Cafe Excreta

You coffee aficionados will certainly want to try this Indonesian variety with “the taste and aroma enhanced by the digestive system of palm civets, nocturnal tree-climbing creatures about the size of a large house cat”, according to this Reuters report. At $175. per pound I’m sure you’ll be rushing right out to get yours.

Apparently the civet eats the coffee berries and excretes the beans which are collected and sold to people with more money than sense. Shall we call it Café Excreta? Crapresso? Civet Shit Especial? I’m sure some of you can come with better marketing handles, so let’s see your suggestions.

Whatever, like all coffee, I’m sure a cup would be good when you’re down in the dumps. It’s alimentary canal certified.

Best wishes for a healthful and prosperous new year.

Dusty

I am caring for my next door neighbor's dog, Dusty, while he is in Spain with his family for the holiday. Joel, as I've noted before, plays trombone in the Yucatan Symphony Orchestra. For the first few days Dusty was quite nervous with the change but has since settled in.

Joel gave me very specific instructions on how much and when to feed Dusty and that I was to take him on a three kilometer walk each evening. I included this picture the other day in an email from Dusty to Joel, wherein Dusty assured Joel that I was following Joel’s instructions to the letter.

As it turns out when we’re out walking Dusty causes folks on the street to stop me for conversation. They want to know what Dusty’s name is, how old he is, what breed, and etc. Consequently I’m getting lots of practice speaking Spanish while walking Dusty.

Dusty is about eight months old, so is still as puppy. As such he is a bit excitable and has the puppy characteristic of not minding well, though I have made progress on the two most important commands, sit and stay. I’ve got him so he will sit and stay until I’ve put the food in his bowl and told him OK.

The other evening Dusty was out on the patio, being the rambunctious puppy that he is, and stuck his head under a plant stand to get one of his toys. When he went to pull his head out he hit it fairly hard on the plant stand and let out a series of the most pitiful little cries I think I’ve ever heard, kind of like the mews of a very young kitten. After a couple minutes of consolation he was as good as new.

Dusty is a very sweet little guy but none-the-less reminds me of why I years ago gave up on keeping dogs.

Ahpids

I am having a bit of an aphid problem on a couple of cantaloupe plants and one watermelon plant, reminding me that aphids are kind of interesting. I guess it’s not the aphids themselves that are interesting; but, rather, their relationship with ants.

Aphids exude a sticky liquid which literature on the subject refers to as “honeydew”. Certain types of ants eat the honeydew and protect the aphids from predators, so as to protect their food source. The aphids are like the ants’ honeydew herd.

The ants here, at least the ones tending the aphids and which are by far the most plentiful, are very small, less than a quarter inch in length. They have paths that are like freeways, with ants moving in both directions from food source to nest; and the freeways have interchanges. It’s like Seattle or Tacoma rush hour traffic, but the ants are moving faster.

Aphids are fairly easy to control with a spray of water with a bit of mild soap mixed in. The soapy water works on the shepherd ants as well.

Congressman Ron Paul - One of Few True Conservatives

Those of you who have not read what Congressman Ron Paul, Republican of Texas, has to say, you should (please notice I’ve capitalized Republican, whereas I normally place in the lower case.)

Ron Paul is a conservative, not the run of the mill republican Bush Royalist or neo-fascist phony conservative.

If Ron Paul were running for president against Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, Evan Bayh, or any of the other democratic wannabes, with the exception of Russ Feingold, I would vote for Ron Paul, despite the fact I abhor many of his political ideals. Congressman Paul, I believe, would stand up for the Constitution whereas Clinton et al. would piss all over it if the polls indicated it would be to their political advantage.

Congressman Ron Paul on domestic spying


Ron Paul on the “Neo-cons”

Friday Garden Report

In the foreground is the lettuce bed from which I've so far taken five cuttings. Just inside the bottom right of the fenced area you can see the little plants of the second crop of lettuce. To the left in the fenced area you can see coffee grounds lining two rows of onions. Just out of the picture to the left are about forty garlic plants.

Toward the upper left of the fenced area, around the log, you can see tomato plants at each of which I have driven a stake to which I will tie the tomatoes when necessary. There are nine Roma type plants. I have also planted a larger variety in the upper right of the fenced area but because of their small size are not visible in the picture. The habanero plants are next to the second lettuce crop but they have not grown much so are not visible in the picture.

The round bed toward the top of the picture is one bed of watermelons which are now blossoming.

Just behind the watermelons is another bed I've constructed, and fenced, in which I've planted carrots and cucumbers which have emerged and more garlic and habaneros which have not.

You Can't Know the Players Without a Program

The Washington Post has published a roster of the players related to the still unfolding investigation of the many crimes of Jack Abramhoff and his cronies, including Ralph Reed, Tom DeLay, and Grover Norquist, amongst many others.

Read the WP story here.

Nixon Redux - Vol. II

The NSA has reportedly been spying on certain of its own employees, journalists, and congresspersons. Nixon lives.

Read Wayne Madsen's report here.

You may want to avoid visiting the NSA website as until Tuesday, when someone discovered the practice and complained, it put a "cookie" into your computer that allowed the agency to track you web surfing and didn't expire until 2035.

Read the Businessweek report here.

Compost Report from El Gringo Loco

When composting, or so I’ve read, it is vital to have the correct nitrogen (generally green or wet materials) to carbon (generally brown or dry materials) ratio and the correct water content. Roughly 25 parts C to 1 part N, layered or mixed, and 60% moisture. With the correct proportion of ingredients the pile will heat up to 140 degrees F or higher and decomposition will occur.

Too much N is better than not enough, as with not enough decomposition will not occur. Too much water will result in a slimy concoction.

A couple of weeks ago I turned the compost pile, which at the time consisted mostly of dried mango and palm frond leaves, and incorporated a large pile of green vegetation that I had removed from the areas I cleared for the watermelon and cantaloupe vines to run and a bit of dried palm frond leaves I salvaged from next door. A couple of days later I left the reconstituted pile uncovered during a day of rain.

Apparently I got the nitrogen/carbon ratio and water content right, as now when I pull the plastic cover from the pile, to add kitchen wastes, steam emerges when it’s 60 degrees outside. The pile is really cooking, and is teeming with potato bugs, other insects, geckos, and an occasional mouse all doing their part. Consuming and excreting.

The soil here is quite shy of organic material so the compost will really help.

Persecution of Iraqi Christians

One of the more ironic, and disturbing, results of the U. S. invasion of Iraq and the resultant disassembling of Iraqi society is the impact upon Iraqi Christians, many of whom are fleeing to Syria to escape the persecution they now experience in Iraq. During Saddam’s reign Iraq was a secular society where folks were free to worship as they wished. Likewise in Syria.

The new Iraqi constitution ensures the continued persecution of Christian by establishing Islam as the state church and prohibiting efforts to convert Muslims to other religions.

It is indeed ironic that with all of the concern in the U. S. with the discrimination of Christians, our self-professed fundamentalist Christian president has created conditions in Iraq intolerable to Christians.

Another great irony of the Iraqi adventure is that it has resulted in the greatly enhanced influence in Iraq of Iran, another of Bush’s “Axis of Evil”. Shiites closely aligned with Iran dominate the newly formed Iraqi government.

The primary objective of the Bush administration’s cabal of neo-fascists Iraq invasion was enhanced Israeli security, which with enhanced Iranian influence has become less secure. Another miscalculation by the Bush administration Straussian Philosopher brain trust, and the Israeli Likud party, the policies of which the neo-fascists promote.

Juan Cole, a University of Michigan history professor and one of the nation’s leading Middle East scholars discusses the lot of Iraqi Christians here.

Interesting Analysis of Presidential Authority

If anyone might be interested in reading an analysis of the opinions John Yoo produced for President Bush asserting that president may legally ignore treaties the country has ratified, that the president can authorize torture, and do virtually anything else he or she wishes during times of war, follow the link to an analysis, in the “New York Review of Books”, by Georgetown University law professor David Cole.

I found it quite illuminating. As professor Cole notes, under Yoo’s Constitutional interpretations the president could authorize genocide.

Read professor Cole’s analysis

Christmas in Merida

The big Christmas celebration here takes place on Christmas Eve and involved lots of fireworks, lots of music and folks out on the street until late a night. Christmas Day was very quiet, with very little traffic aside from buses.

The Friday night of the weekend before Christmas the neighbors across the street had a party that included a live band that played until probably midnight or one in the morning. The following night there was a party at the bus repair garage across the back yard wall that also featured a live band that played until late. It was great to lie in bed and go to sleep listening to live music. The folks who work at the bus always have music playing, so I get to listen to music when going to sleep every night, not to mention when I’m working in the garden.

