Good Mourning America

All weddings should be gay... I mean Happy

2007-08-31T08:23:00.000-07:00

Just saw it and felt a tip of the hat is needed for Judge Robert Hanson; who has decided that Iowa's law banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional and ordered Polk County to issue SIX marriage licenses to six gay couples.

Not sure if his ruling will survive the Iowa STATE SUPREME Court but if it does- It will make Iowa the SECOND state to allow gay marriage... and both will achieved this status not through the voters but because a bunch of judges have decided, as the Supreme Court did decades ago, that seperate but equal- isn't.

Words Fail Me...

2007-08-08T06:54:00.001-07:00

I'm not really sure what to say about this image:

I know I had to share it. I know I should comment on it, but really- what can I say?

I guess I'll start by pointing out that Ok has plates for the Victims and Survivors of the Murrah Building, which was a TERRORIST attack in OK.
I emphisize victims and survivors because, well that's who it's for.
So already we start having a double standard, because OK came out with a plate for THEIR attack, but only allowed people who were victims or survivors get them... so already a 'double' standard- as ANYONE can get their '9/11' plate- with the TWIN TOWERS.
Oh- that's another double standard- notice how the place for the OKC terrorist attack doesn't HAVE the Murrah Building on it.

The OKC plate also doesn't have AN EAGLE or other symbol of AMERICA... I guess that's because the terrorist was... well... an American.

Then there's the price difference. For a nominal fee( besides being a victim/survivor of OKC) you can get THEIR plate- but for the GWOT- or as I like to call it- TWAT( The War Against Terrorism)- costs $37. No word on if any of that $20 or so goes to "the Jersey Girls" or to otherwise help fund TWAT.

I guess what really pisses me off- is I see this as a jingoistic and warmongering AND I feel that most of the people who died on that fateful day wouldn't be given the time of day in OK on Sept. 9th.
Would they call these people, many of whom were immigrants, AMERICANS if they had not died on that day of dates? Or would the people of OK, tell them to LEARN ENGLISH and to STOP TAKING JOBS AWAY FROM REAL AMERICANS?

I'm just made angry and sick about this. Oh and it prolly doesn't help that the people who buy this plate most likely drive SUVs to NASCAR and wouldn't think for a second to slow their oil consumption and think that bombing Mecca would show Osama/Saddam what for.

Freedom

2007-07-04T07:27:00.000-07:00

This July Fourth I mourn the rights of people who are NOT rich white REPUBLICANS. Yes, it has come down to the fact that not only do you have to be rich and white in the country but you have to REPUBLICAN. I say this to compare Bill Clinton and Scooter Libby; both were ‘charged’ with lying under oath. Bill Clinton lied about having an extra martial affair, which I personally think is nobody’s business but Bill’s, Hillary’s and their lawyers. For lying to congress about his affair, Republicans tried their danmedest to impeach Clinton. It boggles my mind how many millions of tax dollars were spent by the special prosecutor Kenneth Star to convict Clinton. In the end Clinton ‘won’ because the American people were more concerned with how good a president Bill was then how good a person he was.
L. ‘Scooter’ Libby was charged with the same crime- lying under oath. Scooter however didn’t lie about his personal life; he lied to a criminal prosecutor to obscure who outed a CIA agent. Now, in the first place- The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 made it a felony to knowingly disclose the identity of a covert government agent. In the second place, as the Republicans constantly tell us- we’re at war; and thus outing an undercover agent (who’s bailiwick was uncovering WMDs) should be a treasonous act- punishable by a firing squad.
So on one hand you have Bill who is trying to protect his marriage (and POSSIBLY the reputation of a young intern); on the other hand you have L. Scooter Libby who lied to protect say Karl Rove (or another high level Republican) from facing criminal prosecution for breaking a MAJOR law protecting our men and women in covert agencies- people who risk their lives on a regular basis to help protect this country.
According to Republicans- who are now the law of the land by 5 to 4, Clinton should be ashamed of himself and have been impeached for cheating on his wife- NEVERMIND the fact that several of the people trying to impeach him have also cheated on their wives (Gingrich and Delay to name the two biggest guns.) Meanwhile according to the SAME Republicans Libby lying to protect his boss/ his boss’s best friend (Rove or Cheney) for lying to the American People and getting us into war (which currently has a death count of 3,500+ American Soldiers and 66,000+ Iraqis) should get a pass. While W. did NOT pardon Libby (though he still could) he commuted the sentence and several commentators feel that W. will get a bounce in the polls. Yes, his numbers will go UP. See Republicans realize that Scooter lied to protect Rove and/or Cheney and felt that Scooter was thus a ‘good soldier’ and should be ‘rewarded’ with a pardon. Enough Republicans feel this way that many of their presidential candidates in a debate said they would pardon Libby/ W. should pardon Libby.

What I thought was the MOST interesting of W. commuting of the sentence- Bush said “"I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive," Now what I’ve latched onto is- W. admitting that Libby did INDEED break the law just as the Jury found Libby guilty; he just disagrees with the JUDGE’S verdict. Because of course the Judge is an ‘activist’ liberal… never mind that he was a Republican appointee (as was 2 of the 3 judges who felt Libby should start SERVING it.).
In fact for Libby to accept Bush’s commutation, he has to stop his appeal process and basically accept the guilty verdict- which should help the Wilsons sue him in civil court.

Meanwhile a google news search for supreme court 5-4 got me 4,159 and is only gonna get me more during the next couple of decades. THIS really is the legacy that W. is going to leave us. During their confirmation hearings, ‘future’ Supreme Court judges Roberts and Alito promised their support of De Jure- which means they promised that their FUTURE rulings would be based on passed laws. They lied. Roberts and Alito said this because they KNEW this is what the Democrats in congress wanted to here- that Roberts and Alito would NOT overturn rulings such as Roe V Wade and Brown V Board of Education- oh wait they did.
The first link that I clicked on had several RECENT 5-4 decisions show the way the court is going… The first is of course using Brown V Board of Education to ATTACK the Brown ruling. The majority said that BUSING kids to PROMOTE racial mixing was racist because it acknowledged racial differents.
The other ruling- which goes to MY point of Justice for Republicans is Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation. The group Freedom from Religion Foundation was suing because they are peeved with the White Houses’ Faith Based Initiatives; the Foundation argued that THEIR money should not be used to promote religions. The court ruled that a 1968 law ONLY applied to congressional spending on religious promotion- as Freedom from Religion Foundation was suing due to the WHITE HOUSE’S Faith Based Initiatives, and the law didn’t apply to the EXCUTIVE Branch.
I could go on- but a) you can click on above to read more and b) I find it ‘interesting’ that it’s a JEWISH website complaining about the SCOTUS ruling FOR the White House giving money to religion.

The second link in this post on the Republicans and the difference between enforcement of laws comes from Brad Blog where they have a clip of Michelle Malkin attacking Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff for not properly enforcing the laws AGAINST immigrants, saying “"it is not a bumper sticker to say that we should enforce the laws that are on the books." Meanwhile on the same program she has two strategists saying that Bush commuting Libby’s sentence was “the right thing to do.

I now want to switch gears because I got a little pissed yesterday at something that happened to me. I went to the MA RMA to get a Learner’s Permit. I have a co-worker who has been begging me for months to get a Learner’s Permit so she can teach me how to drive. Her last day at the store is Thursday so I went yesterday- my day off and waited close to two hours (didn’t bring a watch as I didn’t want to know how long I was waiting). I was denied the permit as I couldn’t jump the FIRST hurdle- I didn’t have proper id. The id I brought with me was my MA ID- it has a) my picture, b) my date of birth, c) my signature and d) my address. It shows that I am in the MA system… and to have GOTTEN this ID- I had previously proved to Massachusetts that a) I was born here in the United States B) My date of birth( so that they could know that I can buy liqueur) C) where I lived- so they knew I lived in Massachusetts. This apparently was NOT enough. Even though when I leaned over to look at the computer- I could see that the clerk pulled up my MA ID, I was told I needed to bring my Passport or SOCIAL card. I ended up get a booklet about driver licenses from someone else (a bit smelly so I want to get another one the next time I go). In the booklet it says I need FOUR forms of ID to get a MA learner’s permit OR MA ID You need a passport and documents proving a) date of birth, b) residence and c) signature. The fine print states that you can’t use ANY document to prove more then one. So even though my Massachusetts ID has ALL three- my dob, my residence and my signature- and this is ALL in the computer… I need to bring three other documents. So yesterday before I went to dinner I found my Birth Certificate= DOB, an electrical bill= residence, my passport as this seems one of the MUST haves and I can indeed use my MA ID to show my signature.
I find it interesting that they don’t ask for PICTURE as a need. I mean odds are they’re going to get it if I bring 4 documents… but part of me wonders if I should double check the documents and see if THEORETICALLY I could get away with no photos… though again they have a picture of me in the system( a picture with me fat and a beard).

So how will I be ‘celebrating’ the forth? I’m just glad that I got a 3 day weekend- as I don’t have to work today (even though the store is OPEN).
That’s it. I might go to the movies- but I don’t plan to see 1776 (as I usually do on the 4th) as a) I was freer last year in Amsterdam on the forth and b) I’m more in the mood for Assassins( which will never be a movie) then I am in 1776.

She who should not be named

2007-06-27T18:09:00.000-07:00

I knew that Coultergist was appearing on Hardball yesterday- and it was pretty much softball I read as she was given an hour to fill with her hate speech... I've also read that Matthews pretty much let her get away with ALL of her lies.( I still remember her arguing with a Canadian Newsperson about Canada's "roll" in 'Nam).

However I'm shining a light on Coultergist's appearance because Mrs. Edwards called in and complained about the personal attacks her and her husband have had to deal with.

Not sure what amazes me more- the fact that Coultergist( like many repubs) seem to feel that the past is the past and not to be brought up( unless it's 9/11 or Bill's sex life)... as Coultergist mentions at several points that what S/HE said was AGES ago...

OR HIS/HER admission that S/HE can't write a book without insulting SOMEONE.

Good Local News

2007-06-15T05:33:00.000-07:00

Ok... The 'Bluest of blue states' just batted in a grand slam as far as I'm concerned. The state congress voted to NIX the idea (suggested by Mitt) of having the Commonwealth vote on GAYS right to marriage. During the last meeting of congress he strong armed them to vote on putting it to the voters to change the Ma. constitution to ban gay marriage. He needed (and got) 50 votes out of like 190, a pretty small hurtle when you consider how even though Ma. is pretty liberal, by definition most politicians are conservative. Politicians want to please the most people as possible, which often means taking a middle of the road position, even if most of their voters would prefer them to stick their necks out… So in the first meeting the opponents of Gay marriage were able to get their 50 votes with a few votes to spare.
Then Ma., after 16 years, votes in a Democrat for governor- Patrick. Patrick goes on the offensive and asks Congress to nix the vote for a Gay Marriage amendment- as he does NOT want people voting on other people’s rights. Just in case it needs to be noted, Patrick is black- and it was the U.S. Supreme Court, not the American voters who decided that separate but equal- wasn’t.
The head of congress however, wanted to bring things to a vote this year- I guess to show that they were listening to the people n’ stuff (see above- politicians want voters to see them as moderates)…. So the vote for Gay Marriage was called on Thursday and to my surprise that the Right failed to get their 50 votes.

So Gay Marriage remains legal in Ma. until a) the evil forces get the Ma. congress to vote twice in a row to change the constitution, which according the article could happen as ‘early’ as 2012. Would that we could threaten to put some sort of amendments in the State constitution to threaten the other side. Like say an amendment that codifies anti abortionists as terrorists- because a) they are and b) I’d to find if you could find 50 state congressmen in the bluest of blue states to call them out.

It's Good to Be King

2007-06-02T10:56:00.001-07:00

Today's disturbing news.

You Give Love a Bad Name

2007-05-11T11:23:00.000-07:00

According to Drudge, Massachusetts Governor and dark horse Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said the following to 60 Minutes: I must admit, I can't image anything more awful than polygamy.

I get that the guy wants to call potential voter attention away from his Moronism, but really, you can't think of anything more awful than polygamy? Granted, the thought of multiple nagging partners is definitely less pleasant than just the one, but not anything? You know, just off the top of my head, I can think of a few things more awful than polygamy:

Cost of the War in Iraq

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More than 13 million global AIDS deaths (with more than 30 million living afflicted).

Quite personally, I think cancer sucks just a wee bit more than polygamy. But that might just be my singular bias. And then, of course, there are all of the other painful and/or incurable diseases out there that naming them all would take me well on into Alzheimer's, so I'll let you, gentle reader, insert your favorite affliction here.

Poverty in the United States and abroad. Of course, I bet the parents of all these starving kids are just thankful--at least their kids don't have multiple spouses!

School shootings.

Child abuse.

Broken families.

Donald Trump's hair.

Fanaticism, oppression, hatred and ignorance.

I'm sure all of you can easily add to this, the point being, Mitt Romney saying there's nothing more awful than polygamy is bullshit, and if his brain really can't imagine any of these other things then he just might not be the most fit for holding an office.

Outrage

2007-05-06T06:10:00.000-07:00

I'm too tired to do this story proper justice.

I saw it on Huffington Post and I felt a NEED to post it.

I complain that MY life isn't fair on a regular basis- well it is stories like this that puts things in perspective.

The idea that W. can pull someone from reserve duty to active- have them serve in Iraq and then while they’re ‘serving their country’… their country is enabling their children to be taken away from them… is just SO wrong.

Good Buzz...

2007-05-03T18:36:00.000-07:00

Just had to share this...

while the Repug debate was going on tonight... they were buzzed by planes with the banners “Republicans, Mission Accomplished?” and “McCain, Mission Accomplished?”

I threw up a little bit....

2007-04-25T05:26:00.000-07:00

Ok... I looked on youtube to find a clip of this to link to it... but I couldn't find one which might be good or bad. As if I heard this COME OUT of someone's mouth- I'd want to throttle them( and since the guy who said is in the military- odds are I'd get my butt kicked)

In an interview with ESPN.com talking about the Friendly Fire death of Pat Tilman, Lt. Col. Kauzlarich, who was in charge of the 'investigation' of how Tilman died said:

"When you die, I mean, there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don't believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing, and now he is no more — that is pretty hard to get your head around that. So I don't know how an atheist thinks. I can only imagine that that would be pretty tough."

I read this the other day on Crooks and Liars as Pat's mom told congress about this, but gonna link to a older article on Daily Kos; as Kos points out- as I did above that Lt. Col. Kauzlarich was in charge of the cover up/investigation into Tilman's death... and that he doesn't give a damn about what happened to Tilman... because ya'know Tilman is in Heaven and that's all that matters.

I'm pretty much a pacifist... but stuff like this makes me want to ask if the Lt. Col. has any kids... and if so- would he mind if I shot them AFTER they recieved communion.... Because that way he could be SURE they were going to Heaven.

Guns: What are they good for???

2007-04-17T12:20:00.000-07:00

Ok... In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention I have an ever decreasing circle of friends. It's easier for me to stop talking to someone than to start.

A couple of years ago I stopped talking to a friend who had 'knife needs'. He was a gun owner and managed the game store for about 20 years or so. After talking to him for a couple of years, I decided to review my 'guns are EVIL period end of discussion' and decided that perhaps guns were ok, provided like driver license gun licenses were only allowed to competent people. I have NEVER fully accepted the idea that EVERYONE can have a gun, as suggested by the second amendment. As far as I'm concerned the second amendment was written at a time when there was NO police force, when your nearest neighbor could be more then a day away and there were 'savages' who could attack you.
Heck there's a law here in Ma saying that you have to bring your rifle to church on Sunday... and I've always thought of that as- well that's in case 'savages' attack or a militia needs to be formed.
These days however, the police can be contacted 24/7 by a phone or CELL phone... So even if you're walking alone in a park at night (which is a stupid idea), there's a good chance you can get a guy/girl with a gun in no time flat... and that officer would be TRAINNED with a gun (then again... well not gonna mention the BPD competence in this post).

This guy was a good friend for years- he gave me a job at the game store when I was going to grad school... and when I graduated he suggested I apply for Staples, where he was working) to make ends meet while I look for a library job...
I stopped talking to him when Cheney shot a guy while hunting. I sought out this friend because I wanted to hear his take. I was hoping that he would take the right take, that Cheney was a bozo who didn't deserve a gun. Instead this friend stood up for Cheney, saying accidents happen. At that point I was like; give me your gun, you've failed your gun IQ test. I didn't say this but I rethought the idea that there were intelligent people who WANTED guns. Perhaps guns are a catch 22, if you want one, you shouldn't be allowed to have one.

What makes me blog about this is of course the Va. shooting... and the POLITICAL spin. Yeah- what makes me sicker then a kid shooting up a bunch of other kids is that W's first reaction to this is to point out that HE is pro guns. While saying this is sad... W. (and the white house) were quick to step up to the plate and remind people that they believe in the second amendment.
Actually what really made me mad and gag was this exchange on Fox (of course)

GIBSON: So, theoretically, in this lecture hall where all 31 were killed, there could have been someone with a carry permit carrying their gun to shoot the shooter?
NAPOLITANO: No, because the same people that just dropped the ball, as Bo just described, that allowed 32 additional people to die, also said: "Virginia lets you carry a gun at a gas station or a bank or a stadium, but not on a college campus, where you may protect kids." So nobody has guns there except the college campus police. The professors --
GIBSON: And the criminal.
NAPOLITANO: And the criminal. Professors don't have guns, and the students don't have guns, even though they could lawfully carry them as soon as they get off campus.

This exchange made me sick because I’m sure if I did a bit of research I would find that guns are much more likely used to shot someone in anger then defense, and that a homeowner is much more likely to shoot a loved one ‘by accident’ then a intruder. How can we say that we are ‘civilized’ and yet allow a tool whose ONLY use is to hurt slash kill.
Oh and I just read the gun laws in Va. I laughed until I cried.

Buying and owning a gun in Virginia does not require a permit, but without a gun permit only one handgun purchase a month is allowed, and there is no waiting period to acquire the gun.
The law is broad enough to allow people to buy assault guns and magazines without limit, including such guns as AK-47s and Uzis, the Brady report points out on its website.

( Va laws mentioned here in a story about the shooting)

White House V. Congress( and S.C.?)?

2007-03-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

[Forgive me if I get a little label happy; this is just filled with a lot of stuff about what’s going on]

I’m doing a little happy jig as I listen to the Stones: Satisfaction which seems to be so apropos. I’m happy because I JUST read that congress has approved the subpoenas for Rove and others. This is AFTER the White House was soo nice and willing to ALLOW Rove and others ‘talk’ to congress- provided that a) it was behind closed doors; so b) there would be no records of it and c) Rove et. Al. would NOT be under oath… thus Rove could lie or ‘misremember’ stuff and not worried about sharing a jail cell with Libby.

Now I should mention as I write this- that I re-read the article and congress seems just to have APPROVED (with a voice vote so no paper trail to see who voted how) the subpoenas… so they have NOT been issued. Likewise as it mentions in the linked article, the White House could fight this all the way up to the Supreme Court.

Now as I get into my two cents, I first want to say that I would find it interesting if the Supreme Court gets involved. Because when it comes down to it- they can either side with W. (who has given several of them jobs) or they can keep themselves relevant and powerful. See if they vote merely on party lines… not only does W. get to keep his secrets… but the Supreme Court ends up legally saying that the Executive Branch is more powerful then the other two… which has been W.’s argument since he took office. HE,W.= Decider.

