Meet the McFakes, oops I mean McFates -- DC whores

There's Something About Mary: Unmasking a Gun Lobby Mole
July 30, 2008
Mary McFate was a prominent gun control activist. Mary Lou Sapone was a freelance spy with an NRA connection. They are the same person. A Mother Jones investigation

War and recruiting standards?

I was reading this from Nick Turse's book last night:

The report from the Criminal Investigation Command, or CID, tracks an increase from 23 reported gang incidents in fiscal 2005 to 60 in fiscal 2006, saying in part the new servicewide definition of gangs added more cases to the total.

And heard about this this morning:

Navy cites smoking as likely cause of carrier fire
By CHELSEA J. CARTER – 13 hours ago

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Smoking appears to have sparked a fire that caused $70 million in damage to the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington, Naval officials said Wednesday

US Navy calls MySpace kids an "Alien Life Force"
Posted by Xeni Jardin, September 28, 2007 10:00 AM permalink

You know, I read a lot of depressing shit, and I grew up in San Diego, so a lot of what's in this book comes as no surprise to me, but I gotta say the most depressing part of this book is the connection (that if you're ME, anyway, you could find) between the Defense Department's astronomical need for oil (fuel) and this fucked up war in Iraq. That and some recruiting has been privatized also, and not just for mercenaries.

Moving on, I read the newz today Oh boy...

When the newz steals, they steal BIG.

Asia-Pacific
A Base for Another World War
By Tanveer Jafri
Contributing Writer
"The whole world is passing through a phase of inflation and starvation that has never been imagined so far."

Wow, this Tanveer Jafri person must be a fucking genius.

Hey genius, has the world ever passed through the phase of this kind of human population numbers? How about this phase of ecological destruction caused by human population pressures?

Fuck me.

Here's more of the genius at work:

Despite America is trying to prepare fuel from food grains and that is causing the food problem of the world..

American president Bush has asked Israel army not to hesitate to attack with missiles on the nuclear establishment of Iran...

Even president Bush has called Iran the 'Axis of Satan...

Last year I was astonished to hear that the name of a man of aggressive nature, George Bush was proposed for Noble peace prize...

I don't know what language this piece of shit was originally written in, but the English translation is sad, as is the author's knowledge of International politics, and truly sad is the author's knowledge of American politics.

Still reading

I'm reading "The Complex" by Nick Turse and I'll be disappointed if the voting part of the matrix isn't covered in the book, or at the very least, the RepugnantThuglican IT guys. Watch this 6 minute clip .

The Complex and the Gulag

Since my friend is ok, ( 5.4 aint no big deal ) & I'm sick of bad news, I think I'll just read today. These two titles together make me think of Blackwater and Halliburton.


Predators of press freedom

Bilbray sighting in San Diego

Dang, where's my rotten tomatoes when I need them?

Can't decide what to blog today

So yer gettin' all of it.
Immigration.

Both sides 'o the same story.

John Dean on Impeachment

Chalmers Johnson on the military-industrial-complex, which basically makes the whole immigration flashpoint debate irrelevant.

Kidnapping

Top 10 Places to get Kidnapped From (According to an insurance agency that sells kidnapping insurance)

Mexico Update August 5, 2008Mexican police linked to rising kidnappings
Brazil
Colombia yeah hmmmmm
Venezuela
Philippines yeah hmmmm
Nigeria
Afghanistan
Iraq
Haiti
Runners Up
India
South Africa
Argentina (huh? 6 years ago maybe)
Nepal
They didn't mention Somalia and the Horn of Africa
Must not pay to insure aid workers, or something.
Pakistan is mentioned in the top five here
Pakistan Taliban legalized kidnapping in March

Why? I was curious after watching Manda Bala (Send a Bullet) (2007)

I browsed around looking for connections. I looked at the usual suspects:

Corruption

Percentage of people living in poverty

Inequality

Then, since the kidnapper in the slums of Sao Paulo had ten kids I wondered if it was

Little access to family planning

Even though it's wanted and needed

Abortions illegal

or

Humanitarian crisis

or drug trafficking whoops, better not pull that shit in Iran or Saudi Arabia or China

And while I was stumbling around I happened upon some other connections which may or may not be added factors.

