Saturday, September 13, 2008

GOP Invents a New Junk Science: 'Galaxy Warming'!

by Len Hart, the Existentialist Cowboy

The GOP is prepared to embrace all kinds of junk science if it will get them off the hook for supporting industries, technologies and politicians that support disastrous but profitable policies. These deniers of 'global warming' have more than money riding on their attempts to discredit science.

They will deny 'global warming' for the threat it poses to their investments and for the psychological threat it represents to their self-esteem, their ideologies, myths, lies and shibboleths. To this end, 'deniers of global warming', primarily the GOP, have invented an entirely new phenomenon: galaxy warming. Not content to blame the victim, they will blame the universe!

My article Sarah Palin Denies Global Warming, Says Polar Bears Not Endangered drew the following comment on another forum:
I find this global warming thing a bit humorus [sic] at times. The whole galaxy is warming up, it has very little to nothing to do with our use of gasoline or coal, it has to do with changes on the sun.
This is a perfect example of how self-styled debunkers of 'junk science have succumbed to 'junk science. Even if the galaxy were heating up, it would have little if no effect on earth. Global warming is here and now. This is not the first time the GOP has tried to invent an entirely new phenomenon. Our 'junk scientist' asserts that what we call 'global warming can be attributed to two causes: 1) the Galaxy; 2) the sun.

Let's consider the 'sun' first. Certainly, the sun warms the earth and, if the sun suddenly winked out, the earth would get very, very cold very quickly.

The sun is not getting warmer, rather, it is cooling as it runs out of hydrogen. Scientists expect that in about 5 billion years, our sun will have become a red giant. As a 'red giant, it may swallow up many planets now in orbit, unless their orbits expand to accommodate a much, much bigger sun.
When the Sun becomes a red giant it will steadily lose mass and affect the orbits of the planets, making it hard to predict what will happen to them. Scientists think it is likely that Mercury and Venus will evaporate as the Sun’s surface expands outwards, but the fate of Earth is less certain.
--PhysicsWord.com, Earth could survive a red-giant Sun
Let's take the sun out of the equation. The nearest star to earth is Proxima Centauri, about 4.2 light years from earth. On a very clear night, far, far from city lights you might seek out Proxima Centauri with a good pair of 10x50 binoculars and a very steady tripod. Serious amateur astronomers will have a reflecting telescope, a steady mount and a clock drive. It is highly doubtful that the amount of 'heat' from Proxima Centauri on earth is measurable and certainly not in our life times.

Radiation causing 'heat' will dissipate rapidly with distance in accordance with the inverse square law. In other words, heat felt on earth from outer space is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source of any radiation. Consider how infinitesimal the energy reaching earth from stars about 100,000 light years or farther from earth! Even if interstellar heat arrives in our lifetimes, it may be be immeasurable.

Nothing travels faster than light. If there are any changes whatsoever in the Galaxy, it's gonna be a long, long, long time before any changes are felt whatsoever. What we know of the center of our galaxy now is really all about what it looked like some 1,400 years ago. That applies to heat, or more properly, the radiation causing heat, indeed, the entire spectrum. Portions of the galaxy could be exploding right now, releasing enormous amounts of radiation of various sorts, and we would not know about it for another 1,400 years, the distance from the sun to the center of the galaxy.
Moreover, National Geographic reports that "...Sunspots alter the amount of energy Earth gets from the sun, but not enough to impact global climate change. See: National Geographic: Don't Blame Sun for Global Warming:
Sunspot-driven changes to the sun's power are simply too small to account for the climatic changes observed in historical data from the 17th century to the present, research suggests.
The difference in brightness between the high point of a sunspot cycle and its low point is less than 0.1 percent of the sun's total output.
"If you run that back in time to the 17th century using sunspot records, you'll find that this amplitude variance is negligible for climate," Foukal said.
--National Geographic, Don't Blame Sun for Global Warming, Study Says
I am of the opinion that the sun has become a convenient 'fall guy' for a political mindset that seeks out 'fall guys' to cover its own inadequacies.
I think some people have suggested that increasing solar intensity over millennia. But it seems to be the consensus that the current warming can’t be explained by observed changes in the sun. I’ll quote from something I wrote on another blog:
http://futuregeek.blogspot.com/2006/07/5-global-warming-myths-debunked.html

From a 2003 Science Daily article NASA Study Finds Increasing Solar Trend That Can Change Climate:
“Although the inferred increase of solar irradiance in 24 years, about 0.1 percent, is not enough to cause notable climate change, the trend would be important if maintained for a century or more. Satellite observations of total solar irradiance have obtained a long enough record (over 24 years) to begin looking for this effect.” (emphasis mine)
Note that we are only at the beginning stages, and there is not conclusive evidence of any significant solar effect. If the observed changes had been consistent over a century, they could have contributed a small amount to global warming. Indeed, the scientist who performed the study said: “Solar forcing would provide only about one-fourth as much warming [as GHG], if the solar trend persists over the same period. Solar forcing could be significant, but not dominant.” Quoted from here.
Another science daily article, dated 1999, mentions a study that concludes that the sun does indeed affect Earth’s climate.
But: According to Shindell, the new study also confirms that changing levels of energy from the sun are not a major cause of global warming…. The GISS model agrees that the solar increases do not have the ability to cause large global temperature increases, leading Shindell to conclude that greenhouse gasses are indeed playing the dominant role.”\
If you’re still not convinced, back to the NAS report on Surface Temperature Reconstructions I quoted above: “The rising temperatures observed since 1978 are particularly noteworthy because the rate of increase is so high and because, during the same period, the energy reaching the Earth from the Sun had been measured precisely enough to conclude that Earth’s warming was not due to changes in the Sun.”
          --William Wilson, posting on: Why Nature Matters
When the sun becomes a red giant and absorbs the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, the orbit of Earth --at 1.5 AU distant --will no longer be habitable. By that time, however, space travel may have become routine. Like an old sci-fi flick of the 50s, mankind may simply migrate to a a new frontier, an 'undiscovered country' estimated to stretch 'well into the Kuiper Belt'. A very, very ancient history will repeat itself as icy worlds melt like an older earth emerged from an ice age. The new residents will not find woolly mammoths as did their ancient ancestors on earth but they may very well find water beyond the orbit of Pluto.
Back to the question. will the Earth survive? According to Schroder and Smith, the answer is no. Even though the Earth could expand to an orbit 50% larger than today's orbit, it won't get the chance. The expanding Sun will engulf the Earth just before it reaches the tip of the red giant phase. And the Sun would still have another 0.25 AU and 500,000 years to grow.
Once inside the Sun's atmosphere, the Earth will collide with particles of gas. Its orbit will decay, and it will spiral inward.
If the Earth were just a little further from the Sun, at 1.15 AU, it would be able to survive the expansion phase. Although it's science fiction, the authors suggest that future technologies could be used to speed up the Earth's spiraling outward from the Sun.
I'm not sure why, but thinking about this far future of the Earth gives an insight into human psychology. People are genuinely worried about a future billions of years away. Even though the Earth will be scorched much sooner, its oceans boiled away, and turned into a molten ball of rock, it's this early destruction by the Sun that feels so sad. 
--Universe Today, Will Earth Survive When the Sun Becomes a Red Giant?
If we are genuinely concerned about a future billions of years distant, then why are we so myopically unconcerned about what we do to earth today? If we cannot accept responsibility for what we have done to earth today, what hope is there that we might effect a futuristic salvation some billions years distant? That seems to be the idea. If the GOP mindset can convince you to believe in 'galaxy warming', they are off the hook for several billion years. As a propaganda technique, that beats even 'supply side economics' and 'no child left behind'.