My next thought on the subject is to include this link, also got from Huffingtonpost, (really I don’t know why I bother posting this stuff considering it’s out there already from sites I link to)… that W. is a spin master of the highest degree. It talks about the power of language and how W. chooses his words VERY carefully. I thought it was in fact funny how the Metro (a ‘local’ free paper) had an article mentioning how W. didn’t want a “fishing expedition”. Now my first thought is well- yeah that’s what the American people want. See the loud thumping sound W. heard after the mid-term election, was the American people wanting ACCOUNTIBILITY from their government. So if congress ends up asking Rove a bunch of questions- that’s because Rove has a bunch of things to answer for.

This leads me to my next point in the story and how the repugs are trying to frame it; which is the Repug idea that you should RESPECT the office of the White House, even if you don’t respect the PERSON. However under Clinton- they felt that he was sullying the office with his personal business. A perfect example is this link with a quote from Snow about the Repug congress trying to get to the bottom of what was going on in Clinton’s White House. I still get sick when I realize that when Clinton was in power- the Repugs wanted to question the SECRET SERVICE on record- to find out what Clinton was doing behind closed doors… but who Cheney talks to about Energy Policy is ‘state secrets”. The Repugs double standard really makes me sick. And here’s a link that shows that Tony Snow himself is full of doublethink.

This then leads to something I read in the Times yesterday. I'm linking to Media Matters as it's where I just found on the web (and thus linkable)... The Repugs complain that Schumer, a democrat, is politicizing the debate over the AG’s firings. This made me want to laugh or burn the newspaper yesterday. The Repugs, after years of making policy political and now being found to make job performance POLITICAL are annoyed because they think that Schumer is supposedly using this policy crisis to get money/clot for the DNC. Huh, did the Repugs complain when W. ‘high jacked’ the Abraham Lincoln for his mission accomplish picture. This picture (which W. would have used in his 2004 campaign had the war gone ‘right’), had them turn the carrier around (and made the ship two days late getting into port) so that the press would get ‘just the right picture’… and this POLITICAL picture- was bought and paid for by OUR tax dollars- not the RNC.

Lastly- as I mentioned Doublethink a bit above- I want to tie W as Spin Master with Coutlergist. See s/he recently talked about the anti Hillary ad and pointed out that after reading 1984, she’d never be able to vote DEMOCRAT… and I was like HUH?! As I feel that W.’s talking points and message massaging is much more Big Brother (Stay the Course, Turning the Corner, Fighting them there… ad nausem.) Could go on but think I did during my recent review of 1984.

Substance over Style

2007-03-15T06:20:00.000-07:00

Ok, I've been meaning to post here that *I* am not really for Hillery or Obama. And I say that not because I'm anti-women or anti black... but because I think after W., a presidential canidate should STAND FOR SOMETHING. I think the main lesson of W. is NOT to vote for someone because you wouldn't mind having a beer with them, but to vote for them because they are bright and have a plan to do something important when they become president.
I've yet to here Hillery or Obama say that they are FOR this or AGAINST that- save for being against the repugs... which is a start, but all the Dems should be against W.( actually at this point I think all of this country should be against W.), they should have more things going on.
Like for instance we know that Hilliry and Obama are 'against' Iraq... but what are they ACTUALLY doing to stop the war?

That's why I'm posting this Biden video. I'm not saying I'm voting for Biden; merely that this video deserves a lookie loo...

Reality has a well-known liberal bias.

2007-03-07T10:43:00.000-08:00

It was the great Steven Colbert who said "And reality has a well-known liberal bias." [ he did so last year at the White House Correspondents Dinner] ,And I almost shat bricks today laughing as I found out that the right has decided, once again, that Steven Colbert knows his stuff.

I found today Conservapedia. Conservapedia is suppose to be the right wing's answer to Wikipedia...
This made me laugh as I did NOT think that Wikipedia was the left's answer to ANYTHING. In fact the super intelligent Colbert also coined the phrase Wikiality which is "Reality as determined by general consensus rather than cold hard facts. If enough people say it is true, then it is true"( ubran dictionary- second definition of Wikiality).

So I guess the majority of people who use the internets are liberal- because IF anyone is able to change Wikipedia... but they STILL find it too liberal; then it follows that the group consenus is LIBERAL.

My foray into Conserapedia was short today- as comics and herocrack comes out today so the only page I checked out was their 'manifesto' where they complain about the libral bias of reality... I mean Wikipedia.
I could spend days ripping this appart. I mean they first start out with the fact that Wiki uses C.E.( Common Era) instead of A.D. Because they want EVERYONE to realize that the year 1 on their calendar is the year that Jesus was born. Because they first have to establish that Christans invented the calendar( no, wait that was like the greeks or romans... hence having two months named after pagens and none after the apostles). Second point was the fact that "Wikipedia's entry for the Renaissance denies any credit to Christianity, its primary inspiration." And no their third point is not asking for them to give credit to the Christans for the dark ages, witch burnings, or repressing science.
One of my favorite complaints was #13- "Edits to include facts against the theory of evolution are almost immediately censored. " My first thought was again, gee maybe that's because MOST intelligent people believe in evolution.

Oh and a shout out to my Canadian peeps- because apparently reality also has British spelling- as #9( which I guess means it peeves them more then the evolutionary slant of wiki)

Wikipedia often uses foreign spelling of words, even though most English-speaking users are American. Look up "Most Favored Nation" on Wikipedia and it automatically converts the spelling to the British spelling "Most Favoured Nation." Look up "Division of labor" on Wikipedia and it automatically converts to the British spelling "Division of labour," then insists on the British spelling for "specialization" also.[9] Enter "Hapsburg" (the European ruling family) and Wikipedia automatically changes the spelling to Habsburg, even though the American spelling has always been "Hapsburg". Within entries British spellings appear in the silliest of places, even when the topic is American. Conservapedia favors American spellings of words.

And I get another chuckle out of them correcting the spelling for Habsburg. Geez don't those wikis know that how Americans spell something should trump THIERS, even if it it's THEIR last name

And we hear from another '08 Repug canidate

2007-03-05T04:28:00.000-08:00

I love this story...

Newty appears at CPAC( along with Coultergist and all the other '08 canidates) and he decides there should be an investigation on why NOLA citizens were STILL in the city. Now he's a repug, so he's not wondering why they couldn't get out or why it was reported that National Guardsmen actually FORCED them to stay( and didn't allow help in)... Newt is concerned because these citizens were too stupid to get out of the way of a huricane.

Sayth Newt:

How can you have the mess we have in New Orleans, and not have had deep investigations of the federal government, the state government, the city government, and the failure of citizenship in the Ninth Ward, where 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane.

Man, this makes me pretty sad- that people like Newt have a chance to be seriously considered to run for president. Actually what makes me sadder is that I'm willing to bet NO ONE at CPAC mentioned the war and how to solve it; which you know was actually pretty important in the '06 election.

Who Will Save Your Soul?

2007-02-21T17:31:00.001-08:00

As reported all over our local news, the city of Paradise (just outside Chico) has assembled and voted for a fourth time on a proposed Bible History and Literature class for their high school. Righteously, it was turned down again.

Ignore for a minute the conundrum and headache such a class would create if you wanted to be equal: there'd have to be classes on the Quran, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Book of Moron, the Tao Te Ching, etc. (i.e. every recognized religion's religious texts).

Ignore the always scary and ever-present increase in the Religious Right gaining footholds in our politics (As an aside, the those of you who used to play my online nerdgames, remember in 1999 my fictional US had the Mormons gain control of the White House starting in 2008; how much scarier and deja vu is it now that Mitt Romney's thrown his Moron hat into the ring--I'm sorry Drew, but if he must stay around, I'd rather he be caged into Massachusetyland).

Ignore the obvious Constitutional issue such a class would raise (especially since ignore #2 could also lead to overturning that Amendment or portion thereof, after Roe goes first, of course). Everyone else has.

As a parent, and occasional educator, what I want you to not ignore is this: as school budget "crises" (how long can it be a crisis if it's been that way for decades now?) continue to diminish the number of music classes, art classes, health education, sports etc. from our public schools, too many of us are devoting time and money to try and promote religion into our schools, or to fight it (which they should, for ignore #3). More and more, we (and I'm not one of we) find ourselves replacing any and all aspects of culture with Christian doctrine. My kids each get one hour of art (which includes music) per week. If we can't support the arts, health or sports in our schools, where are we supposed to find the funds to support religion?

Impeachment...

2007-01-10T04:20:00.000-08:00

I thought it was interesting as I read this article about some Californians who spelled IMPEACH! on the beach that tv station's response was:
a) ABC7's Noel Cisneros: "Do you think the country has the stomach for another impeachment?"
and
B) ABC7 Legal Analyst Dean Johnson: "You can't impeach a president for incompetence."

To the first I respond; do you think the country has the stomach for the deaths of another 3,000 soldiers? because that's really what's going to happen in the next two years if W. gets his surge.

To the second I respond; first- way to phrase the dialogue. I wonder which side ABC7 is on? They're helping W. make his defense... He's not evil, he's incompetent. It's not his fault that he read the reports wrong and Saddam didn't have WMDs....

Which leads to my real anger and response to W's incompetence.
If we were JUST talking about Hellavu a Job Brownie! and W.'s response to Katrina. I'd agree with the Legal Analyst. But we're talking about a man who LIED us into a war. If the right wanted to impeach Clinton for lying about having extra-martial sex( and btw how many MILLIONS did the right and Ken Lay spend of OUR TAX MONEY attempting to find a reason to get rid of Clinton), then surely W. lying about getting us into a war deserves another lookie loo.
And that's not W.'s only 'crime' as the article goes on to point out that the BEST chance to nail... I mean impeach W. is because of the ILLEGAL wiretaps. Though of course the channel calls them warrantless which I thinks muffles the wrongness of the wiretaps.

I would also like to add to the impeachable offenses besides breaking the IV amendment as illegal wiretaps= unreasonable searches and seizures- W's breaking the V, IV and VIII amendments due to what W is doing in Gitmo.
V amendment-arresting people without a indictment of a Grand Jury and depriving those in Gitmo of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; VI amendment- not giving people a speedy trial; the VIII amendment mentions something about... nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted which again I think is happening in Gitmo.

I also think that W. should be shot( after impeachment) for allowing war profiteering. I think we are in Iraq more for Haliburton & Co. to make money then we are to 'bring peace to the middle east'. While Cindy Sheenan and other Gold Star moms have lost their sons and daughters in this war, Cheney and pals are making MAD BANK( which we are of course NOT TAXING to pay for the war...)

Victory in the making...

2006-12-30T07:07:00.000-08:00

White House correspondent Ed Henry : You know, going back to September 2001, the president said, dead or alive, we're going to get him. Still don't have him. I know you are saying there's successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That's a failure.

FRAN TOWNSEND, HOMELAND SECURITY ADVISER: Well, I'm not sure -- it's a success that hasn't occurred yet. I don't know that I view that as a failure

So by that logic- I guess I'm not poor, I just haven't won the lottery yet.
And I wonder if the IRS will give me credit for the 5 kids I haven't had yet.

Now rebuilding N.O.- that's a success that hasn't occurred yet... I wonder if it has the same chance of happening as W. getting Osama; it certainly seems that he wants both successes equally.

I could go on... but my favorite comment on this was someone on tpm, who wants the U.S. press to call "Bullshit" on this one. I would give sooo much for the 'mainstream' media to call W. / Tony Snow/ Dick Cheny/ Condi Rice/... on any one of their seemingly endless lies/ Orwellian Newspeak.

Romney deserves coal in stocking

2006-12-27T03:39:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if Mormoms celebrate X-mas, but if they do- Romney deserves coal this year... and is showing me( if not the whole country) the fact that he's trying to be made of the same timber of W. ... which could be a good thing considering how disliked W. is.

See Romney has decided NOT to give lawmakers a raise this year. Now at first one can say, well this is different from W. because W. recently gave Cheney a cost of living increase( because we ALL know how hard it is for the veep to make ends meet) HOWEVER the real news is why Romney didn't pass the state pay raise. He refused to give these people pay raises because the state senate REFUSED to vote on the anti gay marriage ammendment.

I can't believe the BALLS on Romney. The government is NOT a business, you shouldn't be allowed to withold raises if other people disagree with you.

Right now I don't know who will survive the repugs vetting process for 2008... but right now I'm think Romney is going to be the second weakest link( with Rudy being the first)....
He's leaving office like a angry kid, pissed off because Gay Marriage happened on HIS watch... and I recently read that some of the rest of the media has picked up on the fact that Romney had previously ran as a moderate/friend of gay rights ealier in his political career.

Oh and the last word on Romney, this foot stamp is AFTER being out of Ma. for 60% of the year.... What a leader.

WTF?!? Part Duex- aka Christains V. the rest of us.

2006-12-23T10:07:00.000-08:00

[Ok... I'm messing arround with Beta so please excuse any mistakes. it's my first beta blog]

I was sadly not shocked when I read Virgil Goode( a repug. natch) responded to the news that the United States of America had 'in a time of war' elected a MUSLIM to office. Which is to say more people wanted Keith Ellison as their congressman then they wanted a [presumed] christian. I say presumed for two reasons- one, I never read anywhere about the Muslim beating a Jew.... and two, I admit that my lack of research means I am assuming both that the guy that Ellison beat was a christian and a 'good' one... though that could open up another can of worms....

Goode's response was so over the top as to fill me with a need to blog about it.

"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," he[Goode] wrote.

So Goode is saying we have to close our boarders to protect our Democracy. Because we don't want OUR democracy to stand for OTHER? world views...

And to bring it back to my first WTF post; Beck. On one of his show, him and Buchanan talk about the NEED to protect the U.S. against 'outsiders' like Mexicans coming here and refusing to 'melt' into the melting pot- which I can only take to mean- get with the euro-christains.

So the way I see it, Goode et al. realize that the ONLY way to protect America is to build a big old wall and reproduce like mad behind the wall- so that THEY will always hold the majority...

Because you know they can't win by having good ideas.

[ oh and I labeled this NIMBY- as I feel that's part of their thinking- repugs don't want any next door neighborhoods but other repubs.]

Gingrich in '08

2006-12-17T09:59:00.000-08:00

Right now I'm posting this for Drew, because Blogger's switch to Beta screwed his permissions up. The inappropriate picture is all me--Evan

quote
Gingrich cited last month's ejection of six Muslim scholars from a plane in Minneapolis for suspicious behavior, which included reports they prayed before the flight and had sat in the same seats as the Sept. 11 hijackers.

"Those six people should have been arrested and prosecuted for pretending to be terrorists," Gingrich said. "And the crew of the U.S. airplane should have been invited to the White House and congratulated for being correct in the protection of citizens."
unquote.

So if we vote for Gingrinch we get more fearmonger ala
W., and Less Rights ala W.
You'd sorta hope that the right had realized the
thumping they took in 06 would've have meant that they
would've changed the playbook.

Right now I'm not sure whether I'm happy that
Gingrinch hasn't learnt the lessons the right
should've from the last election... or scared that
with Faux News, Gingrich might still have a chance to
scare enough red necks to voting for him and continue
to send their kids to die in the middle east for
Haliburton.

WTF ??!!??

2006-11-15T12:53:00.000-08:00

My mind went all 'splody when I read this....

a Muslim was actually elected to congress this year. THE FIRST Muslim in U.S. history to hold such a posistion.

He's stupid enough to go on a right wing moonbat show- Glen Beck...

and Glen actually says

BECK: OK. No offense, and I know Muslims. I like Muslims. I've been to mosques. I really don't believe that Islam is a religion of evil. I -- you know, I think it's being hijacked, quite frankly.

With that being said, you are a Democrat. You are saying, "Let's cut and run." And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, "Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies."

And I know you're not. I'm not accusing you of being an enemy, but that's the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way.

Now the thing that strikes me the funniest, besides as I said this congressman being dumb enough to be on this show... is the sentence " I'm not accusing you of being an enemy..."
Yes. Yes he is.

Beck also is saying that democrats- who Beck defines as "cut and run" are on the same page as the terrorists... So Beck has a hard time finding the difference between a democratic muslim and a terrorist.

Checks Please...

2006-11-08T12:05:00.000-08:00

[ wish to disclaim the below as MY= Drew Harris’ views. What I say below may or may not also be the opinion of Evan and Adam, I haven’t checked in with them… So while I approve the below they might not… and I don’t wish to imply that they do… though of course I hope they agree with me…]

Well, it’s not all good news but the news today was better then I actually hoped for. We now have “checks and balances” in our government again. With a democratic majority in the house and the senate spilt sooo much (still not sure if the dems=repugs or the dems=repugs +1 at this time), this means that to pass any bills the senate will have to work with the democratically controlled congress.

Already the fruits of the election have begun to be harvested as W. nominated someone else for Secretary of Defense. A friend pointed out that had W. agreed to this change two weeks ago the repugs might still hold power; I retorted that had W. changed secretaries 8 months ago- the repugs would’ve controlled the process. That’s where I think the real fun will come into play, with democrats in power- they’ll be able to ask the hard questions and stop the rubber stamping of W.’s appointments.

Some of the races I was especially happy with:

Patrick (d) winning the Ma. Governorship. He’ll be a) the first black Governor here and b) the first dem for like 12 years

Strickland(d) beats Blackwell® for the Ohio Governorship. I’m happy about this for several reasons… Most of the reasons are the fact that Blackwell helped the repugs steal the 2004 election. I thought Blackwell would be able to steal this one- but it goes to show what I’ve been saying for years- if enough people vote, you can’t steal the election. Enough people voted against Blackwell that he couldn’t steal the election for himself.
This also means that Blackwell can’t steal the Ohio election for the repug in 2008.

Casey( D) beats Santorum®- What can I say I hate “man on dog” Santorum

Missouri voted FOR stem cell research. Thank you Rush for making it such a big deal.

Arizona became the first state to have a ban of gay rights on the ballot AND IT DIDN’T PASS.

First Muslim elected to Senate- I’m happy any time a minority gets a voice and I hope that Keith Ellison teaches his fellow congressmen that not all Muslims are evil( although this could be an uphill battle as Ellison supports abortion rights and gay rights)

The races that I wasn’t happy about:
Duckworth(D) seems to have lost to Roskum®- Duckworth was an Iraqi war vet who lost both her legs… and was characterized as a “cut and runner” by the repugs. Indeed a friend said one of the reasons that Roskum won is because McCain helped Roskum… so McCain has more hypocrisy at the end of the 2006.

Gov. Perry® gets re elected in Texas- Perry only got about 39% of the vote- beating the democrat- 30%, an independent who got 18 and Kinky who got 12%. So odds are if we were the type of country that had RUN OFF elections… the dem would’ve gotten it as more people did NOT vote for Perry then did.

=======================
Note: posted this earlier today... and just found out( 8:50pm EST) that Webb(D) and thus the Dems have BOTH the House and Senate.
Yippie. Now the Dems have 2 years to shine before 2008.

Oh and if W. doesn't do what they like- They can NOT pass the budget and shut the government down.

Words fail me... but the anger remains...

