Diary Of A Lunatic Liberal

That Took Longer Than I Expected...

2011-12-13T17:55:00.001-05:00

So Newt Gingrich, who for a short time there experienced close to double digits over his Republican competitors (due, in a large part, to a $10,000 bet and 2 choices, I mean 2 things, I mean 3 things...?) has finally leveled the playing field again by opening his mouth. Newt is now enjoying a 1 percent bump in the polls (down from 10% last week (or yesterday, i can't keep track)) because he let us in on his tax plan which, kind of like Herman Cain before him, is complete lunacy.

According to the Tax Policy Center if current tax policy stays in place -- and the Bush-era tax cuts are retained -- Gingrich's plan would add about $850 billion to the deficit in 2015 alone, according to the report. If the current tax law remains in place -- and the Bush cuts expire after next year -- the jump in the deficit for 2015 would be $1.3 trillion.
Gingrich would allow people to choose whether to keep the current tax system or file a 15 percent flat tax. Corporations would pay a 12.5 percent rate. Under the current tax law scenario, if the Bush tax cuts expire, the richest Americans would see taxes drop by about 38 percent, or more than $750,000.

Now, 9-9-9 it ain't, but it still sounds like crap to me (and voters too, apparently, as Ron Paul has become the not Mitt of the moment)

German Bund Market or Tinfoil Hats?

2011-12-13T17:44:00.000-05:00

The German central bank, the Deutsche Bundesbank, held a public 6 billion Euro,10-Yr bond auction last week and failed to sell more than 35% of the bonds, raising just 3.9 billion euros. The sale "prompted concerns the debt crisis was even beginning to threaten Berlin on Wednesday, with the Bundesbank forced to buy large amounts of the bonds to ensure the auction did not fail.

The next day, Larry Hatheway, chief economist at UBS said that, seeing as the Eurozone is on the brink of collapse that one might consider investing in precious metals to hedge against the possibility of disaster:

"I suppose there might be some assets worthy of consideration—precious metals, for example. But other metals would make wise investments, too. Among them tinned goods and small calibre weapons."

He said it, not me...

Why Are Banks So Bad With Money?

2011-11-29T17:09:00.000-05:00

Bloomberg news has just published a piece on how U.S. Banks made off like bandits using discounted federal loans to the tune of nearly 13 Billion in profits in 2008. It also states that, combined, U.S. banks needed close to $1.2 trillion dollars in a single day, during the same year, to remain solvent. I'll say it again so you can see that I'm not joking and that it wasn't a typo: ahem- $1.2 trillion dollars, just to stay solvent, in a single day!
Now that's all good and done with, except the fact that Standard and Poor's just downgraded 37 global banks credit ratings, including BofA, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley (according to 0-Hedge). Also, Bank of America is hovering at $5/share today, trading at 60% below its 52-week high.
That mattress is looking incredibly attractive as an investment option right now...

American Airlines flies into the sunset...

2011-11-29T16:51:00.000-05:00

So, great news for Jet Blue. Not do great news for the rest of us.
From CBS news:

AMR Corp. and AMR Eagle Holding Corp. says they filed voluntary petitions to reorganize.

Hard enough during an economic downturn to find jobs when there's competition, but when businesses start closing their doors, what's a pilot to do (or a thrower, or a steward or a sky-cap....)? Now, times are tough, but, can we really blamed this on the economy? Methinks not:

American lost $868 million during the first nine months of this year, and was the only major U.S. airline to lose money last year.

How is it that the icon of American capitalism is going under? The symbol of U.S. freedom is being deep-sixed, not because of poor management decisions, no... Must be the Unions:

American has been unable to reach a new cost-saving contract with its pilots. It has been trying to upgrade its aging fleet of planes, and has not merged with another carrier, like many of its competitors.

Can't blame us, blame the little guy.

The Death of a Movement?

2011-11-15T12:44:00.000-05:00

Occupy Wall Street was served a harsh blow this morning when the NYPD, in full riot gear, evicted the temporary residents of Liberty Square. One of the more notable victims of the raid was the Occupants' Library and their cache of over 5,000 books. The Library tent was razed and closer to 5,500 books were tossed into a dumpster (their fate, as yet, is still unknown). #OWS Librarians, according to Cory Doctorow, were live-tweeting the whole raid

“NYPD destroying american cultural history, they’re destroying the documents, the books, the artwork of an event in our nation’s history … Right now, the NYPD are throwing over 5,000 books from our library into a dumpster. Will they burn them? … Call 311 or 212-639-9675 now and ask why Mayor Bloomberg is throwing the 5,554 books from our library into a dumpster.”

So the hard question becomes: is this the end of a movement or will this become the call to arms that saves #OWS. In ten years, when the Occupants have had their say, we all have universal healthcare, the rich aren't so rich and the poor aren't so poor; when wall-street isn't running the world and, instead, we are, will historians say, this day and the cry of "REMEMBER THE LIBRARY!" is what changed it all? Maybe... Probably not, but it does sound too cool for words.

What? No Stills and Young?

2011-11-08T17:20:00.000-05:00

Some rights reserved by DoctorTongs

What is happening to Occupy Wall Street? Are they becoming legitimate or are they becoming even more marginal than before. David Crosby and Graham Nash have said that they will be playing down at Zucotti Park for the protesters but, does that help or does that hurt the OWS movement? The question is: is this the beginning of a revolution or is this the the start of an iHeartRadio concert?

Some Good News For Obama

2011-11-08T17:02:00.000-05:00

“The right to be free from federal regulation is not absolute and yields to the imperative that Congress be free to forge national solutions to national problems.” -Judge Laurence Silberman, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan(!)
So, as many of you may know, I, being a lifelong Catholic, despise Pat Robertson. For those of you who haven't followed his years of abuse of the word of God (he's blamed both earthquakes and tsunamis on homosexuals, among other things), that may seem a bit odd. For the rest of you, break out the noisemakers!
A lawsuit brought by the American Center for Law and Justice, a legal group founded by evangelist Pat Robertson claims that Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 violates the religious freedom of those Americans who choose not to have insurance because they rely on God to protect them from harm. HOWEVER, an appeals court has upheld the constitutionality of the bill stating that "Congress" has "the power to pass the requirement to ensure that all Americans can have health care coverage, even if it infringes on individual liberty."
So, if you're keeping score, that's Pat Robertson: 0 and, who the hell cares!
The fight isn't over yet, though, as there's one more level to the appeals process as the Plaintiffs in the case (listed as the Thomas More Center, et. al.) have yet to decide on whether to bring the case to a full court of appeals or petition the U.S. Supreme Court Directly (no appeals court Judge has of yet ruled on any aspect of the health care law as Constitutional or otherwise).
Here is the full brief from the case:
Thomas More Law Center, et. al. v. Barack Obama, et. al.

On the Docket

2011-11-08T16:39:00.002-05:00

We have a Supreme Court double-whammy for you guys this week! Aren't we a peach?!
The Supreme Court, today, is hearing arguments in the case of The United States v. Antoine Jones. There's a lot of technical jargon, mumbo-jumbo, and oxford commas in the brief so I'll simplify:
Antoine Jones was convicted in 2008 of drug-trafficking and sentenced to life. This sentence was later overturned by Washington D.C.'s 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last year after it was decided by the justices that he was tracked illegally by the police, who used a GPS tracking device they had placed on his Jeep to follow him.
Now, the action in question here is not the actual use of a GPS tracking device in the surveillance of a suspected criminal, but the use of said device without a warrant (which the police in question did not obtain before attaching said device to Mr. Jones's Jeep). Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked the government attorney arguing the case if it would “not be a search if you put a GPS device on all of our cars, monitored out movements for a month?” referring not to common criminals, but, in this case, to nine justices currently seated on the Supreme Court. When the attorney who was posed that decidedly pointed question answered in the affirmative, that troubled more than one of those enrobed before them. “If you win,” said Justice Stephen G. Breyer, “ it sounds like ‘1984,’ ”
While the justices showed their grave concern for the possibility of forming a police-state under the watchful eye of "Big Brother," they haven't yet ruled in favor or against Mr. Jones. I'm not overstating the case when I say that, at stake here is nothing less than every American Citizen's fourth amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure. We'll be keeping an eye on this one for you.

Janet Napolitano (Ms. Janet, If Ur Nasty...)

2011-10-25T17:59:00.001-04:00

Yesterday my brother-in-law was deported. He had been living in the United States for the past seven years, never bothered anyone, is college educated and worked in a skilled job. He paid taxes, contributed to Social Security and had no criminal record. Until he was deported, of course. He was working with a crew in Michigan a few months ago and the guy who was driving was a little too close to the guy in front of him and they were pulled over. In Michigan, apparently it isn't beyond the bounds of law to require everyone, in a vehicle that has been stopped because of a traffic violation, to provide identification without just cause. So, after the police officer stopped the car, they saw that my brother-in-law's ID was expired, ran it, and took him in.
What's so frustrating about this whole thing is, if this happened next month, he probably would have been allowed to file for a change of status instead of being deported and barred from entry for ten years. Next month, according to "Click on Detroit," the Obama administration will begin reviewing approximately 300,000 pending deportation cases. The new policy will begin to prioritize deportation cases, pending, on whether the person being deported poses a risk to national security or public safety. My brother-in-law always posed a risk to my personal sanity, but, never to my knowledge, did he pose a risk to public safety.

If You Believe That One, There's This Bridge I Wanna Sell You...

2011-10-17T16:12:00.000-04:00

So, this one also has nothing to do with anything, I just think its incredible and I'm telling everyone.
According to ABC News, "Two Pennsylvania brothers have been charged with stealing a bridge and selling it piecemeal to a scrap yard."
I know! Why didn't I think of that!

iPhone 4S sells 4 million units in 3 days

2011-10-17T16:01:00.000-04:00

iPhone by William Hook


So, this has nothing to do with anything, but Apple has just released its sales figures for the iPhone 4S and, apparently, during the worst recession this country has ever seen since the "Great Depression," more than 10 percent of the current population of the United States of America can afford to shell out $200 to over $600 for what has been billed as an minor upgrade to their previous model, the iPhone 4.

The "Other Side" of the "Story" (?)

2011-10-17T14:46:00.000-04:00

The people at the "Occupy Wall Street" rallies (or as I will continue to call them until they disappear, the "Occupants") have a problem similar to the early days of the Tea-Party Movement ("Tea-Partiers" (?)): There isn't a coherent message.
Without a party-line, the inevitable racist morons show up and attempt to ruin it for everyone:

I can't say that anyone in these clips actually represent the OWS movement. In fact, I can't say that these people actually exist. This news item was broken by "NewsBusters," a notoriously anti-liberal, conservative news organization run by the Media Research Center, founded by L Brent Bozell. This doesn't mean that this video isn't 100% authentic. That it isn't accompanied by anything that proves the level of involvement of those videotaped makes me doubt its authenticity.

OCT15 CITIBANK ARRESTS

2011-10-17T14:12:00.000-04:00

I'm ~~probably~~ definitely not the first person that has published this, so ~~maybe~~ probably, this is the fortieth time you've seen it. For those of you who don't know about this, yesterday at about 2 PM, protestors who were, supposedly queuing up inside Citibank to close out their accounts (in protest of Citibank's policies) were locked inside and detained against their will. Near the end of the video, a woman standing outside the building tells some people that she was inside and she is a customer. This "causes" what the video identifies as a "plain-clothes police person" to pick up the female "customer" and physically place her back into the branch to be detained against her will until "police officers" arrive. There are, of course, many problems with both this story and, of course, the very logic behind the explanation.

Firstly: the "Occupants" (what I have taken to calling "Occupy Wall-Street Protestors.") were detained without being read their Miranda rights for the better part of three hours. This would seem to lend credence to the belief that those being held in the bank were held unlawfully by a private entity, Citibank or the employees thereof, and would make Citibank and/or the immediate employees responsible guilty of unlawful seizure and kidnapping.

Citibank, of course, can't be a party to such legal shenanigans /tomfoolery so, in a statement release the next day, Citibank levied all blame squarely on the "Occupants" and the NYPD. In the press release, Citibank stated that protestors were causing an intolerable ruckus (I'm paraphrasing here) and the branch called 911. "The Police asked the branch staff to close the branch until the protesters could be removed." This would make the NYPD the bad guys and make Citibank the victim, especially since only "one person asked to close an account and was accommodated," according to the release.

Again, these protestors were not actually arrested until hours later so, the complete lack of "Mirandization" by the supposed "Police force" that "requested" the branch to close the doors until the protestors could be safely removed, accounts to an unlawful seizure, this time by the NYPD.

As for the woman who was kidnapped by the man in the hooded sweatshirt outside the branch (yes kidnapped and no I'm not being facetious): if he was a police officer, as he did not read her a Miranda warning and did not inform her that she was under arrest, he withheld her liberty through unlawful seizure. If he was not a police officer, which is pretty certain as there were no police onsite at the time, then he is guilty of kidnapping.

Now, to the "Occupants:" Really? You can't say that the whole of you were just peacefully queuing up inside to close out your accounts in protest and then release a video of the whole of you not being orderly and not just queuing up to close out your accounts in protest:

That's just crazy talk.

Raining Revolution

2011-10-11T14:38:00.011-04:00

Joaquin Phoenix at the 'Two Lovers'

Screening In New York City

(Image By Flynet.com Via Zimbio.com)
When someone says "survivalist" or "militia," I think its not too far out of line to say that the vast majority of us picture crazy, gun-toting nut jobs looking to secede from the American Union in order to form the "United States of Bob." It may be unfair to think it, but with our history (Waco, Oklahoma City, Ruby Ridge, etc.), who could really blame us.
The problem is, this country was built by survivalist, gun-nut minutemen who believed that if a government became too powerful then it was up to the people to destroy it. I said that and our "forefathers" meant it. Its right there in the third line of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence: "whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government." This was their justification for secession from the British Empire. Now, I'm not saying that we should rise up against the government and take them down. However, I'm not sure I can find a reason why would it be so crazy that anyone would say such a thing? If the government is failing us and/or oppressing its people (which, I am of the opinion, the United States is doing neither) why would it be crazy to take up arms against them?
With the way the economy is today, it might not be surprising that many of the people you know and you work with are survivalists. Survivalism, according to Wikipedia (repository of all "truth" on the internets), is a movement of individuals or groups who are actively preparing for future possible disruptions in local, regional, national, or international social or political order. While this is a step beyond Bear Grylls, most people couldn't say that an ounce of preparation isn't worth a pound of MREs (or something like that). A few months ago, while we were working on replacing a router for one of our clients said to me: "John Locke, one of our founding fathers, said 'A well-armed populace is the best defense against tyranny.'"
That stopped me in my tracks for two reasons: First, I could have sworn that Thomas Jefferson said that, not John Locke and B) here was a man that I knew who was a professional installer, has a good job, 401K, college fund for his kid, a mortgage and a wife who had the same (the new-ish American dream) starting a conversation with me about guns and butter (I told him I had heard the quote, who I attributed it to and that I believe in the second amendment and then backed away slowly).
I have another group of friends, one a teacher at a prestigious university and the other a counselor for a different university who fall far short of fomenting political unrest. They "know" its coming, they just think it'll start on wall street.
Gold, a solid indicator on the strength of our economy, has in the past 10 years risen in price from $272 per ounce to a high, recently, of $1889 per ounce. Gas has gone above the $3.50 per gallon, never to return again to pre-Iraq War levels even as oil prices finally start to retreat below 2008 levels. And food prices are fluctuating wildly as investors hedge their losses on real estate by speculating on the price of grain. I'm not an expert, but, if this isn't the "verge" of an economic collapse, when will we actually be standing over the precipice, staring into the void? (dramatic, I know. It's dramatic stuff people!!!)

Hey Guys!!!

2011-10-04T18:14:00.002-04:00

Revving up the keyboard. I'll be posting for at least the next few months. Sorry I haven't called or written... I know, I'm not the good son. I'll make it up to you.
Promise

Barack Obama Forms Exploratory Committee

2007-01-16T15:36:00.000-05:00

(Full Text And Video)
...The decisions that have been made in Washington these past six years, and the problems that have been ignored, have put our country in a precarious place. Our economy is changing rapidly, and that means profound changes for working people. Many of you have shared with me your stories about skyrocketing health care bills, the pensions you've lost and your struggles to pay for college for your kids. Our continued dependence on oil has put our security and our very planet at risk. And we're still mired in a tragic and costly war that should have never been waged.
But challenging as they are, it's not the magnitude of our problems that concerns me the most. It's the smallness of our politics. America's faced big problems before. But today, our leaders in Washington seem incapable of working together in a practical, common sense way. Politics has become so bitter and partisan, so gummed up by money and influence, that we can't tackle the big problems that demand solutions.
And that's what we have to change first.
We have to change our politics, and come together around our common interests and concerns as Americans.
This won't happen by itself. A change in our politics can only come from you; from people across our country who believe there's a better way and are willing to work for it.
Years ago, as a community organizer in Chicago, I learned that meaningful change always begins at the grassroots, and that engaged citizens working together can accomplish extraordinary things.
So even in the midst of the enormous challenges we face today, I have great faith and hope about the future - because I believe in you.
And that's why I wanted to tell you first that I'll be filing papers today to create a presidential exploratory committee. For the next several weeks, I am going to talk with people from around the country, listening and learning more about the challenges we face as a nation, the opportunities that lie before us, and the role that a presidential campaign might play in bringing our country together. And on February 10th, at the end of these decisions and in my home state of Illinois, I'll share my plans with my friends, neighbors and fellow Americans.
In the meantime, I want to thank all of you for your time, your suggestions, your encouragement and your prayers. And I look forward to continuing our conversation in the weeks and months to come.

Sincerely,

U.S. Senator Barack Obama

Beyond The Bounds Of The Law, As Usual

2007-01-12T12:26:00.003-05:00

Firstly, sorry about the time between posts guys. Unlike Atrios and Joshua, I have a full time job and my "blog" does nothing to supplement my income. Anyway, enough with the "woe-is-me's" and "theya-culpas." It appears "President" Bush has been breaking the law (and not just by spying on and wiretapping us). A thorough investigation of two public laws pressed into service by the Bush Congress reveals he has broken two of his own laws and without the help of signing statements(this time). Those two laws would be Public Law 107-40, the Joint Resolution to authorize the use of force in Afghanistan and Public Law 107-243, the Joint Resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq. I'll explain: Firstly, I am not now, nor was I ever against military action in Afghanistan. Far from it; I considered joining the Marines (to my friends: I was skinnier then. Seriously). However, inasmuch as what Public Law 107-40 actually authorizes, it is laser accurate and very precise. It reads as such:

SEC. 2.(a) <> In General.--That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

Note the italics: "the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001," meaning precisely that. Public Law 107-40 applies only to nations, organizations, or persons who were responsible in any way shape or form for the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. To apply this law to any other resource is illegal, and "President" Bush has used said law to justify illegal detention of U.S. citizens, to justify eavesdropping on us and to justify stealing as many of our liberties as he sees fit.
Now, as for P.L. 107-243, that is a contract that was entered into under false pretenses so, as I see it, it should be void on it's very face. While reading, remember that while "whereas" can mean "on the contrary," in legal documents, as a preamble, "whereas" means "on the condition of":

Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;

Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;

So, before we go any further, if this entire law is dependent on these three statements being true, then the whole of the document is false. I'm pretty sure that's the Law of Modus Tollens in logic (not to say that anything this administration does is logical or lawful). Now, beyond that, there is another conditional placed within P.L. 107-243. that reads as such:

SEC. 3.(b)(2): ...acting pursuant to this joint resolution is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorist and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

In plain English: Action in Iraq cannot detract from the pursuit of those responsible for the attacks on 9/11. End of point: Go get 'em Senator Biden (that is one type of "Joe-mentum" I'm willing to get behind!)!

What's The Worst That Could Happen?

