W.s new Lie-brary: Reading is fundamental and so are hefty donations:

Membership benefits to the George W. Bush Presidential Center:

"By joining the Associates Program you can help the Bush Foundation provide a living legacy about an exciting period in our history for generations of Americans. Your membership at any level will be greatly appreciated."

You bet! And he'll take money from anyone.

W. needs money and lots of it to stock his new Presidential Lie-brary with picture books. The Times of London online reports W. is going about this by offering dictators with bad reputations photo-ops with administration officials for hefty donations to his Lie-brary at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. [They must be so happy they're going have that moral landfill on their campus!]

Of course, even he isn't able to just come right out and admit he's taking cash from sketchy foreigners in exchange for influence (although, if he said "boo" Congress would probably pass a law saying he could), so he's using a middleman named Stephen Payne, who is the CEO of the lobbying firm Worldwide Strategic Partners, (WSP).

The Times reports Payne has used his position on the advisory council to the Department of Homeland Security and his chummy relationship with Bush and Cheney to help such international pyrrhias as Kyrgyzstan's Askar Akayev, now in exile in Russia, and Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev (Condi's old buddy from her Chevron days) get friendly treatment from the administration - - and the ever important photo-op, naturally.

Just when you think this administration can't get any more repugnant, they top themselves! Exciting period in our history, indeed!

Obama's soul firesale:

William Yardly reports in the NYT today the natives are getting restless in the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

Young grassroots activists, the types who would have otherwise have been voting for Ralph Nader or Dennis Kucinich, got sucked into Obama's message of . . . whatever it is . . . and registered as Dems to vote for the new messiah.

Now, however, Yardly writes, "after critics have accused Mr. Obama of shifting positions on issues like the war in Iraq, the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants, gun control and the death penalty — all in what some view as a shameless play to a general election audience "many of these kids have had it.

They're warning the Party they're going back to the green party or whereever they came from.

This is the part that kind of torks me off a little, this additude coming from the establishment, the grownups.

"Many Obama supporters said the most vocal complaining about various policy positions was largely relegated to liberal bloggers . . . 'I think it’s accentuated by the fact that Obama’s appeal is an appeal to idealism,' said Kari Chisholm, who runs a blog, blueoregon.com, and does Internet strategy for Democratic candidates.

'They believe their ideology is the only idealism and Obama’s is very mainstream. I’m not surprised they’re getting a little cranky. They’ve always been kind of cranky. A mainstream Democrat has always been too mainstream for them.'”

A mainstream Democrat? Richard Nixon would be a liberal crank these days compared to how far right the Party has gone. All that crazy stuff about the environment, the death penalty, government spying, taxpayer funded faith-based policies (and probably abortion, too, if Obama's handlers think he thinks he can get a bump in the polls) is so out there on the fringe for the Democratic party.

Before you know it, Obama will be leading the charge on the march to Tehran (he's already ceded jerusalem to Israel) and anyone who dares question that will also be some wide-eyed liberal crank.

I understand the all out effort to get the White House back, but not at any price. If Obama winds up just being tweedle-dum once he gets in, what's the point?

Hello from the world's biggest polluter.

The Independent reports:

"President George Bush signed off with a defiant farewell over his refusal to accept global climate change targets at his last G8 summit. As he prepared to fly out from Japan, he told his fellow leaders: 'Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter.'

His remarks were taken as a two-fingered salute from the President from Texas who is wedded to the oil industry. He had given some ground at the summit by saying he would 'seriously consider' a 50 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2050.'"

Of course, he said that before he made his little "joke."

In case the Europeans still have any illusions about where W. stands on Global Warming, AP reports:

"President Bush on Saturday tried to pin the blame on Congress for soaring energy prices and said lawmakers need to lift long-standing restrictions on drilling for oil in pristine lands and offshore tracts believed to hold huge reserves of fuel.

'It's time for members of Congress to address the pain that high gas prices are causing our citizens," the president said. 'Every extra dollar that American families spend because of high gas prices is one less dollar they can use to put food on the table or send a child to college.'" [I'm sure he really meant one less dollar they can use to put food on their families.]

Drill, drill, drill, that's all he's got. The Democrats in Congress, on the other hand, are surely fighting tooth and nail to save our pristine land and offshore tracts, right?

