Bush In 30 Seconds.

>> 9/11 Preventable says Kean<<

Rush 'Lorcet' Limbaugh tries to pull a Cheney

Limbaugh tries to keep medical records sealed
Attorneys file court action against seizure in Florida

By Peter Franceschina

South Florida Sun-sentinel

Originally published December 16, 2003

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Rush Limbaugh's attorneys went on the offensive yesterday, in an effort to keep the conservative radio commentator's medical records sealed after they recently were seized by prosecutors investigating his prescription drug use.......

......."Mr. Limbaugh has already suffered the indignity of watching a list of his doctors and medications dramatically leafed though on air by television reporters. One can only imagine the exposure these records will receive if the state is allowed access to them."

The motion also says Limbaugh is prevented from getting proper medical treatment because all of his original medical records are in the hands of prosecutors.

The rest of the story.

So, the best Rush's attorneys can come up with is that he can't get proper medical treatment because his original docs. are in the hands of prosecutors? Ya gotta be kiddin' me. I once needed a full medical history to present, and all I was able to get were COPIES of my own medical records.

I know that this is simply posturing by his attorneys, but a little creativity might serve his cause here.

Stupid Ursine Tricks

Over at "The Truth Laid Bear, " the baffled blogger poses this:

President Saddam -- Again?

December 14, 2003 08:36 AM

During the buildup to the war, and since, many who opposed the war declared it an "illegal" action and a violation of international law.

Now that he has been found to be alive, I'd ask this to those who considered this an illegitimate war: will you now stand up and demand that Hussein be placed back in power? He was, after all, the "legal" ruler of Iraq.

And if not, why not?

It is just this sort of false dichotomy that right of center types use in an attempt to ensnare those that oppose their worldviews.

We at pure bs prefer to take a different tact. Ask those who were pro-war what they would do when unabashed, unrepentant war hawks like Richard Perle admit that the invasion and subsequent occupation were illegal. But you jest, I hear you ask. Here is Perle in his own words as reported by UK Newspaper The Guardian:

In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."

President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq - also the British government's publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defence permitted by international law.

But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally unacceptable.

French intransigence, he added, meant there had been "no practical mechanism consistent with the rules of the UN for dealing with Saddam Hussein".

Mr Perle, who was speaking at an event organised by the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, had argued loudly for the toppling of the Iraqi dictator since the end of the 1991 Gulf war....more

I refuse to link to TTLB, because of the absurdity of his(?) mode of questioning.

Beware of baffled bruins bearing bogus biddings.

pure bs exclusive -- Texas woman violates Erotic Weapons Convention Ban

Texas housewife busted for hawking erotic, dual use toys
Sales rep for Brisbane firm sold vibrator to undercover agents

A Texas housewife is in big trouble with the law for selling a dual use device, AKA a 'vibrator' to a pair of undercover cops, and the Brisbane Vibrator Company® she works for says Texas is an "antiquated place'' with more than its share of "prudes.''

Joanne Webb, a former fifth-grade teacher and mother of three, was in a county court in Cleburne, Texas, on Monday to answer anti-terroism charges for selling the vibrator to undercover narcotics officers posing as a dysfunctional married couple in search of a sex aid. This is a breach of EWC articles 12 and 14. Article 12 states: "No person or persons of a country which is a party to the EWC shall produce, sell or through their actions, proceed in the direction of acquiring banned agents."

The so-called "vibrator" in question is such a banned item. While having some functionality as a 'personal massage device,' the device can also be used for the expressly prohibited purpose of: "Causing intense physical pleasure, resulting in orgasm, or in the absence of orgasm, large grins."

Article 14 of the EWC, states: "No person or persons of a country which is a party to the EWC shall produce, sell or through their actions, proceed in the direction of acquiring banned precusor agents that may be used to produce another device, or the mental and/or physical desire to acquire such agents." Ms. Webb's alleged possession and sale of, a "vibrator," violates both the spirit and intent of the law on this count. From the EWC: "Vibrator(s) have a high likelihood of causing the user(s) to pursue other more erotically stimulating agents, including but not limited to 'strap-on extensions, higher voltage devices, "Ben wa balls" and pneumatic, or hydraulic devices."

Webb, a saleswoman for Passion Parties of Brisbane, faces a year in jail and a $4,000 fine if convicted.

"What I did was not obscene,'' Webb said. ""What's obscene is that the government is taking action about what we do in our bedrooms.''

