Smafty Mac: Fighting the kakistocracy!!!

Smafty Mac: Fighting the Kakistocracy has moved


You can find the new page by clicking on the giant logo or the simple way by Clicking Here.

This site wll no longer be updated so make sure you update your bookmark!


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Site Relauch

Update

7:39 AM

From wthe time I wrote this post until about 3 minutes ago I completely made up an entire days time, it's not ready yet but I think I'll have all of the bugs (graphics and little touches) worked out by Thursday. I'm still shooting for next month but if it goes any easier I might have to change my plans!

It looks really good right now, I'm glad I had this time to do all of these things!

As you may have noticed some of the links don't work and some of the graphics aren't loading, that's my fault not your browsers.

I have found another host with cheap PHP and MYSQL so to morrow is moving and configuring day, oh boy!

This sucks because it's taking longer than I planned on, the other host I was using just didn't pan out so i had to go looking and to top it off I went to the emergency room this evening for chest pains and shortness of breath, I'm alright apparently I have a pulled muscle on my rib cage or a back muscle thats forcing me to take shorter, more frequent breaths causing acute hyperventilation. From what I'm told this is a common problem in young guys like myself and I'm not complaining, it's better than heart or lung problems. The doctor even complemented my demeanor about the whole thing, apparently the guys that come in with this freak out and start hyperventilating and pass out, I didn't...almost getting out of the car but I remained calm and took long deep breaths and stayed pretty placid.

So that was fun....if hospital gowns and EKGs are your kind of thing but I'm back and ready to go and of course this is just how things work out, there's always something slowing you down but everything is OK!

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Site moved

As soon as I get a new hosting package that won't try and rip me off for using PHP and MYSQL.

The site should take about a day to configure and a week to test my style which is to try and break it beyond repair to see how it holds up, oy.

The biggest issue is the Hosting package, the other stuff is simple.

Update



link
In my attempt to relaunch the site I didn't hear about the 9.0 in the Indian Ocean.

As soon as I find a viable link for relief efforts I'll post a link, this just such a horrible thing to happen.
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The Christmas loves win!

So it seems as if Christmas went ahead as planned, those secularist jews had their plans spoiled yet again!

Christmas was never under siege!
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Merry Christmas


Enjoy your holiday season I will return on Tuesday devoting my full attention to the relaunch over the self imposed 3 day weekend!

Sleep in today or better yet go to work, it's double pay on Christmas!


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Washington Post editorial: War Crimes

Pretty good op-ed

THANKS TO a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and other human rights groups, thousands of pages of government documents released this month have confirmed some of the painful truths about the abuse of foreign detainees by the U.S. military and the CIA -- truths the Bush administration implacably has refused to acknowledge. Since the publication of photographs of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in the spring the administration's whitewashers -- led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- have contended that the crimes were carried out by a few low-ranking reservists, that they were limited to the night shift during a few chaotic months at Abu Ghraib in 2003, that they were unrelated to the interrogation of prisoners and that no torture occurred at the Guantanamo Bay prison where hundreds of terrorism suspects are held. The new documents establish beyond any doubt that every part of this cover story is false.




Though they represent only part of the record that lies in government files, the documents show that the abuse of prisoners was already occurring at Guantanamo in 2002 and continued in Iraq even after the outcry over the Abu Ghraib photographs. FBI agents reported in internal e-mails and memos about systematic abuses by military interrogators at the base in Cuba, including beatings, chokings, prolonged sleep deprivation and humiliations such as being wrapped in an Israeli flag. "On a couple of occasions I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water," an unidentified FBI agent wrote on Aug. 2, 2004. "Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18 to 24 hours or more." Two defense intelligence officials reported seeing prisoners severely beaten in Baghdad by members of a special operations unit, Task Force 6-26, in June. When they protested they were threatened and pictures they took were confiscated.

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Euro on the rise again

Oy

The U.S. dollar hit an all-time low Thursday against the euro, which breached the $1.35 mark after a mixed economic report from the U.S. Commerce Department.

The euro peaked at $1.3506 in thin trading at midday in New York, up more than a cent from $1.3381 late Wednesday. The previous high of $1.3470 was set Dec. 7.

The 12-nation currency has risen sharply since September, when it was trading for around $1.20, over persistent concerns about the ballooning U.S. trade and budget deficits.

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Lil' Kim about to be kicked out?

Has the littlest dictator lost control?

European policymakers have been advised to prepare for "sudden change" in North Korea amid growing speculation among diplomats and observers that Kim Jong Il is losing his grip on power. A European Union delegation to Pyongyang recommended a review of the union's policy toward the peninsula, including proposals for closer engagement with North Korea and contingency plans for a possible collapse of the reclusive state, the Guardian has learned.


The sense of urgency was prompted by reports of divisions within the North Korean leadership and expectations that the second Bush administration will intensify pressure on a country the U.S. president labeled part of an "axis of evil." Despite boasting about its nuclear deterrent, North Korea has been left on the diplomatic back burner for the past 12 months.





Six-country talks aimed at resolving one of the world's last Cold War conflicts have been postponed largely because the two main protagonists -- Washington and Pyongyang -- were awaiting the results of the U.S. presidential election. In the past month, however, the North Korean rumor mill has been working overtime. While no one is ever quite sure what is going on in one of the world's most closed countries, diplomats, intelligence agents, academics and defectors across the political spectrum and from several different countries are reporting signs of potentially destabilizing change.



There are strong indications of a power struggle centering on the successor to Kim Jong Il. Last weekend South Korean news agencies reported an assassination attempt on Kim Jong Nam, a son of the "Great Leader," while he was on a trip to Europe. The plan, which was foiled by Austrian police, is believed to have been hatched by supporters of a rival son.

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Salon.com Gift subscription

I do not celebrate Christmas but I do enjoy giving people stuff for free!

There are two gift subscriptions to Salon.com, a leading voice in real journalism and I link to them quite often so in the spirit of Christmas I am giving two one year subscriptions away.

Send me an E-mail and I will randomly pick the two lucky bastards who receives the gift of journalism.


E-mail address is smaftymac @ gmail dot com

Good luck!
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GOP Staffer caught stealing

Values are silly things I guess.

The House Small Business Committee's chief economist was charged by Capitol Police with the attempted theft of a plasma television Thursday night.

According to a Capitol Police memorandum, officers apprehended the suspect, Thomas Loo, in the Rayburn House Office Building at approximately 10 p.m. Thursday after a Financial Services Committee staff member discovered Loo removing a plasma television from a room on the building's second floor.

Daniel McGlinchey, a professional staff member of the Financial Services panel, said he entered the committee's overflow hearing room, Room 2220, shortly before 10 p.m. to retrieve items from his office, located in a connected room.

"There was this guy standing there, and on a dolly there was something large wrapped in cardboard," McGlinchey said in a telephone interview. "He seemed a little surprised to see me."

McGlinchey said he at first assumed the man, who was dressed "casually," was removing items from an earlier reception or other event in the hearing room. But when McGlinchey proceeded to enter his office, he looked back and noticed that the man, who had begun to remove the dolly from the room, seemed "agitated."

"Then I noticed the plasma TV on the wall is not there," said McGlinchey, who proceeded to follow the suspect.

"I went out to the hallway and said, `Is that our TV?," McGlinchey recalled. "What are you doing with our TV?"

According to McGlinchey, Loo's response was unintelligible and he continued to wheel the dolly toward a nearby elevator. "He was walking down the hall really fast, and I said, `You're not leaving with that TV until we talk to the police," he added.

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Media Bias myth

Read this and tell me this isn't biased

President Bush (news - web sites)'s campaign to make the tax code simpler, fairer and more pro-growth is likely to involve incremental changes to the current system rather than a sweeping effort to scrap the venerable income tax for a radically new approach, such as a national sales tax.

This isn't from Newsmax or World Net Daily, it's from the AP.
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Monica Crowley: Plagiarism queen



Oh those pesky Wingnuts!

Her new show starts on MSNBC in January....or better put MSGOP.

It's never good to get your hand caught in the cookie jar. But if caught you must be, Chatterbox recommends that you arrange for it to happen during the month of August, when the media get lazy and inattentive. The latest illustration of this principle is the lack of publicity surrounding some apparent plagiarism committed by Monica Crowley, Richard Nixon's former editorial adviser and research consultant, now a Fox News political analyst and author of two titillating books dishing "candid commentary" from her mentor, Nixon Off the Record, which had a splashy Clinton-bashing excerpt in The New Yorker, and Nixon in Winter. (Watch for Nixon From Beyond the Grave: His Thoughts on Clinton's Impeachment, The War in Kosovo, and the Harry Potter Craze, coming from Random House this fall.)

