When the CIA Overthrew Iran for British Petroleum
The CIA did the same for bananas in Central America. Anything for private profit.
I doubt if BP will use the CIA to get out of trouble this time. This time they'll use the Federal and Supreme Courts.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Headline of the Day
A short refresher on common knowledge:
The CIA did the same for bananas in Central America. Anything for private profit.
I doubt if BP will use the CIA to get out of trouble this time. This time they'll use the Federal and Supreme Courts.
The CIA did the same for bananas in Central America. Anything for private profit.
I doubt if BP will use the CIA to get out of trouble this time. This time they'll use the Federal and Supreme Courts.
Be careful what you wish for ...
Me and my big mouth ... (If I had a dime for every time I said that).
When the economy tanked last year, and Barry was talking about the stimulus plan, I would kvetch that there's a "shovel-ready" project in my neighborhood, namely the road I live on. It's been fer shit for years thanks to them replacing the gas lines in the street (they just tossed asphalt over the trenches) and about 10 years of winter (and the heavy-duty snowplows that grind over it) since they paved it correctly, and it looks like the Moon. Been kvetching a long time.
Well, seems, for the first time in memory, somebody in the local government heard and actually listened to me. A few weeks ago they began, not just my street, but the whole approach to the Long Island Expressway that's 3/4 mile up the road. New overpass, cloverleaf, and adding an extra lane each way to the secondary road which feeds it. It'll be 2 years until they're done.
So now I'm not just worrying about the fillings being shaken out of my head (I drive like I'm on the slalom on the B.F. Goodrich Test Track) when I come home but it's a pain in the ass with the increased traffic thanks to constant pattern changes. What a fucking mess.
I know it's been sorely needed for years and I'm glad some Long Islanders are back to work, and I know it's going to be good when it's done, but all I was hoping for was a little asphalt rolled over the top of my road to make it smooth. Ah well, I asked for it ...
When the economy tanked last year, and Barry was talking about the stimulus plan, I would kvetch that there's a "shovel-ready" project in my neighborhood, namely the road I live on. It's been fer shit for years thanks to them replacing the gas lines in the street (they just tossed asphalt over the trenches) and about 10 years of winter (and the heavy-duty snowplows that grind over it) since they paved it correctly, and it looks like the Moon. Been kvetching a long time.
Well, seems, for the first time in memory, somebody in the local government heard and actually listened to me. A few weeks ago they began, not just my street, but the whole approach to the Long Island Expressway that's 3/4 mile up the road. New overpass, cloverleaf, and adding an extra lane each way to the secondary road which feeds it. It'll be 2 years until they're done.
So now I'm not just worrying about the fillings being shaken out of my head (I drive like I'm on the slalom on the B.F. Goodrich Test Track) when I come home but it's a pain in the ass with the increased traffic thanks to constant pattern changes. What a fucking mess.
I know it's been sorely needed for years and I'm glad some Long Islanders are back to work, and I know it's going to be good when it's done, but all I was hoping for was a little asphalt rolled over the top of my road to make it smooth. Ah well, I asked for it ...
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
More dysfunction ...
From the New York State Government, second only (sometimes) to them Wes' Coas' folks in Sacramento. Our Rethugs had their primary and one of the guys trying to be the next governor is my county executive (the turncoat democrat). Res Ipsa sums up the jocularity succinctly:
If Andy Cuomo ain't our next governor, it'll be because he self-destructed in the next 6 months. But this is New York. FDR could be the governor and he'd still have to deal with the useless blobs of biomatter called the New York State Legislature.
By the way, the Putz won.
...
Lazio is the putz who blew an election by trying to physically intimidate Hillary Clinton live on television. Levy is a porn-stache-wearing immigrant-bashing party-switching clown. And Ed Cox is Richard Nixon’s son-in-law.
...
If Andy Cuomo ain't our next governor, it'll be because he self-destructed in the next 6 months. But this is New York. FDR could be the governor and he'd still have to deal with the useless blobs of biomatter called the New York State Legislature.
By the way, the Putz won.
IOKIYAR ... part eleventy billion ... something
Remember when I warned Orrin Hatch about trying to criminalize speech, no matter how distasteful:
Headline over at C&L today:
But of course!
Update:
Seems Kirk also has another "conservative problem":
Before you push your silly legislation:
...
You might want to figure out how many of your own* will get caught up in it:
...