The arrest of Webb in Cleburne, a small town 50 miles southwest of Dallas, was the first time that any of the company's 3,000 sales consultants have been busted, said Pat Davis, the president of Passion Parties. She said the company was outraged by the charges and stood behind Webb....more debauchery

We at pure bs are of the opinion that the EWC is a kneejerk reaction to the horrific events of 9/11. US Attorney General John Ashcroft used America's feelings of vulnerability post 9/11 to 'ram through' this onerous legislation.

Krugman's In

On the Cheney/Halliburton/War Profiteering story.

Patriots and Profits

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Last week there were major news stories about possible profiteering by Halliburton and other American contractors in Iraq. These stories have, inevitably and appropriately, been pushed temporarily into the background by the news of Saddam's capture. But the questions remain. In fact, the more you look into this issue, the more you worry that we have entered a new era of excess for the military-industrial complex.

The story about Halliburton's strangely expensive gasoline imports into Iraq gets curiouser and curiouser. High-priced gasoline was purchased from a supplier whose name is unfamiliar to industry experts, but that appears to be run by a prominent Kuwaiti family (no doubt still grateful for the 1991 liberation). U.S. Army Corps of Engineers documents seen by The Wall Street Journal refer to "political pressures" from Kuwait's government and the U.S. embassy in Kuwait to deal only with that firm. I wonder where that trail leads.

Meanwhile, NBC News has obtained Pentagon inspection reports of unsanitary conditions at mess halls run by Halliburton in Iraq: "Blood all over the floors of refrigerators, dirty pans, dirty grills, dirty salad bars, rotting meat and vegetables." An October report complains that Halliburton had promised to fix the problem but didn't.

And more detail has been emerging about Bechtel's much-touted school repairs. Again, a Pentagon report found "horrible" work: dangerous debris left in playground areas, sloppy paint jobs and broken toilets.

Are these isolated bad examples, or part of a pattern? It's impossible to be sure without a broad, scrupulously independent investigation. Yet such an inquiry is hard to imagine in the current political environment — which is precisely why one can't help suspecting the worst.

Let's be clear: worries about profiteering aren't a left-right issue. Conservatives have long warned that regulatory agencies tend to be "captured" by the industries they regulate; the same must be true of agencies that hand out contracts. Halliburton, Bechtel and other major contractors in Iraq have invested heavily in political influence, not just through campaign contributions, but by enriching people they believe might be helpful. Dick Cheney is part of a long if not exactly proud tradition: Brown & Root, which later became the Halliburton subsidiary doing those dubious deals in Iraq, profited handsomely from its early support of a young politician named Lyndon Johnson.

So is there any reason to think that things are worse now? Yes.

The biggest curb on profiteering in government contracts is the threat of exposure: sunshine is the best disinfectant. Yet it's hard to think of a time when U.S. government dealings have been less subject to scrutiny.

First of all, we have one-party rule — and it's a highly disciplined, follow-your-orders party. There are members of Congress eager and willing to take on the profiteers, but they don't have the power to issue subpoenas.

And getting information without subpoena power has become much harder because, as a new report in U.S. News & World Report puts it, the Bush administration has "dropped a shroud of secrecy across many critical operations of the federal government." Since 9/11, the administration has invoked national security to justify this secrecy, but it actually began the day President Bush took office.

To top it all off, after 9/11 the U.S. media — which eagerly played up the merest hint of scandal during the Clinton years — became highly protective of the majesty of the office. As the stories I've cited indicate, they have become more searching lately. But even now, compare British and U.S. coverage of the Neil Bush saga.

The point is that we've had an environment in which officials inclined to do favors for their business friends, and contractors inclined to pad their bills or do shoddy work, didn't have to worry much about being exposed. Human nature being what it is, then, the odds are that the troubling stories that have come to light aren't isolated examples.

Some Americans still seem to feel that even suggesting the possibility of profiteering is somehow unpatriotic. They should learn the story of Harry Truman, a congressman who rose to prominence during World War II by leading a campaign against profiteering. Truman believed, correctly, that he was serving his country.

On the strength of that record, Franklin Roosevelt chose Truman as his vice president. George Bush, of course, chose Dick Cheney. NYT Link.

