The Vidiot's weekly blog:

What pissed me off this week? 11/15/2004

(updated every Monday at some point during the day)

...'cause I'm angry and my friends are sick of listening to me...

List of Voter Fraud Stories

Mirror (in case geocities is wacky or, in case of trouble in New York, check it for messages): http://129.79.148.33/vidiotcontact/

I'm not going to go on and on about the voter fraud story this week. The issue is still there and it's not going away, no matter how much the major media outlets try to marginalize it. But nothing much has changed. When it does, I will do the usual spew. The only thing I can recommend on that front right now is to donate money (or time) to the cause. I am. We have to build our case. My feeling is that if we can prove one case of voter fraud, it will discredit the entire election. (And yes, I'd feel that way if Kerry had won.)

I do know one thing though: The mainstream media, apparently, is starting to feel very threatened by the blogosphere. (And they should.) I hate to use the word "marginalize" again, but that's what they're trying to do to the blogs -- publicity-wise -- with regards to just about everything, and especially to the vote fraud issue. The major media don't seem to be even covering it - or are forbidden to cover it. (Except for Olberman) Not to mention the fact that things in Fallujah aren't going the way the media, and the administration, have been telling us. The blogs have it right and are not covering up the FUBAR mess. (Trust me. That cheery newscast you heard last night? Not so true.) So, I guess the next thing we'll know, they'll be using the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act to shut the internet and the blogs down.

{sigh}

But beyond the election, we MUST revamp the democratic party. We need new blood. (Maybe even ditch the Iowa Caucus.) We've tried going centrist (with the DLC) and that didn't work. Centrist isn't the way to go. Trying to make ourselves look like republican-lite is not the way to go. It's too much like putting lipstick on a pig.

Simply put: Howard Dean needs to be made head of the DNC. Here's a man that frightens traditional party insiders, which I think is a good thing. Though, I don't lament what "might've been" had he been the the party's nominee, I do think he, more than anyone, is responsible for the energy in the party today. He, along with Trippi, changed the face of the progressive politics. Dean was the only candidate with a clear vision.

Thankfully, he is at least considering the possibility. We need someone heading up the DNC who's not afraid to call a spade a spade (or in this case, to call the media "unthoughtful.") Vilsack is not the way to go. He's all about the status quo and making sure his state keeps the first primary. I believe Dean would do a much better job than Vilsack. There's also talk of a Dean/Rosenberg tag-team sort of DNC ticket. (Rosenberg heads up the NDN.)

But who decides who leads the DNC? Well, these people do. They're about 440 party operatives. I'm going to do some research. (Maybe we can start a letter-writing campaign or something. If it's not impossible to get contact info on them, I'll do it.)

Link of the Week: Bush's Mandate.

Cool Maps of the Week: 2004 Election results

Site of the Week: Fuck the South

Another site of the Week: We do not concede our democratic rights.

Advice of the Week: Avoid Bangotango.com

I know where I'll be on Jan. 20th. Do you?

Correction of the Week: Cuyahoga vote tallies not as off as they seemed.

Video of the Week: Olberman on Vote Fraud 2004

I have no words for this but How did we lose to these people?

Worthy Idea of the Week: Bring back the fairness doctrine.

Database of the Week: Voters Unite

History Lesson of the Week: Thomas Paine's Crisis Papers.

Donation Site of the Week: Help America Recount

Song of the Week: Keep your Jesus off my Penis

Voting Machine Site of the Week: How to hack the vote: The short version.

Protest of the Week: Go to DC on the 19th.

Action of the Week: Subpoena Florida's voting boxes

Unbelievable. Preying upon people who need the money, getting them to sacrifice their children's health? I can't shake this one. It is beyond evil. It's beyond über evil. It's, hell, it would give Satan pause.

Excerpt:The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is paying selected Florida families who “spray or have pesticides sprayed inside your home routinely” to study their infant children, according to agency documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). When agency scientists started questioning the ethics of the study, EPA removed the study protocol from its web site and distributed a short “Desk Statement” that the scientists say is misleading.

So, while the major media is spending way too much time calling the blogs the "tin hat zone", one of Bush's advisors is claiming that global warming is a conspiracy!

Excerpt: An advisor to President George W Bush has reportedly claimed that global warming is a fallacy created to disrupt the American economy, in an interview on Radio 4. Myron Ebell, from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), claimed that the notion of climate change through man-made emissions was “ridiculous and unrealistic”.

Wow.

Anything to aid and abet the corporate powers that be I guess.

Excerpt: With the elections over, Congress and the Bush administration are moving ahead with ambitious environmental agendas that include revamping signature laws on air pollution and endangered species and reviving a moribund energy bill that would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to energy exploration.

They even look at the arctic thaw as a possible economic boon.

