ORACULATIONS

Media coverage of the Prison Scandal got 200 stories on the networks and forty days of continuous front page coverage in our "free press". heroes like this got none.

Newspaper circulation declines around world but before you wax philosophic about lies and lazy reporting, allow me to point out something. Newspapers do NOT want blue collar readership. They do not want people who earn less than $75K per year reading their papers. They want to deliver a high income audience to their advertisers. Period. Check the ads in your local fish wrap. High end stores, high end products, and high end writing. The New York Times sells for $3 a pop and $5 on Sunday; check their Magazine section; trips to Europe, high high end hotels. Think the longshoremen are reading it? I once wrote a piece on falling newspaper circulation and did the research so if you doubt me do a Google, starting with the Tribune Companies. All are very up front about what they want, having blue collars even seen reading their do-rags isn't good. I did a consulting job for a company several months ago. They had over 100 people in one office and the only ones reading the LA Times were women. Men went around the office bumming the Fry's ads (a discount computer store in LA). What do they read? A few Journals and a few IBDs, and nothing else. Like in nada.

So the loss in circulation is a plus, not a minus.

Holy Spielberg Shrek does 236 MIL in two weeks. Eisner really hates Katzenberg now. The Dreamworks dream seems to be on track.

Chalabi Watch----it gets curiouser as reports now surface that U.S. contractors toting guns were on the raid too. This flies in the face of the "White House" version that this was strictly an Iraq deal. The "White House" better get their act together by tomorrow AM or the Left will be (rightly) all over this. It's clear that the U.S. is involved.

eight armed American contractors paid by a US State Department program went on the raid, directing and encouraging the Iraqi policemen who, witnesses say, ripped out computers, turned over furniture and smashed photographs.

Some of the Americans helped themselves to baklava, apples and diet soda from Mr Chalabi's refrigerator, sitting in a garden outside to enjoy their looted snacks, according to members of Mr Chalabi's staff.

The prior quote is from the Baltimore Sun (requires that stupid registration) but reprinted in the Australian The Age.

Tigress Hills
Where real Arab Men Find Paradise
12230 Old Tigress Silk Road
North Baghdad, Iraq


May Allah be Praised
Dear Friend;

We share your grief at the loss of manhood, land, and Muslim pride resulting from the American sneak attack on Iraq last April. The Good News is WE DID NOT LOSE. It has now been proven that Saddam Hussein was not an Arab. He was French.

Your manhood is still in tact. Take this brief manhood test.

You are insulted on the street by a camel who evacuates his bowels on your shoes. You
A. Immediately kill it
B. Immediately kill the owner
C. You beg an American soldier to help you.

See? You are still burning with manhood. One more question to test your mettle.

Your wife dares to question your purchase of a new Rolex watch from a street vendor instead of buying food for your hungry family. You
A. Graciously punch her in the face til she quiets down.
B. Magnanimously set her burka on fire
C. Beg an American soldier for food.

There. That is proof. Now friend of Allah most Holy, defender of the Faith, Holy Warrior of Islam you are invited to the movie premier of "The Americans Suck" a film by Jacques LeCroque re-cut from the original German masterpiece "Der Friken Juden Banken Haben" ("The Fu**** Jews Own All the Banks") by Lili Riefenstahl. Lili is the cousin of the late Nazi genius film maker, Leni Riefenstahl (Triumph of the Will). Lili was kicked out of the Gestapo for being mean to the Jews but created this masterpiece. The movie is free. All Allah asks you to do is listen to a short presentation of real estate opportunities available near the Tigress River north of Baghdad. This is a great opportunity to join with other men of faith in a time-share program you will enjoy. Do not bring your wife. She is too stupid to understand masculine things and will only object. There is no sense beating her into submission in public.

Praise be to Allah

Murray bin Kalid il Abraham
Tigress Homes and Gardens

In Saudi Arabia there are two choices: dreadful and horrifying. Daniel Pipes gives us a history lesson here and an analysis of what is real right now. It is just a question of time before the monarchy is gone, and everyone has known this for years; I have been writing about it since I started trading energy back in 1990. The Royal Family is hated. It will fall. And the guys taking over don't like money. Get ready for $10 per gallon gas or an invasion of Arabia.

Polls in Iraq show nothing. Polls show what people say they "want". They do not show what the people interviewed are willing to do to get what "they want". There is no such thing as "want". I "want" a Rolls Royce, a Trophy Girl Friend, and a million dollars. If you poll 100 18 year old young men and ask them if they want to get laid in the next two days 95 of them will say "yes". Survey shows 95% of 18 year old males .......... But if they really want to get laid there are whores, places where young ladies of easy virtue "hang out", and all kinds of stores, restaurants, and so on where great looking women hang out; how many of the 95 will actually take the steps to walk up to strange women and "connect"? Almost zero. What have I done to get the stuff I say "I want"?

Which brings me to the widely touted phony poll of Iraqis. Every blog, website, and newspaper claims that polls show Iraqis "want" democracy. Horse shit. What are they willing to do in order to "get" democracy? Ask the 1,500 Iraqis: What do you "want" so badly that you will risk something for it? Are you willing to die for it? Ask Iraqis what democracy is. Ask them what freedom is. They don't have a clue.

They are Muslims. Islam means "submission". Muslims are used to Shiria Law. Submitting is their heritage. Democracy means we submit to almost nothing.

Are Iraqis willing to fight to have a separation of church and state? No way. They submit.

The poll is a phony and anybody who touts the poll as "evidence" that our presence in Iraq is a good thing is lying. The touts have an agenda. The "poll" shows nothing because it didn't ask the real questions.

People looking for justification for our war in Iraq better come up with more. Afghanistan is also rejecting democracy in favor of their old warlord type of existance. "Polls show" there too.

If you visit no other site this weekend please visit Mudville Gazette. He has a terrific piece up about lots of heroes but his long piece on Rick Rescorla needs to be read by all of us. When we talk about heroes, reference Rick Rescorla. An incredible story. And of course it will never appear in the media. Don't cheat yourself out of his story.

When you look at movie grosses today take a look at everything below the top two, which are "sucking up all the oxygen in the room". Keep in mind that movies like "Mean Girls" are probably profitable because they were shot for reasonable money. Troy will never turn a profit til video rentals and all foreign grosses are in that "might" allow it to make $100 or so; Van Helsing is a loser as are Soul Plane and Raising Helen; Man on Fire must gross $200 mil to break even so you can forget about it; Van Helsing cost $210 million including marketing costs and will never see a dime in profits. Again, if these jerk offs had to work on straight commission, would some of these movies ever be made?

My support for Blackfive is mitigated by the impossibly long download time required to read a blog. I have fast fast broadband and I cannot imagine anyone with a 56k being patient enough. People who use "moveable type" have a tendency to load up with ads and useless graphics that make access a pain in the ass. Nothing is worse than blackfive, but moveable type sites are usually not worth going to because of the time. Everyone should take a lesson from porn sites; all have detailed graphics and you can log on like lightning; none use moveable type.

The heat has busted him again, this time in Ramadi. They have ordered the building evacuated. "No reason" has been given for the order. Bush strikes again, but why???

The alliance with Chalabi is now in ruins. U.S. Intelligence officials have accused his security chief (see Nouri, below) of passing highly classified American secrets to Iran. Iraqi police, backed by U.S. personnel, raided Chalabi's home and his offices May 19, seeking to arrest associates on charges of financial corruption. The FBI has opened an investigation into who gave the compromised data -- so sensitive that it put U.S. soldiers' lives at risk and was known to only a handful of government officials -- to the INC.

OK, but "The White House" better produce the evidence. Do you think this unplugged bunch of White House morons, who probably don't think we are smart enough to "understand the complexities", will let us know?. There is a lot of speculation that the targets of this "investigation" are in the Pentagon; why did they get cozy with Chalabi?. CIA warnings that Chalabi had become too close to Iran's regime fell on deaf ears in Washington, say intel people. "They ignored all warnings......" etc. etc. etc. say former CIA people. It is also clear that Chalabi got a ton of dollars while CIA, State, and lots of military had serious doubts about both his "stories" (most have proven false) and his contacts.

Meanwhile the Left, which can be counted on to call anyone in Iraq not calling for "death to all Americans" a puppet (a running dog of capitalism in their commie days) is launching an all out attack on Chalabi. HOWEVER this case has a much longer "tail" than is being reported by us Right Wing Types. We have to remember that this thing started in April when a guy named Nouri, a leading INC member and Chalabi appointee as the finance ministry's chief anti-corruption official, was arrested on charges including extortion, fraud, embezzlement, theft of government property and abuse of authority.

More charges, including theft of government property, extortion, bribery and kidnapping have also been laid against at least a dozen of Chalabi associates, including Aras Karim Habib, the head of the INC's intelligence service.

This will play out, eventually. The Left is claiming that Iran controlled all the intel Chalabi delivered. That claim is effectively challenged by Michael Ledeen. Stay tuned. It's a cinch Bush will tell us nothing til his poll numbers drop again.

HOT ITEMS OF THE DAY

1.Seventeen uses for dead cicadas (with photo of girl wearing cicada exoskeleton necklace)

2.After 17 years of dimming, Earth now reflecting more light in recent years. In other news, Al Gore hysterically screams warnings about the horrors of "global brightening"

3. Minnesota gas stations fined by state for selling gas too cheap

4. Chicago alderman insists she accepted help from gang members because she thought they were legitimate businessmen

5. Cable movie network advertising Gigli as a movie so bad, "you know you want to see it"

All these and many more links at one of my favorites, FARK.COM

Kobe Bryant rape charges are about to formally blow up on Tuesday or Wednesday. Reason? The DNA test run by the prosecution showed she had sex with another man AFTER she claimed to have been raped by Bryant BUTTT...... the fucking prosecution covered it up. Of course it is relevant because the so-called injuries could have been caused by the second man. Or a man before Bryant.

The big question here is how could anyone but a fabulously rich man have beaten this charge? I hope his attorney will sit down with someone and go over the expenses. I'll bet you anything that hundreds of men are in jail right now on supposedly "slam dunk" evidence that is fraudulent. These stinking women's "Rights" groups are really man hating lynch mobs. Shield law? Why? You make the charge bitch, and your sexual/psychological history is open.

I don't know what the box office on Day After Tomorrow is going to be ($24 mil opening day beating Shrek2 by 4 mil), but it is being roasted and toasted as a total Left Wing Environut propaganda piece by almost everybody "inside" the buisiness, and that is saying plenty. Had the Left shut up this movie might have made its quiet $150 million ($450 mil domestic gross) as a pretty good disaster movie. Now it being called things like "Ecozilla", "Finding Nemo" with special effects, and worse. The Left, with the willing cooperation of equally Left Hollywood elites, has wrecked the financial prospects of this movie in the U.S. Were I a stock holder in these idiotically capital intensive enterprises I'd bail in a hurry. Every movie is Left (except Shrek) and the rest are plain awful. Why are people paid millions up front for this shit? They should all be like you and me: work for straight commission. Let's see how fast they'd turn out their shit then

MUCH BIGGER STORY than is being played The murder and takeover of a compound at an oil drilling compound in Saudiville is a major signal of things to come.

....a second deadly assault this month targeting the oil industry in Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter. Previous terror attacks in Saudi Arabia have been blamed on al-Qaida, which has vowed to undermine the Saudi kingdom for its close ties to the United States.

This is an attack on the "filthy oil money" being earned by the Saudis. The Islamofascists don't care about money. In fact thye hate it and regard it as the root of all evil. Their goal is to take over the entire oil empire in the Kingdom and shut it down.

Fears of whether Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, can protect its oil industry from terrorists were partly blamed for recent oil price spikes to new highs.

Make no mistake, this is a really big deal and they have announced their intentions. You think gasoline prices are high right now? Wait til there isn't any.

Michael Ledeen gets on board the Chalabi is a fall guy for somebody train; he thinks the Intel Community needs to get him.

By now everybody knows that the IC failed to appreciate the significance of al Qaeda, failed to see 9/11 coming, failed to develop reliable information about Iraq, whether it be about internal political realities (those failed coups, remember?), or the WMD facts, from their existence to their location, and so forth. The spooks must be wondering if some political or budgetary axe is hovering over them, and so they need a scapegoat.

I think the Bush White House has decided to cover up the entire oil for food scandal in order to get some traction in the UN. Suddenly Powell, Bremer, and "The White House" are all in favor of the UN SKUNK Lakhdar Brahimi setting up a government in Iraq without the consent of the Iraqis. Does anybody this side of the looney ward think Iraqis want the robber baron UN anywhere near their country?

The odors on this deal now approach the stench category. Democrats are too ideological to take an honest campaign issue out of this, as the Ledeen "fisking" of the assholes on the left demonstrates. The Oil for Food UN scheme is the biggest financial scandal ever, and our sudden love affair with the totally corrupt UN permeates this thing.

Suddenly Powell, Bremer, and presumably the White House (Bush) are in bed with the corrupt bastards. I don't see a free Iraq going along with these crooked pricks for one second. As more and more "conservative" leaning types start sniffing this thing we may find the truth. My suspicions are that The Administration, all of it, has decided to do what they can to kiss the UN ass and anybody who doesn't like it will get a visit from the FBI. Ledeen, far smarter than me, thinks this is U.S. intelligence covering their own sorry asses.

Hold your nose while you read Ledeen.

Every time I think I might be so pissed at Bush that I might vote for Kerry, I read something like this from NRO. The super Left is trying to ban Rush Limbaugh from Armed Forces Radio. You can bet that if the Democrats were in power he would be banned instantly. And I assume college Republicans would also be "handled".

Weekly Movies picture shows Films Cinema


THE ATTACK OF THE LEFT WING SUMMER MOVIES
A Guide to Political Orthodoxy regarding the Correct Interpretation of Cinematic Entertainment aimed at Progressive Thinkers

A. "Day After Tomorrow" or "Cheney is Dumb but Bush is Dumber"

REPRINTED TODAY BECAUSE IT OPENS TODAY

PARTY MEMBERS ATTENTION: This is REQUIRED viewing for all progressive thinkers. See it at least two times. Try to trick unsuspecting minors into seeing it with you so they will come to the correct conclusions about the evils of capitalism and Republicans, especially the stupidity of Bush. Tell all youth that these special effects disasters WILL happen unless HillaryCare becomes law, Birth Prevention "clinics" are put into all grammar schools, and evil SUVs aren't burned in the parking garage by the theater. Do not tell the little fucks about your stock holdings. You might make a comment like, "Wouldn't all those SUVs look better with broken windshields?" while you point the punk toward the parking lot.

This movie has been so politicized by the Hollywood Left that the grosses may be seriously damaged (see this link to Brokaw shilling for the movie and the Democrats HERE). This movie won't be seen by anyone other than kids and Lefty adults. The campaign has been deliberate so we must now assume that this movie is so bad that only controversy can get them a box office. It was supposed to be released LAST summer but was held back to "fix" it. The director, Roland Emmerich, has a super track record as a "big" movie director but the super Left has hijacked this movie.

It was intended to be an over the top special effects spectacular about the destruction of the entire world by volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, snow storms, and fires. It is now an occasionally special effects disaster movie featuring greedy business interests and the stupidity of George W. Bush (featured) for ignoring warnings of Global Warming from Al Gore, Barbra Streisand, and Ted Kennedy. The only "surprise" is the start of an ice age. The suits decided to do "ice" because the gradual formation of a desert is a lousy visual. "Who the fuck wants to see a bunch of starving Republicans and dying snakes for Chriss sakes?"

Premise: Republican Big Business, willing to do anything for evil money, ignore The New York Times, NBC, and CNN warnings about Global Warming and pollute the world. Their lust for profits drives them to violate EPA regulations so their putrid emissions destroy the ozone layer. This mindless lust gets to the point that Hollywood Left special effects destroy the world, except for certain minority groups. This movie is supposed to be so effective that we will all vote for Democrats. In fact nobody will be affected because they already have drawn conclusions before they see it. Kids will be swayed but kids grow up and will learn the truth.

Even as a disaster movie, the casting of botoxed up old ladies (the still good decent looking 45 year old Sela Ward ) and not very attractive young women (Emmy Rossum ) is a mystery. There is no sex appeal in this movie and one wonders if a bunch of lesbians and fruits cast this thing after they did Troy. Dennis Quaid is the man in the movie who has all the box office appeal of Paula Zahn with her back turned. Movie is totally boring after the first thirty minutes of disasters to everyone but Lefties. All the good parts are special effects destruction scenes. You may enjoy it by imagining that everybody you hate gets killed in the special effects. I visualized one of my ex-wives being driven into the Empire State building by the hundred foot tidal wave and slammed to a bloody pulp while I stood by in a helicopter and didn't help; her last words to me was "I want more alimony" and then she was smote into a million soggy pieces. I came in my pants with that one. BTW the movie is pretty good. Sort of a by-the-numbers 70's disaster movie that the Left hype has made into agit-prop. Nothing great, nothing awful, just a disaster movie.

Rated: PG-13 for genocide, mild sex (if you call fucking the world mild), and just plain no babes.

Military brass fed up with Rumsfeld? O'Reilley said the FOX reporters in Iraq are ALL saying so. He was interviewing a flustered Ann Coulter last night and he pinned her with it. Remember, the Military did not want to go to war in Iraq in the first place. FOX is not reporting this because they ain't going to rat out their sources.

"Justice" in Lefty Massachusetts is shown here in one of the greatest frauds perpetrated by judges and prosecution in history. If AmiraultS had been Black there would have been riots in the streets, and this case screams for riots. Whites don't have the stomach for justice any more. It's part of the anti-Iraq War Left in that Kennedy loving shit hole. Risk nothing. Nothing is worth losing ten cents over, especially freedom. Read the piece. And puke.

My take on the "deal" in Najaf with Muqtada Al-Sadr's Al-Mahdi and his "army" is this. It ain't an American deal and not one Americans would make. We would tell the cocksucker to surrender and go to jail and his army would also go to jail and fuck you. But this is Iraq. This is an Iraqi "solution". Fallujah was also an Iraqi solution. And that is why we are there. We wanted to let the Iraqis create their own country. Get the Iraqis themselves to participate. They are. I think this is the success we wanted, but may not have been prepared for. There is a way of looking at things that goes like this: Would you want to win if you didn't know what winning looked like? We need to face the fact that "winning" in Iraq is not going to look like our conventional idea of winning.

