took her so long to decide. Any country would be lucky to get her and her family.

Interesting that the congress just voted to start withdrawing troops. Watch Preznit Poopypants veto it and watch his desperate media whores blame this godforsaken corporate greedfest and clusterfuck of a war get blamed on the Deomcrats.

Umm, you mean the Democrats who voted for this stupid war, for whatever reason, right?







And when I see stories like this, I'm reminded that the bloodshed over oil is only beginning:


Ethiopian Rebels Kill 70 at Chinese-Run Oil Field

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 14:51:47 -0700


The Dirty Political Underbelly of the Darfur Conflict

You think Osama binLaden isn't concerned with oil?

His family made their money doing construction, duh.
I haven't read this book, but there is a search function, put "oil" in it.

You think anybody at the California Democratic Party Convention in San Diego is going to talk about the coming oil crash this weekend?

Is that crickets I hear?

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Failed States, the Coming Mexican Revolution (click here, its a great article)

by David Cox Page 1 of 1 page(s)
April 25, 2007 at 07:38:42

...It is too easy to label the locals as racist’s and Xenophobes, were fifteen hundred to two thousand people a day wandering through your cities streets day and night it might try your Christian charity as well.. That number doesn’t include drug traffickers or coyotes or even the Mexican Army units taking pot shots at the racist Americans for repairing their racist fences on their own racist property. If it were Iranians taking shots across the border at Americans in Iraq would the media portray it differently perhaps?

The crux of the issue is not about race or nationality or even immigration it is about the utterly failed policy of free trade which benefits a only a tiny fraction and penalizes a whole population like a Mississippi overseer at harvest time. We in America see only the symptoms that hit us in the face, as the media obediently looks the other way. As is the case so many times America is fortunate if we look at Mexico today we can see what America will become tomorrow. The Mexican refugees are not coming empty handed, they bring us a message. It reads you’re turn is next.

U.S. and World Population Clocks - POP Clocks

























Tijuana No Pobre de ti




The U.S. population almost quadrupled its population in the past century: from 75 million in 1900 to 283 million in 2001. This despite a time-out from mass immigration between 1925 to 1965 during which the average immigration level was less than 200,000 per year. However, from 1990 to 2000, the average immigration rate was 1.2 million people annually. Even so, immigration advocates are continuously pushing legislation to increase immigration. If the U.S. quadruples its population one more time in this century, this country will have over one billion people (283 million x 4).


Hispanic Growth Surge Fueled by Births in U.S.
By D'Vera Cohn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 9, 2005; Page A01

Nafta Highway Map

Across the Border, But Into a Locked Room
By WILL CARLESS
Voice Staff Writer
Thursday, April 26, 2007


(click on images for links I found interesting)

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all
Tuesday April 24, 2007The Guardian

....3. Develop a thug caste
When leaders who seek what I call a "fascist shift" want to close down an open society, they send paramilitary groups of scary young men out to terrorise citizens. The Blackshirts roamed the Italian countryside beating up communists; the Brownshirts staged violent rallies throughout Germany.....

...Thugs in America? Groups of angry young Republican men, dressed in identical shirts and trousers, menaced poll workers counting the votes in Florida in 2000. If you are reading history, you can imagine that there can be a need for "public order" on the next election day. Say there are protests, or a threat, on the day of an election; history would not rule out the presence of a private security firm at a polling station "to restore public order...


Are Rove’s Missing E-mails the Smoking Guns of the Stolen 2004 Election?
by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Bill Moyers is back on PBS (click here)





BILL MOYERS JOURNAL
ABOUT THE SERIES
Special premiere airdate: Wednesday, April 25 at 9 P.M. on PBS. (90 minutes)Airs weekly: Fridays, beginning April 27 at 9 P.M. on PBS. (60 minutes) (check local listings)





Yep, I'm happy about it.

'Little girl Rambo' decries US propaganda


Jessica Lynch's testimony before the The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Did Bush whack Iglesias?

Nothing this Administration does surprises me anymore.

Monday, April 23, 2007

CBS evening blues

Gail Shister
Katie Couric hasn't redeemed the No. 3 newscast. Can she survive as anchor?
By Gail Shister
Inquirer Columnist

...Katie Couric is an expensive, unfixable mistake.... "She's trying too hard," Tyndall says. "She's overthinking her role. She's got to stand back. It's a very Zen problem. To be the face of Evening News, she's got to be self-effacing."

