We need to Build Several New Prisons to House Repiglikkkans

World Bank's Wolfowitz faces corruption in Chad
Funding for pipeline at stake

Bush Has Spent 365 Days of His presidency Clearing Brush In Crawford

Moron in Chief

Delay May be the Most Corrupt Person to Ever Sit In Congress

Sibel Edmunds Ought to Know

US Forces International Crookand Liar Chalabi on Iraq Anyway

I'm Not the Only One Who Knows CAFTA Sucks

Illinois To Miss Electronic Voting Deadline

Telecom Laws Overhaul Threatens Public-access TV, Services

Ann Coulter's Beauty Secret

This is hilarious.

a look at the year's misinformation highlights.

Since January 1, Media Matters has documented and corrected 1,531 instances of conservative misinformation -- and more than 2,834 since we launched in May 2004.

All Hat No Cattle Graphic

Little Amerikkka

United States of Angst

Who was president? That's right. A mealy mouth sociopath named George Herbert Walker Bush. True, he looks good when compared to the rotted fruit of his satanic loins, but then a turd full of tapeworms looks like a good leader when compared to Dubya.
[...]
One long term survey shows that personal misery among Americans is at its highest levels since the early 1990s, with people saddled with woes over healthcare, unemployment, paying bills and romance.
[...]

The Bush Economy

Yes, Girls and Boys, Santa is a republican

Enron Firm's Close Ties to Bush

How Bush Won in 2004

Too Many Masters

In an unprecedented move, a major conservative
Christian advocacy group in the United States will
include the voting records of American legislators on Israel in its biennial Christian voting guide.

The Christian Voter Guide, which is put out by
right-wing 'Christian Coalition of America' every two years ahead of American Congressional and Presidential elections has previously only included American domestic social issues, with the guide now branching out to deal with American's foreign relations for the first time.

"It is very important for people of faith to know
where our legislators stand on support for Israel," said Roberta Combs, President of the 'Christian Coalition of America' in a telephone interview Tuesday with The Jerusalem Post from her home in South Carolina. "Our heart is with Israel," she added.

Founded in 1989 by the Reverend Pat Robertson, the
Christian Coalition of America is one of the largest and most active Christian organizations in the United States, boasting some 2 million supporters.

More Repiglikkkan Pillage and Plunder

Impending Tax Cuts ‘Most Regressive on Record,’ Analysts Find

The barbarians are not at the gate. They are running the government.

AIR FORCE CARGO PLANE DELIVERS CHENEY LIMOS TO IDAHO FALLS

Plundering the Treasurey

Right Wing Columnist: If We Don’t Ignore Blogs, We’ll Die

Reality Check: We Did Amend FISA After 9/11

Rice authorized National Security Agency to spy on UN Security Council in run-up to war

Fear( and BushCo.) destroy what bin Laden could not

Keystone Intelligence Agency

All Hat No Cattle

Transcript: Gen. Peter Pace on FAUX

GAO Cites Army's Sloppy Record Keeping

Israel Ex-commandos Training Kurds in North Iraq

May a Flock of Thrushes Disrupt Your Hologram This Yuletide Season

As the NSA Domestic Spying Scandal unfolds, it might help to remember that John Negroponte and Porter Goss have been placed in key positions to protect this administration while carrying out its Machiavellian agenda.

It might also help to remember the Patriot Act, Total Information Awareness Agency, Terrorist Threat Information Center, Terrorism Information and Prevention System, Cyber Security Enhancement Act, Department of Homeland Security, Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, Counterintelligence Field Activity, Novel Intelligence from Massive Data, Evidence Extraction and Link Discovery, Scalable Social Network Analysis, Threat and Local Observation Notice ... I'm sure I missed quite a few. For example, I missed the National Clandestine Service...

It's all part of the Emerging "Surveillance-Industrial Complex". Did someone say Choicepoint? We live in a Police State yet most people are blissfully unaware or abysmally apathetic.

Chicago Turns Down Discounted Venezuelan Oil

"I only earn $560 a month and of that, over $200 a month goes to my bus fare," Cox told The NewStandard. "I have a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old who also need to get to school. If they change the prices and take away transfers, there are going to be a lot of days missed. I already see no money at the end of the month."

Venezuela may repay World Bank, IADB debt in 2006

Bush Brothers Trample on American Values

NSA Web Site Spys On Its Online Visitors

Banned 'Cookie' Technology Build Into Pages' Code

$1.3 Trillion of American Companies Sold to Foreign Corps

Well, maybe some of these companies will outsource work to the new third world economy workers in the US.

Saga of Incompetence

PetroKremlin

Huh?
I thought the greatest president to ever straddle a galloping stallion stopped all that state run crap way back in the eighties. Ronald Reagan, simply by virtue of his unfettered manliness, rescued the world for privatization. Apparently George Bush lacks the appropriate level of man stuff to keep state run business at bay.

Patriot Act Used to Bust Meth Users

WSJ Some Conservatives Return To Old Argument

Outside Advocacy Group Aims
To Rally Support by Backing
Bush's Initial Claims on Iraq
By YOCHI J. DREAZEN and JOHN D. MCKINNON
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 28, 2005; Page A4
WASHINGTON – The television commercials are attention-grabbing: Newly found Iraqi documents show that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, including anthrax and mustard gas, and had "extensive ties" to al Qaeda. The discoveries are being covered up by those "willing to undermine support for the war on terrorism to selfishly advance their shameless political ambitions."

The hard-hitting spots are part of a recent public-relations barrage aimed at reversing a decline in public support for President Bush's handling of Iraq. But these advertisements aren't paid for by the Republican National Committee or other established White House allies. Instead, they are sponsored by Move America Forward, a media-savvy outside advocacy group that has become one of the loudest -- and most controversial -- voices in the Iraq debate.

While even Mr. Bush now publicly acknowledges the mistakes his administration made in judging the threat posed by Mr. Hussein, the organization is taking to the airwaves to insist that the White House was right all along.

Similar to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth -- the advocacy group that helped derail John Kerry's presidential campaign -- Move America Forward has magnified its reach by making small television and radio ad buys and then relying on cable- and local-television news outlets to give the commercials heavy coverage. Move America Forward has no discernible formal ties to the White House or the Republican National Committee, and the group says it operates independently from the Republican Party establishment. Still, the organization provides a clear benefit to the administration by spreading a pro-war message that goes beyond what administration officials can say publicly.

The effect of the ads hasn't been measured. Amid a simultaneous flurry of speeches by the president and a ramped-up RNC effort aimed at boosting the war, polls show that Mr. Bush's job-approval ratings, specifically his handling of the Iraq situation, have risen this month from all-time lows.

"The White House has really done a poor job of getting the message out, which is why we've had to step into the breach," says California-based Republican political strategist Sal Russo, one of the group's three founders. "They should do a better job of coordinating with those willing to get out and tell the story. We shouldn't be the only ones out here fighting."

The White House didn't return several calls seeking comment. A Republican National Committee spokesman declined to comment.

Move America Forward has raised more than $1 million, mainly in small donations, over the past two years. The group grew out of the successful 2003 effort to recall Democratic California Gov. Gray Davis. It was officially founded in 2004 by Mr. Russo, whose company provides office space for the organization; Melanie Morgan, a conservative San Francisco radio host; and Howard Kaloogian, a Republican former state assemblyman seeking the congressional seat of former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who resigned recently after admitting to taking bribes from defense contractors.

One of their early efforts was a campaign supporting John Bolton's contentious nomination as United Nations ambassador. Another involved backing U.S. detention policies at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by selling "I [Heart] Gitmo" bumper stickers.

When the White House was caught flat-footed this summer by the emergence of Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier turned vocal administration critic, Move America Forward sent pro-war protesters to her camp in Texas and mounted a parallel bus tour of war supporters that culminated in a large rally in Washington. The counter-Sheehan campaign showed how the organization has raised its profile by staging well-publicized rallies and public events that attract substantial media coverage, even if the number of participants is relatively low.

In July, with the administration facing a torrent of negative media coverage of the war in Iraq, Move America Forward sent five conservative radio-talk-show hosts to U.S. military bases in Baghdad for a week of upbeat broadcasts. Ms. Morgan says that, during her time in Iraq, she rode up and down the so-called highway of death leading from Baghdad's airport seven times to prove to her listeners that it wasn't as dangerous as media reports suggested.

In addition to his Iraq political work in the U.S., Mr. Russo has an open-ended political-advertising contract with the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq for whom he produces advertisements that run in the U.S. seeking investment in Kurdistan. Some critics accuse him of having a vested financial interest in prolonging the U.S. presence there.


Liberals question how the group has maintained its status as a tax-exempt nonprofit organization, which requires strict nonpartisanship, given the anti-Democratic tone of its campaigns. The group's Web site, www.moveamericaforward.org, for example, attacks the current chairman of the Democratic National Committee, referring to "Howard Dean types who only see a future of failure for this country."

"When you have people participating in partisan activities with nonprofit dollars, that's really something the IRS needs to look at," says Tom Matzzie, the Washington director of the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org, another frequent target for Move America Forward's rhetoric. "An organization with a shady tax status participating in partisan activities and saying things that aren't true is a rogue element in American politics."

