GOD Interviews Bush . . . .

. . . . . . .At the Pearly Gates:

another Signs of the Times find!

By John M Conley
March 5, 2005

http://www.opednews.com/

Let's imagine for a moment that George W. Bush is being interviewed by God for entry into Heaven. (and George's replies are actual quotes from Bush.)

God: Okay, George, you're on the bubble here. We allowed Laura in, but we need to clear up a few things about your time spent on earth.

Bush: Okay, Lord. Shoot! Hallelujah.

God: In 1989 you made the following comment: "You know I could run for governor but I'm basically a media creation. I've never done anything. I've worked for my dad. I worked in the oil business. But that's not the kind of profile you have to have to get elected to public office."

Bush: Did I say that?

GOD: Yes, you did, George.

BUSH: If you say so.

GOD: What caused you to change your mind?

BUSH: About what?

GOD: About your decision to run for Governor of Texas! You really don't pay attention.

Bush: "I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things." - On board Air Force One, June 4, 2003

God: And you didn't have much interest in keeping up with current events, do you?

Bush: "I glance at the headlines just to kind of get a flavor for what's moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read the news themselves." (Washington, D.C., Sept. 21, 2003)

GOD: But, you ended up running for Texas governor. Why?

Bush: "When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who they were. It was us vs. them, and it was clear who them was. Today, we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they're there." - Iowa Western Community College, Jan 21, 2000

God: What's that supposed to mean?

Bush: What?

God: Never mind. Let's move on. What was your priority as Governor of Texas.......the number one problem you wanted to see solved?

Bush: "[T]he illiteracy level of our children are appalling." (Washington, D.C., Jan. 23, 2004) "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?" (Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 2000)

God: Well, do you believe your own daughters did well learning within the Texas school system?

Bush: "Laura and I really don't realize how bright our children is sometimes until we get an objective analysis." (CNBC, April 15, 2000) "Then you wake up at the high school level and find out that the illiteracy level of our children are appalling." George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Jan. 23, 2004

God: Hmmmm. Ok. Can you summarize the job you feel you did as Governor?

Bush: "One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Governor, and that one word is 'to be prepared'."
God: And you believe your judgements were fair?

Bush: "I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future." ''I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe - believe what I believe is right." - Rome, July 22, 2001

God: Only I know the future, George.

Bush: "The future will be better tomorrow."

God: I wouldn't say that's true for the 152 people you executed as Governor.

Bush: "The only things that I can tell you is that every case I have reviewed I have been comfortable with the innocence or guilt of the person that I've looked at. I do not believe we've put a guilty ... I mean innocent person to death in the state of Texas." All Things Considered, NPR, June 16, 2000

God: Oh, but you did George. Based on your own human statistics 16 or 17% of all people executed are actually innocent. Out of 152 people, do you know how many innocents you've allowed to die?

Bush: "I'm the master of low expectations." (Aboard Air Force One, June 4, 2003)

God: And are you aware that the vast majority of those on death row are too poor to hire an attorney who can represent them adequately?

Bush: "First, let me make it very clear, poor people aren't necessarily killers. Just because you happen to be not rich doesn't mean you're willing to kill." (Washington, D.C., May 19, 2003)

God: My, my. How good of you. As a Christian, are you aware that even a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without my notice?

Bush: "Just remember it's the birds that's supposed to suffer, not the hunter." (Advising quail hunter and New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici, Roswell, N.M., Jan. 22, 2004)

God: There are several you've executed at this very moment living here in my Kingdom and they've been interested in visiting with you.......if you make it in, that is.

Bush: "My answer is bring them on." (On Iraqi militants attacking U.S. forces, Washington, D.C., July 3, 2003)

God: One of them is Karla Faye Tucker. Remember the one you taunted when she asked you for mercy?

Bush: Oh, yeah....her. What a whiner. But, God, with all due respect, should I have pardoned her just because Pat Robertson asked me to?

God: Who?

Bush: Pat Robertson.

God: Doesn't ring a bell. Let's move on....... Tell me, George, in your heart of hearts, what do you think of war?

Bush: "I think war is a dangerous place." (Washington, D.C., May 7, 2000)

God: Do you believe you worked for peace?

Bush: "The second pillar of peace and security in our world is the willingness of free nations, when the last resort arrives, to retain aggression and evil by force." (Bush, speaking in London, England, Nov. 19, 2003)

God: What about the families of those who have fought and died in Iraq so that you, Cheney, Rimsfeld, and Wolfowitz could get control of their oilfields?

Bush: "Obviously, I pray every day there's less casualty." (Fort Hood, Texas, April 11, 2004) But, we went there to free the Iraqi people from Sadaam Hussein! [my words]

God: George, George. This is God you're talking to, remember?

Bush: "The truth of that matter is, if you listen carefully, Saddam would still be in power if he were president of the United States, and we’d be a lot better off." (Bush at the second presidential debate in St. Louis, Oct. 8, 2004.)

God: Say, what?

Bush: "The world is more peaceful and more free under my leadership." (Source: The Boston Globe, Oct. 29, 2003)

God: What are your feelings for those families who have lost loved ones in the war?

Bush: "There's only one person who hugs the mothers and the widows, the wives and the kids upon the death of their loved one. Others hug but having committed the troops, I've got an additional responsibility to hug and that's me and I know what it's like." (Source: ABC News Transcripts, "President Bush and First Lady Bush '20/20' Year-End Interview," Dec. 13, 2002

God: Let's move on. Do you believe you did a good job with the economy as president?

Bush: "By making the right choices, we can make the right choice for our future." (Bush, sharing insights into improving Americans' health and fitness Source: The White House, "President Bush Highlights Health and Fitness Initiative: Remarks by the President on Fitness," July 18, 2003)

God: But, did you bring experts in to consult about the best economic path to take for the country?

Bush: "We don't believe in planners and deciders making the decisions on behalf of Americans." (Scranton, Pa., Sept. 6, 2000)

God: Okay, but you do have a budget, right?

Bush: "It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it." - (Reuters, May 5, 2000)

God: Having an MBA degree from Harvard, I need to know your economic philosophy once and for all.

Bush: Okay. "Because the -- all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those -- changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to what has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that growth is affected, it will help on the red." - George W. Bush, explaining his plan to save Social Security, Tampa, Fla., Feb. 4, 2005

God: There's a talking ass in the Old Testament that made more sense than you, but let me take a stab at it.....Are you talking about Social Security?

Bush: Over your head a little?

God: Way over my head. Why didn't you listen more to the Democrats?

Bush: "They want the Federal Government controling Social Security like it's some kind of Federal program." (ST. CHARLES, MO., NOV. 2, 2000)

God: But . . . . . .never mind. You gave huge tax cuts to the absolute wealthiest Americans, George. Why?

Bush: "We ought to make the pie higher." (SOUTH CAROLINA REPUBLICAN DEBATE, FEB. 15, 2000)

God: You want the pie higher?

Bush: "See, without the tax relief package, there would have been a deficit, but there wouldn't have been the commiserate -- not 'commiserate' -- the kick to our economy that occurred as a result of the tax relief."

God: But, George, all the money you gave away is the main reason for the deficit! It kicked the economy alright. Right in the ribs!

Bush: "Let me tell you my thoughts about tax relief. When your economy is kind of ooching along, it's important to let people have more of their own money." (Boston, Oct. 4, 2002) "It's very important for folks to understand that when there's more trade, there's more commerce." (Quebec City, Canada, April 21, 2001)

God: That's not a smart answer at all. And you actually graduated from Harvard with an MBA degree?

Bush: "I think anybody who doesn't think I'm smart enough to handle the job is underestimating [me]." (U.S. News & World Report, April 3, 2000)

God: You're forgetting, George. I'm God. Anyway, let's try foreign policy. What was the driving force behind your foreign policy?

Bush: "This foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating." (as quoted by the New York Daily News, April 23, 2002)

God: Yeah, tell me about it. But, what is your general theory to solving the problems of mankind?

Bush: "[W]hether they be Christian, Jew, or Muslim, or Hindu, people have heard the universal call to love a neighbor just like they'd like to be called themselves." (Washington, Oct. 8, 2003)

God: Okay . . . . I guess. What else?

Bush: "We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur."

God: What?

Bush: "It's time for the human race to enter the solar system."

God: You are in the solar system, George.

Bush: Well, I guess you oughta know! (henh, henh, henh, henh, henh)

God: (I should have given him a different laugh) Listen carefully. Give me something specific that you've done that showed you cared for my people around the world.

