Bob Morris @ Dec 30th 2005 08:29 - Category: Government spying ;
George Bush, rather then apologize for ordering illegal wiretapping by the NSA, has ordered an investigation to find the evildoers who leaked the data. How Nixonian of him.
Bob Morris @ Dec 30th 2005 00:37 - Category: Unfiled ;
1) Friday morning, today, we go flying in a private plane, down the Hana Highway, then to the Big Island to view, among other things, lave flowing from a crater, and out of a cliff into the ocean. I should have some spectacular photos up by Saturday.
Then, sadly, it’s back to LA. Sigh…
2) We saw Barry Flanagan of Hapa and Eric Gilliom at Mulligans on the Blue, a small supper club Thursday night. They play there twice a week when in town. It holds maybe 60 people, an intimate setting indeed to see these superb musicians play amazing Hawaiian music. Flanagan is one of the best slack key guitarists on the planet. Gilliom played rhythm guitar, and both sang. Songs were in English and Hawaiian.
Mulligans has lots of photos online of them.
Hapa plays Santa Barbara in February, and we’ll be there to see them.
Bob Morris @ Dec 30th 2005 00:18 - Category: Unfiled ;
This lengthy WaPo article details Abramoff’s life of fixing and sleaze quite admirably. A few tidbits:
The nonprofit Capital Athletic Foundation, for example, allowed him to schmooze with Washington’s movers and shakers at charity affairs.
The foundation was ostensibly created to help inner-city children through organized sports. There is no evidence money went to city kids, but the foundation did fund some of Abramoff’s pet projects: a sniper school for Israelis in the West Bank, a golf trip to Scotland for Ohio congressman Ney and others, and a Jewish religious academy in Columbia that Abramoff founded and where he sent his children to be educated.
Even more serious, Abramoff and Kidan were targets of a Florida federal grand jury investigating the SunCruz wire transfer. And local authorities were probing the gangland-style slaying of the man who had sold them the cruise line, Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis.
Two things. First, if mainstream media is running stories like this, Abramoff is dead meat. He’s going down. Good, may he take the rest of the corrupt DC establishment with him. 2) Much of what Abramoff did concerned creating a string of casinos. Was he an independent or are there organized crime ties, was he just the hired help?
After John Giotti was convicted, I recall reading a NYC newspaper article saying Giotti’s real mistake was being so public, so blatant. The article then mentioned the name of the boss of bosses in NYC, the head of the families, saying he lived quietly and stayed out of the headlines, and that you’d probably never heard of his name, right? He, as I recall, has never even been arrested.
Maybe the neocon sleaze in DC thought they had it all wired and they couldn’t fall. They were wrong. Wrapped in patriotism and religiosity, at heart they’re greedy, not too bright thugs. And about to take a fall.
Bob Morris @ Dec 30th 2005 00:17 - Category: Anti-war, Imperialism ;
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a $685 million loan for Iraq on December 24. Now the country’s war torn economy will be fully integrated into the global economy—indefinitely. The reconstruction of Iraq will soon be open to even more industrialized nations and interests.
Iraq will not be sovereign or independent in the near future, even if President Bush says so. The country’s financial future will instead be dictated by a new colossal economic occupation, complete with ground forces, tanks, foreign military bases and the like—all thanks to the United States, Britain and the IMF.
That’s why the US will never leave Iraq, they want the oil - unless they lose the war, that is. But then, they lost in Vietnam too.
Bob Morris @ Dec 30th 2005 00:17 - Category: Water ;
Are we to decide the importance of issues by asking how fashionable or glamorous they are? Or by asking how seriously they affect how many? - Nelson Mandela.
This two-part article explains in depth the problem of poor water supply in Delhi, India, using examples from other countries showing why water privatization hurts more than it helps. This is a great introduction to the myriad social. political, and health issues revolving around water.
Bob Morris @ Dec 30th 2005 00:16 - Category: Uncategorized Tags: Maui;
1/2 mile in on the road to Lahaina by the general store. There’s probably many more in the West Maui mountains, however these are easily accessible.
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