Prozac: It's what's for dinner! ...Ohhhhh, I guess she meant they should take it for their moods. Yeah, I bet Marie Antoinette said she was joking, too. I can just hear her ladies-in-waiting, tittering: "'Cake,' she said! 'Let them eat cake!' It is to laugh."
This would probably turn the tide in the election. Stay tuned.
Kerry/Edwards vs Bush/Cheney:
Kerry: 18 years as Senator, plus two years as Lt. Governor under the most fiscally-responsible administration in his state's long history. Term in Senate includes his leading the Kerry Commission on the Iran-Contra scandal, which landed more indictments and convictions of appointed officials than any investigation before or since. Additionally, John Edwards has served five years of a Senate term after leaving a successful law career to serve in government.
Bush: Served five years as Governor of Texas, his first elected position. Governorship of Texas is widely recognized to be a figurehead position, in which the Governor largely presides over dedications and executions. After going AWOL from the National Guard, Bush spent the next twenty years failing at every single business venture he touched. Cheney served ten years as Representative from Wyoming after getting started as an aide in the Nixon White House. His term in the House was unremarkable except for its inconsistency, and included no original legislation.
What's behind that snarl, Dick? Maybe it's a sneer of contempt for the democratic process or the Rule of Law (scroll down a little to Day 86). Or maybe he's still mad that Nelson Mandela got to walk free, or that South Africa's apartheid government got the boot (he voted against measures designed to free Mandela and to eliminate apartheid six times. Six times).
Interesting. Senator Dayton (D-MN) actually read the 9-11 report, and even more interesting: he found a discrepancy between NORAD's version of the events, and the FAA's version. Even more interesting is that the discrepancy involves what NORAD and the FAA say they were doing at the time:
"During the hearing, Dayton told leaders of the Sept. 11 commission, that, based on the commission's report, a NORAD chronology made public a week after the attacks was grossly misleading.
"The [NORAD] chronology said the FAA notified the military's emergency air command of three of the hijackings while those jetliners were still airborne. Dayton cited commission findings that the FAA failed to inform NORAD about three of the planes until after they had crashed."
So, NORAD says that the FAA told them about three of the hijackings while the planes were still in the air, but the (c)Omission found that the opposite was true. Senator Dayton's assessment of the situation is pretty tame: he says that had there been better communication, the fourth plane might have been saved.
No, Senator: the 9-11 Commission found that someone fudged the truth. Maybe the FAA did notify NORAD? That would mean that someone at NORAD lied to the 911 Commission, presumably to cover their ass and protect their job, but for this investigation to be complete, this person must be found and investigated. On the other hand, maybe the FAA did not, after all, notify NORAD. Why, then, would NORAD have published a report stating the opposite?
Publishing such a report, and using that report to publicize a lack of adequate equipment, smecks of bureaucratic budgeteering and blame-shifting. "Oh we just couldn't do our jobs, because the FAA fell down, and our equipment is too old to be able to cover for the FAA...." This is a possible scenario, but equally possible is that the FAA did indeed tell NORAD everything it needed to know, while NORAD operated on Orders from Above.
Too many questions remain.
* * *
Unsubstantiated reports on NPR over the weekend suggested that some European heads of state were in attendance at the DNC, to indicate support for Kerry/Edwards. The talking-head in question actually went so far as to suggest that Italy had said that it would re-deploy troops to Iraq if Kerry wins the election.
Saturday, July 31, 2004
Friday, July 30, 2004
Too late for the 4th of July,
and a damn shame, that: I'll bet the fireworks show will be out of this world. Maybe it'll happen in time for the Republican convention, that would be suitably ironic.
What happens when a whole country "implodes," anyway? It sounds messy.
The Bush junta can (and will) blame this on the "failure of allies to provide troop support," til we're blue in the face, but the fact remains -and history will record- that George W. Bush diverted resources from a hostile war zone to aggressively invade a third country, unrelated to the conflict at hand. By any standard, this is irresponsible leadership. By any standard, it was a serious tactical and strategic error.
