When I was growing up, during the 50s, everybody was down on the Germans. There were the war movies, like Stalag 17; the dumb TV shows like Hogans Heros; there were radio dramas and books.

Later, when I was in College, I started to wonder, how could a culture that produced Beethoven, Goethe, Schiller, Immanual Kant - how could a culture that went from a collection of feuding Baronies become an industrial and technological giant in the short span of 100 years - how could a culture like that ALLOW THE NAZIS TO TAKE OVER???

I don't wonder about this any more.

There is an old story about how to cook a frog. Put him in a pot, and turn the heat up verrrrrry slowly. He knows he can always jump out. But the temperature rise is imperceptable, so there is no need to jump out.

Eventually, the water is so hot the frog cannot jump out, and that is how to cook a frog.

I wonder how hot our water is today.

Here is a well known quote:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.


Pastor Martin Niemöller

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/07/national...print&position=


March 7, 2005
Polls Show Los Angeles Mayor Facing Dead Heat in Primary
By JOHN M. BRODER

LOS ANGELES, March 6 - James K. Hahn should be coasting to re-election as mayor of Los Angeles. He has a solid political pedigree, a reasonably strong economy, a falling crime rate, the backing of the city's pre-eminent labor federation and a long list of endorsements.

Heading into the city's primary election on Tuesday, however, the polls show that the race is a dead heat involving Mr. Hahn and two other Democrats, Bob Hertzberg and Antonio Villaraigosa, both former speakers of the State Assembly and former roommates in Sacramento. The two top vote-getters in Tuesday's nonpartisan primary will meet in a runoff election in mid-May.

Political analysts here are reluctant to predict the outcome of the primary, but several have said that Mr. Hahn has squandered the power of the incumbency, partly by failing to take advantage of the relative peace and prosperity in the city and partly because of his colorless demeanor. He has also been damaged by a criminal investigation into the awarding of city contracts to large political donors and other charges of favoritism in the conduct of the city's business.

Election officials predict that about 30 percent of the city's 1.4 million registered voters will turn out for the election.

Franklin Gilliam, a professor of political science and a scholar of racial and ethnic politics at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the odds were that Mr. Hahn would squeak through the primary, but without a strong vote of confidence from the public.

"It's difficult to beat an incumbent who is presiding over at least a moderately successful economy," Dr. Gilliam said. "There's some sense that voters are turned off by some of the scandal in City Hall, but none of it has stuck on Hahn, at least not yet."

He said Mr. Hahn's endorsement by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, A.F.L.-C.I.O., had provided the mayor with significant support because the federation is providing telephone banks, mailers and volunteers to turn out voters. The federation is contributing about $500,000 in independent expenditures on behalf of the mayor.

But Dr. Gilliam also said that the mayor had been hurt among African-American voters by his maneuvering to replace Bernard Parks, the city's first black police chief and one of the contenders in the mayoral primary. The mayor also alienated some Latino voters with his harsh campaign against Mr. Villaraigosa four years ago.

"Beyond that," Dr. Gilliam said, "I think Hahn's got a bigger problem. It's not clear among any slice of the electorate what he stands for or what he does."

Mr. Hertzberg, a gregarious lawyer, is the surging long shot in the race, moving in the past few weeks into a statistical tie with Mr. Hahn and Mr. Villaraigosa, who ran against each other in the general election four years ago. Mr. Hahn won that contest by seven percentage points after finishing second to Mr. Villaraigosa in the primary.

Mr. Hertzberg's television spots depict him as a Gulliver-like figure bestriding the city, proposing big solutions to the city's big problems. Mr. Hahn, in Mr. Hertzberg's narrative, is the Lilliputian mayor, a man lacking a vision befitting the nation's second-largest city.

Mr. Hertzberg, who lives in the San Fernando Valley, is appealing to valley residents unhappy with city services and schools and is trying to put together a coalition of Republican and Jewish voters to win a runoff spot.

Mr. Villaraigosa, a City Council member, is appealing, as he did the last time, to Latino voters, while trying to broaden his coalition to include whites and African-Americans who voted for Mr. Hahn in 2001 but are now dissatisfied with him. Latinos have occupied prominent spots in city and state government and in California's Congressional delegation for decades, but no Latino has won the mayor's office in the modern era.

In the campaign's closing days, Mr. Hahn has opened two lines of attack against Mr. Hertzberg and Mr. Villaraigosa. He has accused them of supporting California's experiment with energy deregulation and then cozying up to Enron and other energy companies that manipulated the state's energy supplies, leading to widespread power blackouts and brownouts in 2000 and 2001. He has also said in advertisements that Mr. Hertzberg and Mr. Villaraigosa wrote letters urging President Bill Clinton to pardon a convicted crack cocaine dealer. Mr. Hahn used that to great effect against Mr. Villaraigosa four years ago.

Mr. Hertzberg dismissed the mayor's charges as the flailings of a drowning man. "You've got a desperate mayor doing desperate things," he said.

Mr. Hahn said that he had been written off before during his 24 years in public life and had come back to win each time.

"Always underestimated," Mr. Hahn said in an interview recently, "never defeated."

It has been a while since I posted anything here in Livyjr's thread.

No good reason - just a matter of finding time to do everything I like to do.
Whether or not , I write anything here, one thing is for sure. I always read
" Life In Our America " several times a day. This is one of the pillars of this forum.

Wouldn't it be a GREAT thing if a momentum would build to recall George Bush.
The operative word is IMPEACHMENT. Frankly, I do not think the timing is right because there are still so many ostrich like people out there.

Or should I compare these people to the three monkeys who SEE no evil - Hear no evil - and Say no evil in regards to our fearless, arrogant, impetuous, and self righteous leader who has appointed himself, ( with the blessing and support of his culpable inner circle ) the emperor of this planet.

And, Livyjr, I am not negative to this idea of recall. Every cause, every movement, starts with an idea and with a first step.

And so, perhaps, at least getting the thought of a recall out to every one we contact in any way, will be that first step.

The following paragraph is taken from a posting of Gabrielle on March 4. Since Gabrielle posted on this thread, I will answer on the same.

>>>>> I wanted so much to pop into A.B.'s corner last night and ask you and Jeff and A.B. and the others there some questions about how you felt, how you coped with the knowledge that our government/corporate elites were so incestuously linked and crooked when you first found out. <<<<<

Gabrielle, in trying to jog this old memory of mine, the following thoughts seem to pop out.

I believe almost everyone sort of knows, and always did know, that most people in positions of power are to some extent " on the take ". A litle graft here, a little corruption there, some ' payola ' when the opportunity arose. Favors given, favors taken. Hardly anyone is immune to this sort of thing.

It is never condoned, but always overlooked. ( Until someone gets caught red handed ) This goes for the people on the lower rungs of the ladder and on up, i.e. your councilman, your county commissioneers, mayor, state reps, governor, congressmen, senators, all the way up to the top.

Many of us console ourselves by comparing our power people with those in other parts of the world who are much worse, much more blatant, and not at all concerned with who knows what they are doing. Just a way of life.

I am not trying to defend that type of thinking on our part.

But, to get right to the point, Gabrielle.

My real awakening came with the actions of Richard Millhouse Nixon, who actually could have been an outstanding president.

My naive and trusting feelings were shattered with his actions in the Watergate episode which rather than my taking up reams of space explaining, I suggest to anyone who wants to know more of this to type in " Watergate " on Google.
You will get more that than you want to know.

Even prior to that was the scandal of his vice president, Spiro Agnew, who was one of those caught " red handed ' accepting bribes. Again, I refer anyone to Google, our all knowing electronic encyclopedia.

Since that time, I have never fully trusted ANYONE in government.

At this point, with this set of personal agenda driven people in charge, there is absolutely no trust at all.

I wish it were not that way.

Thanks for asking, Gabrielle. Perhaps in your lifetime, this situation may change for the better.

A.B.

And here I have to say, Mr. A.B., that I was wondering when I came in here today whether or not you would "take Gabrielle's bait", and how you would answer the question, and I am glad to see on entering into here this morning, that you did catch the hint, and that you took the time to answer the question, IN HERE, for all the candid world to see!

And I cannot argue one bit with how you have put things there!

I would only say that generally, people want to "look another way", and "not see" this corruption, because it is like a doctor seeing nothing but sick people all the time, you lose sight of wellness after a while, and maybe forget that it can even exist.

Since we are mostly powerless to end corruption, and IF it does not enter our lives so fully and completely that we end up totally without liberty, then, the healthy thing to do is find some pleasantness and keep your gaze on that.

Is that "hiding"?

I don't know, and I won't say, because IT IS AND ALWAYS HAS TO BE a matter of personal choice!

NEVER SWIM IN WATER OVER YOUR HEAD IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO PREVENT YOURSELF FROM BEING PUSHED UNDER AND HELD DOWN UNTIL YOU ARE GONE!

Just a thing to remember if you decide to go out and start campaigning against corrupt politicians!

And Mr. A.B., with that said, I think that between you and me, who are a generation apart, that there is a "difference", however slight, between our "outlooks", and that is the "SKEW" that Viet Nam puts on my outlook, versus your outlook, which I think had more of a "HOPE" factor to it, AS YOU CAME HOME from the end of a war, where I simply left an on-going one behind, and came back into an America, in 1970, that was being torn right apart by that war.

Right from the moment I arrived back in the United States, it was as if coming to a place that I had never been.

The hostility was incredible!

It was palpable, tangible, you could have cut it with a knife.

The jeering as I came into an airport somewhere in California, near San Francisco!

Flying back from San Francisco to Kennedy in New York, so that I could make my way to home, the stewardess completely ignored me, as though I did not exist.

Of course, I was in uniform, having just out-processed, and having no other clothes to wear.

And in my first moments "back", all I could think was WTF am I?

WHAT PLACE IS THIS THAT I AM NOW IN?

Once back here, I recall watching on TV as police swung clubs and smashed heads down there in Washington, D.C., while John Mitchell of Watergate fame stood up on a balcony, like an Emporer of Rome, smoking his pipe, and cheering on the police, AND PEOPLE WHERE I WAS WERE CHEERING, as well!

"Club those S.O.B.'s!"

And if they had set up machine-guns to mow those people down, right there on television, I think the cheering would have been even louder.

And then, down went John Mitchell, "Spiggy" Agnew, Millhouse "Tricky Dick" Nixxon, and I thought, hoped, that America had learned something out of all of that, but that is far-fetched thinking on my part, and your post kind of confirms that, but in a necessary way!

This thing of corruption and power goes back and back and back and back and on and on and on, and never do you find a time when it is not really there, to some degree or other, or totally gone, although there definitely are times, and places where it is not so ascendent as it is right now, here in OUR America.

And Mr. A.B., I want to complement you on your tone, here.

It is very easy to get bitter over this stuff, and so, to become strident in tone, and I hope that I am not, and that if I start getting that way, I have the sense to quit this thread, or maybe someone compassionate like you will have the sense to come look for me, and then club me a couple of times with a good, stout oak branch, just to re-adjust my attitude for me, and get it a little more "sunny", as yours is.

SO!

Well done, Mr. A.B., well said!

And here, I am very serious!

I am so turned off by what passes for "political" rhetoric in America these days because all it is is hate-mongering, for the most part, and lies, and distortions, as was the case with the lying, whining, crying REPUBLICAN "SWIFT BOAT BOYS" in this last presidential election, as a case in point!

ME, I don't like to hide away from things, but I also have a way in which I am RECEPTIVE to hearing about "problems", and when it comes across as nothing more than bitterness and vituperation, "bi***ing", and grousing, with no thought behind it, or analysis as to WHY something looks or is out of kilter, then, as for me, ADIOS!

But some satire, and irony, and analysis, and especially background, such as older folks like you and jeffmoskin are able to provide, BECAUSE YOU HAVE BEEN THERE LONG ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT THERE EVEN IS SUCH A THING AS "HAVING BEEN THERE", then that provides me with an opportunity to consider, and then, who knows, why, I might even have my own eyes opened, and I could even learn something, from listening!

And that is where we are getting back to, in here, politics in a more "old-fashioned" mode, where people actually did talk, not shout, and ideas were exchanged back and forth, and viewpoints, and outlooks!

And that is what you have provided not only Gabrielle, but all of us as well, with, in your post here, simple and to the point as it is, and that is priceless, Mr. A.B., priceless!

IT IS OUR AMERICA, after all, so maybe we all should just start acting like it is!

And that starts with each of us, as an individual, and can only grow from there!

RECALL GEORGE W. BUSH!

HE IS JUST PLAIN BAD FOR AMERICA!

THE FUTURE YOU IMPROVE BY JOINING THIS RECALL MOVEMENT WILL BE THAT OF NOT ONLY YOUR OWN CHILDREN, BUT ALL THE WORLD, AS WELL!

He went to China. That alone is a legacy worth having. He, like Clinton, was impeached (actually, Nixon resigned first) for trivial causes, not in the same league with the WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY OF GEORGE W(ARMONGER) BUSH.


I find this SHAMEFUL, and even though I opposed the war, I always found it abhorent to take out our anger on the people who were ORDERED to go to war by that lying SOB and traitor Lyndon Baines Johnson. I may have posted this earlier, but my butcher and I are planning a trip to Texas for the express purpose of urinating on his grave.

But first, we need to clean "House" of the empty headed goose stepping republican brown shirts so we can properly IMPEACH THE SON OF A BUSH

And here I am going to say that I always do wonder just which way this "corruption" business really does go!

If the "little guy" did not have the "big guy" as his or here role model, would they be corrupt, themselves?

IF it were not for the corrupt little guy, could the big guy really BE AND STAY corrupt!

Or is it all one great big on-going mess, kind of biblical in nature, a "PASSION PLAY, as it were, or a kind of on-going "GREEK TRAGEDY" that is being staged, however elaborately, for OUR benefit, so as to provide us with an on-going test of OUR own "FREE WILL"!

One of the most powerful "MORALITY STORIES" ever written, I think, is not in the Bible; rather it is "Pinochio", where the boys were turned into donkeys.

And I always tell people, "THEY GOT THEMSELVES THERE; THEY ONLY HAVE THEMSELVES TO BLAME!"

"YOU WANT TO BE A JACK-ASS, JUST GO FIND JIMMY LAMPWICK, AND FOLLOW HIM, AND BY GOD, YOUR WISHES JUST MIGHT BE FULFILLED!"

