Mojowire for 9.18

Mojowire for 09.18; vol. 2, no. 15


intro with hendrix star spangled banner

J. Good morning, and welcome to The Mojowire, Vol. 2, No.15... I'm Mojo...

S. And I'm Sean, it's Saturday, September 18, 2004, Day 1,251 of the Neocon Captivity, and here's the news for the week gone-by...

J. Brought to you by Mojohaus-fine journalism, afflicting the comfortable since 1988. Now headlines, from Mojohaus:

S. First this morning, we take a look at how horribly history can repeat iteslf, especially when you are lying through your teeth about an illegal and unwinnable war in a far away land, where young American men and women are dying for your delusions of grandeur and phat stax of mad bank.

J.Then this morning we get back a little in JK's record and look at a little heralded action he took for his country in the late '80s, namely exposing the hideous web of lies and deceit that was the bagman operation for international drugs, terror and intelligence operations known as BCCI, Banco Credito y Comercial Internacional.

S. Then Strychnnie is adjusting to life back in zero-g after a week down the well at a conference in Berlin, so in his place, we examine why the current state of polling in the election is not the end of the world for Presidential candidate JK. In fact, it is an object lesson in the old political saw that liars figure and figures lie, and that lie is a serious whopper when it comes to W's lead over JK in the polls.

J. ... So stand by to stand by while we get ready to pull the pin on this thing...

fade in more hendrix star spangled banner for five or six count then back out again

PENTAGON PAPERS REDUX
J. You know, if you had been listening to the President for the last two or three weeks, you would have the mental picture that Iraq is just a few brush strokes from being a Norman Rockwell still-life, kids and adults enjoying wholsesome pasttimes, secure in the place in the grand scheme of Americanism.

And you would also believe that the media that keeps harping on small stuff lie the fwe malcontents that like to play with things that catch fire and occasionally singe a person or two in downtown Bagdad...well, that's to be expected, given that they're savages and all; just takes a little time that's all.

I mean, the President has been saying for the last month: "Freedom is on the march," "we are bringing a new day to Iraq," and "conditions are improving."

Well, if you were to read or hear that our position in Iraq was: "exasperating for anybody looking at this from any vantage point." Or "It's beyond pitiful, it's beyond embarrassing. It is now in the zone of dangerous," who would you attribute it to? Us here at the Wire, other liberal malcontenst, bent on destroying the American way of life, Al Qaeda operatives seeking a propaganda victory, the French?

No... those comments were from senior Republicans in Congress, like Senate Foreign Relations Chair Richard Lugar of Indiana and Nebraska's GOP apologist Chuck Hagel. They made these public comments last week, once they were in receipt of a classified national intelligence estimate that said the best we can hope for in Iraq is a continuation of the deteriorating security situation with anarchy and blood being the order of the day.

But take heart, the NIE also says that with just a small amont of effort, we can plunge the country into a full-fledged three way civil war with American troops caught in the middle. Yea us!

And here is the best part: this estimate, still considered valid by the intelligence community starting more than a year ago! That's right, in spite of the happy-meal rhetoric coming out of the West Wing about how we are winning the peace in Iraq, the people who are paid to look at these things and tell the President what they see have been telling him we are hosed, the Iraqis are hosed and the prospects for some Pan-Arab fast-food strip mall extending from Haifa to the Indian Ocean are the fevered dreams of delirious 16 year old gamers who mistook Tom Clancy novels for scholarly discourse on Middle Eastern relations.

So let's put it another way: The President, the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Generals of Central Command and their deputies have been lying to us about the nature of the Iraq conflict.

That's right, everytime you see one of the letters to the editor from some "soldier in the field" talking about how the liberal media has been downplaying the success of Americanization of Iraq becuase their praise glands were poisoned as children, they are most likely Psychological Warfare operations aimed at Americans to keep them on board with this doomed enterprise.

You know... it continually sucks being right all the time.

For those old enough to remember, there was a similar thing about 30 some years ago, when then-President Nixon told us we could win the war in Southeast Asia, even though four years worth of intel and analysis, starting with his predecessor L.B.J., told us we were screwed in Vietnam.

That was called the Pentagon Papers; a heroic young DoD analyst named Daniel Ellsberg got a look behind the bright shining lie and decided in his conscience that he could live with himself as a man if he didn't help the truth come out.

The result were articles published by the Washington Post and New York Times detailing the Department of Defense discussion regarding how we couldn't win in Vietnam, but how poltiically important it was to not let the American people know that.

We are in luck. It didn't take years for that information to come out. We have it now, just a year or so after it was formulated. This is the bottom line: The Bush administration and their cronies have known for more than a year that the war was unwinnable, but they have been lying to the American people as the body count has ratched upward in concert with intel predictions.

Let me repeat that so you are sure you understand. A handful of companies are getting bank off of Iraqi oil, even at the cost of young American lives and the administration that put those brave young people in harms' way have known for a year now that the they were dying for an unwinnable cause.

Suffering Jeebus...no wonder Bush would rather talk about ditching his Texas Air Naitonal Guard Drills. This makes him and his whole gang look a a gang of criminal war profiteers...which...well... we here at the Wire and loyal Wireheads have pretty much known all along.

But now JK and the untouchables are finally getting into the act on this one, and not a moment too soon, we might add. Seriously, JK, what have you been waiting for here, an engraved invite?

S. Kerry, speaking to thousands of National Guardsmen in Las Vegas two days after Bush addressed the same group, said: "The president stood right here where I am standing and did not even acknowledge that more than 1,000 men and women have lost their lives in Iraq,...He did not tell that you with each passing day, we're seeing more chaos, more violence, indiscriminate killing. He did not tell you that with each passing week, our enemies are getting bolder -- that Pentagon officials report that entire regions of Iraq are now in the hands of terrorists and extremists."

Our Maximum Leader, whom mos Americans for reaons that pass understanding, logic or reason, trust more than Kerry to handle Iraq, babbles incoherently of how the United States is "making progress" stabilizing the political fiction of Iraq and setting the stage for a democratic election in January that promises to be about as legitimate as the 2000 American Presidential Election.

Democrats point out that W rarely, if ever, talks about casualties, the spread of terrorism, kidnappings and beheadings, and the strength of anti-American insurgents in and around Baghdad. Instead, Bush focuses on steady resolve and the broader war on terrorism.

