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The Vidiot's
weekly blog:
What
pissed me off this week? 11/21/2005
(updated
every Monday at some point during the day)
...'cause
I'm angry and my friends are sick of listening to me...
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 my Rutgers classmates.
Something is going
on. I was watching ABC Nightly News the other night and they opened with
bad news about Iraq, then they showed Rep.
Murtha and the reaction (some
of it quite
shameful) to him wresting
control of the Iraq discussion away from the administration. Then
they showed even
more of Murtha "in his own words" and THEN they did something
about how bad the economy is. I don't know about you, but it was a total
beat down of the administration's policies for the entire first half of
the broadcast. I was stunned. Literally. I sat on the couch with my mouth
hanging open.
And of course, the
typical reaction of this administration is to attack
the dissenters, attack
the messenger, and start
an ethics investigation of Murtha. Tried and true Rovian tactics.
Add to that the
fact that the whole torture
thing is back in the news (and in Cheney's
lap) and I really think things are turning away from this administration.
They've been trying
to hide the torture issue for too long. Now, there's too
much of it and it's seeping out of the cracks. And what the subject
of torture is doing is underlining the hypocrisy of our 'mission' in the
Middle East. How can a country that professes to represent democracy and
human rights have anything to do with torture? (To the pont where the
VP is actively
lobbying against an amendment banning it!) They can't. Or rather,
they
shouldn't.
All of this bad
news for the administration scares me a little bit. What will they do
to counteract it when the usual tactics stop working? Start
a war? With Syria
perhaps? Or maybe a little staged terror?
Gift
Idea of the Week: Cute
Mice
Site of
the Week: Zefrank.com
Video of
the Week: What
a goof.
T-Shirt
of the Week: Mario-Che
Must-Read
of the week: The
Man Who Sold the War
Music Site
of the Week: NotMTV
Me Wanny
of the Week: Pee
and Poo dolls
Craig's
List of the Week: Looking
for a terrible boyfriend for one week.
Ren and
Stimpy are back!: John
K
Story update:
Last week's rant on M3 is put into better perspective by this
guy.
The
Corpse of Habeas Corpus?
It's a complicated subject, but we need to understand
it so we can get pissed off about it. (Hell, the supreme court even
yelled at Lincoln for taking it away during the civil war.)
Excerpt:But what
started as an admirable attempt by Senator John McCain to stop the torture
and abuse of prisoners has become a tangle of amendments and back-room
deals that pose a real danger of undermining the sacred rule that the
government cannot just lock people up forever without saying why. On
Thursday, the Senate passed a measure that would deny foreigners declared
to be "unlawful enemy combatants" the right to a hearing under
the principle known as habeas corpus, which dates to Magna Carta.
Read this for clarification:
Seventeen
myths and distortions about the Graham amendment.
And read this for an historical
perspective: Losing
Habeas Corpus - "A More Dangerous Engine of Arbitrary Government"
Oy.
Let's rephrase this.
Excerpt: A criminal
complaint unsealed in federal court in Washington on Wednesday alleges
a web of corruption and bid rigging in Iraq by officials who worked
with the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-led agency
that ran Iraq for more than a year after the 2003 invasion.
A convicted felon was given
a position wherein he had control over billions of dollars in contracts.
And what did he do? He scammed. Jeebus. Wal-mart does a better background
check for their cashier positions.
I'm
shocked [yawn] I'm
shocked to discover that politics
plays a role at the FDA.
Excerpt: The Government
Accountability Office also said in its 57-page report that there were
questions about whether top officials of the F.D.A. made the decision
to reject the application for over-the-counter sales of the drug, which
is opposed by some religious conservatives, even before its own advisory
committee had issued its recommendation on the matter.
Or that big oil had anything
to do with Cheney's task force.
Excerpt: A White
House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with
Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 -- something long
suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by
industry officials testifying before Congress.
(Why do I feel like that was
common knowledge?)
Meanwhile, the Senate voted
to
let big oil keep its tax break.
Excerpt: The U.S.
Senate shot down an oil industry windfall profit tax amendment proposed
by senators Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., in
a 55-44 vote on Thursday.
Obviously lying to Congress
has its perks.
They
don't care how it looks anymore. In
one hand
Except:The Republican-controlled
Congress helped itself to a $3,100 pay raise on Friday, then postponed
work on bills to curb spending on social programs and cut taxes in favor
of a two-week vacation.
taken out
from the other
Excerpt: The U.S.
