WAAAH! Saddam Wouldn't Let Us In! WAAAH!!!

this is what absolutely kills me about our politicians, the media and the populace that doesn't read, ask or wonder.
anyone who followed the rush to war with iraq knows that the UN had inspectors in iraq for quite a while and, towards the end, they were being given unfettered access to sites, because saddam realized the serious situation he was in with george bush. when the inspectors "left", they did so because bush told them to get out as he was about to bomb and couldn't guarantee their safety.
for a presidential candidate to say otherwise shows him to either be a liar or a fool. for the media to allow him to get away with it (and, as well, the other presidential candidates to not call him on it) shows it to hold the populace in utter disregard. meaning: the politicians and the media look upon us as a foot does the cockroach.
that we, as a nation, have continued to swallow bush's load of bullshit disgusts me.

one result of all of this is this.

an interview with someone connected to Fair Trade products (and the website) if anyone is so inclined. Fair Trade does business with and sets up co-ops with poor farmers who would normally sell their produce at a very diminished cost to larger corporations. in this manner the farmers reap a larger profit and protect their land for future farming. my mom often sends me Fair Trade tea and i must admit it's okay. maybe not the best, but better than the norm. oddly, though, one quote from the interview caught my eye and made me remember a housemate in seattle who had been on the frontlines in the first iraq war:
"I met one farmer who had his gall bladder removed because of the effects of working with pesticides, and he talked about three waves of physical effects for other farmers, from rashes all the way up to cancer.In fact, almost all the farmers I met had had some sort of physical effect. This damages not only people but also the eco-system and animals."
when bill went to war he was one of the many soldiers told to take certain unnamed pills to protect them from biochemicals that saddam hussein was certain to unleash. he refused (so he said), because he had no idea what they were and his superiors wouldn't or couldn't tell him. in hindsight, it seems to have been the right choice, because as it turns out the military machine had grouped together with the major pharmaceutical companies and agreed to try out unapproved medicines on unsuspecting GIs. medicines that had nothing to do with the possibilities within a war. bill was, however, exposed to Depleted Uranium (DI). DI was and is still used as bullet points for piercing tank armor. DI was a major problem for the military in terms of its long half-life and had no recyclable use up until someone figured out that (because of its extemely high burning temp) it would cut through thick steel like butter. some experts estimate that up to 1000 metric tons of the stuff was left behind in iraq after the first war, most of it in dust form (the estimate for the current war is 10,000). and the only way for it to get into your system is to breathe it unless you wait long enough for it to infiltrate the water table. our GIs breathed it. a UN estimate says that over 500,000 iraqi children have died since the first war of complications due being exposed to DI.
bill breathed it. he came back already complaining of intestinal pains and migraines. he became an extremely mean drunk. he could be found writhing on the living room floor after eating certain types of produce, because his body could no longer break it down enough to pass through the duodenum. eventually, he had to have his gall bladder removed. the military never admitted responsibility nor did it ever admit that DI is radioactive enough to harm humans. at first, they even tried to deny DI was being used (as did the first Bush administration). they called it White Phosphorous. they tried to call it that again during the first stages of the current war, but eventually had to admit it was DI. while denying that it could have any long-term effects on those who breathed it.
anyway, the effect of pesticides on farmers and that of DI on soldiers seems to be similar and that is what got me on this.
i encourage the purchase of Fair Trade products unless you don't like the taste of it. it's one small way in which to help the needy who help themselves and to stick it to conglomerates of the world. although, it most likely helps them financially, too, in some sickpervertedmorallywrong way.

(from P M Carpenter comes this awesome rant about the last Republican Presidential debate. oh, that it were not true...)

Imbecility²

First, let's settle any dispute as to the the winner of last night's Republican cluster conference. The victor was, of course, candidate-in-waiting Fred Thompson. There's something about a man running for the nation's highest and most demanding office who advertises his stupendous incompetence right off the bat by avoiding any public test of his abilities. Now there's a man for this hapless century for you.
As for the others' 120 minutes, it seemed to me it was all over after Q&A #1. What followed Wolf Blitzer's question about the advisability of a touch of thermonuclear destruction laid on Iran was a veritable geyser of mindless bellicosity. Excepting Ron Paul, the Republican candidates suited up in brownshirts and armbands and went to work on yet another preemptive catastrophe thrust upon hundreds of thousands of utterly innocent human beings.
Their bloody pandering to the basest of human beings here was a national embarrassment that made me, and, I would hope, millions of others, cringe at the thought of its airing around the world.
I watched every preposterous, flag-waving minute of the "debate." Although there was nothing that topped the tactical nuking episode last night, this morning both the New York Times and Washington Post led their reporting with the immigration issue. Either the GOP itch to launch unprovoked warfare has become a commonplace yawner, or both papers arrived at the debate late, missing its defining moment.
At any rate, my friends, the others, my friends, jumped all over, my friends, John "My Friends" McCain for his compromising and compromised stance on the matter. McCain's only defense was to tie everything -- and I mean everything -- to national security, two little words he uttered with monotonous regularity. I almost felt sorry for him; it was a too-late-to-change-now, desperate display of "I'd rather be right than president," which nobody ever swallows.
The most civilized among them was Ron Paul, as mentioned, and the most articulate was Mike Huckabee, both of whom haven't a prayer. The most laughable were Tommy Thompson and Mitt Romney. Thompson as president, he kids you not, would send the current one around the country to lecture "the youth of America about honesty, integrity, perseverance, passion, and serving the public," while Romney, whose every utterance was backed up by a chorus of angels singing 'God Bless America,' proved he has yet to look up the meaning of "non sequitur."
But when it came to pure, unadulterated rambling, Rudy took the prize. Wolf simply could not shut him up as he, for example, discoursed endlessly about the "very, very important" issue of Scooter Libby's righteous pardon, since "a man's life is at stake." The irony of Rudy's improperly placed concern and compassion was thunderous.
Other than the near-unanimous urge to waste any potential foe who so much as looks at us cross-eyed, the thrust of the debate was that of a tent revival meeting. There is no earthly collectivity that loves God more than these boys, and they let us know that at every opportunity, even the inopportune ones -- invoking His name 24 times.
Whenever I watch another of these tours de force in imbecility, I quake for my country. If these men are the best that democracy has to offer, if they are what democracy calls forth, it's all over.

Court's In Session: You're All Anguses!

(heh. i found the jack in the crack ads to be quite amusing, especially the "where does the angus meat come from?)

