Why Are Things As They Are?

We Say Fight Back!

Communications Workers in US Strike: Two unions representing 45,000 workers at Verizon Communications announced early Sunday that they were calling an immediate strike because of a lack of progress in contract negotiations. www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/us/07verizon.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

Those on the East Coast can find a picket line to visit here.
Supporters all over the country will soon be able to “adopt a Verizon Wireless store” in their area and help to organize pickets at that location.
Finally, without even leaving your computer, you can sign the petition in support of the 45,000 CWA and IBEW workers on strike.

Do Not Scab! Visit and Join a Nearby Picket Line!

Reminder: You can find Good ways to Stop Scabs here

Belated Congratulations to M. Zola for “Money”

Zola: The truth is on the march and nothing will stop it.

Inequality and Racist Cops Spark Brit Uprisings. The “rich are stealing, why can’t we?”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-VibEd2ZXo

David Harvey on the Brit Risings: he problem is that we live in a society where capitalism itself has become rampantly feral. Feral politicians cheat on their expenses, feral bankers plunder the public purse for all its worth, CEOs, hedge fund operators and private equity geniuses loot the world of wealth, telephone and credit card companies load mysterious charges on everyone’s bills, shopkeepers price gouge, and, at the drop of a hat swindlers and scam artists get to practice three-card monte right up into the highest echelons of the corporate and political world.
A political economy of mass dispossession, of predatory practices to the point of daylight robbery, particularly of the poor and the vulnerable, the unsophisticated and the legally unprotected, has become the order of the day.
Does anyone believe it is possible to find an honest capitalist, an honest banker, an honest politician, an honest shopkeeper or an honest police commissioner any more? Yes, they do exist. But only as a minority that everyone else regards as stupid. Get smart. Get easy profits. Defraud and steal! The odds of getting caught are low. And in any case there are plenty of ways to shield personal wealth from the costs of corporate malfeasance. climateandcapitalism.com/?p=5207

Bay Area Marches Against Cop Murder

More than one hundred Bay Area residents rallied in front of the OUSD building on 2nd Ave and e10th Street in Oakland to call for the immediate disbandment of the school police and the firing of Officers Barhin Bhatt and Jonathan Bellusa who shot Brown multiple times after claiming he brandished a screw driver. The only civilian witness on the scene, Tamisha Stewart, says Bellusa and Bhatt murdered Brown after calling him racist epithets, that Brown was unarmed and not a threat to the police.
Brown’s mother, Lori Davis, who co-organized Wednesday’s rally with the support of Idriss Stelley Foundation, noted that Bellusa was hired by Oakland School Police after he was let go from OPD following concerns stemming from his questionable use of force.

Bart Shuts Down Cellphones to Halt Protest: To nip protest in the bud, authorities cut off a public communications system.

When the Mubarak government did that to Egypt’s Internet service last winter, it was met with outrage and underscored that the regime’s days were numbered. When the San Francisco rapid transit system killed its underground cellphone service Thursday night, it also prompted a wave of anger.
The Bay Area Rapid Transit, or Bart, as the system is known, was worried about a group called No Justice No Bart, which is protesting the fatal shooting of a 45-year-old man by Bart police officers last month. A July 11 protest by the group briefly shut the system’s Civic Center station.  http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/12/bay-area-authorities-cut-cell-coverage-to-thwart-protestors/?hp

Make Sense, Make Change, and Protect the Rebels: For well over a decade, a few professors, teachers, parents, community people, and maybe even more students, have made the now-tedious case against high-takes exams as racist, unscientific, class-based tools of segregation.

While often missing the point of the education agenda as an empire’s war and class war agenda, which should be abundantly evident, test opponents have appealed with impeccable logic, passion, cleverness, and too few simple “F-you”s.
The Big Test issue involves power, money (always), and people as well.
Test boycotts are a fine form of people-power. They don’t reach the level of the even-better actions of last school year (building seizures, bank occupations, student strikes, the library occupations in Chicago, and so on), but they would be a beginning, again. Sometimes the spiral of change arcs back on itself.  richgibson.com/protectrebels.htm
Rebels, though, need protective cover.