House of Representatives voted on Friday to cut $700 million from the
food stamp program, despite objections from antihunger groups complaining
that estimates show some 235,000 people would lose benefits.
Organized
Religion IS for dummies. At
Wal-Mart, you can get fired for speaking the truth.
Excerpt; “This
is a sweet victory for the Catholic League, Christians in general, and
people of all faiths. And it means that Wal-Mart can now enter the Christmas
season without this cloud hanging over it.”
“Sweet victory”? You induced Wal-Mart to fire a worker right
before Christmas!
Basically, the guy said that
Christmas was on Dec. 25, not because that's when Jesus was born, but
because that date closely aligned with the winter solstice. Also, a pretty
good clue that Jesus was born in the Spring comes from the bible itself.
The angels came down and spoke to the shepards who had been sleeping in
the field with their sheep. Shepards only spend the night with their sheep
when they're a) horny or b) the sheep are in the process of giving birth
. At that point, the sheep are very vulnerable to predators and the shepards
stick around to protect the flock. Gee, will the Catholic League boycott
me too!
You know they would've boycotted
Thomas Paine
Excerpt; The Kansas
school board might find it instructive to read Thomas Paine's 210-year-old
argument in support of intelligent design. They may be interested to
learn how his belief in intelligent design led him to reject organized
religions.
Man, I LOVE Thomas Paine! If
you've never read him, I recommend that you do.
Example
#456,852 of why Media Conglomeration is bad Here's
news you won't
be seeing on NBC or MSNBC.
Excerpt: A federal
conservation official has raised serious doubts about the recently approved
plan to scrape hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of hazardous chemicals
from the bottom of the Hudson River, and raised the possibility that
the long-delayed cleanup may never be completed.
The
economy... Oh boy.
You know it's bad when an otherwise staid economist type is using a word
like "tsunami"
to describe our fiscal situation.
Excerpt: Sadly,
it's no laughing matter. To hear Walker, the nation's top auditor, tell
it, the United States can be likened to Rome before the fall of the
empire. Its financial condition is "worse than advertised,"
he says. It has a "broken business model." It faces deficits
in its budget, its balance of payments, its savings — and its
leadership.
But it is bad. The agency that
insures private pensions is running
out of money.
Excerpt: The Pension
Benefit Guaranty Corp. disclosed in its annual financial report that
as of Sept. 30, it had $56.5 billion in assets to cover $79.2 billion
in pension liabilities.
CNN is reporting that the housing
boom is past
its peak.
Excerpt; The pace
of home building slowed sharply in October as higher mortgage rates
began to bite, a government report showed Thursday, in the latest sign
that the housing boom may have peaked.
And GM is cutting
30,000 jobs.
Excerpt: General
Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM - news) said on Monday it will cut about 30,000
jobs or 9 percent of its total work force, close or curtail operations
at 12 plants in North America and slash the amount of vehicles it produces
by 1 million as it attempts to reduce costs by $7 billion.
Which of course effects
GM's suppliers.
Excerpt: GM parts
supplier Delphi plans to axe 24,000 jobs: reduce hourly wage from $27
to $9; pay managers bonuses worth $90m
I guess it's that "tinkle
down" economy we hear so much about.
(Here's
a good blog entry explaining the difference between US debt and a US deficit.)
WTF?
Didn't they do a travelgate
over something really mundane that was done by Hillary at one point? Doesn't
this
merit?
Excerpt:Vice President
Dick Cheney and his staff have been declaring themselves exempt from
the travel disclosure laws followed by the rest of the White House,
a Center for Public Integrity investigation released today found.
I guess the
devil don't need no steenking vouchers.
Excerpt: Wish I
made a sweet deal with the devil. What an opportunity for me. The only
reason I couldn't...is because I'm not Dick Cheney.
I guess it's all part of the
"less
oversight is more" Congress.
Excerpt; Back in
the mid-1990s, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, aggressively
delving into alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration, logged
140 hours of sworn testimony into whether former president Bill Clinton
had used the White House Christmas card list to identify potential Democratic
donors.
In the past two years, a House committee has managed to take only 12
hours of sworn testimony about the abuse of prisoners at Iraq's Abu
Ghraib prison.