Another Christmas tradition I observed is that of young children going from home to home or business to business singing seasonal songs for donations. I am easy touch for such performances.

Today things are back to normal.

Colin Powell Again Talks Out of Both Sides of His Mouth

Colin Powell – “American Hero”. What rot. Powell once again exhibits his spinelessness by stating that it wouldn’t have been “that hard” for Bush to legally secure warrants for the illegal eavesdropping his administration has been doing but that he sees “nothing wrong” with the eavesdropping. Once again he talks out of both sides of his mouth, wouldn’t want to offend the powerful by speaking truth to power.

Powell has made his career by carrying water for those in positions of power for whom he worked, from covering up the My Lai massacre to lying to the U. N. to justify conquering Iraq.

Read the NYT report of Powell’s interview on the ABC News program "This Week".

Hoax Alert

I have been informed by "anonymous" that the story I referred to on Wednesday under, "U. S. Fascism on the March", of a student who was visited by federal agents after checking out Mao's Red Book from the library is a hoax. The student who reported the incident has admitted the hoax.

I thank anonymous for alerting me to the report of the hoax and apologize to you for posting false information.

Senate Majority Leader Frist - Crook

The fact that this slimy bastard is the Senate majority leader says loads about the sorry state, and pervasive corruption, of federal republican elected officials. Look for the republicans to defend themselves by asserting that the democrats were just as corrupt when they controlled Congress.

From the Associated Press

Frist's AIDS charity paid $456,000 in consulting fees to his political allies

Sunday, December 18, 2005
Jonathan M. Katz and John Solomon
Associated Press

Washington
-- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's AIDS charity paid nearly a half-million dollars in consulting fees to members of his political inner circle, according to tax returns providing the first financial accounting of the presidential hopeful's nonprofit group.

The returns for World of Hope Inc., obtained by the Associated Press, also show that the charity raised the lion's share of its $4.4 million from just 18 sources. They gave between $97,950 and $267,735 each to help finance Frist's efforts to fight AIDS.

The tax forms, filed nine months after they were first due, do not identify the 18 major donors by name.

Frist's lawyer, Alex Vogel, said Friday that he would not give their names because tax law does not require their public disclosure. Frist's office provided a list of 96 donors who supported the charity, but how much each contributed was not disclosed.

The donors included several corporations with frequent business before Congress, such as insurer Blue Cross/Blue Shield, manufacturer 3M, drug maker Eli Lilly and the Goldman Sachs investment firm.

World of Hope gave $3 million it raised to charitable AIDS causes, such as Africare and evangelical Christian groups with ties to Republicans -- Franklin Graham's Samaritan Purse and the Rev. Luis Cortes' Esperanza USA, for example.

The rest of the money went to overhead. That included $456,125 in consulting fees to two firms run by Frist's longtime political fund-raiser, Linus Catignani. One is run jointly by Linda Bond, the wife of Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, Republican of Missouri.

The charity also hired the law firm of Vogel's wife, Jill Holtzman Vogel, and Frist's Tennessee accountant, Deborah Kolarich.

Read the entire story here

U. S. Air Operations Against Iran and Syria?

CIA director Porter Goss reportedly has informed Turkey that the U. S. will possibly launch “air operations” against Iran and Syria. Goss reportedly cited Iran’s nuclear developments and it’s support for terrorism. Sound familiar?

Why, I ask, do U. S. authorities think the U. S. has the moral authority to tell Iran, or any other nation, that it can’t develop nuclear weapons? After all the U. S. has the largest nuclear weapons arsenal in the world; the U. S. is the only nation to ever have used nuclear weapons; and three U. S. allies, Israel, Pakistan, and India, are not signatories to the non-proliferation treaty.

I won’t ask why the U. S. policy makers think they have the moral authority to tell other nations they cannot possess chemical and biological weapons. The U. S., after all, poisoned Viet Nam, not to mention Korea, with chemical weapons to the point that even today Vietnamese children are borne with the most grotesques deformities imaginable; and it even today is raining chemical weapons on cocoa farmers and their children in South America.

Nor will I ask why U. S. leaders believe they have the moral authority to tell other nations they cannot support terrorists, considering that, even today, U. S. authorities are permitting anti-Cuban terrorists, who admittedly bombed hotels and a civilian airliner, to reside, unfettered, in the U. S.

I don’t think there is any mystery at all why Iran, North Korea, and perhaps other nations wish to develop nuclear weapons. If U. S. policy makers actually believed Iraq had nuclear weapons there probably would have been no invasion.

The U. S. is the most militarily aggressive nation on the face of the earth. Even before the fall of the Soviet Union there was no nation that had used its military to invade and subjugate more other sovereign nations than the U. S. Nuclear weapons are an effective deterrent against U. S. aggression.

Read the TurkishPress.com report here.

FISA Court Chided Ashcroft's Justice Dept. in 2002 for Lying to It

Maybe this is why the Cheney administration chose to spy on Americans without FISA court approval. In May, 2002 the FISA court made it clear it did not appreciate being lied to by the FBI.

Secret Court Rebuffs Ashcroft.Justice Dept. Chided On Misinformation
Dan Eggen and Susan SchmidtWashington Post Staff WritersFriday, August 23, 2002

The secretive federal court that approves spying on terror suspects in the United States has refused to give the Justice Department broad new powers, saying the government had misused the law and misled the court dozens of times, according to an extraordinary legal ruling released yesterday.

A May 17 opinion by the court that oversees the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) alleges that Justice Department and FBI officials supplied erroneous information to the court in more than 75 applications for search warrants and wiretaps, including one signed by then-FBI Director Louis J. Freeh.

Read the entire article here.

Remember "Enemy Combatant" Jose Padilla?

Appeals Court Slams Administration on Padilla Detention

By Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 21, 2005; 5:24 PM

A U.S. appeals court, acting in the case of alleged "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla, today rejected the administration's move to avoid another Supreme Court review of its powers of detention, blasting the government in unusually blunt terms for its behavior in the case which, it said, may have significantly damaged "its credibility before the courts."

The decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond stems from the administration's actions last month just as the Supreme Court was set to consider whether to review the Padilla case.

At that time, after holding him without charges for three-and-a-half years, it indicted Padilla on criminal charges and asked the 4th Circuit to have him moved from a military prison to a civilian prison, thus mooting the issues the Supreme Court might have reviewed on the question of detention without formal charge.

On top of that, the government asked the appeals court to withdraw the opinion it issued that might have been considered by the justices, even though that opinion upheld the administration's position on detention.

Today, the panel rejected both requests in an opinion written by J. Michael Luttig, a conservative often mentioned on the administration's short list for the U.S. Supreme Court.

…………………………

Luttig said the government's actions created the appearance "that the government may be attempting to avoid" Supreme Court review in a matter of "especial national importance."
He also suggested that the government's actions in the Padilla case may possibly have had negative consequences for "the public perception of the war on terror" and "also for the government's credibility before the courts in litigation ancillary to that war.

" . . . We cannot help but believe that those consequences have been underestimated" by the government, he added.

For "as the government must surely understand," it has left "the impression" that Padilla may have been held for these years "by mistake, an impression we would have thought the government could ill afford to leave extant."

Read the entire article here. Judge Luttig makes his unhappiness with the governments legal maneuvering quite clear in the court’s opinion.

And Check Out These Watermelon Plants

First Cantaloupe Blossom

The blossom opened today, December 21, the shortest day of the year. Take heart you of the Northern climes, Spring is just around the corner.

Update 12-22-05: A second blossom opened today on the same plant.

U. S. Fascism on the March

Update: 12-24-05 - The student who reported this story has admitted it was a hoax. I am relieved that our federal agents are not wasting their time on such. Thanks to "anonymous" for alerting me to the hoax.

Book checked out of the library results in a visit from federal agents. What's next, book burnings?

Feds Question Student, Frighten UM-Darmouth Faculty

"Why are You Reading that Little Red Book?"

By GARY LEUPP
Just when you think it can't get crazier, it gets crazier. Aaron Nicodemus, a journalist with the southern Massachusetts newspaper The Standard-Times, reports that in October of this year a senior at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth was visited by federal agents and questioned about a book he had ordered through inter-library loan. Apparently U Mass librarians are cooperating with the USA-Patriot Act. You know, the one that's all about Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. The book was for a research paper he was doing for a course on fascism and totalitarianism taught by Professor Robert Pontbriand, a specialist in European intellectual and cultural history. The agents visited the student after he ordered a book that is, they informed him, on a "watch list."

