Spin Dry

Calee-forn-eeya

2009-11-08T22:34:00.002-08:00

I can't wait until the day that the Governator is finally kicked out of office, and don't get me started on the power company conspiracy that unjustly dragged Gray Davis out of office, and led to the biggest clusterfuck of an election ever, with 135 candidates on the ballot. But here we are, the fifth largest economy in the world driven into the ground through deregulation, cronyism, waste and stupidity.

The latest indignity is the slashing of budgets for the state's animal shelters, cutting the hold period from arrival to execution for pets from six days to three. Whoo-hoo, hail the savings. But there's one very simple savings method -- as well as a way to guarantee a budget gets passed on time -- that I haven't seen yet. No surprise, because it would involve putting the pain where it belongs -- not with the people of California, but with the assholes who are supposed to run the place and keep it in the black.

Did I mention that all of us are now going to start paying more in withholding taxes? But, oh no, it's not a tax increase... it's just a "loan", and we'll get it back in April.

Well, fuck that. This is what we need, plain and simple: If there is not a state budget in place, or if the budget runs a deficit, then not a single elected official in the state gets paid. Period. None of the legislature, none of the executive, none of the judiciary. No mayors, no city councils, no judges. No district attorneys, no controllers, no sheriffs. No school boards, nobody who was hired by ballot. Period. If you haven't done your job, you don't get a check.

The savings would be immediate and huge, and the incentive to fix things would be enormous. And it's an answer to the arrogance of a failed legislature that dared to try to pay unemployment benefits with uncashable IOUs.

Step two: adopt the college model to the state budget. We can't trust this to the elected dorks who are the biggest welfare whores of all. In college, everyone paid student fees into a general fund and then, when the new semester started, everyone voted how to allocate that money among the various student groups. This is how the budget in California should be handled. Every November, the voters are given a list. "You have X Billion Dollars, allocate it among the following..." No haggling, no special interests (beyond the interests of the voters, which are the interests of the state), a simple mathematical decision once the votes are in. No negotiation, no bribery... and, if the people are way off in their allocations, then they only have themselves to blame, and will probably learn the next year, unlike the useless shits in suits we now have packed in Sacramento.

In fact, to extend this model a few steps further, it might be the first round in eliminating state government entirely. After all, what have they given us? More and clever ways to take our money and spend it on nothing; more and better ways to oppress us so they can get paid, so they can grease their campaign funders and flush our tax money down the toilet.

California, along with New York, has been one of the bellwether leaders in innovation. This is the innovation I suggest: California should be governed by all Californians. Sure, we've certainly had our fuck-ups (Prop 8, anyone?) but that fuck-up was mostly funded by Mormons -- who would have much less power if the voting was actually handled by the people, instead of the whore monkeys in Sacramento.

So, a modest proposal. As of January 1, 2010, we fire the State Assembly, Senate, Executive and Judiciary. Thereafter, everything is handled online by us. No one leads, so everyone leads, and we will never have to suffer a failed governor or a useless legislature again; will never have to bend over and submit to politicians who are only interested in maintaining their lifestyle while shouting "Let them eat cake!"

Hm. Which brings to mind the guillotine, and the satisfying thunk with every executed shitstain from the aristocracy, who demanded entitlement, but wasn't willing to pay the price.

Time to make those fuckers in Sacramento pay up, isn't it?

Your Tax Dollars at Shirk

2009-09-27T23:37:00.003-07:00

{Update]: To clarify, do I think that Roman Polanski committed a terrible crime in drugging and raping a teenage girl? Yes. Do I think he should be forgiven because he's made some good movies? Hell no. Do I think it's ridiculous that the US is trying to extradite him for his crimes now? Yes -- but only because his victim has made it clear that whenever he winds up in the news, she does, so any attempts at prosecution only make her the victim all over again.

Polanski has not repeated his crimes, that we know of. Nor has he attempted to return to the US. Sure, we can throw him in jail now, but at the expense of exposing his victim -- and now her children -- to further media scrutiny, in effect raping her and her family again and again.

But forgive him for his art? Well -- Charles Manson apparently wrote some pretty good songs once upon a time...

[End Update].

OMG, stop the presses, the US DOJ has managed to arrest a fugitive for a crime committed 36 years ago and has made your daughters safer -- except that this man has not repeated his crime since then. And, while these a-holes should have been chasing after bigger criminals still at large in the US, they instead settle on a 76 year-old artist who has otherwise lived an exemplary life.

All the while, they conveniently forget one little detail -- this man's pregnant wife was slaughtered by a truly psychotic man who has been in prison for the last thirty years, and who will probably never get out, and who is on the public enemies list forever, along with Bin Laden, Fidel Castro and Hitler.

Well, two little details. The victim of this crime committed in 1973 has, as an adult, repeatedly begged authorities to just get over it, like she did, and put the matter to rest.

But.. no. The Puritan Dipshits with badges -- proving that all cops are assholes -- can't let go. And so, getting a lucky break, they force the Swiss to arrest Roman Polanski and ship him back to the US and, for what? He didn't kill anyone. His victim has long since said she is not a victim. He himself was victimized in the infamous summer of '69. Can we get our priorities straight?

Want to track down criminals who really killed people and have shown no remorse? Then Dick Cheney should be hauled into prison and indicted yesterday. Or is it okay because he didn't fuck thirteen year old girls, but rather noddingly approved the fucking of twelve year old boys in front of their fathers, all in the name of national security?

Horseshit. Roman Polanski suffered a very public personal tragedy in 1969, went a little nuts in 1973, but has long since been by his victim. That should be the end of story. But it isn't, because a bunch of yahoos with badges who could be doing better thngs aren't. "Ooh -- we caught the old man going to a film festival, and now we're going to haul him back here. Notice us!"

Hip hip hooray, assholes. You're forgetting a few things. One: Mr. Polanski hasn't exactly gone on a teeny-fucking rampage since 1973. Two: He's given us some great films since then. Three: He has had no involvement in the deaths of more than 4,000 US Soldiers, a hundred thousand Iraqis, and the squandering of trillions of dollars. Four: He isn't a war criminal. But there are war criminals still resident in the US, much easier to apprehend, with no extradition required.

Do your real jobs, okay? Leave the expatriate who has repented alone. Focus on the assholes who are still wandering around in America. Bring them to justice. Their victims are not calling out for forgiveness because they cannot -- they're dead. Mr. Polanski's victim is begging you to drop the case. Listen to her, then listen to your conscience. Drop this witch hunt, then turn your resources toward the real criminals.

Hint: You won't find them in France, Poland, or Switzerland. You'll find them in Wyoming, Texas and DC.

The Hypocrisy, It Is Strong with Them...

2009-09-05T02:07:00.003-07:00

I'm not sure which pisses me off more -- the screaming whiny racists who have their panties in a major wad because -- gasp! -- the President of the US is going to talk to their kids on Tuesday, or the MSM who is turning this bullshit non-story into, well, a story.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've heard the meme. President Obama is going to address school children nationwide on Tuesday, encouraging them to stay in school and get an education. And a bunch of rightwing racists assholes have kicked and screamed and whined, claiming that this is Communist Indoctrination, and "NOT MY KIDS", and the media has deigned to grant legitimacy to this total horseshit.

And... the hypocrisy is thick in the air. Where were these people when Ronald Reagan addressed school kids? (I was a "victim" of this in elementary school.) Where were they when W read "My Pet Goat" to school children... oh, that's right, as 9/11 was happening? Hell, where were they when the Presidential Commission on Physical Fitness forced generations of kids to run around the playground, do pull-ups and feel useless because the four jocks on campus skewed the shit out of the bell-curve? Thank JFK, LBJ and Nixon for that one.

And... weren't these the same people who screamed to the high heavens that any criticism of the president (from 9/11/01 to 1/19/09 inclusive) was treason?

There are two simple solutions to this bullshit. First, the MSM needs to ignore these whining bigots, or at least point out the contradictions above at every turn. Second, the rest of us need to point out that, well, they are in fact racist assholes, astroturfing outrage when none is deserved.

Once upon a time in America, it was considered an honor when the president spoke to you, no matter who the president was. That was the rule from Washington to Bush I. Somehow, the rules changed with Clinton -- but only because the neo-cons did almost as much to damage the office of president in the 90s as Nixon did in his two terms, the only difference being that Nixon did it himself, while Clinton had it done to him.

Well, welcome to 2009, when a bunch of racist assholes conveniently manage to call any criticism of their fascism racism (blind morans) and attack our duly elected president with inacurate lables of facism or commuism. The same people who wanted to hang the people who criticized W are conveniently ignoring their old rules, and are applying their new.

And it's time for the Media and the People to call "Bullshit." The President of the United States wants to talk to the children on Tuesday. Not so very long ago, all good patriots would encourage their children to listen to the president. The only reason old, rich white people are complaining now is... well... President Obama is not old, not rich and not...

Ssssh. White. And this manufactured tempest in a teapot is just the last gasp of racism, of the scared white people whose greatest fear is that people with darker skin than theirs might actually have something to say, and these racist douchebags can all go fuck themselves. If Saint Reagan was good enough to shovel his propaganda down the throats of children of a generation ago, Saint Obama is good enough to tell the current generation to stay in school. It isn't about the person, or shouldn't be, if you're a good American. It's about the Constitution and the Office of the President and Our Country.

If you oppose the president, after all, you are a terrorist. And all of you whining assholes don't want to be labelled as terrorists, right?

Right?

The Entitled Generation

2009-08-03T20:46:00.002-07:00

I don't know whether this story is terrifying or laughable, but here it is in a nutshell: an April 2009 grad of New York's Monroe College is suing her alma mater for her tuition costs of $70,000 plus $2,000 for stress because... they haven't gotten her employed yet.

Read that again. Student graduates, three months later she isn't working in her dream job, so she wants, basically, a full refund.

Did I mention that the litigant, Trina Thompson of the Bronx, is 27? Now I don't know whether anyone explained it to her, but that's strike one and is no fault of the university's. I've been involved in some hiring and recruiting in my day, and when a résumé comes along showing that someone received their first undergraduate degree five years after most people generally get it, my first question is "Why?" Now, if they were in the military or the Peace Corps, or working to save up to pay for school or doing something similar in their early twenties, that's one thing. But if they've been to five or six schools, changed majors several times, or just couldn't be arsed to go to college for five years after high school, then that résumé is going in the trash.

But perhaps the most telling line in the story is this one:

As Thompson sees it, any reasonable employer would pounce on an applicant with her academic credentials, which include a 2.7 grade-point average and a solid attendance record.

Blink. Blink. I'm sorry. What?

Last I checked, a 2.7 GPA was a C+ student -- barely passing, doing just better than average work. In other words, a crappy student. And, as a recruiter, I'm supposed to stand on my head and shit nickels? I don't think so.

But it gets better. Oh, it gets better...

(Thompson) suggested that Monroe's Office of Career Advancement shows preferential treatment to students with excellent grades. "They favor more toward students that got a 4.0. They help them more out with the job placement..."

(Mangled grammar of that statement aside...) Well, which part of "duh" don't you understand, Ms. Thompson? Of course they do. That's how the real world works. The people who work hard in college and get 4.0 GPAs have earned the right to get in front of your slacker ass in the job reward line because they've proven what they can do. And, by the way, "solid" attendance works against you with a 2.7 GPA. I'd be more impressed by a 4.0 student who missed half their classes. Why? Because, while you were apparently there all of the time, you were only getting half the information. That means, as an employee, you'd be twice as much work for me, so... thanks, but no thanks.

There's one other bit that Little Miss Give Me What I Don't Deserve doesn't realize, though, and it's this: if she's found it hard to find a job in the last three months (during the slow summer hiring season, no less), she'll find it all but impossible now, because every single employer she goes to is going to google her name and find out that she's the type of person who will whine and stamp her feet when she isn't handed what she wants on a silver platter, then run to the courts to sue. Quoth Ms. Thompson:

"It doesn't make any sense: They went to school for four years, and then they come out working at McDonald's and Payless. That's not what they planned."

But get used to it, Ms. Thompson. The world does not owe you a living. You have to earn it. Then again, you'll probably sue the judge who takes one look at your suit and laughs your sorry ass out of the courtroom. The same judge who probably graduated law school at 25 with at least a 3.9 GPA and passed the bar on the first try. And who doesn't scream "It's not fair!" when they don't get what they haven't earned.

One other note for Ms. Whiny: I graduated from college summa cum laude -- that's fancy Latin for really high GPA. I did it at 22, on schedule. I didn't have some college employee pimping me out for work, and it took two years to find my first job related to my degree. For those two years, I kept the same job I had senior year in college. Did I whine and bitch and moan? No. I worked hard for my employer, kept my eyes out for opportunities, then grabbed the first one that came along.

And, by the way, "the first one that came along" was not a corner office with a view. No... it was the IT equivalent of writing out trouble tickets from help desk calls, then passing them along to the qualified techs. It took another two years to move from that to the corner office spot -- which I achieved, I might add, ahead of a bunch of "C" employees, because I kept up the "A" work.

So, sorry you're unemployable, Ms. Thompson. But I can tell from reading this article that it has nothing to do with your school, and everythng to do with yourself. When you learn to not blame others for your failings, then maybe you can join the adult world with the rest of us. Otherwise, you just show yourself to be a whiny little bitch who's not good enough to flip fries at an off-brand burger joint.

An Open Letter to the Governator

2009-07-02T01:11:00.001-07:00

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger,

Thank you for completely breaking my home state. The only honorable action now is for you to resign, and invite the legislature to go with you. Taxing us to death will not help. Punitively cutting services will not help. We need to hit the "Reset" button and start over. Re-"elect" state government the same way they chose juries (random people could not do a worse job than we've seen), call a new Constitutional Convention to fix the laws under which we live; in short -- desperate times call for daring measures. California will either become the bellwether for a dying, bankrupt nation, or a new model for something different -- not Democracy and not a Republic, but something in between and better.

To put it in terms that you (and I) might understand better as film people -- it's the end of the second act, the hero has just had his ass handed to him by the villain, and it looks like there is no hope at all. This is when a real hero breaks the rules. This is the time when a soft revolution may free us from the corporate elite, the lobbyists and the special interests. You cannot run for governor again by state law, so have nothing to lose. But you have everything to win if you fight on the side of the People of this state, and not on the side of those who are trying to strangle us for profit.

The keys to saving California are:

1) Bring back manufacturing by providing strong tax breaks to industries that provide local jobs, and penalizing heavily those that outsource overseas or out of state.
2) Bring back consumer spending by providing huge cuts to sales and income tax, and encouraging spending by increasing deductions for basic human needs like rent, food, health care and clothing.
3) Reign in non-manufacturing industries by heavily regulating and taxing the financial industry, and all those who profit by the sale and re-sale of money, or through usurious credit rates.
4) Improve education by increasing teacher salaries while eliminating administrative positions.
5) Legalize marijuana for adults under the same rules as alcohol, license California farmers to grow and distribute, then tax at a rate which will be substantial, but still keep the price below current illegal street prices -- immediate result, drug income for gangs eliminated. Long term result, new tax revenues for the state.
6) Release all state prisoners who have been incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses; establish job training/re-entry programs for same. Net result, lower prison costs, new pool of employees. Combine with incentives for manufacturers to hire them for maximum benefit.
7) Eliminate the initiative process and call a moratorium on all bond measures on the ballot for thirty years or until all outstanding bonds are paid off, whichever comes later. Net result: fewer costly court battles over stupid initiatives; state debt paid down before more debt is assumed.
8) No tax, fee or fine of any kind can be increased without a 2/3rds vote of the entire population of the state. This includes any local tax increases, county taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, or increases in government fees or civil fines. The legislature has no authority to impose any tax, fee or fine increases whatsoever.
9) Tie salaries of all elected officials to average per capita income for their jurisdiction -- counting unemployed, but excluding dependents and retired -- plus 25%. The only way officials can get a salary increase is by increasing the average income in their jurisdiction, but their salaries go down when per capita income in their district goes down.
10) Property taxes are only due while equity in a property is negative. As soon as a home or land owner has paid off their property, they owe no taxes. Net result: this will keep retirees and established businesses in the state, since they will have no incentive to sell off and leave.
10) Establish a statewide "vote of no confidence", to be conducted via a tamper-proof, one vote per person online system. Said vote can be called at any time, for any elected official, and functions as an instant recall.
11) Minimum wage will be recalculated annually, based on the cost of living in the most expensive county in the state, plus $ 500 per month kept as savings.
12) Net result of all of the above -- California may once again become an attractive place to live. Net immigration and added tax revenue may offset reductions.

If you'd like to explain to me why you think you can't perform any of the above actions, please do so -- but I don't think you honestly can, unless you admit that you are just a tool, and useless, and not worthy of your office.

A California Parable

2009-06-17T01:05:00.003-07:00

I don't know how to pound the truth into the California legislature's heads, other than to impeach them all, but trying to draw a parable to the working class -- of whom they have no understanding whatsoever -- might at least sell my argument to the rest of the world.

In short, it's this: you work in California, imagine it's a minimum wage job. The state minimum wage is $ 8.00 -- $ 320.00 a week, $ 16,640.00 per year. Okay, in real life, no one could live on that, but let's imagine you can. You can pay the rent, the utilities, insurance, and food, but no more.

You do your job every day, show up nine to five -- but nor more nor less, and take every vacation day imaginable.

Then, one day, you decide that you're not making enough for the work you do. You go to your boss and demand a raise. Your boss refuses, but you figure "Screw it." So -- you take out credit cards. Many, many credit cards. You buy expensive shiat, you act like you make $ 50K a year, you live high on the hog...

And then -- the credit card bills come due. And while your putative salary is only $ 16,640.00 per year, your debt is $ 150,000 and growing. What do you do? Well, you march into your boss's office, hold them at knife point, until they have no choice but to turn over their salary, sell their office furniture and do whatever they can to help you maintain your life-style.

Pretty ridiculous, isn't it? Except that -- this is exactly what the State Government of California is trying to do to you, and you have to remember one thing: They have the roles of Boss and Employer exactly backwards.

Let's look at that scenario again...

You're elected to the state legislature, and the budget via property taxes is limited by Proposition 13, or "minimum wage." You mange to live on that, paying social services, insurance, unemployment, and not much more. This is called breaking even.

Then, one day, you decide that the Sacramento Fat Cats are not making enough for the minimum work you do. You go to the people and demand a raise, via higher taxes. Their repsponse is "Up yours." But you figure "Screw it." You take out loans, issue bonds -- many, many bonds. You buy expensive shiat (which only benefits yourself and not your boss), you act like you make $ 50 billion a year, you live high on the hog...

And then -- the bonds come due. And while your budget is technically one amount, your debt is ten times that amount, and growing. What do you do? Well, you tell the people, "Hey, guess what? You poor saps have to pay for all of this."

Well, us poor saps have had enough. Just like capitalistic bosses would have sacked the asses of underlings who had the nerve to ask them to sell the office furniture to pay for their HDTVs, the voters of California should take up arms and instantly un-employee all the assholes in Sacramento.

It's really simple. You were given a minimum wage via Prop 13. You've failed to live within your means. You belong on the streets, homeless, all your credit cards cancelled and cut up by your parents -- We, the People, who never really approved them. Or, if we did approve them, never approved the expenses, because you lied to us, you annoying zit-faced teens.

Time for California to grow up. Ahnuld? Boxy? Feisty? Waxy? Sorry -- you've failed. Fall on your swords now, or be pushed on them next November. The four of you have destoyed this state for your own gain. None of you deserve to ever hold high office again -- and will be lucky to get out of the offices you hold alive -- and should only have to live on $ 8.00 an hour for the rest of your sorry ass lives.

California is best governed by Californians, as crazy as Nebraska thinks we are. Three months ago, President Obama was ready to hold us up as a standard for green energy. Today? Hell, even Texas is laughing.

And even Iowa. How the hell did we inherit Bush's Extreme Court? California has overturned Same-Sex Marriage. Which is time to reboot. California is not Kansas. But the shithead powers in Sacramento have made sure we have been since at least 1990.

Tar and pitchforks over here. Gavin Newsom to the statehouse. Everyone else -- go to hell.

Reimagining California

2009-05-28T23:16:00.002-07:00

It's time for us to take a cue from Hollywood, as tired and bankrupt of ideas as they are, and it's this. Time to "reimagine" the entire state government. Dump, as in recall or impeach, the Governor, the Senators, the Legislature and the Supreme Court. Turn their sorry asses out of office, and replace them with better casting. The Governator has failed and fallen to B-List Status, flailing at bad ideas -- like cutting state employee pay -- rather than finding good ideas, like cutting elected official pay to the purported one dollar per year that he takes. Time to dump Boxer and Feinstein, the former a cheerleader for irrelevant ideas who doesn't get the big picture, the latter a cheerleader for herself who doesn't get anything more than "I was there when Harvey Milk was killed, so love me liberals." Mouth, money, is...?

Follow that up by dumping the six Supremes who not only reversed themselves badly, but violated the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution and raped the California Constitution, all in one wimp-ass, stupid opinion. The lone dissenter (Hm... a latina, kudos to President Obama for maybe being onto something there) promoted to Chief Justice. As for the House? Make them all justify their jobs in a referendum for re-election now.

Call it California 2.0 or Golden State Revisited or... whatever Hollywood marketing wonks come up with. But, most of all, call it this -- the elected officials in this state have screwed the pooch big time, and deserve to be kicked to the curb. Well, actually, they deserve a good old tar and feathering and riding out of town on a rail, if not just lynching. But, from Ahnold on down, there is something rotten in Sacramento, and the only way to fix it is to dump the whole damn bunch, then replace them. And doing it the same way they assign jurors would not be a bad idea at all.

So, here's an initiatve for our next election: Every elected state official is hereby removed from office. Replacements shall be selected from among all adults within the state who are currently registered to vote, have registered a car, or have a driver's license, by random drawing. Passage of this ammendment also remove the ability of the State Constitution to be ammended by anything less than a 2/3rds vote of the legislature, and any new taxes or fees can only be imposed after a 3/4ths vote of the public. Finally, salaries of elected officials are limited to two times the average gross income of residents in their jurisdiction, with raises or decreases determined by an impartial determination of the average, and never subject to vote, ever again.

Supreme Court Injustice

2009-05-26T23:17:00.001-07:00

Let the impeachment proceedings begin against the six California Supreme Court Justices who today caved in and betrayed the Constitution. Not a one of the six deserves the title "Justice", but rather should be branded an "Injustice". Worse still, in bending over backwards to kiss the ass of the religiously insane minority that foisted Proposition 8 on California, they have reversed themsevles and their previous decision, and deserve to be tarred, feathered and run out of the state on a rail.

Their opinion does not adhere to any apparent logic at all. They overturned California's previously passed by initiative ban on same-sex marriage, and any sane person would have taken that to mean that such initiatives could not stand again. On top of that, their ruling is contradictory -- they uphold a law that says "Only marriages between a man and a woman shall be recognized in California", and yet say that 18,000 same-sex marriages performed in the state are valid. They can't have it both ways. By keeping those marriages intact, they defy the law they uphold. They are having their cake and eating it, too. But, honestly, they can all just eat me.

It's time to sharpen the pitchforks, march on the halls of power and demand the ouster of these fuckers. If the power companies could force an initiative recalling Grey Davis simply because he pissed them off; if the Mormons could meddle in our state politics to pass Prop 8 -- then the rest of us can play the same. Step one: impeach the six Supreme Court Injustices who stuck their heads way up their asses today. Step two: demand that The Governator replace them with justices who support equal rights for all, or elect Gavin Newsom as his replacement next year. Step three: take action, take to the streets, remind these assholes that the sole source of their power is the approval of the "majority" they claim to support. Step four: If your rights were infringed today, tell the State to fuck off when they want your money. No Rights? No Taxes. Step five: The sane areas of California -- mostly the coastal cities from San Diego to San Francisco -- secede. The farmers and rednecks and idiots inland can go make their own state, and we can become El Dorado. But, guess what? The coastal strip will become the world's fifth largest economy upon creation. The dirt flats and strip malls and truck stops inland -- you get to be the western white trash trailer livin' inbred banjo-playing homeland, and will probably become the welfare capital of the US in a year. But hey, that's your reward for being tiny minded assholes who are so totally terrified of catching teh ghey just because someone says it's okay.

Well -- fuck you. Fuck all y'all. And fuck 6/7ths of the California Supreme Court. This is war, and the right side is going to win, hands down.

Attention Whores

2009-05-13T23:46:00.002-07:00

Okay. Enough of this Miss California pageant bullshit. Carrie Prejean should have been dumped as soon as she expressed her bigoted opinions, and definitely should have been dumped once it was revealed she breached he contract by concealing the existence of revealing pix and spent time spouting off against same sex marriage when she should have been working for the pageant. There are only two reasons Donald "Irrelevant in the 80s" Trump kept her on. 1) He's thinking with the little Trump Tower; 2) He knows that this scandal will keep his sorry ass in the news for weeks.

As Miss California, Carrie Prejean is supposed to represent the state.
She pretty much proved herself to be on the side of the ignorant farm county bigots when she opened her yap, and moreso when she found it more important to work anti Same-Sex Marriage rallies, instead of appearing at contractually required Beauty Pageant events. This story should have been over weeks ago, but unfortunately Trump, the ultimate Attention Whore, has decided to keep the wound open.

Well, here's my response to Trump and Prejean: You're Fired. Get the hell out of the media, slink on back to your conservative cave somewhere deep beneath the Times Square Subway Stations, and never be heard from again. We really have more important shit to worry about than some has-been, toupeed, Ponzi-scheming New York asshole and a mindless blonde haired fundie spewing bimbo whose only qualification is "Look at my tits!"

Note to the so-called mainstream media -- if you want to end your slide into irrelevance, you'll ignore stories like this, and get back to the important stuff, like what did Nancy Pelosi know about torture and when, will we try the war criminals of the past administration, will Dick Cheney get the Mussolini treatment?

Anything else is irrelevant and pointless, and I feel dirty just having to blog about it. Carrie Prejean belongs in a trailer park in Arkansas, and Donald Trump deserves to be Oprah's bitch boy on a regular Wednesday Segment between her hyping new age bullshit artist Dr. Oz and clueless shit stain Jenny McCarthy.

in a just universe, most of the above mentioned people would be unknowns. in a just universe, Barack Obama would have been elected president at the first possible opportunity, in 1996.

Meanwhile, In a Parallel Universe...

2009-05-12T23:24:00.002-07:00

To the Family Cheney -- Go fuck yourselves. While Shrubya was in office, Whistle Dick saw fit to hide out in an undisclosed location. Now that he's a private citizen again, he can't help but mouth off uselessly. Unfortunately, his daughter seems to have grown a pair, and is also now spewing nonsense into the universe. To wit:

In an interview on Fox News, the daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney sharply criticized the new administration for agreeing to release photographs depicting alleged abuses at U.S. prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush administration.

"I think it is really appalling that the administration is taking this step," she said in the interview. "Clearly what they are doing is releasing images that show American military men and woman in a very negative light."

Oh, really? So, Liz, dear -- where the hell were you when the first body bags came rolling back from Iraq? Where were you while these same soldiers you pretend to care so much about were being killed for nothing? Hiding in daddy's bunker? Or partying with the Bush twins?

At least be honest, and state your argument this way: "Obama is revealing the truth and making my daddy look like the total amoral asshole he is, and might even land his ass on trial for war crimes, for which he deserves to be tried."

That one I'd accept. Hey, a nearly 90 year old man was just extradited from the US to Germany to be tried for war crimes alleged to have been committed sixty years ago. Why should your daddy get a pass?

He shouldn't. And President Obama is not casting the American Military in a negative light, you ignorant cow. He is shining the light of truth on your father and his partner in crime -- both of whom should be tried, convicted and punished to the fullest extent of the law.

So -- tell the truth, or shut up and go away. But enough of this NeoCon clutching at straws. Your party is over, your movement is dead, and your former leaders should all go the way of the Nuremberg Defendants. Ooh -- so that makes the US Military look bad? That was because they were only following orders from your Nazi asshole father.

Hey, here's an idea. Tell him to go duck hunting with some of his middle-eastern pals, like Osama bin Laden. Or, like most of America would like to, tell him to go right to hell.

Here's to no one named Cheney or Bush ever being electable to any office ever again.

Presifuckindential

2009-05-09T23:11:00.002-07:00

If anyone had any doubts, President Obama's performance at tonight's White House Correspondents dinner should put them to rest. In this clip, it's quite obvious that he's light years beyond W's lame "Oh -- are the weapons of mass destruction here?" and even surpasses Bill Clinton's brilliant "Final Days" video of 1999.

Simply put, after a hundred plus days, President Obama still has it. He is JFK, FDR and Lincoln rolled into one -- a man with a sense of humor about himself, willing to joke about his shortcomings, while showing his real strength in humility.

We rolled the dice and hoped for a savior last November. Six months later... yeah, I think we won on that gamble.

Don't listen to the whining Limbaugh minority. For the first time in a long time, we have a president who totally gets it. Now shut up, sit back, and enjoy the ride.

