DOG DAYS POSTING....

i was going to say something lengthy about "death vadar cheney's" one per cent solution, a principle by which any country that poses a one per cent danger to the u.s.a. needs to be attacked, and that mr. cheney certainly has his work cut out for him; and with his fear of pheasants and quail; and his hair trigger; and his five deferments; and his half billion dollar parachute... but will leave it to you to contemplate whether you would like to share a prayer breakfast with this uniquely american grotesque paranoid character structure.

why is it that all i've ever associated with the name hezbollah is "hells-a-poppin"? is my sole contribution to the grim news from the near east. too many popinjays coming home to roost.

a long interview on my pet albatross, handke, in german, will appear at lothar strucks http://begleitschreiben.twoday.net/
a most interesting blog run out of duesseldorf....

&

the third coming of the "handke/ yugo now milosevic controversy" made me write a short, summary work on my man, in my now very awkward german, infused with american syntax, which will first appear, in installments, at:
martin krusche's http://twylyfe.kultur.at/log/index.htm

which already has my "a visit to the moenschberg" also in German, ...martin walser just published a novel called "angstbluete" which contains the phase "von geilheit zitternd"... really!.. what has happened to the people i used to know and represent... flowers of evil and blossoms of anxiety... anyone who has had a hear attack, not me but walser, will know what I am talking about...

The piece/book/ oddity is called Dem Handke auf die Schliche, [Getting Wise to Handke]. if you like I can send it to you in p.d.f. form. I think, no hope, pray that that piece will put my monograph on the subject of handke and yugoslavia to rest. Begun about 10 years ago, with several installments, and a long explication of Handke's most interesting take, the great " The Play about the Film about the war" {Die Fahrt im Einbaum} most of the monograph can be found at http://www.handkeyugo.scriptmania.com

If no one else, I at least have learned much in the meantime: about deepest darkest Serbia, how consensus is achieved among intellectuals; media matters; how to research, follow a developing story on the web, enough to make the conscience of great the author of the third book about achim [uwe johnson] take fright at the thought of how he might represent this dark age tale.




ANDORRA RATIFIES NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY The tiny Western European nation of Andorra has become the latest country to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. On July 12, it became the 134th country to do so, according to a news release today from the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization in Vienna: http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2006/07/ctbto071706.html On the same day, Armenia became the 133rd country to ratify the Treaty. The United States has not ratified it.

he MCIA has produced an updated Iraq Culture Smart Card, which features rudimentary information on Iraqi customs, religion and language. A copy was obtained by Secrecy News and is available here (in a very large 22 MB PDF file): http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/usmc/iraqsmart-0506.pdf

Ivo Daalder

http://americaabroad.tpmcafe.com/blog/americaabroad/2006/jul/11/has_bush_gone_multilateral




21 July 2006

As reports continue about Ethiopian troops entering Somalia, PINR recommends its latest in-depth analysis on the Somali crisis:

"Somalia Enters a Revolutionary Situation"
http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report&report_id=527

h's Game

Adam Shatz

In January 2004 Sheik Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, presided over a major prisoner exchange with Israel, in which the Lebanese guerrilla movement and political party secured the release of more than 400 Arab prisoners in return for the bodies of three Israeli soldiers and an Israeli businessman and alleged spy

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060731/nasrallah_game



Rice's Fantasy Ride
by Rami G. Khouri, TomPaine.com
It's not "the birth pangs of a new Middle East," it's a wicked hangover from decades of America's intoxication with Israel.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/07/24/rices_fantasy_ride.php





Wiretapping Unbound
by Aziz Huq, TomPaine.com
The Specter bill is no compromise -- it actually locks in the president's authority to act without oversight.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/07/24/wiretapping_unbound.php

Sectarian break-up of Iraq is now inevitable, admit officials

By Patrick Cockburn in Amman

Published: 24 July 2006

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1193108.ece
Delete Reply Forward

A pantomime president


From North Korea to Iraq to Lebanon, George Bush's lack of policy has led to a string of disasters

Sidney Blumenthal
Tuesday July 18, 2006
The Guardian


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1822909,00.html



Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich says America is in World War III and President Bush should say so. In an interview in Bellevue this morning Gingrich said Bush should call a joint session of Congress the first week of September and talk about global military conflicts in much starker terms than have been heard from the president.
http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/davidpostman/archives/2006/07/gingrich_says_its_world_war_iii.html

US 'could be going bankrupt'
By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor
(Filed: 14/07/2006)

