The Vidiot's weekly blog:

What pissed me off this week? 1/31/2005

(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.

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Corporations getting bigger only benefits the corporations, not their customers. Case in point: Verizon.

Verizon sucks.

There. I wrote it and I'll write it again, this time with an adverb: VERIZON ROYALLY SUCKS!

Without going into too much tiresome detail, suffice it to say that after nearly 3 weeks of trying to do something simple, the incompetence of Verizon has really been an experience. Yes, yes, yes, all this conglomeration and merging and BIGness is SOOO much better for the customer. We LOVE having our problems dealt with by a myriad of incompetent people in a myriad of cities across the globe. Yes, yes, yes. That is SO MUCH more efficient... for the company.

Well, I say FUCK these companies. Damn greedy bastards. They would rather buy up a competitor, lay off the redundant portion of the workforce, expect the remaining workforce to do twice the work for the same pay, claim the new company as an asset thereby boosting their stock price while at the same time, claim the new company on their taxes as an expense for the friggin' tax break. All of this and more in the name of PROFIT. Meanwhile, those of us at the mercy of the new BIG company get screwed. AND they want to increase the taxes on us, the users, for the discomfort.

Yeah, the free market is such a good thing. It's such a good thing for everyone except the people who actually need to USE the market.

Oh, and my apartment? Still a shithole.

On the political front, the Iraqi elections went off without a hitch (No matter what the turnout actually was, though, look for the our media to try to maintain a number over 50% so an "electoral mandate" can be assumed.) ...that's if you believe what our evil media has to say. I swear, watching them, you'd think the world was made out of cotton candy with lollypop trees and soda pop water. (If I see the image of Iraqi's dancing in the streets ONE MORE TIME, I'll have to scratch my eyes out.) Just once, I'd like the our media to explain what this election really means. It's not an election per se. Nobody really won. The Iraqis are just selecting groups of people, based on party affiliation, to write a constitution. It's not an election as we understand them. Don't get excited. It's only the first step of many steps that need to be taken before the Bushies can actually manipulate a national vote and install their permanent puppet.

 

Cool Idea of the week: Car Balloons

List of the Week: 50 most Loathsome People

Senseless Toy of the Week (that I inexplicably want): Groob

Picture of the Week: The Dumbest Guy on Earth

Interesting Comparison of the Week: Decline Of American Culture - Lyrics Then & Now

Cool Tech of the Week: Bendable Organic Display Panel

Movie Clip of the Week: Inauguration Protest

Speech of the Week: Ted Kennedy

Reaction to the Speech of the Week: Delusional Repuglicans

Must-Read Article of the Week: Jeb, Marvin & Neil - 3 Profiteering Bush Brothers 

What Our Media Won't Be Talking About This Week: Bad news


Asshole of the Week

David Chu for saying that veteran's benefits are "hurtful" to national security.

Excerpt; The Wall Street Journal describes the pittance set aside for veteran's benefits as "Congress' generosity," even as the Republican-controlled Congress and Bush Pentagon get set to slash billions more from Veterans Administration's (VA) programs. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal (1-25-05), Pentagon official David Chu, in a mockery of the contribution of veterans, defended a new round of cuts by ironically describing funding for programs like veterans' education and job training, health care, pensions, VA housing and the like as "hurtful" to national security.

Senate Ethics = Oxymoron

Oh, and speaking of morons in the Senate:

Excerpt: St. Paul dentist Frank J. Milnar - who fixed Sen. Norm Coleman’s gapped teeth in 1999 and has been using close-ups of the senator’s before-and-after-smiles on a promotional Web site - said he has been told to yank Coleman’s teeth off the site.
“I got a call from [Coleman’s] chief of staff, Erich Mische, who said to get that thing off, because it was a violation of the Senate ethics rules to use the pictures,” Milnar said. “Evidently, they can’t do marketing or promoting.”

Evidently.


DNC Update

The "anybody but Dean" movement picked up some steam this weekend.

Excerpt: The son of former DNC Chair Don Fowler was endorsed by the Executive Committee of the Association of State Democratic Chairs
Short-sighted baboons.
Payola for Propaganda

Now we know why the media is going after the bloggers like a pack of wild dogs. They want to create a smokescreen for the real story: the fact that a lot of those creepy right-wing pundits are on the Bush payroll (a.k.a. at the tax payer's expense).