The book being watched? No, not some Islamist tome, al-Qaeda training manual or technical work on explosives, but a well-known book the whole text of which you can find online or order from amazon.com. It's Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung, also known as the "Little Red Book," a book once rivaling the Bible in circulation. To really monitor its readership would involve watching all internet access to the text, purchases of the book, and library loans of it. A formidable task and insane waste of FBI time, surely. But these are mad times.

Read the complete Counterpunch report here

Bush "is the first President to admit to an impeachable offense."

From a letter from Senator Barbara Boxer to four presidential scholars asking if Nixon’s White House counsel John Dean is correct in his statement that Bush is “the first president to admit to an impeachable offense.”

“On Sunday, December 18, former White House Counsel John Dean and I participated in a public discussion that covered many issues, including this surveillance. Mr. Dean, who was President Nixon’s counsel at the time of Watergate, said that President Bush is ‘the first President to admit to an impeachable offense.’ Today, Mr. Dean confirmed his statement.”

Read the entire Boxer letter here.

I Am a Very Fortunate Person

I am a very fortunate person. Why, just in the last week I’ve received about five notices that I have won various foreign lotteries and have won a total of about $1 million Euros and $2.5 million U. S. Additionally, I have been contacted by a number of folks from the Ivory Coast, Malta, Benin, and other obscure countries urgently requesting my help in transferring millions of dollars out of their countries. All I had to do was send my bank account numbers to the various lotteries and persons requesting my assistance. I am expecting to begin receiving payments soon.

OK. Just in case anyone believes I’m really a dumb ass, I’m kidding.

None-the-less, I am a very fortunate person; and am so completely aside from the fact that I survived all the incredibly stupid things I did during my adolescence. OK, into my mid 20s.

My latest stroke of good fortune was securing the apartment I am living in. Having decided to leave for Merida on October 1st I began looking in August for a place to live. My search was not going well until the end of August when I responded to a request on the Merida Insider message board posted by someone looking for a roommate. As it turned out the person making the request was a 25 year old female college student and her friend. I explained in a follow up message that I was a 56 year old male.

After she initially expressed her fascination with the idea of having “a second dad”, as she put it, she came to her senses and realized it would not be a good idea. But my good fortune was that she worked for a realtor. A realtor, in fact, that I had contacted about a rental advertised on its web site.

Though I received no help from the realtor, the young woman looking for a roommate took up my cause and in short order put me in touch with Sr. Lopez Monsreal, my landlord. Sr. Lopez emailed me a proposal, which I accepted and immediately transferred to him the deposit and first month’s rent, using the services of the Mexican grocery in Elma. Though Sr. Lopez had sent a comprehensive description of the apartment and its furnishing I did not know what it looked like or anything about its location.

A few days before my October 1st arrival, Sr. Lopez emailed me to say he would be happy to pick me up at the airport. Sure enough, after going through customs, dragging my four pieces of luggage while sweating like a pig, as they say, I emerged into the airport terminal and there was Sr. Lopez. We got into his air conditioned van and he drove me to the apartment and gave me a very thorough tour of the apartment, proudly displaying all the furnishing that he had provided.
As it has turned out the apartment is in a perfect location for walking access to the historical district, the Paseo Montejo, four parks and plazas, a very nice small produce market I visit each Friday and where I have become recognized and warmly greeted, a Chedraui super store, and a great number of local shops at which I can get just about anything I need or want. And I couldn't ask for a nicer landlord. Sr. Lopez has been very nice to me, allowing me to dig up the back yard, use all of the water I need for the garden, and to consider this to be my home, as he put it. Today he brought me a Christmas present of a wrapped bottle of Chilean Carbernet Sauvignon.

Additionally, my neighbors Joel, the trombone player in the Yucatan Symphony, and Armando, and 88 year old Cuban American, are very fine folks who have welcomed me warmly.

Saturday evening I again had Joel and Armando over for a lasagna dinner, during which I toasted them and expressed to them how very fortunate I feel to have secured the apartment, sight unseen, and ended up with such great neighbors. Responding, Armando said “if you were a jerk we wouldn’t be having dinner with you.” Armando has provide me with a number of books and regularly brings me coffee grounds for the garden from the coffee shop he frequents.

Joel left today for three weeks in Spain to be with his family during the holiday season, so I am looking after his dog Dusty, whom I have been calling Rusty during the entire time I’ve been here. I could swear that’s what Joel calls him but today Joel left Dusty’s vet records with me just in case there is a problem and I noted Rusty is really Dusty.

I have had good fortune, and made a few fortuitous decisions, throughout my life for which I am very thankful. Ending up in this apartment with great neighbors is the just the latest.

By the way, I have had absolutely no regrets for my decision to sell out and leave my U. S. home of almost thirty years. I am living a stress free life, eating better than I ever have, getting lots of exercise, getting lots of sun, and enjoying the adventure of living in a new place.

Happy holidays to both of my readers.

Bolivians Reject U. S. Neoliberal Domination

It appears that Bolivians have voted to reject U. S. domination and elected Latin America’s first president of indigenous descent. Evo “Morales, 46, a coca farmer and Aymara Indian,” has apparently been elected Bolivia’s new president. To his credit, Morales’ opponent, “Jose Quiroga, a former president who was backed by Bolivia's business elite”, has graciously conceded defeat, congratulated Morales, and called for national unity.

Bolivia joins an increasing number of Latin American nations that are rejecting U. S. promoted "neoliberal" policies that assure U. S. domination of their economies.

Read the AP report here

It's Time for a New Declaration of Independence

The recent revelations that the New York Times, at the request of King George’s courtiers, withheld for a year information of illegal, unconstitutional domestic spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) and of our government paying writers (often media whores who present themselves as “journalists”) to produce propaganda presented as legitimate news and commentary bring a couple of quotes.

“The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure.”
Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823. ME 15:491

“The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers... [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers.”
Thomas Jefferson to G. K. van Hogendorp
Oct. 13, 1785. (*) ME 5:181, Papers 8:632

I doubt Jefferson would have been impressed by Times Executive Editor Bill Keller’s pathetic explanation as to why he prevented Times reporters from doing their job and alerting Americans to the fact the NSA was violating the Constitution by conducting domestic wiretaps without warrants. Keller explained "the Administration argued strongly that writing about this eavesdropping program would give terrorists clues about the vulnerability of their communications and would deprive the government of an effective tool for the protection of the country's security.”

In fact, the government has this very “tool for the protection of the country’s security” in the form of The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978; and the fact that Keller nor anyone else at the Times was aware of FISA is a commentary on just how pathetic the Times management has become. FISA established a secret court which issues warrants for the conduct of just such surveillance as the NSA has been doing illegally. FISA even permits the Attorney General to approve such surveillance without a warrant so long as the AG seeks an after-the-fact warrant from the FISA court within 72 hours. Additionally, the FISA court has never denied a warrant request.

King George, whose courtiers have issued legal opinions that the president’s authority is limitless so long as the he finds a threat to national security (in this case John Yoo who also advised King George that he could ignore the Geneva Conventions so long as the torture did not result in organ failure or death), justified the NSA spying in his weekly radio address to his subjects. The King informed us “The existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk.”

The existence of the FISA court process puts the lie to the King’s specious justification.

What I find especially alarming is that revelations such as the unconstitutional NSA spying and the government production of illegal propaganda no longer shock us. I guess the almost daily revelations of Bush administration constitutional desecration have inured us.

Which brings to mind another relevant quote:
“Those willing to give up a little liberty for a little security deserve neither security nor liberty.”
Benjamin Franklin

Garden Update

I've fenced the main garden plot to prevent Rusty's indiscriminate digging and the neighborhood cats from using the garden as their dumping ground. After erecting the fence I transplanted the tomatoes and peppers into the plot.

The fence posts consist of the spines, I guess they would be called, from the palm fronds I scavenged from the back yard and lot next door. I wired the fronds to short lengths of rebar, also scavenged from the back yard, that I drove into the ground. The posts are braced with additional palm frond spines.

The watermelon plants in one bed have trailed out of the bed onto the ground of an area I cleared of vegetation as a landing area for the watermelon and cantaloupe vines.

This coming Wednesday will be the Winter solstice. So take heart you of the Northern climes.

KIVA Microloans

You’ve probably heard of the “microloan” phenomena, whereby small amounts of money are lent to poor folks in developing nations to enable them to establish small businesses.

KIVA is an organization that came to my attention today, through the “Raw Story” website which led to this article . KIVA enables individuals, like you and me, to extend microloans to folks in need. You receive monthly email reports of the progress of the business to which you have loaned and the loan is repayed over a term of 6 to 12 months.

Go to the KIVA website to learn all about it.

The Christmas season, it seems to me, is a great time to consider assisting someone in need to improve their life by directly loaning that person a modest amont. KIVA enables you to do so.