2007-01-09T13:54:00.001-05:00

(Update 01/10/07-- After I started writing this post, speculation made way for fact and Georgie-Porgie announced plans to "surge" 21,150 troops to Iraq (why such an obscure number? Most "experts" believe that 21,150 is all the troops we have left. Comforting, no?) and Joe-Mentos (the fresh-maker, he ain't) quickly stepped up and kissed his ass:
"Tonight, the president did not take the easy path, but he took the correct and courageous course. We are engaged in a world-wide struggle against Islamist extremism, and Iraq is now the central front. It is a dangerous illusion to believe that we can depart Iraq and the inevitable killing fields and terrorist violence will not follow us in retreat -- even to our own shores," Lieberman said in a statement.)

Okay guys, this on is a little long-winded and winding but, I'll get to the point by the end. The video above (from C-Span via Crooks and Liars) is of a very "bi-partisan" Joe Lieberman breaking bread with John McCain over the Captain McChimpy's "brilliant" idea of a "troop surge" (first set of quotes is in the ironic sense and the second is in the "he is so full of bullsh*t" sense).

From Crooks and Liars:
Lieberman:…that there be some kind of attempt to resolve this pivotal moment with a compromise among factions in American politics and in the American Congress rather than doing what is right and has the highest prospect of succeeding in Iraq—in other words this moment cries out for the kind of courageous leadership that does what can succeed and win in Iraq—not what will command the largest number of political supporters in Congress….we need to support the President as he goes forward, hopefully with exactly that kind of new initiative in Iraq.

From Rolling Stone:
In words that should trouble any Democrats counting Lieberman in their camp, Lieberman was praising Bush as a “great leader” for bucking American opinion, as expressed in the 2006 election, in his determination to double down in Iraq. Lieberman then said something incredible:
Even those opposed to the surge, he said, “ought to at least let us try it.”

The worst that could happen is an exponential increase in U.S. casualties in a war that is no longer ours to fight (if you ask me)
Also, if you ask me, the most quotable of quotables in Lieberman's soliloquy would be right near the end where he said: "...It would be an extreme action during a time of war to, for instance, attempt to block the funding for the increase in troops that the President and the military think are necessary." Lieberman has, for sure, not been paying attention to his 20th Century history. As a matter of fact, Congress not only has the right to exercise control and restraint on military deployment, it has the job to do so. A job that they were only too happy to do with Democrats in office:
October 1994. P.L. 103-423 – A joint resolution regarding U.S. Policy Toward Haiti. Congress supported a “prompt and orderly withdrawal of all United States Armed Forces from Haiti as soon as possible.”
July 2000. P.L. 106-246 – Military Construction Appropriations and For Other Purposes – Personnel Ceiling in Colombia: “no funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this or any other Act (including funds described in subsection (c)) may be available for— (A) the assignment of any United States military personnel for temporary or permanent duty in Colombia in connection with support of Plan Colombia if that assignment would cause the number of United States military personnel so assigned in Colombia to exceed 500; or (B) the employment of any United States individual civilian retained as a contractor in Colombia if that employment would cause the total number of United States individual civilian contractors employed in Colombia in support of Plan Colombia who are funded by Federal funds to exceed 300.”
November 1993. P.L. 103-139. The Congress limited the use of funding in Somalia for operations of U.S. military personnel only until March 31, 1994, permitting expenditure of funds for the mission thereafter only if the president sought and Congress provided specific authorization.
September 1994. P.L. 103-335. The Congress declared “no funds provided in this Act are available for United States military participation to continue Operations Restore Hope in or around Rwanda after October 7, 1994, except for any action that is necessary to protect the lives of United States citizens.”
June 1998. P.L. 105-85 – Defense Authorization Bill. The Congress prohibited funding for Bosnia “after June 30, 1998, unless the President, not later than May 15, 1998, and after consultation with the bipartisan leadership of the two Houses of Congress, transmits to Congress a certification— (1) that the continued presence of United States ground combat forces, after June 30, 1998, in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina is required in order to meet the national security interests of the United States; and (2) that after June 30, 1998, it will remain United States policy that United States ground forces will not serve as, or be used as, civil police in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

Willard Scott Denies Global Warming

2007-01-09T00:32:00.001-05:00

This is just insane:

From the January 2 edition of NBC's Today:

SCOTT: Well, listen are you a globing -- a global-warming fan? Do you believe in global warming?
VIEIRA: I'm not a fan. No. No, sir.
SCOTT: Well --
VIEIRA: But I -- something's going on, 'cause it's warm here.
SCOTT: Well, now, wait a minute -- that's it; it's warm here. From Savannah [Georgia] all the way up to Boston, we're having unheard-of warm weather, but ask the folks out in Denver and Colorado --
VIEIRA: That's so.
SCOTT: -- the coldest winter they've had in years. So it all depends on which side of the Mississippi you're hanging your hat.

Okay, so what, exactly, would you say is the most stunning part about that? Would you say that it's Willard coming out against global warming or Meredith Vieira (who's being paid on and upwards of a billion or so dollars a year to host that crack-pot show) agreeing with him?
Either way, my Mother is a certifiable genius and, seemingly just to throw it in my face, she posited this theory on the insane snowstorms in the midwest: the snow wouldn't be possible, except for warmer temperatures. Yes, I said it is snowing so much, not in spite of, but because of warmer temperatures (Bear with me, I feel some science coming on). Now, most people know that water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius). Most people also understand that it is much colder at 30,000 or so feet (where clouds usually form). What most people do not either know or understand is once a cloud reaches a certain temperature (between -30 and -40 C (-22 and -40 F)) it will not snow. So, seeing as the average January surface temperature in Denver has, historically been 10 degrees lower than it is this year (-4C to 0C (24F-32F) vs. -.5C to 4.4C (31F-40F)), that could, in effect, account for the drastic increase in snowfall.
Go back to birthdays Scott. Leave the weather to my Mom.
(Celsius to Fahrenheit converter, Average winter temperatures, Colorado)

Pat Robertson Says God Told Him Of 2007 Mass Terror Attack

2007-01-06T22:42:00.001-05:00

Blogger is having issues right now, so here is a little evil for you to gnaw on while I am figuring it out.

This Man Makes My Head Hurt.

2007-01-05T12:49:00.000-05:00

This man, as some of you might know, is Hal Turner, host of the political talk show "The Hal Turner Show" (broadcast in NYC on Wed. 9p-11p). On his website (which was just recently attacked with a DDOS attack so loading might be slow), when you get to the first page you see headlines like "BUSH CLAIMS RIGHT TO OPEN AMERICANS' MAIL WITHOUT SEARCH WARRANT;
IT IS LONG OVERDUE TO "REMOVE" THIS MAN FROM OFFICE; I ADVOCATE THE REMOVAL OF GEORGE WALKER BUSH FROM THE OFFICE OF PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AS SOON AS POSSIBLE," and right next to it on the same page "SAVAGE SPIC FORCES WOMAN INTO CAR WITH MACHETE; RAPES HER. BROAD DAYLIGHT CRIME IN THIRD-WORLD CESSPOOL FLORIDA." You probably see my confusion.
Prior to the mid-term election, Mr. Turner suggested that if those Congresspersons that have wronged America were voted back into office then they might have to be assassinated. His exact words:

" October 27, 2006 -- As the November 7 Election approaches, I decided to write a few lines to my fellow Americans about the state of our nation and the ugliness that may have to occur if the people who caused these problems are re-elected: They may have to be assassinated."

Now, what exactly does Mr. Turner have a problem with? His list:

"1) Limited our freedom of political speech...
2) Killing of 655,000 innocent people...
3) Congress doesn't read the Bills they pass!...
4) Elected Officials Simply Ignore Our Will...
5) Deliberate Fraud...
6) They've broken the nation's financial back...
7) Passed the "USA PATRIOT ACT" and the "Military Commissions Act of 2006"...
8) Take YOUR land and sell it to someone else for higher taxes!...
8) Boating, Hunting and Fishing in "navigable waterways" ruled ILLEGAL!...
9) Talking about AMNESTY for ILLEGAL Aliens...."

Here comes the headache. Mr. Turner is an admitted anti-Semitic white supremacist, and, with the exception of numbers 9 and 8 (the second number 8), I agree with him (not on the actual assassination tip, but his frustrations seem very legitimate).
Now, here comes the second headache. It appears he has set a timetable for those "suggested" assassinations:

"Members of The United States House of Representatives or United States Senate who try to grant any form of Amnesty to millions of illegal aliens are hereby notified they may as well paint a bulls-eye target on themselves. Our Bullets don't care about their sovereign power," he wrote.
"This seems to be 'it' folks. I'm going to do what I have to do to protect my nation from its government. I know where all of my New Jersey Congressmen and Senators live. Do you know where yours live? If not, you better find out before January so you can scope out their neighborhoods and prepare yourselves," he said.
"Those of you who, for years, have said you're 'gonna do this' or 'gonna do that' when the time comes; are about to face ugly reality. In January, 'the time' will come. In January the entire world will find out if you're real or just a bigmouth coward," he said.
Turner also declined a suggestion to post a list of addresses and provide maps "so people can protest at their homes" by saying, "Once I publish such a list, they would undoubtedly feel the need and take steps to secure themselves. If we forewarn them by publicly publishing a list, we lose the element of surprise."

I'm so confused. Since when has the calling for an assassination of a publicly elected official been made legal? Isn't it treason or inciting violence or something? And hasn't he made his intention to murder his own elected officials pretty clear? "I'm going to do what I have to do to protect my nation from its government. I know where all of my New Jersey Congressmen and Senators live." All I'm saying is if Jose Padilla can be held on suspicion of nothing for three years, we can hold this redneck, bigoted bastard for saying he's going to kill Congress.

Starbucks Day of Action

2007-01-02T23:19:00.001-05:00

Okay, this post is a little late (as the event happened on Dec. 16th of 2006) however, there are some new events to report.
The above video was posted in conjunction with Oxfam Charity's "Starbucks Day Of Action" to protest Starbucks' alleged dirty dealings in a trademark dispute with Ethiopia's Sidamo region. Starbucks, to their credit, has forgone the traditional "press-release-that-no-one-reads" format for dealing with Oxfam's allegation and in turn has released their own "YouTube" video. Here's the scoop:

Starbucks, Ethiopia, and the Coffee Branding Wars

By Joshua Gallu

Fine coffee beans may be Ethiopia's most precious natural resource. But Starbucks is standing in the way of the country's efforts to trademark its gourmet product. The row is escalating.

Think you know what's in your coffee cup? It used to be simple: ground coffee beans and water. Now though, your average robusto has given way to a grande double non-fat latte with a shot of vanilla syrup. The 20 cent cup of mud has turned into a $4 coffee experience.
Still, even as coffee has gone upscale, the barista whipping forth your drink still works with coffee beans. How they find their way from plantations to your mug is a quintessential tale of globalization, complete with giant wealthy corporations, poor local farmers and conflicts over who is entitled to what.
The most recent dispute in this economic food chain involves Starbucks and the Ethiopian government. The giant coffee franchise opposes Ethiopia's efforts to trademark the names of its most famous coffee regions Sidamo, Yirgacheffe and Harar. Starbucks, after all, is already using those names to sell coffee for top dollars across the globe. A clear case of a developing country defending itself against rapacious Western business interests, right? Oxfam, the UK-based development agency, thinks so. It is championing Ethiopia's move and has embarked on a massive media campaign accusing Starbucks of keeping the small farmer under its thumb.
"Harar and Sidamo have sold in coffee shops for up to $24 and $26 per pound," Seth Petchers from Oxfam's Make Trade Fair campaign told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "Farmers who grow these specialty coffees get as little as $.60 to $1.10 per pound.... We want to work to find a win-win solution." Oxfam estimates that over time Ethiopia's coffee industry would benefit from an additional $88 million annually were the trade marking plan to go through.
Ethiopian names "generic"
Starbucks, though, insists that it is not trying to deny Ethiopian farmers their legitimate coffee profits. Alain Poncelet, Starbucks' head of Green Coffee Purchasing, told SPIEGEL ONLINE that his company is all for Ethiopia "protecting its regional names." Just not through trademark. Starbucks favors a geographic certification model -- similar to Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee, Florida Orange Juice and Napa Valley Wines -- which guarantees a point of origin and standard of quality.
So which model is best? Your answer to that question likely depends on which end of the supply chain you're on.
Ethiopia's efforts to protect the "Sidamo" name actually began way back in March 2005. But the country's application to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) went nowhere for the next 15 months. Starbucks, as it turns out, had already applied to trademark an expression that included the word "sidamo."
In June 2006, the giant coffee distributor withdrew its application and took a different approach to get its way. According to Oxfam, Starbucks leaned on the National Coffee Association (NCA) to help block Ethiopia's bid. And it worked. In refusing Ethiopia its trademark, the USPTO cited a position directly from the NCA letter of protest: The names Ethiopia wanted to trademark, it argued, were "generic."
Ethiopia has until December to appeal the USPTO's decision -- a move the country will likely make -- and the government, with the help of Oxfam, is trying to get the NCA and Starbucks to stop blocking the trademark process.

Happy New Year's Everyone!

2007-01-01T23:45:00.000-05:00

And I do mean everyone (Second to last BS post guys, I swear!). It appears that Times Square isn't the hottest spot in the universe for New Years. Next year, I'm dropping the ball at Chicago's O'Hare Airport:

In the sky! A bird? A plane? A ... UFO?
Video: UFO over O'Hare Airport?

It sounds like a tired joke--but a group of airline employees insist they are in earnest, and they are upset that neither their bosses nor the government will take them seriously.
A flying saucerlike object hovered low over O'Hare International Airport for several minutes before bolting through thick clouds with such intense energy that it left an eerie hole in overcast skies, said some United Airlines employees who observed the phenomenon.
Was it an alien spaceship? A weather balloon lost in the airspace over the world's second-busiest airport? A top-secret military craft? Or simply a reflection from lights that played a trick on the eyes?
Officials at United professed no knowledge of the Nov. 7 event--which was reported to the airline by as many as a dozen of its own workers--when the Tribune started asking questions recently. But the Federal Aviation Administration said its air traffic control tower at O'Hare did receive a call from a United supervisor asking if controllers had spotted a mysterious elliptical-shaped craft sitting motionless over Concourse C of the United terminal.
No controllers saw the object, and a preliminary check of radar found nothing out of the ordinary, FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said.
The FAA is not conducting a further investigation, Cory said. The theory is the sighting was caused by a "weather phenomenon," she said.
The UFO report has sparked some chuckles among controllers in O'Hare tower.
"To fly 7 million light years to O'Hare and then have to turn around and go home because your gate was occupied is simply unacceptable," said O'Hare controller and union official Craig Burzych.
Some of the witnesses, interviewed by the Tribune, said they are upset that neither the government nor the airline is probing the incident.
Whatever the object was, it could have interfered with O'Hare's radar and other equipment, and even created a collision risk, they said.
The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (the term that extraterrestrial-watchers nowadays prefer over Unidentified Flying Object) was first seen by a United ramp worker who was directing back a United plane at Gate C17, according to an account the worker provided to the National UFO Reporting Center.
The sighting occurred during daylight, about 4:30 p.m., just before sunset.
All the witnesses said the object was dark gray and well defined in the overcast skies. They said the craft, estimated by different accounts to be 6 feet to 24 feet in diameter, did not display any lights.
Some said it looked like a rotating Frisbee, while others said it did not appear to be spinning. All agreed the object made no noise and it was at a fixed position in the sky, just below the 1,900-foot cloud deck, until shooting off into the clouds.
Witnesses (were) shaken by sighting
"I tend to be scientific by nature, and I don't understand why aliens would hover over a busy airport," said a United mechanic who was in the cockpit of a Boeing 777 that he was taxiing to a maintenance hangar when he observed the metallic-looking object above Gate C17.
"But I know that what I saw and what a lot of other people saw stood out very clearly, and it definitely was not an [Earth] aircraft," the mechanic said.
One United employee appeared emotionally shaken by the sighting and "experienced some religious issues" over it, one co-worker said.
A United manager said he ran outside his office in Concourse B after hearing the report about the sighting on an internal airline radio frequency.
"I stood outside in the gate area not knowing what to think, just trying to figure out what it was," he said. "I knew no one would make a false call like that. But if somebody was bouncing a weather balloon or something else over O'Hare, we had to stop it because it was in very close proximity to our flight operations."

Slate's 2006 Bill Of Wrongs

2006-12-31T15:42:00.000-05:00

Two awesome things were released today. First (and funniest) would be the Darwin Awards for 2006 (the number one story is about a guy who effectively disassembled an RPG with a sledgehammer). But, more importantly, would be the Slate.com 2006 "Bill of Wrongs," the most egregious of civil rights abuses for the year (I'm just giving you the top four to conserve space):
(PS-Links are mine. Be sure to click on John Ashcroft (It's how I will always remember him ;-)

4. Extraordinary Rendition
So, when does it start to become ordinary rendition? This government program has us FedEx-ing unindicted terror suspects abroad for interrogation/torture. Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen, was shipped off to Afghanistan for such treatment and then released without charges, based on some government confusion about his name. Heh heh. Canadian citizen Maher Arar claims he was tortured in Syria for a year, released without charges, and cleared by a Canadian commission. Attempts to vindicate the rights of such men? You'd need to circle back to the state-secrets doctrine, above.

3. Abuse of Jose Padilla
First, he was, according to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, "exploring a plan to build and explode a radiological dispersion device, or 'dirty bomb,' in the United States." Then, he was planning to blow up apartments. Then he was just part of a vague terror conspiracy to commit jihad in Bosnia and Chechnya. Always, he was a U.S. citizen. After three and a half years, in which he was denied the most basic legal rights, it has now emerged that Padilla was either outright tortured or near-tortured. According to a recent motion, during Padilla's years of almost complete isolation, he was treated by the U.S. government to sensory and sleep deprivation, extreme cold, stress positions, threats of execution, and drugging with truth serum. Experts say he is too mentally damaged to stand trial. The Bush administration supported his motion for a mental competency assessment, in hopes that will help prevent his torture claims from ever coming to trial, or, as Yale Law School's inimitable Jack Balkin put it: "You can't believe Padilla when he says we tortured him because he's crazy from all the things we did to him."

2. The Military Commissions Act of 2006
This was the so-called compromise legislation that gave President Bush even more power than he initially had to detain and try so-called enemy combatants. He was generously handed the authority to define for himself the parameters of interrogation and torture and the responsibility to report upon it, since he'd been so good at that. What we allegedly did to Jose Padilla was once a dirty national secret. The MCA made it the law.

1. Hubris
Whenever the courts push back against the administration's unsupportable constitutional ideas—ideas about "inherent powers" and a "unitary executive" or the silliness of the Geneva Conventions or the limitless sweep of presidential powers during wartime—the Bush response is to repeat the same chorus louder: Every detainee is the worst of the worst; every action taken is legal, necessary, and secret. No mistakes, no apologies. No nuance, no regrets. This legal and intellectual intractability can create the illusion that we are standing on the same constitutional ground we stood upon in 2001, even as that ground is sliding away under our feet.

Saddam Hussein Executed!

2006-12-29T23:23:00.000-05:00

Story by BBC News, Middle East:

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been executed by hanging at an unspecified location in Baghdad, for crimes against humanity.
Iraqi TV said the execution took place just before 0600 local time (0300GMT).
The news was confirmed to the BBC by the Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister, Labeed Abawi.
Two co-defendants, Saddam Hussein's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and former Iraqi chief judge Awad Hamed al-Bandar, were also executed.
Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by an Iraqi court on 5 November after a year-long trial over the 1982 killings of 148 Shias in the town of Dujail.
"Criminal Saddam was hanged to death," state-run Iraqiya television announced, as patriotic music and images of national monuments were broadcast.
A scrolling headline read: "Saddam's execution marks the end of a dark period of Iraq's history."
The TV station said Saddam Hussein's half-brother and the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court were also hanged.
Other Arab TV stations aired live footage of the sunrise over Baghdad's Firdous Square, where US Marines pulled down a statue of Saddam Hussein, after he was deposed in April 2003.

