White House & Cheney Are Pushing For the CIA's Right to TORTURE!
Mood:  smelly
Now Playing: How Is It that Intellegent Leader Need to Discuss Torture Policy
Topic: TORTURE
Hey z3 Readers

Today 11/15/05 the Senate voted on amendments to the Defense Authorization Bill that repudiates the Bush Administration's Iraq War strategy

Read here a few of the headlines that cover this abomination that Bush & Co has got us into from a wonderfully "informing" website:
www.democracyrising.us

The topics on that site today are:

*Stop the War' Campaign
*Senate Votes Overwhelmingly Against 'Staying the Course' in Iraq
*Bin Laden Sitting In A Cave Laughing
*Veterans Day Message: Wake Up America
*White House Press Briefing – Does the U.S. Torture?

Now folks what has our President and his cronies done to our country?

I have been Yelling for years over this torture Subject


"Wake Up"
Read the links I sent on this page!
Read up on US torturing and become informed!
...see the bullshit and the irony of these war crimes and Geneva Conventions safeguards that are violated or skirted by America, see how the Hague Rulings are just tossed freely into the trash by Gonzalez and Bush's sick perverted war on terrorism.

I have been screaming to stop the war
I have been obsessed with watching the constitution disintegrate before my eyes
I have watched Terror spread and proliferate to a level never seen in US history
I am sickened with disgust that intelligent people that lead our country have to sit around and vote on whether Torture should be allowed?

z3 Readers you better start kicking and fighting
Torture-War-Patriot Act-Homeland Security
Bush and the Neo-cons have ruined our Great Country
I want Bush Impeached and charged with WAR crimes
I want Cheney and Rumsfield thrown in Jail for War Crimes

