Thursday, August 02, 2007

Saddam and the CIA

Why George Bush applauded the murder of Saddam Hussein by his puppet regime in Baghdad. Dead men tell no tales.

Another very good example of a CIA-organized regime change was a coup in 1963 that employed political assassination, mass imprisonment, torture and murder. This was the military coup that first brought Saddam Hussein's beloved Ba'ath Party to power in Iraq. At the time, Richard Helms was Director for Plans at the CIA. That is the top CIA position responsible for covert actions, like organizing coups. Helms served in that capacity until 1966, when he was made Director.

In the quotations collected below, the name of the leader who was assassinated is spelled variously as Qasim, Qassim and Kassem. But, however you spell his name, when he took power in a popularly-backed coup in 1958, he certainly got recognized in Washington. He carried out such anti-American and anti-corporatist policies as starting the process of nationalizing foreign oil companies in Iraq, withdrawing Iraq from the US-initiated right-wing Baghdad Pact (which included another military-run, US-puppet state, i.e., Pakistan) and decriminalizing the Iraqi Communist Party. Despite these actions, and more likely because of them, he was Iraq's most popular leader. He had to go!

In 1959, there was a failed assassination attempt on Qasim. The failed assassin was none other than a young Saddam Hussein. In 1963, a CIA-organized coup did successfully assassinate Qasim and Saddam's Ba'ath Party came to power for the first time. Saddam returned from exile in Egypt and took up the key post as head of Iraq's secret service. The CIA then provided the new pliant, Iraqi regime with the names of thousands of communists, and other leftist activists and organizers. Thousands of these supporters of Qasim and his policies were soon dead in a rampage of mass murder carried out by the CIA's close friends in Iraq.

SEE:


CIA Conspiracies Are Real

Back In the USSA

State Sponsored Terrorism

The Fifth International

CIA,Conspiracy,Princess Di

Pinochet Admits He Did It.

Psychedelic Saskatchewan

Paranoia and the Security State


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Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Ron Paul Gets BT Endorsement

Now this is an endorsement indeed. What can you say about the only Republican candidate for President endorsed by both Canadian Progressive Bloggers and Blogging Tories because he ain't a Reagan Republican but a Goldwater Republican. Come back Barry all is forgiven.

However, I still would take the view that Ron Paul is not a conservative in the typical sense, rather a libertarian with an edge closer to anarchism than conservatism. Ron was against the Iraq War, wants to pull out of the UN, NATO, NAFTA and every other international organization under the sun, wants to abolish the IRS, and legalize drugs.
Of course like Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul has a snowballs chance in hell. So like Kucinich he can run on his principles.


SEE:


Ron Paul

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The Economist Agrees With Me


The Economist, stalwart voice of international capitalism, agrees with me that Musharraf rigged the raid on the Red Mosque to maintain his autocratic power.

General Musharraf cites the extremist threat to justify staying on as Pakistan's president in uniform. The White House falls for it


ELECTIONS loom and Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, has chosen his campaign strategy: war. This week he declared an open season on Islamist terrorists. “We are in direct confrontation with extremist forces. It is moderates versus extremists.” His comments came after a series of attacks, mainly on the army in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), claimed more than 100 lives. He also revealed that when his term of office expires in October, he will seek re-election (indirectly, from an electoral college) without stepping down as army chief. He told senior Pakistani journalists that a purely civilian government would not be strong enough to control extremists.

More and more Pakistanis seem disenchanted with General Musharraf, now in power for eight years. His critics feel vindicated. They had predicted that he would use the violence that followed the storming of a radical mosque in the capital Islamabad earlier this month to justify extending military rule. Conspiracy theorists went further, suggesting he had engineered the showdown for just this reason.



SEE:

Islamicists and Evangelical Christians

I Was An IslamoFascist For MI6

Harpers Silence Over Musharraf

Winning Friends

How To Create Terrorists

Say It Ain't So

Brief Cases vs Batons




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Afghanistan A Failed State

Succinct, to the point. Couldn't have said it better myself.

