Just Who Are The Bad Guys?

This morning, as I readied for work, I was listeneing to the local radio morning show (which is syndicated, mostly in the east), as they talked to a man who was scheduled to go back to Iraq, shortly after the birth of his second child. One of the propagandists, as the caller was finishing, suggested he that when he got to Iraq, he "kill a lot of the bad guys". And I thought, bad guys?
The resistance force in Iraq has a right under international law to fight an occupation force. The US had no right to invade under international law, so who's the bad guys again?
It was odd, because the night before, I had been at Information Clearinghouse, a good source for opinion and other articles, when I came across and watched this three part video on the Iran-Contra Affair, and what was covered up in the hearing. For instance, in one part Barbara Honegger, former policy analyst with the Reagan administration, described how during the n1980 campaign, George HW Bush and a second party met with parties from Iran to make a deal for them to hold the hostages they had taken until after the election, and in return, the Reagan White House would provide the weapons Iran needed in it's ongoing war with Iraq at the time (whom we also were supplying weapons. Gee, I guess Ron Paul was right!)
The video details a shadow government that was consistently directing us into war, so they could thereby profit from it. It is narrated by Elizabeth Montgomery and features the music of Pink Floyd.

The second part focuses in on our actions in Nicaragua, and how we were funnelling money from arms sales into supporting the Contras.The cContras, trained by the CIA, would cross into Nicaragua and indiscriminately kill villagers (including women and children)in order to turn public opinion in that country against the Sandinista government. In otherwords, we were using terrorism.
Also, it details the attempted assassination of a second, more popular, anti-Sandinista leader in Costa Rica by the CIA, in which several journalists were killed, including an American. The plan was to turn public support here at home against the Sandinistas (who were to be blamed). Hmmm. Killing Americans to gain support for a war that enriches a select few. Curious.

So, who is the bad guy? Is it the citizens around the world who seek self-determination with outside interference from the US? Or is it our government, which has consistently had a foreign policy of perpetual war ath the expense of the poorer and weaker countries on the globe?

Sunday Night Black & White

There are two kinds of music in the world: good and bad. It doesn't matter if a song was recorded yesterday, or seventy years ago, truly good music will stand the test of time. Once one abandons any preconceived notions of what makes a recorded performance good (i.e., style, artist, recording techniques)it becomes easier to discern what makes a good song. But just because talented musicians covera good song does not make a good recording. If that were true, all the American Idol winners would still be dominating the pop music charts.
It is in this spirit that we dig deep into the recesses of American music to find these gems that radio no longer plays, and with the exception of a few musicologists, most people would never listen to any more. Enjoy!
Cab Calloway-Reefer Man

Jimmie Rodgers-Blue Yodel No.1 (T For Texas)

Mills Brothers-Paper Doll

Lefty Frizzell-Saginaw, Michigan



You're right, PT this does get addictive

Somebody Just Learned How To Post Videos........

With the recent work on my computer, I once again have sound! So I've been spending time (perhaps too much time) at YouTube. Couldn't figure out how to post these damn things, so I tried something, and whaddya know! It worked. Some please indulge me while I post what I calls Saturday Morning Subversion!

John Lennon-Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)


The Clash-The Call Up


The Ramones-We Want The Airwaves

Michigan GOP To Deny Reality

Michigan's state GOP chairman wants to bar Ron Paul from any future debates because he had the temerity to suggest that the reasons that the 9/11 commission as well as the CIA gave for the attacks on September 11 were the real reasons, and not the spurious "They hate us because we're free" mantra chanted by kool-aid chugging flagwaving half wits like Rudy Giuliani.
Perhaps Saul Anuzis is worried that after Blinky pounced on Paul's accurate description of the causes of terrorism, Paul's numbers went up and he wound up beating Rudolf by six points in the Fox News text message poll following the debate.
Paul dared to deviate from the accepted Republican reality that allows endless wars to enrich defense, I mean war contractors (because, really, they aren't defending anything but their own wealth), at the expense of the America taxpayer and the inevitable collateral damage that conveniently happens to be a different religion than the money worshipping members of the GOP. Just because our lopsided foreign policy is stacked against the majority of Muslims in the Middle East is no reason for them to attack us, is it? Paul even suggested we had been bombing Iraq every week for ten years, which, according to Mr. Anuzis, is "off the wall and out of whack", even if it happens to be true.

Lew In The Land Of The Televison Watcher

For the past week or so, I have been lost, set adrift in the land of the television watcher while my computer was being repaired, leaving me out of touch with reality and at the mercy of the spoon feeding liars of the corporate media. Many events may have happened I was not aware of, because television doesn't report events, it creates propaganda.
The other night I was subjected to a mother of a fallen soldier, saying how proud she was of her son for dying for his country. I immediately thought of all the mothers of our soldiers who reaize that Iraq is no where near our country and posed as much of a threat as a toothless squirrel on an acorn. The war in Iraq is as if someone told you that your arm was gangrenous, so you began to slowly hack it away with a dull saw, until you realized that now there was no evidence of the gangrene before, but your actions have caused gangrene to set in.
I also had to navigate the sea of "reality" shows, where soulless spotlight seekers ritually debase themselves to garner the attention of a nation for no other reason than to say "Look at me!" None of these people will last because none of them have the sense to realize that while they may have developed one talent, they never developed the intelligence to do anything with it besides let someone else exploit it for them. Once that attention has been received and starts to diminish, it's the long slide down to other reality shows where they cling to that shred of notability they had until even the CW won't put you on a show.
I also found that the television sitcom, with the exception of Thursday evenings, is dead, and most of the networks schedules are filled with dramas that pumped me full of fear for the safety of my children, even though I feel they are safe at their mother's house. So I delved into my long neglected video library, watching movies I enjoyed once, but now lack the proper psychotropic inducements to appreciate fully.
But what I missed most was the writing. Being cut off from my online community of commiserates, who feel as I do about the direction we seem to be heading towards as a society, was very hard to take, as most of the people I deal with daily are television watchers, those media manipulated masses who actually believe it's reality television, and it really matters who wins some stupid competition.
But now I'm back, and while it may take me a day or two to get back up to speed, I hope I never have to leave again.

Now I'm off to YouTube, to enjoy some great videos.

It's Not Bad Enough That They rape You, It's the Fact That They Overcharge You For The Lubricant

In case you have noticed, gas prices are going up, just in time for that busy summer travelling season. I'm sure we'll be reading orhearing stories at the end of the quarter of the oil companies raking in record profits again. But why are the prices rising? There has been no refinery fire or Katrina like disaster, and tensions between Iran and the US are still the same, they're not as bad as when they were during the British sailor crisis of awhile back.
According to the Detroit News

drivers are burning through gas at a greater volume than refineries can produce it.

Hmmm. Tha sounds familiar. Where have I heard that before?

The Hubbert peak theory, also known as peak oil, is an influential theory concerning the long-term rate of conventional oil and other fossil fuels production and depletion. It predicts that future world oil production will soon reach a peak and then rapidly decline.

You see, it's not that there's not enough oil, hell, we just gained control of the second largest known oil reserve in the world, otherwise known as Iraq, it's that we aren't refining it fast enough to meet demand.

"There is plenty of oil, and oil prices are well below their record highs," he said. "It's that we're not getting oil made into gas fast enough."

