The best thing in the world for big oil

"This war in Iraq has been the best thing in the world for Big Oil and OPEC. They've made the largest profits in the history of the world. The interesting thing about your book is you show how it was all planned from the beginning. The story is like a spy thriller." -- Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Listen to RFK and Greg Palast on Iraq, a 20-minute conversation about blood and oil, the podcast of 'Ring of Fire' from Air America.

The following is part of the story referenced in their discussion:

THE JERK: WHY SADDAM HAD TO GO
by Greg Palast
Excerpt from 'Armed Madhouse'

The 323-page multi-volume "Options for Iraqi Oil" begins with the expected dungeons-and-dragons warning:

The report is submitted on the understanding that [the State Department] will maintain the contents confidential.

For two years, the State Department (and Defense and the White House) denied there were secret plans for Iraq's oil. They told us so in writing. That was the first indication the plan existed. Proving that, and getting a copy, became the near-to-pathologic obsession of our team.

War at home: The Seattle shooting

Through the actions of a lone man with an unstable mental history, the Middle East wars have hit my community. Naveed Haq, from a middle class Pakistani-American family in eastern Washington State, shot six women at the Seattle Jewish Federation, in the city where I live. He killed one and left three critically wounded, saying "I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel." I've never been to the Federation offices, but I've worshipped at affiliated Seattle synagogues, attended Federation-sponsored events, and met one of the women who was critically wounded. So Haq's reprehensible attack felt personal. Aside from the shooting of Jewish Defense League founder Meir Kahane and an ambiguous 1994 incident involving a New York taxi driver and a van of Hasidic students, this may be the first politically motivated killing of an American Jew by an American Muslim in the past sixty years. As such, it risks sharply increasing the level of fear in America's Jewish communities, and with it the reflex support of even the most questionable Israeli actions.

We could dismiss the deaths as isolated from politics, the actions of a

No guts, no grace

SAN FRANCISCO -- Do you think the Bush administration is going after the press? The San Francisco Chronicle says on the front page this morning, "Cameraman Jailed for Not Yielding Tape," whereas The New York Times is reporting, "U.S. Wins Access to Reporter Phone Records." I'm feeling like a bunny trying to outrun a pack of wolfhounds.

Hezbollah's top ally in Israel

"Israel is doomed," said a friend of mine some months ago, returning to the United States after a trip to Israel. I asked him why, and my friend, who spent 20 years working in a high level position in the Pentagon, answered, "They've put in an Air Force man as chief of the General Staff."

He was talking about Dan Halutz, appointed chief of the General Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces in February of this year.

My friend began his stint in the Pentagon in the middle Sixties, as one of Robert McNamara's "whiz kids." He'd spent long years listening to Air Force generals expounding the virtues of air power, and how their bombers would wipe out the Viet Cong without the need for any ground forces.

Those bombers never did wipe out the Viet Cong, though they destroyed vast forests while other USAF planes drenched the ground cover with poisons that plague Vietnamese and Americans to this day.

Bush heir cut: Awards tax break to son of an Astor

East Hampton, New York -- Anthony Marshall, the tabloids tell us, wouldn't buy his elderly mother her prescribed medicine, locked her poodles in the pantry and refused to buy her hair dye or her favorite make-up.  His mom is Brooke Astor, the ultra-rich socialite, now frail, helpless and dependent on her son.

While others merely gossiped about this tragedy of dogs and cosmetics, George Bush acted.  In a deft maneuver at the end of last week, Bush rammed through Congress a massive reduction in the inheritance tax.  As a result of the tax change engineered by the White House, Marshall stands to save $9 million on the $45 million he expects to inherit from his mom.

George W. Bush could feel Anthony's pain.  It's not easy being a child of incredibly wealthy parents.  Indeed, as the President noted, "death taxes" are supremely unfair to those who've earned these millions.  As Mr. Bush often mentions, he himself worked long hours his whole life to be born into a rich family.

