Click here to view the embedded video.

YouCut – a first-of-its-kind project – is designed to defeat the permissive culture of runaway spending in Congress. It allows you to vote, both online and on your cell phone, on spending cuts that you want to see the House enact. Vote on this page today for your priorities and together we can begin to change Washington’s culture of spending into a culture of savings.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel comes close to the mark with regard to how productive this will be in its lead paragraph:

Instead of voting for your favorite “American Idol” or “Dancing with the Stars” contestants, you can now vote on your favorite federal spending cut – courtesy of the GOP.

House Republicans say their new “YouCut” program will give voters the chance to suggest budget-slashing proposals directly to members of Congress and see lawmakers act on their ideas. Republicans say they will try to force colleagues to vote on the cuts every week on the House floor.

The ROFLCopter in action

Deploy the ROFLCopter!

Astute observers will note that the “project” targets just shy of a mere $6 billion of the $3.6 trillion 2010 proposed budget, nearly all of which class as favorite Republican targets. Not one red cent of the nearly $800 billion per year to fund the military would be on the table, let alone the around $300 billion a year which buys such nice things as endless war in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan.

Download Gunsmithing.zip

Download (PDF, 3MB). Also at Scribd.

Disable vehicles!

Any Persian speakers around? Translate and redistribute, please.

What you can do to bring down the tyrants

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDCsp1atehU

Neda Soltani

(YouTube video comment by witness)

shery630

June 20, 2009

Place: Karekar Ave., at the corner crossing Khosravi St. and Salehi st. (Tehran)

A young woman who was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a basij member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house. He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight her heart. I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her. But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim’s chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes.

The protests were going on about 1 kilometers away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gass used among them, towards Salehi St.

The film is shot by my friend who was standing beside me.

Please let the world know.

Neda Soltani

From Facebook:

Neda Soltani (1982 – 20th June 2009; age 26–27) was an young Iranian woman whose killing, allegedly by Basij militia during the 2009 Iranian election protests, was captured on video by bystanders. The graphic videos were posted on the Internet, and her name quickly became a rallying cry for the opposition.

Neda means “voice” or “calling” in Persian, and she has been referred to as the “voice of Iran” and “a symbol” of this revolution taking place right now. Ya Neda, Ya Neda…. Ya Neda.

That doesn’t mean that “most people are stupid,” a proposition to which 95% of citizens surveyed will agree.

But when I see dozens commentators on talk shows discussing bailouts, tax increases (and, properly, taxes at all), inflation, the hot/cold/muddled trade wars between east and west, war, torture and any number of other subjects, well, gosh… there’s a whole lot of stupid out there.

Add Guy Fawkes mask for more powerful effect

When there is talk of, oh, another trillion dollars being shoveled out to first-to-the-trough interests owned and controlled by the global elite, well, the talk isn’t about where the money comes from. The talk isn’t about how inflation of that sort is exactly equivalent to grand larceny. The discussion doesn’t center around any sort of moral consideration, or recognize the fact that lending out a trillion of these “dollars” into existence has the net effect of devaluing the holdings of all dollar holders, or that these compelling accounting fictions created by the elder warlocks of Wall Street and Washington will be as yokes upon the necks of generations. The questions come to revolve instead around such subsidiary matters as whether or not enough tribute is being extracted from the proletariat via inflation to benefit the komitet, or whether or not the right factions of the ruling class will receive the newly-stolen booty first — certainly not around such other (equally subsidiary) matters as whether or not the robbers should be executed by firing squad or by being bound to a tree naked in the jungle, smeared with honey, and left for the ants.

This in and of itself isn’t stupid. The people here are focusing attention in directions which benefit them. They flirt with the jungle, honey and ants every day by speaking their “minds” to the masses. They get paid very well for doing it. The stupid, here, is that people watch and listen to and read this drivel, they absorb it, they internalize it, they believe it, and they will cast out as devils those who would challenge the dominant tribal paradigm.

