Redefining Patriot

I've been hearing on the radio and seeing on the teevee a lot about a government supported program called Safelink, that provides free cell phones and minutes to the economically disadvantaged. Which is a good idea, I guess, that in an emergency people are able to contact help. Why a cellular over a land line? I don't know, perhaps so the homeless can use them as well.
But hearing and reading about this program started me to wondering: how did this program get started with out the Tea Baggers protesting against it? I mean, if they going to get their knickers in a twist over health care reform, a basic necessity, then why haven't they taken to the Capitol steps over this?
Well, they soon will be. A Google search about this program's origins led me to this website, where the blogger suddenly finds they have problems with the government running deficits. A person who had no problem with spending billions monthly in Iraq and Afghanistan to no end, spending millions more on unconstitutional spying on American citizens because they are a patriot, now has a problem with assisting those people being crushed under the weight of the economy run into the ground by these "patriotic" programs.
I think we really need to redefine "patriot".

The New Downing Street Memos

In 1 May 2005, official British governments documents were leaked to the press, heretofore known as The Downing Street Memos (or, as they were known in England, the Downing Street Minutes). Nothing more than writings on a piece of paper, notes taken at a meting, they stated clearly that the US (under the Bush administration) was intent on invading Iraq and "the intelligence and facts were being fixed [by the U.S.] around the policy" of removing Saddam Hussein. For many people in the anti-war(or pro-peace, if you like)movement, it was the smoking gun that proved that the war in Iraq was not a necessity, rather an undertaking of choice, by an administration eager to enrich political donors and cabinet members enough to deliberately falsify documents. It was roundly ignored by the right as well as the corporate media as everyone was making a buck from the Iraq war.
Now, years later, an equally damning leak has made it's way into the press. Called ClimateGate, it shows through emails and documents leaked from the University of East Anglia’s Hadley Climate Research Unit that scientists were conspiring to falsify data to support an already arrived at conclusion, global warming climate change.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't think we should be dumping more pollutants into the atmosphere, but this seems less about protecting the environment and more about a select few becoming billionaires in the cap and trade carbon market (which shifts cost from polluters on to the consumer, and doesn't do much to end pollution)who seem to have a double standard about reducing one's carbon footprint. It's like selling low energy fluorescent bulbs on the premise of saving a few dollars to people too stupid to care about disposing of them properly.
The leaked emails, touted by the right as evidence that global warming climate change is all hype, will not even be published by the "liberal" New York Times, the same "liberal" paper that committed treason and aided Judith Miller in leaking the name of a CIA operative handed to them by a Bush administration official bent on punishing said operative's husband for declaring forged documents used to justify an attack against Iraq to be forgeries.
So I don't expect these leaked emails to be reported on by the corporate media anymore than they applied to Downing Street Memos. The agenda has been set, and not having fully drank from the global warming climate change Kool-Aid, I can see how they've been slowly selling people 'green' in much the same manner as they sold us the war in Iraq. Hopefully, the end result will not be the same.