Oil reserves
Gas reserves
Pipelines

So, after reading enough stuff online today to be bleary eyed and tired, and wonder why this list that was done in '99 pops right up, my opinion is that the reasons for kidnapping generally involve 3 or more factors listed.
5:02 PM 7/27/2008

Friday night was full of important messages from Carolinians

I watched this PBS NOW episode with N. Carolinian John Edwards but I was goofing off Friday night, I missed Bill Moyers.

Big mistake. This needs to be seen.

Ex Senator from S. Carolina, Ernest "Fritz" Hollings' book Making Government Work

My buddy's in town

Wooo hoo. She's lots of fun.

Oy. While I'm waiting, welcome to the Financializing Food: Deregulation, Commodity Markets and the Rising Cost of Food.

Integrating Islam

Crapola.

I can't open the link to what's on NPR right now. It's called Integrating Islam and has been covering Islam in Europe and the United States. It's fascinating to me. Yesterday I spent some time reading a blog called Islam in Europe.

Friday Squirrel Blogging

I got nuthin on the critters today. Just part of the scenery around here. I thought squirrel blogging was original, boy was I wrong.

Libya loves Switzerland

Libya 'halts Swiss oil shipments'

Hannibal Gaddafi has denied claims he assaulted two of his staff in Switzerland
Libya's state shipping company says it has halted oil shipments to Switzerland in protest at the brief arrest of leader Muammar Gaddafi's youngest son.

It threatened further action if the Swiss did not apologise for the arrest

Geneva police held Hannibal Gaddafi for two days after he and his pregnant wife allegedly hit two of their staff...

The couple were charged with assaulting two of their staff, a Moroccan man and a Tunisian woman, with a belt and coat hanger. The woman was hospitalised.

The 32-year-old Gaddafi had had previous run-ins with the law.
In 2005, he was convicted by a French court for striking his pregnant companion in a Paris hotel.

...The Swiss foreign ministry said on Wednesday that Libya had "taken a number of worrying retaliatory measures" for Mr Gaddafi's arrest since he was released on bail on 17 July.

It said Swiss companies ABB and Nestle had been ordered to close their Libya offices and that Swiss staff there had been arrested.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Never underestimate the power of some greasy, oil slicked thug's horrible brat to get away with criminal activity, and make you pay for their imagined slight. I wonder how many servants the little prick has already buried in that hell hole of a desert,Libya?

Immigration reform needed

Who Killed Chandra Levy? - Chapter Ten: A Jailhouse Informant
By Sari Horwitz, Scott Higham and Sylvia Moreno
Washington Post Staff Writers June 23, 2008

He said who paid him?

Salvadorans, here?

Killings turn focus on San Francisco sanctuary law
By PAUL ELIAS, Associated Press Writer Thu Jul 24, 7:42 AM ET
...Shortly after that, police arrested Ramos, a native of El Salvador and reputed member of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, known as MS-13. Investigators believe he was the gunman, though two other men were seen in the car with him...

How did this happen?

And the whole La Raza thing here last weekend?

Nothing but a corporate love-fest. Look who was there. (pdf file downloadable, but not online)

E-verify is voluntary and free,

but no California government, local, state or federal is allowed to use it.

Yes, immigration reform is needed. Our choices?

Posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2008
On immigration, McCain and Obama very much alike
By David Lightman McClatchy Newspapers



His first joke in LA got a laugh for a reason.

early evening news

The Moscow Times East vs. West in Central Asia
23 July 2008 Updated at 23 July 2008 0:13 Moscow Time.
By Adrian Pabst

In a little-noticed news story last week, U.S. lawmakers strongly condemned what they called China's brutal pre-Olympic crackdown in the far northwest Xinjiang region, which is populated by the Uyghurs, a mostly Muslim Turkic ethnic group...

...It is still unclear whether Monday's two bomb blasts in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming, in which two people were killed, were in any way related to Islamic terrorism or separatist movements, but the attacks will undoubtedly fuel fear and suspicion with the Olympics just three weeks away...

