First, kill all the lawyers.

We've all seen them...every so often some moron with an over-inflated sense of entitlement files a lawsuit that makes us pause to shake our heads. Let me tell you about two of them.
In 2007 a Morgantown WV man sued McDonalds for putting cheese on his burger. He claims he asked for no cheese and had a severe allergic reaction after biting into said burger. While I guess it's possible, I've never heard of anyone that allergic to cheese. Come to think about it I've never heard of anyone allergic AT ALL to cheese. Anyway, this pinhead sued for 10 million dollars on a negligence claim. Are you kidding? For 10 million I'll cart my fat born-Jewish ass to a Klan meeting and bring a spare rope. Thankfully the claim was dismissed.
But recently it happened again. A VA man sued Burger King for "only" 100,000 dollars for failing to hold the onions, pickles, and tomatoes. Again playing the allergy card, he's suing on a negligence claim. But you know, people are assholes as I always say. I'm not upset at them...it's the lawyers who actually thought filing these cases was a good idea. They are the ones responsible in large part for the mess our legal system is in. Some judges can declare someone a "vexacious litigant" and restrict their ability to file suits in certain circumstances. This card should be played more often...especially against the lawyers who continue to add fuel to the legal fires that are consuming unecessary dollars and time from us all.
According to a post on hamptonroads.com, the attorney responsible for this suit is Constantine Spanoulis, whose office is in Virginia Beach. I wonder how many other of these ridiculous lawsuits came out of that office. How many layoffs could have been avoided were it not for the billions spent on frivolous suits like these?

Need food stamps? Call 800-IN-INDIA

Let's start with a statistic. Florida has a 9.7% unemployment rate. How to help, Florida style? Hire JP Morgan Chase (the recipient of federal bailout money) to run the food stamp program. Pay them 50 million dollars over three years. And the kicker: outsource the call center jobs to India. Yup. Someone is so brain dead at JP Morgan Chase as to think "Well, no one in Florida needs a job, we'll just take government money and spend it in a 3rd world country". They operate 4 call centers for the Florida Food Stamp Program, 2 of which are in India...none are in Florida. Lovely. After the newspaper "Palm Beach Post" broke the story, Florida officials now claim to have a promise from JP Morgan Chase to relocate those jobs back to the US. Better, but shouldn't Florida's money be spent IN FLORIDA?
To be fair, part of the blame goes to Florida for their lack of oversight. Indiana did it better...they also use JP Morgan Chase but their contract specified the call center jobs stay in Indiana. Only problem? They laid off 100 people when they hired JP Morgan Chase. Something tells me many of those 100 are now calling JPMC for food stamps. JPMC probably thinks of it as job security. I see it as the definition of short-sighted.

Something in the water in California

What is it about California that attracts the uber-liberals? A while ago I wrote about Anna Eshoo (D-where else but the Golden State) who called broadband internet service "a national asset". Now she's outdone herself. Let me present what may be THE most superfluous bill ever introduced...HR 6209. What does it want to regulate? Guess....I'll wait.
Give up? Ms. Eshoo (D-somewhere to the left of Bernie Sanders) wants to legislate........the volume of TV commercials.
She intends to give "broadcasters and whomever is involved the opportunity to explain to us if there are any sticky wickets, and I think we are confident we can close them, but I don't think we need to keep putting up with this."
Ms. Eshoo, please crawl back under whatever rock you came out from under and stay there. If you had talked to anyone in the audio business for 5 minutes you'd know audio levels vary. That's why TVs have volume controls. The more aggressively you process an audio signal the less fidelity you have. HDTV and surround sound require good sounding lightly processed audio. If TV stations cranked up the compression they'd be flooded with complaints about poor sound quality.
If you live in California and voted for this person who obviously has nothing better to do-shame on you. If you think she may be on to something...leave. Leave the country and go somewhere like Canada or the EU where people could talk about this with a straight face.

The arrogance is astonishing

Go here http://www.allaccess.com/assets/adFarm/_extra/AB_Letter.pdf
to read a letter that Anheuser Busch sent to the media recently.
They want to start paying invoices on Net 120 terms. The worst part? They'll get away with it. Agencies and stations will bend over a little further and grab their ankles a little tighter rather than band together and put a stop to this kind of abuse.
We need each other and antagonizing won't help. How long do you think it will be until Fred's used cars says "Hey, if Anheuser Busch can do it I can too"? What then?

