Saying No to Fat Man and Little Boy (aka Jeb and Dumbya)

The Florida Supreme Court has tossed out the Dumbya-pushed and Jeb Bush-flaunted school voucher program.

Women and Pornography

You can read some of my take on the subject here at Associated Content.

130 Dead in Iraq on Thursday

5 American soldiers and the rest mostly civilians.

Yet Mr. Bush is out pounding his chest today telling us how wonderfully the war is going and how the economy is picture perfect. Statistics, as any mathematician or journalist can tell you, can always be manipulated. The Bushies have made manipulation into an art form. Oh, they're not all that artful at it, but they just bully people into shutting up.

After all, a bad economy where even the middle class is struggling to pay health insurance and heating bills keeps people directed towards home rather than looking at the world around them and how badly it smells.

Lou Rawls Dead, Ariel Sharon Severely Brain Damaged

First, goodbye Lou. I did not have to be a direct fan of yours to enjoy your music when I did hear it. You will be missed.

As for Mr. Sharon, God help me, but Israel and the Palestinians would have been better if this man had never been allowed to return to power. He helped bring about the most recent wave of violence since his re-election, there have been numerous scandals associated with his administration, the Bushies' close relationship with him has hurt us all, and we make a huge mistake in congratulating Sharon for his efforts in the "peace" process.

Sharon pulled out of a few areas, but Israel still controls water, travel, lights, food, and employment for the Palestinians, who are still essentially occupied.

Settlement building went mad under Sharon, and for every area vacated (very few), illegal Israeli settlements have been built to surround the Palestinians, effectively boxing them in to control every aspect of their lives. This is NOT freedom. This is NOT peace. This is NOT giving the Palestinians a place. And as long as this occurs, Israel cannot hope for peace even as so many good Israelis surely deserve it.

Sharon was a man of peace as much as Bush is, meaning, not at all.

I am sorry to see any human condemned to permanent brain damage, but this is a man who harmed so many with no regard. Unfortunately, his replacement will be another Likkud nutcase.

Being Told to Pray

Again and again during the mine disaster, what did the media and our leaders tell us to do? Pray.

Wolfie Blitzer was practically screaming at us to pray during CNN's coverage, but others were, too. The president told us to pray.

Oh, I have no problems praying. I frequently do.

But I pay Bush and Company to do more than tell me to pray. I support CNN through viewership etc. I don't need these dunderheads to tell me what I should do. I want them to do their goddamned jobs, and none of that involves telling me to call on a higher power I only know through faith to produce a miracle that proper mine operation or other procedures would prevent from occuring in the first place.

Where is MSHA in the Upshur Mining Accident?

Granted, it's a bigger story in a way that the media got it so wrong about whether the majority of the miners were alive or dead.

But that's just the surface story.

Much more important is the fact that this story was largely managed and communicated solely by the owners and top level management of the mine, International Coal Group. Yet we pay taxes for the Mine Safety and Health Administration, a federal group that is SUPPOSED to act as a watchdog.

Where was MSHA to tell us that this particular mine had more than 200 violations, almost all grave ones, in the last few years? Instead, the company people fielded questions and the only answer they really gave about the violations was, "Well, that was a different management."

No journalist who made it to TV ever said that ICG has continued those violations, or that new management is often a way to sugar coat prior problems. See, a new management team gets a few years' grace during which we seemingly can't blame them for past misdeeds. Many corporations have new management teams for problem units every few years, and I can't think it's just coincidence that this is the same length of time as the grace period we grant them.

As journalists and mining experts on Democracy Now this morning indicated, MSHA under Bush is a joke. MSHA is there to support the mine owners rather than employees going down into the mines. MSHA employees who try to whistle blow are marginalized or "downsized". Indeed, under Bush, MSHA has lost something like 1,700 positions. OK, if they can't do their jobs, I suppose we don't need so large an organization, but it's the people who DO monitor, who do demand changes, who get canned.

The Coal Miners

I haven't quite had the heart to write about this.

I had largely given up hope when I happened to see the excitement start up that 12 had been found alive. Stayed watching til the early hours of the morning with what seemed like incredible news... which turned out to be incredible indeed.

