Naked Zoo News Review

Election 08

2008-11-04T04:19:00.001-08:00

This one's for you Pops...

Why we love Palast!

2007-05-27T06:32:00.001-07:00

Greg Palast has done it again. He took a largely de-newsworthy appearance by Monica Goodling and exposed the nugget of damning testimony. Monica Goodling testified in her opening statement that Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty (Not former Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson as it says in the linked Truthout article) had been apprised of Tim Griffins vote 'caging'. Not ONE Congressman asked what the hell she was talking about. It's alright blogheads. I'm going to email every member of the House Judiciary Committe and see what happens:)
Palast tells it best:

Our BBC team broke the story at the top of the nightly news everywhere on the planet - except the USA - only because America's news networks simply refused to cover this evidence of the electoral coup d'etat that chose our President in 2004.

Here's how caging worked, and along with Griffin's thoughtful emails themselves you'll understand it all in no time.

The Bush-Cheney operatives sent hundreds of thousands of letters marked "Do not forward" to voters' homes. Letters returned ("caged") were used as evidence to block these voters' right to cast a ballot on grounds they were registered at phony addresses. Who were the evil fakers? Homeless men, students on vacation and - you got to love this - American soldiers. Oh yeah: most of them are Black voters.

Why weren't these African-American voters home when the Republican letters arrived? The homeless men were on park benches, the students were on vacation - and the soldiers were overseas. Go to Baghdad, lose your vote. Mission Accomplished.

How do I know? I have the caging lists...

I have them because they are attached to the emails Rove insists can't be found. I have the emails. 500 of them - sent to our team at BBC after the Rove-bots accidentally sent them to a web domain owned by our friend John Wooden.

Here's what you need to know - and the Committee would have discovered, if only they'd asked:

1. 'Caging' voters is a crime, a go-to-jail felony. 2. Griffin wasn't "involved" in the caging, Ms. Goodling. Griffin, Rove's right-hand man (right-hand claw), was directing the illegal purge and challenge campaign. How do I know? It's in the email I got. Thanks. And it's posted above. 3. On December 7, 2006, the ragin', cagin' Griffin was named, on Rove's personal demand, US Attorney for Arkansas. Perpetrator became prosecutor.

More to come on this. Tune into the Naked Zoo on 90.5FM KWMR.org for more...

Stay smiling and as always...

Stay Naked.

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It was 40 Years Ago today...

2007-01-14T07:24:00.000-08:00

That Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play...

This post pretty much speaks for itself. A huge thank goes out to our buddy Chris Breyer for forwarding this along:)

LBJ, Jan. 10, 1967: We have chosen to fight a limited war in Vietnam in an attempt to prevent a larger war--a war almost certain to follow, I believe, if the Communists succeed in overrunning and taking over South Vietnam by aggression and by force. I believe, and I am supported by some authority, that if they are not checked now the world can expect to pay a greater price to check them later.

GWB, Jan. 10, 2007: Tonight in Iraq, the Armed Forces of the United States are engaged in a struggle that will determine the direction of the global war on terror – and our safety here at home. The new strategy I outline tonight will change America's course in Iraq, and help us succeed in the fight against terror.

LBJ, Jan. 10, 1967: I wish I could report to you that the conflict is almost over. This I cannot do. We face more cost, more loss, and more agony. For the end is not yet. I cannot promise you that it will come this year--or come next year. Our adversary still believes, I think, tonight, that he can go on fighting longer than we can, and longer than we and our allies will be prepared to stand up and resist.

GWB, Jan. 10, 2007: Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have.

LBJ, Jan. 10, 1967: Our South Vietnamese allies are also being tested tonight. Because they must provide real security to the people living in the countryside. And this means reducing the terrorism and the armed attacks which kidnapped and killed 26,900 civilians in the last 32 months, to levels where they can be successfully controlled by the regular South Vietnamese security forces. It means bringing to the villagers an effective civilian government that they can respect, and that they can rely upon and that they can participate in, and that they can have a personal stake in. We hope that government is now beginning to emerge.

GWB, Jan. 10, 2007: Only the Iraqis can end the sectarian violence and secure their people. And their government has put forward an aggressive plan to do it.

LBJ, Jan. 10, 1967: This forward movement is rooted in the ambitions and the interests of Asian nations themselves. It was precisely this movement that we hoped to accelerate when I spoke at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore in April 1965, and I pledged "a much more massive effort to improve the life of man" in that part of the world, in the hope that we could take some of the funds that we were spending on bullets and bombs and spend it on schools and production.

GWB, Jan. 10, 2007: A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations. Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.

GWB, Jan. 10, 2007: The challenge playing out across the broader Middle East is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time…In the long run, the most realistic way to protect the American people is to provide a hopeful alternative to the hateful ideology of the enemy – by advancing liberty across a troubled region.

LBJ, Jan. 10, 1967: A time of testing--yes. And a time of transition. The transition is sometimes slow; sometimes unpopular; almost always very painful; and often quite dangerous. But we have lived with danger for a long time before, and we shall live with it for a long time yet to come. We know that "man is born unto trouble." We also know that this Nation was not forged and did not survive and grow and prosper without a great deal of sacrifice from a great many men.

GWB, Jan. 10, 2007: Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved. There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship…A democratic Iraq will not be perfect. But it will be a country that fights terrorists instead of harboring them – and it will help bring a future of peace and security for our children and grandchildren.

Spooky...

Stay dry and as always...

Stay Naked.

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Best On-line Story EVER!

2007-01-10T04:42:00.000-08:00

This one makes me laugh everytime I read it. Thanks McSweeney's Internet Tendency.

A REALISTIC
ASSESSMENT OF
HOW MANY 12-YEAR-OLDS I COULD BEAT UP BEFORE THEY OVERTOOK ME.
BY MATT SCHWEIGER

- - - -

Your average 12-year-old boy is about 5 feet tall, weighs in the area of a buck-fifteen, and has developed little muscle mass.

I am 21, approximately 6 feet tall, tip the scales at an even 180, and have a moderately athletic and muscular build.

Judging on these statistics and what I assume would be a natural ferocity that would spring forth in a moment of physical danger, I estimate that I could beat up seven 12-year-olds before they overtook me. Of course, these would have to be the aforementioned average-sized 12-year-olds. Future linebackers, NBA players, and all Scandinavian children would throw off this equation. On the flip side, if these were some wimpy, four-square-playing, future-jockey 12-year-olds, I imagine the number would skyrocket to anywhere between 12 and 15. It's simple exponential math.

This is also assuming that my opponents are smart enough to organize themselves into a circular attack instead of coming at me one by one. If it were an individual, king-of-the-mountain battle royale, I could endlessly pummel 12-year-olds without mercy. But we're assuming at least a sixth-grade education in a marginal public school as well as some exposure to kung-fu movies, so these kids would form a circle.

However, using my quick wits, I would charge one portion of the circle, landing a devastating blow on the unlucky individual, which would make the others proceed with hesitancy. One on one, I feel like I could deliver a lot of punishment to a 12-year-old. There would be one or two brave ones who would jump on my back, distracting me and thus enabling the others to attack. At best, I could fight off the two heroes on my back and maybe take out four on the ground before I was felled by fatigue and numerous kicks to my groin and shins. This would equal a grand total of seven.

My friend Brian, who stands about 6 feet 2 inches and is stronger than myself, estimates that he could take down a dozen 12-year-olds. I find this hard to believe, but he has been in a fight with people his own age and is a little taller, making groin shots more difficult. Brian's reach is much longer than mine as well, which is a huge advantage. If you can land solid shots from a distance longer than the 12-year-olds' legs, there is no need to worry about groin kicks.

He says he would attack one portion of the circle in a fury, scaring off any would-be heroes who wanted to jump on his back and sacrifice themselves for the group. Then he would deal massive blows until fatigue and the inevitable groin shots brought him to the ground. I told him I'd give him nine or ten, but even for the above-average Brian, taking down a dozen 12-year-olds seems like a lot.

If it weren't for the law and my own morals, we could put these pressing questions to rest. Alas, these barriers still stand in our way.

I'm a pacifist anyway.

Stay Pacifistic and as always...

Stay Naked.

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How much did you say this picture cost?

2007-01-09T06:31:00.000-08:00

Thank you Rawstory via CREW...

Stay Photogenic and as always...

Stay Naked.

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Sometimes you just gotta smile.

2006-12-01T13:24:00.000-08:00

Stay true and as always...

Stay Naked.

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PS. I don't know if it's necessary, but having worked with marketing types helps with this joke as you can see them doing exactly this.

The Smiling Face of Facism

2006-11-28T11:00:00.000-08:00

Good Morning, boys and girls. That smiling and attractive fellow is Newt Gingrich who probably would like to be President of the United States beginning in January 2009. He "hasn't made up his mind" yet, of course, but he does turn up on CSPAN's "Road to the White House" with the rest of the hopefuls and otherwise acts like a presidential candidate.

So why are we using the "F" word for Mr. Gingrich ? Easy. Because of a report from the Vermont Union Leader today in which he calls for "changes to the rules" regarding Free Speech to help fight terror. Changes are needed, he says, "before we lose a city".

Mr. Gingrich did not spell out the connection between Free Speech as protected by the Constitution and the loss of a city, nor how his unspecified changes might avoid this result. We don't care.

It could not matter less what price in freedom Mr. Gingrich thinks it appropriate for us to pay for some illusory security. Freedom of speech is not a noted feature of Russia and the restrictions did not prevent the Beslan school outrage.

Restrictions on freedom are never to protect the people and always to protect the privilege of the few.

Mr. Gingrich had some other dishonest things to say about free speech. He attacked campaign finance reform and said it did little to stem "attack ads". Actually, the ill that campaign finance reform is designed to deal with is corruption of public officials.

All right class, take a pen or a pencil or a crayon or a sharpie or whatever you have and draw a clear line through the name "Newt Gingrich" on your list of presidential candidates for 2008. And if any of your mommies or daddies are in a position to have Mr. Gingrich identified as an Al Quaeda operative, subjected to extraordinary rendition and transported to Egypt for a few months, we would all be grateful.

StayNaked
jd

Iraq: The War of Imagination

2006-11-25T11:00:00.000-08:00

Captains Log: ZooDate 11.25.2006

As promised to our lovely listening audience HERE is the link to the Mark Danner article posted on Truthout. We spoke on-air about the books that have already been written on the Iraq War that are wonderful. Here's some stocking stuffers:

State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III by Bob Woodward, Simon and Schuster, 560 pp., $30.00

The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 by Ron Suskind, Simon and Schuster, 367 pp., $27.00

State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration by James Risen, Free Press, 240 pp., $26.00

Stay Informed and as always...

Stay Naked.

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Now They've Spiked the Koolaid

2006-10-20T06:12:00.000-07:00

It is, of course, possible to have differing opinions about the quality of service that has been provided by Donald Rumsfeld in his role as Secretary of Defense. President Bush is a staunch supporter as is VP Dick Cheney. There are others.

Critics, who look at the catastrophe in Iraq, the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, the ongoing scandal of war profiteering among favored defense contractors and the reported overall condition of the Army and Marines as those forces are stretched to meet combat needs while keeping to Rumsfeld's doctine regarding force size, are, well . . . critical.

Folks who go along with Rumsfeld are said to have "drunk the Koolaid", a reference to the followers of Jim Jones who loyally drank the poisoned Koolaid in Guyana and died.

Evidence that the Rumsfeld Punch has now been spiked with something stronger, possibly hallucinogenic, started coming in last week when Cheney told Rush Limbaugh that matters in Iraq were going "remarkably well". Compared to what, he did not say.

From the White House to the Pentagon, the I.R.P. (Improved Rumsfeld Punch), is now being more widely circulated. Looking to get ahead at the Pentagon these days ? Have some punch.

According to AFP, Navy Admiral James Stavridis, who took over Southern Command the other day, said "We're lucky as a nation that he [ that's right, Rumsfeld] continues to serve with such passion and such integrity and such determination and such brilliance." Brilliance ? I wonder if he had the grape or the raspberry.

The man he replaced, General Bantz Craddock, was lyrical about what SouthCom had achieved on his watch. "Today I believe that we can say we were successful in our efforts and contributed to ensuring our nation's security through support on the global war on terror, and encouraged regional cooperation to enhance the security and stability in the region," he said. Regional cooperation ? Is he talking about Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales or is he talking about Colombia where the Army we trained is murdering the police we support ?

Gen. Craddock, for his loyalty, is on his way to become Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe.

We wonder if Rumsfeld has actual hickeys on his backside.

We are taught that if a man gives his soul and gains the whole world, he profits nothing. What if he only gains the Supreme Command of Allied Forces in Europe or Southern Command ?

If Improved Rumsfeld Punch is not yet available for drinking in your area, you can always vote Republican instead.

Stay Naked
jd

Gen. Craddock

Hu's on First ?

2006-10-19T08:16:00.000-07:00

When you are the World's Only Superpower engaged in a self-proclaimed Global War on Terror against the Axis of Evil it is easy to view all world events through that lens and have the feeling that everything relates to and revolves around us.

Thus, North Korea's decision to test a nuclear weapon is immediately seen as a challenge to President Bush.

It is possible, however, to see these matters in different frameworks which is why we like like to drop by WatchingAmerica from time to time to sample these other perspectives.

In this case we are considering the observations of Rajinder Puri of Outlook India who sees China in general and President Hu in particular at the focus of the DPRK weapons test furor.

You may or may not be persuaded by Puri's argument, but you will doubtless be amused by his crediting Henry Kissinger with assisting China in achieving its 5 to 1 trade advantage with the U.S. and noting that Donald Rumsfeld was a director of the company that sold North Korea its light water reactors. Wrap that around a possible internal Chinese power struggle between the Old Guard and Hu and you have a plausible yarn that reduces Bush to a bit player in the real game.

Ponder these plausabilities, consider alternative realities and

Stay Naked
jd

We Are Shocked ! Shocked !

2006-10-16T19:04:00.000-07:00

The President of the United States won't say it. The President of Iraq won't say it. The Secretary of Defense of the United States won't say it. The main stream media won't say it.

Some of these folk will say we are "near" it, or "sliding toward" it, or "approaching" it or "in danger of" it. But they won't say it. Until now.

It takes Anthony H. Cordesman, the Arleigh Burke Chair in Stategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies to say it. Iraq is already in a state of civil war. All right, I didn't put quotes around it because Cordesman actually said, "Iraq is already in a state of limited civil war." Emphasis added. But a limited civil war is still a civil war and this expert thinks we are there now.

It's in his recent report entitled "Iraqi Force Development and the Challenge of Civil War: Can Iraqi Forces do the Job?" His answer is a qualified "yes". The qualifications, however, are pretty serious, e.g., "most units are severely undermanned, have critical problems in officer and NCO quality and leadership, are too lightly equipped and poorly facilitized, and many are Shiite or Kurdish dominated" and " The [Interior] ministry [is] still plagued by "poor planning and fiscal control capability" and it still had "serious problems with corruption," and "most [national police units] still present problems in terms of both loyalty and effectiveness."

In summary: "There is no near term prospect that Iraqi force development will allow major reductions in MNF-I forces." The successful development of the Iraqi security forces "can only succeed if the MNF-I provides active combat support well into 2008 and major advisory and aid support through 2010," he stated. "Every element of ISF development still requires years of effort and support."

Who is Cordesman ? Among many other things that can be seen HERE he has formerly served as national security assistant to Senator John McCain of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as director of intelligence assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and as civilian assistant to the deputy secretary of defense.

So pay attention to the progress, look on the sunny side, vote Republican and

Stay Naked
jd

Chad Vader: Episode IV

2006-10-12T20:41:00.000-07:00

That's right Zooheads, time for Adams favorite Youtube offering. I'm talking about Chad Vader: Night Shift Manager. Who is Chad Vader? Why he's Darths not so talented younger brother. I love the internet. Enjoy the continuing saga of a supermarket far far away...

Since I'm in a youtube state of mind I thought I'd include something that just flat out touched me. This is a young youtuber doing a cover of Leonard Cohens 'Hallelujah' (Immortalized by Jeff Buckley IMHO)

Stay visual and as always...Use the Force.

I mean...Stay Naked.

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News from the Cola Wars Front

2006-10-11T10:39:00.000-07:00

Government in India is, of course, different than government here. Of course. Here, you get a little e coli on some spinach and spinach disappears from the market as by magic.

In India, as we reported HERE, the government of Kerala State determined that both Pepsi and Coke contained pesticides at levels 24 times the allowable levels. So they banned the sale of the contaminated beverages.

Courts in India must, of course, be different than courts here. We can tell, because the High Court of Kerala State just ruled that the state didn't have the authority to ban the contaminated beverages. Not that they weren't contaminated, but that the government lacked the power to ban them. Oh, we don't mean that the courts there are different because they ruled in favor of gigantic corporations and against the public interest. Our courts do that all the time.

No, its just that they did it so fast ! Our first story was August 10 and 43 short days later the court has overturned the ban. That is speedy justice, well, a speedy ruling anyway.

AND IN OTHER COLA NEWS . . .

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reports a study of 1,413 women finding that daily cola drinking (not just any old soft drink, but specifically cola) results in weaker bones and higher fracture risk. Seems to have to do with the phosporic acid in the cola that interferes with calcium absorption and increases calcium excretion.

No effect on the 1,125 men in the study, so Pepsi your brains out, boys, and ignore the other pernicious effects of the stuff.

Stay hydrated and Stay Naked.
jd

More Rights for Terrorists !

2006-10-10T18:06:00.000-07:00

Speaker of the House of Representatives Dennis (What Emails ?) Hastert (R-Ill) characterized the almost completely Democratic vote against stripping habeas corpus rights from "enemy combatants" detained by the United States as a vote for "more rights for terrorists".

Pure Republican spin, of course. What the Democrats did was to vote to preserve rights any person in U.S. custody has had since the founding of the republic, i.e., the right to have an independent judge decide whether his or her confinement was legal and, if not, to order their release. Pretty basic stuff for more than two hundred years.

Now, if you are a foreign national and Mr. Bush has labeled you an "enemy combatant" and the CIA has got their hands on you, you are out of luck, period. They can hold you forever. They don't have to tell anybody. If you are thinking "thank God I'm an American citizen", consider Niemoller's famous, "When they came for the communists, I didn't protest . . . ", but that would be a digression here.

Our question is: Why should we give a damn about what Bush does to terrorists ? So what if we deny them their "rights" ? They want to kill us.

Fortunately, that question has been perfectly answered and in a movie. A Man for All Seasons. What happens when we would ignore the law to fight evil ? The movie's central character, Sir Thomas More, discusses the point with a young man named Roper.

Wife: "Arrest him!"
Sir Thomas: "For what?"
Wife: "He's dangerous!"
Roper: "For all we know he's a spy!"
Daughter: "Father, that man is bad!"
Sir Thomas: "There's no law against that!"
Roper: "But there is, God's law!"
Sir Thomas: "Then let God arrest him!"
Wife: "While you talk he's gone!"
Sir Thomas: "And go he should, if he were the Devil himself, until he broke the law!"
Roper: "So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!"
Sir Thomas: "Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?"
Roper: "Why, yes! I'd cut down every law in England to do that!"
Sir Thomas: "Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down--and you're just the man to do it, Roper!--do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?"
"Yes," Sir Thomas concludes: "I'd give the Devil the benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!"

That's why we care. For our own safety's sake. And yours.