The kidnapping of 23 South Korean voluntary aid workers by the Taliban in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province once again proves that the West backed Afghan government at Kabul isn’t anywhere close to controlling the law and order situation in the country let alone trying to stamp out the remnants of the country’s ex rulers.

As the Taliban forces continue to rise why hasn’t the Afghan government or their American backers done anything to stop them? Well, the truth is that they are trying but are sorely losing the battle. The reasons for the same are two fold; firstly it is quite clear that the Afghan people are bitterly disappointed with the Karzai government. The Karzai government had an excellent opportunity to build by the democratic institutions of the country and invigorate their countrymen’s faith in democracy after the fall of the Taliban. But frankly the Karzai government has squandered that opportunity and has actually managed to turn many Afghan’s away from democracy. Now the belief in Afghanistan is that democracy is not all that it is cracked up to be. The sole reason for the Afghans being put off by the present government and its promises of democracy is none other than ‘corruption’. The menace of corruption has percolated to every nook and cranny of the Afghan administrative set up. Everyone from top government officials to low-level clerks need their palms greased to accomplish the smallest of tasks. Such is the menace of corruption that some Afghans are looking back at the Taliban regime as the ‘good old days’, where no doubt there were several moral and social restrictions but at least corruption was kept in check. They say that during the Taliban days they probably had to bribe the top officials to get their work done but now they have to bribe everyone from top to bottom.


SEE:

Afghanistan



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Slap Upside The Head


Well the Federal Court has slapped down the Harper Government in its attempt to arbitrarily and autocratically dismantle the Wheat Board.

While claiming a populist mandate to change the Wheat Board, Harpers attempt to rig a plebiscite has been given its just demise. It never fails to amaze me that while claiming to represent the popular interest of farmers, the Conservatives are afraid of a fair fight over the Wheat Board. That is of course because the right wing farm lobby they represent is a minority of Prairie farmers, and is even a minority in Alberta and Saskatchewan, where it has its biggest base.

Fearing defeat at the hands of the real popular base of Western farmers, the Tories attempted to pull a fast one, and thanks to this ruling they have to go back to the drawing board.

For other coverage of this from fellow progressive bloggers see here.

See:

Wheat Board


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I Thought I Saw A Putty Cat


Move over Dr. Kervorkian make room for Oscar the Cat. A truly American creature ala Edgar Allen Poe.
Of course being raised amongst the demented and dying, how Poe-tic, a cat would 'sense' death it's a component of its sentience. Making it not such a strange animal.

The July 26 edition of the New England Journal of Medicineultra-respectable bastion of medical research—has an article about a cat, Oscar, who can (it says) tell when patients on a ward for severely demented individuals are about to die.

Oscar barely tolerates anyone on the ward who's not hours away from death, says the article. Even if they're barely conscious, brains barely registering the world anymore. But if someone's about to go?

Oscar arrives at Room 313. The door is open, and he proceeds inside. Mrs. K. is resting peacefully in her bed, her breathing steady but shallow. She is surrounded by photographs of her grandchildren and one from her wedding day. Despite these keepsakes, she is alone. Oscar jumps onto her bed and again sniffs the air. He pauses to consider the situation, and then turns around twice before curling up beside Mrs. K.

One hour passes. Oscar waits. A nurse walks into the room to check on her patient. She pauses to note Oscar's presence. Concerned, she hurriedly leaves the room and returns to her desk. She grabs Mrs. K.'s chart off the medical-records rack and begins to make phone calls.

Within a half hour the family starts to arrive. Chairs are brought into the room, where the relatives begin their vigil. The priest is called to deliver last rites. And still, Oscar has not budged, instead purring and gently nuzzling Mrs. K. A young grandson asks his mother, "What is the cat doing here?" The mother, fighting back tears, tells him, "He is here to help Grandma get to heaven." Thirty minutes later, Mrs. K. takes her last earthly breath. With this, Oscar sits up, looks around, then departs the room so quietly that the grieving family barely notices.


- Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.

"Many family members take some solace from it. They appreciate the companionship that the cat provides for their dying loved one," said Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor of medicine at Brown University.

After about six months, the staff noticed Oscar would make his own rounds, just like the doctors and nurses. He‘d sniff and observe patients, then sit beside people who would wind up dying in a few hours.

Oscar is better at predicting death than the people who work there, said Dr. Joan Teno of Brown University, who treats patients at the nursing home and is an expert on care for the terminally ill

Oscar wouldn‘t stay inside the room though, so Teno thought his streak was broken. Instead, it turned out the doctor‘s prediction was roughly 10 hours too early. Sure enough, during the patient‘s final two hours, nurses told Teno that Oscar joined the woman at her bedside.

No one‘s certain if Oscar‘s behavior is scientifically significant or points to a cause. Teno wonders if the cat notices telltale scents or reads something into the behavior of the nurses who raised him.

The Black Cat

1841

by Edgar Allan Poe
(1809-1849)

I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had birds, gold fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat. This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point --and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered.

Pluto --this was the cat's name --was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets.

Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general temperament and character --through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance --had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my At length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon me --for what disease is like Alcohol! --and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish --even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.

One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fiber of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.

When reason returned with the morning --when I had slept off the fumes of the night's debauch --I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.

In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart --one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself --to offer violence to its own nature --to do wrong for the wrong's sake only --that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; --hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; --hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offense; --hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin --a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it --if such a thing were possible --even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.

Of course I would suggest you read the rest of the story as the protagonist gets his just comeuppance as I suggested here; Animal Crimes.


SEE:

Cat Carol

Chinese Fat Cat

PETA Kills Cats & Dogs


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Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Alberta's First Killer Tornado

Twenty years ago today was declared Black Friday in Edmonton, when an F4 Tornado hit the city killing 27 people. The majority of those killed lived in Evergreen Trailer park.

It was the worst natural disaster in the city and provinces history, and unexpected since Alberta never had Tornado's before that day.

Today we have an advanced province wide emergency weather reporting system, the only one of its kind in Canada, which operates through CKUA radio.

And it has been broadcasting last night and this morning about Tornado's in the south of the province.

Climate Change, nah nothing to worry about.


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Islamicists and Evangelical Christians



They share common right wing social conservative values; like a belief in creationism. Shhh don't tell them. They may get together and then all hell will break loose.


Turkey's election

Jul 19th 2007 | ANKARA, DIYARBAKIR AND ISTANBUL
From The Economist print edition

Secular suspicions of the AK government had already been fanned, not least by the controversial education minister, Huseyin Celik. Mr Celik, who is said to have close links to the powerful Islamic Nur fraternity, has been accused of injecting Islam by stealth. He has overseen a revision of textbooks to promote creationism and the recruitment, as teachers, of hundreds of graduates of imam hatip, Islamic clerical-training schools. There has also been “an explosion in enrolment at Koran lessons, especially among girls,” says Alattin Dincer, president of Turkey's largest teachers' union. No wonder Mr Celik had to explain himself in a meeting with the chief of the general staff, Yasar Buyukanit, shortly after the army's e-coup.

Attempts by a few AK mayors to create booze-free zones, as well as Mr Erdogan's own failed effort in 2005 to outlaw adultery, have not helped the party's image with secularists.

SEE:

Secularism Vs. Fundamentalism

Michael Coren's Fatwa

Procreation To Save The White Race

Strange Bedfellows

American Polytheism

Marxism and Religion



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Soccer Not War

Once more the common people in Iraq make a poignant political point about the national solidarity created by sports. In this case the victory of the Iraqi Soccer Team winning the Asian Cup this weekend unites the Iraqi people as I pointed out the other day. Proving once again that sports are an alternative to war and a great national unifier.

