Gay Lincoln

Oh....

...kay.

Is anybody else in the world afraid that Abe Lincoln supports a homo agenda? This is one of those incidences where the so-called "zeitgeist" gets out of hand, and completely turns against itself and what it once stood for. [ Note: the "zeitgeist" is in quotes because it is not a genuine one. It does not speak for the whole of, nor even a majority of, the American public, or even any portion of it, including youth, aged, rurual, etc; except for the evangelical Christian faction of America].

In other words, when the ultra-conservative agenda pushes so far as to force the National Park Service to restructure a celebratory video about the Lincoln Memorial because they're concerned that it supports a Gay Agenda, then they've gone too beyond even what they once stood for [which can be summed up essentially as reductionist and non-interventionist]. This is absurd, foolish, moronic, self-righteous, and only casts the Conservative Movement that supports this trash in a ridiculous light:

The service has spent about $20,000 revamping the video and buying footage — including some from The Associated Press — after conservative political groups criticized the current display and organized a campaign of petitions and e-mails demanding changes.

"The video gave the impression that Lincoln would have supported abortion and homosexuality," said the Web site of Rev. Louis Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition. It cited footage showing events at the memorial staged by abortion and gay rights supporters and war opponents but no similar footage from Christian and conservative interests.

Yes! Lincoln was a true American Abortionist Homo! That's why he only came in SECOND in the Discovery Channel Greatest American Challenge! He flamed!

And so because of the Left's illicit attempt to portray Lincoln's Gayness and Hatred of Life, the video needs to be re-edited with more conservative representative content:

On Feb. 3, 2003, the conservative Web site CNSNews.com criticized the video, particularly a montage of marchers carrying signs that included, "The Lord is my Shepherd and Knows I am Gay," "Ratify the ERA," and "Keep Abortion Legal."

Sheldon said he complained to the White House and said in a broadcast transcript that was distributed among Park Service executives: "If Bush is in office, let's have it our way. Let's make it fair now."

The agency said no one from the White House ever contacted the Park Service or Interior Department about the video.

But within weeks of the first conservative complaints, the Park Service's Harpers Ferry, W.Va., design center was put to work on revisions.

In a Feb. 20, 2003, e-mail, Tim Radford, a Harpers Ferry Center employee, requested a search of video archives "for footage of conservative - `right wing' demonstrations (several lines blacked out) Lincoln Memorial. please 'rush.'"

On March 5, 2003, Radford e-mailed his boss: "replacing clinton would require creating a totally new interpretive production. please remember many other presidents, republican and democrat, are shown."

Lincoln FREED the SLAVES because, in order to maintain the validity of the US Constitution which declares every man EQUAL, he had to in the context of American Slavery.

Yet the Conservative groups wanted to replace not just any abortionists at the site, but any non-Conservatives at the site with Conservative imagery. Because they wanted to control even the rights of those who protest among the President of Equality in order to provide only their perspective. They did not want to simply pull out homos; they wanted to pull even homo-lovers like Bill Clinton.

Anything that is not Them must be re-edited from all history.

Live 8 Paris Meetup

So... I'm hoping to make it to Live8 Paris, as I've said. I have no idea if it'll all come to pass.

Anybody want to meet up out there? Preferably non-violent readers only... please no stabwounds, macings, etc. Just out for a good time in the name of global social justice.

Just ask around- Tall skinny white guy guy with a beard. Ask everybody you run into for "General Stan." If it's not me, then hope for the best...

"The AntiCentenarian: It's Like Craigslist, But More Bitter."

Leave a comment-

-GS.


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Time and Again

Time has decided to save it's bald-headed Conservative reporter from the slammer by releasing his information concerning the leaking of a CIA agent's name [which is treasonous, by the way. And Constitutionally speaking, treason is not a pleasant crime].

Atrios, again, has good thoughts on the matter, which can be summarized as this:
As a journalist, you still operate within the ethics of protecting your sources. In the corporate world of journlism, the corporation acts within the guidelines of protecting its journalists, and it will betray the same sources the journalist has protected in order to do so. This makes all source protection ethics of jornalism [within a corporate structure] worthless.

Taking a page from Karl Rove, the AntiCentenarian would like to help remind the world that this story is not simply about two hard-nosed journalists against an investigation of their sources.

It is also about the non-implication of Robert Novak, the journalist who actually wrote the exposure piece of the CIA agent in question, and who actually committed the treasonous act. Why has he not been called upon to testify? Why has he been let go without any repercussion, if these other two journalists have not? Here's the outing:

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, XXX , is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.

[The AntiCentenarian won't publish the name- we respect our country's human operatives and refuse to manipulate them for political purposes. Scumbag journalists like Bob Novak suit our purposes just fine]

But the real purpose for Novak's piece is this: he was defending the President against the intelligence gleaned from Ambassador Joseph Wilson who was sent to Nigeria to uncover the truth of so-called Yellowcake Uranium which Saddam Hussein was trying to attain to build his WMD program up to Nuke the eastern seaboard of America. Wilson found no evidence of the existence of such uranium. This evidence was to be used by George Tenet in his intelligence recommendation, and was used by Colin Powell. All despite Wilson's findings that the truth was that the yellowcake did not exist.

So what this whole thing is about is the protection of the President when the intelligence he needed to get in order to justify the war... was indeed not found.

Here's the picture we have now.

• We have No WMD program in Iraq, corraborating Wilson's determination that Yellowcake was not being saught [And thus making Novak's outing of his wife that much more petty]
• We have no Iraqi connection to 9/11, despite the current attempts to reconnect Saddam to Osama.
• We have evidence that the US was pre-convicted to move against Iraq, and needed intelligence that would corraberate and justfity it.
• We have many occurances of The Administration manipulating evidence for various political purposes, and methodical Conservative protectionism and discrediting when intelligence comes out that does not fit in to their paradigm.

And it all comes down to a shoddy, misplaced, political, horrible war. Which isn't looking so peachy right now.

The point of the journalists' need to protect their sources is an absolutely vital one. But in the case of Bob Novak's reportage in this instance, he superceded it by exposing an American Intelligence Agent to potentially tremendous danger. He has to be held accountable for that action, as do the other journalists who assisted in it.

The story that they broke was not revelatory, it was felonious. There's a sincere difference. Had they exposed a CIA agent who was spying for the other side, they'd be heros. But they did so in order to expose an agent for political gain, not for the protection or betterment of society.

Huge Difference.

11th Hour

Blair has convened 11th hour G-8 Policy meetings to work out details about climate change and aid for Africa.

Has the good-natured pressure from Live8 already shown positive pre-meeting effects? Write Blair another letter, and while you're at it, write Bush again. Raise your Voices; Turn up the pressure.

live8

Linguistics of Terror

Orchinus increases the ability to debate the language that Rove & Co. are trying to reinject into the debate concerning liberals being "weak on terror:"

I've made this point several times previously. The recent resurgence of the "liberals are weak on terror" theme -- inspired, no doubt, by the Bush administration's reported panic over its sinking poll numbers and the steady drumbeat of worsening news out of Iraq -- makes it even more pertinent.

Most people with real experience in combating terrorism are perfectly aware of this. They know that, before 9/11 Bush did not take terrorism seriously (and if there was any question of that, we need only reflect briefly on the remarkable record of inaction -- except, of course, for brush-clearing on the Bush ranch -- after the Aug. 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Briefing). They also know that after 9/11, he hasn't approached it seriously either. Bush has chosen instead to use "terra" as a club for advancing his political agenda while continually undermining and ignoring the difficult and intricate work that fighting terrorism in a serious fashion requires.

Then he quotes extensively from favorite, noted, and very effective domestic terror investigator and expert FBI Agent Mike German:

Well, you know, basically the problem in 9/11 was the American public had no idea how dysfunctional the F.B.I. counterterrorism program had become, but now we're under this intelligence model, we actually know even less about what the government is doing to protect us from terrorism. You know, there's less accountability in the F.B.I., and I certainly know that there are problems, and I reported those problems to Congress, but so far, Congress hasn't been able to even get to the bottom of what I reported to them over a year ago.

