Next Time, Buy The Cookies.

I never was a Girl Scout. I could claim it was because even back then I thought these youth scouting groups were neo-fascist militaristic brain-washing factories designed to turn out fodder for the war machine. But that's not why I never became a girl scout. The truth is I never qualified because I got kicked out of the Brownies. The adult woman who was our "leader" thought I was a bad influence on the other girls.

One of our big Brownie "functions" was to learn to prepare a dinner, to which our parents were invited. We served pigs in the blanket (hot dog rolled in a packaged crescent roll then baked) and red jello with a can of fruit cocktail in it, with syrup, and fresh whipped cream on top. We were trying to earn our nutrition badge. When it came to making the whipped cream, our adult lady leader wouldn't let us put any sugar in it, because she was on a diet. So the entire group had to have sugarless whipped cream because this woman had the eating habits of a suicidal imbecile. She said we should put bowls of sugar out on the table, so everyone could sprinkle sugar on top of the whipped cream. We had crunchy whipped cream. Which I loudly protested at the dinner.

We walked to the Brownie meetings after school, and went right past a little store that sold the best gumballs probably in the whole state. The big gumballs: grape, sour apple (yellow and red mottled), orange, cherry. These were huge gumballs, with a thick coating of hard candy on the outside, like none I've ever seen since. When you put the big gumball in your mouth and tried to bite down, it was so sour and the flavor so intense, but the candy shell so thick and hard to bite through, that colored drool would run down one side of your chin, which you'd have to try to lick up real fast with your tongue, get the rest with your hand. If I could find those same gumballs today, I'd buy a million of them.

The only benefit to going to the Brownie meetings was that we would all collect a few pennies from the sofa cushions, and buy gumballs on the way.

Then the "leader" decided that we were enjoying ourselves too much, so she banned gum.

I asked why.

She said "because I said so."

I said that I disagreed, that there was no reason we couldn't chew gum. We weren't babies, we were 10 years old. We weren't boys, we didn't stick the gum on the chairs, we just chewed it.

She kicked me out, and I never became a girlscout. I never again ate a "pig-in-the-blanket" or red jello with fruit cocktail, and I always put the sugar right in with the cream before I beat it. And I defiantly eat gumballs whenever and wherever the spirit moves me.

Post-Season Nail-Biters

I want a Yankees-Dodgers World Series. Longshot, perhaps, but that's what I want.

Widespread Swine Flu Activity In 37 States With No Medical Treatment Available For The Citizens. We Need A National Healthcare Program.

Something as common and "simple" as influenza could wipe out a large percentage of the world's population within a few months. During the 1918 "Spanish" flu (which actually originated in the U.S., in the military bases where draftees were lodged before being shipped to Europe during World War I) John Barry, in his book The Great Influenza, estimates as many as 100 million people died.

Now we have the swine flu, which they want us to call the H1N1Whatever1 flu because the people who sell pork products are understandably afraid that they will lose sales if people think they can get the flu from eating bacon. And a few years ago we had the bird flu, then the avian flu as a variation, and various other terrifying epidemics that capture the media until it turns that millions do not die, at which point they go back to the latest in the divorce filings of Jon and Kate.

But what if one of these days we get a flu that could have been controlled with proper medical care, but was not controlled because most people had no money to pay for drugs, and had no national healthcare program. What then? Talk about death panels. What is the difference between leaving people without medical protection to be killed by airborne influenza assassins, simply because both the Democrats and Republicans, in bipartisan fashion, took hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes from the insurance industry, the doctor's lobbies, the hospital owners, and the drug sellers, to stop any form of national healthcare program for this country. A bipartisan deathpanel.

Who needs a national healthcare program? Not the rich people. They can afford to buy lots of insurance. They've got primary insurance with no deductible, and they've got umbrella or excess insurance to cover everything else. Some of these people have millions of dollars of coverage. The politicians don't need a national healthcare program because they steal money from the taxpayers and buy themselves very expensive insurance with great coverage, and they "vote" on laws to say that even if they just serve for a few years in Congress, Joe Taxpayer will be providing them with health insurance for life. And their spouses too.