The United States is heading for bankruptcy, according to an extraordinary paper published by one of the key members of the country's central bank.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/07/14/cnusa14.xml&menuId=242&sSheet=/money/2006/07/14/ixcity.html




FRIDAY, JULY 14, 2006 NYT's Collins regrets not being more skeptical about WMDs ( http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_cont ent_id=1002839557) Editor & Publisher Gail Collins tells Joe Strupp that her biggest regret as New York Times editorial page editor was not questioning the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq prior to the war. "If I had to do it over again, I would have paid a lot more attention to the people on the board who had doubts," she says. "I thought there were weapons of mass destruction and most of the board members did. Frankly, we did not spend enough time debating the issue." Posted at 11:19:21 AM

Baghdad starts to collapse as its people flee a life of death

By James Hider, of The Times, from Baghdad



As I hung up the phone, I wondered if I would ever see my friend Ali alive again. Ali, The Times translator for the past three years, lives in west Baghdad, an area that is now in meltdown as a bitter civil war rages between Sunni insurgents and Shia militias. It is, quite simply, out of control. I returned to Baghdad on Monday after a break of several months, during which I too was guilty of glazing over every time I read another story of Iraqi violence. But two nights on the telephone, listening to my lost and frightened Iraqi staff facing death at any moment, persuaded me that Baghdad is now verging on total collapse.

Ali phoned me on Tuesday

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2268585_1,00.html



COLUMN ONE

'End Times' Religious Groups Want Apocalypse Soon

'End times' religious groups want apocalypse sooner than later, and they're relying on high tech -- and red heifers -- to hasten its arrival.

By Louis Sahagun, Times Staff Writer
June 22, 2006

For thousands of years, prophets have predicted the end of the world. Today, various religious groups, using the latest technology, are trying to hasten it.

Their endgame is to speed the promised arrival of a messiah.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-endtimes22jun22,0,7902314.story?coll=la-home-headlines

WSJ's opinion page is crackpot right-wing," says MacArthur ( http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/projo_20060710_ctricky. e86d86.html) Providence Journal "But even crackpots (especially crackpots like Col. Robert McCormick, of The Chicago Tribune) were once known as defenders of the First Amendment and the public's right to know about government secrets," writes Harper's publisher John R. MacArthur.

WSJ staffers to protest their paper's "Unfit to Print" editorial ( http://observer.com/20060717/20060717_Gabriel_Sherman_pageone_offtherec.a sp) New York Observer Wall Street Journal reporters are upset about their paper's June 30 "Fit and Unfit to Print" editorial (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008585 ) , which makes reporter Glenn Simpson appear to be a government shill. At a July 5 meeting in the Washington bureau, political reporter Jackie Calmes urged colleagues to respond to the editorial. Gabriel Sherman reports the staff is now drafting a letter of protest to managing editor Paul Steiger. "It could be one sentence: 'We object,'" say Calmes. "It doesn't have to go into chapter and verse."

Part III: "Death by Video: Mexico's Election Fraud Is Coming Undone"

http://www.narconews.com

Smog Damage To Crops Costing Billions

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Smog_Damage_To_Crops_Costing_Billions_999.html

On the one hand, there's the madness of devolving Iraq where dead bodies and sectarian bloodletting are now the daily norm; on the other hand, there's the eternal madness of the never less than devolving Israeli/Palestinian situation. There, last week, the Israeli government functionally declared Ariel Sharon's unilateral policy of a no-negotiations withdrawal from Gaza a failure and moved back in, launching its latest round of mayhem. This round added up to a massive collective punishment against the people of Gaza, the further degradation of their already desperately impoverished living conditions, an attempt to bring down any version of a Palestinian government, and the imprisonment of ministers and legislators of the elected one. This wide-ranging operation was explained as a measured response to the kidnapping of a single Israeli soldier and to some inept Qassam rocket attacks -- or as the Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy put it recently: "Israel is causing electricity blackouts, laying sieges, bombing and shelling, assassinating and imprisoning, killing and wounding civilians, including children and babies, in horrifying numbers, but 'they started.' They are also 'breaking the rules' laid down by Israel: We are allowed to bomb anything we want and they are not allowed to launch Qassams." (According to the Jerusalem Post, the captured soldier's father, Noam Shalit, criticized the government for its response, saying that "it was 'delusional' that the state of Israel would attempt to reestablish its deterrence at the expense of his son.")

