“But I’ll tell you what they don’t want, They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. You know what they want? Obedient workers – people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they’re coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club.” –George Carlin, R.I.P.
“All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know …Until Now.”
In The News:Travus Has The NewsDay Off
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[July 04 2008] Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: ‘Off By Two’ Error? Celebrating The Day The New Constitution Was Read… It IS Time To Re-read It
“All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know …Until Now.”
In The News: There’s probably more to this story than ‘meets the ear’: 14 hostages held by FARC in Colombia have been rescued, including Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt. Sitrep.
So the big news is hitting the wires…a group of Colombian hostages, including Ingrid Betancourt and three American defense contractors, have been rescued by the Colombian military. This is great news! Of course, everyone who has a stake in Colombia will have some thoughts on this development…
Alvaro Uribe: Hot damn! Talk about timing. Now I can get that constitutional amendment passed for a third term no problem. Hell, they’ll probably even want to just make me president for life or something. Viva Uribe!
Everyone Else in Colombia: Oh shit, now Uribe will probably try and make himself president for life or something.
Hugo Chavez: I guess that $300 million I supposedly gave the FARC sure as hell didn’t help them LEARN HOW TO HIDE HOSTAGES BETTER!
George W. Bush: Does this mean we can’t invade Venezuela?
John McCain: Does this mean we can’t invade Venezuela?
Rafael Correa: Does this mean we can bomb Colombian territory without asking them first?
Barack Obama: How can I work “Yes, we can!” into a speech about this?
Christopher Walken in that Amazing SNL Skit: I need more cowbell! I’ve got a fever for more cowbell!
The FARC: Seriously, we’re not very good at this guerilla warfare stuff. Che made it sound eaaaaasy…
The Right-Wing Paramilitary Death Squads: See Alvaro Uribe.
We kid. We’re happy that their ordeal is over, and we imagine they’re even happier.
The California wildfires… Now there are 1500, and the state says some of them are ‘just going to be left to burn until it rains’. Big Sur is being evacuated.
It’s official. The EXPERTS say the stock market is officially a “Bear Market”
Meanwhile… Rush Limbaugh signs a new contract… $400 MILLION dollars.
The Pentagon gets the go-ahead to send more troops to Afghanistan because we are losing the war there too!
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[July 03 2008] Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: Protecting Us From Ourselves - Face The Facts… We Are Living In A ‘Full Control Society’ So Leave Those Fireworks And Ice Chests At Home And Don’t Complain
“All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know …Until Now.”
In The News: If it works as foreign policy… The budget for the Wild Horse Adoption Program has been cut, so the Bureau of Land Management will cull the herd… by shooting the horses.
The Nigerian government will sponsor talks between oil industry interests and the MEND rebels who have been brutalizing their facilities… Example
Sunday, 06 May 2007
JOURNAL: Shell facilities disappear from Niger Delta (UPDATE)
Last year, Shell Oil abandoned facilities that produced 600,000 barrels a day of oil due relentless attacks by the global guerrilla facilitator MEND. Upon its return to these facilities this month, the company found much of its infrastructure missing. In the area near the Forcados terminal alone, 435 miles of pipeline disappeared (likely disassembled by hand, loaded onto barges, offloaded onto Ukrainian transport ships offshore, and delivered to Chinese scrap metal dealers — globalization is grand, isn’t it). Estimates of the reconstruction costs now exceed $2 billion, under the assumption both Shell and its construction partners will be allowed to return unimpeded.
The Persian Gulf will become a Gulf - The Iranian defense minister says if Iran is attacked the response would be vicious… That means NO Persian Gulf oil, and a trapped US Navy carrier group.
The ‘New Deal’ - Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq will be answerable under Iraqi law after the first of the year.
A class in torture techniques taught at gitmo will now be taught to the Mexican Drug Enforcement military units, and those it’s also notable those techniques came from China, circa 1957. More at the New York Times.
