Innocence?

So, let's review the "innocent" facts here.

In July, a trailer for the film was posted on YouTube. In September, a stooge dubbed it into Arabic and brought it to the attention of the Arab-language press. Just in time to provoke convenient riots, (which anyone could have predicted as a response to such stimulus), and then the perfectly-timed attacks on the US embassies/consulates in Benghazi and Cairo. Which all just happened to take place on September 11th.

And you expect me to accept this as coincidence? While it's true I was born in the afternoon, it was not yesterday afternoon. And this whole affair reeks of Mossad. It follows the same pattern of manipulation, provocation, and false-flag attacks, a pattern which goes clear back to the Lavon Affair of the 1950's, (which Israel finally admitted to in 2005).

This is just too damn convenient, and if we ask ourselves cui bono?, the one clear answer, the one clear winner from all this, if it is accepted at face value, is Israel. An Israel whose ever-more-strident demands for someone, anyone, to attack Iran, are being increasingly ignored and marginalized. An Israel grown desperate for attention.

There is no innocence on display here, dear reader. There is no innocence at all. This is a display of pure, naked, bloody-hands-up-to-the-elbows guilt on the part of the Zionists.

Whither Goest Thou, YouTube?

Google has apparently gotten a wild hair up their collective corporate ass, and decided to enforce a mandatory real-names-only policy at YouTube, along with a strict G-rated policy which would ban all profanity. Their comment is that they want to "clean up" YouTube comments, and make it more "family friendly".

I'm reminded of a snippet I ran across in one of those wonderful old classic Science-fiction novels by Pournelle and Niven -

And so you would banish the four letter words,
whose meaning is never obscure. 
The Angles, the Saxons, those hardy old birds,
were vulgar, obscene, and impure.
And yet you take pride in the weaseling phrase,
that never quite says what it means.
You'd rather be known for your hypocrite ways,
than as vulgar, impure, and obscene.

For those who don't get the reference, remember that English is a blend of Old Anglo-Saxon and Norman French. Consider the fact that most of the words we consider vulgar, (a word which really just means "common"), are from the Old Anglo-Saxon. For example, take the "polite" words penis, vagina, and copulate. Now consider their "vulgar" or "profane" counterparts, cock, cunt, and fuck. The first three are all from Latin, probably via Norman French. The latter three words we inherited directly from Old Anglo-Saxon. When our English language was coming into being, the Norman nobility spoke one way, and their words were considered to be cultured and polite. The Anglo-Saxon commoners spoke another way, and their speech was considered to be "vulgar" or, well, common.

I have some real problems with this so-called "family friendly" policy, and to parents who endorse it, I would say this. They are your children. Not mine, not Google's, yours. Supervising them is your responsibility, not anyone else's. If you don't want your children getting in over their heads, then keep them in the shallow end of the pool, and pay some attention to what they are doing, rather than attempting to make someone else responsible for what is your job. Do not attempt to turn the entire online world into a kiddie pool.

I would also point out  that my experience with online games over the last eleven years has brought me into contact with a number of very young gamers. And every one of those young gamers, without exception, was astonishingly knowledgeable and sophisticated for his/her age. If it is your intention to keep your kids ignorant of the realities of life, you've been doing a piss-poor job of it.

I would also point out that there is no substitute for a parent that actually pays attention. The three universal laments that I hear from young gamers are these, "my parents don't care about me", and "my parents don't have a clue", and "they just ignore me except when they're yelling at me".

No internet filtering software will slow your kids down for more than 30 minutes. That's the absolute maximum time it will take them to look up and implement the means of circumventing it. Your kids know far more about editing Windows registry than you do, and they're fucking fearless. Remember, "the internet treats censorship as damage to the net, and re-routes around it". Your children understand that on an instinctive level, even if you do not.


In truth, I am more disturbed by this new policy, which Google has announced their intention to implement "soon", than I can really explain in my own words. YouTube, for all the comments section has frequently resembled one of those blue portable toilets on the last day of the county fair, after they've been baking in the summer sun for two weeks, has for years been a bastion of the online world. No, it hasn't been pretty, but freedom of expression never is. When people are free to say what they really think and feel, some of their utterances are going to be offensive to some other people. Know what? Tough shit. That's what freedom of expression means, being able to speak your mind, and if others don't like what you have to say, that's just too damn bad.

