In honor of the 20th Anniversary of the Macintosh we quote this speech from Dick Cheney:

"My friends, each of you is a single cell in the great body of the State. And today, that great body has purged itself of parasites. We have triumphed over the unprincipled dissemination of facts. The thugs and wreckers have been cast out. And the poisonous weeds of disinformation have been consigned to the dustbin of history. Let each and every cell rejoice! For today we celebrate the first, glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directive! We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology, where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths. Our Unification of Thought is a more powerful weapon than any fleet or army on Earth! We are one people. With one will. One resolve. One cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death. And we will bury them with their own confusion! We shall prevail!"

(No, that's not really tricky dick; yes, that's what big brother is saying in the famous 1984 advertisement).

- rob 4:10 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Report: U.S. denies bin Laden held

BERLIN, Jan. 22 (UPI) -- The United States has denied al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has been captured, Germany's Die Welt newspaper reported Thursday.

The newspaper, on its Web site, earlier cited "unconfirmed reports" as saying the al-Qaida leader had been captured.

But let's say he was... wouldn't it be smart (it an evil machavellian rove way) to say you don't and the pretend to capture him later... say in... October? Surprise!

- rob 1:58 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Michael Moore.com - George W. Bush, A.W.O.L

Visit today.

- rob 1:52 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Guard survey hints at exodus

WASHINGTON — Just as the Pentagon is increasingly relying on the National Guard and other part-time troops for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, an internal Guard survey suggests that the demanding deployments could prompt a significant number of its soldiers to quit the military.

A recent survey of 5,000 soldiers from 15 states showed that the rate at which Army Guard members choose to leave the military could jump — to 20-22% a year among those who have served long overseas tours, typically 12 months.

Coming almost immediately post-election (if Bush wins):

• The Draft
  
• $50 billion more for Iraq
  
• War with Syria

I've always heard Bush hated the sixties, but I don't know I think he loved it. He's going to bring the draft back, he has placed us in an unpopular and unjust war, he wants abortions to be illegal, and he wants to go to the moon.

- rob 1:23 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Krugman: Democracy at Risk

The disputed election of 2000 left a lasting scar on the nation's psyche. A recent Zogby poll found that even in red states, which voted for George W. Bush, 32 percent of the public believes that the election was stolen. In blue states, the fraction is 44 percent.

Now imagine this: in November the candidate trailing in the polls wins an upset victory — but all of the districts where he does much better than expected use touch-screen voting machines. Meanwhile, leaked internal e-mail from the companies that make these machines suggests widespread error, and possibly fraud. What would this do to the nation?

Unfortunately, this story is completely plausible. (In fact, you can tell a similar story about some of the results in the 2002 midterm elections, especially in Georgia.) Fortune magazine rightly declared paperless voting the worst technology of 2003, but it's not just a bad technology — it's a threat to the republic.
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Let's put it this way: we're spending at least $150 billion to promote democracy in Iraq. That's about $1,500 for each vote cast in the 2000 election. How can we balk at spending a small fraction of that sum to secure the credibility of democracy at home?

They NYTimes whose slogan seems to be "we'll prove were not a liberal paper by saying great things about Bush no matter what." (save for Krugman), seems to be on a voting machine kick, something TCS has been on since day one.

The Perils of Online Voting

Internet voting has been viewed as a possible cure for some of the ills that afflict the mechanics of American democracy. Recently, the technology has seemed to move ahead of any serious consideration of whether it is actually a good idea to allow home computer owners to choose a president in the same way they order bath towels online or send e-mail to their relatives. But now there are grave questions about whether even the technology makes sense.

Four computer scientists brought in by the Pentagon to analyze a plan for Internet voting by the military issued a blistering report this week, concluding that the program should be halted. These four are the only members of a 10-member advisory committee to issue a report on the program. Their findings make it clear that the potential for hackers to steal votes or otherwise subvert elections electronically is too high. Congress should suspend the program.

We have more about that in a post from earlier this week, somewhere below.

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U.S. sets off furor in anti-obesity fight

The U.S. is challenging a draft plan by the World Health Organization to combat the growing worldwide epidemic of obesity, provoking strong international criticism and charges that the food industry is influencing the policy.

