Ballpoint Adventures for January 21, 2006: Billy Doesn't Like Apologists

Yeah, apologists for the Iraq War are only slightly better than people who believe in "honest" rape. >_<  (#ronpaul2012)

Islam and the West: (not) keeping things in perspective

From blogdrop.posterous.com:

Just to put this into perspective, Ariana Huffington transported, for free, around 10,000 New Yorkers to Washington DC for the Rally for Sanity and/or Fear on October 30, 2010.  That’s a third of the Taliban and more than Al Qaeda.

Here’s another graphic I nicked from blogdrop.posterous.com:

If you are pro-life you should be horrified by this.  Of course, if you are pro-only-your-own-life, you’ve already rationalized this away.  Sad, either way.

Wikileaks Iraq war logs: every death mapped…

Found via publicradiointernational:

afghanipoppy:

livingathomenow:

We need to stop pretending this isn’t real or that it is forgivable.

Wikileaks Iraq war logs: every death mapped

also for reference Iraq Body Count

Can you mouseover and see pictures of the body? I think that might bring it home even more. Gah… no one in charge is providing moral (or even adequate) leadership.  I really hate the whole of my country for it’s ignorance, laziness, and it’s truly shitty leaders who only want to take advantage of our laziness and our ignorance.

Livingathomenow says it all above: “We need to stop pretending this isn’t real or that it is forgivable.”

But who do we not forgive? Ourselves? Our leaders? Nobody cares enough.

How do we hold anyone accountable when the people in charge of holding people accountable won’t do it?

#WTFObama: #DontBelieveTheHype: US Mil "withdrawal" from Iraq just a rebranding--56k will stay.

US Withdraws Last Combat Brigade from Iraq, But 56,000 Troops Remain

The US has officially withdrawn its last designated combat brigade from Iraq, two weeks ahead of a deadline for the withdrawal of some 14,000 troops. In a surprise announcement, the Pentagon said the last combat brigade crossed over into Kuwait earlier today. Although the withdrawal has been hailed as a major milestone in the Iraq war and an end to combat operations, most of the remaining 56,000 US troops are still trained in combat and will continue to carry out armed attacks. The Obama administration also plans to double its private military force in Iraq to an estimated 7,000 contractors. According to the New York Times, the bulk of the private military force will be deployed at five compounds across Iraq, where they’ll perform duties including operating drones, deploying reaction forces and operating radars to detect militant attacks. In an interview on Democracy Now! earlier this month, independent journalist Jeremy Scahill said the Obama administration’s withdrawal plan amounts to a rebranded occupation.

Jeremy Scahill: “What is essentially unfolding here is a downsized and rebranded occupation, Obama-style, that is going to necessitate a surge in private forces. The State Department is asking for MRAP vehicles, armored vehicles, for Black Hawk helicopters and for these paramilitary forces. So, yes, you can say that officially combat has ended, but in reality you’re continuing it through the back door by bringing in these paramilitary forces and classifying them as diplomatic security, which was Bush’s game from the very beginning.”

via democracynow.org

Sadly, this is what I was expecting.  I’m sure anyone paying attention isn’t surprised by the fact that we’re leaving a huge stack of troops behind.  What’s next from the O-man? A giant “Mission Accomplished” banner and an aircraft-carrier-based photo-op?

The Disturbing Truth: Our Government is Protecting Us from Nothing

Dig that crazy redaction! It's like the FOIA request from the ACLU that got this doc released got us
a whole lot of nothing--of course, despite appearances, it gave us enough rope to hang the Bushies
with... if only the Obamites will bother...

After reading today's column from Andrew Sullivan at TheAtlantic.com, I have had my fears reinforced and have come to feel that the United States Government has been and continues to be a sociopathic entity. Sullivan's column is called "The American Way Of Torture" and includes select quotes from the Office of the Inspector General's report on how the CIA systemically tortured terror suspects during the Bush years. There are some disturbing truths that Sullivan's piece forces us to consider:

1) this new OIG report pretty much damns the Bush Administration by proving they not only endorsed torture, but did so in writing.

2) this was definitely torture--what else do you call it when detainees are left in their own excrement?