By any standard, the war in Afghanistan is a complete and utter failure. That is, unless you're a poppy farmer.
* * *
Just have to tip my hat to this guy.
* * *
Crikey! If Afghanistan collapses, is it going to fall over on top of Turkmenistan or something?
* * *
What happens when a whole country "implodes," anyway? It sounds messy.
The Bush junta can (and will) blame this on the "failure of allies to provide troop support," til we're blue in the face, but the fact remains -and history will record- that George W. Bush diverted resources from a hostile war zone to aggressively invade a third country, unrelated to the conflict at hand. By any standard, this is irresponsible leadership. By any standard, it was a serious tactical and strategic error.
By any standard, the war in Afghanistan is a complete and utter failure. That is, unless you're a poppy farmer.
* * *
Just have to tip my hat to this guy.
* * *
Crikey! If Afghanistan collapses, is it going to fall over on top of Turkmenistan or something?
* * *
Thursday, July 29, 2004
Let them eat television!
Screw the poor seems to be the Bush battle-cry.
The difference between contemporary 'conservatives' and 'liberals' is that conservatives say "I, Me, Mine!" while liberals say "Us, We, Ours." So when Massa Jeb sez he "won't allow an independent examination of voting machines because he has "every confidence" in his handpicked election officials," you know he's not thinking of the integrity of the election process as much as he's thinking about how to make sure his side wins.
Just to clarify: that kind of behavior is antithetical to Democracy, and -yeah, I'll say it: un-American.
And in light of all this hoo-hah about the elections, I keep wondering: at what point, under what circumstances, would our elections no longer be considered valid? Serbia recently had to re-do their Presidential elections because the turnout was too low. What if apathy gets so pervasive here that voter turnout dips below 50%? 30%? 15%? Is that still "representative" government? What if a state like Florida or California or New York was somehow eliminated from the vote count? What if it was Kansas? Or a Dakota? Or D.C., Puerto Rico or Guam? These are all legitimate questions, and I think we should be discussing them before they have a chance to happen. I am not in favor of any kind of federal plan B, and that's exactly why I think we should be talking about this personally, locally: before it has a chance to happen and the feds have to step in.
Vote early, vote often!
* * *
Public service announcement, so that you don't make the same mistake some newspaper columnist made *ahem*:
It's "toe the line," not "tow." As in "stand at attention, toes on the line," like "march in step," or as Webster's puts it, "to conform rigorously to a rule or standard." 'Coz why would anyone "tow" a line? Link to original article suppressed out of respect for the author.
The difference between contemporary 'conservatives' and 'liberals' is that conservatives say "I, Me, Mine!" while liberals say "Us, We, Ours." So when Massa Jeb sez he "won't allow an independent examination of voting machines because he has "every confidence" in his handpicked election officials," you know he's not thinking of the integrity of the election process as much as he's thinking about how to make sure his side wins.
Just to clarify: that kind of behavior is antithetical to Democracy, and -yeah, I'll say it: un-American.
And in light of all this hoo-hah about the elections, I keep wondering: at what point, under what circumstances, would our elections no longer be considered valid? Serbia recently had to re-do their Presidential elections because the turnout was too low. What if apathy gets so pervasive here that voter turnout dips below 50%? 30%? 15%? Is that still "representative" government? What if a state like Florida or California or New York was somehow eliminated from the vote count? What if it was Kansas? Or a Dakota? Or D.C., Puerto Rico or Guam? These are all legitimate questions, and I think we should be discussing them before they have a chance to happen. I am not in favor of any kind of federal plan B, and that's exactly why I think we should be talking about this personally, locally: before it has a chance to happen and the feds have to step in.
Vote early, vote often!
* * *
Public service announcement, so that you don't make the same mistake some newspaper columnist made *ahem*:
It's "toe the line," not "tow." As in "stand at attention, toes on the line," like "march in step," or as Webster's puts it, "to conform rigorously to a rule or standard." 'Coz why would anyone "tow" a line? Link to original article suppressed out of respect for the author.
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
"American" is a state of mind
and we're the neurons. Of course I'm mixing metaphors; that's the point.
