The Vidiot's weekly blog:

What pissed me off this week? 12/5/2005

(updated every Monday at some point during the day)

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

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.

Rep. Cunningham's tearful resignation from public service due to his hand being caught in the defense industry's cookie jar could turn out to be quite the deep rabbit hole. His connection to the graft and cronyism that is part and parcel of defense spending may finally expose the system for what it is: a giant black hole for black-ops funding. (Go the this blog for updates)

It may even hook up with the Abramoff scandal which will ensnare multiple congresscritters, the Dept. of Homeland Security, and go directly to the White House. Plamegate is huge and evil and has all sorts of international ramifications, but the Abramoff/Cunningham scandal will have all sorts of domestic ramifications. Taken together, it could very well be worse than Watergate. (Though, I'm not too excited. The guy investigating Abramoff should have his connections to Abramoff investigated.)

Video of the Week: SNL iPod Spoof

Car of the Year: Bugatti Veyron

Retro Tech of the Week: Pip Phone

Cool Alcohol Idea of the Week: Ice shot glasses

List of the Week: Chat abbreviations

Couch of the Week: Bonbon Doc

Stuffed Doll of the Week: Klong

Holiday Video of the Week: William Burroughs' Thanksgiving Prayer (1986)

Another Video of the Week: Magic Hands

Ad Campaign of the Week: VIP Gym

Religion Blog of the Week: Godlorica

Gift Idea of the Week: Personalized M&Ms

Silly Blog of the Week: Don't Forward

Another Video of the Week: Will Ferrell Discussing Global warming as GW BUsh.

Another Gift Idea of the Week: Poo Poo Platter

Updates: Sibel Edmonds had been denied a new hearing by the Supreme Court. The Bushies have said "screw you" to New Orleans. Fitzgerald unseals parts of Miller's decision.

Recall election!

Excerpt: One solution is to establish a California-style recall system on the national level. If a significant percentage of Americans loses confidence in the president and his administration to the extent that they're willing to sign a recall petition, a special election should be held within three months. The number of required signatures should be high enough--California's system calls for 12 percent of the number of people who cast votes in the preceding election--to ensure that recalls are only held as the result of widespread disgust among the citizenry.

I just want to toss this out there: Why are the insurgents targeting people who are helping them? What does that prove?

Excerpt:Osthoff's mother told the channel her daughter had been organising aid shipments for Iraq. She said she was counting on the German government to help rescue her daughter.

I'm not the only one wondering.

Excerpt: Mr. Kember, who campaigned against the war in Iraq, was seized on Saturday from a mosque he was visiting in a Sunni area of western Baghdad with the three other hostages. It has been reported that they were talking to Muslim clerics about the abuse of Sunni detainees," more than enough reason for Kember to be abducted by black op "insurgents" who " just grabbed" the name Swords of Righteousness "out of the air, a tactic which goes back to Beirut," according to the Guardian. It should be remembered that the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena was also kidnapped as she prepared to interview survivors of Fallujah, now admitted to have been attacked with chemical weapons and a napalm derivative.

Shhhh. Don't use the word "insurgents". Rummy doesn't like it any more.

Excerpt: The US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld has banned the use of the word 'insurgents' when referring to the militants operating in Iraq. "Over the weekend I thought to myself. 'You know, that gives them a greater legitimacy than they seem to merit," he told journalists during a Pentagon briefing on Tuesday. "It was an epiphany," he said, throwing his hands in the air.

A secretive biomedical group will not have to fulfill FOIA requests.

Excerpt:“Information that relates to the activities, working groups, and advisory boards of the BARDA shall not be subject to disclosure under section 552 of title 5, United States Code [i.e. the FOIA], unless the Secretary or Director determines that such disclosure would pose no threat to national security.”

Ostensibly to protect patents, but more than likely to hide black ops.

Also, I'm never going to Miami again.

Excerpt:Police are planning "in-your-face" shows of force in public places, saying the random, high-profile security operations will keep terrorists guessing about where officers might be next.

And "Scalito" is all for a police state.

Excerpt: As a young Reagan administration lawyer, Samuel A. Alito Jr. took an expansive view of government law-enforcement powers in numerous cases in which he was called upon to balance the prerogatives of police and prosecutors with the rights of individuals, according to 400 pages of documents released Monday by the Justice Department, the Boston Globe is set to report Tuesday.

