Technocrat.net | Pentagon was Considering a "Gay Conversion" Bomb: "'A spokesperson for the Department of Defense has confirmed a report that Air Force officials proposed developing a gay conversion chemical weapon in 1994. The proposal, part of a plan from Wright Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, was to develop....'

....‘chemicals that effect (sic) human behavior so that discipline and morale in enemy units is adversely effected (sic). One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior.’"

You can't make this shit up.

(Via Technocrat.net.)

2020 AD: India may outshine US- The Times of India: "'In the same way that commentators refer to the 1900s as the 'American Century,' the 21st century may be seen as the time when Asia, led by China and India, comes into its own,' the report titled 'Mapping the Global Future,' observed. 'A combination of sustained high economic growth, expanding military capabilities, and large populations will be at the root of the expected rapid rise in economic and political power for both countries.'"

Btw, a link to the report can be found here.

(Via The Times of India.)

The Nation | Blog | The Daily Outrage | Outrageous Outtakes | Ari Berman: "The Poor Man blog has done a terrific job of putting CBS's Dan Rather fallout in perspective, comparing the after-effects of Rathergate with Saddam's nonexistent WMDs. 'Number of firings resulting from investigation? Rathergate: 4. Saddam's WMD: 0.' 'Number of American soldiers killed as a result: Rathergate: 0. Saddam: WMD: 1,357.' 'Number of posts mentioning story on National Review Online's 'The Corner': Rathergate: 10. Saddam's WMD: 0.' We add our own--Number of times the right-wing media have apologized for being absolutely wrong: 0."

(Via The Nation Weblogs.)

Editor's Cut: "Social Security, which provides a public good: the minimum financial security of retirees, is only the latest example. Faith-based initiatives were the privatization of government social welfare programs to religious institutions. Vouchers were the privatization of public education to religious schools. Drilling in the Artic National Preserve is the privatization of public lands for corporate profit. Even national security, the ultimate public good, has been partially privatized: 'Security contractors' (mercenaries in the old parlance) were interrogating prisoners at Abu Ghraib, before the scandal broke."

(Via The Nation Weblogs.)

Jan 11, 2005: Haven't we heard this before?: "Sadly, this whole Social Security 'crisis' is beginning to sound a little too much like the Iraq 'crisis': The administration is trying to create panic by over-exaggerating a problem while hiding or neglecting to mention key facts for the sake of their argument. What we'll find in the end is that, if successful, all they've done is rush into something without proper consideration for facts or consequences, leaving an expensive mess that will take years longer to fix than what it should have."

(Via DNC: Kicking Ass.)

Jan 6, 2005: You mean he couldn't find anyone else?: "Yesterday George Bush appointed Claude Allen to be his domestic policy advisor. That name may ring a bell — Bush tried to push Claude Allen onto the federal appeals court for two years, but there is a good reason why he never made it.

Allen served as a press aide to Sen. Jesse Helms — that would be the same Sen. Helms who fought against the Martin Luther King Holiday while Allen worked for him. During Helms' campaign against James Hunt, Allen referred to Hunt's supporters as 'radical feminists' and 'queers.'"

(Via DNC: Kicking Ass.)

MISSILE DEFENSE "GLITCH?" YEAH, RIGHT: "It was inconceivable, Obering told the Washington Post, that such a problem could ever, ever happen again. The Ground-based Midcourse Defense system may have face-planted this time. But against a real missile, he promised, it was absolutely sure to work right."

(Via Defense Tech.)

FOXNews.com - Politics - Bush Unfazed by Criticism of Iraq WMD Hunt: "WASHINGTON - Leading up to the war in Iraq and in the months after Saddam Hussein (search) fell from power, President Bush (search) remained convinced that the former dictator was hiding something.

The president was sure Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (search) somewhere. And despite the fact none were found after U.S. troops and investigators spread out throughout Iraq, Bush refused to admit that he had made a mistake."

...

"The head of the group, Charles Duelfer (search), is now in Washington, preparing the final report, which sources say will be closely consistent with the interim report Duelfer submitted in September. That report said Iraq destroyed its chemical and biological weapons in the early 1990s. Officials say those findings are expected to stand in the final report to be published in the coming months."

Emphasis Mine

(Via Google News.)

AlterNet: Rights and Liberties: The Great White Way: "KEVLES: There was one fundamental economic argument: if we could rid ourselves of the genetically inadequate, who were burdens on society - requiring asylums for the feebleminded or homes for the poor - we could reduce the cost to taxpayers. You see this again and again."

(Via AlterNet.)