So, there's just no oversight, and those things are really the problems. And until we fix what is internally wrong in the F.B.I., I don't think it's going to change. I think that we're still at great risk. You know, the 9/11 Commission found that the big problems were the F.B.I. had a poor ability to analyze intelligence that was coming in from the street, that they didn't share information well, and they didn't have a computerized system to share information, even among agents. And just last week, the 9/11 Commission discourse project came out and told us that -- gave us their report card, and it was that the F.B.I. still doesn't have an analytic capability, it still isn't sharing information in the intelligence community, and it still doesn't have a computer system. That's four years after 9/11.

Orchinus concludes by saying:

The reality: When liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attack, they wanted to prepare an effective, nimble response combining military action with intelligence-gathering and law enforcement, as well as addressing the root causes of terrorism; conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and simply prepared to sell George W. Bush as a "war president."

Turns out they were pretty good at that.

And so we're left with this empty vacuous reality: that the Right has built a construct of War based soley on symbolism and language games. This should provide us some answers as to exactly what Rove's methodology was last week when he reinvigorated the game of language debates: He knew that the only loser in that debate would be the "Liberal," and the Democrats that fell in line. It was, in a way, the perfect trap. Built out of nothing more than the convenience of timing and some sallow language.

Rove knew that, with everything in the in the Democrats' advantage, he had nothing to lose, and everything to gain, and that, really, he could recapture the terms of the debate relatively easily. It worked.

George Lakoff gives us the point-by-point:

When the Democrats took the bait, Rove reeled them in. Here’s what he achieved:

1.Rove changed the context of discourse, from Bush’s disaster in Iraq, to support for Bush in the wake of 911.
2.The Democrats had had the Republicans playing defense; Rove put them on offense and the Democrats on defense.
3.With the words “savagery” and “attack”, Rove evoked the frame in which war is the appropriate response. He thus made Bush the heroic Commander-in-Chief in the war frame, while making “liberals” wimps for wanting to deny Bush unlimited war powers.
4.Rove thus evoked the conservative branding of liberals as weak and conservatives as strong.
5.When the Democrats attacked Rove for his remarks and defended themselves, they wound up expressing support for Bush’s going to war after 911, and with it implicit support for Bush’s position in Iraq.
6.Rove made putative Democratic weakness the issue, and by negating the frame, the Democrats played right into his hands.
7.Moreover, using the word “liberal” and not “Democrat”, Rove made it look like any Democrat attacking his remarks was a lily-livered liberal, and that the party had been taken over by weak-kneed chickens – anyone against Bush’s use of the military.
8.This enabled the right-wing message machine to go to work, attacking the Democrats as being controlled by naïve unpatriotic weaklings – MoveOn,org, Howard Dean, George Soros, Michael Moore.
9.Rove, of course, stood tall and strong, sticking by his guns, with a loud chorus of supporters.
10.This enabled Scott McClellan, the administration mouthpiece, to call for a nation debate on conservative – liberal philosophy, beginning with the handling of 911.

So it never was about the factuality of what he was saying for Rove. It never is. It simply was about the power structure of the time period. What I mean by that is this: He who owns the TERMS of the debate owns the debate.

With the Social Security plan dumping on itself, Iraq trudging along and leaving American bodies in its wake, Iran turning more conservative and North Korea only flirting with bait but not biting, with John Bolton's nomination twice-deconstructed and with Frist's multiple failures of leadership, American politics was firmly in the hands of the Democrats. The owned the Debate.

Globally, with Live8 coming up around the bend and a global sense of both liberal empowerment and compassionate righteousness without the input of the American Conservative, the situation was generally bleak for the Conservative Ideal. This is what people like Rick Santorum react to: the threat that Liberalism will dominate his perspective.

And so Rove deftly wipes all of that away with a one-sentence stroke... Or tries to.

The good news is that it seems to have not been a complete restructuring of the debate. Apart from some howlings of Limbaugh et. al, the Left seems to have moved right along. I say keep moving.

Attack!

The AntiCentenarian covers Beato at Wonkette covering Blumenthal covering the College Republican convention and the Yellophant Revolution... or lack there of. Of course, the Army met their quota this month, with distinction, but not from the College Republicans:

Reporting from the frontlines of the College Republican National Convention, Max Blumenthal profiles young conservative patriots who are making the ultimate sacrifice for their country during wartime, forsaking a chance at adventure and glory in Iraq to do the tough work on the ground here at home:

By the time I encountered Cory Bray, a towering senior from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, the beer was flowing freely. "The people opposed to the war aren't putting their asses on the line," Bray boomed from beside the bar. Then why isn't he putting his ass on the line? "I'm not putting my ass on the line because I had the opportunity to go to the number-one business school in the country," he declared, his voice rising in defensive anger, "and I wasn't going to pass that up."
And besides, being a College Republican is so much more fun than counterinsurgency warfare. Bray recounted the pride he and his buddies had felt walking through the center of campus last fall waving a giant American flag, wearing cowboy boots and hats with the letters B-U-S-H painted on their bare chests. "We're the big guys," he said. "We're the ones who stand up for what we believe in. The College Democrats just sit around talking about how much they hate Bush. We actually do shit."

Such as? Such as selling "Bush Country" tshirts in bulk. And putting his ass on the line against Saddam, Osama, and John Kerry via this crappy web game he developed.

Shit been done, amigo. Shit been done. The question, as always, is... what are you going to do about it? Because I'm sure that all the procees of Bush Country Tshirts go directly to charitable organizations and military support organizations; things like Spirit of America, at the very least. Right?

...

... right...?

Live 8

Well, Since I, General Stan, will be flying into Paris on 2 July, the day of the big Live8 Concerts, I gotta at least try to check it out! if so, expect lots of delic photographic proof [hopefully!] It's very tight, so all we can say at the moment is the Hope is On.
And please, keep the buzz building. Turn up the heat on G8. Do it through love.


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Saddam Did It!

The internalization of the concept that Saddam had something to do with 9/11 is one of the astounding pieces of evidence of A) a foolish, underinformed American public and B) an overzealous political elite who keep forcing this idea upon us. Now, the reasons for B are clear: if they didn't at least work to convince us mindless gnomes in the bottom eschalons that Saddam took drastic action on 9/11, then they couldn't traipsie around the world with reckless abandon as they have been. What is surprising is how easily the public has fallen into this trap.

Look, everybody, Saddam Didn't Do It.

Yes, Elected Officials, such as Rep. Robin Hayes (R-NC): This means you. Pay attention:

"Saddam Hussein and people like him were very much involved in 9/11," Rep. Robin Hayes said.

Told no investigation had ever found evidence to link Saddam and 9/11, Hayes responded, "I'm sorry, but you must have looked in the wrong places."

Hayes, the vice chairman of the House subcommittee on terrorism, said legislators have access to evidence others do not.

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said that Saddam was a dangerous man, but when asked about Hayes' statement, would not link the deposed Iraqi ruler to the terrorist attacks on New York, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania.

"I haven't seen compelling evidence of that," McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told CNN.

I would advise you elected officials from checking FreeRepublic.com on your way out of the office to your press conferences. They tend to report on tenuous... ahemBULLSHIT... excuse me... often misleading news stories that tend to be proven completely inaccurate.

So... why do we still think that Saddam and 9/11 are members of the same structures of anti-American terrorist hate?

And how many times do you have to repeat a lie before it becomes the truth...?

The Intelligentsia

The Administration has put forth a restructuring of the intelligence system in America after... well... we all know how poorly our intelligence has served us. Indeed, some would argue that the intelligence has its shortcomings, as does those who manipulate intelligence for their dark purposes.

President Bush, embracing 70 of the 74 recommendations of a blue-ribbon intelligence commission, said Wednesday he was creating a national security service within the FBI to specialize in intelligence as part of a shake-up of the nation's disparate spy agencies.

