Why Blogs Work

Bottom line for brains... use it or lose it. Crude, but true ;)

Maybe I should use mine... subject should be singular:
Bottom line for the brain... use it or lose it. Crude, but true
:p

As Republicans departed Capitol Hill this weekend, some who used to dismiss Democratic attempts to investigate the administration as political posturing are now lining up behind calls for greater oversight of the executive branch.

~snip~

...on other issues [besides Iraq] that will confront the new Congress in January — including trade and judicial appointments — Republican lawmakers have signaled an unwillingness to follow the White House.

~snip~

...Republican disaffection marks a remarkable turnabout for a president whose command of his party was once so supreme he virtually appointed the Senate majority leader and GOP lawmakers openly acknowledged taking orders from the White House...

~snip~

Already, GOP lawmakers are signaling their eagerness to join in the kind of congressional investigation that Democrats promised on the campaign trail this fall.

Last week, Republicans scrambled to express support for expanding the power of an independent agency to monitor spending on Iraq reconstruction, a move that House Republicans had quashed in an appropriations committee earlier this year.

On other issues too there were signs of dissent last week. Many GOP lawmakers bucked the White House over trade deals with Vietnam and Haiti, forcing a flurry of last-minute parliamentary maneuvering to get the agreements through Congress.

As the congressional session drew to a close, the president also couldn't get a hearing for a raft of conservative judges he renominated for positions on the federal bench.
~~~~~~~~~
GOP alienation marks turnabout for Bush
LA Times: http://tinyurl.com/yhbdjr

Impressive:

Global warming, local initiatives
Unhappy with federal resistance to world standards, communities are curbing their energy use and emissions.
LA Times: http://tinyurl.com/yf3za9

Frustrated with the federal response to global warming, hundreds of cities, suburbs and rural communities across the nation have taken bold steps to slash their energy consumption and reduce emissions of the pollutants that cause climate change.

~snip~

Cities not typically associated with liberal causes have also jumped on board. In Fargo, N.D., Mayor Dennis Walaker swapped out every traffic-light bulb for a light-emitting diode, or LED, which uses 80% less energy. In Carmel, Ind., a suburb of Indianapolis, Mayor James Brainard is switching the entire city fleet to hybrids and vehicles that run on biofuels (made from plant products rather than petroleum).

"It's quite incredible, the number of things cities are beginning to do. It's very heartening," said Tom Kelly, who directs a national environmental group called Kyoto USA.

This piece is interesting because it lists fiscal options Dems can use to pay for proposed programs. Something I would add to the list is cutting unnecessary programs from military-- I'm talking about especially stupid pork like "mini-nukes".
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Democrats have plans, but they'll need to pay
The spending initiatives being envisioned for the next Congress are on a collision course with high budget deficits.
LA Times: http://tinyurl.com/yxnvfz

Where is everybody-- I'm hogging the place this evening...

December 10, 2006
Nobel Winner Warns of Dangers of Globalization
By WALTER GIBBS

OSLO, Dec. 10 — The Bangladeshi banker Muhammad Yunus, who invented the practice of making small, unsecured loans to the poor, warned today that the globalized economy was becoming a dangerous “free-for-all highway.”

“Its lanes will be taken over by the giant trucks from powerful economies,” Dr. Yunus said during a lavish ceremony at which he was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. “Bangladeshi rickshaws will be thrown off the highway.”

While international companies motivated by profit may be crucial in addressing global poverty, he said, nations must also cultivate grassroots enterprises and the human impulse to do good.

Challenging economic theories that he learned as a Ph.D. student at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville in the 1970s, he said glorification of the entrepreneurial spirit has led to “one-dimensional human beings” motivated only by profit.

Dr. Yunus, 66, then took a direct jibe at the United States for its war on terror, telling about 1,000 dignitaries at Oslo’s City Hall that recent American military campaigns in Iraq and elsewhere had diverted global resources and attention from a more pressing project: halving worldwide poverty by 2015, as envisaged by the United Nations six years ago.

- more -

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/world/10cnd-nobel.html

Karen
Great to read!

Nice to see a quote from Merlin. I only had a little acting experience during school - I was Queen Morgan Le Fay in "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court."

Well today I was an extra in "Battle of Seattle" - I was working out of town in 1999 when the WTO protests happened and I did get back in time to do some photography of the aftermath. Filming took place in November in Vancouver BC and for the last couple of days here in Seattle.

Check this out!

http://www.battleinseattlemovie.com/
http://www.seattlest.com/archives/2006/12/07/battle_in_seattle_extras_needed.php

I just received this from a Republican:

http://www.judicialwatch.org/iraqi-oil-maps.shtml .... Attached are the plans by VICE PREZ DICK CHENEY and His Energy Task Force [ remember that BS?] in the SPRING of 2001 to take over the Iraqi Oil Fields .....2001 !!

U.S. Imprisons More People Than Any Other Nation

By James Vicini, Reuters

WASHINGTON (Dec. 9) -- Tough sentencing laws, record numbers of drug offenders and high crime rates have contributed to the United States having the largest prison population and the highest rate of incarceration in the world, according to criminal justice experts.

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/us-imprisons-more-people-than-any-other/20061209111509990004?ncid=NWS00010000000001

So we ARE number one!

Yay I guess.

Great White quote, Karen! :-) I have the book.

I also subscribe to the philosophy behind the quote. My cure-all for everything is knowledge!

Sometimes I change my mind with increased knowledge. Sometimes additional knowledge told from a different perspective only reinforces the ethics and moral standards I grew up with. If I think I've maxed out on something for the time being, I turn to new subjects and embark on a new adventure of learning (which makes my personal library larger). With the great addition of a computer and the internet, knowledge is just a couple of clicks away (saves time and hassles and additional money for more books or trips to the library). Sometimes (as with info about neoCons) I don't much like the knowledge I have, but to paraphrase an old quote (author's name not remembered this second), 'to slay dragons, one must first learn their habits.'

Ultimately, all knowledge is good....

Talks under way to replace Iraq PM

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Major partners in Iraq's governing coalition are in behind-the-scenes talks to oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki amid discontent over his failure to quell raging violence, according to lawmakers involved.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061210/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_politics

"To show you how important this one is, I read it."

President Bush, on the blockbuster Baker-Hamilton report that called for major changes in Iraq policy

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/washingtonwhispers/061210/outloud_2.htm

Hi All,

Several DCPers are in Boston this weekend for a gathering with some DU folks and a thank you party for a certain Senator (as Otter likes to say). We wish all of you could be here too because the conversations are--so far--as good as anything on this blog and much along the same lines.

Tonight several of us did something very special: we went to the Old South Meeting House and participated in a reenactment of the meeting prior to the Boston Tea Party. At the original, which was 233 years ago today, 5,000 people jammed into the hall--climbing through windows, we were told--and argued out the pros and cons of keeping the tea, sending it back to England, or doing something else...

Each of us received a role we could play and after the politicos argued their points, anyone could come forward and state their opinion. Suz read a plea from a teacher to "make tea, not war" and was booed. Clearly the room was full of radical revolutionaries, crying out for King George's demise!

It was blogging, 18th century style. I was touched by the notion of early experiments in democracy being so full of passion and oratory. I turned to Dick and said "Look! It's a democracy cell!"

And truly, it was another reminder of why we do what we do, speaking truth to power. The more truth, the better.

Boston's version of democracy was rowdier than that of Philadelphia (in fact, when a young man got up tonight and read a piece about honoring the King and stating "We are all Englishmen here", he was told "Go back to Philadelphia!"), but then communities are different and tolerate vastly different styles. It was fun to remember the sheer amount of tolerance for disparate views and rollicking yelling matches that birthed this country. It is, in my opinion, a GREAT legacy.

Party on, cellcompadres! We carry you with us, as always.

That is pretty cool, Karen!

I'm listening to the violinist Pinchas Zukerman- haven't heard this in a long time.

Well I went to Walgreens - when I went to pay, the card scanner didn't function til the 4th trial.

"They need to come and adjust it, or it registers for the button next to the one you're touching."

My ears perked up.

"You mean like the voting machines?" I asked - "only those they can set purposely that way.:

:"So you mean you could vote for someone and it would register for a different person?:

"Well yeah" I said " that's how Bush got in this time."

(The line behind me got longer)

"The guy who makes the machines also produces ATMs and scanners and he's a friend of the Bush family. & then the first time, he got in because his dad had a friend on the Supreme Court."