Look for the oil companies to blame this on environmentalists, or someone else other than their ownseves for not sinking those record profits from last quarter into building more refineries. But why should they? Paying less for oil and gouging, excuse me, charging us more for it just means that many more golden parachutes for retiring oil executives.
As for me, I'm planning on walking more, or maybe winning that Harley~Davidson at the company picnic next month.

Greatest American Zero

Like Ralph Hinkley (or is it Hanley?) discovering a new power with his wacky outer space suit, George W. Bush has discovered the power of the veto. Only his powers don't come from some ET's, it comes from the Constitution and the fact that there is somewhat of an opposition party in Congress. He first discovered this power last year, when he vetoed a bill on stem cell research. He used this mysterious power for the second time last weeek to veto a bill for Iraq war funding that set a timetable for withdrawal.
Now Bush has threatened to use this power on legislation that isn't even being considered. You see Bush, perhaps seeking approval from someone somwhere for something has threatened to veto any bill that attempts to weaken federal policies that restrict abortion. This was hailed by the hypocrites at the National Right To Life, who feel it's wrong to kill the unborn, but perfectly okay to send their fathers to their deaths in an illegal unwinnable unending war.(Not to mention the 655,000+ Iraqi civilians killed in the war, plus uncounted unborn Muslim babies) Bush needs to shore up support among his base because not only has he cost his party control of Congress, it's fairly certain that he has also blown their chance of holding onto the White House.

As It Turns Out, Oliver Stone Was Right

Every once in a while, Wilbur gets in a question asking mood, and myself, compelled to tell the truth, or at least as I see it, try to give him the correct answer. Not the "politically correct", just the answer the best suits the evidence.
So here's a story you probably won't be reading in the newspaper, or being run repeatedly on any cable news outfit (not that I would know, not having cable). As it turns out E Howard Hunt made an audio tape laying the Kennedy assassination at the feet of rogue elements within the CIA. These people, Cord Meyers, David Phillips, David Morales, and Hunt himself were directed by LBJ to eliminate JFK because:

They saw him as soft on Communism, soft on Castro, guilty of sending their friends to their torture and deaths during the Bay of Pigs fisasco and a bad risk for the future of the country. They also did not respect him as a person for his philandering and other behaviors which had yet to become public knowledge but would have been known to them.

So next time Wilbur asks me who killed John Kennedy, I'll have an honest answer, albeit one he won't be reading in the history books at school anytime soon. Lucien Sartie, the Corsican born French hit man who fired the head shot from the Grassy Knoll.

Dick Van Patton

The US has "gained" new intelligence that says Iran is three years away from enriching enough material for nuclear weapons, although where this report comes from isn't clear. The last NIE stated that Iran was at least ten years away, but I'm sure now the Cheney regime has replaced all intelligence officials who wouldn't file falsified reports it wouldn't be too hard figure out where this "new" intelligence came from, much the same way all the commanders in Iraq who dissented on obtainable victory were replaced by the likes of Gen. Betrayus, so Bush could still say he stands behind his commanders.
Cheney is the likely suspect for the change in intelligence (not just because he keeps getting stupider) as he was the one who had the "yellow cake" documents forged. This was what led to the whole Lewis Libby trial, Cheney, enraged that he had been called out as a liar, leaked Valerie Plame's name to the media in retaliation. And according to former British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, Dick Cheney called all the shots in the Iraq invasion that has led it to be the abyssmal failure that it is. Funny how somebody who had "other obligations" when he was of age to serve his country (and gain combat experience) likes playing soldier now that he doesn't have anything to risk beyond his stock portfolio.
That's why we need to get Congress to back Dennis Kucinich's impeachment legislation. If we don't, this heartless bastard will surely start another war doomed to be as abyssmal as the previous two are turning out.

Condi Above The Law

Condi Rice has shown she has little regard for the law of the land by rejecting a House subcommitteee subpeona for her to testify in that whole bothersome "Who cooked the false intelligence on Iraq?" investigation.

Can the Secretary Of State invoke executive privilege? Not really, but they'll do anything to prevent themselves from either perjurying themselves or telling the truth about who forged what document that got us into a war that has no exit strategy.
Meanwhile Gen. Betrayus appeared before Congress to say that setting a timetable is wrong, that the surge will work, despite all evidence to the contrary. How many more Americans will be sent to their deaths in a war that should have not been fought in the first place?
Not enough for Hilary Clinton who feels The US should confront Ira militarily. Easy for her to say, her love ones won't be sacrificed to save the corpocracy and the paranoiacs who run Israel, to whom she made the remarks.
Which brings me to Dennis Kucinich, who today introduced articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney.

Article I, that Richard Cheney had purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and the Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the United States armed forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security.

That despite all evidence to the contrary, the vice president actively and systematically sought to deceive the citizens and the Congress of the United States about an alleged threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

That preceding the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the vice president was fully informed that no legitimate evidence existed of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The vice president pressured the intelligence community to change their findings to enable the deception of the citizens and the Congress of the United States.

Of cousre Condi doesn't want to testify. Cheney and Bush goes and she has to go back to working for ordinary old oil companies. Poor gal.

The Suffering Of The Bushes

On Wednesday's Today show, Laura Bush stated that "No one suffers more than their president and I do", when it comes to Iraq. Certainly the people of Iraq aren't suffering. The 15 people who died and 25 who were injured when a suicide bomber blew up a police checkpoint today, they aren't suffering. The families of the eleven US troops that died on Monday aren't suffering, having lost loved ones for a war that has no obtainable mission (Why are we there this week? Al Qaeda? WMD? Links to 9/11? democracy?)
I'm sure , other than in the polls where Bush numbers are low, and Cheney's even lower, Bush hasn't really had to suffer at all. Sure, he's had to actualy meet with vetted crowds to try to sell the war again, causing to have to suffer the humiliation of flying in Air Force One, ride in limousines, and shake people's hands, hard work for someone who calls the greatest accomplishment of his presidency catching a seven pound fish on a stocked lake on his private ranch. I'm sure he suffers no pangs of conscience, because he has shown himself to be part of a group of sociopathic criminals who have no conscience.
It's been almost four years since Bush declared our mission in Iraq "accomplished", yet we keep sending more troops there to finish what should have never been started in the first place. And as more and more troops are slaughtered, how long will it be until the idiots of the world realize they can never be accomplished because for an army to win, they must believe they have the moral law on their side. Our invasion and ongoing occupation is a clear violation of international, so we are not on the side of right. And since the claims made by the ADDministration as to why we went there all turned out to be lies, the only reason we went there was to secure the oil for Big Oil, and enrich the defense contractors, who have seen their top CEO pay double in the last four years (at taxpayer expense).
So if Laura and George want to play the vicitms in this whole mess, there's one way to fulfill their martyr complex.................

