I can't recall when I've seen so many unhappy reps. And he bashed the
press too. He salted the earth after scorching it. Colbert rocks and has
Giant Brass Balls.
WASHINGTONA blistering comedy "tribute" to
President Bush by Comedy Central's faux talk show host Stephen Colbert
at the White House Correspondent Dinner Saturday night left George and
Laura Bush unsmiling at its close.
Earlier, the president had delivered his talk to the
2700 attendees, including many celebrities and top officials, with the
help of a Bush impersonator.
Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk show
character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged the
Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on
reality, "and reality has a well-known liberal bias."
He attacked those in the press who claim that the
shake-up at the White House was merely re-arranging the deck chairs on
the Titanic. "This administration is soaring, not sinking," he said. "They are re-arranging the deck chairs--on the Hindenburg."
Colbert told Bush he could end the problem of protests
by retired generals by refusing to let them retire. He compared Bush to
Rocky Balboa in the "Rocky" movies, always getting punched in the
face -- "and Apollo Creed is everything else in the world."
Turning to the war, he declared, "I believe that the
government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by
these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq."
He noted former Ambassador Joseph Wilson in the crowd,
as well as " Valerie Plame." Then, pretending to be worried that he had
named her, he corrected himself, as Bush aides might do, "Uh, I mean...
Joseph Wilson's wife." He asserted that it might be okay, as prosecutor
Patrick Fitzgerald was probably not there.
Colbert also made biting cracks about missing WMDs, "photo ops" on aircraft carriers and at hurricane disasters, and Vice
President Cheney shooting people in the face. Observing
that Bush sticks to his principles, he said, "When the president
decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday - no
matter what happened Tuesday."
Also lampooning the press, Colbert complained that he
was "surrounded by the liberal media who are destroying this country,
except for Fox News. Fox believes in presenting both sides - "the
president's side and the vice president's side." He also reflected on
the good old days, when the media was still swallowing the WMD story.
Addressing the reporters, he said, "You should spend
more time with your families, write that novel you've always wanted to
write. You know, the one about the fearless reporter who stands up to
the administration. You know - fiction."
He claimed that the Secret Service name for Bush's new
press secretary is "Snow Job." Colbert closed his routine with a video
fantasy where he gets to be White House Press Secretary, complete with
a special "Gannon" button on his podium. By the end, he had to run from
Helen Thomas and her questions about why the U.S. really invaded Iraq
and killed all those people.
As Colbert walked from the podium, when it was over,
the president and First Lady gave him quick nods, unsmiling, and left
immediately.
E&P's Joe Strupp, in the crowd, observed that
quite a few sitting near him looked a little uncomfortable at times,
perhaps feeling the material was a little too biting--or too much
speaking "truthiness" to power.
Asked by E&P after it was over if he thought he'd
been too harsh, Colbert said, "Not at all." Was he trying to make a
point politically or just get laughs? "Just for laughs," he said. He
said he did not pull any material for being too strong, just for time
reasons.
Helen Thomas told Strupp her segment with Colbert was "just for fun."
Perhaps the best part was when they panned the audience and you could
see the stone-faced repubs. Bunnypants has never had someone punk him
like that in public. This one goes in the vault.
The Smothers Brothers must be giggling - at last justice for the
bravery of comic geniuses. You might recall that the Brothers were
cancelled after Pete Seeger sang "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy". I remember being very angry at the injustice of it all,
but tonight - justice has been served.
The silence was priceless. And Stephen just marched on, driving the
nails in further. A must-see! My favorite: "The President stands for
things. He stands on aircraft carriers. He stands on rubble. He stands
in abandoned, flooded city squares. There's no place he won't stand for
a photo op."
CIA Chief Drawn Into Hill Sex Probe? Sweeney Puts "Party" In Grand Old Party and since Cunningham swung both ways, were the prostitutes male or female? Inquiring minds want to know. Finally! Hookers and sex. Impeach Porter Goss!!
The wall Street Journal reported today that indicted former California Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham
may not have limited his good times to partying on a rented yacht. It
turns out the FBI is currently investigating two defense contractors
who allegedly provided Cunningham with free limousine service, free
stays at hotel suites at the Watergate and the Westin Grand, and free
prostitutes.
The two defense contractors who allegedly paid most of the bills, said the Journal, were Brent Wilkes, the founder of ADCS Inc., and Mitchell Wade, the founder of MZM Inc.; both firms profited greatly from
their connections with Cunningham. The Journal
also suggested that other lawmakers might be implicated. I've learned
from a well-connected source that those under intense scrutiny by the
FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence
comittees—including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence
post. I've also been able to learn the name of the limousine service
that was used to ferry the guests and other attendees to the parties:
Shirlington Limousine and Transportation of Arlington, Virginia.
Wilkes, I've learned, even hired Shirlington as his personal limousine
service.
It gets
even more interesting: the man who has been identified as the CEO of
Shirlington has a 62-page rap sheet (I recently obtained a copy) that
runs from at least 1979 through 1989 and lists charges of petty
larceny, robbery, receiving stolen goods, assault, and more.
Curiously—or perhaps not so curiously given the company's
connections—Shirlington Limousine is also a Department of Homeland
Security contractor; according to the Washington Post, last fall it won a $21.2 million contract for shuttle services and transportation support. (I tried to contact Shirlington
but was unable to get past their answering service.)
As
to the festivities themselves, I hear that party nights began early
with poker games and degenerated into what the source described as a
"frat party" scene - real bacchanals.Apparently photographs were taken,
and investigators are anxiously procuring copies. My heart beats faster
in fevered anticipation.
Expect further details to emerge . . .
Scarborough tonight leads with the Wilkes/prostitution scandal. One of the
issues the Republican used against Clinton was the threat of blackmail,
not just from Monica, but from anyone who knew about it. The perception
is that once a Lobbyist has "something" on you, it's cheaper to
blackmail you than to bribe you.
MZM bought Goss and Cunningham prostitutes and Katherine Harris must have stole their makeup.
Once upon a time we had a great wartime president who told Americans
they had nothing to fear but fear itself. Now we have George W. Bush,
who uses fear as a tool of executive power and as a political weapon
against his opponents.
Franklin
D. Roosevelt tried his best to allay his nation's fears in the midst of
an epic struggle against fascism. Bush, as he leads the country in a
war whose nature he is constantly redefining, keeps fear alive because
it has been so useful. His political grand wizard, Karl Rove, was
perfectly transparent the other day when he emerged from wherever he's
been hiding the past few months --
and gave the Republican National Committee its positioning statement
for the fall elections:Vote for us or die.
Why can't American women have the emergency contraceptive Plan B over-the-counter? Three words: "Teen sex cults." Actually, four words: "Mythical teen sex cults." Alas, I am too old to join a teen sex cult. Why didn't they have those when I was young? Oh wait, they don't have them now.
We've discussed the strange phenomenon of wingnut fascination with bestiality, specifically sex with dogs. And recently we've been treated to the ick inducing sight of seven year old girls dressing up in ball gowns and pledging to their fathers to remain "sexually pure" until daddy turns them over to their husbands.
Via
Septic Tank at Kos, here's another peek into the strange, disturbed
world of rightwing moralist sexual imagination: teen sex cults. It has
even infiltrated the hallowed halls of science at the FDA:
The FDA is only supposed to consider the safety and efficacy of drugs.
In the memo released by the FDA, Dr. Curtis Rosebraugh, an agency medical officer, wrote: "As
an example, she [Woodcock] stated that we could not anticipate, or
prevent extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on
an 'urban legend' status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based
cults centered around the use of Plan B."
"This was the level of scientific discourse," Heller said
in an interview, referring to concerns attributed to Woodcock. "I find
it very odd that these people who are supposed to be responsible
scientists and doctors are making up wacky reasons."
They believe that the morning after pill is an abortion. But they would
be against it even if it weren't because it encourages promiscuity. Or
it allows men to exploit women. Or it's unsafe. Or it will give women
emotional problems. Or physical problems because women who have
abortions are more likely to die than women who don't. Except they
aren't. But no matter, even if that isn't true, there are always a
thousand reasons why women should not be allowed to have sex. Pick one and run with it.
"The
morning-after pill is a pedophile's best friend," Wendy Wright, senior
policy director for Concerned Women of America, a public policy
organization, said in a statement after learning of Galson's decision.
"Morning-after pill proponents treat women like sex machines."
Pedophiles
and sex-machines. Hoo baby. But hey, if it's fantasies of teen sex
cults that rev these gruesome, obsessive imaginations, have at it. It
would be nice if the scientists at the FDA got their jollies elsewhere,
however. This is important.
The Alan Guttmacher Institute reported: "The younger women are when
they first have intercourse the more likely they are to have had
unwanted or nonvoluntary first sex, seven in 10 of those who had sex
before age 13, for example."
This is given as a reason to avoid making Plan B available? That girls
are being forced into sex at a young age? Are they totally nuts? Let me go through that again.
The younger a girl is when she first has sex, the more likely that she
is to have not wanted it. Therefore we should make it easier for those
younger girls to get pregnant from those unwanted encounters?
Where do they come up with this stuff? [Scratches head] That's difficult to believe - when you enter "teenage sex cult" into Google, the hits are in seven figures...
OK then, Oppose Plan B[ackseat]! Coupes only!
Indeed. Certainly, SUVs encourage teen promiscuity too.
Tell The GOP To QUIT Messing With Al Gore's & My Internet
Phone
companies must treat all calls equally, regardless of where they come
from, where they're going, or what the callers are saying.
Historically, the same non-discrimination policy also covered Internet
communications.
Now, a handful of giant telecom companies and their allies in Congress are on the verge of abolishing net neutrality for broadband internet. (Video)
The telephone companies, which carried all of the Web
traffic until relatively recently, had to treat all of their calls
alike without giving any Web site or service favored treatment over
another. The result was today’s Internet, which developed as a
result of billions of dollars of investments, from the largest Internet
company that spent millions on software and networking, to the one
person with a blog who spent a few hundred dollars on a laptop. The
Internet grew into a universal public resource because the telephone
and cable companies simply transported the bits.
Last fall,
however, the Federal Communications Commission, backed by the U.S.
Supreme Court, decided that the high-speed Internet services offered by
the cable and telephone companies didn’t fall under that law, the
Communications Act. Out the window went the law that treated everyone
equally. Now, with broadband, we are in a new game without rules.
[TPMCafe]
How would the gutting of Network Neutrality affect you?
Google users—Another search engine could pay
dominant Internet providers like AT&T to guarantee the competing
search engine opens faster than Google on your computer.
Innovators with the "next big idea"—Startups and entrepreneurs
will be muscled out of the marketplace by big corporations that pay
Internet providers for dominant placing on the Web. The little guy will
be left in the "slow lane" with inferior Internet service, unable to
compete.
Ipod listeners—A company like Comcast could slow access to iTunes, steering you to a higher-priced music service that it owned.
Political groups—Political
organizing could be slowed by a handful of dominant Internet providers
who ask advocacy groups to pay "protection money" for their websites
and online features to work correctly.
Nonprofits—A charity's website could open at snail-speed,
and online contributions could grind to a halt, if nonprofits can't pay
dominant Internet providers for access to "the fast lane" of Internet
service.
