The Cost of War

That's Trillions of dollars.


U.S. NATIONAL
DEBT
CLOCK

The Outstanding Public Debt as of 14 Aug 2007 at 09:16:31 AM GMT is:

The estimated population of the United States is 302,702,356

so each citizen's share of this debt is
$29,645.27.

The National Debt has continued to increase an average of

$1.47 billion per day since September 29, 2006!

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U.S. Supplies Iraqi Insurgents With Weapons

As I reported here in March; Look In Your Own Backyard

We now have a count of the weapons lost by the U.S. to insurgent forces in Iraq, far more than could ever be supplied by Iran, or Syria, or Saudi Arabia, or all of them combined.

190,000 US weapons feared missing in Iraq

But it gets better, now the Iraqi puppet regime in Baghdad is buying weapons from the Mafia!

US loss of control over the flood of weapons into Iraq was highlighted again yesterday when it emerged that Italian anti-Mafia investigators had uncovered an alleged shipment of 105,000 rifles of which the American high command was unaware.

But they are just following in their masters footsteps.

It was classic bureaucratic bungling, the Government Accountability Office concluded last month in a report criticizing the Pentagon's failure to keep proper records and track weapons flows. But there may have been another factor -- the government's dangerous and bumbling use of bad guys.

Consider the case of one particular bad guy, Viktor Bout -- a stout, canny Russian air transporter who also happens to be the world's most notorious arms dealer.

Perhaps Joseph Heller's Catch 22 should be mandatory reading for Congress and the Pentagon.

Colonel Cargill was a forceful, ruddy man. Before the war, he had been an alert, hard-hitting, aggressive marketing executive. He was a very bad marketing executive. Colonel Cargill was so bad a marketing executive that his services were much sought after by firms eager to establish losses for tax purposes. Throughout the civilized world, from Battery Park to Fulton Street, he was known as a dependable man for a fast tax write-off. His prices were high, for failure often did not come easily. He had to start at the top and work himself down, and with sympathetic friends in Washington, losing money was no simple matter. It took months of hard work and careful misplanning. A person misplaced, disorganized, miscalculated, overlooked everything and opened every loophole, and just when he thought he had it made, the government gave him a lake or a forest or an oilfield and spoiled everything. Even with such handicaps, Colonel Cargill could be relied on to run the most prosperous enterprise into the ground. He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody.

Since this kind of screw up is an American Military tradition. Just business as usual.

I explained about the 17- and 18-year-old medics in Vietnam carrying M&Ms to give to soldiers too severely wounded even for morphine, whispering that the candies were for the pain while they waited for the choppers.

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Big Tobacco

While I defend a persons choice to smoke, I recognize it is a health problem and an addiction, and that the corporate cartels behind it are of course making a killing off of killing.

But so are the corporations that make weapons and weapons systems.And funny thing like Big Tobacco they use bribery, illegal trading practices, smuggling etc.



"Diamond (reference services, Louisiana State U.) describes the world (literally) of US Big Tobacco and Nicotiana tobacum from 1990 to 2004 as it expanded into new world markets in Asia, Eastern Europe and Russia, often with the assistance of the US government, and kept the more mature US market puffing along. The topics for his annotated bibliography include economic aspects such as advertising and marketing (including philanthropy and sponsorship of arts and sporting events), distribution channels (including duty-free, illegal trade, and the market of prisons and jails), and political aspects (such as the various relationships of the industry with politicians, lobbyists, litigators and the State of California). Topics of the statistical tables include cash receipts, exports and advertising expenditures (page numbers would be recommended in this section) and other appendices include company profiles, court cases and tobacco websites."



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Like A Rat

deserting a sinking ship.

Top Bush Aide Karl Rove Resigns






There goes Bush's Brain,



which means he won't just be a lame duck president but a political Scarecrow.




SEE:

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Having Faith

Rules Are For Others

1+1=2

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Australia Vs. Canada

In Canada the Conservative Government refuses to apologize to aboriginal peoples for the residential school scandal. In Australia they also refuse to apologize, recognize or pay for their assimilation policy.

Prime minister John Howard's government has refused to apologise for the Stolen Generation and resisted calls to set up a compensation fund.

This week Mr Trevorrow, 50, won a landmark compensation claim in the South Australian supreme court, the first payment of its kind. A judge awarded him A$525,000 (£220,000), acknowledging that he had been "falsely imprisoned by the state", that the authorities had failed in their duty of care towards him and that such conduct had ruptured the bond between him and his natural family, leading to lifelong depression.

Of course Liberal Government was forced by the Supreme Court to recognize the British Colonial legacy of Aboriginal Assimilation , which was assimilate or die, and pay out for the residential school program. Which is the only reason the current Conservative Government is making any payout.

Aboriginals spent decades fighting to have the government recognize the abuses they suffered in the school system that Ottawa supported financially between the 1870s and 1970s.

Tens of thousands of First Nations young people were taken from their families for months at a time and deprived of their culture. Many were sexually or physically abused by school staff.