I want my country back

Don't listen to the
Right Wing Media
Who are telling us citizens "we are not torturing"!
~~~WE ARE!~~
let me say it again """WE ARE"""
They are lying (again)!!!!!

click my link to ZEBRA 3 REPORT TORTURE PAGE for DOCUMENTED REPORTS

This is just the tip of the Bush Ruination Iceberg.

He and his administration, have dirty handedly corrupted and ruined the following:
The media, the military, the earths resources, the environment, the job market, created less-taxes for the wealthy, destroyed the education departments funding, favored all his big business corporations needs above the publics, ruined medical/percription help for seniors and the average poor middle class joe anybodies, has pried into our personal lives, our bank records, medical records, library personal reading records, added more pollution to the greenhouse problem, reversed mercury standards to allow big business to release more into the environment against science reports to the contrary, raped the forests, made it hard & expensive to get a higher education, imprisoned more citizens than ever for Drug Crimes, and even tried to steal Social Security. The world pretty much hates us. And our own countries beloved ? Civil - Rights all have skidded into a ditch. He allowed the 911 to be botched and or was part of it; he didn't investigate the real issues in 911. The CIA & FBI are out of control and in a complete disarray, not to mention FEMA and that whole miserable exploitation of the New Orleans poor blacks and low income flood victims and the way he handled that whole mess, all the while his Buddies (Halliburton and others) capitalized off the disaster. It just keeps going on & on & on!
... These bush guys who "don't read the polls" don't' really represent me at all. And I want them out (by the way he cheated in the polls tooto get in too)


WAKE UP!
DO SOMETHING!
ANYTHING AT THIS POINT WILL HELP!

I Bet Bin Laden is Laughing!!!

Mood:  rushed
Now Playing: 911 TRUTH HUGE REPORT COMING SOON
Topic: 911 TRUTH
FOLKS GET SOME SLEEP
~ ~ ~ REST UP ~ ~ ~
THIS IS NOT GONNA NOT BE FUN
JOE ANYBODY HAS BEN WAITING
~AND NOW IS GONNA HELP TO~
SHOW THE TRUTH BEHIND 911

HUGE REPORT COMING VERY SOON AT:
joe-anybody.com





Click Here to download from the web 911 Video

"I Don't Know About You, But I Ain't Gonna Study About War No More"
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: Peace Speech by Dr King
Topic: WAR

I am searching on the Internet for PEACE and find a great speech from
Dr. Martin Luther King
Here Is That Great Speech
Amazing how this speech applies to today just as well as back when it was written!

Well Z3 readers git-it here:

Cause next..., I stumble into two great sites that has tons of downloads of all kinds of political natured topics.
These downloads from what I seen were all "free"
They were of the type that would very much interest Joe Anybody, you know 911 Truth, New World Order, etc,

With a lot of good stuff to get my hands on...,I am downloading like crazy right now as I write this!!
Git-em while you can I have Ben Waiting for allot of these titles.

I can help you convert or save any of these files from these two websites I posted below, to your own computer if you need assistance in doing it, just contact me I will do the best I can to help ya git-em download ... :-)


Here are the the 2 sites to look at,
"now git busy"
A BIG THANKS TO THESE TWO SITES
From the "ZEBRA 3 REPORT"


lonelantern.org

and

heartbone.com

Damn Hippies Feeding The Hungry Again
Mood:  hungry
Now Playing: Waveland Cafe Rainbow Group Were Told To Stop!
Topic: SMILE SMILE SMILE
The only kitchen serving fresh, nutritious meals to the people of New Orleans east of Canal St. is being threatened with closure by city officials. The loose-knit coalition of groups known as
'The RAINBOW FAMILY of Living Light'

Best known for their yearly 4th of July ....at rotating locations throughout the country, have been instrumental in the relief effort following Hurricane Katrina. The mobile kitchen they founded in Waveland, Mississippi, the area hardest hit by the storm, has been consistently serving 2,000 people a day since its inception in early September.

The "Welcome Home Kitchen", as the Rainbow Family's Kitchen is known, has been serving well over 700 people each day for three meals a day, as well as providing free medical care, Named Waveland Cafe, it is a distribution center of clothing and supplies, a community bulletin board and information table, and a sense of camaraderie that has brought smiles and hugs from people in the most desperate of circumstances.

But now the Deputy Chief Administrative Officer of the New Orleans Emergency Operations Center, Ms. Cynthia Lear, has declared that the city will unilaterally shut the kitchen down on Wednesday, providing no alternative and no resources for the undeserved in New Orleans. Ms. Lear has stated that there is no appeals process for this decision, even though community members at the Fauberg-Marigny neighborhood council meeting on Monday gave virtually unanimous support to the ongoing work of the kitchen.

I had a friend who lived in New Orleans, and survived the flood, call me afterwords, to say he had moved to Mississippi and that the reason he called was he wanted to tell me these Hippies from the Rainbow Family had shown up after the flood to start feeding thousands!
He was ecstatic about how all these "freaks" from out-of-the-woods-and-all-over came together with big portable kitchen set-ups and were feeding masses of people. How cool! Joe Anybody has Ben Waiting for the Government to take a few lessons on Human Compassion and Love from these Hippies. Wouldn't that be a cool-kind-loving government you could be proud of for once?

So the Government wants to finally shut them down Huh?