Online purchasers—Companies could pay Internet providers to
guarantee their online sales process faster than competitors with lower
prices—distorting your choice as a consumer.
Small businesses and tele-commuters—When Internet companies like
AT&T favor their own services, you won't be able to choose more
affordable providers for online video, teleconferencing, Internet phone
calls, and software that connects your home computer to your office.
Parents and retirees—Your choices as a consumer could be
controlled by your Internet provider, steering you to their preferred
services for online banking, health care information, sending photos,
planning vacations, etc.
Bloggers—Costs will skyrocket to post and share video and audio
clips—silencing citizen journalists and putting more power in the hands
of a few corporate-owned media outlets.
Blocking Innovation
Corporate control of the Web would reduce your choices and stifle the
spread of innovative and independent ideas that we've come to expect
online. It would throw the digital revolution into reverse. Internet
gatekeepers are already discriminating against Web sites and services
they don't like:
In 2004, North Carolina ISP Madison River blocked their DSL customers from using any rival Web-based phone service.
In 2005, Canada's telephone giant Telus blocked customers from visiting a Web site sympathetic to the Telecommunications Workers Union during a contentious labor dispute.
Shaw, a major Canadian cable TV company, is charging an extra $10 a month to subscribers who want to use a competing Internet telephone service.
In April, Time Warner's AOL blocked all emails that mentioned www.dearaol.com -- an advocacy campaign opposing the company's pay-to-send e-mail scheme.
This is just the beginning. Cable and telco giants want to eliminate
the Internet's open road in favor of a tollway that protects their
status quo while stifling new ideas and innovation. If they get their
way, they'll shut down the free flow of information and dictate how you
use the Internet
This is an example of why we need to talk about common carriers. As
soon as we use that term, we hook into a legislator's existing body of
knowledge on the subject. We shift the ground from:
Having
the government tell a cable or phone company how to manage the pipes
that offer their clients Internet service would fare no better than
having the government tell Wal-Mart how to stock its lawn and garden
department.
... to: "Having the government tell
Internet carriers that they must treat all their clients neutrally
would fare as well as when the government said the same thing to the
railroads and then to the phone companies."
At that point, we're no longer in a debate on the merits. Most of them know that worked quite well. With them, we win, presumptively, and the burden is on the other side to open up a debate.
It is a globally known symbol: the golden arches can be seen in many
countries around the world. But whatever the fast food giant wants you
to believe the golden arches stand for, McDonald's today stands for
rainforest destruction. And that is one very 'Unhappy Meal' for the
planet.
Greenpeace said McDonald's Corp. was fueling the destruction of the
Amazon rainforest by using soybeans grown in the region as feed for
chickens that end up served in the fast-food chain's European
restaurants.
In a reported entitled, "Eating up the Amazon," the environmental
group said it has traced soy beans grown in illegally deforested areas
of the rainforest to McDonald's restaurants, as well as other
restaurant chains and supermarkets across Europe.
"Fast Food giants like McDonald's are trashing the Amazon for cheap
meat. Every time you buy a Chicken McNugget you could be taking a bite
out of the Amazon," Greenpeace forests campaign coordinator Gavin
Edwards said by telephone from London.
The
journey from rainforest to restaurant might sound simple enough but it
has taken a year-long investigation using satellite images, aerial
surveillance, previously unreleased government documents and
on-the-ground monitoring to expose. What we found was a global
trade in soya from rainforest destruction in the Amazon to McDonald's
fast food outlets and supermarkets across Europe.
"This crime
stretches from the heart of the Amazon across the entire European food
industry. Supermarkets and fast food giants, like McDonald's, must make
sure their food is free from the links to the Amazon destruction,
slavery and human rights abuses" Greenpeace forests campaign co-ordinator, Gavin Edwards.
Most of the global trade in
soya is controlled by a small number of massive traders: Cargill, Bunge
and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). In Brazil, this cartel plays the role
of bank to the farmers. Instead of providing loans they give farmers
seed, fertiliser and herbicides in return for soya at harvest: Bunge
alone provided the equivalent of nearly US$1 billion worth of seed,
fertiliser and herbicides to Brazilian farmers in 2004.
This
gives the companies indirect control over huge areas of land that used
to be rainforest. Together, these three companies are responsible for
around 60 percent of the total financing of soya production in Brazil.
Banks too have been caught up in the
destruction of the Amazon. The International Finance Corporation (IFC),
the private lending arm of the World Bank, wrongly assessed a loan to
Grupo Andre Maggi as being of 'low environmental risk,' despite
evidence to the contrary. Other banks have also lent huge sums of money
to the company without conducting their own environmental or social
impact audits.
So far, Rabobank, the Netherlands' biggest
agricultural bank has lent over US$330 million to Grupo Andre Maggi.
Rabobank admitted that it didn't do its own assessment of the risk of
the loans, simply accepting the (flawed) assessment of the IFC.
So fast food and supermarkets, soya traders and big banks are all trashing the Amazon rainforest. SHAME ON THEM!!!
The victims families, parents and a concerned public feels very strongly that sex offenses against our
nations youth are reaching an epidemic level. It is up to each citizen
to work together to bring about changes in our legal system that will
keep these predators far away from our children.
Missing since April 12, 2006, 10-year-old Jamie Rose Bolin was found
dead the evening of April 14, 2006 in neighbor Kevin Underwood's
apartment, within ten feet of her father's apartment - much closer to
home than anyone would have thought. The case of the red-haired, blue
eyed and freckled girl with glasses, wearing a blue sleeveless shirt
and pink shorts, and riding her purple bicycle was initially treated as
a possible runaway, then as a possible abduction by a man she met
online. She vanished after a trip to the library.
Police are not yet
certain whether Jamie and Underwood had chatted online, but are still
investigating and believe there is a strong possibility, due to a
statement from one of Jamie's friends. The FBI and OSBI are working on
the case along with local and state law enforcement, and have removed
two computers from the library that Jamie visited for inspection. An
Amber Alert was issued April 13, 2006 in Purcell, Oklahoma for Jamie
Bolin.
It has been reported that Kevin Underwood, after aiding in the search
for Jamie Rose Bolin, told authorities at a checkpoint near his
apartment that the media was wrong in the description of what Jamie had
been wearing when last seen. It is also reported that the night before
Jamie went missing, Kevin Underwood offered the use of the telephone in
his apartment for her to order a pizza, and on the day of her abduction
he allegedly lured her into his apartment with his pet rat and a Sponge
Bob Square Pants video.
Kevin confessed Friday to killing his 10-year-old neighbor,
Jamie Rose Bolin, telling FBI agents searching a container in his
apartment: "Go ahead and arrest me. She is in there. I chopped her up,"
police wrote in an affidavit. Kevin Ray Underwood, 26, intended to eat Jamie's body and had targeted other potential victims, police said.
Investigators
alleged Saturday that Underwood hit Jamie on the head three times with
a wooden cutting board, smothered her with his hand and duct tape,
tried to cut off her head and sexually molested her after she was dead.
Today is the day I refuse to allow the name of Jamie Rose Bolin
to be overshadowed by the evil of the perpetrator who viciously ripped
her from our midst.
Jamie loved Barbie dolls and her bicycle, puppies and kittens and all
of the other things 10-year-old girls like, according to her
grandmother, Rose Fox. The shine of her startling blue eyes were not
dimmed by the glasses she wore, and her impish grin will not be
forgotten. Rose said that she loved pillow fights with her sisters, and her infectious giggle and personality "could just light up a room."
It is a shame what the world is coming to when you cant trust your
neighbors. What the comunity is doing in her memory is great , but she
deserves much more.... she deserves to be alive with her family... i
dont know her but i will always remember .. god bless The important part is that her family has set up a memorial fund "The
Jamie Rose Bolin Memorial Fund", which can be contributed to at any Bank of Oklahoma.
Steve Huff writes about this case on his crimebloghere. Jules Hammer of the Duncan Crime Blog found Mr. Underwood's rather expansive web presence and posted the information to Steve's discussion forum. Optymyst of Look Who's Tattling Now took the baton, so to speak, and cached Mr. Underwood's (presently inaccessible) MySpace pages and also wrote a corresponding article here.
Within minutes of Jules' posting, visitors, both anonymous and named
were posting invectives under the comments sections of Mr. Underwood's
blogs. Understandably so. After all, a 26 year-old man had not only
kidnapped and murdered Jamie, but from news reports,
may have tortured her as well. For up-to-date details of this most
horrible crime, please refer to the aforementioned blogs, consider reading Mr. Underwood's primary blog.
Citizens
for a One Strike Law (CFAOSL) has filed Dylan's Law in honor of Dylan
Groene who was "allegedly" sexually brutalized and violently murdered
by Joseph Duncan III.Dylan's Law is a mandatory life sentence without
the possibility of parole for violent and predatory sexual crimes such
as kidnapping, to the vicious rapes and molestations of our young and
defenseless children.
Noonan inherently knows that the Bush ship is going down. She is vainly
trying to separate the conservative movement from Bush's sinking
ship. As November election approaches, I expect to see more rancor in the
ranks - and afterwards, lots of finger-pointing.
In
her column today, Noonan offered some commentary on the staff changes
at the White House and explained, with surprising candor, why moving a
few deckchairs around won't make a substantive difference.
George W. Bush, on the other hand,
does not tolerate dissent, argument, bitter internal battles. He is the
decider. He decides, and the White House carries through. He is loyal
to his aides, who carry out his wishes. (It is unclear whether this is
a loyalty born of emotional connection or one born of calculation: Do
it my way and the tong protects you.) His loyalty means they will most
likely not be fired or leaked against, no matter what heat they take
from the outside. And so his aides move forward with the sharpness and
edge of those who know their livelihoods and status are secure. Bruce
Bartlett has written of how, as a conservative economist, he was
treated with courtesy by the Clinton White House, which occasionally
sought out his views. But once he'd offered mild criticisms of the Bush
White House he was shut out, and rudely, by Bush staffers. Why would
they be like that? Because they believe that as a conservative, Mr.
Bartlett owes his loyalty to the president. He thought his loyalty was
to principles.
There are many stories like this,
from many others. It leaves friends on the outside having to
self-censor or accept designation as The Enemy. It leaves a
distinguished former government official and prominent Republican
saying, in conversation, "Those people aren't drinking the Kool-Aid,
they're sucking it from a spigot!"
The president has taken, those
around him say, great comfort in biographies of previous presidents.
All presidents do this. They all take comfort in the fact that former
presidents now seen as great were, in their time, derided,
misunderstood, underestimated. No one took the measure of their
greatness until later. This is all very moving, but: Message to all
biography-reading presidents, past present and future: Just because
they call you a jackass doesn't mean you're Lincoln.
Noonan explained her belief that the
staff "shake-up" is of little consequence because the president, as she
put it, "does not tolerate dissent, argument, bitter internal battles"
the way an informed president should. Noonan
concludes that it's less important for the staff to change and more
important for Bush to broaden his base of information by tolerating
"dissent, argument, ambiguity." This, she argues, would be more
meaningful progress for the Bush White House, as opposed to shuffling
around a few staffers, which is, as Noonan put it, is merely the
"appearance of change."
