Civil Defense

911 Massive Gov't Failure

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:20:25 GMT

Two days after 911 I started the Civil Defense website and used the phrase "massive Intel failure". I stated that our Intel was frozen in the Cold War, that the inability of our Intel to share information, deal with espionage and spy operations dated back to the 1930's. I stated that CIA and FBI Clinton appointee heads Freeh and Tenet should be fired. Though I would support bringing down Saddam I oppossed the occupation of Iraq and I never relented on calling for Freeh and Tenet to be fired. I also kept up the drum beat- if CIA or any other Intel agency could not be reformed they should be ended and a new group put into place.

Over time some would become critical of my comments. I was told that I was completely wrong about Intel. In fact, 911 was the greatest triumph of Intel because Bush set up the entire thing. Or Cheney. The fact thet the White House was in open and public infighting with the CIA, with CIA leaking info to the press and the White House leaking names of CIA agents wasn't even noticed by these folks. The bottom line? Intel was not just doing a fine job, they had organized the biggest black flag ops in the history of mankind. Not only that, with the thousands of people that would have to be involved to pull it off, not one came forward to tell the truth. Even after the Bush White House had been shunned by everyone from CIA to its own party (over immigration amnesty).

As of today in November of 2009, I am no longer the only person saying our Intel and government was and is broken.

THE LIES THEY TOLD

When Sept. 11, 2001, dawned, the Northeast Air Defense Sector in Rome, N.Y., went on full alert � to prepare for a training exercise that envisioned a sneak attack by Russian planes flying over the North Pole to bomb the United States, a prospect that Defense Secretary Robert McNamara had dismissed as outdated in 1966. Later that morning, after American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 had hit the World Trade Center and American Airlines Flight 77 the Pentagon, three F-16 fighter jets were scrambled from Langley Air Force Base to form a combat air patrol over Washington. But degraded radio transmission quality meant that the pilots were left clueless about the nature of their mission. On seeing the Pentagon in flames, the lead fighter pilot later explained, �I reverted to the Russian threat. . . . I�m thinking cruise missile threat from the sea. You know, you look down and see the Pentagon burning, and I thought the bastards snuck one by us. . . . You couldn�t see any airplanes, and no one told us anything.�

For all the trillions of dollars lavished on it, for all the talk about confronting new security threats, for all the exhortations to reinvent government, America�s defense establishment, as John Farmer reminds us in �The Ground Truth,� continued to fight the cold war more than a decade after it had ended. Preoccupied with building a costly missile defense system to counter a spurious menace from Russia and with maintaining �full spectrum dominance� over the rest of the globe, most Bush administration officials blithely ignored the danger emanating from the caves of Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden and his acolytes plotted against America. Confronted by a small group of mostly Saudi nationals armed with box cutters, the central nervous system of the country�s defense agencies went into a state of cataleptic shock. The only decisive action taken on 9/11 came not from the military, but from the courageous passengers who stormed the cockpit of United Airlines Flight 93, leading the hijackers to crash the plane over Pennsylvania farmland before it could reach its intended target in Washington.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Heilbrunn-t.html?_r=2&scp=2&sq=sunday%20book%20review&st=cse

Special Forces In Pakistan!

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:40:10 GMT

A 3 STAR GENERAL WARNS OBAMA IN LEAKED DOCUMENT, SEYMOUR HERSH PAKISTAN BOMBSHELL, THE 300 YEAR CIVIL WAR YOU HAVEN'T BEEN TOLD ABOUT, IRAN LEADERS WORSE THAN THE SHAH SAYS PROTESTERS!

Pulitzer prize winning American journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed that an elite US special forces squad which operates covertly and includes terrorism and non-proliferation experts from the US intelligence community � the Pentagon, the FBI, and the DOE � is already present in Pakistan and could well be housed in the US embassy in Islamabad.

The startling disclosure was made in Hersh�s candid interview with Pakistan�s most popular TV channel Geo News� widely viewed current affairs programme �Meray Mutabiq�, hosted by Dr Shahid Masood. The programme was aired on Saturday late evening.

Seymour Hersh said that the Americans had been constituting such crack teams for various purposes and the team in question here was to deal with any eventuality including any fear of takeover by Taliban or any other �development� with regard to Pakistani nukes.
http://thenews.jang.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=25579

Just when President Barack Obama looked as if he might be railroaded into sending tens of thousands more US troops to Afghanistan, the American envoy to Kabul has warned him not to do so.