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said in the Democrats' radio address, "Democrats support more drilling. In fact, what the president hasn't told you is that the oil companies are already sitting on 68 million acres of federal lands with the potential to nearly double U.S. oil production. That is why in the coming days congressional Democrats will vote on 'Use It or Lose It' legislation requiring the big oil companies to develop these resources or lose their leases to someone else who will."

Wow, I'm speechless. Is there anything these dems won't roll over on? The FISA law was just unforgivable -- they not only handed over the Bill of Rights to W. to shred, but they actually bought the shredder and then put the constitution in themselves -- but this is just mind boggling!

But, it's not about principles or preserving our national lands and shorelines for future American generations, it's all about the polls.

AP:

"Nearly half the people surveyed by the Pew Research Center in late June said they now consider energy exploration and drilling more important than conservation, compared with a little over a third who felt that way only five months ago."

These are the same people, presumably, who forgot about the 70's and then went out and bought the biggest Hummers they could fine, because oil would always be plentiful and cheap. Wasn't that what the Iraq war was all about? Get an oil guy into the White House and then we can get away with driving around in tanks that get five miles to the gallon forever!

So, go ahead and kowtow to the masses and the lame duck president who gets everything he wants, no matter how outrageous. Just follow the polls democrats, that's the way to victory.

I just mention this in passing; a new Rasmussen poll finds:

"The percentage of voters who give Congress good or excellent ratings has fallen to single digits for the first time in Rasmussen Reports tracking history. This month, just 9% say Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Most voters (52%) say Congress is doing a poor job, which ties the record high in that dubious category. Last month, 11% of voters gave the legislature good or excellent ratings. Congress has not received higher than a 15% approval rating since the beginning of 2008."

You know, I voted for Van Hollen (and I still get his mail) even though I thought Connie Morella was the better candidate for my district. I'm sure all the folks in the People's Republic of Takoma Park who voted for him, just because of that "d" next to his name, will be thinking twice next time.

Next thing you know, W. will be advocating drilling on the National Mall and Van Hollen & Co. will be falling over each other to be the first in line to get their pictures taken next to the derrick in front of the newly renamed Lincoln Memorial: "The Reagan, Exxon-Mobil Memorial."

Jesse Helms: He hated II

Alternets reports:

"L.F. Eason, a 29-year veteran of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, 'instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or North Carolina flags at half-staff Monday' to honor the late senator Jesse Helms, 'was called for in a directive to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley.' In a string of e-mail messages with his superiors, Eason was told he could either lower the flags or retire effective immediately. Here is Eason’s reasoning for his decision to retire.

'This is in no way a political decision. I simply do not feel it is appropriate to honor a person whose epitaph of government service was to have voted against or blocked every civil rights issue that came before the US Congress. His doctrine of negativity, hate, and prejudice cost North Carolina and our Nation much that we may never regain.'"

The News Observer reports:

"A registered Democrat who frequently votes a split ticket, he said he had no problems lowering the flag for former Sen. Terry Sanford or President Reagan. But he remembers wondering whether he would be willing to lower the flag after President Nixon's death.
He never had to make that decision, since it rained both days.
Monday was sunny. And Eason was out of a job."

Way to go North Carolina!

Way to make your state look like a backward, redneck bastion!

Iran ups the anti, Condi hawks missiles for Raytheon and Boeing.

It looks like the war is on again . . .

NYT:

"One day after threatening to strike Tel Aviv and United States interests if attacked, Iran's Revolutionary Guards were reported on Wednesday to have test-fired nine missiles, including one which the government in Tehran says has the range to reach Israel."

TIME online reported yesterday:

"The website of the elite Iranian force . . . quoted guard official Ali Shirazi as saying that Israel's coastal metropolis of Tel Aviv and U.S. warships in the Gulf would be among the first targets if Iran comes under attack. 'The Zionist regime is pushing the White House to prepare for a military strike on Iran,' Shirazi was quoted as saying. 'If such a stupidity is done by them, Tel Aviv and the U.S. naval fleet in the Persian Gulf will be the first targets which will be set on fire in Iran's crushing response.'"

So much for all that reasonableness of the past week.

Through the looking glass. The tale of two regimes:

It's like peering through the looking glass viewing the actions of the regime in Tehran and the Oil Junta in the White House. Apparently, both antagonists have their war wings and their peaceniks. In Washington, there are the neocon hawks, working out of the vice-president's office, who are being countered by the Condi Rice "peace" faction, which includes Sec Def Robert Gates and a sizable group of general officers who've done the math and figured out they'll be without a military to fight with if they get into another war.