Stay Naked
jd

It is our understanding that the use of a single frame of the abovementioned film for noncommercial and educational purposes is a "fair use" within the meaning of the Copyright Act. If we are wrong, you all may be declared enemy combatants. Oops.

Most Profound Man in Iraq

2006-10-09T07:14:00.000-07:00

an unidentified farmer in a fairly remote area who, after being asked by Reconnaissance Marines if he had seen any foreign fighters in the area replied...'Yes. You.'

This is a great snippet out of a wonderful article just published on Time.com. It's written by an anonymous Marine Officer. It made me smile. It made me cry. It made me want to go fight with the amazing young men and women we have serving in Iraq and it made me pray for their safe return. I'm going to include some excerpts but I encourage you to read the full article HERE.

Highest Unit Re-enlistment Rate — Any outfit that has been in Iraq recently. All the danger, all the hardship, all the time away from home, all the horror, all the frustrations with the fight here — all are outweighed by the desire for young men to be part of a band of brothers who will die for one another. They found what they were looking for when they enlisted out of high school. Man for man, they now have more combat experience than any Marines in the history of our Corps.

Biggest Outrage — Practically anything said by talking heads on TV about the war in Iraq, not that I get to watch much TV. Their thoughts are consistently both grossly simplistic and politically slanted. Biggest Offender: Bill O'Reilly.

Proudest Moment — It's a tie every day, watching our Marines produce phenomenal intelligence products that go pretty far in teasing apart Bad Guy operations in al-Anbar. Every night Marines and Soldiers are kicking in doors and grabbing Bad Guys based on intelligence developed by our guys. We rarely lose a Marine during these raids, they are so well-informed of the objective. A bunch of kids right out of high school shouldn't be able to work so well, but they do.

Favorite Iraqi TV Show — Oprah. I have no idea. They all have satellite TV.

Most Common Thought — Home. Always thinking of home, of my great wife and the kids. Wondering how everyone else is getting along. Regretting that I don't write more. Yep, always thinking of home.

Stay Naked.

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A Little Like a Toy Gun

2006-10-08T07:02:00.000-07:00

The story is common enough that the Google search " toy gun killed police" brings 1, 340,000 hits from all parts of the country, from the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, from Dallas and from Pomona. Details vary but the essentials are always the same. Somebody, a child, a criminal, brandishes a gun, the police open fire and later discover the gun was a toy. Oops.
You see the police can't always tell at a distance or in the dark or in a hurry that what looks like a deadly weapon is really something else.

Now the Pentagon wants to raise the stakes in this deadly game. The risks in the toy gun game are pretty much limited to the kid or the perp with the toy gun. Now the generals want to spread the risk. To everybody.

The brass hats want to modify our deadliest nuclear missiles to carry conventional (instead of nuclear) weapons for possible use against, oh say, Iran or North Korea. Sounds like a step in the right direction until the experts point out that the Russians will not be able to tell whether the launch they detect is nuclear and aimed at them or conventional and aimed at somebody else. The toy gun problem

Add to that the problem that they will have just fifteen minutes to make up their minds. And their satellites aren't as good as ours. And their whole system is badly deteriorated.

If all of this additional risk makes sense to you, please send SecDef Rumsfeld an encouraging word and, by all means,

Stay Naked
jd

There Are None So Blind

2006-10-05T06:11:00.000-07:00

Secretary of State (and Lt. Governor of the State of Denial) Condoleeza Rice looks at the recent outbreak of violence in Gaza where Hamas and Fatah fighters have been killing each other and innocent civilians and cries out for peace. Of course, when the Israelis kill innocent Palestinians that is just "collateral damage" in their ceaseless war to "defend themselves" which it is, of course, their right to do.

I digress. Let us take Bush Administration compassion where we can find it. Condi says the Palestinians deserve "calm". So she is looking for ways to strengthen one faction (Fatah) against the other (Hamas), the side that happens to be the recently elected side. The whole problem is, you see, an "internal Palestinian problem". There is another view.

In that view, found in Haaretz, Israel has been conducting a multi-year experiment on the Palestinians. An experiment that includes imprisonment (none enter or leave Gaza but by Israeli permission), destruction of livelihoods and infrastructure, theft of hundreds of millions of dollars due the Palestinians in customs dues and taxes, reduction of food, water and electricity supplies and etc. Add a policy of dividing the political factions, plus assassinations and arbitrary military raids. Stir under hot sun. See if violence results. Decry violence.

Secretary Rice may then enter, join in condemning the violence, ask the Israelis to temper a few of these policies, fail in her request and leave, presumably after a ceremonial washing of the hands. Little is asked of Israel, nothing is demanded or required. You'd think they were giving us more than a billion dollars a year.

Never doubt, Oh Best Beloved, that when the final accounting is rendered on peace and suffering in Israel and Palestine, the account due from the United States, from you and me, Oh Best Beloved, will be long and detailed.

Think about the indictment, prepare your defenses and

Stay Naked
jd

CHINA DECLARES SPACE WAR ON U.S. !

2006-10-03T19:10:00.000-07:00

The Communist Chinese have openly attacked key U.S. surveillance satellites with ground based laser weapons while the Administration keeps these facts from the public for political reasons and to preserve China's "cooperation" in diplomatic initiatives against North Korea and Iran.

Those are the facts, folks, according to a recent piece in the U.K. paper the Telegraph. The Pentagon is apparently very concerned with these developments, but was required to limit mention of the problem in its annual review of the Chinese threat to noting that China "could" blind U.S. spy satellites. Omitted was the fact that they have.

This is all confirmed by the magazine Defense News in an article headlined "NRO Confirms Chinese Laser Test Illuminated U.S. Spacecraft". (Subscription required)

Well, of course we are in a space arms race with the up and coming super power. How could it be otherwise ?

For me this is just another in the endless series of "what if this were Clinton" questions. This time, WIIWC covering up Chinese aggression ? You'd see a headline like the one above. FOX News would be going crazy. There'd be investigations in Congress and calls for impeachment. For Bush ? A small story in the Telegraph. In England.

Watch the skies and

StayNaked
jd

I wasn't going to say anything about this...

2006-10-02T18:23:00.000-07:00

But I was asked to by a Zoohead:) What I'm talking about is the story burning up the airwaves right now concerning former Congressman Mark Foley (R-Fl). For those of you who don't know, Congressman Foley resigned after sexually explicit emails that he wrote to teenage underage Capital Hill pages came to light. The FBI is looking into this and the news is all focused on the political fallout as the ultra-conservative Washington Times appears to be calling for House Speaker Hasterts job. From Drudge "'House Speaker Dennis Hastert must do the only right thing, and resign his speakership at once... Mr. Hastert has forfeited the confidence of the public and his party, and he cannot preside over the necessary coming investigation, an investigation that must examine his own inept performance'... -- Washington Times, October 3, 2006"Yikes. So here's my problem. So far no one has alleged he molested anybody, just wrote dirty emails. I'm not condoning that but I don't think any of these pages are scarred for life. My problem is Foleys apology. I just came across an interesting wrinkle. Here's the ABC News quote:"I strongly believe that I am an alcoholic and have accepted the need for immediate treatment for alcoholism and other behavioral problems"

and here's from an actual fax received by WPBF, ""I strongly believe that I am an alcoholic and have accepted the need for immediate treatment for alcoholism and RELATED behavioral problems"

Hm...at first I thought he was saying that his alcoholism and pedophilia were 'related' which is a dangerous connection to make.

Stay Sober and as always...

Stay Naked.

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just not around Capital Hill Pages;)

'This is Your Brain on Music'

2006-10-01T06:26:00.000-07:00

We've been flooded with emails since our show yesterday. They all say the same thing...where can we get more information on that book you guys featured. We really should have put this up yesterday so there's egg on our face:)
The book in question is 'This is Your Brain on Music' written by McGill Universitys Associate Professor Daniel Levitin. For those of you that missed the interview yesterday, it was a fascinating conversation about the nature of sound and music, how the brain processes music, how it creates emotion...I want to thank Dr. Levitin for taking the time to come on the show...
**You also missed an answer to the age old question: If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one to hear it...does it make a sound? (answer below)

Stay groovy and as always...

Stay Naked.

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**No;)

Truthtime: We've received one email:)

Henry Kissinger and the Old Voodoo

2006-09-30T16:56:00.000-07:00

Doesn't look like an inhuman monster, does he ? But, like a bad dream or a bad penny, Henry Kissinger keeps coming back. Already an accomplished war criminal he has now . . . what ? Excuse me ? Oh, you object to my characterizing the former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor to Richard Nixon as a war criminal without evidence. Fair enough.
I refer you Seymour M. Hersh's 1983 classic "The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House". Yes, that Seymour Hersch, Abu Ghraib, Iran war planning and etc., etc. So, how about complicity in the overthrow and assassination of an elected head of state, i.e., Salvador Allende of Chile, Chapter 22 ? Satisfied ? No ? How about design and execution of a secret bombing campaign against a country with whom we were not at war, i.e., Cambodia, Chapter 5 ? O.K. ? O.K. Fine.
We learn from Hersch that one of Kissinger's principal talents is the ability to tell powerful persons what they want to hear, e.g. that they are smarter than other people and that their controversial decisions are correct.
So what is it that President George W. Bush apparently wants to hear, according to Bob Woodward in his new book "State of Denial" ? That "victory is the only meaningful exit strategy" from Iraq, that's what. Music to the Bush ear. And what does he care if the advice comes from an unindicted war criminal ? It is a status he is familiar with.
The fact that this advice might contribute to further American and Iraqi deaths as the Administration pursues a failed policy means nothing to Henry who is almost personally responsible for the last three or four years of the Vietnam war.
What does Henry get out of this ? Well, he gets close, once again, to the seat of power, a place he dearly loves to be and, by advising the President, he builds credibility for his international consulting firm, Kissinger Associates.
Bush may not be the devil, but the moral standing of his chosen associates leaves something to be desired.
ZOO UPDATE: The next day's WAPO shows us that this is truly vintage Kissinger. His advice to the President: "Don't give an inch or they'll walk you backwards". Kissinger's private criticism of Bush: "He has no method for considering alternatives". Henry always looks great to whoever he's talking to and doesn't care a damn if he's talking out of both sides of his mouth and his rear.
For more on public loathing of this creature and the desire to see him punished, try HERE.
Stay Naked.
jd

Maybe War is a Bad Metaphor

2006-09-28T17:02:00.000-07:00

Since the launch of the Global War of Terror (GWoT ) and the ensuing festivities associated therewith, it has become easy to forget the other wars we have going, so the Zoo is here with a quick reminder of the existence and status of these other vitally important conflicts. Let's take them chronologically.

(1964) War on Poverty. President Lyndon B. Johnson declares "unconditional war" on poverty in the United States. Various initiatives are proposed including the Head Start Program and lots of money spent. How is it going ? Not so good. According to data compiled at Wikipedia, poverty rates, while lower than at any time since 1980, are still higher than they were in 1970, 6 years after the war was declared. Arguments about measuring poverty rates continue as does, I assume, the war.

(1970) War On Drugs. It was a cold January day in 1970 when President Richard M. Nixon declared the war on drugs and it will be a cold day in Satan's sauna when we win it. We have spent billions and billions of dollars in 36 years in this cause, countless police officers have been corrupted and the drugs we mainly declared war against (heroin and cocaine) have been supplemented with such new favorites as methamphetamine.
The "front line" of the WoD, judging by the five billion dollar commitment made in the waning years of the Clinton Administration, is Colombia where, the Christian Science Monitor recently reported, an elite unit of U.S. trained and supported narcotics cops were set up, ambushed and murdered by the U.S. trained and supported Army. The CSM also reports that there is as much coca growing now as before "Plan Colombia" was started and the street price of cocaine in our cities hasn't budged.
I suppose we could call the WoD a stalemate, except the other side is making money while we are spending money.

(1974) War on Energy Problem. The war on U.S. energy profligacy began with President Jimmy Carter's vow that the United States would end its dependence on foreign oil and "never" again import more oil than we did in 1970. How is it going ? Need you ask ?
In 1970 were using 13.8 million barrels a day and 23% of that came from imports, so we were importing about 3.174 Mb/d. In 2004 we were using about 20 Mb/d in 2004 and importing about 60% of our usage for about 12 Mb/d, an increase of just under 9 MILLION BARRELS A DAY.
Fair to say that we have been utterly defeated in the War on Energy Waste and are enslaved to the Petroleum Industry.

(2001) Global War on Terror. In the wake of the attack on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and an empty field in Pennsylvania, President George W. Bush committed the nation to a war against a tactic. How is going ? Read the latest review of the situation at the "central front" of said war at TomDispatch. This is a sickening and tragic summary of all that is presently wrong with the war in Iraq in particular and GWoT in general.

I recommend that you not read this latter to soon after eating and that you

Stay Naked
jd

One Stop Shopping

2006-09-26T17:36:00.000-07:00

I just wish I had the brains, resources, stamina and vision to have created Lie by Lie.

Any question you might have about the Iraq war, from the dim antecedents (like Gulf War I) the sales job that got us in there, the lack of planning for a post-war Iraq and the steady deterioration of the security situation ever since, can be answered with this handy data base.

Searchable by a scrolling time line, by full text queries and by special icons, such as "torture", "distraction" and "quaqmire", Lie by Lie is also frequently updated and filled in.

This will be an invaluable tool during the looming mid-term elections and the Presidential in '08 (providing, of course, there is a Presidential in '08).

A place of honor in the Zoo for Mother Jones and the designers, programmers and researchers of Lie by Lie, your online infomall on the worst foreign policy disaster in American history.

Check it out. Scroll it. Search it. Stay naked.

jd

I miss home...

2006-09-25T13:40:00.000-07:00

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'Are You Registered to Vote?'

2006-09-24T10:47:00.000-07:00

This is not a hypothetical question. I mean 'Are you registered to vote?' If the answer is 'Yes' my follow-up is 'Are you sure?'. Your recent application may have been lost or rejected. You may have even been purged (HERE is a wonderful article by Greg Palast on how voter 'purging' cost Al Gore the 2000 Presidential election).
I encourage you to check out mydem.democrats.com. You can check to make sure you're registered and if not, how to register. (NOTE: You do have to register on the site to use the service)
-----------------------

A lot of Dems are nervous about this Novembers election getting 'stolen', especially since Edward Felten, a Professor of Computer Science at Princeton, showed how easy it was to hack a Diebold voting machine. The Youtube video below is Feltens own submission, narrated by Prof. Felten, that demonstrates how you too can hack a voting machine:)

Hey, if the Repubs can steal an election? Just kidding...mostly....

Stay Revolutionary and as always...

Stay Naked.

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What if we started a groundswell of hackers and got Captain Kangaroo elected President?

Below is a gratuitous picture. I love it. Bubbles and Canines. Courtesy of Photographer Frederic Larsen.

'Predatory Lending Practices'

2006-09-23T10:22:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia: Predatory lending is the practice of exploiting a potential borrower's ignorance for profit. Although predatory industries in general are more likely to target racial minorities, women, and the elderly, victims of predatory lending are represented across all demographics.
You read it about here on the Zoo some time ago. We said watch out for the bomb to go off...well it's started with a sharp increase in foreclosures. RealtyTrac is reporting a 24% more forecosures in August than in July. And July was up 55% over July 2005. I've already seen a C-Span show on this topic as it's risen to the level of national Oh-oh! You'll love this guy

“With home price appreciation continuing to decelerate and billions of dollars in adjustable rate mortgages projected to reset in the next few months, this month’s increase could be the beginning of an upward shift in the foreclosures market,” says James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure properties."

An 'upward shift in the foreclosures market'. Nice. Kind of like saying Baghdad has experienced 'an upward shift in the dead bodies market'. Makes it almost sound like a good thing...this is only going to get worse as 'billions of dollars in ARMs (adjustable rate mortgages) ...reset in the next few months'.
None of this is good nor do I take any pleasure in being right. Get ready for more congressionals investigations and teeth gnashing as this gets worse...

Stay Mortgaged and As Always...

Stay Naked.

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A word from the EZ :
First, the poor schmuck borrowers will get wiped out and there will be Congressional handwringing, but no action.
Then the phony appraisals that all these lousy loans were based on will kick in and we will discover that the lenders are losing money because their foreclosure price won't cover the debt.
Then we will see the taxpayers ( see "poor schmuck borrowers" above) rescuing the lenders from the consequences of their own greed (see "S&L Crisis of the 80's").
jd

'October Surprise'

2006-09-21T14:14:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I've heard the phrase 'October Surprise'. According to Wikipedia, it's an American political term that refers to any stunning news event that influences an election. I know the term as it relates to the allegations that Ronald Reagans campaign team made a deal with the Iranians to keep the hostages until Reagan was safely in office. Barbara Honegger used the term in her book of the same title which was the first book to deal with allegations.

Well, it's baaaaaaaaaaack. And in an ominous place. NewsMax is reporting that Karl Rove has promised an 'October surprise' that will help Republicans retain a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. NewsMax should be trusted in this case as they are a very right-wing website with proven ties to the Administration. Rove won't say what he's talking about but I, for one, am plenty nervous...perhaps Bush will single-handedly pull Osama out of a cave:)
&&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;&&&&&&&&&&&&

The Financial Times is reporting that the reason why so many terror suspects were transferred from secret prisons to Guatanamo Bay is the fact that the CIA is 'REFUSING TO OPERATE' said prisons.

This one qualifies as a WOW! Apparently the CIA interrogators are a little nervous about the fact that they may be breaking the law...

Stay Out of Prison and as always,

Stay Naked.

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The Key to the Castle

2006-09-20T06:54:00.000-07:00

It is way past time for the funeral of electronic voting in general and of Diebold electronic voting machines in particular.
If it wasn't bad enough that Diebold resisted independent testing of their machines, or that one security gap opens the machines' systems to anybody with a little knowledge and a cheap part from CompUSA, or that some boffins at Princeton found the Diebold boxes vulnerable to "extremely serious [hacker] attacks".
Set aside for a moment the dark suspicions that arise because Diebold's CEO was also Bush's campaign chair in Ohio, "committed" to delivering Ohio for Bush.
Here is the icing on the cake, the cherry on the sundae, the filial on the flagpole.
Diebold advertises that the memory on their machines is protected by a lock and key and its true, its just not very much protection as the key is a standard piece used on mini-bars, and jukeboxes. A standard part easily purchased over the internet.
If there were more at risk than freedom and the Constitution we'd be alarmed.
As it is, we know that other people are worrying about so we can
StayNaked
jd
************************
An ad addendum. CNN has been doing a nice job covering this story. Below is a Youtube posting of two CNN stories concerning e-voting.

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The Gift That Keeps On Giving

2006-09-18T11:29:00.000-07:00

Cooler heads have prevailed and the war in south Lebanon is at least temporarily suspended.

Except for the three or four people who the Israelis kill every day in the area south of the Litani River. In the closing days of the war, in what may have been a desperate attempt to silence Hezbollah's rocket batteries, Israel "flooded" southern Lebanon with cluster munitions.

Cluster munitions are large bombs or artillery shells which contain smaller bombs, or "bomblets", which themselves contain scores of projectiles like giant beebees or small ball bearings. About thirty percent of these fail to explode on contact. These will explode later, often at the slightest contact.

Israel admits to firing 1.2 million bomblets into the occupied areas of Southern Lebanon, arguably in violation of international law, almost certainly in violation of a classified agreement with the United States. The agreement with us arises because we manufactured many of these charming weapons and sold them to Israel.