Last week it was that Armstrong Williams guy. This week it's Maggie Gallagher.

Excerpt: But Gallagher failed to mention that she had a $21,500 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to help promote the president's proposal.

And Mark McManus.

Excerpt: According to a report on Salon.com , another columnist has been paid to promote Bush administration initiatives. Salon claims that the Department of Health and Human Services paid conservative columnist Mark McManus $10,000 to back the Bush marriage agenda. The full registration-restricted article can be found here.

Not to mention the ribald hypocrisy of Jeff Gannon.

Excerpt: Talon News Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent Jeff Gannon, who accused his colleagues in the press corps of "work[ing] off of the talking points" provided by Democrats, has used Bush administration and Republican National Committee (RNC) documents and releases in his Talon "news reports" verbatim and without attribution.

Oh, and by the way, Sean Hannity? Scumbag.

Excerpt; According to Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, FOX News host Sean Hannity acknowledged that he "probably should have" told his viewers that he sits on the advisory board of frequent Hannity & Colmes guest Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson's Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND).

There is no way that these are the only ones with conflicts of interest. It's only the tip of the iceberg and it's heading straight for the USS Presstitute!


Looking Southward

Seems to me something is going on down there in South America.

Excerpt: The United States is preparing a future invasion of Venezuela to control the petroleum of the South American country as it did in Iraq, said Venezuela's acting ambassador to Paraguay, Elmer Nino.

Gee, I wonder why?

Excerpt: Venezuela has hailed the visit of Chinese Vice President Zeng Qinghong as a productive trip that will yield several multi-billion trade deals, mainly in the oil and gas sectors. 

Look for much jostling between Venezuela and Columbia, which will then provoke the US to bolster its troop numbers along the border in Columbia, ostensibly to "protect" their Columbian interests, but really to be poised to block any expansions by Russia via Brazil and China via Venezuela and Argentina. But hey, I'm just guessing.


I'm shocked. I really am. [yawn]

Oh, I would never have guessed this. Not in a million years.

Excerpt:Lobby groups funded by the US oil industry are targeting Britain in a bid to play down the threat of climate change and derail action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, leading scientists have warned.

BBC, caught telling the truth, was immediately punished.

I was watching the BBC news when they reported that most of the civilian casualties were from coalition forces. My jaw dropped. I'm just not used to hearing the truth coming out of my TV anymore.

Excerpt:Coalition and Iraqi troops may be responsible for killing 60% more non-combatants in Iraq than the insurgents, the BBC has learned.

I guess the powers that be didn't like that version of the truth though.

Excerpt: THE BBC was last night forced to issue an apology after it "misinterpreted" figures and claimed more Iraqi civilians may have been killed by coalition forces and their allies than by insurgents.

Gee, so I guess these guys are like totally wrong.

Excerpt; Two months earlier, the reaction in the United States to news of another large-scale human tragedy was much quieter. In late October, a study was published in The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, concluding that about 100,000 civilians had been killed in Iraq since it was invaded by a United States-led coalition in March 2003. On the eve of a contentious presidential election - fought in part over U.S. policy on Iraq - many American newspapers and television news programs ignored the study or buried reports about it far from the top headlines.

The coming pandemic

Great. Now cats can get bird flu. And people have cats as pets which means there's an even greater chance that the thing can mutate and pass onto humans.

Excerpt: The virus that caused bird flu (avian influenza) in Asia and infected some people there has crossed another species barrier. It can infect cats and be spread among them, according to a report published online by Science today.

Yet another reason to hate cats.


Gotchya!

Here are two instances that I'd like someone to check to see if Bush had his fingers crossed behind his back when he said it. The first is about the aforementioned Payola-for-Propaganda issue:

Excerpt:President Bush on Wednesday ordered his Cabinet secretaries not to hire columnists to promote their agendas after disclosure that a second writer was paid to tout an administration initiative.

(Of course, he didn't say anything about the UNDERSecretaries hiring columnists...)

And this about media conglomeration

Excerpt: The Bush administration has decided to abandon the effort by Michael K. Powell, the outgoing chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, to relax the regulations that have prevented the nation's largest media companies from growing bigger and entering new markets, government officials and industry lawyers briefed about the decision said today.

Look for these same pet issues to be reprised at a later date with the same objectives but entirely new framing, provided by the good people at the GOP-favored PR firm, I Have No Soul, Inc.

I can't hardly wait!


