Friday, March 31, 2006

Patient #43

Russ Feingold. A democrat I do like, quotes a blog to congress today!

'Sudden External Impact' Cripples Russian Satellite

Corporate Profits surge to 40-year high

U.S. corporate profits have increased 21.3% in the past year and now account for the largest share of national income in 40 years, the Commerce Department said Thursday.
Strong productivity gains and subdued wage growth boosted before-tax profits to 11.6% of national income in the fourth quarter of 2005, the biggest share since the summer of 1966. See full story.
For all of 2005, before-tax profits totaled $1.35 trillion, up from $1.16 trillion in 2004 and just $767 billion in 2001.
Meanwhile, the share of national income going to wage and salary workers has fallen to 56.9%. Except for a brief period in 1997, that's the lowest share for labor income since 1966.
[...]

Florida subpoenas voting machine companies

Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems and Software and Sequoia Voting Systems have refused to sell equipment to let disabled voters cast ballots without help in Leon County. Elections supervisor Ion Sancho has been outspoken about his concern that the devices can be easily manipulated to change race outcomes.
[...]

U.S. To Test 700-Ton Explosive in Nevada

Obama, the largest mistake Illinois voters have made in some time

Obama rallies state Democrats, throws support behind Lieberman

I am so sorry I voted for this turn coat, right wing bastard.

By the way, his office does not respond to letters. I've sent letters to so many elected officials I cant even count them. Every office has responded, at least with a form letter, sometimes with something more personal. Not his.

He doesn't even pretend to work for the people.

That the democratic party sees Obama as a rising star underscores the fact that the democrats are as bad as the republicans.

We need new parties and and system of government.

Iran to hold large-scale naval war games

Senate Committee OKs Supreme Court Cameras

[...]
"The day you see a camera come into our courtroom it's going to roll over my dead body," Justice David Souter told a congressional panel in 1996.
[...]
I'm sure Tom Delay would be happy to arrange that.

Vigilantes Go with mercenaries Like Salt goes with pepper. My, but America has decayed

[...]
Russ Delacy, a spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol, the mobile uniformed law-enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland Security, says the government neither supports nor discourages Minuteman work.

"We answer their calls just as we would anyone else's. As long as they aren't breaking any laws, we treat them like any other citizen," Delacy said from his office in Stanton, Vt.
[...]

Neocon Privatization of the Military Continues Under BushReich

These MERCENARIES are not subject to the same rules of conduct as are the military.

I should say they are not subject to the same rules to which the military is supposed to be subject, since the Nazi-Stalinist-corporate controlled, thug sponsoring, assassinating and overthrowing, detention camp running, rights and liberties destroying, election fixing, kidnapping, murdering, war starting, pathologically lying, democracy hating pork asses in the BushReich have decided to ignore rules and treaties, along with history, science and common sense, in their pursuit of the Perfect Corporate Imperium.

Nor are Mercenaries subject to the same low pay and crummy benefits as our troops, drawn from the ranks, in many cases, of those who enlist in military service as a way to gain employment and opportunity in a republikkkan mastered economy that offers them less of both every day.

These are the troops Bush keeps saying are unsupported when Americans criticize his double dumb ass polices, yeah, the troops who are left without adequate armor, manpower, food and clean water, and who are dying in Iraq on a lie for corporate greed, even as the republicans strip money from the veteran's administration and charge the families of the dead to ship the bodies home, a process they keep well out of the public awareness through the application of their propaganda system, the mainstream media.

However, MERCENARIES are still paid with tax dollars, just tax dollars dispensed through rich, no bid contracts written by such proven failures and glaring crooks as Rummy and Co.

Cofer Black, vice chairman of the Moyock, N.C.-based private military company, told an international conference in Amman, Jordan, this week that Blackwater stands ready to help keep or restore the peace anywhere it is needed.
[...]
Unlike national and multinational armies, which tend to get bogged down by political and logistical limitations, Black said, Blackwater could have a small, nimble, brigade-size force ready to move into a troubled region on short notice.
[...]
Blackwater, most of whose workers are former members of elite military units such as the Navy SEALs, now provides security for the U.S. ambassador to Iraq under a contract with the State Department.

The reconstruction of Iraq has been hampered by insurgent activity, Taylor said, and Blackwater has the expertise to quell insurgent attacks if invited by the Iraqi government.

[...]
Peter Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who has written a book on private military companies, said the concept of private armies engaging in counter-insurgency missions raises myriad questions about staffing standards, rules of engagement and accountability.

"No matter how you slice it, it's a private entity making decisions of a political nature," he said.
[...]

Protests stop Rice's mosque visit

Look at that expression. I want to know what she's been smoking.
Weird the way the camera is looking down on her.

Two months before a new hurricane season, the Bush administration says there may not be enough funds to fully protect Katrina-devastated New Orleans.

U.S. mortgage rates keep rising

more hackable voting systems

Sequoia E-Vote Systems Found 'Hackable' in PA, Testing Shut Down After Machine Failures!