Who needs a national program? All the rest of us do. You know how the Republicans scream about death panels for grandma? Well grandma is going to die in an epidemic because her neighbors couldn't afford a flu shot, and grandma's immune system was compromised because she was old, or maybe sick. If anybody really cared about grandma, they'd make sure that every citizen in this country had national healthcare provided to them.

As for the costs, they keep saying we can't raise taxes to pay for it. Nonsense. Every person with insurance is already paying probably $300/month anyway, let's say $4,000/year. So let's cut that by 1/3 by getting rid of the insurance industry, which takes 30-40% off the top, and every person in the country can still pay something for healthcare, but their actual costs would be at least 1/3 less than what they pay now.

If not this year, then soon we will have a pandemic that will kill people in the millions or hundreds of millions, not the thousands. Maybe then the citizens will understand why we need national healthcare, and will no longer be fooled by the lies from both the Democratic and Republican parties. And maybe then people will understand why we should be assisting other countries to develop sanitation and healthcare systems, instead of bombing them, murdering them, destroying their countries and stealing their oil.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the U.S. invading aggressor forces in Iraq and Afghanistan brought back some fatal pandemic to this country, that wiped out a lot of Americans? I actually think I've seen this story line in some horror film. Outbreak -- they were importing monkeys illegally from some other country into the U.S., smuggling them, and stealing resources from other countries to make money, and ended up bringing back into the U.S. some terrible disease that killed people very quickly after exposure, and for which there was no known treatment. Anyway, if a screenwriter could come up with the storyline, it's probably not hard to imagine that it could really happen.

The CDC is a good place to check about diseases floating around our country. They are reporting widespread swine flu activity in 37 states, with several thousand dead so far. The immunization against the swine flu is only available in limited amounts, and, to date, is not being made available to the public. I think medical caregivers, emergency (cops, firefighters) and children are first in line, then older people with existing health problems. If somebody gets sick and requires hospitalization, they'd better have lots of money or great insurance, because otherwise they will die. And they are claiming that it is mostly the children who will die. Nice country we have, murdering our little children so that the doctors can all have second homes and expensive cars. If you see a doctor who drives a BMW, remember what the letters stand for: Break My Windshield.

Even the seasonal flu shot costs money -- around $30 where I am -- and thousands of people die every year from the seasonal flu. But our government will not provide the citizens with free flu shots, choosing instead to let thousands die from this easily preventable death. Instead of saving the lives of citizens, the politicians give hundreds of billions of dollars to the loansharks, thieves and scumbuckets on Wall Street.

For the great majority of people in this country, there will be no protection for us against the Swine Flu. No drugs available to us. No hospitalization or medical care if we get sick, unless we've got insurance or lots of money to pay for it. Just think of all the churchgoers crowded together on Sundays sneezing and coughing on each other, praying they don't get the flu but probably making it almost certain they will.

The flu map that the CDC is showing is a bit unclear, but apparently most of the flu they are reporting is the swine flu, not the normal yearly flu. This is early for flu -- October, and the season often runs through February or March.

So, no treatment available, they're not even sure the drug they've got will work, the swine flu is widespread already. Wash your hands and hope you don't die. That's our national medical care program in the richest country in the world. Wash your hands. Avoid public places. (How can you get groceries, how can you go to work, how can you live? Should we all move into caves?)

If you get the swine flu, try to go pay your congressional Senators and Representatives a personal visit in their offices. Go sit in chairs and sneeze or cough, pass it around, stay for hours, and maybe that will help clarify for them why we need a national healthcare program. Don't just sit home and suffer: take it to the politicians.