'Turning a page'

US troops and Iraqi security forces are on high alert for any violent backlash. The US State Department has urged all its embassies to increase security.
The BBC's Peter Greste in Baghdad says Shias have generally welcomed Saddam Hussein's passing and hailed the execution as justice for the suffering endured under his leadership.
But Saddam's own Sunni tribesman were angered by his treatment in the past and they may well protest once more, our correspondent adds.
The BBC's Adam Brookes in Washington says the Bush administration will see the act as turning a page in Iraq - a demonstration that Iraq has a sovereign and democratic government.
A US statement is expected. However, the Bush administration will be keen to portray the execution as a matter purely for the Iraqi government and its court system, our correspondent says.

Later, a look at how the U.S. took part in Saddam's crimes! (Hint: why do you think we were so sure he had weapons of mass destruction?)

Draft Obama TV Spot: Believe Again

2006-12-24T13:21:00.001-05:00

I love Barack Obama. I hope he runs for President. As a matter of fact, I hope there is an Obama/Clinton ticket in '08 (and I am, for sure, not the biggest Hillary fan). This website, "DraftObama.Org" seems to share the sentiment. CNN Ticker has the story about the TV spot set to run while the Senator vacations in Hawaii:

In between football games and holiday programming, Sen. Barack Obama might see a television ad urging him to jump into the 2008 presidential race while he vacations in Hawaii over the holidays.
DraftObama.org, a grassroots organization urging the Illinois Democrat to run for president, will begin airing an ad in Obama's birth state of Hawaii, the group announced Friday.
The ad is currently airing on local cable in New Hampshire and Washington, D.C. as well as on New Hampshire station WMUR in what a spokeswoman called a "moderate rolling ad buy." Called "Believe Again," the ad scrolls through still photographs of Obama while clips his from past speeches are played. It begins with the words "We can replace fear with hope," and ends with "Believe again."
The group says the ad will now run on "several stations in Honolulu" and is timed to coincide with Obama annual trip there.
"All I really want for Christmas this year is for Barack Obama to run for president," Ben Stanfield, founder of DraftObama.org, said in a statement.

30 Days as a Muslim

2006-12-23T23:58:00.001-05:00

From the "Thirty-Days" series, this video shows how ignorant some Christians can be (found on Alternet.Org:

This program, from a series created by Supersize Me's Morgan Spurlock, has a young white Christian man from West Virginny live with a Pakistani Muslim couple in Michigan for a month.
They eat, pray, study and live together.
The man, Dave Stacey, is an exceptional sport, participating when he can, questioning when he can't. He's also under the additional discomfort of being away from his family and all that's given his life meaning in the past. In other words: it suffers from the same heartily unscientific flaws that all "reality" TV suffers from.
The participating Muslims, on the other hand, are far more practiced at dealing with proximate discomfort so their tolerance often (though not always) appears effortless.
Spurlock peppers the experiment with 'man on the street' interviews on Islamic culture, exposing ignorance and resurrecting the American Holy Ghost of the Wild West.
Asked what he would do if the Muslim call to prayer were broadcast next door, a man responds (paraphrasing): I'd go crank up my stereo with some Tom Petty or maybe some Duran Duran and give 'em some payback. Because that's my right as an American.

This video is over 40 minutes...

Another Point Of View

2006-12-23T09:35:00.000-05:00

Well, it appears that an incoming Congressperson has been discriminated upon and persecuted for their religious beliefs before. Alan Dershowitz (at The Blog at Huffington Post) has the story:

'Jacob Henry, a Jew who was elected to North Carolina's legislature in 1808, but was blocked from taking his seat by a law requiring him to accept the divinity of the New Testament, posed the following rhetorical question:

"Will you drive from your shores and from the shelter of your constitution all who do not lay their oblations on the same altar, observe the same ritual, and subscribe to the same dogmas? If so, which among the various sects into which we are divided shall be the favored one?"

As if to demonstrate that intolerance once practiced against Jews can also be practiced by some Jews against other minorities, a Jewish right wing talk show host named Dennis Prager led a campaign to disallow the first Muslim elected to Congress (in November 2006) to take an oath of office on the Koran. Prager insisted that Congressman Keith Ellison:

"'should not be allowed to do so - not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization,' Prager argued. 'Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible.' "'If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress,' he wrote."'

Thats right, kiddos! Dennis Prager, who caused all the trouble (just like the Model T Ford. I mean, who's gonna patronize an itty-bitty, two-by-four kinda store anymore?) is Jewish. Not that being Jewish, in and of itself, is a bad thing (the clearest minded thinker today is Jewish (big-ups, Lewis Black!)). Being a Jew, and a hypocrite? That's a little more worth writing about.

Another Smoke-Screen Non-Issue

2006-12-22T23:54:00.001-05:00

Okay, so is this whole Keith Ellison being sworn in on the Koran thing over yet? It appears not if Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) has anything to say about it. He said Thursday that he will not retract the letter he wrote, warning that unless immigration is tightened, "many more Muslims will be elected" and use the Koran to take the oath of office. That, instead of a quick "sorry for being so retarded" and a "try not to do it again," (sorry to any "retarded" people who read this (and to those who will, inevitably, get upset at the use of the word "retard" (see: Lewis Black for the correct usage of the term))). Anyway, the way the whole thing started was a "journalist" named Dennis Prager wrote a piece for the site "Townhall.com" against Rep-Elect Keith Ellison's decision to be sworn in on a Koran instead of a Bible (Ellison is the US's first Muslim Congressperson):

Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, has announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible, but on the bible of Islam, the Koran.
He should not be allowed to do so -- not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization.
First, it is an act of hubris that perfectly exemplifies multiculturalist activism -- my culture trumps America's culture. What Ellison and his Muslim and leftist supporters are saying is that it is of no consequence what America holds as its holiest book; all that matters is what any individual holds to be his holiest book.

Okay, that sucked enough as it was, but, in addition to this hot-headed windbag, Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) had to add his two cents in a letter to his constituents that, somehow, was leaked to an actual human being and was promptly published in the Charlotteville Newsweekly website, C-Ville Weekly:

...When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way. The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran. We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country. I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped...

The letter droned on the way those letters always do: yadda yadda, zeig heil, yadda, master race, etc. Now, all Goode had to do was say, oops, my bad and we could all get on with some actual business (anyone hear about this ISG Report and how the President is determined to ignore everyone's advice but John McCain's?) but, no, he stuck to his guns.
Interesting note, for all you "fact-junkies" out there: Congresspeople are not sworn in on a bible. They are not sworn in on a Dictionary, a Thesaurus, a Compendium of Brother's Grimm Tales or any other large, old book at all. Congresspeople are sworn in, en masse with one hand in the air and the other hand lying limply by their side. The "swearing in" we've been persevering about for weeks is, in fact, an informal swearing-in "photo-op" that almost every new Congressperson has in their own office, privately.

SNL - Digital Short - A Special Christmas Box

2006-12-22T12:36:00.001-05:00

Hey everyone! Sorry for the complete lack of posting lately. Christmas is stressful, as I'm sure you're all aware. Anywho, I'm back and I'm posting as much as possible. This first bit isn't news, really (it's an SNL bit that was censored on the air but released uncensored on the net). For some strange reason, instead of covering the Iraq war or KBR and Halliburton no-bid contracts, the NY Times decided this was the real story. Go fig.

Rally For Sean Bell

2006-12-17T00:19:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Manhattan filled to the breaking point with more than just holiday shoppers. More than that, yesterday, the streets of Manhattan were filled with outrage at injustice. I am, of course, talking about the huge protest against the NYPD's handling of the Sean Bell shooting. WABC picks it up from there:

(New York - WABC, December 16, 2006) - Protesters are calling it "shopping for justice" -- a big rally that converged on Midtown Saturday against the deadly police shooting of Sean Bell.
Marchers lined up around noon on Saturday 59th Street and Fifth Avenue, and headed down Fifth Avenue around 1 p.m. during the height of the holiday shopping season. The rally ended more than an hour later outside Macy's on 34th Street.

Missing from the WABC report (and notably absent from most major news reports of the event) was the public reaction to the rally. You'll find that the "blogs" picked up the slack for them (thank you "Pan African News"):

In Midtown, shoppers gawked. Tourists snapped pictures and wondered what it was all about. Salvation Army carolers sang on, and the protesters, who had been admonished repeatedly by organizers to remain silent, kept discipline only in the front ranks, where members of Congress, the Legislature, the City Council and other V.I.P.s marched alongside a stone-faced Mr. Sharpton.
“It’s New York, you always see crazy things,” Margaret Rajnik, a nurse from Atlantic City, said at Rockefeller Center, where mobs of shoppers jammed the plaza in front of the skating rink, the giant Christmas tree and the golden Prometheus.
A sampling of shoppers found many against the protest. “We just came here to go shopping at the American Girl store and go see the Rockettes,” said Cherrie Ostigui, 38, of Odenton, Md. “Now we can’t even cross the street to get our lunch.”
Steve Diomopoulos, 22, a student from Livonia, Mich., called it “a weird time to be doing this,” and added: “It’s an inconvenience to people like myself who came from out of town and want to get some Christmas shopping done. It’s almost like a hostile atmosphere. I don’t think that’s what people came here to see...”

That was a sampling of non New Yorkers just to give you a feel of how out of touch the rest of the United States really is. It takes a native Brooklynite to bring it home for us:

...But Seleah Bussey, 22, a Brooklyn College student, said, “I think it’s good because it’s a tourist area and tourists need to know what’s really happening.”

Thank you "Brooklyn" for helping "keep it real," or whatever the kids are saying nowadays.

Maybe President Bush's daughters should go to Iraq?

2006-12-16T23:41:00.001-05:00

I know I've been slacking a little lately and I'm sorry. I've been chasing my boss around, trying to force a raise outta the big guy. No matter, here's a little gem from the worlds second greatest numismatist, Matt Damon (I hear he acts too, ain't that a hoot?):

DAMON: I don’t think that it’s fair, as I said before, that it seems like we have a fighting class in our country that’s comprised of people who have to go for either financial reasons or — you know, I don’t think that that is fair, and if you’re gonna send people to war, if we all get together and decide we need to go to war, then that needs to be shared by everybody, you know, and if the president has daughters who are of age then maybe they should go too.

(Video from Crooks And Liars, text from Think Progress)

What Would Jesus Do?

2006-12-14T21:44:00.001-05:00

Apparently, Jesus wouldn't shop at WalMart! (As my Mom would say: Thank You Jesus, Thank You Jesus, Thank You Jesus, Etc. Ad Infinitum) What, exactly, would make me think that Jesus hates WalMart? Nothing much, except it appears that Evangelical leaders, such as Robert Parham (Executive Director of the Baptist Center of Ethics) and Tony Campolo in conjunction with Wake Up WalMart joined together in sending a message to Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott:

Dear Mr. Scott,

We write you as moral theologians with grave concerns about Wal-Mart’s corporate practices-practices that conflict with our commitment to pro-family values.

The Christian prophetic witness teaches that justice is the highest family value for any society-protection for the fatherless, security for the single mother, honesty in the marketplace, fairness for the weakest one in society, respect for the elderly.

The Hebrew prophet Micah said that God required justice (Micah 6:8). The prophet Amos said that God wanted justice to flood the land (Amos 5:24). The prophet Isaiah said that God wanted his people to seek justice (Isaiah 1:17). Jesus told community leaders that they were neglecting justice (Luke 11:42).

The biblical witness also teaches responsibility-parents are responsible for children (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) and employers are responsible for fair wages for their employees (1 Timothy 5:18). Jesus said, “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded” (Luke 12:48).

Family Values?

2006-12-13T23:45:00.000-05:00

Now, I know I'm a Godless heathen (just ask Ann Coulter), but this is just nuts. Have you heard of this? The "Left-Behind" series of books which tell the tale of the aftermath of the "rapture" were first made into a series of ultra-violent movies (starring Kirk Cameron of "Growing Pains" fame as Buck Williams (no, I'm not kidding) and is now an ultra-violent "Doom" like first-person shooter (with 3rd-person cut scenes) being sold at Walmart and being touted by folks like James Dobson (of Focus on the Family) as the perfect family game for the holidays. I am not making this up.
And, of course tons of people are upset about it. USA Today Reports:

'Critics say a new video game based on the best-selling Left Behind series of Bible-related end-of-the-world-books glorifies religious violence against non-Christians and they are calling on Wal-Mart to pull the product from its shelves.
"Part of the object is to kill or convert the opposing forces," said the Rev. Tim Simpson of Jacksonville, Fla., who heads the Christian Alliance for Progress. "It is antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ."
So far, Wal-Mart is saying it has no plans to stop selling the game.
The creators of the game are defending their product.
"There is no blood or gore in Left Behind: Eternal Forces," the company writes at its website. "The game is designed to be a classic battle between good and evil, but it does not gratuitously depict violence or death."
"As missions progress," that statement continues, "there are no 'objectives' to cause war physically. However, physical warfare results when the player is required to defend against the physical forces of evil; led by the Global Community Peacekeepers."
The San Francisco Chronicle writes that "players can choose to join the Antichrist's team, but of course they can never win on (that) side. The enemy team includes fictional rock stars and folks with Muslim-sounding names, while the righteous include gospel singers, missionaries, healers and medics."'

I would call for a boycott of Walmart, but I'm pretty sure none of my readers shop there. What I do suggest is for my readers to take a deep breath, enter your local Walmart and sprint to the Electronics section. Check the shelf for the left behind video game and if you find it make a hell of a stink about Walmart glorifying violence and derision amongst different cultures. Don't buy one though, even if you only intend to burn it. Walmart is only about their bottom line. Their profit margin is so slim that if every Democrat in the United States convinced one (1) regular Walmart shopper to stop going there, Walmart would be out of business in a week. Get to work people.

That's Not A Chin Behind Chuck Norris' Beard...

2006-12-12T22:13:00.000-05:00

(Quick Sorry: Power Outage Last Night! Sorry this took two days!)

That's a fist. Now, I'll bet you're wondering why tonight starts off with a lame Chuck Norris joke (not "Chuck Norris is lame," the aforementioned joke is absolutely not the best one on the "Internets"). Well, there's a fairly weak tie-in: Mr. Norris is one of the regular contributors to the site "World Net Daily," a mostly Conservative online rag. And so is the author of the following article on the dangers of Soy products, Jim Rutz:

There's a slow poison out there that's severely damaging our children and threatening to tear apart our culture. The ironic part is, it's a "health food," one of our most popular.
Now, I'm a health-food guy, a fanatic who seldom allows anything into his kitchen unless it's organic. I state my bias here just so you'll know I'm not anti-health food.
The dangerous food I'm speaking of is soy. Soybean products are feminizing, and they're all over the place. You can hardly escape them anymore.

Pause. Here's the part where you all go back over that to make sure it said what you think it says. And, yes it did: Soy products are "feminizing." Read on, it gets better:

I have nothing against an occasional soy snack. Soy is nutritious and contains lots of good things. Unfortunately, when you eat or drink a lot of soy stuff, you're also getting substantial quantities of estrogens (sic). Estrogens (sic) are female hormones. If you're a woman, you're flooding your system with a substance it can't handle in surplus. If you're a man, you're suppressing your masculinity and stimulating your "female side," physically and mentally.
...Research is now showing that when you feed your baby soy formula, you're giving him or her the equivalent of five birth control pills a day. A baby's endocrine system just can't cope with that kind of massive assault, so some damage is inevitable. At the extreme, the damage can be fatal.
...Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality.
...Research in 2000 showed that a soy-based diet at any age can lead to a weak thyroid, which commonly produces heart problems and excess fat. Could this explain the dramatic increase in obesity today?
...Worse, there's now scientific evidence that estrogen ingredients in soy products may be boosting the rapidly rising incidence of leukemia in children. In the latest year we have numbers for, new cases in the U.S. jumped 27 percent. In one year!

Now, I'm not going to reprint the whole thing (there's even more shocking stuff in there like if you feed your child soy formula "she" may reach "menarche" as young as seven and "he" may not reach puberty till much later than normal). But fear not lovers of Chinese! You have nothing to fear:

P.S.: Soy sauce is fine. Unlike soy milk, it's perfectly safe because it's fermented, which changes its molecular structure. Miso, natto and tempeh are also OK, but avoid tofu.

Dropping A 300lb. Safe On A Buick

2006-12-11T17:57:00.001-05:00

Test Post!!! Blogger switched me over to Blogger Beta (I see no difference in Blogger and Beta so far). Anywho, along with the switch went my abilty to post from YouTube (I tried to post this last night). Hope it's just as worth it today. Peace out everybody!

Green With Envy?

2006-12-09T09:11:00.000-05:00

Greenpeace released it's "Guide To Greener Electronics" list of tech companies and even I was surprised at which company was the worst polluter according to them:

7.3	Nokia - Good on all criteria, but needs clear timeline for PVC phase out for all applications.
7	Dell-Loses points for not having models free of the worst chemicals. Strong support for takeback.
6	Fujitsu-Siemens- High score on chemical policy, some models free of worst chemicals. But should improve takeback and recycling.
6	Motorola- Big improvement on all criteria, info on cleaner products, still to provide clear timelines for phase out of worst chemicals.
5.7	Sony Ericsson- Some models without the worst chemicals, provides timelines for chemicals phase out, but needs better chemicals policies and takeback reporting.
5.7	HP-Needs to do better on the chemicals criteria especially phase out timelines and greener products. High scores on takeback.
5.3	Acer- Improved chemical policies but no models free of the worst chemicals. Needs to improve on takeback.
5.3	Lenovo - Progress on most criteria but loses points for not having products free of the worst chemicals, on takeback and recycling.
5	Sony- Some models without the worst chemicals, loses point for inconsistent takeback policies.
4.3	Panasonic-Improved score but no commitment to eliminate BFRs, and poor on takeback.
4	LGE-Improved chemicals policies, but no cleaner products on the market, loses points for inconsistent takeback policies.
4	Samsung-Scores points for timelines for toxic phase out but poor on waste criteria. Loses points for inconsistent takeback policies.
3.7	Toshiba-Some models without the worst chemicals and reports on recycling, but no timelines for chemical phase out and poor on other waste criteria.
2.7	Apple-Low scores on almost all criteria and no progress.

That's right people. The "Rolls-Royce" of computer companies, the most innovative, hip, forward-thinking tech company on the planet appears not too concerned about the actual planet it does it's business on. For reference purposes, Greenpeace graded all companies on a 1-10 scale where 1 is "Monsanto" and 10 is "Utopia" (not the beer or the store, the mythical place of peace). And why, you may ask, was "Apple" graded so harshly? Lets take a look at a little of the actual report from the "Green My Apple" page at Greenpeace:

Apple products - sleek looks, amazing design, meticulous attention to detail. So what's with the toxic chemicals inside, short life spans and allowing their products to be dumped in Asia?
Right now, poison Apples full of chemicals (like toxic flame retardants, and polyvinyl chloride) are being sold worldwide. When they're tossed, they usually end up at the fingertips of children in China, India and other developing-world countries. They dismantle them for parts, and are exposed to a dangerous toxic cocktail that threatens their health and the environment...
Take the example of the toxic plastic Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC). Other companies have set a date to remove PVC from their products. Apple hasn't. Major new product lines like the iPod nano and MacBook still contain PVC.

And what does Stevie-Boy Jobs, Apple CEO, have to say about all this? Back in April 2005, Steve Jobs publicly called environmentalists' concerns about Apple "bullshit". Sweet. Now, I love Apple (in theory. I don't own anything Apple yet and it appears I will be waiting even longer for that 24 in. Cinema Screen iMac with Superdrive and built-in iSight) and like any geek, I love Jobs (along with Wozniak and Gates and Torvalds, the O.G.'s, if you will, of computing). But Steve, what the hell, man?

A Triumphant Return! (It's Two, Two, Two Posts In One!)

