Who Owns The Rain?

I know, it sounds like a Creedence Clearwater Revival song, right? But since rain falls everywhere, you would think that no one could claim it as their property.
But, apparently, in some states, it's illegal to collect rainwater, because the water belongs to the state. I'm sure some of you are thinking that is some sort of reconstituted hippie thing, that collecting water affects aquifer and groundwater supplies. Actually, it's completely the opposite.
So any multinational death conglomerate can tap into an underwater spring, purify and put it in plastic bottles, and that's not a problem, but collecting fresh and pure rainwater is illegal? In past times many people had rain barrels in their yard, at what point did someone say "Hey! You can't do that! You need to pay for water from the city!"
A news study says that thanks to global warming"climate change", 70% of US counties will face water shortages. So wouldn't it be prudent for people to now begin collecting and savingn water? Wait, conservation is the opposite of the American Way! Use it all up, then bomb some foreign country to take theirs because they're not using it up fast enough. Besides, once the polar ice caps melt, and water levels rise, won't there be more than enough water?

UN? We Don't Need No Steenkin' UN!

Well, the rest of the world does. Why? Becuase there are bastard countries out there such as Israel which rejcted the UN plan to probe Flotilla raid. Of course they do. Who wouldn't want to be found guilty of violating human rights again, now do they?
But hey, the The US has never had a need for a Human Rights Council anyway, because it offers rights to all those pesky brown skinned people living over the oil. That's why neocons in the US have got the House to OK a possible Israeli raid on Iran.(With support from the US, you know, the country that was so broke it couldn't afford to provide unemployment benefits to it's people) Even though Iran poses no threat to Israel, they are calling for an illegal "pre-emptive strike" against Tehran because Israel has a right to "self-defense". That same specious argument could also be used by Iran for building the nuclear weapons that the US claims they are despite all evidence to the contrary.
So when they start burning Korans in Florida this September 11, remember that the most vile hateful and evil country on the planet is Iran Israel and the United States, because they are the only ones planning to drop bombs on possible civilian targets then hope they can bury their evil deeds at the UN.

The New Slavery? Fuck You!

I don't watch sports. I don't care too much for it and can find better things to do with my time than spend it spread out in front of a television set, junk food and beer within reach getting myself worked up over something that has no impact or bearing on my life. Not that I have anything against sports, mind you, and if an opportunity to engage in any physical activity should arise, I would do it as I could really use the exercise.
I really don't care much about college sports, mainly because the art school I attended didn't have a sports team of any sorts, so I don't see how people can get bent out of shape about a college football team from a school they never had any intention of attending.
So I was very dismayed to find out that The NCAA is slavery! The poor put upon college athlete, who is offered a free ride at some of the finest school to get a higher education most people only dream of getting are no better than a slave. After all, they're only there to pass the time until they become eligible for professional sports anyway, why shouldn't they be able to accept gifts from generous donors?
The writer of the piece seems to think it's unfair that Reggie Bush (who, as I found out, is not a member of the Bush family) should have to forfeit his Heisman just because he broke the rules. As everybody knows by now, rules aren't for our professional athletes, especially if they're really good. He also feels that it's not fair that deans, athletic directors and coaches can make big salaries while the poor student has to wait a couple years to make the annual salary of the three aforementioned college professionals combined. He also feels it's not right that the money that colleges make should go to subsidize other "welfare sports", you know, everything that isn't college football or basketball, at the expense of the star player who is only receiving a free education, room and board, books, etc. And heaven for fend that some of that money be put towards academic scholarships for students who have the intellect but not the means nor athletic ability to go on to higher learning with out some help.
Now in Jason Whitlock's defense, I'm sure Reggie Bush wasn't doing anything that any other star athlete does, the problem is, that Bush got caught. But his idea that Bush isn't being compensated because he's too fucking stupid to appreciate a full college ride, well, that's a problem of Bush's lack of a value system, not the NCAA.
Our society puts too much emphasis on sports, winning and money. Sports dominate the world of the television watcher like no other single entity. Winning has become the most important thing, taking a back seat to decency, honesty, and integrity. And money has become everything for so many people in this country that it won't be long before we're all tearing each other apart so we can sell our rendered remains for a fistful of scratch.So I won't weep for the college athlete who should have to follow rules, at least while he's attending college, because he's living a dream. He's just too fucking stupid t5o realize it.