An after thought --this is not the first time the GOP has tried to rewrite physics.
Scientists can finally explain why the Twin Towers collapsed on September 11, despite the temperature of the fires being well below the 1,500C melting point of the steel girders holding up the buildings.
The discovery that unusual magnetic forces within the girders made them weak at temperatures of about 500C explains away the conspiracy theories that have spread like wildfire since the disaster.
--Magnetic forces to blame for 9/11 tower collapse,independent.co.uk
Ummmmmm 'unusual magnetic forces' eh? Nah...methinks, it ware the li'l people who live in the woods! Aaaaaaaaaarrgh! It ware the li'l people who did it!

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Friday, September 12, 2008

'Songbird' McCain Exploits 911, Hopes to Become Bush's Third Term

Viet Nam Veterans and North Vietnamese call McCain 'Songbird" because he 'sang' like one while while a POW in Viet Nam. How does that qualify him to lead the US into war against people who had absolutely NOTHING to do with 911? It doesn't. McCain, like Giuliani before him, must be desperate. McCain is running on Giuliani's tried and failed mantra --911, 911, 911, 911.

McCain has said that he knows how to 'win' the war against Iraq --a war that the US ought not to have begun, a war for which there is no military 'win', a war for which the GOP must mount an offensive --a PR offensive!

McCain has proven himself just another lying Republican willing --like Giuliani before --to exploit a national tragedy, in fact, one of the most heinous crimes in world history. McCain will do this for his own selfish political motives, self-aggrandizement, and profit! Has anyone checked lately the amount of money McCain has gotten from the big corporations, many of whom depend upon the killing of 'foreigners' for their living?

Is it fair to to expose McCain's 'mis-characterization' of his life as a POW? A better question is: is it fair that the GOP continues to exploit 911, especially when there is not a shred of evidence that anything said by Bush about 911 is true? In fact, McCain is the 'exploitation' candidate, having 'made hay of his POW status' and now resurrecting the specter of another 911-type attack. Is it fair to call him 'Songbird' McCain? Only if he really was one! My position is this: any Republican ---be it Bush, Giuliani, or McCain --who continues to lie about the events of 911 --an inside job --deserves to be both prosecuted and pilloried! So --McCain!!! Are you listening! When the MSM begins openly referring to you as 'Songbird', don't whine unless you have a perfect pitch and tenor!
A former Vietnam veteran with top secret clearance says he has personally spoken to numerous POW's who dispute John McCain's claim that he refused to provide information after he was captured and tortured in Hanoi, saying that in fact McCain's code-name was "Songbird" because of his willingness to tell all to avoid torture.

Jack McLamb served nine years in secret operations in Cambodia and other nations before going on to become one of the most highly decorated police officer's in Phoenix history, winning police officer of the year twice before taking a role as a hostage negotiator for the FBI.

"I know a lot of Vietnam veterans and a few POW's and all the POW's that I've talked to over the years say that John McCain is a lying skunk," McLamb told the Alex Jones Show.

"He never was tortured - they were there in the camp with him and then when he came in....he immediately started spilling his guts about everything because he didn't want to get tortured," said McLamb, contradicting the official story that McCain only offered his name, rank, serial number, and date of birth.

"The Vietnamese Communists called him the Songbird, that's his code name, Songbird McCain, because he just came into the camp singing and telling them everything they wanted to know," said McLamb.

McLamb said the POW's told him that McCain had sustained two broken arms and a leg injury from not pulling his arms in when he bailed out of his A-4 Skyhawk that was shot down over the Truc Bach Lake in Hanoi.

The POW's said that McCain made 32 propaganda videos for the communist North Vietnamese in which he denounced America for what they were doing in Vietnam.

"They have these sealed now, our government has these sealed, we can't get to it, they have it classified," said McLamb, adding that in truth "the POW's hate John McCain."

It is commonly accepted that McCain was treated better than other POW's and afforded medical care immediately after the North Vietnamese discovered that his father was a top admiral.

Several Vietnam veterans groups do solely exist to expose McCain's abandonment of veteran's interests as well as his lies about being tortured, including Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain and US Veteran Dispatch.

Doubts over McCain's alleged war hero status and his support to curtail efforts to look for missing POW's contributed to torpedoing his presidential campaign in 2000 and those same questions will undoubtedly surface again should the Senator win the Republican nomination.

--'Songbird' McCain

According to a fellow POW, John McCain sustained some injures after ejecting over North Vietnam, but was never tortured or mistreated. Speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of what the new Republican Nazi Party, my party, might do to him and his family, he said, "Hell, they didn't have to torture McCain. He talked incessantly. We didn't nickname him "Songbird" because he was cute or had a pleasant voice…"

I've known McCain for years and while he's a lot of things, a straight talker he is not. Even though I was shot down twice in Vietnam, I wasn't captured. The records show that most pilots did their very best to avoid being captured, and those who were, carried out their orders according the United States Military Code of Conduct, especially Article III. There is no record of John McCain trying to escape or aiding others in their attempt to escape. I also know that like me, McCain is one sick old man. He's eaten up with PTSD and hate, and it's not the North Vietnamese, North Koreans or even the Taliban he hates. He hates Americans for leaving him to rot in a POW camp. Evidently, the Pentagon didn't believe McCain warranted being rescued to the degree that McCain believed.

After Bush wiped the floor with McCain in 2004, it was as if Merlin the Magician had waved his magic wand over McCain and said some magic words; McCain instantly became Bush's butt boy.

...

"John McCain voted against veterans in 2004, '05, '06 and '07," says Jeffrey David Cox, who spent twenty-two years as a VA nurse before moving to the American Federation of Government Employees, where he serves as secretary-treasurer (AFGE represents employees of several federal agencies, including the VA).