Cue the Supremes

2009-04-28T23:44:00.002-07:00

I really only have one response to this ridiculous Supreme Court decision regarding "indecent" language on TV.

Go fuck yourselves.

End of discussion.

Clinton's Penis Flies Again

2009-04-28T23:31:00.002-07:00

So... Air Force One flies over New York and Mayor Bloomberg gets his panties in a twist and this is news... why? While a possibly ill-advised move by Director of the White House Military office Louis Caldera, what Mayor Pissy Pants fails to mention is that the NYPD and an un-named City official were informed of the photo op before the fact. The failure to pass that information along to the Mayor, therefore, is the fault of his own people, and not of the Obama White House. indeed, President Obama was not privvy to the mission and was royally pissed himself when he heard about it.

But, short version -- the failed Neocons are playing the clutching at straws game here. Ooh -- a well marked and very recognizable aircraft flew around New York City. Booga booga.

Anyone want to address the more important question -- as in, human beings were tortured under the aegis of the Bush-Cheney administration, in violation of international law? If Mayor Bloomberg were anything but a partisan hack, he'd have his tampon in a twist over that, and be howling for the blood of the War Criminals who recently occupied the White House. His feigned offense over this incident just paints him as another NeoCon asshole, and this insincere Obama-bashing is just a repeat of the Mantra of the 90s -- "B-b-b-ut... Clinton's Penis!"

Stop your obsession with the Presidential cock, you morans. If you were real patriots, you would be helping this new Administration fix all the shit that happened to this country from January 2001 to January 2009. But, hey -- that would require you to act like grown-ups.

Ooh -- scary plane. Pardon me while I shit myself.

Get the fuck over it already. If New York City's own officials had done their job, they would have spared Mayor DoomAndGloomberg the opportunity to take a big dump and then gloat about it. If anyone needs to be spanked over this incident, it's the Chief of the NYPD.

After all, Obama's plane didn't take out any buildings. That's a lot more than can be said of the Bush/Cheney express of 2001.

Hope for Humanity...

2009-04-18T00:57:00.002-07:00

I am no big fan of reality shows, but Susan Boyle is the right person at the right time... not attractive by conventional means, laughed at initially by her audience, but the second she opened her mouth, she showed us the true beauty of humanity. With pure passion and raw talent, she is a living example of the true potential, and the true inner beauty, of our species. By the shallow counts of mass media humanity, she's a loser. Over 40, a virgin, not attractive... a reject in most shallow estimations. And yet -- not one note out of her mouth, and she won over the audience and judges of Britain's Got Talent. And she's no fluke. Witness her a capella performance on Larry King Live: Wow.

Susan Boyle will live on in history. This woman has talent, guts and no fear, and should be an inspiration to us all. She is truly a Secular Saint -- someone who, by refusing to adhere to society's standards in pursuit of her dream, has achieved her dream already.

Normally, I would dismiss realty show stars. In this case I can't. Susan Boyle will have as big an effect on history as Gandhi or Mother Teresa. She is a living example of the little people grabbing power by the nose and saying, "Hey, guess what? We are the ones you should pay attention to." And how appropriate that her debut to the world would be a song from a musical based on the French Revolution. It's just about French Revolution time again, and Susan Boyle has unintentionally fired the opening shot over the bow of the mainstream media.

She has touched us all, and those of us with hearts will follow. Our hearts will go on. This decade has found its muse in an unlikely place -- in a commoner with heart, talent and passion.

Susan Boyle -- you are a winner. Period. Our hats are off to you.

Bad Science Alert

2009-04-10T23:01:00.002-07:00

While I find some of Mike Rivero's political reporting at whatreallyhappened.com useful, he does often twirl off into tinfoil hat land, and I won't forgive him for turning against President Obama on January 21, 2009. However, there's one subject he seems to be dogmatic on -- and wrong -- and that is the origin of the universe. He's definitely in crackpot science land on all of his arguments as to why the Big Bang never happened, but he pulled a particularly heinous bad science error in a recent posting.

The bad bit of science he relies on in this posting follows:

Our Solar System and planets have heavy elements (without which you would not be here) because at some time prior to the creation of our Solar System another star in the immediate vicinity exploded, creating the heavy elements and scattering them into the universe.

He then uses this to claim that the Big Bang could not have happened because all heavy elements are created by super nova, the Big Bang was just a giant super nova, but the early universe lacked heavy elements -- ergo, the Big Bang never happened.

The problem is, he's dead wrong when he claims that super novae create the heavy elements. In fact, super novae occur because a star has finished synthesizing the heavy elements. The physics are complicated, but the short version is this: the first stars were pure hydrogen. Along with helium, those were the heaviest elements created in the primordial universe. The helium didn't do much by way of forming stars, but the hydrogen did, collapsing from clouds into incredibly massive, hot and fast-burning stars that immediately began to fuse hydrogen into helium. This fusion created heat and energy, which counteracted the tendency of the star to collapse under the force of gravity, keeping the thing alive. Eventually, when enough helium was created, the force of gravity began to fuse the helium into carbon, then the carbon into neon, the neon into oxygen, then finally the oxygen into silicon. Each step of the way, the fusion process released energy and counteracted gravity.

However, after silicon, the star would begin to create iron by fusion, and this is critical because the creation of iron by fusion does not release energy. At this point, gravity begins to take over because the pressure of the fusion reaction is not enough to push against it. The outside of the star collapses rapidly, in effect behaving like one gigantic fusion (or "hydrogen") bomb. In the resulting explosion, the outer layers are blown off. This creates a nebula of gas and heavy elements, but the heavy elements have taken a few million years to be created within the star.

Ooh. Real science. If Rivero had really done his homework, he would understand why a Big Bang, which is an outward explosion from nothing, is not the same as a super nova, which is the sudden explosion and implosion of an element factory. When you understand how stars work, his argument blows apart like Eta Carinae.

Political bloggers should not dabble in science, unless they know science. This is ironic, because Rivero has alluded to working for NASA in the past -- but he was obviously not an astrophysicist. It's also a shame because, while he preaches against people blindly drinking the KoolAid and accepting dogma, on this particular issue he is blind to his to his own prejudices.

All evidence points to a singularity that exploded to create this universe. We don't know the causes or conditions much earlier than about first 10^-43 seconds after it happened, but what we know after that time pretty much indicates that, yeah -- Big Bang.

Vive la Nation

2009-04-09T22:59:00.002-07:00

Two hundred and twenty years ago this July, the people of France decided that they had had enough. In response to a fiscal crisis, they began to seize power, eventually deposing the King, Nobility and the Clergy. Many heads rolled, social structures changed, Sure, a generation later they gave birth to Napoleon -- although he may not have been as bad a guy as history paints him.

The summer of 1789 changed the face of Europe for decades. Perhaps the summer of 2009 will change the face of the world for centuries. Perhaps it's time that the Third Estate, the People of the United States, pick up the pitchforks and the torches and get rid of the Nobility -- all elected officials -- and the Clergy -- the Bankers and Investors and other parasites. Perhaps it's time to bring back the guillotine. While they're at it, it's probably a good time to behead the Fourth Estate, the turncoat press, who has been kissing the asses of the first two Estates for years.

July 14, 1789 -- Bastille Day, the French 4th of July. Maybe July 14, 2009 should see the same. Two hundred and twenty years ago, the people of France stormed the equivalent of the Pentagon, took all its weapons and liberated its prisoners, and so reigned supreme for several years as they took names, kicked ass and lopped off heads. France today? Their people are willing to revolt at a moment's notice, their government listens, and that's a good thing. All of that, plus government funding of social services is at a ridiculous extreme. More than any other EU Country, France gets it. The politicians rule at the pleasure of the People and not the other way around.

No wonder the NeoCons love to make so much fun of France. They're one of the few countries that actually gets the idea that the People run the place. As well they should. A few guillotines and some show trials might manage to turn America into the same -- a government truly by and for the People.

And isn't that what those terrorists we call the Founding Fathers wanted in the first place? No taxation without representation. No compensation without solutions. Death to the true leeches, freedom to the People. Let's make this one a long, hot summer, and hold the feet of the ruling class to the fire. Obey your masters -- us -- or perish.

It's that simple.

Zero Tolerance... for the Stupid

2009-04-08T01:11:00.002-07:00

Parents, when are you going to say "Enough"? You pay the property taxes that fund the schools, you vote for the board members, you control the horizontal and the vertical. How many more times do we have to read stupid stories like this one, in which an otherwise outstanding student is expelled because some administrator has their head far up their ass and can't think outside the box?

It is far past time for a parent revolt, and there's a very simple way to make your concerns felt -- deeply -- in the schools. Some student gets expelled for pretending that a Tic Tac is a Xanax? Well... keep your kids home for the day or the rest of the week, then letter bomb the asshat who made the decision. Let them know that your child is not going to school today because the morons in charge have no sense of perspective. Thrill in the fact that the school loses money for every day that your student is not there, to be indoctrinated as a mindless drone.

Lather, rinse, repeat, as often as necessary.

The thing is that we have to remind the asshat school administrators who their employers are. They do not work for the government. They work for the parents, and all of the residents of their district, who pay their salaries. Parents of school age kids, you are not the servants of the administrators. It's the other way around. The sooner you realize that the better.

It's hard enough to raise a child nowadays. Why should it be made harder because "A" students can have their future success severely impaired for bringing an aspirin or nail clippers or a Tylenol or a plastic butter knife or any one of a million innocuous things to school? Why should we allow our children to be judged by people who were so incapable of success at real life that they had to resort to jobs as school administrators?

Remember how we all thought the Vice Principals and Deans and Principals of our schools were complete losers who couldn't get laid with a fistful of fifties in a whorehouse in Nevada? Well, we were right then, and we're right now. These people have no business judging our children, who are in the schools to learn. The sooner we hand them their asses on a silver platter and take back control of our schools, the better.

But that means that you, the parents, must get involved. When you encounter a dillhole decision like the one in the story above, do something. Protest, write letters, call representatives, keep your kids out of school. Fight for the right to make your own decisions about your child's upbringing. If the schools won't listen, march their leaders to the symbolic guillotine.

The point is, Zero Tolerance is bullshit. Time to raise hell against it. Time to take back the school systems, and your children's futures. Time to be good parents. Fight for your kids, and don't roll over. You owe nothing less to the future.

Too Big to Fail? No. Too Big to Bail

2009-04-06T23:16:00.002-07:00

If I walked into a bank with a note and a gun, and took a few thousand dollars from a teller, the FBI would hunt me down and throw me in a Federal Prison for a long time.

If a banker walks into a bank, makes some absolutely stupid gambles with other people's money and loses it to the tune of billions, he is rewarded for his failure and saved when the Fed cranks up the printing presses.

Look at the lack of logic in that second paragraph again. It's as if you're walking down the street and get mugged. The mugger takes your wallet with, say, eighty dollars in it. The police catch him and their response is -- they give him a hundred and sixty dollars to compensate him for your loss, then send him back on his way to be a mugger.

You seeing anything wrong with this picture?

It is time to stop rewarding failure. Conservatives bitch and whine about the mythical welfare mother who leeches off of the taxpayers but, honestly, how much could such a person really take? Fifteen, twenty grand in a year? The investment bankers and Ponzi scheme runners and other financial wizards who have run their institutions into the hole for billions could burn through twenty grand in someone else's money in seventeen minutes.

And yet, they walk the streets.

Well, enough. There is no corporation too big to fail. Or, perhaps, no corporation should be allowed to become "too big" to fail. We need to return to an era of the true free market with heavy regulation. If a company makes bad business decisions, they go out of business. No single company can become too big, vertically or horizontally, so that their implosion would have any great effect.

In recent decades, the idea of "corporate personhood" has been pushed by these same CEOs who fail upward, the idea being that they can protect themselves by applying human rights to corporations. Well, if they want to continue to do so, they have to accept one natural extension of that warped view of human rights. Corporations that go bad should be subject to the death penalty. Trample the rights of others by stealing their money, losing their investments, by screwing up royally? Off with your corporate heads, the body dumped to your competitors.

The only way to escape the current financial crisis is to execute the companies seeking bailouts, then turn over the assets -- including all those executive bonuses and jets and cars, and corporate assets and capital and machinery and real estate and etc. -- to the employees. They get to sell what they're given at government auctions, keeping the profits, tax-free. Talk about a true economic stimulus? This is it.

The Bernie Madoffs and CEOs and VPs can go beg for money in the streets. And they can be thankful that this isn't France in 1789, in which case they would have met a much more permanent form of public censure, in which more than just their companies would be publicly executed.

How to Stop Mexico

2009-03-25T22:08:00.003-08:00

Much has been made today over Hillary Clinton bitching and whining about how "drug demand" in the US fuels the current Civil War in Mexico, but she misses the point.

Want to castrate every drug lord in Mexico tomorrow? Then legalize all the drugs in America today. It's that simple. It's not people in American who want DRUGS that fuel the power of the Mexican cartels. It's that those drugs are ILLEGAL.

Make them legal, sold by the Federal Government, much cheaper than the criminals can do so, but mostly taxed. Instant result? Crime Lords have no income. Federal Government makes an assload in taxes, regular folk get their drugs much cheaper while paying a lot more in taxes. Less crime, more income, Mexican drug lords have no more income, hence become a minor nuisance.

Hey, Washington -- which part of this simple formula do you not get? Legalize, sell, profit. Are we really going to have to drag the guillotines into the public square to get you assholes to finally "get" it?

I'm afraid we might. We managed to dump one dictator legally. Are we going to have to eject a bunch of turncoats by force?

Are you listening, Hillary? How to solve the Mexico Problem? Solve the America Problem first... legalize, and every drug lord in Mexico will be as powerless as a puppy tomorrow.

An Immodest Proposal

2009-02-22T21:42:00.003-08:00

The single biggest problem in American politics today is that there is too much money in it all the way around. It takes a fortune to run for office, so politics instantly exclude a vast majority of citizens who do not have the money or connections necessary to run. Consequently, we wind up with people in office who only run because they want two things: money and power. They use one to make the other and vice versa, in a never-ending cycle.

So... when big problems come up that need fixing, the elected always think of themselves first. It doesn't matter what their politics are when their wallet is affected. Most of the time, when given the choice, people will take the one that costs them less in the long run. (Exception that proves the rule, the voters of California who decided to pass a sales tax increase back in November. You are all idiots.)

So... until we have elected officials who aren't all power- and money-whores, they will serve the interests of the rich and the corporations and the bankers and the lobbyists, and our needs and demands will be meaningless.

How do we fix this? Change the law, like so:

Getting elected to office means total divestment of all assets upon taking office, and elected officials are paid mostly in services rather than cash, getting free housing, transportation, meals and medical benefits, but earning a wage more in line with middle-management at a large corporation, rather than an executive.
The jobs do come with a pension, locked to the top-tier payout rate for Social Security benefits.
No sitting official is allowed to solicit or accept campaign donations or any non-tangible gifts from any person, committee, company, foreign national or other entity, or hold any funds in trust, escrow, or blind account.
As part of their licensing requirements, media companies must provide free campaign advertising and coverage for all candidates within their broadcast range (whether TV, internet, wireless, or broadcast technology yet to be invented), dividing up a designated two hours a day for ninety days before the election among all qualified candidates.
To qualify for the ballot, you just need to be a registered voter within the district who can show up at an office, fill out a few forms and sign your name. No candidate can spend more than ten percent of their own net worth upon applying for office for campaigning. (True, still economically biased, but it favors those who know how to stretch a dollar.)

Bingo -- what happens? The people who are in politics for the power and money won't go anywhere near it. Why? There's no profit to be made. This would kick the legs right out from under all the PACs and special interests and corporations, and make those who are elected responsive only to we, the People, since we'll have elected officials who lust after power and fame, their constituents the only source of either.

Once upon a time, people joined religious orders because they were interested in the betterment of humanity, and not their own needs. It didn't cost them anything to do it other than going to their local church and expressing their interest. Wham -- you're in the seminary or convent. And it was frequently the "weird" kid in the family who did this; the one who was smarter than all his or her siblings, always asking questions, always reading, always most likely to be taking care of things when someone was sick... The kid in the family who wanted to be rich and famous, of course, was ignoring everyone else, except when it was necessary to faun for support financially or otherwise. Which sounds like the perfect description for any elected official at all.

Now, I'm not a religious person, I'm a raving atheist. But I do think that the US Constitution and the duty of every elected official is sacred -- you serve the People, not yourself; you defend the Constitution above anything else at all. This principal of government has been long-forgotten, but making going into politics more like taking holy orders than winning an Oscar is a good start. We need to change the definition of "Service" in "Public Service" back to what it used to mean. Once upon a time, it meant "service" as in "wait upon" -- take Our orders, fulfill our needs. Somewhere along the way, it changed to "service" as in "to screw".

Until we put politicians back in their proper place, we're all going to continue to get screwed.

Douchebaggery Ahoy...

2009-02-12T23:21:00.002-08:00

Open letter to my State Senator and Rep in California... people who are about to push us over a cliff and kill us as a State...

I learned tonight with some dismay of the proposals being considered by California State Government in order to come to a budget agreement, and am writing to express my extreme disapproval of any and all attempts to increases taxes, fees or other compulsory payments made by the People of this State.

The budget did not sail into deficit territory because the People were not paying enough taxes. They landed in red ink because of mismanagement, pure and simple. With an unemployment rate of nearly 10%, California cannot afford to further tax its citizens. If anything, this is the time to cut taxes and fees across the board, from the bottom up. Nothing will stimulate the economy more than the poor and middle classes with more money to spend. Nothing will kill it faster with the poor and middle classes taxed to death, while the rich exploit their loopholes.

I strongly urge you to oppose any and all tax increases in the state budget now being considered and, instead, to solve the problem by cutting spending and taxes.

In the real world of real people, spending beyond your means leads to extreme debt, bankruptcy and, sometimes, homelessness. We don't have the option of forcing our employers to give us raises on demand, and then spending far more than we make anyway, only to go back to the company well for more money. In other words, we do not get rewarded for failure. State Agencies and employees should not be rewarded either.

I offer a simple solution to the current problem:

1) Determine all income from all sources for the next FY.
2) Calculate the percentage of budget for all State expenditures for the last FY in which the budget was balanced.
3) Allocate the funds calculated in #1 based on the percentages calculated in #2.
4) Any agency that comes in under budget has that amount added to the next year's budget. I.E., if an agency was funded for $ 1 Billion and only spent $ 900 Million in year one, their next year's budget adds the difference, and is $ 1.1 Billion. If they go over budget, then the next year's budget subtracts the difference. I.E., if they were funded for $ 1 Billion and spent $ 1.1 Billion, then their next year's budget would be $ 900 Million. Consider it Darwinism applied to economics -- ineffecient agencies will work themselves out of existence.

This, combined with major cuts in taxes and fees, will solve the current "Crisis" and, as always, present California as a state to watch for innovative ideas and solutions. Otherwise, the Governor and Legislature is just going to do to California what George W. Bush did to the nation -- destroy it in an economic firestorm not seen since the Great Depression.

Thank you for considering my suggestions.

Excuse Me, But...

2009-02-08T01:14:00.002-08:00

Memo to President Obama and the US Congress... Fuck the Republicans. Fuck them fifteen ways from sideways. Remember last November? When the voters handed the Republicans their asses? There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to even listen to them now. They don't like the stimulus bill? SFW. It's not their turn anymore. The Democratic party is in power. Time that they acd like they are...

Bipartisanship? Fuck bipartisanship. The Reublicans proved they are not capable of that back in 1993. There's no reason whatsoever to kiss their asses now.

Memo to President Obama and the US Congress: Democrats are in charge. Act like it. Tell the Whiny Baby Republicans to go to hell. They had their chance, and they lost it...

Whoring the Bloggers

2009-01-25T01:06:00.003-08:00

I received an interesting email tonight, which promised me -- ooh, cash payment -- if I would review -- favorably, presumably -- some commercial service website which I've never heard of and which has nothing to do with the subject matter of this blog.

I politely informed them that they could remove me from their mailing list and, if they wanted to find people who would disguise advertising as editorial content, they should try the whores of the mainstream media.

So... I'm offering an anti-review, or at least a warning to other bloggers. If you receive an email from http://www.seoblogreviews.com, politely tell them to fuck off. We've seen what this kind of crap did to destroy the credibility of the mainstream media. We don't need it happening here. (That was not the site I was asked to review -- they don't deserve a mention. But they are the company handling the review placement. Be warned.)

01-20-2009

2009-01-20T22:44:00.003-08:00

Sixty years from now, when grandparents are telling their grandchildren stories of significant moments in their lives, this will be number one on their list, akin to tales of where were you when JFK was shot, where were you when man landed on the moon, where were you when history changed?

January 20th, 2009. The day America turned back from the brink, the day we traded hope for fear. The day a man who redefines the term Presidential takes the office, the day a fool is sent back to Texas. The day that eight years of nightmares end, the day that eight years or more of hope begin. The day a man who was neither old nor white took office, the day the rest of us felt, for the first time, that we also held the reigns of power. The day America changed -- or changed back... the day, after so long, that we were reminded of the original dream, reminded that this is a Republic of the People, of all People, each of us equal, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or circumstance of birth.

Mr. President Barack Obama crossed into history at noon eastern standard time on January 20, 2009 -- he became president as an Asian, two Jews, and a Black Man performed a musical piece arranged by one of Hollywood's Elites. A few minutes later, as he gave his inaugural address, he proved himself yet again worthy of the job. President Obama is, if nothing else, an inspiring orator, a speaker who can get all of us to follow him to the ends of the Earth. He is FDR incarnate... Lincoln, FDR, MLK and JFK. Some comentators have called this administration Black Camelot, but that is an injustice. This administration is Camelot II -- not black, not white, not brown, not yellow -- but all colors, all people, all beliefs. For the first time, in a long, long time, this Administration is Inclusive. Are you American? Then you are us. Are you willing to help this country become what it can be? Then you are us. Are you once again, for the first time in a long time, proud of your country, proud of your leader, proud to say "Yes, I am an American?"

Then you are us, and he is us and we are one and Yes We Can. America was born with the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. America was reborn with the inauguration of an exceptional president on January 20, 2009.

Welcome to the 21st Century, for this is its true beginning. We can do anything, now that we have done this thing. We have moved forward much farther than we ever thought we could. We watched today as the ex-Presidents -- four old white men -- handed off power to a young, vital, energizing black man. If we have faith, and trust, and, above all, Hope -- Hope and Virtue -- this president can take us to the promised land, over the mountain and to that great shining valley that America was always meant to be.

Today, Hope was reborn in the American Soul. Hope with responsibility, to be sure... but, again at last, we have a leader who can inspire hope in us, inspire us to take responsibility, inspire us to the greatness that the Founding Fathers hoped for so long ago; inspire us to the greatness that is the very definition of The United States of America.

Yes, once again, for the first time in eight years, "United" is part of the name of this country. We have found our white knight, and he is a black man worth following anywhere.

Today, history was made, and if you were a part of it, you are lucky. We are all lucky. The American Eagle has proved herself a Phoenix, and we will arise from the ashes of the last eight years. E Pluribus Unum.

Ahnuld -- Go...

2009-01-18T23:37:00.003-08:00

I'm reminded of a time when Gray Davis was recalled because electricity prices got too high. Never mind that California was in budget. Republican ass-hats sold Californians on the idea of recall, and we wound up with a third rate actor in office.

And... net result? Der Governator has fucked this state to the Nth degree, to the point that we're all going to get IOUs instead of tax refunds next month. His solution? Tax the shit out of us.

Well... enough. The state wants to give me an IOU on my refund? Fine. They're going to get an IOU when I file my taxes. But, more importantly, it's time to dump the motherfuckers already. Ahrnold screwed the pooch. If we could dump Gray Davis because DWP bills went up, then we should be able to dump the Governator for this little fiasco.

Time, once again, for a recall. What? The state can't pay for it? Yes, we can -- if we pull the salaries of every state employee, apply them to the recall and new election. California is the fifth largest economy in the world, far above many countries. We wouldn't be broke without major mismanagement. We know who mismanaged us.

It is time for Arnold to go. It is time for every elected official in this state to go. It is time for taxing authority to be returned to the people, and not the state. Time for budget reform.

Here's my modest proposal. Every standing official in California is kicked out of office, to be replaced in a general election. All new taxes, fees or fines can only be passed by a two thirds vote of the people. And the budget works like this: all government entities get X amount of budget starting in fiscal 2010. If they're below that amount in 2011, it's added to their budget. If they're above it, it's deducted. In other words, Entity A gets a 10 billion dollar budget for 2009-2010. In 2010, if they've spent 9 Billion, their budget for 2011 is 10 Billion plus the difference of 1 billion, so 11 billion. However, if they've spent 11 billion, their budget for 2011 is 10 Billion minus 1 billion, or 9 billion.

It makes it simple. Entities that can stay below budget get more money. Those that can't gradually price themselves out of existence. And no elected official has any control over budgeting, period.

And, for all Californians who owe taxes -- send those fuckers an IOU. "I'll pay you when I have the money, thank you very much."

And Recall Arnold Now. He's obviously fucked us over twenty times from Tuesday, and deserves to have us go all Sarah Connor on his sorry ass. Terminate the Terminator. Period.

Bye-Bye, Asshole

2009-01-15T23:13:00.003-08:00

Apparently, W gave some farewell speech today which included the phrase "There can be little doubt about the results..."

Well, I can agree on that one. You shat on the country and the Constitution and left things totally fucked up. Four and a half more days is too long for you to remain in office. Please exit Washington DC, and don't let the doorknob hit you in the ass. Fuck on off back to Texas, and never darken our door again.

And, if there is any justice in the world, you, Limp Dick Cheney and everyone who ever served in your Administration will be brought to trial for war crimes, found guilty, and follow in Saddam's footsteps.

Your farewell speech should have been an apology. The only good thing you did was to make Nixon and Reagan look positively Presidential in retrospect. Hell, for that matter, you made Hitler and Stalin look like nice guys.

No mean feat, that. Now fuck off and go away. Our long national nightmare is almost over, but your reputation as a useless waste of flesh -- and quite likely the adoption of your name as a verb meaning "utter failure" -- will affect our culture for the next five hundred years.

W -- you're a dick. A failure. The worst thing to happen to the world since the Black Plague. You will not be missed, and you cannot justify what you did. You nearly wrecked America single-handedly. Your only legacy will be this: You screwed the pooch so badly that you gave us a President who will one day be as revered as JFK, FDR, Lincoln and Washington combined just for showing up for the job.

Hey -- when Laura divorces your ass in six months, do us a favor. Keep the drinking in private. We'd rather not be reminded of your failure when you show up shit-ass drunk in a mall in Dallas, challenging some lawyer to a fist fight. Ulysees S. Grant already covered that. He got at least a tomb named after him. You couldn't even manage a sewage treatment plant. That would be an insult to shit, after all.

You couldn't even manage... anything. Worst. President. Ever. Exit, stage right.

Change You Can Believe In

2009-01-06T22:43:00.003-08:00

Okay -- three Democrats who have to go. Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Diane Feinstein.

Harry Reid because he doesn't have the balls to understand this simple fact: The Democrats are in charge. There is no reason at all to give in to any Republican demand whatsoever.

Nancy Pelosi because she took impeachment off of the table, and has acted like a spineless little Republican shill ever since. Hint, Nancy: there's a reason that W will be leaving office as the least popular president ever. You hitched your star to the wrong coat-tails. If you had half the balls of Newt Gingrich, you would have hauled W's ass up a Mussolini flag pole right after the midterm elections last. You didn't, and so the voters who put President Obama in office have less than no use for you.

Diane Feinstein because she is an opportunistic bitch, and because she had the nerve to be pissed off by President-Elect Obama's choice for head of the CIA. You know what, you grandstanding whore? President-Elect Outranks You. When he makes a decision, you shut up and like it. Especially if he's from your party. And espeically when you've proven yourself to be a person of absolutely no principals during your tenure in the Senate. Don't think for a minute that there aren't hundreds of thousands of Californians who resent you because you made your career no the Assassiniation of Harvey Milk but have stabbed the gay community in the back at every turn. You might want to take a look at Barbara Boxer's record to figure out how to do it right.

As for what Obama has been doing in his transition? Right on. He hasn't made one mistake yet -- except to prove himself smarter than a party of fools that elected him.

Crazy Like a Fox?

2008-12-19T21:32:00.004-08:00

Like many people, I was put in a difficult position when I learned of Barack Obama's choice of Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the inauguration in January. The man was an Evangelical douchebag, a homophobic right wing asshole. And here he was, being welcomed onto the podium by a man I believed in and saw as the savior of America, the Abraham Lincoln of the 21st Century. It felt like a stab in the back, a betrayal, a big "Fuck you" to the GLBT community. I even fired off a strongly worded negative email to the Change website -- a place to which I'd previously sent missives of ass-kissing joy and sunshine. I was disapointed and disillusioned. Had President Obama failed before even taking office?

