Saturday, September 09, 2006

Halliburton Secretly Doing Business with Key Member of Iran's Nuclear Team

Scandal-plagued Halliburton, the oil services company once headed by Vice President Dick was secretly working with one of Iran’s top nuclear program officials on natural gas related projects and, allegedly, selling the officials' oil development company key components for a nuclear reactor, according to Halliburton sources with intimate knowledge into both companies’ business dealings.
Just last week a National Security Council report said Iran was a decade away from acquiring a nuclear bomb. That time frame could arguably have been significantly longer if Halliburton, which just reported a 284 percent increase in its fourth quarter profits due to its Iraq reconstruction contracts, was not actively providing the Iranian government with the financial means to build a nuclear weapon.
Now comes word that Halliburton, which has a long history of flouting U.S. law by conducting business with countries the Bush administration said has ties to terrorism, was working with Cyrus Nasseri, the vice chairman of the board of directors of Oriental Oil Kish, one of Iran’s largest private oil companies, on oil development projects in Tehran. Nasseri is also a key member of Iran’s nuclear development team.
“Nasseri, a senior Iranian diplomat negotiating with Europe over Iran's controversial nuclear program is at the heart of deals with US energy companies to develop the country's oil industry”, the Financial Times reported.

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Why doesn't this surprise me?

Friday, September 08, 2006

Richardson Secures Release of Journalist in Sudan

from left to right: Calvin Humphrey, the Governor’s foreign policy advisor, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, and President Omar al-Bashir at the President's residence in Khartoum.

Well, I knew he would be successful, because he is a great diplomat and a well respected man. The "adult in the room" has scored the release of detained journalist Paul Salopek, his translator, and his driver.

Richardson said, “The successful end to this unfortunate episode is a victory for journalism and a free press. Most important, these three men will return home safely to be with their families, friends and colleagues who were relentless in their appeals to have them freed."

Way to go Governor!

Thursday, September 07, 2006

ABC PIMPS 9/11

In what is being most generously described as a slanderous, terror-mongering pack of lies aimed at influencing voters by playing to base emotions and exploiting the tragedies of 9/11, ABC has refused to provide advance copies of this pile of lies to members of the Clinton administration, including Sandy Berger and Madeleine Albright, though they did provide copies to some of the most obscure right-wing bloggers. Clearly this is no more than cheap pandering.

READ MORE ABOUT IT!

Of COURSE 9/11 was the fault of the Clinton Administration! Of course it was Clinton's fault. Of course the Clinton family has a long, well documented relationship with the Bin Laden family, business and personal. Clinton's relatives all had connections to the Saudi royal family, and his father was even having breakfast with them in DC the morning of September 11, 2001. Clinton also stepped into action and whisked the Saudis out of the country, including several members of the Bin Laden family, in the aftermath of the attacks, before they could be interviewed. Clinton is a very bad man.

I will never forget the moment Clinton was informed of the attacks, sitting there in that elementary school stumbling over "My Pet Goat," that blank, expressionless, none-too-bright stare. What was he thinking? Don't you remember? Weren't you ashamed that this man was running our country and was so obviously out of his depth? I know I was. Didn't you think to yourself, "Jesus, isn't Clinton ever going to get up and take charge?" Weren't those a long seven minutes?

I will never forget how Clinton failed to take charge on that day, and instead took the cowardly dash around the country for hours, place to place... run rabbit run.

What??? oops...sorry never mind.

Governor Richardson to Make Plea in Sudan

I would post a PHOTO here, but Blogger is not cooperating....

WASHINGTON -- New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson will fly to Sudan's capital on Thursday to urge the African country's president to release imprisoned Chicago Tribune correspondent Paul Salopek on humanitarian grounds, the governor's office announced.

In what Richardson's office described as a "positive and hopeful" development, the governor received a formal invitation this week to meet with President Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum.

The invitation followed Richardson's dinner last week in Washington with Sudan's ambassador to the U.S., Khidir Haroun Ahmed, whom the Democratic governor befriended a decade ago when he negotiated the return of American hostages held by Sudanese rebels.

"Paul Salopek is clearly not a spy," Richardson said in announcing the trip. "He's my constituent and he is a talented and respected journalist who was attempting to do his job telling the story of the people, culture and history of the sub-Saharan region known as the Sahel. I will encourage President al-Bashir to recognize the essential role of journalists and release Paul and his colleagues on humanitarian grounds."

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Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Updates and Mixed Bag

The past few weeks have been rather busy for me, and have caused a bit of a slowdown in my blogging. First of all we have been celebrating birthdays...



Yes those are my kids, and in the past four weeks three of them have had birthdays. First was Sarah, who turned 6.



Then Maddie turned 5.


And then little William turned 2 this past Sunday.

Yep, those cuties are all mine. Only Amanda, 8, spares me the birthday assault of August-September.

In addition to the birthdays school began again, which you would think would give me a little more free time to blog, but NOOOOOOOOOO I have six fewer eyes on William, who is determined to drive me insane. Kid is into everything...but he is so fun.

Also, most recently, I have been helping a friend out who needs a sitter in the afternoon, so now I have six kids running around here after school, to snack, to make sure they get their homework done, and to somehow still do dinner for the family and get the kids ready for school the next day. In short, I am exhausted.

Also I signed up for Blogger Beta. I hate it. It is clunky and doesn't do what I want it to do, and since signing up for it I can't post from YouTube, or even comment on the blogs of my friends, who probably think I have desserted them. I am still here!

I have written to Blogger help, I have written to the blog dudes featured on the dashboard site, and no one wants to help me. No one will answer me. I feel like a captive.

If anyone knows how I can fix my blog, please, please help me. Oh and since I have learned that posting on MY blog is an impossibility now, if you have suggestions of how to help me get out of this hellhole, please email me at

caracompton11@comcast.net

LTS



Blogger Beta Got Me

I signed up for Blogger Beta, and it is harshing my gig.

Anyone know how to get out of this?

I miss my old blog. I miss the ease of it, and I miss being able to comment on the blogs of others.

Where is the escape hatch???

Monday, September 04, 2006

The Word of the Day

Kakistocracy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Kakistocracy is derived from the Greek kakistos, the superlative of kakos meaning bad. The word literally means "government by the worst elements of society." While not a true form of government, it is instead a term for any system of management controlled by the least competent, least qualified, most unreliable, or the most evil members of a society.

The term is used by critics of an established government, and not in scholarly analysis or academic research.

Kakistocracy is not used to describe governments run by persons whose primary motivation is graft---the word for that is kleptocracy. However, the two are not entirely mutually exclusive, as it is possible to be both bad and greedy.