LEFT is RIGHT (blogging against The Bush-war) |
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Iraq War Cost
 
 
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| While Bush is lying to the American people on Thursday night, Democrats will be meeting at our Campaign Headquarters in South Gate at 6:00 to show our contempt for his policies. The news media will be there to show us protesting. Try to be there to show your support. It's located on the corner of Atlantic and Tweedy in South Gate. The best directions would be 91 Fwy west to 710 Fwy north to Imperial. Go west to Atlantic Boulevard. Turn north to campaign office. |
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Around for Everyone
Republican Turncoat? (and a really cute one)
Kerry should embrace his anti-Vietnam War position, not avoid it
A diamond in the rough
And Another
Got this e-mesage from Rudy Guiliana this morning. It starts off very well:
But then he strays off course:
Wait, he's back on track:
Oh no, he's fallen off again:
Wait, he's back:
Ohhh, darn, lost him again:
Darn it, Rudy, you had me going a couple of times. Sorry, I'd rather give my entire life savings to Gay Hamsters of America than give one penny to your sorry political organization.
Kerry should embrace his anti-Vietnam War position, not avoid it
A diamond in the rough
And Another
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Letter from Rudy
Got this e-mesage from Rudy Guiliana this morning. It starts off very well:
| Dear MXXX, Last night, in Madison Square Garden, I took the stage at the Republican National Convention to speak to America about the threats we face in the world, the events we have been through together over the last three years, |
But then he strays off course:
| and the clear, steady leadership of President George W. Bush that has guided us through these difficult times. |
Wait, he's back on track:
| Millions of Americans tuned their TVs to convention coverage last night and heard my words. And many more will hear the words of others who will come before our convention. They will hear our story. Will you help us tell the story to those who don't tune in? www.GeorgeWBush.com/Rudy |
Oh no, he's fallen off again:
| President Bush has been the steady hand we need in these times of uncertainty and danger. He understands the stakes. He makes decisions based on deeply held beliefs, not the political winds. He chooses to fight terror in places like Baghdad and Kabul, rather than New York and Kansas. It is the right way to fight this enemy and it is a fight we must win. In order to keep the pressure on al-Qaeda, we must keep George W. Bush in the White House. |
Wait, he's back:
| In order to take the fight to our enemies, we must have the strength of conviction, and support for our Armed Forces. This is not a fight for those who talk tough, and then leave our troops unarmed. This is not a fight for those who talk about the need for better intelligence, but have a history of voting against it. This is not a fight that favors sensitivity and nuance. This is a fight that requires strength, determination and resolve. |
Ohhh, darn, lost him again:
| Will you help ensure this fight is won by contributing $1000, $500, $250, $100 or even $50 to the President's campaign? I hope I can count on you to help me tell this story. As you watch the convention tonight, you will know that you have helped us reach millions that may not be watching. You have spread the message to those who may not watch, but need to know. You will make the difference. Sincerely, Rudy Giuliani |
Darn it, Rudy, you had me going a couple of times. Sorry, I'd rather give my entire life savings to Gay Hamsters of America than give one penny to your sorry political organization.
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Hypocritical Oxymorons
Alon Barlevy of the Hubert Humphrey Democratic Club brings us this:
Ed Koch? I didn't know... I don't give a damn that any of these people are gay. I give a damn that they are hypocrites who have the power to influence many other peoples' lives.
Michael Rogers, a gay rights activist with a blog at http://www.blogactive.com/, has been leading a crusaide to expose hypocracy in the Republican party vis a vis the Marriage Amendment endorsed by Bush. He has so far exposed several gay senior aids to Republican lawmakers who favor the amendment and other anti gay rights. The outed are |
Ed Koch? I didn't know... I don't give a damn that any of these people are gay. I give a damn that they are hypocrites who have the power to influence many other peoples' lives.
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August 30, 2004
THIS is interesting:
So the next time a Republican throws out the well-used "fact" that Lincoln was the first Republican President and was against slavery and therefore, see, Republicans aren't racists or homophobes or the party of the wealthy, you can calmly correct them.
Kelpie Wilson has an intersting essay on peak oil production and global worming. I take issue with one particular part:
Yes, in the ideal world the scarcity of an item will force technology to develop more efficient replacements. Unfortunately this essay lacks any analysis from the political perspective, namely there could very well be major wars resulting from the larger oil-consuming nations becoming predators upon the oil-wealthy ones. Does, umm, Iraq ring a bell?
I'm going to give this book club a try:
In case you're not on MoveOn's email list:
You don't need to be a member to donate. Also, I recommend that you consider joining this cutting-edge, energetic and progressive political organization if you've had it up to here with the destructive policies and actions of our current and illegal occupant of the oval office.
Here's the intro to Greg's latest on Florida's version of representative voting:
As Greg is the head honcho on this subject, I cannot possibly critique his words. What I can do is remind readers that, as I and many have been saying for months now, no matter what polls might say, no matter what the voters might decide in November, it's the COUNTERS (electronic or manual) that will decide the election. And guess who controls the counters?
Don't toss out the protest signs and walking shoes just yet. You're probably going to need them starting November 3.
Lincoln Supported Slavery
THIS is interesting:
| ...Back in Illinois, Lincoln (running as a Republican) tried to unseat the incumbent Douglas in the 1858 Senate race. Douglas won the election, but Lincoln gained acclaim through a series of seven debates--the "Lincoln-Douglas debates"--that focused largely on slavery in the territories. (The debates actually began after Lincoln said, famously, that "a house divided against itself cannot stand.") Douglas repeatedly tried to label Lincoln a proponent of racial equality--a radical notion then, even in free states. But Lincoln denied it: "I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races." Nor did Lincoln advocate abolishing slavery. He merely argued for containing it. |
So the next time a Republican throws out the well-used "fact" that Lincoln was the first Republican President and was against slavery and therefore, see, Republicans aren't racists or homophobes or the party of the wealthy, you can calmly correct them.
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Kelpie Wilson has an intersting essay on peak oil production and global worming. I take issue with one particular part:
| ....Two new realities are fast converging on the public consciousness with what may be serendipitous timing: climate change and peak oil. After years of controversy and denial, there finally seems to be a solid consensus that climate change is here, it threatens everything from agriculture to human health, and it will probably turn out to be even worse than predicted. Peak oil is a still obscure term you will soon be hearing a lot more about. It simply refers to the peak of oil production. Oil was made over millions of years as ancient life was crushed and buried under the earth, and they ain't making any more of it - at least not on any timescale that is meaningful to us - so like any limited commodity (think Picasso paintings or antique porcelain), the supply will rise to meet demand and then begin to fall. As supply falls, prices will go up, perhaps drastically. ....From the perspective of climate change, news that oil is peaking sooner rather than later is good news. We need to end the fossil fuel addiction anyway, and only higher oil prices will tilt the economics in favor of solar, wind and other renewables.... |
Yes, in the ideal world the scarcity of an item will force technology to develop more efficient replacements. Unfortunately this essay lacks any analysis from the political perspective, namely there could very well be major wars resulting from the larger oil-consuming nations becoming predators upon the oil-wealthy ones. Does, umm, Iraq ring a bell?
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Progressive Book Club
I'm going to give this book club a try:
| Progressive Book Club Sign up to take advantage of our special, pre-launch offer � "3 books for $3 + 1 for free." AND the first 1,000 to sign up will receive a free DVD of The Hunting of the President, the hit documentary based on the New York Times bestseller about the campaign to destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton. When the Progressive Book Club launches this fall, we will contact you about activating your membership and selecting your books. After you join and activate your membership, we will send your books and free DVD.... |
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$1M Needed ASAP
In case you're not on MoveOn's email list:
| Dear MoveOn member, This week, Republicans in New York will try to distract America from their dismal track record using slick politicians, September 11th, and truckloads of spin. Together, we can air a perfect contrast, spoken by real Americans who previously supported Bush, but who have turned away. Starting today, we want to air five of our Real People ads -- featuring real Americans who voted for Bush in 2000 but are supporting Kerry this year -- with our biggest ad buy ever. The campaign will cost over $3 million, but it'll make sure that most TV viewers in 9 critical swing states see them during the Republican Convention. MoveOn members helped make these spots and chose the best ones, and have contributed over $600,000 to put them on TV. Now, we need your help to get them in front of swing state voters, and we're trying to raise $1 million TODAY to make that happen. Can you help? To contribute securely by credit card or check, go to: https://www.moveonpac.org/donate/switchad_winners.html |
You don't need to be a member to donate. Also, I recommend that you consider joining this cutting-edge, energetic and progressive political organization if you've had it up to here with the destructive policies and actions of our current and illegal occupant of the oval office.
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Florida 2000: Even Better in 2004
Here's the intro to Greg's latest on Florida's version of representative voting:
| Madame Butterfly Flies Off with Ballots Florida Fixed Again? Absentee Ballots Go Absent - by Greg Palast Sunday, August 29, 2004. On Friday, Theresa LePore, Supervisor of Elections in Palm Beach, candidate for re-election as Supervisor of Elections, chose to supervise her own election, no one allowed. This Tuesday, Florida votes for these nominally non-partisan posts. You remember Theresa, �Madame Butterfly,� the one whose ballots brought in the big vote for Pat Buchanan in the Jewish precincts in November 2000. Then she failed to do the hand count that would have changed the White House from Blue to Red. This time, Theresa�s in a hurry to get to the counting. She began tallying absentee ballots on Friday in her own re-election race. Not to worry: the law requires the Supervisor of Elections in each county to certify poll-watchers to observe the count. But Theresa has a better idea. She refused to certify a single poll-watcher from opponents� organizations despite the legal requirement she do so by last week. She�ll count her own votes herself, thank you very much! And so far, she�s doing quite well. Although 37,000 citizens have requested absentee ballots, she says she�d only received 22,000 when she began the count. Where are the others? Don�t ask: though she posts the names of requesters, she won�t release the list of those who have voted, an eyebrow-raising deviation from standard procedure. And she has no intention of counting all the ballots received. She has reserved for herself the right to determine which ballots have acceptable signatures. Her opponent, Democrat Art Anderson, had asked Theresa to use certified hand-writing experts, instead of her hand-picked hacks, to check the signatures. Unfortunately, while Federal law requires Theresa to allow a voter to correct a signature rejection when registering, the Feds don�t require her to permit challenges to absentee ballot rejections. I know what you�re thinking. How could Madame Butterfly know how people are voting? Well, she�s printed PARTY AFFILIATION on the OUTSIDE of each return envelope. That certainly makes it easier to figure out which ballot is valid, don�t it? .... |
As Greg is the head honcho on this subject, I cannot possibly critique his words. What I can do is remind readers that, as I and many have been saying for months now, no matter what polls might say, no matter what the voters might decide in November, it's the COUNTERS (electronic or manual) that will decide the election. And guess who controls the counters?
Don't toss out the protest signs and walking shoes just yet. You're probably going to need them starting November 3.
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August 29, 2004
Arthur C. Clarke ROCKS!! :
Forget what happened in Chicago in '68. Forget the wimp-ass Democratic Party leadership begging Democrats to tone down the protesting. This is serious, people, and if we don't protest with our hearts and passion, we may never get another opportunity in our lifetimes. The damage possible in NYC by protestors can only pale in comparison to the damage done by the Republican Administration that, despite pleas and warnings from sources almost too numerous to count now, pretty much gave the green flag to Al Qaeda to take down WTC, then encouraged, by lying, thousands of residents to breath toxic air generated by the WTC collapses, then shortchanged the civilian security organization by reducing funding for securing ports, rails and airports and sending a good portion of the fire and police reservists off to Iraq to secure the oil reserves for Bush and associates at the expense of many thousands of Iraqi lives. So screw the RNC and all it represents today, and if someone wants to toss a chair through a Starbucks window on Broadway (as suggested by Bill Maher Friday night), they can sure as hell use my favorite recliner.
| "CNN is one of the participants in the war. I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected president but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power." |
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No Holds Barred
| "If we don't get out there and protest the way we want to and as forcefully as we can, then we lose our rights and it doesn't matter who's president." ---Eric Laursen, who is organizing a day of civil disobedience on Tuesday with a group called the A31 Action Coalition |
Forget what happened in Chicago in '68. Forget the wimp-ass Democratic Party leadership begging Democrats to tone down the protesting. This is serious, people, and if we don't protest with our hearts and passion, we may never get another opportunity in our lifetimes. The damage possible in NYC by protestors can only pale in comparison to the damage done by the Republican Administration that, despite pleas and warnings from sources almost too numerous to count now, pretty much gave the green flag to Al Qaeda to take down WTC, then encouraged, by lying, thousands of residents to breath toxic air generated by the WTC collapses, then shortchanged the civilian security organization by reducing funding for securing ports, rails and airports and sending a good portion of the fire and police reservists off to Iraq to secure the oil reserves for Bush and associates at the expense of many thousands of Iraqi lives. So screw the RNC and all it represents today, and if someone wants to toss a chair through a Starbucks window on Broadway (as suggested by Bill Maher Friday night), they can sure as hell use my favorite recliner.
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August 27, 2004
"...unless their country has large oil reserves."