...China, Russia and their Central Asian partners accuse the West of double standards and illegitimate interference. They say they are simply defending their territorial integrity against secessionist threats. They suspect the United States and others of orchestrating the Muslim minorities and supporting secessionism to strengthen the Western presence in Central Asia.

Both are right about each other, but wrong about Asian Islam. In fact, both the East and West pursue questionable goals and policies. Under the cloak of the "global war on terror," both sides intervene against Islamic extremists in order to advance their rival interests. In a region rich in minerals, oil and gas, the United States established military bases in Manas, just north of the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek and in Karshi-Khanabad, in southern Uzbekistan, not far from the Tajik border. These are both key locations in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida-related networks in nearby Afghanistan. China has undoubtedly exaggerated the terrorist threat in order to suppress political opposition and extend its sphere of influence in Central Asia...

Completely unrelated to the above article on how the muslims are stuck in the middle of an East West tug rope thingy, but of interest to me, because I love water--

posted July 22, 2008 4:13 pm
Tomgram: Elizabeth de la Vega, Those Hard Rains Are Gonna Fall

...In the end, when it came to an assessment of the current state of our national water policy,...

...hodge-podge.

Stories that amuse me this morning

Short-sellers bet on stock market crash
Julia Kollewe
guardian.co.uk,
Monday July 21, 2008

Study: shrinking newsrooms hurting papers' quality
By JEREMY HERRON – 1 day ago
NEW YORK (AP) — The many and deepening cuts at newspapers across the country are starting to take a toll on their content, according to a study being released Monday.

Hat tip to Danny

And then there is this--

Tuesday, July 22, 2008
GM, utilities join to study electric car impact
By TOM KRISHER AP Auto Writer

Who Killed the Electric Car? is a 2006 documentary film that explores the birth, limited commercialization, and subsequent death of the battery electric vehicle in the United States, specifically the General Motors EV1 of the 1990s

Who Killed the Electric Car?

This gem seriously amuses me and whoa, that didn't take long, Taibbi predicted this bullshit, now didn't he?

Laughing and reading

Star Wars Dance (made me laugh)

This is what I'm reading.



Americans who get their newz from mainstream sources are stupid.

Oy vey. After all that shit

Court overturns CBS fine over Janet Jackson flash
Mon Jul 21, 2008 10:48pm BST By Peter Kaplan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government's campaign against television indecency was dealt a blow on Monday when a court overturned a $550,000 (275,000 pound) fine against CBS Corp television stations for airing a glimpse of pop singer Janet Jackson's breast during the 2004 Super Bowl broadcast.

Federal minimum wage hike

Minimum Wage Hike And A Tight Economy
Minimum wage workers are set to get a pay bump later this week: Thursday, the federal minimum wage will go from $5.85 to $6.55.

"The minimum wage in 1968, if you adjust it for inflation, was $9.88. "

A classical economics analysis of supply and demand implies that by mandating a price floor above the equilibrium wage, minimum wage laws should cause unemployment.

some key facts about these states show that a number of factors unrelated to minimum wage increases are actually responsible for high unemployment rates:...
Employment and the Minimum Wage

Salaries of Members of Congress: A List of
Payable Rates and Effective Dates, 1789-2008 (pdf)
...1978, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1986, 1988, and 1989).
The Ethics Reform Act of 1989 changed the method by which the annual adjustment is determined for Members and other senior officials, based on a formula using changes in private sector wages and salaries as measured by the Employment Cost Index. Under this revised method, annual adjustments were accepted 12 times (those scheduled forJanuary 1991, 1992, 1993, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2008)and denied six times those scheduled for January 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, and 2007)
The annual adjustment automatically goes into effect unless:
(1) Congress statutorily prohibits the adjustment;
(2) Congress statutorily revises the adjustment; or
(3) the annual base pay3 adjustment of GS employees is established at a rate less than the scheduled increase for Members, in which case Members would be paid the lower rate

Projected January 2009 Member Pay Increase of 2.8%
Under the formula established in the Ethics Reform Act, Members may receive a pay adjustment in January 2009 of 2.8%.5 This adjustment — if not revised by Congress oradjustment procedure, Members originally were scheduled to receive a 2.7% increase in January 2008, based upon the formula set forth in the Ethics Reform Act of 1989.6 This increase would have raised their salaries to $169,700. The scheduled Member increase was revised to 2.5%, resulting in a salary in 2008 of $169,300, due to factors related to the increase in the base pay of General Schedule (GS) employees.