I've had some experience dealing with Arabs twenty years ago and I did so on a daily basis for more than two years. One thing that everyone who has ever dealt with Arabs will tell you is that they are extremely polite. There is a formality about them, a ritual in dealing. There is also a necessity to bargain. They would rather bargain than go to mosque. Everyone in that culture bargains and negotiates. This means you give up things to get things. That is the Arab way of life. A game is played where victor and vanquished is not part of the game.

Sadr leaves Najaf with his army so that he isn't vanquished. The Iraqi clerics take over the city of Najaf to the delight of the citizens there without being conquerers. Everybody knows Sadr "lost" but nobody is going to say so.

Because that wouldn't be polite.

I think our military leaders are doing a hell of a job. One hell of a job.

So what about?? Torture chambers, rapes, murders, wars, terrorism? What is negotiating about that? It all has to do with the Family+Tribalism of the culture. The history of despots in that part of the world has more to do with "fuck negotiating just do what you're told" by a ruler who can't control every family squabble.

So what about the endless "lying" done by Arabs? "You can't trust them at all."

If I am in a poker game and raise the pot several hundred dollars when I have a pair of dueces am I a liar? What happens if I get "caught"? Why do I bluff in the first place? I bluff because I want you to call my later large bet of similar size; you know that I am doing this; I know you know, and the game goes on. One must "bluff" once in a while or one cannot win. All within the confines of a "game". AND, this is a very important point, the game goes on tomorrow and what happened yesterday doesn't count. But Arabs are like everyone else: what happened yesterday DOES count if one has been humiliated; what happened a thousand years ago does count if one has been shamed.

When I was dealing with an Arab who I had dealt with before I'd frequently ask, "If I really checked into this would I find what you tell me is to my benefit?" The reply might be something like, "I would hope that your research would not disappoint me." Which I always understood to mean, let's start all over. I didn't call him a liar and he didn't get pissed about being caught. It is a part of their game. One must always check every statement and fact. They are always "playing a game" and one must understand the game. It is a culture of people who don't have anything to do with their time other than pray and tend the goats.

This "Iraqi" solution in both Fallujah and Najaf has the inherent problem of festering animosity whenever these kinds of "deals" go down. If Sadr is laughed at or ridiculed he will be back. These kinds of solutions have a tendency to fester for a thousand years. In the Arab world the "game" never ends. Never.

That is also the Iraqi Way.

And the American Game. In America we have adopted the new ethic of continuing conflict too: it's called if I can't win the game I'll win the fight after the game. Meaning political action, courts, and violence. We play the same game now, don't kid yourself. The Left plays it well, the Right thinks politics is a once every two year deal. The Right will learn.

Hitchens now joins the chorus increasingly suspicious of the Chalabli "arrest". This is real and could come back to burn Bush IF we had a real Democratic Party and not a bunch of Left Wing UN butt licking assholes.

The pit bull of all pit bulls Claudia Rosett is now writing for the National Review. She really lays Oil for Food out there and increasingly I draw inferences from what she says that Bush is actively trying to cover it up and that the Chilabi arrest MAY have been part of the coverup. READ IT if you haven't already. The Democrats support the corrupt bastards and only Rosett of all the press is reporting this story. Depresses the shit out of me.

Terrorists on wanted list have the usual MIT type of education. We are dealing with people who are smarter than most of us. Catching up on reading: Daniel Pipes had an old post that spelled out the "types" of terrorists we face within this country HERE which contains such goodies that anybody can enter this country on a waiver for 90 days, which means Shiek Iwanna Keelya can still just walk in. Thanks liberals. Want to get pissed off at another no ammo delivered story? GO HERE. A more positive but still angering piece

Chiarelli, the U.S. officer responsible for greater Baghdad, is among a number of commanders in Iraq who blame the U.S. civilian authority for many of the missteps that have plagued the occupation and turned many Iraqis against U.S. forces.

will be found HERE. Then hit Terpsboy for details of a Lefty calling for the assassination of the president on his radio show. Nobody says anything because he's a Liberal. And Gore, Al Gore??, a flip flopper? GO HERE Last: if you have some time, check out the pathetic comparisons of the foul excuse for a "newspaper" we have in LA with other dailies. Compare front pages of the New York Times (warts and all) and the Washington Post (the best in the countty) with the LA Times. Those of us in LA, the second largest metro area in the U.S., who get our info from the Times know almost nothing about what is going on. Might excuse the stupidity of movie stars, but I doubt it.

McCain Feingold has created the biggest election scam in history as millions of dollars in completely anonymous donations pour into the "527" loophole. You can donate $100,000,000 and remain anonymous. McCain is the biggest jerk off in a Republican party filled with them (as opposed to the Democrats who are full up with assholes). Go HERE for all the gory details. Most of us forget the S&L scandal that McCain was "innocently involved" in. The guy is either a crook or a financial nit wit. Here's just a "taste" of "Honest McCain"

A handful of the crooks—including Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken, and Charles Keating—were imprisoned for their roles in the looting scheme. Briefly, a few members of Congress were spotlighted and slapped on the wrists for their own profiteering and coverup efforts. But the full extent of this criminal looting of America was barely known, and today is largely forgotten. The biggest political beneficiary of the public's amnesia is John McCain. With the exception of Sen. Joseph Lieberman's (D-Conn.) own ties to hedge fund bandit Michael Steinhardt, no American politician is as beholden to organized crime as the senior Senator from Arizona and would-be 2004 "Bull Moose" spoiler candidate for the Presidency.

Go HERE for the whole piece and just do a Google search for the rest. It's about time his free pass from the Hanoi Hilton got cancelled.

10,000 Terrorists ready to strike???

you are scared, sitting in America and Canada. You are scared of a man sitting in the cave. We are not scared of you."

From an old Pipes piece I never finished. Later add Now the number is 14,000. Now where could they have come from? France? No. Russia? No. Not Mexico, gee we have an open border with them that we haven't guarded so (we) can get the illegal alien and "Hispanic" vote. And Canada? 5,000 miles of unguarded border with a country that doesn't like us at all; a country that has harbored Nazi War Criminals and denied it; a country that lets everyone and anyone into the country without any checking? That Canada?

Bush didn't have the guts to deal with it and the Democrats would have destroyed him had he tried. If they are really here, this country committed suicide.

Much much more on Chilabi in today's Journal, a must read. Register and then read it, they do not spam. I have linked here to other people suspicious of this "arrest" and pointed out that Chalabi was sitting on a ton of info about Oil for Food. I don't know. This type of stuff is not worn well by Bush who has sold himself to me as a very open guy. The whole think stinks, go read it.

PROOF of media lies are here This is simply a string of deliberate lies put out by all the LEFT media. But no real surprise, the Washington Post, the best newspaper in the country, did not lie. So if they get it right how come the entire stinking press got it wrong??? Belmont basically does the same thing today but focus is on NY Times, worth the read because even their retractions are not truthful. He does however, blame institutional laziness rather than Left Bias pointing out that the Times ran pieces that contradicted prior articles and didn't seem to know it. I start to get bored with the constant re-knowing that this paper is just DNC propaganda a $3 per pop and $5 on Sunday if you are dumb enough to buy the thing. The Mattis misquote is simply lazy journalists refusing to go to the published source and instead quoting each other. The Mattis misquote is a true horror (see firtst link in post to Iraq Now).

Prison abuse ain't going away any time soon as this tomorrow's NYT piece shows (requires registration). Looks like violent physical and sexual abuse was widespread. The overall command structure so weak that many thought they could do whatever they wanted to do. Most are reserve and National Guard, but at least some regular Army involved too. I think this gets worse, because the Bush hating media want to focus on Bush and not the corrupt UN, our successes in Iraq, or high gas prices caused by no refining capacity. You can depend that they will focus a 100 reporter team on our "war for oil". NYT is also beginning to interview private contractors, no blood yet but the emphasis is on "yet". Late add: you can now link directly from Drudge without registration. I don't know how he does that.

BUSH FINALLY gets it, sort of. He is now personalizing our successes (getting together with those people who lost their hands). Powell is on board doing the same thing. But what the hell took all of them so long?

Belmont emailer account of the "Wedding Party" is a real thought provoker. He and I and everybody who blogs get some email that is really interesting. He could be being used, or this could be the absolute truth. Either way, I hope you read it.

The Long Beach Dirt Bags is the name the girls softball team at Long Beach State college has taken for their own team. The school calls themselves the 49ers; a really original nickname which might explain the girls motivation. Gotta love them Dirt Bags, but they are out of the NCAA tourney, losing to Alabama. I predict lots of ink for this nickname.

Daniel Pipes explains the sex component within the Muslim/Abu Ghraib situation. A lot of you already THINK you know it but this goes a lot deeper.

Revealingly, a traditional Muslim wedding took place between two men – the groom and the bride's guardian.

Interesting. Wow too.

Psssst you who followed my old gold recommendation are now ahead close to $800 per position. I'd be very careful on this one because futures prices are below the cash, meaning that there is a "squeeze" (now changed futures are higher accross the board). Have reasonable stops. I can't comment further. As you know I have been ordered to stop recommending anything, I only comment on the gold because I made the call several months ago BEFORE I was ordered to stop.

The "spin" on Zinni and his accusations of incompetence in the civilian Pentagon is that he is an anti-Semite. Racism is the first refuge of the scoundrel in our society, no matter the race or religion. I don't think it takes a genius to figure that the occupation is a botch job and that our intel from long before 9/11 to now is plain rotten. So that means I hate Jews.

I think all of us are surprised that General Sanchez will take the fall for Abu Ghraib. He is being relieved of command and it looks like he is going to pay. I am honestly surprised because I suspected (without any facts to back it up, but I don't need no stinking facts)that the Army would hang the lowly. Sanchez should have known what was going on. This is going to stay alive until the entire scandal is revealed. I think in the end we will be proud of our Army on this one.

Every time I think Bush fucked up France and Russia step up to prove they are the biggest criminals in the world. We forget that they were making billions off the criminal regime in Iraq. The CIA (or whoever) grabbing the Chalabi files that contained all the info on all the bad guys now means that Bush himself can sit on the oil for food scam for the sole purpose of applying pressure on France, Germany, and Russia, while covering up any involvement by U.S. interests. I think it should be released anyway and our system demands it. I get the feeling that the administration is operating outside the lines. I guess we have to hope that our babe Claudia will let us know because nobody else in media will do it. Just think about that for a second, the entire media is covering up the biggest financial robbery in history. The entire media. Except for the Wall Street Journal, which is not really a newspaper at all. The darling of the Left is the UN and when one of their guys fucks up the Media will be sure that nobody will know if they have anything to do with it. HOWEVER Acepilot links to a (shock, awe) commie NPR archived piece that indicates NPR might be on it at last.

Acepilots dot com has been on top of the oil for food program from the start. Be sure he is one of your stops each week. This is a scary Chilabi moment.

The speech: I thought it was cold. No humanity in it. No enthusiasm for betterment. All he did was mention hospitals and schools and stuff but never got inside them and related to doctors, kids and patients; the real people and how their lives have been improved. The soccer teams, the Olympic soccer team individuals. He could have talked about individual women who have been given opportunites, but he didn't. You can bet your ass that Clinton would have. I wish he had Noonan writing his speeches instead of that dead assed cold bitch Karen Hughes; but bottom line this is the speech he wanted to give. I think we all get that terrorists are, well terrorists. I felt that he was dreaming if he thinks a free Iraq will survive Iranian and Syrian incursions "without more troops on the ground". And I still don't get why we are really there. Just not an inspiring speech when we needed one. And new ideas? This was just a news recap. Maybe middle America liked it. We'll find out, but not from Media or bloggers like me.

One more addendum to my piece on gasoline prices and Saudi supply is that the days of Saudi Light are over. Their oil is so sour that most of the very old U.S. refineries cannot easily refine it. According to data I have, any extra crude put into tankers now will not reach the U.S. ports til August, much to late to affect anything. The problem is refineries and the enviros won't allow them to be built.

Modern tankers are huge, so huge that the crew has to use bicycles to travel from point to point on the deck. Most are roughly four football fields long by 70 yards wide. And they are 25 yards deep and weigh over 500,000 tons. Capacity is about 600,000 barrels of oil weighing another 200,000 tons. These monsters take 14 minutes to emergency stop. Their speed is roughly 12 mph. The roughly 8,000 mile trip from middle east ports to Louisiana ports is around 30 days. It takes several days to unload and several more to arrive at a refinery, and then it will be a couple of more weeks before the refined gasoline is in a gas station. Figure a 60 day best case (no storms at sea or port, no rough seas)Middle East dock to your tank. August 1st from today.

A side purpose of the wildly Left Wing nuts is the destruction of capitalism, and forcing the poor from their cars through higher and higher gasoline prices. There is no way they want more refineries built. They want to cause pain.

Chalabi is going to blamed for all the mistakes of the Iraq Post War whether he is responsible or not. We are going to be asked to believe that this long time crook and liar gave us inside information that we totally believed (both CIA and Joint Chiefs did NOT believe him) then acted upon, and HIS info caused all the trouble. Riiiigghhht, and nobody is responsible for the actions at Abu Ghraib but seven soldiers who had been on duty for only two weeks. "The Road Goes on Forever and the Party Never Ends", great song but not great administration.

While Reynolds of instapundit continues to steal nearly entire columns from writers in newspapers, he really does have a good take of his own up today. I think he got the "word" from the WSJ about his constant stealing of Claudia Rosett and Peggy Noonan columns because he has stopped. Of course this is the same guy who thinks stealing music from the internet so the creators never get paid is a RIGHT. Every time any of us "lift" the major portion of a column from a writer we hurt or wreck that writer's book opportunities based on his/her columns. I guess Steyn or the Chicago Sun Times is too weak to fight. I think a lot of us steal far too much from columnists in order to have something to "blog" about. Reynolds, among other "bloggers", has almost no original thoughts or writing. I find I read him less and less.

Saudis going it alone in pumping more crude. The problem is that most people who do the actual counting of oil barrels say that OPEC has been pumping 1.5 mbd over the quota for the last two months. Be sure you read my post: Futures Prices Effects on Cash Prices. I could have named it "It's Refining Capacity, Stupid" because we haven't built a refinery in this country for thirty years, current refineries are old, and new ones cannot be built while the enviro-nuts are running things. Oil could drop to $27 and I don't think you'll see gasoline drop more than $.25. Lowering prices only fills the warehouse with product, but if you have no trucks to deliver the goods to market nothing will happen. This is really a "demand" driven problem, not a supply problem. We have only as much refinery capacity as a country of 2/3 the population we have today. Thanks again enviro-nuts. Another source for oil pumping over quota is USA Today:

OPEC nations are already producing in excess of 2 million barrels above their quota. Would the Saudi's call amount to a production cut? And even if the call were to raise output, was that possible given the little amount of surplus capacity available?

This ain't no "magic pill".

Black writers cover Cosby with "faint praise". Check out this from the WaPo today. After praising Cosby this jerk goes off on "Gay Marriage" as if somehow the two subjects are linked. Blacks won't face the reality of their immorality ammorality and at this late date may not be able to. 70% of black kids born out of wedlock is more than can be faced by any group. The lack of a father in the home is one of the most serious problems in our society, but nobody in any race wants to deal with it. "Single Moms" are lionized in Media, fathers are cast out of homes by courts and made to pay through a nose they don't have so they vanish, and if you can find a "real" man on a sit com email me and let me know. The only "real" men we see are the dysfunctional males on NYPD Blue and stuff like that, so buried in their work that they never come up for air. Cosby has addressed an issue that is long past a willingness to solve.

I've posted in the past about General Zinni, one of several generals who called for 350,000 troops in Iraq before the war. In case you missed him on 60 Minutes Sunday Night, CBS has posted his remarks. I commented on this stuff early on including Shineski's comments in a post: Fire the Commie cocksucker, he disagrees with us.

WaPo has Washington hooker pic you can blow up to full screen size. (Now "moved" to extreme lower left) All I can say is some old fart must have really been desperate to shell our $400 for a "date" with this one. In LA this babe would be close to SKANK status. For sure a SLUT. "Baywatch" she ain't. But there are guys who need to fuck only whores, and they will create them if none are available. But if this woman can make money with her goods there must be a ton more making a real killing in D.C.

More Cosby: Rosenblog has almost all the speech HERE. Really much more than Jacobs. Take a look, this is a major speech so "embarassing" that nobody prints the entire thing.

Late add re; Chalabi appearances on the morning ghetto news shows both FOX and Russert. So he makes blanket accusations against the CIA, Bush, and the USA and NOBODY, LIKE IN NO-BODEE, in the Bush administration says anything. So all the lefy media spouts nothing but anti-Bush stuff (anti American) all day long while quoting Chalabi. Bush is out to lunch and the country is paying for it. How long do we put up with this incompetence? Another four fucking years? BTW the Iraq war is actually going very well, not that you'd know it from the White House either. In fact we may be in total control for the first time. Can you believe it? I guess the Bushies are too busy to inform the country.

If you want to know why you just have to hate Jews or flunk, just read my post The Cool Communism of the 21st Century. Then read this one about the Muslim infiltration of our university system. These people have infiltrated every campus in the U.S. and they actually teach their hatred of Jews and America inside their clases. You have to come out disliking and mistrusting Jews and answering questions on "tests" that confirm you have learned to hate the fucking kikes. This is the Left in America today. This is Liberals. Nobody has any principals other than winning over "groups" that will put them in power. Jew hating has a long history, as does Catholic hating which is now in vogue too. In fact it looks like hating anyone who believes in God is "the enemy" to the Left. Unless you believe in Allah.

As I said, Brad Pitt is a box office zero and his movies bomb. Latest figures: Saturday It's Shrek $44 mil to Troy's $9 mil (Sunday estimate is 31-6 Shrek) and Shrek has done more in four days than Troy has done in two weeks. Troy's word of mouth about the total "gayness" of the movie is killing it. The supposed "appeal" of the movie was clearly heterosexual; ballsy muscular guys and huge battles, matched with total babes getting fucked to death. As they say fuhgedaboudit. This is a near total fag fest; weakest men you ever saw and near ugly women, and it ain't selling tix in LA or Nebraska. I don't think Petersen will ever get another big movie deal. I guess the total gayness of the studio politics let this thing pass since it was the stockholders money at stake, not theirs; they all take big money in front. BTW Shrek is another "familiy" movie that parents can take our kids to and jointly enjoy the experience, something all parents treasure more than anything else in our lives. We live to make our kids happy more than anything else. So Troy swishes off into BlockBusterville and Shrek will play til July 4th.