1.2 million times 30 percent means that there are something like 360,000 unexploded bomblets in Lebanon. In olive trees and oranges trees, In ditches and on roof tops. Anywhere. And they kill 3 or four people a day. Often children.

So now the Lebanese must decide between letting the olives and oranges and other crops rot or chancing death or maiming by Israeli/U.S. cluster bombs.

The entire story is in The Independent via truthout.

You may, if you wish, cry in rage and shame, but try to do so quietly so as not to disturb the other passengers and

Stay Naked
jd

01.20.09

2006-09-17T06:14:00.000-07:00

It doesn't seem like a very important date does it? 01.20.09. January 20th, 2009...so why has it taken on such importance? It's George Bush's last day in office (think Clinton's flurry of odious pardons...multiply by 30 and you get an idea...My dream list:
-Cheney
-Rove
-Abramoff
-Ney
-Cunningham
-Rice
-Powell
-Hadley
....but no Scooter Libby as he flips on all of the above:)

According to Bushslastday.com, Bush currently has 856 Days, 3 Hours, 45 Min, 48 Secs left in office.

Ouch. That seems like a loooooooooooooooooong time...Look on the bright side, plenty of time for Indictments:)

Stay Bright and as always...

Stay Naked.

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When is a question mark not a question mark?

2006-09-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

That is the question. For you Zooheads who missed 'The Daily Show' last night (myself included) I offer you an instant classic...

Stay Funny and as always...

Stay Naked.

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Rumsfeld's Transformed Military

2006-09-14T18:28:00.000-07:00

You doubtless recall, Oh Best Beloved, that Don Rumsfeld came to the post of Secretary of Defense with a mission. Not the mission to invade Iraq. That was a secret. The other mission.

That was a mission to transform the American military into the lightest, most potent, most agile fighting force in the world. Well it appears that the on-and-ongoing war in Iraq has delayed that transformation, but has created another, and quite different, transformation.

The Iraq war has created tremendous pressures on the military, particularly the Army, national Guard and Marines. This has translated to downward pressure on the quality of recruits now being accepted according to Nick Turse writing in TomDispatch.

Take, for instance, the percentage of recruits scoring below 50% on the ASVAB which is the aptitude test given to potential recruits. The figure is now nearly 40 % of all recruits with such low scores.

To appreciate how serious this is, we invite you to look at some sample questions from the test. In order to slip below 50% you're going to have to miss stumpers like " How many 36 passenger buses does it take to carry 144 people ?". If you answered "10", don't worry, you can still serve.

You can also serve if you are up to 42 years old, a convicted felon, a gangbanger, a Nazi or skin head. If you are a foreign national you'll get the right to apply for citizenship with all fees waived after one (1) day of active service.

Check out the whole piece at TomDispatch, remember our military fondly and

StayNaked
jd

Remember Tinkerbell ?

2006-09-12T06:41:00.000-07:00

Some of you are too old ( to remember anything) and some of you are too young and some of you are too cool, but most of you remember Tinkerbell, Peter Pan's pixie pal.

And, if so, you remember that she almost died and we all had to save her by saying "I BELIEVE" at the tops of our tiny voices. Remember ? Did you believe ? Do you still ?

Then you are ready for Steorn.

"What's a Steorn ?", we hear you ask. Well, click on the link and you'll discover everything we know. For instance:

Steorn promises a limitless source of free energy. That's right, boys and girls, FREE energy and all you could ever want.
Steorn is being ignored by the scientific community. Can't think why.
Steorn violates the law of conservation of energy (they said it, we didn't).
Steorn is illustrated by a diagram that looks like it was drawn by a six year old and by a comparison to the "energy you gain" when you walk uphill and back down.
"Engineers and scientists" have validated the process, but only "off the record". You can't make this stuff up.

What the site doesn't say is that Steorn also violates the rule that if something seems too good to be true it usually is.

Steorn is running a full page ad in The Economist which is where we ran across them. They are looking for a panel of scientists to evaluate their claims. We can hardly wait.

There is, of course, a chance that Steorn is on the up and up and that the world's energy problems are about to disappear like pixie dust. There is also a chance that George Bush will celebrate Christmas in Baghdad judging the first annual Shia-Sunni Santa Contest.

So, by all means, keep and open mind and, at all costs,

Stay Naked
jd

A Father Remembers.

2006-09-11T09:18:00.000-07:00

The article below is one of the most painful things I have ever read. I think on this September 11th we're just going to let the words on one father, talking about his son, serve as our reminder of the costs this terrible war is inflicting on all sides. Kudos to NorthJersey.com for posting this in its original form.

In the four months since the death of my son, Sgt. Matthew J. Fenton, from injuries suffered in Iraq, I have stated many times the horror of what I saw in the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Md.

I believe that the time has arrived to tell the whole story of his death and the carnage that was inflicted on some of his fellow Marines. I do not find this easy to do, but as the death toll and injured number continues to climb, I cannot sit silently.

On April 26, Matthew, 24, was the gunner on a Humvee protecting a Marine convoy on the outskirts of Fallujah. A suicide car bomber attempted to ram his Humvee, and he got off a few shots at the vehicle. From what I have been told it is common practice for these bombers to detonate their bomb if they come under fire. Matthew was the only Marine injured in the attack. Later that same day I received a phone call telling me that Matt was seriously wounded and that it was a head injury.

The next day we were informed that Matt had been flown to Germany. Matt’s mother, Diane, and I prepared to go to Germany. But in the middle of trying to get a flight, we received another call saying that he had stabilized and they were going to fly him to the United States. We were all lifted by this seemingly good news.

Diane and I flew to Washington the next day and were met by a uniformed Marine and driven to Bethesda. What awaited us there is still shocking to me now. We met with two doctors who laid everything out for us. Matthew’s injury was a devastating one. Shrapnel had entered his head just above his left eye and traveled diagonally through his brain and exited the right rear.

Surgeons in Baghdad had removed two plates from his skull to help relieve the pressure from the swelling of his brain. The frontal lobe was destroyed, so they had removed it. It was explained that the frontal lobe is the center of personality and the place where someone is aware of themselves. The Matthew that we knew and loved was gone and would never come back.

As we struggled with that staggering news there was more to come. The shrapnel had done severe damage to both sides of Matt’s brain because of the angle that it traveled through. The brain can figure a way to control functions when one side is damaged, like in a stroke. But this was devastating news. The doctors told us that if this had happened in Vietnam, there would have been no surgery. If this happened in front of the best hospital in New York City, there would have been no surgery. His chances of ever having meaningful movement were less than slim.

Why, we asked was the surgery done in Baghdad? The answer, surgeons do whatever they can to keep a soldier alive. They do not decide life or death.

We were then led down a long hospital corridor toward my son’s room. This is the moment that I will never forget until the day I die. Just outside his room we were instructed that we had to don gowns, masks and gloves every time we entered the room. This was to prevent us from picking up bacteria that Matt may have brought back from Iraq and spreading it to other patients in the ward.

My shock was doubled upon seeing Matthew. He was unrecognizable. His head was completely swollen, like some cartoon character. There were maybe hundreds of metal staples in his head. There were of course tubes coming and going everywhere. There were drains running from the site of the surgery. And there was the ventilator. I immediately snapped at the doctors. Somewhere along the line I had been informed that Matt was breathing on his own. Nine years ago I watched my father die after having lung cancer surgery. He never got off of the ventilator, and I flashed back to that time.

Matthew was able to breathe on his own, the doctors explained. The ventilator was only assisting. His heart and lungs were perfect. There had been no damage to his brain stem, which controls involuntary actions like breathing and the heart beating. So there we were looking at our son, not recognizing him, not a scratch on him below his eyes. But his face and head mangled and inflated. This must be a nightmare, one that we will never wake up from.

For days we made that walk down that long hallway. It took some time but I finally was able to look at some of the other Marines on the ward with Matthew. I wish to this moment that I hadn’t. Kids with horrible injuries.

One had been in the ward for 11 months, after seven different brain surgeries. His wife refused to let him go. She was praying for a miracle. He had parts of his skull removed also, but all the swelling was gone now and his head had sunken in where they had been removed. He did not move at all.

Across the ward another Marine was in his third month, and his head was all sunken in. This is what lay ahead for Matthew also. Also across the ward was another Marine who was there only a few days before Matt. He was lucky, damage to only one side of his brain. I became friendly with his father, Jim, from Tennessee. One day there was an uproar from his son’s room and I looked over and made eye contact with Jim. Maybe an hour later we met in the hallway and he apologized to me. His son had opened his eyes for the first time and his family just responded. There was no need for an apology as I would have jumped for joy if Matthew were to open his eyes.

All that was left was to decide when the life support would be removed. That final decision rested in the hands of his mother. There was no disagreement on what course to follow, just when.

On May 3, the Marine Corps commandant presented Matthew with his Purple Heart. On May 4, I noticed that the swelling of Matthew’s head was going down. By the end of the day the indentations where pieces of his skull were missing were becoming noticeable. The next morning I was dreading what he might be looking like. And, yes, there was his head becoming very odd shaped.

I prayed that Diane would find the strength to let her son go today. I did not want to see him decline another day. Another day of watching his head sink into his skull. And neither did she.

Sometime around noon on May 5, Matthew was moved from the ward to a private room. Behind some curtains they removed the ventilator and most of the tubes. He was kept on the morphine, and we were assured he would not feel any pain. Now he was breathing all on his own. Diane got into the hospital bed with her son, and I held his hand and we all waited and watched for Matthew to pass.

But he would not go easily. After three hours of labored breathing, I asked the nurse if there was anything that she could do. No. I asked God to take him now. No. His mother told him to go. I asked him to go. Go to some peace. A half-hour later, he finally took his last breath.

This is the real story of the war in Iraq. We all know the numbers, and we all know the reasons that are claimed that we have to be there. But this is the reality: young, brave, patriotic men losing their lives for a cause that keeps shifting.

Every politician who supports the war should go to Bethesda or Walter Reed and see just what their support is costing in human life and suffering. And to everyone who opposes the war, don’t just sit back any longer. Someday you may be touched personally by some tragedy from this disastrous war, and it will be too late, like it is for me.

Blood Borders

2006-09-10T10:47:00.000-07:00

Below you see two maps of the Middle East. The top map is the current Middle East and the map below it represents the Middle East as redrawn by Ralph Peters. Who is Ralph Peters? He's a retired US Army Lt. Colonel, writer and essayist. The maps you see below are illustrations used to support an article he wrote recently for the Armed Forces Journal titled 'Blood Borders'. I admit I hadn't heard of the Armed Forces Journal before this article popped onto my radar but I'm a little hooked. Imagine the military point of view without Rumsfeld and you've got an idea. Here's his main idea, in a nutshell...;

"While the Middle East has far more problems than dysfunctional borders alone—from cultural stagnation through scandalous inequality to deadly religious extremism—the greatest taboo in striving to understand the region’s comprehensive failure isn’t Islam but the awful-but-sacrosanct international boundaries worshipped by our own diplomats."

So he proposes redrawing the borders (see fig. 2). While this article in a pretty obscure military mag hasn't received much attention at home it has fired some heated responses abroad.

Here's a thoughtful piece by Yassar Latif Hamdani of Pak Tribune.

And Kurt Nimmo of Uruknet.info.

Say what you may, it's an interesting idea and one that may draw more attention as Iraq devolves into Civil War. Mr. Peters drew some fire for the following quote:

Oh, and one other dirty little secret from 5,000 years of history: Ethnic cleansing works.

Yikes! His point is, that what we call ethnic cleansing is the process by which most nation states are born...argue if you will but check out the map and imagine...what if?

Stay Loose zooheads and as always...

Stay Naked.

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There's No Plan Like No Plan

2006-09-09T18:18:00.000-07:00

President Bush's assertion (after others had failed) that we invaded Iraq to bring democracy was a lie. Its that simple.

How do we know ? A recent interview with Brigadier General Mark Scheid, chief of the Logistics War Plans Division. He tells us that when Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld ordered the planning for the Iraq war to begin he told the planners not to plan for a long stay.

Planners being planners, they wanted to at least have a plan for what they called "Phase 4", including an occupation, so they kept including it in their drafts. Until, again according to General Scheid, Rumsfeld threatened to fire anybody who mentioned such plans again.

So, like the WMD that got us going, the "promotion of democracy" was a cynical lie designed to manipulate American public opinion. Unless, of course, Rumsfeld thought democracy could be planted like a flag and left to wave gallantly in the breeze.

Thanks to truthout, the Washington Monthly, Orin Kerr and the Hampton Roads Daily Press for this beauty which is inexplicably missing from the New York Times, Washington Post, etc., etc.

While we await the festivities that will doubtless surround the upcoming elections ( the R's stole the last two and that looks like the only way they'll get this one) and try to make sure we can spell i-m-p-e-a-c-h-m-e-n-t and i-n-d-i-c-t-m-e-n-t we will make every effort to

Stay Naked
jd

We're Beginning to Believe

2006-09-07T11:40:00.000-07:00

There is gathering evidence that the collective intelligence of the Bush Administration and the Republican Party and the Republican Congress ( if these things may legitimately be distinquished from one another ) has finally collapsed or imploded or been exhausted.

If the following two stories could break on the same day (to say nothing of have either one be true ) then the wheels have come off the Rove Message Machine.

Story Number One. I watched this one unfold on CSPAN this morning and couldn't believe my senses. On virtually the last day of business before the fall elections in which Republican control of Congress hangs by a thread, the House of Representatives (i.e., the Republican leadership thereof ) ignores port security, border security, gas prices, global warming, the stagnant minimum wage and the war in Iraq to have a tightly controlled debate on one issue.

The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act. You got that right. The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act which is designed to prevent horses being used for human food.
I know this is an issue that has been keeping you up nights and I am grateful that Congress has seen through the clutter to something of true importance.

The only good I can see coming of this is when Bin Laden hears about it he will forswear any further attacks on us as not being worth the effort as self-destruction must surely be our fate.

If the Democrats (who used almost all their debate time lambasting the Republicans for their priorities) can't take a slow fat pitch like this and knock it into a Demoratic majority in the next Congress, then God help us. But there's more.

Story number two deals (you'll be stunned to hear) with apparent misconduct in the awarding of a Pentagon contract worth seventy million dollars (say it ain't so, Don !). While no one in their right mind would permit a scandal at this delicate moment that involved the safety of our troops, I regret to report just such involvement.

At issue is new technology designed to Protect Our Troops against rocket propelled grenades (RPGs). RPGs have been taking a steady toll in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Army has been looking for a defense.

It came down to a choice between an Israeli contractor who had a system tested and proved under live fire and Raytheon. The (contractually) successful Raytheon system was not tested by the Army, leading to this amusing exchange between NBC's Lisa Myers and Col. Donald Kotchman who heads the Army's RPG defense effort:

Lisa Myers: Was the Raytheon system tested by the Pentagon?
Col. Donald Kotchman: The Army did not specifically test the Raytheon system.
Instead, Raytheon tested its own system this February.
Myers: How well did the Raytheon system do in its own testing?
Kotchman: I don't have that information.
Myers: Were there any Pentagon officials present for the Raytheon testing?
Kotchman: I do not know.

With everything else the R's have lying around, besides those listed above I'm thinking about voting irregularities (Ohio), candidate meltdowns (Florida), bribery scandals (Abramhoff), I would think there are extra innings worth of slow fat pitches. Enough so there wouldn't be any Republicans left in either house.

So now we meditate on how Karl can spin all this to their advantage and resolutely

Stay Naked
jd

Noah Takes a Photo of Himself Everyday for Six Years

2006-09-06T20:06:00.000-07:00

This is exactly what it says it is. A guy named Noah took a picture of himself everyday for six years. The music is perfect. The effect is unique. I encourage you to set aside five minutes and forty five seconds and open your mind to whatever thoughts, feelings and questions might arise. It's a uniquely human experience you're about to undertake. Six years of someone's life in five minutes.

God bless the internet.

Stay unique and as always...

Stay Naked.

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What If They Gave a War Against Terror . . .

2006-09-05T10:51:00.000-07:00

What if the Adminstration gave a war against terror and no terrorists came ?

Not a problem in Iraq where terrorism, insurgency and civil war have settled in quite nicely. Of course, they weren't having a war until we got there, but that obervation takes us down well-worn paths to conclusions long since concluded.

But, what about the Home Front where the Department of Homeland Security stands with hydra-headed vigilance to protect the Volk (oops, sorry, strike that) the American People against domestic attacks by Al Qaeda sleeper cells. And what an overwhelming success their efforts have been ! The fact that we have had no attacks since 9/11 is "no accident" according to VP Cheney, but is due to the "sound policies" of the Bush Administration.

It is theoretically possible that the same administration that has got it wrong on Afghanistan, Iraq, the budget deficit, Katrina, global warming, CIA-agent-outing, illegal-on-American-spying, prisoner torturing and etc., somehow got it right on domestic security.

And there is another explanation, provided in fascinating detail by John Mueller writing in the current Foreign Affairs. The true explanation may well be simpler. There were and are no Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the Homeland.

In an admirably through article Mueller examines the evidence and the arguments regarding our safety from attack since 9/11, as other cities and countries have suffered devastating bombings, e.g., London and Madrid.

Though not directly responding to Cheney's argument cited above, Mueller does address the point with a simple observation:

"But there is a problem with this argument. True, there have been no terrorist incidents in the United States in the last five years. But nor were there any in the five years before the 9/11 attacks, at a time when the United States was doing much less to protect itself."

So maybe we haven't been attacked because no sleeper cells were in place, no cells have been infiltrated across our notoriously porous borders and we lack the extremist Islamic elements that give rise to attacks elsewhere.

We urge you to read this piece and we urge you to

StayNaked
jd

Make Love Not Kerfuffle!

2006-09-03T14:07:00.000-07:00

I think I have much better understanding of the problems in the Middle East now that I've just finished reading a mind-blowing article posted on the Times Online titled Israel Plans for War with Iran and Syria.
Reportedly NOT stinging from their failure to free the two kidnapped Israeli soldiers or dislodge Hezbollah from Southern Lebanon, Israel has decided to set their sights a little higher. According to the reporters, Israel has figured out that too MUCH attention has been paid to the lowly Palestinaians in the West Bank and Gaza and not enough on Syria and Iran...Let's walk through the madness slowly.

“In the past we prepared for a possible military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities,” said one insider, “but Iran’s growing confidence after the war in Lebanon means we have to prepare for a full-scale war, in which Syria will be an important player.”

Translation: Our failed military incursion into Lebanon has encouraged the Iranians (who have a military assistance pact with Syria)

So what do the Americans think?

“Fixed targets (In Iran) are hopelessly vulnerable to precision bombing, and with stealth bombers even a robust air defence system doesn’t make much difference,” said Richard Perle, a leading neoconservative.

Whoa! They're quoting noted neo-con and famous Iraq War cheerleader Richard Perle?

Perle goes on

“If they had acted against Syria during this last kerfuffle, the war might have ended more quickly and better,” Perle added. “Syrian military installations are sitting ducks and the Syrian air force could have been destroyed on the ground in a couple of days.”

Hm, so...the leading nutcase who got us into Iraq thinks it'll be easy to hit the 'sitting ducks' in Iran and Syria in spite of the Israeli failure to do so in the last 'kerfuffle' (Kerfuffle is really a word whose synonyms are: disturbance, stir, commotion, to-do, and the ever popular hoo-hah. This explains how it's so easy for these mutton heads to send people into combat...pardon me...kerfuffles)

This is my favorite

The Israelis are integrating three elite brigades that performed well during the Lebanon war under one headquarters, so they can work together on deep cross-border operations in Iran and Syria.

