The Vidiot's weekly blog:

What pissed me off this week? 12/20/2004

(updated every Monday at some point during the day)

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

Cost of the War in Iraq

Remember these faces.

List of Voter Fraud Stories

Media Contacts

Track your congresscritters here!


Free stuff can be found here

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

Paper done,submitted,and hopefully graded with an A+. (Doubt it, but there's always delusional hope.) Now on to bigger things: Neti Pots!

Ever heard of a Neti Pot? (Go ahead. Google it. I'll wait.)

You're back. Good.

So, here's what I have to say about them: THEY ROCK! I got rid of a full-blown sinus infection -- replete with achy molars -- using a neti pot. Fuck big pharma and their antibiotics that cause an overgrowth of yeast. Don't need 'em. A neti pot, warm water and a little salt is all you need. Makes me wonder though. If big pharma has been shoving antibiotics down our throats, with the full knowledge that there's a perfectly viable, non-medicinal alternative out there, what other diseases might they be withholding non-medical alternatives to? Diabetes? Cancer? Makes one wonder, doesn't it?

On to politics:

Kerik. Kerik. Kerik. You gotta' love this guy. He's a mess. He's about the messiest person ever. Possible bigamist? Mob ties? Arrest warrant? Love nest? Inside stock deals? Double-timing his mistress? And to top it all off, the nanny thing might've just been made up! He's a complete and utter moron.

I have my own conspiracy theory about this debacle. There's no doubt that Giuliani was raising money to run for something. Could be he was going to run for Gov. of NY. BUT what if he wanted to make a run for president. The man's got the ego to think he could pull it off DESPITE the fact that he's married for the third time after cheating on both his ex-wives, the first of whom was his cousin. (Actually, come to think of it, that cousin thing might work for him in some of those red states like Kentucky and Arkansas.) He might've been making some rumblings about running in 2008, but we all know who the Bushies want to run in 2008: Jeb Bush. Maybe the whole Kerik thing was really to take Giuliani down. 'Cause, that's basically what it did. I mean, look at what the story has morphed into over this weekend. It's now about how Kerik never filled out the proper discovery forms for his position here in NYC. That really makes Giuliani look bad. It now basically has almost nothing to do with Kerik and everything to do with Giuliani and his support of Kerik. (And don't think for a minute that Jeb is the "smart" one. He's a religionut too.)

Eh, I could be wrong.

 

Science story of the Week: String Theory

Dean Speech of the Week: The Future Of The Democratic Party

Hypocrisy Catch of the Week: Yesterday & Today

Censored stories of the Year: The Top 25 Censored Media Stories of 2003-2004

UFO site of the Week: Ufology

Good Idea of the Week: Make Vermont Canada's 11th Province

Whistling Site of the Week: Whistling Records

Political Announcement of the Week: Elliot Spitzer for Governor of NY

Religion Site of the Week: Belief-o-matic

Gift Idea of the Week: The Tampon Doll

Weird Dolls of the Week: Toddlerpedes

Cool Flash of the Week: Spider Mouse

"I Wish I'd Wrote That" of the Week: Dying for Consumption

Technology of the Week: Podcasting (Bartcop, are you listening?)

I HATE those Magnetic Yellow Ribbons Article of the Week: "Support our troops" Indeed!

Stupid Religion Site of the Week: Matrixism

Lewd Statue of the Week: Victor Noir

New Blog of the Week: Real Climate

Missed Voice of the Week: Zappa on Crossfire


Hero of the Week

Not so much for saving any lives, but for bucking the system and doing it with a smile.

Excerpt: Taxi Ray offers the best bargain in the city on four wheels: free rides in his Checker cab.

Evil Bastards of the Week

Actually, banks are evil bastards all of the time, but I just found out about this awful predatory lending practice.

Excerpt: Payday lenders' fees typically run at an annual percentage rate of 390 percent or higher compared with about 18 percent for cash advances drawn on a credit card.

What's it like to have no soul?