As this next story from right near to me, down there in the very HEART of George Pataki's corrupt Empire State of New York, kind of demonstrates, and proves:

"Officer admits forging pay slip - Albany cop resigns, will be sentenced on May 2 to jail time, probation and to pay restitution for bogus overtime"

By MICHELE MORGAN BOLTON, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Tuesday, March 1, 2005

ALBANY -- A 27-year-old city police officer is headed for jail after admitting he forged his supervisor's signature on a bogus 2002 overtime submission request, which was part of a scheme to bilk the city out of tens of thousands of dollars.

Jeffrey Metcalfe resigned in disgrace Monday from the city department he joined in 1998 and where his father, retired Detective Al Metcalfe, worked for decades.

Metcalfe has been on paid suspension for more than a year.

His resignation was effective immediately.

He pleaded guilty in Albany County Court to one count of second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument during a hearing before Albany County Judge Stephen W. Herrick.

Those charges represented just $4,500 of the $36,000 total pay that Metcalfe stole from the city by putting in for shifts he didn't work.

The patrol officer working out of Central Station on Western Avenue made $77,612 that year.

The plea deal satisfies a 90-count indictment handed up by a county grand jury in January 2004.

In it, the five-year patrol officer faced 30 counts each of second-degree possession of a forged instrument, first-degree offering a forged instrument and petit larceny in the alleged yearlong scam, said to begin in May 2002.

"Speaking for the entire department and the administration, we are relieved this episode is over," said James Miller, spokesman for the Department of Public Safety.

"Let's move forward."

Metcalfe could have faced 20 years in state prison had he been convicted.

A trial was scheduled to begin next week.

On Monday, Herrick allowed Metcalfe to remain free without bail until his May 2 sentencing.

He will be required to pay $10,000 in restitution and serve five years' probation.

"I do think he is a fine person and a dedicated and decorated police officer," said his attorney, Paul DerOhannesian, declining further comment.

He said he might have more to say at sentencing, however.

Metcalfe will be required to serve two-thirds of his six-month sentence, or four months.

Precautions will be taken to ensure his safety behind bars.

A number of defendants in recent months have pleaded guilty in Albany County to stealing money from employers and were sentenced to much harsher sentences than Metcalfe.

Yet Special Prosecutor Donald Kinsella denied the notion Metcalfe might have received special treatment because he is a cop.

"In a situation like this, a police officer loses his job, his stature, his standing in the community and with his peers," Kinsella said.

"His job skills aren't necessarily transferable somewhere else."

"I think it's a fair disposition in the context of his case," he added.

"He disputes he was responsible for the whole amount."

Kinsella also was the special prosecutor in the investigation of the shooting of David R.A. Scaringe on New Year's Eve in 2003.

The 24-year-old engineer was a bystander on Lark Street when he was killed by a stray bullet as Albany police officers William Bonanni and Joseph Gerace shot at a motorist.

The two were cleared of wrongdoing by a grand jury and received no punishment under a deal they struck privately with the city late last year.

Metcalfe clasped his hands and lowered his head as he stood before the judge.

"Have you had enough time to speak with your attorney, friends and family?" Herrick asked.

"Yes, sir," Metcalfe said.

"Are you pleading guilty because you are, in fact, guilty?" the judge went on.

"Yes," Metcalfe said.

"You weren't entitled to those monies, is that correct?" Herrick clarified.

"Yes," he whispered, swallowing hard.

Metcalfe was arrested on Sept. 26, 2003, following an internal police investigation.

Suspicious co-workers noticed his pay was larger than his colleagues' as they flipped through the stack of checks each payday.

Investigators then reviewed Metcalfe's pay stubs and paperwork and found phony incident numbers and arrests.

A system designed to verify the overtime hours officers claim to have worked failed to catch the fraud, sending up red flags in a department in which about 340 officers collected more than $2.7 million in overtime in 2002.

Officers are now required to have a supervisor not only approve overtime in advance, but also sign off again when it is submitted, Miller said.

Oh that we could ask the same questions to KennyBoy Lay!

Or Bernie Ebbers.

Or, even, MICHAEL EISNER, Mouse-in-Chief

YES, let's move forward!

But when the corruption comes from the top down, and from the bottom right back up, so that everything decent in between is SQUEEZED right out, like seeds from a crushed grape, THEN WHAT, JIMMY, THEN WHAT?

"Police cover up hunt for a mole - After embarrassing leak, Albany department, union made dedicated effort to find who sent e-mail"

By BRENDAN LYONS, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Monday, March 7, 2005

ALBANY -- Hours after Police Chief James Turley softened the disciplinary action against a cop who had embarrassed the department, the word leaked out when a tipster sent an e-mail off to a local TV station.

Inside police headquarters, the hunt for a mole began.

By the time it was over, the police union would obtain information on a civilian's private e-mail account.

And months later, the police chief would try to cover up the alleged invasion of the man's privacy.

The anonymous author who set off the controversy had accused Turley of bowing to union pressure by agreeing to reduce the punishment for an officer who turned away a bank robbery suspect who'd tried to turn himself in.

Police union officials won't say how they got the private information of Robert W. Berry, the Florida man whose e-mail accounts were used to contact the media last November.

And Turley admits he lied several weeks ago when the Times Union asked him whether Berry had sent him a letter demanding an investigation.

He also argued that correspondence he receives at police headquarters is "private."

But after the newspaper filed a Freedom of Information Law request seeking a copy of the letter, city attorneys released a copy this past week.

"I lied."

"I apologize."

"... If it costs me my job, so be it," Turley said during a recent interview.

"I thought the letter was my letter."

"Now, in talking to corporation counsel and everything, they're telling me any letters that come here as official correspondence are just that."

The search for the mole, who still has not been identified, began Nov. 12 after Turley returned from a vacation and reduced the suspension of an officer from 30 days to less than a week.

The cop had embarrassed the department after he told a bank robbery suspect to come back later when the man tried to turn himself in at a police station.

The story was picked up by the media and broadcast on at least one nationally televised news program.

Turley's decision came during a private meeting with union officials last November, during a tumultuous two years leading a department that had been rocked by infighting and allegations of scandal.

Leaks also were a problem.

Turley would later say tips to the media about the strife had been such a problem in the department that he wondered whether his office was bugged.

So when the department had a chance to trace a source for one of the leaks, police officials seized the chance.

Turley defended his decision to overrule an assistant chief, Steve Reilly, who handed down the 30-day suspension while the chief was away.

Turley found the discipline was excessive.

But less than two hours after the chief approved the reduction, someone wrote an e-mail to a local TV station tipping them about what happened.

Another source also told the Times Union about Turley's decision.

That same day, a worker at the TV station forwarded the tipster's e-mail to police for comment.

But the anonymous sender's cryptic America Online address was left on the e-mail.

Turley and union officials, who had pointed fingers at one another over the leak, now agreed to work together to find out who it was.

Internal affairs detectives were assigned to the case and they zeroed in on a computer in a detective office that authorities believed may have been used to send the e-mail.

The computer was seized and brought to internal affairs, where it was analyzed but yielded no clues.

Despite the dead end, union officials let it be known around the department they'd identified the e-mail account as belonging to Berry, a pastor and former area resident who was active in local political campaigns here.

Berry was a key figure in Mayor Jerry Jennings' first run for City Hall in 1993, but later worked for the mayor's political opponents, including Assemblyman Jack McEneny, who challenged Jennings in 1997.

Berry, 57, who lives in Boca Raton, also has fostered friendships with several Albany cops over the years.

He declined comment for this report.

Chris Mesley, president of the Albany Police Officers Union, declined to say how they got Berry's account information without a subpoena or search warrant.

"To the best of my knowledge, nothing was done illegally," Mesley said.

"The chief basically encouraged us to do our own investigation."

He said the union had asked Turley to authorize a subpoena so they could sift deeper into Berry's AOL accounts and the content of e-mails, but the chief refused.

Union officials, on their own accord, went to Albany County District Attorney David Soares for a subpoena.

He, too, refused.

Soares said he saw no proof a crime had been committed, and the union officials did not have a criminal complaint in support of their investigation.

The group also had apparently made the request without the knowledge of Turley or Mayor Jerry Jennings, according to a police department source.

"This office will not be used as a tool," Soares said.

"We told (union officials) that if they wanted to pursue a complaint, they would have to provide us with written information requesting us to look at the possibility of criminal conduct."

The investigation appeared to end at that point, but Berry learned union officials had obtained his AOL account information and wrote a letter to Turley last month demanding an investigation.

"I have learned to my dismay that individuals from the Albany Police Department have illegally obtained information from a private Internet service provider about me and personal email (sic) accounts," Berry wrote.

"I hereby request an investigation of the methods used and identification of the participants in these illegal acts."

Turley said he spoke with Berry and convinced him to withdraw the complaint.

The chief said that's part of the reason why he denied receiving the letter.

"The complaint had been withdrawn by the time you had got to me," he said.

Turley said he ended the investigation and is not interested in how union officials obtained Berry's AOL information.

"I don't know how they found out," he said.

"There's probably 10 different ways to figure that out."

The controversy comes at a time when Soares, who took office in January, has pledged to clean up the way his prosecutors issue subpoenas.

Law enforcement officials, he said, will no longer be able to get subpoenas directly from assistant district attorneys without documenting that they need them for legitimate investigations.

"We're going to be implementing some controls here so that you can't go to your ADA for that," he said.

"Ultimately, they will come to my desk."

"Decisions will be made here."

And since there has been a lot posted in here in the last couple of days, I have gotten behind, somewhat, in addressing a few points that were made, OR NEED TO BE MADE, to keep the conversation on-going and up to date, but in the meantime, I just saw this story, which interested me for its unexpectedness and sudden-ness, and so, I "captured" it for posting in here, along with everything else that is going on in OUR world right now, today!

Does it mean anything at all?

Can't tell yet, but statistical anomolies are always of interest, because they perhaps should not have happened, but did!

And it is the "but did" part that makes them worthy of consideration, in my estimation, anyway!

Top Stories - Reuters

"Bolivia Teeters as President Submits Resignation"

1 hour, 27 minutes ago

By Mario Roque

LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - Bolivian President Carlos Mesa, worn down by Indian protests and wrangling over how to develop massive gas reserves, submitted his resignation to Congress Monday and left opposition lawmakers to decide the fate of his mandate.

Congress will most likely meet Tuesday.

Analysts said it could reject the surprise move announced by Mesa Sunday as an influential indigenous majority's protests to nationalize foreign investments, especially in the gas sector, swelled.

In El Alto, a poor and mainly Indian city on the outskirts of the capital, protesters clashed with scores of Mesa supporters throwing rocks.

Below in La Paz, thousands filled the presidential palace square and chanted support for Mesa.

"I cannot continue to govern besieged by a national blockade that strangles the country," Mesa, a political independent, said in his resignation letter read on television by Presidency Minister Jose Galindo.

In recent weeks, protests and highway blockades, including from a regional autonomy movement, have grown.

Demonstrators in El Alto have threatened to cut off La Paz's water supply and occupy the international airport.

If Congress accepts Mesa's resignation, it will be the second time a Bolivian president has quit in less than two years over basically the same issue: the poor Indian majority's drive to have a greater voice in Bolivia's economy.

U.S.-ally Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada fled the country in October 2003 after 67 people died in the "gas war," nearly a month of protests against his plans to export gas through traditional foe Chile.

Mesa was his vice president and planned to finish the mandate in August 2007.

In his speech Sunday, Mesa singled out coca growers' leader Evo Morales and his Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, which had planned nationwide protests this week to push for heavy state intervention in new gas legislation.

MAS followers were in the midst of highway blockades and occupation of oil fields.

One company had closed down one of its wells this weekend to discourage occupation.

Morales lost the 2002 presidential election to Sanchez de Lozada and is Washington's Bolivian bete noire for his opposition to the U.S.-led campaign to eradicate coca leave cultivation, the raw material for making cocaine.

Now he wants high royalties and less rights for multinationals that have invested over $3 billion to exploit South America's second largest natural gas supply behind Venezuela.

CALLS TO BLOCK RESIGNATION

If the resignation is accepted, conservative Senate chairman Hormando Vaca Diez, an advocate of tougher measures against protesters, would take over.

Congress could opt for an interim leader or call new elections before 2007.

Analysts said Congress should act responsibly by rejecting the resignation, which would allow Mesa to govern the nation of 8 million with a stronger mandate.

"Bolivia's democracy is in its worst moment," said political analyst Carlos Toranzos.

"Parliament should cast aside its political calculations to find a solution for this institutional crisis."

Another analyst, Roger Cortes, said, "The worst thing Congress could do is accept the resignation."

Neighbors of South America's poorest nation also worried about turmoil on their doorstep.

"I hope the Bolivian Congress ratifies and reaffirms that the president continues," President Alejandro Toledo told RPP radio Monday.

Bolivia has a long history of institutional instability in its 172 years of independence and Mesa, a historian and TV journalist, knows this better than anyone.

He once wrote a book called "Bolivian Presidents: Between Ballot Boxes and Bullets."

(Additional reporting by Jude Webber in Lima)

And that is a "punishment" that I just might enjoy, jeffmoskin and Mr. A.B., actually!

Over the years, as "therapy", or whatever, I learned to play the Irish concert flute, and tin whistle, and on Sunday mornings, I go to an old cemetary on a friend's land, out in the country near to where I am, and I play "for the ladies", as I put it, tunes like "Be It Ever So Humble, There's No Place Like Home", and "You Are My Sunshine", and my real favorites are "Yankee Doodle", and "My Country Tis of Thee", which is really "God Save The King", EXCEPT, God didn't!

God favored us, instead, and this is back in the American Revolution that I am talking, which is where that all goes back to, especially "Yankee Doodle", which "originated" as an American tune just a handful of miles to the west of where I stand to play the tune on Sunday mornings, and in that cemetary, or "burying ground", as it would have been called back then, there are graves all the way back to 1790, and the early-1800's, and I am sure that some or more of those people actually lived during the time of the American Revolution, so, my hope is that for a while on Sunday mornings, I get them up and quick-stepping once again, for a time anyway, and then it's back to reality, and the fray, once again!

But when you are out there in a place like that, where life, American life, goes back hundreds of continuous years, and those very tunes that I am playing now, were also heard back then, as marching tunes, like what Sousa's music is, it really stirs something in me, and that thing is, I would say, the very roots, the very heart and soul of both my citizenship as an American, and my patriotism as an American, and being an American, I suppose you could really say, THOSE TWO ARE ONE, indivisible, inseparable, so as to provide for liberty and justice for all, in the face of whatever tyranny and despotism stalk OUR land, at any period of time!

OUR enduring America!

