But, WE MOVED to our own url!

(This blog will not be updated.)

I've been putting it off for some time now, because the other site isn't quite as I would like it. But, eblogger has been so problematic lately that I could wait no longer.

So, au revoir, Google!

It was fun while it lasted - all 1500+ posts - over almost one full year of daily blogging!

Of course, everything that's at this site will remain as is, unless or until we figure out a way to transfer it and all 1700+ external links to it!

So, please, google - have a heart and don't delete it!

In the meantime, to everyone who visits regularly, please keep coming, but from here on, to the new site!

It's not totally finished yet, but it's far more advanced than blogger and allows all registered users to blog! Yipee! I hope you all take the opportunity to express yourselves and to share both your news and your views.

To all those who had added wakeupfromyourslumber.blogspot to their blogroll, Thanks! And please, add our new url too.

Sionara, Google! The best is yet to come . . .

Daniel Ortega, former head of Nicaragua's Sandinistas, is leading the polls in the election for President in Nicaragua. And while John Negroponte is currently unavailable to do the US administration's dirty work in Central America, Oliver North was recently despatched to Nicaragua to warn its citizens against voting for Ortega.

Plenty of questions surround Ortega's third try to regain the presidency . His running mate is a former spokesman for the US-backed Contra rebels, many Sandinista luminaries have since left the party, and he has reportedly made a deal with the Roman Catholic Cardinal who was once his harshest critic.

"He changed. He wants to be the jefe, the only one in the party, because of his ambition for power,” Señor (Ernesto) Cardenal said. “The party has been corrupted. I left the party. All the good people left the party.”

Nicaragua has changed, too.

Managua, devastated by an earthquake in 1972, has sprouted luxury shopping entres since the Sandinista years and its once-deserted streets are busy with cars from the Far East. But the drivers are besieged by urchins. The nation of five million is the second-poorest country in the western hemisphere, after Haiti.

In response, Ortega is "trying to turn the election into a referendum on the fracaso, or fiasco, of Nicaragua's "savage capitalism."

"Those in government have already had 16 years to deliver what they promised,” he tells the crowd. “They promised work. They promised health. They promised education. They promised culture. They promised sport. They promised finance. They promised there would be no hunger in Nicaragua. And they did not deliver."

Ortega's leading conservative opponent, Eduardo Montealegre, is a Harvard-educated banker. And Ortega, although he no longer voices socialist revolutionary ideals, has the support of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

I think you can see the pattern here. Nicaragua's former dictator, Somoza, has been replaced by the faceless dictatorship of neo-liberal economic policy, opening Nicaragua to the pitiless exploitation of western capital. Ortega is fighting back, as a populist and nationalist, arguing for economic justice for his people.

And, once again, no matter how small or economically insignificant the country, the U.S. brooks no opposition to its hegemony and never forgets a former foe. Look for dirty tricks before the coming elections.

this blog appears to be out of order.

please, visit the new url, which is not quite done - but, you'll forgive me, won't you?

thanks.

It wasn't enough for them to kill over a thousand civilians and terrorize over a million. The bastards had to use enriched uranium to make sure that anyone who dared come home afterwards would suffer radiation.

Scientists studying samples of soil thrown up by Israeli bombing in Lebanon have shown high radiation levels, suggesting uranium-based munitions were used, a British newspaper reports.

The samples were taken from two bomb craters in Khiam and At-Tiri and have been sent for further analysis to the Harwell laboratory in Oxfordshire, southern England, for mass spectrometry used by the Ministry of Defence, The Independent said.

The samples thrown up by Israeli heavy or guided bombs showed "elevated radiation signatures," Chris Busby, the British scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, was quoted as saying.

Britain's Ministry of Defence has confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in the samples, the newspaper said.

In his initial report, Busby said there were two possible reasons for the contamination.

"The first is that the weapon was some novel small experimental nuclear fission device or experimental weapon (eg. a thermobaric weapon) based on the high temperature of a uranium oxidation flash," it said.

