Sticking to The Plan?

   
 

In an interview with Amy Goodman on March 2, 2007, U.S. General Wesley Clark (Ret.), explained that the Bush Administration planned to take out 7 countries in 5 years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.     

So, with the pending illegal action against Syria, is the Obama Administration following Bush's mid-east plan?      


C:\USR\WP_DOCS\TROLLEY\BLOGS\UNCOMMON

The Baby Boom is Busted

There's now a baby BUST in progress in most of the "developed" world, not a baby BOOM. AND the birth rate has been declining world-wide as even many "developing" countries decline toward the 2.1 babies-per-woman population replacement rate.

Birthrates are falling nearly all over the world, and the speed of this change is breathtaking. As the population ages, this is creating great challenges. The Fertility Implosion www.nytimes.com

--CONVERSABLE ECONOMIST: Six Adults and One Child: The Coming Baby Bust

--Teen pregnancy rates decrease nationwide, increase in Amarillo area : News : ConnectAmarillo.com

--TONIGHT: Teen pregnancy hits record lows | KETK

And, the dirty little secret is it's putting the hurt on the world-wide social ponzis ...

--Ponzi Planet: The Danger Debt Poses to the Western World - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International Spiegel article, Ponzi Planet

You can see the recent world-wide "picture" of this phenom using "Gapminder's" graphical representation. HERE: GAPMINDER (World population -- babies per woman)

If you put your cursor point on any circle, you can see the country name. The "Children per woman" box is in lower right of the Gapminder window. The "children per woman" number for the country you have the cursor on pops up there.

Japan, Germany, Belaruse, Poland, Portugal, Italy, etc. all at about 1.4 children per woman are particularly interesting in the implications.  Other countries aren't quite so dramatic, but the trend is clear. 

Gapminder is a prize winning and popular innovation and can be used to graphically demonstrate all sorts of collected data. It also lets you go back in time to see how key ratios have evolved.  All in all, perhaps THE "killer ap." Hit 'Play' button at the bottom to see the population shrink over the years.

Orwellistan? Are we there yet mommy??

Well, are we??

Unfortunately the stuff below only starts with impeccable Democracy Now and from three nearly impeccable guests:

1. William Binney, an NSA whistle blower who worked as a manager there for more than 30 years,

2. Jacob Appelbaum, a TOR and privacy software designer and activist

3. Laura Poitras, an Oscar-nominated anti-war filmmaker intimidated by Uncle ~40 times because she is.

--Whistleblower: The NSA is Lying-U.S. Government Has Copies of Most of Your Emails  http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/whistleblower_the_nsa_is_lying_us

--Exclusive: National Security Agency Whistleblower William Binney on Growing State Surveillance   http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/exclusive_national_security_agency_whistleblower_william

--Detained in the U.S.: Filmmaker Laura Poitras Held, Questioned Some 40 Times at U.S. Airports  http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/detained_in_the_us_filmmaker_laura

--"We Do Not Live in a Free Country": Jacob Appelbaum on Being Target of Widespread Gov’t Surveillance  http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/we_do_not_live_in_a

And another interview with Mr. Binney:

--NSA Whistleblower: U.S. Assembling Information On Every U.S. Citizen

Then there are the USA domestic spy-drones:

--These Police Surveillance Drones Could Be Watching You Right Now - Business Insider

And, perhaps, even more "interesting" tools and techniques:

--14 Incredibly Creepy Surveillance Technologies That Big Brother Will Soon Be Using To Spy On You - BlackListedNews.com

Don't even have an appropriate closing.  Maybe - - - 

"Of course you're free. Now shut-up if you want to stay that way."

r.

P.S. Great weather!  How about those Cubbies!  I think I'll plant zucchinis again this year.  Do you guys like pizza as well as I do?  

IRAN: A Medley Against the MIC (MilitaryIndustrialComplex)

U.S. Defense Sec. Leon Panetta: Are they [Iranians] trying to develop a nuclear weapon? "No." --Panetta Admits Iran is Not Trying to Develop a Nuclear Weapon, CBS's "Face The Nation" Jan. 8, 2012

NOAM CHOMSKY: The Brookings Institute just a few months ago released extensive polls of what Arabs think about Iran. …They show that Arab opinion …”holds that the major threat in the region is Israel, that's 80 percent; the second major threat is the United States, that's 77 percent. Iran is listed as a threat by 10 percent. With regard to nuclear weapons, rather remarkably, a majority, in fact, 57 percent, say that …it would have a positive effect in the region if Iran had nuclear weapons.  --Iran: Parallax view

Notice Iran has no nukes while U.S. has 8,500 and Israel has an estimated 80. Unlike Iran, Israel didn't sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and won't allow ANY inspections of it's nuclear facilities.

