The Vidiot's weekly blog:

What pissed me off this week? 4/25/2005

(A day early this week.)

(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.

Media Contacts

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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/

Welcome to blogopalooza!!!!!

Well, not really, but if I let this go for another week, I don't even want to think about how much stuff I'd have to wade through.

Besides, I'm jonesing to write about something other than global environmental governance. Blech.


Blog of the week: Dedicated entirely to the face on Mars.

Proof of the Week: The Secret Service are Morons (read the sign)

Tattoos of the Week: Creatures in my head.

Tech Site of the Week: Animated Engines

I SO Want This Game Site of the Week: Chocolate Roulette

Data Site of the Week: Criminals in your zip code.

Gizmo of the Week: Traffic Light Changer

Email Utility of the Week: For those big files

Photos of the Week: Earth Science Photographic Archive

Science Specialty I'd Never Heard of the Week: Ethnomycologist

Niche Site of the Week: Scottish Socialist Youth

Recipe Site of the Week: Manly Libations

Clothing Site of the Week: Best Bikini Ever

T-shirt of the Week my dad would've appreciated: Back Scratcher


Priceless Examples of Hypocrisy for the Week

Nobody does it better than Tom DeLay. He wants to blame the Dems for HIS ethics problems. Classic!

Excerpt: House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, hoping to hold support among fellow Republicans, urged GOP senators Tuesday to blame Democrats if asked about his ethics controversy and accused the news media of twisting supportive comments so they sounded like criticism.

ROTFLMAO! He has no shame. (His end is near anyway.)

But if you think that's bad, check this out.

Excerpt: Judicial Watch, the public interest group that fights government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents through the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) has invoked privacy right protections on behalf of al Qaeda terror leader Osama bin Laden.  In a September 24, 2003 declassified “Secret” FBI report obtained by Judicial Watch, the FBI invoked Exemption 6 under FOIA law on behalf of bin Laden, which permits the government to withhold all information about U.S. persons in “personnel and medical files and similar files” when the disclosure of such information “would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

Allow me to translate: The fourth amendment may not apply to American citizens any more, but for bin Laden? No problem.

And finally, the Bushies are stomping their feet at Iran, but what about Pakistan?

Excerpt: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf said he would never allow foreign inspectors into the country to examine its nuclear facilities.

D'oh!


Insulting

I told you that American media was dumbing us down.

Excerpt: Anyone who has travelled to America knows how difficult it can be to find out what is happening back home, particularly if a TV set in a hotel bedroom is your main source of information; the US networks seem to regard foreign news as an expensive turn-off.

Here's an economic number that's not really explained, probably because those in the media think we're too dumb to understand it.

Excerpt: The trade deficit will get new attention Tuesday when the Commerce Department releases its monthly trade report. Economists surveyed by both Briefing.com and Reuters have a consensus forecast for a $59 billion trade gap for February, up from $58.3 billion in January. But one third of the 21 economists surveyed by Reuters expect the gap to top the $59.4 billion figure from November, the current record.

Here's what the trade gap really means (I just learned this crap in school) It means we're importing more than we're exporting. When countries are rated for their economic growth and how developed they are, the things that are looked at is the ratio between imports and exports. More exports are good. More imports, not so much. And the only way to make it look better is to devalue the dollar OR to jigger the numbers, which is what the article is suggesting. But you can't devalue it too much or you'll have to deal with inflation.

Excerpt; Federal Reserve policymakers expressed concern about increased inflation risks at their March meeting, but there was no indication from the minutes of the meeting, released on Tuesday, that the committee is likely to shift to more aggressive rate increases soon.

Meanwhile, somebody was obviously fixing to create a 9/11 event for our economy. But heaven forbid the media would think that was newsworthy.

Excerpt: The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on Thursday said it has arrested two British nationals with $3 trillion fake US federal bank notes in their possession, DZMM reported.

Besides, you should cut back on your TV viewing anyway. If not for the dumbing down, then for the mind-control.

Excerpt: "It is therefore possible to manipulate the nervous system of a subject by pulsing images displayed on a nearby computer monitor or TV set. For the latter, the image pulsing may be imbedded in the program material, or it may be overlaid by modulating a video stream, either as an RF signal or as a video signal."

Bush Logic...or the lack thereof

Well, I guess if you can't get put lipstick on a pig

Excertp: A state department report which showed an increase in terrorism incidents around the world in 2004 was altered to strip it of its pessimistic statistics, it emerged yesterday.

you just will have to kill the pig.

Excerpt: The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.

Or if you can't make it safer, you lower the bar for safety. Natch!

Excerpt; NASA officials have loosened the standards for what constitutes an acceptable risk of damage from the kind of debris that led to the disintegration of the shuttle Columbia as it was returning from space two years ago, internal documents show.

Bush has his own Harvey?

OK, let me get this straight. Not only does he hear god's voice in his head, he goes for walks with the guy too? Does anyone else find this a little, well, schizophrenic?