Sometimes, profanity is simply the best way to express yourself. Allow me to offer the following rather poignant example. Here is a video of the speech from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in London by Julian Assange. One of the first comments posted was this (note that I have reproduced the comment in all its semi-literate glory, complete with misspellings and multiple exclamation points)-

HE IS ANTI-AMERICAN SCUM!!!!! WE'LL GET HIM AND OUT HIM INTO GUANTANAMO FOR BEING A TRATOR AND INFORMATION TERRORIST!!!

And the second most popular comment, with 37 thumbs-up in one hour, was a response to that -

Oh please, go fuck yourself you dumb, uneducated piece of shit. He and wikileaks exposed U.S. war crimes, you are the fucking terrorist!


Note that the first comment will be acceptable under Google's new rules for YouTube, while the second one will not. And yet the latter obviously encapsulates the visceral response of a majority of those viewers who cared to express an opinion.

Sometimes you need to be able to say fuck. Some people desperately need to be told to go fuck themselves.

EDIT: Following up two hours after I wrote this, I discovered that several of the comments have already been censored by YouTube. The two top-rated comments are gone from the top comments box; both the one I quoted above and the absolute top-rated one, which said "this man is a living legend".  If you look back to the last page, and the next-to-last page, they are still there, and still showing 45 and 53 thumbs up, but they've been voodoo'ed out of the top comments box, replaced by comments with a fraction of the number of votes.

This means that YouTube is now being edited not just for profanity, but also for political opinions. Think about it. The top-rated comment, which said simply that Assange is an international hero, has been censored. It contained no profanity, or anything else offensive, just a political opinion which was apparently judged to be unacceptable. So much for Google's unofficial motto, eh?

Israel Attacks US Navy Ship

Forty-Five years ago today, the USS Liberty was attacked in international waters by unmarked aircraft and torpedo boats of the Israeli Navy.

The attack lasted two hours. Out of the crew of 294 officers and men, which included three civilians, 34 were killed and 173 wounded.

The whitewash of this incident continues to the present day, but the apparent facts of the matter are that the attack was absolutely deliberate, and carefully planned as a false-flag attack, with Egypt intended to take the blame. Israel, and their vehement lobby of apologists, continue to assert that the whole thing was a mistake. But the use of unmarked aircraft and boats, the fact that the USS Liberty was flying an enormous US flag throughout the attack, the fact that no other ship in the world had a profile like the USS Liberty, these things alone would be enough to refute the claims that it was a mistake.

Crew attempting to abandon ship were attacked in their lifeboats by the Israelis. This is a war crime, whoever the ship might have belonged to.

Twice, aircraft dispatched by the US Sixth Fleet to assist the Liberty were recalled, both times by direct order of the White House. This is betrayal, cold, stark, and undeniable.

Twice, there have been investigations of the USS Liberty incident. Both investigations have absolved Israel of blame. But, tellingly enough, in neither investigation have any of the surviving members of the Liberty's crew been allowed to testify. How does one explain this, other than as a blatant cover-up?

Links below for further information-

USS Liberty veterans organization

Dead In The Water, a BBC Documentary

USS Liberty Memorial, a site by Jim Ennes, a survivor of the attack

Statement by Adm Thomas H Moorer

Lies About Syria

Let's be blunt here. The entire media narrative we are being fed about Syria is a reeking crock of shit. The whole song and dance about -
Evil Assad is murdering his people and the Syrian resistance are a group of high-minded freedom fighters struggling to liberate their nation from tyranny and establish a democratic Syrian state with freedom and equality for all.

All of that is BS. The ugly truth of the matter is that the Syrian resistance are, in large part, foreign mercenaries backed by Qatar, Saudia Arabia, and the USA, and that said resistance are acting as agents provocateurs in an attempt to justify military intervention by NATO, in order to bring about regime change in Syria and install a puppet government.

As evidence of this, the Houla massacre is being distorted and exploited by a media campaign which was obviously prepared well in advance. The statement by the chief of the UN’s observer mission to the effect that the killers were unknown and further investigation needed was ignored. The UN resolution immediately submitted called upon the Syrian Army to stop using heavy weapons against inhabited areas, despite the Houla victims having been killed with small arms; the eye witnesses described the attackers as "men in plain clothes.”