Oh m'Gawwdd, Hillary and Chalabi on TV at the same time... and trust me, if you can figure out what either of them really said or didn't say you have to be a mind reader. Two total snakes hissing and sniffing to say the right thing. Hillary is a total patriot only interested in the welfare of our "brave men and women in uniform", Chalabi a patriot who has only had the best interests of the U.S. at heart. He was very careful to say he had passed no "classified" information to Iran; he is not accused of passing "classified" info. He is accused of passing phone numbers, names and addresses, and personal data of Iraqi citizens to Iran. He is accused of passing false info to us regarding WMDs in Iraq. With Hillary you have to compare what she said six months ago to what she said now. I leave that to others more qualified who have access to Nexus. One thing she and her Republican co-hort are agreed upon is that Reserves and National Guard receive Military medical benefits. What neither said is that the VA is like a death sentence in many VA hospitals around the country.

After you have read Belmont account of the Wedding Party attack, ask yourself this: How stupid is Bush? How stupid do you have to be after a year of conflict in which the world press lies and lies and lies and still not have a total PR unit in place to televise our POV? When the full story of this war is writ, the failure to plan from top to bottom will be obvious. Like I've been saying, if there was somebody else to vote for........

How come a Right Wing guy says this? Any "winged guy" who wants to tell the truth will say this. BTW go to Simon today for a very good email from one of his readers. Part of it

60 percent of Iraqis have never met an American G.I. and so have largely formed their opinions about us from Al-Jazeera; that soldiers universally report expressions of goodwill and thanks from the Iraqi people; that a poison gas attack plot involving material sourced in Syria that could have killed 80,000 people was foiled in Jordan. Etc.

The entire administration is responsible for this shit.

Got a ton of emails regarding my remarks about Alexandra Kerry not being my SLUT OF THE MONTH. So let us define our terms regarding the sexual appeal of certain women, or lack thereof:

Prick teaser----a total babe who gets you hot and then leaves you with your dick hard. They all put out after the second black eye...

Slut---will put out to almost anybody who buys her a Big Mac with fries and a diet coke.

Punchboard---uglier than a slut and you may have to put a bag over her face before you fuck her...but you don't have to feed her. A cheap "date".

Skank---a woman so sexless and unattractive only an Arab would want to fuck her

pig---a fat skank not even an Arab would fuck

cunt---a slut or punchboard who tells your wife or girl friend on you

So Alexandra Kerry is obviously my SKANK OF THE MONTH.

WaPo is detailing a "chain of command" approval of the actions at Abu Grahib (may require registration). Just as a guy who has been around, I cannot imagine this stuff happening by itself. The post names names and has interviews with lawyers in the case as well as a tape rercording of other statements. Karpinski offers this:

"I didn't know then what [Sanchez] probably knew, which was that this was something clearly in the MI, maybe that he endorsed, and he was already starting a campaign to stay out of the fray and blame the 800th," Karpinski said. "I think the MI people were in this all the way. I think they were up to their ears in it. . . . I don't believe that the MPs, two weeks onto the job, would have been such willing participants, even with instructions, unless someone had told them it was all okay."

Makes sense. There is another female involved now, a Captain Woods; I still say the sexual content (It's all about sex..and violence) of this thing is too obvious to be ignored. Two weeks on the job? I hadn't realized that. They also implicate Sanchez who was visiting the prison constantly. Take a look.

Moore "crockumentary" wins at Cans I'm sure this is a great movie.

People are saying that the only way we will know what is going on in Iraq is to read the emails from the troops. CPT Patty has a good one.

The role of speculation in the prices of commodities: We focus on the obvious high prices of oil and gasoline right now. I've traded commodities for roughly twenty years. I was there for the Hunt attempted cornering of both the soybean and silver markets, saw gold explode to $850 an ounce, coffee to $2 and so on.

The gold explosion was caused mostly by speculator inexperience with markets; they had been denied gold for almost fifty years and didn't have a clue. The Hunts were fucked by the futures exchanges. One day the exchanges refused to accept any orders other than sell orders and the market collapsed. Lesson: you try to fuck with the guys who have real money in the futures markets who are members of the exchanges they will destroy you. There was no real imbalance in supply demand for either metal and that is why it was so crazy.

So what can speculators "do" to a market. When supply and demand are roughly in balance speculation can cause a move of as much as 15% for a very short period of time. Major futures losses for those holding "long" positions occur when an extra shipment of oil shows up that can't be unloaded at $40 unloads at $39. Longs will bail like crazy. Prices initially fall because tankers full of oil can't just sit around costing money; crews, insurance, failure to generate income by lying in harbor so the tanker owners order sales. Other ships backed up have to similarly lower prices until such time as there are no tankers backed up at the ports. Futures speculators suddenly go "short" (sell futures contracts)and the market starts lower.

Minor speculators move markets up or down on weather fears, communist fears, and so on but you won't see a market move AND STAY at either extremes of high and low prices for very long on pure speculation.

Speculators have been able to force oil and gas futures markets to current highs based on real lack of supply. There is not enough oil to meet demand. There is not sufficient refinery capacity in the U.S. to do much with expanded supply (thanx enviro-nuts) even if we got it. Oil prices will actually fall once it is determined that supply has actually caught up with demand. BUT GASOLINE PRICES WILL NOT COME DOWN This is complicated by the fifty or so different "blends" required by our enviro-nazi pressure groups and supplicant legislators. It is possible that oil companies may just tell California to fuck off while they supply the rest of the country; it is possible that states with fewer environmental restrictions will get unlimited supplies of gasoline til the refiners can find room to fill other demand. Don't look for falling crude prices to immediately relieve gasoline prices at the pump. WE DON'T HAVE THE REFINING CAPACITY. What will happen, and started happening this week, is that the long speculators in the futures market will "unwind" positions.

Here's something most people not in the business don't know. Producers of product; corn, wheat, oil, are almost always "short" the futures; they sell their product before they actually have it harvested or produced; farmers may actually sell a crop before it is planted. That is the function of futures markets; they reduce risk. This means that the "high futures price" is already locked in for the producers. They sold oil back in February at the May "futures price" for $38 a barrel and even if the cash goes to $30 they will still get the $38 because they already have the money from the futures sale in their cash registers. So even if cash drops to $30 they still make money because they already pocketed the $38 from their futures sale. The specs who "unwound" their long positions "switch" and go short (sell in the futures) and drive prices lower very very fast. The "bounce" off the low is caused by too much selling.

So I'd say that specs have no long term affect on markets and next to none in oil prices now. I think you are about to see a quick collapse to the low $30 range begin as soon as next week. This will be real because there is no way that small economies can stay afloat with $40 oil. See my post on the effects of quick price moves on the American economy and imagine what this does to a country in Asia like Thailand or a country like Brazil or Chile. A move of sixty eight cents per gallon of gas on an economy where people earn $50 per week is death. Nobody in the Arab states is that stupid. One OPEC country, Venezuela, would like to destroy every capitalist economy but they won't count for much with the Arabs.

Pssst: gold is at $386, you are up $300 per contract

Chilabi, crook or saint? We won't know for a while but for sure he was sitting on a keg of dynamite in the oil for food program, and a lot of us think Bush is moving heaven and earth to cover it up. The Media is certainly trying to cover it up. I look for the main diarist for the scandal, Claudia Rosett of the Wall Street Journal, to be gang raped by the CIA posing as Democrats and her near naked body to be tossed into a garbage fill in New Jersey.

Chilabi was also sitting on a literal ton of personal info on everybody, which considering his background could have been used to pressure or blackmail people. Be sure you read WND link.

It could also be that he is a good guy being railroaded. All we can do is try to become informed. Belmont has a take that is interesting. This is one of those times that anything and everything we read or see on TV is tainted by agenda driven anonymous leaks. If Kerry only had balls he'd be all over this one and destroying Bush, but the UN is the most sacred of the Left's sacred cows. "Total crooks, but they are our crooks" covers it.

Why didn't they just say "no"? I was an enlisted man. When you say "no" in the service you can be shipped to Alaska in your underwear in 12 hours; find yourself the only human on an island outpost; or be sent to a hell hole like Panama, which may not be hell but you can see it very clearly from there. An enlisted man can face phony charges(Link to what happened to a sergeant who "ratted" this week), be dishonorably discharged (death to employment future), be confined to base or quarters for months, fined pay AND allowances, and end your promotional future. Unless you are told you can disobey what you consider to be an unlawful order, and those unlawful orders are spelled out to you, saying "no" is not something any enlisted man is likely to do. Particularly immature and untrained enlisted men.

Some of the guys are older, not teens, and many of them saw the "wrong" in what was going on and took their complaints to command level. But it takes a level of maturity and time in service to know what you can safely do. The Abu Grahib T-1 situation was clearly a command failure because nobody felt they could come forward. The charges will examine if butt fucking prisoners with dicks and night sticks weren't obviously illegal orders. Similarly if beating hooded prisoners with fists was a lawful order. I think this will be what the case ultimately comes down to. Were you actually ordered to butt fuck or beat prisoners? What do you think would have happened to you had you refused?

A courts martial is a set up for a trip to a bad place. You really need to know your way around on that one. Since a couple of sergeants have already plead guilty we can figure these long time enlistees knew all their rights and were "flipped" by the Army. You always need a good lawyer, and one who has the balls to stand up to generals and admirals sitting as jury. I was stationed at an overseas location where a Navy hating Marine captain we all called "Captain Blood" took every Navy courts martial case he could and beat most of them. The Navy hated him and he hated the Navy but since the people sitting in judgement there were also Navy you know that the guy could bring facts and testimony into a case like nobody else.

I was once stationed in a "forward" area. Nobody could pull overnight passes without a special signed card by our commanding officer. I forged our commanding officer's signature every afternoon on passes; signatures that were absolutely perfect. The guy knew what was happening but couldn't stop it. To make a long story short I was brought up on charges of black marketing laundry stolen from a laundry (something so dumb I can't tell you; like I'm carrying ten pounds of laundry out the main gate every night). The mere mention of Captain Blood's name ended everything. When they tried to bring me up to commanding officer discipline I demanded a courts martial again and everything vanished. However, since the actions against me were obviously aimed at my expertise at forging the commanding officer's signature, I did reduce my forgery volume in order to stay out of the stockade. So one could say "mission accomplished" so far as brass was concerned.

The UCMJ is not a civilian court. The Military knows everything about everybody from personnel records before the "trial" begins. Any outside "expert testimony" or civilian witnesses are completely vetted by the court before anybody can testify. This makes the proceeding very brief compared to civilian courts. "Captain Blood" was very good at disproving the accuracy of personnel files. The disproving always meant that the other officers who allowed the inaccurate reports to enter a personnel file would become involved to the detriment of their own fitness reports and future promotion prospects. The UCMJ has now been the law for more than fifty years and the kinks have been removed, it is highly unlikely that inaccurate personnel folders can be brought in or that someone will commit perjury. Lawyer "tricks" cannot happen. You won't see an OJ case in the Military. You have to fight a case on the facts, not temporary insanity or some such shit. It is now very very tough to beat a courts martial. Will these proceedings allow the "following orders" defense? We will see. When everybody says that the enlisted ranks were untrained, these lawyers will bring up the facts that none of them were told the differences between lawful and unlawful orders and what they could do when given an unlawful order. Might or might not work.

Add here: article 134 is a blanket charge of things that make the army/navy look bad. It is an almost impossible charge to beat. It's going to boil down to orders and following same.

I'm not much of a World Net Daily fan because I disagree with their up front Christian politics, but they do a great job on some news stories. They had the prison scandal long before anyone else, and did a much better job. You can go there now and see their posting history. Lots of stuff about the backgound and history of the "abuse". Better than the WaPo sensationalism. They also have a completely different take on Chalabi WITH SOURCES NAMED (have they gone journalistically mad?). Read it today.

Quick point about OPEC pumping 2 million barrels per day "more". They have been pumping 1.5 million per day OVER the announced quota for 2 months and it hasn't helped.

With the exceptions of World Net Daily and FOX, Bill Cosby's speech to the NAACP has received no media coverage at all. Speaking there he told them the truth about the lower class blacks and their refusal to care for their kids. His speech has been met with the rationalization that has caused Black poverty. I've had two occasions of contact with him. I'll tell you this: he has risked his own show for Black employment in the entertainment "business" and has contibuted millions to help Blacks.

When I was a young writer I had an interview with Cosby's head writer Ed Weinberger. I approached the barracks where the Cosby Show was located and I noted at least 15 hostile looking black males lounging on the grass in front of the entrance. When I went inside to Weinberger's office I found him in a bare space with a cot and a desk for writing. Ed apologized to me and explained that "Bill" was trying to give inner city Blacks a chance to write for his show and he was rewriting the worst shit he ever saw so that it could get on the air. Cosby kept his word to these young guys but as these "scripts" began to air his ratings dropped and dropped and dropped. He nearly lost his show trying to help a bunch of no talent assholes. But he risked his future for them. He put it on the line.

Later on when I was doing a part time job selling ad space the companion paper in our office was a fake Black paper that had zero distribution but solicited ads from Blacks who had money, and guilty whites. One of the Black guys "had that asshole Cosby" on his list any time he needed a paycheck. Needing one he called Cosby and "sold" him a $5,000 ad. I was so pissed that I called his office later in the day and his secretary told me that Bill knew what was going on but would always help a Black business.

So when he makes a major speech he means it and he risked plenty to make it. Bill Cosby stood up. No main media reported it. Most of it appears on Joanne Jacobs blog. To think the speech is controversial among Blacks says it all. But as they say "if a Black kid misses school and nobody pays attention, did he miss school at all?"

Alexandra Kerry is NOT my "Slut of the Month" because she is far too ugly. She is only a Slut of the Month wannabe. Angelina Jolie will be the winner every month til she runs out of gas. You can bet that the picture at Cannes will be on every Republican ad. Jesus, what a fucking dope.

The LA Times and their superior journalistic integrity doesn't have a word on the front page about the story below. Scooped by the NYT and WaPo. What interests them seems to be an environmental "scandal", raiding Chalabi's home (isn't that yesterday's story?), and cheating teachers. I guess they're waiting til a Dunesbury cartoon confirms. Oil for Food? Fuhgedaboudit. Not only is Bush covering it up, the press is helping them. This is THE BIGGEST financial scandal of modern times, and nobody, except FOX, is reporting it. BTW the Chalabi arrest has nothing to do with Oil for Food. He was a spy for Iran. Gee who wudda thunk it? Not Bush. Not Powell. Not Cheney.

Go to Mr. duToit after reading this and you'll feel a lot better, or maybe even worse.Read this from the WaPo (Link via Drudge) and tell me we have any chance in either Iraq or the Middle East. This is worse than any of us ever imagined. Homosexual rape, masturbation, beatings, and

"They forced us to walk like dogs on our hands and knees," said Hiadar Sabar Abed Miktub al-Aboodi, detainee No. 13077. "We had to bark like a dog, and if we didn't do that they started hitting us hard on our face and chest with no mercy. After that, they took us to our cells, took the mattresses out and dropped water on the floor and they made us sleep on our stomachs on the floor with the bags on our head and they took pictures of everything."

What Rush is calling "hazing". I don't see how we can "overcome" this

One day, the detainee said, American soldiers held him down and spread his legs as another soldier prepared to pull down his zipper. "I started screaming," he said. A soldier stepped on his head, he said, and someone broke a phosphoric light and spilled the chemicals on him.

"I was glowing and they were laughing" he said.

The detainee said the soldiers eventually brought him to a room and sodomized him with a nightstick. "They were taking pictures of me during all these instances," he told the investigators.

Remember this will be ALL OVER the Arab World. When we leave they will burn down the schools we built, burn the books we donated to their schools, and purify themselves from us. I'll close with this, but the entire story is worse if you choose to go there. A prisoner describes being tied to a bed. Then a soldier asked him:

"Do you believe in anything?" he said the soldier asked. "I said to him, 'I believe in Allah.' So he said, "But I believe in torture and I will torture you.' "

What the fuck would YOU think if Iraq was your country? The NY Times adds a smear story that doesn't hold up because nothing really happened. ANOTHER article does hold up and it reveals memoranda on how to handle prisoners to avoid the problem of war crimes which says in part

The confidential memorandums, several of which were written or co-written by John C. Yoo, a University of California law professor who was serving in the department, provided arguments to keep United States officials from being charged with war crimes for the way prisoners were detained and interrogated. They were endorsed by top lawyers in the White House, the Pentagon and the vice president's office but drew dissents from the State Department.

The NY Times is a PG-13 version of the WaPo but has an added implication that the guys getting court martialed are just the ones in the pictures; the real pople are still to be had. This is very sad reading for me. Very depressing. So many of our guys have died. And for this? It ain't hazing folks.

More on Gas prices I had an exchange of views with Kim duToit which got me to thinking. My background always leads me to track longer term trends. However, when we are dealing with the sudden rise in the price of gasoline, a longer term trend is bullshit. The effect is short term. This price spike has taken place over a few months. Inflation, CPI adjustments, and the costs of taxes or additives mean nothing. Gasoline cost about $1.65 four months ago (CA). Today it is $2.33. This $.68 price rise (41%) means every one of us has been nailed with a huge hit. 20 gallons is costing us $13.60 out of pocket in real dollars. Most of you use close to 30 gallons per week. That's $20 worth of something that you cannot buy. What is $20 times 60 million cars? $1.2 billion a week of purchasing power is down the tubes. Fuck inflation. This is a serious economic blow.

Chalabi: more proof of the incompetence of the Bush "team" This guy was a major international criminal and a known double dealer who should have been turned over to Jordan. Instead, the genius types in D.C. made him head of Iraq. He is and was slime. (Read about him here) More and more we see the appointments Bush has made as part of the same cloth: Minetta, Tennet, etc. How can we vote for this guy? How can you possibly appoint a crook from MIT and the University of Chicago to anything? Bush can, and did (never mind saying that "the neo-cons did it"). The CIA and the Joint Chiefs fought him tooth and nail. Bush is also covering up the Oil for Food. He is covering up the Marc Rich pardon investigation. He is no good. Face it! Would what's his name be better? That is the only question facing us.

If you want to see how the "Honest Journalism" of the LATimes works on the Wedding Story go HERE. If registration is required, do not do it. A condition of registering is to accept their fucking spamming.