"The second is that the weapon was a bunker-busting conventional uranium penetrator weapon employing enriched uranium rather than depleted uranium," Busby was quoted as saying.

A photograph of the explosion of the first bomb shows large clouds of black smoke that might result from burning uranium, the newspaper said.

The 34-day Israeli offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon left at least 1,287 people, nearly all civilians, dead and 4,054 wounded, according to an AFP count based on official Lebanese figures.

At least 1,140 civilians -- 30 percent of them children under 12 -- have been killed along with 43 Lebanese army and police troops in the offensive, the state High Relief Committee said.

Read it and weep, world.

There was no need for them to use these weapons, just as there was no need for them to drop cluster bombs just before the truce. The fact that they did both demonstrates without doubt that israelis are not only the most ruthless people on earth, they are the most INSANE.

Did she die in Iraq?

No.

Did she die in Afghanistan?

No.

Did she carry a gun?

Again, no.

Armed only with her convictions and the courage to defend them, she walked quietly with her child down a street in California.

As a pious Muslim woman, she never left home without her hijab , the traditional head scarf worn by Muslim women. She was proud of her hijab.

In the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, some of her friends and relatives, afraid of reprisal attacks, took off their hijabs. Alia encouraged them not to compromise their religion, especially when they had nothing to do with those crimes.

As for herself, she told them that she would never take off her hijab, even if someone put a gun to her head demanding that she do so. Alia said that her hijab was her flag.

She could not have known as she began the fateful walk to her children’s school last Thursday that her path would cross that of a lone gunman who in a single act of mindless violence would bring a close to a life of dedication and service.

She could not have known that her grandfather’s words were so close to fulfillment. She could not have known that she would soon die defending her flag.

The author wrote a moving piece in her memory. But, what Alia Ansari died defending was - not her flag - but our freedom.

In defending her freedom to practice her religion, Alia Ansari died defending what America is all about.

Bush drones on forever about sending our troops abroad to 'protect our freedoms' but he's nothing but a miserable snake and a LIAR - people don't 'defend' freedom by conducting pre-emptive wars - people 'defend' freedom by exercising it.

By not giving in to fear and intimidation and doing what is your right to do.

By calling a spade a spade when you see it, and calling a murderer a murderer - though he might threaten to exact revenge.

William Wallace defended freedom when he refused to pledge allegience to a man who called himself 'king'.

Rosa Parks defended freedom when she sat in the front of the bus.

Martin Luther King defended freedom from his jail cell in Birmingham.

History's list of freedom fighters goes on, each time inspiring another to defend the flame that burns inside us all.

Among the believers are those who have been true to their covenant to God. Among them are those who have given their lives, others patiently wait their turn, having never weakened in their resolve. (33:23)

Alia Ansari is now among them.

Engine Capt. Mark Loutzenhiser, 44, of Idyllwild; engine operator Jess McLean, 27, of Beaumont; assistant engine operator Jason McKay, 27, of Phelan; and firefighter Daniel Hoover-Najera, 20, of San Jacinto died when a wall of flames -- pushed by hot, dry winds -- swept over the engine they were in and the home they were trying to protect near Palm Springs.

A fifth crew member, identified as Pablo Cerda, 23, of Fountain Valley, was injured in the incident.

* * *

Authorities are blaming arson for the Southern California fire, which began in a remote mountainous region around 1:15 a.m. Thursday. It has burned more than 24,000 acres and is 5 percent contained, according to the CDF.

An estimated 1,750 firefighters are battling the blaze with 207 engines, 15 air tankers and eight helicopters.

Officials say the winds, combined with the rural area in which the fire was set, are the reason it has spread so quickly.

Ten homes have been destroyed in the blaze.

At this stage, we can only guess why the son of a bitch who started this fire did it.

But, I am guessing that it has something to do with insurance and the real estate market.

I hope they catch the bastard with his pants on fire.

Too bad he can only get the death penalty once.

