Bush’s Senioritis | The Daily Show | Comedy Central

From Your Lips… to YOUR ears

from www.thedailyshow.com posted with vodpod

Bush Educates Obama on Foreign Policy

Tell me you’ve stopped laughing long enough to read what his instructions are.

Bush hits Obama on foreign policy

WASHINGTON — Setting aside his stated reluctance to enter the presidential campaign, President Bush on Thursday strongly criticized Barack Obama’s expressed readiness to meet with foreign leaders cast as tyrants, warning that such discussions “can be extremely counterproductive” and “send the wrong signal.”

He also challenged Democrats’ skepticism about the North American Free Trade Agreement, and reminded Obama that Al Qaeda has been seeking to establish a base in Iraq “for the past four years.”

I don’t intend to counter every lie and obfuscation he blathers with every open lip move. His rhetoric is known for what it is… lies, deceit, untrustworthy bullshit. There are a few people in my life that I can say one would be safe with doing exactly 180 degrees different than their instruction. This idiot, W, is one of them.

If this man says something or instructs someone on something, your safest bet is that exactly opposite is most prudent.

Since he is only speaking to the most rabid 19%ers, anyway, it is meaningless.

Rednecks, do you still feel Bush has any credibility at all?

Bush has long objected to talking with adversaries — notably from Cuba, Iran and North Korea. Asked why such talks, without preconditions, would be wrong, he said they would “give great status to those who have suppressed human rights and human dignity.”

The last sentence strips this nincompoop of any and all credibility. We are talking about the man who is suppressing Americans human rights and dignity. This man is the pot calling the kettle black. He is a total failure and embarrassment to this country.

We’re Number 1! We’re Number 1! We’re Number 1!

By God, America is Number One at something afterall.

US prison numbers reach record high

 More than one per cent of US adults are serving prison sentences, higher than any other country in the world, according to a new report.

The US penal system held more than 2.3 million adults at the start of the year, the Pew Centre on the States said on Thursday.

More populous China was ranked second with 1.5 million behind bars, while Russia was third with 890,000.

“Beyond the sheer number of inmates, America also is the global leader in the rate at which it incarcerates its citizenry, outpacing nations like South Africa and Iran,” the report said.

The report said growth in prison numbers had not been driven by a similar increase in crime rates or a corresponding increase in the nation’s population.

“Rather, it flows principally from a wave of policy choices that are sending more lawbreakers to prison and, through the popular ‘three-strikes’ measures and other sentencing enhancements, keeping them there longer,” it said.

Correction expenditure

US states spent more than $44bn on corrections last year, the report said, compared with $10.6bn in 1987.

Ryan King of the Sentencing Project, a US prison reform group, told Al Jazeera that many of those currently incarcerated were serving sentences for minor offences or were drug users.

“We are using tens of billions of dollars of our domestic resources to incarcerate individuals who would be much better off either under community supervision or in a public health treatment programme.”

The report said that the national prison population had almost tripled between 1987 and 2007.

While one in 106 adult white men are incarcerated, one in 36 Hispanics and one in 15 African-Americans are behind bars.

Young black men

Younger black men fare even worse, with one in nine African-Americans ages 20 to 34 held behind bars.

King said this was the case because US law-enforcement agencies chose to enforce drug laws more strictly among African-Americans.

“African-Americans are more likely to be arrested because law enforcement is centred in those communities.”

While men are still 10 times more likely to be incarcerated than women, the female penal population is “burgeoning at a far brisker pace”, the study said.

Some states, such as Texas and Kansas, had slowed their prison population growth, with more use of community supervision for lower-risk offenders and use of sentences other prison.

Are you proud to be an American, yet?

UPDATE from dday at Hullabaloo (I didn’t see this before I posted):

This, incidentally, is one area in which Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, has been so effective. Getting the Kansas legislature to move in this direction must have been a monumental task.

We desperately need a more progressive prison policy that recognizes the actual intention of imprisonment, to rehabilitate and return the jailed back to society with opportunities for advancement. Locking the problem offenders away for longer and longer hasn’t worked. Sentencing that focuses on treatment, and which pairs tougher sentences to actual risk, is far preferable. Chris Bowers calls this one of the untouchable symptoms that lawmakers have to this point been loath to challenge. But the cost has become too high to ignore. I think it’s an area where a more transformational politics would be a godsend.

Exxon suxx. McCain duxx

Exxon suxx. McCain duxx

By Greg Palast
27 February 2008. Nineteen goddamn years is enough. I’m sorry if you don’t like my language, but when I think about what they did to Paul Kompkoff, I’m in no mood to nicey-nice words.