Mark Morford compares Bush and Kerry (snippet):
30-second bunny movies: JAWS and ALIEN
Cartoons inspired by spam titles
Deadly Tetris (for my wife)
Denis Leary's a-whole song (note: extensive profanity)
Feeling Great
George Bush's Medals
Internet Help Desk (video)
Hey Buddy, Ready to Go? (video)
Lightness Illusions
Stained Apron (food servers retaliate)
Tele-Snaps
Titanic Song
Wok Boarding (video)
| "I don't think you give timelines to dictators." ---George W. Bush |
"...unless their country has large oil reserves."
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Mark Morford compares Bush and Kerry (snippet):
| So, let's see: Bona-fide war hero turned incredibly articulate, educated, gifted Vietnam War protester and respected senator on one side, alcoholic AWOL failed-businessman born-again pampered daddy's boy evangelical Christian on the other. Is this really the contest? Bush slugs gin and tonics like Evian while Kerry is accused of ... what again? Not being incredibly heroic enough? Wow. This is not, apparently, a hallucination. Kerry really is being forced to defend his well-documented war record, despite how all the proofs are there, in public view, on the candidate's own Web site, with nothing to hide and for all to see, whereas Dubya was (and still is) a famously inept embarrassment to the military, and is being forced to defend nothing about his own spoiled spoon-fed life, as he humiliates the nation at every utterance and attacks Kerry (and, by extension, John McCain) via GOP-sponsored henchmen while large chunks of his own embarrassing records have just, um, "disappeared." What, too bitter? Resentful? Too much like I advocate stringing Karl Rove up by his large intestine and slapping him with a rainbow flag until he cries? All apologies. Hey, it happens. Sometimes you just gotta purge. Vent. Let it all out. Because, really, it all makes you ask: Is everyone on drugs? Mass delusional? Are we just blind? Or is the vicious GOP spin machine really that powerful? Why, yes, yes, it is. And isn't it just the funniest thing? .... |
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FRIDAY FUN
30-second bunny movies: JAWS and ALIEN
Cartoons inspired by spam titles
Deadly Tetris (for my wife)
Denis Leary's a-whole song (note: extensive profanity)
Feeling Great
George Bush's Medals
Internet Help Desk (video)
Hey Buddy, Ready to Go? (video)
Lightness Illusions
Stained Apron (food servers retaliate)
Tele-Snaps
Titanic Song
Wok Boarding (video)
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August 26, 2004
---Luz Marina Arredondo, grandmother of 20 y/o Lance Cpl. Alexander Arredondo, and mother of Carlos Arredondo who, upon hearing of the death of his son Alexander (in Iraq), climbed into the Marine Corps van parked outside his home and set it ablaze Wednesday afternoon, suffering severe burns.
Received this important e-message today:
After the November 2004 election... Sign me up!
The danger of setting off rapid and irreversible changes in some crucial natural systems
Farmland to be abandoned to the sea
Asian farmers sucking the continent dry
Head over to ddjangoWIrE when you have a few minutes. Mr. Jango (or maybe Mr. Wire... I don't know his real name, but his photo shows that he's old enough to be my brother's nephew's father) does a fine job arguing that maybe "Karl Rove is actually coordinating both shows", i.e. Kerry and Bush. Before that, he tries to find a "difference of substance between the Bush-thingy and the Kerry-thingy", as opined by Arundhati Roy. I don't know why this true Progressive (Mr. Jango/Wire/Gentleman) doesn't have a larger audience; his blogs are generally objective and well-supported by documentation (as compared to this liberal/terrorist/propaganda rag called Left is Right).
Today's Scribble:
Bernadette Malone: NYC errs in playing nice with protesters
The one correct item in the entire article (and I do recommend reading it completely - it's hilarious) is that Ted Rall is a liberal journalist. If that wasn't enough to spur your interest, here's the next section:
I guess the Republicans can only hope that the "AIDS-spreading" hookers will infect the mice-releasing/pie-throwing terrorists.
| "They send them like guinea pigs over there." |
---Luz Marina Arredondo, grandmother of 20 y/o Lance Cpl. Alexander Arredondo, and mother of Carlos Arredondo who, upon hearing of the death of his son Alexander (in Iraq), climbed into the Marine Corps van parked outside his home and set it ablaze Wednesday afternoon, suffering severe burns.
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Makings of a New Political Party?
Received this important e-message today:
| Notice of Historic Merger August 26, 2004 Dear Friends, Progressive Democrats, Members of Progressive Democratic Caucuses, Progressive Vote, and Progressive Democrats of America: Every progressive democrat receiving this email knows the Democratic Party needs to be transformed. The only realistic way to do so is by out-organizing the corporate interests that now control the Party. In order to accomplish this goal we need a "movement" to transform the Democratic Party. And we have found one. Progressive Vote (PV) - is an organization run by grassroots democratic caucuses throughout the country. It has formed a powerful grassroots coalition that identifies and supports people involved with local Democratic Party chapters to secure social and economic justice for the under-served and unheard majority of the American people. PV combines electoral and policy work with real community organizing and support of local community organizers and organizations to create meaningful and strong links that it nurtures and expands. Its goal is to ultimately have Progressive Democratic caucuses in every one of the 435 congressional districts. Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) - is an organization also building a coalition of the millions of Americans who will benefit from taking back the democratic party, our democracy, our economy, and our institutions from the "moneyed interests." PDA is committed to achieving local, national, and global security by redirecting the current wasteful and obscene levels of U.S. military spending toward the effective funding of health and education programs, an end to all discrimination, the provision of full and meaningful employment, and an end to poverty and war for all people. PDA also believes we must combine electoral and policy work with real community organizing to create a meaningful effective coalition. These are not just dreams. If the people lead, the politicians and parties will follow. With these shared beliefs and goals both PDA and PV have chosen to merge into one organization, henceforth to be called PDA. What makes the merged PDA and PV unique is our two fold strategy of working inside the beltway (itb) while simultaneously building a strong federation of state and congressional district based local progressive democratic caucuses and chapters. Either strategy alone is far weaker than the combination of both. A central organization without grassroots support and engagement is without power or leverage. Grassroots chapters without a unifying, central lobbying, legislative, national focus can achieve only limited local successes. But the two organizations working as one to build an unstoppable democratic coalition represent a strategy and a movement to be reckoned with. Please visit our combined new web site http://www.pdamerica.org/ beginning this weekend. Please join in our efforts, share this email, form local caucuses, learn about upcoming PDA events, chapter building, and fund raising. Donate your time, skills, energy, and money as you are able. Please feel free to contact your local state progressive caucus ... or form one ... and add your voice. Questions regarding PDA may be directed to either Tim Carpenter or Kevin Spidel at info@pdamerica.org . Watch out stagnant Democratic Party because here we come, progressives, people of color, working men and women. This is our country, not Exxon's, not Bush's, not the DLC's, and not any corporate Board's. America belongs to the people, American citizens, progressives, democrats. The highest office in a democracy is that of citizen. And the citizens long for and demand justice and peace. PDA is here to help. Believe. There is hope. Visit Our Website Yours for economic and social justice and peace, Warmly, Tim Carpenter, Director, Progressive Democrats of America Kevin Spidel, Field Director, Progressive Democrats of America and former Executive Director, Progressive Vote -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- email: info@pdamerica.org web: http://www.pdamerica.org |
After the November 2004 election... Sign me up!
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Global Warming/Pollution Issues
The danger of setting off rapid and irreversible changes in some crucial natural systems
Farmland to be abandoned to the sea
Asian farmers sucking the continent dry
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A True Progressive
Head over to ddjangoWIrE when you have a few minutes. Mr. Jango (or maybe Mr. Wire... I don't know his real name, but his photo shows that he's old enough to be my brother's nephew's father) does a fine job arguing that maybe "Karl Rove is actually coordinating both shows", i.e. Kerry and Bush. Before that, he tries to find a "difference of substance between the Bush-thingy and the Kerry-thingy", as opined by Arundhati Roy. I don't know why this true Progressive (Mr. Jango/Wire/Gentleman) doesn't have a larger audience; his blogs are generally objective and well-supported by documentation (as compared to this liberal/terrorist/propaganda rag called Left is Right).
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Today's Scribble:
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Pie Throwing
Bernadette Malone: NYC errs in playing nice with protesters
| NEXT WEEK, people who hate Republicans plan to release swarms of mice in New York City to terrorize delegates to the National Republican Convention. Republican-haters plan on dressing up as RNC volunteers, and giving false directions to little blue hair ladies from Kansas, sending them into the sectors of New York City that are unfit for human habitation. They plan on throwing pies and Lord knows what else at Republican visitors to the city. Prostitutes with AIDS plan to seduce Republican visitors, and discourage the use of condoms, according to liberal journalist Ted Rall.... |
The one correct item in the entire article (and I do recommend reading it completely - it's hilarious) is that Ted Rall is a liberal journalist. If that wasn't enough to spur your interest, here's the next section:
| New York City is a place renowned for coddling no one � tourists, babies, old people. And yet, its new mayor, a Boston transplant, plans to coddle these junior terrorists. The New York Times reported Wednesday that Mayor Michael Bloomberg will be issuing buttons that read �Peaceful Political Activist,� which will entitle the bearer to discounts at The Bronx Zoo, the Museum of Sex, Applebee�s, plays such as �Mamma Mia� and �Naked Boys Singing,� and other random entertainment venues. By wearing these buttons, and obtaining these nifty little discounts, the mice-releasers, pie-throwers and AIDS-spreaders are entering into an implicit agreement and the rest of society: �Give me $5 off a chicken entree at Applebee�s, and I promise not to terrorize you.� That oughtta work. Not. ... |
I guess the Republicans can only hope that the "AIDS-spreading" hookers will infect the mice-releasing/pie-throwing terrorists.
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| "The 2004 election is nothing less than a referendum on the soul of our country - a political event with unprecedented significance for our lives and the lives of our children. The Kerry campaign cannot allow it to devolve into a debate over whether John Kerry bled enough to warrant a Purple Heart. And since no one can doubt that more scurrilous attacks are coming Kerry's way, it is imperative that in the future the right answers to all wrong questions be offered immediately. And not for one moment should they cause the Kerry campaign to relinquish its attacks on the president's failures at home and abroad or cloud its alternative moral vision of what America can be with George Bush safely back in Crawford." ----Arianna Huffington |
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August 25, 2004
John and Jon - the Transcript
The 10 Ways Bush Screwed New York
New Dogs for the New American Century
Rapture for Dummies
An unusually scathing MoveOn video.
Arguing Effectively with Conservatives
My thoughts exactly, ever since the first NG unit was deployed to Iraq.
Peter Kurth talks about the irony of the religious Right:
Ford chief sets roadblock for hybrid auto bill
Bill Ford is an ass whole.
Around for Everyone
John and Jon - the Transcript
The 10 Ways Bush Screwed New York
New Dogs for the New American Century
Rapture for Dummies
An unusually scathing MoveOn video.
Arguing Effectively with Conservatives
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Ventura, Never Stingy with His Opinions
| "Now that I'm a civilian, I'm here to speak out that I think the current use of the National Guard is wrong.... They are designed to protect us here in the United States of America and in our homeland - not to be occupying nations halfway around the world. And that is not the role of the National Guard. And in many cases, many of these men are doing things they were never trained to do, which is dangerous for them and dangerous for the war itself." ---Jesse Ventura, former Navy SEAL and, as Governor, head of the Minnesota National Guard |
My thoughts exactly, ever since the first NG unit was deployed to Iraq.
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Peter Kurth talks about the irony of the religious Right:
| ....I�ve just heard about the death of John Passmore, the Australian founder of �applied philosophy,� who, as a young boy, asked a nun at his Catholic school why all of humanity had to suffer through eternity just because Adam and Eve were a couple of dopes. �He was surprised when [the] nun told him that he need not take the story literally,� according to Passmore�s obituary in London�s Daily Telegraph. Sister Mary Wiseacre plainly didn�t live anywhere near the Vatican or, for that matter, huge portions of the United States. And even then her words couldn�t quash Passmore�s lifelong concern: �Why, he wondered, if salvation could come only through the Church, did God wait nearly 2,000 years before allowing the Australian Aborigines to hear about Christianity?� Hmm. Sounds like a question for Thomas Aquinas. There must be some tortured logic behind the Lord�s failure to assist the Aborigines, since he talks to George W. Bush every day of the week, except Sundays, of course, when both of them are resting.... |
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Ford chief sets roadblock for hybrid auto bill
| Ford Motor Co. Chairman Bill Ford, who pitches himself as one of America's leading corporate environmentalists, has launched a campaign in the waning days of the legislative session to kill a plan that would reward Californians who buy the most fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles. ....In a letter to Schwarzenegger that Ford copied to state lawmakers who have yet to take a final vote, he calls the plan a "Buy Japanese" bill and a "special-interest measure ... intended for almost exclusive use by Toyota Prius drivers." The Prius and Honda's Insight and Civic hybrids meet the legislation's requirements, but Ford has no product that does. Its new Escape hybrid, which will be the first full hybrid SUV to be on the market, is expected to get about 35 mpg. Ford goes on to say the legislation would hurt company employees and stockholders, and he asks the GOP governor to veto the measure if the Legislature sends it his way. Angelides, who proposed the car-pool lane bill to Pavley at the urging of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said Ford is doing his own reputation a disservice. "What Bill Ford ought to be focusing on is how Ford can make the most fuel-efficient vehicles and how Ford can beat the Japanese," Angelides said. |
Bill Ford is an ass whole.