The Bush administration alleges that the WHO plan, under development for three years, relies too heavily on questionable science to recommend that people limit their intake of sugar and other refined foods, among other measures.

The administration's position has caught international public health officials by surprise and sent shock waves through the WHO governing board, which is meeting in Geneva. The board is set to decide Tuesday whether to endorse the new obesity plan. Emphasis mine.

Questionable science is defined as "not vetted by effected industry if said industry donates to reelection campaign."

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The Daily Show covers the State of the Union

Real Player required, after a slow start the segment dilvers the best summation of the WMD issue: "Dozens of weapons of mass distruction related program activites? What the [bleep] is that? If he sad it that way last year we'd never have gone to... oh. OH. Oh, he's good."

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Bush's fantasy land SOTU aside, how are things in Iraq?.

Iraq may be on path to civil war, CIA officials warn

WASHINGTON — CIA officers in Iraq are warning that the country may be on a path to civil war, current and former U.S. officials said yesterday, starkly contradicting the upbeat assessment President Bush gave in his State of the Union address.

The CIA officers' bleak assessment was delivered orally to Washington this week, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the classified information involved.

The warning echoed growing fears that Iraq's Shiite majority, which until now has accepted the U.S. occupation grudgingly, could turn to violence if its demands for direct elections are spurned.

Oh yeah, in case you haven't heard. America has been arguing against direct elections in Iraq, which kind of makes the whole pro-democracy argument of ours a little harder to defend. Our reasoning is it will be a legistic nightmare (what with us not even being able to hold valid elections in Florida or Georgia) as Iraq hasn't had a census in 20 years, etc. Of course an Iraqi organization already detailed how to do a viable census but Bremer cancelled that for some reason. (hey it might have been legitimate reasons I don't know, but the whole thing looks bad to the Iraqis, even if our arguements are legitimate).

Oh, and it isn't just the CIA talking Civil War. Iraqi's are too:

These last few days have been truly frightening. The air in Baghdad feels charged in a way that scares me. Everyone can feel the tension and it has been a strain on the nerves. It's not so much what's been going on in the streets- riots, shootings, bombings and raids- but it's the possibility of what may lie ahead. We've been keeping the kids home from school, and my cousin's wife learned that many parents were doing the same- especially the parents who need to drive their kids to school.

We've been avoiding discussing the possibilities of this last week's developments… the rioting and violence. We don't often talk about the possibility of civil war because conferring about it somehow makes it more of a reality. When we do talk about it, it's usually done in hushed tones with an overhanging air of consternation. Is it possible? Will it happen?

Sunnis and Shi'a have always lived in harmony in Iraq and we still do, so far. I'm from a family that is about half Shi'a and half Sunni. We have never had problems as the majority of civilized people don't discriminate between the two. The thing that seems to be triggering a lot of antagonism on all sides is the counterinsurgency militia being cultivated by the CPA and GC which will include Chalabi's thugs, SCIRI extremists and some Kurdish Bayshmarga.

The popular and incorrect belief seems to be that if you are a Kurd or Shi'a, this step is a positive one. Actually, the majority of moderate Kurds and Shi'a are just as exasperated as Sunnis about this new group of soldiers/spies that is going to be let loose on the population. It's just going to mean more hostility and suspicion in all directions, and if the new Iraqi force intends to be as indiscriminate with the detentions and raids as the troops, there's going to be a lot of bloodshed too.

But hey if there isn't a civil war at least we can look forward to the end of Iraq as a secular state:

Women in Iraq Decry Decision To Curb Rights

BAGHDAD, Jan. 15 -- For the past four decades, Iraqi women have enjoyed some of the most modern legal protections in the Muslim world, under a civil code that prohibits marriage below the age of 18, arbitrary divorce and male favoritism in child custody and property inheritance disputes.

Saddam Hussein's dictatorship did not touch those rights. But the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council has voted to wipe them out, ordering in late December that family laws shall be "canceled" and such issues placed under the jurisdiction of strict Islamic legal doctrine known as sharia. Emphasis Mine.

What the hell?

