Epiphany

The answers to all of one's questions is...of course...green tea.


More later when I get back from vacation.

I will rarely make more than one post per day on this blog, BUT...this news story was too sidesplittingly funny to pass up...!!!!!





U-S says Kiev must investigate election fraud allegations



STATE DEPARTMENT The State Department is calling on Ukraine to investigate allegations of fraud in its presidential elections -- or risk souring relations with the U-S.
A spokesman says Ukrainian officials must "act to ensure an outcome that reflects the will of the Ukrainian people." Adam Ereli (EHR'-eh-lee) says that doesn't mean new elections -- just "quick action" to address concerns.


Otherwise, he says, the U-S will consider altering its relationship with Kiev.

One U-S senator says there was "a concerted and forceful program of election-day fraud and abuse."

Many international observers have expressed similar concerns.

With nearly all votes counted, Kremlin-backed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych is ahead of reformist candidate Viktor Yushchenko. That result has sparked widespread dismay and anger among the former Soviet republic's 48 (m) million people.



THIS IS HILARIOUS!!!

GET IT!?! The UNITED STATES wants Ukraine to investigate allegations of ELECTION FRAUD!!!!!

OR it will "sour" our relations!!

BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAHHHHHWWWW!!!!!!! Hee heeeee....*sigh*

Oh GAWD, that one made me cry!

A nation that hasn't had a national election untainted by controversy and allegations of fraud since at least 1998 is pulling THIS shit?

At least the Ukrainians PROTESTED their coup! Americans just sat back, flipped the channel and belched....BOTH TIMES!!!!!

Fuck the USA....

I was going to comment at length about Bush's thuggish behavior in Chile, but I've decided to more or less skip it except to say that we should all get used to having this redneck dumbass continue to embarrass us in his global role as our "leader." His gangster like style and idiotic policies will only get worse.


Let's get down to "bidness:"

In a study that will no doubt be dismissed by the Neocons and their willing slaves as "liberal, partisan, and biased," thousands of "surprise" Bush votes surfaced during a recent examination of the Florida election by a team of Berkley graduate students..






Study Finds Florida 'Ghost' E-Votes
Cal trio: Results showing a Bush boost may help stop future snags


http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1119-01.htm

 
In the nation's first academic study of the Florida 2004 vote, University of California, Berkeley graduate students and a professor have found intriguing evidence that electronic-voting counties there could have mistakenly awarded up to 260,000 votes to President Bush.

Something went awry with the voting in Florida.

The discrepancy, reported Thursday, is insufficient by itself to sway the outcome of the presidential race in Florida, but the UC Berkeley team called on Florida elections officials for an investigation.

"This is a no-vote-left-behind kind of project, not a change-the-president project," said UC Berkeley sociology professor Michael Hout, who oversaw the research. "We're as interested in the next election as the one just over."

Broadly speaking, the UC Berkeley team found that Bush received tens of thousands more votes in electronic-voting Democratic counties than past voting patterns would have suggested. No such pattern turned up in counties using optical scanning machines.

The UC Berkeley report has not been peer reviewed, but a reputable MIT political scientist succeeded in replicating the analysis Thursday at the request of the Oakland Tribune and The Associated Press. He said an investigation is warranted.

"There is an interesting pattern here that I hope someone looks into," said MIT arts and social sciences Dean Charles Stewart III, a researcher in the MIT-Caltech Voting Technology Project.

Stewart isn't convinced the problem is electronic voting. It could be absentee voting or some quirk of election administration. But whatever the problem, it didn't show up in counties using optical scanning machines. Rather than offer evidence of fraud or voting problems, the UC Berkeley study infers they exist mathematically.

Frustrated at the lowbrow, data-poor nature of allegations of election fraud flooding the Internet, three Berkeley grad students decided to apply the tools of first-year statistics class.

"We decided, well, you might as well test it properly instead of sitting around speculating," said first-year sociology grad student Laura Mangels. She and two colleagues downloaded voting and demographic data, ran them through statistics software and in the first night had results that produced a collective "Wow" among the students, she said.





CNN takes a "conspiracy theory" approach to dealing with the issue. The Berkley team is portrayed as being unhealthily "FIXATED" on recounting the votes. Not only that, but according to CNN, they apparently speak for the whole of academia! Anyone CRAZY enough like the Berkley students (who of course are just a bunch of dirty liberals ANYWAY...) to study the voting evidence WHEN BUSH SO CLEARLY GOT A MANDATE FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE is obviously a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist...(so sit down and shut up...hippy...)





Academia still fixated on November 2



SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- John Kerry conceded defeat more than two weeks ago, and President Bush has already revamped his Cabinet. But as states certify final election returns, an academic debate over their accuracy is heating up.

None of the experts examining the returns has discovered voting anomalies significant enough to have swung the election.

Despite Internet-circulated speculation that Bush's victory was somehow stolen or rigged, the incumbent's clear margin in the popular vote count is much wider than any of the problems reported to date -- be they voting technology failures, problems with provisional ballots or partisan shenanigans.

"We conclude that there is no evidence, based on exit polls, that electronic voting machines were used to steal the election for President Bush," researchers at the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said in an influential report based on early unofficial returns in Florida.

Still, many Americans who mistrust e-voting have seized on the exit polls, wondering whether something nefarious might explain what happened on November 2.

Early in the day, exit polling suggested Kerry was heading for a close win in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania; by day's end, Kerry had won Pennsylvania but Bush had comfortable margins in both Florida and Ohio.

