Pirates! Mad Cow! The Collapse of Wall Street! Do I know how to party or what?

Calvin: I know more about the private lives of celebrities than I do about any governmental policy that will actually affect me. I'm interested in things that are none of my business, and I'm bored by things that are important to know.
Hobbes: The media aim to please.
Calvin: Maybe the economy should be discussed in cheap motel rooms.
-Calvin & Hobbes, by Bill Waterson

US Soldiers exposed to cancer causing agent while guarding an Iraqi water treatment plant.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/military_watertreatment_cancer_iraq_092908w/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_dichromate
http://msds.chem.ox.ac.uk/SO/sodium_dichromate.html
http://www.osha.gov/dts/chemicalsampling/data/CH_228697.html
http://www.elementischromium.com/products/dichromate.htm

Sodium Dichromate is scary shit. The OSHA permissible exposure limits are really very tiny (in the 0.005 micrograms range, think of that as 0.005% of the average tab of acid) due to its extreme toxicity and carcinogenic effects.. It would seem that a giant vat of it was sitting open outside with the wind blowing through it (powder form) and at least 600 National Guardsmen were exposed to it. Yikes.

While I am not pointing fingers that the Amry was dumping known carcinogens into the Iraqi water supply, I am pointing a finger at someone for not being smarter and probably killing a whole bunch of people. It seems that the contractors we keep giving no-bid contracts to are determined to kill more of our troops than the Iraqi's are.

At least you know where you stand facing an angry man with an AK. Companies like Halliburton who are supposed to be taking care of our guys are killing them in worse ways, all while singing songs about how much we need their help. I can think of many more things one needs in life ahead of cancer, or drinking diesel fuel, or bathing in waste water, or having corporate thugs pull guns on you in public because they caused a traffic accident, or...

Somali Pirates die after taking an Iranian merchant ship. Die mysteriously. Symptoms of the mysterious illness include skin burns, hair loss, collapse of immune response, loss of teeth, cancer, cancer, cancer... I wonder what was poorly stored on that ship?
http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintArticle.aspx?ID=851953
http://press.jrc.it/NewsExplorer/entities/en/247211.html
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/latestnews/Pirates-stolen--your-supertanker.3881777.jp

So it goes that the mainstream media again misses the boat. So to speak. One would think FOX News would be all over this. Not a peep, not a whisper.

Iran is importing nuclear materials from China by the look of it. Not just reactor parts, but actual uranium by the look of it. Also given how quickly these men are succumbing to radiation poisoning I would venture to guess its already been refined. Isn't that something.

Maybe the media black out is because, like Darfur, acknowledging the problem means directly saying that China is working against us. Which means we would have to do more than occasionally maybe kinda talk tough about them.

Why is that such an issue? Well ignore their military for a moment. Ignore all the products we import from them that are used on a daily basis for a moment. Ignore their yummy food for a moment. What does China do for us that is so important that they can shit in our hands like this and we will pretend its cake? Easy, money. Where do you think all the money for the Iraq war is coming from? All that debt we are in, who do you think is holding the fucking marker on that? Mostly China.

Sure America, go to war with another Arab nation! Go on, spend yourselves into debt so deep the only sunshine you see will belong to China, go ahead! China wants to own our ecconomy, and they are pretty much almost there.

Back to the article for a moment... The ship is an Iranian ship, which set sail from China, according to the company that owns it (the Iranian government, its a state owned company) it was heading for Rotterdam and was purchased by a German client. Of course they also say the cargo is "Minerals" and "Industrial Materials", so who knows. They are threatening to sue the man who is trying to help them get their ship back for saying the cargo is radioactive.

My theory? I know you are dying to hear it, so here goes. The cargo is indeed refined uranium 235, or enough raw ore (mined in Africa, hmmmm) to choke a camel. The crew, Iranian sailors, knew that the Somali pirates would kill all of them due to them all being poor sailors and not important folks. So they decided to get the pirates from beyond the grave, they cracked open the seals on the uranium canisters in the shipping boxes and closed the boxes back up. The pirates shot the crew, but the crew killed them via radiation poisoning. I applaud the crew of the ship. That is what I would have done.