In a hopefully unrelated but certain-to-be-embarrassing-note, the Supremes are going to hear Cheney's appeal regarding his failure to disclose his energy policy task force documents. Remember, this thing has been going on for a couple of years now, and three lower courts have ruled that Cheney must turn over the documents. Will we find the truth? The answer is expected in June.

I read this rational article at the usually rational Tom Paine.com and have asked permission to reprint it here. I haven't gotten permission as of yet, but it will either stay or come down once that issue is settled. All notices are intact. I have also provided a link to the article.

I really don't like the expression, "common sense." If sense were a common commodity, the world wouldn't be on life support. Criminy.

Uncommon Sense

The Problem Prisoner

Robert Dreyfuss is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Virginia, who specializes in politics and national security issues.

Read the following paragraph and see what you’d change about it now that Saddam Hussein has been captured:

The U.S. war in Iraq was an illegal and unjustified use of unilateral American power, based on presidential lies and exaggerations about the threat to the United States posed by Iraq’s apparently nonexistent weapons and ties to terrorism. It has pushed Iraq into chaos, whose ultimate outcome is likely to be a civil war among its feuding ethnic blocs and the rise of an Iranian-style theocratic government led by militant Shiite clerics. In the process, President Bush has destroyed America’s prestige abroad, shattered its alliances, frittered away the goodwill toward the United States that emerged after 9/11 and established a precedent for preventive wars that can be used to justify aggressive military action in a dozen conflicts around the world.

But he got Saddam.

What does it mean? It’s better, first, to look at what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean that the Iraqi insurgency will halt—it’s clear, by now, that the fighters in Iraq are mostly nationalists who oppose the U.S. occupation and Islamists who see the U.S. presence as an opportunity to strike blows against the Great Satan. It doesn’t mean a victory in the War on Terrorism; that’s Osama’s bailiwick, and Saddam never had any connection to terrorism in the first place. It doesn’t mean that Iraq’s rival factions are likely to set aside their differences and cooperate hunkily-dorily under Jerry Bremer’s umbrella.

And it doesn’t say much about U.S. military and intelligence prowess. What’s remarkable about his capture is not that he was found—after all, unlike the WMD, Saddam was actually there—but that it took so long. From the beginning, in March, there was never any doubt that Saddam would be captured or killed. Invading Iraq, by far the weakest point on the Axis of Evil, was not much of a challenge militarily: its armed forces were already devastated, eviscerated by the first Gulf War and 12 years of an embargo. But, a combination of poor military planning, bad intelligence and a misreading of Iraqi feelings about the U.S. occupation allowed Saddam to hide for nine months. That’s in part because a nation that was supposed to welcome American troops with open arms greeted them, instead, with arms.

Here is what it does mean.

First, Saddam’s capture will present a significant political problem for Bush & Co. All by himself, Saddam can unravel the supposed mystery of Iraq’s missing weapons of mass destruction. Call him a liar, but on this subject he can tell the truth. Iraq’s WMD were virtually extinguished in 1991, and lingering remnants dealt with by UN inspectors in the early '90s. Already, according to Time, Saddam in captivity ridiculed the WMD issue. “Saddam was... asked whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction,” reported Time. "‘No, of course not,’ he replied, according to [a U.S.] official, ‘the U.S. dreamed them up itself to have a reason to go to war with us.’" In coming weeks, unless the United States manages to muzzle Saddam and suppress leaks—not likely—Saddam can highlight Bush’s prevarications on WMD and terrorism.

Second, it means that the United States and its puppet governing council in Iraq will have yet another showdown with the world community over Saddam’s trial. The United States and its allies would like a quick show trial and an execution; James Woolsey—the former CIA director and one of the leading advocates since the 1990s for war in Iraq—has already called for a hanging, and Ahmad Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress and the Pentagon’s chief Iraqi ally, says that preparations for a trial are already underway. But human rights groups, the UN and others in the world community will insist on a Milosevic-style international proceeding, sans death penalty.

Both of these problems could have been avoided had Saddam, like his sons, been killed rather than captured alive. The fact that he wasn’t is a tribute to the rationality and good sense of U.S. military units who seized him, but the fact that Saddam didn’t kill himself or fight back is a sign that he believes he can engage in yet more mischief as a prisoner, perhaps in an effort to rehabilitate his legacy or to justify himself as the last of the old-style Arab nationalists. Keeping him alive now is the job of the U.S. military, amid a swirl of political forces that would like him dead. Though he has apparently been spirited away to Qatar, he will have to be returned to Iraq for the inquest and trial. And Iraq, at the very least, is a nation of a thousand Jack Rubys. Link.