If we the citizens are so insignificant that our politicians can't bother to provide us with free medical care -- starting with a simple flu shot, but going from there to mammograms and breast cancer treatment, colonoscopies and treatment for colon cancer, heart disease, diabetes, all the big killers -- if they don't care that we die from these things and can't afford treatment, then let's go visit them when we get the flu, and let them know how it feels to live every day thinking that if you get sick, there is no treatment available to you, so you just might die.

Or go hang out on Wall Street, go visit the stockbrokers, hang out in bars where the politicians drink, lick their glasses when they're not looking, shake their hands, go sit in the headquarters of the banks that have stolen all our money. Don't just sit home and suffer. If I get the swine flu, I'm going to visit every Republican I know and, after that, all the local politicians' offices will get the opportunity to spend the day with me, even if I need somebody to haul me in there on a stretcher. Get out and do your civic duty. If you have a local government, go visit the Mayor. Give them all a strong incentive to get off their complacent fat corrupt asses and pass a real national healthcare program for all the citizens of this country.

Disease is not contained by borders and can't be fought with expensive missile systems. We just need a flu shot for our people. But our politicians don't care enough to give us something that simple that could save our lives. And the drug companies and doctors and hospitals would walk over piles of our rotting corpses before making this basic medical treatment available to us for a modest affordable non-profit fee. They are all participating in a conspiracy to commit mass murder.

The U.S. War Against Afghanistan Is Now 8 Years Old and Cost $228 Billion Dollars.

http://www.costofwar.com/

Eight years ago today the United States attacked Afghanistan, one of the poorest nations in the world, because the Saudi oil-rich multi-millionaire bff of the Bush family, former child-star discovered by Ronald Reagan, Osama bin Laden, was supposedly living somewhere in Afghanistan, and supposedly had masterminded the four hijackings that took place in the U.S. on 9/11. Because of those four hijackings, and because the U.S. wanted to invade and occupy much of the middle east, to steal the oil, the neocons who were running this country used the hijackings as the opportunity to start a war against every country in the middle east.

Eight years later, we have spent $228 Billion Dollars of our money in the war against Afghanistan, a nation whose "military might" consists of some homeless men with rifles, beat-up pickup trucks and a few hand-held missile launchers. And now the U.S. military is insisting that we need to send tens or even hundreds of thousands more troops into Afghanistan. Ask yourself why. Is it really to "fight" against one of the poorest countries in the world? Or is it to prepare for the next war we're going to start in that region?

And guess what? The Obama administration is "carefully considering" the request to send tens or hundreds of thousands more troops into Afghanistan. My bet is that they're going to do it. Not because of anything to do with Afghanistan, but just to prepare for the war that the U.S. is going to start against Iran. Or various other countries in the region.

As part of our war against Afghanistan, we installed an oil executive by the name of Hamad Karzai, and annointed him "King" (or prime minister, or president) of Afghanistan, and proclaimed to all the world that the country was now "free," and was a "democracy." But when the elections were held this year, the citizens voted against Karzai, so the U.S. had to get in the middle and rig the votes. http://www.juancole.com/2009/10/gross-massive-fraud-in-afghanistan.html Just like the neocons did in the U.S. in 2000.

Why are we still in Afghanistan? The pretense was that we were going into Afghanistan to catch Osama bin Laden, a man who well might be a CIA double-agent. Oops, never did get around to catching him. In fact, it has been reported that the U.S., at the top-levels, gave explicit instructions to allow him to escape by making sure certain areas were not guarded by the U.S., but instead were protected by bin Laden's friends in Pakistan who would guarantee him safe passage.

So why are we still in Afghanistan? Reportedly, in the summer of 2001 the U.S. was trying to negotiate a deal with the Taliban to allow a U.S. oil corporation to build oil pipelines through Afghanistan to run oil out from some of the other stans countries. Afghanistan said no. The U.S. then started a war against them, and continues to occupy their country. The main reason we are still there is to guard the land where the oil corporations want to run their pipelines. They need pipelines so they can transport the stolen oil out to the sea, to be taken by tankers and sold to the highest bidder. Theft and empire are complicated. And expensive.

