Aug 1 commentary "For links to the articles I read on the air, guest websites, archived shows, my commentaries, and the text of Mark Stanneart’s latest commentary, visit: www.rabblerousing.org."

First, a quote from the german philosopher Goethe: None are more enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Ok. This ones for all you cynics that believe the bush administration is not very clever with diplomacy. It seems that our govt, wise beyond its years, is concerned that the moderate arab states in the middle east are actively supporting one side or the other in the iraq civil war, while both Iraqi sides occasionally take time off from killing one another to kill us troops. This is not good for the moral of the troops, but more importantly, doesn’t play well in the media back home. If it gets too bad, some congresspersons might be persuaded to get mildly upset. And you know how serious that might become. So the bush crowds solution is to send sec of state condi rice and sec of war excuse me sec of defense robt gates to visit these middle eastern bulwarks of stability and sanity with offers designed to get them to play the game our way. And what are our salesmen, excuse me diplomats offering them in return? Let see, what do we have that they might want? Democracy? Naah, that’s not a very good sell nowadays. The middle east has seen up close and uncomfortable what bringing our version of democracy is like and they aren’t terribly impressed. So lets see. What else do we have that these middle east dictators might desire? How bout what we produce best? In fact what is the only thing America still produces? Weapons and war toys. You want insanity? The bush crowd will give you insanity. As of tuesday, sec of state condi rice and sec of defense and war robt gates are in the middle east, busily selling our arms and defense products to Israel, AND its enemies incl Saudi Arabia, Egypt and there is even talk of selling arms to Syria. Do we want peace in the middle east? Surrrre we do. the article written by the ap’s diplomatic writer ends in high comedy. Iraqs ambassador to wash is quoted thusly " the us wants to persuade all the countries in the region to be proactive in a helpful way. He of course does not specify exactly how they can do this but closes with this statement: "waiting and watching is not a helpful position." In the next paragraph, other arab diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said waiting and watching is exactly what they plan to do. well, if we cant persuade them with logic, lets give em all more weapons. If nothing else, Its terrific for business. And you got to give the bushies credit. They may not be crackerjack at bringing peace to any parts of the world, but they sure are good for the oil and defense industry business.

Next item: Lets have a rousing round of applause for the pepsi co. in the spirit of capitalism they have been marketing bottled water under the label of Aquafina. Only one problem. It doesn’t come from mineral springs, or fiji, or any special source at all. It comes from a public water source, which for all you unenlightened souls means tap water. You can drink from their neat plastic bottle or from any faucet- it’s the same water. Fooled you didn’t they? Aquafina is the single biggest bottled water brand, and its bottles are now labeled "P.W.S." but a group of spoil sports called Corporate Accountability International has been pressuring bottled water sellers to curb what it calls misleading marketing practices. So now, pepsico is forced to print new labels which will spell out "public water source." Well I suppose that’s a step in the right direction, but to me, public water source could still mean a healthy natural spring that is publicly owned. You know, like all natural springs were once owned, or rather not owned. But in todays corporate speak public water source means municipal water, ie tap water. The corporate accountability group is also pressing for similar concessions from The Coca-Cola Co., which owns the Dasani water brand. Dasani’s Web site says that Dasani comes from local water supplies and is then filtered. "We don’t believe that consumers are confused about the source of Dasani water," Coca-Cola spokeswoman Diana Garza Ciarlante said. "The label clearly states that it is purified water." Excuse me folks, , but it aint purified water. Its tap water that has been run thru some sort of filter. That’s not purified, its filtered. Seems to me the label should clearly state, this is tap water that we have filtered. But of course, product labeling in these united states has become one of the black arts. Ah well, one more corporate scam down the tubes. But all you holders of coke and pepsi stock, don’t fret, these guys will come up with another scam. They always do.

And then there was the comment from a poster to this article: Truly trendy bottled water like Evian, is such a wonderful refreshing drink, now stop and consider the fact that Evian is naive spelled backwards!!!!!!!

Next item; it seems that not all us corporations are scam artists. We now give you sears.
How does Sears treat its employees who are called up for military duty? By law, they are required to hold their jobs open and available, but nothing more. Usually, people take a big pay cut and
lose benefits as a result of being called up. Since the iraq wars inception, Sears has been voluntarily paying the difference in salaries and maintaining all benefits, including medical insurance and bonus
programs, for all called up reservist employees for up to two years. The listener who sent this in is aware that I often get hoaxes sent to me so he bothered to email sears to verify. Here is sears reply: Dear Customer: Thank you for contacting Sears.The information is factual. We appreciate your positive feedback. Sears regards service to our country as one of greatest sacrifices our young men and women can make. We are happy to do our part to lessen the burden they bear at this time. The listener added the following: I submit that Sears is an exemplary corporate citizen and should be recognized for its contribution. I suggest we all shop at Sears, and be sure to find a manager to tell them why we are there so the company gets the positive reinforcement it well deserves.
the info was further Verified ! By Snopes.com at:
Next item: NASA let astronauts fly drunk on at least two occasions, an independent panel said in a report released Friday. "Two specific instances were described where astronauts had been so intoxicated prior to flight that flight surgeons and-or fellow astronauts raised concerns to local on-scene leadership regarding flight safety," "However, the individuals were still permitted to fly." So there you are about to be shot off into space and you realize some of your fellow astronauts are drunk. Hey, what’s the big deal? Its not like you depend on them or anything.

