Month: October 2007

Amway sues to ID bloggers – mlive.com:

The case could be called Amway versus the Internet, or some might argue, Amway versus free speech.

The Ada Township-based multi-level marketing giant this week filed a sweeping suit in Ottawa County Circuit Court against 30 people classified as John Does for disparaging the company in blogs, online forums and YouTube videos.

Amway always was a class act, wasn’t it?

I feel bad when I criticize Amway, because West Michigan is littered with philanthropic works from the founders, which is great. But I wouldn’t want my worst enemy sucked into being one of their lowly “distributors” trying to sell products nobody wants for the benefit of the dozen people above them on the supply line, each of whose sole contribution was sucking the next one into the business. I understand that technically, legally speaking, they are not a “pyramid scheme” but the comparison is sure hard to avoid.

Amway and Blackwater. West Michigan’s sure contributed some winners to the corporate world, hasn’t it?

Even worse than we imagined: AT&T contract for NSA to surveill all internet traffic, foreign and domestic, started before 9/11 | Corrente:

This blog post is full of good information & links.

This is based on leaks from AT&T, and testimony from the former CEO of Qwest. If true, it explains the desperation with which the telco industry is lobbying for retroactive immunity, doesn’t it?

If true it is also terrifying because it shows that Bush/Cheney came into office on day one and immediately started a domestic surveillance program, which suggests that there was an understanding between them and the NSA beforehand that that’s what would happen if they got elected.

The idea of candidates for office being in collusion with the most secretive and unsupervised intelligence service even before they take office is something out of a bad “it can’t happen here” scare novel.

But pretty much everything since 2000 has been out of a bad “it can’t happen here” scare novel.

Blackwater Guards Fired at Fleeing Cars, Soldiers Say – washingtonpost.com:

Blackwater USA guards shot at Iraqi civilians as they tried to drive away from a Baghdad square on Sept. 16, according to a report compiled by the first U.S. soldiers to arrive at the scene, where they found no evidence that Iraqis had fired weapons.

“It appeared to me they were fleeing the scene when they were engaged. It had every indication of an excessive shooting,” said Lt. Col. Mike Tarsa, whose soldiers reached Nisoor Square 20 to 25 minutes after the gunfire subsided.

His soldiers’ report — based upon their observations at the scene, eyewitness interviews and discussions with Iraqi police — concluded that there was “no enemy activity involved” and described the shootings as a “criminal event.” Their conclusions mirrored those reached by the Iraqi government, which has said the Blackwater guards killed 17 people.

Who are you gonna believe, loyal patriotic Blackwater guards or a bunch of pinko commie hippie US Army soldiers?

Daily Kos: BREAKING: SCOTUS Declares Bush the Nobel Peace Prize Winner:

Oslo: A review of the ballots in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize has shown that George W. Bush is the winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. James Baker III has been sent by the Bush Administration to coordinate efforts on the ground. The United States Supreme Court in a surprise vote of 5 to 4 have declared George W. Bush the winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Does Blackwater Play By Its Own Rules in Iraq? – Newsweek: World News – MSNBC.com:

The colonel was furious. “Can you believe it? They actually drew their weapons on U.S. soldiers.” He was describing a 2006 car accident, in which an SUV full of Blackwater operatives had crashed into a U.S. Army Humvee on a street in Baghdad’s Green Zone. The colonel, who was involved in a follow-up investigation and spoke on the condition he not be named, said the Blackwater guards disarmed the U.S. Army soldiers and made them lie on the ground at gunpoint until they could disentangle the SUV. His account was confirmed by the head of another private security company. Asked to address this and other allegations in this story, Blackwater spokesperson Anne Tyrrell said, “This type of gossip has led to many soap operas in the press.”

Holy crap.