2006-11-01T18:20:00.000-08:00

I'm too f'ing tired to deal with the crap on the airwaves right now.

I'm pissed at Kerry for opening his piehole( and I say this because I *truly* feel Kerry did this because Bill Clinton has been making the news, and helping canidates, so Kerry spoke because he wanted to stay "relevent")...

And I'm pissed at our media for doing the repugs work....
CNN called a guy who wanted to SPEAK to a canidate a PROTESTER.
Watch this video... I don't see see the guy PROTESTING.... He doesn't have a sign nor is he screaming at Allen.

He is however being assalted... and camera crews are just letting the "secret service" or Allen's rent-a-thugs get away with it. If I was that guy I'd sue.

I liked this ad and I think this really is what the democrats SHOULD say.

Of course at this point, I'd consider myself lucky if for the first time in 16 odd years Ma. elects a democratic Govenor. Even if he is FOR RAPE.

Had Enough??!!!??

2006-10-03T05:59:00.000-07:00

Love this commerical

Actually what I really love is that there are at least 1/2 dozen of these on youtube for several different gop/dem match ups.

Spread the word- we've had enough.

Clinton on Fox

2006-09-24T19:34:00.001-07:00

I wanted to link to Think Progress' video imbed of Clinton being interviewed by Wallace on Fox News.

Clinton really lays the smack down on Fox. You can then go to their main pages as they have several posts showing how often Fox asked the repugs the HARD questions ( which is one of the things that got Bill in a fit).

I just thought Bill was in top form and wish a few more dems showed the backbone he does.

Clinton on Fox

2006-09-24T19:34:00.000-07:00

He's FOR Torture....

2006-09-17T19:20:00.000-07:00

Words once again fail me to vent my anger at Dictator W.

This is a man who has never served his country on forgein soil in uniform( hey it's doubtful he even served HERE in uniform).... telling the world that he wants the U.S. to define for it's self what torture is or is not.
And he's saying unless congress does what HE wants... He will stop the army from questioning prisioners... which, of course, will jeopardize more lives.

I say that the U.S.A. should NOT be for torture.

In 2004, after W. won/stole his second election, I let my freinds know that I was all for forming an angry mob. Again I feel this way as a man who says he's "compassionate" wishes to change the laws of the world so that he can BEAT PEOPLE UP.

When will we as a nation stand up and say "No, this bozo doesn't speak for us!" ?

There's a hole in the city...

2006-09-12T18:11:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to share this vid of Olbermann's from last night.

I think everyone should see it and be reminded of what fuckwads we have leading this country...

Let's bomb them... until they like us.

2006-09-06T18:48:00.000-07:00

Senate rejects limits on cluster bombs

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Senate on Wednesday rejected a move by Democrats to stop the Pentagon from using cluster bombs near civilian targets and to cut off sales unless purchasers abide by the same rules.

On a 70-30 vote, the Senate defeated an amendment to a Pentagon budget bill to block use of the deadly munitions near populated areas. The vote came after the State Department announced last month that it is investigating whether Israel misused American-made cluster bombs in civilian areas of Lebanon.

. . .

"For too long, innocent civilians, not enemy combatants, have suffered the majority of casualties from cluster munitions," (Sen.Patrick) Leahy (D-Vt.) said. "The recent experience in Lebanon is only the latest example of the appalling human toll of injury and death. Strict rules of engagement are long overdue."

But Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said, "The rules of engagement properly belong with the Department of Defense and the commander in chief."

Stevens argued that the amendment would restrict "the ability of our military to use these munitions to protect our people."

Ok, W. ( and his neo con echo chamber) have constantly used the "3,000 who died on 9-11" as an excuse for this war... That we must make sure it doesn't happen again. That the terrorists killed 3,000 Americans...

Which leads me to ask ALL 70 Senators who voted to keep cluster fucking Iraq and other countries... how many of their lives is worth an American??!!??
I say this because Iraq Body Count has the amount of Iraqis WE'VE killed at arround 40,000. That's over 13x the number of people who died Sept. 11, 2001. Oh... and our killing is still taking place, so expect that to be bigger next month.

News that needs to remain news...

2006-09-04T04:24:00.000-07:00

In this week's phoenix( a weekly local progressive paper) I read about First Lt. Ehren Watada and how he has refused to be stationed in Iraq on the grounds that the war is illegal.

I brought the pheonix into the gift store this week to read and Supervisor L. thought Ehren Watada's story was interesting and moving. I told him I was writing Ehren Watada's name down so I could track the story. He countered that since the story was so interesting that it wouldn't be too hard to follow. I responded that if it was so important( which I think it is... why hadn't we heard of Ehren Watada before this story?

Sadly my above point was driven home more when I did a search using Google News, as I wanted to see if there were any updates... I got ZIP.
Google News told me:
Your search - "ehran watada" - did not match any documents.

So I'm posting this here so I remember First Lt. Ehren Watada. This is a man who joined the Army to PROTECT the United States and he refuses to go to Iraq because he realizes that to fight in Iraq is a) Not protecting the United States and b) is illegal.

Finally I wish to link back to an article I wrote for GMA about how much of the U.S. Army and our government would be found guilty at Nuremberg. When I googled "articles of nuremberg" I was very happy that one of my 5 hits was my article... though it also saddened me as again I feel this is an angle of the Iraqi war that the media should cover more/better.

Rummy's speech.

2006-09-01T06:37:00.000-07:00

This time my lag time for blogging about a neo con foot in mouth is less then a week. I felt I needed to say something about Rumsfeld’s comparing me and others like me to Nazi appeasers.

My first thought is just to throw this link of Keith Olbermann. He rips Rummy a new one. I really was glad I watch Olbermann when I saw his speech, and happier still when on his next show he had Howard Dean respond to Rumsfeld, which I also suggest you watch on the Olbermann site if you missed it.

However I wanted to mention a couple of other things; which is basically how Rumsfeld got it the other way around (as per usual). First if you look at the 14 points of Fascism; you will note that the neo-cons meet most or all of them. Next, an old chestnut- Prescott Bush (grandfather to Shrub) actually was a business partner with the Nazis.
Sadly I do not have enough time to look for a link for my third point- so you’re just gonna have to accept my word- or look for yourself, the fact is during WWII the Nazi appeasers in the U.S. were the REPUBLICAN PARTY, not the Democrats (as FDR was president and had to pull the country kicking and screaming into WWII). I can’t find articles on this, not because they don’t exist but because sooo many pages of google’s search for ‘war appeasers” and republicans bring up Rumsfeld and not anything historic.

Adapt to Win!

2006-08-18T19:33:00.000-07:00

Ok this one has got my head spinning. RNC chairman Ken Mehlman has recently rolled out the NEW repug talking point- instead of “staying the course” repugs now “adapt to win.’

MEHLMAN: Look, the fact is our mission in the war in Iraq is critical. We agree on that, we agree that it's wrong to cut and run. But look we're not coming in and saying stay the course. The choice in this election is not between stay the course and cut and run. It's between win by adapting and cut and run. Let me tell you what we're doing. The fact is before the successful Iraqi elections, the number of troops went up from 137,000 to 160,000. That's adapting to win. Recently we increased troops in Baghdad, adapting to win. We changed how the training of Iraqi forces occurred to involve more Iraqis. That's adapting to win. We've involved the international community more, the EU, the UN

Now what made me really laugh at this is to me- adapting to win is EVOLUTION. A critter faces a hostile environment and ‘adapts to win’ by EVOLVING. Having a problem getting the choice leaves at the top of trees- Adapt to Win! by having a longer neck.

I don’t know which is funnier the fact that repugs are still looking for buzz words to sell their war- or that the buzz words ironically describes something they don’t believe in.
Actually, the true irony I think is that what they are adapting to win is not the Iraqi War but U.S. elections.

Joe-Mentum

2006-08-09T05:57:00.000-07:00

[ Note: this post is a specific political scree and as such, I Drew Harris, do NOT mean to imply my fellow GMA bloggers Evan or Adam "approve" of this message]

I'm very happy that Ned Lamont won over Lieberman yesterday.
The main reason I'm happy is NOT because Lieberman is a Neo Con in Democrat clothing but because rather then accept the will of his party, he plans to run as an independent. So rather then accept the loss, Lieberman will try to 'take his message' to the people... i.e. get republicans, independent and brain washed dems into voting for him.
Personally I felt that was reason enough not to vote for him in the democratic primary. If he planned to run regardless of the outcome- I'd rather have more choices on the end ballot and have Lamont be on the Democrat ballot.
I also feel that Lieberman deciding he'll run as an independent says it's more important for HIM to be in congress then to follow the will of the voters.

Bill Almighty!

2006-06-20T19:46:00.000-07:00

O'REILLY: So because -- what you have here now is a tipping point in history. A tipping point in history. So you have to win the Iraq situation. Now, to me, they're not fighting it hard enough. See, if I'm president, I've got probably another 50-60,000 with orders to shoot on sight anybody violating curfews. Shoot 'em on sight. That's me. President O'Reilly, curfew in Ramadi, 7 o'clock at night. You're on the street, you're dead. I shoot you right between the eyes. OK?

That's how I'd run that country -- just like Saddam ran it. Saddam didn't have explosions. He didn't have bombers, did he? Because if you got out of line, you're dead.

Now, is that the kind of country I want for Iraq? No. But you have to have that for a few months to stabilize the situation so the Iraqi government can get organized, can get security in place and get the structure going. So, any area that is giving you trouble, you have a 7-to-7 curfew. And you can't come out of your house. That's it. And if you do, we shoot you. That's how you control it. All right?

Lord Amighty.

So we went to war with Iraq to free the Iraqis from Saddam... so that they could be enslaved by... Bill? W? Exxon?

Brotherly Love

2006-06-08T05:22:00.000-07:00

Ok… I’m going to try and frame this OFFENSIVE quote the best way I can. I read this on Media Matters, as I try not to go looking for the beast.

"Throughout this book, I often refer to Christians and Christianity because I am a Christian and I have a fairly good idea of what they believe, but the term is intended to include anyone who subscribes to the Bible of the God of Abraham, including Jews and others."

When I read this, my first thought was- there the right goes breaking logic circuits again. I can go to Media Matters and find all sorts of quotes about her putting down Islam- like this one or this…. Heck I could most likely find another dozen or so of her putting down Muslims and Islam…
Which I find ironic, in the way I find most of what comes out of Fox to be ironic.
You see- Muslims, like Jews, follow the “God of Abraham”. The difference is a) Muslims are the descendents of Esau, instead of Jacob (both of whom are Abraham’s grandkids) and b) Muslims have added the Quran to the Torah… in much the same way that the Christians added the “new testament”.
So using logic- if Jews = Christians because they both believe in the torah then Muslims = Christians as they also believe in the God of Abraham.
Which isn’t that surprising, now that I think about it, as I find both Osama and W. to be annoying religious figures who are doing their darndest to make everyone ELSE live by their “moral” laws.

Interview Aptly Done on 6-6-'6

2006-06-07T09:37:00.000-07:00

For the full story on Ann Coulter's most recent appearance on the today show, head over here.

While there's obviously a lot about her book and her viewpoint I disagree with, there's only one thing I want to wax poetic on here (and frankly, I'm thankful our free speech applies to her as well; it's unfortunate she seems so unwilling to hear the frank responses she's given over her use of it).

From page 7 of her latest book:

"Environmentalists' energy plan is the repudiation of America and Christian destiny, which is Jet Skis, steak on the electric grill, hot showers, and night skiing."

Wow. Seriously, I'll give major brownie points to anyone who can show me Biblical proof that the Christian destiny involves any of these material rewards, even metaphorically. Where in the Bible does it say that the meek shall inherit the earth and the righteous shall be given unlimited lift tickets for Shasta Ski Resort?

Whatever your religion, bless you for it. While I'm agnostic, I'm inclusive. Are there seriously any Christians out there who think Coulter isn't being sacriligious and/or hypocritical when she makes statements like this and (regarding 9-11 widows) "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much" [p.103] as well as any number of the other hare-brained things she writes?

Nothing to bomb here.. move along.. move along.

2006-06-01T19:40:00.000-07:00

Can someone explain to me how, according to the Department of Homeland Security, New York City has NO national monuments or icons????

I mean I guess after 9/11... which the right mentions 5 times a day... that there are no more buildings in New York City that non New Yorkers would know. Unless you listen to a New York Jew Mayor Bloomberg who responded to this news that

"All I can tell you is if you look at their worksheets, and it says that New York City doesn't have any high visibility national icons ... I mean, I don't have to list the Brooklyn Bridge, the United Nations, Rockefeller Center, the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building and the Stock Exchange,"

Then again it's not like the repugs CARED about any of the 3,000 people who died before they died.

Edit: wanted to update this to show WHERE the terrorists seems to want to strike. Indiana.

The National Asset Database, as it is known, is so flawed, the inspector general found, that as of January, Indiana, with 8,591 potential terrorist targets, had 50 percent more listed sites than New York (5,687) and more than twice as many as California (3,212), ranking the state the most target-rich place in the nation.

If Only...

2006-05-15T05:03:00.000-07:00

Great little skit on SNL with Gore...

Voting Counts? No, Vote Counters Count.

2006-04-29T07:40:00.000-07:00

So here’s the thing. I was watching the Daily Show and it mentioned that W.’s low approval numbers are still higher then his father’s. That got me thinking. What W. has done to this country will set us back nearly a generation; the debt he’s run up, rebuilding New Orleans( if the federal government EVER gets to rebuilding it), our continued dependence on oil( which we can also blame on Reagan, and Bush the Elder), the stretching of the executive branch's powers at the cost of the legislative branch and the rights of the citizens of the U.S., and just W.’s contempt of everyone who doesn’t agree with him slash make less then a million a year. He’s done all that and more… and his numbers are STILL better then his Dad’s?

Which leads me to another thought… What are the Democrats chances this fall of getting control of the house and/or the senate?
Slim to none.
I say that because as I’ve learnt in 2000 and 2004, but the Dems haven’t, it’s not who votes who matters, but who counts the votes that matters. The last sentence was very pithy, and not very original. I’ve seen it on several web sites today as I’ve looked into information about Diebold. The Democrats could and should have done something about voter reform in 2000 and 2002, they didn’t. Heck several people have suggested that IF Gore had challenged the votes of ALL of Florida and not just the counties where he knew he was robbed, he would’ve had a better legal challenge against W. and prolly would’ve won… But Gore acted like a baby in 2000 and then the Democrats ignored the people demanding voter reform… and thus in 2004, there was a difference between exit polls and ‘election results’ in Ohio.

Democracy is too important to leave in the hands of corporations. We shouldn’t allow states to hire outsiders to purge the voter lists or to count the votes. We shouldn’t, but our government/ the Republicans who Diebold 'elects' does….

The Democrats should have their best chance of defeating Republicans this year. However I still put the odds of the Republicans keeping their power at over 60%. The votes are counted by a republican company and the Republicans still own the news cycle thanks to Fox News (now an official branch of the government as shown by Tony Snow). Heck, Rove has been ‘demoted’ so that he is being paid by tax payers to help the Republicans win the mid-term elections AND he hasn’t lost his security clearance.
Depressing but true.

S is for See this Movie

2006-03-20T23:04:00.000-08:00

Government with a massive "moral values" stance that does its best to actually act rather immorally towards those w/o those values? Check.

Government with a second in command who is very military/gun happy? Check.

Government where people are arrested, held, tried and executed w/o due process? Check.

Government that is anti-art, anti-gay and anti-free speech? Check.
Where usage of said free speech to speak out against the government is not only unpatriotic, but tantamount to being in league with terrorists? Check.

You'd think that when Alan Moore wrote V for Vendetta in the early 80's he could see the future, or when the Wachowski, et al. Bros. adapted it to film this year they were pointing fingers decidedly other places than the story's setting of Great Britain.

Various "reputable" news agencies have already lambasted the film for "promoting terrorism." After watching it this weekend, I even had to remind a good friend of mine that the only differences between "terrorist" and "revolutionary" are perspective and history.

Do I condone activities that kill innocent people? Absolutely not.

I think the hijackers of 9/11, and all of the Al Qaeda are rightly labelled as terrorists and have no problem with our government wanting to take them out.

I continue to have problems with how our government treats most everyone else.

Criticizing your government doesn't make you a terrorist. Wanting change does not make you a terrorist (even if you want it swiftly, and dare it be said, revolutionary).

I left this movie honestly surprised that it was even released. Honestly, it's such a parable for where our country is definitely aiming itself, I couldn't believe that some censor out there didn't put a kibosh on it.

Despite criticism to the contrary, this movie does not idolize terrorism; the message isn't to change the world through blowing things up, and it isn't suggesting said notion is an ok one. This movie wants you to wake up (how very Matrix-y, actually). Recognize, as I started to with the very first post on this blog, that we are all of us human beings with human needs. We, all of us, need to remember that we control our government (or were supposed to--we are a representative government, not a democratic one). We need to stop allowing our civil liberties to disappear before they're all gone.

What about the kids?

2006-03-15T14:21:00.000-08:00

I am livid about a lot of things in the public eye these days. But in the forefront are Mitt and the Catholic Church. I have blogged in my own blog about my intolerance for both the Governor and the Church as both have affected the day to day lives of people here in Ma.

They have gone a step further recently.
The Catholic Church has decided to take a stand and throw the baby out with the bath water. They refuse to help babies get adopted because STATE LAW requires that they not discriminate based on sexual origination- i.e. they don’t want to place an unwanted baby that could’ve been prevented with birth control to go to a loving parent who is gay. Not wanting this poor baby to go to someone who might LOVE them but teach them the evils of ‘loving thy fellow man’ a bit too much, they have decided to get out of the adoption game.
Mitt feels that it’s NOT the government job to tell religions how to act, nor is it really the government’s job to look after these orphans after the government bans ‘the morning after pill’. So Mitt has decided that the best course of action is to change the law so that the Holy C can indeed make sure that the poor poor babies are not going to GAY homes.

Ok, to review. This is the SAME Catholic Church that promoted Cardinal Law when it was found out that he was COVERING UP for pedophile priests.

The Church has decided it’s above AMERICAN law on numerous occasions, and Mitt is an enabler. Rather then say that the Catholic Church MUST respect the law of the land, because we separate Church and State so that they are both equal; Mitt is saying that BECAUSE we have a separation of Church and State, we can not force the CHURCH to follow STATE laws.
You know what, if the Church wants to tell you that Kerry is not a good candidate because he’s a baby killer (pro life), that they are allowed to ‘protect their own’ before their flock( protecting the pedophile priests but not the kids), then they’ve broken the bonds between Church and State before the State.

I should end by quoting from this story which mentions that the Catholic Church, as usual, is going against the will of IT’S OWN people.

The bishops’ request was in stark contrast to the wishes of the agency itself, which voted unanimously in December to uphold the practice of placing children in homosexual homes.

Raise Minimum Wage!

2006-03-10T05:58:00.000-08:00

Not sure if people from other states can sign Kennedy's petition BUT I don't see why not as it talks about raising the FEDERAL minimum wage.

So please sign it.

C'mon.

A Trip Down the Civil Liberties Highway

2006-03-04T20:53:00.000-08:00

A nurse's computer seized and investigated for sedition because of an anti-Bush "letter to the editor." Alas, First Amendment, I knew thee well.

A family is denied housing for not being married.