    From the Washington Post last week: "Bush did not mention the intelligence estimate -- first reported Wednesday by the New York Times -- as he made three campaign appearances in Minnesota yesterday. But W again emphasized progress. 'There's a lot of violence in Iraq -- I understand that,' he told a rally in Rochester. 'But Iraq now has a strong prime minister, national council, and national elections are scheduled in January. The world is becoming more free.' "

Let me repeat this if you are only now starting to fire enough synapses to pay attention. The President has been receiving intel for the last 18 months telling him that our occupation in its current incarnation is doomed, but has been selling you a a line of complete and utter radio edit wrapped in a shiny ribbon.

 Sen. Hagel, who could hardly be called a weak-kneed franco-phile appeasement monkey, joined a small, but growing, chorus of GOP voices sounding grave concerns about Iraq, comments that tend to support Kerry's view. "We've got to be honest with ourselves ...The worst thing we can do is hold ourselves hostage to some grand illusion we're winning. Right now, we are not winning. Things are getting worse."

Look, even if you agreed with the reasons for the war, the rationale that somehow taking our Saddam Hussein makes us safer from Al Qaeda or the threat of Iraqi Flying Saucer technology, this intelligence estimate tells you that you, and specifically you have been lied to.

Believe me, it's not like the Bush Administration was worried about bringing us on board. As far as they are concerned, we are just as bad as the terrorists themselves. They couldn't care less if a bunch of wild-eyed-long-haired-hippy-liberal-french-loving-appeasement-monkies thought things in Iraq were going okay or not. They knew there was little they were going to say that was going to convince us.

This was aimed at you. That's right, the generic, SUV owning, Republican voting, White-Christian, Suburban homeowner, who supports our President't war against the them-those-they evildoers and those who love them.

You have been lied to, deliberately. Sure, you're mad...that's right, deep clensing breaths, the acknowledgement is the first step in the healing. Believe me, we're Democrats, we know what this feels like. You're in good company. That's right, keep breathing...

Now for the next step... you know that election coming up in a a month and half? Well, I think if you can get your head past the various bits of hyper-partisan radicalness on both sides, the issue still becomes crystal clear, when you think of which one of these guys have been engaged in a massive campaign to decieve you.

You know what to do...

WARRIORS OF THE LOST WORLD
J.One of the primary issues in the campaign is: who can better prosecute the war against Al Queda and terrorism in general, and ultimately, who can partially or wholly restore that sense of security we enjoyed before 9/11.

The Bush campaign has laid much of its candidacy on making this the central issue of the campaign, avoiding running on their domestic policies and their Crusade in Iraq like the clap. The President enjoys a significant advantage among voters on this issue over Senator Kerry.

Naturally, even a cursory examination of the President's record before and after 9/11 should be advantageous to John Kerry. The 9/11 commission report, the failure to destroy Al Queda in Afghanistan, the ever elusive Osama Bin Laden, all stand as monuments to incompetence of this administration and it's war on terror.

Don't even get us started on the legal chaos that John Ashcroft has created domestically. So if this campaign really is going to revolve on whom is going to deal with the Terror threat, who is better qualified.

When you examine John Kerry's career as a Senator, you discover that he is uniquely qualified to deal with the unique threats posed in today's world, specifically Asymmetric threats like Al Queda and the Proliferation of Nuclear weapons.

Senator Kerry, in the late 80s, demonstrated that he recognized the threat of international terror long before it became vogue in the rubber rooms at AEI and the chickenhawk club of the Neo-Conservatives.

While Paul Wolfwoitz and Richard Perle were still fighting the Cold War, John Kerry picked a fight with the nastiest International criminal organization in the world, and demonstrated that he has the juevos and the game to fight this war and win it.

Let's kick this story of with some a summary from Washington Monthly:

Two decades ago, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was a highly respected financial titan. In 1987, when its subsidiary helped finance a deal involving Texas oilman George W. Bush, the bank appeared to be a reputable institution, with attractive branch offices, a traveler's check business, and a solid reputation for financing international trade. It had high-powered allies in Washington and boasted relationships with respected figures around the world.

All that changed in early 1988, when John Kerry, then a young senator from Massachusetts, decided to probe the finances of Latin American drug cartels. Over the next three years, Kerry fought against intense opposition from vested interests at home and abroad, from senior members of his own party; and from the Reagan and Bush administrations, none of whom were eager to see him succeed.

By the end, Kerry had helped dismantle a massive criminal enterprise and exposed the infrastructure of BCCI and its affiliated institutions, a web that law enforcement officials today acknowledge would become a model for international terrorist financing.

As Kerry's investigation revealed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, BCCI was interested in more than just enriching its clients -- it had a fundamentally anti-Western mission. Among the stated goals of its Pakistani founder were to "fight the evil influence of the West," and finance Muslim terrorist organizations. In retrospect, Kerry's investigation had uncovered an institution at the fulcrum of America's first great post-Cold War security challenge.

BCCI was more than just a money-laundering scam for drug cartels. BCCI was the preferred bank and money launderer for dictators seeking to finance the sale and purchase of weapons, including the procurement of the technology and materials to construct nuclear weapons.

BCCI is the most likely suspect in the being the main agent by which Saddam Hussien procured and financed the advanced Nuclear program that was dismantled by UNSCOM inspectors in the early 90's. When Oliver North wanted to launder money from weapons sales to Iran to the Contras, he used BCCI.

In addition to its dangerous and sleazy clientele, BCCI employed a vast army of lobbyists and political figures to protect it from discovery and prosecution by regulatory agencies. Kerry endured an endless barrage of complaints and attacks from members of his own party like Clark Clifford, and sleazy jerks like Orrin Hatch, trying to short circuit his investigation into BCCI.

S. Even Jackie O'Nassis, a friend of Cliffords, called him to beat him about the head for his determination to find out the truth. The list of intelligence figures that did business with BCCI is a who's-who of criminal scum bags, Admiral Bobby Iman, CIA director William Casey, Pakistani intelligence agency ISI, the prime sponsors of the Taliban and Al Queda in Afghanistan.

BCCI maintained a large private security force that has long been suspected in being involved in the deaths of Journalists who came too close BCCI, such as Financial times reporter Anson Ng, who was killed in his hotel room while investigating BCCI.