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=100409

A copy of Gen. McCaffrey's June 28, 2006 trip report on his June 18-19 trip to Guantanamo is available here: http://www.fas.org/man/eprint/mccaffrey.pdf

Seven Questions: Covering Iraq Posted July 5, 2006

Reporting from Iraq has become one of journalism's most difficult and dangerous jobs. FP spoke recently with Rod Nordland, who served as Newsweek's Baghdad bureau chief for two years, about the challenge of getting out of the Green Zone to get the scoop.

http://web1.foreignpolicy.com/issue_julyaug_2006/covering_iraq/covering_iraq.html
Bush Told Cheney to Discredit Diplomat Critical of Iraq Policy
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0706-03.htm

Florida Redux in Mexico: Obrador Doesn't Accept Recount that Wasn't Really a Recount of Individual Votes. Good for Him. He's Gotten the Bushevik Raw Deal.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0707/p01s01-woam.html

Evo Morales: the force is with him

John Crabtree

Bolivians went to the polls on 2 July 2006 for the second time in just over six months. In December 2005, 54% of voters elected Evo Morales as president, affording his party – the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) a majority in the chamber of deputies. This time, the majority again voted for the MAS, which will now be the largest single party in the new constituent assembly that has been elected with the specific task of rewriting the country's constitution.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-protest/morales_force_3708.jsp


http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-protest/morales_force_3708.jsp



This week The Weekly Standard features Terry Eastland's profile of Sam Brownback, which weighs the Kansas senator's prospects for a presidential bid in 2008. With an eye toward November, Fred Barnes examines the potentency of missile defense as an electoral issue. Barnes points out that "Democrats, having kept spending for missile defense at anemic levels during the Clinton years and [having] sought to block deployment of an effective system under President Bush, are vulnerable on the issue." Also, Allison Kasic, director of campus programs at the Independent Women's Forum, writes on the 40th anniversary of a "herstoric event," the founding of the National Organization for Women.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/

Tom Engelhardt | The Middle East and the Barbarism Of War From the Air
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0728-24.htm

"TECHINT: Multi-Service Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for
Technical Intelligence Operations," FM 2-22.401, 9 June 2006:


http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm2-22-401.pdf
Anatol Lieven urges peace, not diktats, for the middle east


Maliki: Dead Man Walking
by Robert Dreyfuss, TomPaine.com
More funereal than triumphant, the Iraqi prime minister's Hill visit underscores Bush's policy failure.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/07/26/maliki_dead_man_walking.php

Do I see or do I remember?
Elias Khoury

It is the time for death in Lebanon. Anyone who has followed the country's modern history might well be confused. In 2000 Lebanon's resistance expelled the Israeli army from the land it had occupied in the south. A popular intifada expelled the Syrian army in 2005. How could a minor military operation undertaken by Hizbullah send Lebanon back to square one? We seem to be entering a labyrinth from which nobody can find the way out. The only certainty is that Lebanon is facing destruction, that the dream of restoring the country to independence is on hold.
Read more at: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n15/khou01_.html

COHA Report: MERCOSUR Presidential Summit Concludes with High Hopes

Earth 'On Verge of Major Biodiversity Crisis'
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0724-01.htm


roomkin: "The attorney general's startling revelation that President Bush personally blocked a Justice Department investigation into the administration's controversial secret domestic spying programs hasn't gotten the attention it deserves. Bush's move -- denying the requisite security clearances to attorneys from the department's ethics office -- is unprecedented in that office's history."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/07/19/BL2006071900935.html

http://www.coha.org/2006/07/25/coha-report-mercosur-presidential-summit-concludes-with-high-hopes/

http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-middle_east_politics/peace_diktat_3763.jsp

Cell Phony
by David Corn, TomPaine.com
If Bush really believed stem cells equal life, he would liberate them.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/07/19/cell_phony.php
Abramoff's Skunktails

Georgia's rejection of Ralph Reed shows the public's tolerance of corruption does have limits.
http://www.tompaine.com/uncommonsense/

end of june + 4th of july posting... bail, handke, u.s. politics, iraquistine...