Self-effacing isn't the first adjective that comes to mind with Couric. She arrived at CBS with her own group of producers, bookers and assistants, which didn't sit well with the staff.

"She sees herself as a star and thinks the whole news department is here to serve her," says a longtime CBS correspondent...

Sympathy for Katy? Nope, not here.

I'm not the only one who thought it was a bad idea.

More Than 1 in 4 Diebold Systems Found to Have Recorded Votes Incorrectly in Cuyahoga County, According to 2006 Election Audit

Some Ballots Counted Twice, Others Not At All, Database Found Corrupted, Old, Not Recommended for Use by Microsoft
Raw Election Data Held as 'Diebold Trade Secret' by Registrar Michael Vu Who Was Forced to Resign...Though He's Now Been Hired by San Diego!

Friday, April 20, 2007

PBS NOW on teevee tonight

Dayum I love Gore Vidal

listen to him on this mp3

Gun lobbyists (scroll down to watch video)

Federally Funded Boffins Want To Scrap The Internet

Ok, some of this links in this article I take with a grain of salt. That's a wise thing to do with most information floating around on the Internet.

I want that choice though.

This is not China, where the government acts like it has the right to control even the smallest details in all of it's citizen's lives.

It bothers me that American based
multi-national corporate interests have no problem jumping right into bed with the Chinese government.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Gonzales testimony

Lemmee break it down for ya.

Gonzales No sé nada. (pronounced no say nah-dah)



Double Negative in Spanish

no... nunca/no... jamás (never). no... nunca más (never again). no... tampoco (neither, not either). no... nada (nothing). no... nadie (no one). no... en/por ninguna parte (nowhere). No sé nada. (I don't know anything, or I know nothing.) No conozco a nadie aquí. (I don't know anybody here, or I know nobody here.).

Democracy Now on Blackwater West

Three out of four registered voters in Potrero don't want this mercenary camp in their community.

Blackwater Plans for New Military Facility Near San Diego Draws Fire From Residents, Peace Activists and Local Congressmember
Thursday, April 19th, 2007

Listen to it now with your RealPlayer
Note: This content may require the latest RealPlayer, which is not available on Windows 95, Mac OS9 or Linux systems.
or listen to the mp3 of the whole show

It's quite enlightening. The political connections are interesting. This company's behavior indicates that it thinks it's above military and civilian law. It's outrageous.

For more on how to help stop this camp from being built:

Stop Blackwater.net

Citizens Oversight.org

Nah, we don't need no steenking immigration reform

Last night I watched Homegrown terrorism explodes in Europe , and The Muslim Americans on PBS. Perhaps because of this, this morning I woke up thinking about criminal activity in immigrant communities all over the world.

Immigrant smuggling and gang activity
Wednesday, April 20, 2005 @ 1:30 pm 2172 Rayburn House Office Building

Human trafficking profits spur horrors
Vicious organizations move thousands of immigrants through Valley every day
Dennis Wagner
The Arizona Republic
Jul. 23, 2006 12:00 AM

Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Smugglers Suspected in Freeway Shootout


Now don't start in on me, because I know that it is rare. Most immigrants, legal or illegal do NOT engage in illegal activity (unless it involves paying coyotes or buying fake documents ). Then they can work for some asshole who is increasing profits by paying less than they did when American citizens would do the jobs. The whole cycle of exploitation makes me sick.

The
STRIVE act is not the answer. It's a way for large corporations to use and throw away their slaves when they are done with them. The Gonzales hearings are getting all the press today, but there is supposed to be a meeting going on right now.

Get ready for another big immigrant rally on May 1, 2007

Monday, April 16, 2007

I don't like guns

I'm sad today. Today's shootings bring back memories that are painful and frightening for me.

When I was a teenager I knew someone for a short time who had a schoolgirl crush on
Brenda Spencer's father. That was weird. Creepy and weird. I still remember her face, but not her name. Teenagers are weird, ok? I'm sure she got over that crush. I dunno, I never saw her again.

I lived pretty close to the border when
the McDonald's massacre happened.

A few years later a friend blew half her head off with a .357 magnum. I don't know if I'll ever get over that one, she asked me to come pick her up that day. I told her no because I didn't trust myself to drive. I was exhausted from working the night shift and taking care of my daughter during the day. My ex had recently threatened to "take me out." I didn't know whether he had guns at that time or not. I knew that he had had them years before he met me.