The Emperor's Same Old Clothes

The president is coming to town tomorrow, already the blockades have been put up and the local media is in pre-orgasmic state unseen since Jerry Ford's funeral. A protest is also planned (of which I will not be attending due to work obligations) featuring Ray McGovern a retired CIA analyst who took on Donald Rumsfeld when the latter was Secretary of Defense.
Bush needs to preach to the kool-aid drinking choir, and they don't get much more kool-aid drinking than East Grand Rapids, where Bush is scheduled to speak. He needs to convince the few remaining supporters that the war in Iraq isn't lost, and even more important, it is still part of the war on terror. Because Zarqawi was there (allegedly), it makes perfect sense to destroy a whole sovereign nation to kill one man (unless that sovereign country is Pakistan, and the one man is Osama Bin Laden)

Bush can parade around East (as it's residents prefer to call it, disassociating and distancing themselves from the minorities and Polacks in regular ol' Grand Rapids) without fear of someone pointing out, hey! look! the president's not wearing any clothes! even though he has been parading around with naked glee at playing the Commander-in-Chief (until he realized, too, that the war was lost and began to seek out a "war czar" to be the scapegoat for the failures of his latest surge)for the last six years or so.
So by the time I leave work, the president wil be flown out of town, the peace demonstrators will all be beaten by police (who says we're not becoming a fascist state?)and hopefully the highways won't be blocked so the presidential motorcade doesn't have to share the roads with us common people that just got done paying the taxes that afford him the ability to fly around and make speeches for wars that can never be won.
UPDATE-My job is out by the airport, so I always worry when Bush or Cheney come to town that I'll be stuck in traffic while these wipes roll by in their motorcade. AS I was leaving the radio station I was tuned top said the highway from the airport to the Gerald Ford Museum would be shut down for the motorcade, so I quickly got on because I didn't want to be stuck with no gas waiting. Then I realized that the highway would be shut down the other way, so I continued on homeward. That's when I realized that Bush would becoming toward me on the other side. That when I looked ahead and noticed a line of cars with flashing lights coming from the other direction. Down went my window, out went my arm, and up went the finger, saluting him and his entourage as they sped pass. I don't know if he saw it or not, but all the way home I felt good (Even though I think flipping the bird is quite grotesque).

A Worthwhile Democrat

Sometimes you have to wonder what goes on in the minds of Democratic party supporters. Hillary Clinton is considered the front runner for her party's nomination because-she has raised a lot of money. What kind of democracy do we have when only the elites with disposable cash can buy a candidate for either party, and how can we expect said candidate to affect change when they are in the same pockets as the opposition? Barack Obama is also a contender, based on the fact that-well, he does have a certain air about him, but, really, what has he or Sen. Clinton done to affect change while in the senate?
Then there's John Edwards, who has been commended for standing by his wife while she has cancer, as if there was any alternative. (Well, there is, and in the Republican Party it's called serving her with divorce papers while she recovers from surgery a/k/a "Family Values") Has John Edwards done anything to end the war in Iraq?
No. The only Democratic party member worth a damn running is perrenial candidate Dennis Kucinich. Reading the voters, who, in frustration with ineptitude of the Republican majority, voted for change in the last election, Rep. Kucinich has announced plans to impeach Dick Cheney. Kucinich can be contacted at:
2445 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515
Phone (202)225-5871
Fax (202)225-5745
Of course, this, as every other bit of governing has been put on hold following the shootings at Virginia Tech. Which brings me to a post I read over at mike votes. Imagine if shootings like this occured three or four times a day. Every day. For a year. Then you may get an idea of what life is like for Iraqis following the illegal US invasion of that country under falses pretenses concocted by-Dick Cheney. If that's not reason enough to remove him, I'm sure there are thousands of others.

The Refuge Of Scoundrels

The Bush ADDministration has failed to comply with two subpeonas issued by Congress in two separate matters. The first, dealing with the US attorneys firings of which Attorney General Gonzales was scheduled to be "grilled" on today, until the shooting at Virginia Tech conveniently occurred.

Now Gonzales' testimony will occur Wednesday, while under the non-stop coverage of the tragedy (I'm not saying this was a black op) is played out for the next couple of months as the corporate media exploits and examines every angle of it until the next runaway bride or mass murder occurs. And anything incriminating Gonzales may say will be second to the big story.
Back to the subpeonas, the Justice Department failed to comply with a subpeona issued by John Conyers for documents relating to the case, with requested documents not supplied, or in redacted form. Which is the complete opposite of what the oversight committee asked for from them. Although I can't say for sure, the reasons that Justice will give will likely be the old dodge of the Bush regime, "national security".
In other subpeona news, Condaleeza Rice may face a subpeona if she fails to comply with an oversight committee's request for information on intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq, and other issues. Although, once again, the information will not be released, not because it's detrimental to the Bush regime (which it most certainly would be), but for the refuge of scoundrels, "national security" issues.
How convenient it has been for this administration to have an excuse to destroy the Constitution, as well as start many wars planned before they stole their power, and commit any number of crimes, then have the whole "national security" smokescreen to hide behind. Almost makes you think they may have had something to do with the whole thing. Either that, or fortune has smiled upon them more times than they deserve.

Someone Still Doesn't Get It

In a speech before the Heritage Foundation today, Dick Cheney compared the Democrats stance on Iraq to the far left stance of the Democrats on Viet Nam in the seventies. While at least he is beginning to acknowledge the war in Iraq is as unwinnable as the quagmire that was Viet Nam, he still doesn't get it.
For instance, he blasted Democrats as big spending when the war in Iraq has cost the taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, with nothing more to show for it than 3297 dead US soldiers, 655,000 dead Iraqi civilians, and, no matter what Cheney may thinkl, no ground is his so-called "war on terrorism".
He also blew off the will of the people, claiming the sweeping change of last November's election as "minimal". claiming a minimum of 3600 votes would have kept the Senate iGOP hands and fewer than 100000 votes would have kept GOP control of the House (forgetting of course that it only took 57000 black voters purged from voter rolls in Florida that put his sorry soggy ass where it is today, and with that they claimed to have a mandate.
Cheney also continued on with his deluded notion that we are fighting terrorists in Iraq, when in reality, we are an occupation force dealing with an insurgency. Cheney would just as soon keep US troops there indefinitely than send "a message to our enemies that the calendar is their friend, that all they have to do is wait us out -- wait for the date certain, and then claim victory the day after." Unfortunately for Cheney, the claendar is not his friend, come January 2009 we will have a new president, and hopefully it won't be one more concerned with lining the pockets of their corporate buddies than dragging out a pointless war based on lies.

Vonnegut On The Corpocracy

I have read one or two of Kurt Vonnegut's books, maybe Slapstick and one or two more, back when I read fiction. I think I may have had a girlfriend who was enamored of his writing as well, plus friends who read his works regularly, but as time went on, I find that few people these days read his work, and Hollywood can't translate his books to film very well. There are no explosions or car chases, no stoic hero shoots bullets from an automatic weapon that only strikes the enemy, and avoids the innocent civilians around him.
But if you read this, you can sense the outrage of a man who laid his life on the line for democracy feels in the twilight of years as that democracy is methodically replaced, piece by piece, with a corpocracy, lead not by great men, but by money grubbing baboons, as the people of the nation rarely read a book wihout a celebrities name attached to it, or read the latest assembly line piece by some hack fiction writer, milking a genre for all it's worth. Some choice quotes from A Man Without A Country:

"Do unto others what you would have them do unto you." A lot of people think Jesus said that, because it is so much the sort of thing Jesus liked to say. But it was actually said by Confucius, a Chinese philosopher, five hundred years before there was that greatest and most humane of human beings, named Jesus Christ.

The Chinese also gave us, via Marco Polo, pasta and the formula for gunpowder. The Chinese were so dumb they only used gunpowder for fireworks. And everybody was so dumb back then that nobody in either hemisphere even knew that there was another one.