Sirius/XM gets a last-minute lifeline

For those who didn't know, today was the deadline for Sirius/XM to make a $175 million dollar debt payment to the parent company of Dish Network. Their CEO Mel Karmazin didn't have it and planned a bankruptcy filing. But at the last minute, Dish competitor Liberty Media (parent of DirecTV) pumped in a 280 million dollar loan (at 15%!!!) with plans to sink another 250 million in exchange for about 40% of Sirius/XM's equity. Karmazin keeps his job which of course is far more important to him than the company he runs. This SOB was ready to wipe out millions of shareholders over a pissing match. Goniff. That's a Yiddish term...look it up. It fits.
I am heartbroken about the recent Sirius/XM merger and have written a previous post about it. Under the new regime choices have been slashed, the music dumbed down and the price has increased. In fact I no longer subscribe and I was one of the very earliest paying customers. OK, one bullet has been dodged but Mel has hundreds of millions more in debt coming due this year. What then? Shovel more of Liberty Media's cash into the moneypit?
Satellite radio was founded on choice. It now fails to deliver. Time to stick a fork in it-at least as long as Mel (fuck you I got mine) Karmazin is running it.

The cuts just keep on a-comin'

According to usually reliable government numbers, the last time the economy shrank for an entire year was 1982. I remember that recession...the job losses were due to automation and inefficient manufacturing and work rules than anything else. Service and McJobs were plentiful unlike now.
It looks like 2008's economic contraction is the greatest since the early 30's.
An NPR article detailed a breath-taking 75,000 job cuts announced on just ONE DAY...Friday the 23rd.
Caterpillar is slashing another 20,000 jobs. Even Microsoft will cut 5000, AT&T 12,000, Home Depot 7000, etc etc etc.
All the government stimulus in the world isn't going to dampen the fear. In the 1930's there was the Works Progress Administration which put people directly to work. As much as I detest new bureaucracy, this might just make sense.
Kinda gives new meaning to loving your job, huh?

Peace, lies, and free speech

Broward county, Florida is abuzz this week as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has placed ads on city buses.
The ads say "Islam-the way of life of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammad".
Some are upset that the ads are religious in nature but Christian churches have also advertised there and Florida courts have decreed the buses are "public forums" hence free speech rights apply. Fine, but...
One tiny problem-Islam was most definitely not the religion of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Don't all monotheistic religions look upon lying as sinful? Oops.
Coral Springs FL resident and right-wing Jewish activist Joe Kaufman condemned the ads as offensive. Mr. Kaufman...bite me. You write for the webzine Front Page which has called for nuclear attacks on Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. You're also probably tied up (says the South Florida Sun-Sentinel) with the miltant Kahanist Jewish sect which wants to physically toss Muslims out of Israel.
And you dare call your umbrella group "Americans Against Hate". What you hate is truth, common sense and live and let live.
CAIR and AAH, according to media reports hate each other (see the irony?) and each has accused the other of advocating terrorism. Way to advocate peace guys!
Both groups, despite their public statements, are steeped in racism and intolerance. Neither of them, in my opinion, would know the truth if it flew down and bit them in the ass.
Why don't you both turn the other cheek and shut the fuck up? If there is a God, I doubt he'd look favorably on either group for fostering misinformation and divisiveness on already divided mistrusting public.
CAIR's ad has no more credibility than various products hawked on TV via 800 numbers and should be looked at as such.
Let me be clear hence the PC Nazis get peeved...CAIR has a perfect right to place those ads. I and hopefully millions of others have the right to call them on the carpet for speaking with forked tongue.

Needle in a haystack.

Eureka!
I've managed to find what literally millions of people have been unable to get their hands on for quite awhile: a job. A real full-time job. A job with a privately owned broadcasting company that offers health insurance and has never laid anyone off.