Jack in the Box Ads Called Misleading
Competitor Sues Jack in the Box Over TV Spots Mocking Burger Meat
The Associated Press
By GARY GENTILE AP Business WriterLOS ANGELES May 25, 2007 (AP)

The parent company of the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's fast food chains sued rival Jack In The Box Inc. on Friday to stop TV ads that it says suggest Carl's Jr. and Hardee's use cow anus to make Angus beef hamburgers.
CKE Restaurants Inc. sued Jack In The Box in U.S. District Court on Friday over an ad in which executives laugh hysterically at the word "Angus" and another where the chain's pingpong ball-headed mascot, Jack, is asked to point to a diagram of a cow and show where Angus meat comes from.
"I'd rather not," the pointy-nosed Jack replies.
The employee asking the question traces a circle in the air with his pen while pronouncing the word Angus.
CKE claims the ads create the misleading impression that Jack In The Box's new 100 percent sirloin burgers use a better quality of meat than the Angus beef used by Carl's Jr. and Hardee's. CKE claims the spots confuse consumers by comparing sirloin, a cut of meat found on all cattle, with Angus, which is a breed of cattle.
Executives at San Diego-based Jack In The Box had not seen the lawsuit and could not respond, company spokeswoman Kathleen Anthony said.
Restaurants owned by Burger King Holdings Inc. and McDonald's Corp. also serve Angus beef burgers.
CKE is known for running controversial ads for its chains, including one featuring a scantily clad Paris Hilton washing a car while eating a burger. But CKE claims the Jack In the Box ads go too far.
"They're not being funny," CKE chief executive Andrew F. Puzder said Friday. "They need to stop misleading people about what Angus beef is."
Puzder said that the company asked Jack In the Box to drop the ads, but that the chain refused and pointed to a Carl's Jr. TV spot suggesting Carl's Jr. milk shakes were superior to those served by competitors.
Puzder said the comparison was not valid because the Carl's Jr. ads did not suggest that Jack In the Box shakes were made from milk that came from an unsavory part of the cow.
(one thing about the carl's junior ads that disgusted me is that the actors' chewing sounded like a microphone had been placed inside their mouths and one of the things i find most unacceptable is people chewing noisily and with their mouths open. the paris hilton one, however, was...um...savory)

why do the texans seem to have all the fun? tom craddick (speaker of the house) is holding onto his position by a thread by using parlimentary rules to not allow state senators to bring a vote to the floor to boot him. the parlimentarian resigned, democrats were physically restrained from speaking, craddick was booed when he called for a two hour recess to escape questions and more requests that he kiss his ass goodbye...california's soooooo boring...
...how cool is this? in houston they have begun building and donating homes to injured vets to help them get back on their feet and take some of the financial load of their backs...
..."Houses on the south side fly American flags and cars with green Vermont license plates sit in the driveways. Across the street, a sign says "Arret" (French for "stop") and cars have white Quebec plates. Anyone who crosses the street without reporting to its customs houses can be prosecuted."...love it, want to live there...

I Love Email

Dear Speaker Pelosi,
While not a constituent of yours (different district) I am still a dirtborn resident of California. And I have questions for you as such:
1) Why, with all of the previous research done concerning alternative fuel, have you as Speaker not pushed into action any law dictating an aggressive attempt to fully introduce electric cars or hydrogen cars or hybrids that actually use much, much less petroleum than what is now being "considered"? Are you not aware that companies like Shell and Chevron buy up the patents to car prototypes like these and shelve them so as to not let them be made? Are you not, also, aware, that the electric car was actually put into production and sold to consumers only to be yanked off the streets for no reason (some car owners were even sent letters threatening them with legal action if they didn't hand the cars back to the maker)? There were no defects in these cars made public to my knowledge.Also, what, if any, defense can you give to the bills pushed through Congress that relate to hydrogen-powered cars? President Bush has merely planned for "research" during his tenure in office. That research has already been done. It's been proven to work and economically at that.
2) The Earth is bombarded with more solar energy in one hour than it would take to provide for its energy concerns in an entire year. We, of course, could never harness anywhere near that amount on a real-time basis, but I see almost no news of solar power being used in our country on a comprehensive scale. Why are we not introducing large-scale solar panels to cities and populations in an effort to combat our dependence on heating oil?
3) Wind power is the cheapest power commodity there is. It takes no electricity or oil to run the turbines that generate electricity. There is only the initial cost and susequent maintenance to be considered. Why is this avenue not being aggressively pursued?If you truely want out of Iraq and all subsequent wars based a need for fossil fuel, then you need to look immediately for answers already etched in decades of proven research and positive results.If you merely want to try and throw egg in the President's face in order to "look good" to those you think voted you into office or those over whom you now preside, then by all means keep jerking his chain over Iraq as a moral issue while you do nothing to get us out. But if you're serious...then hear the woe of the People's pocketbook and look to staunch the blood flowing therefrom. Most of us can't afford to care about a war in another country. Most of us will never know someone who died "over there". We don't have the time or the energy to expend on that sort of grieving. What we need in order to get us back on our feet and feeling good about our country, our Congress, and our President (whoever he may actually be) is some good, old-fashioned positive movement on the economical scale. Positive movement on the moral scale wouldn't be that bad, either, but let's start with our pocketbooks and our faith in Government.I am a lifelong liberal and I supported your ascendence into your current position of power, but I can see no difference between now and a year ago other than a lot more squabbling and posturing.You serve me as well as millions of others on both sides of the political aisle. Do something to save us from an infinite struggle for the one energy commidity that can never be renewed.

(allegedly) at the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado, California:

if you can't see it, then it's just too late for you....

From NPR.com

Legal Affairs
Two Immigrants Say U.S. Agents Drugged Them
by Rob Schmitz
Weekend Edition Sunday, May 13, 2007 · In Los Angeles, the unusual case of two immigrants whose deportations were botched by U.S. immigration officials has allowed a rare glimpse into internal proceedings within the Department of Homeland Security.
The men say that U.S. immigration officials drugged them in order to ease their removal from the country — but airline officials ultimately put a stop to the deportations.
Both immigrants are back in Los Angeles, appealing their deportations. And they've now obtained government medical records that seem to confirm their accounts.
One of the men, Raymond Soeoth, is a Christian minister from Indonesia who came to the United States in 1999 to flee religious persecution. But on Dec. 7, 2004, immigration agents told him he was going to be deported.
Soeoth says that an agent asked him if he needed medication to relax him for the trip. He replied that he did not. But a few hours later, says Soeoth, several agents came into his cell. One of them, he says, was a medic. He was holding a syringe.
"Two officers grabbed my legs, two officers grabbed my hands. Then they opened my pants. And then I said, 'Why are you guys doing this to me?' and I was crying and crying, and I said 'Why? I'm not animal.'"
Soeoth says the medic injected him in the buttocks. He says he lost consciousness on the way to the airport. The deportation was eventually cancelled because agents failed to notify airline security.
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement medical records, Soeth was injected with Haldol, a very powerful sedative.
In Soeoth's case, his government medical records say a physician prescribed Haldol because Soeoth threatened to kill himself if he was deported.
Soeoth denies that he said this; there is no documentation in his medical records of any other suicide threats, or any history of mental illness.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Mark Raimondi says sedation is sometimes necessary, but that he cannot talk about Soeoth's specific case.
Still, Raimondi says that before drugs were administered, "First there would be an attempt to do verbal counseling to get the detainee to comply and calm down. If that failed, the attempt would be to do physical constraints. If that failed, then, as a last resort, a sedative could be administered."
Raimondi says forcefully injecting a detainee with a sedative would only occur in extraordinary circumstances.
That appeared to be the case in February of 2006, when immigration agents told Senegalese immigrant Amadou Diouf that he was going to be deported. A federal court had given Diouf a stay of deportation, but agents brought him to the airport anyway.
On the plane, Diouf asked to speak to the pilot. He says this angered his government-appointed medical escort, who tried to force Diouf into the plane's lavatory.
"He took the bag out, and he took the syringe," Diouf said. "At that point I knew that, you know, they're going to sedate me. Next thing you know, I refused to get inside the lavatory anyway, and I was pushed to the back and wrestled to the ground."
Diouf says agents injected him with a drug, and then they were kicked off the plane. He says his legs were so numb that on the way out, he fell down the plane's stairs onto the tarmac. Diouf's medical records confirm that he was given medication. It does not list the type of medication.
The American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who is representing both Soeoth and Diouf says his organization is investigating whether to file a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security.
Rob Schmitz reports from member station KQED.