The above expresses my feelings about the capture of Hussein as well as anything I'm liable to pen.

Anything for a Buck

The mind stopping stupidity of the media goes on. A few posts below I gave a quick synopsis of today's US stock market action. Now I am sure that Vivian Chu had this all ready to go at press time, and couldn't simply opt out. So, this is what we get:

Analysts See Bigger Stock Rally -If Bin Laden Found

Mon December 15, 2003 05:01 PM ET

(Page 1 of 2)

By Vivian Chu
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The capture of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein gave an initial boost to stock markets worldwide on Monday, leading some analysts to believe that a bigger rally would occur if the United States reels in Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Market players said capturing the elusive al Qaeda leader would give stock markets a significant boost, at least in the short term, since bin Laden is seen as having a more direct link to global terrorism than Saddam Hussein.

"Osama bin Laden has a more direct impact on the global war on terror, so the impact (from his capture) would be larger than what we're seeing after Saddam's capture," said Peter Gottlieb, president of Gottlieb Investment Management Corp. in Chicago.

News that U.S. troops had captured the former Iraqi dictator over the weekend sparked early rallies in stock markets from Tokyo to London and New York on Monday, only to peter out by the close of trade in some locales.

"I'm somewhat surprised the gains aren't bigger, but the feeling is that major military operations were already completed and Saddam's capture was inevitable," Gottlieb said. "It also won't affect the outcome of the U.S. presence in Iraq."

On Wall Street, the three major U.S. stock indexes finished lower, erasing earlier gains, as investors digested news of Saddam's capture.

But Japan's benchmark Nikkei average surged more than 3 percent, while Britain's FTSE 100 ended nearly unchanged after rallying earlier in the session.

MAN IN CHARGE

Unlike Saddam -- who did not appear to be in charge of leading Iraqi resistance when he was caught hiding in a hole at an isolated farm -- bin Laden appears to be more firmly in control and capable of mobilizing members of al Qaeda, the militant group behind the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, market analysts said......Lots more

So, here we have two non-stories. First, the early rally not only faded, but the US indices, save for metals, ended the day in the red, and secondly, the "Osama Factor"™ is UNKNOWN.

Shorter version. Markets' reaction to Hussein capture negligible. Osama Factor™, unknown and unknowable. If and when we find OBL, any number of things could be far more important. They get paid to write this stuff. Meh.

In true non-partisan pure bs manner, I have chosen to back a candidate from the GOP in the upcoming primaries.

G.W. Bush is far too reactionary, extremist, fiscally irresponsible -- and let's not mince words here -- full of shit to be entrusted with the reins of US power. Pure bs endorses self-made millionaire Blake Ashby for President.

Visit Mr. Ashby's site, here, and vote, for a change.

Stock Market Prognosticators WRONG!

CBS MarketWatch was crowing yesterday about a, "Saddam Capture Rally All But Assured," and indeed in pre-opening trading, futures prices were indeed trending higher, following gains in Asian and European markets. But as the day wore on, all three of the major US indices lost ground, and all three ultimately ended in the red. The NASDAQ Composite losing the most ground, roughly 30.75 points, or 1.6%.

After digesting all of the good cheer associated with Hussein's arrest, the markets ended the day with a hangover. The markets are generally a good indicator as to the gravity of a situation, and the weekend's capture of Hussein appears to have been a wash.

The loss was pretty much across all industry sectors with semi-conductors, and retailers amongst the days biggest losers. Wal*Mart gave a sales projection update, with sales tracking at the lower end of their earlier guidance.

Another in our McJobs™ series

IBM reportedly to outsource programming jobs overseas

Responding to a Wall Street Journal article that cited internal documents describing plans to relocate thousands of programming jobs overseas, IBM on Monday said it expected overall hiring to increase in the United States.

The company declined to comment on "internal presentations or projections," but said that any growth in application services jobs in India, China and Latin America would be attributed to winning new contracts.

"We expect our hiring next year in the U.S. to equal or increase over 2003 levels. In fact, on a percentage basis, our forecast is for hiring across the Americas to outpace the hiring in the rest of the world," the company said in a statement.