We've sure come a long way since then. Sometimes I wish we hadn't. I hate H-bombs and the Jerry Springer Show

How about Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes?

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

And so on.

Not exactly planks in a Republican platform. Not exactly George W Bush, Dick Cheney, or Donald Rumsfeld stuff.

For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.

"Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!

Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler. What can be said to our young people, now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without senses of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations, and made it all their own?

© 2005 Kurt Vonnegut Extracted from A Man Without a Country: : A Memoir of Life in George W Bush's America.

It's Just A Matter of Time

Well, another war is almost upon us, as evidenced by the comment on to day's Free Beer and Hot Wings Show advocating the nuking of Iran for exercising their right to nuclear power. I'm sure that will only result in millions of deaths of people who don't trust their government anymore than most Americans do, while their leaders are safe in some undisclosed location, much like the one Dick Cheney was cowering in on 9/11. And of the course, the resulting radiation will only spread throughout much of the Middle East, especially Iraq, where many of the soldiers supported by yellow ribbon magnets will be downwind from it.
Another sign that we're almost ready to shoot ourselves in the foot again is the announcement that Halliburton has wound up it's Iranian contracts giving it's people time to scramble back to Washington to get more no-bid contracts to rebuild Iran after we blow it to pieces. All we need is a reason.
Thank God that void is being filled by the corporate media, who took this article from Reuters containing this little dandy:

Bleichwehl said troops, facing scattered resistance, discovered a factory that produced "explosively formed penetrators" (EFPs), a particularly deadly type of explosive that can destroy a main battle tank and several weapons caches.

from a story about soldiers in Iraq (who should receive some sort of commendation, except, well, they exposed the Bush administration as liars). That's where the Washington Post came, and took the story and changed it to better suit Bush regime lies:

One of the bombs was an explosively formed projectile, a particularly deadly type of device which Washington accuses Iran of supplying Iraqi militants.

See? You can always rely on the corpocracy to cover up each others lies. I have a standing bet with a co-worker that we'll be at war with Iran before the end of the summer (just in time to drive up oilprices for the summer driving season, imagine the windfall oil companies will make from that), but she doesn't think that the Bush regime has the support for another war, but I say they don't have the support for the one they're in now, and it hasn't stopped them for continuing to fight it. Just give the corporate media a little time and they'll have the beer swilling NASCAR watching mouth breathing brain damaged jackanapes up and arms against Iran in no time.

Boy, Have Schools Gotten Tougher Since I Was A Kid

I've mentioned in previous posts of my desire tp move to New York City, because obviously they have the whole crime thing under control there that they have more time to spy on antiwar activists and such. Apparently, all crime has been so removed form the city that police officers have time to now arrest 13-year old girls for writing on their school desks. Boy have things gotten stricter since I was in school.
Now I used to draw on desks frequently, mostly when I didn't have a piece of paper handy, and I don't believe I was ever called on it, even when I was drawing elaborate landscapes in my psychotropic state. So I figured whatever 13 yr-old Chelsea Fraser wrote on her desk must have been absolutely horrible. Did she write an expletive? Did she criticize a teacher? The government? Threaten her classmates?
No. What she wrote that was horrible enough to have dragged from school in front of her classmates in handcuffs was just one word.
Okay. That's it. The one word. Okay.
So I know I am safe moving to New York because all the major crimes in that city have been solved and all the criminals locked safely away, so that the police now have the time to arrest a teenager for writing one word (and a positive word at that) on her desk. So much for freedom of expression.

Who's The Biggest Fool In America?

I'm sure everybody who could weigh on this would have a different take on this, but according to a local Fox News affiliate in Pheonix, it's Britney Spears. Psycho? Possibly. Foolish? Not the most foolish person in America, according to the numbers flashed on the screen during this report.
But I think this really makes the foolish person in America anyone who watches Fox because they claim to be "fair and balanced".

Victims Of The Policies Of Idiots

Freed British sailors today revealed abuses by the Iranian government, including waterboarding, being set upon by dogs, being forced to strip naked and lay on top of each other, and, oh, wait a minute, these are abuse charges against the United States ! It seems the worse the British soldiers had to endure was *gulp*, blindfolding, isolation and a seven year jail sentence if they failed to confess to something they had actually done. Makes the Iranians seem quite civilzed compared to the policies of the Bush administration.
And that's the point. The people of the "coalition of the willing"(to break international law, as well as numerous treaties) can't complain about the way our soldiers are being treated when captured because we have treated our prisoners so shoddily. Saying it's okay for us to do so makes one look like a hypocrite, which is what most war supporters have become.
Bush has called the recent bill passed by Congress which sets a date for troop withdrawal a signal to the terrorists, but we are not fighting terrorists in Iraq, if we were really serious about fighting terrorists, we'd be bombing the mountains of Pakistan where alQaeda is hiding out, regrouping, and rallying more people to it's cause. Luckily for them, they're located in a place that doesn't have a large oil reserve underneath. Because that's what the "war on terror" is all about. Recent rumors of a US led attack on Iran caused oil prices to rise above $70 a barrel (just in time for the millions of Americans heading to Florida for spring break, thank you), proving that we don't actually have to invade a country for the oil monopolies to profit from it.

Thank God We Live In A Country Like This?????

I wanna move to New York City! Evidently, the crime rate there is so low that the New York City Police had time to spy on antiwar activists for a full year before the 2004 convention. I guess the 889 murders, 3,636 rapes and 68,034 burglaries were solved immediately, so in their spare time, the police traveled across the country, to Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of those who planned to protest at the Republican convention that year. This is reminiscent of 1972, when J. Edgar Hoover and the Nixon White House began covert operations against John Lennon over fears he would disrupt the Republican Convention of that year in Florida.
America is rapidly evolving (or is it devolving?) into a corporatic dictatorship, while our soldiers fight and die for "freedom and democracy" in places that really don't seem interested in the principles at all, these same freedoms are evaporating here at home. You think I'm kidding?
Consider the case of Dr. Charles "Tom" Sell, a forensic dentist who has been held by our government for the last six years on charges of Medicaid fraud (a crime that would net him three years if convicted)while it argues with it's right to medicate him (Because he's delusional)so he can stand trial. I guess they can't waterboard everybody...yet.
And just what are Dr. Sell's delusions? Well he believed the government conspired to start a fire at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. His beliefs stem from the fact that he was hired (as a forensic dentist) to indentify charred remains days before the fatal fire that killed 81 people and has the records to prove it! Another reason Dr. Sell is not ready for trial is because he's seems to be preoccupied with the abuse at the federal prison hospital in Springfield Missouri, and the federal judge refuses to release the videotape that Sell claims will vindicate him.
So the next time some troll tells me the last time they checked we were a free country and people could do and say as they pleased, I will have to agree with them. We are free to do and say as we please, as long as it's something that doesn't upset the corpocracy.

There Goes The Housing Bubble

The Commerce Department reported that housing sales declined sharply in February, following a 15.8 percent decline in January. Median housing prices fell to $250,000, and foreclosures are on the rise. Meanwhile, Republicans tell us the economy is "booming" under Bush, but the reality is the subprime mortgage crisis could hurt the economy. (Which, as Bernie Sanders put it is really only booming for one percent of the population.
Housing prices are not falling in the west, however, as most people are seeking to leave the rust belt for places where there will actually be jobs in the future. I eman jobs where you can actually afford a $250,000 median priced house.