Perhaps more tragic than anything else, aside from dying because some greedy bastard set a fire, these young men sacrificed their lives to protect someone's PROPERTY - how f*cked up is that?

Standard Operating Procedure for firefighters should be - if it doesn't breathe, it's not worth risking your life to save.

Nothing less than full spectrum dominance will do for these madmen.

On Oct. 16, 2006, with the mid-term election less than three weeks away, and time slipping away for a Bush-Cheney Administration "October Surprise" military strike against Iran, a speaker told students at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) that a genocidal attack against Muslims was required to generate "a resurgence in the pride for Western civilization."

[T]he speaker, Dr. Yaron Brook, the executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), warned that "Islamic totalitarian states pose a severe threat to the security of the United States," adding that a way to defeat these regimes "is to kill up to hundreds of thousands of their supporters." This, he said, would "shrink popular support for extremist ideas to a small minority of the population," instead of the 40% which he claims supports such regimes now.

While some might wish to dismiss this as the demented rant of a lone madman who was, perhaps, off his meds, the reality is clear to anyone who has read the LaRouche PAC's latest pamphlet, "Is Joseph Goebbels on Your Campus?" Dr. Brook and his ARI are an integral part of the "war party" run by the Vice President's wife, Lynne Cheney, and are deploying to America's campuses to whip up support for new imperial wars, while intimidating their opponents with tactics which would make Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels green with envy.

Brook's presentation was sponsored by LOGIC (Liberty, Objectivity, GREED, Individualism, Capitalism), an ARI-linked organization at UCLA, which also has ties to the right-wing "Collegiate Network" of "conservative" campus throwaway newspapers. The UCLA affiliate is the Bruin Standard, whose editor is LaRouche-slanderer Garin Hovannisian, a protege of David Horowitz, who is one of the coordinators of Lynne Cheney's campus Gestapo. (See EIR, Oct. 20, 2006.)

It is this network of money-grubbing, self-promoting liars which is recruiting the shock troops for the Cheney-John Train imperial war party . . .

If you think the worst is over, think again.

If things feel calm, it's only because something is brewing on the horizon.

This two part presentation combines provocative vintage posters of seductive women with investigative reporting and photos of hundreds of US soldiers who lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan to demonstrate how Bush and his money grubbing, oil sucking cabal SEDUCED this nation and its people into WAR based on LIES.

Before this video, I hadn't even heard of Dresser Industries. I wonder why.

My apologies to anyone who finds the provocative images of women obscene.

Now, how OBSCENE do you find the LIES that led US into war and the PROFITS reaped by Bush et al as a REWARD for spilling the blood of these soldiers and of hundreds of thousands of civilians?

And they're still at it . . .

Iran, North Korea, and tens of thousands of Americans are NEXT.



It's time to get angry, America - VERY angry.

Bush and every man and woman in our government who supported and continue to support these OBSCENITIES must PAY.

Let it roll, baby, roll - come what may.


______________________
Thanks, ProfiteerInChief

Standard Operating Procedure.

Israel said Thursday that no aggression against German forces was intended during a confrontation between Israeli aircraft and a German naval vessel patrolling off Lebanon.

This, of course, was after they initially denied it.

The Israeli embassy in Berlin released a statement from the defense ministry in Tel Aviv, saying the defense ministers of the two countries had discussed Tuesday's incident.

The episode occurred when Israeli jets scrambled after a helicopter took off from a German frigate serving with a United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) task force. German Defense Ministry spokesman Thomas Raabe said six Israeli F-16s had flown very low over the German vessel and one of them fired two shots near the ship.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said the helicopter did not coordinate his plan with Israel before taking off. As a result, Israel sent fighter jets into the air, forcing the helicopter to return to the German vessel and land.

The Israeli military, however, denied having fired any shots in the incident, which happened near the border with Lebanon close to the border town of Rosh Ha'Nikra.

israeli denials will persist, of course, unless or until incontrovertible evidence emerges that they DID.

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz telephoned his German counterpart Franz-Josef Jung Wednesday night to explain the incident, officials from both sides said, stressing a desire to maintain good cooperation.