When I am standing there in that burying ground playing "My Country Tis of Thee", I am surrounded BY AMERICA; AND IT IS US!

SO!

Send the punishment my way, I am ready to receive it!

And for anyone just coming in, and wondering what is really going on in here, in this thread, well, what you have is me, and a couple of other older Americans, older than I am, in fact, which means that they have earned the right to have an opinion about Life in OUR America as much as anyone else has earned that right, including me; and what we are all wondering, is, WHAT IN THE HELL IS IT WITH THIS GEORGE W. BUSH?

WHAT?

What's with all the lying, the deceit, the half-truths, the hate-mongering?

What's with all the looting of OUR national treasury on his watch, ostensibly to enrich him and his, at OUR expense?

Especially, what's with all the murder that he is having committed in OUR name around the world?

AND ....

What is it with all the torture that he is having committed IN OUR NAME around the world?

And just who in the HELL does he think he really is; some kind of an avenging god, or something?

WHAT?

What is it with George W. Bush?

That's what we would like to know, actually, and so that we just don't seem like a bunch of doddering old fools in here, what I do, and sometimes them, but mostly me, what I do is actually bring into here "NEWS ITEMS" that are circulating around in OUR America each day to make my points that something appears to be really odd, here in OUR America, these days, and then, other people can actually read what I am reading, and they can then make their own objective, independent decisions as to what is really what, rather than having to accept my opinion on something that they do not have before them, which is the "RUSH LIMBAUGH TECHNIQUE" in action, actually; make a lot of comments on something that YOU CANNOT SEE, so that you cannot comment intelligently, or rebut intelligently, which makes Rush look intelligent, until you think about what he is really doing, and then you see the scam for what it is, A SCAM, but a very effective one, for all of that.

BECAUSE PEOPLE DO NOT QUESTION "BIG SHOTS" LIKE RUSH LIMBAUGH!

WHY, he is a friend of the WHITE HOUSE, even, so how can he even be under suspicion?

SO!

I guess while George W. Bush is the "ANTI" of Jesus and FDR, I am the "ANTI" of Rush Limbaugh, and boy, that actually makes me feel not at all bad about myself, now that I think on it for a moment.

Of course, Rush probably is a lot more erudite and cosmopolitan and better looking than I am, and he certainly knows where to get all those prescription drugs that he is supposed to be hooked on, but what the hey!

Can't have everything, now, can we?

World - Reuters

"U.S. Shootings Strain Ties with Iraq Allies"

Mon Mar 7,12:50 PM ET World - Reuters

By Andrew Marshall

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces in Iraq faced new strains with allies on Monday when Bulgaria said they had probably shot dead one of its soldiers after angering Rome by killing an Italian secret agent who rescued a hostage.

The shootings confirmed what for many Iraqis is a daily reality -- that U.S. forces are too quick to open fire and often kill innocent civilians in their efforts to crack down on insurgents, who killed at least 23 people in fresh attacks.

The U.S. military says it does all it can to minimise the risk of Iraqis and foreign civilians being killed.

The Bulgarian soldier was killed in southern Iraq on Friday, around the same time that U.S. forces in Baghdad opened fire on a vehicle taking kidnapped Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena to the airport shortly after her captors freed her.

Sgrena was wounded in the shoulder and secret agent Nicola Calipari, who played a key role in her release, was killed.

Italy laid on an state funeral in Rome on Monday for Calipari.

Bulgarian Defense Minister Nikolai Svinarov said an investigation into the death of the Bulgarian soldier showed he had probably been accidentally killed by American troops.

"Someone started shooting at our patrol from the west, and in the same direction, 150 meters (yards) away, there was a unit from the U.S. army," he told a news conference.

"The result gives us enough grounds to believe the death of rifleman Gurdi Gurdev was caused by friendly fire."

Svinarov said the Bulgarian army's chief of staff had written to General Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, asking for an investigation.

The U.S. military had no immediate comment.

ANGER IN ITALY

But the White House rejected Sgrena's suggestion that she was targeted by U.S. troops on the road to Baghdad airport.

"I think it's absurd to make any such suggestion that our men and women in uniform deliberately targeted innocent civilians."

"That's just absurd," said spokesman Scott McClellan.

He said the road to the airport "is one of the most dangerous roads in Iraq," plagued by suicide bombings and other attacks, and that forces often had to make "split-second decisions to protect their own security."

He said President Bush considered Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi a good friend and had assured him there would be a full investigation into the incident.

Earlier the U.S. military says the Italian vehicle was traveling at high speed and ignored instructions to stop.

Sgrena disputed that account, saying they were traveling at a moderate speed.

Although the governments of Italy and Bulgaria supported the war in Iraq, a large proportion of their people opposed it.

Some 75 percent of Bulgarians disagree with U.S.-led military operations in Iraq, according to opinion polls.

SUICIDE ATTACKS

Iraq's government, yet to be formed, faces an uphill battle to rein in violence.

On Monday, Deputy President Rowsch Shways said talks were proceeding on how to distribute the top positions between the different parties.

The National Assembly is due to meet on March 16.

In Balad, north of Baghdad, a suicide bomber blew up his car outside an army officer's house, killing at least 12 people, hospital officials and police said.

In the nearby town of Baquba, insurgents attacked soldiers and police with a suicide bomb, mortars and land mines, killing at least 10 people.

Al Qaeda's wing in Iraq, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for both attacks.

"The mujahideen ambushed a unit of the apostate guards in Baquba ... and a brave lion carried out an attack on the riffraff and turned them into scattered fragments," Al Qaeda Organization for Holy War in Iraq said in an Internet statement.

Police in Baquba, a mixed Sunni and Shi'ite town 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, said the attack began when five Iraqi soldiers were killed in an ambush.

A suicide car bomb then hit police heading to reinforce the area, killing two.

Three people were killed by roadside bombs.

In Baghdad, gunmen shot dead a policeman, police said.

In the northern city of Mosul, an Iraqi woman who had been a candidate in Jan. 30 elections for the Shi'ite alliance that topped the poll was shot dead on Sunday, alliance officials said.

Hana Muhamasji, a university professor, was one of the few Sunni candidates on the alliance list.

I don't know how many people in here actually remember back into the 1950's, and all the "COLD WAR" bull crap, and fear mongering, and scare mongering, etc., that we all had to live through back then; especially the terms "insurgency" and "counter-insurgency" that were being bandied back and forth, way back then, especially AFTER the FALL of Dien Bien Phu, where Vietnamese General Giap and his rag-tag, weak Viet Minh forces devoured the pride of La Belle France's fighting forces in a months-long siege that had the whole world on the edge of its seats while it was happening, including OUR own military chiefs down there in Washington, D.C., who were concerned that we were going to be sucked into that morass, as we were to be just so many years later, BUT ..

That is later!

Somewhere in there, in the 1950's, America created a "counter-insurgency" force of OUR own which came to be known as OUR Green Berets, although the "Green Berets" of today might be a far different fighting force than they were originally conceived to be, which was a force, OF OURS, that actually was going to go into Soviet Union-held territories to assist the people in revolting and rebelling against Russian tyranny!

Now, at that time, WWII was just barely over, and Korea had happened, and Dien Bien Phu had happened, thanks in large part to the fact that the Viet Minh in Viet Nam were using 105 mm. American howitzers against the French, 105's captured from us, incidentally, in Korea, when OUR troops there were overrun by the Chinese who invaded Korea when MacArthur took OUR troops too close to the Chinese border, 105's which were subsequently carried overland from Korea, through China and into Viet Nam, BY COOLIES, human beings, and then re-assembled there in the hills of Dien Bien Phu, to end French aggression, despotism and tyranny in Viet Nam, which those 105's did for them very effectively, and that is a fact!

Anyway, I digress.

The point is that in the mid-1950's, there was a lot of knowledge extant on "insurgencies", and "counter-insurgency", and so, the Green Berets were probably the very best soldiers at that time, with respect to knowledge of how to conduct a successful insurgency, which was their function in life, at that time.

Later, in the 1960's, the Green Berets became famous here in OUR America when John Kennedy, OUR American president at the time, adopted them as "HIS" soldiers, and then, BIG John Wayne portrayed a Green Beret in the movie of the same name, around 1968.

Anyway, out of all of that came a book entitled "The New Legions" by an American Green Beret named Donald Duncan, and in that book, he talked some about what "counter-insurgency" operations are really all about.

As it is directly relevant to what is happening over there in Iraq right now, right across the board, I would like to take a moment and quote a bit of "The New Legions", which just might be right on point here vis-a-vis this "public relations" battle that is going on over the internet between the alleged al Qaida side, and Scottie "BOY" McClellan, the spokesboy for George W. Bush!

As you read these words, TAKE NOTE AND HEED THE FACT THAT THIS IS OUR OWN DOCTRINE, OUR OWN MILITARY KNOWLEDGE THAT IS BEING QUOTED HERE, all of which has since been rejected and tossed right in the garbage can by George W. Bush and his NEW CON pack of damn fools that he has in charge of the Pentagon, and the sycophantic generals that George W. Bush kept on after PURGING competent ones like General Eric Shinseki; the sycophants and toadies who will tell George W. Bush what he wants to hear, while General Shinseki was telling him HOW IT REALLY IS!

Counterinsurgency is not just fighting guerillas, any more than insurgency is arming a group to fight.

Insurgency is political, a popular uprising against a government - to overthrow the leaders (a revolt), or to change the form of government (a revolution).

In revolution especially, armed conflict is not an essential, BUT NORMALLY COMES AFTER the elimination of due process to achieve desired political goals, and even then, overt guerilla action is only one part of the political movement.

Counterinsurgency must exist both to defeat the guerillas AND TO CONSIDER THE CAUSES of the insurgency, AND IT CAN CHOOSE TO RESPOND by changing the leaders and the form of government; convincing the people that they are mistaken and that the existing government is good for them; or convincing the people that the government proposed by the insurgents would make things worse for them.

To relate the first choice to Viet Nam: OUR ADMISSION OF THE NECESSITY FOR COUNTERINSURGENCY WAS PRIMA FACIE EVIDENCE OF AN EXISTING INSURGENCY, and it provided proof that the government and its leaders HAD NO INTENTION of changing voluntarily.

IF WE ARE TO BELIEVE OUR OWN PROPAGANDA, we were in Viet Nam by invitation of the government (the same government that had eliminated due process), NOT TO CHANGE IT, BUT TO MAINTAIN IT.

Propaganda aside, since we had created and financed the government in the first place, it could be said that we invited ourselves; and since the government developed as it had UNDER OUR AEGIS, IT WOULD SEEM OBVIOUS THAT SERIOUS CHANGE WAS NOT TO BE PART OF THE PROCESS!

In any event, for an outside power to step in and make the change would accomplish nothing, BECAUSE IT WAS OUTSIDE INTERVENTION AND INTERFERENCE IN VIETNAMESE AFFAIRS that had started the trouble.

Special Forces personnel ARE TAUGHT NOT TO INTERFERE IN INTERNAL POLITICS because it would create resentment.

WHY THEN, should we have supposed that interference in internal politics while fighting against the guerillas would be any less resented?

(Mark well that in this period, we were talking of insurgency; it would be a few years before the American people could swallow "invasion".)

The second response poses equally interesting problems.

HOW COULD OUTSIDERS, for the most part incapable of fully understanding the people to whom they are appealing, CONVINCE THE PEOPLE THAT WHAT THEY REGARDED AS EVIL WAS REALLY GOOD?

The outsider's values were different but not necessarily better - their history is unique to them, and they have never lived under such a government: THEIR OPPOSITION IS VIETNAMESE TALKING TO VIETNAMESE!

(The task of an outsider in a country which has just gained independence from a colonial power is more difficult.)

Aid to unpopular governments is invariably used to strengthen the government, and when a significant segment of the population HAS LOST FAITH IN A GOVERNMENT'S HONESTY AND INTEGRITY, watching officials pocket money intended for the people can only increase their contempt!

Americans handling the programs were just that - the people do not identify the action with the government- AND IT WAS FURTHER PROOF THAT THE GOVERNMENT COULD NOT BE TRUSTED!

And what could it do for the Americans?

In a country that believes that a man who gives something for nothing is a fool, not asking for something in return could be interpreted as an attempt to buy love or acceptance of American ways - OR IT COULD MEAN THAT THE AMERICAN IS A FOOL!

In a country where the people survived for generations by learning to tell outsiders what they wanted to hear, HOW CAN THE OUTSIDER DETERMINE WHETHER HE IS THOUGHT OF AS AN OPPORTUNIST CAPITALIZING ON OTHER'S MISERY, OR A FOOL, OR BOTH?

It is utterly unreasonable to try to convince people who in desperation have taken up arms against the government that a change, any change, CAN WORSEN THINGS, for at this stage, THEY ARE CONVINCED THAT THINGS CANNOT GET WORSE and that even vague promises hold more hope than day-to-day reality.

Political opposition, communist AND non-communist, had been eliminated, the leaders hunted down or chased from the country.

An army of security police crawled across Viet Nam, seeking out all those who dared voice disapproval of the regime; portable guillotines moved from village to village to expedite summary justice, and the jails were filled with political prisoners dying under the most barbaric circumstances.

The armed forces were being used as tax collectors and to protect the government and landlords FROM THE PEOPLE!

Peasants who thought they had won their land in their fight for independence were forced to pay for it or see it returned to the landlords.

The black market, fed by American largesse and government, enriched a few while the rest grew poorer.

Elections, though an unopposed mockery, were rigged!

How could outsiders - well fed, well clothed, with an excess of money, living in air-conditioned hotels and villas, cooperating with the government responsible for the conditions - convince people living in a nightmare that the other guys were worse?

It turned out to be far easier to convince the American people that Vietnamese communists were trying to take over a free country - and that this was the worst thing possible - than it was the Vietnamese of anything.

It is a testimonial to our media and propagandists that unable to define "communism", the American people know it is EVIL; and unable to define "democracy", know it is GOOD!

end quotes

Well, folks, there it is!

That is what we know about insurgencies, or rather, that is what we knew, BEFORE this Bush Co. crowd took over, and now, we apparently know nothing at all, about anything!

SO?

What are we supposed to do then, as LOYAL Americans?

Are we supposed to take all of OUR own military doctrine and knowledge gained after all the years from our own successful insurgency (REVOLUTION) against British tyranny and oppression, and just toss it into the trash can, as this Bush Co. has done?

Are we supposed to become mindless sycophants and toadies, because that is what the Bush Co. wants around him, people who will worship his every word as the WORDS OF GOD, even though they are mindless drivel?