They Must Have Been Crazy Before, They Joined The Army During A War!

It seems that the sociopaths in the Bush administartiomn has found a new way to screw returning Iraqi war veterans. The Nation has a piece on returning soldiers with injuries and PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) are told they really are suffering from a pre-existing condition. Anything to save a buck to line the pockets of defense contractors.

Defense Department records show that across the entire armed forces, more than 22,500 soldiers have been dismissed due to personality disorder in the last six years.

Well, it seems like the Army will just sign up anyone, without psychologically screening them.

Col. Knorr of Fort Carson's Evans hospital says he's confident his doctors are properly diagnosing personality disorder. The colonel says there is a simple explanation as to why in so many cases the lifelong condition of personality disorder isn't apparent until after serving in Iraq. Traumatic experiences, Knorr says, can trigger a condition that has lain dormant for years. "They may have done fine in high school and before, but it comes out during the stress of service."

Well? Not according to Keith Armstrong, a clinical professor with the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco.

"Personality disorder is a diagnosis I'm very cautious about," he says. "My question would be, has PTSD been ruled out? It seems to me that if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, let's see if it's a duck before other factors are implicated."

So why is the Army doing this? By discharging soldiers under Chapter 5-13, the military could be saving upwards of $8 billion in disability pay. That's money better served lining the pockets of those wonderful folks at Halliburton, which recently announced it's moving it's headquarters to the UAE. Probably to be closer to the action.

Through The Looking Glass

It looks like the Evil Empire's dirty trick squad is up to something. First came the report of a break in at Minnesota's DFL headquarters, in which a lap top was stolen. This was followded up by reports of break-in at New Hampshire's Democratic headquarters, which came five weeks after a Manchester Democratic headquarters was broken into as well. Hmmmm. Curioser and curiouser.
Could it be someone is seeking dirt on the Democrats? Maybe to justify the firings of all them federal prosecutors? Bush has already stated he will fight Congressional subpeonas of his staff in the ever growing attorney firing scandal. Perhaps learning his lesson following the perjury conviction of I. Lewis Libby, Bush said he would allow them to testify in private and not under oath (kinda sorta like his and Dick's testimony before the 9/11 commission. Am I the only one seeing a pattern here?), in other words, giving them carte blanche to lie to Congress (Hell, Bush did it, why not his staff?). Can we start impeachment yet?

I Want A Fucking Apology

Today marks the four year anniversary of the US's illegal pre-emptive strike against Iraq. Many people commemorated it over the weekend in protests across the country.One such local protest took place at the home of Congressmen Vern Ehlers, who voted for the war. The basis for his vote? According to a letter he mailed to me it was based on an article in Esquire magazine. He responded to me, because I had opposed the war before it began, and emailed him and asked him not to vote for it. I told him there were no WMD, no links to 9/11, and no ties with alQaeda. As it turns out, I was right and he was wrong and now, I want a fucking apology!!!
This war, which was a violation of international law, was based on lies, and anyone who oppsed from the outset has had to endure insults and put-downs. We were called unpatriotic, and accused of giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Well guess what, fuckwads, the war in Iraq has created more terrorists than it has impeded, so much for making the country safer, asswipes. You were wrong to support the war, and you were wrong to question my patriotism because I knew the war wouldn't go as swimmingly as we were being told, so where's my apology? I want a fucking apology.
This morning on the Free Beer and Hot Wings Show, they copped out and stated that they didn't know the war was based on lies. I'm sure if they went throughn their archives, they would find that they probably had a caller who explained to them why the was wrong, and were probably shouted down by the asswipes on that radio station who think being louder and dumber makes them right. So while they were cheering the shock and awe, Iraqi children were having the faces stitched back together (see Why We Fight) with out anesthetic because under US/UK imposed sanctions, no medical supplies were allowed to be shipped to the Iraqi people. That hurt Saddam, I'm sure. At the time, I was barely computer literate, and I was able to ascertain that Bush was lying, why weren't you media savvy people able to?
Bill O'Reilly has stated that if we went in Iraq, and they found nothing, that he would apologize to the American people. I'm an American, and I'm waiting. I want my fucking apology.
But even more than me, these media types who fed us propaganda need to apologize to the families of the 3218 soldiers who died needlessly, in a war that was not only illegally, but unnecessary as well. Not only that, these sleazeball media types also need to apologize to the families of over 650,000 Iraqi civilians who have died because Bush had a hard on for war and couldn't get it down.
We also need an apology from the Democraps, who we voted for last November on the hope that they would do something, anything to stop the madness and bring our troops back home. They won't even pass a resolution to stop Bush from attacking Iran, which, as I have repeated over and over, has yet to be found in violation of the NPT, a treaty which the US has also signed. They also have a right to nuclear power for peaceful purposes.
Here is a short rundown of some of what George Bush's war and occupation has wrought:

Nowhere on Earth is there a worse refugee crisis than in Iraq today. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, some 2 million Iraqis have fled their country and are now scattered from Jordan, Syria, Turkey, and Iran to London and Paris. (Almost none have made it to the United States, which has done nothing to address the refugee crisis it created.) Another 1.9 million are estimated to be internally displaced persons, driven from their homes and neighborhoods by the U.S. occupation and the vicious civil war it has sparked. Add those figures up – and they're getting worse by the day – and you have close to 16 percent of the Iraqi population uprooted. Add the dead to the displaced, and that figure rises to nearly one in five Iraqis. Let that sink in for a moment.

Basic foods and necessities, which even Saddam Hussein's brutal regime managed to provide, are now increasingly beyond the reach of ordinary Iraqis, thanks to soaring inflation unleashed by the occupation's destruction of the already shaky Iraqi economy, cuts to state subsidies encouraged by the International Monetary Fund and the Coalition Provisional Authority, and the disruption of the oil industry. Prices of vegetables, eggs, tea, cooking and heating oil, gasoline, and electricity have skyrocketed. Unemployment is regularly estimated at somewhere between 50-70 percent. One measure of the impact of all this has been a significant rise in child malnutrition, registered by the United Nations and other organizations. Not surprisingly, access to safe water and regular electricity remain well below pre-invasion levels, which were already disastrous after more than a decade of comprehensive sanctions against, and periodic bombing of, a country staggered by a catastrophic war with Iran in the 1980s and the First Gulf War.
I guess I'll wait for my apology, until after you apologize to the Iraqi people.

"True" Tortured Confessions

The Same Guy?

