The Vidiot's weekly blog:

What pissed me off this week? 5/23/2005

(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.

Media Contacts

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"I'm George Galloway, Bitch!"

George Galloway ROCKS! (You can find video of it here and a transcript of his statement here and the Arab viewpoint here. Get it while you can. And don't rely on the New York Times. They did a really crappy job of reporting it.) When I saw the footage, I got goosebumps. How I wish we had people here in this country who would stand up to the congressional miscreants. When they invited him to speak, I doubt very much they knew what they were getting into...or maybe they did -- only 2 on the committee showed up. And afterwards, it was fun to watch Coleman try to spin it. "Well," he said unconvincingly, "Mr. Galloway's credibility is marginal at best." Marginal my ass. Of course, the "naive flag waving crowd" only heard about the accusation that he was involved with the oil-for-food scandal and not about the fact that the accusations were based on forged documents. Look at the forgeries and I dare you to think anything other than a monkey made them. (It's odd that it was such a shabby job since intelligence services have had a lot of practice making forgeries.) And the bigger question about the forged documents that's not being asked: Who's name did they cover up with Galloway's name? Chalabi perhaps? Inquiring minds want to know.

Well, if you feel the need to show him some love (like a lot of people already have), here's his address: gallowayg@parliament.uk

Action Alert: Call your senators and let them know how you feel about the filibuster, especially if you live in Arizona, Rhode Island, Maine, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Nebraska, and New Hampshire. The vote is Tuesday. (They still need cajoling.)


Sugar Alternative of the Week: Stevia

Rant of the Week: Dear President Bush

Site of the Week: DowningStreetMemo.com

Security Tip of the Week: Thwarting Yahoo

Pictures of the Week: Playboy Centerfolds -- ALL of them.

Ewww of the Week: Spider Bite

Stalking Site of the Week: Zabasearch

Blog Entry of Last Week: WORST. LIST. EVER.

Blog Entry of This Week: The Dead and the Undead...

Panties of the Week: Vibrating Knickers

Quote of the Week: Ozzy Osbourne remembers when he lost his patience with the midget Black Sabbath hired for a tour. "He showed up late, he drank....It got to me after awhile. So, one night, when he wanted to get on the tour bus, I threw him in the luggage compartment. Somebody grabbed me and said: 'What you're doing is not only illegal but it's inhumane.' "I lost it. I yelled: 'He's my [bleeping] midget and I'll [bleeping] do what I want with him.' There was a silence and then a small voice emerged from the luggage compartment: 'He's right: I'm his midget and he can do what he wants with me.'"


Hero of the Week

Alysha Cosby, who was pregnant and therefore forbidden to participate in her catholic school's graduation ceremony. Well, she did it her way.

Excerpt: A pregnant student who was banned from graduation at her Roman Catholic high school announced her own name and walked across the stage anyway at the close of the program.

Hypocrisy of the Week

You have to love it when people like Frist get their ass handed to them.

Excerpt; Senate Democrats were waiting for Majority Leader Bill Frist to start the showdown on the Senate floor this morning. It turns out Frist voted on March 8, 2000 to uphold the filibuster of Judge Richard Paez and deny him an "up or down vote." Think Progress has the details of the exchange with Sen. Chuck Schumer.

Or when Santorum says something stupid

Excerpt: Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) compared Democrats' attempts to keep the filibuster to Hitler's moves in 1942 in a floor speech in the Senate Thursday afternoon, RAW STORY has learned. (video)

Only to be shown how really stupid he is.

Excerpt: On March 1, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) made a reference to Hitler in a speech about the nuclear option. Santorum lashed out at Byrd for his remarks.

And do not bother reading the puff piece in this Sunday's New York Times.

Pronunciation: san-TOR-um
Function: noun
Etymology: Savage Love - 05/29/03
1. The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex.


Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Don't look over there.

Excerpt: And the fact is that there have been other abuses reported not just by detainees about U.S. soldiers' anti-Islam behavior—like wrapping a Muslim detainee in an Israeli flag, which I wrote about last December.

Look over here!

Excerpt; The FBI said Wednesday that a grenade thrown in the crowd during last week's speech by President Bush in the Georgian capital was capable of exploding and was considered a threat against the president.

Ignore that over there.

Excerpt:In a stunning slap at the democratic legislative process, the Senate Intelligence Committee, headed by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kansas), has suddenly and quietly scheduled a closed-door session for this Thursday to mark up its version of a renewed USA PATRIOT ACT, the frankenstein legacy of former Attorney General John Ashcroft and his then assistant Michael Chertoff (now secretary of Homeland Security).