...Secretary of Defense Robert Gates launched a fierce verbal assault on… go ahead, take a guess: the "creeping militarization" of U.S. foreign policy. It seems that too many unappetizing "peacekeeping" tasks, once handled by other departments of the government, are now in the military's lap, which turns out not to be quite as capacious as once imagined. "The Foreign Service is not the Foreign Legion, and the U.S. military should never be mistaken for a Peace Corps with guns" were among his exact words. ...


The Three Trillion Dollar War

Have you Had Enough?

Africa

I don't know much about Africa except what I see here and there, I've never studied it. I haven't wanted to. For the most part, it disgusts me. Yes, yes, I know, it is where humanity started and spread out from. Part of the reason for my disgust. It is the origin of the most destructive creature on earth.

Africa is mired in poverty and misery.

Yeah, but isn't it the fault of white people that Africa is such a mess?

Is it all the results of European colonization that continues today in the form of unfair trade practices?

(update 10:58 AM 7/21/2008 EU offers to cut farm tariffs by 60 percent

Is it US food aid combined with US agricultural subsidies?

Is it the history of Arab slave traders?

Is it the history of the Atlantic slave trade?

Enslavement went both ways.

It still does, although I have not much sympathy for women who marry these schmucks. Why any woman shoud have to deal with what is legally allowed in the grey area of this map is beyond me. Don't tell me culture has nothing to do with fertility rates . How do you bring a culture into the 21st century? How do you encourage birth control in cultures that value children more than the abilty to take care of them? Part of the failures are
cultural, part are history, and part are simple ecology. Something that global warming will exacerbate.

We ignore the lessons of Africa, especially here in the dry, western part of the US, at our own peril.

Matt Taibbi nails it again

Economic Realities Are Killing Our Era of Fantasy Politics
By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com. Posted July 19, 2008.

Election season will be packed with horserace media distractions, but our economic situation is becoming a matter of life and death.

...If you're reading this and you had to drive to work today or pay a credit card bill in the last few weeks you know better than I do for sure how fucked up things have gotten. I hear talk from people out on the campaign trail about mortgages and bankruptcies and bill collectors that are enough to make your ass clench with 100 percent pure panic.

None of this is a secret. Here, however, is something that is a secret: that this is a class issue that is being intentionally downplayed by a political/media consensus bent on selling the public a version of reality where class resentments, or class distinctions even, do not exist...


...We're also going to be fed truckloads of onerous horseshit about the candidate wives...

Naomi Wolf's alarming message

Makes this crap make sense.

Netroots Summit Grapples with Bipartisan Attacks on Rule of Law

Hat Tip to Ornery Bastard

Friday squirrel blogging

Got flowers?
Got poop?

How about fleas?

Rigidly Male-Dominated Societies Are Violent; The U.S. Is No Different
By Riane Eisler, The Wip. Posted July 11, 2008.

Until people (including progressives) stop thinking of "women's issues" secondary, the U.S. will continue on its path of poverty and war.

...For both the mullahs in Iran and the rightist-fundamentalist alliance in the United States, "getting women back into their traditional place" in a "traditional family" has been a top priority...

Rice hopes Iran will change course in Geneva talks
Fri Jul 18, 2008 12:34pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday the United States would not soften its refusal to negotiate directly with Iran until Tehran gave up its nuclear program.

In a change of policy, a senior State Department official, William Burns will attend nuclear talks in Geneva along with other major powers to hear Iran's response to an incentives package offered last month. Previously, the United States did not participate in such meetings with Iran.