Salon.com News | The most secure ceremony in U.S. history: "Democrats have called the celebrations a tasteless display of excess, saying tradition dictates that wartime inaugurations are restrained affairs. Republicans reply that the whole event is dedicated to U.S. soldiers serving abroad: It is subtitled 'Celebrating Freedom and Honoring Service.' They also point out that the bill will be paid entirely by private contributions. Direct campaign donations to candidates for office are not allowed and there are strict limits on individual contributions, but these do not apply to inaugurations and corporations have lined up to demonstrate their support. Their limit is $250,000.

Some companies, such as Marriott Hotels, have got around that by arranging donations from subsidiaries. Other big givers include Ford, ExxonMobil and defense contractor Northrop Grumman. In return, company executives will get tickets to the ceremony and balls. Political watchdogs are asking what else they will receive once the administration gets down to making policy."

(Via Salon.)

AlterNet: MediaCulture: CBS' Urge to Purge: "'Independent' my ass. CBS' cowardly purge of five journalists who exposed George Bush's dodging of the Vietnam War draft was done under cover of what the network laughably called an 'Independent Review Panel.'

The 'panel' was just two guys as qualified for the job as they are for landing the space shuttle: Dick Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi.

Remember Dickie Thornburgh? He was on the Bush 41 administration's payroll. His grand accomplishment as Bush's attorney general was to whitewash the investigation of the Exxon Valdez Oil spill, letting the oil giant off the hook on big damages.

...

Then there's Boccardi, not exactly a prince of journalism. This is the gent who, as CEO of the Associated Press, spiked his own wire service's exposure of Oliver North and his traitorous dealings with the Ayatollah Khomeini. Legendary AP investigative reporters Robert Parry and Brian Barger found their stories outing the Iran-Contra scandal in 1986 stopped by their bosses. They did not know that Boccardi was on those very days deep in the midst of talks with North, participating in the conspiracy."

(Via AlterNet.)

Trade Deficit Leaps Again (washingtonpost.com): " At its current pace, Lachman noted, the broadest measure of the trade gap is nearing 6 percent of gross domestic product, substantially higher than it was in the late 1980s when a declining dollar upset world financial markets and fueled a plunge in U.S. stock prices.

Currency traders began heavily selling the dollar as soon as the report was released in the morning. The U.S. currency had rebounded in the first few trading days of the year, but yesterday it sank against the euro. A euro bought $1.3271 in late New York trading, compared with $1.3123 on Tuesday. A dollar bought 102.35 Japanese yen, down from 103.25.

"The latest numbers did not shake the Bush administration's position that the trade gap should be viewed as a symptom of the U.S. economy's relative strength."

(Via Google News.)

HoweStreet.com: "Although the dollar has indeed fallen for three consecutive years, and is now trading near its all-time record low, America's monthly trade deficit is now at its highest level ever. If November's dismal performance were repeated each month for an entire year, America's annual trade deficit would eclipse $700 Billion (approximately $2,333 worth of borrowed goods for every man, woman, and child in the United States). However, in the absence of a significant change in the current dynamic, and given its current trajectory, this staggering projection is likely to be exceeded.

The reality is that a falling dollar, by it self, only exacerbates the trade deficit, by increasing the cost of imports. In addition, as domestic savings continues to decline, America becomes less able to finance the capital investments necessary to increase the production of consumer goods, thereby diminishing its ability to export. Today's data evidences this perfectly, as imports rose 1.3% while exports fell 2.3%"

Emphasis mine.

(Via Google News.)

Xinhua - English: "When asked whether it had been worth invading Iraq even without the weapons of mass destruction, Bush said: 'Oh, absolutely.'"

Whew! I was worried for a second!

(Via Google News.)

Nuclear Test Watch: Action Alert for Citizens of New Mexico - January 12, 2005: "New Mexicans have a powerful role to play in preventing the resumption of nuclear testing. If President Bush makes moves to resume nuclear testing, nuclear war will occur in our lifetimes."

(Via ArmsControlWonk.com.)

The Washington Monthly: "VINTAGE WOLFOWITZ....In celebration of Paul Wolfowitz's decision to stay at the Pentagon, I'd like to take this chance to reprint my favorite Wolfowitz testimony of all time. This is from the New York Times account of Wolfowitz's testimony before Congress on February 28, 2003, a mere three weeks before the invasion of Iraq:"

...

"....Enlisting countries to help to pay for this war and its aftermath would take more time, he said. 'I expect we will get a lot of mitigation, but it will be easier after the fact than before the fact,' Mr. Wolfowitz said. Mr. Wolfowitz spent much of the hearing knocking down published estimates of the costs of war and rebuilding, saying the upper range of $95 billion was too high....Moreover, he said such estimates, and speculation that postwar reconstruction costs could climb even higher, ignored the fact that Iraq is a wealthy country, with annual oil exports worth $15 billion to $20 billion. 'To assume we're going to pay for it all is just wrong,' he said.

You just can't make this stuff up.

