While Rome Burns ...

AS U.S. ECONOMIC PROBLEMS LOOM, HOUSE, SENATE SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF (Elizabeth Williamson)

Members of Congress love a good resolution ... Watermelons and undertakers fit the
bill



The 110th Congress, whose term officially ends in January, hasn't
passed any spending bills or attacked high gasoline prices. But it has
used its powers to celebrate watermelons and to decree the origins of
the word "baseball."

Barring a burst of legislative activity after Labor Day, this group of
535 men and women will have accomplished a rare feat. In two decades of
record keeping, no sitting Congress has passed fewer public laws at
this point in the session - 294 so far - than this one. That's not to
say they've been idle. On the flip side, no Congress in the same 20
years has been so prolific when it comes to proposing resolutions -
more than 1,900, according to a tally by the nonpartisan Taxpayers for
Common Sense.

With the mostly symbolic measures, Congress has saluted such milestones as the
Idaho Potato Commission's 70th anniversary and recognized soil as an "essential
natural resource." As legislation on gasoline prices, tax fixes and predatory
lending languish, Congress has designated May 5-9 as National Substitute Teacher
Recognition Week, and set July 28 as the Day of the American Cowboy . . . .

Congress, which won't return to session until September, has yet to
pass any 2009 appropriations bills, even though funding the federal
budget is its official function. Before leaving town for summer break
in August, lawmakers failed to establish August as Heat Stroke
Awareness Month, blowing the deadline to make it official.



Source: online.wsj.com (8-19-08)
LINK

And they can sink NATO fleet in 20 minutes

Military help for Georgia is a 'declaration of war', says Moscow in extraordinary warning to the West

Moscow has issued an extraordinary warning to the West that military assistance to Georgia for use against South Ossetia or Abkhazia would be viewed as a "declaration of war" by Russia.

The extreme rhetoric from the Kremlin's envoy to NATO came as President Dmitry Medvedev stressed he will make a military response to US missile defence installations in eastern Europe, sending new shudders across countries whose people were once blighted by the Iron Curtain.

And Moscow also emphasised it was closely monitoring what it claims is a build-up of NATO firepower in the Black Sea.

The incendiary warning on Western military involvement in Georgia - where NATO nations have long played a role in training and equipping the small state - came in an interview with Dmitry Rogozin, a former nationalist politician who is now ambassador to the North Atlantic Alliance.

"If NATO suddenly takes military actions against Abkhazia and South Ossetia, acting solely in support of Tbilisi, this will mean a declaration of war on Russia," he stated.

Yesterday [he] likened the current world crisis to the fevered atmosphere before the start of the First World War. Rogozin said he did not believe the crisis would descend to war between the West and Russia. But his use of such intemperate language will be seen as dowsing a fire with petrol.

Source:thisislondon.co.uk
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Stay Alert to News of the Bear

Dan 7:5  And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.

24/04/2008 Moscow News,№16 2008

Flying High

MOSCOW - Russia's rearmament program, approved in 2006 for a period until 2015, provides for supplying modern weapons to its armed forces. One of them is the Su-34 Fullback fighter-bomber, which will replace the Su-24 Fencers.

The process has begun, but some say the replacement is taking too long.

The new fighter-bomber is said to be very good. An improvement on the Su-27 Flanker, it has cutting-edge equipment, including a modern crew and equipment protection system. The Su-34 is effective against personnel and military hardware on the battlefield and also against targets behind enemy lines. It can also be used for surveillance missions and against naval targets.

... Pay close attention now.
Units armed with such aircraft can be used in the so-called pendulum operations, when an Air Force unit bombs a terrorist base in Central Asia today, delivers a strike at a missile base in Europe the next day, and three days later flies to the Indian Ocean to support a combined group of the Northern, Pacific and Black Sea fleets, with flights from a base in Russia.

... Uh, oh! Look out!
However, such elite units can be quickly weeded out by swarms of ordinary aircraft in a global war of attrition, such as World War II. From this viewpoint, Russia's new concept looks vulnerable, but then this country has the nuclear triad for a global war.