We could go on about BCCI, but you get the picture. John Kerry and his committee, spent two years against unrelenting pressure and attack to investigate BCCI, ultimately convoking US Attorney Robert Morganthu to investigate and empanel a Grand Jury, that resulted in the unraveling of BCCI's web of protectors in the US and other Western Governments,and resulted in its subsequent shutdown around the world.

By contrast, President Bush gets a briefing entitled "Osama Bin Laden going to attack the United States Domestically" directly from his CIA director, and fails to initiate and significant action to attempt to motivate his Iraq obsessed VP , Defense secretary and National Security Advisor into taking it seriously.

The parallels between BCCI and Al Queda are not by accident. Pieces of BCCI left from its demise were used by Bin Laden to form his network. John Kerry recognized that organizations like BCCI, that operate outside the normal boundaries of nation states, offer unique opportunities for terrorists like Bin Laden or rogue states like Iraq and Pakistan to pose dangerous threats.

John Kerry didn't need to get a memo from CIA to recognize this, he saw it clearly himself. His political courageous investigation into BCCI demonstrates he has the brains and the vision to combat these new threats. He didn't need to see the destruction of the World Trade Center to get it through his thick skull, nor would be rolled by dangerous cranks into attacking states like Iraq unrelated to Al Queda to serve their Metternech fantasies.

If this race is truly about the War on Terror, should we not place our trust on the guy who saw it coming long before it became obvious to everyone? John Kerry has proved he can recognize a threat to the country without the blood of Americans on his hands.

The President and his thugs could not. Not even when they were given a big piece of paper that said "Osama Bin Laden Determined to Attack in the United States" and a bunch of papers behind detailing exactly how they would do it. Not even when FBI agents were jumping up and down in fits of apoplexy over leads that lead them to beleive an imminent attack was in the works.

The choice is clear, so clear even a Right wing shcmuck should be able to see. ...Turn off the Fox News Red States and wake up, your President isn't making you any safer wealthier, or more secure, he is grifting you like a rube at craps table. Roll of the barca loungers and save your country before it's too late... .

LIES, DAMN LIES & STATISTICS
J. In recent weeks, we've seen a dramatic change in the polls of the Presidential Election. From a race that JK was leading nationally by a few points, and leading in many of the Battleground states by a healthy spread, suddenly we see a jump by the President in several polls, particularly the Gallup poll to a nine point spread.

What happened? Did Zell on Earth and the Republican National Monster Movie actually convince undecideds that 4 more years of Darth Cheney was going to keep them safe from the Al Queda Devil Rain?

There are a few things at work here. First, the polling data has been conflicting. The Gallup/CNN/USA today poll, and in fact other News organization polls, have shown a fairly wide spread nationally between the canddiates.

Yet seveal other polling organizations, Zogby, Rasmussen, Arc, among others have the candidates neck and neck within a few percentage points. So what gives. Who are they talking to that the Gallup people are not? Are they making it up?

A few things are at work, but first, we need to have a heart to heart to all the Dems, Kerry supprorters, and those of you who just want George Bush out of the White House.
Don't Panic. Just put down that latte, douse that cigarette and listen up. The Polling data you are hearing is utterly bogus. The Kerry campaign may not be all you may have hoped..but the sky has not falled. Now listen up:

Let 's let the fine gentleman at the left Coaster sum this up for you all:

Why You Should Ignore The Gallup Poll Friday Morning - And Maybe All Of Theirs

This morning we awoke to the startling news that despite a flurry of different polls this week all showing a tied race, the venerable Gallup Poll, as reported widely in the media (USA Today and CNN) today, showed George W. Bush with a huge 55%-42% lead over John Kerry amongst likely voters.

The same Gallup Poll showed an 8-point lead for Bush amongst registered voters (52%-44%). Before you get discouraged by these results, you should be more upset that Gallup gets major media outlets to tout these polls and present a false, disappointing account of the actual state of the race. Why?

Because the Gallup Poll, despite its reputation, assumes that this November 40% of those turning out to vote will be Republicans, and only 33% will be Democrat. That's right. The Gallup statistics pimps, who have been very courteous to requests, to send their sample breakdowns by party identification for both their likely and registered voter samples they use in these national and I suspect their state polls.

In both polls, Gallup oversamples greatly for the GOP, and undersamples for the Democrats. Worse yet, Gallup just confirmed for me that this is the same sampling methodology they have been using this whole election season, for all their national and state polls.

Gallup says that "This (the breakdown between Reeps and Dems) was not a constant. It can differ slightly between surveys" in response to my latest email. Slightly?

Does that mean that in all of these national and state polls we have seen from Gallup that they have "slightly" varied between 36%-40% GOP and 32%-36% Democrat? We already know from an email from Gallup reported earlier in the week that in their suspicious Wisconsin and Minnesota polls they seemingly oversampled for the GOP and undersampled for the Dems.

For example in Wisconsin, in which they show Bush now with a healthy lead, Gallup used a sample comprised of 38% GOP and 32% Democratic likely voters. In Minnesota where Gallup shows Bush gaining a small lead, their sample reflects a composition of 36% GOP and 34% Democrat likely voters. How realistic is either breakdown in those states on Election Day?

According to John Zogby himself:

"If we look at the three last Presidential elections, the spread was 34% Democrats, 34% Republicans and 33% Independents (in 1992 with Ross Perot in the race); 39% Democrats, 34% Republicans, and 27% Independents in 1996; and 39% Democrats, 35% Republicans and 26% Independents in 2000."

So the Democrats have been 39% of the voting populace in both 1996 and 2000, and the GOP has not been higher than 35% in either of those elections. Yet Gallup trumpets a poll that used a sample that shows a GOP bias of 40% amongst likely voters and 38% amongst registered voters, with a Democratic portion of the sample down to levels they haven’t been at since a strong three-way race in 1992?

Folks, unless Karl Rove can discourage the Democratic base into staying home in droves and gets the GOP to come out of the woodwork, there is no way in hell that these or any other Gallup Poll is to be taken seriously.

How likely is it that the Democrats will suffer a seven-point difference against the GOP this November or that the GOP will ever hit 40%?

S. Not very likely.

In fact, considering the level of actualization on the part of Democrats, virtually impossible. And remember, this is a dead heat after John Kerry was savaged by Swift Boat liars for Satan, after a month of endless attack ads in swing states, and an unrelenting attack on him during the RNC where even the dead in the form of Zell MIller were summoned to afflict the living in order to attack John Kerry.