Blackops Econ 101

Of course they did. How else are they going to fund their undeclared wars in South America?

Excerpt: Facing opposition from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the United States has set aside plans to use spray planes to fumigate opium crops in Afghanistan, the world's largest drug producing country.

Don't expect the media to make this connection for you.

Hmmmm, why did Douglass Feith resign I wonder.

Excerpt:The top policy adviser to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and a driving force behind the Pentagon's Iraq policy plans to resign from his post this year, a senior defense official said Wednesday.

Could it be he might be implicated in the AIPAC spy scandal?

Excerpt: But here's what Reuters failed to mention: Feith may end up in the hoosegow "for leaking classified information to The Weekly Standard," according to Karen Kwiatkowski, who once had the misfortunate of working with the "arrogant" Strausscon.

Stupid Business Decisions

New headline for this story: Times may lose traffic to Web site

Excerpt: Times may charge fee on Web site

Hypocrisy Alert!

I did not know this about Newt. Did you know he left TWO sick wives?

Excerpt: Imagine the question, though, that could be put to Gingrich as a presidential candidate: You ended your first marriage when your wife had cancer, you divorced your second wife after she was diagnosed with a neurological disorder, can you please tell us what this says about your character and your respect for family values? Do you believe there is a need for an Eleventh Commandment: Thou shall not leave your wife when she is really sick?

And in another blistering example of hypocrisy, Tony Blankley, editor of the Moonie-owned Washington Times, is saying Seymour Hersh should be tried for espionage for his recent expose in the New Yorker.

Excerpt: I am not an expert on these federal code sections, but a common-sense reading of their language would suggest, at the least, that federal prosecutors should review the information disclosed by Mr. Hersh to determine whether or not his conduct falls within the proscribed conduct of the statute.

Now let me get this straight: Blankley works for Rev. Moon. Rev. Moon is a cult leader who believes he is the Messiah and has called for the U.S. Constitution to be scrapped. Not only that, Blankley sides with the same "team" that isn't calling for Bob Novak's head with regards to the outing of Valerie Plame. Hello?


Manipulation Watch

Beware. The media is once again kow-towing to the Whitehouse and using the words "Personal Accounts" Instead of "Private Accounts" when speaking about Social Security.

Excerpt: In light of the media's apparent inclination to acquiesce in White House demands that we all stop saying "private accounts" and start calling them "personal accounts" instead, it's probably worth consulting the record before taking this Orwellian turn.

Be aware and be unaffected.


RIP Posse Comitatus

Here's a little noticed breaking of the law. During the inauguration, the military was there to maintain peace and order.

Excerpt:Somewhere in the shadows of the White House and the Capitol this week, a small group of super-secret commandos stood ready with state-of-the-art weaponry to swing into action to protect the presidency, a task that has never been fully revealed before.

Yes, it's always better to have peace and order maintained by people who are trained to shoot first and ask questions later.


Bored Cops

Do you really need to bust some woman's chops for eating an apple while driving?

Excerpt: A woman tempted by an apple while driving set off a Kafkaesque chain of events, a court heard yesterday, including aerial photography by a police helicopter, nine preliminary court hearings, and a trial lasting more than 2 hours.

Or bust someone's chops for doing a favor for a neighbor?

Excerpt: Rodger Lake of Athens was helping a friend by plowing her driveway when he was ticketed last week in Springfield.

Or bust someone for a bumper sticker?

Excerpt: Some people are angry when they see Shasta Bates' derogatory bumper sticker about President George W. Bush -- but she didn't think she'd be threatened with arrest because of it.

Aren't there terrorists to track or former Halliburton CEOs to arrest?


Mystery of the Week

How did ALL of them get contaminated?

Excerpt: If it wasn't bad enough that the Bush administration has restricted federally funded stem cell research to 22 previously developed lines, now it turns out that even those precious few lines may be contaminated with a non-human acid that renders them useless to scientists.

Does anyone but me think that's a little odd?


News of the Weird

No comment.

Excerpt: Monkeys will pay to look at porn

Funny if true.

Excerpt; A Slovak man trapped in his car under an avalanche freed himself by drinking 60 bottles of beer and urinating on the snow to melt it.

Too gross for words.

Excerpt; FEARS that cosmetic implants used in lips and cheeks could trigger vCJD, the human form of “mad cow” disease, have prompted the Government to launch an investigation.

 

 

 

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.