In Tehran, meanwhile, there's the Quds wing represented by Ahmadinejad who are waiting for the messiah being countered by the relatively sane faction (compared to Ahmadinejad, anyway)led by the Mottakis, Larijanis and the Rafsanjanis, who've done their own math, apparently, and come up with the conclusion that they'll wind up with an irradiated country if they go to war.

In both cases, the competing sides are being mediated by one leader who hasn't made up his mind yet whether to go to war or not. In Tehran it's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and in Washington it's W.

[Wow, I just read that back to myself; this is a pretty scary scenario. We're basically doomed, aren't we?]

All quiet on the oil front:

Naturally, all of this saber rattling is good news for the oil industry. Things were getting a little scary last week with all this talk of peace breaking out, but oil prices are heading back in the right direction now. Nothing like a few Shahab 3's to buy daddy a brand new pair of shoes.

The NYT:

"Energy traders reacted to the news by bidding up oil prices, which had been falling in recent days. Light, low-sulfur crude for delivery next month, the most-watched oil price benchmark, rose more than $2 a barrel in early-morning electronic trading, though by late morning in New York the gain had been pared somewhat."

Condi's pie in the sky:

As if on que, the Iranian missle launches played right into the hands of Condi's push to load Europe up with US missiles. State Department spokesman Sean McCormick explained: "Iran has an active missile program as is evidenced by these launches today and it underscores the importance of pursuing a number of different tracks to deal with various threats emanating from Iran."

Condi, meanwhile, was in Prague getting the Czechs to sign on the dotted line for a radar system that will be the eyes and ears of W.'s pie in the sky missile defense system to be based in Poland, which supposedly will shoot down any incoming Iranian Shahabs (but more likely our own fighters, based on Raytheon's vaunted missile defense systems to date.]

Rice said, "We face with the Iranians, and so do our allies and friends, a growing missile threat that is growing ever longer and ever deeper and where the Iranian appetite for nuclear technology to this point is still unchecked."

Unchecked, perhaps, but her own Undersecretary of State, William Burns, told Congress yesterday Iran's nuclear appetites weren't all they were cracked up to be. He said Iran was talking a good game about how far ahead they are with their nukes, but "real progress has been more modest."

So a threat which is somewhat less deep and long than Condi is letting on, in other words. [What makes Rice think anyone is going to buy any of this Iranian nuclear threat jazz after her fevered warnings of mushroom clouds over Manhattan, before the Iraqi invasion?]

According to Rice this multi zillion dollar Star Wars boondoggle [Funding for the system would total $4.5 billion through 2013, according to documents provided to Bloomberg] is intended to "defend our territory (and) the territory of our allies." [AP] She didn't exactly explain, though, how a defense system based in Eastern Europe would defend our territory from missiles that couldn't possibly reach us.

It seems, our good friends the Poles might be thinking along the same lines. They're the fly in the ointment here, the ants at the picnic. The thing that could blow W.'s grand plans out of the water -- and also lose Raytheon some big bucks in multi-year pentagon contracts, with all the resulting cost over-runs -- is the damn Poles.

They're holding out on becoming our missile launching pad until we come up with some serious dinaro to defend them against the Russians who have threatened to turn them into a gigantic hole in the ground. The Russian reaction to Rice's visit was characteristically bellicose; their Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying: "We will be forced to react not with diplomatic, but with military-technical methods,." if the Czech parliament signs off on the plan.

The Poles have dealt with the business end of Russian "military-technical methods" a few times before so they're understandably soiling their collective undies at the prospect.

They probably also remember the Brits and the French promising to help them out against Hitler, so they're going to need some serious convincing, in the form of billions of dollars worth of US weaponry which, presumably, a new Democratic Congress might balk to pay for.

Something tells me W.'s word isn't going to do the trick. By the time they break ground for these missile launchers W. will be comfortably pulling weeds in Crawford, so good luck with this particular piece of W.'s legacy.

Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran:

One technical guestion I have, by the way, about the threat of Iranian rockets raining down on Prague is; aren't we all buddy, buddy with the very countries that gave the Iranians the stuff to build their bombs and rockets in the first place?