An Internal Revenue Service spokeswoman declined to address the issue, saying that it is agency policy not to "comment on individual taxpayers or organizations." MoveOn is a "political action committee," meaning its donations aren't tax-deductible and must be disclosed.

Move America Forward officials acknowledge that the group's leadership is conservative, but insist they are nonpartisan and point out that the organization also has criticized Republicans. They say that the organization has no connections to the Bush administration or the Republican Party and has been unable to get meetings with White House personnel. And they say there is no conflict between the organization's advocacy work and Mr. Russo's financial ties to the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq.

"If you consider being pro-America and pro-troop to be Republican, then we'll proudly take that label," Ms. Morgan says. "But we've never been embraced by the White House or made part of a secret-right wing conspiracy."

Indeed, Ms. Morgan says she is baffled that the White House no longer makes the case that Mr. Hussein had WMDs. The White House dropped the claims after a variety of investigators found no evidence to substantiate them. But Ms. Morgan says her ads are justified, based on documents given to her in Iraq by an Iraqi general she identified as Abdul Qader Jassim, and on information from U.S. officials involved in the hunt for weapons there. She believes Mr. Hussein possessed WMDs, and that those weapons remain in Iraq today. It couldn't be ascertained that Mr. Jassim is a general and he couldn't be reached for comment.

The organization has kept up a steady drumbeat of pro-military and pro-war commercials in recent weeks. Its newest radio ads, timed to the holiday season, feature parents of service people killed in Iraq or on their way back to the country. In one spot, a woman described as military parent Deborah Johns observes that the "the terrorists know they can not defeat our military -- they can only win by beating down the morale of the American people."

Several Move America Forward officials hope to participate in the Iraq debate more actively than through mere advocacy. Mr. Kaloogian has an early fund-raising lead in the crowded field of Republicans hoping to succeed Mr. Cunningham, the former U.S. representative who resigned after admitting taking bribes. And Move America Forward Executive Director Robert Dixon, furious over a recent troop withdrawal resolution passed by the Sacramento City Council, is weighing a run for a seat in the hopes of getting the declaration reversed.

Write to Yochi J. Dreazen at yochi.dreazen@wsj.com and John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com

Venezuelan legislators after Bush

1st expressway between China, ASEAN opens to traffic

Forced Labor and Prostitution by U.S. contractors

Bush Can Read!

Secret court modified wiretap requests

Sidney Blumenthal in Salon

The notion of absolute executive power has a venerable history, but it lacks an American pedigree.

What everyone should know about Jose Padilla

[...]
The real issue in the Padilla case is whether or not the president can repeal the central tenet of the Bill of Rights and jail an American citizen without charges. The constitution states that a man’s liberty cannot be taken away without due process of law. Habeas corpus, the right to know why one is being imprisoned, is the clearly delineated fault–line between freedom and tyranny. If the administration succeeds in its efforts, Bush will have overturned that fundamental principle and the inalienable rights of man will become the provisional gifts of the president.
[...]

Compare and Contrast

1995: Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), then chair of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, investigated whether taxpayers were footing the cost of stationery and postage for the fan club dedicated to President Clinton’s cat, Socks. (They were not - and it turns out Barbara Bush’s dog Millie had a fan club too.)
2005: Two weeks ago, President Bush admitted he willfully flouted a law that requires him to get warrants before wiretapping U.S. citizens. His justification for ignoring the law appears to be nobless oblige. In reaction, Republicans in charge of the Senate Judiciary Committee announced on Friday that they are planning “oversight” hearings into the matter.

Business As Usual

Two lawyers for Saddam Hussein said Monday that the former Iraqi president's half brother claims U.S. officials offered him a ranking government position in Iraq if he testified against Saddam but he rejected a deal.

Another State Rendered Retarded From Religious Overexposure

Now Remove him from the Governor's Office

US eyes big Pakistan, India arms sales

They hate our freedom.

China central bank to raise deposit rates for U.S., HK dollars again

"Bolivia's Evo Morales Shifts the Hemispheric Balance of Power"

Bush's abuse of power deserves impeachment

Saga of Incompetence

No, fingers ought to be pointed at the repiglikkkan party and their guiding philosophy of destroying federal programs that don't enrich the rich even more, while increasing federal debt to pursue wars of choice, like the class war, and other options intended to enrich the very super rich even more.
The republicans DESTROYED FEMA deliberately.
DHS is a bullshit, do nothing organization as evidenced by it doing nothing about the multitude of very real, addressable problems with national security.
DHS was designed to dispense contracts rich in tax dollars to treacherous, freedom hating, anything for a buck, fabulously wealthy corporate overlords.
Just look at the record.
This editorial, 4 years too late, comes close to that truth, but doesn't quite get there.

GOP Hitting Limits of Aggressive Tactics

It doesn't matter when you have Diebold.

Report: Telecom companies aid in eavesdropping

Well, DUH, yeah. Seems some of the idiots who decide "news" at CNN may soon venture onto the information that the state and big business, including the press, are one.

A former official familiar with the program said that eavesdropping is not sufficient to understand the information being collected, but by employing communications companies to help find patterns that point to terror suspects officials are better able to discern what is threatening.

Hmmm. I wonder if the "cooperative" telecom officials who arranged for their underlings to spy on our phone calls and emails are using states based grunts and peons or outsourced ones in the Philippines or India or some where?
Considering the language barriers I encountered while going through my NOT windows operating system DSL hook up with "Bob," a Punjabi phone company guy, I must say I find the notion of outsourced eavesdroppers pretty amusing.

Of course, when real information comes to light from legal listening in, such as the information produced by Sibel Edmunds, it is quickly suppressed by the feds, because so many of them, like vile satanic smurf Dennis Hastert, stand to be indicted and imprisoned by full disclosure.

Secret court modified wiretap requests

Wizard of Whimsey.

Fantastic images!
Just a couple here..

Top 12 media myths and falsehoods on the Bush administration's spying scandal

Iran hails “first Islamist Arab state” in Iraq

Nice Job Bushie!

Faith Based Charity

Food banks leaner as more in U.S. are hungry

Philippine rebels to target US troops

The New Progressivism

A collection of excellent articles inside.

The Hidden State Steps Forward

Deep in the Heart of Texas

Former Jeff Gannon publisher running for Vice Chair of Texas GOP

Permafrost could be melting, study finds

Anyone breathe Methane?
The methane breathers shall inherit the earth.

Bush Continues to Stay The Course on State Controlled Media

Venezuela Discloses US Plotting

Hmmm. With a little planning and hard work and assassination, maybe BushCo can create a militant fundamentalist theocracy in Venezuela, then get the mullahs to sell us Venezuelan oil on the cheap. Yep, Venezuela has oil, so BushCo is entitled to do whatever it wants there, according to BushCo. No right of self determination for any country with oil, or any country without, likethe US.
George Bush, God's President, has absolute authority to do whatever he wants. PERIOD.
Yeah, these neocon geniuses really know how to compete China.

Caracas, Dec 26 (Prensa Latina) The disclosure that a US official attended a meeting to conspire against Venezuela corroborates the predictions that Washington intends to augment pressures against Caracas in 2006.
According to the regional Telesur TV channel, a Peruvian-born major of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, whose surname is Thomas, recently met with former Venezuelan military coupists in Bogota, Colombia.
A source, who asked for anonymity, said Thomas attended a meeting at the Colombian Administrative Security Department (DAS), as confirmed in a video later broadcast by a US channel.
The disclosure provided evidence for Venezuelan authorities´ accusations over the US involvement in subversive plans to overthrow the government of President Hugo Chavez, given the opposition has failed to defeat him in elections.
[...]

China develops 1st live vaccine against bird flu

Israel to Build Over 200 More Houses in West Bank

Thought for the Day

Either you're with The Constitution or against it.

Unwarranted Executive Power

The pursuit of terrorism does not authorize the president to make up new laws

Democracy May Be Dead in the United States

but it is flourishing in Bolivia. For example, look at Evo Morales.
He actually is one of the people. What a great position from which to REPRESENT.

He is not the ass-end product of corporate money and the unconscious who amass it, unlike some other presidents I know. For example, look at George Bush. He isn't even of the same species as the people of the US.

Correction. He is one of the same species as the braying asses who put him in office. For example, he is of the same species as She Swine, one of those women who thinks getting married is an accomplishment and assassination and torture are most excellent political tools and Bill O'Reilly has a lot of good, old fashioned common sense, and he's the same species as the Green Glow, who works for the VA and complains copiously about federal programs and says blacks and Jews are the problem in Amerikkka.
If you knew me, you'd know how removed from reality Green Glow really is to chance a statement like that to me.
And he is of the same species as closeted homosexual Fred Phelps and as the right wing, over populating "minister" who lives near me. At least priests are educated. Some of these protestant clergy can barely read. Not that I like priests any better, but it scares me that Protestants cherish the reformation as their golden historical moment, the ones who've heard of it anyway, without realizing what a blood letting it was, as are all movements to grab and consolidate power. At least the average priest is literate.
No, no one in Washington is of the people or gives a damn about them, except maybe John Conyers, Dennis Kucinich and Cynthia McKinney. No, the folks in the driver's seats in Washington are political rock stars with privileged lives and groupies, except their groupies supply money in exchange for policy rather than sex in exchange for herpes.
But enough out of me. It's Christmas Eve Day and while I don't celebrate Christmas, I must go shop because the cultural imperialism that says everyone must celebrate Christmas will be closing down the supply train early today.

