Florida police cars to sport corporate logos

Satire or truth?

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Gonzo times

Hunter S Thompson on the war frenzy

‘It’s sort of a herd mentality, a lemming-like mentality. If you don’t go with the flow you’re anti-American and therefore a suspect. And we’ve seen this before, these patriotic frenzies. It’s very convenient having an undeclared war that you can call a war and impose military tribunals and wartime security and we have these generals telling us that this war’s going to go on for a long, long time.

Maybe not so much the generals now, the generals are a little afraid of Iraq, a little worried about it, but it’s the civilians in the White House, the gang of thieving, just lobbyists for the military industrial complex, who are running the White House, and to be against them is to be patriotic, then hell, call me a traitor.’ 

via I Make Content

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Ill. Gov. may commute all death sentences.

Illinois governor George Ryan may commute all death sentences before he leaves office. 

Since Illinois resumed capital punishment in 1977, 12 people have been executed and 13 other death sentences were overturned. In some cases, evidence showed they were innocent; in others, courts ruled that they received unfair trials. [TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime]

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Bush lies about UN report on Iraq

Oh sorry, how coarse of me.  I meant he “misstated” the report.

White House: Bush misstated report on Iraq

Seeking to build a case Saturday that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction, President Bush cited a satellite photograph and a report by the U.N. atomic energy agency as evidence of Iraq’s impending rearmament. But in response to a report by NBC News, a senior administration official acknowledged Saturday night that the U.N. report drew no such conclusion, and a spokesman for the U.N. agency said the photograph had been misinterpreted.

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Bush to tell UN - US will invade Iraq

President Bush plans to tell world leaders at the United Nations next week that unless they take quick, unequivocally strong action to disarm Iraq, the United States will be forced to act on its own, senior administration officials said yesterday.

Forced?  Forced implies coercion.  There is no one forcing the US to invade Iraq.

The president’s Thursday speech will open the door to a possible new round of U.N. inspections of Iraq’s biological, chemical and other forms of weapons.

The dominant view within the administration is that the time for inspections has passed and that ultimately Hussein, who has barred inspectors since 1998, will have to be forcibly deposed. But White House officials have been persuaded that working through the United Nations, for the moment at least, is advisable and may ultimately facilitate military action.

So, Dubya will tell the UN that the US will invade Iraq regardless of what the UN thinks.  However, we want inspections of Iraq, even though we think such inspections are pointless.  Because, these inspections may help us convince you to invade Iraq.  Even though we already told you we will invade anyway.  Plus we leaked news of our plan to the press to make sure you know. 

Uh huh.  Sounds like a winner of a plan to me.  I’m sure Russia, China, France, and Germany will just roll over and agree with you.  Because they sure don’t now.

Hmmm, if we invade another country without ok from the UN, doesn’t that make us one of those “rogue nations” we’re always sactimoniously wagging our finger at?

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Healing People - and a Country

Fascinating interview with a traditional healer, Maria Timane, in Mozambique.  Healers there not only help the ill, they helped heal the country after their brutal war by creating ceremonies to help former enemies become friends again.

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