USA - USA - USA - USA - USA - USA - USA - USA

Fucking idiots. Glad there are people out there looking out for me and my interests. We would all be in Saddam Gorbachev's iron fist were it not for these wonderful patriots, just in time for Memorial Day:

MANALAPAN — More than 20 people, some carrying American flags, showed up at the Turkish American Community Center Tuesday to protest that an American flag had been hung upside down in front of the site.

The flag hung upturned next to flags of Northern Cyprus and Turkey, a largely Muslim nation – an insult to America, protesters said. Center President Mehmet Reyhan said he did not know who had incorrectly hung the flag; he only learned of it when a member notified him of protesters outside the Route 33 building this morning.

“Livid – I was livid that (someone) desecrated our flag and hung it upside down,” said Betty Bailey, a Millstone farm owner who helped organize the protest.

“You need people out there to watch these things going on, because we can’t just stand by and let our country be put down…I just think people are getting lax about (patriotism and vigilance),” Bailey said. “We’re standing up for our country.”

The reason the flag had been hung upside down – and by whom – remains unclear: Some questioned whether recent headlines about the killing of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden triggered it, or whether it had simply been an incident of vandalism or an accident.

Protesters said they believed the flag had been hung outside the site since Sunday night or Monday morning. They said the flag also had been tattered and incorrectly displayed in relation to the other two flags.

Reyhan said he didn’t believe a center member would have turned the flag upside-down. Two current members have to vouch for new members in order for them to join, he said, “and I don’t think any of our members would do anything like that.”

“I think every nation is very proud of their flag; if someone puts it upside-down, I look at it as an insult to the nation,” Reyhan said. “We are Americans. We love this country. We are here for 25 years and those flags are always flying in the correct way. This is the first time I have seen something like this.”

According to federal statute, the American flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of distress. The flag has beenflown upside down as a form of protest in the United States, according to published reports.

Reyhan said he reported the incident to township police and the Turkish consulate. He said he had all the flags taken down Tuesday morning because he’s afraid they could be rearranged again and cause problems for the center.

Bailey said she still had concerns.

“It was in front of their building and I really think if it’s your building, you should really kind of notice that the flag was hanging wrong,” Bailey said. “People have to start taking a stand, so we did. Hopefully, it won’t happen again.”

Reyhan said the center, in the township for 25 years, serves as a celebration hall for Turkish, American and Muslim religious holidays. He said the center also hosts Turkish language classes for youths and provides networking, employment assistance, transportation and translation services for Turkish immigrants.

The center has about 350 members from as far as New York and Pennsylvania, but with many in Monmouth County from Manalapan, Englishtown and the surrounding area, Reyhan said. None reported noticing the flag, he said.

As for bin Laden, Reyhan said Turkey, too, has been living with the horrors of terrorist groups, “So we don’t want any terrorists in this world. We want nothing to do with them.”

I like how people just started "protesting" instead of making any attempt to contact someone in the building. There was no attempt at discussion. Just some patriotic circle jerk, stimulating one another's hatred for Muslims. I also like how this passes for "vigilance." The Turkish are known for nothing if not their deep anti-American views and radical Islamic philosophy. Someone has to keep tabs on them.

I'm going with the bin Laden suspicion. Everyone knows that Muslims are plotting a secret overthrow of the government, in the interest of establishing a Western Caliphate. This should definitely be viewed as nothing else than the second phase of what began on 9/11. Now that this flag has been flown upside down, there is no turning back. We will all be worshipping Allah in a matter of months, no doubt. Christmas is canceled.

Have we spent out way out of world dominance?

I hope so. Alarm bells are sounding left and right that America is on its way down, for good:

WASHINGTON — In a federal budget filled with mind-boggling statistics, two numbers stand out as particularly stunning, for the way they may change American politics and American power.

The first is the projected deficit in the coming year, nearly 11 percent of the country’s entire economic output. That is not unprecedented: During the Civil War, World War I and World War II, the United States ran soaring deficits, but usually with the expectation that they would come back down once peace was restored and war spending abated.

But the second number, buried deeper in the budget’s projections, is the one that really commands attention: By President Obama’s own optimistic projections, American deficits will not return to what are widely considered sustainable levels over the next 10 years. In fact, in 2019 and 2020 — years after Mr. Obama has left the political scene, even if he serves two terms — they start rising again sharply, to more than 5 percent of gross domestic product. His budget draws a picture of a nation that like many American homeowners simply cannot get above water.

That last part is so significant - "a nation that...simply cannot get above water." I wonder how China will go about foreclosing on America. That will probably be rather ugly. No amount of patriotism or jingoism will get that bank off of your back.

In an uncharacteristically bleak assessment of the future, the New York Times says that we are basically fucked for good, that this is the end:

For Mr. Obama and his successors, the effect of those projections is clear: Unless miraculous growth, or miraculous political compromises, creates some unforeseen change over the next decade, there is virtually no room for new domestic initiatives for Mr. Obama or his successors. Beyond that lies the possibility that the United States could begin to suffer the same disease that has afflicted Japan over the past decade. As debt grew more rapidly than income, that country’s influence around the world eroded.

How about that. That big party we had for the last sixty years just foreseeably blew up in our fat, rich face. It's over. Time to walk around and drink what's left in the beer cans you find.

Will Phillips, 10-Year-Old, Won't Pledge Allegiance To A Country That Discriminates Against Gays

A fellow alien traveler. Hello.

Butterflies in space

Yup. Now baby butterflies will visit the final frontier.

Really.

It's for a fantastic cause though, which will surely allay all reservations once you read it:

Once the payload's in orbit, teachers and K-12 students from throughout the United States will tune in at BioEd Online to watch the "butterflynauts" grow in a microgravity environment.

