Master Cleanse

My New Year’s Resolution this year was to simplify my life on every level.

I made a list of tangible and intangible things that I felt were in desperate need of simplification.

The tangible was obvious… because I have collected a lot of crap over the years… and it resides in my basement in boxes, in my closets, drawers, cabinets… hell, I’ve even purchased furniture like sideboards, shelves and linen chests to accommodate all of my crap.

So… little by little… I am whittling away at the things that are tangible. I’m having a garage sale in a couple of weeks. And I can tell you, collecting crap is a whole lot more fun than getting rid of it.

But what I have found has made the most difference in my simplification process… are the things others can’t see. My husband and I gave up fast food almost a year ago… mostly as a conscience effort to thumb our noses at Corporate America… but also because of what processed foods do to our bodies.

We’ve gotten fat and lazy, America… just the way Washington likes us.

I won’t ever eat at Mickey D’s, Burger King, Subway, Starbucks or any number of restaurants that are not independently owned and operated… because I am a true capitalist… and I vote with my dollar. Which is why Wal-Mart and Home Depot will never see a dime of my money again.

God, I hate Wal-Mart.

But I digress. I have, in the last four months, not only eliminated all fast food from my diet… I have put that effort into my grocery shopping. I won’t go into details… but I have figured out… as a working mom with an incredibly stressful job… that my kids don’t have to eat out of a box or a can… that I can fix convenient foods that use real food… not stuff I can’t pronounce.

Anyway… so I took it to the next level five weeks ago… and became a vegetarian. I had contemplated it for years… and then I watched a documentary about the treatment of animals at corporate farms like Tyson and Pilgrim… and the drugs that they pump into these animals to get them ready for my dinner table would put a crack whore to shame. As a result, humans’ sexual organs are developing faster and girls are menstruating much earlier than our mothers and grandmothers (from the hormones) and we are becoming sicker (from the antibiotics) with stuff like heart disease and digestive cancers.

So… I vowed never to eat meat again. I still eat dairy and eggs… but they are from free range animals. No hormones or antibiotics. And I noticed a difference in my energy level and weight right away. And it has done wonders for our grocery bill!

I wanted to start documenting this change in my life. I have made a lot of changes to my diet and the way I cook in the last few months… and I have already noticed changes… in myself and my kids.

So… then I started researching “toxic cleansing.” I did something like it about ten years ago… it was called a colonic. Yeah… I did it once. But I knew when I did it that it was a good thing… but fear of crapping your pants at work can be very traumatic.

I started a fast. It’s called the “Master Cleanse.” It’s basically a very healthy way to start over… get all of the bad stuff out of my body that’s been sitting in there for who knows how long. It’s going to take commitment. It lasts a minimum of 10 days… drinking herbal teas and a special lemonade concoction (that actually tastes good).

I’m told I will probably see some pretty nasty stuff in the toilet as the days go by… but I should expect to lose two pounds a day… my allergies will go away… and my back and neck (where I keep all my stress) will be as limber as when I was a kid.

I will keep you posted… and I’ll probably write a lot more… since I won’t be eating. 

Sorry Rummy

I retract my former statement about Donald Rumsfeld's military service.

Turns out, he served in the U.S. Navy from 1954-57 as an aviator and flight instructor.

My bad.

It should also be noted that Donald Rumsfeld sat on the board of ABB, a European engineering giant based in Zurich, from 1990 to 2001.

In 2000, the company sold two light water nuclear reactors to North Korea... a country he now regards as part of the "axis of evil" and which has been targeted by the Bush administration for regime change because of its efforts to build nuclear weapons.

Is anyone taking notes?

Wag the Dog

Like a mother loves her child… the longer I am a citizen of this country, the more I fall in love with my country and the more I am determined to save it from those who seek to destroy it… which currently seems to be our own administration.

I am so angry with President Bush and his administration, I am sometimes brought to tears by what I learn of these “elected” officials.

I love my country (sans Britney Spears). And I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let these yahoos fuck it up.

