The Vidiot's weekly blog:

What pissed me off this week? 1/9/2006

(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/

I'm going to try to do my best here. I just got over the cold/flu from hell. Honestly, I used to read the articles about the bird flu and think "Hrmph. It's just the flu" but now I know better. There was a point last week when I was grateful that our lives were finite. It was hard to follow the news in between all of the moaning, but I tried.

The administration is in quite a pickle these days. Honestly, has there ever been an administration so rife with scandal? He's so screwed (How screwed is he?) He so screwed he had to make a huge batch of recess appointments (using an obscure and badly-interpreted caveat to extend the appointments for a year) even though it's a republican-controlled Senate. Think about that for a minute.

The surveillance thing has prompted discussion of grounds for impeachment -- on BOTH sides of the aisle. Looking at the historical as well as the hysterical sides of the argument. (Even the spooks and judges are pissed off.) Here's hoping it doesn't just fade away or that it's just a smokescreen for something else -- which, come to think about it could explain why the Times decided to publish it now. (Hey! Maybe that little sit down Bush had with them wasn't to thwart publication as it was to stategize about it. Hmmmmmm....) . The story could have even wider implications after we find out exactly who was spied upon and what was spied upon. (Right-wing talking points are deconstructed here.)

Then, there's the Abramoff scandal that could explode.(It even touches Iran!) Bush knows it too and he's scouring the records for any and all pictures of him and Abramoff together -- and they were together a lot. So many, many republicans can be ensnared in this investigation and others like it. That, combined with the news the Cunningham wore a wire and who knows how much the balance of power will shift. (You MUST MUST MUST watch Dean as he nailed Wolf Blitzer for the crap he was spewing about "democrats are part of the Abramoff thing too" crap.)

There are plenty of reasons to impeach Bush and Cheney. (Report here) The order of succession will have to be used and I have to wonder how far down we'll have to go before we find anyone unscathed by scandal. Well, at least we know there won't be a President DeLay.

{sigh} I can't even THINK about this any more.

Screen Capture of the Week: Horse race

Search Engine of the Week: Goodsearch.com

Link of the week: Old-Time recordings online.

Internet Trick of the Week: Google as proxy

Link Page of the Week: Travel Links

Sex Column of the Week: Virginity Horror Stories

Service that should be immediate stopped of the Week: Locatcell.com

Blog Entry of the Week: Why am I picking on Obama? Because We Need Him.

Picture of the week: Nevada Shoe Tree

Pictures of the Week: Snake eating a pig

"I did not know that" of the Week: On September 26, 1983, we almost died.

Jewish Humor of the Week: GI JEW: The American Hebrew

Public Art of the Week: One Free Minute

Gizmo of the Week: Clone a Willy kit

O'Reilly Smack Down of the Week: On Letterman

Internet Tech of the Week: Who's snooping on my email?

Link of the Week: The 2005 Darwin Awards

Contest of the week: The Name the Abramoff Scandal Contest

Programming note: I don't want to talk about Sharon or the Miners or Scalito. Also, blogging may be light for the next few weeks because my lease is up and I want out of this apartment. Also, I'm going to rethink the blog thing a bit. I will continue to do it, but I'm thinking about doing a more traditional blog, like over at blogspot or something so that I don't suck up hours of my Monday every week. Any thoughts?

Whomever designed and approved the design of the new Olympic Torch.

Hailed as a masterpiece of design and technology and created by Italy's top engineers, there's just one problem with the torch for this year's Winter Olympics in Turin. Many of the torchbearers say it is too heavy.

Though, this woman is running a close second.

British tourist Sharon Tendler has finally made her dream match - by "marrying" a dolphin she has been visiting for 15 years in the Israeli resort of Eilat, the mass-circulation Yediot Ahronot daily reported.

Outrage of the Week

I KNEW IT! Back when I saw Bush sitting there McCain, making all nicey-nice with him over the torture thing, finally "caving" into McCain's demands, I KNEW there had to be something going on behind it the scenes. Well, here it is.

When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief.

He knew the minute he shook hands with McCain that he'd just end up doing whatever the hell he wanted to anyway. (More here)

China is pulling the plug.

China indicated on Thursday it could begin to diversify its rapidly growing foreign exchange reserves away from the US dollar and government bonds - a potential shift with significant implications for global financial and commodity markets.

And taking full advantage of China's need to find new investments, obviously, Evo Morales, Bolivia's new president, is no dummy.

While on a visit to Beijing, Bolivia's President-elect, Evo Morales, has invited China to help develop his country's energy sector.

Well, Bolivia's new leader certainly makes things more interesting.

Evo Morales, a leftist former coca leaf farmer vowing to be a "nightmare for the U.S.," was poised to become Bolivia's first indigenous president on Sunday after likely clinching one of the biggest electoral victories in the country's history.

He's already talking tough against Bush.

"The only terrorist in this world that I know of is Bush. His military intervention, such as the one in Iraq, that is state terrorism," he told Al Jazeera television.

He's going to bust Big Oil's chops.

The winner of Bolivia's presidential elections has repeated his vow to nationalize oil and gas and said he will void at least some contracts held by foreign companies "looting" the poor Andean nation's natural resources.