So, 140 hours for possible
misuse of Christmas cards vs. 12 hours on prison torture. Christmas cards?
Torture? 140? 12? Yeah. That seems about right.
Always
a dumb idea. Say
"Good
night, Gracie" to missile defense.
Excerpt: Russia
recently conducted a flight test of a new warhead that can change course
in midflight, which U.S. and Russian officials are calling part of Moscow's
efforts to defeat U.S. missile defenses.
It was useless before, this
only makes it more useless.
Who's
nutso? Read this:
BLITZER: Here is the question
that a lot of people want you to answer. Do you as the defense secretary
owe the American people an apology for all that bad intelligence?
RUMSFELD: Why would the Defense Department -- it's the intelligence
community that made the intelligence. It was CIA and...
BLITZER: But the DIA had an intelligence operation. And you had a separate
intelligence operation that Doug Feith, one of your top aides, was running.
RUMSFELD: It was not a separate intelligence organization. You've been
reading the press too long.
BLITZER: What is the inspector general investigating now as far as Doug
Feith and his intelligence operation?
RUMSFELD: I really don't know.
Now here is what Blitzer is
referring to:
The
Lie Factory
Pentagon
agrees to probe Feith's role in Iraq intel
Who's lyin' now?
Media
& Stuff They
can't help but pick on Chavez. They have to make him look bad at all costs.
Look
at how the New York Times pumped up his challenger, a US favored woman.
Excerpt:Ms. Machado,
38, attractive and a fluent English speaker, is lionized by her allies
in the opposition as a worldly sophisticate fighting for democracy.
But she is demonized by the government, which characterizes her as a
member of a corrupt elite that is doing the bidding of the much reviled
Bush administration.
Especially since Chavez seems
to be doing
too well.
Excerpt: Venezuela's
economy grew 9.8 percent in the third quarter of this year, helped by
high oil prices, public spending and growth in the construction and
commerce sectors, the central bank said on Thursday.
And making
good on his promises.
Excerpt: Venezuela
will soon begin selling heating oil at discount prices to poor communities
in Boston and New York, following up on a promise by President Hugo
Chavez, Venezuela's state oil company announced.
And Chavez knows
what the game is.
Excerpt: US ambassador
William Brownfield said this week that Venezuelan officials had wrongly
accused Washington of a range of conspiracies ranging from planning
alleged assassination plots to causing floods brought on by global warming.
Gee, why would he think such
a thing?
Excerpt: Per your
conversation with President Hugo Chávez of the Bolivarian Republic
of Venezuela during his visit to New York in September 2005, enclosed
you will find a part of the documentation regarding a proposed military
operation against our country. We are sending you documents from the
Plan Balboa, which was an invasion plan against Venezuela used as a
military exercise in early 2001 by NATO nations, just one year before
the coup d'etat was executed by factions of Venezuelan society supported
by the Bush Administration.
They had better be careful,
otherwise, Chavez could pick up his toys
and go elsewhere.
Excerpt: The President
of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, has said he wants Venezuela oil tankers going
to places other than the US. Although the US is the No. 1 buyer of Venezuela
oil, he, in sum, prefers to earn greater political power by selling
oil at a discount to Caribbean and South American countries than at
a premium to the US.
The movement to the left in
Latin America must be quite frightening to the administration. After years
of trying to manipulate the governments down there, it seems as if the
US has actually created their nemesis -- a left leaning populist movement.
There's an election in Bolivia coming up and you can bet there are big
plans for a "party".
Excerpt: The recent
shift to the left among Latin American governments has been a cause
for concern in the Bush administration. The White House has tried in
vain to put this shift in check. Presidential elections in Bolivia on
December 18th are likely to further challenge U.S. hegemony. Evo Morales,
an indigenous, socialist congressman, is expected to win the election.
How far will the U.S. go to prevent a leftist victory in Bolivia? Some
Bolivians fear the worst.
And why would the administration
care about Bolivia? Oil,
'natch.
Excerpt: Thousands
of protesters have converged on the Bolivian capital La Paz for an angry
demonstration over ownership of the country's gas reserves.
The other country that you'll
see the Administration vilify is Ecuador, and here's
why.
Excerpt: Ecuador
has a new president, and George Bush has someone new to hate. Crowds
in Quito, in front of the presidential palace, are shouting, “Todos
fuera! (Everybody get out!)." Last month 100,000 angry Ecuadorians,
from Indians to accountants, forced the last president to flee the country.