Are we supposed to worship this Wolfowitz as some kind of military genius, when he obviously does not know his *** from a hole in the ground?

Or does loyalty to OUR America now require us, as the citizen body of this nation, as its sovereign, to stand up and say, HEY, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?

Think it over, folks, and think it over well, for it is YOUR COUNTRY, and your future that is at stake here.

As for me, I am old now, and well, who ever knows, but as for me, I think this adminstration is the biggest botch-job that I have ever had the misfortune to come across, and you know what, I'm not afraid to say that in public.

In fact, I just did!

SO!

How about that!

And if this thread all of a sudden has no Livyjr posts in it for awhile, well, you'll know that they got me.

AND THEN ...

Well, stay tuned!

'Cause who ever really knows!

LIVE!

LATE-BREAKING!

Life, in OUR America!

Another sad chapter in the long saga of the IMF and World Bank trying to separate Bolivians from their huge cache of natural gas.

Behind Bolivia's Gas War

Commentary, Jim Shultz,
Pacific News Service, Oct 17, 2003
Editor's Note: To Bolivians marching in the streets, "free" trade of natural gas or other resources from their impoverished country to California is just another name for theft.

LA PAZ, Bolivia--Bolivians don't know what's good for them, declared the editors of the New York Post. Citing widespread opposition and protest to a proposed deal to export Bolivian natural gas to California, the paper observed: "And right now in Bolivia -- the poorest country in all of Latin America -- there are people fighting to remain poor."

The broad opposition to the proposed gas deal is not fueled by stupidity. Ordinary Bolivians have not stood before armed soldiers because they just don't understand the subtleties of global economics. At work is a conflict between the country's two very different populations, one glowingly rich and the other abjectly poor. The real issue in the "gas war" is how Bolivia should integrate itself into the global economy -- who will win and who will lose.

Two hundred miles away from the eye of the conflict in the capital city of La Paz lies the small city of Potosi and behind it the small mountain "Cerro Rico" (Rich Hill). For 300 years, from the mid-1500s to the mid-1800s, this single hill of silver bankrolled the Spanish empire. Millions of Bolivian Indians and slaves died extracting the silver for the Spanish. Here is a history written into the Bolivian soul -- a country that sat atop one of the greatest sources of mineral wealth in the history of the planet ended up being the poorest in South America.

Today the nation's newest and probably last "Cerro Rico" is a mammoth underground reserve of natural gas that the government is planning to harvest, in association with a British-backed consortium, Pacific LNG. To Bolivia's wealthy elite and their allies at the International Monetary Fund, the deal looks like a financial boon for a country that could very much use one. Average Bolivians see an unfolding repeat of the theft of the nation's silver.

"The money will all just end up in the pockets of the president, the ministers and other politicians," says Lourdes Netz, a former Roman Catholic nun. "Look at all the public companies that have been privatized. Have the people benefited?" First give us political reforms so we have a government we can trust, many Bolivians say. Then we can cut the gas deal.

For 15 years, Bolivia has been the main South American lab rat for the pro-privatization, unfettered-market theories of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The results have been disastrous. The economy has been in a crisis for half a decade.

In 2000, Bolivia obeyed World Bank orders to privatize the public water system of its third-largest city, Cochabamba. This led to a takeover by Bechtel, the California engineering giant, massive rate hikes on the poor, and a civic rebellion that forced Bechtel to leave. Last February, when the International Monetary Fund sought to impose a belt-tightening package, citizens revolted and were met with army tanks. Thirty-two people were killed. Now, once again, Bolivians are being shot in their streets for the crime of confronting an economic model imposed from abroad and which they don't believe in.

There is another element of remembered history to the current conflict over gas. Pacific LNG wants to ship the gas out of landlocked Bolivia through its Pacific coast neighbor, Chile, a proposal that runs into deep, century-old national resentment over Chile's seizure of Bolivia's last remaining access to the sea in 1879. School children here are still taught that the nation must reclaim its ocean. For many Bolivians, the thought of giving such a big prize to Chile, without a sea access deal in return, is unacceptable.

At least 75 people have been killed by the army since the conflict began. According to eyewitnesses and coroner's reports, most of them suffered gunshot wounds at point-blank range. One soldier was reported killed by his superior when he refused to fire on a crowd.

President Gonzalo Sànchez de Lozada, elected with 22 percent of the vote a year ago and now supported by less than 10 percent of his people, has earned a new nickname: "The Butcher." The focus of the protests has now shifted from gas to a demand that the president resign.

His vice president and key members of the government have already broken with him over the massacres, but he insists on staying, branding calls for his departure sedition. This is especially ironic given that Sànchez de Lozada himself called for his predecessor, Hugo Banzer Suarez, to step down two years ago during a national crisis far less extreme than the current one.

It seems impossible for Sanchez de Lozada to regain anything near the credibility he needs to complete his remaining four years in office. But the U.S. Embassy and other powerful allies seem intent on keeping him in office.

Bolivia's conflicts over the game plans for global economics did not begin with the gas war and will not end with it. Bolivians have taken to the streets because they know better -- they want to seize control of their own economic future.

PNS contributor Jim Shultz is the executive director of the Democracy Center (www.democracyctr.org), based in California and Bolivia.

http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_arti...52aaac364cf501d




Sigh, anther great America tradition continues. This is exactly how we acquired the Panama Canal:

In 1878 Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French engineer who built the Suez Canal, began to dig a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, which was then part of Colombia. Tropical disease and engineering problems halted construction on the canal, but a French business (the New Panama Canal Company) still held the rights to the project. Roosevelt agreed to pay $40 million for the rights, and he began to negotiate with Colombia for control of the land. He offered $10 million for a fifty-mile strip across the isthmus. Colombia refused.

"We were dealing with a government of irresponsible bandits," Roosevelt stormed. "I was prepared to . . . at once occupy the Isthmus anyhow, and proceed to dig the canal. But I deemed it likely that there would be a revolution in Panama soon."
Teddy was right. The chief engineer of the New Panama Canal Company organized a local revolt. Roosevelt immediately sent the battleship Nashville and a detachment of marines to Panama to support the new government. The rebels gladly accepted Roosevelt's $10 million offer, and they gave the United States complete control of a ten-mile wide canal zone.
Roosevelt ordered army engineers to start digging. Thousands of workers sweated in the malarial heat. They tore up jungles and cut down mountains. Insects thrived in muddy, stagnant pools. "Mosquitoes get so thick you get a mouthful with every breath," a worker complained. The mosquitoes also carried yellow fever, and many fell victim to the deadly disease before Dr. William Gorgas found a way to stop it.

Some Americans did not approve of Roosevelt's behavior. "There was much accusation about my having acted in an 'unconstitutional' manner," Teddy shrugged. "I took the isthmus, started the canal, and then left Congress -- not to debate the canal, but to debate me. . . . While the debate goes on, the canal does too; and they are welcome to debate me as long as they wish, provided that we can go on with the canal."
Work did go on. Despite lethal landslides, workers with dynamite and clumsy steam shovels cut their way across a continent. They built a railroad, three sets of concrete locks, and a huge artificial lake. Nine years later the freighter Ancon entered the new channel. Hundreds of construction workers hopped aboard for the historic ride. A shiny towing locomotive pulled the Ancon into the first lock. Bands played and crowds cheered as the ship slipped into the Pacific.

Roosevelt liked to repeat an old African saying: "Speak softly, and carry a big stick. You will go far." In Panama, Teddy proved to the world that he was willing to use his big navy as a stick to further American interests.

http://www.smplanet.com/imperialism/joining.html

Well, jeffmoskin, well done with this article, as it provides quite a bit of background to a story and issues that I was not really that up-to-date on, with all the other crap going on in this nation of ours and this world of ours as well.

You got to run ninety miles an hour these days just to get further and further behind, and forget staying on top of everything, as this Bolivia story clearly demonstrates.

It is especially interesting to read about this IMF, which to most people, AND ME, is still a kind of real shadowy presence, here in this world of ours.

A puppet master, it seems, and world governments are simply its puppets, dancing to whatever tune the IMF happens to call at that moment.

In 1988, about March or so, I was a health officer in a corrupt county in the corrupt Empire State of New York.

In January of 1988, the New York State Public Health Law had been amended to allegedly demand greater accountability for state monies going to county health departments, and I had made it quite clear that as of January 1, 1988, I was going to toe that line, and make sure that it stayed "toed" by the BIG MONEY INTERESTS that were interested in "developing" the county that I was health officer in.

SO!

One day, I got a "summons" to report to the conference room on the fifth (EXECUTIVE) floor of the county building, where a big gathering of "land developers" were to meet with the county executive, ABOUT ME!

Now, a point that must be taken into consideration here is that the county had been established as a county health district back in 1946, while the charter form of county government, which provided for the office of county executive, did not come into being until 1975, and the point is that the county executive had absolutely no control over the workings of my office, or the health district, EXCEPT .....

Except for the fact that he "controlled" my boss, the county public health director, who had been executive secretary of the New York State Republican Committee, before being brought over to my county in or about 1977 to serve IN THE CAPACITY OF A MEDICAL DOCTOR, AND THEREBY take over operations of the county health department, to turn it into a "graft mill" for the Republicans, despite the fact that the man had no medical training or degrees whatsoever.

And here it must be added that the New York State Department of Health had "okayed" that deal, which was and still should be a matter of record in the corrupt Empire State.

SO!

There we all were, in that conference room including "Mr. JIMMY DEE", who was the "STATE HEALTH DEPARTMENT MAN" assigned as a "watcher" over me.

The developers got right to the point.

They had a suitcase, or briefcase of money with them, which the county executive, on TV Channel 13 out of Menands, New York later confirmed had within it $80,000, as I recall (I have a videotape of that "news" conference, so it is a part of the public record), and they made it clear that if I was not "gone" at his hands, that the money would go to a challenger of their choice in the upcoming election for county executive.

I'll never forget the look on the face of the State Health Department man, MR. JIMMY DEE!

He was positively gloating, like a cat just got a nice big plate of cream set right down in front of it, and no other cats allowed in the room while that one fat cat got to lap up all it wanted.

As to the county executive, well, they were talking his language, and he was hearing them with every ear that he had attached to his body.

In fact, I think some saliva was coming out of his mouth at the prospect of getting his hands on that money, right then and there, BUT ....

Of course, there was still some "arranging" that had to be done, as the county executive did not have the power himself to "get rid of" me.

NO!

That was yet to come, BUT .....

There was where the seeds were sown, and by then, the land developers had the State Health Department "necessary men" right where they needed them, in their pockets, BECAUSE they were operating through the Republican Party at the state level, and the state Republican Party then yanked strings for them from within.

That was done by having one particular state senator, whose name appears in here from time to time, "threaten" to remove certain job titles or line items from the funding for the state health department.

And I was "going down", that was for certain, unless I became "compliant", of course, which is the exact word used in a newspaper article published right around the time of that "meeting", to demonstrate to all the watching world the POWER these land developers wielded in the county, and to further demonstrate the SOLIDARITY that they had with the county politicians whose real job, or DUTY it was to protect the county residents from these developers!

And go down I did, and hard, because that "compliant" gear is just not one that I have in my gearbox, and that still goes on to this day, where I am without rights and protection of law in my town, my county, and of course, in the corrupt Empire State of New York, and when I read your article on Bolivia, that all came back as kind of an example in miniature of what is going on down there in Bolivia.

After that meeting in 1988 where the "cash was flashed" to the county executive, I was sent out, by my boss, to what was in actuality a waiting ambush, where a back-hoe operator came within inches of decapitating me with the swinging bucket of his machine, and when the news got back that they had blown the ambush, that I was still alive, then I was "declared", ON TV CHANNEL 13, as the lead story on the 6 o'clock news, by the county executive to be "DANGEROUS", a deranged "VEET NOM vet-rin gonna be out killing people", and that was that!

And it still is!

Slick!

Human life ain't worth a dime, jeffmoskin, not one dime.

Not last month, not last year, and not now.

And that article on Bolivia you posted just goes to demonstrate that one more time.

Well done.

And that brings me to where I was heading anyway this morning, in all likelihood, which is to this "SHOOTING GALLERY" that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have set up over there in Iraq, where under George W. Bush, human life there is as worthless as it was when Donald Rumsfeld was over there giving hugs and kisses to Saddam Hussein because Saddam was being a good boy for Donald by killing off a lot of people that Donald didn't like, WITH POISON GAS, which Donald did like!

George W. Bush!

JUDGE, JURY, EXECUTIONER!

RULER OF THE WORLD, AND THE SUN, MOON AND STARS, to boot!

And before anyone starts howling about how unfair I am being here, KEEP IN MIND, as it is a matter of record, that George W. Bush has in his possession a piece of paper that says no American shall be responsible for the deaths of any Iraqi citizens, which gives them a license to kill, with impunity, JUST LIKE WE HAD IN VIET NAM, where you could kill anyone you wanted, so long as they were "only" Vietnamese.

A LICENSE TO KILL!

SPORT SHOOTING, it was called.

One day, one 'ole boy, a sargeant, in fact, over me, just upped and shot a farmer standing out in a field.

That same sargeant also liked to strip down Vietnamese women, especially in front of their children.

He liked to hear them shriek, and of course, they were powerless to do a thing about it, which is what turns people, "sick twists", like him on, apparently.

And then they come back to here, and become a good American again, and who knows, maybe even a high-ranking Republican, and a Bush supporter to boot, because someone sure is, as I did not put this abomination of an adminstration in office the first time, nor was I in any way responsible for them coming back into power this time around!

"Friendly fire's terrible toll in Iraq - Troops make snap decisions amid constant threat, and sometimes the consequences are horrific"

By RAWYA RAGEH and TODD PITMAN, Associated Press
First published: Tuesday, March 8, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- They're told every day across Iraq -- tragic stories of people dying amid gunfire, shattered windshields and car seats covered in blood.

Friendly fire -- often at U.S. military checkpoints -- is taking a toll on the United States and its allies, as the shooting deaths of an Italian intelligence agent and a Bulgarian soldier highlight the terrifying reality of Iraqi roads.

But Iraqi civilians are getting tangled up in the violence as well, at an alarming rate.

"They're just cowboys," Abdullah Mohammed said Monday of U.S. troops who killed his brother Feb. 28 in Ramadi.

Mohammed said his brother edged too close to an American patrol.

"They killed him without any reason, they suddenly shot at his car."

In a country where insurgents strike daily, there's no doubt some of the force is justified.

Weary of suicide car bombers, U.S. military vehicles in Iraq carry signs in Arabic warning civilians to keep a distance or risk "deadly force."