Bush: "We had a good Cabinet meeting, talked about a lot of issues. Secretary of State and Defense brought us up to date about our desires to spread freedom and peace around the world." (Washington, D.C., Aug. 1, 2003)

God: Were any decisions made?

Bush: "Security is the essential roadblock to achieving the road map to peace." (Washington, D.C., July 25, 2003)

God: What!?

Bush: I don't chew my cabbage twice.

God: Do you know who you're talking to?

Bush: "I don't bring God into my life to -- to, you know, kind of be a political person." (Interview with Tom Brokaw aboard Air Force One, April 24, 2003)

God: And I'm not "kind of a political person." I'm neither Democrat or Republican. But, you've convinced so many people on earth that you were such a moral, Christian man of God who only wanted to follow my instructions and do the right things, I just think it's fair that you convince me, too....especially if you think you're going to park your butt inside these gates for eternity!!

Bush: Okay, okay......don't get your robes in a wad. What is it you have to know, God? No offense, but I'm in a bit of a hurry. Laura's waiting, you know.

God: What is your idea of justice, George?

Bush: "Justice ought to be fair." (speaking at the Whitehouse Economic Conference, Dec 15, 2004)

God: I'm really concerned about you. Do you have any concept at all about the huge problems on earth?

Bush: Yes, I do. "In 2000, alone, obesity costs totaled the country an estimated cost of $117 billion."
(Bush, promoting his Health and Fitness Initiative)

God: I see no purpose in pursuing this any longer. I may as well let you in with the others.

Bush: "Do you have blacks, too?" (Bush, speaking to Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
Source: Salon.com, "Bushed," Jake Tapper, June 20, 2002)

God: Yes, George. And guess what? There are gays here, also!

Bush: Seriously?

God: Is there anything else you want to know before you go in? Any question you've had all your life that you knew only I could answer?

Bush: Yeah, as a matter of fact.

God: Okay, what is it?

Bush: "Will the highways on the Internet become more few?" (CONCORD, N.H., JAN. 29, 2000)

God: Let me get back with you on that, George.

Bush: Okay. Do you have any questions for me?

God: Yeah, Have you ever been bitch-slapped?

If Words Still Had the Power They Once Held . . . .

Keith Olbermann speaks out -

MSNBC
Wed, 10 Jan 2007 23:58 EST
New World Politics

Keith Olbermann speaks the truth one week before George W Bush fills the airwaves with lies.

If only his words held the power they might have held in the 1950's - before the media was bought and paid for; before it became a mouthpiece for those who will destroy us.

January 3, 2007
by Keith Olbermann
MSNBC

Broadcast on 'Countdown', January 2, 2007: The BBC is reporting President Bush is about to announce a plan to increase troop levels in Iraq via a speech with the theme of 'sacrifice.' Keith Olbermann responds in a special comment.

If in your presence an individual tried to sacrifice an American serviceman or woman, would you intervene?

Would you at least protest?

What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them?

What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them -- and was then to announce his intention to sacrifice hundreds, maybe thousands, more?

This is where we stand tonight with the BBC report of President Bush's "new Iraq strategy," and his impending speech to the nation, which, according to a quoted senior American official, will be about troop increases and "sacrifice."

The president has delayed, dawdled and deferred for the month since the release of the Iraq Study Group

He has seemingly heard out everybody, and listened to none of them.

If the BBC is right - and we can only pray it is not - he has settled on the only solution of all the true experts agreed cannot possibly work: more American personnel in Iraq, not as trainers for Iraqi troops, but as part of some flabby plan for "sacrifice."

Sacrifice!

More American servicemen and women will have their lives risked.

More American servicemen and women will have their lives ended.

More American families will have to bear the unbearable and rationalize the unforgivable "sacrifice" - sacrifice now, sacrifice tomorrow, sacrifice forever.

And more Americans - more than the two-thirds who already believe we need fewer troops in Iraq, not more - will have to conclude the president does not have any idea what he's doing - and that other Americans will have to die for that reason.

It must now be branded as propaganda - for even the president cannot truly feel that very many people still believe him to be competent in this area, let alone, "the decider."

But from our impeccable reporter at the Pentagon, Jim Miklasewski, tonight comes confirmation of something called "surge and accelerate" - as many as 20,000 additional troops - for "political purposes."

This, in line with what we had previously heard, that this will be proclaimed a short-term measure, for the stated purpose of increasing security in and around Baghdad, and giving an Iraqi government a chance to establish some kind of order.

This is palpable nonsense, Mr. Bush.

If this is your intention - if the centerpiece of your announcement next week will be 'sacrifice' - sacrifice your intention, not more American lives!

As Sen. Joseph Biden has pointed out, the new troops might improve the ratio our forces face relative to those living in Baghdad (friend and foe), from 200 to 1, to just 100 to 1.

"Sacrifice?"

No.

A drop in the bucket

The additional men and women you have sentenced to go there, sir, will serve only as targets.

They will not be there "short-term," Mr. Bush, for many it will mean a year or more in death's shadow.

This is not temporary, Mr. Bush.

For the Americans who will die because of you, it will be as permanent as it gets.

The various rationales for what Mr. Bush will reportedly re-christen "sacrifice" constitute a very thin gruel, indeed.

The former labor secretary, Robert Reich, says Sen. John McCain told him that the "surge" would help the "morale" of the troops already in Iraq.

If Mr. McCain truly said that, and truly believes it, he has either forgotten completely his own experience in Vietnam ... or he is unaware of the recent Military Times poll indicating only 38 percent of our active military want to see more troops sent ... or Mr. McCain has departed from reality. [along with the rest of the Neocons who proudly proclaim their disdain for the "reality-based" rest of us]

Then there is the argument that to take any steps toward reducing troop numbers would show weakness to the enemy in Iraq, or to the terrorists around the world.

This simplistic logic ignores the inescapable fact that we have indeed already showed weakness to the enemy, and to the terrorists.

We have shown them that we will let our own people be killed for no good reason.

We have now shown them that we will continue to do so.

We have shown them our stupidity.

Mr. Bush, your judgment about Iraq - and now about "sacrifice" - is at variance with your people's, to the point of delusion.

Your most respected generals see no value in a "surge" - they could not possibly see it in this madness of "sacrifice."

The Iraq Study Group told you it would be a mistake.

Perhaps dozens more have told you it would be a mistake.

And you threw their wisdom back, until you finally heard what you wanted to hear, like some child drawing straws and then saying "best two out of three . . . best three out of five . . . hundreth one counts."

Your citizens, the people for whom you work, have told you they do not want this, and moreover, they do not want you to do this.

Yet once again, sir, you have ignored all of us.

Mr. Bush, you do not own this country!

To those Republicans who have not broken free from the slavery of partisanship - those bonded still, to this president and this administration, and now bonded to this "sacrifice" - proceed at your own peril.

John McCain may still hear the applause of small crowds - he has some[how] inured himself to the hypocrisy, and the tragedy, of a man who considers himself the ultimate realist, courting the votes of those who support the government telling visitors to the Grand Canyon that it was caused by the Great Flood.

That Mr. McCain is selling himself off to the irrational right, parcel by parcel, like some great landowner facing bankruptcy, seems to be obvious to everybody but himself.

Or, maybe it is obvious to him and he simply no longer cares.

But to the rest of you in the Republican Party:

We need you to speak up, right now, in defense of your country's most precious assets - the lives of its citizens who are in harm's way.

If you do not, you are not serving this nation's interests - nor your own.

November should have told you this.

The opening of the new Congress on Wednesday and Thursday should tell you this.

Next time, those missing Republicans will be you.

And to the Democrats now yoked to the helm of this sinking ship, you proceed at your own peril, as well.

President Bush may not be very good at reality, but he and Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rove are still gifted at letting American troops be killed, and then turning their deaths to their own political advantage.

The equation is simple.

This country does not want more troops in Iraq.

It wants fewer.

Go and make it happen, or go and look for other work.

Yet you Democrats must assume that even if you take the most obvious of courses, and cut off funding for the war, Mr. Bush will ignore you as long as possible, or will find the money elsewhere, or will spend the money meant to protect the troops, and re-purpose it to keep as many troops there as long as he can keep them there.

Because that's what this is all about, is it not, Mr. Bush?

That is what this "sacrifice" has been for.

To continue this senseless, endless war.

You have dressed it up in the clothing, first of a hunt for weapons of mass destruction, then of liberation . . . then of regional imperative . . . then of oil prices . . . and now in these new terms of "sacrifice" - it's like a damned game of Colorforms, isn't it, sir?

This senseless, endless war.

But - it has not been senseless in two ways.