Almost everybody has "outed" the (boo hoo) wedding party slaughter by our awful troops except the media. Go HERE for one of them. And while you're there, read this too. Our White House is pathetically bad at telling our story. They have to tell it because nobody in the press will. As usual, Belmont not only has the best coverage, he explains the whys.

On May 20, 2004 at 09:30 Zulu, after the last entry in the table above, the International Committee of the Red Cross "condemned Thursday an 'excessive' use of force by the US military." The story went on to say that "US troops faced further embarrassment amid claims they killed dozens of people at a wedding celebration in a remote western Iraqi town, at a time when the occupation forces are already reeling from a prison abuse scandal." A reaction based on old news had taken twelve hours to work its way through the Red Cross and emerged to spawn further accusations on its own power.

Be sure to go there if nowhere else. Just a great job.

Noonan has a piece about a "swing voter" who lives in a $250,000 apartment in New York. I had my hair cut yesterday and the guys in my "salon" had plenty to say too.

Fuck those Iraqis, they should have killed the cocksuckers in the prison, they put our soldiers jail and leave the fucking cocksuckers go.

I have no idea if these are "swing voters" or not. But at this particular place and time the guys said exactly that. I live in a Left Left Left area so I doubt if my co-clipperees represent the area, but there you are. Kim duToit has a piece about a neighborhood building a monument to a slain mountain lion that disgustingly represents California. BTW he has quite a few good things up today.

Can Bush survive the all out media assault? Books, movies, TV, the "News Media" are all on board and throwing bombs. We've never seen a media attack like this, I think you have to go back to Lincoln to see the equal. Lincoln, unlike Bush, was a political infighter of no equal. Lincoln could brawl with anyone (and frequently did take on challengers while campaigning), bribe the newspapers, and get down and do what it takes. I don't think Bush has the stomach for it. We will see. Disney/Miramax/DNC/Soros is launching an assault in all media. They know how.

To the "victims" families of the 9/11 terror attack let me be perfectly clear:

FUCK YOU. SHUT THE FUCK UP

YOU HAVE BEEN PAID MILLIONS FROM MY POCKETS AND ALL YOU DO IS YELL FOR MORE. Gimme gimme gimme, blame blame blame, you owe me you owe me you owe me.

Yelling at Giuliani yesterday made me want to puke. Firemen get killed sometimes. That is their fucking job. The terror attack is revealing the "blame somebody welfare state" mentality that is gripping this country.

FUCK YOU New York, FUCK YOU.

I published a post on May 5 titled Gasoline prices vs inflation that you might want to re-read as the current bullshit comes down. As I've mentioned many times, I get proprietary information due to my professional status. There is a private study now available from the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank (OIL country)that says if we adjust for inflation, crude prices would have to rise to $75-$80 per barrel (twice the current price)to get where we were in 1981, and gasoline prices to $3.50 per gallon. So oil and gasoline prices are not devastatingly high by historical standards. The flaw in this statement is that they are using the highest prices ever as a reference point, so this is clearly bullshit.

This "study" also points out that half our oil comes from domestic production. These are all old fields. All costs for this oil are in. So the lifting price per barrel is around $5? $10? Whatever, the oil companies are selling the domestic oil at the world price of $40. Wonder how they report record profits?

Further, the study then concludes from 1. a false premise and 2. From a report of profiteering by U.S. companies; that it's no biggie, it will only affect the economy by .5%. Keep in mind they are using 1981 record high prices to draw this "conclusion".

I can't tell you how glad I am to get all this "inside" information and studies by professionals. I always keep in mind that one of the worst market losses ever was engineered by a company called Long Term Capital Management that had two Nobel Prize winners on its board; Myron Scholes and Robert Merton, who had been awarded the Nobel prize for economics in 1997 for their work on derivatives, and a dazzling array of professors of finance, young doctors of mathematics and physics and other "rocket scientists" capable of inventing extremely complex, daring and profitable financial schemes. The company collapsed in a maze of mis-management, crazy schemes, and outright fraud.

Never trust intellectuals with anything more important than a grocery list; at least you can take their mistakes back to the store and get your money back.

They opened the door marked "Good" and stepped in. The Devil always lies.
My POV on the prisoner abuse is that it is mostly about sex, stupid.

Think about it for a moment. Most violence is sexual. It's exciting. There is dominance. There is victimology. Check the porno stuff. Tons and tons of rapes, Bondage and "Discipline", and S&M. It looks like we turned loose a band of sexual predators that were always outside of the mainstream of America on the prisoners at Abu Ghraib. That may be true in that these were people who could not control their baser instincts, but how far out of the "mainstream" are they? Almost all the "abuse" had a sexual content. Sexual humiliation works on the humiliator as well as the target. How do you feel after forcing a man to walk around in women's panties? This is sexually incendiary stuff, especially for untrained reserve soldiers. I submit to you that sexually manipulating the weakness of others becomes a sexual explosion within the completely untrained manipulator. They did not know the pathology of what they were doing and their emotional selves launched into an uncharted territory they knew nothing about. I'm not saying that these people thought this stuff up by themselves. I think that this is so "weird" that somebody somewhere got them to start it, but once started they just got crazier and crazier.

The Arab/Muslim abuses plainly occur within their mainstream. Sharia Law requires it. Sexual content? In a book called "Eastward to Tartary" (one of the must reads to understand the area) Kaplan points out that young unmarried men who cannot have sex outside of marriage act out their manhood in violence toward strangers. The violence of Sharia Law IS sex.

I point out here that there is sexual content to almost all "pointless" violence. We have all grown up with guys who got their rocks off kicking the shit out of people. I was in the Navy with a tough little bastard from NoCal who couldn't have a successful liberty unless he got into a fight with somebody who beat HIM up. I never heard of him with the local whores. I think I only won three fights in my life, but winning was better than sex; in fact it was sex in many ways. The feeling of exhilaration after "winning" a fight has few equals. I can imagine these "guards" feeling the same way after kicking the crap out of some Iraqis. And wanting more.

The inclusion of women in these prison abuses adds to the sexual content. O'Reilley did a piece on sex in the Military last night that at last turns our imagination into reality. One woman said her commanding officer hit on her while they shared a fox hole. You cannot turn young men and young women into celibates. The Army ain't the priesthood. "You can smell the testosterone in the co-ed barracks", said one woman. And you can see it in the pictures of Abu Ghraib.

How much of this abuse was sexual posturing to please the women? How much of the female participation was sex? If you look at excessive violence as sex you get much closer to the truth of Abu Ghraib. And much closer to America and our loose sexual morals. I doubt that this is an aberration in our culture. If we turn young men and women loose to do what they please to a victim group they "get off". And they want more. And more.

The Left has trapped Kerry into taking stands that prevent him from attacking Bush in every area Bush is really weak. Just think of JFK, LBJ, or even Walter Mondale allowing Bush to participate in the cover-up of the UN oil for food, do you think for one moment that the recent sellout over judges would just slide by without Mondale commenting on the weakness of Bush?, Don't you think JFK would DEMAND the entire philosophy behind the Iraq War? Would any Democrat allow the existence of the shoddy bureaucracy composed of Minetta, the FBI, CIA (how can Tennet still be there?), the DOE complete with the scandal at Los Alamos, the endless scandals on Wall Street not addressed til media finally paid attention, the huge deficit, the failure to pursue the "No Child etc.", the open (Welcome Terrorist Friends) borders with Canada and Mexico, the fact that Humvees have no armor, the GIs have no armor, etc. etc. etc.

I swear to God, were I running I'd name the names of the GIs killed in naked Humvees at every stop. But how can a guy who needs to oppose the military do that? So GIs will continue to die in naked Humvees.

The Left has Kerry in a box and unless he has the guts to break out of the box he is toast. There is speculation that Nader is moving up on the extreme Left. If this is true then Kerry could turn hard right, and hard right is where Bush is weakest.

I'm a big fan of Belmont, as you all know. But his Magnolias on the Euphrates series is really silly. There cannot be a similarity between our Civil War and Iraq or the Revolution and Iraq. Why? Religion, language, and culture. You better know the culture before you mess with post war settlements and things. Iraqis do not think like Southerners in the Civil War or Brits in the Revolution. We can take analogies way too far and this one is moonbeam stuff.

Markets Profits flush away Iraq, India, China, and sex weak EU. Watch for a big day on Wall and Broad today as some big big profits hit the street. All markets recovered when India announced that neither the Communists nor Ghandi would be in the government. BUT it ain't over til it's over and there is pressure inside the party to make her PM anyway. The collapse in gold to below $380 is significant. Months and months ago I recommended a buy stop at $383. If you executed it you will make money, you are only down $700 and you can afford a hit of $1200.

Bush's silence about the war has pissed me off for almost a year. He says zippo and I think he should be talking to us at least a couple of times per week. Sullivan has a good paragraph today before going on another gay rant.

Awesome Hubble stuff produced to be an experience. Has music and shit. You must have fast download. Go HERE

Crank up the volume.

It aint the Middle Easterners at the airports it's the Euro Trash we have to watch. Daniel Pipes tells it like it is today in the New York Sun.

In case you need more proof about Congressional hypocrisy regarding Iraq, go here to the Journal editorial today.

Looks like Asia has shaken off the stock crash in India, Nikkei up 200 overnight and European markets up slightly too. Probably means that all foreign money got out and that India doesn't have much money in the U.S. market (their growth was so huge that everyone figured they could make more money at home). Ghandi will not take the PM post and the Communists won't join the government. However the damage may have been done to a success story. Our markets are on the edge. This prison story keeps finding new legs. The Hersh story in The New Yorker is being vetted, his past agenda supporting Left causes is being "examined", but if is story of the involvement of higher ups is true it is bad news for Bush.

Brad Pitt is the latest in a string of phony stars. Dispite the bullshit his movies do not make money. Marilyn Monroe never had a movie make money. Susan Sarandon has had nothing but flops. So how come they are stars??? How come they get outlandish pay? Who the fuck knows. These Lefty Hollywood execs pay their own. Troy has almost NO CHANCE of breaking even until Blockbuster has the disc. I know of only one person who "loved it", everybody else thinks it stinks. The potential weekend gross per number of seats and number of theaters was $230 mil; it did $46 mil. Probably headed for a $20 mil second weekend. $200 million to produce and market generally means it has to do $400 million to break even.

Bye bye Brad. Hope your wife keeps working.

Crude prices can fool you. There are literally a hundred different grades of crude oil sold around the world. The quotes we see are for "light" crude; West Texas Intermediate or Dubai "Light"; this means extremely low sulphur content and very easy to "refine" into various fuels. Most of the crude sold is of the "heavy" ("sour") variety. Some, like the shit coming from Venezuela and Indonesia, is so "sulphur heavy" that special refining techniques have to be used. The oil OPEC is now pricing on the market is the "light" which even they are running out of. Saudi crude is now classified as "heavy". What is the true price? Hard to figure. Go HERE for a brief breakdown of the traded grades. The "OPEC" basket of crudes are: Saudi Arabia's Arab Light
The United Arab Emirates's Dubai
Nigeria's Bonny Light
Algeria's Saharan Blend
Indonesia's Minas
Venezuela's Tia Juana Light (their spelling)
and Mexico's Isthmus.

Here is a partial list of traded crudes:
High Sulphur Grades Low Sulphur Grades
Crude Country of Origin Crude Country of Origin
Suez Mix Egypt Qua Iboe Nigeria
Ziet Bay Egypt Bonny Lt. Nigeria
Basrah Lt. Iraq Escravos Nigeria
Umm Shaif Abu Dhabi Brent Blend UK
Murban Abu Dhabi Palanca Angola
Arab Heavy:Arab Light (80:20) Saudi Arabia Nemba Angola
Arab Lt. Saudi Arabia Cabinda Angola
Arab Medium Saudi Arabia Soyo Angola
Masila North Yemen
Kuwait Kuwait
Dubai UAE
Upper Zakum UAE

Confusing enough?

Sanity may be rearing its ugly head in the Prison "scandal" This link to Opinion Journal editorial requires registration, a good and accurate read. I don't reprint entire pieces from anybody because I respect their right of authorship but here is one sentence to whet your whistle:

If there's a silver lining to the 24/7 coverage over Abu Ghraib, it is that we are slowly learning that these abuses were in fact the fault of a few undisciplined, poorly led soldiers. The accusation that the practices were part of the "system," or resulted from Army or Pentagon rules, is also being exposed as a political slur

Of course the "slurers" will never take anything back but it is up to us to stay informed. Reminder: FOX, the so called right wing spin machine, is just as bad as the rest.

Again, if you haven't read this from Iraq the Model, do it

Baseball is so good now you cannot compare it to earlier eras. Saw a game from field level between first and home. You get to see 90% of the infield plays from there and I guarantee you that you have never ever seen play like this. If you are over 45 and haven't been to a game for 10 years or more you will shit your pants. Throws from third to first, a distance of 60 yards, take less than a second FOR EVERYBODY. Plays considered impossible in the 60s, such as a second baseman running away from first on the dead run and fielding a ground ball, THEN throwing to first to make an out are routine; a full 180 degree turn on a dime while on the dead run and throwing; everybody does it now. They say Bonds is trying for a .400 season. He may get it because he hits line drives to the outfield but those guys make "impossible" plays routine too.

India stock market collapses as I warned last week (Under the Radar). The election in India can have serious reprecussions in all markets. Ghandi, as I said, is an economy wrecker and she was elected by the envious of success crowd.

A record plunge in Indian stock markets on Monday left investors stunned and sent brokers to the streets to protest against Sonia Gandhi's Congress party, which is set to form a new government with communist support.

"There is blood on the street. People are just queueing up to sell," said Arun Kejriwal, director at research firm KRIS.

Be sure you link to the Forbes page above. This is very serious and the communists will make things as bad as they can.

Bad for us? Depends on how much Indian money is in our markets and in the European markets. Every crash in history was made worse by "patriotic money" fleeing foreign markets to rescue their investments at home. India was on the verge of being a major success story and it may be all over now. Oil prices could destroy struggling economies world wide. Watch for oil prices to plummet because a failing world economy will destroy OPEC too. Late add (9:40AM EDT) Dow down 100, S&P down 12. Could get worse because the technicals don't have major support til about 9600+ Dow. This from CBS Market Watch (best source for NOW news)

"We classify many emerging markets as being between a rock and a hard place of the slowdown in China and rising U.S. interest rates," said Joe Quinlan, Banc of America Capital Management's chief strategist. He's advising investors take profits on emerging markets, which saw "outsized gains" in 2003.

Nikkei is also being routed, at a three month low at close last night.

Terrorism in Iraq is widespread targeting anyone who assists the U.S. by killing them inside their own homes. In addition, the Italians were routed from a stronghold (Italians are the worst soldiers in the world, worse than the French) as were the Portuguese. These kinds of troops were always the soft underbelly of NATO; gutless, ill trained, badly led, and not really ready to do anything. In fact NATO was never more than the U.S. and Turkey. Now we have the proof.

Old Jokes: Q: What are the three shortest books in the world?
A. Black Nobel Prize Science Winners, Great Eskimo song writers, and Italian War Heroes.

Q: Why are the roads to Paris lined with trees?
A: So the German army could march in the shade.

Name one war Germany ever won.

I am one of the many bloggers who suspect that the writers on Iraq the Model might be CIA plants. I will also confess that they are talented writers and use writer's devices and this stands in contrast to the "real" blogs coming from Iraq. Let's suppose they are real. Worth reading, and suspecting. Point is, that if they are right, and the lack of TV coverage for anything more than ten miles away from downtown Baghdad or the latest violent outbreak could very well shape our opinion, Iraq is on the right track. Read it every day. It can't hurt you.

Zogby has said the election is Kerry's to lose. Rasmussen disagrees and has some good couterpoint.

"Oh my God Allah. We are doomed. The Americans are signing petitions against us."I honestly think this is another eliteist bullshit feel good let's advertise in the New York Times so we don't REALLY have to do anything move. But if you want to sign on to the "Standup to Iran but not if Anybody is Going to get Hurt" petition online go HERE. I guess this is for gutless conservatives instead of chickenshit liberals. I'm sure all the usual suspects are shaking in their boots. Strictly artists standing up for what they believe in but not really risking anything pose so the gutless dopes can tell their kids they stood up for what is right laid down and faked it when things got tough. To paraphrase Patton: "When they asked you what you did in the Great War daddy, you can tell them I signed petitions on line while hiding in my apartment."

Went to a baseball game last night at Dodger Stadium. Naturally I associated with an entirely different set of people than I "normally" do. Had field seats between first base and home plate ten rows back. Great view of the game and the really incredible play of infielders in baseball today. It's really hard to get a ground ball through. There is no way that baseball isn't twice as good as in the good old daze. On a night when 18,000 were at a Laker playoff game, the Dodgers had 48,000 and two concerts in large venues were sold out too.

The people around me at the game offered the general observation that they are maxed out with the coverage of the Iraq prisons. Didn't care that much about the "so-called abuse" and felt that "our guys" were being shit on.

Interesting. Let's see if the polls show it too.

"The worst thing about dying is that it starts out a normal day. Then it's all over." There is some really terrific stuff over at Love in War. Well worth the read.

In response to many emails commenting on my pieceabout the movie Troy and telling me about the "mistakes". These mistakes have to do with "leaving out things and changing things" about the original story.

These observations are totally invalid. "Talent" in the arts has everything do with the choices made by the artist(s). Picasso's "choices" were his talent, as were Mark Twain's, and every other artist you can think of. Many times the choices are intuitive. Sometimes they are thought out. In rare cases like Marlon Brando his choices are thrust upon him; the just come without effort; they just happen. Jazz improvisation is like that.

Wolfgang Peterson made choices. That's his talent, or lack of talent. If we go to a movie demanding to see the exact replica of our experiences, we will not like much.

Bad choices=bad art.

In 1996 in Ben-Talha, a suburb of the capital Algiers, Momo cut off a record 86 heads in one night, including the heads of more than a dozen children.

In recognition of his exemplary act of piety, the GIA sent him to Mecca for pilgrimage...

From CPT PATTY AKA The Sweetest Woman in the World Goes to Baghdad. A detailing of the beheading practice in the Muslim World.

Looking for an appropriate place to donate "something" to troops in Iraq or hospitals? Go here for lots of different things.

From Merde in France. Drop by and catch up.