3) Sullivan makes the point best:

In the past, the US was known for being a country whose soldiers would never mistreat prisoners; now, the US wants the world to know that US custody is something to be dreaded.

This is the same technique used by Grand Moff Tarkin in the original Star Wars movie--his exact line was "Fear will keep the systems in line..."

So yes, all those Daily Show jokes about Cheney were accurate: the United States was run by an evil, cartoonish bad guy.

Now this next part popped into my head thanks to Democracy Now, quoting one leader who spoke about Afghanistan:

The insurgency in Afghanistan didn’t just happen overnight, and we won’t defeat it overnight. This will not be quick nor easy. But we must never forget, this is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven, from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting; this is fundamental to the defense of our people.

That's not an old quote from Bush--that's Obama speaking at the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention in Phoenix, Arizona, last week.

So, here comes Obama, explaining that we have no choice but to be in Afghanistan, mimicking the same rhetoric that came from the Bush 43 Admin for so many years. We did it because the Taliban were harboring Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. My question is, how big a threat is Al Qaeda to America? OK, fine, Obama, they're plotting
against us--but how many of us can they really kill?

In 2008 34,017 Americans were killed in car accidents according to the DOT.

In 2005 (the most recent year numbers are available) 159,217 Americans died of lung cancer alone according to the CDC.

In 2007 around 2 million people worldwide were killed by AIDS according to Avert.org.

In 2007 terrorism caused 22,685 deaths worldwide according to the US National Counter Terrorism Center. The number of American civilian deaths by terrorism is almost non-existent since Americans have to leave the country to be killed by a terrorist.

What this all means is that terrorism is a tiny, tiny, tiny threat to the American way of life. Yet, the Bush administration and now the Obama administration thinks it's worth ignoring our morals and our principles to stop the killing of less than 23,000 Earthlings while seven times that number die of lung cancer in America, alone. 53,005 died of colorectal cancer, 27,259 American women died of gynecological cancers, 41,116 American women died of breast cancer--and I could go on.

So, in the end, our government is "protecting" us from nothing. We're spending over a trillion dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan to stop this threat which does not even really exist. My only conclusion is that our government actually enjoys being horrible to people--it's literally sociopathic. Either that, or our government is too addicted to fear, or rock-stupid, to check and compare the statistics, which took me about 30 minutes to do.

With all these people dying of Cancer in the US right now, wouldn't it be nice to have a War on Cancer, instead of a War on Terror?

Huge Bombing in Baghdad "Raises Questions" about USGIs Leaving Iraq

Huge Bombing in Baghdad "Raises Questions" about USGIs Leaving Iraq, originally uploaded by thepetecom.

Capped this article just now on my iPhone (source) and it makes me wonder if more violence will be used as an all too convenient excuse to "find" ourselves "forced" to leave troops in Iraq.

Forget that Iraq will have to take over their own country eventually, there are those who will use this bombing and any further violence as an excuse to keep our men and women over there.

In fact, new violence in Iraq is such a convenient excuse that it makes me wonder just who was behind the bombing and whose side they are on.

The Next Time Dick Cheney Opens His Fat Mouth Remember This

The Next Time Dick Cheney Opens His Fat Mouth Remember This, originally uploaded by thepetecom.

This is semi-old news, but with Cheney making the rounds again recently I felt this story would be good to conjure up--it's from 2004 but important to think about when Dick Cheney goes on and on about "protecting America."

In an October 12, 2004 article on CommonDreams.org, Jason Leopold wrote about how Dick Cheney was helping Iraq break international law:

The report on Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, prepared by Charles Duelfer, a former U.N. weapons inspector and head of the Iraqi Survey Group, said Saddam Hussein used revenue from the oil-for-food program and “created a web of front companies and used shadowy deals with foreign governments, corporations, and officials to amass $11 billion in illicit revenue in the decade before the US-led invasion last year," reports The New York Times.