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August 24, 2004
| "How will he meet his God having slaughtered so many? I want to defend my home. If a stranger invades America and the people resist, does that make them a terrorist?" ---Iraqi Olympic Soccer Player, Ahmad Manajid, speaking about President Bush |
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>>>>> DON'T FORGET: JOHN KERRY - DAILY SHOW - COMEDY CENTRAL - TONIGHT <<<<<
Groperzenegger enjoying himself
33 Reasons to Give Bush the Boot
"John Kerry Took My Shoe"
Bush's daughters, Jenna and Barbara Bush, sent this e-message to me today:
Besides the expected dribble, note the emphasized section: this is not even a complete sentence, this from two college graduates!
If you want to receive these same emails, you can sign up HERE. They're generally a hoot!
Steve Gilliard has more to say about this.
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Around for Everyone
Groperzenegger enjoying himself
33 Reasons to Give Bush the Boot
"John Kerry Took My Shoe"
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Four Years' Tuition Down the Drain
Bush's daughters, Jenna and Barbara Bush, sent this e-message to me today:
| Dear MXXX, We're sure that you have no doubt who we'll be voting for in November. But you should also know that we would be voting for our Dad in this election even if he had not raised us, loved us, tutored us, coached us, and even listened to a few excuses from us for late curfews. We have been privileged to know our President personally and we know he is the right person to lead our country - especially when there are so many important issues at stake. Our Dad has qualities that are needed in a good President - loyalty, humor (embarrassing as it sometimes may be), compassion, and, most importantly, integrity. We're not the only ones who see it. In fact, our friends - from varying political backgrounds - are supporting our Dad in November. Not only because of his decisions to liberate the women of Afghanistan or bring freedom to the people of Iraq, but because during the last ten years they met a man whose title was Governor or President, but who was always happy to be known as "our Dad." He made everyone feel welcome and comfortable in our house (except for the occasional boyfriend) and our friends got to know him as a really good guy. |
Besides the expected dribble, note the emphasized section: this is not even a complete sentence, this from two college graduates!
If you want to receive these same emails, you can sign up HERE. They're generally a hoot!
Steve Gilliard has more to say about this.
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But He Seems Like Such a Nice Man
| �President Bush is an untreated alcoholic with paranoid and megalomaniac tendencies," [with a] �lifelong streak of sadism, ranging from childhood pranks (using firecrackers to explode frogs) to insulting journalists, gloating over state executions and pumping his hand gleefully before the bombing of Baghdad.� ---Dr. Justin Frank, George Washington University psychiatrist |
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| "Seventy percent of African-Americans live in counties that violate federal air pollution standards." ----Wilma Subra, school teacher, grandmother, chemist, environmental justice pioneer, head of Subra Co. and recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant, lecturing to members of the United States Commission on Civil Rights during a public briefing held in Mobile |
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Make That a Double, Barkeeper
It's official, drinking is good for you:
The California Democratic Party is opening its new S.E. Los Angeles office this weekend. You are cordially invited:
Drop by to show your support for our Democratic candidates!
| ....In a study, published in the Aug. 1 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology, the researchers found that people who down anywhere from one to 30 drinks a week performed better than nondrinkers on a battery of tests designed to measure their cognitive ability. "Compared with abstainers, persons drinking one or two glasses of alcohol per day had a significantly lower risk of poor cognitive function," the authors wrote. "In terms of cognitive function, we found that frequent drinking may be more beneficial than drinking only on special occasions." .... |
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HAVA aspirin and call me after Nov. 2
| "Suppose you had a situation where ballots were handed to a private company that counted them behind a closed door and burned the results. Nobody but an idiot would accept a system like that. We've got something that is almost as bad with electronic voting." ----David Dill, Stanford University computer science professor and founder of VerifiedVoting.org, on the current nationwide status of electronic voting, which will account for 1/3 of all voting this November |
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You're Invited
The California Democratic Party is opening its new S.E. Los Angeles office this weekend. You are cordially invited:
| SATURDAY, AUGUST 28TH - 9:00 AM 9918 S. ATLANTIC AVE. SOUTH GATE, CA 90280 TO RSVP or For More Information: (323)569-0394 EVCSOUTHEASTLA@CADEM.ORG |
Drop by to show your support for our Democratic candidates!
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August 23, 2004
UNCOVERED
View the ENTIRE film, Uncovered: The Whole Truth About The Iraq War online. Wow.
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#1 hit when googling "lack of foresight"
From Today's GMSV:
You win some, you lose some. Still, $4,000 for preparing some slides and notes? Nothing to thumb you nose at. (I know, Will, a dangling proposition...)
Also, for something completely unrelated: This Video.
George Sibley may be right after all. Scientists Say Risk of Water Wars Rising:
In the 8/22/04 Six Feet Under episode, a character played by James Cromwell, George Sibley, predicts that the world will fight, not over oil, but over water.
See also: Meat-eaters soak up the world's water.
The long and ugly tradition of suppressing the black vote is alive and thriving in the Sunshine State (registration required)
Toyota's Prius Proving to Be the Hotter Ride in Hybrids (registration required)
"And it was two unarmed Iraqis. He shot them from about five feet away, and he watched them die. It was the first time, well, that he shot anybody. He told me those deaths he knew he did." (requires Realplayer)
| If you're kicking yourself for sitting the Google IPO out, don't be too hard on yourself. There are plenty of other folks out there whose lack of foresight was far more profound than yours. Take Emily Cikovsky<<< who along with an associate once moonlighted for Google, preparing PowerPoint slides and speaking notes that co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page used to announce their first venture-capital funding. Brin and Page offered to pay Cikovsky in cash or options. Cikovsky chose cash; her associate chose options. Cikovsky went home with a check for $4000, her associate with options for 4,000 shares that after two stock splits are today worth $1.7 million. "Do I wish I'd had the shares? Yes," Cikovsky told the Wall Street Journal. But "what's always in the back of my mind is an IPO is never a guarantee ... and nine out of 10 start-ups fail." |
You win some, you lose some. Still, $4,000 for preparing some slides and notes? Nothing to thumb you nose at. (I know, Will, a dangling proposition...)
Also, for something completely unrelated: This Video.
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"Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats." ----Howard Aiken |
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George Sibley may be right after all. Scientists Say Risk of Water Wars Rising:
| STOCKHOLM - The risk of wars being fought over water is rising because of explosive global population growth and widespread complacency, scientists said. "We have had oil wars," said Professor William Mitsch. "That's happened in our lifetime. Water wars are possible." Scientists at the World Water Week conference which began on Sunday in Stockholm said that ignorance and complacency were widespread in wealthier countries. "I don't know what will shake these regions out of complacency other than the fact there will be droughts, pestilence and wars that break out over water rights," said Mitsch, professor of natural resources at Ohio State University. Mitsch told Reuters potential flashpoints included the Middle East. "Continuing on our present path will mean more conflict," a report by International Water Management Institute (IWMI) said. With the world's population growing at exponential rates there was extreme pressure on water supplies to provide drinking water and food, said scientists at the Stockholm gathering. "In 2025 we will have another two billion people to feed and 95 percent of these will be in urban areas," said Professor Jan Lundqvist of Stockholm International Water Institute. The answer was sustained investment in infrastructure. An estimated $80 billion was invested each year in the water sector, but this needed to at least double, said Professor Frank Rijsberman, the IWMI's director general. "I think if I look at the numbers I can't immediately see a way out over the next few years," said IWMI report co-author Dr David Molden. "I think we will reach a real crisis." Story by Patrick McLoughlin |
In the 8/22/04 Six Feet Under episode, a character played by James Cromwell, George Sibley, predicts that the world will fight, not over oil, but over water.
See also: Meat-eaters soak up the world's water.
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Around for Everyone
The long and ugly tradition of suppressing the black vote is alive and thriving in the Sunshine State (registration required)
Toyota's Prius Proving to Be the Hotter Ride in Hybrids (registration required)
"And it was two unarmed Iraqis. He shot them from about five feet away, and he watched them die. It was the first time, well, that he shot anybody. He told me those deaths he knew he did." (requires Realplayer)
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August 21, 2004
150 Workers Died Building the Facilities
Catalyst for Slaughter (takes a moment to load video)
Trail of Environmental Degradation
Price of the 2004 Olympics
150 Workers Died Building the Facilities
Catalyst for Slaughter (takes a moment to load video)
Trail of Environmental Degradation
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What He Said
| Shame on the media for giving these people a platform. Shame on the media for allowing dishonest men to dishonor honest men who served honorably. Shame on you for pretending this was a "he said/he said" situation, ignoring official Navy records and the testimony of everyone who was actually in a position to know. Most of all, shame on all the chickenbloggers who, 30 years from now, will do the same thing to some Iraq war veteran who went home and wondered out loud who will be the last American soldier to die for a lie. ----Atrios |
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August 20, 2004
Excerpts from Kerry's speech yesterday to the International Association of Fire Fighters:
Political pundits have criticized Kerry for his failure to respond quickly to these vile Swift Boat smear ads that are implicitly supported by Bush. They say he's consequently lost some votes.
But look at the bigger picture. By delaying his reactions he has allowed his supporters to respond on his behalf, further empowering and energizing his base. If he quickly responded to every hit from the Right, his supporters would eventually just sit back and wait for his retorts. No, this Kerry guy is a shrewd politician and I am daily increasing my respect and admiration for his political prowess.
Video of Michelle Malkin inferring Kerry shot himself in Vietnam
Swift Boat Smear Campaign tactics revealed graphically.
Shiite Iraqi-Americans in Dearborn, Michigan: Supported Bush in 2000, may cost him the 2004 election.
I'm still trying to figure out a way to blame this on Bush, but it's looking like we're all responsible for this one.
Ann Coulter's Apprentice?
| "Some of those who have been questioned by the FBI say they were "harassed" and scared by armed agents who visited their homes. Boo hoo. What do they want the agents to do? Would showing up in clown suits with squirt guns in their holsters make them feel less frightened? These are serious men and women doing serious jobs in serious times. Grow up." ---- Michelle Malkin, syndicated columnist |
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Kerry: Not "Swift" enough, or very shrewd?
Excerpts from Kerry's speech yesterday to the International Association of Fire Fighters:
| ....Over the last week or so, a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has been attacking me. Of course, this group isn�t interested in the truth � and they�re not telling the truth. They didn�t even exist until I won the nomination for president. But here�s what you really need to know about them. They�re funded by hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Republican contributor out of Texas. They�re a front for the Bush campaign. And the fact that the President won�t denounce what they�re up to tells you everything you need to know�he wants them to do his dirty work. Thirty years ago, official Navy reports documented my service in Vietnam and awarded me the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. Thirty years ago, this was the plain truth. It still is. And I still carry the shrapnel in my leg from a wound in Vietnam. As firefighters you risk your lives everyday. You know what it�s like to see the truth in the moment. You�re proud of what you�ve done�and so am I. Of course, the President keeps telling people he would never question my service to our country. Instead, he watches as a Republican-funded attack group does just that. Well, if he wants to have a debate about our service in Vietnam, here is my answer: �Bring it on.� I�m not going to let anyone question my commitment to defending America�then, now, or ever. And I�m not going to let anyone attack the sacrifice and courage of the men who saw battle with me. And let me make this commitment today: their lies about my record will not stop me from fighting for jobs, health care, and our security � the issues that really matter to the American people. ....The issues I�ve been talking about today � these aren�t Republican issues or Democratic issues. They�re American values. And frankly, it doesn�t make one bit of difference to me what party you belong to or who you�ve voted for in the past. That�s not what this election is about. This election is about building an America that�s stronger at home and respected around the world. Where families sleep soundly at night knowing you have what you need to do your jobs. An America where we once again honor those who serve our communities and protect our families. ....There�s a simple rule you follow in every fire you fight: You never go in alone � you always have a brother or sister by your side. Well, today, I want you to know that come next January, you will have a brother in the White House who stands with you every hour of every day. I will be a president who goes into the Oval Office every morning knowing that my job is to help you do yours. I will work my heart out for you, and I will never let you down. ....This isn�t going to be easy, but firefighters are no strangers to tough challenges. I know that working together, we can take back America for its heroes. We can reach for the next dream. We can look to the next horizon. For America, the hope is there. The sun is rising. Our best days are still to come. Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America. |
Political pundits have criticized Kerry for his failure to respond quickly to these vile Swift Boat smear ads that are implicitly supported by Bush. They say he's consequently lost some votes.
But look at the bigger picture. By delaying his reactions he has allowed his supporters to respond on his behalf, further empowering and energizing his base. If he quickly responded to every hit from the Right, his supporters would eventually just sit back and wait for his retorts. No, this Kerry guy is a shrewd politician and I am daily increasing my respect and admiration for his political prowess.