Votergate, the biggest scandal you never heard of.
The votergate story is getting big...but you wouldn't know it if you watched TV...or read the papers...or listened to the radio. To use a cliche: The silence from our media has been deafening. I can't possibly cover all of the stories here, but a few that I've read and found interesting are as follows:

Patriot Act, part Deux

Some of this law that they passed was good, but some of it was bad. It was yet another bill THAT NOBODY READ.

Excerpt: If you were a member of Congress, would you vote "yes" on a 3,000 page bill that you never had a chance to read? Most reasonable people wouldn't. Most reasonable people would want to read and study legislation before deciding how to vote; especially legislation as monumental as the intelligence reorganization legislation or the so-called 9/11 bill.

And my blog could now be considered "illegal" since I collect news stories to share with you all.

Excerpt: SECTION 102 of the new Patriot Act ll states clearly that any information gathering, regardless of whether or not those activities are illegal, can be considered to be clandestine intelligence activities for a foreign power. This makes news gathering illegal.

Look at me and my geeky database! I'm a rebel! I look forward to being forcibly drugged and committed to an asylum.

Excerpt: Here's another terrifying story from the expanding police state. This activist, a Constitutional scholar, had created a free speech display on her private property. When the police towed off her property she called to complain, the police chief told her that she would be arrested. She was -- and forcibly drugged and sent to the State Hospital for the violent and criminally insane.

The new bill does a whole bunch of other stuff too.

Except: After the bill was approved, reports emerged that it included a number of little-noticed provisions that would greatly expand the government's policing power and in effect broaden the USA Patriot Act. The Washington Post reports that the new intelligence bill loosens standards for FBI surveillance warrants and allows the Justice Department to more easily detain people without bail. The bill will allow the FBI to obtain secret surveillance and search warrants of individuals even if the individual has no connection with a foreign government or established terrorist group.

But what does the bill do exactly? Well, it creates that big job in homeland security.

Excerpt: The new intelligence reform bill unifies America's 15-agency spy network under one person and grew out of recommendations issued by the 10-member, bipartisan 9/11 commission, which spent more than a year reviewing the attacks.

But what's the big deal about that job? you may ask. Well, that position will collect all the intelligence information from all of the agencies. Ok, so you say, "fair enough" And the director will not have the authority to alter it in any way. Again, you might say "fair enough" BUT, turns out, and funny thing this, the only people allowed to wade through it and pick out the important stuff and read into it what they will, well, the only people who can do that are in the executive branch. Not that they don't do that already mind you

Excerpt:The United States manipulated intelligence on North Korea's nuclear program in a similar fashion to its use of weapons of mass destruction to justify the war on Iraq, a US foreign policy expert said in an article.

That means that Bush and his people can now manipulate the intelligence to suit their political needs. And woe is the person of conscience who refuses.

Excerpt: A senior CIA operative who handled sensitive informants in Iraq asserts that CIA managers asked him to falsify his reporting on weapons of mass destruction and retaliated against him after he refused.

So, basically, we have a Porter Goss controlled CIA, and all the other intelligence-gathering agencies with heads appointed by Bush, who can manipulate the intelligence gathering, who then hand it off to the Director, who then hands it off to the President who can message it even more and WHAMMY! We have instant, politically motivated intelligence! You have to admire them for their evilness. It is perfection.

Chip chip chip goes our Bill of Rights.

Excerpt: Hearing arguments on whether two journalists should be jailed for refusing to name their confidential sources to a grand jury, a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington seemed on Wednesday to reject their main argument, which is based on the First Amendment.

Trust me, soon, the media will be overtly controlled (not just covertly, the way it is now.)

Excerpt: MANY promising intelligence leads on terrorist networks have been compromised by media reporting, the Defence Department's top intelligence bureaucrat has declared.

Yup. It's the Media's fault. Therefore, the media must be controlled.

And freedom of expression? We don't need no freedom of expression.

Excerpt: A portrait of President George W. Bush using monkeys to form his image has led to the closure of a New York art exhibition over the weekend and anguished protests over freedom of expression.