- rob 5:09 PM - [PermaLink] -

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October Surprise

Kevin Phillips and the October Surprise

Some of you may even recall the story. Its basic outline went like this: In the runup to the 1980 election between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, it became clear that the outcome largely hinged on the release of the 52 Americans who had been held hostage by Iran since November 1979. If Carter was able to obtain their freedom, he was likely to win re-election. If he failed, it was nearly certain Reagan would win. As you may recall, the latter was what happened. The hostages were freed on the day of Reagan's inauguration. Later it emerged that a cadre of Reagan campaign officials -- led by former CIA chief William Casey, who was the campaign manager -- may have actually negotiated with Iran behind the scenes to ensure precisely this outcome. There were even indications they may have been involved in sabotaging the attempted rescue of the hostages.

The story gained real traction in the early 1990s when a former Carter intelligence official named Gary Sick released a book detailing the plot. It was promptly pooh-poohed by articles in Newsweek and The New Republic, and a brief House investigation came up dry. Afterward, anyone who even suggested they thought the scenario had any credibility was dismissed as a loony conspiracy theorist. Even the respected AP reporter Robert Parry found himself a journalistic pariah for his dogged pursuit of the story; you can find the results of much of his work at his marvelous Web site Consortium News.

Phillips not only resurrects the story, he examines the evidence and finds that it is almost certainly substantial, despite the all-too-eager earlier dismissals of its substance. More to the point, he compiles a wealth of subsequent evidence, most of it having emerged since 1992, pointing to his conclusion that "Bill Casey -- a born schemer and true buccaneer -- and his associates probably were involved in machinations akin to those Sick alleged." This evidence includes intelligence material from the French, the Soviet Union, Israel and Iran, as well as material that has been ignored by the House investigators.

All of this ties in with Phillips' theses that the October Surprise was a precursor to Iran-Contra (in fact, he argues, the latter was actually a confirmation that the former had occurred) as well as Iraqgate -- the consequences of which, he ably demonstrates, have come home to roost in the current war in Iraq.

Bush the elder became VP in '80 by participating and aiding the "October Surprise" act of treason.

For more on The October Surprise:

October Surprise: Finally, Time for the Truth is a good update.

Jamshid Hashemi still claims that in the summer of 1980, he and his brother, Cyrus, participated in secret meetings involving William J. Casey and Iranian intermediaries representing Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In a recent interview with The Consortium, Jamshid Hashemi repeated his account that meetings in Madrid, Spain, in late July and then in August, 1980, resulted in an agreement to release the 52 American hostages only after Reagan took office. In exchange, the radical Iranian government got commitments for secret shipments of U.S. military supplies.
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Leon [Richard Leon, A Republican lawyer on the October Surprise congressional inquiry task force] and the Republicans did succeed in getting the task force to reject the October Surprise allegations lodged by Hashemi and more than a score of other individuals. Those other witnesses included: former Iranian president Abolhassan Bani-Sadr (who gave a detailed account of the Iranian-Republican contacts from his view in Teheran), senior officials of the Palestine Liberation Organization (now including PLO chairman Yasir Arafat, who has described overtures from Republicans to interfere in the hostage crisis), French intelligence chief Alexandre deMarenches (who told his biographer about secret GOP-Iran hostage meetings in Paris), and Ari Ben-Menashe (a former Israeli intelligence officer who described Israel's behind-the-scenes role in helping Reagan seal the October Surprise deal).

Quite a witness list. Here's another update:

Russia's Prime Minister and October Surprise

In May 1999, as the world’s press detailed the biography of Russia’s new prime minister, Sergei V. Stepashin, the reporters missed one of the most curious chapters.

In the closing days of George Bush’s presidency in 1993, Stepashin secretly reported to the U.S. Congress that the outgoing president had participated in a scheme with Iran that bordered on treason.

Stepashin informed a special House task force that Russian intelligence information implicated Bush along with former President Reagan and CIA directors William J. Casey and Robert Gates in a series of clandestine contacts with Iran during the 1980 presidential campaign.

Stepashin, then chairman of the Supreme Soviet's Committee on Defense and Security Issues, had overseen an official review of what Moscow’s intelligence files revealed about Republican secret activities aimed at undercutting President Carter's desperate efforts to free 52 American hostages held in Iran in 1980.