They called him “Sucio Lucio (Dirty Lucio)” Gutierrez, for
going along with demands of George Bush and the World Bank to cut government
spending on health and education. I asked the women in bowler hats and
this man why they were protesting. He is saying he can't get anything
to eat. The demonstrations may be in Quito, but the real action is here
in the rain forest, where the World Bank and Occidental Petroleum know
that Ecuador has what they want: Oil.
Update on last week's
rant on Fallujah: The New York Times finally mentioned
it. (It took them two weeks to get around to it though.) The article,
while not directly addressing any of the the factual issues regarding
the Italian film, spoke to the administration's response and how bungled
it was. And they used many government friendly sources! Have they learned
nothing?
So, the root of the article
was not "Did the US use weapons they shouldn't have on civilians" but
rather, "What is the administration's response?"
Excerpt: The half-hour
film was riddled with errors and exaggerations, according to United
States officials and independent military experts. But the State Department
and Pentagon have so bungled their response - making and then withdrawing
incorrect statements about what American troops really did when they
fought a pitched battle against insurgents in the rebellious city -
that the charges have produced dozens of stories in the foreign news
media and on Web sites suggesting that the Americans used banned weapons
and tried to cover it up.
How completely lame is that!
The NYT is still, after the whole Judy Miller incident, STILL behaving
like the administration's apologist. Basically saying that had the administration
just countered the story better and less clumsily, all would be fine.
Oh my god.
I think I just heard the back
of my head explode.
Meanwhile, I read
in a UK paper that the military was told to NOT use the weapons on people.
Excerpt: The debate
over the use of white phosphorus in the battle of Fallujah took a new
twist when it emerged the US Army teaches senior officers it is against
the "laws of war" to fire the incendiary weapon at human targets.
But they were trained
to use them anyway.
Excerpt:Col Tim
Collins, the controversial Iraq war commander, trained his soldiers
to use white phosphorus, which burns through flesh to the bone, in combat
against enemy troops.
The admission by the former Special Air Service officer, revealed in
his autobiography Rules of Engagement, contradicts claims by the Ministry
of Defence that the chemical was only ever used to create a smokescreen.
Do ya' think there's a story
there? Hmm, NYT? I dare you!
Comments?
News
of the Weird Ewwwww.
Excerpt: A woman
died in a Calcutta hospital after ants ate one of her eyes as she was
recovering from a cornea operation, media reports said Tuesday.
No surprises here.
Excerpt: No one
is really sure how the British love affair with alcohol began. Stone
Age beer jugs have suggested that we were intentionally fermenting alcohol
as early as the Neolithic period, 12,000 years ago. Since there is no
evidence that we drank it with straws - which the Egyptians did 6,000
years back - that means we probably filtered the wheat husks out with
our teeth. We have always been a sophisticated nation when it comes
to drink.
At least one person in Switzerland
has a sense
of whimsy.
Excerpt: This time,
the town is giving the alien its marching orders. Local by-laws set
out strict conditions about what is allowed and not allowed on all buildings
given the multitude of shops and restaurants all vying for the tourist
business.
Wasn't this
a made for TV movie?
Excerpt:A Malaysian
man sought help from a medium to rid him of a female ghost whom he said
had demanded sex from him every night for the past sixteen years, a
report said on Saturday.
An example
of what to do with too much free time.
Excerpt: There
can be little doubt that one of the most important factors that will
determine the manner in which our society reacts should contact ever
be established with intelligent extraterrestrial (ET) life forms will
be the physical appearance,or morphology, of the alien. All the prejudices,
the fears, the mistrust and the bigotry that exists amongst the races
that make up mankind will be focusswed into this reaction. Thus, speculating
on the morphology of an intelligent alien is important for the future
of space exploration. Serious efforts are now being made around the
world in the field known as Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
(SETI) and the manner in which our society reacts to contact will depend
to a great extent on the appearance of the alien. Anticipation of the
possibilities now may reveal whether a shock for the world is likely.
It is also useful to consider alien morphology in terms of gaugin g
how lok ely the chances of intelligent aliens evolving really are.
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 Brian Williams is telling them the truth. I sincerely believe
that if we protected the voting rights of the underprivileged that any Democrat
could SWEEP any election. 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.
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