Domino's Pizza founder, Thomas Monaghan is trying to build an all-Catholic city. Separate that, Church and State. Sigh.

Homeland Security investigates a couple for PAYING their credit card. Good thing I'm so in debt that'll never happen to me...

He shot a man...

2006-02-27T18:20:00.000-08:00

Been meaning to blog about this for over a week... though I loved Jon Stewert's comments last week.

How powerful do you have to be that you not only can get away with shooting a man BUT he feels he has to apologize TO YOU.

Because apparently that's how powerful Dick Cheney is.

He shot a man this month, he admitted he drank a bit before the shooting [though this admission was later edited out of his lone interview], he then waited until he slept it off before talking to the authorities. Oh Dick then had his hostess break the news to the local press, instead of being a man and owning up to the event.

The last sitting vice president to shoot a man was Arron Burr. He shot a man in a duel- so the other guy had a chance to shoot back. Now at the time, duels were on the wane but it still was an ‘honorable’ thing. However no matter how ‘legal’ the duel was, this duel destroyed Burr’s future. He became the FIRST Vice President not to go on to be president and his named was sullied forever- Hamilton appears on a bill, not so Burr’s.

Dick Cheney has had no such problems. His victim has apologized for putting Cheney and his family through sooo much drama, by not knowing if HE ( the victim) was going to be ok.

The victim was so close to Cheney that one of the buckshots got stuck into his heart, causing a heart attack, and he felt the need to apologize.

Man. It’s good to be the king. Or vice king as the case may be.

The other comic

2006-02-15T04:31:00.000-08:00

A lot of news has been given to the "muslim" comic that offends. However, it's only on Fox about a week or so ago that I heard about the comic below.
( yes I'm late blogging about this but that's what happens when you work a 6 day week)

I wanted to put here( basically all my blogs) because I thought it was an amusing and TRUE comic.

Yes- Rummy had the gall to say that today's troops are "battle hardened."

I just find this to be laughable. I thought the first punchline was the fact that NONE of Bushco has been "battle hardened". But apparently I was wrong as my google search of 'rumsfeld "battle hardened"' turned up a bio of Rumsfeld subtitled- The Leadership Wisdom of a Battle-Hardened Maverick.

I swear like most stuff coming out of Bushco... if it wasn't sooo darn sad, it would be damn amusing.

Oh and this comic is the gift that keeps on giving as O'Reilly was pissed that the cartoonist didn't have the BALLS to appear on the Factor. O'Reilly basically said that if the cartoonist was going to publish this crap- he should appear on the Factor, that not appearing on the Factor made this guy a chicken and took away from this point. O'Rielly then showed a clip of the cartoonist on the Paula Zahn show, which btw is on CNN at the same time as the Factor. I thought this was darn amusing as I feel that NO left leaning person should go on Fox. I feel the left just gets yelled at, and it 'shows' that Fox can book a 'balenced' show even though the show isn't balenced as they end up cutting the left's mike and letting the right wing talking heads fawn all over the Bushco and the host.

So I'm putting this cartoon all over to show my disdain for the White House and how they're handling the war.

George W. Bush V, America.

2006-01-05T05:33:00.000-08:00

I really want to call the police and try to have them arrest W. as a) a terrorist and b) a career criminal.

I say a) terrorist because that’s how he and his evil compatriots operate. They terrorize the American people. They want us to live in fear, pointing out that if we don’t do everything they want that we’ll be attacked again. Not so funny after I read the last sentence, it sounds like organized crime- “This is a real nice country you have here, be a shame if you elected a democrat and something BAD were to happen.”

I say b) career criminal because he has recently admitted that he broke the law with wiretaps, and he said he’d continue to break the law. Worse is this article about W. and torture. The White House has continued to say that they have the right to torture prisoners to ‘learn useful information.’ It should be noted that NO ONE at the White House has served in the military and so they’ve never had to worry about being on the receiving end of torture. Heck they’ve even ignored experts who’ve pointed out that once tortured- people will say anything to stop the torture.
Congress- in the form of Sen. McCain said this was ‘not right/ un-American’. The White House scared congress and the American people (see a) by talking about the ''ticking time bomb scenario" and how not being able to torture people would tie the president’s hands… not that he tortures NOW. Congress, by a wide margin, did NOT accept the ''ticking time bomb scenario" and said… ‘No, we’re Americans… We don’t torture.’ The White House tried every trick in the book to keep their power to hurt other people… but, again, congress decided by a wide margin that we shouldn’t be torturing people.
So when W. signed the bill, he had no choice because the ‘no torture’ law passed by a large enough margin to survive a veto, he added a little note… saying that basically he feels the law doesn’t apply to him BECAUSE of the ''ticking time bomb scenario".
So again- Congress passed a law that was specifically to stop the president from torturing people and the president while signing it decided that said law doesn’t apply to him.
This I feel insults all of America and must be treasonous or at the very least illegal.

W. is not a stupid little monkey anymore, he’s an EVIL man who believes he’s doing GOD’S work by torturing people of a different faith( and possible his own people as we still don’t know who’s in Gitmo). I wonder if he’d be sanctified by the Spanish Inquisition.

Power

2006-01-04T12:41:00.000-08:00

I fail to understand how a white house who firmly believes it has the power to wiretap, hold people without trial indefinitely and torture people for information does not give a government agency the power to close down a mine when said mine has over 200 safety violations.

Contact your Rep.

2005-12-21T06:24:00.000-08:00

Ok... while I've signed online petitions sent to me by Moveon.org and my friends this year( because a lot of crap has been going down), last night was the first time I wrote my congressman.
I found him using Write your Representative. The thing that was the incentive was W. admitting this weekend that he's been illegally wiretaping people. He doesn't have that power- even the PRESIDENT is suppose to get approval from a Judge to preform wire taps. It's called Checks and Balances- a term that W. didn't learn in Harvard or Yale.
I've mentioned before here that Benjamin Franklin wisely said "He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither" I still believe this with every fiber of my being. And that's why W. scares me soooo much. He's trying to grab power by saying he needs it because of the War on Terror. A war that a) we're losing and b) is sooo loosely defined that we could be fighting it for decades[ Anybody know how that War on Drugs started by Reagan is doing?]. And some newspeople( besides Fox) are helping W. frame his actions in Freedom V. Security.

I'm not saying I want thousands of Americans to die as they did on 9/11 but at the same time I don't want Americans to be killing HUNDREDS of thousands as the U.S. is doing in Iraq.
I don't think W.'s wiretaps, Patroit Act, or Homeland Security is keeping us safer.

Ideally I'd like him to go to jail for breaking the law as he admited in his Radio Address. I told my congressman that. I also told him that I would settle for the Patroit Act to expire- as it's obvious that W. can't be trusted with ANY power, and that I think W. needs to be reminded of the checks and balences within the Constitution. A document that A) he is sworn to protect and b) he's been reported to say it's "just a goddamned piece of paper".

So please write your congressperson and let them know that it's thier DUTY to act as oversight to the President and they should do something about W's claims of 'wartime powers.'

Credit Cards

2005-12-18T06:35:00.000-08:00

This is a general rant that I felt was holiday related. I’m putting it on GMA as well because I feel the problems with credit cards are because of our system of the U.S. campaign system; politicians have to raise huge amounts of money to run, or worse feel that one of the ‘perks’ of being elected is to get ‘corporate sponsorship’. That is why hundreds/ thousands of Katrina victims are going to run afoul with debts in the coming months. Last year before Katrina hit, the credit card companies wrote a bill that made it harder for peoples to declare bankruptcy. This law makes it harder for poor people to get out from under their problems- like what happened to people due to the mishandling of Katrina.

What truly bothers me about credit cards is the fine print. Basically the credit card companies have been given government approval to screw you over. No matter how LOW the rates you sign up with Visa/ Mastercard/ or Discover, they have the right to change the rate whenever THEY want. The card companies don’t even have to give you a warning before they change things. So imagine you have a $200 debt at a good 4% interest rate… and then they change it on the 10th of the month to 7%. Now if they had bothered to warn you, you could have decided to pay off the $200 and canceled the card… But they don’t and by the law of the land- they don’t have to. The laws help the banks and not the people because the banks give more money to the law makers.

This is why whenever possible I pay via cash or debit card. I bank currently at a small bank, which I have to go out of my way to use one of their ATMs, and suggest others do the same. I know it’s hard to go through life without racking up debt, but here in the US I feel racking up debt is tantamount to the Debtor’s prison that existed in Victorian England.

A holiday poem

2005-12-17T14:59:00.000-08:00

Below is a poem written ( and read into congressional record) by Rep. John Dingell (D-MI). Another Democrat that I'm glad serves this country.

'Twas a week before Christmas and all through the House,
no bills were passed 'bout which Fox News could grouse.
Tax cuts for the wealthy were passed with great cheer,
so vacations in St. Barts soon should be near.

Katrina kids were all nestled snug in motel beds,
while visions of school and home danced in their heads.
In Iraq, our soldiers need supplies and a plan,
and nuclear weapons are being built in Iran.

Gas prices shot up, consumer confidence fell.
Americans feared we were in a fast track to ... well.
Wait, we need a distraction, something divisive and wily,
a fabrication straight from the mouth of O'Reilly.

We will pretend Christmas is under attack,
hold a vote to save it, then pat ourselves on the back.
Silent Night, First Noel, Away in the Manger,
Wake up Congress, they're in no danger.

This time of year, we see Christmas everywhere we go,
From churches to homes to schools and, yes, even Costco.
What we have is an attempt to divide and destroy
when this is the season to unite us with joy.

At Christmastime, we're taught to unite.
We don't need a make-up reason to fight.
So on O'Reilly, on Hannity, on Coulter and those right-wing blogs.

You should sit back and relax, have a few egg nogs.

'Tis the holiday season; enjoy it a pinch.
With all our real problems, do we really need another Grinch?
So to my friends and my colleagues, I say with delight,
a Merry Christmas to all, and to Bill O'Reilly, Happy Holidays.

Ho, ho, ho. Merry Christmas.

Oh and the vote he read it into... was House Resolution 579 "expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the symbols and traditions of Christmas should be protected, One, recognizes the importance of the symbols and traditions of Christmas; two, strongly disapproves of attempts to ban references to Christmas; and three, expresses support for the use of these symbols and traditions."

Humour

2005-12-14T00:16:00.000-08:00

A man died and went to heaven. As he stood in front of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall of clocks behind him.

He asked, "What are all those clocks?"

St. Peter answered, "Those are Lie-Clocks. Everyone on earth has a Lie-Clock. Every time you lie, the hands on your clock will move."

"Oh," said the man, "whose clock is that?"

"That's Mother Teresa's. The hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie."

"Incredible," said the man. "And whose clock is that one?"

St. Peter responded, "That's Abraham Lincoln's clock. The hands have moved twice, telling us that Abe told only two lies in his entire life."

"Where's President Bush's clock?" asked the man.

"Bush's clock is in Jesus' office. He's using it as a ceiling fan."

Patriot Act Revisited

2005-12-08T23:24:00.000-08:00

The patriot act is up for renewal, and it needs to be
filibustered before the idiots in the house and senate
let it pass and continue to deteriorate our rights.
So please go to the link below, which will help you
either sign a petition via email or send a letter to
your senator.

-Adam

http://pfaw.kintera.org/PatriotActFilibuster

Boot-Stepping

2005-12-05T23:56:00.000-08:00

From the Chico News & Review:

As if the Patriot Act were not intrusive enough, the Bush administration is now quietly attempting to expand the ability of U.S. spy agencies to secretly monitor the activities of American citizens.

According to the Washington Post, a presidential commission is working to expand the powers of a little-known agency called the Counterintelligence Field Agency (CIFA) to investigate crimes within the U.S., harvesting and fusing reports from local, state and federal cops on anyone the agency believes may be a security risk. That may not bother those of us who have nothing to hide, until we find out that a security risk is defined so broadly that it includes "non-specific threats," and "suspicious activity." In some cases, just asking a family member about their military service or participating in a lawful protest could mark a citizen for surveillance or even detention.

Acting in concert, the Pentagon is lobbying legislators to exclude spy agencies from the Privacy Act, a move that would give the Department of Defense access to voluminous records on ordinary Americans. Why? The official line is, as always, that the government needs to watch us to protect us from terrorists.

But who will protect us from the government?

In the 1970s another paranoid and corrupt presidential administration allowed the CIA and FBI to spy on U.S. citizens, a situation that led to numerous civil rights abuses, a monumental waste of time and taxpayer money and a widespread loss of faith in the American system of government. What the Bush administration is currently doing, however, may be even worse than Nixon's COINTELPRO.

Today, technologies such as data harvesting and GPS tracking make spying on American citizens much easier. At the same time, our real enemies have figured out that these high-tech means of surveillance don't work as well on them. Instead of investing in human intelligence and other methods proven to work against terrorists, it appears the administration is casting the blame for its own mistakes on the people it is supposed to be protecting.

The United States doesn't need a secret police force, and the creation of such an agency would mean nothing less than the demise of our Republic.

So protect yourself. Protest. Contact your Congresspeople. Jon Stewart and Steve Colbert aren't going to save you.

Response to the other side...

2005-11-18T08:31:00.000-08:00

In July I posted here about Bernie Goldberg's 'new book' The 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America( and Al Franken is #37)with the blog title- I (hate) America. The reason I put the (hate) in parenthesis is because I do NOT really hate America, but according to the right I do. The right has a huge chip on their shoulders with their ‘If you’re not with us, you’re against us’ mentality. They claimed often that if Kerry was elected president the question wouldn’t be IF we were attacked again, but WHEN.
I titled the post I (hate) America because an author had published a list of 100 people who, according to him are hurting America. Most of these people are democrats, or people who question the republican attack machine. I put in my post the ‘attacks’ on Ted Kennedy. Ted is MY representative, and I felt he did a good job by voting against the president to allow W to attack Iraq. I personally like many of the people on the list, and indeed, there’s a link on this page and my own blog to Ted Rall [15]. The only reason I can see for Rall to be on the list, is because he has a dark sense of humor and uses it against the republicans.
I disliked this list because you have bunch of bleeding heart liberals © and no right wing hate monkeys © like Bill O’ Reilly or Ann Coulter on it or any of the Fox News crew, people who are destroying American culture far faster then the left.

I bring all this up because Evan brought to my attention the fact that someone recently responded to this post- with the following-

sue Brantley said...
Then leave America! You won't be missed and America will be a lot better for it.

Now I think from my post and hers, that she didn’t read my post. She didn’t get any level of Irony or that I’m sick of the right attacking the left. I don’t think that LIBERAL is a dirty word. And I’m proud to be one.

I’m not leaving the U.S. because guess what- I’m not in a teeny tiny minority. It’s not like Reagan where W. won all but one state…. Even if you allow for ‘republican’ reality, in 2000- W. won the electoral vote but NOT the popular vote- more people voted for Gore (and others) then W. W won in 2000 because of the electoral college. In 2004, while W. might’ve won based on fear, it hasn’t lasted.
In current polls, the American people agree with ME more then they agree with W. W’s polls numbers say less then 40% of America think he’s doing a good job and 70% of America [ a super majority] want the U.S. out of Iraq. W feels he doesn’t have to listen to polls because HE knows what’s right, I say he doesn’t listen to polls because he’s a spoiled little rich kid who wants to do what HE wants and not what the people want. Another majority that W doesn’t listen to is the majority of Americans who believe that Abortion should be legal.

So I have no plans on leaving, I have as much right to be here as anyone else. Did any of the Right Wing Hate Monkeys © leave when Clinton was in the White House? No… They tried everything in their power to demonize Bill ‘N Hillary and get them out of power… Now the left is trying to do the same thing and the right brands us traitors, liars and tells us to either get with the program, leave OUR country (as this woman did to me) or be smited by THEIR god for not getting with the program( as Pat Robertson did to a small town for refusing HIS god in THEIR school).
Ain’t gonna happen. We’re mad as heck, and we’re not gonna take it any more. We’re staying in the U.S. to try to take OUR country back in 2006.

Right to Privacy

2005-11-16T19:17:00.000-08:00

The following was printed today in the editoral section of the NYT. So many of you might've already read it... BUT I want to make sure as many people read this as can... As it's a darn good idea.

Estelle Griswold is a name that anyone who cares about women’s rights, access to birth control, freedom of expression (read: looking at porn in your own home), and gay rights should familiarize themselves with. In a decision in 1965, the Supreme Court overturned Estelle’s conviction on charges that she—horrors!—made birth control available to married couples. At the time Connecticut—Connecticut!—had a law agin’ that sort of nonsense, as the state believed it was its job to discourage straight people from havng recreational sex. (Believe it or not, the having of recreational sex used to be a controversial topic. Sex, as many believed and few practiced, was strictly for procreation.)

The Supreme Court struck down that idiotic law, stating that it violated the “right to privacy.” Much flows from Griswold, including 2003’s Lawrence v. Texas, which found that even homos had a right to privacy, and that consensual, private homosexual sex can’t be criminalized. (That was the end of sodomy laws in the U.S.) You can read all about Griswold here.

Problematically, a right to privacy is not explicitly mentioned anywhere in the U.S. Constitution. The majority argued that the right was among the “unenumerated” rights implied by something called the “penumbrus,” which sounds like something that a sodomy law would prevent you from touching with your tongue.

Here we are, decades after Griswold, and social conservatives and liberals are constantly arguing about whether or not the right to privacy, which is a popular right (naturally enough), and one to which most Americans believe they’re entitled, is actually a right to which Americans are entitled, constitutionally-speaking. Liberals love it because the RTP underpins our constitutional right to have access to birth control, abortion services, gay sex, porn. Social conservatives hate it for that very reason.

The debate raged when John Roberts was being confirmed …, and it is raging again as Sam Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court makes its way through the Senate …. Is the RTP in there? Or isn’t it?

I find myself wondering why we don’t just put it in there? If the Republicans can propose a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, can’t the Dems propose a “Right to Privacy” amendment? Since the RTP is popular (unlike the anti-gay marriage amendment), the Dems should put it out there and let the Republicans run around the country explainging why they’re against a right to privacy—not a winning position. Then, once it passes, we’ll be spared the debate over whether or not the RTP is in there every time a conservative is nominated to the Supreme Court.

The Right to Privacy Amendment—c’mon, Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy, Patty Murray, Barak Obama! Propose it

If you're not with them, they want you to go to H***

2005-11-12T05:56:00.000-08:00

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson warned residents of a rural Pennsylvania town Thursday that disaster may strike there because they "voted God out of your city" by ousting school board members who favored teaching intelligent design.
All eight Dover, Pa., school board members up for re-election were defeated Tuesday after trying to introduce "intelligent design" -- the belief that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power -- as an alternative to the theory of evolution.
"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city," Robertson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "700 Club."

The above quote is why I detest organized religion… because in my mind, it’s about the pope/rabbi/nut job telling you if you do NOT do what THEIR god tells you to do, their god will get angry and do something BAD to you.

