* "Mr. Rumsfeld's handling of another issue, the Red Cross reports on Iraq,
is
the most outrageous example of the administration's bad faith on the prison
scandal. The Bush administration has cited Red Cross confidentiality
policies to
explain its failure to give up the reports. The trouble is, the Red Cross
has
repeatedly told the administration to go ahead and share the agency's
findings
with Congress, as long as steps are taken to prevent leaks."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6414.htm

* "NAJAF, Iraq - Iraqi police imposed a curfew in the holy city of Najaf
from
Wednesday after a patrol clashed with fighters loyal to militant cleric
Moqtada
al-Sadr."
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2004/J
une/focusoniraq_June262.xml§ion=focusoniraq
and of course, they are still using planes to hit safehouses in fallujah.
wtf is
a 'safehouse'? zarq keeps narrowly escaping.

* "It took no more than a week for James Wynne, a veteran FBI investigator,
to
confirm the harmless truth, and now, two years later, he is ready to talk
about
it: The small, foreign-looking man he had helped arrest for videotaping
outside
a tall office building in Queens, New York, on Oct. 25, 2001, was no
terrorist."
http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?file=527278.html
this story is kinda interesting - this is what america is doing - locking up
people for 2 years for taking tourist fotos. i saw another story recently
where
someone took a photo of some valley and there was a nuke reactor way in the
background and the guy got arrested. and much more importantly, the ams
yesterday deported 2 iranian embassy staff for taking fotos of icons and
such.
surely if they were spying they'd be a bit more discreet and everytthing
they
could haev possibly learned from a photo is way-more-available and useful
online
anyways.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040629/ap_on_re_mi_ea/un_iran_
expulsions_8

* "WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is offering a novel reason for
denying a request seeking the Justice Department's database on foreign
lobbyists: Copying the information would bring down the computer system."
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBDP9DE2WD.html
indeed. do we see a pattern yet? not only for lying, but absolute contempt.

* robert fisk is one of the sensiblest journos on the planet - the article
is
worth a read
"Few, save of course for the Iraqis, understood the cruellest paradox of the
event. For it was the new "Iraqi Foreign Minister" who chose to leak the
"bringing forward" of sovereignty in Iraq at the Nato summit in Turkey. Thus
was
this new and unprecedented date in modern Iraqi history announced not in
Baghdad
but in the capital of the former Ottoman empire which once ruled Iraq. Alice
in
Wonderland could not have improved on this. The looking-glass reflects all
the
way from Baghdad to Washington." http://rense.com/general54/pit.htm

* this is also worth a read - the travesty of exceptionalism and all that
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/27/magazine/27WWLN.html?adxnnl=0&adxnnlx=1088
568705-hTaoFfbABMSyEG4uPvT5WA&pagewanted=all&position=

* WASHINGTON - The government needs to establish guidelines for canceling or
rescheduling elections if terrorists strike the United States again, says
the
chairman of a new federal voting commission.
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/politics/9014105.htm
nice to see them getting prepared. a plan would indeed be a good idea.

* this is also worth a read - another overview of the profound failure. the
interesting thing about articles like this is that the massmedia are also
starting to run them - both nyt and lat are finally starting to think that
we
have a problem on our hands and are printing some scathing articles. lat
today
told cheney to go fuck himself.
""Total failure" and "ruined credibility" are the watchwords for the day. A
process that never should have begun in the first place, a process which had
nothing to do with defending the United States, has led us to a place where
every 'goal' put forth by the Bush administration, no matter how stupid or
simple, has turned to ash. This is the great gift Mr. Bush has delivered to
us:
A midnight deal, a washing of hands, and a quick exit out the back door.
Honor
and integrity indeed."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/062904A.shtml

* "A Christian charity has accused the coalition authority in Iraq of
failing to
account for up to $20bn (nearly £11bn) of oil revenues which should have
been
spent on relief and reconstruction projects.
Resolution 1483, passed in May 2003, stated that the money should be spent
in
the interests of the Iraqi people and independently audited, but an auditor
was
appointed only in April."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4957988-103681,00.html

* another couple of madcow cases this week. the usda seems to be frantically
trying to cover up eevrything. again.

