What is in a headline: dance puppets dance..

I know it’s ‘en vogue’  to wish the downfall of your country these days, but is there some reason why people want to rush it to such a catastrophic  end?

Look at Drudge recently.. I know he’s a hack whose only concern is President Obama’s failure and how much he can hasten the end of the free world, but really? how is this a good thing?

KISS THE DOLLAR GOODBYE

His apocalyptic story today, like his equally frightening story last week

ARAB STATES LAUNCH SECRET MOVES WITH CHINA, RUSSIA, FRANCE TO STOP USING DOLLAR FOR OIL TRADING-

Drudge report

which I admit, I fell for..can cause some serious damages to the people who live in this country. I am OK with putting this stuff out there if it’s true because I believe information is a good thing, but when it’s  been proven if not completely false,  then exquisitely tainted and still being used as news, news reporting is no longer the goal.

Since the 1st story’s headline and reaction, it has been learned that everyone from head of the Saudi central bank to U.S. officials have been scrambling to get the word out that it is not true. The source for the original is a unknown, the reason for the original story is unknown… but the effects of the story that even Glenn Beck latched on to.. are known.

But one thing is for certain: With the price of gold jumping to $1,048.20 per ounce, traders who moved early enough stood to make millions.-

Politco

Ironically enough, the jump in gold prices was also a major Drudge headline “GOLD HIGH! *” just one day after his siren-waling headline ARAB PLOT TO DROP DOLLAR headline. I would hope ‘greed’ isn’t the only reason for what is going on here. I know there is money to be made in the failure of an empire but please don’t tell me that is what this is really about.  At least tell me this is more ‘pure'( if there is such a thing) than just simple greed. The Politico story refers to man who wrote the original, unsourced claim as a British journalist who has lived in Beirut for over 30 years and is the one of a few people to have interviewed Osama Bin Laden,  but it also saysthat he is  “increasingly associated with more radical theories thus weakening the credibility of the story.” Please tell me good old fashion foreign hatred of America is behind this, not domestic greed.

I mentioned Glenn Beck. He did a scare-tactic.. I mean “show” a few days after the Drudge line on the sinking dollar and rising gold prices.. what exactly is his reason for this ‘dollar dropping- woe is me’ story?

Goldline is Glenn Beck’s Choice for Gold

"Before I started turning you on to Goldline, I wanted to look them in the eye. This is a top notch organization that's been in business since 1960." Glenn Beck

Do these others, like Beck , also have a stake in the gold market? Is that where this need comes from…  Greed? I don’t know where all this will end up, where the country will be 20 years from now, but I do hope we can regain some of the pride in America that we seem have lost when a black man was elected President. I do hope that one day we will rejoice when an American President wins a Nobel Peace Prize, when Americans almost sweep all the other Nobel categories, and I hope that we will rejoice that we have won an Olympic venue instead of rejoicing our loss to another country.

We spent 8 years calling anyone who did not fall in goose-step with the Bush Administration either a terrorist, a terrorist sympathizer, or just plain unpatriotic. I don’t know what kind of patriotism is being shown these days, but it’ s not the kind I grew up with, the kind where even if you didn’t like the quarterback you still rooted for the home team if you were sitting in the home-team stands. I understand the greed in the healthcare debate because I can see it, I can point to who is paying for the bullshit, who is hocking the bullshit and who is benefiting from it. But I can’t see how any one in this country benefits from the destruction of it. Can you?

Maybe the FTC has the right idea in forcing blogs to inform readers if they have received compensation for their opinion and for advertisers to disclose  studies by research institutes they help fund.  That regulation sure would have made a difference in the use of the “Lewin Groups” data on healthcare reform had they been forced to disclose that they are owned  by the largest health insurance company in the US.  Is there a free speech issue here? I don’t know. What I do know is that we can’t continue allowing a recluse to dictate world events like he is the marionette puppet master, having  faux newscaster crying the ‘dollar’ is falling when they have an investment in gold prices, a research group reporting the dangers of health reform owned by the insurance company fighting against all reform and an un-sourced suggestion from a slightly questionable journalist turn this country into their playground to ruin.  We are in a precarious situation as it is, there is no need to hasten a pre-ordained ending just because it amuses you to do so.

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Swine Flu…update

I told you I was going to be keeping an eye on this..When we left off it was looking pretty bad…

Umm, is there something they’re not telling us?

Catacombs could house flu victims

Old underground burial chambers in a Devon city could be used to store the bodies of swine flu victims if the outbreak worsens, a council has said.

the full story..

and from today on our side of the pond..