The time has long since come for this knowledge. HOW DO BUTTERFLIES GROW IN ZERO GRAVITY?

You know those situations on television and movies where people are so rich that they swim in their money, have money fights or buy a new car every time they drive? That's what NASA is.

Told ya they're comin for yer freedom!!!!!!!!!

First healthcare, now you can't even get naked on planes and hit people anymore.

You want my freedom? Well take a look at THIS!

That's right. THE FUCKING GLORY OF AMERICA GOD EAGLE FLAG WORDS.

All those liberal fat cat radical communist integrationist dogs down over in Washington can suck on that one! HOW'S A LITTLE FLAG FOR YA, PINKOS? DON'T LIKE THAT ONE DO YA? IT'S LIKE A GARLIC CROSS IN A VAMPIRE'S ASSHOLE.

Don't say I didn't tell ya when they ban prayer in church!!!

Paying sweatshop wages at American embassies

I guess government jobs are regarded pretty well here. Good benefits, job security, lots of days off compared to most other jobs, decent pay. Not so in the rest of the world.

Foreign nationals working for the American government in foreign lands get paid shit, says the State Department. Three to four dollars a day doesn't go far anywhere:

...some lower-grade foreign nationals who work for the State Department earn so little that they must cut back to one meal a day and send their children out to peddle on the streets.

This is comparable to what you hear about Nike factories or whatever. Except those Nike factories are maybe just in Honduras or Malaysia. American embassies are in approximately 170 countries. I bet the government could loosen up some money to pay its shitworkers a bit better if it ended a war or two.

Clearing all the forests

just to wipe your ass. With old growth trees, nonetheless. I suppose we all need TP for our bungholes, but not like this. Americans once again leading the need for luxury category.

 The national obsession with soft paper has driven the growth of brands like Cottonelle Ultra, Quilted Northern Ultra and Charmin Ultra — which in 2008 alone increased its sales by 40 percent in some markets, according to Information Resources, Inc., a marketing research firm.

But fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.

Customers “demand soft and comfortable,” said James Malone, a spokesman for Georgia Pacific, the maker of Quilted Northern. “Recycled fiber cannot do it.” 

Two ex-Gitmo detainees join al-Qaida: report

Big surprise. I'd probably join Al Qaeda too if some sadistic fucks locked me up for nothing for about five years.

As with most other Guantánamo returnees, the Saudis did not have evidence of criminal wrongdoing against Shihri. In such cases, Turki says, the men were charged with the minor violation of traveling to Afghanistan, a country Saudi passport holders are barred from visiting.

America to the world: "Fuck you"

Hey look, we can still do whatever we want!!

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey [whose nomination as attorney general last year was threatened by his refusal to say whether he considered waterboarding to be torture] said Wednesday that he saw no need for President Bush to issue blanket pardons of officials involved in some of the administration’s most controversial counterterrorism policies.

Mr. Mukasey told reporters that there was “absolutely no evidence” that anyone involved in developing the policies “did so for any reason other than to protect the security in the country and in the belief that he or she was doing something lawful.”

The comments appeared aimed at tamping down speculation that Mr. Bush, before leaving the White House next month, might issue pre-emptive pardons to protect counterterrorism officials from legal jeopardy in the face of possible criminal investigations by the new Democratic administration.

Yeah. The torture-loving Attorney General made sure to let everyone know that the people running this country hold all their atrocities to be perfectly legal. Waterboarding, nudity, dogs, extreme temperatures, sensory deprivation, whatever. It's all in the rules, they say. Someone's gonna blow something else up, and the people running this country and the ones who put them there will be responsible. They won't tell themselves that though. And lots of other people will be responsible for not removing them from power, for letting them rule and for following their orders.

Killing whales with sound

The Supreme Court said it's fine for the United States Navy to maim and kill an untold number of whales on a permanent, recurring basis. The Navy does this, and has been doing this for over forty years, through sonar training exercises. Exercises. Yup.

The groups say that sonar can be as loud as 2,000 jet engines, causing marine mammals to suffer lasting physical trauma, strandings and changes in breeding and migration patterns. They contend that courts are perfectly capable of weighing the competing security and environmental concerns.

No matter though:

Chief Justice Roberts took a different view. Courts, he said, quoting a 1986 decision of the justices, must “give great deference to the professional judgment of military authorities” in making decisions about personnel, training and priorities.

He cited an observation, made by President Theodore Roosevelt in a 1907 message to Congress, that only “practice at sea, under all the conditions which would have to be met if war existed,” can guarantee a prepared Navy.

When you think about it, the court has a good point - they're just whales.

For the environmental groups that sought to limit the exercises, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, “the most serious possible injury would be harm to an unknown number of marine mammals that they study and observe.”

People believe and live as though they can do whatever they want, that they have accountability to nothing. They can take and take, they can destroy, that if something is possible, then they should do it.

This isn't just about whales. We live, today, through annihilation. Our lives are predicated upon destruction. Destruction of life, both human and non-human, destruction of quality of life, both human and non-human, extinction of life, both human and non-human. This is one of the more glaring examples of totally wanton destruction. Fucking careless, deliberate. The people who run these programs would, and have, directly ruin people in the process if there weren't so many laws, and it hadn't become so expensive through lawsuits and bad publicity.

"An explanation is what we want. We want to know how things could get so fucked up, how things could get so out of hand. So many times we have waited on others to stand up for us and act on what we believe is so fucked and wrong with our generation. I know we are all so angry. I know I am so fucking angry..."

Probably not.

"'This is for America. This is for NATO. This is for Bush.'

These were the phrases that the president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvilli, told me were on Russian bombs falling before, during and after the numerous cease-fires that have come and gone since the Georgian-Russian conflict began." - from this sappy write up on CNN's site.

Not really sure how one on the receiving end of ordinance marked as such could know this.