While voting machine makers said their equipment had few problems given the millions of ballots cast, watchdog groups received about 2,000 complaints about lost and miscounted votes and machine breakdowns.

Nearly three-dozen Kerry supporters in Florida said they had to repeatedly override the machines to avoid having their votes recorded for Bush.

Internet buzz that perhaps the exit polls were correct and the actual returns might be flawed grew louder this week when sociology graduate students at the University of California at Berkeley went public with an analysis arguing that Florida results in counties using electronic ballots differed from historical voting patterns.

Critics of the Berkeley research say Bush's success may simply be due to a better get-out-the-vote effort, or fears of terrorism driving many Democrats to choose Bush over party loyalty.

"Nationwide it looks like, regardless of the type of voting machines used, Bush was getting a faster mobilization of voters in traditionally Democratic areas than were the Democrats," said Charles Stewart III, a political science professor at MIT who specializes in American politics and research methodology.

Stewart said any Florida discrepancies between historic patterns and the November 2 vote may be explained by nationwide trends -- for example, while Republicans easily won many rural and suburban areas they also made impressive gains in urban areas.





Those Berkley students aren't the only people crying "Foul" over the suspicious nature of the 2004 elections. The head of Zogby International, Ralph Nader, and University of Pennsylvania Professor Steven F Freeman (MORE ACADEMICS!!!!) are calling into question the results of "the Armageddon election."







Published on Thursday, November 18, 2004 by Inter Press Service
US Election: Democracy in Question
by Ritt Goldstein

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1118-11.htm

 
STOCKHOLM - John Zogby, president of the polling firm Zogby International, told IPS he has been calling it "the Armageddon election" for about a year. Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader believes the Republican Party was able to "steal it before election day."

Facts suggest something went very wrong on Nov. 2.

Speculation focuses upon a number of questions -- purposeful miscounts, anomalies surrounding electronic voting (e-voting) machines, particularly the optical scan types; and numerous reports of voting "irregularities" in heavily Democratic areas.

"What they 'do' is minorities," Nader said, highlighting the thrust of Republican efforts, "and make sure that there aren't enough voting machines for the minority areas. They have to wait in line ... for hours, and most of them don't. There are all kinds of ways, and that's why I was quoted as saying, "this election was hijacked from A to Z," Nader told IPS.

Zogby was concerned about the difference between some of the exit polls (surveys of individuals who have just cast ballots) and the official vote counts. "We're talking about the Free World here," he pointedly noted.

On Nov. 10, University of Pennsylvania Professor Steven F Freeman, whose expertise includes "research methods," compiled an analysis entitled 'The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy'. The document was prepared in view of the unusually large differences between what exit polls had predicted and the recorded vote tallies.

His findings suggest Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry should have received far more votes than he did.

In three of the key battleground states -- Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania -- Freeman's analysis states the odds of Kerry receiving the percentage of votes recorded, given the exit poll findings, were less than three in one thousand, per state.

Freeman also determined that the odds of any two of these states simultaneously reaching their stated vote tallies were "on the order of one-in-a-million," and the odds of all three states arriving at the vote counts they did "are 250 million to one."





We should all keep our eyes and ears open for an attempt by the Bush administration to SERIOUSLY try to place controls on free speech on the Internet. Just because Ashcroft has been "retired" doesn't make the waters any safer for freedom. He was just the tip of the Neocon iceberg. If I were a Neocon and I wanted to make the Internet safe for Bushocracy, I would start the process by using the glut of pornography on the web as an excuse to clamp down on Internet use.

This "study" organized by Republican Sen. Sam Brownback sounds like it had it's conclusions drawn well before any research was even undertaken.

Amazingly, (but not surprisingly...) their panel of "experts" (a motley crew of Christian extremist crackpots) claim that pornography is as addictive and harmful as heroin (!?!?!?!?)





Addiction to porn destroying lives, Senate told
- CONNIE CASS, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, November 18, 2004

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/11/18/national1907EST0715.DTL r

Comparing pornography to heroin, researchers on Thursday called on Congress to finance studies on "porn addiction" and launch a public health campaign about the dangers.

"We're so afraid to talk about sex in our society that we really give carte blanche to the people who are producing this kind of material," said James B. Weaver, a Virginia Tech professor who studies the impact of pornography.

Internet pornography is corrupting children and hooking adults into an addiction that threatens their jobs and families, a panel of anti-porn advocates told the hearing organized by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., chairman of the Commerce subcommittee on science.

Brownback, a father of five, said when he was a boy, the typical kid's exposure was limited to occasional peeks at dirty magazines illicitly obtained by a buddy.

Now, he said, pornography seems pervasive. Children run across it while researching homework on the Internet. Vulgar ads arrive unexpectedly by e-mail. Some of his middle-age male friends limit their time alone in hotel rooms to avoid the temptation of graphic pay-per-view movies, Brownback said.

Mary Anne Layden, co-director of a sexual trauma program at the University of Pennsylvania, said pornography's effect on the brain mirrors addiction to heroin or crack cocaine. She told of one patient, a business executive, who arrived at his office at 9 a.m. each day, logged onto Internet porn sites, and didn't log off until 5 p.m.

Layden called for billboards and bus ads warning people to avoid pornography, strip clubs and prostitutes.

The panel discussion ranged from hardcore, violent pornography to audience complaints about a sexually suggestive promo that aired prior to this week's "Monday Night Football" game.

Brownback, an outspoken Christian conservative who has championed efforts to curb indecency on television and the Internet, said the public is beginning to realize "they don't just have to take it."