Wow I'd been thinking John's birthday was coming up but had gotten distracted so just sent off wishes. Would have loved to have been in Boston. Sounds great!

Cindy Sheehan on Trial for Protest at UN Mission
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121006Y.shtml
It started as a tiny act of protest. Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq who had held a vigil near President Bush's ranch, and a group of women wanted to submit a petition to the United States Mission to the United Nations in Manhattan, demanding an end to the war. But Ms. Sheehan and three other women were handcuffed, arrested and jailed overnight. Now their misdemeanor trial in Manhattan Criminal Court has turned into a look at the use - and they say abuse - of police power, in the face of an antiwar protest.
{{{Video included at top of web page. In the printed story, Kerry's sister doesn't come off well (IMHO). She was going to meet with the people who had the petition until she found out Sheehan was one of them.}}}

Sandra Day O'Connor: “My Life as a Buck-Passing Phony”
By Mike Whitney
When the final text is written, the name of Sandra Day O’ Connor will feature quite prominently right next to Rasputin, Pol Pot, Henry Kissinger, Pinochet and the other scoundrels who litter the history books.
http://tinyurl.com/uudb4

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=4430459531638940044&q=George+Carlin

George Carlin, One hour, plus a few minutes, HBO show. [Caveat: f-word and other profanity.] I happen to appreciate his edgy comedy/truth, but I realize he's not for everyone.

Excerpts from the Sermon at http://www.thepremise.com

It’s been interesting, if at times infuriating, watching George Bush be given chance after chance to bounce back from one debacle after another, while Democrats like John Kerry and Al Gore have been treated like buffoons for no other reason than that they lost an election. (snip)

A month and a half ago I wrote:
Winning ugly is still a win in this country. Cheating and winning is still a win. Stealing a win is still a win. And that’s the real culture of corruption in America.
(snip)
Bill Clinton won in 1992. That was a bit of a surprise. Two years later, Newt Gingrich and a trash-talking group of Republican Congressmen overthrew forty years of Democratic rule in the House. Compared with Bill Clinton’s win, that was a mind-blowing sea change in American politics.

In the resulting political playoffs, with Mr. Gingrich and his henchmen attacking the Clinton White House on an almost daily basis, and with Bush’s saved-by-the-Supreme-Court victory in 2000, the Republican Party took on the mantle of champions. And up until a month ago they played that part to the hilt. But now that’s over, as a slew of recent news stories suggests. Much to their horror, Republicans are the new losers.
(snip)
Bill Frist is the new Tom Daschle.

From a gossip column at U.S. News:
It’s an ugly rumor, but it’s spreading like wildfire: Karl Rove has lost his touch.
(snip)
The Senate and House just went into recess, and lo and behold we’re hit with story after story about how the Republicans are falling apart, bitter, confused, and above all — losers.

And that’s my new wisdom on conventional wisdom in politics. Everything you see, read and hear in the media about one party or another, or one candidate or another, is filtered through the simplest of political concepts. Who won, and who lost? All of the rest of it, the analysis, the theories, the historical precedents, is reportorial hype, spin and ego.

If you win, you’re in with the media. If you lose, they’re going to treat you like dirt.

That’s it.

– Mark Barrett

Posted by: karen at December 10, 2006 11:12 PM

More amazing yet: In a day and age without instant communication or telephones, they GOT SOMETHING DONE in a relatively short amount of time!!!

That's more than I can say for our Congress Critters in the last six years who have failed so miserably at stopping the frat-boy-dictator-king Georgie who has wrought so much death and mayhem and destruction to so many with his lies and his lies to cover the original lies....

Reading the news makes me have so much vicarious outrage in addition to my own!

- We are pissed because Bush had two bloodless coups to power and then has gotten off scot free for humanitarian crimes but how would you feel if you watched Pinochet die without ever having been tried?! That is outrageous beyond belief.

- Then I read that Hezbollah supporters are in the streets in large numbers, wanting the head of Lebanon government to step down. There are 800,000 of them. Well that sounds like a lot. Well considering the country only has 4 million people it is a hell of alot! They are Shiites and aligned with much of Iran.

- Then I read that Talabani does not like the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. Why? We're not letting them train and control the destiny of their own Army. Then here comes Rumsfeld and he's saying that we have to prevent future 9/11s.

There is it again - THE LINK. THE LINK between Al Quaida and Iraq. THE FALSE LINK. THE LIE.

Wasn't it just this morning that someone sent me that data from Judicial Watch showing that Cheney ordered info about the oil fields and procedures for getting contracts in Iraq .. in 2001??!
2001!!

Of course they would want there to be a LINK between 9/11 and Iraq. But they wanted Iraq's oil before 9/11 even happened?!!

The dollar is sinking. Asia pulls out and world depression. Is it any wonder my former Republican friends are headed up to Nova Scotia tonight to become Canadians? They spent all weekend preparing their Landing List and they said I just would not believe the length of the list of Landed Immigrants.

Zogby polled me yesterday. He asked if I favored impeachment. Then he asked whether we'd planned to leave the country, the probability and particulars.

Posted by: DiAnne at December 10, 2006 11:52 PM

Whatever will Lamestream Media do now?

In the few minutes of talking heads shows I've watched in the last month, I heard a lot of 'oh, poor pitiful neoCons, they got an @$$-whuppin' from the big bad Dems!'

I'm assuming the next two years will be more of the same, neoCons saying how badly the Dems are doing (few Dems of any common sense will be interviewed, I'm guessing)... and they might be right if the Dems continue to pass legislation that only makes Georgie and his corporate cronies richer and more powerful through more bad legislation, especially if they continue Georgie's stupid war in Iraq, the puppet government they've set up there, and seem to be ready to change to a new puppet again.

Dems will have to prove themselves now, and do so in record time (given the glacial speed they do everything except pass bad legislation put forth by Bu$hCo at the speed of falling icebergs from melting glaciers). If the Dems can't pass muster, they'll lose in '08. So far, none have proved they have the same courageous stones of our Founding Fathers.... If the Dems can't DO SOMETHING by March 1, 2007, our votes will have meant nothing.

More amazing yet: In a day and age without instant communication or telephones, they GOT SOMETHING DONE in a relatively short amount of time!!!

Posted by: NonnyO at December 10, 2006 11:54 PM

But now we have bugged phones, electronic cheating, invisible possibilities for influencing outcomes and spreading rumour and gossip to keep attention on opponents make big noises so that attention is not on the lawmaker/breaker.

I imagine that without all of the above (plus billions of other opportunities) - simply talking TO and listening TO each other made their achievements possible. What a shame we can't do that. That's why "We do not negotiate with terrorists!" is the most destructive statement Bush has ever made. If you don't learn about your enemies, you'll never identify them, let alone, defeat them.

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=4430459531638940044&q=George+Carlin

George Carlin, One hour, plus a few minutes, HBO show. [Caveat: f-word and other profanity.] I happen to appreciate his edgy comedy/truth, but I realize he's not for everyone.

Posted by: NonnyO at December 10, 2006 11:47 PM

Nonny, I liked his pieces on abortion and religion but was very concerned right at the end of the video when he claimed to not vote. Now, I accept that he's a comedian and maybe he votes - maybe he doesn't. A lot of people respect his views. This was a worry.

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2006/12/a_quiz_for_lawm.html
A Quiz for Lawmakers
Jeff Stein tells us that the rising Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Silvestre Reyes, doesn't know whether Al Qaeda and Hezbollah are predominantly made up of Shiite or Sunni Muslims. Well, the BCIS has decided to revamp the test required of applicants for citizenship. So I think we, the blogosphere, should put together our own new test--fifty questions a legislator should be able to answer correctly before he or she can vote on laws relating to those subjects. I've made a start below. Once we get a bunch I plan to put this into a document and send it to Pelosi and Reid. Hell--at the very least, maybe they can get their legislators to cram for the quiz so they don't sound quite so embarrassing in interviews.

{{{More on link....}}}

Posted by: woz at December 11, 2006 03:44 AM

That last bit bothered me, too. I hope he was only saying that as part of a comedy routine!

Posted by: woz at December 11, 2006 02:42 AM

DimWit wants everything his way or no way. He has a dictator mentality. If someone doesn't agree with him, approve of all his immoral, unethical, and downright illegal acts, he has a hissy fit, throws temper tantrums a toddler would emulate. "Negotiate" is not in his personal lexicon. He doesn't know how to negotiate.

There's just no accounting for any of his actions until one realizes he has no conscience. Zero. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Not one smidgen of empathy or compassion for anyone or anything. He's totally incapable of normal human emotions and is out for power over others as his sole goal in life, and he doesn't give a particular damn how that power is accomplished, as long as it's accomplished. Chinkster wanted a stronger executive branch (contrary to what's written in the US Constitution) back in the day when he was working for previous administrations. The two together are the epitome of pure evil, one feeding off the other for dictatorial control of this nation... and eventually the world, per PNAC objectives, if they get their way.