The web site Aeronautics.ru says:

"There have been reports from Iran since 1986, of the development of a new intermediate-range ballistic missile and the programme has been given various names including Shahab 3, Shihab 3, Shehob 3 or Zelzal 3. In 1993, it is believed that Iran and North Korea agreed on the joint development of the North Korean No-dong 1 and No-dong 2 single-stage liquid-propellant missiles and that Pakistan probably joined the programme (for the Ghauri 1/2 missiles)."

Ah yes, our good friends the Pakistanis, the ones who sold the Iranians the centrifuges they're using to enrich their uranium. In fact, A. Q. Khan, Pakistan's father of the Islamic Bomb sold nuclear technology to anyone who could pay for it.

The North Koreans, our new good buddies, and the Pakistanis are serial proliferators, the Iranians, on the other hand, are not. So, naturally, we make peace deal with the North Koreans, send Pakistan billions of dollars and we attack Iran. It all makes perfect sense.

Oil Junta and Ahmadinejad tone down war talk because of this blog.

CNNmoney reports:

"Oil prices extended a post-July 4th descent Tuesday - falling more than $9 a barrel over two days - as Iran's president downplayed concerns about possible war in the Middle East and investors anticipated falling demand due to high gasoline prices . . . The price of light sweet crude for August delivery tumbled $5.33 to settle at $136.04 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was the lowest level in nearly two weeks, and followed a drop of $3.92 Monday."

It looks like they have been monitoring my posts and have decided to allow the price of a barrel of oil to fall slightly in order, obviously, to undermine my centeral arguement that the Oil Junta in the WH and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are in league to make money for the oil giants.

Case in point:

"Iran: Concerns over supply disruptions in the oil-rich Middle East eased after Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he did not believe there would be an armed conflict between Iran and Israel or the United States. At a summit of Muslim nations in Malaysia on Tuesday, Ahmadinejad said he believed the United States and Israel have been using propaganda and psychology against Iran, but that he did not see war in the future, the Associated Press reported."

Well, based on that, I'd say war is a near impossibility, now. You can take what Mahmoud says to the bank. (Unless, that is, the bank goes under.)

Investors are thinking that beside the good news about the war, demand for oil is going to go down and the value of the dollar is going up. Problem solved! Let's start investing in risky paper again. Investors are very serious people who you can always trust to do the right thing, so go out and spend, spend, spend.

Ahmadinejad might be a mole for Halliburton! A working theory.

AP reported earlier today:

" Oil prices tumbled nearly $4 a barrel Monday, erasing many of last week's record gains in a single session as concerns about potential supply disruptions eased. . . Traders drove prices sharply higher at the end of last week as they bet that conflict with Iran or some other event could cut supplies, and they didn't want to get caught unprepared over the long Independence Day weekend, analysts said. . . As concerns about supply disruptions subsided, many traders on Monday sold off contracts they had bought as insurance last week. 'We got through the holiday without any major news,' said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago. 'No news is good news, or in this case, no news is bearish news.'"

Well, so much for that . . . Remember all that stuff at the end of last week about the Iranians acting reasonable about the carrots the P5+1 (the permanent five U.N. Security Council members plus Germany) were offering the Iranians to halt their nuclear enrichment program and CJCS Adm. Mike Mullen was saying a war with Iran in his opinion would be "extremely stressful" to the overstretched US military?

Well, it's all a distant memory now. Reuters reported about three hours ago:

"Iran started war games on Monday and its president rejected a demand by major powers that it stop enriching uranium as 'illegitimate,' showing no sign of backing down in a stand-off over Tehran's nuclear ambitions . . . Missile units of the elite Revolutionary Guards' naval and air forces began war games, Iranian news agencies said, hours after the U.S. Navy said it had begun exercises in the Gulf . . . The U.S. Navy on Monday said two U.S. vessels were taking part in its exercise alongside a British warship and one from Bahrain, a Gulf Arab ally which hosts the Fifth Fleet."

Perfect!

Why is everyone all hell bent on going to war in the Persian Gulf? What could be the incentive?

AP:

"Americans are now paying more than $1 billion more for gasoline per day than they did five years ago, according to an OPIS report Monday. In June, the world's largest oil consumer spent about $47.38 billion on the motor fuel — nearly three times as much as in 2003."

You know, when you're talking about billions, you're starting to talk about real money.

No one wants to mess up that gravy train! Ever since the housing bust, the credit bust and the ever falling dollar, all the folks with real money need to make some and commodities is the only game left in town.

It's as if the Iranians and the US government were actually conspiring to keep the price of a barrel of oil sky high. We all the know about the oil junta in the White House, that's no secret, but what's going on with the Iranians?

