Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1 - Army Times:
"In the meantime, they’ll learn new skills, use some of the ones they acquired in the war zone and more than likely will not be shot at while doing any of it. They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack."

...or they may be called upon to do whatever the President tells them to do in accordance with his position as commander in chief! This is the first time since the Civil War that the US military has been deployed in the USA not in response to any disaster. Incredible. And who's to say the Wall Street meltdown won't provide a convenient excuse to suspend the election indefinitely? With a brigade at his disposal, Bush could remain in office for quite a while.

Study links oil prices to investor speculation - Yahoo! News:
"'We have clear evidence the fund flow pushed prices up and the fund flow pushed prices down,' said Michael Masters of Masters Capital Management, calling the amount of money moving into oil futures markets by large institutional investors in the early part of the year 'way off the scale.' Masters said its analysis shows investors 'began a massive stampede for the exits' on July 15 and that this caused the price decline. 'These large financial players have become the primary source of the dramatic and damaging volatility seen in oil prices,' concluded the report."

So the rush to open up ANWR and offshore drilling will serve just one purpose: enrich the oil companies even further. And at the same time though, it will WEAKEN our reserve of oil for the future and increase our national security risk.

Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com:
"Propaganda thrives -- predominates -- in our democracy for many reasons, the principal reason being that we don't have the sort of journalist class devoted to exposing it. Anyone who wants to contest that should examine the empirical data above, or more convincingly, just look at what the Bush administration has easily gotten away with over the last eight years -- the systematic deceit, the radicalism, the corruption, the crimes."

I hope to God I am wrong, but I'm afraid this election is over. In 2000 I thought there was no way a smart, thoughtful, kind of annoying person like Al Gore could lose to an obviously unqualified, barely coherent George W. Bush. In 2004 after 4 years of complete and abject disaster, I thought there was no way a smart, intelligent, war veteran like John Kerry could lose to the architect of the disaster. Now comes 2008.

Until McCain announced the choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate, I thought there was no way a smart, intelligent, thoughtful black man like Barack Obama could lose to an unhinged, disaster-in-waiting, sell-out like John McCain. But what I witnessed last Wednesday night and throughout the past few days has me nearly convinced that the Republicans have hit upon the magic formula once again. Do anything and everything to win at all costs. Why? Because it WORKS! They have absolutely NOTHING to run on. So just mock the other side. Say the vacuous magic words ("small town values", "POW", "God Bless America", "faith") over and over again, repeat lie after lie about the other guy endlessly. Sarah Palin is their mystery celebrity with the made to order dysfunctional family that "everyone can relate to". Remember how W was "the guy you'd like to have a beer with" because he wasn't smarter than you? Palin is the gal you'd like to hang out with because she's cute and knows how to hunt wolves from a helicopter. Just like us!

Don't laugh. This stuff works like a charm. Get ready for President McCain.

Alaska Lawmakers to Seek Subpoenas in Palin Inquiry - NYTimes.com:
"“I’m happy to comply, to cooperate,” Ms. Palin told the Anchorage television station KTUU in late July. “I have absolutely nothing to hide, no problem with an independent investigation.”

"In early August she said, “We are very, very open to answering any questions anybody has of me or my administrators.”

"But on Aug. 29, the day that Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, named Ms. Palin to his ticket, her lawyer, Mr. Van Flein, sent a letter to the state-appointed investigator asserting that, though he would cooperate with the Legislature’s inquiry, the accusations should be investigated by the state personnel board.

"According to the letter, obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Van Flein argued that state law made the personnel board “properly vested with primary jurisdiction.”

"Ms. Palin took the extraordinary step Tuesday of filing an ethics complaint against herself, making the matter fall within the bailiwick of the personnel board. Mr. Van Flein then asked the Legislature to drop its inquiry.

"The three members of the personnel board are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature. The proceedings of the board are conducted in secret, in contrast with the public deliberations of the Legislature."

It appears that there is something that the McCain/Palin campaign is trying desperately to hide. This may or may not be it, but the extreme reaction to even the most basic of questions regarding almost any information about Ms. Palin's background is quite surprising to say the least.

In another article about Ms. Palin's religious background: "Maria Comella, a spokeswoman for the McCain-Palin campaign, said Ms. Palin had been baptized Roman Catholic as an infant, but declined to comment further.“We’re not going to get into discussing her religion,” she said."

Oh really? Why is that? Why is Sarah Palin's religion off limits and Barack Obama's isn't? And why is Ms. Palin being shuttled off to Alaska for a while away from national media scrutiny? There's something very strange going on and I am hopeful that journalists are now sufficiently outraged by the horrific police state of the RNC, the sophomoric and mocking tone of the speeches and the constant blaming of "the media" for every fault, to actually find out what is behind it.