Here is what wss on a link on a Rainbow related web page:
Since the Rainbow Family is not an organization, all of these activities was done by individuals that know each other from attending Rainbow Gatherings. There many of us have gained much experience at making do with little supplies under primitive conditions. Katrina seemed a good time as any to put skills learned over the decades to work feeding thousands every day with what ever was at hand.

The idea was to setup a self-sufficient camp with food, medical, and security much like a small Rainbow gathering would be. This way there was no dependency on anyone else. This was felt to be the best way to truly help.

I cant see why they would want to shut something like this from continuing, well I can, actually, but then that just makes me even more angry!

PEACE AND LOVE
FEED THE HUNGRY
STOP THE WAR

Drilling In the Artic
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: Some Progress but still needs Work
Topic: ENVIRONMENTAL
Joe Anybody Brings an update about the
ARCTIC DRILLING slashing of the attachment
in the Budget Bill.....HERE
They dropped the language from the bill thatwould have authorized/lifted the 24 year Congressional moratorium on outer continental shelf oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.


I have Ben Waiting for this!!
I am happy to let you know that the House has decided to strip Arctic National Wildlife Refuge drilling provisions from the budget bill.

The polluters and their allies in Congress were convinced that they finally had the votes to destroy one of America's most spectacular places. For now at least, we've stopped them.


However, as OSPIRG & other leading Environmental Groups are sayng "We are still opposing this bill because it contains provisions that would have disastrous consequences for some of our most special public lands, including a mining provision that could lead to the cut-rate sale of millions of acres of existing and future "mining claims" on public lands, National Forest lands, and even lands in our National Parks."
The battle is far from over, and the leadership in Congress continues to insist that they will find a way to drill in the Arctic Refuge.

Tom Delay (has been) responsible pretty much for the Republican Oil drilling discipline, and he's not there anymore!

...."I Just Read This:"
The oil industry argues that they will only leave a small footprint in the Arctic, covering a mere 2000 acres-the size of the Dallas Airport. Yet these measurements do not realistically represent the areas affected by these drilling operations. Vinay Jain, a spokesperson for the National Wildlife Federation, is skeptical of with the oil industry?s skewed measurements. ?They have said it will only cover 2000 acres,? he says, ?but the problem lies in the fact that they are condensing. If you realistically measure the areas influenced by oil rigs, it is really spread out. Think of it as a spider web: When the web is spread out, it covers a very large area but when you ball it up it is only a fraction of its original size. They [the oil industry] are giving you the number made up of all the rigs without counting the area in between-the industry is giving you the balled up number. Roads and platforms, these things are all spread out and cause fragmentation of habitat. It isn?t just one solid area of 2000 acres, it?s much more.?

I thought of the spin that now was being exposed on those numbers and how their overall support is dwindling in congress and if the media would only get it out ...the oil in the Artic might not be so?

Where/what do these Oil Pushers go/do next?
... We will just have to see.
But This is some Really Good News For Now!!
Mother Earth is Smiling Today.


ohhhhhhh... did they try calling the jail for Tom?

M 77
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: Using Strange Weapons On Iraqies
Topic: WAR
CHEMICAL WEAPONS
~MK 77 USED IN IRAQ~
USED BY THE MILITERY ON CIVILIANS?
THE INFORMATION IS BELOW
THIS IS PROOF THAT CIVILIANS
WERE BURNED BY SOMETING WEIRD!

SEE ACTUAL FOOTAGE OF
WHITE BALLS OF FLAME
CLOTHES LEFT UNBURNED
BUT SKIN ALL BURNED OFF?

"What you say?"
"How does that happen?"
--(HERE IS VIDEO DOWNLOAD)--<

..tHEY USE MK-77 THAT’S HOW

IT IS EXACTLY LIKE NAPALM
BUT NOT ON THE GOV BANNED LIST
info gleaned from;
Portland Indy Media


MORE INFO
--> HERE <--


*****
*****

A UK Independent ran an article which confirmed that the US had "lied to Britain over the use of napalm in Iraq". (06-17-05) Since then, not one American newspaper or TV station has picked up the story even though the Pentagon has verified the claims. This is the extent to which the American "free press" is yoked to the center of power in Washington. As we've seen with the Downing Street memo, (which was reluctantly reported 5 weeks after it appeared in the British press) the air-tight American media ignores any story that doesn't embrace their collective support for the war. The prospect that the US military is using "universally reviled" weapons runs counter to the media-generated narrative that the war was motivated by humanitarian concerns (to topple a brutal dictator) as well as to eliminate the elusive WMDs. We can now say with certainty that the only WMDs in Iraq were those that were introduced by foreign invaders from the US who have used them to subjugate the indigenous people.

"Despite persistent rumors of injuries among Iraqis consistent with the use of incendiary weapons such as napalm" the Pentagon insisted that "US forces had not used a new generation of incendiary weapons, codenamed MK77, in Iraq." (UK Independent)