But he acknowledged the First Amendment right to free speech has limited congressional efforts.

In June, the Supreme Court blocked a law designed to shield Web-surfing children from pornography, ruling that requiring adults to register or use access codes before viewing objectionable material would infringe on their rights.

Brownback said scientific data is needed to help his cause.

Weaver acknowledged that research "directly assessing the impact of pornography addiction on families and communities is rather limited."

But he pointed to studies that show prolonged use of pornography leads to "sexual callousness, the erosion of family values and diminished sexual satisfaction."

Judith Reisman, a vocal critic of the Kinsey Institute and the field of sexology, suggested Congress require police officers to gather evidence of pornography at crime scenes to further research.



Betcha Officer Friendly will have a BLAST gathering that evidence, probably even start working overtime most nights...huh huh... It's a tough job, but SOMEBODY'S got to look at all them dirty pictures to see how bad they are...huh huh...

Buckle up, this doesn't look good. Trying to control the internet is like trying to grab smoke but that doesn't mean that the religious nuts running this country won't be able to make things difficult for a lot of us over the next few years.


For you few liberals who are still in denial that the US has become a Fundamentalist Christian theocracy, here is an article from the Guardian detailing Pat Robertson's deathgrip on Red State America's collective (un)consciousness...






Televangelical tentacles

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/comment/story/0,14259,1355381,00.html

TV evangelist Pat Robertson is threatening to mobilise millions of his Christian viewers and "de-liberalise" the US judiciary, writes Philip James.

Friday November 19, 2004

There is a defining moment in the life of every news organisation that marks a coming of age. In the case of CNN it was the opening bombardment of the first Gulf war. The upstart cable channel went live to Peter Arnett in Baghdad, while the traditional broadcast networks could only watch from their New York studios in shock and awe.

In the case of the Manchester Guardian, it was the day in 1959 when the paper reached beyond its Mancunian roots to become a national newspaper. And in the case of The 700 Club, Pat Robertson's daily evangelical news broadcast, it was November 3 2004. The day it became clear that George Bush had won a second term.

This day formally marked the transformation of The 700 Club. No longer could it be viewed as an outlet of relevance only to the loony Christian right. Not only did it join the ranks of the mainstream media. In many ways it supplanted them. Suddenly, if you seriously wanted to take the pulse of America, you had to tune your TV to the news division of televangelism.

The 700 Club has been operating under the radar of traditional journalistic scrutiny for over two decades. Anchored by Pat Robertson, he initially created it as a vehicle to promote his personal political ambitions. After his failed presidential bid in 1988, Robertson founded the Christian Coalition and embarked on an ambitious plan to influence the mainstream political agenda from the inside out.

He used The 700 Club as the marketing and political advocacy tool of this plan. The broadcast's focus is instructing viewers on how they could best lobby elected officials to enact the Christian right's agenda.


Robertson's show regularly has more viewers than CNN. And while the rest of the world wasn't watching he has been phenomenally successful in realising a three part blueprint to essentially take over all branches of the US Government.

Goal number one was to take over Congress, and Robertson can honestly take credit for the Republican revolution of 1994. Of the 52 freshman Republican congressman, who ended four decades of Democratic rule that year, 44 owed their election to the Christian coalition which endorsed them on The 700 Club. The coalition's scorecards, ranking candidates on issues from abortion to marriage and family were a regular feature of the broadcast, promoting hand-picked candidates and discrediting unfavourable ones.

Goal number two was the presidency. George Bush made it to the White House and is there today, because of the lockstep support of The 700 Club's faithful, who make up the bedrock of the "values voter".

Goal number three is yet to be achieved: taking over the legislature. From his anchor chair, Robertson is coordinating an intricate strategy to de-liberalise every court from the Supreme Court down to federal judges at the district level.

The key to Robertson's success so far has been his obsessive attention to legislative details, the minute, often picayune rules that together constitute the levers of political change. In his attempt to wrestle control of the last branch of government his approach is the same.

Up to now arcane Senate rules have impeded the appointment of jurists friendly to the Robertson agenda. So Robertson is using his television pulpit to change them. Current Senate regulations allow a minority of Democrats to prevent votes on judges they don't like from ever taking place by employing a technical filibuster. The filibuster can only be overturned by a super-majority of sixty senators - a number Republicans cannot reach.

But Robertson has discovered that the Senate filibuster rules can be amended at the opening of the next Senate session in January at the discretion of the Senate majority leader Bill Frist - a detail insiders say the Tennessee Republican was not even aware of himself.

So for weeks Robertson has been flashing the senator's telephone number on the screen and imploring viewers to jam the congressional switchboard with demands that Frist change the filibuster rules so that it can be overturned by a simple majority of 51 votes - a number Republicans can muster. Frist is now considering doing just that. Come January the procedural block on a raft of reactionary judges may be lifted before the first gavel comes down.

While the admittedly liberal mainstream media are still scratching their heads, wondering how they missed the tectonic shift in favour of the Christian right in this country, they may still be looking in the wrong place for hints at what the future holds.

CNN's promotional tagline may be "watch what happens next", but to really know what's about to unfold in today's America you need to switch on The 700 Club.




Iraq, Iraq, Iraq...


The US military and their Washington enablers still don't seem to be able to comprehend the cause and effect of shitting on a subjected people and their subsequent violent resentment of being shat upon. Until SOMEBODY in the Pentagon or Congress gets a clue, the streets of Iraq will continue to run red with blood and eventually an entire generation could be lost in both Iraq AND the US.