Pay attention to this!

Excerpt: The leaders of Iraq's most notorious terrorist group recently held a secret meeting in neighbouring Syria, where they plotted the recent wave of insurgent violence that has killed hundreds of people and was intended to break the post-election lull in violence, a top U.S. military official said.

Turn away from that

Excerpt: George W. Bush's job approval ratings have dropped to post-election lows as Americans have become increasingly concerned about their personal finances and the national economy according to the latest survey from the American Research Group. Among all Americans, 43% say they approve of the way Bush is handling his job and 51% disapprove. When it comes to Bush's handling of the economy, 37% of Americans say they approve and 57% say they disapprove.

And focus on the this.

Excerpt: Iran is circumventing international export bans on sensitive dual-use materials by smuggling graphite and a graphite compound that can be used to make conventional and nuclear weapons, an Iranian dissident and a senior diplomat said Friday.

Whatever Rummy wants, Rummy gets.

Rummy wants to militarize space!

Excerpt:Everett Dolman, a professor at the Air Force's School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, said he expected the White House to issue a new space policy next month that would underscore the military's determination to protect its existing space assets and maintain dominance of outer space.

No matter that Russia is against it.

Excerpt: Russia would consider using force if necessary to respond if the US put a combat weapon into space, according to a senior Russian official.

And China too.

Excerpt:China Thursday voiced objections to putting weapons into space, saying "space should be utilized for peace."

(Though, here's a good enough reason for going to war with China.)

There goes George, uniting, not dividing again.

Hrnmph.There's a reason why we're going bankrupt.

Excerpt: Let us consider the possibility that the USA has become addicted, in an economic sense, to war. While the evidence offered below is by no means exhaustive, it is directly relevant and highly probative. Therefore, the reader should consider ALL of the evidence in Exhibits A through D before judging whether or not a prima facie case has been made that America is economically addicted t o war.

Hark!

Do I hear a spine forming in our media corps?

Excerpt: Much to his surprise,  the press corps proved to have a gag reflex after all.  Scotty McC finally crossed a line, and they remembered that even whipped dogs have teeth.

Perhaps they're angry because once again, they're taking the fall for this administration. By blaming the muslim unrest on a true story reported in Newsweek, a story that is the least of the atrocities that are occurring over there, maybe the media has finally awakened from their power-jag, albeit hung over and disorganized, but in pain and aware. (Here's a Seymour Hersh must-read from the Guardian.) Maybe they're tired of being used by the administration. But it wasn't a set up to make the media look bad. It was set up to do something else. According to Al Martin, the Newsweek story did two things: it inflamed the Middle East, thereby making sure the Bushies have a reason to stay there and it made Bush's core constituency happy by showing them we're 'playing dirty.' Also, he says the the editorial staff at Newsweek have been water boys for the Bushies before.

So there you have it. Oh, and Sunday, I watched the McLaughlin show and Pat Robertson actually sad that Newsweek shouldn't have published the article and that by doing so, they were being seditious. He actually used the word seditious! Oy vey what an asshole.


Demystifying porn.

On a non-political note, here here!

Excerpt: Well, I am 40, and mine is the last female generation to experience that sense of sexual confidence and security in what we had to offer. Our younger sisters had to compete with video porn in the eighties and nineties, when intercourse was not hot enough. Now you have to offer—or flirtatiously suggest—the lesbian scene, the ejaculate-in-the-face scene. Being naked is not enough; you have to be buff, be tan with no tan lines, have the surgically hoisted breasts and the Brazilian bikini wax—just like porn stars. (In my gym, the 40-year-old women have adult pubic hair; the twentysomethings have all been trimmed and styled.) Pornography is addictive; the baseline gets ratcheted up. By the new millennium, a vagina—which, by the way, used to have a pretty high “exchange value,” as Marxist economists would say—wasn’t enough; it barely registered on the thrill scale. All mainstream porn—and certainly the Internet—made routine use of all available female orifices.

Plamegate isn't over.

Here's a status report from John Dean.

Excerpt: For this reason, a Court decision to docket the case should raise deep suspicions. This, after all, is the Court that installed Bush and Cheney in the White House with its dubious Bush v. Gore ruling. Delaying this case until the backside of Bush's second term could give the White House a pass through the mid-term elections as well.

Things that make you go "Hmmmm..."