On August 9--the 25th anniversary of Richard Nixon's presidential resignation--the Wall Street Journal's editorial page published a Nixon apologia by Crowley headlined "The Day Nixon Said Goodbye." Four days later, the Journal ran an editor's note that read as follows: "There are striking similarities in phraseology between "The Day Richard Nixon Said Goodbye," an editorial feature Monday by Monica Crowley, and a 1988 article by Paul Johnson in Commentary magazine ... Had we known of the parallels, we would not have published the article." Pretty interesting, no? Yet a Nexis search conducted earlier today turned up only two other references to this incident--one in a New York Post gossip column that appeared the same day the Journal ran its editor's note, and one brief item that ran in the back of the New York Times' business section three days later.

What did she rip off you ask?

Let's proceed to the evidence:

From Johnson's "In Praise of Richard Nixon," Commentary, October 1988:

"There was none of the personal corruption which had marked the rule of Lyndon Johnson, let alone the gross immoralities and security risks of John F. Kennedy's White House."

From Crowley's "The Day Nixon Said Goodbye," Wall Street Journal, August 9, 1999:

"There was none of the personal corruption that had marked the rule of Lyndon Johnson or the base immoralities and outrageous security risks of the Kennedy and Clinton White Houses."

Johnson:

"Nixon ... consistently underestimated the unscrupulousness of his media enemies and their willingness to sacrifice the national interest in the pursuit of their institutional vendetta."

Crowley:

"Nixon, though always suspicious of his political enemies, consistently underestimated their ruthlessness and willingness to sacrifice the national interest in the pursuit of their institutional vendetta."

Johnson:

"So great was the inequity of Nixon's downfall that future historians may well conclude he would have been justified in allowing events to take their course and in subjecting the nation to the prolonged paralysis of a public impeachment, which at least would have given him the opportunity to defend himself by due process of law. But once again his patriotism took precedence over his self-interest ..."

Crowley:

"Given the inequity of Nixon's downfall, historians may yet determine that he would have been justified in allowing events to take their course and subjecting the country to a prolonged process of impeachment, which would have given him the chance to defend himself by due process of law. His allegiance to the country, however, overrode his political self-interest."

Johnson:

Characterizes the 1960 election as "one of the most corrupt elections of modern times."

Crowley:

Characterizes the 1960 election as "one of the most corrupt elections of modern times."

[This assertion, unlike the others, has some merit, and it's possible the two arrived at the phrase independent of one another; but given the other examples cited here, that likelihood is not great.]

Johnson:

"By a curious paradox Richard Nixon was one of the very few people who emerged from the Watergate affair with credit."

Crowley:

"Ironically, Nixon was one of the few people who emerged from Watergate with credit ..."

[Johnson is British, Crowley American; why would she, on her own, use a Britishism like "with credit"?]

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Bush poll numbers surprisingly low

All of this and Kerry still couldn't beat him, oy.

Republicans like to brag about the sweeping mandate that President Bush received on Election Day. But as he prepares for his second term, Bush approaches Inauguration Day with historically weak job-approval ratings, according to a series of new opinion polls. Unless there's a dramatic turnaround in public sentiment between now and Jan. 20, Bush will be sworn in to office with the lowest job-approval rating -- barely 50 percent -- of any president in the last 80 years, or since modern-day presidential polling began.


"It's striking how weak he is right now," says presidential historian Richard Shenkman, editor of George Mason University's History News Network. "You'd have to go back to Woodrow Wilson to find a president who was reelected in a position as weak as this one. There's been no euphoria around Bush's win."





Since his 3-percentage-point win over Sen. John Kerry, Bush has experienced a complete lack of bounce in the polls. In fact, in at least one national survey, Fox News' Opinion Dynamics poll, conducted Dec. 14-15, Bush's approval rating has fallen five points in the last month, to 48 percent. In other polls, including Washington Post-ABC, NBC/Wall Street Journal, Pew Research Center, Associated Press-Ipsos, Zogby, and Gallup, Bush's already soft approval numbers have flat-lined since the election. That phenomenon stands in sharp contrast to U.S. history, when presidents voted into office for a second term, even after close elections, routinely have received robust approval ratings.





According to an analysis posted on the Gallup Web site in mid-November, Bush's current 53 percent approval rating "is actually the lowest of any of the last seven presidents who won a second term in the first poll conducted after their re-election." Right after securing their second terms, Bill Clinton received a 58 percent approval rating, Ronald Reagan 61 percent, Richard Nixon 62 percent, Lyndon Johnson 70 percent, Dwight Eisenhower 75 percent, and Harry Truman 69 percent.



Not only is Bush's 50 percent approval rating dismal for a two-term president, it's arguably the worst for any president about to be sworn into office. The only other modern-day president with such shaky approval ratings immediately following an election win was Reagan. According to a January 1981 Gallup poll, his job approval rating stood at just 51 percent. (Since Gallup began polling in 1937, Bush and Reagan are the only two presidents to take office with job approval ratings that low.) The difference between Reagan and Bush, though, was that Reagan's disapproval rating at the time was just 13 percent. Today, Bush's negative rating hovers in the 40s. "His high disapproval numbers are astonishing," says Shenkman.

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Did President Bush issue an Executive Order authorizing the use of torture against detainees in Iraq?

The ACLU seems to think so, in fact they might even have the goods on him!

A document released for the first time today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq. Also released by the ACLU today are a slew of other records including a December 2003 FBI e-mail that characterizes methods used by the Defense Department as "torture" and a June 2004 "Urgent Report" to the Director of the FBI that raises concerns that abuse of detainees is being covered up.

"These documents raise grave questions about where the blame for widespread detainee abuse ultimately rests," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "Top government officials can no longer hide from public scrutiny by pointing the finger at a few low-ranking soldiers."

The documents were obtained after the ACLU and other public interest organizations filed a lawsuit against the government for failing to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The two-page e-mail that references an Executive Order states that the President directly authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The ACLU is urging the White House to confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately to release the order if it exists. The FBI e-mail, which was sent in May 2004 from "On Scene Commander--Baghdad" to a handful of senior FBI officials, notes that the FBI has prohibited its agents from employing the techniques that the President is said to have authorized.

Another e-mail, dated December 2003, describes an incident in which Defense Department interrogators at Guantánamo Bay impersonated FBI agents while using "torture techniques" against a detainee. The e-mail concludes "If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done [sic] the ‘FBI’ interrogators. The FBI will [sic] left holding the bag before the public."

The document also says that no "intelligence of a threat neutralization nature" was garnered by the "FBI" interrogation, and that the FBI’s Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF) believes that the Defense Department’s actions have destroyed any chance of prosecuting the detainee. The e-mail’s author writes that he or she is documenting the incident "in order to protect the FBI."

"The methods that the Defense Department has adopted are illegal, immoral, and counterproductive," said ACLU staff attorney Jameel Jaffer. "It is astounding that these methods appear to have been adopted as a matter of policy by the highest levels of government."

I may be wrong but I do believe this veers into the realm of impeachment, the President cannot issue executive orders like this. I believe he would have to get Congressional approval because this goes against the Geneva convention and technically it's a constitutional issue and something the Supreme Court will have to be involved in.

IF this is true!
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Take it easy tonight!



Don't wait up!
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In only four counties in the United States minimum wage is enough to support yourself

Living wage anyone?

In only four of the nation's 3,066 counties can someone working full-time and earning federal minimum wage afford to pay rent and utilities on a one-bedroom apartment, an advocacy group on low-income housing reported Monday.

A two-bedroom rental is even more of a burden -- the typical worker must earn at least $15.37 an hour to pay rent and utilities, the National Low Income Housing Coalition said in its annual "Out of Reach" report. That's nearly three times the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour.

"You get pushed into a situation where some necessities don't get paid for" because more salary must be devoted to housing, said Sheila Crowley, the coalition's executive director. "For people on low-wage fixed incomes, that's a chronic way of life."

About 36 million homes in the United States are rented. Roughly 80 percent of renter homes are located in nearly 1,000 counties in which a family must work over 80 hours a week -- or more than two full-time jobs -- at minimum wage to afford the typical two-bedroom apartment, the coalition said.

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Pinochet murder trial goes on

Jesus, will they just convict this piece of shit already, he's 89 years old the window is just about shut, he had a stroke last week hurry up!