The Buried Lead on Iran: All Nuclear Sites Routinely Inspected, No Violations  --Antiwar.com

Iran to Allow Nuclear Inspectors Into Secret Military Complex
+
Iran has announced it will allow international nuclear inspectors to visit its secret Parchin military complex. Iran has long said its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only, but some international analysts have speculated Iran may be using the Parchin complex to do research relevant to nuclear weapons. It is not clear when inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency will visit the site.  --Democracy NOW! HEADLINES, March 06, 2012

Retired Generals Sign Open Letter Opposing War With Iran
+
Eight retired U.S. military and intelligence officials have signed an open letter to President Obama urging him to say no to war with Iran. The letter was published as a full-page ad in the Washington Post on Monday. Signatories included Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief-of-staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Paul Pillar, a former CIA national intelligence officer.  --Democracy NOW! HEADLINES, March 06, 2012

U.S.: Iran Unlikely to Start Military Conflict
+
A top U.S. intelligence official said Thursday that Iran is unlikely to provoke a military conflict but would respond if attacked. Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Ronald Burgess made the comment in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. --DemocracyNOW! HEADLINES, February 17, 2012

U.S. Intelligence Analysts: No Hard Evidence Iran Is Building Nuclear Bomb
+
In a front-page article published on Saturday, the New York Times reports U.S. intelligence analysts continue to believe that there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb. According to the article, recent assessments by U.S. spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program years earlier. --Democracy NOW! Headlines | Monday, February 27, 2012

Is there a covert war against Iran? --Chris Matthews' Hardball<

WHO'S RUNNING COVERT OPS AGAINST IRAN? --The Race for Iran


So, what's this REALLY all about?

Is Israeli Prime Minister Mr. Netanyahu really this misinformed -- or is he just running a war-scam?

What do YOU think - - - 

Panetta says Israel could strike Iran in spring: report.  --Yahoo

Report: Israel Won’t Warn U.S. Before Striking Iranian Nuclear Sites
+
The Associated Press is reporting Israeli officials have privately told the Obama administration they will not warn the United States if they decide to launch a preemptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.  ...Both Netanyahu and Obama are scheduled to address a conference organized by AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The Wall Street Journal is reporting Obama is considering using his AIPAC speech on Sunday to more forcefully outline potential military actions against Iran. ...  --Democracy Now, HEADLINES, Tuesday, February 28, 2012

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

P.S. MICC? That's President Eisenhower's "MilitaryIndustrialCongressional Complex."

The Essence of Government -- by Ostensive Definition

"Can you please give us an all-inclusive, objective, non-ideological definition of what you mean by "government"? Surely you must have one, since you comment on it in practically every post!" --Greg

Well first off, most folks don't have too much trouble understanding what organizations called "governments" are, since they loudly proclaim themselves and thoroughly intrude into nearly all aspects of your life. And if you try to ignore them, they often bash you.

"all-inclusive, objective, non-ideological definition?" Apparently you have way more confidence in the ablilty of my words to capture the essence of things than I do. But OK. I'll play. Since normal definitions seem to have left you with some doubt, let me give it a shot, though, relying mostly on my favorite mode, ostensive definition. More or less.

So Greg. Let's try this: There is a class of groups of people who arrogate to themselves the right to coerce others -- using force and threats of force -- to do things, not to do things, how to do things, and the right to insist on payment of their choosing for that "service" without getting the others' informed consent.

One such group might be the Mafia as depicted in film and fable, although, compared to the normal groups that operate that way, they are mild by comparison. For example, mafias rarely hassle folks for smoking marijuana, tell you you can't sell booze or burn trash on Sundays, fire bomb or nuke cities in foreign countries, etc..

The main such coercive groups however, are groups and sub-groups which people normally call "government." Typically such groups also attempt to gain a monopoly on the use of force to keep their "customers," both willing and unwilling, paying them "taxes" so they can continue to exist in the life-style to which their group has become accustomed. These organizations include the only groups that engage in "war."

Such groups, often the slightly more benign ones, may be taken over by other cliquish sub-groups who then enjoy the advantages of taxation, etc. The Nazis used this ploy quite successfully in Germany for example. In the older days, those who arrogated themselves positions in governments traditionally took on titles like "King," "Queen," "Duke," etc.