Next month marks 19 years since the Exxon Valdez dumped its load of crude oil across the Prince William Sound, Alaska. A big gooey load of this crude spilled over the lands of the Chenega Natives. Paul Kompkoff was a seal-hunter for the village. That is, until Exxon’s ship killed the seal and poisoned the rest of Chenega’s food supply.

While cameras rolled, Exxon executives promised they’d compensate everyone. Today, before the US Supreme Court, the big oil company’s lawyers argued that they shouldn’t have to pay Paul or other fishermen the damages ordered by the courts.

They can’t pay Paul anyway. He’s dead.

That was part of Exxon’s plan. They told me that. In 1990 and 1991, I worked for the Chenega and Chugach Natives of Alaska on trying to get Exxon to pay up to save the remote villages of the Sound. Exxon’s response was, “We can hold out in court until you’re all dead.”

Nice guys. But, hell, they were right, weren’t they?

But Exxon didn’t do it alone. They had enablers. One was a failed oil driller named “Dubya.” Exxon was the largest contributor to George W. Bush’s political career after Enron. They were a team, Exxon and Enron. The Chairman of Enron, Ken Lay, prior to his felony convictions, funded a group called Texans for Law Suit Reform. The idea was to prevent Natives, consumers and defrauded stockholders from suing felonious corporations and their chiefs.

When George went to Washington, Enron and Exxon got their golden pass in the appointment of Chief Justice John Roberts. Today, as the court heard Exxon’s latest stall, Roberts said, in defense of Exxon’s behavior in Alaska, “What more can a corporation do?”

The answer, Your Honor, is plenty.

For starters, Mr. Roberts, Exxon could have turned on the radar. What? On the night the Exxon Valdez smacked into Bligh Reef, the Raycas radar system was turned off. Exxon shipping honchos decided it was too expensive to maintain it and train their navigators to use it. So, the inexperienced third mate at the wheel was driving the supertanker by eyeball, Christopher Columbus style. I kid you not.

Here’s what else this poor ‘widdle corporation could do: stop lying.

On the night of March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez was not even supposed to leave harbor.

If a tanker busts open, that doesn’t have to mean a thousand miles of shoreline gets slimed – so long as oil-slick containment equipment is in place.

On the night of March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez was not supposed have left port. No tanker can unless a spill containment barge is operating nearby. That night, the barge was in dry-dock, locked under ice. Exxon kept that fact hidden, concealing the truth even after the tanker grounded. An Exxon official radioed the emergency crew, “Barge is on its way.”

Paul’s gone – buried with Exxon’s promises. But the oil’s still there. Go out to Chenega lands today. At Sleepy Bay, kick over some gravel and it will smell like a gas station.

What the heck does this have to do with John McCain? The Senator is what I’d call a ‘Tort Tart.’ Ken Lay’s “Law Suit Reform” posse was one of the fronts used by a gaggle of corporate lobbyists waging war on your day in court. Their rallying cry is ‘Tort Reform,’ by which they mean they want to take away the God-given right of any American, rich or poor, to sue the bastards who crush your child’s skull through product negligence, make your heart explode with a faulty medical device, siphon off your pension funds, or poison your food supply with spilled oil.

Now, all of the Democratic candidates have seen through this ‘tort reform’ con – and so did a Senator named McCain who, in 2001, for example, voted for the Patients Bill of Rights allowing claims against butchers with scalpels. Then something happened to Senator McCain: the guy who stuck his neck out for litigants got his head chopped off when he ran for President in the Republican Party in 2000 for what one lobbyists’ website called McCain’s, “his go-it-alone moralism.”

So the Senator did what I call, The McCain Hunch. Again and again he grabbed his ankles and apologized to the K Street lobbyists, reversing his positions on, well, you name it. For example, in 2001, he said of Bush’s tax cuts, “I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans.” Now, in bad conscience, the Senator vows to make these tax cuts permanent.

On “Tort Reform,” the about-face was dizzying. McCain voted to undermine his own 2001 Patients Bill of Rights with votes in 2005 to limit suits to enforce it. He then added his name to a bill that would have thrown sealhunter Kompkoff’s suit out of federal court.

In 2003, McCain voted against Bush’s Energy Plan, an industry oil-gasm. But this week, following Exxon’s report that it sucked in $40.6 billion in earnings last year, the largest profit haul in planetary history, McCain failed to join Clinton, Obama, most Democrats and some Republicans on a bill to require a teeny sliver of industry profit go to alternative energy sources. On oil independence, McCain is AWOL, missing in action.

Well, Paul, at least you were spared this.