The Little Red Schoolhouse

With Obama Puppet Duncan, NCLB becomes The RaTT Plus Common Core and Worse: To get a waiver from the program, however, states must agree to host of education reforms the White House favors — from tougher evaluation systems for teachers and principals to programs tackling the achievement gap for minority students….  news.yahoo.com/ed-secy-states-waivers-no-child-tests-191119663.html

Insider Trading? Goldman Sachs Moved McGraw Hill to Buy Status 3 Weeks before Duncan Announcement of fake Waivers: upgraded McGraw-Hill (NYSE: MHP) from Neutral to Buy with a $50 some-of-the-parts price target, which suggest 20% upside. The firm notes the company is unlocking value, as it is 20% undervalued versus peer rating agency, data and education segments. “We believe MHP’s planned broadcasting sale and ongoing segment review may unlock value via additional divestiture, or spin-offs,” the analyst said. Goldman also sees higher EPS and is raising 2012-2013 EPS estimates above the consensus. FY11 EPS goes from $2.82 to $2.87 and FY12 goes from $3.07 to $3.25. FY13 is at $3.60.

In addition, legal and regulatory risks seem near a cycle-end, the firm noted    www.streetinsider.com/Hot+Upgrades/Goldman+Sachs+Upgrades+McGraw-Hill+(MHP)+to+Buy,+Sees+20%25+Upside/6634746.html

And then there is that McGraw Hill Ownership of S and P (one reason S and P was hired to grade the Michigan Meap): Although its Standard & Poor’s business, the company’s biggest unit, has performed well over the last two years, analysts see the ailing education business as a drag on the company’s valuation.   www.efinancialnews.com/story/2011-08-02/mcgraw-hill-jana-ontario

New Bosses of Corporate State Takeover of Detroit Schools (the 3rd in 12 years) named (a mirror of the Good Bank/Bad Bank scheme): he board members are: Sharlonda Buckman, CEO and executive director for Detroit’s Parent Network; Mike Morris, chairman and chief executive officer of American Electric Power; Jim Stapleton, member of the Board of Regents at Eastern Michigan University; Mike Duggan, president and CEO of Detroit Medical Center; Carol Goss, president and chief executive officer of The Skillman Foundation who also will serve as vice chair of the EAS board; Reverend Dr. Joseph Ralph Jordan, pastor of Corinthian Baptist Church in Hamtramck; Mark Murray, president of Meijer, Inc. in Grand Rapids; Dr. William Pickard, chairman and chief executive officer of VITEC and also chairman and chief executive officer of Global Automotive Alliance; Shirley Stancato, president and CEO of New Detroit, Inc.; and Judith Kaye Berry, associate vice president, Strategic Initiatives, Office of the Provost at Lansing Community College.   www.freep.com/article/20110811/NEWS06/110811027/Board-will-take-control-state-s-lowest-performing-schools-sworn-in

Then the New Detroit Czar Uses School Money to Buy Himself a $40,000 SUV: While facing a $327-million DPS deficit and pay cuts districtwide, Roberts said that he recently authorized the purchase of a new sport utility vehicle for his use because the former one was falling apart. www.freep.com/article/20110811/NEWS01/110811038/DPS-chief-Roberts-defends-purchase-40-000-SUV-district-funds?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

Taliban’s Payback: Seal Team Osama Chinook Knocked Out: Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Washington— Taliban insurgents shot down a U.S. Chinook helicopter early Saturday, killing 31 American troops and seven Afghans aboard, U.S. and Afghan officials said. It was the war’s greatest single-incident loss of military lives. <p>
The casualties included members of SEAL Team Six, the special operations unit that carried out the raid in Pakistan this spring that killed Osama bin Laden   www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fgw-afghan-chopper-20110806,0,7091814.story

USA to Iraq Puppets: Make Us stay in Your Country + kill people The raid on July 30 in the grape farming village of Al Rufait left three dead, including a tribal sheik, and there were conflicting reports about whether the troops were shot at before opening fire. The United States military said that American troops had participated in the mission along with the Iraqis, but the raid was controversial partly because the man the troops had sought was not found. Local officials say that while the village may have once harbored insurgent sympathies, it is not a hotbed of the simmering Sunni insurgency.
The Americans would like to have some troops remain in Iraq after the end of the year in part to serve as a counterweight to Iran. www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/world/middleeast/07iraq.html?hp