Many of you are asking "so what? Lots of jobs with privately owned companies provide health insurance, right?" If you're one of them you're not a broadcaster. A medium sized corporate-owned Radio/TV broadcast group has just eliminated health insurance for all employees. Clear Channel (the country's largest radio group) is poised to RIF as much as 20% of its' workforce after another huge layoff last year. Even powerhouse WBZ has eliminated its live overnight host and now closes the newsroom at 8pm after two rounds of layoffs in '08.

Thankful? You can't imagine. Thrilled? Damn tootin'.

And now for something completely different: Is it just me, or does anyone else think that pluralizing things with a Z is just stupid?
Example: Oreo Stackerz.

Less than a month, from bad to worse.

My last post described my fear that the current economic situation will become the new American paradigm...one where the generally accepted rules simply don't apply. Looks like I'm right. Witness the following recent Holy Shit! moments:
1. Today, OPEC made the biggest production cut ever...2.2 million barrels a day. What happens to oil prices? They hit a 5 1/2 year low despite the dollar plunging vs. the Euro. Remember, oil is priced in dollars and a weaker greenback means you need more of them to buy it.
2. For the second day in a row, the price of platinum is below the price of gold. Six months ago platinum was approaching two grand an ounce, with gold about half that. Today it's three dollars cheaper than gold.
3. Chrysler is stopping production of all vehicles for at least the next 30 days. Every model. Every factory.
4. The Fed Funds rate is now .25%. It's never been this low. Conventional economics says this is inflationary. But "core " prices, which exclude volatile food and oil, have been flat two months in a row. I remind you, dear reader, that the Japanese government lowered their equivalent of the Fed funds rate to zero...while stuck in an economic meltdown lasting more than 10 years. Didn't help.
5. There are almost 180 banks on the FDIC's list of troubled banks. There were about 20 last year.
These things, according to every economic rule in the book, can't happen. But yet they have. I always said those bean-counting MBA's were full of lukewarm shit. I called this better than they did.

It's a vicious circle. No or shaky job means no buying. Those that want to buy can't get a loan. No buying means no production. This leads to layoffs. Lather, rinse, repeat. All the TARP programs in the world won't help if Economics 101 doesn't work. I'll make another prediction here: We as a country will never be the same. Even when/if things pick up we'll never see things as good as they were.

Maybe the "good old days" really were.

How could it get worse? According to US Government reports issued today, new unemployment claims reached a 16 year high. Claims lasting more than one week are at a 25 year high. New home construction hasn't been this slow since 1959. That's no typo. 1959. The Dow is under 8000. GMAC won't lend you money without a 700 credit score. The Detroit Three CEOs flew into DC yesterday (in private jets, mind you) to beg Congress for $25 billion as bankruptcy rumors circle like vultures around GM and Chrysler. Loan delinquency rates are at an all-time high. OK, I think you get the picture. The only bright side is oil is at a 4 year low-it closed at $49.62. Some bright side. Our Fed funds rate is 1% and credit is flowing slower than cold creamed gravy. I'm afraid this is the big one, as Fred Sanford used to say.
Truthfully, I never worried much about recessions. Things slowed for a year or two and then got better. I'm afraid that won't happen this time. How do you recover from losing your home? What about the 45 year old autoworker whose industry has been so downsized he has no hope of ever working there again? How does his family recover? Go back to school, right? Right. Where will he get the tuition? He can't pay it back even if he could find a willing lender. Even if he does, where will he work? What industries are going to absorb the torrent of the newly jobless? Even McDonalds doesn't need that many people. Have we peaked as a country?

RIP Circuit Shitty

If you haven't heard, Circuit City filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy today. One of two things will probably happen: they'll survive for a while as a vastly downsized company then fail or they'll get bought out by some private equity firm that'll screw it up so bad they'll have to bring in the liquidators. Why, you ask?
It's funny that you and I know why, but the so-called experts have run the company straight in to the ground. Service, plain and simple. To wit:
1. Last years stunning mass firing of thousands of (mostly) fairly knowledgable non-commissioned salespeople, replacing them with 8$ an hour cashiers who don't know XM from HD, 7.1 surround from star 69, or megabytes from microwaves. If I wanted that level of "service" I can go to Walmart. Customers? Fuck 'em.
2. High pressure pitches to buy overpriced "protection plans" that were an exercise in futility in that nothing was covered, complete with....
3. Indian call centers. Nothing says contempt for the customer like a script-reading automaton you can't understand.
4. Service departments that don't service. Even if it was covered they couldn't fix it. I had a Tivo that had to go back three times before they gave up trying and replaced it. They spent more than the Tivo's cost on shipping alone.