You might be hearing about another October Surprise for this election. One theory is that the government already has in custody Osama and will reveal this in October (for a big boost for Bush), or that they could easily capture him and are letting him stay free until October. There are scarier senarios. All this sounds like paranoia until you realize that Bush the elder and others actually delayed the freeing of American hostages so Reagan could win, and that was when we had a somewhat responsible media. Now anything goes.

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Pentagon Stands by Internet Voting System

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon is standing by an Internet voting system it developed for U.S. citizens overseas despite an independent analysis that said it was so vulnerable to attacks that it should be scrapped.

In a report released Wednesday, four computer security experts said the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment, or SERVE, could be penetrated by hackers, criminals, terrorists or foreign governments.

"Internet voting presents far too many opportunities for hackers or even terrorists to interfere with fair and accurate voting, potentially in ways impossible to detect," the computer experts said in a statement. "Such tampering could alter election results, particularly in close contests."

But Defense Department spokesman Glenn Flood said the Pentagon was confident that the system, which could get its first test Feb. 3 in South Carolina's primary election, was secure.
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The experts specified these risks, among others:

_There is no way to verify that the vote recorded inside the system is the same as the one cast by the voter.

_It might be possible for hackers to determine how a particular individual voted, "an obvious privacy risk."

_The system may be vulnerable to attacks from many quarters, some undetectable.

"Not only could a political party attempt to manipulate an election by attacking SERVE, but so could individual hackers, criminals, terrorists, organizations such as the Mafia and even other countries," the report said. Emphasis mine. When does paranoia just become sound thinking? Under the Bush administration that day has already come.

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Criminals: It isn't enough for just Bush to go, the GOP has to lose the senate as well.

Infiltration of files seen as extensive

WASHINGTON -- Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.

From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.

The office of Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle has already launched an investigation into how excerpts from 15 Democratic memos showed up in the pages of the conservative-leaning newspapers and were posted to a website last November.

With the help of forensic computer experts from General Dynamics and the US Secret Service, his office has interviewed about 120 people to date and seized more than half a dozen computers -- including four Judiciary servers, one server from the office of Senate majority leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, and several desktop hard drives. Emphasis Mine.

But the scope of both the intrusions and the likely disclosures is now known to have been far more extensive than the November incident, staffers and others familiar with the investigation say.

The revelation comes as the battle of judicial nominees is reaching a new level of intensity. Last week, President Bush used his recess power to appoint Judge Charles Pickering to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, bypassing a Democratic filibuster that blocked a vote on his nomination for a year because of concerns over his civil rights record.

Democrats now claim their private memos formed the basis for a February 2003 column by conservative pundit Robert Novak that revealed plans pushed by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, to filibuster certain judicial nominees. Novak is also at the center of an investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA agent whose husband contradicted a Bush administration claim about Iraqi nuclear programs.

Citing "internal Senate sources," Novak's column described closed-door Democratic meetings about how to handle nominees.

Its details and direct quotes from Democrats -- characterizing former nominee Miguel Estrada as a "stealth right-wing zealot" and describing the GOP agenda as an "assembly line" for right-wing nominees -- are contained in talking points and meeting accounts from the Democratic files now known to have been compromised.

Novak declined to confirm or deny whether his column was based on these files.

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Bush's great friends

Saudi religious chief condemns woman's action

"Allowing women to mix with men is the root of every evil and catastrophe. It is highly punishable. Mixing of men and women is a reason for greater decadence and adultery," he [Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh] said.

In a way he is right. I mean if Barb and George H.W. never got together....

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Proving there are asshats in every party.

Mass. Official Spent $17,000 for a TV

BOSTON - Massachusetts' former public safety secretary spent $17,000 in state anti-terrorism funds on a 60-inch plasma screen television for his office, although the set has no special capabilities.

In June 2002, James P. Jajuga tapped into a special account set up after the Sept. 11 attacks to buy the television, the Boston Herald reported Tuesday, citing state records.
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He is a former state trooper and Democratic state senator appointed public safety chief by acting Gov. Jane M. Swift. He lost his job with the election of a new governor.

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Must Read

The betrayal of U.S. voters

The morning after the 2000 election, Americans woke up to a disturbing realization: the United States' electoral system was too flawed to say with certainty who had won. Three years later, things may actually be worse.