John McCain goes to Colombia and inspects the US funded ‘drug war’ and then he’s up to Mexico (to inspect the torture chambers?).
The Grande era at Starbucks is over. 600 stores will be shut by the end of the year… and approximately 10,000 people will have to find something else to do in an already basketcase US economy.
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[July 02 2008] Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: No Fireworks? Just Take Your Gun - Let’s Talk About ‘4th Of Julys’ Of Yesteryear And Why We Celebrate The Day At All
“All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know …Until Now.”
In The News: Betcha didn’t know that the US military in Afghanistan is in day four of an offensive bolstered by Pakistani troops into Waziristan. The 101st Airborne is working the Afghan side of the border. 33 alleged ‘rebels’ killed. Details.
The Iraqi oil ministry opens bidding on production contracts for 6 major oilfields. Hey! I thought it was OUR oil under THEIR sand. The oilfield service contracts are still hung up in the Iraqi parliament partially because we happened to kill one of president al-Maliki’s cousins last week, and he’s not… really… happy… with us right now.
The US says it was conducting the raid against a “special group,” their terminology for a Shiite cell they believe to receive aid or training from Iran.
This incident makes little sense on the surface. Why would the US raid the home town of the PM without forewarning him? Why kill this relative? Al-Maliki is a leader of the Da’wa Party. Did the US military suspect that a Da’wa cell in Janaja was targeting US troops in the Shiite south, with Iranian encouragement? If so, it would make sense of why they did not warn al-Maliki their operation was coming. But if this scenario is anywhere close to reality, it raises questions about al-Maliki’s control of his branch of the Da’wa, and about the character of the party (which is still run on a cadre basis as a set of covert cells rather than being a proper, popular political party).
In any case, the incident looks set to sour Iraqi-American relations even further. In Full @ Informed Comment
The US is going to arm the Mexican Drug Enforcement army… enquiring minds want to know: “Will all of that military equipment end up being sold, traded to, and stolen by, the drug lords?”
Unintended side-effects: Amsterdam outlaws the use of tobacco in public places… adversely affecting the hashish/marijuana culture because the Dutch like to mix tobacco with their weed. BTW, they think we Americans are heathens for ’smoking it raw’…
After the commentary, Quicksilver Messenger Service asks “What About Me?”, courtesy of the respective artists and KPIG radio Freedom California Earth
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[July 01 2008] Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: A Re-Iteration Of The “Burning Question” - What WILL Americans Stand For In The Way Of Our Government’s Murderous Foreign Policy… What If Anything Will We DO About It, And WHEN?
“All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know …Until Now.”
In The News: There is a rift in U.S. war policy making circles over whether to invade Waziristan and the Autonomous tribal region of Pakistan over the possibility that we actually know where Osama bin-Laden is.
However WE ARE putting SOG covert operatives into Iran to militarily target their nuclear research facilities and other infrastructure according to Seymour Hersh at the New Yorker.
Dennis Kucinich on the ‘Fallout’ from a potential attack on Iran’s nuclear research facilities.
Here he quotes from a report by Physicians for Social Responsibility in which the death-toll of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is estimated to be 2.6 million people in the first 48 hours following the attack; the number of people suffering from the consequences of radiation is estimated to be 10.5 million. If this is not genocide, then what is?
The “Burnout State” - There are now 1420 wildfires burning in California. Sitrep.
San Francisco celebrates Gay Pride Day and same sex marriages with a stunning display of Dykes-On-Bikes. More.
Seoul Korea… 10,000 people in the streets protesting the signing an import law allowing the delivery of American beef to Korean consumers.
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[June 30 2008] Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: The Burning Question… “But Why?” : U.S. Covert Operations To Target Iran’s Infrastructure - It’s Not What America Stands For, It’s What It WILL Stand For In The Way Of Genocidal Foreign Policy
Razed By Wolves Just another BuffaloBlog
...consisting of snippets about news, events, and people who make the world around us a more dangerous, nastier place to live.
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In The News: Travus Has The NewsDay Off