Similar warnings are affixed to fortified, tank-manned U.S. checkpoints around the capital.

But despite such warnings, Yarmouk hospital -- just one of several large medical facilities in Baghdad -- receives several casualties a day from these types of shootings, said Dr. Mohamed Salaheddin.

On Saturday, American soldiers fired on a civilian vehicle in Baghdad, killing a woman and wounding her husband, said Iqbal Sabban, a police officer.

But both sides are often to blame, she said.

"Soldiers carry signs asking people to stay away, but people are sometimes careless," Sabban said.

"The Americans are sometimes jittery and open fire at civilians just like that."

While shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians are so common they're rarely reported in the media, deaths of foreigners can grab headlines and increase pressure on America's allies to pull out.

On Friday night, U.S. troops raked a car with gunfire that was carrying Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena to Baghdad's international airport, wounding her and killing an Italian intelligence officer who'd just negotiated her release from insurgents.

The Bush administration described the shooting as a "horrific accident" that came after soldiers at a particularly dangerous checkpoint tried to motion to the speeding car to stop, thinking it may have been carrying suicide attackers.

The White House rejected Sgrena's claim that American soldiers gave no warning before they opened fire and that soldiers may have targeted her car because the United States opposes Italy's policy of negotiating with kidnappers.

"It's absurd to make any such suggestion that our men and women in uniform would deliberately target innocent civilians," countered spokesman Scott McClellan.

He said the airport road "has been a place where suicide car bombers have launched attacks."

"It's been a place where (former Saddam Hussein) regime elements have fired upon coalition forces."

"It is a dangerous road, and it is a combat zone that our coalition forces are in."

"Oftentimes, they have to make split-second decisions to protect their own security."

Italian military officials said two other intelligence agents were wounded in the shooting; U.S. officials said it was only one.

Sgrena rejected the U.S. military's account of the shooting, claiming that American soldiers gave no warning before they opened fire.

That same day, a Bulgarian soldier was shot to death with a machine gun.

Bulgarian Defense Minister Nikolai Svinarov said Monday that coalition forces likely shot the soldier by accident.

Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov summoned the American ambassador, James Pardew, and complained about the lack of coordination among coalition troops.

And Svinarov insisted "the coalition partners undertake emergency measures to improve coordination."

In both Bulgaria and Italy, the deaths sparked debate over keeping troops in Iraq.

Bulgaria has a 460-member infantry battalion in Iraq; Italy has deployed about 3,000 soldiers.

A U.S. spokesman, Marine Sgt. Salju Thomas, said every incident in which there is a loss of life or injury would be investigated, at least those involving U.S. troops and civilians.

Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, said the rules of engagement at checkpoints in Iraq are built around the concept of "escalation of force."

Soldiers are taught to warn a potentially threatening vehicle before shooting at it.

Soldiers who shoot at vehicles are told to try to disable it by hitting the engine block, he said.

But routine guard duty can turn into deadly combat with lightning speed, and soldiers often must make split-second decisions.

Venable said the rules are "a guide to help our soldiers bear the responsibility of pulling the trigger or not."

Asked if rules of engagement changed after the Italian agent was killed, Thomas said:

"I can't discuss rules of engagement for operational security."

"But we're constantly evaluating our procedures."

In Rome, Italy paid homage Monday to the intelligence officer killed while escorting Sgrena to freedom, with a state funeral in a Rome basilica drawing as many as 20,000 mourners -- some bringing flowers, some waving flags -- and all of the country's top officials.

The killing of Nicola Calipari, 50, fueled anti-American sentiment in a country that was strongly opposed to war in Iraq, and prompted Premier Silvio Berlusconi, a staunch supporter of the U.S.-led military campaign, to demand that Washington provide a full explanation of the shooting in Baghdad.

The Santa Maria degli Angeli basilica -- originally designed by Michelangelo on the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian -- and the surrounding piazza were packed with mourners.

Berlusconi and U.S. Ambassador Mel Sembler were among dignitaries at the service.

And while Bush Co. spokesboy Scottie "BOY" McClellan is making his "big noise" about how the Italians aren't telling the truth here, JUST WHAT ARE THE ITALIANS REALLY SAYING, in return, with regard to the spokesboy's claims:

"Italy foreign minister disputes U.S. claim"

By ANGELA DOLAND, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:47 a.m., Tuesday, March 8, 2005

ROME -- Italy's foreign minister said Tuesday that the car carrying an intelligence officer killed by U.S. fire in Iraq last week was not speeding up and did not receive signals to stop, countering suggestions by American authorities.

Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini, speaking to parliament, also ruled out suggestions that the shooting that killed Nicola Calipari was the result of an ambush, but reiterated the government's demands for a full explanation from Washington.

Fini was the first Italian official to openly dispute the U.S. account, and his comments put fresh pressure on Washington to get to the bottom of the matter.

President Bush has promised a full investigation.

Calipari, 50, was shot Friday as he headed to the Baghdad airport after securing the release of Giuliana Sgrena a month after the Italian journalist was abducted by Iraqi gunmen.

"The car was traveling at a velocity that couldn't have been more than 40 kilometers (25 miles) per hour," Fini said.

There were no attempts to stop the car, as indicated by the U.S. military, he added.

Sgrena has said the shooting might have been intentional because the United States opposes Italy's policy of negotiating with kidnappers.

Fini dismissed that hypothesis as "groundless."

"It was an accident," he told lawmakers.

"This does not prevent, in fact it makes it a duty for the government to demand that light be shed on the murky issues, that responsibilities be pinpointed, and, where found, that the culprits be punished."

He said Calipari, an experienced officer who had negotiated the release of other hostages in Iraq in the past, "made all the necessary contacts with the U.S. authorities," both with those in charge of airport security and with the forces patrolling areas next to the airport.

Several Rome newspapers have said a lack of communication between Italian intelligence and U.S. forces may have led to the gunfire.

La Repubblica daily, citing unnamed U.S. military sources, said that Italian officials did not send notice of the hostage's liberation or of the type of vehicle she was being carried in.

Fini stressed that the U.S. government is an allied country that has promised full cooperation.

Fini's comments come a day after Italy honored the slain intelligence agent with a state funeral that drew up to 20,000 mourners.

Crowds lined the streets and clapped as a car bearing his casket approached the Rome basilica.

The slaying of Calipari has fueled anti-American sentiment in a country where many protested the war in Iraq.

Premier Silvio Berlusconi, a strong U.S. ally who sent 3,000 troops to secure postwar Iraq despite opposition at home, has demanded a full explanation from Washington.

Amid the unanswered questions and outrage, Italian officials at the funeral urged national unity in Calipari's memory.

"This is the moment to pay homage all together, without controversy, to the heroic gesture of Nicola Calipari," Berlusconi's right-hand man, Gianni Letta, told the crowd.

"We are proud of you, we'll follow your example and your extraordinary lesson in life."

Sgrena has said Calipari died in her arms after trying to shield her with his body from the American fire.

Before the funeral, Calipari's body lay in state at Rome's Vittoriano monument, where police estimated 100,000 people streamed past his coffin.

The body had been returned from Iraq on Saturday night.

Italian military officials said two other intelligence agents were wounded in the shooting; U.S. officials said it was only one.

Sgrena rejected the U.S. military's account of the shooting, claiming that American soldiers gave no warning before they opened fire.

The White House dismissed Sgrena's suggestion she was deliberately targeted.

"It's absurd to make any such suggestion, that our men and women in uniform would target individual citizens," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

He noted that the car was traveling on one of the most dangerous roads in Iraq.

And why do the words "YEAH, RIGHT" just leap right to my lips when I read these words above about George W. Bush promising a "full investigation" of this matter, which, to be really full, would have to implicate him as Commander-in-Chief?

IN FACT, the investigation is already over, if you listen to the spokesboy, Scottie "BOY" McClellan:

The White House rejected Sgrena's claim that American soldiers gave no warning before they opened fire and that soldiers may have targeted her car because the United States opposes Italy's policy of negotiating with kidnappers.

"It's absurd to make any such suggestion that our men and women in uniform would deliberately target innocent civilians," countered spokesman Scott McClellan.

"It is a dangerous road, and it is a combat zone that our coalition forces are in."

end quotes

WELL, FOLKS, THERE IT IS!

It's a dangerous road!

It's in fact a combat zone, although how it comes to be that is up for questioning, where Iraq is supposed to now be at peace, according to George W. Bush, which raises the question of how a particular road THEN BECOMES a combat zone, and that answer is that George W. Bush has it be so.

HE IS RESPONSIBLE, AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, FOR THIS DEATH, AND EVERY OTHER DEATH IN IRAQ!

YES!

But, oh no, we can't have that, an American president being seen as being accountable for his actions, SO ..

GET OUT THE BROOM AND SWEEP THIS UNDER THE RUG, where it has already gone, thanks to the spokesboy!

George W. Bush promising to investigate anything anymore is just plain laughable, unless of course, IT WOULD BE TO INVESTIGATE ME, OR US, AS LIKELY TAY-RISTS, and then give or sell that information to this Choicepoint, which could then, of course, sell that information to whomever, including the criminal elements that they deal with, so that the criminals can then steal OUR identities to make money off of, which is what America IS all about these days!

GOT TO KEEP THAT ECONOMY ROLLING RIGHT ALONG, DON'T YOU KNOW!

George W. Bush and his just don't have enough, and never actually will, if truth be told on that.

Every loose nickel or dime that they have not yet taken or stolen from us rankles them, and so .....

BUT .....

Back to this alleged "investigation" that George W. Bush has "promised"!

What a crock, is what I am going to say!

It will be like the investigation into the torture of Abu Ghraib, where of course, IN A HIGHLY BUREAUCRATIC MILITARY STRUCTURE, where orders come DOWN, and supervision is 24/7, ONLY A HAND-FULL of rogues, who, of course, right in plain sight of all these superior officers, WERE ABLE, according to George W. Bush, to hide their unlawful actions FROM ALL THE SUPERIOR OFFICERS RIGHT THERE WITH THEM, to be able to commit these atrocities that George W. Bush wants us to believe did not come directly from his desk in the form of an order to commit them.

BULL CRAP, GEORGE!

How big a fool do you need to be to be considered a "LOYAL AMERICAN" these days is my question that I would like George W. Bush to investigate: HOW BIG A BLIND FOOL MUST WE NOW BE TO BE CONSIDERED "GOOD" AMERICANS?

How much must we continue to stomach?

And that answer is simple: IF YOU KNOW WHAT IS GOOD FOR YOU, EVERYTHING!

VOICE OF GOVERNMENT SMOKESCREENPERSON (deflecting attention FROM George W. Bush TO Italians): Why them EYE-TALIANS, everybody knows that they're nothing but a pack of dagos, and wops, and guineas, and WHY, THEY ARE MAFIA, each and every one of them, and they don't look like us, and they are bad people, look at the MUS-AH-LEENEY fellow that George H. W. Bush, THE FATHER OF OUR GREAT GOD-FEARING PRESIDENT had to go and fight back there in WWII to make the world free from them EYE-TALIANS, AND SAFE FOR REAL GOD-FEARING FOLKS, and why, this guy that we righteously killed, well, he flat out deserved it, because HE CHOSE TO SPEED, he chose to act in a threatening manner to OUR GOOD LOYAL AMERICAN TROOPS who are over there in that heathen land of IRAQ, DOING THE WORK OF OUR GOD, and everyone knows them EYE-TALIANS, well, THEY'RE NOT LIKE US GOD-FEARING AMERICANS because they worship dead emporers as their gods, and of, course, there is the MAFIA FACTOR involved here, and WE HAVE GOOD INTELLIGENCE ..... yada, yada, yada, yada, yada!

OH, and the investigation is over!

YEAH, RIGHT!

The IMF and WORLD BANK, organizations which the average America thinks BENEFITS the development of the third world, are the most TOXIC elements of our so-called foreign policy, second only to the sharply-pointed spear approach of his excellency, Bush the Lesser.



REALITY TV: Livyjr, you should find that videotape and take it to TV Channel 13. We Americans just love to see "scandals" about our so-called honest politicians...

Livyjr., Jeff, A.B., etc.

I have been worried for many hours now about you guys with respect to the changes made on here. I would PM you but can't. I just want to let you all know that you're very important to me and that I hope you stay!

I guess I didn't make myself clear here, jeffmoskin!

The videotape is OF AN INTERVIEW that the county executive did on TV Channel 13, a live interview that was broadcast all over that part of God's creation that TV Channel 13 out of Menands, New York covers!

The FBI had a copy of that interview!

The Attorney General HAS a copy of that interview!

Thanks to that LIVE interview, ON TV CHANNEL 13, everybody knows about the "eighty thousand BIG ONES", as the county executive called it, in that Channel 13 interview, which was held, LIVE, in October of 1988, to justify my removal as a health officer in a corrupt county in the corrupt Empire State of New York.

The videotape is part of a public record that is actively being suppressed, right now, here in the corrupt Empire State of New York.

If I could figure out a way, I would be broadcasting that videotape on the internet myself.

Of course, IN the corrupt Empire State, where the live interview depicted on the videotape actually took place, HO HUM, what else is new?

AND THERE IT IS, in a nutshell, which is why the corrupt Empire State is listed in the TOP TEN corrupt states in America!

Go figure!

And now, the disease is coming your way, jeffmoskin, and from that excellent article you posted the other day in here on that LA mayoral race, the seeds are perhaps taking root, as they must, because like any kind of pestilential vermin, corruption has to continually keep moving, as like a pack of locusts, or rats in a corn crib, they always eat themselves out of house and home in the one place, and having destroyed one "host", well, it's back on the move again, and there they now are, right out there with you!

Changes?

Hhhmmmm!

Me, too, Gabrielle!

Interesting!

And as I have said before, if someone sees this grey-haired guy with a mustache, bloodied up some, and nailed to a tree, and this thread has no Livyjr posts, oh well, that was likely me.

And if there is a small, older, middle-eastern-looking guy with a beard nailed to a tree near me ......

You're positively infectious, Livyjr!

I should let you know that my kitchen is now a butter yellow color. I was thinking while painting it about how painting our house and fixing it up (with whatever limited resources we have in my case) is such a vital part of the American dream here in OUR America. And also that I have to curb my "I want this" "I want that" consumer urges. You know, when you paint, you've got a lot of time to think. It's kind of like meditation. It clears the mind to paint.

Anyway, if you guys leave, then the light and warmth of our potbellied stove will go out, too. The place just won't be the same. And over this I have worried for the past several hours. I'm beginning to suspect worry is a sort of a mild, perhaps faint even, teeny tiny little problem for me...