So… back to Texas Tea and dead presidents.

As you know, vice president Dick Cheney and secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, are knee-deep in the whole Iran debacle. Thirty years ago, these two men endorsed Iranian plans to build a nuclear energy industry—but also worked hard to complete a multibillion-dollar deal that would have given Tehran control of large quantities of plutonium and enriched uranium—the two pathways to a nuclear bomb.

The current president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, served under the Ford administration in the Arms Control Disarmament Agency. Wolfowitz is considered a prominent architect of the Bush Doctrine, which has come to be identified with a policy that permits pre-emptive war against potential aggressors before they are capable of mounting attacks against the U.S.

What the Bush administration is pushing, especially through its news agency, Fox News, is that it needs to prevent Iran from achieving the exact same nuclear capabilities that President Ford and his key appointees, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, were encouraging Iran to accomplish 30 years ago.

Iran, a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (unlike India), is guaranteed the right to develop peaceful nuclear power programs—regardless of whether the U.S. approves or disapproves of the politics or leadership of that country; a point Iran has repeated over and over again… but that you won’t hear on the major networks.

For thirty year, Iran has claimed it needs nuclear power since its oil and gas supplies are dwindling… just like the U.S… and therefore, has the legal right to produce and operate nuclear power plants. Thirty years ago, Cheney and Rumsfeld agreed. Today, these men seem to be wetting their pants with uncontrollable militarized lust, for control of Iranian oil fields via a U.S. occupied Iran.

In preparation, the Bush administration has primed mainstream media so effectively, that 8 out of 10 Americans believe Iran poses an immediate threat to the U.S.

Sound familiar? Are you with me so far?

Okay… so let’s go back to 2000. The World Bank, headed up by Wolfowitz, resumed making loans to Iran… to the tune of $2.6 billion as of June 2004. The World Bank gets its funds from the International Monetary Fund… which in turn, gets its money from member nations’ dues and contributions… which the U.S. pays $37.2 billion per year.

The Federal Reserve Banking Cartel orchestrated this money scheme so that it can continue to print and loan huge numbers of debt notes. But the networks don’t tell the American people that the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Congress have been funding many activities in Iran… because we might not believe the federal government’s claim that Iran’s 30-year-old, U.S. sanctioned nuclear program is somehow now an immediate threat to the security of the U.S.

The IMF and the World Bank don’t want you to know that they have fed this dog well… they just want you to think it’s going to bite if we don’t “put it down.”

So think about it… with Wolfowitz in charge of the World Bank… the Federal Reserve has once again positioned itself on both sides of the war effort. The Federal Reserve is only interested in loan collateral and interest payments… patriotism is not part of the equation.

But here’s what should really rattle your cage… the $37.2 billion the U.S. is obligated to pay the IMF annually, is actually secured by you and me. We the People… through the U.S. Congress and federal income tax… making loans to Iran easy because if Iran defaults on its World Bank loans, Congress responds to failed loans and failed banking institutions, and assumes responsibility for the loan amount… and passes the burden of repayment to the American people.

But the biggest part of the Bush administration’s charade of deceiving the American people into believing that the U.S. played no part in Iran’s uranium enrichment, is the absolute economic threat Iran poses to the global value of the U.S. dollar. Soon, the world will have the option of purchasing oil with Euros instead of dollars through the opening of the Iranian Oil Bourse. A heated debate is happening in world economies about the potential collapse of the U.S. economy… but the mainstream media isn’t reporting this. The threat is real.

If the Iran nuclear threat rhetoric is the firewall the Bush administration is hiding the U.S. dollar global supremacy behind, then any military action in Iran will be solely on behalf of the member banks of the Federal Reserve—at the expense of our troops and taxpayers.

Don’t be fooled by Bush’s claims that we are pursuing diplomatic solutions. If the world has the option of purchasing Texas Tea with Euros rather than the almighty dollar… Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld… and Rice… all stand to lose A LOT of dead presidents.