I'm shocked, SHOCKED I tell you.

Did you know that Total Information Awareness was ready BEFORE 9/11? What a shock.

Excerpt:Citizens For Legitimate Government can report today an exclusive story about the Total Information Awareness program (TIA), initiated by Admiral (retired) John Poindexter. CLG exclusive source tells us that a day after 9-11, Poindexter’s office of the TIA program was already established in the Pentagon. Says inside, unnamed source, Poindexter had the TIA program ready to roll out on 9/12/2001, the day after 9-11. Five days after 9-11, the TIA office was fully functional. Asked if that means the program was ready to rollout previous to 9/11, the source familiar with the program and privy to top-secret government contractors said, "of course."

And the US and Britain had something to do with the coup plot in New Guinea.

Excerpt:Two reports on the background to the attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea were sent in December 2003 and January 2004 by South African “security expert” Johann Smith to British intelligence and to Michael Westphal, senior colleague of Donald Rumsfeld and deputy assistant secretary of defence.

BFEE

Maybe you've been paying attention over the holidays, maybe you haven't. Just in case you haven't, I want to make sure you heard of the "suicide" of YET ANOTHER Bush biographer.

Excerpt: Today, the news of Gary Webb’s untimely death at 49 shot around the Internet. To many, Webb was a true media hero, a man who reported a controversial -- albeit well-documented -- connection between the rise of crack cocaine in Los Angeles, the CIA, and the Contras.

That makes four dead Bush biographers. A statistical WOWnomally.

Excerpt: "Examining the male U.S.suicide rate for recent years , we can extrapolate a conservative estimate of 17 male suicides per 100,000 people, or 0.017%. The odds of 4 specific, male biographers committing suicide would be the 4th power of 17/100000, or 8.3521 4.913 x 10^-17...roughly 1 chance 10,000,000,000,000,000. About as good a definition of impossible as you can get.

Notice that I used word "suicide" with little quotes around it.

Excerpt: Note the plural "wounds". An actual suicide from a gunshot to the head wouldn't leave the victim in any state to pull the trigger a second time. Vince Foster, care to comment?

(The use of the plural "wounds" has been defended.)

Gee, do you think he was "suicided"?

Excerpt: Former DEA agent Cele Castillo concurs that Webb was murdered and that in such a 'revenge hit' situation it was common in his experience that the murderers would have likely talked to Webb at length about how and why they were about to kill him.

And what was his claim to fame? His investigation into the Bush family's involvement in Iran Contra.

Excerpt: The story makes the allegation that beyond selling drugs in America in the 1980's, the US-backed Contra rebels, fighting a Cuban-backed Nicaraguan regime, were largely responsible for introducing crack-cocaine into the US. This issue has raised interest to the point that a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has begun hearings on it.

We owe a tremendous debt to Gary Webb for the work he did.

Excerpt: In 1996, journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of articles that forced a long-overdue investigation of a very dark chapter of recent U.S. foreign policy – the Reagan-Bush administration’s protection of cocaine traffickers who operated under the cover of the Nicaraguan contra war in the 1980s.

So here's my conspiracy theory of the week: Porter Goss just took over the CIA. He has been linked with Iran Contra.

Excerpt:Porter Goss, it's interesting to note, claimed that he was the one who turned the man who would later become a member of the Sandinista ruling council, Tomas Borges. Borges was subsequently the CIA's point man in Nicaragua pursuant to the CIA's narcotics trafficking during Iran Contra.

I mean REALLY linked.

Excerpt: Al Martin, one of America's foremost government whistleblowers and a retired Navy Lt. Commander, claims that Porter Goss, the Bush-Cheney choice to be DCI (CIA Director), was active in covering up the CIA's Iran-Contra era narcotics trafficking in Florida, while he was a member of the Vice Presidential Task Force on Drugs in Miami in 1983 then headed by George Bush Sr.