I guess not everybody can have huge cojones, but thankfully someone in Congress does. Henry Waxman (pit-bull Democrat, CA) probably needs some extra room in his pants- check out his latest letter to the chairman of the House Comittee on Government Reform. He's a forceful writer, and has some shocking facts on his side regarding the current double-standard in D.C.
* * *
"It's pretty funny how we use the word socialist to try to smear people these days. The guy who started the religion I grew up with said you'll be judged by how you treat the least among us. He said you're to love your enemy. He said the poor and meek shall inherit the earth. Was he a socialist? He went into the temple and turned over the moneychangers' tables because he didn't like that the have-nots were suffering. He felt the pie should be divided up a little more fairly. That's the fundamental basis of my upbringing in an Irish Catholic household. I still live by those principles. To try to smear me with the word socialist is anti-Catholic.... Call it liberal, socialist, whatever--I don't care. It's about responding from a good place in your heart."
-Michael Moore, interviewed in Playboy.
* * *
Steady leadership. President Bush's leadership is about as steady as Tricky Dick's heartbeat.
Some Bush junta lies laid bare here and here
How close do you live to a Superfund site? Do you know? According to this report, "One in every four Americans lives within four miles of a Superfund toxic waste site. More than 1,200 Superfund sites – the most dangerous toxic waste sites in the nation – poison our land, water, and air with toxic chemicals that can cause cancer, birth defects, liver, brain and nerve damage, as well as other health problems."
And further, and worse, "the Bush administration has dramatically undermined the Superfund program. The rate of cleanups has fallen by half compared with the late 1990s. Funding levels have decreased by 34 percent in constant 2003 dollars from 1993-2004. Today, ordinary taxpayers – not polluters – are bearing the full burden of paying for the cleanup of abandoned Superfund sites. This is the first administration in the history of the cleanup program to oppose the polluter-pays principle."
* * *
This is shocking. This is like Gandhi raising his fist. Twenty-four years in a hostile war zone- that was OK. Caught between Soviet forces and US-supported Taliban and allied clans: they persevered; they survived. But now this imperially-imposed governance there seems to have angered the governed to such an extent that they'll lash out at anything not-them. Afghanistan is out of control. And that's why it's out of the news.
Oh, but "the world is safer with Saddam Hussein in custody." I forgot.
I guess not everybody can have huge cojones, but thankfully someone in Congress does. Henry Waxman (pit-bull Democrat, CA) probably needs some extra room in his pants- check out his latest letter to the chairman of the House Comittee on Government Reform. He's a forceful writer, and has some shocking facts on his side regarding the current double-standard in D.C.
* * *
"It's pretty funny how we use the word socialist to try to smear people these days. The guy who started the religion I grew up with said you'll be judged by how you treat the least among us. He said you're to love your enemy. He said the poor and meek shall inherit the earth. Was he a socialist? He went into the temple and turned over the moneychangers' tables because he didn't like that the have-nots were suffering. He felt the pie should be divided up a little more fairly. That's the fundamental basis of my upbringing in an Irish Catholic household. I still live by those principles. To try to smear me with the word socialist is anti-Catholic.... Call it liberal, socialist, whatever--I don't care. It's about responding from a good place in your heart."
-Michael Moore, interviewed in Playboy.
* * *
Steady leadership. President Bush's leadership is about as steady as Tricky Dick's heartbeat.
Some Bush junta lies laid bare here and here
How close do you live to a Superfund site? Do you know? According to this report, "One in every four Americans lives within four miles of a Superfund toxic waste site. More than 1,200 Superfund sites – the most dangerous toxic waste sites in the nation – poison our land, water, and air with toxic chemicals that can cause cancer, birth defects, liver, brain and nerve damage, as well as other health problems."
And further, and worse, "the Bush administration has dramatically undermined the Superfund program. The rate of cleanups has fallen by half compared with the late 1990s. Funding levels have decreased by 34 percent in constant 2003 dollars from 1993-2004. Today, ordinary taxpayers – not polluters – are bearing the full burden of paying for the cleanup of abandoned Superfund sites. This is the first administration in the history of the cleanup program to oppose the polluter-pays principle."