CC claims the credit crunch, liquidity issues, and competition have forced them into Chapter 11. Bull. Best Buy is doing fine, thank you very much.
Why? The salestaff (usually) has a clue. Their management thought "Gee, customers LIKE to talk to someone who can actually find their ass with both hands and knows a pixel from a pixie stick." Voila! Profits.
Few people can walk into a big box store, face a wall of dozens of (item name here) and make an informed purchase decision. Buying a $2500 Flat screen TV isn't anywhere near the same as buying batteries. Radio Shack has forgotten that, and so has CC. I'm not betting on either of them remembering anytime soon.

One strike and you're out. Works for me.

Not sure what else I can say about this other than it's a great idea. Really. There are far too many professional baby machines that litter the landscape with their crotch-droppings only for the additional welfare benefits and then the kids end up frequently horribly abused by them, their gone-with-the-wind dads and/or other morons, crackheads, perverts, and others. Then they and their ultra bleeding-heart legal aiders plug up the court system trying to get the kids back just to start the cycle all over again. Think of the savings in welfare costs alone! The fact that I as a Libertarian agree with a Socialist, however, is giving me a migraine.
PS-don't bother with the "draft bill" link-it's in Dutch.


Women in the Netherlands deemed "unfit mothers" may soon be forced to take contraception, if a draft bill currently before the Dutch parliament is passed. The bill "targets women who have been the subject of judicial intervention due to their bad parenting," says its author, a member of the Netherlands' socialist Labour Party.

Under the proposed legislation, a woman judged unfit who refuses to take contraception and becomes pregnant would have her child taken away at birth. The infant then would be placed in a foster home.

If children really are the future we're screwed

I weep for the future. I was surfing the Net recently and spent some time on Yahoo! Answers. Just when you think you've seen everything...The italics are mine...the rest I just pasted in red.

I have blue hair. Will this negatively affect my hireability? What stores, if any, would be least likely to care? (I'm willing to dye my hair back to brown, but I'd rather not IF I can get hired with my hair dyed...)
Sweet frakking Universe. The tides of stupidity are rising fast.

Only in Florida, part 2

BRADENTON, Fla. – Authorities said a man tried to steal several bags of frozen shrimp from a supermarket by hiding them down his pants. The Manatee County Sheriff's Office reported that an off-duty detective was shopping at a Sweetbay supermarket Sunday when he noticed what appeared to be a man with groceries stuffed in his pants.
The detective approached the 32-year-old man and ordered him to stop. Authorities said the man then removed several bags of shrimp from his pants and promised to put them back.
When the man fled for the store's exit, the detective tackled and restrained him until patrol deputies arrived.
The man was charged with shoplifting, battery on an officer and resisting arrest. He was being held on $2,600 bail.

Home of the hanging chad and dinner at 4:30pm

Only in Florida could people screw up a paper ballot. I guess the old folks aren't strong enough to punch a piece of paper. Yet they drive....
The hilarious website http://www.fark.com/ brings together real news stories about "morons, psychopaths, and mental defectives" (of all ages) from all over the world. They're tagged with different descriptive terms such as Ironic, Sad, Strange, etc. But only one state has enough of these knuckle-dragging mouth breathers to warrant it's own tag. That's right kids...Florida. When you see the Florida tag...look out. Much like when you see a Crown Vic with Florida plates. They're usually doing about 35 MPH in the left lane with the turn signal on. Anyway, here's a perfect example. I saw this story's headline and said "I bet this is in Florida". I was right, and here it is, presented with a silent prayer that this dingleberry doesn't vote. She'd probably screw it up anyway.

FORT PIERCE, Fla. – A woman decided to go to jail rather than pay her bill at a Fort Pierce Waffle House restaurant. The total she went to jail over: $7.45. According to a police report, Maryanne O'Neill, 66, ordered coffee and a sandwich at a Waffle House restaurant on Saturday but refused to pay the bill.
The report said an officer asked her to pay or go to jail and she refused.
A jail official said she was released Monday from the St. Lucie County Jail. She was charged with obtaining food or lodging with intent to defraud, a second degree misdemeanor. If convicted of a second degree misdemeanor she could face up to 60 days in jail and a fine of $500.

