Vleeptron calls for Truth in Tattooing: The Few, The Brave, The Proud, & Fucking Dumb

A jarhead -- from the shape of their head and what's left of their hair -- is what Army soldiers call Marines. I don't mind that they're few. I don't mind that they're proud. I don't mind that they're brave. I don't mind that they tattoo themselves with always being faithful and preferring death before dishonor.

But I'd like to propose a new federal Truth In Tattooing Act: They're also fucking dumb.

This column in The National Review is by a very unusual former jarhead. In the years since he was a jarhead, he's taught himself to write entire sentences. Or at least find someone at a loopy right-wing rag who could do it for him.

============
e-mail to Mackubin Thomas Owens:
============

I knew jarheads when I was in the Army, and I knew they were dumb, but I never imagined anybody could be *this* dumb.

My tax dollars pay you to teach *anything* to *anybody* at a military college? Obviously I need to research what other kinds of crap goes on at these schools.

Yo. We lost on the battlefield. And we lost in the streets and in the democratic civilian processes in the USA. The Vietnamese didn't want us or the French or the Japanese in Vietnam. And my fellow citizens didn't want us there, either.

If you'd wanted victory in Vietnam, patriotic American military officers like you would have needed to stage a coup and impose a military dictatorship in the USA, and Westmoreland would have needed to use nukes against North Vietnam.

Ditto Iraq. Face it, Jack -- we lost the instant we launched this loopy, ignorant, lie-based, footshooting Holy Crusade. And just like Vietnam, we lost on the battlefield, and we lost long ago in the American Constitutional civilian and democratic process.

Lord, I had no idea jarheads could be so dumb. I just wish my taxes weren't paying you to shape the US military. That surely bodes nothing but bad for America, and for every one of my neighbors' sons and daughters in uniform.

Robert Merkin
SP5 US Army 1969-1971

===============

The National Review
(conservative political magazine USA)
Thursday 23 August 2007

Maroons Rush In
Criticism of the president’s Vietnam analogy takes Chutzpah.

by Mackubin Thomas Owens

In his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Tuesday, President Bush argued that the consequences of an American withdrawal from Iraq would be similar to those that followed our abandonment of South Vietnam in 1975. Citing the killing fields of Cambodia and the executions and “reeducation” camps in Vietnam, the president continued:

Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left. There's no debate in my mind that the veterans from Vietnam deserve the high praise of the United States of America. (Applause.) Whatever your position is on that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like "boat people," "re-education camps," and "killing fields."

There was another price to our withdrawal from Vietnam, and we can hear it in the words of the enemy we face in today's struggle — those who came to our soil and killed thousands of citizens on September the 11th, 2001. In an interview with a Pakistani newspaper after the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden declared that "the American people had risen against their government's war in Vietnam. And they must do the same today."

His number two man, Zawahiri, has also invoked Vietnam. In a letter to al Qaeda's chief of operations in Iraq, Zawahiri pointed to "the aftermath of the collapse of the American power in Vietnam and how they ran and left their agents."

Zawahiri later returned to this theme, declaring that the Americans "know better than others that there is no hope in victory. The Vietnam specter is closing every outlet." Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility — but the terrorists see it differently.

The reaction to Bush’s invocation of the Vietnam War’s aftermath was swift and critical. John Kerry called the comparison “ignorant.” Reporters interviewed several historians who were happy to agree with Kerry. Robert Dalleck called the comparison “a distortion”:

What is Bush suggesting? That we didn’t fight hard enough, stay long enough? That’s nonsense. It’s a distortion ... We’ve been in Iraq longer than we fought in World War II. It’s a disaster, and this is a political attempt to lay the blame for the disaster on his opponents. But the disaster is the consequence of going in, not getting out.

USA Today asked Stanley Karnow: “Vietnam was not a bunch of sectarian groups fighting each other, as in Iraq. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge toppled a U.S.-backed government. Does he think we should have stayed in Vietnam?”

Bugs Bunny had a name for people like this: “maroons.” And Alan Dershowitz once wrote a book about them entitled Chutzpah! Of course in criticizing Bush’s reference to Vietnam, they are comparing apples and oranges. If they don’t see this, they are fools. If they do — which is more likely — they are dishonest. Take your pick.

The fact is that opponents of the war have drawn the Vietnam analogy like a gun, seeking from the very beginning to argue that Iraq and Vietnam were analogous. Ted Kennedy famously called Iraq “George Bush’s Vietnam.”

I have argued on several occasions that the parallels between the two conflicts at the operational and strategic levels of war were nonsensical. But that has never stopped the opponents of the current war from invoking the conventional Vietnam War narrative, which goes something like this: The U.S. was predestined to lose the Vietnam War because the Vietnamese Communists were too determined, the South Vietnamese too corrupt, and Americans were incapable of fighting the kind of war that would have been necessary to prevail. Accordingly, “orthodox” Vietnam historians often act as if Hanoi had pursued a course of action with little regard for what the United States did.

It is clear that those who invoke Vietnam in discussing Iraq accept the orthodox narrative. But revisionists such as Bob Sorely in A Better War and Mark Moyar in Triumph Forsaken have called the conventional narrative into question. They and others have shown that Hanoi, as Clausewitz would have predicted, responded to American actions. Moyar’s thesis is that the U.S. defeat was far from inevitable; the United States had ample opportunities to ensure the survival of South Vietnam but failed to develop the proper strategy to do so. By far the greatest mistake the Americans made was to acquiesce in the November 1963 coup that deposed Diem, a decision that “forfeited the tremendous gains of the preceding nine years and plunged the country into an extended period of instability and weakness.”

Sorley argues along the same lines. Building on his excellent biographies of Army generals Creighton Abrams and Harold Johnson, Sorley examined the largely neglected later years of the conflict and concluded that the war in Vietnam "was being won on the ground even as it was being lost at the peace table and in the US Congress."

The fact is that the outcome of a war is not predetermined. Who wins and who loses are determined in the final instance by the respective actions of the combatants. Victory or defeat depends on decisions actually made and strategies actually implemented. We came close to victory in Vietnam, but then threw it away.

The 1972 Easter Offensive provided the proof that Vietnam could survive, albeit with U.S. air and naval support, at least in the short term. The Easter Offensive was the biggest North Vietnamese offensive push of the war, greater in magnitude than either the 1968 Tet offensive or the final assault of 1975. Despite inevitable failures on the part of some units, all in all, the South Vietnamese fought well. Then, having blunted the Communist thrust, they recaptured territory that had been lost to Hanoi. Finally, so effective was the eleven-day "Christmas bombing" campaign (LINEBACKER II) later that year that the British counterinsurgency expert, Sir Robert Thompson exclaimed, "you had won the war. It was over."

Three years later, despite the heroic performance of some ARVN units, South Vietnam collapsed against a much weaker, cobbled-together PAVN offensive. What happened to cause this reversal?

First, the Nixon administration, in its rush to extricate the country from Vietnam, forced South Vietnam to accept a ceasefire that permitted North Vietnamese forces to remain in South Vietnam. Then in an act that still shames the United States to this day, Congress cut off military and economic assistance to South Vietnam. Finally, President Nixon resigned over Watergate and his successor, constrained by congressional action, defaulted on promises to respond with force to North Vietnamese violations of the peace terms.