Out of one side of their mouth the UN talking heads say that Houla was caused by heavy bombardment with tanks and artillery. Out of the other side of their mouth, they say that “the majority of the victims were killed execution-style”. Well, which is it? The hasbara isn’t even internally consistent, let alone consistent with external reality.

And yet nation after nation has booted its Syrian diplomats, under this pretext, even France, to my utter disappointment. (Then again, Hollande may not be completely in charge. DGSE has often seemed to act independently, regardless of the wishes of France’s civilian government).

The people who run the nations of the West are indescribably evil, yes, but they are not stupid. It is inconceivable that these European nations are actually deceived by the hasbara. They must know the truth. Therefore, it logically follows that they find it to be in their own best interests to pretend to believe.

Then again, one of the greats of early science-fiction (Asimov perhaps?) once said something like – “Never postulate conspiracy to explain that which could be explained equally well by incompetence”. And incompetence, dear reader, is a condition which can afflict even the most intelligent of men and women.

I’m really quite puzzled by the international reaction to all of this. I can usually sort out, at least roughly, what is going on behind the scenes, if only via a process of triangulating all the various lies. But the response to recent events in Syria leaves me standing here scratching my head and muttering, “Uhhh, whiskey tango foxtrot, over?”

Breitbart - Obama was born in Kenya after all

Like most of you, I never placed any credence in the "birther" claims. Granted, there has been some wild inconsistency in the administration's responses to the claims. First they said there was no birth certificate, because he was born at home. Then they published a birth certificate. Erm, which is it, folks? You can't have it both ways.

None the less, I have always dismissed the birther claims as right-wing propaganda.

But now Breitbart has uncovered a pamphlet from 1991 in which Obama's publisher listed him as "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii". Now, I don't know what to think.

Link to Breitbart report here

Claims like this are always suspect in an election year, and doubly so in the current election, but...

Chemical Weapons

Today, April 29th, has been recognised by the United Nations as the first annual day of remembrance for the victims of chemical warfare. Iran, as the target of the largest campaign of chemical warfare ever waged, has hosted a conference to commemorate this occasion.

In 1980, the newly declared Islamic Republic of Iran was invaded by Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Most observers accept that the United States, which was then an important ally of Iraq, urged the attack in an attempt to topple the new and still uncertain Iranian government. Certainly the US government supplied Saddam Hussein with some of the chemical weapons which were used against Iran; the remainder of the chemical weapons were purchased from France and Germany, which also supplied the Iraqi military with tanks, aircraft, and other conventional weapon systems

Iraq declared that during the last 5 years of the war it used against the Iranians roughly 1800 tons of Mustard gas and 750 tons of nerve gas. Note that this is the only documented use of nerve gas which has ever been committed. Let it also be clearly understood that these chemical weapons were not simply used against military units, but primarily against civilian population centers in five Iranian border  provinces. During the course of the eight year war with Iraq, over one million Iranians were attacked with chemical weapons. To this day, 100,000 Iranians are suffering the after-effects of these chemical attacks.

So, dear reader, the next time you're being subjected to another increment in the ongoing barrage of warmongering anti-Iranian propaganda which is inflicted upon us by the Zionist media machine, stop and consider the past for a moment. Think about those untold thousands of dead Iranians, killed with chemical weapons supplied to Iraq by the USA, France, and Germany. And then ask yourself, do you think the Iranians perhaps have some reason for their mistrust?



(Open Salon readers can watch the video here)

Agonies of Shame

A response to this article in Desertpeace.

"He said, 'tell them your tax money is killing us.' That’s the bottom line. You have a responsibility here in the US."

In terms of abstract moral responsibility, yes, absolutely - no argument, no excuses.

But in purely pragmatic terms, you should understand that the US government has become totally unresponsive to the will of the people. The USA is not a democracy. The USA is an oligarchy, a plutocracy, a kleptocracy, choose whatever term pleases you best, but "We, The People" no longer have any control over "our" government. None, zero, zip, nada.