I heard this morning that the inner-circle in the Obama administration is frantically reading books about the U.S. war against Vietnam, trying to figure out if there are any parallels that can be drawn. How amusing that they are actually looking at history. How sad that they don't already know it.

The Obama administration and the Democrats will keep the war in Afghanistan going forever in order to avoid being called "losers," and thereby being thrown out of office by an angry and murderous portion of our citizenry. They needn't worry, because by keeping this war going, they are guaranteeing they will be thrown out of office by an angry and murderous and bankrupt citizenry that will finally realize that the cost of empire is -- everything they own.

$228 Billion dollars pissed away in a sandbox. And I'm not even bothering to mention the thousands of children we have blown apart and dismembered by dropping bombs on their homes, the thousands of people who are refugees, live with nothing, are starving, have no clean water, no medical, no hope, no protection, live in constant terror and deprivation caused by the U.S. War against the people of Afghanistan. A war which was wrong from the beginning, has been wrong throughout, and which the Democrats have enthusiastically supported from the beginning in exchange for big bribes they get from the defense industry.

The cost of both of the current wars, against Afghanistan and Iraq, has just reached One Trillion Dollars. While all our money, the wealth of our nation, our taxdollars, our savings, our future, has been pissed away by the politicians on needless wars, we folks back at home are beginning to pay the price.

Unemployment is officially 10% which means it is actually closer to 20% when you include people who have been forced out of full-time work and into part-time work, which does not earn them enough money to pay their bills, and you include people whose unemployment compensation benefits ran out, but they still don't have a job.

Foreclosures continue, the banks are hiding the actual number of homes they have taken back so they can try to artificially boost up the fair market value of the homes they list, once again suckering people into paying more than they can afford for shelter. If the banks listed for sale all of the homes they have taken back in foreclosure, the value of housing would fall dramatically.

There is no help -- none -- for people who can no longer afford housing. While the Democrats were handing out billions to their friends on Wall Street, they set up some stupid little program with paltry funding, and said that would help people in foreclosure, but it has done nothing to help the people.

Food banks are overrun by people who cannot afford food. And tens of millions of Americans cannot afford healthcare or, if and when they get sick, will end up losing everything they have trying to pay the doctors and the drug companies. Yet the Democrats refuse to provide us with a national healthcare program. They oppose "socialized" medicine, yet they are running a "socialized" criminal enterprise by which they allow the corporations to steal all our money and give a percentage to the politicians, sending ther members out to collect the payoffs from the criminals in wall street, while the citizens of this country fall into a pit of despair.

The Democrat who recently said that the Republican healthcare plan was that if people get sick, they should die quickly. He should have added that the Republicans and Democrats together have an economic plan which is that the people of this country should find a space on the sidewalk where they can sleep, and get up early to go dumpster diving to get some food.

One Trillion Dollars of our money, the citizens' money, the taxpayer's money, thrown away on pointless wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, wars designed to let oil corporations steal the oil from other countries, wars designed to let the defense industry steal every panny of our money, while politicians in both parties get rich taking bribes and kick-backs. Chuck Schumer, leading liberal Democrat, is the biggest recipient of money from Wall Street in Congress. Bag man, in other words, for the Democrats. Rahm Emanuel, practically running the white house if you listen to him, was formerly the biggest recipient of Wall Street money when he was in Congress. Is there any wonder that the citizens are broke when the criminals steal our money and then pay off our politicians to avoid prosecution?

So Happy Anniversary America. Eight Years of Murder, Mayham and Corruption. Oh well, at least it's a Bi-Partisan War. That should make Obama happy.

Autumn Leaves

Is this about the yearly change in seasons? Or is it about our lives, the passage of time, lost loves, remembering our youth, dreading what lies ahead? Probably both. Beautiful song.