Of course, It is Not about Iraqi Oil: Iraqi forces take a closer look at what really lurks underneath the American’s surface claim that it is motivated solely by the inadequacy of Iraqi troops.
There’s concern, not only among the Sadrists but also among other Shi’ite factions, including Maliki’s own, that the Americans want to linger on in Iraq because of their Kurdish proteges. The history of Iraq since the first Gulf war of 1990-91 lends enough credence to their argument that the Americans would like to chaperon the Kurds for as long as possible.
The Kurds, led by Masood Barzani, have been sheltered by the Americans ever since the first Gulf war ended. They have been ruling and lording over the Kurdish areas virtually like an independent entity, and Baghdad’s influence over the Kurdish lands is non-existent.
However, the future of Kirkuk, the oil-producing heart of Iraq, still hangs in the balance, with both the Arabs and Kurds of Iraq claiming it as theirs, exclusively. The Americans have stood in between the two in Kirkuk like a referee and still seem to covet, if not exactly relish, that role.    www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MH06Ak03.html

“Shouting in the Dark,” Surpressed (so far) by Al Jazeera after one showing, on the US Key Ally, Saudi Kingdom, Attack on Bahrain

Libya Demands Brit PM Resignation over Riots: The Libyan government Wednesday called for British Prime Minister David Cameron to step down, saying that because of the riots shaking Britain, he had “lost all legitimacy”. Libya’s deputy foreign minister Khaled Kaim told th Libyan news agency, JANA: “Cameron and his government must leave after the popular uprising against them and the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations by police. Cameron and his government have lost all legitimacy,” he said.

Kaim went on to say: “These demonstrations show that the British people reject this government which is trying to impose itself through force.” He called on the UN Security Council and the international community to not stay with its arms crossed in the face of the flagrant violation of the rights of the British people.
Britain is one of the first states to recognise the rebels’ National Transitional Council as Libya’s legitimate government, and on Tuesday even officially gave the go-ahead for the NTC to take over the Libyan embassy in London.
With France, Britain are spearheading NATO’s aerial bombing campaign against the Libyan regime since March, when the United Nations approved action to protect Libyan civilians.   tripolipost.com/articledetail.asp?c=1&i=6615

US Using War-criminal Mercs to Fight its Wars in Somalia: Richard Rouget, a gun for hire over two decades of bloody African conflict, is the unlikely face of the American campaign against militants in Somalia.
A husky former French Army officer, Mr. Rouget, 51, commanded a group of foreign fighters during Ivory Coast’s civil war in 2003, was convicted by a South African court of selling his military services and did a stint in the presidential guard of the Comoros Islands, an archipelago plagued by political tumult and coup attempts.
Now Mr. Rouget works for Bancroft Global Development, an American private security company that the State Department has indirectly financed to train African troops who have fought a pitched urban battle in the ruins of this city against the Shabab, the Somali militant group allied with Al Qaeda. …“I think that neither the international community in general nor the U.S. government in particular really knows what to do with the failure of the political process in Somalia,” said J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa program at the Atlantic Council, a Washington research institution.   www.nytimes.com/2011/08/11/world/africa/11somalia.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1&hp

We Asked, “Who Wants War with China?” Silly us. Taiwan Answered with Memories of Tiger Chang (unleash Tiger Chang!): Taiwan is hailing its most advanced missile as “an aircraft carrier killer” on the same day that China began sea trials of it first aircraft carrier.
During the preview for a defense exhibition Wednesday, Taiwan brandished the indigenous Hsiung Feng III missile against the backdrop of a billboard depicting a missile-riddled aircraft carrier.
The billboard bore the words: “Aircraft carrier killer.”   www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2011/08/10/taiwan_hails_missile_as_aircraft_carrier_killer/

China Doubles Down with Stealth Jet

New Numbers on the Hellbound Killer Drones:

291 CIA attacks have taken place in Pakistan – 8% more than previously reported. Under President Obama alone there have been 236 strikes – one every four days.
Between 2,292 and 2,863 people are reported to have died in the attacks – most of them militants
The minimum number of reported deaths is far higher than previously believed – with 40% more recorded casualties. Most of those killed are likely to be low-ranking militants.
126 named militants have so far been killed.
The Bureau has collated credible news reports of 385-775 civilians being killed in the attacks.
The Bureau has identified credible reports of 164 children killed in the drone strikes. Under President Bush, one in three of all attacks is reported to have killed a child.
For the first time the Bureau has compiled accurate details of recorded injuries in drone strikes, revealing that at least 1,114 people have been wounded.   www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/08/10/most-complete-picture-yet-of-cia-drone-strikes/

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

Children’s Defense Fund on the US War on Kids: • The number of children living in poverty has increased by four million since 2000, and the number of children who fell into poverty between 2008 and 2009 was the largest single-year increase ever recorded.
• The number of homeless children in public schools increased 41 percent between the 2006-7 and 2008-9 school years.
• In 2009, an average of 15.6 million children received food stamps monthly, a 65 percent increase over 10 years.
• A majority of children in all racial groups and 79 percent or more of black and Hispanic children in public schools cannot read or do math at grade level in the fourth, eighth or 12th grades.

• The annual cost of center-based child care for a 4-year-old is more than the annual in-state tuition at a public four-year college in 33 states and the District of Columbia.    www.nytimes.com/2011/08/06/opinion/the-decade-of-lost-children.html?emc=eta1

The Full Childrens Defense Fund Report: www.childrensdefense.org/home.html

Gold Fever Takes Hold

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWNB66uUv-w

Gold futures extended a rally to a record, topping $1,800 an ounce, on mounting demand for a haven as global equities plunged amid escalating U.S. and European debt woes.
The MSCI World Index of shares approached the lowest level since September as U.S. stocks tumbled. The euro dropped as much as 1.5 percent against the dollar, and the yen strengthened close to a post-World War II high against the greenback. This week, gold has jumped 8 percent, the biggest three-day rally since November 2008.
“The race to debase currencies is on,” James Dailey, who manages $185 million at TEAM Financial Management LLC, said in a telephone interview from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. “Gold will continue to appreciate until there is a fundamental shift in government policies.”
Gold futures for December delivery climbed $41.30, or 2.4 percent, to settle at $1,784.30 at 2:13 p.m. on the Comex in New York. Earlier, the price reached a record $1,801, climbing to an all-time high for the third straight day.   washpost.bloomberg.com/Story?docId=1376-LPOS7K0D9L3501-2OJF0V36V82SM7EIB9S1OB05RC&hpid=z2

Poor Mitt’s Genetically Engineered Brainwashed Moment

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EZNEgS5iw0

Corporate State’s Postal System may cut 120,000 Jobs: Facing a second year of losses totaling $8 billion or more, the agency also wants to pull its workers out of the retirement and health benefits plans covering federal workers and set up its own benefit systems….The post office has cut 110,000 jobs over the last four years and is currently engaged in eliminating 7,500 administrative staff. In its 2010 annual report, the agency said it had 583,908 career employees.    www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/08/11/us/politics/AP-US-Postal-Problems.html?hp

When the Rich begin to Lose, the Rules Change: Short Selling Banned: A European market regulator announced Thursday night that short-selling of stocks in several countries would be temporarily banned in an effort to stop the tailspin in the markets. The move may put pressure on United States market regulators to ban short sales as well. American bank stocks have been volatile all week as global investors expressed concerns that problems in Europe might cross the ocean.   www.nytimes.com/2011/08/12/business/global/europe-considers-ban-on-short-selling.html?_r=2&hp&cid=nlc-dailybrief-daily_news_brief-link6-20110812

Pot Calls Out Kettle: AIG Sues Bank of America: In the latest round of score-settling, American International Group Inc. on Monday filed a lawsuit against Bank of America Corp. in New York Supreme Court. It is seeking to recover more than $10 billion on investments in mortgage-backed securities it initially purchased for about $28 billion between 2005 and 2007.
The 187-page lawsuit alleges “massive fraud” by Bank of America and two units it acquired, Merrill Lynch and Countrywide, saying that they packaged securities that were backed by “hundreds of thousands of defective mortgages.” The lawsuit is one of the largest of its kind brought by a single investor since the housing bubble popped. AIG is likely to file similar suits against others, people familiar with the matter said.   online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904007304576496101837999390.html