Excerpt: President Bush talked to the seven reporters traveling with him on Air Force One about Jesus after attending the pope's funeral in Rome last week. For 47 minutes, Bush and the journalists had an intimate, friendly chat largely about the pope, his legacy and Bush's own "walk with Christ," "The Washington Post" reported this week in an article with the headline, "Preacher Bush."

Spin cycle is over?

What surprised me about this was not that the estate tax bill passed, because I knew that it would. What surprised me is that the Washington Post didn't use the Bush Administration's approved wording, the "death tax." I guess since the bill passed, spin is no longer needed.

Excerpt; The House voted 272 to 162 yesterday to permanently repeal the estate tax, throwing the issue to the Senate where negotiations have begun on a deep and permanent estate tax cut that can pass this year, even if it falls short of full repeal.

Necro-Ponte is in!

Well, a guy with his background

Excerpt: The day after the House voted to halt all aid to rebels fighting to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, U.S. Ambassador to Honduras John D. Negroponte urged the president's national security adviser and the CIA director to hang tough.

Just got sworn in for, what I think is the scariest idea to come out the Bush administration yet. The DNI position will basically funnel all of the intelligence information gathered by the various and sundries and give it to the administration. If you think intelligence was politicized before, well hold on to your britches Gracie. It's gonna be a bumpy ride!


Poor George.

He might have to rethink that whole global warming stance of his (and we all know thinking isn't his strong suit.) His first argument, that it's too costly to deal with it, is wrong.

Excerpt: Mandatory limits on all U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse" gases would not significantly affect average economic growth rates across the country through 2025, the government said.

His other comments, that there's no proof, is wrong.

Excerpt: Glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula are shrinking rapidly as a result of climate change, scientists have found.

And no science backs it up? Soon to be very wrong.

Excerpt; An Italian expedition to the Antarctic has taken a sample of ice which is more than 900,000 years old and could give scientists evidence of past climate changes which would discredit global warming doubters.

Overheard at the White House:

Pssst! Maybe we should do something about that genocide sitcheeyation after all.

Excerpt: Drilling for oil has begun in Sudan's troubled Darfur region after preliminary studies showed there were abundant quantities of oil, a spokesman for the country's Energy Ministry said.

In like Flynt.

I don't praise him for his objectification of women, mind you, but the dude totally rocks when it come to busting the chops of those in power.

Excerpt: "The next big, welcome and ironic breakthrough will hit the newsstands the June first as Larry Flynt features renowned theologian Dr. David Ray Griffin in a four-page Hustler interview/article entitled "What if Everything You Knew about 9/11 was Wrong?"

You may be living in a fascist state if...

Another sign that we're living in a fascist state.

Excerpt: High School To Pay Student Informants For Tips On Campus Crime

But if that doesn't convince you, this might.

Excerpt; With a vote of hand-picked lobbyists, the president could terminate any federal agency he dislikes

DO NOT piss off the Russians.

BP
is getting it's nutsack squished.

Excerpt: BP's flagship investment project in Russia suffered a major and unexpected setback yesterday after its joint venture TNK-BP disclosed it had received a back tax bill for almost one billion dollars.


Besides,
they're bracing for a fight.

Except: India, China and Russia to create new alliance to challenge USA's supremacy

The 'bad sort' your mom warned you about.

Once you involve yourself with the Bush Family Evil Empire,

Excerpt: Besides using the implausible rhetoric of "defense of democracy" justify the destabilization of Venezuela, the Bush clan has maintained interests and ties to this country for many years, specifically with multimillionaire businessmen who, like Jeb, have not used their wealth to benefit others; as well as with well-known members of the Cuban exile community living in Venezuela.

you open yourself up to a whole lotta' mayhem.

Excertp Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that a woman linked to the U.S. military had been arrested while photographing a military installation, and several U.S. citizens were also arrested for taking pictures of a refinery, signs that the Washington may be plotting an invasion of his country.

Gee, I wonder what hill happen to the RC Church. I mean, the BFEE is involved with them too.

Excerpt;Neil Bush, the president's controversial younger brother, six years ago joined the cardinal who this week became Pope Benedict XVI as a founding board member of a little known Swiss ecumenical foundation.

Another reason to not sleep well

Not like the media is reporting it, but were you aware that there's been some hefty volcanic activity over near Indonesia?

Excerpt: A volcano spewed into life on Tuesday on Indonesia's disaster-blighted Sumatra Island, spreading new panic after the recent tsunami and earthquakes and driving thousands of people from their homes.

I mean someREALLY BIG activity.

Excerpt: A cloud of steam and water blasted out of a New Zealand paddock, hurling rocks, scaring cows and leaving a 50-meter (165-foot) crater in one of the area's biggest geothermal eruptions in a half-century, witnesses said Wednesday. 

Ever hear of a caldera?