Peaceful protest isn't going to change that. Peaceful reform is impossible, because the powers-that-be have systematically corrupted the very organs of government upon which peaceful reform depends. They control everything except our minds, and with some of my fellow citizens, I wonder about even that.

So tell me I'm responsible, and I agree. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. But what, by the 999 names of God, do you expect me to do about it? Yes, I boycott Israeli products. Yes, I encourage others to do the same. And that counts for what, maybe 1% of the moral responsibility?

Do not misunderstand me. I am not rejecting responsibility, I am not evading it. In truth I am writhing in agonies of shame. I am just pointing out that in purely practical terms, there is sweet Fanny Adams I can do about it.

Interview with Ramsey Clark

Although it was posted in early March, I just encountered this video today. This is a roughly 12 minute interview with Ramsey Clark, who was U.S. Attorney General in 1967-1969. Clark is getting quite elderly by now, as you can imagine, and he speaks as most old men do, with frequent pauses for thought, but his mind is still razor-sharp, that's obvious.

This is one of those rare interviews in which someone prominent, or formerly-prominent, tells some very blunt truths. I don't agree with what he says about the Occupy movement at the very end, but other than that, he's pretty much right on the money with all his answers, though a bit more restrained than I would be.




(Open Salon readers can watch the video here)

RT, in their usual fashion, has hung a questionable title on the video, but trust me, this is the Ramsey Clark interview. Do recall, dear reader, that this is a government-owned news organization, and keep your salt shaker handy. All that said, the interview is well worth watching.

Latest Developments in Syrian Farce

French Journalist Thierry Meyssan has another excellent article on what's really happening with Syria.

Reading this will give you a sense of deja vu, I can virtually guarantee. The contrast between the story as spun by mainstream media, (including, sadly, Al Jazeera), and Meyssan's account of what's really going on is almost surrealistic.

It's the same old, same old Zionist propaganda machine at work again, as abetted and enabled by their lackeys at the US State Department, but Meyssan shares with us a few little tidbits that the MSM are not covering, such as the following quote -

General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General James Mattis, commander of United States Central Command, finally admitted that the U.S. Air Force was not in a position to bomb Syria, if ordered to, considering that the country is now equipped with Russia’s most effective anti-aircraft system in the world.

Oh my.

R.I.P. Al Jazeera

I have avoided writing about this until now, because there was little substantial evidence to back up the rumors, but now that has changed.

Al Jazeera English has been prostituted, and is no longer a reliable source of information.

This all began a bit over a year ago, with the departure in late 2011 of Wada Khanfar, who had been director-general of Al Jazeera since its inception. At that time, there were rumors that the Emir of Qatar, who owns Al Jazeera, was ending his previous policy of non-interference. Apparently, the Arab Spring has frightened the Emir, as it has frightened all the despots of the Middle East, and he has decided to cast his lot whole-heartedly with the Western Powers.

The first rumors emerged about a year ago, during the Libyan campaign, alleging that much of AJ's supposedly "live" coverage from Tripoli was actually shot upon a sound stage in Doha, (Qatar), which was made up to look just like the main square in Tripoli (Libya). Certainly, beyond a doubt, Al Jazeera was leading the charge in the information war against the Gaddafi regime.

At about that same time, the USA suddenly stopped blocking AJ from broadcasting in the USA, with no explanation of why, other than the usual mealy-mouthed bureaucratic bullshit.

And, over the last year, Al Jazeera has been leading the propaganda campaign against Syria, lobbying hard for military intervention, while totally ignoring the disturbing indications that there is an orchestrated covert effort by western powers to destabilize Syria. This, along with the Libyan campaign, is another step in the plan of Middle East conquest laid out by PNAC, the Project for a New American Century.

At this point, it is worth digressing a bit in order to interject a note of cold realism. The peoples of the western world in general, and we Americans in particular, have a painfully naive yearning for situations to be simple. Mesmerized by movies and television, we desperately want it all to be a simple matter of good guys and bad guys, white hats and black, with a happy ending where the hero marries the girl and they all live happily ever after.

Life is not like that, however desperately we may wish it to be.

In the Middle East, there are no good guys. It is never a matter of good guys versus bad guys. It is a matter of bad guys versus worse guys. There are no heroes, and every faction's hands are bloody up to the armpits. No amount of denial or wishful thinking will change this.