A fact sheet describing the White House's broad acceptance of the panel's suggestions said that three more of the recommendations would be studied and that one recommendation -- which was classified -- was being rejected. The decisions come after a 90-day review led by the National Security Council's homeland security adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend.

Was one of the recommendations for our human agents to kidnap "enemy combatants" in friendly foreign countries such as Italy, then send them off to shady offshore, half-friendly countries such as Egypt for "interrogation," [ie: Torture], avoiding as much political oversight as possible? Or was it simply that the do it like idiots, so that the CIA looks like an overzealous and incompetant crew of thugs cruising the world in luxury, leaving detailed paper trails and bad attitudes in their wake? Or is one of the reforms simply that when this occurs, the US won't respond to said friendly foreign countries, even upon the indictment of 13 of their human agents for felonies stemming from these tactics?

Iraqis and Bush

Bush is feeling some mixed-reaction from Iraqis. As Jigga points out, even in America, where Republicans put forward 2:1 ratios of watching his speech yesterday, he only pulled numbers of 44% support for his rallying cry.

Over in Iraq, feelings are confused and mixed:

Many Iraqis in the capital, weary after more than two years of bloodshed and economic dislocation, view U.S. troops with a degree of mistrust but also as a bulwark against sectarian violence they fear might trigger civil war if they left.

Grateful, in the main, for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, many are dismayed by what they see as heavy-handed tactics and a failure by the U.S. occupiers to prevent Iraq becoming a new haven for foreign Islamists in the chaos that followed Saddam.

"Why don't they find another place to fight terrorism?" asked Abdul Ridha al-Hafadhi, 58, head of a humanitarian aid group. "I don't feel comforted by Bush's remarks; there must be a timetable for their departure."

Iraq and 9/11

I have selected this post concerning Bush's speech last night reattaching Iraq to 9/11 from the Scotsman because the headline just goes out and says it: "Bush Condemned for Bid to Link War with 9/11:"

British critics of the war in Iraq today condemned US President George Bush for attempting to link it with the September 11 atrocities in New York and Washington.

In an address on the situation in Iraq, at the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina last night, Mr Bush urged US citizens not to “forget the lessons of September 11”.

While I laud the resurgent criticism of The Administration's linkage of Iraq to the war on terror at this point, I also am confused by it. This has been the operative method of justification all along! Where was the criticism during the buildup, when we needed it in order to prevent this foolish war?

In a way, we must accept that Iraq indeed did happen due to 9/11. The Administration wants to link them causally in terms of preventative military strikes; but the rest of the world should be prepared to understand the lineage as being one of political manipulation. The Administration is in power during the worst and most painful catastrophe in contemporary American history; the Administration redresses that catastrophe to encompass a series of political goals they've had since the begining.

9/11 did not cause the invasion of Iraq- the lessons were not as stong as the President wants you to believe.

9/11 simply allowed The Administration to go invade Iraq.

To Arianna!

For the best analysis of Bush's "keep yer war on" speech this afternoon, and building it up to what it really is: a fratboy ritual of psuedo-purposeful agenda masking the true purpose of imbibery!

Huzzah! Bottoms Up!

Greatest American

Yes, freshly-buried Ronald Reagan "won" the title of greatest American last night on Discovery Channel. Many of us wonder how he could have squeaked by the 4 historical greats he did... but then... we remember how things work over here.

On the other side of the Atlantic, with a more objective historical perspective [and more history, outright], the BBC did a similar poll in 2003. Their votes went to...

Fishers of Men

Rick Santorum (R-MA) has published his thoughts in a piece called "Fishers of Men," on the cause of the Catholic pedaphilia scandals: Liberalism.

The most obvious change must occur within American seminaries, many of which demonstrate the same brand of cultural liberalism plaguing our secular universities. My hope was rekindled last week as our American Cardinals proposed from Rome an "apostolic visitation" of seminaries emphasizing "the need for fidelity to the Church's teaching, especially in the area of morality." It is an arduous task. However, the Pope made it clear last week that he expects the strong appeal of the Cardinals to be followed by decisive Episcopal action.

It is startling that those in the media and academia appear most disturbed by this aberrant behavior, since they have zealously promoted moral relativism by sanctioning "private" moral matters such as alternative lifestyles. Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture. When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.

The cultural change needed cannot end with our seminaries. Most of the American Cardinals, while strong defenders of the faith , are from a different era with only a few responding to the new demands our decaying culture has place upon them. With God's grace, a new hierarchy must emerge that will be both faithful in thought and courageous in confronting all infidelity within the Church. Such Church leaders have a great example in Pope John Paul II's battle with communism's attempt to destroy the Church and human dignity. A new hierarchy must similarly fight against an array of "isms"-moral relativism, cultural liberalism-inside and outside of the Church.

This is the same tolerance for homosexuality that Rev. Falwall believes was responsible for 9/11 occuring, rather than some meglomaniacal terrorist whom the CIA funded and trained for a previous war against a previous enemy.

The same tolerance that our President and his 3-branch party tried to force into accepting a Constitutional Amendment that would descriminate against American citizens.

The same tolerance that Rev. Phelps faught against, with his website www.godhatesfags.com.

And the same tolerance that Rev. Phelps employs to actually... yes... PROTEST FUNERALS of soldiers killed in Iraq because, as Santorum says, "It is startling that those in the media and academia appear most disturbed by this aberrant behavior, since they have zealously promoted moral relativism by sanctioning "private" moral matters such as alternative lifestyles. Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture. When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected."








This is your tolerance, Ricky, protesting a boy you sent to War, because of your fear of homosexuality.

This is what it looks like: Protest signs that say "God Hates Fags" next to ones that say "Thank God for IEDs."


And they're trying to say that Liberals hate our troops [while, of course, we liberals never put them in a place where they would needlessly die for our political games].

Absolutely disgusting.

-----
Also: the tile of Santorum's piece, "Fishers of Men," comes from Matthew 4.19, where Christ speaks to his Desciples: "And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."

Santorum perverts this in a very strange way, manipulating it NOT to talk about the Catholic Church's 50 year odyssey with homosexual pedophilia [where the priests are the anglers and the boys their trout; the fisher and the innocent victim], but rather with the tendency for LIBERALISM to "seduce" men through homosexuality.

It should also be noted that this passage was used by the Children of God cult through the early 80's in their "Faith Fishers" program, whereby attractive Family members would prostitute themselves to very weathly clients worldwide to draw in new cash-laden members to finance the cult.

All in the name of Jesus.

I'm not sure about the rest of you AntiCentenariatics, but I'm starting to wonder where the perversions lie on the political spectrum.

Pull the Wool

While powdered wigs fell out of fashion in America a couple centuries ago, our esteemed politicians still know how to pull the wool over the eyes of the populace. Most notably, by repeatedly stealing their prime-time television when their approval ratings have dropped into the shitbox on a very dubious anniversary.

I, for one, look forward to the question and answer session in the end. Surely to be entertaining and informative.

Lifestyles of the Frist and Famous

Wow. I, General Stan, hereby nominate this post as having the worst blog title... ever.

Onward.

Bill Frist, plucky yet adorable Senate Majority Leader, faces further scrutiny of his financial backers for his previous runs for office:

Election Day 2000 was five months off, but Bill Frist was already in an enviable position. With a fat campaign war chest and only token opposition in what he had decided was his last race for the U.S. Senate, Frist could turn his attention to grander plans.

Frist began focusing on raising record amounts of cash for other Republicans. But while he was picking up political IOUs that could aid him greatly in a run for president in 2008, his own campaign finances took a sharp, and in some ways baffling, turn for the worse.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars Frist's supporters had given him to run for the Senate were dwindling at a rapid rate. Much of that money was lost in a stock market investment that experts say was out of line with the way candidates traditionally invest campaign funds. Frist's campaign also took on more than $1 million in debt so that it could repay Frist for interest-free loans he made to his campaign six years earlier.