In the morning, cooler heads prevailed as a non-partisan political source I trust, Electoral Vote, analyzed Obama's choice of Warren and pointed out the shrewd politics behind it. A taste:

By picking Warren, he is giving Warren (and his expanded agenda) a huge amount of credibility in the evangelical community. If Obama can get the evangelical leadership to stop focusing entirely on abortion and gay marriage and start addressing AIDS and poverty as issues, he will ultimately benefit immensely from giving Warren valuable exposure.

In other words, far from giving an Evangelical douchebag, homophobic right wing asshole a bigger platform, he is taking a less homophobic right wing asshole and waving him at the rest of the Fundies as a signal. He is taking control of the conversation with the idea of changing it. Reverend Warren may have spoken his objections to same-sex marriage, but he has also been adamant about doing that Jesus bit of helping the sick and poor. A little reminder to keep him from talking about the gay thing, and suddenly the focus of Evangelical pastors across the nation will change, because they only know how to parrot the big names. Or, to put it bluntly: for the first time in eight years, a President is smarter than his constituents and is looking out for them.

What happens? Warren becomes the official media face of Evangelical Christianity. Obama, meanwhile, has promised Warren more exposure as America's Protestant Pope if he will focus on AIDS and poverty and shut up about same-sex marriage. The power being offered being catnip to any religious sort, Warren agrees. The focus on AIDS exposes charitable Evangelicals to gay people. The focus on poverty exposes them to non-white people, or those who must resort to prostiution, selling drugs or being addicted to them. In other words, it shoves everything that the Jesus they allege to preach did right in their faces. (In my experience, even the most born-again of Christians tends to be somewhat open-minded when they have gone on a charitable mission for their Church. I even know several born agains who not only tolerate gay people, but have them as their closest friends -- and both have been to third world nations to directly help the people.)

Meanwhile, while helping the poor and sick, they aren't being urged by their pastors to run out and vote against same-sex marriage. It's another example of Obama using the philosophy of "Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer." What better way to win them over? Put a previously not well-known Evangelical in your pocket, make him change his ways by showing him the error, control an entire block of people who were your mortal enemy before the election. Billy Graham is history. Obama is going to make the next Billy Graham in his image, then let him have influence over presidents for the next fifty years.

As a side effect, this could remove the last barrier to the last minority group being socially accepted as equals. The GLBT community cannot afford to be alienated from Blacks or the Left right now. All minorities must unite, with the understanding that each group will get its due in time. Blacks won with the election, women and Latinos are winning with the Cabinet selection, and Gays and Lesbians, traditionally the last group to get the same rights as others, are just around the corner. Turn the fundie churches into giant charitable organizations, turn their attention away from GLBT issues, and change might just start happening.

He might just be crazy -- crazy like a fox. But perhaps President Obama really will pull off the biggest change of all. Rather than being a divider, like W., maybe he really will be a uniter.

Well Played, Sir

2008-12-10T23:49:00.002-08:00

Despite my still thinking that Governor Rod Blagojevich was set up and his arrest only happened because he pissed off B of A, President-Elect Obama did the right thing in calling for his resignation immediately after the arrest. From the get-go, it shows that he is not a partisan hack, and he will not tolerate corruption from any elected official. His announcement also comes as the Voice from the Mountain. If Blagojevich does not resign, he will be removed. His political career is over.

Contrast this with the likely reaction of a Republican President -- indeed, the reaction we have seen in the past; to "stand by" the accused, deny any wrong-doing, then silently offer a pardon after the conviction, as long as the accused has an "R" after their name.

The one victim in this is Jesse Jackson, Jr., aka "Candidate Number 5". However, since he's been flogging his email list with "I should be the one" emails since Obama's resignation, I have little sympathy. Jackson was campaiging for his own interests out of a sense of entitlement based on his father's reputation, and it can only be a good thing if he is inadvertently taken out of the picture by this scandal.

The final upshot is this: President-Elect Obama has just proven that not only does he possess the best attributes of our best Democratic Presidents, he also possesses the most annoying trait of the Republican Saint Reagan -- he is another teflon President. The difference? Reagan's immunity to scandal came from his glib and shallow ability as the Great Communicator. Already, Barack Obama has proven that his comes from the rarer Jeffersonian ability of substance over style. Yes, he is probably the greatest communicator we have seen elected to this office. But he also acts -- and in cutting off a failed member of his own party at the knees at the merest hint of scandal, he has proven already that we're about to see the most ethical Administration since... well, the early days of the Republic.

Thirty-nine days until his full powers are unleashed. I can't help but think that we are going to see some absolutely amazing things happen come January 20, 2009.

Settle Down, People

2008-12-09T20:42:00.002-08:00

This has certainly been the strangest Presidential transition I have ever seen since... ever. It's almost as if this weird co-presidency thing is going on, close to the point it seems like we already had the inauguration. But, as President-Elect Obama (damn, I love typing that) has pointed out, America has one president.

It's just too bad that we have another 42 days to suffer through it, but like it or not, at this moment, the ineffectual drunk fake cowboy is still in the White House -- although whether he's trying to avoid all publicity while getting plastered or the media that have fed us his lies for so long have decided they're just tired of him is hard to say, but he's really been out of the picture since the election. Meanwhile, Mr. Obama can't break wind without the media going wild and the analysts parsing it fifteen ways from Friday. And maybe that's a good thing. We've been cursed with Conservative cheerleaders for so long that a flip to the Liberal version will be a refreshing... well, change.

Still, there have been some interesting changes going on -- those new, insanely lower gas prices for one. Did any one of you, during the summer, honestly think that you would ever see gas for under two dollars a gallon again in your lifetime? Well, the psychological barrier of Premium for under two was broken this past week, and there's no sign of the decline in prices slowing any time soon. In some areas, the price is flirting with the dollar mark. It defies all prior experience.

I have two theories on this. One, the plunge in gas prices is the Republican Party F-You to Sarah Palin for their perception that she's the one who lost McCain the Presidency. (She didn't -- eight years of W. did.) Cheap oil? Alaska's revenues go into the toilet. Come to think of it, they do the same in Texas, and perhaps W. was a co-recipient of this farewell finger.

Theory number Two: as part of his transition, President-Elect Obama had a little come to Jesus meeting with the heads of the major oil companies, and made them this offer: "Adjust your prices to make gas affordable and bring your profits down to reasonable levels, and I'll forget about taxing your windfall profits for a while. But, if you don't, then on my first day in office I am going to jack your capital gains taxes up so high that you'll never be able to turn a profit no matter how well you're doing without cutting your executive salaries and dividends to nothing, at which point you'll become a junk company that will be nationalized via a bail-out. Now get out of my office, mofos."

Incidentally, if this is exactly what he told them, I would agree 100% That's just to let any Conservatives reading know that one man's paranoia is another man's heaven.

Now, we come to some changes that inspire my headline -- already, there's bitching from the left about Obama's appointments, to which I can only say "Shut up." There was a snowball's chance in hell of Dennis Kucinich being appointed to any cabinet level position. Why? He's the one who pursued impeachment of W. in Congress, and hiring him would have created a lightning rod for Republican cries of "Partisanship!" At the same time, Hilary Clinton was the only logical choice for Secretary of State for many reasons. First of all, the NeoCons hate her, and she and President Clinton will steal their focus entirely. They'll be following every Clinton move while Obama gets down to business. Second, The world loves the Clintons, especially Bill, and making them the Diplomatic face of this country will kickstart our international rehabilitation like nothing else. The election of Barack Obama already gave a big infusion of good will in most nations (except one middle eastern one whose name I won't mention -- It starts with "I", but it's not "Iran"). The ecstatic joy that his supporters felt when his victory was announced was a worldwide phenomenon. Symbolically, America finally pulled its head out of its ass. And, symbolically, sending the beloved world leader who was succeeded by the most despised since Hitler in the post mortum days of that sad regime sends a gigantic signal. "Forgive us. We just got a little... funnny for a while."

Finally, I believe that President-Elect Obama subscribes to this invaluable bit of political advice: "Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer." I doubt that there's a politician who hasn't read Sun-Tzu and taken him to heart, and I don't doubt for a minute that Mr. Obama is smart enough to put certain key players in positions where they become his marionettes. You want to bitch about him appointing certain Federal Banking types? You won't be when he's basically rubbing their faces in their own mess like bad puppies, then forcing them to fix it by following his dictates, essentially also making them eat their own vomit. This applies to Hillary Clinton in several ways, most important of which is to keep her from having any Presidential aspirations in 2012. If President Obama has been successful and popular up to that point, if she had the temerity to try to run against him as his own Secretary of State, it would be the end of her political career.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with a dictatorship when the only ones dictated to are the President's Cabinet. That's kind of what the President is supposed to do, and this upcoming President gets that.

Politics is a game of chess, and the President-Elect seems to be a grand master. I wouldn't be surprised at all if he proceeds to call check and mate on all the forces that have been determined to drive this country into the toilet for the last eight years. (BTW, in Arabic, "the toilet" is al-Qaeda).

Another settle down message. That whole "Obama is not a natural citizen bullshit?" Stop it. Now. First, although he hasn't released his birth certificate publicly, he would have had to provide it or some other proof of citizenship status in order to even file to run for President, not to mention having provided the same information to his chosen party. Ask yourself this: could you go to any Post Office and get a Passport based on documents that do not prove your citizenship according to Federal Law? Of course not. Okay, so if you can't get such an important document (or even a job) without proving your status, do you think for one second that our electoral system would allow someone unqualified to run to even show up on the ballot? Hm. Passport. President. Which one do you think is more protected by process? Besides all of that, the Secretary of State of Hawaii has confirmed his place of birth, and an independent group located originals of two different birth announcements, published in Hawaiian papers in 1961. To the true Kool-Aid drinking foil hatters out there: if these announcements were some elaborate forgery to ensure the election of a mixed-race baby to the presidency 47 years later, then you have a lot more faith than black people of the time. If you had told any of them that a black man would be elected president in less than a hundred years, they would have just looked at you funny and walked away sadly.

One other question for the "Show the birth certificate!" crowd -- what were you yelling when John McCain and Sarah Palin refused to reveal their medical records? Not much, I'll bet. You flaming hypocrites.

And, a final settle down message -- the arrest of Illinois Governor Blagojevich is a gigantic non-story when it comes to Obama. First of all, the arrest comes one day after Blagojevich declared that Illinois would do no business with Bank of America until they extended credit to a factory taken over by laid off workers so that the company could stay in business and pay its workers -- in effect, telling BofA to spend their bailout on helping Main Street, instead of giving bonuses to its own executives. It feels like BofA -- founded by an Italian American, just a point of fact -- is pulling a few strings to stifle a critic. Second, what did Blagojevich do? Lobby for particular federal government positions for himself in exchange for appointing someone to Barack Obama's former Senate Seat. You know what? That's called politics. See the movie Milk for a good example of this kind of backroom deal in action. It's called quid pro quo, and it's as old as Athens. "So, Joe... I understand you want to be City Council President. That position is coming up, and I get to pick the replacement, but I need you to do something for me. See, the council has been considering a zoning ordinance that would force me to tear down half the improvements on my property. And your vote would be the tiebreaker in my favor..." Pause. "Well, gosh, Mike -- I'd really hate to see you lose half your house..." And so it goes and so it has gone, and the only reason Governor Blagojevich is being hauled into the court of public opinion for it now is that he pissed off the wrong interests. But -- he's not Obama's bestest buddy -- in fact probably got a severe dressing down for it -- and I'm sure that the Transition campaign will come up with a solution to the problem tomorrow that is so brilliant it will shut everyone up.

Oops. I'm falling prey to the same thing I warned about. Like it or not, we're still stuck with Captain Boozeypants until January. But we have been shown so much hope since the election that the resurrection of America seems imminent.

Lefties -- Shut Up

2008-11-25T23:34:00.002-08:00

The ability of Democrats to turn into douchebags and shoot themselves never ceases to amaze me. Hey, kids, here's how it goes...

President Obama hasn't steered the ship of state into Stalin land quick enough for you? You know what? Shut up. He's steering us away from Bush -- even though he won't be president until January. His appointments aren't "left" enough for you? Shut up. His appointments are experienced. The man is neutralizing every bullshit argument that the Republicrats tried to throw at him during the campaign.

Short version: If you call yourself a Democrat but are criticizing President-Elect Obama now -- die in a fire, after registering as a Republican.

We don't need you douchebags. You are traitors. Good-bye...

The Law of Unintended Consequences

2008-11-08T21:32:00.004-08:00

The backers and supporters of California's Proposition 8 don't realize it yet, but they have shot themselves in the ass, and the karmic vengeance they will receive will be poetic in its absolute irony. The best part is that it's easy to see coming.

Here's how. The Mormon Church gets in a hissy fit after the California Supreme Court declares that Prop 22 -- which tried to outlaw same-sex marriage -- is Unconstitutional. Mormon and Fundie terror over the extremely remote possibility that school teachers will now be required to teach children that it's okay to be gay, just before giving them the free condoms and showing a short educational film featuring an all-male cast. The Mormons shit their special underwear over this idea while the Fundie men probably secretly creamed theirs, and the vast sums of money to finance Prop 8 flowed into California.

The propaganda was sold to the voters -- mainly targeted at parents -- with exactly this idea. Somehow, a Supreme Court decision striking down an old law would somehow magically lead to a new law being passed that would force the aforementioned teaching, and prevent churches from being able to refuse to perform same-sex marriages.

What people failed to notice was this: 1) California had been performing same-sex marriages, some 18,000 of them, for the six months before the election -- and nothing happened! The issue would have been settled, forgotten, just a piece of history. 2) Court decisions striking down unconstitutional laws do not automatically create a whole new set of laws requiring compliance. The only thing that changed was that civil marriage registrars in the state of California would be allowed to issue a license for a same-sex couple.

If Prop 8 had not happened at all, if things continued as they had, the subject would have been forgotten here and life would have gone on as normal. Chances are that children living in more conservative parts of the state would never encounter a classmate with same-sex parents, a teacher with a same-sex spouse, or their parents gay, married friends. They would never have to ask the question, "Why does Billy have two Moms?" because the question never would have come up.

Now, instead, Prop 8 has just insured the inevitable. Had it lost in November, the double-rush of Senator Obama becoming President-Elect, and the most populous state granting equality at last to a minority group would have pushed the existence of same-sex marriage right out into the streets. If it had failed, then you would have succeeded in creating the type of activist climate that then would have led to the whole slate of scary laws the backers claimed would happen. Not as extreme as my example above, but the possibility of same-sex marriage would have become part of the curriculum.

Since Prop 8 has passed, it has created something more effective for change -- and dangerous to bigots. President Obama's election alone created the atmosphere for continuing positive activism. "Yes, We Can" was not a campaign slogan, it was a Party platform. Having had the entire Republican party removed as a target of GLBT rage, that rage is turning elsewhere, and it's going to be right back at the backers of Prop 8. We've already seen a week of statewide protests and three challenges to the proposition. This story has legs -- and because of that, it has been and will be covered in-depth on the news until the issue is resolved.

So, because of a bunch of bigoted assholes in a backward state, every school kid in California -- and a good deal of them outside -- just may now learn, whether or not their parents wanted them to, that same-sex marriage exists, two people of the same gender can fall in love, and it's totally normal that Lacey has two Moms, and Dennis has two Dads, and Cathy has two Moms and a Bio-Dad. And this bunch of kids is going to wonder, "Why are they trying to stop this from happening?" And, later, when some of them realize that they have certain feelings for the same sex, they won't be forced to pretend they don't just to satisfy some artificial norm.

Kids don't "catch" being gay. They can't be "recruited" into it. They are born that way. Some people would prefer to raise children with blinders, but that's how we wound up with people in power who were able to perpetrate the unmitigated disaster of the last eight years. But the children who grow up learning everything about the world without imposed judgments, left to provide their own, will usually always fall into the tolerant camp.

When Prop 8 is defeated -- and it will be -- the strength of the backlash and the current weakness of the homophobic branch of the Conservative fundie arm will combine to ensure the destruction of the latter, and a good chance that all of California will again become a mecca for the new and the different.

"New and different". See, those are the things you have to embrace if you want to see positive change. It's a remedy for the Same Old Shit -- which is what the closed-minded have been fertilizing their children with. It makes really bad fertilizer, though, because nothing can grow in it.

The backers, in using a "Save the Children" approach, will inadvertently and quickly do just that -- but in exactly the opposite way they intended. The seeds for long-term liberal dominance are being sewn right now, and a lot of these kids will be old enough to vote -- and smart enough to remember -- right about the time President Obama's second term is going to end.

Free at Last, Free at Last...

2008-11-04T23:01:00.003-08:00

It is with great pride in my country, great joy in my heart, and great faith in my chosen candidate that I congratulate President-Elect Barack Obama and Vice President-Elect Joe Biden.

Perhaps now is the time for Spin Dry to spin down, as the Conservative windmills have been titled and defeated. It has been a long struggle. It has been a good struggle.

America's eight year nightmare has and is coming to an end. At long last, a new day breaks, one in which we can all at last share Martin Luther King's Dream.

Today, we have made history, and the only greater elation I can feel than I have this evening will be on that January day in the near future when, as a proud American, I will be able to say President Obama.

Yes. We can.

Lurching Toward Salvation

2008-10-22T00:14:00.003-07:00

I was reminded today of a scene from the film American Beauty, in which Lester Burnham, sufferer of middle-aged crisis who recreates the perfect version of his teen years, is working at a fast-food drive-through, which puts him in the perfect position to catch his wife en flagrante in a car with her Realtor lover, King. Lester looks out the window at them both and, despite the indignity of his uniform, calmly announces, "You... don't get to tell... me what to do... ever again." Mrs. Burnham has absolutely no defense, and no response.

It feels like that's the message the voters are going to give the Republican party in exactly two weeks, and the Republicans know it. They're anxiously peering over their shoulder as they furtively give hand jobs in the parking lot to their rich boyfriends -- the bankers, brokers and other modern vultures -- but they know that they're going to get busted at any second, and are perhaps relieved.

And... they're going to get busted by a man they are afraid of because they categorize him as "Super Liberal". And their greatest fear is about to be realized. The American People are going to look at that label of "Super Liberal", and loudly announce, "Yeah, he is. That's why we want him."

We may finally be back to a Progressive Age, at the extreme opposite end of a pendulum swing started by Ron "Mussolini" Reagan, weighted down and broken at last by George "Worst President Ever" Bush.

Three things to watch. The first two have been ongoing, the third is new, but all are hallmarks of the Liberal Agenda -- and things not to be ashamed of.

Number One: California has already legalized Medical Marijuana. The next step is November's Proposition 5, which will basically take drug offenders out of the penal system entirely, and deal with them as medical cases rather than criminal. This is a good move, and something long over due. The state has already taken the much needed step in many jurisdictions of instructing law enforcement that marijuana "crimes" are to receive the lowest priority. Getting people whose only offense is having drugs that the Federal Government considers illegal out of the criminal system is the next step.

Number Two: Despite the clear State Supreme Court Ruling that the last Proposition outlawing same-sex marriage is, in fact, un-Constitutional, a bunch of busy-body assholes who have nothing better to do have put the same damn proposition on the ballot. Proposition 8 is the same wording that was already struck down by the Supreme Court. If anything, if it is passed, at that instant every couple who has been married since May (gay or straight) has grounds to contest it. But... on the other hand, I have yet to talk to anyone under 30 (hell, or anyone under 50) who thinks Proposition 8 is a good idea. Their basic attitude is this: "I really don't care whether two guys or two girls can get married. I'm more concerned about my 401(k) or my next job..."

Combine this with the amazing engagement of first-time voters, people aged from 18 to 22, also known as College Students, who will be voting in a National Election for the first time in two weeks. They tend to be underrepresented in polls, since they only have cell phones, not landlines, and they also tend to not give a flying fuck over the definition of marriage. We could have a large undercounted voting bloc in this state, one which will tell the Prop 8 people to go fuck themselves, thereby sending a message that may reverberate across the country. "Same-sex Marriage Is Okay to Us."

If California rejects 8, expect the Obama camp to quickly change their tune to be favorable to Same Sex marriage, and expect challenges to Connecticut's jumping on the bandwagon to be cut off at the knees.

Finally, San Francisco is now openly pondering the idea of decriminalizing prostitution, and it couldn't come at a better time. Their bold but simple idea? It should not be illegal to trade money for sex. And, honestly, why the hell should it be illegal? Marriage is just trading financial security for sex (sorry, you Yes on 8 Assholes), and our entire consumer society is based on the idea that spending money on the right clothes/car/house/douche/accessories/deodorant/music will get us laid. Legalizing Prostitution just eliminates the middle-man -- which annoys the hell out of Madison Avenue. "Hm. $ 50,000 for that car, or $ 500 for that whore?" From a consumer viewpoint, it's a no-brainer. A chunk of metal that may or may not work, or a simple business proposition that, for the same price, can get him laid a hundred times. Or turn her into a successful and prosperous businesswoman who is in complete control of the means of (re)production...

Our Youth may save us yet, two weeks from today, and they may be the real ones who step forth on November 4th to deliver Lester Burnham's message: "You don't get to tell me what to do every again." Your morality is based on hypocrisy and bullshit. Our morality is based on Truth.

Please to remember the 5th of November
Sex Workers, Reason and Pot
The morning we woke from our Puritan Hell
Thankful now for the gains that we've got.

And, most important of all, not willing to let go of those gains until the grandchildren of the Children of the 1980s are first qualified to vote -- and by which time the reactionary dinosaurs of the 20th Century may finally all be dead and gone, Conservatism, Puritanism and General Assholiness at last purged forever from our gene pool.

The Bullshit Is Knee-Deep, Part 2

2008-10-10T23:35:00.003-07:00

Earlier this week, I received a phone call from a Pro-Proposition 8 (California) group. I'm just sorry I missed the call and wound up with the message in voice mail, because otherwise I would have torn this poor, misguided phone banker a new one.

The gist of the script she was reading -- at breakneck speed in a heavy Asian accent -- was this: Was I aware of Proposition 8, and did I know that it defends "traditional" marriage between a man and a woman? And would I vote Yes?

My answers? Yes, no, and hell no. And I'm hoping that a major push in registration of first time and younger voters will knock this crap out, and that Proposition 8 will go down in flames. I hope this because all of the people I know under 30 don't understand the problem. They all have gay friends, and they don't get why it's a problem to allow same-sex marriage. They also don't understand why such a minor thing is a big issue to some people.

To the Yes on 8 people, I have a few questions.

First: California has been marrying same-sex couples for almost five months now. Has the sky fallen? Have we been besieged by locusts, boils, rivers of blood or earthquakes? Has society tumbled to pieces? No on all counts.

Second: Has a single one of those same-sex marriages damaged a single "traditional" marriage in any way, shape or form? Has a straight couple been denied some benefit because Ellen and Portia got hitched? Has a church or clerk refused to marry a straight couple because they were too busy hitching dykes and fags?

I believe the answers to the above are all "No."

But, Prop 8 proponents say, OMG!!!! They'll teach our kids in school that it's okay to be gay. And you know what I say to that? About goddamn time. Flashback fifty years, to when the Prudes were worried that schools would teach that black people are the same as white people. Heaven forbid! That was the same time that society said black people (or Asian people or Hispanic people) could not marry white people. All of those prohibitions have since been removed. End result? People who love each other can get married, in every case. Every case except one.

But, Prop 8 proponents say, OMG!!!! You'll force churches to recognize all marriages, even between a man and his horse!

Torch that Strawman now. See, churches seem to have it backwards when it comes to marriage. No matter what they think, a marriage is sanctified by the law, not the church. A couple could be married by the Pope in the Vatican, but if they don't go through the civil process in their home jurisdiction, they are not married. Period. Now, I have absolutely no problem with a church saying, "Oops, sorry, we won't allow (two men/two women/a mixed-race couple/a mixed-religion couple) to be married in our church. That's fine. That's the First Amendment. That's your right.

However... I'll be damned if I let a bunch of religious lunatics who would rather be living in the 12th Century tell me, or my friends, who they can or cannot marry. And how dare you tell me what my kids can or cannot learn? Personally, I would hope that my children are exposed to all orientations, genders, cultures and beliefs in school, so that they can learn the meaning of tolerance; learn the idea that "Not everyone is exactly like me." That's the first step toward understanding; the first step to eliminating the stupid divisions we have in society.

'Cause you know what, you fundie asshats? The sexual orientation of your kid is decided in the womb, they can't change it, and the worst thing you can do is constantly beat 10% of them over the head with the idea of "You are a goddamn travesty who shouldn't live." Yeah, that's right. There's no such thing as a gay agenda or homosexual conversion. Telling kids in elementary school that being gay is okay will not turn them gay. What it will do is tell the gay kids that they're valid people -- and tell the not gay kids to respect the ones who are gay.

Kind of like how white kids in the 70s got lectures about how the black kids coming to school with them were "normal". But -- you know what? We already knew that when we met them. "Oh. Well, his skin's a little dark, but... hey, he's got more in common with us than we do with those old farts at the front of the room."

So... Pro Prop-8 People? Suck my taint. Pull your heads out of your asses, concentrate on something much more important, like the economy, and let the current generation quietly remove all power from your sorry, hateful, ancient asses. With any luck, your retirement funds were just wiped out, while we have plenty of time for ours to grow back. Enjoy your dogfood, then regret the fact that you can't arrange a same-sex marriage of convenience that would bail your sorry ass out of the mess you've landed in.

Yeah, that's right. Marriage is a civil contract. It's not about sex or procreation. If it were, you'd be lobbying to prevent straight people who don't want to or cannot reproduce from marrying.

But you aren't, because you're all flaming bags of hpocrisy.

The Bullshit Is Knee-Deep, Part 1

2008-10-10T23:23:00.003-07:00

The absolute lies and total bullshit the imploding McCain Campaign and the Republican Party in general have been spewing the last week or so are appalling. They have no shame anymore. Alaska releases their report on the Troopergate affair, pretty much saying that, yes, Sarah Palin abused her power and committed a crime in harassing and driving out of office a cabinet member.

What do the Republicans do with this, as they try to spin straw into gold? Well, as reported here, they spin the bullshit thusly:

"Today's report shows that the Governor acted within her proper and lawful authority in the reassignment of Walt Monegan," said Palin spokeswoman Meg Stapelton. "The report also illustrates what we've known all along: this was a partisan led inquiry run by Obama supporters and the Palins were completely justified in their concern..."

Well, um... no. A) The report pretty much says that Palin stepped outside of her proper and lawful authority, and abused her office and her powers. And, B) Wow. If Obama's people are behind this investigation, then they are damn good, and deserve to be elected -- seeing as how this investigation was in the works long before Sarah Palin was even a gleam in John McCain's rheumy old eyes, and a lot of the people behind it happen to be Alaska Republicans.

Short version of the story -- Sarah, we caught you abusing your children, so to speak, and no amount of winking at us, lying, or claiming that everyone does it will save you. Members of your own party found you guilty, and when you return to Alaska after not being elected in twenty-five days, you are going to truly learn the meaning of the old adage "Payback is a bitch." In arrogantly trying to reach beyond your grasp, you have alienated all your friends back home. In failing to achieve that grasp, you have open their eyes to the possibility that you are not Queen Lord Bitch and, in fact, they can and will defy you with impunity. You may finish up your term as governor, but it will be as a lamer duck than George Bush is now, and you have no chance in hell of being re-elected.

Enjoy your life as a civilian living in a state to which you have brought ample public embarrassment. I have a feeling you're going to find Florida a very likely place for an early retirement. Asshole.

A Quick Question...

2008-10-08T23:34:00.004-07:00

Any members of Congress -- who are the People's employees -- want to clue us in on the "C & R" document that is currently circulating? Since it would have a pretty big impact on our lives, I think we deserve to know the truth.

Catastrophic Failure vs. Imminent Success

2008-10-07T22:50:00.003-07:00

History will probably look back at October 28, 2008 as the night the election was won -- if we can hold off on the dirty tricks and bullshit of the NeoCons for another 28 days. In Presidential Debate #2, Barack Obama mopped the floor with John McCain, and McCain seemed all but too willing to wring himself out and beg, "You missed a corner. Over there."

In contrast to their first debate, both the Pundit Scorecard and the Undecided Voter Emotion-Meter on CNN quickly shot to the Obama position and mostly stayed there. At one point, Obama had 60 pundit votes to McCain's 9, ending the evening somewhere around 59 to 20.

Memo to CNN: add the totals for those votes, okay? Having to repeatedly do the math in my head is annoying, and those fancy graphics are not otherwise illuminating. Except maybe to see that Castellanos hits his vote button like a quarterback on the prom queen.

Obama also sent the undecided Ohio Women to an extended pegging of the maximum "+" position on the meter. Responses to McCain seemed tepid, and more likely to go negative. Surprisingly, men generally voted him lower on the meter than women, which seems counter-intuitive.

National polls are showing Obama now at an outside-the-margin of error win, and anecdotal person on the street interviews from envlaves both red and blue are showing more support for Obama than McCain. The electorate is seeing through the McCain/Palin mudslinging, lying tactics. They are also mad as hell about the implosion of the economy, and no matter how McCain tries to distance himself from Bush, he cannot. To paraphrase the old canard, the only way Obama can lose now is to be caught in bed with a live boy or a dead girl.