I have a working theory, based on the fact that throughout this whole back and forth with the P5+1 of late, a certain crazy person has been surprisingly silent; until now, that is.

The price of a barrel of oil starts to dip and the world's best known dip, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, suddenly decides to chime in . . . Coincidence?

Reuters:

"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday his country would not stop enriching uranium, work which Tehran says is aimed at generating power but which the West fears may be part of a covert nuclear weapons program. . . They offer to hold talks but at the same time they threaten us and say we should accept their illegitimate demand to halt (enrichment work)," Ahmadinejad told reporters in Malaysia, where he was attending a summit of eight developing countries. 'They want us to abandon our right (to nuclear technology),' the president said."

BINGO! I'm going to go way out on a limb here and say the price oil will be rocketing up in the next 12 hours or so.

Do the Cheney/Carlyle death corp. have a mole in Tehran? Along the same lines, perhaps, as spelled out in the X-Files episode "Dreamland II" when super spook Morris Fletcher tells Agent Mulder that Saddam Hussein was really "[a] dinner theater actor named John Gillnitz from Tulsa [who] was known for his good ethnic portrayal in The King and I," who was set up by Majestic "in 1979 as ruler of Iraq in order to keep people distracted?"[X-Files wiki]

Expiring minds want to know. It's more plausible explanation for whats going on than any of the crap the US media is foisting on us.

Jesse Helms: He Hated.

The first thing I thought of when I heard Jesse Helms had died today was an American Experience documentary relating the story of Lyndon Johnson using his considerable persuasive talents to try and convince George Wallace to allow blacks vote in Alabama.

From the transcript:

Johnson: "George, you and I shouldn't be thinking about 1964. We should be thinking about 1984. We'll both be dead and gone then. Now, you've got a lot of poor people down there in Alabama, a lot of ignorant people. A lot of people need jobs. A lot of people need a future. You could do a lot for them. Now, in 1984, George, what do you want left behind?

You want a great big marble monument that says, 'George Wallace: He Built', or do you want a little piece of scrawny pine laying there along that hot Caliche soil that says, 'George Wallace: He Hated'?"

That's what Jesse Helms is left with: His monument of Hate.

I'm sure it would have driven him crazy to know he died on the nation's birthday, the country that crushed his beloved Confederacy. I'm sure he would have prefered to have died on April 12th.

Anyway, I don't want to waste too much time on this racist piece of crap. Basically, here's all you need to know about Jesse Helms; "White Hands," one of the most outrageous campaign ads in American history from his race against Harvey Gantt (gasp, a black man running for the Senate in North Carolina!) in 1996. Playing on the primal fears of the decendants of the southern yoeman farmer, always the preferred patsy for the agents of the southern aristocracy, Helms won the election 54% to Gantt's 46% (which just goes to show why I will never live in NC again).

Blogging at DU today.

The subject is Cuba and why Obama hates sugar cane.

My DU Journal

WWIII: Making nice? Nah!

AP reports:

"Iran's foreign minister on Wednesday dismissed talk of a U.S. or Israeli attack against his country, calling the prospect of another war in the Middle East 'craziness.'

[Iranian Foreign Minister] Manouchehr Mottaki said in an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday that he does not believe Israel or the United States would act while the U.S. economy is suffering and the United States is bogged down in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

'We do not foresee such a possibility at the moment. The Israeli government is facing a political breakdown within itself and within the region, so we do not foresee such a possibility for that regime to resort to such craziness,' he said. 'The United States, too, is not in a position where it can engage in, take another risk in the region.'"

Hmmm . . . craziness, huh? Well, working for Ahmadinejad I'd guess he'd know all about craziness first hand. Anyway, one thing Mottaki doesn't seem to be taking into account is that domestic political problems or economic upheavals can be quickly pushed to the back burner by a convienent war.

At his big press conference today in the Rose Garden, supossedly also making conciliatory sounds, W. told reporters: "I have always said that all options are on table, but the first option for the United States is to solve this problem diplomatically." [Sounds real conciliatory, right?]

The NYT reports Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the JCS, seemed to agree with Mottaki's appraisal of the overstretched position of the US these days. Just after Bush's Rose Garden press conference, Mullen kept on the Pentagon's cooler heads should prevail message saying a war with Iran would be "extremely stressful." Of course, he said, "Just about every move in that part of the world is a high-risk move."