Headline over at C&L today:
IOKIYAR: Orrin Hatch Says His Amendment Would Not Apply to Mark Kirk
But of course!
Update:
Seems Kirk also has another "conservative problem":
His military record appears to not be the only thing about which Mark Kirk is lying.
...
Headlines of the Day
Fishermen Hospitalized: BP Not Allowing Clean-Up Workers to Use Respirators
Hazmat suits but no respirators. That arrogant Limey bastard CEO says it may be 'food poisoning' from 'unsanitary conditions' in the temporary worker camps. Hey, asshole, if there's one thing Americans know that Limeys don't, it's how to cook in outdoor situations. Fuck, the English can't cook in a kitchen. Yeesh.
Someone said on TV last night that BP may not have had a clean-up strategy, but they sure as hell had a legal strategy ready to go. The respirator thing is just another plan that's going to backfire on them.
Their larger plan is that they know there are going to be tens of thousands of claims, lawsuits, litigation of all sorts. Their plan? Keep 'em all tied up in court until all the plaintiffs are dead.
Let's hope the prosecutions go a little quicker.
Update:
Fisherman who fell ill during oil spill clean-up alleges BP tried to cover-up evidence.
“At West Jefferson, there were tents set up outside the hospital, where I was stripped of my clothing, washed with water and several showers, before I was allowed into the hospital,” Wunstell said. “When I asked for my clothing, I was told that BP had confiscated all of my clothing and it would not be returned.”
Knowingly exposing workers to toxins and carcinogens without safety equipment due to their (well-founded) fears of legal liability that is going to come back and bite them on the ass and rightly so. We're a very litigious society. This time, that's a good thing.
BP's gotta go down over all this.
Update II:
From the 1953 CIA Overthrow of Democracy in Iran, to the Iraq War, to the Criminal Gulf Catastrophe and Deaths, BP Was There
If you were to draw an oily line from the first exploitation of oil in the Middle East by the British in 1901 (they were in the process of converting their then world dominating naval fleet from coal to oil and were in desperate need of it) to the overthrow of the secular democratic leader in Iran, Mohammed Mossadeq, in 1953, to the Iraq War, to the criminal environmental catastrophe in the Gulf, BP would have been there.
BP and its American counterparts are part of the corporate oligarchy that run governments when it comes to energy policy. They don't take orders from sovereign nations; they give them. [...] There is no brake on their malfeasance, greed and criminal behavior, nor their ability to get nations to go to war, overthrow democratically elected leaders, and to get away with pollution of proportions beyond the imagination.
It's way past time for that to change. More.
From "can-do" to "can't-do" ...
In a mere 40 years.
Bob Herbert via Montag:
The result of the American people being told, for the last 30 years, that they can have everything for nothing, that they can spend beyond their means, rape the environment, and not pay to support the national infrastructure (except for our military infrastructure, you betcha).
Bob Herbert via Montag:
...
For a nation that can’t stop bragging about how great and powerful it is, we’ve become shockingly helpless in the face of the many challenges confronting us. Our can-do spirit was put on hold many moons ago, and here we are now unable to defeat the Taliban, or rein in the likes of BP and the biggest banks, or stop the oil gushing furiously from the bowels of earth like a warning from Hades about the hubris and ignorance that is threatening to destroy us.
...
Instead of staring mesmerized at the tragedy in the gulf, like spectators at a train wreck, we should be trying to regain that innovative can-do spirit that made America the greatest of nations.
...
The result of the American people being told, for the last 30 years, that they can have everything for nothing, that they can spend beyond their means, rape the environment, and not pay to support the national infrastructure (except for our military infrastructure, you betcha).
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Israel who?
Stays on top today - G
At the risk of being called an anti-Semite once again (not that I care anymore), at what point to we say "enough is enough"? At what point does Israel have to pay a price for their actions? At what point do we say, "Israel has become what it despises the most"? At what point do American Jews stop having the knee-jerk reaction to protect and defend anything that Israel does to the point of labeling anyone who disagrees an anti-Semite? And, at what point do our politicians stop kowtowing to Israeli lobbying groups in this country?
What Israel is doing - squeezing the Palestinians out of the West Bank through continued settlement expansion (my people called it Lebensraum), through the siege of Gaza, and disproportionate responses to any Palestinian transgression - is indefensible and unjustified under the blanket statement of "protecting Israel's security". Thanks to our alliance and unquestioned protection of Israel, our troops in the region are put in more danger than they already are. Our diplomatic efforts in the region are consistently undermined by Israel's unilateral aggression toward its neighbors, tainting us with the stench of their inhumanity.
