The Old News
This paragraph says it all: “A German man who taught his dog Adolf to give a Hitler salute by raising his right paw has been charged with violating Germany's anti-Nazi laws for a series of incidents in recent years, a Berlin court said on Wednesday.”
"Free Speech" areas are complete bullshit. If you have never been in one before then let me tell you about them. To be brief, it feels like you're in prison. When I attempted to protest the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philly, I, of course, went to where the RNC was being held. You want to get your message out, right? Well, the cops had different plans for protesters. My subway stop took me right to the driveway of the convention, but despite that little thing us citizens have called the Constitution, you can't protest where the action is. Instead, a cop escorts you a quaerter mile (maybe half) away to a caged area, locking you in there, and then you can "protest". So, when you hear about "Free Speech" areas in the news, that's what they are talking about. Can you honestly tell me this is Constitutional? But if you wish to protest a presidential visit, for example, this is where the Secret Service will throw you. People who are in support of the government are not subjected to such conditions, or arrest if they refuse to be penned up like a prisoner. Salon has a great article on free speech areas and the ACLU's lawsuit against the Secret Service to halt the practice so the whole country can once again become a giant free speech area, like the first amendment intended.
Is Halliburton gouging gas prices in Iraq? Salon has another great article today which serves up a heap of evidence that Halliburton, the corporation that still pays The Big Dick Cheney and, by the mother of all coincidences, received a no-bid contract from the government to transport oil to Iraq has been abusing that contract. They have been charging the government upto $1.70 a gallon for the gasoline they pick up from Kuwait and transport to Baghdad. They pick up the gas for around 70 cents a gallon, then charge 91 cents a gallon for transportation on a flat highway. Transporting gas through the Rocky Mountains with a union driver at the wheel is cheaper, and Halliburton enjoys security on the highway that's fully funded by the Pentagon. Quite the little scam they have going, that we're paying for. This should bring a couple of questions to mind: How many corporations are abusing their existing government contracts in Iraq, and how much of the $87 billion Bush requested will goto corporations like Halliburton?
Ted Rall tells us why the Bush administration lies in he new column, Anatomy of a Lie: “On Sept. 18, George W. Bush knew that he had gone too far. A Washington Post poll showed that, thanks to his statements, 70 percent of Americans thought that Saddam Hussein -- not Osama bin Laden --was behind 9/11. With the press leaning on him to put up or 'fess up, he ordered his henchmen to backpedal …[an] approval rating to plummet from 58 percent in September to 47 percent in October. The truth didn't play well. Therefore, relying on H.L. Mencken's observation that no one ever went broke overestimating the stupidity of the American public, Bush has returned to the same old lies he has already admitted … Bush's polls upticked as he reverted to form: “I was not about to leave the security of the American people to a madman.” It's too late for that.”
Joe Conason, though, points out that Bush’s numbers in the polls are still weak.
This won’t help Bush’s poll numbers: "On the minus side, war in Iraq has probably inflamed radical passions among Muslims and thus increased al Qaeda's recruiting power and morale and, at least marginally, its operating capability.” I’m feeling safer already!
Add the radicalization of Shittes to our growing list of problems in Iraq. Truthout provides a translation of an article from Le Monde which gives a rather shocking account of one of last bombings in Iraq.
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