The Real Housewives Of The Tea Party

Poor Sam Wurzelbacher! I guess you are not wanted in the new Tea Party, which formed it's own caucus today in congress. To quote caucus leader Michele Bachmann:

the newly formed group will provide a voice in Congress for "real housewives, real farmers, real businessmen, real plumbers."

Not those one-time plumber, now full time metacelebrity wannabes. I just hope that when she says "real housewives" she doesn't mean the reality television show.
Now I'm not saying that the members of the Tea Party are slow, but when you fall for a three year old news story from The Onion, you do come across as gullible. And totally unaware that your movement has been co-opted by the Republican Party and a second rate Howard Beale.

The Monkey God's Middle Finger

Every country has it's own sacred ground. In Jerusalem, for instance, is the Dome of the Rock, a piece of dirt sacred to both the Jewish people and the Muslims. England has the Cavern Club, a sacred place for rock fans world wide, and Australia has the Outback, where Crocodile Dundee once killed a crocodile with an oversized knife.
Here in America, we have Ground Zero, a place hallowed by right wingers and neocons as a place where over 3000 Americans of all walks of life, and all religions, died so that the Cheney/Bush Axis of Evil would have carte blanche to start wars anywhere there was an Arab bowing towards Mecca. So naturally when plans for a mosque three blocks away from this consecrated ground were announced, the constitution quoters and theocracy seekers had a fit. It's almost as if Hezbollah, the Lebanese political party was planning on building a 'terrorist' theme park there. And almost on cue, professional Islamophobe Sarah Palin, who refudiated charges the Tea Party is racist, joined forces with Tea Party racist Mark Williams to fight the Monkey God's Middle Finger to Manhattan.
It's the Right Wing Fear Factory in full effect. This being an election year, they need something, anything to scare the good little Christ-Stains into suporting their party (the whole abortion thing, being played out, as it wouldn't take very long for someone on the left to point out that with a Republican Congress and administration they did nothing to stop that wedge issue)by stoking up the fears that yes indeedy-those Mooslems, they taking over, and soon will be forcing us to bow to Allah and Mecca everyday.

Another Easily Moved Thing Is US Dollars

Listen! Do you want to know a secret? But you gotta keep it to yourself, there's no need for all those unemployed people finding out.
You see, while Congress stalls on providing an extension of unemployment benefits for the nearly 22% of Americans out of work, the US just granted Israel $2.775 billion in aid for military and security purposes.As well as more aid to Pakistan, although only in the hundreds of millions there.
There is a small problem with these billions of dollars going to Israel. A little thing called the Symington Amendment which bans US economic and military assistance to countries which acquire nuclear enrichment technology when they do not comply with IAEA regulations and inspections. That would make this whole package, well, illegal. Not to worry, though Mr. President, US law, like the Congress that enacts them, is a thing that is easily moved.

Just Another Intelligence Failure In The Mega Million Corporate Idiocracy

The unnamed source is the scourge of true journalism, because it is an uncheckable rumor displayed as fact. And yet, in the permanent twenty-four hour news cycle,and it's unslakable quest for breaking news, the unnamed source has become the savior of the propagandist. Need to deliver a cutting blow to your competition? Nothing works better than an anonymous aide.
And if an intelligence failure is played out the world stage? Don't blame it on your agency. Fuck no. Blame it on the victim! Because if you can believe that the intelligence agency with the largest budget in the world was outsmarted, then you probably would believe that a slim majority of Americans support a military strike against Iran, if you were the type to believe that polls are nothing more than manipulated information used to create opinion and not reflect it. But hey, in their world we're more than halfway there! Never mind that in the rest of the world, the attempted bribe story is already out there, the rest of the world knew that reasons given for our invasion of Iraq were lies (France, anyone?), it just never made it past the gatekeepers of anonymous sources.
So while the egg on our collective face is discretely wiped off by the corporate media, and the blame is placed not on the criminals, but on their victim, maybe we should consider that another intelligence failure ( you know, like 9/11, Iraq's WMD, etc,) is to blame, we still keep relying on the intelligence gleaned from people who don't appear to be very smart.