2006-12-08T11:36:00.000-05:00

Sound the horns, he arrives! I'm back people, better than ever before (and 100% ready to kick the lies of the day into submission and make them start screaming "Uncle" (that was probably too much, but I was on a roll)). Today, it seems the whole of the "blogosphere" is talking about the Iraq Study Group and how it will effect El Chimpo Supremo's policy. I, for one, will not pick it apart like everyone else (I have a different flounder to fry today) but here's a bit of my opinion as an appetizer: The problem with that line of thinking is you assume that the Iraq Study Group was formed with the intention to shape policy (and as we all know, the problem with assumptions is you end up making an ass out of you and of umption). The Iraq Study group was led by co-chairs James A. Baker, III, and Lee H. Hamilton and included such notable names as Edwin Meese III , Sandra Day O'Connor, Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Lawrence S. Eagleburger, Leon E. Panetta, William J. Perry, Charles S. Robb, and Alan K. Simpson. Now, with such powerful Clintonista names up there (such as Bill Perry, United States Secretary of Defense under President Bill Clinton, Vernon Jordan who is a friend of Bill (joke, if you get it), and Leon Panetta, White House Chief of Staff to Bill Clinton) the commission gives the appearance of being wholly bipartisan and fair. That is, until you glance over at the Chair and Co-Chair of the commission: James A. Baker (who really needs no explanation) and Lee H. Hamilton (who, as chair of the Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, chose not to investigate President Ronald Reagan or President George H. W. Bush, stating that he did not think it would be "good for the country" to put the public through another impeachment trial (a good "roll-over Dem" for the commission)). Interestingly enough, while the ISG report was certainly not intended as a policy tool, it interestingly came up with some fairly damning points (which have been all but ignored by the "mainstream media") such as the U.S. inaccurately depicting the "events on the ground." From the report (thank you Media Matters):

[T]here is significant under reporting of the violence in Iraq. The standard for recording attacks acts as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases. A murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack. If we cannot determine the source of a sectarian attack, that assault does not make it into the database. A roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn't hurt U.S. personnel doesn't count. For example, on one day in July 2006 there were 93 attacks or significant acts of violence reported. Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence. Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals.

Wow, that was longer than I thought it was going to be. Anywhoo, what I was going to write about today was an extremely under reported little tidbit that was alluded to by Rachel Maddow on yesterday's "Rachel Maddow Show" on Air America Radio and on the Democratic Party Blog (called "Kicking Ass," by the by). They both talked about a small piece on Forbes.com about how The Bush administration is considering doing away with health standards that cut lead from gasoline. Yeah, I had to read that twice too. Again:

The Bush administration is considering doing away with health standards that cut lead from gasoline.

Just in case any of you out there are confused as to why this is a big deal, here is a little info on lead from the repository of all web-based knowledge, Wikipedia:

Lead is a poisonous metal that can damage nervous connections (especially in young children) and cause blood and brain disorders. Long term exposure to lead or its salts (especially soluble salts or the strong oxidant PbO₂) can cause nephropathy, and colic-like abdominal pains...
Lead is a poisonous metal that can damage nervous connections (especially in young children) and cause blood and brain disorders. Long term exposure to lead or its salts (especially soluble salts or the strong oxidant PbO₂) can cause nephropathy, and colic-like abdominal pains.

Good-times. Cutting back on EPA standards is nothing new for the Bush administration (see: Clear Skies Initiative or the Healthy Forest Initiative or get it all at Bush Green Watch (great site)) but putting lead back into gas blows my mind (and will eventually probably cause brain damage in most of us, therefore, literally blowing our minds).

I Passed!

2006-12-06T21:39:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I done good. Now I have some mutant virus that's trying to kill me so catching up with politics is gonna take a few days. Bear with me though, this week is gonna be fun, I promise!

Not Done For Good, Just For A Few

2006-12-02T23:23:00.000-05:00

Hey guys. Last post until either Tuesday night or Wednesday morning (totally dependent on how I feel). If I pass my certification, you all will know by 3pm EST (test ends at 2). If I don't, I most probably will bury myself under something heavy and will post again from the hereafter (if you believe in that sort of thing). In any case, wish me luck, I'm out to change my life. Pax Vobis.

Are Cops Insane?

2006-12-02T01:25:00.000-05:00

You remember that line in "Fight Club," right after Tyler says "I want you to hit me as hard as you can," where he says "How much can you know about yourself, you've never been in a fight? I don't wanna die without any scars. So come on; hit me before I lose my nerve.(?)" Well, it appears that two eleven-year olds from Jonesboro Middle School in Atlanta were trying to become a little more "self-aware," as it were, when, after verbally warning the boy in the fight (yeah, a boy was fighting a girl. And, its worse than you think. The kid was a colossus) the armed security guard used the less lethal of the two side-arms she had and tased the boy. I repeat: A security guard at a Middle School Tasered an Eleven-Year Old BOY!! Best if you read the article from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and find out the even more surprising part for yourself:

An (sic) sixth-grade boy was tasered twice by a security officer Wednesday at Jonesboro Middle School when the officer tried to break up a fight between the boy and a sixth-grade girl in the school's administrative offices.
The 11-year-old boy who was tasered weighs about 200 pounds, according to school officials. He attacked an 11-year-old female classmate after the two of them had been taken to the front office to resolve a verbal argument that started during lunch and spilled over into the classroom.
In the presence of several adults, including the female armed security officer, the argument quickly got out of control.
"The male student literally jumped on the girl and started hitting her about the face and head," said Charles White, coordinator of communications for the Clayton County school system.
"He did not comply with directions to stop and physical efforts to pull him off the girl were unsuccessful," said White. "Finally, as a last resort, a school resource officer tasered the student in an effort to prevent further injury to the girl."
White said the boy and girl were separated and the boy attacked again and was tasered again by the officer, who is a city of Jonesboro police officer and carries the standard equipment of a pistol and a Taser, according to Jonesboro Police Sgt. Brad Johnson.
Both were treated for injuries at the scene, none of them serious, said White. The boy was arrested and charged with assault and battery and taken to a juvenile detention center, where he was later released in the custody of his mother.

Just to reiterate, the two incredibly shocking parts in this piece would be: Number One- He wasn't tasered once. He was tasered by a Police-Issue taser, shook it off after a few moments, and attacked the girl again and was promptly re-tasered (why only be tough when you can be stupid too?!) and Number Two- This eleven-year old boy was Two HUNDRED Pounds! Now, I know I am now overweight and I was overweight when I was eleven, but 200 lbs. (repeat: Two Hundred Pounds) is gigantic for an eleven-year old. So, lets be honest with ourselves, no eleven-year old deserves to be tasered for any reason ever. But, if I happened to actually taser an eleven year old, for whatever reason, and the little freak gets back up and starts swinging, I might be inclined to tase him again out of sheer terror.

The NTSA: Politically Correct Or Oil Propagandists?

2006-12-01T01:00:00.000-05:00

Hey guys. To be honest, I really want to post about the Jim Webb/George Bush "almost scuffle" that happened earlier this week but I can't find any media on it. When I do, you guys will be the second to know.
For now, here is a little gem from Olberman naming Linda Froschauer, president of the National Science Teachers Association, "Worst Person In The World" for rejecting a donation of 50,000 copies of "An Inconvenient Truth" from the movies producer, Laurie David. Not for not accepting the movies (heavens no. If I donated 50,000 copies of, say, "Debbie Does Dallas" to a Sex Ed organization, then I should be named "Worst" for the contrapositive). Read On:

Laurie David, co-producer of the Al Gore movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” and wife of the actor Larry David, tried to donate 50,000 DVD copies of the movie so science teachers could show their students.

She said they e-mailed back that they couldn’t accept the DVDs because, among other things, doing so would place, "unnecessary risk upon the National Science Teachers Association capital campaign," especially certain targeted supporters. Who might they be?

Who wouldn’t donate lots of money to the Science Teachers Association if it accepted copies of “An Inconvenient Truth?” Try Exxon Mobile and Shell, which had already donated millions to the association and the American Petroleum Institute, whose own movie the association happily accepted and distributed. It’s called “Fuel-Less, You Can’t Be Cool Without Fuel.”

I got Copernicus and Galileo on the phone. They say the Earth revolves around the sun. What hang up on them? All right, I’m sorry, we have taken millions from the Flat Earth Society. Linda Crosshauer, president of the National Science Teachers Association, available at the right price, Monday's Worst Person in the World.

General Batiste Flips On Matthews And Matthews Flips Right Back

2006-11-30T18:36:00.000-05:00

(Update: Did some legwork... Here you go:)

Background On Below: This is the conversation between General John Batiste and Chris Matthews on "Hardball" on May 30, 2006 where Batiste came out as against what we were doing over there, against the intelligence and extremely against Sec. Donald Rumsfield.

MAJOR GEN. JOHN BATISTE, U.S. ARMY (RET): I think the alleged atrocity at Haditha, the national disgrace at Abu Ghraib and the three years uncontrollable violence and chaos in Iraq can all be traced back to the bad decisions and leadership of our secretary of defense in 2003 and early 2004.

MATTHEWS: Is this the action of somebody who’s been over there too many tours?

BATISTE: This is the action, if it’s true, again, it’s alleged, of some frustrated Marines, could have been soldiers. We deployed without sufficient capability, without sufficient numbers of troops on the ground, to not only take down the regime, but then to do the hard work of building the peace in Iraq. We missed the boat on this totally.

MATTHEWS: How would more troops have prevented this?

BATISTE: You know, when you go in to this kind of peace enforcement operation and when you build the peace, it takes a large number of troops. It takes a mix of high technology and boots on the ground. The strategy that we had worked out within the military since 1991, which was not the plan to go back if to the Gulf War a la 1991. But this wonderful plan called for over 380,000 Americans, in addition to the Iraqi security forces to help build the peace, to stabilize the country, to secure the borders, to intimidate the insurgency, to get control of the place.
Why? Because you need to change attitudes. You need a secure environment to give the people of Iraq alternatives to the insurgency.

He goes on to say what just about every other Ret. General from the Armed Forces have been saying: flawed intelligence, flawed strategy, flawed war. The video above shows a slightly different General Batiste, one that incenses Chris Matthews to the point where I almost respect him. Watch and wonder, friends.

CNN - Florida Recount (11/14/06)

2006-11-29T23:39:00.000-05:00

Don't you just get simultaneous chills and Deja Vu when you hear that? "Florida Recount?" I had nightmares with "hanging chads" and "butterfly" ballots for months.

Chris Matthews Will Pull This Car Over Right Now Young Man!

2006-11-28T22:56:00.000-05:00

Matthews blows my mind. Is he a Right-Wing shill or does he just play one on TV? Any-who, here is Chris in all his Right-Wing, conspiratorial (what the hell is a synonym for "shill?") glory:

On the November 27 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews asserted that Democrats would not hasten the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by cutting off funding for the war because "they're not policymakers," and because "[t]hey don't want to be policymakers -- that's grown-up stuff." Matthews added that Democrats would "rather sit in the back seat and complain, 'Mommy, when we getting there?' " Matthews has previously mocked Democrats with this automotive reference.
As Media Matters for America noted, on the October 24 edition of Hardball, Matthews claimed that Democrats have not offered a specific plan for Iraq and then asked rhetorically: "Do you know what the difference is between a grown-up and a kid?" He then suggested that to be "grown up," Democrats would have to "sit in the front seat and drive the car."

US Involvement In Iraq Longer Than In WWII

2006-11-27T00:42:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, it was made official:
The war in Iraq has now lasted longer than the U.S. involvement in the war that President Bush's father fought in, World War II. As of Sunday, the conflict in Iraq has raged for three years and just over eight months. Only the Vietnam War (eight years, five months), the Revolutionary War (six years, nine months), and the Civil War (four years), have engaged America longer. With a war that has lasted this long, everyone should have an opinion and, dare I say, a stake in the outcome of the Iraqi occupation. Not so, says NY Times Op-Ed columnist Bob Herbert in a piece coming out today (from Atrios):

With no obvious personal stake in the war in Iraq, most Americans are indifferent to its consequences. In an interview last week, Alex Racheotes, a 19-year-old history major at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, said: “I definitely don’t know anyone who would want to fight in Iraq. But beyond that, I get the feeling that most people at school don’t even think about the war. They’re more concerned with what grade they got on yesterday’s test.”
His thoughts were echoed by other students, including John Cafarelli, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of New Hampshire, who was asked if he had any friends who would be willing to join the Army. “No, definitely not,” he said. “None of my friends even really care about what’s going on in Iraq.”
This indifference is widespread. It enables most Americans to go about their daily lives completely unconcerned about the atrocities resulting from a war being waged in their name. While shoppers here are scrambling to put the perfect touch to their holidays with the purchase of a giant flat-screen TV or a PlayStation 3, the news out of Baghdad is of a society in the midst of a meltdown.

White House Caught Doctoring "Mission Accomplished" Video

2006-11-26T17:34:00.000-05:00

Above is the original (mostly without sound. Sorry, can't find the whole thing anywhere). Georgie Poo spent a couple hundred thousand taxpayer dollars to pretend like he knows how to land a jet fighter, jump out in a flightsuit (with prerequisite cod-piece) and proclaim in front of a huge "Mission Accomplished" banner: "Mission Accomplished." At least, that's how most of us remember it. According to the "Whitehouse.Gov" website, that banner never existed (see it for yourself. It's kinda pitiful how they just cropped the video and didn't even do a fill or anything).

Kelly Ripa On The View

2006-11-26T13:08:00.000-05:00

It hasn't been that slow a news cycle that I have to rely on a "View" clip, but, as I find this intriguing, here is your daily slice. During the "Ripa" phone interview, Rosie makes a big deal about how the View never questioned Clay Aiken's sexuality when he was interviewed. Honestly, by first stating that a person's statement about someone else was homophobic, isn't the implication there that that person is, infact gay? That's the first thing. The other thing is, Rosie called Clay a "Gay man" moments before this interview. So, in fact, the View never questioned Clay's sexuality. They simply stated he was Gay.

Six Imams Kicked Off US Air Flight

2006-11-23T01:49:00.000-05:00

I'm sure you've all heard of this, but, just to set the record straight, these six Imams were praying in the waiting room before the flight (something I do before every flight. I'm not good with airplane food) not on the plane as was first reported. Anyway, I guess that some suspicion can be a healthy thing so, one could almost forgive U.S. Air for detaining them for questioning at first. But when the next day rolled around and they all checked out okay then why, exactly, did U.S. Air find it necessary to deny them the opportunity to buy tickets on another flight? Were some of their bigotted, racist clients afraid of a few turbans? I think that, instead of inconveniencing these poor people a moment longer, U.S. Air should have attempted to offer them some courtesy. After all, they are paying customers. And, honestly, would they have made this big a fuss if a group of Rabbis or Christian Priests were praying loudly? (Some of those midwestern priests can be creepy though. Kinda like "Children of the Corn" or "The Hills Have Eyes" creepy)

Just One More Thing

2006-11-21T13:34:00.000-05:00

I know I said I wasn't gonig to post too much while I'm studying for my certification, but this is too important. Does anyone remember William Jefferson ("D"-LA)? You know, the only Democrat fingered in the past few years for actual corruption charges (still pending) for telling an investor to give him $100,000 (on videotape) to bribe a Nigerian official (The FBI found $90,000 of the money, all of it in marked bills, in the freezer of Jefferson's Capitol Hill home)? Well, it appears we have a chance to actually "drain the swap" as Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) so aptly said we would on October 6th. There is going to be a runoff election against Mr. Jefferson (save your George and Wheezy jokes until after the post, please) on December 9th with a fellow Democrat, Karen Carter. This should come as a lesson to those that would do Democracy harm while lining there own pockets: real Democrats, as opposed to today's Republicans, will not stand for it, even in the ranks of their own party.

The Lessons Of Vietnam

2006-11-21T13:22:00.000-05:00

Most of you have probably seen this clip or have at least heard that "President" Bush, to escape criticism for his failed war in Iraq escaped for a few days to Vietnam (I wish that the irony wasn't lost on the neo-cons). Anyway, while he was there, he said that the lesson of Vietnam is that we'll lose if we quit too soon. Anyone who followed that war will tell you that it's obvious this is his first trip there. Those that have visited Vietnam previously may have a different take on it: Maybe the only way to get people interested in what's happening is to make them sacrifice. That's the take of Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) has taken since before 2004 (by actually introducing legislation in the form of H.R. 163). His view is that the war in Vietnam was so staunchly opposed and only ended as soon as it did because of the draft. He, therefore, proposes that the draft be reinstated. While his first attempt only garnered his resolution two "yea" votes (against 402 "nay" votes and a score of abstentions) he has pledged to push through this legislation until everyone must sacrifice for this war. In case you're wondering I am a pacifist, but, if necessary to end this war, I'm not running to Canada.

McCain Flip-Flops On Everything

2006-11-20T10:03:00.000-05:00

The video above is of John McCain on Meet The Press On November 11th of this year where he posits the theory that the only way to save Iraq is to send 20,000 more troops. Now, just this last week, he flips and says that doing so would be disasterous:

Today on ABC’s This Week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) acknowledged that his plan to escalate the Iraq war by sending at least 20,000 more troops “would it put a terrible strain on the Army and Marine Corps.” “Absolutely, it would be terrible,” he said, “we’re going to be asking people to go back again and again, maybe even extend their tours.” McCain said he “saw a broken Army in 1973″ and didn’t want to see another.

Video is at Think Progress.

2006-11-19T23:25:00.000-05:00

The Daily Show on Troop Levels and Glenn Beck

This is me cheaping out for the next week or so. Certification time is coming, so, until I get my A+ lapel pin, this is what you guys get. Sorry, but I gotta put food on my family.

2006-11-19T02:14:00.000-05:00

UCLA Student Tasered by Police in Library

I wasn't going to post this because I don't like promoting the rubberneck mentality (and I assumed everyone with a computer and a right hand had already seen this footage) but, I got to actually watching this and was horrified. And what, pray tell, was I horrified at, dear reader? Well, I was alive during Rodney King, the LA Riots, the OJ trial, and a whole bunch of East Coast stuff on top of that so I expect police brutality. What I didn't expect to see was somewhere on the order of three to four hundred students simply watching this as it took place. I can't say I'd act different because I wasn't there, but, in my head, while I was watching, I started throwing after the first set of screams. UCLA students, you may pick up your balls at the door as you leave.

America: The New Zion?

2006-11-18T14:03:00.000-05:00

First, a big thanks to xDarnokx for finding new things to outrage me every day (my ulcers love you). Second, what I'm talking about: Sent to me by xDarnokx is a link to a book being sold by Artisan Publishers called "The USA In Bible Prophecy, A Sermon Preached To The U.S. Congress in 1837." From this sermon, an entirely new school of thought had arisen: that the founding fathers intended that the United States be the new Zion or the "Regathered Israel." I was boggled. Here's a little bit of the write up at Artisan:

This book clearly shows that America (Zion) is the land set aside by God Almighty to be the place of regathered Israel. Sermons and documents by the Founding Fathers testify to their belief that they were the Israel people of the latter days, and that the Old Testament prophecies were being fulfilled in their undertakings. It would be wise for us who are living in these last days to take a closer look at the past generations of our great nation to relearn what they knew about America's critical role in Bible prophecy.

Now, I haven't bought the book and have not checked it out of my local library, so I cannot attest to the "revised and expanded" part, but, seeing as everything said before Congress is a matter of public record, I decided to read the actual sermon read by Rev. F. E. Pitts (an unfortunate name that ended his Vaudeville career only too soon). Pitts spoke, literally, for hours so, although a summary can't do this whole concept justice, a summary it will have to be (full text available here):

...The "fifth government" in the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, or the stone kingdom, symbolizes our great nationality. ... The absurdity of applying the "stone kingdom" to Christianity is so very obvious, it is indeed remarkable that the learned should endorse such an opinion. The stone could not symbolize Christianity,
1. Because it did not arise at the proper time for Christianity...
2. The stone kingdom did not arise in the proper place for Christianity...
But there was a land, my countrymen, where the Roman cohorts were never marshaled -- a land that Heaven had concealed from the cupidity and ambition of her conquering armies. That land is our own beloved America, the only portion of the globe, beyond the limits of ancient Rome, where a great nationality, in its constitution, character, and mission, could possibly answer the true meaning of the fifth symbolic kingdom that the God of heaven would set up.