Next item: Dennis Sheehan beat the odds to get his day in court with Gateway, and on Monday the retiree from Grizzly Flats won his battle with the computer giant in small-claims court in El Dorado County.

After a brief trial in which Sheehan argued his own case, Superior Court Judge Daniel Proud ordered Gateway to refund the man's money for a desktop computer Sheehan said was a lemon.

Sheehan said he hopes computer buyers, for whom endless phone calls to technical support have become a source of anger and frustration, might follow his lead and sue in small-claims court, a forum for basic justice where lawyers are forbidden.

Sheehan had sued Gateway after buying a computer he said was defective from the start, with jumbled graphics and other problems. He called technical support for months -- by his estimate nearly 200 times -- but never got the computer working properly, he said.

Gateway refused to replace his computer or refund his money, he claimed. After becoming increasingly frustrated, he sued the company last year in small-claims court.

Lana Milligan of Carmichael won a similar small-claims case against Gateway on June 20, when a Sacramento judge granted her a full refund for a computer with scrambled graphics and a hard drive that overheated.

As in Sheehan's case, Gateway tried to compel arbitration, but the judge took her side.

"They're misusing arbitration to confuse and discourage the consumer from taking any action, and they're using it to not honor their warranties," she said.

"I think pestering companies makes a statement," Sheehan said. "I went into this fully intending to lose. I didn't think I had a snowball's chance in hell, but I was going to give it my best shot.

"If more people take action when big companies are bullying them," he said. "It will make them take notice."

Next item: one of the 3 young men who produced the video loose change, challenging the govts conspiracy theory of 911, after several years of being a highly public figure, has been arrested for desertion from the army. I find it highly unbelievable that any army deserter would chose to become such a public person, or that the govt would let him run freely and publically for so long. But it’s the us govt so anything is possible. From the article I gleaned the following factoids. Desertion is defined under Article 85 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice as being when a soldier leaves his or her unit or place of duty with the intent to remain away from there permanently or quits his or her unit with the intent to avoid hazardous duty. It is considered a felony. The Associated Press reported last month that deserters are rarely court-martialed by the Army. Although 3,301 soldiers deserted in the 2006 fiscal year, there were just 174 troops court-martialed. The AP report said some deserters are returned to their units, while others are discharged in non-criminal proceedings. the report states that Desertion rates have been rising since 2004, but the Army does little to seek out deserters and instead relies on a database that can be cross-checked by local law-enforcement agencies during encounters such as traffic stops. Isn’t that interesting? Seems like the army does not wish to publicize the fact that many of its soldiers are deserting. You don’t suppose that the publicity might give other soldiers bad ideas?

Next item: one American soldier serving in Afghanistan did not desert, and in retrospect maybe he should have. He was pat tillman and the investigation of his death keeps getting weirder and weirder. This article is from Paul Joseph Watson

Writing in prisonplanet.com. Shocking new facts emerged about the case last night but were bizarrely underplayed by the Associated Press under nondescript headlines like 'New Details on Tillman's Death' -- a complete disservice to the horrific implications that the new evidence carries. according to documents obtained by The Associated Press, Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of

the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman's forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player's death amounted to a crime. a doctor who examined Tillman's body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators "The medical evidence did not match up with the scenario as described,". The doctors - whose names were blacked out - said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away. The report also states that "No evidence at all of enemy fire was found at the scene -- no one was hit by enemy fire, nor was any government equipment struck." The article also reveals that "Army attorneys sent each other congratulatory e-mails for keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments."

So there was no evidence whatsoever of friendly fire, but the ballistics data clearly indicated that the three head shots had been fired from just 10 yards away and then the Army tried to concoct a hoax friendly fire story and sent gloating back-slapping e mails congratulating each other on their success while preventing the doctors from exploring the possibility of murder. How can any sane and rational individual weigh this evidence and not come to the conclusion that Tillman was deliberately gunned down in cold blood?