The St Petersburg Times Also Has It Right

The St. Petersburg Times editorial writers also have it exactly right.

Hillary's pathetic ploy

A Times EditorialPublished December 12, 2005

Sen. Hillary Clinton's decision to co-sponsor a bill to make it a crime to burn the American flag amounts to political pandering of the worst kind. She was against outlawing flag-burning before she was for it.

The New York Democrat says she opposes a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning but has signed on to a bill that would ostensibly accomplish the same thing by federal statute. Her position is unprincipled. Clinton may think this is a middle-ground position with broad political appeal, but most people will see it for what it is.

Voters who approve of making flag-burning a crime are seeking a constitutional amendment, not a statute that is likely to be struck down by the federal courts as unconstitutional. And those voters who understand that this country's cherished freedom of speech is undermined by limits on offensive messages, including flag-burning, don't want any legal proscriptions. There is no middle ground.

Read the entire editorial here

Helen Thomas is Right

The legendary Helen Thomas has it exactly right.

If Democrats only had some courage

By HELEN THOMASHEARST NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON -- It's about time that the "me too" Democrats, particularly those in Congress who vote with the Republicans so often, stand up and be counted.

Too many Democrats are tiptoeing around the major issues facing our nation, afraid to venture out of the mainstream. This is a big mistake at a time when the nation is begging for true leadership.

Democrats with the courage to be leaders could have a field day pointing out that millions of Americans lack health insurance and that 37 million have fallen below the poverty line. Soon they will no longer be able to claim that theirs is a caring political party because they won't have evidence that this is true.

Take, for example, the case of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

Instead of endorsing universal health care -- a topic that she knows a lot about -- Clinton is busy co-sponsoring with Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, a law to bar desecration of the flag. Has anyone burned a flag lately?

Clinton is a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, which might explain why she's busy pandering to conservatives instead of staking out a leadership role on more important issues.

Read Thomas’ entire column here

Nixon Redux - DoD Domestic Spying

NBC News reports on a 400 page Pentagon report of it spying on anti-war groups and protests. Cheny/Rumsfeld administration outrages just keep on coming.

Read the NBC report here

Rejection of Neoliberalism

I found very interesting this article about how developing countries are harmed by adopting the “neoliberal” policies of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund as encouraged by the U.S. The article reports on a paper by Ha Joon Chang that argues that industries in developing nations must be protected until they are able to compete with those in countries with mature economies, that the “free trade” advocated by the U. S. and Europe harms developing economies, and reports on a number of examples cited by Chang.

It seems that Latin American nations are one by one coming to the Chang’s conclusion and are electing governments that resist U. S. pressures to adopt the neoliberal policies. It looks as though Boliva will be next to do so and then, perhaps, Mexico.

Read the Guardian article here

Check This Out

I unearthed this baby today while rooting around the back yard.

If anyone can identify it I will appreciate knowing what type it is. I estimate it is about two inches long, including its legs.

Update: The best I have so far been able to determine it is a Mexican Redrump Tarantula, but I'm still looking.

Abramoff's Bribes

The Washington Post has a couple of nice graphics of the top 20 congressional recipients of Abramoff bribes. Six of the top twenty are democrats, including Patty Murray of Washington (one of Boeing's congressional whores), Harry Reid, Patrick Kennedy, Gephardt, Dorgan, and Daschle.

View the WP graphic here

Secret Laws

Did you know that in the U. S. there are secret laws and regulations? I didn’t either.

Read the report here

Garden Update

Here is a picture of the garden I took today. I am done excavating for the time being, though am thinking about expanding the garden area. For now I will concentrate on planting the area I’ve already developed.

Since I last reported I’ve planted garlic, onions, another planting of lettuce, and a variety of larger tomatoes. The lettuce is doing famously, in fact I ate the first picking on my burritos this evening. The Roma type tomatoes and watermelon have withstood an attack of American Serpentine Leaf Miners which are the larva of small flies which lay their eggs within the leaves. The larva then wander through the leaves feeding on the chlorophyll and other elements, leaving a serpentine white trail. I read that ants are one of the leaf miner’s many predators so assume the ants took care of them.

The Roma tomato plants have recovered nicely and are just about large enough to be moved from their containers to the garden. A couple of the watermelon plants have become so large that they have lain over and are producing tendrils. Some of the cantaloupe plants have succumbed for some reason so I have replanted. Others are doing well and putting on lots of new growth.

Some of the garlic I planted last week has emerged and the seeds of the larger tomato variety have sprouted in their nursery.

Armando, my 88 year old Cuban American neighbor, continues to bring me coffee grounds from the shop he frequents; and which, upon his advice, I visited a couple days ago to buy some decent coffee. In fact, it is very, very good coffee. I bought espresso beans ground as fine as the grinder can produce.

I have also purchased a small trash can with a tight lid into which Joel and Armando are now depositing their kitchen wastes for the compost pile. Speaking of the compost pile, it is ready for turning so yesterday I walked the few blocks to the local hardware store and though the proprietor did not have a pitch fork in stock he promised me he would have it for me Monday morning. The proprietor, an older gentleman, was “muy amble”, as they say here, and was very talkative and inquisitive. We enjoyed a nice chat until another customer arrived and required his attention.

One of the things I really like about Merida is that there are small specialty shops in each neighborhood, which together provide almost anything one needs or wants. There is the Walmart, Chedraui, Office Depot, Costco, and I suppose other big boxes; but the neighborhood stores remain. Perhaps because most, I assume, folks don’t have cars. I am very much enjoying the fact I can walk, generally a short distance, to buy whatever I need.

Concert in the Park

This evening I walked to Parque Santa Ana, about 5 blocks from my apartment, as each weekend evening there is music, dancing, and food and craft vendors. As it turned out there was no dancing but there was a concert of Christmas carols in sign language. It seemed to me that the performance was by students and staff of a school for the deaf, but that is only an assumption.

None-the-less it was impressive and I was amazed at the numbers of folks in the audience who signed along with the songs.

Looming over the park is the communications tower you can see in this, not so good, photo that has been decorated for Christmas.

The "Free Market" in the U. S.

The New York Times article linked below describes how the “free market” system works in the U. S. Some businessperson makes a “campaign contribution”, read as legalized bribe, to a congressperson, in this case Joe Knollenberg of Michigan, and the dumb ass congressperson sponsors legislation that directs Amtrak to spend Congressionally appropriate funds that directly benefit the businessperson tendering the bribe. The dumb ass congressperson justifies the appropriation by asserting that it will be a good Amtrak business practice, as if he is more qualified to determine prudent Amtrak business practices than are the professional Amtrak managers.

Congressmen Cunningham and Ney will be spending time in jail for this type of corrupt practice, which unfortunately is the rule with Congress rather than the exception.

Read the NYT article here.

Joe Lieberman's Brown Nose

Now we know why Lieberman has been stuffing is nose further and further up George Bush’s ass.

Read why here.

Speaking of CIA Kidnapping

The CIA also kidnapped a fellow in Italy, needing somewhere around 20 operatives to do so. The operatives stayed in the most expensive hotels, used cell phones and credit cards during and after the kidnapping allowing Italian authorities to easily track their movements to Aviano air base from where the kidnapped fellow was flown in a Lear jet to Germany and from there to Egypt where he was tortured. The kidnapping, which Italian authorities deny knowledge of, fouled an Italian investigation into the fellow.

The cast of the movie of this incident will have to include James Garner and Jack Nicholson.

Read the story here.

Abolish the CIA

Read this Steve Clemons report of what the CIA is doing in the name of every citizen of the U. S. In summary the CIA kidnapped an innocent German citizen of Lebanese descent while he was vacationing in Macedonia, he was taken to Afghanistan where he was questioned while being roughed up, he was determined to be innocent but CIA director George Tenet ordered him held for another two months, then he was dumped, blindfolded, “in the deep forest, mountainous triangle area between Albania, Serbia and Macedonia. He had to walk out with no money, no identification.”

Do you think George Tenet or the CIA officials involved will ever be held to account for their illegal, inhuman acts? Fat chance.

Remember that our incurious, perpetually adolescent president presented Tenet with the Medal of Freedom for the great job he did in phoneying intelligence to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq.

Talk about rouge nations.

Read the Steve Clemons report here

Silly Season Has Begun

It definitely is becoming silly season, which can be read as the run up to the 2008 presidential election. To wit three examples from the last few days.

Lieberman Calls For Formation Of 'War Cabinet'
By DAVID LIGHTMAN
The Hartford Courant
December 6 2005, 11:43 AM EST
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, increasingly isolated in his own Democratic party because of his strong support for the Iraq war, today called on the White House and congressional leaders to form a special "war cabinet" to provide advice and direction for the war effort.