Similarly, there are no completely neutral, completely reliable sources of information in the world. This is a Holy Grail which does not exist. The only thing a netizen can do, is to take in what she can from what sources seem least biased, and attempt to triangulate an approximate truth from there.

Bashar al Assad, while not quite the evil tyrant his father was, is certainly no angel. But he is the chief of state of a sovereign nation. And there is a well-orchestrated effort underway to overthrow the Assad government. This effort consists of mercenaries, spies, and "journalists" who are in the employ of western intelligence agencies. The narrative being related to us by the mainstream media is an absolute fabrication.

For a first-hand account of events in Syria by French journalist Thierry Meyssan, see this story.

For the now-emerging details of increasing resignations from Al Jazeera, in protest against the increasingly obvious political agenda of its new directors, see the video below.




(Open Salon readers can watch the video here)

And yet, again, remember to keep your salt shaker handy. Russia Today is a useful source of information, but they are far from unbiased.

Hang on to your hat, dear reader, it is going to be a wild ride from here. Let's just hope your faithful correspondent is still alive and blogging a year from now. Let's hope there is still an intact world in which bloggers can exist, a year from now. Keep your head up, your eyes and ears open, and don't forget to check your six.

A Wart on The Ass of San Diego

Yes, you read that right.

Mitt Romney bought a house here in San Diego. Well, in La Jolla, dahling, where the people of quality live, don't you know.

On the coast, of course. With a private beach, of course.

The price tag? Well, only twelve million dollars, scarcely pocket change for a rich Republican.

Now he's tearing that old house down, and replacing it with a mansion of 11,000 square feet. Needless to say, the local regulatory agencies are falling all over themselves to approve the necessary permits. In spite of the 1936 vintage of the current house, city planners decreed that there was no need to go before the Historic Resources Board, citing a "lack of continuity". The La Jolla Community Planning Group and the California Coastal Commission have already signaled their approval.

If you do not live here, you may not understand how odd this, but these agencies usually take years to approve such requests, if they ever approve them at all.

Isn't it wonderful how the patronage system works, for those of wealth and privilege who can take advantage of it?

It's enough to make a sea gull puke.

Friday Potpourri

Desertpeace has a highly disturbing article on HR347, which was approved in the House by a vote of 388-3, and quietly passed through the Senate by unanimous consent. Not one Democrat politician voted against this draconian expansion of existing law, existing law was originally enacted in 1971 to quash the protest against the Vietnam war.

So, what's so horrible about HR347? Oh, just the little fact that it kills your First Amendment right "peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances".

The article is here. Fair warning- the top part is silly bullshit; I'm not afraid of Communists. Just skip down to the title "US Congress expands authoritarian anti-protest law", and read from there.

When I first read about HR347, the first thing that occurred to me was the similarity, in intent if not in language, to the Sedition Act, which was passed by the British Government of the 13 colonies immediately prior to the American Revolution.

Next up on our Friday review of sunshine, rainbows, and happy news, A Russian economist named Sergei Karaganov has an interesting piece on authoritarian democracy posted at AJE.

As one would expect from any Russian academic, (remembering that I'm a child of the Cold War era, and anything I say about Russians is to be taken with a grain of salt), some of the article is pedantically obscure, but the one paragraph that leaped out and grabbed me was this -

First, social inequality has grown unabated in the West over the last quarter-century, owing in part to the disappearance of the Soviet Union and, with it, the threat of expansionist communism. The spectre of revolution had forced Western elites to use the power of the state to redistribute wealth and nurture the growth of loyal middle classes. But, when communism collapsed in its Eurasian heartland, the West's rich, believing that they had nothing more to fear, pressed to roll back the welfare state, causing inequality to rise rapidly. This was tolerable as long as the overall pie was expanding, but the global financial crisis in 2008 ended that.

Wow, talk about hitting the nail on the head. This is a good example of why it is so vitally important for we Americans to read political commentary by foreign sources; because they bring to the issues a perspective which we do not otherwise have. Yes, Virginia, it is about class warfare, and so far the casualties have all been on our side.