Sen. James Webb (D-Va.), a former Marine who served in Vietnam and who was President Reagan's Navy secretary, has made restoring the GI Bill education benefits one of his signature issues. It was his bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), that cleared the Senate over McCain's and Bush's opposition. In April 2006, John "Songbird" McCain, was one of 13 Senate Republicans who voted against an amendment to provide $430 million for veterans outpatient care.

Washington June 17 – AP - Notably absent from the hearing Tuesday was the Senate's biggest champion of detainee rights and the top Republican on the committee, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. A former prisoner of war, McCain has become less visible on the issue of detainee treatment since becoming a presidential candidate. And the list goes on and on and on.

--Bob Miller, McCain Not Tortured as POW
Some instances in which McCain has tried to exploit his "POW" image:
A few of McCain’s more strained attempts to “weave” his POW experience into his public image include:

Raising his POW experience to justify not remembering how many houses he owns. “Could I just mention to you Jay, that in a moment of seriousness, I spent five and a half years in a prison cell, I didn’t have a house, I didn’t have a kitchen table, I didn’t have a table, I didn’t have a chair,” McCain said to Jay Leno in response to a question about his housing gaffe.

Raising his POW experience to justify his love of the song ‘Take a Chance on Me’ by Abba. “A lot of my taste in music stopped about the time I impacted a surface to air missile with my own airplane,” McCain said to Walter Issacson at the Aspen Institute. (In fact, Abba began recording years after he was shot down.)

Raising his POW experience to justify his opposition to universal healthcare. “I did have a period of time where I didn’t have very good healthcare, I had it from another government. Look, I know what it’s like not to have healthcare,” McCain said on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

Raising his POW experience to attack political opponents. “Senator Clinton tried to spend $1 million on the Woodstock concert museum. Now, my friends, I wasn’t there…I was tied up at the time,’” McCain said during a primary debate.

Indeed, Carter’s suggestion that McCain views his POW experience as politically advantageous is nothing if not the opinion of McCain himself. As McCain wrote in his 2002 book Worth Fighting For, “Thanks to my prisoner of war experience, I had, as they say in politics, a good first story to sell.”

--Think Progress
It is fashionable, of late, to say that Democrats are just as bad as are Goppers!

Bullshit!

Let's look at the record. In response to Pearl Harbor, FDR and Congress declared war on the 'Empire of Japan' and on HItler's 'Third Reich'! The date of Pearl Harbor was December 7, 1941. VJ day was September 2, 1945 --about half as long as we've been mired in Iraq. There is NO end in sight. McCain is the candidate of 'stay the course'. There is NO course to stay.

In response to 911, the GOP regime of George W. Bush has yet to tell a single truth about either 911 or Iraq. He has, instead, demagogued 911 in order to wage a perpetual war, assume dictatorial powers, crackdown on dissent, charge his political opponents with being 'terrorists', shredding the Bill of Rights, the separation of powers, habeas corpus and other defining characteristics of 'Democracy'. He has created a dictatorship and, by law, merely pointing that out, probably makes me a terrorist. In my defense, Bush was a TRAITOR first!

And he remains a traitor! Not only is Bush a traitor to this nation, not only has Bush 'waged war' upon the people of the US, he had literally exported terrorism and made it worse world wide. This should have been expected. Terrorism is, in fact, always worse under GOP regimes.

GOP regimes cause terrorism. According to FBI stats, terrorism has been worse under GOP regimes at least since 1980. Over the period of time in which Ronald Reagan waged a great "War on Terrorism", terrorist attacks against the United States increased. [Source: Total Acts of Terrorism in the US 1980-98, America's Response to Terrorism, The Brookings Institution (Based on FBI Statistics)]

There is a reason for that. The GOP needs both war and terrorism in order to prop up its utterly failed regimes. And by 'failed', I mean that they are failed by my standards and standards that should be yours as well. I hardly call policies that enrich the already rich 'successful'. I am not interested in sophistry that makes of Bush a 'success' because he enriched his crooked base. That's not success. That's corruption.

For example, Foreign Affairs magazine recently stated that the war in Iraq has made terrorism worse and America more vulnerable to another terrorist attack. The Bush administration can be depended upon to cite this as a reason to stay in Iraq. In the GOP bizarro world, truth is whatever you can spin and success means 'just keep on doing whatever makes you sick!

Of course the Bush, his GOP base and now the GOP puppet du jour, John McCain, are all owned by oil barons and defense contractors. At this point, that's a given. I am concerned now with rounding up and prosecuting to the letter of the law the 'ususual suspects'. That means charging George W. Bush and his complicit minions with the capital crimes that they most certainly committed.

Will McCain restore the US Constitution? NO! Will McCain undo Bush's illegal re-write of the Constitution. No! Will McCain withdraw American troops from a country they have no business in? No! Will McCain tell you the truth about Iraq? No! Will McCAin 'win' in Iraq!

No, McCain cannot win in Iraq because the presumed 'enemy' --al Qaeda --was NEVER in Iraq to begin with!

Let me repeat that: al Qaeda was never in Iraq to begin with; Iraq had NOTHING whatsoever to do with 911; Iraq NEVER had WMD! Bush lied to you. The GOP has lied to you! 'Your' government has lied to you and continues to lie to you. And now --John McCain is lying to you about his 'war record', about Iraq, and about 911!

The US government, under the administration of the traitor and war criminal George W. Bush, continues to betray you and subvert OUR Constitution! The Bush regime is, therefore, illegitimate. It will continue to be illegitimate because McCain has never bothered to address the issue.

King Charles I was beheaded for much less egregious offenses against the people of England than George Bush has perpetrated against the sovereign people of the United States! Bush's 'third term' --a John McCain 'presidency' --will not bother to address the issue. McCain will never restore habeas corpus. McCain will not restore the rule of law. McCain will not undo the harms done to the US Constitution by Bush. Rather --McCain hopes to exploit them, perhaps expand them, take up where Bush left off. McCain hopes that Bush has, rather, blazed the trail.

That John McCain is now, like Giuliani (that other failed GOP crook and liar) the specter of 911, indicates to me that his campaign is in trouble, the kind of trouble that does not show up on a poll.

Bush lied to you and McCain has just picked up the mantra.

I mused recently that terrorism may be the GOP's last redoubt. The GOP is nothing without a bogeyman. The GOP exploited fear of communism, drugs, porn and --now --terrorism. Exploitation is what the GOP is all about! When you understand that, then you understand the GOP. Giuliani was among the worst practitioners of it because he was so bloody transparent, overtly evil and despicable. McCain, by contrast, has until recently gotten away with hiding behind the 'honest John' persona. It's bullshit! John is another goddamned lying Republican.