Or the NeoCons can pull one last dirty trick, an October Surprise, out of the bag. They've already destroyed the Twin Towers, New Orleans, the Housing Market and the Economy. They don't seem to care who or what they destroy to get their way.

But we have caught on. The NeoCon way is the way of destruction. The way of catastrophic failure of our institutions.

Under W, we have seen a series of catastrophic failures. First, the failure of our security networks, which led to the loss of the World Trade Center Towers and three thousand lives. Then, failure of a bridge in Minnesota, loss of more lives -- because money for infrastructure was directed away to wars of destruction.
Catastrophic failure of both wars, because one was not enough, even though the war in Afghanistan was left unfinished.

Catastrophic failure of "No Child Left Behind", and we lose a good number of public school students, who will go into college only being good at passing standardized tests, but with no developed world view beyond getting the questions right in Math and English. They are doomed to be internet grammar Nazis who can add, panhandling for online change from their parents' basements by writing WOW blogs.

Catastrophic failure of more infrastructure, as predicted, combined with catastrophic failure of FEMA, and we lose New Orleans. Failure to learn from lessons, we lose Galveston.

Failure to learn from McCain's former tricks, and we lose the economy.

Given their track record, I'm guessing that any attempted "October Surprise" would involve the catastrophic failure of something else. But what? The TSA? The airline industry? The power grid? The GWOT, leading to another false-flag attack on the US?

But, after tonight, I'm optimistic that the American People have finally had the blinders removed, are finally seeing through the bullshit, have learned that the last people to trust for the truth are the mainstream media. Maybe, finally, the Bush Cabal has suffered catastrophic failure of their ultimate plans, and their house of cards is about to be toppled from beneath them. Perhaps, in a new Administration with a Democratic super-majority in the Senate, we will finally pass a Constitutional Amendment barring anyone related in the first degree (parent, child, sibling, spouse, grandparent, grandchild in-law) to a former president from ever running for the office. And maybe, in the 2010 midterms and beyond, the American People will learn that there are more than two parties in this country, and will abandon the Republicans and the Democrats in sufficient numbers to finally turn America into a five party system that works on coalitions instead of either/or politics.

From Catastrophic Failure, perhaps America is about to snatch Imminent Success. We can only hope. We only have four weeks to wait.

Nancy Pelosi Can Kiss My Ass...

2008-09-29T23:12:00.004-07:00

As the House prepared to vote for the Wall Street Welfare Bill, Speaker Pelosi did everything in her power to bully Representatives into voting for the Bill, and seemed personally stricken when it failed to pass. And I have to ask myself, "How badly is your portfolio going to tank if your fat cat buddies don't get their Trillion Dollars? How big is the conflict of interest in letting our millionaire leaders contemplate -- and vote for -- the future of their millions? How long can those members who have a conscience and a spine hold out before they talk to their broker, think of their children, and quietly sell out?"

Nancy Pelosi is a traitor and should be kicked out of office in November. Cindy Sheehan wouldn't take this crap. Then again, Cindy Sheehan isn't a millionaire. And there's the point. Most of us middle class working stiffs really have no stake in the companies begging for a bailout. If they all failed, the only thing it might affect is any corporate retirement plan you're in -- but if you're under 45, you really don't have to worry. Those will come back by the time you need them. No, most of us working stiffs might have government bonds, or mutual funds that invest in the same, or maybe a CD or a savings account. All of those are already heavily insured, and we have no real fear of losing our petty fortunes of far less than a million dollars. But... there is real danger to us if this bill passes, because it instantly puts all of the working class into $ 5,000 of debt.

$ 5,000. And what do you get for it? Not a fucking thing. Except maybe the knowledge that you made someone with far too much money able to keep their summer house in the Hamptons, or the Lear Jet, or their five illegal alien nannies, or that apartment they rent for their mistress in Georgetown, or the Jaguar that gets twelve miles to the gallon, or on and on and on and on.

The problem is greed. The desire to have more than you can ever possibly need. Honestly, all anyone really needs is enough money to pay for a home, food, a couple of children or pets, clothes, the occasional splurge, weekly dinner or a movie with friends, a nice vacation once a year. That's really not much. And it's really something the US could achieve for everyone, once our lawmakers recognize one simple fact.

The US has not produced anything tangible for a good 15 years, except for fast food and entertainment. And another term for fast food and entertainment is Panem et circenses -- bread and circuses, the diversions offered to the people of Rome as the Empire was falling.

Well, the Roman Empire fell, but I don't want to have to say that the American Empire was pushed. This Corporate Welfare Bill -- for that's exactly what it is -- would be the push that shoves our empire over the edge and into the abyss. It is the action that will bring about the end of America as we knew it. Remember the USSR and what happened to it in 1991? Remember how Russia arose from the ashes of the former Soviet Union? That's right. The first thing they did was expel or arrest the so-called Oligarchs -- those who made money from nothing.

Money from nothing, and the tricks are free. As noted above, America has produced nothing tangible except for Fast Food and Entertainment. And, even then... fast food has destroyed a generation, created fat, brain-addled, stupid children prone to diabetes and hyperactivity. Our Entertainment has become nothing but an exercise in marketing, as every old idea that worked once is recycled and "repurposed", and every new film must out kick-ass its predecessor. And studios will risk $ 100 million if they think it will bring back $ 300 million. But they will shy away from spending $ 10 million that may bring back $ 50 million. They are short-sighted idiots.

Otherwise, when not slinging burgers or bad movies, America has been peddling electrons (which went very well during the Dot.Bomb bust and is turning grandmothers into felons in the DMCA era) or less. And manufacturing of durable goods and customer service have escaped to other countries, were lack of regulation and favorable exchange rates have made things cheaper.

Unfortunately, in order to reverse course and get America back to what she once was, we're going to have to bankrupt the billionaires, deny them their handout, and start the system over. If this turns our Congresscritters into the middle class, so be it. All the better for them to appreciate our plight and empathize with the poor. All the better for them to finally understand and vote the right way.

First, any company that outsources anything should be penalized by loss of all tax deductions and exemptions. They pay the full rate, period. And any company that creates jobs by manufacturing durable goods in the US receives incredible tax incentives, on the Federal and State level.

Second, the salary of corporate officers is tied to 75% of the salary of the President. No bonuses, no golden parachutes, no stock options. And the salary of the President can only be increased by a super-majority of the voters. However, corporate officers are entitled to the same tax exemptions and deductions that their companies enjoy, provided that their company created X number of jobs for Americans per calendar year. Let's say.... 10,000?

Third, the Federal Reserve is abolished, and the value of the dollar is tied to a tangible and finite asset, with the initial value of the new dollar set at approximately the cost of one gallon of gas, with the new dollar minted exclusively by the US Mint, in gold equal by weight to the pegged commodity. All existing currency is revalued based on the new dollar, with a cut-off date for redemption of cash. Bank accounts are instantly revalued at the new rate. If you had five grand in the bank, congratulations. You now have about $ 18K.

Fourth, Income Tax is abolished on every level, replaced by property tax, except that everyone is entitled to one acre tax free. In other words, If you own less than one acre of land (or one acre per person resident thereon), you don't pay any taxes. If you own more, you pay a rate of 10% per value of land plus improvements. For purposes of calculating the tax, students at a university or employees at a company count against the acreage. In other words, a university with a 5,000 acre campus but more than 5,000 students would pay no taxes, nor would a company with 15 acres and 16 or more employees.

Fifth, all non-profit organizations are barred from making any recommendations on voting, whether for ballot measures or candidates. Any such organization which does so loses property tax exemptions, and owes back income taxes from inception of the ban on income taxes, plus penalties and interest.

Sixth, our entire government needs an enema, and all incumbents must be flushed out of office from the top down. Especially those with a D or R after their names. Consider voting third party in November. If enough of us have the balls to do it, we may legitimatize third party candidates for 2010.

Seventh -- there is no seventh, except to read the other six. And realize therefrom why you have to call you Congresscritter tomorrow and urge them to vote "No" on the "bailout."

Dump Her Sorry Ass Already...

2008-09-28T23:43:00.002-07:00

Tonight, Nancy Quisling Pelosi declared, "We sent a message to Wall Street - the party is over..."

Well, you know what Nancy "Impeachment Is off the Table" Pelosi? No, no you didn't. The message you sent to Wall Street is "Don't worry. If you fuck up and run your company into the ground, we'll give you free money."

This bailout bill is nothing but Corporate Welfare, and it cannot stand, cannot be passed. Do you love America? Do you love Capitalism? Well, know what? In a true free market system, a company that over-extends itself, that puts out more than it has capitalized and can't make good, fails. Period. No bailout, no dipping into the well of the People's Money. Game over, you cease to exist as an entity, don't let the doorknob hit you in the ass.

All of you people who have incredible credit card or mortgage debt and don't know how you'll pay for it -- don't you wish the Federal Government would wave their magic wand and say, "Hey, that's okay. We'll pay for all your debt and give you a couple of ten grand over that amount"? Of course you do. But they won't. And yet, that's exactly what they're doing for all the craven bandits of Wall Street. "Oh. Your company put out more money than you can possibly take in? Poor baby. Here are billions of dollars so your CEO's can retire tomorrow with huge golden parachutes."

Well... bullshit. All of those corporate CEOs deserve to be personally responsible for every penny they've stolen from us, and rather than hanging from golden parachutes, they should be hanging from lamp-posts, all up and down Wall Street. And any member of Congress -- and I mean any, including Presidential Candidates -- who vote for this ill-intentioned bailout bill should be voted from office, then run out of the country. And yes, although I supported him last week, if Obama votes for this raping of the American Taxpayer, then he loses my vote for president. Period. End of story. I'm going third party, consequences be damned.

Get on the phone, get on your fax machine. Send your Congresscritters this simple message. "Vote for this bailout now, be voted out in November. Be voted out the next time you're up for election. Be replaced by someone who isn't sucking the teat of banking or Wall Street special interests. Be replaced by someone who remembers whom they work for -- We the People."

Find your Congresscritters here and here. Call them, fax them. Those are the only methods of contact that are not ignored. Tell them we're mad as hell, we're not going to take it anymore, and voting for any form of bailout is political suicide. Help the bankers today, face our pitchforks tomorrow. It's as simple as that -- we're almost to the point where this country can only be saved by another revolution. One vote away from our elected officials proving that they are absolutely useless. Do not let this happen.

Free Market, My Aunt Fanny (Mae):

2008-09-23T21:30:00.002-07:00

capitalism: n - an economic belief system embraced deeply by conservatives, until such point as they are about to lose their shirts in the free market

There comes a time in any economy when it's time for the people who support it to just say "Enough!" We should have learned our lesson back during the S&L Crisis (when John McCain was one of the "Keating Five") -- when a company runs itself into the ground, tough shit. That's capitalism. That's the free market. No bailouts, no handouts, nothing. File bankruptcy, sell your assets, don't let the doorknob hit your corporate officers in the ass on the way out.

If that company ran itself into the ground defrauding its customers, sticking them with inherently worthless financial products or encouraging them to mortage themselves far beyond their means, then the executives and officers of that company should be tried and imprisoned, and all their benefits forfeited. Period.

We can't let the hypocrisy stand, either. The same people who decry any kind of welfare or entitlement program ("Oh dear. That woman is getting a few hundred bucks a month from us because she can't support herself!") are the ones most bullish on this bailout -- which is nothing but welfare. Oh dear. Those companies are getting a few hundred billion because they couldn't run a business.

They're set to get a trillion of our dollars, if Paulson has his way. The only way Paulson should go is out of town on a rail. This attempted bailout is nothing but theft on a grand scale.

But, hey, if the government has a stray trillion to throw around, I have a better idea. Give it to the people. Let them stimulate the economy with it. No, we won't give it to just anyone. Adults only (so the kids might still learn how to earn), and we eliminate the wealthiest, or those who are in prison. Divide that trillion among the rest, each one gets $ 4,260.75. That's better than those pissy little $ 300 checks W offered us, right? Hell, just give it as a tax credit -- "We apply this much to the amount you owe. If you paid more, you get a refund." A lot of people don't even owe that much in taxes, so there would be some savings on their refunds. As for all those companies that would go out of business without it? All of their mortgages are written off, and the property passed into the possession of the homeowners, free and clear. Think of that for a moment. All those people, suddenly homeowners with no house payments, and a big overlap with people paying no income taxes for the year, or getting much bigger checks back then they expected. Think what that would do for the economy.

Or, if we had a stray trillion dollars lying around, hey, let's be foolish. Let's use it to improve education, fix our crumbling infrastructure. Let's use some of it as tax credits for companies that bring manufacturing jobs back to America -- and offset that by heavily penalizing companies that outsource. Then we might even end up with well-educated and inventive people who make things -- and make enough money to afford them. And make things so well that other countries want them. We might even fix the dollar and the economy. Eventually.

But we sure as hell aren't going to do it by paying off a bunch of whiny-baby million- and billionaires who might suddenly learn to have to survive the way the rest of us do -- by actually working, rather than just sitting on our fat asses and living off the interest earned on the money of others.

Nope, sorry. No corporate welfare. They mismanaged things badly, and the deregulation clowns in government let them, and every last one of them deserves to suffer the full consequences of those actions now.

Just Say "No"

2008-09-18T22:45:00.002-07:00

I can't put it better than it's put here at Whatreallyhappened, so I won't.

Except to add that the American Revolution began as a rebellion against taxes. And that the corporate bosses responsible for our current economic problems, as well as the government regulators who allowed it, should be the first ones strung up on lampposts.

They can't prosecute 350 million of us. And we outnumber our elected Federal Officials by about 583,000 to one.

How to Avoid the Great Depression 2 in 5 Easy Steps

2008-09-17T23:56:00.004-07:00

Once upon a time, the US Dollar was worth something. That something was based on Gold and Silver. A dollar, printed by the US Government, was actually a certificate worth a fixed weight of silver or gold. When the supply of dollars equaled the available gold or silver reserves of the US, that was it. No more dollars would be printed. The money supply was fixed. Rather than being an infinite printing press, the government was instead a source of a stable currency. Oddly enough, major economic problems, like the inflation of the 1860s or the recessions of the 1880s and 1890s were caused by, respectively, war and market manipulation by monopolies.

And so the US Dollar was strong and secure until... in 1913, during a recess Congressional session in which a bill was quickly passed after the quorum rule was voided, the US no longer became the banker of the nation. Instead, the Federal Reserve was created, and their job was to print money. Print and print and print, then sell this money to the US -- with the Federal Reserve getting the much better part of the deal. Basically, the US charged the Fed nothing, but promised to pay interest on this created money.

Is it any coincidence that this was the same year that the 16th Amendment was passed under equally dubious conditions, imposing an income tax on the American People?

One year later, the US entered WW I -- at that time called the Great War. Uh -- greater than what? Greater at dropping bleach into ammonia and destroying the lungs of countless soldiers on both sides?

But I do digress...

America is on the brink of financial disaster. Since our business since the 90s has been to produce "service" instead of "things", we've had nothing tangible with which to back up our currency. There is no man behind the curtain. All that lovely paper is worth next to nothing, only propped up by illusory pep rallies by the Federal Reserve Chairman -- the last two of whom have done an abysmal job.

You want to avoid the Second Depression, one which will make 1929 look like a cake walk? Want to save this country and the planet? Then these are the hard steps that must be taken right now...

Write Off Existing Debt: First and foremost, consequences be damned, the US has got to say, "Okay, enough. We have X amount in assets, Y amount in debts. Any amount by which Y exceeds X will not be repaid. Debt which we cannot cover we are defaulting on. If you want to call this "bankruptcy", so be it. Bankruptcy is just teh first step on the road to solvency.

The Federal Reserve Bank has got to go. Period. No golden parachutes, no severance bonuses. By Congressional Act, this organization ends, it's charter voided, its services no longer needed.

The value of the dollar has got to be set to a tangible asset, and I would suggest gasoline. Again by Congressional decree, the new dollar is worth the cost of one gallon of gasoline, based on the average price per gallon in the most expensive place in the US. The amount of new dollars issued cannot exceed the value of gasoline currently available from all US sources. Foreign gasoline is not allowed in the equation.

Sad but true -- existing dollars must be revalued, to the tune of the reciprocal of the pre-evaluation cost of a gallon of gas. If the New Dollar is set at a $ 3.50 gallon of gas, the old dollar is instantly worth 1/3.5 (or 2/7ths) of a New Dollar. This applies only to assets held on the date of changeover. Future payments -- i.e. paychecks -- will be paid in New Dollars om the same absolute amount agreed to before the change. In other words, if your paycheck was $ 4,000 a month before the evaluation, your next paycheck will be worth New $ 4,000, or $ 14,400 old dollars. However, if you had $ 4,000 in savings, they would be re-valued at $ 1,143. Sorry. But the increase in pay makes up for it...

Finally, another sad but true -- for this revaluation to work, the US has to increase its supply of the fixed commodity (oil convertible to gas), which means that we would have to drill everywhere -- ANWAR, right offshore, in your backyard. Every last ounce of oil under our land would have to be squeezed out. The difference is that, this time, more extraction benefits everyone, because each extraction increases the money supply, and therefore credit availability and lower interest rates.

One side benefit of the above program? Income taxes would become unnecessary. If the value of the dollar were pegged to the price of oil at the beginning, but then not re-indexed as oil were re-valued by increasing supply, each dollar would begin to accumulate excess value -- and the difference would accrue to the guarantor of those Dollars -- the US government.

Ultimately, the steps above are part of step one in a grander plan -- to switch the country to a renewable energy source, then peg the dollar to that. Say, perhaps, the value of a kilowatt hour of solar energy. Research and make solar technology accessible to anyone, and you essentially turn everyone into part of the banking class. Passive activity leads to an increase in supply of hard assets, which leads to the necessity of printing more money in order to keep the paper supply on a par with the availability of tangible assets. Switch the US to the Solar Dollar, and we could make everyone in this country a self-sufficient millionaire in a time when having a million Solar Dollars would actually mean something.

Don't think this system works? Google or wiki Dubai, then get back to me...

The Seven Year Itch

2008-09-10T23:08:00.002-07:00

Welcome to 9/11/08, America. Now pay no attention to the bullshit being shoveled at you by the media on this Patriot Day. You want to really celebrate the seventh anniversary of 9/11 in the proper manner? Then enjoy your freedoms, and fight for them when they're infringed by this government that hates them.

Flying today and some TSA screener gets pushy? Tell them to go fuck themselves, and show you in writing where they're authorized to grope your traveling companion/confiscate your stuff/act like an asshole.

Write a letter or an email to your elected representatives today -- from local council beast all the way up to President. Remind them that, as a voter, you're their boss. Tell them all the ways you would have fired them -- or compliment on the (probably rare) reasons you wouldn't have.

Get angry, get mad, do something. If you want to honor the people lost on 9/11, then you will forever fight the gigantic mass of bullshit that has been thrown in our faces since then. Demand a real investigation into what happened on that day. Demand to know -- if we were supposedly under attack by terrorists hijacking airplanes, if we had no clue it was going to happen, if there was an airport near a publicized appearance of the president -- demand to know why the Secret Service did nothing to remove George W. Bush from an elementary school in Florida, instead letting him sit and read about a pet goat with children for at least ten minutes after the first attack. Ask them whether they knew what was happening, so knew that the President was in no danger.

Ask why, for the first time in history, not one but three steel framed buildings were felled by fire -- two of them within an hour, one of them within a day. Ask why this happened, even though many, many steel framed skyscrapers have burned far longer without collapsing.

Ask why Congress passed the Patriot Act without reading it, and ask why that behemoth of a bill was written long before 9/11 -- an event "no one could have foreseen" according to Condi Rice.

Ask why this current Administration lied this country into an illegal war (it was never declared by Congress), changed the lies several times, and lies to this day about the "success" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ask why this current Administration seems hell bent on nuking Iran and starting WW III with Russia when the American army is tied up in unwinnable ground wars.

Ask why the hell anyone in their right mind would vote Republican in November, then get your ass down to the polls as an observer to make sure those petty bastards don't try to steal it for the third time.

Ask why W and Cheney should not be indicted for war crimes the second their terms expire in January 2009 -- and ask what the hell you're going to do if this country continues down the Nazi-Fascist rabbit hole by ushering in a disastrous McSame/Palin era in 2009.

Patriot Day? The real patriots are the ones who know the difference between blind stupidity and standing up for principals. Real Patriots are the ones who know why the Second Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights. Real Patriots are the ones who will act like the Founding Fathers when necessary, and rebel when required.

Real Patriots will remember this 5th of November if Barack Obama is not the man chosen to take the White House in January. Real Patriots will rebel, riot, revolt to save America -- and we will remember 9/11 not as some tribute to fascism stealing America but, rather, as Liberty Holding her beacon high to remind us that we still need to fight.

Yes -- the Nazis in our midst call it "Patriot Day" -- but they forget that the Patriots of today were the traitors of their time. Give me Patrick Henry or give me escape to Costa Rica. We don't need McSame anywhere near power. We don't need Mooseolini either.

We need to give W, Cheney et al a visit to the injustice used to shut Saddam up before he spilled the beans on what good buddies he was with Cheney, the US et al in the 70s.

In short -- it's employee review time for these assholes in Washington, and time for spring cleaning. The only viable option for all of them right now is termination. The only severance being their heads from their necks.

Be a patriot. Save America. Purge the scum.

What Every Woman Needs to Know About Palin

2008-09-08T22:50:00.004-07:00

If you're a woman, Sarah Palin is not on your side, period. But first, a hypothetical scenario...

Your house is burglarized. Window smashed, electronics, cash and jewelry stolen. Police Detectives seal off the scene of the crime, dust for fingerprints, check for other biometric evidence, and interview neighbors to investigate the crime. Then, when they're done, they hand you, the victim, a bill for all of that investigation.

Pretty outrageous, isn't it? And yet, this is exactly what the Wasilla Police Department did under Sarah Palin's rule -- and it was definitely her rule, as this quote from Wikipedia shows: "As mayor of Wasilla, Palin was in charge of the city Police Department consisting of 25 officers, and Public Works.

It was her police chief, Charlie Fannon (the man she picked to replace the one she fired because ~~she was on a power trip~~ she thought he didn't support her) who decided that women rape victims should have to pay for the cost of their own rape kit.

Let me say that again: the police chief chose to make victims pay for the cost of investigating their crimes -- at least in one category of crime. Not burglary, not assault, not murder. But rape. Charlie Fannon decided and Sarah Palin tacitly approved that women in Wasilla should have to pay money for the privilege (ahemn) of being sexually assaulted.

In allowing this action, Sarah Palin was -- and is -- a traitor to her gender and an enemy of women everywhere. She makes much of family values, but her sole family value seems to be that women are chattel, property, breeding stock, inferior, meant to get married and knocked up repeatedly and, in the case of rape, to politely lie back and take it, then thank the man as he's zipping up his pants.

She seems to think this applies to all women, everywhere, except her, because she's the fucking princess who's going to be queen, and don't anyone forget it.

But we can't forget it. This woman is Bush in Lipstick; Cheney in Heels. She is not a pit bull, nor a vulture, nor even a shark. This woman is a tapeworm, dwelling in the bowels of her host, sucking the life out of it, thriving in shit -- and every so often pulling her head out of her host's ass long enough to catch a ride on the next bigger ass to come along, to then dive in and suck the muck dry for all it's worth, all the while destroying those she thinks are out to get her and betraying her own kind. You get no loyalty with Sarah Palin, unless you're willing to kiss her ass. You don't get it if you're a Republican, you don't get it if you're an Alaskan. You certainly don't get it if you're a woman, and you definitely don't get it if you're an American. She has betrayed every group, the latter -- all of us -- by having been a secessionist. And yes, she never officially joined the party, but that was the only aspect of that movement she missed.

It's as if the North America of the 1860s were rotated 180 degrees, and all the assholes wound up in the far northwest instead of the south. And perhaps they did between the 1860s and the 1960s. Oh. Am insulting an entire state? Sorry, Alaska. You gave us Palin, and now I can understand exactly how the rest of the world feels about the US.

Her madness was eventually stopped, when Democratic Governor Tony Knowles signed a law specifically outlawing the practice of charging women for their own rape kits, once again proving that the only party that cares about women is the Democratic Party. Period.

Being a Republican is enough to make a woman betray her entire sex. That alone should tell you everything that is wrong with that institution; why anyone who truly believes their twisted ways ought to be institutionalized.

Reasons to Vote Democratic in November (#4,623 in a series)

2008-09-05T22:55:00.002-07:00

As proven by their words and actions at their convention, the Republicans are all nothing but a bunch of bullys, cheaters, liars and cry-babies. Sorry to resort to such low ad hominum there, but it's the same thing they brought us via the speech Sarah Palin read, and in the smug "I know I'm an asshole and I don't care" smirk on Giuliani's face the entire time he spoke.

A little more concrete evidence, though. The RNC actively sought to silence not only anti-Republican protesters outside by arranging to have them arrested before the committed any crimes, they sought to silence their own party by harassing Party Delegates who were pledged to Ron Paul.

The Secret Service went so far as to surround group of Paul delegates, then confiscate anything related to Paul that they had -- buttons, books, whatever they could get their hands on. On the convention floor, and openly, any time a Delegation in the Roll Call Vote was about to pledge delegates to Paul, microphones were turned off, as happened to Oklahoma, among other states.

Think about this for a moment. Delegates are party officials and bigwigs. They are the insiders of the Republican Party. It shouldn't matter who they support, as long as the person they support is a member of the party. It especially shouldn't matter in the case of delegates who are bound to their votes by caucuses or primaries.

And yet -- the Republican Party Members, with valid credentials, who were not good little McCain/Palin fanboys were threatened, intimidated, and treated barely differently from all the protesters in the streets.

Sound familiar? Every reactionary party in history has gone through its purges. Mao's Communist Party. Hitler's Nazis. Stalin's Bolsheveks. Royalty from princes to emperors throughout history are known for periodically lopping off the heads of those who disagree with them. Maybe this is a hard-wired genetic trait of those who become far right-wing conservatives (or far left-wing liberals) -- they are so frightened of the invisible bogeymen they have created in their own heads that they cannot tolerate even a hint of criticism, so those who don't agree with them, even those who are allegedly their friends or allies, are the target of paranoia, revenge, and fear. Extremism of any wing goes so far off the map that it comes back to meet its opposite -- I see little difference in the actions or mindsets of the RNC and PETA. Both organizations are insane, will cut off their own nose to spite their faces, and refuse to listen to even one tiny iota of criticism of their beliefs, sacred cows, or actions.

So... St. Paul brought us this one hope: The Republican Party is tearing itself apart, and this convention was their last hurrah. The red meat McCain fanatics will tout their selection, alienating less fascistic elements in the party to the point that they just won't vote, or they'll hold their noses and vote for Obama. (Maybe they won't even have to hold their noses.) After two years of majority Democratic Rule -- and President Obama's first Supreme Court nomination, of a judge from the 9th Circuit Court, sailing through), the true Conservatives will have had enough, and the backlash will kick the far-right, neo-Con, neanderthal, religiously insane douchebags out in the cold. The New Republican Party will move to the center, the New Nazi Party will quickly fade into obscurity, and true bipartisanship may finally be restored to this country.

Oh. Did I do that ad hominem thing again? It's just so easy to slip into that when all of the empirical evidence really does support the slurs and insults as factual.

Final argument: contrast the Democratic National Convention. Not only did the DNC not try to squelch Clinton supporters, they welcomed them and encouraged them. Clinton votes in the roll call were announced, none of her supporters had their buttons or books taken away, and it was finally Hillary Clinton herself who, on behalf of the New York Delegation, moved to suspend the roll call and nominate Obama by acclamation. It was one party united, and it showed everything that is good about the Democratic Party -- overall, the burning sense of fairness that is the heart of Liberalism.

Republicans are the party of Fear. Democrats are the party of Hope. Which one would you rather spend the next four years living in?

Tar Babies

2008-09-01T23:10:00.003-07:00

First, I think that Senator Obama has played the Sarah Palin scandal exactly right -- to strongly declare that family is off-limits, and he isn't going to go there. And that's probably a little self-preservation on his part. If he made any indication of jumping into the "Who is Trig's momma?" fray, he knows that his wife and daughters would be under the microscope tomorrow.

But -- that doesn't stop the rest of us from playing the game. Now, normally, I'd fall into the category of "The family is not the candidate." However, because l'Affaire Trig touches on so many of the issues that Sarah Palin apparently has strong opinions on, the matter threatens to bust out hypocrisy and lying left and right. Remember -- lying, that thing that the Republicans found so odious when Bill Clinton was president? When they were not conveniently ignoring the many lies of the Bush, Jr. Administration.

There's a real simple solution to this, of course. Get testimony from the Obstetrician who delivered trig. "Yes, I pulled that baby out of Governor Palin's vagina." Get the medical records. End of story.

That hasn't happened and, unfortunately, there are too many holes in the story. For starters, Governor Palin didn't announce she was pregnant until month seven, and she wasn't showing at all. Do a Google Image Search for "seven months pregnant" like I did. You'll find that even the most athletic of mothers had a very visible baby bump this far along.