If this year's presidential election is at all close, there is every reason to believe that there will be another national trauma over who the rightful winner is, this time compounded by troubling new questions about the reliability of electronic voting machines. This is no way to run a democracy. Emphasis mine.

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More on American Dynasty

What powers the Bush clan?

Kevin Phillips is no hotheaded bomb-thrower but a seasoned wise man with deep roots in the Republican party. Nonetheless, his new book on the Bush family is more incendiary than the Bill-Clinton-murdered-Vince-Foster books so popular during the '90s. Unlike them, however, American Dynasty is not sensationalistic and its claims are historically verifiable.
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Phillips examines at length the current president's grandfather Prescott Bush (and Prescott's father-in-law, George Herbert Walker). Prescott, Phillips writes, tried to duck his family's "aura of wealth" when he ran for the Senate: "He had tried to minimize the connotations of his rich-family, Wall Street resume by seeming less stuffy and emphasizing his involvement in charitable, educational, and civil rights causes."

And, Phillips makes clear, successive generations of political Bushes also masqueraded as the common man. For those who have paid keen attention to the career of George W. Bush, a lot of the facts in American Dynasty are not news, however startling. But it is Phillips' training as a historian and the context he provides that makes his book so fresh and damning.

Phillips admits to being aghast at what he discovered: "[I]n examining two Bush presidencies and a four-generation pursuit of national prominence and power through an unusual lens -- one that highlighted elite associations, recurring political practices, and dynastic ambitions -- I learned much more, and I admit to being shocked at some of what I found. The result is an unusual and unflattering portrait of a great family (in power, not morality) that has built a base over the course of the twentieth century in the back corridors of the new military-industrial complex and in close association with the growing national security establishment. In doing so, the family has threaded its way through damning political and armaments scandals and, since the 1980s, faint hints, never more, of acts that in another climate might have led to presidential impeachment." Emphasis mine.

Acts that might lead to impeachement. We aren't just talking Dubya here. Coming soon to TCS: a lot o' links about The October Surprise.

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Catholics urged to fight gay marriage

A call to fight the legalization of gay marriage was issued by several prominent voices yesterday, including Boston Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley and former US Supreme Court nominee Robert H. Bork, who strongly urged the state's Catholic lawyers and judges to oppose last year's historic decision by the state Supreme Judicial Court.

O'Malley made his remarks during the annual Red Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, an event named for the scarlet vestments worn during a service to bless the work of lawyers and judges.
"We cannot afford to be asleep at the switch. We cannot afford to run for cover. Today, at this Red Mass, I call on you, our Catholic lawyers and jurists, to live your baptismal commitment," O'Malley said. "Your baptism and your profession invest you with a great responsibility. Use your wisdom to defend the truth, to defend marriage. Do it with a passion and do what is right."
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The crowd included some of the church's most stalwart legal defenders, including Wilson Rogers Jr. and his son, Wilson Rogers III, who for years defended the church against civil complaints of sexual abuse, and Thomas H. Hannigan Jr., the Boston attorney hired by O'Malley to negotiate last year's historic $85 million settlement with more than 500 alleged victims of clergy sexual abuse.

Ahh, I see, between defending pedophile cases the church wants to defend "marriage."

Okay I'm not a religious expert but is anyone else sickened that the church spends money to defend what is obviously a sin - using authority to sexually prey on the young, and is also spending money to make sure loving gay couples cannot have the same legal rights as married couples?

Sure sure the bible says it is a sin:

Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. - Leviticus, 18. 22

But come on. It was a big book written a long time ago. Let's read some more fascinating quotes from Leviticus.

For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood [shall be] upon him. - Leviticus, 20.9

Again, no religious expert here, but if I'm reading this right being an average teen is cause for a death sentence, while being gay is just an abomination. Maybe everyone would be better off ignoring some of the bible, I mean Christians are eating pigs for God sakes, obviously the Old Testament isn't completely sancrosanct to the Christian faith. (and let's not even go into Bush making up reasons to go to war... that gets close to the ol' thou shalt not kill' and 'shalt not bare false witness' little bugaboos doesn't it).

I mean I don't even know what to make of this:

And if a man shall lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover her nakedness; he hath discovered her fountain, and she hath uncovered the fountain of her blood: and both of them shall be cut off from among their people. - Leviticus, 20.18

Sleep with a woman while she's having her period and you both must then live in exile. Yeah, exile will become more populated than NYC really dang fast.