As U.S. Forces Raided a Mosque
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1119-02.htm

 
BAGHDAD - An eyewitness commentary to IPS through a U.S. raid on a Baghdad mosque Friday gives a vivid picture of what a 'successful raid' can be like.


US and Iraqi soldiers, stormed the Abu Hanifa mosque in Baghdad during Friday prayers opening fire and killing at least three people, according to eyewitnesses. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)
U.S. soldiers raided the Abu Hanifa mosque in Baghdad during Friday prayers, killing at least four and wounding up to 20 worshippers.

At 12:30 pm local time, just after Imam Shaikh Muayid al-Adhami concluded his talk, about 50 U.S. soldiers with 20 Iraqi National Guardsmen (ING) entered the mosque, a witness reported.

”Everyone was there for Friday prayers, when five Humvees and several trucks carrying INGs entered,” Abu Talat told IPS on phone from within the mosque while the raid was in progress. ”Everyone starting yelling 'Allahu Akbar' (God is the greatest) because they were frightened. Then the soldiers started shooting the people praying!”

Talat said he was among a crowd of worshippers being held back at gunpoint by U.S. soldiers. Loud chanting of 'Allahu Akbar' could be heard in the background during his call. Women and children were sobbing, he said.

”They have just shot and killed at least four of the people praying,” he said in a panicked voice. ”At least 10 other people are wounded now. We are on our bellies and in a very bad situation.”

Talat gave his account over short phone calls. He said he was witnessing a horrific scene.

”We were here praying and now there are 50 here with their guns on us,” he said. ”They are holding our heads to the ground, and everyone is in chaos. This is the worst situation possible. They cannot see me talking to you. They are roughing up a blind man now.” He evidently could talk no further then.

The soldiers later released women and children along with men who were related to them. Abu Talat was released because a boy told him to pretend to be his father.

Other witnesses gave similar accounts outside the mosque. ”People were praying and the Americans invaded the mosque,” Abdulla Ra'ad Aziz from the al-Adhamiya district of Baghdad told IPS. He had been released along with his wife and children. ”Why are they killing people for praying?” He said that after the forces entered ”they went to the back doors and we heard so many bullets of the guns -- it was a gun bigger than a Kalashnikov. There were wounded and dead, I saw them myself.”



Paramedics help a man injured in a US and Iraqi forces raid on one of the major Sunni Muslim mosques in Baghdad, Abu Hanifa mosque, Friday Nov. 19 2004. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)
Some of the people who had been at prayer were ordered by soldiers to carry the dead and wounded out of the mosque, he said.



Ugh...


Cryptome has been posting some excellent one-stop shopping for relevant and truthful information about the situation in Fallujah. They are also publishing many photos of the war that the US media won't touch. Cryptome is providing what the mainstream US media is ignoring or downplaying. All the death, fear and madness of combat is on full display at Cryptome.

Main site:

http://cryptome.org/

These links will get you started:

http://cryptome.org/fallujah-kill.htm

http://cryptome.org/fallujah-kill2.htm

http://cryptome.org/fallujah-kill3.htm

http://cryptome.org/fallujah-kill4.htm

http://cryptome.org/fallujah-kill5.htm

If you think that the war you're seeing on Fox News or on the cover of Time magazine is the REAL war, you're wrong. The US media is purposely not showing the carnage that is the Iraq War.

The much vaunted "free press" of America and their GOP golf buddies know that most Americans want the feel-good over the truth. They'll pick the glittery fantasy over the naked fork of reality every...single...time. This is one of the main reasons King George is now safely perched atop the Gilded throne for a second time...

Red Staters love to see themselves as Christian Saviors who are bringing Jesus' Democracy to the heathen towelheads. Well, democracy is nowhere to be seen, neither in Iraq nor in this country.

So far, what the average American Red State couch potato has seen is a shiny, happy TV war with lots of footage of brave soldiers striking poses similar to iconic Life magazine photos from WW 2 complete with maps and fancy graphics that show how we're actually WINNING despite the fact that a whole country is rising up against it's invaders. Every month brings another "Mission Accomplished" Potempkin Village of lies. The emperor is buck naked but through the magic of television, he sits enthroned, resplendent in the finest ermines.


Don't fool yourselves...children are dying over there, folks. For every "insurgent" taken out by the US military, scores of innocent children and other civilians are being killed or crippled. On top of that, many more are starving or dying from bad water and all the other ills that fall on the heels of War...

To counter-balance the lop-sided US media Disneyland coverage, one person has taken upon themselves to provide us with a BLOG OF the images that are too much of a downer for those Red Staters.



Fallujah in Pictures
Pictures from Fallujah that probably won't be on your television.

(WARNING: extremely graphic pictures NOT for Children or myopic Republican zealots. )


http://fallujapictures.blogspot.com/





So many dead...

Every time the US military accidentally kills someone's child, father, or best friend, it creates another insurgent. I'm reminded of the line spoken by the Dominican priest in George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead," he said, "We must stop the killing, or lose the war..."

How the war is being sold to the US public is a thorny topic. Exactly how many people ARE dying in Iraq? When do the lies end and the truth begin? The numbers reported by the military in the US media conflict greatly with numbers reported by aid workers and the Iraqis themselves.

Here's one take on the issue of casualties and how they're reported:





How They Count the Enemy Dead


http://www.slate.com/id/2109871/

In the battle of Fallujah, U.S. military commanders say they killed between 1,000 to 1,200 or 1,200 to 1,600 enemy fighters, depending on your news source. However, embedded correspondents in the field reported that Army and Marine Corps units found fewer enemy bodies in Fallujah than they expected. How exactly does the military determine its body counts?