Greed is a relentless bitch.

Up next… a stunning repeat of pre-Iraq war activities.

Stay tuned…

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

One only need read the history books to discover how we got to this Mexican stand-off with Iran over nuclear weapons.

The foundations of Iran’s nuclear program was laid out in the late 1950s within the framework of bilateral agreements between the U.S. and Iran. In 1968, Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and in the 1970s, plans were drawn by the Shah to construct nuclear power stations across the country—together with the U.S. by the year 2000.

In 1974, the Shah predicted that in the near future, the world’s oil supply would run out and announced that “petroleum is a noble material… much too valuable to burn. We envision producing energy using nuclear plants.” And so, Iran signed contracts with several Western governments to help build nuclear power plants. In 1975, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger signed the National Security Decision Memorandum 292, titled “U.S.-Iran Nuclear Cooperation” which laid out the details of the sale of nuclear energy equipment to Iran projected to bring U.S. corporations billions of dollars in revenue. At the time, Iran was pumping six million barrels of oil a day… compared to the four billion it produces today.

President Ford even signed a directive in 1976 offering Tehran the chance to buy and operate a U.S. built reprocessing facility for extracting plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel. The deal was for a complete “nuclear fuel cycle,” with all the dangerous consequences that included the possibility of the plutonium being used to build nuclear weapons—sooner or later.

The Ford strategy paper said the “introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran's economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals.” Iran, a U.S. ally then, had deep pockets and close ties to Washington. U.S. companies, including Westinghouse and General Electric, were scrambling to do business there.
A number of declassified documents were found on the Web site of the President Ford Library and Museum in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Two documents in particular, dated April 22, 1975 and April 20, 1976, show that the United States and Iran held negotiations for cooperation in the use of nuclear energy and the United States was willing to help Iran by setting up uranium enrichment and fuel reprocessing facilities.

Accordingly, vice-president Dick Cheney, secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz, were all involved in backing Iran’s Nuclear Program designed to extract plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel.

But they won’t tell you that.

And then, in 1979, Iran experienced a revolution.

And the deals started to go south… everyone started to get greedy… including the U.S., who was paid to deliver new fuel and upgrade the plants in accordance with a contract signed before the Iranian revolution. The U.S. delivered neither the fuel nor returned the billions of dollars payment it had received.

Iran informed the IAEA of its plans to restart its nuclear program, and the IAEA planned to provide assistance under its Technical Assistance Program to help Iran produce enriched uranium. However, the IAEA was forced to terminate the program under U.S. pressure. The revolution was a turning point in terms of foreign cooperation on nuclear technology.

In 1995, Iran signed a contract with Russia to resume work on a partially completed nuclear power plant and in 1996, the U.S. tried but failed to block China from selling Tehran a conversion plant. China also provided Iran with gas needed for the enriched uranium process.

Fast forward to the new millennium.

In November 2004, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator announced a voluntary and temporary suspension of its uranium enrichment program after pressure from the EU. In 2005, five days after the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran resumed its conversion of uranium. This led to the EU pressuring the IAEA to bring Iran’s nuclear program before the United Nations Security Council. In January 2006, the U.S. attempted to conduct a covert operation—code name Operation Merlin—to provide Iran with a flawed design for building a nuclear weapon in order to delay the Iranian nuclear weapons program. It backfired.

But they won't tell you that either.

In April 2006, Iran has successfully enriched uranium.

The IAEA has reported that there is no evidence that Iran is attempting to build an atomic bomb, despite intelligence reports that claim Iran is operating a clandestine program to build nuclear weapons. Iran has defied the United Nations’ resolution calling Iran to suspend all activities related to uranium enrichment. However, Iran has attempted to negotiate with the U.N. and claims that under the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, that it has the right to enrich uranium and is willing to negotiate with the UN but it will never renounce its right to enrich uranium.

The Mexican stand-off is underway.

And Cheney and Rumsfeld make no apologies for digging this hole.