Painting is good, Gabrielle, and worry?

Well, that seems to be a part of the package that comes with being human!

You'll grow out of it, with time and practice!

And the best way to start that process is doing what you just did, look at it right in the eyes, and say, I know you, and I can beat you!

There is no need to run outside

For better seeing!

Nor to peer from a window!

Rather abide,

At the center of your being!

For the more you leave it,

The less you learn!

Search your heart and see

If he is wise who takes each turn!

The way to do, is to be!

- Lao Tze

Date: September 27, 1994

Certified Transcript of Examination of county executive "little Johnny Biggg", by order of Federal District Court for Northern District of New York

LIVYJR: Now, on October 13, 1988, do you recall being interviewed by Chris Kapostacy for the Capital Region Report that was subsequently broadcast over Channel 13 television?

LITTLE JOHNNY BIGGG: I remember being interviewed by a number of people.

I have a vague recollection of being interviewed by Chris Kapostacy.

LIVYJR: And do you remember referring to Livyjr in your conversation with Ms. Kapostacy as being a "poor man"?

LITTLE JOHHNY BIGGG: Poor man?

I don't remember that at all!

LIVYJR: Do you remember telling Ms. Kapostacy that there was a number of developers who were developing a large pool of money to use to run against you?

LITTLE JOHNNY BIGGG: I don't remember saying that to Ms. Kapostacy, no.

FANCY LAWYER FOR BIGGG: NOTE MY OBJECTION to the record to this procedure.

I don't know what we're going to do here!

Presumably, we're listening to some type of tape that's not been identified.

SO!

Just note my objection for the record.

LIVYJR: This is an excerpt from a tape recording of a Channel 13 news broadcast, and we'll provide you with a copy of the tape.

FANCY LAWYER FOR BIGGG: I just placed my objection on the record as there being no proper foundation for this.

Nor is it proper procedure at a deposition.

But go right ahead and do it!

(Whereupon a portion of the tape was played)

LIVYJR: Do you recognize the voice?

LITTLE JOHNNY BIGGG: I recognize the voice, yes!

Chris!

I don't know who the other guy was, though.

Yes!

I do!

Yes!

LIVYJR: And that is you?

FANCY LAWYER FOR BIGGG: Object to the form.

You can answer.

LITTLE JOHHNY BIGGG: It was tough to hear, but it sounds like my melodic voice, yes!

LIVYJR: Do you remember telling Chris Kapostacy about developers who were getting a fund of money up to run against you?

FANCY LAWYER FOR BIGGG: Object to the form of the question.

I think it's already been asked and answered.

If your question is, does the tape recording refresh his recollection, I'll pemit him to answer that.

LIVYJR: Okay.

Having heard this excerpt of the tape recording, does that refresh your recollection with respect to whether you told Ms. Kapostacy that there were developers who were saving a large amount of money to run against you?

FANCY LAWYER FOR BIGGG: Object to the form.

You can answer.

LITTLE JOHNNY BIGGG: I remember -- well, that obviously refreshes my memory!

I didn't know I said it to her or not.

There was some general information like that from the developer's side.

And then there was the other side, which indicated they weren't too pleased with me, either.

LIVYJR: And what was the source of YOUR INFORMATION that the developers had a fund of $80,000 to run against you, or run somebody against you?

FANCY LAWYER FOR BIGGG: Note my objection to the form!

I don't know where that amount came from!

LITTLE JOHNNY BIGGG: I don't know that, either!

FANCY LAWYER FOR BIGGG: But you can answer the question, GENERALLY!

LITTLE JOHNNY BIGGG: To the best of my recollection, I think it came out of some of the public hearings and legislative hearings and just general rumor floating around.

I don't put much stock in that stuff!

LIVYJR: Did the fact that the developers were allegedly saving up a fund to run somebody against you have anything to do with YOUR DECISION to place Livyjr on leave of absence?

LITTLE JOHNNY BIGGG: OH, ABSOLUTELY NOT!

end quotes

Subsequently, the FANCY LAWYER went to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City, and requested them to seal this record, ALL OF IT, which they did, which means that none of it can be used in future Federal court proceedings.

And so it goes!

The Nominations for the 42nd Annual New York EMMY Awards

And The Winners

1A Outstanding Single Newscast

Award Recipient:

Newschannel 13 Live at 6 (Newschannel 13 Live) June 1, 1998 (WNYT) Paul Conti, News Director; Rick Kissane, Producer; Ed Dague, Chris Kapostasy, Anchors

North East RadioWatch: May 30, 1998 by Scott Fybush

Congratulations to Chris Kapostasy, who leaves her anchor position at Albany's WNYT (Channel 13) after 17 years, to go to work for NBC.

Chris Kapostasy-Jansing to address NYSUT conference

April 7, 2003

ALBANY, N.Y. APRIL 8, 2003 - Chris Kapostasy-Jansing, formerly of NewsChannel 13 WNYT in Albany and currently an NBC News correspondent and anchor for MSNBC, will be the keynote speaker at a day-long conference designed to give teachers an opportunity to network about current professional issues.

Her address is titled "Education in the Real World - Journalism in the Classroom."

Some 315 new and veteran educators from dozens of Capital Region school districts are slated to attend "Motivate and Celebrate the Teacher in You," on Thursday, April 10, from 3 to 9 p.m. at the Saratoga Springs City Center.

Jansing is scheduled to speak at 5:45 p.m.

Jansing has been on the scene of most major stories during her tenure with MSNBC.

In addition to her blow-by-blow anchoring of the unfolding events of September 11, she covered Pope John Paul's 2000 pilgrimage to the Holy Land from Jerusalem, traveled with the candidates for the 2000 election, and reported on the Columbine shootings, the death of JFK, Jr., and the Elian Gonzalez saga, among others.

She received a National Headliners Award for her coverage of the Timothy McVeigh execution.

In addition to working for MSNBC, Jansing's duties include work as a correspondent for "Dateline NBC," and substitute anchor for "Weekend Today " and the weekend edition of "NBC Nightly News."

While acting as evening anchor for NewsChannel 13 WNYT in Albany, New York, Jansing was honored with numerous awards for excellence in journalism, including two Emmys - one for her coverage of the 1996 Olympic bombing in Atlanta, and a "Best Documentary" award from the New York State Broadcasters Association.

A native of Fairport Harbor, Ohio, Jansing graduated from Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio.

Not to worry, Gabrielle.

Of course, I can only speak for myself, But I'm not going anywhere unless the Lord taps me on the shoulder and says words to the effect of " A.B. , your time is up. "

In which case, it would be useless to argue.

In regards to your having some worries, Gabrielle, I can only pass on to you the very old bit of advice given to me many years ago.

Two rules for worry free living.

Rule # 1. " Don't sweat the small stuff. "

Rule # 2. Everything is small stuff.

Remember, Gabrielle, you are a big part of our team now, so stick around.

BTW - In case you hadn't noticed, I answered your question on post # 353.

A.B.

Changes? What changes?



Yeah? Like Livyjr said, what changes?

They can't seal that!!! That's great stuff. We could EASILY get 13 episodes out of that story. Maybe get into International syndication.
Tee Shirts.
Branded Merchandise.
Breakfast Cereal.

All kidding aside, Livyjr, it's a rotten shame. I;m having my own personal battles with the US Government (theft of my property) which someday I may feel like posting. Makes you feel like all those wonderful stories about OUR America we learned in Elementary School were... well, FICTION.

Education in the real world, indeed, and boy, was it ever - for me!

And that Chris Kapostacy was quite a teacher, that is for sure!

"There's the way things are supposed to be, Livyjr, and well, there's the way things are; and you are going to be gone!"

And Chris?

Well, she got an Emmy, and an award from the New York State Broadcaster's Association, to boot!

And that's the way it goes!

And I don't suppose, at this point in time, that anyone, outside of me, of course, would be surprised that people in the "CORPORATE MEDIA", like Chris Kapostacy, will actively work to bury evidence that makes influential and powerful politicians look bad, and then actively fabricate a complete and total falsehood so as to be able to actively use the "BULLY PULPIT" of the 6 o'clock news to smear and slander and discredit the one coming forth with the evidence, ALL AS A FAVOR to the influential and powerful politicians!

BECAUSE ....

Then they are "owed" a favor, for a favor done, and in this CUT-THROAT CORPORATE WORLD in which we all live, ONE NEVER KNOWS WHEN ONE IS GOING TO NEED A FAVOR BACK, now do we?

Or do we?

What about health officers, for instance?

Or licensed professional engineers with an on-going and continuous duty to act to protect and safeguard life, health and property?

What about them?

SHOULD THEY DO FAVORS FOR THE POWERFUL AND INFLUENTIAL POLITICIANS, well, you know because .....

And because of what?

Because then the politician will let the engineer or health officer keep his job?

WELL?

That's fair, isn't it?

Shouldn't one hand rub the other?

Shouldn't the engineer scratch the politician's back, since the politician is letting the engineer keep his job, for the moment, anyway?

And isn't that really the "AMERICAN WAY", to do what a powerful politician wants BECAUSE ....

Because if you don't the powerful politician can hurt you?

Destroy you?

SO!

Better do what they want, right?

Yeah, okay!

That's right!

IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU, ANYWAY!

And if you don't, don't be surprised if YOU turn on the six o'clock news, ONLY TO FIND OUT that they are talking about you, and how you just went crazy, and how you were dangerous, and likely armed, to boot, and well ....

And if you don't believe it can happen, well, just get ahold of Chris Kapostacy and ask her about exactly what happened on the night of October 11, 1988, and ask her where all the evidence of public corruption in Rensselaer County in the corrupt Empire State of New York disappeared to.

It will be quite an interesting story, is what I think.

Right, Chris?

And, oh, yeah, while you are at it, be sure and ask her why she did not dig deeper into the story about the COUNTY EXECUTIVE, and the land developers and the "EIGHTY THOUSAND BIG ONES" ($80,0000), and just where that money ended up going, which, of course, she knew, since she was doing the hatchet job that the $80,000 bought and paid for!

FAVORS!

GOT TO DO THEM TO HAVE THEM OWED, and hey, you just never know, now do you?

Right, Chris?

What is the NYSBA?

The New York State Broadcasters Association, Inc.

The only statewide organization whose primary purpose and function is to promote and protect the interests and rights of the broadcast industry in New York State.

The NYSBA is a not-for-profit trade association consisting of radio and television stations representing all regions of the great state of New York.

The association also enjoys the support of over 100 Associate and Educational members.

Association policy is established at regular meetings of its Officers and Board of Directors and is maintained by a dedicated staff headquartered in Albany.

And how many of those Broadcasting Stations are owned by either ClearChannel or Infinity/Viacom?

90%?

95%?

100%?

Does it matter?

YES IT DOES.

Broadcasters, under the Communications Act of 1934, were REQUIRED to serve the "Public Interest" in order to be licensed to broadcast.

Hey, the airwaves are a "Public Resource," to be "LEASED" not OWNED, by an operator for a 3 year term.

Perfectly reasonable.

Not to Michael Powell, Colin Powell's dimwitted sin, A.K.A. "Semi-Colon"

He caved to the "Financial Interests" over the "Public Interest."

And why are we not surprised?

And why are we not OUTRAGED.

For this is truly OUTRAGEOUS!

You know, jeffmoskin, yesterday, for a while, I thought about just packing it in here, and saying to hell with all of this!

Yes, that's right.

Just turn around and walk away from here, and say to hell with it!

For what difference does any of this really make?

Nothing is "REAL" anymore, here in what is sure somebody else's America, BECAUSE IT IS NO LONGER MINE!

Everything is get all you can, grab all you can, push as hard as you can, etc.

Gas Chamber Syndrome!

Yup!

Gas chamber syndrome.

It's a psychological term or concept that came out of observations of "group behavior" in the Nazi gas chambers during WWII - the strongest and fittest were always found at the top of the heap in the gas chambers when they would open them up to clear them out for the next batch of "incoming"!

The strongest were always found to have climbed up on the bodies of the weaker ones who were the first to fall, looking for air.

They would be dead, of course, which was why the Nazis had the gas chambers, to rid their "PERFECT" Aryan society of "undesirable elements", but they would be dead at the top of the heap, instead of at the bottom.

Since that time, and maybe especially today, that type of behavior has been observed in "groups" over and over and over again, and perhaps, jeffmoskin, what you have posted above here hits on that, to a degree, anyway, especially the part about NO OUTRAGE over the fact that we are not getting "news" here in OUR America, anymore, NOT FROM CORPORATE MEDIA, anyway; what we are getting instead is lies, half-truths, outright fabrications, and this Kapostacy/Channel 13 business above is a case in point.

COMPETITION!

RATINGS!

CONTROL!

And that last really should be first, which is the conversation that Kapostacy and I had about 9:00 P.M. on the evening of October 11, 1988:

HE (or she) WHO CONTROLS COMMUNICATION, CONTROLS!

HE (or she) WHO CONTROLS COMMUNICATIONS ABSOLUTLY, CONTROLS ABSOLUTELY!

Those exact words!

And Kapostacy, and Channel 13, of course, WHICH IS A BUSINESS OUT TO MAKE MONEY, were for the absolute control part of the equation, which meant doing what the politicians wanted, rather than what the truth required.

In fact, the thought of the "truth" anymore, here in this America of nothing but lies and deceits, is almost a complete and total joke, since nobody seems to want it at all.

IT IS IN THE WAY; SPOON UP SOME PABLUM INSTEAD!

It'll keep people distracted, and well, people just want to be distracted.

People want to be told that they actually can be irresponsible, each and every day of their lives, SOMEBODY ELSE IS IN CONTROL, AFTER ALL, and still, despite being completely and totally irresponsible, why, they can have as long and happy a life as the next guy, thanks in large part to the pharmaceutical industry, of course, and well, modern science, which has given us the 300,000 square foot, wide-screen, rear-projection television with 35,000 channels of nothingness, and 350,000,000 watts of sound power, so that you can never even get off your couch, and yet, be there right in the middle of Iraq, watching as a 20 mm chain gun makes swiss cheese out of a hapless Iraqi woman and child who were "careless", and so got within sight of an American Army vehicle that happened to stop right in front of her house, stripping her of her liberty, and of course, her life, when she merely tried to live her life, IN HER OWN COUNTRY.

Americans must like that sort of stuff, the killing of minorities, and people who are "not like us", ELSEWISE, WHY WOULD IT BE HAPPENING?

And that answer is FOR THE FUN OF IT, FOR THE SPORT!