Nukes article

I think you should say that U235 is a very linited and soon to be uneconomical fuel.

Also, running on Plutonium requires an authoritarian state.  It also would mean massive releases of radioactive Argon, Neon, and Tritium which will be dispersed throughout the world.

The metal stream will ultimately become contaminated with radioactivity.

Even now, almost as much electricity is used to process Uranium as is generated by the power plant.  By any rational accounting system, nuclear electricity is even now uneconomical.  Only the tax system and DOE fuel processing keeps it afloat.

Mike Duffy
Hamtramck, Mi  

Where were you when they took your rights away?

Can you name the one country on earth where the government can steal elections, strip away basic rights, spy on citizens, and launch wars based on lies, but where the people do not take over the nation's capital in protest?

If you said the United States, you'll be wrong on September fifth when Camp Democracy begins on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.   http://www.campdemocracy.org

At long last, Americans are preparing to say "Enough is enough," and to do what Ukrainians, Mexicans, or any other people not drugged into acquiescence would do when things got this bad: occupy the capital city to demand peace, justice, and accountability.

Will all of the effort of Democrats matter if  Blackwell runs the election?

No! The current election system is very unfair. Evidence: Exit polls, which are usually accurate, showed that John Kerry should have won in Ohio. A Columbus Dispatch  poll showed that two of the voting reform issues on the 2004 ballot in November of 2005 would win by 19%. All four of these issues went down in all 88 counties. That is statistically very improbable.

Methods making it difficult for Democrats to register to vote: Before the 2004 election Blackwell made a rule that registration had to be on 30 weight paper. A court ruling rescinded his edict, but damage had already been done. In 2004, registration in churches was allowed. Many fundamentalist and Republican dominated Catholic Churches allowed registration, but most progressive churches did not because they thought it was a violation of the separation of church and state. Blackwell’s recent rule requires voter-registration form to be delivered to election officials within 10 days by the person who collects them, holding them criminally liable if they do not. This effectively prohibits organizations, most of  which are Democratic, from registering voters.

Birth Pangs

I think Condi's right. As Israel wreaks biblical vengeance on Lebanon, we may well be witnessing, as she put it, "the birth pangs of a new Middle East." But the devil baby that crawls out of the wreckage will be one that makes even her boss pause mid-swagger.

God help us. The reckless cynics are in control. Just like that - hundreds dead, half a million refugees, a nation's infrastructure shattered. The perpetrators beat their chests and reload. The U.S. expedites its delivery of bombs to Israel, which is driving Lebanon "to the gates of hell and madness," as Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said.

"I don't want to remember, but I can't help it. What I remember most is the sound, the sound of the planes, and I was scared because I thought there were so many. I fell asleep last night, but all I could hear in my sleep were the planes."

Birth pangs. Maybe the bombs that destroyed the home of the 8-year-old girl in the southern Lebanon village of Ayta Chaeb, quoted by an AP reporter from her hospital bed in Tyre, were autographed by little Israeli girls. Maybe they were decorated with hearts and Stars of David. Maybe they said "from Israel with love."

Party switching in Ohio 2006 Primary

I have been concerned about the voting machines foisted upon us by Kenneth Blackwell for some time now. Now it is being reported on Lou Dobbs on CNN that the machines are very undependable and elections can be fixed. For Kenneth Blackwell to have anything to do with the process of getting the Diebold Computer Voting machines is a Conflict of Interest since he has stock in the company & used a no-bid process is unbelievable..

Kenneth Blackwell's run for Governor is a "Conflict of Interest" and should be challenged in a Court of Law, since he is the head of the Election Commission in the State of Ohio. I would hope that other people besides myself would find the above items a little upsetting to say the least, or is everyone asleep at the wheel or could care less if such things are happening in the buckeye state or indeed in the U.S. where deep concerns about the abuse of our voting rights are in question. If the whole election is fixed to come out to make sure the party in power is going to be the winner, doesn't this concern you?

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