Of course the president’s reference to Vietnam did not have to do with operational art or strategy but with the consequences of defeat: the abandonment of allies to the tender mercies of Vietnamese and Cambodian Communists, resulting in the death of millions in Cambodia and thousands in Vietnam, the “boat people,” and re-education camps. This abandonment of our Vietnamese allies was a massive moral failure on the part of the United States. It is one we should not repeat in Iraq.

- 30 -

— Mackubin Thomas Owens is an NRO contributing editor and a professor of strategy and force planning at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. He led a Marine infantry platoon in Vietnam in 1968-1969.

==============

from Wikipedia:

The Naval War College (NWC) is an education and research institution of the United States Navy that specializes in developing ideas for naval warfare and passing them along to officers of the Navy. The college is located in Newport, Rhode Island. In addition to its degree programs, the College hosts various symposia and conferences.

History

The College was established on October 6, 1884 and its first president, Commodore Stephen B. Luce, was given the old building of the Newport Asylum for the Poor to house it. Among the first four faculty members were Tasker H. Bliss, a future Army Chief of Staff, James R. Soley, the first civilan faculty member and a future Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and most famously Captain (later, Rear Admiral) Alfred Thayer Mahan, who soon became renowned for the scope of his strategic thinking and influence on naval leaders worldwide. Despite Mahan's prestige, the College was long met with skepticism by Navy officers accustomed to conducting all education aboard ship.

The College engaged in wargaming various scenarios from 1887 on, and in time became a laboratory for the development of war plans. Nearly all of the U.S. naval operations of the twentieth century were originally designed and gamed at the NWC.

One of the most famous achievements of the NWC was the Global War Game, a large-scale wargaming effort to model possible United States-Soviet Union confrontation during the Cold War.

Curricula

Its principal courses of study are "Strategy and Policy", "National Security and Decision Making", and "Joint Military Operations". Students from all branches of the military, as well as foreign militaries, work towards a Master of Arts.

The Naval War College has two international courses, Naval Command College (NCC) and Naval Staff College (NSC), specifically prepared for the naval officers of other nations. Graduates of these programs include numerous chiefs of the maritime forces all over the world.

Despite the extensive international presence, the Naval War College, unlike certain other U.S. military staff colleges, has never granted a master's degree to an officer of another nation. The Naval War College declines to grant degrees to its international graduates because some officers from other navies have no undergraduate credential, generally an essential requirement for conferring a master's degree in the United States.

Publications

The NWC Press has published a number of books, and has put out the quarterly Naval War College Review since 1948.

Buildings and structures

Over the years, the Naval War College has expanded greatly. The original building, the former Newport Asylum for the Poor, now serves as home to the Naval War College Museum.

In 1892, the structure now known as Luce Hall opened as the college's new home, at a cost of $100,000. At the time, the building housed lecture rooms and a library. Wings at either end provided two sets of quarters, occupied by the president of the College and members of the faculty. When the Naval War College was enlarged in 1932, this original building was renamed Luce Hall in honor of the institution's founder and first Superintendent (later President), Stephen B. Luce. The building was entered onto the National Register of Historic Places on September 22, 1972.

Mahan Hall, named for Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan (NWC President from 1886–1889 and 1892–1893), was completed and opened in 1904, and encompasses the historic Mahan Rotunda and Reading Room, as well as student study areas. The Mahan Rotunda also serves as an impromptu museum of gifts and artifacts donated by graduating international students over the years.

Pringle Hall (named for Vice Admiral Joel R. P. Pringle, NWC President from 1927–1930) was opened in 1934, and was the principal site for war gaming from the time of its completion in 1934 until the Naval Electronic Warfare Simulator was built in Sims Hall in 1957. The exterior facing of the building is pink Milford granite, similar in appearance to the ashlar granite of Luce Hall, to which it is connected by two enclosed bridges. Pringle Hall contains a 432-seat auditorium, the Quinn Lecture Room, the Naval Staff College, the Graphic Arts Studio, and the Photography Branch.

In 1947, the NWC acquired an existing barracks building and converted it to a secondary war gaming facility, naming it Sims Hall after former War College President Admiral William Sowden Sims (NWC President from Feb. to Apr. 1917 and again from 1919-1922). In 1957 Sims Hall became the primary center for the Naval War College's wargaming department, serving as such until 1999.

The 1970's saw the War College's most active expansion, with the opening of three separate buildings. In 1972, Spruance Hall, named for former NWC President Admiral Raymond A. Spruance (March 1946 - July 1948), was completed, housing faculty offices and an 1,100 seat auditorium.

In 1974, Conolly Hall was opened and named in honor of Admiral Richard L. Conolly, Naval War College President 1950–1953. It houses the NWC Quarterdeck, Administrative and faculty offices, numerous class and conference rooms, and two underground parking garages.

1976 saw the opening of Hewitt Hall, one of two Naval War College building not named for a War College president, this time taking its name from Admiral Henry Kent Hewitt, an advisor to the NWC during his tenure as Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe following World War II. Hewitt Hall is home to the Henry E. Eccles Library, the Trident Café, the bookstore and barbershop, and student study areas and lounge.

In 1999, the state-of-the-art McCarty Little Hall opened, replacing Sims Hall as the War College's primary wargaming facility. The other building named for a non-president, it is named after Captain William McCarty Little, an influential leader and key figure in refining the techniques of war gaming. This high-tech facility is used primarily by the Center for Naval Warfare Studies to conduct war games and major conferences, and for research and analysis. The building features the technology necessary to support a variety of multi-media needs essential during multiple and simultaneous war games.

Notable U.S. Graduates

* Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations, 1942-45
* Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Chief of Naval Operations 1945-47
* Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr.
* Admiral Raymond Spruance
* Admiral Kent Hewitt
* Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
* Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, Chief of Naval Operations
* General John Shalikashvili, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
* Admiral Robert E. Kramek, Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, 1990-1994
* Admiral Jeremy Michael Boorda, 25th Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C.
* Rear Admiral E. Crosby White
* Captain Gerald F. DeConto, Commanded USS Simpson (FFG-56), one of only two currently commissioned vessels in the US Navy to have sunk an enemy ship.
* Christopher R. Hill, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Government of the United States
* General Michael Hagee, Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps
* Admiral William Fallon, Commander, U.S. Central Command
* Admiral James G. Stavridis, Commander, U.S. Southern Command

Pentagon uhhh ... well, says it's going to do *something* about its TALON spy-on-peaceful citizens database

Sure, yeah, click.

Partial qualified
conditional Bye-bye!

Now they'll have to transfer their database of Quakers, Buddhist and Catholic nuns, college professors and students, pacifists, antiwar vets, grieving parents, and pissed-off liberals to another secret computer.

Once a government collects information on citizens, it NEVER erases it. NEVER. Get real.

=============

Reuters (newswire UK)
Tuesday 21 August 2007

Pentagon ditches
controversial TALON
security database

by Andrew Gray

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The Pentagon said on Tuesday it would close a controversial database tracking suspicious activity around U.S. military bases that critics complained had been used to spy on peaceful antiwar activists.

Officials decided the TALON program would end on September 17 not in response to public criticism but because the amount and quality of information being gathered had declined, the Pentagon said.

"The analytical value of it was pretty slim," said Army Col. Gary Keck, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters. "The TALON database was a perfectly legal system, nobody ever said it wasn't, but it just was not meeting our needs any more."

Although the Pentagon insisted the move was not a response to criticism, a memo by the department's top intelligence official obtained by Reuters in April said the program should not be continued "particularly in light of its image in the Congress and the media."