In 1998, Ottawa acknowledged that there was widespread abuse at the schools and offered an apology to the victims.

The former Liberal government announced a $1.9-billion compensation package to residential school survivors in late 2005, along with $60 million for the TRC, $10 million for commemoration and $125 million for healing initiatives and programs. Less than a year later, the Conservative government approved the deal, and increased funding for commemoration to $20 million.

But like their Australian counterparts the Canadian Conservative Government still refuses to formerly apologize.

Phillip also cited the Harper government's refusal to apologise for Canada's decades-long programme of forcing First Nations children into the notorious residential school system, where they were denied contact with relatives and stripped of their cultural heritage. According to one government report, conditions were so terrible that between 1894 and 1908, the death rate among students at residential schools in Western Canada ranged from 35 percent to 60 percent.

The last residential school closed in 1997 amid revelations of widespread sexual and physical abuse of students in the system. A compensation package was approved through the courts, but many First Nations viewed the decision as not going far enough.

SEE:

Post Modern Conservatives

Howard Visits Canada

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Crushing Criticism Of Conservatives...

By Capitalists

The honeymoon is over for Stephen Harper's Cabinet, according to Canadian business leaders who believe the current government has done little to differentiate itself from its Liberal predecessor.

"The overall feeling is this is a Liberal government in Conservative clothing," COMPAS founder Conrad Winn said. "That came in pretty loud and clear."

Ouch!

The panelists regard taxation as the most important priority affecting their evaluation of the Conservative government. "Tax policy is a joke and undermines the confidence of business in relying on an understanding government, which it is not," one respondent said. "There seems to be too little thinking about repercussions about tax changes and more bowing down to policy wonks. They are not living in the real world."

Looking forward to the cheerleaders at the Blogging Tories response to the voice of capitalism criticizing their party of choice.


See:

Can't Get No Respect

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Republican Presidential Paul-itics

A Headline you won't see in the MSM.

Ron Paul Beats Fred Thompson.

In the Iowa Straw Poll this weekend.

The final results:

Mitt Romney 4516 31.5%
Mike Huckabee 2587 18.1%
Sam Brownback 2192 15.3%
Tom Tancredo 1961 13.7%
Ron Paul 1305 9.1%
Tommy Thompson 1039 7.3%
Fred Thompson 203 1.4%
Rudy Giuliani 183 1.3%
Duncan Hunter 174 1.2%
John McCain 101 1.0%
John Cox 41 0.1%

14,302 Total Votes

Libertarian Anti-War Blog; Unfair Witness has interesting ongoing results of the Ron Paul campaign on the Internet and post debate polls.


The libertarian underdogs; Kucinich and Paul agree on abrogating NAFTA the WTO and the North American Union, they also agree on getting out of Iraq.

Karen Kwiatowski a libertarian blogger on the 'liberal' Huffington Post agrees with me in regards to the libertarian candidates in the upcoming U.S. Presidential Election.

Ron Paul, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich are the only candidates who seem to understand this. They are also the only candidates who will quickly, if not immediately, end the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Wait a sec -- I mean end it peacefully. Ultimately, Iraqis and their supporters around the world will bring down the American occupation -- but they will do so limb by limb, heart by heart, and soul by soul. They will kill thousands of us and themselves before it reaches that inevitable point of non-occupation and honest political independence. Only Paul and two underfunded Democratic contenders offer wisdom to Americans across the nation who are hungry for wisdom, at least in foreign policy. However -- it is in domestic policy where Ron Paul completes the package. Unlike the democratic longshots, and the candidacy of GuiliClintoRomnObamThomEdwaCain, Ron Paul is about real freedom. Freedom to choose, freedom to live, freedom to decide for ourselves. He offers freedom from excessive government mandates, excessive rules and regulations, excessive confiscation of our life and property. In this, Paul is the only real conservative in the group, and yes, perhaps the only radical.

Where Paul fails as a Libertarian, and Kucinich doesn't,is over the issue of abortion, where he plays to the Republican Social Conservative base.

While abortion should be a non-issue for the President of the United States, it is a social cause for the fundamentalist social conservative right and their use of the Presidency to appoint anti-choice Supreme Court Justices.

The point is that Paul falls down as a Libertarian when it comes to the issue of a womans right to reproductive choice.

And while he opposes universal health care, unlike Kucinich, it's a good thing he has tax payer funded health benefits.

Ron Paul's wife hospitalized in Iowa


For libertarian Democrats the support has to be for Kucinich, for libertarian Republicans the choice is Paul. For the rest of us the ideal would be a Kucinich/Paul candidacy for President and VP. You choose which for Pres.


See:

Ron Paul

Mr. Conservative

Death Of Laissez-Faire Politics

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North American Union (SPP) Protests In Alberta

The Three Amigos are in Montreal this coming week-end to discuss their secret corporate pact to create a single EU style market place on the North American Continent.

Teach Ins are planned across Canada including in Alberta. Home of Petro Powers That Be. Organizers are to be congratulated for focusing on making these protests Teach Ins rather than the usual street protests that follow the G8, WTO, etc.