Of course now there is a boat sitting at sea full of cancerous pirates and exposed uranium that's getting hotter by the minute. That sucks. That ladies and gentlemen is what I call "A Problem".

Mad Cow human variant (CJD) kills two in Spain, from the same family.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/09/25/mad.cow.spain/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Not a lot to say on this one except that the problem is not going away. Despite increased safety precautions around the world the number of identified victims steadily increases.

*sigh*

And I do so love a good cheeseburger.

Why are Obama & McCain both HOT HOT HOT for the $700 Billion Bailout Plan? Just take a look at their top campaign contributors silly!
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=n00006424
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/bundlers.php?id=N00006424
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?id=N00009638&cycle2=2008&goButt2.x=0&goButt2.y=4&goButt2=Submit
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/bundlers.php?id=N00009638&cycle2=2008&goButt2.x=8&goButt2.y=9&goButt2=Submit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_money

Contributors in BOLD are financial/credit/banking institutions. Most of the ones whose names are not readily recognizable are law firms. On both lists, not just Obama.

John Mccain's Puppet Masters
Merrill Lynch $298,413
Citigroup Inc $269,251
Morgan Stanley $233,272
Goldman Sachs $208,395
JPMorgan Chase & Co $179,975
AT&T Inc $174,487
Blank Rome LLP $150,426
Credit Suisse Group $150,025
Greenberg Traurig LLP $146,787
UBS AG $140,165
PricewaterhouseCoopers $140,120
US Government $137,617
Bank of America $129,475
Wachovia Corp $122,846
Lehman Brothers $117,500
FedEx Corp $113,453
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher $104,250
US Army $103,613
Bear Stearns $99,300
Pinnacle West Capital $97,700
Non-Disclosure of funding sources: 11.1%

Top Industries of McCain Bundlers
Securities & Investment $11,350,000
Real Estate $9,500,000
Lobbyists $6,250,000
Lawyers/Law Firms $4,900,000
Misc Finance $4,500,000

Barack Obama's Puppet Masters
Goldman Sachs $691,930
University of California $611,207
Citigroup Inc $448,599
JPMorgan Chase & Co $442,919
Harvard University $435,769
Google Inc $420,174
UBS AG $404,750
National Amusements Inc $389,140
Microsoft Corp $377,235
Lehman Brothers $370,524
Sidley Austin LLP $350,302
Moveon.org $347,463
Skadden, Arps et al $340,264
Time Warner $338,527
Wilmerhale Llp $335,398
Morgan Stanley $318,070
Latham & Watkins $297,400
Jones Day $289,476
University of Chicago $278,885
Stanford University $276,038
Non-Disclosure of funding sources: 5.8%

Top Industries of Obama Bundlers
Lawyers/Law Firms $11,700,000
Securities & Investment $8,900,000
TV/Movies/Music $3,150,000
Computers/Internet $2,150,000
Business Services $2,100,000

Sorta puts it all in perspective, don't it?

Steve Fosset Watch Update! Who needs money or ID in the 5th Dimension?
http://news.wired.com/dynamic/stories/F/FOSSETT_SEARCH?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/01/fossett.discovery/index.html

Some hikers found his wallet, maybe his jacket, ID's, and a big pile of money in the mountains... of California. An odd story that just gets more so with every turn...

Steve Fosset Watch EXTRA UPDATE! 1 light aircraft + a sheer mountain side = no body...
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/02/steve.fossett.search/index.html
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/10/belongings-of-m.html

It seems that Steve's plane crashed into a mountain head first. The investigators say there is no possible way someone could have survived that crash. Yet there was no body in the wreck, and some of Steve's belongings were found some distance away.