I remember when I was on the investigation in Alaska, fishermen, bankrupted, utterly ruined – Kompkoff’s co-plaintiffs in the suit before the court – floated their soon-to-be repossessed boats into the tanker lanes with banners reading, “EXXON SUXX.” To which they could now add, about a one-time stand-up Senator: “McCain duxx.”

******************
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The Religion (and Politics) of Hypocrisy

There are two subjects that grab 75% of my attention when on line… politics and religion. I take special critical notation of the intermingling of the two, especially when it relates to how radical fundamentalist Christians have pronounced their ownership of the Republican Party and what that ownership has done to destroy the party to some extent.

One key focus for me has been the hypocritical aspect of how right wing America uses its “Christian Nation” self-identification, while endorsing things Christ would have NOTHING, whatsoever, to do with (if you actually read and understand His words… they are red in many Bibles… just a hint).

I had an argument with my dad a few years ago, in which he kept suggesting that the war we find ourselves in is really Islam against Christianity… and at the time, I couldn’t believe anyone in the administration would ever admit it out loud, whether true or not.

But everyone knows that the rule of thumb for judging where the administration’s ideology sets is by listening to any of the reTHUGilcan pundits, such as Coulter, Hannity, O’Reilley, Limbaugh, Savage, etc) and you realize that race and religious attacks are, indeed, their weapon of choice. Just listen and realize how the meme changed from Islam being a religion of peace (Bush’s earliest speeches) to everything being “radical Islamic fascism”, etc. They have slowly brainwashed much of America (with the help of the religious nutcases on “our” side) that this is the case.

However, the “Men of God” (Christian Leaders) that sidle up to the ReTHUGs preach and teach the very same hatred and idiotic dominance type things, with the only exception, they know that inciting violence is illegal. They avoid that, but their bullshit is just as idiotic and brain numbing as the “other side” (Islam).

Glenn Greenwaldaddresses the latest endorsement for McCain, the “Man-of-God” (Mr “Snapper”, himself), The Reverend, Pastor, Doctor, Monsignor John Hagee… the Rapture Man. He compares the attacks against Obama for the endorsement Mr Farrakhan gave him (unrequested) and the radicalness of Farrakhan’s brand of Islam and how the right (McCain) can embrace Hagee (even though he, too, is a radical “crazy”). For Hagee truly is a nutcase:

* All Muslims are programmed to kill and we can thus never negotiate with any of them. From an NPR interview Hagee gave to Terry Gross in 2006:

TG: If you use the Bible as the basis for policy, is there any room for compromise? And if you use the bible as the basis for policy, should Muslims use the Koran as the basis for their policy, and then again, what possible basis is there for compromise at that point?JH: There is really no room for compromise between radical Islam –

TG: I’m not talking about radical Islam. I’m just talking about Islam in general. JH: Well Islam in general — those who live by the Koran have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews.

* God caused Hurricane Katrina to wipe out New Orleans because it had a gay pride parade the week before and was filled with sexual sin. From the same interview:

JH: All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.The newspaper carried the story in our local area, that was not carried nationally, that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it would was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other gay pride parades.

So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing. I know there are people who demur from that, but I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the Day of Judgment, and I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.

* The End Times — Rapture — is imminent and the U.S. Government must do what it can to hasten it, which at minimum requires: (a) a war with Iran and (b) undying, absolute support for a unified Israel, including all Occupied Territories (hence, Joe Lieberman’s love affair with them). From Christian Palestinian Daoud Kuttab in The New York Times (h/t PZ Meyers):

A small minority of evangelical Christians have entered the Middle East political arena with some of the most un-Christian statements I have ever heard. . . . [Rev.] Hagee, a popular televangelist who leads the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, ratcheted up his rhetoric this year with the publication of his book, “Jerusalem Countdown,” in which he argues that a confrontation with Iran is a necessary precondition for Armageddon (which will mean the death of most Jews, in his eyes) and the Second Coming of Christ. In the best-selling book, Hagee insists that the United States must join Israel in a preemptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West.

Do you rednecks understand what this guy is saying? In the name of the Christ?

Can you honestly believe that he is “better” than any radical Islamic Emam? How so? Bomb from airplanes are far worse than one strapped to a single person… maybe not as personal, but far more efficient. And gutless. And the height of hypocrisy.

The GOP has long been given a pass on courting the most warped and twisted religious figures around. George Bush spoke regularly with Pat Robertson — never once forced to “denounce” or “reject” him. In 2006, Rev. Hagee had a private meeting with uber-White House neocon (and convicted criminal) Elliot Abrams, who just happens to run Middle East policy in the Bush administration, and afterwards, Hagee gushed that he and Abrams (like he and Lieberman) shared similar views towards the Middle East: “we felt we were on the right track.”