I was happy when I read about the town’s choice, not only did the town’s vote agree with my choice on ‘intelligent design’, BUT they told the school board that the school board doesn’t speak for them. It’s important in a republic, such as we have that when someone you vote for doesn’t properly represent you, you vote for someone else. In 2002, when Kerry voted FOR the war in Iraq, I didn’t damn him I simply voted against him. I knew he would still win without my vote, but I wanted to send him a message. Sadly he didn’t get the message, as seen from his run in 2004, but I tried to let him know how I felt in a proper manner. I didn’t threaten to take away his cookie [as did the guy who’s the current pope], thus damning him.
I really don’t like people whose only response when you disagree with them is ‘go to hell!’ Which it turns out, is usually where I want them to go.

Veteran's Day

2005-11-11T15:35:00.000-08:00

I went by Boston's City Hall for a possible job lead.
While I knew today was Veteran’s Day... I really didn't give any thought to what might be going on by City Hall. And indeed I felt pleasantly surprised.

Yes there were a bunch of soldiers in dress uniforms, but most of the crowd around the 'official' event were aged vets with sweatshirts saying 'impeach bush' and signs reading 'support the troops, bring them back' and the Kerry quote[ that got far too little airtime in the 2004 election] " 'How do you ask a soldier to be the last person to die for a lie?"

This made me proud. I stopped to talk to one of the vets that had an impeach bush t-shirt. I wanted him to know that 'younger' people were listening to him. I told him that I felt it was a darn shame that the media has let us down... When was the last time they mentioned how many Iraqis have died due to the war or mentioned the depleted uranium weapons the U.S. is using Iraq. He nodded, and shook his head and agreed with me.

I was happy to have chatted this man up. He said that he had been arrested with Cindy Sheehan in D.C. I told him that I was proud of what he and Cindy were doing. How I felt it was important to keep educating people on what the U.S. is doing in Iraq and how it's affecting the citizens of both nations.

I hoped that he left with as good a feeling as I did. While I don't think any soldiers will be coming back until next year; my current hope is that since it's an election year, with people like Cindy Sheehan and this man, perhaps the moderate republicans will start agreeing to bring back the troops for fear of losing their seats in '06.

Makes me Sick.

2005-11-09T04:51:00.000-08:00

Ok when I found out about this story I got physically sick.

Basically the IRS is going after a church for preaching that the Iraq war is wrong. The reason this makes me sick, is because a) In the past year or so I've read many stories about churches helping the army recruit and b) The current Pope( ya know the Nazi) in the 2004 election said that Kerry should be refused communion because he was pro-choice. Where was the IRS then? or C) Where was the IRS when the church started coming out against GAY marriage?

I guess places of worship aren't allowed to be political IF they go against W.'s religious ideas.

Vote Today!

2005-11-08T08:53:00.000-08:00

Yeah... I know it's an odd year and all BUT there are several important things going on arround the country.
Here in Boston there's a mayoral race, same goes with NYC; two governor races in Va. and NJ; and of course the govenator's initiatives in Ca.

Not saying how YOU should vote[dems/against the initiatives] but that you should go to the polls and be counted.

Alito

2005-11-04T06:35:00.000-08:00

I’m against Alito for one simple ruling. He’s decided that LEGALLY women shouldn’t get abortions without the ‘child’s’ father’s approval. I can think of several situations where that is just going to make the woman’s life a lot harder. But Alito, like a lot of religious conservatives don’t care a fig for a woman’s life just the seed in their belly.
This is unacceptable to me… and should be unacceptable to every feeling person in the United States.
To me abortion is a ‘litmus’ test… as it’s about a person’s privacy- in fact that’s how Roe V. Wade was settled, by ‘privacy laws’. Same goes for gay rights, if someone disagrees with the Lawrence V. Texas ruling; I’d prefer them not to be on the bench (and that includes the justices CURRENTLY on the bench who voted that gay sex isn’t legal). I’d rather the Supreme Court made companies act in a ‘proper’ manner then people.

Media Changes

2005-11-01T19:46:00.000-08:00

A short time ago Uniquecrash5 asked me 5 questions… and one of them was what can be done to fix the American political system? I answered here, about how I wanted to change the all or nothing system we have- feeling that run off voting would be the best ‘quick fix’ for our system.
HOWEVER this made me want to blog about changes I feel MUST be done to the media. At the beginning of the radio age, the U.S. government was smart enough to LEASE the airwaves. Saying that the radio waves, and latter tv waves, belong to us as in ‘We the people’. Neither of the following ideas is new, but I think they are both good.

The first was presented to me over a decade ago by my step father, who is a fiscal republican (didn’t vote in the last two presidential elections), cheaper ads for campaigns, making it easier to run for office. One of the biggest problems with today’s politics is the current system favors the rich and the sell outs. In order to launch a good campaign, you have to raise OODLES of money to pay for radio and tv ads… so people know who you are( and/or how evil the other candidate is). By making tv and radio stations discount the amount they charge candidates you get rid of a lot of the evils of fund raising. Again it’s a simple thing that will never get done because a) politicians do NOT want to make it easier for people to run against them and b) the ‘special interest’ groups would lobby against this as it would make them lose MAJOR power.

The other idea, which would NEVER get past the republican controlled senate, go back to the pre Reagan, Equal Time Law/Act. Basically in the 40s, 50s, 60s ,and 70s Networks had ‘equal time laws’, which means for each story they did about one candidate, they’d have to do one about the other candidate… for each commercial they sold to one side, they’d have to sell equal time to the other side.
This chance of this being reinstated is about as likely as me throwing a brick and hitting Evan’s front window in Ca.
It won’t be done because the republicans have Fox News to help them do their dirty work. The republicans have radio stations and at least one entire network spewing their spin 24/7, there is no way they’d allow it to be shortened to 12/3 ½ … or worse to have Al Franken have a show following Bill.
But it would make the news a bit more fair and balanced.

Scares the heck out of me...

2005-11-01T16:20:00.000-08:00

Ok... I read this story on Media Matters and it scares the stuffing out of me.

Basically someone called O'Reilly and had the NERVE to disagree with the fair AND balanced
O'Reilly. Now being fair AND balanced O'Reilly said

Anyway, we get another nut on the air. That's the worst part of doing this. Ninety percent of the callers are good, and then you get nuts. Now, we should go to their house. We should all go because I can get their addresses when they call in. We can trace them back, and we should all go over and surprise them

Get it. If you call The FACTOR and disagree- O'Reilly thinks he has the right to tell EVERYBODY where you live. Guess that's O'Reilly's way of looking out for you.

So I went to the game store to warn my friends there NEVER to call Fox for fear that they'll track him down. He pointed out that Fox had sorta done this....

By "sorta" I mean they put the address of a home an Islamic radical, but the 'terrorist' had moved out THREE YEARS AGO.
Can you imagine being in a house that Fox has labeled owned by a terrorist. I think the couple who live there should sue Fox- as should the town( as they have to have police make extra patrol arround the house to make sure the couple is safe)

And I warn you people not to call Fox... or think of calling them... for fear of O'Reilly unleashing his ditto heads( or whatever his unthinking fan base is called).

And that's DREW looking out for you.

Thoughts on Meirs

2005-10-31T07:59:00.000-08:00

Ok, sorry for the delay but I’ve been meaning to blog about Meirs since her withdrawal. My desire was increased this weekend by a comment of Evan to me and last night’s talk with my brother.

The first thought- which evan brought up is the who sex thing… The idea that Miers is a replacement for O’Conner because both be women…. When O’Conner was the first to say she wanted to get off the court and Roberts was nominated to replace her.
There are many thoughts here. The first being that since Roberts was then nominated to replace the chief justice who died during Roberts confirmation, that Robert got a ‘promotion’ and thus replaced dead white dude instead of O’Conner.
I really thought it was funny when I read this weekend that Ann Coulter, a shrill woman if ever there was one [actually it’s been suggested to me that she’s a man baby!] complained that W. went wrong by feeling the NEED to pick a woman- as if to imply that being a woman is why the right disliked Meirs. In fact I did see a news program that ‘raised’ the question of whether America was too hard on Meirs because she was a woman- to which I say I hope not. I think Meirs was unqualified regardless of gender. Heck if she was a male- I think her record would be LESS impressive, as when she went to school there were very few women lawyers- so that potentially was one of her FEW accomplishments.
Now I want the most competent justice on the court… but at the same time I think there are enough GOOD judges to replace a minority with a minority. Now I’m not saying, as others are, that they have to replace O’Conner with a woman… because NOW there must be two women ALWAYS on the court, but I think that at least three of the justices (counting Thomas) should be non white dudes. As far as I’m concerned the NEXT justice shouldn’t be compared to O’Conner (though we lefties liked her better then Thomas), but should be a member of SOME minority… make the next person a Latino (but *not* Gonzoles), an African-American, a woman, a Jew or dare I say Muslim. Oh man, that would be sooo interesting if W. nominated a ‘non radical’ Muslim to the supreme court.

My second thought, which is what my brother brought up but I had already thought of, is the enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend; just because the right didn’t like Meirs doesn’t mean the left should embrace her. I compared this to WWII where I feel that Stalin wasn’t much better then Hitler… who hated each other because they both wanted to rule Russia. My brother retorted that he felt that Hitler was worse and that FDR was right to align himself with Stalin against Hitler. I feel however my main point is still sound… just because my enemy hates someone doesn’t make them my friend. FDR choose to align himself with Russia, not because he liked Russia but because it made his life easier. I was very happy that the Dems kept quiet and let the repugs tear Meirs down. I think by staying out of the frey, the democrats didn’t give any fuel to the republicans… but I would hope had she gone to committee that they would’ve had a bunch of tough questions for her…
I really was worried that the republicans were actually trying to ‘sucker’ us by ‘pretending’ dislike Meirs so dems would vote for her and then turn around and vote for her.
Likewise I thought one of the most interesting things was that NONE of the republicans actually stood up and said they would vote AGAINST Meirs, they just asked W. to withdraw her. I felt that was because they knew that they were between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, the rank and file seemed to be nervous about Meirs, and they need to be re-elected in 06 or 08, on the other hand W. is still in charge of the party and is a mean and petty man.

The main problem I had with the Meirs withdraw is sort of petty of me… I felt this do-over was a way for W. to get a GOOD story out. That he’s had so much bad press that picking a new Justice gives him control of a story- unlike all the other bad news.
I also was afraid that now W. has a range. He knows that Roberts was OK and Meirs wasn’t so he now gets to just find a range of who the most incompetent person he could nominate and still get in.

Update: while I wrote this, this morning, I heard that there was a new judge nominated. Samuel Alito. So more perhaps later. Just was happy that because of the way Meirs bowed out, it couldn’t be Gonzoles… as the Senate would then want him to turn over papers he gave W. about torture ‘n stuff, just like Meirs was asked.

The Pro Torturers

2005-10-14T06:54:00.000-07:00

You've heard of PRO-life politicians; well these nine (along with W.) are PRO TORTURE.
* Wayne Allard (R-CO)
* Christopher Bond (R-MO)
* Tom Coburn (R-OK)
* Thad Cochran (R-MS)
* John Cornyn (R-TX)
* James Inhofe (R-OK)
* Pat Roberts (R-KS)
* Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
* Ted Stevens (R-AK)

I meant to write this last week but I've been busy. Last Week the senate voted 90 to 9 to STOP the horrible torture being preformed by the U.S. against the 'suspected' terrorists we're fighting. I say suspected as most of the people at Abu Graib and Camp X-ray haven't had their 'day in court' and thus haven't actually been proven to have done anything bad.
The 'bill' was created by John McCain (who knows a bit about being on the receiving end of a country's evil torture policy) and attached to a defense spending bill. As mentioned the above 9 voted AGAINST the U.S. being a country which is humane and treats it’s foes with respect. Hmmm didn’t we get rid of Saddam because he mistreated people?
(That was like the second reason for us to go to war, after WMDs but before ‘fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here’)

I list them in the hopes that any/all of their seats are up in 2006. If you live in one of these states, please start a grassroots movement to get rid of one (or two if you live in OK) of these scum.

Naturally they aren’t alone- W. has threatened to use his FIRST VETO to get rid of this. As W. has been told by his attorney, now the attorney general (Gonzales) that torture is a-ok. I mean we know that W. is a monster (who maybe should’ve been sent to ‘Nam) but we can’t get rid of him at this late date- we can however go after these nine. And maybe remind people what sort of monsters OUR side is breeding. Remember nobody above the rank of sergeant has gone to trial for torture, the little guys have gotten in trouble for ‘just following orders’ while the people who give the orders have stayed safe and secure in Washington D.C. making sure not to leave a paper trail.
Fortunately with 90% of the vote, the senate has enough people against torture to override the president’s veto… so part of me hopes that W. vetoes it; so he can lose more support and the republicans who want to run in ‘06(and president in ’08) start distancing themselves from the commander and thief.

Worldview

2005-10-04T17:26:00.000-07:00

This past Friday I attended Aeia's classroom for an awards ceremony (she won an award for knowing all of the "palabras importantes" in her spanish immersion Kindergarten class. While there, I was standing by her classroom globe so I gave it a slow twirl.

Her globe still has the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Still has Yugoslavia...

Where is all of our education money going if they can't even afford globes that are less than 15 years out of date?

Oh Lordy!

2005-09-30T06:06:00.000-07:00

Ok... I read this story last night and it just blew me away.

I mean I realize that this is the sort of comment you should expect from the neo-cons, like Mama Bush saying that the black evacuees being shuttled from the Super Dome to the Astro Dome, where they were ACTUALLY given the basic human necessities and Babs says that since they’re poor, this is probably working out for them.

But at the same time I feel a need to say something, that the caller was an idiot; saying how much more the U.S.’s GNP would be if no one was allowed to have an abortion as more people= more workers. I think this is a stupid theory as if taking the idea that ‘abortion is bad’ and trying to apply this as an answer to everything; well social security is in trouble, abortion is bad so if you had more workers/ unaborted kids then you’d have more people paying into the system… So this goes back to abortion is bad.
So the caller is a one issue idiot but the host, Bill Bennett is just an evil creep. To imply that one race is responsible for all/most of the crime in America, is just reprehensible. The FCC wants to go after Howard Stern for saying ‘bad words’, well I think first they should go after right wing nut jobs who use ‘hate speech’ as a way to get listeners.

Crossing the Rubicon

2005-09-28T08:12:00.000-07:00

One of the rules of the Roman Republic was that their soldiers were not allowed to cross the Rubicon, because they didn’t want Roman soldiers in Rome. The Roman Senate understood that it would be all too easy for a general to take over the Republic with a band of loyal centurions. They understood that the centurions were trained to follow the chain of command and were trained to attack/kill.
And that’s exactly what Julius Caesar did. He took his army and he disobeyed the senate and ‘crossed the Rubicon’, and took over Rome with his loyal army.

I mention this because in the aftermath of Katrina, I was somewhat disturbed that W., instead of sending the National Guard to help flood victims, sent the Army. I do not think that the Army should be operating on American soil. Training- yes; keeping the peace- no. The Army is trained not to help, but to kill and ‘protect at all costs’. The Army is trained to shoot dissenters, while the National Guard and local police are trained in crowd control. I fear the Army operating in the United States, because they are more concerned with following orders then public safety.
And I feel that the history lesson of Caesar still applies. If you look at most 3rd world countries, the dictators are ex military or have the backing of the military. I think it would be all too easy for a general with ‘boots on the ground’ to decide that HE knows better then elected officials what’s best for America….
I feel that W. is making (another) huge mistake by seeking an easy answer and deciding that rather then have FEMA or the National Guard do what they have been trained to do, he’s asking the Army to step in… because W. feels that the Army will better follow HIS wishes. Which is another scary thought. We don’t need a general abusing the military, just a politician that the military will follow- a politician who thinks he knows better then the people what’s good for the people of the United States.

From the Daily Spam, As I Found it Amusing

2005-09-19T23:08:00.000-07:00

Today the government announced that it is changing its emblem from an Eagle to a "condom" because it more accurately reflects the government's political stance. A condom allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives you a sense of security while you're actually being screwed.

Damn! It just doesn't get any more accurate than that

Let's annoy more Muslims....

2005-09-16T06:24:00.000-07:00

I read this in the Globe yesterday and just felt I had to bring it to everyone’s attention. As most people know Mitt Romney wants to be president, as such he doesn’t care about the people he governs but the ‘republican base’ of the country. That’s really the only way I can explain his latest news conference.
Mitt, in his infinite wisdom, said in a press conference that we should be bugging mosques and that we should keep an eye out on ‘foreign’ exchange students. Now my first thought was, ‘gee, yeah… Let’s piss off MORE Muslims, because I don’t think they’re really annoyed at us as much as they should be.’ By singling out Muslims and treating them like second class citizens, you make them angry and MORE likely to want to do something bad to you.
When I talked to a friend, he took the story to another level. See maybe Mitt’s on to something… but just isn’t going far enough. Yeah, we let him bug mosques, but then he has to bug churches and temples. Imagine how easy it would’ve been to charge Cardinal Law with ‘adding and abetting’ if we had tapped HIS office. And think of the kids that might still be kids if the state had stepped in and protected them from the predatory priests.
So maybe Mitt’s on to something, but just didn’t go far enough….

Naw . I really don’t think so. I believe in privacy and I don’t trust these nut jobs with ‘free wiretapping’ privileges. But I did think people should know about this story... as Mitt is going to run for President in '08.

The $ Cost of Katrina.

2005-09-15T07:45:00.000-07:00

When I first blogged about Katrina, I mentioned that my second thought (after the loss of life) was how this was going to affect the national debt. Well since then I’ve come to realize that the burden of the hurricane damaged might end up being paid by the poor and by the nice instead by the government and big business.

Yesterday I saw on CNN that several insurance companies have decided NOT to pay out the victims of Katrina. Now insurance is ‘betting’ but all dressed up. Basically, you pay the insurance company x amount a month in case you have an accident. You figure that if something bad happens, you’ve paid into a system and the insurance company will pay your bills. On the other side, insurance companies hire lots of bean counters and like Vegas make sure that odds are in their favor. The companies set your rates based on all sorts of math and work the math in their favor, like a gambling joint in Vegas.
Now with the odds in their favor, you expect insurance companies to ‘play fair’. You’ve given them money, and if nothing happened to you the companies get to keep the money; so you expect them to pay up when something does happen.
That’s not what’s happening in LA., the insurance companies are saying that the damage was ‘flood’ damage- as the damage occurred by water after the levees broke. And most of the people didn’t have flood damage- as that’s an ‘extra’ that few poor people can afford and besides that could be considered a ‘sucker’s bet’, as who would expect a house in New Orleans to be ‘flooded’?
This made my stomach churn more as I heard that the state was going to sue to get the money back. Now I’m all for people suing to get their money back, however with tort reform and lawyer fees, I figure the people who are actually hurting aren’t going to get nearly enough of the money they need.

This brings me to another interesting tidbit that I found on the internet, the idea that our government and not the American people should be helping the victims of Katrina. The Red Cross should be helping countries that can’t afford to help themselves; they shouldn’t need to help America (one of the richest countries ever). Rather then ask the American people for handouts, our government should be rolling back tax cuts. Rather then ask ‘average’ Americans to ‘share the burden’ of the victims- Red Cross( and news media) should be asking companies like Exxon to step up. I mention Exxon as they have just posted the best quarter EVER. Exxon has done better in this quarter then any company has EVER done in the history of America. You’d think after posting the best quarter EVER, they’d be able to spare a ½ billion or so for others who aren’t doing so well.