For the French: 'Terrorists on leashes' = 'war crimes'
'American beheaded' = 'permanent improvement'

They love us over there.

Roger L Simon, who like most "professional" writers never uses ten words when five hundred words can say it just as well, has about 5,000 words speculating that the Administration and a mysterious Arab Netword are "sitting" on tapes of Saddam's henchmen horribly torturing prisoners as well as others showing the gassing and maiming Kurds.

#1. Right. In a world of leaks nobody has leaked them.

#2 Ho ho, the secret tapes will somehow "change" things

#3. There is not one substantiating source.

I assume the tapes will be released right after the revelation that the WMDs were found six months ago, Osama bin Ladin has been found and the Administration has been sitting on the info til the right time, and that the chemical weapons stockpile in Iraq was actually destroyed in one of the bombing raids.

Websites, including mine from time to time, publish total crap that conforms to our bias. Simon wants to believe his claims. I want to believe them. Lots of us want to believe them. This "story" has been around for at least six months. We "hope" the "tapes" will be released in the mistaken belief that "see what they did" will somehow let us off the hook.

Like we are dealing with unbiased people in the world media. If you believe that I've got a suite of offices in the WTC I'll lease you.

Many of you have emailed me asking about the ADULTERY charges against the soldiers. Here's the deal. There is NOTHING in the UCMJ about adultery. Men can cheat on women and vice versa and not be charged for it. BUT there is an article 134 in the code that says:

Adultery in the military is actually prosecuted under Article 134, which is also known as the "General Article." Article 134 simply prohibits conduct which is of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, or conduct which is prejudicial to good order and discipline.

There are three "Elements of Proof" for the offense of Adultery in the Military:

(1) That the accused wrongfully had sexual intercourse with a certain person; (two males or group sex photographed??)

(2) That, at the time, the accused or the other person was married to someone else; and

(3) That, under the circumstances, the conduct of the accused was to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces or was of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces. (this is certainly true here)

President Clinton, as Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States AND an adulterer of great note WHO COULD HAVE BEEN BROUGHT BEFORE A MILITARY COURT AND CHARGED under Section 134, did what he could to weaken all standards of conduct, especially adultery in 2002 just before leaving office and while pardoning Marc Rich

However, in a very quiet move, in 2002, President Bush adopted many of the changes that were proposed by President Clinton (Bush wanted Clinton out of the news; a courts martial would have kept him there for years). In addition to the Elements of Proof," the "Explanation" section under this offense now requires commanders to consider the following factors when determining whether or not the offense of "adultery" constitutes a crime:

(a) The accused's marital status, military rank, grade, or position;

(b) The co-actor's marital status, military rank, grade, and position, or relationship to the armed forces;

(c) The military status of the accused's spouse or the spouse of co-actor, or their relationship to the armed forces;

(d) The impact, if any, of the adulterous relationship on the ability of the accused, the co-actor, or the spouse of either to perform their duties in support of the armed forces;

(e) The misuse, if any, of government time and resources to facilitate the commission of the conduct;

(f) Whether the conduct persisted despite counseling or orders to desist; the flagrancy of the conduct, such as whether any notoriety ensued; and whether the adulterous act was accompanied by other violations of the UCMJ;

(g) The negative impact of the conduct on the units or organizations of the accused, the co-actor or the spouse of either of them, such as a detrimental effect on unit or organization morale, teamwork, and efficiency;

(h) Whether the accused or co-actor was legally separated; and

(i) Whether the adulterous misconduct involves an ongoing or recent relationship or is remote in time.

So the enlisted people charged are STILL guilty of adultery under the watered down code. For more details go HERE

First, a word about "bad writing". Some of the posts from Iraq are "badly written" because they are written from the heart by people who don't speak English as a first language. These "from the heart" peieces have more impact than "professional" writing filled with the appropriate adjectives and obscure classical references. The links below are of that type and "tell it like it is" from their POV inside Iraq.
Inside Iraq today: Hammorabi thinks we have made mistakes in Najaf be damaging shrines. Iraq at a Glance really lays it out there about what we face and don't face with this Sadir

I want to say an important thing here, where is Al-Sistani in this critical time?

His English is sometimes hard to follow but he lets you know the situation. And Healing Iraq reminds us of what almost all Muslims feel with this quote from the Quran

"When you meet the unbelievers, strike off their heads; then when you have made wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives." Surat Mohammed:4

This is long and very good piece. Be sure you keep reading to the add on where he discusses more than just one quote. Outstanding piece.

"Aboo Grabby is what the local talk radio jocks are calling Abu Ghraib. There's more pix on the way.

Got a three emails and talked to a few friends who saw Troy yesterday. They think the movie is so "gay" that it is going to hurt Brad Pitt's career. None liked it. See below Troy evaluation.

THE ATTACK OF THE LEFT WING SUMMER MOVIES
A Guide to Political Orthodoxy regarding the Correct Interpretaion of Cinematic Entertainment aimed at Progressive Thinkers

TROY; Wolfgang's summer treat. A real movie; a "gore and whore" movie for the ages.

Political Correctness is limited to the stupid interviews opposing "all wars everywhere" being conducted by the stars. They make millions off of gore and war and then because the liberal assholes feel "guilty", they go out and trash the practice. Also this movie is so "gay" it might crash and burn. The chicks are going to go wild about all the gorgeous near naked men. The guys are going to love the battles. We're talking big time blood and gore. The movie is big and will make a ton, unless it is branded as a "fag fest", something that is too obvious to let go. Almost all the "heroes" are pathetically weak. Brad Pitt has a near homosexual relationship with his "cousin" that can only be termed as gay.

THE STORY

This movie is based on a story called The Iliad. Based is the word. If you are young, you haven't read it. Older people have read it. Everybody knows that the tricky Greeks used a hollowed out wooden horse, filled it with soldiers and when the Trojans broke down their wall to let it in, bye bye Troy. "Beware Greeks bearing gifts" comes to mind here. The original story was written by a guy named Homer (not Homey) back in God Only Knows When B.C. It is not only the first narrative, it is also the first gangster story. Homer's tale is pre-Mafia revenge shit; thug vs thug; street soldier vs street soldier; a no holds barred revenge story without much ethics. Read the Edith Hamilton translation, a total gangster tale with "gore galore". The phrase "bites the dust" comes from this nearly 4,000 year old narrative. You will also note that all gangster names in Greek end with consonents, not vowels. So instead of Achillesiano you have Achilles; instead of Hectorelli you get Hector.

Story starts with: "Fuck with my old lady and learn what trouble is", a Don named Menelaus tells a buffed to the hilt wise guy named (get this) Paris. Anybody with a name like Paris who steals your old lady is, like, you know, lookin' for an ice pick facial. What is next? Somebody named Clarence fucking your sister? Somebody named Steve doing the back door polka with your brother? "Fuck you, Asshole. If I want her I take her. That's who I am." Says Paris. And this fruit runs off with the Don Manelaus' apparently more than willing drop dead gorgeous über bitch, Helen . Now this kind of shit, as every gangster knows, is an insult to manhood. Insults to manhood is the worst crime in the entire world. This means goin' to the mattresses, or in this story, going to Troy.

So one Mafia Don goes after a Wise Guy from Troy who "fuckin' stole my old lady". He gets his brother and the baddest hit man in Greece, a guy named Achillies to join him and to bring his mob along too. Paris and his old man rally their soldiers and the number one hit man in their country, a guy named Hector. Both gangs do a ten year shoot out. Gang members on both sides have names that do not end in vowels either, and then little dons fight with other little dons over bitches that just show up looking for trouble. There's a big fight over a chick named Briseis; a goddess with a rack that could feed a goddam whale who a big Don stole from Achillies, the bad ass hit man. You think Achilles ain't pissed? You don't take the best rack in Greece from the baddest dude in Greece. This is about manhood. Achilles is afraid his 42D cup might find out that his dick is smaller than other people's. He will either sulk in his tent or fight. He decides to prove his manhood by fighting Hector, killing the dude and then dragging the dead body around the walls of Troy like he was a 66th Street Rolling Crips "gangstah" from LA.

In the actual book there's tons of Gods and Goddesses duking it out too.

THE ACTUAL MOVIE

This is a, you know, "modren pichur" not some Eisenhower Republican 50s bullshit movie. There are constant oblique references to Iraq. Troy is a quagmire and so on. Not so oblique references to pussy, tits, and tongues. Even Variety has branded the movie "gay" so this movie may not draw the throngs expected; even worse, in the theater I where I viewed it the audience laughed AT it in far too many places. A lady told me she thought "the battle scenes were shot in Greenwich Village". There is no doubt that the men are too gorgeous for words and the women not good looking enough to fight over. Men wore skirts (chitons) in those days so all of the gorgeous men fight in dresses. But the women in the theater went nuts over all the men. There was actual yelling when Pitt showed his naked ass; no guarantee that the yelling didn't come from men in the audience. But this is a gore and whore movie and the battles are bloody and terrific, but run on forever.

There is the usual stupid out of context "feminist" who would have been killed in her cradle back in the "good old daze". But in the "book" lots of the women are goddesses who had super powers, so when a goddess said shit, the non-God guys would squat and ask "what color and how much?"

The hero gangster/hit man Achillies is a buffed out naked as an R rating will allow Brad Pitt, the big movie star who 20 million women wish would rape them while they were being beaten with whips. 20 million times a $6 ticket covers the bottom line. Peter O'Toole (in a dress) is there for the nympho blue hair crowd. Hector and Paris are also buffed out dress wearing hunks. And the tits and ass babes? The ones in this movie, especially Helen, couldn't get a day extra's job on Bay Watch, so we must assume they all gave Wolfgang great head or some dyke cast the movie. However, for you sex fans there is a threesome and some other hot scenes. All in all "Troy" is sort of an Iliad. Entertaining as hell; all the guys bathe before each scene so there's no dirt; great gory bloody battle scenes (long shots are computized); only mild DNC language; and not a lot of tedious character development. Don't wait for the CD because this is BIG SCREEN stuff. I would have liked to hear a Flatlanders or Billy Joe Shavers sound track, but with a guy named Wolfgang directing you get classical stuff. At least it's loud.

CAUTION: More computerized armies. Totally false. You have this out of focus look at all the armies. Battles are all the same. I watched part of that old 60's war horse called "Vera Cruz" the other night. Promise you, real people make a big difference in a movie. Especially a movie where battles are fought in full daylight. Computerized armies suck and that is what you get far too much of in this movie. Also the dialogue is very stiff at times and Pitt isn't all that convincing as Achillies til he fights. And again, it's gay.

Best: All the Greeks were white so we don't have to put up with some snotty black liberal asshole reminding us what pieces of shit bigots all white people are.

See it. It's fun. It's big like a real movie should be. Rated R for DNC language and ugly women. BTW, if you need to read a really really stupid review of this movie go HERE; I have no idea why the usually top of the line NRO publishes shit like this.

Under the radar with all the scandal is a college football betting scandal of huge proportions. Players owing so much money to gamblers that they were "paid to underperform", THROWING GAMES, in order to pay off the debt. College sports is the next icon to fall, again. College basketball was almost destroyed by the last betting scandal in the 50s.

The election of Ghandi in India may derail the fastest growing economy in the world outside of China. She represents the urine drinking, sacred cow adoring, poverty is best, part of India. Their stock market is in virtual free fall. It's Inglewood keeping out WalMart, the usual Left envy of successful people, and the class war. She was elected by "the poor" who will stay poor but may pull down all the successful people.

Oil prices which I had thought to be a function of the cheap dollar (I was WRONG) are apparently a result of huge demand from a now robust Asian economy. Bye bye SUVs. A woman in my office filled her tank for $70 yesterday. Look for a big change in auto stocks as smaller cars become popular once again.

If you or I said any of this the FBI would come calling and we would be sued, jailed, and kicked off the public airwaves. The Left on AIR AMERICA gets away with it because they are liberals. From FRONT PAGE:

"The United States 'is on the slippery slope to theocratic fascism.' 'The Catholic Church has been secretly encouraging oral sex for years.'
" 'Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld 'ought to be tortured.' 'President Bush should be taken out and shot.' "

FRONT PAGE says it all. Hanson in NRO gets deeper. Wait til Michael Moore's movie comes out. A good idea would be to silently distribute cassette tapes of this to the audience as they come out. Late add; 9AM Just re-read the Hanson piece. It's a MUST.

Iraq as a porno extravaganza as more and more "leaks" to The New York Post and other tabs break out like herpes. Orgies, including ????

Iraq's feared Abu Ghraib jail was one big sex romp - sometimes by candlelight with an audience watching, U.S. troops said yesterday.

Sex and alcohol were commonplace, and soldiers frequently set up candlelit rooms for voyeuristic sex shows, said a soldier who served at the notorious prison.

This is an indictment of the entire command structure. Again, the Heart of Darkness metaphor seems accurate. This was a descent into the abyss of depravity. Could it happen to you? To me? Think about it.

Market and Economy Briefly; the market has psychology. What I mean by that is that the day traders are affected by current events. They talk with each other all the time. The Prison fiasco, the seeming worsening of the Iraq military situation combined with the Berg killing "gets" to people. Check Rasmussen this week you will see a virtual collapse in consumer and investor sentiment. Nobody feels good and the media will do its level best to see that everybody feels bad. The thing the Left wants most is a collapse in the economy AND a loss in Iraq. Iraq is now a very serious situation in the market. Your stops may be hit. If they are, get out. The major indexes are cracking through the range on the downside but barely recovered. If the bad news isn't "in the market" you could see a real collapse.

This isn't funny. The media is Left Democrat and they want blood.

Yours.

Trying to find the Berg Video? Go Here and get on the email list.

From the CBS Network's "Latest" prison story, (link is to CBS). The "unbiased" network will dutifully air another hit piece on "60 Minutes Two". This is a tape made by a female guard at another camp called Camp Bucca. The girl complaining about the Camp basically backs up my post of May 9th which contained this:

A word here about battalions and brigades. There are between 3 and 5 thousand men in a brigade and between 5 and 900 men in a battalion. The ratio of men per prisoner according to army rules is: a BRIGADE per 4,000. The prison contained at least 7,000 prisoners and according to the army it would take more than 3,000 men to handle them properly. The actual number of men was a BATALLION of between 500 and 900 people to handle 7,000 prisoners. This is insane. This is a command problem. God only knows how far up it goes.

Another Iraq prison under the same command had a section where two guards were assigned to guard 535 prisoners. None of us have to be experts to know this is impossible. We may find that General Karpinski complained like hell, but no evidence of this has surfaced. From CBS again,

Her videotape shows she didn't like Camp Bucca, or the people under her control: "These people get fed better than we do. Every day, they eat white rice, chicken. Every day we eat MREs. They are suck f****** a**holes. They f*** guys for pleasure and they f*** women for breeding. Excuse my language. I've been around a lot of people who cusses every day."

There's a ton more at the first link and you better read it:

She says she threw rocks at the prisoners because they had been throwing them at her. In her video diary, she catalogs the other dangers in the camp: "This is a sand viper. One bite will kill you in six hours. We've already had two prisoners die of it, but who cares? That's two less for me to worry about."

She details the Palm Sunday Riot at Bucca too. No more atrocities, but the same suspects in the command doing nothing. Note that the media ignores everything else to get Bush. This is Vietnam all over again. The press is attempting to create the news and then pound and pound and pound in order to affect the election.

That bad old CIA is again in the Left cross hairs. The usual suspects take aim at the "inhumane" interrogation techniques used to get info from Al Qaeda Terrorists without a fucking peep from the eunich castrated girly boy Republican Party. What is the sense of giving power to this gutless, voiceless, clueless party? This is what got us to 9/11 and now CIA people are panicked over who will be the next president. Trust me, they will all be hung by the next Democrat to take power.

Best bet to keep your job in the CIA? Tickle torture. The doughnut binge treatment. The break them with daily rations of pot technique. Jesus, what a mess.

The New York Post arrives in the early AM in Los Angeles and with the headline: LEASH GAL SEX PICS it was sold out by 7:30 AM in my neighborhood. I can't get it on the web so I guess the traffic is killer. This was an out of control babe ugly who couldn't get laid in a crack house. Anyway there are NO sex pics, they are just described. NY Post IS PG-35. The pix will become available and she will join Paris Hilton as the sex celb of the year. I can see the FOX reality series now.

Oh oh, LA Times calls for Rumsfeld to resign. The self designated "high road" of journalistic sewage calls for his resignation. Good old young hot as hell Ann Coulter implies that Times editor Carrol might be more at home in the Society for Professional Whores. (We are to assume there are amatuer whores)

Is the call for Rumsfeld's head an honest opinon?

Do street whores take checks?

The editorial pages of big city papers are duck blinds from which shotgun bearing writers can abush their targets.

The Nick Berg beheading, the slaughter in Israel, 9/11, the assassination of the Italian hostage, all the terror apparatus mean nothing to the U.S. Stalinist press. Not that these papers have any influence at all. The LAT fought Swatzenegger with every dirty trick available and look what happened. I hope the same for Rummy.

This piece in The Belmont Club is a must read today a voice of realistic sanity about what our tactics are in Iraq. These have been reported, but the reports are all buried on page 21 and TV has ignored this. It looks like our tactics ARE working because Iraqis are actually doing the fighting and WINNING. Go there.

Links to porn sites deleted. Many of you emailed me that since this site NEVER links to them that kids might read me. YOU are right. You can find the links shoud you choose. Let me add that nobody should have been "fooled" by these obviously doctored photographs.
Boston Globe is running pix from a porn site and claiming they show GIs raping Iraqi women. The Globe is vicimized by their own bias against the war and soldiers. World Net Daily was the very first to break this. No excuse. They lie. They know they lie. They believe their own lives.

Horowitz has the horrific pix of the Berg beheading. And the media? It's Bush's fault. I can't tell you how pissed I am.

The near overtly anti-Semitic Democratic Party is not getting any ink at all regarding this more than slow drift. Check out this totally left Seattle Times piece about CAIR. When you basically have the large local papers going down this route we really must question all media. Wake up everybody. Wake up.

Criminals love gun control -- it makes their jobs safer.

Ali has a very long but instuctive post this AM about life in Iraq. Always be wary of any blogging from Iraq because it could be coming from anywhere. This sounds credible.