* "More than a year into an aid effort, occupation authorities acknowledge
that
fewer than 140 of 2,300 promised construction projects are under way. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/international/middleeast/30RECO.html?hp=&p
agewanted=all&position=

* "Ralph Reed is in charge of Bush's 2004 election campaign in the
Southeast,
including Florida.
When Ralph Reed was the boyish director of the Christian Coalition, he made
opposition to gambling a major plank in his "family values" agenda, calling
gambling "a cancer on the American body politic" that was "stealing food
from
the mouths of children." But now, a broad federal investigation into
lobbying
abuses connected to gambling on Indian reservations has unearthed evidence
that
Reed has been surreptitiously working for an Indian tribe with a large
casino it
sought to protect--and that Reed was paid with funds laundered through two
firms
to try to keep his lucrative involvement secret. Reed has always operated
behind
the scenes, and apparently he didn't want to risk becoming a humbled
hypocrite
like his right-wing cohorts William Bennett and Rush Limbaugh."
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20040712&s=newfield
and then we get the fabulous jackryan case.
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=17204
in a moral sense, the corruption is somehow quaint next the the hypocrisy.

* an uplifting story about f911 - u say u want a revolution babe (i dont
know if
its a 'lefty' source - hopefully its mainstream)
"Suddenly, in one revolutionary weekend, people who embrace Jon Stewart,
Bill
Maher and Tina Fey began to feel that they were part of a movement. That
lots of
Americans get weirded out by flag-pin-wearing anchors. Or distressed by the
fact
that most foreign leaders seem to speak better English than George W. Bush."
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/columnists/view.bg?articleid=72067

* and this is another uplifting one about f911 - the webcast thingy with mm
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/06/30/DDG8C7DURM1.DTL

* interim interim iraq pm alawi worked for 16 foreign spy agencies and is a
terrorist in the literal sense. the jan05 iraq elections are about as likely
as
me getting laid this week.

* im still not sure that the americans have saddam. peter jennings
interviewd
salem chalabi about yesterdays proceedings and it seems/reads like fiction
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/World/Chalabi_Iraq_Jennings_040630-1.html

* "According to overseas reports about 30 journalists witnessed the brief
ceremony, including Iraqi reporters, CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Peter
Jennings
from US network ABC and a Reuters cameraman, who provided pool footage of
the
historic moment in which US administrator Paul Bremer handed a blue folder
of
legal documents to Iraqi Supreme Court head Midhat al-Mahmoud. Regional
channels
Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya say they were not invited."
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,10002999%255E7
582,00.html
what could be the harm in inviting a couple of local media orgs?

* the cases in the supreme court this week arent nearly as positive/damaging
as
the media is screaming http://www.alternet.org/rights/19097/
"On the Padilla case, the court moved from the merely dysfunctional to the
vaguely dishonest"

* the hitchens/slate f911 review is a must read.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/ when did everyone lose their brains? heres
a
tangential reply http://nypress.com/17/26/news&columns/MattTaibbi.cfm
heres a hint - if someone tries to tell u that moores film is 'too biased',
tell
them to fuck off and politely suggest that bias isnt the issue. and tell
them to
fuck off from me.

* speaking of fucking, nice juxtapoistion with cheneys 'go f**k yerself'
visavis
say janets breast, or sterns caller saying 'nigger' before being cut off.

* "France is always trying to undermine NATO," complained one diplomat,
noting
that whenever communiques are being drawn up it is France that insists on
inserting the words "where appropriate" in paragraphs on alliance
operations.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&ncid=703&e=11&u=/nm/2004
0629/pl_nm/nato_summit_chirac_dc
those fucking french, wheres that carte blanche when we need it?? can u
believe
that these arguments are even posited.

* What he liked most, he says, was “the camaraderie, the
responsibility,
the no-holds-barred commitment … you loved each other.”

* the army times interviews kerry "What he liked most, he says, was
“the
camaraderie, the responsibility, the no-holds-barred commitment … you
loved each other.”
That, in a nutshell, is what makes him different from President Bush, he
says.
It’s what the president doesn’t get."
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-3048167.php
note how the armytimes says "It’s what the president doesn’t
get."
its almost like they are trying to suggest that it was kerry who said it.
hats
off to the journo/editor who let it sneak through, but it suggests how
peeved
the miitary is with 'their' cicchief. never in my wildest dreams could i
have
imagined thinking that the only way to save america was with a military
coup.