Military and defense personnel still will report suspicious activities around military bases, the Pentagon said. But that information will go to an FBI database until the Pentagon proposes a longer-term solution.

The TALON program, which was set up in 2003, has been used to store reports about potential threats to Pentagon and U.S. military facilities and personnel.

PEACEFUL PROTESTORS INCLUDED

The Pentagon said in April last year that a review had found the database included reports on peaceful protests and anti-war demonstrations that should have been deleted.

At that time, the Pentagon said it had introduced safeguards to prevent such information from ending up in the database but it stood by the system, saying it was a valuable tool for detecting potential terrorist threats.

The American Civil Liberties Union

Look, you got an extra $50? You better send it to these people while you still got anything even remotely resembling your Constitutional freedoms and human rights. Leave a comment if you can't find their address.

-- NGO Vleeptron

, which had sharply criticized the Pentagon for maintaining the database, welcomed the decision to abandon TALON but said questions remained about Pentagon surveillance activity in the United States.

"The TALON program could be just the tip of the iceberg," said Caroline Fredericks, director of the group's Washington legislative office.

"It remains critical that Congress investigate how the abuse of the TALON database happened in the first place and conduct proper oversight of other intrusive surveillance by the executive branch," she said in a statement.

The Pentagon is legally restricted in the types of information it can gather about activities and individuals inside the United States.

In his memo from April this year, U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence James Clapper said he had assessed the results of TALON during the past year and did not believe they justified continuing the program in its current form.

The Pentagon said on Tuesday that records would be kept of data previously collected in the TALON system.

TALON has been widely understood to stand for Threat and Local Observation Notice and the Pentagon's own internal watchdog used that name in a report on the program this year. But a Pentagon spokesman said on Tuesday TALON was originally just a name, not an acronym.

- 30 -

(Additional reporting by Kristin Roberts)
© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.

more free money from Vleeptron if you got snowshoes or a 4x4 or ATV

Okay, first of all, we're talking about the northern/Canadian branch of the Cree First Nations/language people called the Swampy Cree. (The Cree in the USA are called the Plains Cree.) So when you win the $30,000, it's gonna be in Canadian dollars.

I've been to some of these places. In fact they have a strange hypnotic lure for me. Polar bears will try to kill me, but if they do, they don't like my kind of fat, so they won't eat me.

The Swampy Cree share these regions with the Inuit people. The Inuit range farther north, and a few years ago Canada granted a huge swath of the High Arctic to become semi-autonomous and self-governing by the Inuit peoples themselves. This new administrative region is called Nunavut, its capital re-named Iqaluit. I wanna go.

Good Luck!!!

BINGO

The James Bay Cree Communications Society, in collaboration with the 9 community radio stations holds a Regional Radio Bingo on a monthly basis (exact date varies). Usually, there is a $30,000 Jackpot for the final game.

NEXT BINGOs

Currently, we are revising our Bingo Format and will announce these changes soon on this website and on the Cree Radio Network. So, please return here or listen to the radio for the announcement. We thank all our players for their patience.

Details

Cards are sold only at the community radio stations. Games start as scheduled, so please respect it. We thank you for your support of JBCCS and the local radio stations.

Buy your Bingo cards here:

Mistissini Telecomm. Ass.
75 Riverside Street
MIstissini, Quebec G0W 1C0
Tel: (418) 923-3191
Fax: (418) 923-2088

Waskaganish Radio Station
Waskaganish, Quebec J0M 1R0
Tel: (819) 895-8984
Fax: (819) 895-2016

Petaapin Enou Emoo Yaabi
120 Ouje-bougamau Meskino
Ouje-Bougamau, Quebec G0W 3C0
Tel: (418) 745-3366
Fax: (418) 745-3354

Chisasibi Telecomm. Ass.
PO Box 420
Chisasibi, Quebec J0M 1E0
Tel: (819) 855-2527
Fax: (819) 855-3186

Wemindji Radio Station
Wemindji, Quebec J0M 1L0
Tel: (819) 978-3535
Fax: (819) 978-3413

Nemaska Emoo Yaabi
Nemaska, Quebec J0Y 3B0
Tel: (819) 673-2290
Fax: (819) 673-2360

Waswanipi Comm. Ass.
Waswanipi, Quebec J0Y 3C0
Tel: (819) 753-2557
Fax: (819) 753-2555

Eastmain Telecomm. Ass.
Eastmain, Quebec J0M 1W0
Tel: (819) 977-0267
Fax: (819) 977-3088

Whapmagoostui Telecomm. Ass.
Whapmagoostui, Quebec J0M 1G0
Tel: (819) 929-3421
Fax: (819) 929-3201

WinRadio

The Cree Radio Network broadcasts over the internet through the use of a program called WinRadio. In order for listeners to hear our programming through our website they will need to download one of the following programs. Click on the program names to be re-directed to the website where you can download them.

* Winamp
* Itunes

Other programs may work but these are the ones that we know work for sure. Once you have downloaded one of the programs just click on the WinRadio link below and the program should do the rest.

Agence-Vleeptron Presse, your source for The Straight Poop about Presidential Campaign 2008

Click for a better America

Publicke Notice

Some recent posts have elicited some Very Interesting and Very Important Comments, from several of Vleeptron's most Faithful Contributers and Readers.

Vleeptron will have Much To Say about these things. No Vleeptroid will be Left Behind.

However, for the past week or so, Vleeptron Galactic Headquarters has been having a few RealityLand Alarums & Diversions, which have disoriented the crap out of everybody and forced me to let things on Vleeptron slide and slow.

We are Happy to report we are now in a position to Wake Up & Smell the Coffee again.

Meanwhile, in case nobody notice, Vleeptron is a (partially) political blog, and provides Earth Human Media with News & Commentary about USA National Affairs, when they're particularly entertaining or horrifying.

There's some kind of Big Election coming up in November 2008, and when it's all over, what usually happens is that there'll be a new President of the United States. (We haven't had a Junta or a Coup yet, or even a postponed election, even for bad weather.)

As the campaign proceeds, you'll be getting all the most important, substantive, significant News & Context from Agence-Vleeptron Presse.

You can get it from Fox or CNN or PBS or Reuters or NBC or CBS or The Associated Press or C-Span or The Jewish Daily Forward or the Daily Worker or The New York Times or al-Jazeera or Xinhua -- but it won't be as good.

That's just the truth. Not trying to brag.

But the first thing A-VP has to do is make a big-ass splashy slick color graphic for our Presidential Campaign Coverage. Here it is, or here's V.1. Things could change as the campaign progresses.

But every time we post about Campaign Politics, we'll smash this graphic in your face, and play a whomp-ass loud mp3 that will make you think of Mother, Apple Pie, the Battle of Gettysburg, cowboys, the Rocky Mountains, football (the AMERICAN kind) and Teddy Roosevelt.

the music Compact Disc -- happy 25th birthday! Just in time for extinction!

"The Visitors" by ABBA -- the first CD, manufactured on 17 August 1982 at a Royal Philips Electronics factory in Langenhagen, Germany.

It's the 25th Anniversary of the music Compact Disc.

Meanwhile, American television ads this month (maybe Radio Shack) are showing a thrilled young woman who has just convinced her husband or boyfriend to throw out all his junky old CDs (and maybe some ancient LPs) and to get rid of all his bulky old stereo equipment -- the pre-amp, the power amp, the tuner, the receiver, the equalizer -- and replace it all with intangible mp3s and an iPod in a dock attached to a pair of itty-bitty speakers.