God beats the rap on a technicality

In every group of people there are a few who that...well...make the rest of us wish for legalized euthanasia. In a group to which I belong (Libertarian athiests) there are more than a few. Allow me to aquaint you with one.
Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers has been in office 38 years and according to reports been actively anti-religion all of that time. He obviously has nothing better to do so he decided to sue God. No typo. This mental midget sued God. Mr. Chambers wanted a permanent injunction against the Big Guy because "God has made terroristic threats against the senator and his constituents in Omaha, inspired fear and caused "widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants." Suing God for "terroristic threats"? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot??? Methinks his tinfoil hat is too tight.
However, the county court judge threw out the suit saying under NE law you must have "access" to a defendant. In other words how do you serve them with notice of the suit if you don't have their home address? By all accounts, God's address is unlisted. Mr. Chambers, in a hilarious answer said "The court itself acknowledges the existence of God. A consequence of that acknowledgment is a recognition of God's omniscience. Therefore, since God knows everything, God has notice of this lawsuit."
A- for effort, but F- for doing nothing more than pissing off Christians (who seem to be perpetually pissed off about something) and making the rest of us look like fatigue-wearing survivalists waiting for a racial holy war.
Thanks for setting our efforts back 20 years, dipshit.

Nuff said.

Time's up for the debt clock.

Back in the good old days of 1989, a visionary developer named Seymour Durst wanted to call attention to our mounting national debt, which at the time was about 2.7 TRILLION dollars.
He designed a "national debt clock" which advanced as our national debt did. Now it's obsolete. Remember when gas pumps had to be replaced because they weren't designed to handle prices over a buck a gallon? Yup.
The national debt clock has run out of digits. I doubt the erstwhile Mr. Durst (or anyone else) imagined a 10+ trillion dollar debt, but we have one now. The current maintainers of the clock say they'll add more digits next year. I was always told as a kid the Democrats were the tax-and-spenders, but since Reagan the Republicans have become tax cutters-and-spenders. Vote Libertarian.

New nickname...Ailin' Palin

She's done it again, kids. Recently Katie Couric asked what newspapers she (Palin) read, she replied "all of 'em".
Palin has outdone herself in the stupidity sweepstakes. An AP story (which you can read here) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081004/ap_on_el_pr/palin_obama;_ylt=Akgh776ZO24UhFQXMnXhbY5H2ocA
has her claiming Obama is "palling around with terrorists" because a former Weather Underground member lived in the same neighborhood. The mind reels at the naked stupidity of this woman. Can McCain take a mulligan and pick another VP? Vote Libertarian.

Part 4...the storm clouds gather.

