Was this the real goal of "The Global War on Terror?"

Tomgram: Andrew Bacevich, Playing Ball With the Pentagon

"Posted by Andrew Bacevich at 8:45am, July 28, 2011.
Post-9/11, doesn’t it seem as though all American experience is blending into a single experience whose label is “your safety”? Which means, in practical terms, you get poked, prodded, searched, and surveilled wherever you go.

The other day, I went to the ballpark to see my team, the Mets, play the Florida Marlins. It’s always a shock these days to make your way into the team’s new stadium, Citi Field (named, charmingly enough, after one of the financial institutions that took us down in 2008 and somehow came up smelling like roses). No more is it just tickets at the turnstile. What’s involved now is that peek into your backpack or bag, followed by the full-scale search of you, body wand and all.

I always have the urge to shout: I’m here for a ballgame, not the Global War on Terror! Instead, of course, I just lift my arms and let myself be wanded. It’s like an eternal reminder that, for Americans, 9/11 did change everything -- and for the more intrusive at that. Once inside, past all the restaurants and clubs, memorabilia shops and sports-clothing stores that now add up to the baseball (basemall?) experience, it turns out you haven’t left America’s wars behind...."

A security state run by goons?

15 Years in Prison For Taping the Cops? How Eavesdropping Laws Are Taking Away Our Best Defense Against Police Brutality
July 27, 2011 Rania Khalek -- AlterNet

So, I kind of got hooked on Dexter a couple of years ago when you could still stream the first two seasons on Netflix. Just recently I watched the 5th season, and as soon as I read the preceding paragraphs, the theme song started up in my head.


Sounds random? Nope, as soon as I got hooked on Dexter I wondered if Dexter would ever get to the real serial killers on this planet? Can you guess who entered my mind as I wondered that? I mean come on, it's obvious to me that the GWOT is the not the tip of the spear wielded by the banksters but it is the well muscled goon chucking the damn thing, and the goon is ordered fed by the banksters, but the taxpayers foot the bill.

Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy

3 discs, PBS (c) 2002.

So I'm willing to give the 2nd disc a gander, but the first had Milton Friedman, and a crapload of other free marketeers in it and I was disgusted that I couldn't review it on Netflix. It was a big, fat, sloppy wet kiss for unregulated capitalism.

OMG, I'm struggling through the segments that are online, hopefully that is all that is on the 3rd disc because I have become more and more incensed watching this piece of crap. Fortunately, a majority of the reviewers, and those who mark a review "helpful" on Netflix have a clue about this extremely biased special. I'm sure the international pirates who devalued the Mexican peso love this propagandistic piece of bankster poopoo.

Example of Tea Party morons in action.

This would not have ended peacefully if I had been there, nor would I have left. Why? Because I took a lot of bullying from stupid, conservative Republican, tea party fucktard types for years, and I don't take it anymore.

I'm not easily intimidated and I do NOT tolerate bullying.

I bite. Literally.

Tomgram: Mike Davis, The Coming Economic Disaster

Crash Club
What Happens When Three Sputtering Economies Collide?

Posted by Mike Davis at 8:15am, July 26, 2011.

"..China, of course, now props up the world, but the question is: For how much longer? Officially, the People’s Republic of China is in the midst of an epochal transition from an export-based to a consumer-based economy. The ultimate goal of which is not only to turn the average Chinese into a suburban motorist, but also to break the perverse dependency that ties that country’s growth to an American trade deficit Beijing must, in turn, finance in order to keep the Yuan from appreciating..."

The New Space Biz: Companies Seek Cash In The Cosmos

I wonder if these nifty new toys have components assembled by prison (slave) labor?



"...The majority of UNICOR’s products and services are on contract to orders from the Department of Defense. Giant multinatio­nal corporatio­ns purchase parts assembled at some of the lowest labor rates in the world, then resell the finished weapons components at the highest rates of profit. For example, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Corporatio­n subcontrac­t components­, then assemble and sell advanced weapons systems to the Pentagon..­."

http://www­.globalres­earch.ca/i­ndex.php?c­ontext=va&­aid=25376
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Oh lookee more developer corruption in San Diego, what a surprise?

NOT.

Building 'Taj Mahals' with Taxpayer Money

Im so disgusted with the hypocrisy of the "don't tax me bro" Republican asswipes who suck off the government tit in this county.

What Just Happened in Oslo, Norway? (UPDATES)

Update 8PM At Least 80 Are Dead in Norway Shooting
By ELISA MALA and J. DAVID GOODMAN
Published: July 22, 2011

"...After the shooting the police seized a 32-year-old Norwegian man on the island, according to the police and Justice Minister Knut Storberget.He was later identified as Anders Behring Breivik and was characterized by officials as a right-wing extremist..."