It's fashionable these days to say that the Democrats are not any better. That's just not true. Let's take a look at the record. Let's take a look at the history before it gets re-written:
  • Any Democratic President has presided over greater economic growth and job creation than any Republican President since World War II.
  • When Bush Jr took office, job creation was worst under a Republican, Bush Sr, at 0.6% per year and best under a Democrat, Johnson, at 3.8% per year.
  • Economic growth under President Carter was far greater than under Reagan or Bush Sr. In fact, economic growth in general was greater under Johnson, Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton than under Reagan or Bush. Democrats always outperform a failed party: the GOP!
  • The job creation rate under Clinton was 2.4% significantly higher than Ronald Reagan's 2.1% per year.
  • The "top performing Presidents" by this standard, in order from best down, were Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and Kennedy. The "worst" (in descending order) were Nixon, Reagan, Bush.
  • Half of jobs created under Reagan were in the public sector--some 2 million jobs added to the Federal Bureaucracy. Hadn't he promised to reduce that bureaucracy?
  • Reagan, though promising to reduce government and spending, tripled the national debt and left huge deficits to his successor. Bush Jr's record will be even worse.
  • By contrast, most of the jobs created on Clinton's watch were in the private sector.
  • Put another way: any Democratic President beats any Republican President since World War II.
Everything posted above is based upon official, government stats from the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, CBO, and BEA among others.

Meanwhile, Paul Krugman exposes the pest hole of lies, half-truths, no truths, and bullshit that make up the McCain/Palin crusade to finish the GOP destruction of America.
Did you hear about how Barack Obama wants to have sex education in kindergarten, and called Sarah Palin a pig? Did you hear about how Ms. Palin told Congress, “Thanks, but no thanks” when it wanted to buy Alaska a Bridge to Nowhere?

These stories have two things in common: they’re all claims recently made by the McCain campaign — and they’re all out-and-out lies.

Dishonesty is nothing new in politics. I spent much of 2000 — my first year at The Times — trying to alert readers to the blatant dishonesty of the Bush campaign’s claims about taxes, spending and Social Security.

-Paul Krugman, Blizzard of Lies
Obama doesn't have to bother calling Palin a 'pig'. That's OUR job!

Addendum from the Department of Endless BULLSHIT:

Magnetic forces to blame for 9/11 tower collapse

Scientists can finally explain why the Twin Towers collapsed on September 11, despite the temperature of the fires being well below the 1,500C melting point of the steel girders holding up the buildings.

The discovery that unusual magnetic forces within the girders made them weak at temperatures of about 500C explains away the conspiracy theories that have spread like wildfire since the disaster.
"Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. That's it. Unusual Magnetic Forces. Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Just because no building ever collapsed before or since from Unusual Magnetic Forces doesn;t mean anyhting. It was Unusual Magnetic Forces that did it. Unusual Magnetic Forces. Yeah. Unusual Magnetic Forces. Sure, sure. Unusual Magnetic Forces melted right through those beams on a sharp diagonal line that made it LOOK like thermite cutter charges. Sure, sure." -- Official White Horse Souse
--What Really Happened
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Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Sarah Palin Denies Global Warming, Says Polar Bears Not Endangered

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Alaska leads the US in global warming! As for Polar Bears --Alaska's entire population of Polar Bears will be killed off by the year 2050 unless Palin's policies are stopped now. These developments are concurrent with the increase of oil exploration and drilling in Alaska. Palin is lying about Alaska, about oil, about Polar Bears and about Global Warming. [See: Washington Post, Polar Bear Population Seen Declining; ]
As a result of these efforts, polar bears are more numerous now than they were 40 years ago. The polar bear population in the southern Beaufort Sea off Alaska’s North Slope has been relatively stable for 20 years, according to a federal analysis.

...

In fact, there is insufficient evidence that polar bears are in danger of becoming extinct within the foreseeable future — the trigger for protection under the Endangered Species Act. And there is no evidence that polar bears are being mismanaged through existing international agreements and the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act.

--Sarah Palin, New York Times
In fact, the polar bear population in Alaska is declining.
Two-thirds of the world's polar bears will be killed off by 2050 _ and the entire population gone from Alaska _ because of thinning sea ice from global warming in the Arctic, government scientists forecast Friday.

Only in the northern Canadian Arctic islands and the west coast of Greenland are any of the world's 16,000 polar bears expected to survive through the end of the century, said the US Geological Survey, which is the scientific arm of the Interior Department.

--The Associated Press, Washington Post, Polar Bear Population Seen Declining
Palin denies that human activity --including the drilling, production and refining of oil --has any effect on environments, a position that puts her to the right of even George W. Bush. In fact, Alaska is where it's 'at' in terms of global warming.
We have billions and billions of barrels of oil and trillions of feet of natural gas. We have so much potential from tapping our resources here in Alaska. And we can do this with minimum environmental impact. We have a very pro-development president in President Bush, and yet he failed to push for opening up parts of Alaska to drilling through Congress — and a Republican-controlled Congress, I might add.

I thought when we hit $100 a barrel for oil it would have been a psychological barrier that would have caused Congress to reconsider, but they didn't. Now we are approaching $200 a barrel. It's nonsense not to tap a safe domestic source of oil. I think Americans need to hold Congress accountable on this one.

Sarah Palin, Newsmax
Palin has put short term economic and monetary gains above the longer term concerns about quality of life, the environment, and renewable energy. It is not only her positions that are wrong, it is the attitude and mindset that places shallow and short-term values of this generation above those of the longer term concerns of future generations, indeed, life on earth.

Palin is either wrong or lying about Alaska and the harm that is done to the environment by an oil industry that she is in bed with. Palin should have talked with folk in Texas, an environment that has been raped and despoiled since Spindletop. Some parts of the world --like Iraq --are simply bombed and waged war upon for oil! But there is a word for those folk, like Palin, who just do it for the money.
Though warming is happening faster in Alaska than anywhere else in the US — average temperatures in the country's biggest state have risen 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 50 years — Palin is on record doubting that human action is the main driver behind climate change.

...

More pertinent might be Palin's positions on oil drilling in Alaska, where rich petroleum reserves paid each citizen over $1,600 in dividends in 2007. Though the McCain campaign has made much of Palin's willingness to stand up to the powerful energy industry in Alaska — last year she adjusted the state Petroleum Profits Tax to close loopholes exploited by oil and gas companies — on the whole she's been a staunch supporter of fossil fuels. She opposes strengthening protections for beluga whales in Alaska's Cook Inlet, where oil and gas development has been proposed, and she spent $500 million in state money to encourage the development of a 1,700-mile pipeline that would transport natural gas from Alaska's rich North Shore. When the Department of the Interior in May listed the polar bear as a threatened species due to warming—an action that could interfere with drilling in Alaska's coastal waters, where the polar bears live —Palin sued the Federal Government in response. "Our main concern with Sarah Palin's positions are that they are based on doing what is best for the oil industry, and not what is best for Americans," says David Willett, national press secretary for the Sierra Club.