Then, like many of you, I awoke to the news that only one is alive and the rest was just a terrible, terrible mistake. Everybody seems to want to sue someone. As often as I heard the folks in the crowd say angrily - such people do not do well when given the microphone so frequently - that they intend to sue the networks for reporting what they themselves told the reporters.

But how many times have we heard about attempts to close down mines like that only to have these same people insist you just can't close the mines? People who vote for Bush and then are surprised that the Mine Safety group only works FOR the mine owners?

Oh, they have my sympathy. They do. But these folks want it both ways. And then they want to go shopping at Walmart and question why they - with their poor educations - can't get jobs except as miners.

Leader of Israel Suffers "Significant" Stroke

Wire services are reporting that Ariel Sharon has suffered a significant cerebral hemorrhage, is on respiratory assist, with paralysis below the waist.

I do not like Mr. Sharon but I wish the best for Israel, just as I wish the best for the Palestinians. Both need to be able to co-exist and live in that tiny area, and both perhaps have been badly served by some of their recent leadership.

Happy Bennett Day

Mr Judd/aka Andrew J Borden:

I cannot locate your email address since I last fucked up er.. enhanced my system.

So please forgive me if I post this private joke/memory from our day at Bennett College, now owned by the Moonies. This was the day I learned your mother had no concept of how to blend her makeup so that her face and neck were two wildly different colors, but only because YOU called everyone's attention to it.

Was that also the day we decided you were too disorganized to be gay? Your poor father.

Detroit, Autoworkers, and Health Insurance

The excellent Xavier and Peter at Pibbshow bring us this:

From the New York Times:

The reason comes down to simple self-interest. The United Auto Workers is one of the few private-sector unions that doesn't run its own health plan. Rather, most have created huge companies to administer their workers' plans, giving them a large and often corrupt stake in the current system...Despite shrinking membership, organized labor still has enough money and muscle to get behind a campaign for national health insurance. Last month, public-sector unions in California came up with tens of millions of dollars in a successful campaign to defeat a ballot measure that challenged their right to use union dues for political purposes. The problem is getting American unions to fight for common concerns as opposed to narrow institutional interests. It may just be that a broad-scale union overhaul will have to precede one in American health care.

Now you see why American cars cost so much.

Letterman Wiping the Floor with Bill O'Reilly

O'Reilly is trying to tell David Letterman that there really is a war on Christmas and Letterman, no kidding, is calling him a liar to his face. I love it. Loved it even more when the audience clapped loudly.

Letterman also told O'Reilly HE should be careful calling Cindy Sheehan a terrible person and when O'Reilly insisted Sheehan was run by "far left extremists", Letterman said, "Gee, did you lose anyone in the war? If not, you have really NO right to speak for them or call Mrs. Sheehan wrong."

Then he hit O'Reilly with "Why are we in Iraq in the first place?"

The audience is loving this. Me, too.

Top 10 News Stories of 2006?

Washington Post already has some - part tongue in cheek - predictions up for what will become the biggest news stories of this year. More than a few are worth noting, including how the Condi who wants to be president suddenly is spending more time having her picture taken in the deep South than in other countries (her job does not usually include diplomacy in Alabama).

But these are the ones I noted specifically:

(1) George W. Bush will continue his bid to enter the Guinness Book of World Records for "Most Frequent Use of the Blame-the-Messenger Strategy (Modern Era)." We saw the latest example Friday when the administration reacted to disclosure of its vast domestic surveillance program by launching a Justice Department investigation -- not to reexamine the electronic spying itself, which seems to violate the law, but to identify the whistle-blower who brought this practice to light. Next target: Who's leaking all that unhelpful news from Iraq, such as figures on American casualties and reports of torture by U.S.-trained Iraqi police?

(2) The administration will see steady "progress" in Iraq, even if the new government's first act is to sign a friendship pact with Iran. This "progress" will allow some U.S. troops to be brought home in the summer and fall. Unfortunately, they will have to be sent right back to Iraq in mid-November, after the midterm election. But who could have foreseen that?

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(8) Fox News Channel, having had such success inventing and then covering last month's imaginary "war on Christmas," will go on to concoct imaginary "wars" against other holidays. A "war on Easter" would be too obvious and a "war on Independence Day" too easy, so here's a challenge to my talented friends at Fox: Come up with a "war on Labor Day." It sounds tough, since organized labor isn't a natural Fox constituency, but maybe there's a way to work in the illegal immigration issue, or examine how the practice of outsourcing jobs robs Americans of employment opportunities.