The former military leader, 89, was charged last week with murder and kidnapping, but his lawyers contested the lower court decision.

Gen Pinochet is in hospital after reportedly suffering a stroke. Doctors say he is conscious and no longer in a critical condition.

Prosecution lawyers said the reported illness was a political "manoeuvre".




"When there isn't a court decision, nothing happens," Juan Pavin told the BBC.

But Gen Pinochet's supporters said the illness was genuine.

"The truth is that an 89-year-old person with his illnesses probably has permanent health problems," retired general Guillermo Garin told the AFP news agency.

Gen Pinochet was taken ill on Saturday after reportedly feeling ill during breakfast

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The haves are buying alot, the Have-Nots aren't.

So much for the booming economy for the middle class!

This holiday season, Vincent Cassanetti, 60, a wealthy retired business owner, is helping to keep luxury sales booming.

The Palm Beach, Fla., resident has spent $50,000 on gifts for his wife and children, including $600 shoes from Jimmy Choo and Chanel, as well as designer handbags, jewelry and clothing. That's up from about $35,000 a year ago.

"This is a really good Christmas," he said.

But that's less the case for Eileen Brosko, 70, a retiree who has seen her stock portfolio dwindle to a quarter of its value a few years ago.

"At my age, I am not doing too much buying. I don't feel secure," said the Parsippany, N.J., resident. She, her husband and their family exchanged names and are limiting the price of gifts to no more than $50 each. For her grandchildren, she bought tickets to a show at Radio City Music Hall.

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Tucker Carlson gets new MSNBC show!



The bow tied mother fucker gains a chair on MSGOP

MSNBC is close to signing a deal with CNN's Tucker Carlson, paving the way for the conservative Crossfire co-host to fill the 9:00pm primetime position soon to be vacated by Deborah Norville.

MSNBC staffers have been buzzing about the possibility in recent days, three sources told TVNewser. One insider speculated that Carlson's program would attract new viewers to the network, but more importantly, "it shows that MSNBC is a priority and folks are trying their darndest to make it work."

Carlson feels that CNN hasn't treated him well, a source said. MSNBC executives, on the other hand, are thrilled by the guy in the bow tie.

Outfoxing FOX doesn't make the news worth a damn thing if it's all about ratings!
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Problems in Iraq because of Clinton, not Rumsfeld

Short of cancer (maybe) what else will Clinton be blamed for?

U.S. Sen. James M. Inhofe said Thursday that cutbacks during the Clinton administration resulted in the lack of armor and other material faced by U.S. troops in Iraq.

"Eight years of Bill Clinton decimated the military to almost half of what it was in 1990," he said during a stop in Muskogee.

The Oklahoma Republican, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that in 1991, U.S. armed forces were armed with "a Reagan military," and had more funding and ordinance.

However under Clinton, projects were cut and "modernization stopped."

The Army and the Pentagon have come under sharp attack for the lack of armor on many of the Humvees, trucks and other vehicles U.S. troops use in Iraq. Insurgents using roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades have regularly targeted military vehicles, killing numerous U.S. troops.

Criticism intensified last week after a U.S. soldier complained publicly to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Kuwait that troops had to scrounge in landfills for scrap metal to protect their vehicles.

The Army said Wednesday it would spend $4.1 billion to armor all military wheeled vehicles in Iraq by June, with most of the money expected to be used on trucks.

Inhofe said Rumsfeld in his confirmation hearing addressed the need to fund the military.

Inhofe said that during war, the U.S. historically spends 5.7 percent of its gross domestic product on military needs.

Sen. Inhofe is the one who said he was "Outraged by the outrage" in regards to Abu Graib.

Bosnia was an affective police action, we stopped genocide, installed a democracy and not one America life was lost, Clinton let the military handle all of it and it worked out great.
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Smafty's Birthday

As many of you know I don't celebrate my birthday however that doesn't stop me from being nagged about celebrating it. Actually, I can be a real dick about it if looks like I got presents I return them, if I get the slightest sense that I someone will sing or something else I'll leave town.

On my 18th I decided to let my Dad and Step mother take me out, to be nice to them and they knew about my hating birthdays and not wanting to be made into a big deal. So they did the one thing I will never forgive, getting the fucking waiters and Waitresses to sing happy birthday to me. I told them if that kind of thing happens I'm leaving, they called what they thought was my bluff, they came over to sing and I picked up my coat and left, didn't see either one for about 11 months afterwards.

So you see they were in the wrong but I clearly overreached to the situation, if that were to ever happen again I'd be pissed and abruptly leave no different than when I was 18 but I know it's me just being an Ashley. Now if this were a girlfriend who did that, I can live with and obviously be on my best behavior but family, no dice.
So in order to be nice I have to bend a little, show I appreciate their gestures even if I repeatedly tell them to just leave me alone or celebrate one of the other 5 billion people on the planet.

My friends and family who wants to leave a message for me, I won't delete it.

But...

You have to put up with some introspection, HA HA!

This birthday is my 25th which officially marks the start of my mid twenties. God damn it's weird being twenty five already I don't feel any older than I did when I was in High school, it seems farther away and it's true that you cannot go home again but damn.

For the younger readers, I was told when I was 17 that no matter where you are in life when you hit 25 you're going to feel like you've accomplished nothing, there's nothing to show for that quarter century of your life and everything feels like a dead end and it is so true. The curse of the 25 has effected everyone I know, absolutely nothing is good enough to the image of yourself in your head, I believe this is an evolutionary trait; stay with me on this.

This sense of being a loser motivates you beyond almost anything to get going in a new direction or going faster, whatever. This sense is pushing you to be better than you are, to change, to expand, grow...Evolve?

It just feels like I could be doing more, professionally, personally and politically.


So there is your introspection, I hope you enjoyed it, please leave your birthday greetings underneath where it says comment.
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Home repair day sucks

Every so often I indulge in the draining task of routine repairs and tweaks to my living space.

My project to day was the Bathroom, my, oh my, the bathroom.

That poor neglected room, you would think a room that important would be first on list for the routine fixes, I mean you're in there everyday and you see what needs to be done it's not like you can avoid it because a normal person will lock on the problems and say they should do something about that, if anything gets done is a whole other matter. No likes cleaning up the bathroom, well maybe people with OCD but they're freaks. The task demands more than just the half ass job you usually do and admit it if you don't have to the bathroom gets the smells/looks ok blow off, I am man enough to admit that.

Scrubbing walls and moping, sweeping things up, CLR'ing the hell out of the faucets just sucks, also "some how" the Bathtub has a huge hole on the side, how it got there is a complete mystery so I had to obviously seal up the gaping hole; my introduction to Fiberglass repair 101. A few rules to remember when repairing Fiberglas goes as follows:

Rule one: The Bonding agents will give you a serious chemical burn so don't use bare hands or be stupid enough to forget to put on your gloves when removing the box you mixed the said bonding solution in, you'll lose your fingerprints for about 3 weeks.

Rule two: Match the colors, seriously, I have this big white patch on my tacky yellow tub not I could fix it, if I got a time machine, traveled back 5 hours and used the color agent.

Even with these little problems it went pretty damn smooth so by tomorrow morning it should be sealed and ready to go.


When I have a project I turn to the love that won't betray, music. Doing projects and listening to music goes and in hand so since I knew I would be in the bathroom cleaning all day and not because of a bad burrito I decided to pull out my old mix CDs. The mix CD in the techie world is different from what an average person would do, when I bought my first CD burner I did what everyone else did randomly chose songs to burn, it didn't matter just turn on Winamp hit random and whatever came up burn it to disk, I have at least fifty of these damn things so I had plenty of tunes playing all day. When working I enjoy music that makes me laugh, not comedy mind you but unintentionally funny such as "Heaven is a place on Earth" by Belinda Carlie or "Man Eater" by Hall and Oates, the songs that boggle the mind at how they could actually put it on an album and say it's really good, Imagine Daryle Hall telling John Oates, "This man Eater song is GOOOOD, it's the shit man!" and Oates going "I know, it's really speaking to me man!". Absurdly popular music puts me in a great mood so I hunted for the most absurd, luckily I found a mix tape from the soundtrack of Top Gun. Nothing speaks more to irony than belting out Kenny loggins songs while scrubbing a toilet, and of course I know all of the words to the songs on that sound track, I loved Top Gun when I was a kid and the sound track was really cool to a 7 year old, it wasn't until my early teens and another viewing of Top Gun that changed that opinion. It dawned on me that the movie was REALLY GAY, I have no problem with Homosexuality or Homosexuals of course but I mean this movie was REALLY GAY, when Goose died Maverick took his dead harder than his wife did and that song from Loggins "Playing with the boys", um, no I won't be and the repressed sexual tension between ice and Maverick, how did I miss how gay this movie was, I compare it to how people in the Seventies didn't know Elton John was gay, it was very apparent but we didn't want to see it. So this added to the joy of mocking this terrible soundtrack and horrible movie.