--Time, Palin Far Right on the Environment
Addendum: Facts About Global Warming
What we know:

Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas. It allows light to pass through but traps heat. Here’s how it works: CO2 absorbs certain wavelengths of energy. This means that radiation from the sun can enter the atmosphere as light. Once this radiation hits the ground, it turns into heat. This heat then radiates back into the atmosphere and out into space. CO2 traps some of the heat.
  1. CO2 has gone from roughly 280 ppm (parts per million) in the atmosphere before the industrial revolution to about 380 ppm now. Each year humans pump out about 6 billion tons of CO2 with an annual growth rate of about 1.9% predicted between 2001 - 2025 (although actual emissions growth was 3.2% per year from 2000 to 2005).
  2. CO2 remains in the air for about 100 years, so even if we stopped emitting it right now we would still feel the effects for decades.

  3. CO2 and temperature have increased and decreased together over the history of the planet.
  4. There is more CO2 in the atmosphere now than there has been in 650,000 years. The rate of increase is unprecedented over the same period.
  5. Svante Arrhenius estimated 100 years ago that a doubling of CO2 would create a 4 degree C rise in temperature. In 1979 the Charney report predicted global warming of 3 degrees C if CO2 doubled in the atmosphere (we are a quarter of the way there). In 1988 James Hansen of NASA predicted to Congress that temperature would increase over the next decades.
  6. Temperature has increased since those predictions were made. The top 5 hottest years according to NASA are, in order, 2005, 1998, 2002, 2003, and 2004.The World Meteorological Association claims 2005 as the second hottest year on record. The difference is because NASA includes data from the Arctic. The top ten warmest years have been since 1990.
  7. Since 1850, we have seen temperatures increase at a rate of 1.1 F per century (about 1.5 - 1.8 F total). The rate increased to 3.2F per century since the mid 1970s (click here for more information).

  8. Species around the world are reacting to climate change: Since 1950, species distribution has shifted to the north 4 miles per decade, shifted to higher altitudes by 20 feet per decade, and Spring has advanced by 2.3 days per decade. In America, butterflies have moved their ranges north. They are no longer found in the southern parts of their old range. Costa Rican birds have extended their range northward. Tropical fish have been seen for the first time off the British Coast, and animals such as the Pied Flycatcher and the Winter Moth are finding their food supply affected by earlier Springs.

  9. Climate has changed rapidly in the past. The common example of rapid climate change is the Younger Dryas, when temperatures suddenly plunged, interrupting the warming trend at the end of the last ice age.

What we think we know:

  1. Temperatures are most likely warmer now than they have been at any time in the past 400 years. They are probably (slightly less certain) warmer than in the past 1200 years, perhaps (less certain) warmer than in the past 12,000 years, and new evidence suggests that we are approaching the warmest temperatures this planet has seen in a million years.

  2. Models predict that Earth’s average temperature will rise somewhere between 2 to 4.5 degrees C in the 21st century.
Sarah Palin --Lies and Idiocy
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Monday, September 08, 2008

How the GOP Turned the US Into a Hideous Police State

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

When laws become unjust, tyrannical and stupid, everyone becomes a terrorist. The GOP national convention is a picture of the continuing GOP police state. Otherwise peaceful demonstrators, exercising free speech guaranteed them by the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, were arrested, roughed-up and jailed --accused of being terrorists! Under GOP supported laws, opposition to Bush is a 'terrorist' act. Patriot Act II --unconstitutional on its face --laid the ground work!

Like Hitler's enabling act, Patriot II made opposition to Bush an act of terrorism, giving Bush the 'authority' to define US obligations to the Geneva Convention as he saw fit. Those 'deemed' to be 'enemy combatants are, thus, prohibited from fighting back and, of course, 'fighting back', defending one's country, becomes an act of terrorism.

LUDICROUS

I have news for Bush: 'deeming' is not 'due process'! Due process --not 'deeming' --is given the full weight of law; it is guaranteed us in the US Constitution. Last time I checked, the U.S. Constitution is still the supreme law of the land! Last time I checked, mere 'presidents' could not, must not rule by decree.

At home, hot dogs, most police departments, self-appointed Bushies, have taken it all to heart in a wave of tasering --often fatal --that is rarely seen even in the US. More worrisome is that peaceful protesters are often arrested and charged with being 'terrorists'. It follows, that if one is deemed a 'terrorist' under the Patriot II, being an American citizen will not prevent your being water boarded. In other words, 'terrorism' is whatever Bush says is 'terrorism' and 'terrorism' is so vaguely defined that it is simply whatever Bush doesn't like.

The rule of law and Due Process mean absolutely nothing to this crooked, corrupt administration or to the GOP. Silence gives consent. John McCain has, therefore, signed off on tyranny! McCain represents Bush's 'third term'; therefore, Bush need not declare a national emergency to assume dictatorial powers. He exercises them already. The wholesale arrests of peaceful demonstrators is but the tip of an ice burg.

This wave of abuse proves that McCain's GOP, the Bush administration specifically, has turned the US into a fascist police state! Whenever you are 'deemed' by the Bush administration to be a 'terrorist', you can kiss the protections of the Constitution, and possibly your ass, good bye. The 'authorities' may deem the following acts as 'acts of terrorism:
  • Destruction of any property, which is deemed punishable by any means of the military tribunal's choosing.
  • Any violent activity whatsoever if it takes place near a designated protected building, such as a charity building
  • A change of the definition of "pillaging" which turns all illegal occupation of property and all theft into terrorism. This makes squatters and petty thieves enemy combatants.
In the wake of Patriot II, journalist Greg Palast has been hounded by Homeland Security, accused of giving terrorists information about 'US critical infrastructure' and film of Exxon's Baton Rouge refinery! This is information that they could have gotten with a google search and goggle earth! It's just an excuse to harass and intimidate a reporter.