Fixing Elections for Fun and Profit

We need to get a paper trail system before we have President Jeb. Bleech.
There is no doubt in my mind Diebold machines have already been used to tamper with elections.

an excerpt. (The full original has many good links and much more good info.)
[...]
Under Sancho's watchful eye, the computer experts ran the following demonstration, according to a BBV report.

• Initializing the counter. A Diebold-specified memory card, a device about the size of a credit card, was inserted into the optical-scan counting machine to initialize it. As is the case before every election, a "zero report" was run, showing that zero votes were recorded in each race.

• Inserting the ballots. Sancho and others marked optical-scan ballots by filling in circles on the printed cards. These forms were then inserted into the counter, as voters normally do after marking their ballots. The totals, counted by witnesses before the insertion, were Yes 2, No 6.

• Tabulating the vote. The totals tallied by the vote counter, however, were Yes 7, No 1. In addition, the totals accepted from the counter by the central tabulator, also made by Diebold, showed Yes 7, No 1. No alerts had been sounded by either machine.

How was the count changed? Hursti had added data to the memory card prior to its insertion. This subtracted votes from one position and added them to the other. The same change could be made by almost any dishonest election official, Hursti explained, without the need for any password or much specialized knowledge. Yet the tampering "will not be detected in any normal canvassing procedure," he said. A recount using the same memory card would deliver the same results.

How the Winning Candidate "Rolls Over" the Loser

In a PDF report released in July 2005, Hursti said the Diebold memory cards can hold "an executable program which acts on the vote data." In a well-designed election system, by contrast, the vote counting mechanism should contain only "the ballot design and the race definitions." In other words, initializing a counting machine should install only a list of the candidates and ballot measures to be tallied in each race.

In his report, Hursti indicates that the vote-changing trick can be accomplished using plain old integer math. The Diebold election machines are designed to count each position's votes up to 65,535, which is 1 less than a power of 2. When 1 more vote is counted, the tally "rolls over" to 0. The following vote brings the total to 1, and so forth.

The Diebold equipment, Hursti explains, can be secretly initialized so that Candidate A starts with 65,511 votes -- which is the same as minus 25 -- while Candidate B starts with +25. The "zero report" would blithely show 0 votes for each candidate. After more than 25 votes have been cast for Candidate A, there would be no indication that any tampering had occurred.

Let's say the exact same number of voters happen to cast ballots for each candidate. Congratulations, Candidate B -- you appear to have won by 50 votes. Multiply this by thousands of precincts in a state, all using identical memory cards, and you're talkin' real results.

Accomplishing the Trick in Actual Elections

Diebold, based in North Canton, Ohio, will not comment specifically on the rejection of its equipment by Leon County. But the manufacturer has sent a letter to county officials saying their testing was "a very foolish and irresponsible act" and may have violated the company's licensing agreements, according to a Dec. 15 Associated Press report.

In a development that may or may not be election-related, long-time Diebold chairman and CEO Walden O'Dell resigned for "personal reasons," effective immediately, according to a company press release dated Dec. 12. In September, Diebold was forced to pay California a fine of $2.6 million for installing uncertified software into the state's voting machines. The company's stock plunged more than 15 percent.

Unfortunately for voters, the trick demonstrated on Diebold's equipment by Hursti may very well have already been used in real elections:

• Partisan access. Several election officials have access to memory cards prior to elections. These officials tend not to be neutral. They're usually high-level partisans in the Democratic or Republican Party. For example, Diebold memory cards became an issue in Ohio after the 2004 Presidential election. Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell ordered the cards and other election records sealed from public inspection until after the state's electors were sworn in, according to a Dayton Daily News article.

• Mysterious miscounts. In one incident that was widely reported in Florida after the 2000 Presidential election, a Volusia County precinct showed a final count of negative 16,000 votes for the Democratic candidate, Al Gore. The error was resolved by making a hand count of the ballots. But Leon County's Sancho now believes the "mistake" is evidence of a real fraud attempt that failed only due to sloppiness. "Someone with access to the vote center in Volusia County put it on a memory card and uploaded it into the main system," the election supervisor told Orlando's WESH-TV News in an interview.

• Impossible recounts. The recount in Volusia County was possible because the actual voting records had been preserved. But that isn't possible in a growing number of U.S. counties. In Florida, about half the state's voters now use touch-screen equipment with no paper ballot and no record of the votes other than a memory card, according to a Dec. 17 Miami Herald article. In addition, the Florida Legislature passed election laws in 2001 eliminating recount requirements for touch-screens and not requiring a paper audit trail, according to Law.com.
[...]

Judicial rebuke in the Padilla case

Creepy Prevaricating Unlimited

AP, the Right Wing News Wire, well, one of them

Top 12 media myths and falsehoods on the Bush administration's spying scandal

Hi Spooks! Catch Some Terrorists Instead!

[...]
The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries, they said.

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.
[...]

If the Repiglikkkans get their way, Backwater security will soon be paid many times the going wage to come to your door and take you and your computer; you to a secret prison in Africa, since they've closed the ones in Europe, where you will be held without charge (or seeing an attorney) and beaten and tortured until you are released without prosecution 2 or 3 years later.
You won't dissent anymore after that , will ya, TAKE THAT, ya bastard!
I'm beginning to wonder if one of the gardners or butlers or chauffeurs secretly buggered little Georgie Bush when he was a child.
A secret history of CSA might account for his need to always appear to be so Macho, keep secrets, lash out, drink, etc., and could also explain his complete inability to experience empathy.

Scare Away Pests!

Power We Didn't Grant

Spectacular science fraud shakes stem cell field

The Most Corrupt Congress Ever

[...]
But the term "corruption" is vague, as is "theft" and "fraud" and other crimes. The "pork" that seems to be the princely meal savored by American legislative gluttons, is but one aspect of corruption. Putting aside the bid to fund "bridges to nowhere" in Alaska, the most gruesome (and lucrative) manifestation of endemic corruption is the Iraq war and occupation - a cash cow for favored corporations, and even companies that did not exist previous to the war and the promise of "reconstruction" of Iraq. However, even the rip-off of billions in this scam (and the theft of billions in Iraqi oil revenues) does not come close to describing the enormity of the crime: an attempt to steal the resources of a vast swath of the Earth, far beyond the boundaries of Iraq, and to transfer the proceeds to private hands, all the while billing the American public for the military muscle required.
[...]

More Right Wing Activist Agenda Pushing and Legislating From The Bench

Officials Fault Case Bush Cited

Um, And Bush Hasn't?

The Repiglikkkans appear to be under the sway of a powerful intoxicant. They almost all believe the same loony tune ideas and believe everyone nt he county is dumb enough to believe them and everyone is so maxed out on cable TV that non e has the energy or presence of mind to FIGHT BACK.

And I hate Hillary Clinton. She is a republican, though she hasn't quite reached the status of a repiglkikkan. She's working on it. Note her flag burning amendment.
a small excerpt

Republican Sen. Larry Craig is citing Hillary Clinton as the reason he opposes renewing the Patriot Act in its current form, saying Mrs. Clinton is likely to abuse the security measure if she becomes president - unless additional safeguards are built in.

"There will come a day when there will not be a George W in the White House," Sen. Craig warned, after calling top conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Wednesday to explain his position. "And tragically enough, and I hope never, it could be a Hillary Clinton."

NBC Universal will assume majority control of the 24-hour cable channel MSNBC

More right wing than ever? If I assumed control I'd immediately fire Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough.

The real-life consequences of rigged energy markets

Ex-Enron chief Lay blasts prosecutors, Fastow

Right. It's the prosecutors fault. May he rot in prison.

Unknown Unknown

Alito Argued to Overturn Roe in 1985 Memo

Large embarrassment to Illinois

Dennis Hastert takes a tax payer sponsored vacation to India ahead of President Short Pants who will also be talking a tax payer sponsored vacation there while his team of felons is making sure to accelerate nuclear weapons proliferation all around Asia.
Maybe they can outsource some American jobs while they're there too.

Santorum Distances Himself From Intelligent Design

A follow up to when he distanced himself from intelligence, something he did at birth.

$3.8 Billion OK'd For Bird Flu Readiness

I certainly hope it surpasses hurricane in the gulf readiness and terrorist attack readiness and strategy for illegally invaded and occupied under false pretenses Iraq readiness, though maybe this is all just another Repiglikkkan-Reichstag ploy to put troops on American streets and money in the pockets of Rummy and Frist and other "representatives" of conflict of interest the people, who stand to make enormous profit from this little appropriation.

So much tax payer money has been dispensed to Halliburton for no reason other than problems created by the GOP for them to profit by, Rummy must be getting damn jealous of Dick.