Sure, $11 billion is chump change compared to what we've actually spent on the invasion and occupation of Iraq, but that was, to use the old cliche, a lot of money back then. Leopold goes on, however, later in the article, to say:

But the one company that helped Saddam exploit the oil-for-food program in the mid-1990s that wasn’t identified in Duelfer’s report was Halliburton, and the person at the helm of Halliburton at the time of the scheme was Vice President Dick Cheney. Halliburton and its subsidiaries were one of several American and foreign oil supply companies that helped Iraq increase its crude exports from $4 billion in 1997 to nearly $18 billion in 2000 by skirting U.S. laws and selling Iraq spare parts so it could repair its oil fields and pump more oil.

Leopold cites UN documents in the article as his source for this story. While he doesn't link to the docs themselves in his article, in the face of evidence like this, if true, it's hard to give any credibility to Cheney at all and I find it very frustrating that the media gives a man like this, who is no longer in power, a voice on TV and on the radio. Frankly, it makes me question the entirety of mainstream media.

As if there wasn't already enough reasons to mistrust the mainstream media.

One other thing about Cheney: this is more proof that our leaders are just corrupt businessmen who couldn't care less about human life and just want to make money. If he really thought that Saddam was a bad guy, why did the company he was CEO of do business with him? Because he doesn't care who is bad or not. It's all about the green.

Democracy? Republic? Free country?

Nah, it's called a Corruptocracy.

Why Bush Should Have Let the Shoe Hit Him

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io Why did he duck? The shoes weren't even loaded!

As Muntadhar al-Zaidi becomes a hero across Iraq for throwing his Iraqi-made shoes at George W. Bush during a recent surprise(d) visit to Iraq, I couldn't help but think about how fast good old King George was to duck those shoes. Just last night, Steve Isaacs microblogged that he felt Bush dodging those shoes made the current occupant of the White House look competent and capable. That got me thinking.

In the movie Cool Hand Luke (spoiler alert) there's a great scene where Paul Newman's character proves his grit by standing up to the prison bully. He doesn't win the fight--he doesn't even get a few good punches in. In fact, he gets his ass pounded. The thing is, he keeps getting back up to get pounded again.

This is heroism, folks. This is taking responsibility for your actions. Newman's "Luke" wanted to take on the big man and put him in his place, but he couldn't do it with strength. So, he did it with honor.

So, it's natural that, like a weasel, Bush ducks the shoes as they fly at his face. That's what he's been best at all this time, right? Ducking responsibility for one colossal fuck-up after another.

911 wasn't his fault--it was the terrorists who hate our freedom. Forget that memo with the title "bin Laden determined to strike inside the United States." Forget that it's the government's job to stop things like the 911 attacks from happening. Forget that there used to be FAA regulations that allowed for USAF fighters to shoot down any aircraft heading toward populated areas. What happened to that regulation, anyway? I remember what happened to Payne Stewart.

Katrina wasn't his fault--how could they predict a storm like that and an aftermath like that? Well, National Geographic Magazine did.

Saddam not having WMD wasn't Bush's fault, either. How could they know that Saddam had no WMD? I mean, besides the fact that there was no hard evidence he had WMD?

Iraq being the absurd quagmire that it has become--certainly, there was no way to predict that! Of course, the British experienced it first hand... in 1917. I won't bring up Dick Cheney's own prediction of a mess back in 1992.

So, consider how just one of those shoes hitting Bush in the face would have made you feel. I know I'd have still laughed and played the clip over and over and over.

But him ducking the shoes?

Nothing new there. Just same old not-so-artful dodging from a man who didn't even have the decency to make sure he was properly elected... either time.

It just shows you the kind of spineless, fearful little weasel George W. Bush is.

It's a shoe, man. What's it going to do to you? Knock out a tooth? Break the skin?

Bush, you're supposed to be the president of the United States of America and you're afraid of a couple shoes.

Other Shoe Falls on Bush During Visit to Iraq--and It's from an Iraqi Foot

Wow, I hope the guy that threw those shoes at Bush doesn't end up in Abu Ghraib or Gitmo. Pull that kind of thing here in the land of the Free and the Brave and you get your ass investigated and possibly even arrested for threatening the life of the guy in the White House. Hell, in this country just talking about throwing a shoe at the occupier of the Oval Office might bring the Secret Service's shoe down on your throat.

Hey, you didn't really think we have 100% free speech didja?

After all, Bush himself agrees that there should be limits to freedom (and he said that before 911!).