Defense Minister, Adam Ingram, admitted that the US had misled the British high-command about the use of napalm, but he would not comment on the extent of the cover up. The use of firebombs puts the US in breach of the 1980 Convention on Certain Chemical Weapons (CCW) and is a violation the Geneva Protocol against the use of white phosphorous, "since its use causes indiscriminate and extreme injuries especially when deployed in an urban area."

Regrettably, "indiscriminate and extreme injuries" are a vital part of the American terror-campaign in Iraq; a well-coordinated strategy designed to spawn panic through random acts of violence.

The US "free press" is a completely integrated part of the state-information system. Its meticulously managed message has been the most successful part of the entire Iraqi debacle. By providing the requisite cheerleading, diversions and omissions, the media has shown itself to be an invaluable asset to the men in power; perpetuating the deceptions that keep the public acquiescent during a savage colonial war. Given the scope of the media's culpability for the violence in Iraq, it's unlikely that the use of napalm will cause any great crisis of conscience. Their deft coverage has already facilitated the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people; a few more charred Iraqis shouldn't matter.

****
****

The US also deployed incendiary weapons, including white phosphorous. "Usually we keep the gloves on," Captain Erik Krivda said, but "for this operation, we took the gloves off". By the end of operations, the city lay in ruins. Falluja's compensation commissioner has reported that 36,000 of the city's 50,000 homes were destroyed, along with 60 schools and 65 mosques and shrines.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE

Folks that is sad sick stuff
I seen the video
I Demand the war stop!

Patriot Act is getting a much-needed Look - Over!
Mood:  cool
Now Playing: Civil Rights Defended By real Patriots
Topic: CIVIL RIGHTS
In a show of political defiance, the House
Rejected the White House’s call for expanded and unchecked government powers!It’s a victory for our fundamental freedoms
Justice is on the march…?
I found on this on the ACLU homepage A.CL..U. WEBSITE HERE
The U.S. House voted today to reject the Bush Administration’s demand that Congress limit its role in overseeing Patriot Act powers and called for legislation that would help fix some of the secret search powers expanded by the act in 2001.

The motion, sponsored by Representatives Rick Boucher (D-VA), Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA) and Connie Mack (R-FL) calls for adoption of the Senate language regarding sunsets on section 215. That section of the Patriot Act expanded the FBI’s ability to obtain a secret order for Americans’ medical, library and business records, and "any tangible thing," without showing any facts connecting the records to a suspected terrorist.

If adopted, these changes would run counter to the specific calls from the White House for the adoption of the House bill: the Senate bill provides more Congressional oversight on some of the most egregious Patriot Act powers.

There was a excellent link to the Blog site for this ACLU issue HERE

I bet the POLICE Started It - - Read on to see if I'm right?
Mood:  down
Now Playing: What started this is called "Oppression!"
Topic: PROTEST!
Taken from Bay Area Indy Media

On Thursday, October 27th, 2005, a group of 10 highschool kids were playing soccer in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. when police arrived to do ID checks, the kids ran away and hid, because some of them had no ID. Three of the children hid in an electrical transformer building of EDF and were electrocuted. Two of them died and a third, was severely injured. The mayor of Clichy, Claude Dilain, called for an inquiry into the deaths of the two boys. All eyes were on Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.

The response?
As people were gathering in the mosques for the Night of Destiny, the most sacred night in the month of Ramadan, a night people usually spent at the mosque, the empty streets of the Cite du Chene Pointu filled with about 400 CRS militant riot police and gendarmes, blocking off the neighborhood. Yet very few people allowed themselves to be provoked into breaking the sanctity of this night, despite racist insults from the police. On Sunday, however, provocation turned into outrage as the women's prayer room at de Bousquets mosque was teargassed by police. As people stumbled out gasping for air, the policemen called the women "whores", "bitches" and other insults.

Joe Anybody would consider them "Fighting words"
Ever since that night, Clichy-sous-Bois has been burning, with the insurrection spreading on Monday to Seine-Saint-Denis and on Tuesday night (November 1st) to nine other Parisian suburbs. A week after the death of the two boys, the uprising is spreading throughout France.

A state of emergency was announced November 8, along with the call-up of police reservists, authorizing local governments to impose curfews and permits police to conduct raids and searches without warrants. Jose Bove has urged the French parliament to debate the root causes of crisis, describing the unrest as "a revolution by desperate youths who have lost all hopes." Muslim thinker Tareq Ramadan blamed the entire political class in France for the riots, saying the political class has been "blind" to what has been happening in the suburbs, with their unemployed youth of Arab and African origin and bleak high-rises. Bove has also asked Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy to apologize for his anti-immigrant remarks.

click here for Indy link for the following summary
By MATT REICHEL

The mainstream press has been telling Europeans that "riots" have broken out in the Parisian suburbs (Banlieu) this week. In calling them "riots,"the popular imagination likens them to fires and other sorts of largely uncontrollable disasters. It's as if the French are merely being faced with an outbreak of civil unrest, and that someone from the ranks of the government will most assuredly figure out how to weather the storm within the coming days.