My only point would be is that the conservatives (at least, the
libertarian, small-government, fiscal conservative ones) have a right
to cut Bush et al loose. Rove and Addington have not governed this
country as conservatives, they have just used the Republicanite party
and the residual conservative leanings of the American people from the
Reagon era to seize power and enrich their friends while trying to
recreate the imperial presidency of Richard Nixon.
First, I'm not at all comfortable
agreeing so much with Noonan, but today I'll make an exception. Second,
I think Noonan may soon be taken off the White House Christmas-card
list and won't be invited down to the ranch.
Ok, this is just creepy. I find it ironic that many
conserviative christians look down their nose at Muslims for
subjugating women, and then participate in ceremonies affirming that a
woman is a wedding gift to her husband! It seems to me that the only
difference between this and a burkha is a matter of degree.
Responding to the odd, disturbing nature of the Father-Daughter Purity Ball, about which I posted below, PZ Myers says:
"Daddies
of the world, keep your hands off your daughter's sexuality, OK? Raise
them to be independent and thoughtful and informed and able to make
their own decisions, and then just trust them."
That
sounds like common sense to me. Girls pledging to their dads to stay
virginal in ritualistic ceremonies just doesn't seem like a healthy
thing to do. It's striking how young many of these girls are, some look to be no more than seven.
Apparently, this is common. Here's a testimonial from Generations of Light magazine:
"How
can you measure the value of your eleven year old looking up into your
eyes (as you clumsily learn the fox-trot together) with innocent,
uncontainable joy, saying, 'Daddy, I'm so excited!' wrote Wesley Tullis
in a letter describing his grateful participation. 'I have been
involved with the Father-Daughter Ball for two years with my daughters,
Sarah and Anna. It is impossible to convey what I have seen in their
sweet spirits, their delicate, forming souls, as their daddy takes them
out for their first, big dance. Their whole being absorbs my loving
attention, resulting in a radiant sense of self-worth and identity.
Think of it from their perspective: My daddy thinks I'm beautiful in my
own unique way. My daddy is treating me with respect and honor. My
daddy has taken time to be silly, and even made a fool of himself,
learning how to dance. My daddy really loves me!"
I
can understand why the little girls would want to do this. It's a
chance to dress up and spend time with their father. If it were for
another purpose, it might be sweet. But this is what that little girl
is reading to her father from that card:
I pledge to remain sexually pure...until the day I give
myself as a wedding gift to my husband. ... I know that God requires
this of me.. that he loves me. and that he will reward me for my
faithfulness.
And this is what Daddy says in turn:
I,
(daughter’s name)’s father, choose before God to cover my daughter as
her authority and protection in the area of purity. I will be pure in
my own life as a man, husband and father. I will be a man of integrity
and accountability as I lead, guide and pray over my daughter and as
the high priest in my home. This covering will be used by God to
influence generations to come.
He's the "high priest" in his home. Are we getting the picture?
What about the sons and the lack of mother-son purity
pledges. Commenter Llamajockey hits the nail on the head with this:
The
truth is is that in most Red-State/Fundy households the Dad is just as
obsessed if not more so with the possiblity of his young son being gay
as with his daughter's virginity. Therefore teenage males feel an acute
pressure beyond their already out of control hormones to prove their
heterosexuality. That is why athletic over anything resembling academic
or intellectual, acheivement is so highly prized. It improves the young
man's standing in the eyes of the young females and reassures Dad his
son can not be gay. However, with it comes a double edge, for the young
man is now supposed to act the role of stud.
Virgin girls and studly boys. Can we all see the problem with this?
"Virgin girls and studly boys" means there is going to be a class of
girls for those boys who are by definition not virgin; my prediction is
they won't be white and they won't be middle-class, and the family
values creeps will go out of their way to be sure they won't be
protected or respected. I wonder what the sisters of the Duke lacrosse
players are like.
Aside from the creepiness, these little girls can't possibly have any
idea what they're promising. What does any 7-year-old girl know about
either virginity or sexuality?
And, what happens when an 18-year-old girl regrets her decision made at 11 and gets herself laid?
Are we like, one step away from honor killings? Because, here we are
seeing girls treated as though they are family property. I would assume
they are trained to grow up and be property of the husband?
Looks like we are a heartbeat away from chastity belts. This is unbelievable.
What a wonderful thing for a girl to feel secure in her father's love.
The time
will come in the lives of these girls when this intrusion will cause
confusion and sexual tension. But of course the purity ball is not about that. It's about Daddy as
controlling and judgemental. It is also about Daddy having an unhealthy
fixation and idealization of his daughter as a sexual object.A healthy reaction to this may be a
rejection of the father and his proscribed behaviors.She might then
find herself looking for love in all the wrong places.
If
a girl is to truly be celebrated, let it be for her spirit, mind and
accomplishments. If she is valued by her family for her humanity, she
will value herself. Let her sexuality blossom unconciously in the
context of full personhood, rather than the defining characteristic of
what she offers in theway of gifts to the world. Please!
State Board of Education member Connie Morris took exception
Wednesday to a picture of a made-up creature that satirizes the state's
new science standards hanging on a Stucky Middle School teacher's door.
Fellow board member Sue Gamble told The Eagle that Morris asked for the picture to be removed.
The creature, called the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is the creation
of Bobby Henderson of Corvallis, Ore. It looks like a clump of
spaghetti with two eyes sticking out of the top and two meatballs
flanking the eyes.
Henderson created the entity and an accompanying mythology on the
origin of mankind to make fun of Kansas' recent debate over the
teaching of criticisms of evolution, including intelligent design.
In November, the board voted 6-4 to allow criticisms of evolution to be taught in Kansas schools.
Morris, who voted for the new science standards, saw the picture
during the tour. She did not return phone calls for this report.
Gamble, who voted against the new standards and was also on the
tour, said that Morris asked principal Kenneth Jantz to have the
picture taken down. Board members toured Stucky before finishing two days of meetings in Wichita on Wednesday. Gamble said that when she saw the picture during the tour, she knew that some board members wouldn't approve of it.
"When we went into that classroom, students were looking at rock
formations," Gamble said. "Connie stopped to talk to a teacher and I
moved on. That was when I was aware of the flyer. I thought 'she's
probably going to say something to the teacher.' "
Gamble said that when Morris saw the picture, she asked the
principal, who was on the tour, to take it down. Jantz did not comment
for this report. Gamble said she didn't see Morris talk to Randy Mousley, the
teacher, or to the principal, but that she later went up to Mousley and
asked if Morris said anything to him about the picture.
That's when Gamble learned that Morris had asked the principal to take it down. The monster's picture has hung on the door since September or October and was put up there as a joke, Mousley said.
"It's a parody," he said. "It's just making fun of anti-evolution."
Mousley said he doesn't teach students about the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Also on the door is a Doonesbury comic strip about science, said
board member Carol Rupe, who represents Wichita. She also voted against
the new standards.
"It was two little pieces of paper on the door," she said. "It was poking good fun."
Gamble said she told the principal that it was his decision whether the monster could stick around.
"I advised the principal that Morris has no authority," she said. "I
told him to deal with his staff as he saw fit, not by what a state
board member says."
Board chairman Steve Abrams, who voted for the new standards, didn't
see the picture but said he thinks that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is
silly.
"Personally, I think it's juvenile," he said.
The picture was still on the door at the end of the school day Wednesday.
Board chairman Steve Abrams, who voted for the new standards, didn't
see the picture but said he thinks that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is
silly. What a coincidance! Bobby Henderson, all of the scientific community, and most of the country thinks that the Kansas Board of Education is Silly and Juvenile!!!
Seriously, the American Taliban's GOD sucks. They make their God so
mean spirited, small minded and as ignorant as them. They truly limit
their God to being just like the Muslim Taliban God they claim to hate.
They are in need of some SPIRITUALITY and a little less RELIGION.
The way Jesus Christ spoke, you'd think God could be a spaghetti monster if He wanted to be... I'm with Jesus!
Never thought I'd say this - but home schooling sounds like a damn good
idea. I'd rather our side have the smart kids and let the extremists on
the right teach their kids to believe in unicorns, elves, and the bogey
man.
I'm not sure, but I think persecution of the FSM is one of the signs of the last days!
In Montana, where the campaign is hard to miss, it's been credited with a 30 percent decline in use of the drug among teens. People are often more disturbed by the truth then a lie.
The gritty, in-your-face ads on television, radio, billboards and
newspapers have exposed Montana teenagers to the ugly truth about the
evil grip of meth addiction.
They're as subtle as a sledgehammer.
A billboard shows a grungy, dirty toilet with the words, "No one thinks
they'll lose their virginity here. Meth will change that."
One TV spot shows a young man covered with scabs harassing people in a
coin laundry and beating them up for loose change. At the end of the
ad, the teen runs up to his pre-meth self and screams, "This wasn't
supposed to be your life!"
Fueled by the deep pockets of software billionaire Thomas Siebel, the
Montana Meth Project has become a national success story with its
often-shocking content. Now, Arizona officials are close to bringing
the provocative ad campaign to the state, where meth has taken hold in
cities and suburbs, rural areas, affluent houses and lower-income
neighborhoods.
On Tuesday, county and state officials, including staff members from
the Governor's Office and the Attorney General's Office, will fly to
Helena, Mont., to watch the latest round of TV spots and meet with
Siebel. The multimillion-dollar ad campaign, "Not Even Once," has
saturated the airwaves in Montana, helping reduce meth use among teens
by as much as 30 percent.
"I just don't think we have time to waste," Arizona Attorney General
Terry Goddard said. "I don't think there is hardly a family in Arizona
that doesn't have some tragedy associated with meth. It's scary that
kids think this is a drug you can experiment with at parties and it
won't hurt you."
"We need teenagers talking to teenagers."
The goal is to have an Arizona Meth Project up and running by August,
Goddard said. A non-profit organization in Arizona would run the
project and continually raise funds. An advisory group, comprised of
elected officials, doctors, business owners, educators and tribal
officials, would be set up.
Dr. Marc Matthews, director of the trauma unit at Maricopa Medical
Center, has seen the physical, emotional and psychological devastation
of meth addiction firsthand.
"It's absolutely brutal," Matthews said. "The American people are
unwilling to recognize the horror that is happening every day here in
Arizona and across the country. The drug is almost maniacal. Once it
gets hold of you, that's it."
This campaign takes a lot of hits from ad professionals, which seems
strange to me. Toilet sex and flesh slicing are on the minimal end of
what meth can inspire.
I am sure that those who have issues with these campaigns have never
had a father/son/wife/grandmother who was a junkie... it is a different
animal when it is in your backyard and you have to live with it.
I haven't seen these ads but if they are an effective deterrent, then
more power to them and the agency that created them. The crack epidemic
of the 1980s was very real, and very obvious, to anyone who lived in a
city. But that's probably why nobody tried to say its existence was
being blown out of proportion. Meth addiction seems to be more of a
problem among poor, rural whites who are too often invisible to the
media or laughingly dismissed by the general population in "white
trash" or "trailer trash" jokes.