A Couple Of Coppers

(from the new york times)
Stamping Out Diverse Voices
Published: May 8, 2007
Postal rate increases are an unwelcome fact of life for every magazine publisher. But it seems the steep new increases for periodicals, scheduled to begin on July 15, will inflict undue hardship on small independent magazines that do much to inform the national discourse on politics and culture. They will be required to pay a much higher percentage increase than some of the largest magazines.
A skimpily funded coalition of small journals of opinions and ideas — running the ideological gamut from The National Review on the right to The Nation on the left — is struggling to get Washington to focus on the issue. The group’s request that the rate increase be reversed, or at least done in stages to mitigate its crippling impact, warrants the immediate attention of the House and Senate committees that oversee postal operations.
Among other things, those committees need to review the flawed process behind the new rate structure. The United States Postal Service first proposed a large but manageable across-the-board increase of about 12 percent. The rate-setting commission quietly abandoned that proposal and instead approved a new plan resembling one proposed by Time Warner, which publishes two of the nation’s largest-circulation magazines, Time and People.
The magazine industry was given a comment period of just eight working days to respond to the complex changes, which were unveiled without any definitive computer model to help less well-heeled publications assess the impact.
The approved plan is another step away from the traditional method of determining rates based primarily on the number of pieces being sent out and their total weight. The new formula sharply increases discounts to big mailers, which are able to save the Postal Service work, for example by trucking their mail to different states. According to an analysis by McGraw-Hill, many small- or medium-circulation magazines will incur rate increases exceeding 20 percent, some in excess of 30 percent.
Of course, the Postal Service needs revenue, and popular magazines published by Time Warner and others may deserve some discount for mailing efficiencies. But rates must be structured to avoid impeding the easy dissemination of information, which the founding fathers sought to protect by creating a national postal system.

(my two cents? increase first class mail to 50 cents for the next 10 years (my opinion times 25), no further increase allowed until the specified time elapses.
leave subscription postage as is or with only a modest bump. increase "telemarketer" mail to $1.
"telemarketer" mail would include all spam mail addressed to "resident" or other name not personalized and all mail sent to a real name, but with instructions to the postal carrier to leave it even if that name doesn't live at that address. it would include as well any envelope that bears the words "limited time offer", "special introductory rates", "0% APR" for any given amount of time, "you could be a winner", and any combination of words that encourage you to open anything that you did not specifically request to be sent.
unless it's store coupons redeemable at your local outlet. for stuff that makes sense. like milk or bacon or bagels or condoms.
in this manner, we save trees and the air and the postal service can cut down on the number of overtime hours postal carriers have to work by speeding up the daily delivery process of mail that is legitimately being sent.)
just my two cents.

addendum: called adam kirtsall again. i think i was answered by the same slimeball as the last time. i was told adam was in a different office and how could i be helped.
"i need to speak with mr. kirtsall."
"for what reason?"
"because he's been leaving me automated messages for almost a year now."
"and you're just getting back to us now?"
"well, up until the last call i had no idea why he was calling. i only knew that he said it was urgent that i call back, but he didn't give a reason."
"and you had no idea why he would be calling?"
"no sir. i did not. but the last call was from a different person and it mentioned a collection agency."
"what's your id number?"
"my what?"
"your id number."
"i have no idea."
"the id number from the message."
"there was no id number."
"then what collection account are you calling about?"
"i'm not calling about any account. i'm calling because mr. kirtsall asked me to call back and i finally understood why."
"but what's the collection account you owe on?"
"i don't owe on anything."
"oh really?"
"really. i'm just calling, because i need to talk with mr. kirtsall."
"then why would we be calling you?"
"that's why i'm calling. why would you?"
"sir, i'm not showing your phone number in our system. " click.

i'll call back in a week. i feel mr. kirtsall has a year's worth of returns coming.

GRRRR!!!!!!!

(hello from ihatework.com where this wage earner is realizing that he is doing the majority of the revenue work while others are engaging in "dead legging" and not getting spanked for it)

From a Pulitzer Prize-winning article in the Boston Globe by Charlie Savage:

"Since taking office in 2001, President Bush has issued signing statements on more than 750 new laws, declaring that he has the power to set aside the laws when they conflict with his legal interpretation of the Constitution. The federal government is instructed to follow the statements when it enforces the laws. Here are 10 examples and the dates Bush signed them:

March 9: Justice Department officials must give reports to Congress by certain dates on how the FBI is using the USA Patriot Act to search homes and secretly seize papers.
Bush's signing statement: The president can order Justice Department officials to withhold any information from Congress if he decides it could impair national security or executive branch operations.

Dec. 30, 2005: US interrogators cannot torture prisoners or otherwise subject them to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
Bush's signing statement: The president, as commander in chief, can waive the torture ban if he decides that harsh interrogation techniques will assist in preventing terrorist attacks.

Dec. 30: When requested, scientific information ''prepared by government researchers and scientists shall be transmitted [to Congress] uncensored and without delay."
Bush's signing statement: The president can tell researchers to withhold any information from Congress if he decides its disclosure could impair foreign relations, national security, or the workings of the executive branch.

Aug. 8: The Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its contractors may not fire or otherwise punish an employee whistle-blower who tells Congress about possible wrongdoing.
Bush's signing statement: The president or his appointees will determine whether employees of the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can give information to Congress.

Dec. 23, 2004: Forbids US troops in Colombia from participating in any combat against rebels, except in cases of self-defense. Caps the number of US troops allowed in Colombia at 800.
Bush's signing statement: Only the president, as commander in chief, can place restrictions on the use of US armed forces, so the executive branch will construe the law ''as advisory in nature."

Dec. 17: The new national intelligence director shall recruit and train women and minorities to be spies, analysts, and translators in order to ensure diversity in the intelligence community.
Bush's signing statement: The executive branch shall construe the law in a manner consistent with a constitutional clause guaranteeing ''equal protection" for all. (In 2003, the Bush administration argued against race-conscious affirmative-action programs in a Supreme Court case. The court rejected Bush's view.)

Oct. 29: Defense Department personnel are prohibited from interfering with the ability of military lawyers to give independent legal advice to their commanders.
Bush's signing statement: All military attorneys are bound to follow legal conclusions reached by the administration's lawyers in the Justice Department and the Pentagon when giving advice to their commanders.

Aug. 5: The military cannot add to its files any illegally gathered intelligence, including information obtained about Americans in violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches.
Bush's signing statement: Only the president, as commander in chief, can tell the military whether or not it can use any specific piece of intelligence.

Nov. 6, 2003: US officials in Iraq cannot prevent an inspector general for the Coalition Provisional Authority from carrying out any investigation. The inspector general must tell Congress if officials refuse to cooperate with his inquiries.
Bush's signing statement: The inspector general ''shall refrain" from investigating anything involving sensitive plans, intelligence, national security, or anything already being investigated by the Pentagon. The inspector cannot tell Congress anything if the president decides that disclosing the information would impair foreign relations, national security, or executive branch operations.

Nov. 5, 2002: Creates an Institute of Education Sciences whose director may conduct and publish research ''without the approval of the secretary [of education] or any other office of the department."
Bush's signing statement: The president has the power to control the actions of all executive branch officials, so ''the director of the Institute of Education Sciences shall [be] subject to the supervision and direction of the secretary of education."