Nothing could be more embarassing to the Bush administration following the tortured confession of who they allege to be Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, than this story, which purports the KSM trotted out by the Bushites is in fact an impostor. The claim is that in fact the man we see in photos is actually Ahmed Abdul Qudoos,the man in the above photo on the left. I'm not saying they are the same guys, there is enough discrepancy for me to be doubtful, but then there is the story that KSM actually died in a shoot out on September 11, 2002. If this story is true (and really, who believes the lies of the Bush administration any more?), then who is the man that they claim is KSM?
Even more disturbing is the story that the CIA also has KSM's two sons,aged seven and nine at time of kidnapping, in custody, in case the waterboarding doesn't work, you can always torture the children because what parent would stand by and watch their children be tortured by the assholes who represent our country. Suddenly, it sounds like we're not the good guys anymore when we stoop to that level, in fact, it makes us downright evil, and how any free thinking citizen of the US could justify these acts in the name of "freedom" or "democracy" shows just how far we've strayed in the past six years under the Bush regime.
But all that is irrelevant, since the whole "confession" has backfired on the US (although it has got the beer swilling NASCAR watching tube jockey's attention away from the US attorney scandal brewing in Washington, as well as the Plamegate trial)since in any civilized court, any confession derived under stress (a/k/a torture) is inadmissable, (which is just as well, since one of his confessed "terrorist acts" was towards a bank that wasn't even founded until after his arrest) under new rules adopted by the Bush regime and it's rubber stamp Republican congress, it's all fine and dandy.

Give It Up, Johnny Boy

Seriously, does John McCain really want the Republican nomination? His recent attempt to derail his own "Straight Talk Express" came when he used the term tar baby in a response to a question on a campaign stop in Iowa today.

"For me to stand here and … say I'm going to declare divorces invalid because of someone who feels they weren't treated fairly in court, we are getting into a tar baby of enormous proportions and I don't know how you get out of that."

Mitt Romney also used the term to describe Boston's big dig project, leading one to believe that, well, all Republicans are racists (and ones of the early twentieth century variety to boot).
McCain also stumbled on a question on whether or not he supported federally subsidized condoms to Africa to prevent the spread of HIV.
McCain has said he won't formally announce his candidacy until April. At the rate he's going, by then he won't even be a contender.

Pardon Me?

I guess they know a vendetta when they see one. After all, it was the Cheney regime's personal vendetta against Joseph Wilson for exposing their lies about Iraq that started this whole thing. But now , according to the UK Telegraph unnamed sources have stated that Scooter Libby will be likely to receive a presidential pardon for his crimes because they believe the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, was pursuing a "political vendetta" against them. You can really only be paranoid if you have something that you're trying to hide, and sure enough, these people are trying to hide the fact that they foisted a bunch of lies on the unsuspecting and trusting American people to gain support for a war that should never have been fought in the first place. A war that is now becoming a stinking sinkhole of American foreign policy as well as creating more terrorists that it ever could have hoped to have eradicated.
To those in the Cheney regime, perjury is not a major crime, but have they failed to remember this: it was a charge of perjury that Bill Clinton was impeached for, brought about by a special prosecutor with a political vendetta against the president. Kenneth Starr was a conservative Republican investigating the Whitewater mess (after the first one found nothing), and that had nothing to do with Monica Lewinsky or Paula Jones. Patrick Fitzgerald is a Republican prosecutor, so how could his vendetta be political?(Unless, as a proud Republican he was seeking to purge the party of all those who brought disgrace to it. Which wouldn't leave many Republicans in political office anywhere) No, the Cheney regime is just repeating the mantra of the left during the time Bill Clinton was being impeached, that his prosecution was politically motivated, which it was.
I'm sure the pardon is being offered as a carrot-on-a-stick to dangle in front of Libby to prevent him from rolling over on his former boss, so that when his appeals process runs out at the end of Bush's second term, he can receive one of those Christmas pardons like Bush I gave to all involved in the Iran-Contra scandal (where we sold weapons to Iran to fund Central American death squads killing nuns in the name of "democracy"), or like Marc Rich bought, I mean, received from Bill Clinton at the end of his term.

If I Were These People, I'd Start Looking For A New School

President Bush today visited Enterprise High School which was devastated by tornadoes. Eight students died when it was hit, while a hundred got alive, which Bush touted as a miracle. No, you stupid fuckhead, a miracle is when God makes the impossible possible, such as Jesus walking on water or turning water into wine, or when the American people get a swift response from this president when a tragedy occurs. What has happened here was merely a run on good fortune.

"These are very tough times for the people here," Bush said. "Out of this rubble will emerge a better tomorrow."

Meanwhile New Orleans is still having problems 17 months after the devastation of Hurricane katrina getting their city rebuilt. Says Bush:" Hey I sent you people a check. What else do you want me to do? There's a war on that has distracted my short attention for the most part of my presidency." (No, he really didn't say that, although he surely thought it.)
Bush also put out a call to volunteers to help Enterprise rebuild, which means that the government can dump more cash down the sinkhole that is the war in Iraq:

"The best help they can get is when a citizen comes and builds them a house."

No, the best help people can get is from a responsive government that hasn't privatized services to the lowest bidder who then cuts corners to reap a bigger profit. Look how well that worked over at Walter Reed.
And so you have what will be the legacy of the Bush administration, a White House more obsessed with global hegemony than in actually helping out the taxpayers who fund these wars for global conquest.

The New American Ghouls

John Negri of Altoona, Pennsylvania, photographs his wife and daughters at the gravesite location believed to be of Anna Nicole Smith's son Daniel, at Lakeview Memorial Gardens in Nassau, Bahamas February 25, 2007. REUTERS/Hans Deryk

Bush's Proposal Bad Medicine

Yesterday President Bush outlined his proposal for fixing America's health care system, and once again, it is just another tax cut for the wealthy. Sure, I could get a deduction of $7500 for the health insurance I have, but then, because my employer provides it for me, it is also part of my taxable income.
Bush's proposal does nothing to address the 47 million Americans who have no health coverage at all. Sure, 3 to 5 million people who are self-employed, or whose employer doesn't contribute to their purchase of insurance, may now be able to afford insurance (a big plus for the insurance companies), but that still leaves us with over forty million people who don't have any coverage at all.
As Harvard scholar Rashi Fein, says:

But the problem is that if each of us purchases insurance for ourselves, insurance will be more costly. One reason: Because administrative costs per person are higher when you enroll people as individuals rather than enrolling larger groups (think what it costs to enroll all municipal workers as one group and what it costs if they were enrolled one at a time). Another reason: Because insurers will want to be compensated for the increased risk that those who sign up are individuals who are likely to need medical care who are not balanced off by others of lower risk – the problem of “self selection” in the absence of the law of large numbers. Furthermore, insurers will make it difficult, if not impossible, for persons with pre-existing conditions to enroll. After all, insurers are there to maximize returns for their stockholders, not to solve the social problem of universal insurance and access to health care.

Let me add that the “new” system would not solve the fairness problem. Today, higher income people get a bigger tax benefit as a consequence of our not taxing the value of the employer payment for premiums. But under the new system, the deduction would be worth more the higher your tax bracket. If you think of the value of the deduction as a subsidy to help you buy health insurance, it’s a subsidy of $0.00 if your family income is so low that you owe no taxes, a maximum of $2,250 (you won’t get much health insurance for your family for $43 a week) if you’re in the 15% bracket, and $5,250 if you taxable income is over $336,550 which puts you in the 35% bracket. So the rich still get more help than others.

Nor would “spending your own money” lead to lower prices and costs. Think of the consequences as the utilization of preventive care services decrease and early diagnoses are replaced by postponement of physician visits and later diagnoses. The President wants to tear down the house, but he’s not substituting a more efficient, fairer, and more comprehensive house that all of us could enter.

So, in the end, it's another handout for the insurance companies, while insuring that the uninsured remain that way. And it does nothing to address the issue of those uninsurable because of a pre-exisitng condition. No wonder a recent poll indicates that forty-nine percent of Americans don't trust Bush on health care, while only nine percent trust him a great deal.