As I said before I was singing to the music because I know the lyrics and it just cracks me up singing lame music, I also have an open door policy where if cleaning something I leave the door open and people walk past hearing me belt out "Mighty Wings" and since I caught Mono back in '99 my once American Idol finalist singing voice is now tone deaf and cannot carry a tune, which adds to the humor. It's fun performing for an audience again especially if you cannot sing and you miss hitting those notes like it's going out of fashion.

I was a KP on a military base in High school so I know sanitation and cleaning to kill. Working that close with the California National Guard was a very demanding experience, you would not believe the shit, literal and figurative I clean. The messed these guys made in the bathroom was ungodly and shocking. Smeared shit on the wall, vomit on the floor, Cum, yes spooge on the toilet paper and the stalls and the ground from when the ladies got together with the guys or the guys got together with the guys, my clean bathroom became a giant glory hole. So I learned how to clean the hell out of everything and became quite good at my job, not the type of job you want to be good at but hey it helps out at home. Bleach and myself have become good friends over the years it got to the point from all of the cleaning I could clean using undiluted bleach and other cleaners without gloves without the nasty side effects. My bathrooms smells of Bleach and Pine Sol, in my former profession it would smell like victory, Mission accomplished and not in the Bush in the flight suit way either.

I had to lay to rest my sole Bathroom plant, tragic lose on my part. The bathroom plants I own suck, I had one Bamboo plant that thrived and great, it's such a great plant I graduated it to my desk when I had an 8-5 and it's still growing like a mother, yet the others don't. So I found a solution to the problem, I have a fountain that I can use to fill that space and I can still get some more plants, and I love plants. I had a small tree in my room until it died a week after I bought it, the local Target had a problem with a nasty fungus and did nothing about it, my tree caught it showed no signs until about the second day and so I fought the Fungus but it was too much for the tree but I believe this fountain will do the trick for now, I might even throw in a Buddha statue to see how it looks.

Today was a good day, got the work done and tomorrow I can just sleep in with a sense of accomplishment...And I just noticed I wrote a whole lot more than I intended to, LOL.

Oh yeah if you are waiting for my reply to the hate mail you sent me because of the from my Hannity is a moron Post, you need to wait a little while longer, I've received so damn many it's hard to keep up, especially with some of them being more scholarly than "French faggit Butt fucking Commie" I usually get, so please be patient!


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Slow day!!!

Today has been really slow, nothing going on.
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Dubya: Time's man of the year



And you thought Dear Leader had an Ego before, all he needs now are more billboards and maybe so t-shirts and he'll finish his slide into wanna dictator.
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Work day

Posting will be ligth, have to get some routine house fixer-uppers done will be back in a few hours!
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Almost half of Americans believe Muslims should lose civil rights

This is why we don't have mob rule!

Nearly half of all Americans believe the U.S. government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim Americans, according to a nationwide poll.


The survey conducted by Cornell University also found that Republicans and people who described themselves as highly religious were more apt to support curtailing Muslims' civil liberties than Democrats or people who are less religious.





Researchers also found that respondents who paid more attention to television news were more likely to fear terrorist attacks and support limiting the rights of Muslim Americans.



"It's sad news. It's disturbing news. But it's not unpredictable," said Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society. "The nation is at war, even if it's not a traditional war. We just have to remain vigilant and continue to interface."




The survey found 44 percent favored at least some restrictions on the civil liberties of Muslim Americans. Forty-eight percent said liberties should not be restricted in any way.



The survey showed that 27 percent of respondents supported requiring all Muslim Americans to register where they lived with the federal government. Twenty-two percent favored racial profiling to identify potential terrorist threats. And 29 percent thought undercover agents should infiltrate Muslim civic and volunteer organizations to keep tabs on their activities and fund-raising.

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Romer has support for the DNC chair from both Democrat leaders in Congress

This guy will hurt Dems, what favors are they trying to garner?

Amid strong competition over who will lead the party as the next Democratic National Committee chairman, former Indiana congressman and 9/11 commission member Tim Roemer has emerged as a possible new candidate.

He has the strong backing of Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, senior party sources told CNN Tuesday.

Roemer, in a written statement, confirmed that he had been approached about the post. While he was noncommittal, he indicated he is open to the idea.

"I have been approached very recently by several prominent Democrats inquiring about my interest in seeking the post of DNC chair," he said. "While I am flattered by their confidence in me, I have made no formal decision to seek the post. I am, however, consulting with my family, friends and Democrats around the country to assess this potential opportunity, and expect to make a decision very soon. The new DNC chair will have an important role to play in helping shape the future organization, message and direction of the party, and it's an exciting opportunity for whoever takes on the task."

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Kansas strikes down the Death Penalty

This is big!

he Kansas Supreme Court struck down the state's death penalty law yesterday, saying that the way it required juries to consider sentences for capital murder violated the Constitution.

The court did not rule that the death penalty as such was unconstitutional, however, and the Kansas Legislature is free to enact a new law that addresses the court's concerns.



The decision overturned the death sentences of all six people on Kansas' death row, said Ron Keefover, a spokesman for the court. When they are sentenced again, he said, they can still face life in prison.

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Irony is very much alive!



Exactly, supporting the troops my ass!

I see more of those Goddamn Hummers everyday, it's like a plague of Locusts you can't see around them, they make wide ass turns and they all have Bush/Cheney stickers on them; Mechanical gluten slapped with a Bush sticker, no irony there.

Where is the sacrifice for our troops?
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Are Centrists killing the Democrats?

A very good article from David Sirota!

Looking out over Washington, DC, from his plush office, Al From is once again foaming at the mouth. The CEO of the corporate-sponsored Democratic Leadership Council and his wealthy cronies are in their regular postelection attack mode. Despite wins by economic populists in red states like Colorado and Montana this year, the DLC is claiming like a broken record that progressive policies are hurting the Democratic Party.



From's group is funded by huge contributions from multinationals like Philip Morris, Texaco, Enron and Merck, which have all, at one point or another, slathered the DLC with cash. Those resources have been used to push a nakedly corporate agenda under the guise of "centrism" while allowing the DLC to parrot GOP criticism of populist Democrats as far-left extremists. Worse, the mainstream media follow suit, characterizing progressive positions on everything from trade to healthcare to taxes as ultra-liberal. As the AP recently claimed, "party liberals argue that the party must energize its base by moving to the left" while "the DLC and other centrist groups argue that the party must court moderates and find a way to compete in the Midwest and South."





Is this really true? Is a corporate agenda really "centrism"? Or is it only "centrist" among Washington's media elite, influence peddlers and out-of-touch political class?

Moderates don't get elected because they look weak and unsure, lacking Core Values!


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Russ Feingold for President?

A very interesting concept, he's probably one of the only Senators left I would support in the primaries.

We agree on most of the issues, he is who he says he is.

The only two potential problems I could see popping up are his views on abortion (He has a 100% rating from NOW and NARAL)

Feingold is also a Jew, the Christian right will show who they are once more.

IF he ran, I would vote for him especially in the primaries over a Hillary Clinton or John Kerry.
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Krugman

Read!

s the Bush administration tries to persuade America to convert Social Security into a giant 401(k), we can learn a lot from other countries that have already gone down that road.

Information about other countries' experience with privatization isn't hard to find. For example, the Century Foundation, at www.tcf.org, provides a wide range of links.

Yet, aside from giving the Cato Institute and other organizations promoting Social Security privatization the space to present upbeat tales from Chile, the U.S. news media have provided their readers and viewers with little information about international experience. In particular, the public hasn't been let in on two open secrets:

Privatization dissipates a large fraction of workers' contributions on fees to investment companies.

It leaves many retirees in poverty.

Decades of conservative marketing have convinced Americans that government programs always create bloated bureaucracies, while the private sector is always lean and efficient. But when it comes to retirement security, the opposite is true. More than 99 percent of Social Security's revenues go toward benefits, and less than 1 percent for overhead. In Chile's system, management fees are around 20 times as high. And that's a typical number for privatized systems.