Activist Legislatures

2005-09-07T23:56:00.000-07:00

Well, Arnie decided to veto the Gay Marriage bill that both California's legislative branches voted approval for. It's very perturbing.

Part of me had hoped that Arnie would maybe actually do the right thing. To this date, no one's been able to provide me with any evidence as to how allowing homosexuals to marry wil destroy society and/or family values.

Oh Thanks Canada!

2005-09-03T15:43:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to thank our neighbors to the North, for being down right neighborly.

I want to thank them for being WIILING to send people down to LA. to help out....
Too bad they weren't allowed to actually HELP.

I read the following on several sites; though I think they were feeding off one another.

On tonight's news, CTV (Canadian TV) said that support was offered from Canada. Planes are ready to load with food and medical supplies and a system called "DART" which can provide fresh water and medical supplies is standing by. Department of Homeland Security as well as other U.S. agencies were contacted by the Canadian government requesting permission to provide help. Despite this contact, Canada has not been allowed to fly supplies and personnel to the areas hit by Katrina. So, everything here is grounded. Prime Minister Paul Martin is reportedly trying to speak to President Bush tonight or tomorrow to ask him why the U.S. federal government will not allow aid from Canada into Louisiana and Mississippi. That said, the Canadian Red Cross is reportedly allowed into the area.

Canadian agencies are saying that foreign aid is probably not being permitted into Louisiana and Mississippi because of "mass confusion" at the U.S. federal level in the wake of the storm.

So I guess it's more imporntant to W. that we AMERICANS take care of OUR own... then allow OUTSIDERS to cross our borders...

I bet W. will however take any Oil that Canada has been nice enough to offer. And I find it ironic that Chavez has, in a good Christian manner, also offered to help the U.S. with some sweet sweet Oil. Personally I think W. would rather have us pay $5 a gallon then allow Chavez or Cuba to help us.
Yes, Cuba has offered to help.

So thank you Australia, Austria, the Bahamas, Belgium, Canada, China, Columbia, Cuba, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, the European Union, France, Germany, Guatemala, Britain, Greece, Honduras, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Lithuania, Mexico, NATO, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Organization of American States, Paraguay, South Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Sweden, Venezuela and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

New Orleans.,...

2005-09-02T18:44:00.000-07:00

Ok... I've been thinking about what happened in New Orleans...

I've got to admit that alot of my thoughts have been political. And I feel that the reason I've thought of it as politics is because- well I think the reasons that things are so bad there is because of politics.
Media Matters records how FEMA[ Federal Emergency Management Agency] was folded into Homeland Security. This marginalized FEMA and it's been mentioned in several places like the san francisco chronicle that "The Bush administration routinely provided less than half the money the Army Corps of Engineers requested for New Orleans flood prevention."

To be honest my second thought about New Orleans( after being sorry about the deaths involved), was 'what is this going to do to the national debt?' I mean we're already spending BILLIONS on Iraq. How much of that money could've been used to prevent this damage... or help with repairs? That thought lead to the idea that others I've read have already mentioned, which is if the National Guard soldiers were HERE instead of Iraq, they'd be able to help New Orleans and the surrounding areas. I say this as it's clear that after several days, the people in New Orleans don't have their basic human needs being meet.

The Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, talks about things on this link

I found this interview on another blog and it just moved me. About two thirds of the way through... My mind just got blown away. The reporters mention that one of the problems with relief work might be the fact that the 'proper paperwork' hadn't been done- that the Mayor or Governor has to 'officially' declare Martial Law. The mayor points out a) he's already declared Martial Law and B) did Iraq fill out the 'proper paperwork' to get W. to spend billions over there.
He mentions that he feels that NOBODY should hold a press conference until New Orleans gets what it need. That he doesn't want to HEAR that 40,000 troops are on their way, he wants them to be THERE already.

And it makes me wonder how Congress and W. were able to move SOO fast to 'help' Teri Shivho but aren't matching that speed with the help for New Orleans.

A Very Special Protest

2005-08-08T18:41:00.000-07:00

I read USA Today because the old geezer at the Strat( I'm miffed at him so he's old geezer today) brings by the crumbs of his papers to the game store. Basically he buys the Times, USA Today and Boston Globe and brings us the sections he 'thinks' we're interested in.
On about page 5 of USA Today was the story about a mom who lost her son in Iraq last year and was protesting W. in Crawford. Yup, she went down to Texas as W. spends the month of August on vacation cleaning brush( just like he did in 2001) and is protesting the war. She's about 8 miles away from the ranch- as I had to explain to the old geezer twice, W.'s ranch is private property as is his neighbors and on top of that he's got secret service.
Cindy Sheehan, that's the mom, has gotten tired of the republicans using HER son's death as a way to get votes. She complains that while W. did meet with her to 'pay his respects' that he wasn't very respectful.

I then checked the New York Times and it was on page 13. The Times story was a bit longer and had a picture of her( as did USA Today) and the link to the story is here. My friend Mike felt that odds are she'll get arrested( and btw on google news 'bush protest' did get a couple of stories about a guy getting arrested at a Bush rally), and I told him- after being interrupted 3 times by the old geezer that I hope she is. See being on page 13 isn't all that special but if she got arrested I'm sure she'd get on page 1 and John Stewart would make jokes about her.

Seriously, I was happy to read the story and glad since it seems to be a slow news time that it's making the rounds. I'm posting it in hopes of keeping the story alive.

They came for my porn...

2005-07-17T14:03:00.000-07:00

First of all, before I start my rant let me state for the record that I'm over 21. I could go into a bar, order a beer and IF ASKED for proof of age- could indeed prove that I'm legally allowed to drink beer.
I also have usually felt this means that I'm legally entitled to buy and own porn- as I can prove I'm an adult and I believe that porn is a first amendment free speech right. IMHO- you don't really have a healthy society if you don't have porn. That's how my mind works. I will admit I don't talk about my porn in mixed company, but it's a fact of life... I'm a guy, I have porn. If a man tells you he doesn't have porn in *my* mind he's either lying or whipped.

I recently went to an adult dvd site. Right now I don't have enough money to really buy porn but I was checking to see if they had a dvd I was looking for in stock, so that when I had enough money for porn I could buy it.

On their front page they mentioned that due to new regulations they had to remove ‘certain images’ from their site. Huh? I scratched my head and went looking for the dvd( note: I’m NOT gonna mention what site I was at or what dvd I was looking for. So don’t bother asking). When I went into the section where the dvd SHOULD be if the site had it… I noticed that instead of having the front cover for some of the dvds, so you could make a guess if you wanted the dvd, they had the following graphic:

I then went back to the front page- and the announcement that the web content had been altered. From that link they said:

“Recently, United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has approved changes proposed to U.S.C. 18 section 2257 requiring all companies that display explicit sexual content to obtain age verification documentation from the original producers of the work.

Originally, this documentation was only necessary for those companies that hire, pay, and film the content. This information is incredibly private, and includes personal information pertaining to the performers that could be very dangerous when in the wrong hands. Now, these documents must be disseminated to virtually every adult vendor that wishes to remain in business and out of jail.

Currently, we are diligently working to obtain, organize, and verify this information as quickly as possible as to not interrupt our service to you. Unfortunately, this will mean a temporary disruption to our web site in the following areas:
• Removal of all screen shots from our web site
• Removal of all back box art from our web site
• Removal of all explicit front box art from our web site

I can understand the fact that if Vivid is making a dirty movie, they better check to make sure all the men and women in the video of legal age… However, if I sell Vivid dvds, why do *I* have to get proof that all the men and women in the product are legal age. Isn’t enough that Vivid had to do this? Worse that means if I want to work porn, god forbid, not only would I have to give my social security and w2 information to the video company that I want to work for- BUT by the above logic… I’d also have to give my private information to ALL the websites that I, or the video company I work for, want to carry my movie.
So I think this is bad for both the performer, who’s now required to share this personal information, and the websites who want to sell porn. Because I have to tell you as a customer, I’m not going to buy a porn dvd unless I can see the box and possibly screen shots, so I can make an informed decision. I also wonder if that means if I were to put an adult film on Ebay, if they’d be able to arrest me as I wouldn’t be able to prove that the people in the video were over 18.
Actually this site raises some interesting adult questions about this new revision to the law:

But wait - there's more. Any site affected by 2257 must also publish a physical address that serves as its "place of business." Someone must be available at that address 20 hours a week just in case a law enforcement officer wants to gain access to those 2257 records. This doesn't seem too onerous if you imagine a Penthouse.com or Vivid Video type of operation. But consider all the mom-and-pop adult Web sites run out of private residences, or Webcam girls who don't turn the cam off when they take someone to bed. These rules mean that your local Webcam girl and our friends over at sex blog Fleshbot.com must publish their physical addresses online, thus leaving performers and writers vulnerable to stalking and harassment. But hey, it's a great full-access wank pass for cops who can't afford to pay for really primo porn sites every month.

This bothers and offends me. Especially as I figure that webcam girl- who’s just trying to earn a little extra $ and make a few people happy, has like a gazillion percent better chance of seeing the inside of a jail cell then Tom DeLey or Karl Rove. Heck this law sounds EASIER to prove then the one Rove is accused of breaking.
I felt I needed to share this. I think that what Gonzales is doing is UNAMERICAN. I think there are soooo many other things Gonzales should be worrying about then cracking down on porn providers. I’d rather he crack down on illegal assault weapons sales, especially as it was his boss who allowed the LEGAL sales of assault weapons to resume when W. refused to renew the ban on assault weapon sales.
Then again this is the guy who told W. that we could go back to torturing non Americans because the Geneva Convention didn’t apply to us. Apparently it’s more important that our AG worry about PORN then basic human rights.

Santorum

2005-07-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

Ok... now that I know Evan's on the mend, I can start thinking about other stuff besides him and my crappy job search...

So I's needs to blog about Rick Santorum. I found this week a quote from Santorum... and it almost made my head explode.

The background is simple he was talking about the Catholic Church's pedophile scandals in the last few years.

'When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.'

So he's saying it's the BOSTON Church's problem... because Boston was at the center of the tempest. Which in my mind is worse then asking a rape victim what she was wearing because maybe she was asking for it.
The victims of the pedophile cases are KIDS. And Cardinal Law's response is more in keeping with the GOP then the ACLU- deny, hide evidence, blame the accusers, deny.

I just can't believe the GALL of Santorum- to blame the liberals for pedophiles because you know if you allow gays to marry- you'll have time traveling pedophile priests.
The 'time traveling' refers to the fact that although the priests had been found OUT around the turn of the 21st century... the actual crimes happened in the 70's and 80's.... They had just been covered up for so long til the dam burst, when the general populace found out that the Vatican had been re-assigning priests when the community they worked at began to suspect something.
And I feel a foot note is needed because Cardinal Law got a PROMOTION for his work at protecting the church.

I also want to mention that as appalled I was by Santorum, I was equally appalled by Gov. Romney. See Romney had a problem... on the one hand he wants the same votes Santorum wants for the 2008 presidential primaries, on the other hand he's sorta, kinda the Governor of Ma. So he said (drum roll) "people are entitled to their own viewpoints" ... So he disagrees, respectful-LEE. He went on... ''I'm not going to suggest -- well, let me say I am going to suggest that he's wrong on the conclusion he's reached, and hopefully upon further examination, he will realize it's not a Boston issue. It's a national issue, it's a world issue, and the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church is not a Massachusetts- or Boston centered problem."

God, what a world we live in where a presidential hopeful, Rick Santorum, can compare gay marriage to bestiality and then blame the same gay people for the priest pedophile problem. Worse, one of his possible opponents, Romney, realizes that Santorum is on the right track to get the republican vote.

I (hate) America

2005-07-14T20:13:00.000-07:00

So last night the Daily Show had author Bernie Goldberg who just wrote The 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America( and Al Franken is #37). Jon Stewert took this guy to school as most of the list is left wing commentators... like Al Franken BUT Bill O'Rielly and Rush are no where to be found.
Jon( and most of my American hating friends) further pointed out that perhaps we should be less worried about cultural damage and more worried about say Rove who violated National Security.

I've decided to list the 100 here as I just find it VERY funny, esp as Tad Rall a political cartoonist that I link to is #15- and David Duke, a known Klansman, is a mere #66.

And I love that my Senator- Kennedy, made #3 but as I say in the title... I hate America.

1 Michael Moore
2 Arthur Sulzberger
3 Ted Kennedy
4 Jesse Jackson
5 Anthony Romero
6 Jimmy Carter
7 Margaret Marshall
8 Paul Krugman
9 Jonathan Kozol
10 Ralph Neas
11 Noam Chomsky
12 Dan Rather
13 Andrew Heyward
14 Mary Mapes
15 Ted Rall
16 John Edwards
17 Al Sharpton
18 Al Gore
19 George Soros
20 Howard Dean
21 Judge Roy Moore
22 Michael Newdow
23 The Unknown American Terrorist
24 Lee Bollinger
25 James Kopp
26 Dr. Martin Haskell
27 Paul Begala
28 Julian Bond
29 John Green
30 Latrell Sprewell
31 Maury Povich
32 Jerry Springer
33 Bob Shrum
34 Bill Moyers
35 Jeff Danziger
36 Nancy Hopkins
37 Al Franken
38 Jim McDermott
39 Peter Singer
40 Scott Harshbarger
41 Susan Beresford
42 Gloria Steinem
43 Paul Eibeler
44 Dennis Kozlowski
45 Ken Lay
46 Barbara Walters
47 Maxine Waters
48 Robert Byrd
49 Ingrid Newkirk
50 John Vasconellos
51 Ann Pelo
52 Markos Moulitsas
53 Anna Nicole Smith
54 Neal Shapiro
55 David Westin
56 Diane Sawyer
57 Ted Field
58 Eminem
59 Shirley Franklin
60 Ludacris
61 Michael Savage
62 Howard Stern
63 Amy Richards
64 James Wolcott
65 Oliver Stone
66 David Duke
67 Randall Robinson
68 Katherine Hanson
69 Matt Kunitz
70 Jimmy Swaggart
71 Phil Donahue
72 Ward Churchill
73 Barbara Kingsolver
74 Katha Politt
75 Eric Foner
76 Barbara Foley
77 Linda Hirshman
78 Norman Mailer
79 Harry Belafonte
80 Kitty Kelley
81 Tim Robbins
82 Laurie David
83 The Dumb and Vicious Celebrity
84 The Vicious Celebrity
85 The Dumb Celebrity
86 Chris Ofili
87 Sheldon Hackney
88 Aaron McGruder
89 Jane Smiley
90 Michael Jackson
91 Barbara Streisand
92 Kerri Dunn
93 Richard Timmons
94 Guy Velella
95 Courtney Love
96 Eve Ensler
97 Todd Goldman
98 Sheila Jackson Lee
99 Matthew Lesko
100 Rick and Kathy Hilton

Looked at the 100 book today... I specifically looked at #37 and #3
#37) Al Franken... in which he just writes a 'satirical' script to make fun of Al Franken's satire. It was stupid, annoying and NOT funny.
#3) Ted Kennedy- First the author brings up Chappaquidic, rumors of Ted cheating as a youth and the fact that one of his cousins was accused of Date Rape. Gee... unlike W. who's grandfather worked with Nazis or Ah-nold who's father WAS a Nazi.
His three big bones with Ted is 1- The fact that Ted Kennedy lead the charge against Bork being a member of the Supreme Court. And he goes on to point out that Ted did such a good job that whenever a president puts up a candidate they worry that the candidate is gonna get 'borked'= shut down completely by congress. 2- Ted accused a black CONSERVATIVE of being a sexual predator( Clarance Thomas). How DARE he! And what would've the dems done if the Republicans had accused a LIBERAL black of being a sexual predator.
[drew- funny but I thought the repugs did that ALL during the 60's]
The third 'strike' against Ted, was Ted ACCUSING W. of going to war against Iraq for political purposes. Ted had the gall to say that W. was committing TREASON just so that W. would get good poll numbers. Never mind the fact that WMDs have never been found and there was more of a terrorist connection to Saudi Arabia then there was to Iraq.

The 'solution' to Rove.

2005-07-12T18:04:00.000-07:00

I was reading one of the many poli blogs and I realized that it's important to figure out what Rove knew, when he knew it and what he did with the information he knew.

AND

Now since W., Rove and the repubs say that we are at war- outing a spy is a TREASONOUS offense. This is further backed up by the "If you're not with us, you're against us" Bush Doctrine.

Clearly Rove needs to be sent to Gitmo. He needs to be 'debriefed' by the army's finest to find out ALL of his possible Al Qaeda ties. We need to know what other crimes against AMERICA Rove has perpetrated and the best way to send him to 'club g'mito' with the rest of his freedom hating brethren.

I know the above ain't gonna happen but it puts a smile on my face just imagining the ironic justice IF they did that.

Plame hits the fan...

2005-07-11T20:19:00.000-07:00

I've been blogging about the Valerie Plame thing for a good bit of time... because I thought it was an important story, one that interested me and showed what scuzzbuckets Bushco is.

Well although I didn't see it- below is an edited transcript from today's press conference. I love it as it seems that the press corps was FINALLY growing a spine and 'not taking it anymore'.
The edit simply took out the non Rove stuff.

QUESTION: Scott, can I ask you this: Did Karl Rove commit a crime?

MCCLELLAN: Again, David, this is a question relating to a ongoing investigation, and you have my response related to the investigation. And I don't think you should read anything into it other than: We're going to continue not to comment on it while it's ongoing.

QUESTION: Do you stand by your statement from the fall of 2003, when you were asked specifically about Karl and Elliot Abrams and Scooter Libby, and you said, "I've gone to each of those gentlemen, and they have told me they are not involved in this"?

QUESTION: Do you stand by that statement?

MCCLELLAN: And if you will recall, I said that, as part of helping the investigators move forward on the investigation, we're not going to get into commenting on it. That was something I stated back near that time as well.

QUESTION: Scott, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us, after having commented with that level of detail, and tell people watching this that somehow you've decided not to talk.

You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from that podium or not?

MCCLELLAN: I'm well aware, like you, of what was previously said. And I will be glad to talk about it at the appropriate time. The appropriate time is when the investigation...

QUESTION: (inaudible) when it's appropriate and when it's inappropriate?

MCCLELLAN: If you'll let me finish.

QUESTION: No, you're not finishing. You're not saying anything.

You stood at that podium and said that Karl Rove was not involved. And now we find out that he spoke about Joseph Wilson's wife. So don't you owe the American public a fuller explanation. Was he involved or was he not? Because contrary to what you told the American people, he did indeed talk about his wife, didn't he?

MCCLELLAN: There will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time to talk about it.

QUESTION: Do you think people will accept that, what you're saying today?

MCCLELLAN: Again, I've responded to the question.

QUESTION: You're in a bad spot here, Scott...

(LAUGHTER)

... because after the investigation began -- after the criminal investigation was under way -- you said, October 10th, 2003, "I spoke with those individuals, Rove, Abrams and Libby. As I pointed out, those individuals assured me they were not involved in this," from that podium. That's after the criminal investigation began.

Now that Rove has essentially been caught red-handed peddling this information, all of a sudden you have respect for the sanctity of the criminal investigation.

MCCLELLAN: No, that's not a correct characterization. And I think you are well aware of that.

We know each other very well. And it was after that period that the investigators had requested that we not get into commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation.

