The recent controversies swirling around the ex-minister for immigration, involving international criminality, generous donations to party slush funds and the provision of visas failed to dislodge Philip Ruddock. Indeed, the PM gave the minister an astonishing promotion. A bloke whose compliance with the law may at some stage be questioned has been appointed Attorney General! To run the laws of the land! And the public cops it.
We’re dealing with a public that doesn’t want to know. A public that chooses to ignore the truth about Tampa, the refugees, SIEV-X, the detention centres, the war in Iraq. A public that proffers the blind eye and deaf ear, preferring to live in the amoral world of blissful, wilful ignorance. Instead of being enraged by the lies of our leaders and the gutlessness of the Opposition, we excuse our failure as citizens by saying, "We’re not to blame; they’ve made us cynical." Sorry, that’s not good enough. The public has to lift its game

Those losses are yet to be quantified, though a Yale University academic has estimated that in the 17 months to June 1998 alone the use of market timing to inflate sale prices in 116 mutual funds cost investors 0.44 per cent of the funds' assets, or $US1.5 billion.

"America is following a new strategy," Pres. Bush said in a speech yesterday. "We are not waiting for further attacks," he said. "We are striking our enemies before they can strike us again."
"The way he chooses his words about North Korea, about Indonesia, will be very important because it will be amplified this week,"

"The best slave is the slave who does not realize he's a slave." —Author unknown

A letter to my girlfriend
by Sherman Austin, Raise the Fist
Oct. 8, 2003
Background information —
Feds, cops in vendetta against subversive webmaster
I miss you. I haven’t been able to call anyone because I’ve been in the hole here at Oklahoma. They moved me up here last Tuesday. I was watching TV in one of the rooms, and the guards called my name, handcuffed me and put me in here where they keep the high security prisoners.

What is passing under the radar regarding the war in Iraq is the staggering number of casualties that occur on a daily basis. According to an article published in The New Republic (10-2-03) by editor, Lawrence F. Kaplan, almost every night giant C-17 transport jets loaded with wounded Americans land at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington. He goes on to state that every day another ten soldiers are wounded seriously in Iraq and as many as 1,600 soldiers have already come home missing arms, legs, or parts of their faces.

To make matters worse, according to a September 2, 2003 Washington Post article by staff writer, Vernon Loeb, US Central Command isn't even reporting "other casualties" unless the attacks also kill one or more personnel. Why? Because attacks on US military personnel are so commonplace and the number of wounded have become so large, which of course means more people would become outraged if they understood the magnitude of the problem.

A top U.S. envoy dismissed allegations Tuesday that Washington was helping opposition groups topple Venezuela's leftist president.

Five undercover agents of the US Department of Homeland Security posing as passengers last week carried weapons through several security checkpoints at Logan International Airport without being detected,

It's hard to know what has been Howard's most reckless initiative. The encouragement of Hansonism, the wink and a nod to White Australia, his signing up with the Quadrant loonies on Aboriginal issues, his enthusiasm to involve us in a war that had absolutely nothing to do with us?
Or is it this? To give the nod to the noose and all the social savageries it symbolises. This in a country where a quiet consensus across all parties was reached decades ago – not to commit official murder. To borrow from Ned Kelly's words as they adjusted his noose, such is life in Howard's Australia.

Pakistan has bluntly refused to send any troops to Iraq, dealing an early blow to US hopes that Washington will be able to lever its diplomatic victory at the UN Security Council yesterday into a speedy boost in resources for its campaign in Iraq.

it was not so much the guns of Oct. 6, 1973, and the assault of the Egyptian and Syrian armies against Israel, that changed contemporary history and remade our world. It was the use 11 days later of the "oil weapon," and the price increases that followed, which tipped the scales of history.

Secondly, the US fears the deadly threat of terrorism. I agree. It is a deadly threat. On terrorism I am your greatest ally. But what right did the US have to intervene in Iraq, a sovereign country?"
Maarif argues that by its actions in Iraq the US has undermined the war on terror. History, he says, will see the Iraq war as "an act of suicide" by the US.

In the terror-conscious post-Sept. 11 world, DynCorp, the employer of the three security guards killed in the Mideast bombing Wednesday, has become the 10th-largest contractor of the U.S. government.
All of this has made the company highly attractive from a business standpoint. In March, DynCorp was purchased for $950 million by El Segundo, Calif.-based Computer Sciences Corp.