The Connecticut Democrat's "Bipartisan Victory in Iraq Administrative Group," designed to take some of the political edge off the war debate, would be modeled after similar panels during the Vietnam War and World War II.

Lieberman, whom the Bush administration has praised repeatedly for his war stance, defended the president. "It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge he'll be commander-in-chief for three more years," the senator said. "We undermine the president's credibility at our nation's peril."

[Doesn’t suggesting formation of a “War Cabinet” imply that the Bush administration is not capable of effectively executing the war, thus “undermine the president’s credibility?" Joe Lieberman is very silly.]

More McCain Attacks: Murtha ‘Sentimental,’ ‘Never Been a Big Thinker’
Think Progress web site
On Sunday, Sen. John McCain — regularly lauded for his nonpartisan “straight talk” — attacked Rep. John Murtha for having “become too emotional" over the Iraq war.

McCain was simply repeating the line he had given Byron York in an interview for the New Republic. That piece is now online, and as you’ll see below, McCain was even more personal when speaking to York:

John Murtha is “a lovable guy,” but “he’s never been a big thinker; he’s an appropriator.” Using language that Bush never could, McCain tells me that Murtha has become too emotional about the human cost of the war. “As we get older, we get more sentimental,” McCain says. “And [Murtha] has been very, very affected by the funerals and the families. But you cannot let that affect the way you decide policy.”

[McCain is 69, Murtha is 73. The fact that he can embrace Bush after what Bush and Rove did to him in South Carolina during the 2000 primaries tells me all I need to know about McCain. McCain is very silly.]

Sen. Clinton co-sponsors anti-flag burning law
December 5, 2005, 10:44 AM EST

WASHINGTON (AP) Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is supporting new legislation to criminalize desecration of the United States flag though she still opposes a constitutional ban on flag attacks.

Clinton, D-N.Y., has agreed to co-sponsor a measure by Republican Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah, which has been written in hopes of surviving any constitutional challenge following a 2003 Supreme Court ruling on the subject.

[Clinton wants to legislate to criminalize flag desecration, a right recently sustained by the Supreme Court b y invalidating federal legislation, yet she opposes a Constitutional amendment to forbid it. Clinton is very silly.]

The three examples above illustrate pandering by politicians, I think, that have nothing better to offer.

Venezuelan Elections

Because Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez refuses to dance to the "neo-liberal"” tune of privatization and multinational buyout of Venezuelan national resources, the Bush administration is decrying the December 4 Venezuelan elections. ItÂ’s more utter crap from the completely discredited administration.

Election observers from Latin American nations, some closely allied with the U. S., have indicated that the withdrawal of opposition party candidates, representing 10% of the total number of candidates for election to the National Assembly, “does not delegitimize the parliamentary elections”.

Read the report here.

"How Bush Created a Theocracy in Iraq"

If you’re interested in reading a Juan Cole article how the U. S. actions in Iraq have created a Shiite theocracy, follow the link below. Juan Cole, if you don’t know, is a professor of history at the University of Michigan and is one of the nation’s leading Middle East Scholars.

It is ironic, and sickening, that after all of the U. S. attempts to deter theocratic regimes in the Middle East, from its deposition in 1953 of the legitimate government of Iran which ultimately precipitated the 1979 theocratic revolution to the Iraqi adventure, that the Iraqi invasion and its attempted subjugation has resulted in creation of a theocratic Iraq increasingly closely aligned with Iran.

Read Juan Cole’s article here.

Juan Cole’s web site.

Juan Coles’ Middle East Commentary – “Informed Comment”

Bull Fighting. Where's The Fight?

I watched the last 10 minutes, or so, of a “Bull Fight” broadcast from Spain (OK, so I have lots of time on my hands.) I am completely disgusted, not at the killing of a bull; but, rather, at its torture. The toreador’s outfit, I must say, was equally disgusting.

How can it be called a “fight” when your opponent has an intelligence such that he is unable learn over the course of an hour, or so, of going after a red cape that, first of all, the cape will always be pulled away and, secondly, the cape is not the enemy, it’s the guy in the Mardi Gras parade outfit sticking sharp things into his back?

The toreador, comporting pomposity on par with that of George Will or William F. Buckley and taking dainty, little shuffling steps, was dressed in gold and powder blue peddle pushers and jacket, with pink stockings and shoes similar to those delicate little slip ons that often come with tassels and which are worn, generally in the U. S. anyway, by vacuous pretty boys.

As the bull pushes his head into the cape (one can hardly call it a charge as by then the bull is completely exhausted) the toreador sticks banderillas into his back; until, finally, the bleeding, heavily panting bull is in such as state so as to enable the toreador to stick a sword into his back in an attempt to kill him. It took this particular toreador four stabs before the bull fell. Of course before the brave toreador takes after the bull, picadors on horseback stab the bull repeatedly with pics to tire the bull so it will lower its head, allowing the toreador access to the bull’s back. Some sport.

I was hoping, as I watched, that the bull would get a horn through the toreador’s gut and prance around the ring displaying his prize to the assemblage.

Folk Dancing at the Villa Navidena

Last evening in the Villa Navidena there was also a folk dancing performance to traditional music.

Folks sat at the tables and chairs that had been set up and ate, drank, and watched the performance.

It was all very festive.

Villa Navidena

A Christmas Village has been set up at the upper end of the Paseo Montejo, with a large lighted tree and lots of other lights. It's all quite beautiful.

From Friday evening through Sunday every weekend food and craft vendors set up booths in all four of the plazas and parks in my neighborhood. There is, generally, also music and dancing.

Last evening the Villa Navidena was packed with families.

Paseo Montejo

The light standards in the median of Paseo Montejo are decorated with Santa, a tree, a candle, or an angel and the large shade trees lining both sides of the boulevard are adorned with light strings.

Paseo Montejo, about two and a half blocks from my apartment, is one of the major boulevards with traffic running in both directions.

Merida Decorates for Christmas

Every block on Calle 60, for 15 or so blocks in the Centro area, is spanned by Christmas lights featuring an angel, tree, Santa, or a candle and stars. Though this picture is poor the decorations are really quite stunning.

My apartment is between Calles 62 and 64 so Calle 60 is a block and a half away.

The streets of Merida are laid out with the even numbered streets running North and South and the odd numbered street running East and West. The traffic on all the streets is one way, alternating direction, except for a number of wide boulevards with traffic running in both directions and which generally run diagonally to the numbered streets and seem to radiate from a series of traffic circles.

The streets are clean, are well lit a night, and safe for children to walk alone at night.

Merida English Library

Today I made my first visit to the Merida English Library, having read on its web site that each Saturday it has a book sale. Having long ago finished reading the books I brought with me I was looking for reading material. I picked up three used paperbacks for $10. pesos each. "Wild Card"”, written by Jerome Preisler for the Tom Clancy "“Power Play"” series; "“Black Boy" by Richard Wright; and "“Love and War in the Apennines", by Eric Newby, a true story of his evasion of the advancing German army after his release from an Italian prisoner of war camp in which was held for a year.

Additionally, yesterday Armando, my 88 year old Cuban-American neighbor, asked if I liked to read. I responded that I did and that I was looking for reading material, so he lent me two John LeCarre novels, "“The Russia House"” and "“The Little Drummer Girl." ” I'm about a third of the way through "The Russia House" and can report that it's holding my attention.

The Merida English Library has quite a collection, mostly paperbacks, offers memberships for $200. pesos per year, and hosts get togethers the first Friday of each month.

Note: Edited 12/4/05 to correct the title of the LeCarre novel to "The Russia House." I had initially written "The Russian Room" and my error was pointed out by one of my two readers.

2004 Ohio Electronic Voting Machine Irregularities

Remember how the Ohio Secretary of State, who is responsible to oversee elections, was also working as the “co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign” and how the president of Diebold, manufacturer of widely used voting machines, promised to deliver Ohio to the Bush-Cheney campaign?

According to a Lyn Davis Lear report, on HuffingtonPost.com, the General Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a report that indicates widespread voting irregularities in Ohio involving electronic voting machine. Lear reports that:

Among other things, the GAO confirms that:

1. Some electronic voting machines "did not encrypt cast ballots or system audit logs, and it was possible to alter both without being detected." In other words, the GAO now confirms that electronic voting machines provided an open door to flip an entire vote count. More than 800,000 votes were cast in Ohio on electronic voting machines, some seven times Bush's official margin of victory.

2. "It was possible to alter the files that define how a ballot looks and works so that the votes for one candidate could be recorded for a different candidate." Numerous sworn statements and affidavits assert that this did happen in Ohio 2004.