The evidence points directly to it and the motivation is clear – Tillman abandoned a lucrative career in pro-football immediately after 9/11 because he felt a rampaging patriotic urge to defend his country, and became a poster child for the war on terror as a result. But when he discovered that the invasion of Iraq was based

on a mountain of lies and deceit and had nothing to do with defending America, he became infuriated and was ready to return home to become an anti-war hero. As far back as March 2003, immediately after the invasion, Tillman famously told his comrade Spc. Russell Baer, "You know, this war is so f’ing illegal," and urged his entire platoon to vote against Bush in the 2004 election. Far from the gung-ho gruff stereotype

attributed to him, Tillman was actually a fiercely intellectual man with the courage of his convictions firmly in place. Tillman had even begun to arrange meetings upon his return to America, with anti-war icons like Noam Chomsky, before his death cut short any aspirations of becoming a focal point for anti-war sentiment.

According to Daily Kos, Wesley Clark appeared on Keith Olbermann's Countdown last night and stated that "the orders came from the very top" to murder Tillman as he was a political symbol and his opposition to the war in Iraq would have rallied the population around supporting immediate withdrawal. So, was pat tillman executed by the us military on orders from the very top? Stay tuned folks. This story just wont go away.

Next item: heard an interesting factoid. A veterinarian who treated dogs of the Hollywood famous amongst his clientele was quoted as stating that the easiest dogs to work with were the dogs who received the best most loving care from their owners, and these owners were not the wealthy, who of course could easily afford it, but were the dogs of the homeless, those who could least afford it. It seems that homeless people not only have the time to lavish love on their pets, but perhaps the relationship has more meaning to the homeless, and hence more love.

Next item: this one will bring pleasure to all of you who love fox news and think bill o’reily is the greatest thing since jesus. Rupurt Murdock, who already owns much of the worlds significant media, and owns fox news and pays bill oreily to spew his bile, his just purchased the wall street journal. Those who have already realized that the stock mkt is one giant scam, perpetuated in large part by the highly slanted journalism of the wall street journal, can only wait in wonder at what lies ahead. American Journalism is about to sink to record low levels.

Since we are on the topic of journalism, for contrast, lets turn to a real journalist-greg palest. Im on his email list, and this is his latest. I don’t usually report cries for help, but you all should know greg by now. He has graced several of my pledge drive shows, and his journalism is first rate. This is his latest offering:

Busted & Crimes of The Times By Greg Palast August 1, 2007. [which is today] Cutely buried in the 18th paragraph in a story about Alberto Gonzales on Sunday was a slyly-worded updated confession by the New York Times that, in 2004, the Bush Administration leaned on its editors to spike a story about illegal invasions of citizens' private records ("data mining"). The Times editors smothered the story. They finally ran it - a year later - after Bush was safely re-elected. As a journalist, this makes me want to throw up.

For two reasons: First, while The Times was covering up Bush's KGB-style data-mining operation, the Palast team was revealing its secrets. We published confidential FBI memos detailing horrific schemes for illegal spying using Bush's favored contractor, a company called ChoicePoint Inc.

The second reason The Times 'confession' makes me ill: While the publishers at the Paper of Record were counting their millions, the Palast Investigative Fund was slowly going broke.

Well, we've made it: Last Friday, the main-stream US media, through the venerable PBS program 'NOW', finally broadcast our reportage on the "caging" of voters, a story we first broke 3 years ago. BEFORE the 2004 election.

We've made it in another way: Friday was also the day I was informed that the Palast Investigative Fund was dead broke, technically bankrupt, with way less than zero in the account.

Bluntly: if we don't get some help, and fast, we're sunk. We are throwing staff overboard and halting some operations while we seek funds to keep afloat.

I'm pleading with you to do three things:

1. Watch PBS 'NOW' on voter 'caging'. Then, if you think our work is important . . .

2. he then pleads for a donation to the Palast Investigative Fund. He offers various books and dvd’s for donations and im not allowed to give details, but you can get them by going to his web site, GregPalast.com

he then adds: I do not take one dime of pay from the Fund. 100% of your donation goes to our investigators, cameramen and women, operating costs and equipment. Yes, we get fees from BBC, Vanity Fair and Harper's but that doesn't cover the bills. Not even close.

If we can get your support, we can follow-up on our investigation of The Scheme to Swipe 2008. We're finding that 'caging' is the tip of the fraud-berg. With your help, we can also take on the Vultures, the bond speculators who are preying on Africa's poorest.

We are lucky to have prestigious outlets for our work, but the research is funded wholly by citizens like you, not by media moguls. And the content proves it. Our much-praised investigation in New Orleans was financed entirely by a score of selfless donors.

It's up to you. Real investigative reporting is a money-burning task. And a team effort. Please support our team by donating to the not-for-profit Investigative Fund.