China To USA: Don’t F-up our Money! “China, the largest creditor of the world’s sole superpower, has every right now to demand the United States to address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China’s dollar assets,” the commentary said.
“If no substantial cuts were made to the U.S. gigantic military expenditure and bloated social welfare costs, the downgrade would prove to be only a prelude to more devastating credit rating cuts, which will further roil the global financial markets all along the way,” it continued.    www.latimes.com/business/la-fiw-china-response-20110807,0,3901161.story

Geithner Flunks High-Stakes Life Test: Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said Tuesday there is “no risk” the U.S. will lose its top credit rating amid a new analysis that revised its outlook on American debt to “negative.” Geithner took to the airwaves of financial news networks to push back against a report Monday by Standard & Poor’s that lowered its outlook on U.S. debt to “negative,” reflecting political uncertainty over whether lawmakers will reach an agreement to address long-term debt.There is no chance that the U.S. will lose its top credit rating, Geithner said, forcefully disputing the notion that S&P or other ratings services might downgrade U.S. bonds from their current AAA rating.“No risk of that, no risk,” Geithner said on the Fox Business Network.

visiontoamerica.org/2963/geithner-flashback-no-risk-the-us-will-lose-its-top-credit-rating/

Government Motors, of the Corporate State, Plans More Cuts over Time: Last week, G.M., which is 26 percent government-owned, reported that it earned $5.4 billion in the first half of the year as second-quarter earnings grew 89 percent. Its profit margins have increased as a result of higher revenue as well as wrenching cost cuts that included closing many plants and eliminating tens of thousands of jobs.
On Tuesday, the company said that its annual manufacturing labor costs in the United States had fallen by $11 billion since 2005. The executives added that they were working to keep labor costs under control, even as demand for G.M. vehicles increased.
Diana Tremblay, G.M.’s global chief manufacturing officer, said the company did not need to add plants anytime soon, even though its capacity utilization rate — a measure of how fully and efficiently plants are used — was near 100 percent. G.M. is particularly hesitant to add production capacity in the United States during a time of such volatile economic and market conditions. Ms. Tremblay said that G.M. could meet demand largely by adding shifts, running plants on overtime and finding creative ways to run existing plants more efficiently.
Leaders of the United Automobile Workers union, which is negotiating a new contract with G.M., could have a difficult time    www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/business/gm-expects-years-of-cost-cuts-ahead.html

Taxes? Taxes?? We don’t pay no Stinking Taxes. We are RICH: Of an already small pool of millionaires and billionaires, 1,470 didn’t pay any federal income taxes in 2009, according to the Internal Revenue Service.    latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/08/nearly-1500-millionaires-paid-no-taxes-in-2009-says-irs.html

How To do Real Unemployment Mathematics (good stuff for kids in school): If you factor in those working part-time for economic reasons the unemployment rate rises to 15.9%, and if you factor in students and those in forced retirement who really would rather be working, it is likely another 1-2 points higher still.    www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article28023.html

Solidarity Forever

NEA, AFL-CIO, Change To Win (sic) waste Millions in Wisconsin Electoral Shell Game, and Lose: Republicans maintained their control of the State Senate, ultimately handing a defeat to union groups and Democrats who had spent months and millions of dollars trying to wrestle away at least some of the state’s political power…. By one estimate, outside groups and the campaigns will have spent at least $35 million to recall senators, making some of the races the most expensive Wisconsin legislative campaigns in memory. (People did not win SSI, Child Labor Laws, the 40 hour week, a living wage, etc, by voting. They won those things by fighting). www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/us/politics/10wisconsin.html?hp