3. "Vendors installed uncertified versions of voting system software at the local level." 3. Falsifying election results without leaving any evidence of such an action by using altered memory cards can easily be done, according to the GAO.

4. The GAO also confirms that access to the voting network was easily compromised because not all digital recording electronic voting systems (DREs) had supervisory functions password-protected, so access to one machine provided access to the whole network. This critical finding confirms that rigging the 2004 vote did not require a "widespread conspiracy" but rather the cooperation of a very small number of operatives with the power to tap into the networked machines and thus change large numbers of votes at will. With 800,000 votes cast on electronic machines in Ohio, flipping the number needed to give Bush 118,775 could be easily done by just one programmer.

5. Access to the voting network was also compromised by repeated use of the same user IDs combined with easily guessed passwords. So even relatively amateur hackers could have gained access to and altered the Ohio vote tallies.

6. The locks protecting access to the system were easily picked and keys were simple to copy, meaning, again, getting into the system was an easy matter.

7. One DRE model was shown to have been networked in such a rudimentary fashion that a power failure on one machine would cause the entire network to fail, re-emphasizing the fragility of the system on which the Presidency of the United States was decided.

8. GAO identified further problems with the security protocols and background screening practices for vendor personnel, confirming still more easy access to the system.

Read the entire report here.

The DEA Should be Abolished

Why do our government employees in the DEA and FBI try to make criminals of law abiding folks?

Read the story, it will make you shake your head in wonder and disgust.

Coconut Harvest

This is about half the coconuts that Manuel and I harvest from the tree in the front yard. Manuel took the other half home with him.

Is the "First Mother" Going to Drop the Hammer on the Cabal?

Steve Clemons, at “The Washington Note” reports that a source has informed him that Barbara Bush is mad at the whackos inhabiting her sons administration and plans to swing into action.

Read Clemons’ report here.

Pina Coladas

This afternoon Manuel, an employee of my landlord Sr. Monsreal, and I took turns climbing the ladder to harvest the coconuts from the tree in the front yard. We got about thirty.

Manuel, Joel, and I decided that Monday evening we will have a Pina Colada party on the patio. Armando, my 88 year old neighbor, said he may also attend. We settled on Monday as Joel has to play in the symphony tomorrow night and Sunday and didn’t want the Pina Coladas affecting his trombone playing. So Monday I will make coconut milk and crank up the blender.

Been Using and Relying on Wikipedia?

If so, you will want to reconsider that reliance. As it turns out the information presented as fact on the Wikipedia site is posted by anonymous persons. The company behind Wikipedia has only one employee, has no way to identify those who post information as fact on its site, and false information is posted as fact on its site.

Read John Seigenthaler Sr.’s story.

There are plenty of reputable research sites available through the internet, Wikipedia is not one.

A Milestone

Tonight on my way back to the apartment from my evening walk, to the Independence Plaza, I was hailed by some folks in a car who, in Spanish, asked me directions and I was actually able to give them directions, also in Spanish. I strutted the rest of the way home.

Also today, my landlord, Sr. Monsreal, gave me my first electric bill which came to $105. pesos for 149 Kwh of usage. The bill was for the period of mid-September through mid-November, so I wasn’t here for 15 days of the billing period. None-the-less $105. pesos is about $10. in U. S. dollars. The electric utility is publicly owned and in the month and one half I’ve been here there has been only one outage that lasted only a couple hours one morning.

This morning I walked to the Municipal Market and bought some seeds for a larger variety of tomatoes than the Roma type tomato plants I’ve already started and onion seeds. I also picked up three heads of garlic, the cloves of which I planted in the garden this afternoon. I can also report that the mango and papaya trees I transplanted are doing well after a brief period of transplant shock.

Life is rough.

Fascism

Canadian lawyer Paul Bigioni has produced an interesting article on the relationship of the subjugation of the state to powerful economic interests, deregulation of markets, concentration of capital and fascism. Mr. Bigioni is working on a book on the subject. The article draws parallels between what is now occurring in Western economies and politics and those which facilitated the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany.

What Mr. Bigioni has to say rings very true to me and is very alarming.

Read the article here.

Iraqi Death Squads an Explicit Product of U. S. Policy

You have probably read or heard about the Shiite Iraqi death squads that some reports indicate are affiliated with the Iraqi police. Well it appears as though the death squads are a product of U. S. policy.

One of her readers reminds Laura Rozen, at “War and Piece”, of a January Newsweek report.

The El Salvadoran death squads during the Reagan years were the product of the same bunch of depraved crooks that populate the Bush administration. My life will be complete when the whole bunch is brought to account, of course that will never occur.

Read the War and Piece report here

Commander in Fact Dick Cheney Should be in Prison

By ANNE GEARAN
The Associated PressMonday, November 28, 2005; 6:50 PM
WASHINGTON -- A top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday that wrongheaded ideas for the handling of foreign detainees arose from White House and Pentagon officials who argued that "the president of the United States is all-powerful" and the Geneva Conventions irrelevant.

In an Associated Press interview, former Powell chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson also said President Bush was "too aloof, too distant from the details" of postwar planning. Underlings exploited Bush's detachment and made poor decisions, Wilkerson said.

Wilkerson blamed Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and like-minded aides. He said Cheney must have sincerely believed that Iraq could be a spawning ground for new terror assaults, because "otherwise I have to declare him a moron, an idiot or a nefarious bastard."

[You Know Me: All evidence clearly indicates that Cheney falls into the “nefarious bastard” category.]

On the question of detainees picked up in Afghanistan and other fronts in the war on terror, Wilkerson said Bush heard two sides of an impassioned argument within his administration. Abuse of prisoners, and even the deaths of some who had been interrogated in Afghanistan and elsewhere, have bruised the U.S. image abroad and undermined support for the Iraq war.

Cheney's office, Rumsfeld aides and others argued "that the president of the United States is all-powerful, that as commander in chief the president of the United States can do anything he damn well pleases," Wilkerson said.”

Read the AP story here.

Wilkerson is, you will remember, is no radical left winger. He is a retired Colonel and long-time aide to Colin Powell. He clearly indicates that Cheney is running the show and is very angry at Cheney’s misdeeds.

Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Libby, Rhodes, Hadley, Rice, Powell, Perle, Gingrich, and a whole host of other Bush administration officials should be in prison for their multiple crimes against humanity and the U. S. Constitution. Bush should be impeached and removed from office for a violation of oath of office to uphold the Constitution, which he has clearly failed to do in allowing the violations of the Geneva Conventions.

Obstruction of Justice and Perjury Charges for Rove?

It looks likely that Rove will be charged with perjury and obstruction of justice. Rove’s personal assistant, Susan Ralston, apparently lied to the Fitzgerald inquiry, was caught in her lie by investigators, was called back for further testimony, and fessed up that Rove had instructed her to not log the call from Time magazine reporter Mathew Cooper.

Additionally, Rove has “withheld crucial facts” from investigators on three occasions.

It couldn’t happen to a more deserving individual. I just hope Ralston is indicted as well.

Read the "Raw Story" report here

Immigrant Agricultural Labor

Let’s see. We in the U. S. like cheap food, almost all of us refuse to work in the agricultural industry, there are hoards of folks in other countries that are happy to work in our agricultural industry, and we refuse to let them into our country so they can do such work. That makes about as much sense as many of the other things that go on in the U. S.

Read the Washington Post report here.

I will spare you my rant on the dumb asses and demagogic politicians who deride the immigrants who come here to fulfill a labor demand which U. S. citizens refuse to fulfill.

This Evening in the Back Yard

This evening as I was in the back yard to water a couple of cantaloupe sprouts, from seeds I planted to replace a cantaloupe plant the had "dampened off", Ignacio, a neighbor from across the back yard wall, whom I had not heretofore met, was standing on the back terrace of his home. We struck up a conversation about my gardening project and he soon asked if I wanted a papaya tree start. Of course I answered "yes", he left, and soon returned with a small papaya tree. Then he asked if I wanted an orange tree, which of course I did. He left and soon returned with a small orange tree; but, from I was able to understand, it is of the sour variety grown here abouts. He also brought me starts of two different herbs, of what type I'm afraid I don't know but which are apparently used for flavoring beans.

As the conversation progressed I went and got a bottle of rum I had in the house and we sat, drank, and talked; he on the wall and me in the back yard. At one point my neighbor, Joel, came out to get his dog, Rusty, and announced that he was going to see a movie. Joel seemed to indicate, without getting specific, that I really shouldn't be talking to Ignacio. Ignacio, I must admit, does seem a bit off balance, as they say; but we had a good conversation none-the-less. Besides, I'm certainly not in a position to criticize anyone for being of balance.