Their ruthlessness, their indifference to the human suffering (the direct result of Israel's policy toward the Palestinian areas) just across the border, and the Israeli government's adamant defense of those policies only makes them a 21st Century Nazi Germany. They learned well from those who once oppressed them.
As everyone in this country is complaining about how we're going broke (thanks to the two wars we're fighting, an underlying result of our alliance with Israel), I have a serious problem sending billions of dollars of my tax money (in the form of direct payments and military support) over there. I'm tired of our government looking the other way when Israel persists in implementing their plan to take whatever land the Palestinians have left and either shove them across the Jordan River or over the border into Egypt, or just kill as many as they can.
The United States can no longer afford to give the Israelis diplomatic cover in the U.N. with their veto power over the Security Council. I am very sorry for what my people did to theirs, there is no excuse or justification and will be a stain upon Germany for centuries to come, but that does not make Israel 'untouchable' (because, underneath it all, the label "anti-Semite" is inferring Nazism and if you say a cross word about Israel ...). It does not make them unaccountable for their actions and the consequences resulting. They certainly have no right to determine U.S. policy in the region.
If we expect to ever get our troops out of the Middle East, our policy toward Israel has to change. If we ever want to stop living in fear of a terrorist attack, the likes of which we saw here on 11 September, we have to distance ourselves from a government we have no control over. It's time to stop treating Israel as the 51st State.
At the risk of being called an anti-Semite once again (not that I care anymore), at what point to we say "enough is enough"? At what point does Israel have to pay a price for their actions? At what point do we say, "Israel has become what it despises the most"? At what point do American Jews stop having the knee-jerk reaction to protect and defend anything that Israel does to the point of labeling anyone who disagrees an anti-Semite? And, at what point do our politicians stop kowtowing to Israeli lobbying groups in this country?
What Israel is doing - squeezing the Palestinians out of the West Bank through continued settlement expansion (my people called it Lebensraum), through the siege of Gaza, and disproportionate responses to any Palestinian transgression - is indefensible and unjustified under the blanket statement of "protecting Israel's security". Thanks to our alliance and unquestioned protection of Israel, our troops in the region are put in more danger than they already are. Our diplomatic efforts in the region are consistently undermined by Israel's unilateral aggression toward its neighbors, tainting us with the stench of their inhumanity.
JERUSALEM – Israeli commandos rappelled down to an aid flotilla sailing to thwart a Gaza blockade on Monday, clashing with pro-Palestinian activists on the lead ship in a botched raid that left at least nine passengers dead.
...
Their ruthlessness, their indifference to the human suffering (the direct result of Israel's policy toward the Palestinian areas) just across the border, and the Israeli government's adamant defense of those policies only makes them a 21st Century Nazi Germany. They learned well from those who once oppressed them.
As everyone in this country is complaining about how we're going broke (thanks to the two wars we're fighting, an underlying result of our alliance with Israel), I have a serious problem sending billions of dollars of my tax money (in the form of direct payments and military support) over there. I'm tired of our government looking the other way when Israel persists in implementing their plan to take whatever land the Palestinians have left and either shove them across the Jordan River or over the border into Egypt, or just kill as many as they can.
The United States can no longer afford to give the Israelis diplomatic cover in the U.N. with their veto power over the Security Council. I am very sorry for what my people did to theirs, there is no excuse or justification and will be a stain upon Germany for centuries to come, but that does not make Israel 'untouchable' (because, underneath it all, the label "anti-Semite" is inferring Nazism and if you say a cross word about Israel ...). It does not make them unaccountable for their actions and the consequences resulting. They certainly have no right to determine U.S. policy in the region.
If we expect to ever get our troops out of the Middle East, our policy toward Israel has to change. If we ever want to stop living in fear of a terrorist attack, the likes of which we saw here on 11 September, we have to distance ourselves from a government we have no control over. It's time to stop treating Israel as the 51st State.
Quote of the Day
Our pal Nunya:
The United States Supreme Court make up
is a right-wing Bush created Frankenstein nightmare that might end before I die, but I doubt it.
...
"The siege itself is becoming Israel’s Vietnam."
Haaretz via The Moderate Voice:
'Seige' is a much better word for what Israel is doing to Gaza than 'blockade' because it invokes a medieval picture of trying to starve the Palestinians to death.