Antarctic air is warming faster than rest of world

'Barren future' for Africa's soil

[...]
Fertiliser use in Africa is the lowest in the world, at less than 10% of the world average. African farmers are put off by high costs, the report says.

It calls for policy and investment strategies to reverse nutrient depletion and restore soil fertility. These include making the use of mineral and organic fertilisers more economically attractive to farmers.

A summit on the issue in June will look at lowering costs, training a rural network of retailers and expand financing for private importers exporters.
[...]
We're really only interested in extracting Africa's resources. And we want those resources at a cheap price, so the "ownership society" can make billions of buckets of money for wasting and overconsuming, so if we have to kill people to get resources, or set the people against each other, that's what we do.
This is the way we've behaved in he middle east and you can see where that got us..

Police State - Slave State

[...]
"I say let the prisoners pick the fruits," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, one of more than a dozen Republicans who took turns condemning a Senate bill that offers an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants an opportunity for citizenship.

"Anybody that votes for an amnesty bill deserves to be branded with a scarlet letter A," said Rep. Steve King of Iowa, referring to a guest worker provision in the Senate measure.
[...]

This gives me an idea. How about we use a hot brand to brand KKK across the asses of all the members of the republican party?

Imus Executive Producer: Carroll is “The Kind of Woman Who Would Wear One of Those Suicide Vests, Sneak Into the Green Zone”

more attacks on Jill Carroll from Conservatives

American journalist Jill Carroll, abducted in early January by gunmen in Baghdad, was released to a Sunni Arab political party in the capital Thursday morning after 82 days in captivity.

"I was never hurt, ever hit," she told a Washington Post reporter. "I was kept in a safe place and treated very well."

May as well just come right out and say she was a willing participant. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 30, 2006 07:47 AM

is the equivalent of "she asked for it" which what he says after he rapes women.

Neocon John Podhoretz Attacks Jill Carroll

US hostage Jill Carroll freed in Iraq

[...]
"I was allowed to read a newspaper only once and watch the television once just to make me aware of what was happening outside," said the 28-year-old freelance journalist who worked for the Christian Science Monitor.

"I had very good treatment. They never hit me. I was kept in a safe place with nice furniture, plenty of food. I was allowed to take showers."
[...]

Army Bans Use of Privately Bought Armor

From Rummy and other preachy piranahs who sent the children of this country to die in a greed motivated effort to occupy an oil rich land in an immoral, illegal, lied about ploy to keep oil prices high so administration fiends could profit.

Why are families buying armor? Because the military didn't provide enough of it.

[...]
Army officials told The Associated Press that the order was prompted by concerns that soldiers or their families were buying inadequate or untested commercial armor from private companies including the popular Dragon Skin gear made by California-based Pinnacle Armor.
Murray Neal, chief executive officer of Pinnacle, said he hadn't seen the directive and wants to review it.

"We know of no reason the Army may have to justify this action," Neal said. "On the surface this looks to be another of many attempts by the Army to cover up the billions of dollars spent on ineffective body armor systems which they continue to try quick fixes on to no avail."
[...]

Four killed in West Bank bombing

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Diebolds Rigged for republikkkans Vote Count Machines in Utah

[...]
Last year Utah's Elections office determined to use electronic voting machines and selected Diebold as the vendor.
[...]
On December 27, 2005 Bruce took possession of 40 Diebold TSx touch-screen machines as part of a statewide change to the new machines. Upon unpacking the machines Bruce noticed that the "new" machines has some problems "crooked paper feeds that jam, memory card bay doors that wouldn't close, parts getting stuck, coming loose, falling off, etc." Moreover, two of the machines failed their initial, Diebold run, acceptance testing.
Given these problems, Bruce decided he wanted a second opinion on the health of his machines and invited BlackBoxVoting (BBV), a non-profit group, to examine them. BBV in turn asked Harri Hursti and Security Innovation, Inc. to do a thorough examination.

Some of the results of Security Innovations' investigation are in, and they aren't good. He found that some of the machines had inexplicable memory usage, that the machines were network aware all the time, and that there were safety problems with the way the power cord attaches to them. BBV promises more results at a later date.

Meanwhile, things haven't gone well for Bruce Funk. Diebold asserted that he'd broken the warranty of the machines and wants to charge the State $40,000 to "recertify" them. After a heated closed door meeting with State elections officials and the Emery County Commission, Bruce orally resigned his position, but later changed his mind and is going to fight for his job.
[...]
How do you feel about voting on machines that even the people who control them aren't allowed to inspect them without being subject to financial penalties? It gives me the creeps.

If you're interested in sending Bruce an expression of support, here's his contact information:

Bruce C. Funk - Clerk/Auditor
Fax: (435) 381-5183
95 East Main
Castle Dale, Emery County
Utah 84513
funk@co.emery.ut.us

Feds crack down on imported prescriptions

Citing increased concerns about the quality of drugs entering the United States from Canada, federal authorities have stepped up seizures of the prescriptions and sent strongly worded legal warnings to consumers, including some in Massachusetts, who have ordered the discounted drugs.
"What we're trying to do is protect the public from unsafe medications," said Lynn Hollinger, spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. "It was a growing problem we felt was of concern to the American public."