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| Failures in Iraq Alon Barlevy, PhD. - Vice President, Hubert H. Humphrey Democratic Club Given that we got Saddam, yet our soldiers are still dying in Iraq, most people would agree that the war in Iraq has gone terribly wrong. As of this writing, 792 military personnel have been killed since the famous presidential �Mission accomplished� speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. So What Happened? After scoring such an impressive military victory to topple Saddam in the spring of 2003, why have things gone downhill? There are many answers to this question. Part of the problem was that we did not prepare for the �day after�. We did a good job guarding the oil installations, yet turned a blind eye toward all the looting in Baghdad, most outrageously at the looting of the Iraq National Museum. We simply did not have enough troops to maintain stability on the ground, as well as guard the boarders to prevent infiltrations. Having an unstable situation tends to create a snowball effect. We create a cycle whereby our use of heavy-handed tactics to squash the insurgency brings us more insurgency because of all the pain and suffering that the local population has to endure. Initially, our enemy was Saddam Hussein. Now our enemies are Shite Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Jordanian born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; neither of which was our enemy prior to invading Iraq. The longer we allow the situation in Iraq to spiral out of control, the higher the risk that we will create more new enemies. So What�s Next? We should not abandon Iraq. Abandonment could allow Iraq to become breeding grounds for groups such as Al Qaida, which was not the case prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom. What we should do is increase our credibility with the Iraqi people. According to a Washington Post poll, 82% of Iraqis �disapprove of the U.S. and allied militaries in Iraq�. While Bush Sr. was able to build a credible coalition (including Arab countries such as Egypt and Syria) against Saddam, this president only managed to build a dubious �Coalition of the Willing�, without a single Arab country. This does not look good in the eyes of the average Iraqi. We need a new leadership. One which can restore our credibility in the world. Following September 11, the majority of the world was on our side; ready, willing, and able to help us in the war against terror. We can get back the sympathy of the world community, but only if we change our leadership. Having a Secretary of Defense call our allies �Old Europe� won�t get us much sympathy, and won�t help us get out of the mess in Iraq. |
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Around for Everyone
Video of Michelle Malkin inferring Kerry shot himself in Vietnam
Swift Boat Smear Campaign tactics revealed graphically.
Shiite Iraqi-Americans in Dearborn, Michigan: Supported Bush in 2000, may cost him the 2004 election.
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Toyotarisation of the Desert - A Worldwide Danger?
| Paul Brown, environment correspondent Friday August 20, 2004 - The Guardian Dust storms emanating from the Sahara have increased tenfold in 50 years, contributing to climate change as well as threatening human health and destroying coral reefs thousands of miles away. And one major cause is the replacement of the camel by four-wheel drive vehicles as the desert vehicle of choice. Andrew Goudie, professor of geography at Oxford University, blames the process of Toyotarisation - a coinage reflecting the near-ubiquitous desert use of Toyota Land Cruisers - for destroying a thin crust of lichen and stones that has protected vast areas of the Sahara from the wind for centuries. Four-wheel drive use, along with overgrazing and deforestation, were the major causes of the world's growing dust storm problem, the scale of which was much bigger than previously realised, Prof Goudie, master of St Cross College, told the International Geographical Congress in Glasgow yesterday. "I am quite serious, you should look at deserts from the air, scarred all over by wheel tracks, people driving indiscriminately over the surface breaking it up. Toyotarisation is a major cause of dust storms. If I had my way I would ban them from driving off-road." The problem has become so serious that an estimated 2-3bn tonnes of dust is carried away on the wind each year. Storms in the Sahara transport dust high into the atmosphere and deposit it as far away as Greenland and the US.... |
I'm still trying to figure out a way to blame this on Bush, but it's looking like we're all responsible for this one.
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FRIDAY FUN
Audio Interviews (BBC clips of interviews of past celebrities)
Bad baby names
Chainscale (movie questionaire and geek value - for Will)
Create Your Own Postage Stamps
Fly Guy (game?)
FUH2 (Hummer Hater's Web Site; caution: mild profanity)
iPod vs. the Cassette Tape (slide show)
Garlic Central
Mind Bluff (Games, brain teasers, etc.)
Pen Twirling (video)
Preferred Consumer (become an informed buyer)
Real Spiderman (video)
Red Bull Fl�gtag (homemade, human-powered flying machines)
Remember these really bad software programs?
Rent-a-Purse
Skeptical museum of the paranormal
SpiderMan 2 in Legos (video) AND SpiderMan Reviews Crayons
What is Your Philosophy? (quiz and resources)
Bad baby names
Chainscale (movie questionaire and geek value - for Will)
Create Your Own Postage Stamps
Fly Guy (game?)
FUH2 (Hummer Hater's Web Site; caution: mild profanity)
iPod vs. the Cassette Tape (slide show)
Garlic Central
Mind Bluff (Games, brain teasers, etc.)
Pen Twirling (video)
Preferred Consumer (become an informed buyer)
Real Spiderman (video)
Red Bull Fl�gtag (homemade, human-powered flying machines)
Remember these really bad software programs?
Rent-a-Purse
Skeptical museum of the paranormal
SpiderMan 2 in Legos (video) AND SpiderMan Reviews Crayons
What is Your Philosophy? (quiz and resources)
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August 19, 2004
Around For Everyone
How Our Government Allowed Hundreds of Civilians to Breathe Contaminated Air After 9/11
Does ban on smoking in bars reduce risk of heart attacks? Maybe.
Does your street ban SUV's?
If Bush was truthful, he'd give THIS SPEECH. (Thanks, Chepooka!)
Medicare billing questions answered correctly only 4% of the time.
Does ban on smoking in bars reduce risk of heart attacks? Maybe.
Does your street ban SUV's?
If Bush was truthful, he'd give THIS SPEECH. (Thanks, Chepooka!)
Medicare billing questions answered correctly only 4% of the time.
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August 18, 2004
Mark Morford announces that The Gauntlet has been thrown.
A Bitter Old Man?
Mark Morford announces that The Gauntlet has been thrown.
A Bitter Old Man?
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The New Florida 2004 Ballot Box:
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"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.... I am fighting for the work of the Lord."
Did Bush say this? Nope, though you'd think otherwise. No, this is taken from Mein Kamph, written by that well-known Christian, Mr. A. Hitler. Besides, I can't imagine Bush using, much less understanding, the word "hence", or "accordance" for that matter.
National NFRA: John Kerry is a War Criminal
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you. Here I thought Kerry had a stellar military record, all those medals and stuff. But apparently, Mr. Engle knows better; why else would he write something so damning?
Thank god Bush avoided serving in the A.N.G. in a complete and competent manner, or he, too, might have been shipped off to Vietnam and given the opportunity to also be a war criminal, or worse he may have been, god-forbid, killed or wounded. If Bush had served and maybe been wounded, then, as a result of such a sobering experience, we may not be in Iraq today, spreading peace, democracy and prosperity across the formerly troubled peoples. The Iraqis are, I hope, thanking their god that Bush was a military coward, became a devout christian rapture-ready fundagelical, and ignored the rest of humanity when he patriotically led the charge into their sovereign nation, found and destroyed all those deadly WMD's, found and killed Osama bin Laden, rounded up and destroyed al Qaeda, captured that WTC-destroying Hussein guy who was on the imminent verge of attacking America (Staten Island? Malibu? I don't know) again, and, finally, assisted the populace in setting up the new democratically-elected government. Forget that traitorous nazi-liberal scum-sucking unworthy-to-be-dog-catcher Kerry. Bush, you're ourman divinely-appointed leader!
Sewage waters a tenth of world's irrigated crops
The biological waste products aren't a concern. I mean, we use fertilizer, don't we? No, the big problem is the industrial and household chemical waste that consequently makes its way into the agricultural food chains of these regions. This is a literally deadly situation that must receive the immediate attention of all first-world nations and international relief organizations.
Did Bush say this? Nope, though you'd think otherwise. No, this is taken from Mein Kamph, written by that well-known Christian, Mr. A. Hitler. Besides, I can't imagine Bush using, much less understanding, the word "hence", or "accordance" for that matter.
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| "Was all this bloodshed and deceit - from Columbus to Cortes, Pizarro the Puritans - a necessity for the human race to progress from savagery to civilization? Was Morison right in burying the story of genocide inside a more important story of human progress? Perhaps a persuasive argument can be made - as it was made by Stalin when he killed pesants for industrial progress in the Soviet Union, as it was made by Churchill explaining the bombings of Dresden and Hamburg, and Truman explaining Hiroshima. But how can the judgement be made if the benefits and losses cannot be balanced because the losses are either unmentioned or mentioned quickly?" ---Howard Zinn |
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Kerry a War Criminal, Bush a War Hero
National NFRA: John Kerry is a War Criminal
| He doesn�t deserve any �credit� for his time in the armed forces - By Richard Engle, President NFRA I have had it with well meaning media personalities giving �due� respect to Sen. Kerry for his service to our nation. I understand that they don�t want to diminish the value of life risking military service. They wish to honor Mr. Kerry for those deeds that were done in earning various medals and ribbons, regardless of which of those he did or did not throw away. Their desire to honor those men and women throughout the centuries who have honorably served our nation is not lost on me. �Honorably� goes to the heart of the question for me. Yes, I understand that Mr. Kerry was �honorably discharged� but I am not convinced that he discharged his duties therein in an honorable manner. John Kerry is a self confessed war criminal! Despite the fact that his confession is the only evidence against him, his charges are serious and until they are repudiated he should not be given serious consideration for public office. Should his claims of being a war criminal be repudiated then I think the person guilty of such false charges (that would be John Kerry himself) should be so utterly shunned by the public that a political career would be unthinkable. This type of double jeopardy (damned if you do and damned if you don�t) is the specific creation of Mr. Kerry. In his testimony before a Congressional committee during the Vietnam War he tried to create an image in the mind of the American people that the war itself was criminal. He spoke of war crimes being so commonplace that nearly all those he served with were guilty and that he himself was guilty. If he was telling the truth then he belongs in jail and not in the U.S. Senate, much less the White House. If he was lying (I believe he was lying about those he �served� with in Viet Nam) then he shouldn�t be eligible for the office of Dog Catcher. Sen. Kerry�s record in Congress of accomplishing almost nothing should be enough to prevent his victory this November. His lack of credibility (or consistency at least) would have similar electoral consequences for almost any politician. His gall at running on his �record� of military service in the midst of these self-imposed charges is absolutely Clintonesque! I don�t believe it would be much different if Benedict Arnold challenged the first George W. for the Presidency using his heroism at Ticonderoga and his �strategic consultations� with the British at West Point as issues in the campaign. |
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you. Here I thought Kerry had a stellar military record, all those medals and stuff. But apparently, Mr. Engle knows better; why else would he write something so damning?
Thank god Bush avoided serving in the A.N.G. in a complete and competent manner, or he, too, might have been shipped off to Vietnam and given the opportunity to also be a war criminal, or worse he may have been, god-forbid, killed or wounded. If Bush had served and maybe been wounded, then, as a result of such a sobering experience, we may not be in Iraq today, spreading peace, democracy and prosperity across the formerly troubled peoples. The Iraqis are, I hope, thanking their god that Bush was a military coward, became a devout christian rapture-ready fundagelical, and ignored the rest of humanity when he patriotically led the charge into their sovereign nation, found and destroyed all those deadly WMD's, found and killed Osama bin Laden, rounded up and destroyed al Qaeda, captured that WTC-destroying Hussein guy who was on the imminent verge of attacking America (Staten Island? Malibu? I don't know) again, and, finally, assisted the populace in setting up the new democratically-elected government. Forget that traitorous nazi-liberal scum-sucking unworthy-to-be-dog-catcher Kerry. Bush, you're our
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Food for Thought
Sewage waters a tenth of world's irrigated crops
| 12:01 18 August 04 - NewScientist.com news service A tenth of the world�s irrigated crops - everything from lettuce and tomatoes to mangoes and coconuts - are watered by sewage. And much of that sewage is raw and untreated, gushing direct from sewer pipes into fields at the fringes of the developing world�s great megacities, reveals the first global survey of the hidden practice of waste-water irrigation. And, however much consumers may squirm, farmers like it that way. Because the stinking, lumpy and pathogen-rich sewage is rich in nitrates and phosphates that fertilise crops free of charge, suggests the survey presented at the Stockholm Water Symposium on Tuesday. �Wastewater irrigation is in an institutional no-man�s land,� said Chris Scott of the Sri Lanka-based International Water Management Institute, co-editor of the study. �Water, health and agriculture ministries in many countries outlaw the practice, but refuse to recognise that it is widespread.� He estimates that 20 million hectares of the world�s farms are irrigated with sewage. A quarter of Pakistan�s vegetables, including salad crops, are grown in sewage effluent, the study found. And business is booming. One farmer in the heart of an un-named West African city grows 12 crops of lettuce a year from his sewage farm. In many fast-growing megacities, clean water is in desperately short supply, where sewage is plentiful. And the sewage pipes keep flowing even in the dry season, when irrigation canals often dry up. Farms hooked up to sewage pipes make big profits. The study found that in parts of Pakistan the price of fields watered by sewage pipes is twice that of neighbouring fields irrigated with clean water. In Mexico, Jordan, Israel and Tunisia, sewage is specially treated to remove pathogens and make it safe for irrigation. But in India, China and Pakistan, the study found that treatment is rare. The sewage is added to fields complete with disease-causing pathogens and toxic waste from industry. Sewage is probably the biggest source of water for urban farming, which provides an estimated one fifth of the world�s food, said Scott. In Hyderabad, the Indian city where he works, �pretty much a 100 per cent of the crops grown around the city rely on sewage,� he said. �There is no other water available.�.... |
The biological waste products aren't a concern. I mean, we use fertilizer, don't we? No, the big problem is the industrial and household chemical waste that consequently makes its way into the agricultural food chains of these regions. This is a literally deadly situation that must receive the immediate attention of all first-world nations and international relief organizations.