In a leaked cable to Washington sent last week, the US ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl W Eikenberry, argued that it would be a mistake to send reinforcements until the government of Hamid Karzai demonstrates that it will act against corruption and mismanagement. Mr Eikenberry knows what he is talking about because he has long experience of Afghanistan. A recently retired three-star general, he was responsible for training the Afghan security forces from 2002 to 2003 and was top US commander in Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-the-general-is-right-liam-fox-is-wrong-1819743.html

Nato forces in Afghanistan are expecting a Taliban offensive this week as foreign ministers gather in Kabul for the swearing-in of President Hamid Karzai for his second term in office.

Although his election victory was widely perceived in the West as fraudulent, Karzai�s inauguration speech on Thursday is due to be attended by David Miliband, the foreign secretary, and Hillary Clinton, the American secretary of state. Nato commanders believe the Taliban will attempt to disrupt the day, with an attack in Kabul or an atrocity elsewhere. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6917238.ece

Why we will lose in Afghanistan

What we are hardly ever told about the country is that it has been for 300 years the scene of a bitter civil war, says Christopher Booker

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6570380/Why-we-will-lose-in-Afghanistan.html

Iran's opposition leaders say the country's clerical rulers are more brutal than the shah's regime.

Two of Iran's top pro-reform figures say police used excessive force against anti-government protesters who took to the streets last week on the sidelines of state-sanctioned rallies to mark the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy takeover.

Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi say authorities even struck women on their heads with batons. In a Web posting Saturday, they called such treatment an ugly act that was not even seen during the shah's response to the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled him.

http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/11/14/opposition-iran-rulers-more-brutal-than-shah/

Deep in the south of Kosovo, near the Macedonian border, the town of Strpce is an isolated little place.

Surrounded by the snowy peaks of Kosovo's neglected ski resort, communication here is poor. The town's one factory stands empty.

Serbs make up 70% of Strpce's population. And, like most of the 120,000 Serbs in Kosovo, they have largely boycotted all previous elections that were not organised by Belgrade. In their eyes, Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia last year was illegal, favoured only by the territory's Albanian majority.

But this time a handful of posters line the centre of town, advertising candidates for Sunday's local election.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8359761.stm

CIA Betrayed In Italy

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:24:57 GMT

CIA AGENTS BETRAYED IN ITALY, INTEL KNEW FORT HOOD SHOOTER TRIED TO REACH al QAEDA, DID HILLARY CHANGE AFGHANSTAN CONFLICT?

The following article should explain why I have been saying that CIA agents should quit and work for private companies instead....

One of the 23 Americans convicted today by an Italian court says the United States "broke the law" in the CIA kidnapping of a Muslim cleric Abu Omar in Milan in 2003.

Former CIA intelligence officer Sabrina deSousa says the US ?abandoned and betrayed? her and the others who were put on trial for the kidnapping of a Muslim cleric Abu Omar in Milan in 2003.

(ABC News)

"And we are paying for the mistakes right now, whoever authorized and approved this," said former CIA officer Sabrina deSousa in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC's World News with Charles Gibson.

DeSousa says the U.S. "abandoned and betrayed" her and the others who were put on trial for the kidnapping. She was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison.

Representative Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), a member of the House Intelligence Committee told ABC News that the trial was a disaster for CIA officers like DeSousa on the frontline.

"I think these people have been put out there. They've been hung out to dry. They're taking the fall potentially for a decision that was made by their superiors in our agencies. It's the wrong place to go."

Italian prosecutors said deSousa was a CIA officer who helped organized the kidnapping using her diplomat cover at the U.S. Consulate in Milan. Several former U.S. intelligence officials confirm to ABC News deSousa's role in the operation.

Without confirming her CIA role, deSousa said her status as a State Department diplomat should have protected her, but that the U.S. refused to invoke diplomatic immunity.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/exclusive-convicted-cia-spy-broke-law/story?id=8995107

I have no idea if this story is true. It is clearly not the story we are being told. If it is true, the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton I have to admit have done an amazing thing. I have not been able to find any other news source with this story.
Abdullah Abdullah, who this week withdrew from the presidential election runoff in Afghanistan, thereby handing victory to the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, did so under pressure from the United States, Asia Times Online has learned.
In exchange for the pullout of the non-Pashtun Abdullah, Pakistan's military has agreed to actively mediate between Washington and the Taliban over a reconciliation plan that will allow the US to exit from Afghanistan, as it is doing in Iraq, with a semblance of success.
A senior Pakistani diplomat involved in backchannel negotiations on Pakistan, Afghanistan and US relations told Asia Times Online MUCH MORE HERE:
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KK06Df02.html

As many of you know, I was the first blogger to deal with the CIA revelations on Joe McCarthy. I have also spoken on the topic. One of the reasons I covered the story was not just because the mainstream media was incapable of dealing with the story, but I said and wrote that the U.S. military and Intel remained today as then, unable to deal with espionage and spy activity. That until we dealt with the core issues Joe and The Pond raised the problems would go on. And now this......