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Costello pushes hearings on Cheney

U.S. Rep Jerry Costello has called for impeachment hearings against U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney during Congress' session that begins today.

Costello called for hearings Saturday while on the Iowa caucus campaign trail with fellow U.S. House of Representatives member and presidential candidate Dick Gephardt, according to the Drudge Report.

Costello questioned the award of billions of dollars of contracts to Cheney's former corporation Haliburton to extinguish fires and rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure after the war.

"Can you imagine what the Republicans would be doing to a Democratic president who was a CEO of a company that now has gotten billions of dollars worth of contracts -- no-bid contracts -- without competition?" Costello, D-Belleville, was quoted as saying.

"There would be hearings day after day. And my prediction to you is that you will see in this session of Congress ..., there will not only be hearings, but I think there ought to be impeachment hearings."

Impeachment!?! Why this should be all over the news... yeah, right.

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funny (and true)

State of the Union Stuff We Didn't Predict

- rob 2:31 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Transcript of State of the Union - Jan. 21, 2004

Well for those of you who missed it, you can read it all at the link above. All I can say is in what little I watched of the SOTU all I could think was STFU.

Actually that isn't true, I marveled at how his smirk grew and grew as he talked about some of his proposals, often he looked as if he'd burst into laughter. There was a twinkle in his eye "I can't believe they're falling for this bulls*&T!" was what he was thinking as he read from the teleprompter.

Here's an itty bitty piece from a long speech:

This year, some 600,000 inmates will be released from prison back into society.

We know from long experience that if they can't find work, or a home, or help, they are much more likely to commit more crimes and return to prison. So tonight, I propose a four-year, 300 million dollar Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative to expand job training and placement services, to provide transitional housing, and to help newly released prisoners get mentoring, including from faith-based groups. Emphasis mine.

Wow an additional $125 per ex-con (on top of what is probably zero) for transitional housing, training, and placement services! You've got to have faith to believe that'll make any type of difference.

Speaking of "faith" and prisoners, here's a scary piece: Suits Contest Iowa Prison Ministry Program

Most inmates at Iowa's Newton Correctional Facility live three to a cell and have no privacy, even when they use the toilet. But if they agree to immerse themselves in Bible study and "the transforming love of Jesus Christ," according to two lawsuits filed yesterday, they are given keys to their cell doors, private bathrooms, free phone calls -- even access to big-screen TVs.

A modern Christianity: Foget all that crap about your soul! We're talkin' Big TVs!

Thanks to Atrios for the prison article.

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The Onion | America's Finest News Source



The Onion always seems to be more accurate than most real news outlets these days.

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TCS Tees, an update

My Orange Alert shirt faded in the laundry; the colors practically all washed out, because when I dropped it off at the cleaners I always say "bleach the whites" not having really thought this through. So if you perchance purchase one of these gems, make sure you don't mix them in with bleach! Ironic, too, since we are now officially at Elevated, which is yellow, so you can't see the arrow anymore. By the way, this T-shirt always gets a smile at the local Price Chopper. And I live in Republican country, upstate New York, where Rip Van Winkle played ninepins with the wee folk. Ideally the Orange Alert logo should have been printed on a black tee. Then I wouldn't've had this problem in the first place.

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More fun... actually its more sad then fun.

The English-Bush Lexicon

Healthy Forests Initiative": America's forests are sick, as President Bush discovered in his courageous trip to California when it was on fire last summer. The Healthy Forests Initiative will let President Bush's friends make the forests better by cutting down all the trees. No trees = no fire!

"Clear Skies": Our skies are dirty! Dirty with LAWS that stop people from making money! This law will help clear the skies of laws that stop people from making the pollution that keeps our economy strong! This won't stop global warming, though, because there's no such thing as global warming.

"Economic recovery": This is how our wise and all-knowing President is going to help all the starving heathen childrens in India by taking all of America's extra jobs and shipping them to Bangalore. American workers will then be freed to become entrepreneurs and help our economy become more stronger!
...

