China's national bird

Several of the people I encontered remarked that the national bird of China was the construction crane. Which seem to be everywhere in the bigger cities.
Most of the construction seems to involve the building of apartment buildings. Some of the buildings would rival the beauty of luxury buildings in the U.S. the difference is the land is all owned by the government. Leases are sometimes limited to a certain number of years. Making the country a giant time share.

Note: I writing this blog while on a riverboat heading down the Yangtze between Wu Shan and Yicheng

T shirts or freedom shirts

As we wandered around the streets if Beijing and Xi-an we could but notice that many of the young girls walking around the streets wearing T shirts with english words on them. Some of them were just english words with no particular meaning. One had the words "Miss Dior" etc...
But, the one that really spoke to me was one I saw on an slightly older woman that read "Spread your wings and fly" It seems in China there are many ways to express the desire for freedom that are very subtle.

A river of information.

It's 10:57 pm local time here in China. I am blogging on a river boat on the Yangsee River (in China it is known as the Chang Jing) I am typing this next to a speaker that appears to be playing Kenny Roger's Greatest hits. Last night I was in Xi-an watching and listening to a traditional Chinese music and dance show. Rich with culture and color unlike the crap Mr. Rogers is currently singing.
The person on this ship who logged me onto the internet apologized for the slow speed of the connection. But, it is ten times faster than the connections I had in the Business Centers of the four star hotels in Bejing or Xi-an. i was not able to blog from those locations but, here on a riverboat on the Yangsee (Chang Jing) I can blog. Go figure. Lot's to blog about so check in from time to time as i continue the China trip.

The Baby Hotel

Here at the Guangzhou Hotel in Beijing one can see another of China's exports. Babies! There are a number of non Chinese couples pushing stollers around the lobby that contain Chinese babies that they have adopted. Now my feelings about children and babies is slightly to the right of W.C. Fields (who liked children only if they were broiled) still, I can't help but, feel for these babies who are about to be ripped from there birth country and culture into a completely foreign one. Most of the couples at this hotel seem to be from Spain. On the positive side these babies will also get to experience Paella and siestas. Which in my book are both good things.

A scary flight from Chicago

Greetings from Beijing! I arrived yesterday after a scary flight from Chicago. The flight traveled pretty close to the North pole if not exactly over it. Looking out the window instead of a frozen ice sheet as I had been expecting. I saw broken ice sheets with water between them. Of course there is no such thing as global warming as the Bush administration and those ostriches at the Wall Street Journal editorial board keep trying to assure us. But, seeing that open water between the ice at the North Pole was an eye opener.

My baby said she's going to China. China is so far away.

So goes the Greg Brown song . I will be heading off to China tomorrow for about two weeks. It will be a new country and a new continent for me. It is a pleasure trip or I at least I hope it will be. I've been reading Simon Winchester's book THE RIVER AT THE CENTER OF THE WORLD which I recommend to anyone wanting to have a good read and also learn some history of China while doing it.
I will try and post to the BCP Blog along the way but, can not say for sure if it will be possible. So come by from time to time to see if I am successful in publishing the blog.
I'll have a thirteen hour flight to learn some Mandarian and a new adventure awaiting me. Check the blog over the next two weeks and I will try and take you along.

Boeing Tanker scam still does not hold water.

The Washington Post had an interesting editorial about an attempted rip off of U.S. taxpayers money to lease a number of Boeing Tanker planes. The editorial points that they still have not got down to the bottom of who was really behind the rip off. It seems to me we need to get a few more cells ready down at Guantanomo for some a few more people who tried to rip us taxpayers off.

Murdoch + Microsoft = Corporate Censorship

I will be heading to China this week as a tourist. I've been watching an interesting news story this week. Traveling from the "land of the free" I wonder if I will be asked how American corporations like Microsoft can allow governments to demand censorship of internet service providers like MSN.
It's nothing new. I recalled how corporate leaders like Rupert Murdoch who runs News Corp owner of the Bush butt kissing Fox News Channel also let governments like China's dictate the removal of news services like the BBC (which was critical of China) from their program lineup in order to receive government approval to expand his satellite empire. It seems the word freedom does not carry much weight in the corporate offices of Microsoft or News Corp.

Military Industrial Housing?

