http://houseofpaine.org/ Exploring Alternative Viewpoints because Truth is the Greatest Enemy of the State. en-us Nucleus CMS v3.32 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://houseofpaine.org//nucleus/nucleus2.gif http://houseofpaine.org/ http://houseofpaine.org/index.php?itemid=134
Israel's Haaretz daily newspaper quoted Yakov Edery, the minister for government-paramilitary relations, as saying that the Israeli army used phosphorus shells "in attacks against military targets in open ground".

A spokeswoman for Edery confirmed the report to AFP news agency, saying that Edery was reading the army's response to a query from another Israeli politician.

"This is not his personal opinion, this is what the military told us," said Orly Yechzeken.

Edery said in his statement that the army maintains that phosphorus shells are a legitimate weapon and not forbidden by international law.

"The IDF used this type of munitions according to the rules of international law," Edery is quoted as saying by Haaretz news agency. White phosphorus munitions can cause severe burns and agonising deaths for its victims, leading to demands from many human rights organisations to classify it as a chemical weapon.

The International Red Cross and other human rights groups have long argued that phosphorus weapons should be banned under the chemical weapons convention.

Several media outlets during the recent conflict in Lebanon alleged that civilians had been seen with injuries consistent with contact with white phosphorous.

Emile Lahoud, the Lebanese president, also claimed that the IDF made use of phosphorus munitions against civilians in Lebanon.

Last year officials from the Pentagon acknowledged that US troops had used white phosphorous as a weapon during the battle for Falluja in November 2004, but denied it had been used on civilians.]]> General http://houseofpaine.org/index.php?itemid=134 Sun, 22 Oct 2006 09:51:15 -0700 http://houseofpaine.org/index.php?itemid=133

It is now Official!

In reality, the Europeans and others who came to the United States hundreds of years ago all came here “illegally.” They were not invited, nor necessarily welcome. They took it upon themselves to overrun an entire nation, to commit genocide and other horrendous crimes against natives, and at the same time brought along another race of people whom they enslaved. The bottom line is that the entire country was founded by a bunch of racist elitist illegal immigrant criminals.

But some several hundred years later it’s a different story.]]> General http://houseofpaine.org/index.php?itemid=133 Thu, 19 Oct 2006 09:14:38 -0700 http://houseofpaine.org/index.php?itemid=132
The ugly truth is that both parties serve the same masters and they aren't the American people or even the best interests of America—at least not since the Federal Reserve, Inc (a private entity owned by bankers) was created by the Rockefellers for the Rockefellers and their International Banker friends in the City of London. Having had our money system (and wealth) hijacked for almost 100 years (following the Federal Reserve Act of 1913) has allowed the Ruling Class to create and manipulate debt, interest rates, recessions, and depressions and involve Americans in wars for their economic profits and our human losses, and to continue to do so in Iraq and the soon coming wars with Iran, Syria, and probably China.

To underscore the truth about both parties being on the same team one needs to only review Bill Clinton's record: NAFTA, FDA approval for GMOs, illegal bombings in Iraq and Kosovo; illegal sanctions (genocide) in Iraq that killed at least 500,000 children; ignored Rwandan genocide that claimed 1 million people; supported Indonesian dictator Suharto as he slaughtered 200,000 Acehians; the Waco disaster; more corporate welfare and less human welfare; the crime bill that allowed 1 million more people (mostly minorities) to be incarcerated; Counter-Terrorism and Death Penalty Act that paved the way for the evil and disingenuous USA PATRIOT Act, gutting habeas corpus and civil liberties; the Telecommunications Act effectively concentrated the flow of information and content into a handful of globalist pro-war owners. And on and on, as both parties focus on creating 'enemies' and ramping up fear to conceal the failures of the American system.

In Clinton’s recent heated interview with Chris Wallace of the right-wing Fox News television channel, his counter-attack was not an indictment of the current administration for its criminal policy of aggressive war—indeed he voiced not a word of criticism over the ongoing debacle in Iraq—but rather a defense of his own record as a proponent of military aggression.

What Clinton’s statement reveals is that the program of global militarism launched by the Bush administration in the aftermath of September 11 was a consensus policy of the American ruling elite, supported by both of its major parties, the Democrats and Republicans.

The posturing by Democrats and Republicans alike on the issues of abortion, gay rights, religion, etc., are red herrings meant to disguise and deflect (for example) the actual realities that the Supreme Court (2000) interfered in the democratic political process by selecting a president for Americans (with no objection by the Democratic Senators–and decided by a 'moderate' Sandra Day O'Connor) and the recent ruling allowing the wealthiest to claim eminent domain in order to acquire property owned by other Americans.

A Democratic win in 2008 might be less destructive of our environment but they wouldn't get us national health care. They would continue to support our insane drug policy, and they would go along with international trade agreements that exploit workers and befoul the environment. They would not do anything about the ticking time bomb of 2 million Americans growing old in prisons.