I Love October. Get Ready For The Playoffs.

I love October.

I love the cool evenings, the smell of burning wood as people light their fireplaces as the warm summer evenings give way to that crisp coolness that comes through the walls, through the window panes, through the bones of the old folks, as the cats come in early and stay in later, curl up somewhere and wait for April, as soups and stews appear magically inside homes with warm breads, and afghans are thrown on sofas and chairs because people will need them to stay warm, not just for decoration.

I love it when the leaves turn color, and dark clouds begin to form off in the distance promising rain to come, winter on its way, the introduction of yet another season, fall, people all covering up with multi-colored jackets and closed-toed shoes, with signs and arrows on the country roads pointing towards pumpkin patches, cheap children's costumes spilling out of bins in the dime stores, huge bags of chocolate candy on every counter wrapped in orange and black plastic with see-through black cats and witches covering the candy inside.

Soon the October colors will be replaced with turkeys and pilgrims and Thanksgiving, and snow for some, and ice, and sleet, and winter storms that will keep our friends inside for days on end, stories they will tell everyone they can reach: "We haven't been able to leave our house for ten days now," and the days will seem to be four hours long at best, like being stuck in a coffin waiting for the tulips to appear, but not in October, because in October the days are still long enough, the sun is still bright enough at noon, and we can still remember the summer and the melons and peaches and beaches and our tomato gardens that spilled red fruit onto our plates for months.

Get ready for the heating bills to go up. Dig out the sweaters and umbrellas, the long pants, the heavy denim, gloves, extra blankets, the down comforter and duvet. Pack away the shorts and tank-tops and sunscreen.

I love October.


I love the sight of Derek Jeter, the Prince, being fabulous, one amazing and astonishing play after the next, always the gentleman, always prepared, always 120% for his team, beloved by all, admired by everyone, toast of the town, a legend in his own time, the Captain, the man who does not fade as the season goes on but instead delivers magic in October, year after year.

And I love the sound of K-Rod's bat swishing helplessly through the air as the worst pitchers in major league fan one after the next by him, K-Rod flailing around like a blind old man, unable to hit anything, pathetically being called out again and again, sent back into the dugout with his head down, muttering one excuse after the next while the fans boo and once again call for the team to dump that loser, the man who always freezes in post-season, the man with no real guts, no cajones, the dude who backs down when it really counts.

(K-Rod Strikes Out Again)

I love every K-Rod post-season at-bat. I love to see him fail again and again. I can't help myself, I just detest the guy. Sorry Kate -- I got nothing against you except you've got bad taste in baseball players.

(K-Rod, Caught Looking, Strikes Out Yet Again)

I've got to get all my Yankee T-shirts washed, on hangers. Get the playoff schedule written on my calendar so I don't miss one minute. I want a Yankees-Dodgers World Series and if we get one, I will wear the Dodgers hat that my brother gave me, and a Yankees t-Shirt, and will feel ambivalent as I cheer Derek and Joe Torre, but will love every minute of it. Derek is the Prince, and Joe Torre is the Master. I love baseball. And I particularly love baseball in October.

The Government Lied To The 9/11 Commission And To The Public. What Really Happened on 9/11?

Many people believe that the U.S. government, or some of its employees, or possibly high-level spooks or mercenaries in the CIA, either planned the 9/11 attacks, or knew about them in advance and did nothing to stop them because they thought it would be to their advantage to have this country attacked to justify having the U.S. military attack, occupy, take over much of the middle east.

Here's the quick version. Some of the wealthiest people in this country have spent decades setting up and funding think-tanks to write books, hold conventions, create phony organizations, set up alliances with groups like gun-lovers, infiltrate churches and take them over, buy up much of the media and use it to spread false stories and propaganda. Their aim is to end democracy so that they can control everything. Like in our current healthcare situation. "Our" Democrats theoretically control the government, but the medical industry pays them hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to make sure the "real" government won't do anything to help the people. Therefore, the rich run the country even though they were never elected to any office.