You bet.

Interestingly, the NYT reports Mottaki, speaking at the UN in New York, "refused to repeat the usual Iranian statement that it would never give up its right to uranium enrichment."

An opening perhaps? Everyone -- the Iranians and the Pentagon anyway -- are sounding very reasonable all of a sudden.

Obviously, this means WAR!

Covert activities? In Iran? Oh, pooh, pooh!

Press TV Iran reports:

"An Iranian navy commander leading a unit that arrested 15 UK sailors in the Persian Gulf last year has survived an assassination attempt. The attack on Colonel Abolqasem Amangah, the commander of the Arvand Rood Navy Base in southern Iran, occurred while he was driving in the eastern Sorkh Hesar district of Tehran last week. Two groups of unidentified assailants, a group on a motorbike and the other in a car, opened fire on the vehicle of the Iranian commander. Amangah pulled his car over, took shelter, and managed to escape unhurt. "

Barack Obama: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss:

AP reports:

"Reaching out to religious voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is announcing plans to expand President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and — in a move sure to cause controversy — support some ability to hire and fire based on faith. . . 'The challenges we face today ... are simply too big for government to solve alone,' Obama was to say, according to a prepared text of his remarks obtained by The Associated Press. 'We need all hands on deck.'"

Right, so how about those particular deck hands provide their own funds? It seems to me the federal government was perfectly capable of handling the challenges of the Great Depression through the New Deal without resorting to giving tax-payer hand-outs to the purveyors of fear, ignorance and intolerance.

Even worse, however, than the fact that "Mr. Change" wants to keep Bush's Faith-based charity program alive; he actually wants to expand it!!!

AP:

"Obama's support for letting religious charities that receive federal funding consider religion in employment decisions could invite a protest from those in his own party who view such faith requirements as discrimination. . . [He] supports letting religious institutions hire and fire based on faith in the non-taxypayer funded portions of their activities, said a senior adviser to the campaign, who spoke on condition of anonymity to more freely describe the new policy."

Uh huh, and how does he propose to keep track of which funds are which? Can you say: "Bait and switch?"

AP:

"Like Bush, Obama was arguing that religious organizations can and should play a bigger role in serving the poor and meeting other social needs. But while Bush argued that the strength of religious charities lies primarily in shared religious identity between workers and recipients, Obama was to tout the benefits of their 'bottom-up' approach. 'Because they're so close to the people, they're well-placed to offer help,' he was to say."

Fine, they can help from the bottom up on their own time with their own money. They can't come close to the kind of massive effort so desperately needed today that the federal government could provide. What this country needs now is a top down approach along the lines of the New Deal. Massive public works programs to repair our crumbling infrastructure, conservation programs to save our soil and water, jobs programs for the young in the CCC mold etc.

But, never mind about all that, Obama has his heads in the clouds, just like Bush . . .

AP:

"Obama also planned to talk bluntly about the genesis of his Christian faith in his work as a community organizer in Chicago, and its importance to him now.

'In time, I came to see faith as being both a personal commitment to Christ and a commitment to my community; that while I could sit in church and pray all I want, I wouldn't be fulfilling God's will unless I went out and did the Lord's work,' he was to say."

You know, that's great. I'm glad Obama has a healthy fantasy life and he believes in omniscient beings that tell him what to do (just like Bush). What we need, though, are folks right down here on earth who aren't so preoccupied with killing each other over which one's God is mas Macho that they actually have time to help real people who are really hurting.

You do the "Lord's work" on your own time Barack. I expect you to do our work with our secular tax money on our time.

The annals of WWIII: Get your apples here!

ABC News reports:

"Senior Pentagon officials are concerned that Israel could carry out an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities before the end of the year, an action that would have enormous security and economic repercussions for the United States and the rest of the world . . . A senior defense official told ABC News there is an 'increasing likelihood' that Israel will carry out such an attack, a move that likely would prompt Iranian retaliation against, not just Israel, but against the United States as well. The official identified two 'red lines' that could trigger an Israeli offensive. The first is tied to when Iran's Natanz nuclear facility produces enough highly enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon."

[close quote]

That, depending on who you talk to, could be either next year or about five minutes from now.

The other "red line" (lots of 'red lines' and 'lines drawn in the sand') would be the Iranians setting up the Russian SA-20 air defense systems they're supossedly getting from Vlad & Co.