Did you know that
more people commit suicide (in the US) with guns than are killed by someone else with guns?

None of these experiences were as painful as the day my daughter came home from school and told me that she was afraid to go to school. They had locked down her school because some kid was playing in a nearby canyon with a bee-bee gun. I guess the school administrators were skittish because of the
Santana High shootings.

Lastly, my friend's son is living in another state because his friend was killed in a stupid gang shooting. The ones who did it are in jail, but their homies will find him if he comes back. He wasn't even in a gang. My friend misses her son. I miss her son.

All the pain and fear I have felt is NOTHING like the people experience in Iraq on a daily basis. There are fewer people in Iraq than there are in my state . Does anyone else wonder what it would be like if 60 people a day died because of firearms in California?

I do.

I am sorry for the people who lost loved ones today in Virginia.

I am sorry for the people who lose loved ones every day in Baghdad .


Update 12:02 PM 4/17/2007 According to an IANSA report published in 2006, gun-related incidents result in 300,000 fatalities and one million injuries worldwide every year. Many of those guns come from the U.S.

Mexican authorities reported that 80 percent of guns in the country came from the U.S., 50 percent of handguns seized by Canada's gun crime task force were also smuggled across the U.S. border and 30 percent of guns recovered by Japanese authorities originated in the U.S., the IANSA found.

Danny Schechter says it all on the Imus thing

I loved it

Sunday, April 15, 2007

I think San Diego voters deserve better than this

San Diego County recently hired Cuyahoga County, Ohio’s disgraced elections official, Michael Vu, who resigned under a storm of controversy stemming from the rigged recount in 2004 and a 2006 scientific study condemning Cuyahoga’s elections. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner recently fired the entire Board of Elections....

...One table in the ESI report on Cuyahoga County’s May 06 primary election reports what went missing (p.110) during Michael Vu’s watch:
13 VVPAT Summaries (voter verifiable paper audit trails)
86 VVPAT Cartridges
29 DREs (touch screen voting machines; one was later found)
24 DRE Election Archives (the archives displayed no data)
3 DRE memory cards....

Boo Who Vu?
April 13, 2007 at 14:17:18
by Rady Ananda
http://www.opednews.com/


*******************************************************************************

... Haas said that Vu was specifically hired to be assistant registrar, and that county officials were still searching for a permanent registrar. Retired Riverside County * Registrar Mischelle Townsend was named San Diego County's interim director last week....

"I'm disappointed, I think San Diego voters deserve better than this," Carlsbad attorney Ken Simpkins said. ....


Yeah, we do. But in this backasswards rednecked run Repugnant Thuglican town, we are not going to get it.

Whistleblowers

Well,

yesterday's primer on whistleblowers is topped of by Stephen Heller's post over at BradBlog:

"STEPHEN HELLER: Take a Deep Breath and Blow Hard!".

Ahhhhh, I feel hope again.

War sucks

Russia rules out military scenario for Iran - MP-1
17:05
13/ 04/ 2007

Missing American feared a victim of ‘dirty war’
By Guy Dinmore in Washington and Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
Published: April 13 2007 20:56 Last updated: April 13 2007 20

Iran leads attack against U.S. dollar
by Jerome R. Corsi
Global Research, April 12, 2007

Dollar slide accelerates
By Richard Blackden
Last Updated: 8:31pm BST 13/04/2007

Currency converter
Sunday, April 15, 2007
1 US Dollar = 0.73950 Euro
1 Euro (EUR) = 1.35227 US Dollar (USD)

The Israel Lobby.
Portrait of a Great Taboo
The Power of the Israel Lobby in the United States
This is a must watch video

Thwarted Warrior
OpEd News
April 12, 2007 at 09:36:23
by Bob Koehler Page 1 of 1 page(s)

Uranium dust
John Upton/Tracy Press
Wednesday, 11 April 2007

Proposed explosives tests upwind from Tracy will release as much as 450 pounds of radioactive depleted uranium dust into the air every year, according to an air pollution permit application filed Friday by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The blasts will annually release other elements into the air, some of which will also be radioactive, the application reads.

A permit allowing the blasts was approved with no public scrutiny by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District in November, but was withdrawn after a community backlash...


You CAN Handle The Truth - Poison DUst - 1of4

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