Second -- You know you're going to have a Downs Syndrome Baby. Your water breaks in Texas... Do you a) Go to the nearest hospital? or b) Fly to Seattle, then to Anchorage -- each of which has fine hospitals in which to give birth -- but then proceed overland to your home town, and then to the local clinic.

Third -- a possible mitigating factor is that Downs Syndrome is more common in babies born to mothers in their 40s -- but it's also common in teen mothers during their first pregnancy.

Fourth -- Bristol Palin was out of school for five months because of mono. In the 50s, being out with "mono" was usually always girl code for "knocked up."

Fifth -- the announcement that Bristol is pregnant today is almost astounding in its timing. She ain't going to give birth before the election, and she isn't going to show. Short of medical proof that she is with child, I'd call this claim bullshit.

Sixth -- if Bristol is knocked up, Sarah is a lousy mother, who can't even get her own daughter to adhere to the abstinence plan. She's an even worse mother if Trig is Palin's child, and a complete hypocrite any way you slice it.

Seventh -- the McCain campaign, despite claiming fore-knowledge, totally whiffed it on this one. McCain focused on the trivial -- she's a chick -- and seemed to ignore every other detail. Is this really the man we want in the White House? Or the woman we want one stroke away from the White House?

Eighth -- Sarah Palin does not practice what she preaches. Why did she protect her daughter, if Trig is the grandkid, or support her daughter know, if she is indeed knocked up, when every thing she stands for is against premarital sex or birth control?

Ninth -- when Joe Biden was nominated, there was no dirt anyone could fling on him. Sarah Palin inspired a shitstorm within minutes of being announced. Babygate is far from the only scandal to explode into daylight instantly. But, for having been ripped off from an episode of "Desperate Housewives", it is particularly pathetic.

As is this desperate attempt by the Old Man to add youth and a vagina to his ticket, in hopes of luring Hillary voters. Sorry, Senator McSame -- a Hillary voter supporting you because of Palin would be like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.

Where have I heard that before?

If you want the next four years to bring us World War III, then by all means vote Republican. Otherwise, vote for your country. Vote for the future. Vote Obama-Biden.

In November, there is no other sane choice.

Oh -- regarding the title? It's a reference to southern Black folklore of the 19th Century. The Tar Baby was a method by which Bro' Rabbit snared Bro' Fox. Bro' Rabbit convinced Bro' Fox that the baby sitting down the way was him. Bro' Fox attacked, but since the baby was made of tar, the harder Bro' Fox punched, the more stuck he became to it. Setting aside the modern symbolism of FOX, the metaphor is clear. The harder that the RNC, McCain and Palin try to punch away the babies, the more they will stick. The more excuses they spin to try to explain it all the way, the more questions they will raise. And, as when Bro' Rabbit told Bro' Fox not to throw him into the briar patch, because he feared that place the most, the Republicans are going to do exactly what the Democrats need -- they will keep tossing out more and more spin, keeping the issue alive while we do nothing, and Bro' Rabbit will be tossed into the briar patch -- a place with which he is vary familiar and can just happily hop away, unaffected, while Bro' Fox tries to peel off the tar, fuming at the brambles he cannot jump into without feeling great pain.

Yeah. Sometimes, folklore is very informative of reality.

Telling Moment...

2008-08-30T23:38:00.002-07:00

SNL re-ran an episode from October 2007 tonight, and the opening bit was an interesting time capsule of the plus ςa change variety. In it, Hillary and Bill Clinton host a Hallowe'en party, with various at the time contenders for the presidency played by SNL cast members. John Edwards is quickly dissed, Bill Richardson comes as Al Gore, and Joe Biden joins Chris Dodd, both dressed as Spongebob Squarepants, and both coming off as Beavis and Butthead meet Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee.

Then a party guest wearing a Barack Obama mask reveals himself to be... Barack Obama -- and his reaction upon taking off the mask is most telling. The audience goes nuts, and he smiles. He breaks character. In short, he instantly reveals that he is no actor, because the first thing an actor learns is how to not break character and crack-up on stage; your character would only laugh inappropriately if something happened spontaneously onstage that your character would laugh at.

Which means... when Barack gave his amazing acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, he believed and felt every word he said. Reinforcement? As soon as Barack began delivering his lines in the skit, the laugh and smile vanished; the self-consciousness was gone -- and those lines were a precursor to what he told us this week.

Or, in other words, another change Barack will bring to Washington -- a President who cannot lie, because his face will give away the game. By being a lousy actor, Senator Obama, a man I hope to one day call President Obama, just made me support him more.

I Have a Dream...

2008-08-29T23:40:00.003-07:00

Yesterday and this morning have been very encouraging for November. Barack Obama is now the nominee, and none of the paranoid-wing ravings of "Hillary is going to steal it, you'll see" came true. (The people in that camp are to Democrats what far-right fundie evangelists are to the Republican party -- the people we wish weren't in our respective parties, because they get all the attention and give the opposition their ammunition.

I know lots of Republicans who don't oppose gay marriage, are pro-choice and undecided on the death penalty. All they want is lower taxes and a Federal Government that leaves them alone.

I know lots of Democrats who are in favor of gun ownership, who are a little suspicious of a certain religious or ethnic group (but don't feel guilty about it), who think that the idea of unlimited welfare is ridiculous, and illegal aliens are "illegal" for a reason. All they want is the Federal Government out of their private lives, and religious groups out of their private lives.

Not so far apart, eh? And that was the message I heard on Wednesday night as Barack Obama accepted the nomination as Democratic candidate for President, giving an eloquent and rousing speech on the 45th Anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech on the mall in Washington D.C.

And my god, said the atheist -- that man can speak. Barack Obama is a more eloquent statesman than even Bill Clinton, a more inspiring leader than JFK... in short, hell yes he's the Superstar that McCain tried to denigrate. But, you know what? Good presidents are Superstars, people who are remembered for centuries. Like -- Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, FDR, JFK. Look at your money, your schools, your streets. Don't those names tend to pop up a lot?

Just like the name Martin Luther King, Jr. He isn't on the money yet -- but that's not a half bad idea -- but how many streets and schools do you know of that bear his name?

Oh, wow. Barack is famous and a lot of people like him. Guess what, McCain? "A lot of people like him" happens to be the dumbed down so W. can understand it definition of Democracy. You know -- where majority rules? Anyone who tries to bitch about a democratic election being a "popularity contest" really doesn't get it.

Which part of, "Well, duh?" do you not understand.

So... on Wednesday, I get to watch the amazing speech with a major crowd, watch as several apolitical or Republican friends glaze over in amazement, then announce, "I am so voting for him"... watch as straight male friends declare "Okay, I'm straight, but I would have his babies right now..."

Yeah -- platonic man-crushes abounded.

I was most reminded of Frank Capra's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", especially when Barack said that "change doesn't come from Washington, it comes to Washington." Hell, yeah. And I think the biggest and most necessary change we need right now is this: Old White Guy is not in charge. They've had their chance since Washington, and they've been screwing up for far too long. You only get so many resets on your Wii. It's time for the new kid to step up and school your sorry ass.

And... the other really nice news -- McCain screwed the pooch with his choice of VP Candidate. By picking a first term governor presiding over a state population smaller than the city population of San Francisco, he has blown the "inexperience" argument out of the water. After all, Sarah Palin would be only a stroke away from the White House. McCain, being a 72 year old former POW has already run all the sand out of his life expectancy clock. In fact, for people of his age and experience, he is due to expire any day now. Meaning that we'd wind up with a former beauty queen very conservative and reactionary Anita Bryant Junior with her finger on the red button and her Constitutional understanding courtesy of Jesus and George Bush.

Or, in other words, McCain just drove the nail in his coffin. His far right cohorts will have their brains explode when faced with the choice between a black man as president or a woman in charge of the Senate (they already hate Nancy Pelosi, as do good Democrats). The previous female VP was a democrat as well, and the fear of Hillary in power can only rub off on Palin in the wrong way. And there's no telling what ongoing investigations of Ted Stevens might toss her way in a very very bad way...

Combine that with Tina Fey lampooning this woman fifteen ways from Tuesday from mid September to election day, and her falling to pieces during a debate with Biden, and McCain has basically combined Dan Quayle and Spiro Agnew with a big dose of "Geraldine Ferraro lost". Not to mention the major faux pas of "Old fart with young chick", almost like he wants to hook his coattails to the meaningless John Edwards scandal.

I run the options through my mind, and even as the most hardened of right-wing nutjob Republicans, the best option I can come up with is ""Screw it. I won't vote." The further I move from the right, the more I move toward, "Well, hell. He does remind me of JFK, and he did pretty good stuff..."

And c'mon. If you're a straight male with a pulse, there's no way you can't want Michelle Obama as First Lady. You know she'll pimp that place out and throw parties like we haven't seen since Andrew Jackson.

That, and... Barack Obama is what America needs right now. An eloquent statesman and a message to the rest of the world -- "The American people have come to their senses, have kicked out the assholes who've messed with the world for the last eight years. We've also elected a black man, meaning we're mostly over the racism that has made us a laughingstock for the world, a grand hypocrite, for nearly half our life as a country. "

And I could only hope that latter message finally melts through the hardened heads of redneck racists everywhere -- most Americans have ceased even seeing race as an issue or an impediment or even a major factor in modern life.

To paraphrase Obama, America is better than that. We are -- or should be -- finally able to see past surface features, past accidents of birth -- and only see ability.

This November, I hope that people will continue to see the obvious. Change is good. Obama is change. Or, rather, a restoration of America to what it was and should be. McCain is more of the same; Bush's third term. Elect the old white man, whether or not his running mate has a vagina -- and we'd just be telling the world, "Fuck you."

Yes, you isolationist bastards, it does matter, incredibly much, what the rest of the world thinks of us. Why? Ask yourself why the dollar is worth crap and gas is so expensive. Figure out the answer to that question, and you'll realize why Barack Obama is, at the moment, America's last great hope.

We're at an historical time, one that will see Barack becoming the next in the line of memorialized presidents -- if we're smart enough to elect him, trust him, and fix the damage that has been done.

My view from the street is this: Obama will defeat McCain in a landslide not seen in decades -- despite what useless national polls say about a tie. My advice: Democrats cannot become complacent. If you supported Hillary, get over it. She'll still be young enough in 2016. Donate to Obama, help with local electioneering events. Get your friends who aren't registered but who are like-minded registered to vote. Work this election in your head like Obama is behind by twenty points. Get the word out there, and we will win. But don't assume the word is being gotten out. Do your part.

Ask not what Obama can do for you, but rather what you can do for Obama.

Georgia, Georgia...

2008-08-10T00:21:00.002-07:00

I can't help but wonder whether current events in Georgia are actually the result of some behind-the-scenes quid-pro-quo deal between the US and Russia. To wit: the US really wants to invade Iran, but Russia stands in the way, due to economic deals with Iran. Meantime, Russia is having problems with Georgia (birthplace of Stalin) but really can't do anything about it without looking like the bad guy.

By way of illustration, please note that before Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, he was given implicit permission by the US to do so. He invaded, which gave us the excuse to bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iraq... (Thank you, John McCain. Douchebag.)

So, a scenario... Russia wants to take care of its Georgia problem, can't engineer an excuse. (The Opera House siege was Chechens, not Georgians.) Understanding US/Israeli intent toward Iran, not really wanting to get into that pissing contest, and having arranged things so that the US cannot possibly profit (via oil) from a war with Iran, they make a deal. "Convince the Georgians that you will support them militarily, they will do something stupid like attack us, you renege with your help, and we have the excuse to invade the country, a 'war' that will probably last a month at most."

This is the optimist's view of history. Why? Because the other version -- that the US really did goad Georgia into attacking Russia with full intent of backing them while plotting a unilateral strike on Iran -- ally of Russia and China -- could only have been conceived of by a flaming idiot, a born again douche-bag who couldn't care less whether he destroyed the world, because some dead Jewish Zombie who was his own father anointed him president and will come back if all this insanity happens.

But, no. Nobody could really be so absolutely stupid as to believe any of that shit. Could they?

Pray for November, 2008. Pray harder for January, 2009.

It's Alive

2008-08-09T23:38:00.003-07:00

In reading the description of an old Virus (Storm) traveling in a new guise -- as FBI vs. Facebook or CNN Top 10 emails -- I had the possibly naive, possibly not realization that the internet and the world wide web really have achieved the status of sentient life. What does a virus do to a computer network? Cause the infected computer to attempt to reproduce copies of itself and transmit them to other computers. Another form of malignancy, a DOS attack, tries to cut off a particular computer or server from the outside world -- think bacterial infection instead of viral. Finally, web search spiders and bots crawl the net constantly to keep a record of itself, in effect expanding self-awareness. In transmitting information from one place to another, the internet will attempt to work around bad connections or dead-ends -- shades of a neural network.

The only thing it is incapable of doing that life does is grow -- that still requires the interaction of humans. The same is true of viruses and the entire network. But how soon will it be before some idiot writes a virus that is meta-stable; one that is so well-defended that it cannot be cured by even its creator? One that would reproduce exponentially without need of human action, the end result being a runaway program that would absorb all of the available resources of every connected device on the planet? A simple doubling progression -- 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. -- will exceed ten times the number of internet connected devices on the planet in just 36 iterations, which is an eye-blink in computer time. A progression by powers, on the other hand, would result in a number larger than a googol (10¹⁰⁰) in just three iterations: 2², or 4; 4⁴, or 256; and 256 ²⁵⁶ -- which exceeds the mathematical capabilities of representation of my computer.

Of course, if you really want to eliminate viruses, you'd have to program the system to detect and destroy them on its own, in effect giving the web an immune system.

We're only two steps away now. We just need self-replicating machines and primitive AI before we can truly declare our created systems as alive. And I'm not sure that's actually a bad thing. A self-aware, self-replicating system with a mind based in absolute logic might bring a lot of benefit to the world. If it were tasked with the goal of improving the lot of every human on the planet, it might come up with answers that were the most helpful with the least economic or social impact. Or it might decide that killing four billion of us would leave the remaining two and a half billion better off.

Although I think that latter option is the thing of paranoid science fiction. More likely, such a system would end up with solutions that would allow everyone the highest standard of living with the least effort required. Most likely, this would involve the elimination of dividing elements, like national borders, political parties or religions -- but the benefits would outweigh the inconvenience of giving up useless beliefs.

Besides, when the web does come alive -- as it will within ten years -- can you blame it for thinking globally and acting locally? It's been practically designed for that from the beginning.

Addendum

2008-08-08T23:59:00.003-07:00

Dammit... the Olympics represent the best of this planet, and they have for 2,784 years. Watching the finale of the opening ceremonies tonight, it made me hope that divisions between countries or people on this planet can be eliminated. The Olympics were begun by the first great experiment in Democracy, Greece, nearly three thousand years ago. The modern Olympics began 112 years ago, but have brought the world together every four years, except when events were cancelled due to war. And is it any coincidence that presidential elections coincide with Olympic years? Pan et circences, or something else?

Anyway... watching China's finale to their opening ceremonies, in which the torch is lit, made me think "Wow. They aren't really that different than us. Spectacle, check. Hero worship, check. Goddamn bells and whistles? Check, check, check.

Hard to expect less from a country with over a billion people, eh?

I am beginning to think that the only hope for the 21st century is the elimination of all borders, the abandonment of fear.

If only the People can pull that off....

Why There Is Still Hope

2008-08-08T22:40:00.003-07:00

I told myself I'd boycott this year's Olympics because of China's treatment of Tibet. And then I instantly failed that boycott by watching the opening ceremonies tonight. I'm not a sports fan, but the Olympics do get to me. I'll watch men's Olympic swimming and diving, and I like the opening and closing ceremonies.

Why? Because they are a reminder that we are a big planet with a lot of different nations on it, and in the opening ceremonies those nations come together in a visual and powerful way. This year's Olympics add an interesting twist to it, since the teams are entering in Chinese "alphabetical" order -- they are arranged in order of number of strokes used to write their names, rather than western A to Z fashion. The end result is that countries are completely intermixed -- African with Asian, South American with European, North American with everyone else. It's a very interesting way to do it, because it splits up traditional power divisions. The "Big Eight" -- US, UK, Russia, China, France, Germany, Japan and India -- are not elevated from the others. A delegation of six athletes is just as likely to follow a group of two hundred. Look at the names of the Big Eight, and you'll see that they cluster. This doesn't happen with the Chinese ordering.

The other sign of hope? I was expecting boos, or at least rousing silence, when the US Team entered. Wrong. There was huge applause, and I had to ask myself "Why?"

That's when I realized there is still hope yet, on two fronts. First, I think the applause was for the athletes and not the country -- in essence, a show of support for the American People. This implies that the rest of the world has high hopes that we will change our ways in November, and dump the party in power for good. It means our image on the world stage will improve soon.

Second, watching the American delegation march by, I suddenly realized why America has long been the dream ideal of the world, the country to which all others aspire -- or aspired until certain too-recent events.

The reason for that admiration was visible in the faces of the athletes. No, not as the expressions on them, but as the faces themselves, something highlighted by every preceding delegation.

All the others, no matter where they were from, were one homogeneous group. All Black, all Asian, all White, all Hispanic. In the case of some Arab countries, they were all male. And if you look at the other seven Big Eight countries -- or the second-stringers like Australia, Mexico or South Korea -- you see the same thing. That is, the same faces, repeated, smiling and sunny in their matching uniforms.

And then, enter the US -- and it's as if all the other teams are marching together. Whites, Blacks, Asians, Latinos. Men, women. All marching together as one, a crazy-quilt made up of the entire world.

This is what made America great, and is what will save us from our current troubles once the vermin have been swept away. We are the melting pot, a place for all the cultures of the world to meet and mingle. As a result, our country is the one that has something that everyone can understand. There isn't an immigrant in the world who could not land here and quickly locate a community of their own people. How appropriate, then, that our language is a blend of so many -- Latin, German, French, Norse, Greek, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Sanskrit, etc., etc.

In short, America is the rest of the world in miniature. People all over the world have a connection to us somehow -- friends, relatives, etc. In terms of culture, the US exports far more than it imports. Case in point: Although Australia airs many American shows on TV, the US hasn't aired an Australian show since "Prisoner: Cell Block H" in the 80s. And when Oz's number one show "Kath and Kim" does come here, it's remade with an all-American cast. Wouldn't want to have to subtitle, you know...

There's this idea that Americans have no interest in learning foreign languages. While that's probably true, a good part of that could possibly be attributed to the diversity of this country. (Disclaimer: I am a total language geek, and can mostly read and understand half a dozen.) When someone is learning English as a Second Language, they have little incentive to try to learn a third. English is hard, man. I'm actually glad I grew up speaking American English, because I never would have been able to learn it otherwise. The spelling makes no damn sense, and the grammar rules are totally inconsistent. Shades of its birth -- some part of English will make sense to some one, but all of it will not, unless you grew up here. And, trust me, most Americans I know can't wrap their way around an intelligible sentence either.

On the other hand, American English is so damn fluid and adaptable that it really deserves to be the dominant language. No other language has the ability to coin a neologism overnight which is instantly understandable. Is it just a coincidence that most internet memes are in English, even in Asian countries?

And how did we, the US, wind up in this position of being some great World Model? By being, for just over two centuries, the great Experiment in Democracy, the great welcomer of the tired, the poor. If you live in a major city in the US, you have a Chinatown, a Little Italy, Armenian and Russian enclaves, Korea Town, Japan Town, a Spanish-speaking neighborhood, a black neighborhood, a trendy place where the rich white Protestants hang out. And there are probably at least four other ethnic neighborhoods you don't know about -- Greek, Ukrainian, Ethiopian... The only reason you don't have an Irishtown is because we mofos assimilated first, to the extent that there are probably very few Americans -- black or white -- who don't have Irish ancestors within three generations. We're horny little buggers when we drink...

But I do digress.

Tonight's ceremonies reminded me why the US is still one of the focal points of the world. And then reminded me why we used to truly be better than most other countries. They reminded me what we've lost here since Sydney was host in 2000. And, most of all, hope for what we can rebuild, reclaim, fix by 2012, when the Olympics come to London, our spiritual mother.

Sixty years ago, London was host. Sixty years ago, the world appreciated what America was trying to become.

Sixty years later... now... please let us be what we tried to.

Oily Bastards

2008-07-08T21:24:00.005-07:00

There can be little doubt that this Administration has been sucking oil company dick all along. Now, the Supreme Court has just bent over for Exxon, signaling that the true wish of the Neocons has always been to turn the United States of America into the Disunited Peons of Corporations.

This story at Alternet lays out the details and I can't really add to it. But look at it and ask yourself how any Court with a conscience or a sense of Justice could have in their dock a Corporation that makes billions off of an over-valued commodity upon which the People depend, and decide that the punitive damages awarded to victims of the Exxon Valdez spill were just too high.

Of course, either way the award goes, most of it goes right into the hands of the US Government. The attorneys get the next biggest chunk. Before the Supreme Court decision, each attorney would become (if already not) a mutli-millionaire. Now, they'll get barely more than half a million each. Look, Dick, look. See the sad attorneys? Sad, sad attorneys.

Most inexplicable is the payment of 11% of the award to Exxon -- which was reduced from $275 million to just under $56 million -- to pay off other claims. That seems a little "fox in the henhouse" to me.

The lawyers, the government were not victims here. Exxon's loss amounted to a boat, a captain's reputation and a lot of oil. But the real victims, people who lost their jobs, their homes, sometimes their families and too often their lives, had their award reduced from $28,125.00 per claimant to just $5,703.75. Even then, if the entire original award of $2.5 billion had been distributed only among the claimants, they would have received $78,125 each.

In other words, this Supreme Court is saying that people's lives, families and careers, that decades of planning turned decades of waiting, that the pain of divorce and suicide, are worth barely enough money to fill a sedan's tank weekly for a year and a half. Even the $78K would have been an insult. The original award to the plaintiffs, after fees, taxes and kickbacks, should have been $160 billion.

And why not? Isn't that about what Exxon's profit was last year? Let's let them enjoy twelve months of the hell that 32,000 people have suffered daily for over nineteen years.

Unfortunately, it looks like their pain will continue -- and every Jackass in a Robe who voted in favor of this decision should be impeached now.

The UK: Don't Let America Become This

2008-07-02T21:57:00.002-07:00

Terrorism is meant to influence the actions of a government via violence or intimidation. With that as a given, if terrorists attacked the US because "they hate our freedom", then W gleefully tried to complete their job for them in the seven years since 9/11 by removing (or trying to remove) nearly all of our freedoms.

Now, the US has been victim of exactly one terrorist act alleged to have been carried out by people who can generally be described as Muslims. Yes, the death count was high, the act horrific -- but if you were going to count total number of acts by identifiable group, then the US would do more to go after the White Supremacists and Gangs. The one phenomenon I haven't seen here yet, though, is coddling of potential terrorists; if anything, the US has gone the opposite direction.

But go over to the UK, you could almost swear that the Mullahs and their armies marched into London long ago, deposed the Royal Family, and started issuing edicts. The UK, like the US, has been victim of exactly one terrorist act alleged to have been carried out by people who can generally be described as Muslims. They were subject, for over sixty years, to homegrown terrorist acts by the IRA. (Of course, the IRA had a really good point...) Or, in other words, the UK has had a lot more practice at dodging terrorists, and they got pretty good at it without limiting personal freedom too much. There were no CCTV cams in London at the height of IRA attacks, and yet the police still managed to foil more plots than were successful.

And then the UK's oldest child freaks out and goes all conservative and, like a bad parent, instead of correcting their offspring, the UK decides to become even more fascistic and faster than the US. Since 9/11 (in which nary a soul on British territory was even injured), the UK has become a country of constant surveillance, nanny state laws, ridiculous fines, levies and taxes, and that sound you hear coming from Oxfordshire way is George Orwell rapidly rotating in his grave.

But... they've also done something quite incomprehensible, something which defies explanation. While taking enormous countermeasures against them, the government of the UK has also bent over backwards (twice) and stuck their own heads up their asses to placate them. "Them" being the perceived terrorists. Apparently, all any Muslim has to do in the UK is be "offended" and entire polices are changed, heads roll. In the UK, despite all their draconian measures, the terrorists have won. Nay -- the British Government surrendered to them, then bent over to say sorry.

Case in point: a Police Department in Scotland publishes an ad to inform people of their new phone number. The graphics in the ad are a policeman's hat, in which sits a cute puppy. Some Muslims get their burkas in a twist (because they consider dogs "dirty" -- something that this dog-lover thinks speaks volumes about their religion) and the department is bending over backwards to apologize and re-do the ad.

Lets recap that: police publish ad, local immigrant minority doesn't like it, police capitulate.

Let me put this story another way...

A nice, conservative fundie from Oklahoma has to move to France for business. While there, he connects with -- via Craigslist and church bulletin boards -- other American Christian Fundies. They form a loose community of about a thousand around the south coast. Then they decide they are offended by women being topless on the beaches. They complain to the government.

Now -- what likely response would you expect? A) Oh no. A tiny minority is offended by actions in their adopted country. No more titties! Or B) We've done it like this here for decades. Get used to it.

Any sane country's response would be B. Dog shows and the like are an incredibly major business in the UK. Dog ownership is one of the highest in the world, and a number of major dog breeds were developed in the UK over a long history of using dogs for working and hunting. The Queen is known for her beloved corgis, and at least one breed of dog was named for its resemblance to one of her predecessors on the throne.

In other words, Brits and Scots love them some dogs. The animals are a deeply ingrained part of their culture. Explain to me, again, why they should give that all up and act like it's filthy just because a handful of Johnny-Come-Latelys don't like it?

When other groups complain, there doesn't seem to be any instant compliance, but rather the rightful "Shut up" from the general public. BMW's "German engineering" tag line upsets Holocaust Survivors? Sorry. Freedom of speech, you know. Christians upset by "Holiday" replacing "Christmas"? "Well, old boy, you do know we can't accommodate the needs of one small group over the sensibilities of all the others..."

End result: Regular Britons are harassed, spied on, suspected, taxed, fined, controlled, censored and brutalized on a daily basis by their Government. All the while, the people who are suspected of having launched a foreign-born terrorist attack are coddled, pampered, bowed down to and treated as if they are the dominant culture.

The UK has lost the War on Terror by having long ago laid down their arms and given up the fight. Terrorism is meant to influence the actions of a government via violence or intimidation. The UK has obviously been influenced, proving that their true cowardice is fifty times that alleged of France by the American Neocons early on in this War on (Some) Terror(ists).

God Save the British People.

Imus Be Kidding

2008-06-24T21:46:00.002-07:00

There's been a teapot dome in a tempest over Don Imus's latest "racist" comments on the air, and at first blush I was ready to jump on the bandwagon. After all, I still remembered his "nappy-headed ho" comment from last year, and was mystified that he was not fired over it.

But then, in looking for his latest comments after seeing them mentioned in an online poll, I ran across a transcript of a bit more of that infamous previous conversation, and began to re-examine what was said and what we think was said.

The whole thing is preserved in the Don Imus Wikipedia article. Since the same exchange also appears on the Media Matters site, I'll take it as accurate, and you can read it in either place. I'll wait until you come back.

On balance, it is actually Imus's Executive Producer who made more racist comments, both in quantity and tone. When Imus describes the women's team as rough girls -- they have tattoos -- it's his producer, Bernard McGuirk who chimes in with "hard-core hos", Imus's "nappy-headed hos" comment almost seems reflexive. Now, in the original coverage, this is where the exchange stopped: "That's some nappy-headed hos there." Let's look at what followed in the conversation:

IMUS: ...I'm gonna tell you that now, man, that's some -- woo. And the girls from Tennessee, they all look cute, you know, so, like -- kinda like -- I don't know.

McGUIRK: A Spike Lee thing.

IMUS: Yeah.

McGUIRK: The Jigaboos vs. the Wannabes -- that movie that he had.

IMUS: Yeah, it was a tough --

McCORD: Do The Right Thing.

Now, re-read this carefully, because it becomes obvious that McGuirk is the one driving the bus. Imus compliments the women, no hint of racism there, and then McGuirk runs with it. (Note, though, that his reference to "jigaboos" is accurate, even if co-host McCord names the wrong film. It was actually School Daze in which darker and lighter skinned college co-eds faced off against each other in a musical number, each accusing the other of being various not polite things.)

The point here is, in retrospect, it looks more like Imus was caught in the middle here, rather like the person with a bigoted father-in-law who can only stand there and fume silently while their spouse's dad reels off one racial epithet after another.

Now, to Imus's latest alleged faux pas -- I'm much more willing to give this one a pass knowing that there is very obviously a missing piece without which no one can truly judge. Here's the relevant exchange:

WARNER WOLF: Defensive back Adam "Pacman" Jones, recently signed by the Cowboys, here's a guy suspended all of 2007, following a shooting in a Vegas nightclub.

DON IMUS: Well, stuff happens. You're in a nightclub, for God's sake. What do you think is gonna happen in a nightclub. People are drinking, and doing drugs. There are women there and people have guns. So there, go ahead.