What border does Israel share with Iran? Some politicos (State Department) are apparently arguing for 'diplomacy' with Syria in the hopes of A) peeling Syria away from Iran or B) causing internal problems for Syria which would result in waves of Islamic terror generated against the stable dictatorship.

This would all sound nuts if it wasn't true...So if the Israeli plan works it would have Israel bombing (and/or) invading Syria and Iran with US help...so we'd have Iraq, Syria, Iran, Afganistan and Lebanaon all in play at the same time with a Saudi Arabia facing a serious threat of homemade terrorism (let's not forget Osama Bin Laden's original beef was with the Saudi government)...

I feel safer already.
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Thank God for Chad Vader: Night Shift Manager. We join our favorite web celeb in Episode 3...after his demotion to Night Shift Manager from...Day Shift Manager...

May the Force Be With You and as always...

Stay Naked.

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EAT! OR DIE! OR EAT!...ummm...

2006-09-02T10:52:00.000-07:00

Wonderful article HERE on how we use red and yellow as a sign of DANGER! and as a sign of CHEAP FOOD AHEAD! Author David Barringer ponders the question, why do fast food joints and warning signs use teh same color schemes and yet they mean two completely different things. Looking at the image above forces you to read the lettering for context so what's the deal?
The answer is: they don't know:) There's a lot in this article about the neurology of color (we detect red well), psychology of color (we've learned to equate red with food), psychology of marketing (red and yellow worked for McDonalds and all followed suit) , evolutionary theory (red means healthy fruit)...but there are no concrete answers. The 'comments' on the bottom provide some intelligent conversation.
Ryan, Sep 1, 2006 posted that he'd read a similar article on food packaging HERE. The article is found on Today's Dietician and is titled 'Cueing Consumers to Buy' Here's what happens when marketers write:

Red and yellow, the trademark colors of fast food, encourage eating quickly and quick table turnover. Yellow (happy and warm) and red (stimulating and speed) are probably the most popular colors used on snack food packaging. Red, however, also indicates danger—of eating too much, too quickly, and too often.

So Red means danger and eat fast? We're back to where we started:)

Alright Zooheads...Stay Skinny and as always...

Stay Naked.

Kudos to AIGA.com for posting such a cool piece.

No Confidence Vote on Rumsfeld ?

2006-09-01T15:49:00.000-07:00

The Democrats in Congress, apparently led by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), are planning to turn a Pentagon budget bill into a vote of no confidence in Secretary of Defense and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Ever eager to participate in the workings of the democratic processes that make this the greatest country on the face of the earth, the Zoo presents its Unofficial Donald H. Rumsfeld Vote of No Confidence Ballot, suitable for framing or printing out and forwarding to Sen. Boxer, either by email at boxer.senate.gov or snail mail to 112 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510-0505.

UNOFFICIAL RUMSFELD NO CONFIDENCE BALLOT

A CITIZEN AND OR RESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES I HEREBY VOTE THE INDICATED LEVEL OF CONFIDENCE IN DONALD H. RUMSFELD AS SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, CONSIDERING HIS ROLES IN THE FOMENTING OF THE WAR IN IRAQ, THE MISTREATMENT OF PRISONERS AT GLOBAL LOCATIONS TOO NUMEROUS TO MENTION AND THE INVASION AND ABANDONMENT OF AFGHANISTAN.

1. NONE

2. NOT ANY

3. NOT A BIT

4. ZERO

5. ZILCH

6. NADA

7. NAUGHT

8. BLOODY F&%K ALL

9. ZIP

10. NOT AN IOTA

11. NOT A JOT

12. NOT A TRACE

13. NOT A SPECK

14. NOT A HINT

15. NOT A SMIDGEN

16. OTHER ____________

Vote early, vote often and

Stay Naked
jd

Happy Days Are Here Again

2006-08-31T08:39:00.000-07:00

The Zookeepers are third and fourth generation Californians respectively and have had to suffer certain humiliations in recent years. If it wasn't crooked public servants of various stripes, it was catastrophic power shortages or the ongoing shame of having a movie star for a governor for the second time in living memory.

But things are looking up. Against all odds the California legislature has passed a bill providing for universal health care for every California resident. California would thus join the rest of the industrialized world in having such a comprehensive system, leaving the rest of the U.S. behind. So long, suckers ! Work remains to be done. The present movie star governor needs to sign the bill ( and apparently needs a little persuading, click HERE if you'd like to help) and a second bill describing the financing needs to be passed, but this is real progress and California is leading the way. We feel taller.

And that isn't all, no sir. For more on California leadership we look to another bill by which the Golden State proposes to again lead the nation by imposing a cap on greenhouse gas emissions. George Bush can see the Kyoto Accords he tried to avoid suddenly moving onshore.

California ! California ! The hills ring back our cry, California do or die, California ! California ! and etc.

Maybe its time to make the ancient map a reality and create California as an island, separate from the heaving bulk of the United States with its steaming and benighted masses. Healthy and pure, we will realize the golden promise that was ever ours.

I left my hearrrrrrt in San Francisco and etc.

Perhaps you care to move to California while there is still time, but at least

StayNaked
jd

Wanna debate?

2006-08-30T11:57:00.000-07:00

Meet me after school behind the bike racks. It's time to settle this mano a mano. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called out President Bush to debate him on 'how to end problems in the world.' The White House responded by calling the request for dialogue a 'diversion'. Can you imagine if it happened. Ahmadinejad would rend him asunder...that said, an average three year old should be able to have their way with him (Mr. Kerry...your balls are in the lost and found).
Can you hear the engines of the figher bombers warming up? You should my friend. You should.
---------------------------------
Below is an amazing piece of video. The man in the picture is one Michael De Kort. He is a former Lockeheed Martin engineer who worked on refurbishing a fleet of US Coast Guard cutters on a projec titled Deepwater. He alleges some pretty serious security problems.

"What I am going to tell you is going to seem preposterous," De Kort solemnly tells viewers near the outset of the 10-minute clip. Posted three weeks ago, the video describes what De Kort says are blind spots in the ship's security cameras, equipment that malfunctions in cold weather and other problems. "It may be very hard for you to believe that our government and the largest defense contractor in the world [are] capable of such alarming incompetence and can make ethical compromises as glaring as what I am going to describe." In response to De Kort's charges, a Coast Guard spokeswoman said the service has "taken the appropriate level of action." A spokeswoman for the contractors said the allegations were without merit.

He tried going through regular channels and no one listened so what did he do? He posted on Youtube.com and now?

The video also has caught the eye of people in high places. De Kort's video has been covered by defense trade magazines, and yesterday, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, wrote a letter to the Coast Guard asking for an answer to De Kort's "extremely distressing" allegations.

"I want to make sure that the product we paid for is a product that does not jeopardize our men and women in service," Thompson said.

The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general's office had launched an investigation into De Kort's allegations before the video was released, and spokeswoman Tamara Faulkner said that inquiry should be completed in the next few months. Although De Kort said he believed the Coast Guard was not cooperating, Faulkner said she did not know of any problems.

Sweet:)

Stay revolutionary and as always...

Stay Naked.

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The Second Greatest Generation

2006-08-29T08:43:00.000-07:00

We don't know about you, but we are getting just a little tired of hearing about "The Greatest Generation" and how they had to deal with the Great Depression and the Second World War and still built the most advanced and productive society on earth. O.k., o.k.

The Elder Zookeeper is old enough he knew these folks and they were just folks. He didn't grow up thinking "what impossible paragons of virtue these people are". They were people. They drank, they fought, they had moods. And as for the rest, the "big events" ? Well, let's take a look.

The "Big War" ? WWII ? We've already been in Iraq longer than it took us to beat Germany and if the festivities in that sticken land last through December (and who among us, Oh Best Beloved, thinks they won't ?) then this war will have lasted longer than our entire war from Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki. So put that in your D-Day. With a little luck (bad), we could beat WWII by 50-100%.

And the so-called "Great Depression" ? Just stick around. By the time the perfect storm of peak oil, China and India's energy demands, Bush budget deficits, falling real wages for American workers and the economic calamity triggered by the collapse of the U.S. housing market resulting from the adjustment of all of the adjustable mortgages out there your next career may well be selling apples on street corners ( a treasured image from the last Great Depression).

So, buck up. At the end of your golden years you may well hear our children and grandchildren talking about what a great bunch we were.

Oops. I forgot about the properity and productivity part. Oh well, stay cheerful, stay optimistic and

StayNaked
jd

When the Going Gets Tough

2006-08-28T07:16:00.000-07:00

The world is not an easy place for news folk. Oh, it's easy enough for folks like Fox who have a clear world view they can impose on any story. And for straight shooters like the Christian Science Monitor who can at least struggle toward objectivity.

No, we're thinking about the news services like UPI (formerly United Press International, before we entered the Era of the Acronym) and AP (formerly Associated Press, see above).

Besides having their own reporters these outfits pickup stories from other sources and distribute them to their subscribers. This, however, may lead to some kind of professional schizophrenia on days like today when UPI is carrying a story from the LA Times bearing the headline Baghdad Violent Death Toll Falling which reports a "sharp drop" in the number of violent deaths in Iraq's capital after last month's record 1800.

While the "sharp drop" is not quantified and the good news is qualified by the observation that there is still no plan to disarm the Shia militias responsible for most Sunni deaths, the lead and headline stand. Fine.

On the same day, however, the UPI editors feel compelled to carry a story from CNN with the headline Violence Sweeps Iraq, Undermining Politics. Also datelined Baghdad, this one is the more familiar recital of bomb blasts, death and fatuous utterances by politicians, e.g., the Brit Defense Minister Des Browne saying "each time I come I see more progress".

Is the LA Times story the first harbinger of real change in the security situation in Iraq or one of the last gasps of the mindless support for Bush's war policies from the media ? Is the CNN story evidence of liberal bias, grimly hanging on to bad news even when evidence of change appears or simply realistic reporting of the continuing decline of matters Iraqi ?

What is a UPI editor to do ? We, of course, would suggest that she remain calm and

StayNaked
jd

The U.S. Energy Plan at Work

2006-08-26T08:51:00.000-07:00

For a long time all we knew about the Bush energy plan was that Dick Cheney had disappeared into an undisclosed location with some undisclosed energy honchos and cooked up an energy policy for all of us.

Now we are beginning to see the fruits of that policy hanging on the trees.

That big bunch a juicy red grapes hanging over there are the 300 new jobs available at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission which is expecting lots of new business as the nuclear energy industry ramps up behind all the new tax breaks in the new policy. NRC is expecting lots of upgrading of existing plants (adding 3000 megawatts) and as many as 27 new plants (adding an additional 6000 mw).

Nagging problems include anti-nuclear activists and the continuing and intractable problem of disposing of the radioactive waste from the plants. Since the dawn of the nuclear age in 1945 we have succeeded in dealing with approximately none of the waste that has been generated by energy and weapons production. The "final solution", the depository at Yucca Mountain, keeps slipping into the future, presently "scheduled" (don't snicker, these are serious people) for 2017 ( with some speculating 2020) against its original 1998 planned opening.

Then we have, for the alternative energy minded, one of our principal solar energy companies announcing a great big ripe melon of an investment of $150,000,000, in a state-of-the-art photovoltaic cell manufacturing plant that will also generate 400 highly desirable high-tech jobs . . . in the former East Germany.
Apparently the incentives for solar energy are better in the former Communist police state than they are here under the Bush energy policy. We suspect that Amory Lovins was not in with the Cheney in-crowd.

You may join in our suspicions or not, but in any case
StayNaked
jd

Israel may 'Go it alone'

2006-08-25T10:55:00.001-07:00

What exactly does that mean? According to the Jeruselum Post it means that Israel is in the process of determining whether or not to halt Iran's uranium enrichment program unilaterally. Israel has reportedly added two German made nuclear-capable submarines to it's fleet, bringing the total it will now field to five nuclear-capable submarines. According to the article, the Israelis believe US President Bush is not entertaining a strike against Iran until sometime in 2008, near the end of his term...this is the crux of their argument and every argument you read:

"The first thing they need to do is stop the enrichment of uranium. Everyday that passes brings the Iranians closer to building a nuclear bomb. The world can't afford a nuclear Iran." She said the Iranian reply to the Western incentives was just an attempt to "gain time."

That was the Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Where to begin. We live in a world that 'affords' a nuclear America, France, China, Russia, Paikistan, India, the United Kingdom...oh...and North Korea and Israel. So why can't we afford a nuclear Iran. Mostly it sounds like it's because they are belligerent and have ties to terrorist organizations...who invaded Afganistan? Iraq? Lebanon? What's the only nation Iran has fought? Oh...Iraq. Which invaded them. Which we just invaded. Sounds like we might actually see eye to eye with Iran on some things...It makes my head hurt.
----------------------------
Fortunately, Afghanistan is roaring towards Democracy and embracing freedom...oh wait. Ok, forget I said anything;)
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Thank God we still live in the land of the Free...unless you mean Freedom of Speech that is. Javed Iqbal, a Brooklyn resident, was arrested for what? For providing New York area customers of his HDTV company access to Hezbollah TV. Yes, for broadcasting information the government deemed unacceptable he was arrested. When are they coming for you?
----------------------
This is awesome. A crank caller got on the air during a live taping of CNN's 'The Situation Room'. Some may be appalled that Wolf Blitzer is trying to profit from the murder of a little girl so you tell me what the larger crime is...

Stay Naked.

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News from the Plant World

2006-08-24T17:22:00.000-07:00

Remember Starlink corn ? That was the genetically modified stuff that accidentally and illegally made its way into the human food chain. Specifically into Taco Bell taco shells, creating untold havoc and expense for The Bell.

Well, we are having something of a repeat, only this time its with rice. Bayer Corp. has admitted that a GE variety it developed, but decided not to market, has contaminated stocks destined for human use. The FDA says the subject strain is like some others they have tested and is safe. Probably. Looks like a big headache for the billion dollar rice export industry as many other countries are strict about GE contamination, making a market for another Bayer product.

You may also be interested to know that a bill allowing hemp to be grown in California is nearing passage in the legislature. Easy, stoners, that's hemp, not weed, smoke, pot, dope, maryjane or marijuana. No getting high on this stuff, but it is useful for lots of other stuff from food to canvas to the paper on which our Constitution was drafted.
The Feds won't permit hemp so this will be an all-California deal with no interstate commerce to trigger action by the DEA. We hope.

Do you like golf courses ? Those peaceful green vistas of lush lawns as far as the eye can see ? Then you'll probably be glad that a GE variety of grass developed for golf courses has escaped its experimental limits and entered the wild and may make the whole %#*&@ world look like a golf course. This "frankengrass" can reproduce sexually or asexually and was bred to be reistant to Roundup, the most commonly used herbicide.
Its enviromental impact "remains to be seen", mainly because there's damn little we can do about it, one way or the other.

All of these stories are brought to you courtesy of the Organic Consumers Association and they have lots more like this. If you are interested in what you eat and other such trivial matters, check them out and

StayNaked
jd

Make Ours Organic and Free Trade !

2006-08-23T11:08:00.000-07:00

An update on the Sebastopol Whole Foods anti-free speech policy reported earlier.

The update is: It doesn't exist.

We reported what we thought was a new corporate-wide Whole Foods policy barring political activities at their stores. This is not the case.

The Sebastopol and Santa Rosa stores have barred all political activities because they felt they needed to bar a particularly aggressive Christian group soliciting donations in front of their stores and their lawyers (Wholes Foods' lawyers, not the Christians' lawyers) told them "bar one, bar all". So, in order to get rid of the pushy donation seekers, they also had to get rid of the signature gatherers they had previously allowed.

That's it. Story over. Send the crew back to covering non-developments in decade-old child murders and

Stay Naked
jd

The Iraqi Government Doesn't Exist

2006-08-21T20:54:00.000-07:00

Michael Schwartz, writing for tomdispatch, makes a simple case for the nonexistence of the Iraqi government we have spent so much to create.
A government needs coercive power to enforce its rules, an administrative structure to deliver services and directives and resources to do both. The Iraqis, according to Schwartz, are o for 3, possessing not a single one of the necessary attributes.
And that is just one of the "Seven Facts You Might not Know About the Iraq War". And might not want to know.
These are like the dispatches that were issued as the British and French navies pursued the Bismarck to her doom. Only this time we're the Bismarck.
Read this one, Oh Best Beloved. It is lucid, plausible and , as is usual with fare of this quality coming out of Iraq, indicates that things really are worse than we thought. Again.
In the circumstance we can only recommend that you
Stay Naked
jd

Props to Agitprop...

2006-08-20T21:36:00.000-07:00

Hey Zooheads. Look down the right side of the page and you'll see a link to Agitprop, a great website in our humble opinion. He does these wonderful round-ups of the right wing blogs. Check it out HERE at 'Wingnut Round-up'

------------------------------

Fuck Cnn. Thanks to AmericaBlog for pointing this out. CNN wants you to be afraid of your neighbor...very, very afraid. They even promise to show you how to detect a terrorist...who looks just like you. Maybe you'll even discover that you need to turn yourself in before you blow yourself up?
---------------------------
Keith Olbermann for President. The video below is an updated version of an Olbermann segment titled 'The Nexus of Politics and Terrorism'. He points out times that the Bush administration has benefited politically from times in which we advised to be very very afraid. It is so good it needs no further lead in...watch and wince:)

Stay Skeptical and as always...

Stay Naked.

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Been There, Done That

2006-08-19T13:23:00.000-07:00

You know that haunting feeling that you have already been a place you haven't been or are doing something you haven't done ? They call it deja vú. But, that's not what we're talking about, because we actually have been here before and we actually have done this before.

What are these idiots quacking about now ? Glad you asked.

Once before we were run into a war in the Mideast on the basis of flawed (at best) or falsified intelligence provided to us by the Bush Administration. They are doing it again.

Once before that "intelligence" included the news that the target country had an advanced nuclear weapons program. This time there seems to be more evidence, but the parallel remains.

Once before the "intelligence" included the news that the target country was secretly trying to obtain uranium from Africa. Last time it was Niger, this time it is Congo, but the quality of the information seems about the same, i.e., about nil.

Once before an important conduit of this "intelligence" from the bowels of the Pentagon ( then, the "Office of Special Plans", now, the "Iran Directorate") was a man named Abram Shulsky. Mr. Shulsky, formerly of the OSP, is now a consultant to the ID and from there to Vice-President and ChickenHawk-in-Chief Cheney.

Mr. Shulsky is also closely connected with the Project for a New American Century, the intellectual underpinning of the entire Bush foreign policy.

The whole story is at Raw Story.

They are doing it again. They are phonying up a case to take us to war, this time against Iran. They think we, like they, have learned nothing from the Iraq fiasco and will permit ourselves to be herded by our fears.

Once before there were millions of people in the streets in opposition to the war. It wasn't enough. Start thinking about what it will take to prevent this one, start doing something about it and, at all costs,

Stay Naked
jd

This Shall Not Stand !

2006-08-18T16:46:00.000-07:00

Well, maybe it will stand.
But, not without suffering a searching investigation by the Zoo!
Well, we'll ask a couple of questions, anyway. Already have, in fact.