What's Next 9/11 Orphans,
Almost As Creepy As The FEMA RAP
Oh, the irony! All the conservatives were bashing the gay parents for "politicizing" the egg roll, and then they pull a stunt like that. This sounds like a propaganda campaign from the old USSR, where they
used to use little children as both props and messengers of propaganda.
After the song was over, the kids grouped up and apologized for being in the way of the water.
"Our country's stood beside us
People have sent us aid.
Katrina could not stop us, our hopes will never fade. Congress, Bush and FEMA
People across our land
Together have come to rebuild us and we join them hand-in-hand!"
Neither Congress, FEMA, nor President Bush should be proud of their
response in the Gulf Coast. FEMA's post-Katrina housing program has
produced "vast sums of waste and misspent funds," now likely to "top $1 billion and perhaps much more." Despite President Bush's pledge to build the levees "higher and better," federal officials now say "there may not be enough money to fully protect the entire region."
And as even Newt Gingrich acknowledged this weekend, "it’s going to be
really bad by September when we go back and have a one-year review and
we realize how much of New Orleans is not fixed as of this coming September."
It’s not yet clear who actually produced the song, but the mystery writer is definitely in the running for a Grammy.
"Oh, we're the Boys of the Chorus, We hope you like our show. We know you're routin' for us, But, now we've got to go!"
All praise to you, Dear Leader, and to the Supreme Conservative Council! oh.... my head suddenly HUUUURRRRRRRTS!
NO! Shit I'm lost. This stuff is scary. I better go to the grocery store and buy some garlic and string to make a necklace. Maybe stop off and pick up some holy water too.
Exploiting children for a photo op, how lovely. To be followed by a
double encore from the Iraqi Children's Choir, 'We Never had it this
Good' and 'Come Let us Adore Him'.
After singing, were they rewarded with keys to nice shiny trailers ... or are those still in Arkansas?
This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.
And
then, one day, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed
to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a
change...
Arthur Dent is out
of his bathrobe, in love, and wondering why the dolphins said So Long
and Thanks for All the Fish. Was the earth really demolished? Why did
all the dolphins disappear? What is God's final message to His
creatures? Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, and the new voivoid gang are off
(by commercial airline) on a wacked-out quest to answer these truly
unimportant questions.
How could the earth be totally demolished? There's an
old saying in the 1960's anti-war movement: "A nuclear bomb can really ruin your
day." It's now looking more and more probable that we will see the use of
nuclear weapons against Iran this year. The White House and the DOD wanted the nuclear bunker buster (NBB) come
hell or high water. When I said DOD, I mean Donald Rumsfeld and the
civilian executive appointees. If we accept much of the Sy Hersh
article, then the actual uniform-wearing soldiers and generals at the
DOD are opposed to developing and using NBBs and prefer conventional
bunker busters (CBB). It appears that the generals understand, all to
well, the NBB whirlwind that we will reap for ourselves and our
children.
But, no NBBs is only part of the story. The generals have signed up for
the notion that a nuclear capable Iran, or even just the potential to
complete a nuclear weapons program, is TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY
UNACCECPTABLE. They have signed up to the inevitability of military
action, unless there is a complete capitulation by Iran on their nukes.
However, they do not want to use NBBs or any kind of nukes when the
time comes. The time may be very soon. What would happen if NBBs were used and the nuclear bunker buster turned out to be a bust? The Union of Concerned Scientists explains why a nuclear bunker-buster strike on Iran's underground bunkers would be ineffective and deadly.
The point is that even if a 100% guaranteed kill NBB
existed, and the fallout could be minimized and contained to a limited
area, it is absolutely batshit crazy to use one. Once the US starts
nuking people the rest of the world is going to nuke up as fast as
possible. Once that genie is out of the bottle it's only a matter of
time before we get a dose of our own medicine.
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly Before they're forever banned?
The US military is puzzled about the outcry over the use of white phosphorus
at Fallujah. After all, a 500-pound bomb is also destructive. My guess?
You can't go to war against Saddam on the grounds that he has
stockpiles of chemical weapons, and then turn around and use incendiary
bombs of a sort that much of the world regards as a form of chemical
weapon. It is the hypocrisy factor. Not to mention that the
international community is trying to get such weapons banned.
. . . Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have Before he can hear people cry?
How many years can a mountain exist Before it's washed to the sea?
Bush's approval ratings are in free-fall!
He is down to a 34 percent approval rating. Only Nixon in the last days
of Watergate was doing worse. Seriously, these
numbers are cause for concern. At some point, the executive will stop being able to govern.
Bush has been a disastrous president, but a country without any
executive at all can be in real trouble (ask the Iraqis).
Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist Before they're allowed to be free? . . .
The US has detained around 83,000 persons
during the four years of the "war on terror," most of them in Iraq.
Some 14,500 remain in detention there. Many detainees are not actually
guilty of anything, but have difficulty obtaining their release once
taken into custody. There have been many instances of torture or at
least of cruel and unusual punishment while these persons were in US
custody.
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind . . .
All those who have the courage to speak out their minds and to be true
to themselves, must be commended. The sum total of all and each of
these points of light can finally bring a new day into our present of
obscurity, fear, mass killings, and utter disrespect for human rights
and the rule of law. There are voices in this time and let there be more, hammer of justice, bell of freedom, and songs about love...
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,— Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
That could be the meaning of Easter for me and you.
The only generals who support the Bush Doctrine are General Electric and General Dynamics.
"There is some background noise here, a lot of chatter, a lot of speculation and opining." - George Bush, Oct. 20, 2005
Here's Bush's (1000% Percent support statement) on Rummy: I have seen first-hand how Don relies upon our military commanders in
the field and at the Pentagon to make decisions about how best to
complete these missions. Secretary Rumsfeld's energetic and steady
leadership is exactly what is needed at this critical period. He has my
full support and deepest appreciation.
Based on that statement, I'd say a week at most
and then Rummy's health problems lead to a resignation, effective, say,
the first week of Nov. It is the kiss of death for Bush to say "He has
my full support and deepest appreciation."
I know it sounds nuts but I think they are really considering
appointing Lieberman. It's a rat fuck move and, well, that's a lot of
that going around.
Up to this point, President Bush could offer the lie that he was giving
the military everything they asked for and no one challenged him. To
quote Edgar Allen Poe, "nevermore". The die is now cast for the
Republican controlled Congress. The respective heads of the Armed
Services Committees, Senator Warner and Congressman Duncan Hunter, now
realize that a critical mass of generals has come forward and that Don
Rumsfeld has suffered the parliamentary equivalent of a vote of no
confidence.
This is not a simple case of the military trying to usurp or
embarrass civilian leaders. The growing chorus of senior military
officers recognize that if they do not speak out now that the debacle
in Iraq could erode the publics' confidence that military leaders,
especially those in the Army and the Marines, and leave the military
with a tarnished legacy like the aftermath of Vietnam.
Don Rumsfeld may want to stick it out, but stick a fork in him. His goose is cooked and his reign will soon be over.
That’s an impressive group, but you can’t forget the Fighting Dems either. Over 50 veterans of both the Iraq and Vietnam wars who are running as Democrats in 2006 because of the Iraq war.
Well, when you've got Tim Russert working late on Good Friday to report
that they were trying to avert "civil war" at the Pentagon today,
sounds like the country has big troubles. Are things in Iraq even worse
than we think?
"The Knives Are Out For Rummy", "David Ignatius joins the chorus of folks calling for the head of
Secretary Don Rumsfeld in today's Washington Post. Ignatius calls
Rumsfeld a "spent force" and says that he's lost nearly all support
from the officers’ corps: 'When I recently asked an Army officer with extensive Iraq combat
experience how many of his colleagues wanted Rumsfeld out, he guessed
75 percent. Based on my own conversations with senior officers over the
past three years, I suspect that figure may be low…."'
The Revolt of the Generals is about Iran, not Iraq. They won't stop it.
I think the bombing starts in weeks, not months. Nobody is going to
want the job after the war kicks into second gear.
As if being a Reservist called up for duty in Iraq wasn't bad enough, what if you're called a Terrorist and then not allowed on a plane so you can get home to be with your family. Just when you think that things can't get any worse - they always do.
There is no recourse for those on the list, and their stories
quickly take on a Kafkaesque tone. People can be put on the list for
any reason; no standards exist. There's no ability to review any
evidence against you, or even confirm that you are actually on the
list.
And, for most people, there's no way to get off the list or to
"prove" once and for all that they're not whoever the list is really
looking for. It took Kennedy three weeks to get his name off the list.
People without his political pull have spent years futilely trying to
clear their names.
Imagine
if the world's most notorious fugitive, Osama bin Laden, attempted to
board an airliner in the United States. Suppose he were clean-shaven,
sporting short hair, wearing a pinstriped business suit and looked like
so many other travelers that no suspicions were raised. How far might
he get? If he used aliases such as names of family members, he would be
nabbed instantly and whisked away for questioning. That's because many
of his relatives are on the FBI's secret "no-fly list," according to
intelligence sources.
But
suppose he boldly decided to use his own name. Would he be cleared to
fly? Insight recently learned that scenario was tested at a U.S.
airport in the South during January. The result was troubling:
America's most-wanted fugitive is cleared to fly. According to
airline-security documents obtained by this magazine, the name Osama
bin Laden was punched into the computer by an airline official and,
remarkably, that name was cleared at the security checkpoint all
passengers must pass through before being issued a boarding pass.
The
realization that Osama bin Laden made the cut sent shivers down the
spines of airline-security officials who discovered the system gap.
On the other hand, look at someone who is NOT allowed to fly. A Marine reservist returning home after eight months in IRAQ was told he couldn't board a plane to Minneapolis because his name appeared on a watch list as a possible terrorist.
Staff Sgt. Daniel Brown, who was in uniform and returning from the
war Tuesday with 26 other Marine military police reservists, was
delayed briefly in Los Angeles until the issue was cleared up.
The other reservists arrived at Minneapolis-St. Paul International
Airport as scheduled, but instead of immediately meeting their
families, they waited on a bus for Brown.
"We don't leave anybody behind," 1st Sgt. Drew Benson said. "We start together, and we finish together."
Brown, 32, arrived more than an hour later. He had also had airport
trouble when he was trying to go to Iraq — and he missed his plane then
as well.
"A guy goes over and serves his country fighting for eight or nine
months, and then we come home and put up with this?" he asked.
Nico Melendez, a spokesman for the Transportation Security
Administration, said Wednesday he could not confirm or deny whether
someone was on a watch list. He said Brown's case should have been
fairly easy for the airline to clear up in Los Angeles.
"It should have taken 10 minutes," he said. "We do regret that an American hero was inconvenienced."
Who
goes onto these secret lists is of great interest to terrorists but
also has been a sore point among passengers who claim the Bush
administration may be targeting those critical of administration
policies and intelligence operations. While both the TSA and FBI insist
they don't target groups based on political orientation but focus on
suspicious traveling patterns and names of suspected terrorists, this
does not explain why some repeatedly have had problems boarding planes.
Consider just a few examples:
Barbara
Olshansky, assistant director for the liberal Center for Constitutional
Rights, was ordered to drop her pants in front of other travelers for a
strip search in 2002. She consistently has had problems getting cleared
to fly, and the group is in the midst of litigation about this.