Steve Fosset: 5th Dimensional explorer or senile aging adventurer? Stay tuned!

***

Today is the day Active Duty troops are being deployed in the US. Keep an eye out for where kids! Its like a scavenger hunt, only more depressing.

/End Transmission.

Do androids eat electric beef?

North America's getting soft, *patron*, and the rest of the world is getting tough. Very, very tough. We're entering savage new times, and we're going to have to be pure and direct and strong, if we're going to survive them. Now, you and this cesspool you call a television station and your people who wallow around in it, your viewers who watch you do it, they're rotting us away from the inside. We intend to stop that rot. - Harlon, Videodrome

KBR/Halliburton Accused of human trafficking. Kitchen slaves. All the way from Nepal.
http://news.yahoo.com/story//ap/20080828/ap_on_re_us/trafficking_lawsuit
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Halliburton_contractor_sued_for_human_trafficking_0828.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/28/us-contractor-kbr-sued-fo_n_122045.html
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0601190052jan19,0,1567028.story

So I guess the American farmland isn't the only place where illegal foreign workers are an issue. It seems those damned illegals are at it again. This time however, they are taking high paying jobs in the private sector, and doing so in a very insidious way.

Just recently 12 to 14 (the need to finish putting the bodies back together) illegal migrant workers decided to stow away in KBR vehicles heading over the border from Jordan into Iraq. They carefully surrendered their passports to KBR employee's after they arrived in Jordan with the promise of taking American jobs in the civilian contractor food service industry. THEN they stowed away in KBR cars going to Iraq to a military base were they would take jobs from the Americans there. Assholes!

OK, enough of that. These men were promised jobs cooking in Jordan, had their passports and identities seized, and where then shipped by KBR (a subsidiary of Halliburton) to Iraq to work for only the promise of eventually going home in areas deemed "to dangerous to risk American cooks". The plan was discovered when the convoy was attacked by Iraqi's and most of the Nepalese slaves were killed along with their captors.

Is it just me, or does this seem like a lot of trouble to go to for free kitchen labor?

Seriously. Men from Nepal abducted in Jordan and sent to Iraq to work in kitchens for Halliburton contractors? It just does not make a lot of sense. The facts are there, these men were Nepalese, they did have their passports confiscated, and they were being taken to Halliburton facilities in Iraq. Maybe a really amazingly long road trip back home to Nepal?

What the fuck?

Either way, with all the money our government keeps borrowing in our name from foreign powers to pay for The War in Iraq, you would think we don't need to abduct a bakers dozen plus one of Nepalese men for slave labor.

The Adventures of Steve Fossett Across the 8th Dimension
http://www.economist.com/obituary/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10717765
http://www.aviation.com/flying/080903-ap-steve-fossett-search.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Fossett
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/28/fosset_claims/
http://knudsennews.blogspot.com/2008/03/steve-fossett-is-alive.html
http://www.hemuz.org/People/Millionaire-Steve-Fossett-Found-a-Path-to-the-4th-Dimension

Steve Fossett's dead. Undead, undead, undead. Well, legally dead. But probably not dead.

You see, Steve was a test pilot, adventurer, millionaire, world record setter (116, 60 of which still stand, in 5 sports no less), and all around death-defying sort of guy. He lived large, and ate life with shining teeth as the vikings would say.

So on September 3rd, 2007 he takes off from the ranch of Barron Hilton (Paris Hiltons cranky grandfather) and goes flying out in the Nevada desert in a small two seater airplane, and is never seen again. To date no plane wreckage or corpse have been found in the search. No transponder signal from the plane, no nothing. Not even Google (via Google Earth), the Government, or the connections of Billionaire Playboy Richard Branson have found anything. Well , they found eight other airplane crash sites in the desert, but not Fossett.

Did he fake his death? Not likely. None of his accounts or assets have been accessed since his "death". His wife had him declared legally dead so she could access his half of the fortune. Several investigators remained alert to the possibility, but he had no outstanding debts or creditors hounding him. Is he dead then? Maybe, but unlikely.