In the late 1990s, the conservatives put out two important position papers which were used to justify the U.S. military attacking, invading, occupying much of the middle east. The first paper was theoretically issued by and on behalf of Israel, and it was titled "A Clean Break." The fact is that it was written, at least in part, by American conservatives, many of whom would later get positions inside the Bush administration (Richard Perle, Douglas Feith). It said that Israel could become financially independent from the U.S. (instead of continuing to suck billions of dollars of our money every year to pay for the education, housing, and healthcare of Israelis, for reasons I've never understood) but they would need a little help first. Basically, the paper said, Israel could be financially independent, and at peace, if only "someone" would overthrow every single government in the middle east, bomb, attack, invade, occupy every single nation in the middle east, destroy them. Then Israel could rule over all of them, and live in peace. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clean_Break:_A_New_Strategy_for_Securing_the_Realm

Around the same time, many Christian churches in the U.S. began being targeted with a propaganda doctrine known as Christian Zionism, to get religious support for the U.S. to invade, bomb, destroy and/or occupy all the countries in the middle east other than Israel. This was begun as a coalition between Jerry Falwell and the right-wing in the U.S., which decided to fund his delusional Virginia empire, and the then-government of Israel. Many of the big Christian empires are primarily financial entities designed to raise money for the leaders, serve as propaganda outlets for the right-wing and the Republican Party, and convince their members that God wants them to be Republicans and to kill everyone who isn't in their religion. In the name of God, of course.

Remember Ralph Reed, the "big" Christian name for awhile, turned out to be taking money from Jack Abramoff to go around and preach to his fellow Christians that they must rise up and fight against Indian casinos, then Jack Abramoff went to the Indian casinos and did a shake-down, convincing them to pay him millions of dollars to "support" Indian casinos. Reed was paid by Abramoff for starting the opposition, and Abramoff was paid by the Indians for fighting against the opposition. They both were aligned with the right-wing and the Republicans.

The entire concept of Christian Zionism is just another propaganda device created by the right-wing and intended to create support among Christian for wars. This theory promotes the view that God wants all the Jews in the world to return to Israel just in time for the end of the world, Armageddon, when they can either convert or be incinerated. The Christian Zionists are told that they must assist in this process by supporting Israel, which also means by hating the Muslims. They also are told that they must send money to Israel, which generates another $80 million/year in "donations" to Israel of American money, often coming from poor people who have little to give. Yet they give to support war because their religious leaders preach hatred. http://www.theocracywatch.org/christian_zionism.htm

The second paper that was issued in the 1990s by the right-wing to lay the foundation for support to have the U.S. invade and occupy the middle east was put out by a group formed by the conservatives and named "Project for a New American Century" (commonly called PNAC). That paper said that the U.S. needs to increase its military, spend all the taxpayers money on war, invade, attack, steal resources, try to take over the entire world. But, they warned, the American people did not want to do this, did not want to become an aggressor nation. So they suggested that the only way to change the mind of the American public was to have a "Pearl Harbor" type of attack on the U.S. If that happened, then the public would let the conservatives do as they want, build up the military, and go out and try to take over the world. http://www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/PNAC-Primer.htm

After the initial shock of the 9/11 hijackings wore off, after people began to realize how much the Bush administration had lied to the public to justify these wars, after people began to realize how many billions of dollars of taxpayers' money had been given to Republican-owned "war" industry corporations, after people began to realize that Bush and Cheney had shredded the constitution and violated all the individual rights of our citizens in pursuit of the wars to steal middle eastern oil, a commission was set up to conduct investigations and issue a report about what happened on 9/11. Many people do not believe that commission report is truthful, and believe there was a deliberate effort by the Bush administration to deceive, conceal, mislead the commission to keep them from finding out what really happened.