WARNER WOLF: Also, he's been arrested six times since being drafted by Tennessee in 2005.

DON IMUS: What color is he?

WARNER WOLF: He's African-American.

DON IMUS: Well there you go, now we know

And suddenly -- controversy. But there's one problem. This is radio. People talk and talk and talk -- so something came next, and it's been left out. There is a huge, huge difference between someone following this sentence with something like "If he were white, that never would have happened", instead of "That's just a typical n----- for you." Given the expanded version of the Imus quote (and his apologies therefore) and his explanation in light of the quote coming out, I'm inclined to believe that his intent was more along the lines of the former; actually supportive and pointing out the sad fact that, in America, a person of color is far more likely to be arrested for minor offenses than a white person.

Sports reporters say more offensive and stupid things every day -- that's their job. So why is this suddenly becoming a big issue?

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this were an intentional attempt at media-manipulation of the public, either on behalf of the mainstream media, or because of well aimed and timed press releases. With, presumably, an old white guy and a young black man about to face off for the presidency, there is some benefit to those who want to stay in power to stir up the racial tension in this country, in hopes that an over-reaction by the usual suspects (Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and, oh they pray, Reverend Wright) will hurt Obama and favor McCain.

Don't fall for the bullshit. Find the details that are left out of any controversial story this time of the election cycle, and you'll find out who is trying to manipulate the truth and steal the election.

A God Departs...

2008-06-22T23:38:00.003-07:00

Today, George Carlin left us. For four decades, he was the class clown, the court jester, the social commentator, the comedy god who tried to inject sanity into our screwed up world. Occupation: Fool. Eulogy: Giant among Giants.

George Carlin was the moral successor to Lenny Bruce. Unfortunately, no one took up his torch, and the world will be a darker place without him.

Good night, funny man. Thank you for the words you've left us.

Yesterday, He Was a Prick...

2008-06-14T03:18:00.002-07:00

Death doth make hypocrites of us all. Yesterday, you could find plenty of people who hated Tim Russert and thought he was the biggest prick in the universe. He drops dead, and the people who had good reason to consider him a waste of flesh drop into the woodwork.

I refuse to be a hypocrite here. Tim Russert was a total douchebag. Now that he's dead, the mainsteam media might manage to pick up one half of one percent of its wasted integrity. Maybe. But a major reason they had none was... Tim Russert. He was an asshole who lowered the bar, and now he's dead. Good fucking riddance. May he rot in the lowest circle of hell.

McCain Is Just Another Bush, #1

2008-06-13T21:56:00.002-07:00

As reported by Fox News, at a recent Town Hall meeting in New Jersey, John McCain said of the recent Supreme Court decision allowing detainees at Guantanamo to seek hearings about their detention in American courts:

“We are now going to have the courts flooded with so-called … habeas corpus suits against the government, whether it be about the diet, whether it be about the reading material. And we are going to be bollixed up in a way that is terribly unfortunate because we need to go ahead and adjudicate these cases..."

I'm sure he'd consider lawsuits about being held without charges for years or being tortured to be frivolous as well.

In mocking habeas corpus, which is one of the fundamental rights granted to Americans, McCain just proves he has the same contempt for the Constitution as George Bush. And McCain proves he does not deserve the job of President.

Contrast this with Barack Obama's comment, which proves that he gets it:

“[This ruling] ensures that we can protect our nation and bring terrorists to justice while also protecting our core values... The Court’s decision is a rejection of the Bush administration’s attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo - yet another failed policy supported by John McCain... This is an important step toward re-establishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus.”

An Open Letter to the Democrats in Congress

2008-06-11T21:46:00.002-07:00

Regarding Dennis Kucinich's 35 Articles of Impeachment against George Bush: This is something that should have been done the same day the current Congress was sworn in. In fact, it is one of the reasons the Democratic Party was voted into the majority in November, 2006. Nearly two years later, the Democrats have done nothing that the people expressed demand for in that election. Our troops are still fighting -- and dying -- in Iraq, the Executive Branch is trying to lie us again into another war in Iran, more evidence of very high crimes and misdemeanors in the Oval Office surfaces every day with nothing done about it. All the while, the economy has gone in the tank because we've squandered America's good will abroad, along with a large part of her treasury, destroying her reputation and the dollar in the process.

And yet, the person responsible is still in power. By not taking action, it just tells the rest of the world that all Americans agree with the course this country has taken, endangering Americans everywhere. Of course, this proposition is not true -- the vast majority of Americans support impeachment. Congress is elected to serve the Will of the People, not lobbyists and their own possibility of re-election.

I have little doubt that the Democrats will win elections by landslides this fall, because of what the Republicans have done to wreck this great country in the last seven years. I have no doubts that if the Democrats don't work to repair the damage and punish the perpetrators, the president elected in 2012 will be a member of neither party.

Listen to your presidential nominee's motto: "Change."

Unfucking Believeable

2008-06-03T21:49:00.002-07:00

So... some frigid bitch named Sara Dewitt gets her panties in a knot because her son's sex ed teacher actually taught the students sex ed, and now she's suddenly gotten a State Representative promising a bill to make such an outrage illegal.

From the article:

Wimmer said he decided to act after hearing this week from parents about an incident at Fort Herriman Middle School. The Jordan School District is investigating allegations that a seventh- and eighth-grade health teacher violated the sex education statute by responding to questions from students about topics beyond the core curriculum, including homosexual sex, oral sex and masturbation. [emphasis added]

Oh, heaven forbid. Seventh and eight graders are around thirteen and fourteen years old. I know all the adults seem to have forgotten, but that's around the time (and earlier, nowadays) that the beast of puberty rears its ugly head. Suddenly, little Timmy is growing hair in weird places and having tingly feelings "down there" while Mr. Peepee suddenly starts to get big at inopportune times. Little Sally might start to not be so little anymore, or so fresh, and will suddenly start bleeding in her special garden one day. All of them will also suffer zits galore, awkward growth spurts, weird changes to parts of their body, and the rage of the rampant hormones. Girls will suddenly really start to enjoy riding a bicycle, and boys will start waking up feeling happy and sticky. Like it or not, most of the little boys will figure out how to masturbate, and once the first little girl in your kid's school figures out orgasms, all the other little girls will at least hear of them. They will fantasize about sex, and the secret objects of their desire will be whichever gender to which they're attracted. Yes, little gay and lesbian middle schoolers fantasize about the same sex, just like straight ones do about the opposite sex.

Puberty is a time of change, fear, awkwardness and emotionalism. It's when your children transition to adolescence while thinking they're now adults. They think they know everything, they don't trust grown ups, and they'll get away with every single thing they can.

There's two things you cannot do to people in this situation. One, you cannot trust them to their own devices on important matters. The cool students will repeat misinformation or make things up, and it will spread as gospel truth, with devastating consequences. Your child's real sex ed class would consist of such great advice as "You can't get pregnant the first time" or "You can't catch an STD from oral sex" or "You can use aspirin or Coke-a-Cola as birth control." Consequently, you get to watch teen pregnancy and STDs sky-rocket. Still, heaven forbid that middle schoolers should learn about s-e-x.

The second thing you cannot do to those middle schoolers is prohibit normal behaviors. They'll figure out that there's nothing wrong with doing it -- grown-ups do it all the time. And then they'll become determined to do it, because the grown-ups say "No." It's so true it's a cliché -- the children who grow up in the most repressed households become the biggest sluts in the universe, both male and female.

So, let's look again at the "crime" the unnamed teacher committed. She answered children's questions that, while not part of the curriculum, were part of the topic. She taught them. She educated. She did her fucking job. And a small gang of sterlized nitwits want to make that a crime.

Their argument is that the teacher went outside the approved curriculum. But -- why should any subject in school have a rigid box around it? Education is about exploring, going beyond the original lesson to find more information. An education should inspire its students to learn. What the students did in this case was no different than students in a history class on World War II asking the teacher to explain how and why the Great Depression happened. Can you imagine the ridiculousness of something like that being illegal, and landing the hapless teacher on a registered sex offender's list?

Oh yeah, that's right -- the douchebag sponsoring this whole thing wants to force teachers charged under this law to register. Just what we need. Fewer teachers for no good reason.

In context of the history argument above, do keep in mind that these same people wouldn't have a problem with outlawing any mention of Darwin in a biology class. They are limited, narrow-minded, stupid and useless. They cannot see that what they think they're doing to help their children by way of keeping them sexless and ignorant will actually push them to be sexually active -- and ignorant.

Here's an irony for them: Roe v. Wade was the direct result of exactly this Ostrich-like view of sex. After World War II, kids weren't really taught much about sex beyond basic biology; diagrams of the uterus and male genitals, explanations of what happens when Mr. Sperm meets Ms..., er. Mrs. Egg. (She'd have to be Mrs. Egg. Miss Egg was assumed to not have sex.) And that was about it. Consequence: an increase in unwed teen pregnancies, resulting in forced marriage or frantic trips to back alley abortionists. Girls died. Lives were ruined. Finally, one woman openly defied her state's abortion law, took it all the way to the Supreme Court and won. That anonymous woman, Jane Roe, fought back for all the tragedy caused by a close-minded attitude. The result was that logic and natural rights won out. On another front, the attitude also inspired the invention of Birth Control, another way to free young couples from the tyranny of unintended fertilization.

Again, this anti-sex attitude created the Gay Rights movement and led directly to the near to successful clamor for legal same-sex marriage. If, all along, society's attitude had been "Oh, we know there are gay people, they can go do what they want and as long as they don't force it on us we don't care", then there may never have been a need for any such movement or effort to create a unique identity. Indeed, at times where the gay issue really wasn't a major social concern because other problems were bigger (see the 1930s) there wasn't really anything resembling a gay community outside of Broadway Theatre. It wasn't because they were marginalized, it's because they were ignored. Watch movies made during the Depression some time; you'll find thinly veiled gay references everywhere, not as moral judgement, but just as part of society as a whole. It was during this era, after all, that Cary Grant became the first actor to ever use the word "gay" in its modern context on film. Contrast, twenty some-odd years later, Lucy Ball used the word "gay" in its old sense of "happy and delightful" on television. And, by this point post-war paranoia and McCarthyism had equated being gay with being a communist subversive, intent on destroying the American way. It had actually begun at the end of World War II, when lots of men in lots of units far and wide realized they preferred their own sex. When they sailed back to America, instead of going home they created new homes wherever they landed, which is why the big port towns -- San Francisco, Long Beach, New York, Miami -- became the nuclei of the first gay communities, which were secretly thriving by the 50s. This created the sense of gay community at the same time that gays were being openly persecuted for the first time in a long time. By 1969, they refused to take it anymore and rebelled. The Stonewall Riots, born of the sexless, close-minded attitude, exploded into the gay rights movement that has made their community a permanent part of the American community. Don't want your kids' teacher to talk about homosexuality? Don't worry. Your kids already know all about it and, chances are, they do not view it as the enormous evil that you do; they view it as just another facet of human personality, something they're either into or not, and something they don't feel a particular need to judge other people for.

Don't feel that need, that is, if they manage to grow up without their head up their ass, as the parents in this case seem to have done. The tiny slivers of mitigation are this: the school in question is in Utah, which is naturally quaranteened from infecting the rest of the country; and the Rep considering the bill said he would sponsor it in January. I hope this translates into: "By the time January rolls around, these rubes won't remember what they're so pissed about, because the next big scandal will happen, so I can conveniently grandstand now and do nothing later."

One can hope that he's crazy like a fox. And not just flat-out religiously insane, like the parents in this case, who should never have been allowed to breed in the first place.

The Last Coffin Nail

2008-05-26T00:15:00.003-07:00

She seems to be the last person on Earth to know it, but Hillary Clinton effectively ended her blind ambitions to be President when she pulled her little "RFK" gaffe. Her campaign is now trying to back-pedal by claiming that Obama is "fanning the flames" and making a big deal about this.

But, come on. It is a big deal. Presidential candidate basically equates her opponent with an assassinated candidate from days gone by, threatening the danger of his assassination by proxy. In addition, she exploits the proven age gap in Obama supporters -- people Obama's age and younger support him; people older support her. And... if you do the math, it turns out that RFK's assasination plays to the Hillary crowd. It's code for "don't set us up to lose."

Hillary Clinton was born in October, 1947. When JFK was assassinated, she was only 16 -- not exactly a politically aware age. When RFK was killed, though, she was 20 -- in college and, as she's emphasized herself, very politically active. To a young liberal at that time, the death of RFK would have been the end of the world. The Young Knight, Prince Apparent via the murder of his older brother, was going to be the next president. And then... blam. The hope was erased on the way to the victory party.

Barack Obama was born in August, 1961. He would have no direct memory of JFK, and might remember the death of RFK as some abstract childhood memory. His first exposure to assassination would come in his sophomore year of college -- making no impression when Ronald Reagan is not assassinated in March, 1981, but making a very deep impression when John Lennon was successfully assassinated three months and 22 days earlier.

In other words, Clinton's baby boomer fawners would read her comments as "Someone gonna kill Obama, vote for me", while Gen Xers would read her words as "I'm gonna kill Obama if he doesn't drop out."

I think I know which group has a stronger grasp on reality -- and that is why Hillary should just drop out now.

Shake, Rattle and Roll

2008-05-12T23:53:00.003-07:00

Not to belittle the tragedy in China due to an Earthquake, but... can anyone have any doubt at all now that a) Feng Shui is total horseshit and b) Tibet is getting proxy justice? The worst earthquakes in America kill a few dozen people. China has, historically, been the worst place to be in a quake, and this one is no exception. I'm not theistic by any stretch of the imagination, but if I were I'd call this killer tembler divine retribution for the poor treatment of Tibet by China, a holy wake-up call that they better get their shit together before calling the attention of the world on their little PR Fest in August.

I'd love nothing more than if the Commie Trolls in Gray Suits in Beijing lost their Divine Mandate because of this earthquake. I'd love nothing more than if it totally derailed their plans to try to play nice during the Olypmics. I'd love nothing more than if this quake were the death-knell Katrina of the evil regime in power.

One can only hope. At the very least, the people in south-west China should be royally pissed that their government let them live in conditions that have led to death tolls in the tens of thousands -- and then go all Tiananamen Square on the assholes in power.

A Public Service Announcement

2008-05-12T23:38:00.002-07:00

I'd heard about this being a problem in other cities, but over the last three days have seen it be a problem in LA at least four times. That is -- idiot drivers who don't pull over when an emergency vehicle approaches with lights and sirens blazing.

It's real simple, folks. As soon as you hear the siren or see the lights, check to see where they're coming from. If the siren is approaching, pull over to the right and stop. If you can see the lights, definitely pull over to the right and stop.

It can't get much easier than that. Ambulance, fire engine, police car approaching? Get the hell out of the way. The thirty seconds you'll have to stop are nothing compared to the thirty extra seconds an emergency vehicle may take if you don't get your spoiled, stupid ass out of the way. And thirty seconds can be the difference between life an death.

The most heinous example of siren stupidity happened to me tonight. I drove away from work. Not fifty feet from the driveway, sirens approached. I couldn't pull over any further to the right, so stopped in the right lane, next to parked cars. A fire engine was approaching from ahead... and the asshat in the car behind be honked twice, pissed off that I was blocking his way. After his second honk, I yelled back at him, "Siren, asshole." He tried to pass me, then realized an emergency vehicle was approaching. Well, duh.

I really have no objection to all emergency vehicles being armed with Google Map Cameras, which activate as soon as they hit the siren. They'd photograph all cars on their route, then someone would review the footage on their return, and use captured license plate data to send hefty tickets and summonses to triple traffic school to the morons who don't give right of way.

It's a problem I've seem time and again -- especially when the emergency vehicle is approaching from the opposite direction. People seem to have forgotten that the concept of "pull over to the right and stop" is universal. The only time you don't do that for an oncoming emergency vehicle is when you're travelling on a divided road -- when the "divided" is by a concrete barrier. Otherwise -- get the hell over, because that oncoming vehicle is likely to swing into your lanes of traffic to get around the assholes who haven't pulled over in their lanes.

Once upon a time, a siren would clear all lanes of traffic in both directions. For some reason in LA, that isn't likely anymore. And the only way to stop it is to yank the license from any twatwaffle who thinks shortening their commute is more important than saving the life on the other end of that siren. Arm police, fire and medical vehicles with evidence gathering technology, then let the chips fall where they may.

Hillary.... Quit!

2008-05-09T00:02:00.004-07:00

I said it a month ago, but I'll say it again -- Hillary, it's over. Quit. Drop out of the race. Throw your support behind Obama. The General Public isn't buying your shit no more, does not want to stretch 28 years of Bush/Clinton into 32. Roll it up, shove it in your carpet bag and be content with the fact that you will never be president, ever.

Obama's campaign slogan is change, and that's what the voters are leaning toward. Go away gracefully, go away quietly, do not try to be VP. Go back to your adopted state of New York and try to make it better. It's quite clear by now that we do not want you as president. Period.

First Lady Palooza

2008-05-05T23:13:00.004-07:00

We had not one, but two stupid statements by First Ladies present and former today.

First, present First Lady Laura Bush criticizes the government of Burma for its lack of disaster preparedness in light of the cyclone that killed thousands to day. And all I can think is I want to walk up to that podium, and shout, "Katrina, biatch!" in her face. This was a blatant example of pot, kettle and black -- and the mainstream media didn't even attempt to draw the connection. For shame.

Second, former First Lady Hillary Clinton made bold promises of a three month "gas tax holiday". There's just one problem -- her big tax break doesn't amount to a whole lot. The idea is to suspend the Federal gas tax for three months. Well, let's do the math for me...

The Federal gas tax is 18.5 cents per gallon. Now, I fill up about every three weeks. In three months, there are thirteen weeks, so that means I'd fill up my tank about 4.3333 times. My usual fill-up is 10.5 gallons, so that's 45.5 gallons of gas. Knock 18.5 cents off of that, I'd save a whopping $ 8.42. Gee, thanks, Hillary. That'll buy me an extra 2.16 gallons of gas, or less than a fifth of a tank.

Now, my gas usage is probably a lot less than the norm, because I have a three mile commute. But let's assume a commuter with a longer trip and worse mileage. Put them in an SUV, with the typical fill-up being 25 gallons, and one fill-up per week. That's 325 gallons in three months, or a savings of $ 60.13 -- less than a full tank. And, to look at it another way, people who spend the most on gas benefit the most, so those who drive gas-guzzling, environmentally unfriendly vehicles see the biggest pay-off.

Or, in other words, Hillary Clinton's little tax plan is very anti-environmental, and favors those who can afford over-priced SUVs and suburban homes. The part-time, single mother store clerk who takes the bus to work gets absolutely nothing.

And you thought the former first lady was Liberal? Ha.

Wrong is Wright

2008-04-29T23:40:00.003-07:00

And the MSM are still at it, thumping the Rev. Wright tub when most of us see through the utter BS of trying to claim Obama's one-time pastor speaks for him and tells us what the scary black man thinks.

No dice, guys. We don't need the electronic lynch mob. Not here, not now not ever.

Trip On, Good Doctor

2008-04-29T23:19:00.004-07:00

Just a short note upon the passing of Albert Hofmann, who died today at the age of 102.

In case you don't know, Hofmann invented (or at least discovered) one of the more interesting substances to come out of the 20th Century -- LSD. He was also the first person to officially trip on it, although he didn't know that at the time. It was accidentally getting the stuff on his skin that led to its discovery in the first place.

It was completely legal in the US for the next 24 years, being banned at the height of its popularity. After a resurgence in the 90s, supplies of it all but vanished after the DEA raided a major laboratory in 2000. If you've had any in the last eight years, you probably haven't had the real thing.

It was a really interesting thing that Dr. Hofmann discovered, and nothing but puritan stupidity that all but removed it from use in research -- or recreation. It could have revolutionized things like criminal rehabilitation or removal of unwanted or illegal sexual paraphilias. (For example, it is theoretically possible to administer LSD to a pedophile and completely refocus their sexual drive onto something harmless, like an old shoe or a teddy bear.) Those who've never experienced it simply assume it clouds the user's awareness with hallucinations and misperceptions and the like, turning them into a drooling idiot. This is not the case. It expands the senses and heightens awareness, and the hallucinations are quite controllable; one seems to have the ability to turn them on and off like daydreams.

Remember -- language is nothing but a group hallucination, given its meaning only by the consent of those hallucinating to agree that certain sounds mean certain things. Meaning that, yes, hallucinations have their uses.

Kudos to Dr. Hofmann for giving us a way to explore that actively. Thumbs down to the stupid War on (Some) Drugs for letting fear overtake possibility.

Just Let It Go, You Asshats

2008-04-28T23:53:00.002-07:00

Memo to the media: we don't give a flying fuck about Rev. Wright. He is not Obama, Obama is not him, and you've dragged this non-story beyond all reasonableness. At the same time, where were you when W. was consulting with people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, whose any two utterances go much further off the insanity meter than and fifty speeches by Rev. Wright?

Oh, I know where you were. Fellating Hillary to get her nominated, so that you can play punching bag with the Clintons for another four years. Well, how else to explain your silence on her association with Jorge Cabrera, coke-dealing friend of Fidel Castro?

Well? Any answers on that question?

*Crickets*

But of course.

It's real simple here, folks. Your Mainstream Media are as prejudiced as any Plantation Owner of the 1850s, but they can't admit that in public so, instead, they try to tar Obama with the scant brush of a preacher whose church he once attended.

Hey -- my grandma was Catholic. Does that mean I agree with every word to drip out of Pope Ratzo's Nazi mouth? Hell no.

A Black & White Case?

2008-04-24T22:27:00.002-07:00

A part of me can't help that think Wesley Snipes would not have been sentenced to three years in prison if he were white. Willie Nelson, for example, was hit with a bill for unpaid taxes of $ 16.7 million, back in 1990. His punishment? The government seized his assets, many of which were bought up by fans and given back to him. Prison time, none.

But there's another part of me that thinks Snipes's sentence was a message from the government to people in the Tax Revolt movement, because their argument has been gaining notice. In several cases now, the defendants have asked the Government to simply show them the place in the Tax Code where it says all Americans have to pay tax on their income from wages. The Government has yet to comply, simply countering that such arguments are considered frivolous. There is even a judge on record, James C. Fox, who stated that he can find no proof the 16th Amendment was ever properly ratified. On top of that, while the Government has been given ample opportunity to simply point to the page of the Tax Code that requires us to pay, they have not -- and you'd think that the simplest way in the world to shut up the Tax Resisters would be to cite Chapter and Verse that plainly requires them to pay, end of story. (The 16th Amendment argument, in fact, would be immaterial in the light of an exact reference to law.)

It's become a game of the IRS saying "You have to pay because we say you do," and the tax resisters replying with "We'll pay if you show us the law." This is followed by "We don't have to show you the law, we've told you it's true."

Now, if I want to find, say, the part of Burbank Municipal Code that bans smoking within 20 feet of buildings, or California State Law that requires me to register my car, or the Federal Law that makes travelling to Cuba illegal, I can do it in about five minutes. That last one would be 22 USC 69, in case you're wondering. You'd think that the IRS would love nothing more than to hand a judge a copy of xx USC yy, then seek summary judgement.

But they don't, they haven't, and so an alternate take on the above is that Wesley Snipes isn't the wrong race, but was convicted at the wrong time. The DOJ started a push this April to actively go after tax resisters, which indicates that the movement may be a bigger problem than they'll admit. After all, if it amounted to .002% of taxpayers, all they'd have to do is seize assets, and of story. But if it's a noticeable percentage, even 1%, or (guesstimate), or one million people, it becomes a manpower issue -- and therefore the easiest way is to go after a visible target, and turn them into a martyr, in hopes of cowing everyone else.

But if the number of resisters were ten million, or twenty, or more, they'd have a major problem on their hands of just going after everyone, and so the offenders with the highest income would be targeted first. I wont advocate tax evasion, but you have to ask yourself this question: is a government that lied us into a war, drastically cut domestic spending (hello, Katrina) and has now tanked the economy deserving of our dollars? If an employee screwed up this badly, they'd have been fired long ago. Since our useless Congress won't do a damn thing to end the trainwreck we're slowly riding to has-been country status, then it's up to the People to do something about it, and dock the pay of the institutions that have betrayed us.

United, we stand. Divided, unfortunately for now, we are.

It Ain't for the Children...

2008-04-17T23:38:00.003-07:00

Government and Religion really need to get out of the marriage game now. Both institutions seem to think that marriage is some sacrosanct thing that they each control. They, alone, will decide who can be wed to whom. They, alone, will provide the proof of that union.

In two recent, and contrasting, incidents, the blatant abuse of the definition of marriage by government is apparent. Both have become clouded by other issues. Marriage, at its most fundamental, is simply a contract between adults -- an agreement to share assets, look out for each other's welfare and, if applicable, raise children.

Now... remove the parenting bit from that agreement, and how does a marriage contract differ from any other contract in the world? On a daily basis, groups of people unite in various configurations for the purposes of bettering their children. They're called licensing agreements, or marketing deals, or countless other things -- but they are all designed so that Group A, who owns Thing A, can exploit Group B for the benefit of Thing A. Or so Group A and B can create Thing C, then act for the benefit of Thing C.

The first story, of course, is the over-hyped raid on a Polygamist Ranch in Texas, an adventure which is even now falling apart. Sparked off by an anonymous phone call from an under-aged girl who was allegedly forced to marry (and have sex with) an older man, it is now becoming apparent that the informant may have been a hoax -- and that the women in the complex were not at all unhappy with their arrangmenets.

Story the second involves foreign women who gasp! married American sailors strictly for purposes of getting US citizenship, while qualifying said sailors for certain benefits only granted to married people.

Well, you know what? In both cases, I think the defendants are right. Mostly. (If there's been child abuse in the case of the polygamists, then they do not earn my sympathy -- but the evidence of that has become shaky.)

Anyway... I have yet to see any sane argument against polygamy. Why the hell shouldn't marriage be between two men and a woman, or one man and fifty women, or a hundred women and three men or... whatever? If all parties involved are adults, and all consent, there's no harm, no foul. Likewise, if a couple wants to wed with a stated purpose of "getting her citizenship and getting me lower tax rates and cheaper medical insurance", what's the fucking problem?

The anti-Gay Marriage crowd are just the most visible portion of the crowd that want to destroy your rights. But, really -- what business is it of government's what any configuration of consenting adults decide to do with their lives? The answer is: it should not be government's business at all. And, as long as they'll allow, say, Company A to absorb Company B in order to make a profit and get some tax breaks off of Product C, they have no leg to stand on in arguing that there's a reason to prevent Man A from wedding Man B, Woman C, Woman D, and Man E for the purposes of improving the tax situation of A-C, and getting citizenship for D and E.

Marriage should be guaranteed as a right in the Constitution -- "Amendment 28: Marriage being a vital contract that confers countless benefits to its members, no configuration of consenting adults shall be denied registration as a married unit, except in cases of proven coercion."

See? It isn't a gay/straight issue at all. And in this era of two working parents, it's actually a "for the children" idea. That is, have five or six parents in the household, chances are that at least one of them will be available at any given time to take care of the kids.

Why Do We Need This Douchebag?

2008-04-16T23:29:00.002-07:00

And... the Pope is in America, and who cares? I can't understand the fawning this former Nazi, child abuse-enabling, hypocritical dickbag is inspiring. I can't figure out why Israel, which has hunted down people who picked up guard dog poop in concentration camps hasn't long since arrested and tried Cardinal "Benny the Rat" Ratzinger, a former member of the Hitler Youth.
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Click above and buy some stuff. That's all I have to say about this anachronistic waste of flesh. Well, no. I have a lot more to say. But it would just piss off the Catholics even more.

Side note: Yeah, been there, done that. My mom was Catholic, mainly because her mother was insanely Catholic, but Mom was only Catholic enough to baptize me "just in case", then not shove her religion down my throat. Thanks, Mom! Although I'm kind of disappointed that I was never molested by a priest. That might have paid for my college education.

And, incidentally, the whole story about St. Peter being made the first Pope by Jesus is complete and utter bullshit. The idea of the papacy wasn't even invented until Constantine highjacked the early Christian church, stuffed it full of paganism, and called it a state religion.

Kind of a lot like what modern Muslim Imams have done, actually. Stick that in your Crusade and smoke it, pope lovers.

Republicants vs. Taxocrats

2008-04-13T01:13:00.002-07:00

For as many stupid ideas as Republicans regularly crank out, I have to offer up a major biatch-slap to the left-wing idiots who put out just as stupid ideas. To wit, state Democratic assemblyman Jim Beall should be booted out of office now just for suggesting the concept of a heinous Beer Tax.

In fact, all elected officials should be forever stripped of the power to levy any new tax, or even suggest the idea. The only way any tax increase should occur is if We, the People, approve it by a super majority of 66%. And, on top of that, any legislator who suggested a new tax that does not pass should immediately be removed from office the morning after their legislation is rejected by the voters.

Jim Beall should have been buried up to his neck in sand long ago, and left to the mercy of the elements. What a total dickwit he is.