In a war of attrition, it will not matter how many such smart aircraft Russia will have - 200, 600 or 1,500. What will really matter is the yield of a nuclear bomb they will be able to drop on the enemy.

Read the entire article.

Ezekial 38 anyone?

Alert: Reorganization Meetings

The reorganization meetings for political parties are prescribed by state law as follows:

County Committees - 3rd Tuesday in August, this year Aug 19.
Legislative District Comm - 3rd Wednesday after the election, Aug 20.
Senatorial District Comm - 3rd Saturday after the election, Aug 23.
Congressional District Comm - Last Tues in August, Aug 26

See Missouri Revised Statutes, 115.621 and 115.615

They did it, so can we!

... or "What goes around comes around."

August 01, 2008

House Dems turn out the lights but GOP keeps talking

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Democrats adjourned the House, turned off the lights and killed the microphones, but Republicans are still on the floor talking gas prices.

Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and other GOP leaders opposed the motion to adjourn the House, arguing that Pelosi's refusal to schedule a vote allowing offshore drilling is hurting the American economy. They have refused to leave the floor after the adjournment motion passed at 11:23 a.m., and they are busy bashing Pelosi and her fellow Democrats for leaving town for the August recess.

At one point, the lights went off in the House and the microphones were turned off in the chamber, meaning Republicans were talking in the dark. But as Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz..) was speaking, the lights went back on and the microphones were turned on shortly afterward.

But C-SPAN, which has no control over the cameras in the chamber, has stopped broadcasting the House floor, meaning no one was witnessing this except the assembled Republicans, their aides, and one Democrat, Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio), who has now left.

Only about a half-dozen Republicans were on the floor when this began, but the crowd has grown to about 20, according to Patrick O'Connor.

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Chinese Totalitarianism, American-Style

By John W. Whitehead
7/31/2008

“Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.”—Thomas Jefferson

China is becoming more like us in very visible ways (Starbucks, Hooters, cellphones that are cooler than ours),” observed Naomi Klein in Rolling Stone in May 2008, “and we are becoming more like China in less visible ones (torture, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention, though not nearly on the Chinese scale).”

Klein’s expose, “China’s All-Seeing Eye,” sheds light on how U.S. defense contractors have been helping China build the prototype for a high-tech police state that will be put to the test with the upcoming Beijing Olympics. It’s a must-read for anyone who is concerned that one more terrorist attack is all it will take for the U.S. to cross over into a totalitarian police state.

The reach of the technology being implemented is alarming. Think electronic concentration camps, complete with high-tech surveillance systems and internet and cell phone censorship programs. What is more disconcerting is the extent to which U.S. companies have helped China oppress its people.

In the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Congress actually passed legislation that was intended to prevent U.S. companies from helping Chinese authorities suppress human rights and democracy. Since then, American corporations have been working to side-step the prohibition while exploiting every loophole and simultaneously lobbying Congress to lift the restrictions and allow them free play in China’s homeland security market.

This includes security and communications giants such as IBM, General Electric, United Technologies, Honeywell, DuPont and Motorola, as well as technology giants such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. The motivation, of course, is money. According to Klein, “the global homeland-security business is now worth an estimated $200 billion — more than Hollywood and the music industry combined.” Thus, for the sake of greed, these companies have become turncoats to freedom, completely selling out America’s once-cherished ideals of democracy.

Note: Anyone aware of the role of American academics and corporations, particularly IBM and Standard Oil, in Hitler's rise to power and the Holocaust should not be surprised.

Read the Rest

Promoting Incompetance (OR ... ?)

Wednesday: Fired by MnDOT, now at Homeland Security

Sonia Pitt, who skipped recovery efforts after the bridge collapse, is now working for TSA.

By PAUL MCENROE and TONY KENNEDY, Star Tribune

Last update: August 1, 2008 - 8:43 AM

Sonia Pitt

Sonia Pitt, the MnDOT emergency response executive fired for taking an unauthorized, state-paid trip to Washington during the Interstate
35W bridge disaster, is now working for the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security.

Read the rest