Maybe, just maybe, we have taken a solid shot from the Might Wurlitzer and instead of being on the mat, we are still standing,. If you still have doubts. let's also remembe that Gallup is a GOP donor. Yes that's right, you are sucking down polling data from a GOP supporter. Puts this in whole new light huh?

Look, we agree that the Kerry campaign needs to get of the dime and pick a message and then get a solid lick on the President. What we are suggesting is that the polling data showing the President pulling away is not credible, and that John Kerry has a solid fighting chance.

Don't let the Mighty Wurlitzer work is foul arcane magic on you. YOu can win this one. Just go out there and do it. And memo to JK, get John Edwards off the bench and into the game. Stop trying to fight these guys yourself. And for God's sake get your game face on....

This is a big part of the problem with polling. It is so easily skewed and the results treated like so much gospel, that it really becomes a suspect method for determining what is really go on in the electorate, other than the gauge of moods and a preview of the various marching orders given by the orcs in the West Wing.

There is an old political addage that we here at the Mojowire are often fond of beating each other with when we start looking at numbers too much: "Perception is reality." And at the end of the day, isn't that what polling is all about? The manufacure of consensus?

The Bush people understand this, and this accounts for their inability to open their mouths for the last 72 hours without reciting the Gallup numbers by rote. Then those with the version 1.2 upgrade have the full set of talking points that endlessly bloviate about how the "polls show the President pulling away in the polls as Kerry sinks into the mire."

Sure, if you only poll Republicans, I'm sure you will find a solid Bush lead over Kerry. I would be shocked if it were otherwise. In fact, given the Gallup predeliction for polling Repulicans as opposed to Democrats, I would almost expect a bigger lead than they are currently showing.

The reality of the situation is this: Republicans are going to support Bush and Democrats are going to support Kerry. The nation is so polarized right now that polls are completely inadequate to make anymore of a prediction than that.

Anything else, is simply voodoo. You might as well be reading entrails or the bumps on the head of the neighbor's cat for guidance on any real substantive idea of what the electorate is likely to do.

But that is the real value of polls for the candidates at this stage. Perception is reality and if the perception is that one candidate is starting to pull away from the other candidate, then people will look at that as some sort of reflection of an empirical reality. Beacuse, hey, after all, numbers don't lie, do they?

And the then the circle is complete, and the prophecy fullfills itself as more people rush to jump on the bandwagon. Because, let's face it, no one wants to be on the losers bus. The lonely sound of crickets squeaking away their contempt for a doomed campaign is something that no real politicos want to witness first hand.

Because if you are there when it happens, the *you* are the guy it is happening to...

So polls become a critical part of the industry. They tell people when it's time to bail out of a campaign or when it is time to jump on board. But their utility to the voters in general, no matter what partisan cool-aid you drink, is dubious at best, and downright misleading at worst.

And that's the real crime, because we are absolutely sure (based on our polling) that people stay at home and don't bother voting based on poll results that show their candidate is either a. so far out in front, that they don't have to worry about it or, b. that their candidate is so far behind that their one vote is not going to make a difference.

J. It's 45 days until the election and our patriotic thought for the week is: asking Democrats who they're going to vote for, means the terrorists win, or as John Ashcroft says... “what does the Eye command...”

exit theme: RENEGADE MASTER

S. And that's all for this week, tune in again soon for another exciting installment, until, of course, we are declared enemies of the state.

And remember, you can now email the Mojowire at Mojohaus@hotmail.com, that's M-O-J-O-H-A-U-S@hotmail.com. Email, us hippies!

J. And now you can check out the Mojowire online at Mojowire.Blogspot.com; you can read the entire archive along with our general ramblings...

This has been the Mojowire, brought to you by Mojohaus...Mojohaus-fine journalism, afflicting the comfortable since 1988, and produced by our super funky fly producer Mike Payne and the Darkling Eclectica, here on KUCI, 88.9...

Mojowire for 9.11 -- Part I

Mojowire for 09.11; vol. 2, no. 14

J. Good morning, and welcome to The Mojowire, Vol. 2, No.14... I'm Mojo...

S. And I'm Sean, it's Saturday, September 11, 2004, Day 1,247 of the Neocon Captivity, and here's the news for the week gone-by...

J. Brought to you by Mojohaus-fine journalism, afflicting the comfortable since 1988. Now headlines, from Mojohaus:

S. First this morning, we examine the implications of recent administration bloviating on the subject of Islamic Revolutionary Republic of Iran and the news is not good, unless you own shares in Haliburton, that is.

J. Next, we take a look at the current whirlwind surrounding the President and his vaporware record of service in the National Guard. Look closely at the particles of political fallout. They may just have "Made in Texas" written on them.

S. Then Strychnine assumes the port of Mars and with fire and sword... oh who are we kidding, he is the economic girly man this morning. Yeah... the girly man with the tripod-mounted, belt-fed, water-cooled, .50 caliber machine gun of truth. Watch the hair, mack!

J. Then this morning we commemorate the 1,000th customer in Rummy's Mesopotamian Death-o-Rama sweepstake spectacular and ask, how in the name of the nine million hells did we get in this ridiculous position and how can we possibly get out again.

S. Finally this morning, we take a moment for a somber and sober reflection on the third anniversary of the start of the War for America, and want to make sure everyone knows what side we are on.

J. ...So stand by to stand by while we get ready to pull the pin on this thing...


THE CLONE WAR
J. In March of this year, our Maximum Leader took the little noticed action of declaring in executive order 12957 a National Emergency regarding the "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States constituted by the actions and policies of the Government of Iran."

Not much to think about there, these things are generally pretty rote. For instance, an official "state of emergency" has existed with regards to Iran since 1979.

At first glance, the creepy thing about this order is the language that mirrors reasons for the Iraq emergency declration made July 2001, two full months before 9/11. But then you read further, and then something even creepier (at least in retrospect) appears: "the emergency declared by Executive Order 12957 constitutes an emergency separate from that declared on November 14, 1979, by Executive Order 12170."

This creepiness was injected directly into the brain stem last week when the Los Angeles Times and several other papers across the country carried the Max Boot piece about how the President needs to take off the kid gloves regarding Iran and get them to respect our authoritay! In a sparse 760-word essay, specific references to terrorism or terror groups: six. And he was very careful to evoke the 9/11 frame and tie Iran to that heinous crime.

