From the ABC

Bush adviser charged with thefts

Claude Allen was considered a rising Republican star

US President George W Bush's former political adviser has been charged with stealing more than $5,000 (£2,900) from department stores.

The president said he was "shocked" and "sad" on hearing the news about Claude Allen, who resigned abruptly as his domestic policy adviser last month.

I'm sympathetic to the position where Boy Bush finds himself after reading Leaked Govt. Study: Lapses By Private Port Operators Leave US Vulnerable, in the context of the Dubai Ports ruckus. It's hard to think straight with your head jammed up the fundament. It's a good thing help is close at hand, as sketched by Pat Oliphant at the Washington Post on March 10th.

Bonsai-Dick: a great comedy routine for a tragic future...

From the NY Times

As the House took up a bill on Wednesday to provide almost $92 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as hurricane recovery, the Republican leadership prevented its conservative wing from proposing to pay for the spending out of idle money. Conservatives were left seething that the must-pass money will instead be added to the deficit.

Twenty-nine Republicans opposed the party procedural proposal to bring the bill to the floor — an almost unheard of revolt.

"At the end of the day, I think it unfair to make members of Congress choose between our troops and fiscal discipline," said Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana and a conservative leader.

In the Senate, Republicans and Democrats engaged in a bidding war over how and by how much to increase spending on ports security after the furor over the transfer of some port terminals to an Arab company. Republicans prevailed on a plan to add $978 million paid for through an across-the-board cut. That was $13 million more than Democrats had proposed, with that sum to be paid for by closing corporate-tax loopholes. But Democrats crowed that they had forced the issue.

‘Following the Iraq war, billions of dollars of Iraq's
money was directed to American companies to rebuild the country. 

But much of it remains
unaccounted for & the BBC’s Peter Marshall has been investigating startling
allegations of post war profiteering.’ 

their investigative report
was broadcast on BBC TV a few days ago ….. 

The 50 Billion
Dollar Robbery

meanwhile, elsewhere at the
trough ….. 

Recently retired Gen. Richard
Myers, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who led the Pentagon
into war with Iraq, hasn't stayed out of work long. 

Northrop Grumman, one of the
nation's largest and best-known defense firms, announced Wednesday that Myers,
an Air Force veteran and former fighter pilot, has joined its board of
directors. 

As one of 11
"non-employee" directors, Myers will earn $200,000 a year, according
to a company spokesman. Half of that sum is paid to the company's 12 directors
in stock. 

The
Swamp

‘The British Labour Party yesterday
admitted taking almost £14 million in secret loans from wealthy individuals,
but refused to name the lenders. The admission was the latest twist in a saga
that threatens to leave Labour mired in allegations of sleaze.  

Tony Blair had previously admitted that he knew
about three loans worth £4.6 million, a financial arrangement that Jack Dromey,
the Labour treasurer, says he was not aware of.  

While the loans do not technically breach any
disclosure laws, they have left many Labour MPs deeply uneasy about the party's
finances. Under that pressure, Labour headquarters yesterday admitted that
several more private loans brought the full total to £13,950,000 in
"commercial loans from individuals".  

Despite promising on Thursday to declare the
names of all future lenders, Labour officials yesterday refused to name the
existing ones, claiming that confidentiality agreements with them prevented
disclosure.’  

Labour Admits £14m In
Secret Loans 

meanwhile ….. 

‘Labour Prime Minister, Tony Blair, made a
desperate attempt to stem the rising tide of sleaze allegations against the
Labour Party, pledging to reform the honours system, rules on ministerial
conduct and hinting at state funding for political parties. 

The Prime Minister admitted he had known that
three tycoons he nominated for seats in the Lords had lent money to Labour, but
had told neither Jack Dromey, the party's treasurer, nor the independent
vetting panel overseeing nominations.’  

Blair
Pledges Reforms To Stem Sleaze

at home ....

Foreign Minister, Lord Downer, was quick to issue a press release confirming that no-one in his government could remember anything about the sale of peerages.  

From the NY Post

By STEFANIE COHEN and CATHY BURKE
March 27, 2006 -- Authorities unleashed some March Madness on a gang of mob-linked bookies, seizing $300,000 in cash from a $45 million-ayear, illegal sports-betting ring, the Brooklyn DA announced yesterday. Ten suspects with ties to the Gambino crime family were nabbed, the DA said

Gus is horrified
This item being the major front page news while the Bush-war is still killing people by 50 to a hundred per day (around seventy today) ... as well as US soldiers who — since the war has become "Mission Accomplished" — have died nearly three thousand-fold, on a present average of two to three per day, with six to twelve being maimed for life...

I know we can argue that many more people get the same fate on the roads in the US but that is not the point... The point is that by doing illicit war we legitimize illicit behaviour in the mind of more people than our society can afford... We are turning our major social behaviors into acceptance of cheating, and/or of violent ways to solve any problem that comes to us... Anyway this gambling racket only represents piddley moneys compared to the heist of the Bush administration... but then the illusion flows back in our pocket, so we do not complain... while the poor suffer some more somewhere else, in Sierra Leone no doubt...
What? We can be blamed for that?
Look at it a different way... All of Africa was carved artificially by Europeans for profit... Not for the locals but for the European industries... Labour was cheap and when slaves died, there was plenty more to glean... etc... Nothing change much except the technology...