Related:
Israel's Vietnam? Hmmmmm. Shades of Haiphong...
We'll see what Israel does about this 'outrage', as they will no doubt call it. It won't be good.
In going to war in Gaza in late 2008, Israeli military and political leaders hoped to teach Hamas a lesson. They succeeded. Hamas learned that the best way to fight Israel is to let Israel do what it has begun to do naturally: bluster, blunder, stonewall, and fume.
Hamas, and no less, Iran and Hezbollah, learned early on that Israel’s own embargo against Hamas-ruled Gaza was the most sophisticated and powerful weapon they could have deployed against the Jewish state.
Here in Israel, we have still yet to learn the lesson: We are no longer defending Israel. We are now defending the siege. The siege itself is becoming Israel’s Vietnam.
'Seige' is a much better word for what Israel is doing to Gaza than 'blockade' because it invokes a medieval picture of trying to starve the Palestinians to death.
Related:
Egypt Opens Border With Gaza Strip to Allow Humanitarian Aid
Israel's Vietnam? Hmmmmm. Shades of Haiphong...
We'll see what Israel does about this 'outrage', as they will no doubt call it. It won't be good.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Bin Laden Says He’s ‘Professionally Envious’ of BP
THE BOROWITZ REPORT – In a new video that is light on his usual threats but heavy on admiration, Osama bin Laden admits that he is “professionally envious” of oil giant BP’s massive oil spill, saying that it puts his efforts to create destruction and chaos to shame.
“There are times in an evildoer’s life when one has to stand back and admire a job well done,” Mr. bin Laden says in the video. “BP, you blow me away.”
The Al-Qaeda mastermind adds that his first thought upon seeing BP’s spill was, “Man, I’ve got to step up my game.”
Ya gotta learn from the pros, dude.
Peepin' Moosebreath
EssEffZam
I'm sure that didn't bother her a bit, but a political writer noted for telling the truth, whoa Nellie!
And of course "Leave The Children Alone" Becky said that about the time (s)he trashed Malia Obama. Asshole.
Propinquitous observation is paying off already. Turn over some rocks, Joe, you got her scared. This oughta be good.
I read McGinniss' Going To Extremes years ago, about a year he spent in Alaska. Good book. The guy gets it done.
As it says in the sidebar: "The right is nothing if not filled with liars and hypocrites". Here's hoping Mr. McGinniss can prove it once and for all in "The Queen Of The Tiny-Brained Has No Clothes".
It didn't take long after best-selling author Joe McGinniss moved in next door to the Palins in Wasilla for Sarah Palin to deploy a deceptive "Joe the Pervert-Stalker" campaign. Glenn Beck jumped in calling for a boycott of Random House which is publishing the upcoming book about Palin, and pretty soon journalists were lining up on either Palin's or McGinniss's side of the issue.
It all started a few days ago with a Facebook entry in which Palin complained that the new neighbor was looking over in the direction of her house, her little garden and the "family's swimming hole" (better known as Lake Lucille). Palin claims she was forced her to run indoors because she was standing out on her lawn wearing a tank top and shorts. Later, she accused the 67-year-old grandfather from Boston of "peering at her young daughter" and told Glenn Beck that McGinniss "better leave her kids alone." Palin's Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/notes/sarah-palin/just-when-ya-think-it-cant-get-any-more-interesting-welcome-neighbor/392687973434
Palin's throwing around allegations of sexually motivated voyeurism, based on what? It's even more ridiculous because the place McGinniss is renting had been a residence for men recently released from prison who were recovering addicts, said Shannyn Moore in her Alaska blog, "Just a Girl from Homer."
I'm sure that didn't bother her a bit, but a political writer noted for telling the truth, whoa Nellie!
And of course "Leave The Children Alone" Becky said that about the time (s)he trashed Malia Obama. Asshole.
Palin's "hysterical" reaction to him was unexpected, McGinniss told the Washington Post by phone from Wasilla. "I'm getting an insight into her character, into her ability to incite hatred, that before I only knew in the abstract."
Propinquitous observation is paying off already. Turn over some rocks, Joe, you got her scared. This oughta be good.
I read McGinniss' Going To Extremes years ago, about a year he spent in Alaska. Good book. The guy gets it done.
As it says in the sidebar: "The right is nothing if not filled with liars and hypocrites". Here's hoping Mr. McGinniss can prove it once and for all in "The Queen Of The Tiny-Brained Has No Clothes".