It seems as though the Bush administration has already made up its mind that the only option is a bombing campaign. But former military officer and war strategist Col. Sam Gardiner (retired) is speaking out, “After all the effort, I am left with two simple sentences for policymakers. You have no military solution for the issues of Iran. And you have to make diplomacy work.”

Joseph Cirincione, director for non-proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, sums it up, “Some senior officials have already made up their minds: They want to hit Iran.” Cirincione warns that a military strike would be disastrous for the U.S. It would rally the Iranian people around an otherwise unpopular regime, inflame anti-American anger in the Muslim world and jeopardize the already fragile U.S. position in Iraq. Furthermore, it would accelerate the Iranian nuclear program.

But President Bush and his cronies are once again turning a deaf ear.

They want regime change so that they can get a piece of the action... because it all boils down to two things.

Texas Tea and dead presidents.

In the words of the famous aviator and space cowboy, Scott Crossfield... dropping a bomb on Iran is like "committing suicide to keep from getting killed."

Diplomacy IS the ONLY answer. We cannot commit another pre-emptive strike. We cannot send in nuclear bunker busters to destroy Iran’s nuclear plants. The cost of human life and the effects on the environment are too costly. If this presidency has a shred of decency left, it will in NO way consider a military strike.

Read your history. We got ourselves into this mess. We better start doing some fast talking… before it’s too late.

To be continued…

Oral Fix

Would someone please give George W. Bush a blow job, so we can impeach him already?

Go to Google News and you will see headlines that suggest a “Shake-Up at the White House.”

Are you kidding me?

People don’t care about the new chief of staff, Josh Bolten, and his house-cleaning. What the American people are concerned about are Iraq, Iran, gas prices, health care and the sky-rocketing deficit.

Upon his resignation, press secretary Scott McClellan issued the understatement of the year, “It’s time for a fresh start.”

I find it ironic that generals are speaking out against the Iraq war and calling for Rumsfeld’s resignation just as Bolten is out looking for few good men. The administration calls the generals’ criticism inappropriate and insignificant. And while there may be nearly 8,000 active and retired senior officers who haven’t spoken out about the war, as the Pentagon noted, the generals that are speaking out represent a very high number of those who actually served in Iraq. Moreover, these generals are the very officers cited by the Bush administration as being listened to “every step of the way on troop levels and tactics.”

The most talented pool of resources for this “fresh start” has already left or have been driven out. Those folks would be the number crunchers with a conscience, including the guy who knew the prescription drug bill would cost $700 billion—not $400 billion. And Larry Lindsey, who knew oil proceeds wouldn’t begin to cover the cost of the Iraq war. Then of course, there is General Eric Shinseki—who knew that several hundred thousand troops was indeed NOT “wildly off the mark.” And the few whistle-blowers who want answers about the billions of dollars missing from the Iraqi reconstruction… and the billions of dollars spent on a new embassy in Baghdad that was never approved by Congress.

Whatever sights Bolten has set for this new “fresh start,” he should refer to books written by some who served… since no one else in the White House has the balls to tell Bush he and his entire administration are full of shit… and have no right sending our young men and women into war when they themselves (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld) have never served a day of active duty or fought for their country on foreign soil.

There is one former general who hasn’t (yet) joined the six generals, but has begun to speak out. Former Secretary of State General Colin Powell recently gave a speech in Chicago, “We didn’t have enough troops on the ground. We didn’t impose our will. As a result, an insurgency got started and… it got out of control.”

We need to listen to these generals. They know, more than any of those suits in Washington, what needs to be done to untangle the mess in Iraq. As a government, and as a nation, we need to take a hard look at ourselves and the messages we are sending to our global neighbors… or we are no better than those we condemn.

Our “fresh start” does not mean moving a few chess pieces around the board and distracting the American people with rhetoric about political and ethical reform. It starts with moving toward removing idiots from the White House who refuse to listen their constituents.

Make no mistake, Mr. President. You are not the “decider.” Read the Constitution. That job is reserved for we the people.