There could be an even more insidious reason for Bush backing an undocumented worker's program.

Excerpt:This "temporary worker" proposal, one that Bush has been on record supporting for years, has drawn renewed heat from GOP activists, who don't buy Bush's assertion that it's not a general amnesty. But even if he does get the idea past a skeptical Congress, the real challenge may come in convincing the workers themselves that it's a good idea.

It could be his big donors need to be able to legally hire the cheap labor they've been hiring already on the sly. It's all about keeping down the costs of bid'ness to maintain a high profit margin.

Iran makes the move to switch to the petroeuro.

Excerpt:The Chairman of the Majlis Energy Commission, Kamal Daneshyar said here, on Friday, that preparatory measures have been taken to sell oil in euros instead of dollar, adding that such a measure is quite positive and should be taken as soon as possible.

Here's why that sucks for us.

Excerpt: Iran’s switch to receiving payment for its oil in euros could spell the end of the dollar’s supremacy. If not, the world’s other major oil producers are also preparing to bail out of the bankrupt buck. What happens then?

Defending a war crime.

Excerpt:The United States' most senior general has defended the use of weapons containing white phosphorus in Iraq.

And defending a stupid, politically motivated vote.

Excerpt: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday defended her vote to authorize war in Iraq amid growing unease among liberal Democrats who could determine the potential 2008 presidential candidate's future.

It may just bite her in the ass.

Excerpt: In a move that is certain to harden the battle lines among Democrats surrounding the Iraq war, a veteran union organizer will announce Tuesday that he is campaigning to unseat Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.

Various and sundry updates to recent posts:

Last week's entry regarding neocons and realists should be explained just a wee bit more. What you have to understand is that the realists got us into Afghanistan and the neocons got us into Iraq.

Excerpt: When Dick Cheney gave President Bush distorted pre-war intelligence it was more than a simple lie to advance a war, it was the “noble lie” necessary when superiors are inferior.

Now, since the Iraq war is a failed war,

Excerpt:To describe Iraq as the most foolish war of the last 2,014 years is a sweeping statement, but the writer is well qualified to know.

the realists are beginning to override the neocons.

Excerpt: In a new indication that the balance of power within the administration of President George W. Bush has tilted strongly in favour of the realists, Washington's influential ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, has disclosed that Bush has authorised him to open direct talks with Iran about stabilising Iraq.

In other news, the investigation into who assassinated Syria's Rafik Hariri hit a snag when one of the linchpin confessions has been shown to be bribed.

Excerpt: A man has appeared on Syrian TV claiming he was bribed to give evidence against Syria to the UN inquiry into the killing of Rafik Hariri.

And the guy who bribed him? Quitting his job. Damage done. Move on.

Except: Detlev Mehlis, the head of the U.N. investigation into the death of a former Lebanese prime minister, plans to leave the job by the end of the year, U.N. diplomats said on Thursday.

 

Comments?

Dolphins play games.

Excerpt: Two adults and a youngster were passing a plastic bag back and forth, as in a game of catch, the two researchers wrote in the October issue of the research journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 

Eh? Just one year? Better make the most of it.

Excerpt: Your heartbeat accelerates, you have butterflies in the stomach, you feel euphoric and a bit silly. It's all part of falling passionately in love -- and scientists now tell us the feeling won't last more than a year.

Here's a problem with the obesity epidemic I hadn't considered.

Excerpt: That traditional shot in the heinie may be doing less and less good as people become plumper, according to a new study presented Monday.

Insert Bush Joke here.

Excerpt: To the untrained ear monkeys of a certain species may all sound the same, but Japanese researchers have found that, like human beings, they actually have an accent depending on where they live.

It's called "thinning the herd".

Excerpt: Students at San Antonio's Alamo Heights Junior School were caught playing the "choking game," according to a note sent home to parents.

This will give me nightmares.

Excerpt; The footprints of one of the most fearsome creatures ever found in the British Isles — a water scorpion the length of a person — have been discovered in Scotland.

Can he do that?

Excerpt: Limbo -- the place where the Catholic Church teaches that babies go if they die before being baptized -- may have its days numbered.

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.

{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
A String Theory Blog

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,  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.