Doug Stuber, who ran Ralph Nadar's presidential Green
Party campaign in North Carolina in 2000, was flagged and questioned by
the U.S. Secret Service about his politics prior to attempting to board
a flight to Germany for business in 2002. During the discussion, Stuber
screamed out, "George Bush is as dumb as a rock," which prompted
officers to bring in the Secret Service for further interrogation.
Stuber was barred from taking any flight that day and missed his
business trip.
Two
American anti-war protesters, Rebecca Gordon and Jan Adams, who
co-publish the San Francisco-based War Times, were stopped at ATA
airlines in 2002 after the computer spat out their names as being on
the FBI's no-fly list. Airline officials later claimed this was a
"mistake" and that the names should not have been so listed. Gordon and
Adams eventually were cleared to fly after they were questioned and the
ticket agent placed a large "S" on their ticket stubs for additional
scrutiny during the baggage-check phase.
Virgine Lawinger, a nun in Milwaukee who is an
activist with Peace Action, was stopped with about 20 of her students
in 2002 as they attempted to board a plane to Washington, where they
had hoped to lobby against U.S. military aid to the Colombian
government.
What if there was a war but no came? Let's put ALL our soldiers on the no-fly list.
Mushroom Clouds Over Iran - Anybody Paying Attention....
Condi may get her mushroom cloud yet. While somebody please explain to these End-timers that it's time to WAKE the F*** UP? It's
past time to de-bunk the Book of Revelations for the hallucinatory
fever dream that it is and give up trying to turn the Bible into a
foreign-policy manual.
Monday's post on Seymour Hersh's contention that plans to attack Iran
with nuclear weapons were "operational" and well-underway got people
talking here on AlterNet. But in the commercial media? Not so much.
Billmon
writes: "I mean, what exactly does it take to get a rise out of the
media industrial complex these days? A nuclear first strike against a
major Middle Eastern oil producer doesn't ring the bell? Must every
story have a missing white woman in it before the cable news guys will
start taking it seriously?"
Noting that "our long national journey towards complete idiocy is over. We've arrived," Billmon continues:
Even
by the corrupt and debased standards of our times, this is a remarkable
thing. The U.S. government is planning aggressive nuclear war (the
neocons can give it whatever doublespeak name they like, but it is what
it is); those plans have been described in some detail in a major
magazine and on the front page of the Washington Post; the most the
President of the United States is willing to say about it is that the
reports are "speculative" (which is not a synonym for "untrue") and yet
as I write these words the lead story on the CNN web site is:
ABC pushes online TV envelope
ABC
is going to offer online streams of some of its most popular television
shows, including "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost," for free the day
after they first air on broadcast TV.
Billmon proposes that the story's ho-hum treatment may be due to the conventional wisdom that this isn't for real... I mean, who would do that?
Only someone in a coma during the run-up to Iraq.
Should
a nuclear first-strike occur, something we all have a hard time
wrapping our heads around, according to Billmon we'd become a rogue
state, it would "mark the definitive end of the system of collective
security – and the laws and institutions supporting that system –
established in the wake of World War II," oil would skyrocket, and
Iran, with a very capable terrorist network would likely attack the
U.S.
But maybe he's wrong and it's just a ploy to strike fear into Iran. At least the Mets are in first place. Read the whole post HERE. It's well worth the time. (Whiskey Bar)
There is no room for errors here. And what we have is a President
who refuses to own up to his past mistakes, and so is incapable of
learning from them. What we need are some adults to stand up and say
"enough" and to demand that things be done carefully, methodically, and
with an eye toward the long-term consequences of our choices.
Bogus "evidence" that actual authorities debunk?Check.
The US doing everything it can to provoke an invasion-justifying response?Check.
BushCo/PNAC only briefing those Democrats it knows are already in the tank for them?Check.
The US news media spinelessly going along for the most part?Check.
Except that this is going to be Iraq on steroids.
UPDATE: from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, 1963
Oh, where have you been, my blue eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a gonna fall
Oh, what did you see, my blue eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin'
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a bleedin'
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a gonna fall
And what did you hear, my blue eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin'
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a blazin'
Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin'
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin'
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard And it's a hard rain's a gonna fall
As far as Iran is concerned, only a revolt in the Pentagon can stop
these people now. And even then, a lot of the military guys are very
loyal to Dubya and think he's doing the Lord's good work or some such
insanity.
Spiro
Agnew and I are thinking of leaving Hell and relocating to Pluto, just
so we can be as far away from this mess as possible. Anyone want to
come with us? ...Nixon's ghost
Joementum may be trying to get the party to push Lamont out of the race
a la Paul Hackett, by threatening to be his usual turncoat self. Lieberman as God's gift to the people of Connecticut, as according to
Lieberman. I imagine the Democratic voters in Connecticut are going to
take a different view. They deserve Ned Lamont, and the country
deserves Ned Lamont.
Sen. Joe Lieberman's (D-Conn.) willingness to break party ranks on a variety of key issues,
including his inexplicable support for Bush's handling of the war, led
businessman Ned Lamont to launch a primary challenge this year, which
apparently is causing considerable consternation at Lieberman campaign
HQ.
In fact, Lieberman is so concerned about his future, he's apparently open to the idea of running for another term, even if he loses the primary.
Joe Lalli: Ned Lamont has already stated that he would
support you if you won the Democratic nomination and Zell Miller once
stated that he would always be a member of the Democratic party. Can
you make similar promises?
LIEBERMAN: I'll always be a member of the Democratic party. I hope
there's not a primary. I'm confident if there is one, I'll win it, but I'm not gonna rule out any other option for now because I feel so strongly that I can do better for the State of Connecticut for the next six years in the United States Senatethat I want to give all the voters a chance to make that decision on
Election day in November. I want to do it as a Democrat. If I didn't
want to do it as a Democrat, I would choose to run in some other party,
trust me. But I want to do it as a Democrat because I believe in the
Democratic party, so really the choice is up to my fellow Democrats...
In other words, stop the primary challenge or I'll jump ship and allow
all the voters (including that 70+ of Republicans who LOVE me) to vote
for me in November as an Independent.
"I'd been supporting the Biden-Lugar Amendment, a
bipartisan effort that would have required that the inspections be
completed before any military action took place. We had a good chance
of passing it. That amendment reflected my position on the war.
"Then one day we turned on the TV and Joe Lieberman was in the Rose
Garden with the President, saying that he was supporting the resolution
- as is. We realized that, as of that moment, the amendment was
effectively dead."
2354 US Casualties, 34030 Iraqi Casualties - Joe must be so proud.
We need to demand that Joe will not accept the GOP nomination.
My understanding is that no serious Republican has announced a
candidacy so far. With no credible GOP candidate on the primary ballot,
it becomes possible for Joe to recieve enough "write-ins" in the GOP
primary to get the nomination. Without a credible GOP candidate, only a
few thousand votes will win the GOP Senate nomination. In fact, he
would probably need less write-in votes than the number of signatures
needed, in Connecticut, to qualify to go on the ballot as an
Independent. Frequently, in state's where a popular incumbent runs
unopposed, those incumbents frequently end up with multiple party
nominations because of write-in votes in the other party's primary. The
Connecticut dynamic could cause just this scenario.
He's the former Attorney Gen. of the state and knows the election law so don't think he hasn't already thought of that.
Republicans may mount pressure to keep a credible GOP candidate off
the ballot for just this reason as well. If Joe wins the GOP primary
based on write-in votes, then he may feel even more entitled to
continue running. Would you be surprised if he also felt comfortable in
the role of GOP nominee as well?
Evan Derkacz described Lieberman this morning as a "reluctant Democrat."
Unfortunately, it's an accurate description.I think if he ever had to run as an Indy (and he can't because of the
filing deadline logistics), he probably siphon off more Repug votes
than Dems. This crass threat might just do him in. Good bye, good
riddance.
1. DO NOT commit suicide, and stay extremely calm if you have missed
the rapture. There will be a period of total chaos, suicides, and heart
attacks. People all over the world will be in total chaos. Please
understand the fact that you who remain here have missed the rapture,
and are living in the tribulation period, and nothing you do can change
that fact. Listen! Don’t look back. Face the fact you've been left, but
there still is hope for you!!
2. KEEP A TIME TABLE. Look back and find the date people were reported
missing or raptured, mark that date, and put it away. Keep track of the
following 7 years. The first three and a half years will not be too
bad, but the last three and a half years will be so horrible that human
vocabulary is insufficient to describe the events that will take place.
5. BEWARE OF A WORLD CHURCH. This church is not of God. Do not back
this church. It is from Satan himself. Do not associate with any kind
of world church. Beware of Communist agents who will play the role of
pastor. Beware of any big church movement after the rapture. Ask Jesus
for a spirit of discernment.
7. DO NOT accept the mark of the beast (666). The Anti-Christ will
control the economic system completely, and he will destroy the money
system and install a number system either on your hand or your
forehead. Do not take this mark. If you do, you will be automatically
doomed for eternity. Be prepared if you do not take it. You will be
tortured or even put to death, but your soul will be saved in the end.
You probably won't be able to buy, sell, or trade anything, but do not
take the anti-Christ's number system. Begin now to ask Jesus for
strength and boldness. There will be very rough times ahead.
Suggested Items NOT in original list:
1) Scope out the church parking lots and take whichever vehicle suits
your fancy. After all, they won't be needing their stuff anymore!
2) Find a nice mansion that has been "left behind", preferably with a pool, sauna, bowling alley, movie theater, etc.
6) Find girls/guys that have been Left Behind. Chances are it was for good
reason, and these are the girls/guys you always wanted to hook up with
before the Rapture anyway.
14) If anything that looks remotely cataclysmic is occurring in your
area, go to the nearest marina and take a yacht, then move to a
safe location. Begin again at Step 1.
The people left behind will immediately deny that anything out of
the ordinary has happened. "The world's leaders will declare that there
was no Rapture, that a mass hysteria took place, and the news media
will follow the party line," raptureready.com says. "Then to make
things easier, shortly after the rapture, one-fourth of the world's
population will be decimated due to wars, famine and plague. Those who
were Raptured will be counted among the dead."
Even after an Apocalyptic event, politicians and the media will lie.
A number of Christian celebrities will also be left behind and they'll
also do their best to convince you there was no Rapture. I'm sure Pat
Robertson will host an hour-long special on the faux Rapture and use it
to call for even more money.
This is where the real fun begins. You'll have to find a way to buy
and sell goods without having accepted the government-issued microchip
required to be a consumer. If you accept the mark of the beast, you'll
be able to buy Hostess Twinkies and All-Tempa-Cheer without worry. But
then you'll be assured of going to hell. Tough choice.
Raptureready.com advises, just as in the pre-millennium days, to
stock up. Hoard food, ammunition, gold and water and store them in a
remote area away from a major city. "You will need enough for seven
years," they point out.
The Bible says it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a
needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. So in actuality nearly
everyone will miss the rapture. What if we already did?
Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted
an affidavit in support of the EFF's lawsuit this week. That class action
lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco last January, alleges
that AT&T violated federal and state laws by surreptitiously
allowing the government to monitor phone and internet communications of
AT&T customers without warrants.