It'd be ultra convenient if the bird flu waited to arrive until next year at the time of mid term elections, especially since more and more states are jettisoning Diebold, The Repiglikkkan Friend (Vote Counting Machine) Then President Short pants could declare martial law during the election. I bet KKKarl Rove is working on that now.

Of course, there's always profit to be made by experimenting on the public with inadequately tested vaccines and other drug company formulas. Vioxx proves this. So does Prozac and a whole sling of others, so if nothing else there is this blackmail to consider, a blackmail made possible by the for profit health care system.

The bird flu plan also included controversial language shielding vaccine and drug manufacturers from lawsuits from people injured by their products during an epidemic. Republicans have long said the protections were a key incentive for vaccine makers to enter the risky U.S. market.

"You've got to be able to incentivize them," Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) told reporters.

because he certainly wouldn't do anything that didn't involved profit or some kind of gain to himself. Frist is such a horse's ass you better watch where you step when he speaks or you'll have serious stink on your shoe, possibly all the way up to your eyebrows.

The Formerly Reliable NPR

Alaska Files Suit Against BP, Exxon Mobil

...
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Fairbanks, says the two companies acted together to eliminate competition for the exploration, development and marketing of natural gas from Alaska's North Slope to U.S. markets.
...
One could conclude billionaire repiglikkkans clamoring for free markets don't really believe in them, since they never miss an opportunity to suppress competition at every level.

News outlets including CNN cited ......

News outlets including CNN cited a study of several major media outlets by a UCLA political scientist and a University of Missouri-Columbia economist purporting to "show a strong liberal bias." But the study employed a measure of "bias" so problematic that its findings are next to useless, and the authors -- both former fellows at conservative think tanks cited in the study to illustrate liberal bias -- seem unaware of the substantial scholarly work that exists on the topic.

Orwell Estate To Sue President Bush

[...]
"We've felt that since its beginning, this administration has stolen much of its policy from Mr. Orwell's writings," said attorney Will Bilyalotz, "expressly '1984' and 'Animal Farm.' In some cases -- for example, the illegal surveillance of its own citizens -- this administration has lifted passages word for word from '1984.' simply changing the year does not protect the president from copyright laws."
[...]

Why won't the Bush administration obey the law?

St. Louis County Rejects Diebold

Right Wing US Co-conspirators Subject of Extradition Request

Since Mr. Bush took office in 2001, the federal government has awarded more than $3 billion in contracts to the President's elite 2004 Texas fund-rais

How About a Stake Through Her Heart? Would that Shut Her up?

Congress to Probe Domestic Spying

Of course, could prove to be another fancy cover up like the one they had when they staged the absurd 9/11 hearings that let the felons in the administration (redundant?) off the hook for sleeping on the job, or worse, letting their little Reichstag fire burn.

I Hear That Whislte Blowin' - Enemies foreign AND DOMESTIC Hear it Too

[...]

Mr. Tice stated: “As a Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) officer it is continually drilled into us that the very first law chiseled in the SIGINT equivalent of the Ten Commandments (USSID-18) is that Thou shall not spy on American persons without a court order from FISA. This law is continually drilled into each NSA intelligence officer throughout his or her career. The very people that lead the National Security Agency have violated this holy edict of SIGINT." A pivotal question in this case is whether Americans were being spied on via a vacuum cleaner approach wherein vast amounts of information are sucked in. FISA warrants require a name of the target and would not cover such a mass approach. He also added: “In addition to knowing this fundamental commandment of not violating the civil rights of Americans, intelligence officers are required to take an oath to protect the United States Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic. It is with my oath as a US intelligence officer weighing heavy on my mind that I wish to report to congress acts that I believe are unlawful and unconstitutional. The freedom of the American people cannot be protected when our constitutional liberties are ignored and our nation has decayed into a police state.”
[...]

Data Seizure Powers Survive in Patriot Act

How do You Spell Fixed Election? D-I-E-B-O-L-D

{...}
In the wake of successful vote-hacking tests in Florida, California is putting off approval of Diebolds latest voting system until the firm has critical software evaluated by an outside lab.
Diebold Election Systems relies on its own, non-standard software language, known as AccuBasic, to program local election details into virtually all of its voting machines, using memory cards or PC cards. Voting system experts say the practice appears to violate federal voting system standards, and independent computer experts have been using Diebolds own code to hack vote totals on its machines.

On Tuesday, California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson cited unresolved significant security concerns in ordering Diebold to submit the software on its memory cards and PC cards to a designated testing lab for review.
{...}

Exactly the Kind of Thing the US assassinates for

Building Theocracy, One Nation at a Time

More Terrorists Located and Dealt With By BushCo. Apparatus for Amerikkkan safety

9/11: Missing Black Boxes in World Trade Center Attacks Found by Firefighters, Analyzed by NTSB, Concealed by FBI

Astounding.

DeLay officially files for re-election

Whatever, Mr. Congressman "Fundraiser" Under Indictment. Just please don't leave your house in shorts again. It's bad enough we have to live with the results of your criminal activities and utter lack of ethics, but don't blind us with your incomparable physical repulsiveness too, Pig Boy.

Federal Investigators Probe High-Tech Explosives Theft

Why? It Functioned EXACTLY as they planned.

The typed notes, purportedly taken by an unidentified official, said Chertoff told the employees the retooling of the Federal Emergency Management Agency "is partially a perception ploy to make outsiders feel like we've actually made changes for the better."

Bill Would Allow Arrests For No Reason In Public Place

Israel Increasingly Likely to Attack Iran

The Ruling Class

Donors Underwrite DeLay's Luxury Lifestyle

Tucker Carlson Needs A Spanking

Fun New Blog!

Another citizen demanding justice

4 GOP Senators Hold Firm Against Patriot Act Renewal

The biggest terrorist threat on the planet is the GOP and Frist is the Abu Al Zarqawi of the GOP Jihadist movement. Just when you think he's down for good he starts shooting off that mouth of his again, the puffed up, self intoxicated PIG.
He thinks he's going to be President Frist. He's acting presidential.
...
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) could barely conceal his anger.
"The Patriot Act expires on December 31, but the terrorist threat does not," he told reporters at the Capitol yesterday. "Those on the Senate floor who are filibustering the Patriot Act are killing the Patriot Act."
...

87% say IMPEACH BUSH as of this posting

Excellent news.

Tell it Like it Is

Evo Morales, man of the people.
Democracy is dead in Amerikkka, and buried by BushCo., but it is flourishing in Latin America

Museum of Monotheistic, Control Obsessed, Completely Unimaginative MORONS

No, not the white house, but close, very close.

China lays down gauntlet in energy war

Roger Toussaint For President!

NYC Transit Strike Hailed As Battle For Nation-Wide Labor Movement By Pension Reform Advocates

New York City’s subway and bus system remains shut down as 33,000 transit workers have entered their third day on strike. On day two of the strike, a state judge threatened to jail union leader Roger Toussaint and two union officials for organizing the citywide strike. As we await the outcome of continuing negotiations, we speak with Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez about the strike.

No Time Today, so I'm reposting this

Wonder what these people did, or these, when the sea came to swallow their cities?

We know what the good folk of New Orleans, Louisiana did. They starved and dehydrated trapped on their roof tops. They died from treatable disease, though even under normal conditions such death is increasingly common in Amerikkka. They whirled away in the rushing waters to drown.

Or they simply drowned while waiting, like the old people awaiting federally coordinated rescue from national guard troops, troops who were unavailable because they were themselves busy dying in Iraq in the BushCon, greed driven, preemptive, illegal invasion and occupation for oil and power.

So, awaiting a rescue that never came, the old folks drowned inside nursing homes while Brownie emailed about his wardrobe and ate a real meal, one to sustain a workin' man, and Bush played Night Ranger records on his dude ranch, because he isn't smart enough to fiddle, and Chertoff hissed while trimming his goatee.

Of course, regarding NOLA, the racist reports blaring across the telescreen night after night, the racist misrepresentation of actions there, further dulled the dim response of rescuers, who were afraid of being killed by looting, shooting, pillaging, savage, southern po-dark folk, who were really just people trying to survive.

Though I'm convinced hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes and other energetic expressions of nature's opinion played a part in many coastal mass drownings, I'm even more convinced previous abrupt increases in sea level may have been helped along by rapidly melting polar ice caps, but not ones liquefied by the waste of human over consumption of petrochemicals, like ours are being, as we become the methane planet.

Environment altering dependence on (and over consumption of) petrochemicals that contributed to the unusually active season of enormous hurricanes in the gulf, will bring the would to it's knees sooner rather than later, yet little is being done to tap energy from alternate sources, because the capitalist market place doesn't work that way. Oil companies own the bucks, bought the white house, bought the congress and wars of choice, and make policy regarding what to do about the decline in availability of cheap energy. They're making record profit from the policies currently in play. They want tax payers to pay them to build new refineries, and to allow them to drill in extra environmentally sensitive areas of the world.

Heat from war, fossil fuel consumption and unmitigated greed, turn up the greenhouse effect and accelerate the other environmental processes and events that are likely to pound us back into an ice age or drown us. No one in authority cares.