Excerpt; The polar route has clear attractions for shippers -- from Osaka, Japan, to Rotterdam, the Netherlands, a trip around the polar sea could save about two weeks on a 45-day voyage through the Suez or Panama Canals.

Again. I say wow.

When given the chance to do the right thing, they don't.

Excerpt:A grass-roots effort asking Wal-Mart to buy T-shirts made at the Anvil Knitwear plant in Mullins ended Wednesday when a Wal-Mart representative called Mullins Mayor Wayne George and told him Wal-Mart was not interested.

Imagine if a liberal had published something like this. Imagine the uproar.

Excerpt: That is why the unthinkable must become thinkable. If the so-called "Red States" (those that voted for George W. Bush) cannot be respected or at least tolerated by the "Blue States" (those that voted for Al Gore and John Kerry), then the most disparate of them must live apart--not by secession of the former (a majority), but by expulsion of the latter. Here is how to do it.

This is how we garner support in Iraq. Destroy their holy places. That's a war crime, isn't it?

Excerpt: According to Al Jazeera, half the mosques in Falluja have been destroyed as of this morning after being targeted by tanks and air strikes.

And deface and disrespect their holy places? I'm pretty sure that's some sort of a war crime.

Excerpt: Somebody please tell Lt. Brandon Turner that he's insane, that the Pentagon is insane, whoever is allowing the marines or any American soldiers "rest" on that "plush red carpet" with their shoes, uniforms and machines guns is insane. Does anyone understand anything about religious feelings in general or about Islam in particular? Have they spent even half a day watching a documentary or two about Islam and noticed that people carefully and respectfully take their shoes off before entering a mosque, where they will kneel and put their head on that carpet?

And gas the Iraqi people. That's a war crime they went after Saddam for in the first place.

Excerpt: US troops are reportedly using chemical weapons and poisonous gas in its large-scale offensive on the Iraqi resistance bastion of Fallujah, a grim reminder of Saddam Hussein’s alleged gassing of the Kurds in 1988.

They're using napalm. That's a war crime.

Excerpt: The United States admitted dropping the internationally-banned incendiary weapon of napalm on Iraq, despite earlier denials by the Pentagon that the "horrible" weapon had not been used in the three-week invasion.

Deliberately cutting off water to residents is definitely a war crime.

Excerpt: Water supplies to Tall Afar, Samarra and Fallujah have been cut off during US attacks in the past two months, affecting up to 750,000 civilians. This appears to form part of a deliberate US policy of denying water to the residents of cities under attack. If so, it has been adopted without a public debate, and without consulting Coalition partners. It is a serious breach of international humanitarian law, and is deepening Iraqi opposition to the United States, other Coalition members, and the Iraqi interim government.

Killing a family trying to escape the carnage? That's a war crime.

Excerpt: He watched horrified as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross. Then, he "helped bury a man by the river bank, with my own hands."

Shooting at civilians is definitely a war crime.

Excerpt: Human rights experts said Friday that American soldiers might have committed a war crime on Thursday when they sent fleeing Iraqi civilians back into Falluja. Citing several articles of the Geneva Conventions, the experts said recognized laws of war require military forces to protect civilians as refugees and forbid returning them to a combat zone.

And denying aid workers access to a war zone must be a war crime.

Excerpt: US military chiefs said yesterday that they saw no need for the Iraqi Red Crescent to deliver aid inside Falluja because they did not think any Iraqi civilians were trapped there.

Gee. How did they know there weren't any civilians trapped there? Did they gas the whole town? Kill everything in sight?

Frankly, I think the entire Iraq war is one big GIANT war crime, but that's just me.

Bush TOTALLY dissed the new PM of Spain.

Excerpt: Relations between the US and Spain's Socialist government hit a new low this week when President George W. Bush invited José María Aznar, Spain's former prime minister, to the White House for a private, 40-minute chat.

And what happens when you diss someone? Well, in the case of the UN, you'll get no help and no respect. Hence, the Bushies' whining and foot stomping...

Excerpt: "We're beyond anger. We won re-election, Kofi's term is up in '06 and though we have been asking him to define the UN role in Iraq, he is thumbing his nose at us," the official said, reporting views he said he heard at the White House in recent days.

Since the republicans don't like the fact the Dems still have the ability to filibuster, they want to get rid of it.

Excerpt: "One way or another, the filibuster of judicial nominees must end," Dr. Frist, Republican of Tennessee, said in a speech to the Federalist Society, a conservative lawyers' group. "The Senate must do what is good, what is right, what is reasonable and what is honorable."

I saw him talking about this on CSPAN. Frist made it sound like the filibuster was a newfangled thingy. It's not. The founding fathers put it in there to reign in a powerful president.