The question ? Why has Whole Foods adopted a corporate policy against political signature gatherers at their locations ?

Up to very recently, the Whole Foods local to the EZ (in Sebastopol, CA, a nuclear free zone) was Ground Zero for paid and volunteer signature collectors for every cause under the sun. There were never more than two, so the stores were already taking steps to manage any traffic problems that might occur.

Yesterday, the Sebastopol store turned away folks who wanted to gather signatures in support of the latest universal health cared initiative in California, Senate Bill 840. The new policy was given as the reason, but no reason given for the new policy.

The probing eye of the Naked Zoo News Review has been turned toward Whole Foods. Inquiries have been initiated.

We will continue to follow on this change in the formerly-First-Amendment-friendly Whole Foods policy and keep you posted while you consider your options and

Stay Naked
jd

Now We Get It

2006-08-17T13:05:00.000-07:00

For years we have listened to our brethren of The Right rant, rave, froth and bloviate whenever Hollywood types spoke or demonstrated about political issues. Hollywood was denounced as a den of intellectual lightweights who had no business commenting on comic books, to say nothing of public affairs. As the Hollywood hordes were generally on the side of the angels, much was forgiven.

Today we feel the sting of that criticism we have for so long ignored. Nicole Kidman (pictured above in a manner calculated to feature her intellectual attainments) and a group of "Hollywood heavyweights" have boldly stepped forward to take a public stand against terrorism in a full-page LA Times ad.

This, we assume, is to distinquish themselves from the much larger and more influential group that is in favor of terrorism.

The real bell-ringer here, though, is the ad's commitment to defeat terrorism "at all costs". In the present atmosphere and historical moment this can only be construed to include Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, warrantless wiretapping, extraordinary renditions, secret foreign prisons, warrantless and indeterminate detention of American citizens, pointless and ill-executed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and endless support for countless repressive regimes because they are our "allies" in the war on terror.

The defections from this ad should begin soon, as will the backpeddling by Ms. Kidman. In the meantime, keep counting the costs and

Stay Naked
jd

'Are Bush An Idiot?'

2006-08-16T12:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, that title was for kicks. What I'm referring to is NOT my personal belief that the current President of the United States is a moron. I'm pretty comfortable with that fact at this point...but my point of view is not universal. Millions upon millions of Americans have voted for this guy over and over as THEIR choice to run Texas and the entire United States. What I AM referring to is the super (which is TV-talk for the title of the segment you see at the bottom of the screen when you're watching the news) from last nights 'Scarborough Country' in which Joe posited the question, "Is Bush an 'idiot'?'. I'm not sure what putting 'idiot' in quotes means...a complete idiot? as defined by Websters? (More TV-talk, this was an A-Block segment which meant it led the show which meant the producers thought it was the MOST IMPORTANT NEWS OF THE DAY! as 'Scarborough Country is a daily news show)...Anyways, not only did he genuinely ask the question. He found two fairly big-name Journalist types (John Fund on the Right and Lawrence O'Donnell on the Left) who would come on for 10 MINUTES (another mind-boggling TV number) to discuss if the duly elected President was somehow mentally deficient in some critical way. (See below). And how did Joe Scarborough conclude the segment? MSNBC Transcript HERE.

But we do need a president who, I think, is intellectually curious. And that is a big question, whether George W. Bush has the intellectual curiousness—if that‘s a word—to continue leading this country over the next couple of years?

I swear he said...'intellectual curiousness'. Fortunately for Joe, 'curiousness' is a word:)

curiousness n 1: a state of active curiosity [syn: inquisitiveness] 2: the quality of being alien or not native; "the strangeness of a foreigner"

It should be noted that Joe Scarborough is a dyed in the wool Republican. He is a former Congressman elected in the Republican reviolution of 1994. He is a signatory on the famous 'Contract with America'.

This is not satire or a nod to the Daily Show (although the Daily Show is featured in the segment as an example of people making fun of Bush)...

Stay weird and as always...

Stay Naked.

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Some Good News and Some Bad News

2006-08-15T09:41:00.000-07:00

Let's by God start with the good news from Baghdad ! We have a definite show of unity between the Shia majority and the Sunni minority. After all the delays in forming the government and the months of death spiral of sectarian violence, at last, a glimmer of hope as Shia and Sunni join in a common purpose.
Alright, we confess that it might be better if the common purpose was other than to make the United States wrong, but its a start.
At issue is a recent series of explosions in a Shia neighborhood in Baghdad. The Shia residents said it was bombs and mortars and blamed the Sunni insurgents. "Nonsense", says the U.S. military now responsible for preventing such attacks in this area. It was a "gas line explosion" that "triggered secondary blasts, " so saith the U.S. military.
Here's where the good news comes in ! The Sunni insurgents step up to the defense of their Shia brothers and take responsibility for the attack ! See ? Shia and Sunni standing together against a common foe. Us. We're starting to feel better about the whole thing.

(BTW, the above image was the best we could do viv a vis a picture of a Sunni and a Shiite shaking hands. This is al-Jafari, a Shia, and Talibani, a Kurd and the Kurds are "overwhelmingly Sunni". Try google image for "Shia Sunni unity" or "Shia Sunni handshake" and see what you get.)

The bad news comes from Afghanistan. Again. This celebratory group is made up of Taliban fighters. You remember the Taliban. We crushed their military, drove them out of power and established a free and democratic state in their place. Remember ? Oh, surely you remember.
According to this piece by Sara Daniel from Le Nouvel Observateur translated by truthout, things have become very, very grim indeed. That's two "verys".
Among the high ( or low) lights of the report:

The Taliban have attacked 300 schools in the past 6 months to prevent the education of girls.
Confidence in government has collapsed to the point that a recent poll of 29 provinces found that nobody (as in not a single person) would turn to "the authorities" for help with a problem.
Corruption has reached the point, according to former planning Minister Ramazan Bachardoust, "even the Commission Against Corruption is corrupt."
President Karzai, again according to Bachardoust, must rely on the warlords to keep order and the warlords are cutting deals with the Taliban.
And everybody is scheming for a piece of the billion dollar heroin business when "drug experts estimate that there has never been a better year for the poppy harvest in the history of Afghanistan."

Consider these things, Oh Best Beloved, read the rest of the piece if you can spare the anger and the tears, meditate on the lives and treasure that we have squandered on this ill-planned and wretchedly executed enterprise, register to vote and

Stay Naked
jd

Algae Tastes Great! Less Filling!

2006-08-13T07:29:00.000-07:00

Mmm. Looks good doesn't it? You might want to get used to the idea that we are going to be moving our diet down the foodchain as it appears we're killing everything at the top. The LA Times has a brilliant, if horrifying article, on the subject titled 'The Primeval Tide of Toxins' or as a scientist in the article says, 'The rise of slime'.
What are they talking about? It's pretty simple. We're dumping so many toxins into the ocean via run-off, direct dumping (pipes etc.) and the burning of fossil fuels that we are reversing evolution. The most basic organisms...algae, bacteria and other primitive organisms are loving life and exploding in number all over the planet. The reulst is they are literally choking the life out of 'higher organisms' by clouding the water and cutting off light and using up the oxygen creating 'dead zones'.
The article starts with some anecdotes about 'fireweed' ,a type of cyanobacteria found in Moreton Bay, Australia. If you think all algae is mushy and harmless think again

The fireweed began each spring as tufts of hairy growth and spreads across the seafloor fast enough to cover a football field in an hour.
When fishermen touched it, their skin broke out in searing welts. Their lips blistered and peeled. Their eyes burned and swelled shut. Water that splashed from their nets spread the inflammation to their legs and torsos.

Grows fast enough to cover a football field in an hour? Searing welts? According to the article a few guys went to the bathroom without properly cleaning the bacteria off with predictably painful results. At first they didn't know what it was but...

Scientist Judith O'Neil put a tiny sample under a microscope and peered at the long black filaments. Consulting a botanical reference, she identified the weed as a strain of cyanobacteria, an ancestor of modern-day bacteria and algae that flourished 2.7 billion years ago.

and is now flourishing in Australia. I warn you, this is a straighforward article but reading it is like a kick in the stomach. This is not something that may happen if we continue our current trends. It is happening. Now. Everywhere. My favorite quote in the article:

"My kids will tell their children: Eat your jellyfish."

In a related story, Oregon is experiencing the worst 'dead zone' off the coast of Oregan ever recorded as reported HERE by Oregon Public Broadcasting. They've had this phenomenon for the last five years but this year was extra bad.

Oregon State University scientists just back from a research cruise are reporting "a wave of death" off the Oregon Coast.

Underwater sea life is literally suffocating from lack of dissolved oxygen. Beachcombers also reported several unusual fish deaths on the Washington coast this past month. But the latest spot checks of Washington waters have conditions back to normal.

The mystery deepens

Here's local Fawn Sharp:

"We were hoping that is was just a short-term, not a long-term problem or phenomenon that's killing our seafood. But now it's gone. So hopefully, the good Lord willing, it's run its course."

Now it's time for a little game we call cross-quotes.

Oregan Article: ""Shapes started coming into focus and we were seeing what looked to be dead worms -- fairly good sized worms. Then we started coming upon piles and piles of dead Dungeness crabs. We didn't see one living fish all day long."

LA Times Article: "The bottom is littered with the ghostly silhouettes of dead crabs, sea stars and other animals."

The LA Times quote comes from a study of a 'dead zone' off the coast of Louisiana. Remember the Oregan 'dead zone' is a mystery. Here's what the Times had to say about the Louisiana situation

The cause of death is decaying algae. Fed by millions of tons of fertilizer, human and animal waste, and other farm runoff racing down the Mississippi River, tiny marine plants run riot, die and drift to the bottom. Bacteria then take over. In the process of breaking down the plant matter, they suck the oxygen out of seawater, leaving little or none for fish or other marine life.

I have notified the proper authorities in Oregon:)

Stay wet and and as always...

Stay Naked.

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We Need a Program, Because . . .

2006-08-12T13:22:00.000-07:00

. . . you can't tell the players without a program.

A case in point. UPI reports somebody comparing our battle in Iraq to Nazi Germany's battle at Stalingrad. The somebody is William S. Lind, director for something called the Center for Cultural Conservatism at something called the Free Congress Foundation.

Now for those of you too young and/or disinterested to know, Stalingrad was the rock upon which the Nazi juggernaut broke. As Mr. Lind points out in his thoughtful piece, similarities between the Battle of Stalingrad (Aug. 1942 - Feb. 1943) and our Iraq War (March 2003 - ?) include:
1. We and the Germans committed too few troops;
2. We and the Germans underestimated the capacity of the enemy to counter-attack;
3. We and the Germans were able to take, but not hold, our objective; and
4. We and the Germans committed resources we needed elsewhere.

A fairly damning indictment, comparing our present effort to one of the truly historic military debacles of the modern era. So who is this harsh critic and what point of view does he represent ?

Well, the Free Congress Foundation describes itself as "politically conservative" think tank concerned with preserving "our traditional, Judeo-Christian, Western culture". They are worried we are sliding " into the cultural and moral decay of political correctness".

So, much for the Mother Ship. What about the Center for Cultural Conservatism ? Once again it is focussed on the " necessary, unbreakable, and causal relationship between traditional Western, Judeo-Christian values [and] definitions of right and wrong".

These aren't President Bush's liberal hyenas, snapping at his heels, this is his ideological base.
Pretty soon the supporters of this was are going to be able to meet in phone booths.

We, of course, recommend that you keep a careful eye on these shifting political winds and

Stay Naked.
jd

Chad Vader: Episode II

2006-08-11T12:38:00.000-07:00

Hey Zooheads, sorry about the delay. Here's the promised second episode of Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager.

and let's give credit where credit is due:

Brought to you by Blame Society Productions. Watch many more of our films on our main website at: http://www.splu.net and also check out http://channel101.com for more shows like this - the unavoidable future of entertainment!

Written and Directed by Aaron Yonda and Matt Sloan

Produced by Courtney Collins (http://courtneycollins.com)

Music - Andrew Yonda (http://buffali.com)
Cinematography - Tona Williams (http://tona.bigbite.org) and John Urban (http://urbanphotoco.com)
Lighting Director - John Urban (http:urbanphotoco.com)
Casting Director - Courtney Collins (http://courtneycollins.com)
Assitant Director - Doug Chapin
Sound Design - John Lee
Sound Technicians - Kathy Fischer and Liberty Karp
Location Supervisor - Amanda Biederman
Editing - Aaron Yonda and Matt Sloan
Special Effects - Aaron Yonda
Audio Mixing - Aaron Yonda

Starring:
Chad - Aaron Yonda
Clint/Voice of Chad - Matt Sloan
Randy - Brad Knight (http://monkeybusinessinstitut e.com)
Lloyd - Rob Matsushita (http://robmatsushita.blogspot .com)
Clarissa - Christina LaVicka (http://myspace.com/christinaa ppleton)
Tammy - KeaLynn Kees
Tony - Asa Derks
Jeremy Wickstrom - Paul Guse
Angry Customer - Damon Butler
Weird Jimmy - Craig Johnson
Waiter - Doug Reed

With: Cindy Brekken, Casey Brown, Vijay Prabhu Dandamudi, Drew Foerster, Nick Foerster, Kate George, Sindee Kleckner, Collin Klug, Keefe Klug, Jordan Marko, Caiden Melendy, Chris Melendy, Deanna Reed, Ilsa Reed, Laszlo Reed, Justin Sprecher, Marcus Trapp

Filmed on Location at Willy Street Co-op, Madison, WI
Special Thanks to Brendan Smith ... (more) (less)

Stay Interstellar and as always...

Stay Naked.

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I'd Like to Buy the World a Choke

2006-08-10T08:50:00.000-07:00

Or a Pepsi. Makes no difference to us, we treat 'em both the same.

The accompanying map is for the discerning consumer in Las Vegas NV who wishes to patronize those locations featuring his favorite cola and very handy it would be for a person who gave a gram of rat feces about the choice.

A map of India made for this purpose, however, would now have to omit the entire state of Kerala as it has banned the production and sale of both beverages throughout its jurisdiction. Why ? We're glad you asked.

Because recent scientific tests reveal the products to contain a "cocktail of three to five different pesticides". Maybe it was just a little pesticide ? How about "24 times above the limits set by the Indian government".

Kerala (population 31.8 million) followed several other Indian states which had banned the sodas from their schools, colleges and hospitals, but was the first to issue a state wide ban.

Coke and Pepsi spokespeople didn't. Speak, that is. Unavailable for comment.

AlJazeera will give you the full yarn while you reach for a Snapple and

Stay Naked
jd

Lebanese Oil Spill

2006-08-09T15:07:00.000-07:00

See the pic above? It shows the 'Lebanese Oil Spill of 2006'. I don't know that I'd call it a spill. A spill makes you think it was an accident. The Lebanese 'spill' is the result of Israeli bombing and an assortment of other causes. Beirut's Mayor Abdel Monem Ariss:

...it appeared other factors also contributed to the environmental disaster _ a leak from an Egyptian commercial boat that was apparently hit by a Hezbollah missile off Beirut, another from an Israeli gunboat also hit by Hezbollah, as well as effluent from a cement factory in northern Lebanon that attacked by Israeli forces.

So, help is on the way right?

A shipment of 10 trucks from Kuwait containing material and equipment was to arrive Friday night via Syria to help contain the spill, but crews cannot get to the shores to start cleanup work because of the hostilities

Well that sucks. This would easily be the biggest story on earth and you'd see a massive international repsonse to clean this up. It's already polluted Lebanese and Syrian beaches and appears headed to Greece and Turkey...

Note: the spill occured over a week ago. Have you heard of it?

-------------------------------------------------------------

If you haven't seen this yet sit back and enjoy the life of 'Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager'

I love the web. Episode II tomorrow:)

Stay Freaky and above all...

Stay Naked.

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I couldn't resist.

2006-08-08T14:55:00.000-07:00

This is just one of those 'only on the web' kind of stories. 'The Rapture Index' is for real. In the interest of fairness, I will let the webmaster explain it himself

The Rapture Index has two functions: one is to factor together a number of related end time components into a cohesive indicator, and the other is to standardize those components to eliminate the wide variance that currently exists with prophecy reporting.

The Rapture Index is by no means meant to predict the rapture, however, the index is designed to measure the type of activity that could act as a precursor to the rapture.

You could say the Rapture index is a Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity, but I think it would be better if you viewed it as prophetic speedometer. The higher the number, the faster we're moving towards the occurrence of pre-tribulation rapture.

The higher the number...the faster we're moving towards the occurence of pre-tribulation rapture. Let's see the numbers

Rapture Index of 85 and Below: Slow prophetic activity
Rapture Index of 85 to 110: Moderate prophetic activity
Rapture Index of 110 to 145: Heavy prophetic activity
Rapture Index above 145: Fasten your seat belts

Whoa. So anything above 145 it's go time. Where are we at right now?

Rapture Index 158

Oh oh. What are the criteria?

1. False Christs
2. Occult
3. Satanism
4. Unemployment
5. Inflation
6. Interest Rates
7. The Economy
8. Oil Supply/Price
9. Debt and Trade
10. Financial unrest
11. Leadership
12. Drug abuse
13. Apostasy
14. Supernatural
15. Moral Standards
16. Anti-Christian
17. Crime Rate
18. Ecumenism
19. Globalism
20. Tribulation Temple
21. Anti-Semitism
22. Israel
23. Gog (Russia)
24. Persia (Iran)
25. The False Prophet
26. Nuclear Nations
27. Global Turmoil
28. Arms Proliferation
29. Liberalism
30. The Peace Process
31. Kings of the East
32. Mark of the Beast
33. Beast Government
34. The Antichrist
35. Date Settings
36. Volcanoes
37. Earthquakes
38. Wild Weather
39. Civil Rights
40. Famine
41. Drought
42. Plagues
43. Climate
44. Food Supply
45. Floods

Wow. So what can be done? Apparently nothing...other then accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior of course.

Stay Wiggley and as always...

Stay Naked.

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You Have to Love It !

2006-08-07T08:38:00.000-07:00

This gives every appearance of being legit. A small clothing company that sells in France adapted its "Garment Care" label for the French market.

After the usual admonitions about warm water and avoiding bleach, the last two lines read

"We are sorry Our President is an idiot.
We didn't vote for him."

Well, neither did we.

The official line by the clothing company, Tom Bihn, is that the joke was intended to be on Tom Bihn himself, president of the tiny company and that others (like us) "assumed" it was about a different president.

The company made a shirt with the label englarged and reproduced on the front and sold them to raise money for a a Seattle veterans organization. We are sorry to say they are sold out, but raised $18,000+ for the vets.

Good on ya, Tom Bihn & Co. and since we can't get a shirt we'll just

Stay Naked
jd

Vote Lieberman!

2006-08-06T07:54:00.000-07:00

So saeth Tom DeLay, Ann Coulter and Bill Kristol! Seriously, I am not making this up.

Tom DeLay:

[Lieberman's] very good on the war," DeLay said during an interview this week on the Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" program.

Ann Coulter:

Conservative columnist Ann Coulter's defending Lieberman, as well, going on at some length during an interview with Fox's Neal Cavuto to explain how much she admires the senator and suggesting that, instead of fighting for the Democratic nomination in Connecticut, Lieberman ought to switch parties. "I think he should come all the way and become a Republican," argues Coulter, who says of Lieberman and the GOP: "at least he'd fit in with the party."