Military planning for

possible H1N1 outbreak

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The U.S. military wants to establish regional teams of military personnel to assist civilian authorities in the event of a significant outbreak of the H1N1 virus this fall, according to Defense Department officials.

The full story..

Just what the hell is going on here?

Now, it’s looking just a little but worse…For whatever reason, this is really sort of scary if you think out it.

National Guard drill at high school to prepare for possible H1N1 riot

PARIS — Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School will be the site of a National Guard riot control drill Thursday morning to prepare in the event of a panic over distribution of serum to treat the swine flu.

The school on Route 26 at the Paris-Norway town line has been designated by state officials as a distribution site for the H1N1 flu vaccine. The drill is to prepare for a worst-case scenario should the serum have to be transported from Augusta and people rush to get it.

The part that bothers me is this seemingly innocuous sentence

During the April conference, concerns were raised about a possible out-of-control rush on the serum,

What do they know? Why would there be an ‘out of control rush’ on the serum? There is only 176 residents of the entire state of Maine with H1N1.. what makes them think there would be any kind of rush, especially an out of control one that the National Guard  has to ‘drill’ for?

Combine this story with the others from earlier and this is getting very creepy. The potential for this flu season is almost.. not quite but almost the ‘Perfect Storm’ of viruses. You have the H1N1 which attacks not the weak,elderly and young… but seemingly healthy 18-30 year olds, and it doesn’t just make them sick.. it shuts down their entire system, killing them. Then you have the ‘regular’ strains of flu that we see every year which does attack the weak,elderly and young..those combination’s  alone could spell disaster, but add in a freakishly cold winter.. where more people are staying indoors huddled together, increasing the likelihood of spreading both strains exponentially and I have to ask; Could we be looking at a repeat of the 1918 flu season?

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It's time to stock up on supplies..

Beacuause  things are about to get nasty out there..

Report: NKorea plans to fire missile toward Hawaii

North Korea may fire a long-range ballistic missile toward Hawaii in early July, a Japanese news report said Thursday, as Russia and China urged the regime to return to international disarmament talks on its rogue nuclear program.

The missile, believed to be a Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers), would be launched from North Korea’s Dongchang-ni site on the northwestern coast, said the Yomiuri daily, Japan‘s top-selling newspaper. It cited an analysis by the Japanese Defense Ministry and intelligence gathered by U.S. reconnaissance satellites.

The missile launch could come between July 4 and 8, the paper said.

While the newspaper speculated the Taepodong-2 could fly over Japan and toward Hawaii, it said the missile would not be able to hit Hawaii’s main islands, which are about 4,500 miles (7,200 kilometers) from the Korean peninsula.

China and Russia better do something about their ‘pet’ soon..they may not mind him shitting all over their carpet.. but we don’t like it when he shits on ours..

Torture; paybacks are a bitch..

There has been a lot in the news about torture over the last few months. Did the US torture? If so, who authorized it? Do we punish the persons who actually did the torture? Do we punish the ones who authorized it? These are all questions that in all likelihood will piss people on both sides off when they are answered.

The “Jack Bauer” scenario is the most prominent reason given for torture.

A  bomb is about to detonate in a heavily populated metropolitan area, a person who knows the whereabouts of this bomb and other details of the plan is captured and he is not talking.

Pop-quiz asshole! What do you do?

Both sides answering this question have valid opinions.  One side screams to torture them until they spill every ounce of information they have. The other side points to this and says “But you don’t know if the information  is real. They could just be telling you anything and while you are out on that Easter egg hunt trying to confirm the information, valuable time will be wasted.” They are the ones who want to use tried and true interrogation tactics in this scenario because they believe those tactics work and they also believe that a time of stress and crisis is when it’s most important to stick to our values.

I agree with both sides.

I guess I’m in the ‘if all else fails‘ camp.

Obviously ‘normal’ police method interrogation works. We’ve seen it’s success across the country on a daily, if not hourly basis. When people are caught for their crimes they want to talk, they want to explain,  they want you to understand why they did what they did but they need to be nudged into it.  That’s where a seasoned detective comes in.  If this type of ‘non-enhanced’ technique did not work, no one would ever confess… but they do.

But does torture work? Dick Cheney says it does. In fact he says that we actually faced a ‘Jack Bauer’ scenario and torture is what stopped this ‘second wave’ from happening.  The Head of the FBI says this is untrue, The CIA says this is untrue, and others who have seen the memo’s Cheney is quoting  say this is untrue.  Dick Cheney has also heralded the capture of KSM as proof of tortures value. That has  also been called into  question by the actual interrogator.