But, we're heading down a dangerous road anyway. Did you hear that Bush has tasked Goss with getting rid of all disloyal members of the CIA? Not "Get rid of the guys who fell asleep at the wheel prior to 9/11". Not "Get rid of the guys who leaked the info about Plame or Khan" Nope. None of that. It's "Get rid of the guys who spoke out against me." Off with their heads!

Excerpt: The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, according to knowledgeable sources.

(Meteor Blades over at Kos has a few words on it.)

We all know Ashcroft stepped down. And we're so not sorry to see him go.

Excerpt:Federal judges are jeopardizing national security by issuing rulings contradictory to President Bush's decisions on America's obligations under international treaties and agreements, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Friday.

But he's being replaced by someone smarter and more loyal, which basically means "more dangerous".

Excerpt: The other is more practical, about the lawyer-as-fixer who cleverly shielded his boss from legal and political trouble over an arrest for drunk driving.

Remember, a second term of any president is usually rife with investigations and controversy because all their geese come home to roost. Bush needs somebody heading the justice department who will protect him from as many legal assaults as possible.

There have been a few other names floating around for other cabinet replacements. Since Powell's resigning,

Excerpt: Secretary of State Colin Powell has told his colleagues he is resigning and the White House is expected to make the announcement on Monday, a U.S. official said.

How about Zell Miller as Secretary of State.

Excerpt: Finally, there's Powell supine acceptance of Foggy Bottom's conventional wisdom on every subject, forgetting that the foreign service isn't supposed to make our foreign policy; it's supposed to carry out the president's policies.
Who should replace him? Zell Miller.

I can see it now. Miller challenges Chirac to a duel a dawn. News at 11.

The church is all rah rah over Bush's "win"

Excerpt: THE most senior Roman Catholic in Scotland has been strongly criticised after pointing yesterday to George W Bush's election win as a victory for morality and saying politicians should look to America as an example.

Well, they both have one thing in common: [Insert butt sex joke here.]

This is what we have to look forward to: Pharmacists telling us we can't have birth control.

Excerpt: For a year, Julee Lacey stopped in a CVS pharmacy near her home in a Fort Worth suburb to get refills of her birth-control pills. Then one day last March, the pharmacist refused to fill Lacey's prescription because she did not believe in birth control.

Professors punished for teaching alternate viewpoints.

Excerpt: Charges of anti-Semitism against professors in the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) at Columbia University, are being made by a Zionist organization that claims to promote, "a fair and honest understanding of the Middle East Conflict." The David Project, a Boston based organization created in 2002, "in response to the growing ideological assault on Israel," is using a documentary film, "Columbia Unbecoming," to argue that anti-Semitism on American college campuses is growing.

Not allowed to decide when we can end our own lives.

Excerpt: The Bush administration asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to block the nation's only law allowing doctors to help terminally ill patients die more quickly.

Textbooks being changed to reflect Bush's definition of marriage.

Excerpt: The Texas Board of Education approved new health textbooks for the state's high schools and middle schools on Friday after the publishers agreed to change wordings in the texts to depict marriage strictly as the union of a man and a woman.

Shakedowns by homeland security personnel

Excerpt: CHICAGO Authorities say they've indicted a former senior Homeland Security inspector and six others. The federal charges stem from an alleged conspiracy to get bribes in exchange for bogus immigration papers and special favors.

Peaceful protestors being threatened with tanks.

Excerpt: A peaceful antiwar protest in Westwood got a Robocop response. Two armored tanks came to dispel the protest. It's unknown at the moment whether the protesters had permits, or what the rationale for bringing an armored response was by officials, but what kind of rationale could possibly merit this approach?

Scientists conducting research on controversial topics subject to heavy scrutiny.

Excerpt: Scientists at Johns Hopkins and around the country — whose research involves politically sensitive subjects such as prostitution, AIDS, and drug use — are under scrutiny as never before.

Media self-censors to avoid fines and trouble.

Excerpt: Fearful of the FCC crackdown on indecent broadcasts, at least 18 ABC affiliates plan to pre-empt the network's unedited broadcast of the film "Saving Private Ryan" at 8 Thursday night.

Journalists being tossed in jail.

Excerpt: But it's probably not a coincidence that we're seeing an offensive against press freedoms during an administration that has a Brezhnevian fondness for secrecy.

More visits from the Secret Service for innocuous things.

Excerpt: Bob Dylan's Masters of War is a hard-hitting, anti-war song produced more than 20 years before any current Boulder High School student was born. More than 40 years after its release, the song has been resurrected at Boulder High with huge and confusing repercussions that prompted Secret Service agents to pay the campus a visit Thursday.

Maybe this is what gave Cheney shortness of breath. Halliburton is in the news again.

Excerpt: US oil service firm Halliburton has acknowledged that improper payments "may have been made" to Nigerian officials through a consortium of which it was a member.

Also, seems our ambassador had a hand in helping Halliburton maintain a contract.