And then, in a decision experts say violated federal campaign regulations, Frist filed reports with the Federal Elections Commission that made it difficult for his contributors and political foes to determine just how bad off his campaign finances were.

Frist's aides, who have given contradictory responses to questions about Frist's finances, deny any wrongdoing. They said Frist, now Senate majority leader, acted within the law and in line with long-accepted campaign practices.

"There's nothing mismanaged about the funds," said Linus Catignani, Frist's longtime finance director.

Just who is this notable heart surgeon who miscalculated the health status of Terri Schaivo on the Senate floor in an emotional Moralist appeal to replace her feeding tube? The man who preaches morals with the justification of a doctor, but denies science's role in environmental policy? Who is the man who believes that the Democratic Filibuster is a mask for American immorality, and that John Bolton belongs on the UN, an institution he has declared as irrelevent?

A look back to Nathan Newman's blog in 2002, when Frist was taking leadership of the Senate:

Frist is literally the child of corporate medical fraud and union-busting. While he bills himself as a heart surgeon, his relevant position was as member of the family which founded what became the massive HCA/Columbia health care hospital chain. Bill Frist's personal stake in the family fortune is unknown exactly (in the tens of millions), but his brother's share according to Forbes is $950 million. See this older article about the family's role in HCA and GOP politics.

And how did HCA/Columbia get rich? Raiding nonprofit hospitals, dumping the poor previously served and turning them into profit mills for the family bottom line. See here. Oh yeah, and massive fraud against the Medicare system, a fact that led to a $745 million criminal fine against the company back in 2000. (See the update below for late-breaking news of a new massive settlement by HCA for fraud).

What was the nature of the fraud? The worst possible in corrupting the patient-client relationship to the point of endangering lives. Marc Gardner was a vice-president at HCA/Columbia where he says he "committed felonies every day."
...
The company also has a history of unionbusting against its employees. See this ruling by the National Labor Relations Board that HCA/Columbia engaged in illegal union-busting against workers in their hospitals. See the full decision of the NLRB in 2000.

For a more complete history of the HCA/Columbia story, see this timeline of the Columbia/HCA Rise and Fall.

This is the corporate culture within which Frist grew up and funded his political career.

Unsurprisingly, this is reflected in policy positions on behalf of corporate medicine, from opposing real health care reform to sponsoring the legislation on behalf of Eli Lilly to kill the ability of parents to sue the company for harm to their children from the drug Thimerosal. See Hesiod.

Frist's own corporate interests have pushed him to prevent even the possibility of parents suing companies for injecting their children with mercury-laden innoculations which, perhaps, have led to the plague of autism in children in the last 20 years. Frist, the scientist, won't allow parents even the legal right to inquiry and compensation; Frist is part of the government cover-up, as Robert Kennedy Jr sees it.

And Frist's family fortune comes from one of the largest Medicare scams ever. I suppose that explains all that "reform" Frist tried to ram home. A weaker Medicare provides easier routes to scam it, the public, and our elderly. Good for you, Dr. Willy.

As a corallary, I suppose this explains why Frist is so slow to condemn Poppy-Dick's Halliburton for their $1.4 billion fraud in Iraq. As much politcal assistance as possible; particularly for such an accomplished organization! I'm sure Frist looks to Halliburton as a model rather than potential for an indictment.

Back to Newman for his exciting conclusion:

A couple of folks in comments were unsure what the crimes of HCA/Columbia had to do personally with Frist; well, where do you think his money comes from?

Frist was able to win election in his first campaign in 1994 as an unknown heart surgeon with no political experience because he could spend $3.7 million of his own money on his campaign, derived from his portion of the family HCA holdings. And when ones immediate family is embedded in corporate corruption and a culture of medical fraud, it is not unreasonable to suggest those values may rub off-- especially when the public policy of someone like Frist is in lockstep with the interests of his family corporation.

The Apple falls not far from the Tree. But moreso: it is in Frist's financial interest to defraud the government of its healthcare. For such overt Senatorial Moralizations and proselytizing, Frist sure seems to come from corrupt stock.

[All links and emphasis within quoted text is from quoted text. This concludes Tuesday's FristRant.]

Because It's Fun

I want to post the CNN/Gallup poll of Bush's current approval: the worst it's been.

There are some strange points here, such as the 55% of Americans who seem to be pleased with Bush's terrorism record. Apparently, either A) the information that Terrorism has risen sharply under Bush hasn't gotten to them; B) They don't care; or C) They just believe that if it happens to someone else it's better than happening to us, even if there have been 3 times the terror attacks.

Also, more than 50% now believe that Bush lied to get us into a goddamn war we don't want or need.

US Prisons Worldwide, Inc.

After the terrifying photographic evidence of systematic abuse in Abu Ghraib prison, President Bush vowed to demolish the prison as a symbolic gesture of justice.

Instead, they're building a new wing.

Just exporting some of that good ol' fashioned Amurrican prison system into the rest of the world. Listen up, folks, this is what Democracy is: mediocre voting registers [58% of Age American Citizens voted in '04, which means that, which means that Bush won with support from 29% of the population...] for marginal candidates in one of two to three indistinct parties; capitalistic free-enterprise with corporate sponsored lives; and 1 out of every 142 imprisoned. How do we keep you in check? Throw you in the slammer.

Good luck with that, kiddies. It's a fun world to live in. Let me tell ya.

Rumsfeld's Zombie War

A friend of mine has inadvertantly discovered the secret to Rumsfeld's eternal war in Iraq. This is how we will keep our soldiers alive for the 12 year Insurgency...

Optimistic Monday

We here at the AntiC believe that every Monday should be smiled upon. We believe that the best way to approach a new week is by cuddling puppies, enjoying a nice brisk walk in the early morning sun, contemplating all that is beautiful and kind and hopeful.

And then we read the news to find out all the good that is going on in the world.

Sorry Everybody. Monday's Blow.

The Bush administration is planning the government's first production of plutonium 238 since the cold war, stirring debate over the risks and benefits of the deadly material. The substance, valued as a power source, is so radioactive that a speck can cause cancer.

Plutonium 238 is used in radioisotope thermoelectric generators, which convert the heat of radioactive decay into electricity to power long-distance spacecraft. The Cassini spacecraft, shown above in an artist’s illustration, has three generators.

Federal officials say the program would produce a total of 330 pounds over 30 years at the Idaho National Laboratory, a sprawling site outside Idaho Falls some 100 miles to the west and upwind of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Officials say the program could cost $1.5 billion and generate more than 50,000 drums of hazardous and radioactive waste.

Project managers say that most if not all of the new plutonium is intended for secret missions and they declined to divulge any details. But in the past, it has powered espionage devices.

"The real reason we're starting production is for national security," Timothy A. Frazier, head of radioisotope power systems at the Energy Department, said in a recent interview.

Club Gitmo "Improving"

Members of the US Congress who toured Guantanamo Bay prison have said that conditions there are improving, despite renewed calls for its closure. Their visit came at a time of growing concern that treatment of prisoners there is harming America's image.

More than 500 non-Americans - many captured during the war in Afghanistan and declared "enemy combatants"- are being detained at the facility. Only four current inmates have been charged with any crime.

On Saturday 16 Representatives who sit on the House Armed Services Committee toured the prison, at a naval base on Cuba, during a one-day fact-finding trip. California Democrat Ellen Tauscher, who has pushed for greater transparency about the facility, told AP news agency there had been progress since reports about alleged human rights abuses.

How can this be? Guantanamo is like a Club Med, so sayeth the Dittoheads, so there's a logical gap here- it must be getting really luxurious: bottles of Fiji water [but without that "Enjoy this water, you'll be charged later" nonsense]; facials, pedicures.

Those lucky illegal combatants without any rights ...

When the Darkness Hides My Face

Mukhtaran Mai: true courage. Many don't know who Muktaran Mai [or Muktaran Bidi] is. She was convicted by a tribal council in rural Pakistan to punishment by public gang rape in 2002, for crimes she did not commit. The Pakistani legal system has arrested, detained, released, and arrested again most of the men involved in her case; but it is an ongoing, uphill struggle.