Crackdown focuses on arms smuggling from Iran
By ROBERT BURNS – 1 hour ago

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq (AP) — U.S. forces in Iraq are launching a new crackdown on weapons smuggling from Iran, in part by tighter monitoring of border crossings, a U.S. commander told The Associated Press on Friday.

Hmmmmmmmmmm. We'll see. I wonder what they will be discussing in Tehran? This guy, maybe? I hope the talks are effective, but I'm not holding my breath.

A little background from an Iranian scholar, educated in the US

Wooo hoo, welcome aboard WordEye

Some day, this is how it will be. Dial 9-1-1

What I woke up thinking about this morning

The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment (Hardcover)by Paul R. Ehrlich (Author), Anne H. Ehrlich (Author)

...But the Ehrlichs also explore the flip side of this triumphant story of innovation and conquest. As we clear forests to raise crops and build cities, lace the continents with highways, and create chemicals never before seen in nature, we may be undermining our own supremacy. The threats of environmental damage are clear from the daily headlines, but the outcome is far from destined. Humanity can again adapt—if we learn from our evolutionary past...

Ethiopia : Failed leader + failed regime = failed state
Alemayehu G. Mariam
The Failed States Index for 2008 is out; and the Land of Famine, Gross Human Rights Violations, Stolen Elections and Poverty is re-certified as a "Failed State", again!

“Farmers have the solution in their hands. Government should turn its focus to the farmers. If government continues providing relief aid and PSNP, then the recipients easily develop a dependency syndrome that will eventually become hard to overcome.”

Rwanda: Eradicating Poverty - Develop a Woman, Develop a Nation
The New Times (Kigali)
OPINION
16 July 2008
Posted to the web 17 July 2008

Dependent on remittances ,

A nation that trains and exports more nurses than any other suffers from Catholic stupidity,

again and again


News of U.N. Food Aid Initiatives for Haiti Ignore the Overpopulation Problem
April 21, 2008

“Despite the potential problem, history has demonstrated that cooperation, rather than conflict, is likely in shared basins,” says UNESCO.
However, the fact remains that throughout the world water supplies are running dry and the situation is being compounded by inappropriate management of water resources that will likely unravel previous international cooperation around water.

'Birth dearth' worries pale in comparison to overpopulation

Water and food shortages present larger challenges than economic woes linked to a declining population, says author.
By David R. Francis
from the July 14, 2008 edition

Senate passes stupid aid bill

-- The bill does not explicitly authorize bringing together HIV programs and family planning programs under one roof, even though from a practical standpoint this integration is crucial to protect women's health, including safe pregnancy.
SOURCE Global AIDS Alliance

As the population grows, the actual number of poor people is rises as well. 35 The rich must live more simply that the poor may simply live.

We take the cake on wasteful water usage ,
but we're not alone

My friend laughed when I asked her if she was glad she didn't have to live in my head.

Europe Backpedals on Biofuels .

..."But the allure has dimmed amid growing evidence that the kind of targets proposed by the EU are contributing to deforestation and helping force up food prices." In the overall energy landscape, the EU currently produces 8.5% of its energy from renewable sources....


Naomi Klein on Democracy Now (mp3 audio file)

A journalist who actually does her homework instead of selling shit for huge corporations. I find it easier to listen to her, rather than watch her. Don't ask me why, you don't want to know, it's really a shallow reason.

Update 12:16 PM 8/4/2008
'eh no it's not, Klein bugs me because she's a Pollyanna when it comes to population numbers. Don't you have to take statistics to get a degree in Economics?

Update at 12:12 PM 7/17/2008
Naomi mentions Hunt Oil and their illegal contracts in Iraq with the Kurds. Heh, look what popped up today --

The Pentagon and the Hunt for Black Gold The Oil Deal Nobody Wants to Talk About
by Nick Turse

GAH

AOl straw poll

Mmmm. There's a reason why I shook off the AOL training wheels ten years ago.

This book looks sort of interesting also

Did somebody forget to tell Condi that the Cold War is over?

Witch hunt for oil speculators is pointless

And "poppycock" says Matt Simmons. The high oil prices aren't going away. Period. Pull your fucking head out of your ass America.

