Insta-Hoglets 8th Nov.

Settle down at the back now - we have a lot to get through and there may be a pop quiz later.

Now here's an example of how good grassroots organising by Labor can also exert effective political pressure just by being there. Nice one.

Keeping the heat on the world’s largest retailer, the United Food and Commercial Workers on Friday unveiled a new organizing tool: the Wal-Mart Workers of America (WWOA). The UFCW said the effort is designed to "help empower Wal-Mart workers to join together in order to improve their working conditions, their lives and change Wal-Mart into a more responsible and moral corporation."

While many jump on the current "U.S. used chemical weapons" bandwagon without doing some research, Balloon Juice points out that the US hasn't banned the use of White Phosphorus - only 80 other nations have. Meanwhile, rightwingers dance around the idea that even Protocol III of the 1980 UN convention (the one those 80 nations ratified) says only that WP shouldn't be used on civilian targets and the military had told all civilians to leave Fallujah. Did Katrina teach them nothing? Telling all civilians to leave is simple semantics to make atrocities plausibly deniable at a later date - the military knew it was impossible for all civilians to leave. They went ahead and used WP anyway. These were no illumination rounds - the footage and the reports from the time make it clear they were used as artillery rounds for concentrated barrages.

Utterly unreported in the States - soccer legend Diego Maradona described Bush, while on his visit to Argentina, as "human trash". This won't make an impact on most Americans, who are so ignorant of the beautiful game, but try imagining if a sports figure combining all the adulation from fans of Michael Jordan, Sammy Souza and the entire Dallas Cowboys had said the same thing here - now you have a vague idea of the impact such words will have in South America. It's a PR nightmare for BushCo and no mistake.

Never mind all the Republican bulls**t about having a strong economy under Bush - after inflation, American workers earned 2.3 percent less than they did a year ago. What that means is that profits aren't going to those working for them, but instead to fat-cat managers and shareholders. It also endangers Bush's economic faux-recovery because if wages don't increase then all that can sustain consumer spending is consumer debt. Even Alan Greenspan thinks its a problem. But want to bet the bubble will burst sometime in 2010, when all Bush's deficit pigeons are also expected to really come home to roost? BushCo is about robbing the nation blind - they don't care about what comes along after they are gone.

Excuse me buddy, can I borrow your machinegun for training?

The wear and tear and resulting equipment shortages are hurting the military - from hometown National Guard units to the Marines. Remedying the situation will take billions of dollars, money that's in short supply as Congress searches for spending cuts.

Before Sept. 11, 2001, the National Guard had 75 percent of its required inventory of weapons, vehicles and other equipment. Today, the reserve forces have just 34 percent of their equipment at home. The rest has been destroyed or remains in Iraq.

The mental image of Marines running around yelling "ratt-att-att. BANG!" may be amusing but it's something we would associate more with a Third World militia than the world's only superpower.

Its "Blame France" week in Wingnuttia. Michael Ledeen at NRO and James Lewis at The American Thinker both have articles blaming the Frenchies for forging the Niger Yellowcake documents and feeding them to the CIA via the Italians so as to later expose them and cripple Bush's glorious and righteous War. Both conveniently ignore the fact that, the IAEA had rumbled the documents as very obvious forgeries and the fact that Bush, Blair et. al. knew the documents were fraudulent but used them to justify the war anyway.

BushCo [hearts] Ahmed Chalabi - after all, he has all of their hobbies - lying to the populace, planting phony intelligence, government corruption, smearing political opponents - and is a bosom buddy of the VP for Torture DiBTK Cheney.

Following all those denials from Eastern European nations about their hosting secret CIA prisons , and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley neither confirming or denying the story - now Drudge says:

Sources tell Drudge that early this afternoon House Speaker Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Frist will announce a bicameral investigation into the leak of classified information to the WASHINGTON POST regarding the “black sites” where high value al Qaeda terrorists are being held and interrogated.

Reuters has the same story - so I suppose we can take the original report of secret prisons as confirmed.

But we need to watch the sneaky bastards at the White House and Hill.

"The leaking of classified information is a serious matter. It ought to be taken seriously," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "But this is a congressional prerogative and it was a decision that was made by those leaders and that's the way I would describe it."

Watch the wingnuts now - they are going to equate leaking this story to the Plame leak. The thing is - both leaks are crimes. Period, the end. Is there any way to argue "public interest" over something which is classified for "national security reasons" but is actually simply abhorrent to the people of the nation - like lies for War or secret torture camps?