What is astonishing about Mai is her determination to not let her life simply end because of her case:

When Mukhtaran Mai, a simple, uneducated peasant of a small village, was gang raped on the orders of a local council, her life was supposed to be over. In Pakistan's tribal and feudal culture, rape victims are usually ostracized. But Ms. Mai refused to back down, dedicating her life to social work and to changing attitudes about women.

"I had only three choices. Either to commit suicide by jumping in a well or shed tears all my life like any other victim in such cases. Or I could challenge the cruel feudal and tribal system and harsh attitudes of society," says Mai in a phone interview with the Monitor.

When her case became a very public affair, and human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch took notice of the events, money began to pour in to a foundation she'd set up to build an actual education system in her rural region. She became a voice for the oppression and systematic violence of this ignorance, but then also worked to transform it into intelligence, awareness, and compassion. Truly astonishing.

Her case has been ongoing. The Supreme Court in Pakistan will begin hearing appeals, and recently the Pakistani legal system released up to 6 of the men who were inprisoned for their crimes against her; putting her in danger. She was slated to begin a small speaking tour in America and abroad, but was detained "for her safety" in house arrest; although recently her visa has been restored and she has been released.

When she makes it to America she is expected to tell her story to the world in hopes of raising awareness of the need for aid: aid for education and poverty reduction in these rural parts of the world [and rural lands where the War on Terror metastasizes], because she feels that the true methods of reducing this personal, sexual, and political terror is through building education systems.

She is a wise woman. And it is tough work going it alone:

Mai acknowledges that the pressure on her is daunting at times. "Even some people in the community taunt me, but I don't cry anymore. I only cry when the darkness hides my face. I curl up in my mother's lap but smile with sunrise with more vigor and courage," she says.

New Push for Support

On Tuesday, Bush will again reclaim our primetime television viewing to attempt to reconnect with the American people and plea for their support in Iraq. Of course, he will "be strong and vigilant," he'll talk up the need for American strength; but none of this should shield the casual American that this need is in fact a plea in the face of plummeting ratings all around:

When President Bush addresses the nation Tuesday evening from Fort Bragg, N.C., a tableau of US troops behind him, he will make his boldest effort in months to reassure Americans that the administration is not "disconnected from reality" in Iraq, as even some in his own party now charge.

Already, for the past week, Bush's new emphasis on Iraq has been well rehearsed: The road ahead is tough, and the casualties weigh on him personally, but the US must press ahead. Iraq is moving forward with a new constitution and national elections. Setting a timetable for US withdrawal would only aid the enemy.

On Tuesday, "he will make the point that this is a critical moment in a time of testing," says presidential spokesman Scott McClellan.

But on the home front, another enemy lurks: public opinion. The latest Associated Press-Ipsos survey shows 53 percent of the public now believe launching the Iraq war was a mistake, a record for that poll. Other polls show up to 60 percent of the public unhappy with progress in the war.

6 Months Later

6 Months later, the Tsunami still defines life, as the more than 170,000 lost are mourned. It is a haunting spector, literally and figuratively. The globe itself shifted inches, adjusted her axis, brought people together in unexpected mourning.

And yet, recovery is slow and very long term. More help is always needed. Consider clicking the links on the right to help out, yet again.

Insurgency for 12 Years

Rumsfeld said today that the Insurgency in Iraq will outlast American capability; in fact, that it would not be defeated by American forces, and must be defeated by Iraqis:

“Coalition forces, foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency,” the Pentagon chief told Fox News Sunday”

“We're going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency,” he said.

Mr. Rumsfeld, in interviews on the Sunday news shows, warned that the insurgency could grow through the year as Iraqi leaders develop a constitution for a democratic government.

At the same time, Mr. Rumsfeld defended Vice President Dick Cheney's description of the insurgency as being in its “last throes.” Mr. Rumsfeld said the U.S. commander in the Middle East did not contradict Cheney when he told the Senate last week that the insurgency was as strong as it was six months ago.

He also said that the galvanizing force in the Insurgency currently is al Zarqawi, but that his sympathies run thin among the Iraqi people, and that his terrorism operates against their national interests and that they're aware of it. [In saying both of these things, Rumsfeld crafts this week's Iraqi talking point on the right: that the Insurgency can't be defeated by Americans and must be dealt with by Iraqis, thus absolving America of the responsibility to try as well as the blame for the current failures and escalating violence...]

But Rumsfeld sets up a dismal picture between these two elements: while there may be no national, galvanizing force in al Zarqawi, given up to 12 years of successful Insurgency, there's plenty of time for one [or more] to rise. Muqtada al Sadr has defected from violence into the government, but any cleric at any time may pull back; use his followers as operatives to regalvanize regions of Iraq, as al Sadr has done, into something resembling a unified force.

So while al Zarqawi may not be the catalyst for an identity in the Insurgency, the crime would be in allowing that Insurgency enough time to legitimize whatever forces may come along.

Treated Her Like A Man

Ed Klein, conservative writer of The Truth About Hillary explains it all on the Al Franken show:

KLEIN: No, you're a political analyst. I'm not.

FRANKEN: Oh. Okay.

KLEIN: You're a political person. I'm a biographer.

FRANKEN: Mm-hmmm [affirmative].

KLEIN: There's a difference.

FRANKEN: And do you think that maybe some of these, ah, conservatives who are reacting to the book, like Peggy Noonan and John Podhoretz and others --

KLEIN: Mm-hmmm [affirmative].

FRANKEN: Are reacting because it feels like you're just cashing out here?

KLEIN: No. That's...I don't think that's the reason. If you'll let me answer, I'll answer that.

FRANKEN: Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

KLEIN: I think there's a great deal of confusion on the part of the conservatives, how to deal with Hillary. They don't know whether to deal with her directly and in a forcible manner, because the last time they tried that with the Clintons during the whole Whitewater and impeachment imbroglio, they were criticized for going overboard and for being too extreme. And they felt they were, um, burned by that experience. So they have recently been cozying up to her and debating how they're going to handle her. And I think this book, which, um, I've written, is a book that could be written about a man. In other words, it takes, ah, Hillary Clinton seriously, and it treats her as I would have treated a male subject of a biography. And there's a great deal of concern on the part of conservatives that this is gonna turn her into a victim and make her stronger than ever. So that's the fundamental reason there's been this split among conservatives about this book.

FRANKEN: Okay. Well, thank you, Ed. And I will say that John Podhoretz did write his -- the headline on his thing was "Smear for Profit." So I think that he actually does believe that, ah, that you did this for money, which actually you do say that that's why you write books. So -- but I want to thank you for joining us, and I know that this couldn't have been, ah, fun, because it really was us ganging up on you, so I really appreciate it. And, you know, talk to Adrian, because I really did tell him that Joe was gonna be here. Thank you! Really, honestly, thank you for coming on.

KLEIN: You're welcome.

FRANKEN: And we'll be back with the Al Franken Show here on Air America Radio.

Way to go, Mr. Klein. Keep treating those powerful ladies like a men, and by that, he means, "taking her seriously."

Wow.

Someone pass the foot-extraction-from-mouth device...?

Or, more likely, Klein truly believes what he just said: That women in power no longer exist solely as women, and rather take over masculine function. This, of course, has more to do with that pesky masculine crisis, the threat by powerful women, than it does by the women themselves...

Liberal Thinking

Dick Cheney has checked into a specialized cardio-unit in Vail, CO. Ariana Huffington has provided some running posts including this post where she pines over his health, and questions the report from the White House stating that Cheney simply has agitated a good-ol-boy Wyoming Football knee injury.

She also has posted an announcement on the removal of the comments from her running logs on the Huffington Post for reasons of sensitivity; a responsible thing for her to have done.