One Way Or Another

They're gonna find ya. Gonna getcha getcha getcha! And by them, I mean of course, those durned Islamofascists who hate us not for the collateral damage piling up in their homeland, but because we are as free to be as stupid as Team Jake.
Or Team Edward.
The point is, every day, they're cooking new ways to overthrow this great "Christian" nation. First, and I realize that many of both my readers are well aware of this, but Texas Republican Representative Louis Gohmert thinks that the Islamofascists are hatching a plot to have terrorist babies in the US, where, thanks to the 14th amendment, they will be US citizens, then they come back in 25 years, after extensive training in an Al qaeda camp conveniently located in the country Israel the US wants to invade next.
Not to be outdone in the crazy department, Sue Myrick, a Republican from Nutty Cuckoosays Iranians are teaming up with Venezuela to infiltrate our borders. Spending six months in Caraccas to learn Spanish, then it's across the border to "do us harm".
Well, that should could and would be the end of it, but no. Now there's talk of the Taliban training jihadist monkeys! That's right! Cute little macacas given an AK-47 and trained how to discern and shoot only American soldiers (because, you know, monkeys are just that smart). We all see monkeys on television. And except for that episode of Gilligan's Island where one got hold of some abandoned Japanese armaments and started attacking the castaways, they are all pretty cute. Not really, but from a distance.
So you might as well surrender now, Dorothy, because those Islamofascists hate our freedoms and want to take them from us anyway possible, no matter how crazy it may sound. Really.

A Tale Of Two Defectors

Defector 1: Reza Kahlili, a Iranian revolutionary Guard defector who went to work for the CIA following the revolution of 1979 says that Tehran will attack Israel. Speaking at a conference at The Washington Institute For Near East Policy, Mr Khalili (not his real name) has stated that Iran will unleash the largest suicide bombing mission ever! Of course, since Israel has nuclear weapons while Tehran doesn't, it will most certainly be a suicide mission, conveniently timed for the propaganda run up for the US/Israel attack against Iran, later this year.
Defector 2:Shahram Amiri is a top Iranian nuclear scientist. He went missing a year ago on a pilgrimage to Medina, a city in Saudi Arabia. The Iranian government claims he was kidnapped, the US denied that claim.
Well, fast forward a year later, and Mr. Amiri (his real name) has turned up in the Iranian interest section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington DC. Mr. Amiri has claimed he was kidnapped and held against his will where he was "under enormous psychological pressure and supervision of armed agents in the past 14 months".
Hmmm. Mr. Amiri then goes on to state that "I was not prepared to betray my country under any kind of threats or bribery by the US government."
So, in other words, the US government, desperate to start a war against a country that is not a threat to anyone (unlike, say, the US), kidnaps a top Iranian nuclear scientist, using various means of coercion tries to get him to betray his country (possibly by stating lies about Iran's nuclear power program). Then the man escapes, posts an interview on YouTube stating he is a prisoner, which is then countered by another YouTube video of someone resembling Amiri saying he is fine and every body should just go back to buying things and disregard the previous video. Now it turns out the first video is right, and all Mr. Amiri wishes is that he just be allowed to return back to his country.
So there you have it. A defector who (most likely) was coerced (or bribed) into telling the chickenhawk war mongers what they needed to hear, and a kidnapping victim that was tried to be passed off as a defector in order to lie to sell ANOTHER war to the American television watcher.