Ok, not to end on a down note, (cue the dancing unicorns!), here is some genuinely happy news.

It would appear that Sarkozy is doomed, as far as chances of re-election, with his Socialist rival ahead in the polls by 58%-42%. Then again, French elections are complex affairs, as the article explains. His so-called "Socialist" rival isn't really much of a Socialist, being barely left of centre. And Sarkozy may yet pick up a measure of support from the Right if he continues to succeed in his attempts to keep Marine Le Pen off the ballot through the usual political dirty tricks. We shall see what we shall see.

And that, dear reader, is all your favorite beady-eyed varmint has for you today.

Don't Iraq Iran

So, the drums of war are beating again, and the US military continues with an unmistakeable build-up of forces for an attack on the people of Iran. It's a terrible feeling to see this coming, to watch the preparations, to watch the propaganda campaign gain momentum, and to be unable to do anything to prevent it.

Phone your Senator. Sure, that will help. Reality check - the Senate has already been bribed, the fix is in, the dirty back-room deals are made, and nobody in DC gives a fuck what we think.

Our own government admits on the one hand that there is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, and out of the other side of its mouth, we get the endless, brainless propaganda bombardment about the Iranian "threat". Our nation is controlled and owned, lock stock and barrel, by the Zionist Lobby.

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.

Link to article at Desertpeace

Lt Col Davis Breaks News: Afghanistan Is Lost

First, let me begin with the gratuitous "I Told You So". I have been saying for some time now that the war in Afghanistan is Vietnam II, and I have also been saying for some time now that the USA is headed for another disaster.

Now a currently-serving military officer, one just returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan, is saying much the same thing. Oh my.

Here is the original article, "Truth, lies and Afghanistan" by Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis, in the Armed Forces Journal, no less.

Here are the first two paragraphs of that article -

I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners. My duties with the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. Over the course of 12 months, I covered more than 9,000 miles and talked, traveled and patrolled with troops in Kandahar, Kunar, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Kunduz, Balkh, Nangarhar and other provinces.

What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.

The article itself is fairly short, very blunt, and absolutely worth reading.

Also worth noting is the fact that while overseas media are having a field day, US media have mostly ignored this story, aside from one article that I found in the NYT. Then again, in all fairness, this copy of the AFJ was just published on Sunday. Give Amerika time to recover from its Super Hangover.

So, will anyone listen? Will this blunt, brutal dose of Truth-with-a-capital-T have any effect upon the course of events? No, of course not. Washington in general, and the Pentagon in particular, have a constitutional inability to ever admit error. So they will drive off the cliff. Again.

It's been 43 years since the Tet Offensive caught General Westmoreland and MACV with their pants around their ankles, but the Pentagon has apparently learned fuck-all nothing since then. My heart goes out to the line animals who pay the most direct and immediate price for the idiocy of their so-called "superiors". When the brass screws the pooch, it's always the poor gunbunnies who take it in the shorts.

Some things never change.

I'll say it again. The USA will exit Kabul the same way it exited Saigon, with a panicked last-minute evacuation of the embassy as the victorious insurgents enter the capital. Somewhere Ho Chi Minh is laughing his ass off.

Welfare Piss Test

A little something on the lighter side today, dear reader.

I do not watch TV, at all, and I haven't for over a decade. In fact, my TV has been unplugged for over two years now, and I even discontinued the minimal cable TV service I once had.

But a fellow 99er in Florida, an all-around good person by the name of Ellen Turner, sent me this link to a Jon Stewart episode that is just too good not to share. It's even worth sitting through the obnoxious commercial that precedes it. Ugh.

But the best part of the issue isn't even mentioned in the video. You see, Florida governor Rick Scott, who has been busted for MediCare and MediCal fraud multiple times, owns the string of clinics where the piss tests are to be performed. Oh wait, excuse me, he recently transferred legal control of the clinics to his wife. Well, that makes it alright then, doesn't it?

Part of what's so scary today is the shamelessly blatant manner in which the elites engage in their corruption. With the elites controlling the MSM to the extent that they do, it seems they don't even bother to hide their dirty dealings anymore.

And so I ask you once again the question I asked in my first blog. Quo vadis, my friends, quo vadis? Where in the name of seven hells are we going from here?