Like classical slavery, children are ass-u-med to be born into the condition of servitude to these "government" groups. They are expected to selflessly and without complaint, take up the yoke of the government debt (euphimistically called "national debt") these organizations have run up in their name, and to be subject to largely arbitrary rules they have had no say in producing.

These coercive groups, knowing they can't get away with most of this in broad daylight, usually learn to disguise their enterprise. Joel Barlow pointed out the essence of the scam centuries ago like this:

The art of constructing governments has usually been to organize the State in such a manner, as that this operation could be carried on to the best advantage for the administrators; and the art of administering those governments has been so to vary the means of seizing upon private property, as to bring the greatest possible quantity into the public coffers, without exciting insurrections. [1] Those governments which are called despotic, deal more in open plunder; those that call themselves free, and act under the cloak of what they teach the people to reverence as a constitution, are driven to the arts of stealing. These have succeeded better by theft than the others have by plunder; and this is the principal difference by which they can be distinguished. Under those constitutional governments the people are more industrious, and create property faster; because they are not sensible in what manner, and in what quantities, it is taken from them. The administrators, in this case, act by a compound operation; one is to induce the people to work, and the other to take from them their earnings. --Joel Barlow, [2] "Advice to the Privileged Orders in the Several States of Europe - Resulting from the Necessity and Propriety of a General Revolution in the Principle of Government," written between 1792 and 1795 VOTE? 109_clip18

So, the smart "governments" pretend to deliver "services" most (if not all) of which could be provided by voluntary exchange. In other words, they don't tax to provide services, they provide meager services so they can get away with taxing.

Currently such exactions amount to at least 43% of the average American's cost of living.

In short, whenever you see large numbers of people in uniforms, mass murder and violence (as in "wars" etc.) -- and mass starvation, hyperinflation and other economic mayhem -- or the possibility of nuclear extinction -- you can safely bet a "government" is intimately involved.

Did that help?

< C:\USR\WP_DOCS\TROLLEY\TRIBES~1\WK\27_CLIQU.WK The essence of government >
Notes:

[1]

MUNICH Suddeutsche Zeitung (centrist): Russia's crises have been repetitive, and almost all have the same causes. The government is unable to get a grip on its finances because it is incapable of enacting an effective tax system and of parsuading taxpayers to obey the law .... What Yeltsin needs is money, and lots of it. To get it on good terms, he must convince the IMF that he is collecting taxes to reduce the budget, if necessary, by expropriating the assets of delinquents. -Josef Riedmiller [WORLD PRESS REVIEW, AUGUST 1998, p.7]

Only one in 10 Russians is registered with the taxing authorities. Communists are particularly adept at avoiding taxes. The IMF loans won't go to pay the miners, and others who haven't been paid for over six months, or for any other social welfare programs; they will go to stabilize the financial markets. -NWI, 10 Aug 1998, 4:31:32 PM EDT

The United States is urging the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, to rein in provincial warlords who are hijacking hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, and has not ruled out US military assistance in the event of a showdown.
+
The US views Afghanistan's deepening financial crisis - which threatens the legitimacy and the future of Mr Karzai's administration - with increasing alarm, a Western diplomat said on Monday. Karzai set for showdown over revenue, May 14 2003 return

[2] In 1788 Barlow went to France as the agent of the Scioto Land Company and induced the company of Frenchmen who ultimately founded Gallipolis, Ohio, to emigrate to America. In Paris he became a liberal in religion and an advanced republican in politics. In England he published various radical essays, including Advice to the Privileged Orders (1792), proscribed by the British government. In 1792 he was made a French citizen. Thomas Paine had become his friend in England, and during Paine's imprisonment in Paris Barlow effected the publication of The Age of Reason. return

Huckaboom?

A friend of mine worked at a relatively local Rockwell Corp. resort. Rockwell had myriad government contracts, and their claim to fame was that they had a factory in nearly every congressional district in the country.

Needless to say, when they needed a vote in Con gress, they could get one. But just to be sure, they ran a few of these "resorts" around the country to wine and dine the recalcitrant few. And reward the faithful many.

My friend Mike's job was, when the Con gress critters wanted to go hunting, to give them a successful outing. Even if they had only a half hour or so.

They did this by taking the politician to a pre-arranged blind, and then Mike and his crew would release captive birds from trenches until the "skilled" critter managed to bag one.

Huckaboom??

P.S. And what about Cheney's "hunting" accident?