I have at least 50 emails this AM. Just about all of you are raging about the murder of Nick Berg. Summing it up: The Networks can't wait to show every goddam doggy bite of a criminal in the Abu Ghraib prison but "oh this is too brutal to show" when it comes to an American being murdered. Everybody is also totally pissed off at the Senate do-gooders and America haters.

We've probably all come down a little this AM, lots of papers are featuring the story. NOT the LA Times. The Berg murder is the third story on the front page after a "Poor Oregon Lawyer Terror Bomber's Wife Keeping a Brave Face", and more prison trashing.

The LAT editorial page contains nothing. The Jews in LA now refer to it as the PLO Times. And what does the LA Times think is important on their editorial page? #1 Stem Cell Research and the "immorality" of not doing it. #2 A hit piece on the Army for Abu Ghraib. #3 Waste in Sacramento. What a piece of shit.

I don't want to be a wise guy here, but this horrible act is a boost for Bush, the Army, and hawks in general. Puts things in perspective, or at least a different perspective. Wait for those phony Senators to be on a different page this morning.

"You will only get shroud after shroud and coffin after coffin slaughtered in this manner,"one of the murderers said. "As for you Bush, dog of the Christians, anticipate what will harm you... You and your soldiers will regret the day you stepped foot in Iraq and dared to violate Muslims."

Let's go back to trashing the Army. Let more phony Senators spout. BTW put this link to Jihad Watch onto your bookmarks

An Associated Press reporter saw youths at a makeshift checkpoint of burning tires strike three young women with machetes after accusing them of being "nonbelievers" for wearing Western-style skirts and blouses.

Who says this ain't about Islam?

Here's some reading from real soldiers regarding the prison "scandal" and other things. Make a point to visit and get a different slant: Hackworth's site; then hit The Sweetest Girl in Baghdad (CPT Patty); Mudville Gazette really has lots to say regarding the hearings and resulting spin; An Army Wife makes you feel some things; Sgt. Stryker is always "inside" something and here's just ONE posting. Be sure you follow some links because the REAL soldiers, not the Gannett anti-war Military Times propaganda rag, REAL soldiers have a little different take on things.

The terpster says plenty about the news coverage, and better than me. Be sure to look at his link to The American Spectator. The lack of coverage is horrible. No 9/11 pix, no Fallujah pix, no Cole; just America the Beast. Don't think that this so-called coverage isn't killing our guys. This IS Vietnam all over again for these fucking pigs.

Reynolds is good today has some interesting links. Sullivan looks increasingly like the Moral Creature from Outer Space

This is not a war against Islam. It is a war to defend Islam. And a democratic Iraq - not run by mullahs - is indispensable to that end.

Stop it. This IS a war against Islam. Period. Otherwise he is more or less interesting today.

Emailer McCain points out that the beheaded Nick Berg, was Jewish. I hadn't thought of that. An Isreali has been mutilated too. This is going to get much much worse. Truly the Muslims States are a metaphor for the Darkness in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. There is no depravity their "religion" does not excuse, no sadism it doesn't endorse.

"You will only get shroud after shroud and coffin after coffin slaughtered in this manner,"one of the murderers said. "As for you Bush, dog of the Christians, anticipate what will harm you... You and your soldiers will regret the day you stepped foot in Iraq and dared to violate Muslims."

Allah be Praised. And those posing phonies on the "Investigating Committee" ought to be made to view this tape. Naw, the increasingly anti-Semitic Democratic Party and the Clueless Republicans don't see any media attention there.

Has Reynolds lost it? He has links to "stories" that are a week old on my blog, and I'm not known as being all that current; Iraq the Model and Iraq Now to name just two of his latest "scoops". In fact, more and more of us just link to something in the mainstream media with no contribution at all. Could be the Blog Community is just plain tired. I may be falling into the same trap. I'm going to check myself.

The Second Amendment is in place in case they ignore the others

The enitre administration from Bush on down converts to Islam. They impose Shiria Law on the Prison and Iraq. Kill and maim anyone who gets in the way. Bury people alive; put these stupid women in their proper places (stone the female general, gang rape the enlisted females); Kerry will be amazed that all of our "allies" suddenly love us; our enemies become friends; oil will drop to $20 per barrel; and all of academia will applaud.

The ACLU will demand that "Allah be Praised" be on every city hall lawn in America.

SOLVED. Stop bitching.

SONDRAK has a really good cause you might want to get behind

A Group Called Kurtz?

"They called me up so fast and didn't teach me anything. So that's why I decided to sodomize somebody with a fluorescent rod, nobody told me not to."

"I just wanted to fuck my friend in the ass. What's wrong with that? Consenting adults, man."

"I let my pet pit bull practice biting on a real person. Nobody told me not to."

This is a line of reasoning we are supposed to buy here. There is a clear line between stripping somebody naked under supervision and taking the pictures we are seeing. I find it impossible to believe that somebody actually authorized sodomy or loosing the dogs. I also refuse to believe that some sort of wink and nod didn't encourage it.

What we may have is a decent into depravity. Many novels have been written about this, the most well known being Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", the novel that was the basis for "Apocalypse Now".

Colonel Kurtz (the Brando character)was the best of the best. A paragon of virtue and dedication. When sent "up river" (the prison system in Iraq?)he descended into a world of slaughter, murder, and a psychotic state. Yet the people involved with him claimed that "Kurtz had enlarged his mind and cannot be subjected to the same moral judgments as normal people." Kurtz establishes himself as a god with the natives and goes on brutal raids in the surrounding territory in search of trophy. The collection of severed heads adorning the fence posts around the station, placed there by his native army, attests to his "methods".

The "trophies" here are the pictures and videos.

Who might be the "Kurtz" of Abu Ghraib? The Left would have us believe it is Rumsfeld or the Joint Chiefs. I doubt it. I think we will find our Kurtz much closer to the prison. Lack of authority? A deliberate setting loose of untrained people after giving them vague orders? The little smile when somebody went "a little too far"? And another pat on the back when they went further?

It won't be easy to find our Kurtz here. Rest assured there is one.

Or, we could have a group called Kurtz.

The asshole senators at the hearing are just posing for speechmaking. What pieces of shit. Me, me, me. Looking for Kurtz? Start on Capitol Hill.

Kobe appears in court on rape charge. Scores 31 points.....developing

email of the day from John F.
One afternoon a wealthy lawyer was riding in his limousine when he saw two men along the roadside eating grass. Disturbed, he ordered his driver to stop and he got out to investigate.

He asked one man, "Why are you eating grass?"

"We don't have any money for food," the poor man replied. "We have to eat grass."

"Well, then, you can come with me to my house and I'll feed you" the lawyer said.

"But sir. I have a wife and two children with me. They are over there, under that tree"

"Bring them along," the lawyer replied. Turning to the other poor man he stated, "You come with us also."

The second man, in a pitiful voice then said, "But sir, I also have a wife and SIX children with me!" "Bring them all, as well," the lawyer answered.

They all entered the car, which was no easy! task, even for a car as large as the limousine was.

Once underway, one of the poor fellows turned to the lawyer and said,
"Sir, you are too kind. Thank you for taking all of us with you."

The lawyer replied, "Glad to do it. You'll really love my place; the grass is almost a foot high!"

Sullivan is smoking some bad weed if he thinks McCain will run with Kerry. Jesus, the guy has been to too many Brit colleges. Most likely ticket: Kerry and Hillary. Without a doubt the stronget ticket. Without a doubt the one that would bring in the total Left/feminst/anti-war Democratic base. You say she won't do it because she wants to be prez in '08? Look at this: Edwards lurks in the wings as a brand new energetic face who could get into a bruising primary with her, and he will start campaigning in Jan of 05; there is the Demo fear of a Condi Rice card in 08, as a VP candidate her sleaze can be held down, and.....she just may want it.

This is the Democratic dream team.

The Fifth Column of the "Military Times" Keep in mind that The Army Times, Navy Times, et al are owned by Gannett a consistent critic of the war. Suspect ANYTHING they write for a hidden agenda. This is NOT a military paper at all. Their call for Rumsfeld's resignation is phony as hell and does not represent any military.

If Guns Cause Crime, Then Pencils Cause Misspelled Words.

Both Consumer Confidence and Investor Confidence plunge over the weekend. Don't think that that this prison thing can't derail the recovery. It can. The recession of the 70's was caused by Watergate. When we lose faith in a major institution we tend to lose faith in all of them. Market will tank today, big time. At least early because I guarantee you that every trader everywhere was seeing nothing but prison videos all weekend. It's about faith, stupid.

Hanson has a good post in the Journal today. Subtitled: "How Jimmy Carter and academic multiculturalists helped bring us Sept. 11." His essay includes a major appeaser: Ronald Reagan. It was his response to the slaughter at the Marine barracks in Beirut that told bin Laden America was weak and "a paper tiger". If you will recall, on October 23, 1983 terrorists attacked the Marine barracks in Beirut and killed 241 Marines.

Reagan chickened out, chose to leave Beirut and ignore the killings, thus encouraging the continuation of the terror tactics to this day. Those are the facts, ma'am. Hanson's piece is a must read. He always is.

A few tidbits from Iraq Hammorabi, not the best English on the planet, says that the Baathist thugs should have been tried by Iraqis right away. He also notes that this is a recruiting boon for terrorists. Iraq and Iraqis notes that there is so much business happening in Baghdad that nobody is paying attention.

Here in Baghdad any one can see that the media is talking about Abo Ghraib more than the Iraqis themselves.

Where is Raed is back up. He is saying

You have to be careful about what you say about al-Sadir. Their hands reach every where and you don't want to be on their shit list. Every body, even the GC is very careful how they formulate their sentences and how they describe Sadir's Militias. They are thugs, thugs thugs. There you have it.

I referred to Iraq the Model yesterday. Nothing new, but watch it because he could be a CIA plant. Be sure you link to my referrals from yesterday; this one is Hersh but may not work; and this one from the NYT. Sullivan has a very good post today

sensed the hubris of this administration after the fall of Baghdad, but I didn't sense how they would grotesquely under-man the post-war occupation, bungle the maintenance of security, short-change an absolutely vital mission, dismiss constructive criticism, ignore even their allies (like the Brits), and fail to shift swiftly enough when events span out of control.

He is well worth reading.

A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.

File this one under big fat liar, the link courtesy of Drudge. The editor of the Los Angeles Slimes, the lyingest paper this side of the Pecos, talks about others practicing pseudo-journalism while his own pathetic excuse for a paper takes the high road. This is the paper that routinely trashed Arnold Schwartzenegger during the campaign by twisting every story, every headline, and every story placement. This is the paper that two weeks ago said all of Iraq was erupting in Civil War, an outright lie. If you want to know what is wrong with Big Media consider that this man actually thinks he is telling the truth.

A piece on the MPs and the prison and it's not a pretty picture. In the Paris NYT this AM might indicate that whoever is responsible for the non-training of MPS is accountable. From the Times

You're a person who works at McDonald's one day; the next day you're standing in front of hundreds of prisoners, and half are saying they're sick and half are saying they're hungry," remembered Sgt. First Class Paul Shaffer, 35, a metalworker from Pennsylvania. "We were hit with so much so fast, I don't think we were prepared." The battalion (see sizes of units below) including insurance agents, checkout clerks, sales people and others ---

Be aware that the Times is a Bush Bashing Machine and everything that paper prints needs to be parsed, nonetheless the piece requires attention. I pointed out earlier that everything possible to blame the grunts will be done by the Army. This piece goes well up into the chain of command. Why the Times can do it and the Army cannot, is a question that could be asked. I hate to say this, but it looks like the Army took its own sweet time with this perhaps hoping it could be contained. The Times also reports that a prison designed to hold 2,000 people was holding 7,000; the prison was under mortar attack; the temps went to 120 degrees; increasing "surprise attacks" on U.S. troops increased the pressure to get intel from the prisoners; the MPs had no gym, no barbershops (explains the long hair) and morale sunk deeper and deeper; the prison was scandalously understaffed.

A word here about battalions and brigades. There are between 3 and 5 thousand men in a brigade and between 5 and 900 men in a battalion. The ratio of men per prisoner according to army rules is: a BRIGADE per 4,000. The prison contained at least 7,000 prisoners and according to the army it would take more than 3,000 men to handle them properly. The actual number of men was a BATALLION of between 500 and 900 people to handle 7,000 prisoners. This is insane. This is a command problem. God only knows how far up it goes.

Further, the report states that prisoners who should have been released were not; the takeover by intel was sudden and they didn't have a clue either. The person who assigned completely untrained and unprepared MP units that were not possibly capable of handling the number of prisoners is accountable too. All the lower level people seem to be telling the same story. I hope you all read the link I posted to the study of "The Pathology of Power" that explained in detail what happens to untrained prison guards after only a few weeks of possessing total power. More and more this looks like an invasion without any MPs ready to back it up, something many observed immediately. This failure to plan goes to Rumsfeld and everyone involved, but to hold them accountable for the despicable acts of a few is "blaming the bottle cap for the contents of the bottle". This IS a systemic problem, of planning in particular, and the Times does a first rate job of spelling it out. Hope you read it. Then there is another, as if we needed it, report from Hersh in the New Yorker that just blows everything out of the water. I don't know if this link will work, but try it. Hersh says basically what I have said but names more names and really focuses on the MI (Military Intelligence) and the complete breakdown in the chain of command. I now think Rumsfeld has to go, the mission in Iraq will not, and cannot work. This disaster has to do with not enough "boots on the ground" but those boots happen to be MP boots, which everybody has known since the capture of Baghdad. Everything our soldiers did well has been destroyed by a chain of command that simply doesn't work at all. This is terrible and I don't know how we will recover from it. 750 + dead for nothing at all. Face reality everybody.

If you haven't linked to Iraq the Model from Simon please go there now. Read the first two posts. Things may not be what they seem regarding Abu Gharib and you will never ever see this in the paper or on TV. This has not been vetted so it could be a CIA plant.

Let Us Now Praise German Movies

At least praise for a movie called "Taking Sides" $1.99 at Blockbuster

We forget that at one time Hollywood was the German/Austrian film business West

TAKING SIDES is a German movie taken directly from a play. It is in English starring Harvey Kietel and a cast of terrific Germans, real Russians and so on. The subject matter will either grab you or it won't. It's about the subtleties of "selling out", even life or death. Is it possible to just "lease out". Or can you just "sub let" for a while? The focus of the story is "the greatest conductor in Germany" and his decision to stay in Germany under Hitler rather than leave as most artists did. But it's about a hell of a lot more than that. Nobody in this movie has sold out completely but all sell out to a degree. Everybody in the movie is a good/bad person or a bad/good person. If you like action, forget it. If you want sex, forget it. Remember I mentioned in my essay on The Cool Communism that Germany was the only country where "civilization" and "culture" were considered separate. This movie is also about the impossibility of that. So if you want a move that is actually about something big and is done by top of the line talent from top to bottom, risk $1.99 at Blockbuster.

A terrific movie. Best I've seen in a year.

We tend to forget just how much of Hollywood was always Germany transported west. Were it not for the Nazis taking over in 1933, the German movie industry was poised to compete with Hollywood head to head. Great directors, actors, writers, and crew people fled Germany in 1933 but before that, American companies brought von Stroheim, Marlene Dietrich (and her famous director Josef von Sternberg), Peter Lorre, Fred Astaire (Frederick Austerlitz), a German named Felix Salten wrote Bambi in 1926, Casablanca was loaded with German talent and directed by German Michael Curtiz, the very first winner of an Academy Award for acting was Emil Jannings (Theodor Friedrich Emil Janenz), Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch, and I could fill this whole page with top of the line Germans and Austrians who came to Hollywood and created it.

The German tide continues. Two of this summer's blockbuster features are made by two more German directors; Roland Emmerich and Wolfgang Petersen. The Germans are still here, and cracking.

THE ATTACK OF THE LEFT WING SUMMER MOVIES
A Guide to Political Orthodoxy regarding the Correct Interpretaion of Cinematic Entertainment for Progressive Thinkers

A. Van Helsing (trust me, you ain't going)

Strictly for Kids who may or may not be tired of the obviously computerized scenes of contrived horror. This is actually a capitalist movie in the sense that it is one huge commercial for Universal's upcoming "theme ride". Of course the Hollywood Left manages to trash the Catholic Church. In this movie the Vatican has a secret police squad that sends Van to nuke the bad guys. Hollywood doesn't want kids thinking there is a God now, do they?

Blaming Rumsfeld for the prison abuse is like blaming the bottle cap. This type of blame is absurd and only an inspector who wanted to "get" the manufacturer of the bottle caps would claim such a thing. All of us have worked in large corporations in which an employee committed a crime or series of crimes. In all cases the perps were handled. At Enron it actually was the bottle caps causing the problem and they were dealt with. I have no idea how far up the chain of command the true accountability lies but it sure ain't Bush and Rumsfeld. Nor is it the Army brass in D.C.

There is no doubt that there is virtually no patriotism on the Left. All they want to do is "win an election baby" and they don't care what happens to the country as long as what happens is bad. A party that is saddened by the terrific unemployment news decides to "use" what is becoming a national disgrace for their own gain.

I'm sure you've read the reports about pix and videos of homosexual rapes, rapes, beatings, and perhaps a couple of murders. Army insiders are leaking to the Media so we can't just blame the Left; part of the Army is ratting out itself for money. We also have to face the fact that the problem is in part systemic; the MP program, the obviously "bad apples" from the civilian world who were allowed to work in a prison, the complete lack of supervision. Somewhere the "system" itself actually allowed this to happen.

Drugs? These acts of depravity smell like it to me. "Let's get loaded and fuck with somebody" is what people do in "high crime" areas. Hash is widely available in that part of the world as is opium, but they are "downer" drugs. These types of crimes are "High activity" more in keeping with meth or cocaine. I'd look for this right away.

You don't "party" with rape and torture while videotaping for future fun unless there is at least a small "culture" supporting it. Face it folks, this could blow the entire Middle East and return it all to the really bad guys. All from a small section of a very small prison in Iraq. To quote part of an old saw: "For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, for want of a horse the rider was lost, for want of a rider the battle was lost----And all for the want of a nail." Thus a very small thing can result in the collapse of a great cause.

I just can't watch the news There is a Left lynch mob after Rumsfeld (Bush) and apparently this thing is much much worse than just having guys naked. I am depressed. Go to a funny movie, visit some funny websites, or get loaded. Do all three, it won't change anything but it might make you numb.