These aren't "riots." This is social rebellion: directed at decades of French imperial rule, and ultra-capitalist and racist policymaking at home. After the "decolonization"process finished in Africa (oddly leaving the former colonies entirely dependent on the Banque de France for their monetary policymaking and at the whim of French military decision making), the colonized were supposed to ! be offered life in France as a sort of reparation for the destruction that went along with the imperial era. This, predictably, has turned out to be nothing more than a bone that the French have thrown at their dependents to try to keep them quiet. The idea is this: give them cheap, shitty housing away from the beautiful metropole of Paris, give them minimum wage paying work, and hope that they shut up.

Obviously, "they" haven't shut up. The largely immigrant population of the northern Banlieu has grown tired of being shut out. What's more, this is nothing new. Over the last decade or so, urban revolt has been a regular, if not common occurrence. Fires, car bombings, random acts of violence, and vandalism are all part of life in Paris' most neglected district.

Referred to as the "93 (neuf-trois)", after the first two numbers of the postal code, the northern suburbs have alw! ays been the destination of those too poor to handle the inner city or the more posh southern and western suburbs. Like similar districts in every major city of the world, it has also been the target of government attempts at wiping it off the map.

Wake Up America!! Treat the masses bad and you will be sorry!

Do you want to stomp all over the masses and beat them back with big sticks, and lord over them with your state governed POWER.
Don't you remember the old reveloutionary saying
...."EAT THE RICH"

Go ahead and keep the poor isolated in a cage. Give them nothing,keep them desperate, hungry, sick, cold and poor, Don't forget to beat them if they up-rise for what ever civil reasons or start to complain, also better make more prisons while we are at it...
Oh! ...and pray to your God they never get loose!



Ooops they are Loose ???...and they seem like they are mad as hell at somebody hmmmmmmm???

I wonder how good it taste to Eat The Rich?

If They Really Cared the Smoke n Mirrors Wouldn't Be So Obvious!
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: ----- Hey! ---- What Happened? ---- They Win! ----- You Loose! -----
Topic: CIVIL RIGHTS
Hey Readers! follow this if you dare.

Hold on ...lots of spin ahead! .....heheh!

this is considered yet
*link removed?
(click HERE added on 12/26/05)
? Colorado Springs testing radiation detectors at intersections. Monitors designed to detect and help track down radiation sources such as "dirty bombs" will be installed on traffic-light poles in an early test of a homeland security system. "I think this could change the way we do homeland security," said John Merrick, the city's lead traffic engineer. Joe Anybody says this "waste" is not what he has Ben Waiting to see done with his tax dollars.

***
***
while this is NOT happening

Homeland Security Misses Many Deadlines. The Bush administration has missed dozens of deadlines set by Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks for developing ways to protect airplanes, ships and railways from terrorists. A plan to defend ships and ports from attack is six months overdue. Rules to protect air cargo from infiltration by terrorists are two months late. A study on the cost of giving anti-terrorism training to federal law enforcement officers who fly commercially was supposed to be done more than three years ago.

***
***
and this is slipping by

Students slip past visa check. In its first year alone, the program detected more than 36,000 potential violations of student visas nationwide, of which only 1,600 were investigated, according to the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which operates the system.

***
***

while Homeland is saying this
U.S. security chief strives to expel all illegal immigrants. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department aims without exception to expel all those who enter the United States illegally. "Our goal at DHS (Homeland Security) is to completely eliminate the 'catch and release' enforcement problem, and return every single illegal entrant, no exceptions.

*** Call it what you want I seen this spin the first second it happened and when it slowed down enough for the average Billy-Bob citizen -->...POOF !..there went our civil rights???...whoaaaa Huh?!
"How Did That Happen?" Billy-Bob says (who by-the-way is probably one of the many Jo-Anybodys "sleeping american" distant cousins)(?) well simple, you were asleep at the wheel and they STOLE the CONSTITUTION and Put up some crazy paper titled The Patriot Act ...which really is a spin (READ LIE!)now this new Patriot Act is sold under the guise that we need protection from terrorists.....oh wake up !

If the government was serious these points made above would of been seriously addressed.,

Yet the "only addressing" that gets done.. is your own possible un-dress at the boarder by the TSA or homeland security. Or even the FBI snooping through my library records or medical bills or EVEN MY HOUSE is a violation of my privacy rights.

So using a Roadside radiation sniffing traffic lights .....good gosh* while the shipping container are left wide open or while major shipping and commercial industry, railways, or chemical plants or dams or blah blah go unprotected. But Oh! better check my shoe -- better make me stand in a line for a FULL searched!
