The Rational Radical's Weblog

Saturday, February 08, 2003

Wealthy Suing Accountants Over Rejected Tax Shelters  I feel so sorry for these poor souls whose tax shelters were disallowed. The injustice of it all! I can't help it, I'm actually crying as I type this, and were it a paper missive from me you were reading, instead of a light-filled monitor, you would undoubtedly see the tracks of my tears running down the page.

Jack Clark 9:35 PM [+]   
Post #88786292

U.S. in Talks on Allowing Turkey to Occupy a Kurdish Area in Iraq  Are we already -- and openly! selling out the Kurds? Well why not? We've done so before.

Jack Clark 9:33 PM [+]   
Post #88786212

Seeing the Pen Not as Mightier, but as More Honest   This Army vet's description of the true nature of who serves makes it all the more clear why we need a universal, no-exemption military draft so that all segments of society share in the burden of blood the Bushians insist the nation must bear.

Jack Clark 9:31 PM [+]   
Post #88786162

Read this "Call to Conscience" from vets to active duty troops and reservists.

Jack Clark 10:31 PM [+]   
Post #88746096

US Moves Closer to Colombia's War   Unfortunately, the government has the resources to move on many fronts; the anti-intervention movement has infinitely less resources. So while in non-Iraq War times this Colombia stuff might be the stuff of major protest, now it will probably be lost in the anti-Iraq War effort.

Jack Clark 9:30 PM [+]   
Post #88744044

Rabid Rightists are Leninists of Today  And they're not a fringe element anymore -- they're our federal government officials!

Jack Clark 9:23 PM [+]   
Post #88743782

PBS' NOW With Bill Moyers Exposes Secret Draft Bill from the Department of Justice to Extend Powers of the Patriot Act   If I don't post to the blog for a couple of days, you now know what might have happened!

Jack Clark 9:21 PM [+]   
Post #88743689

Can someone explain this concern about disclosing "sources and methods" in revealing intelligence information, at least insofar as it applies to what Colin Powell presented? Hasn't everyone known for years that US spy satellites can read the license plate of a car? So what's the big deal about revealing we have aerial photos? One would assume we'd position satellites so we have 24/7 over Iraq. Ditto for intercepted telephone conversations: I've assumed for years that US intelligence can overhear every phone call -- and read every email -- anywhere in the world.

Jack Clark 10:07 PM [+]   
Post #88691648

Bush Budget Increases Push to Find Tax Cheats   Typical Bush sleight-of-hand: the budget went up, but much less than the agency said was necessary, and in real dollar terms per return, the IRS still has less money than 5 years ago. Some effort! But after all, why push to hard to catch your friends and cronies in their tax-evasion schemes.

Jack Clark 9:51 PM [+]   
Post #88691078

When I listen to O'Reilly, the mantra "cliches, buzzwords, platitudes and non sequiturs" keeps coming to mind. I wonder why?

Jack Clark 9:49 PM [+]   
Post #88691015

The Iraqis' Use of Poison Gas   Contrary to the article I cited the other day, these people say Halabja was an Iraqi attack, and in any case, there were dozens of others on other villages that had to have been Iraq. Saddam is no doubt a butcher -- unfortunately, the U.S. was his ally at the time. So our 15-years-later complaints ring a little hollow.

Jack Clark 9:46 PM [+]   
Post #88690902

The War Against the Fur Trade Backfires, Endangering a Way of Life   Yup, if people torturing and killing animals is what they base their economy on, let them continue doing so. Wouldn't want them to base their livelihood something less immoral and disgusting, would we?

Jack Clark 9:42 PM [+]   
Post #88690731

Not a Case for War  What a great beginning of an editorial:

It was too much to ask that Secretary of State Colin Powell go before the United Nations to make a realistic statement like: "Look, Bush still has trouble finding Iraq on a map. Cheney is focused on bailing out Halliburton by grabbing another oil field. Rumsfeld just wants to get his war on. Iraq is pretty much disarmed. Any threat that it might pose can be contained. So let the weapons inspectors do their job and we'll talk some more about this in a few months."

Jack Clark 9:23 PM [+]   
Post #88689993

More on Colin Powell, the Third World people-killing machine:

[I]n January 1986, serving as a top aide to Pentagon chief Caspar Weinberger, he supervised the transfer of 4,508 TOW missiles to the CIA, and then sought to hide the transaction from Congress and the public. No wonder: Almost half of those missiles had become part of the Iran-Contra scandal's arms-for-hostages deal.

As President Reagan's national security adviser, Powell worked diligently on behalf of the contra guerrillas who were killing civilians in Nicaragua. In December 1989, Powell -- at that point the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- was a key player behind the invasion of Panama.

The Gulf War catapulted Powell to the apex of American political stardom in early 1991. When he was asked about the Iraqi death toll from that war, Powell said that such numbers didn't interest him.  Colin Powell Is Flawless -- Inside a Media Bubble

And this also:

Powell proud of his support for murderous contras

During the 1980s, thousands of Nicaraguan were murdered by a terrorist rebel force known as the contras, which had been created by the U.S. from the remnants of the hated National Guard of the deposed Somoza dictatorship. The U.S. organized, armed and trained the contras, directed them to attack defenseless Nicaraguan villages, and produced and distributed a handbook that justified and encouraged the assassination of local officials. In 1986 the International Court of Justice ordered the Reagan administration to end the contra war and pay reparations to Nicaragua. It did neither.