As a matter of policy, the U.S. military does not officially track enemy killed in action. But the headquarters responsible for an individual campaign—the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, in the case of Fallujah—often does compile such figures, which explains why they sometimes appear in the papers. After a campaign, the headquarters will pull together reports from every unit in the fight to create one big estimate of the enemy's casualties for the entire operation.

Individual units send in several kinds of reports. The lowest-tech—and most reliable—way to determine enemy KIA is to physically count dead enemy corpses. After a military unit seizes an area, such as Fallujah, the troops will report to their headquarters the number of bodies they see left behind. However, this number usually undercounts the dead because most militaries try not to leave their fallen on the ground. This count also misses wounded soldiers who were evacuated for medical treatment and died later, and enemy soldiers directly hit by high-explosive ordnance, such as an artillery shell or 2,000-pound bomb. In such instances, there's little left to count when the battle's over.






In other words, the numbers of civilian dead can very easily be added to the total body count of alleged insurgents, either by incompetence or design. In this way the military can up the number of dead "bad guys" and diminish the numbers of innocents caught in the line of fire. Figures lie and liars figure, same old story.



CNN reported yesterday that the Marines had discovered the former hideout of Abu "Zowie" Zarqawi boogie man number two in Fallujah. The US government and many news agencies report that Iraq is swarming with al Qaeda freedom fighters from all over the world, yet that might not be the case according to John Hendro of the LA Times:



  -------

    Few Foreigners Among Insurgents

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/111704C.shtml

    Tuesday 16 November 2004

Judging from fighters captured in Fallouja, all but about 5% are Iraqi, U.S. officials say.

    Fallouja - The battle for the city of Fallouja is giving U.S. military commanders some insight into this country's insurgency, painting a portrait of a home-grown uprising dominated by Iraqis, not foreign fighters.

    Of the more than 1,000 men between the ages of 15 and 55 who were captured in intense fighting in the center of the insurgency over the last week, just 15 are confirmed foreign fighters, Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. ground commander in Iraq, said Monday.

    There was evidence that an organized force of foreign fighters was present. One dead guerrilla bore Syrian identification. A number of insurgents believed to be foreigners wore similar black "uniforms," each with black flak vests, webbed gear and weapons superior to those of their Iraqi allies.

    But despite an intense focus on the network of Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab Zarqawi by U.S. and Iraqi officials, who have insisted that most Iraqis support the country's interim government, American commanders said their best estimates of the proportion of foreigners among their enemies is about 5%.

    The overwhelming majority of insurgents, several senior commanders said, are drawn from the tens of thousands of former government employees whose sympathies lie with the toppled regime of Saddam Hussein, unemployed "criminals" who find work laying roadside bombs for about $500 each and Iraqi religious extremists.

    "Over time, it's the former regime elements that are the threat," said Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who joined Casey for a visit to bases in Baghdad and outside Fallouja before meeting with interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.








"DO YOU FEEL THAT COLD DRAFT?" DEPT.

Okay, I'm currently taking bets on which month of 2005 will be the one when the GOP controlled Congress passes the "Emergency Draft BIll of '05" ...I'm puttin' money on March 2005...

Why? The Bush War machine has seemingly run out of eager young bodies and is now rounding up hesitant, old ones. Hope all you strappin' Red State A-rab hatin' Jesus Freaks are ready to put down those X-Box controls and pick up an M-16 'cause...YOU ASKED FOR IT (or at least your mommies and daddies did...assholes...)



    Former G.I.s Ordered to War, Fight Not to Go
    By Monica Davey
    The New York Times

    Tuesday 16 November 2004


http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/111704A.shtml


    The Army has encountered resistance from more than 2,000 former soldiers it has ordered back to military work, complicating its efforts to fill gaps in the regular troops.

    Many of these former soldiers - some of whom say they have not trained, held a gun, worn a uniform or even gone for a jog in years - object to being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan now, after they thought they were through with life on active duty.

    They are seeking exemptions, filing court cases or simply failing to report for duty, moves that will be watched closely by approximately 110,000 other members of the Individual Ready Reserve, a corps of soldiers who are no longer on active duty but still are eligible for call-up.

    In the last few months, the Army has sent notices to more than 4,000 former soldiers informing them that they must return to active duty, but more than 1,800 of them have already requested exemptions or delays, many of which are still being considered.

    And, of about 2,500 who were due to arrive by Nov. 7 at military bases for refresher training, 733 had not shown up.

    Army officials say the call-up is proceeding at rates they anticipated, and they are trying to fill needed jobs with former soldiers as they did in the Persian Gulf war of 1991.

    Still, the resistance puts further strain on a military that has summoned reserve troops in numbers not seen since World War II and forced thousands of soldiers in Iraq to postpone their departures when their enlistment obligations ended.






I'm not the only one to compare the current atmosphere in Washington to our former "arch-enemy", the Soviet Union.

Sidney Blumenthal sees the fall of Colin Powell and the ascendancy of Condaleeza Rice as the ultimate move in the creation of a one-party Neoconservative Republican state.



Bush's Night of the Long Knives

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2004/11/17/regime/print.html



The fall of Powell and the rise of Rice reveal the true face of this strange, Soviet administration, where bureaucratic fear and blind loyalty reign supreme.