These fees cut sharply into the returns individuals can expect on their accounts. In Britain, which has had a privatized system since the days of Margaret Thatcher, alarm over the large fees charged by some investment companies eventually led government regulators to impose a "charge cap." Even so, fees continue to take a large bite out of British retirement savings.

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Rummy to sign all condolence letter personally now!

Rummy got caught using a machine to sign the letters that are send to our fallen soldiers families, why?

The Bastard got caught!

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will begin personally signing condolence letters sent to families of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, after receiving criticism over his use of mechanical signatures.



In a statement provided to Stars and Stripes on Thursday, Rumsfeld tacitly admitted that in the past he has not personally signed the letters, but said he was responsible for writing and approving each of the 1,000-plus messages sent to the fallen soldiers’ families.



“I have directed that in the future I sign each letter,” he said in the statement.



“I am deeply grateful for the many letters I have received from the families of those who have been killed in the service of our country, and I recognize and honor their personal loss.”



In a separate statement, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said, “In the interest of ensuring timely contact with grieving family members, he has not individually signed each letter.”



Department of Defense officials for the past few weeks had said only that the content of the letters was private.



But several families of troops killed overseas said they were sure the notes they received had not been signed by hand, and said they were angry that Rumsfeld was not paying attention to their loss.



“To me it’s an insult, not only as someone who lost a loved one but also as someone who served in Iraq,” Army Spc. Ivan Medina told Stripes.



“This doesn’t show our families the respect they deserve,” said Medina, a New York resident whose twin brother, Irving, was killed in a roadside bombing in Iraq this summer.



Illinois resident Bette Sullivan, whose son John was killed in November 2003 while working as an Army mechanic in Iraq, was incensed when she, her son’s wife and her grandchildren received the exact same condolence letter with the apparently stamped signature.

This is the reason Wolfowitz didn't know how many Americans had died over there when asked, it's numbers to them, their ideology trumps humanity!
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Did Kerik and the White House lie about the illegal Nanny?

The White House lie?, what's next needless wars for oil?

Last night, Mr. Kerik was told that skeptics in city government circles were questioning the very existence of the nanny, and he was pressed to provide any kind of evidence to document that she was real. But after taking time to consider the request, Mr. Kerik again decided to remain silent on the subject.

The Kerik scandal is perfect for this time of year, it's the gift that keeps on giving!

Merry Fuckin' Christmas!
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David Brock's letter to Bill O'Reilly

David send him a nice little letter, enjoy it!

You once offered your viewers your definition of the word "coward." On the January 5, 2004, O'Reilly Factor, you declared: "If you attack someone publicly, as these men did to me, you have an obligation to face the person you are smearing. If you don't, you are a coward."




Well, Mr. O'Reilly, you have attacked me publicly on numerous occasions, and you refuse to face me. You, sir, are a coward -- by your own definition of the term. You are "hiding under your desk" (to paraphrase your August 26, 2003, claim about a "coward" who declined to appear on your show) rather than allowing me on your program to discuss your insults. You are "gutless," to borrow the phrase you used on January 10, 2003, and February 8, 2001, to describe people who would not appear on your program. I attach additional examples of your pejorative descriptions of those who decline invitations to appear on your broadcast.




Your frequent complaint that your words are taken out of context appears to have spurred your recent assault on my organization. While reasonable people can disagree about conclusions we, or you, have drawn about your comments, you are simply wrong to say that we took you out of context. I remain willing and eager to appear on either your television or radio program to discuss your contention that my organization has taken your comments out of context.




Should you continue to refuse this offer, it is only reasonable that the American people will conclude that you are not only -- as you would put it -- a "coward," but a hypocrite as well.





Sincerely,





David Brock
President and CEO
Media Matters for America

Damnit I really like that letter!
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Problems for our Military abound

No good, even the boys are desserting them!

Griping among the troops is as old as armed conflict, illustrated most memorably by cartoonist Bill Mauldin's "Willie and Joe" characters during World War II. But something more than that is happening now in Iraq with what appears to be growing resistance from the troops.





Evidence includes numbers of deserters (reportedly in the thousands), resignations of reserve officers, lawsuits by those whose duty period has been involuntarily extended, and a refusal to go on dangerous missions without proper equipment. There's also been a willingness at grunt level to publicly challenge the Pentagon - as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld found out recently in a trip to the war zone, where he got an earful about unarmored humvees.





While some don't see much defiance - and, in fact, have been surprised by the depth of solidarity - others see an unusual amount of tension surfacing for an all-volunteer military force.






"What is driving the resistance is the same thing that drove it during Vietnam - a lack of trust in the civilian leadership and a sense that the uniformed leaders are not standing up for the forces," says retired Army Col. Dan Smith, a military analyst with the Friends Committee on National Legislation in Washington. Colonel Smith doesn't expect the kind of "fragging" incidents that occurred in Vietnam where soldiers attacked their own officers. "This force is too professional," he says. "But the lack of trust and the inequity of the tours will very likely be reflected in the numbers of Guard and reservists who vote no-confidence with their feet."






That already appears to be happening. The Army National Guard is short 5,000 new citizen-soldiers.

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More Detailed torture in Iraq

Isn't this just another nail in our casket?

Marines operating in Iraq (news - web sites) over the past two years committed a variety of abuses against Iraqi prisoners, including burning a detainee's hands by igniting alcohol-based cleanser in August 2003, according to internal Defense Department documents released yesterday.



Several other incidents, most of them previously undisclosed, are described in investigative reports and legal summaries. In Karbala in May 2003, one Marine held a 9mm pistol to the back of a bound detainee's head while another took a photograph. Two months later, in Diwaniyah, four Marines ordered teenage Iraqi looters to kneel alongside holes and then fired a pistol "to conduct a mock execution."





In April of this year, shortly before the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal shook the U.S. military, three Marines in Mahmudiya shocked a detainee with an electric transformer, forcing him to "dance" as the electricity hit him, according to a witness, one document states. The Washington Post reported that incident in June, after two of the Marines pleaded guilty in the case.





This new catalogue of abuses involves members of a variety of units, and is distinct from earlier disclosures of the torture of prisoners by Army reservists at Abu Ghraib and the maltreatment of detainees in Afghanistan (news - web sites) by Army soldiers and Special Operations troops.

I'm not anti-American and I support our troops, I just remember an America that didn't condone torture, an America that knew it was barbaric and savage and a terrible way of gathering intel, what happened to that America?
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New Iraqi Polls

These numbers are so bad, so those hearts and minds have been won...by the Mullahs.

My allegation that the IraqTheModel website is far outside the norm of Iraqi public opinion as measured by polling has caused a stir in the weblogging world among, apparently, dittoheads who can't read polls.

Here are the results of an April, 2004, Gallup poll, which was scientifically weighted and involved over 3000 face-to-face interviews all over the country.


On Balance, do you think of the Americans mostly as Occupiers or liberators?

Occupiers: 71 %
Liberators 19%

(43% reported that in April 2003, they had thought of the Americans as liberators).

How have the US Forces Conducted themselves?

58% said "fairly badly" or "very badly."

Asked if the US was serious about establishing democracy in Iraq:

50% said "no."
12% said "don't know."

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I'm outta here!

Relax, it's just for the day I will be out of town for today.

If you're so inclined I made a quick Bio, it's nothing more than some interesting facts about me!!

Check it out here

Tell me what you think, good or bad!
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Sinclairaction.com

Hit Sinclair!

A coalition of liberal political groups is launching a nationwide protest against Sinclair Broadcast Group, charging that the 62-station TV broadcaster, which was also the target of intense criticism during the presidential campaign, is misusing public airwaves with partisan news programming.

The groups, led by Media Matters for America, today will announce a campaign to pressure Sinclair's advertisers with letters. The groups, however, are stopping short of demanding an advertiser boycott.

The campaign is one of the first broad attempts to reenergize liberal political activists in the wake of the Democrats' electoral defeat in November.

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George Tenet to receive a Presidential medal of Freedom

This douche bag partly to blame for 9/11 and the Iraq Intel fiasco and he's getting a medal, failing up is this administration's specialty

Paul Bremmer and Tommy Franks are getting them as well.
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Trade deficit expands

But the Economy is going great!

America's trade deficit swelled to an all-time high of $55.5 billion in October as imports - including those from China - surged to the loftiest levels on record. Skyrocketing crude-oil prices also contributed to the yawning trade gap.

The latest snapshot of trade activity, reported by the Commerce Department on Tuesday, showed the country's trade imbalance widening by a sizable 8.9 percent in October from the previous month - despite the fact that U.S. exports registered their best month ever on record.