*
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=4&u=/nm/20040
629/wl_nm/nuclear_iran_dc
ElBaradei said he believed a nuclear monitoring device used to detect
radiation
contamination in humans, spotted at Lavizan, in all likelihood came from the
United States, confirming what diplomats told Reuters last week.
This confirmation could prove embarrassing to Washington, which has called
on
countries to crack down on exports of seemingly innocent machinery that
could be
used in weapons programs."
could twot possibly be more misguided (to use a generous phrase)? aqkhan
gets
pardoned in pakistan. the only reason iraq ever had anything like wmd is cos
the
americans still had the receipts. rumsfled sold the nthkoreans their nuclear
reactors. etc etc et al

* brooks pretends to be a human :
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/29/opinion/29BROO.html
he suggests that amerika is polarized, ergo we need the draft "Still, it's
worth
thinking radically. An ambitious national service program would ameliorate
the
situation."
can people at least try making sense? my sanity depends on it.

* krug steps in again
"In March, Michael Fleischer, a New Jersey businessman, took over. Yes, he's
Ari
Fleischer's brother. Mr. Fleischer told The Chicago Tribune that part of his
job
was educating Iraqi businessmen: "The only paradigm they know is cronyism.
We
are teaching them that there is an alternative system with built-in checks
and
built-in review."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/29/opinion/29KRUG.html
yesterday i heard some lark damning nthkorea for hereditary-ness. lets see -
weve got prescott and 41 and 43 and jeb. weve got colin powell and his son
michale who is head of the fcc. and we got ari1 and his bro. and weve got
ari2
and his bro is head of the fda. (or is it now medicare?) cheneys (str8)
daughter
is a mideast 'diplomat'.
"Let's say the obvious. By making Iraq a playground for right-wing economic
theorists, an employment agency for friends and family, and a source of
lucrative contracts for corporate donors, the administration did terrorist
recruiters a very big favor."
a very big favour. indeed. ive said all along that this bit isnt an
accident.
they intended to fuck it up all along. there were so many easy and obvious
things that they didnt 'plan' for that it simply couldnt be an accident. and
again i point to their efficacy in controlling the media - its almost
inimaginable that 'incompetence' is a reasonable explanation. they know how
to
plan and to execute.

* "The CNN/Gallup poll found that six out of 10 people believed Monday's
hasty
handover, at a moment when Iraq remained so perilous, was a sign of failure,
compared to just a third who regarded it as a sign of success."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=536595
is the population really catching up? 60% is a lot! and given recent polling
histroy, one imagines that this is understating. praps this is the f911
audience
finally awakening. which is kinda positive - except that ive always said
that
the only thing that dissent will do is bring forward the coup. careful wot u
wish 4.

* "The Lycos 50(TM) Top 10 Search Terms for the Week Ending June 26, 2004:
1) Paris Hilton
2) Kim Sun IL
3) Paul Johnson
4) Clay Aiken
5) Nick Berg
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040629/netu009_1.html";
ok - so here we have absolute proof of the decline of civilisation. if the
results are legit - then the terrorists have a pretty good card - beheading
hostages can dominate media for a month. however, i doubt that most
americans
can even pronounce 'kimsunil' let alone bother searching on that term, so
ive
gotta imagine that the results are being manipulated - which tells us a lot
about the people who have the power to manipulate such things. it seems that
those people think that its important that we think that beheadings are
really
really important.

* i love the medias positioning of saddams crimes "He acknowledged that more
than 1 million Iraqis were missing as a result of events that occurred
during
the former regime – and that many Iraqis wanted justice done."
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,9995804%5E2703
,00.html
"missing as a result of events that occurred during the former regime" fukk
rite
off. what they mean to say is that the sanctions killed a million people.
half a
million children. and while its nice to blame saddam, lets remember
madeleine
albright "we think its worth it" - ie the us/un were the cause, and they
thought
it was justified. a cost of war if u will. but then, thats similar to
blaming
the 40000 odd iraqi deaths in this invasion on saddam.

____________________________________________________________________________
____
Zarqawi is dead, long live Zarqawi.
wotisitgood4.blogspot.com