Look, it’s not that you won’t get someone to talk by torturing them, I don’t think anyone is debating that point. It’s just that you will get them to talk about everything they think you want them to talk about, whether true or not.

Every example that Dick Cheney uses as his proof has since been found to be lacking in the ‘proof’ arena, and just like he now says Saddam didn’t have anything to do with 9/11.. maybe sometime in the future he’ll change this ‘torture worked’ storyline. Since it looks like he could be tried as a war criminal though, I doubt he’ll ever say that. What he will do is make sure everyone and anyone is aware that this was George W. Bush’s plan.  That’s also  turning out to be just another of Cheney’s fantasies though.

SCHIEFFER: … somewhere down the line. Did President Bush know everything you knew?

CHENEY: I certainly, yes,have every reason to believe he knew — he knew a great deal about the program. He basically authorized it.I mean,this was a presidential-level decision. And the decision went to the president. He signed off on it.

The problem I have with any of this “torture question”, is the hypocrisy of it. The,

“We don’t torture because we changed the definition of torture so we could torture legally”…

…is where I call foul. What made it ok for Jack Bauer to torture the terrorists in 24(besides the whole “it’s a TV show”), was the fact that he was willing to stand up to Congress and lay it all out on the table and take whatever punishment they doled out. That’s when, in my opinion, it’s ok to torture someone for information in the “ticking time-bomb scenario”.If you feel that what you are doing is not only right, but your duty as an American and you are so sure of this that you are willing to face the consequences afterward, then have at it and get all the information you can.

But just like lying about a blow job got a president impeached, lying about torture and your role in it should at least get you a public hearing.

It’s not the acts themselves that bother people, I would wager that if a “Jack Bauer” situation was being played out in real life an overwhelming majority of Americans would either turn a blind eye or slap the interroagtor on the wrist for their actions. But when you lie about, mislead others into believing your lie and then try and cover up your lie.. then the jury isn’t the only one who knows you were committing a crime.

Of course I will be ask …

“What if someone had your child, wouldn’t you torture them to find them?”

Yes… yes I would and if they harmed a hair on my child I would follow them home and cut them up into little pieces….slowly. But, when the police came to arrest me it would only take that seasoned detective about a minute to get me to talk. I would want tell him why did what I did. I would explain what I did to him and my subsequent jury. I would make them live through the horror  I and my missing/harmed child lived through and I would hope for  jury nullification.

Torture for the use of  gaining information, in my opinion is a crap shoot. It might work and it might not. The worst part about this ironically is the ‘ticking time-bomb scenario’. In that scenario there is no time for proper interrogations to be used, no time because the bomb is set to go off at any minute. Yet, there is time to investigate the false confessions which all agree are a part of the torture process? I don’t think so. If there is no time for mistakes then why chose the path which will ensure the most mistakes? It’s for this reason I am going more and more to the side of a “No Torture” policy for information gathering purposes.

That is not to say I am against torturing for punishment..

I will have to turn in my ‘liberal’ card for a month by saying this, but I think there are actual justifications to torture people, but in my world those reasons have to do with their crimes and not to get information out of them. Don’t believe there is a crime that the deserved punishment is some form of exquisite  pain upon the person guilty of the crime?

NEW ORLEANS —  Authorities say a 17-year-old teenager was charged with aggravated rape and first-degree murder of an 8-month-old child.

This is not a ‘redeemable’ child, this animal (because he is most definitely not a man or a human) who at the ripe old age of 17, already has convictions for  “drug possession charges; obscenity; battery on a correctional officer; three counts of battery on a school teacher; theft; weapons charges; and assault” in my opinion is worthy of a life of exquisite pain upon his conviction.

Not ‘torture-worthy’ enough?

CASSVILLE, Mo. —  The two men charged in rape and murder of 9-year-old Rowan Ford had their first brief court appearance Tuesday.

These men, one the child’s step-father, have been charged with ” first degree murder, sodomy and rape charges in connection to the death of Rowan Ford of Stella.” Whose body they just dumped in cave like a piece of garbage that they were done with using.

I  think they could to with a little ‘waterboarding’ just for the fun of it.

Torture for investigative purposes won’t give us the real-time intelligence we need in a ‘ticking time-bomb’ scenario.. but it will damn well make us feel better when we use it for the sole purpose of… ‘pay backs are  motherfucking bitch!’

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