The Vidiot's weekly blog:

What pissed me off this week? 8/22/2005

(updated every Monday at some point during the day)

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

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It's been an underwhelming week. Sheehan stuck it out as long as she could. Bush got to ride his bikey with Lance Armstrong -- He has time for Lance and Schiavo, but not for Sheehan.(And he wonders why only 36% likes him.) Rove is still a free man. And gas prices are going through the roof, causing anxiety and threatening the global economy. (I saw my first $3 gas price in Manhattan last week.)

Just a typical week.

Sorry for the late update and the brevity. Should be the same story next week though. I'll be out of town for a few days. Hey, even this vidiot has to have a break occasionally.

Ewww of the Week: Freaky Fashion

Video of the Week: Octopus and Shark (use your IE to view this.)

Site of the Week: Backwards Bush

How-to of the Week: Clean your toilet

Bizarre Site of the Week: Past Life Calculator

Programming note: Cynthia McKinney held a briefing on the 9/11 commission report. It will be aired on C-SPAN2 from 8:00 pm to 11:30 pm on Wednesday, August 31 and from 8:00 pm to 1:00 am on Friday, September 2.

Bob Costas. For not toeing the line and refusing to do a whole show on the missing Aruba girl.

Excerpt: Costas, hired by CNN as an occasional fill-in on "Larry King Live," refused to anchor Thursday's show because it was primarily about the Alabama teenager who went missing in Aruba. Chris Pixley filled in at the last minute.

If all news people used their moral compass, news wouldn't be such crap.

This poor guy risks his life in Iraq and what do they do? They screw him out if in-state tuition because he was out of state (read: IRAQ!) for too long .

Excerpt:A decorated Marine enrolling in college was surprised to learn his Texas driver's license, car registration and bank records weren't enough to qualify him for the lower-priced state resident tuition. Carl Basham said officials at Austin Community College told him that his two tours of duty in Iraq kept him out of the state too long to qualify for Texas resident tuition.

Again, I have to ask: What the hell is wrong with Texas?

But the same question can be asked about Ohio.

Excerpt: In November, Ohio was at the center of the national political stage, delivering the White House to President Bush. Eight months later, the state's Republican Party is reeling: its leader convicted of ethics violations; a narrow win in a gimmie congressional district; an investment scandal that won't go away.

Defense contractors are doing really well.

Excerpt: US defense contractors are riding high these days, buoyed by rising Pentagon spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the high cost of homeland security in the US-declared war on terror.

Hadn't occurred to me.

It could've been the start of a beautiful war.

Excerpt:At least three missiles fired by unknown attackers narrowly missed a US navy ship docked at Aqaba in Jordan today, but one killed a Jordanian soldier and another hit Eilat across the border in Israel.

You know they want to.

Excerpt: A situation of instability is takiing hold of the military like it did in the Cold War. Two more retired generals now warn the world is on the verge of nuclear war and terrorist attacks on the homeland are only weeks away.

Look for this video on the web. It'll shock you.

Excerpt: Numerous accounts from attendees of an outdoor electronic music event in Utah county indicate excessive force used by Sherrif and SWAT officers. A video has surfaced depicting officers dressed in full military fatigues raiding the main stage of the event. Local news stations side with police in initial reports.

I don't know if this link will work by the time I post this. It seems a lot of the sites hosting the movie (fascism.mov) are crashing under DOS attacks.

Calling it like it is.

Excerpt: For the most part, the only people sacrificing for this war are the troops and their families, and very few of them are coming from the privileged economic classes. That's why it's so easy to keep the troops out of sight and out of mind. And it's why, in the third year of a war started by the richest nation on earth, we still get stories like the one in Sunday's Times that began:

Yeah, so what about those Bush twins??

Excerpt: Thanks in large part to Cindy Sheehan, people are starting to raise the issue of why Jenna and Barbara Bush aren't serving in the military. It's a tough question, but I think it's a fair one. The President of the United States is calling on American young people to volunteer to go to war, but his own daughters, who are certainly of the appropriate age, are better known for their drunken nightclub escapades than for any acts of patriotism.

Still eating meat? Why?

Excerpt: Federal food safety inspectors found more than 1,000 instances since 2004 where U.S. meat plants cut corners or violated regulations aimed at preventing the spread of mad cow disease, the U.S. Agriculture Department said Monday.

Seriously, why?

Excerpt:Significant numbers of chickens on sale in UK shops are contaminated with superbugs, a scientific survey commissioned by BBC One's Real Story suggests.

Though, I might consider eating this meat.

Excerpt: Russia’s long winter will just fly by for a herd of Russian cows which, a newspaper reported on Tuesday, will be fed confiscated marijuana over the cold months.

Go, gramma, go!

Excerpt: A 93-year-old woman with a "grip like iron" fought back against a robber by grabbing him by the testicles.

I don't think my neighbors would appreciate this.

Excerpt: Yodelling courses are being offered online after scientists claimed it was healthier than yoga or jogging.

I'm not sure what this is good for, but I'm sure I'll want one.

Excerpt: Russian scientists have invented a computer keyboard where each key has its own tiny video screen.

And just how does this work exactly.

Excerpt: Jennifer Connelly has revealed that she likes to read or shop online during sex.

Previous rants

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.

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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
Funny Farm

media-bias exposed:

dailyhowler.com

these are good left-wing journalism sites:

onlinejournal.com
counterpunch.com
thenation.com
inthesetimes.com
tompaine.com
commondreams.org
truthout.com
guerrillanews.com

a little more to the left:

wsws.org
indymedia.org

different:

whatreallyhappened.com
almartinraw.com

more different :

surfingtheapocalypse.com

really different:

goroadachi.com/etemenanki/

and for godsakes, stay away
from FOX NEWS,  MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC.
It's ALL CRAP!!!
w atch 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.