Short of being tried for their crimes and put in prison for the rest of their lives, they will just continue to obtain and hold more and more power, and they'll do so by bribery or blackmail "legally" by getting Congress to go along with them and pass laws to make that power "legal" and makes them exempt from being tried for war crimes (like the MCA '06, even though it obliterates the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Geneva Conventions, and US law, and why that entire law needs repealing, not just certain sections)....

That's why I so adamantly favor impeachment. With a foreboding sense of dread, I see the handwriting on the wall, so to speak... but it's in huge flashing neon signs....

Talks Under Way to Replace Iraq PM
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121106J.shtml
Major partners in Iraq's governing coalition are in behind-the-scenes talks to oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki amid discontent over his failure to quell raging violence. The talks are aimed at forming a new parliamentary bloc that would seek to replace the current government and that would likely exclude supporters of the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who is a vehement opponent of the US military presence.

Gulf States Announce Nuclear Plan
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121106L.shtml
Six oil-rich Gulf nations have said they are considering seeking nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. Officials from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE also urged a peaceful settlement to the crisis over Iran's nuclear program. The six Arab states said they were exploring the possibility of creating a shared nuclear program.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6210358.stm
5.5m Britons 'opt to live abroad'

Even Tom Delay has his own blog now.

Hey Hey Ho Ho The WTO Has Got To Go

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/295450_battle11.html

..what I did during my vacation..

We can't have Christmas trees at our airport now because a Rabbi demanded a Menorah be put up as well.

Some comments from http://www.seattlepi.com - locals

I'm an athiest and I love Christmas trees... this Rabbi's an arse....
Swanny River

Maybe we can complain that there aren't any christmas trees at Sea Tac.. I Hope you are proud of yourselves stupid scrooges
isisthecat

As I understand it, the rabbi just wanted a menorah up there, too (lighting ceremony, too maybe). Why didn't the Port Authority just do that? Instead, they made a big deal about removing the trees when they didn't have to!
Fr. Rick

**
/\
/*.\
/.*.*\
/.*.*.*\
/*.*.*.*.\
/*.*.*.*.*.\
------------
!!
Merry Christmas
= P

I blame the spineless Port officials. Should have either put up a menorah (nice but not necessary) or told the complainer to get a life.
Mephistopheles

where would they put all the stuff from every organized religion?
Fear of a frivolous lawsuit made the port folks roll over and play dead. I say put the tree back, and if people do not like it, they do not have to look at it.
BeniciaBarista

This is ludicrous. I'm even a little ashamed of my hometown pride for this! A local mall here in Northern CA has both a tree lighting AND a menorah lighting ceremony and they're both lovely. But even the most agnostic of airport-goers can recognize that a Christmas tree is representative of Season's Greetings, not of a religious ethic. If you want to get technical, call in the druids.
SamThornton

Replace the Christmas trees with Yule trees. Case closed.
This time of year, nearly all cultures and religions celebrate some type of holy day. It's the Winter solstice thing. Most religions and cultures miss the exact date a little, but who's perfect? Let everyone put up their favorite totems. As long as they pay and they take out liability insurance, what's the harm?
This year, the Winter solstice occurs on December 22.
tpm

When did a Christmas tree become a religious symbol?
Jim King

Most likely the Central Organization for Jewish Education (not "Learning")- a Lubavitcher outfit.
Maybe their activities on the UW campus should be protested unless they also display the Cross...
Solarfall

As a very liberal Atheist of Jewish heritage...I really don't see what the fuss is about. Why is that rabbi complaining? It's not like Christmas trees have anything to do with Christianity anyway, historically or currently.
On that note, does this mean I have to take down the Christmas tree my wife and I put in our living room? I'm rather fond of the decorations, and I don't think I'm ready to remove them.
AmericanExpress

If the good rabbi is so concerned with balance, here's an idea:
How about (in the name of balance) the USA divide the US taxpayer dollars our special friend Israel receives, by two, giving the other half to the Palestinians.
Then, the Palestinians they could buy the military hardware necessary to participate in the peace process with the same civilized methods so successfully used by the Israelis.
Posted by I-5

christmas trees were never religious. a menorah would have been very religious. the rabbi was completely wrong, and unfortunately the port of seattle got scared of a potential lawsuit. but i have a feeling the trees will be back next year if common sense prevails.
NWmountaineer

I don't care if it's Ralph Reed and the Christian Coalition trying to legislate religion down peoples throats or some Rabbi having 3rd grade immature hissy fit tantrum and demanding all the Christmas trees at the airport be yanked out of the ground.
raindearwoman

Another example of why there will never be "PEACE on Earth", in our WORLD, in our life time, until men and women (of all colours,nations, beliefs and sexual orientations) can give from their hearts "GOOD WILL and GLAD TIDINGS". I am not a Christian.This time of year holds a special meaning to me and my family whether we are Christian,Hindu,Muslim,Jew,Taoist,or Buddhist. With so many more important things going on in the world right now,worrying about a decoration seems to be a very petty thing. I translate "important things" to be : comforting the dying, feeding the starving, putting a smile on the face of a sick and lonely child, greeting returning military personnel, helping little old ladies and men across the airport parking lot.......
didn't get her name but good comment

----Now I don't know what I think because i didn't see the display so have no context. Other than the issue of whether the trees (and there were multiples, not just one - that I saw pictures of) - there is the issue of Christmas being over-represented compared to religious holidays of other religions. I suppose it's because the majority are Christian. It would seem rather oppressive to one of another religion and our family just looks at it as a "Holiday" - time to be together, to get some time off, to get some new stuff, to get rid of some stuff, to brighten up the house a little with lights because the cold and wet is depressing (not to mention short days). I understood that the airport took the trees down because after the Rabbi complained they thought they might also need to put up the symbols for all sorts of religions - why not make it simple and just make the place generic.

great quote Karen!!!!!

and love the idea of the legislators quiz!!!

Bolton joked after a private dinner Tuesday night at the White House, which Bush hosted for Annan, that "nobody sang 'Kumbaya.'"

Told of Bolton's comment, Annan laughed and asked: "But does he know how to sing it?"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6170089.stm

FULL TEXT OF KOFI ANNAN'S SPEECH

My first lesson is that, in today's world, the security of every one of us is linked to that of everyone else.

That was already true in Truman's time. The man who in 1945 gave the order for nuclear weapons to be used - for the first, and let us hope the only, time in history - understood that security for some could never again be achieved at the price of insecurity for others.

He was determined, as he had told the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco, to "prevent, if human mind, heart, and hope can prevent it, the repetition of the disaster [meaning the world war] from which the entire world will suffer for years to come".

He believed strongly that henceforth security must be collective and indivisible.

That was why, for instance, he insisted, when faced with aggression by North Korea against the South in 1950, on bringing the issue to the United Nations and placing US troops under the UN flag, at the head of a multinational force.

But how much more true it is in our open world today: a world where deadly weapons can be obtained not only by rogue states but by extremist groups; a world where Sars or avian flu can be carried across oceans, let alone national borders, in a matter of hours; a world where failed states in the heart of Asia or Africa can become havens for terrorists; a world where even the climate is changing in ways that will affect the lives of everyone on the planet.

Against such threats as these, no nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over all others. We all share responsibility for each other's security, and only by working to make each other secure can we hope to achieve lasting security for ourselves.

And I would add that this responsibility is not simply a matter of states being ready to come to each other's aid when attacked - important though that is.

It also includes our shared responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity - a responsibility solemnly accepted by all nations at last year's UN summit.

That means that respect for national sovereignty can no longer be used as a shield by governments intent on massacring their own people, or as an excuse for the rest of us to do nothing when such heinous crimes are committed.

But, as Truman said, "If we should pay merely lip service to inspiring ideals, and later do violence to simple justice, we would draw down upon us the bitter wrath of generations yet unborn."