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August 17, 2004
Michael Miller reminds us of Kerry's Senate speech in 2002, when he gave, to Bush, his support for military action against Iraq. Excerpts (my emphasis added):
So, really, Kerry put his patriotic trust in Bush and the Bush Administration's intelligence services. Bush then, for no good reasons, forced the successful and ongoing weapons inspections to stop. And now, true to his word, Kerry is speaking out against Bush's failure to follow his (Bush's) stated objectives. So what's the argument here? Where's the flip-flop? Seems to me that Kerry is the truest patriot of all, and deserves our utmost respect.
I know I've questioned Kerry 's intentions on this in the past, but that was because I didn't take the time to study the subject, and instead just read others' opinions and from that drew my own conclusions. At this pont I would comfortably say that Kerry should be commended for, one, patriotically supporting the Bush Administration's stated intentions toward Iraq in 2002 and, two, supporting the nation against the traitorous acts undertaken by the Bush Administration since then.
Kerry's "Flip-Flop" on Iraq: My Humble Opinion
Michael Miller reminds us of Kerry's Senate speech in 2002, when he gave, to Bush, his support for military action against Iraq. Excerpts (my emphasis added):
| Let me be clear, the vote I will give to the President is for one reason and one reason only: To disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, if we cannot accomplish that objective through new, tough weapons inspections in joint concert with our allies. In giving the President this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments he has made to the American people in recent days- -to work with the United Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out tough and immediate inspection requirements, and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out. If we do wind up going to war with Iraq, it is imperative that we do so with others in the international community, unless there is a showing of a grave, imminent--and I emphasize "imminent"--threat to this country which requires the President to respond in a way that protects our immediate national security needs. Let there be no doubt or confusion about where we stand on this. I will support a multilateral effort to disarm him by force, if we ever exhaust those other options, as the President has promised, but I will not support a unilateral U.S. war against Iraq unless that threat is imminent and the multilateral effort has not proven possible under any circumstances. ....some of the strongest and most thoughtful questioning of our Nation's Iraq policy has come from what some observers would say are unlikely sources: Senators like CHUCK HAGEL and DICK LUGAR, former Bush Administration national security experts including Brent Scowcroft and James Baker, and distinguished military voices including General Shalikashvili. They are asking the tough questions which must be answered before--and not after--you commit a nation to a course that may well lead to war. They know from their years of experience, whether on the battlefield as soldiers, in the Senate, or at the highest levels of public diplomacy, that you build the consent of the American people to sustain military confrontation by asking questions, not avoiding them. Criticism and questions do not reflect a lack of patriotism--they demonstrate the strength and core values of our American democracy. ....The administration, unwisely, in my view, rejected the Biden-Lugar approach. But, perhaps as a nod to the sponsors, it did agree to a determination requirement on the status of its efforts at the United Nations. That is now embodied in the White House text. The President has challenged the United Nations, as he should, and as all of us in the Senate should, to enforce its own resolutions vis-a-vis Iraq. And his administration is now working aggressively with the Perm 5 members on the Security Council to reach a consensus. As he told the American people Monday night: "America wants the U.N. to be an effective organization that helps keep the peace. And that is why we are urging the Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out tough, immediate requirements. Because of my concerns, and because of the need to understand, with clarity, what this resolution meant, I traveled to New York a week ago. I met with members of the Security Council and came away with a conviction that they will indeed move to enforce, that they understand the need to enforce, if Saddam Hussein does not fulfill his obligation to disarm." And I believe they made it clear that if the United States operates through the U.N., and through the Security Council, they--all of them--will also bear responsibility for the aftermath of rebuilding Iraq and for the joint efforts to do what we need to do as a consequence of that enforcement. I talked to Secretary General Kofi Annan at the end of last week and again felt a reiteration of the seriousness with which the United Nations takes this and that they will respond. If the President arbitrarily walks away from this course of action--without good cause or reason--the legitimacy of any subsequent action by the United States against Iraq will be challenged by the American people and the international community. And I would vigorously oppose the President doing so. ....As the President made clear earlier this week, "Approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable." It means "America speaks with one voice." Let me be clear, the vote I will give to the President is for one reason and one reason only: To disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, if we cannot accomplish that objective through new, tough weapons inspections in joint concert with our allies. In giving the President this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments he has made to the American people in recent days- -to work with the United Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out tough and immediate inspection requirements, and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out. If we do wind up going to war with Iraq, it is imperative that we do so with others in the international community, unless there is a showing of a grave, imminent--and I emphasize "imminent"--threat to this country which requires the President to respond in a way that protects our immediate national security needs.... |
So, really, Kerry put his patriotic trust in Bush and the Bush Administration's intelligence services. Bush then, for no good reasons, forced the successful and ongoing weapons inspections to stop. And now, true to his word, Kerry is speaking out against Bush's failure to follow his (Bush's) stated objectives. So what's the argument here? Where's the flip-flop? Seems to me that Kerry is the truest patriot of all, and deserves our utmost respect.
I know I've questioned Kerry 's intentions on this in the past, but that was because I didn't take the time to study the subject, and instead just read others' opinions and from that drew my own conclusions. At this pont I would comfortably say that Kerry should be commended for, one, patriotically supporting the Bush Administration's stated intentions toward Iraq in 2002 and, two, supporting the nation against the traitorous acts undertaken by the Bush Administration since then.
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---Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. |
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Become an ELECTION PROTECTION VOLUNTEER.
Become familiar with THE KERRY/EDWARDS RAPID RESPONSE CENTER.
Donate to MoveOn's latest SWIFTBOAT AD CAMPAIGN.
Maureen Farrell on the absence of Fundagelicals at the RNC.
Watch O'Reilly vs. Krugman
Blogger is acting up today, preventing new posting. This is a test....
Become familiar with THE KERRY/EDWARDS RAPID RESPONSE CENTER.
Donate to MoveOn's latest SWIFTBOAT AD CAMPAIGN.
Maureen Farrell on the absence of Fundagelicals at the RNC.
Watch O'Reilly vs. Krugman
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Blogger is acting up today, preventing new posting. This is a test....
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August 16, 2004
Sometimes one's anger turns into rage, but a rage mild enough to repress when hearing another speak out about the same subject. Margaret Cho rages about gay marriages in S.F.:
Fred Kaplan has a timeless, and yet timely, analysis of Iraq's future. It is Left is Right's reading assignment of the week.
Simple, yet very much to the point
Sometimes one's anger turns into rage, but a rage mild enough to repress when hearing another speak out about the same subject. Margaret Cho rages about gay marriages in S.F.:
| It is revolting that the gay marriages are being annulled in San Francisco. I don't understand why these bigoted, arrogant, nosy, busybody 'conservatives' have to trample all over civil rights in order to make everyone understand that they think that homosexuality is wrong. You know what? I think that intolerance is wrong. I think that having no compassion is wrong. I think that meddling in people's lives whom you don't even know personally is wrong. I think that these people who claim to do God's work are actually working for the Other Guy. Satan likes it when people are motivated by their own prejudice. The Horned One gets all happy when someone is being oppressed or unduly punished. The Dark Lord loves injustice. These so called family advocates and Christian groups are really doing the Devil's Work. I hope they enjoy being pawns for Lucifer. The true face of evil is the need to control the actions of others. It doesn't matter that you think it might be for their own good or salvation. We will see who goes to hell. |
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No Way Out of a Catastrophe
Fred Kaplan has a timeless, and yet timely, analysis of Iraq's future. It is Left is Right's reading assignment of the week.
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An Anti-democratic Constitution.
ddjangoWIrE has posted an essay about the need to democracize our republic, by overhauling our Constitution, if we are to survive. Great read and fodder for discussion.
If you live in the Cerritos/North Long Beach area of Southern California, you are invited to a FREE showing of the movie OUTFOXED. You do not need to be a member; in fact, the club is showing this film especially for non-members!
I received this from MoveOn today:
It's dirty politics at its worst, people. Don't let it slide. Sign the petition now.
President Bush has onlyyour corporate interests in mind (snippet):
If you don't vote for Kerry in November, then you're a masochist, plain and simple.
Ask Bush. For example, ask him something about Laura Bush.
If you haven't yet checked out Outragedmoderates.org then now is the time, as the opinions of the moderate voters are an indication of which way this election is headed.
Dr. Millar, who sits on DC's Local Emergency Planning Committee, explains how this could actually happen (snippets):
The article has additional information on how Congress is also stonewalling on this matter.
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Tonight: FREE showing of OUTFOXED - You Are Invited!
If you live in the Cerritos/North Long Beach area of Southern California, you are invited to a FREE showing of the movie OUTFOXED. You do not need to be a member; in fact, the club is showing this film especially for non-members!
| When: Monday, August 16 Refreshments/Social: 6:30pm Screening: 7pm Where: Cerritos Library, 3rd Floor, Skyline Room Location: 18125 Bloomfield Ave - Cerritos - (562) 916-1350 (click address for map) Sponsored by the Hubert H. Humphrey Democratic Club |
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Sign Zee Petition, Old Man; Sign Zee Petition
I received this from MoveOn today:
| Dear MoveOn member, Last week, a group of far-right Bush allies released an ugly and outrageous ad which claims that John Kerry faked his injuries, betrayed his troops, and "dishonored his country" in Vietnam. The ad features people who say "I served with John Kerry" (although they didn't) and who make numerous provably false accusations about Kerry's war record. It's one of the most vile tactics we've seen yet in Bush's ferociously negative campaign. The "Swift Boat" ad is so far beyond the pale that even Senator John McCain, a Bush supporter, spoke out about it, calling it "dishonest and dishonorable." Yet despite Senator McCain's request that President Bush "specifically condemn" the ad, Bush refuses to say anything about it. Together, let's send President Bush a clear message from hundreds of thousands of Americans that we won't stand for these smear tactics, and we expect him to repudiate and reject them. We'll deliver our petition to President Bush on the campaign trail. Sign the petition to President Bush now at: http://www.moveonpac.org/falseadvertising/ It's clear that the ad continues the tradition of Bush campaign dirty tricks. In a recent interview, Senator McCain noted that the ad "was the same kind of deal that was pulled on me" in 2000. McCain was referring to a vicious smear campaign -- which included race-baiting allegations that he had a black child our of wedlock -- run by close Bush allies in 2000. In fact, the same firm that ran some of the anti-McCain ads in 2000 produced the "Swift Boat" ad. And although the group claims to be independent of the Republican party, the group's funding mostly comes from a longtime Bush supporter who gave over $20,000 to his campaigns for Texas governor. The "Swift Boat" campaign is a classical political hit job. But even before the ad went on the air, the Washington Post ran a piece discussing how President Bush is running the most negative presidential campaign in U.S. history. In an article titled "From Bush, Unprecedented Negativity," the Post quotes an expert who says that "there is more attack now on the Bush side against Kerry than you've historically had in the general-election period against either candidate." Discussing the "Swift Boat" ad, Senator John McCain said, "I deplore this kind of politics." Nebraska Governor Mike Johanns (R) called the ad "trash" and even Pat Buchanan said "not a single charge is substantiated . . . I think the ad is wrong." But George Bush won't condemn it. Let's let him know that we're sick and tired of this "slime and defend" mode of campaigning. Sign the petition to Bush now at: http://www.moveonpac.org/falseadvertising/ Jim Rassman, a Republican veteran who served under Kerry, recently wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal. He told the story of how Kerry saved his life. And he concluded with these words on the "Swift Boat" veterans: "[W]hen the noise and fog of their distortions and lies have cleared, a man who volunteered to serve his country, a man who showed up for duty when his country called, a man to whom the United States Navy awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts, will stand tall and proud. Ultimately, the American people will judge these Swift Boat Veterans for Bush and their accusations. Americans are tired of smear campaigns against those who volunteered to wear the uniform. Swift Boat Veterans for Bush should hang their heads in shame." Sincerely, --Eli Pariser MoveOn PAC August 16th, 2004 |
It's dirty politics at its worst, people. Don't let it slide. Sign the petition now.
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Bush Forces NTSA's Hand
President Bush has only
| ....The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published the new rule on the public release of auto-safety information on July 28, 2003, but outside the industry hardly anyone took notice. In the following months, allies of tire manufacturers and automakers flooded the agency with comments, and all of them "contended that the release of early warning data is likely to cause substantial competitive harm," the agency said. At the same time, consumer groups argued that the data "should be released because it is important to the identification of potential defects," the agency added. When the agency published a revised final rule on April 21, 2004, it exempted from public release warranty-claim information, industry reports on safety issues and consumer complaints, among other data, saying that releasing that information would cause "substantial competitive harm." Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, filed suit, saying consumers needed the data to inform themselves about unsafe vehicles and tires. But Ray Tyson, the chief spokesman for the highway safety agency, said: "The suggestion that the American consumer is missing out is off the mark. I can't believe this information would be of much interest to the general public." |
If you don't vote for Kerry in November, then you're a masochist, plain and simple.
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Subservient President
Ask Bush. For example, ask him something about Laura Bush.
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Outraged Moderates
If you haven't yet checked out Outragedmoderates.org then now is the time, as the opinions of the moderate voters are an indication of which way this election is headed.
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Chlorine Tank Explodes in D.C., Killing Thousands?