Tin Foil Hat Time

Why would "terror" suspect Jose Padilla indentify with his military captors? Is it because he was part of a series of sleeper cells of US soldiers recruited by groups with alleged ties to alQaeda? Is it a coincidence that Padilla and Timothy McVeigh were in Florida at the same time alQaeda was creating a finance network there?
Meanwhile, Oklahoma City accomplice Terry Nichols claims that McVeigh was directed by a high ranking FBI official in the plot to blow up a federal building, Larry Potts (who has denied the allegations). And if you wonder why the FBI is behind something like this, ask yourself why would the FBI allow the 1993 WTC bombing to go off?
Also, were the middle eastern men reported by Jayna Davis as being complicit in the OKC bombing Iraqis as she has suggested, or were they from another middle eastern nation linked to 9/11? More importantly, why does John Does #2 not look anything like Terry Nichols, but more like "dirty bombing" suspect Jose Padilla?

This Is News?

Elvis was the new Messiah
The apocalypse began yesterday
And we are all living in Hell.
Taunted by big busted bleached blonde bimbos
With a craving for sex on the next Geraldo-Jim Stoddard, "Geraldo Stomp" 1988

Every morning when I arrive at work, I'm confronted by the old crone and old fag I work with, asking me for my opinion on the recent development in the Anna Nicole case, or the latest antics of britney Spears. Blissfully unaware, I ask what those may be, when one of them asks, "Don't you watch the news?"
What has happened to our news providers? Are these people so important that they need to be constantly covered by "serious" journalists? Haven't we all had enough of bleach blonde skanks? (I know I have) I informed my co-workers that I never watch the news, and they reply, "Then how do you know what's going on in the world?"
The local Fox affiliate has news at ten amd every Tuesday they run a segment entitled "Idol Notes", which is a recap of what you just watched for the last two hours on their station. No wonder we're in the state we're in, our attention spans are so shortened we have to be reminded every couple of hours what we just watched. Is it a conspiracy that every morning radio show plays highlights from American Idol?
Real news are stories such as the second US carrier arrrives off Iran. We should all be discussing how the idiots in charge are ready to plunge the US into WWIII,, not the latest developments in the Anna Nicole story, which effects two, maybe three people and the rest of us can just fuck off. How about the second largest food and beverage manufacturer laying off 8000 employees? It's okay though, because our idiot president says the economy's doing fine!
I get my news from the internet, because I can choose which stories I need to read, and which will have no bearing on my future. That's why I visit a lot of blogs, not only because I like to gain a different perspective, but because they may have found a story I hadn't.
The corporate media accomplishes two things, offering a non-stop distraction to the simple minded who can cluck their tongues at rich celebrities and say "It just goes to show you money doesn't buy everything". Right. If Britney Spears was just some homeless person with a shaved head do you think she'd garner any attention? Only if she was on the same street as you coming towards you, otherwise you'd look the other way as you passed her. But because she is a washed-up pop princess party girl displaying her pubeless pussy for the paparazzi, people feel they need to chime in and say "Think about her poor kids." Why don't you think about her poor children and stop giving her and her type the attention they crave and maybe they'll act right and her children won't have to grow up like this. But because you need to feel morally superior to a stranger, you cluck like a bunch of hens at feeding time. In the meantime, Bush is spending the country ino a debt we may never be able to pay, and you're not even smart enough to wonder who holds that debt.

Isn't Iran A Sovereign Nation?

Continuing on the Bush administration policy of hypocrisy, the weapons used in an attack in Iran came from the US. Wasn't it last week that the Bush administration laid claims that weapons seized in Iraq came from Teheran? They then backed off the statement and said they were coming from Iran, but not the government. (You remember, these weapons)Meanwhile, US patrol ships are on alert in the Gulf, as the rhetoric escalates like US carrier groups there.
Then over in Afghanistan, al Qaida releases a video of it's attacks on US forces there. The "terrorist" organization is hiding out in Pakistan, which brings to mind Bush's oft-repeated statement:

"[w]e have made it clear to all nations that if you harbor terrorists, you are just as guilty as the terrorists, you are an enemy of the United States, and you will be held to account."

So shouldn't we threatening Pakistan? Well, according to Porter Goss:

when you go to the very difficult question of dealing with sanctuaries in sovereign states, you're dealing with a problem of our sense of international obligation, fair play."

In other words, we can't go into Pakistan because it's a sovereign state, even though it's harboring terrorists. But Iraq and Iran are sovereign nations, too, yet we didn't hesitate to invade them when they didn't harbor terrorists, and Iran even offered to help us with the Taleban in Afghanistan.
The "war on terror" began as we sought those responsible for the terrible attacks of 9/11. 9/11 was also used as a pretext for our invasion of Iraq, even though later, Bush admitted that there was no link.Now Bush isn't even bothering to link Iran to 9/11, instead relying on the resolution passed in 2002 granting him power to invade Iraq, which he acquired under false pretenses, (i.e., by lying). So while the politicians waste time arguing on whether to pass non-binding resolutions on Iraq, instead of investigating and impeaching those who manipulated intelligence to get their oppurtunity to wage an illegal war against a sovereign nation, the Bush cabal is planning to start another war, the third of his presidency. I guess George didn't have to clean his plate before he got dessert when he was a child.

Here Ya Go!

In yesterday's mailbox came a comment from Mark (thanks for getting me unstuck) where he called me "worse then (sic) O'Reily and Hannity". I don't know about that, after all Hannity and O'Reilly reach an audience of millions, and I only reach a couple of hundred people a week. Not only that, I do this for free, while O'Reilly and Hannity makes millions doing what they do, essentially acting as propagandists.
Now, when I do make a blunder (which has happened), I will be the first to admit my mistake. So when I posted the other day about a soldier who had to pay back his enlistment bonus, Mark challenged me on it, as the soldier had never seen combat. He also said:

Give me one example of a disabled combat soldier who was made to pay recuopment on his/her bonus and I will retract.

I give you Kevin Stonestreet, Purple Heart recipient, a combat veteran discharged with PTSD who was ordered to payback part of his signing bonus. Then I kept looking and found this story of another wounded vet who was injured in Iraq who was required to payback his signing bonus. He ended up living out of his car when the Army reported him to credit agencies as having bad debts.
So there you have it, not one but two examples. (Actually, there was over ten pages of stories, but I stopped when I realized My Name Is Earl and The Office were on). But I'm not asking for a retraction, instead could you please shovel your danged driveway?

Better Off Dead?

If you're an enlisted person, fighting in the endless war on terror, if you happen to be engaged by the enemy, better hope they kill you, rather than just maim or disfigure you. Why?
Because if you're unable to finish your tour of duty, you will be expected to pay back your enlistment bonus. Never mind that your sacrificed part of your self so that military contractors will have enough Hummer juice to drive to their summer (or winter )homes, that's money that could be used to lure another sucker, er, I mean, soldier, off to protect the corpocracy in another part of the world.
Of course, when you come back with out an arm or leg, or suffering brain damage, you'll probably have to go through some sort of rehabilitation, do they charge you for that as well. then if you're lucky enough to find a job, well than you can start to pay back that bonus, while trying to retrofit your house with wheelchair ramps to make it easier for you to access, having given up part of your body so Big Oil can reap record profits. My suggestion? Collect money from all those people with the yellow ribbon magnets on their cars.