And when I look at the murder, rape and starvation to which the people of Darfur are being subjected, I fear that we have not got far beyond "lip service".

The lesson here is that high-sounding doctrines like the "responsibility to protect" will remain pure rhetoric unless and until those with the power to intervene effectively - by exerting political, economic or, in the last resort, military muscle - are prepared to take the lead.

And I believe we have a responsibility not only to our contemporaries but also to future generations - a responsibility to preserve resources that belong to them as well as to us, and without which none of us can survive.

That means we must do much more, and urgently, to prevent or slow down climate change. Every day that we do nothing, or too little, imposes higher costs on our children and our children's children.

Global solidarity

My second lesson is that we are not only all responsible for each other's security. We are also, in some measure, responsible for each other's welfare.

Global solidarity is both necessary and possible. It is necessary because without a measure of solidarity no society can be truly stable, and no one's prosperity truly secure.

That applies to national societies - as all the great industrial democracies learned in the 20th century - but it also applies to the increasingly integrated global market economy we live in today.

It is not realistic to think that some people can go on deriving great benefits from globalization while billions of their fellow human beings are left in abject poverty, or even thrown into it.

We have to give our fellow citizens, not only within each nation but in the global community, at least a chance to share in our prosperity.

That is why, five years ago, the UN Millennium Summit adopted a set of goals - the "Millennium Development Goals" - to be reached by 2015: goals such as halving the proportion of people in the world who do not have clean water to drink; making sure all girls, as well as boys, receive at least primary education; slashing infant and maternal mortality; and stopping the spread of HIV/Aids.

Much of that can only be done by governments and people in the poor countries themselves. But richer countries, too, have a vital role.

Here too, Harry Truman proved himself a pioneer, proposing in his 1949 inaugural address a program of what came to be known as development assistance. And our success in mobilising donor countries to support the Millennium Development Goals, through debt relief and increased foreign aid, convinces me that global solidarity is not only necessary but possible.

Of course, foreign aid by itself is not enough. Today, we realise that market access, fair terms of trade and a non-discriminatory financial system are equally vital to the chances of poor countries.

Even in the next few weeks and months, you Americans can make a crucial difference to many millions of poor people, if you are prepared to save the Doha Round of trade negotiations.

You can do that by putting your broader national interest above that of some powerful sectional lobbies, while challenging Europe and the large developing countries to do the same.

The rule of law

My third lesson is that both security and development ultimately depend on respect for human rights and the rule of law.

Although increasingly interdependent, our world continues to be divided - not only by economic differences, but also by religion and culture.

That is not in itself a problem. Throughout history human life has been enriched by diversity, and different communities have learnt from each other.

But if our different communities are to live together in peace we must stress also what unites us: our common humanity, and our shared belief that human dignity and rights should be protected by law.

That is vital for development, too. Both foreign investors and a country's own citizens are more likely to engage in productive activity when their basic rights are protected and they can be confident of fair treatment under the law.

And policies that genuinely favour economic development are much more likely to be adopted if the people most in need of development can make their voice heard.

In short, human rights and the rule of law are vital to global security and prosperity. As Truman said, "We must, once and for all, prove by our acts conclusively that Right Has Might."

That is why this country has historically been in the vanguard of the global human rights movement. But that lead can only be maintained if America remains true to its principles, including in the struggle against terrorism.

When it appears to abandon its own ideals and objectives, its friends abroad are naturally troubled and confused.

And states need to play by the rules towards each other, as well as towards their own citizens. That can sometimes be inconvenient, but ultimately what matters is not convenience. It is doing the right thing.

No state can make its own actions legitimate in the eyes of others. When power, especially military force, is used, the world will consider it legitimate only when convinced that it is being used for the right purpose - for broadly shared aims - in accordance with broadly accepted norms.

No community anywhere suffers from too much rule of law; many do suffer from too little - and the international community is among them. This we must change.

The US has given the world an example of a democracy in which everyone, including the most powerful, is subject to legal restraint. Its current moment of world supremacy gives it a priceless opportunity to entrench the same principles at the global level.

As Harry Truman said, "We all have to recognise, no matter how great our strength, that we must deny ourselves the licence to do always as we please."

Mutual accountability

My fourth lesson - closely related to the last one - is that governments must be accountable for their actions in the international arena, as well as in the domestic one.

Today the actions of one state can often have a decisive effect on the lives of people in other states.

So does it not owe some account to those other states and their citizens, as well as to its own? I believe it does.

As things stand, accountability between states is highly skewed. Poor and weak states are easily held to account, because they need foreign assistance. But large and powerful states, whose actions have the greatest impact on others, can be constrained only by their own people, working through their domestic institutions.

That gives the people and institutions of such powerful states a special responsibility to take account of global views and interests, as well as national ones.

And today they need to take into account also the views of what, in UN jargon, we call "non-state actors". I mean commercial corporations, charities and pressure groups, labour unions, philanthropic foundations, universities and think tanks - all the myriad forms in which people come together voluntarily to think about, or try to change, the world.

None of these should be allowed to substitute itself for the state, or for the democratic process by which citizens choose their governments and decide policy. But they all have the capacity to influence political processes, on the international as well as the national level.

States that try to ignore this are hiding their heads in the sand.

The fact is that states can no longer - if they ever could - confront global challenges alone. Increasingly, we need to enlist the help of these other actors, both in working out global strategies and in putting those strategies into action once agreed.

It has been one of my guiding principles as Secretary General to get them to help achieve UN aims - for instance through the Global Compact with international business, which I initiated in 1999, or in the worldwide fight against polio, which I hope is now in its final chapter, thanks to a wonderful partnership between the UN family, the US Centers for Disease Control and - crucially - Rotary International.

Multilateralism

So that is four lessons. Let me briefly remind you of them: First, we are all responsible for each other's security. Second, we can and must give everyone the chance to benefit from global prosperity. Third, both security and prosperity depend on human rights and the rule of law. Fourth, states must be accountable to each other, and to a broad range of non-state actors, in their international conduct.

My fifth and final lesson derives inescapably from those other four. We can only do all these things by working together through a multilateral system, and by making the best possible use of the unique instrument bequeathed to us by Harry Truman and his contemporaries, namely the United Nations.

In fact, it is only through multilateral institutions that states can hold each other to account. And that makes it very important to organize those institutions in a fair and democratic way, giving the poor and the weak some influence over the actions of the rich and the strong.

That applies particularly to the international financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Developing countries should have a stronger voice in these bodies, whose decisions can have almost a life-or-death impact on their fate.

And it also applies to the UN Security Council, whose membership still reflects the reality of 1945, not of today's world.

That is why I have continued to press for Security Council reform. But reform involves two separate issues.

One is that new members should be added, on a permanent or long-term basis, to give greater representation to parts of the world which have limited voice today.

The other, perhaps even more important, is that all Council members, and especially the major powers who are permanent members, must accept the special responsibility that comes with their privilege.

The Security Council is not just another stage on which to act out national interests. It is the management committee, if you will, of our fledgling collective security system.

As President Truman said, "The responsibility of the great states is to serve and not dominate the peoples of the world."

He showed what can be achieved when the US assumes that responsibility. And still today, none of our global institutions can accomplish much when the US remains aloof. But when it is fully engaged, the sky is the limit.