At any rate I ended up with a papaya tree start. I also have a mango tree start growing from seed at the base of the mango tree in the back yard. Papaya has become a daily component of my breakfast and I look forward to the mangoes, that apparently ripen in May and June.

Friday Evening at the Symphony

I went again to the Yucatan Symphony Friday evening. The program was music by Mexican composers, with seven vocal selections.

Next Friday the program will be five of the brass players, two trumpets, a French horn, and my neighbor Joel on the trombone.

Living in the Satsop for almost thirty years I rarely had an opportunity attend symphonic concerts so it’s a real treat for me to have the concert hall just up the street.

Soil Sifting Operation

Here's my soil sifting operation. I am using palm frond stems to support the hardware cloth. I excavate the soil with my mattock, throw a shovel full of material on the screen, rub the material around until all of the soil goes through, then flick the stones remaining on the screen into the stone pile, which you can see in the foreground. You can see a pile of screened soil at the upper left.

Ok, so I'm a bit short on posting ideas today. Besides, I know that some of you become tired of my tirades and political postings, so thought you might enjoy pictures of my peasant gardening operation.

Watermelon Close Up

The watermelons and cantaloupes are sprouting their third sets of leaves.

Lettuce and Cantaloupe Close Ups

Bill Richardson's Presidential Ambitions Go Down the Tube

Why would anyone lie about being drafted by the Kansas City Athletics?

Read all about it here, if you're interested.

Garden Update

Here is a shot of the back yard. In the foreground is the black plastic covered compost pile, which is really cooking now and teeming with mice feasting of my fruit and vegetable scraps. The bed by the blue buckets is now home to 24 little lettuce plants that are slowly growing.

Beyond the lettuce bed can be seen the screen I am using to sift the ubiquitous stones from the soil to produce a suitable medium for the tomatoes and habaneras. I have spread the sifted stones to form a path between the lettuce bed and compost pile.

In the distance can be seen the four round beds in which are planted six watermelon and seven cantaloupe plants that are also growing slowly.

Yesterday, Manuel, and employee of my landlord Sr. Monsreal, cut the back yard with a barely functioning weed eater, though I had already cut the area around the melon beds with my machete. Sr. Monsreal, by the way, is a really wonderful fellow who, when I ask if my gardening project is creating any problems, repeatedly tells me that he wants me to consider "this your home."

Yesterday I also bought eight sacks of soil from the mountains from one of the fellows that periodically drives down the street in his horse drawn cart hollering "tierra, tierra." It is rich, dark, loamy soil which I will use when transplanting the tomatoes and habaneras.

With all of the hacking with my mattock, chopping with my machete, and sifting of the soil I am getting lots of exercise, losing weight, getting quite tan, and have convinced the neighbors that I am indeed El Gringo Loco. I'm feeling quite proud of my work, not to mention that it keeps me out of the bars.

National Health Insurance

Many of us have been arguing for a single payer, government operated health insurance program for quite some time. Our arguments have been met with red baiting. You know the trope.

Well, now that GM is facing bankruptcy and other mega-corporations are facing the financial pains wrought by a profit driven health care system, we should soon be seeing a nationalized, government operated health insurance program.

After all, what's good for GM is good for the nation. Not to mention, of course, that those mega-corporations exercise undue influence on our political system.

Remember Ubercrook Jack Abramoff?

Remember Jack Abramoff, the republican machine bag man/lobbyist already indicted for bank fraud related to the purchase of the SunCruz casino boat operation and whose other indicted business partner, Micahel Scanlon, has agreed to testify against Abramoff relative to the bribery of various congresspersons, including Ohio republican Bob Ney? Abramoff, you will also remember, is very close to DeLay and Rove.

Abramoff’s business partner in the purchase of SunCruz casino boat operation, Adam Kidan, has been implicated by one of the arrested mobster hit men, Anthony "Big Tony" Moscatiello, in the gangland execution of Gus Boulis, who, because he was not a citizen of the U. S., was forced to sell Sun Cruz, which Abramoff and Kidan have been charged with fraudulently purchasing.

The money paid for the murder allegedly was paid from a Sun Cruz business account. “Kidan had been fighting with Boulis for control of SunCruz Casino, a cruise ship gambling operation based out of Dania Beach” according to the report in the Sun-Sentinel.

Read the report here.

And here's more on the widening Abramoff investigation, for those interested.

Attn: UR

Don't I even get a hint of what I missed last evening? I would be interested in meeting (particularly if you are who I am hoping you are but probably aren't) but under less mysterious circumstances. How about coffee, or something more adventuresome, at the place of your choice?
I'll buy.

This Guy Should Be President

And Joel Connelly should be Vice-president

JOEL CONNELLYSEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST
CHENEY -- A sky-high dreamer from the Big Sky State, Gov. Brian Schweitzer aims to make Montana government a lobbyist-free zone and to "create the new energy center of the world."
The mint farmer and cattle rancher -- he once exported bull semen -- has already accomplished a near impossible task. He has revived the Democratic Party in an inland-west state snubbed by his party's presidential candidates.

A statewide poll released last week by Montana State UniversityBillings gives Schweitzer an approval rating of 68 percent, compared with 45 percent for President Bush. Schweitzer is getting noticed in nearby states.

The Montana governor whipped off his bolo tie for auction recently at a Spokane fund-raiser for Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. It went for $2,500.

"He's not your Seattle-type Democrat," said state Rep. David Gallik, a legislator from Helena who once worked as a U.S. Senate aide in Seattle.

Schweitzer was quick to make the same point during a visit to watch Eastern Washington play his alma mater, Montana State. "Well, look," he said, "the Democratic Party has allowed a few to be defining its message, but the party is a big tent."

But the governor is no fan of the Democratic Leadership Council -- the centrist outfit, once headed by an ambitious Arkansas governor named Bill Clinton, that is populated by Washington, D.C., lobbyists and funded by their corporate overlords.

"Washington, D.C., is a giant cesspool filled with special interests," Schweitzer said. "Unless we change the culture of Washington, D.C., we're not going to change the country."

I bet the DLC already has it's Rovian miners looking for dirt on this guy so they can cut him off at the knees just as they did, working with the Kerry and Gephardt campaigns, to Howard Dean.

Read Connelly’s column here.

Antonin Scalia - The Ultimate Judicial Activist

From the New York Post
November 22, 2005 -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says the high court did not inject itself into the 2000 presidential election.

Speaking at the Time Warner Center last night, Scalia said: "The election was dragged into the courts by the Gore people. We did not go looking for trouble."

But he said the court had to take the case.

"The issue was whether Florida's Supreme Court or the United States Supreme Court [would decide the election.] What did you expect us to do? Turn the case down because it wasn't important enough?"[emphasis added by You Know Me]

Let’s see, what did we expect the Supreme Court to do when the Bush campaign appealed the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to the U. S. Supreme Court?

How about conform to the U. S. Constitution and defer to the Florida high court?

To review in brief, on election night 2000 Florida counted the votes and determined that Bush and Cheney had received 1,700 and some more votes than did Gore and Lieberman. Gore, in accordance with Florida law, petitioned for recounts in certain counties. The Florida supreme court ordered that certain recounts proceed and that “under votes” in certain counties be counted. Bush petitioned the U. S. Supreme Court for a stay of the Florida high court’s ruling. Scalia, on behalf of the Supreme Court, accepted Bush’s petition. Ultimately a majority of the U. S. Supreme Court accepted Bush’s petition, stayed the Florida court’s ruling, and decided the election, rather than remand the matter to the Florida high court as suggested by a couple of Supreme Court justices.

I’m a college drop out, so am no legal scholar; but the Constitution seems quite clear to me on the subject of appointing “electors” to the Electoral College. Please, those schooled in the subject correct me if I’m wrong in my facts or conclusions.

Article II of the U. S. Constitution provides that:
Section I
[1] The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and together with the Vice-President, chosen for the same term, be elected as follows:
[2] Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of Electors, [emphasis added by You Know Me] equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress; but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

So the Constitution clearly establishes it as a duty of the states to determine how they are to appoint electors.

Article X of the Bill of Rights, or the tenth amendment to the Constitution, provides:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

It seems to me to be very simple. The state’s are assigned the duty to appoint electors and nothing in the Constitution even implies a role for the federal government in doing so. If the U. S. Supreme Court determined a Constitutional violation in the Florida high court’s adjudications then it should have remanded the matter to the Florida court as seems to be the norm for appellant courts, not decided the election as it did.

Justice Scalia talks a good line about eschewing judicial activism; but when it came to the most important decision to become before the Supreme Court during his tenure, he opted for activism.