Along with Chavez, who is also busting Big Oil's chops

Thirty-two privately operated Venezuelan oilfields returned to state control Sunday with the start of the new year, the government said.

South America is just spiraling out of Bush's control.

The Taxman

Taxes are a huge part of peoples' life-time expenditures.

Q: What is the single largest financial expenditure made by the average American over their lifetime? A: It is not his house... it is his taxes! Taxes are the single largest financial burden the people face

Well, most people that is.

Like most Americans, rank-and-file employees of Home Depot Inc. must reach into their own pockets to pay taxes, the WALL STREET JOURNAL begins on Thursday page ones. But not Robert Nardelli, the home-improvement retailer's chief executive. Under his employment contract, Home Depot picks up a big chunk of his federal and state income taxes.

Oh, and just FYI, the IRS collects your party affiliation too.

As it hunted down tax scofflaws, the Internal Revenue Service collected information on the political party affiliations of taxpayers in 20 states.

Carrying water for this administration is Baaaaad.

Thirteen Secretaries of State and Defense. Ten minutes--half of which is spent with Bush talking. Five minutes times sixty seconds per minute divided by thirteen equals twenty-three seconds per Secretary.

That especially goes for democrats.

What burns the most is that currently elected representatives of both parties are in desperate need of some patriotic cover, and it would be so easy for these former officials to begin to supply it by condemning this administration at no personal cost to themselves. How can we urge Pelosi and Reid (and Hagel and McCain) to step up to the plate when they do have to face an electorate and when they bear a constitutional duty to continue to try and work with this president (although the time may be drawing near for them to pull some creative acts of active non-cooperative civil disobedience at the congressional level)?

Once again, the rich people are telling the poor people to go screw themselves.

The measure, the product of a year's labors by the White House and the GOP in Congress, imposes the first restraints in nearly a decade in federal benefit programs such as Medicaid, Medicare and student loans.

I'm almost glad Dean didn't win the nomination. I think he's doing exactly what he should be doing right now.

I forgot to mention -- when Dean goes on fundraising trips to the states he lets the locals keep the money. He's raising money for the state parties, which isn't reflected in these numbers. The state parties love him for it. In the past, people like McAuliffe would come in and vaccum up money from the locals and send it to DC. This makes these numbers all that much more remarkable.

More about it here.

Want a police state?

The Ohio Patriot Act has made it to the Taft's desk, and with the stroke of a pen, it would most likely become the toughest terrorism bill in the country. The lengthy piece of legislation would let police arrest people in public places who will not give their names, address and birth dates, even if they are not doing anything wrong.

First, you need to justify the police state with a little staged terror.

Two explosions caused minor exterior damage at a mosque complex about two hours after evening prayers, and federal agents joined the investigation.

I'm too dense to put any of this together. The Ukraine is trying to get into NATO

Ukraine’s Central Electoral Commission (CEC) has agreed to register initiative groups wanting to hold a referendum on Ukrainian membership of NATO and of the Common Economic Space, made up of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine, a spokesman for Nestor Shufrich, deputy to the Supreme Rada (parliament), reported.

Goss paid a secret visit to the Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has held a brief meeting with CIA Director Porter Goss, who paid a secret visit in Kiev last Friday.

Ukraine was implicated in a weapons embezzlement scheme.

From 1992 to 1997 illegal weapons traders exported arms and military property from Ukraine worth $32 billion, the LigaBusinessInform web site quoted MP Sergei Sinchenko as saying.

And Russia is yanking Ukraine's chain.

Russia will cut off natural-gas supplies to Ukraine if no compromise is reached by Jan. 1 in a dispute over prices, officials with Russia's state-run gas monopoly said Tuesday, markedly raising the stakes in the increasingly acrimonious dispute.

I knew I never liked beer in cans, I just didn't know why.

When you sip a can of your favorite brew, you are savoring not only fermented grain and hops but just a hint of the same preservative that kept the frog you dissected in 10th-grade biology class lily-pad fresh: formaldehyde.

Animals doing human things:

Monkeys:

Just like human boys and girls, male monkeys like to play with toy cars while female monkeys prefer dolls, a research project has shown.

Budgies:

SPIKE the budgie is a clever little sew and sew — she can do STITCHING. And the three-year-old bird is so darn good she has been voted Young Cross-Stitcher of the Year.

I know for a fact the helicopter guys circle rooftops and spy. I used to sunbath on mine and I'd usually have to flip them a bird. They're a bunch of pervs.

A man and woman who shared an intimate moment on a secluded, dark rooftop one August night last year have learned that they were secretly watched, an intrusion made possible by increased police surveillance of protest rallies and other events and also by advanced technology intended to fight terrorists.

These two had no business being married.

Sally Erickson and Renzie Davidson thought they had the secret to marital bliss. But the eccentric list of demands outlined in their prenuptial agreement, including mandatory backrubs and a $5 nagging fee, still couldn't save their marriage.

Paper as strong as steel?

Working with a material 10 times lighter than steel—but 250 times stronger—would be a dream come true for any engineer. If this material also had amazing properties that made it highly conductive of heat and electricity, it would start to sound like something out of a science fiction novel. Yet one Florida State University research group, the Florida Advanced Center for Composite Technologies (FAC2T), is working to develop real-world applications for just such a material.

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.