Got to have it, don't you know.

And that takes us back to this Kapostacy, who is now way high up there in the ranks of the "FOURTH ESTATE"!

I came across a "blog" recently where someone or other who "rates" CORPORATE MEDIA PEOPLE was giving Kapostacy very high marks indeed for her coverage of what was called "Gulf War II", which, of course, IS George W. Bush's HOLY WAR to steal the oil resources of Iraq, and when I read this, the thought came back to my mind that Kapostacy would be covering this HOLY WAR, BECAUSE SHE HAS PROVED HERSELF TO BE POLITICALLY RELIABLE, and that is really the name of the game today, as your post demonstrates.

Kapostacy "MADE HER BONES" back in 1988, when the politicians needed a breaking story of corruption right up into the highest ranks of New York State politics BURIED AS DEEP AS IT COULD BE, and she performed her part, admirably.

She was a "MADE WOMAN", after that, who could be trusted to propagandize on demand, and to bury, on command, BECAUSE IT IS NOT ABOUT THE "NEWS", IT IS ABOUT CONTROL!

Gas chamber syndrome!

In spades.

Yesterday, we had a pretty good storm, where I am, with a lot of wind, and maybe a foot of snow, before it finally ended, which is really not a lot of snow, but when it is coming down hard, and you can't see where you are driving, and the driving is treacherous, well, you get the picture ........

Or do you?

Does anyone?

Because it is not real, is it?

It's virtual!

Everything in here is virtual!

Virtual reality, instead, of REAL REALITY!

Fake names, fake identities!

I can concoct up this story of being a disabled veteran who came back from Viet Nam and attempted to "re-integrate" into something very foreign to me, which was life over here "AS IT REALLY WAS", as opposed to how I thought it should have been, and how that "quest" ultimately ended up with me, or my character, anyway, being "assassinated", or "murdered", right in front of my own eyes, ON THE TV Six O'clock NEWS, as I sat watching in a state of horror and disbelief, and how I was then plunged into a state of abject poverty and despair that has me living in an unfinished house with no windows in it, no roof but plastic tarps over some of it, AND IT IS NOT REAL!

It's just another "story" on the computer, instead of on the TV!

Just another "TRUMAN show", with a bevy of high-priced script writers .......

Of course, after imagining yesterday that the non-real virtual winds ripped the virtual plastic sheets off my virtual roof, so that the virtual freezing rain, and then the virtual snow, came pouring in to soak the virtual plywood that I am trying to protect, why, like every other American of means sufficient to own a computer and have the "leisure time" to "chat" on the computer, why, I really could go home to my real luxury condominium somewhere in America, with my own REAL 35,000 square foot plush couch, etc. and be REALLY warm and fat and happy, instead of being virtually damn cold, and quite virtually miserable to boot, as I see myself sliding further and further backwards here in this land of alleged plenty, BECAUSE I CHOSE NOT TO LIE WHEN THE POLITICIANS MADE IT A REQUIREMENT OF MY CONTINUED EMPLOYMENT AS A PUBLIC HEALTH ENGINEER IN THE CORRUPT STATE OF NEW YORK!

"Oh, Livyjr, that's not real!"

"This is America, that don't happen!"

"And if you are poor, well, you must want to be, because there is just so much money to be made over here, BY THOSE WHO WANT TO WORK!"

Yup!

Yup.

HHHmmmm.

Yeah, that must be so!

OR ...

It has to be a hoax!

Yeah, that's it.

A gig!

Everbody has to have a gig!

A way to get noticed!

Yeah, that must be it.

Create a screen name, create a screen identity, and get a gig, and be fat and happy, here in somebody's America.

And what got me going on like this?

Besides the virtual snowstorm, and the virtual wind damage to my virtual unfinished house, and being virtually freezing?

Well, a notice that came to me that now, I have to pay a fee to come in here and make a worthless cry for help!

Now, don't that just cut it, I thought!

On top of everything else, don't that just cut it!

IT IS AMERICA, after all, and you do have to pay as you go, and so ....

And now, of course, it is today, and to be truthful, I am still thinking as to where my life now heads!

Will I pay the "tax" to keep speaking in here?

I don't rightly know, to be truthful!

I did check into making the payment, which is not that much, BUT ....

The only way to pay, of course, IS WITH A CREDIT CARD, which since WE ARE ALL RICH IN AMERICA, everyone has, except .....

SO!

I guess the real question is what is poor white trash like me doing in here, where everything is now very, very UPSCALE!

And there is where it is.

LIFE in somebody's America, which sure is not mine!

I watched a video of "Network" a few weeks ago, Paddy Chayefsky's 1976 CLASSIC about television and the beginning of "News as Entertainment"

This phenomenon is now at maturity - - there simply IS NO NEWS THAT IS NOT ENTERTAINMENT.

And entertainment is NOT neccessarily pablum, nosirree, Livyjr.

"If it bleeds, it leads," is a maxim of local news programming. Show us the bleeding body!

Show us the burning house! Shove the mike into the woman's face and ask her, "How do you FEEL, Mrs Murphy, now that you've lost everything you ever had?"

Zoom to close-up of the tearful woman.

"I...I...I don't know what I..."

"That's it from here Steve, now back to you."

"Thanks, Mary. Don't touch that dial, because we have Dick coming up with the weather right after THESE IMPORTANT MESSAGES...

And the "going out" piece has to be a feel good piece so you'll stay tuned for the next hour of drivel the station is serving up. No tragedy here, thank you very much.

300 channels, and not a one to watch.

That's why I've given up watching TV.

You can still "Inform yourself" via BBC radio, Pacifica Radio, occasionally NPR, and the web (thanks again, Al Gore) which I think is best of all.

Yes, there are a lot of lies out there on the web, but the days of Walter Cronkite are OVER. There are a lot of lies on TV!!!

"And that's the way is it, Wednesday, March 9th. This is Walter Cronkite saying, Good Night."

And Good Night to you, too Walter.

And to you John Boy.

VOTES PCT

Villaraigosa , Antonio 124,561 33.07
Hertzberg , Bob 83,420 22.15
Hahn , James (i) 89,189 23.68

And here I am back, for the moment, and since this morning I have been doing some research under the search terms "Paypal,scandal", which so far, has given me the following story.

And why am I now looking up Paypal?

Well, if you want to post in here, you have to go to Paypal to do so, and that name just rings bells and whistles and alarms in my head, as I recall some kind of scandal in my area involving what I recall as Paypal, although I want to have that information in hand before I say more.

The reason for my concerns should be apparent from the on-going Choicepoint scam, and a new one just today involving data theft or sales of OUR personal information to criminals, from or by LexisNexis.

There is also some new scam out there involving data theft called "pharming", where the scam artists, and boy, does that ever describe what America is chock full of these days, the scam artists, or "BID-NESS MEN" are able to mine data, about us, and thereby steal OUR identities, as Chris Kapostacy and TV Channel 13 did to me all those years ago.

THEFT PAYS, here in this America of George W. Bush's, AND HONESTY AND INTEGRITY DO NOT!

In fact, up here in the corrupt Empire State of New York, any overt attempts at honesty and integrity on the part of licensed professional engineers acting to protect and safeguard life, health and property will be met with extreme violence, and will be punished to the fullest extent the corrupt laws in this State allow the thugs and politicians to get away with!

In the meantime, back to this story about Paypal:

March 09, 2005 02:45 PM

Front Page Loudoun County, Leesburg, Virginia

"Town Leaders Pledge Probe In Credit Card Scandal"
Dan Telvock

Sep 18, 2003 -- No one on the Leesburg Town Council thought another person would improperly use a town-issued credit card after a 1999 scandal that led to the resignation of the town manager and a councilman.

But what they learned over the weekend was that it can, and did, happen again.

Two days after a Sept. 10 request from Leesburg Today to review credit card charges made by Information Technology Director Michel M. Agujia, Town Manager Robert S. Noe said Agujia notified town leaders that he had used his town-issued credit card to buy the services of an escort last year.

He resigned from his $92,700 a year job on Sept. 15.

No charges have been filed.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert D. Anderson said the case is under investigation.

Town leaders, some of whom were on Town Council when the credit scandal unraveled in 1999, made very similar statements as they did back then, pledging to make changes so that misuse of town credit cards does not happen again.

But Leesburg Mayor Kristen Umstattd, who was vice mayor in 1999, said she is not sure the town can prevent someone from tricking the system.

“We’re going to have to take steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Umstattd said.

“... You do what you can but I am not sure any system you put in place is going to be fail-safe.”

Leesburg Today filed the Freedom of Information Request on Sept. 10 specifically for all of Agujia’s credit card records from Jan. 1, 2002, to the present date.

On Sept. 11, the town’s Chief Purchasing Officer Kathy S. Elgin replied by e-mail that she had collected the credit card information and offered several times and dates for the reporter to view the documents.

Elgin is normally the only town employee in the Finance Department who conducts the checks and balances of all of the approximately 80 town issued credit cards.

Finance Department Director Paul York sometimes checks the receipts.

Umstattd said York had previously spotted the escort service charge but thought it was mistakenly labeled and did not investigate it further.

York said Wednesday that he never spotted a charge that was specifically for an escort service.

“There was a firm in California, I think it was Voice Data Enterprises or something like that, but the receipts indicated it was for computer hardware,” York said.

“The description and the name of the company just didn’t match as being an escort service."

"It appeared there was an error in the way the vendor had been coded by the card company."

"There was no link there to indicate anything was suspicious.”

On Sept. 15, Elgin withdrew the offer to view the documents.

“I cannot provide the documents as requested in your September 10, 2003, FOIA request for the purchase card records of Michel Agujia."

"The commonwealth's attorney has directed that since there is a criminal investigation underway that the town should not release or reveal any documents requested,” she stated in an e-mail.

Agujia purchased the escort on Nov. 1, 2002, for $388.10.

The company which provided him the escort service, Romeo3Entertainment, is under investigation by federal authorities even though the Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office last week dismissed the charges of accepting money from prostitutes and keeping a bawdy place against the operator of the business.

The owner of that company, Preston Jenkins, and his attorney have said that the business is legitimate and operates legally.

Jenkins said he will not operate in Loudoun County until the Sheriff’s Office sends someone to explain to his staff what is legal and illegal.

According to Noe, Agujia used the town-issued card twice to purchase an escort service but the town was only charged once.

Noe said the amount was paid back.

“To the best of my knowledge no one in the town knows about any other bonafide charges for an escort service,” Noe said.

“The town believes there were two charges for escort services, one of which was charged and immediately credited.”

Town Attorney William Donnelly said Tuesday that no one red-flagged the charge because Agujia covered his tracks by using an online charge system called PayPal and falsifying the purpose of the charge.

“To remedy that, [Monday] we instructed the bank, which is Wachovia, to no longer honor any PayPal purchases on the town’s [credit] cards,” Donnelly said.

“When you use the card to facilitate a purchase using PayPal, that bypasses or circumvents the limitations we have put on the card because the bank that processes the transactions, their computer sees a purchase from PayPal, which is not one of the prohibited purchases.”

The investigation arises just four years after allegations of misuse of town-issued credit cards led to the resignation of Town Manager Steve Brown and Councilman Joe Trocino.

It also resulted in the firing of Police Chief Keith Stiles, who drew the ire of some council members when he reported evidence of credit card misuse to Anderson.

Stiles filed a federal lawsuit over his termination.

He won the lawsuit and the case was eventually settled for a $2.325 million cash payment by the town.

Brown and Trocino were alleged to have used the credit cards for personal purchases, some of which had been repaid.

No charges were brought as Anderson negotiated agreements that resulted in the two resigning their public offices.

Donnelly said that certain steps were instituted after the 1999 scandal.

One of those steps was that two people check the credit charges—the department head and a staff member of the town’s Finance Department.

The department head is required to submit to the Finance Department justification for the charge or a statement showing all of the purchases made for the month, the amounts, and attachments of receipts and backup documentation for the Finance Department to double check, Donnelly said.

Because Agujia was the supervisor of his five-member department, he was able to cover his tracks by stating the purpose of the charge was for software and failing to provide additional receipts of proof by stating that they were illegible, Donnelly said.

“In hindsight, maybe a red flag should have gone up at that time,” Donnelly said, “but you know, there’s a certain amount of trust involved, particularly when it’s the department head.”

Dozens of charges were made by Agujia’s department using PayPal, Donnelly said, but “as far as we know, to this day all of them were legitimate except this one.”

The Loudoun County government has also taken steps to prevent a similar situation.

“We do not have [PayPal] as a specific area of denial, however, the general statement that all purchases must meet the criteria of being for the benefit of the county should indicate to the cardholder that it would be improper."

"I have instructed staff to be aware of both PayPal and Billpay and to flag the transactions for immediate review,” said Loudoun County Deputy Director of Financial Services Paul N. Arnett.

Anderson said his office, the FBI and the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office are jointly investigating the incident and he would not comment on whether the investigation specifically targeted Agujia or if other employees may have used town credit cards for personal items.

He advised Noe to take custody of all credit card records Monday and said that the records will not be released because they are now evidence in an ongoing investigation.

In the 1999 investigation, Anderson encouraged the town to release the credit card records publicly, saying such disclosure would not hamper the criminal investigation and might actually facilitate it, according to a Leesburg Today report.

Anderson said Tuesday that he does not recall saying that in 1999.

“It doesn’t sound consistent with anything I would have done,” Anderson said about the 1999 statement.

“In this case, we don’t know what we have."

"If we were to release that information it could jeopardize the rules of discovery.”

In a typed statement, Noe said he met with Anderson and Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Owen Basham on Monday to reveal the possible misuse of the credit card, which Agujia is reported to have admitted to on Sept. 12, two days after the FOIA request was made.

Noe stated that he reported the incident to Umstattd and other council members over the weekend.

The incident was also reported Saturday to Leesburg Police Chief Joseph Price.

“He [Agujia] didn’t tell me what precipitated him coming to me last Friday and I don’t know the answer,” Noe said.

Agujia was hired on April 19, 1999, at a salary of $63,000.

The following year he received a raise of $6,506 and then his salary jumped to $81,020 in May 2001.

At the time of his resignation, he was being paid $92,685.

Town Councilman Robert J. Zoldos, who served on the council in 1999, said he was upset that the mayor did not call a special meeting to discuss the issue immediately.

Zoldos said he has not forgotten the 1999 scandal and vowed that the council would not sit idle on the issue.

He called the most recent incident “embarrassing.”

“I found out Sunday when Noe briefed me,” Zoldos said.