In this strange Soviet Washington, a system of bureaucratic fear and one-party allegiance has been created in which only loyalists are rewarded. Rice stands as the model. One can never be too loyal. And the loyalists compete to outdo each other. Dissonant information is seen as motivated to injure the president -- disloyalty bordering on treason. Success is defined as support for the political line, failure as departure from the line. An atmosphere of personal vendetta and an incentive system for suppressing realities prevail. This is not an administration; it does not administer -- it is a regime.



Wanna REALLY feel like you're living in a bad science fiction movie? The argument that the Blue States should secede and either become part of Canada or separate entities is being seriously discussed in many parts of the US. There's a spirited discussion of the topic on the Seattle Indymedia site. Wonder how long before the Feds start taking a dim view of such public discussions? (HINT: They probably already have...) but...until then, here's the discussion:


Awaken Cascadians!

http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2004/11/242978.shtml


http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2004/11/242978.shtml


Awaken Cascadians!

author: Alexandros of Cascadia
Nov 08, 2004 18:47

Should breaking away be the next move?




Klahowya ("greetings" in Chinook Jargon the trade
language that once marked an unique aspect of Pacific
NorthWest life and still remains in place names, can
still be found in slang and spoken by the elders in
both the First Nations or Native Americans and the
peoples that have resettled here within the last
hundred years).

Cascadia is geographically the Columbia River
Watershed and the area around the Cascade Range.
Cascadia's farthest extent is from northern California
to the Alaskan Panhandle and from the Pacific to the
Continental Divide. Cascadia Minor tends to be the
states of Northern California, Oregon and Washington
with the province of British Columbia. The Scottish
naturalist David Douglas named the Cascade mountain
range after the powerful waterfalls that carved out
this land and gave it so much biomass.

Cascadia may or may not ever be a nation-state as
others have pushed for, but She is a bioregion. Some
may ask if this idea is another "breakaway" movement..
well that is really up to Cascadians. The term
"Cascadian" can be found back the era of the Civilian
Conservation Corp (CCC) for the art style in the
Pacific NorthWest. This art style of the CCC build
was examplified in monumental structures in the
Cascade Ranges like Timberline Lodge that emphasized
and blended into the natural surroundings. Cascadian
style was characteristically rustic, natural material
and massive with themes being focused on Nature local
or cultural imagery. The movement to form the state
of Jefferson in the mid 20th century may have
contributed to the idea of political separation. The



Sample Comments:



right on
Posted by: duffy at Nov 08, 2004 20:19

right on! We need to get started.

this is a must
Posted by: woolf at Nov 09, 2004 03:03

i agree with your stuff but we need to organize

Try it.
Posted by: OH yeah at Nov 09, 2004 08:13

Try it and I will put a bullet in your head. Its treason, and I won't stand for it.





So...Washington State, my beloved former home, seems on the verge of being under the control of the Red State Zombies, at least if the Gubernatorial re-count goes in favor of Republican dipshit Dino Rossi. Talk of secession in the Evergreen State could therefore soon be considered politically incorrect and perhaps treasonous.


To make the "legitimacy" of Red State Rossi even more interesting...According to the Washington constitution, a tie can literally be decided by a coin toss(!)

http://www.kingcountyjournal.com/sited/story/html/178673

http://www.kingcountyjournal.com/sited/story/html/178673



If the gubernatorial race ends in a tie, a coin flip or another game of chance will decide whether Christine Gregoire or Dino Rossi will be the state's next governor.

Following an automatic recount, state law requires elections ending in ties be broken ``by lot,'' which could include a coin flip or drawing playing cards, said Joanie Macke, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Sam Reed. The statute isn't specific, she said.

``We haven't even thought of that,'' Macke said.




Wanna bet that the Republicans show up with a two-sided coin with Karl Rove's face on it?

So who is this person who could be Washington's first GOP governor in 20 years?

Well, according to the Seattle Times, he's a former arch-Conservative turned cuddly "moderate." (Sound familiar? *cough* buuuusssshhhh *cough*)

One has to sell one's self as a "moderate" to even consider running for office in mostly liberal Washington. However...

Dino Rossi: Message shifts to the middle


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002071440_rossi24m.html


In his Bellevue campaign office, there's a talking action-figure doll of conservative commentator Ann Coulter. Press her back and she flings verbal daggers at liberals.

President Bush's adviser Karl Rove had a hand in recruiting Rossi to run for governor, and Vice President Dick Cheney was the featured guest a few months ago at one of Rossi's fund-raisers.


In 1992, one newspaper article said he supported a GOP platform plank that called for teaching both creationism and evolution in schools. (Rossi said recently he has "no recollection" of ever taking such a position.)


Today, in his campaign for governor, Rossi goes out of his way to avoid discussing his views on social issues.

He still says he is opposed to gay marriage, but is often quick to add, "I'm not running on that issue."

His position on abortion remains unchanged: He opposes it except in cases of rape, incest and to save the life of the mother. But he never brings it up on his own.

And, when pressed, he points out that he never sponsored any anti-abortion bills in the Legislature and contends he wouldn't have much say on the issue as governor because the courts have deemed abortion legal.

Instead of those hot-button issues, Rossi now talks almost exclusively about improving the state's business climate and creating jobs. Rossi's critics contend he hasn't moderated his views, he's just stopped talking about them.





One suspects that Washington will find about plenty about his TRUE positions if he should be successful at assuming the governorship.

If Rossi does to Washington what Bush is doing to the US, liberal Seattle could very well just pack up and move piecemeal to Vancouver...tech industry and all...