His stereo system and music collection once weighed a ton and occupied an entire wall.

The new rig which has made her so happy -- she can put it in her purse.

I live in a small house with a small living room. Don't even ask me what I did with my beloved JBL Studio Monitors last year, to give S.W.M.B.O. more floor space. Moan. Weep.

This is an Evil Development. Music should be Tangible. You should be able to touch it and shoplift it and look at it; it SHOULD take up space and have volume and mass.

Also the frequency response and dynamic range of mp3s sux compared to CDs. In terms of music fidelity, this is a Giant Step Backwards. (There's still a never-ending debate about which format, analog LP or digital CD, reproduced quality -- e.g. classical symphonic -- music better.)

My analog LP phonograph records (invented by CBS/Columbia research director Peter Goldmark) used to get annoying scratches all the time, and then sometimes I'd get annoying scratches on my CDs, which produced that odd sound like a toy robot stuck in an exercise wheel at High Speed.

But an entire Django Reinhardt album never just suddenly vanished and sent me a message: FILE NOT FOUND.

a man for all seasons

The Associated Press (news wire USA)
Friday 17 August 2007

Thompson's Senate office had
letter for both abortion sides

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee -- While a Tennessee senator, Fred Thompson kept two form letters to respond to people writing in about abortion -- one labeled "pro abortion" and the other "con abortion."

The Associated Press found the nearly identical letters in Thompson's papers at the University of Tennessee.

Both called abortion "a subject on which many people have strong and deeply held personal convictions." They said the Republican senator generally believed "government should not interfere with individual convictions and actions in this area."

In an AP interview Friday in Iowa, Thompson called himself "unabashedly pro-life."

Thompson's 1995 letter to abortion opponents pointed out that he voted for an amendment banning federal funding of abortions except in cases of rape, incest and when the mother's life is in danger.

That wasn't mentioned in his letter to abortion supporters.

- 30 -

The Associated Press
Tuesday 26 June 2007

Clients include Haiti's ousted Aristide

'Washington Outsider' Fred Thompson
an insider lobbyist millionaire

by Erik Schelzig, Associated Press Writer

NASHVILLE, Tennessee -- Fred Thompson, a likely Republican presidential candidate, on Tuesday defended his work as a Washington lobbyist, telling The Associated Press that lobbying is an important part of life because "government's got their hands in everything."

The actor and former U.S. senator from Tennessee added, "Nobody yet has pointed out any of my clients that didn't deserve representation."

Thompson, who likes to cast himself as a political outsider, earned more than $1 million lobbying the federal government for more than 20 years. He lobbied for a savings-and-loan deregulation bill that helped hasten the industry's collapse and a failed nuclear energy project that cost taxpayers more than a billion dollars.

He also was a lobbyist for deposed Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was widely criticized for endorsing "necklacing," the gruesome practice of execution where gasoline-soaked tires are thrown over a person's neck and set ablaze.

In September 1991, Aristide said: "The burning tire, what a beautiful tool! ... It smells good. And wherever you go, you want to smell it."

Aristide became president in Haiti's first democratic elections in 1990, but he was deposed in a military coup a few months later in 1991.

Lobbying records show that in 1991 Thompson called then-White House Chief of Staff John Sununu on Aristide's behalf. Thompson was working "in connection with efforts to obtain the restoration of the democratically elected government" of Haiti, the records say.

Aristide was restored to power in 1994 by U.S. troops under President Clinton. He was elected to a second term in 2000, but was overthrown again in 2004, fleeing amid an armed rebellion and protests against corruption and other problems.

In a brief interview with the AP, Thompson said he expects to hear criticism about his lobbying activities as he moves closer to declaring his candidacy. Opponents emphasized his lobbying work during his Senate races in 1994 and 1996.

"They'll talk about it -- probably with the same results," he said.

Thompson said he doesn't take much stock in talk about whether he's too connected to the halls of power in Washington.

"I've never talked about that inside-outside stuff," he said. "I've been critical of Washington, both before, during and after my Senate days."

Thompson said he made his home in northern Virginia so he could commute between Washington and New York for his radio and television work. After leaving the Senate in 2002, Thompson joined NBC's drama series "Law & Order" and later became a commentator on ABC radio.

More than 200 supporters gathered earlier Tuesday at the Nashville airport to greet Thompson. He told the crowd he's "testing the waters" about a run, "but the waters feel pretty warm to me."

Thompson was scheduled to attend a fundraiser in Nashville later in the day hosted by Mike Curb, a record label founder and former lieutenant governor of California.

- 30 -

© Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

first day issue: faux postage stamp from the USA state shaped like the palm of the right hand

Clicking could very possibly be of benefit.

Copyright (c) 2007 by Ron Bizer, All Rights Reserved

I feel guilty that I contaminated my buddy Ron, who lives in the USA state shaped like the palm of the right hand, with Mail Art / Postal Art -- but he certainly makes Faux Postage a lot classier and more hi-tone than I do. Maybe that's because he's a Real Artist, and I am the Drunk Driver of Art.

Faux Postage Stamps are very addictive. To make one, you not only make an image, but you create a Fake Country with a Fake Postal Service, and, as with Postalo Vleeptron, your own Planet and Solar System if you want. (The galaxy, Dwingeloo-2, is Real, I didn't create that. It's not far from Melkweg.)

Ron also sent me the PizzaQ about the big Eyeball sculptures at Williams College, 'cause he saw the Eyeballs when his daughter competed in the big Women's Water Polo Championship Tournament at Williams College, in Williamstown, Massachusetts USA. The Eyeballs are outside the Williams College Art Museum.

Ron's IT guy also knew Dr. Evil's name in Hebrew, but he was slower than Mike, who also knew where the Eyeballs are.

Army has most suicides since Gulf War of 1991

This is simultaneously grotesque and inevitable.

The human nervous system did not evolve to sustain modern high-explosive, asymmetric, unconventional, guerrilla, insurgent war.

One thing hasn't changed from the Vietnam draft to the all-volunteer military: During a ferociously unpopular, pointless scoundrels' and liars' war without end, soldiers get overwhelmed, overwhelmingly lonely and isolated, terrified, depressed -- and they find a dark corner of the barracks and hang themselves.

Another thing that hasn't changed is that the last thing military medicine wants to acknowledge is psychiatric and emotional conditions. Military psychiatry is entirely based on Denial.

What the fuck has to happen in this war to make responsible leaders in Congress make it stop? Pelosi isn't making it stop in the House. In the Senate, Hillary and Obama aren't doing anything to make it stop.

The last thing anybody in the decision-making elite cares about is soldiers and marines. A decade after this pointless war finally ends, we'll build a beautiful, somber, downbeat monument in Washington DC to all the tragically dead soldiers and marines. Maybe we'll include the names of the ones who took their own lives.

===========

Reuters news service
Thursday 16 August 2007

U.S. Army suicides
highest since Gulf War

by Kristin Roberts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Failed relationships, including marriages stressed by combat deployments, helped push the number of suicides in the U.S. Army last year to its highest since the Gulf War, the Army said on Thursday.

The Army reported 99 confirmed suicides in 2006, up from 87 in 2005. The Army also listed two additional deaths last year as suspected suicides still pending confirmation.