“If I was mayor, we would have had an open session and discussed it right then.”

Noe said he is taking steps to figure out how to improve the town’s credit card charge review process.

He said Tuesday that he intends to review the final report by Robinson, Farmer and Cox, which handled the review of the town’s 1999 scandal, to make sure the recommendations that the company made were implemented.

Secondly, Noe said he plans to personally review every town credit card account to check for what purposes each cardholder is allowed to use the card.

Finally, Noe said he will take the information he gathered and will decide then what needs to be done internally to prevent a third incident.

“I have some suspicion that we may not have the proper internal control,” Noe said.

He said he has full trust in Elgin’s checks and balances but wondered if it is asking too much of one person to have responsibility over every charge.

As part of his research, Noe said he will talk with members of the accounting industry to see what is done to prevent credit card misuse.

“There’s somebody in the industry that’s an expert on this and I am going to find out what they have to say,” Noe said.

“Our own auditor may be able to tell us.”

York said the credit cards use codes that are assigned by the bank to different businesses and that the town can block certain codes from being charged.

He suggested the town block more business codes.

“If you looked at the information that he submitted to us, unless you knew specifically what you were looking for it would have been difficult for someone to raise a question with those specific charges,” York said.

“We need to assign more blocks obviously to other types of businesses.”

The town is currently being audited and Noe said if the credit card charge was to be spotted, it would have been done during this review.

Umstattd said that a very strict review of the town credit card policy will be undertaken in the wake of the current investigation.

She has asked the town’s auditor to review all credit charges—something she said that is not typically done.

One change she said that was made in 1999 was switching to a “purchase card” system instead of using normal credit cards, so that the town could prohibit certain charges for items like alcohol or meals.

“I thought we had taken the steps we could [in 1999] but it’s like hackers in the computer world,” Umstattd said.

“You put up computer software on your computer and hackers come up with another virus."

"Every system is going to be vulnerable to intelligent people who know how to get around it."

"... There’s not always a whole lot you can do if an employee decides they are going to take what isn’t theirs."

"You potentially are always going to face that kind of trouble.”

Councilman James F. “Frank” Buttery Jr., who also served on council in 1999, said he was disappointed when he heard about the incident over the weekend.

“At this time, can you prevent people from doing an illegal act?"

"I wish I had the answer to that,” he said.

Buttery said the town took the 1999 scandal seriously and “there’s no place in government or business for anyone misusing the trust that has been placed in them.”

Zoldos questioned why there are so many town-issued credit cards.

“We don’t need 80 credit cards,” he said.

“Good grief."

"That’s silly.”

Necessary actions, whatever they are, will be taken, Zoldos said.

“Bottom line is if you commit fraudulent use of government credit cards then you’ve got to pay the consequences,” Zoldos said.

“I thought we had this resolved after the ‘99 occurrence."

"We don’t.”

1 East Market St. Leesburg VA 20176 Telephone 703-771-8800 Fax 703-771-8833
P.O. Box 591 Leesburg, VA 20178

And here is yet another article involving scams associated with Paypal, although not perhaps directly attributable to Paypal:

http://www.scambusters.org/Scambusters86.html

2 New PayPal Scams:

2 new PayPal scams, dirty politics, new viruses, and Yahoo IM:
Internet ScamBusters™ #86

Internet ScamBusters™
The #1 Publication on Internet Fraud

By Audri and Jim Lanford
Copyright © Audri and Jim Lanford
All rights reserved.
Issue #86

Hi Everyone,

Phishing scammers, virus writers, and email hoaxes are getting more clever.

Today, we have another 'Snippets' issue primarily on these topics -- with some very timely advice.

We focus on two new Paypal scams (one almost fooled us and the other did fool a very savvy friend of ours), dirty politics emails, a new brand of virus that is making its debut, another virus that is particularly nasty, and the answer to whether Yahoo is really shutting down its Instant Messenger system on August 17.

Time to begin...

We've recently seen two very clever new PayPal scams we want to alert you to.

The first one almost fooled us (until we looked more carefully and saw all the typos).

Here is part of it -- it looks very official and is supposedly from the 'Security Center' at PayPal:

--- Begin PayPal Phishing Scam ---

Subject: PayPal Security Advisory

Military Grade Encryption is Only the Start

At PayPal, we want to increase your security and comfort level with every transaction.

From our Buyer and Seller Protection Policies to our Verification and Reputation systems, we'll help to keep you safe.

We recently noticed one or more attempts to log in to your PayPal account from a foreign IP address and we have reasons to belive (sic) that your account was hijacked by a third party without your authorization.

If you recently accessed your account while traveling, the unusual log in attempts may have been initiated by you.

However, if you are the rightfull (sic) holder of the account, click on the link below, fill the form and then submit as we try to verify your identity.

==> (URL that looks like it goes to the PayPal Security Center)

If you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choise (sic) but to temporaly (sic) suspend your account.

We ask that you allow at least 72 hours for the case to be investigated and we strongly recommend to verefy (sic) your account in that time.

Etc.

--- End PayPal Phishing Scam ---

If you receive this email, delete it.

Do NOT click on the link or fill out the form.

You'd be giving your private info to a scammer in Hungary.

The second PayPal Scam is a bit different.

It comes from a company in Florida that sent out at least 5,000 different $200 invoices to PayPal users for supposedly sending out spam to Florida residents.

At least one very savvy Internet user was fooled by this hoax.

--- Begin Excerpt from PayPal Scam #2 ---

Failure to remit the ammount [sic] due, in full, may result in further collection proceedings, up to and including actions taken before the courts for collection of
outstanding debt...

Florida Law provides Civil and Criminal Penalties for Unlawful access to Computers within the State of Florida, including the unlawful access and use of e-mail servers
located in the State Of Florida.

--- End Excerpt from PayPal Scam #2 ---

The company has since sent out notices that these invoices are bogus and that they were sent by an employee.

However, we doubt that this will be the last time we'll see this type of scam...

end quotes

And with that said, especially where the second scam involved people WHO WERE PAYPAL USERS, which begs the question of how the scammers got actual Paypal information, on its users, I wonder why the "management" of THIS PARTICULAR FORUM, which prides itself on not being involved with this kind of crap is now sending us to, of all places, Paypal, in order that we might continue posting in here.

Might I say that to me, it stinks to high heaven?

http://www.antivirus.about.com/cs/emailsca...blebayscam5.htm

"eBay & PayPal phishing" From Mary Landesman,

Scams target popular institutions

Emails claiming to be from eBay or PayPal try to trick recipient's into divulging sensitive finanacial or personal information.

Known as phishing, these scams are used by criminals for credit card fraud and identity theft.

Even email worms are used to illicitly gain the desired info.

When users open the attachment, or follow a link contained in one of these phishing email, the information the user enters is then sent to criminal.

Both eBay and PayPay provide fraud information about these scams via their website.

To view information on or report an eBay phishing scam, visit the eBay Security Center.

PayPal provides limited information regarding these scams, but victims can report the fraudulent email at https://www.paypal.com/ewf/f=sa_fake.

Example of Mimail.I email worm message (italics are for emphasis only and are not found in the original message):

Dear PayPal member,

PayPal would like to inform you about some important information regarding your PayPal account.

This account, which is associated with the email address <recipient's email address> will be expiring within five business days.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause, but this is occurring because all of our customers are required to update their account settings with their personal information.

We are taking these actions because we are implementing a new security policy on our website to insure everyone's absolute privacy.

To avoid any interruption in PayPal services then you will need to run the application that we have sent with this email (see attachment) and follow the instructions.

Please do not send your personal information through email, as it will not be as secure.

IMPORTANT! If you do not update your information with our secure application within the next five business days then we will be forced to deactivate your account and you will not be able to use your PayPal account any longer.

It is strongly recommended that you take a few minutes out of your busy day and complete this now.

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE VIA EMAIL! This mail is sent by an automated message system and the reply will not be received.

Thank you for using PayPal.

Example of Mimail.P email:

Dear PayPal.com Member,

We here at PayPal.com are pleased to announce that we have a special New Year offer for you!

If you currently have an account with PayPal then you will be eligible to receive a terrific prize from PayPal.com for the New Year.

For a limited time only PayPal is offering to add 10% of the total balance in your PayPal account to your account and all you have to do is register yourself within the next five business days with our application (see attachment)!

If at this time you do not have a PayPal account of your own you can also register yourself with our secure application and get this great New Year bonus!

If you fill out the secure form we have provided PayPal will create an account for you (it's free) and you will receive a confirmation e-mail that your account has been created.

The Mimail.P email then promises the same offer for friends and family who wish to participate.

Of course, opening the attachment infects the recipient, spreads the email worm to others.

Any information entered into the form is sent to the criminals.

Following is an example of a standard PayPal phishing email:

Dear PayPal user,

We recently reviewed your account, and suspect that your PayPal account may have been accessed by an unauthorized third party.

Protecting the security of your account and of the PayPal network is our primary concern.

Therefore, as a prevention measure, we have temporarely limited access to sensitive PayPal account features.

Please click on the link below to confirm your information:

https://www.paypal.com/fraudcheck/secure/bill.html?sl=070304

For more information about how to protect your account, please visit PayPal's Security Center, accessible via the "Security Center" link located at the bottom of each page of the PayPal website.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and appreciate your assistance in helping us maintain the integrity of the entire PayPal system.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely,
The PayPal Team

The display link in the above phishing example actually points to a directory on a Korean website at http://smba.swu.ac.kr.

That site also 'hosts' an eBay phishing scam.

The criminals appear to be using DynaForm to send any information entered in the form fields to the following email address: vinmails@secureroot.com.

Well said!

Just now going back to 353, A.B.

Scary...

And while those scams involving Paypal are on-going, here in George W. Bush's version of what America is to him, but not necessarily to us, we have this following other scam involving that BID-NESS LexisNexis, and its contribution to that quintessential American BID-NESS, identity theft, which I think is really fueling this "economic growth" here in America that the Bush Co.'s are touting today!

Between war and identity theft, George W. Bush has got this American "economy" of his stoked right on up here!

Now, if only you are a killer or a crook, you can make out real good here in America these days!

Except for the killing part, of course, you might have to re-locate to Iraq, or Afghanistan, where the open season on people who do not look like us is still open!

As to the theft/scam opportunities, why those are available to you right in your own home.

SO!

Crank it right on up, and keep America's economy strong - FOR GEORGE W. BUSH, and his!

Spam, Scams & Viruses

"Another big data broker reports breach - LexisNexis says records on 32,000 people accessed"

The Associated Press
Updated: 1:22 p.m. ET March 9, 2005

NEW YORK - Using misappropriated passwords and identification from legitimate customers, intruders got access to personal information on as many as 32,000 U.S. citizens in a database owned by LexisNexis, the company's corporate parent said Wednesday.

Reed Elsevier Group PLC said the breach of its recently acquired Seisint unit was being investigated by staff and U.S. law enforcement authorities.

LexisNexis is based in Dayton, Ohio.

Boca Raton, Fla.-based Seisint stores millions of personal records including individuals' addresses and Social Security numbers.

Customers include police and legal professionals and public and private sector organizations.

Reed Elsevier bought Seisint — which provides data for Matrix, a crime and terrorism database project funded by the U.S. government that has raised concerns among civil liberties groups —for $775 million in August.

The breach at Seisint is the second of its kind at a large information provider in recent months.

Rival data broker ChoicePoint Inc. said last month that the personal information of 145,000 Americans may have been compromised in a breach in which thieves posing as small business customers gained access to its database.

In the ChoicePoint scam, at least 750 people were defrauded, authorities say.

The case in the United States fueled consumer advocates' calls for federal oversight of the loosely regulated data-brokering business, and Capitol Hill hearings are due to be scheduled on the issue.

In the Seisint breach, information accessed included names, addresses, Social Security and driver license numbers, but not credit history, medical records or financial information, Reed Elsevier said in a statement.

The company will notify affected customers soon, said Kurt Sanford, president and chief executive of LexisNexis corporate and federal markets.

It will provide them with ongoing credit monitoring "and other support to ensure that any identity theft that may result from these incidents is quickly detected and addressed," he said.

The company also is enhancing ID and password administrative procedures and requirements, he said.

"The U.S. law enforcement agencies have asked us not to say too much as they are in the process of trying to track down the people who are responsible," said Catherine May, a Reed Elsevier spokeswoman in London.

The spokeswoman said the breach was discovered during internal checking procedures of customers' accounts.

The company played down the effect of the security breach on its profits, reaffirming its target of higher earnings and at least 5 percent growth in revenues excluding acquisitions.

Reed Elsevier specializes in the education, legal and science sectors, publishing more than 10,000 journals, books and compact discs, as well as almost 3,000 Web sites and portals.

It also organizes 430 trade exhibitions.

And thanks for answering, A.B. I don't have much hope that it's going to get better. Billfmsd has pointed to the fact that it's the system that's broken, not any one particular set of people. Until the last year or so, I thought it unimaginable that politicians and big corporate interests would scheme to make wars to further our interests. And a million other things. But this is life. This is reality. I've got to face facts. And then try to make it better in whatever small way I can.

Learning the media in the U.S. is not actually free and balanced was a big shocker for me. I always thought it was. I mean that's what we were taught in school.

What I've learned changes the way I see everything. The world looks different. Starker. More naked. Dirtier.

The company PLAYED DOWN THE EFFECT OF THE SECURITY BREACH ON ITS PROFITS, reaffirming its target of higher earnings and at least 5 percent growth in revenues excluding acquisitions!

WELL!

There we are, America!

DON'T WORRY, folks, regardless of exactly how slip-shod the operation really is, and regardless of how much it fails US, the American people who are being harmed by this information ON US, being given out freely or more likely sold to criminals, so that they can victimize us further, MONEY WILL BE MADE, by the company, Reed Elsevier!

AND THAT IS ALL THAT IS IMPORTANT, IS IT NOT?

THAT PROFITS BE MADE, from victimizing US?

Isn't that really the HALLMARK of this Bush Co. regime, scams and BID-NESS?

"Any one in MURKA who wants to be a BID-NESS MAN, well, you have my blessing, and if you don't have money of your own to be in BID-NESS, the gummint will just take some more away from the MURKAN people and GIVE IT TO YOU, 'cause I like BID-NESS!"

I DON'T LIKE PAYPAL!

Livyjr -----

The forum suggested using PayPal. Would you be willing to send the above information on to them?

A.B.

You have a good heart, Gabrielle, that's what makes you who you are.

All good things that you do in life start right there.

As to making the world better, the best way to do that is not contribute to making it worse!