The government crackdown marks a shift in policy for the Bush administration, which has rarely acted against individuals who buy drugs from Canada, reports The Boston Sunday Globe.

BushCo., a great believer in the free market, simply acting to protect the drug companies, who own a sizable piece of the government and a sizeable number of serfs, from being exploited by counterfeiting Canadian drug lords.

The War on Christians. Where can I enlist? And can we expand to a war on monotheists?

Hugo Chavez: Exxon Mobil Not Welcome

[...]
Exxon Mobil has resisted tax increases and contract changes that are part of a policy by President Hugo Chavez's government to "re-nationalize" the oil industry.

Rather than submit to new terms that will turn 32 privately run oil fields over to state control, the company sold its stake in the 150,000 barrel-a-day Quiamare-La Ceiba field to its partner, Spanish-Argentine major Repsol YPF, to avoid accepting the unfavorable terms in December.
[...]

Welcome to the Monkey House

Jill Carroll released!

"moderate" John McCain to Address Extreme right Liberty Commencement Ceremony

LYNCHBURG, Va. — American military hero and Arizona Sen. John McCain will deliver the Commencement message at Liberty University on May 13, at 9:30 a.m., in the Liberty University Vines Center. In addition, renowned Christian conservative leader Gary Bauer will speak during the University’s baccalaureate service on May 12, at 7:00 p.m., in the main sanctuary of the Thomas Road Baptist Church.
[...]

From the Black Commentator

Federal Site cuts gay health; lawmaker objects

U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., is asking her congressional colleagues to support her quest for answers from the Health and Human Services Department about why it took helpful information about gay health off its Web site.

The information was removed last month at the urging of the right-wing Christian Family Research Council, according to PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays).
[...]

Kitten Killer Disses Legalization Plan As Amnesty

Santorum: Illegal workers deserve less than rule followers

Abramoff Gets Less than 6 and the Felons in Congress and the White House are still free

American gets 30 years for Bush plot

Drone aircraft may prowl U.S. skies

Hisses and Shout from the BushReich Police State

Unmanned aerial vehicles have soared the skies of Afghanistan and Iraq for years, spotting enemy encampments, protecting military bases, and even launching missile attacks against suspected terrorists.

Now UAVs may be landing in the United States.

A House of Representatives panel on Wednesday heard testimony from police agencies that envision using UAVs for everything from border security to domestic surveillance high above American cities. Private companies also hope to use UAVs for tasks such as aerial photography and pipeline monitoring.
[...]

Senate celebrates April Fool's Day Early

It voted 90-8 to deny gifts and meals and to tighten reporting. Earmarks would survive. Overall, one critic said: "Nothing to write home about."

Tax Payer Financed Elections NOW!

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Fitzgerald Will Seek New White House Indictments

[...]
In lengthy interviews over the weekend and on Monday, they said that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has started to prepare the paperwork to present to the grand jury seeking an indictment against White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove or National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

Although the situation remains fluid, it's possible, these sources said, that Fitzgerald may seek to indict both Rove and Hadley, charging them with perjury, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy related to their roles in the leak of Plame Wilson's identity and their effort to cover up their involvement following a Justice Department investigation.
[...]

U.S. Willing to Deploy Combat Troops to Colombia

[...]
A direct U.S. military intervention in Colombia clearly would have little to do with combating drugs. After all, if that were the true objective then the Bush administration would be targeting the country’s paramilitary leaders who, under the demobilization agreement, have been allowed to maintain their drug trafficking organizations while avoiding extradition to the United States—instead serving as little as 22 months of jail time on luxurious ranches in Colombia.

The real objectives of a U.S. military escalation are rooted in ideology and economics. The Bush administration is intent on eliminating a leftist insurgency that is proving to be a persistent threat to U.S. economic interests and to Washington’s closest ally in the region. Colombia has become an increasingly important source of oil and coal, most of which is situated in rural regions where the operations of multinational companies remain vulnerable to rebel attacks. Furthermore, it is no coincidence that the Bush administration has announced its desire to escalate U.S. military intervention in Colombia less than a month after the two countries signed a bi-lateral free trade agreement. The economic policies have been established, but many of them need to be militarily implemented in Colombia due to the FARC’s persistence.
[...]

TV networks reject ad from church Say spot welcoming gays is controversial

Limbaugh, who looks like Porky Pig, Uttering the usual white power Slurs against Brown People

U.S. sets more training for beef workers who send meat to Japan

Lambert told reporters the U.S. would provide additional training to beef workers and follow up to make sure they know what meat products are prohibited in Japan and which are allowed.

No mad cow for the Japanese. But here in Amerikkka, no one in power cares if your brain turns to spoiled pudding. Where's the beef? Not in here.

Policy' denies nutrients to 1,000 Florida children

Compassionate Conservatism teaches it is far more important to fund a massive war machine, so as to enrich Halliburton, Exxon, Lockheed and other Corporate Frankensteins of questionable value, than to take care of our citizens.