Congress. Ugh! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. I'll say it again. Congress. Ugh!

Your Name Here

wow. this is both odd and revolting. this has to step out of anyone's religious beliefs, regardless of who they are. of course, it does come from the washington times...and the washington times is, how should we put it, freaking conservative! but i wouldn't be surprised if this article speaks true.

the study's in on bill o'reilly. and what it found is: if you can't say something nice...go sit by him. evidently, bill can't keep his bigot in his box.

you ever get one of those automated phone calls over and over again about every two weeks to a month asking you to call a person back, but you're given no information as to to why you should do so? i've been getting one of those ever since i moved into my current place of residence...so, about a year now.
the voice was always the same and it stated that it was important that i "contact adam kirtsall" immediately at 1-888-899-6779.
until a week ago i had no idea what it was about and assumed he was a mortgager as i get many of those.
but last week the message was lightly different. the voice, for one, was a different man and the message stated that it was a debt collection agency. i erased that message, then belatedly hoped he would call again.
today he did. i listened and jotted down the phone number. i called that number. i was answered by a real live person. following is the transcript:
"bleeping Collection Service"
"yes, i'd like to speak with adam kirtsall"
"i'm sorry, he's in another department. how can i help you?"
"well, adam kirtsall has been sending me automated messages for almost a year now and i finally understand why he's been doing this. i need to speak with him, please"
"what's your phone number sir?"
"it's --- - ----"
"are you joseph ----?"
"no, i'm not. i'm joel ----"
"so he no longer lives there?"
"as far as i know he's never lived here. i don't know who he is. this place was vacant for a couple of years before i moved in"
"do you know where he is?"
"i just told you i don't know who he is"
"it's a little coincidental that you have the same names, don't you think?"
"what's the same about joseph and joel?"
"well, it's coincidental that your last names are the same"
"yeah, how coincidental is that that i have the same last name as someone else in this fucking country? i need you to put me through to adam kirtsall or take me off of your call list right fucking now"
"you'll need to get in contact with joseph ---- and have him get in contact with us to that, sir"
"how the fuck am i going to do that when i already told you i don't fucking know him, you dumbass piece-"
click.

of course i called back. and my number had been removed from the call list in the 10 seconds it took me to re-engage.
i encourage everyone who reads this to call that number and pretend for a few minutes to be a very confused person owing them money, then blog about it.

Let Them Eat Cake?

from the American Conservative comes this:

"The Defense Authorization Act of 2006, passed on Sept. 30, empowers President George W. Bush to impose martial law in the event of a terrorist “incident,” if he or other federal officials perceive a shortfall of “public order,” or even in response to antiwar protests that get unruly as a result of government provocations."

this is a conservative publication weighing in on a matter of very heavy constitutional and legal precedent. our president and his handlers managed to pass a bill through Congress (100-0) that allows the president to declare martial law in almost any situation that he disagrees with politically.
senator patrick leahy is actively working to have it repealed, but he was one of the 100 who voted for it, because he and they evidently didn't have time to read it.

"Section 1076 of the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 changed the name of the key provision in the statute book from “Insurrection Act” to “Enforcement of the Laws to Restore Public Order Act.” The Insurrection Act of 1807 stated that the president could deploy troops within the United States only “to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.” The new law expands the list to include “natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition”—and such “condition” is not defined or limited."

hey, you republicans. would you like this to stay in effect if hillary clinton is elected our next president? she could use this to arrest pro-lifers who try to block entrance to an abortion clinic.

we've already been told how the internet is now being used by terrorists to send messages and instructions. would it be too farfetched to imagine the internet being taken over by our government to "protect us"? especially in an election year?
i can see where martial law (in hindsight) might have been something to pull in new orleans after their hurricane, but that would have been a knee-jerk response to the fact that the government had no response to the warnings beforehand and the supposed emergency response system it was supposed to have in place.
seems to me that martial law is something a party in power puts into effect precisely because it has no power popularly. because it holds on to power illegally and through fear of arrest or worse. in a nation like ours we put our trust in the individual to stand tall when a disaster happens. we put our trust in the police to reestablish order. we put our trust in our government to provide leadership and aid.
we don't, however, expect or even hope that a president will take unilateral action to quell dissent. regardless of our political persuasion. because if one president can do it, then the next can as well. and don't forget that a presidential election can be postponed indefinately due to martial law.
the article may be from a journal i might ordinarily disagree with, but in this moment they caught something i hadn't yet heard about. and i thank them.

Laughing My Fucking Ass Off While Masturbating With One Hand

this, obviously, is a scientific investigation in its infancy, but it just reminds me to say one more time (and this time on my blog): yo, people, drop the cell phone and start living. what's so effing important that it can't wait until you get to work or get home? why do you need to answer the phone in the car or on the bus or in the supermarket or as soon as you get off a plane or at a sporting event or on your morning break or when you're visiting someone at their house or...anyfuckingwhere?
of the people i know who have cell phones, how many have a land line as well? um, i think all of them. and how many of those have a message machine or voice mail attached to their land lines? um, yeah, once again: all of them. you will, of course, let me know if i'm wrong.
am i opposed to all cell phones? no. do i think the cell phone is an important invention? yes.
a cell phone on a road trip is a good thing in case of a flat tire or engine breakdown or injury accident. a cell phone is a nice luxury when one is on vacation in a remote or foreign land when something of import (e.g. death of a loved one) occurs. sometimes a cell phone is even financially preferable to a land line, but that is a very rare and shaky premise considering the amount of time most users spend on their cell phones (free minutes notwithstanding).
i spend approximately $31.75 per month to keep my home phone in operation. i don't feel the need for caller i.d. or three way or call waiting. if you call and my phone's busy, call back in a few minutes. if you're a telemarketer, watch out (i evidently have a bad habit of fucking with you when i've been imbibing). if it's important and you're local, drive or walk over.
i remember, as a child, not knowing what a phone sounded like after 6 p.m. that black made-of-graphite bludgeon, which sat somewhere in our kitchen, was something that adults talked on and sometimes made obscene gestures to. it was an important piece of furniture, but it was as foreign as foreign could be. as a child i knew what it did. but i didn't know why. i would be given the receiver on occasion to say hi to a grandparent or someone, but generally it was the possession and responsibility of an adult. and it sits there in my memory as magic as the fourth of july (which, for a couple of you dear readers, would include my firedancing).
rereading the above, i feel i need to give my definition of an adult:
"someone who knows how to use a tool properly". say what you will about the neanderthals. they learned about fire and spears to use in catching and cooking their prey. say what you will about the nazis, so did they. although, the nazis used the equivalent of the cell phone and it wasn't about survival. and it wasn't proper. so, the nazis really shouldn't be included in this definition of the word. let's scratch them out and go back to the neanderthals.
another quite interesting and disturbing phenomenom is the need for IMing while at work. or just checking for new text messages while at work. it's like email without the hassle of having to write real words. I M LOL. INMHO. LMAO. LMFAOWMWOH.
LOL has got to be the most overused acronym by people who want you to understand that they are making a joke. it's the new equivalent of the comedian's rimshot. you know, just in case we didn't get it. most of the time we get it. most of the time we still don't laugh. most of the time we're wondering if they got it when they felt the need to write LOL.
sometimes, it's a self-deprecating move. along the lines of "in case you thought i was serious...". or "no one gets my sense of humor unless it's in person, so i better put this one in or they'll think i'm a big buttfuck of a egotistical prick". or "please don't take it seriously yet that i'm depressed and suicidal".
but i digress. i meant to simply address the need to use cell phones away from working bees. my goodness, if any living being needed a cell phone it would be the bee. they travel from their hives, ride the breezes smelling for scent, get there, gather pollen, fly back to the hive, do a complicated dance to give directions to where they found the pollen, then hit the road again. several times a day.
then there's the giant cat (tiger, leopard, jaguar, puma, etc) that is forced to leave its mark wherever it goes to let the other cats know that this is its territory. it's been doing this since time immemorial with no upgrades. it could use a cell phone. call its rivals. let them know it's in the transvaal 40 until 5 p.m. and to stay the hell away.
elephants (when migrating) would be able to call ahead to traffic control and ask them to make sure the road was devoid of turtles and such that are slow to clear the way.
geese could get weather and windshear updates.
punxsutawney phil could just call it in.
but it is, of course, the humans who are blessed with this privilege. and use it to no effect at all.
so, excuse me when i say the LOL's on us as we waste our intelligence with gellifying our braincells on extravagances like the cell phone so we can get a call from a friend when they see us on national television at a ballgame.