Read more about King George's encounter with the shoe-throwing Angry Iraqi at CNN.com.

Posted via email from thepete's posterous

CORRECTION: I just watched the video--turns out the Iraqi dude threw both of his shoes at Bush. So, I corrected the text above to reflect multiple shoes thrown. :)

UPDATE: Here's video of the actual event as it happened:

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

Can We Call It WW III NOW???

I'm not sure how many major-theater/major-world-power wars need to be going on at once before we'll actually call this what it is: a world war.

I know it's a big scary thing to call it a "world war" but I feel that we need to take responsibilty for all of this death and destruction before every continent is engulfed in combat.

Merriam-Webster.com defines a "world war" as: "a war engaged in by all or most of the principal nations of the world,"

That's pretty much what we've got going on here. So why not just call a spade a spade?

OH YEAH. Because then we'd have to take responsibilty for it.

Yick! Responsibility!

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Cheney & Energy Task Force Plotted Iraq pre911

So, as I've said recently, I'm slowly catching up on my podcasts. One podcast I don't like to miss is the audio version of "Bill Moyer's Journal" on PBS (site: http://www.pbs.org/…rs/journal podcast (audio): http://www.pbs.org/…odcast.xml podcast (video): http://feeds.feedburner.com/bmjvodcast ). I was listening to the episode from June 27, 2008 when Moyers started talking about the war in Iraq. My gut instinct was to assume he was going to go on about how it was all for the oil and run the typical blood-for-oil argument you hear from so many people. Which is pretty much what he started to do. I immediately thought to myself "Yeah, but Bill, where's your hard evidence?"

That's a question I've asked many times of anti-war folks. Usually I just get the answer "it's obvious!" or "You really think we'd be in Iraq if there wasn't oil there?"

Of course, they're right, but what really connects Cheney to a oil-motivation?

Well, for once, a person quoting the blood-for-oil argument (BOA) actually had some evidence to back it up. The above screencap is part of it. And what's really messed up about this is that the above screencap comes from a press release dated July 17, *2003* (see the original page here: http://www.judicialwatch.org/…d-pr.shtml ).

Now, maybe I missed it in the cacophony of crap the Bush Administration was puulling at the time (back in July of '03 we'd only been in Iraq for four months). Regardless, what Judicial Watch found is downright damning.

If you look at the above cap, you'll see that they say: "Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, said today that documents turned over by the Commerce Department, under court order as a result of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force, contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.” The documents, which are dated March 2001, are available on the Internet at: www.JudicialWatch.org."

Yeah, that's right, *before* 911, Cheney was eyeing maps of oilfields in Iraq. Why would Cheney need to know where oil was in Iraq while planning for America's energy future? Sure, we could give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was just learning as much as he could about "our energy partner in the middle east," or some such crap they might spew to excuse maps being there (and not just say charts of oil output and other less visual aids), but after all that has happened, I can't imagine that he was doing anything but looking at those maps and thinking "yeah, we gotta secure that shit."

Especially considering the growing concern in 2001 that the world's peak oil limit might be approaching. "Peak Oil" is the theory that the Earth will produce more and more oil until it begins to run out--production will peak--then, we, as a planet, will start to run out and prices will climb. That last bit sounds familiar, doesn't it?

I heard about this theory for the first time in 2003, I believe. There was a December 2000 talk given by an oil expert called CJ Campbell, a guy who worked for oil companies, helping them find oil. You'd assume he'd be aware of just how much oil was left on the planet. (You can read a blog post I wrote about it here: http://thepete.com/…o-run-out/ )

So, there Cheney was, just a few months after Campbell's talk, chatting over energy policy with maps of oil fields in Iraq--before the 911 Attacks, before invading Afghanistan, before invading Iraq.

Am I reading into things? Maybe. But I can't help but wonder why Cheney and friends would withhold these maps from Judicial Watch when they first asked for them in April of 2001. Check out something else from the above screencapped press release: "Judicial Watch has been seeking these documents under FOIA since April 19, 2001. Judicial Watch was forced to file a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Department of Energy, et al., Civil Action No. 01-0981) when the government failed to comply with the provisions of the FOIA law. U.S. District Court Judge Paul J. Friedman ordered the government to produce the documents on March 5, 2002."