Maybe Brazil is eating up the rainforest like there's no tomorrow

Excerpt:It is stark. It is scarcely believable. But the ruthless obliteration of the Amazon rainforest continues at a headlong rate new figures reveal - and today we reveal the man who more than any other represents the forces making it happen.

Because they know something we don't?

Excerpt: Friday, May 20, was an historic day for Ufology in Brazil and in the world as the Brazilian Air Force (FAB), for the very first time in its history, officially receives a committee of top UFO researchers to openly discuss sightings in the country and fully exam classified UFO documents in several military facilities in Brasilia, the Federal Capital.

Bad Idea of the Week

Genetically modifying smallpox?

Excerpt:Researchers have already been given the go-ahead by a technical committee of the World Health Organisation, which accepts the argument that the research could bring new vaccines and treatments for smallpox closer. This week the debate will pass for a final decision to the floor of the full assembly of the WHO, whose representatives from 192 member states begin a 10-day annual meeting in Geneva today.

While there as burgeoning pandemic in Africa?

Excerpt;The world's worst outbreak of the Ebola-like Marburg virus has claimed 311 lives in Angola, a joint statement by Angola's health ministry and the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday.

And Asia?

Excerpt:The deadly H5N1 bird flu strain that has been plaguing southeast Asia appears to be evolving in a way that may signal a greater threat of a human flu pandemic, according to a World Health Organization report.

Fools.


A+B=C+D

First Chavez threatened to do it.

Excerpt: President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that foreign oil companies operating in Venezuela must pay taxes he insists they owe, or else leave the country

And they threatened regime change in Venezuela.

Excerpt; In a paper timed to coincide with a major hemispheric policy address by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the Center for Security Policy warned today that the increasingly repressive - and aggressive - dictatorship in Venezuela must either change or be changed if the region is to avoid the terrible human costs of a new generation of revolutionary upheaval.

Then Ecuador threatened to do it

Excerpt: And Ecuador is saying forget it. But they're just the last in a whole line of dissident nations. What’s unusual here is Palacio, you know, he lived in America for 10 years. He’s a cardiologist. If he were in the United States, he would probably be a Republican. But he is saying you can't smother our country, and he’s just following in line with, like I say, Ecuador with Argentina, Brazil, other nations, and now it looks like even Mexico is going to go down that route. Basically the United States -- not so much the United States, but the Bush world, the Bush administration is losing its complete grip south of the border.

As well as Bolivia

Excerpt:Foreign investors in Bolivia's gas sector could freeze production and take the country to court after controversial hydrocarbons legislation was adopted into law on Tuesday night that would raise taxes and impose forced changes to existing contracts.

I predict they will threaten regime change in Ecuador and Bolivia.


The Market is up but...

I really don't understand the market. Everything I'm reading is bad bad bad.

Excerpt: Investors are growing gloomier about prospects for the world economy and are expecting weaker growth, a survey of fund managers has indicated.

And worse worse worse.

Excerpt: “For those central banks that are not managing their currencies, there may well be a feeling that the dollar is not a great bet,” said Adam Cole, currency strategist at RBC Capital Markets

News of the Weird

Well, here's a photo for you.

Excerpt; I snapped this image on 8 Jan 05 at 10:48 am from my back yard here in New Zealand. First real blue sky we have seen in this neck of the woods for weeks with several CT's overhead which I photographed.

Weird numerology.

Excerpt: Mount Hermon in Phoenicia, the first location of extraterrestrial influence with man, lies precisely at 33.33° north 33.33° east ... 2,012 miles from the equator and 2,012 miles from the prime meridian.*

Dumbest museum EVER.

Excerpt: Nestling deep in the Ozark mountains of Arkansas, in the heart of America's Bible Belt, this is the first dinosaur museum to take a creationist perspective. Already thousands of people have flocked to its top-quality exhibits which mix high science with fundamentalist theology that few serious scientists accept.

 

 

 

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, acerbic 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!


Use this instead of Google:

Clusty.com

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

buzzflash.com
unknownnews.net
rawstory.com


Here are some excellent blogs:

Bartcop
Daily Kos
Atrios
Tacitus
Josh Marshall
Two Glasses
Brad DeLong
The Wonkette
Urban Survival
Greg Palast
Mark Crispin Miller


Link exchange:

Ilia Dreams Blog
Iraq War Blog
BushVote.com
Dommecile.com

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 (and whose companies are diversified in industries that support the war machine) so all of the news is all the same CRAP.