What is a little weird about this is the claims he made before his death, as well as certain facts leading up to the disappearance.

In the days before his "fateful flight" he claimed to his wife and a few friends that he found some sort of passageway into another dimension in the dessert. Steve claimed it was white, and circular, and visible from the air but could move. Inside it he observed blue colored humanoids who told him strange things. He landed his plane near the opening and spoke to the blue men at length about time, space, and showed him all sorts of things that only make sense after a heavy dose of LSD and a balloon full of nitrous oxide.

So Steve goes home at 2am, tells his wife and a friend or two about this experience, they figure he's working too hard (adventurer or not, he was 63), and try to hope it doesn't happen again. A few days later he saddles up to the Hilton Ranch and has the hanger flunkies do the pre-flight on Barron's little plane that he had never flown. Which is odd, since he was paranoid and very safety conscious. He never let anyone else monkey with a plane before he flew, he also didn't bother to wear an emergency transponder watch he had. Also, he left at about 8:30 in the AM for an unspecified location in the Nevada desert, with his only explanation for going as "reconnaissance".

Steve Fossett was declared legally dead on February 15th, 2008. No body, no wreckage, no hint of what happened despite the most extensive and expensive search-and-rescue operation in history.

USDA bars beef companies from testing for Mad Cow disease, claims its unfair to other meat companies... more headlines from Bizzaro World.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-08-03-our-view_x.htm
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C0CE4DD103BF93BA25757C0A9629C8B63
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/articles_2004/usda_slaughters_creekstone.html
http://www.creekstonefarms.com/news.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmissible_spongiform_encephalopathy
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9905E2D61E3FF937A15751C1A9659C8B63
http://www.awitness.org/journal/american_mad_cow_coverup.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopathy
http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/Greger122403.cfm
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/01/23/carcass.piles/index.html
http://www.mad-cow.org/
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=mad-cows-human-toll
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/madcow.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/Ncidod/EID/vol12no10/06-0019.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1306563.stm

Creekstone Farms wants to give the government money, but Uncle Sam is having none of it. Creekstone Farms also wants to protect its customers from the horror that is Mad Cow disease, but Uncle Sam is having none of that either.

The USDA is preventing, in court, Creekstone Farms from buying (from the USDA) laboratory kits that test for Mad Cow and its human counter part Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The USDA is the only legal supplier of these tests, and they will not let Creekstone have them for fear that it will affect the price of beef.

Essentially the meat processing/packing/farming lobby (aka Big Meat) and the USDA are afraid that consumers will start flocking to Creekstone products (premium, specialty, and organic beef) due to their scientifically verified assurance of being Mad Cow free. So then they , Big Meat, also will have to start testing every cow for the disease, the expense of which will be passed on to the consumer. Which might result in less beef being sold.

So the logical choice of course is to bar anyone from testing any American beef's until they are foaming at the mouth with crazy and biting people.

The USDA and Big Meat don't want the US to experience the panic that hit Great Briton a few years ago when they discovered that damn near all their cows had the disease. Most of Western Europe smelled like east Texas while England dealt with its little fuck up. The lost revenue if cows were infected here on that scale would be staggering. Since losing money is not the American way, it gets swept under the rug, and hopefully all those cases that pop up in a few years will just be mistaken for early onset Alzheimer's disease, organic brain dementia, epilepsy, or some other disease thats not transmitted by USDA certified meat.

Cows infected with BSE have already been found in the US. Several hunters have contracted CJD from eating deer they killed. The USDA admits that CJD/BSE/CWD and other variants have been found in sheep, deer, and elk in the US, but not cows. Which is good, since the government and big business would never lie about something like this. Why would they?

Hungry?

* * *

Only 3 topics this time. What do you want from me? I am a busy man dammit.

Enjoy, and of course feel free to comment.

/End Transmission.