Scalia is an ideologue and, despite his protestation otherwise, a judicial activist; and, thus, a hypocrite. Aside from that he is a very articulate, entertaining, humorous fellow and a completely arrogant pedant.

Bush Wanted to Bomb al-Jazeera Headquarters

The British newspaper the Daily Mirror is reporting, based upon a “Downing Street memo” described as a “five-page transcript of a conversation between Bush and British Prime Minister” that Bush told Blair that he wanted to bomb the headquarters of the al-Jazeera news agency “in the business district of Doha, the capital of Qatar.”

Blair reportedly convinced Bush of what a terrible idea it was.

Read the report here.

"The Man Who Sold the War"

James Bamford, a best selling author, reports in the “Rolling Stone” on the “The Man Who Sold the War”. He reports that the Pentagon and CIA’s hiring of the Rendon Group to sell the world on the plan to conquer Iraq. And guess what? One of the chief media conduits for the sales job was none other than Judith Miller.

It’s a fascinating story and one that should alarm every American. What in the world are our government agencies doing hiring marketing firms for the purpose of lying to us? And it’s not just the Bush administration, the Rendon Group was hired during the Clinton presidency. It is, if I’m not mistaking, a specific violation of law for our government to produce propaganda.

Our political system has rotted to its core; and that rot is shared by those media, religious, labor, and political organizations, and they are very many, that have abetted the corruption of our political system.

Read the “Rolling Stone” story here. It should make you really mad.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/8798997?pageid=rs.Home&pageregion=single7&rnd=1132253345109&has-player=false

Another Reason to Abolish the Death Penalty

The Houston Chronicle reports that Texas executed an man in 1993 for a crime he did not commit in 1984, when 17 years old.

Read the Chronicle story here.

Neretva River Delta

This is an area of the Neretva River delta on the Dalmatian cost of Croatia that has been intensively developed for agriculture.

Remember Curveball?

Remember “Curveball”, the Iraqi “engineer” whom was served up by Chalabi and the INC. Laura Rozen excerpts an L. A. Time piece "How the U. S. Fell Under the Spell of 'Curveball'" that includes the following gem.

But for the fact that tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed and maimed, that the Iraqi infrastructure has been destroyed, that Iraq is increasingly coming under the influence of Iran, and that thousands of innocent U. S. military personnel have been killed and maimed, this would really be funny.

George Tenet and some of his CIA managers should be in prison, along with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Libby, Hadley, Rhodes, Perle, and a bunch of others in the Bush administration.

From Laura Rozen’s blog “War and Piece”:
“And get this, from after the invasion, when the CIA WINPAC bioweapons analyst who had been one of the champions of Curveball's information, goes to Iraq to check out his story:”

[The following excerpted from the L. A. Times report]
After U.S troops failed to find illicit Iraqi weapons in the days and weeks after the invasion, the CIA created the Iraq Survey Group to conduct a methodical search in June 2003.

Tenet appointed Kay to head it. The pugnacious Texan was convinced that Baghdad had hidden mobile germ factories. Kay's teams returned to Djerf al Nadaf and other sites identified by Curveball.

One CIA-led unit investigated Curveball himself. The leader was "Jerry," a veteran CIA bio-weapons analyst who had championed Curveball's case at the CIA weapons center. They found Curveball's personnel file in an Iraqi government storeroom. It was devastating.

Curveball was last in his engineering class, not first, as he had claimed. He was a low-level trainee engineer, not a project chief or site manager, as the CIA had insisted.

Most important, records showed Curveball had been fired in 1995, at the very time he said he had begun working on bio-warfare trucks. A former CIA official said Curveball also apparently was jailed for a sex crime and then drove a Baghdad taxi.

Jerry and his team interviewed 60 of Curveball's family, friends and co-workers. They all denied working on germ weapons trucks. Curveball's former bosses at the engineering center said the CIA had fallen for "water cooler gossip" and "corridor conversations."

"The Iraqis were all laughing," recalled a former member of the survey group. "They were saying, 'This guy? You've got to be kidding.' "

Jerry tracked down Curveball's Sunni Muslim parents in a middle-class Baghdad neighborhood.

"Our guy was very polite," Kay recalled. "He said, 'We understand your son doesn't like Americans.' His mother looked shocked. She said, 'No, no! He loves Americans.' And she took him into [her son's] bedroom and it was filled with posters of American rock stars. It was like any other teenage room. She said one of his goals was to go to America."

The deeper Jerry probed, the worse Curveball looked.

Childhood friends called him a "great liar" and a "con artist." Another called him "a real operator." The team reported that "people kept saying what a rat Curveball was."

Jerry and another CIA analyst abruptly broke off the investigation and took a military flight back to Washington. Kay said Jerry appeared to be nearing a nervous breakdown.

"They had been true believers in Curveball," Kay said. "They absolutely believed in him. They knew every detail in his file. But it was total hokum. There was no truth in it. They said they had to go home to explain how all this was all so wrong. They wanted to fight the battle at the CIA."

Back home, senior CIA officials resisted. Jerry was "read the riot act" and accused of "making waves" by his office director, according to the presidential commission. He and his colleague ultimately were transferred out of the weapons center.

The CIA was "very, very vindictive," Kay said.

Soon after, Jerry got in touch with Michael Scheuer, a CIA analyst who felt he had been sidelined for criticizing CIA counterterrorism tactics. Scheuer would quit within a year.
"Jerry had become kind of a nonperson," Scheuer recalled of their meeting. "There was a tremendous amount of pressure on him not to say anything. Just to sit there and shut up."
A CIA spokeswoman confirmed the account, but declined to comment further. Jerry still works at the CIA and could not be contacted for this report. His former supervisor, reached at home, said she could not speak to the media. "What was done to them was wrong," said a former Pentagon official who investigated the case for the presidential commission. "But we didn't see it so much as a cover-up as an expression of how profoundly resistant to recognizing mistakes the CIA culture was."

Kay's findings

In December 2003, Kay flew back to CIA headquarters. He said he told Tenet that Curveball was a liar and he was convinced Iraq had no mobile labs or other illicit weapons. CIA officials confirm their exchange.

Kay said he was assigned to a windowless office without a working telephone.

On Jan. 20, 2004, Bush lauded Kay and the Iraq Survey Group in his State of the Union Speech for finding "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities…. Had we failed to act, the dictator's weapons of mass destruction program would continue to this day."
Kay quit three days later and went public with his concerns.

Senator Bob Graham Puts the Lie to the Latest Republican Talking Point

Former Florida Senator and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who voted against the authorization for he illegal invasion of Iraq, points out, in Sunday's Washington Post, that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Hadley, and their media propagandists are lying again, in their repeating the latest republican talking point that the 100 democratic congresspersons had access to the same intelligence to which did the Bush administration when voting to authorize the invasion.

May I also say what crap is Senator John Edward’s recent mea culpa. If Senator Graham and Vice-president Gore knew that the “intelligence” was cooked, then why did not Senators Edwards, Kerry, Clinton et al? I believe that the votes of Edwards, Kerry, Clinton, most of the other 100 democrats were driven by political calculation, as is Edwards phony mea culpa.

What I Knew Before the Invasion

By Bob Graham
Sunday, November 20, 2005

In the past week President Bush has twice attacked Democrats for being hypocrites on the Iraq war. "[M]ore than 100 Democrats in the House and Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power," he said.

The president's attacks are outrageous. Yes, more than 100 Democrats voted to authorize him to take the nation to war. Most of them, though, like their Republican colleagues, did so in the legitimate belief that the president and his administration were truthful in their statements that Saddam Hussein was a gathering menace -- that if Hussein was not disarmed, the smoking gun would become a mushroom cloud.

The president has undermined trust. No longer will the members of Congress be entitled to accept his veracity. Caveat emptor has become the word. Every member of Congress is on his or her own to determine the truth.

As chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, and the run-up to the Iraq war, I probably had as much access to the intelligence on which the war was predicated as any other member of Congress.

I, too, presumed the president was being truthful -- until a series of events undercut that confidence.

In February 2002, after a briefing on the status of the war in Afghanistan, the commanding officer, Gen. Tommy Franks, told me the war was being compromised as specialized personnel and equipment were being shifted from Afghanistan to prepare for the war in Iraq -- a war more than a year away. Even at this early date, the White House was signaling that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was of such urgency that it had priority over the crushing of al Qaeda.

In the early fall of 2002, a joint House-Senate intelligence inquiry committee, which I co-chaired, was in the final stages of its investigation of what happened before Sept. 11. As the unclassified final report of the inquiry documented, several failures of intelligence contributed to the tragedy. But as of October 2002, 13 months later, the administration was resisting initiating any substantial action to understand, much less fix, those problems.

Read Grahams complete statement here.