So, in 2002, a judge ruled that effectively Cheney had violated the law by keeping these documents from JW. I wonder why they would have done that.

Shades of things to come.

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Didn't They Already Have a Say?

Grabbed this screencap from Google News in the early hours of 7/9 and just had to shake my head.

I mean, REALLY.

A bipartisan panel wants the government to play a bigger role when a president decides to go to war.

Uhhhhh, YEAH.

You know what, Mr. or Mrs. Bipartisan Panel?

THEY ALREADY HAVE A BIGGER ROLE.

They just turned over that role to Bush in the lead-up to the Iraq Attack--or did you guys not study very hard in school?

I mean, any kid who paid attention in history class (or for me, Social Studies class) knows that it's Congress' job to authorize military force. Before we invaded a sovereign member of the UN (Iraq) back in 2003, the US Congress told Bush that he could swing his ability to declare war around like a huge penis in order to scare Saddam into fessing up about his WMD.

Of course, no amount of penis-swinging would get Saddam to admit something that wasn't true, so Bush got to use his war powers. Of course, if Congress hadn't been lied to by the White House, they'd have known Saddam had nothing to declare as we threatened to cross his border.

They trusted the guy in the White House. It's my impression that the Founding Fathers didn't want the guy in the White House to have the power to invade a country--so why did Congress defy that interest of the FF? Especially to a man like Bush who was such a great leader he let 911 happen, invaded a whole country and then couldn't even capture the guy who was behind 911.

This was a guy who didn't even have the decency to make sure he won the 2000 election.

Hey, did you know that when there's a tie in a presidential race the US Constitution states that it's *Congress* that votes on who the president should be?

Yeah, apparently the Supreme Court hadn't heard that either. By I digress!

The USC(ongress) should never have given Bush the ability to shoot his military load into Iraq to begin with, so essentially, since Bush "took office" the Supreme Court, Congress and the White House all let us down. That's all three branches, isn't it?

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Bush in TheNews: What's Wrong with this Picture?

OK, this is getting seriously out of control.

BUSH is scolding CONGRESS about Iraq???

HOLEEE Moley.

This isn't America, it's BIZARRO AMERICA. After the incredible mess Bush, himself, has caused in that country, he has the GALL to scold CONGRESS?

It would be one thing if he were saying something like: "Why did you guys vote to give me the power to go to war? Don't tell me you didn't think I'd screw it all to hell, now! We had African tribesman yet undiscovered by modern society sending emails to the White House telling me not to invade, but you guys let me do it anyway!"

However, here's what a March 27, 2008 article from http://AP.org/ and http://MyWay.com/ (here: http://apnews.myway.com/…RRLO0.html ) reported Bush saying:

Bush derided calls from Congress for troop withdrawals or deadlines so that the military could focus more on the anti-terror battle elsewhere. "This argument makes no sense," he said.

...

Bush suggested that Iraqi officials were able to make more progress than the U.S. Congress.

"They got their budget passed," the president said. "Sometimes it takes our Congress awhile to get its budget passed.

"Nevertheless some members of Congress decided the best way to encourage progress in Baghdad was to criticize and threaten Iraq's leaders while they're trying to work out their differences," Bush said.

...

"They're trying to build a modern democracy on the rubble of three decades of tyranny, in a region of the world that has been hostile to freedom. And they're doing it while under assault from one of history's most brutal terrorist networks," Bush said. "When it takes time for Iraqis to reach agreement, it is not foot-dragging, as one senator described it during Congress' two-week Easter recess. It is a revolutionary undertaking that requires great courage."

...

But, he countered, "If America's strategic interests are not in Iraq, the convergence point for the twin threats of al-Qaida and Iran, the nation Osama bin Laden's deputy has called the place for the greatest battle, the country at the heart of the most volatile region on earth, then where are they?"

Yeeeeah.

That last part is what you call a "straw man argument" and the Bush Administration uses them all the time. It's like using "rape" or "Hitler" in your argument--it's a fairly sure sign you *have* no argument. In case you're not familiar, a straw man argument is when you rephrase the issue in a way that makes it easier for you to beat.