Watching the media’s treatment of Farrakhan and Hagee, is it possible to imagine a more transparent, and grotesque, double standard? In the framework of the Russert-led establishment press, white evangelical Christians are, by definition, entitled to great respect no matter how radical, extreme and hateful their professed views are. These are, after all, religious Christians — People of Faith — and, as such, it is wrong, even bigoted, to suggest that they should be repudiated. There is nothing ever radical, hateful or dangerous about the views of white evangelical Christians like Hagee.

Of course Farrakhan is a nutcase. But he is virtually the same as the “Men of God” who flirt with the right. Worse, because they are protected by the media and the THUG party.

How come Tim Russert — in all the times he sits and chats with Lieberman, McCain and various high Bush officials — never reads all of the inflammatory, disgusting, crazed “Rapture-is-Coming/ All-Jews-will-Burn/ Kill-All-Muslims/ Hurricanes-are-Punishment-against-Gays” pronouncements from John Hagee and James Dobson and Pat Robertson and demand that John McCain and George Bush and Joe Lieberman “denounce” those views and “reject” their support? What’s the difference, exactly?

Glenn, the difference is obvious. Big Media is framing the election. And we are the dupes.

Full Caffeine Eclipse | The Daily Show | Comedy Central

For All You Coffee Drinkers Out There

from www.thedailyshow.com posted with vodpod

Jen’s Update: Direct From Lil Sis

hi, everyone! thanks for all of your supportive and wonderful comments. they are all so nice.

it’s jen and it’s late. i just checked this site out recently. i admit i felt a bit uncomfortable about having a page focused on my illness. must sound weird to some people, but when you’ve been so linked to fighting a tumor for going on 9 years, life can be a bit strange.

it dawned on me the other day that sometimes i can’t clearly remember life before diagnosis. this is neither good nor bad–just different. my life is filled with many gifts from God. i think it’s all a little trickier a life than i might have expected, but i certainly wouldn’t trade it.

on the subject of my scorpion ; ) trial, the injections and scans are done. i have another trip in a few months to visit the doc i think. well, matthew knows for sure–but he’s asleep.

it was quite an experience having scorpion venom injected into your head followed by a radioactive isotope. it was like they put a little paper placemat with a hole in the middle of it on the side of my head. then I felt a little pin prick and a very tiny amount of pressure. they would put a little in for about a minute and a half or so. then they took a minute break.. the whole injection process was less than 10 minutes per treatment.

As soon as I was rolled out in the hall from the infusion, I would be met with a Geiger counter. Having your radioactivity measured is just plain kooky! : ) and I was particularly “hot” from my first 2 infusions.

The night of my infusion, I would spend the night in a special area of the hospital. Two of the three nights I spent there, they had to put lead shields around me because I was literally “leaking” my radioactivity into the hall. That’s nuts!!!!

BUT…………………….THE CAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The scrumptious meals they fed me—no kidding. Crazy, delicious food. French toast, chocolate cake, vanilla cake with super thick frosting, pot roast & mashed potatoes, clam chowder, outstanding fruit salad plates. Oh, my! Couldn’t pass on any of it. Tummy still hurts.

Worse part was really just the blood sticks. I just don’t have the veins for all the needles. Yuck!!!! Outside of that, it wasn’t scary or uncomfortable. It will be so odd next week when I have no trip to Alabama. I won’t know what to do without my little schedule.

I have to say the folks in ‘bama were great. I will miss seeing them. Well, I will get to see my trial nurse and doc three more times for MRI follow-ups. (I’m pretty sure that’s right)

Thank you all again for all your well wishes, prayers and messages. I hope the first part of my entry didn’t seem too strange for anyone. I’m just a little tired.

Lots of love!

jen

Read Journal

Jen’s Update: She’s Back at Home

TR has another update for us:

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2008 05:09 PM, CST Back Home in Tennessee Entry by TR (Going Back to Ohio Tomorrow) Say what you will about us Herzogs, but we definitely get around! Ha ha! Not much to report other than my sister & Matthew returned from Birmingham Tuesday evening as planned. The techs are not really qualified to give an initial reading of the scans — they were just checking her blood and radio levels anyway. So hopefully March will just be windy and uneventful! She’ll go back for more tests in about a month — the MRI showing the effectiveness of treatment is still scheduled for Memorial Day timeframe. We had an Accu-Router Board Meeting at my parents’ house today and my sister was her normal insightful, feisty self! Having worked with the company for 8 years, her input is very valuable! Just please pray that she gradually regains her strength and she’s able to grace all of us with her presence a little more! It taks a big effort for her to do little things you and I take for granted, and the steroids for preventing the brain swelling are still taking their toll. Lent & Easter are times for spiritual renewal and miracles — may God continue to work His magic in all of our lives! – TRH

Read Journal

There is HOPE for America, yet

Now if I can just keep you away from Drudge. 