By the way all the 911 terrorists had passports, and tickets, and passed a search. And get this, you can get stainless silverware at your seat in the first class section. (oh brother?)
Who are we kidding as they take Joe Anybody Rights Away!?

*** They Spin The Story On The 5 O'Clock News
problem is it is not what we really joe citizens need or want (hence the word spin)
They sell us a scary "threats" or scary "what-"if's
Then we sit stupidified as they by-pass Geneva and Our own constitution.

"Oh hell" !! ...Im so dizzy now from this run-around bull and the ol` say one thing pull-the rug-out the-other-way ...Im just going to go to bed!

Our Ripped-Off Tax Dollars are Going To Cheneys Halliburton
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: Guess who is Still Collecting150 million a year from Halliburton
Topic: BIG MONEY PLAYERS
Following quote taken from Jim Hightowers website:


STOP HALLIBURTON'S THIEVERY
11/1/2005

To Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey, and 17 other members of congress: Thank you!

Thank you for putting into official words the deep sense of outrage that a majority of us grassroots Americans have long held about the White House's perverse pampering of the Bushites' pet corporate criminal: Halliburton. If an ordinary American did to a 7-Eleven what Halliburton routinely does to taxpayers, that poor soul would be doing 25-to-life in state prison.

Check the federal rap sheet on this multibillion-dollar outfit: Bribery, bid-rigging, fraud, overcharging taxpayers, and even doing business with nations that sponsor terrorism. The departments of defense, justice, and treasury have had Halliburton under investigation or indictment nine times in the past five years for its despicable, shoddy, and criminal record of performance on contracts it gets from the government. Its ripoffs total hundreds of billions of our tax dollars.

Yet, instead of jail time, this scofflaw keeps getting more public money shoveled into its coffers by Bush & Company. Not only has it been blessed with more than $10 billion in contracts –often without competitive bids– since the Bush Cheney regime took power, but also, after Hurricane Katrina hit, there it was again at the federal trough, first in line to get another multimillion-dollar, no-bid contract.

Finally, though, Representatives Lee, Woolsey, and their 17 colleagues have said enough is enough. Citing chapter and verse of federal contracting rules, these members of the congressional progressive caucus have sent a formal demand that Halliburton be suspended from eligibility for any federal contracts until all of the charges against it are resolved.
(end quote)


About Time I have Ben Waiting for what seems forever to have these Cheney Scams Exposed!
As Halliburtons own ex-employeees step forward as in Feb 04 and told a US Democratic congressmen, Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, that vice-president Dick Cheney's old energy company "routinely overcharged" for work it did for the US military, in Kuwait.

Halliburton is the US military's biggest contractor in Iraq and the Pentagon's seventh biggest contractor overall. Halliburton unit Kellogg Brown and Root has a logistics contract with the US military that has so far received more than 3.7 billion in business, mostly in Iraq. It also has contracts worth nearly 4 billion to rebuild Iraq's oil industry.

"It's interesting how money follows power and potential power,". remarked Larry Makinson who did a study on this topic

According to CPI's 23 researchers who examined 2.2 million contracts worth $900 billion ..., the top 7,637 defense contractors -- those that earned more than $100 million from Pentagon contracts in a year -- contributed nearly $214 million to federal candidates, parties and leadership PACs from 1998 to 2003.

The 10 largest defense contractors contributed a total of more than $35 million from 1998 to 2003, with about two-thirds of that going to Republican candidates. The 737 defense contractors making over $100 million a year gave more than $88 million during that six-year period, combined.
"It's a tremendous return on their investment," Makinson said.

They've spent even more on hiring lobbyists to advance their interests in Washington. The top 737 defense companies spent $1.9 billion on Beltway lobbyists working Capitol Hill between 1998 and 2003.

Included in the 737 are 95 foreign corporations or companies owned by foreign governments that together earned more than $40 billion from Pentagon contracts over the six-year period.

The CPI report also highlights problems the Pentagon has in overseeing defense contracts. It has cut its procurement workforce -- contracting officers and the like -- in half since 1991, reducing numbers from about 400,000 to about 200,000, while at the same time dramatically increasing the amount of money it pays to contractors for not just weapons, but services as well. The number of contracts increased from about 13.2 million to 14.8 million, about 12 percent, over the same period. The Pentagon paid contractors $219 billion in 2003 alone, up from $129 billion in 1998. In 2003, just over half the Pentagon's budget was paid to contractors. hmmmmm?

The Pentagon inspector general highlighted problems with the control of contractors in a 2003 report. The IG said that out of 113 service contract actions reviewed with an estimated value of $17.8 billion, at least 98 had one or more problems, including inadequate competition, lack of surveillance or inadequate price reasonableness determinations, according to CPI.

Then secretary of the Army Thomas White told Congress in 2002 that he did not know how many contractors were employed by the service and called for a collection of the data. The data collection has not yet been started as far as I know.