we don't need cell phones. the rest of the animal kingdom might, though.

Rudy, We Hardly Knew Ye (well, i didn't at all)

(from Welcome To Pottersville, this post concerning the religious right's attack on separation of powers and a nod to rudy giuliani who many see as a sane and centrist man):

In 1981, Gary North, a leader of the Christian Reconstructionist movement — the openly theocratic wing of the Christian right — suggested that the movement could achieve power by stealth. “Christians must begin to organize politically within the present party structure,” he wrote, “and they must begin to infiltrate the existing institutional order.”
Today, Regent University, founded by the televangelist Pat Robertson to provide “Christian leadership to change the world,” boasts that it has 150 graduates working in the Bush administration.
Unfortunately for the image of the school, where Mr. Robertson is chancellor and president, the most famous of those graduates is Monica Goodling, a product of the university’s law school. She’s the former top aide to Alberto Gonzales who appears central to the scandal of the fired U.S. attorneys and has declared that she will take the Fifth rather than testify to Congress on the matter.
The infiltration of the federal government by large numbers of people seeking to impose a religious agenda — which is very different from simply being people of faith — is one of the most important stories of the last six years. It’s also a story that tends to go underreported, perhaps because journalists are afraid of sounding like conspiracy theorists.
But this conspiracy is no theory. The official platform of the Texas Republican Party pledges to “dispel the myth of the separation of church and state.” And the Texas Republicans now running the country are doing their best to fulfill that pledge.
Kay Cole James, who had extensive connections to the religious right and was the dean of Regent’s government school, was the federal government’s chief personnel officer from 2001 to 2005. (Curious fact: she then took a job with Mitchell Wade, the businessman who bribed Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham.) And it’s clear that unqualified people were hired throughout the administration because of their religious connections.
For example, The Boston Globe reports on one Regent law school graduate who was interviewed by the Justice Department’s civil rights division. Asked what Supreme Court decision of the past 20 years he most disagreed with, he named the decision to strike down a Texas anti-sodomy law. When he was hired, it was his only job offer.Or consider George Deutsch, the presidential appointee at NASA who told a Web site designer to add the word “theory” after every mention of the Big Bang, to leave open the possibility of “intelligent design by a creator.” He turned out not to have, as he claimed, a degree from Texas A&M.
One measure of just how many Bushies were appointed to promote a religious agenda is how often a Christian right connection surfaces when we learn about a Bush administration scandal.
There’s Ms. Goodling, of course. But did you know that Rachel Paulose, the U.S. attorney in Minnesota — three of whose deputies recently stepped down, reportedly in protest over her management style — is, according to a local news report, in the habit of quoting Bible verses in the office?
Or there’s the case of Claude Allen, the presidential aide and former deputy secretary of health and human services, who stepped down after being investigated for petty theft. Most press reports, though they mentioned Mr. Allen’s faith, failed to convey the fact that he built his career as a man of the hard-line Christian right.
And there’s another thing most reporting fails to convey: the sheer extremism of these people.
You see, Regent isn’t a religious university the way Loyola or Yeshiva are religious universities. It’s run by someone whose first reaction to 9/11 was to brand it God’s punishment for America’s sins.
Two days after the terrorist attacks, Mr. Robertson held a conversation with Jerry Falwell on Mr. Robertson’s TV show “The 700 Club.” Mr. Falwell laid blame for the attack at the feet of “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians,” not to mention the A.C.L.U. and People for the American Way. “Well, I totally concur,” said Mr. Robertson.
The Bush administration’s implosion clearly represents a setback for the Christian right’s strategy of infiltration. But it would be wildly premature to declare the danger over. This is a movement that has shown great resilience over the years. It will surely find new champions.

Next week Rudy Giuliani will be speaking at Regent’s Executive Leadership Series.

F Bomb (Auld Lang Syne)

i don't like to crow. that's not me...normally. but there comes a time when i just can't keep it in. i gotta let it out. i gotta shout. i gotta strut and shake my stuff. jiggle the booty and shimmy the shake.

i'm going to see the san francisco giants play the new york yankees. did a bit of movin' and groovin', greasin' and wheelin' and shrimpin' the pimp if you know what i mean. yeah, you do. because you're sassy.

the freakin' giants are playing the fuckingyankees. to a diehard baseball fan this is nirvana. to a giants fan this is once in a lifetime plus peanuts. we've been waiting since 1962 to get another shot at those arrogant whale dorks.

and arrogant they are with the likes of derek fuckingjeter, alex fuckingrodriguez, bernie fuckingwilliams, hideki fuckingmatsui, johnny fuckingdamon, bobby fuckingabreu, andy fuckingpettite, doug fuckingmientkiewicz, jason fuckinggiambi, josh fuckingphelps, miguel fuckingcairo, robinson fuckingcano, kyle fuckingfarnsworth, carl fuckingpavano, mike fuckingmussina...and,uh, mariano fuckingrivera.

the fuckingyankees do one thing well above all others. they stack their roster with fuckingplayers. and by fuckingplayers i mean real ballfucking players. ballfucking players who are all very fuckinggood at what they fuckingdo. some of the time they fuckinggel and sometimes they fuckingdon't. derek fuckingjeter owns four fuckingworld series champion rings. and he started in fuckingall of them. mariano fuckingrivera has those same four rings. fuckingplus one or two MVPs.

george steinfuckingbrenner (owner) has a good fuckingfarm system that he treats like a trading fuckingstable. he cultivates fuckinggood talent, then trades it for a goodfucking deal. unless it is fuckingtoo popular on the block. then he keeps and fuckinggrooms it.

george steinfuckingbrenner, also, buys the bestfucking talent he can afford. every year. and since he has more fuckingmoney than any other owner he can buy the bestfucking talent. fuckingperiod. keep the fuckingones who produce each year after year and fuckingboot the ones who don't. with no fuckingfear.

so, i want to see in person my stinking giants kick the crapping crapcrap out of those damnitall yankees.