"Operation Iraqi Freedom": This was when our President made the Iraqi people more free by capturing their evil leader and letting the U.S. military run their country and his corporate friends run their oil fields! The Iraqis were so grateful they're giving us back all their explosives, one at a time! Then President Bush flew to Baghdad for Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings! I bet on Groundhog Day he'll fly another TOP SECRET mission to Iraq to see if Saddam Hussein sees his shadow when he comes out of his spider hole! But look out! If he sees it we'll have another six weeks of WAR!

"Howard Dean": The Antichrist. Howard Dean is a BAD MAN! He's angry all the time and he doesn't like guns and he EATS BABIES! He hated Jesus because his wife is Jewish and she hates Jesus and his kids are filthy Jesus-hating Jews, too! Also, "Howard Dean" is today's Secret Word, so, remember, everyone, when you hear the words, "Howard Dean," scream real loud!

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Some pointless fun


Bush in Space

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Michael in a post below, and many a friend have commented that Bush's re-election is a fait complie.

That is their thinking, and if you begin to believe it, they will win.

So with that in mind, and the fact that it is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I quote from MLK's Noble Prize speech:

I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him.

I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsom in the river of life unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.

I believe that even amid today's motor bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men.

From: speeches of MLK

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Why the negativity of some of the posts today? Because I just read this: 9/11 Panel Unlikely to Get Later Deadline

President Bush and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) have decided to oppose granting more time to an independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, virtually guaranteeing that the panel will have to complete its work by the end of May, officials said last week.

A growing number of commission members had concluded that the panel needs more time to prepare a thorough and credible accounting of missteps leading to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But the White House and leading Republicans have informed the panel that they oppose any delay, which raises the possibility that Sept. 11-related controversies could emerge during the heat of the presidential campaign, sources said.

With time running short, the 10-member bipartisan panel has already decided to scale back the number and scope of hearings that it will hold for the public, commission members and staffers said. The commission is rushing to finish interviews with as many as 200 remaining witnesses and to finish examining about 2 million pages of documents related to the attacks.

The biggest security failure in American history, has to suffer from a tight deadline. If the Republicans are the party that will defend America, why did they spend so much more money and time on blowjob investigations than on helping America become more secure. Seriously, that is the point of the investigation: Find out what went wrong, so it won't happen again.

Here's a Fair and Balanced Campaign slogan for you:

The GOP Cares More About Blowjobs Than About The Security of America.

- rob 3:26 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Democracy - A BuzzFlash Editorial

Recently Kevin Phillips, a former Nixon aide and current Reagan admirer, told BuzzFlash this about the Bush dynasty:

"Now what I get a sense of from all of this -- and then topped obviously by spending all the money in 2000 to basically buy the election -- is that this is not a family that has a particularly strong commitment to American democracy. Its sense of how to win elections comes out of a CIA manual, not out of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution."

- rob 3:19 PM - [PermaLink] -

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“What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise, to receiving decisions deliberated in secret, to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand because of nationality security, so dangerous that even if the people the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him may have incidentally have reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it. Their trust in him made it easier to reassure others who might have worried about it. ‘’This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real crises and reforms too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of the Government growing remoter and remoter .”

They Thought they Were Free: The Germans 1933-1945; by Milton Mayer

See, I can post things that are just as depressing and pessimistic as Michael.

- rob 3:16 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush prefers our pretty boy to his pretty boy

OTTAWA -- This is the tale of the two Scotts -- one American, the other Canadian. One is dark-haired, the other blond. Both are 35 and both work for the most powerful men in their respective countries.

Scott McClellan is the press secretary to U.S. President George W. Bush; Scott Reid is the senior strategist to Prime Minister Paul Martin.
...

The President chuckled. "Well, you got a pretty face," he told the surprised Mr. Reid. He wasn't done. "You got a pretty face," he said again. "You're a good-looking guy. Better looking than my Scott anyway."

This is true. His Scott has a receding hairline and is on the chubby side, while Mr. Martin's Scott has a full head of hair and is quite fit.

For the first time in his life, Mr. Reid had no reply. "I didn't know what to say," said Mr. Reid, noting later that he wished that Mr. Bush had referred to him as a "rugged-looking young man or something.

- rob 2:56 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Whoa.

Surreal moments serving a mythological president

The weekend after September 11, George Bush's former Treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, sat in a leather armchair at Camp David, the presidential retreat, devouring a pile of intelligence documents on al-Qaeda handed out by the CIA boss, George Tenet.