I've decided to put my foot down and stop the proliferation of NEVER - ENDING War News polluting this blog (at least for one post...)


Today is going to be all about FUN STUFF (yay!)

If you want to feel bad today, go look at your paycheck stub...

At this blog, TODAY WE'S HAVIN' FUN!


I first encountered Viz comics (NOT to be confused with the US Manga/Anime distrubuter) in the early '90's when my friend Brian H. from Glasgow sent me a copy back from "Thee Olde Country." Needless to say, I was blown away by the Fat Slags, Spoilt Bastard (the ultimate paraody of the Dennis the Menace school of comic monster children) & Sid the Sexist...They were the funniest and raunchiest comics I'd seen since National Lampoon's comic section tanked in the early '80's.

Haven't laid eyes on a Viz for at least 8 years or so...Used to be one could get them at Barnes and Noble and Better News Stands when I lived in Austin and Seattle. Dunno if they're still around on this side of the Big Ditch...

Regardless, they're still going strong in Britain, having just celebrated their 25th anniversary, although these days sales are ONLY in the lower six figures (!!! In the U.S. comics sales RARELY leave the range of tens of thousands.)

Here's an article about Viz's anniversary:

(Brief translation note: Geordie=person from Newcastle and Tyneside in Northestern England)




http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1353475,00.html

All in the worst possible taste

From tiny beginnings, Viz went on to sell a million copies - and made characters such as the Fat Slags, Spoilt Bastard and Roger Mellie household names. William Cook looks at the Geordie comic, 25 years old this month.


 Twenty-five years ago, three Geordie teenagers published 150 copies of a brand new comic. Priced 20p (30p for students), The Bumper Monster Christmas Special - all 12 pages of it - went on sale in a suburban pub in Newcastle upon Tyne. Within a few hours, they'd sold every copy. A decade later, Viz was selling more than a million copies per issue, outselling every magazine in Britain apart from The Radio Times, The TV Times and Reader's Digest. How did this tiny organ - as Viz stalwart Finbarr Saunders, famous for his double entendres, might put it - grow so big? And what's happened to it since?


A comparison of current and early issues confirms that Viz is still just as funny as it was in its heyday - if not funnier - and if it no longer seems so shocking, that's because everyone else has caught up. There are no secrets in publishing, and although none of Viz's insipid imitators ever made much impact, plenty of other publications now mimic its irreverent tone. Viz has become a victim of its own success.

Oh shit...this is in danger of turning into ANOTHER fucking war blog...

*sigh*

I just looked over the articles that I wanted to discuss/rant about...and almost all of them are about Eye-Rack...

Just to be different, I'll start out with an article about the MPAA's recent foray into the same totalitarian waters that the RIAA is now neck deep in.






MPAA launches software snooping tool

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/print/?TYPE=story&AT=39174107-39020369t-10000023c

The Motion Picture Association of America said on Tuesday that it has filed an unspecified number of lawsuits against people who trade copyrighted movies online, following through on plans announced earlier in the month.

The organisation also said it will release free software to help parents and other computer owners identify all the music, movie and peer-to-peer software files on their machines.

The software, designed to scan hard disks for media and peer-to-peer files, will soon be freely available from the MPAA. A representative of the group said the program, developed by a Danish software company, does not yet have a name.

It will only identify files, not automatically delete them, the group said.






MOM...DAD! Be the first parents on the block to turn your kids in for trading movie files!

(I feel like I'm living in a Philip K. Dick novel...)

Remember when a parents' biggest concern was hanging outside of Junior's door trying to catch a fleeting whiff of burning hemp?

Getting grounded for file sharing may soon be pretty low on the list of bummers for America's teenagers. Looks like the Feds are making their lists and checking them twice and it a'int Chistmas shopping that's on their minds. Regarding the question raised in my previous post: it would seem that the Bush War Machine is indeed running out of eager young Christian Martyrs for the Great Cause of Liberating the Iraqis from Themselves.

Red State parents will no doubt FREAK THE FUCK OUT when lil' Bobby Joe and Becky Sue get that friendly letter from a board of "friends and neighbors..." and later wonder how the hell they lost their kids to something as meaningless as the Iraq War. BUT THEY'LL PROBABLY STILL BLAME CLINTON!!!!!!!




Government Looking at Military Draft Lists

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1116-01.htm



The Selective Service System (SSS) and the U.S. Department of Education now are gearing up to compare their computer records, to make sure all men between the ages of 18 and 25 who are required to register for a military draft have done so.

The SSS and the education department will begin comparing their lists on Jan. 1, 2005, according to a memo authored by Jack Martin, acting Selective Service director.

While similar record checks have been done periodically for the past 10 years, Martin’s memo is dated Oct. 28, just a few days before the Nov. 2 presidential election, a hard-fought campaign in which the question of whether the nation might need to reinstate a military draft was raised in debates and on the stump.

It took several more days, until Nov. 4, for the document to reach the Federal Register, the official daily publication for rules and notices of federal agencies and organizations.

The memo was also produced after the U.S. House voted 402-2 on Oct. 5, against House Resolution 163, a bill that would have required all young people, including women, to serve two years of military service.

Under federal law, a military draft cannot be started without congressional support.

About 94 percent of all men are properly registered for a draft, according to Richard Flahavan, associate director of the office of public and intergovernmental affairs for SSS.

Martin’s memo is just a routine thing, Flahavan said.