At first, when I brought this to Mojowire Editorial Board, we generally agreed that this was just more of Max Boot's dark military fantasies, wet dreaming their ways onto the nation's op-ed pages, especially given that they want to change the conversation right now given that much of that hive brain is currently embroiled in an Italian-Iranian-Israeli-Neocon spy scandal.

We also thought that this was possibly something out of the West Wing; an attempt to stir the jingo pot given Dick Cheney's assertion that the next plane that flies into a building will be piloted by John Kerry.

Then I started to look around and I came up with a few more disquieting bits of deja vu. The President and his inner circle talking about "Iranian links to 9/11" -- which the CIA has already openly discredited, or at least cast serious doubt upon, and Iran's unremitting push to get the bomb, as well as other weapons of mass destruction, and of course casting a righteous light on Iran's deplorable Human Rights record.

This stuff is not coming from the Political Office, though, much less the hideous belching pipes of the Mighty Wurlitzer. This is coming out of Doug Feith's little kingdom in the Office of Special Plans. Literally, the first rock we looked under, and we find John Bolton sucking a smoldering chair leg and sounding off on the way of the world; action, now, against Iran. Interdiction, interruption and control.

But through it all the language of the administration has not necessarily been that of regime change. Yet that will apparently be the new policy of the Bush Administration if they manage to falsify another election. The same phrases appearing in speeches by Condi Rice, Bolton, W and in the op-ed pieces of the likes of Boot, the "grave and growing threat," "links to the 9/11 attacks," "can't afford appeasement."

From the Sunday Herald in Britain on July 18: "A US government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that military action would not be overt in changing Iran, but rather that the US would work to stir revolts in the country and hope to topple the current conservative religious leadership. The official said: 'If George Bush is re-elected there will be much more intervention in the internal affairs of Iran.' "

This langauge has been ratcheting up all summer, only now to come full circle. On Monday, the President is going to go the IAEA and ask for a declaration of non-compliance as a step on the way to the U.N. Security Council to get one of those resolutions that he can twist into military intervention.

S. You might be remembered, Wireheads, that about this time last year, the dread Doctor Strychnine dropped a beat down on us all, reminding us why such a war on a conventional scale, like we are fighting in Iraq, is going to be a doomed enterprise right out of the blocks in Iran.

Let's revisit the frightful Dr. momentarily... He pointed out that Iran's military is about 4 times the size of Iraq's, it’s a much larger, richer country that has not been suffering under sanctions and unlike the agreeably flat and mostly water rich Iraq, Iran is a a big giant mountain crag surrounded by a completly arid plane and 2.400 miles of coast.

Yeah... geographically, it's Mordor by the sea.

And as the good doctor also pointed out, it is highly likely that this was the "red team" that handed U.S. military geniuses a public beating out on the town square during the Millenium Challenge War games of 2002.

So why on Earth would these stupid gits pick a fight with these guys now?

Well, for one thing, that question assumes a certain amount of reality in the thinking of the people in OSP. But I think our experience with their strategerie in Iraq has been enough to cure of any delusions regarding Doug Feith's relationship to reality.

Then there's the Israel card. Israel is already conducting operations in Northern Iraq, and the Likudniks currently in power in Tel Aviv would love nothing better than a reason to take out Iran, which backs Hezbollah. We already have the troops ready to stage in theater, and the potential assitance of a newly frocked Iraqi army.

Between the American Israeli Committee for Public Affairs, evangelicals in Department of Defense and a Petroleum industry connected to the White House that would love to see $100 bucks a barrel, regardless of what it would do the economy... yeah, that's a recipe for disaster.

The talk of 9/11 connections to Iran will continue to increase as we get closer to the election, along with Iranian intransigence on nuclear inspection. This will help W get a better handle on the electorate by by scaring them with tales of Iranian death rays mounted on the heads of endangered sharks off the eastern sea board.

In the meantime, the Bolton doctrine being run out of the office of special plans and Doug Feith, the actors are being put in place right now to create an incident that might make military intervention plausible or necessary. At the same time, goading the hardliners to crack down on reformers by continually expressing our support, and making reformers distance themselves more and more from Western engagement.

Then after the election, we start the real march, but make no mistake. This war has already started.

TASTES LIKE CHICKENHAWK
J. Boy this story just won't die, will it. I mean, I can't remember a story that has continually turned up like this over time. Of course we are referring to the current dust-up over the President's dubious service in the Texas Air National Guard.

A quick primer for those of you who have been asleep at the wheel: In the late 60s, early 70s, Maximum Leader was allegedly a pilot in the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron of the Texas Air National Guard. He was allegedly transferred to Alabama so he could work on some scumbag's race baiting campaign, then went to Harvard and was transferred to a unit in Colorado. He specfically unvolunteered himself for Vietnam in his papers and at some point in the 70s had his flight status yanked for not taking a physical.

For years, questions have surrounded whether the Bush family pulled strings to get W placed in a unit that was known as a hide-out/clubhouse for the sons of politically connected or wealthy Texans and if he actually completed or did his service and got a jimmy from the service by way of an honrable discharge.

And the stories circulate and the stories get non-response responses and the stories go away. Now, CBS has culminated four years of work and launched a scud last week during 60 minutes, lead by former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes who specifically and ashamedly said he pulled the strings to get W in the boys club.

And while we're at it, just personally, I think Barnes should be arrested and tossed in prison if he really did do those things. I will take his remorse as a mitigating factor, but I think he should burn just the same.

Then they went to the documentary evidence, a series of papers purporting to show that W's commanding officers were pressured to cut the young Caesar some slack on his lack of committment to make it to his unit's drills. Because, hey, hangovers are hell and besides, who the hell knows where you are going to be when you come out of a week long coke jag.

But this is where we start to get into a little bit of trouble here. You see, there are some fairly intrepid people on the right who almost immediately denounced the documents as forgeries and gave some fairly compelling evidence tied to typography. Evidence that might hold some serious water.

Oddly enough, as of this show, CBS stands by the story and the White House or the Mighty Wurlitzer actually has yet to deny the specific charges leveled by the story.

And the damned beast rolls on.