It has succeeded, Mr. Bush, in enabling you to deaden the collective mind of this country to the pointlessness of endless war, against the wrong people, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

It has gotten many of us used to the idea - the virtual "white noise" - of conflict far away, of the deaths of young Americans, of vague "sacrifice" for some fluid cause, too complicated to be interpreted except in terms of the very important-sounding but ultimately meaningless phrase "the war or terror."

And the war’s second accomplishment - your second accomplishment, sir - is to have taken money out of the pockets of every American, even out of the pockets of the dead soldiers on the battlefield, and their families, and to have given that money to the war profiteers.

Because if you sell the Army a thousand Humvees, you can't sell them any more until the first thousand have been destroyed.

The service men and women are ancillary to the equation.

This is about the planned obsolescence of ordinance, isn't it, Mr. Bush? And the building of detention centers? And the design of a $125 million courtroom complex at Gitmo, complete with restaurants.

[need that sick bag yet?]

At least the war profiteers have made their money, sir.

And we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.

You have insisted, Mr. Bush, that we must not lose in Iraq, that if we don't fight them there we will fight them here - as if the corollary were somehow true, that if by fighting them there we will not have to fight them here.

And yet you have re-made our country, and not re-made it for the better, on the premise that we need to be ready to "fight them here," anyway, and always.

In point of fact, even if the civil war in Iraq somehow ended tomorrow, and the risk to Americans there ended with it, we would have already suffered a defeat - not fatal, not world-changing, not, but for the lives lost, of enduring consequence.

But this country has already lost in Iraq, sir.

Your policy in Iraq has already had its crushing impact on our safety here.

You have already fomented new terrorism and new terrorists.

You have already stoked paranoia.

You have already pitted Americans, one against the other.

We ... will have to live with it.

We ... will have to live with what- of the fabric of our nation- you have already "sacrificed."


The only object still admissible in this debate is the quickest and safest exit for our people there.

But you - and soon, Mr. Bush, it will be you and you alone - still insist otherwise.

And our sons and daughters and fathers and mothers will be sacrificed there tonight, sir, so that you can say you did not "lose in Iraq."

Our policy in Iraq has been criticized for being indescribable, for being inscrutable, for being ineffable.

But it is all too easily understood now.

First we sent Americans to their deaths for your lie, Mr. Bush.

Now we are sending them to their deaths for your ego.

If what is reported is true - if your decision is made and the "sacrifice" is ordered - take a page instead from the man at whose funeral you so eloquently spoke this morning - Gerald Ford:

Put pragmatism and the healing of a nation ahead of some kind of misguided vision.

Atone.

Sacrifice, Mr. Bush?

No, sir, this is not "sacrifice." This has now become "human sacrifice."

And it must stop.

And you can stop it.

Next week, make us all look wrong.

Our meaningless sacrifice in Iraq must stop.

And you must stop it.

Meanwhile, In the Alternate Reality . . .

. . . where the Neocons and Christian Right are trying to drag the Sensible Majority, geology is being re-written to suit the Fundies. It would be hilarious if it weren't true.

From banning stem-cell research to this particular bit of farce, the U.S. is fast becoming the laughingstock of the entire scientific world. Another gem turned up by Signs of the Times News Service

Blue Ibis
***************************************************************

For Immediate Release: December 28, 2006
Contact: Carol Goldberg (202) 265-7337

HOW OLD IS THE GRAND CANYON?
PARK SERVICE WON'T SAY

-- Orders to Cater to Creationists Makes National Park Agnostic on Geology

Washington, DC -- Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

"In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. " It is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the Grand Canyon is 'no comment.'"

In a letter released today, PEER urged the new Director of the National Park Service (NPS), Mary Bomar, to end the stalling tactics, remove the book from sale at the park and allow park interpretive rangers to honestly answer questions from the public about the geologic age of the Grand Canyon. PEER is also asking Director Bomar to approve a pamphlet, suppressed since 2002 by Bush appointees, providing guidance for rangers and other interpretive staff in making distinctions between science and religion when speaking to park visitors about geologic issues.

In August 2003, Park Superintendent Joe Alston attempted to block the sale at park bookstores of Grand Canyon: A Different View by Tom Vail, a book claiming the Canyon developed on a biblical rather than an evolutionary time scale. NPS Headquarters, however, intervened and overruled Alston. To quiet the resulting furor, NPS Chief of Communications David Barna told reporters and members of Congress that there would be a high-level policy review of the issue.

According to a recent NPS response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by PEER, no such review was ever requested, let alone conducted or completed.

Park officials have defended the decision to approve the sale of Grand Canyon: A Different View, claiming that park bookstores are like libraries, where the broadest range of views are displayed. In fact, however, both law and park policies make it clear that the park bookstores are more like schoolrooms rather than libraries. As such, materials are only to reflect the highest quality science and are supposed to closely support approved interpretive themes. Moreover, unlike a library the approval process is very selective. Records released to PEER show that during 2003, Grand Canyon officials rejected 22 books and other products for bookstore placement while approving only one new sale item -- the creationist book.

Ironically, in 2005, two years after the Grand Canyon creationist controversy erupted, NPS approved a new directive on "Interpretation and Education (Director’s Order #6) which reinforces the posture that materials on the "history of the Earth must be based on the best scientific evidence available, as found in scholarly sources that have stood the test of scientific peer review and criticism [and] Interpretive and educational programs must refrain from appearing to endorse religious beliefs explaining natural processes."

"As one park geologist said, this is equivalent of Yellowstone National Park selling a book entitled Geysers of Old Faithful: Nostrils of Satan," Ruch added, pointing to the fact that previous NPS leadership ignored strong protests from both its own scientists and leading geological societies against the agency approval of the creationist book. "We sincerely hope that the new Director of the Park Service now has the autonomy to do her job."

###

Read the PEER letter to NPS Director Bomar

View the NPS admission that no policy review on the creationist book has occurred

See the 2005 NPS Director’s Order #6 on Interpretation

8.4.2 Historical and Scientific Research. Superintendents, historians, scientists, and interpretive staff are responsible for ensuring that park interpretive and educational programs and media are accurate and reflect current scholarship…Questions often arise round the presentation of geological, biological, and evolutionary processes. The interpretive and educational treatment used to explain the natural processes and history of the Earth must be based on the best scientific evidence available, as found in scholarly sources that have stood the test of scientific peer review and criticism. The facts, theories, and interpretations to be used will reflect the thinking of the scientific community in such fields as biology, geology, physics, astronomy, chemistry, and paleontology. Interpretive and educational programs must refrain from appearing to endorse religious beliefs explaining natural processes. Programs, however, may acknowledge or explain other explanations of natural processes and events. (Emphasis added)

Trace how the creationist book controversy started and grew

Look at tax dollars used to support the Bush administration program of "Faith-Based Parks"

Your Tax Dollars : The Larger Picture

Courtesy of The Daily Heretic:

How bad will this get?

Paul Craig Roberts, the former Reagan official, writes that Bush turned his back on the U.S. establishment and has thrown his lot in with the Israeli Neocons. He has crossed the Rubicon. This means that the U.S. will now attack the Shiites in Iraq and/or Iran. This will lead to a slaughter of U.S. forces that will spark calls for revenge by the U.S. public. Revenge on whom, though? Will the U.S. public blame Iran or Israel? This explains the defensiveness of the Israel lobby with respect to Jimmy Carter's book. According to Roberts, the plan by the neocons is to commit genocide against the Arabs, having the U.S. do the dirty work for Israel.

...When word leaked that Bush was inclined toward the "surge option" of committing more troops by keeping existing troops deployed in Iraq after their replacements had arrived, NBC News reported that an administration official "admitted to us today that this surge option is more of a political decision than a military one." It is a clear sign of exasperation with Bush when an administration official admits that Bush is willing to sacrifice American troops and Iraqi civilians in order to protect his own delusions.

The American establishment, concerned by Bush's egregious mismanagement, moved to take control of Iraq policy away from him. However, recent news reports and analysis suggest that Bush has turned his back to the American establishment and his military advisers and is throwing in his lot with the neoconservatives and the Israeli lobby. This will further isolate Bush and make him more vulnerable to impeachment.

...Raed Jarrar (CounterPunch, January 4) suggests that the Shi'ite militias, such as the one led by Al-Sadr, are the intended targets of the "surge option." There seems no surer way to escalate the conflict in Iraq than to attack the Shi'ite militias. For longer than the US fought Germany in WW II, 150,000 US troops in Iraq have been thwarted by a small insurgency drawn from Iraq's minority population of Sunnis. It hardly seems feasible that 30,000 additional US troops, demoralized by extended deployment, can succeed in a surge against the Shi'ite militias when 150,000 US troops cannot succeed against the minority Sunnis.