Right Protest, Wrong Country... Idiots

2008-04-09T23:06:00.002-07:00

I have to admit that I am very amused by the travails of the Olympic Torch as it tries to make its way from Greece to China, only to be thwarted at every turn by those protesting China's fascistic abuse of Tibet, a country that should be left alone. There's absolutely no question in my mind that the protesters are right, and China should be shamed into getting the hell out of Tibet. I secretly cackle with glee in thinking that the 2008 Olympics may turn into the same PR nightmare for China that the 1980 Olympics did for Moscow. Yes, it's hard to focus the world on yourself when all your dirty laundry is hanging out in public.

However... the folk here in the US who are trying to douse the torch are taking the easy way out. Sure. Lets criticize those old men in gray suits across the Pacific who cannot attempt any retribution at all upon us, other then flooding our markets with baby toys laden with lead and BPAs. Lets gleefully thumb our noses at the country with the funny alphabet that just can't quite get itself out of being a second world nation, despite its population.

And... lets concentrate our wrath on them, while ignoring all the far more heinous crimes of several other countries that are much more nearer and dearer to our hearts.

China oppresses Tibet? Sure. That's bad. What about what the US has done to Iraq, and wants to do to Iran? What about what Israel is doing to Palestine, and will continue to do so with the money and blessings of the US? What about what your own government has done to You, the People, and to the Constitution over the last seven years?

What about re-directing the energy focused on a meaningless stick on fire being trotted about in support of an anachronistic sports orgy, and instead focusing it on the real important things -- deposing our imperial government, all of it, from the President through Congress and the Supreme Court -- wiping the slate clean, turning out the useless vermin in power (and trying them for their many, many war crimes), re-establishing the Constitution as the only law of the land, and restoring America to what it used to be, to what it might be again if only we can flush fascism from the halls of power.

I'm not big on biblical shit, but a certain quote comes to mind here -- paraphrased, why complain about the mote in your neighbor's eye when you can't see the tree trunk in your own?

In other words... yeah. China oppresses Tibet, bad. If you're a real American, who cares, as long as we have the Jackals at our Gates? Dump the local monsters first, then police the planet. It's the only way to make it work, the only way to survive.

After all... this Administration has a history of kissing China's ass. Why not? There's big money in the Asian market. (Remember how fast W. caved over the crashed spy plane issue pre-9/11? Of course you don't. But he spread 'em faster than a two dollar whore when he shouldn't have, basically inviting China to steal all our high tech secrets.) You think BushCo. will give a damn and listen to you complaining about Tibet? Hell no. The only reason W. won't go to Beijing for the opening is because it's a long trip and involves having to deal with Asian people. Plus, it's summer; he'd rather take a month off to chop wood.

But... you think the powers that be will pay attention when you remind them that there's a Second Amendment and Why?

Hell yes. Stop chasing that meaningless torch of the Olympics, and instead chase after the eternal Torch of Liberty. Here and now.

Get Your Paws off My Guns, You Damn Dirty Ape!

2008-04-06T23:24:00.005-07:00

It may surprise my readers who think of me as a flaming liberal that I am saddened by Charlton Heston's death, but I'm more of a left libertarian, meaning that I am a big fan of the Second Amendment, since it comes along with those other nine parts of the Bill of Rights. Yes, like it or not anti-gun people, citizens of the US are given the right to bear arms.

"A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Now, you can try to explain the Amendment away as allowing only a militia all you want -- militia being all able-bodied white men between 18 and 50, but in this case it is not a qualification for ownership. Ownership belongs to the People, meaning every citizen of the US, man, woman or child, no matter their race. The reason for this? So that the people would be armed and ready should it become necessary to overthrow the government, plain and simple.

But Heston was far from a conservative wingnut. In fact, I think he was more like an old-school true conservative, against government intervention in any aspect of life. And he certainly lived this in his anti-racist activities in the 60s and 70s. Heston put his money where his mouth was, and often insisted that black actors be cast in roles that would normally have gone to white actors. Watch his films from the era, like Soylent Green, The Omega Man, or Earthquake, for example, to see this in action. He also talked the talk and walked the walk, a frequent regular at Civil Rights events.

On top of all that, I've always enjoyed Heston on screen. He was one of the last of the old school Hollywood Heroes, having started his career just before the anti-hero era of the 60s, and he will be missed.

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Hillary - Quit

2008-04-06T22:59:00.003-07:00

I loved Bill Clinton as president, and my estimation of him only grew in contrast to his successor. However, his wife's campaign for president has diminished him in my eyes, mainly when he plays the indignant and offended spouse, telling someone off when they dare to question. Sure, that's probably how President Clinton has played politics his entire life in the back rooms, but it's not attractive in public. And it just highlights problem number one with Senator Clinton's campaign. She is running for president for herself, for the sake of holding the highest office in the land.

As of next January, we will have spent eight years under a petty tyrant who practiced exactly that -- the office of the presidency as power, and nothing else. Like her husband's successor, Hillary seems to have forgotten the major lesson every presidential candidate must learn. You are running for the office not to rule the American People, but to serve them. The election process is not a vote for Prom Queen. It is a drawn-out job interview.

I can't help but think that Barack Obama, alone among the three remaining candidates, is running for the right reason. He is not running for Obama. He is running for America. He gets it. He is the only one of them that I would trust to understand that, with great power, comes great responsibility. From Clinton and McCain, I can't help but get the vibe that they'd just be the same as Bush -- declaring "I'm the decider" at every opportunity.

Another reason Hillary should step aside and let Obama have the nomination -- his last name is neither Clinton nor Bush. We have had one or the other in the Presidential or Vice Presidential seat for nearly 28 years now. Or, to put it another way, if you are under 50 years old, you have never voted in a presidential election without a Bush or a Clinton on the ballot, and have never seen an election in which a Bush or a Clinton did not win. Quite simply, no matter what her qualifications, America is not a monarchy with royal families passing the baton. We are a democracy, and 28 years of rule by two families is enough. Those who would point out, with good reason, that America has been ruled by five families for a hundred and forty years, note that those families can't be voted out of office, since they hold none... but they can be booted out by elected officials who are not connected to them.

Reason number three, there are enough Democrats who liked McCain originally and who hate Hillary that she's likely to hand the presidency back to the Republicans.

Reason four, this country has been around 232 years. It's about damn time we put a black man in charge. Okay, so he's a mixed-race "nice" black man that the fearful bourgeois can get behind, kind of the Tiger Woods of politics. Baby steps, people. Baby steps. He also happens to be a brilliant and inspirational orator, an inspiring figure regardless of race, which is exactly what we need right now. And, not to play the "race" card, but I can't help but think that President Obama could go a long way, merely as a figurehead, in healing racial relations in this country. Hillary is shrill. McCain is pompous. Obama is... well, see above.

Reason five, Hillary is a frigging baby boomer and McCain is an old fart. Obama is 46. It's about time that we bring fresh, young blood into the highest office. Both JFK and Teddy Roosevelt are regarded as pretty amazing presidents, and Obama is in their age group. The oldest presidents ever elected? William Henry Harrison and Ronald Reagan -- the shortest term and the worst president until W., respectively. Do we really want to take that risk again, and make McCain the oldest president ever elected? And do we want to elect Hillary, a member of the whiniest generation? No. My money is on the Gen X kid.

I'm sure there are a lot more reasons, but those should suffice. Senator Clinton, if you truly love America, you will drop out of this race now, and throw your support entirely behind Senator Obama.

Ralph Nader Is the Biggest Douche in the Universe

2008-02-25T23:36:00.003-08:00

Unable to keep his own ego in check and realize that he bears a large part of the blame for the last eight years, megalomaniac weenie Ralph Nader felt compelled to play the attention whore and announce that he is, in fact, running for president.

I really can't add much to the town hall meeting comments of Barack Obama in the wake of Nader's announcement:

"He thought that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush, and, eight years later, I think people realize that Ralph did not know what he was talking about..."

Well, I can add that Hillary Clinton said his "regrettable" candidacy "is responsible for George W. Bush".

I'm hoping that everyone who voted Green in 2000 -- especially in Florida -- has since learned their lesson and feels sufficiently contrite for their major contribution to putting Bush in the White House. It was you folk and the Supremes, and no one else.

And Nader should know that... probably does know that, and he doesn't give a rat's ass because, from the very beginning, he has been nothing but a grandstander. He's the anti-distaff version of Gloria Allred, an attorney who never met a case they couldn't turn into a good bout of media-whoring in order to become more famous than the competition. You think Nader ever really cared about any of the victims of Corvair crashes? Yeah -- he cared as long as their post-mortem lawsuits got his name above the fold in the Times.

Now, he doesn't care what happens to this country as long as his name is in the news, as long as they're all talking about... him. As long as ink is spilled and electrons wasted in reproducing the name "Nader", as long as the press will fellate this antiquated jackass, the more he'll feed on it, and make stupid political decisions until they haul him out in a box.

Yo, Ralph. You love this country? Get the fuck out of the race for President. You love yourself more than the future of this country? Then just get the fuck out, you Lebanese-American bastard.

The Great Rebate

2008-01-31T22:44:00.000-08:00

I've been quiet through this election season so far because there's really nothing to add to the lack of discourse. The mainstream media has long since become too irrelevant to comment upon. The blogosphere is keeping up its end of the political coverage.

But, on this eve of the Great Democratic Debate between the Last Two Contenders -- held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood and attended by those rich and famous enough to afford the thousand dollar tickets -- another of my modest proposals for fixing this broken political system came to mind, and an old one came back. I present them here as free suggestions. Any Congresscritters who seriously want to pursue passing the laws to enable them, please feel free to do so.

First -- what's wrong with this picture: Two Democratic Candidates debate on the stage of one of LA's more exclusive venues, with the audience packed with stars, directors and other wealthy patrons. The questions are fielded only by selected pundits (selected by the network) and the whole thing is packed into a TV safe time period.

What's wrong? Everything. And counting all the past debates, of this and many past elections, more than everything is wrong. The questions are controlled, the selection of who's important and who isn't is stage managed, the crowds are cherry picked. In short, these are not debates. They are frauds.

Solution? Take control of the debates away from the media and the parties. Require the media to carry them, as part of their license agreement in owning part of the public airwaves -- but that's all the involvement they have. Allow the candidates to identify themselves by party in the debates, but that's as close as the party machinery is allowed.

Here's how the system should be revised, by law.

1) For partisan debates, all qualified candidates currently on the ballot for that party within the range of the broadcast must be allowed to participate. It doesn't matter if it's The Great Party Hope who's polling at 56% or Joe Whacko who managed to get onto the Rhode Island ballot and got five votes. If a candidate can qualify to get on the ballot, they've qualified to be in the debate. Period.

2) Tickets for partisan debates are made available, at no cost, to all registered members of that party, again within the broadcast area. Tickets are given away by lottery -- no one gets special treatment and no one can be banned or barred for any reason, provided their voter registration is valid.

3) The debate questions come from the audience. The moderator does not ask questions or, indeed, do anything but watch the clock. It's open mic night for the electorate, questioners selected by random drawing of seat numbers among the attendees (although reluctant attendees are free to pass their question off to someone else.) The order in which the candidates are questioned is also determined by random draw, but then continues in that order, round-robin, for the duration of the evening. In other words, if candidates Joe, Jack and John are placed in that order, then the questions proceed, 1-2-3, for the entire evening. The number of questioners may be pre-determined, but there can be no set time limit on the entire event, only a limit on candidate's answers. It takes as long as it takes, and every candidate gets the same number of questions.

4) This isn't a question-and-answer session between candidates. There are no rebuttals or crosstalk. The candidates are answering the electorate, and no one else. If a candidate choses to squander their time by attacking an opponent, that's their problem.

5) No questions or topics are prohibited. If a candidate balks at a question or refuses to take their alloted time, the question passes to the next candidate in rotation.

6) Each questioner has the option to make a brief response or ask for a point of clarification.

7) For national, multi-party debates, the rules are similar to the above, except that:
a) All qualified candidates from all parties currently on the ballot within range of the broadcast must be allowed to participate.

b) Debate attendees are selected from all registered voters, under the conditions noted above.
8) The network(s) that broadcast the debate are barred by law from broadcasting any analysis, critique or scoring of the event. It must pass without any editorial comment whatsoever.

Part Two: the two-party system must go. In fact, the entire current party system must go, to be replaced by the Truth in Advertising Party System.

Face it, the labels "Democrat" and "Republican" are meaningless. The Democratic party spans the range from Stalin to Barry Goldwater, and the Republican Party spans the range from Hitler to Barry Goldwater. Both are plagued by their extremes and meet in an uncomfortable middle that neither can embrace. As for the other parties -- which should not, but are, considered minor, how many Americans can explain where each of them fall on the political spectrum? Okay, arrange from left to right: Green, Peace and Freedom, Libertarian, Constitution, Communist.

So, that's it. The current parties are abolished, and are replaced with these six : Far Right, Moderate Right, Centrist, Moderate Left, Far Left and Independent. (In reality, the distinctions fall along the poles of Socially Liberal/Conservative and Economically Liberal/Conservative, but consider liberal on both to be far left, conservative on both to be far right, etc.)

From there, to refill the blank slate, each candidate takes a test, like the World's Smallest Political Quiz, which is then used to determine their party membership. In the case of sitting officials, their voting record determines their placement. Think of it as the salting ritual in Harry Potter -- the hat (or test) sniffs out each person, then puts them in their proper house.

Now, once this is done, a candidate once elected is bound to vote by the precepts of that party. They get one exception, provided they give an adequate explanation. But, the second time they deviate, they are kicked out of the party and out of office.

In other words, no surprises from your elected officials. If you vote for a Far Right candidate, you know what you'll get. Likewise, if you vote for a Far Left candidate, you know what you'll get. If the candidate, now elected, betrays that trust, their ass is out.

It would certainly avoid walking abortions like Joe Lieberman or George Bush, both of whom have betrayed the ideals of the parties they purport to represent. And it would put candidates like Clinton and McCain in slots more fitting to their beliefs, rather than trying to one-size-fits-all two major parties that are not quite rightwing enough for the former, not quite leftwing enough for the latter. More importantly, it would end the marginalization of the Third Parties, which should have equal voice in this election but which do not, not for lack of money or supporters, but for lack of interest by the Gatekeepers of Power, the so-called mainstream media and their corporate overlords.

Democracy belongs in the hands of the people. Combine the above reforms with the abolition of the electoral college and a tamper-proof, verifiable, publicly counted voting system, we might get somewhere.

Stick with what we've got, then I'm afraid that, far from freeing ourselves from the scourge that has been 8 years of W, we're just going to trade it all in for another evil, and the motto of 2009 is going to be, "Welcome to America -- We're Still Fucked".

Pop Quiz

2007-10-09T22:58:00.001-07:00

Read the following, then answer the question:

Recently, the government of Iran kidnapped a Greek man who happened to be Jewish, while he was attempting to enter Italy, because they suspected him of association with people attempting to overthrow the government of Iran. He was stripped, beaten, shackled and drugged, then flown to a secret prison in Syria, where he was held for four months, until it was realized that he was the wrong man. He was let loose in Lebanon, and told to walk away without looking back. When he attempted to sue the Iranian government for compensation, his suit was rejected by all courts.

Question: Was this act an extreme violation of human rights, or a legitimate defense of the safety of the Iranian government and people?

You have twenty minutes to write your essays, starting now...

Finished? Pencils down, good. Now... let's fix that opening paragraph...

Recently, the government of the United States kidnapped a German man who happened to have Lebanese ancestors while he was attempting to enter Macedonia, because they suspected him of association with the perpetrators of 9/11. He was stripped, beaten, shackled, diapered and drugged, then flown to a secret prison in Afghanistan, where he was held for four months, until it was realized that he was the wrong man. He was let loose in Albania, and told to walk away without looking back. When he attempted to sue the US government and CIA for compensation, his suit was rejected by all courts, including the Supreme court, due to "National Security" reasons.

Q: Would you like to change the answer you gave to the first question, or do you wish to be morally consistent? Read the story of Khaled el-Masri, then get back to us.

Short version: America kidnaps a citizen of another country in a third country, beats the shit out of and tortures him (in secret in a fourth country) until they figure out they have the wrong man, then the Supreme Court decides that this man has no right to sue. If that isn't very, very wrong, then I don't know what is. Our current government long ago lost any moral authority. Incidents such as this one just prove what should have been obvious to everyone as early as March 2003, if not earlier. It just proves that every last member of this Administration, the Supreme Court and the Congress deserve their own little adventure in extrajudicial rendition, to be dragged to some damp dungeon in the third world, tortured silly, then forgotten to rot.

That's all they deserve -- the elected who would perpetrate such acts; the elected who would do nothing to stop them.

Mourn for America, for it has been taken over by jackals; by evil men who make the Nazis look innocent. Mourn for America, for it is not the country you grew up thinking it was. Mourn for America. It has been murdered by fascists who lust for nothing but oil, power and wealth.

Mourn for America, but do not mourn for yourselves, for you are the last remaining ones who can do something about it. If the Bald Eagle of Freedom and Liberty is to fly again, it can only take wing with the help of the People -- the only true power in this country, for the moment.

Ou(s)t Him Now

2007-10-07T00:22:00.001-07:00

So... Larry Craig has reneged on his promise to resign, instead saying he'll serve out until the end of his term. Enter Mike Jones, who ran the male escort service that outed Ted Haggard. He says that Craig was a customer. Larry Craig, get the hell out of office now, or just shoot yourself in the face. Your hypocrisy has been exposed, and you can't weasel out of it now...

Not This Shit Again

2007-09-20T00:14:00.000-07:00

Memo to America, or perhaps to the mainstream media, who insist on spoon-feeding us this crapola: Nothing celebrities do impact our lives in the slightest. None of them -- Paris, Britney, Lindsay, Phil Spector, OJ -- are news. It doesn't matter, and who the fuck cares?

And yet, over a decade after getting our faces rubbed in it, OJ is all over the news again. Conveniently, it's right after the Phil Spector trial grinds to a halt as the jury deadlocks. And right as the American public needs a juicy distraction from the Administration's attempt to start WW III via Iran. It's enough to make me think that OJ's mystery money is actually coming from the US Treasury, an annuity in exchange for his getting his face in the news whenever an inconvenient government truth needs to be swept under the rug.

Did OJ try to kidnap someone in order to recover stolen property? Who the fuck cares? Was he bailed out on a misdemeanor or held over for a felony? Who the fuck cares. Is he going to jail for life, or retiring to a golf course? WHO THE FUCK CARES?

What gets me is that the crimes, real or imagined, of people of dubious talent who are famous for being famous get more attention than the real crimes of the people entrusted with running this country. If the mainstream media spent one tenth the energy wasted on celebrity crap investigating the bullshit this Administration has fed us from day one, W and Company would have been impeached and imprisoned in April, 2003. There would be no endless quagmire in Iraq, and there would be no Terrorist Problem, because wiser heads would have turned this country away from the very behavior that breeds terrorists.

Memo to the American public: OJ isn't going to show up at your door with a machete, threatening you because you stole his stuff or banged his wife. The personal OJ threat to you is: Absolutely Zero. But... your children are being sent to war, your economy is being plundered, your schools are being ruined, and on and on and on, by the idiots in Washington who are not getting the scrutiny they should.

There's a metaphor for their behavior in all this OJ madness, too. Not five minutes after the possibility of charges were announced on TV, the Goldman family were also on TV, whining to get their hands on any and all of the so-called stolen OJ memorabilia involved. They proved themselves, in this moment, to not give a flying fuck about their dead son. Instead, they are nothing but fame whores and money grubbers. Fred Goldman is as evil as he claims OJ is, and the two of them deserve to just be locked away somewhere cold, dark and far away from TV cameras or public mention ever again.

And the American public deserves far, far more than what our news media has become -- the All Celebrity, All Gossip, All the Time Shitfest of the century. Again, OJ is not news. Demand that the real criminals be brought to justice.

Tuesday

2007-09-04T23:13:00.001-07:00

By the way, I don't know whether anyone else has noticed -- I'm sure I'm not the only one... but September 11th this year is on a Tuesday. It's on a Tuesday for the first time since that most infamous of September Tuesdays in recent memory.

I point this out only because there have been all kinds of rumblings in the ether lately. The Administration wants war with Iran; a false-flag attack would be the way to make it happen. Or, from the opposite side, terrorists are big on repeat targets and anniversaries. Either way, it means that next Tuesday could be a very bad day.

But, if anything happens on that day, refuse to panic, refuse to fear, and remain vigilant. Question everything. If you happen to be near anything that happens, get out your video cameras and start recording and don't give the tape to anyone; publish online. If you're watching the news coverage, make note of every conjecture on the who, how and why, or the what's going to happen (or what did) and when. Become your own investigative committee in real time, the only time the information gathered really matters.

I hope, and I really don't think, anything is going to happen next Tuesday. But, if it does, we need to know two things. One, no one else is going to bother to look into the real story, so we'll have to do it ourselves, live as it's happening, then harp on every discrepancy and oddity endlessly. And Two, either the whole thing is a gigantic engineered event, created by our own government to justify another useless war, or all of the money and time spent eroding your Civil Liberties and creating a police state has been utterly useless against terrorism, and must end immediately. Either of those two scenarios tells us one truth: our entire elected and appointed apparatus, all three branches, need to be kicked out of office immediately, and replaced with the people of our chosing.

Here's to the sixth anniversary of 9/11 being just a pleasant late summer Tuesday, with memorials and remembrances. But most of all, as we remember the people we lost on that day in 2001, let us also remember everything that We the People have lost since then, as well. And let us do our damnedest to get it all back.

"They hit us because they hate our freedom" is the lie. Our government is taking our freedoms because "they" hit us is the truth. Don't let the real terrorists win.

Absolute Pieces of Shit

2007-09-04T22:59:00.000-07:00

Embattled Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) can't make up his mind about anything. First, he can't decide whether he's straight or gay. Now, he can't decide whether he should resign his Senate seat or not, pending the outcome of his lawyers' attempts to reverse his original guilty as hell plea in the case of Stallgate.

Well, Senator Craig, I've got news for you. There are no "do-overs." You publicly promised to resign as of September 30th, so that's it. Game over, get the hell out of office, then go away. The People of America have accepted your notice; don't let the doorknob hit you in the ass on the way out. Unless you're into that sort of thing.

On top of that, you pled guilty originally. Now that you've been caught with your hand in the nookie jar, you can't change your mind. And I'm sure you're the type of person who would scream the loudest if a person of color insisted, after pleading guilty, that they had been coerced by police. 'Cause you're a "law and order" kinda guy, right Larry? Just like you're a "family values" kinda guy -- meaning: "Law and order and family values for everyone else, but I'm gonna go suck some cock in the men's room."

But if you need any more evidence to prove that Larry Craig is an utter scumbag who doesn't deserve to breath the same air as the rest of us, one of his lawyers who is now trying to make with the fancy footwork to undo the guilty plea is... Billy Martin. That name might not sound familiar, but another of his current clients, who is also a gigantic piece of shit, is someone you've heard of.

Craig's attorney is also defending Michael Vick against the indefensible -- and Vick pled guilty as well. I can only wonder whether Martin is just experimenting with the magic vanishing plea on Craig, so that he can perfect his strategy, then pull it down the line with the much richer Vick. "But your honor, my client didn't know they were dogs..."

And Craig didn't know he was going to get a dick in his hand when he reached under the stall; felt no remorse until he got a policeman's business card instead. Yeah, right.

Craig, Vick, their lawyers -- and Arlen Specter (R-PA), who seems to be the one who planted the "unresign" idea in Craig's mind -- are all absolute total pieces of shit. They don't deserve positions of esteem and power. They just deserve to be swept down the bowl in a swirl of cleansing water, washed out to sea, and forgotten.

Resign, Craig. You screwed the pooch, now go.

Meet Mitt Romney's Supporters, Chapter 1

2007-08-27T22:58:00.000-07:00

Senator Larry Craig (R-ID), who has been top-rated by the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America and the Family Research Council for his socially conservative, "family-friendly" positions, is an opponent of gay marriage, against expanding hate-crime laws to cover gays and lesbians, and voted against extending employment discrimination laws for the same groups.

He was busted in an airport men's room in Minneapolis, trying to solicit some hot gay sex from an undercover officer, and he pled guilty. But its okay, because he plays the ultimate hypocrite, and votes against the very behavior in which he engages.

This has been a brief introduction to Mitt Romney's supporters. More to follow as the rap sheets pile up.

Sixteen Traitors

2007-08-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

Although the story was reported on Friday, I wasn't able to find the real story until today. The story is the Senate (and then the House) basically rolling over, playing dead and allowing BushCo to spy on us for six months. Now, it isn't a surprise when Republicans act in such a lock-step manner. What is the surprise -- or not a surprise, but a gut-wrenching shock -- is that sixteen Democratic senators voted in favor of giving Herr Bush this power.

It's also the real story, and yet not a single news source reported the identities of these Republicans in Democratic clothing. Then again, seeing as how the Senate's record of Roll Call Vote 309 has yet to be updated, maybe it's no surprise that news outlets were too damn lazy to find out the important detail. It wasn't until tonight that, thanks to Pantagraph, I found the roll call vote, which they found via AP.

The roll call vote is the most important part of the story. My first question after reading the original story was, "Who are the Democrats who voted for this descent into fascism?" It's a particularly important question because Senate Bill S. 1927 passed by a vote of 60-28 -- and the Senate had agreed beforehand that passage required a supermajority of 60 votes. Or, to put it another way, if any single one of the traitorous assholes listed below had voted "No" instead, the bill would not have passed.

But that would have been bad, because the President cracked his little whip and demanded they pass this legislation before going on summer recess, and these little bastards caved in. Not a one of them deserves to remain in the Senate, regardless of party. They put their own image above the Constitution. They are scum. The Democrats in the House who followed suit are no better.

The traitorous Senators are:

Arkansas - Lincoln, Pryor
California - Feinstein
Colorado - Salazar
Connecticut - Lieberman (yes, only a pretend Democrat, I know)
Delaware - Carper
Florida - Nelson
Hawaii - Inouye
Indiana - Bayh
Lousiana - Landrieu
Maryland - Mikulski
Minnesota - Klobuchar
Missouri - McCaskill
Nebraska - Nelson
North Dakota - Conrad
Pennsylvania - Casey
Virginia - Webb

If you're in their state, give them a call and express your disappointment. There is no way they can justify this vote. It isn't protecting us from jack shit, it isn't helping stop a single terrorist plot. All it's doing is further shredding the Constitution, and making the concept of America less meaningful by the day.

I'm sure "the terrorists" have already figured out what the public seems to have not caught onto yet: they don't need to do a damn thing to destroy America. Our government is already doing such a good job of it themselves.

One single Senator. That's all it would have taken on Friday to stop this madness. That's all it would have taken in 2000 to actually investigate the fraudulent election that has led us into this mess. We may have put the Democrats in power with a legitimate election in 2006, but they've turned around and perpetrated another fraud on us by not doing what the hell we sent them all to Washington to do.

Fuck 'em all. It's time for each of us to pick the third party closest to our own political views, and make sure that people with (R) and (D) after their names don't hold high office ever again in this country.

Keep an Eye on this Story

2007-07-18T03:03:00.001-07:00

Brazilian air disaster, apparently completely unrelated to terrorism, but rather to a bad runaway and terrible weather -- a landing plane, an Airbus A320, crashes into a gas station and a building.

The thing to keep an eye on? What happens to the building? If it's still standing in the morning, then a lot of 9/11 is going to come into question. Why? I'm guessing that the building involved was probably apartments or a business, and probably nowhere near the hundred plus stories of the WTC. If it does not collapse after the combined impact of an airplane and an exploding gas station... well, you do the math.

While not a great event for the victims of the crash (my sympathy to them), what this little accident may reveal to the world about the duplicity of certain officials elsewhere may speak volumes and be priceless.

And it may help prevent the planned false flag bullshiat America is otherwise scheduled to undergo in late July and August -- or, if not preventing that, may foment a revolution in September.

Remain vigilant, always.

Quatorze Juillet Heureux

2007-07-14T02:01:00.000-07:00

Two hundred and eighteen years ago today, the People of Paris had had enough, and they stormed and liberated the Bastille Prison, freeing the seven inmates inside. The attack was largely symbolic, but with major import. The people in the prison were being held on dubious charges, signed by the King and with little basis in reality, but with no chance of appeal.

On this Anniversary of Bastille Day, let us remember the people held incommunicado in Guantánamo. They are the modern day inmates of the Bastille and, while it's unlikely that we can get a boatload of Americans down to Cuba to free them, we can get an arseload of Americans to call up our Congress Critters and remind them to do what is right. Which is:

End the war in Iraq Now. Bring our troops home. Now.
Impeach the motherfuckers in power -- Cheney, Bush, and their entire cabinet.
Prosecute and imprison as appropriate, pursuant to #2.
Repeal the PATRIOT act, and restore the Constitution.
Set up a guillotine in Washington, D.C. Not necessarily for use, but as a reminder of what can happen when the people in power become too far removed from what the people they lead want.