Money runs politics, and it matters little whether you're Bush/Gore in Washington, Wilson/Davis in Sacramento, or Brown/Feinstein in San Francisco. Corruption abounds. Both major parties are awash in it. In that sense, there is no difference between the Democrats and Republicans. There are nuances of differences, of course, blue eyes versus brown eyes, but both creatures are essentially the same.

We have never had socialized health care and tuition-free higher education in America because we spend our tax dollars invading and occupying other nations and other forms of overt militarization. We take care of the corporate bottom line by neglecting the needs of the people. A lifetime of propaganda is not easy to overcome; yet that is our task. People must understand that the world is being run by a very small clique of the wealthiest people. It is run to accrue wealth to them by exploiting the rest of us. Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state. When will Americans wake up and realize that they are losing their country?]]> General http://houseofpaine.org/index.php?itemid=132 Wed, 18 Oct 2006 13:54:34 -0700 http://houseofpaine.org/index.php?itemid=131
At the most basic level, of course, both questions are easily answered: 1) Power. 2) Money. The Bush administration wants to be able to root out - and counteract - any dissenting noises that might put a crimp in its ongoing crusade for "full spectrum dominance" of global affairs, while the august institutions of higher learning involved - the universities of Cornell, Pittsburgh and Utah - crave the federal green that keeps them in clover.

But beyond these grubby realities, there are many other disturbing aspects of this new program - which is itself only part of a much broader penetration of American academia by the Department of Homeland Security.

As with so many of the Bush measures that have quietly stripped away America's liberties, this one too is beginning with a whimper, not a bang: a modest $2.4 Department of Homeland Security million grant to develop "sentiment analysis" software that will allow the government's "security organs" to sift millions of articles for "negative opinions of the United States or its leaders in newspapers and other publications overseas," as the New York Times reported earlier this month. Such negative opinions must be caught and catalogued because they could pose "potential threats to the nation," security apparatchiks told the Times.

This hydra-headed snooping program is based on "information extraction," which, as a chipper PR piece from Cornell tells us, is a process by which "computers scan text to find meaning in natural language," rather than the rigid literalism ordinarily demanded by silicon cogitators. Under the gentle tutelage of Homeland Security, the universities "will use machine-learning algorithms to give computers examples of text expressing both fact and opinion and teach them to tell the difference," says the Cornell blurb.

At this point, the ancient and ever-pertinent question of Pontius Pilate comes to mind: "What is truth?" Of course, Pilate, being a devotee of what George W. Bush likes to call "the path of action," gave the answer to his philosophical inquiry in brute physical form: truth is whatever the empire says it is - so take this Galilean rabble-rouser out and crucify him already. In like manner, it will certainly be the government "security organs" who ultimately determine the criteria for what is fact and what is opinion - and whether the latter is positive or negative, perhaps even a candidate for the Bush-Pilate "path."

More...]]> General http://houseofpaine.org/index.php?itemid=131 Tue, 17 Oct 2006 17:21:57 -0700 http://houseofpaine.org/index.php?itemid=130
You might think from all the political noise that something extraordinary happened when North Korea conducted an underground nuclear explosion. But let's put the test, apparently a small-yield, inefficient device, into some perspective.

From a purely statistical point of view, North Korea's test was a very small event. The United States has conducted 1,127 nuclear and thermonuclear tests, including 217 in the atmosphere. The Soviet Union/ Russia conducted 969 tests, including 219 in the atmosphere. France, 210, including 50 in the atmosphere. The United Kingdom, 45, with 21 in the atmosphere. China, 45, with 23 in the atmosphere. India and Pakistan, 13, all underground. South Africa (and/or Israel) one atmospheric test in 1979.

The entire Western world has conspired to remain silent on Israel's nuclear arms, even when Israel assisted apartheid South Africa to build a nuclear weapon.]]> General http://houseofpaine.org/index.php?itemid=130 Mon, 16 Oct 2006 09:17:11 -0700 http://houseofpaine.org/index.php?itemid=129
We should disregard the judgment of people who are only-too-willing to starve others to achieve their political objectives. Millions of innocent civilians died in Iraq due to American-backed sanctions just as Palestinians in Gaza are suffering now. Nothing is achieved by cruelty which disguises itself as justice.

More...]]> General http://houseofpaine.org/index.php?itemid=129 Wed, 11 Oct 2006 22:15:46 -0700 http://houseofpaine.org/index.php?itemid=128
An analysis released by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) reveals that as Halliburton's fortunes rise, so do the Vice President's. Halliburton has already taken more than $10 billion from the Bush-Cheney administration for work in Iraq. They were also awarded many of the unaccountable post-Katrina government contracts, as off-shore subsidiaries of Halliburton quietly worked around U.S. sanctions to conduct very questionable business. "It is unseemly," notes Lautenberg, "for the Vice President to continue to benefit from this company at the same time his administration funnels billions of dollars to it."