More than a thousand severely disabled or chronically ill children who relied on state dollars for life-sustaining nutritional supplements have been cut off from Florida's Medicaid program, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings to the agency, state officials acknowledged Thursday.

Medicaid officials said they made ''major policy changes'' that limited the number of Floridians eligible for the feeding program -- including children with HIV or AIDS who suffer from so-called ''wasting syndrome'' and children and adults with terminal illnesses such as cystic fibrosis.
[...]

Scientists call the growing oxygen-starved patches of world waterways "dead zones.

Saudi Arabia is working secretly on a nuclear programme, with help from Pakistani experts

Christians Step up War on Democracy, Decency, Common Sense and the American Way of Life

[...]
Much of the conference revolved around the difficulty of Christian parenting in a culture of sexual permissiveness. Don Feder, founder of a group called Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation, urged the crowd not to blame "the liberal, self-hating Jews in Hollywood."

"Remember, the people in this audience are more Jewish than people like Barbra Streisand, because you embrace Jewish values, she doesn't," he said.

Another Jewish speaker, Michael Horowitz, told the conference that the "Christian decency of this country" saved him from becoming "a bar of soap" in Nazi Germany.

"You guys have become the Jews of the 21st century," said Horowitz, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, just before a false alarm interrupted his speech. Several attendees called the fire alarm suspicious, though a hotel spokesman said it resulted from a mechanical problem in a distant location.
[...]

I guess Horowitz agrees with Scalia. I'll have to go looking for connections.

Elmer Fudd takes time off from his work of destroying America to Rail Against Boston Herald

Supreme Court Justice Scalia Rips Boston Herald

U.S. Auditors' Battles With Crooked Halliburton

Sago Mine survivor expected to go home

'Asia must prepare for dollar collapse'

Read this news to Do it Clean by Echo and the Bunnymen

13-year-old charged with threatening President Bush

Maybe he heard about the national debt Bush has arranged for him to spend a good portion of his working life paying off.

MSNBC's Olbermann Beats CNN's Zahn & HLN's Grace In The Demo

Maybe Jonathan Klein will read this story and stop trying to right lurch CNN even more than he already has.

Recuse Yourself Elmer Fudd Scalia

[...]
Retired military officers, civil liberties lawyers, former diplomats and international law experts all filed briefs on behalf of the 36-year-old Yemeni with a fourth-grade education, arguing that the Bush administration went too far by creating a commission outside an explicit framework set out by Congress and ignoring many of the protections of U.S. military justice, which has a provision for tribunals.

The justices seemed especially intrigued with the nature of the crime alleged, conspiring with al-Qaida. At least four justices asked questions related to the charge.
[...]

Putting this bastard in prison would go a long way toward proving the existence of god

[...]
"Our faith has always been in direct conflict with the values of the world," DeLay said. "We are, after all, a society that provides abortion on demand, has killed millions of innocent children, degrades the institution of marriage, and all but treats Christianity like some second-rate superstition."
[...]
He's campaigning. And, as usual, he doesn't care who gets hurt. He just wants to win.

I agree with one thing he says. His style of Christianity is not a second rate superstition. It is a fourth rate superstition, and utterly usesless except for justiftylng the relentlessly criminal sociopathy on constant display from the religious right leadership with the claim god told them to do it.

God told George Bush to invade Iraq.
God told Tom Delay to sell the american government to the highest lobyist bidder.

Serbia set to get biodiesel plant

Poll finds healthcare top worry

A Gallup poll finds that the affordability and availability of healthcare is the top concern of Democrats, Independents and Republicans.

But 78 percent of respondents who identified themselves as Democrats said they worried about healthcare, compared to 66 percent of Independents and 57 percent of Republicans.

In fact, Democrats worry more about almost everything although on some issues, like Social Security and energy use, the differences are much smaller. Republicans worry more about the possibility of terrorist attacks with 52 percent compared to 47 percent of Democrats naming that as a major concern. Independents are less concerned than either with only 39 percent saying it is a major worry.

Republicans also worry more about illegal immigration (49 percent) compared to 42 percent of Democrats.

In addition to healthcare, the economy, hunger and homelessness, the environment and unemployment were all issues where there is a large worry gap between Democrats and Republicans.

Yeah, the republicans who live in rural areas of the country are worried about terrorists attacks. They actually think Arab terrorists are going to invade Harrisburg and Johnston City, Illinois and blow them up in blood guzzling attack for Allah.
That's FOX news for ya.
And perhaps that is a nervous projection, an unconscious recognition, that driving a vehicle that gets 5 miles per gallon might contribute to the misery of people in the middle east.
Nah, they don't get that at all. And if they do, they certainly don't care.

As to health care, the overwhelming majority of Americans say in poll after poll that they want universal national health care coverage.

It is a measure of how unresponsive government is, a stark statement of fact that government is in the employ of corporations, not the people, that not only do we not get national health care even though we want it and spend enough health care dollars already to fund it, the insurance system is now being further privatized.

Unions sue Pfizer over Lipitor marketing

Olmert Declares Victory in Israel Election

JERUSALEM - After declaring victory in Israel's elections, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima Party said Wednesday it would quickly form a broad ruling coalition that will carry out its plan to pull out of much of the West Bank and draw Israel's borders by 2010.
[...]