The Pentagon stepped up to defend the high-level appointment of an evangelical Christian general who has described America's "war on terror" as a struggle between Judeo-Christian values and Satan.

To properly understand the Syria Accountability Act, one has to go back to a 1996 document, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," drafted by a team of advisers to Benjamin Netanyahu in his run for prime minister of Israel. The authors included current Bush advisers Richard Perle and Douglas Feith. "Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil," they wrote, calling for "striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove insufficient, striking at select targets in Syria proper." No wonder Perle was delighted by the Israeli strike. "It will help the peace process," he told the Washington Post, adding later that the United States itself might have to attack Syria.

Investigators from a special anti-terrorist cell in the European Union have expressed doubts over a Washington Post report this week in which sources claimed that Saad bin Laden, 24, Osama's eldest son, is now a top al-Qaeda member and that he runs operations out of Iran.
mred - sur-fukking-prise

The attempt to throw all big cats - "axis of evil" Iran, "foreign terrorists" in Iraq and al-Qaeda - into one big bag is seen by European intelligence agencies as a crude attempt on the part of the Bush administration to "refocus" the "war on terror" from former "axis of evil" member Iraq to current member Iran, and from Saddam Hussein to the ayatollahs in Tehran.

Saad bin Laden is one of at least 11 sons from Osama's first wife and also first cousin, Najwa Ghanem from Syria. Out of five marriages, Osama has fathered about 20 children.

Do tax cuts for the wealthy represent the will of God?

The vow he uttered during his town-hall meeting in California over the weekend—"Not over my dead body will they raise your taxes!"—was the strongest he’s made on any subject since his promise to deliver Osama bin Laden to justice "dead or alive."

Ralph Reed, the former director of the Christian Coalition who now chairs the G.O.P. in Georgia, says his fellow evangelicals believe God selected the President because "He knew George Bush had the ability to lead in this compelling way."

In this sentiment, the Time magazine "Man of the Year" was swiftly seconded by a Catholic bishop. (Again, a skeptic might impiously wonder why the Lord didn’t simply bless Mr. Bush with the actual majority of votes. But faith is nothing without mystery.)

With many forces insisting on variant definitions of marriage, pray that God’s word and His standards will be honoured by our government." Endorsing the team’s admirable goals, James proposes the following constitutional amendments:

a) Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women (Gen 29:17-28, 2 Sam 3:2-5.) Marriage shall not impede a man’s right to take concubines in addition to his wives. (2 Sam 5:13; 1 Kings 11:3; 2 Chron 11:21).
b) A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:13-21). Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden. (Gen 24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30).
c) Since marriage is for life, neither this constitution nor the constitution of any state, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9).
d) If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother’s widow, or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10)


As for the $87 billion, there is ample evidence that the demand for this vast sum is part of a venal money-making scheme by those who control the levers of power in Washington. Kristof himself points to a request for $50 million to build a cement factory that Iraqis proved capable of constructing for $80,000, and cites doubts within the American public about the allotment of $50,000 apiece for the purchase of garbage trucks.
A recent report issued by the United Nations and World Bank placed the cost of reconstruction in Iraq at precisely half the amount budgeted by Bush.

Yet the overriding truth was probably very simple: As the physicist Freeman Dyson later said, "The reason that the atomic bomb was dropped was just that nobody had the courage or the foresight to say no."

In our time, how much danger do we face, not just from nuclear weapons, but from all of these technologies? How high are the extinction risks?
The philosopher John Leslie has studied this question and concluded that the risk of human extinction is at least 30 percent,9 while Ray Kurzweil believes we have "a better than even chance of making it through," with the caveat that he has "always been accused of being an optimist." Not only are these estimates not encouraging, but they do not include the probability of many horrid outcomes that lie short of extinction.

Critics—including Congress and some military officers—are asking whether this downsizing would simply make it easier for the United States to rush to war. Rumsfeld’s proposed “rebalancing” would convert the most heavily used reserve jobs (military police, civil affairs, psychological operations) into active-duty Army positions.
Rumsfeld’s “rebalancing” is a five-year plan. So it won’t fix the Bushies’ immediate political problem. But it might grease the skids for America’s next war.

But there are no images of flag-draped coffins in this war to remind people of the human price being paid. That’s because the media are prohibited from filming or photographing soldiers’ remains being sent home.