This whole idea jibes so well with the concept of "One Nation, Under God," that it seems the "Judeo-Christain Nation" train will be riding the "God's America" rails fairly soon.
One problem with that: America was started by a bunch of heathens. That's right, George Washington was not the kind of Christian you'd find in a church. On the contrary, he worshipped the Creator of the church. George Washington and a third of the signatories to the Constitution were believed to be Freemasons, a religion that was condemned by Pope Clement XII in a Papal Bull published January, 1759. So famous a Mason was George Washington, that, just a mile from the Potomac River, in Alexandria, Virginia and overlooking the nation's capitol, stands the 333 ft. George Washington Masonic National Memorial on historic Shooters Hill.
In Washington's published papers, he makes hundreds of references to "The Grand Architect" and not one reference to Jesus Chirist or Christianity. Also, "The Great Seal" (printed on the one dollar bill) designed to represent our fledgling nation was Mason inspired (the All-Seeing Eye, the Great Pyramid, the Six-Pointed Star, the Eagle, the phrases Annuit Coeptis and Novus Ordo Seclorum, and the motto E Pluribus Unum are all taken from Freemasonry).
So, what does all this mean, really. To those who believe in the "Christian Roots" of our country, not much really.
They will believe what they want to, come Hell or high water

2000th Hit!

2006-11-17T13:42:00.000-05:00

Today was the day folks! Today, this blog became approximately as popular as the listing for "POTENTIAL INCOME $4800 A HOUSE NEAR DETROIT" on eBay. That's right folks, all 380ish readers of this blog have pushed us to the 2000 hit mark! Thanks to all those who enjoy this blog and a double thanks to those who visit because I drive them crazy. Oh and thanks to my parents, my loving wife (who's always supported me), the law offices of Binder & Binder, my agent, and God the almighty father. This one's for you, Pop!

Glenn Beck Shames CNN

2006-11-17T11:28:00.000-05:00

Not what everyone is talking about, but what everyone should be talking about. Glen Beck accused an elected official of being a radical extremist because he's Muslim. Not only is that just a hair shy of being McCarthyist, but, with that kind of logic, shouldn't he ask every Christian guest to prove that he or she isn't a radical extremist Christian that bombs abortion clinics? I can't believe this guy is on TV much less on the station that used to be the bastion of truth and fairness in reporting. CNN, you're on notice.

The Forgotten

2006-11-16T12:24:00.000-05:00

Sorry I missed yesterday guys. The time just slipped away from me. Anyhoo, it looks like it's going to be a good day for the new speaker-elect, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and for the new majority-leader elect, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer (and for most Democrats, really. The stories about "infighting" and "conflict" within the party seemed to be starting some actual conflict and infighting) and an even better day for the Democratic party. It appears that the Dems have now officially shut-out the Republican s, who didn't pick up a single governorship or seat in the House or Senate (it's now "official" because Dem Rep. John Barrow has officially won reelection to his Georgia Congressional seat). One person who will not be celebrating along with us, however, would be Jose Padilla. Anyone remember him? Yeah, his name is familiar to most people, but, to most people, there not really sure why. Here's a little refresher from the repository of all web knowledge, Wikipedia (corrections are in parentheses):

Jose Padilla, also known as Abdullah al-Muhajir is a U.S. citizen of Puerto Rican descent accused of being a terrorist by the United States government. He was arrested in Chicago on May 8, 2002, and remains in detention in a military prison (has been transferred to a civilian prison and is awaiting trial). For the first three years of his detention he was held without charge; he is now charged with "conspiracy to murder, kidnap, and maim people overseas (he was originally charged with conspiracy to detonate a "dirty-bomb" within the United States. No mention of when, where or with whom appears to exist)

It gets even more complicated folks, buckle up:

The case was refiled and a decision in Padilla's favor was issued in the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina. On June 13, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the government's petition to have his case heard directly by the court, instead of the appeal being first heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia. On September 9, 2005, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that President Bush does indeed have the authority to detain Padilla without charges, in an opinion written by judge J. Michael Luttig, the "Coservative Superstar" judge appointed by Bush's daddy.

In the interest of time, I'll skip some of the legalese to bring us to present day and, why exactly, Mr. Padilla isn't the happiest of clams today:

Padilla's lawyers last month asked a federal judge to dismiss the terror support charges against him based on their allegations that he suffered from "outrageous government conduct" while in military custody for more than 1,300 days. They claimed Padilla's interrogators threatened to execute him, and forced him to wear a hood and stand in stress positions for long periods of time.
He was transferred to civilian custody in January to face federal terrorism support charges along with two others in Miami. Trial on those charges, which do not mention the "dirty bomb" allegations, is scheduled to begin Jan. 22.

Prosecutors appear to have the advantage in this case and it seems that Mr. Padilla's motion for dismissal based on his claims of "outrageous government conduct," will be denied. The problem with this case is: before I mentioned it, who of us remembered him? How many people have been disappeared by our government and how do we get them back? This should be on the very short list of things we must focus on in the Democratic majority's first hundred hours. Thousands of lives may depend on it.

Real Protest Music

2006-11-16T00:00:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure if I just "mused" this aloud or if I wrote about it earlier, but: where is all the protest music? I mean, sure, there's Neil Young ("Let's Impeach The President") and "The Dixie Chicks" (who are pretty much a set of three walking protest songs (see "Shut Up And Sing!")), but, why is everyone else afraid to have their voices heard? During the 1960's, while a solid majority of Americans still supported the Vietnam War (1965- 54% including more than 60% of people under 30) Bob Dylan started the revolution with a little song called "Blowin' in the Wind." Then came other icons like Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Pete Seeger, Woodie Guthrie, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Joe Cocker (to name a few). So, where is all the music today? With a solid majority of Americans against the war, what, exactly, are musicians afraid of? Well, maybe the music is out there, it's just being muffled:

"Why Neil Young Is Wrong" -By Stephan Smith-Said
On Sunday, May 14, the San Francisco Chronicle published my open letter to Neil Young, "Hey, Neil Young, We Young Singers Are Hog-tied, Too." I tried to explain how the corporatized music industry has censored protest music in the past several years. The letter went viral on the Internet, and I was flooded with enthusiastic responses from all kinds of people. Even Neil and his team posted it front and center on his blog for the entire week...
MTV, which has refused to play anti-war videos even by the biggest stars, published an article addressing the need for political consciousness in mainstream music. In a flourish of Bush-like hubris, one of the country's chief purveyors of military recruitment ads to youth posted the article, "Where Is the Voice of Protest in Today's Music?" The webpage boasted an Army video game in the bottom right corner. (MTV, by the way, refuses to air anti-war ads produced by organizations like Not in Our Name and Win without War.)

Where's the voice of protest? It's in MTV's trash can.

Is this really true? Do MTV and Viacom and all three other media outlets (not a joke) think that anti-war music can't even sell to a public that is not only mostly, but truely, stunningly anti-war? I mean, in all honesty, I have been starving for real intellectual music. I think this country is ready for music that makes us think, don't you. Instead we get songs like "Fergi-licious" and "Wind It Up," both by vapid, vacuous, flesh-pockets who seem to have but one talent and that's (not singing) dressing in clothing four sizes to small and not suffocating. We need real music that really reflects our society. And in steps Josh Hisle, an ex-Marine Iraq war vet who, though not explicitly anti-war is overtly anti-Iraq-war, pro-bringing his friends home not in a body bag, and who already has a sort of mini-cult following (it's hard to get people to hear your music when stations treat it like radioactive materiel). Here's part of the write-up he got at the AC360 blog:

"How the Iraq war changed a Marine"
It isn't unusual to hear songs these days questioning war and violence. What is unusual is to have them written and performed by a Marine veteran with combat experience. Josh Hisle is a 24-year-old former Marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq. He says he did not try to keep count of the number of people he may have killed in battle. Make no mistake. Hisle doesn't regret his service and he fully supports the military. But after spending time at war, he's begun to wonder what impact the United States is having in Iraq.

What's missing in that piece is the most important thing about Hisle: He's good at what he does. He has a good voice, knows his way around a fret-board and has already figured out what it takes most musicians their whole careers to learn: it's all about you. He writes music that touches his soul and in doing so, he manages to touch everyone else's hearts.

America's Home-Grown Terrorists

2006-11-14T13:47:00.000-05:00

America

loves America, don't we? We love apple pie, baseball and anything with the "Made In The USA" label on it. Except, it seems, our terrorists. Our terrorists seemingly need to be imported, preferably from the Middle East (or some other predominantly brown-skinned country), or the media ignores them. Take this little tid-bit from "Countdown" about a terrorist scare that involved Keith Olbermann, Jon Stewart, Dave Letterman, and a whole host of other Liberal-ish media figures (including Viacom's chairman Sumner M. Redstone) that was all but left out of the news cycle. The only real news item I could find on it was in "The Gulf Times" (a news site out of Qatar!):

"A California man suspected of mailing threatening letters containing a suspicious white powder to celebrities and US politicians has been arrested and could face federal charges yesterday, the FBI said.
Investigators identified Chad Castagana, 39, of Woodland Hills, California, as the person suspected of sending more than a dozen threatening letters to media outlets and the homes of public figures in various cities, the FBI said in a statement on Sunday evening.
According to a federal search warrant, among those who received threatening letters were Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's The Daily Show; talk show host David Letterman; Keith Olbermann of MSNBC; Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, who is set to become Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, both Democrats.
The document, filed on Friday in United States District Court in Los Angeles, said multiple people in various cities, including New York and San Francisco, received letters over the past three months that contained an unknown white powder and various written threats."

This brings up a salient point: why can't we deal with our own terrorists? Great Britain didn't ignore their terrorists and they have learned to deal with them (as a law-enforcement issue, thank you very much). And in GB all of their terrorists look just like them. What is wrong with us that we can't admit that white males not only commit the majority of violent crimes, white people are also a solid percentage of all terrorist acts (not including acts of "terrorism" on Iraqi soil. Most of that can be considered sectarian violence, or as I like to call it: part of a "Civil War"). In fact, modern terrorism is purported to have been invented by the British Special Operations Executive (During WWII, the mission of the SOE was to encourage and facilitate espionage and sabotage behind enemy lines and to serve as the core of a resistance movement in Britain itself in the possible event of an Axis invasion).
This piece by Alternet.Org (reposted from Newsday) asks the question: why aren't we talking about the anti-abortion terrorism that's been happening on our own soil since 1977?

After 9/11, Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights groups received 554 envelopes containing white powder and messages like: "You have been exposed to anthrax. ... We are going to kill all of you." They were signed by the Army of God, a group that hosts Scripture-filled web pages for "Anti-Abortion Heroes of the Faith," including minister Paul Hill, Michael Griffin and James Kopp, all convicted of murdering abortion providers, and a convicted clinic bomber, the Rev. Michael Bray. Another of their "martyrs," Clayton Waagner, mailed anthrax letters while a fugitive on the FBI's 10 most wanted list for anti-abortion related crimes.
"I am a terrorist," Waagner declared on the Army of God's web site. Boasting that God "freed me to make war on his enemy," he claimed he knew where 42 Planned Parenthood workers lived. "It doesn't matter to me if you're a nurse, receptionist, bookkeeper, or janitor, if you work for the murderous abortionist, I'm going to kill you."
That's textbook terrorism, defined by the USA Patriot Act as dangerous criminal acts that "appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population" or "to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion."

The article goes on to list more incidences of anti-abortion American terrorists and how the anti-abortion movement has wreaked havoc on working-class healthcare all over the country. Now, any time you talk about American terrorism you have to mention the most surprising and puzzling of all the homegrown terrorists: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing. McVeigh, who was a registered Republican in New York and was a member of the National Rifle Association while in the military, was openly proud about his American heritage. However, the answer to this mystery may lie in this: McVeigh experimented with methamphetamines. Many of his associations leading up to the years of the bombing were involved in heavy math use and/or manufacture. (Methamphetamine use is associated with paranoid ideations). So first order of business in protecting the "homeland?" I'd say ban pseudo ephedrine. Then we'll only have the ideological terrorists to deal with and not the incidental paranoid schizophrenics.

Is Lieberman Just A Horse Of Many Colors?

2006-11-13T23:19:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know that makes no sense no matter how you interpret it. What I mean is: Is Joe going to show his true colors and turn Republican? This is a hard question to get behind because Joe Keeps on waffling, see-sawing, and flip-flopping his way down the halls of Congress to the point where he's starting to look like he's running for President again (which I'm pretty sure he hasn't ruled out yet.

Four days after calling his party affiliation a "closed issue," U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman said Sunday he was "not ruling it out" that he could turn Republican. He told NBC's "Meet the Press" he will return to Washington as an "Independent Democrat" - "capital I, capital D." But the R is lurking.
"I'm not ruling it out," he said, "but I hope I don't get to that point. And, I must say, and with all respect to the Republicans who supported me in Connecticut, nobody ever said, `We're doing this because we want you to switch over.'"

Honestly, what would make anyone "get to that point" anyway? Is he telling us not to push him around or something? Listen up Lieberman: You were put in office by Republicans because you didn't respect us enough to listen to your own party. They didn't want you because you are a Zell Miller, Reagan Democrat who is a hair's breadth away from telling us "I didn't leave my party..." If there wasn't so much at stake here I would simply tell you to go f**k yourself (if it's good enough for Cheney...) but since the free world is in the balance, I will simply wait my turn, move from Long Island to Fairfield, Connecticut and personally assist in the Lieberman-ectomy in six years. Joe, you are a cancer on Democracy and real Democrats will have you removed as soon as possible.

2006-11-12T01:21:00.000-05:00

Is Nothing Sacred?

One more post about Veteran's Day. CNN showed a few clips of U.S. Soldiers in Iraq saying hi and sending messages to their families yesterday. As you watch this clip, pay close attention to what they're standing in front of. If you guessed it was a 1/100th scale replica of the TWIN TOWERS you are correct! Well, at least now the Bush administration can say there is a link between the Twin Towers and Iraq and not be lying.

Shouldn't We Honor All Veterans?

2006-11-11T13:41:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, November 9th, was the day before Veteran's Day (yes, oddly enough it falls on a Saturday this year) and George bush commemorated it by visiting the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia to celebrate the Marine Corps 231st "birthday." President Bush also used the occasion to award, posthumously, the Medal of Honor to Corporal Jason Dunham and preceded to tell the story of how Corporal Dunham saved his fellow Marines with a supreme act of bravery:

"When a nearby Marine convoy was ambushed, Corporal Dunham led his squad to the site of the attack, where he and his men stopped a convoy of cars that were trying to make an escape. As he moved to search one of the vehicles, an insurgent jumped out and grabbed the Corporal by the throat. The Corporal engaged the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. At one point he shouted to his fellow Marines, "No, no, no, watch his hand." Moments later, an enemy grenade rolled out. Corporal Dunham did not hesitate; he jumped on the grenade to protect his fellow Marines, he used his helmet and his body to absorb the blast."

A moving story about a brave young man who deserves to be honored for giving his life for his country. I, for one, believe everyone who dies in service to the United States deserves this kind of honor. I have one problem though: I cannot believe anything that comes out of George Bush's mouth. Anyone but he should've told that story. Corporal Dunham's friends, his Mother, his Brother, just anyone would've done such a heroic story more justice than Bush. Now before you ditto-heads start whipping out the pitchforks and storming the castle I must remind you of two "stories" that have helped my absence of belief in the "President:" Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman (that shut you all up pretty quick). For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past five years, I will go into further detail.
According to initial reports, Jessica Dawn Lynch (PFC) in the United States Army, was a prisoner of war of the Iraqi military in the 2003 invasion of Iraq who was rescued by United States forces on April 1, 2003. Lynch, then a 19-year-old supply clerk with the 507th Maintenance Company (based in Fort Bliss, Texas), was injured and captured by Iraqi forces after her group made a wrong turn and was subsequently ambushed on March 23, 2003 near Nasiriyah, a major crossing point over the Euphrates River northwest of Basra. Eleven other soldiers in her company were killed in the ambush. This is where things start to get fuzzy. Accounts of the events in between Lynch's capture and her rescue are incomplete and contradictory, and Lynch herself has no clear recollection of this period. Though According to the U.S. Defense Department, Private Lynch was never taken against her will or was ever held as a prisonor and to this day the Pentagon has never classified Jessica Lynch as a P.O.W. Pentagon statements claimed that Lynch emptied her rifle fighting off her attackers, later reports and Lynch herself indicated that this was not the case; in fact her rifle jammed on the first round and she did not offer any resistance to her capture.
And, who could forget Pat Tillman. In May 2002, eight months after the September 11, 2001 attacks and after completing the fifteen remaining games of the 2001 season which followed the attacks (at a salary of $512,000 per year). Tillman turned down a contract offer of $3.6 million over three years from the Cardinals to enlist in the U.S. Army.
His unit, according to the Army, was attacked in an apparent ambush on a road outside of the village of Sperah about twenty-five miles (forty km) southwest of Khost, near the Pakistan border. An Afghan militia soldier was killed, and two other Rangers were injured as well. The U.S. Department of Defense concluded that Pat Tillman's death was due to friendly fire aggravated by the intensity of the firefight. It was later learned that, in fact, no hostile forces were involved in the firefight and that two allied groups fired on each other in confusion over an exploded mine or remote controlled bomb. U.S. Army Special Operations Command, however, initially claimed that there was an exchange with hostile forces. A later investigation conducted by Brigadier General Jones found that the Army was slow to correct the story of a hostile exchange of fire after learning that it was false. Tillman's family was not informed of the finding that he was killed by friendly fire until weeks after his memorial service, although at least some senior Army officers knew of that fact prior to the service. Tillman's parents have sharply criticized the Army's handling of the incident; they charge that the Army was more concerned about protecting its image and its recruiting efforts than about telling the truth.

Georgie Said It: Let's Get Busy!

2006-11-10T22:04:00.000-05:00

Congratulations people on taking back your country. Now get back to work! I mean it (kinda, but not in a yelling, Republican way or anything). No time to rest on your laurels people, Bush has two months to steal even more from our country, which, he has stated, he firmly intends to do. I can't find the actual transcript anywhere, so I will quote from a news source called "KUNA," a Kuwati News site of all things (parentheses are mine):

" "It is our responsibility to put the elections behind us and work together on the great issues facing America," Bush said. "Some of these issues need to be addressed before the current Congress finishes its legislative session, and that means the next few weeks are going to be busy ones." The first order of business is for Congress to complete work on federal spending bills for this year "with strong fiscal discipline and without diminishing our capacity to fight the war on terror," Bush said (translation: must fill Cheney's pockets and make the Democrats look like wienies). "Another important priority in the war on terror is for the Congress to pass the Terrorist Surveillance Act"(The 'Warrantless Wiretapping Bill'). The President also called for passage of bipartisan energy legislation (bipartisan meaning both Exxon-Mobil and ConocoPhillips), as well as legislation to "allow us to cooperate with India on civilian nuclear technology (yay, Mangoes!), and pass trade legislation that will enable us to recognize Vietnam as a member of the WTO (I got nothing for that one. I just assume it will take 30 years to admit Iraq to the WTO also)" "

More of Bush cramming in last minute legislation (taken from a dispatch by George W. Bush to Congress on November 9, 2006):

Notice: Continuation of the National Emergency with Respect to Iran

On November 14, 1979, by Executive Order 12170, the President declared a national emergency with respect to Iran pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701-1706) to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States constituted by the situation in Iran. Because our relations with Iran have not yet returned to normal, and the process of implementing the January 19, 1981, agreements with Iran is still underway, the national emergency declared on November 14, 1979, must continue in effect beyond November 14, 2006. Therefore, consistent with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing for 1 year this national emergency with respect to Iran.