The reason the US has not been driven out of Iraq is that the majority Shi'ites have not been part of the insurgency. The Shi'ites are attacking the Sunnis, who are forced to fight a two-front war against US troops and Shi'ite militias and death squads.The US owes its presence in Iraq, just as the colonial powers always owed their presence in the Middle East, to the disunity of Arabs. Western domination of the Muslim world succeeded by not picking a fight with all of the disunited Arabs at the same time.

Attacking the Shi'ite militias while fighting a Sunni insurgency would violate this rule. If Bush ignores US military commanders and expert opinion and accepts the surge option advanced by the delusional neocon allies of Israel's right-wing Likud Party, US troops will be engulfed in general insurgency. This is why General John Abizaid resigned on January 5. He wants no part of the Republican Party's sacrifice of US soldiers to sectarian conflict.

...Bush is like Hitler. He blames defeats on his military commanders, not on his own insane policy. Like Hitler, he protects himself from reality with delusion. In his last hours, Hitler was ordering non-existent German armies to drive the Russians from Berlin.

By manipulating Bush and provoking a military crisis in which the US stands to lose its army in Iraq, the neoconservatives hope to revive the implementation of their plan for US conquest of the Middle East. They believe they can use fear, "honor," and the aversion of macho Americans to ignoble defeat to expand the conflict in response to military disaster. The neocons believe that the loss of an American army would be met with the electorate's demand for revenge. The barriers to the draft would fall, as would the barriers to the use of nuclear weapons.

Neocon godfather Norman Podhoretz set out the plan for Middle East conquest several years ago in Commentary Magazine. It is a plan for Muslim genocide. In place of physical extermination of Muslims, Podhoretz advocates their cultural destruction by deracination. Islam is to be torn out by the roots and reduced to a purely formal shell devoid of any real beliefs.

Podhoretz disguises the neoconservative attack against diversity with contrived arguments, but its real purpose is to use the US military to subdue Arabs and to create space for Israel to expand.

Not enough Americans are aware that this is what the "war on terror" is all about.

This is unprecedented. White House sources leaked that Bush insisted on the escalation option against the unanimous opposition of the Joint Chiefs of Staff! Then General Abizaid resigns.

Here is Xymphora:

If the full Baker plan is followed, it is the death of Israeli colonialism, and the end of Wurmser’s Zionist Plan for the Middle East. The surge – a completely ridiculous, completely Vietnam-esque, plan of doing more of the same thing which has caused all the problems in the first place – is intended to slow up American withdrawal until it has been ensured that Iraq will have to break up (if American troops withdraw now, the danger is that Iraq will stay intact under Iraqi control, or – shudder – under radical Iranian control). The surge is presented as a workable alternative to the Baker plan, and is intended to replace the other dangerous Baker ideas, including settling the Palestinian problem and making nice with Syria and Iran, all in a last-ditch effort to protect the interests of the American Establishment in the Middle East. The stakes are thus extremely high – the death of the American Empire versus the death of the dream of an Israeli Empire. If Bush opts for a surge, it will prove that the American Establishment is so weak and decadent that it no longer deserves its empire.

Two powers, the United States and Israel with deadly weapons and ruthless spies, in a fight to the death. This does not bode well.

Mutinies in the field, coups in the capitol, detention of top administration officials, even civil war. It doesn't sound so far-fetched any more.

COINTELPRO
"surge option"
Jimmy Carter
Israeli Neocons
Shi'ite / Sunni
Pathocrat
Norman Podhoretz

Your Tax Dollars at Work, Part Deux

Kudos to Jimmy for telling the truth about the parasitical nature of Zionism. Here is a former president willing to use his standing to bring focus to crucial issues. (Why didn't Ford speak up about Iraq??) Kudos to the righteous, right-thinking Jews who support Carter's speaking the truth against the smears of AIPAC. Here, courtesy of Jimmy Carter, is an understanding of where a good chunk of the funds you send into the eternally sucking maw of the IRS end up. Angry yet?

Order your copy today!

Blue Ibis

P.S. All the bracketed footnotes (#) are linked at the bottom of the article. We aren't making this stuff up, folks!

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Will Jimmy Carter's Book Liberate the Palestinians?

by William Hughes
4 Jan 07

"Nothing else in the world...is so powerful as an idea whose time has come." - Victor Hugo

Let's face it! The year 2006 was another hell on earth for the Palestinians. Since 1967, they have been suffering under the heel of the Zionist Death, Mayhem & Occupation Machine. Earlier this summer, as the situation grew desperate in Gaza, where 1.4 million people are trapped, Israel's Far Right Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, wisecracked: "Nobody dies from being uncomfortable." He lied! Six hundred and sixty Palestinians perished from the 24/7 siege by the Israeli Occupation Army (IOF). Of that number, 141 were children. (1) Enter ex-President Jimmy Carter and his best selling book, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid." (2) Will this good and decent man from Georgia do for the Palestinians, what Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" did for African-Americans, who were then languishing under the crime of slavery? Can Carter light the fuse that leads to the liberation of the Palestinians from their cruel oppressors?

Meanwhile, America is in deep spiritual decline. I don't mean that in a religious sense. I do, however, mean it with respect to so many people not being in touch with their own humanity--their own souls. One of the ways this shows up is how we have historically subsidized, with little or no objections, the evildoings of the Zionist state of Israel. (1) According to the prestigious "Harvard Study," over $140 billion of our tax dollars have ended up there since 1967. (3) Three to four billion dollars is added each year to that total. (4) Now, Jimmy Carter is saying: "Stop!" The Israelis don't deserve our support because they have built a racist Apartheid-like enclave, symbolized by an Annexation Wall, on the backs of the indigenous people--the Palestinians. (1)

What is interesting to note in the Jimmy Carter/Zionist Israel brouhaha is how the former President, like so many others before him, is being subjected to an intense campaign of vilification by Israeli apologists in this country. (5) But surprise--the ubiquitous smear artists are falling on their collective faces! With every mean spirited insult, Carter sells another book. What his critics don't understand is this: Carter belongs to America. He is one of us! They, the Carter bashers, are not only deeply resented, but are being seen by growing numbers as arrogant, spiteful and shameless shills for a foreign power. Israel is the same two-faced foreign power who slaughtered Americans on the USS Liberty, bulldozed to death peace activist Rachel Corrie, and directed the traitor Jonathan Pollard to steal our military secrets. (6) Carter is not only helping Americans see what the Israelis have been doing to the Palestinians, he is also opening up the eyes of many here, to what the "Harvard Study" clearly documents: The Israel Lobby has exercised "unmatched power" over U.S. foreign policy, which hasn't been in "the national interest" of our country. (3) The hawkish Neocons are part, too, of the powerful Israel Lobby.

Thankfully, more Americans, daily, do know what is going on in the Israeli Occupied Territories. During 2006, I was privileged to cover events dealing with that issue and also Israel's unjust invasion of Lebanon. (7) I also heard human rights experts denounce the Israeli conduct in those two areas of combat as "War Crimes." (8) This includes the IOF's blood stained attack on the village of Qana and its dropping of over one million cluster bombs on the civilian population of Lebanon. (9) I also got a chance to interview some of the demonstrators at these spirited protest actions, and to put on the public record their strong moral and legal objections to Israel's serial wrongdoing. (10) At the same time, I had an opportunity to witness, close up, the nobility of the Palestinians. Ms. Laila El- Haddad and Mohammed Omer spoke volumes via their personal accounts of oppression by the IOF in Occupied Gaza.

Ms. El-Haddad, a Gaza resident, on June 23, 2006, at a forum on Capitol Hill sponsored by the Council for the National Interest, warned that the humanitarian outlook facing the people there was "extremely bleak." She spoke of the barbaric home demolitions by the IOF, the lack of access to food, and the fact that over 9,000 Palestinians are presently languishing in Israeli dungeons, many without any charges pending against them. (11) Mohammed Omer, a Gaza- based journalist, gave a talk at the Palestine Center on Nov. 28, 2006. He spoke of how his late brother, Hussam, was shot to death by an Israeli sniper. Omer knew Rachel Corrie. He related how the children of the Rafah refugee camp, who had grown to love her, "couldn't believe she was dead." (12)

On a related topic, when Professor William Fletcher lectured at the Palestine Center, on Dec. 1, 2006, he shared how the present state of Israel could easily be compared with the Apartheid-era South African regime. He labeled Israel a "rabid state," which was capable of a maniacal act, like "unleashing a nuclear weapon." (13) Now, that Israel's Olmert has admitted that Israel possesses Nukes, Professor Fletcher's concern becomes even more relevant.