Three Mile Island 27th annivesary

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Bush Stealing Tax Dollars

Rep. Debra Maggart, R-Hendersonville

Looks like a dyke

homosexual couples prey on young males and have, in some instances, adopted them in order to have unfretted access to subject them to a life of molestation and sexual abuse,

Good Riddance Cap The Knife

He joined the Reagan administration in 1981 and went on to preside over a period of massive military spending.

Mr Weinberger resigned as defence secretary in 1987, amid claims he had been involved in selling arms to Iran to fund pro-US rebels in Nicaragua.

He was pardoned by President George Bush Snr in 1992, weeks before he was to have stood trial over his alleged role in what came to be known as the Iran-Contra affair.

How Sibilant Michael Chertoff and DHS are wasting your tax money while failing to protect you against terrorist threats

Open Secrets: Your Guide to the Money in US Elections

if McCain is moderate I'm Aunt Jemima

McCains Voting Record at Project Vote Smart

Welcome to Project Vote Smart

Thousands of candidates and elected officials. Who works for you? Who is seeking your vote? Project Vote Smart, a citizen's organization, has developed a Voter's Self-Defense System to provide you with the necessary tools to self-govern effectively: abundant, accurate, unbiased and relevant information. As a national library of factual information, Project Vote Smart covers your candidates and elected officials in five basic categories: biographical information, issue positions, voting records, campaign finances and interest group ratings. What would you like to know? Access our library of information through either the menu on the left hand side or the links above.

Photo of Rove and Santorum for the walls of your vomitorium

'Dark Shadows' Dan Curtis dead at 78

These Guys Need to Drop Their Ping Pong Balls on the Neocons

I used to love that shower of ping pong balls when I was a little kid. I'd like to see it in Washington now.

Gary Hart Interview with Amy Goodman. Absolutely fascinating

Gary Hart, the former Colorado senator and two-time democratic presidential candidate, joins us in our firehouse studio. He was the youngest member of the Church Committee that investigated illegal wiretapping, CIA assassination plots and other abuses of governmental power. He also met with Condoleezza Rice five days before 9/11 and warned her of a terrorist attack.

We'd be living in a much saner, stronger, better America if Hart had been elected president in 1988.

Brief Profiles of Some Israel Parties

The War Memo

Interview with Eric Haney, a retired command sergeant major of the U.S. Army, founding member of Delta Force

Q: What's your assessment of the war in Iraq?

A: Utter debacle. But it had to be from the very first. The reasons were wrong. The reasons of this administration for taking this nation to war were not what they stated. (Army Gen.) Tommy Franks was brow-beaten and ... pursued warfare that he knew strategically was wrong in the long term. That's why he retired immediately afterward. His own staff could tell him what was going to happen afterward.

We have fomented civil war in Iraq. We have probably fomented internecine war in the Muslim world between the Shias and the Sunnis, and I think Bush may well have started the third world war, all for their own personal policies.

Q: What is the cost to our country?

A: For the first thing, our credibility is utterly zero. So we destroyed whatever credibility we had. ... And I say "we," because the American public went along with this. They voted for a second Bush administration out of fear, so fear is what they're going to have from now on.

Our military is completely consumed, so were there a real threat - thankfully, there is no real threat to the U.S. in the world, but were there one, we couldn't confront it. Right now, that may not be a bad thing, because that keeps Bush from trying something with Iran or with Venezuela.

The harm that has been done is irreparable. There are more than 2,000 American kids that have been killed. Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed ñ which no one in the U.S. really cares about those people, do they? I never hear anybody lament that fact. It has been

a horror, and this administration has worked overtime to divert the American public's attention from it. Their lies are coming home to roost now, and it's gonna fall apart. But somebody's gonna have to clear up the aftermath and the harm that it's done just to what America stands for. It may be two or three generations in repairing.
[...]

Fact Sheet on the Accident at Three Mile Island

On this 27th anniversary of The Near Melt Down at 3 mile island nuclear reactor

Report on the Level of Paramilitary Response and Loss of Democratic Rights During the Seattle Round of the World Trade Organization Ministerial

An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control

Amnesty International: US Taser Deaths Up

[...]
The rise in deaths accompanies a marked increase in the number of U.S. law enforcement agencies employing devices made by Taser International of Scottsdale, Ariz. About 1,000 of the nation's 18,000 police agencies used Tasers in 2001; more than 7,000 departments had them last year, according to a government study.
[...]
Taser did not immediately comment on the report. But it has called similar studies flawed because they link deaths to Taser use when there has been no such official conclusion. To the contrary, Taser has said that more than 9,000 lives have been saved because police officers have been able to use stun guns instead of bullets. Tasers deliver a 50,000-volt jolt through two barbed darts that can penetrate clothing.
[...]

New Bush Apppointee/ Kempthorne Factsheet

Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne is President Bush's nominee to replace Gale Norton as Secretary of the Interior. The Interior Department manages more than 500 million acres of land, one-fifth of the entire country, including national parks, wildlife refuges and wilderness areas. It also supervises American Indian programs.