If You Really Want To Piss Off Ahmadinejad, Grow A Mullet

Here's a funny thing. While the rest of the god fearing world is shitting their pants over Iran because of something they have yet to be proved to be doing, Iran has outlawed the mullet. How can anyone be afraid of a country that finds the ugliest hair style ever in the history of man, I mean, after the fauxhawk, of course, or that crew cut that has once again become so fashionable with the people in conservative circles who still have hair, such a threat that they have to pass an edict outlawing it.
I really don't like the mullet either, having despised it from the first time I saw an idiot with virtually no bangs coupled with a long feathered tail in back walking the West Side of GR, worn by some mustachioed ne'er-do-well in a wifebeater. So while I simultaneously applaud President Ahmadinejad for his courageousness in defending his country from the invasion of a hairstyle so hideous, it has become the epitome of idiocracy, I also disdain him. There are few ways that you can tell if a person is wrong headed. Draping themselves in some form of red, white, and blue is one. Tucking their T-shirt into their shorts is another. But the single most doofus-y way to detect a doofus, is their predilection for a bad hairstyle that should have died with the seventies, yet still lingers on in the corners of Real America where people refer to the president as Barack HUSSEIN Obama.
So go ahead, impose sanctions on Iran, you'll only make it's Revolutionary Guards richer and more powerful, but you must admire a country that saw the most godawful thing a person could grow outside of neurofibromatosis on their head and said none of that here.

Joe The Plumber Is Taking This Country Back!!! (To The Days Of Trillion Dollar Budget Deficits)

Like a chancre sore that won't go away, failed 'journalist', 'author','country singer', and all around metacelebrity Sam "'Joe'" the "'Plumber'" Wurzelbacher is back for another political election season, expounding his deep rooted political philosophy to the candidate who can pay his speaking fee for his endorsement
First off, Sam, who hasn't done a lot of plumbing since being turned into an icon for the McCain Campaign of 2008, has backed two candidates in the same race. It must be hard to go back to plunging people's toilets when you've been on SNL.
Also, Mr. Wurzelbacher has joined the "Take Our Country Back Tour" joining other fellow 'Americans' such as Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Karl Rove and Sarah Palin. (Although, to be honest, "Joe" doesn't even rate a mention on their home page). The goal of said tour is to encourage Americans to vote for candidates who believe "in the right of the American people—and only the American people—to determine the course and destiny of the United States of America." No more of those Kenyan Muslim Fascists deciding our policies for us. (But it is perfectly okay for our foreign policy to be decided by Israel). The Real America, according to Sammy, lives out here, the people who do the jobs that Mr. Plumber would do, if he didn't have a celebrity status to exploit. Sam and Co. don't ask you to vote for Republicans or Democrats, you see, but 'Americans', which has become another one of those right wing code words like 'family values' that mean exclusively white people, or people of color who know their place, like Michael Steele or Piyush  "Bobby" Jindal.

General Casey Wants To Give Afghanistan What We Don't Have In America, And He Wants Us To Waste Another Decade Giving It To Them

Speaking at the Aspen Institute Ideas Festival Friday, Army Chief Of Staff Gen. George Casey says we may be fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq another ten years. Whose idea is that? Certainly not mine, but I'm not invested in the military-industrial complex, so I won't be making a dime by bleeding the country dry.
But what's more upsetting are the objectives of the military in the region.
1.)You are only going to succeed when the people perceive there is a government represented by their interests-So why should the people of Afghanistan have what we don't? My interests don't include making the rich people richer, mine include something like providing decent health care for every American,or that those struggling through tough economic times not of their creation can keep their homes and feed their families. These were both wars of choice, only I didn't choose them.
2.)when there is an economy that can give them a job to support their families-Wait a minute-we had that here! I remember it well. Then our corporate idiocracy said, you know what, if we outsource your jobs to another country that doesn't have organized labor, we'll make out-we mean, you'll be able to buy more consumer goods because they won't cost as much. And the television watchers all said "Yup, yup, yup, more stuff for me! I like the sound of that~!"
3.)when there are educational systems that can educate their family-Do you mean like we used to have? Nowadays, many right wing candidates are calling for the abolition of the department of education. Why? Because the Official Party of 'NO!' said that education is bad because they won't let your myths be taught to other people's children, science is bad because it disproves their faith, and the only thing children should be reading is our big book of approved fables.
4.)States, non-states and individual actors who are increasingly willing to use violence-You mean, like flying unmanned drones into civilian areas, casually referring to civilian deaths as collateral damage, and bombing areas where we think there may be people we want to kill? Doesn't anybody in charge have at least one iota of common sense to realize that maybe the reason that they are shooting at us is because we started shooting at them first?
Of course, the general, who is set to retire in nine months , was followed by a Pentagon spin doctor, who stated:"General Casey was speaking of the types of conflict we will be fighting for a decade or so. He did not, nor did he intend to, imply that we would be fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan for 10 more years."
What he really meant to say was "We'll be fighting in Iran as well. That could take some time."