Much has already been lost to the maw of the sea. The earth does, after all, have a primarily fluid surface. It is, no doubt, our point of origin, or at least the soup we cooked in, if we, say, came from outer space on a comet, as aggressive, snarling, little microbes marauding the universe at the behest of the true overmind, DNA, then evolved slowly into the fine, environment destroying primates we are today.

Maybe the sea simply wishes us back, though I know the remaining whales and dolphins must be mighty nervous about our presence.

Did the ubiquitous flood myth emerge from a sudden rise in sea levels, one that wiped out coastal cities in cultures that had not yet invented writing? The story of the flood is told in mythologies from all around the world, a ubiquity that alone serves as confirmation to lunk headed, sexually suspicious, suppressed Christians that the jealous, angry Phallus god invented the world 7000 years ago, had Adam walk around with Sauropods and Raptors and Eve on a leash, mind you, then wiped out his invention by flood, in typical father god overkill, shortly there after.

How will we mythologize the drowning of New York? Or Hong Kong? Or all around the Mediterranean? If we allow Pat Robertson to be our story teller, or myth maker, it will be a story of punishment for sodomy and racial mixing, a story that includes assassination and instructions for a proper place for women.

With so many people enabled to participate in such a narrative of mass cultural experience, since we are a literate, technologically sophisticated, "advanced" society that can write and film and videotape, and since we know it's coming, how will we tell it? Will we pack it with truth or will we lace it with lies like the ones we told about the presidency of Ronald RayGun when he died?

Who has control of the story?

How could the wide spread natural events of the past be spun by Judeo-christian culture into a confused tale of Noah and his ark and his sons and pairs of animals, when the average reader doesn't even realize there are two tales woven into one there, when the average reader can't tell a raven froma dove, and the average religious Amerikkkan thinks these events literally occurred?

It is a result of who got control of the telling.

But now all our stories are run through the machine of a vast corporate media with a right wing agenda, a media that has repeatedly failed to tell the truth, find the truth, check the fact, ask the question, report the story; a tampered with media that still has the capacity to reach and influence more people than at any other time in history.

We are falling through the Winston Smith's memory hole.

How are we mythologizing the drowning of New Orleans? Who even thinks about that anymore? Does anyone talk about it in terms of ethnic cleansing, Halliburton's no bid contracts, suppressing wages, toxic quagmire, global warming, etc.?

When we tell the tale of the drowning of New Orleans will it include the simple truth that the republican party destroyed the federal emergency management agency by subsuming it under the do nothing department of homeland security, then appointed a blobby little titmouse, Michael Brown, to run FEMA, and a shady, sibilant snake, Michael Chertoff, to run DHS, when running DHS means nothing more than a job handing out pots of government money to Bush friends while doing absolutely nothing to secure the nation, because nothing can be done, since it is bad policy that brings terrorism upon it.

Will our mythic version of NOLA include the republican idea of making the federal government so small you can drown it in a bathtub, ala patriarchal felon, Grover Norquist, and bloating the military so big, we can't pay for it? Since messianic George Bush claims god told him to invade Iraq, will he hear god's message in Katrina, saying, "George, you're a no good, do nothing, mindless piece of trash and truly a son of a bitch! GET OUT!"?

Our telling, the one that becomes part of our national history/myth, needs to include at least these simple truths: A parasitic government, such as the one the republicans desire and strive for, is a danger to us all, our dependence on petrochemicals is delusional folly and we need to manage our behavior so as to live within the constraints of our environment if we are to survive.

Happy Solstice

from a foot Soldier in the war on Christmas. That's me

Climate Mash (in Flash)

Thanks Carolyn, you super groovy surfer chick.

How the Media "Authorize" the Abuse of Government Power

Wish I could have been a fly on the wall

Who Loves Dicky?

Felon Gate: A Repiglikkkan Xmas Story Year Round

Bankruptcy law backfires on credit card issuers Who Paid Congress To Pass it

Meet The New Jeff Gannon

Bush Thinks it's Fine to Break the Law

And he lies.
And he's snotty. In fact, his patrician Kennebunkport uber alter is snarling in this clip

Other Perspectives on the Felonious Boy King, President Short Pants

This is a part of a pattern.

Is Gonzales a Drooling Fool, or Merely a Typical Bush Cartel Sadist?

Here's proof that any idiot can be licensed to the bar.

Bush Broke The Law

NSA AND THE LAW

Beginning to Rival O'Reilly

Chris Matthews: The President should be on Mount Rushmore...

BushCo's Brainchild: Regional Theocracy

The Miscreant Dynasty.

Bush Family Genome Carries Double Strands of Genes for Soulless Predation and Unyielding Sociopathy

Keeping Americans IN

[...]
WASHINGTON -- Some U.S. lawmakers have proposed studying the concept of erecting walls or fences along sections the world's longest undefended border.
In a plan Canadian officials and opposition politicians in the U.S. are dubbing another "Berlin Wall," the House of Representatives passed a bill that includes an initiative to study the construction of a security fence and other physical barriers along sections of the 6,500 km Canada-U.S. border.
[...]

Someone Needs to Hit this Bastard with a tranquilizer dart full of anti-psychotic medication

though there is no drug to deter him from being a world class felon and enormous prick.
And no anti-psychotic strong enough to suck him back into reality, but at least he doesn't have to pose such a threat.

Robertson claimed "evolutionists worship atheism," evolutionary theory a "cultish religion"

Playing With Matches in Flannel Pajamas

[...]
For example, Blue Heron Biotechnology, a private company in Bothell, Wash., boasts on its Web site that it "can synthesize any gene, regardless of sequence, complexity or size, with 100 percent accuracy."'
[...]
Large Sigh.
All we need are Bush Clones. yeech

Like I Said, Short Pants

Dr Germ. Oh brother.

A Time to Impeach

Though I would argue the time for impeachment began in November 2000, and should have gotten underway with impeachment of far right-agenda pursuing, legislating from bench, political appointee SCOTUS members, yeah, those who stood against their oft stated "philosophy" of States Rights (states rights is political doublespeak for kkk love) and appointed election loser Hitler-in-short-pants to office.

But now is good too. Let's go! IMPEACH NOW! We have a right to KNOW. We have a right to live free from this Bush created police state.

My GOD! The man is a relentless criminal who has done irreparable harm to the United States already. Does no one in Washington, other than members of the black political caucus, love their country?

I must send a letter to Mr Durbin expressing my desire for impeachment proceedings. Though I won't bother with Obama who is as about as progressive as John Bolton and would never jeopardize his political future by standing up to these creeps.

Another Bush Brother

an excerpt

More recently, Bush showed up in the Philippines and Taiwan at the side of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the head of the controversial Unification Church. In the Philippines, Bush attended the inaugural convocation of the Universal Peace Federation (UPF) in Manila, the Manila Bulletin reported.
Bush, along with other "peace leaders", joined with Moon in meeting with Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The president "praised Moon for his global peace efforts and God-centered, family-centered economic and social initiatives in various parts of the world, including projects in a number of Philippine cities", the Manila paper reported.
Moon's Philippines trip, one stop on a 100-day tour that is taking him to 100 cities in 67 nations and covering nearly 100,000 miles, was aimed at building momentum for his idea of developing a faith-based path to peace by revamping the United Nations.
Veteran investigative reporter John Gorenfeld told IPS that, "Moon speaks in parables from the Book of Genesis. He says the U.N. is like Cain, but he wants to build a second entity that is like Abel. Ideally his 'Abel U.N.' -- a body fusing all religions -- would be embraced by the U.N. But if not, he wants to set up his own alternative diplomatic machine to outshine the U.N."

Victims of Galloping Fascism

[...}
The American people have allowed the theft of the past two presidential elections with hardly so much as a whimper of protest. Most are not even aware that they occurred. Moreover, we have allowed indicted Congressman Tom Delay to redraw congressional districts in a way that gives conservatives a substantial advantage over democrats and totally precludes progressives from competing. While the morality of such actions may not be in question—their legality is currently under investigation by federal prosecutors.
[...}
War is profitable for those who wage it. Trillions are to be made. And those who wage war are never the ones who have to fight them. The Pentagon and its priests of death and misery in the defense industry cannot exist without enemies—even if they have to invent them. Take away their phantoms of terror and they are left naked and vulnerable as a Deer in the headlights.
[...]
Nice fury, Mr Sullivan. It mixes well with my own.

Spy Chips

2005 media follies! year's most over- and under-reported stories

Contest going on Between Hannity and O'Reilly to Determine Who is More Delusionsal

Thanks Michelle

DEFENSE CONTRACTS

Testy

I have record setting PMS and seem to be coming down with a cold.

Play Mate Come Out and Play with Me

A former CIA contractor wants a federal judge to bring high officials to testify at his trial that the beating of an Afghan detainee, who later died, was authorized.

David Passaro is asking the judge to require U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, CIA Director Porter Goss and others to testify.

The New York Times is Good For Coffee Grounds

NYT held the domestic spying story for a year at the request of the administration.
Wow. They're starting to resemble Fokkks news.