Bill Kristol:

Lieberman's latest campaign contribution list features a $500 donation from Bill Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard, a publication so Pravda-like in its cheerleading for the Iraq imbroglio – and for an attack on Iran -- that Vice President Dick Cheney has stacks of each new edition delivered to the White House for distribution to the staff.

Thank you Common Dreams for putting these quotes together. Check out the article HERE.

Stay Republ...ummm Democ...errr...

Stay Naked.

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Author Steven Kotler TODAY on the Zoo!

2006-08-05T05:50:00.000-07:00

Hey Zooheads. We're fired up to have author Steven Kotler on the Naked Zoo today at 10:00amPST/1:00pmEST. Listen live at 90.5fm if you're in the San Francisco Bay Area or live on-line at Kwmr.org.
Steven Kotler is a searcher. Of answers. Of adventures. He is also a collector. Of questions. Of stories. Of experiences. 'West of Jesus' is his auto-biographical attempt to explain the seemingly unexplainable. How does one 'experience' God or the eternal? How does one experience 'one-ness' with the universe? and what are you actually experiencing? Is it God? A neurochemical reaction in the brain? Does our knowledge of brain chemistry enhance or detract from our experience of God? Kotler tackles these questions with a gifted storytellers skill and a journalists attention to 'just the facts ma'am'. I found 'West of Jesus' to be an exhilarating, fascinating romp into 'Surfing, science and the Origins of Belief'...

You can buy the book or check out more about Kotler at his website...

StevenKotler.com

"My earliest childhood belief was a sneaking suspicion that the world was more mysterious than people were letting on"

Stay Mystical and as always....

Stay Naked.

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Just a Footnote

2006-08-04T19:53:00.000-07:00

We see a house burning and we think, "I hope they have insurance". Have a car minor car accident and you think about insurance. Have a major accident and you think about car and health insurance. And maybe disability insurance. Insurance, in one way or another, touches everything we do.

Advertising for the industry portrays it as caring and compassionate, the "good hands people" and your "good neighbor". Unfortunately, this image is frequently so distant from reality that the Enterprise would have to travel at Warp Factor Six for weeks to bridge the gap.

The Elder Zookeeper is, among other things, a lawyer, licensed (as the saying goes) to appear before all the courts of California. He has recently been involved in an effort to get those courts to recognize a tool provided by the Legislature to help control abuse by insurance companies. The experience has been an eyeopener for the E.Z. who was no fan of insurance companies when he started.

The chief defendant in this case (who so far has been absolutely kicking our butts) is a company called Unum-Provident. The California Insurance Commissioner recently described them as an "outlaw company". Otherwise, Unum is a gigantic national insurance company.

We are now seeking to have the California Supreme Court review the disasterously ill-conceived opinions of the lower courts. What follows is one footnote from a letter urging that review. The footnote contains the partial record of one insurance company. Read and be educated.

See, e.g., Hedley-Whyte v. Unum Life Ins. Co. of America, No. Civ. A. 94-11731-GAO, 1996 WL 208492, at *3 (D. Mass. Mar. 6, 1996) (O’Toole, J.) (noting that attorney’s fees were particularly appropriate because Unum Life’s construction of its policy was so clearly at odds with its plain language); Keller v. Unum Life Ins. Co. of America, No. 90 Civ. 5718 (VLB), 1992 WL 346343, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 1992) (describing Unum’s behavior as “culpably abusive”).
Numerous courts have reversed these companies’ denials of benefits under a de novo standard, many times criticizing their practices. See Curtin v. Unum Life Ins. Co. of America, 298 F. Supp. 2d 149, 159 (D. Me. 2004) (“[T]his Court finds that Defendants exhibited a low level of care to avoid improper denial of claims at great human expense.”); Locher v. Unum Life Ins. Co. of America, No. 96 Civ. 3828(LTS)(HPB), 2002 WL 362769, at *9-10 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 7, 2002) (overturning Unum’s denial of benefits, despite Unum’s argument that the claimant was not disabled because she worked a full day the day she left her job); Barone v. Unum Life Ins. Co. of America, 186 F. Supp. 2d 777, 787 (E.D. Mich. 2002); Wilkes v. Unum Life Ins. Co. of America, No. 01-C-182-C, 2002 WL 926279, at *10 (W.D. Wis. Jan. 29, 2002) (finding “that the defendant’s position was not substantially justified or taken in good faith”); Hall v. Unum Life Ins. Co. of America, No. 97-CV-1828, 1999 WL 33485551, at *8 (D. Colo. Nov. 1, 1999) vacated in part on other grounds, 300 F.3d 1197 (10th Cir. 2002); Leva v. First Unum Ins. Co., No. 96 CIV 8590(DC), 1999 WL 294802, at *1-2 (S.D.N.Y. May 11, 1999) (noting that “Unum is ‘culpable’ in the sense that it did not consider [the plaintiff’s] application with the care that she deserved,” and that the only medical review of the claim was done by a registered nurse, who happened to be the claims examiner’s mother); Jones v. Unum Life Ins. Co. of America, No. 99-7173, 1998 WL 778366, at *6 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 6, 1998), vacated in part on other grounds, 223 F.3d 130 (2d Cir. 2000); Ragsdale v. Unum Life Ins. Co. of America, 999 F. Supp. 1016, 1026 (N.D. Ohio 1998); Dishman v. Unum Life Ins. Co. of America, No. 96-0015-JSL, 1997 WL 906146, at *11-13 (C.D. Cal. May 9, 1997) (noting that the court would have reached the same decision under an arbitrary and capricious standard, and describing Unum Life’s “unscrupulous conduct” in engaging in “bad faith denial of large claims as a strategy for settling them for substantially less than the amount owed”); Hamner v. Unum Life Ins. Co. of America, No. C 96-1973 TEH, 1997 WL 257515, at *6; (N.D. Cal. May 6, 1997); Mays v. Unum Life Ins. Co. of America, No. 95 C 1168, 1995 WL 631807, at *9 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 24, 1995); Findings of fact and law in: e.g.: Hangarter v. Paul Revere Life Ins. Co. 236 F.Supp.2d 1069, 1107 (N.D.Cal., 2002); Galanty v Paul Revere 23 Cal.4th 368, 388 [1 P.3d 658, 672-672, 97 Cal.Rptr.2d 67,82] (2000); Grosz-Salomon v. Paul Revere Life (2001, 9th Cir.) 237 F.3d 1154, 1157; Dishman v. UNUM Life Ins. Co. of America, 269 F.3d 974, 986-987 (9th Cir. 2001); Dym v. Provident Life and Acc. Ins. Co., 19 F. Supp.2d 1147 (S.D. Cal. 1998); Russell v. Paul Revere Life Ins. Co., 148 F.Supp.2d 392 (D.C. Del. 2001)

Oh, yeah. Stay Naked.
jd

The 9/11 Tapes

2006-08-03T08:19:00.000-07:00

Kudos to Vanity Fair for their incredible article based on the taped recordings from NORADs Northeast Headquarters on September 11th, 2001. It's amazing to hear the actual unfolding of events through the eyes and ears of the people trained and dedicated to protecting US airspace on the east coast. Some of the details that come through are how the Pentagon lied about the initial reaction to the hijackings, how the 9/11 panel felt deceived by the Pentagon and further, these tapes will hopefully give some conspiracy theorists (Pops included;) pause...HERE is a link to the full article.

When I asked Nasypany (Major Kevin Nasypany, the facilitys mission-crew commander) about the conspiracy theories—the people who believe that he, or someone like him, secretly ordered the shootdown of United 93 and covered it up—the corners of his mouth began to quiver. Then, I think to the surprise of both of us, he suddenly put his head in his hands and cried. "Flight 93 was not shot down," he said when he finally looked up. "The individuals on that aircraft, the passengers, they actually took the aircraft down. Because of what those people did, I didn't have to do anything."

What Major Nasyphany is talking about is the fact, clear from the tapes, that Flight 93 was already down before our military had a chance to organize a response.

But by the time NEADS (Northeast Air Defense Sector) gets the report of a bomb on United 93, everyone on board is already dead. Following the passengers' counterattack, the plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania at 10:03 a.m., 4 minutes before Cleveland Center notified NEADS, and a full 35 minutes after a Cleveland Center controller, a veteran named John Werth, first suspected something was wrong with the flight. At 9:28, Werth actually heard the guttural sounds of the cockpit struggle over the radio as the hijackers attacked the pilots.

I have to say going through these tapes, watching the video below, knowing that Oliver Stones 9/11 movie is about to be released is bringing back the horror of that day. I am overcome with sadness when I see the World Trade Center burn...sadness for the loss of life but more deeply, sadness that there are people who hate 'us'...'Americans' so much they would commit such an act. I believe that I understand how Muslims feel when they see images of Qana. Why do they hate us so much? Unfortunately, I don't think we like the answer too much.

The documentary 'Loose Change' is probably most responsible for stoking the conspriacy fires. In the interest of fair play I'm going to inlcude a clip below below.

I believe that pretty much all sides want us to be afraid. The terrorists want us to experience terror, the US Government wants us to be constantly afraid, the conspriacy theorists stoke fear and paranoia until no matter who you are or what your belief you're living scared. Well I reject that approach. I reject living in fear...I do so imperfectly but I still do it:) For me real fear is crossing a room to ask a pretty girl to dance...now that's fear;)

Stay graceful Zooheads...Stay Positive and as always...

Stay Naked.

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Lost in the Shuffle

2006-08-02T06:13:00.000-07:00

The world is largely agreed and independent international agencies have found that Iran, under the leadership of an insane anti-Semite Holocaust denier, is racing toward nuclear weapons capability under the guise of a nuclear "energy" program and we or the Israelis or both are going to have to do something about it pretty damn quick or the smoking gun will come in the form a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv or Chicago from a device smuggled in by Tehran's terrorist allies.

We trust we have adequately summed up the case for attacking Iran as derived from the various utterances and innuendoes from Messrs. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, their various minions and media mouthpieces and, of course, Ms. Rice.

Sound familiar ? Sound like the run-up to Iraq ? It is. Does it have fatal flaws like the case against Iraq? It does. Do we know about these flaws ? We do, but they have been lost in underreporting and the growing thunder of the war drums. Fortunately, a principal flaw, reported back in March in the New York Times can be summed up in a single word:
molybdenum.

The whole story is, of course, extremely technical. the Nukes-4-Dummies version goes like this. For nuclear energy or nuclear weapons, both of which require enriched uranium, you need yellowcake uranium (shades of Niger). From the yellowcake you make a gas, UF4, which you run through a series (or cascade) or centrifuges to make UF6 from which you make the enriched uranium.

Unless, your yellowcake is contaminated with, you guessed it, molybdenum. Unless you can separate it out at the UF4 stage it will still contaminate the UF6 and wreck your centrifuges before you get anything useful.

The Times said Iran has been struggling with this problem without success for twenty years.

So when Bush & Co. ratchet up the case for war on Iraq (and they are) think aluminum tubes, think mobile biological weapons labs, think forged documents, do everything you can think of to stop them and

Stay Naked
jd

Ned Lamont on 'The Colbert Report'

2006-08-01T15:50:00.000-07:00

The Democratic Primary in Connecticut is on August 8th dear Zooheads and yours truly is going to work the phones for Lamont tomorrow! Check out the most excellent Lamont appearance on 'The Colbert Report'...Fieberman is scared witless.

---------------------------------------------

(This is a pic of the Big Sur Fire Brigade...Army Brigades are much larger (3000-5000 troops;)...
Here's a not-trick question. How many combat brigades does the US Army have ready to deploy to Iraq? Ok, here's the math...subtract the combat brigades already in Iraq...and you have ZERO! Thanks Raw Story for posting the letter from the group of foreign policy experts formed by what passes for Democratic leadership these days:O) Here's some highlights

Two thirds of the Army's operating force, active and reserve, is now reporting in as unready.
There is not a single non-deployed Army Brigade Combat Team in the United States that is ready to deploy.

That's not so good...and fairly self-explanatory...onwards to Lebananon--->

I wish I could import the graphic from this site but I can't so you need to check it out. The site is http://www.moiz.ca/coffin.htm aka Israeli/Lebanese Coffin Counter. It's a graphic representation, in coffins, of the death toll so far in the dust-up in Lebanon and Israel. From the site

Each coffin represents a single person killed in the on-going conflict between Israel and Lebanon. I will be updating this page daily with new numbers taken from BBC's coverage on the conflict. For comments and suggestions please email me at info[at]moiz.ca

As soon as this conflict is over, and I hope its over soon, I will update this page with a much detailed information graphic. Right now, I am unable to get reliable sources, that update regularly, with demographic details of the dead and the destruction caused on both sides. For now, I am only going to be showing the number of dead without any other related data.

Last updated on July 30, 2006 15:24 EST

Current Figures:
Israel: 51
UN: 4
Canada: 8
Lebanon: 750

Stay Informed, Give blood and as always...

Stay Naked.

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Must be nice...

2006-07-30T07:58:00.000-07:00

ROCK FALLS, Ill. — Alan Beggerow has stopped looking for work. Laid off as a steelworker at 48, he taught math for a while at a community college. But when that ended, he could not find a job that, in his view, was neither demeaning nor underpaid.

So instead of heading to work, Mr. Beggerow, now 53, fills his days with diversions: playing the piano, reading histories and biographies, writing unpublished Western potboilers in the Louis L’Amour style — all activities once relegated to spare time. He often stays up late and sleeps until 11 a.m.

“I have come to realize that my free time is worth a lot to me"

The picture you see above is Alan Beggerow. The text above is the first couple paragraphs from a NY Times article titled, "Men Not Working and Not Wanting Just Any Job" I initially felt a surge of anger as I read the extremely well-written and well-researched piece by Louis Uchitelle & David Leonhardt. Who the hell were these guys that just gave up work but then I realized it was something else...jealousy...resentment. Why do they get to not work when I need to work just to live? It became much more of an existential read. Here's some of the more poignant quotes.

“I was always thinking if there was some way I could get out of this, do something else,” Mr. Beggerow said. “What made me so upset was the insecurity of it all and the humiliation. I don’t want to take a job that would put me through that again.”

“I’ve been through a lot of layoffs over the years, and there is a certain procedure you follow,” he said. “You contact the headhunters. You go looking for other work. You do all of that, and this time around it didn’t work.”

How about you Zoooheads? Happy with your job? Have a job? Do you relate to these guys? Angry at them? Jealous? Grateful? I'm all of these...

I will say this. I recognize I am in serious trouble when I have too much freetime. Unemployment is the kiss of death for me...I need, truly need to keep occupied. Idle hands are the Devils playthings is not an abstract concept for me. It's a truth.

Stay together friends and as always..

Stay Naked.

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Now is the Time for a Pre-emptive Strike

2006-07-29T16:35:00.000-07:00

People can disagree (and we do) about whether the U.S. attack on Iraq was truly a pre-emptive strike as generally defined. Skeptics (including us) wonder if Iraq ever constituted an actual threat to us, much less the imminent threat the Administration presented.

In this case, we don't care exactly how "imminent" the threat is, it is plenty imminent enough and justifies immediate action by all available forces on all available fronts. Pull out the stops, throw in the reserves and hold nothing back.

What are we talking about ? A story on the Boston Globe website picked up by the AP and then truthout and that is it so far. The Bush Administration has introduced a draft bill that would give the President sweeping powers to detain American citizens and hold them indefinitely without trial.

Let's see if we can boil that down. AMERICAN CITIZENS HELD INDEFINITELY WITHOUT TRIAL. Yeah that sums it up.

Let's not wait until the House has passed this turkey and we are waiting to see if the Dems in the Senate have the guts to filibuster it. Lets not wait until until we have another "attack on the homeland" (and if you are wondering about the quotes, set aside an hour and watch loosechange911 second edition. By itself, the fact that the only three highrise buildings ever to collapse due to fire all happened in that same place on the same day is enough to justify a little skepticism).

No, lets stomp this puppy to death next week when Attorney General Gonzalez appears before the Senate Armed Services Committee regarding the proposal. Call your Senators. Call the White House. Write the editor. Go to Washington.

The bill will only apply to "enemy combatants", but we are fairly sure we qualify.

Get active and

Stay Naked
jd

Notes from Iraq

2006-07-28T10:53:00.000-07:00

What do you think of when you see Old Glory? I see promise. Hope. The promise of a better life. Hope for a better world. I see more people enjoying more Freedom than at any other point in history. I also see where we come up short but I don't blame the flag anymore than I blame Jesus for those guys that come to my door in tightly pressed white shirts:) But not everyone sees what I see. Below is an excerpt from a Iraqi news source Azzman.com. HERE is the link to this particular story.

The U.S. flag is associated in Iraqi minds with the surgical strikes in crowded cities such as Falluja, Tal Affar, Ramadi, Qaim and Baaquba.

The U.S. flag is associated with humiliating practices like ordering university female students in Mosul to take off their clothes inside the campus.

The U.S. flag is linked to the sexual scandals committed at Abu Ghraib prison which has now become more notorious than the days of the former President Saddam Hussein.

The U.S. flag is related to those marines who raped and then murdered the Iraqi virgin in the city of Mahmodiya.

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Azzman.com is a valuable resource for stories such as the following. We know what's going on in Lebanon. We know what's going on in Baghdad. But what about 'the rest of Iraq'.

Let's head South.

Security worsens in south; top cleric warns of popular uprising. Whoops.

Security conditions are worsening in several cities in southern Iraq amid reports of clashes between Shiite militias and the British troops in the region.

In at least three big cities – Basra, Amara and Diwaniya – the militias are almost in full control and have clashed with foreign troop or bombed their bases.

That doesn't sound so good. How about the North. I understand it's pretty mellow, controlled by the Kurds etc.

U.S., Turkish contacts unnerve Kurds What's this all about?

Turkish officials say Kurdish rebels known as PKK have killed at least 15 Turkish troops in the past few days through cross-border attacks from inside Iraq and have escalated their operations.

So far the U.S. is reluctant to give Ankara the green-light to conduct cross-border attacks to flush out the rebels.

However, Ankara has made it clear to Washington that its patience is running thin and has began bombing northern Iraq despite U.S. warnings.

Oh.

So, the situation is deteriorating in the South, we know Baghdad is screwed and now it looks like Turkey might invade Northern Iraq. Lovely. Tea anyone?
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I just came across this video of a UN Ambulance (stolen?) being allegedly used to move Palestian fighters.

Stay Awake and as always...

Stay Naked.

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Chalk One for Israel

2006-07-27T17:54:00.000-07:00

It might be possible for readers to gather the impression that at least the Elder Zookeeper harbors some anti-Israeli (although he prefers the "anti-Zionist" formulation) bias. A typical post on the subject tends not to cast Israel's conduct in a favorable light.

It should be noted that the E.Z. stifled the impulse to immediately post U.N. Sec.Gen Kofi Annan's charge that the Israeli artillery fire that killed four U.N. observers in Southern Lebanon was "apparently deliberate". That seemed a little hasty (even to us) and we were confident that subsequent revelations would be sufficiently damning to be worth the wait. (There's that bias again.)

Subsequent revelations have turned out a little differently that we supposed. One of the late observers (the Canadian) had sent recent emails indicating that Israeli fire near their position was a "tactical necessity", apparently to deal with Hizbollah firing positions themselves deliberately sited to take advantage of the "shelter"of the U.N. outpost.

So, in the Israeli/Annan duel on this topic, score one for Israel and

Stay Naked
jd

White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten on Stem Cell Research.