Taking Risks For Peace By Killing All You Hate

President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu met Tuesday for talks to smooth over the rift between the two leaders before they could both go ahead with the all-out attack on Iran. President Obama said Netanyahu was willing to take risks for peace. He then went on to call Fox News fair and balanced, BP as fine environmental stewards and Toy Story 3 as the best Toy Story yet.
Really, to call the man who called for an attack on Iran for it's peaceful nuclear power program, continues it siege against the people of Gaza for exercising democracy, and defended the murder of nine activists bringing relief to the people of Gaza a man of peace is to call Sharron Angle a sane voice for women's rights.

I Thought America Won It's Independence From High Prices

It's about time we faced up to the fact that the United States is a corporate idiocracy. Large multi-nationals beam mind numbing drivel into our homes featuring meta-celebrities in voyeuristic situations and call it reality. We are rapidly becoming a nation of slack-jawed mouth breathing window lickers who haven't read a book since they got out of school and couldn't locate Afghanistan on a map, let alone give a clear concise reason why we need to spend another $33 billion there.
How do I know? More than twenty five percent of Americans couldn't tell you from whom we won our independence. So where does these mentally challenged people emanate from? I mean, they can't all come from the Tea party, as they only comprise 18% of the population, but it is nearly as many Americans who think that Sarah Palin resigned as governor because it was the right thing to do for Alaska (which in a way, it was).
To some, the dumbing down of the United States isn't happening quick enough. There's only so many episodes of Jersey Shore that you can get people to watch. So to help ease this country into a more acceptable moronic state, Glenn Beck has plans for an university ('magic underpants' not included). This exclusive chance to be taught revisionist history by avowed theocrats is available exclusively to subscribers of Beck's Insider Extreme, a website devoted to fleecing the sheep to line Glenn Beck's pockets. Once you pass this course, Glenn Beck doesn't promise you'll get a job from it, only that you'll be as confused politically as he is, just what you need when you're working your new job, wrangling shopping carts in a Wal-Mart parking lot.
(Cross posted at American Insurgency)

Praying To Your Red, White And Blue Security Blanket

  Fox News, which we all have known for years, is neither fair balanced. Or truthful either. Basically it exists to reinforce right wing talking points while stirring up the base about non-existent issues.
Recently, the network, in it's effort to rile up the corporate idiocracy, incorrectly claimed a school refused to let students say the pledge of allegiance. Without going into much detail about how the pledge was written by a Christian Socialist, the recitation of the pledge is one of the  forms of brainwashing foisted upon children at the earliest age . Essentially a prayer to a piece of cloth, it is however considered important to the weak and feeble minded people who think it actually means something.
Following the erroneous report by Fox News, the school began receiving offensive hateful and potentially criminal messages from Fox News viewers. Because nothing makes one more patriotic than threatening a school board.
The whole controversy began when an initiative from the leader of the Republican Youth called for the pledge to be recited at every school. Because nothing says freedom more than being forced to mouth empty words to a piece of cloth. The student, Sean Harrington, gave an impassioned speech to the board spewing right wing cliches and talking points such as 'freedom isn't free' and other such drivel. All was in vain, though, as board members deadlocked on whether or not to pass the proposal. The school principal offered a compromise, wherein all who wished could join the principal in the school lobby before the start of each day and recite the pledge, which Harrington rejected.

"I was really heartbroken," Harrington said of the deadlocked vote. "It's hard to think that something so traditional in American society was turned down. ... It tells me that we've basically cast aside what our country is founded on."

Um, I think Mr. Harrington needs to retake American History 101, because the pledge wasn't even written until 1892. Our country was founded on the Constitution, which prohibits the establishment of a religion, which is what the idolatry based Americanism he wants to force upon all his fellow students sounds like to me. And as far as being 'something so traditional in American society', one must remember that it wasn't even until the forties that it became compulsory for students to recite it. So it's not that much of a long standing tradition.
So basically, what we have, is a school board being terrorized by right wing fanatics because some arrested developmental Republican still needs his red, white, and blue security blanket. Boy, is he in for a shock when he walks out into the real world.