The Annual Unbrainwashed Anti-Holiday Rant

I really have come to loathe this time of year. Of course, I mean the holiday season, which starts officially tomorrow, although some radio stations have been playing Christmas music since Halloween, which means that millions of innocent people have had to endure that one person who insists on listening to Christmas music until you're ready to vomit anytime you hear "Holly Jolly Christmas", "Jingle Bell Rock", and "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree", which seem to get played every hour and a half on these stations. And although 'officially' the 'shopping season' doesn't start until four o'clock tomorrow morning, some retailers, in an effort to prop up a dismal year, are letting you know they'll be open today, so that when Dad, Brother and Uncle Pete are relaxing post-meal on the couch watching the football game, Mom, Grandma, and Aunt Shirley can sneak off to KMart to buy more presents that will get lost in the post Christmas morning overkill, that is, after they've finished all the dishes.
And by this time tomorrow, we'll be inundated with stories of that one shopper who falls victim to the spirit of the season and is trampled to death by salivating shoppers pushing each other out of the way to have first dibs on some item they don't really need but couldn't pass up, because it was such a bargain.
This is also the time of year where advertising takes it's toll on me, and I can hardly stand to see another commercial with kids in their jammies waiting for Santa, elves, or dogs with 'reindeer' antlers on their heads. And it's also the time of year when Christ-centric fuckwads refuse to acknowledge that their might be other religions celebrating their various holidays as well, and threaten to boycott advertisers who do acknowledge it in the same breath as they do Christmas.
It's also the time of year when, despite warnings of anthropegenic global warning climate change, not to mention dire predictions of the arrival of peak oil, people cover their yards with displays consisting of so many lights they could be seen from space. Many communities erect Nativity displays, or allow them to be erected on public property.
Not any more in Chambersburg, PA, where every year the local garden club was allowed to erect an Nativity Scene on the ground surrounding the town fountain. That is, until the local Pennsylvania Non-Believers, an atheist group, stepped in. It seems they wanted to put up a sign for the solstice honoring Atheist war veterans. I mean, after the birth of Jesus, what could be more sacred than our soldiers?
Oh. wait a minute, this is a sign honoring our veterans, not our, troops, a difference indicated by where they are now, either over in Iraq and Afghanistan, making sure that the Good Ol' US of A gets first crack at what little oil there is left, or, over here displaying the symptoms of post traumatic stress syndrome, reminding those who gleefully sent them over there, that, yes indeed, war is Hell.
Anyway, the town council, sensing a political hot potato decided that, rather than allow a religious-free message be posted, decided to remove the Nativity. Score a point for the War On Christmas!

You're Still Here?

With all the attention being lavished on Sarah Palin now due to her recent book and tour, it's time ask ourselves: what about that other right wing nut-job from last year's campaign? No, I'm not talking about Joe Lieberman, I mean that other Joe, Joe the Plumber?
He popped up recently at a rally for Cherilyn Eagar, who's looking to unseat longtime Senator Bob Bennett and was interviewed by Editor & Publisher. In it, he hoped that Sarah Palin did not run for president in 2012, but praised her for writing nice things about him in her book. That's very nice of him since Palin is drawing large crowds to her book signings as Joe, not so much. Also, while Palin's book is sure to be on best sellers lists, Joe's book is in remainder bins.
Sam/Joe took used the interview as an opportunity to slam media coverage of himself, noting that the tax lien filed against him was sitting at the Ohio State Capitol in Columbus two months prior to his well-documented exchange with then-candidate Barack Obama over tax policy. He also criticized the media attempts to paint him as a wife beater and racist, but offered up no evidence to dispute these claims. He slammed journalists in general for making accusations at the same time he accused President Obama's policies as "unAmerican". Joe knows a lot about being a journalist following his ten days as a 'war correspondent" for the conservative Web site pjtv.com, where he failed to notice any of any of Israel's war crimes during Operation:Cast Lead.
Sam/Joe also criticized those who say Wurzelbacher is capitalizing on his fifteen minutes of fame. I mean, everybody gets book deals, record deals, journalism gigs, and appearance fees, right?

Once A Quitter..........

Looking for "Real America"? Look no farther than this video, which shows an angry mob booing Sarah Palin after she left before signing their books on her recent book tour. What Palin doesn't get is that these people own her, they waited in the rain, and while some staunch supporters may make apologies for Sarah stiffing them, there's also a certain percentage that will never buy a Palin endorsed product again.
I would have liked to have been in that bus as it sat their idling, her supporters outside chanting, but what went on in that fabulously ornate mobile billboard, we'll never know. Did her handlers hold her back as Sarah ambled to the door, not wanting to let her people, the real Americans, down? Or, did her handlers insist she go out and finish the job while Palin demonstrated why she is a rogue by refusing to meet and greet any of those people she will surely come to despise by the end of this tour? Whichever it was, I'm sure it was the real Sarah Palin, not the one she presents before the cameras, oozing contempt for the very people who will make her the next president of the United States.