A yearly Subscribtion to the New York Times costs you $500, you get all the news they find fit to print. Or donate a fraction of that to our investigative fund, for the real story on the prosecutor firings, caging and all the news that gives them fits. Yours, Greg Palast

He then continues: If I single out The New York Times, it's because they are the BEST America has to offer, Lord help us. If you haven't lost your lunch yet, read what the Sunday Times said in paragraph 18 . Only now does The Times tell us:

"The first known assertion by administration officials that there had been no serious disagreement within the government about the legality of the N.S.A. [data mining] program came in talks with New York Times editors in 2004. IN AN EFFORT TO PERSUADE THE EDITORS NOT TO DISCLOSE THE EAVESDROPPING PROGRAM, SENIOR OFFICIALS REPEATEDLY CITED THE LACK OF DISSENT AS EVIDENCE OF THE PROGRAM'S LAWFULNESS."

In other words, the Bush enforcers told The Times (and apparently its editors accepted without question) that there was no major dissent at the top levels of government over this Spies-R-Us scheme. That is, The Times blindly swallowed the very assertion that Senators now term, 'perjury.'

The Times waited until the election had passed and billions of records were illegally "mined." And they got the Pulitzer for it. Congrats! In the 2005 Pulitzer article I re-read this tantalizing tidbit:

"Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted."

Really?? Did they mean "useful to John Conyers"? I called The Times editor Bill Keller with two questions:

Question 1. What ELSE haven't you told us at Bush's behest?

But the key is Question 2. WHICH "senior officials" successfully spiked your report?

Whether you call them "senior officials" or "Bush bullies," those who muscle news reporters are not "sources" whose identities deserve protection.

If you're afraid, Mr. Keller, just tell me their initials. AG? KR?

Maybe I'll get an answer. In a year.

So, if you feel like supporting the palest investigative fund, or alternatively, if you hate his work, tell him so. contact him at gregpalast.com.

END Humor at end Next item: A Japanese company and an American company decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.
On the big day, the Japanese won by a  mile. The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up  of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate  action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people  rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people  steering and 1 person rowing.  Feeling a deeper study was in  order,  American management hired a consulting company and paid them  a large amount of money for a second opinion. They advised, of course,  that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were  rowing.  Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent  another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was  totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering  superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.  They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1  person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the  "Rowing Team Quality First Program", with meetings, dinners and free pens  for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and  other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses. The  next year the Japanese won by two miles.  Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor  performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and  canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was  distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's racing  team was out-sourced to India.

Next item: this from borowitzreport.com: Vice-President Dick Cheney, having briefly assumed President Bush’s duties while the President underwent a routine colon procedure last Saturday, told reporters today that he "enjoyed the downtime immensely."

The two hours and fifteen minutes spent doing Bush’s job were "incredibly relaxing," Mr. Cheney said, adding that they were a welcome relief from his exacting Vice-Presidential schedule.

Invoking the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution Saturday morning, Mr. Bush transferred to Mr. Cheney all of his presidential responsibilities, which meant that Mr. Cheney spent Saturday jogging, going to the gym, and hitting a ball for Mr. Bush’s dog to retrieve.

In addition, Mr. Cheney called the nations of East Timor and Luxembourg "evil," stumbling briefly over the pronunciation of Luxembourg.

Finally, as Mr. Bush’s colon procedure was winding down, Mr. Cheney made some remarks about the Japanese economy, mistakenly using the word "devaluation" instead of "deflation," thereby sending the NIKKEI stock market into a tailspin.

All in all, Mr. Cheney said he emerged from his brief tenure as President rested and refreshed, ready to plunge back into his demanding Vice-Presidential workload.

As for the President, Mr. Bush’s doctors pronounced his procedure a success, but said that they were having difficulty determining whether or not the President’s anesthesia had fully worn off.

Mr. Bush’s doctors indicated that when they asked the President the standard post-operative questions – such as, "What is the capital of the United States?" – Mr. Bush got only two out of five correct.

"Before the operation, he got three out of five right," one doctor said.

Next item: The National Institute of Science has just announced the discovery of the most dense element yet known to science.  The new element has been named "bushcronium." Bushcronium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving an atomic mass of 311.

These particles are held together by dark forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. The symbol for bushcronium is "W".  Bushcronium's mass actually increases over time, as morons randomly interact with various elements of the atmosphere and become assistant deputy neutrons in a bushcronium molecule, forming isodopes.  This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to believe that bushcronium is formed wherever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as a "critical morass". When catalyzed with money, bushcronium activates foxnewsium, an element that radiates orders of magnitude more energy, albeit as incoherent noise, since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.