This issue is not going to go away. The only question is whether the government will continue to refuse to allow the truth to come out. It would be really something to find out that our own government planned these attacks, murdered 3000 Americans, stole billions of our tax dollars, killed over a million Iraqis, all based on a plot to take over the world. Sounds like the stuff of nail-biting fiction, doesn't it?

Remember, Bush and Cheney refused to testify under oath before the commission that had been set up to investigate and report about what the hell happened on 9/11, why didn't the government send up planes to protect New York, why did CIA-owned flight schools train the hijacking pilots, why did Bush send private planes around to collect the Saudis and the bin Ladens and take them out of the country while all Americans were forbidden to fly, and to prevent investigators from conducting thorough questioning of potential witnesses.

We know that Reagan supported (and may have funded) Osama bin Laden in the 1980s to fight against the Soviet Union as a proxy for the U.S., and that provides ample evidence to suggest that bin Laden was working for the CIA at least in the 1980s. Was he working for the CIA on 9/11? And is that why the Bush administration flew all the bin Ladens out of the country on 9/11, and refused to every really try to capture bin Laden? We have an "official" version, but time and again we see information which suggests it is all a lie.

And now the Senior counsel for the 9/11 commission has come out with a book in which he states that not only did many individuals and agencies from the government lie to the commission and to the public, but that it is obvious there was an agreement inside the federal government that they would lie to and deceive the commission and the public.

John Farmer, former Attorney General for the State of New Jersey, senior counsel to the 9/11 commission, has just come out with a book entitled "The Ground Truth: The Story Behind America's Defense On 9/11." In his book, he states that the government lied to the 9/11 commission and to the public about what really happened. And oddly enough, after giving the book a rave review, Amazon.com, one of the biggest online booksellers in the country, has now put up a statement that they do not have the book, and do not know when or whether they will have it available for sale again.

From Amazon.com:

"Product Description" (for "The Ground Truth: The Story Behind America's Defense On 9/11":

"The story that John Farmer, Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission, tells is one of monumental bureaucratic failure encompassing our entire government. Farmer exposes "the story behind the story", as the false congressional testimony given by an array of agencies and individuals, as well as misleading reports in the media culminated in the Commission staff's dawning recognition that the public had been seriously misled about what occurred during the morning of the attacks. What emerges with painful, stunning clarity is that "at some level of the government, at some point in time...there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened." The implications of this are profound. And Farmer argues that these lies have prevented real and necessary changes that would make our nation more secure and responsive to subsequent threats and catastrophes--domestic, man-made and natural. Farmer pulls no punches in drawing these conclusions, or making explicit what will have to change to make our nation safe. There is a dispassionate beauty in Farmer's writing and the way in which he allows the facts of this story to unfold. He takes the readers through these terrifying events and revelations with calm, impartial and utterly compelling relentlessness. "The Ground Truth" is the definitive account of all the needs to happen following the tragedy of September 11th. " [QUESTION: GIVEN THIS SUPERLATIVE DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK AND THE AUTHOR'S CREDENTIALS, AND GIVEN THAT THE BOOK HAS JUST RECENTLY BEEN PUBLISHED, WHY DOES AMAZON INCLUDE A NOTATION AT THE TOP THAT THEY DO NOT KNOW IF OR WHEN THEY WILL AGAIN HAVE THIS PRODUCT IN STOCK?]

Again, from Amazon:
"About the Author"

"John Farmer served as Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission, where his areas of responsibility included assessing the national response to the terrorist attacks and evaluating the current state of national preparedness for terrorist attacks and natural disasters, he also served as attorney general of New Jersey (1999-2002), as chief counsel to Governor Whitman, and as a federal prosecutor. He recently served as a subject matter/rule of law expert on security to the special envoy for Middle East regional security. He is currently a partner of a New Jersey law form and an adjunct professor of national security law at Rutgers University Law School. His editorials and articles have appeared in "The New York Times" and elsewhere."

See also:

http://world911truth.org/tag/john-farmer/