Assassination Politics, Part 23

My mysterious tipster tells me that there is a rumor inside the Beltway that during a recent PDB, or Presidential Daily Briefing, the subject of Ron Paul was raised. The rumor goes that President Bush made a comment about Ron Paul becoming President, and Vice President Dick Cheney snapped, "If he gets too close, we will just kill the son of a bitch." --http://www.freedomscribe.com/

The Technique of Inflation

"The technique of inflation demands that governments and their agencies shall continuously deceive the public about the fact, the speed and the duration of inflation intended. Ministers of finance have no option but to employ what has been called 'the necessary untruth'." Professor W.H. Hutt, quoted by Mogambo Guru, Cheaper to Freeze to Death, Oct. 23, 2007

Standard deviation

MBAs were all doing the same thing, all evaluating these [financial market] vehicles the same way. Partly as a result, we have a 25 sigma event -- which should happen only once every 10,000 years -- and now they had one every day for three days in a row. --CNBC guest, 3:52 PM 10/23/2007

Krauthammer's razor

I fall back on Krauthammer's razor (with apologies to Occam): In explaining any puzzling Washington phenomenon, always choose stupidity over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Anything else gives them too much credit. My opinion Charles Krauthammer: Pelosi should concentrate on modern-day genocide, azstarnet.com, Published: 10.20.2007

Nemesis

Chalmers Johnson has written a book: "Nemesis. The last days of the American Republic." In it he compares present day American Imperium with the Roman Empire. At the height of its power it had 38 military bases around the world. Today USA has 737. Military expenditure has cost America two thousand billion dollars and bankrupted the country. The only thing keeping the economy going is the investment money pouring in from Japan and China. If that dries up, total economic collapse. China is already starting to direct its money towards the Euro. I have heard mutterings lately that Saudi Arabia is wanting to price its oil in Euros. If that happens Chalmers predicts America will collapse within 24 hours. --john leleu, Sat, 20 Oct 2007 14:58:53 +1000 (EST)

God said it, I believe it, and that ends it.

OK, if God said it I'd believe it too. But why do you believe the guy who told you God said it? --L. Reichard White

Protected My Ass; The Series

Warren v. District of Columbia: In the early morning hours of March 16, 1975, two men broke down the back door of a D.C. townhouse in Northeast and began raping a woman on the second floor. Her two roommates, hiding one floor above, called the police. According to the court’s opinion, a squad car responded, and the officer failed even to exit his car before leaving. The two women, listening to their roommate scream, called the police again. This time, an officer went so far as to knock at the door, but then left without further inspection. The women sued the District of Columbia, which argued that “a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen.” The District won the case based on what is actually a long-standing legal principle. David Freddoso, Just Stand There While I Die, The D.C. government has that right, and exercises it frequently, October 10, 2007 6:44 AM

Heretic?

"The human impact on the atmosphere is simply too small to have a major effect on global temperatures," [highly respected hurricane forecaster] Dr Gray said.

He said his beliefs had made him an outsider in popular science.

"It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong," he said. "But they also know that they'd never get any grants if they spoke out. I don't care about grants." Gore gets a cold shoulder, Steve Lytte, The Sydney Morning Herald, October 14, 2007

Follow the "leader?" Anti-war Democrats

"We have to make responsible decisions in the Congress that are not driven by the dissatisfaction of anybody who wants the war to end tomorrow," Pelosi told the gathering at the Sofitel, arranged by the Christian Science Monitor. Though crediting [anti-war] activists for their "passion," [U.S. House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi called it "a waste of time" for them to target Democrats. "They are advocates," she said. "We are leaders." ...It seemed that only the antiwar advocates had the power to wipe the smile off Pelosi's face. Smile, Though Your Head Is Aching, Dana Milbank, Wednesday, October 10, 2007; Page A02

The GOOD guys?

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - In December, the United Nations took up a resolution calling for the abolition of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for children and young teenagers. The vote was 185 to 1, with the United States the lone dissenter. NYT, Wednesday, Oct 17, 2007

Ticking time bombs and other fairy tales

I've looked at every instance of a ticking time bomb that's been proposed in the war on terror. ...basically there is never a circumstance where you know that a particular prisoner has a particular information and will yield with a particular amount of pressure. In fact, gathering intelligence is a matter of pulling information gradually from a number of sources, who you recruit through rapport building.

