Blog is Back; Comments (For No Apparent Reason) Are Not

Sorry about that.

Vermont Race to Replace Retiring Jim Jeffords Heating Up

According to David Sirota, although the Bushies pushed and pushed current GOP Governor Jim Douglas to run for the opening seat, which they say will flood out-of-state money into the race, Douglas has declined. On a sadder note, Lt Gov Brian Dubie - someone I doubt I would trust with my trash - is planning to run as well.

I'd Ask if Anyone Else is Having Trouble...

accessing the blog tonight but.. however could I read your responses even if you see the question? Oooooh, life's a pickle, and not a particularly good one (I'm a crispy sour dill fan myself).

The Runaway Bride

First, could you believe that with as much violence going on in Iraq, which included the deaths of at least four American soldiers, all CNN could talk about for a few days but especially today was the classy little runaway bride who let hundreds of volunteers and paid personnel search for her night and day for days only to turn around and lie that she was abducted?

People do have a right to walk away from a situation. But this little cupcake wouldn't even walk through the airport without a blanket over her head. I'm sure ALL 16 of her bridesmaids (a tad extravagant?) are really proud to be her friend. Then her minister asks us to pray for her. Nah, I'll pray for her fiance whose life was turned around or all the people who needed help who were cast aside because this woman decided to play games. This woman needs a big kick in the ass and perhaps be forced to work for the rest of her life to pay off all the expense of this wedding (I understand the cost was running around $60K, big money for someone who's a med asst).

You know, if only the Atlanta metro area had responded to all those missing black children in the late 1970s we wouldn't have had so many dead kids there before anyone began to notice. But the state of Georgia in this case certainly was enormously concerned about a dipshit white woman who, at 32, shouldn't have caused this fuss.

Civil Discourse

In my light traveling (all by modem) today, I found normal conversations again and again disrupted by people who insisted on coming into the mix to call people names, tell them to shut up, and basically insist that anyone who doesn't agree with Mr. Bush doesn't have the right to exist. One notable instance of this was over at the Political Animal blog at Washington Monthly in response to Kevin Drum's post saying The Times' John Tierney doesn't get it.

Testing

::cough::

(Yes, I know I seem to cough frequently for someone a) without a cold and b) who hasn't smoked since July 2003.)

So What Was Your Take on the Newest Havoc Bush Wants to Wreak (Wreck?) on Social Security?

Turning it just into a welfare system is another way to kill it off. He's good at that. Look at public schooling, for example.

Uh... I don't know where the right side of my blog went.

I wasn't even experimenting.

Like the rest of my life, it seems to be on the missing list. ::cough::

Schwarzenegger and Immigrant Bashing

Did The Arnold forget to take his meds? Now he's praising The Premature Ejaculants Minutemen, a group considered so rabid and controversial that even Bush has pussy-footed around supporting them. This, on the heels of announcing we should close the borders to brown people only to have Arnold say it was a mistake of "language" and that he did not mean it.

Arnold has a tremendous amount of glass in his house to be tossing so many stones. It's been pretty much accepted that the Arnold broke U.S. immigration law in the way in which he first came to this country and stayed. Now he wants to be president and wants the U.S. Constitution amended just for him when he has said he will NOT give up his dual citizenship (American and Austrian).

While I happen to feel that the U.S. has changed a great deal and that we should not necessarily prevent someone who happened, by way of birth, to be born outside the U.S., I do question whether you can represent the U.S. interests best if you feel you must preserve your citizenship in another country (so one must choose).

Is this just desperation on Arnold's part? To try to appeal to the more rabid right who feel strongly that once their own families got admittance to the U.S., the borders should be closed? It's hard to understand that dramatic a shift or how many times Arnold seems to bounce around in his stated opinions. It also seems hard to understand how he can do this when his state has a very large percentage of people who came here and chose to become residents and voters. Can you get elected to office in California if the only ones who will vote for you tend to be more racist in their political philosophy? I mean, without the help of Diebold, et al?

A Point of Clarification About the Post on Blair's Plane, Et Al

Since I posted quickly this morning, I've been meaning to get back here to add a few words about that note and why I bothered to share it. As I mentioned in a comment to Daniel, it came to me through a source who usually is not a conspiracy theorist.

Yet it's not so much the actual content of the post and the site behind it that interests me. It's more a question of why this so-called "intelligence" is out there and the damage that could be done if it's a) not true (and I see no evidence it is true) and b) people believe it. I threw it out there hoping to get some response or whether anyone had heard anything like this elsewhere.

Yes, there are people who make their life's work blaming Israel for every nasty thing that comes down the pike. In truth, Israel does have some really questionable actions in its past in terms of their elite spy/hit squad and what they've done with it which has helped fuel speculation that they're responsible for far more. Every wild myth usually has a percentage point or two of truth so its perpetuators can say, "Well, remember what they did back in [insert the year] when they [insert the deed]?"

But none of this story makes sense to me. I still don't see who's served by this story. But I can see where it would generate a good deal of fear and harm.

Remember the Other Day When the Prez Was Hurried to a Bunker?

And we were told it was a "goof"?

Well, I'm going to copy some material here from this site, but I cannot begin to say what it means or how accurate it is. I'm deeply concerned, so much so that my first response is to simply dismiss this as nuts. But what if it's not?

Russian Intelligence Agencies are circulating reports today showing increasing concerns that the secret war being conducted by the United States against Israel may indeed be about to break into open hostility, and as we’ve previously reported about in our April 22nd report titled "United States Declares Secret War against Israel over Attempt to Collapse World Economy, New Zealand Prime Minister Targeted".