Thank Heaven for the Japanese

The Jackboot Factor

Kristol: 9/11 Happened Because Clinton Didn't Authorize A Warrantless Domestic Spying Program

9/11 happened because Bush didn't do his job.
Bin Laden plans to attack US with airplanes or however the PDB said it.

IMPEACH NOW!

Utterly Absurd

...
Democrats on the committee said the panel issued 1,052 subpoenas to probe alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration and the Democratic Party between 1997 and 2002, at a cost of more than $35 million. By contrast, the committee under Davis has issued three subpoenas to the Bush administration, two to the Energy Department over nuclear waste disposal at Yucca Mountain, and one last week to the Defense Department over Katrina documents.
...

Wow. From Kos. They are Even More Loathsome than I thought

And I already thought they are the biggest scum I've ever heard of.

Repiglikkkan Fiscal Management

It's enough to make Mary Todd Lincoln weep.

Can We Please Impeach This Law Unto Himself NOW?

For christ's sake, the repiglikkkans impeached Clinton over a blow job.

The Way to View Sunday political Talk Shows is

sprinkle some lavender oil in your diffuser, mute your TV so that you have to read the closed captioning and play The REM song Shiny Happy People over and over again, always singing along with the doot doot doot part. And always, always sprinkle salt water and shower when it's over.

Witchin' Use for Lavender: protect and shield your person and home from bad vibrations and negative people.

Thanks Carolyn!

The Grinch factor
Rosa Brooks
December 16, 2005

THE WHOS down in Who-ville
Were a tolerant lot:
Who Christians, Who Muslims — a Who melting pot.
Who Hindus! Who atheists! Who Buddhists, Who Jews!
Who Confucians, Who pagans,
And even Who Druze! The Who 1st Amendment's Establishment Clause
Said, "No creches in courts," and the Whos loved their laws.
Because somehow … they worked. The Whos rarely fought,
Mostly, each Who did just what he ought.
Every Who down in Who-ville
Loved the Consti-Who-tion a lot.
But the O'Reilly, who lived up in Fox-ville,
Did NOT!
The O'Reilly DETESTED the Who Consti-Who-tion,
He thought it was some sort of liberal pollution.
Now, please don't ask why, for I really don't know.
Perhaps it had something to do with his show.
It could be that his head wasn't screwed on quite right.
Or it could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that his RATINGS
Were two sizes too small.
Well, whatever it was, bad ratings or tight shoes,
He stood there one Christmas, just hating the Whos.
"They're so multicultural," he sneered, "and wherever they're from,
They lack the good sense to just launch a pogrom!
There's no Who ethnic cleansing, no Who Inquisition,
If this PEACE can't be stopped, I may lose my position.
Those sensitive, tolerant Whos! It's quite grating.
I must think of something to fix my show's ratings!"
Then he said with a smirk, "I know just what to do
To destroy all the joy in the land of the Who!
I think I can end that PC Who peace.
This year, not one Who will enjoy his Roast Beast!
"Here's just how I'll do it:
I'll tell each Who Christian
That the liberal Whos have devised a new mission
To take away Christmas!
To mock and destroy
Till no little Who Christian is left with a toy!
And when secular Whos — most likely Who Jews —
Attempt to deny it? Why,
I'll just SPIN THE NEWS!
"I'll bluff and I'll lie; I'll sow seeds of mistrust.
Soon they'll form battle lines into
Who 'THEM' and Who 'US,'
Based on which Whos prefer
To sing out, 'Merry Christmas'
And which Whos say, 'Kwanzaa!'
Or 'None of your business!'
"They'll get so confused and so MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD
That they won't even notice the way
They've been HAD!
They'll be so busy squabbling
They won't notice the war!
They won't care if Who rich
Start to trample Who poor!
"Forget torture, and terror, and taxes, and health!
They'll waste all their time on some red-hatted elf.
"And the Who Consti-Who-tion?
They'll stretch it or burn it!
If it came as a gift, they would try to return it!
"The Who Christians will think that they fight the good fight,
They won't know that they're puppets of the Fox-ville Far Right.
They'll forget all that DRIVEL about faith, hope and LOVE
And say 'Merry Christmas' with a sneer and a shove.
"But I? I will prosper! My ratings will soar,
And maybe at last they'll forget I'm a BOOR.
Then for every Who Christmas tree
A most fitting adornament:
My O'Reilly MUG on the tackiest ornament!"
—
… And what happened then?
Well, the rest's up to you.
But I know what I'd like this holiday season:
A little less NOISE and a little more reason.
So Who Christians! Who Buddhists! Who Muslims! Who Jews!
WHOever you are, just say NO to Fox "News!"
If you don't want to lose the whole Who Consti-Who-tion
It's time to reject the Far Right Revolution.
So turn off O'Reilly and everyone shrill,
Let's have some peace
And old-fashioned GOODWILL

Quote

"Paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people." – Hugo Black, Supreme Court Justice

Speaking of frivolous lawsuits

Judas Miller, Interrogator

...
The good news in this anecdote is that before plowing ahead Miss Run Amok-style, Miller at least recognized the ethical questions. She knows the words, she just can't carry the tune
...

More Iran

U.S., Europe step up planning on Iran

Petrodollar Warfare: Dollars, Euros and the Upcoming Iranian Oil Bourse

...
Why would the Vice President instruct the U.S. military to prepare plans for what could likely be an unprovoked nuclear attack against Iran? Setting aside the grave moral implications for a moment, it is remarkable to note that during the same week this "nuke Iran" article appeared, the Washington Post reported that the most recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of Iran's nuclear program revealed that, "Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years."[12] This article carefully noted this assessment was a "consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies, [and in] contrast with forceful public statements by the White House." The question remains, Why would the Vice President advocate a possible tactical nuclear attack against Iran in the event of another major terrorist attack against the U.S. – even if Tehran was innocent of involvement?
...
Don't Think Twice, It's Alright

Anti-US leftist clinches Bolivia election

I'll be watching the language choices on these news stories very carefully. The anti democratic insurgents, I mean the US media, don't think any of these South of the border darkies should determine their own government. In agreement with the brown shirts a in DC as usual.
Spin Spin Spin.
I'm dizzy already from hearing what bad guy Hugo Chavez is.

Presidential Perogative

More Proxy Wars Planned Than Ever Before

Rummy's shopping list

1. Jack Boot Polish


2. Rubber Clubs


3. Travis Twit 's Big Hot Hits


4. Unknown Unknowns


5. Latin America

Yes, they are striving for world war.

"The Defense Department is expanding its control over foreign military training programs that were once the exclusive province of the Department of State, lessening congressional oversight, and weakening the relationship between military assistance and foreign policy goals," according to the report.

And, because more aid is being channeled directly through the Pentagon, a growing number of economic and social trends -- including the rise of populism throughout much of the region -- are being interpreted as security threats, according to one of the co-authors, Adam Isacson of CIP.

Reid calls US Congress 'most corrupt in history'

So much left unsaid, Harry.

Bush fund-raisers Receive

Happy Birthday Dear!

Senate provision would inoculate vaccine makers

Incredible Day

What's Coming

Don't miss this one.

This Appears in the Tracking Data for my Blog Repeatedly

Domain Name senate.gov (United States Government)
IP Address 156.33.25.# (U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms)
156.33.25.155
ISP U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms
Location
Continent : North America
Country : United States (Facts)
State : District of Columbia
City : Washington
Lat/Long : 38.8933, -77.0146 (Map)

I wonder if this means every time I bash the senate or post the name of a politician an unknown internet application automatically steers some spook to my blog?
It seems highly unlikely that anyone with an IP address from the US senate would randomly happen upon my blog. I can't believe (with so many terrorists to fight) the government has time to track blogs, but the government in its current condition is such a fascist bunch of feces in custom made suits, well, anything could happen given their priorities.
It's hard for me to think of a senator that doesn't belong in prison. Well, there may be a few who just need to be sent home, but there are a huge bunch who should be imprisoned for treason against their country. Then there are the ones who need to be imprisoned for selling their services to lobbyists and the ones who are under investigation for selling stock illegally such as wall eyed kitten killer, Bill Frist, who legislates only on behalf of his own health care conglomerate-millionaire interests and does not give a damn about the people of Tennessee or the United States.
Frist, of course, is so dirty and corrupt it's a testament to our broken system that such a bad human being is in a job like that.
Obama, one of my senators, simply has no integrity. He's for sale to his own ambition. I will work my ass off to eject him from office when he runs again.
They are really a bunch of garbage, repiglikkkans and dimocraps alike. But I don't have all day today and there are 100 of them and one of me. I'll have to make sure I mention a few every day and see if that IP address appears more frequently in my data.
It is just damn weird to find that, though it could be nothing.

Democracy Now Did Another Wonderful Show About NOLA

It is not portioned out on the website like it usually is. Nor is there the usual transcript. You have to watch the whole thing. But it is very informative and worth while. Ethnic cleansing is well under way along with the graft, corruption and vigorous screwing of workers.

Yellow Times Rocks!