For instance, Bush is waging a war on a concept (terrorism) where our enemy is a few-thousand strong (which got that strong thanks to his foreign policy). So, rather than admit that Al Qeada is a tiny, minuscule threat to America (especially when compared to something like cancer, AIDS or even car accidents) he says something like "Don't you want to protect America against the people who hate our way of life?"

How can you say "no" to that?

He sets up the straw man and then knocks it over--paraphrasing Shakespeare:

...it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Of course, what's really disgusting, to me at this point, is the way Congress is behaving through all of this. It's bad enough Bush has lied and bullshit his way into wars that are making his friends filthy rich(er), but Congress has the Constitutional authority and obligation to stop him. Yet, they've instead acted like a bunch of sheep, allowing themselves to be herded around by the good shepherd George.

I hope we all vote against our incumbent senators and congresspeople the next chance we get because every single one of them has let us down. Sure, some have tried, but none have stopped Bush from continuing this mess.

The whole thing makes me laugh like Chuck Heston in "Planet of the Apes."
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Bush Thinks $3 Trillion War is Fine for Economy

This is something I wanted to post about last week but just didn't find a moment, so I'm staying up extra late to get it done. Not that it matters, since the cost of the war in Iraq and its obvious effect on our economy won't be going away any time soon.

Back on February 29, 2008, Democracy Now did almost an entire hour with Nobel Prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz and Professor of public finance at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Linda Bilmes--the authors of the book "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict" (get it from Amazon here: http://snipurl.com/21kf0 ). It seems they've put a rather large price tag on the war and George W. doesn't believe the war is having that big of an effect on the US economy!

Check out the video excerpt from the February 29, 2008 Democracy Now episode (available on ThePete.Com or Utterz.com) to hear these words for yourself or just read them below. Juan Gonzalez, co-host of DN introduces a clip from the "Today" show:

JUAN GONZALEZ: We turn now to take an in-depth look at the cost of the Iraq war. Last week, President Bush rejected charges that the war in Iraq has hurt the US economy. He addressed the issue during an interview with Ann Curry on the Today Show.

ANN CURRY: Some Americans believe that they feel they're carrying the burden because of this economy.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yeah, well--

ANN CURRY: The economy, they say, is suffering because of this war.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I don't agree with that.

ANN CURRY: You don't agree with that? It has nothing to do with the economy, the war, the spending on the war?

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I don't think so. I think, actually, the spending on the war might help with jobs.

ANN CURRY: Oh, yeah?

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yeah, because we're buying equipment, and people are working. I think this economy is down because we built too many houses.

JUAN GONZALEZ: While President Bush claimed the war has nothing to do with the economy, one of the country's leading economists has just published a book that puts an estimated price tag on the war in Iraq. The number may surprise you: $3 trillion.

That's the estimate calculated by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and his co-author Linda Bilmes. According to the book, the Iraq War has become the second-most expensive war in US history, after World War II.

Pretty crazy, huh? And what a guy--our fearless leader not thinking a war that cost us $3 trillion is going to hurt our economy.

Where do you think all that money came from? Tax payers? Investors in the Fed? I wish. I'm no expert, but I have trolled the Fed's website and done a bit of reading elsewhere. My theory is that they just made the money from nothing. Really, that's what all banks do when they loan out money. It's not their money they're loaning--it's someone else's. The thing is, when you get it, you spend it and it then counts as part of our economy. But if you follow the trail back, it's not your money--so effectively, it's created from nothing.

That's assuming my brain, educated by the American public school system and Spider-Man comics, didn't screw something up. I could easily be missing something and I hope I am. However, it doesn't look like that's the case. What it *does* look like is that we the people are going to need more than just $600 each to make all of our money worth more again.

If I had any money, I'd put it in Euros. :)

To read the transcript from the Democracy Now broadcast, check it out here: http://www.democracynow.org/…dollar_war

You can also check out the entire episode in video or audio form here:
http://www.democracynow.org/…/29/stream

And to pick up the book "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict" and give me a few pennies, buy it through my Amazon link here:

http://snipurl.com/21kf0

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The 5 Minute Show Episode 14: The Return!