Fortunately for us, the objective reasoning in the analysis on the Conservative Thinking blog has posted some of the comments with their astute determination that it proves that Liberals are a "Party of Hate:"

As Michelle Malkin, Chad Evans, Jeff Quinton, and Scott Boone (in the comments at Huffster's) expressed last night; liberals are despicable people.

Some of you would say I'm stating the obvious but I'm referring to Arianna Huffington's coverage of a Vice Presidential visit to a Vail Hospital and the comments by The Huffington Post's readers.

Let's run down how nice and peaceful these liberals are; consider this the greatest hits of the party of peace and flowers:

[ Many Comments from this post have been deleted by General Stan in the interest of space. Please see the post in its entirety here]

...

Anonymous: I want him to live long enough to face his trial The Hague.

Steve Rogers: Swift boat to hell?

Rusty: Cheney can't even check himself into a hospital without lying about it. I'm sure one of the ministers of information at the Fuhrer Bunker will clarify this by explaining that Cheney's knee was in its last throes, so he considered it "absolutely essential" to consult a cardiologist. Makes perfect sense.
...

It just goes on and on with liberals saying that all conservatives were evil because the shock jock, Michael Savage said, "There must not have been any room in hell," about President Clinton's heart surgery. Savage? Come on, even I think Savage is trying to push people's buttons. If you think Michael Savage represents the Republican party you're sadly mistaken.

But, this further proves the hate, absolute hate, which has slowly morphed the party of peace into the party of hate. I mean how many times can someone pour out hate for another person before they get struck down by lightning or American people wake up and realize those that preach peace are pulling the wool over their eyes.

You're absolutely right, Mr. Short. Many of these comments are very much inappropriate [and selected, of course, out of context], gloating, crass, spiteful, venegeful. In fact, I would argue that their greatest crime is that they have begun to reek equally of the reactive tendencies of anonymous internet political debate so pioneered by...

Conservative Blogs and some of their more extremist readership.

Consider Media Matter's resurrection of comments posted on FreeRepublic.com, where Swift Boat Veterans co-author Jerome R. Corsi, PhD, published such reasoned, thoughtful comments as the following:

• on Islam: "a worthless, dangerous Satanic religion"
• on Catholicism: "Boy buggering in both Islam and Catholicism is okay with the Pope as long as it isn't reported by the liberal press"
• on Muslims: "RAGHEADS are Boy-Bumpers as clearly as they are Women-Haters -- it all goes together"
• on "John F*ing Commie Kerry": "After he married TerRAHsa, didn't John Kerry begin practicing Judiasm? He also has paternal grandparents that were Jewish. What religion is John Kerry?"
• on Senator "FAT HOG" Clinton: "Anybody ask why HELLary couldn't keep BJ Bill satisfied? Not lesbo or anything, is she?"

A quick look over at FreeRepublic has some more wonderful, reasoned thoughts to a story about an arrested California Imam in a terrorism probe. Fortunately, he's presumed innocent [according to the Constitution, remember] over at the Conservate Blog comment's section, and certainly people are not rushing to be racist or derogatory...

Or maybe even just some of your posts. Who hates Oprah so much [oohh... Debbie Schlussel.]? Why do you have to support this kind of slander against her? It should be noted that this is a particularly devious slander: it relies on a propagandist faction of racism in order to be so offensive. To me, I don't have much sense that it would be offensive if Oprah started covering Islam more; but to you... this is dissent, and therefore, treason.

The point is that the anonymity of the blogosphere is a key factor in much of this speech, and that there are extremists and reactionaries on all sides of the debate. But certainly, Mr Short, don't perjure yourself by claiming that Liberals are the genesis and termination of all this. It was systematically built through Rush Limbaugh and conservative talk radio, and propagated through conservative blogs; both of which predated Liberals even figuring out either of the mediums.

In other words... You started it. Try not to be so short sighted.

And yes, it is notable that Huffington's crew is willing to roll back the comments on her blog- a policy that has been clearly posted since the inception. This is a far more peaceful technique than what you apparently have in place. This is called "Checking yourself."

The Women in Iraq

Shortly after the first Silver Star was awarded to a female for duty since WWII, to National Guard Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, an Insurgent attacked a convoy of soliders returning from their posts throughout Fallujah, killing 4 Marines, and seriously injurying 13. 3 killed and 11 injured were women.

There are no front lines in Iraq, and all those who are serving are strong. Our sincerest condolences.

Bush Trying to Rebuild Support

The Administration has been looking at the tailspin of support for their elective war, and they are notably concerned about it, and are developing strategeries to combat the doubting foes at home:

As public support for his Iraq policy declines, President Bush is working to convince wary Americans that he has a military and political strategy for success in the war in which 1,730 U.S. troops have been killed.

In his radio address on Saturday, Bush warned that there is likely to be more tough fighting to come in Iraq. And, as he did in his meeting at the White House Friday with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Bush urged Americans to share their confidence in a positive outcome to the war.

"The Iraqi people are growing in optimism and hope," Bush said. "They understand that the violence is only a part of the reality in Iraq."

On the front, Bush seems to be trying the civil route of convincing Americans that everything's clean and pretty. The rear flank, of course, has other methods to approach this agenda. Pretty sad, boys.

Attributed to the CIA

MILAN/ROME (Reuters) - An Italian judge has ordered the arrest of 13 people linked to the CIA for "kidnapping" an Egyptian terrorism suspect in Milan and flying him to Egypt where he said he was tortured, judicial sources said on Friday.

"In the judge's order, it (the abduction) is clearly attributed to the CIA," a source said.

Confirming the arrest warrant without mentioning the U.S. intelligence agency, the prosecutors office said the 13 suspects were believed to be behind the abduction of imam Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, who was grabbed off a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003 and stuffed into a white van.

Nasr was then taken to a U.S. air base in Aviano, Italy and flown to Egypt, stopping over on the way in Ramstein, Germany, to change planes, the prosecutors' statement said. The judicial source cited the warrant, which has still not been made public, as saying a CIA agent known to Italian authorities coordinated the operation.

The source added there was no indication Italy had authorized the "illegal kidnapping." A CIA spokesperson in Washington said: "We're not even not commenting. We're saying: if we have anything to say, we'll get back to you." The U.S. embassy in Rome declined comment.

The first Americans are targeted for participating in the shadow-justice system that human rights groups are so concerned with: the US practice of taking captive "terrorists" and exporting them in secret to politically friendly, torturous countries overseas.

It is an incredible case in Italy; a country has decreed that the US Intelligence officers who pursued this dark trade are responsible for their actions in an Italien court of law. Pretty intense.

asdf

Post Partum

It's not just for mothers any more!

New research shows that a depressed father has a great effect on the social outcome of a child, as much as a depressed mother; and that many more fathers can suffer from postnatal depression than has been thought.

This fits in tightly with a theme of parental responsibility. We live in a world of increasing difficulties when it comes to gender-balance, and particularly with family-rearing responsibilities. It seems that in America it's still just as easy to blame the mother for most wrongs in a child's life; and the father's role has been relegated to a binary: Either they're "there," or they're "not." This suggests that HOW the father parents, and how they treat themselves, can have a very similar effect as the mother's role.

The AntiC's Conclusion:
Parents are important. Happy parents are better!

US Sees the Torture

From armando over at the Daily Kos, and from the Huffington Post, we learn that the US has submitted material in a report to the UN Committe Against Torture that awknowledges the occurance of torture of detainees in the War on Terror enacted by US servicemen in Iraq, Afghanistan, and, yes, Guantanamo Bay.

"They are no longer trying to duck this, and have respected their obligation to inform the UN," the Committee member told AFP.

"They they will have to explain themselves (to the Committee). Nothing should be kept in the dark."

UN sources said it was the first time the world body has received such a frank statement on torture from US authorities.

Of course, the US has a way out: the "Underlings acting alone" theory. This flies in the face of the Alberto Gonzolez torture memos [where now-Attorney General Gonzolez had documents written which appear to have authorized torture tactics at very high legal levels in the US government] and the Sanchez theory in Abu Ghraib [where Abu Ghraib was in a relatively decent condition until General Sanchez arrived; creating oversight confusion and a power vacuum whereby the Taguba Report pins much of its blame for the occurances at the prison]:

The document from Washington will not be formally made public until the hearings.