The growth in imports, however, dwarfed the pace of exports in October, producing another bloated trade gap. The trade deficit was much bigger than the $52.4 billion imbalance economists were forecasting.

Imports of goods and services climbed to a record high of $153.5 billion in October, representing a 3.4 percent increase from September.

Next paycheck ask your boss if you could have it cashed into Euros

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Kerik's Secret wife

Another scandal from the corrupt Commish.

First there was "The Lost Son." Now comes the lost wife.

Investigators conducting a background check of Bernard Kerik last week as part of his confirmation hearing uncovered that the then-Secretary of Homeland Security nominee was married to a woman he has apparently kept a secret for the past 20 years.

Friends of his said they were not aware of the woman, and Kerik did not acknowledge the marriage in his best-selling autobiography, "The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice."

Instead, he wrote about only two marriages, one to a New Jersey woman named Jacqueline, whom he married in 1983 when he was 28, and one to his current wife, Hala, whom he married in 1998.

But Kerik, who withdrew his name for consideration for the nation's top security post on Friday, was also married to the former Linda Hales in North Carolina.

Kerik and Hales, who has since remarried and changed her name to Priest, were married Aug. 10, 1978, when she was 27 and he was three weeks shy of 24, according to her lawyer, Ronnie Mitchell. They separated in 1982 and were officially divorced June 6, 1983, Mitchell told Newsday.

The reason this is important even though he withdrew his name is Alberto Gonzales is the one who vetted Kerik BEFORE Bush named him HS chief. It took Newsweek 3 days to find the dirt on Kerik and the guy Bush wants appointed to the top Law enforcement officer position in our government didn't find anything and approved of him.

The attorney General is going to have to make decisions based on knowing all of the facts, we're looking at reason #1 why a group of "Yes Men" are bad choices for Cabinet positions. Bush liked Kerik because he was a tough guy and look where it got them, thrown into scandal.

Feeling better about the next four years?
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Reporter who exposed CIA-Contra, Drug Smuggler connection apperently kills self

Here is an article from The Nation written by David Corn, it's very fair to Mr.Webb.

I know it's a day late but this is the best treatment I've found on the net.

Gary Webb is dead.



He was the journalist who wrote a famous--or infamous--1996 series for the San Jose Mercury News that maintained a CIA-supported drug ring based in Los Angeles had triggered the crack epidemic of the 1980s. On Friday, the 49-year-old Webb, who won a Pulitzer Prize for other work, apparently shot himself. His "Dark Alliances" articles spurred outrage and controversy. Leaders of the African-American community demanded investigations. Mainstream newspapers--including The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times--questioned his findings. And nearly a year after the pieces appeared, the Mercury News published a criticism of the series; Webb was demoted and soon left the newspaper. Two years later, he published a book based on the series.



Webb's tale is a sad one. He was on to something but botched part of how he handled it. He then was blasted and ostracized. He was wrong on some important details but he was, in a way, closer to the truth than many of his establishment media critics who neglected the story of the real CIA-contra-cocaine connection. In 1998, a CIA inspector general's report acknowledged that the CIA had indeed worked with suspected drugrunners while supporting the contras. A Senator named John Kerry had investigated these links years earlier, and the media had mostly ignored his findings. After Webb published his articles, the media spent more time crushing Webb than pursuing the full story. It is only because of Webb's work--as flawed as it was--that the CIA IG inquiry happened. So, then, it is only because of Webb that US citizens have confirmation from the CIA that it partnered up with suspected drug traffickers in the just-say-no years and that the Reagan Administration, consumed with a desire to overthrow the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, allied itself with drug thugs.

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Joe Conason

Read

When a courageous Army specialist confronted Donald Rumsfeld over the insufficient armor on military vehicles at a "town hall" meeting in Kuwait on Dec. 8, the secretary of defense may well have felt an unpleasant twinge of déjà vu.


Perhaps Rumsfeld recalled (as the reporters accompanying him on last week's trip apparently did not) that he had heard precisely the same complaint at a similar town hall meeting in Baghdad -- seven months ago.






That May 13 assembly was the last stop on a lightning visit to Iraq by the defense secretary that featured a speech at the Abu Ghraib detention camp. Aiming to preserve morale as well as his own job, he was no doubt preoccupied by the prisoner abuse scandal. Critics at home were already demanding his resignation, but the American troops seemed glad to see their civilian chief when he showed up to talk with them at one of Saddam Hussein's palaces.




In contrast to the strange answer he offered last week, when he provoked a national uproar by snappishly informing the troops that armor doesn't always work, Rumsfeld reacted quite differently last May. Back then, in fact, he offered no answer at all. But there's no doubt he was listening when the issue of inadequate armor came up in Baghdad. (There is also little doubt that, whatever he may think about armor's efficacy against roadside bombs, the secretary doesn't lack for hard protection when traveling in Iraq and Kuwait.)

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Company chief in charge of fixing florida voting roles has apartheid ties

Obviously this could be a problem!

A lead director of the company hired by Florida to fix the state’s controversial felon voting rolls is also chairman of a company many regard as a former pillar of South African apartheid, RAW STORY has discovered.



Since joining the board of African mining conglomerate Anglo American plc a year ago, Sir Mark Moody-Stuart has sought to fend off class-action lawsuits from laborers and Africans who allege the company played a major role in propping up South Africa’s former apartheid government.



Moody-Stuart is lead external director of Accenture, the Arthur Anderson spinoff, which Florida hired to repair issues of eligibility the state’s central voting list. The list disenfranchised thousands of voters—many of them African American—in the 2000 presidential election cycle.



Contracted in 2001 for roughly $2.2 million, Accenture was hired to address voting eligibility issues which wrongly listed African-Americans as felons and thereby rendered them ineligible to vote under Florida law.



After three years on the project, the new list was scrapped July 10 of this year when the media and other watch groups discovered the list enfranchised Hispanic felons, without fully resolving eligibility issues of African Americans.



Miami-Dade, for example, received a filtered list from the state of more than 17,000 names, with only 14 of those wrongly identified as felons restored to the voting rolls. Some noted that Florida’s African Americans tend to vote Democratic, while Hispanics—in part due to the state’s Cuban-American population—tend to vote Republican.



Accenture also failed to comply with a 2000 NAACP settlement which required the firm to notify them and the U.S. Justice Department of project changes.



The Florida Inspector General’s Office issued a scathing 50-page audit on Nov. 22 addressing Accenture’s and the Division of Elections’ mismanagement of the project. The audit said inadequate project management within the state elections division created most of the problems.



Asked who was responsible for the failures, Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood [R] blamed “elections staffers who were handling the 2004 list [who] had other duties and little time to supervise preparation.” Hood did not elaborate as to what the other duties were.



Moody-Stuart joined the board of Accenture in October 2001. His long career spans decades at Royal Dutch Shell, which he chaired from 1998-2001, and Anglo American, which he joined in 2003. Both companies are the target of ongoing class-action apartheid suits.



In 2003, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended that the country’s businesses be made to pay reparations to victims of apartheid unless they offer to play a more substantial role in reconstructing the country. The commission singled out three business sectors that benefited particularly from apartheid policies—singling out jointly-owned government companies, Swiss banks and particular mining companies such as Anglo American.



Anglo American rebuffed the idea, saying that past was behind them. Anglo director of corporate affairs Michael Spicer told South Africa’s Business Day in March 2003 that the firm did not consider reparations appropriate when “both the business and political environments had changed significantly.”



During the 1980s, Shell, among other traders, supplied the apartheid regime with oil even after repeated votes in the United Nations General Assembly for an embargo.



Roughly 15 million tons of crude oil reached apartheid South Africa every year, the Guardian’s David Pallister reported in May, 2001. While the oil had a value of $3 billion, South Africa paid an extra premium—as much as 80 percent above market price—as a bonus to companies willing to carry on the clandestine trade, the Guardian noted.

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Afghan war still being waged

Remember that one war we had where we didn't finish the job? Well you should, we're still fighting it!

The U.S. military said Saturday that it hoped the new push, dubbed Lightning Freedom, would convince insurgents to accept an amnesty pushed by President Hamid Karzai to help stabilize the country and allow foreign troops to pull back.

"It's designed basically to search out and destroy the remaining remnants of Taliban forces who traditionally we believe go to ground during the winter months," spokesman Maj. Mark McCann said. "It's going on throughout the country of Afghanistan."

The operation was initiated after Karzai's inauguration Tuesday as the country's first democratically elected president, McCann said. He didn't know exactly when it began and gave no details of any specific moves against militant targets.