From Zogby International:

Internet is the top source of news for nearly half of Americans; Survey finds two-thirds dissatisfied with the quality of journalism

Two thirds of Americans - 67% - believe traditional journalism is out of touch with what Americans want from their news, a new We Media/Zogby Interactive poll shows.

The survey also found that while most Americans (70%) think journalism is important to the quality of life in their communities, two thirds (64%) are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities.

Meanwhile, the online survey documented the shift away from traditional sources of news, such as newspapers and TV, to the Internet - most dramatically among so-called digital natives - people under 30 years old.

Nearly half of respondents (48%) said their primary source of news and information is the Internet, an increase from 40% who said the same a year ago. Younger adults were most likely to name the Internet as their top source - 55% of those age 18 to 29 say they get most of their news and information online, compared to 35% of those age 65 and older. These oldest adults are the only age group to favor a primary news source other than the Internet, with 38% of these seniors who said they get most of their news from television. Overall, 29% said television is their main source of news, while fewer said they turn to radio (11%) and newspapers (10%) for most of their news and information. Just 7% of those age 18 to 29 said they get most of their news from newspapers, while more than twice as many (17%) of those age 65 and older list newspapers as their top source of news and information.

If you need a tube, use the PC. The TV owns most of us…

Automated Killer Robots ‘Threat To Humanity’

Published on Wednesday, February 27, 2008 by Agence France Presse

Automated Killer Robots ‘Threat to Humanity’: Expert

Increasingly autonomous, gun-totting robots developed for warfare could easily fall into the hands of terrorists and may one day unleash a robot arms race, a top expert on artificial intelligence told AFP.

“They pose a threat to humanity,” said University of Sheffield professor Noel Sharkey ahead of a keynote address Wednesday before Britain’s Royal United Services Institute.

Intelligent machines deployed on battlefields around the world — from mobile grenade launchers to rocket-firing drones — can already identify and lock onto targets without human help.

There are more than 4,000 US military robots on the ground in Iraq, as well as unmanned aircraft that have clocked hundreds of thousands of flight hours.

The first three armed combat robots fitted with large-caliber machine guns deployed to Iraq last summer, manufactured by US arms maker Foster-Miller, proved so successful that 80 more are on order, said Sharkey.

But up to now, a human hand has always been required to push the button or pull the trigger.

It we are not careful, he said, that could change.

Military leaders “are quite clear that they want autonomous robots as soon as possible, because they are more cost-effective and give a risk-free war,” he said.

Several countries, led by the United States, have already invested heavily in robot warriors developed for use on the battlefield.

South Korea and Israel both deploy armed robot border guards, while China, India, Russia and Britain have all increased the use of military robots.

Washington plans to spend four billion dollars by 2010 on unmanned technology systems, with total spending expected rise to 24 billion, according to the Department of Defense’s Unmanned Systems Roadmap 2007-2032, released in December.

James Canton, an expert on technology innovation and CEO of the Institute for Global Futures, predicts that deployment within a decade of detachments that will include 150 soldiers and 2,000 robots.

The use of such devices by terrorists should be a serious concern, said Sharkey.

Captured robots would not be difficult to reverse engineer, and could easily replace suicide bombers as the weapon-of-choice. “I don’t know why that has not happened already,” he said.

But even more worrisome, he continued, is the subtle progression from the semi-autonomous military robots deployed today to fully independent killing machines.

“I have worked in artificial intelligence for decades, and the idea of a robot making decisions about human termination terrifies me,” Sharkey said.

Ronald Arkin of Georgia Institute of Technology, who has worked closely with the US military on robotics, agrees that the shift towards autonomy will be gradual.

But he is not convinced that robots don’t have a place on the front line.

“Robotics systems may have the potential to out-perform humans from a perspective of the laws of war and the rules of engagement,” he told a conference on technology in warfare at Stanford University last month.

The sensors of intelligent machines, he argued, may ultimately be better equipped to understand an environment and to process information. “And there are no emotions that can cloud judgement, such as anger,” he added.

Nor is there any inherent right to self-defence.

For now, however, there remain several barriers to the creation and deployment of Terminator-like killing machines.