And for the record, it was about a week later when I reversed course and began opposing the Iraq war. This testimony wasn't the only reason, of course, but it was sure part of it. It was stuff like this that finally made it completely clear that even the smart people in the Bush administration (and Wolfowitz is a smart guy) didn't have a clue what they were getting themselves into."

(Via ArmsControlWonk.com.)

Iraq Survey Group Ends Work: "Officials with the Iraq Survey Group tell The Washington Post that ‘the violence in Iraq, coupled with a lack of new information, led them to fold up the effort shortly before Christmas.’

Is ‘shortly before Christmas’ a polite way of saying ‘just after the election’?"

(Via ArmsControlWonk.com.)

US to Miss CWC Deadline: "USA Today has obtained a set of documents, dated 21 December 2004, stating that construction on CW disposal facilities in CO and KY won’t begin until 2011— five years after originally planned and too late to meet US obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention. A government source told AP on condition of anonymity that the two facilities would receive a combined $31 million per year over the next five years—far less than the combined 110 M they received this year."

(Via ArmsControlWonk.com.)

AlterNet: Is al Qaeda Just a Bush Boogeyman?: "Of course, the documentary does not doubt that an embittered, well-connected and wealthy Saudi man named Osama bin Laden helped finance various affinity groups of Islamist fanatics that have engaged in terror, including the 9/11 attacks. Nor does it challenge the notion that a terrifying version of fundamentalist Islam has led to gruesome spates of violence throughout the world. But the film, both more sober and more deeply provocative than Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, directly challenges the conventional wisdom by making a powerful case that the Bush administration, led by a tight-knit cabal of Machiavellian neoconservatives, has seized upon the false image of a unified international terrorist threat to replace the expired Soviet empire in order to push a political agenda."

(Via AlterNet.)

Forbes.com: CBS's Show Trial: "But the problem is this: Whether media insiders want to admit it or not, if all reporting was held to the courtroom-high standards laid out by the results of the investigation, they might have to scrap the news altogether. Of course, the next step would be to fire a lot of other folks inside the news business and out, starting with the secretary of state. "

(Via Google News.)

WTOV9.com - News - Hunt For WMDs In Iraq Is Over After Coming Up Empty: "The chief U.S. weapons hunter is to deliver his final report on the search next month. In his early findings, Charles Duelfer reported in September that Saddam Hussein neither had weapons of mass destruction nor the ability to make them.

Bush insists the invasion of Iraq was justified."

Of course he says so, the invasion is what got him re-elected, which was the original reason for going in.

(Via Google News.)

After Leveling City, U.S. Tries to Build Trust: "Many of those in line Thursday were hungry, cold, and appeared dazed by the events that had turned their city, which was untouched in the initial U.S.-led invasion in 2003, into a battlefield.

'I didn't do anything wrong, but the Americans destroyed my house,' said Sami Fafaj, 49, holding two bottles of water and two food packets.

'I want America to rebuild my house and give me money for what they have done,' said Fayed Abdullah, 37, collecting food for his seven children.

'The Americans are rich and strong, but sometimes I wish they had never come to Iraq.'

Although public expressions of anger directed at the Americans seem rare, many Falloujans appear to feel they have been wronged by U.S. forces.

'Fallouja did something bad and God sent the terrorists to punish us,' said Mehdea Salah Jassam, a neighborhood sheik. 'Then he sent the Americans to punish us some more.'

Although older residents may seem fatalistic, the younger ones show signs of impatience.

'We are not free to move in our own city,' said Maged Haraj, 20. 'We want to be free.'"

...

"'It's hard to look these people in the eye after blowing everything up,' said Staff Sgt. Travis McKinney, 31, of Vallejo, Calif. 'These people were just victims.'"

(Via a DefenseTech.)

AlterNet: A Dispatch From Bizarro World: "Of course, those soldiers who were court martialed and claimed to be acting under orders have a motive in saying so. But is it plausible that a few poorly trained rogues spontaneously thought of these methods, which happen to coincide with established interrogation practices, as the apologists would have us believe?"

God damn it, where's the country I thought I lived in???

(Via AlterNet.)

Long-Term Plan Sought For Terror Suspects (washingtonpost.com): "The Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions, including for hundreds of people now in military and CIA custody whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts. "

Yeah, that's life in prison without ever getting a trial.

(Via Lew Rockwell.)

The Nation | Blog | The Daily Outrage | Illusions in Iraq | Ari Berman: "With each new major development--hailed by the President as a decisive step toward freedom--conditions deteriorate further."

...

"Mission Accomplished, May 1, 2003:
"My fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."

New Iraqi Army, October 4, 2003:

"Today a new army is serving the Iraqi people. And less than a year from now, Iraq will have a 40,000-member military force, trained and dedicated to protecting their fellow citizens...More than half of the Iraqis under arms are police officers, instructed by professionals like New York City's outstanding former police chief, Bernard Kerik.""