2006-07-26T13:23:00.000-07:00

It's not often you see a mainstream media figure take apart an Administration flunkey. Josh Bolten was sent by the White House to appear on 'Meet The Press' to explain the Presidents position on Stem-Cell Research and explain why the President vetoed Congress's bid to lift restrictions on human embryonic research. Below is Russert taking the Administrations argument apart. Lovely stuff...enjoy.

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The word is out. Dump Condi Rice as Secretary of State. She is being called 'incompetent' by...conservatives? Yep. Insightmag.com which is about as conservative as you can get without burning a cross on your lawn. Check it out HERE. Want a taste? Sure you do

"Rice attempted to increase pressure on Israel to stand down and to demonstrate restraint," said Stephen Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. "The rumor is that she was told flatly by the prime minister's office to back off."

I love rumors...

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Remember that great Rolling Stone piece on The Rendon Group? We highlighted it HERE on the Zoo. Anyways, they outdid themselves with an AWESOME article by James Bamford titled "Iran: The Next War"

Stay beautiful and as always...

Stay Naked.

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"Right now, I would love to kill George Bush."

2006-07-25T13:55:00.000-07:00

Who could say such a thing? What beast of a person could utter such a profane statement? Well, It was none other than NOBEL PEACE Prize Winner (1976) Betty Williams. Who was she talking to? Hundreds of schoolchildren in Brisbane Australia. According to 'The Australian', the following was the reaction of the audience...

Her young audience at the Brisbane City Hall clapped and cheered.

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Do you know where the hell Matt is?

I like Matt.

Stay Moving and as always...

Kill The President...umm.. I mean...

Stay Naked.

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Now Can We Begin to Hope ?

2006-07-24T11:21:00.000-07:00

It is easy enough to find Democrats beginning to be optimistic about their chances for regaining control of the House and/or Senate in the Fall elections.

Veteran Dem strategist and attack dog James Carville thinks things are looking pretty good. Dem Party Chairman Howard Dean is on his way to the bank to deposit the victories and start drawing interest.

It is understandable, Oh Best Beloved, if you are less sanguine and these seers have been (spectacularly) wrong before. So Democratic predictions have to be taken with a grain of the proverbial and Republican predictions (even ignoring their shrill and hysterical tone) are not to be trusted.

Then there is The Note. Created by ABC news, The Note has risen to almost mythic status in political circles. It is the first read, must read morning starter in Washington and far beyond. And this morning it carries ten reasons for Democrat optimism and Republican despair.

Now you can read, grin and

Stay Naked
jd

An American in Paris.

2006-07-23T07:27:00.000-07:00

Who woulda thunk it? The year after Lance Armstrong wraps up his total domination of the Tour De France with SEVEN straight wins another American is atop the podium in Paris. This time it is former Armstrong teammate and current Phonak team leader Floyd Landis (pictured above). His victory includes a huge collapse on Stage 16 and historic comeback the following day when he took the race "a la pedal" (with the pedal) with pure guts, fire and anger...so good on ya Landis...although most no one over here will notice:)

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Ted Koppel is 'reporting' in a NY Times op-ed piece that the 'United States is already at war with Iran'. He is basing this analysis on a conversation he had with a 'senior Jordanian intelligence official'. (Thanks to HuffPo's Eat The Press for this...check it out HERE)

Koppel goes on to note that "over the past couple of months alone, he told me, Hamas has received more than $300 million in cash, provided by Iran and funneled through Syria" and "the more than 12,000 missiles and rockets...in Hezbollah's arsenal were largely provided by Iran."

Really?Hamas and Hezbollah? I can't understand how he could say such a thing? I wonder what Hamas is going to do with $300 million in cash? Perhaps buy some Blackhawk helicopters from Saudi Arabia? Interestingly, this Jordanian intellience officer echoes many of the same sentiments as George Bush...read on dear...umm...reader.

According to the Jordanian intelligence officer, Iran is reminding America's traditional allies in the region that the United States has a track record of leaving its friends in the lurch -- in Vietnam in the 70's, in Lebanon in the 80's, in Somalia in the 90's.

In his analysis, the implication that this decade may witness a precipitous American withdrawal from Iraq has begun to produce an inclination in the region toward appeasing Iran.

It is in Iraq, he told me, "where the United States and the coalition forces must confront the Iranians.'' He added, "You must build up your forces in Iraq and you must announce your intention to stay."

So he cautions against 'cutting and running'. What say you Zoohead? Are all of the events we're witnessing in the Middle East right now merely a proxy war with Iran? Are we really engaged in the early stages of World War III (as Newt Gingrich asserts)? Do you think more troops need to be deployed in Baghdad (Gen. Abizaid does:) Maybe Bush and the neoncons are right? Frightening thought isn't it?

Stay Mobile and as always...

Stay Naked.

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The Miracle of Birth

2006-07-22T20:04:00.000-07:00

Many of you are looking at the accompanying image and saying, "That has nothing to do with birth, its a bomb exploding." Any you would be right. The technically savvy among you might say, "That is a napalm bomb exploding", and they would also be right. And you would all be missing the point.

Our Secretary of State, and nascent presidential candidate, Condoleeza Rice has described the Israeli bombs falling on Lebanon as the "birth pangs of a new Middle East". See ? Its a good thing. Now she didn't say whether she meant the "democratic, stable and free Middle East" the Administration has been predicting for some time or the "U.S. dominated secure source of cheap oil Middle East" some skeptics have accused us of seeking, so we guess you can take your pick.

In any case, this birth seems to be taking longer than was originally contemplated when Messrs. Cheney and Rumsfeld predicted that the Iraq war would take "weeks, not months". Perhaps we should be thinking about inducing labor.

Or maybe we should be thinking about Plan B which is the subject of a Reuters story with sourcing so murky you can't tell if it is a high American or Iraqi official who opines that "Iraq as a political project is finished". Plan B, to continue the baby/birth analogy, involves a Solomonic splitting of the baby (Iraq) in two, East and West. Details of splitting Baghdad remain to be be resolved, but surely enough killing can provide a solution.

Maybe that's what President Bush meant when he responded to President Putin's lack of enthusiasm for Iraqi democracy by saying, "Just wait." Waiting has not turned out to be a productive strategy in Afghanistan or Iraq or Lebanon so far so we'll just have to remain patient and

Stay Naked
jd

Oh, Just One More Thing

2006-07-21T13:47:00.000-07:00

Oh, we know, we know. There's plenty to worry about, what with Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Darfur, global warming, peak oil, AIDS, Chechnya, avian flu, George Bush, rising oceans, erectile disfunction, broken borders . . . well, you get the picture. And we sympathize.

There is, however, just one more thing. War in space. Why are we thinking about this ? Because the Chinese are thinking about this. Why are they Chinese thinking about this ? Because we are thinking about this.

Writing in the Chinese paper Jiefang Junbao, Ge Zhou took note of the newest chief of United States Air Force Space Command, Gen. Kevin Patrick "Chily" Chilton, the first astronaut to hold the post, a development Zhou greets with something less that enthusiasm.

You see, USAFSC is tasked with protecting the United States through the "control and exploitation of space". Says so right on their homepage.

That this goal might be at odds with our obligations under the Outer Space Treaty does not seem to be a matter of significant import to USAFSC or Chily Chilton. The Chinese, apparently take a different view.

Chily will be trying to achieve creation of a "space patrol fleet" by 2014, a short eight years away, so that we will be able to "control space". He will also, we hope, be worrying about whether space combat will produce so much debris in orbit as to jeapordize any future interplanetary mission.

Just one more thing. Keep looking up and

Stay Naked
jd

Luck Fieberman

2006-07-20T15:52:00.000-07:00

Hey there Zooheads. As you know, one half of the Naked Zoo lives in Connecticut. This lovely New England state is on the front lines of the struggle for the heart of the Democratic Party. We have a blistering race for Democratic Nomination for Senator. Greenwich native and political upstart Ned Lamont seems poised to knock off 18-year veteran and former Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman (D-CT). We make no bones about our allegiences here on the Zoo. Joe has got to go. We think Ned needs a rallying cry, something that'll really get the troops galvalinzed and we think we might be onto something. So cry out...

Luck Fieberman!

Yahoo is reporting a Quinnipiac University poll saying Ned is now leading Joe 51-47%!

Stay political and as always...

Stay Naked.

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“Members, now is not the time to go wobbly. Let’s give victory a chance.”

2006-07-19T11:35:00.000-07:00

Remeber that great quote? Well it was uttered by none other than Congressman Gil Gutknecht (R-MN) . Rep. Gutknecht has been a HUGE supporter of the War in Iraq...until he actually visited Iraq recently. Here are some of his insights from our friends at Mankato Free Press...also known as 'South Central Minnesotas Information Gateway:)

“The condition there is worse than I expected,” he said. “... I have to be perfectly candid: Baghdad is a serious problem.”

Thank you for that penetrating glimpse into the realm of the obvious. He goes on:

Gutknecht was critical of some of the “spin” from Bush administration officials in the Pentagon and the State Department. He specifically pointed to past statements that a few hundred insurgents were causing the violence in the Iraq. Military officials say they’ve captured 10,000 even as the insurgency continues unabated.“That’s a far cry from what we were told originally,” he said. “... All of the information we receive sometimes from the Pentagon and the State Department isn’t always true.”

So the Pentagon AND the State Department are lying to members of Congress? Ouch...So what does Mr. Hawk suggest?

“What I think we need to do more is withdraw more Americans”

Wow! You might not be able to teach an old dog new tricks or lead a horse to water but if you scare the piss out of him he might see things more as they are and not as he wants them to be. Perhaps all is not lost.
Good on ya Rep. Gutknecht...welcome back to the land of the thinking;)
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Are you worried about events in Lebanon and Gaza and Iraq and Iran and Syria and...whew. Do you feel anxious? angry? betrayed? Where do you feel this? In your heart? In your stomach? In your mind? It's horrible and horrifying what people are going through...click on John Stewart to find out where you REALLY are going to feel it...Be prepared. It's ugly:)

Can you believe those idiots? Of course you can...

Stay Human and as always...

Stay Naked.

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"Military Experts see US Iraq Exit by 2016"

2006-07-18T08:01:00.000-07:00

I got this from Raw Story but it's actually from a Washington Times piece. You can check out the full article at a registration restricted HERE. (if you happen to register to The Washington Times).
Here is the the point I want to highlight.

U.S. war commanders think some level of American forces will be needed in Iraq until 2016 and those forces will receive continued support from the vast majority of Iraqis.

I feel like I'm living in some Bizarro world.

Point One: Is it possible they believe the US public is going to support another DECADE of this fiasco?

Point Two: Are they under the impression that even NOW that the 'vast majority' of Iraqis support us?

No wonder things are so f'd up. Nothing another decade of rape scandals, civilian murders and crap we can't even imagine at this point causes the Iraqi people to continue loving us with IED's and sniper fire. Don't get me wrong. I understand these are isolated events and that the vast majority of the soldiers stationed over there are doing their best under brutal conditions but I see it like this. I trust the cops in my town. I think they are generally good, solid guys who care about the community. I might not like getting pulled over but I understand that's part of the price we pay for law and order. But if I read that a few of them had raped and murdered a teenage girl, then murdered her family, then burned them all to cover up the crime...well I might not look at the rest of them in the same way. It boggles my mind that professional military men could say things so daft...
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Interesting little piece on the US News and World Report site on the NY Times banking surveillance 'scandal'. Turns out the Treasury Department, when they initiated the plan in 2003 EXPECTED THE STORY TO LEAK! In fact, they included a press plan:) So the story that isn't really a story and yet continues to be a story...
>>>>>>
Speaking of which. I just read this bizarre article from Slate.com penned by the rapidly getting weirder Christopher Hitchens. Let me get this out. I like Hitchens. I loved 'No one Left to Lie to" and appreciated his near total demolition of insane British Pol George Galloway. That said, what the hell is his Slate piece titled, "The End of the Affair: Novak exonerates the Bushies in the Plame case" all about? I thought...what the f*ck? He argues that Novaks explanation...

have dissolved any remaining doubt about the mad theory that the Bush administration "outed" Ms. Valerie Plame as revenge for her husband's refusal to confirm the report by British intelligence that Iraqi officials had visited Niger in search of uranium

Any remaining doubt? Are you crazy? There is a ton of evidence that's exactly what the administration was doing. I don't understand...I really don't.

Someone please explain that to me...until then...

Stay Naked.

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Free the Kidnapped Soldiers !

2006-07-17T15:16:00.000-07:00

In the name of peace and humanity the Naked Zoo calls for the release of the kidnapped soldiers. There can be no resolution of the violence destroying Southern Lebanon and Gaza unless the plight of the kidnapped soldiers is resolved and those soldiers returned to their homes and units.

We are referring, of course, to the hundreds of Palestinian soldiers kidnapped by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and held interminably and without charges by Israeli intelligence (Shin Bet). Such kidnappings, accompanied by various beatings and torture, are routine according to Arik Diamant, an Israeli reservist with personal experience in these operations. None of this is ever reported in the Western press, of course, as it does not comport with the Israel Good/Palestinians Bad filter that all such news must pass through.

On the other hand, the outrageous kidnappings of Israeli soldiers, one by Palestinians and two by Hezbollah, are sufficient to justify any level of military response Israel chooses to use. Bomb the central power stations in Gaza depriving most of the population of electricity and water ? You bet. Bomb Lebanese infrastructure including the airport, roads and bridges and impose a naval blockade ? But of course.

All justified by the kidnapping of two soldiers, despite President Bush's patently false attempt to justify Israel's over-reaction by misstating the sequence of events. Bush claimed that the kidnapping and Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel preceded the Israeli response, while contemporary reports make clear that the Israeli attacks were well under way before the rockets started falling. Israel's credibility suffers when its best friend must lie to protect it, to say nothing of the friend's.

Israel makes the return of its soldiers a condition of a cease fire. They and the world remain silent on the hundreds of Palestinian detainees. Makes you wonder so stay curious and

Stay Naked
jd

“I don’t think we’re losing.”

2006-07-16T11:29:00.000-07:00

This is the Army Chief of Staff. His name is General Schoomaker. He was recently speaking at a luncheon on Capital Hill sponsored by the Defense Forum Foundation. He was asked a simple question: Is the US Winning? According to an LA Times report he, "...paused for more than 10 seconds after he was asked the question, lips pursed and brow furrowed, before venturing

I think I would answer that by telling you I don't think we're losing."

Hm. And that was after careful consideration:) He went on to say

“I believe that we are closer to the beginning . . . than we are to the end,”

So we're not losing and this is only the beginning? While there is ample comedic ammunition here it just makes me sad.
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Here's our Secretary of State Condi Rice on the situation in Lebanon.

"I get reports on this every couple of hours as to how this is going. Our ambassador who is on the ground will obviously do what we need to protect Americans."

Whew! That's good news. Who do they need protecting from? Oh...that's right. Israel. Ummm....yeah...

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I don't know if you're familiar with Baghdad Burning. It's a blog written by an anonymous 24 year old female living in Baghdad. She's acheived such acclaim she's even written a book.
I like catching up with her but this breaks my heart

Fourteen. Imagine your 14-year-old sister or your 14-year-old daughter. Imagine her being gang-raped by a group of psychopaths and then the girl was killed and her body burned to cover up the rape. Finally, her parents and her five-year-old sister were also killed. Hail the American heroes... Raise your heads high supporters of the 'liberation' - your troops have made you proud today. I don't believe the troops should be tried in American courts. I believe they should be handed over to the people in the area and only then will justice be properly served. And our ass of a PM, Nouri Al-Maliki, is requesting an 'independent investigation', ensconced safely in his American guarded compound because it wasn't his daughter or sister who was raped, probably tortured and killed. His family is abroad safe from the hands of furious Iraqis and psychotic American troops.

It fills me with rage to hear about it and read about it. The pity I once had for foreign troops in Iraq is gone. It's been eradicated by the atrocities in Abu Ghraib, the deaths in Haditha and the latest news of rapes and killings. I look at them in their armored vehicles and to be honest- I can't bring myself to care whether they are 19 or 39. I can't bring myself to care if they make it back home alive. I can't bring myself to care anymore about the wife or parents or children they left behind. I can't bring myself to care because it's difficult to see beyond the horrors. I look at them and wonder just how many innocents they killed and how many more they'll kill before they go home. How many more young Iraqi girls will they rape?

Why don't the Americans just go home? They've done enough damage and we hear talk of how things will fall apart in Iraq if they 'cut and run', but the fact is that they aren't doing anything right now. How much worse can it get? People are being killed in the streets and in their own homes- what's being done about it? Nothing. It's convenient for them- Iraqis can kill each other and they can sit by and watch the bloodshed- unless they want to join in with murder and rape.

Stay Naked.

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Around the World in 60 seconds...

2006-07-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

Every now and then we like to jump a jet, visit foreign lands, read their papers and report back on items we find of interest.

We start with a chilling report from Ynetnews.com. They are reporting that Israel has issued an ultimatum to Syria

The London-based Arabic language newspaper Al-Hayat reported Saturday that “Washington has information according to which Israel gave Damascus 72 hours to stop Hizbullah’s activity along the Lebanon-Israel border and bring about the release the two kidnapped IDF soldiers or it would launch an offensive with disastrous consequences.”

The report said “a senior Pentagon source warned that should the Arab world and international community fail in the efforts to convince
Syria to pressure Hizbullah into releasing the soldiers and halt the current escalation Israel may attack targets in the country.”

Al-Hayat quoted the source as saying that “the US cannot rule out the possibility of an Israeli strike in Syria,” this despite the fact that the Bush administration has asked Israel to “refrain from any military activity that may result in civilian casualties.”

Israel blames Syria and Iran for the current conflict in Lebanon. It's comforting to see George Bushs vision of peace and democracy spreading through the Middle East come to fruition. For awhile there it was looking bad...

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HERE is an interesing editorial from Zaman Daily on the NY Times banking surveillance 'scandal'. I love how a paper doing it's job is now scandalous. Writer Tamar Korkmaz offers us a solution to the problem.

...there is only one thing the Bush administration can do: It should immediately announce to the American people that according to certain intelligence information, there are weapons of mass destruction in the cellar of the New York Times building!

And then The Times building should be bombed!

Brilliant! I called Judy Miller for comment and she had this to say

“I saw the weapons of mass destruction at The Times with my own eyes.”

There you have it. Proof positive the NY Times is in league with freedom haters. Warm the jets:)

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And finally another editorial, this one from 'The Nation'. No, not the hippie leftist US based paper;p but a Pakistani paper of the same name. This editorial is by Roedad Khan and is located HERE. It begins with a nice summarization of the founding of the United States and follows with a laundry list of crimes perpetrated by the US on the planet as a whole. Governments overthrown. Dictators embraced etc. but it's the final paragraph that jumps out at me

In the past, some envied America, some liked America, some hated America but almost all respected her. Very few respect America today. They all fear America. Today Muslims perceive America as the greatest threat to the World of Islam since the 13th century. The irony is that, despite all the untold crimes committed by successive American governments against poor, powerless, third world countries, the American Declaration of Independence remains even today an effective force and a source of inspiration for people, like us, who live under despotic rulers - hereditary monarchs or military dictators. They see in the American fight for liberty an encouraging precedent for their own struggles.

Well said. Here's his website is you want to check out more of his writing www.roedadkhan.com

And if you haven't read the Declaration of Independence lately...HERE it is.