U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.

It is not known whether the intelligence agencies informed the Army that one of its officers was seeking to connect with suspected al Qaeda figures, the officials said.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fort-hood-shooter-contact-al-qaeda-terrorists-officials/story?id=9030873

Following this morning's incident, in which a long-serving Afghan policeman shot five British soldiers and then disappeared into the Helmand Province, the status of the nation's police force in increasingly coming under question.

Officials say the police have been successfully infiltrated "at every level" by the Taliban, meaning even seemingly loyal police, today's attacker served without incident for three years for instance, could be ticking time bombs just waiting for the order to attack.

Corruption and incompetence are long-standing issues with the nation's police force � as one British soldier put it "we were literally training them how to point a gun on the ranges, and telling them why you should not stop cars and demand 'taxes.'"

Even with this training police extorting the public is a routine occurrence. Now it seems that on top of worrying about that foreign troops have to contend with the very real possibility that the police are Taliban plants.

The latest incident has drawn renewed interest to the war, long unpopular with the British public, among the nation's press which is increasingly asking uncomfortable questions to a government determined to continue the war at any cost.

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/11/04/killing-of-british-troops-raises-concerns-about-afghan-police/

Daniel Ellsburg, the man who handed the classified PENTAGON PAPERS about Vietnam over to the press and turned the press against the war says Obama will back more troops though he knows that won't work because...... http://www.truthout.org/1102096

Democrats Defeat Themselves

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:03:05 GMT

From gay marriage to health care, war to huge bailouts there was one resounding phrase, "It's the economy, stupid". I guess all the hate Palin, hate Beck nonsense failed to win voters. It will be fascinating to see how many Democrats back away from the health care bill Saturday. Instead of the Beck jokes, Democrats could have focused on issues, but they smugly thought the people were behind them. The parade has left. They had it all, and in less than a year, defeated themselves.

Eager to drain the 2009 elections of drama and import, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs claimed Tuesday night that President Barack Obama was �not watching returns.�

You can be sure that he is studying them closely now: The off-year elections were, in two big races, an unmistakable rebuke of Democrats, reshuffling Obama�s political circumstances in ways likely to have severe near-term consequences for his policy agenda and larger governing strategy.

Independents took flight from Democrats. They suffered humiliating gubernatorial losses in traditionally Democratic New Jersey, where Obama lent his prestige in a pair of eleventh-hour campaign rallies Sunday, and in Virginia, which had been trending leftward and just last year was held up as an example of how Obama was redrawing the political map in his favor.

Tuesday night�s trends were emphatically not in Obama�s favor. Among those paying closest attention are dozens of Democrats who won formerly Republican congressional districts in 2006 and 2008 and are up for reelection in 2010. Many of these pickups that powered the Democrats� recapture of Congress came in Southern and border states, or in the Ohio River Valley, where political conditions are similar to those in Virginia.

Obama now faces a much tougher challenge persuading these mostly moderate Democrats to put themselves further at risk by backing such liberal priorities as expanding government�s role in heath care or limiting greenhouse gases

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29116.html

Taliban, Russia Big Winners!

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:55:23 GMT

RUSSIA THE BIG WINNER, TALIBAN THE BIG WINNER, U.S.: A NATION ADRIFT WITHOUT A FOREIGN POLICY

Back in April I wrote that I feared we saw the true nature of an Obama administration over the pirate episode. I saw indecisiveness, a lack of a plan, covered up with rhetoric. For four days a 850 million dollar Destroyer was held at bay by pirates with World War 2 rifles holding people hostage. The pirates, who had been in the sites of the Navy several times during the ordeal, fired on the Destroyer and boats that came in with supplies. The President had ordered the crew not to shoot back. The FBI and translators began "negotiations" which went nowhere.

After 4 days of this the Commander on the ship had enough. He declared the captives were in harms way by the pirates holding guns on them (even though they had been doing that during the entire four days) and within seconds the pirates were shot down. No captives were hurt. The world watched incredulously as the pirates held the Destroyer at bay. Obama's people were quick to react, stating that Obama acted decisively. Even though he gave no order to fire. The Commanders name was not released to the press, and he was kept from the press. Odd, eh?