However, Maj. Gen. Eric Olson, the No. 2 American commander here, told The Associated Press last month that the operation would include a redeployment to tighten security on the border with Pakistan and raids by special forces to snatch rebel leaders.

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Liberman being floated as Homeland security head

Take him, we don't need him!

The Connecticut Democrat's status is this: He's not denying sources' reports that he's been approached to join the Bush team. And while it's a longshot Lieberman would get one of the rumored jobs: Homeland Security secretary, National Intelligence Director or United Nations ambassador - nothing can be ruled out.

Lieberman has refused to discuss the matter since the reports re-surfaced last week after an initial flurry a few weeks ago, and he maintained that position Sunday.

But the buzz did get louder after Friday's withdrawal by former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik as President Bush's nominee to head the Homeland Security department. Lieberman is widely credited with being a chief legislative force behind the agency's creation two years ago, and his name was mentioned prominently Sunday

He seems more Republican then Democrat, he's a rightwinger full and full.

If his senate seat wasn't controlled by Dems he would have switched years ago.
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Exactly, you could just about piss on a Canadian and they'll still be nice as hell to you.

You REALLY have to do something crazy to get them angry at you!
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Sweet home Alabama?

There's a moral vacuum in Alabama recently, here are a few stories about that piece of shit state!:

The backwards ass state of Alabama is going to remove this little girls Medicaid, why?

who knows?

The story of Lauren Rainey, a 13 year old disabled girl from Mobile, Alabama has gone worldwide and it is still gaining momentum. She is tied to an oxygen machine 24 hours a day. With an artificial breathing tube, an enlarged heart, asthma, bone abnormalities and scoliosis, Alabama Medicaid is threatening to drastically reduce her nursing care.

For the last nine years, Alabama Medicaid has provided 13 year old Lauren Rainey with at least 10 hours a day of nursing care. Her mother, Laura Gordon said, "It started off with 24 hours and then they cut it down several times down to ten. We've had ten (hours) for a few years."

Now Medicaid is planning to reduce it further. With few answers from the State, Lauren's mother turned to NBC15 after receiving a letter from Medicaid stating the girl's care would be terminated. We spoke with Governor Bob Riley about Lauren's situation a few days after the initial story aired. "That particular person probably does not qualify for the program she's under now, but there is a myriad of other programs." he said, adding, "And I think if we had all taken the opportunity to sit down and explore all the other options we wouldn't even be having this conversation." When asked by reporter Bruce Mildwurf, "Do you know what those other programs are?" The Governor responded, "No, but I can find out and let you know."

The Governor said that in the second week of November - he has not yet followed up.

Don't give me this shit about the south being the "real America"

Apparently Alabama voters voted against a bill that would have removed segregation from it's constitution, why?

Because it might raise their taxes!

No wonder the team calls itself the “crimson” tide. Alabama surely must be the reddest state of all.




I refer to the political and cultural identity of a state as defined by its vote in the presidential race. Red means pro-Bush. More to the point, and to mince no words, red means claiming superior moral values and having that provincial declaration rendered hollow by behavior.




You’re not going to believe what else ’Bama did Nov. 2 while giving 63 percent of its vote and probably eight of 10 white votes to George W. Bush.




Perhaps you’re wondering why I invoke race. It’s because of what you’re not going to believe.




Jim Crow won an election in Alabama on Nov. 2, the recent one, a 21st century one.




Subject to an automatic recount Nov. 29 because of the closeness, Alabamians voted not to repeal sections of a state constitutional amendment approved by voters in 1956 to mandate racially segregated schools.




Like other Southern red states including Arkansas, Alabama chose in the overtly racist 1950s to pass a constitutional amendment presuming to interpose state constitutional law decreeing segregation. The foolhardy notion was to fend off federal court rulings requiring racial integration of schools. It was foolhardy because states can’t defy the federal government, considering that the Union won.




Arkansas repealed its pointless but symbolically destructive amendment — narrowly — in 1990. This year, the Alabama Legislature referred Amendment 2 to the voters to take out of the state’s constitution the three most egregious vestiges of racism in its segregation amendment. They were that schools must be segregated, that a poll tax had to be paid and that a right to an education at taxpayer expense did not exist for an Alabama child. (And you thought the purpose of a constitution was to grant, not void, rights.)




The idea of the latter was to make sure no lawyer, judge, outside agitator or godless liberal could ever say under constitutional imprimatur that Alabama bore any responsibility to its black children’s schooling.




Alabamians voted Nov. 2 on whether to repeal. With nearly 1.4 million votes cast, it appears that Amendment 2 failed by about 2,500 votes. The typical Alabama voter marked a ballot for Bush and segregation.

Both stories have something to do with raising Taxes and "BIG" Government!

How can anyone claim to be pro-life and sentence a little girl to death because those selfish fucks don't want to pay higher taxes? The UN should sanction Alabama, we in California should withdraw our money from supporting them!

These guys really piss me off!
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Last Laugh

The Andy Dick sketch where he was Bush's speech writer was the highlight of the night!, the big show will repeating over the next week!

Comedy Central did good witht his special!
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Permanet Gitmo?

The Pentagon wants Gitmo to stay a prison, forever!

The Pentagon has proposed building a permanent prison at the US naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, and the army is working on creating a permanent unit of troops to watch over detainees, a base spokesman told AFP.

The spokesman responded to a report Thursday in The Miami Herald that said the Pentagon was proposing building a permanent 200-cell concrete jail to replace temporary facilities housing about 550 prisoners, at a cost of some 25 million dollars.

Leon Sumpter, spokesman for the base, said: "it's a proposal ... No contract has been given" to build the so-called Camp 6.

The daily also cited an undated memo in which the army asked Congress for funding to set up a 324-soldier unit to watch over detainees at the camp, replacing those who do the job now, most of whom are reserve officers.

"This action is part of a systematic process to enhance Army's capabilities required to defend the nation's interests at home and abroad," the memo says, according to the daily.

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70 year old get called up for active service

He's 70 and being called to active service, someone explain to me how the war is going well when we call the elderly in the elderly?

Dr. John Caulfield thought it had to be a mistake when the Army asked him to return to active duty. After all, he's 70 years old and had already retired - twice. He left the Army in 1980 and private practice two years ago.

"My first reaction was disbelief," Caulfield said. "It never occurred to me that they would call a 70-year-old."

In fact, he was so sure it was an error that he ignored the postcards and telephone messages asking if he would be willing to volunteer for active duty to "backfill" somewhere on the East Coast, Europe or Hawaii. That would be OK, he thought. It would release active duty oral surgeons from those areas to go to combat zones in Iraq or Afghanistan.

But then the orders came for him to go to Afghanistan.

We young folk need to seriously consider joining up or leaving the country before the draft comes back. If drafted the draftee gets no college money and limited health care so it would be better now to move to Europe or enlist now before it get too late.

Thanks to Blah 3 for catching this one!
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Howard Dean on MEET THE PRESS

Don't forget to catch it today!

It replays 5 times today, I'm sure you can catch it!
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Smafty's Jam

If you haven't Already done so pick up Pinkerton from Weezer.



Track List (* denotes recommened tracks)

*1. Tired Of Sex


2. Getchoo


3. No Other One


4. Why Bother?


*5. Across The Sea


*6. The Good Life


*7. El Scorcho


*8. Pink Triangle


*9. Falling For You


10. Butterfly


From El Scorcho: "God damn you half Japanese girls, you do it to me everytime"

Word!

Give me a Happa Honey anytime of the week!
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John Gibson is a fucking retard

How does anyone compare Rumsfeld's "war on the cheap" to the Crusades, in a good way!

Here's how!

However, I'd like to say that I've been reading a lot about the Crusades lately and, as you might expect, that involves a lot of discussion of military matters of the time.


A situation in common between invading Crusaders and liberating Americans — and let's keep some perspective here on the difference between invading and liberating — is the extent to which armies have always had to forage for what they need either on the way, or once they got to where they are going.








It doesn't surprise me that soldiers are looking in the scrap heap for another piece of steel to weld on their Humvees. My guess is that when the armored Humvee arrives, the first thing the driver does is look around to see if he can get a bit more steel under his seat and over his driver's side door.








Good. He should. I hope he finds a nice chunk of metal and his buddies weld it on, whether or not the thing came armored in the first place.

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Spy Satellite costing us Billions of dollars only works on clear days

Seems to reason if this is true then wouldn't you move your terrorist activitys to Seattle?