There is a rotten fishy smell on the Potomic River in Washington D.C. and it appears to be coming from the Yacht where Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham resides. READ ALL ABOUT IT HERE

Memo to the Main Stream Media

To: WCBS Newssradio (New York), Tucker Carlson, Monica Crowley, MSNBC and all other media outlets who carried the story of Tom Cruise's engagment to whatever her name is. Read the following carefully:

TOM CRUISE IS NOT NEWS!

Big Brother wants to watch you surf!

Just when you thought you lived in a country that respected freedom comes this story on efforts by the Justice Department to force Internet Service Providers to keep the records of where their customers go on the Internet. While this story is currently under the main stream media radar everyones antenna should be tuned into this story least we lose more freedom in the land of the free.

Wondering why gas prices are so high?

As gas prices continue to remain high it is interesting to see the Bush cronies
that come out of the wood work once the heat is on.

Tom Friedman only blames the Christian for Iraq mess

It was interesting to read Tom Friedman's column today on Iraq. Besides his solution of throwing more troops into Iraq. Friedman places the blame for the debacle squarely only on Donald Rumsfeld calling it the U.S. Iraq plan the "Rumsfeld Doctrine" while never mentioning others in the Bush administration who are equally complicit in planning the Iraq mess. Guys like Paul Wolfowitz , Doug Feith and the prince of darkness Richard Perle . Maybe it's because Friedman does not want to say bad things about his fellow Jews that he only blames Christians like Rumsfeld. While he may consider himself and the jewish necocons like Wolfowitz, Perle, and Feith some of the "chosen people". When it comes to planning for the Iraq invasion aftermath it turns out they were the WRONG people.

Jackson vs Franklin: No reason to be soft on treason!

Now that the Michael Jackson media circus is over let's hope that the media focuses the same amount of resources on a real important case. The case of Pentagon employee Larry Franklin who was caught given secret Pentagon documents to people lobbying for foreign governments. In this case Israel. Let's hope he winds up in a cell next to the traitor Jonathan Pollard who is locked up in a neverland of his own making for betraying the United States.

Bush Math

When it came to selling the war one of the main guys in the Bush Administration was Paul Wolfowitz a neocon who had been pushing for a war with Iraq for almost ten years. Walter Pincus in the Washington Post has some interesting history. Here is the money quote, quite literally:

"Testimony by then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, one of the chief architects of Iraq policy, before a House subcommittee on Feb. 28, 2003, just weeks before the invasion, illustrated the optimistic view the administration had of postwar Iraq. He said containment of Hussein the previous 12 years had cost "slightly over $30 billion," adding, "I can't imagine anyone here wanting to spend another $30 billion to be there for another 12 years."

Hey Wolfie! FYI As of May, 2005 the Congressional Research Service estimated that Congress has approved $208 billion for the war in Iraq since 2003.

Wolfowitz is now head of the World Bank. Hold on to your wallets!

Iraq planning? We don't need no stinking planning!

It seems the British who know a thing or two about taking control of countries were rightly concerned about the Bush administration's lack of planning for post invasion Iraq. If there was a plan it should have the code name Operation SNAFU.

President Bush's Patriot Act Patoey!

President Bush is either lying or "fixing the facts around the policy" as he tries to promote the extension of the Orwellean named "Patriot Act". Unfortunately, for Bush facts are stubborn things.

Missing Holloway and an FBI that goes that away.

Another good looking white woman goes missing and has joined Laci Peterson, Chadra Levy in the center ring of the media circus tent.
Maybe I'm the only one who is curious at all the U.S. resources being deployed to look for Holloway. CBS news reported early this week that there were already ten FBI agents on the island helping the local authorities. Today it was annouced that 10 more agents were on their way to the island. Is Holloway the only person who is a citizen of the U.S. who has gone missing? Probably not but, I bet she is the only one who has twenty agents working on her case.

The Patriot Act Image vs. Reality

President Bush runs around the country trying to have the so called "Patriot Act" renewed while peppering his speeches with the usual message of fear. It's a false message.
The reality is as as today's news reports
show how the FBI missed five opportunities to find out about the 9/11 terrorists. This of course was before the Partiot Act was enacted. We Americans should not give up our liberties and allow the government to secretly do what they want when the real failure was a failure of the bureaucracy.