One day, the masses are going to wake up, en masse, as it were. Paradigms will shift, as it were. The future will, perhaps, shock again.

Meanwhile, the stupid is man-in-the-street reactions filmed on the east coast of the US by Iran’s PressTV along the lines of “Gee, I don’t know much of anything about anything, but I got faith in Obama,” or “Change gonna win, baby!” or “Well, I guess if that’s what they figured out is necessary…”

Me? I’m investing in honey.

Britain, E.U. Plan Iran Sanctions

16 June 2008

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday announced plans for new sanctions against Iran and a small increase in troops for Afghanistan, handing President Bush a symbolic boost on the last day of his weeklong farewell trip to Europe.

Brown, appearing with Bush at a 10 Downing Street news conference, said Britain and the European Union are expected to act to freeze the assets of Iran’s largest bank, Bank Melli, in response to Tehran’s refusal to suspend its uranium enrichment program.

[...]

European action against Bank Melli comes on top of restrictions imposed in October 2007 when the U.S. Treasury Department froze bank assets and halted transactions as part of a broader package of sanctions against state-owned Iranian financial institutions. Bank Melli allegedly sent $100 million to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups from 2002 to 2006, according to Treasury officials.

Treasury has also cut off another major Iranian bank, Bank Saderat, from the U.S. financial system.

“This has been a good trip,” President Bush said at the news conference.

Meanwhile, Israeli sabre-rattling ratchets up another notch, as Der Spiegel reports:

‘MISSION DOABLE’: Israeli Ministers Mull Plans for Military Strike against Iran

The Israeli government no longer believes that sanctions can prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons. A broad consensus in favor of a military strike against Tehran’s nuclear facilities — without the Americans, if necessary — is beginning to take shape.

UPDATE from Reuters via Cryptogon:

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran has withdrawn around $75 billion from Europe to prevent the assets from being blocked under threatened new sanctions over Tehran’s disputed nuclear ambitions, an Iranian weekly said.

Press TV, 10 June 2008: Israel launches ‘Iran Command’ for war

BBC, 10 June 2008: US and EU issue new Iran warning (more sanctions threatened)

McClatchy, 11 June 2008: Strike on Iran nuclear sites under discussion again

AP, via Newsday, 12 June 2008: Bush, in Germany, hints at military option on Iran

Jim Lobe speculates a bit, asking: “War?”

Chris Hedges points out that Saint Obama won’t end to US designs on Iran in The Iran Trap

From The Jerusalem Post:

‘Strike against Iran still an option’

The threat of military action against Iran in order to stop Teheran’s nuclear ambitions has not been taken off the table, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni warned on Tuesday, adding that a decision on how to end the Iranian nuclear crisis should be made now.

“Iran needs to understand that the threat of military action exists and has not been taken off the table,” Livni told Mks during a meeting of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. “As long as that’s made clear, the need to use [military force] will be reduced.”

“The time for a decision is now,” she continued. “Weakness can be interpreted as a form acquiescence.”

“We are clarifying to every official that we meet, that in this region, either you beat up the neighborhood thug, or you join him, and the world needs to be measured by its action,” the foreign minister said.

“The day of decision is not the day of the bomb, and when they have the technology, but rather now,” Livni asserted. “Every hesitation on action against Iran creates an impression of [Israeli and international] weakness within Iran.”

As things look, Israel may well attack Iran soon

By Joschka Fischer

As a result of misguided American policy, the threat of another military confrontation hangs like a dark cloud over the Middle East. The United States’ enemies have been strengthened, and Iran – despite being branded as a member of the so-called “axis of evil” – has been catapulted into regional hegemony. Iran could never have achieved this on its own, certainly not in such a short time.