NEA, Americans United for Change, SEIU and AFSCME  Initiate Farcical, but expensive Ad Campaign, yet Oppose Job actions Here’s the version of the spot running against Cantor:   tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/with-default-closer-than-ever-labor-targets-gop-with-new-ad-blitz.php

www.americansunitedforchange.org/press/releases/tv_ad_launched_in_duluth/

SEIU Tries to Ram Through Sellout in San Diego: The contract offer evokes scenes from the mob movies genre, of an “offer you can’t refuse”. The County asks workers to agree to a 2 year contract with a 4 percent cut in the employer’s contribution to retirement funds. The County threatens that if workers vote down the contract, that it may impose a 7 percent cut instead, for up to one year.
An increasing number of workers report feeling intimidated by the sudden appearance of the union reps while they were working. The workers point to the language of the leaflet which says:
”If we do not ratify this TA, we must be prepared to mount an aggressive campaign against the County up to and including a sustained strike.”
There is no legal requirement that workers authorize a strike if they vote “no” on a contract offer. Long strikes are extremely rare in the public sector.    obrag.org/?p=42711

Judge Overturns Goon Squad Seiu’s Kaiser Election: The ruling is a blow to the Service Employees International Union, which won the October election, the largest private sector unionization vote since 1941. In that election, the Kaiser employees voted to stay in the service employees union instead of joining a rival, the National Union of Healthcare Workers, by a vote of 18,290 to 11,364.
The judge, Lana Parke, recommended that the labor board overturn the election after finding that Kaiser had improperly withheld pay increases from some workers in Southern California who had switched from the service employees to the rival union.    www.nytimes.com/2011/08/11/business/board-orders-a-repeat-of-a-california-union-election.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

Spy Versus Spy

So long, Nancy Wake (1912 to August 7th 2011): In 1937 she met wealthy French industrialist Henri Edmond Fiocca. (1898-1943), whom she later married on 30 November 1939. She was living in Marseille, France when Germany invaded. After the fall of France in the 1940s, she became a courier for the French Resistance and later joined the escape network of Captain Ian Garrow. The Gestapo called her the White Mouse. The French Resistance had to be very careful with her missions as her life was in constant danger and the Gestapo were tapping her phone and intercepting her mail.[2]

By 1943, she was the Gestapo’s most-wanted person, with a 5 million-franc price on her head. When the network was betrayed in December 1943, she had to flee Marseilles. Her husband, Henri Fiocca, stayed behind where later, unknown to Nancy, he was captured, tortured and executed by the Gestapo on 16 October 1943.[3] She was not aware of his death until the war was over. Wake had been arrested in Toulouse, but was released four days later. She succeeded, on her sixth attempt, in crossing the Pyrenees to Spain.

After reaching Britain, Wake joined the Special Operations Executive and on the night of 29–30 April 1944 she returned to occupied France, being parachuted into the Auvergne and becoming a liaison between London and the local maquis group headed by Captain Henri Tardivat. She coordinated resistance activity prior to the Normandy Invasion and recruited more members. She also led attacks on German installations and the local Gestapo HQ in Montluçon.[4] From April 1944 to the complete liberation of France, her 7,000 maquisards fought 22,000 SS soldiers, causing 1,400 casualties, while taking only 100 themselves. Her French companions, especially Henri Tardivat, praised her fighting spirit, amply demonstrated when she killed an SS sentry with her bare hands to prevent him raising the alarm during a raid. During a 1990s television interview, when asked what had happened to the sentry who spotted her, Wake simply drew her finger across her throat. On another occasion, in order to replace codes her wireless operator had been forced to destroy in a German raid, Nancy Wake rode a bicycle for more than 500 miles (800 km) through several German checkpoints.

Richard Clarke’s Accusations of September 11 Coverup: In a never-before-seen interview, Richard Clarke, former White House Counterterror “Tsar” to Presidents Clinton and Bush, goes on record about what he believes happened at CIA in the run-up to the 9/11 attacks, accusing then-CIA Director George Tenet and two of his deputies of deliberately not informing the White House, FBI, and Defense Department about two future hijackers inside U.S., then covering up from the 9/11 investigations. His comments air and stream Thursday, August 11, 2010 at 7 p.m. MDT on Colorado Public Television (CPT12) and simultaneously go live on SecrecyKills.com, along with CIA reaction.    colorado911visibility.org/2011/08/11/white-house-terror-chief-alleges-cia-911-malfeasance-cover-up-in-new-interview-pbs-colorado’s-exclusive-ignites-battle-among-bush-officials/

The Emergence of Fascism as a Mass Popular Movement

Mississippi: Racist Murder Videotaped:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z5SRoPAhIo

Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith says a group of the teens then climbed into their large Ford F250 green pickup truck, floored the gas, and drove the truck right over Anderson, killing him instantly.
Mississippi officials say it was a racially motivated murder.

www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/08/06/mississippi.hate.crime/index.html

Brit PM Intensifies Class War, especially against Youths: The northwestern cities of Manchester and Liverpool, as well as Nottingham, Birmingham, West Bromwich and Wolverhampton, in the area of England known as the Midlands, saw the worst of the unrest overnight.
Cameron said the police have been authorized to use whatever means necessary to combat “despicable violence,” with plans in place for water cannon to be available within 24 hours if needed, he said.
“We needed a fightback and a fightback is under way,” he said.
The violence first began Saturday after a protest over the death of a man in an incident involving armed police in north London turned violent. But police have characterized the disorder on the nights since as “copycat criminal activity” by youths intent on looting and destruction.   www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fgw-london-riot-fightback-20110810,0,5112971.story

EU buys Spain’s bottom line: Money can move but Romanians cannot: In the latest challenge to the European Union’s drive toward closer integration, Spain won approval Thursday to keep Romanians from seeking work there, arguing that its battered economy could not absorb fresh inflows of workers….191,400 Romanian citizens living in Spain were unemployed in the first quarter of this year, slightly less than one-third of the number of Romanians working in the country. In total, including children and other nonworking family members, there were 823,000 Romanian nationals in Spain on January 1, 2010, though the number coming to the country to seek jobs has fallen in recent years, the commission said.    www.nytimes.com/2011/08/12/world/europe/12iht-union12.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

The Magical Mystery Tour

Psycho Gov of one of USA’s Biggest States to Run for Prezzie? (does he wear magic underwear too or is he another fake xstrian?) Perry, who issued a proclamation earlier this year urging Texans to pray for an end to the state’s severe drought, initiated the privately financed rally. He has used the event to promote himself nationally among religious conservative voters, a powerful bloc in GOP presidential primaries.   www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-perry-response-20110806,0,6765309.story

HororScope: Aries Mar 21 – Apr 19
The Virgin Mary will appear in a dream and tell you to go forth in the world to help the poor and needy, causing you to wake up screaming in a cold sweat.    www.theonion.com/articles/your-horoscopes-week-of-august-09-2011,21106/

Worst thing in the History of the World

San Diego Lawyer pleads Guilty to Selling Babies:

Theresa Erickson, a lawyer specializing in reproductive law, pleaded guilty to wire fraud for allegedly transmitting phony documents to deceive both the San Diego County Superior Court and couples seeking to become parents. Two other people in the alleged ring have also pleaded guilty.
According to court documents, Erickson hired women in San Diego to go to Ukraine to be implanted with embryos created from the sperm and eggs of donors.
Once a woman was in the second trimester of pregnancy, she would return to San Diego and Erickson would “shop” the babies by falsely telling couples that a couple who had intended to adopt the baby had backed out of the deal. The new couple would then be charged between $100,000 and $150,000, according to prosecutors.   latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/08/san-diego-attorney-pleads-guilty-in-baby-selling-ring.html

Best Thing in the History of the World

Finders Keepers! Machine Gun Found in Kiddies’ Pool!

Junk compared to an Uzi!

A machine pistol and several rounds of ammunition were discovered in the water Tuesday at the Children’s Pool in La Jolla.
Someone walking along the seawall spotted the high-powered MAC-10 in about 2 to 3 feet of water about 12:15 p.m. and notified a lifeguard, police Detective Gary Hassen said. www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/aug/10/machin-gun-found-water-childrens-pool/

…He was right: money has hitherto been the dung heap in which the  humanity of the morrow has grown; money albeit the poisoner and destroyer, becomes the ferment of all social vegetation, the compost necessary for the great works which make life easier. Did she at last see clearly? Did her invincible hope come from her belief in the usefulness of effort? Above all the mud stirred up, above all the victims crushed to death, above all the abominable suffering which each forward step costs humanity, is there not an obscure far off goal, something superior, good, just, and final, whither we are going without knowing it, and which ever inflates our hearts with a stubborn need of life and hope? (Zola: Money)

Good luck to our side.