I'm an idiot, I went with the early speculation of blame the Muslim extremist bs at first glance, probably because of the Bawer book. Wrong. I was soooooo wrong:

Norway suspect 'fundamentalist Christian'
Pierre-Henry Deshayes
July 24, 2011 - 1:24AM


What Just Happened in Oslo, Norway? (UPDATES)
Fri Jul. 22, 2011 10:25 AM PDT Mother Jones
Nick Baumann

probably unrelated

OSLO - Norwegian oil firm DNO said on Tuesday it had more than doubled its oil reserve estimate for its licensed Tawke oil field in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, sending its share price up nearly four percent.

"After this third party review by our external auditors, the Tawke oil field is confirmed to be a world class, giant oil field," DNO chief Helge Eide said in a statement.

more possibly unrelated info

Book review: 'Midnight on the Mavi Marmara'

"...Bayoumi introduces the anthology's subject by emphasising its international impact.

The attack on the Mavi Marmara, he explains, resulted in demonstrations in major European capitals, Turkey, Canada and many US cities. Bayoumi credits the attack for pushing Egypt to finally open its Rafah border crossing into Gaza.

Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Spain Greece, and Sweden summoned their Israeli ambassadors, Bayoumi continues, while Turkey, Ecuador and South Africa recalled theirs from Jerusalem. Some dockworkers in American and European cities refused to unload Israeli ships for a time in protest, a move he cites as evidence of the attack's widespread global unpopularity.... '

more possibly unrelated info
The Mullah Krekar Show

Foreign Policy
Is this the man behind the Oslo terrorist bombing?
BY J.M. BERGER | JULY 22, 2011

I read Bruce Bawer's book about 4 years ago, and here is a blogpost of his from about a week ago. Bawer is a gay American living in Oslo and his persective worried me while I was reading the book, but umm....I pretty much forgot about it till this morning, because I figured he leaned a bit too far to the right for me.

Role Reversal: Latin America Taunts US on Debt Woes

Worries about contagion; Brazil now a U.S. creditor

by Brian Winter

"...When did the American dream become a nightmare?" gloated Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez, whose own country defaulted on about $100 billion in debt a decade ago.

In a speech at the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange on Monday, she contended that Argentina had prospered since then by focusing on exports and controlling financial speculation -- a lesson that Washington has yet to learn, she said.

The Americans "thought that money just reproduces by itself, and only in the financial sector, without having to produce any goods or services," Fernandez said..."

Taibbi -The Real Housewives of Wall Street

I somehow missed this in April 2011.

Cute title, although I don't get the whole "reality tv" thing, but I suppose lots of people like it. I can be amused watching people in public, I don't need some greedy producer inducing some of the worst of what society has to offer act like flaming assholes for my entertainment.

deleveraging

THE WORLD OF BUSINESS

Mastering the Machine
How Ray Dalio built the world’s richest and strangest hedge fund.
by John Cassidy
JULY 25, 2011

"Ray Dalio, the sixty-one-year-old founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s biggest hedge fund, is tall and somewhat gaunt...

...Rather than confronting these issues, Dalio, like all successful predators, is concentrating on the business at hand—the markets and the global economic outlook. This spring, he told me that economic growth in the United States and Europe was set to slow again. This was partly because some emergency policy measures, such as the Obama Administration’s stimulus package, would soon come to an end; partly because of the chronic indebtedness that continues to weigh on these regions; and partly because China and other developing countries would be forced to take drastic policy actions to bring down inflation. Now that the slowdown appears to have arrived, Dalio thinks it will be prolonged. “We are still in a deleveraging period,” he said. “We will be in a deleveraging period for ten years or more.”

...Like many successful financiers, Dalio justifies capitalism and his place in it as a Darwinian process, in which the over-all logic of the system is sometimes hidden. This is actually what the mention, in his Principles, of hyenas savaging a wildebeest was about. “Is this good or bad?” he wrote. Like “death itself, this behavior is integral to the enormously complex and efficient system that has worked for as long as there has been life.” Of course, this view conveniently ignores the argument that hedge funds, through their herd behavior, have contributed to speculative bubbles, in tech stocks, oil, and other commodities. Even some defenders of the industry concede that the problem is real and potentially calamitous. “There is a basis for the argument that hedge funds add economic value,” Andrew Lo, an economist at M.I.T. who runs his own hedge fund, says. “At the same time, they create systemic risks that have to be weighed against those positives....”

Polluters best friends in Congress

MONDAY, JUL 18, 2011 14:59 ET
Who are polluters' best friends in Congress?
BY NATASHA LENNARD

Cantor and Bachmann are on the list. Surprising? Uh, no.

Wall Street Journal's Defiant Defense Of News Corp

Wall Street Journal defends News Corp



what a silly article title



Murdoch Seizes Wall St. Journal In $5 Billion Coup

By Frank Ahrens

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, August 1, 2007



http://tin­yurl.com/3­esodz5
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Why Is the Most Wasteful Government Agency Not Part of the Deficit Discussion?