A highly classified intelligence program that the Senate Intelligence Committee has tried unsuccessfully to kill is a new $9.5 billion spy satellite system that could take photographs only in daylight hours and in clear weather, current and former government officials say.

The cost of the system, now the single biggest item in the intelligence budget, and doubts about its usefulness have spurred a secret Congressional battle. The fight over the future of a system whose existence has not yet been officially disclosed first came to light this week.

In public remarks, senators opposed to the program have described it only as an enormously expensive classified intelligence acquisition program without specifically describing it as a satellite system.

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Bloggers kicked out of the DNC meetings in Florida

The reformers, the grassroots of the party are already being kept out of the process!

There's something wrong when the chairs and executive directors go on and on with their praise toward the internet that's brought millions into the coffers of the DNC, and then turns around and kicks Joe Trippi and his band of bloggers out of the meeting room when the "closed" Q & A with the DNC Chair candidates occurs. You could have walked right in off the street and into the candidate Hall unencumbered, but if you happened to be a blogger, or the guy who brought the strategy of embracing the small donor activist on the net for the Democratic Party, and he's got a blog, out you go.

There's something wrong when DNC Chair candidate Donnie Fowler, during his 5-minute presentation on his candidacy, singles out Matt Stoller as an example of embracing the technological ideas that are going to bring this party forward, and then some DNC staffer walks up to Stoller and tells him he's got to leave the room, because he's a blogger.

There's something wrong when the DNC members are holding a vital meeting on the "Fowler Amendments" which are the most reform-minded amendments to the DNC Charter in the last 30 years (a radical takeaway from DC-based members by the states), and the DNC closes the meeting to bloggers; not realizing that we are the vehicle to crusade for this reform (Stoller and I went inside anyway, even though we suffered getting kicked out halfway through the meeting).

There's something wrong when over and over throughout this meeting, there's been praise for the internet, the small donor, and I've even heard the term "Netroots" spoken here casually, a term I first used to describe what was happening with our campaign for Howard Dean back in the fall of 2002. And yet, even though we were invited to come to this event by the candidates themselves, even though there are many in DC that encouraged we come to this event and engage in the process, we were not welcome. In fact, we were thrown out of multiple meetings, even those that regular people off the street could attend.

Get a big broom and push the garbage out!
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Sorry about the lack of meaty posts, I'm still a little shaken fromt he death from earlier in the week. My mind is all over the place and I'm trying to get it back into balance and get ready for the funeral and the wake and damn it's going to really suck.

Anyways sorry, but at least the toons are funny!
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Kerik drops out of Homeland seurity post

In a surprise move, former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik abruptly withdrew his nomination as President Bush's choice to be homeland security secretary Friday night, saying questions have arisen about the immigration status of a housekeeper and nanny he employed.

The decision caught the White House off guard and sent Bush in search of a new candidate to run the sprawling bureaucracy of more than 180,000 employees melded together from 22 disparate federal agencies in 2003.

Kerik informed Bush of his decision to withdraw in a telephone call at 8:30 p.m. EST. "I am convinced that, for personal reasons, moving forward would not be in the best interests of your administration, the Department of Homeland Security or the American people," Kerik said in a letter to the president.

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Krugman

read

The National Association of Securities Dealers," The Wall Street Journal reports, "is investigating whether some brokerage houses are inappropriately pushing individuals to borrow large sums on their houses to invest in the stock market." Can we persuade the association to investigate would-be privatizers of Social Security?

For it is now apparent that the Bush administration's privatization proposal will amount to the same thing: borrow trillions, put the money in the stock market and hope.

Privatization would begin by diverting payroll taxes, which pay for current Social Security benefits, into personal investment accounts. The government, already deep in deficit, would have to borrow to make up the shortfall.

This would sharply increase the government's debt. Never mind, privatization advocates say: in the long run, they claim, people would make so much on personal accounts that the government could save money by cutting retirees' benefits. Financial markets won't believe this claim, as I'll explain in a minute, but let's temporarily grant the point.

Even so, if personal investment accounts were invested in Treasury bonds, this whole process would accomplish precisely nothing. The interest workers would receive on their accounts would exactly match the interest the government would have to pay on its additional debt. To compensate for the initial borrowing, the government would have to cut future benefits so much that workers would gain nothing at all.

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Hannity lies about the banning the declaration of independence

What else would you expect from this Serial liar?

Hannity and Colmes had a broadcast from Cupertino, CA using the ironically titled "Take Back America" slogan. As many of you are aware in the News Stephen Williams, a Teacher is challenging his school after they barred him from teaching certain materials in his Classroom. The mainstream media picked up on this and miss reported the situation as "banning the Declaration of independence" which never actually happened. After a complaint from parents the Principle decided to review his lesson plans to make sure he didn't cross into "evangelizing". The school did not ban any founding document and there isn't any proof that anyone on either side can produce that says otherwise.

This is the reason Sean is dangerous, he is a history revisionist.

This is a bigger argument than Sean lying about the situation at that school, it's the rewriting of our history. The Founding fathers were a savvy group of men who knew the evils of state run religions, we can look no further than Iran to see what that's like for ourselves. The reason "creator" and "god" are ambiguous is to protect us from "Church Authority" and all that implies. The idea that this is a Christian nation founded by Christians isn't found anywhere in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution nor is it found in the writings of our founding fathers. If this is a Christian nation, where is Jesus or Jehovah written in our Founding documents? Where in our founding documents does it say specifically that our rights are granted by Jesus Christ or Jehovah? No one can deny that many of the founding fathers were Christians of deep faith nor should we deny what quite a few of them were not Christian. To omit the fact that John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin were not Christians, to ignore a very important part of our history is a crime against every American.

Revisionists have to lie in order to sell their warped views. During the show Sean lied twice about James Madison and his stance on chaplains, Madison was against paying Chaplains because he believed that established a national religion and Madison never hired the first Chaplains it was a Committee that did so in April and May of 1789. Sean of course dismissed this and tried to move on. even when Mr. Williams said and I quote about the banning of the Declaration of Independence "[My students have] read the Declaration, so that's a little bit of a stretch", not for Hannity it isn't; he goes on to say it again, Media matters has the video of Sean lying AFTER he was told by the man who is suing the school to quote Mr. Williams again "a little bit of a stretch".

This isn't an attack against people of faith or Christians, it's against someone preaching to children presenting them a point of view that isn't supported by the facts. This questions goes to the Methodist parents who will read this, do you want Pentecostals to teach your children about Christ and religion if their teaching are slanted to support their beliefs and not yours? for you Conservatives out there, the real ones do you want Government run schools preaching to your children or would you prefer to teach your children your moral values and not trust it some teacher's interpretation? I don't want some teacher to explain evangelize my children, if I decide to raise my Children in the Church I want them to read the bible, I want them to learn the values and Morals that make up who I am and trust that they make the right choices in life, I will not demote that responsibility to a public school teacher or have their views forced on my kids, especially if I don't raise them as Christians. Our Currency didn't originally have "In God we trust" printed or pressed with those words, they were added later much like the Pledge of allegiance didn't have "under god" until 1950's but to say this is a traditional stance is absurd or to remove either from the pledge or our currency is some how sacrilege, what does it say about you? Is your faith so weak that you need to be reminded in whom you trust by looking at your change? Your faith should be stronger. I could care less if either stays or goes, words pressed on Nickels and Dimes wont change my Spiritual beliefs about God or anything else, I know where I am and what I believe reciting words won't change that.



This is not a petty Liberal Vs Conservative debate and if we treat it as such America will suffer for it. I don't trust man to speak for God, in Western civilization we had that it was called the Dark Ages. This country cannot slide into a theological nation, the balance needs to be kept or what America is now will disappear. They will use the bible to start wars, deny certain people health care, support slavery again, segregation of certain people will return. Women will return to being Property because it is all supported by certain interruptions of the Bible. People of all faiths hold very different political views from each other, I personally know Republican Atheists and Muslims as well as devote, very Liberal Christians in fact Socialism has it's roots in the Christian community so republicans have not right to claim Jesus or faith as their own, what we as Americans have the right to claim is to practice those beliefs without the government telling us what to believe or pushing their God on us. God is not a Liberal or Conservative and we cannot let anyone speak differently to that, God isn't about privitizing social security it's what your faith or lack there of teaches you God is.

If anyone has doubts that Sean is a liar after reading this, you're in my prayers!

Here's my hate mail address, because I know I'm going to get some.


And the views expressed are mine and mine alone
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