Sounds irritatingly boilerplate, I know. Most people who are familiar with this piece of legislation know that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) is one of those subjective bits of law that no one talks about but everyone can be affected by. In fact, there have been accusations that Dick Cheney violated the IEEPA when a subsidiary of Halliburton Corporation opened an office in Tehran, Iran, while Cheney was CEO of that company and the Department of Justice has brought IEEPA charges against Americans who traveled to Iraq in advance of the 2003 invasion to act as human shields, on the basis that they spent money while in Iraq.
In any case, the original Executive Order authorized by the IEEPA which was signed by President Carter in 1979 in response to the Iran-Hostage crisis had been revoked by Executive Order 12282 in 1981 and the "normalization process," supposedly, has been taking place ever since (twenty-five years? How abnormal were they, do you think?). So, actually, President Bush has no power to "extend" the "national emergency" with respect to Iran because it had "ended" 25 years ago. He does, however, have the power to declare a new national emergency concerning Iran, if he so chooses. So why, do you think, he wouldn't. No one is really paying attention right now. Everyone is talking about the Democrats and how Conservative they are and how Left-Wingers like me are being left out in the cold. And, honestly, with an official national emergency, Bush needn't convince congress to impose new sanctions on Iran to provoke them into war. I am puzzled, but I will be keeping an ear to the ground, folks (if you all hear anything that I haven't printed, feel free to tell me. The suggestion box is linked permanently in the upper-right hand corner of the blog).

Today's Dedicated To You, Rummy

2006-11-09T11:08:00.000-05:00

Now, I promised myself I wouldn't cry (tears of joy, that is), but I do feel that, today only, we can wax nostalgic on all the wonderful quoatables given us by Mr. Donald Rumsfeld. We will miss, if not you, at least your abuse of the English language. Here's to you Rummy:

"I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started."

"We do know of certain knowledge that he [Osama Bin Laden] is either in Afghanistan, or in some other country, or dead."

"Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war."

"Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things." –on looting in Iraq after the U.S. invasion, adding "stuff happens"

"I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my business to do intelligent work." -asked to estimate the number of Iraqi insurgents while testifying before Congress

"I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think, and, well, I assume it's what I said."

"Needless to say, the President is correct. Whatever it was he said."

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

"If I said yes, that would then suggest that that might be the only place where it might be done which would not be accurate, necessarily accurate. It might also not be inaccurate, but I'm disinclined to mislead anyone."

"There's another way to phrase that and that is that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. It is basically saying the same thing in a different way. Simply because you do not have evidence that something does exist does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist." -on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction

"It is unknowable how long that conflict [the war in Iraq] will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." -in Feb. 2003

"I don't know what the facts are but somebody's certainly going to sit down with him and find out what he knows that they may not know, and make sure he knows what they know that he may not know."

"I'm not into this detail stuff. I'm more concepty."

"If I know the answer I'll tell you the answer, and if I don't, I'll just respond, cleverly."

Election Results... Sort Of

2006-11-08T11:11:00.000-05:00

Good morning everyone. Last night was a real nail-biter but it appears the Democrats have cleaned up in the house (approximately a 35 seat lead) won the majority of Governor's races and may have won the Senate as well (Missouri and Virginia are still too close to call with Democrats ahead in both elections and with "99%" of the vote in). I didn't sleep. Don't know about you, but I'm still flipping out. A friend of mine called me last night and invited me to a movie in the city (at the Angelika Theater, an awesome independant theater in the Village). So I figured, why the hell not, get away from all of the stress for a little while and hang out with a good friend I hadn't seen forever. I had a great time, however, we didn't get far away from the stress. We saw "Jesus Camp." That movie freaked me out even more, and so, I didn't sleep. I watched election returns until 4 am and decided no one would know anything until tommorrow, so I tried to sleep. Instead I drifted back to the vision in my head that was on a continous loop. In the movie, a woman whom I don't know her name, who is in charge of the Evangelical youth ministry starts yelling at the top of her lungs "This Means WAR, This Means WAR, This Means WAR..." over and over and over. This, mind you, is at a children's bible camp.

Trouble At The Polls

2006-11-07T10:56:00.000-05:00

Reprinted from CNN's Political Ticker:

Missouri's chief elections official said Monday she was asked for photo identification at the voting booth despite a court ruling striking down the requirement.

"I'm guessing this may be happening in other parts of the state," warned Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, a Democrat who had opposed Republican efforts to mandate a photo ID in Missouri.

She said that a worker at the St. Louis Election Board asked her three times to show photo ID when she went to cast an absentee ballot Friday. Carnahan said that she tried to explain a photo ID was not necessary, but that the election worker replied that she was instructed to ask for one anyway. Carnahan said she eventually was allowed to vote without displaying a photo identification.

"To have that experience personally was very troubling," she said. The Missouri Supreme Court last month upheld a lower court's ruling overturning a law that would have required voters to show a photo ID issued by the state or federal government.

Virginia election officials expressed concern Monday over reports of deceptive phone calls made to voters ahead of Tuesday's midterm elections, but were hesitant to launch an immediate investigation for fear of politicizing the vote.

James Alcorn, policy advisor for the Virginia State Board of Elections, said the board had notified the U.S. Department of Justice and the state's attorney general's office, but that neither state nor federal officials were likely to "get involved" until after the election. The immediate response to the allegations, he said, was voter education. Alcorn said the state board had received a "handful" of calls and complaints about alleged deceptive phone calls made to potential voters. Jean Jensen, secretary of the board, said it had received two notarized complaints, one from a voter in Arlington and the second from a man in North Hampton.

Neither Alcorn nor Jensen described the types of phone calls the voters received, but the campaign of Jim Webb, the Democratic candidate in the Senate race against Republican incumbent George Allen, detailed two such calls to voters in those places.

2006-11-07T10:50:00.000-05:00

Jean Schmidt (R-OH) Find's Out What It's Like To Be A Democrat

I love YouTube. Of course the first "reported" problems are coming out of Ohio (the golden child of Republican Hell-Spawn Kenneth Blackwell). Next up: Palm Beach county. Keep an eye out folks, this is just the beginning. Oh and hey, anyone remember the county in Ohio that registered three (3) times the number of registered voters as votes for George W. Bush in 2004? Yeah, that was the technological equivalent of ballot stuffing, which appears to be happening in Daggett County, Utah which has registered 947 new voters for today's election. According to the most recent Census figures, that's four more people than the county's population in 2005.

INFORMATION FOR ALL VOTERS

2006-11-07T00:51:00.000-05:00

BEFORE YOU VOTE:

Visit the "League of Women Voters" organized website called "Smart Voter." There you can put in your street address and zip code and get a list of all the candidates running in every election in your district. Now, I am not going to tell you what to do or how to vote, but to help with the organization of a viable third-party (be it Green Party or Working Families Party or Independent) these parties need votes. So what I'm doing is looking at the names of each candidate I am voting for and I am voting for them under the third-party ticket that supports it. If you still don't get what I'm saying, I will simplify it for you. Elliot Spitzer is running for Governor of the State of NY as a Democrat. However, he is also being supported by both the Independence Party and the Working Families Party. So, first you can do a little homework on which of those parties you like better, then if you choose, you can vote for Spitzer not as a Democrat but as a, say, Working Families Party candidate. With "Democrats" like Joe Lieberman out there it's pretty obvious we need more choices than just RepubliCrat and DemoCan.

Last Minute Information For All Voters

2006-11-07T00:24:00.000-05:00

Remember today that you are not only voting back your freedom. No, my friends, you are also voting on ballot initiatives with names like the "Civil Rights" initiative, which if it passes, all forms of affirmative action in Michigan will be banned. As you can see, a little education seems to be in order. Since I'm living in New York, things are relatively simple for me (we have one ballot initiative I am aware of to spend more money on saving wetlands) For the rest of you, thank God for the Initiative & Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California's Ballotwatch. Here are a few states to watch:
South Dakota. In an effort to create a test case for the U. S. Supreme Court to reverse Roe v. Wade, the South Dakota legislature passed a law banning abortion in early 2006. Abortion rights activists promptly collected enough signatures to hold a referendum on the new law, in which the people will have the option to repeal the law. This election will be watched closely by pro-choice and pro-life activists nationwide. A Mason-Dixon poll in late July showed voters are leaning toward repeal of the ban by an 8% margin.
Arizona. The busiest state this year with 19 measures, Arizona is a microcosm of the national landscape. The ballot contains a marriage amendment (Prop 107), an eminent domain measure (Prop 207), a proposal to increase the minimum wage (Prop 202), competing anti-smoking measures (Props 201, 206), and competing land conservation measures (Props 105, 106). There is also a cluster of issues placed on the ballot by the legislature focusing on illegal immigration. Prop 300 would deny state services to illegal aliens, Prop 100 would deny them bail in certain circumstances, Prop 102 would prohibit them from receiving punitive damages in lawsuits, and Prop 103 declares English the state's official language. Two somewhat unusual initiatives are also on the Arizona ballot. Prop 200 would award $1 million to a random voter each general election as a way to increase turnout, and Prop 204 would require farmers to provide pregnant pigs and calves a certain minimal amount of living space.
California. 13 propositions are on the ballot in the Golden State, down from the historical average of 18 in even-numbered years, but those measures propose combined spending of close to $50 billion, almost all of it with borrowed money. Topping the list are five bond issues authorizing the state to borrow a combined $43 billion. The money is dedicated to highways and roads (Prop 1B), school buildings (Prop 1D), water projects (Prop 1E, 84), and low-income housing (Prop 1C). A citizen initiative would establish a $4 billion alternative energy program funded by a severance tax on oil (Prop 87); spending on the measure by late October was about $130 million, a record. Tax increases are also on the agenda, with Prop 86 proposing a whopping $2.60 per pack cigarette tax increase to fund tobacco awareness programs and hospitals, and Prop 88 proposing a $50 parcel tax for public schools. Voters turned down an initiative to tax millionaires for universal preschool and a $600 million bond measure for libraries in June, so the public's appetite for government spending is not unlimited, but the fate of these measures will give a barometer on whether big government is coming back, said IRI president and University of Southern California professor John G. Matsusaka.
Louisiana. In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana legislature held special sessions in 2005 and 2006, producing a set of 21 constitutional amendments for the voters to ponder this fall. Thirteen proposed amendments were approved in a September special election and eight are on the ballot in November. Some amendments were placed on the ballot over strong opposition from New Orleans politicians. Among the most contentious is a measure to combine the seven tax assessors in New Orleans into a single office (November ballot), and another to combine the scattered levee boards in the region in a single board (approved in September).
Michigan. Proposal 2 would prohibit the University of Michigan and other state universities from giving preferential treatment on the basis of race. An endorsement by voters could revive the campaign to ban racial preferences, which seems to have stalled after early successes in California and Washington. The initiative will also test the idea that voters oppose such measures when "affirmative action" is mentioned since the Secretary of State included the phrase in the ballot description, against the wishes of proponents. Proposal 5 would set minimum spending levels for schools, part of a growing trend to use initiatives to take budget decisions out of the hands of legislatures. Proposition 3 provides a little local color, a referendum that asks voters to repeal a recently enacted law that allows hunting of mourning doves.

Happy Election Day! Google Has Given You "Hacking Democracy" As A Present!

2006-11-07T00:12:00.000-05:00


Everyone ready to take back the country? Just wanted to be the first to wish you happy election day and to remind you to brind your cell phone video cameras in the booth with you. Don't be afraid, this is your country anyway. These politicians have just been borrowing the keys to Dad's car and now it's time to take them back (and you know they didn't fill the tank or wash it).

2006-11-06T10:55:00.000-05:00

Video the Vote 2006

One More Day People! Be ever vigilant, video everything. If you have a camera and are planning on video-taping the vote, sign-up here before tommorow. Or, if you just have a cellphone camera with video function, send any low resolution video of problems voting to voterfraud2006@gmail.com. I promise to post whatever I get sent and I promise to make some noise about it no matter what happens.

2006-11-05T21:31:00.000-05:00

Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein was convicted today of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging. Now, I am against the death penalty and even I believe the country of Iraq deserves the solace of watching him pay for his crimes. He is a tyrant and a murderer and he should have been stopped by any means necessary twenty years ago. My only real problem comes from this: most people don't know what he has been convicted of. So that is what we will talk about today. The Iraqi Special Tribunal sentenced Saddam and two of his co-defendants to death in a case charging that they ordered the execution of 148 people after an unsuccessful assassination attempt against Saddam in Dujail in 1982. This offense occurred just one short year before the photo op you see above. Now, as despicable as that may seem, an attempt was made on his life and his version of due process did take place (he then executed all those "involved"). No, this is not what Saddam Hussein should have been tried for. Saddam should have been tried for the gassing of the Kurds in the northernmost part of Iraq. And why will this offense never be prosecuted? (feel free to sing along if you know the words) Saddam will never be prosecuted for killing the thousands of Kurdish people to the North because Saddam Hussein killed hundreds of thousands of his own people with American chemical, biological and conventional weapons. I can almost hear the "swish-swish" (or "whoosh-whoosh," if you're not a "swisher") of heads shaking in disbelief. But before you dismiss me as a crazy conspiracy theorist (again) maybe we should look at financial transactions between the Italian Banca Nazionale del Lavoro and one of its Branches in Atlanta. In November, 1983 (just shortly before the aforementioned "unholy alliance" between Saddam and Rummy) they began to funnel $5 billion in unreported loans to Iraq. Iraq, with the blessing and official approval of the US government, purchased computer controlled machine tools, computers, scientific instruments, special alloy steel and aluminum, chemicals, and other industrial goods for Iraq's missile, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. Now, admittedly, these weapons (which included mustard gas, weapons grade botulin toxin and at least 21 batches of lethal strains of anthrax) were not intended for use against Iraqis. Nope, they were meant for Iran (you'd wonder why they hate us after they held on to those hostages for Reagan and all (ask your parents)). This was all happening during an interesting time that isn't taught in US schools called the Iran-Contra affair (where a creepy guy called Oliver North assisted President Reagan, Donald Rumsfield, Dick Cheney (yeah, him too) and a whole bunch of what we now call "neo-cons," in the sale of weapons, first to Iraq for the purpose of fighting Iran and then Iran (in exchange for money and hostages) for the contrapositive purpose and used the profits from those sales to fund an illegal war in Nicaragua (Contras Vs. Sandinistas, "The Rumble in the Jungle Down Unda!"). If you think you're confused, imagine how Reagan felt when he was deposed and had already started showing signs of Alzheimer’s ("I can't Recall"). And, by the by, Nicaragua is holding elections on November 5th and guess whose been vacationing down there). Man when I go on a rant... Where was I? Oh yeah. The whole point of this ramble is Saddam Hussein has had a show trial for the least grievous of his offenses and will be killed quickly to shut his mouth forever and keep the truth behind American involvement in his procurement of chemical and biological agents secret. If he were to be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity in a real courtroom at the Hague he would be tried for all of his offenses and the truth about Rummy (and Dick and George) would come out and we couldn’t have that, now could we? Well, actually, I could so I guess I really mean they couldn’t.
(Source: "Arming Iraq: A Chronology of U.S. Involvement," Iran Chamber Society)

2006-11-04T23:59:00.000-05:00

The Republican Party: We're Sorry

Yeah, Yeah, I know. It's cheap posting three videos less than a week before the election, but, I am working on things (my certifications and a breakdown of state abortion law). For a quick talking point, take a gander at this set of "New Rules" from Bill Maher on November 3rd. I just which everyone watched this show.

2006-11-04T00:16:00.000-05:00

Chris Matthews Smacks DeWine

I'd say 9 time out of 10, Chris Matthews leaves me feeling like I need a baseball bat and his head needs a tee. But, for you, my fearless readers, here is time number 10. I do so hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

2006-11-04T00:06:00.000-05:00

Brokebank Democrats

Okay guys, check this little gem out. A parody of "Brokeback Mountain," this ad by the Free Enterprise Fund (a right-wing shill group I've spoken about earlier in this blog) implies that Jon Tester (the Democratic candidate that is trying to unseat the incumbent Conrad Burns, R-Mont) doesn't know how to quit taxing people. First little quip: "Jon Tester called tax cuts 'ridiculous'." What's great about this first one is it was taken from an article in the "Billings Gazette," a paper that has fully supported Jon Tester since the beginning of his campaign. The quote is real, though it is completely out of context. In the actual piece, the Billings Gazette is quoting an earlier advertisement done by the Burns camp and debunking it. Next bit is sorta cute: "Tester: Higher taxes on pickup trucks." This one is completely true, in comparison to hybrid cars and cars that use biodiesel. Yep, Tester voted to give higher tax credits to those that purchase either biofuel or hybrid vehicles (just before he set out on the road in a biodiesel semi-truck to prove that biofuels were a viable source of energy). And, last but not least: "Tester: $2700 higher taxes for couples." This one boggles me (as opposed to "Bogle" which is a really great, inexpensive wine). Supposedly, the source for this stink-pile was a US Treasury Department Fact Sheet from August 25, 2006. Problem is the only US Treasury Department Fact Sheets I could find were on the history of taxes, money and the US economy (this fact sheet is like Bush's WMDs (see last post)). I'll make the stretch and say Tester voted against making the upper-class tax cuts permanent. So, if you roll back Bush's tax cuts for the extremely wealthy and we were to see tax revenue gains of $20 trillion (I know that's a stretch. It would really be around a $2 trillion gain in tax revenue but bear with me) and then you divided it amongst every couple in America then, maybe, you could say Tester would raise couples taxes by $2700, and that's only if you include all the gay couples and you know they wouldn't do that (unless they're evangelical ministers).

2006-11-03T12:06:00.000-05:00

Who Needs To Apologize For Which Joke?

Sorry again everyone. The research I'm doing is running way longer than I thought so I'll probably post my piece on State's abortion rights this evening. In any case, I figured we all needed a little reminder on who the clown is.

Ann Coulter Facing The Music?

2006-11-02T15:58:00.000-05:00

No, this is not the story I am currently researching (that one will run tomorrow, it seems), but this story should be much bigger than it is turning out to be. Ann Coulter is in trouble, folks. That was the email I got from what is turning out to be our most regular contributor, xdarnokx (thanks too much, this story has made my day). In any case, I'm not sure you all remember the little quip she made on Fox "news" during the 2004 election where she told right-wingers to vote as often as they could and then told the interviewer she had voted twice already that day. They all had a hearty little laugh (video is coming, can't find it anywhere) at how silly she was being. Now, it appears, it wasn't really a joke. It seems that Ann Coulter voted knowingly in the wrong South Florida precinct February 7, 2004. Yeah, really. And even more suspiciously, the address she had on her voter registration card was the address of her realtor, who she wasn't living with at the time. The best part about this whole thing is the oath on the voter registration card right next to her signature : "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Florida. I am qualified to register as an elector under the Constitution and laws of the State of Florida. I am a U.S. citizen. I am a legal resident of Florida. All information on this form is true. I understand that if it is not true, I can be convicted of a felony of the third degree and fined up to $5,000 and/or imprisoned for up to five years." (thank you "the Brad Blog" for publishing her full voter registration card and for giving me the biggest smile I've had this whole week). So, what does this really mean for Ann Coulter? Does this mean she may, very well, go to prison for five (5) years?! Well, if the Republican record is anything to go on, she'll probably end up checking into rehab and blaming it on the abuse she suffered when she was an altar boy (that woman has a bigger adam's apple than I do!).

2006-11-02T13:46:00.000-05:00

Scientists and Engineers for America...SEFORA

Hey everyone! In case you all were wondering, no, this will not be a "video only" day. However, the subject that will be the main piece today has become so much more complex than I ever imagined. So, to quench your insatiable hunger for knowledge, instead I bring you evermore gems from the incredible, incomparable xdarnokx. He sent me a link to Scientists and Engineers for America. So here's a little hope for the future to tide you over till I'm done highlighting.