Prior to his election as Idaho's governor, Kempthorne served one term as U.S. Senator chairing the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Water. Whether serving as a Senator or Governor, his conservation record is bleak. The League of Conservation Voters gave him a one percent lifetime rating for his lack of support for environmental protection.
[...]

Notable Dates in AIDS Epidemic

Did Lindsey Graham and Jon Kyl mislead the Supreme Court?

US: Toxic sites' cleanup at risk

It is one of Mexico's most low-profile companies, run by a politically connected family that is no stranger to the bare-knuckles world of international mining.

Now, Grupo Mexico S.A. de C.V. could find itself at the center of the bankruptcy reorganization of Asarco, a century-old American mining and smelting company whose liabilities include the environmental cleanup of 94 Superfund sites in 21 states. The two California sites are in Redding and the East Bay city of Rodeo.

The stakes are high. The bill to clean up Asarco's environmental contamination could total more than $1 billion, according to court filings. Depending on what happens in the bankruptcy reorganization, U.S. taxpayers ultimately could be responsible for the tab.

Uncle DICK and Little George are Minding the security of this County, and don't you forget it

Undercover investigators slipped radioactive material -- enough to make two small "dirty bombs" -- across U.S. borders in Texas and Washington state in a test last year of security at American points of entry.

Radiation alarms at the unidentified sites detected the small amounts of cesium-137, a nuclear material used in industrial gauges. But U.S. customs agents permitted the investigators to enter the United States because they were tricked with counterfeit documents.

The Bush administration said Monday that within 45 days it will give U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents the tools they need to verify such documents in the future.

Why wait 45 days? Why is this just being addressed 5 years after 9/11? Why, as usual, do the republicans who have been running things, do this kind of job then accuse the democrats of a "pre 9/11 mindset"?

I think it is safe to assume all security concerns have been dealt with in the same way - by issuing rich contrite of tax payer money to repiglikkkan cooperate insiders ostensibly in the "security" business, with no thought to actual security at all.

Monday, March 27, 2006

Rumsfeld Gets an "F" in humanity

I read about "farming" similar to this in a sci fi book called Gateway way back when I was in high school

Scientists can grow frog and mouse meat in the lab, and are now working on pork, beef and chicken. Their goal is to develop an industrial version of the process in five years.
[...]

We are winning the "war"

U.S. plans moon base on path to Mars

Wages Fail to Keep Pace With Productivity

Al Gore, Elected President in 2000, addresses Human Rights Campaign

more mad cow

The total number of human vCJD cases worldwide now stands at 190. The incubation period is so long, however, that the toll may rise anywhere from the low hundreds to the hundreds of thousands, the study authors stated.

Mad Cow Disease – Worst Is Yet To come

Markos of Daily Kos on "Reliable Sources"

Separated at Birth Antonin Scalia and Elmer Fudd

Santorum, Santorum with Hatch; Better than a finger for Bulimic readers

Georgia May Approve Bible As Textbook

[...]
"This is a political issue as much as it is a religious issue," says Frances Paterson, a professor at Valdosta State University who specializes in religion and public education. "I would guess that [its sponsors] hope that nobody is going to police this, and when people step over the line, it's going to be ignored, either because nobody's aware of it or they'd be intimidated into not objecting."

Its sponsors insist the bill aims to help students gain broader understanding about the underpinnings of Western culture, from Michelangelo to Hemingway.
[...]

Gas prices could be marching toward $3 a gallon by summer

It's hard for me to think of a bigger threat to national security, other than the illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq for control of oil, and the smug, empire seeking, Rummy lubed, Condi slithered, unilateral policy of preemption and nuclear proliferation being pushed by BushCo, than the escalating cost of energy.

Remember when the oil company heads were hauled in front of congress and asked about their record profits made on the backs of a country in post Katrina crisis, and they refused to be sworn in, because hey, wouldn't want to be subject to any perjury charges down the line, and Arlen Specter and other repiglikkkan operatives allowed these guys to come in and lie and broadcast it on CSpan?
I remember.

No one in the republican party gives a good god damn about consumers paying these energy prices.
And probably few of the democrats do either.

Post-Katrina gas profits a record

Gas prices jump nearly 15 cents a gallon in two weeks

More Protest Pictures

FEMA's generator reimbursements flowed to wealthier pockets

[...]
Randy Cohen, who writes a nationally syndicated column on ethics, said there's a bigger picture to think about.

"If we all agree that we want public money to be for people that truly need it, then the ethical question we should ask is why FEMA has such a boneheaded program," Cohen said.

"If this was Japan 75 years ago, these people would have to commit suicide. They would feel honor bound," Cohen said from New York. "It's dishonorable to do this. But it is a petty transgression compared to what routinely goes on. If you're going to make a fuss, then you need to make a fuss about the people that are making 100 times that a day."

As more campaign advisers prepare to jump ship, religion takes a bigger role in her Senate candidacy.