According
to an AT&T whistleblower, the telephone giant made available to a
government snoop every single phone call you made, every single email
you wrote, every single online video or text chat you ever had, a list
of every Web site or chat room you ever visited, copies of every photo
you've ever downloaded or emailed or received, so government spies
could go through it and do whatever it is they do when they peep into
your private life.
On Wednesday, the EFF asked the court to issue an injunction
prohibiting AT&T from continuing the alleged wiretapping, and filed
a number of documents under seal, including three AT&T documents
that purportedly explain how the wiretapping system works.
"I learned that the person whom the NSA interviewed for the secret
job was the person working to install equipment in this room," Klein
wrote. "The regular technician work force was not allowed in the room."
Klein's job eventually included connecting internet circuits to a
splitting cabinet that led to the secret room. During the course of
that work, he learned from a co-worker that similar cabinets were being
installed in other cities, including Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and
San Diego.
"While doing my job, I learned that fiber optic cables from the
secret room were tapping into the Worldnet (AT&T's internet
service) circuits by splitting off a portion of the light signal,"
Klein wrote.
The split circuits included traffic from peering links connecting to
other internet backbone providers, meaning that AT&T was also
diverting traffic routed from its network to or from other domestic and
international providers, according to Klein's statement.
The secret room also included data-mining equipment called a Narus
STA 6400, "known to be used particularly by government intelligence
agencies because of its ability to sift through large amounts of data
looking for preprogrammed targets," according to Klein's statement.
Klein said he came forward because he does not believe that the Bush
administration is being truthful about the extent of its extrajudicial
monitoring of Americans' communications.
"Despite what we are hearing, and considering the public track
record of this administration, I simply do not believe their claims
that the NSA's spying program is really limited to foreign
communications or is otherwise consistent with the NSA's charter or
with FISA," Klein's wrote. "And unlike the controversy over targeted
wiretaps of individuals' phone calls, this potential spying appears to
be applied wholesale to all sorts of internet communications of
countless citizens."
After asking for a preview copy of the documents last week, the
government did not object to the EFF filing the paper under seal,
although the EFF asked the court Wednesday to make the documents public.
According to court rules, AT&T has until Thursday to file a motion
to keep the documents sealed. The government could also step in to the
case and request that the documents not be made public, or even that
the entire lawsuit be barred under the seldom-used State Secrets Privilege.
Ok to those fun folks who keep saying "Its ok for them to spy on me, I have nothing to hide!"
Have
you done online banking, paid a bill on the phone giving your routing
& account number, have you refilled a prescription online or your
doctor gave you your lab results by phone? Did you know that
NSA's IT and computer functions were privatized in 2001 as part of
Project Groundbreaker with the IT backbone, the computer systems that
holds and analyzes all those domestic calls being operated by consortia
of defense contractors and telecoms.
Just think of the DHS
hiring lately... you want those kind of people wandering through YOUR
private information, your banking information, you medical records?
What about the phone sex? I usually leave a verbal disclaimer: "Hi, to whoever is listening, this is just a fantasy". Can you hear me now? I guess the answer is pretty clear by now.Yeah, it's LOUD and CLEAR!
THE PRESIDENT:Yes. Let me just say something about
leaks in Washington. There are too many leaks of classified information
in Washington. There's leaks at the executive branch; there's leaks in
the legislative branch. There's just too many leaks. And if there is a
leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the
person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.
I must say today has left me a little breathless. Who the gods would
destroy they first drive insane. Looks like that might be happening
with both Bushites and Dems. Bushites insanely arrogant and aggressive,
Dems insanely deluded.
DeLay may have become insanely arrogant. He sends goons out to very
goonishly and violently break up a standard every day political rally,
pushes old ladies in the face, and all recorded for TV. That clip
better be on the news all over the country. It is an odd start for
Reverand DeLays ministry in Christ, I must say.
At some point, Dems must react, somehow, someway. Many of us have
been predicting that the Bushites would come after the Dems viciously
no matter what the Dems did. I did not think that it would be this
early though.
Libby's story doesn't directly implicate the president in the
Plame leak. But the latest revelations contrast rather sharply with the
assurances provided by White House press secretary Scott McClellan back
in the fall of 2003, when the administration was still resisting the
appointment of a special prosecutor or independent counsel to probe the
leak of Plame's identity. On Sept. 29, 2003, Helen Thomas asked him
whether "the president has tried to find out who outed the CIA agent?
And has he fired anyone in the White House yet?"
In his most patronizing tone, McClellan replied, "Helen, that's
assuming a lot of things. First of all, that is not the way this White
House operates. The President expects everyone in his administration to
adhere to the highest standards of conduct. No one would be authorized
to do such a thing." Asked whether the president knew anything beyond
what the media had reported, McClellan said, "We don't have any
information [about the leak] that's been brought to our attention
beyond what we've seen in the media reports. I've made that clear." He
emphasized that the president knew nothing about the leak, repeating, "We have nothing beyond those media reports to suggest there is White
House involvement."
The press secretary bristled when Thomas and other reporters
suggested that the president had reacted too passively to the leak, and
seemed unconcerned about its implications for national security and
Plame's safety.
"Absolutely, the President believes that this is a serious matter
when you're talking about the leak of classified information," said
McClellan. "The leak of classified information, yes, you're absolutely
right, can compromise sources and methods. That's why the President
takes it very seriously, and we've always taken it very seriously."
That was the famous press briefing when McClellan exonerated Rove,
while promising that any official responsible for the leak would be
fired. "If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would
no longer be in this administration," he said, speaking for the
president.
How will McClellan explain away Libby's testimony!"
The latest filing in the Libby case is a doozy, according to the NYSun
this morning. If Libby was being truthful in his testimony about this,
and if Cheney wasn't misleading him in his assertion that President
Bush authorized Libby to leak selected portions of the NIE to the press
(specifically Judy Miller), then I think we've discovered a very good
reason for Fitz to have met with the President's attorney just prior to
Libby's indictment.
A former White House aide under indictment for
obstructing a leak probe, I. Lewis Libby, testified to a grand jury
that he gave information from a closely-guarded "National Intelligence
Estimate" on Iraq to a New York Times reporter in 2003 with the
specific permission of President Bush, according to a new court filing
from the special prosecutor in the case. Read the rest of this entry
This sounds to me like grounds for impeachment. The 'President' violated national security for political reasons.
Of course, this is only one of many crimes that Bush has committed,
many much more serious than this, but it is tied into them. The
manipulation of national security secrets was a central part of Bush's
campaign to lie his way into the Iraq war.
Scotty's head is going to spin a mile a minute on this one. This is
HUGE. I even sorta feel sorry for what's in store for him. Well, not
really.
There you have it. Bush is now officially implicated in the chain of
events that led to the outing of a CIA agent for political reasons. No
one has proved that Bush ordered Plame's name released, but this story
demonstrates how casual he was with classified information when it came
to spreading his false justifications for war. If the uranium story was
so important to Bush, imagine how angry he must have been at Wilson:
One of the facts Mr. Libby said he planned to disclose to Ms. Miller
was that the estimate, produced in October 2002, concluded that Iraq
was "vigorously trying to procure uranium." This contention was sharply
at odds with Mr. Wilson's op-ed piece which argued there was no
evidence of such a procurement effort, at least on a trip he took to
Africa at the CIA's request.
Yes, it would be a slam dunk of anyone was going to hold Bush
accountable to the law. But he's a proud lawbreaker now, out and proud.
So sharing the NIE with improper people? Hell, he showed Bandar
sensitive information about our war plans and the wingers didn't blink.
Katrina Aid From Abroad Was Lost Certainly no one could have predicted that other nations would donate money to a disaster stricken country. It's never happened before!
Federal auditors laid out a scenario of omissions, missteps and
bureaucratic nightmares that caused the loss of money and other
donations sent from abroad to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.
The Government Accountability Office attributed the errors,
which involved as many as eight government agencies, to the United
States' lack of experience as a recipient of huge amounts of aid from
others.
"Given that the U.S. government had never before received
such substantial amounts of international disaster assistance, ad hoc
procedures were developed to manage the acceptance and distribution of
the cash and in-kind assistance," the GAO said in remarks prepared for
delivery to a House committee Thursday.
"It is understandable that not all procedures would be in place at the outset."
The agency said $126 million in cash came in from 36
countries after the Aug. 29 hurricane devastated New Orleans and much
of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
Without a plan for dealing with such a large-scale influx,
legal restrictions kicked in that required almost half the cash to be
held in accounts that paid no interest, resulting in a loss of almost
$1 million and diminished buying power for eventual hurricane relief.
Because $400 million more has been pledged but not yet
received, the GAO is urging that instructions be put in place quickly
to handle the money.
Typical of the misadventures was the failure to enlist government
quality-control experts from the Agriculture Department and the Food
and Drug Administration.
This resulted in importation of medical items and military
food packages that should not have been allowed into the country;
because they were, the government had to pay for storing them. One
shipment of banned military meals-ready-to-eat was delivered directly
to a U.S. base, whose personnel distributed them to hurricane victims.
The report, which will be published later, is the latest of a
series of papers that have documented widespread mistakes and
incompetence at all levels of government after the storm broke or
overran some of the levees on which New Orleans depended for its
survival. Wide areas of the city remain unrepaired.
Yesterday the Army Corps of Engineers
finally admitted to Congress that their "Design Failure" caused the
17th St. Canal Levee to break. 588 people died as a result of that
break. Now they are evaluating all the levees for similar failures.
All
this came out because FEMA finally put the Corps on the spot to certify
the levees so FEMA could release flood maps that guide reconstruction.
NO maps has meant no rebuilding in NOLA.
Heckuva job awards now to the US Army Corps of Engineers.
To
send a message to Preznit "War First, People Last" about his pathetic
attempts to cover up his failure of a response, check out First Draft's "Send Bush Beads" campaign.
Delay Bugs Outa Election, To Spend More Time With Family
The engagement of Emily Miller and Michael Scanlon was supposed to mark the coming out of a new Washington power couple. The two had met on Capitol Hill, where they worked as press secretaries
to Rep. Tom DeLay, the feared Texas Republican. They got engaged in
September 2001 on the beach in Santa Monica, Calif., and planned an
August 2002 wedding. As the date approached, Mr. Scanlon bought a $4.7
million oceanside mansion and guest house, formerly part of the DuPont
estate, in Rehoboth Beach, Del. He furnished it down to the monogrammed
towels and presented it to his bride-to-be.
Then, with the wedding a few months away, he called off the engagement and started dating a 24-year-old waitress.
Mr. Scanlon and Ms. Miller, now both 35 years old,
were among a tight-knit group of aides who helped Mr. DeLay rise to the
pinnacle of Capitol Hill in the 1990s and cement his power as House
majority leader. Some of those aides provided a link between their boss
and Jack Abramoff, a Republican lobbyist.
Ms. Miller was devastated, according to friends. She spent hours at the
gym. Two weeks after her planned wedding date, she started a blog with
beauty and diet tips for women.
People who have spoken to Ms. Miller say that after her breakup she
began questioning how Mr. Scanlon could afford a lavish lifestyle while
working summers as a beach lifeguard and doing seemingly little work at
his public-relations firm. She talked about the beach house he had
presented to her, the private jet he flew around in and the
$17,000-a-month apartment he rented at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington. The rest is History.
