patrick.net

SQT,

"Kind" of funny? That was freaking hilarious! Especially the standard retouched photo of David Lereah at the end! If you look carefully his business card is slightly askew on the page adding to the "cheese" factor. Very well done.

hmm, another great set of FAB anecdotes, similar to the ones which prove that all firemen and roof tilers are closet billionaires...

in terms of rep. vs dem. corruption, it seems from the jack abramoff affair and other washington lobbyists that reps are by far the more corrupt, altho that may tie in to actually being in power, i suppose. however, dem. policy on paper at least is more left-wing and less business and more social justice focused, so i would suspect that they, on average, are less into corruption than reps. i find it particularly offensive as reps like to pretend they are on the moral high ground in the context of 'bedroom morality' more than anything, but they are really corrupt stooges of big business, and involved in the constant revolving door of big business and big government -- just look at some of the lockheed martin appointments of late, a washington favourite at present.

e.g. 'a government of thieves'
http://www.e-book.com.au/got2.htm

Some "Lockheed people" on board with Bush:

*Peter B. Teets, former Lockheed Martin Chief Operating Officer, has been appointed Undersecretary of the Air Force and Director of the National Reconnaissance Office.

*Former Lockheed executive Everet Beckner has been appointed administrator for defence programmes at the National Nuclear Security Administration. (Lockheed Martin jointly with the Bechtel Corporation and a third company has a contract to run the NNSA Nevada Test Site where it is planned to test nuclear weapons again. Lockheed will also earn almost two billion per year running the Sandia Laboratories nuclear weapons design facility in New Mexico).

*Stephen Hadley, formerly a lawyer with Shea & Gardner representing Lockheed Martin, was appointed Deputy National Security Advisor.

*Otto Reich, formerly a lobbyist for Lockheed Martin when they were seeking to reverse the ban on US hi-tech weapons sales to Latin America, was nominated for Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs.

*Norman Mineta, Secretary for Transportation, and Michael Jackson, Deputy Secretary for Transportation, were both Lockheed Martin vice-presidents before their appointments by President Bush.

*Lynne V. Cheney, wife of US Vice-President Dick Cheney, was a board member of Lockheed Martin for the period 1994-2001, picking up a handy US$120,000 per year for the privilege. (Mrs Cheney other lucrative directorship's include AXP Mutual {an American Express subsidiary}, the Union Pacific Resources Group, & the Reader's Digest Association. As a director of Union Pacific when it merged with Anadarko Petroleum, Lynne Cheney received Anadarko stock worth $250,000 to $500,000. Her husband's major source of vast wealth, Halliburton, had done business with Anadarko Petroleum since 1959.

We've all heard of Halliburton, so closely associated with Vice President Cheney. But here are a group of giant American corporations now doing "very nicely indeed thanks" out of the Iraq war as at the second half of 2005: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Honeywell and United Technologies. Behind them come dozens of medium-sized companies and hundreds of smaller ones for whom, far from sacrifice, war is a bonanza.

Lockheed Martin's net profit, for example, jumped 41 percent in the first six months of 2005. With orders worth US$73 billion to hand, their gravy train looks like rolling on for quite some time. Boeing's military division reported sales of US$15.3 billion in January-June 2005, with operating profits rising 16 percent to US$1.7 billion. Northrop Grumman's half-year earnings rose no less than 45.3%...

The latest Bush appointments on the blood money gravy train:
The new Deputy Secretary of Defence Gordon England, (replacing prominent Iraq war advocate Paul Wolfowitz, who became president of the World Bank), has previously held executive positions with both Lockheed Martin Corp and General Dynamics Corp. Below him, being nominated by President Bush as Secretary of the Air Force is Michael Wynne - even though the US Senate has previously refused to confirm Mr Wynne as the Pentagon's acquisition chief, because of concerns about a whole range of Air Force weapons-buying scandals. And who has the White House put forward for a replacement Secretary of the Navy? None other than Donald C. Winter, a current executive of Northrop Grumman Corp. Remember them from the windfall profits list?

And what happens to the honest ones? A senior contracting official, Ms Bunnatine Greenhouse, who criticised the Pentagon's decision to give Halliburton a multibillion-dollar, no-bid contract for work in Iraq, was sacked at the end of August 2005 for "poor performance". Yes indeed, the people in power find any criticism of all this revolving door corruption to be a very "poor show", from their point of view. The dismissal, described by her attorney as bearing "the hallmark of illegal retaliation," handily scotches the investigation into her embarrassing finger-pointing at the thieves in action. Said Ms Greenhouse, "I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR (a division of Halliburton) represents the most blatant and improper abuse I have witnessed" in 20 years working on government contracts.

more on the 'revolving door':

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Government-industry_revolving_door

only 57 names and cases on that list...

these terrible conspiracy theories, only borne out by mere facts...

DS, why do you hate Amerika? Oh that's right your in Oz. ahahahahha

Wasn't it Eisenhower that warned against the military industrial complex?

D.S.,

If you check the background of these people, I bet most of them climbed from humble backgrounds. It is not their country, per se. They didn't own it. So when given power, they would exploit it for their own benefits. The same thing has been happening in China throughout centuries. These people's mentality is different from that of many old money folks who want to give back.

Do you guys think we will ever hit to the point when you can buy a 1700 sq feet 3/2 SFH on a 6000 sq feet lot for $384,000 in Man Jose (Not in the East side-Senter/Tully area)??

Will not be surprised. But will not count on it.

Public school could work too if you simply didn’t let undesirable people in.

Absolutely.

Maybe that’s the solution - divide everyone into “winner” and help them move forwards, or “loser” and let them die.

I actually agree. A society most learn to leave people behind. Deadweights will only drag everybody down.

I actually agree. A society most learn to leave people behind. Deadweights will only drag everybody down.

good ol' social darwinism at work. and who defines who the deadweights are? employers? my local church? my next door neighbour? should we start a network of informers like the STASI in our 'free' society? what happens if i decide YOU are a deadweight by my own criteria? will they then come for you? who will enforce the weeding out? (Nazi soldiers once had this duty as a good example)

First they came... is a poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) about the quiescence of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group.

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

Sean,

I suggest creating a social network site called Deadster.com to help people nominate dead-weight people...

good ol’ social darwinism at work. and who defines who the deadweights are? employers? my local church? my next door neighbour? should we start a network of informers like the STASI in our ‘free’ society? what happens if i decide YOU are a deadweight by my own criteria? will they then come for you? who will enforce the weeding out? (Nazi soldiers once had this duty as a good example)

DS, this is why I like you so much. You are always so caring about people.