As Katherine Harris' rocky Senate campaign takes an increasingly evangelical Christian bent, her remaining top campaign staffers are preparing to jump ship.
[...]
Friends and advisers say Harris has been deeply religious all her life, but religion recently has become a central part of her campaign. Campaign staffers warily describe Harris as leading a "Christian crusade."
[...]
Her top campaign advisers, having failed to persuade Harris to drop her struggling campaign against Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson, are preparing to leave. Those include Ed Rollins, a highly regarded GOP strategist and her top campaign adviser; Adam Goodman, her longtime Tampa-based media consultant; and campaign manager Jamie Miller. Harris has been aggressively campaigning for support among religious conservatives, hitting large churches and headlining a "Reclaiming America for Christ" conference in Broward County last weekend. She told hundreds of attendees she was "doing God's work" with her campaign.
[...]

Someone needs to tell the GOP that this is not a Christian country, that it is a secular country and was designed to be that way, and that GOP does not stand for God's Official Party.

Religious Drive for Senator Rick Santorum Jeopardizes Churches’ Tax Exemption

Lawyers who gave to GOP got state work

COLUMBUS - Lawyers who contributed more than $1.8 million to an obscure Ohio Republican Party fund that backed the campaigns of Jim Petro and Betty Montgomery for attorney general have received more than $170 million in legal fees working for the attorney general's office since 1998, a Blade investigation shows.

An analysis of payment records from the attorney general's office to "special counsel" - private-sector lawyers hired to do legal work for the state - reveals that the firms that contributed the largest amounts of money to the Ohio Republican Party state candidate fund received among the most in fees from the state.
[...]

Former DeLay Aide Enriched By Nonprofit

Scalia off his meds again

[...]
During an unpublicized March 8 talk at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland, Scalia dismissed the idea that the detainees have rights under the U.S. Constitution or international conventions, adding he was "astounded" at the "hypocritical" reaction in Europe to Gitmo. "War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts," he says on a tape of the talk reviewed by NEWSWEEK. "Give me a break." Challenged by one audience member about whether the Gitmo detainees don't have protections under the Geneva or human-rights conventions, Scalia shot back: "If he was captured by my army on a battlefield, that is where he belongs. I had a son on that battlefield and they were shooting at my son and I'm not about to give this man who was captured in a war a full jury trial. I mean it's crazy."
[...]

What's crazy is Scalia's view of the constitution, and that little voice in his head that tells him he doesn't have to abide by the rules and is a law unto himself.

The above described outburst points to his inability to detach from personal concerns and base findings on the constitution. Of course, that inability may simply be from of stupidity. Or it may fit into the larger pattern of strange behavior that indicates the justice is a nut job.
Remember when Justice Scalia went to New York and told the Jews he was addressing they're safer with Christians in charge?
How about when he had that tape snatched from a reporter in Mississippi in violation of federal statute?
Not that it surprises me that Scalia never wants a record made of what he actually says at these speaking events.

There are clear signs of mental illness from Scalia. After all, he voted to appoint that beady eyed, war mongering moron to the presidency, which expresses a mood disorder so profound he must surely be bipolar. What but unbridled mania lead anyone to abuse their country that way?
And he most certainly has religious delusions and a narcissistic disorder, a common mental health issue among repiglikkkans and other fascists.

Red State Rovers Send Grover Right Over

CREW Files IRS Complaint Against Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Chicago Marches for Peace in the Police State

Bush Priorities Being What they Are

Urban Indians fear loss of health clinics

[...]
But now that relationship is threatened by President Bush’s 2007 budget proposal to zero out the $33 million allocation for urban Indian health clinics. At least 17 of the 34 clinics across the country may have to close their doors, while the rest would be forced to cut services.

Some 60 percent of American Indians and Alaska natives live in urban areas, according to the Census Bureau. And for years — decades in some cities — they have been receiving health care at clinics in or near the cities where they live. Providing health care to all Indians has been part of the government’s trust responsibility.
[...]

From the state that brought you Bush, Delay, Kay Bailey Hutchinson and other deep fried in vomit breading pickles

Texas arresting people in bars for being drunk
Undercover agents pursue inebriates in a pre-emptive strategy
I know this would be my priority if I were retarded like they are.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas - Texas has begun sending undercover agents into bars to arrest drinkers for being drunk, a spokeswoman for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission said on Wednesday.

The first sting operation was conducted recently in a Dallas suburb where agents infiltrated 36 bars and arrested 30 people for public intoxication, said the commissionÂs Carolyn Beck.
[...]

Go Kent

Just an excerpt, but because of space considerations. Kent is one of the deeply enlightened.

Reagan brought the party of Lincoln full circle. Reagan made it OK to hate fags, niggers, and poor people.(he had lots of help, but lent that grandfatherly goodness to the cause) He taught us that unions were evil, a socialist affront to capitalism and we applauded when he threw those vicious parasites-the aircraft flight controllers-out on their ear. He told us that Cadillac driving welfare queens, were like a swarm of boll weavels descending upon the cotton plantations of this great Union. A new breed of prospectors, mining the gold of every fertilized egg, whose degenerate behavior was an affront to family values. Homosexuals had created AIDS as a device to convert the rest of us to their ways, but it backfired, killing lots of them. So why should the government be interested in finding a cure.
[...]