http://summapolitico.blogspot.com the other day the war street journal as i think of the wall street journal's editorial pages, so firmly walled off from the reportorial stuff, did a fine war dance upon the death of zaqari, asserting that if proof was needed that al queda had been operating in Iraq all along, zaqari and his followers were it. i focus on this, briefly, because such an opinion piece demonstrates, is an instance in real time, of the manufacture of an ex-post facto lie that then serves as a ex-post-facto justification for that typical barn-barging u.s. super-galumphing conquest of iraq and of how stupid crimes of this kind are then grossly justified, though i wonder precisely if anyone who is not already taken in will be taken in by such a falsehood, but perhaps someone is looking forward to quoting the text in the future when some kind of new revisionism will be upon us. this kind of fabrication of false history has already been completed in the instance of the once fair city of fallujah where even the ny times reporters no longer refer to the sequence of event subsequent to its occupation by the first infantry division, their time line now starting with its complete destruction because it had become a hot bed of "the insurgency" - that the actions, i.e. multiple killings by said first infantry was what got the insurgency going has been consigned to the realm of "we lie by not mentioning."
i find the political posturing whether to get out or not jejune in the extreme. i have thought of iraq as iraquistine for some years now and that it reminds me of a dog called pity. within two week in this country my step father gave me ten dollars to buy my mother some flowers for her birthday. we were in a hotel in Newark, preparatory to moving into what i regarded a doll's house, but at least at the edge of a new growth forest, in west orange. wandering around Newark looking for a flower shop i spotted a doggie in a window and bought it and my mother named the little bitch "pity" for the reason that she accepted my gift. [giving your mother a puppy instead of flowers allows of some obvious Freudian analysis]. within nine months "pity" went into heat and it seemed permanently and intractably mounted by a far too big black monster, and it took quite a few buckets of cold water to get blacky to become extricated, for the various muscles to relax, shrink. however, neither cold water, perhaps the storming of the green zone, not even the blowing up of the ziggurut, as tom englehardt called it a while back, of a 5000 person strong embassy, will make for departure. pitystan , then, it is.
a wonderful conscientious analyst, and friend, dr. bernard bail, received the pour le merite the other day. "While serving as the Lead Navigator and Radar Operator on a flight of B-24 Liberator bombers in a raid over occupied France to destroy German V-1 and V-2 launching facilities that were devastating London, then 1st Lieutenant Bail's plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire. Three of the aircraft's engines were destroyed and the remaining engine was seriously damaged after a live 500-pound bomb ready to detonate became stuck in the bomb bay. The first pilot was killed and the ship's Command Pilot had his right lower leg nearly sheared off. Other members of the crew were seriously injured, one member being blinded by the gasoline which spewed everywhere. Lt. Bail ordered the crew to parachute out while the plane quickly headed toward the ground. Lt. Bail was the single individual that remained on board, at the risk of his own life, in order to assist the Command Pilot who was in extreme shock from severe blood loss and could not move or talk. Lt. Bail used his belt as a tourniquet in an effort to stop the bleeding and then attempted in every way he could to save the life of the completely immobilized Command Pilot, including attempting to pick him up and carry him to the bomb bay as well as many attempts to cajole and shake him out of paralyzing shock . to no avail. Lt. Bail parachuted out just before crash landing in the English Channel where the Command Pilot was picked up alive and taken to the nearest hospital for care. Dr. Bail flew a total of 25 missions into Germany during World War II. He was shot down for the second time on his 25th mission with some five to seven shell fragments wounding him in his head and neck, fragments that still remain with him. He was taken prisoner of war until the liberation. He received the following medals during his career in the Army Air Corp..."
Just the sort of man to guide the wounded and set off a lot of metal detector alarms! Actually. Dr. Bail is the kind of analyst you want to take into your womb with you when pregnant - i predicted this some years ago - to assist the baby's successful state in utero and its safe landing... I was so happy to come to know him because my boyhood was made much more interesting and of course dangerous by these visits of b-24s and b-17s many stories there, also by that shrapnel.
http://www.holisticpsychoanalysis.com/
the new york times magazine ran one of its barbara solomon interviews with handke yesterday. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/02/magazine/02wwln_q4.html
Otherwise, you will find a rich set of links at this summa posting.some fine tom angleheart who just keeps it up week after week... Chomsky, Dan
Wakefield, Gore Vidal, Michael Wood on Freud, interesting takes on the Mexican Elections, Sidney Blumenthal, etc etc.
http://summapolitico.blogspot.com