When "Esquire" magazine ran a cover story (Jan. 2007) showing an Iraqi War vet, Sgt. Bryan Anderson, a triple amputee, I couldn't help but think of the Neocon, Richard Perle. (14). The last time I spotted him he was filling his mouth with chocolate chip cookies. He had just attended a memorial service for a fellow Iraqi War junkie, Philip Merrill Levine. (15) Perle is also the same hard core Zionist, who co- authored the hawkish "The Clean Break" document for Israel's Likud honcho--Benjamin Netanyahu. (16)

Neocons, like Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, et al, all knee jerk supporters of Israel, deserve strong censure for pushing our country into the war with Iraq. (17) As I write, over 3,000 American troops have died in that conflict, about 60 of them were from my home state of Maryland. And, despite the horror story that is the Iraqi War, with 655,000 Iraqis also reported dead, Netanyahu, is calling for a U.S. led war with Iran. (18) I couldn't help but reflect: The cunning Neocons urged sending our sons and daughters to die in Iraq based on a pack of rotten lies. Now, they, and their cronies, like Netanyahu, are looking for a war with Iran. Do these shameless war hucksters have any limits?

Getting back to Israel's Olmert and his crude remark: "Nobody dies from being uncomfortable." When you tie his callous comment to the significant loss of human life suffered in both Gaza and Lebanon this last summer, you need to be alarmed. Add this fact: His regime was charged with engaging in "collective punishment" tactics in those two campaigns. (8) To me, Olmert reflects a troubled man whose psyche has been unduly influenced by those vindictive Storm Gods of the ancient Canaanites. Like those deities, he too, acts like he is all powerful and omniscient, and without a conscience. Might, of course, excuses nothing. Olmert appears from his recent conduct incapable of reflecting on the morality of his own wrongdoing. He lacks wisdom, too. Is this why characters, like Olmert, are so ultra sensitive to any criticism? When you consider that this zealot has his finger on the trigger of a nuclear weapon, the world itself should shudder in fear. (19)

In any event, there is little chance that an authoritarian ideologue, like Olmert, will change on his own. What is important, however, is that ex-President Jimmy Carter's courageous voice condemning the endemic evil that is a racist, Israeli-dominated Apartheid Palestine, is being heard. If enough Americans change their attitudes towards Israel, then there can be some real hope that the occupation of Palestine might, mercifully, end soon.


Notes:

1. pchrgaza
2. normanfinkelstein.com
3. harvard.edu/Research and atlasbooks.com
4. http://www.wrmea.com/
5. "They Dare to Speak Out" by Paul Findley.
6. baltimore.indymedia.org
7. californiachronicle.com , thepeoplesvoice.org, usa.mediamonitors.net, indymedia.org
8. sf.indymedia.org
9. miami.indymedia.org
10. youtube.com
11. baltimore.indymedia.org
12. dailyscare.com journalist_mohammed_omer_on_the_hell_that_is_gaza
13. baltimore.indymedia.org
14. batr.net
15. thepeoplesvoice.org
16. irmep.org
17. pbs.org and baltimore.indymedia.org
18. whatreallyhappened
19. apnews.myway.com and see, "Answer to Job" by Carl G. Jung.

William Hughes 2007.

William Hughes is the author of "Saying 'No' to the War Party" (Amazon.com).

Your Tax Dollars at Work

Gathered by the folks at the "new and improved" Signs of the Times. Check it out!!

Since everyone is probably starting to drag themselves slowly towards the inevitable task, it behooves us to think about the uses our yearly "contribution" to the PTB are put to. It ain't all roads and medicare. Remember that not only did it take tax dollars to produce the following situations, it took tax dollars to gather the information that proved these horrible things weren't just "bad apple" rumours. Angry yet?

Blue Ibis
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FBI files detail Guantanamo torture tactics

Mark Tran
Wednesday January 3, 2007
Guardian Unlimited



A detainee's arm hangs outside his cell at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay.
Photograph: Mike Brown/EPA

In the 2004 inquiry, the FBI asked nearly 500 employees who had served at Guantanamo Bay to report possible mistreatment by law enforcement or military personnel. Twenty-six incidents were reported, some of which had emerged in earlier document releases.

Besides being shackled to the floor, detainees were subjected to extremes of temperature. One witness said he saw a barefoot detainee shaking with cold because the air conditioning had bought the temperature close to freezing.

On another occasion, the air conditioning was off in an unventilated room, making the temperature over 38C (100F) and a detainee lay almost unconscious on the floor with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been pulling out his hair throughout the night.

In October 2002, one interrogator squatted over a copy of the Qur'an during intensive questioning of a Muslim prisoner, who was "incensed" by the tactic, according to an FBI agent.

On another occasion, an agent was asked by a "civilian contractor" to come and see something.

"There was an unknown bearded longhaired d (detainee) gagged w/duct tape that had covered much of his head," the FBI document said.

When the FBI officer asked if the detainee had spit at interrogators, the "contractor laughingly replied that d had been chanting the Qur'an non-stop. No answer how they planned to remove the duct tape," the report said.

After an erroneous report of Qur'an abuse prompted deadly protests overseas in 2005, the US military conducted an investigation that confirmed five incidents of intentional and unintentional mishandling of the book at the detention facility.

It acknowledged that soldiers and interrogators had kicked the Qur'an, had stood on it and, in one case, had inadvertently sprayed urine on a copy.

An FBI agent called W also heard that female interrogators would sometimes wet their hands and touch detainees' faces in order to disrupt their prayers. Such actions would make some Muslims consider themselves unclean so they would stop praying.

The detention of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay has been strongly criticised by human rights groups. In a rebuff for the Bush administration, the US supreme court last year rejected its claims that detainees at the facility were not entitled to the protection under the Geneva convention.

The department of defence consequently issued a memo stating that prisoners would in the future be entitled to such protection. As of November 2006, out of 775 detainees who have been brought to Guantanamo, approximately 340 had been released, leaving 435 detainees.

Of those 435, 110 have been labelled as ready for release. Of the other 325, only about 70 will face trial by military commissions, criminal courts run by the US armed forces. That leaves about 250 who may be held indefinitely.

Guantanamo Bay, CIA Torture, Habeas Corpus, Geneva Convention, Ponerology, Military Tribunals, Pathocrat

You Can Fight for Free Speech, But You Can't Have it Yourself

Found this on the SOTT Forum, where some of the world's smartest, most plugged-in people gather. Come discuss the stories that CNN ignores.

Why I Object to Testifying Against Lt. Watada

By Sarah Olson

Published: December 30, 2006 1:50 PM ET

OAKLAND (Commentary) In May of this year, I conducted an interview with Ehren Watada while working as a freelance journalist. Watada is a 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Army and is the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse orders to deploy to Iraq.

In the interview, Lieutenant Watada asserted that he had a duty as an officer to evaluate the legality of his orders and conduct himself accordingly. He said that he could not participate in the Iraq War because it was “manifestly illegal” and that his participation would make him a party to war crimes.

In June, Lieutenant Watada made national headlines when he refused to deploy to Iraq.

Lieutenant Watada continues to report for duty at Fort Lewis in the state of Washington while awaiting a February 2007 court-martial on one charge of “missing movement” and four charges of “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.” Each of the latter four charges is based entirely on political speech. If convicted on all charges, Lieutenant Watada could spend up to six years in prison.

The U.S. Army has cobbled together portions of my interview with Lieutenant Watada and these statements comprise the foundation of one charge of conduct unbecoming an officer. To substantiate this alleged crime, the Army has subpoenaed me to testify on behalf of their prosecution.

The dynamics of the situation are clear. When the military chooses to prosecute a soldier for expressing dissenting political positions to a member of the press, that journalist is unwittingly and inevitably forced into the middle of the conflict.

Among multiple issues this raises, it begs one central question: Doesn’t it fly in the face of the First Amendment to compel a journalist to participate in a government prosecution against a source, particularly in matters related to personal political speech?

It is my job as a professional journalist to report the news, not to act as the eyes and ears of the government. I am repelled by this approach that jeopardizes my credibility and seeks to compel my participation in muting public speech and dissenting personal opinion.

Further, it is stunningly ironic that the Army seeks my testimony – the testimony of a journalist – in a case against free speech itself. What could be more hostile to the idea of a free press than a journalist participating in the suppression of newsworthy speech?