A Guide to Political Orthodoxy regarding the Correct Cinematic Entertainment. For Progressive Thinkers


"Last Samurai" is available for rent; $1.99 at Blockbuster

The movie is entertaining, spectacular, but too slow. All in all a good rent. But is the story another Hollywood Left script or is it telling it "like it was". I know a little about Japan and lived there for a few years. All the landscape and views of farming etc. are accurate. The war against the Samurai did happen. But here is the Left vs History.

The year 1868 found Japan with no banks at all. Not a single railroad. Not a single factory. They were mired in the 16th century with a Samurai class that contributed nothing to society other than to feast on it. They spent every waking hour practicing their "craft" which was killing. They lived in villages where everyone else worked but them. Women were no better than slaves. Their caste system included "untouchables". The movie would have you believe that Samurai didn't use guns; that is false. In spite of 250 years of barriers some guns did get through and the Samurai had plenty of them and used them. There was no way that Japan could modernize so long as this Samurai Class was around. They were the bad guys. The guys who killed everyone who stood in their way. The people who had power in Japan finally decided to get rid of them after fifteen years of trying to negotiate with what had become in a modern world, terrorists with a code. They appointed a teen aged Emperor and endowed him with Holy qualities.

The people who wanted change imported educated Americans to teach, Europeans to give them weapons of war and tactics plus manufacturing know how, and sent their "best and brightest" to America to learn at our universities. The people in power finally confronted the Samurai with European tactics and weapons, and in an "ethnic cleansing" wiped them out. The movie has the Samurai as the good guys. Glamorizes the suicide attack and attackers. The Samurai were the suicide bombers of 19th century Japan. The movie is pro-terrorist so long as they have a "code". Nothing about the Koran is mentioned but we get it.

Japan was an economic power within fifteen years of stamping out the Samurai; railroads all over the country, manufacturing, and a far higher standard of living for their people. The downside of all this was the rise of the Military to a position of power. In 1907, thirty eight years after wiping out the Samurai, the Japanese defeated Russia in war. Russia was a big power with a modern fleet, guns, the whole nine yards. Japan was the first country "in the east" to beat Europe in a war. A wake up call to China. And to everyone else.

By 1900 everything about the Samurai was dead except "The Code of the Samurai" which is still around today and is what motivated the Kamikaze and the cruel torture tactics of their military in WWII. It is also why their soldiers on Guadalcanal chose to starve to death rather than surrender. When the fighting stopped there the Japanese who were left alive weighed less than eighty pounds per man.

The movie is another Left glamorization of foreign "values". It's up to you to recognize it. Do you think the "code" of Samurai "Honor" is better than our Constitution and Bill of rights? The movie is a total Hollywood Left hit piece on America and our values.

I won't remove this post because I'm full of shit lots of the time, this time being one of themThem poor Iraqi prisoners To the Media being stripped naked is worse than having limbs chopped off, being forced to masturbate is worse than the slaughter of an entire race of people with poison gas, humiliation is worse than being slowly killed by torture experts.

The prison story?---------my sense of things "No mas". Far too much coverage slobbering over punishments like stripping naked. Everyone is beginning to ask about mass graves, rape squads, torture every day in every way, starvation of entire populations etc., in comparison. I think all media, including FOX, has overplayed this. People are tired of the same old tune. Just my feeling. These are the same networks that won't reshow any 9/11 footage, Cole damage, Sudanese slavery, the deliberate starvation of an entire people by Mugabe and so on. Everybody gets perspective sooner or later. Including me, most of you readers who responded to my "poll" caused me to take another look. Thanx.

More big time athletes stiff mother's of their children. Is it racist to note that they are black? I know, 2/3 of basketball and football players are black but it seems like 95% of the deadbeat dads from pro sports are black. All I can infer from all this is: "Girls, stay the fuck away from them." Unfortunately most of these women see the athletes as their gold mine, their meal ticket, their shot at a good life when the women themselves have no skills whatsoever other than looking good and becoming a great piece of ass. MTV's ten channels of simulated sex to music channels, Soul Train, and BET tell all young girls that "you ARE your vaginas, asses, and tits with no values other than that." The end of that trail is never good.

On a personal level, the husband of the best friend of one of my ex-wives left her. She became hysterical with a child in the house threatening suicide and so on and so forth. So my wife dragged me over to the woman's house to give "support" because I had gone to school with her husband (who I thought was a total prick). The woman was an ex-Vegas show girl who was past her prime. She was out of control, and in the middle of her wailing and weeping she looked up at both of us and said, "I don't know why he left me. I give the best blow job in The Valley." That was enough for me and testimony to that belief system. No matter how good looking she is, there is somebody growing tired of her; no matter how great in bed he is there is always somebody better; no matter the gunfighter there is always somebody faster.

Got an email from Wendy regarding Sullivan using the term "crackhead" to describe respected Pollster Rasmussen

but I think Sullivan was pulling an inside baseball and not calling Rassmussen a crackhead. Kaus has a running joke about the Rassmussen Daily Tracking Poll being like crack for the political junkies.

I still think making a reference like that should be explained. Crackhead? Come on. Thanx Wendy. BTW, check out the investor/consumer confidence taken BEFORE the numbers came out today. This could be a turning point for consumer confidence no matter what the Democrats say. Re; Rasmussen: if you are an investor and don't get his polling data every day you are reading history not current data. Jim Cramer at Smart Money

Real Money.com noted that the reports issued by the traditional services are “a good read—if you like reading history.”

I don't miss a day, I think that's why I was able to call a Jobs number of 300,000 when all the experts had it below 200,000 (Cramer had 400,000). Current data is important.

FACT: 288,000 REAL NEW JOBS March revised higher to 308,000 new jobs, unemployment 5.6%. This means the Democrats will pull out all stops to trash Rumsfeld today. FACTORY JOBS up 9,000 a big number; highest in twenty years. Good news for everyone but the Left. Caution: inflation will now have to be handled. Rates MUST go up a very good thing for the economy. The other thing is the huge loss in manufacturing jobs from 2001 is still there. Add @5:45PDT Democrats attack numbers. Household income down, and medical costs are higher, people are really miserable. The negative drumbeat will continue. But will how many people will believe it?

Air America CEO resigns and has missed payroll, according to Drudge (link to Chi Trip requires \cumbersome registration). Soros did NOT pump money into the net but into moveon.org. Sorenson, the big investor is also out. Looks like the O'Franken Factor's only Factor is work for free, but what the hell they are Communists. They don't want filthy money. Lucianne also has story.

Andrew Sullivan slimes Rasmussen by calling him a crackhead and doesn't retract it.

. The crackhead Rasmussen tracking poll shows Kerry with a real lead again.

Maybe he found out that Rasmussen isn't gay. But what a slimy remark.

Household tip from duh fuckin' Oracle his own self Ruined a $40 teflon pan. Burned to shit. Here's how to fix it like new:

The non-stick surface can be "renewed" and stains reduced or removed with the following home remedy: Mix two tablespoons of baking soda and a half cup of liquid household bleach with one-two cups of water, or enough solution in these proportions to about half fill the pan. Simmer this solution for five minutes in the stained pan. Remove from heat and check the pan surface. If the stain still remains, repeat the treatment. CAUTION: The solution will foam and if it boils over, it may stain the outside of the pan. This solution is a strong oxidizing agent and will cause some change in the color of Teflon, with dark colors becoming lighter. This bleaching effect does not reduce the non-stick performance of the pan. Do not substitute ingredients for the baking soda, household bleach, or water. After the cleaning/stain removing treatment, thoroughly wash, rinse, and dry the pan; then wipe it with cooking oil to "condition" before using it again.

Should a white-spotted film appear it probably results from minerals in the water and can be removed by saturating a soft cloth with lemon juice or vinegar and rubbing over the finish. After wiping, wash the pan, dry, and "condition" as you did when new.

Absolutely works. Fixed two.

Notes about registration on some sites I use an unknown email to register. All of these scumbags are spamming the shit out of me. I'm closing down that particular email and will now "register" with entirely fake stuff. These registrations are solely for the purpose of advertising. The only one that has NOT spammed me is The New York Times, believe it or not. I get the Journal and Investors Business Daily so they don't count.

Since there is no Ben-Veniste dot com web page Ann Coulter does a pretty good job with her lumberman's person's axe on the son of a bitch. Kind of a Shiria Law, or call it Coulter Law, on he and Al Gore too.

Re; Bush passing the buck to Rumsfeld ain't valid. This could go all the way up to Powell (Linked by Drudge if not read already). If you were the prez and just found out about things on TV that you should have known about at least 30 days prior wouldn't you be pissed? What Bush is saying is that Rumsfeld deliberately kept him in the dark about one of the most incendiary incidents in the war. Put with the other blunders about Iraq, it may be that this was the last straw. Keep in mind that EVERY general in Iraq knew what was going on. Then the Chief of Staff did a Sergent Schultz imitation ("I know nussing") on TV claiming he hadn't YET seen the report. If I was Bush I'd be ballistic. This is insubordination, or perhaps worse.

That piece of shit, Allah (be fucking praised and so on) sums up the Media right HERE.

Sullivan is a good read today and then everything becomes gay. But the letter from an MP stationed at the jail should be read by all of us. The leadership from the top has got to be questioned and the question of "more boots on the ground" comes up again.

Want to help some soldiers? Go here to a site started by a couple of 12 year old girls who heard about the huge phone bills some soldiers were running up. Take a look. Two 12 year olds. You can kick in $5 or so too.

Video about to surface too. It's going to get worse before it gets better. The shitheads who did this are SELLING pictures and video tapes. While most seem to think "fuck the Iraqis" this is a PR disaster, a violation of the Geneva Convention, and in this political climate the Democrats will do what they can to picture us as bad people. Those of us who have done some eclectic "study" of various wars and the inhumanity of man will remember Andersonville of Civil War infamy. Prisoner of war abuse by the winners is seldom revealed. "Winners write history" as somebody once said. We in the USA have projected ourselves world wide as "better than you", compassionate, believing in human rights, civil justice, a court system and so on. Most of you are not old enough to remember the South as recently as the 50s and early 60s when local sheriffs were the law in most southern counties and if you weren't "local" they did what they wanted. The courts were fixed, the lawyers were in the tank, and justice was just another word for you're fucked. Readers of "Serpico" will recall that drug gang members were on the police force and people who reported the crimes were killed. Same in Chicago. We're seeing something live that we like to pretend cannot happen. Just check California where guards beat and abuse prisoners with labor union protection; this is happening right now.

In response to my request for feedback to my post on Iraqi prisoner "abuse" I have received 57 91 emails more than 200 (lost count) so far. Only seven 11 of about 20 of you condemn the treatment of the prisoners and the rest, while not actually approving it, are saying "fuck the Iraqis." The reasons show an amazing similarity, most having to do with Islamic killings and torture practices in Israel and Afghanistan and a few mention Saddam. I suspected this was a "class" outrage and not a "folks" outrage. Thanks a lot for all the feedback, I tried to reply personally to all of you kind enough to "vote". This email was not typical but is also my experience (no permission given to reveal name)

I'm 61 and a Viet vet. Count me as a conservative. I spent my tour in '67 with an MI detachment supporting an Infantry Division. My job included running agent nets, interrogate suspects and other practical stuff to find out what Charlie was doing. I am trying (w/o success) to explain to my wife what I think was going on in Iraq. It's a PR disaster for sure, but may have been seen by the parties involved as the best method (humiliation) to get some useful tactical intel. What she doesn't want to hear is that we have always done this sort of thing (and much worse) in order to win. We still don't really get it. Is it remotely possible that a re-elected Bush will finally tell the world in concrete terms that we mean to remake the Middle East and will do all necessary to that end?

I heard similar stories and some WWII guys told me that they kicked the shit out of some Germans. War ain't ping pong.

If you are not on the Daniel Pipes mailing list get on it. He has a post today that is so loaded one cannot extrapolate a segement to entice you to read it. Go HERE, you'll find it well worth your time. You can always cancel and it is free. Today's Weblog is HERE below the first links.

Just how bad is our "occupation" policy in Iraq? Ponder this; General Jasim Muhammad Salih al-Dulaymi who was our first choice to lead the new Iraqi forces in Fallujah was a Baathist criminal. His assoication with "ethnic cleansing" was well known to Iraqis at every level. During his command stint in Kirkuk he conducted an ethnic-cleansing campaign against Kurdish and Turkmen residents. EVERYBODY knew this. Everybody but Powell, the State Department, and the Army. Once again NRO has the goods in a post on Monday. (hat tip Belmont) For some reason you cannot access this piece from NRO directly????

A different slant to prisoner abuse by U.S. I hang out with a ton of "normal" people. They aren't bloggers, pro politicos, just people who are trying to make a buck. Most of them I've spoken with over the past three days say "fuck the Iraqi prisoners". Almost to a man/woman they think the Iraqi prisoners should have had the shit kicked out of them. I'm not a pollster but I am wondering if the outrage isn't limited to a certain "class" of people. Email me on this one, just click the "email me" link to the left. BTW one hardnosed woman who talked like this is an extreme liberal. I don't believe I talked with any conservatives. Just wondering.

Total crap link from Reynolds regarding gasoline prices adjusted for inflation showing no change, or paying less. Complete and total bullshit as anyone with a dime in the bank knows. For California (where I live) the price as gone from thirty four cents per gallon in 1970 to a dollar eighty nine one month ago based on a three month average through March. Using CPI adjusted for inflation prices you have to begin with the deflator, that is pricing 1970 gasoline with the deflator as well as pricing today's price. Meaning priced per CPI dollar in your pocket at the time; 1975, 1981 etc. Pricing it that way gasoline cost $132.10 in 1970 and costs $2.143 right now (actually higher because gasoline has gone up around four cents in the past week) an increase in adjusted dollars of 61%. If you want to see nationwide data go HERE to the department of energy website which will give you data from 1919 on a national basis. Probably more accurate because they show with and without local taxes. Dopes who keep twenty years of data on their computers are zany to begin with and calculating inflation in nearly impossible. Gasoline is up 61% in California from 1970; calculating from 1980 the price is DOWN 21%; calculating from 1990 the price is up 58%. BUT to calculate FROM 1980 you would have to use a 1980 price deflator and this study is using a 1970 deflator. This only means that any study has to be done from a certain point in time. Gasoline prices are up from every period but the 1980. CA study is HERE I've traded energy for years and I know my shit. I always check emails for actual data and find most the emails total crap. I got roped in to the whining USMC mom without checking; my fault all the way. Think Reynolds will explain? Fat chance. Later add due to a couple of emails Another thing to consider is the improved gas mileage per vehicle. What needs to be calculated is the cost per mile driven. Very tough. If you are driving a car right now that gets 23mpg and you drove one in 1980 that got 14mpg you might find gas cheper on a miles driven basis. Very tough to calculate. Very tough. Oh, then because of the high cost of housing you are living twice as far away from work than before......The Road Goes on Forever and the Party Never Ends...

Daniel Pipes asksIs an Iraqi Strongman Emerging?? A scary piece.

Kerry Purple Heart wound treated with a band aid according to the Doctor who treated him. NRO has the goods in a piece with no comment. As I said in another post: lots of guys faked purple heart injuries so they could go home, they just aren't running ads.

A New Excuse to Overthrow the Government and destroy Capitalism

Communism, the bad old business destroyer that was "tres chic" from 1900 to 1960 IS dead, but there is a new game in town and this new game explains the Hate America Left, the Hate America Hollywood Left and why they like dictators and sympathize with Radical Islam. I'll try to make it short. References for very heavy reading are at the end.

The nexus of the original Marxist Theory was that Marx had a "scientific" method for achieving socialism. He called it "Scientific Socialism" (Das Kapital is a dam math book); all other methods people were trying to bring forth at that time were "fantasy" conceptions (no math). It's very important to know that Marx had contempt for fantasy. It's well to keep in mind that fantasy is the nexus of the New Communism.

Why the old Communism Failed to Catch On.

Let's call it the "Pissed Off Revolution" The theory was real simple. Capitalism was supposed to make people totally and completely miserable, eventually. Any day now. Soon. The script went that once profits started to fall the workers would become completely miserable (the term used is "immismerized"; im-misery-ized), they would respond to the misery by revolting against capitalism; not out of some intellectual conception of Communism, but because they were pissed off. A Dictatorship of the Proletariat would take over. Cutting to the chase: when the Great Depression hit, the script looked right out of Hollywood. And for a few years it actually looked like it was going to work. A very few years after that things started to get better and by 1939 workers were owning homes and cars. After WWII it got better still; workers added pools, golf club memberships and stock to their homes and cars. You ain't overthrowing capitalism from the third hole overlooking your hotel room in Hawaii.

A very important point: the Communists outside of Russia during the 1930's, 40s and early 50s were POSITIVE they were on the "right side of history". They knew that Communism was inevitable. KNEW! Being wrong creates HATE. The hate that the Left possesses now is largely a result of the failure of that "knowing". Their God failed them. Not that they didn't try to keep the flame burning for the misery story. The Left even invented something called "The Misery Index" to try to prove to the workers that even though life seemed pretty good for them, they were actually miserable when COMPARED to Bill Gates, Madonna, and the President. The Left Press stayed with the "Misery Index" for decades. Zilch!

So it's the mid-fifties. Anybody with a real brain knows Communism ain't gunna happen, at least not in the way Karl Baby figured it. So in 1957 a book comes out by a guy named Paul Baran and he blew the walls down for Marx. He said that the poverty in the Third World was caused by capitalism. What the filthy capitalists were doing was investing their money in the Third World for the purpose of draining it of all surplus goods and delivering same to the First World thus leaving the host country with almost nothing. A wonderful opening for the disillusioned hard core. A great excuse for the loser possed by envy of anybody with money.

Baran "discovered" that the workers in the U.S. and the owners of industry had become one and the same. Workers and capitalists together were responsible for the poverty all over the world. All had to be killed; both workers and capitalists. Now this book didn't exactly fly off the shelves, but it was read by the usual suspects who KNEW THEY WERE RIGHT, who knew they were "on the right side of history", and Communism quietly began to shift. Nobody had ever thought that Capitalism caused Third World poverty before. Especially not Marx, Groucho maybe, but not Karl.