Where's Generik?

first of all, i'd like to congratulate our first guesser (mr. mintzworks) for making the brave gesture of going first. you are to be commended, sir. truly.
secondly of all mustang, it is Harry: Men's Sweaters. or should be. and it should be said with the threat of a sister mob hit behind it.
lastly, you lie, dear mr. mintzworks. you did meet generik. i may have even introduced you. but you guessed right as well and i didn't prohibit knowing what he looks like from the contest. and you might have talked for as long as it took to say hi. [editor's note: forget that last sentence...please!]
so, well done. and, actually, i'm still impressed. the fact that he's looking away should have made it harder.
so...you win, you magnificent bastard.

what you've won i hadn't thought about until now. so, let it be...
...
...
...one free admission to an imax film when accompanied by moi. any film. name the time.

[editor's note: all times negotiable, all films negotiable]

a City excursion

this is how buses are supposed to look.

calling all mustangs.
so cool i peed myself.

then the game started...
...and we surrendered quickly and quietly...
after the game we found a quiet spot where the waitress was prompt, deft and oddly familiar looking...
belly shots...that is, if her belly is up around her hoo hoos...

generic showing a bit of bling.
the post game fights began with hair tossing as a dodger fan made bad bad lovin' to a giant girl and the marines just looked on without intervening...it was close to civil war.

finally, for those of you who know generic and those of you who just met him in the above picture, it's time to play the game: WHERE'S GENERIK? he's somewhere in here, i promise. exciting prize for the person who correctly identifies his row and seat number (employees and relatives of genericbling enterprises excluded).

Battle For Middle Earth V. Iraq

i've been playing this computer game of late that my brother got me into. it's called "battle for middle earth II". in it i create resources for money and buildings that recruit fighters. then i command them in battle.
honestly, i started with the evil campaign and directed goblins and trolls and mountain giants and nazgul to do woe upon the elves, dwarves and hobbits. i'm neither proud nor ashamed.
but one of the things i noticed while learning how to play the game is that when i create a few hordes and then attack the enemy i tend to get my ass kicked. also, when i create a lot of hordes and choose the wrong place to assail i tend to get my ass kicked.
with that in mind, i encourage you to seek this link and see for yourself what can happen in real life when a commander doesn't look to the future and prepare what should have been seen as a long, protracted battle in need of constant refreshing of cannon fodder resources anf monetary delinquincies.

Evolution Shmevolution

(from crooksandliars comes this reporting of a newsweek poll):

"Evolution fares poorly in Newsweek poll
By: Steve on Monday, April 2nd, 2007 at 12:22 PM - PDT

The latest Newsweek poll included a variety of interesting questions about Americans and religious matters, including the not-surprising fact that 91% of the public say they believe in God and almost as many (87 percent) say they identify with a specific religion. But perhaps more importantly, Newsweek also asked poll respondents about modern biology.
Nearly half (48 percent) of the public rejects the scientific theory of evolution; one-third (34 percent) of college graduates say they accept the Biblical account of creation as fact. Seventy-three percent of Evangelical Protestants say they believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years; 39 percent of non-Evangelical Protestants and 41 percent of Catholics agree with that view.
These poll results come just a few months after an international study was conducted to measure which countries were the most accepting on evolutionary biology. Of the 34 countries involved, the United States ranked 33rd. Only Turkey ranked lower.
This is not at all encouraging. "

(not that any of us can prove one theory over another here, but this poll smacks of a bit of a tilt toward those on one side...or i could be wrong and darwin's indeed on the outs right now)

DC United

speaking of spreading democracy...
...bob herbert has a good column here about DC's ongoing problem with political respect. because it's a district (as opposed to being a state) it is afforded no representation in Congress. and herbert brings up a very good point: while bush touts democracy as the current reason (well, one of a few) why we must "stay the course" in iraq, he and his cadre have worked very hard to keep it from happening in washington, dc. why? i dunno...maybe because it's primarily a democratic party oriented area (what with all of those pesky minorities and whonot) with half a million people? and considering that one electoral vote is two too many these days? and one extra representative or senator could be enough to tip the scales against him on a close vote or veto override?
i dunno.
the idea that the district should be kept from government representation, because it's the seat of power and should thusly be protected from partisan leanings is a joke. what i don't know is if these residents get to vote in the presidential primaries. hopefully, they do. all i know is that they have no voice in the senate or the house of representatives.
let's give them one. just one. then maybe they'll shut up and go back to shooting each other over whether they should get to own concealed weapons like all good americans.

Jumpin' Jive

now, just what the hell is going on here?
over the past few months i've been witnessing the word "jive" used in countless web blogs, political commentaries, quotes from politicians and even in newspapers to describe situations where a person's actions don't conform to a person's words or stance on something.

example: bush's claim to be a uniter doesn't jive with any single thing he's done since he came into power.

when , in fact, the word to be used is "jibe". jibe originally was a term used at sea. it was a nautical term.

example: To turn a boat to take the wind on the other side, with the stern going through the wind. Unless the jibe is controlled, the boom will bang over and the sudden change of forces can cause momentary loss of control.

it, also, is a word used to describe consistency (or lack thereof).

example: agree with, as in: His alibi doesn't jibe with the testimony of eye-witnesses.

jive is slang for describing swing blues music. it is, also, used as a dismissive term when one person thinks another is handing him a bunch of bullshit.

example: BB King sings "My momma says she loves me, but she could be jivin' too".

only the urban dictionary has crossed the word "jive" over into sharing the same meaning as "jibe". and it's the fifth definition on the list.

but i guess it's the buzzword du jour and no one has the time to look into its etymology. we all know that politicians don't. and we all know that most political columnists won't.

think before you use the word. because jive don't jibe with jibe, it's just jive.

Hmmm, Maybe Not Killing All The Lawyers IS A Bad Thing

J. Tony Serra, celebrated by filmmakers and fellow lawyers as an advocate for the downtrodden and jailed by the feds for dodging his taxes, was out of prison and back at work Wednesday -- suing over the low wages federal inmates earn and citing the 19 cents an hour he got for watering penitentiary gardens.
"I'm angry at a system that perpetuates, from my perspective, slave labor," Serra, 72, said at a news conference in his office on Broadway in San Francisco's North Beach. Behind him was a prisoner's painting showing a shackled and grimacing inmate in the hands of two guards.
He said he wasn't complaining about personal mistreatment -- his nine months at the federal prison camp in Lompoc (Santa Barbara County) and one month at a halfway house were "a 10-month vacation," he said -- but about systemic unfairness.
In the prison industries program, in which he and other inmates were required to work, he was assigned to water the prison gardens for five hours a day, 20 days a month, and paid $19 each month, or 19 cents an hour, Serra said. He said other prisoners whose work was much more arduous were paid between 5 cents and $1.65 an hour.
"Prison industries is a dirty secret," Serra said, describing a nationwide network of prison camps churning out products made by low-paid inmates for contractors and federal agencies that, he said, might otherwise buy the same goods from unionized private plants.He also sang the praises of "fabulous jailhouse lawyers" and of a multiracial society of inmates at Lompoc, where "white-collar millionaires and people right out of the ghetto were enjoying themselves together," united by their hatred of prison guards.It was vintage Serra.
"Tony has come out of his prison sentence even more energized to fight against injustice," said San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi, who testified on Serra's behalf at his July 2005 sentencing hearing. "You put him in prison, he's going to not only look at potential injustices, but he's the kind of person that does something when he gets out. It probably would have been cheaper for the government just to put Tony on probation."
Hollywood latched onto the attorney in the 1989 movie "True Believer," in which James Woods played a character based on Serra, who wins an acquittal in a Chinatown murder case. Adachi, who worked on the real-life case as a college student, recalled that he and others "couldn't find a lawyer in town" to help the defendant before locating Serra.
Serra also successfully defended Black Panthers leader Huey Newton in a murder trial and has represented scores of controversial and unpopular clients while living a Spartan life and driving a rundown car.His prison lawsuit, like many of his cases, appears to be a longshot. Others have challenged the prison pay system, citing federal minimum-wage laws and other arguments, without success.
Serra's lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in San Francisco, invokes federal labor law, the constitutional ban on slavery and U.N. standards for treatment of prisoners. Serra's lawyer, John Murcko, said the U.N. standards entitle prisoners to "equitable remuneration" -- which he pegged at $25 an hour -- and that federal labor law should entitle them to the federal minimum wage, $5.15 an hour.
The suit seeks damages for all Lompoc inmates in the prison industries program, a number Murcko estimated at between 300 and 500. Felicia Ponce, spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, declined to comment on the suit or on prison wages. Serra was freed March 13 after serving a sentence for his third tax conviction, a guilty plea to two misdemeanor charges of willfully failing to pay $44,000 in federal income taxes in 1998 and 1999. He had previously spent four months at Lompoc in 1974 for failing to file tax returns, in a protest against the Vietnam War, and was given probation for filing late returns in 1986.
"I'm a lifelong tax boycotter," he said Wednesday. To maintain his law practice, he said, he'll comply with a court order to pay $100,000 in back taxes, and will "do my best to abide by the law" in the future.
He said his California law license was suspended for six months but has been restored, because his convictions were misdemeanors rather than felonies. That allowed him to practice law during his last months in prison, helping fellow inmates with their criminal cases as well as with divorces, wills and other matters, he said.
After 44 years as an attorney, Serra said, "I want to practice vigorously another 10." That means staying out of prison, he said, because "you can't fight them from inside."
(italics and bold letters mine all mine)