"They haven't avoided anything in their answers, whether concerning prisoners in Iraq, in Afghanistan or Guantanamo, and other accusations of mistreatment and of torture," the Committee member said.

"They said it was a question of isolated cases, that there was nothing systematic and that the guilty were in the process of being punished."

The US report said that those involved were low-ranking members of the military and that their acts were not approved by their superiors, the member added.

The US has faced criticism from UN human rights experts and international groups for mistreatment of detainees -- some of whom died in custody -- in Afghanistan and Iraq, particularly during last year's prisoner abuse scandal surrounding the Abu Ghraib facility there.

"Okay, okay, okay. We DID it, okay?...

... It's just that we're not responsible for it, allright? Oh. And by the way... no need to come see anything, okay?"

Mugabe's Glee

Zimbabwe's dictator Mugabe couldn't be happier that he destroyed the shanty-homes of his oppressed, impoverished country's most poor:

The Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, today congratulated police on their role in a campaign against slum-dwellers that has left 1.5 million people homeless. The campaign has triggered a wave of international condemnation and seen thousands of homes bulldozed and torched over the past month.

Although it has targeted opponents of Mr Mugabe's regime, it is officially described as an urban renewal campaign. Operation Murambatsvina - a word meaning 'drive out trash' - has resulted in the destruction of shantytowns, street markets and even vegetable gardens set up by many city dwellers facing acute food shortages.

Addressing a police graduation ceremony on Thursday, Mr Mugabe said the campaign was wiping out havens for criminals and black market profiteers.
Last week, state radio quoted him as saying he was "happy that a new breed of organised entrepreneurs will emerge".

"The government is fully behind the clean up and applauded the police for ensuring the success of the operation," he said. Zimbabwe's opposition, much of whose support is among the urban poor, says the campaign is aimed at punishing people for voting against the ruling Zanu-PF party in the country's recent elections.

...
"If the reports are simply half true - and we believe them to be much more than half true - this is a situation of serious international concern."

The Conservative foreign affairs spokeswoman, Anne McIntosh, said the government should appeal to the UN to take international action on the issue. "These crimes against humanity cannot be allowed to continue," she said.

More than 200 international human rights and civic groups demanded today that Zimbabwe stop the campaign, releasing smuggled videos of families forced to sleep in the open in the winter cold. Police prevented journalists from filming the demolition campaign, and footage was secretly collected by the church-based Solidarity Peace Trust.

...
"We were dumped here by people with whips," one young man - whose name was not released for fear of retribution - said. "We don't know what went wrong. We were given these stands by the government."

For everything that we have to combat at home, somewhere else it's always worse. We must be able to look to improve the situation everywhere we can...

All Different Walks of Life

The President pitched his concept of "ownership" to some high-school kids in Maryland recently, with an interesting analysis of a recent trip he'd taken to an automobile factory in Mississippi [one of the few that hasn't been outsourced for cheaper labor]:

"I'll tell you an interesting story. I was at an automobile plant in Mississippi...and I was with the line workers. And I said, how many of you all have 401(k)s? In other words, how many of you are managing your own money? And I bet 90 -- I didn't count, but a lot, 90 percent of the hands went up. These are people from all walks of life, all income groups. It's amazing how quick you become financially literate when you're watching your own money, in other words."

Greg Beato over at the Wonkette picks up a brilliant thread breaking this one down. Take it, Beato:

It's true too! The line workers at that automobile plant come from all walks of life and all income groups. Some are doctors, some are civil servants, some are line workers. And, similarly, some are in the top tax bracket, some are middle class, some are dirt-poor. So what unites them? Their love of monotonous but stressful assembly line work, and the financial independence they've achieved through personal retirement accounts. And it's that independence, of course, that allows them to pursue their passion for repetitive light manufacturing. How come the enemies of Social Security reform have such a hard time understanding this stuff? — GREG BEATO

Pending...

The AntiCentenarian will address Karl Rove's frightening, slanderous, and saddening comments, and some of the larger social and political issues that might be indicated by them, very soon.

What do you think about them?

-----
Jami says:
"i think we need to fire the jerk:
http://www.petitiononline.com/fireturd/petition.html"

Agreed! I'm #2099.

Isn't It Time...?

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld: "There have been a series of gross errors and mistakes. Those were on your watch. ... Isn't it time for you to resign?"

Rumsfeld: "Senator, I've offered my resignation to the president twice, and he's decided that he would prefer that he not accept it, and that's his call."

...

Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.: "Mr. Secretary, I've watched you with a considerable amount of amusement. ... I've been here a long time, longer than you have. ... I've seen a lot of secretaries of defense. ... I don't think I've ever heard a secretary of defense who likes to lecture the committee as much as you. ...

"You may not like our questions but we represent the people. ... We ask the questions that the people ask of us whether you like it or not. ... The problem is we didn't ask enough questions at the beginning of this war that we got into, Mr. Bush's war. ...

"I don't mean to be discourteous. I've just heard enough of your smart answers to these people here who are elected. ... So get off your high horse when you come up here."

Rumsfeld didn't respond to those remarks.

Level with us, Donnie. And make sure your precious President who refuses to see you go does the same.

Web Readering

We here at the AntiCentenarian love links to accompany our stories. And it turns out that these links are building a new network of information that stretches beyond the web, into how we read most any material, and the information that we seek to find in that material.

Computers and the Internet are changing the way people read. Thus far, search engines and hyperlinks, those underlined words or phrases that when clicked take you to a new Web page, have turned the online literary voyage into a kind of U-pick island-hop. Far more is in store.

Take "Hamlet." A decade ago, a student of the Shakespeare play would read the play, probably all the way through, and then search out separate commentaries and analyses.

Enter hamletworks.org.

When completed, the site will help visitors comb through several editions of the play, along with 300 years of commentaries by a slew of scholars. Readers can click to commentaries linked to each line of text in the nearly 3,500-line play. The idea is that some day, anyone wanting to study "Hamlet" will find nearly all the known scholarship brought together in a cohesive way that printed books cannot.

So, through the resources of the web, we can more-quickly access appended information that comments upon the basic line of thought. We can easily read Hamlet, then access a treasure trove of Hamlet analysis and material. And on the web [with blogs and links] we can tap into that as an organic aspect of the story.

I find, as well, that I select what to read in new ways. Amazon's recommendations, for one thing, change my choices in reading. Or I'll simply Google an author I'm reading, and follow some links until there's another author that appears interesting to me. It's an unending prospect.

No real point to this post. Just interesting.

The Flypaper Theory

The Flypaper Theory
or: How I Built A Real-World Lab For Terrorists Out Of Nothing

aka
The US Invasion of Iraq (2003-?)

There was a certain political justification during the "build up" to the invasion. It worked like this: Some opponents to the war would claim that an invasion in Iraq would create the chaos that would allow the breeding grounds for terrorism; and that, in fact, made the addition of Iraq to the War on Terrorism counter productive, because it put terrorists where there were none before.

And then those critics of the critics built up the cynical "flypaper" theory. Andrew Sullivan covers it here, in a post from Sept. 2003:

Some time before the Iraq war, I found myself musing out loud to someone close to the inner circles of the Bush administration. We were talking about the post-war scenario, something that even then was a source of some worry even to gung-ho hawks like myself. ...

And what he said surprised me. If the terrorists leave us alone in Iraq, fine, he said. But if they come and get us, even better. Far more advantageous to fight terror using trained soldiers in Iraq than trying to defend civilians in New York or London. "Think of it as a flytrap," he ventured. Iraq would not simply be a test-case for Muslim democracy; it would be the first stage in a real and aggressive war against the terrorists and their sponsors in Ryadh and Damascus and Tehran. Operation Flytrap had been born.