These five lessons can be summed up as five principles, which I believe are essential for the future conduct of international relations: collective responsibility, global solidarity, the rule of law, mutual accountability, and multilateralism.

Let me leave them with you, in solemn trust, as I hand over to a new Secretary General in three weeks' time.

My friends, we have achieved much since 1945, when the United Nations was established.

But much remains to be done to put those five principles into practice.

Standing here, I am reminded of Winston Churchill's last visit to the White House, just before Truman left office in 1953. Churchill recalled their only previous meeting, at the Potsdam conference in 1945.

"I must confess, sir," he said boldly, "I held you in very low regard then. I loathed your taking the place of Franklin Roosevelt." Then he paused for a moment, and continued: "I misjudged you badly. Since that time, you more than any other man, have saved Western civilisation."

My friends, our challenge today is not to save Western civilisation - or Eastern, for that matter. All civilisation is at stake, and we can save it only if all peoples join together in the task.

You Americans did so much, in the last century, to build an effective multilateral system, with the United Nations at its heart.

Do you need it less today, and does it need you less, than 60 years ago? Surely not.

More than ever today Americans, like the rest of humanity, need a functioning global system through which the world's peoples can face global challenges together.

And in order to function, the system still cries out for far-sighted American leadership, in the Truman tradition.

I hope and pray that the American leaders of today, and tomorrow, will provide it. Thank you very much.

I just caught a major bait and switch. Do not have a clue what it means.

The headline I just saw is 'US denies CIA bugged Diana "

It is a catagorical denial from what I see.

But the London paper that broke the story clearly stated the US SECRET SERVICE had already admitted to it.

That is nutty. Something wierd is about to come to light.

Mark Townsend and Peter Allen in Paris
Sunday December 10, 2006
The Observer

The American secret service was bugging Princess Diana's telephone conversations without the approval of the British security services on the night she died, according to the most comprehensive report on her death, to be published this week

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1968664,00.html

US denies CIA bugged Princess Diana's phone calls

New to Raw Story? Click here to visit our home page for the latest news.

dpa German Press Agency
Published: Monday December 11, 2006

Washington- The United States on Monday denied reports in Britain that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was listening to Princess Diana's phone calls hours before she was killed in a 1997 automobile accident in Paris. "This is an old story for us. It all started when she died in 1997," a US official told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa. "In (19)97 we said were were not involved in any way, we're still standing by that statement."

"What would American intelligence gain from tapping her phone?" the official added. "It's all based on rumours."

http://rawstory.com/news/2006/US_denies_CIA_bugged_Princess_Diana_12112006.html

Man that is freaking weird.

WTF...?

Posted by: DiAnne at December 11, 2006 11:09 AM

Just picked up the news of SEATAC Christmas Tree removal too. It was pretty pathetic, considering that decorating trees is a pagan tradition co-opted by the Christians. I know plenty of non-Christians who do Christmas trees and exchange gifts for Christmas.

But then, Christmas itself is really a pagan holiday that Christians took over - Jesus was NOT born in December.

BTW, I'm back. The election season had left me burned out, and I had to take a hiatus from here.

Intolerance of others on ANY level in the name of ANY religion is not worthy of being followed.

I say, find your heart and you'll find your way.

Sintax

DeLay launches new conservative force
links to The Hill: http://tinyurl.com/ymvbqt

Former Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) announced the launch of an Internet-based grassroots organization aimed at raising money and uniting Republican activists to take back and hold the GOP majority in Congress, according to a release today.

The new organization, comparable to the left’s MoveOn.org, is called GAIN (Grassroots, Action, and Information Network) and will be hosted on www.tomdelay.com, a blog that will feature comments from DeLay and other conservative bloggers and activists.

NSA To Deny Bugging Diana's Phone

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/10/world/main2244146.shtml

Curiouser and curiouser.

CNN QuickVote

Do you believe President Bush will be able to successfully shift the course of the war in Iraq?

Yes 18% 18986 votes

No 82% 87197 votes

Total: 106183 votes

Ally
Welcome back! I was just about to email you to invite you & say we'd missed you. & by the way, check out my latest 'hood - Republic of Fremont - Center of the Universe. It's not only ceceded from the US but from Seattle. LOL My next 'hood will be Georgetown, where artists have been forced to move because of the gentrification of Pioneer Square. I just gifted myself with a Solstice Observance present of a new camera - Sony H5 - it's awesome! The photos were taken with my old Nikon KoolPix point and shoot, which was trusty but has seen its day.
http://www.silencedmajority.blogs.com

No sugar tonight in my Kofi...

"When power, especially military force, is used, the world will consider it legitimate only when convinced that it is being used for the right purpose, for broadly shared aims, in accordance with broadly accepted norms."

1. We imprison more people than any country.
2. We are the biggest arms dealer and sole vote in the UN not to restrict arms trade.
3. We allow cheating.

Electronic voting machines in Florida appear to have flat-out lost 18,000 votes for Congress—votes almost certain to change the outcome of a close House race in Sarasota.

This election meltdown demonstrates the insanity of paperless voting machines. There's no way to recount the votes short of holding a new election. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—along with Republican and Democratic leaders—are deciding now if Congress will tolerate this broken election or call for a new one.

The decision could come any day—and once it's made, it's hard to reverse. Can you sign this petition urging Congress to call for a re-vote in Sarasota, Florida and to repair our nation's elections? And then ask your friends and family to do the same.

http://pol.moveon.org/floridaelection/?id=9601-3132966-_45UDcO1MSN0CCBeoXZEYA&t=2

Well Carter's book on the mideast (Israel/Palestine) is supposed to be "provocative" - I think that could be a good thing. It may get some folks to thinking about the issue.

http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=6605934

I noticed that 3 of 5 court commissioners who are about to meet favor putting the Christmas trees back up at the airport, and the fairly conservative Jewish group that has the Rabbi who protested the trees' presence deciding not to sue. They do not want to be seen as Grinches.

Newspapers are reporting that Obama's appearance in New Hampshire was very popular, and Kennedy is no longer promising to back Kerry in 2008 unless he hurries up and declares his candidacy.

Thinking about Princess Diana and why either the CIA or NSA would monitor her. She fought against landmines and she was dating a Muslim. Still don't know how that would entitle them to monitor her. The guy who was writing the book isn't going to shed much light on it - heard him on the radio. He's going to say it was just an accident caused by a drunk driver.

Anyone see the Colbert U-Tube video where he said his sperm may have been used to impregnate Mary Cheney .. unless of course it got mixed up with that of David Crosby .. which may or may not have happened.

Well so Kucinich is going to run again in 2008. Guess the citizens of the Republic of Fremont won't have to change their bumper stickers - just change the date.

Oops! Ohlmert made a gaffe and admitted Israel has nukes.

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2006/s1809421.htm

America's Shame: Brought Low By a Gang of Cretins

Written by Chris Floyd
Monday, 11 December 2006

----
Only Six Fluent in Arabic at U.S. Embassy in Iraq (Reuters)
Among the 1,000 people who work in the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, only 33 are Arabic speakers and only six speak the language fluently, according to the Iraq Study Group report released on Wednesday.
.......

This tells you pretty much all you need to know about the American debacle in Iraq. Imagine the arrogance and stupidity of conquering, occupying and trying to run a country without being able to speak its language. A nation of 26 million people – and your embassy has only six people who can actually understand what is being said, written, and broadcast there. This is a folly that amounts to a monstrous crime in itself, aside from the inherent evil of launching an unprovoked war of aggression.

Evil is the only word to describe the wilful ignorance at work throughout the entire process of the Iraq War, from its inception to its execution to the catastrophic endgame now unfolding before our eyes. The reality of the situation is almost unimaginable, almost unendurable: that the most powerful nation in the history of the world has thrown itself, deliberately, for no compelling reason whatsoever beyond the selfish interests of a few elitist cliques, into a cauldron of mass murder and moral ruin, whose financial, political and spiritual costs will be felt, with deep suffering, for generations.