Three years after the last episode (episode 12) of the 5 Minute Show was shot I asked my friends if they wanted to go back to making more eps of T5MS and they said yes! Sadly, most of them kind of lost interest after a handful of episodes, so I found NEW friends to help me! But that's later. This episode originally posted on April 1, 2006 and does deal with the war and stuff, but it's pretty damn funny, I like to think.



Every time you watch 24 times, I make a penny. YAY!

The 5 Minute Show Episode 12: ThePete Covers TheWar

OK, this is the final episode of t5MS before a LONG break. See, it's hard to make funny when the war is on your mind. I don't know how Jon Stewart and his writers do it 4 days a week. I did it once and had to take three years off. :( Anyway, so, see if you like ThePete's coverage of the Iraq Attack!

The 5 Minute Show Episode 11: TheSerious About TheWar

This episode of The 5 Minute Show was shot the day I learned that the US had invaded Iraq. I found this pretty disturbing and felt weird about doing a "funny" video show that week, so I didn't. Don't worry, I don't stay serious very long after this episode. In fact, this is the second-to-last episode of The 5 Minute Show before a rather long hiatus. But don't worry, you won't feel a thing :D

The 5 Minute Show Ep 9 Anti-War Rally Finale

Here is the final episode following ThePete's adventures at an anti-Iraq War rally back in 2003, before the invasion happened. Sure, it didn't do any good, but there were a lot of hot women at the protest! :D But seriously, it was fun to go and experience all those people who think war's a bad idea.

The 5 Minute Show Episode 20030223 Anti-War Protest pt 2!

And here are the continuing adventures of ThePete at an Anti-Iraq War protest shortly before we went to war in Iraq. :(

Oklahoma 911/The War On Terror License Plate

I can't believe I, of all people, missed this story last August, but I did. I stumbled across a post about it a week, or so, ago (here: http://enews.org/…ights.html ) and I felt like I had to make a bigger deal out of it. Have a look at that ugly, horrible sample plate. If you own a car in the fine state of Oklahoma, you can decorate your car with this thing for just $37 (http://www.tax.ok.gov/…45.html)...

...If you want to.

WHY you'd want to is beyond me. The post I linked to above, written by a guy calling himself "Espresso Sucking Pavement Dweller" or ESPD for short, is all about the lousy design of the plate. ESPD is right--the black on red banner is hardly readable (it looks like it says "944" to me) and the clipart used for the Towers look like completely different buildings. He makes a few other points, including one about how others will criticize this license plate for reasons other than design.

Let me be one of those people. Let's begin:

1) Since when do you have license plates memorializing terrorist acts? Isn't it a little ghoulish to use the deaths of those 3000 people on 9/11/1 as advertising for a war?

2) I'm of the belief that America is stronger than a few thousand Muslim extremists. We can handle anything they can throw at us and the idea that we need to fight "The Global War On Terrorism" seems like over-dramatizing the threat of Al Qaeda and terrorism, in general. If you look at the statistics, cars, cancer and AIDS each kill more people every year than terrorism (more: http://thepete.com/…0-points/).

3) Oklahoma is fighting the war on terror? How's that, exactly? What does Oklahoma have that Al Qaeda wants?

4) As I mentioned in point 1, this plate is just an advertisement for a war--for killing people. Has "The Global War on Terrorism" brought us Bin Laden or even a single conviction on actual terrorism-related charges? So far it seems like this whole thing hasn't meant--well, I could be off color, here, I'll just suggest you refer to the acronym for "The Global War On Terror" only remove the "Global."

As Super Duper Tuesday is tomorrow and the next presidential election is in seven months, don't let 911 and mentions of the wars, Al Qaeda and other fear-mongering scare you into voting for one person or another. Vote with your head--not your fear.

Do I think we should go after Al Qaeda? Definitely. They do want to kill some of us. However, a war on a few thousand people with no country, no army, no nukes, and no obvious hierarchy seems like blatant, soulless, overkill. Plus, it's just what they want us to do.

Who knows? Maybe Bin Laden will see this license plate and give up. But I'm thinking it'll just make us snobby cityfolk point and snicker.
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