Oh, the irony...
Ironic Times
Groooaaaan...
UK: Giant Crop Circle Depicts Arcane Mathematical Formula
Appears to be unified field theory.
Groooaaaan...
Arizona's Native Americans Would Also End Birthright Citizenship
Retroactive to 1492.
Fox News Edits Out 12-Second Applause as Obama Refers to End of Combat Mission in Iraq at West Point Speech
Will save it for next Sarah Palin speech.
Bush: Book Begins With His Decision to Stop Drinking
Ends with God telling him to invade Iraq.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Careful, Orrin ...
Before you push your silly legislation:
You might want to figure out how many of your own* will get caught up in it:
First off, all politicians will lie about anything if they think they can get away with it. Secondly, if anybody is a poster child for lying and obfuscation, it's the GOP. Generally, boys (and that's what they are, mostly; old white men) if you piss into the wind, you end up getting wet.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is attempting to amend the 2005 Stolen Honor Act, which criminalized false claims of military service, in order to punish people who lie about being in combat -- people like Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D), a Senate candidate.
...
You might want to figure out how many of your own* will get caught up in it:
The Republican candidate for President Obama's old Senate seat has admitted to inaccurately claiming he received the U.S. Navy's Intelligence Officer of the Year award for his service during NATO's conflict with Serbia in the late 1990s.
...
First off, all politicians will lie about anything if they think they can get away with it. Secondly, if anybody is a poster child for lying and obfuscation, it's the GOP. Generally, boys (and that's what they are, mostly; old white men) if you piss into the wind, you end up getting wet.
*Great thanks to Comrade Misfit for the link.
Quote of the Day
Philippe Cousteau:
... So it’s not a question of can the oceans can take any more. The ocean can’t take any more. They couldn’t take any more fifty years ago. The question is, when are we going to stop?
...
Sunday Crazy Redneck Music Blogging
I have vinyl LPs of this group's dads and uncles who went by "The Braun Brothers". They've been a local musical force in Idaho and environs, and now Austin, for decades.
Lyrics here. Memorable line: "So lets put on some Scooby Doo & smoke a couple doobie doos". Sounds good ta me.
This is about as close to heavy metal as I get.
Lyrics here. Memorable line: "So lets put on some Scooby Doo & smoke a couple doobie doos". Sounds good ta me.
This is about as close to heavy metal as I get.
Reckless Kelly ~ Wiggles & Ritalin
Thanks to shrNHB.
Obama’s Katrina? Maybe Worse
Daddy Frank on the oil spill in terms of the cultural and political right-wing wars against Obama.
There's one helluva lot more. Go.
FOR Barack Obama’s knee-jerk foes, of course it was his Katrina. But for the rest of us, there’s the nagging fear that the largest oil spill in our history could yet prove worse if it drags on much longer. It might not only wreck the ecology of a region but capsize the principal mission of the Obama presidency.
Before we look at why, it would be helpful to briefly revisit that increasingly airbrushed late summer of 2005. Whatever Obama’s failings, he is infinitely more competent at coping with catastrophe than his predecessor. [...]
But life isn’t fair, and this president is in a far tougher spot in 2010 than his predecessor was in 2005.
When Katrina hit, Bush was in his second term and his bumbling was not a shock to a country that had witnessed two-plus years of his grievous mismanagement of the Iraq war. His laissez-faire response to the hurricane was also consistent with his political DNA as a small-government conservative in thrall to big business. His administration’s posture toward the gulf region had been telegraphed at its inception, when Dick Cheney convened oil and gas cronies, including Enron’s Ken Lay, to set environmental and energy policy. The Interior Department devolved into a cesspool of corruption, even by its historically low standards, turning the Bush-Cheney antigovernment animus into a self-fulfilling prophecy and bequeathing Obama a Minerals Management Service as broken as the Bush-Cheney FEMA exposed by Katrina.
There's one helluva lot more. Go.
Can you say "fucked"?
NYT:
Since corporations are considered persons, how about building a prison large enough to put BP in it?
NEW ORLEANS — In another serious setback in the effort to stem the flow of oil gushing from a well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico, BP engineers said Saturday that the "top kill" technique had failed and, after consultation with government officials, they had decided to move on to another strategy.
...
Since corporations are considered persons, how about building a prison large enough to put BP in it?
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