And that such a fate should come at the hands of such third-rate fools! Not only the gibbering idiot hugging his stolen presidency and "Decider-in-chiefship" to his chest like a baby with a blanket, but the whole rogue's gallery of dullards and brutes whose rat-like cunning in the service of their own lusts for pomp and power has been mistaken for genuine intelligence and substance: Dick Cheney, bumbling factotum of two failed presidencies – Nixon's and Ford's – and now the guiding light of a ruinous third; Don Rumsfeld, corporate bagman and lifelong blowhard (also a minion in the failed Nixon and Ford regimes), who began his career with vicious lies and has ended it with the blood of half a million Iraqi civilians on his lily-white hands; Douglas Feith, the utter nonentity well-described by General Tommy Franks as the "f*cking stupidest guy on the face of the earth," an empty suit who nonetheless had a far greater role in pushing the war and designing its lunatic aftermath than most people realize; Paul Wolfowitz, the comb-licking weirdo whose much-alleged, never-proven "brilliance" has disguised a lifelong record as an apologist for repression and mass murder, from Indonesia to Iraq… and on and on, through the whole sick crew.

To have been brought low by this gang of vicious cretins only adds to the shame of America's immeasurable crime in Iraq. Yet every single one of them will leave the regime for fat, well-paid sinecures and honored retirements, living on in luxury, surrounded still by sycophants and apologists, cheating the justice they so richly deserve until the final judge comes round for them at last – as he did this week for their comrade in murder, Augusto Pinochet.

http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=956&Itemid=135

Only in Texas:

"AUSTIN — A Republican state lawmaker wants to make sure no Texan is left out when it comes to hunting, even if the hunter is legally blind.

Rep. Edmund Kuempel, a Seguin Republican, has filed a bill for the 2007 legislative session that would allow legally blind hunters to use a laser sight, or lighted pointing instrument. The devices are forbidden for sighted hunters.

Blind hunters would also have to have a sighted hunter along with them, but they could hunt any game that sighted people can hunt in the same seasons and using the same weapons."

we have our priorities here in Texas

Fox reports that conservatives don't like Annan's speech - Kay Bailey Hutchinson and the like. They consider him an appeaser and other of their pet insults and of course, don't like multilateralism in any form, including the UN. Predictable.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,235934,00.html

I nominate Kofi Annan for the Nobel Peace Prize, and Jimmy Carter as well.

Oh great - blind Texan hunters and Mideast ambassadors who can't speak Arabic. The blind leading the dumb?!

Posted by: DiAnne at December 11, 2006 03:14 PM

Kudos to Kofi Annan! In an exceedingly restrained diplomatic speech, he just told us and the world what a F-Up Herr Boosh and his administration are. Too bad most people in this country aren't educated enough to understand most of what Annan said (well, not that anyone's paying attention during our annual season of gluttony; it won't be aired or printed in most of Lamestream Media anyway - note the speech was printed in full on a British news web site...).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061212/ap_on_re_us/annan_farewell
No kudos for Bush in Annan's farewell
{{{See? This is what's wrong with American Lamestream Media; this is a prime example of what I've been complaining about for years. They put spin and false interpretation on Annan's speech. I read the full text on the web site; I understood every word of Annan's speech, I know exactly what he said. (I also sent it to all the people on my list.) I don't need any moronic spinmeister telling me anything. From "news" organizations I just want the basics of 'who, what, when, where, how, sometimes why' - the rest I can figure out for myself. I don't need anyone telling me what/how I'm supposed to think about the speech. There were no 'hidden' messages in Annan's words, after all. He laid it all out there. And, anyway, why would there be any kudos for Herr Boosh?!? He's the reason half the world is fupped up now, so he certainly does not deserve any kind of praise whatsoever. Condemnation, yes, but most assuredly no praise. What did Lamestream Media propagandists expect? Praise for lies, starting illegal and unconstitutional wars that are war crimes? Hel-l-l-o-o-o-o-o! What planet are they living on if they think Bu$hCo needs praise for the murder destruction they've wrought for the sake of lies and oil?!?}}}

NonnyO - just a sampling

United Kingdom:
Departing Annan attacks Bush's 'war on terror'
Annan says farewell with a swipe at Bush
A decent man working in troubled times
Ending Arab-Israeli war would help in Iraq
Annan bows out of UN with attack on Bush

America:
Annan's words often draw reaction
No kudos for Bush in Annan‘s farewell
Reserved US response to Annan
Kofi Annan Bids Farewell to the United Nations

Canada:
Kofi Annan's Legacy of Failure
Annan Slammed for Speech Critical of US
Kofi Annan to Blast US in Farewell Speech on US Soil

Europe:
Annan bows out of UN with attack on Bush

South Asia:
Annan calls for settling Mideast conflicts

Asia:
Annan warns US against go-it-alone diplomacy
Annan hails local elections held at Indonesia's Aceh province
For the new head of the UN, a past misstep leads to opportunity

Africa:
Incoming UN scribe Ban states guiding principles
Annan Says Proposed Force for Somalia Not 'Invasion ...
Freedom From Poverty is a Human Right

Middle East:
Annan warns US against go-it-alone diplomacy

Australia:
Danby praises Annan over Darfur genocide

New Guinea:
Ban all set to replace Annan at the UN

There really aren't that many stories on it. Glad Bolton's gone.

A few more weigh in:

Colorado: (actual objective headline)
Annan bids farewell

Illinois:
UN secretary-general critical of Bush administration in Missouri

Kazakhstan - home of Borat!!
Annan chides US in final speech

Oops! Ohlmert made a gaffe and admitted Israel has nukes.

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2006/s1809421.htm

Yes, purchased from America, I believe. This has been widely known for a long time now - certainly well before Israel bombed the crap out of Lebanon. Or do I invent things as quickly as I forget them these days?

I nominate Kofi Annan for the Nobel Peace Prize, and Jimmy Carter as well.

Posted by: DiAnne at December 11, 2006 09:56 PM

I'll 2nd those nominations Diane. Kofi Annan has the calm voice and the body languageof PEACE.

Sorry DiAnne - I meant to attribute the Ohlmert comment to you as well. Kind of made my final comment redundant. :p

Posted by: DiAnne at December 11, 2006 10:49 PM

I couldn't believe it when WaPo sent an email for a survey. So, to waste ten minutes, I filled it out, and then wrote to them at the email address provided at the end (which I'm sure will end up in a dead email inbox).

This is what I wrote:

I just finished filling out your survey. The "problem" I have with most of American media is that I don't get straight facts. Just give your readers 'who, what, where, when, how, and sometimes why' and readers can then make up my own mind about events and people making the news. Instead, WaPo and other "news" outlets give the reading public spin and false 'interpretation' of news. It's exceedingly tiresome to have to wade through all the spin to get to basic facts (which is why it's not worth the money to pay for printed versions of the spin all of you in print media want us to spend just so we can turn around and recycle all that paper). Just give your reading public the FACTS.

I've given up on all TV infotainment "news" except for the half hour of BBC news on the local PBS station. Religion in politics is a false issue, and only the most brainwashed kool-aid drinkers subscribe to the propaganda put out by Bu$hCo (and churches need their tax exempt status taken away if their ministers insist on preaching politics from the pulpit; additionally, funding faith-based charities with tax money is unconstitutional). Abortion and gay marriage and flag burning are false issues. Media wastes time and money talking or writing about false issues.

The 'war on terror' is bogus (the criminals who commit terrorist acts do not represent another country and they are not an organized army; leave it to law enforcement to catch the criminals!). How can there be a 'war on fear'? You in media have been masters at helping Bu$hCo instill fear of criminals in the American public.

All lies for the war in Iraq have been proved false. Even the ISG admits the US military is in Iraq for oil (something those of us with an IQ higher than a rock have known all along because we knew we were being lied to by Bush from the time of the 2000 presidential debates when he said he wouldn't do any 'nation building'). When will you in media 'fess up to FACTS? The invasion of Iraq was not only unconstitutional, but a war crime....

There is no reason to keep our troops in Afghanistan or Iraq. If our politicians had one iota of sense, they'd order the guard and reserve troops home on the next military transport planes out of those areas, and redeploy the regular troops elsewhere. Immediately. Then they'd pass a bill to pay reparations to the people whose lives have been shattered by the illegal and unconstitutional war, let the people in those countries rebuild their nations. As is, Bush will leave his mess for someone else to clean up. (What's new? He's had that pattern of behavior all of his life. Why would he change the habits of a lifetime?)

Bu$hCo needs to be held accountable, and impeached, and the sooner all of you in all American media outlets figure that out, the better off we'll all be. You have a lot of spinmeisters for the neoCons; when will you have journalists giving us reliable news without sneering and smearing Democrats and Independents when they write or speak common sense?

I get more reliable facts and news from foreign media than I do from American media, and certainly far less spin. I subscribe to many e-news lists.

Do you and other American media organizations want the respect you used to get when you were still giving your reading public FACTS?

Stop being a propaganda shill for Bu$hCo....

Sincerely,

I added:
P.S.
I am also a blogger, and one of the things just talked about on the blog today was Kofi Annan's speech. Here are my two of my blog entries about it which exemplify what I just wrote above:

And included what I wrote above, so I won't put that here.
~~~~~~~~~