Some are technical. Teaching a computer-driven machine — even an intelligent one — how to distinguish between civilians and combatants, or how to gauge a proportional response as mandated by the Geneva Conventions, is simply beyond the reach of artificial intelligence today.

But even if technical barriers are overcome, the prospect of armies increasingly dependent on remotely-controlled or autonomous robots raises a host of ethical issues that have barely been addressed.

Arkin points out that the US Department of Defense’s 230 billion dollar Future Combat Systems programme — the largest military contract in US history — provides for three classes of aerial and three land-based robotics systems.

“But nowhere is there any consideration of the ethical implications of the weaponisation of these systems,” he said.

For Sharkey, the best solution may be an outright ban on autonomous weapons systems. “We have to say where we want to draw the line and what we want to do — and then get an international agreement,” he said.

© 2008 Agence France Presse

Due to my work, which incorporates robots quite often, this may not be as far-fetched as people imagine. Obviously, there are already over 4,000 robots in operation in Iraq alone (this blows my mind and never expected numbers like that). I will admit that it appears to be a safer alternate to some personnel related issues, but robots are no smarter than the guy programming it (or defeating the safety systems, which can be done and results in accidents and death more frequently than is let on).

Must be a helluva business to be in.

The Dems are just as rabidly crazy as the THUGS

I took their link down from my BlogRoll because of it. No need to ask who it was. But the point is that there are democratic sycophants, just as ideologically ignorant and brainwashed as those on the Right that call themselves republicans, but  are truly reTHUGlicans. What we see in the Democratic debates is EXACTLY who they want us to see. And the Pale Riders of the world jump on board like some foaming mouthed idiot.

I don’t fall into either group, but when you address those that try to force you in their group, like the democratic ideologue Pale Rider, they are just as bad, if not worse, than the THUGS in their treatment.

Rednecks, don’t be fooled by those who are no different than Bush in any real way. Don’t listen to the garbage spewed by the left as if it is truth, any more than the fools on the right. There is not a hill’s beans worth of difference, and that is EXACTLY the way they planned and implemented it.

The fact is that Hillary Clinton is just more of the same old shit we have had for 7 years. Packaged a bit different, but we will not see much “change” with her (or Obama). The Missouri Fool may think so, but that is what fools do. The Missouri Fool certainly cannot debate or discuss, so no one would really know for sure. Just mouth and a lot of it.

Does this make me unserious to say that the dems are no different than what we now have? To suggest that we are simply voting for the least of the evils presented?

Pale Rider, the democratic party weenie holder, thinks so.

Well, to hell with Democrats and the Pale Asshole. I’m no ones patsy, even tho he doesn’t mind being one.

I also don’t befriend dickheads. Life is too short and there are truly friendly people around, whereas that nincompoop is hardly that.

UPDATE:

from Margaret Kimberly at the Black Agenda Report, words that may explain why “progressives” are caving to the non-progressives running (be it Obama or Clinton):

Progressives Cave to Obama

The progressive movement is on its death bed, in critical condition for many reasons. Activists are demoralized after George W. Bush cheated his way into office, committed crimes against humanity, and subverted the constitution without punishment or even serious risk of political damage. Eight years of evil doing have taken their toll on activists’ willingness to take action.

The Democrats are not blameless. The prospect of a Hillary Clinton nomination was another slap in the face to the most loyal Democratic voters. The Yale educated lawyer claimed she didn’t know the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq was just what it said. The sorry excuses went on forever and the disgust only grew. Her vaunted inevitability silenced Democrats, who prepared to hold their noses and support the lesser of two evils.

I contend that many who call themselves progressives have simply done what they think is expedient… joining the unprogressive bandwagon that “pretends” to bolster our ideals. Never mind that Clinton actually voted for something that’s name was very clear about its purpose. She can’t lie now.

They can’t lie about their contributions and their careful word parsing about bringing troops home from Iraq or adding more money to the military budget or addressing the gorilla in the room… health insurance companies and single-payer, NOT-FOR-PROFIT  healtcare. They dance all around the issues and take extra time to spar over details of their identical plans, that anyone paying attention understands they aren’t fighting for us, as much as they are fighting for their coffers.

I wish those that called themselves liberals and progressives were able to admit this without fear of hurting Democrats”. Pitiful.

The end of movement politics has infected nearly everyone, like a mysterious illness in a science fiction film. If a movement still existed, MoveOnwould not have made an Obama endorsement via popularity contest. They never bothered to make demands of him, to ask questions before giving him their support. Their endorsement is worthless because it gives Obama cover and asks nothing in return.