So now we sit and wait for Obama to play out Hamlet. To be, or not to be on Afghanistan. It isn't just a question of how many troops to send in. Military strategists already know it will take up to 600,000 men and women to take and hold the region. It's that the people already there have no plan, no strategy, no definition of victory. So they sit and wait for Obama to decide. The deaths continue while we wait. And wait.

The cancellation of the second round of elections could very well plunge Afghanistan into a Constitutional crisis. ( I never want to hear about Florida ever again from people who support such gross violations that happened in Afghanistan). This could mean civil war, demonstrations against the corrupt government while our troops fight to keep him in power. It is already a clear victory for the Taliban who can claim the elections were cancelled out of fear of their response. They can say that the U.S. backs the corrupt regime of Karzai and has no use for the reform party. They can say the U.S. has about as much respect for law and order as Karzai does. Which is none at all. It is a tremendous victory for the Taliban.

On NPR they were gushing that Obama had congratulated Karzai for his victory. That now Karzai had to stop being corrupt, provide water and schools and rebuild Afghanistan instead of fleecing it and us. For liberals, this is very simple. A checklist. That he has no power outside of his city, that the majority of people have no I.D.s, have never met a government agent are just silly details. It's time for justice! That his city lacks electricity, water, sanitation and it gets worse once you leave his area are hardly worth mentioning. Just leave some nice rhetoric, and keep pouring in money....

Russia is quickly taking over the foreign affairs world. They have made great strides with Syria (why did we just hand Syria over to the Rissians?), and take a look at this:

Russia may utilize this excellent opportunity to further advance its political agenda in the region: the isolation of Georgia by cutting it off from new transit routes; shelving the E.U. and U.S.-backed Nabucco gas pipeline project by destroying the Azerbaijani-Turkish strategic partnership and thus forcing Azerbaijan to sell its gas to Russia; drawing Turkey into its own orbit of influence undermining the E.U.-U.S.-Turkey axis of influence in the region. Before Washington realizes, it will be too late to protect the South Caucasus as a sovereign and independent region. For the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. appears to underestimate what is unfolding in the region. A lack of clear vision on the part of the U.S. administration clearly plays into Russian hands. It is perhaps no coincidence that the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov so actively pushed his Armenian counterpart to sign the protocol with Turkey.
--Fariz Ismailzade

I was right. And I wish I hadn't been. Those pirates holding at bay the strongest nation on earth was the new style. It will cost us dearly on the world stage. It is costing us dearly in Afghanistan as our troops wait for not just a plan, but the reason they are there. It will cost us dearly on the world stage as Russia realizes it can run circles around us. I wish I had been wrong. Brace yourselves folks, we have three more years of damage to go.

The Revenge Of Ayn Rand

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:07:33 GMT

Huffington Post is a left of center publication on the net which surprised me twice in one week. First it gave 2 books on Rand foot stomping great reviews. This would be enough to stun me - except that the 2 books are written by progressive liberals and are pro- Rand. But wait, there's more! The Huffington Post actually called on liberal book clubs to read her novels!

That threw me for a loop. For years when I brought up her name liberals and leftists responded with a hatred far beyond their hatred of talk show hosts like Glenn Beck. They would dismiss her work out of hand, claiming to have read it. However I learned long ago that a good test if someone has actually read what they are attacking is to simply quote a central part of the writing- if they respond with threats or shocked anger they haven't read the subject they are attacking. Conservatives also disliked her, condemning her atheism and pro- abortion stances. Something however has happened that I doubt even she could forsee.

Ayn (pronounced like PINE or MINE) escaped Russia and went to Hollywood carrying with her a first hand knowledge of the failure of socialism. To her horror, she met Americans who loved Stalin and felt the gulags, secret police and forced famines were small prices to pay for free health care and a world of "justice". Gradually she began to create a philosophy that was pro- free market and pro- capitalism. At a time when the New York Times hailed Stalin and Time made the socialist Hitler man of the year she was as welcome at Hollywood parties the way the plague was greeted by Europe. When Hitler and Stalin signed their peace pact socialists worldwide hailed Hitler as the new breed of socialist and this made her angry. That anger would find its way into her books. Left wing critics, busy hailing Hitler and Stalin were appalled at her rejection of national and international socialism. Didn't she want a world of "justice", too?