Why Is the Most Wasteful Government Agency Not Part of the Deficit Discussion?


Any serious battle plan to reduce the deficit must take on the
Pentagon.
by David Morris
July 12, 2011
In all the talk about the federal deficit, why is the single largest culprit left out of the conversation? Why is the one part of government that best epitomizes everything conservatives say they hate about government—- waste, incompetence, and corruption—all but exempt from conservative criticism?

I read the article. In a word - useless, but the graphs and pie charts are pretty. Here is what I think the problem is:

Pg 306 Web of Debt by Ellen Brown

"Critics charge that warfare, terorism, and natural disaster on an unprecedented scale are are being used to justify massive federal borrowing, while diverting attention from the fact that the economy is drowning in a sea of governmental and consumer debt. And that may be true; but policymakers are only doing what they have to do under the current monetary scheme. In an upside-down world in which debt is money and money is debt, somebody has to go into debt just to keep money in the system so the economy won't collapse..."

pg 307"....4. Engaging in a war as a pretext for borrowing , preferably a war that will drag on. People are willing in times of emergency to allow the government to engage heavily in deficit spending to defend the homeland...."

still reading this book

Courthouse auctions: bros with bids

Karla Peterson Test Driving San Diego
Courthouse auctions: bros with bids
By Karla Peterson
6:31 a.m., July 17, 2011

"...Hey bro, wanna buy a house?: It may sound like something out of Ye Olde West (Wenches, anyone?), but the mood of the front-step auctions is totally California Casual. It is mostly professional-buyer dudes in shorts and polo shirts bidding against other professional-buyer dudes in shorts and polo shirts..."

Hmm. First time in a long time that I was mildly amused (or even bothered to read) by an article in the SDUT, that right-wing, suck-up-to-anything -that smells -like-money, piece of shit local paper.

Happy Pride 2011

I don't know if the kid is going to bring back pics or not, but I hope they have a good time.

LGBT Gay Pride Parade Route Map Schedule and History
Active military & Margaret Cho highlight 27th annual event
By Melissa Rauch • Sat, Jul 16th, 2011

Barack Obama to Nominate Consumer Protection Bureau Chief Next Week

"The administra­tion is not expected to nominate Elizabeth Warren,"



Ahh, what!? This informatio­n from this one WSJ article is all over the place and:



"Dow Jones & Co. Chief Executive Les Hinton resigned late Friday, as the top executive at News Corp.'s financial publishing unit sought to contain the damage from the company's British tabloid scandal, which began while he oversaw the company's U.K. newspaper operations­."



http://onl­ine.wsj.co­m/article/­SB10001424­0527023042­0330457644­8291349364­376.html
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

State Health Exchanges Tilting Toward Insurers

"It's hard to believe that in all of Colorado, he couldn't find qualified candidates who understand commercial health insurance to balance industry executives with obvious conflicts of interest."



Thank you Mr. Potter :)
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Watching an asinine bankster tool grill Warren

Elizabeth Warren Discussses Consumer Protection Bureau (VIDEO)


This is why

New 'Abusive' Standard in Dodd-Frank Has Bankers Nervous

Naaahhhh, Really?

Congress Increasingly Staffed By Former Lobbyists
The number of former lobbyists working as key congressional staffers has more than doubled since the Republican Party took control of the House, a new report finds.

How much money is enough?

How Dracula Hedge Funds Are Sucking Us Dry
What notion of economics or ethics justifies the fact that it would take the average family more than 35,000 years to earn as much as the top hedge fund managers earn in one year?
July 9, 2011 |

The Highest Income Celebrities, CEO and Hedge Fund Managers (2010)
The Top Ten	Average Yearly Income	Number of years if would take for the average American family to earn as much.
Hedge Fund managers	$1,753,000,000	35,217 years
Movie directors/producers	$126,000,000	2,531
Top celebrities from all fields	$119,800,000	2,407
Pop musicians	$87,200,000	1,752
Non-financial CEOs	$47,100,000	946
Athletes	$44,600,000	896
Movie stars	$42,600,000	856
Authors	$26,900,000	402
Lawyers	$20,000,000	402
Bank/Insurance CEOs	$16,600,000	333
Median Family Income (2009)	$49,777

War on Drugs continues

Federal Government Rules Marijuana Has No Accepted Medical Purpose

Updated: 7/9/11 06:06 PM ET

Deeeeeees-custed here.