In either case, neither the Israelis nor the extremists in the vice president's office are going to allow any of these red lines to be crossed on their watch. [Perhaps, that's what all these "senior defense officials" fear?]

My theory is: that Cheney and Co. have been shown to be a bit gullable in the past when it comes to being suckered by slippery Middle Easterners (Ahmad Chalabi and "Curveball" come to mind) so all this bluster coming from Israel may just be another, not so subtle, ruse to get the US to jump first.

They've already managed to install into Cheney's mind the notion of the "Mad Dog" going off half-cocked to leave us holding the bag, so he may be thinking we'd might as well do it before they do -- and quick!

And before, defense officials warn, (gasp! ) "A new president, who may be less supportive, is sworn in next January."

Of course, if Bush and the gang that couldn't shoot straight do go after Iran and start WWIII, they will almost certainly assure Barack Obama wins the election.

The "consensus" I hear these days is that a new war would benefit McCain -- but, then again, the consensus was that the GOP had the midterms all sown up in 2006, too. I get the whole more military experience thing with McCain, but a $10 gallon of gas come November could really upset the applecart.

Of course, by November we may all be pushing applecarts around, so we may not have time to vote, which would benefit McCain and his fatcat buddies who'll, doubtless, be celebrating the $300 barrel of oil whilst lighting their cigars with the $10,000 bills the rest of us will be using to insulate our homes.

Colin Powell for Veep? No bleeping way!

"He [Saddam] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors." Colin Powell, Feb, 2001. [Scoop]

So, I'm half awake about 20 minutes ago and I hear Juan Williams on Morning Edition seriously discussing why Colin Powell might become Obama's Veep.

OK, one word: Anthrax.

That's what Powell had in his hand at the UN trying to convince us with his unsullied reputation that when Saddam "finally admitted having these weapons in 1995, the quantities were vast. Less than a teaspoon of dry anthrax, a little bit about this amount--this is just about the amount of a teaspoon--less than a teaspoon full of dry anthrax in an envelope shutdown the United States Senate in the fall of 2001. . . If concentrated into this dry form, this amount would be enough to fill tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of teaspoons. And Saddam Hussein has not verifiably accounted for even one teaspoon-full of this deadly material." [DoS]

Ah, the memories! And this is my favorite part, Saddam's robot planes that were going to douse New York with his anthrax:

Powell: "Now, unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs.

Iraq has been working on a variety of UAVs for more than a decade. This is just illustrative of what a UAV would look like. This effort has included attempts to modify for unmanned flight the MiG-21 (ph) and with greater success an aircraft called the L-29 (ph). However, Iraq is now concentrating not on these airplanes, but on developing and testing smaller UAVs, such as this. UAVs are well suited for dispensing chemical and biological weapons.

There is ample evidence that Iraq has dedicated much effort to developing and testing spray devices that could be adapted for UAVs. And of the little that Saddam Hussein told us about UAVs, he has not told the truth. One of these lies is graphically and indisputably demonstrated by intelligence we collected on June 27, last year."

There are so many times before the invasion, including when he took a look at all this "triple sourced" intel and called it "bullshit" when he could have grown a spine and put an end to this fiasco before it happened, but he didn't.

What happens if Obama , God forbid, has to take us to war (presumably, this time, a legitimate war) he couldn't even think about having this guy come out and try to sell it. Please Mr. Obama, find another candidate for Veep.

Extra note:

And if you need any more reason to pick someone else . . . from the Ron Paul Blog:

"Just a fun little thought experiment. If I were Barack Obama, who would I choose for the vice presidency? My answer…Colin Powell."

If the Ronulans think he would be a good choice. you know you need to find someone else.

WWIII just around the corner. Stay tuned.

That crazy Sy Hersh is at it again; this time claiming in the current edition of the New Yorker that W. & Co. have been given $400 million from the rubber stamp Congress to conduct mass covert operations inside Iran. The objective of these operations is supossedly to take-out or capture certain Iranians on a hit-list written by Cheney and to pay local dissidents, most of them terrorists, to blow things up and generally create enough chaos to provoke the regime into overreacting thus giving Cheney & Co. an excuse to intervene.

How nuts is that?

You know, I hear it said all over the place that Hersh has been saying the US is on the verge of attacking Iran for a long time, so why should we believe him now. After all, it's not like there's any evidence out there of any covert-like violence going on inside Iran, right?