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(10) Americans will suddenly wake up and question the Bush administration about Iraq, about domestic spying, about global warming, about tax cuts. But just then, as the president fumbles for answers, a compelling news event will steal away the nation's attention.

Hard to believe, but another attractive young white woman will vanish.

Wanted (By Some, Anyway)

Shamefully (I do guilt well) lifted from Open Your Mind's Eye, a poster that is all too apt - but nonetheless a crying shame, something we should hate ourselves for engaging in - in today's climate.

Abramoff

Wow. Could he have looked anymore like an evil G-man or a character from a movie today as he appeared in the fancy black trenchcoat and the hat?

And immediately, the GOP choir came out to insist that DeLay did nothing wrong and that it will be only Democrats who go down because of this scandal. A few even had the chutzpah to suggest that DeLay had been unwillingly forced to accept the $148K all-star golfing extravanganza in England or Scotland as well as all the other pricy benefits he took from the lobbyist.

How exactly does one force a Congressman to take a $148K golf trip? Does the lobbyist also force the Bugman to get the hair plugs and the hair dye and the Botox injections and the expensive clothes and stuff? Did he force DeLay to go from an exterminator turning a bit of profit into a multimillionaire all during his tenure in the (Whore)house of Reprehensibles?

It boggles the mind!

"US Says End is in Sight for Iraq Rebuilding"

Uh huh. And I'm still planning to be 5'8 and flat chested when I grow up.

But let me point out this little bit of news missing from the Washington Post piece on which the above headline is taken:

1) Iraq did not need rebuilding until... oops... we shocked and awed them because - another big oops! - we said they had WMD and were just about to land a mushroom cloud over the US and .... gosh.. it turns out that their weapon program amounted to Saddam's rather reckless abandon when shooting off his rifles.

2) Not only did we cause some damage in Iraq, and not only have we blasted the place all to hell, BUT we've left depleted uranium EVERYWHERE.

3) One has to wonder if one of the reasons we chose to do so very much damage is because we knew Halliburton (Dick Cheney's little company), Bechtel (which gave us Rummy), and others were going to get very, very, very lucrative contracts to rebuild even if we've learned that they're basically just taken the money and not delivering.

Enron, George Bush, and Uzbekistan

Brought to us by the fine folks at Left Edge North, this is very much worth a read:

Read this, pass it along....thanks.
Via Europhobia, here's a note from Britain's former Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray.

Spread it around, please. Liberally.

More old newsFrom the chatter on the web, it's clear that there are still a few diehard Bush/Blair supporters out there who believe this is about democracy and security.

I hate to disillusion such people, but everyone should be aware of this document: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/bushlay12.html(This was released with other Enron court documents. To anyone covering the Enron story, it meant very little. Now, however....)

This is about corporate power and governments who do their bidding. It's about the subjugation of democracy.

Attila the Honey: Ann Coulter Oughta Get Smacked

The woman does nothing but spew hatred. She's worse than anthrax, which happens to be her nickname.

Anyway, I will not give her a link, but I'll link to Port City Underground that gives her latest loath letter.

"Bolton Plans to Restructure the U.N."

That's the headline of this Washington Post piece.

I just see oh... maybe a couple of little problems:

1) John Bolton is NOT the leader of the U.N. God help us all if he were.

2) John wasn't liked going in, but no less than Britain has complained of how badly he's behaving in the job. They want him out.

3) Considering that the rest of the world would rather have a very bad case of clap than have the U.S. thrusting itself any harder down their throats right now would just seem like a poor time for Bolton to decide unilaterally that the rest of the world has to bend to the will of a nasty little Bushie bureaucrat.

And these problems don't even begin to address the very real problems - diplomacy, cooperation, efficacy and much, much more - afoot here.

To Futz or Not to Futz...

Yes, I'm still futzing. I don't like this template and the 57 ones I created myself all have various deficiencies.

So expect to see different templates tried (I'm pretty trying myself, btw) and I continue to exercise my "God given right" to futz.

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