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The Vidiot's weekly blog: What pissed me off this week? 2/14/2005 (updated every Monday at some point during the day) ...'cause I'm angry and my friends are sick of listening to me... Track your congresscritters 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/ Go Howard! Doesn't it feel good to win one?! Some are less thrilled than others though. But mostly, the Dems are united, for a change. And he's already off to an excellent start! On another note, my tax guy died. Charlie was great. He always made me feel like I wasn't his worse-off client. And I trusted him. He always new what he was doing, he was honest and he always gave me good advice. Now I have to find someone else I can trust. Jeebus. It doesn't help that this year, I'm all too tempted to withhold a portion of my taxes because I don't agree with GW's war policies. Wouldn't it be great if there were some sort of an escrow account we could deposit a portion of out taxes into, like we do with our rent when our landlords are being shitheads? Or better yet, maybe we should have a check-off section on our tax form indicating where we want our money to go to. That way, only people who wanted to fund a huge military would give their money to the military and the size of military would then directly reflect the amount of support for imperialism, as expressed through directed taxes. Oh, and by the way, here's proof that Condi lied. On a personal note, saw The Gates yesterday. It was crowded. Can't decide if it's art or not though. It was interesting. But $21 million? Couldn't that have been better spent on say, making the interior of some of our schools spectacularly lovely? I mean, what if, instead of spending all those shekels on orange material and steel, they spent it on awesome paint and plaster and desks and made our schools lovely, comfortable and inviting places for our kids? Now THAT would've been art!
Another Must-Read of the Week: The Right-Wing Express Database Site of the Week: World Religions List of the Week: Corporate Stupidity Cartoon of the Week: Bad bunny
Sorry. Short edition this week: Media:
Going, going, gone.
Here's something you won't read about over here but that is no surprise to anyone who's paying attention. With regards to Bush's budget:
(Only the blogs are really covering budget story.) So, is it any wonder we can't count on our media to give us the news anymore? I mean, they seem to shocked, just SHOCKED that we don't trust them anymore. I mean, don't even get me started on Gannongate.
(Here's another excellent summary of Gannongate.) Not only did mainstream media not do it's job on this one, the story itself shows just how perverse mainstream media has become.
(There have been other payola stories that have come to light this week as well. There's Don Caplis, who took money to slam Ward Churchill, there's Courtney D. Smith who was paid to pump up some stock on the air and there's the illustrious Brit Hume's bold-faced lie regarding FDR's New Deal.) So, it was with some incredulity that I read this article about the media shock at how the public views them. The guy is just so out of touch.
STARTING to worry about? What? They're surprised that we don't trust them anymore? Are they really that dumb? Do they think we're that dumb?
Maybe they are, but if they had been doing their jobs, maybe we wouldn't be in Iraq. Here's an idea:
Maybe that way, they'd think twice about doing a crappy job. Social
Insecurity
Yeah, Bush's Social Security plan will have "neutral" effect on the program...that is if you define "neutral" as totally fucking something up.
Just look at what happened in Chile.
Story
Ideas for our Media
It doesn't involve the media placing themselves under too much scrutiny so it won't hurt them too much. But it's a story that should be covered.
Or how about this. How about somebody look into the fact that this building didn't collapse after days of fire and the WTC collapsed after only a few hours of fire (and also the fact that the WTC was actually designed to withstand a plane hit.)
(Voice of the White House agrees with me.) And I'm sure the Bushies don't care who doubts our "intelligence".
'Cause it's all about the oil, man, it's all about the oil.
Oil.
And what about this.
Maybe that's why we saw one of the 7 signs of the apocalypse this week.
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.)
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These sites are good at culling stories from a multitude of media sites: buzzflash.com
Bartcop
Ilia
Dreams Blog These blogs will be covering the primaries and elections: Salon.com's
War Room media-bias exposed:
onlinejournal.com
whatreallyhappened.com
HIGHLY entertaining:
and
for godsakes, stay away if you must succumb to reading a newspaper:
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