You can read all about the contras in the gruesome reports of HRW, whose careful documentation has stood the test of time. But, you ask, what does that have to do with Powell? To this day, Powell is proud of his contribution to the contra cause. Here�s what he said to journalists Norman Solomon and Robert Parry in 1995:

�Working for Ronald Reagan as his deputy national security adviser and national security adviser, I worked very hard, fought very hard to get adequate support to the contras, the freedom fighters, who were resisting the communist government of the Ortegas in Nicaragua.... I have no regrets about my role.� ( http://www.fair.org/extra/9601/powell.html)

According to HRW, the contras made torture, murder of defenseless civilians, and execution of surrendered enemy soldiers standard operating procedure. In the eyes of Powell, the contras were �freedom fighters.�  An Open Letter to the U.N. about Colin Powell

Jack Clark 9:21 PM [+]   
Post #88689923

O'Reilly tonight told his viewers he put links to the French and German embassies on his site to make it easy for people to contact them. Is a network allowed to have its employees utilize the public airwaves in that kind of a partisan way?

Jack Clark 10:21 PM [+]   
Post #88634803

Gun Industry Ex-Official Describes Bond of Silence  As a gun control activist quoted in the article succinctly put it:

"The consummate insider has now exposed the dirty little secret of the gun industry � that is, the underground market is supplied by corrupt gun dealers, and the industry punishes anyone who tries to stop it."

Jack Clark 10:12 PM [+]   
Post #88634418

A reader wrote (warning: contains vulgarity):

Regardless of your parameters to make a comment (you communist bastard). You are just another liberal piece of SHIT that is hell bend on destroying this country by supporting deadbeats that don't want to work for a living and worse not supporting defending our freedom, but supporting another 911 terrorist attack or worse!!

You should be shot for treason. You Scumbag!!!!!

Do you think he doesn't like me?

Jack Clark 9:58 PM [+]   
Post #88633907

O'Reilly tonight showed us the scared, censoring weakling that lurks beneath his blustering facade. His guest was the anti-Iraq war son of a man killed on 9/11 at the WTC. The son tried to explain his anti-war position. O'Reilly told him to "shut up" at least two times, then cut the son's mike. Any arguments that fit outside O'Reilly's view of acceptable positions -- meaning those he has a canned, ready-made answer to -- will not be allowed on the "No Spin Zone."

Jack Clark 9:30 PM [+]   
Post #88574571

As Iraq War Looms, a New Sense of Vulnerability   One ignorant interviewee blathers about Iraq:

"These people can't have a space program. Their scientists are about making weapons of mass destruction. They can't dare to dream."

That's right, our scientists don't make any weapons of mass destruction. The development of better ways to kill people is not the foremost R & R activity in the U.S. And our space program's primary aim is not to develop outer space for military purposes, to enable us to more easily kill people who challenge our economic rule of the planet.

Jack Clark 9:22 PM [+]   
Post #88574224

The Picasso Cover-Up   Why not just put the U.S. flag and George Bush's picture there permanently in place of "Guernica." Then the U.N.'s kowtowing to the U.S. will be properly reflected.

Jack Clark 9:18 PM [+]   
Post #88574020

Mill Valley Seniors Stage Protest for Peace   God Bless these senior citizens for not only having acquired some wisdom in their long lives, but for having the energy and panache at their age to go out and protest in the streets! I hope when I'm that old I'll be able to do the same thing (actually, I'd wish that in that decades amount of time, there would be no need for such protests, but let's be realistic...)

Jack Clark 9:15 PM [+]   
Post #88573905

War Plan Calls for Precision Bombing Wave to Break Iraqi Army   Precision like our Afghan bombing that killed up to 3,500 Afghan civilians? Also, the article says we won't destroy the Bagdhad water and electrical system, we'll only shut it down, whatever that means. Still a war crime to target civilian infrastructure. Finally, what gives with these dates. First we heard the war had to start by mid-January, then mid-February, then the end of February, now this article says we could start the war up until "early spring."

Jack Clark 10:30 PM [+]   
Post #88518135

Split at C.I.A. and F.B.I. on Iraqi Ties to Al Qaeda   So Chickenhawk Bush is not only ignoring the CIA's own analysis, but that of the FBI as well. What does the cowardly Bush care about facts? He has to make the case for WAR and fulfill his uncontrollable desire to kill people.

Jack Clark 10:26 PM [+]   
Post #88517985

Europe Loses Advocate With Powell's Iraq Shift   TheseEuropeans apparently couldn't see through the transparent Powell-Bush good cop/bad cop routine. Then when the "good cop" reveals his fangs, they're surprised. Colin "Kill the Third World Poor" Powell shouldn't be surprising anyone anymore, not after Vietnam, Nicaragua and Iraq War #1.

Jack Clark 10:24 PM [+]   
Post #88517933

Military Mentality Develops in Venezuela   Amazing what guilty consciences can unconsciously lead people to fear.

Jack Clark 10:22 PM [+]   
Post #88517850

Ashcroft's Push for Execution Voids Plea Deal   Ashcroft's blood lust knows no bounds or decency. But hey, that's okay, because the man knows what's important: he knows that dancing is a sin in God's eyes. We're all truly in good hands with him as Attorney General, don't ya think?

Jack Clark 10:39 PM [+]   
Post #88459714

Words Provide the Heat at Young Poets' Event "Amerika � land of the rich girls who choose not to eat," she recited, "and the starving people dying of the minimum wage disease in the street/ and the lawsuits against mcdonald's 'cos you make us obese!" "She" was only a 10th grader!

Jack Clark 10:37 PM [+]   
Post #88459630

Another "stan" ally shows how democratic it is. And the real reason we had pre-9/11 plans to "project our power" into Central Asia: Kazakhstan Reaches Oil Accord with a ChevronTexaco-led consortium.

Jack Clark 10:30 PM [+]   
Post #88459350

Iraqi Water and Sanitation Systems Could Be Military Target   Disgusting! And a war crime under the Geneva Convention.

Jack Clark 10:23 PM [+]   
Post #88459108