1.) Obama just beat Clinton by nearly 30%.  Holy crap.Pres '08
Jan 26 Rasmussen

Clinton (D) 47%, McCain (R) 45%

Obama (D) 46%, McCain (R) 41%

Take it for what you will. But I'm pulling for Obama.

Also note that Hillary is currently on a platform in Tennessee, giving a speech in what sounds like a vaguely and awkwardly "southern" accent. Bizarre.

Some may have noticed a disjunction between the widespread excitement, in much of the liberal establishment and blogosphere, about the prospects for a Dem victory this fall.  A recent video from MoveOn's Eli Pariser cautioning members that we can't expect an automatic victory only underscores the expectation of a victory.

I know obsessing about horse-race stuff is poisonous, but right now I'm in a poisonous frame of mind.  I wish there was some way I could be put in a hibernation-coma and revived in nine months and Obama--or, yes, Hillary--would be president.CA-Pres

I had planned to watch only the first hour of the CNN/South Carolina/CBC/Martin Luther King/Democratic debate tonight -- it was imperative to switch over at 9:00 to watch the sexy robot on Fox's new Terminator TV series -- but in the end I found it impossible even to bear the telecast for half an hour. I have never seen anything on television that left me feeling so brutalized and weakened. After watching Hillary repeat, again and again, with increasing shrillness and violence, her patently false and unbelievable assertion that Obama had praised the ideology and economic values of Ronald Reagan, I actually found it a relief to be watching the events of tonight's episode of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles," which included not only the forcible removal of a man's eyeballs by a malevolent cyborg (the man was still alive at the time) but also the suicide of a teenage girl in front of a jeering crowd.

I don't know what to say about Hillary. She obviously wants to be the Democratic nominee far more than either of her opponents, which on the surface -- but only on the surface -- is the reason why she is now trying to destroy Obama personally. Tonight she struck me as wanting to destroy Obama not as a means to winning delegates but as an end in itself. I was going to suggest that perhaps the "Hillary Clinton" we saw on TV tonight was actually a cyborg sent from the dystopic Republican-cyborg dominated future to kill Obama, but even that is too good for her since it implies there is a purpose to her actions. What I saw was more like a rabid dog. Maybe I'm too sensitive, or maybe I favor Obama even more than I realized (I gave him $50), but that's how I saw it.

Does Hillary Clinton really not understand that she is going to lose the general election? Does that even matter to her?

I don't know how anyone could feel sympathy when that woman cried in New Hampshire. She is a remorseless automaton.

No--because he is still dead, and he was never gone.

The media seem to be buying the Giuliani line entirely.

The Washington Post front-page headline says the GOP is only now readying for "the true test" in Florida. Up to now has been meaningless, they say. The winner of Florida will be the GOP nominee. McCain is not the frontrunner.

Note: the GOP machine hates McCain. They love Giuliani. They want blood. McCain of course is out for blood. He is a demented maniac. But the GOP machine loves Giuliani, as he is clearly the candidate of 9-11/Apocalypse.

Giuliani is basically polling even in Florida. Florida is a place where large-scale fraud has been successfully perpetrated, in both 2000 and 2004. The GOP powers will try to stop McCain, by any means necessary.

This sounds crazy, as Giuliani has made a total fool of himself up to this point; but don't count him out. The 9/11 jester, the blood-drenched clown, could still be turned back into the apocalyptic horseman.

This is not just about Scientology, and it is not going to go away.

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German historian likens Cruise speech to Goebbels

Jess Smee in Berlin
Monday January 21, 2008
The Guardian

The long-standing antagonism between Germany and the Church of Scientology escalated over the weekend when a high-profile historian compared Tom Cruise's performance in a Scientology video with the style of the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels.

Guido Knopp, who has written a number of books on Hitler and his inner circle, said the video, which surfaced on YouTube last week, "inevitably" recalled Goebbels' speech in a Berlin sports stadium when he asked "Do you want total war?" and the crowd thundered "Yes!"

The Scientology footage shows Cruise, wearing a large medallion and speaking from a podium. "So what do you say, we gonna clean this place up?" he asks. He is greeted by zealous cheers.

"It may be the case that Cruise's delivery style is not uncommon in certain religious movements in the US," Knopp told Bild am Sonntag in an interview. "But for Germans with an interest in history, that scene where he asks whether the Scientologists should clean up the world and everyone shouts 'yes' is inevitably reminiscent of Goebbels' notorious speech."