MoveOn spreads the conventional wisdom that super delegates are more likely to be pro-Clinton and are willing to subvert the popular will on her behalf. They have even circulated a petition to prevent super delegates from choosing the nominee. What MoveOn doesn’t say is that both Clinton and Obama have used their political action committees to make contributionsto super delegate campaign funds. They also fail to mention that Obama leads in making these contributions.

His PAC has given $698,200 to super delegates. Hillary Clinton has made $205,500 in contributions to super delegate coffers. In other words, Obama is more adept at buying votes than Clinton. “Yes we can” indeed.

MoveOn is not alone. It is incomprehensible that The Nation magazine endorsed Obamaafter making the following statement. “This magazine has been critical of the senator from Illinois for his closeness to Wall Street; his unwillingness to lay out an ambitious progressive agenda on healthcare, housing and other domestic policy issues; and for post-partisan rhetoric that seems to ignore the manifest failure of conservatism over these past seven years.”

If The Nation has so many qualms about Obama, why endorse him at all? The editors could have simply made a statement of non-support for Obama or Clinton. The sad plight of progressives is all too obvious. “While his rhetoric about ‘unity’ can be troubling, it also embodies a savvy strategy to redefine the center of American politics and build a coalition by reaching out to independent and Republican voters disgruntled and disgusted with what the Bush era has wrought.” The Nation should explain to readers why Democrats ought to “redefine the center” with independents and Republicans instead of having their own agenda and fighting to make it a reality.

If even The Nation bows down in thrall of the over hyped “center,” then all hope for true change is gone. In other words, capitulation is the order of the day, and Obama makes it more palatable than Hillary Clinton does.

Even some of the staunchest “liberal” organizations find it necessary to capitulate to those who don’t represent their interests. Of course you argue, who else are you going to vote for? McCain? Nader?

No. What I’m saying is that if you actually have honor and integrity, you should at least ask, push, demand from those who seek your endorsement that they give you SOMETHING. ANYTHING! You owe that party nothing. They owe you everything. Take some of it back.

After eight years of Clintonian triangulation, and another eight years of Bush lawlessness, the center isn’t what is used to be. The center will accept an occupation of Iraq, as long as there is pretense that it will end. The center will not undo the Bush attacks on the Constitution. The center will tell black people that they are “90% of the way” towards equality. Actually, Obama already declared that “there is no black America” so the fight for equality will become irrelevant.

Black voters are overwhelmingly pro-Obama. Now supposedly anti-war and progressive organizations have also thrown in the towel. Race pride, however misguided in this case, explains Obama’s appeal to black Americans. White progressives have no such excuse. Nevertheless they have chosen to suspend disbelief and jump on the winning bandwagon.

The stampede to Obama reveals the emptiness of the Democratic left. They are every bit as cynical as the man they support. They want a seat at the table. They don’t really care what is decided at that table as long as they are included. Pro-war, anti-war, who cares? Just spell the name right on the White House invitation and let the triangulation begin.

Unless we truly begin to demand that our voices be heard and adhered to (we ARE the majority, dangit), then they will continue to pass the mantle back and forth to those who are controlled by Big Money (which doesn’t give a rat’s ass about your interests).

When One Can’t Wait For Their 21 Virgins…

… put in a camera in a woman’s bathroom.

And I thought Muslims were beyond this sort of thing.

Hidden camera found in UAE ministry washroom

An investigation is underway after a female employee at a UAE ministry discovered a hidden camera in the women’s washroom, press reports said on Tuesday.

In the first incident of its kind at a government agency, the woman discovered a coin-size camera hidden in the ladies room of an unnamed federal ministry in the booming trade and tourism hub Dubai, Arabic-language daily Al-Ittihad reported.

Dubai police are interrogating a number of employees and some suspects have been detained, Gulf News reported. A police spokesman said the perpetrators would be identified shortly.

A spokesman for the ministry in question refused to comment.

Dubai police have arrested people in similar cases, but in bathrooms of private companies and usually involving mobile phone cameras.

“they could not beat him fair and square”

So what do the ReTHUGlicans do? Railroad the man under KKKarl Rove’s direction. I wrote and added a video about the subject here. The sad part is that ReTHUGs own Alabama politics so thoroughly, it is finally taking honest, law-abiding Republicans to try to fix this.

Why is it that everything that the Bush Administration is involved with seems criminal? More importantly, why are there so few that seem to notice and care. These people should be frog-marched to Gitmo for a little vacation and relaxation with a little water poured over their heads, as they are so quick to endorse.