Since most folks have no clue as to the nature of these binding yet secret corporatist-state agreements, the point is to inform them.

We did a Teach In in Edmonton during the APEC Energy Conference. Since few people knew anything about APEC or this corporatist state model for global governance.

The annual APEC meeting was held in Vancouver which resulted in the first RCMP Attack on protesters, which was to become national and international state security policy in dealing with anti-globalization protests.

August 19

Edmonton, Alberta
Protesting the SPP in Edmonton! Help preserve Canada’s sovereignty, join the protest.
Host: Protest The S.P.P.
Time: 10:00am - 2:00pm GMT
Where: Legislative Assembly of Alberta Street: 10800 - 97 Ave. Edmonton, AB

Calgary, Alberta
Protesting the North American Union
Host: Lindsay Ross and other concerned citizens!.
Time: 12:00 p.m. – 3 p.m. GMT
Where: Calgary City Hall, 800 Macleod Trail SE, Calgary, AB, then marching to the U.S. Consulate at 615 Macleod Trail for more speeches

For cross Canada protests see Verbena-19

See:

Free Labour = Free Of Unions

Derek Burney Voice of America

Deep Integration

Origins of the Captialist State In Canada

Time For A Canadian Steel Workers Union

Will Canadian Labour Accept Free Trade?

Cold Gold

Mittal Plays Monopoly

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Same Old Olympics

So what else is new.

Chinese activists and intellectuals have published an open letter to "Chinese and World Leaders" on numerous dissident websites demanding that China honor its commitment to respect human rights at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

For this reason they cannot share in any “pride” in China’s glory as the Games’ host country; for them, “these glories are built on the ruins of the lives of ordinary people, on the forced removal of urban migrants, and on the sufferings of victims of brutal land grabbing, forced eviction, exploitation of labour, and arbitrary detention.”

Regardless of where they are held, urban poor are displaced, developers rule and it's all glossed over in the name of Sport.

The Olympics are the ultimate reflection of the Society of the Spectacle.



SEE:

Scabs Cause Olympic Cost Overruns

The Curse of Bruce McNall

Pro Sports and Criminal Capitalism

Criminal Capitalism-Sports-Soccer

SKYDOME: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SPORTS

NFL IN TORONTO

As American As Apple Pie

The End Of The Leisure Society

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America's Debt Economy

America's boom economy is a debt economy, based on consumer credit thus consumer debt. Americans have financed the boom by mortgaging their homes. Even free market, gold bug, libertarians get it.

When a society is stable and prosperous, you can cast your lot along with everyone else and prosper along with your neighbours. That was the situation in the United States and Europe after WWII. Almost everyone became richer.

But since the mid-70s…it has been harder. In America, for example, hourly wages of working men have gone nowhere. And since the money in which wages are paid has been cut loose from gold, it is hard to know what anything is really worth…hard to keep track of what you have…and hard to hold onto it. The dollar, for example, lost half its purchasing power during the short time when Alan Greenspan was chairman of the Federal Reserve.

More recently, the bubble economy of the 21st century has been rewarding certain groups of elite traders and financial mavens, while punishing the average person with higher debt - personal, mortgage, and governmental. Soon, average investors will be hit hard too…and average homeowners…and average consumers.

Bill Bonner, The Daily Reckoning Australia

And gosh who is carrying America's debt? Why China of course. And if they cash in their chips well......

“China has accumulated a large sum of US dollars,” said He Fan, an official at China’s Academy for Social Sciences. He wasn’t exactly speaking for the government. But he was clearly articulating what’s on everyone’s mind. “Such a big sum,” he continued, “of which a considerable portion is in US Treasury bonds, contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency.” But…?

“Russia, Switzerland, and several other countries have reduced their dollar holdings. China is unlikely to follow suit…as long as the yuan’s exchange rate is stable against the dollar. The Chinese Central bank will be forced to sell dollars once the yuan appreciated dramatically, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar.”

Well then, there you have it. US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has pushed China to allow the yuan to appreciate, driven by nationalist and protectionist sentiments in the US Senate. China knows the US Congress is keen to act, and blame the foreigner in an election year for American economic woes. Its well-timed reminder of the leverage it has over the dollar is a warning to the Americans to be careful what they ask for.

Yes, it sure looks like China has announced to America what it has known all along. Its investment in US Treasuries, and the support that offers both to the American dollar and the American consumer, were always driven by what was best for China. And what’s best for China now? Well, we don’t know for sure. But buying the US dollar doesn’t seem look a good idea for anyone right now. Selling it, on the other hand, or trading it for tangible assets…that seems like a much better idea.

Will America be sent to debtors prison?

Or just face foreclosure from their global competitor and lender of first choice.


SEE:

China Burps Greenspan Farts Dow Hiccups

Wall Street Deja Vu

Housing Crash the New S&L Crisis

Turning Lead into Gold

Goldbug

Petro Dollars and U.S. Debt

Housing Bubble



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