There are a couple of things in play here. Besides the standard bloviation about chickenhawks which you have heard us beat on like a rented mule, besides the hypocrisy of the Republicans in the character debate and its relation to national security.

These things are pretty well documented and we have gone to some pretty good lengths to castigate the various punks and dirtbags like the Dick Cheneys and Paul Wolfowitzs and Tom Delays who assiduously avoided service to their country, even while pimping immoral and wrongheaded military policies they don't have the spine to stand up and represent for themselves.

So like I said, we've covered that ground.

S. This leaves us with a couple of issues. First and foremost, it simply boggles the mind that the news cycle has been so utterly dominated by this when we have so many more important things we could be talking about.

And yeah, we get the point that the issues of JK's swift boat time and W's inability to show up on the flight line at assembly and the tales they tell 40 years later, are issues of character and that character is a critical issue in our leaders.

But it turns into this ridiculous circle jerk about who did what when and no matter who says what, the star belly sneetches are going to support the star belly sneetch protocol, while the plain belly sneetches are going to represent for the plain belly sneetches position.

So I guess it's a good thing that we don't have a war right now in our time to be talking about, that we don't have 8 million Americans looking for work or that our environment isn't deteriorating due to a lack of leadership and a wholesale auction to landrapists. Because we have so many more important things to talk about like whether CBS is using forged documents.

But that leads to a more fundamental question, raised last week by the Dread Doctor Strychnine. And it was one we asked ourselves as well. There is a distinct possibility that the whole thing was a plant on the part of the Mighty Wurlitzer to derail the national discourse.

Now before you wind up the whole "paranoid nutball" rant, just hear us out. To qualify this, we are not really sure this is the case, but there are some historical precedents, and no S9, not just the Karl Rove history of planting listening devices in his own office just so he could complain to FBI about being bugged.

(no kidding, gang, that really happened in the early 80s)

But consider a few disquieting things. First and foremost, Dan Rather is not a regular 60 minutes guy. How did he get this "exclusive?" Could it be the same way he got the exclusive in 1988 with W's pappy? You remember that, when everyone was bagging on then V.P. Bush about being a wimp and a limp-wristed eastern effete snob, he goes on with Dan Rather, who lobs a couple reasonably tough questions and Bush then takes him out for a walk. Poll numbers skyrocket, toughness confirmed and his political team all but take credit for setting up Rather.

And now we are learning that CBS never saw an "original" document, but probably first generation copies. Then combine this with the fact that that scumbag Kitty Kelly is coming out with her expose on the Bush family that comes largely from "anonymous" or that is to say, made up, sources. And those that were named are now disclaiming saying anything to Kitty.

So we have a story about the President's military record that is being slammed for the use of suspect documents and a book by Kitty Kelly that will be easily refuted and knocked into the cheap seats.

This is the strongest circumstantial evidence of a conspiracy, because this results in any, and I mean any criticism of the President along just about any lines now will be placed in the powerfully negative frames of "oh, like those CBS forgaries," or "oh, like stories like Kitty Kelly tells..."

And the part about this that really makes us want to gnaw our own limbs off is that the charges against Bush for being a coke-addled playboy and character-challenged no-show dilietente loser are all likely true. Too bad we can't say it public now because other morons screwed up the story.

There really is one born every minute isn’t there...

cue JAMES music
And now the music is telling me that we have an incoming transmission from the redoubtable Dr. S9...

J. That's right. It is time once again for our regular contributor Dr. Strychnine, reporting from his super-secret, ultra-dope, mega-cool, extra-jiggy, Mojohaus spy satellite of love high in geosynchronous orbit above Baghdad by the Bay ... take it away S9 ...

mojowire for 9.11 PART II

ECONOMIC GIRLY-MAN
S9.Greetings, once again, from the L5 Lounge, fellow space travelers. We know you're up to your eyeballs in entertaining trivia these days, what with silly season getting into full swing, and there being the ever important three year anniversary of the most cataclysmic event in your lifetime. Still, we here on the Satellite Of Love think it's important to remind you of the big picture. It's important to remember that all those trees you're looking at are part of a big ole' forest of the bollocks. Let's stretch our minds, shall we?

Over the last four years of the Bush Administration, and particularly in the last eighteen to twenty-four months, the American economy has taken some rather remarkable turns. And if you never paid attention in your Economics 101 class, then you're probably confused in the extreme. Quite frankly, the economy is reacting very poorly to a collection of bad influences -- mostly related to poor public policy at the Federal level of U.S. government. And you wouldn't know it if you were in the habit of uncritically believing the pronouncements of the Administration's economists and policy specialists.

Let's start with this choice morsel of a quote from Karen Hughes, one of George Bush's witch-queens from Texas attached to the Bush/Cheney campaign: "Our economy is growing stronger everyday, we're creating millions of jobs with the President's tax cuts." This is just a bald-faced lie. Somebody should pick Ms. Hughes up off the ground by here Ann Taylor collar, shake her vigorously, and refuse to put her down until she answers this question: "When your office was arguing for these "revenue deferments" (please, let's dispense with the misleading "tax cut" phrasing) back in 2002 and early 2003, and you were projecting the total payroll employment figure would be 134.5 million, what caused that estimate to be too high by at least three million jobs. Why did the President's tax policy not create the jobs his office argued would be created?"

And what's to insure that the next tax policy these people want to ram through their pet Congress will be any less of a failure than the last one at creating jobs? And make no mistake -- if you reëlect this clownshow, they will bring you an encore that will shock and amaze you.

They're calling it "The Ownership Society" and you know what that means: they are openly defying the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. You might have forgotten which amendment is the 13th -- it's the one that reads, and I quote it in full: "Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.; Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

They can't really mean they want to bring back slavery, can they? Is Dr. S9 really saying that? Yes. He's really saying that. When you hear the words "ownership society" like you did all through the
Republican National Convention a couple weeks ago, you need to be asking yourself whether you really believe they want to make you into an "owner" or they want to make you into one of the 0WNED.