Her anger and philosophical quest would lead to a dogmatic approach to counter the dogmatism of the left- but she was also against corporate welfare and big business cutting their own throats to get special deals from governments. In THE FOUNTAINHEAD one villain is a self made man who builds a newspaper empire- by catering to the masses. For conservatives and liberals alike, her views rubbed people the wrong way. She created her own world and philosophy- at a time when women weren't supposed to be philosophers. Her fans became as dogamtic in taking on socialists of all kinds as they were and she'd go toe to toe against the welfare state.

She had no way to know that Hitler and Stalin had attacked 11 ships, sinking them and killing all onboard during their peace pact. That fact wasn't discovered until a year ago in KGB documents. Had it been known in the late 1930's we would have fought both of them, and I assure you supporters of both would have faced far worse than the "McCarthy era" at war's end. Lucky for them, we didn't know.

Dismissed by the right, despised by the left, Ayn kept speaking, writing- and her books kept selling. ANTHEM, THE FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED never really left the public. The books hailed freedom in ways no other novels did, perhaps because Ayn had seen both the socialist and capitalistic state. It took a foreigner from a different land to point out what made America great and what could make it greater. The reviews were caustic, the hatred far beyond what Beck faces, but the books kept selling.

Today socialism is almost gone. China knows it needs a free market. Cuba allows people to have cell phones. The people of central Europe rose up against their leaders and let them know the free health care wasn't worth the millions dead. You can measure the failure of any government by the amount of socialism it has. When Europe declined to do mass bailouts, many were stunned when the socialist government of Sweden told SAAB cars there would be no bailout. Sweden, Germany, England, France all warned us we would prolong the recession with bailouts - we chose the socialist solution of the 30's. Today those nations have recovered, while we must now back up the trillions of dollars we printed not backed by goods or labor. Today even sociialists warn that socialist economics don't work.

So Ayn Rand sells again. ATLAS SHRUGGED and THE FOUNTAINHEAD are being read by people who want to find out what works and what doesn't. Only this time, even the left is looking at her with new eyes.

The Flu Vaccine Crisis

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:49:00 GMT

For months the Federal government has had time to prepare for the vaccine for the new strain of the swine flu. It would show the Federal government could handle health care, could respond to an emergency swiftly without bureaucratic bungling ala Katrina. Instead, millions are now at risk of catching it. The flu vaccine crisis is now the Obama crisis. From the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/us/politics/29shortage.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

1 Man Tries To Warn Us

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:47:51 GMT

There has never been a protest movement like this before. CIA agents, military leaders, not protesters who believe the left can show America it can win this war. Now Matthew Hoh has quit the Foreign Service and his reasons why have been leaked. Maybe, maybe someone will listen before it's too late. Thank you for your service Mr. Hoh. Thank you for the courage it took for you to do this.

U.S. official resigns over Afghan war

Foreign Service officer and former Marine captain says he no longer knows why his nation is fighting

But last month, in a move that has sent ripples all the way to the White House, Hoh, 36, became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency.

"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department's head of personnel. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/26/AR2009102603394.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009102603447

CIA Funds Opium Czar!

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:15:02 GMT

The C.I.A.�s practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban.

October 28, 2009

Brother of Afghan Leader Is Said to Be on C.I.A. Payroll

By DEXTER FILKINS, MARK MAZZETTI and JAMES RISEN

This article is by Dexter Filkins, Mark Mazzetti and James Risen.

KABUL, Afghanistan � Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country�s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.

The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.�s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai�s home.

The financial ties and close working relationship between the intelligence agency and Mr. Karzai raise significant questions about America�s war strategy, which is currently under review at the White House.

The ties to Mr. Karzai have created deep divisions within the Obama administration. The critics say the ties complicate America�s increasingly tense relationship with President Hamid Karzai, who has struggled to build sustained popularity among Afghans and has long been portrayed by the Taliban as an American puppet. The C.I.A.�s practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban.

More broadly, some American officials argue that the reliance on Ahmed Wali Karzai, the most powerful figure in a large area of southern Afghanistan where the Taliban insurgency is strongest, undermines the American push to develop an effective central government that can maintain law and order and eventually allow the United States to withdraw.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/world/asia/28intel.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

Chicago To Sell Off Water?

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:38:47 GMT

OLYMPICS HANGOVER: CHICAGO TO SELL OFF DRINKING WATER?, THE GOP IS ADRIFT, ONE HILLTOP DOWN IN AFGHANISTAN- MANY MORE TO GO, THE FBI AND ATF DON'T GET ALONG, FIRST DEA AGENTS KILLED IN SECRET WAR WITHIN A WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

The Democratic Party in Chicago sold 4 billion in parking revenue fpr 1 billion cash to have money for the Olympics Committee. Now they have to raise the difference.