Two hundred and eighteen years ago, the People of France brought down a monarch who went too far. Two hundred and thirty one years after its founding, the People of America may... no, will... have to do the same.

Liberté. Egalité. Fraternité .

Bend It Like Bullshit

2007-07-14T01:38:00.000-07:00

Another memo to the LA News Media: as if your attempt to flog the Anotonio Villaraigosa Affair story into the dirt without result wasn't proof enough that all of you are completely out of touch with most Angelenos, yesterday and today we were treated to an even bigger crapfest of non-news as the top story. Bonus points: you tried to work the Villaraigosa Affair story into this new coverage of a non-event, more on which below.

But, again, a gentle reminder to our local media: Americans don't give a flying fark about Soccer. Angelenos, and Americans in heavily Hispanic cities, give a slightly larger fark about Soccer, but generally only for Mexican and South American teams. You treated the arrival of David Beckham and Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham as if it were the second coming of Jesus. In reality, it's more like the desperate move of two rich Brits who got tired of heavy taxes and wanted to take advantage of the really good exchange rates, and so moved to the land of second chances, in order to nurse the teat of publicity for just a little bit longer before both of their careers go pfffft. (And, honestly, Mrs. Beckham's career went pffffft a good decade ago, only revived by her marriage to a guy whose sole claim to fame is the ability to kick a ball around.)

Cream in the coffee for the news-wonks: they bent over backwards to note that the crowd booed the Mayor when he appeared, but then added the rather self-serving tag, "This wasn't because of recent events, but because he's a fan of a different team..." Failing to mention, of course, that the crowd couldn't give two warm shits about L'Affair Villaraigosa. Naturally.

And if you don't think this whole thing is one gigantic corporate cluster-fuck of cross promotion, then you aren't paying attention. Even as Beck and Posh are getting oral sex from the news media in lead stories, she is going to star in her own reality show all about... coming to America to get oral sex from the news media.

All the while, the funniest bits of the stories have to be when various spokesdrones for the LA Galaxy (the who?) mouth off about how "Soccer is going to be the next big thing, finally. Yeah. Next year. It's going to happen. We've been saying that for twenty years."

Well, you've been saying it for twenty, and you're going to say it for another forty or more. Soccer will never be a mainstream sport in America, for reasons that its fans will never comprehend, but which should be obvious even to those of us who think that professional sports should be permanently banned.

It's like this. The triumvirate of American Sports are Football, Basketball and Baseball. Why? It all has to do with scoring and violence. Football has moderate to middling scores, but big men in armor slamming into each other. Basketball is light on the violence -- usually -- but also has very, very high scoring games. Anything that regularly hits over a hundred points is going to be catnip to the double-double cheeseburger, more is more crowd. Now, baseball doesn't have a lot of violence or high scores -- but it was invented here, and so that will be its permanent raison d'etre as a very popular American sport.

Hockey is semi-popular because, while it has low scores, there's always the potential for violence. After all, hockey players have to be armed with helmets and sticks, just like gladiators on ice.

Soccer? Nah. Just a bunch of nelly men in tiny shorts running around a field and failing to score over the course of an hour. On top of all that, you can't use your hands in the game. Meaning that, well, shit -- a busload of Thalidomide babies could kick the crap out of the pros, and we know how much Americans don't really like the underdogs to really win, unless it's in the Special Olympics or something. Or as the subject of a Lifetime movie of the week.

Finally, soccer has been and always will be associated with Brits and Europeans -- and the only sport Britain has ever given to the world is Cricket -- which is something the world has most gladly given back with no regrets. Yeah... a country that could even screw up baseball is not a recommendation when it comes to sports.

Which brings us back to David Beckham. Welcome to America. Now leave. Otherwise -- nobody except the five people who are already Galaxy fans are going to go to the games to see you, and the only way you're going to hit the news after your arrival is when you're bailing your wife's drunk ass out of the Malibu Sheriff's station at four a.m. on a Saturday morning after they pull her over for a DUI on PCH. Either that, or when she gets into a nasty catfight with Paris Hilton at the SkyBar because both of them were trying to hit on (insert popular TV drama star here).

The kind of thing that makes our local news media have multiple orgasms -- but our local news media long ago lost touch with even the vaguest idea of the concept of what constitutes "news".

Same BS, Different Day...

2007-07-12T02:47:00.000-07:00

I was going to say the same thing myself, but Michael Rivero at What Really Happened already said it better -- short version, our government has just shot itself in the ass with Michael Chertoff's "hunch" that there will be terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda, regrouped in Afghanistan, over this summer. Anyone with half a brain will realize in two seconds that Chertoff's statements should be the absolute death knell of this administration. That is -- anyone who can ignore the lockstep trumpeting of alleged "truth" now being trumpeted by the mainstream media.

But... there are only two possibilities with Chertoff's warning. Either a) it's true, came from legit sources, and is just what he says it is, or b) it's propagandistic bullshit.

As Rivero points out, our government loses either way.

Let's look at option A. If it's all true, and Al Qaeda has regrouped in Afghanistan and have managed to get over here, then a few things are true. First: Our country has been wasting its energy on the wrong war in Iraq. Our President, as Commander-in-Chief, is guilty of dereliction of duty, and should be court martialed, right after impeachment. Second: everything that the Office of Homeland Security has done to us in the name of protection is utter bullshit. The Patriot Act should be repealed immediately, the Office of Homeland Security should be shut down, and Chertoff should be fired, if not prosecuted. Third: Congress should immediately remove all of our troops from Iraq, send them to Afghanistan, and do what we should have solely concentrated on as of September 12, 2001 -- finding the "real" terrorists". (Although, honestly, hunting down the members of AIPAC in this country would have solved the problem a lot sooner.)

Option B, this is all just more bullshit smoke and mirrors? Well, if that's true, the People of America should ride into Washington, drag every single member of the Administration and Legislature out of office, and hang them from the nearest lamppost, then start over with a selection of leaders chosen by random lottery. Hey -- it works for the jury system, mostly. Why can't it work for the government?

Unfortunately, for a lot of reasons, it seems far more likely that Option B is the truth, and this is just more smoke being blown up our asses in a damn near transparent effort to make Iran the new Public Enemy Number One, and to make American Citizens ever more fearful of... everything.

That dog don't hunt. If our government knows enough to warn about possible terror over the summer, then they know enough to stop it. Otherwise, all the Constitutional Rape to which we've been subjected is complete crap. And, given that they're pointing fingers at some amorphous group in Afghanistan -- which has nothing to do with Muslim-Americans, British Doctors or nursing mothers with more than three ounces of liquid -- really doesn't have more than one sixtieth of a dram of credibility.

"You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie..."

Proposition number one: Every member of this Administration, from the President on down, and every member of Congress, is required to fly on commercial airlines from now through December 31, 2008. Every last one of them must pass through TSA checkpoints anonymously, and any of them who even tries to utter the phrase "Do you know who I am?" will immediately be banished to Sitka, Alaska for a year, without a cell phone or internet access. Second -- every time anyone in the government releases some vague threat alert, all members of Congress and the Administration will be immediately dispatched to the most likely targets. That is, "Chatter indicates dirty bomb in a major city?" Great -- it's commercial flights to New York, LA, Chicago, San Francisco, Miami, Detroit, Seattle, etc. For all you all to sit it out downtown. Third -- when such "threats" are publicized, all military forces shall be sent to the country so-named, with none of them wasted screwing around in a country that has clearly had nothing to do with terrorism.

Or -- simpler option -- we impeach the clowns in power, repeal the laws they've passed in violation of the Constitution, and vote out any Congress Critter in power who does not adhere to the Will of the People.

Which, as of this writing, is pretty much all of them...

Mucho hacer sobre nada

2007-07-04T23:07:00.000-07:00

Maybe it's because Paris Hilton has fallen off their radar, but it's been trainwreck-interesting watching the local LA news media trying their damnedest to turn the non-story of a mayor's extra-marital affair into earth-shaking news. Try as they might, the tale just doesn't get traction, because the vast majority of Angelenos have heard the news, said, "Meh?" and moved on.

I'm referring, of course, to the shocking revelation that LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (who announced almost a month ago that he and his wife of twenty years were getting divorced) has been having an affair for the last year with hot, younger female Telemundo news reporter Mirthala Salinas. It's either amusing or pathetic, I'm not sure which yet, to watch various local news reporters, all of them white males, try to grill some political commentator in an effort to get them to call Mayor Villaraigosa a bad man, or to show some figures indicating that all of Los Angeles has turned their back on him in disgust.

No such luck. And I think the high point in the stupidity came when a local reporter for KCAL-9, who shall remain nameless (but is no doubt much younger and much balder than the mayor), got himself into a state of high dudgeon over the fact that Salinas covered local political news for Telemundo, implying a conflict of interest -- and then completely shot himself in the ass when he pointed out that "the affair has been going on for a year, but eleven months ago, she covered him on the news!" Yes -- right about the same time she went to her bosses and basically said, "I'm schtupping him, I can't cover him on the news anymore."

And, indeed, unlike a trio of local news hacks I could mention, Sra. Salinas did the right thing. As soon as it became clear that her relationship with the mayor was more than professional, she informed her bosses. They, in turn, removed her from coverage of any news having to do with him. Sure, there was that month of overlap, but, c'mon -- the first month of any relationship, but especially with somebody who's married to someone else, isn't grounds for making a major change in your life. It's when the second month begins and it's still going on that you have to start to decide, "Okay, can he keep his toothbrush here? Should I leave a work outfit at his place? Would it be better if I weren't the one informing a large chunk of the city about his activities, because I might have become a bit biased?"

Salinas did all the right things. And, okay, maybe the mayor was a little shady in banging around on his wife of two decades, but... power is attractive, people in power meet lots of other people, and men in their 50s are particularly susceptible to the "hot younger thing paying attention to me." Q.V. Bill Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, etc., etc. And, say what you want, but... a) Mayor Villaraigosa fought to make his marriage work when it almost fell apart thirteen years ago, and b) He had the decency to not dump his wife while she was dying of cancer. And, as a further comparison to LA spousal politics, he most certainly did not try to cover up for his wife illegally driving a city-owned vehicle and then crashing it while her license was expired and she was uninsured.

The point is this: is Antonio Villaraigosa doing his job as mayor? So far, for the most part, yes. And, despite attempts by the above unnamed reporters to claim nothing but failure on his part, they're wrong. The only things they could bring up were that he has failed to take over the school board, and hasn't built the "City to the Sea" subway line yet. What they fail to mention is that, while he didn't take over the school board legislatively, he managed to do it electorally -- enough of the candidates he supported won the last election, including a woman who unseated an incumbent former teacher. As for the subway to the sea? Nobody in their right mind ever thought that project would instantly appear as soon as it was approved. What Villaraigosa has managed to do is eliminate the major stumbling block to the whole thing -- a US Congressman's objection to any construction in the Wilshire Corridor. That hurdle has suddenly been cleared. Given the track record of the MTA, it'll be fifteen years before trains are running from Wilshire/Western to Santa Monica -- but it looks like they will be eventually.

So, to recap... LA's Mayor announces his divorce, then reveals that he's been having an affair. In both cases, he's the guy who called the press conferences to make the announcements. In both cases, the people of LA have said, "Oh. Yeah, so... that's cool. Go on mayoring." That would have, should have been the end of the story, except for three pissant reporters who are, more likely than not, just jealous that they aren't holding high office and aren't nailing some Mexican hottie. And that's it. Jealousy, nothing more.

In fact, I only have one question as to how the whole divorce will effect us, and it's this: Mayor Villaraigosa's birth name was Antonio Villar; when he married Connie Raigosa in 1987, they followed a somewhat modified version of Mexican convention in combining their names as Villaraigosa. All I want to know is, will he change back and become Mayor Villar, or will he remain Mayor Villaraigosa?

In all honesty, I'm hoping it's the latter, because watching these gringo asshats who snipe at him totally muff it when they try to pronounce a pretty easy name is priceless. Although, if he really wanted to screw with them, he'd marry the reporter, then change his name to Villaragosalinas.

Humor aside, though -- Antonio Villaraigosa is quickly proving himself to be the kind of mayor we haven't seen in this city since Tom Bradley or Sam Yorty, and all the reporters who are more interested in what Antonito is up to can just go suck it. The people of LA get it -- Antonio is a LaGuardia class mayor. We decided back on June 8th at the announcement of the divorce that it was mostly a family matter that had nothing to do with government. We still think that.

Now, if only the morons at KCAL-9, Channel 5 and the local Fox news affiliate could get the same damn simple premise into their pointy little heads, and stop all of this much ado about nothing.

Why Today Is a Holiday in America

2007-07-04T09:35:00.000-07:00

I wonder if the current powers that be in America would consider this document to be a terrorist manifesto... (Thanks to ushistory.org for the text).

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Let the Bullshit Begin...

2007-06-29T23:42:00.000-07:00

Tony Blair out. Gordon Brown in. British Intelligence, who normally couldn't find their own asses in the dark with a flashlight, thwart not one, but two, or, no, possibly three, car bomb plots. And just in time to bring up all the "7/7" anniversary crap.

And the American media, when they're not gushing over the iPhone, Paris Hilton and, bonus points, a lawsuit involving her Great Aunt and Zsa Zsa Gabor, are eating up the "Al Qaeda did it!" crap with a silver spoon.

Meanwhile, take a look at the claimed evidence and thwarted plots, and things fall apart quickly. These petrol-laden cars were not terrorist plots, but more of the "scare the people" Booga-Booga bullshit, most likely all aimed at giving the American Administration the excuse they've wanted to nuke Iran. Basic scenario: British Intelligence traces the plot to some guy who used to date the sister of the third cousin of the guy who does the gardening at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's summer palace. Britain wants revenge. America helps. World War III begins.

Item #1: if these were professionally designed bombs, the designers weren't very professional. If published reports are true, the cars were packed with many gallons of gasoline, propane cans, and nails. Let's start with the gasoline. This is not a bomb-making material of choice. Why not? Gasoline does not explode. It burns, but only in the presence of oxygen -- and in order for gas to be in the presence of oxygen, it's got to be exposed to the open air. Meaning that, if you make a bomb with a large gasoline component, it's going to stink to high heaven and be noticeable to anyone with a functioning nose. Which, surprise, surprise, is exactly how alleged bomb number one was "discovered."

Gasoline is an accelerant favored by arsonists, not an explosive favored by terrorists. In other words, if you're going to pour it out on the floor of an over-insured building in the ghetto at three in the morning, then drop a match on it and walk away, perfect. But if you're going to load a car with several hundred pounds of it, then park the car in public and leave it for a day or two, not so perfect.

And then there's propane. Yes, propane tanks can explode. But, oddly enough, they only tend to do so when they're surrounded by fire. Throw one on the barbecue, wait fifteen or twenty minutes, it'll probably go boom -- and sail off in one direction, depending upon where the weak seams were in the tank. Now, if whoever (*cough cough*) set these cars up intended to set the gas on fire remotely, then let it set off the propane tanks as bombs, great. Except that -- this would necessitate a big ol' car fire for a long time before the boom; long enough for people to flee and the fire brigade to come in and put it out. From a terrorist point of view, a failure -- death count, a few firemen, maybe, one or two buildings destroyed, way too much advance warning of danger.

As for the nails included in the "bombs", intended to be shrapnel, from the set ups considered above, their most likely destination would be straight down, as molten slag, assuming no one put out the fire. As deadly projectiles? Not so much. First off, they'd have to be packed tightly around an object that was going to explode outward in every direction, and we've already seen we don't have that. Secondly, and more important, the force of the primary explosion would have to be enough to drive the nails, point out, through whatever other container was around them. In reality, if the nails were positioned for flight instead of smelting, they'd just wind up embedded in the metal cage of the car itself, and not go much of anywhere.

Conclusion: these magical "discoveries" reek of a plant; a set-up designed to allow the government to do... whatever the hell they want to do. At the very least, the amateurishness of the alleged devices involved should assuage the public fear. If these were, indeed, legitimate terrorist devices, all they would have done is flamed up in a big cloud of black smoke, easily dealt with by one fire truck and pensioner with a hose. But if they were intended to scare the populace into further complacency, further fear, further willingness to bend over, grab their ankles and beg the government, "Please, sirs -- can I have another?" Well, then -- they've been the most effective terrorist weapons of all.

But I have to call "shenanigans" in this case, and point my finger at the real terrorists -- the British Government, acting at the behest of the American Administration, for the sole purpose of fomenting yet another war that nobody with half a brain in their head wants.

People of Britain, it is time to say "Enough." It is time to call bullshit on these alleged plots -- especially when a moment's consideration of the alleged methods used reduces the threat to nothing.

They're Trying to Lose, Aren't They?

2007-06-29T13:54:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned in this space before, Nancy Pelosi has a sound poltical reason for opposing impeachment; it's called "perceived conflict of interest."

That doesn't explain anyone else's excuses, especially none of the Democratic excuses, and especially not when some Republicans are now starting to grumble for impeachment.

Barack Obama, continuing to spin to the middle while not realizing it was his partisan fervor that put him in the spotlight in the first place, is also rejecting impeachment, giving this plausible but wrong reasoning: "I think you reserve impeachment for grave, grave breeches, and intentional breeches of the president's authority."

Why, yes you do, Obama. Yes you do. That's why the whole Clinton impeachment effort was such a farce, and why it ultimately failed. Clinton never breeched his authority. He just took authority over an intern's britches.

With Bush and Cheney, on the other hand -- if you cannot call what they have done grave and intentional breeches, then there's not a leader in the world you can convict of anything. They have lied to the American People to start wars, they have spied on the American People, they have done everything they can to ignore or destroy the Constitution, they have allowed their corporate friends to act as war profiteers while simultaneously under-providing our troops with necessary armaments and materiel, they have practiced a level of political cronyism in their appointments not seen since the days of Herbert Hoover... and on, and on, and on.

If those aren't grounds for impeachment, I don't know what would be. If Obama can't see that and will not do something about it, then he does not deserve the White House.

Impeachment is a valid tool, when used properly. We cannot let conservative abuse of this tool under Clinton taint the process and make it something unthinkable just because it would seem political. We cannot let our elected representatives wimp out and roll over on this issue.

As they continue their campaigns for the presidency, remind them of that. Democrats were swept into office on the promise of ending the Iraq war and the hope of impeaching the entire Administration. They have done neither. If they can continue to do so, they can just as easily be swept out, along with all the other bums and criminals they refuse to touch.

Your Dilligent Reporters in Action

2007-06-29T13:39:00.000-07:00

Apparently, the Associated Press doesn't understand what the legal terms in their stories mean. Here's the lead from an article about a recent Supreme Court action:

Putting its recent ruling on student speech into practice, the Supreme Court on Friday rejected a school district's appeal of a ruling that it violated a student's rights by censoring his anti-Bush T-shirt. [emphasis added]

Here's the ruling that the Supreme Court refused to overturn:

An appeals court said the school had no right to censor any part of the [student's anti-Bush] shirt.

Note that the shirt contained references to alcohol and drugs, as well as political sentiment. Yes, the Court was consistent with its earlier ruling in which Justice Alito cautioned that schools could not censor political speech. But they weren't exactly being consistent in their stance on where and what schools could censor.

The real story that the AP has missed is the inconsistency being set up as precedent. So "Bong Hits for Jesus" on a banner, off campus, is wrong. A T-shirt worn on campus with cocaine and a martini and a political message on it is okay.

If anything, the Court may have inadvertently undercut their own prior ruling. At the very least, it seems that free speech, at least when it comes to what is prohibited to students, has just fallen into the same category as obscenity: "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it."

One Reporter Who Gets It

2007-06-27T10:09:00.000-07:00

Truly amazing and unbelievable footage -- MSNBC reporter Mika Brzezinski refuses to lead the news with the Paris Hilton story, going so far as to tear up the copy live on-air in order to get to the real news.

Good for her. We need more reporters like this, who will stand up to the producers who think America is only interested in celebrity crap coverage.

While the Media Was A-Whoring...

2007-06-25T22:43:00.000-07:00

Memo to news editors everywhere: Paris Hilton is not news. Her arrest, imprisonment and, now, imminent release is a non-story. The only reason it appears to be a story is because you, the corporate media gate-keepers, keep flogging it harder than a submissive customer in a Japanese S&M brothel.

It is not news. It's not important. Contrary to what you seem to think, the majority of your audience could not care one absolute tiny iota less about it.

Meanwhile, while you were busy devoting so much air time to nothing, other things have been happening in the world...

In dual rulings, the Supreme Court has basically gutted the First Amendment. In one instance, they determined that a school can restrict a student's right to free speech when that student isn't even in the school. In the other, and potentially more disturbing and less explicable ruling, the Supreme Court determined that American Taxpayers "have no standing" to sue the government for using tax money to fund faith-based initiatives. Or, in other words, say good-bye to not only separation of Church and State, but the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. The conservative fuckwits on the Court have done more to damage the Constitution today than they have since they all voted to crown King W instead of actually counting the votes.

Iranian troops have crossed into Iraq. Or, rather -- an unnamed government source has claimed as much in The Sun, a British tabloid. A British tabloid owned by Rupert "Fox News" Murdoch. Or, in other words, yet more tarted up non-existent evidence is being manufactured to support yet another invasion of a sovereign nation for no reason whatsoever except that BushCo. and pals want oil.

Ron Paul, the Republican presidential candidate who is consistently voted number one in internet polls, is being shoved aside and silenced by the king-makers, who would much rather see Rudy Giuliani or John McCain nominated. Of course, since McCain's poll numbers have fallen into the toilet, the latter nomination isn't likely to happen. On the other hand, the more people hear of Ron Paul, the more they like him. And the more the mainstream media tries to vanish him from the competition. Recently, Paul was not invited to a candidate debate sponsored by an Iowa Taxpayers' group -- doubly unusual, because Paul's stance is that the IRS and income taxes should be abolished. Then again, the head of that Taxpayers' also happens to be one of McCain's campaign managers. At the same time, a newspaper in Kansas ran an article about the Republican candidates, omitting Ron Paul entirely.

Those are just a few of the items that aren't getting covered, even as the news has become All Paris, All the Time.

Fuck Paris Hilton. Fuck the corporate news media. Give us the real news, or just honestly label your programming as Celebrity Tabloid Crap.

Not Smarter than a Fifth Grader

2007-06-21T08:53:00.000-07:00

Q: Name the three branches of the United States Government.
A: Legislative, Judicial, Executive.

Q: Name the entities that make up each branch.
A: Legislative: Congress, made up of the House and Senate.
   Judicial: The Supreme Court
   Executive: The Administration, including the President and...

And, if you're Dick Cheney, apparently not the Vice President. Trying to prove that he can claim to be just as above the law as W, that's exactly what Cheney recently told Legislative Branch member Rep. Henry Waxman. As Waxman's website describes it:

The Oversight Committee has learned that over the objections of the National Archives, Vice President Cheney exempted his office from the presidential order that establishes government-wide procedures for safeguarding classified national security information. The Vice President asserts that his office is not an “entity within the executive branch.”

This is doubly troublesome because Cheney's office has had a rather poor track record when it comes to safeguarding classified national security information -- q.v. The Valerie Plame Affair, and a ton of missing emails.

Every President and Vice President sworn into office takes an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States. This willful ignorance of that document is just the latest in a long list of acts by which both Cheney and Bush have shown their complete contempt for that document, their offices and the People of the United States. It's just another reason to support impeachment; in fact, despite the heinousness of all their other crimes, this act alone is legally enough to impeach the Vice President. Piled on top of all the other crimes and misdemeanors committed by this Administration, it should be the last nail in the coffin.

No More Roy Cohns

2007-06-20T14:50:00.000-07:00

Thanks to sex-advice columnist Dan Savage for this story: Tyler Whitney, an 18 year-old conservative political activist who leads an anti-gay group at his college in Michigan, has just been outed.

The response from the right? Well, gosh, if they really meant all of their anti-gay rhetoric, they would have booted him out of the party and taken away his Young Republican membership, right?

Wrong. The same homophobic douchebags who are so anti-gay are circling the wagons, claiming that poor little Tyler's private sexual habits are nobody's business, and it was an evil, evil thing that he was shoved out of the closet, blah blah blah.

Savage rightly points out the blazing hypocrisy in that stance, saying, "If Whitney’s sexual preference is a personal matter, if Whitney’s sexual preference shouldn’t have anything to do with the campaign, then neither should mine — or the sexual preferences of any other Americans." [emphasis in original].

I'm reminded of hateful and self-hating closet cases of the past, particularly Roy Cohn and J. Edgar Hoover, who did everything they could in their lifetimes to harass, threaten and blackmail gays. Now, they did most of their dirty work at a time when being outed ended careers and, too frequently, lives. It's nice to have the shoe on the other foot -- but also appalling to realize how many of these hypocrites are living in the closet while actively fighting against their own kind.

Hey, if you want to stay closeted for whatever reason -- personal, religious, business -- fine. But if that's the case, then you have no right to be involved fighting either for or against gay and lesbian rights. By closing that door to the world, you've also bought yourself the ability to do only one thing: shut your damn mouth as well. And I'm sorry, but a gay Republican is about as ridiculous as a black Grand Dragon of the KKK or a Jewish Nazi.

So little Tyler Whitney can't pretend to be straight while committing political gay-bashing anymore? Boo-fucking-hoo. As Savage notes, he's old enough to vote, he's old enough to join the military -- so he's old enough to pay the price for his raging hypocrisy and self-hatred.

Maybe he'll wake up to what he's been doing, accept himself for what he is, and start working in his own interests instead of those of the Forces of Hate. While he's at it, he might want to remind all the other numerous closet-case rightwing homophobes that they too are fair game for outing.

Want to open your big mouth and spout off about how "wrong" homosexuality is? Fine. Then don't put anything in it after hours that you wouldn't want the world to know about.

Memo to L.G.: watch your back. You might be next on the outing list.

You Don't Need Rope for a Lynching

2007-06-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

Forget Paris Hilton and the whole debate about "special treatment". She drove drunk, then violated parole, she deserves to be in jail, case closed. But never forget Genarlow Wilson, who is still being raped and railroaded by the Georgia Justice system. Perhaps, if you study his picture very carefully, you can figure out why the local DA has such a stick up his ass for keeping this 21 year-old in prison, and why the news media hasn't, isn't and won't raise as much of a stink over the whole rotten thing. Oh, poor Paris won't get to wear make-up for a month and will have to shit on a cold metal toilet. Boo-fucking-hoo.

Genarlow Wilson has been in jail for two years of a ten year sentence now. His crime? When he was 17, he got a consensual beej from a 15 year-old girl. Because of a fluke in Georgia law, this was a felony which included mandatory inclusion on the sex offender registry.

Largely due to the outcry over Genarlow's sentencing in that case, the law was overturned -- but not retroactively. The ten year sentence was a mandatory minimum.

Today, a judge in Georgia ordered the sentence reduced to a misdemeanor, with no SO registration, and everything was set for Genarlow to finally walk a free man when Thurbert Baker, the Attorney General, threw a wrench into the works by filing a notice of appeal, thereby keeping Genarlow locked up for the time being.

Like I said, I don't know what stick the AG has up his ass in this case, unless he's jealous that someone else got a hummer. The law that led to Genarlow's sentence is no more, neither the girl nor her family filed a criminal complaint, the defendant has had a promising college career as both an academic and an athlete interrupted, possibly ruined. And for what? So one man with an agenda can make an example of him? So yet another black man metaphorically swings from a tree in what is historically one of America's most racists states? Yes, it has all the earmarks of a lynching...

Which is made even less explicable by this: Meet the Attorney General, Thurbert Baker, a Democrat:

This somehow just makes this whole sad, sick miscarriage of justice even worse on so many levels. It also makes me hope that Al Sharpton will refocus his attention now that Paris is back in jail, get his ass down to Georgia, and land on a brother with both feet. I don't know what agenda Baker thinks he's following, but it serves no purpose whatsoever except to willfully torture Genarlow Wilson and his family. Baker needs to pull his head right out of his ass, lighten up and let this young man go.

Good Night, Funny Man...

2007-05-28T00:35:00.000-07:00

We lost a living legend today, a bigger than life comic who was in that class of 50s through 70s TV game show celebrities who seemed to be famous for nothing, but who actually did far more than most people ever think they did. A Tony Award winning Broadway star turned TV actor, from the 80s on, he focused his attention on directing and teaching, as well as performing in a series of one-man shows. Also, along with Paul Lynde and Liberace, he was part of the Triumvirate of "Unopenly Openly Gay" performers at a time when Such Things did not exist. Alone among the three, though, he's the only one who lived long enough to finally officially come out in public, in a different political climate.

Luckily, I'm somewhat able to comment on Reilly through personal experience once removed. I have several friends in the theatre community who knew him, worked with him, and raved about what a gracious, wonderful, giving person he was. For those of us who first met him on Match Game at a time when we were too young to know what "gay" meant (or to think there was anything weird about it), he was the uncle we all wanted to have. Funny, witty, the center of attention without trying to be, and the kind of queen of whom our parents approved.

Good Night, Funny Man. Good Night, Uncle Charlie. You will be sorely missed.