Jung is due to pay a visit to Israel next week, but Tuesday's incident is not expected to cast a cloud over the talks, diplomats said.

I'm sure the German pilot forced to land, under fire by SIX!!! israeli F-16s, begs to differ!

___________
UPDATE: Do you see any "heli-pad" [on this ship]?

And the plot thickens . . . nuclear war around the corner? just maybe.

UPDATE 2:

"There have been two incidents, one involving a helicopter and another the Alster" a German electronic surveillance and reconnaissance ship.

Raabe said six Israeli F-16 fighter planes had fired shots into the air over the Alster on Tuesday while the ship was in international waters some 50 nautical miles off the Israeli coast.

That explains that.

Now, what explains why israeli warships would fire at an intelligence ship?

israel has announced that it wants a 'new look' for its belligerent, illegitimate existence.

What israel fails to see, however, is that a thousand marketing executives can't improve its image as long as it continues its brutal military occupation over a people and their land.

After decades of battling to win foreign support for its two-fisted policies against Arab foes, Israel is trying a new approach with a campaign aimed at creating a less warlike and more welcoming national image.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who has argued that the protracted conflict with the Palestinians is sapping Israel's international legitimacy, this week convened diplomats and PR executives to come up with ways of "rebranding" the country.

Unbelievable. They honestly think that they can 'market' their way into our hearts and minds with cheap, half-assed gimmicks and teasers, while they torture and kill innocent people on the ground.

"When the word 'Israel' is said outside its borders, we want it to invoke not fighting or soldiers, but a place that is desirable to visit and invest in, a place that preserves democratic ideals while struggling to exist," Livni said.

The campaign is a departure from the government's long-held practice of "hasbara," or "explaining" itself to Western audiences that may have little sympathy for crackdowns on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Now Israel wants to create an alternative image abroad, focused exclusively on assets like tourist attractions and business innovations. In the words of one campaigner and ad executive, the aim would be to create "a narrative of normalcy."

The most abnormal 'state' on earth wants to appear 'normal' - I'd like to see that!

"Israelis feel the need to explain themselves, to prove that they are in the right, but this doesn't always create empathy," said Guy Toledano, who represents British PR firm Saatchi & Saatchi and is helping the Foreign Ministry free of charge. [I wonder why?]

The brain-storming team has been asked to come up with four proposed strategies, one of which will be launched in January.

Palestinians, who have found it harder to push their own message abroad since the election of a Hamas Islamist government that has come under a Western aid embargo for its refusal to recognize the Jewish state, accused Israel of a white-wash.

"Nothing Israel can do in its campaigns or media influence cancels the fact that they are an occupying power," said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, a moderate.

Now, that should be a no-brainer! But, clearly, even those with no-brains can't figure it out.

David Hartwell, Middle East editor for Jane's Country Risk, said news coverage of military clashes was key to shaping world opinion about Israel and would be hard to counter, despite what he saw as ebbing media interest given greater carnage in Iraq. [always gaining from others' misery]

"There is tremendous [well-deserved] cynicism," Hartwell said.

Toledano agreed that foreign attitudes toward Israel are well-entrenched. He cited a recent poll in which Americans and Europeans were asked which animal they would most associate with Israelis. The top choices were tigers or foxes.

I see that they did not include SNAKE.

"The process of getting a new image to be internalized is a world unto itself. I can't say right now that we know exactly how we are going to do it," Toledano said.

Now, that's an understatement!

Potential tactics include having Israeli embassies step up advertising efforts in their host countries.

There is also a domestic drive planned, whereby the famously brasher facets of Israeli society would be softened -- at least among Israelis who are regularly in contact with foreigners.

"It could be a matter of simply posting Foreign Ministry greeters at the airport, or passing out advisories to those involved in the tourist trade," Toledano said.

For all the concerns being voiced, Israel's economy has boomed recently despite the conflict. Foreign tourism is rising again after a collapse at the start of a Palestinian revolt in 2000. Markets recovered quickly from war in Lebanon this summer.