Excerpt: he sites of super-eruptions are mostly found where the Earths tectonic plates collide or where hot material wells up from the deep Earth's interior below a continent.  Yellowstone volcano in the USA, the Phlegrean Fields volcano West of Naples, Italy, and Lake Taupo in New Zealand are three examples of active volcanoes capable of producing super-eruptions.  However, there are many other areas of the Earth where such volcanoes are found or suspected, including Indonesia, the Philippines, several Central American countries, the Andes, Japan, and the Kamchatka Peninsula in eastern Russia.  A key point is that super-volcanoes are often located within or near continents.  World population expansion means that these vents are often close to areas with dense populations.

Ok. That merits a "Yikes!"

Excerpt: According to computer models, somewhere near Toba, along the fault line there may be another super volcano getting ready for eruption. 3.1 mile sinking of Indo-Australian plate under the Eurasian Plate in the last 74,000 years has created enough magma for a super volcano.

Cue the flying butt monkeys!

And George thinks he can talk them into pumping up the volume.

Excerpt:Speculation over the actual size of Saudi Arabia's oil reserves is reaching fever pitch as a major bank says the kingdom's - and the world's - biggest field, Gharwar, is in irreversible decline.

Gee, he really does think he's god, doesn't he? Ain't nobody pumping up the volume any more.

Excerpt: The one thing that international bankers don't want to hear is that the second Great Depression may be round the corner. But last week, a group of ultra-conservative Swiss financiers asked a retired English petroleum geologist living in Ireland to tell them about the beginning of the end of the oil age.

I'll add to that: The end of the oil age will be a post-capitalist society. I have no data to back that up, but that's what my gut tells me.


Oy.

We are SO going to war with Iran.

Excerpt Ariel Sharon’s military adviser General Yoav Gallan has reportedly handed Bush documents and aerial photos of Iranian nuclear installations during the Israeli prime minister’s Monday meeting with the U.S. President George W. Bush, Israeli public radio reported on Tuesday.

I'm not kidding.

Excerpt; Israeli defence officials asked Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to raise a military option against Iran's nuclear programme with US President George Bush in talks in Texas on Monday, Israel's Army Radio said.

Really.

Excerpt: Iran is only one technological step away from enriching uranium and from that point achieving nuclear capability is just around the corner, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told US President George Bush during their Monday meeting in Texas, Channel 2 reported.

Deadlines have been set.

Excerpt: The United States is giving European efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear program a few more months before considering tougher measures, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in comments published Thursday.

Bases have been arranged.

Excerpt: Rumsfeld Seals The Deal On Military Bases To Launch Attack On Iran

But Uncle Karl, how do we get the American people behind another pointless war in the pursuit of empire?

Excerpt: Al Qaeda Preparing for Another Attack in U.S., WMD Use Probable

Oh.


Pandemic Watch

Just a few stories I saw regarding the coming pandemic.

It's spreading.

Excerpt: Namibia has become the first of Angola's neighbours to go on full alert after a warning by world health authorities that the deadly Marburg fever could spread to the rest of southern Africa.

But leave it to an American company to compound the problem.

Excerpt: The assertion came a day after news that the World Health Organization asked about 5,000 labs in 18 countries to destroy samples of the H2N2 flu virus distributed by Meridian.

And don't forget that avian flu.

Excerpt: The threat of a killer flu pandemic is greater than ever because of the spread of the bird flu virus in south-east Asia, the World Health Organisation said yesterday.

I did not know this.

Uh, did you know there was an abortion fetus law?

Excerpt: he Bush administration said Friday that it would enforce a nearly 3-year-old federal law that requires doctors to attempt to keep alive a fetus that survives an abortion.

News of the Weird

UFO conspiracy of the week.

Excerpt;Death by gunshot to the head. Death by probable poisoning. Death by probable strangulation. Deaths possibly by implantation of deadly viruses. No one lives former. Yet the recent suspicious deaths of UFO investigators Phil Schneider, Ron Johnson, Con Routine, Ann Livingston and Karln Turner, as well as the deaths of a host of researchers in the past, only seem to add emphasis to a reality with which many of the more aware UFOIogists are now quite familiar: not only is UFO research potentially dangerous, but the life span of the average serious investigator falls far short of the national average.

I wonder if Barbara Bush gave her the idea.

Excerpt: Namita, a middle-aged woman who lives in India's north-eastern Tripura state and is a government worker, describes Buru, the pet monkey, as her third child. "Yes, I breastfeed him. He is my son," says Namita, caressing the monkey.


No comment.

Excerpt: "Make Your Gravity BEFORE-Arrival of Galactic SuperWave.." Dan Winter suggested - "I feel a sense of urgency since my personal lucid dream of global blackout and high water, of about 1 month ago- specifically - left the word KRAKATOA echoing in my head when I woke up". (The hi water lucid dreams of MANY others noted below).

Glad that was cleared up!

Excerpt: Dr. Burisch Elaborates On 2 Types Of ET Physiology

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}

 

 

Who am I?:

I am a biker chick who lives in NYC. This blog is about current events and my left-leaning, ascerbic spin on those events. Nobody pays me anything to do this. Nobody tells me what to write. I will NEVER tout anything for anybody's money! EVER!


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.