Parallels with the Third Reich remain highly sensitive here. But Scientology has generated a visceral opposition in Germany - last month security ministers tried to ban it, saying it contravened the constitution - and Knopp's remarks found few critics yesterday.

Thomas Gandow, of the German Protestant church, who has previously compared Cruise to Goebbels, said the video revealed the actor's high standing in the organisation: "He is not your average sect member but rather a propaganda minister ... I still believe it: Tom Cruise is the Goebbels of Scientology."

Ursula Caberta, who leads a Hamburg-based research group into the Church of Scientology, said the latest video was "hard evidence" that the group was anti-constitutional.

...Germany has taken a very distinct stance among European countries towards Scientology, considering it not as a religion but as a commercial organisation.

The Church of Scientology, which is thought to have about 6,000 adherents in Germany, is closely monitored by Germany's Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which also tracks the activities of neo-Nazis, leftwing extremists and Islamist terrorists. Such scrutiny has prompted criticism from the US state department.

Cruise found himself at the sharp end of German hostility last summer when the defence ministry sought to obstruct the filming of Valkyrie, starring Cruise as the German resistance hero Claus von Stauffenberg.

Although the ban on using military sites was eventually scrapped, ministers criticised the project, citing Cruise's affiliation with Scientology. Even Berthold Graf von Stauffenberg, the count's son, joined in, dubbing Scientology a "totalitarian ideology".

The only problem with the German stance is the idea that there is some sort of distinction between a "religion" and a "commercial organization."

Like Exxon, Halliburton, Bechtel, the Assemblies of God (which, like all megachurches, turns a handsome profit), and the United States government--Scientology is a form of idolatry, the worship of power and profit.

This is an oldie, but a goodie. A classical example of official paranoia that speaks volumes about what they really care about:

Last February the Department of Homeland Security oversaw a large-scale international cyber terror simulation involving 115 public and private organizations in the U.S., Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, all testing their ability to coordinate with one another and respond to computer-driven attacks. It was called Cyber Storm.

...

The attack scenario detailed in the presentation is a meticulously plotted parade of cyber horribles led by a "well financed" band of leftist radicals who object to U.S. imperialism, aided by sympathetic independent actors.

...

The Black Hoods are a faction of Freedom Not Bombs, whose name is suspiciously similar to the real Food Not Bombs, which provides vegan meals to the homeless.

...

But does the administration really see the far left as potential cyber terrorists ready to take down the power grid and air traffic control systems? This might explain why the U.S. keeps getting caught spying on peaceful war-protestors.

Might explain? I can understand the reluctance to conclude that this does explain such phenomena. After all, it's crazy. Surely these heavily armed people that are claiming to protect us can't really believe this kinda stuff, right? Right?

Alas. Observe the power of coercive inhuman institutions to warp the fabric of the human mind to such a degree that anarchists who cook dumpster-dived food for homeless people can be perceived as a threat to the imperial project, and to imagine that the "Left" is well-organized and well-financed.

Note the further hilarity in the slide below. The anti-nuclear activists are threatening to bring about meltdowns. Being "anti-capitalist" and "anti-imperialist" automatically makes you a mortal enemy of the US government. The Pynchonesque "Auggie Jones (Cyber Saboteur)" as though some desperate to please Lieutenant was ransacking his mental rolodex trying to find a plausible villain to pad his assignment, "Abbie Hoffman...radical...scary...laughed at us...Edward Abbey...monkeywrench...sabotage...vaguely Jewish......Auggie Jones!".

Notice too the absence of any radical right-wing groups. Y'know, the kind that actually are well-organized and well-financed (relatively), that actually are heavily armed, and actually do attack agents of the state on occasion. But of course, ideology makes all the difference. We don't really care who ya kill as long as you keep the power relations intact.

I don't really know why I'm writing this though. There's nothing really new here, a variation on the COINTELPRO fun of the last generation, which was a variation on the HUAC and Palmer raids, which was...well you get the idea. I suppose it's just a bit of irritation at the wonderment of the Wired writer who gazes on in disbelief. With luck he'll be voting soon and once "change" occurs DHS will turn right 'round and start defending the country from people who aren't its citizens. Like the Department of Defense does, except...oh nevermind.