2006-11-02T00:29:00.000-05:00

Mike Stark v George Allen

Maybe I'm avoiding it, but I don't really want to talk about this whole Kerry debacle going on now. I will say this before I start talking about Mike Stark and George Allen: If any of you watch Don Imus you, no doubt, know that Sen. Kerry called the "Imus in the Morning" show between 9 am and 10 am the morning of November 1st (yesterday morning) and apologized to anyone who misunderstood what he was talking about when he said "they get stuck in Iraq" (it was a poke at Bush and his failed policy. He should've said "they get us stuck in Iraq." Not the first time a politician forgot about us). That whole day, after Sen. Kerry apologized to our troops, the Republican party was yelling from the rooftops that Sen. Kerry owed our troops an apology. Like any good Democrat, when faced with this sort of logic, his brain melted. It then took him until approximately till 4pm to release a written statement that repeated his earlier apology to our troops. That as they say, is that. Speaking of beating up on our troops, has anyone seen this little gem? It shows George "Macacca" Allen walking through a hallway in a hotel, presumably to another speaking engagement, when one of his constituents approaches with an interesting question. The man who approaches tries to get Sen. Allen's attention and before he could ask his question, he is forcibly removed from the lobby. He then yells out his question about whether he spit on his first wife (a mite personal gem from TPM) and is thrown into a plate glass window. The whole time this is happening, he is not swinging, not fighting back, just simply asking why he cannot ask his question. He is lifted up, grabbed by the shoulder and shoved through a partially opened door. The Allen campaign responded quickly by saying that the young man "is with Jim Webb," and he had tried "that sort of stunt before," wholly untrue and unsupportable. The man's name who was assaulted? Mike Stark, who is a student and a Marine Veteran. Thank you, Sen. Allen for being completely indifferent to the welfare of our Veterans (when asked about the incident, Allen said "things happen") and thank you Mr. Stark for taking one for the team.

If You Really Want A Scare, Read This Post!

2006-11-01T11:56:00.000-05:00

Happy Halloween everybody! Sorry I'm posting so late, my doorbell's been ringing off the hook (we gave out "Whoppers" this year, guess word got around). In any case, as the election quickly approaches, many of us find ourselves wondering, not if the Democrats will win, but if our vote will even be counted. With every major Republican figure who's stumping out there saying the Dem's don't have a chance when polls keep on saying Hitler has a better chance of getting elected on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, it makes you at least wonder: what do they know that we don't? Maybe this election's already been bought and paid for. Crazy, you say? I'm a nutball, you say? Well, maybe (my moniker is "lunatic1," after all). But the truth is, in both Florida and Ohio (at least) there were complaints of votes not being counted correctly by Diebold (i.e.: votes being changed before the voters very eyes) of insufficient voting machines (a blatant attempt at voter suppression in minority neighborhoods) and, as with almost every election, the majority of absentee and provisional ballots were never counted (in the case of the 2004 election, they were purportedly thrown away) in both the 2000 and 2004 elections. Now, while a bunch of you might say I'm a crazy, nutball theorist (and I love you for it!) these facts aren't disputed. They are acceptable as fact and there are actually more than one lawsuit currently pending against the perpetrators of these crimes (the most famous and least spoken of (they aren't legally allowed to divulge any points about the case until after the verdict) being the suit filed against the manufacturers of touch screen voting machines by RFK Jr. and Mike Papantonio of "Ring Of Fire" Fame). Now, how many of you think your vote may not count this year for this exact reason? Not that you shouldn't vote. Vote and keep a sharp eye. The current election (2006 Midterm Election) is already beginning to show signs of voting irregularities. Yeah, I know the election is six days away, but, in the case of those that have decided to vote early in South Florida, they've already been on the Election Cycle See-Saw. To quote the Miami-Herald: "Several South Florida voters say the choices they touched on the electronic screens were not the ones that appeared on the review screen -- the final voting step." Sounds familiar. And scary. I see some of you are tearing your hair out and screaming, a natural reaction to a story such as this. "How could they get away with it again! We won't allow it!" Pardon my French, but, Au contraire, mon frere! Really, the administration doesn't have to get away with it again. Because of changes made by the Bush administration to the Insurrection Act, if he choose to, he can place the entire country under martial law on November 8th. This was made possible by Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, and allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder." It appears that "1984" is twenty-two years late, eh Big Brother?

2006-10-31T22:59:00.000-05:00

Kids Worshipping to George W. Bush Viewers Outraged

I almost have no words for this (remember a half-hour from now when you're done reading this that I said "almost"). I am a Christian and this makes me feel ashamed. First, Lewis Black said it best: "It's not your book so stop trying to interpret it!" He was speaking about the Old Testament and so was this insane lady when she spoke about witchcraft and how witches should be burned (ala Harry Potter). There is also way too much mention of abortion by Evangelical Christians. I could've sworn they were all Christians, but, there they go again, interpreting someone else's book (you know, the Jewish Bible or "Torah"). There is one (1)(!) mention of abortion (not the word, the concept) not including a judgment (Hosea 9:14) and about animals (Psalms 29:9) in the Old Testament (not our book). The offending chapter and verse combo happens in Exodus 21, verses 22-25: 22. "If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. 23. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24. eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25. burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. Now, that's pretty specific and makes no mention of planned termination of a pregnancy (to get rules on that, we have to interpret yet another book from yet another religion "There are some fuqahaa who think that it is permissible to have an abortion within the first forty days of pregnancy." Islam Q&A). And don't get me started on whether homosexuality or adultery is a graver sin according to the Christian bible. Homosexuality is still up for debate with five "near" mentions in the entirety of the Bible and adultery (including divorce. Don't kid yourself, Christians aren't allowed to) chalks up a whopping 49 mentions (against, if you were wondering) and a punishment of death by stoning (ouch, sorry Rush!). .And, just in case you all missed it, George Bush has seemingly become a "proverbial" Golden Cow that the children lay prostrate in front of and pray to (this would be wrong no matter which book you're reading (anyone remember Moses?)). Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of the Bible and I am not afraid of my kids getting near one. There is a lot of good stuff in there (hence the name, the "Good Book"). What I am afraid of is a group teaching children about all of the negatives and none of the positives of God (these children are bawling their eyes out for sins they couldn't possibly imagine having done yet). They say, in plain English, they are creating God's warriors, and then dress them up in MILITARY FATIGUES. I remember a God that was accepting of everyone, who taught tolerance and love and who forgave us our sins. In this day and age, with women like this, how can that loving caring God exist anymore? I believe in Him, but, to paraphrase an also much mischaracterized quote by Friedrich Nietzsche: God is Dead. She and their like have killed Him.

Voter Fraud 2006!

2006-10-30T00:31:00.000-05:00

UPDATE, UPDATE!!! A different organization with better resources than this site called "Video The Vote" is up and running and we will be monitoring and posting video from them here. So please, if you see anything out of the ordinary, first call the Election Protection Coalition's voter assistance hotline at 1-866-OUR-VOTE, and then send your videos to "Video The Vote." Any low-resolution videos you shoot on your cell phones will still be accepted at voterfraud2006@gmail.com. Thank you and come out Tuesday night to demand they count every vote!

Okay, this, technically, is another maintenance post like the previous one. But this one is incredibly important. Anyone with two eyes and a set of lungs knows, by now, that there were scores of voting irregularities in both the 2000 and 2004 elections. This year it is up to you to show the world what is happening here. Take your camera phones with you (or your mini-dv cams, if you can sneak them in) and get as much footage as you can. All it really takes is one video of a Diebold touch-voting machine recording the wrong vote to rock this country. A few tips though: be subtle. If you are using a full-size video recorder, you must stand at-least 100 feet away from a polling site (that is the law) and neither I, nor anyone else can endorse or encourage you to take video inside a polling location. Another tip: If you are using a video cell phone, set it to the highest resolution possible before you enter and change the recording length from "mms" to "unlimited" (or some other variant) and hold the phone steady. If you do capture voter fraud of any kind, either post it on "youtube" and post a link to it here (in the comments thread) or send the video (in any format, although .wmv or .mp4 is appreciated) to VOTERFRAUD2006@Gmail.Com and I will post it on Election Day (if it is received on Election Day. Your video will be posted here same-day if it shows voter fraud). Remember kids: mid-term elections don't use exit polling so it's up to us to keep them honest this year!

Suggestions, Anyone?

2006-10-30T00:21:00.000-05:00

Hey everybody! This boring little piece of nothing will be an open, permanent thread to voice your opinions on the site to me (there will be a permanent link to this post on the right sidebar). Anything you see that isn't getting said out there, here is where you tell me. So: let 'er rip guys!

So It's Not Just Us Commie Pinkos Who're Against the War

2006-10-29T01:23:00.000-05:00

"As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq. Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home." -from "An Appeal For Redress From The War in Iraq"

It appears more and more active duty American soldiers are speaking out against the war. I'm not kidding. A campaign called "An Appeal For Redress From the War in Iraq" (which is being financed by "Iraq Veterans Against the War" and not by big money Hollywood leftist commies like some would have you believe) is the first of its kind in the Iraq war (in any war) and takes advantage of Defense Department rules allowing active duty troops to express personal opinions to members of Congress without fear of retaliation. As of October 25, using the campaign website, approximately 200 active duty soldiers serving in Iraq had voiced the opinion that there is no way to win this war and we should leave as soon as possible. As of today, four days later, over 650 have done the same. I don't know about you, but I never thought the military had a right to voice any opinion, much less an opinion against their commanding officer (not that I thought they shouldn't be able to. Just that they weren't). On the contrary, because of protections laid out by the Military Whistleblower Protection Act, unless it is an illegal communication, no person can restrict a member of the armed forces in communicating with a Member of Congress or an Inspector General (an example of an illegal communication would be leaking classified information to a Congressperson). Of course, this law wasn't instated for the purpose of filing grievances against non-military officials and/or illegal orders. No, in fact, it was enacted as a, sort of "Big Brother" measure so members of the military could report on their fellow officers (or enlisted buddies) without fear of reprisal from them or their commanding officers. But, those that know me know I take more than a little satisfaction in using an "enemy's" tools against them (MySpace & Murdoch). Well, in any case, what exactly does all of this mean? Well, I think it means that the military is so much more well informed than us and 65% of non-military United States citizens already knew this war is a sham, so why should we suppose that the military would think any differently? To quote Marine Sgt. Liam Madden of Rockingham, "The real grievances are: Why are we in Iraq if the weapons of mass destruction are not found, if the links to al Qaeda are not substantiated." Sir, I couldn't have said it better myself.

2006-10-28T21:23:00.000-04:00

Dick Cheney On Hot Talk

The entirety of the audio and transcripts are property of WDAY Radio, Fargo, North Dakota (I loved Fargo, don't'cha know).
So, is what the Vice President said above the same as admitting that the United States uses waterboarding as an interrogation tactic? Isn't that a moot point by now? We all know the CIA has waterboarded suspects. This is no longer a matter of debate. And since the passing of the Detainee bill, they can now do as such with impunity (seeing as both the "President" and the Vice President don't think Waterboarding is, in fact torture). The problem is, the rest of the world knows it is torture, as did we at the end of World War II. In 1947, after the end of WWII, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk. And that was the "not-so-harsh" for of waterboarding (here is a link to a visual of what we've been doing). So, maybe the United States only recognizes waterboarding as torture if it's being done to American citizens. No worry then. It's only a matter of time before el numero uno Chimpo rounds up all of us "revolutionaries" and tries to get one of us to talk. Hopefully, by then, someone else will finally be paying attention.

2006-10-28T16:12:00.000-04:00

Michael J Fox Responds To Rush Limbaughs Lies

I know I'm a little late on this one but, after viewing it, I've come to the belief that this piece has to be played to everyone. Everyone has to know the truth about Michael, Parkinson's and how Katie Couric and all the Right-Wing swills react to sickness and the infirm (watch how uncomfortable she is during this interview and watch her body language when she quotes Rush. Right-Wingers hold people with conditions like Parkinson's in the lowest regard). Mr. Fox not only answers her questions with more grace and ease than any of us could, he really put's the smackdown on Rush. Now, all you couric fans who're foaming at the mouth right now, saying "she's not right-wing! She's principled and fair!" Listen to the part starting at 04:57. She allows a direct quote from Ann Coulter (which has become a sort of Desperation Republican Talking-Point) be re-aired as a Limbaugh quote: "I believe Democrats have a long history of using victims of various thigs as political spoke-people because they believe they are untouchable, infallible. They are immune from criticism...Michael J. Fox is stumping for Democrats in the political arena and is, therefore, open to analysis and criticism as we all are." Mr. Fox responded by saying he is not a victim and he couldn't give a damn about Rush's or anyone else's pity (GO MIKE!). The end of this clip shows just how uninformed the "newslady" Couric is when sha asks if Michael would ever stump for a Republican who is for stem cell research. Days before, MSNBC aired a clip showing Mr. Fox doing just that: Stumping for Arlen Specter (R) who is a champion of stem-cell research and is one of many politicians the Michael J. Fox Foundation supports for their position on said issue, not their political affiliation. To quote Mr. Fox: "Disease is a non-partisan problem that needs a bi-partisan solution."

2006-10-28T15:37:00.000-04:00

Letterman-O'Reilly: Round 2

First off, I love Letterman. He's New York. He's smart, tough, and he doesn't take any crap. With that said, this clip is the latest beat-down he gave Bill O the other day (I don't know why he even goes on there anymore). Two arguments were missing though (not your fault Dave. Bill wears "Sex Panther"). When O'Reilly stated, as a fact, that Hussein slaughtered 300,000-400,000 of his own people, He grossly misstated the facts. The truth is that the Kurdish people who rose up against Hussein were told to by our government (Gulf War I, GHW Bush was President) and, to paraphrase, we'd get their back. We, of course, did not get their back and Saddam used chemical and biological agents to kill off well under 300,000 Kurdish people (the worst of every Kurdish attack occured in 1988 when he gassed nearly 5,000 Kurds, again, with weapons produced by and sold to by Americans). I am not a Saddam Hussein apologist and I do not think Iraq would be better off with him in power. I believe we should have never backed him financially in the first place. Another point that should have been made is, while Bill is so deeply concerned with the "300,000" Iraqis killed by Saddam Hussein (over the course of nearly thirty years) he never makes mention of the 600,000 or so Iraqis that have been killed over the past five (5) years of our occupation there. There is no war. The war ended when we found Saddam. Ever since the Bush administration has allowed the rape of Iraq and the exploitation of our soldiers for monetary gain which is war profiteering and is a crime.

Where There Are Republicans

2006-10-27T01:18:00.000-04:00

There's bound to be a sex slave trade of some sort. Don't believe me? Well, the latest sex scandal has just popped up in good ole' liberated Iraq. Now, not only have we been responsible for around 600,000 deaths there (a conservative estimate by the Lancet, a respected British medical journal) and ruined the Iraqi infrastructure almost beyond repair, we now can claim responsibility for a brand spanking new sex tourism destination (I mean, they haven't put up signs or anything, but, just like Saipan, they'll have websites soon enough). Mariam (not her real name), a sixteen year old Iraqi girl recalled the first time she was sold for sex (story from Reuters) "I was a virgin and didn't understand what sex was. I was told that they [the traffickers] were going to get good money for my first night with an old local man who paid for my virginity. He was aggressive and hit me all the time." It makes my skin crawl. The father who "sold" Mariam was assured she would be employed under a one-year contract as a domestic worker (laundry, childcare) in the UAE (and/or other prosperous middle eastern states). She, in fact, was taken to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. But, instead of house-cleaning she was marketed as a sex slave to local businessmen. Way to go GOP! It's not all that shocking, though, when you take a look at their track record. Take, for example, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (I've written about this before, but we'll revisit it for the sake of this post). The CNMI, while being a protectorate of the United States (as far as being a Commonwealth will get you, isn't that right Massachusetts!) has no vote in Congress and very little representation otherwise (unless you count the scores of lobbyists that take vacations there, but I digress). Since the CNMI are a commonwealth, manufacturers can have factories there, pay their workers practically nothing and still get to put the "Made In The USA" label on their clothing (on top of not paying any import tariffs). Also, workers (who are, more or less, kidnapped from China and other poor Pacific Rim countries) are subjected to being sex slaves for businessmen who travel there (some notable businessmen who've traveled there: Tom Delay, Jack Abramoff, etc). Now, if that wasn't enough, when the sex slaves get pregnant, these Right-Wing right-to-lifers make them get abortions. And no, I'm not making this up. And who could forget Old Rushie Boy (by old, I am making a reference to his non-working penis. Read on). Rush Limbaugh was stopped re-entering the United States with a lifetime supply of Viagra in his possession (prescription made out to someone else). Now, that would be just laughable if it wasn't for the country he was returning from: the Dominican Republic (a country world renowned for it's underage sex tour packages). Makes me sick (and not just from the visual of the "Limp"baugh naked, either).

2006-10-27T00:05:00.000-04:00

Man, If He Actually Went To The Playboy Mansion

How do I sign up to campaign for him? Really, what message are the Republicans sending here? That the only facts in their campaign ads are made up ones perhaps? The ad that is meant to replace this one repeats the lies above and expounds upon them by including Harold Ford voting to legalise gay marriage (sad to say he voted to ban Gay marriage, Twice), he wants to gie the morning after pill to our teenagers (this supposedly refers to a vote in 2000 when the morning after pill was illegal in the United States), and he still took money from porn stars (which would be incredible for most guys, however, blatently false. They did receive a check for $3500 and when they found out who it was from, they promptly returned it). Somehow, the Republicans have made the second most conservative Democrat (if you still believe Lieberman is a Democrat) in the Beltway into a sex fiend pinko commie. How? By doing what Republicans do best: Lie. Oh, and about that whole Playboy thing, Ford went to a Playboy Superbowl Party in 2005, not in the Playboy mansion. When questioned about it he stated simply: "Yes, I went. I like football and I like girls." Doing what Dem's do best: Tell the truth.

2006-10-26T23:39:00.000-04:00

Everybody Hates Patricia Heaton

Man, I don't even know where to begin with this one. This ad which has been released as a sort of, "Michael J Fox" air-bag, is so rife with falsehoods and inaccuracies I'm not sure I'll have enough space to debunk it all. First of all, the ad opens with Jim Caviezal reprising his role as Jesus and saying something in arameic (no doubt, "Passion Of The Christ is on DVD). This, in and of itself is a tasteless poke at the Right-Wing (remember me? I'm Jesus. If you vote for Amendment II you're going to hell! Peace :-) It moves on to a guy named Jeff Suppan who plays baseball (so he must know everything about stem-cell research, right?). He opens with "...Amendment II...makes cloning a constitutional right." Are you out of your mind? Amendment II reads as follows: Section 38(d)2(1)-No person may clone or attempt to clone a human being. Period, end of story. No cloning. Onto the next stem cell research expert: Kurt Warner who must be the smartest person on his team, seeing that he's the Quarterback. Mr. Warner says, with a straight face no less, that California will spend $6 billion on the exact same science and there will be no cures for at least fifteen (15) years. That would be $3 billion, in fact Mr. Warner and experts expect no real breakthroughs for a decade. To put it in perspective, ARPANET (the precursor to the internet) started development in 1969 (using government money) and only by 1981 did the computer get small enough to fit in the average person's home. No internet in 1981 either. People started to telnet into text-only chat rooms in the mid 80's and by th early 90's people finally started getting those disposable CD's from AOL and Netscape. It took nearly 30 years to bring you the internet and, literally, over a Trillion (Capital "T") taxpayer dollars. Progress takes time folks. Now, onto the most painful part of this whole thing, Patricia Heaton. The most horrible thing about it isn't that she was on "Everybody Love's Raymond, no. It's that she's a serious supporter of the Combating Autism Act and of Cure Autism Now. Well anyway, she comes out and says that amendment II makes it a Constitutional right to pay women for eggs. She then goes on to describe how painful and dangerous it is. Problem with her thesis: completely false. Section 38(d)2(4)-No person may, for valuable consideration, purchase or sell human blastocysts or eggs for stem cell research or stem cell therapies and cures. Again, period. End of story, a flat-out lie. We round out this mental powerhouse with Mike Sweeney who is the best hitter on the Kansas City Royals (who else should bat cleanup?). He cleans up with a "fact" that has no anchor: 25 women have died and 6000 have complained of complications. Since when? If there was a "since, oh, I dunno, 1992-ish?" in there it would've had some meritorial basis. But since there is no yard stick to measure that statement against, it is completely meaningless. Also, it is a moot point seeing as, in the body of the amendment it states as follows: Section 38(d)2(2) No human blastocyst may be produced by fertilization solely for the purpose of stem cell research. Done. That, as they say is that. So, eventhough ovulation induction (the process by which eggs are harvested) is a sometimes risky proposition, it is a moot point for, that method is used in other countries to create blastocysts solely for the purpose of stem cell research (which would be illegal under this law). The ad then ends with Caviezel saying "Buy my movie."
(Other Sources: 2006 Ballot Measure Constitutional Ammendment 2 - Missouri Secretary Of State Robin Carnahan)

Happy Republican Attack Ad Day!