Excerpt; The U.S. ambassador to Kuwait intervened last year to ensure that Halliburton, the oil services company once led by Vice President Dick Cheney, retained a Kuwaiti business as a subcontractor to deliver fuel to Iraq, documents released Wednesday show. State Department documents appear to contradict the Bush administration's assertion that all decisions involving Halliburton's contracts were handled only by career contracting officers for the government.

Well, I guess the heart palpitations will keep him from using his own personal scud missile.

Excerpt: Guldan got a call from a reader the next day. “Did you notice anything unusual about that picture?” the reader asked.
Upon closer inspection, it seems the vice president’s smile was not his biggest, ahem, asset. Is that what we think it is?

(See the amazing picture here. Explains a lot about his attitude, huh?)

But he'd better suck it up. (Which it looks like he should be able to do for himself.) Looks like he's going to war with Karl Rove and that never ends well for anyone.

Excerpt:According to well-placed Pentagon sources, Vice President Cheney has argued the case for Mr. Rumsfeld to remain as defense secretary until at least the spring, and Mr. Cheney would prefer that Mr. Rumsfeld stayed longer. Karl Rove and other White House advisers, however, have maintained that Mr. Rumsfeld has become a political liability and will undermine possible improvement in relations between Washington and European allies, the sources said. "The White House political shop wants him out now," a senior Defense Department source said of Mr. Rumsfeld.

What do you do when your hit show about vampire slayers is over? Why, hunt vampires in real life, of course.

Excerpt: In a step away from acting, Anthony will be presenting a new show about the mysterious world of the paranormal.

Weird weather in China.

Excerpt; Day turned to night across Shenyang when a freak cloud formation 8,000 metres deep blanketed the northeastern city. For over half-an-hour noon was as black as midnight. Cars, buses and lorries went someway to breaking up the darkness.

 

Previous rant

At the very least, point your CNN-loving friends to my links page. Just getting started in reading alternate news sites gets people thinking. I have one friend who was very happy-go-lucky, thinking ol' Greta was telling the whole truth until I opened up his eyes a bit. Now, he's all depressed. He'll get over it. You gotta' get depressed before you get angry and you gotta' get angry before you can accomplish anything. We're all in mourning. We have to move through the steps. But we gotta' hurry it up.

Read. Inform. Spread the word. Even if it means your friends avoid you for awhile. If they really love you, they'll start to listen.

"POSSE COMITATUS ACT" (18 USC 1385): A Reconstruction Era criminal law proscribing use of Army (later, Air Force) to "execute the laws" except where expressly authorized by Constitution or Congress. Limit on use of military for civilian law enforcement also applies to Navy by regulation. Dec '81 additional laws were enacted (codified 10 USC 371-78) clarifying permissible military assistance to civilian law enforcement agencies--including the Coast Guard--especially in combating drug smuggling into the United States. Posse Comitatus clarifications emphasize supportive and technical assistance (e.g., use of facilities, vessels, aircraft, intelligence, tech aid, surveillance, etc.) while generally prohibiting direct participation of DoD personnel in law enforcement (e.g., search, seizure, and arrests). For example, Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachments (LEDETS) serve aboard Navy vessels and perform the actual boardings of interdicted suspect drug smuggling vessels and, if needed, arrest their crews). Positive results have been realized especially from Navy ship/aircraft involvement.

(Tom Ridge has practically said he'd do away with this act.)

{back}

These sites are good at culling stories from a multitude of media sites:

buzzflash.com
unknownnews.net
rawstory.com

Here are some excellant blogs:

Bartcop
Daily Kos
Atrios
Tacitus
Josh Marshall
DNC: Kicking Ass
Two Glasses
Billmon (retired)
Semi-Daily Journal
The Wonkette
Urban Survival

Link exchange:

Ilia Dreams Blog
Iraq War Blog
BushVote.com

These blogs will be covering the primaries and elections:

Salon.com's War Room
The Campaign Desk
FactCheck.org

media-bias exposed:

dailyhowler.com

these are good left-wing journalism sites:

onlinejournal.com
thenation.com
inthesetimes.com
tompaine.com
commondreams.org
truthout.com
guerrillanews.com

a little more to the left:

wsws.org
indymedia.org

conspiratorial:

whatreallyhappened.com
almartinraw.com

HIGHLY entertaining:

surfingtheapocalypse.com

really good "Alternate Thinking" site:

goroadachi.com/etemenanki/

and for godsakes, stay away
from FOX NEWS,  MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC.
It's ALL CRAP!!!
watch the BBC news
or ITN news instead.

if you must succumb to reading a newspaper: 

www.guardian.co.uk 

or any other paper in another fucking country. All of our newspapers are owned by the same idiots that own the TV stations so all of the news is all the same CRAP.