Dr. Millar, who sits on DC's Local Emergency Planning Committee, explains how this could actually happen (snippets):
| ....The threat consists of chemical-laden railroad tank cars-- lethal cargoes which the US Department of Transportation characterizes as potential "Weapons of Mass Destruction." ....The simple, effective solution-- opposed by the chemical industry, the railroads, and the Bush administration-- is to reroute hazardous cargoes away from cities ranked as major targets for terrorists, such as Washington, New York, Chicago, Houston, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. A sudden release of chlorine from a 90-ton rail tank car could create a cloud 40 miles long and 4 miles wide and be fatal 8 to 10 miles downwind. [1] If terrorists ruptured a tank car on tracks near the Washington Mall during public events such as the Fourth of July or the Inauguration, the deadly cloud could kill 100,000 people in a half-hour, according to estimates from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratories. ....Although the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has conducted a study of the vulnerability of the Washington area's rail system to terrorist attack, it has repeatedly delayed the release. While awaiting this federal report, the DC Council has held back on the rerouting legislation. |
The article has additional information on how Congress is also stonewalling on this matter.
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August 13, 2004
Left is Right will be taking a brief respite. Here are your eagerly-anticipated Friday Fun links, in the meantime.
Ambifacient Lunar Waneshaft (video; language: begins in English; remainder, not sure)
Card Tricks
Chipmunk Song (slow version)
Hands (?)
Henri Cartier-Bresson Photography
Homeland Insecurity Advisory System
Humanity's Worst Films
Personal Short Essays
Robots Are Our Friends (video)
Tomato Bounce (game)
Top 100 Albums of the 1970s
Word Count
FRIDAY FUN
Left is Right will be taking a brief respite. Here are your eagerly-anticipated Friday Fun links, in the meantime.
Ambifacient Lunar Waneshaft (video; language: begins in English; remainder, not sure)
Card Tricks
Chipmunk Song (slow version)
Hands (?)
Henri Cartier-Bresson Photography
Homeland Insecurity Advisory System
Humanity's Worst Films
Personal Short Essays
Robots Are Our Friends (video)
Tomato Bounce (game)
Top 100 Albums of the 1970s
Word Count
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August 10, 2004
Steve Soto: KERRY BLEW IT
That is an understatement. The one issue that has truly and surprisingly fired up the Democratic base, Iraq, has just been smothered by Kerry. Now it's back to "Anybody But Bush", rather than "Well, actually, Kerry may be the one." I honestly don't get it.
The latest in Safe Beds. Yeah, but what if you have to take a dump?
I know this info is getting old and most readers are well aware of the ins and outs of this story, but it's so blanantly indicative of the abuse and misuse of power by the Bush Administration that I feel compelled to post it for posterity's sake....
Hey, New York City, not scared enough? Then read THIS:
It's not a matter of if, but of when. (Hey, that's 4 prepositions in the last 5 words. Is that legal?) Also, notice the phrase "future president of the US"... Is he predicting something else, too?
The Herald Sun reports that Bush said in a campaign stop in suburban Washington, "Real rich people figure out how to dodge taxes." Now, does that mean very rich people know how to dodge, or that only rich people who know how to be rich (ala "real" men, "real" Italian food, etc.) can dodge?
Steve Soto: KERRY BLEW IT
That is an understatement. The one issue that has truly and surprisingly fired up the Democratic base, Iraq, has just been smothered by Kerry. Now it's back to "Anybody But Bush", rather than "Well, actually, Kerry may be the one." I honestly don't get it.
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Quantum Sleeper
The latest in Safe Beds. Yeah, but what if you have to take a dump?
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I know this info is getting old and most readers are well aware of the ins and outs of this story, but it's so blanantly indicative of the abuse and misuse of power by the Bush Administration that I feel compelled to post it for posterity's sake....
| BUSH LEAK ALLOWED TERRORISTS TO ESCAPE President Bush has promised his administration is �doing everything we can� to fight the War on Terror. He has also said, �I�ve constantly expressed my displeasure with leaks� and said, �whether they happened in the White House or happened in the administration or happened on Capitol Hill [leaks] can be very damaging.� But according to a new report, the White House�s leak of secret information for its own political gain has undermined the War on Terror because it allowed key al Qaeda suspects to escape. According to government and security officials, the disclosure by the White House �of the arrest of an al Qaeda computer expert allowed several wanted suspects from Osama bin Laden�s terror network to escape.� Specifically, the White House told the media it had apprehended Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, a 25-year-old Pakistani computer engineer who the administration said was a terrorist. But according to MSNBC, Khan was a key intelligence source for U.S. and Pakistani authorities and �had been actively cooperating with intelligence agents to help catch al-Qaida operatives.� In other words, the White House blew the cover of a U.S. intelligence mole in order to publicly justify raising the terror alert level one week after the Democratic National Convention. In the process, it allowed terrorists who threaten America to evade capture. If there was any doubt about who leaked Khan�s name and compromised U.S. national security, those were put to rest this weekend. On CNN�s �Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer� on Sunday, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice admitted it was the Bush administration that leaked Khan�s name. |
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Water, Water Everywhere
Hey, New York City, not scared enough? Then read THIS:
| It has everything you could wish for in a cliche-ridden disaster movie. A beautiful volcanic island in the Atlantic is on the brink of catastrophic collapse, threatening to unleash giant waves that will wreak havoc around the globe within hours. And while scientists try in vain to make their concerns heard, the world's governments look the other way. But yesterday a leading expert claimed the doom-laden scenario was not only real but was being almost completely ignored by people in power. Bill McGuire, the director of the Benfield Grieg Hazard Research Centre at University College London, said a huge chunk of rock, roughly the size of the Isle of Man, was on the brink of breaking off the volcanic island of La Palma in the Canaries. When - Professor McGuire says it is not a matter of if - the rock plunges into the ocean it will trigger giant waves called mega-tsunamis. Travelling at speeds of up to 560mph, the huge walls of water will tear across the ocean and hit islands and continents, leaving a trail of destruction. Mega-tsunami waves are much longer than the ones we are used to. "When one of these comes in, it keeps on coming for 10 to 15 minutes," Prof McGuire said. "It's like a huge wall of water that just keeps coming." Computer models of the island's collapse show the first regions to be hit, with waves topping 100 metres (330ft), will be the neighbouring Canary Islands. Within a few hours the west coast of Africa will be battered with similar-sized waves. Between nine and 12 hours after the island collapses, waves between 20 and 50 metres high will have crossed 4,000 miles of ocean to crash into the Caribbean islands and the eastern seaboard of the US and Canada. The worst-hit will be harbours and estuaries, which will channel the waves inland. The loss of life and destruction to property will probably be immense, according to Prof McGuire. ....Little can be done to protect against the waves produced when La Palma collapses. Barriers would not be able to sustain the battering, and breaking the island apart before it collapses is either too dangerous or time-consuming. New sensors could warn of an impending eruption two weeks in advance. But no one knows whether the island will collapse during the next eruption, or in an eruption that will not happen for centuries. Ordering mass evacuations would have a huge financial impact that could cause resentment if it turned out to be a false alarm. The disaster could affect up to 100 million people from the coast of Africa to the Canary islands and the east coast of North America. "The future president of the US has got to make a call at some point, that when La Palma erupts, what is he going to do?" Prof McGuire said. "Is he going to evacuate all the major cities on the east coast? If he gets it wrong, nobody's ever going to pay attention again and he'll be out of a job." |
It's not a matter of if, but of when. (Hey, that's 4 prepositions in the last 5 words. Is that legal?) Also, notice the phrase "future president of the US"... Is he predicting something else, too?
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Real Is What Real Does
The Herald Sun reports that Bush said in a campaign stop in suburban Washington, "Real rich people figure out how to dodge taxes." Now, does that mean very rich people know how to dodge, or that only rich people who know how to be rich (ala "real" men, "real" Italian food, etc.) can dodge?
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When Is Stealing OK?
Is it just as possible that Democrats may try to steal the election? One right-wing commentator, James P. Pinkerton, gives his warped conclusion as to why this is possible. If the Democrats do, at least the Republicans can't complain, having just stolen the last one. The Democratic leadership would have to answer to only their own constituents. What would be our response? Would we feel justified? Embarrassed? Outraged? Would this be the last straw for the Progressives to finally take the reins of the party? Jump to the Greens? Personally, I would consider doing whatever necessary to at least guarantee my own survival, but up to what point? I can't say at this moment, and I hope I never have to make that decision.
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August 9, 2004
Dan Gillmor takes us to task for letting state and federal government push our debt onto our kids (excerpts):
Taxpayers let leaders off the hook on budgets
Ouch. Better not let the kids read this.
Dan Gillmor takes us to task for letting state and federal government push our debt onto our kids (excerpts):
Taxpayers let leaders off the hook on budgets
| By Dan Gillmor - Mercury News Technology Columnist In politics, nothing succeeds like irresponsibility. It works wonders in the short term. Irresponsibility permeates the fiscal policies that now dominate in Washington and Sacramento. Last week, the Bush administration confirmed that the federal budget deficit would be the largest on record, and a few days earlier California's governor and Legislature enacted yet another smoke-and-mirrors budget. So America and its largest state continue our borrow-and-spend ways. We're only postponing the hard choices for others to make, but that's standard procedure. The federal situation is by far the more alarming. It begs for actual leadership. President Bush is leading, but the wrong way, and has reinforced how far we've come from the days when Republicans were the sensible ones. Peter G. Peterson, who served as Commerce secretary under Republican Richard Nixon, assails the administration in his bestselling new book, ``Running on Empty.'' It's not only the Republicans to blame, incidentally. Peterson also has tough words for the current spineless crop of congressional Democrats, many of whom have voted for the pad-the-rich Bush tax cuts and for spending bills that would have broken the budget even in good times. ....Back in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature have mocked their budgetary promises. This is no surprise, given the horrible choices they face, but they were elected to lead, not dissolve into more of the same old backbiting and budgetary flimflam. Yet here we go again. The new budget does pretty much what the last one does -- pushing the day of reckoning into the future -- with a few cosmetic changes. California's state government will spend about $105 billion without raising taxes. To accomplish this, the state will cut programs slightly, make extravagant assumptions about revenue and borrow heavily. ....Looking for someone to blame, ultimately, for the federal and state fiscal woes? Start with the mirror. We don't seem to care enough about this to force honesty in budgeting, not to mention serious attention to deficit spending. We're loading big trouble onto our kids. They'll pay for our selfishness, via higher taxes, lowered living standards and/or inflation. They won't be happy when they realize what we've done. |
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Republicans Voting Democrat
MoveOn has done it again. They have 17 possible TV ads composed of interviews of registered Republicans who are going to vote Democrat this election, and are asking members to vote on which ones should be used. GO HERE AND VOTE. The winning ads will air in swing states during the Republican National Convention. Be sure to donate a few $$ while you're there, if you can afford it, to help defray the cost of the ads. I did.
Today's CAP Progress Report (Aug. 9, 2004) discusses the effect of Wal-Mart on the California ecomony:
Left is Right posted this study 6 days ago. It obviously has caught the eye of more than one Progressive. It needs to catch the eyes of major media.
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Again, Wal-Mart Leeching California
Today's CAP Progress Report (Aug. 9, 2004) discusses the effect of Wal-Mart on the California ecomony:
| ECONOMY � WAL-MART IS NO BARGAIN: CBS News reports Americans are paying a stiff price for bargains at the mega corporation Wal-Mart. According to a recent University of California, Berkeley study, Wal-Mart actually takes a lot more from communities than it gives back in low prices. "Because of the low wages and because people do not have health insurance through their employer, people rely on public support to make ends meet," says the school's Ken Jacobs. In California, taxpayers pay an estimated $82-million a year to take care of health care, food stamps, and other social services for Wal-Mart employees. |
Left is Right posted this study 6 days ago. It obviously has caught the eye of more than one Progressive. It needs to catch the eyes of major media.
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August 8, 2004
Millions poisoned by wells dug to save lives
This is from a newspaper site in Scotland. Jesus. The U.S. could easily send massive help to these victims, but first let's give one more tax cut to the rich, no?
WHO Expects 270,000 Deaths from Poisoned Water
Millions poisoned by wells dug to save lives
| SHAIKH AZIZUR RAHMAN IN CALCUTTA MORE than 270,000 will die in the world�s worst mass poisoning after up to 77 million people in Bangladesh and India were exposed to drinking water contaminated with high levels of arsenic, according to a new report by the World Health Organisation. The WHO expects the high death toll over the next two to three years as a result of long-term exposure to polluted water which is being drunk from shallow tube-wells. The poison, which occurs naturally in the soil, causes skin lesions as well as cancers of the skin, lungs, kidney and bladder, and many other diseases. Arsenicosis has already killed hundreds of people in the region. Allan Smith, a WHO consultant and professor of epidemiology at the University of California at Berkeley, called the poisonings "a terrible public catastrophe. Bangladesh is grappling with the worst mass poisoning of a population in history," he said. Smith, who has visited Bangladesh many times, said the scale of this environmental disaster was "beyond the accidents at Bhopal, India, in 1984, and Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986. We still don�t know how many millions have been exposed and at what levels," said Smith, but the estimate is from 35 million to 77 million. Dipankar Chakraborti, a researcher at Calcutta�s Jadavpur University, said at least 30 million people in Bangladesh and five million more in eastern Indian states were drinking water with arsenic contamination at 50 parts per billion (ppb) - five times the WHO�s permissible limit. "In Bangladesh and India, tens of thousands of people are still drinking water from those tube-wells where arsenic levels have reached 50 to 100 times the WHO�s permissible limit," Chakraborti said. "WHO set the permissible level of arsenic in drinking water on the presumption that the average person consumes two litres of water per day. In tropical Bangladesh and India, the average daily consumption of water per person is four litres. This means that people here can safely drink water that contains no more than five ppb of arsenic." According to an estimate by Chakraborti, at least 200,000 cases of debilitating skin lesions are believed to have already occurred in West Bengal and Bangladesh. In a Unicef and World Bank-sponsored campaign during the 1970s, 10 million shallow tube-wells were drilled in Bangladesh and everyone was advised to drink water from them to protect themselves from water-borne diseases such as cholera. But the switch from traditional dug wells to tube-wells in 1993 has proved fatal to many.... |
This is from a newspaper site in Scotland. Jesus. The U.S. could easily send massive help to these victims, but first let's give one more tax cut to the rich, no?