Stay careful Zooheads...and as always...

Stay Naked.

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Valerie Plame Sues Cheney, Rove & Libby

2006-07-14T14:24:00.000-07:00

Holy Paula Jones Batman. A wronged woman is suing the White House! We remember how that last case went down...with Impeachment Proceedings:) Dare to dream Zooheads. In a classic What the F*ck moment here comes Karl Roves spokesimbecile

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Rove, said, "Without even having had a chance to review the complaint, it is clear that the allegations are absolutely and utterly without merit."

So without reviewing whether it's true...we'll just say it's not true. Brilliant!

Jason Leopold has a nice round-up on the news on Truthout HERE.

God Bless a Free Legal System...Is it possible to have courts without lawyers? ;)

Stay Litigious and as always...

Stay Naked.

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Israel Targets Gays for Death

2006-07-13T17:37:00.000-07:00

On the virtual eve of the International Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem Israel announced an NIS 20,000 (USD4336.86) reward for the killing of any “Sodomite”.

The reward, announced on an anonymous flyer, for which no known group has taken responsibility, was none the less denounced as an “act of defamation and a hate crime by the State of Israel” by Brendan Gayguy, international coordinator for the upcoming parade.

“Israel must be held to the standard by which it judges others”, declared Gayguy. Noting that there was no evidence whatsoever to link the Israeli government to the reward offer, Gayguy nonetheless insisted on governmental responsibility.

“It is well know that the Palestinian Authority has no control over Hamas militias and the government of Lebanon no control over Hezbollah,” Gayguy observed, “but this has not prevented Israel from launching full-scale military assaults against the Lebanese and Palestinian peoples in retaliation for actions taken by independent militias.”

Gayguy promised the full power of his organization would be turned against Israel and that Israelis would “pay a severe price” for the anti-Gay reward.

President Bush urged Gayguy and his organization to “act with caution” while noting that “Gays have the right to defend themselves”, thereby condoning anything up to a tactical nuclear strike on Jerusalem.

Note: Only fragments of this post are true. Email us for a guide and

Stay Naked
jd

Restore Your Manhood !

2006-07-12T21:13:00.000-07:00

When you get to the age of the elder of the zoo keepers the issue of loss of and restoration of manhood may become pretty acute. Hence the sales of Viagra, Cialis, male enhancements and penile implants.

The Hummer has now simplified all this confusion in its new tv ads. In one, a young man checking out at a grocery store is apparently humiliated because he is buying tofu while the guy behind him is buying beer, ribs and charcoal. The solution to this anxiety ? Of, course ! Buy a Hummer ! The final scene has the caption "Restore Your Manhood" is large letters.

Of course, the perfect solution starting at about $58,000.00 !

Vistas immediately appear for repairs to other modern failings. Fear an intellectual shortcoming ? Surely the immediate purchase of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare (in Library Binding, $2250.00) will shore up that crumbling confidence .

By simply ordering the complete Inflight Liberator Multi-Gym 6070 ($4399.00) you'll start shaping up that sagging physique. When this 1150 pound beauty is set up in your bedroom you'll be well on the road to fitness and when its been gathering dust for a month you should be a near perfect physical specimen.

Spiritual concerns musn't be overlooked, so if you're groping for moral guidance in a complex world, when currents of good and evil seem to swirl and mix, the mere presence of the 1659 printing of the King James Bible in Full Calf binding (less than $16,000.00, serious inquiries only, please) on your book shelf (the Zoo recommends a prominent display commensurate with its value and your piety) will guarantee salvation, earthly serenity and eternal bliss.

Have we missed something ? Focus on the problem, think money and

Stay Naked
jd

A Great Day for the Planet!

2006-07-11T10:17:00.000-07:00

And yet...a 'Low Water Mark for Broadcast TV Viewing' Why? Well, according to the Yahoo! Asia News (I know;)...

TV viewers must have taken to the beach: It was the least-watched week in recorded history for the four biggest broadcast networks.

CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox averaged 20.8 million viewers during the average prime-time minute last week, according to Nielsen Media Research. That sunk below the previous record, set during the last week of July in 2005.

While this is good news. It's apparently not unexpected...

It wasn't entirely unexpected. By tradition, the week that includes Independence Day has the fewest viewers of the year, or close to it, because rerun season is in full swing and the public is consumed with outdoor activities

"The public is consumed with outdoor activities"...Hm. And we're insanely obese:) Something is wrong with this picture...
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Think things are getting better in Iraq? Then do not, under and circumstances, read any dispatch from CNN's Nic Robertson. Here is a partial one, taken from the New Republic on-line.

One international official told me of reports among his staff that a 15-year-old girl had been beheaded and a dog's head sewn on her body in its place; and of a young child who had had his hands drilled and bolted together before being killed.

Full article HERE. For once, I thank God we don't have a picture...

Stay Grounded and as always...

Stay Naked.

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When Is a War Civil ?

2006-07-10T18:30:00.000-07:00

In 1944 the New Century Dictionary defined a "civil war" as a war "between parties in their own country.

The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, long held to be the authority on the English language, (our edition published in 1971) defines civil war as that which occurs " among fellow citizens or within the limits of one community".

The Merriam-Webster Online dictionary (13 seconds ago) defined civil war as "a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country".

Something must have changed because the MSM just doesn't seem able to pull the trigger and call fighting in Iraq a civil war. It seems to us to meet every criteria set forth in these definitions and it isn't as if they haven't been talking about it.

As far back as May of 2005, Newsday was worrying about whether Iraq was "on the edge" of a civil war or in the middle of one.

Then in February of 2006 FOX News wondered aloud whether a civil war in Iraq might be a good thing.

Around the same time the Christian Science Monitor was reporting Iraqi opinion that the "war could really be on now."

In March FOX retreated to the opinion that the media was "making it up" when it came to the existence or non of a civil war in Iraq.

In the middle of March our old friend Pat Robertson joined the discussion with the opinion that Americans (and presumably Iraqis) who thought there was a civil war in Iraq "don't have a clue". Pat's personal record on clue possession is not stellar, but we shall see.

Today, the Denver Post carries the headline " Iraq 'On the Edge of Civil War' ".

Why the reluctance to call a spade a spade ? The Chicago Tribune, back in April, indicated they didn't feel qualified to call an eight hundred pound gorilla an eight hundred pound gorilla. They were, they indicated, waiting for direction from Washington and Baghdad, the two places on the planet least likely to name that tune.

Washington won't say it, at least via the Administration, because to do so would put the final gloss on the portrait of utter, complete and abysmal failure that has been coming into focus since "Mission Accomplished".

The Iraqi government won't say it because to do so would predictably increase the pressure for an American ( sorry, "coalition") withdrawl, an event that would likely spell the end of their government and their employment.

Maybe we need someone in the MSM with the plain courage to just say it.

Maybe we need a statue, like that of Gen. Robert E. Lee, shown above.

Our thanks to MediaMatters for the Fox and Robertson materials.

Stay patient and

Stay Naked
jd

A Fascinating Microsoft RUMOR

2006-07-09T16:16:00.000-07:00

We were just talking to one of our local Mac techs ('cause our G5 took a dump, but that's another story).

One topic led to another until the conversation came around to Windows Media Player 7. Install MP7 (as it is affectionately known) on your PC and you can play your tunes, watch your videos and etc. Cool right ? Right !

However, and this is a big HOWEVER, according to the RUMOR from our source, MP7 has some additional interesting features. It will:
1. Inventory all Microsoft software on your hard drive;
2. Report the information to a central Microsoft server, which will;
3. Check to make sure the software is licensed to that machine (nevermind the copy of your wife's Word program) and report back to your MP7, which will;
4. Disable any "pirated" software on your machine( like the copy of your wife's Word program, AND (here's the real kicker)
5. Also disable the original software at the source from which it was "pirated", or in the case of your wife, borrowed.

Is this nightmare scenario true ? We are not geeks, but a little googling reveals concern about Microsoft's Digital Rights Management agreement you sign on to when you click that box that says you have read and understood a document you (and we) never bother to read.
It says:

* Digital Rights Management (Security). You agree that in order to protect the integrity of content and software protected by digital rights management ("Secure Content"), Microsoft may provide security related updates to the OS Components that will be automatically downloaded onto your computer. These security related updates may disable your ability to copy and/or play Secure Content and use other software on your computer. If we provide such a security update, we will use reasonable efforts to post notices on a web site explaining the update.

That language sounds to us like Media Player 7 will "disable . . . other software on your computer" because that's exactly what it says it will do. Whether it behaves in exactly the way the RUMOR we are reporting here describes we have not yet determined. Are we going to install it to find out ? No.

We tried googling around on the subject and found nothing, which is a sharp blow against the RUMOR because we think the blogosphere would be going cukoo if this Microsoft "report and destroy" system were operating as RUMORED.

A check of various web hoax detection and reporting sites revealed nothing. Of course, we didn't hear this RUMOR on the web, so maybe that doesn't count.

Our call to a Microsoft flack charged with responding to inquiries regarding MP7 went unanswered. Perhaps he was unimpressed with our low-power radio/blogosphere credentials. Maybe he has something to hide.

Our source is anonymous because he has to work with Microsoft and fears retaliation. From Microsoft ?

We will keep working on the RUMOR and keep you posted while you and we

Stay Naked
jd

Thank you Jason!

2006-07-08T09:48:00.000-07:00

The Naked Zoo wants to thank Jason Leopold for coming on-air today to discuss his book 'News Junkie', the California Energy Crisis, Enron and the Valerie Plame/Karl Rove case...I hope you caught the show but even if you didn't, you should check out the book 'News Junkie'

Stay Naked.

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Jason Leopold on the Zoo: Saturday at 10:00am PST/ 1:00pm EST

2006-07-07T09:45:00.000-07:00

Okay Zooheads, HUGE news. Tune in tomorrow at 1:00pm EST/10:00am PST for an interview with red-hot investigative journalist Jason Leopold LIVE on the Naked Zoo News Review radio show. We're giving him the entire hour to talk about the Valerie Plame affair, Enron, the death of Ken Lay and of course, his brutally honest memoir NEWS JUNKIE...If you're not in the greater San Francisco Bay Area never fear...you can listen to the show stream live HERE at KWMR.org...click on the 'ON AIR' link at the top...email us here at nakedzoo@gmail.com if there are any questions you want us to ask him on-air...and let us know if you want attribution or to be kept 'anonymous' :)

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Last night, here in the balmy state of Connecticut, Senator Joe Lieberman (D- CT) faced off against his challenger Ned Lamont in what is going to be their only debate (which doesn't seem fair or very democratic but there you have it). Below you will see the YouTube link to the Iraq portion of the debate. You can also see the entire debate HERE at PoliticsTV.com

One thing comes across very quickly. Ned is a novice and Joe is a polished veteran well schooled in the art of schoolyard 'you're a big dummy' debating. Lieberman handles himself well but has compromised himself so badly that it's clear he's a Democrat in name only. He's actually been endorsed by Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter.
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Al Gore is high on crack. Global warming is a good thing...in fact, it's a great thing.

many argue that it’s a boon, citing its benefits to agriculture and its potential to make severe climates more hospitable —

This wonderful quote is from a National Review cover story on global warming titled 'Snow Job' HERE is a wonderful deconstruction by ThinkProgress.

FACT: The 2001 report by the IPCC finds that global climate change’s “negative health impacts are anticipated to outweigh positive health impacts.” Assuming that current emission levels continue, an increase in heat waves and a deterioration in air quality “will increase the risk of mortality and morbidity, principally in older age groups and the urban poor.” Additionally, any “regional increases in climate extremes (storms, floods, cyclones, etc.) associated with climate change would cause physical damage, population displacement, and adverse effects on food production, freshwater availability and quality, and would increase the risks of infectious disease epidemics, particularly in developing countries.”

God bless the internet...
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Stay Warm and as always...

Stay Naked.

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There's good ideas....

2006-07-05T18:00:00.000-07:00

And then there's GREAT ideas. According to USA Today, as reported HERE, the nascent Iraqi government is fielding a request from some local insurgent leaders for some weaponry. Hmm...so the insurgents are asking for military help from the government they're fighting? Isn't this like us requesting British military help during the War of Independence...well yes...it is. The LOCAL insurgents are asking for some weapons to help fight the FOREIGN fighters...who, according to our State Department, account for "4-10% of the estimated 20,000 insurgents". Haider al-Ibadi, a Shiite lawmaker and member of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa Party has this to say

"They want to take part in the war against terrorists," said al-Ibadi, who supports the proposal. "They claim they could wipe out the terrorists and work with the government."

Let us try and wrap our heads around this. Although the article doesn't mention whether the requesting INSURGENTS are Shite or Sunni I think the point is moot...further arming of armed men is dis-arming but such is the rabbit hole that Iraq has become...Carry on Alice.

Stay Armed and as always...

Stay Naked.

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Happy Birthday to Us !

2006-07-04T07:56:00.000-07:00

Happy 230th Birthday America, you are looking great for your age. Sure, there are some spots and wrinkles and the Zoo is never slow to point them out, but this is not the day.

This is the day to celebrate the promises that America represents in the world, however imprefectly those promises are kept at times. The promise that people can live as equals, control their own governments, worship as they please and speak their minds. The promise that the individual will be honored above the State and that hard work will earn a just reward.

These are the promises that keep people from all over the world focussed on coming here to live and work and raise their families and those folks are clearer on the facts than we are.

So, today is for celebration and you can't go far without one. Interested in the oldest observance ? Bristol, Rhode Island claims that honor and is holding its 221st. You can find about anything you want in the Boston Area. The politicians around there are going to be scrambling.

If you have been longing to see the largest fireworks show west of the Mississippi, it looks like the Melaleuca Freedom Celebration in Idaho Falls, Idaho is your destination of choice.

Fourth not complete without some old time rock and roll ? It says right here that Elvis, Chuck and Buddy will be appearing at 1 P.M. in Granbury, Texas.

Celebrate, Zooheads, and realize that for all the flaws she is the best thing going, capable of true greatness if we will be true to the promises.

Stay faithful, committed and patriotic and

Stay Naked
jd

What Does an Assassin Have to Do ?

2006-07-02T13:08:00.000-07:00

Those were the good old days, when an honest assassin could count on a little ink. That's John Wilkes Booth over there, the man who murdered President Lincoln. There's your notoriety. 140 years later and school children still know his name.

Imagine if he had announced his intentions from some secure place. The outrage !
The sensation !

Nowadays, you announce your intention to murder the duly elected head of a sovereign government and you get nothing. Rodney Dangerfield gets more respect. Oh, sure, you might get a mention in The Australian and, with a little luck, the International Committee for the Fourth International (and that name is not a gag) will give you a mention on their World Socialist Website. But, that's it.

Nothing from ABC, MSNBC, CBS, CNN or FOX but a big fat yawn. O.k., to be fair and complete, truthout picks it up.

Our guess is that Israel so routinely commits crimes against international law that their announced intention to make the Palestinian Prime Minister an assassination victim just doesn't register on the news-0-meter. We thought at least FOX would like it with their taste for the testosterone response.

Unaccountable power usually leads to bad things, so we'll keep watching and

Stay Naked
jd

Better That 100 Guilty Go Free

2006-07-01T09:34:00.000-07:00

Than that one innocent man be put to death. That has been the mantra of the pro-life (oh, sorry, no, "pro-life" means "anti-abortion"), we guess we mean, then, the anti- death penalty movement.

What has been missing is proof that an innocent man has actually been put to death. Until now and the arrival of a series in the Chicago Tribune of what now appears to have been the duly authorized and official murder of one Carlos de Luna in Texas in 1989.

It appears that De Luna as arrested, tried, convicted and executed for the murder of a convenience store clerk named Wanda Lopez. Only, he didn't do it.

So now what ? Here's a case in which it is all but legally proven that justice went haywire and an innocent man's life was taken by the state. The Governor of Illinois suspended executions several years ago on the strength of less evidence. Do we just take the view that those trigger-happy morons in Texas screwed up, but we don't have to worry ? The Innocence Project has data that would suggest otherwise.

Fortunately, we in California (death chamber pictured above) don't have to worry because we don't make misteaks.

Stay Naked
jd

When Will We Know What Happened ?

2006-06-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

Hi, Zooheads. Do you believe the US miltary command "stood down" on 9/11 or that the hijackers were trained at US military bases or that the World Trade Center towers collapsed because of controlled explosions set before they were hit by two hijacked aircraft ? No ?

Oh, then you must have missed the convention in L.A. 1200, more or less, dedicated conspiracy buffs gathered to pore over reports and photos and hear a range of speakers denounce various villains as actually responsible for what actually happened.

9/11 is the biggest thing to happen for conspiracy fans since the JFK assassination in 1963. (In the interests of full disclosure, the Elder Statesman here at the Zoo still warms his hands over that one.) But 9/11 has the same problem that plagues the Kennedy theories, no matter how lame the Single Bullet Theory or compelling the evidence for a Second Oswald.

And that problem is the requisite size and consequent unlikely silence of the conspiracy. Take for instance the problem of American Flight 77 which, according to the official version, struck the Pentagon. There are various problems with the O.V., some of them quite compelling. The problem with the competing versions, which generally have some kind of a rocket or missile hitting the Pentagon, is: What, then, became of the actual Flight 77 and its passengers and crew ? Was the plane and all of it's occupants destroyed ? Where ? When ? By who ? You see the problem.

On the other hand, the Pentagon has acted to cool the conspiracy jets by releasing (after nearly five years) security video of the "plane" hitting the Pentagon. Apparently, in the nearly two minute video the "nose" of the plane is visible for a "fraction of a second". The Zapruder film it is not. Will the Pentagon succeed ? Will this video still the critics ?

Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha HA. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA !

Ponder the Single Bullet. Consider the too perfect roundness of the final hole in the inner ring of the Pentagon and

Stay Naked
jd

Diamonds Are Not Your Friend . . or Hers

2006-06-29T06:56:00.000-07:00

The diamond industry is trembling anew under the possible impact of more publicity about "blood diamonds" or "conflict diamonds". These are the gems that are essentially mined by slaves in war torn areas of Africa with the proceeds going to support warlords and gangsters.

Leonardo DeCaprio is starring in a new film on the subject and the diamond barons are afraid the blood buzz will hurt the rock biz.

It seems to us that DeCaprio is the least of their problems. The 8000 pound gorilla in this story is the fact that diamonds aren't in the least rare and are worth next to nothing after you buy them. That's right. Not rare. Worth nothing.

The "rarity" of diamonds is based entirely on the machinations of the DeBeers Company that created and maintains a monopoly on cut diamonds. There are, in fact, mountains of uncut diamonds in Africa, Russia and elsewhere. Check out Edward Jay Epstein's 1982 book, The Rise and Fall of Diamonds. Don't sweat reading the whole thing. Page One of Chapter One tells the story. That takes care of rarity.

For the skinny on "value", check out this revealing exchange between a would-be diamond buyer and an expert. The chump asks which grade of diamond will have the most resale value and the expert tells him not to be an idiot. The high-grade of diamond he is considering is sold only by the "best" vendors who would not consider buying from him and the pawnshops will give him 20-30% at best. And this is the "high grade" stuff, not the junk you get at WalMart. Or try Epstein's chapter "Did You Ever Try to Sell a Diamond?"

We like rubies and emeralds (email us for a mailing address is you have spares). If you are planning on buying diamonds, read the Epstein book, think long and hard and

Stay Naked
jd