The Wall Street Journal article, which appeared Monday, described plans to shift 4,730 programming jobs overseas. The job changes within the company's Application Management Services group were to be felt in Southbury, Conn., Poughkeepsie, Raleigh, N.C., Dallas, Boulder, Colo., and at other sites around the country.....More

People wonder why I am skeptical of the future economic success of this country. As I've tried to elucidate on these pages, the economic woes of this country are trending downward. Real income growth is dead, the baby boomers are on the cusp of retirement, and our workforce is largely un-educated in relation to the types of tasks that current and future employers are demanding.

As a tail-end baby boomer, I've twenty plus years until retirement. My personal situation is pretty secure. Many of my current and past colleagues have been directly effected by the trend toward outsourcing of IT jobs.

It's official "Write Like Nedra Pickler Day."

In that spirit I offer this:

Saletan shills for Dean, while Iraqi's Dance

Nedra Pickler -- AP(Crawford, TX)

William Saletan, self styled 'political correspondent,' isn't jumping aboard the 'Democrats Are Dead Express', as all truly intuitive pundits are busily doing today.

While his anti-American screed has an enticing title, Is Dean toast? and sounds very promising, Saletan goes on to make the utterly absurd argument -- if I may use that strong a term -- that Dean's bid for the presidency is not completely dead.

While Saletan makes a case for the lack of people's memories, and cites recent presidential campaigns as supporting evidence, Saletan fails to state the obvious case that Bush has won the respect and admiration of the American people with his frank, genuine addressing of all of their concerns. From the casus belli in the iraqi war, that is, enormous quantities of WMD, and their locations, to his Nixonian handling of the Presidential Daily Briefs, through the President's badger-like determination to find the leaker of name of one Valerie Plame, this man, our President, has shown a steely resolve.

While precious little in the hunt for banned weapons has been found to this point, I have little doubt that President Bush will personally offer his services in the conducting of further searches, rather than spend a month or two in Crawford with his Pioneer and Ranger donors. That is the kind of man we have leading our country.

My God that man in the flight suit turns me on.

Oh, and Laura dear, would you mind terribly refreshing my glass?

Thanks, hon.

Damn, I'm a fine writer.

From the

"Dick Cheney Worldview of Fuck You"

comes this gem:

High Payments to Halliburton for Fuel in Iraq

By DON VAN NATTA Jr.

The United States government is paying the Halliburton Company an average of $2.64 a gallon to import gasoline and other fuel to Iraq from Kuwait, more than twice what others are paying to truck in Kuwaiti fuel, government documents show.

Halliburton, which has the exclusive United States contract to import fuel into Iraq, subcontracts the work to a Kuwaiti firm, government officials said. But Halliburton gets 26 cents a gallon for its overhead and fee, according to documents from the Army Corps of Engineers.

The cost of the imported fuel first came to public attention in October when two senior Democrats in Congress criticized Halliburton, the huge Houston-based oil-field services company, for "inflating gasoline prices at a great cost to American taxpayers." At the time, it was estimated that Halliburton was charging the United States government and Iraq's oil-for-food program an average of about $1.60 a gallon for fuel available for 71 cents wholesale.

But a breakdown of fuel costs, contained in Army Corps documents recently provided to Democratic Congressional investigators and shared with The New York Times, shows that Halliburton is charging $2.64 for a gallon of fuel it imports from Kuwait and $1.24 per gallon for fuel from Turkey.

A spokeswoman for Halliburton, Wendy Hall, defended the company's pricing. "It is expensive to purchase, ship, and deliver fuel into a wartime situation, especially when you are limited by short-duration contracting," she said. She said the company's Kellogg Brown & Root unit, which administers the contract, must work in a "hazardous" and "hostile environment," and that its profit on the contract is small.

The price of fuel sold in Iraq, set by the government, is 5 cents to 15 cents a gallon. The price is a political issue, and has not been raised to avoid another hardship for Iraqis.

The Iraqi state oil company and the Pentagon's Defense Energy Support Center import fuel from Kuwait for less than half of Halliburton's price, the records show.

Ms. Hall said Halliburton's subcontractor had had more than 20 trucks damaged or stolen, nine drivers injured and one driver killed when making fuel runs into Iraq.

She said the contract was also expensive because it was hard to find a company with the trucks necessary to move the fuel, and because Halliburton is only able to negotiate a 30-day contract for fuel. "It is not as simple as dropping by a service station for a fill-up," she said.

A spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, Bob Faletti, also defended the price of imported fuel.

"Everyone is talking about high costs, but no one is talking about the dangers, or the number of fuel trucks that have been blown up," Mr. Faletti said. "That's the reason it is so expensive." He said recent government audits had found no improprieties in the Halliburton contract.

Gasoline imports are one of the largest costs of Iraqi reconstruction efforts so far. Although Iraq sits on the third-largest oil reserves in the world, production has been hampered by pipeline sabotage, power failures and an antiquated infrastructure that was hurt by 11 years of United Nations sanctions.

Nearly $500 million has already been spent to bring gas, benzene and other fuels into Iraq, according to the corps. And as part of the $87 billion package for Iraq and Afghanistan that President Bush signed last month, $18.6 billion will be spent on reconstruction projects, including $690 million for gasoline and other fuel imports in 2004.

From May to late October, Halliburton imported about 61 million gallons of fuel from Kuwait and about 179 million from Turkey, at a total cost of more than $383 million.

A company's profits on the transport and sale of gasoline are usually razor-thin, with companies losing contracts if they overbid by half a penny a gallon. Independent experts who reviewed Halliburton's percentage of its gas importation contract said the company's 26-cent charge per gallon of gas from Kuwait appeared to be extremely high.

"I have never seen anything like this in my life," said Phil Verleger, a California oil economist and the president of the consulting firm PK Verleger LLC. "That's a monopoly premium — that's the only term to describe it. Every logistical firm or oil subsidiary in the United States and Europe would salivate to have that sort of contract."

In March, Halliburton was awarded a no-competition contract to repair Iraq's oil industry, and it has already received more than $1.4 billion in work. That award has been the focus of Congressional scrutiny in part because Vice President Dick Cheney is Halliburton's former chief executive officer. As part of its contract, Halliburton began importing fuel in the spring when gasoline was in short supply in large Iraqi cities.

The government's accounting shows that Halliburton paid its Kuwait subcontractor $1.17 a gallon, when it was selling for 71 cents a gallon wholesale in the Middle East.

In addition, Halliburton is paying $1.21 a gallon to transport the fuel an estimated 400 miles from Kuwait to Iraq, the documents show. It is paying 22 cents a gallon to transport gas into Iraq from Turkey.

The 26 cents a gallon it keeps includes a 2-cent fee and 24 cents for "mark-up costs," the documents show. The mark-up portion is intended to cover the overhead for administering the contract.

Ms. Hall of Halliburton said it was "misleading" for the corps to call it a mark-up. "This simply means overhead costs, which includes the general and administrative costs like light bulbs, paper and employees," she said. "These costs are specifically allowable under the contract with the Corps of Engineers, are defined by detailed regulations, and are scrutinized and approved by U.S. government auditors."

In recent weeks, the costs of importing fuel from Kuwait have risen. Figures provided recently to Congressional investigators by the corps show that Halliburton was charging as much as $3.06 per gallon for fuel from Kuwait in late November.

If the corps concludes that Halliburton has successfully administered the gas contract, it could be paid an additional 5 percent of the total value of the gas it imported.

Halliburton's Kuwait subcontractor was hired in May. Halliburton and the Army Corps of Engineers refused to identify the company, citing security reasons. Aides to Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who has been a critic of the fuel contract, said government officials had identified it as the Altanmia Commercial Marketing Company. Several independent petroleum experts in the Middle East and the United States said they had not heard of Altanmia.

Copies of the Army Corps documents were given to Mr. Waxman's office, which provided them to The Times.

Iraqi's state oil company, SOMO, pays 96 cents a gallon to bring in gas, which includes the cost of gasoline and transportation costs, the aides to Mr. Waxman said. The gasoline transported by SOMO — and by Halliburton's subcontractor — are delivered to the same depots in Iraq and often use the same military escorts.

The Pentagon's Defense Energy Support Center pays $1.08 to $1.19 per gallon for the gas it imports from Kuwait, Congressional aides said. That includes the price of the gas and its transportation costs.

The money for Halliburton's gas contract has come principally from the United Nations oil-for-food program, though some of the costs have been borne by American taxpayers. In the appropriations bill signed by Mr. Bush last month, taxpayers will subsidize all gas importation costs beginning early next year.