"Those heroes have shown the real Iraq. They have done something useful for the people as opposed to the politicians and lawmakers," said Sabah Shaiyal, a 43-year-old policeman in Baghdad's main Shiite district of Sadr City. "The players have made us proud. Once again our national team has shown that there is only one, united Iraq."

Spontaneous celebrations broke out in religiously mixed Baghdad as well as in Basra and the holy Shiite city of Najaf in the south and northern Kurdish towns like Arbil and Kirkuk.

Fans cried and danced in the streets, waving their shirts in the air and hugging.

Soldiers with their rifles slung over their shoulders danced with ordinary Iraqis in Baghdad while children, their faces painted in the Iraqi colours, held up pictures of their heroes.

While mainly comprised of Shiites, the team was captained by a Sunni Turkman from Kirkuk — goal-scoring hero Younis Mahmoud — and also contained Sunni Arab and Kurdish players in a broad representation of Iraqi society.

In Baghdad's Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite slum, women threw sweets to gathering fans and poured water over crowds in sweltering summer heat.

"A thousand congratulations for all Iraqis," another fan said.

Television presenters, draped in the red, white and black Iraqi flag, dissolved into tears. One Iraqiya television reporter was engulfed by a crowd in Baghdad and re-emerged on the shoulders of chanting fans.



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Tories Green Hot Air Plan For Cars

Environment Minister John Baird loves to talk about how the Conservative Government in Ottawa is more than just talk when it comes to their hot air Green Plan. They take action. Well Canadians are still waiting for their kickback for buying a Green Car.


Environment Minister John Baird, right, gives the thumbs-up as Finance Minister Jim Flaherty looks on during an Ottawa news conference in  March to announce the  environmental rebate program. Fred Chartrand/CP

Ottawa can't shift green rebates into gear

More than four months after announcing rebates for those who buy fuel-sipping cars and trucks, the federal government has not paid a cent to buyers of 2006 and 2007 models that qualify, and automakers are voicing complaints as 2008 models flow on to dealers' lots.

The ecoAuto feebate program set up in the March federal budget, offers rebates of up to $2,000 and also slaps a maximum levy of $4,000 on gas guzzlers. But it is angering consumers and growing increasingly messy for the auto companies, associations representing the major automakers operating in Canada say in a letter to Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Environment Minister John Baird.

By contrast, Honda Canada Inc., began offering rebates on its Fit subcompact car and manual transmission Civic compact in May, made them retroactive to budget day, March 19, and is paying the money, senior vice-president Jim Miller said Monday.

The Fit did not qualify under the federal scheme because it uses 6.6 litres of gas to travel 100 kilometres, just missing the cut-off line for rebates on 2007 and 2006 vehicles, which is set at 6.5 litres per 100 kilometres.

People who bought Toyota Yaris subcompacts, ethanol-powered Chevrolet Impalas and Chrysler Sebrings, diesel-powered Smart cars and other alternative -technology vehicles after March 19 are eligible for rebates.

But consumers kicking tires on 2008 models, assuming they will get a rebate, may be out of luck because Transport Canada still hasn't announced what vehicles from the new model year are eligible.

Although sales of Toyota's Yaris jumped in April and May after the program was introduced, they fell in June.

Industry analyst Dennis DesRosiers, who heads DesRosiers Automotive Consultants Inc., said an analysis of subcompact sales for the past two years shows the so-called feebate program has had little impact on sales.

“We said on day one that the feebate would fail miserably, four months into the program we are being proven to be right,” Mr. DesRosiers said in a note to clients last week.


SEE:

Corporate America Greener Than Harper

Groupthink

Capitalism Creates Global Warming

Harpers Alberta Green Plan

John Baird In Exxons Pocket?

"C '" Car Go

Junk Science: Ethanol

Chocolate and Cars

Chrysler Made In Canada?

Chrysler Inc. vs. Liberal Inc.


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