* * *
This is shocking. This is like Gandhi raising his fist. Twenty-four years in a hostile war zone- that was OK. Caught between Soviet forces and US-supported Taliban and allied clans: they persevered; they survived. But now this imperially-imposed governance there seems to have angered the governed to such an extent that they'll lash out at anything not-them. Afghanistan is out of control. And that's why it's out of the news.
Oh, but "the world is safer with Saddam Hussein in custody." I forgot.
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Changing the terms of the debate,
Rep. Barney Frank (D, Mass.) kicks ass. Cheney yourself, Dick. Don't mind the santorum, it cleans up.
*ahem*
I am not "covering" the Democratic Convention. Bloggers on the floor? Sounds like a personal hygeine problem. But President Clinton- damn, the man can speak (excerpt):
"We Americans must choose for President one of two strong men who both love our country, but who have very different worldviews: Democrats favor shared responsibility, shared opportunity, and more global cooperation. Republicans favor concentrated wealth and power, leaving people to fend for themselves and more unilateral action. I think we're right for two reasons: First, America works better when all people have a chance to live their dreams. Second, we live in an interdependent world in which we can't kill, jail, or occupy all our potential adversaries, so we have to both fight terror and build a world with more partners and fewer terrorists. We tried it their way for twelve years, our way for eight, and then their way for four more.
By the only test that matters, whether people were better off when we finished than when we started, our way works better-it produced over 22 million good jobs, rising incomes, and 100 times as many people moving out of poverty into the middle class. It produced more health care, the largest increase in college aid in 50 years, record home ownership, a cleaner environment, three surpluses in a row, a modernized defense force, strong efforts against terror, and an America respected as a world leader for peace, security and prosperity."
He not only trashes Gee Dubya, he trashes him in style, like a cheneying gentleman, and how often do you see that anymore?
* * *
Welly welly well! And you thought Nixon was a tricky Dick- check out what Cheney was up to as CEO of Halliburton: sleepin' with the enemy " ...BUSTED!
AMErica first," right Dick?
* * *
...and I know it's somewhat twisted of me, but I'm glad to say that the Abu Graib torture scandal is still making headlines, as Brigadier Gen. Karpinski is implicated.
*ahem*
I am not "covering" the Democratic Convention. Bloggers on the floor? Sounds like a personal hygeine problem. But President Clinton- damn, the man can speak (excerpt):
"We Americans must choose for President one of two strong men who both love our country, but who have very different worldviews: Democrats favor shared responsibility, shared opportunity, and more global cooperation. Republicans favor concentrated wealth and power, leaving people to fend for themselves and more unilateral action. I think we're right for two reasons: First, America works better when all people have a chance to live their dreams. Second, we live in an interdependent world in which we can't kill, jail, or occupy all our potential adversaries, so we have to both fight terror and build a world with more partners and fewer terrorists. We tried it their way for twelve years, our way for eight, and then their way for four more.
By the only test that matters, whether people were better off when we finished than when we started, our way works better-it produced over 22 million good jobs, rising incomes, and 100 times as many people moving out of poverty into the middle class. It produced more health care, the largest increase in college aid in 50 years, record home ownership, a cleaner environment, three surpluses in a row, a modernized defense force, strong efforts against terror, and an America respected as a world leader for peace, security and prosperity."
He not only trashes Gee Dubya, he trashes him in style, like a cheneying gentleman, and how often do you see that anymore?
* * *
Welly welly well! And you thought Nixon was a tricky Dick- check out what Cheney was up to as CEO of Halliburton: sleepin' with the enemy " ...BUSTED!
AMErica first," right Dick?
* * *
...and I know it's somewhat twisted of me, but I'm glad to say that the Abu Graib torture scandal is still making headlines, as Brigadier Gen. Karpinski is implicated.
Monday, July 26, 2004
Let's be clear about the 9-11 (c)Omission:
As Bartcop sez, "George W Bush doesn't get involved in anything that's not fixed up-front."