Sarah Palin's Coming To Town

Resigned ex-Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin kicked off her 2012 Presidential Campaign book tour today here in my hometown, with a book signing at Barnes and Noble, and lots of Grand Rapidians lined up to gawk and help push her ghost written tome on to the best sellers list. This is not surprising, as this is one of the most conservative parts of that state, a place where John McCain has been removed from McCain-Palin bumper stickers (like he was the weak link in that train wreck)on the back of elderly driver's Buicks, leaving Sarah, Plain and Tall. In fact some "news" networks went as far as to edit in old campaign footage to bolster the claims. I'm sure it was just because it's so much cheaper than sending a news crew out to film a bunch of obese and wrinkled septuagenarians who took time off from their busy schedule to stand in line.
Palin's book tour is focused on the "real America", because somewhere in the faltering brain cells of those few people left who still refer to themselves as Republicans, small cities and rural areas are more American than say, California or New York City. This is her way of saying that if you live in these outlying regions, and as long as you vote Republican, then your vote counts, darn it. And if you the other 78% of Americans, well, darn it, you're just not real enough to deal with everyday problems, such as your daughter's baby daddy posing for Playgirl, or being interviewed by Katie Couric as a political candidate, instead of as one working mother to another like you thought. Whatever it is, she's not going away anytime soon. You betcha.

So Much Useless And Pointless Noise Adding Up To A Giant Waste Of Time And Energy

By now, the pattern is familiar. Whatever President Obama does, no matter how trivial it may seem, is cause for criticism from the right. Obama becomes elected president, he isn't even an American citizen. Obama carefully weighs his options on Afghanistan, he is criticized for not making a decision, "whether or not it is right". The administration announces it's holding the trial of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in NYC, the right brings out loser Rudy Giuliani.
It's to the point of ridiculousness now. During his state visit to Japan, President Obama bowed to the emperor, and the right wing noise machine goes apoplectic. Some infer that Obama must have grown up watching The Golden Girls.
How soon they forget.

The homophobes on the right never had a problem with Bush kissing the Saudi prince, of course, they'd even have Bush give him a rim job if it meant cheaper oil which with for them to fuel their gas sucking SUVs.
Now I'm not saying we shouldn't be able to criticize President Obama, once again, that was the right wing during the Bush administration, admonishing the left for criticizing the president during a time of war. Well, those wars that Bush started are still going on, so what has change but the party affiliation of the president, and the color of his skin?

The Easiest Job In The World Is Fact Checker At Fox News

..Mainly because they don't check facts, they merely make shit up. They already went to court to protect their right to lie to people and shield advertisers from negative publicity, after they won that case, well, you know the rest of the story.
recently, Sean Hannity aired a segment on Michelle Bachman's most recent tea bagger gathering. In order to inflate the numbers, someone edited footage from one rally that had a large number of lunatics onto one for Bachman's smaller lunatic fringe gathering. After being busted, not by media watchdogs, but a comedy show, Hannity weakly offered up this apology:

we screwed up - we aired some video of a rally in September, along with a video from the actual event,...It was an inadvertent mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.

Yes, someone inadvertently took one piece of file footage from another file and put it in with another accidentally. Happens all the time. On Fox News.
Now I seem to remember the professional prevaricators at Fox getting their tighty-whities in a bunch when Dan Rather reported on the Killian Documents, which were criticisms of George W Bush by his former commander in the National Guard.
Sean Hannity on the lack of media ooutrage over the documents, which were later found to be forgeries:

I was just thinking to myself, you tell me if I'm wrong here, if Republicans had forged documents or had gotten forged documents and gave it to a news organization, and they turned out to be false, wouldn't this be a much bigger story in the mainstream media?

Isn't this the same form of misrepresentation you're guilty of Hannity? More:

An article in The New York Observer today revealed some new information about the CBS investigation into the "Memogate" scandal. According to the story, freelance producer Michael Smith, he taped many of his conversations with CBS investigators and executives in the weeks after the scandal broke.

Smith told The Observer that the tapes of his conversations proved that nobody at CBS, quote, "seemed interested in the truth."

And, so it seems, is anybody at Fox News.
Rather was run off CBS News by the right for his mistake. I think it only fair that Hannity be held to the same standard.
Contact Fox News here and demand they fire Hannity for such an obviously unfair and imbalanced piece.