And we want to be helpful so that they can get to the bottom of this. Because no one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the president of the United States.

I am well aware of what was said previously. I remember well what was said previously. And at some point I look forward to talking about it. But until the investigation is complete, I'm just not going to do that.

QUESTION: So you're now saying that after you cleared Rove and the others from that podium, then the prosecutors asked you not to speak anymore and since then you haven't.

MCCLELLAN: Again, you're continuing to ask questions relating to an ongoing criminal investigation and I'm just not going to respond to them. QUESTION: When did they ask you to stop commenting on it, Scott? Can you pin down a date?

MCCLELLAN: Back in that time period.

QUESTION: Well, then the president commented on it nine months later. So was he not following the White House plan?

MCCLELLAN: I appreciate your questions. You can keep asking them, but you have my response.

QUESTION: Well, we are going to keep asking them.

When did the president learn that Karl Rove had had a conversation with a news reporter about the involvement of Joseph Wilson's wife in the decision to send him to Africa?

MCCLELLAN: I've responded to the questions.

QUESTION: When did the president learn that Karl Rove had been...

MCCLELLAN: I've responded to your questions.

QUESTION: After the investigation is completed, will you then be consistent with your word and the president's word that anybody who was involved will be let go?

MCCLELLAN: Again, after the investigation is complete, I will be glad to talk about it at that point.

QUESTION: Can you walk us through why, given the fact that Rove's lawyer has spoken publicly about this, it is inconsistent with the investigation, that it compromises the investigation to talk about the involvement of Karl Rove, the deputy chief of staff, here?

MCCLELLAN: Well, those overseeing the investigation expressed a preference to us that we not get into commenting on the investigation while it's ongoing. And that was what they requested of the White House. And so I think in order to be helpful to that investigation, we are following their direction.

QUESTION: Scott, there's a difference between commenting on an investigation and taking an action...

MCCLELLAN: (inaudible)

QUESTION: Can I finish, please?

MCCLELLAN: I'll come back to you in a minute.

QUESTION: Scott, (inaudible) president spoke about war on terrorism and, also, according to India Globe report there is bombings in London and also bombings in India. And at both places, Al Qaida was involved.

According to the India Globe and press reports, Pakistani television said that Osama bin Laden is now alive and they had spoken with him. And his group is (inaudible) terrorism around the globe is concerned.

Well, now, the major bombings after 9/11 took place in London and (inaudible) fighting against terrorism is concerned.

Where do we stand now? Really, where do we go from London as far as terrorism is concerned? How far can we go after Osama bin Laden now to catch him, because he's still in Pakistan?

MCCLELLAN: What occurred in London is a grim reminder that we are at war on terrorism. We are waging a comprehensive war on terrorism.

You heard the president talk earlier today to the FBI personnel and others who were at Quantico. And the president talked about our global war on terrorism. He talked about our strategy for taking the fight to the enemy, staying on the offensive, and working to spread freedom and democracy to defeat the ideology of hatred that terrorists espouse.

And the president pointed back to the 20th century. He pointed out that in World War II, freedom prevailed over fascism and Nazism. And in the Cold War, freedom prevailed over communism.

MCCLELLAN: Freedom is a powerful force for defeating an ideology such as the one that the terrorists espouse. And that's why it's so important to continue working to advance freedom and democracy in the broader Middle East. And that's what we will continue to do.

And the president also talked about the great progress we've made at home to protect the home front.

The families and friends of those who lost their lives in London continue to be in our thoughts and prayers. We know what it's like to be attacked on our own soil.

And that's why the president made a decision that we were going to take the fight to the enemy to try to disrupt plots and prevent attacks from happening in the first place. And that's exactly what we are doing.

But we're also going to work with the free world to support the advance of freedom and democracy in a dangerous region of the world. For too long we ignored what was going on in the Middle East. We accepted and tolerated dictatorships in exchange for peace and stability, and we got neither.

As the president said, free nations are peaceful societies. And that's why it's so important that we continue to support the advance of freedom, because that's how you ultimately defeat the ideology of hatred and oppression that terrorists espouse.

QUESTION: Does the president continue to have confidence in Mr. Rove?

MCCLELLAN: Again, these are all questions coming up in the context of an ongoing criminal investigation. And you've heard my response on this.

QUESTION: So you're not going to respond as to whether or not the president has confidence in his deputy chief of staff?

MCCLELLAN: You're asking this question in the context of an ongoing investigation, and I would not read anything into it other then I'm simply going to comment on an ongoing investigation.

QUESTION: Has there been any change, or is there a plan for Mr. Rove's portfolio to be altered in any way?

MCCLELLAN: Again, you have my response to these questions

If you want to read the full conference- with the non Rove stuff... go here.

And a history of the 'spin' can be found here.

C Student = F President

2005-06-24T08:01:00.000-07:00

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate the Secretary of Energy joining me today. He's a good man, he knows a lot about the subject, you'll be pleased to hear. I was teasing him -- he taught at MIT, and -- do you have a PhD?

SECRETARY BODMAN: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, a PhD. (Laughter.) Now I want you to pay careful attention to this -- he's the PhD, and I'm the C student, but notice who is the advisor and who is the President.

Having read that and read that he did this THREE times... I gotta say;

I was a C student in College, a B+ student in grad. school and I want someone SMARTER then me as president. I want a president who understands the stuff that bores me to tears or makes me go 'wha?'

Or at least a president with humility( I think that's a Christian virtue) to say- well I don't have ALL the answers, that's why I have A+ students like [ insert name of expert being introduced] to help me with the tough problems facing America.

[ footnote of all the responses to this story my favorite was: "I joined the Reserves in a time of war and all I got was my teeth cleaned. Colin Powell here spent his whole adult life in the armed services yet who's Commander in Chief? Heh heh. Like that one Colin?"]

Lock up the opposition

2005-06-24T07:21:00.000-07:00

Oh man...

Ok I got this O'Reilly from Media Matters and NOT Franken. Actually been waiting for Franken to mention this on Air America, but he hasn't yet so I gotta post O'Reilly's rant.

O'REILLY: And when he [Durbin] went out there, his intent was to whip up the American public against the Bush detainee policy. That's what his intent was. His intent wasn't to undermine the war effort, because he never even thought about it. He never even thought about it. But by not thinking about it, he made an egregious mistake because you must know the difference between dissent from the Iraq war and the war on terror and undermining it. And any American that undermines that war, with our soldiers in the field, or undermines the war on terror, with 3,000 dead on 9-11, is a traitor.

Everybody got it? Dissent, fine; undermining, you're a traitor. Got it? So, all those clowns over at the liberal radio network, we could incarcerate them immediately. Will you have that done, please? Send over the FBI and just put them in chains, because they, you know, they're undermining everything and they don't care, couldn't care

Get that? If you disagree with the president- you're a TRAITOR and should be arrested. Thus sayth O'Reilly.

Now There are MANY ways that I could potentially respond to this.... But I'm going to take the low road and mention that O'Reilly, Limbaugh, et al. undermined the work of President Clinton during HIS presidency... They weren't about dissent; they undermined ALL his works. So doesn't that mean that according to O'Reilly, O'Reilly should be in jail?

By the numbers...

2005-06-17T07:34:00.000-07:00

So as mentioned, I now get the Al Franken show on Sundance and I realized it's easier/better to get my mad on by watching him then by Bill O'Rielly.

Because while I could get angry about what Bill says, it's only by listening to Al that I get mad about what Bill and Fox doesn't say.

Like the number 5 billion.

That's a big number. It's even bigger when you put a dollar sign in front of it.
so the figure becomes $5,000,000,000.

That's how much money is MISSING in Iraq. Yup- 5,000,000,000 that the U.S. has given to rebuild Iraq is gone, and we don't know where it went.

To put this in perspective- that's a tenth of what W. wants for education.
Or that's enough money so that Even, his three kids, their 6 kids, their 18 kids and their 54 kids wouldn't have to work a day in their lives.

5,000,000,000 missing. And congress isn't doing ANYTHING to find out 'where the money went'. I realize that compared to the 419.3 billion that the DoD is getting WITHOUT counting the money W. wants for Iraq and Afghanistan, maybe $5 billion isn't all that much... but again to the common man or business 5 billion is a HUGE amount of money. I mean if me and ALL my friends pool our money FOR OUR LIVES, I doubt we'd get to .5 billion.

This really gets my goat... and I wish Fox would cover it.
Oh and I thought another interesting way to look at that 5 billion. NASA is trying to get us to Mars with a budget of 16.5 billion.
-------------------------------------------
15

Fifteen is the number of senators who did NOT vote for the resolution apologizing for its failure to enact federal anti-lynching legislation.
It took me a bit of time to find the 15, but part of that is because Frist did NOT want a roll call, as he didn't want the no votes to go on record.

See 15 is also the number of REPUBLICANS who did NOT vote for the resolution apologizing for its failure to enact federal anti-lynching legislation.

So from the Macon Telegraph the 15:

Lamar Alexander, Tenn.; Robert Bennett, Utah; Than Cochran, Miss.; John Cornyn, Texas; Michael Crapo, Idaho; Michael Enzi, Wyo.; Chuck Grassley, Iowa; Judd Gregg, N.H.; Orrin Hatch, Utah; Trent Lott, Miss.; Lisa Murkowski, Alaska; Richard Shelby, Ala.; John Sununu, N.H.; Craig Thomas, Wyo.; and George Voinovich, Ohio.

Needless to say Mississippi was at the forefront of lynching and both of their senators voted NOT to sign this piece of legislation.
----

So again today's blog was brought to you by the numbers - 5 billion( amount of U.S. dollars missing from Iraq reconstruction) and 15( the republican senators who didn't want to apologize for lynching in the south)

[note when I spoke to two freinds on 6/17, they both put the Iraq missing money at EIGHT billion instead of five. I nodded but felt that since only ONE of the many googled sites put it at 8 and most said 5, I'd keep at five. HOWEVER I'm watching last night's Al Franken show and he put it at 8 billion. So while I'm keeping 5 billion above- I will allow that it could be up to 8 billion missing, and should you have a source that says 8 billion, I'd appreciate a link to it]

Dean's MY man!

2005-06-15T04:39:00.000-07:00

From Tuesday's USAToday

Instead of muzzling Howard Dean, Democrats should give him a bullhorn. Rather than urging him to retreat from his attack on Republicans, party leaders ought to send him off to a political war college -- preferably the one the late GOP strategist Lee Atwater attended.

As chairman of the Democratic Party, which is teetering between political renewal and functional extinction, Dean should be making war, not peace. But that's exactly what his critics within the party seemed to be suggesting last week when they admonished him for his tough talk about Republicans.

"The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people. They're a pretty monolithic party. They all behave the same, and they all look the same," he said days earlier. He also said the GOP is "pretty much a white, Christian party" and Republicans "never made an honest living in their lives."

Understandably, Dean's verbal barrage drew a return salvo from Republicans, who accused him of hitting below the belt. Surprisingly, it also sparked friendly fire from some Democrats, who worried aloud that he was unnecessarily alienating Republicans.

While, in fact, what he said about the GOP stretches the truth, it also rallies the Democratic troops, something the party has had difficulty doing since Bill Clinton left the White House.

Ironically, Dean's negative talk is something Atwater, who managed the 1988 presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush, turned into an art form. When the story broke that Willie Horton, a black convicted murderer, raped a white woman and assaulted her fiance while on a weekend furlough from a Massachusetts prison, Atwater went on the attack. He vowed to link Horton so closely to Bush's opponent, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, that people would think the career criminal was the Democratic candidate's running mate.

Republican leaders, eager to extend their party's control of the White House beyond the eight years of Ronald Reagan's presidency, didn't chastise Atwater for playing to racial fears and stereotypes in linking Horton to Dukakis. Instead, they made him party chairman.

Not long after he assumed that post, Atwater put his crosshairs on then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton, a Democrat he correctly feared might keep Bush from winning re-election. Atwater plotted to use allegations of drug abuse and womanizing to derail Clinton's political career. "We may or may not win, but we'll bust him up so bad he won't be able to run again for years," Atwater said, according to The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton, a 2000 book by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons.

Despite expressing his regret for these actions shortly before his untimely death in 1991, Atwater's go-for-the-jugular brand of politics has become a lethal weapon in the Republicans' arsenal. It is what motivates GOP operatives to quickly label Democrats as liberal -- and to treat liberalism as a dirty word.

To his credit, Dean has broken ranks with those Democrats who think the best defense is to seek cover and then throw themselves on the mercy of voters on Election Day. The time has come for Democrats to fight back. They should explain what it means to be a liberal, not allow Republicans to define them. They should answer hyperbolic attacks with exaggerated speech of their own, if that's what it takes to stave off political annihilation.

For much of this decade, right-wing Republicans have dominated the public square, shouting down some on their political left and drowning out others who have tried to counter their bombast with civil responses. The time has come for Democrats to give as good as they get.

Americans, for the most part, love politicians who fight for what they believe -- and they abhor political wimps. Dean is a fighter, albeit one who needs to learn that in an ideological spat, a well-placed jab often can do more damage than a barrage of roundhouse punches.

But he can't learn that lesson if Democrats won't let him take the fight to the GOP.

DeWayne Wickham writes weekly for USA TODAY.

Christian Fear

2005-06-13T06:43:00.000-07:00

I meant to blog about this story last week when I heard about it BUT I forgot so hear it is. Below is a quote from Rush Limbaugh on his June 8th show as reported by Media Matters

LIMBAUGH: Let me tell you something, the Democrats are more fearful -- and I've told you this too -- they're more fearful of Christians than they are of Al Qaeda. The Democrats are more fearful of Democrats [sic] than they are of Islamist terrorists living in this country. They are more fearful of Christians than they are of any enemy of the United States of America. They probably have more fear of Christians than they do nuclear weapons being launched by North Korea.

You know something- He's right. I'm more afraid of Anthony Scalia then I am of Osama Bin Laden. The moral majority scare me more then the Taliban.
And the reason for that is that it's the CHRISTIAN nut jobs, not the MUSLIM nut jobs that are destroying this country.

Yes- 4 years or so ago terrorists took over 4 planes and used 3 of them as flying bombs blowing up the twin towers and the pentagon. They killed thousands of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Atheists and others.
In retribution- our CHRISTIAN commander in chief has invaded two countries, killed TENS of thousands of Muslims, and put our 'boys' in harm's way- letting thousands of them die.

Shortly after this attack on America- it was a CHRISTIAN, Jerry Falwell, who took to the AMERICAN airwaves and spewed this quote of hatred

The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way all of them who have tried to secularize America
I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'

God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.

It wasn't Al Qaeda who lied to America about how Pat Tillman died, it was OUR leaders.

The Taliban isn't using WMDs but the United States is using WMDs against them. See the Depleted Uranium Weapons, which I've often blogged against, are considered ILLEGAL weapons of mass destruction according to the U.N.

And it was the Christians in 2004 who overwellemingly voted in 11 states to DENY equal rights to gays- saying that gays shouldn't be given the same rights as GOOD CHRISTIAN folks.
Likewise it was Senator Santorum who made the news when the Supreme Court ruled that gays were ALLOWED to have sex in Tx. He compared gay sex to incest and other sexual acts he didn't like.

It was CHRISTIANIN Judge who has told two Wiccan parents that they can't teach their child THEIR religion.

I could go on- but I think you get the idea.
*I*, Drew Harris, think that the Moral Majority is destroying these United States more then any outside invader could or has.

Activist Judges

2005-06-10T13:55:00.000-07:00

Ok... I came by this story in a roundabout manner but it still managed to make my blood boil.

It's a simple story til an activist judge got involved.
Basically a NON Christian couple were getting a divorce. It was nice and friendly divorce until the judge read a report from Domestic Relations Counseling Bureau. Said Bureau usually is involved in divorce situations to offer the court recommendations.
Apparently the report pointed out that kid went to a local Catholic school
BUT
the parents are wiccan.

Well the judge KNEW how to fix that. He decided to make it illegal for the parents to teach the kid "non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals."

So even though both the mother and father worshiped THE SAME RELIGION, and didn't have a problem with the OTHER parent teaching the kid wiccan values.... The judge DID have a problem with their value system, and so ordered the parents to stop teaching the kid their own religion.

This is wrong.
This is a judge using his SEAT OF POWER to tell others how to worship.
And you know if a Wiccan judge did this to a Christian family unit, his/her head would be on a silver platter on Fox News for the next two months- but because it was Wiccans, he'll get a gold star from O'Reilly.

(spell check note: blogger.com's spell checker didn't recognize Wiccan as a word)

O'really O'Reilly

2005-06-09T07:34:00.000-07:00

So I was VERY happy that on MONDAY the Sundance channel was showing the Al Franken Show. It's hard to get his radio show where I live because there's a nice big FM tower on the Prudential, which makes it hard to get AM.

I didn't realize what I was *truly* missing til last night( a mere 3 days after getting it back) when Franken ripped into O'Reilly. It seems the O'Reilly decided to monkey around with reality... and Franken naturally took umbrage.

O'Reilly had clips of Sen. Biden on his show from Biden's appearance on This week... but the FUN part is that Franken points out that it's CLIPS from the show, as O'Reilly cuts out part of Biden's interview... and Franken makes sure you know what O'Reilly cut. The funny part, which really pisses off Franken, was that O'Reilly then 'suggests' the same thing that Biden wants- an independent counsel to check up on Gitmo, but O'Reilly cut out Biden's suggestion for an independent counsel on his own show, and then passes the idea off as O'Reilly's own...

This story is on Franken's site- but just watching the clips on Sundance was worth my cable bill this month. It was really frightening what O'Reilly was doing with 'reality', and the fact that he's getting away with it, while Newsweek had to apologize up and down for THEIR 'unconfirmed' report of Koran abuse.

Separating Church and State ?!? But God's Everywhere!

2005-06-06T15:58:00.000-07:00

When I read this story in the NYT this morning... Man things made me angry and vexed.

The governor of Texas went out of his ways to sign TWO bills in a evangelical school. Both had religious repercussions, one being to make it harder for teens to get abortions and the other to BAN same sex marriages.

What really hurt my head was this line:

Rabbi David Stone of the Beth Yeshua Messianic Jewish Congregation in Fort Worth, was, in fact, present and gave the closing benediction. The group believes that Jesus was the Messiah, a tenet heretical to traditional Jews.

Yeah... because if 'traditional Jews' believed in Jesus, they'd be CHRISTIAN.
They brought up this "Jewish group" as a way to say 'it's not just us Christians who believe this way...' Well I'm sorry but if EVERY who believes what you believe in also believes that Jesus is Christ... Then it is indeed a 'Christian thing'

But from another pov, if the governor of Texas TRULY believes that God is everywhere- as he says at the end of the article- then why the heck did he have to sign the bill on SUNDAY at a evangelical school. I mean wouldn't God have paid as much attention if the Gov. had signed it Monday in the Gov.'s office?
The governor KNEW what he was doing. He knew he was merging church and state, and he's hoping that he'll get the votes next November because like his leader, he's made sure that he's on the same ballot as the 'gay question'.

And that really is the thing that I find pathetic, that the republicans have decided that THEY get votes for denying fellow humans the same rights they want- and last November the voting public of 11 states showed that the republican party was right about that.

Faces of the Fallen

2005-06-02T18:22:00.000-07:00

Because I have Iraqi Body Count as a link on the side of MY web site I figured I'd also mention the american fallen and add this picture here

My Movie?