The “War On Drugs” Is A $2.5 Trillion Racket: How Big Banks, Private Military Companies And The Prison Industry Cash In
July 9th, 2011

Al Gore: Climate of Denial

Can science and the truth withstand the merchants of poison?
Rolling Stone
JUNE 22, 2011

I hate RepugnantThuglicans

The Tea Party and Goldman Sachs: A Love Story
Robert Scheer
July 6, 2011

"...Congressional Republicans are cutting funding for the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as if those already underfunded agencies are centers of anti-business radicalism. The CFTC is run by former Goldman Sachs partner Gary Gensler, who, back when..."

Republicans:
1. Defund and infiltrate regulatory agencies with corporate tools
2. Complain that big gubmint don't work
3. Rinse and repeat

S&P Raises California Credit Rating To Stable From Negative

California Slashes Services For Poor, Elderly, Disabled

http://www­.huffingto­npost.com/­2011/07/04­/californi­a-budget-p­oor-elderl­y_n_889029­.html
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tomgram: Chase Madar, A Medal for Bradley Manning?

Bradley Manning, American Hero
Four Reasons Why Pfc. Bradley Manning Deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Not a Prison Cell
Posted by Chase Madar
at 9:50am, July 7, 2011.


"...1: At great personal cost, Bradley Manning has given our foreign policy elite the public supervision it so badly needs.
Bradley Manning is only the latest in a long line of whistleblowers in and out of uniform who have risked everything to put our country back on the right path...

...Take Daniel Ellsberg, leaker of the Pentagon Papers, a Pentagon-commissioned secret history of the Vietnam War and the official lies and distortions that the government used to sell it...

...And Ellsberg is hardly alone. Ask Lt. Colonel (ret.) Darrel Vandeveld. Or Tom Drake, formerly of the National Security Agency....

Tomgram: Andy Kroll, The 60-Year Unemployment Scandal

at 10:17am, July 5, 2011.
"Americans care about them more than any other issue, so every poll tells us. The presidential candidates are already crafting their stump speeches and talking points around them. President Obama has seen the writing on the wall and regularly tailors his message to emphasize how many of them he has created. I'm talking, of course, about jobs."

What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Jobs
How Racism, Global Economics, and the New Jim Crow Fuel Black America's Crippling Jobs Crisis
By Andy Kroll

Exxon spill Yellowstone river

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Ghulam Nabi Azad, India Health Minister, Calls Homosexuality A 'Disease' From The West

"India health minister calls homosexula­ity a disease"
Hey Azad,

so is the caste system, but that aint stopped its spread
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Happy July 4th 2011

Yeah, I stole the pic. The article on Discovery News is a couple of years old, but interesing:

Eco-Friendly Fireworks Offer Safer Pyrotechnics
Emily Sohn, Discovery News
July 2, 2009
"While particle-filled smoke may be the most obvious concern, it's not the only issue -- or even the worst one...

...Animal studies have linked perchlorates, such as potassium perchlorate and ammonium perchlorate, to thyroid problems. Repeated pyrotechnic displays, especially ones that occur every day at theme parks, can take their toll."

Hmm, reminds me of this. Somebody over at the Huffpo made some crack on a fireworks article that cracked me up, but also caused me to sharply inhale, and then it made me very, very sad. Pretty great comment to make me do all that in one sentence.

Ralph Nader Is Tired of Running for President
Posted on Jul 4, 2011
By Chris Hedges
The most important moral and intellectual voices within a disintegrating society are slowly discredited when their nonviolent protests and calls for justice cannot alter intransigent and corrupt systems of power. The repeated acts of peaceful civil disobedience, efforts at electoral and political reform and the fight to protect the rule of law are dismissed as useless by an embittered, dispossessed and betrayed public. The demagogues and hatemongers, the purveyors of violence, easily seduce enraged and bewildered masses in the final stages of collapse with false promises of vengeance, new glory and moral renewal. And in the spiral downward the good among us are reviled as naive and ineffectual fools...

Fox News Twitter feed says Obama dead in apparent hack

By Richard Allen Greene, CNN
July 4, 2011 -- Updated 1509 GMT (2309 HKT) | Filed under: Social Media

(CNN) -- Hackers apparently broke into the FoxNews.com's Twitter feed for political news early Monday and used it to announce -- falsely -- that President Barack Obama had been assassinated.
Obama was "shot twice at a Ross' restaurant in Iowa while campaigning. RIP Obama, best regards to the Obama family," read one of several Twitter messages posted on @FoxNewsPolitics early Monday.

Apparently Hacked, a Fox News Twitter Account Sent Out Alarming Posts
By LIZ ROBBINS and BRIAN STELTER
Published: July 4, 2011

“Hackers sent out several malicious and false Tweets claiming that President Obama had been assassinated. Those reports are incorrect, of course, and the president is spending the July 4 holiday with his family. The hacking is being investigated, and FoxNews.com regrets any distress the false tweets may have created.”


I'm watching a BBC and PBS special called Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State (C) 2005. The mind boggles.