The resignation of Tom DeLay
is the crashing conclusion of his garish career but hardly the end of
his legal troubles or the demise of the partisan political machine he
constructed. The former majority leader of the House of Representatives
has been the Republican strongman in the Congress, known as "The
Hammer." As the party whip, he hung a bullwhip on his wall as a symbol
of intimidation. The style of the former exterminator from Sugar Land,
Texas was bullying and crude. He called the Environmental Protection
Agency "the Gestapo," ran a smear operation out of his office that
would have won the admiration of Senator Joseph McCarthy, and grabbed
whatever he wanted as his right of lordship. When a meek restaurateur
in a Capitol Hill steakhouse politely asked DeLay to put out his large
cigar because of the city's no smoking law, DeLay bellowed, "I am the
government!" And he was not wrong.
DeLay enforced harsh discipline on the Republicans, bondage they
savoured as the essence of power. In return, anything a loyal House
member wanted, he would provide. "The Hammer" was also known as "The
Concierge." Rules, including the House's own, meant nothing to him,
irritating hindrances to be broken at his will. In order to gain
passage of a bill favouring the big drug companies - preventing the
Medicare elderly prescription drug program from negotiating lower rates
- he extended debate long past the deadline and was accused of offering
the bribe of a campaign contribution to a wavering Republican. DeLay
stomped on the Ethics committee, stopping it from meeting to
investigate this episode until public outcry forced him to back off. He
greeted slaps on his wrist as badges of honour.
DeLay walked over bodies in his own party to reach his pinnacle. He
led coups against the Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, tribune of
the right, yet too amenable to negotiation with President Clinton as
far as DeLay was concerned.
DeLay most notable achievement was coercing the impeachment of
President Clinton. Without his arm-twisting, impeachment would have
certainly failed. There was a sizeable group of relatively moderate
Republicans opposed. They saw no merits in the ridiculous charges and
understood impeachment was being pressed out of crude partisanship. But
DeLay threatened their financial supporters (whose business interests
would be blackballed from receiving congressional relief), and
threatened to bankroll rightwing candidates against the moderates in
Republican primaries to bleed them white. So one by one, they caved in.
A moderate Republican was a moderate when Tom DeLay told them they
could be moderate. Under DeLay's thumb, the House Judiciary committee
voted for impeachment after refusing to establish any constitutional
standards for their action. The constitution was swept away in his
exercise of power. President Clinton was acquitted by the Senate, but
DeLay was unblemished by his abuse. Fear of him was never higher.
Over more than a decade, DeLay forged a political machine that he
called the "K Street project," after the downtown avenue in Washington
DC of steel and glass building housing the large law and lobbying
firms. DeLay kept a black book in which he noted who gave money to and
hired Republicans. When a trade association tried to employ a Democrat,
it was issued a warning that it would be punished. From the "K Street
project" to the Republicans flowed tens of millions of dollars in
campaign contributions. Meanwhile, the contracts from corporations for
lobbying and legal work went to these Republican firms. It was a
perfectly designed system of legal graft.
UPDATE: Until the summer of 2005, Ms. Miller worked as a
spokeswoman at the State Department. In May 2004, she earned a bit of
fame when she cut off a live interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" with
then-Secretary of State Colin Powell. Ms. Miller hasn't held a steady
job since leaving the State Department. She blames talk about her
involvement with the investigation.
Friends say Ms. Miller still has Mr. Scanlon's four-carat engagement ring.
Familiar and lesser-known political names emerged Monday night as
possible contenders for the congressional seat being vacated by
Republican U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay.
Those who acknowledged interest in the seat or were mentioned as
contenders included Harris County Judge Robert Eckels, state Rep.
Robert Talton, Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace, Houston City
Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, former state District Judge John
Devine and lawyer Tom Campbell, who ran against DeLay in the March
Republican Primary.
WaPo had a nifty little article over the weekend on the newly-homeless
sleeping in their cars, because they couldn't make payments on their
$500k homes. Good lord, the Browns looking for jobs at 72 and 78. Shoot me now.
For 45 years, Robert and Lorraine Brown have
lived in their ranch-style home in Florissant, Mo. One of their four
children was even born there. But for the past eight months, the couple
have been locked in a sleep-wrecking race to keep up with their rising
mortgage bills. They've switched to cheaper phone service, cut back on
groceries and sometimes put off ordering medicine.
When they refinanced their home two years ago to
pay off some bills, Robert, now 78, was working as a deliveryman. But
his employer went out of business last April. Now he and Lorraine, 72,
a retired nurse, are both seeking work. The rate on their mortgage has
jumped from 7% to 10.5%.
"We were having a hard time meeting bills at the
time we refinanced. It seems once you get behind, you do desperate
things to catch up, and you never do," says Lorraine, trying to hold
back tears. "At the time of the loan, they tell you, 'Well, it may go
up, but it's probably going to go down.' You want it to be so, so you
believe it."
They feel alone, but they're not. America's
five-year real estate boom was fueled partly by a tempting array of
cut-rate mortgages that helped millions of Americans qualify for home
or refinance loans. To afford soaring home prices, many turned to
adjustable-rate and other, riskier loans with low initial payments. The
homeownership rate hit a record 70%.
Now, the real estate market is cooling, interest
rates are rising and tens of thousands more Americans are starting to
have trouble paying their mortgages. Nearly 25% of mortgages — 10
million — carry adjustable interest rates. And most of them went to
people with subpar credit ratings who accepted higher interest rates,
according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
The number of borrowers in trouble will rise
this year and peak in 2007 and 2008 as the largest number of mortgages
reset to higher rates, according to First American Real Estate
Solutions, a real estate data provider.
Already, in West Virginia, Alabama, Michigan,
Missouri and Tennessee, about one in five homeowners with a
high-interest (subprime) ARM was at least 30 days late at the end of
last year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. After 90
days, the foreclosure clock starts ticking. Most of those foreclosures are related to job
losses in auto and garment factories; higher mortgage payments were
often the last straw.
What worries experts such as Christopher Cagan
at First American Real Estate Solutions are the adjustable-rate loans
made in 2004 and 2005, at the end of the housing boom. These loans were
concentrated in the hottest markets, such as California, where about
60% of all loans last year were interest-only or payment-option ARMs.
That's the highest such rate in the country.
Of the 7.7 million households who took out ARMs
over the past two years to buy or refinance, up to 1 million could lose
their homes through foreclosure over the next five years because they
won't be able to afford their mortgage payments, and their homes will
be worth less than they owe, according to Cagan's research.
The losses to the banking industry, he
estimates, will exceed $100 billion. That's less than the damage from
the savings-and-loan crisis in the 1990s, which cost the country $150
billion. "It will sting the economy, but it won't break it," he says.
UPDATE:The Browns in Missouri also have had a happy
ending. The lender, Saxon Mortgage Services in Texas, declined to
discuss the Browns' case with USA TODAY last week. But within 24 hours
of a call from a reporter, Saxon agreed to give the couple a fixed-rate
loan at 7%. "I'm so elated," Lorraine said.
The older you get, the more difficult it can be to find work. It's kind of scary.
All the more reason to turn over all of our social security to Halliburton and Enron, or at least their associates in Congress.
The Immigration Debate The progressive answer to immigration is to crack down on corporate
hiring of illegal immigrants for low pay, to accelerate the path to
citizenship for existing illegals, and to reform NAFTA so that it
actually produces the wealth for Mexico it promised in the first place.
The unanswered question is, how do you fix the root problem of income
disparities. It would seem that NAFTA is actually a step in the right
direction in that regard. I know that most Democrats are opposed to
this, but I have to think this tackles the problem quite well. When
multi-national corporations go into a country and treat it like WalMart
treats small businesses in small-town USA, we should expect a double
whammy of income disparity AND decimation of locally-based businesses
to generate incomes at whatever level. The immigration issue can never be addressed successfully without
actually addressing income disparity and economic stability. Capital can move freely across borders, but workers can't. The
result is to drive wages down all over. The end result, they note, is
likely to be economic nationalism, as workers demand that something be
done.
The biggest problem with NAFTA is the exploitative mentality
of many of its supporters that knows no boundaries. Hence, CAFTA and
all the other efforts. Globalization means that even Mexican jobs are
at risk too. Hmm, low-paying and insecure income versus illegal
border-crossing for higher income. Why don't free-trade supporters get
it that any rational mind will truly consider skirting draconian
penalties to feed and house themselves?
Whether you believe Mexican immigrants help or hurt
the United States, there is one incontrovertible truth: work here pays
much, much better. A low-skilled Mexican worker in this country earns
five to six times as much as he would back home, assuming he or she
could find a comparable job.
This truth is so obvious it seems a cliche and yet it remains
mostly absent from the current debate on how to reform U.S.
immigration. For all the talk around the country of border enforcement,
guest worker programs, employer sanctions and driver's licensing
restrictions, the sad fact is that none of these "solutions'' addresses
the root of the problem - a persistent and large U.S.-Mexican income
disparity.
Even the most comprehensive and progressive immigration reform
proposal in years, introduced this month by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz.,
and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., is more concerned with making U.S.
immigration policy more humane than dealing with income disparity
between the United States and Mexico. The bill crafts a guest worker
program -- creating new visa categories and quotas and a secure
identification system for employers -- but only provides a vague
indication that income disparity might be a problem worth taking on.
Why such reluctance? How can a proposal that purports to reduce the
flow of illegal Mexican workers to the United States not take a stab at
the root cause? Won't better conditions for immigrant workers here only
be an invitation for more illegal migrants from Mexico, as the argument
goes, as long as wage disparity remains unaddressed?
To alter income disparity, it is obvious that Mexico must reduce its
development gap and raise incomes. What is just as apparent is that
Americans do not feel, at least at the moment, that they have a
responsibility or even an interest in reducing that gap through
investment of money and expertise. They don't feel the same obligation
they once felt, say, after World War II for Europe, or that the
European Union took on when it bolstered its poorest members. Mexico
and the United States may share a 2,000-mile border but their sense of
a shared future runs two two inches deep.
When you get half a million people marching in the streets
to protest Republican immigration policies, you better believe that the
political pot is beginning to bubble in time for the 2006 election.
It
presents a real conundrum for conservatives, and a real opportunity for
progressives. That was clear from the events that sparked this
weekend's protests:
Saturday's
rally, spurred by anger over legislation passed by the U.S. House of
Representatives last December, was part of what many say is an
unprecedented effort to organize immigrants and their supporters across
the nation. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is to take up efforts
Monday to complete work on a comprehensive immigration reform proposal.
Unlike the House bill, which beefed up border security and toughened
immigration laws, the Senate committee's version is expected to include
a guest worker program and a path to legalization for the nation's 10
to 12 million undocumented immigrants.
The Associated Press report of the rally
noted that the legislation "would make it a felony to be in the U.S.
illegally. It also would impose new penalties on employers who hire
illegal immigrants, require churches to check the legal status of
parishioners before helping them and erect fences along one-third of
the U.S.-Mexican border."