We're also pleased to offer an interview with novelist, journalist, and
screenwriter Dan Wakefield. He speaks about his book "The Hijacking of
Jesus," the distortion of Christianity by the Religious Right, the
mainline media, and signs of hope.
The Social Edge Interview: Author And Novelist Dan Wakefield
http://www.thesocialedge.com/articles2.htm
Byline Beast of N.Y.: Times' Sewell Chan Racks Up 422 in Year
http://www.observer.com/20060626/20060626_Gabriel_Sherman_media_offtherecord.asp
PINR Senior Analyst Dr. Michael A. Weinstein, who has been covering ongoing Somalia developments extensively, recently discussed the situation in Mogadishu for the Voice of America:
"Tensions Rise in Horn of Africa"
http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-06-20-voa38.cfm
------------------------------
Nigeria Avoids a Governance Crisis
Drafted By: Herman J. Cohen
http://www.pinr.com
Noam Chomsky A Negotiated Solution to the Iranian Nuclear Crisis is Within Reach
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0619-28.htm
Mexico Steps Back from the Electoral Brink, but Perilous Days Likely to Lie Ahead
*
Calderón, López Obrador, Madrazo: the presidential race goes to the wire
*
With less than three weeks remaining until Mexico's July 2 presidential ballot, the tone of the campaign remains irredeemably nasty
*
The June 13 signing of a "civility pact" among 6 of the 7 parties contesting the 2006 national elections may limit a potentially explosive post-vote dispute, although this is far from certain
*
What the agreement does not resolve, however, are the acrimonious divisions provoked by the main parties' depressing negative campaign strategies, typified by PAN candidate Felipe Calderón's vicious attack ads
*
New violence in Oaxaca suggests that social tensions have hardly abated in recent weeks, only heightening the possibility of post-election instability, including street violence
*
It appears increasingly likely that lingering bitterness could make governing after July 2 a difficult prospect at best, irrespective of who wins
http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2006/COHA%20Report/COHA_Report_06.15_Mexico_Back_From_Brink.html
'Wash Post' Obtains Shocking Memo from U.S. Embassy in Baghdad
By Greg Mitchell
Published: June 19, 2006 6:20 PM ET
NEW YORK The Washington Post has obtained a cable, marked "sensitive," that it says shows that just before President Bush left on a surprise trip last Monday to the Green Zone in Baghdad for an upbeat assessment of the situation there, "the U.S. Embassy in Iraq painted a starkly different portrait of increasing danger and hardship faced by its Iraqi employees."
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id
We're also pleased to offer an interview with novelist, journalist, and
screenwriter Dan Wakefield. He speaks about his book "The Hijacking of
Jesus," the distortion of Christianity by the Religious Right, the
mainline media, and signs of hope.
The Social Edge Interview: Author And Novelist Dan Wakefield
http://www.thesocialedge.com/articles2.htm
Byline Beast of N.Y.: Times' Sewell Chan Racks Up 422 in Year
http://www.observer.com/20060626/20060626_Gabriel_Sherman_media_offtherecord.asp
PINR Senior Analyst Dr. Michael A. Weinstein, who has been covering ongoing Somalia developments extensively, recently discussed the situation in Mogadishu for the Voice of America:
"Tensions Rise in Horn of Africa"
http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-06-20-voa38.cfm
------------------------------
Nigeria Avoids a Governance Crisis
Drafted By: Herman J. Cohen
http://www.pinr.com
Noam Chomsky A Negotiated Solution to the Iranian Nuclear Crisis is Within Reach
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0619-28.htm
Mexico Steps Back from the Electoral Brink, but Perilous Days Likely to Lie Ahead
*
Calderón, López Obrador, Madrazo: the presidential race goes to the wire
*
With less than three weeks remaining until Mexico's July 2 presidential ballot, the tone of the campaign remains irredeemably nasty
*
The June 13 signing of a "civility pact" among 6 of the 7 parties contesting the 2006 national elections may limit a potentially explosive post-vote dispute, although this is far from certain
*
What the agreement does not resolve, however, are the acrimonious divisions provoked by the main parties' depressing negative campaign strategies, typified by PAN candidate Felipe Calderón's vicious attack ads
*
New violence in Oaxaca suggests that social tensions have hardly abated in recent weeks, only heightening the possibility of post-election instability, including street violence
*
It appears increasingly likely that lingering bitterness could make governing after July 2 a difficult prospect at best, irrespective of who wins
http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2006/COHA%20Report/COHA_Report_06.15_Mexico_Back_From_Brink.html
'Wash Post' Obtains Shocking Memo from U.S. Embassy in Baghdad
By Greg Mitchell
Published: June 19, 2006 6:20 PM ET
NEW YORK The Washington Post has obtained a cable, marked "sensitive," that it says shows that just before President Bush left on a surprise trip last Monday to the Green Zone in Baghdad for an upbeat assessment of the situation there, "the U.S. Embassy in Iraq painted a starkly different portrait of increasing danger and hardship faced by its Iraqi employees."
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002690071

