0910 am 'Get This' news

09/10/07 Get This
Chris Andreae
 

1. Eyes sharp for a black SUV.  The fire-belching behemoth set fire to 300 acres west of Salem.  SUV’s…you either hate ‘em…or you hate ‘em.
2. The Activist Report:  Martha Odom tells it like it is.  This week’s report includes Bush’s brainless idiotic remarks at the APEC Summit in Australia (See the video on YouTube!);  The status of the Rev. David Duncombe.  Duncombe is fasting for 40 days to force Congress to pass the Jubilee Act.;  Alex Jones (Of Prison Planet, the  website.  Some dare call it a conspiracy site, but what the hell:  You buy the ticket, you take the ride, no?  got arrested for waving “9/11 Was An Inside Job” signs behind Geraldo Rivera’s head while Rivera was on camera.  (They should have left the guy inside Al Capone’s casket for some other dog of a reporter to unearth one day….);  The Cross Country March for Peace is at Arlington Cemetery around about now;  The PDX Peace Coalition is at every State legislator’s office with postcards from outraged anti-war constituents.  Global Day for Darfur is coming up…And tomorrow – just like every other day in 21st century America – is the anniversary of 9/11.  There will be more than enough to keep the activist in you running from the private police force that has taken over downtown Portland.
3. Paranoia:  It’s A Matter of Degree:  A teacher in southern Oregon has apparently been bringing a concealed weapon with her to school.  Because she feels threatened. 
4. Traditions Die Hard:  The Makah Indians harpooned and then machine-gunned a grey whale.  The whale upon receiving the barrage of spears was heading for the open sea when it was shot.  Blame it on “tradition”…But, you know, slavery was once considered a “tradition.”  Female genital mutilation is still considered one in some parts of the world.  Lynching,  there’s another “tradition” for you.  Just because something is a “tradition” doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.  If you don’t believe me, consider the family Thanksgiving Dinner ritual…
5. When the delightful and highly seductive Larry Craig finally steps – or is pushed – from his seat, don’t start celebrating too soon.  Gordon Smith might fill his, well, shoes, so to speak, on some key Fish and Wildlife decisions.  And we all know how Smith can be counted upon to support farmers over salmon and loggers over trees…
6. Friends of the Columbia River Gorge got a big gift:  Cape Horn is now officially protected from development.  (On the downside, it will be open to the public….)
7. Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson are joining thousands of people converging on Jena, Mississippi on the 20th of this month.  Civil rights activists are heading South once again to protest the treatment of six boys who were legally lynched by the bonehead white mob.  (“Tradition”, y’know….)
8. Friends of the Earth are the enemies of the EPA.  Since the federal agency won’t do its job and regulate air pollution caused by huge ships in harbors around the country.  An ocean liner emits as much in the way of pollutants as 350 thousand cars.   (On the upside, no ocean liner has set fire to 300 acres west of Salem…Yet),  And therefore groups like Friends of the Earth have to take the bastards to court…again and again and again.
9. And here’s another tasty morsel from the Environmental News Service:  Federal agencies manage almost 30 percent of the land area of the United States (And judging by the condition it’s in, they’re doing a piss-poor job.).  But these agencies have not made climate change a priority and the agencies’ strategic plans do not address climate change.  (We used to get by using the marvelous old “tradition” of slashing and burning our way across the landscape back in the days when there was plenty of landscape to slash and burn.  Try S&B-ing your way to the next planet with an atmosphere and some water…)
10. General David Petraeus:  “The Surge Must Go On.”  (The White House pushed the right button for once:  Otherwise the world might have been treated to the General exhorting the “Austrian troops fighting in Eye-rack”, or “I wuv you.”)
11. Armed Farces:   Whoops!  Wrong Button:  While the Iraq Report farce  was unfolding, Donald Rumsfeld – this was actually over the weekend – told us that What’s going on in Afghanistan is a “big success”  Which, compared to Iraq, I suppose one could argue that it is…Still…(Note 26 people were killed by a car bomber in southern Afghanistan today and this year’s is the biggest opium crop ever.)
12. Former Panamanian drug lord, gunrunner, father, and husband, Manuel Noriega is still in a US prison even though his sentence has been served.  France wants him extradited.  The Panamanians convicted him – in absentia – of murdering political rivals and money laundering.  Noriega says he just wants to go home and live a “quiet, normal life.”  (Hey, think of all the favors we must owe that man…)
13. Larry Craig wants to withdraw his guilty plea (Sure, Larry…Don’t we all…)
14. In Northern Indiana, the river made famous by catching fire and then having a song written about it by Randy Newman, is about to catch fire again.  (So all you  able-bodied lyricists out there, start sharpening your pencils.)  Anyway, the pollution from an oil refinery is about to fan the flames of flames in addition to the fires of commerce.
15. Stand-off in a Wal-Mart:  Man went nuts when the Southern California store’s ‘Sales Associate’ wouldn’t let him exchange some ammo he had bought there.
16. Israeli PM Ehud Olmert wants some “rough guidelines” fro peace.  Mahmoud Abbas wants some actual real, peace process.  To make matters even worse, the US wants to hold a peace conference in November (We’ll bring the turkey!).  And we all know what happens when America comes to the rescue…
17. Israel accidentally imported a bunch of violent neo-Nazis from Russia.  (Not to be confused with their own home-grown violent neo-Zionists…)
18. So who is buying all the guns and ammo the US manufactures?  Not the disgruntled customer in California.  No…Nope.  These customers are completely satisfied with their purchases; they are among the world’s worst violators of human rights.  (Well, hell, how you gonna violate someone’s human rights if you aren’t packin’  Tell me that…)
19. Britain says that the US twisted its arm and made it delay withdrawal of troops from Basra.  (They were doubtless all set to go, sitting on the tarmac, waiting for Jet Blue to get clearance fro St. Louis….)
20. “The US is urging Iran to cooperate with an investigation into it past nuclear activities.”  Now that you’ve stop laughing at that one, consider this:  It’s going to be a very brief “investigation” because it leads straight to Washington DC.  And then there is the new military base the US is building in Iraq…. Conveniently located four miles from the Iranian border….
21. A gas pipeline in Mexico exploded and a truck blew up.
22. Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif arrived in Islamabad and was immediately deported.  That Musharraf!  He really knows how to please an angry mob!