A hitherto latent rivalry between Iran and Israel thus has been transformed into an open struggle for dominance in the Middle East. The result has been the emergence of some surprising, if not bizarre, alliances: Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, Hamas and the American-backed, Shiite-dominated Iraq are facing Israel, Saudi Arabia, and most of the other Sunni Arab states, all of which feel existentially threatened by Iran’s ascendance.

The danger of a major confrontation has been heightened further by a series of factors: persistently high oil prices, which have created new financial and political opportunities for Iran; the possible defeat of the West and its regional allies in proxy wars in Gaza and Lebanon; and the United Nations Security Council’s failure to induce Iran to accept even a temporary freeze of its nuclear program.

Iran’s nuclear program is the decisive factor in this equation, for it threatens irreversibly the region’s strategic balance. That Iran – a country whose president never tires of calling for Israel’s annihilation and that threatens Israel’s northern and southern borders through its massive support of proxy wars waged by Hizbullah and Hamas – might one day have missiles with nuclear warheads is Israel’s worst security nightmare. Politics is not just about facts, but also about perceptions. Whether or not a perception is accurate is beside the point, because it nonetheless leads to decisions.

This applies in particular when the perception concerns what the parties consider to be threats to their very existence. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threats of annihilation are taken seriously in Israel because of the trauma of the Holocaust. And most Arab governments share the fear of a nuclear Iran. Earlier this month, Israel celebrated its 60th birthday, and US President George W. Bush went to Jerusalem to play a leading part in the commemoration. But those who had expected that his visit would mainly be about the stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians were bitterly disappointed. Bush’s central topic, including his speech to Israel’s Knesset, was Iran. Bush had promised to bring the Middle East conflict closer to a resolution before the end of his term this year. But his final visit to Israel seemed to indicate that his objective was different: he seemed to be planning, together with Israel, to end the Iranian nuclear program – and to do so by military, rather than by diplomatic, means.

Anyone following the press in Israel during the anniversary celebrations and listening closely to what was said in Jerusalem did not have to be a prophet to understand that matters are coming to a head. Consider the following:

First, “stop the appeasement!” is a demand raised across the political spectrum in Israel – and what is meant is the nuclear threat emanating from Iran.

Second, while Israel celebrated, Defense Minister Ehud Barak was quoted as saying that a life-and-death military confrontation was a distinct possibility.

Third, the outgoing commander of the Israeli Air Force declared that the air force was capable of any mission, no matter how difficult, to protect the country’s security. The destruction of a Syrian nuclear facility last year, and the lack of any international reaction to it, were viewed as an example for the coming action against Iran.

Fourth, the Israeli wish list for US arms deliveries, discussed with the American president, focused mainly on the improvement of the attack capabilities and precision of the Israeli Air Force.

Fifth, diplomatic initiatives and UN sanctions when it comes to Iran are seen as hopelessly ineffective.

And sixth, with the approaching end of the Bush presidency and uncertainty about his successor’s policy, the window of opportunity for Israeli action is seen as potentially closing.

The last two factors carry special weight. While Israeli military intelligence is on record as saying that Iran is expected to cross the red line on the path to nuclear power between 2010 and 2015 at the earliest, the feeling in Israel is that the political window of opportunity to attack is now, during the last months of Bush’s presidency.

Although it is acknowledged in Israel that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would involve grave and hard-to-assess risks, the choice between acceptance of an Iranian bomb and an attempt at its military destruction, with all the attendant consequences, is clear. Israel won’t stand by and wait for matters to take their course.

The Middle East is drifting toward a new great confrontation in 2008. Iran must understand that without a diplomatic solution in the coming months, a dangerous military conflict is very likely to erupt. It is high time for serious negotiations to begin.

The most recent offer by the six powers – the UN Security Council’s five permanent members plus Germany – is on the table, and it goes very far in accommodating Iran’s interests. The decisive question, however, will be whether it will be possible to freeze the Iranian nuclear program for the duration of the negotiations to avoid a military confrontation before these negotiations are completed. Should this newest attempt fail, things will soon get serious. Deadly serious.