Happy Birthday To Me

if you've been following the recent spate of federal prosecutorial firings by the Justice Department (and Alberto Gonzales) and thought to yourself "well, here's a new spin problem for Bush and Co.", perhaps you should take a look at this.
Seems there was another a few years back that smells just a bit coincidental and feels just a tad slimily familiar. Jack (Abram)off was being investigated (well, a lot of people were) for ties to corruption on the tiny island of Guam. just as the temporary (despite being in the position for a decade and being put there by Bush, Sr.) prosecuter was really getting going he was summarily demoted and a cousin of one of the "targets" was instated in his place (the cousin then recused himself due to confilct of interest and the whole issue of corruption went away). bad timing or good? abramoff brought down a few highly placed republican politicians when he was finally brought to justice here in the states. but why would Bush (or his handlers) worry so much about what happens in a protectorate? unless, of course, jack was making big money for republican politicians and big business (note the reference to sweatshops).
remember: in politics, the only species woth protecting is your own and the gophers digging your holes. and that is exactly what Jack was for the republican party: a gopher. he tunneled into where others couldn't be seen to go aboveground. and the only reason he got caught and couldn't be protected in the end was because he tried to sell indians some more infected blankets.
but this is merely a preamble to what is happening now. only eight out of the 93 federal prosecutors were fired or demoted. but of the eight only three had been given less than satisfactory evaluations. three were given positive evals and three were given satisfactory. one put away a couple of california republicans, one wasn't moving fast enough on voter fraud claims connected to democrats. one, in seattle, nobody knows why. one was removed to make way for a Karl Rove protege.
the administration and justice department fist claimed that all were removed due to poor performance evals. next, they said that while some were poor, others were just told to leave, because that's what a president can do. finally, alberto gonzales said mistakes were made and certain people speaking under oath to congress did so without all the proper information (when they were insisting that all removals were due to poor performance) and did not constitute perjury. he said he is responsible even though it's been proven that karl rove was bringing some of the complaints by republican politicians straight to him and the president and that the president "may have" related some of the complaints "informally" to gonzales.
it's also been proven that the move to purge the prosecutorial rolls of those not in line with administration policy dates back a few years. harriet miers, then legal counsel to bush, suggested firing all 93 and starting off fresh after the 2004 election. she was beaten down by those much smarter than her (i.e. karl rove), because the others knew all too well what kind of political backlash that would cause (damn skippy). instead, they took their time to figure out the worst of the worst (those who sought to punish people for breaking the law) vs. the best of the best (those who toed the administration's policies).
and, thus, this conservative republican administration is being seen for what it's best at: heavyhandedness vs. what it's worst at: evenhandedness.
if you hire a prosecuter to prosecute lawbreakers, then let that person prosecute them all.

p.s. i just realized that this is the two year anniversary of my starting this silly blog. happy birthday to me and to all squirrels.

Rogue Festival, Week One, Part Two

the wheel of dad appearing only at the rogue festival:

this one is my one art shot of the first weekend:

Rogue 2007, First Saturday

dear journal,
today was my second day of Rogue 2007. this was the first day that i remembered to bring my camera. the previous first day i was a nervous wreck getting ready for my first day as a truly free man who had ended a long relationship over a year before and was now about to see my ex for the first time since that fateful day. naturally, i showered, shaved and applied deoderant even though i knew i had nothing to prove despite the 10 pounds i had gained and the stress acne thqt now dotted my face. i could tell myself that i felt confident seeing my ex in oublic and did a good job of not smelling my pits after the second hour.
it didn't bother me, as well, that a cameraman was following me around and recording my every move. that's how stable i was. of course, i have no idea why i was being followed. unless it shows up on punked or jackass. than i'll understand hindsight, 20/20 and payback's a bitch.
nevertheless, i saw two shows on friday. my parents were in town for the festival (all the way from spokane) and my son was on his way down from san francisco via amtrak.
i began the festival with a group of shakespeare monologues tied together with interim preparatory exhalations. nicely done, inventive, not too shabby for an opemning night. after that, i hung around the same venue for some chart toppers from the year 1349. it was evidently a hell of a year for pop hits if you're into european folk tales told by a roast master. which it tuns out i was.
on saturday i began my true rogu-on with a show about a man who wanted to be a concert organist and settled for alcohol and the church (insert own punchline about man/organ/priest). chuckled, giggled, snarked my ass off to this one. but no pictures. i have a rule about taking photos in theater productions.
than, it was on to the trike shop, which i have pictures for. blake, the gang and his daughter chelsea did their best to convince us we should send them to liverpool. the one question left unanswered was: are we helping to pay for one way or round trip tickets?


next, i went over to dada, but i deleted her pictures and have nothing at the moment. so, i leave you with this shot of the ugliest marmoset i've ever seen:

to be followed by the cutest tyke at the fest so far:
followed by the hottest hootchie mama:
and then some too rapid percussion by stan of poplord (a great duo to check out at veni's):

and then there was me at home in front of the keyboard wondering if the cat i was housesitting would let me get some sleep tonight (as chris would say: overactive pussy CAN be a bad thing).

while this is merely a "non-paper" (meaning it lacks legal status) it is interesting and will not likely make the mainstream press in any meaningful way. but the mere fact that israel and syria have been meeting in secret for a few years to negotiate a new territory treaty while those between israel and the palestinians have unraveled repeatedly even before they were announced as dead is of note. if you click on the above link take a look at the map of the proposed parkway...it's huge, the entire golan heights. and it would be accessible to both syrians and israelis. read the article and you will see that, as of now, if all terms are met the syrians would disavow hezbollah (syria is the prime military and political backer of that terrorist organization).
will it actually come to pass? probably not. nothing ever really does in that part of the world. too many extreme factions within all governments that proclude any real attempt at peace. but this one is a new twist between two countries historically turned against one another.