Scott Horton from Harpers (who has been following this story very closely) shares:

…the show was dominated by one of 52 former attorneys general from 40 of the 50 states who have called for a Congressional probe of the conduct of the Siegelman case, former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods. He leveled a series of blistering accusations at the Bush Administration’s Justice Department. With the Alabama G.O.P. this evening issuing a near-hysterical statement in which it characterizes the CBS broadcast—before its transmission—as an anti-Republican attack piece, it was notable that Woods, like the piece’s other star witness, is a Republican. Not just any Republican, either. Grant Woods is co-chair of the McCain for President leadership committee, and a lifelong friend and advisor to the presumptive 2008 G.O.P. presidential candidate. Woods is also godfather to one of the McCain children.

Attorney General Woods has this to say about the Bush Justice Department’s prosecution of Siegelman: “I personally believe that what happened here is that they targeted Don Siegelman because they could not beat him fair and square. This was a Republican state and he was the one Democrat they could never get rid of.”

In other words, not being able to beat Siegelman at the polls, Woods believes that his own party corruptly used the criminal justice process to take out an adversary. This is an extraordinary, heavy accusation. Not something that a senior Republican would raise easily about his own party. And the facts back the accusation up, beginning to end.

Like I said, this came from an insider Republican with some integrity (yes, there are some out there). Let us NEVER confuse the real republicans with what has hijacked their party, the ReTHUGlicans. They are NOT one and the same.

One more thing: WHNT, the CBS affiliate in Huntsville, AL was the ONLY station in the USA to have a “technical” problem arise, ONLY during this segment of the program. How amazing is that? Did you know that the owners of that bogus assed tv station are heavy contributors to Republicans and the Bush Admin? Did you know that the rest of you Alabamians are worthless to them and their agenda? That they are playing you for fools?

Wake up, rednecks!

I don’t know if Siegelman is a crook or not. But, after what the ReTHUGs have done in the past 7 years, the best bet is to reopen this case and see where the lying, thieving bastards associated with “W” have done others wrong. Nothing they have done should go without crucial and thorough evaluation for additional law breaking.

They truly are THUGS.

UPDATE:

Station Says ‘60 Minutes’ Blackout Was Just Technical

A television station in Huntsville, Ala., offered viewers nothing but a black screen for 12 minutes Sunday night — at the exact time that the CBS News program “60 Minutes” was broadcasting a report about potential political skulduggery involving the former Bush administration official Karl Rove in the conviction of a former Democratic governor of the state.

The interruption raised suspicions among some viewers, especially Democratic backers of Don Siegelman, the former governor, that partisan political interests might be behind the blackout.

Even some CBS executives wondered initially about the reasons for the disruption, though the general manager of the station, WHNT-TV, denied any ulterior motives, and immediately offered the report in its entirety on the station’s newscasts Sunday and Monday nights, as well as on its Web site.

“We know what our license means to us,” said Stan Pylant, the chief executive at the station. “There were no political motives in this.”

Mr. Pylant blamed a signal receiver. “The receiver failed to pick up the video from CBS,” he said. The station had no problems picking up CBS for the half-hour before “60 Minutes” started. The network’s Sunday evening news was on. But Mr. Pylant said that as he watched at home he saw the signal break off just as “60 Minutes” started…

Yeah, right. Everything was working moments before the segment and then miraculously started working correctly AFTER the segment and you folks had NOTHING to do with it? Yours was the ONLY affiliate to have this problem at that moment in all of CBS in the world.

Don’t insult even a redneck’s intelligence, you Bush crony Richard Noggin. Even we are smarter than that.

Lott: Nothing was done to justify that

Lott says he’s a witness, not target, in federal investigation

By ANITA LEE 

Former U.S. Sen. Trent Lott told the Sun Herald on Monday that federal investigators have assured him he is not a target of a judicial bribery investigation involving his brother-in-law, prominent Mississippi attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs.

Lott said FBI agents did interview him earlier this year, but only as a potential witness.

The Justice Department is investigating whether Scruggs tried to land a lifetime appointment to the federal bench for Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Bobby DeLaughter. Scruggs recommended to Lott that he appoint DeLaughter as a U.S. District Court judge, according to an attorney who has pleaded guilty in the case. In exchange, New Albany attorney Joey Langston said, DeLaughter was expected to rule in Scruggs’ favor in a Hinds County lawsuit filed against him by another attorney over legal fees.

“I may be called as a witness,” Lott said, “but I’ve been assured that I’m not under investigation, and rightly so because nothing was done to justify that.”

Whew… I thought they had something on me for a minute.

Read it all at the SunHerald.

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source

Pay Homage to your Shadowy Public Master.

from www.theonion.com posted with vodpod