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Bush Administration Outs Kahn. Hey, this guy is scary-looking; I would've done the same thing!
I know, cheap shot. But hey, bad humor makes the world go 'round.
The story behind the "Shove It" story
An example of the web's newest trend, vlogging (video blogging)
Paradise DOES exist!
Depressed? Take a trip to Britain
I know, cheap shot. But hey, bad humor makes the world go 'round.
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Caught In The Net
The story behind the "Shove It" story
An example of the web's newest trend, vlogging (video blogging)
Paradise DOES exist!
Depressed? Take a trip to Britain
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August 7, 2004
The RNC has released a 12-minute video analysis of Kerry's statements on Iraq over the past decade or so, on the internet. There are some clips of interviews which I hadn't seen before, so for that reason it was interesting. What was even more interesting was the editing of those clips, done is such a way as to make Kerry's statements appear contradictory, cutting him off in mid-sentence on those clips where he tries to explain some of his more complex voting decisions about Iraq. Quite the amateurish video editing job.
I must give kudos to the RNC, though, for the extended version of the "Flipper" theme song, something that I hadn't heard in some 38 years. Thanks, RNC!
Some Conservative fodder:
Sheesh, talk about living in the past...
Flipper Prez Shows Kerry Clips
The RNC has released a 12-minute video analysis of Kerry's statements on Iraq over the past decade or so, on the internet. There are some clips of interviews which I hadn't seen before, so for that reason it was interesting. What was even more interesting was the editing of those clips, done is such a way as to make Kerry's statements appear contradictory, cutting him off in mid-sentence on those clips where he tries to explain some of his more complex voting decisions about Iraq. Quite the amateurish video editing job.
I must give kudos to the RNC, though, for the extended version of the "Flipper" theme song, something that I hadn't heard in some 38 years. Thanks, RNC!
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A View From the Right
Some Conservative fodder:
| The Unpopularity Of Leftist Democrats By Bruce Walker (08/06/2004) ....Those of us who care about America should fondly hope that moderate or moderately liberal Democrat governors from Flyover Country, men who live in the real world, capture control of the Democrat Party and nominated two candidates compatible with American values four years from now. Many of us have had false hopes before. When Carter won in 1976, I deeply hoped that his experience at Annapolis and his professed Christian faith would make him different from other Democrats. When Clinton won in 1992, I hoped that the "centrist" positions he propounded were honestly believed. The truth in both cases was different, but that does not mean that all the good Democrats are gone. What if, in 1992, Democrats had nominated another "centrist" Southern governor to be their candidate - Zell Miller? Although it seems unthinkable to us today, Clinton and Miller were considered extremely close politically in 1992. What if Ed Koch, instead of Al Gore, had been Vice President? Patriotic Americans - and I have said this many times - should want Democrats to begin choosing as their leaders decent, serious and thoughtful men like Scoop Jackson, Hubert Humphrey, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Robert Casey (the Pennsylvania governor whose Pro-Life position kept him from speaking at the Democrat National Convention in 1992.) The process of reforming the Democrat Party involves a big stick - showing Democrats that they will have PMS (permanent minority status) as long as they nominate Leftists like Kerry - but it also must involve a juicy carrot as well. We should want good men to win every presidential election. That means we should want Democrats to start nominated good men again. |
Sheesh, talk about living in the past...
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Blatant racism in political campaigns is alive and well.
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August 6, 2004
Mr. President, are you still insisting that the economy is experiencing a strong recovery?
Job Growth Meager, Markets Stunned
Stocks Tumble, Hit by Weak July Jobs Data
Treasuries Rally on Weak Job Growth
Oil Scales New Highs on YUKOS Cash Crunch
Halliburton Accused of Accounting Fraud
From True Majority:
| Over the last several months, a government-backed Arab militia in Sudan, called the Janjuweed, has been attacking black Africans. The Janjuweed tactics are crude, but effective. They enter a village and use terror to force everyone to leave their homes and crops. Entire populations have fled to distant camps in the middle of desolate areas. These desert camps are now surrounded and controlled by the Janjuweed, and anyone who tries to leave is raped or killed. Unarmed international aid workers are turned away. A total of 370,000 human beings are already dead, or in the late stages of dying, from starvation in these extermination camps. The death toll could reach one million within the next few months. Time is our greatest enemy. Every day one thousand people are dying in these camps. Currently, starvation is claiming the weakest�70 percent of the dead are children aged five and under. As time goes on, the death toll will rise more quickly. The United States needs to ensure that food aid is brought to the people of Darfur, along with the protection of an international military force. Both houses of Congress have already passed resolutions calling this �genocide�, and have called on the President to act to stop it. The problem is that the Bush administration is unwilling to take the decisive action needed to make sure that the food aid is safely delivered to those who need it most. Instead, they are calling on the corrupt Sudanese government to disarm their allies, the Janjuweed, and allow food aid in. To pressure the Sudanese government, the Bush administration is talking about using sanctions, a process that will take months�long enough to kill everyone currently starving in the camps. That is why it is crucial that President Bush act now. You can learn more at www.darfurgenocide.org. |
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Mr. President, are you still insisting that the economy is experiencing a strong recovery?
Job Growth Meager, Markets Stunned
Stocks Tumble, Hit by Weak July Jobs Data
Treasuries Rally on Weak Job Growth
Oil Scales New Highs on YUKOS Cash Crunch
Halliburton Accused of Accounting Fraud
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Test Your Knowledge of Bushisms (quiz)
Here's the THK "Shove It" video.
Washington Post reviews "OutFoxed".
Interesting visualization of Left vs. Right books.
Here's the THK "Shove It" video.
Washington Post reviews "OutFoxed".
Interesting visualization of Left vs. Right books.
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FRIDAY FUN
Ball and Sand (slow-motion video)
Boba Fett - the Video (32MB - broadband only)
Complete Edition of Murphy's Laws
Dancing Transformers (video)
Dead Bug Funeral Kit
Harold Never Got a Muffin (video)
Liftoff! (video)
Mad Exclamations
Most Popular Baby Names
Obey the Signs (video) (this week's recommendation)
Officeball (video)
Preparing for Emergencies (British-style)
President Johnson orders pants from Joe Haggar
Reverse (game)
Rubik's Cube (game)
The Should I Stalk William Shatner Test
Spinning Cricles (game)
Unicycling - like you've never seen (video)
You Have Bad Taste in Music (video)
Boba Fett - the Video (32MB - broadband only)
Complete Edition of Murphy's Laws
Dancing Transformers (video)
Dead Bug Funeral Kit
Harold Never Got a Muffin (video)
Liftoff! (video)
Mad Exclamations
Most Popular Baby Names
Obey the Signs (video) (this week's recommendation)
Officeball (video)
Preparing for Emergencies (British-style)
President Johnson orders pants from Joe Haggar
Reverse (game)
Rubik's Cube (game)
The Should I Stalk William Shatner Test
Spinning Cricles (game)
Unicycling - like you've never seen (video)
You Have Bad Taste in Music (video)
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August 5, 2004
Got this e-message from Bush-Cheney-04 today:
World oil production will peak around 2010. At that time 70% of the remaining oil reserves will be in five countries in the Middle East: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Oman. Plus China and India are rapidly increasing their thirst for petroleum, much faster than the rest of the world. All this adds up to a looming "crisis" in America, one which will demand permanent and basic lifestyle and transportation changes. This article by Brian Kaller on PulseTC.com briefly touches the historical, political, social and future aspects of this ever-more-dominating subject that will affect pretty much everyone except the Amish (snippet):
| Dear Mxxxx, Tired of seeing book after book with distortions and inaccuracies about our President? We have a must-read for you. Today, August 5th, a new presidential biography by Independent journalist Ronald Kessler, hits bookstores across America. In this book, A Matter of Character, Kessler describes the real President George W. Bush - a decent, humble and honest man who exhibits true character. Click here to buy A Matter of Character. Kessler, who voted for Al Gore in 2000 but had a change of heart after getting to know President Bush, went behind the scenes interviewing dozens of White House aides, several Cabinet members and top presidential advisors. He came up with an important conclusion: President Bush has the character to lead our nation at this crucial time. A Matter of Character is a breath of fresh air in a time when Democrat organizations and several Hollywood celebrities will say anything - however untrue - to tear down our President. Don't miss the opportunity to hear why the President's critics have it all wrong. Read Ronald Kessler's A Matter of Character today! Sincerely, Ken Mehlman, Campaign Manager |
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Oil Be Moving Closer to the Subway Station
World oil production will peak around 2010. At that time 70% of the remaining oil reserves will be in five countries in the Middle East: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Oman. Plus China and India are rapidly increasing their thirst for petroleum, much faster than the rest of the world. All this adds up to a looming "crisis" in America, one which will demand permanent and basic lifestyle and transportation changes. This article by Brian Kaller on PulseTC.com briefly touches the historical, political, social and future aspects of this ever-more-dominating subject that will affect pretty much everyone except the Amish (snippet):
| ....As for discovering new fields, global discovery has been declining each year since 1964. Even if the oil does not run out as quickly as some think, most of the remaining reserves are in countries openly hostile to the United States. �More than 70 percent of remaining oil reserves are in five countries in the Middle East: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman,� said Dean Abrahamson, professor emeritus of environment and energy policy at the University of Minnesota. �The expectation is that, within the next 10 years, the world will become almost completely dependent on those countries.� Drilling in the Alaska National Wilderness Reserve, he said, will offer only an additional three months of oil. �In 2000, there were 16 discoveries of oil �mega-fields,�� Aaron Naparstek noted in the New York Press earlier this year. �In 2001, we found eight, and in 2002 only three such discoveries were made. Today, we consume about six barrels of oil for every one new barrel discovered.� If the world ran on oil and had to stop, that would be problem enough. But there is one more issue: most of the world doesn�t run on oil, and wants to start. They see Americans, and want what we have, when in a decade or two we will not have what we have. �The issue of peak oil is not that we are at the point of consuming the last drop,� said Michael Noble of Minnesotans for an Energy-Efficient Economy. He uses the analogy of a party of 100 guests and 24 bottles of champagne. Around midnight the host finds 12 bottles of champagne left, but then many more guests show up, and there�s not much champagne left to go around. �The United States has drunk most of it, and now the Indians and Chinese, with six times as many people, are showing up expecting to be served,� Noble said. �Sales of autos in China rose about 70 percent in 2003 alone, and almost as much in India, and half the population of the world is in those.� Privately, at least some politicians are aware of this issue. In a 1999 speech to the London Institute of Petroleum, then-Halliburton chair Richard �Dick� Cheney told his fellow oil executives that the United States �will need an additional 50 million barrels of oil per day� by 2010, the most commonly-cited peak oil year, implying an awareness of the peak. But Cheney had a solution, he said: �The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world�s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies.� Publicly, however, the election year is the season for Democrats and Republicans to blame the other party for rising gas prices, and to boast that they will make it cheaper again. On March 29, Cheney accused Kerry of once supporting a gas tax and now denying it. Kerry fought back that evening at a speech in San Francisco, blaming the administration for the rising gas prices. If the rise continued, he said, �Dick Cheney and President Bush are going to have to carpool to work together.� The line gets a big laugh every time, but as Naparstek noted, carpooling was mentioned exclusively as a laugh line, not as a sensible and urgent policy. The Bush campaign struck back with a new television ad, called �Wacky,� showing early 20th century footage of 12 men in suits riding a comically long bicycle. �Some people have wacky ideas,� said the voiceover. �Like taxing gasoline more so people drive less. That�s John Kerry.� In fact, it is not John Kerry, but a growing number of Americans wish it were.... |
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I'm Just Sayin'...
With today's condemnation by McCain of the latest Bush ad smear of Kerry's Vietnam duty, doesn't it make McCain, next to Bush, just about the biggest flip-flopper of this election year?