Anyway, the Resident Moron "leading" this country has nothing but disdain for the UN, so I wouldn't expect any of his propagandists with Lamestream Media to reflect anything but his narrow xenophobic view of Annan's speech.

I liked Annan's speech. After trying to decipher the incoherent babble of Herr Boosh for these last six years (and listen to spinmeisters attempting to make sense of anything he says), I just love to savor coherent sentences by educated people who know how to express themselves well - and Annan falls into that category.

They consider him an appeaser and other of their pet insults....
I nominate Kofi Annan for the Nobel Peace Prize, and Jimmy Carter as well.
Posted by: DiAnne at December 11, 2006 09:56 PM

Hmmmm.... "Appeaser" - and who should know what an appeaser is better than Lamestream Media and the Congress Critters on both sides of the aisle for the last six years.

All they've ever done is appease and appease and appease and appease... endlessly... the entire Bu$hCo administration, from passing legislation no one has had a chance to read to giving them everything they've demanded.

Pot. Kettle. Black. Takes one to know one, and all that rot.

I third that nomination for Annan - and didn't Carter already win a Nobel for Peace? Don't know if he's eligible for a second peace prize or not.

Hi there,

Have you heard the news?

Wal-Mart is promoting the religious right's extreme ideology
this holiday season.

Just in time for Christmas, the religious right has released a
violent video game in which born-again Christians aim to convert
or kill those who don't adhere to their extreme ideology.
Disturbingly, the game's apparent attempts at religious
indoctrination are aimed at children and focus on violent,
divisive, and hateful scenarios. While the religious right
apparently has no problem pushing the product this holiday
season, America's #1 video game seller should know better.

Take action now and urge Wal-Mart to stop selling religious
violence this holiday season. Click here:
http://ga3.org/campaign/tell_wal_mart?rk=EdMh27F1umToW

Yes Carter gets up early to write and knocks off around 11 PM. He's in his 80s and makes most of his living writing nowdays. He also builds and paints furniture and manages to go around the world and supervise elections. People trust him.

He did say in an interview I read a bit ago that no Presidential candidate recently has even given lip service to the Israel-Palestine issue. I plan to read his book on the subject. He also said that James Baker really wanted him on the Iraq Study Group committee but he was against the war from the state, so thought he'd decline. He did also say that James Baker realizes that is is absolutely essential to get a peace process going between the Israelis and Palestinians.

History will not treat us kindly
By Tim Andersen
We will be remembered as the Americans who insulated themselves from reality and remained self-absorbed, concerned with their own personal comfort and privilege while our government wrecked havoc on the world and destroyed our own culture.
http://tinyurl.com/y3s5sn

Sheehan Among Four Convicted of Trespassing
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121106R.shtml
Peace activist Cindy Sheehan and three other women were convicted of trespassing Monday for trying to deliver an anti-Iraq War petition to the US Mission to the United Nations and refusing to leave.
{{{I wonder how many "lists" these women will be on now? They were only convicted of trespassing, the other charges were dropped.}}}

The Americans don't see how unwelcome they are, or that Iraq is now beyond repair
By Patrick Cockburn:
Manipulation of facts was often very crude. As an example of the systematic distortion, the Iraq Study Group revealed last week that on one day last July US officials reported 93 attacks or significant acts of violence. In reality, it added, "a careful review of the reports ... brought to light 1,100 acts of violence".
http://tinyurl.com/y6rlje

Niall Ferguson | Baker-Hamilton's Fine Print: Stay in Iraq
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121106S.shtml
Niall Ferguson writes: "Last week saw the publication of a masterpiece of persuasion. But whom will it persuade? And with what sticks and carrots? Most commentators have interpreted the report of the Iraq Study Group as a well-crafted admission of defeat.... Rather, the report's aim is to convince legislators that withdrawal from Iraq - no matter how much their constituents may yearn for it - is not an option."

{{{The devil is always in the fine print and the itty-bitty details with these jerks. The more things change, the more they stay the same.}}}

Iraqi Exodus Could Test Bush Policy
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121106T.shtml
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have fled their homeland are likely to seek refugee status in the United States, putting intense pressure on the Bush administration to re-examine a policy that authorizes only 500 Iraqis to be resettled here next year. The official US policy has been that the refugee situation is temporary and that most of the estimated 1.5 million who have fled to Jordan, Syria, and elsewhere will eventually return to Iraq. But US and international officials now acknowledge that the instability in Iraq has made it too dangerous for many refugees, especially Iraqi Christians, to return any time soon.

Climate Scientist Says "Kyoto" Barred
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/121106EA.shtml
A federal climate scientist in Boulder says his boss told him never to utter the word Kyoto and tried to bar him from using the phrase climate change at a conference. The allegations come as federal investigators probe whether Bush administration officials tried to block government scientists from speaking freely about global warming and attempted to censor their research.

Congress OKs Drilling off Florida
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/121106EB.shtml
Congress gave final approval this morning to legislation to open 8.3 million acres of federal waters west of the Florida coast to oil and gas drilling, a victory for business interests who lobbied for the bill and four Gulf Coast states that would receive billions in new oil and gas royalties. But even drilling supporters admitted it was just a tiny fraction of the publicly owned area they had hoped to open during 12 years of Republican rule of Congress.
{{{Um hum... and I wonder what will happen to the oil rigs when a cat. 5 hurricane hits...?}}}

Against Torture
LATIN AMERICAN INTELLECTUALS PRESENT A MANIFESTO “AGAINST TORTURE”
The militarily organized practice of torture, the sexual abuse, and all other abuses of men and women, clandestine incarcerations and forced disappearances, are not new in the history of the Third World, and of Latin America in particular. It has been instead an historical constant of colonial, neocolonial and neoliberal domination.
http://tinyurl.com/y55v68

Jonathan Chait | The Bubble Boy in the Oval Office
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121106C.shtml
"Indeed, everybody seems to understand that if you want to help amend the disaster in Iraq, the No. 1 rule is that you can't acknowledge it's a disaster in Bush's presence," writes Jonathan Chait. "Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes, the court stenographer of the Bush administration, recently reported that this was a key factor in the hiring of Defense Secretary Robert Gates."

Military Officers Star in Promotional Evangelical Video
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121106H.shtml
A military watchdog group is asking the Defense Department to investigate whether seven Army and Air Force officers violated regulations by appearing in uniform in a promotional video for an evangelical Christian organization.
{{{Holy Freakazoids, Batman!}}}

Posted by: DiAnne at December 12, 2006 12:55 AM

Carter told us the truth about energy. He was not elected for a second term because the populace could not stand hearing that we couldn't be indulged like spoiled brats during an energy crisis.