Amir Gissin, public relations director at the Foreign Ministry, said that the image makeover was also about keeping Israel on the right side of the U.S.-led "war on terror."

Many pro-Palestinian groups argue that Israel's policies inflame the anti-Western violence of Islamist militant groups.

"In the wake of 9/11, the objective now is to place Israel among the coalition of the moderates, facing off against Islamic radicalism," Gissin said.

Too bad, it's A LIE.

This political ad against Republican congressman Gil Gutknecht is a potent reminder that democracies that are based on different interest groups vying for power invariably short-change those interests least able to fight for themselves.

THAT is why this country was NOT founded as a Democracy, but instead as a Republic - based on Constitutional principles and a Bill of Rights for its people - NOT its corporations.

The cold hard TRUTH is that Democracies only 'work' for those with power.

In 2000 and 2004, problems plagued the polls in different parts of the country: long lines, eligible voters turned away, voter intimidation, misallocation and malfunctioning of voting equipment. They were underreported on Election Day.

Days and weeks later, a more complete picture of voter disenfranchisement emerged—but it was too late. The elections were over and the media had moved on.

Starting this election, citizen journalists—people like you and I—will document problems as they occur. We'll play them online, spread word through blogs and partner websites, doing our part to make sure the full story of our elections is told.

As the saying goes - if you really want it done, DO IT YOURSELF!


____________________
Thanks, Brasscheck

Two Israeli warplanes have fired over a German naval vessel patrolling off the Lebanese coast, the defence ministry in Berlin says.

Two Israeli F-16 fighters flew low over the ship, firing twice, Der Tagesspiegel newspaper quoted a German junior defence minister as telling a parliamentary committee.

The jets also activated infrared countermeasures to ward off any rocket attack, the paper said, in an advance release ahead of Thursday's edition.

The minister did not say when the incident happened or what had caused it.

"I can confirm that there was an incident," a ministry spokesman said on Wednesday. He declined to give further details as an investigation was under way.

An Israeli military spokeswoman denied that the incident had taken place.

Surprise, surprise.

Germany assumed command of a United Nations naval force off Lebanon 10 days ago, and has sent eight ships and 1,000 service personnel to join the international peace operation in the region.

The naval force is charged with preventing weapons-smuggling and helping maintain a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

The Israeli air force has come under heavy criticism for continuing flights over southern Lebanon since a 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah ended on August 14 with a UN-sponsored truce and the expansion of the United Nations peacekeeping force.

Amir Peretz, Israel's defence minister, said at the weekend that the flights would continue because of alleged arms smuggling to Hezbollah.

The Lebanese government and the UN say the overflights , which Israel had conducted since ending its 22-year occupation of south Lebanon in 2000, violate both the latest truce and the terms of Israel's earlier pullout.

Anyone who thinks israel is finished with Lebanon can wakeup now.

The battle has just begun.

I'll let you plow through this long list of reasons published at Mother Jones.

Or, if you prefer, I'll tell you - in one word - how the rich get richer . . .


All they had to do was trick us into adopting their money system and their copyright and patent system - believing that it is FAIR, when it is NOT.

Then, one decade after another, they consolidated the nation's resources - tangible (real property, commodities) and intangible (knowledge, technology, industry) - and now NOTHING remains for anyone else.

It's that simple - and it's all 'legal.'

There isn't a 'progressive' tax system in the world that can 'fix' an economy as fundamentally flawed as ours is.

But, Americans don't see it.

We're deceived. We're our own worst enemies.

"The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims. The most perfect slaves are, therefore, those which blissfully and unawaredly enslave themselves."

--Dresden James

What the FILTHY rich (most of whom believe they are BORN better than the poor) have so cleverly learned is that while it may be fun to look down on others, it's far more effective to TRICK them out of everything they're entitled to then, sit back and let them hate themselves.

WAKEUP, AMERICA! You've been HAD.