How the United States Continues to Manipulate Nicaragua's Economic and Polical Future
http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2006/COHA%20Report/COHA_Report_06.16_Nicaragua_Manipulation_Kendrick.html
*** Pfizer's Chemical/Biological Weapons Report exclusive: The pharmaceutical giant reports on its efforts to create chemical and biological incapacitating agents, including those that cause amnesia, for the US Army in 1964 http://www.thememoryhole.org/
Economic Brief: Fallout from Energy Trends Drafted By: http://www.pinr.com Recent economic forecasts point to the emergence of new energy players on the global scene.
Hugely energetic" Chan racks up 422 NYT bylines in a year http://www.observer.com/20060626/20060626_Gabriel_Sherman_pageone_offther ec.asp New York Observer "Sewell Chan has made himself a legendary Times reporter by reporting for The Times. And reporting, and reporting some more," writes Gabriel Sherman. (Most of Chan's colleagues have fewer than 200 bylines in a year.) Sherman says Chan's productivity has won him both admirers and detractors. "The displeased ones see his ambitiousness as being a little too naked."

GORE VIDALHe remains the Bush administration's most pugnacious and learned and contemptuous enemy. Nobody has put the case against the neocons with more passion or precision. "Benjamin Franklin was shown the new American constitution, and he said, 'I don't like it, but I will vote for it because we need something right now. But this constitution in time will fail, as all such efforts do. And it will fail because of the corruption of the people, in a general sense.' And that is what it has come to now, exactly as Franklin predicted." http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0623-01.htmRed Alert, Bush and Cheney Lies Kill Our Troops. State of Emergency Declared in Baghdad. The Iraqi government declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew today after insurgent gunmen set up roadblocks in central Baghdad and opened fire on US and Iraqi troops just north of the heavily fortified Green Zone. http://www.irishexaminer.com/breaking/story.asp?j=79936984&p=79937z86&The Search for Justice for Haiti's Yvon Neptune and His Fellow Inmates: All Political Prisoners http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2006/COHA%20Opinion/COHA_Opinion_06.16_Haiti_and_Neptune_OP_ED.html China and Angola Strengthen Bilateral RelationshipDrafted By: Loro Hortahttp://www.pinr.com Of course Bush will pardon Libby - The Last Chance Democracy Cafe by Steven C. Day http://www.lastchancedemocracycafe.com/?p=377

Washington's Undeclared War Against Venezuela's Hugo Chávez:
The State Department Human Trafficking Report: Raw Ideology Rather Than Bona Fide Research
http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2006/COHA%20Opinion/COHA_Opinion_06.17_Washington_and_Venezuela_and_Human_Trafficking.html
Macho, Macho Man by Paul Waldman, TomPaine.com Don't get distracted by the erectness of President Bush. It's all for show. http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/06/28/macho_macho_man.php
Legal Experts to Senate Committee: Bush "Signing Statements" Unconstitutional, Impeachable
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/06/06/ale06076.html]


The Public __Expression of Religion Act of 2005: A Bill That Is Intended to Eviscerate the Establishment ClauseBy MARCI HAMILTON
Thursday, Jun. 29, 2006
Recently, Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN) introduced the Public __Expression of Religion Act of 2005 (PERA). PERA enjoys the support of forty-five other sponsors (all Republicans save one), and of the American Legion. James Madison, however, must be rolling over in his grave.
PERA is a creative attempt to forestall Establishment Clause attacks on public displays of religion - from statues and plaques of the Ten Commandments placed at courthouses, to government placement of religious symbols such as crosses and menorahs in public areas. Indeed, PERA's language goes so far that it could even protect government-sponsored sectarian prayers from Establishment Clause challenge.
http://writ.lp.findlaw.com/hamilton/20060629.html
Not ready, aim, fire! Um, about that Korean missile defense shield ... "despite the bold claims of the brass hats out front, the military has no operational missile defense system, at least not one proven to work."
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060629/OPINION02/60629026
There is no cure
Michael Wood: Freud's Guesswork
The Penguin Freud Reader
by Sigmund Freud ed. Adam Phillips
In 1936 Freud wrote a letter to Romain Rolland, offering him a speculation about a particular memory as a 70th birthday gift. The memory concerned a trip Freud took to Athens with his brother, and his own 'curious thought' at the sight of the Acropolis: 'So this all really does exist, just as we learned in school!' Freud describes himself as two people, one making the comment and the other perceiving it:
and both were amazed, although not by the same thing. One of these persons behaved as though . . . he was obliged to believe in something the reality of which had until then seemed uncertain to him . . . But the other person was rightly surprised, because he had not known that the real existence of Athens, the Acropolis and this landscape had ever been a matter of doubt. Read more! at: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n13/wood01_.html