(update: yeesh, that last little gem is for the people who don't usually read my blog, I know the ones who do read it occasionally don't suffer from head-up-ass syndrome)

Losses are heartbreaking

(click on pic for full article)

She told me my arm was gone. We argued about that for five minutes. I mean, I could feel it.
By Stephen Dobyns Published Wednesday, July 9, 2008

...The number of amputees who suffer from phantom pain ranges from 50 to 95 percent, depending on which specialist is asked, but the most agreed upon number is around 75 percent...

...So far the Iraq War has led to amputations for more than 750 servicemen and women. The high number is due in part to the body armor that protects the trunk. Without it, many of these soldiers would have died. In fact, about 92 percent of those wounded in Iraq survive their wounds, as opposed to 76 percent in Vietnam...

...As with any war, sympathy and attention goes to the soldiers injured in combat, and of these Iraq has provided nearly 100,000. The first Iraq War amputees were treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center outside of Washington. Then, as their number increased, the Department of Defense opened a second amputee care center at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Houston in San Antonio, Texas, in early 2005.

A third amputee care center was officially opened in San Diego on October 15 as part of the Comprehensive Combat Casualty Care Center, or C5, of the Naval Medical Center. The 30,000-square-foot facility is not only a showpiece of new technology, with an accurate motion-capture system and an advanced bionic technology room used for gait adjustment, but also includes a 3500-square-foot obstacle course with a 30-foot climbing wall. It cost $4.4 million to build and another $4 million to outfit and staff. A major focus of C5 is to get the amputees moving as soon as possible, taking them on ski trips, having them engage in sports, and even learning to surf.
----------------
The last time I was at the DMV I was startled by a mlitary veteran amputee. He was moving pretty fast on that prosthesis, which I only noticed because he was in shorts. I knew he was military because of the sticker on his vehicle. He was young. Who knows how he lost it, around here, we call these sailor killers.

Let's have the truth about illegal immigration please

Escondido tries to rid itself of undocumented immigrants
By Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 13, 2008

Immigration sweeps, driver's license checkpoints, city codes and proposed policies add up to an intentionally hostile environment.

NO, Read the comments , the opinions are all over the place, but most people who actually have to deal with the consequences of it, rather than benefit from it, have had it up to HERE with illegal immigration.

The ability of politicians who pander to big business make me want to vomit:

Andrew Ysiano, publisher of the Stockton-based Latino Times newspaper praised Villaraigosa for his ability to grasp the needs of immigrants and the poor while governing the nation's second-largest city."It's a difficult thing to do . . . and he's done it well," said Ysiano, who is a Republican.

Funny stuff

My friend sent me this this morning.

I found this comment in aCar Club discussion page. I think it says it all.


"OPEC sells oil for $136.00 a barrel. (Now $147 and climbing...)OPEC nations buy U.S. grain at $7.00 a bushel. Solution: Sell grain for $136.00 a bushel. ($147...)Can't buy it? Tough! Eat your oil! Ought to go well with a nice thick grilled filet of camel ass!!!"

FAIR TRADE is a two-way deal

"Demographic challenge of high growth rates"

Jobs for Jordan
Week of 7.11.08

Got to give Queen Rania some credit here for trying to deal with an astronomical population growth rate, and a culture of denial of reality.

Mmmm. The Middle East doesn't have enough jobs for all of the young people entering the workforce. What a nice diplomatic report that barely mentions the culture of assuming that having many children is sustainable. What arrogance to assume that blue collar work is shameful. You want to feed your 6 kids? Get real, or get a clue and don't have so many. There are 6.7 billion people on the planet. There were 3 billion when I was born. There is only so much arable land, and water supplies are seriously stressed all over the planet, Hel-looooooo?

Let's Compare and Contrast here, mmmmmkay?

Annual population growth rates:

Jordan

United States

Egypt

China

Women in developement

Gee, here's a thought. How about you send your women to work in the family planning services sector? It might create a growth industry, you know, that slowing down of human population growth, and then your other industries might be able to keep up.

Birth rates

Unemployment rates