More Like 59 Million

Amerikkkan illiteracy is NOT about Spanish speakers.
I've taught too many blond, bland Amerikkkan kids how to make change for my purchase. I've heard too many insensible, ill informed ramblings from native English speakers, seen too many Amerikkkans agog at Faux News.

No, it's about VALUES, this illiteracy problem.

It's about acquiring stuff and it's about stuff being more important than anything else in Calvinist Amerikkka, preoccupied as it is with "god's grace," meaning white, male, het, Christian values of violence, control and wealth acquisition.

It's about decades of screwing schools.

It's about millions plopping their kids in front of TV and video games rather than having a relationship with those kids, because parents are so stressed out and exhausted from their debt ridden pursuit of stuff lifestyle they don't have energy for talking to or reading to children, or understanding the world around them or learning the language of ideas.

It's about the baby sitter TV forging millions of minds who can't pay attention for more than 6 minutes at a time.

It's about denying civil rights to financially stable, committed gay couples, people who'd love to raise children and shower them with attention and love, in order to help inept boy kings like George Bush exploit the perverse imaginations of mind numbed Amerikkka to further drive a wedge into the nation, with the aim of getting in office to redistribute money from poor to rich, and always, always cut more taxes for extraordinarily wealthy people so public schools, and everything else, have fewer resources.

It's about racist disrespect and disregard for children who are not up the Calvinist standard. Hey, the genes that were smart enough to find a cure for cancer may have been lynched by Bubba and Beauregard and Trent Lott and Bill Frist generations ago, or left for dead along the stolen border of Texas.

It's the decline in the standard of living that been going on since repiglikkkan forces, resentful of The New Deal and Great Society programs, decided to bring back feudalism and wipe out the middle class and middle class values.

I love the fact that my Muslim, middle eastern, superbly kind neighbor has read more of the English literature canon, and then some, than anyone else I've met in this one horse town, and understands it, can discuss it complexly in a language he did not grow up speaking, can discuss other art, politics, science and anything else I bring up, while the self proclaimed intellectually and socially elite repiglikkkan forces I've encountered here during my exile in Bush territory, such as She Swine, can't create interesting conversation within any subject, can apparently think only in delusion and absolutes, discuss politics only after they've heard them distilled by donkey rectum Bill O'Reilly, know nothing of art and believe intelligent design is the key to understanding the universe. She Swine says thinking makes her tired and the kinds of films I like also make her tired, and she has never read a book she didn't have to read for school or work, not ever, not in her life.
And she's one of the smart ones.

She actually is "smart" which why she makes me so damn mad. She has chosen to be blind to the world. This choice makes me furious, but ultimately leaves me perversely sympathetic because I know she must be deeply damaged inside to make a choice like that, structurally weak, unable to withstand truth without being broken to bits by it.

I think this may be a native condition in many repiglikkkans, this interior weakness.

My lovely neighbor, of course, and his equally lovely wife are constant suspects because of their Arab ancestory. Amerikkka feels superior to such people, isn't sure it wants them, believes they are all killers, terrorists and ignorant son's-a-bitches.

The beauty of the ideal of America, the one I always believed in, believed in until the veil was torn from my eyes, is that this country is a vast multi-cultural wonderland, the Mecca of tolerance and truth, a place that offers opportunity to everyone, is so generous and large it can absorb and express an infinite number of ways of doing and being in and seeing the world and integrate them into itself, then pulse with the radiant creative energy of that joyful coming together. I believed America was moral, humane, truth seeking and loving, would always fight injustice and, while it had its problems, structurally sound.

But I was mistaken. America is not that.

It is George Bush; stupid and lazy and a cheat and liar, and it is She-Swine; rigid, incurious and self righteous, damaged deep down inside. It is denial of a history of genocide, slavery, racism, many, many wars of aggression and the great all-influencing vacuum of Calvinist greed....

If you ask me, this country is doomed.

It chose doom when it choose fear over understanding.
It chose doom when it chose to immerse itself in ethnocentric intolerance.
It chose doom when it chose to attack a nation that had been disarmed by a peaceful process of inspections, disarmed of weapons we sold it when we pitted it against it's neighbor, as we so often pit neighbors against each other, when it chose to believe the lies of George Bush and Condi and Rummy and the rest of the bottom of the barrel in Washington, when it chose to ignore the role Amerikkka has played in the middle east for DECADES. It chose doom when it chose to drive Chevy Suburbans and Ford Expeditions and giant pick up trucks with gun racks and pollute and degrade and waste and be the biggest resource pig in the world, starve children in Africa, irradiate them to death in Iraq, murder innocents in Latin America, oppress and murder people all over the world, hawk weapons of mass destruction like they're playing cards, yet proclaim itself morally superior and somehow special. Special indeed.

GAO faults U.S. financial reporting

Bolivian scores with anti-U.S., pro-coca stance

Marine Census Shows Diversity, Declines

...
Jane Lubchenco, an Oregon State University marine biologist and president of the International Council for Science, said the census will help raise awareness about the urgent need for international cooperation to preserve marine life.
"I think there's definitely increasing recognition that we can no longer think about the ocean as infinitely vast, infinitely bountiful and infinitely resilient," Lubchenco said. "There are problems everywhere."
But she said she was encouraged by the amount of biological diversity the census has found in the first five years.
"The expectation was there would be new discoveries," Lubchenco said. "What's blown us away is how much there is out there that we didn't know about before. It's big stuff, it's little tiny stuff that's been coming in from this project. It's been pretty sobering."
...

Global Warming and Earth Changes

...
“Did global warming cause Hurricane Katrina? No,” says Powell. “You can't point to any one hurricane and say global warming caused this. But the question is getting closer and closer to, did cigarette smoking cause cancer?”
...

New tests fuel doubts about vote machines

Congress doesn't see same intelligence as president, report finds

So much for Moron's claims that they do.

Novack Moving to Faux

House Cuts Education Aid $$

Dear France

Dear France, please buy us!
Joan Fox of New Orleans writes:

Dear France,

Greetings from Louisiana! We are shopping for new owners, and we immediately thought of you! Our present rulers haven't been taking very good care of us and we are looking for a better deal. They are spending all our money in a place called Iraq (somewhere in the Middle East). We thought that perhaps you might want to revisit an old land deal you made long ago.
If you've been reading the papers lately, you may have noticed that we have had a few problems with "water". No, we're not offering you a deal on a damaged water park. (Althouugh that's what it looks like from the air) Seriously, we need help, and fast.

Some things you might like here:

1. We named the state after your King Louis
2. We named the city after your city, Orleans
3. We have lots of French names on the streets
4. We still have Napoleonic law (maybe you can explain it to us!)
5. A lot of our citizens speak French (the accent will grow on you)
6. We like French food and wine
What we can offer you:
1. a toehold (rather wet!) on the continent
2. an incredible port
3. Lots of oil and gas
4. Lots of restaurants
5. Jazz
6. Mardi Gras (you won't believe what we do with this!)
7. Some of the most beautifu houses in the world (very, very wet)

What we need from you is simple:

1. Wetland redevelopment
2. New levees
3. Lots of new houses (but we want them to look old like the ones we lost)
4. We need schools and hospitals rebuilt
5. If you insist, we wouldn't mind some more outdoor cafes like you folks are famous for.

Please think this over carefully. Our current owners are so busy in other countries, they might not even notice if you come down here and take a look around. We'll put you up in grand style in a place we call "The French Quarter" (yeah, really!) and you can have lunch at a place we built for your very own Napoleon, which we call (you guessed it!)Napoleons". You'll be right at home.
Oh, just remember, we would like the levees and the wetlands taken care of ASAP, sometime just after lunch if not sooner.

Yours sincerely,
A homeowner in New Olreans
Joan Fox

A kinder, Gentler...Oh Wait! That was Daddykins

Elderly Turn To Drug Dealing
AP) Dottie Neeley, 87, was fingerprinted, photographed and thrown in jail, imprisoned as much by the tubing from her oxygen tank as by the concrete and steel around her.

The woman — who spent two days in jail after her arrest last December — is among a growing number of Kentucky senior citizens charged in a crackdown on a crime authorities say is rampant in Appalachia: Elderly people are reselling their painkillers and other medications to addicts.

"When a person is on Social Security, drawing $500 a month, and they can sell their pain pills for $10 apiece, they'll take half of them for themselves and sell the other half to pay their electric bills or buy groceries," Floyd County jailer Roger Webb said.

Since April 2004, Operation UNITE, a Kentucky anti-drug task force crated largely in response to rampant abuse of the powerful and sometimes lethal painkiller OxyContin, has charged more than 40 people 60 or older with selling primarily prescription drugs in the mountains.

"It used to be a rare occasion to have an elderly inmate," Webb said. "Five years ago it was a rarity."

Local jails are having to bear the increased cost of caring for old and often sickly inmates.

"You've got to give them more attention," Webb said. "It's putting a strain on my deputies. We're understaffed anyway. You've got to get them doctors, and meet their medical needs."

Researchers suspect the problem is not limited to Appalachia.

Elderly people "may be looking for a way to bring in a little extra money," said Erin Artigiani, deputy director of the University of Maryland Center for Substance Abuse Research. "We haven't heard a lot about senior citizens being a source of those drugs. We know college students do this. It's not much a stretch to think that seniors could do it, too."