WHAT IF Mr. Goss' first order of business was to clean up some of the messes he left behind? And what if Gary Webb, who had been investigating Iran Contra, had some information on Mr. Goss, and Goss decided to make "an example" out of Webb. Flex his muscles, show everyone who's boss.

Eh, I could be wrong.


Cronyism is the story.

This story is all wrong.

Excerpt: A United Nations panel has found that the US-led occupation authority failed to exercise proper controls over Iraq's oil industry and could not say how much oil had gone missing since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The US didn't "fail" to control the oil. It's the international community that failed to keep an eye on the US and the US has since managed to funnel the extra cash into secret offshore accounts.


Religiocrazy!

I'm so sick of this religion crap. Get it out of my face.

Excerpt: Emboldened by their Election Day successes, some Christian conservatives around the country are trying to put more Christ into Christmas this season.

And get it out of my government. Period. End of conversation.

But nooooo, we've got some sort of crazy-assed fundamentalist in the White House, so now, they want to include the 10 freakin' commandments in EVERYTHING. Sweeeeet Jeeeezus!

Excerpt: The Bush administration, saying that religion ``has played a defining role'' in the nation's history, urged the U.S. Supreme Court to permit Ten Commandments displays in courthouses.

And what is it with Alabama judges?

Excerpt: A south Alabama judge refused to delay a trial Tuesday when an attorney objected to the judge wearing a judicial robe with the Ten Commandments embroidered in gold on the front of the garment.

(Oh. Doesn't he look purdy with all that gold glitter on the front of his robe.)

Hey! Wouldn't it be funny if GW turned out to be the antichrist?

Excerpt: "Bush is one of the key figures leading the church away from Jesus," says Christian author Bob Miller, who wrote the nonbluenose Christian best seller Blue Like Jazz. Miller is no pantywaist - he had the balls to run a ministry at Reed College in Portland, Ore., which is so godless that its soccer team is said in campus legend to have once staged a halftime crucifixion in a game against a Christian school. But he couldn't stomach it when, for instance, Texas Gov. Bush not only allowed the execution of his fellow born-again Christian, the penitent ax murderer Karla Faye Tucker, but made vicious fun of her on TV ("Please don't kill me!" Bush said, mocking her prayerful plea for God's mercy). Miller classifies Bush Christians as modern Pharisees - the allegedly proud, rigid, legalistic hypocrites John the Baptist called "a generation of vipers." "The worst condemnation that Jesus has for anybody, I mean the worst, is for Pharisees," says Miller. "If you asked Jerry Falwell who the Pharisees are in our society, they can't point anybody out." There are no mirrors in Bush's church.

Shooting ourselves in the foot.

Not that I can believe anything in Capitol Hill Blue, but this is weird story.

Excerpt:President Bush has ordered plans for temporarily disabling the U.S. network of global positioning satellites during a national crisis to prevent terrorists from using the navigational technology, the White House said Wednesday.

There's no way he could do this. Too much rides on the GPS system working. It would cripple everything in this country. Makes no sense. Then again, when has that ever stopped them.


Resistance is futile.

So let me get this straight: If you decide that you are against the policies of this government, and your conscious tells you that you cannot give your money to the war machine, they can take it from you anyway. INteresting.

Excerpt: Members of Austin Conscientious Objectors to Military Taxation (ACOMT)report increased wage seizures of their wages and bank accounts by the IRS. ACOMT opposes participation in war by refusing to pay federal taxes that fund the military. The group advocates federal legislation enabling Conscientious Objectors to war taxes to direct their income taxes to a fund which the Treasury Department could use only for non-military purposes.

{sigh}


Why Alberto Gonzales is being made attorney general.

Excerpt: Just two weeks after the September 11 attacks, a secret memo to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales’ office concluded that President Bush had the power to deploy military force “preemptively” against any terrorist groups or countries that supported them—regardless of whether they had any connection to the attacks on the World Trade Towers or the Pentagon.

Chicken hawks shits

They're so afraid of us. Hey, aren't these guys supposed to LIKE Cheney?