How sad that 'we' (collectively) couldn't act like grown ups (although I realize many people started conserving and recycling about that time and it's now a habit). If we had listened to Carter, a lot of the energy crunch we're facing now might have been mitigated with finding economical alternative energy sources a long time ago - or, at least research for affordable alternate energy would be much farther ahead than it is now. Around Carter's presidency the rage was to drive smaller cars that got good gas mileage. Immediately after that, cars just got bigger and even less fuel-efficient than ever. (I don't like big cars for the simple reason I am a short person and big cars are awkward to get into. They're just not practical for a person like me.)

Und zo. The elites and those who would emulate the elites who can afford big vehicles and the gas it takes to run them continue to run this nation into the ground, demanding to be indulged like the spoiled brats they are, even if someone else must get killed for their selfishness; we're a small minority of the world's population, but we use a quarter of the world's resources. That makes us greedy spoiled brats.

And people like Herr Boosh wonder why we, as a nation, are not respected world-wide?!?

Go figure.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/good-news-everybody-we_b_36040.html

Arianna Huffington: Good News, Everybody: We've Got a New Iraq Slogan!

Not surprisingly, the Bush administration is already backing away from most of the proposals put forth by the Iraq Study Group. The New York Times, with unintended comic irony, noted it this way: "Administration officials say their preliminary review of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group's recommendations has concluded that many of its key proposals are impractical or unrealistic." Thank God we have George Bush to protect us from doing anything impractical or unrealistic in the Middle East.

But there is one thing in the proposal we can be sure Bush will take from the report -- the slogan. Bush may not be into things like facts, truth, or reality, but he loves a good slogan.

So while Bush may not like any of the Group's 79 proposals (so impractical and unrealistic), he's ready to adopt its slogan, "New Way Forward." Newsweek says that next week "Bush is expected to announce what he calls 'The New Way Forward,' his latest plan to salvage the mission in Iraq."

{{{Click on link for more. You will appreciate the slogan timeline......}}}

Morning All,

We are sitting in the Manchester, NH airport, on our way back from the Boston gathering. I'll try to do a fuller report later but will share that there a good deal of conversation about blogs and blogging among the gatherers, especially addressing some of the points in this thread about the value of fact-checking, conversations that change hearts and minds, and the value of YouTube for electoral politics from here on out.

The role of the online communities (in contrast with the role of online personalities) was another topic we talked about a lot. And, of course, the notions about how all of this affects the democratic process was also critical.

At any rate, lots of food for thought and blog posts, and discussions! We hope we represented you all well; we certainly missed you all and spoke of you to anyone who asked us about the community.

Karen and Richard (and Larry!)

NonnyO
Bingo - you hit it on the head - "the elites and those who would emulate the elites" - that's also part of how people end up voting against their own interest & putting people into office who don't care about them.

I worked for people back in Carter's day who used my name (without my knowledge) to get more grants and they still have some pretty big luxury cars sitting in their drive. Then I worked for money-grubbing private nursing homes who tried to use my license to rip off poor elderly. Remember all the coke-sniffing physicians in the 80s and later the 24 year old dot.com millionaires in the 90s and then those who lost their retirement by investing all in one company headed by criminals in this decade (Enron, WorldCom etc? It's greed, so ancient Buddha identified it.

The other part of our nature is compassion. That's why I so much respect people like Kofi Annan and Jimmy Carter. & the world does, if America doesn't. I woke up thinking how we have the most prisons, make & sell the most arm, have the poorest healthcare of the developed world, yet use the most resources per capita. It's also why I work for a nonprofit that has compassion in the mission statement, even though it's religious and I'm not. My labor is from a positive spiritual place but that doesn't make me a believer in organized religion.

We aren't rich in this country. We're trying to emulate the rich. We would have been so much better off to increase the basic standard of living, even if it meant more taxation, and to stay out of wars. The Scandinavean countries don't appear to be doing so badly, and Europe's economy is growing while ours is shrinking. Greed and bullying don't work as well as sustained planning of a good infrastructure. & we're being taxed anyway and it's going into the pockets of the greedy.

Didn't we know Bush would capitulate to "the greybeards" but pretend it was all his own idea, with a couple weeks of kicking and screaming before he delivered his Rovish speech?!

Why does Libby get Habeas Corpus but those in Guantanamo don't?

Chris Floyd | Presidential Tyranny Untamed by Election Defeat
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121206J.shtml
Chris Floyd begins, "Like the two entwining strands of the double helix, law and power form the genetic structure of government. Law is nothing but empty verbiage without power to back it up, enforce it, embody it. And power without law is nothing but a mad ape, baring its teeth, thumping its chest, raping and beating where it pleases, taking what it wants: a bestial thing, born in the muddy swamp of our lowest, blindest, rawest biochemical impulses. Disconnect these strands and things fall apart, as Yeats says; the center literally cannot hold, and the blood-dimmed tide is loosed upon the world."

David Bacon | Are Democrats Heading Over a Cliff?
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121206K.shtml
"Having used Latino and labor votes to recapture control of the US Congress, some influential Democratic Party power brokers now seem intent on attacking the very base that produced their victory," writes David Bacon.

US Military Deaths in Iraq Hit 2,928
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121206L.shtml
As of Friday, December 8, 2006, at least 2,928 members of the US military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,356 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

Gore Doesn't Rule Out '08 Run; Kucinich Is In
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121206M.shtml
"I am not planning to run for president again," Gore said last week, arguing that his focus is raising public awareness about global warming and its dire effects. Then, he added, "I haven't completely ruled it out." Meanwhile, Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich said Monday he is planning another bid because his party isn't pushing hard enough to end the Iraq war.

War Resister Considers Himself a Soldier as He Builds New Life
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121206N.shtml
"I knew I was at a turning point," 33-year-old Patrick Hart said of the wrenching ride toward the border, where he would leave his country behind. From Buffalo, Hart would cross into Canada.His parents, who were in on his secret, drove him across the Peace Bridge and delivered him to a network of Canadian
supporters who welcome disillusioned US soldiers with open arms, a place to stay, and legal advice.

Judge Settles Classified Info Fight in Libby Case
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121206O.shtml
A federal judge has accepted a series of redactions and substitutions proposed by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald - to be provided to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's defense team -
which will limit what Libby can share with jurors about his top-secret White House briefings, at his upcoming trial.

Outrage Over Killing of Gaza Boys
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121206P.shtml
The killing of three sons of a top intelligence officer in Gaza has caused widespread outrage among Palestinians. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the attack by gunmen in Gaza City was "an ugly and inhuman crime." "Words stop at the extent of this crime," said the children's father, Baha
Balusheh, who is linked to Mr. Abbas's Fatah party. The gunmen fired over 70 bullets at the car in which the children, aged six to ten, were traveling to school.

Also check out Lebanon!

Wonderful quote, Karen-- thanks!

DiAnne already posted the link above, but this is a "must read" so I'm reposting the link.

Chris Floyd | Presidential Tyranny Untamed by Election Defeat
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121206J.shtml

Floyd has hit the nail on the head about the lackluster performance of the current Dems. If they don't DO SOMETHING - and SOON!!! - our less than perfect nation that is *technically* still a dictatorship as long as the entire MCA '06 is still in force is in mortal danger from our "leaders" (even repealing part of it doesn't negate the dictatorship part - ALL of it needs to be repealed!). I'm sending it to my rep & new senator who will be sworn in on Jan. 3.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6169717.stm

Climate 'would reel from A-bombs'
Even a small-scale nuclear war would have far-reaching consequences for the global climate, say scientists.
A US team has modelled the effects of a limited conflict in the light of new concerns over weapons proliferation.

{{{More on link. Shamefully, the nation that has accelerated the whole idea, and the reality, of an increased number of bombs is the US under Herr Boosh with his megalomaniacal insistence on war, war, and more war, with the goal of global domination. Fools, all fools, lead this nation if our elected reps do not throw the bums out of office and get back to something resembling sanity. I notice this made the British press; I wonder if it will be talked about in Lamestream Media here...?}}}

Posted by: mbk at December 12, 2006 10:30 AM
(forgot to add this before). . and your comments were lovely, too. Very timely piece, and also timeless. Thanks again.

http://www.americanprogress.org/cartoons
Today's American Progress cartoon

Indy says this station is givin WWOZ a run for its moolah in Nawlins.... been whis