Freedom to Guzzle Gas and Destroy the Environment

GOP on the Run

But party leaders are warning privately against taking that strategy too far. "If Diet Coke criticizes Coke, people buy Pepsi, not Diet Coke," said Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee. In an internal Republican Party memo provided to Time, Jan van Lohuizen, a longtime Bush pollster, warns candidates tempted to distance themselves that "President Bush drives our image and will do so until we have real national front-runners for the '08 nomination. If he drops, we all drop." Another Republican strategist describes the problem for g.o.p. candidates this way: "Adding weight to the anchor doesn't help them."

That's about Mehlman's speed, to compare something as serious as policy to something silly as soft drinks.

The GOP would never dream of addressing the problems, correcting the wreck they've made in order to gain voters. Nope. It is nothing but lie and spin, spin, spin.

Girly-fied Harris breathlessly speaking to GOP Hunk Hannity

The repiglikkkan women act like they're really hot for Hannity. Must be his high dose of manliness that attracts their high dose of girlyfiediness.

Maybe Pfizer will develop a drug, thick with side effects and ultra marketing, that treats both problems.

Harris

In an effort to jump-start her sputtering Senate campaign, Rep. Katherine Harris went on national television invoking the memory of her late father and saying the money he left her will form the financial foundation of her challenge to Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.

Now the Harris campaign says that's not the case.

Campaign spokeswoman Morgan Dobbs said Thursday that Harris will sell her existing assets rather than rely on money from her father, a bank executive who died in January.

"It is my understanding from her statements that she does not plan to use inherited money on the campaign -- rather, money from liquidating her personal assets, which she says total $10 million," Dobbs wrote in an e-mail to the Orlando Sentinel.

"I think I am being pretty clear."

However, Dobbs' explanation is at odds with the message Harris has been delivering for more than a week.
[...]

I don't care how she buys her way in. I simply do not want the election thief of Florida in the US senate. Not that it isn't full of crooks already. It is.

I just wish someone would explain to me why no one who isn't a millionaire has a seat in the senate. What's that about, huh? Corruption? Broken political process? Republican fucked over media that no longer functions as anything remotely resembling a free press, let alone a 4th estate?

The Out of this World Adventues of Laura "shark face" Bush

Saturday, March 25, 2006

'99 Red Balloons' video to air for an hour

I love this song!

"99 Luftballons" is a Cold-War era protest song that tells the story of 99 red balloons floating into the air, triggering an apocalypse when the military sends planes to intercept them.

It may be about the cold war but we still live with the same threat of annihilation, more e so under Bush.

New Home Sales Plunge In February

The Commerce Department reported that sales of new single-family homes dropped by 10.5 percent last month.

While the slurring, swaggering, beady eyed mouth piece for corporate greed and murder, aka BushCo, NeoCON inc., says"If you want the government in your pocket, vote Democrat," Bush said. "If you want to keep more of your hard-earned money, vote Republican."

Well, perhaps if you're selling your hundreds of millions dollars worth of Apple or Google.
You can't keep money you don't have.
And then there's the debt. Who's going to pay that? China?

Three impoverished South African women, whose father wrote The Lion Sleeps Tonight, have won a six-year battle for royalties

Separated At Birth

More on the Amerikkkan Way of life, Freedom and Democracy, Justice for All

These things are Equal

Immigration Rallies Draw Thousands Nationwide

FEMA abandons pledge to reopen multimillion-dollar no-bid Katrina contracts

The Phone Numbers Are Real

While Showering Big Pharma with Your Money Bush Leaves Seniors All Wet

Big, big government, conservative style. At least when the other side engages in big government programs, the programs are effective in serving the people they are designed to serve.

WASHINGTON - Some patients and doctors are facing a new problem with the fledgling Medicare prescription drug benefit: Medications they once received without question from other plans are being denied by the private insurers running the Medicare plan.

When they appeal the coverage denials, the patients and their physicians face confusing forms, time-consuming demands for personal medical information and long delays.

In some cases, the private plans won't cover the full dosage called for in a prescription or try to steer patients to drugs other than those prescribed by their doctors.

When disputes arise, doctors are asked to justify their prescribing decisions in writing, sometimes with patients' medical histories or test results as supporting evidence. Some plans even ask for doctors' notes or for peer-reviewed articles that justify their decisions.
[...]

Change in `undue burden' standard could shift abortion law

Some Insight into "red" areas

Shrubva the Destroyer: Bush administration's nuclear deal with India could alter the world's nonproliferation regime

'Coinage' of plankton -- viruses

[...]
"We are beginning to get a picture of gene diversity and gene flow in the most abundant photosynthetic cell on the planet, the Prochlorococcus group of planktonic microbes," said Chisholm.

The photosynthesizing bacteria "form an important part of the food chain in the oceans, supply some of the oxygen we breathe, and even play a role in modulating climate," said Chisholm.

"It's very important that we understand what regulates their populations," she said. "And now genetic diversity seems to be an important factor."
[...]

Repiglican Roast

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