A two-day crisis meeting of Mr Bush's senior advisers had finally wound up. The President had gone to bed.

Across the room, the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was singing hymns, accompanied on the piano by the Christian fundamentalist Attorney-General, John Ashcroft.

Leafing through the CIA documents, Mr O'Neill was astonished to read plans for covert assassinations around the globe designed to remove opponents of the US Government. The plans had virtually no civilian checks and balances.

"What I was thinking is, 'I hope the President really reads this carefully', Mr O'Neill said. "It's kind of his job. You can't forfeit this much responsibility to unelected individuals. But I knew he wouldn't." Emphasis Mine.

- rob 1:31 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush booed at Martin Luther King gravesite

ATLANTA (Reuters) - In a sign of the difficulty President George W. Bush faces as he tries to win black support for his reelection, several hundred protesters loudly booed him as he laid a wreath at the grave of civil rights leader Martin Luther King.

"Bush go home" and "peace not war" the predominantly black crowd of protesters shouted from behind a barrier of buses, as Bush paid tribute on Thursday to King on the 75th anniversary of his birth.
Emphasis mine. (irony thy bite is strong).
...

Bush was in Atlanta as part of a two-state swing during which he also raised $2.3 million (1.3 million pounds) in campaign funds, trumpeted a reelection endorsement from Georgia Democratic Sen. Zell Miller, and promoted government aid for religious charities.

Zell Miller isn't getting a Christmas card from me next year. Anyway, we did Bush visit the grave for a few minutes and make no statements. Because his visit to Atlanta has now become "official business" and you, the taxpayer, just paid for his trip to a fund raiser. He keeps saying its "your money," but why does he spend it like it is his.

"This is about paying tribute to someone who had a tremendously positive influence in shaping the world that we live in today ... it's a solemn moment, a nice way to honour Dr. King," spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.

You know what's another nice way Bush honors Dr. King? Appoint a racist to the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Democratic presidential candidates assailed President Bush's decision to bypass Congress and appoint Charles W. Pickering to the federal appeals court, calling it a threat to civil rights and the "ultimate hypocrisy" after Bush's visit to the grave site of Martin Luther King Jr.

Democrats had accused the Mississippi judge of supporting segregation as a young man, and pushing anti-abortion and anti-voting rights views as a state lawmaker.

Let you Senator now how you feel.

- rob 11:17 AM - [PermaLink] -

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eBay item 3655267737 (Ends Jan-24-04 20:32:57 PST) - General Wesley Clark's Argyle Sweater

Clark wore this sweater in public appearances on the campaign trail in chilly New Hampshire during the month of January. The sweater sparked conversations and op-eds around the country regarding Clark's taste in clothing. (Such as this.) He claims that what the sweater lacked in style, it made up for in warmth. And given the record-breaking temperatures this season, that's no small consideration.

He has donated his famous sweater to Liberty House, a transitional shelter that is opening for homeless veterans in Manchester, New Hampshire. Liberty House is auctioning the sweater, and all proceeds of this auction will be paid directly to Liberty House. It will use the money to help homeless veterans get back on their feet. When fully operational, Liberty House will offer shelter and counseling for drug, alcohol and post-traumatic stress disorder issues.

The sweater is grey in color, with an attractive argyle pattern in tan, dark green, and dark red.

If Clark keeps doing things like this, he'll win. I'm not talking about the charity bit, which is a nice touch, I'm talking about turning press stupidity around and pointing it back at them. He wears a sweater at a "town meeting" and suddenly the deaths in Iraq are no longer important... because Clark is turning into Gore. He must have had a focus group choose his sweater, oh dear! Dowd has an inane column called The Argyle General, its as if the press wants to be considered pointless. Meawhile Bush is walking around summit meetings with heavy makeup to cover a scar on his cheek, and it gets barely a mention (which it truth it should only get a little mention, but I'm trying to compare coverage here).

- rob 9:57 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Maureen Dowd apparently agrees. Not the first time channeling spirits. Dean is the Lusitania; stick a fork in him. He's next to Ross Perot in a basement in Disneyland.

- Michael 12:37 AM - [PermaLink] -

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