2006-10-26T14:19:00.000-04:00

I know, I know. Today was supposed to be all about the Republican's who are hiding within our folds. However, the overt Republicans keep on giving us so much to talk about, maybe rooting out the demons in our own party can wait till after November 7th. Now, lets talk a little about "the stakes," shall we? I'm not too sure what I can add to the conversation, seeing as all of my readers are intelligent and well informed. All I have to say about this add is, Bush cut anti-terrorism funding to the two cities that were attacked on 9/11 in half (and this is before we even have radiation detectors in place in our ports). If you'd like to see a few more arguments, click here and here for video rebuttals to this GOP attack ad.

The New War On The Lower Class

2006-10-25T13:15:00.000-04:00

(This post has been edited as of 10:51 PM, 10/25/06. Correction is in italics within the body of work)
A good friend of mine who is an EMT wrote me an email the other day asking that I write about a difficult problem that he sees more of every day: methadone abuse. He said "Everyday I see people at work that are hopelessly addicted to Methadone, a drug designed to wean people off of other drugs, but the clinics just keep upping the dosage (I've seen a range from 20mg to 200mg a day). The problem being the patients still use drugs while on the methadone." He continues to say that there are types of Methadone that contain a drug called Narcan (Naxalone) which lessens the effect of other opiates if they fall off the wagon. However, these drugs are scarce and expensive, so most endure treatment without it. Now, before I dip my pen into the well of conspiracy ink, I think a brief history of Methadone is in order. Methadone is an Opiate (drug made from the seeds of the poppy plant) which was introduced to the United States by Eli Lilly in 1947 as an analgesic medication (pain reliever) under the trade name Dolophine (sometimes ascribed to, however falsely, Adolph Hitler and also sometimes referred to, incorrectly, as Adolphine). It has since become synonymous with narcotic addiction treatment but is still also used for chronic, long-term pain management (a derivative of which is Codeine). But opiates got there start way before Codeine and Methadone. Opium can trace it's roots all the way back to 3400 BC when it was cultivated by the ancient Sumerians who called it the "joy plant." Ever since then its been a race to see who could produce the biggest high and who could get you off the stuff the next day (see: Opium, Laudanum, Morphine, Heroin). As the twenty-first century was rapidly approaching, the rate of Heroin addiction had increased alarmingly when some genius came up with the snappy idea of treating people who are addicted to Opiates, with Opiates (this was the early 80's and I have come to the realization that those not addicted to Heroin were so hopped up on Cocaine and Crack that this still seemed like a good idea). More specifically: Buprenorphine hydrochloride ("Bupe"). Also originally marketed as a pain reliever, Bupe was eventually used as an Opiate treatment (Buprenorphine hydrochloride was approved for usage as an Opiate treatment just recently. During the mid to late 80's Methadone clinics were used for Opiate treatment and are still used today. The rest of the facts contained herein are correct) and, for a while, usage went down (or at least reported usage. I for one believe people just went back to smoking and snorting Heroin so you couldn't see the track marks). Then, right before the turn of the century, Heroin usage spiked to a reported 208,000 U.S. users in 1999. That year, in February, Naloxone was patented. Naloxone is a drug used to counter the effects of opioid overdoses, for example: heroin and morphine overdose. In 2001, Naloxene (Narcan) started being used in Opiate dependency therapy in conjunction with Epinephrine (to maintain a stable airway) and Narcan is used as an "anti-opiate" in the case of accidental overdose. Oddly enough, Narcan and it's derivatives are not the preferred treatment methods currently being used. An increasingly larger population is being treated with Bupe instead. Why is that odd? Well, for starters, eventhough Bupe has proven to be remarkably effective in treatment, it can still be habit forming because it is still made of Opiates. Also, Buprenorphine hydrochloride is Naloxone resistant. So, if someone undergoing treatment has an accidental overdose, where Naloxone would usually be an effective treatment, with Bupe it will fail every time. So, why so clinics use a drug that could kill or possibly further addiction instead of a drug that is proven effective and safe? I ascribe it to what I call the "cancer cure conspiracy." Ask ten people on the street if there is a cure for cancer and you will have at least 2 people that say yes. Those two people understand that cancer, as well as addiction, is a very profitable business so if there was a cure for either, hundreds of thousands of people could lose their jobs and Eli Lilly would lose one of their cash crops: Methadone. It's not that there isn't a way. It's just Big-Pharma has one hand on your wallet and one finger on the trigger for when you're out of money.

2006-10-25T12:58:00.000-04:00

Republicans a party of criminals and pedophiles

Interesting to go back and see what the party-line was when the whole Foley thing broke (you remember Foley don't you? Republican, Alcoholic, "Abused," Kiddie-Toucher?). As an addendum to this video piece, both Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) are no longer under investigation. (thanks to xdarnokx for reminding me of this)

Maybe It Isn't All About The War

2006-10-24T14:56:00.000-04:00

Today I read an article in the NY Times about how the economy is a strong issue for the Republicans. I spit up my PB&J then proceeded to read it again. It stated that the economy is looking pretty good: "The price of gas at the pump has tumbled since midsummer. Unemployment has fallen to its lowest level in more than five years. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average has finally returned to its glory days of the late 1990's, setting records almost daily." I flipped over the paper, convinced someone had swapped my morning New York Times with a Daily News or, more likely that Moonie paper, the Washington Times. But no, it was still the New York Times. I checked which section I was in and, nope, it wasn't the OP-ED section (it was the Business section, in case you're wondering). I was slightly astonished. The New York Times doesn't usually get things so stunningly wrong and when they do, they usually need a Jayson Blair or a Judith Miller to screw it up for them. With a sigh and a shrug, I scrapped today's piece I was working on (I'll be discussing Democrats Vs. Liberals either tomorrow or Thursday) and went about the not-so-surprisingly easy task of debunking the claims made by this article. Now, everyone is effected by the price of gas (it's the most visible of all petroleum products) and when gas goes down, consumer confidence goes up. Gas is, right now, the lowest it has been for nearly twelve months (average price is at or around $2.35/gallon regular) and this is being touted by the media as a victory by the conservatives. By everyone but the conservatives. Wanna take a guess why? OPEC has already decided to start limiting it's production because oil has dipped below $55 per barrel (just two years ago, oil was $38 per barrel and the cost skyrocketed to just under $80 this past year before "leveling off"). This means that what was previously thought of as a buyers market for heating oil this winter will soon turn out to be anything but that (see: before and after, before and after). So gas will most certainly be going up in the next month or so, so what about unemployment. Yes, the "unemployment rate" has leveled off to about 4.6 percent (the unemployment rate is calculated in the US by surveying 60,000 households and does not take into account those who are permanently unemployed (those who have given up or whose unemployment benefits have run out) which would be the lowest it has been since just after Captain Chimpy took office. Now, that number (which looks very Clinton-esque, doesn't it?) should be making people dance in the street, seeing as everyone has a job and we live in a Utopia. But, that number is starkly contrasted by the reality of job growth. Last month saw only 51,000 new jobs created (well under the projected 120,000 expected). Really, that number means almost nothing to most people, so, in comparison: during Bill Clinton's two terms in office, America saw an average of 236,000 new jobs created per month. During the reign of George W. Bush, America has seen the creation of only 160,000 new jobs per month (also, under Bush, real hourly wages have fallen 1.6%, real weekly wages have fallen 2.2% and real median household income has fallen by nearly $1,000). One more number on the whole economy thing: the poverty rate has risen from 11.3% in 2000 to 12.6% in 2006 (yeah, the economy is doing swell). But the Dow Jones is breaking records! Of course the Dow Jones is breaking records, if the stock market doesn't go up the country sees no real economic growth. Just to put that little "the economy is doing great because the Dow Jones is over 12,000" myth to rest, for the Dow to compete with it's previous high in January 2000 The New York Times reported on October 3 that "On an inflation-adjusted basis, the average would have to reach 14,104.97 points for it to match its...peak." So instead of relying on an arbitrary number to tell you how the economy is doing, most Americans only have to look inside their wallets and then vote accordingly.

2006-10-24T14:55:00.000-04:00

Rush Limbaugh on Michael J. Fox's McCaskill Campaign Ad

Okay guys, I'm sure you've all heard of this incredibly inappropriate reaction from Rush Limbaugh to a campaign ad by Michael J. Fox. I'm not too embedded audio savvy so instead I set the audio clip (from Media Matters) to a slide show and uploaded it to youtube. Hope you enjoy hating this guy as much as I do.

Children Of Thimerisol

2006-10-23T23:29:00.000-04:00

Most of you reading this will probably be too young to remember, but during the 1950's and 60's there was a drug prescribed to pregnant women called Thalidomide (if anyone's ears just perked up, it's because of the Billy Joel song "We Didn't Start The Fire" that was released during the 80's. In the song he makes a reference to "children of Thalidomide"). Thalidomide was used for varying reasons (sedative, anti-inflammatory, hypnotic) but it's main use was to quell morning sickness. It was praised as a wonder drug, but inadequate testing was done on the long-term effects and the effect on the fetus. From 1956 to 1962, approximately 10,000 children were born with severe malformities, including phocomelia, because their mothers had taken thalidomide during pregnancy. This translates to an incidence rate of birth defect directly related to Thalidomide of approximately 1 in 2977 births during that time period. Now, Thimerosal (also known as Thiomersal) is a preservative that has been widely used to prevent vaccinations from growing mold or bacteria (Thimerosal uses an active agent of ethyl mercury (49% concentrate) ). It had widespread use in vaccines, creams and other medicines but children were exposed to fairly small amounts of it up until the early 90's when the CDC recommended that infants receive three additional vaccines at or around birth (total number of recommended vaccines to date is over 30. Interestingly, members of the CDC's Vaccine Advisory Committee get money from vaccine manufacturers including sharing vaccine patents, owning stock in a vaccine company, payments for research, getting money to monitor manufacturer vaccine tests, and funding academic departments). Before 1991, the incidence rate of Autism was at or around 1 in 2500. After 1991, the incidence rate skyrocketed to approximately 1 in 167. Studies now show a link between increased mercury exposure and increased incidence of Autism (including Asperger syndrome and other variants), ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), and speech or language delay. So it stands to reason that any thinking, reasonable person not paid for his or her opinion by the vaccine industry could make the leap and say there's evidence that Thimerisol can be attributed to Autism (especially after one takes into account that Autism didn't exist before the 1950's, at or around the same time they started using Thimerisol as a preservative). However, both the CDC and the FDA have released reports that state plainly there is not enough evidence to suggest that Thimerisol is responsible. This contradictory hypothesis has been parroted by various other state sponsored groups and each of these reports rely heavily on a refuted study of Danish incidence rates of Autism during and after Thimerisol (this report has Autism rates spiking after Thimerisol had been removed from vaccines). Now, if we were to rely only on that study, it would appear the link between neurological disorders and Thimerisol is a fallacy. However, a newer study of Amish incidence rates bears inspection. In the Amish community, if consistent with national averages, we should find more than 200 cases of Autism. Instead, we find only three: One girl adopted from China and two boys who had all recommended vaccinations. The absence of most juvenile neurological disorders in Pennsylvania Dutch Country may seem statistically out of place until you factor in that the Amish shun all modern conveniences including vaccinations. No Thimerisol and no Autism (or ADHD or Asperger's or delayed speech, etc). If it is a coincidence, it's a startling one. Another startling coincidence: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who had received $873,000 in campaign contributions from "big pharma," had also been working to shield vaccine makers from liability . In 2002, after Frist quietly slipped a rider known as the "Eli Lilly Protection Act" (subtle, huh?) into a homeland security bill (who would vote against Homeland Security?), the company contributed $10,000 to his campaign and bought 5,000 copies of his book (I don't actually know anyone, much less 5,000 people, who read that book). The measure was repealed in 2003, but in 2005, Frist slid the same kind of rider into an anti-terrorism bill that denied monetary compensation to children suffering from vaccine-related brain disorders because "The lawsuits are of such magnitude that they could put vaccine producers out of business and limit our capacity to deal with a biological attack by terrorists." To date, there are more than 4,200 lawsuits pending against Eli Lilly (manufacturer of the preservative) and the manufacturers of the vaccinations, however, they may be all for naught. In one case, Cheskiewicz v. Aventis Pasteur Inc., the ruling read as follows: "the federal Vaccine Act of 1986 requires that before commencing any state or federal claims, vaccine claimants must first file a petition with the "no-fault" compensation program, a special tribunal of the Federal Court of Claims known as the Vaccine Court." This may sound as if they have other means of recourse, but according to the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (1986) (AKA the federal Vaccine Act), claimants have only a thirty-six (36) month statute of limitations. This means that anyone diagnosed more than 36 months before the link between mercury and Autism was made are, more or less, S.O.L. (if you don't know what that's short for, then you're too young to be reading my blog). In any case, litigation without a repeal of this act and repeal of the "Eli Lilly Protection Act" is almost pointless. This is one of many things to bring to your Congressperson's attention. Maybe we can help these poor children and their parents live healthier, more productive lives and, in the mean time, serve up some justice to those that would do them harm.
(Other Sources: Rolling Stone - "Deadly Immunity," Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; National Autism Association - what causes autism?; U.S. Food And Drug Administration - Thimerosol In Vaccines FAQ; Center for Disease Control - Thimerosal and Vaccines Q&A; Center for Disease Control and Prevention - Mercury and Vaccines)

MSNBC And OK Magazine Blame George Michael For Shizophrenia

2006-10-22T11:08:00.000-04:00

Well not exactly, but kinda. The LA gossip columnist from OK magazine, Ashley Pearson was on MSNBC this morning discussing George Michael's recent erratic behavior (supposed public marijuana use, possibly trolling for public sex in a British park. You know, sounds like George Michael's regular erratic behavior) and how the topper was smoking a joint on a Spanish tabloid television show (Marijuana is legal in Spain). The two women bantered back and forth, both reiterating the same point over and over, "the kids, the kids, the kids," how could he do this to the kids? Not sure exactly what George Michael did. I mean, kids in other countries only know about it because of trash "news" programs like the one I was watching. But I digress. The point is, the interview ended with Ashley Pearson making an odd declarative sentence, "...Marijuana causes schizophrenia." What? Did I hear that right? No I wasn't dreaming. A gossip columnist from OK magazine had filtered through all the empirical evidence and had decided for the world that pot makes you crazy. Problem is, that is still an opinion. I decided to do a little research and found there are two camps on this one. One camp believes that THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient in marijuana) can trigger a break in those who are predisposed to schizophrenia. It can cause schizoid type symptoms including "suspiciousness, unusual thoughts, paranoia, thought disorder, blunted affect, reduced spontaneity, reduced interaction with the interviewer, and problems with memory and attention" (anyone who's smoked could've told you this part. Add increased appetite and decreased drive). Some also say that increased marijuana use raises levels of anandamide in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) (anandamide is a naturally occurring neurotransmitter which is also known as a cannabinoid neurotransmitter and act much like nicotine receptors in the body). On the flip side, another group says that marijuana isn't a cause of schizoid personality disorders or schizophrenia, it is an effect. Studies say up to 60% of people with the disorder use marijuana to lessen the effects of episodes (apparently flying in the face of the other study). My point is, marijuana is a polarizing drug and has been ever since William Randolph Hearst stood to lose a fortune on paper production to hemp. At the time, hemp was being touted as America's first Billion dollar crop (because of a new machine that separated the leaves, seeds and stems during harvest called the decorticator) and Mr. Hearst, who owned the acid leaching process for making paper from trees was intimidated. So he launched a full on campaign against the plant and won. Ever since, with films like "Reefer Madness" and "GRASS" the truth about "Mary" has been further and further distorted to the point where gossip columnists are declaring as fact an issue that is still much in debate. I, for one, would appreciate Ms. Pearson sticking to "Brangelina" and "Vaughniston" news, thank you very much.
(More Sources: "What is Schizophrenia?" -Chovil.com; "Short-Circuiting Schizophrenia" - Endeavors magazine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; NORML, The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws)

It's Hard To Be A Liberal In The Myspace Chat Rooms

2006-10-21T11:52:00.000-04:00

Last night was so weird. I joined a chat session at MySpace in the "US Politics" room and was attacked for being a liberal. It was astounding, there wasn't one Democrat in the bunch. And, all of these computer literate Republicans (translation: no excuse. If you can use a computer, you should be Progressive) posited the theorem that is so popular these days: It's All Bill's Fault. I was beyond stunned. One young lady, who was very well spoken (and who was an ex-Dem supposedly. At least that's what she said. Of course, so did Reagan) ran down the list of what Clinton did wrong during negotiations with North Korea and stopped just short of 2001 when Bush inherited his mess. I said mess, and I kinda mean it. I will concede to any Republican that Clinton could have done a better job with North Korea. But only if Kim Il Sung hadn't died. Kim Jong Il wasn't the leader that the Clinton administration began talks with and he certainly wasn't the same kind of leader his father was (admittedly, in hindsight, he should've been easier to control when you take into account his love of Elvis and cognac. That should need no explanation). In any case, this nutbag took over "negotiations" with the Clinton administration and had a few tantrums along the way (launched a three-stage missile, shot down a helicopter) but soon thereafter, his country was ravaged by a horrendous famine that brought even him to his knees. Because of this, the United States offered humanitarian aid to North Korea, but not for free. The US agreed to supply food to the starving nation in exchange for open inspections at Kumchang-ri (a suspected uranium enrichment facility that, upon further inspection, was entirely empty including no trace radioactivity). On top of the strides that Clinton did make diplomatically, he involved North Korea's neighboring countries every step of the way. During the Clinton administration's attempts to slow or stop the plutonium enrichment process, normalization between the North and the South began. Families who had been separated during the Korean war were reunited for the first time in 50 years. The South Korean leader Kim Dae Jung continued diplomatic relations with Kim Jong Il and the relationship between the two countries became warmer ever still. Now, by nearly the end of the Clinton administration, North Korea had ceased Plutonium enrichment, had stopped ballistic missile tests and had stopped selling it's missiles to other countries (thanks, in no small part to Madeleine Albright). All in all, not perfect, but progress (you can't make perfect from someone who's batsh*t insane). Enough progress to elicit this comment from the next secretary of state, Colin Powell: "We do plan to engage with North Korea and pick up where President Clinton and his administration left off. Some promising elements were left on the table." As I said, not perfect, but a steady progression towards normalization of a country who had relied on Russia for it's economy for so long that, by the end, all it had left were tanks and missiles to feed itself. Publicly, President Bush supported the diplomatic measures that had been taken at this point but privately, GWB had told the leader of SK that the U.S. would not continue talks with North Korea, setting aside the Clinton administration's policy of engagement. North Korea, feeling a bit miffed by Bush's lack of attention, threatened to restart it's long-range missile program. The Bush administration responded as it always did, they did nothing. Then came 9/11 and shortly thereafter, the "axis of evil" speech. This prompts North Korea to kick out the IAEA and announce it has been secretly enriching Uranium (where is anyone's guess. Not at Kumchang-ri. There were cameras there and everywhere Plutonium and materiel were stored. These cameras were all disabled directly after the IAEA was kicked out of NK). That brings us to late 2002 and that is where I will end this little (little?) dissertation because everyone knows what's happened since (plutonium enrichment, missile tests, one plutonium nuclear test). So, can you blame Clinton for NK? Well, I guess you could. I see it as more of a difference in negotiating styles: Clinton used "Stick and Carrot" and Bush doesn't eat vegetables.
(further sources for this article: Kim's Nuclear Gamble, A Timeline, PBS)

2006-10-21T02:06:00.000-04:00

Colbert Comments On Santorum and Lord of the Rings

Again, Santorum brings the whole thing down to our level. This is just in case you thought I made that whole thing up.