Excerpt: Ok, you gotta love this. Everything is going so well in Afghanistan that we had to FRISK OUR OWN SOLDIERS entering a US military cafeteria today in Afghanistan. Why? Because Dick Cheney was there to have lunch with them.

Wow, if they're afraid of our own troops, imagine what they must think of us?

Excerpt: President George W Bush will be sworn in next month for a second term amid the tightest security in inaugural history, with police planning to search every one of the tens of thousands of people expected to line the parade route.

They don't even try to hide it.

With all the rats that have jumped shipped in this second Bush administration, they have to make sure that they have jobs to go to. It's part of the sacred triumvirate: business, government, regulatory manipulation.

Excerpt: The timing was perfect: On Nov. 23 -- exactly three weeks after the election and as a flurry of top Bush administration officials announced their departures -- the Office of Government Ethics declared that it was relaxing prohibitions on lobbying by former Cabinet secretaries and other top officials.

Truth-flash!

There is no social security crisis. I repeat: There is no social security crisis.

Excerpt: But since the politics of privatization depend on convincing the public that there is a Social Security crisis, the privatizers have done their best to invent one.

(Here's an excellent Josh Marshall blog entry on Social Security.)


That does it.

Now I HAVE to go to Sirius.

Excerpt: Clear Channel Communications Inc., the nation's largest radio station operator, has picked Fox News Radio to be the primary source of national news for most of its news and talk stations, officials announced Monday.

Would you like a little Zell with your easy rock?

Excerpt: U.S. Sen. Zell Miller will be joining Fox News Channel as a contributor next month, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported Tuesday. The irreverent “Democrat” is also joining a law firm, though he’s not a lawyer, in a somewhat curious career move.

(Zell's first order of business? Honoring the Swift Boat Liars.)

Also, they ruled that it's ok for Howard Stern to be Howard Stern on satellite radio, so count me in.

Excerpt: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission rejected a request from a radio broadcaster to consider applying federal indecency limits to pay satellite radio services like Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. where Stern is headed in 2006, according to a letter released on Wednesday.

Uh-oh.

This can only be filed under "uh-oh, that can 't be good."

Excerpt: Quietly but with malice, OPEC cartel nations have been dumping the U.S. dollar over the past three years, according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

And this:

Excerpt: China and Russia will hold their first joint military exercise next year, the Chinese government said Monday, as President Hu Jintao called for an expansion of the rapidly growing alliance between the former Cold War rivals.

Operation Poisoned Eagle

I'm beginning to believe the GW is such a fundamentalist, that he truly believes that the end times are here. Why else would he attack the environment the way he does? Apparently, he doesn't think any of us will be around long enough to need a healthy environment. So I guess we should just quit our complaining. Nobody will listen to us anyway.

Excerpt: “Things have gotten pretty extreme when the Environmental Protection Agency is no longer permitted to voice environmental concerns,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “’Never was heard a discouraging word’ is no longer just a lyric from Home on the Range; it is the new federal environmental mantra.”

What could they possibly have to complain about? Well, dumping sewage into the water supply for one thing.

Excerpt: The Environmental Protection Agency is close to issuing new guidelines making it easier for sewage authorities to dump partially treated wastewater during heavy rainfalls, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

And he's not stopping there. He wants to wipe out the green code, that body of legislation created by Nixon that has thus far done a fair, though imperfect, job of maintaining the environment.

Excerpt: United States President George Bush's new administration and its supporters controlling congress are setting out to dismantle three decades of US environmental protection.

He's also allowing companies to continue to use an ozone-depleting chemical.

Excerpt: The Bush administration announced new rules Thursday to allow U.S. farmers who grow tomatoes, strawberries and other crops to continue using methyl bromide, an ozone-depleting pesticide that had been scheduled to be phased out worldwide next year.

Syria? Iran? Syria AND Iran?

It's been awhile since they've rattled Syria's cage. I mean, they've been trying to frame a war on Iran for while now.