There is a fascist chill in America. As I have often stated: Bushco (and that includes McCain/Palin) is a clear and present danger. Bush, his minions and his complicit supporters, are traitors who have betrayed the people of the US even as they work to subvert the Constitution, the Bill of Rights! The very 'rule of law' is replaced by decrees and Bush's signing statements.
(WSWS) -- On Wednesday eight members of the anarchist prof est group the Republican National Convention Welcoming Committee (RNCWC) were charged under provisions of the Minnesota a state version of the Patriot Act with “Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism.” The eight charged are all young, and could face up to seven-and-a-half years in prison under a provision that allows the enhancement of charges related to terrorism by 50 percent. They are: Monica Bicking, Eryn Trimmer, Luce Guillen Givins, Erik Oseland, Nathanael Secor, Robert Czernik, Garrett Fitzgerald and Max Spector.
...
--RNC in Twin Cities: Eight prof esters charged with terrorism under Patriot Act
In what appears to be the first use of criminal charges under the 2002 Minnesof a version of the Federal Patriot Act, Ramsey County Prosecutors have formally charged 8 alleged leaders of the RNC Welcoming Committee with Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism. Monica Bicking, Eryn Trimmer, Luce Guillen Givins, Erik Oseland, Nathanael Secor, Robert Czernik, Garrett Fitzgerald, and Max Spector, face up to 7 1/2 years in prison under the terrorism enhancement charge which allows for a 50% increase in the maximum penalty.
Affidavits released by law enforcement which were filed in support of the search warrants used in raids over the weekend, and used to support probable cause for the arrest warrants, are based on paid, confidential informants who infiltrated the RNCWC on behalf of law enforcement. They allege that members of the group sought to kidnap delegates to the RNC, assault police officers with firebombs and explosives, and sabotage age airports in St. Paul. Evidence released to date does not corroborate these allegations with physical evidence or provide any of her evidence for these allegations than the claims of the informants. Based on past abuses of such informants by law enforcement, the National Lawyers Guild is concerned that such police informants have incentives to lie and exaggerate threats of violence and to also act as agent provocateurs in raising and urging support for acts of violence.
--Bruce Nestor, Information Clearing House, RNC 8 Charged as Terrorists Under State Patriot Act
Stupid, asinine and unjust laws make a mockery of our Constitution and the principles of our founding. The Patriot Act is the proto-type of these laws.
The charges represent an abuse of the criminal justice system and seek to intimidate any person organizing large scale public demonstrations potentially involving civil disobedience.
--Bruce Nestor, president of the Minnesota Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild
A country of hollow, self righteous showmen

Real violence is routinely trivialized by transparent attempts to put political views on 'trial'. This is un-patriotic and un-American. A prominent case involved Joe Previtera of Boston College. He was charged with felonies after he dressed up in a hooded Iraqi prisoner 'dress' as seen in the iconic Abu Ghraib torture photos. We are expected to believe that a man in a dress is a threat to dumb-ass grunts in a recruitment center. It took place in the Tremont St recruitment center in downtown Boston. The man --in fact no threat to anyone --was arrested, jailed; his bond set at $10,000.

Bush's police state have turned police into the Praetorian Guard for entrenched power and elite, monied interests. Only the naive believe that the various police forces throughout the nation take seriously their oaths to 'protect and serve'. Any intelligent citizen would wonder how how many 'cop shops' are directly controlled by Bush's 'Homeland Security".
...[it] Seems almost inarguable but it leads to lesser military effectiveness in a myriad of situations, but nowhere more than in anti-insurgency operations where the willingness of American troops to blow away civilians if there is even a miniscule chance that might make troops safer has actually lead to troops being less safe, because it has increased the number of people who have reason to want to kill American troops.
The US has an image of itself as a country of the brave. Perhaps George W. Bush was the perfect President for the US as it now is. A country of hollow, self righteous showmen. I certainly hope not, but --looking at McCain's polling numbers-- it may be so. In which case the US will get what it deserves --and Heaven Help the rest of us.
Certainly, there's a balance between foolhardiness and courage and between safety and responsibility. In US police enforcement that balance has skewed to the point where all a police officer needs to justify the shooting, the electrocution, the punching, the stomping, the battering of the citizens and visitors of this country is to state they were afraid for their safety.
That excuses all. The job of US Police Officers is to keep themselves safe. The citizenry do not matter. There is no longer any pretense that the police forces in the US are here to serve the community. They are in the business of control. They protect the very rich and powerful. We have come full circle to police as enforcers for the rich in a feudal-like system of economic serfs and masters.
-Authoritarian Police Forces we have in the US
The GOP has been taken over by Bush-like neo-nazis, particularly John McCain and his mentally constipated running-mate --Sarah Palin, a Stepford Wife on speed! Merely making plans to blockade traffic or disrupt the GOP is now considered to be 'terrorism'. This is absurd. Authorities say they want to put the defendants views on trial. I submit that it is time we put Bush, McCain, Palin views on trial. And later, war criminals are to be put on trial at the Hague.

It is time that the Bush administration be charged with violations of its own terrorist act. [See: CIA Leak May Violate Patriot Act ] It is time that Bush be charged with violations of US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441 . Those are capital crimes. It is time that Bush be charged for his own violations of Patriot Acts I and II. It is time that we held both Bush and McCain to their own standards. It is time that we expose the GOP to be the fascist, terrorist party in a nation that had been --at one time --free! See: The FBI Has Been Violating Your Liberties in Ways that May Shock You.

In the meantime, America's last growth industry is the surveillance of the domestic population. As home prices were taking a beating and GDP struggled, US government wiretaps remained bullish with 'eavesdropping' boasting an increase of 14 percent over 2006 levels. In 2007, some 4,580 state and federal wiretaps were OKd by judges. That's up from 4,015 in 2006.

State police applications for wiretaps were up 27% in 2007 over 2006. Ninety-four percent targeted cell phones. In 2007 --according stats released by the US Courts' administrator --state judges approved 1,751 criminal wiretap applications without turning any of them down. [See: report (.pdf).] That's about a three fold increase since 1997.
Tyrants Snooping on Americans (TSA) have installed a naked X-ray machine at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Virginia.

"Whole body imaging" machines treat Security Screeners to a peep show featuring passengers' moles, scars, sores, sweat, nipples, and genitals. However, the scanners cannot see through plastic or rubber materials that resemble skin, Peter Siegel, a senior scientist at the California Institute of Technology, told USA Today. "You probably could find very common materials that you could wrap around you that would effectively obscure" weapons or bomb parts.

TSA snoops are already enjoying the naked X-rays at airports in Baltimore, New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, and Albuquerque. The peep show also travels to Dallas, Detroit, Las Vegas, and Miami this month.

--Naked X-Rays at More U.S. Airports
As the corrupt establishment abuses both law and its enforcement on behalf of a partisan position, the Taser is increasingly used against innocent citizens to injure, kill, or deprive them of their rights under the US Constitution. To insist upon treatment within the Constitution is often enough to enrage a hot dog who is out to prove he knows how to 'subdue' or use a Taser! What idiot doesn't?

The abuse of tasers has become epidemic, an outrage, a threat to the rule of law, an overt violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, and, in many cases, it's use is a felony violation of US Codes, and state laws. It the worst cases, it is simply murder!

The epidemic of taser abuse is characteristic of fascist police states run riof when those sworn to uphold the law become not hing more than thugs and/or murderers.
We have serious concerns about the use of electro-shock devices in law enforcement, both as regards their safety and their pof ential for misuse. Portable and easy to use, with the capacity to inflict severe pain at the push of a button without leaving substantial marks, electro-shock weapons are particularly open to abuse, as our organization has documented in numerous cases around the world.