Let's look at what they're actually willing to admit up front they want to do: A) radical rewrite of the government revenue code, probably to a flat tax; B) eliminate taxes on even the most obscenely large hordes of inherited wealth; C) evisceration of the Social Security system to shift the risk of equity market volatility away from the traditional speculators and into the captive population of working people with retirement savings; and D) massively increased government spending on a
cornucopia of welfare programs for the conservative elites and their decadent corporate enablers

It's obvious to anyone with a brain what they are trying to do: they're trying to break the U.S. Treasury. That's why the budget deficit projections are such drug-addled delusions. In January, the President said in his State of the Union Address that he planned to cut the deficit in half within five years. Yet, last week, the Republican CBO estimated (and they were really stretching to do it) that the deficit will drop from a record $422bn to the only slightly less horrific figure of $312bn in the next five years. They low-balled the estimate in January, and now they come out and admit that they can't even hit the ridiculously easy target they set for themselves. Why? They're not really trying.

Here's the infallible guide to interpreting the Bush Administration on their policy pronouncements: they just lie. They lie, they lie some more, and when you think they're done lying and they might tell the truth for once, they lie again. They do it for sport.

Because, while they're playing hide the salami with the budget projects out to 2009, everybody is forgetting that it has long been traditional to make projections for at least ten years. Recently the CBO did that (everyone was shocked). And you know what? The deficit goes totally non-linear after 2009. If we really want to get our fiscal house in order, we will have to fix our health care system— and not just Medicare, the whole enchilada.

But is the President talking about doing that? No, he's talking about yet another impossible privatization program that will not do anything to control costs or spread the risks. In fact, it will have the opposite effect— to concentrate risks onto the people least capable of managing them, and to pour yet more fuel onto the raging fire of rising health care costs.

Ack! Spit! Somebody douse me with cold water before I overheat! Look, people— there are a lot of reasons to be dubious of Kerry/Edwards, but there is one seriously good selling point in their
favor: their economics advisors are grown-ups who can feed and dress themselves without help from a nurse. If you elect them, you'll probably get a lousy foreign policy— but, at least, you'll probably get a sensible and moderate incremental (not revolutionary) improvement in the American health care system. And by extension, an improvement in the economy. And it will be real, and nobody will be asking you to eat dog turds and call it chocolate cake.

Cue James music for exit
That's all my time this week. Peace out, comrades. And please— get your vote on.

WHENCE COMES THIS
J.This week, we became aware that more than1,000 American Soldiers have given their life in Iraq. How did this happen? Why have 1,000 men and women given their lives, and thousands more Iraqis given theirs, over a year after Doug Feith and Ahmad Chalabi promised us that Iraq would be rolling in oil money and a shining beacon of Demcrocy.

The American intervention and occupation in Iraq is not the product of a competent and ethical Goverment acting in the best interests of the American people. It is a cynical and cruel deception perpetuated on the American electorate to fulfill the narrow interests of a small group of ideologues and business men. It is a supreme example of the power of hubris and arrogance, and the destruction a powerful nation can wreak when it's leaders are not held accountable.

But what happened? There are perhaps many reasons, but in terms of understanding how this administraton operates, there are a few key decisions that illuminuate our point.

A few months into the occupation, we pimped you a story by Sy Hersh in the New Yorker that detailed how the logistical military plan conceived by the military was edited by the civilains at the Pentagon. Specifically, the military had planned to use over 240,000 troops to fight the war and then occupy the country.

Don Rumsfeld and the Neocon boyscouts demanded and got significant revisions in the plan, cutting back the troop committments to minimal levels not because they could not commit them, but because they chose not to commit them to prove their pet theories of warfare, in particular that they could win this war with technology and minimal troops, a pet theory of neoconservatism.

These are guys who bought the hype about the great American soldier lock stock and barrel and especially relative to our Special Forces groups. You know, the whole thing about the lazer beam eyes, and they have the kung foo grip and they can fly and breathe underwater and they parachute from the space shuttle and ... and .. .and... The problem is further exacerbated by a strong "can-do" cultural attitude on the part of the Special Forces, especially in the command structure.

There is not a cultural allowance where these guys can say "I'm sorry senator, but we are not fit for that mission." Partly because of their overachievers ethic but also because those senators then ask pointed questions like "What do you mean they don't really fly or shoot lasers out of their eyes... tell me then admiral, why exactly am I voting to spend millions of dollars on your program?"

The result was disatarous. Even though US forces proved to be more than adequate to defeat the Iraqi regular army, the lack of manpower made it impossible to accomplish important goals in the immediate aftermath that are the key elements in our problems today. First, the looting and theft that erupted in the aftermath of the surrder that destoryed the infrastructure of the country, even up to looting of nuclear storage sites like Tuwaitha, which contained nuclear material, a key component of the bush argument for war.

S. In additon, Iraq had over 80 immense ammo dumps scattered around the country, which have been contiunually looted by the insurgents because there are not enough US Troops to patrol them. The foolish revisions of the civilian leadership, that resulted in the minimal troop strength, allowed mass chaos and destruction, and the arming and orgnaization of the insurgency which plagues us today.

An act of hubris by people with not a single drop of experience in planning wars or occupations, just experience in writing about in the corporate financed think tanks and conference rooms of Washington. A hubris over 1,000 American men and women have paid the price for.

Another key example is the occpation authority set up to administer the reconstuction and the transition to a functioning demcoracy, the Coalition Provisional Authority. The CPA was a dictatorship, deciding everything from who exercised political power in Iraq, and most importantly, who got the money to rebuild the nation. Unfortunately, because the Administration itself eschewed qualified people to populate itself with political hacks, the CPA was no different.

And lets face it, those contracts were divided up among a select group of campaign contributors and political cronies long before the first boot ever hit the ground over there. The CPA was merely the gang responsible for making sure the checks got made out to the right people and that nobody not on the guest list got behind the velvet ropes.

The Chief Financial officer of the reconstruction was not someone with experience in International finacne, who had worked in the reconsturction in the Balkans, or at the IMF or World Bank, but a relative of Republican political operatives fresh out of college who happened to send her resume to the Heritage foundation. Again, just the sort of witting drone the administration wanted and has surrounded themselves with from top to bottom.

This is the pattern we see all through the CPA, the most important tasks in staffing the occupation authority was not compentence or potential to carry out the mission, but to recruit true believers in the NeoCon cause, and loyal Republican who needed the job.

The result is the abject failure of reconstruction effort, billions wasted in Iraq on Halliburton and mercernary security firms beyond congressional scrutiny. Just like the Bush White House, a gang of incompentent loyalists who cannot carry out any other job than to lie, cheat or steal.