When journalists are subpoenaed to confirm the veracity of their reporting, they typically agree to this limited request. What makes this case different is that the thing in question is the political nature of Lieutenant Watada’s speech. Participating in the U.S. Army’s court-martial forces me to build the case against my source and contribute to an act of suppression against the media’s ability to report the news.

As a journalist, I cannot support or criticize the thoughts of an interview subject. My job is to record those thoughts accurately and provide a public forum for debate. If the Army succeeds in turning me into an arm of their investigation, it will chill not only press freedom but also free speech. This is a slippery slope that bears watching and requires vigilance.

It seems clear that the U.S. Army is attempting to redefine the parameters of acceptable speech and to classify dissent as a punishable offense. Subpoenaing journalists in this case unequivocally sends the message that dissent is neither tolerated nor permitted. Utilize your constitutionally guaranteed speech rights and go to prison. What rational soldier would agree to speak with me or any other member of the media if jail was a likely result?

When the press cannot or does not reflect the vibrant and varied perspectives within our society, it is reduced to a simple transcriber of government press releases. The record of existing dissent is erased, and a dumbed-down, homogenized version of “The American Experience” is all that’s left in its place.

I stand firmly by a conviction I share with many: a member of the press should never be placed in the position of aiding a government prosecution of political speech. This goes against the grain of even the most basic understanding of the First Amendment’s free press guarantees and the expectation of a democracy that relies on a free flow of information and perspectives without fear of censor or retribution.

You may ask: Do I want to be sent to prison by the U.S. Army for not cooperating with their prosecution of Lieutenant Watada? My answer: Absolutely not. You may also ask: Would I rather contribute to the prosecution of a news source for sharing newsworthy perspectives on an affair of national concern? That is the question I wholly object to having before me in the first place.

***
Ed. Note: According to press reports, the trial of Lt. Watada is expected to begin in February. Some accounts suggest that the charges filed against him mark the first time since the Vietnam war and the case of Lt. Henry Howe that the military has made the charge of "conduct unbecoming an officer" to prosecute an officer's public statements. One site that has written about Olson, truthout.org, has declared that this is the first time the Army has sought testimony of a professional journalist to prove one of its own officers violated military law by publicly questioning the rationale for war.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sarah Olson is an independent journalist and radio producer based in Oakland, CA. She can be reached at solson75@yahoo.com.

First Amendment, Freedom of Speech, Lieutenant Ehren Watada, US War Crimes in Iraq, Ponerology, Pyschopaths in Politics, Pathocrat

Another Neocon Critic Offs Himself?

It is pretty amazing how considerate the opponents of the Neocon agenda are. Senator Paul Wellstone (against the Iraq war) obligingly dies in a plane crash, putting the balance of power in Dick Cheneys' hands. Dr. David Kelly offs himself in a English wood, thereby letting the Blair government out of some really sticky WMD questions. Quite a few folks investigating the Washington establishments' various sexual peccadellos seem to suddenly suffer from terminal depressions. And now, the latest of Karl Rove's annoyances has followed suit. What a guy!

Blue Ibis

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Signs of the Times for Fri, 29 Dec 2006

Lawyer Ends Up Dead After Taking On Rove

December 27th 2006
Kurt Nimmo

It's fishy as hell.

Paul Sanford, a prominent Aptos, California, attorney, who accused Karl Rove of treason in the Plame outing case, took a leap from the Embassy Suites Hotel in Monterey Bay on Christmas Eve. Police describe it as "probable" suicide, even though it appears Sanford was not depressed.

"Friends and associates expressed disbelief at the news of Sanford's death and that it was ruled a suicide, saying Sanford seemed happy and had made many plans for this week and in coming months. [Business associate and friend Shawn Mills] said he and Sanford recently decided to open a shared law office to serve Monterey and Santa Cruz counties, something Sanford was looking forward to doing," reports the Monterey Herald. "Mills said he had spoken to Sanford's wife, Paula, and that she also was in shock. He said Sanford, a father of two, was a devoted family man." Sanford "would never have intentionally put his family through that trauma. Something's not right, it doesn't make sense."

On July 25, 2005, in the James S. Brady Briefing Room at the White House, Sanford asked then press secretary Scott McClellan about Karl Rove, accused at the time by Joseph Wilson, the husband of Valerie Plame, of outing his wife as a CIA employee in retaliation for Wilson's op-ed published in the New York Times. Wilson criticized the citation of bogus yellowcake documents used as flimsy justification for invading Iraq and murdering more than 650,000 Iraqis.

McClellan was flummoxed by Sanford's question:

McClellan: Go ahead.

Sanford: Yes, thank you. There has been a lot of speculation concerning the meaning of the underlying statute and the grand jury investigation concerning Mr. Rove. The question is, have the legal counsel to the White House or White House staff reviewed the statute in sufficient specificity to determine whether a violation of that statute would, in effect, constitute treason?

McClellan: I think that in terms of decisions regarding the investigation, those are matters for those overseeing the investigation to decide.

Special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, decided not to charge Rove in the case, even though the former Donald Segretti dirty trickster understudy raised enough suspicion to warrant being called before a grand jury five times. Neocon Lewis "Scooter" Libby was charged with obstruction of justice, perjury, and making false statements to the FBI. A few weeks later, on July 13, 2006, Joseph and Valerie Wilson filed a civil suit against Cheney, Libby, Rove, and other unnamed senior White House officials, for their alleged roles in the public disclosure of her classified CIA employment.

In addition, Sanford was "a champion of the downtrodden, he represented homeless people in Santa Cruz, and fought for free speech," according to Mills. As well, he hosted a radio talk show at KOMY, an Air America affiliate, although he was not associated with the bankrupt network. Sanford and Mills also hosted the "Paul and Shawn Show" on Saturdays at the Seaside, California, radio station KRXA.

Of course, there is no evidence Paul Sanford was pushed from "at least nine floors" above the large ventilation grate where he met his fate. As well, there is no evidence he committed suicide, or did he fit the profile of a suicide. However, there is plenty of evidence Sanford was a thorn in the side of the neocons, committing the ultimate sin of accusing one particularly nasty top drawer neocon, Karl Rove, of treason.

Paul Sanford
Karl Rove
Scott McClellan
NEOCONS
Ponerology
NSA
Air America Radio

Thoughts for the New Year

I've been off for the last little while with family concerns. When one loses a parent, it seems the concern for the future becomes even more acute. It becomes screamingly apparent that there is NO ONE to look to for improving this world exceptt ones self. Laura Knight-Jadczyk knows this better than anyone. Her blog is testament to spreading the ideas that could be the tipping point between a creating a sane world for our children and careening into the abyss. Here is just such a post.

Blue Ibis

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The Truth is Public Property


As the information about psychopathy in high places - Political Ponerology - spreads, I am frequently asked: what do we do now? This is something that has been exercising me to no end. This morning I received an email from 9/11 Researcher, Dick Eastman, who wrote:

We now must move to the next step - bringing to justice the mass-murdering criminals responsible for all of the false-flag killing that has been done and is still being done around the world since September 11, 2001 -- taking down from positions of power in our government and key institutions those who have had a knowing part in the murderous misdirection of American armed forces against innocent people in countries that have done us no harm and bore us no ill will. This includes Congressmen who held their hands to their ears. This Includes newspaper editors and publishers and radio producers and television networks -- all complicit -- all knowingly obstructing justice. (They knew too well what voices to silence not to know what it was that they were silencing.) We must confront, overpower and disarm the monsters who are in control of the coercive apparatus of the government, rendering them harmless, taking away their ill-gotten gains, restoring a people's government, and bringing them to justice (life in prison if not hanging).

Every nation must be decapitated of its stooges and replaced by people who have not been prostitutes of the globalist money power. This must be done or it is better to do nothing at all -- the criminal ruling elites -- the billionaires and trillionaires (more of these than you think) must be taken down, their god-like power of wealth taken from their hands.

Of course since these people are the merchant bankers who own the world's debt -- they must be made to give all that wealth back to the people of the world from whom they have been stealing for for three centuries. We cannot beat them until we disarm them financially. The world needs a grand settlement -- all who benefit from having the yoke of these monsters lifted must join in seeing that the job of getting justice is achieved all around the world at the same time. Otherwise the Merchant Bankers will use one debt-slave nation to subdue another , will hire mercenaries from one continent to crush the anti-corruption forces of another continent.

Now who is ready to advance to "square two" and who is not?

Notice that Dick has written above: "This Includes newspaper editors and publishers and radio producers and television networks -- all complicit -- all knowingly obstructing justice."

