US Lawmakers Have $196M Invested in Defense Corps.

It doesn't have to be this way. More here.

"George W. Bush Sewage Plant" Proposed in San Fran

(Thanks, HuffPo!)

Patches = Clues to What We're Buying with Bush's $32 Billion Black Ops Budget

Skulls, snakes, wizards, a dragon clutching the Earth in its claws, occult symbols . . . . "No, this is not the fantasy world of a 12-year-old boy. It is, according to a new book, part of the hidden reality behind the Pentagon’s classified . . . budget that delivers billions of dollars to stealthy armies of high-tech warriors.

"The book offers a glimpse of this dark world through a revealing lens — patches — the kind worn on military uniforms. . . . One patch shows a space alien with huge eyes holding a stealth bomber near its mouth. 'To Serve Man' reads the text above, a reference to a classic 'Twilight Zone' episode in which man is the entree, not the customer. 'Gustatus Similis Pullus' reads the caption below, dog Latin for 'Tastes Like Chicken.'

"Trevor Paglen, an artist and photographer . . . has managed to document some of this hidden world. . . . “Oderint Dum Metuant,” reads a patch for an Air Force program . . . according to Mr. Paglen, who identifies the saying as from Caligula, the first-century Roman emperor famed for his depravity. It translates 'Let them hate so long as they fear.'"

The book's entitled, I Could Tell You but Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me, translated from one of the patches. More here.

Morale-boosters for those carrying on black ops; and, among those they encounter, U.S. brands. And we wonder why the world hates us?

Proposed Market Regulatory Reform Irrelevant & Dangerous

If you're wondering how Treasury Sec. Henry Paulson came out so quickly with detailed proposals for a complete consolidation and overhaul of the five gummint agencies now responsible for oversight of various sectors of our financial system, you haven't done the homework I assigned -- watching the Naomi Klein interview embedded in my earlier posts and (here and here).

Senator Chris Dodd (D) might be wondering, too -- he's Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and no one consulted him about the proposals.

Reuters reports, Dodd "said he welcomed the plan offered by . . . Paulson, but questioned its relevance in addressing falling home prices, rising foreclosures and the imminent threat of recession. . . . [Overhauling the regulatory system] 'doesn't relate to the issues we're grappling with,' Dodd said on a conference call. 'The failure of the administration to utilize the tools they've been given over the years . . . . That's the problem, not reorganization.'

" . . . Paulson on Monday issued a sweeping plan that calls for giving the Federal Reserve more authority over Wall Street . . . . Although the plan has been under development for many months, Dodd said he had not been asked for input on it. Noting that some of the ideas in the Paulson plan have been under discussion for years, Dodd said reorganizing the government was not the problem." More here.

I.e., in my view, the problem is not that the Federal Reserve needs more power, but that we've eviscerated the protections put in place after the market crash of 1929: the enforcement capabilities of bank regulators and the SEC, S&L regulation, and the Glass-Steagall Act.

The Wall Street Journal reports, "'It reads like amateur hour and it's because none of those guys ever worked in a regulated, chartered bank,' said Camden Fine, president and chief executive of the Independent Community Bankers of America . . . . 'A bunch of guys from Wall Street decided this was going to be their proposal.' . . . Large financial-services companies have had a seat at the table as Treasury crafted its plan . . . . " More here.

Others reviewing the details of the plan are even more concerned. Mike Whitney writes that, though the proposals are being billed "as a 'massive shakeup of US financial market regulation,' . . . [we should not] be deceived. [They] are neither 'timely' nor 'thoughtful' . . . . In fact, it's all just more of the same free market 'we can police ourselves' mumbo-jumbo that got us into this mess in the first place. The real objective of Paulson's so-called reforms is to decapitate the SEC and increase the powers of the Federal Reserve. . . . "

"If Paulson's plan is approved in its present form, Congress will have even less control over the financial system than it does now, and the same group of self-serving banking mandarins who created the biggest equity bubble in history will be able to administer the markets however they choose without the annoyance of government supervision. That's exactly what Treasury Secretary and his pals at the Fed want; unlimited power with no accountability." More here; see also The New York Times.

Thomas Jefferson on Our Unfolding Financial Disaster:

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." From an 1802 letter to then Sec. of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, per Liberty-Tree.

Naomi Klein on the "Shock Doctrine"

Apologies for the repeat, but I think Klein's insights are of critical importance, and too few people are aware of them.

We've already seen "shock therapy" administered following the Iraq invasion and Katrina; next is the rapidly unfolding financial crisis in the U.S.

The crisis probably would not have happened if we hadn't previously allowed conservative forces to dismantle much of the regulatory protections put in place after the Great Depression, such as Glass-Steagall, S&L regulation, and adequate funding for bank regulators and the SEC.

Instead of restoring those protections, of course, the Bush administration is already using the financial crisis as an excuse for rolling out radical new changes; see, e.g., here and here.

Not worried enough yet to act? "As journalist Naomi Klein so succinctly put it, when the next administration takes over the White House, they’ll find it empty. Agencies that might have dealt with the blowback from two pre-emptive wars and the current economic crisis are no longer functional. . . . From the Gipper to BushCo, the dissolution of our social contract has transformed the United States from an imperfect union to a ruined [I'd say, looted] corporation. Its engineers will not relinquish the power – or the money – they have taken from us." (From OpEdNews.) And that's just the beginning of what Klein's pieced together.

If we don't understand her insights, we're sitting ducks. The video is just over 8 min. Please watch it and share it.

Milwaukee International Art Fair

"International"'s prolly meant humorously, but my li'l home town kinda is -- a great Mex community, and restaurants, decades before NYC; not to mention German, Polish, Czech, et al.

I understand the last fair was more about fun than commerce. This year's "Dark Fair" (opening March 28) will be held without natural or electric light, other than candlelight, flashlight, and glow-in-the-dark stuff -- maybe a little like snuggling up to someone else's computer at night. Some cool galleries will be there, including Dallas's own Angstrom.

Ok, I'm a sucker for the original "Star Trek";

plus, this bead-curtain Kirk by Devorah Sperber flatters my delusion that I see through men (to their fervent wish that they only were so shallow).