Has Bush done ONE THING RIGHT since taking office? ONE THING??

(Via The Nation Weblogs.)

Capital Games: Armstrong Williams: I Am Not Alone: "Scandal-struck right-wing pundit tells me others do it, too. But he won't reveal name"

(Via The Nation Weblogs.)

SUB AGROUND: UNDERSEA PEAK TO BLAME?: "It's still unclear why the USS San Francisco ran aground Friday night. But retired Rear Admiral Hank McKinney, the former commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet's submarine force, has a guess: underwater mountains, or 'sea mounts.''I expect that we will find out from the Navy that this grounding was the result an unknown sea mount or one that was incorrectly charted,' he tells Defense Tech. Submarines have run aground in the past in the 'open ocean' while running submerged generally due to a navigation error."

(Via Defense Tech.)

SUPER, JUST SUPER: "For all four of you who still believe everything is going along swimmingly in Iraq, here's a sample of today's headlines: - Rumsfeld Seeks Broad Review of Iraq Policy - Some Iraq Areas Unsafe for Vote, U.S. General Says - Temporary Troop Increase for Army May Become Permanent - After Leveling City, U.S. Tries to Build Trust - 9 GIs Die in Iraq"

(Via Defense Tech.)

AlterNet: MediaCulture: "I Am Not Alone": "After our segment finished, Chavez and I headed to the green room, and there he was: Armstrong Williams. He was waiting to go on air to defend himself. I've known him a long time; we've often sparred, in friendly fashion, on these shouting-head shows. I shook my head and said, 'Armstrong, Armstrong, Armstrong ...' He was quick with his main talking point: 'It was bad judgment, Dave. Bad judgment.' His phone rang. He answered it, said hello, and then told the person on the other end, 'It was bad judgment. You know, just bad judgment.' I was reminded that in addition to being a pundit, Williams, a leading African-American conservative and Clarence Thomas protege, is a PR specialist with his own firm. Not too long ago, Michael Jackson called him for advice. Now he had himself for a client, and, heeding conventional crisis-management strategy, he was practicing strict message discipline: bad judgment, bad judgment, bad judgment."

(Via AlterNet.)

ABC News: Abu Ghraib Abuse Trial Begins for Graner: "Graner, a 36-year-old former prison guard from Uniontown, Pa., is charged with conspiracy to maltreat Iraqi detainees, assault, dereliction of duty and committing indecent acts.

The defense contends that Graner was told by higher-ranking soldiers and intelligence agents to rough up the detainees prior to interrogation, and that he had no choice but to obey despite personal misgivings."

(Via Google News.)

CBC News: Bush administration paid columnist to push its agenda: "WASHINGTON - The Bush administration paid Armstrong Williams, a prominent Washington columnist, to promote its education policy, possibly violating U.S. law.

Williams has admitted taking money in return for spotlighting the so-called No Child Left Behind education initiative.

A number of federal laws prohibit taxpayer money being used to influence public opinion.

The story broke in USA Today's weekend edition, which followed a Freedom of Information request.

Williams received $240,000 U.S. for his help through a public-relations firm hired by the Education Department.

The White House has referred questions on the matter to the Education Department, whose spokesman said the Williams contract followed standard guidelines.

Williams now says he regrets taking the contract."

(Via Google News.)

AlterNet: War on Iraq: In Good Conscience: "His unit, the 320th Military Police Company, spent six months in the southern city of Nasiriyah, and another six months helping to run the notorious Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad. Now 23, having served his tour and been honorably discharged, Delgado is speaking out about what he witnessed. He says the prison abuse broadcast on 60 Minutes last spring was the tip of the iceberg; brutality, often racially motivated, infected the entire prison and the entire military operation in Iraq."

...

"I ended up reviewing the prisoner records and looking over the offenses of the people who were in Abu Ghraib prison. I found out that most of them were actually not there for anti-coalition offenses. They weren't insurgents. Most of them were there for petty theft, drunkenness, forged documents, really minor crimes."

(Via AlterNet.)

Free Iraqi: Is Islam compatible with democracy?: "What I'm trying to say is that no religion in its present form is compatible with democracy and both democracy and religion can only co-exist if that religion is marginalized. In my mind all present religions, if you take them from the mouths of their advocators, being Imams, priests or whatever they are called in other religions and look at them with a modern rational mind, are (pardon me) so full of sh*t! (Note that I'm not talking about the core of those beliefs but how they're presented to us now). There's no way one can develop a modern democracy directly from any of those religions simply because all of them declare that they have the absolute truth."

Emphasis mine

(Via Free Iraqi.)

Yahoo! News - CNN Lets 'Crossfire' Host Carlson Go: "'I guess I come down more firmly in the Jon Stewart camp,' Klein told The Associated Press."

(Via Yahoo! News.)