Dr. Anita Cornett, a physician in Hyden, said one of her patients, a reformed drug addict, told her that he bought all his drugs not from a known dealer, but from elderly people.

Cornett said she does random drug screenings to make sure her patients are taking their prescription drugs instead of selling them. In addition, staffers routinely call patients and ask them to bring their prescription bottles in so that the pills can be counted.

The Rev. Doug Abner, pastor of Community Church in Manchester and an anti-drug activist, said senior citizens may not understand the seriousness of selling prescription drugs.

"They justify it because they're having a hard time financially," he said. "Left to ourselves, we can justify anything, but they're really part of the problem."

However, Dan Smoot, a former state police drug detective who heads the task force, said the elderly people being charged are not necessarily struggling to put food on the table.

"Most of the elderly we arrest are merely continuing a family tradition," he said. "It has been part of their culture for a long time."

Neeley, the old woman who was arrested along with her son and his girlfriend, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of trafficking in prescription drugs as well as marijuana.

However, a prosecutor has agreed not to oppose "shock probation" if Neeley enters a guilty plea at her next court appearance, Dec. 29. Under shock probation, a defendant who is unlikely to repeat the crime is released after getting a brief taste of life behind bars.

Her attorney, Terry Jacobs, said the plea bargain would be a gamble, because the judge could decide not to grant her shock probation, and "six months is a death sentence for her."

In a telephone interview, Neeley denied selling drugs. She said she suffers from emphysema and asthma and sometimes uses a wheelchair. She said she was shocked when police arrived to arrest her and made the 4-foot 8-inch, 120-pound woman walk from her house to a cruiser.

"I had to hold my hands up all the way," she said. "They wouldn't let me hold them down."

Her lawyer declined to discuss specifics of the charges. But speaking generally, he said: "You've got a depressed economy. You've got an opportunity for these folks to make money. If you're seeing a disproportionate number of elderly, it's because they are the people who are going to be prescribed most of the drugs."

'Can I quit now?' FEMA chief wrote as Katrina raged

Heckuva job, Brownie.

For Your Dartboard

The Kitten Killer

Licking and Blinking Bush Admits he Would Have Gone to War Without WMD

Duh.

elderly, harmless looking bingo players are much more dangerous than they appear

Keith Olberman at Crooks and Liars.

Wish I could Figure Out How to Spell FOX News with a kkk

Freeman calls Black History Month ‘ridiculous’

I so agree.

O'Reilly is an Idiot and an Ass Jacket.

Don't dictate to me, Canadian leader tells U.S.

Tortured prisoners had their nails pulled, officials say

Patriot Act Twofer/Go Feingold!

Must we renew the Patriot Act? (HELL NO!) and Feingold Now Has Numbers on His Side
...he Wisconsin Democrat cast the lone Senate vote against the USA Patriot Act in the traumatic weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks. The law, he said then, gave government too much power to investigate its citizens. Ninety-nine senators disagreed....

Yeah! ...as its executives fled the city...

Carlyle Group Twofer

Rumor: Carlyle Group To Acquire 25% Stake In Taiping Life Insurance and Shanghai Pharmaceutical Group to take in foreign investor

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

I recently discovered the science channel has been rerunning cosmos and I missed most of it. I'm extremely bummed. I've liked 4 TV shows in 30 years and Cosmos was one. And I loved Carl Sagan. How could you not?
I found these quotes from him on the internet while looking for a schedule for Cosmos.

A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.

A central lesson of science is that to understand complex issues (or even simple ones), we must try to free our minds of dogma and to guarantee the freedom to publish, to contradict, and to experiment. Arguments from authority are unacceptable.

All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students.

I can find in my undergraduate classes, bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set at night, or even that the Sun is a star.

I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. (BushCo certainly plays that Siren song)

If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.

Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.

The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.

There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That's perfectly all right; they're the aperture to finding out what's right. Science is a self-correcting process. To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny.

Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs. Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science?

We are prodding, challenging, seeking contradictions or small, persistent residual errors, proposing alternative explanations, encouraging heresy. We give our highest rewards to those who convincingly disprove established beliefs.

We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology.

When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - you'll never forget it.

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism.

EPA Would Ease Pollution Reporting Rules

This Evening's Turntable

Posting and reading to oddles of synthpop.
Yes, it's the eighties in here.
It's actually the EARLY eighties in here, though there's no sign of Michael Jackson. Human League's Lebanon is booming out of my computer as I type. I have all the synth bands queued in a special list, though I dropped a Eurythmics song in for the hell of it...
Even the books are dancing.
And I'm still too damn tired to come up with any pithy commentary, though I have enough energy to experience alternating waves of disgust and fury as I sort through the dirty, dirty news.

Zogby Poll on Nitwit's Waning Popularity

From Patriot Boy

Australia Comments on Arnold the Executioner

{...}
In Austria, birthplace of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, opposition politicians proposed stripping Schwarzenegger of citizenship and removing his name from a sports stadium in his hometown. One group suggested it be re-named “Stanley Tookie Williams Stadium.”
{...}

Carrie Again

EPA to Expand Use of Human Chemical Experiments

[...]
The good news is that EPA, for the first time, is pledging to abide by the Nuremberg Code, adopted after World War II to prevent a repetition of the horrific Nazi human experiments, stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, whose organization became involved after EPA gagged its own scientists from voicing objections. The bad news is that EPA's proposal breaks this long overdue pledge by offering a plan peppered with loopholes that encourage unethical conduct and omit key protections for infants, pregnant women and other vulnerable populations.
[...]
Yes, it's always good news when any agency of the United Confederacy of the States of Amerikkka agrees to comply with treaties, resolutions or mutually agreed upon rules for health and safety and the taking ofprisonerss etc., except read on.


In order to dissolve the Congressional human subject ban, this September EPA offered a grudging plan that imposes few absolute safeguards. For example, EPA's plan would allow

Dosing experiments involving infants and pregnant women using any chemical (except pesticides). Thus, companies will be free to test toxic agents, such as perchlorate, on nursing mothers;
A repeat of the infamous (now canceled) CHEERS study because EPA pointedly omits any check against undue economic inducement, i.e., paying poor people enough to lure them into signing informed consent papers; and
Studies on orphans, mentally ill children and prisoners without informed consent.

This place is far scarier than Nazi Germany in 1938 or so, other wise not so very different. I have to call my so called representatives about this. Obama doesn't care what I say though. He only listens to Hillary Clinton. People could think they're in love.

Increased World Support to Cuban Five/ The Gulag Report

Mexico, Dec 13 (Prensa Latina) The mother of one of the five Cuban anti-terrorism fighters held in US prisons for more than seven years made a strong call in Mexico Tuesday to step up the international struggle for their release.

LOL

Colombian Indians Create Soda From Coca

Another Repiglikkkan Convicted

Scott+Scott, LLC Files Securities Fraud Class Action Against Diebold Inc.

Morning Music

Syrians fearful of becoming next Iraq

Katrina victims: 'Living in barns'

FEMA reimbursements mainly benefit higher income groups

The 14 Worst Corporate Evildoers

Why limit it to 14?

Genetic Engineering Makes me Nervous

Changing Coastline

Propaganda and Your Body

This is an Outrage

Do you think CNN and FAUX will harp on this story like they did Natalie Hollaway? I bet not.
There is no excuse or this. This is a matter of distribution of food. There is simply no excuse.
Some 12 million people in southern Africa, mainly in Zimbabwe and Malawi, need emergency food aid, the United Nations has said, adding that the situation in the region was serious despite South Africa's bumper harvest.

Jerry Ford

I see our other appointed president has been admitted to the hospital.

I was pretty young when all that occurred, though old enough to watch the news. At the time Ford pardoned Nixon, every pundit with lips said it was the best thing for the country. It was a giant echo chamber claiming that trying Nixon would somehow besmirch our image in the world, weaken the national resolve, some crap like that.
The national resolve to do what? Commit crime in high office?
Now that I've lived a while, now that I've been subjected to decades of repiglikkkan rule and now that I've stopped watching "news" in favor of pursuing real information from a wide variety of sources, I must say pardoning Nixon was a colossal mistake.
It was alarming when Nixon died, the way history was rewritten by the vacuous commentary of falsely authoritative TV talking heads, really noxious ones like Tom Brokaw, a man who appeared to tumesce at every mention of a republican throughout the duration of his on air career.
They, these media weasels, transformed this paranoiac, lying, cheating war criminal into a national hero as they buried him. And they forgot what his policies actually wrought in this nation, and tried to make us forget.
A trial of Nixon might have healed the nation from his dirty reign and maybe, just maybe, slowed the juggernaut of dirty politics, the anything goes to get in office that is destroying the county right now.
But all I really remember about Ford for sure is that he tripped and fell a lot, his wife was such a drunk a famous rehab clinic was named after her and he pardoned Nixon.

Ex-Marine leader poses hard questions about war

Behaviorist: Panting Noise Is Dog Laughter

From neighbor Michelle, another dog lover.