That's right: Fixed. From the beginning. Bush, after forbidding investigation for nearly three years, acquiesced to the idea -but only if he could determine, in advance, the questions that were, and were not, to be addressed. The (c)Omission's mission was to find out what went wrong with U.S. intelligence and security, in regards to the events leading up to 9-11.
They were not allowed to investigate:
-the suspicious stock market activity regarding 'put' options on United and American airlines, made just days in advance of the event and cashed-in just days afterward, which made some as-yet unidentified person or party many millions of dollars.
-why the steel from the twin towers was rushed off site within days, before any forensic investigation of the greatest engineering failure in history could take place. Or, as a matter of fact, why that steel was shipped immediately -directly- to be melted down in foreign foundries.
-why WTC7 came down at all, when it was not struck by any plane or debris, and in fact was not even in the same block as the rest of the WTC plaza. (Well, truth be told, we know that owner Larry Silverstein ordered the building to come down, but that just opens new questions: why? and how did he manage a controlled demolition so quickly (that very afternoon!) in the midst of such a state of emergency. Passing strange!)
They were not allowed to investigate who really benefitted. The most fundamental question of all, blocked.
And still:
-no one has taken responsibility, on either side: no terrorist group stood up and said "Hey, how'dya like that? Do what we say or we'll do it again!" -as is characteristic of terrorism, as we're seeing with the bi-weekly kidnappings in Iraq ("get out or we'll kill this guy"), and no US Government official, air-traffic controller, airline security director or officer or grunt, has even been rebuked, not to mention fired or prosecuted or apparently even reprimanded for anything even as insignificant as neglect.
And still:
-the president would not testify under oath about what he knew in advance. To agree to testify but not under oath, is to say "I maintain the right to lie at will." Because of course, if you're not under oath, God ain't really watchin.'
Fixed. Rigged: the terms of the investigation were proscribed by the people who were being investigated.
Excellent resource for 9-11 research Well-organized, reasonably presented information, data, and some very interesting evidence. Take a sandwich: it's huge, but it's worth the trip.
That's right: Fixed. From the beginning. Bush, after forbidding investigation for nearly three years, acquiesced to the idea -but only if he could determine, in advance, the questions that were, and were not, to be addressed. The (c)Omission's mission was to find out what went wrong with U.S. intelligence and security, in regards to the events leading up to 9-11.
They were not allowed to investigate:
-the suspicious stock market activity regarding 'put' options on United and American airlines, made just days in advance of the event and cashed-in just days afterward, which made some as-yet unidentified person or party many millions of dollars.
-why the steel from the twin towers was rushed off site within days, before any forensic investigation of the greatest engineering failure in history could take place. Or, as a matter of fact, why that steel was shipped immediately -directly- to be melted down in foreign foundries.
-why WTC7 came down at all, when it was not struck by any plane or debris, and in fact was not even in the same block as the rest of the WTC plaza. (Well, truth be told, we know that owner Larry Silverstein ordered the building to come down, but that just opens new questions: why? and how did he manage a controlled demolition so quickly (that very afternoon!) in the midst of such a state of emergency. Passing strange!)
They were not allowed to investigate who really benefitted. The most fundamental question of all, blocked.
And still:
-no one has taken responsibility, on either side: no terrorist group stood up and said "Hey, how'dya like that? Do what we say or we'll do it again!" -as is characteristic of terrorism, as we're seeing with the bi-weekly kidnappings in Iraq ("get out or we'll kill this guy"), and no US Government official, air-traffic controller, airline security director or officer or grunt, has even been rebuked, not to mention fired or prosecuted or apparently even reprimanded for anything even as insignificant as neglect.
And still:
-the president would not testify under oath about what he knew in advance. To agree to testify but not under oath, is to say "I maintain the right to lie at will." Because of course, if you're not under oath, God ain't really watchin.'
Fixed. Rigged: the terms of the investigation were proscribed by the people who were being investigated.
Excellent resource for 9-11 research Well-organized, reasonably presented information, data, and some very interesting evidence. Take a sandwich: it's huge, but it's worth the trip.
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