Where on Earth Is The USS Vincennes?

Do you remember the Vincennes, boys and girls? She is the fourth of that name, CG-49 by hull number, a guided missile cruiser generally remembered for having shot down an Iranian airliner in 1988. The destruction of Iran Air flight Six Five Five killed all 290 passengers, including 66 children.

The reasons behind this appalling crime have never been fully (or even partially) explained. Here in San Diego, many of us remember the rest of the story, in which the captain of the Vincennes then tried to murder his wife by planting a bomb in her mini-van, and blaming it on "retribution" by the Iranians. Fortunately, the competence of local law enforcement was up to the challenge, and his machinations were revealed.

So, all that tedious history aside, where is the Vincennes today? According to official sources, she was decommissioned in 2005, sold to International Shipbreaking in mid-2010, and completely broken-up by November of last year, roughly 3 months ago. According to this timeline, Vincennes was in Brownsville, Texas from November 2010 onwards.

Yet other eye-witness sources have related that Vincennes was in fact in Bremerton until some time late last year, when she was towed out of harbor in the middle of the night.

From here, things get weird. There has even been some speculation that Vincennes was towed to the Persian Gulf, and is currently at 5th Fleet HQ in Bahrain. This line of thinking then goes on to postulate that she is being prepared for use as a sacrificial lamb in a false-flag attack which will then be used as casus belli for an assault on Iran.

My first reaction was extremely skeptical. But, then again, in a world where so much of the so-called "news" is just smoke-and-mirrors, how can we say where the credible ends and the ridiculous begins?

Police Fire On Demonstrators At UC Riverside

Police at University of California Riverside opened fire upon demonstrators with so-called "pepper balls" yesterday, during a meeting of the Board of Regents. Press TV had reported yesterday that the police fired rubber bullets at protesters, but I am unable to find any corroboration of that, so I'm guessing it was just confusion of the moment.

Story with video here.

And another story with different video here.

This is the second time recently that we have seen California police, at UC campuses, going way overboard with use of force. At this rate, we are heading for another Kent State incident.

As a son of the Golden State, this is profoundly disturbing to me. The disconnect between community and law enforcement has been driven to such an extreme, mostly by the so-called "War on Drugs", that a serious potential for major disaster has been created.

Absit omen.

Caught Red-Handed

Watch the video below, my friends. Listen carefully.



(Open Salon readers can watch the video here)


Yes, a Jewish man was behind the string of so-called "Anti-Semitic Hate Crime" incidents.

This is not a unique happening. In fact, it's more like a typical pattern of behavior. Jews carrying out false-flag "attacks" upon their own community in an attempt to generate sympathy for themselves and Israel, and hatred against Muslims.

Now, ask yourself, is it more likely that this is just coincidence, just copy-cat syndrome? Or is it more likely that this is being coordinated through some central authority? In an election year. While the Zionists and their supporters are beating the war drums against Iran.

You make the call.

When Anti-Semitism Is Abused

Apologies to Sarah Wildman for stealing her title, but it was so appropriate.

I'm not even going to add anything of my own to this, dear reader, lest the eloquence of her message be adulterated. I'm just going to point you to this article at Desertpeace, written by Sarah Wildman, on the use and abuse of the term "Anti-Semite".

Go, Sarah, go!

2003 Redux

Just as the US government stampeded us into a totally unjustified invasion of Iraq in 2003, based upon fabricated evidence, so there is another effort underway to justify an attack on Iran.

Yes, I've said this before, but it's serious business, and worth repeating. Washington DC has apparently gone bugfuck crazy, and embarked upon another of those "we are an empire now; we create our own reality" escapades.

Watch the video, or at least the first 10 minutes of it, and see for yourselves. Change we can believe in, yeah, but not a change we would have picked if we'd had a choice. I am almost wishing I'd voted for McCain. Things would be just as bad, I'm sure, but at least we'd have an open enemy in the White House, and not this wolf-in-sheep's-clothing called Obama.



(Open Salon readers can watch the video here)

Again, the usual disclaimer. This video is from PressTV, which is an Iranian news service. You should keep the salt shaker handy, and your bullshit filters firmly in place, as you should when screening news from any source, foreign or domestic.