Happy Veteran's Day!

Because Rupert Murdoch Cannot Have Enough Money

Now he's going to turn all his online News Corpse sites into subscription only. Good luck with that. People I know all over are clamoring to put money down on a web site to read the news.
To make his point, Murdoch says now his online newspapers will be "invisible" to Google users.
How will they find his online papers?
Murdoch thinks that because people demanded and pay for Fox News on their cable systems, that people who like that sort of propaganda will look for it online as well. Idiot. People won't look for it online because it would tear them away from Fox News, require them to get out of their comfy chairs, and require them to read. Fox News better because reading done for viewer. Viewer not even have to think, just do as Glenn, Bill or Sean tell them to. Viewer no like computers, computers reek of intellectualism.
Rupert knows you have two coins in your pocket, he can hear them clinking around. And, by God, he's going to find away to get them from you, even if he has to torpedo his own websites to get them.

Let's Excise All Unpleasantness To Keep Up Our Lives As An Illusion

I took my kids to see a movie yesterday, using movie passes my brother's girlfriend had given me almost a year ago as a thanks for helping her move into my brother's apartment. Given Hollywood's crappy output this past year, it took us that long to find a movie we could all finally agree on seeing. Our choice was The Men Who Stare At Goats, based on the book of the same name, mainly because Wilbur really wanted to see it, which meant of course his little brother wanted to as well.
The film centers on a journalist who stumbles on to the story of a lifetime as he investigates a psychic unit within the US Army. The unit is first run by Lt. Col. Bill Django as a new age alternative to standard military operational procedure, and uses psychic means.One scene, which takes place after Django has been kicked out of the military and Larry Hooper has taken over, concerns Hooper's experiments with mind control using LSD. After dosing a recruit and exposing him to flashing lights and loud noises, the recruit walks stark naked into the middle of the base and begins shooting aimlessly as other soldiers march and drill. The point of this scene is to illustrate not only the evilness of Larry Hooper, but of how use of techniques can have unintended consequences when used not for good, but for evil. No soldier is shot, but they do scramble for safety when the soldier begins shooting.
Well, now some people feel the scene should be edited from the film following the tragedy at Ft. Hood. Considering early reports indicating multiple shooters, this isn't very close to real life at all.
It's funny how sensitive Americans are when it comes to tragedies close to home, but when a tragedy occurs somewhere else, the insensitivity comes shining through.
I would say this is a recent development, that somehow, Americans became stupider or wimpier, but even The Manchurian Candidate was pulled from distribution because of it's eerily similarity to the Kennedy Assassination (You know, brainwashed patsy, part of conspiracy to assassinate a president)as well as scenes of the Twin Towers being excised from the first Spiderman movie.
But IMHO, this is being brought up to reinforce the single shooter theory, and negate any stories of second gunmen. Better the people thinkl it was due to the suspect having to misdiagnose cases of PTSD than think there was any sort of conspiracy.

Another Big Fuck You To The American People

It's nice to know that as the Republicans and Democrats waste time bickering in a non-rush to offer health care to millions of Americans that they can set aside their differences long enough to condemn the Goldstone report , because, even though it condemns the actions of both Israel and Hamas, it is still "biased". Why is it biased? Because Hamas, with their rockets their barely reach their target are much worse than the Israeli government dropping white phosphorous on civilian populations, targeting schools and other numerous infractions of international law.
So the Obama administration, which has sided with the criminals in the Bush administration, who tortured and committed numerous other crimes, has once again sided with the bad guys (okay worse guys) once again.
The report, which will go before the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, is just another in a long list of reasons Israel has used to stall peace talks. Israel also refuses to stop building illegal settlements, destroying Palestinian homes, and ravaging Palestinian crops until a peace agreement has been made, which gives them all the more reason to oppose a settlement.
But how about those assclowns in Congress? Seriously, it's almost as if the taxpayers don't exist. "Sorry your beloved family member had to die, but we had to protect more criminals who receive your money and have their health care taken care of by the US government.