Now, remember fantasy. When you want to believe, you find reasons to believe. This is where Communism veered into fantasy. Entire populations being "immiserized" by the U.S. is the fantasy. Fantasies beget fantasies. Hollywood Lefties, who like all "artists" just have to be loved by everyone, created movies showing the downtrodden striking back at their oppressors; the Broadway Lefties created plays, the arty novelists and columnists filled their pages with bile about the horrible country that is causing misery throughout the world. Now this new theory grew in (where else) academia (Berkeley, Yale, Stanford) until the mid-seventies when another huge book came out by a guy named Immanuel Wallerstein that really galvanized the Communists. This huge book not only backed up what Baran had said, but "proved" that America became rich by making other countries poor. Think about this for a second: our success as a country is based upon making others poor, period. It's all our fault: hunger, no medical care, no education, poverty, and whatever else they could come up with..

To the Left that book was a gift from the Gods themselves. Just what every old Lefty, every whacked out Viet Nam protestor, college teacher, guilty actor, and Red Diaper baby wanted to hear. It's all America's fault.

This became kindling for the combustable haters like Chomsky, the Hollywood Left (the old line Communist propagandists), the Castros, Saudi Princes, up and coming Terrorists, slave Traders in the Sudan; in short with the arrival of the "New Communism" every bad guy in the world could blame the U.S.A for everything. This stuff grew like Jack's Beanstalk. Communism was baaaaaakkk. And in a new twist, all the sensitive artist types in the USA could get sensitive about truly miserable people. People who had an added benefit of being 10,000 miles away.

Blame America for everything. That is Communism today. The poverty in Muslim countries is not only America's fault, but we caused it so we could get rich. We literally strongarm the people in Africa to be poor, SO we can get rich. Mugabe can blame us. The Communists will back him to the hilt.

American Black Congressmen have totally bought into this concept, because they separate themselves from "whitey"; white labor and capital. Their New Communist Manefesto allows them such moral superiority that not a one of them will lift a finger while their "victim" Black leader Mugabe starves a million of his own people to death----None says a word while the Sudan engages in the worst slavery ever. While Nigerians impose shiria law. That's "because it's our fault." In their party line view an intervention into another country by the U.S. has only one "real" reason. To cause further poverty in the country so the "Mult-Nationals" run by Americans can make money. Further proof that the greatest enemy of black people is the leadership they choose.

Even cooler for the New Commies: since modern Communism blames capitalist workers (oh, this is beautiful), today's Communists don't have to pretend they like workers. Remember how many Lefties outside of this country said the 3,000 in the Towers deserved to die? (as well as plenty of Lefties inside this country). They deserved to die because they are joined with the Capitalists. That's why today's Communists are elitists. Academia, Hollywood, Media, all the right people don't have to feel bad because they find workers too stupid to talk to; the workers are criminals too. There is a whole world of misery out there that those workers, together with their corporate pals, created. But those people "over there", who live in the poverty we created so we could get rich, must now be saved (big sound track music with all the big stars). And just like in every Hollywood Movie, the criminal workers and business types will oppose saving them. Only the Left will be brave enough to try. The Abraham Lincoln Brigade with credit cards, BMWs, and Lear Jets.

But "Me go to war?" War? Like in shooting at the victims we created SO we could get rich? This concept is tailor made for the Draft Dodgers of the 60's and their babies. They get to be anti-War, or at least anti any war the U.S. becomes engaged in. There is no excuse for any war because they know the real reasons people hate us. The reason why the Hollywood Left, and the Left in general, opposed our Military actions is that they know, absolutely KNOW, that every military action we take is taken against a country WE deliberately impoverished; so we could get rich. Get it? The opposition to the war in Afghanistan was all about "we created the Taliban and the poverty". And Iraq? Terrorism is what the victim is entitled to do to the oppressor. Saddam is capitalism's fault, we created him. He is our mirror image. Our tool. The capitalist/worker alliance made money on his oil. Hollywood knows "the truth", we just wouldn't listen to them this time. We created the misery in Cuba, not Castro. Danny Glover is a Communist, the new kind.

This explains all the phony writing about "quagmires", huge casualties, and impossible battles. Anything the Left can do to keep the fantasy of the brave victim and the evil capitalist/worker alliance alive they do. That fantasy is the title of their latest movie effort called "The Third World Will Rise up and Smite their Oppressors", the victim will turn on the predator, a movie all the actors have done in one form or another. Check the new movies for this theme.

This is light years away from classic Marx who saw a class struggle within a country. This new Communism sees it between two worlds.

9/11? It was the inevitable striking out of the impoverished Third World victims against the people who caused their poverty so they could profit from it. I'll add to this in another post regarding the new fantasy of the Communists being similar to the old fantasy of Islam, but suffice to say that these two fantastical movements are real tight in an unconscious way. Both movements believe in something that cannot be. They seek to restore a "vision" that failed; one born a hundred years ago, the other more than a thousand years ago. It's crazy. America is not going to be destroyed by a bunch of Third World farmers, subsistence workers, and dictators. Terror will not beat us. It's not going to happen. At least two hundred million of us won't let it happen, no matter what. Iraq is just a taste of what we will do to countries who harbor terrorists. Movie stars running off at the mouth and buying expensive ads in the New York Times aren't America. And ads and speeches won't end poverty in the Third World.

I hope this little piece gets you hip to what is happening.

I urge you to read a very long essay on this subject which I liberally plagiarized throughout. This terrific, and very long piece, appeared in the Policy Review and was written by Lee Harris if you want to get a much deeper feel. He is brilliant. You can also read the volumes below and the Wallerstein essay which I also stole from. Or you can just walk away.

1. The Political Economy of Growth, Paul Baran plus reams of papers written about this book. Important to note that entire courses are taught at all the best places (Yale, Illinois) based on his "work"
2. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System, The Eagle has Crash Landed, America and the World; The Twin Towers as Metaphor (a long essay HERE) also teaches at Yale. In fact Yale seems to be the New Communist factory.
3. Important to note that this New Communism is actually taught as truth in all the best places. College students are taught to believe that all this stuff is true and has basis in fact
4. I am sort of a junkie on this subject so I left out the usual suspects like Fritz Fanon and the rest.

Enemy fighters walk out of Fallujah according to news reports on both FOX and MSNBC and detailed by Belmont and UPI. Dems will rightly point to the useless U.S. deaths over the past several weeks there. Politics will wreck this thing yet and could easily beat Bush in November.

No matter what the polls show in Iraq regarding the attitudes of the Iraqi people and what they want (Gallop Poll shows they want a representative government, freedom of speech, and so on), no matter what they want it is the clerics who run things and they want control. Check out this AP story. For details on The Gallop USA Today Poll taken of Iraqis inside of Iraq go HERE It is very interesting and the methodology of polling is interesting. They took months to train the interviewers and so on. Bottom line: they think we are occupiers, want us to leave, and want freedom. But like I said clerics were not polled.

Prisoner flash According to Seymour Hersh the writer who was published in the New Yorker exposing the Prisoner Abuse story, this is just the opening shocker. He spoke with O'Reilley on FOX tonight and stated that there are more photos, more CDs, and more tapes of more atrocities. And that this goes all the way to other generals. Hersh is a top flight reporter and doesn't say things he can't back up.

Prisoner abuse keep in mind that the army sat on this thing for at least three months. It is my opinion based on being an army brat and a member of the military that they would have buried this thing twenty feet deep hanging only the enlisted personnel. Anybody who has ever served will tell you that NOTHING goes on without the higher ups approving. There is no such thing as privacy in the military. Trust me, this thing goes way way up.

The IMF meeting in D.C. is over. So what? Not so what. Because there are only two economies supplying demand in the world, the U.S. and China, (India is an export economy right now) something needs to be done for the weak sisters of the EU who are running double digit unemployment rates.
Europe has become the Alfred E Newman of Mad Magazine fame. "What, me worry? With the US growing at 5% and China at 7% plus, (with their currency pegged and linked to the dollar) there is no need to change anything in Europe." The rest of the world is "supposedly" growing at 4.6% and this is supposed to be OK with the ego maniacs in the IMF. Nobody mentions that 5% of a one hundred million dollar economy containing 50 million people is not the same thing as an economy of $11 trillion growing at 4.6% with 300 million people. Oh, and another very small thing; if China and the U.S. were excluded from the data the world growth rate would be close to zero. Or even a minus number. Two billion five hundred million growing above 5%, when you include India. The EU is sicker than anyone wants to see.

With the U.S. economy growing at about 5%, the manufacturing sector experiencing its fastest growth in five years, consumer confidence on the rise, new-home sales up 8.9% in March, Wall Street clocking up big profits and paying out-sized bonuses, smiles returning to the faces of Silicon Valley options holders and pricing power returning to board rooms, and the inflation rate now up to 2%, the G-7 ministers know that Greenspan will have to move rates up. Their hope is that he will do so later rather than sooner, and by tiny increments. They are likely to get at least one of their wishes. And so it goes without a peep regarding EU unemployment. The slobs still expect uncle sucker to cover their sorry asses.

Our markets? Still in a trading range in spite of all the data. Keep in mind that the "trading" of a billion plus shares each day is being done by gamblers looking to scalp a few 1/8ths and mutual fund fakers trying to look good by "locking in" profitable stock trading practices instead of buying stocks which pay dividends and passing these dividends on to their customers. Fuck them. Use your market generated info. Look for buying opportunities in new companies (not Google) with new products and hope the war in Iraq finally goes well. Rates will rise, and this is GOOD for the economy, especially for seniors with savings accounts. The JOBS number comes out on Friday and don't try to read the tea leaves.

Why stay out of Google? Use the search engine. Is it breaking? Do you get the info you used to get? Do you get result after result that is propaganda for the industry of company you are looking for? This is a company that will face big competition and will have to upgrade big time. Their news site is very poor and can't possibly compete with Yahoo as things are right now. This is an old company that needs a new model. Stay the fuck away from it. They need to pump a hundred million to fix their engine. Use Google to look up "9-11 Moms", a group that has been completely outed as a front for Kerry and the Left. You will see only praise for pages. This is what the "search tool" has degenerated into. Keep your hand on your wallet. Given a choice between buying heroin or Google I'd buy the heroin. At least with the heroin you'll feel good for a while.

Friday is another big day. I'll say 300,000 plus new jobs and don't let all the Lefties jumping out of windows land on you.

The best WAR movie about just plain war ever made was Tora Tora Tora. It was on TCM yesterday. A movie without computerized armies and planes that just tells a story straight is a wonderful thing to see. Everything wrong with the Pearl Harbor movie of a few years back is totally right in "Tora etc." Viewing this movie from the perspective of now, we see a clunking American bureaucracy indifferent to anything but their own "turf" in spite of the obvious threats coming from Japan. (The 9/11 parallels are inescapable) The Japanese bureaucracy is similarly messed up but a war was in the minds of the leadership, period. If you've never seen this movie in its restored state be sure to tape it the next time it is scheduled.

Urban legend persists that the Japanese segments were directed by Akira Kurosawa. Wrong. They were directed by Kinji Fukasaku who went on to direct another 41 movies before he died. The criticism of the movie is that it is a plain old war movie and didn't "include context" like the Rape of Nanking, Manchuria, and so on (The "Passion of the Christ" anyone??). It didn't include the Great Depression either. Just a war movie and a very good introduction to history for kids and told without the tedious "character development" of most movies today..

Belmont is optimistic about the current situations in both Najaf and Fallujah. Hope he's right but "perception is reality" and the perception widely held is that we are cowards, afraid to get into real combat with Muslims, and have no political will. Perception, which are always reflections of our inner persona, can be costly as hell in places like the stock market where we act on a daily basis. But when only later actions like voting are concerned they become very important.

Both consumer confidence and investor confidence plunged over the weekend in direct response to the perceived Iraq situation. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how Kerry should exploit this situation. Bush's decisions in Fallujah and Najab may be what decides the election.

There are more "problems" at Ohio State in their "football" (early release) program. They are obviously recruiting thugs, as this press release from AP shows.

Two Ohio State football players were arrested and charged with robbery Saturday after a student accused the two of assaulting and robbing him.

This is no accident. There is plenty wrong with that program. About ten years ago USC had similar "problems" which they finally addressed after two football players mugged a woman at an ATM machine. Probably one of the reasons they had a string of losing seasons after that.

In case you're wondering about copyrights Big Media has finally warned the mostly blogging internet about quoting huge segments of their protected material. I've always respected writers and only quote a sentence or so to get you to go read the stuff, but many bloggers take basically the entire article; no surprise that these bloggers also support stealing music for free over the web and robbing artists. Should companies go after somebody for a copyright violation the fines are huge: $50 per violation. Claudia Rosett is just the most recent person violated. So now I notice that huge portions of blogged material is being stolen (quoted) because we allegedly do NOT have copyright protection. WRONG, but enforcing it is tough right now.

Sullivan joins with me and George Will in basically bailing on Bush. He has blown this thing. Perception IS reality, especially with poorly educated people, and that is what you are dealing with in the Middle East. BTW it looks like the army was doing everything it could to cover up the prisoner abuse (New Yorker details---the Drudge Link) and it is very tough to read. They had the info in late 03 and seem to have sat on it. This is a disaster for our values. In fact Iraq is beginning to look very bad, basically because we don't want to win. Kerry already has 200+ electoral votes sewn up and people are looking for a reason to vote for him. Najaf: it looks like independent "counter terrorists" are shooting down Sadir's militia members on sight. So now we have well armed Iraqis, no no NOT terrorists, doing what we refused to do. I'm looking for somebody else to vote for as well.

We are being seen as a bunch of pussies by many in Iraq for our failure to act in Najaf and Fallujah. Check Belmont Club and the Iraq blogs to your left. Bush was attacked today by Conservative George Will in an op ed piece. This politicalization is Viet Nam deja vu.

Some really really bad news for American Jews because of the rampant anti-Semitism among Muslims infecting our college campuses and being made OK under the blanket of "Diversity". Daniel Pipes lays it out and it is scary. An era is ending, he says. The horrible silence by all, and I mean ALL, of our representatives stink. The overt anti-Semitism of BLACKS and their reps while the rest of the Democratic Party welcomes them speaks for itself.

"We are presently engaged in a world war for our civilization and its vision of a just and humane society. Our values will either endure this present struggle and indeed be invigorated by the ordeal, or like once great civilizations of the past we will stumble in the face of barbarism and lose all that we hold dear." Once again Victor Davis Hanson says what Bush should say but never does.

Iraq? Honestly, who really knows? It has the odor of sweeping trouble under the rug, but...... Putting some of the bad guys back in charge has precident: in 1948 Germany after WWII, things were bad. There was no economy other than the coal mining sector and the American fueled black market. The country was slowly starving to death. On one day in January 1948 only one cow entered the city of Frankfurt to feed 600,000 people. After two years of watching and waiting for things to get better it was finally decided to allow former Nazi businessmen back into the economy because nobody else could run things. Sometimes you have to hold your nose and do what obviously has to be done.

Three months after allowing the former Nazis back into the economy and running things there was a currency reform that eliminated the black market in one day. The German economy grew for thirty years, thanks in no small part to the former Nazis running their factories and businesses. So in Iraq "former" Baathist army guys are now running things. I'm turning blue from holding my breath. In checking the Iraq blogs, they don't know either. Checking the soldier blogs, ditto. Of course all the assholes in Washington and New York who write columns know everything. Wretchard, on the other hand, has a pretty complex view of what is going on. Increasingly I am suspecting the real identity of this "Clark Kent" of the web is a military guy of some note and vast tactical and strategic experience and education. What he sees seems very complicated, but makes sense. Go there. Whatever, Bush is taking a major re-election risk right now and I'm willing to turn blue for a while to see how it turns out.

Kerry shutting down Iran Student Movement. This dispatch from the Student Movement website would indicate that is what he's doing.

The primary Iranian supporter of Senator John Kerry and a subject of many controversies, Hassan Nemazee, has sued the "Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran (SMCCDI) and its coordinator for 10-million dollars in damages.

These two frivolous and potentially muffling law suits were filed on March 3rd at the 125th Judicial District Court of Harris County (Houston Texas) by Nemazee's hot shot lawyer, Charles R. Parker, who specializes in "complex business litigations."

Gore in it too. Kerry and the Democrats are in bed with some very nasty characters. Read the whole thing.

The sweetest woman in the World Goes to Baghdad has a terrific letter up about what a GI going home has seen in a positive way. List is surprising and very long. Take a look.

It's Kerry 45% Bush 45%. I don't get all this bullshit about Kerry not being the candidate. A tie for an incumbent president at this stage of the race is almost unheard of. This should be bad news for Bush. The Congress looks VERY bad for the GOP: Congress: Dem 43% GOP 36% as of this AM. Kerry is killing Bush in the big electoral states, CA and NJ by 51-40 and NY by another huge margin. The Democrats look not only strong, but getting stronger every day. Me thinks us Righties better start working.

How does prisoner abuse happen? My experience in the service was this: the Marines guarded the Yakuska Brig. They were so mean that they had to pull liberty a hundred miles away or they would have been killed by the former prisoners who had been under their "care". The guards were "controlled" by the threat of being sent directly into combat if they fucked up. Stories of abuse by prison guards in California, protected by the totally corrupt Guards Union, have been public knowledge for at least ten years. There is a pathology at work here and it has been investigated. The fact that this patholgy is well known and documented cannot excuse the despicable behavior of the officers in charge, especially the general. There is a site called Zimbardo that contains info. Below is a short summary of an experiment conducted at Stanford University:

he results showed that the behavior of the "‘normal" students who had been randomly allocated to each condition, was affected by the role they had been assigned, to the extent that they seemed to believe in their allocated positions.

The guards became more and more verbally and physically aggressive. Zimbardo described this as "the pathology of power". The prisoners became increasingly depersonalised and several experienced extreme emotional depression, crying, rage and acute anxiety.

The experiment had to be stopped after just six days instead of the planned 14 days, mainly because of the pathological reactions of the participants. Five prisoners had to be released even earlier because of extreme emotional depression.

Zimbardo believes that the study demonstrate the powerful effect roles can have on peoples' behavior. Basically the participants were playing the role that they thought was expected of, either a prisoner or prison guard.

This pathology is well known, one of the "guards" is a career corrections officer and the general has been at this stuff for years. The whole thing is awful and not remotely excusable given what we know of the pathology of both guards and inmates. This could cost us Iraq. My further experience in the service tells me that the grunts will be dishonorably discharged, maybe a few will do time in a stockade, but the officers will get off with reprimands. The general should go to jail but will get off.

Fallujah: Wretchard. as usual, has it wired. The guy should be writing for main media put the politcal correctness required leaves him out I guess.