Crossposted from ePluribus Media.

What follows is an excerpt reprinted from the piece Danse Macabre 03: The Return of Ja(a)far [Donald Rumsfeld], which was published by ePluribus Media in December 2006.

With all the back-and-forth rumbles about Iraq, Iran, peak oil, the “long war” and such, I thought a reprint of this particular section would be enlightening.  It briefly review a paper written by Rudy Jaafar regarding that author’s perspective and commentary about the US role in the determination of the social and political future of the Middle East.

I strongly urge people to read the original piece by Rudy Jaafar in its entirety, and request that people add — in comments — any additional insights or references that could help educate the public about the regions cultures and history.

On January 12, 2008, I posted a piece titled Smarter Parts: Improving Efficient Energy Use and Demand? that touched upon an experimental program sponsored out of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). The essence of the program was to create a home energy system that could respond to changing prices and peak demand loads by dialing back energy consumption. The system would be accessible via the internet so homeowners could make changes in absentia. An update to the story included another article indicating that in 2009, California regulators may have direct access to homeowner thermostats via radio-controlled devices in new or substantially modified houses and buildings to manage electricity shortages — a plan cooked up by the California Energy Commission (CEC).

I opened a discussion thread for the piece in a few places, including several Delphi forums. In one thread,¹ some energy and water efficiency ideas came up. One in particular spawned the short poll that you’re about to see. Please read on, and take the poll; results will be published at the end of next week and included in another piece that I will cross-post in all areas where this appears.

Originally posted on ePluribus Media as Education For The Common Good: We’re All Out Of Our Minds.

People in the United States of America have been “asleep at the wheel” while their airwaves, traditional media, education and political discourse have been perpetually “dumbed down” to the point where the average citizen is often unaware and indifferent of major people, places and events of the world and from history.

If you don’t think education matters, and that news like the latest pop-glam scandal are more important than knowing what goes into our food, our environment, our foreign and domestic policies and what’s happening around the world, then you’ll probably fail to grasp the significance of the following video:

Note: suspected spoof video

______________________________

…if by a liberal they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people – their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, their civil liberties..if that is what they mean by a “liberal” then I am proud to be a liberal.

          —    John F. Kennedy

______________________________

In the conservative world, the word “liberal” is often used as a smear and an epithet in an attempt to denounce anyone who they dislike or who stands opposed to their ideas and idiot ideology. But now, after seven years of utter disaster at the hands of a conservative Administration — one that inherited a conservative Republican majority in Congress, only to lose it six years later — the nation and Conservatives have seen the disaster that their beliefs and policies lead to in terms of economic, political, military and social debacles, any one of which should give any sane citizen pause.

Conservatives, however, are not ones to reflect or reconsider failed positions or evidence that their flawed approach to government, to money, to military and political strategy and to social reform are simply bad policy.

On January 22, 2008, Australian actor Heath Ledger died. On that very same day, the fanatical Westboro Baptist Church posted a news release chock-full of their hate-filled vitriol that announced their intention to picket the funeral.

The cult-like hate group, which claims that it is their love for all that inspires their actions (to save the souls of homosexuals), appears to have enormous resources.  They often fly on short notice to picket funerals of homosexuals, trangendered people and — most recently — they have even added soldiers to their list of targets. They claim that events like 9/11, Hurrican Katrina and all the major catastrophes and wars impacting the US today are God’s punishment to the nation.¹

It’s time to use their own fervor against them.

The neo-Bushit continues.

As Recruiting Number Dwindle, Podhoretz Bangs His Drum

And even the Pentagon has been saying that the Surge failed, and the relative “quiet” right now had nothing to do with it:

From the Pentagon: The Surge didn’t work.

That’s one reason you keep hearing them talk about their legacy, while others try desperately to spin it — they are attempting to pre-fabricate a success out of the worst Presidency in history, and to ideally obscure the complicit role played by the Congressional Republicans and their associated pundits.

The Democrats aren’t playing smart, either, and by pushing their luck that the public will hate the Republicans more as election time approaches, they endanger themselves and the nation further by failing to act ~now~, before the summer campaign season and before BushCo can initiate (directly or indirectly) a nuclear conflict in Iran.

And things need not be this way.

Via PrgrsvArchitect on a comment over in a DailyKos Open Thread, here:

Just out from the Center for Public Integrity

http://www.publicintegrity.org/…

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration’s case for war.

President Bush, for example, made 231 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and another 28 false statements about Iraq’s links to Al Qaeda. Secretary of State Powell had the second-highest total in the two-year period, with 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq’s links to Al Qaeda. Rumsfeld and Fleischer each made 109 false statements, followed by Wolfowitz (with 85), Rice (with 56), Cheney (with 48), and McClellan (with 14).

The massive database at the heart of this project juxtaposes what President Bush and these seven top officials were saying for public consumption against what was known, or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis. This fully searchable database includes the public statements, drawn from both primary sources (such as official transcripts) and secondary sources (chiefly major news organizations) over the two years beginning on September 11, 2001. It also interlaces relevant information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches, and interviews.

Heh. Right from the horses ass mouth primary oratory orifice.