Army suicides last year hit their highest mark since 1991, the time of the Gulf War, when the biggest branch of the U.S. military recorded 102 soldier suicides.

"The primary reasons for suicides, when we examine the completed suicide, is failed intimate relationships, failed marriages," said Col. Elspeth Ritchie, a psychiatrist and consultant to the Army Surgeon General.

"What we have found is not a direct relationship so far between deployment combat and suicide. However, we do know that frequent deployments put a real strain on relationships, especially on marriages," she said, noting failed relationships are a factor in as many as 80 percent of Army suicides.

"So we believe that part of the increase is related to the increased stress in relationships."

More than 1,500,000 U.S. troops have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. The Army has been particularly stressed by multiple and extended deployments.

The suicide data follows a string of studies showing an increase in mental health problems among soldiers and other U.S. troops. According to those studies, including a Pentagon assessment, the military has not provided adequate mental health resources to its service members.

Last year, 30 of the 99 confirmed suicides occurred in war zones -- 27 in Iraq and 3 in Afghanistan. About 62 percent of the soldiers who killed themselves in 2006 had served at least once in Iraq or Afghanistan.

So far this year, 44 soldiers have committed suicide, including 17 in war zones, the Army said.

"This report is heartbreaking, and it's a warning that unless we attack the stigma around mental health care and boost our outreach, we're going to continue to lose even more service members on the battlefront and the home front," said U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington state.

CIVILIAN RATE HIGHER

Viewed in the context of the total population of soldiers, the Army recorded 17.3 suicides per 100,000 soldiers in 2006, including the two deaths still pending confirmation. That is up from 12.8 suicides per 100,000 soldiers in 2005.

But it remains below comparable rates in the general U.S. population, according to Col. Dennis Dingle, head of the Army's human resources policy directorate.

The United States records about 10 to 11 suicides per 100,000 people annually. But when adjusted to match the Army's age and gender characteristics, the suicide rate in the general population rises to 19 to 21 per 100,000.

The Marine Corps, also strained by the wars, said its suicide rate was lower than the Army's -- 12.4 Marines per 100,000 in 2006. The Marines reported 24 suicides in 2006, down from 26 in 2005 and 34 in 2004.

- 30 -

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.

what should the community do about discarded syringes? What Would Calvin Do (WWCD)? What Would Scientists Do (WWSD)?

A sharps disposal box. Like a mailbox/postbox, once you put something into it, it's almost impossible to pull it out again. The whole box goes straight from the discard site to a safe process of disposal, usually incineration.

Letter to the Editor submitted to the San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco, California USA).

I don't know if The Chronicle has published it.

The RAND Corporation is perhaps the world's first private (non-government) "Think Tank," and remains America's most prestigious "Think Tank." RAND stands for Research And Development.

Shortly after RAND founded itself in the early 1950s, they published a famous primer and introduction to the new mathematics branch called Game Theory, a really nifty book called "The Compleat Analyst."

("Compleat" is a joking reference to Izaak Walton's 1653 classic about the sport of fresh-water fishing, "The Compleat Angler.")

Ever since, RAND has built its reputation by using (and in some cases inventing) the most advanced frontiers of mathematics to study and answer complicated social, military and government questions, from the strategy of thermonuclear war, to discarded syringes in alleys and playgrounds.

(The USA's strategy in playing our side of Superpower Thermonuclear War during the Cold War was largely based on Game Theory, and was heavily influenced by RAND.)

There are two schools of thought about what to do with needle injection addicts in a country where heroin and other needle-injected drugs (and often the very possession of a syringe) are crimes.

School 1. The Television Clown "Judge Judy" told an Australian newspaper reporter that the government should distribute used, dirty syringes to addicts to give them AIDS and kill them. Since that news story, she hasn't denied saying that. She just refuses to talk about it. (Judge Judith Sheindlin is a retired judge from New York State's family court.)

School 2. Governments should develop and support policies and programs that diminish the volume of health damage to the community associated with drug use and needle addiction.

This letter discusses a highly controversial political Flashpoint: Discarded needles/syringes.

In every medical office there's a "sharps" disposal box (highlighted in red with biohazard symbols), so once a needle has been used -- once a needle has contacted blood or body fluids -- it goes immediately to a secure disposal process, segregated from all other trash which is not bio-hazardous.

Where else should the community set up sharps disposal boxes? Public and restaurant bathrooms? Bathrooms in high schools and colleges? Bathrooms on commercial airplanes? Prisons and jails?

In other words, this Policy recommends setting up bio-safe disposal boxes anywhere that addicts are likely to discard a used syringe. So in a very real sense, Addicts themselves develop and focus this public policy.

In most American cities where this question has arisen, Judge Judy's wisdom has prevailed, and the elected leaders consistently vote NO NO NO NO NO, OVER OUR DEAD BODIES, NO SAFE DISPOSAL BOXES IN PUBLIC PLACES.

Oh, I forgot to mention: When there aren't any safe disposal boxes, needle addicts discard their used syringes haphazardly. Children find them on playgrounds and think they're nifty toys. Trash collectors and emergency workers (police, fire, paramedic) are put in constant jeopardy of being stuck by haphazardly discarded dirty needles.

Since Puritanism began, Puritanism Kills. Early death free of Sin is preferable to a long sinful life.

And wherever Puritans are in political control (most of the USA most of the time), Sin = Crime, and your First Stop on the Road to Hell, which you chose for yourself by your own wickedness and disobedience, is a Prison on Earth.

btw, a person in prison or jail is ten times more likely to contract the blood-borne diseases HIV/AIDS and hepatitis than a non-prisoner. Prisons are America's institutional pressure cookers to spread HIV/AIDS and hepatitis. Almost all prisoners eventually are released and return to the community. While in prison, almost none of them receive any medical treatment for their addictions.

Dr. Blumenthal very kindly gave his permission to reprint his and Dr. Kral's letter.

===============

To the Editor,

Recent articles in The Chronicle (July 24, 25, 29, August 2, and 3) have discussed public health concerns in San Francisco related to dirty syringes from illicit drug users. In these articles concerns were raised about the syringe dispensing policies of local syringe exchange programs, suggesting these programs should not give out more syringes than they receive from participants.

Our federally funded research over the past 15 years proves not only that these programs reduce HIV transmission, but that programs that give out more syringes than they collect are the most successful at reducing HIV risk. Our research also shows that safe disposal is as likely from participants of programs that give out more syringes than they receive as from strict one-for-one programs.

The problem is not the dispensing policies of syringe exchange programs, but rather the need for pragmatic approaches to safe syringe disposal. The August 3rd article notes that other cities have installed syringe disposal boxes in public areas. We applaud City officials for proposing to install these tamper-proof, large metal boxes in San Francisco. We agree that installation of these boxes is a worthwhile investment to prevent even one child being accidentally stuck with a dirty syringe.

Ricky N. Bluthenthal, Ph.D.
Senior Social Scientist, RAND Corporation

Alex H. Kral, Ph.D.
Director, Urban Health Program, RTI International

no longer a national defense secret: Rumsfeld's resignation letter

Text of former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's resignation letter, dated 6 November 2006.

The Associated Press requested the letter under the Freedom of Information Act. Until today, the White House had not released the resignation letter to the public.

President Bush received the letter the day before the 2006 Congressional elections, but did not announce Rumsfeld's resignation until the day after the election. Voters switched control of both chambers of the federal legislature from Bush's Republican Party to the Democratic Party. Most observers attribute the outcome to voters' unhappiness with the US War in Iraq.