Nothing prepares you for the moment of love at first sight, especially when you don’t think it exists. I barely heard a word she said as I was too busy trying to process a torrent of raw emotion. I had no clue what the hell was going on...only there was no one else in the world except her at that moment. I mumbled through some pleasantries and went back to my seat. Jesus, I thought, I need a drink. Badly.
I asked the club owner and bartender if anyone had seen her before. Nope. Great, no one who could introduce me. I’ll give you an idea of how affected I was...I asked her to dance. Now anyone who’s known me for more than 5 minutes knows there are a few things I just don’t do...and dancing is at the top of the list. It was the only way I knew to start a conversation with her. So we danced, and just before the end of the song I slipped her a note with my name and number. She took it without looking at it, but did ask me to sit down. I remember asking about the guy she came in with, but she said he was just a friend. (He was...one I never managed to get along with, but anyhow). We talked very briefly about nothing much as I had to go backstage and introduce the next act, but she mentioned she listened to my show in the afternoons. I told her I was glad I met her, went backstage, and had another drink. As I walked onstage I had the weirdest feeling...a hunch that I’d be here again...with her. Turns out I was right, but that comes later.
The next couple of days were hell. The only thing I wanted was for her to call me. Every time the phone rang I said a silent prayer it was her (and praying is another one of the things I don’t do). On top of all that I had to deal with these new feelings. I’d met people before, obviously. Why was this one so different? What the hell was going on? Was I going nuts?
Finally, it happened. I was in the middle of my airshift when she called on the request line.
Never had I been so happy to hear a voice. We talked for awhile and I threw caution to the wind and asked her out. We went to my favorite Chinese restaurant that night and from there hardly left each others sight. In fact, we moved in together 3 weeks later.
I had it ALL. Programming a radio station and the most beautiful girl in the world. I brought her home for Thanksgiving and was really surprised that no one seemed to feel the same way toward her as I did. My friends shared my family’s opinion. They were happy for me but didn’t care for her much. I blithely ignored these alarm bells and settled into one of the happiest periods in my life.
Her family, on the other hand, was a swirling morass of dysfunction. Mom was a narcissistic manipulator and Dad was rooted in a deep angry depression that made him a mean, bitter and sarcastic asshole after a fatal car accident in which he was driving killed his wife. Her brother was just a spoiled over-entitled idiot struggling with his then-latent homosexuality.
So what did I do? Yup, I allowed Dad and Brother to move in with us. Smart, huh? Even so, I was happy.
A couple paragraphs ago I wrote of the hunch I had that I’d be on that nightclub stage again, and she’d be with me. I was right. As we headed in to the 1990 holiday season I wanted to throw our station a first birthday party. It was quite a bash, with a couple live bands, catered food, cheap drinks and about 500 people. We carried the party live on air. A couple minutes before midnight I was onstage to lead the crowd in a New Years toast.
I often spoke on air about things in my life, including her. In fact I referred to her as "the cherry on my sundae". Most, if not all listeners had heard me mention this as I did it often.
So I grab the mic and ask if they’d like to meet the cherry on my sundae. The crowd, well lubricated by this time, roared yes. I asked her to come up with me and introduced her to a packed nightclub. As we stood onstage I told the crowd I had to do one more thing. I pulled a ring from my pocket and live on the air asked her to marry me. The applause was deafening but I didn’t hear it. She said yes. That started a roller coaster ride that was to end in disaster about 6 months later.

Cut the cheese, go to jail.

Recently I posted about police officers who have little if any respect for the people they supposedly protect. If I do 75mph on a highway I'm treated like I mugged the President, ticketed, and then made to sit through a preachy doublethinkful (read Orwell's 1984) roadside soliloquy about safe driving. Police, however can travel at any speed they like even when off duty or on routine patrol. Who's going to ticket them?
Contempt toward others and the feeling of superiority that comes with a badge is a toxic combination.
Allow me to tell you about 34 year old Jose Cruz. He was stopped for drunk driving and taken to the Kanawha County VA station to be processed. So far so good.
Mr. Cruz then farts and fans it toward officer T.E. Parsons as they sit in an interrogation room. Officer Parsons then decides he's a far more valuable member of society than everyone else and tacks onto Mr. Cruz another charge. What could it be, you ask?
Battery on a police officer. No, I'm not kidding. I wish I was. The mind boggles as to how self-important one armed idiot can be. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed as the Kanawha county prosecutor dropped the charge. I'll bet my next paycheck Officer Parsons faces no discipline for this incident. Mr. Cruz still faces DUI charges. I hope they convict the SOB...and he doesn't fart in court.

Some companies just don't get it.

A Reuters story today says Ebay may cut up to 1500 jobs. A whopping 10% of their employees. Why? A report by investment firm Wedge Partners says the business is "deteriorating". No shit. Anyone who's had trouble with the brain-dead morons at Paypal, had an auction pulled for no apparent reason with no recourse, tried in vain to get Ebay to answer a simple emailed question, had to deal with their "dispute resolution" (which is code for "give the buyer whatever he wants even if he lies like a rug and you the seller are screwed), or balked at ever-increasing fees knows what the problems are.
I just described them. They're slowly kiling the golden goose, and no one at Ebay has enough common sense to see it.

The Russians aren't alone in their delusions.

This comes from Al-Jazeera's English website. Any italics are mine.