One of the fascinating things about the ticking time bomb scenario is that it has elicited bad information, which has sent our troops on dangerous and fatal missions... --DR. STEVEN MILES, Democracy NOW!, Friday, September 28th, 2007

Are you an extremist?

Moderation in the protection of liberty is no virtue; extremism in the defense of freedom is no vice. --Barry Goldwater

Fear the followers!

Authoritarian followers [who do the violent bidding of Authoritarians] score highly on the Dangerous World scale, and it’s not just because some of the items have a religious context. High RWAs are, in general, more afraid than most people are. They got a “2 for 1 Special Deal” on fear somehow. Maybe they’ve inherited genes that incline them to fret and tremble. Maybe not. But we do know that they were raised by their parents to be afraid of others, because both the parents and their children tell us so. --The Authoritarians, Bob Altemeyer, Associate Professor Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada, Copyright ©, 2006 by Bob Altemeyer

What torturers need - - -

...all of those [torture] survivors would tell you that they would have said anything, anything at all that was wanted of them, eventually, to get the torture to stop. And so, they'll confess, they'll give the information that's fed to them, because the person who most needs a confession is the torturer. Without that confession, the torturer has no justification for what they've done. ...[morale] of their torturers [demands] that a confession emerges. And that's one of the key reasons why truth doesn't emerge from torture. Anything could emerge. --DOUGLAS JOHNSON, Democracy NOW!, Friday, September 28th, 2007

No two minute warning

On October 4, 2007, Miami Valley Bank, Lakeview, Ohio was closed by the Ohio Department of Commerce, Division of Financial Institutions and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was named Receiver. No advance notice is given to the public when a financial institution is closed. --FDIC.GOV, Bank Closing Information for Miami Valley Bank, Lakeview, Ohio

Death knell?

He said Mr Venter was creating a "chassis on which you could build almost anything. It could be a contribution to humanity such as new drugs or a huge threat to humanity such as bio-weapons". Mr Venter believes designer genomes have enormous positive potential if properly regulated.--I am creating artificial life, declares US gene pioneer, Ed Pilkington in New York, The Guardian, Saturday October 6 2007

Are you well un-adjusted?

Insanity: a perfectly rational adjustment to the insane world. --R.D. Laing

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. --Krishnamurti

Why there's a health care crisis: Fascist Pharma 01

Doctors get less nutritional training than a two year dietician. They get all of their ongoing education from pharmaceutical sales types. And you can't patent an herb or a vitamin, so [there's] not a lot of money there. --KATE, 10/4/2007

Are you sure?

"I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything..." -- Richard Feynman

The REAL Danger

Alberto Mora, who had been the Navy legal counsel who fought against the torture policy...emphasized that the reason we have the Geneva Accords ...was the notion that if a soldier knows that they will be treated humanely... they have at least the opportunity of surrendering, but if they know they will be treated cruelly... then the total incentive for them is to fight to the last man. ... Americans die from this policy, because we have falsely thought that the creation of fear keeps us safe, rather than endangers us. --DOUGLAS JOHNSON, Democracy NOW!, Friday, September 28th, 2007

The Empire & The People -- Or Is It Vice-versa?

"...my first perception was that people rose up in arms to struggle against the empire. Now, I see quite the opposite, that it’s the empire that’s raising up arms against the peoples." --Indigenous Bolivian President Evo Morales

An Essential Tool

"If you can't say FUCK.......you can't say FUCK the GOVERNMENT." --Lenny Bruce

Sooner or later?

"The government will lie to you sooner or later. Probably both." --lrw, Sept. 23, 2007

Restoring Chaos

'It'll take time to restore chaos.'

U.S. President George W. Bush

Conspiracy Theories

"If it WASN'T a conspiracy, someone must have done it alone. If one didn't, several did. That's a conspiracy - - - - no matter WHO they were. " --lrw, Sunday, September 23, 2007