The word "Iraq" does not appear in the letter.

===========

Dear Mr. President:

With my resignation as secretary of defense comes my deep appreciation to you for providing me this unexpected opportunity to serve.

I leave with great respect for you and for the leadership you have provided during a most challenging time for our country. The focus, determination and perseverance you have so consistently provided have been needed and are impressive.

It has been the highest honor of my long life to have been able to serve our country at such a critical time in our history and to have had the privilege of working so closely with the truly amazing young men and women in uniform. Their dedication, professionalism, courage and sacrifice are an inspiration.

It is time to conclude my service. As I do so, I want you to know that you have my continuing and heartfelt support as you enter the final two years of your presidency.

Respectfully,

Donald Rumsfeld

the US War Czar talks to National Public Radio about **BOO!!!!** the draft

Lieutenant General (3 stars) Douglas Lute has overseen combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as a director of operations at U.S. Central Command. ( Department of Defense photo.)

Okay, don't anybody go ballistic. This is about, among other things, the draft -- universal military conscription.

Vleeptron isn't screaming for it today. Don't blame this one on me.

The new "War Czar" is whispering and hinting about re-instating the draft in an interview with National Public Radio.

Since the draft was put into suspended animation in 1971, at the end of the Vietnam War, and the USA began achieving its manpower requirements with the "all-volunteer" military, all the USA's wars and military actions have been small, or short, or both.

Until now. The wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan are neither small nor short. This is the first test of the all-volunteer military in large, protracted overseas combat since the draft ended. (The Iraq War has now lasted longer than the USA's participation, from Pearl Harbor to the Japanese surrender, in World War Two.)

Army Lieutenant General Douglas Lute recently accepted a White House job as what is informally nicknamed "the War Czar" (a parlance echoing the White House "drug czar"). He's not in the military chain of command, but theoretically he's supposed to coordinate our war activities in Afghanistan and Iraq, and assure that the wars are being fought effectively and efficiently. He's supposed to remove political and bureaucratic squabbling from the war effort.

It's rather ironic and sad that National Public Radio and its television reflection, the Public Broadcasting System, have become such trivial, unimportant players in American journalism. They ask sophisticated and important questions, and give their subjects lots of time to answer them fully. Their interviewers and journalists don't scream into people's faces, they don't spend their time accusing movie stars of treason, and their news programs don't stop every seven minutes to sell hemmorhoid cream and brassieres. They don't give a fuck about Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears. NPR and PBS produce a news product for adults who are educated and informed, and don't want their news shoved up their butt in a screaming purple suppository exploding to a driving disco beat.

So these long and big wars are being packaged and processed for the American public by electronic babysitters selling sugared breakfast cereal, by Fox News Channel and Cable News Network. NBC, CBS and ABC television have rapidly degenerated toward the Fox and CNN model. Bumper sticker and sound-bite journalism for 6-year-olds, as much news as the kiddies can handle, in cartoon form, before nap time.

The NPR/PBS presentation of reality is, comparatively, boring. NPR/PBS confuse substance and significance with boredom and gentility. Whatever they're doing, they've certainly given no evidence in the last decade that they're trying to build or expand an audience. And they're terrified that right-wingers and Bushies will accuse PBS/NPR journalism of being liberal or lefty worse.

*************

National Public Radio
(USA, non-commercial public radio system)
Friday 10 August 2007
"All Things Considered" (news program)

'War Czar' Concerned
over Stress of War on Troops

Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan, says he is concerned about the toll the war in Iraq and extended deployments are taking on U.S. forces.

The man who is widely known as the "war czar" also says that from a military standpoint, a return to a draft should be part of the discussion.

On the ground in Iraq, Lute tells Michele Norris that there has been "demonstrable progress" on the security front. But on the political front, the Iraqi government is lagging behind, though he does cite progress at local and provincial levels.

How heavy a toll is the war taking on American forces? Do you agree with other military leaders who have expressed worries that U.S. forces are near the breaking point?

As an Army officer, this is a matter of real concern to me. Ultimately, the American army, and any other all-volunteer force, rests with the support and the morale and the willingness to serve demonstrated by our — especially our young men and women in uniform. And I am concerned that those men and women and the families they represent are under stress as a result of repeated deployments.

There's both a personal dimension of this, where this kind of stress plays out across dinner tables and in living room conversations within these families, and ultimately, the health of the all-volunteer force is going to rest on those sorts of personal family decisions. And when the system is under stress, it's right to be concerned about some of the future decisions these young men and women may make. I think our military leaders are right to be focused on that.

There's also a professional and broader strategic argument to this, and that is that when our forces are as engaged as they have been over the last several years, particularly in Iraq, that we're concerned as military professionals that we also keep a very sharp edge honed for other contingencies outside of Iraq.

When military leaders, though, talk about the breaking point, what are they talking about? What's the real worry there?

I think that most who have talked about the stress on the force are concerned that in today's all-volunteer force, especially with the sort of quality individuals that we're interested in attracting to the all-volunteer force, that we're actually competing in the marketplace — in the labor marketplace — for a very narrow slice of high school graduates without records with the law who come to us with a clean bill of health and the potential to serve this country in some very demanding missions.

So when you're competing in that marketplace, I think the concern is that these people are challenged and feel the respect to the nation and feel a calling to something beyond themselves, beyond just a personal calling, and that these things remain in place and, therefore, make the all-volunteer force viable in the long run.

You know, given the stress on the military and the concern about these extended deployments for an all-volunteer military, can you foresee, in the future, a return to the draft?

You know, that's a national policy decision point that we have not yet reached, Michele, because the —

But does it make sense militarily?

I think it makes sense to certainly consider it, and I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table, but ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation's security by one means or another. Today, the current means of the all-volunteer force is serving us exceptionally well. It would be a major policy shift — not actually a military, but a political policy shift to move to some other course.

Do you agree with that assessment that there is a real pressure point in the spring — that that's when the Pentagon will face some tough decisions about either extended [troop combat] deployments or reducing the time spent at home?

Yes, I do agree that come the spring, some variables will have to change — either the degree to which the American ground forces, the Marines and the Army in particular, are deployed around the world to include Iraq, or the length of time they're deployed in one tour, or the length of time they enjoy at home. Those are, essentially, the three variables.

It's interesting, because we often hear the president back away from discussions of any kind of timetable, because he says that it would show our cards to our enemies. But it seems that they would know this also, that the current force strength has its limits.

Well, remember that I said that there are three variables. So there's not a hard and fast stop to any level of commitment of American forces.

Now your title is assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan. Could you explain exactly what you do?

What I do is work alongside Steve Hadley, the president's national security adviser, giving full-time attention to the issues surrounding our policy and the execution of those policies in Iraq and Afghanistan and essentially give Steve Hadley a teammate who can attend full time to the demands of those two missions.

How often do you talk directly to President Bush?

Daily.

And when — are you the point person there that gives the president the daily war briefing on progress in Iraq and Afghanistan?

I have daily contacts with the president alongside Steve Hadley, and of course that relationship is very important because, while I'm responsible for -– as the point man on Iraq and Afghanistan in advising the president, Steve and I have to make sure that Iraq and Afghanistan are placed appropriately in the regional context.

I'm just curious – what do you think of the term war czar?

It's actually an unfortunate term because it doesn't describe my job at all.