The Downing Street Memo and the Pennsylvania Ave Spin

It took a reporter from the British news service Reuters to ask Bush and Blair a question about the Downing Street memo. This was the memo sent to Tony Blair about how the Bush Administration was "fixing the intelligence" to make a case for war against Iraq.
Blair's answer was full of befudlement while Bush's comment was full of Texas Bushit and Whitehouse spin that called the document suspect because of it's political timing. But, he did not deny that it was true. Maybe now some of the lapdogs in the U.S. media will begin to see the smoking gun that was laying on Bush's podium.

Not every Perle shines brightly.

Another of the hawk neocons who helped plan and push the Bush boy into Iraq was Richard Perle. David Corn shows how this mess happened and some of the thinking from guys like Perle helped create the mess that is the Iraq of today.

Hola Suckers!

The New York Times has an article about green card holders in Mexico renting out their Social Security numbers to illegals here in the U.S. There was one legal alien who also rents out a valid Social Security card so she can also collect unemployment on her original card while working under an assumed name with the rented Social Security number. How do you say FRAUD in Spanish?
Meanwhile the middle class keeps on getting screwed while politicians like McCain and Kennedy do the bidding of the corporations who use these cheap workers while the middle class taxpayers subsidize the workers with Bush programs like his "Faith Based Initative". Yes, Hola Suckers!

Win Ben Stein's loyalty!

Someone needs to remind Ben Stein which country he is a citizen of and which country is protecting his money. As a Republican once said: You are either with us or against us. Mr. Stein seems to have dual loyalties. Take a look at this comment from Stein in the American Spectator that was picked up by Andrew Sullivan:

""[B]lood will tell, as the old saying goes: [Mark Felt's] posterity is now dragging out his old body and putting it on display to make money. (Have you noticed how Mark Felt looks like one of those old Nazi war criminals they find in Bolivia or Paraguay? That same, haunted, hunted look combined with a glee at what he has managed to get away with so far?) And it gets worse: it's been reported that Mark Felt is at least part Jewish. The reason this is worse is that at the same time that Mark Felt was betraying Richard Nixon, Nixon was saving Eretz Israel. It is a terrifying chapter in betrayal and ingratitude. If he even knows what shame is, I wonder if he felt a moment's shame as he tortured the man who brought security and salvation to the land of so many of his and my fellow Jews. Somehow, as I look at his demented face, I doubt it." - Ben Stein, in the American Spectator.

Translation: It's ok to trample the U.S. Constitution as long as you are helping Israel.

Pentagon takes out the trash with the Koran in it.

The Pentagon took out the trash on Friday night by releasing some details of the desecration of the Koran at Guantanomo Bay. Here is an example:

"As described in the Hood report, the guard had left his observation post and went outside to urinate. He urinated near an air vent and the wind blew his urine through the vent into the cell block. The incident was not further explained."

TRANSLATION: Sadistic soldier Stupid from Yahoo town Decided to abandon his post to let the Muslim prisoners know that his God was better than the prisoner's God and instead of using the latrine decided to urinate in a location where he knew he could humiliate the prisoner he was supposed to be guarding.

I guess the good news that at least he did not throw the Koran in the toilet. However, my bet is the Muslim world is not going to fall for the Pentagon spin of the report and will become more pissed off because the Koran was pissed on.

SEC, lies and Ayn Rand

Those wonderful folks who bought you ENRON must be jumping for joy over George Bush's picking of California Congressman Chris Cox to be head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Cox who is a fan of Ayn Rand would be well to remember these thoughts from her as he makes his decsions on the Commission:

"Upper classes are a nation's past; the middle class is its future. "

And when he is in the White House he might remind George Bush of another of her thoughts :

"Do not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives. "

By the way is Baghdad burning?

David Brooks and Karl Marx hit the books.

While I don't think I will ever let folks like New York Columnist David Brooks off the hook for pushing the Iraq war on the American people. His column in Sunday's New York Times was interesting reading. Though he does not explain what went wrong with Paris Hilton.

Wolfowitz at the World Bank door.

The Neocon chickenhawk Paul Wolfowitz starts his new job at the World Bank today. This is of course after he and a number of fellow Neocons slithered away form the mess they created in Iraq. They convinced our boy prince George Bush to go to war in Iraq and when it fell apart they slithered away leaving someone else to clean up the mess.
He is a bad puppy and people need to remember to stick his nose into the mess he created in Iraq. A mess we as a country will be cleaning up and paying for in money and lives for years thanks to the Neocons and chickenhawks like Wolfowitz.

Deep Throat who put the Republicans in Deep Sh*t

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