This is, in fact, the key to everything: the Media. The first thing that has to be done before anything else can be done is to take back the media. The media is the wall between the elite pathocrats and the public. It is the tool used to control and manipulate. In Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, and other totalitarian states down through history, the control of information was/is the means of control of the people. After all, the masses of people that are needed to support any kind of movement are in that part of the bell curve that indicates that they are just "average" and "followers" and "want to be left alone" and can only be moved by moving "en masse." They are the ones that must be reached. And that can only be done via mass media. We do not own the mass media. I think that less than half of the people in the U.S., and a smaller percentage than that in other places, get their news via the internet. And we all know how much disinformation is on the net. Now, let's back up and get some perspective here. People need to really think about who's running the U.S. (and other countries on the planet), and get it firmly in mind that it is big business: oil companies and the arms industry. Now, think of the term: "RUTHLESS MEN". Ponder it long and carefully. Even if you can't believe that clinically diagnosible psychopaths are in power, just consider that big businesses are invariably headed by RUTHLESS MEN. The term "Establishment" refers to all those wealthy people across the country who own most of the country. And, as the news has recently reported, it is a very small percentage of the total population. Some people will do anything for money and to protect their interests and their wealth; that is usually how they get to be wealthy in the first place. In my opinion, many of the "industrial barons" of American history were criminals. They are extremists, radical, and most often use religion to justify this extremism and the oppression of others.

It is par for the course for such radicals to label anyone a little toward the center, or even in the center, as "Leftists". In a country where the largest majority are in the center, neither Left nor Right, they are the ones that are hurt the most.

There are Leftists in the 9/11 Research Community that would like to blame everything on capitalism in general. Well, it's true that Capitalism - as it is practiced in the U.S. - is selective for psychopaths to rise to the top. But Capitalism, the right to work hard and improve your lot thereby, is not the cause of radical ruthlessness.

At the same time, there are many radical Rightists who have invaded 9/11 Research. You could even say that the majority of them are of that ilk. Their presence is, basically, to support the Right by sowing confusion and dissension, to demolish the evidence of conspiracy, and certainly to herd people into various camps, usually religious or armed. Stirring up the Indians, then fighting them and taking their land and possessions, is an old game: Interventionism and Adventurism - the "American Way." Throughout history, Indians, Blacks, the poor, have always understood this at some level. But most Middle-class, average Americans do not. Due to their upbringing, education, socialization - basically brainwashing - we are taught to separate reality between what we believe versus what actually happens. For the most part, we don't want to know the truth because if we knew it, we would have to do something about it. We just want problems to go away, so we like very much to have a patsy - a scapegoat - to blame so we can get back to the business of trying to survive in a country where everyone is oppressed while they are told that they are better off than anybody else on earth.

The fact is that societies are split between the forces of Good and Evil. Decent people - people who have lines in their consciences that they will not cross - live side by side with people who would do anything to get what they want. And so it is that RUTHLESS MEN - however you wish to describe them - control America. They either control or install the U.S. government, and have done so for a very long time. It doesn't matter whether they are Jews or Gentiles or Hottentots. They are ruthless, and many of them are psychopaths or related deviants. The oil companies and arms industries control governments and policy; they control the military and political parties across the board; republicans AND democrats. They own nearly everyone. They have the power to make and break people. It is important to remember that behind the office of the President, there are ruthless men who will do anything at all to maintain and increase their power and to attain their ends. The history of the White House is the history of puppets who do what they are told to do. It is oil companies and arms industries that want war. They need to control the masses of people so that they can get what they want. Doing "anything at all" means killing people who get in the way and killing people to create conditions so that they can stampede populations in the way they want them to go, generally to war. Nobody with that kind of power is going to give it up easily. And there is nothing they will not do if they see it as essential: they assassinated John F. Kennedy in broad daylight because he threatened that power. People sometimes ask how such conspiracies as the JFK assassination and 9/11 could be "covered up without someone from the inside talking." As Harrison Livingstone points out, this is a naive question. If someone is a witness to a murder done by professionals, do you really think they are going to go around blabbing about it? And if the victim is a president, or the people in the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and 4 airliners, it is clear to even the most pedestrian thinker that the crime has been committed by those with great power. Anybody with two firing neurons can figure out that such perpetrators are in such a strong position that protesting or seriously trying to blow the whistle on such an event puts the whistle-blower in the gravest of danger - particularly if they have an audience. (That's why they work so hard to make sure that those who tell the truth do not have an audience.) Further, if we consider the element of the "Establishment" mentioned above, it is unlikely that exposing the crime would even result in justice being done. Who would they turn to? Who would protect them?

Here is where we return to the subject of the Media. If the witness goes to the media of today, they might as well jump off a cliff and be done with it. Because, most certainly, the impression that the media gives of "truth seeking" is only window dressing. Now and again they expose the truth on some matter that doesn't really matter, but that is only to shore up the illusion of a democracy and a free press; to keep the herd satisfied. The media is, in fact, under the same control as politicians and politics. In short, the media is under the control of the perpetrators of the crime. So, with no media to form an opposing power base, who ya gonna tell?

And without the Media to back you up, who's going to believe you? Further, in the case of crimes of state, which the JFK assassination and 9/11 certainly were, enough other people are killed to insure the silence of everyone in the conspiracy. The additional deaths (or character assassinations) send a loud and clear message to everyone who might know something: keep your mouth shut! And so it is, we come to the crux of the matter: we must take back the media.

That's the first order of business.

When you think about it, where does any private group or individual get off thinking that they "own" information, facts, data about events that happen in our world that affect everyone? The Truth is public property: it belongs to ALL.

After thinking about this for some time, I have come to the realization that all public media should be publicly owned and overseen by public commissions that are not in any way related to politics - neither elected nor appointed, but selected by random lottery from pools of qualified citizens. Only in this way can we guarantee to ourselves the support that is needed to accomplish everything else that must be done to clean up the mess that Ruthless, Greedy Men have made of our planet. But in order to even approach that goal peacefully, we need to find ways to bypass the currently existing media - to become our own media. That is the task before us.

Signs of the Times, Psychopath, MSM, Conspiracy, Ponerology, Red Pill Press, Pathocrat

Pearl Harbor - Worth Remembering, But Not For the Public Reasons

Signs of the Times Remembers:

Pearl Harbor - A Lesson Lost On The People Of The World

Signs of the Times 08/12/2006

Yesterday was the 65th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the day when President Roosevelt gave the American people and the world conclusive proof that, as a general rule, war doesn't just happen but is deliberately created by politicians.

From Douglas Reed's Controversy of Zion:

In the First [World] War President Wilson, re-elected on the promise to keep his country out of war, immediately after his re-inauguration declared that "a state of war exists". In the Second War President Roosevelt was re-elected in 1940 on the repeated promise that "your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars". His electoral programme, however, included a five-word proviso: "We will not send our armies, navies or air forces to fight in foreign lands outside the Americas except in case of attack". These five words were added (says one of Mr. Bernard Baruch's approved biographers, Mr. Rosenbloom) "by Senator James F. Byrnes, who was so close to Baruch that it was sometimes impossible to tell which of the two originated the view that both expressed".

The importance of the proviso was shown on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour. Twelve days earlier Mr. Henry L. Stimson, the Secretary for War, after a cabinet meeting on November 25, 1941, had noted in his diary: "The question was how we should manoeuvre them" (the Japanese) "into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves; it was a difficult proposition".

The pre-history of this notation, again, is that on January 27, 1941 the United States Ambassador in Tokyo had advised his government that "in the event of trouble breaking out between the United States and Japan, the Japanese intended to make a surprise attack against Pearl Harbour"; that the Soviet spy in Tokyo, Dr. Richard Sorge, informed the Soviet Government in October 1941 that "the Japs intended to attack Pearl Harbour within sixty days" and was advised by the Soviet Government that his information had been transmitted to President Roosevelt (according to Sorge's confession, New York Daily News, May 17, 1951); that the Roosevelt government delivered a virtual ultimatum to Japan on November 26, 1941; that secret Japanese messages, from September 1941 up to the very moment of the attack, which were intercepted and decoded by United States intelligence units, gave unmistakable evidence of a coming attack on Pearl Harbour but were not transmitted to the American commanders there; that on December 1 the Head of Naval Intelligence, Far Eastern Section, drafted a dispatch to the Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet saying "war between Japan and the United States is imminent", which was cancelled by superior authority; that on December 5 Colonel Sadtler of the U.S. Signal Corps, on information received, drafted a dispatch to commanders, "War with Japan imminent; eliminate all possibility of another Port Arthur" (an allusion to the similar "surprise attack" that began the Russo-Japanese war), which was similarly suppressed; that a Japanese reply, obviously tantamount to a declaration of war, to the Roosevelt ultimatum was received in Washington on December 6, 1941 but no word was sent to the Pearl Harbour defenders. A message stating that "the Japanese are presenting at one p.m., eastern time today what amounts to an ultimatum. . . be on the alert" was at last dispatched about noon on December 7, 1941, and reached the commanders at Pearl Harbour between six and eight hours after the Japanese attack.

