It’s Sunday, the day of rest. The day to kick back, put our feet up on the table, pop a sixpack and consider how complicated life can be in Mr Bu$h’s 21st century America. Consider the following, presented in no particular order:

In order to make the PR point of troop reductions in Iraq just before the 2006 mid-term elections, the Pentagon has raised the current troop levels by stop-lossing the 172nd Stryker Brigade and moving them into Baghdad in the latest strategy of pacifying a country engaged in both civil war and resistance against illegal occupation. Those guys were due home in a couple of weeks, and we regret the detour, fellas, almost as much as you do. Stay safe. I guess regularly planned deployments will continue.

The NY Times thinks Joementum is a dead end for Connecticut and the US.

Israel has had its ticket punched in Lebanon, has withdrawn in some areas, and is waiting for Ms Rice to do something other than play the piano. They’re also massing more troops near the border, and will probably plan an intensified strike, after the IAF’s “shock and awe” campaign just turned the whole thing into a Chinese firedrill. The Chief of IDF Staff, Gen Halutz, has been taken to the hospital with tummy pains. Interesting; you can destroy cities with air power, but you can’t beat motivated fighters that way. It seems when irregular fighters have years to prepare for combat, and train intensively, they’re gonna win against a strong mainline armed force. Weren’t the Israelis some of the people mocking us in Viet Nam and the USSR in Afghanistan?

Bush submits new terror detainee bill

WASHINGTON - U.S. citizens suspected of terror ties might be detained indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts under legislation proposed by the Bush administration, say legal experts reviewing an early version of the bill.
A 32-page draft measure is intended to authorize the

Pentagon's tribunal system, established shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks to detain and prosecute detainees captured in the war on terror. The tribunal system was thrown out last month by the Supreme Court.
Administration officials, who declined to comment on the draft, said the proposal was still under discussion and no final decisions had been made.

Well, no. Not exactly……

BERKELEY, Calif.--A Halliburton subsidiary has just received a $385 million contract from the Department of Homeland Security to provide "temporary detention and processing capabilities."

The contract -- announced Jan. 24 by the engineering and construction firm KBR -- calls for preparing for "an emergency influx of immigrants, or to support the rapid development of new programs" in the event of other emergencies, such as "a natural disaster." The release offered no details about where Halliburton was to build these facilities, or when.

To date, some newspapers have worried that open-ended provisions in the contract could lead to cost overruns, such as have occurred with KBR in Iraq. A Homeland Security spokesperson has responded that this is a "contingency contract" and that conceivably no centers might be built. But almost no paper so far has discussed the possibility that detention centers could be used to detain American citizens if the Bush administration were to declare martial law.

For those who follow covert government operations abroad and at home, the contract evoked ominous memories of Oliver North's controversial Rex-84 "readiness exercise" in 1984. This called for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to round up and detain 400,000 imaginary "refugees," in the context of "uncontrolled population movements" over the Mexican border into the United States. North's activities raised civil liberties concerns in both Congress and the Justice Department. The concerns persist.

Having watched the Bu$h malAdministration for six years is there anyone who thinks these concentration camps aren’t already being prepared?

And then, there’s this if you like salsa with your tinfoil:

A few years ago, I first learned of the camps. 600+ FEMA internment camps within these United States. They are what some are calling our future concentration camps. They are there and there by executive order. It's a fact that cannot be denied. While researching the location of the camps, I was made aware that some, like the ones in Alaska, are only accessible by air and rail transportation. It was this fact that brought me to a new reality. A new found fear of trains. Many researchers have cited the existence of over 107, white, UN railroad cars that have been built by independent contracters in the United States.

These cars can hold dozens of prisoners and have, on numerous occasions, been shown to have 135 human shackles in each car. These would be the cars that FEMA would transfer such terrorists/dissidents to their forced labor, internment, or concentration camps.
…

Speaking on anonymity, an employee of a manufacturer of railcars stated that Gunderson Rail Car Co. received a contract to build over 400 boxcars. These boxcars were ordered and paid for by the UN. They were white and they had shackles built into them. Shackles possibly for a brother, a sister, a mother, or you. Another company was making the boxcars as well. A company called Thrall Railcar. Thrall Rail Car merged with Trinity Industries, Inc. in October of 2001 to form the Trinity Rail Group.[One location of 'Trinity' is Springfield, Missouri, close to The Burlington Northern Railway.

I’m not saying these three stories have any connection whatsoever other than the fact that they all have existence on our wonderful internets. For myself, I like my tinfoil wrapping a nice ear of corn on the barbeque, so I’m not saying anything, I’m just saying.

Have a happy Sunday. I’ll be getting trained on MACS, and later working on my tanline in the pool. Stay cool.