'Many still have doubts' over 9/11
By Alex Sehmer

Many find it hard to accept the official version of what happened on 9/11
More than 50 per cent of people reject the official belief that the attacks on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, were carried out by al-Qaeda, a new survey has revealed.
The findings, released late on Wednesday, suggest that the official version of events - that the attacks, which killed more than 2,900 people and sparked the US so-called "war on terror", were carried out by al-Qaeda - is still a long way from being generally accepted.
Only 46 per cent of respondents named al-Qaeda, while 25 per cent said they did not know and 15 per cent said the US government was behind the attacks.
Steven Kull, the director of WorldPublicOpinion.org, which carried out the survey, told Al Jazeera: "Broadly what this says is that there is a lack of confidence with the United States and so people mistrust the narrative the US puts forward."Officially, hijackers took control of four passenger aircraft in the September 11 attacks. Two of the aeroplanes crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York and the "Twin Towers" subsequently collapsed, bringing down two other buildings nearby. The third aircraft hit the Pentagon while the fourth is said to have crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Kull's organisation asked more than 16,000 people world wide "Who do you think was behind the 9/11 attacks?", leaving the question open-ended.
While a substantial number of those polled believed the US government was in some way behind the attacks, seven per cent point the finger at Israel.
The 2001 attacks prompted the so-called US 'war on terror'. Of the countries surveyed, Egypt and Jordan had the highest percentages of people who believed Israel was behind the attack, polling 43 and 31 per cent respectively. Nineteen per cent of those polled in the Palestinian territories claimed Israel was in some way responsible.

Building a new Iron Curtain

Unlike a great many Americans, I spend quite a bit of time on foreign news English language sites, especially Russia, North Korea, and Cuba as it's always fascinating (to me) how they bend the facts like so many coat hangers. (NO MORE WIRE HANGERS...EVER! Sorry, had a Joan Crawford moment.)
So today on the website Russia Today http://www.russiatoday.com/en
there was the daily poll. It was a good one. It asked "Do you believe the report of the official commission on 9/11?" I literally choked on the answer. I figured the number of "No" answers would be high...but would you believe 86%?
Now, I understand this site is used generally by non-Russians as it's in English. It's a safe bet most of these answers came from Canada, the US and English-speaking Europe. Who else, right?
I guess we Americans haven't cornered the market on paranoid delusions. Gee, I'll sleep better tonight.

Another September 11th

For the moment, let's ignore the fact that many Americans (probably a majority) believe we're no safer than we were on that excruciatingly painful day 7 years ago despite the evisceration of the Constitution and the spending of hundreds of billions of dollars by a president bent on Orwellian domination of the country and a Congress too busy trying not to look "soft on terrorism" to stop him. Whew...quite a long sentence, hmm?
Almost all of us recall in great detail what we were doing on September 11th, 2001. I was on my way to work when I heard a bulletin on the radio a plane had hit the WTC. I thought it was someone in a Cessna who got lost or had mechanical problems. I popped in a CD and forgot about it....until
I walked into chaos. There are few places as busy as a radio station when "the big one" hits the fan. It took me a minute or two to get up to speed, then we broke format and started covering the story best we could.
I'll always feel guilty about this. I shouldn't admit it, but I really enjoyed the first couple of hours...I was thinking that this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to shine and maybe we could win some awards. About 1130 or so, it just hit me. Don't know how, but all of a sudden the whole weight of what were doing hit me at 100mph. At that point I became just one of the hundreds of millions of people watching TV and wondering not only what happened, how it could have happened, and of course, what now?
I was born after JFK was shot. I can only understand the event through the lens of history. People still remember that event in razor-sharp detail 45 years later but find it hard to explain to "the rest of us" the emotional toll of that day.
I have no doubt we will have the same problem explaining 9/11 to the next generation. Never before have we seen the entire country literally grind to a screeching halt. No planes, no sports, no comedians...nothing. Most of us didn't want those things anyway. All we wanted were answers..and Bin Laden's head. The answers we got, (even if the tin foil hat bunch disbelieve) with the added bonus of an Iraq war to ratchet up the death toll and balloon our national debt. Bin Laden's head? Even if we got it, was it worth thousands of dead and a staggering amount of money? That's for you to decide, but before you do ask yourself this...would Bin Laden's death make us safer or just fuel a sense of patriotic vengeance?