The truth here is often perverted into some slam on the soldiers by draft dodgers like Dick Cheney, but that is the slimy distraction to the real truth. The intervention in Iraq, regardless of your feeling on the invasion, was turned into a debacle because of the crude, base stupidity of the Administration, and their failure to own up is a chilling indictment of their true nature, pale exuses of human beings who cannot do anything more than feed on the souls of real human beings to satisfy their crude hunger for power and revenge.

This isn't an election between competeing political parties, This one is for the species folks, The time of the orc is upon us and the cruel reality is that you either need to march down to the polling place and represent for homo sapien, or else suck the pipe in that long night of greedy liars and thieves we call the Bush Presidency.

MONEY FOR NOTHING
Editors note: nothing in the following piece should be construed or interpreted as calling for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government or for taking any unlawful action of any kind; as if we don't have enough problems in America already without that kind of nonsense. -- mojo.
J. Faces and names faded in and out of the picture on TV, and were gone. Smiling or stern faces, almost all young, looking proud; sharp in a uniform. More young men and women, sons and daughters, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, friends, who are not coming home from Iraq. Why?

On the day before the 9/11 federal myth creation and official day of grotesque political theater and horrible government-sponsored hero worship, those faces asked us the damning question, why am I dead?

There are the various answers from the various political monkies: 9/11 changed everything, we are making the world safe from terror, we were rescuing these people. Well, I'm sorry, I am going to be of that generation that is going to piss off my kids' history teachers because I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when those planes hit the trade center.

Like Voltaire said, we owe the dead truth. Too many have died for us not give that kind of honesty and anything else spits on their graves. My kids' at least will know the truth of what happened, at least as I have the power to understand it.

Starting with 9/11 changed everything. Yeah, in many ways it did. We went from a teetering democracy reeling from a questionably honest election to a full fledged police state where people were being yanked out of libraries, gyms, work, just for questioning the official government line. A place where the government was instructing its citizens to openly spy on one another.

The one thing that the terrorists couldn't take away from us on that horrible morning, the current administration was more than willing to seize at the earliest opportunity. The liberty and the freedom that are punchlines of political jokes told by the likes of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are bought by the blood of our youth in the sands of a far away country, sent there at the instigation of a handful of jackass religious extremists living in places with no law like Kabul or K Street.

Places that the current administration can't seem to decide if they want to emulate or destroy. This isn't a war between freedom and tyranny, it's a war of religious ideologies backed by big money betting on this horse or that horse. All 9/11 did was just take the revolution public.

I remember sitting on the couch watching the second plane hit the WTC and my wife in a tremolous voice asking "What's going on?" and my simple response "that wasn't an accident...we are at war." And even at that moment I understood that this was going to be a rhetorical and political battle that me and my friends were going to have to fight against the government that had seized our country.

That truth came into focus within days against all my hopes. My worst fears were coming true, the powers that be were taking actions that we had thought would never happen here; warrantless searches, secret trials, expatriation.

And it makes us angrier than anything at these people for putting us in a position where we feel like we have to politically battle our own government before we can adequately fight a war against terror. We weren't like this before, the tragedy is that they have made us like this, and I hate it.

At the same time, I had no problem with our intervention in Afghanistan. I had problems with Taliban and their human rights records for a long time before 9/11. Suffice it to say that I was less than impressed with the lackisdasical nature of the operation to remove them and Al Qaeda.

Not a critique of the troops but of the planners in the Pentagon who had very little actual experience with this, dismissed their senior uniformed advisors and had another objective in mind all along anyway.

S.I remember being very proud of my country in the days that followed 9/11. The sense of unity and charity and respect that poured out. In many ways it brought out the best in all of us. And I blame the Bush administration for stoking anti-Islamic hatred by the actions of federal law enforcement and Congressional action on the one hand even while they paid nominal lip service to the notion that they respected Islam as an institution.

Make no mistake, we are at war, a war that started on 9/11. A political war for our country, a war with no heroes, no statues, no monuments, only casulties. There really are screwheads out there who mean us harm. But the greater danger is a political leadership that could care less about why these people mean us harm.

They would rather get the cheap and easy poll numbers, saying ridiculous crap like "They hate us because of our freedom." There are real reasons these people are angry with us. And I swear to whatever God anyone here prays to that I will crawl through this microphone and transmit my foot into the butt of the first person that says "oh, it's the blame America first crowd."

This is not about blaming America. This is about realizing that we don't live in a sollopsistic universe. That these people are not simply actors from central casting. That maybe, just freeking maybe the world is a little more complex than a Mack Bolan adventure novel.

Perhaps that's the biggest thing that's changed since 9/11, is the idea that we don't need anyone else in the world. That these really are the end times. That the final battle is here. That world can be completely divided into them and us.

This is not what we wanted. But this is what we were given, and now instead of making our nation safer, we are engaged in a world wide war of conquest and domination driven by greed, religious fanatcism and plain old hubris. We are being played like a two dollar banjo. If we fight this war against terror this way, then it will be exactly because that's what the terrorists want us to do.

If we reelect George Bush, then that will be exactly what the hardliners in countries like Iran, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and others too numerous to name want us to do. George Bush is the best thing that ever happened to them. And the 9/11 attacks were just the fuel to prime the pump. It was like watching Pavlov's dogs.

There is a divide in this country that started shortly after 9/11, those who wanted to take what they saw as the good we saw in our country in those dark days and work to make our nation a better place, safer while dealing justice to those who murdered.

Then there were those who seemed to take it as a license to get their war on. To appeal to the most base, most divisive elements in American society and play on that fear and ignorance to create something that is a grotesque reflection of a once great nation.

At the end of the day, that is the real tragedy, those young people's pictures flashing across the screen, died for a country that is tearing itself apart beacause its leadership is too stupid and corrupt to do anything else.

J. It's 53 days until the election and our patriotic thought for the week is: remembering the dead, means the terrorists win, or as John Ashcroft says... “It's a new day in America...the day of the Orc.”

exit theme: RENEGADE MASTER

S. And that’s all for this week, tune in again soon for another exciting installment, until, of course, we are declared enemies of the state.

J. This has been the Mojowire, brought to you by Mojohaus...Mojohaus-fine journalism, afflicting the comfortable since 1988, and produced by our super funky fly producer Mike Payne and the Darkling Eclectica, here on KUCI, 88.9...