The Hidden--and Obvious--Lessons in the Supreme Court's Divided Ruling Invalidating Military CommissionsBy MICHAEL C. DORF ----
Friday, Jun. 30, 2006
The Supreme Court's decision yesterday in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld is, to state the obvious, a major setback for the Bush Administration's bid for power to deal with foreign captives by whatever means it, and it alone, deems appropriate.
Less obviously, the case may have far-reaching implications for numerous fundamental questions of law. But much depends on how the Administration and Congress react to the decision. Congress' impact will be felt both through the laws it passes and through the Justices the Senate confirms--or refuses to confirm--in the future.
http://writ.lp.findlaw.com/dorf/20060630.html



Bush: Signing Away the Constitution?http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0630-02.htmRosa Brooks Did Bush Commit War Crimes? http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0630-27.htmDivesting From Our Futureby Earl Hadley, TomPaine.comConservative hypocrisy puts college out of the reach of working-class Americans. http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/06/30/divesting_from_our_future.phpBob DeansCOX NEWS SERVICEHot Issue* Has the world become safer or more dangerous for Americans since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks? WASHINGTON - The United States is losing its fight against terrorism and the Iraq war is the biggest reason why, more than eight of ten American terrorism and national security experts concluded in a poll released yesterday. One participant in the survey, a former CIA official who described himself as a conservative Republican, said the war in Iraq has provided global terrorist groups with a recruiting bonanza, a valuable training ground and a strategic beachhead at the crossroads of the oil-rich Persian Gulf and Turkey, the traditional land bridge linking the Middle East to Europe. http://www.columbusdispatch.com/national-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/06/29/20060629-A3-00.htmlMexico's hotly contested presidential election is only two days away.In The Narco News Bulletin today, Al Giordano files some finalpredictions and analysis on what might be in store for the countryafter Sunday. Giordano writes:"Anything can happen on Sunday, including an attempted electoralfraud, as occurred here in 1988. But this time the Mexican peoplewill not swallow it. If Mexico's dubious Federal Electoral Institute (IFE, in its Spanish initials) tries to repeat that dark history, therevolution will begin on Monday. Those in power can't be that stupid.Or can they?"All objective signs - if the vote is to be tabulated fairly and accurately - point to a punishing electoral victory by former MexicoCity Governor Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The big boys - at leastthe domestic ones who seem to believe their own hype that LópezObrador is a 'leftist' (foreign capitalists are much more sanguine about the probability of victory by the candidate with the initialsAMLO) - have tried everything to stop it. In 2005, they tried toremove López Obrador from the ballot with a legal maneuver called thedesafuero. They only ended up making him stronger. Lately, they've attempted an Election of the State to impose a whiney little mannamed Felipe Calderón of the PAN (National Action) party as Fox'ssuccessor, but this week they were caught red-handed trying to rigthe voter lists, among other old-style maneuvers, on Calderón's behalf. They were undone at each step through a medium known as theInternet, which did not exist in Mexico in 1988. They may stillattempt to impose Calderón on Sunday but your correspondent doubts itbecause, if so, it bears repeating, a revolution will break out on Monday."The Mexican business and political elites are left with two otherpossible scenarios to try and stop the unstoppable: The first wouldbe a 'surprise' victory by Roberto Madrazo, candidate of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), a man who has trailed the twofrontrunners all year long according to the polls. Obviously, thatscenario would be suspected by many as a fabrication and would notstand for long. "The other possible scenario - now being spoken of openly in somecorners of the Mexican press - would be to 'annul' Sunday's electionresults (there certainly have been enough documented irregularities to justify such a maneuver) and install an 'interim president' namedCuauhtémoc Cárdenas. That last scenario would fascinate those above,since it was Cárdenas who acquiesced to the historic 1988 electionfraud that robbed him of the presidency then, and who, of late, has shown an apparent bitterness that López Obrador, and not he, is hisparty's candidate today. In that scenario, the system would try tosell a Cárdenas bait-and-switch as a kind of latent display of'justice,' the realization of a long-denied advance, eighteen years after the fact. But down below, few would be wowed or impressed byany play so cynical and mocking of an electorate's dignity. And thereis that pesky little force down below and to the left that, seen orunseen, would put a stop