Excerpt: Having been proved 100% wrong about Iraq, the Bush administration now claims that the nonexistent WMD are in Iran, or maybe Syria. During recent weeks the Bush administration worked overtime to terrify the US public into believing that Iran is building nuclear weapons and missiles with which to destroy American cities.

But once again, they're pointing at Syria.

Excerpt: U.S. military intelligence officials have concluded that the Iraqi insurgency is being directed to a greater degree than previously recognized from Syria, where they said former Saddam Hussein loyalists have found sanctuary and are channeling money and other support to those fighting the established government.

I have an idea! Why not just combine Iran and Syria into one easy-to-attack, evil empire!!

Excerpt: Iraq's defense minister on Wednesday accused neighboring Iran and Syria of supporting terrorists in his country and charged that a senior Iraqi Shiite was leading a "pro-Iranian" coalition into next month's national elections.

If they start up another war -- or hell, if they continue on with this one --they'll have to institute a draft.

Excerpt: By the end of this recruiting year, the Regular Army, Reserves and Guard could fall short more than 50 percent of its projected requirement, or about 60,000 new soldiers. And according to many recruiters, quality recruits are giving way to mental midgets who have a hard time telling their left foot from their right.

And they will take women.

Excerpt: The Pentagon is implementing new military plans that will make the concept of women in combat a reality.

I hang my head in shame.

Sometimes, I'm embarrassed to be an American.

Excerpt: DOZENS of seats on the world's most luxurious cruise liner have collapsed under the weight of obese American passengers.

Gee, maybe we should stop eating sugar.

Excerpt: Sugar has for generations sweetened our palates and expanded our waistlines. But it is not only our health that has suffered from the global cultivation of sugar cane. Studies conducted over recent years have shown that the crop has also been bad for two of the most important and unique ecosystems in the world - the Florida everglades and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Oh, and we're dumb too. Can't do the math.

Excerpt: The United States scored below 20 of the 29 industrialized countries tested. Its performance was about the same as Poland, Hungary and Spain.

But Canada? Third.

Excerpt: Canada has scored third out of 41 countries on a global test of math skills, partly because it does so well helping children of all backgrounds to succeed, a study shows.

And do you know why? Because we totally cater to morons.

Excerpt: Students attending school in districts that have phased out the teaching of evolution will no longer be forced to answer SAT questions about the controversial theory. Instead, they'll answer questions about the six days in which God created the earth and the great flood that took place 4,300 years ago. 

This made me laugh.

These are the major reasons people become queer.

Excerpt: 7. Seeing homosexual people. Any exposure to homosexuals, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, or other perverts gives the impression that these lifestyles are attractive and acceptable.

Falling space debris

I'm lifting the commentary directlry from WhatReallyHappened.com. It's too funny to ignore.

Pathetic dodge to cover-up falling satellites.
Posted Dec 20, 2004 08:55 AM PST
Category: SCIENCE/HEALTH

"Oh CRAP, those @#$%@ bloggers have noticed all the space junk we've knocked out of orbit testing our new space weapon thingie. What do we do NOW?
"Ummmm, well, how about we dust off that Planet-X hoax we tried to use to make the bloggers look like kooks and plant a few stories linking the two, to discourage serious analysis.
"You mean like how we used UFOs to explain away accidental sightings of the early tests of the SR-71, the F-117...
"...HAVE BLUE, SENIOR CITIZEN, aurora, all those, yeah, like that."
"Boy we sure made those folks look like idiots, thinking those planes were full of outer space aliens and such. Do you really think that will work again?
"Heck, why not? If those fools bought this last election they'll buy ANYTHING! We had most of them convinced that balloon inflater was a 'mobile biological weapons laboratory', remember?
Yep, that was a good 'un!"


He's beginning to look a lot like Hitler

Didn't Hitler's people feel the need to limit the rights of Jews?

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

Hitler was Time's man of the year once too.

Excerpt:TIME explained what was perhaps the most controversial of its choices thus: "Hitler became in 1938 the greatest threatening force that the democratic, freedom-loving world faces today" (1/2/39).

Didn't Hitler used to give out lots of medals to his cronies?