Increasing these concerns was the targeting of the British Prime Ministers airplane over the skies of London this past Wednesday by members of the Israeli Mossad acting under the orders of Israeli Prime Minister Sharon, and as we can read as reported by the BBC News Service in their article titled "Lightning strikes Blair's plane" and which says, “Mr. Allen said he heard a loud bang but the prime minister, who was talking to a journalist at the time, was apparently "imperturbable".”The rest of us certainly weren't imperturbable," Mr. Allen said. "All I remember was a red and white flash just in my mind which woke me up with a start," he said. "The plane wobbled from side to side but it was also quite rough anyway because it was pretty cloudy and rainy. Lots of people looked momentarily shocked."

Such was the fear of the United States towards this attack against the British Prime Minister that the Americans upon learning of it rushed both their President and Vice President to protective bunkers, and as we can read as reported by the Reuters News Service in their article titled "Bush Taken to Bunker After Airspace Scare" and which says, "President Bush was hustled into an underground shelter on Wednesday amid fears an aircraft had entered the restricted airspace around the White House, officials said. The Secret Service determined minutes later that it was a false alarm. Vice President Dick Cheney also was moved to a secure location as heavily armed Secret Service agents cleared the area in front of the presidential mansion."

Zell Miller Rushed to Hospital

Where medical personnel have determined that the former, unhinged (not formerly unhinged since he's still actively unhinged) senator is suffering from diabetes from drinking too much koolaid and from oxygen deprivation from having his nose buried so far up the president's anus.

Asked if this condition might present permanent brain damage, a doctor responded, "How could we possibly tell?"

There are unconfirmed reports that the only one who possibly cares, Chris Matthews of MSNBC, is flying down tonight to try to help Miller through his crisis by endlessly repeating the tape of Miller challenging him to a duel.

Yes, this is the same videotape Matthews repeats on his own show at least 10 times a week and is rumored to masturbate to whenever his wife hides the Time Magazine cover with Ann Coulter or his copy of the 2005 Conservative Babes calendar showing Coulter (Ms. January because she's so damned frigid), Malkin (Ms. February because she resembles a ground hog), Monica Crowley (Ms. November because she's definitely past her peak ripeness), and Bill O'Reilly in drag as Mrs. Sexy Santa showing what a gift a loofah can be.

IF You Want Some Good Analysis of Tonight's Press Conference

Go read Think Progress.

Tim Russert Says

It's clear this president is very worried about Social Security solvency and high energy prices.

Yeah, right.

This Primetime Press Conference is a Farce

No tough questions (that I've heard and I walked about for about 10 minutes) and no followup questions. But it's nice to know that the president is "very worried" about making sure rich people get bigger tax cuts, about making sure "little people" pay all their taxes, and feels the American public LOVES the No Child Left In Public School Behind Act, bankruptcy protection for the big banks, and making sure we get an energy bill to benefit companies like Exxon and BP that are posting record earnings.

While You Listen to the President's Happy Horseshit Tonight

Take a moment to look on the net to see how very well Exxon, BP, and other gas/energy companies are doing right now. Profits are WAAAAAY up.

Then remember the president's little stroll through the Texas bluebells with the Saud prince.

Then remember that Bush and Cheney are men from that industry.

Finally, remember how much you paid last time at the gas pump.

White House and Secret Service Know and Won't Tell

What a news flash, right?

This regards the Colorado situation in which three people with passes to attend one of Bush's Social Security Bamboozlepalooza events were first blocked from admittance and then questioned by someone representing himself as a Secret Service agent.

Not only is this an issue of a Secret Service person or the White House specifically obstructing rights. It also touches on why we're financing Bamboozlepalooza when only GOP loyalists and fans can get into these chats. It also touches on the White House happily allowing anyone to at least "pretend" to intimidate citizens for its own gain.

Plagiarism

Funny how this topic keeps coming up this week.

Some of the right are using the alleged plagiarism of a college-era paper by one of John Bolton's critics as a sign that the person has no credibility (which to me, is a hoot, since the place where I as a pro writer can make some of my best money - but choose not to do so - is in writing college papers for today's great college students). What one does in college, hopefully, is not terribly representative of who they are as a fully mature adult.

Then I happened to do a search on a link to one of my columns in a newspaper from a couple of years ago and found it had been reproduced around the world, word for word, except for the byline which now bore someone else's name. Apparently, whoever published this (since this is not a single writer's site) again failed to notice that there's a reference to the original author's gender (me, a female) while the person who reproduced by work is male. It's rather a glaring oversight to me but might escape anyone else's notice. And no, this is not the first time this has happened. I've found my work reproduced in Australia several times with someone else's name applied.

In another incident, a fellow blogger - who will go nameless but who has been known to oppose cat blogging - pointed out that one of his posts is now appearing on someone else's blog with no indication it was lifted or quoted from the first blogger.

All of this is the long way around to telling you to check this blog - Becker and Posner - on the issue of plagiarism. Right now, I'm just a bit too crispy fried from anger to respond appropriately. So I think I need to re-read it later when I'm a little less pissy.

Gee, Americans Didn't Like the Bush-Saud Hand Holding

Can't imagine why. And that's even excluding the homophobic factor.

If You Happen to Find a Mess....

I'm experimenting with drafting my own template. I've tried it before and usually end up with a Dada-ist style jigsaw puzzle but Daily Read over at Trailing Edge Blog managed to do it and it's not like cascading style sheets are new to me so....

Yes ::hanging head:: it's true. I just hate stuff that's out of the box, without any customization. Well, almost anything like that.