to it faster than one can say 'national rebellion': the Zapatista Other Campaign."Read the full story in The Narco News Bulletin, including someremarkable revelations of electoral crimes on the part of the PANthat have gone virtually unreported in the international press: http://www.narconews.comIntelligence Brief: Russia's Moves in SyriaDrafted By:http://www.pinr.com Social Networking for Bookworms By AARON RUTKOFFJune 27, 2006If bookcases are a way to casually display interests dear to the owner, the Internet throws open the doors on reading habits. Social-networking and book retailers' sites are already rife with lists of readers' favorite material, allowing people to compare notes on taste and compatibility. But for Tim Spalding, a computer programmer and bibliophile, listing a few titles in an online profile isn't enough. He sought a way to catalog his entire book collection -- and to check out what was lining other people's shelves. http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115109622468789252-_D0End_0yQM_jR4NjKrHd4WwEbM_20070627.html?mod=blogs One of the least noticed success stories of George Bush's years in power has been his administration's ability to focus the world's attention so singularly first on Saddam Hussein 's "nuclear program" -- remember that yellowcake brick road? -- which had absolutely no basis in reality; then on a meager (though frightening) North Korean nuclear force (of questionable use), and finally on a questionable Iranian nuclear bomb, which, according to the latest National Intelligence Estimate, is perhaps ten years away and yet somehow has been ever in our midst. The near-civilization destroying Israeli nuclear arsenal is hardly ever even noted. The Pakistani/Indian arsenals, aimed at each other on a hair-trigger and constantly being upgraded, are rarely in the news (though they may be the most obvious flashpoint for a nuclear conflagration on the planet). Above all, the great nuclear arsenals of the two Cold War superpowers, those MAD (or mutually assured destruction) creations, have been allowed to slip into obscurity without faintly slipping into oblivion. The Russians are again upgrading their aging nuclear forces and, with an ever shakier military, have, if anything, become more reliant on nuclear power for great-power status; while the Bush administration has been eager to upgrade the already gargantuan American arsenal with various kinds of mini-nukes, "bunker busters," and other weapons of mass destruction. http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=97350There is no cureMichael Wood: Freud's GuessworkThe Penguin Freud Reader by Sigmund Freud ed. Adam Phillips In 1936 Freud wrote a letter to Romain Rolland, offering him a speculation about a particular memory as a 70th birthday gift. The memory concerned a trip Freud took to Athens with his brother, and his own 'curious thought' at the sight of the Acropolis: 'So this all really does exist, just as we learned in school!' Freud describes himself as two people, one making the comment and the other perceiving it: and both were amazed, although not by the same thing. One of these persons behaved as though . . . he was obliged to believe in something the reality of which had until then seemed uncertain to him . . . But the other person was rightly surprised, because he had not known that the real existence of Athens, the Acropolis and this landscape had ever been a matter of doubt. Read more! at: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n13/wood01_.htmlTomgram: Running with the BarbariansGreen Zoning It All the WayBy Tom EngelhardtAs every political junky in the country now knows, just before finding himself not indicted by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, Karl Rove went to a fundraiser inhttp://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=95863

The war for us Sidney Blumenthal 28 - 6 - 2006
On the night of 12 June 2006, shortly after Karl Rove received an email from his lawyer Robert Luskin informing him he would not be indicted by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, the president's chief political advisor appeared before a New Hampshire
http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy/percent_doctrine_3688.jsp


L.A. Times: At least 50,000 Iraqis have died violently since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, according to statistics from the Baghdad morgue, the Iraqi Health Ministry and other agencies -- a toll 20,000 higher than previously acknowledged by the Bush administration. A British Report last year placed the likely Iraqi death toll at well over 100,000. Bush is the grim reaper.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-deathtoll25jun25,0,4970736.story?coll=la-home-headlines

-- MICHAEL ROLOFF http://roloff.freeservers.com/about.html HTTP://www.roloff-2.freeservers.com http://www.artscritic.blogspot.com SCRIPTMANIA PROJECT MAIN SITE: http://www.handke.scriptmania.com http://www.handkelectures.freeservers.com ALTERNATE: mikerol69@yahoo.com
http://summapolitico.blogspot.com"MAY THE FOGGY DEW BEDIAMONDIZE YOUR HOOSPRINGS!" {J. Joyce} "Sryde Lyde Myde Vorworde Vorhorde Vorborde" [von Alvensleben]