If the parking meter deal put a bad taste in your mouth, try swallowing this:
Chicago is considering leasing its water system to help fix the budget.

The new boss could charge whatever they want for water, CBS 2's Roseanne Tellez reports.

Could it happen here in Chicago? It already has nearby. Homer Glen in Will County relies on Lake Michigan water, but the supply comes from a German-owned firm. Locals say there's a lot more than water going down the drain.

It's a vital resource you can't live without. But in Homer Glen, the question is can you afford water. Residents say rates are breaking the bank http://cbs2chicago.com/local/water.system.2.1267896.html

Looking at some larger questions, I find the missile defense quarrel to be a good example for thinking about the place of dissident conservatives in contemporary debates. Defending Europe from an Iranian threat that doesn�t exist and wouldn�t be directed at them if it did with a system that probably wouldn�t work is the sort of thing that one would think American conservatives would find laughably unnecessary. It is the purest sort of irrelevant government activity that does nothing for the United States, wastes the public�s money, and inflames other nations against us. The system�s relative, albeit still quite limited, popularity in the countries in question feeds off of Old World antagonisms that most Americans neither understand nor care to learn about. For most mainstream conservatives, none of this matters. The decision is �weak� and it is �appeasement,� therefore they oppose it.

Despite reasonable arguments that Bush was not a conservative in any important respect, mainstream conservatives have shown no desire to distance themselves from him when he was at his most revolutionary and destructive. This is important to keep in mind, because it tells us that mainstream conservatives did not simply �go along� with Bush�s disastrous foreign policy primarily for reasons of tribal or partisan �team� loyalty. They embraced it and believe to this day that it was essentially correct, even if it was perhaps poorly managed here and there.

Foreign policy is not the only source of intense disagreement, but it tends to be a prominent point of contention because it is of particular importance to many of the dissident conservatives, because it is one area of disagreement where fundamental differences are not tolerated on the right, and because it is the only time when dissident conservative arguments seem to interest non-conservatives. As such, foreign policy has an outsized role in defining dissident conservative arguments, and this is probably most true for my own commentary, which has the perverse effect of letting mainstream conservatives classify us as crypto-leftists whenever it suits them because they have already defined any non-hawkish, non-nationalist, non-hegemonist position as left-wing and therefore absolutely unacceptable. The point here is not to rehearse all the reasons why hawkish, nationalist and hegemonist views are antithetical to a conservative disposition and damaging to all of the things conservatives claim to want to preserve, true as these claims are, but to recognize that there is no persuading such people when many of the fundamental assumptions they hold are diametrically opposed to ours and utterly wrong. There no longer seems any value in making the effort to persuade them.

http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2009/10/23/the-gop-is-adrift/

Officials reported �intense bombardment� of the South Waziristan Agency by Pakistan�s military, as General Parvez Kayani vowed to cleanse the area of people with an �anti-state agenda.�

Today forces engaged in a 16 hour battle to capture what is being described as a �significant mountaintop.� 15 militants were reported killed, as well as one Pakistani soldier, in the clash.

Pakistan�s military insists the offensive is going extremely well, though so far they have only managed to capture one hilltop and a tiny village, and the village took over a week of non-stop fighting to gain control over.

Officials say they estimate that the conflict will only take another six to eight weeks, but concede that the offensive is open-ended. If past examples are any indication, it will likely go on well beyond the projected end date.

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/10/25/pakistan-captures-mountain-stronghold-killing-15/#

In April 2005, sheriff's deputies reached a suburban Seattle home in time to prevent a firebomb from detonating. But there was nothing the sheriff's department could do to defuse another volatile situation at the site: a feud between the explosives teams that showed up from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The attempted arson was the apparent handiwork of the Earth Liberation Front, a designated a domestic terrorism group. But trouble at the scene emerged when FBI and ATF explosives experts seemed to believe their own agencies should head the investigation, recalled Sgt. John Urquhart, a spokesman for the King County sheriff's office. "It was clear that there was something going on. There was tension between the groups of ATF agents and FBI agents," Urquhart told TIME http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091025/us_time/08599193209100

A U.S. military helicopter crashed Monday while returning from the scene of a firefight with suspected Taliban drug traffickers in western Afghanistan, killing 10 Americans including three DEA agents in a not-so-noticed war within a war. http://tinyurl.com/yfybgrt