Hersh writes:

"In recent months, according to the Iranian media, there has been a surge in violence in Iran; it is impossible at this early stage, however, to credit JSOC or C.I.A. activities, or to assess their impact on the Iranian leadership. The Iranian press reports are being carefully monitored by retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner, who has taught strategy at the National War College and now conducts war games centered on Iran for the federal government, think tanks, and universities. The Iranian press 'is very open in describing the killings going on inside the country,' Gardiner said. It is, he said, 'a controlled press, which makes it more important that it publishes these things. We begin to see inside the government.' He added, 'Hardly a day goes by now we don’t see a clash somewhere. There were three or four incidents over a recent weekend, and the Iranians are even naming the Revolutionary Guard officers who have been killed.'”

But Gardiner is just some disgruntled nut Hersh found, take it all with a grain of salt.

Whoopse!

RTE reports today:

"An explosion at a gas distribution company in a town near the Iranian capital has killed 15 people. The cause of the blast late yesterday was not immediately clear. The Iranian news agency Fars said a large number of gas canisters used in homes for cooking had exploded. The explosion occurred at a gas company in a suburb of Karaj, west of Tehran."

Our tax dollars busy at work.

Threats and counter-threats: Don't worry be happy!

In other developments regarding the impossibility of W. & Co. attempting to get another war on before they're forced to possibly turn things over to that Muslim lover Barack Obama:

Reuters reports that Revolutionary Guards commander-in-chief Mohammad Ali Jafari told Jam-e Jam newspaper 'in some of the toughest language Iran has used so far' that Iran would take control of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz if attacked.

"Naturally every country under attack by an enemy uses all its capacity and opportunities to confront the enemy," Jafari says.

This threat, along with the Shaul Mofaz threat to Iran -- and then the reply from Jafari, "This country (Israel) is completely within the range of the Islamic republic's missiles. Our missile power and capability are such that the Zionist regime, despite all its abilities, cannot confront it" --- is attributed in the press to the obscene price of a barrel of oil.

Oh, and then there was Iranian Brigadier General Mir-Faisal Baqerzadeh saying Iran would dig "some 320,000," graves [Ynet] for the invaders and you get the idea all is quiet on the Eastern Front.

[BTW, isn't this the very same Mohammad Ali Jafari the US tried to capture in Irbil, Kuridstan, in Jan. of 2007 and who later attended a conference (along with Condi Rice) on Iraq in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, four months later?]

The PMOI no longer a 'terrorist' group in UK: Coincidence?

In a totally unrelated news story:

The BBC reports:

"An Iranian opposition organisation is pushing to be legalised across the EU after being taken off the UK's list of alleged terrorist groups. The People's Mojahedin of Iran, also known as Mujaheddin-e-Khalq, has been legalised in the UK after winning an earlier court battle."

The People's Mujahadeen of Iran, aka the MEK, is still a terrorist group according to the United States:

"The State Department report on international terrorism for 2006 asserts that the
organization — and not just a radical element of the organization as the group asserts — was responsible for the alleged killing of seven American defense advisers to the former Shah in 1975-1976. The State Department report has, in the past, noted the group’s promotion of women in its ranks, but the report for 2006 emphasizes the group’s 'cult-like' character, including indoctrination of its members and separation of family members from its activists." [CRS]

Not that any of that would stop our Unitary Executive (kind of funny term when you realize we have two presidents) from doing business with anyone who'll play ball with us.

Sy Hersh:

"The M.E.K. has been on the State Department’s terrorist list for more than a decade, yet in recent years the group has received arms and intelligence, directly or indirectly, from the United States. Some of the newly authorized covert funds, the Pentagon consultant told me, may well end up in M.E.K. coffers. 'The new task force will work with the M.E.K. The Administration is desperate for results.' He added, 'The M.E.K. has no C.P.A. auditing the books, and its leaders are thought to have been lining their pockets for years. If people only knew what the M.E.K. is getting, and how much is going to its bank accounts—and yet it is almost useless for the purposes the Administration intends.'”

This is the same bunch that, according to ATC, had to basically rent a crowd to make it look like they had any kind of following at their big celebration in Paris this past weekend. Many interviewed by NPR had no idea who Massoud and Maryam Rajavi even were.

But, I'm sure the back channel to Cheney's lare is working overtime getting info on the vast throngs of supporters they have within Iran from the Ledeen/Ghorbanifar nexus and their agent in (Curt Weldon's Paris contact) code named "Ali." [LTAD]