The record now available suggests that the Americans on Hawaii alone were left without knowledge of the imminent onslaught which cost two battleships and two destroyers (apart from many vessels put out of action), 177 aircraft and 4575 dead, wounded or missing. A direct and immediate consequence was also the disaster suffered by the British navy off Malaya, when the battleships Prince of Wales and Renown were sunk with great loss of life.

Political leaders who are ready to obtain their country's entry into war by facilitating an enemy attack on it cannot be depended on to wage it in the national interest. The American people as a whole still is unaware of the truth of Pearl Harbour, an ominous beginning which led in unbroken line to the ominous end.

Eight investigations were held, seven naval or military ones during wartime and one Congressional one at the war's end. Thus wartime secrecy enshrouded them all and none of them was truly public or exhaustive; moreover, all were conducted under the aegis of the political party whose man was president at the time of Pearl Harbour. The vital facts (that the president knew at the latest eight weeks earlier, from an intercepted Japanese dispatch, that "a surprise attack was being planned and that these intercepted messages were withheld from the Pearl Harbour commanders over a long period) were burked throughout. The Secretary of War's diary (with the significant entry above quoted) was not admitted in evidence and Mr. Stimson himself was not called, being in ill health. Control of the press enabled the long proceedings (six months) to be presented to the public in bewildering and confusing form.

However, the three naval commanders chiefly concerned have published their accounts. Rear Admiral Kimmel, Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet at the time, says of another admiral's belief that "President Roosevelt's plans required that no word be sent to alert the fleet in Hawaii", that "the individuals in high position in Washington who willfully refrained from alerting our forces at Pearl Harbour should never be excused. The Commanders at Pearl Harbour Were never informed of. . . the American note delivered to the Japanese Ambassadors on November 26, 1941, which effectually ended the possibility of further negotiations and thus made the Pacific war inevitable . . . No hint of vital intercepts received, decoded and delivered to responsible officials in Washington on December 6 and 7, 1941, was sent to the Navy and Army Commanders in the Hawaiian area".

Fleet Admiral Halsey, who at that time was one of Admiral Kimmel's three senior commanders, says, "All our intelligence pointed to an attack by Japan against the Philippines or the southern areas in Malaya or the Dutch East Indies. While Pearl Harbour was considered and not ruled out, the mass of the evidence made available to us pointed in another direction. Had we known of Japan's minute and continued interest in the exact location and movement of our ships in Pearl Harbour" (indicated by the withheld message) "it is only logical that we would have concentrated our thought on meeting the practical certainty of an attack on Pearl Harbour".

Rear Admiral Theobald, commanding destroyers of the Battle Force at Pearl Harbour, writing in 1954 says, "Dictates of patriotism requiring secrecy regarding a line of national conduct in order to preserve it for possible future repetition do not apply in this case because, in this atomic age, facilitating an enemy's surprise attack, as a method of initiating a war, is unthinkable".

(The admiral presumably means that he hopes a repetition is "unthinkable"). He adds. "The recurrent fact of the true Pearl Harbour story has been the repeated withholding of information from Admiral Kimmel and General Short" (the naval and military commanders at Pearl Harbour, who were made scapegoats) ". . . never before in recorded history had a field commander been denied information that his country would be at war in a matter of hours, and that everything pointed to a surprise attack upon his forces shortly after sunrise".

Admiral Theobald quotes the later statement of Admiral Stark (who in December 1941 was Chief of Naval Operations in Washington and who refused to inform Admiral Kimmel of the Japanese declaration of war message) that all he did was done on the order of higher authority, "which can only mean President Roosevelt.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. If it works, why change tactics? It should be obvious to anyone that is prepared to think logically rather than emotionally or "patriotically" that involving a country in a war that the population doesn't want is easy. In 1941 it happened by way of Pearl Harbor, Vietnam was helped along by the fake Gulf of Tonkin incident, and the current invasion of Iraq absolutely required the events of September 11, 2001.

Pearl Harbor
Franklin Roosevelt
False Flag
Gulf of Tonkin
9-11 Coverup
COINTELPRO
Pentagon Strike

Becoming What We Despise

Another Signs of the Times find. What the New York Times will show but not say the truth about:

New York Times
This still photo from a video obtained by The New York Times shows Jose Padilla’s forced isolation and sensory deprivation, including the use of blinders and sound dampeners as he is moved from his cell.

Robert Scheer: Becoming What We Despise

Posted on Dec 5, 2006
By Robert Scheer

Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen, has been tortured by his own government for the better part of three-and-one-half years, suffering years of systematic sensory deprivation documented in his attorneys' filings and supported by photos of the prisoner published this week by the New York Times.

In that time, Padilla, who has been judged by professionals as mentally ill as a consequence of his brutal treatment, has been denied his Constitutional right to a fair and speedy trial and was permitted no legal representation for 21 months. The Bush administration’s excuse for this betrayal of our legal system was that Padilla was a dangerous al Qaeda agent, a big fish caught in the administration's successful pursuit of its much ballyhooed war on terror. In the words of then-U.S. Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft, Padilla was "a known terrorist who was exploring a plan to build and explode a radiological dispersion device, or 'dirty bomb,' in the United States." Those lurid claims were abandoned when the government, faced with a belated U.S. Supreme Court censure, finally charged Padilla with vague and lesser crimes carrying a maximum 15-year sentence.

Were this some isolated case of officially condoned sadism, say in a rural county jail, it could be minimized as an aberration. Instead, it is an all-too-accurate reflection of a presidential policy of dehumanizing anyone even suspected of being an enemy. The Times photos, taken from a government video, give evidence of a heavily manacled prisoner with masked eyes and muffled ears being walked down a corridor within a Navy brig, lending physical evidence to Padilla's lawyer's claims of a pattern of disorienting isolation. "There is nothing comparable in terms of severity of confinement, in terms of how Padilla was held, especially considering that this was pretrial confinement," Philip D. Cave, a former Navy judge advocate general, told the Times.

Obviously, a prisoner who has been deliberately disorientated for so long is no longer in a position to exercise his right to confront his accusers. An examining psychiatrist wrote that "as the result of his experience during his detention and interrogation, Mr. Padilla does not appreciate the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him, is unable to render assistance to counsel, and has impairments in reasoning as the result of a mental illness ... complicated by the neuropsychiatric effects of prolonged isolation."

The excuse for this heinous treatment of a U.S. citizen is the same as that given for an entire orgy of despicable treatment of prisoners held in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and a gulag archipelago of secret military facilities around the world: Our enemies, all linked through sophistry to the 9/11 terror attacks, are so vile and dangerous that the limitations on government power enshrined in our guiding documents and political culture no longer apply. Once the Twin Towers were knocked down, supposedly, we could no longer afford to be "nice guys" - as if the rule of law is an indulgence of only the most secure nations.

By that standard, any tyrant can justify the cruelest of actions by citing enemies, real or imagined, be it King George III blockading Boston Harbor to teach the rebellious colonists a lesson or Saddam Hussein killing Kurdish villagers after an assassination attempt on his life. The very uniqueness of our national experiment was the checks and balances put upon the government to prevent such convenient rationalizations for abuse of the individual. The Founding Fathers won a war, but their true contribution to human history was to tackle head-on the reality that humans and their institutions can so easily become that which they despise.

Even when an American is suspected of a "capital or infamous crime," as was Padilla, the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifically says he still cannot "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." That is why the Supreme Court finally forced the Bush administration to give Padilla his day in court.

In the end, the administration has retreated from its hoary claims; Padilla's trial, set to begin on Jan. 22, does not include any reference to dirty bombs, al Qaeda, or any specific plans to attack America. Instead, he faces lesser charges claiming he was the recruit of a "North American support cell," whose interest was in jihad in Bosnia and Chechnya. As if it had no bearing on the disoriented state of mind of the defendant, the Bush administration's lawyers have argued in motions that his treatment as a prisoner should not be presented before the jury.

The more important question now, however, is when will those who, like Ashcroft, used this case to shamelessly exploit our fears for political purposes face their own day of accountability in a court of law?

Jose Padilla
Habaeus Corpus
Fifth Amemdment"
NEOCONS
U.S. Supreme Court
al Qaeda
dirty bombs