June 2008 Archives

I love the internets: Ukraine dot com.

NEW RUSSIAN CRINOLINE FOR YOUR WEDDING DRESS

You are bidding on a top quality 3-hoop a stunning snow-white crinoline/petticoat/slip with drawstring waist fit up to 38". Due to elastic metal rings, the crinoline is perfectly transported and instantly restores the initial form.

This crinoline will make your wedding dress very magnificent and smart.

This is not a crinolines that sat on the floor and a million people tried on. It is BRAND NEW no alteration, still has tags and never even put on and in a factory packing.

Price: 8.95 EURO

- - -

Translation: $5,987,763 USD

Chris Hedges offers an absolutely unapologetic review the press and those who speak on our behalf in Washington D.C.: TruthDig: The Hedonists of Power [Link].

Washington has become Versailles. We are ruled, entertained and informed by courtiers. The popular media are courtiers. The Democrats, like the Republicans, are courtiers. Our pundits and experts are courtiers. We are captivated by the hollow stagecraft of political theater as we are ruthlessly stripped of power. It is smoke and mirrors, tricks and con games. We are being had.

Following up from an earlier post, the BBC asserts that the mismanagment of $15 billion in Iraqi contracts may be closer to $23 billion: More Fraud in Iraq [BBC].

Even better, the current Bush administration has issued a gag order preventing discussion of the misappropriation of your tax dollars.

A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq.

The BBC's Panorama programme has used US and Iraqi government sources to research how much some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding.

A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations.

The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.

Ya know, millions are unemployed, millions have lost their homes, millions have lost health insurance, millions cannot afford staggering price jumps in food, gasoline, and utilities, millions have been displaced by the illegal and criminal invasion of Iraq...and what?

What is to come of this administrations' complete and utter abuse of power, their criminal and unlawful torturing policies, and its utter disregard for Constitutional safeguards?

Not a damn thing I suspect.

Isn't America grand?

It strikes me as (gasp) hypocritical that the United States government now insists that federal contractors (in the states) must validate the legality of their workers while federal contractors (in Iraq) utilized slave labor to build the U.S. embassy.

Contractors supporting the U.S. military have reportedly employed thousands of foreign workers who had arrived in Iraq as victims of trafficking. According to CorpWatch, which investigates and exposes corporate human rights violations worldwide, contractors working for Halliburton/KBR, which manages a $12 billion reconstruction contract, and First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting, which has a $592 million contract to build the new U.S. embassy in Baghdad, use deception and “bait-and-switch” hiring practices, charge exorbitant “recruiting” fees that put poor migrant workers in debt to their employers, hold passports to restrict workers’ movements, and provide inadequate living conditions and emergency medical care. Although the Pentagon prohibits such practices for all contractors receiving U.S. funds, it has no penalty for violating such policy.

Turkish middlemen “illegally” took a group of 400 Georgian nationals into Iraq, charged exorbitant “service” fees, and failed to honor promises of good wages and living conditions.

Related: State Department says rampant abuse and slavery claims unsubstantiated.

Related: Iraqi women and children sold to highest bidder -- Iraqi union leaders murdered.

Related: Accounting errors for more than $15 billion in Pentagon defense contracts for weapons, vehicles, construction equipment, and security services in Iraq.

I'm content with 4:43...