The
Republicans in Congress who spearheaded these measures -- particularly
Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado and Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin
-- represent a resurgent Cro-Magnon wing of the party, one that is
threatening to swamp the genteel grip of corporate conservatives whose
approach to immigration is decidedly different, if equally poisonous.
The Cro-Magnon approach, embodied by vigilantes like the Minutemen,
is to blame the pawns. Their policies are predicated on the laughable
idea that we can build a fortress wall around the country and just keep
people out, a pretty notion that quickly runs aground on the reality
that no wall can contain the larger forces driving illegal immigration.
They consistently scapegoat the emigres while ignoring -- and indeed
abetting -- those same larger forces.
The
Cro-Magnon approach is repellent enough on its own merits, but the
other side of the Republican coin on immigration is the Bush plan to
create a "guest worker" program that is nothing less than the
realization of corporate America's wet dream of having a labor force
that cannot vote. It would create a permanent underclass of
disenfranchised workers, and would forever change the very nature of
immigration as we have historically known it in America, severing it
from citizenship.
This two-headed approach to immigration is like being given a choice of refreshing beverage: arsenic or strychnine. You pick.
It's all part of the ongoing Latin Americanization of the United States,
in which the standard of living and the economic and political power of
the middle and working classes is consistently driven downward and held
there. As PZ Myers puts it, "The Republican agenda is to turn the United States into a third-world shithole."
It's time,
indeed, for progressives to come up with their own plan for dealing
with immigration -- one that goes beyond the scapegoating and the
narrow business interests and realistically and fairly comes to grips
with the issue.
The negative effects of unbridled immigration on
American workers is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how
liberals should be thinking about this. They need to understand that
mass employment of illegal immigrants is open ground for gross
exploitation and civil-rights abuses. It also corrodes the value of
citizenship.
The progressive answer to immigration is to crack down on corporate
hiring of illegal immigrants for low pay, to accelerate the path to
citizenship for existing illegals, and to reform NAFTA so that it
actually produces the wealth for Mexico it promised in the first place. Oh yeah, and Democrats, this is a great opportunity to get the Latino
vote permanently on our side. Many Americans will understand the
corporate argument if we start making it. So as usual, progressive policies are good
politics.
North Carolina Shuts Down Sadomasochistic Castration Dungeon
Three men arrested on charges of voluntary castrations without malice, maiming without malice and practicing medicine without a license in what was described as a sadomasochistic dungeon.. " Is maining without malice a crime in North Carolina?
WAYNESVILLE:Three Haywood County men are now in jail on felony charges of
castration without malice and practicing medicine without a license.
Emily
Kurtz, who lives below the house the three men rented at 541 Peace
Mountain Road off Allens Creek Road, said she noticed men in cars with
out-of-state plates visiting the home off and on since she moved to the
neighborhood in January.
Sheriff Tom Alexander and District Attorney Michael Bonfoey this
morning announced the arrests of the men in connection with the illegal
castrations. The sheriff and prosecutor said the victims were willing
participants.
The victims met the men through a locally produced
Web site that published photographs of men engaging in sadomasochistic
behavior. Yahoo! shut down the site in December 2004. The castrations
took place last year beginning in March and continued through November,
according to police documents.
The case is the first involving willing castration in the county and could be the first in North Carolina.
"This right here beats everything I have ever seen," the sheriff said.
Dr. Paul Appelbaum, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University
and a past president of the American Psychiatric Association, said
voluntary castration appears to be a very rare phenomenon.
"The
people who I have seen who have undergone voluntary castration have
been psychotic and often in the grip of a delusion that their sexual
organs were causing them to behave in evil ways," Appelbaum said. "And
they felt that to rid themselves of that evil, it was necessary to rid
themselves of their sexual organs."
During a search of the home on Wednesday, investigators found DVD recordings of the castrations.
Mendez
and Sciara moved to Western North Carolina from Topeka, Kan. Reeves
moved to the area from Atlanta, Alexander said. Mendez and Reeves
worked together at Harrah's Cherokee Casino on the Cherokee Indian
Reservation, where Mendez was honored early this year for his work.
Mendez
received $1,000 and a commemorative crystal award for being named one
of the 2005 "Shining Stars of the Year," according to a news release
sent to area media outlets in February. Mendez worked at the casino as
a Total Rewards representative, providing incentives for guests.
Mendez's ex-wife, Anne Moriarty, said she and her former husband had a son and daughter together.
"This
sounds highly unlikely," Moriarty, who has not kept in touch with
Mendez since he moved to Haywood County. "I mean, this guy is as gentle
as a child - the guy I know. "The idea that he could be involved in anything like what you’re talking about is unimaginable. Totally unimaginable."
Neighbors
who live along the wooded and private Peace Mountain Road, who did not
know the men, were shocked by the news of the arrests.
Investigators used the informant's information to gain a search
warrant Wednesday, and found inside the house grizzly evidence of
homemade surgeries. In the first-floor room called the dungeon,
they found a coffee can with bloody scalpels, a silver tin marked "used
instruments," intravenous supplies, syringes, needles, bandages, an
electric shock paddle and a video camera and tripod.
In another first-floor room, the investigators found a Physician's Desk Reference book along with stacks of CDs and a computer.
An invoice for lidocaine, topical pain relief medicine, was in the kitchen.
A plastic container in a freezer contained what one of the suspects said was human testicles. The equipment, according to court papers, was used for removing testicles in castrations and at least one penis removal.
The
informant told investigators a man from Chile had his testicles replace
with artificial ones called "neuticles." He later traveled back to the
house to have them removed because "they were too large."
DVDs discovered listed Peace Mountain Enterprises as the production company and surgeries performed by "Master Rick."
Robert McDonald, an Asheville psychologist with 21 years'
experience, said he's never heard of voluntary castration as part of
sadomasochism, and that it doesn’t seem to fit because S&M behavior
tends to be an ongoing lifestyle.
"I can't imagine an experience
that's relatively this brief and that would change one's being and
behavior for such a long time being worth it," said McDonald, who also
serves as the vice chair of the N.C. Association for the Management and
Treatment of Sexual Offenders.
"That's a remarkably unwise and
difficult to understand behavior. Even if they did get off on the
surgery, how long is it going to take? And then it's going to affect
the rest of their lives." Some men do have a syndrome known as gender dysphoria disorder.
"There
are men who have very negative gender images," McDonald said. "They
hate the manifestation of their masculinity. They detest their
genitals." Some men have some past behavior that drives them to believe they should remove their genitals, he said.
The
Internet, McDonald said, allows relatively small groups of fetish
practitioners to get together and receive social reinforcement from one
another. "One thing we're finding is through the Internet, people
who have the rarest and most bizarre needs are able to find each
other," he said.
Because it eliminates the sources of masculine
hormones, orchiectomy - surgical removal of the testicles - is a form
of sex change for some people. The surgery can be a less
expensive alternative or intermediate step to a vaginoplasty procedure,
which involves the creation of a vagina.
"Castration without malice". Fascinating. Still trying to figure it out myself. An educated guess: a law put on the books a few hundred years ago to
prevent the proliferation of "castrati" (ex: the old-style Vienna Boys
Choir)?
It looks like the "if it feels good, do it", no-standards fringe is
getting bolder by the day, but this seems here it was more like "if it feels bad, really BAD, then do it."
April Fools' Day started a day early on the Web
as anxious Internet pranksters couldn't wait to lure the gullible into
buying the almost believable.
April Fools' Day Jokes started a day early on the Web as anxious Internet pranksters couldn't wait to lure the gullible into buying the almost believable.
ThinkGeek, a
retail site for the technology passionate, launched its annual line up
of April Fools' products on Friday, offering such must-haves as the USB Desktop Tanning Center, complete with "eyeball cover thingies;" and the RFID Blocking Kit T-shirt.
For people who find coffee isn't enough to jumpstart their morning,
ThinkGeek is offering the Buzzaire inhaler. "One puff and you'll have
about two cups of coffee's worth of caffeine zooming through your blood
stream."
The Register, a technology Web site
based in the United Kingdom, got a jump on the Web's traditional
tomfoolery by offering readers a custom-built version of the site
called "Pix'n'Mix Reg."
Besides offering the option to block a particular author's
stories, readers can chose their own font, including Wingdings; chose
whether they want U.K. or U.S. English; and chose stories they don't
want to read, such as those containing sex, shameless product plugs for
security companies, Web 2.0 and Microsoft.
For readers looking for a safe-for-work version of The Register, a single click will give them their "IT news completely stripped of controversy, polemic, humour and colour."
Following April Fools' Day, people looking for some of the best Web pranks can visit the blogs Waxy.org, which prefers "Internet Jackass Day" to April Fools' Day, and Urgo.org. Both provide annual lists.
Among the pranks on last year's list from Urgo.org were Slashdot.org's report of a Google imaging satellite in which, "if you stand outside and wave you will supposedly show up as a blury fleck," and Habitablezone.com's report that the United Nations had voted to close down the Internet.
Microsoft also made its contribution to prankster day with its Coding4Fun April Fools' Day Special. Among the how-to articles listed on Microsoft's developer site, MSDN, were setting up a PC for the randomly opening CD tray, and creating persistent error messages.
"See how many fake, and progressively ominous messages it takes before
your victim figures out it's an April Fools' prank," a description of
the article says.
So the Web on Saturday won't be for people who lack a sense of humor. For others, it should be lots of fun.
WASHINGTON 
The wall Street Journal reported today that indicted former California Congressman 
We've discussed the strange phenomenon of wingnut fascination with 
Art Brodsky explains:
In
her column today, Noonan offered some commentary on the staff changes
at the White House and explained, with surprising candor, why moving a
few deckchairs around 
Responding to the odd, disturbing nature of the 
The gritty, in-your-face ads on television, radio, billboards and
newspapers have exposed Montana teenagers to the ugly truth about the
evil grip of meth addiction.
Yesterday at the White House Easter Egg Roll, dozens of children "from
the stricken Gulf Coast region serenaded First Lady Laura Bush with a
song 
by Douglas Adams
Arthur Dent is out
of his bathrobe, in love, and 
Here's Bush's (1000% Percent support statement) on Rummy: 
In 
Federal auditors laid out a scenario of omissions, missteps and
bureaucratic nightmares that caused the loss of money and other
donations sent from abroad to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.
The thing is, the BushCo/PNAC "Real Men Go To Teheran" campaign is playing out exactly as their Iraq run-up did at this time in 2002.
Bogus "evidence" that actual authorities debunk? Check.
The US doing everything it can to provoke an invasion-justifying response? Check.
BushCo/PNAC only briefing those Democrats it knows are already in the tank for them? Check.
The US news media spinelessly going along for the most part? Check.
Except that this is going to be Iraq on steroids.
UPDATE: from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, 1963
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a gonna fall
Oh, what did you see, my blue eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin'
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a bleedin'
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a gonna fall
And what did you hear, my blue eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin'
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a blazin'
Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin'
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin'
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a gonna fall
As far as Iran is concerned, only a revolt in the Pentagon can stop these people now. And even then, a lot of the military guys are very loyal to Dubya and think he's doing the Lord's good work or some such insanity.
Spiro Agnew and I are thinking of leaving Hell and relocating to Pluto, just so we can be as far away from this mess as possible. Anyone want to come with us? ...Nixon's ghost