Did the President Declare "Secret War" Against Syria and Iran

Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran.

also, KFSO in San Francisco is under attack by a blogger who has been emailing their so-called hate speech to advertisers and asking them whether they really want to continue supporting such language. and mediamatters has their response to KFO's claim that it is behind all of this. while i will not be able to listen in to tomorrow's broadcast it will be interesting to read in the aftermath.

jack and george

from 2003:
...yeah, didn't know him, never met him, don't know what y'all are talking about. i take pitchurs with lotsa peeples. don't mean i never met 'em.

(from Daily News)
WASHINGTON - President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.

(from Alternet)
"Casualties" in the military sense is the total number made unavailable for duty from all causes, including deaths and wounds suffered in combat as well as injuries, accidents and illness in a war "theater" such as "Operation Iraqi Freedom" (the official Pentagon name for the invasion and occupation). So whether caused by "hostile" (24,965 as of Dec.27) or "non-hostile" (25,406 as of Dec. 2) causes, the Pentagon's own web sites record a toll of more than 50,000 so far in "OIF."

now, for those of you out there who think that saddam hussein's death is "great news" or a "vindication of our reasons for invasion" or "justice served", let me remind you of a few facts.
1) all of the weapons of mass destruction that he purportedly had in stock (which he evidently began dismantling after 1991) were supplied to him by us.
2) while our government has been recently declaring his war against Iran in the 1980's as "barbaric" and "unwarranted", it was supplying him with weapons, logistics and advisors during the actual event.
3) when he gassed the Kurds, mass-killed dissenting Shiites and executed family members our government turned a blind eye, because he was conveniently the enemy of our enemy (Iran).
4) when our government claimed that hussein was not allowing unfettered access to supposed weapons making sites just before our current invasion and had kicked out the UN inspectors, it was lying. the UN had reported in the months prior to the current invasion that hussein had stopped all obstuction and they were making spot checks of anything they wanted without advance notice and previously assigned "bodyguards". the UN inspectors also said that they were told by our government that it could not guarantee their safety when it started the "shock and awe" campaign and told them to get out of Iraq then and there (less than a week prior to the initial bombing).
5) NOT ONE weapon of mass distruction was found when, since and after we invaded this time. not one. the "smoking gun" seems to have been our government's ineptitude. remember that we went from 9/11 connections (that never had a shred of credibility) to WMD and its "mushroom cloud in 40 minutes" capability to "he's a brutal dictator" to "either we fight them over there or we fight them over here" to the spread of democracy (not necessarily in that order).
6) while some Iraqis celebrate his death, many more mourn the fact that it now seems that life was better back then. all they had to do was live their lives quietly and let hussein live out his derangement and everything was acceptable. they had electricity, gas, water, schools, mosques and churches, freedom (somewhat) of the press, women could hold public jobs and walk in the streets without having to wear black from head to toe...all of these things look very good to a country that cannot even send their children to school without bodyguards, cannot open their stores without fear of kidnapping and execution, do not know someone who has fallen prey to the myriad killing squads or US forces, and dare not publicly display their ethnic affliliation.
7) a somewhat popular argument for toppling hussein is that "we created him, we were reponsible for taking him out". this is given by war hawks to those of us who mention that we did indeed (while not creating him) back, arm and enforce his rule for many years. but this argument is fellacious an dissembling. the only reason he turned on the USA is because, after the Iran/Iraq war, our government encountered much criticism by foreign leaders for arming him in the first place with weapons of bacteriological and viral nature. because of this assault we stopped. when we stopped he retaliated through hyperbole and condemned us. instead of coming clean and admitting our mistake, we began a long war of detraction. and when Iraq invaded Kuwait we found our "out" as it were. we were much better friends with Kuwait at the time than we were with Iraq.
8) although it has not been completely verified or completely dismissed, the argument remains that iraq invaded Kuwait (in 1990?), because Kuwait was slantdrilling for oil into Iraqi soil. to make it simple, the argument goes that kuwait began the drilling on their territory, but drilled at a 45 degree angle (or so) to tap oil preserves in Iraq. simple to do, hard to detect without seismic stations (which all mideast nations have for this very reason and for oil reserve exploration). if it's true, we have a secular mideast nation attacking an islamic nation based on theft.
9) secular. our government wants "democracy" to spread and shine throughout the world. while it's only a 231 year old experiment many of us can agree that it seems to be working somewhat. but we just kicked the shit out of one of the only secular governments in the mideast. and secular is what we want. so long as a country is ruled by islamic law or sharia law we will make no inroads. they will accept our help in whichever avenue, but we cannot infringe on their holy writ for that is ultimate law. for example, Saudi Arabia: we supply them with military hardware and they send us terrorists to blow up our buildings and kill our citizens. but we still have no beef with them. then there's Pakistan. we supply them with military hardware and the ability to make a nuclear bomb, they declare they're on our side in the War On Terror, but harbor the Taliban and al-quaeda. and we claim we can't invade that sovereign nation in order to attack terrorists when we had invaded Iraq and Afghanistan for that very reason. and Iraq and Afghanistan were sovereign nations. and we have no beef with Pakistan. Somalia is in the midst of an Islamic takeover and we stand back, even though the citizens don't want Islam and are being mass killed for it. do we have any sense of balance? or are we letting our government become just like the militias and sects that dominate all of these other countries? the one thing that will destroy us as a nation and idea is sectarian difference. and there's no better way to achieve this than to polarize the people, which is what has been happening for the last 20 years. you're either pro-abortion or you're not. you're either pro-handgun or you're not. you're either faith-based or you're not. you're either democrat or you're fascist. you're either republican or you're a terrorist sympathiser.

which may or may not get me to my point. killing saddam hussein was a stupid idea by our government. we paid for the trial and we knew how it would be decided. there was never a question of his guilt based on the accusations. and the fact that he was an asshole. but every country is ruled by an asshole. it's the nature of the beast. you want power, you will do whatever you have to do to achieve it. any country, every country. and the very act of killing hussein has made him a martyr. while the USA could not carry out the actual execution, its "we're not involved and this decision is that of the Iraqis alone" defense is seen as so much bullshit by the world and by most of the US citizens themselves. we caused this and we allowed it to happen. and, even as we claim to want to reach out to all Iraqis, we let the Shiite government lynch this man. he wore no hood and his executioners did (in Iraq and other countries the wearing of a hood or mask while killing another is seen as an act of cowardice). he was taunted by his executioners, which is also not allowed. he was killed on a holy day, which is not allowed. the current Iraqi government displayed complete and utter disregard for the rules and tenets that they claim adherence to every time they enter a mosque to pray. which makes them the same as our rulers.
at work i heard one fellow say that saddam hussein's death was "great news". i asked him why. he said "it's great. he deserved to die". i asked him how this affected his daily life and why he should be so glad. he replied "i don't know. i'm just happy that he's dead after all the people he killed". i asked him if, based on that, it would be okay for me to come into work with a smile on my face if our President Bush was assassinated, because of the 3000 soldiers and between 50,000 and 600,000 Iraqis that had died because of his decision to attack. he laughed and said it WAS okayso long as i didn't get happy if the lead singer of Slayer died.
and that's when i knew i still liked living in America. we can disagree on just about everything, but not when it comes to rock and roll.