More...]]> General http://houseofpaine.org/index.php?itemid=128 Sun, 8 Oct 2006 20:49:20 -0700 http://houseofpaine.org/index.php?itemid=127
With US mid-term elections one month away, it is not surprising to find Washington’s elite criminal factions (neocon and neoliberal) engaged in a new game of political chicken over 9/11 red herrings. The appearance of bickering hides the fact that operatives of both factions are lying. Both sides are cynically continuing the massive bipartisan cover-up of 9/11 and the “war on terrorism."

It is an amply documented fact -- no news whatsoever -- that the Bush administration had absolute foreknowledge of 9/11.

As pointed out by Michael Kane of From The Wilderness, “the American Republic is long dead, and fascism is no longer creeping in this country -- it is solidified and documented as the law of the land."

Both factions of the American elite hold the American populace, and the world, in contempt.

The true “state of denial” is one that fails to recognize this, five years and a world war later. ]]> General http://houseofpaine.org/index.php?itemid=127 Sat, 7 Oct 2006 11:08:42 -0700 http://houseofpaine.org/index.php?itemid=126
The origins of the name "Al-Qaeda," and its real arabic connotations prove that every time the Bush administration, Fox News, or any individual who cites the threat of "Al-Qaeda," as a mandate for war and domestic authoritarianism, they are propagating the myth that such a group ever existed.

An organization by the name of "Al-Qaeda" does not exist and has never existed outside a falsely coined collective term for offshoot loose knit terror cells, the majority of which are guided by the Pakistani ISI, Mossad, the Saudis, MI6 and the CIA, that were created in response to America's actions after 9/11 - as the recent NIE report shows.

According to this BBC documentary The Power of Nightmares, the infamous footage of Bin Laden marching around with armed soldiers was a ruse on the part of Osama himself, graciously propagated by the lapdog press, in which actors were hired off the streets, given uniforms and guns and told to look aggressive.

So if the group doesn't exist, where did the name come from?

You have heard before that "Al-Qaeda" roughly translates into "the base," but were you aware that "Ana raicha Al Qaeda" is arabic colloquial for "I'm going to the toilet"?

Would hardened terrorists hell bent on the destruction of the west name their organization after a euphemism for taking a shit?

The truth about where the name "Al-Qaeda" originated explains why no would-be fundamentalist suicide martyr could have been involved in its creation.

Former Leader of the House of Commons Robin Cook, who admirably resigned in protest of the 2003 Iraq invasion, penned a piece in the London Guardian shortly before his death that shed light on the true genesis of the name.

"Al-Qaida," states Cook, "literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians."

Former French Military Intelligence official Pierre Henry Bunel expands, noting that "Al-Qaeda," was an early form of intranet, which was used by Islamic nations and influential families to communicate with each other. It was also used by the "American agent," Osama bin Laden to send coded or covert messages back to his CIA handlers from Afghanistan.

It's worthy to conclude with Bunel's assertion that "Al-Qaeda" as an organization is about as genuine as George W. Bush's Texas brush clearing cowboy image.

"The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the 'devil' only in order to drive the 'TV watcher' to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US and the lobbyists for the US war on terrorism are only interested in making money." ]]> General http://houseofpaine.org/index.php?itemid=126 Sat, 7 Oct 2006 10:42:17 -0700 http://houseofpaine.org/index.php?itemid=123
"Free trade" and "globalization" are the guises behind which class war is being conducted against the middle class by both political parties. Patrick J. Buchanan, a three-time contender for the presidential nomination, put it well when he wrote that NAFTA and the various so-called trade agreements were never trade deals. The agreements were enabling acts that enabled U.S. corporations to dump their American workers, avoid Social Security taxes, health care and pensions, and move their factories offshore to locations where labor is cheap.

American employees have been abandoned by American corporations and by their representatives in Congress. America remains a land of opportunity ­ but for foreigners ­ not for the native born. A country whose work force is concentrated in domestic nontradable services has no need for scientists and engineers and no need for universities. Even the projected jobs in nursing and school teaching can be filled by foreigners on H-1B visas.

The myth has been firmly established here that the jobs the U.S. is outsourcing offshore are being replaced with better jobs. There is no sign of these jobs in the payroll jobs data or in the occupational employment statistics. When a country loses entry-level jobs, it has no one to promote to senior level jobs. When manufacturing leaves, so does engineering, design, research and development, and innovation itself.

U.S. industry is still investing in R&D after all; it is just not hiring Americans to do the research and development. U.S. manufacturers still make things, only less and less in America with American labor. U.S. manufacturers still hire engineers, only they are foreign ones, not American ones.

In other words, everything is fine for U.S. manufacturers. It is just their former American work force that is in the doldrums.

The United States is the first country in history to destroy the prospects and living standards of its labor force. It is amazing to watch freedom-loving libertarians and free-market economists serve as apologists for the dismantling of the ladders of upward mobility that made the America of old an opportunity society.

More...]]> General http://houseofpaine.org/index.php?itemid=123 Mon, 2 Oct 2006 09:24:47 -0700