But it's often how people describe you.

That may be, but it wouldn't be my choice of how I describe the job. What I'm trying to do here is actually facilitate the very hard work that's taking place on the ground and link it to the very hard work that's being done here in Washington across the departments of the executive branch with the priorities of what's required on the ground reflected in the efforts here in Washington. I'm in charge of about 15 people. Now that's not exactly very czar-like, but what I am able to do is make sure that efforts are aligned properly.

Well, you know what they say in Washington sometimes — that power is concentrated.

[Chuckles.] Well, I have 15 very qualified people, and we're working very hard to do our best to contribute to this effort.

- 30 -

Related NPR Stories
* Aug. 9, 2007
Three Iraqi Lawmakers Discuss U.S. Strategy
* Aug. 2, 2007
Iraqis React to Effects of U.S. Troop Increase
* July 31, 2007
Joint Chiefs Nominee Expects More Results in Iraq
* July 18, 2007
Powell: Thinning U.S. Resources Will Require Pullout
* July 18, 2007
Rice: U.S. Will Not Negotiate with Hamas
* July 19, 2007
Petraeus: Increased U.S. Troops Yielding Results
* June 7, 2007
'War Czar': Iraq Surge Has Mixed Results

* Copyright 2007 NPR

okay here's your volume of your basic torus and here's your surface area

Clicking recommended.

Better luck filching this time.

Peter Brett, an engineer at the University of Cambridge UK, posted a very clear explanation of these torus formulae on the BBC's h2g2, a cyber-encyclopedia companion to "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Peter Brett also plays the horn, but his musical tastes include house and trance, and he likes Ministry of Sound and Infected Mushroom.

As Vleeptron has noted before, there is a very big Intersection Set between science and math(s) students, and the bunch wrestling with Mozart in the school orchestra. Inside their heads they may recognize no particular distinction between music and mathematics. There may indeed be no particular distinction.

His college report card is scary and makes me feel downright ashamed of my confused years as a student. But he kindly critiqued my image and pronounces it "Spot on!" Now you know how much olive oil you can store inside your torus, and how much paint you'll need to paint the outside of your torus.

Wake Up! Wachet Auf! Rage Against hits the concert trail with lyrics by Noam Chomsky, and the Faux Noise fascists go ballistic

 Zack de la Rocha
of Rage Against The Machine

Oddly enough when I mentioned Rage Against The Machine, I compared their impact on American antiwar politics with the linguist and antiwar academic Noam Chomsky, who has pretty much bored and underwhelmed me with his hypereducated elitist antiwar blather since the Vietnam War. To me, Chomsky is the epitome of political protest heard by just an elite and passionless handful, his thoughts and ideas cared about by fewer.

Rage Against The Machine, it turns out, has been singing some Noam Chomsky lyrics since they re-united, and Noam got Rage into their latest national media controversy.

So hoorah for Rage and hoorah even for the boring old fuddy-duddy academic Professor Noam Chomsky. Maybe he's not such a stiff after all. And maybe a few members of Rage actually know how to read. They sure pissed off Faux Noise ("Scare and Unbalanced") and the deranged homophobe and psychopath Ann Coulter and Hannity & Colmes.

===============
from Wikipedia:
===============

Rage Against The Machine
Reunion (2007)

[image] Zack de la Rocha performing with Rage Against the Machine at Coachella 2007.

Members of the band had been offered large sums of money to reunite for concerts and tours, and had turned the offers down.[25] Rumors of bad blood between de la Rocha and the other former band members subsequently circulated, but Commerford said that he and de la Rocha see each other often and go surfing together, while Morello said he and de la Rocha communicate by phone, and had met up at a September 15, 2005 protest in support of the South Central Farm.[26] Morello and de la Rocha were photographed together at the protest, the first photograph of the two since the band's breakup. [27]

Rumors that Rage Against the Machine could reunite at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival were circulating in mid-January,[28] and were confirmed on January 22.[29] The band was confirmed to be headlining the final day of Coachella 2007.[30] The reunion was described by Morello as primarily being a vehicle to voice the band's opposition to the "right-wing purgatory" the United States has "slid into" under the George W. Bush administration since RATM's dissolution.[31] Though the performance was initially thought to be a one-off,[32] this turned out not to be the case.

[This reunion concert at Coachella was when I first blogged about Rage Against.]

On April 14, 2007, Morello and de la Rocha reunited onstage early to perform a brief acoustic set in downtown Chicago at a Coalition of Immokalee Workers rally in support of fairness in the fast food industry. Morello described the event as "very exciting for everybody in the room, myself included."[33] This was followed by the scheduled Coachella performance on Sunday, April 29. The band played in front of an EZLN backdrop

[EZLN: The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN) is an armed revolutionary group based in Chiapas, one of the poorest states of Mexico.]

to the largest crowds of the festival;[34] their performance was widely considered the festival's most anticipated.[34][35][36]

De la Rocha made a speech during "Wake Up", citing a statement by Noam Chomsky regarding the Nuremburg trials,[37] as follows:

...if the same laws were applied to U.S. presidents as were applied to the Nazis after World War II […] every single one of them, every last rich white one of them from Truman on, would have been hung to death and shot — and this current administration is no exception. They should be hung, and tried, and shot. As any war criminal should be.

But the challenges that we face, they go way beyond administrations, way beyond elections, way beyond every four years of pulling levers, way beyond that. Because this whole rotten system has become so vicious and cruel that in order to sustain itself, it needs to destroy entire countries and profit from their reconstruction in order to survive—and that's not a system that changes every four years, it's a system that we have to break down, generation after generation after generation after generation after generation…Wake up.[36]

The event led to a media furor.[38] A clip of Zack's speech found its way to the Fox News program “Hannity & Colmes.” An on-screen headline read,

ROCK GROUP 'RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE'
SAYS BUSH ADMIN SHOULD BE SHOT

Ann Coulter (a guest on the show) quipped, “They’re losers, their fans are losers, and there’s a lot of violence coming from the left wing.”

On July 28th and 29th, Rage headlined the Hip Hop festival Rock the Bells with the Wu Tang Clan and Cypress Hill. On July 28, they closed their set with Wake Up just as they had done at Coachella. During this, De La Rocha made another statement, defending the band from Fox News, who he alleged misquoted his speech at Coachella:

A couple of months ago, those fascist motherfuckers at the Fox News Network attempted to pin this band into a corner by suggesting that we said that the president should be assassinated. Nah, what we said was that he should be brought to trial as war criminal and hung and shot. THAT'S what we said. And we don't back away from the position because the real assassinator is Bush and Cheney and the whole administration for the lives they have destroyed here and in Iraq. They're the ones. And what they refused to air which was far more provocative in my mind and in the minds of my bandmates is this: this system has become so brutal and vicious and cruel that it needs to start wars and profit from the destruction around the world in order to survive as a world power. THAT's what we said.

And we refuse not to stand up, we refuse to back down from that position not only for the poor kids who are being left out in the desert to die, but for the Iraqi youth, the Iraqi people, their families and their friends, and their youth who are standing up and resisting the U.S. occupation every day. And if we truly want to end this fucking miserable war, we have to stand up with the same force that the Iraqi youth are standing up with every day, and bring these motherfuckers to their knees. Wake up…[39]

candy-striped torus -- General Atomics catches Bob filching images red-handed, and they are Not Happy

Well sure, click.