Damn The Damning Evidence

Here's the US's "evidence" that Iran is providing EFPs to the insurgency, offered up by three unindentified US officials (which is already a tell, if they had real evidence, they'd use their top guns to promote it). Already, I can see two problems with it that lead me to believe this is beingused as part of the case for an Iranian invasion by the US. And really, that believe the bulk of television watching morons to be too stupid to figure this out, but here goes.
1.)The lettering is in English. In Iran they read and write Farsi. Why would a country manufacturing weapons use a different language other than their own on them? We don't use Arabic on our weapons, because probably 99% of American read English, if they can read at all.
2.)The date of manufacture on this bomb, as indicated by the 3-2006, is absolutely wrong. Sure, for us it's 2007, however, for the Islamic calendar, it's 1428. So nnaturally, weapons manufacturers in Iran would use the infidels calendar as opposed to their own.
Of course, Iran denies any of this evidence, so the question becomes one of who do believe? The people of Iran, who are tring to prevent their country from being nuked by a crazed madman and his disassociatative frontman, or the people who were caught lying to us about our reasons to go to war with Iraq? What was the original idiom Bush mangled oh so many years ago? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, I won't get fooled again.

Do You Really Care?

Who didn't see this train wreck coming? I'm talking of course about the death of Anna Nicole Smith, another in a long line of big busted bleached blonde bimbos meeting an untimely demise. And now we wil be inundated with an endless parade of casual acquaintences and hangers-on, all willing to tell their version of the Anna Nicole Smith story to the media, for a price. And already a line of would-be fathers are lining up to claim paternity to Anna's daughter, who stands to inherit her estate.
And of course the media wil exploit this, too, what better than a tawdry tale of sex and drugs to distract the people from the fact that the people we elected to end the war in Iraq have done nothing to end it, or that the people who lied us into that war are now lying us into a war with Iran. It's a win-win situation for the corpocracy and it's media outlets.
More importantly, this gives a chance for all the poor slobs to cluck their collective tongues and say "This just goes to show you money can't buy happiness". Then they talk about the tragedy of the poor baby who will grow up with out a mother, rather than view it as a blessing, considering how her other child died, and how unfit Ms. Smith was as a parent, no matter how loving.
Since the autopsy report won't be released for anothe five weeks, that means we'll be treated to tabloid television speculation about the mysterious circumstances behind her death. It was the lead story on CNN all day, and the major story in most media outlets as well. All for a person whose greatest accomplishment was taking off her clothes. But do you really care?

Americans Wreck Everything

I was working on a catering last night, a leadership meeting for an international company, with over 800 guests. There were tables set up reflecting the food and spirits of each country represented, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, France and Australia. The table I was supervising was the Paris table ( no, not that Paris) where we were serving beef bourquiqnnone, with baguettes and eclairs, along with some French wine. I was joking with the guests, trying out my best French accent when a real Frenchman came over to our station. I offered up some beef bourquiqnonne, to which he just laughed and sneered, then I offered him a bagguette, and he said no, so I pointed out the eclairs.
The eclairs we had were prepackaged machine made pastry puffs. he went over and grabbed one, (after a glass of wine, it was good wine) and came back over with the eclair.
"Thees ees not an eclair," he said, then indicated with his hands the size and shape of a real eclair.
"What can I say?" I offered back "We're Americans, we wreck everything," to which he laughed and nodded his head then wandered off to another part of the hall where the party was being hosted at.

That's right. Americans wreck everything, from remaking great foreign movies badly to destroying whole nations, if there's a way it can be fucked up, an American will find it. Look at how badly we screwed up this once mighty nation.
Take for instance this new packaging for bananas being test marketed by Chiquita. I've never had a problem with bananas going bad in my place, because once they start to turn, I find a use for them, like throwing them in some pancake batter to feed the kids as a way to make breakfast a little more healthy (sort of like when your mom put sauerkraut in your brownines as a way to get you to eat something healthy). But the Chiquita Fresh and Ready Bananas let you buy two packs of three, open one pack and keep the next pack fresh until next week. Another thought is you could just buy three for this week and then buy three more next week, or am I making too much sense?
Leave it to corporate America to find a way to take a perfectly packaged product and place it in plastic and polystyrene. Old bananas came in a natural biodegradeable package you could throw in a land fill or a compost heap and be ecologically sound. Now, some marketing genius has found a way to increase the nation's trash output even more in the name of convenience. I'm sure whoever he is, he's sleeping well, next to his trophy wife after downing a double dose of Lunestra, dreaming of the bonus he'll be getting when this idea catches on with millions of American housefrau.
To me, this proves without a doubt that there is no supreme being, for if he was, he'd be giving some fatal disease to all those at Chiquita who thought they could improve on his original design. I know that all these corporations have whole departments of people who pull in six figures and have the need to justify keeping themselves on while laying off and outsourcing the real work force, and so ideas like this are born.
In the meantime,an effort to find a cure for cancer goes waiting. No one's doing anything about alternate fuels, or global warming. But we found a way to package fruit that already came packaged naturally. No wonder the rest of the world hates us. We wreck everything.

Forget Bush-Impeach Cheney

A new report by a coalition of unions, faith groups and think tanks in Great Britain has said that war with Iran would be 'disastrous'. Besides destabilizing Iraq, undermining hopes for Iraeli-Palestinian peace, and emboldening hard-liners in Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government, an attack could also drive up fuel prices, harming economies around the world(although providing more record profits for oil companies like Exxon-Mobil). But it's not only this coalition that has said this, there's also three US ex-military leaders who have stated this as well. Of course, there were a lot of people who said the war in Iraq would be disastrous, and nobody in the present administration listened to them, either.
Remember when the insurgency was in it's last throes? That was almost two yeas ago, but now, apparently, it's being aided by Iran, or so we're told. Of course, there's no intelligence to back up that claim, or at least nothing has been manufactured yet (like the forged yellow cake uranium receipts at the center of the plamegate case). The whole Scooter Libby case is about attempting to cover up the fact that the Bush administration knew the documents it was using were in fact a lie.
Over in Iran, they opened up one of it's nuclear sites to ambasadors and reporters, to prove they are not hiding anything. I can think of another Middle eastern country that has nuclear weapons, who would never agree to that, even as they push the US to attack Iran. Their lobby is so powerful, that even candidates for the opposition party feel compelled to stand before them and advance the lobby's agenda, ahead of American interests.
But don't expect congress to do anything to stop an attack. They're still debating a non-binding resolution on Iraq, which is kind of like debating which Super Bowl commercials were the most effective in June.
In 2005, Dick Cheney said that people who dared to question the White House's use of prewar intelligence were "reprehensible and dishonest" as well as "corrupt and shameless". This from a guy who manipulated intelligence (dishonest) to start a war that made a ton of money for his former company (corrupt and shameless)then oued an intelligence agent whose husband dared to expose his lies (which is an act of treason in war time) is fairly reprehensible himself. Cheney is the one within the administration who is pushing for an attack on Iran, even going as far as having CENTCOM draw up plans for a nuclear strike against Iran in 2005. And if Cheney did direct Scooter Libby to out Valerie Plame, then there is a strong case for impeachment.