While in the United States police operate under professional standards,(8) we are concerned that many US police departments are using Tasers to subdue non-compliant or disturbed individuals who do not pose a serious danger to themselves or of hers. As our reports have documented, there are many cases where we believe use of Tasers has contravened international standards which require that police use force only when strictly necessary, in proportion to the threat posed, only for as long as the threat exists and in a manner designed to minimize pain or injury.
We have documented disturbing instances where we believe that Taser use has amounted to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment which is absolutely prohibited under international law. (Emphasis added)The UN Committee against Torture has called on the United States to deploy Tasers only as a non-lethal alternative to using firearms. We are particularly concerned about the capacity of Tasers to be used in close contact situations as a stun weapon – including in situations where individuals appear to be already effectively in custody – and to inflict repeated shocks over a relatively prolonged period. While we believe the drive-stun mode is especially open to abuse, we not e that in dart-mode also there have been instances of alleged abuse, with officers able to inflict repeated shocks once the darts have taken hold.
We are also concerned that Tasers are being widely deployed in the United States before the results of rigorous, independent and comprehensive testing of their safety and pof ential health risks.
--USA, Amnesty International’s concerns about Tasers: Statement to the US Justice Department inquiry into deaths in custody
The manufacture of tasers should be banned by law, their use made a felony, and the moronic hot dogs who get their jollies tasering folk should be locked up for life or, in those cases in which the victims dies, the taser freaks, taser crazy cops, should be charged with capital crimes, tried, found guilty and given a dose of Texas ol' sparky! Tasers have become a symptom of the modern police state --atrocity 'lite'.

A Shot Heard Round the World

 It would appear that a 'shot heard round the world' had been fired. Bush/McCain, their minions and kiss up Nazi wannabes have thrown down the gauntlet. Simply --if you object to Bush's treasonous and arbitrary, unauthorized re-write of the US Constitution, you may be charged with terrorism. This administration is not behaving as if it plans to leave office at the end of the term.

Clearly --the Bush/McCain/GOP strategy is the strategy of brownshirts! A first step in this direction was taken in the year 2000 when GOP 'brownshirts' stormed recount rooms in Florida, physically attacking those who were counting the very votes that most certainly would have made Al Gore President of the United States. Had that happened, this nightmare of nearly eight years might have been avoided!

The GOP is NOT a Political Party --it's a crime syndicate, possibly a criminal cult! 

The GOP is a hate-filled pseudo party characterized by its thinly veiled bigotry, provincialism and eitism. There are lessons to be found in our recent past. The Civil Rights movement was an incipient revolution. Martin Luther King's 'dream' was a revolutionary manifesto. He was murdered! John F. Kennedy pledged "New Frontiers". Because JFK promised to smash the CIA into a thousand pieces and abolish the oil depletion allowance, and, in other less dramatic ways, subvert the ruthless, selfish power of a tiny, un-elected elite, he was gunned down in the streets of Dallas, arguably the most conservative and reactionary city in America. I know who killed JFK! He was killed by those who later covered up their crimes as Bush covered the crime of 911. Only the guilty are motivated to cover up a crime. Only the guilty are motivated to lie about their crimes. Only the guilty will commit obstruction of justice and other crimes whose only purpose is the protection of the guilty. Only the guilty are so motivated.

Those who murdered JFK worked assiduously to propagate the mindless 'Warren Commission Report', a report whom no one of even modest intelligence believes. Innocent people have no crimes to cover up. The guilty, by contrast, always do. We know who JFKs killers were. It is because this crime is still covered up and the nation has not yet come to grips with the ugly beast that was unleashed that we are stuck with the likes of Bush, McCain, Palin and similar evil and repugnant ilk!
Where's the sense - where's the profit in all the artificial fear, all the hate and all the aggression? Recently they've begun to destroy the very instruments of dialogue and discussion. In their haste to attack Iraq, they destroyed the Atlantic Alliance, did major damage to the United Nations, and managed to severely wound the NATO alliance. How can they hope to triumph against such a background of belligerence and destruction? What's left to crush or threaten once we've finished declaring ourselves to be the Supreme Rulers of the World?
It turns out that most of the above has only been a side-show, an 'introductory video' of what will happen to the United States and to all its citizens if we should fail to comply with every command on the Bushwhacker's hit list of rights to be taken, property to be stolen, or dreams to be denied. It seems there is a plan beneath all this after all.
This little nightmare called FEMA - The Federal Emergency Management Agency - was brought to us by Richard Nixon. And over the years each consecutive president has contributed to its continuing health and viability - until we got to '41,' bullyboy's daddy. GWH Bush saw to it that this weapon against the people was armed and ready - the only thing not in place was a sufficient excuse to implement it.

What exactly is FEMA, in terms of its powers, once it is activated?
"EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President - Congress cannot review the action for six months."
A complete explanation is here: http://www.sonic.net/sentinel/gvcon6.html
Then came the events of 9-11. Here was the beginning of the real possibility to make the transition from a science fiction fantasy to living reality. http://www.rense.com/general36/hoax.htm
To facilitate the onset of civil unrest in the United States, a number of actions by the executive branch of government have been undertaken with the complicity and collusion of both the Congress and the courts under the direction of a loosely defined coalition of the eager that involves both the USA and a faction of extremists within the government of Israel. All of this is being financed by you and me through the monetary choices we have allowed this government to make since the ascension of the Bush Crime Family to their executive posts in Washington D.C.
--The Fema Plan to Kill America
Our strategy in response is this: we will put the Bush/McCain 'dictatorship' on trial! We will organize to challenge in court every unlawful arrest! We will organize to file class action lawsuits seeking millions against all corporations that have materially supported and, in other ways, facilitated this police state and its attentdent atrocities upon the American people and the world!

We will organize to boycott the MSM and its sponsors. We will shop and buy green! We will peacefully obstruct and oppose! We will throw a spanner into the works and gum up the evil machine. When millions are so motivated, the underpinnings of this dictatorship of less than one percent of the nation will collapse. The whole rotten edifice will come crashing down! We will wage revolution and win!

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Sunday, September 07, 2008

What Terrifies the Bush Administration

It has been asked what this government is afraid of. Rob Kall of OpEdNews made the point that America's most deadly weapons, formidable contingents of men in arms has failed to prove or demonstrate that the US is "powerful" --only that it is, in fact, afraid!
...the most powerful most deadly weapons and contingents of armed men does not mean that you are powerful, it means that you are afraid. It means that everywhere you go you go in fear. You are too afraid to go about in this world as we all do, with open hands and goodwill, and show up unarmed and with nothing to hide. You have everything to hide.