Excerpt: US President George W Bush has given America's highest civilian award to three men closely involved in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Former CIA director George Tenet, Gen Tommy Franks and Iraq overseer Paul Bremer were given the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House.

And didn't Hitler use the Military in a lot of parades?

Excerpt:Officials are tight-lipped about details, awaiting a briefing this week from the Presidential Inaugural Committee. But the military theme will thread through the 10 days of inaugural events that are normally highlighted by pomp and circumstance, a time when the nation's capital turns into a lavish backdrop for the revelry of the winning party.

(Though, my paranoia tells me he wants the military front and center, just in case we protestors get "out of hand".)

Hitler dodged taxes

Excerpt: Adolf Hitler spent years evading taxes and owed German authorities 405,000 Reichsmarks -- equivalent to $8 million today -- by the time his tax debts were forgiven soon after he took power, a researcher said on Friday.

And so did Bush!

Excerpt: As if Bush's sale of his $606,000 share of Texas Rangers stock to owner Tom Hicks for $15 million wasn't enough, there's more from deep in the heart of Texas to nail the good old boy, namely the possibility of tax evasion. That is, Bush declared the proceeds as a long-term capital gain, which it wasn't, as opposed to ordinary income, which it was. This means Bush paid at the capital gains' rate of 20 percent as opposed to the ordinary income rate of 39.6 percent. Beating the IRS out of nearly 20 percent in additional taxes. But the fun doesn't stop there.

P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, Enabling Act??

Excerpt: On March 15, 1933, a cabinet meeting was held during which Hitler and Göring discussed how to obstruct what was left of the democratic process to get an Enabling Act passed by the Reichstag. This law would hand over the constitutional functions of the Reichstag to Hitler, including the power to make laws, control the budget and approve treaties with foreign governments. The emergency decree signed by Hindenburg on February 28, after the Reichstag fire, made it easy for them to interfere with non-Nazi elected representatives of the people by simply arresting them.

Our leader, Der Feuhrer?

Excerpt: A billboard recently put up in Orlando bearing a smiling photograph of President Bush with the words “Our Leader” is raising eyebrows among progressives who feel the poster is akin to that of propaganda used by tyrannical regimes.

So they found the name "Hitler" in the Nostradamus book. I wonder if they've looked for Bush.

Excerpt: Here are scans of the verses where HITLER appears in the ancient work of Nostradamus. That means all the skeptics are wrong, Nostradamus did directly name HITLER in his prophecies. All the early forgeries concealed that FACT! Click the images to view the whole scan.

News of the Weird

If a poltergeist can do this, someone had better check out some of my dad's old haunts.

Excerpt: A pub boss has called in ghostbusters after barmaids complained their bums were being pinched - by a randy poltergeist.

What does one say to an alien?

Excerpt: There’s also the enticement that pondering what to say and how to say it might help snag that extraterrestrial signal in the first place. It could give us a clue as to what we’re looking for.

This explains a lot about John Lennon.

Excerpt: The legendary Beatle, who was murdered in 1980, told Uri he was visited by extra-terrestrials when he was in bed with wife Yoko Ono in 1975.

Oh, and Houston is supposed to blow up on the 27th.

Happy Holidays!

Previous rants


What do we do about all of this crap? I have no idea. Part of me wants to start teach-ins at my local pub. Just go to the bar, rant and rave and inform the idiots who still think Dan Rather is telling them the truth. Another part of me wants to organize a voter observation program to insure that this moron isn't in the White House all the way to 2008. I sincerely believe that if we protected the voting rights of the underprivileged that any Democrat could SWEEP any election. And we'd have to start with the Florida Election for Governor THIS FALL (like these guys!.) I don't think Democrats are the answer. But they are at least a start.  

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
daou report


Here are some excellant blogs:

Bartcop
Daily Kos
Atrios
Tacitus
Josh Marshall
DNC: Kicking Ass
Two Glasses
Brad DeLong
The Wonkette
Urban Survival
Greg Palast


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.