These are supercomputer simulations/mathematical models of turbulence in plasma (ionized high-temperature gas) inside a magnetic confinement torus or tokamak. They were produced by Jeff Candy and Ron Waltz of General Atomics, San Diego, California, one of the largest defense/military contractors in the USA, and a pioneer in the development of (fission) nuclear power reactors.

Today General Atomics makes the Predator unmanned robot battlefield surveillance aircraft. Recently General Atomics held the record among defense contractors for providing free transportation for members of Congress involved in defense contract appropriations.

So much for the relationship between giant defense contractors and our elected legislators and public officials, and back to the pretty pictures.

Superpowerful magnets confine the charged plasma and keep it from touching the metal walls of the torus.

Torus is a fancy word for doughnut or bagel shape. In ancient Greek times, before the invention of the doughnut or bagel, tore or torus referred to the ring at the end of an anchor to which the anchor rope is tied. The tore/torus has been an object of great interest to mathematicians, geometers and topologists ever since.

If the plasma touches the metal, the consequent decrease in plasma temperature would make the system too cold and not energetic enough for the desired collision of gas nucleii.

Or so it has been explained to me to the pathetic limits of my understanding of such things.

Apparently several research laboratories in the USA and Europe claim to have achieved "energy break-even" with controlled high-temperature plasma fusion in the last few years. Energy break-even means that you get a little more usable (electric) energy out the ass of this rig than you have to put in up front to make the plasma nucleii hot and violent enough to collide and fuse and generate usable energy.

The gas which is heated to its plasma stripped-electron state is hydrogen, or hydrogen enriched with the natural isotope deuterium ("heavy hydrogen"). A hydrogen nucleus has or is just one single proton. A deuterium nucleus has one proton and one neutron.

The super temperatures and gravitational pressures inside stars, which in their early stage consist almost entirely of hydrogen, smash the hydrogen nucleii together to fuse them into helium nucleii. Each collision generates an additional biproduct of electromagnetic energy as heat, light, x-rays, radio waves, etc. Fusion inside our Sun makes the light and heat which make life on Earth possible.

When we do this on Earth, in a very uncontrollable and very brief way, it's a hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb.

Physicists and chemists have been trying to control hydrogen-collision fusion since the early 1950s as a potential source of electric power. The raw material would be abundant and cheap sea water. Unlike fission power reactors (Chernobyl, Windscale, Three Mile Island, etc.), controlled fusion would be almost entirely "clean," and would not produce bio-hazardous radioactivity or long-lived radioactive chemicals and waste products. The controlled fusion cycle does not produce bomb-making biproduct material (plutonium, enriched uranium) for terrorists or bomb-eager nations to divert and buy and sell.

If controlled fusion can be achieved on a large industrial scale, it would commence a profound historical change in Earth's industrial activity, as important a change as the large-scale shift to fossil fuels (at first to generate portable steam power) that sparked the industrial revolution of 18th century Europe and North America.

Large-scale fusion power generation would allow energy-hungry industry to keep expanding, but would immediately address and rectify the global climate changes blamed on industrial-scale burning of fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal). Controlled fusion would, in theory, have no negative effects on the atmospheric carbon cycle.

From where we stand today, controlled fusion is the ultimate Free Lunch -- almost limitless electric power, cheaply produced, with almost no environmentally toxic or damaging "down side."

Although North American, European and Japanese researchers in industry and in government and university labs pursue controlled fusion strenuously, almost nothing in the popular media is written about it. Everyone is afraid to pin too much hope on controlled fusion as a possible Savior of the Environment in the future, because no one yet knows with certainty if it can be made to work on industrial scale. Wind and solar get all the ink because at least we already know they work and are becoming practical now -- though wind and solar have great weaknesses and limitations that keep industry and the consumers of the developed nations addicted to fossil fuels and nuclear fission power generation.

Toroidal confinement plasma fusion experiments require the construction of the strongest magnetic fields on Earth, far stronger than the dangerously strong electromagnets used in modern medical imaging. Both technologies require people to be completely stripped of all ferro-metallic objects, or to stay far away from the intense magnetic fields. These are not refrigerator magnets. I've heard a buzz that these supermagnets are powerful enough to suck the iron atoms out of the blood's hemoglobin molecules, if you're dumb enough to get too close.

These models -- there are also brief computer-generated movies on the Web -- require massive amounts of digital computation on the world's most powerful supercomputers. The behavior of magnetically confined high-temperature plasma is not easy to model mathematically. The phrase "non-linear" crops up ubiquitously. The computer models are necessary to design the actual magnetic confinement toruses and the supermagnets to keep the superheated hot plasma away from contact with the metal surface.

Essentially, these are machines in laboratories on Earth which are designed to reproduce the temperatures and nucleii collision energies inside stars.

Cold Fusion

Don't confuse high-temp plasma fusion research with the "Cold Fusion" bubble and scientific scandal of 1989 (Fleischmann, Pons, Jones). The "inventors" of Cold Fusion claimed they could generate excess fusion energy (neutrons and heat) at ordinary near-room temperatures by a process that relies on chemical catalysis.

Nevertheless, Cold Fusion was a fascinating public story of how educated scientists can hypnotize themselves into believing in Magical Pots of Gold Under Rainbows, and how governments and universities can get caught up in a frenzy of dubiously supported Hope and Fantasy -- a Gold Rush in a university chemistry lab. There's a sucker born every minute, and often the sucker grows up to earn several Ph.D.s in chemistry.

from Wikipedia:

In 1994, Dr. David Goodstein described the field as follows:

"Cold Fusion is a pariah field, cast out by the scientific establishment. Between Cold Fusion and respectable science there is virtually no communication at all. Cold fusion papers are almost never published in refereed scientific journals, with the result that those works don't receive the normal critical scrutiny that science requires. On the other hand, because the Cold-Fusioners see themselves as a community under siege, there is little internal criticism. Experiments and theories tend to be accepted at face value, for fear of providing even more fuel for external critics, if anyone outside the group was bothering to listen. In these circumstances, crackpots flourish, making matters worse for those who believe that there is serious science going on here."

Deuterium pellet sphere / superlaser fusion

Another avenue of research into controlled fusion employs deuterium-rich pellet spheres whose surface, as the sphere falls, is superheated -- zapped -- by a superpowerful precision laser beam. The rest of the process takes place at ordinary Earth temperatures. I haven't kept up with the progress of this avenue of research into Controlled Fusion. The huge sums spent on superpowerful electromagnets in the first approach are instead spent on superpowerful lasers in lasered pellet research.

One way or the other, the road to limitless, non-toxic, non-carbon, cheap electricity has been neither smooth, cheap, swift nor easy.

As always with advanced scientific matters, most of what I've just written is probably fundamentally Wrong and Hopelessly Ignorant. If you know and can demonstrate this with certainty, Vleeptron warmly invites you to please Leave A Comment and set us straight. Try to keep the rude insults to a minimum, the Vleeptron High Non-Junk Science Council is primarily interested in Good Science, not a pissing match between skunks or a flame war.

A few years ago I filched and posted the candy-striped torus image on the old Vleeptron blog just because I thought it was pretty. And interesting. For a few years, I thought nobody noticed and nobody cared.

I was wrong. General Atomics just noticed. And cared. My free-and-easy cavalier web-filching ways have finally caught up with me.

I hope these people don't know where I live. They have Predator unmanned remote-guided aircraft, tied into GPS and Google Earth.