I subsequently aired this theory on my blog, and received incredulous responses. Readers chimed in with objections. Wouldn't that mean essentially using U.S. soldiers as bait? Isn't this too cynical and devious a strategy? Isn't there a limitless supply of jihadists just longing to mix it up with the U.S. in a terrain they know better than we do? What on earth are you talking about?

From NewsBlog:

The so-called flypaper strategy had a certain logic and superficial appeal even if it dripped cynicism. Most Iraqis might be glad to see the back of Saddam Hussein, but they are probably none too thrilled that their country has turned into a vicious battleground between US forces and the jihadists, especially as most of the casualties are Iraqis.

Now a CIA report reveals that US intelligence officials are beginning to have doubts about the flypaper idea.

According to a report in the New York Times, a new classified assessment says Iraq may prove to be an even more effective training ground for extremists than Afghanistan was for al-Qaida, because it is serving as a real-world laboratory for urban combat.

Even more worrying, intelligence officials told the Times that Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other unnamed countries - presumably the US and the UK - would soon have to contend with militants leaving Iraq equipped with considerable experience and training.

In an age of globalisation, the flypaper theory seemed to smack of wishful thinking. Even if the US eventually prevails in Iraq, many of those who have acquired their terrorist skills in the "Iraqi lab" will have made their getaway. If so, one of the justifications for going into Iraq - that it would advance the "war on terror" - will have turned out to be an illusion.

And the flypaper concept turns out to be mere wishful justification. It had nothing to do with reality: it was more idealistic and the "Idealists" on the left, arguing that more reasonable ways to deal with international terrorism would be through policy reform, poverty reduction methods, and other, more humanitarian methods.

Socially Debatable

The House GOP Leadership has taken it upon themselves to introduce another Social Security reform bill in the wake of The Administration's severe lack of support for social security privatization, and their quiet backtrack on that plan.

The proposal sidesteps the politically thorny issues of reducing Social Security benefits or allowing the money to be invested in the stock market.

Under the plan, investment accounts -- referred to as personal accounts by most Republicans and private accounts by most Democrats -- would be funded with the existing Social Security surplus, rather than diverting a portion of the payroll tax.

Social Security benefits would not be altered, and the money in the accounts would be invested only in U.S. Treasury bonds.

Ahh the clever political side-step...

Chinese Food

In honor of the upcoming rise of the Chinese Middle class and the many economic and social effects that will likely incur even in America, the AntiCentenarian humbly links to a very entertaining NPR show about the history of Chinese Food in America. It is good to be prepared, folks.

Desert Successes

Successes in Operation Spear, the most recent "major military action" in Iraq since the end of Major Military Actions in May 2003, yields only mixed results and temporary successes:

KARABILA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. Marines claimed success on Tuesday in another battle against insurgents in the Iraqi desert but acknowledged that the war was far from over and that guerrillas would soon recover lost ground.

After four days of bombardment and street-to-street gunbattles, the Marines cleared Karabila -- a strategic way station near the main border crossing where the Euphrates flows in from Syria -- of foreign fighters who made it a base.

But U.S. officers and local people in the town, badly damaged by the fighting, said the insurgents would be back.

"That is another in a string of successful operations that continue to disrupt and interdict insurgent activity in west Anbar province," said Colonel Steve Davis, who commanded the 1,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops involved in "Operation Spear."

Battalion intelligence officer Captain Thomas Sibley pointed out, however, that any final victory was still some way off: "If this was the only thing we did, we would lose this war -- quickly. But it's not the only thing we're doing.

"Yeah, in a couple of weeks they'll be back and they'll make up for these losses. But that's fine, because we're not beating them in two weeks. We're beating them in two years."

Mohammed Solfeij, 33, whose house is on the outskirts of Karabila near where the Americans first entered the town, said the insurgents would be back "as soon as the Americans leave."

"The people are suffering. Most of them have fled to live in the desert," he said.
...

... [sigh.]

Frist's Bolton

Bill Frist: the near-laughing stock of the Congressional right. What a disastrous past several few months this guy has had. Anybody think of any initiatives that the Majority Party with a Mandate should have easily won in the Senate that this Majority Leader has successfully led to, without staunch debate?

And now, he can't figure out what to do with himself. He can't accept the Senate Democrats' refusal to accept John Bolton and is at the beck and call of The Administration. The Embattled Administration: what political tricks are up their sleeves with the Bolton nomination? It is risky for Bush et all to simply install Bolton without any endorsements in an off-session appointment; so they clearly want Frist to do their political dirty-work for them.

Solstice

The AntiCentenarian wishes all a very happy Summer Soltice. To the oldest party-day of the year!

What She Knew

The newest Anti-Hillary book is released today. Yippee.

Conservative groups are promoting a Hillary Rodham Clinton biography that hits bookstores Tuesday as a work so damning it could destroy any possible bid for the presidency in 2008.

The 305-page book, "The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She'll Go to Become President," by Edward Klein, portrays the New York senator as a ruthless and ambitious woman who would stop at nothing to protect her husband's presidency and promote a Clinton II administration headed by her.

While promotional material from Sentinel books, a conservative imprint launched by the Penguin Group, promises a work that "contains shocking new accounts of key moments in Hillary Clinton's private and political life," the book relies heavily on earlier works about the former first lady.

Let's not forget to temper our annoyance of thisw publication [ from the same house that put out the Swift Boat Veteran's Anti-Kerry book ] by checking out David Brock's Media Matters for America for some analysis of the book. Remember as well that Brock was enlisted by the uber-right publishing machine essentially to write this slander feast about Hillary, but instead published what most claim to be a decent and balanced portrayal of a powerful and conflicted woman. The backlash against Brock for not publishing a truly slanderous book was one of many motivating factors in his defection from the young Conservative Elite.

Iraq and Agendas

Guest blogger Paul Craig Roberts over at conservative anti-immigrationist / favorite looney-blog of the Anticentenarian, VDARE.com, revives a supprisingly interesting discussion about the true agenda in Iraq, with the startling realization that, really, it's possible that even the Administration doesn't fully know what in the hell they're doing over there...

For what purpose has President Bush sent 1,741 US soldiers to be killed in action in Iraq (as of June 19, 2005)?

For what purpose have 15,000 - 38,000 US troops been wounded, many so seriously that they are maimed for life?

Why has the US government thrown away $300 billion in an illegal and pointless war that cannot be won?

These questions are beginning to penetrate the consciousness of Americans, a majority of whom no longer support Bush’s war.

Bush’s Iraq war is the first war for which Americans have not known the reason. The reasons they were given by their president, vice president, secretary of defense, national security advisor, secretary of state, and the sycophantic media were nothing but a pack of lies.

The top secret British government memos leaked to a reporter at the London Sunday Times make it completely clear that prior to the invasion President Bush knew that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction.

The memos make it completely clear that Saddam Hussein had no responsibility whatsoever for the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The memos make completely clear that the British government regarded the invasion of Iraq as a war crime. The memos show the British government scrambling to find some way of creating "cover" in order to obfuscate the illegality of the invasion that Prime Minister Tony Blair had promised Bush to support.

...
Why did Bush invade Iraq? Cynical Americans say the answer is oil. But $300 billion would have bought the oil without getting anyone killed, without destroying America’s reputation in the world and without stirring up countless terrorist recruits for al Qaida.

Congress gave Bush the go-ahead for the invasion because Congress trusted Bush and believed his word that Iraq had fearsome weapons that would be unleashed on America unless we preempted Saddam Hussein’s attack by striking first. Congress did not give Bush the go-ahead for initiating a war in order to spend hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of American lives "building democracy in Iraq."

Will President Bush ever tell us the real reason why he committed America’s treasure, the lives of American soldiers and the reputation of our country to war in Iraq?

Does he even know?

Happy B-Day, Suu Kyi

Happy 60th birthday, Freedom Fighter. Unfortunately, you will still be locked and lonely; but your strength and endurance is motivation for us all.

To Aung San Suu Kyi. Free Burma!