--And Then We Will Die
What is this 'government' afraid of?

TRUTH!

The Bush administration is absolutely terrified of the truth about its many failures and crimes.
  • The catastrophic failure in Iraq

    • NY Times editorializes that we now have real evidence that the Bush policy of Preventive War is not only wrong but also a complete failure.
    So far, the preventive war doctrine has had one real test: the invasion of Iraq. Mr. Bush terrified millions of Americans into believing that forcibly changing the regime in Baghdad was the only way to keep Iraq's supposed stockpiles of unconventional weapons out of the hands of Al Qaeda. Then it turned out that there were no stockpiles and no operational links between Saddam Hussein's regime and Al Qaeda's anti-American terrorism. Meanwhile, America's longstanding defensive alliances were weakened and the bulk of America's ground combat troops tied down in Iraq for what now appears to be many years to come. If that is making this country safer, it is hard to see how. The real lesson is that America dangerously erodes its military and diplomatic defenses when it charges off unwisely after hypothetical enemies.

    Before the Iraq fiasco, American leaders rightly viewed war as a last resort, appropriate only when the nation's vital interests were actively threatened and reasonable diplomatic efforts had been exhausted. That view always left room for pre-emptive attacks; America is under no obligation to sit and wait, if it is clear that some enemy is actually preparing to strike first. But it correctly drew the line at preventive wars against potential foes who might, or might not, be thinking about doing something dangerous. As the administration's disastrous experience in Iraq amply demonstrates, that is still the wisest course and the one that keeps America most secure in an increasingly dangerous era.

    --New York Times as cited: Pacific Views: A Catastrophic Failure: Bush's Preventive War Policy
  • Bush's incompetent mismanagement of the economy.[See: The Truth About George] An excerpt:
    US Comptroller General David Walker refuted George W. Bush's claims that his administration can cut the federal deficit in half within five years without changing policies. According to the Los Angeles Times, "Bush has argued that by 2006, growth prompted by his $1.7-trillion tax cut plus spending cuts will pare deficits in half." Contrary to Bush's claims, Walker, the nation's chief fiscal officer stated that, "The idea that this is manageable or that we are going to grow our way out of the problem is just flat false." CBSNews.com reports that Walker went on to say that, "It's time to admit that we're in a fiscal hole and to stop digging," yet Bush has refused to change his mind about making the tax cuts permanent. Despite Bush's pledge to not "pass [problems] on to other Presidents and other generations," according to Walker, that's exactly what is about to happen. In an interview with United Press International, Walker grimly states that, "We must begin to come to grips with the dawning fiscal realities that threaten our nation's children's and grandchildren's future." Get more information on how this economic squeeze is forcing states and the federal government to cut back on aid to the nation's poorest families, many of whom are headed by women. Sources: CBSNews.com, "Watchdog Declaring Deficit Crisis," Sept. 17, 2003; Los Angeles Times, "Bush's Economic Growth Forecast Called 'False'," Oct. 7, 2003.
  • Bush's fraudulent, ham-fisted war on terrorism, in fact, creating 'terrorism' in places where it had not existed before. Primarily, Iraq!
    According to the July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate:

    Al Qaeda represents a very serious threat to America’s security. “Al Qaeda will remain the most serious terrorist threat to the Homeland, as its central leadership continues to plan high-impact plots.”

    • Al Qaeda has reconstituted its ability to strike America and is actively operating and plotting attacks against the United States from its safe haven in Pakistan. “We assess the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability, including a safehaven in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas.”

    • The war in Iraq is serving as a powerful recruiting tool for al Qaeda, providing the group with access to new resources, operatives and supporters. “We assess that al Qaeda will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), its most visible and capable affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the Homeland. In addition, we assess that its association with AQI helps al Qaeda to energize the broader Sunni extremist community, raise resources, and to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for Homeland attack.”

    To the great detriment of US security, the Bush Administration has failed to grasp the nature of al Qaeda’s continued and resurgent threat and has proven incapable of advancing a viable strategy to respond to it. This NIE is the latest evidence that the Administration is losing ground in the war on terrorism, and that its flawed strategy in Iraq is empowering al Qaeda and making us less safe at home. Recent statements from the President show that the White House continues to be out of step with the intelligence community. It is time that the Bush Administration stop spinning the intelligence, level with the American people, and rethink its national security strategy.

    --The Bush Administration Has Not Made America More Secure From Terrorism
When the final analysis is in, it will be clear that Bush has made 'terrorism' worse, just as terrorist incidents were three times more numerous during the Reagan years than during the Clinton administration.

Terrorism is worse under GOP regimes because GOP policies of oppression and exploitation inspire opposition abroad. When the US presence by virtue of CIA assassinations and other atrocities is seen to be oppressive (and it almost always is), PEOPLE will strike back against the oppressive economic and military power in the only way that is left them. If an exploited nation is denied weapons parity, it will resort to guerrilla tactics. Whether it is called 'terrorism' or some other term depends upon whose side you are on. "Terrorism" is a purely political term.

FBI stats, published by the Brookings Institution showed conclusively that terrorism during the regime of Ronald Reagan was three times higher than 'terrorism' under the regime of Bill Clinton.

Domestically, the same principle applies. Domestic 'terrorism' will, of course, increase exponentially if the current oppressive regime defines any opposition its missrule as 'terrorist' in nature. The GOP must not be allowed to get away with dictating this agenda and exploiting its own own incompetence with linguistic legerdemain.
  • 911!

The FBI admits it has has no 'evidence' to support popular myths that some four airliners were hijacked by terrorists and used as weapons on 911. Meanwhile, NTSB, in response to an FOIA request, released Flight data indicating that Flight 77 never dropped below 273 feet after it took off. Simply: it could NOT have crashed into the Pentagon. The same flight data disproves assertions that Flight 77 damaged 40 foot light poles enroute to the crash. It was too high (273 ft) and on a trajectory that differed by 20 degrees the trajectory of whatever it was that damaged the poles. According to NTSB Flight Data Flight 93 could not have crashed in the field in PA.

Their investigation, says the FBI, was based upon mere assumptions: that said flights had, in fact, been hijacked, that Pentagon wreckage really was from Flight 77, that all the said hijackers were killed in the attacks. In fact, the BBC reported that some of he hijackers were still alive. If Bush's outlandish conspiracy theory had been true, that would not have been possible. But ---alive they were! The only explanation consistent with Occam: Bush lied about 911 just as he lied about everything else.

The admissions from the FBI and disclosure from the NTSB pull the rug from beneath a panoply of black-hearted lies by Bush and his administration. The official conspiracy theory of 911 is kaput!

Because the GOP exploits fear and is dependent upon it, it is defined by fear --fear of people, fear of free speech, fear of the truth.

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