In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Waxman responded to the latest information on to costs of the Halliburton contract. "It's inexcusable that Americans are being charged absurdly high prices to buy gasoline for Iraqis and outrageous that the White House is letting it happen," he said. link

Of course, Mr. Bush has assured us that the matter will be handled. Isn't that right Kenny boy? ;)

I guess this clinches it. unelectable.com is a redirect to the biography of George W. Bush. Heh. kids!

The threat from within.

From the NYT:

Our Enemies at Home
By DANIEL LEVITAS

ATLANTA

In April, as Baghdad fell and American soldiers began searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, federal officials uncovered a cache of deadly chemicals much closer to home — in the eastern Texas town of Noonday. The stockpile included a fully functional sodium cyanide bomb capable of killing hundreds, as well as neo-Nazi and antigovernment literature, illegal weapons, half a million rounds of ammunition, and more than 100 explosives, including bombs disguised as suitcases.

William Krar, a 62-year-old manufacturer of gun parts and a right-wing extremist who had rented the storage locker in which the cache was found, has pleaded guilty in federal court to possessing a chemical weapon and faces a possible life sentence. Two others — Judith L. Bruey, Mr. Krar's companion, and Edward Feltus, a member of a parmilitary group called the New Jersey Militia — are awaiting sentencing.

An isolated incident involving a few Americans on the far-right fringe? Most people probably assume so, but federal authorities served more than 150 subpeonas in the case, and are still searching for others who may have been involved.

The Noonday case shows just how serious a threat we face from domestic terrorists. Consider this year's other high-profile incident involving rightist causes: the arrest of Eric Rudolph, accused of bombing abortion clinics and the 1996 Olympics. During his five years in the wilderness, he was often viewed by the public and press as a lone fugitive. But law enforcement officials have linked him to two national movements: the Army of God, a biblically inspired underground network of anti-abortion extremists; and the Christian Identity movement, whose members believe that Jews are the literal children of Satan, nonwhites are sub-human, and that Anglo-Saxon Christians are the true descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. More...

Thanks to Dave Neiwert at Orcinus for the heads-up.

Now here is where someone with a background in toxicology would be of assistance. That person is not me. I am a VLSI(Very Large Scale Integration..ya know..semi-conductors) Engineer, with an interest in many things.

In various news accounts, the Sodium Cyanide device has been memtioned as being able to kill even thousands of people. If this is not a binary weapon(see below), the far greater danger comes from the immediate explosion and schrapnel than from the Cyanide. Sodium Cyanide(NaCN) is a crystalline powder, and while acutely toxic, is not likely to cause large numbers of additional injuries or death in and of itself. Purely a terror device.

I am always in search of truth, and I cannot help but wonder if the device in question is a binary device. A binary device is one that uses a reaction immediately prior to, or during delivery combining two chemical, into one with much more lethality. A binary device using NaCN plus another agent could easily produce Hydrogen Cyanide, as was used in Nazi Germany to kill millions. It is the liberation of HCN that would prove most worrisome.

I am heartened by law enforcement's abilities to stop home-grown terrorists. Read the entire NYC article.

ON Edit: It just occurred to me how much these homegrown terrorists have in common with those that attacked us on 9/11. They both have expressed desires to see a theocratic state, use violence in an attempt to achive those goals, and are very pronounced racists. Just a few random thoughts.

Saddam is in custody. This is really good news. There is some chatter about Saddam being tried in Iraq. CNN showed the infamous Rumsfeld/Saddam handshake this AM.

It will be curious to see what we can learn about US/Iraq relations over the years. Will Saddam be allowed to talk? I do not think so. Since the US supported him for a couple of decades under the notion of, 'the enemy of my enemy....' , he knows much about the West's somewhat troubling past. As well as the very recent past.

Richard Perle's recent admission that the prosecution of the Iraq war was illegal under international law, along with the lack of any hard evidence of post 1991 chem/bio/nuclear weapons programs does concern me that everything Saddam knows will never see the light of day.

Congratulations to our forces on a job well done. Now, let us have the courage to let Saddam tell his story before he is most likely to be face execution.

Already, pundits have claimed that this hurts the Democrats running for President. Especially Howard Dean. I do no think that this is so. It is more of a booster shot for Bush, but does not alter any of the reasons that we prosecuted this war. Until we know what the fallout from the Iraq war is, we should not make hasty proclamations.

It will most likely be decades before we know what the implications of our actions are. So far, everything save for the initial war prosecution has gone poorly for this administration, and the world at large.