This is a good resource to use when attempting to follow the thick layer of rhetoric being hawked around re: the filibuster.

The reason this is important is because once the rules change for judical filibusters, then it can be done so for other things, such as legislative. Not good for a democracy, that one party rule thing.

The legendary guitarist for Fleetwood Mac (the “real” FM, not that pop POS) with Dr. John, Otis Rush and more doing Robert Johnson songs. Wee!

The US and its ’special’ dictator

By Pepe Escobar

“I am delighted to be back in Uzbekistan. I’ve just had a long and very interesting and helpful discussion with the president … Uzbekistan is a key member of the coalition’s global war on terror. And I brought the president the good wishes of President Bush and our appreciation for their stalwart support in the war on terror … Our relationship is strong and has been growing stronger.”
- US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in Tashkent, February 2004

One of our allies in the WOT(TM) boils people alive. Nice. How many years before we’re invading Uzbekistan to keep “Democracy on the march”? There’s a word for people who practice such behavior.

Hypocrite.

Word is the rethugs are gonna start the process to end the filibuster today. It’s worth reading up on the whats and whys, since they are attempting something illegal, as in unconstitutional.

Let’s cut the crap. Frist’s “nuclear option,” as former Majority Leader Trent Lott first dubbed it, has nothing to do with making the confirmation process more “fair” and everything to do with placating an increasingly agitated religious right. It’s a power ploy, and no sense pretending otherwise.

More about the Majority Fools here.

Watch British MP George Galloway tear the Senate a new one.

Sweet!

So why is it so important to the rethugs to get Bolton into the UN seat?

Why the big rush? My reliable sources tell me it is because there is a timetable that makes it urgent for Bolton to be ready for action in June in order to cripple the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as part of the plan to bomb the Iranian nuclear-power plant at Bushehr. That’s because Bushehr, under construction with Russian supervision, will soon be ready to receive the Russian fissionable material enabling it to produce power. In 1981, remember Republican Senators, Israel bombed the Osiraq nuclear power plant near Baghdad just before it was to be fueled by its French contractors. Once fueled, bombing is out of the question because of the radiation that would be emitted, with clouds traveling who knows where.

More here.

State Secret: Thousands Secretly Sterilized

WINDFALL, N.C., May 15, 2005 — Beneath the surface of this Southern town, with its lush evergreens and winding riverbanks, is a largely forgotten legacy of pain, secrecy and human indignity.

Riddick was one of thousands of people secretly sterilized by the state between 1929 and 1974.

Wow. Just when you hoped that you had “heard it all”, you get to read about a state government practicing eugenics. I hope the victims sue North Carolina out of existence, frankly. My future in-laws not withstanding.

It would be extremely easy to write a nice rant about this entire Newsweek/Koran mess, but in the end, it’s quicker to say only this:

Newsweek tried, 15 died.

Bush lied, thousands died.

That’s really about the long and short of it. Newsweek attempted to show this country what is being done in their names to “those people”. The american people reacted- not in disgust at the actions of an out of control, racist government, but rather at having the 100 watt bulb of truth shined, however briefly, on our national shame. That cannot be allowed. Our myths must be defended, our faith allowed to remain clean of reality.

I am ashamed of a government that does this- from 9/11 to a fake “War on Terra” to our barbaric treatment of prisoners whose only crime is their place of birth. I’m ashamed to live among people to whom this is ok, and who hide behind the hollow lies of their faith in order to kill those who pray to a different god. Or none at all.

Ashamed.

America’s drug plan collapses in chaos
By Hugh O’Shaughnessy
15 May 2005

Washington’s “war on drugs” in Colombia is collapsing in chaos and corruption, and the drug producers are winning. The so-called Plan Colombia, which has cost the US more than $3bn (#1.6bn) in the past five years, is being abandoned, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has announced.

Stunned, I am. Yet another tact in the “war on drugs” (in quotes because no such thing exists, other than in the minds of corrupt pols and the imprisonment industry) fails, as expected.

Legalize drugs, and let Darwin take over.

Those of you who still think my case is about covering up some administrative blunder or bureaucratic mismanagement, please think again.

Those of you who still think that our leaders may be investigating the criminals involved in my complaints, please think again.

Read more from Sibel Edmonds .