2005-05-26T15:17:00.000-07:00

Ok... I know that Star Wars fan will discuss from now til doomsday whether Lucas has the right to mess around with Star Wars IV- A New Hope. He was the creator, but we all feel that we sorta own Star Wars and want the Star Wars we grew up with...One can say it's more then Han shot first- as Greedo didn't draw for his gun.

HOWEVER...

That said The Godfather is NOT the Godfather without the level of violence it has. If you don't want to watch it because of the violence... Don't. There are other more friendly Italian American movies.

The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act (FECA) W. signed a couple of weeks ago seeks to fix things to help make films MORE family orientated. It allows good CHRISTIAN companies the right to edit movies, so that they can be good FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT

"This exception to copyright protection," said DGA spokesman Morgan Rumpf, "could have far-reaching implications that cannot fully be comprehended today -- allowing third-party editing companies to change the political content of a film, to revise the historical record, to profit from abridged versions of films, and even to make versions of films that focus on violent and sexually explicit content."

This disgusts me. I'm adult, I watch what I want and don't watch stuff that I think is too violent or has sexuality that I find offensive.
I have adult dvds, and even though I live alone, they are in my bedroom- away from my other dvds. If I had kids, I would put the dvds they could watch in one section and R rated slash movies I didn't want them to watch elsewhere. I would explain things to them...
I would NOT buy a movie edited by a religious nut job to make the movie 'safe' for my kids. I was allowed to see Jaws at like age 7, and I'm not a cannibal taking BITES out of people. My mom allowed me to read the 'adult' Heavy Metal and National Lampoon when I was 14 and I don't think I'm any more degenerate then any of my friends.
While all my parents worked, they took the time to explain things to me... what I was allowed to do, what I wasn't allowed to see and WHY.

I feel that editing the movie is WRONG, mainly on an artistic level, but also to the kids. If you clean everything up then they won't learn anything.
The world is NOT child friendly. No effort from the right wing will make it so... There will always be people who wish to prey on the young- and the best way to protect them is to explain it to the kids that while yes the Godfather is a wonderful movie, they're not old enough for it now but we can all watch Corky Romano.

That said I also think the Godfather is a work of ART, as are most movies. IF you don't like the vision the director came out with, don't buy it. I haven't bought the DVD version of Star Wars because Lucas edited it, it is not the piece of art I fell in love with. I don't think that anyone should be allowed to change a movie without the director's approval. It's HIS/HER name on the movie.
And that I think is one of the interesting things about people editing these movies... They always say 'it's for the kids'( ya know Kids shouldn't see R rated movies?) but I've yet to read a story with the Christian company saying "yeah we spoke to the director and he said it was ok.'

I guess they're afraid that EVEN IF the director said yes, he'd want some bribe money and that's not Christian.

F' them All!

2005-05-24T06:54:00.000-07:00

I woke up too darn early today day, as is my habit... and I logged on to find out where the 'nuclear option' protests are taking place. On the moveon.org's front page they announced that there was VICTORY on the Nuclear Option.
HOWEVER their report "The only way the "nuclear option" comes back is if the Republicans break their agreement." made bells and whistles go off in my head. A) I had to see what agreement this was and b) I assume that the republicans will break ANY agreement as soon as say agreement becomes inconvenient for them... or breaking it will win votes with their base.

The deal SUX. I read it in my local paper. The democrats once again sold us out.... with Lieberman leading the wuss out.
Basically the dems allow 3 judicial canidates out of committee, including Priscilla Owen one of the people the Dems didn't want, and they PROMISED that filibusters would be used against judicial nominees only "under extraordinary circumstances" by the Democratic minority.

What the HECK!!???!!!

So the democrats say- please let us have the power to filibuster.,.. and we promise not to use it?

The only people this helps is the republicans. They can say in 06, and 08 when McCain tries to run for president again, that THEY were willing to deal with the democrats. That THEY have done EVERYTHING in their power to keep America going... unlike those godless, gay, democrats.

Once again the democrats, lead by the Anti Christ Lieberman, bent over and asked the republicans for table scraps. And once again I'm sick of them.

I want a new party... or two or three. I want a party that will say F' YOU! to the republicans.
I want a party that when the head of the party( Dr. Dean) says that DeLay should be in JAIL... doesn't say 'there Dean goes again.' but says "Yeah! That's the ticket.'
I want a party where when the president LIES to them and sends soldiers to die for his lies... They go "Wait a second, what's all this then?"
I want a government where when they find out about prison abuse... they actually find who's to blame for this HORROR instead of just blaming the grunt who was just following orders.

I want a revolution.. And I want it NOW!

The Nuclear Option

2005-05-22T13:18:00.000-07:00

Hi!

I just signed MoveOn PAC's emergency petition to stop
the "nuclear option" the far right wing's plan to
seize absolute power to stack our courts -– and I hope
you will sign too.

Starting Monday, the petition will be delivered
straight to Congress every three hours until the final
vote, and many of our comments will be read aloud on
the Senate floor.

Please sign right now at:

http://www.moveonpac.org/nuclear

Why is this an emergency?

This Tuesday, the Senate will vote on Republican
Leader Bill Frist's "nuclear option" to break the
rules of the Senate and give the Republican Party
absolute control over appointing federal judges.

For 200 years the minority's right to filibuster has
kept our courts fair, by making sure that federal
judges needed to get at least some support from both
sides of the aisle before they were given life time
appointments.

If Frist eliminates the filibuster, his next step
would be to force far right partisan judges onto the
powerful U.S. Courts of Appeals. The real targets,
however, are the four seats on the Supreme Court
likely to become vacant in the next four years.

With that much power on the Supreme Court, the far
right could strike down decades of progress on labor
rights, environmental protections, reproductive
rights, and privacy.

The "nuclear option" will live or die by a final vote,
probably on Tuesday, and the vote is still way too
close to call. There are at least 6 moderate
Republicans still on the fence and only 3 more votes
needed to win. If we can get enough of our voices into
congress and into the streets in the next 72 hours, we
can still save our courts.

Please take a minute to join me and sign the emergency
petition today.

http://www.moveonpac.org/nuclear

Thanks!

The world hates us because Newsweek prints LIES

2005-05-21T06:21:00.000-07:00

Been meaning to blog about this all week, but kept forgetting.

The story- as *I*, and in the Boston Phoenix story linked above, see it is Newsweek heard from a source that in a pentagon report Muslim prisoners were forced to piss on their holy book. Newsweek prints this because they feel it's news- that Bush's CHRISTIAN soldiers are treating our 'foes' in such a manner. The Pentagon goes on spin control and says that the story is TOTALLY WRONG, and the report says no such thing.

Now to me, this is where it gets darn funny/sad as many neo-con stories have a habit of doing. The Pentagon has NOT released this report. The American people, and the world, don't know the REAL truth because the report is in the hand of the pentagon and politicians... not in the hand of the media and the people.
However, the white house in typical W. fashion demanded an apology from Newsweek and blamed ALL casualties since the report ON NEWSWEEK. They say because of Newsweek's 'error' people have lost lives and America has lost credibility.
God. I was I was making this up. Because it means that the problem with the US and Iraq is NOT Lynndie England but newspapers reporting about Lynndie England.

I especially liked the quote in the editoral part of the same Phoenix paper from a right wing blogger.

"Whether Americans flushed the Koran down the toilet is irrelevant. Newsweek should not have reported it, even if true. It's common sense, people. Those journalists knew how Muslims would react! Why would you hurt your own country and risk more deaths just to report this fact, To what end???"

Because the truth DESERVES to be told. Because if Bush is telling the world he's trying to protect FREEDOM, the rest of the world should know HOW he's protecting them. Because the only way for us to show we're better then the terrorists of 9/11 is by our ACTIONS.
And I think everyone deserves to know exactly what sort of war we're fighting- whether it's a holy war, a war for oil, or a little of both. I don't think it's to liberate the Iraqis... Because if we were doing something good- I don't think W. and the pentagon would be so secret.

The story sounds believable, heck I've read of other equally bad torture stuff at Gitmo to be true.... Perhaps Newsweek should've tried to have more then one freaking source before they published, but on the other hand perhaps the pentagon could've revealed the report instead of just blaming Newsweek for everything. Perhaps if the US treated it's prisoners better, the Muslims wouldn't have believed the story... or perhaps if the pentagon/ congress had gone after some officers following the Abu Ghraib, the Muslim world would've realized that the bad apples had been punished and were out of the system by the time the Newsweek story came to light.

We need checks and balances in our government. One check and balance is the media. It shouldn't be liberal or conservative- it should report the News- to us and the rest of the world. Whether we like the news or not, we need to know. We have a RIGHT to know.

I'm still here

2005-05-18T14:04:00.000-07:00

I just want to state, for the record, that yesterday was the 1 year anniversary of Gay Marriage here in Massachusetts.

There have been no plagues- locusts, frogs or otherwise.

Our chowder( or as locals pronounce it chow-da)is still New England milky white as opposed to tomato/blood red( like that of New Yawk Chow-da).

There are no meteors hurling doom at us... nor has the weather turned nastier then usual.

HECK, gay marriage might actually be a good omen for Ma., for it was AFTER gays were allowed to get married that the Red Sox FINALLY won the world series for the first time in 80+ years.

I did find it interesting that it proved that gay or straight- women want to marry more then men as 2/3rds of the gay weddings have been females.

And that the bill- supported by Romney to change the constitution to allow civil unions but NOT gay marriages seems like it will die before it reaches the voters.

Jesus voted for W.

2005-05-08T05:47:00.000-07:00

Ok, the above article does NOT surprise me.

It irks me, but it's not surprising... and it's one of the reasons I'm against organized religion.

A minister has decided that Democrats are EVIL and has ex-communicated 9 people for not backing W. This means he's damned them to HELL for all eternity because they refused to back someone who has borne false witness( WMDs)[ 9th commandment], and has ORDERED people to kill[ 6th Commandment]. He has also ordered people to break the 'golden rule' as I HIGHLY doubt that W. or anyone who works at Camp X-Ray would want such a thing to happen to THEM or their relations.

I've had problems with the merging of church and state since W. came onto the scene. Priests and ministers have grown bolder as they know that the media won't challenge them.. Heck Fox News is egging them on and Frist... Well Frist is also telling people how G-d hates his enemies.

Heck I'd find it ironic if it wasn't so darn sad, that the same people who say how CHRISTIAN and GOOD W. is- failed to report that 3 days before he meet Prince Abdullah, to beg for gas, the Prince had 40 Pakistani Christians arrested for NOT being Muslim. I guess W. and his backers would rather have lower gas prices then freedom for NON American Christians- because if these people were REAL Christians- they'd be American.

Haliburton and You

2005-04-28T17:22:00.000-07:00

Scalia asked about 'love life'

2005-04-28T14:48:00.000-07:00

Ok. I want to give a shout out here to NYU law student Eric Berndt. Scalia was one of the dissenters in Lawrence V. Texas. Lawrence was having sex- sodomy- with another man in the privacy of his own apartment, a neighbor called complaining of a weapons disturbance( as described in the official ruling), the police responded to report, broke in, saw two men committing sodomy- which was against Texas law and arrested Lawrence( and his 'partner in crime' Garner). Lawrence believed that the law was unjust and took it to the supreme court.

The court ruled that the law was unconstitutional. Scalia disagreed- basically saying it was the business of the court if two MEN commit sodomy in their own home. So I applaud Eric Berndt for asking Scalia what sexual activities HE performs.

There are many sites that will tell you whether it was ethically right or good manners for the question to be asked. I however think that if Scalia wants to rule about OTHER'S people's sex life then he must be honest with his own.

And for the record, I would like to point out there is no ACTUAL record of Berndt's question because Scalia doesn't allow people to tape him.

Sunset Laws

2005-04-28T13:43:00.000-07:00

I read this yesterday in the Rolling Stone and it FREAKED me out.

Basically the republicans want to make a committee to evaluate government agencies on a cost benefit analysis, then they'll get rid of the 'deadwood'.

Gee I wonder how much the FDA makes? And how fast they'd lose their funding if this was enacted.

The ATF could also lose much of it's funding as I'm sure that each one of their initials lobbyists would love LESS restrictions.

Likewise W. has already cut much of the budget for the EPA. Read here for some of the fun stuff W. has already done with SCIENCE. I was especially impressed on page 2 with the 9 month suppression of a report about Mercury poisoning because... well the poisoner was Haliburton.

The invisible hand doesn't work. We the little people need to be protected from BIG evil corporations.

Heck- the IRS which should be one of the best managed agencies( after the FBI and CIA), is one of the more understaffed. I've read on several occasions that they don't have the manpower to go after the BIG fish that owe them money... because those big fish are friends of the president. So the IRS does a 1/2 ass job and is more likely to go after people who owe the government a bit of money then really discuss with congress ways to close tax loopholes and do it's job of getting funds from people and corporations to help the rest of the US government run smoothly.

I don't trust the republicans with ANYTHING these days. Which means I'm against them forming a committee with people from Haliburton to decide what government agencies need to be cut.

The big hole in Ma.

2005-04-09T15:41:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to whine... I mean blog about the big dig here for some time. To me the Big Dig might've started as a simple boondoggle by St. Tip( O'Neil) as a way for MA. to get a slice of government cheese but it's ended up as an unsafe black hole of money thanks to mismanagement and companies bilking the government out of billions. Yes not millions but billions.
Boiled down the idea sounds mid level difficult for the late 20th century. You take an out of date bridge and highway and put them UNDERground and underWATER- making tunnels where the bridge and highway was. It's cool because you can then expand the highway as you build- having more lanes... I would think as a lay person that that hardest thing was making sure that the highway was available for most of this- i.e. not closing anything. Though to be fair they decided to add to the difficulty by deciding to sink some above ground trains while they were at it- still I would say not the most difficult piece of construction. Tunnels had been done before and the scale wasn't impossible.

However it's recently rained gravel in the tunnels and the tunnels leak. Heck the fact that the government HAD to come out with a report to say the tunnel is safe, tells you what poor shape they are.

It also should be noted that when approved it was suppose to cost $2.6 billion and has ended up costing $14.6 billion. It was 'suppose' to be finished 7 years ago but since it's leaking- lord knows when it'll be over.

There are many things that bother me about this- starting with the fact that I don't drive so feel that money could be spent better. I mean think about how much affordable housing you could create with that money, how many homeless you could feed or even teachers you could hire with that much money.
Then there's Bechtel- by my readings and the amount of investigations they fleeced us... I mean how do you have a 561% cost over run and still end up with a sub standard product??? Worse to me is that the U.S. federal government is still giving work to Bechtel after this mismanagement. Bechtel seems to be as 'golden' as Haliburton... as they've been given contracts in Iraq- which they haven't lived up to , and are still getting government contracts.

I think this was a bad idea but good for the local economy when it started- Now as stated it's a black hole of money... yours and mine that could've been better spent- and instead a bunch of fat cats got fatter producing a sub standard item for the 'little people'
( I should mention that the governor here before Mitt got in trouble for using a STATE helicopter for her commute... instead of a car like the rest of us)

I read the news today

2005-03-30T18:37:00.000-08:00

This appears in today's Boston Globe... Link above- story below.

WASHINGTON -- Some pharmacists around the country are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control and morning-after pills, saying that dispensing the medications violates their personal moral or religious beliefs.

The trend has opened a new front in the nation's battle over reproductive rights, sparking an intense debate over the competing rights of pharmacists to refuse to participate in something they consider repugnant vs. a woman's right to get medications her doctor has prescribed. It has triggered pitched political battles in State Houses across the nation as politicians seek to pass laws either to protect pharmacists from being penalized or force them to carry out their duties.

"This is a very big issue that's just beginning to surface," said Steven H. Aden of the Christian Legal Society's Center for Law and Religious Freedom in Annandale, Va., which defends pharmacists. "More and more pharmacists are becoming aware of their right to conscientiously refuse to pass objectionable medications across the counter. We are on the very front edge of a wave that's going to break not too far down the line."

Clashes are occurring more frequently. Pharmacists often risk dismissal or other disciplinary action to stand up for their beliefs, while shaken teenage girls and women desperately call their doctors, frequently late at night, after being turned away by sometimes lecturing men and women in white coats.

"There are pharmacists who will only give birth control pills to a woman if she's married. There are pharmacists who mistakenly believe contraception is a form of abortion and refuse to prescribe it to anyone," said Adam Sonfield of the Alan Guttmacher Institute in New York, which tracks reproductive issues. "There are even cases of pharmacists holding prescriptions hostage, where they won't even transfer it to another pharmacy when time is of the essence."

That's what happened to Kathleen Pulz and her husband, who panicked when the condom they were using broke. The Walgreens pharmacy near their home in Milwaukee refused to fill an emergency prescription for the morning-after pill.

"I couldn't believe it," said Pulz, 43, who with her husband had long ago decided they could not afford a fifth child. "How can they make that decision for us? I was outraged."

Supporters of pharmacists' rights see the trend as a welcome expression of personal belief. Women's groups see it as a major threat to reproductive rights. "This is another indication of the current political atmosphere and climate," said Rachel Laser of the National Women's Law Center in Washington. "It's outrageous. It's sex discrimination. It prevents access to a basic form of healthcare for women. We're going back in time."

The issue could intensify further if the Food and Drug Administration approves the sale of the Plan B morning-after pill without a prescription, a step that would probably make pharmacists the primary gatekeeper.

The question of healthcare workers refusing to provide certain services first emerged among doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers over abortions. The trend began to spread to pharmacists with the approval of the morning-after pill and physician-assisted suicide in Oregon, with support from such organizations as the Pharmacists for Life International.

"Our group was founded with the idea of returning pharmacy to a healing-only profession. What's been going on is the use of medication to stop human life," said Karen L. Brauer, the group's president, who was fired from a Kmart pharmacy in Delhi, Ohio, for refusing to fill birth control prescriptions.

No one knows how often that is happening, but cases have been reported across the country, including in Massachusetts, California, Washington, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Texas, New Hampshire, Ohio, and North Carolina. Advocates on both sides say the refusals appear to be spreading.

Eleven states are considering "conscience clause" laws that would protect pharmacists like Noesen. Four states have laws that specifically allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions that violate their beliefs. At the same time, at least four states are considering laws that would require pharmacists to fill all prescriptions.

The American Pharmacists Association recently reaffirmed its policy that pharmacists can refuse to fill prescriptions as long as they make sure customers can get their medications some other way. That can include making sure another pharmacist is on duty or another pharmacy nearby is willing to fill the prescription.

Large pharmacy chains, including Walgreens, Wal-Mart, and CVS, have instituted policies that try to balance pharmacists' and customers' rights.

Women's advocates say such policies are impractical, especially late at night in emergency situations involving the morning-after pill, which must be taken within 72 hours.

As I read this I couldn't help but think "imagine if there was an aids cure that you had to get from the pharmacist and she decided to NOT give it to you- because she felt that god had DAMNED you and that's why you had aids."
My beliefs are that if you can't MORALLY do your job... You look for another JOB! If they want to be pharmacists, nurses or doctors then they have to put the NEEDS of the patient before their own. Could you imagine if a 'liberal' prison guard helped someone on death row get out of prison because they were MORALLY against the death penalty?