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Shhhh.... Halliburton is Doing a No-No
Dan Gillmor succinctly and efficiently puts the focus on Halli-Cheney:
If all hell was on the verge of breaking loose in Iraq up to now, you can believe the "verge" is now far behind.
| August 05, 2004 The Halliburton Stench Vice President Dick Cheney's tenure at Halliburton, the company he ran before returning to partisan politics in 2000, gets more and more questionable as facts come out. Consider what's happened in the past two days. While CEO, Cheney was grossly negligent -- at best -- in the company's handling of an accounting change that helped the company show better profits without changing the underlying business at all. The accounting move was legal, but it wasn't disclosed to shareholders, who had an absolute right to know. The Securities and Exchange Commission, in a legal wrist slap given the money involved, fined Halliburton $7.5 million (NYT). But it didn't hold the company's chief executive accountable in any way. So either Cheney was willfully ignorant of an accounting shift that added tens of millions to the bottom line, or he was one of the people culpable for the move. We don't know, because the SEC's statement on the matter was muddled. But the most favorable way to view Cheney's actions here is to assume that he utterly failed to do his job. Meanwhile, investigations are growing more intense into alleged bribery (Bloomberg) in Nigeria by Halliburton, also under Cheney's tenure as CEO. There are also ongoing investigations into the company's dealings with Iran. And, of course, there's the continuing Halliburton saga in its Iraq operations today, a scandal of fairly major proportions. A full-service company indeed. Ask yourself what the hard-right partisans would be doing if we'd been talking about a Democratic vice president whose former company was up to its eyeballs in such shenanigans. They'd be screaming their outrage from the rooftops. But on this, they are silent. |
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Iraq is Officially Lost
If all hell was on the verge of breaking loose in Iraq up to now, you can believe the "verge" is now far behind.
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Firefighters are Regular Guys Who Only Vote for Bush
Jack Dunphy of the NRO explains why firefighters and cops are "regular guys" and thus can only vote for Bush:
I assume, if you are a firefighter or cop, that you are either rolling on the floor in hysterics or else fuming with rage at the innuendos and false generalizations that permeate this piece of journalistic puke that would offend a pile of dog crap.
"Generally speaking, the likelihood that a firefighter will vote for John Kerry is inversely proportional to the number of fires he has actually fought." ---Where on earth did he come up with this?
Firefighters and cops: Be sure to enlist in the National Guard so that you too can join the fun in Iraq and leave your fire/police station even more understaffed and ill-prepared for first-response to disasters. And if you're afraid of leaving Iraq before you've sampled all the fun imported by Bush, don't worry because Bush will extend your stay far beyond your wildest dreams.
Most people are saying that this is a mis-statement by Bush. Why? Most of you people believed him when he said Iraq was behind 9-11 and had WMD, etc. Why not now? This statement is actually the most accurate one I've heard from Bush since he took (and I mean "took") office.
Auto Industry Debates Virtues of Diesels vs. Hybrids
Bush Continues Being Bush:
As outrageous as this is, in the past 3-1/2 years the frequency of such behavior by the Bush Administration makes this a real yawner today. How pitiful is that?!
Declan McCullagh survey's Kerry's record on technology and the associated issues of privacy and government (FBI) surveillance (excerpts):
It's definitely a mixed bag of support by Kerry, and more regressive than the Clinton Administration. He definitely has not shown any reason for broad support by the technology industry. Although this subject takes a back seat to Iraq, education reform, health insurance and corporate misconduct, its importance in today's world makes it deserving of debate in this election. You can find a Wired "scorecard" of U.S. Senators' voting on technology issues HERE.
| ....As there is in police work, there is in the fire service a wide chasm of opinion between those on the front lines and those who represent them � or claim to � in their labor unions. Generally speaking, the likelihood that a firefighter will vote for John Kerry is inversely proportional to the number of fires he has actually fought. Witness all those T-shirted "Fire Fighters for Kerry" you saw at the convention. A little soft around the middle some of them were, weren't they? Do you think some of them could haul a hose pack up 50 flights of stairs? I'm not betting on it. I'm guessing the only fires many of them have seen lately were at IAFF barbecues. Don't just take my word for it. Visit Fire Fighters for Bush on the web and read the postings from firefighters disaffected by the leftward leanings of the IAFF leadership. A message board asks firefighters if they were polled prior to the IAFF's endorsement of Kerry. An illustrative sample response from a fireman in Kentucky: "No IAFF unions in Kentucky were polled. After receiving the IAFF magazine yesterday and reading [IAFF General President Harold] Schaitberger's excuse for the IAFF endorsement I resigned as VP of the union today. I also quit the IAFF after being a member for 39 years." Granted, some firefighters, even some who actually fight fires, will no doubt vote for Kerry. So will some cops. But most will vote for President Bush, and as NRO has no firefighter on the payroll I will attempt to speak for both groups in explaining why this is so. (I hope the smoke-eaters won't object.) First, cops and firefighters are inherently conservative in that they understand the importance of following society's rules. Unlike John Kerry, they don't find "nuance" in every question that confronts them. In their daily duties they see the often-deadly consequences that result when people fail to do what society expects of them. Nearly every call to 9-1-1 is the result of someone concluding that these rules, be they the criminal laws or the fire codes, can be ignored. They did a good job of hiding it last week, but the Democrats are the party of libertinism, the price of which is well known to those who come when people call for help. Second, cops and firefighters are, if the women in the ranks will forgive the expression, Regular Guys. They drink beer, not wine, and certainly not French wine. They played football and baseball in high school, not lacrosse. Regular Guys think Al Sharpton is a fraud and Michael Moore (who pretends to be a Regular Guy) is a fool, and they think Ted Kennedy is a criminal. Regular Guys do not blame Secret Service agents (who are Regular Guys) for knocking them down on the ski slopes, especially when those agents are there to take bullets for them. And Regular Guys relate to and prefer the company of other Regular Guys; they do not invite people like Leonardo DiCaprio and Ben Affleck to their conventions. Even with the piles of dough they're sitting on, both George Bush and Dick Cheney still come across as Regular Guys, the kind of men you might find hanging around the fire station or the detective squad room. And with his recent suggestion to Pat Leahy on how he might spend his idle time, the vice president climbed several notches on the Regular Guy scale. John Kerry, on the other hand, owing to his valorous service in Vietnam, might have been a Regular Guy years ago, but he surrendered his membership when he came home to join the Jane Fonda crowd and brand his former comrades as war criminals. And whatever tenuous grip he may have had on Regular Guy status since then was lost when he married his current wife. Old-fashioned notions of chivalry prevent me from offering my full opinion on her here, but Regular Guys do not under any circumstances marry women like Teresa Heinz Kerry. You're going to see lots of those yellow t-shirts between now and election day, but don't be taken in. Like most cops, most firefighters will be voting for President Bush in November. You should be a Regular Guy and vote for him too. |
I assume, if you are a firefighter or cop, that you are either rolling on the floor in hysterics or else fuming with rage at the innuendos and false generalizations that permeate this piece of journalistic puke that would offend a pile of dog crap.
"Generally speaking, the likelihood that a firefighter will vote for John Kerry is inversely proportional to the number of fires he has actually fought." ---Where on earth did he come up with this?
Firefighters and cops: Be sure to enlist in the National Guard so that you too can join the fun in Iraq and leave your fire/police station even more understaffed and ill-prepared for first-response to disasters. And if you're afraid of leaving Iraq before you've sampled all the fun imported by Bush, don't worry because Bush will extend your stay far beyond your wildest dreams.
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"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." ---George Bush, 8/5/04 |
Most people are saying that this is a mis-statement by Bush. Why? Most of you people believed him when he said Iraq was behind 9-11 and had WMD, etc. Why not now? This statement is actually the most accurate one I've heard from Bush since he took (and I mean "took") office.
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Either Way, the Environment Wins
Auto Industry Debates Virtues of Diesels vs. Hybrids
| By DANNY HAKIM - Published: August 5, 2004 RAVERSE CITY, Mich., Aug. 4 - Automakers remain divided on whether diesel or hybrid cars are the best way to improve fuel efficiency, and the split is often drawn along cultural lines. All the major manufacturers are developing cleaner diesel engines, hybrids and hydrogen fuel cells. But companies are pushing harder on different technologies to get a leg up in meeting regulations that are becoming tougher around the world, and their views were represented in comments made at a management conference here on Wednesday. Toyota and Honda first developed hybrid-electric vehicles, in part because they save the most gasoline in the sort of stop-and-start driving that is common in the clogged traffic of densely populated Japan. In a hybrid like the Toyota Prius, an electric motor takes over for the gas engine at low speeds and stops; energy is also preserved that is usually lost in braking. But automakers in Europe are skeptical about how profitable hybrids can be and prefer diesel-powered vehicles because they offer car owners an alternative to high taxes on gasoline. Environmental advocates remain cautious about diesels. Compared with conventional gasoline cars, they offer lower emissions of the kind that contribute to global warming but lag behind in emissions of smog-forming pollutants - though filtration technology is improving. New air-quality rules that will be in effect in the United States by the end of the decade will require diesel and gasoline engines to meet the same emission levels.... |
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Bush No Friend of Friends of the Environment
Bush Continues Being Bush:
| Last May BushGreenwatch reported that a 17-year veteran of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) had filed a legal complaint against the agency, charging that agency officials deliberately used flawed scientific data in setting policy for protecting the Florida panther, an endangered species with only 60-80 animals remaining in the wild. Now Fish and Wildlife officials have notified the agency employee, biologist Andrew Eller, that they intend to fire him for "unacceptable" performance. Eller has spent the last 10 years working in the Florida panther recovery program. The move follows the firing on July 9 of Theresa Chambers, chief of the U.S. Park Police, after she publicly stated that the government response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks had stretched her staff's capacities to the limits, and that she needed more resources. Eller's dismissal reinforces the growing perception that the Bush Administration is utterly intolerant of internal dissent.... |
As outrageous as this is, in the past 3-1/2 years the frequency of such behavior by the Bush Administration makes this a real yawner today. How pitiful is that?!
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Does Kerry Support Technology?
Declan McCullagh survey's Kerry's record on technology and the associated issues of privacy and government (FBI) surveillance (excerpts):
| A careful review of Kerry's history in the Senate shows that his record on technology is mixed. The Massachusetts Democrat frequently sought to levy intrusive new restrictions on technology businesses that would harm the U.S. economy. He was no friend of privacy and sided with Hollywood over Silicon Valley in the copyright wars. But his votes in favor of free trade won him a rating of 87 percent in the 106th Congress and 71 percent in the 107th, according to a scorecard compiled by the Information Technology Industry Council. A Wired News technology scorecard in 2000 was less flattering, giving Kerry a mere 50 percent. Kerry never was a steadfast foe of the tech industry, as were politicians like Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C. But Kerry did veer in that direction a few times. ....there's Kerry's support for a second piece of worrisome legislation backed by Hollings that would have imposed stricter data collection requirements on Internet firms than apply to the rest of the U.S. economy. Tech firms and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sensibly cried foul, predicting the proposal would lead to higher prices and would "hinder the growth of electronic commerce." Kerry also co-sponsored a similarly intrusive bill in 2000; all of these proposals died in the Senate. Kerry never was a steadfast foe of the tech industry, as were politicians like Sen. Fritz Hollings. But Kerry did veer in that direction a few times. Kerry made enemies of tech firms by rallying support for a Democratic-supported measure dealing with liability in lawsuits arising from the Y2K bug problem. A competing Republican measure preferred by businesses prevailed, and the Kerry-backed plan was rejected by a vote of 57 to 41. On the other hand, Kerry did stand on principle in 1996 when he and other pro-choice senators announced they would seek to repeal sections of the 1996 Telecommunications Act that made it a crime to distribute information about abortion over the Internet. (Unfortunately, Kerry had voted for the law a month earlier, presumably without reading it first.) Kerry can properly claim credit for being one of 11 senators to sponsor the Internet Tax Freedom Act as far back as March 1997. It temporarily banned state and local governments from imposing taxes on Internet access, and Kerry now says he'd like to see the moratorium renewed. ....Kerry, who served on a key intelligence committee, became something of a go-to guy for the FBI. At a hearing before that committee in 1996, Kerry lobbed softball questions at FBI Director Louis Freeh about the Internet and advances in encryption technology. "Has all of this really left you, in the law enforcement community, kind of grappling to catch up, and frankly behind the curve?" Kerry asked. Kerry didn't go so far as to say that strong encryption should be outlawed, which Freeh had wanted. But in 1997, the Massachusetts senator did vote for an FBI-friendly bill that would have forced the U.S. technology industry to head in the extremely troublesome direction of key escrow. ("Key escrow" means backdoors in encryption products for the surveillance convenience of police and spy agencies.) Fortunately, that proposal didn't go anywhere. ....Two years later, Kerry co-sponsored another encryption bill, called the Protect Act. The Protect Act also tried to push key escrow, which it called "recoverable" encryption products, by saying they could be freely exported. ....Patriot Act: Kerry voted for the Patriot Act--and against some pro-privacy amendments proposed by Russ Feingold, D-Wisc., during the floor debate. His campaign says that "John Kerry stands by his vote for the Patriot Act. He even wants to strengthen some aspects of it relating to terrorism, such as improving intelligence information sharing." At the same time, however, Kerry is a sponsor of a bill in the Senate that would repeal part of the Patriot Act by curbing current police practices relating to surveillance and search warrants.... |
It's definitely a mixed bag of support by Kerry, and more regressive than the Clinton Administration. He definitely has not shown any reason for broad support by the technology industry. Although this subject takes a back seat to Iraq, education reform, health insurance and corporate misconduct, its importance in today's world makes it deserving of debate in this election. You can find a Wired "scorecard" of U.S. Senators' voting on technology issues HERE.
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August 4, 2004