“This has nothing to with current events,” Flahavan said. “This is just the periodic renewal of previous agreements — this one is 18 months but normally it runs four years and that’s why we’re doing it now. I’m not quite sure why it’s 18 months versus the normal number of years.”








Oh, I'm sure it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH CURRENT EVENTS...

Just a coincidence. Yeah...unh-huh...right...okay...um...

***BWAH HAH HA HAAAAAHH HA HA HA HAHHH!!!!***

(sorry-I couldn't keep a straight face with THAT one...)

Here's some relevant info from the above article:




Draft Gear Up?

Who Has To Register?

All male U.S. citizens and male aliens living in the U.S. between the ages of 18 and 25

Dual nationals of the U.S. and another country, regardless of where they live
Young men who are in prison or mental institutions do not have to regsiter while they are committed, but must do so if they are released and not reached age 26
Disabled men who live at home and can move about indiependently.

Myths

Contrary to popular belief, only sons and the last son to carry a family name must register and they can be drafted.

What Happens In A Draft

Congress would likely approve a military draft in a time of crisis, in which the mission requires more troops than are in the volunteer military.

Selective Service procedures would treat married men or those with children the same as single men.

The first men to be called up will be those whose 20th birthday falls during that year, followed by those age 21, 22, 23,24 and 25.
The last men to be called are 18 and 19 years of age.

Historical Facts

The last man to be drafted was in June 1973.
Number of Drafted for WWI : 2.8 million
Number of Drafted for WWII: 10 million
Number of Drafted for the Korean War: 1.5 million
Number of Drafted for the Vietnam War: 1.8 million
Source: Selective Service System




 My prediction is that the draft will be reinstated come 2005, but the provision to draft females will be taken out to insure passage by fundie legislators. Christers don't really want to send baby-makers in battle, so Becky Sue is safe for now as long as she breeds more Soldiers for Christ inbetween her Wal Mart shift hours. I don't know what Congress was smoking when they put that provision in the Universal National Service Act of 2003. Perhaps they did that so they could have it struck down and then later seem like nice guys for requiring only males for their post-election draft. Who knows...? I'm just glad that I'm too old to be drafted (knock wood...)

The "crisis" that moves Congress to start a draft could be anything, an invasion of Iran, a domestic terrorist attack, someone could sneeze in the West Bank and THAT would start a draft. It could even be argued that the deepening mire that is Iraq could be justified as such a "crisis."

One wonders that if a draft were to reach Vietnam War proportions, i.e. over a milion drafted, if America would look up from the Cathode Monster long enough to notice that Bobby Joe's space on the couch was empty...

Well, they've been TRYING to get him out of the house...

But Jeeze, drafting married men with kids is just COLD...

Sounds like even ex-cons and crazy people could potentially be called up. Which is okay I guess, they're probably the only people suited for something as insane as what's happening in Iraq.





 

800 Civilians Feared Dead in Fallujah

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1116-04.htm

 
BAGHDAD -- At least 800 civilians have been killed during the U.S. military siege of Fallujah, a Red Cross official estimates.

Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of U.S. military reprisal, a high-ranking official with the Red Cross in Baghdad told IPS that ”at least 800 civilians” have been killed in Fallujah so far.

His estimate is based on reports from Red Crescent aid workers stationed around the embattled city, from residents within the city and from refugees, he said.

”Several of our Red Cross workers have just returned from Fallujah since the Americans won't let them into the city,” he said. ”And they said the people they are tending to in the refugee camps set up in the desert outside the city are telling horrible stories of suffering and death inside Fallujah.”





Ah-those 800 Iraqis are just "fucking faking it..."
Get up and fight, you dirty insurgents...


I like the part where the Red Cross worker is forced to speak anonymously to avoid "reprisals" from the US Military. This war is complete and total BULLSHIT! Bush is the worst thing this country has ever seen.



NEWSFLASH! The Army reservists who refused to happily drive to their Glorious Deaths in the service of the Great Poobah Bush aren't getting off as easily as previously thought.

Bet these folks didn't vote for Bush (even though their absentee ballots probably SAID they did...)



h
Army: Order-refusing GIs should be punished

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/11/16/army.reservists.ap/index.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Army is recommending punishment for about two dozen soldiers from an Army Reserve unit in Iraq that refused orders to drive a fuel convoy because they believed it was too dangerous, officials said Tuesday.

No final decisions have been made, and none of the soldiers has been charged with a crime, the officials said, but preliminary findings of an Army investigation faulted about 24 members of the 343rd Quartermaster Company, which is based at Rock Hill, South Carolina.

About 18 of the 24 were held for nearly two days after refusing orders to drive a fuel convoy from Tallil Air Base in southern Iraq to a base north of Baghdad. Another six also have been faulted.

Most of the accused face administrative actions such as fines or reduction in rank, although officials said it was possible that some could face courts-martial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Their refusal to obey orders was deemed to be detrimental to good order and discipline.

Brig. Gen. James E. Chambers, commanding general of 13th Corps Support Command, which manages the provision of fuel, food and ammunition across Iraq, ordered two investigations. One examined the soldiers' refusal of their orders and the other focused on allegations that the unit's trucks were unfit for hazardous duty.

U.S. officers say the refusal to carry out the mission on October 13 was an isolated incident and not an indication of a broader breakdown in discipline. Still, it's no secret that convoy duty is one of the most perilous jobs in Iraq.






The military was waiting for the election to be over with before they fully dealt with THESE poor souls. Betcha the NEXT group of GI's to refuse orders gets MUCH MUCH worse...

(And YES, the irony of combat soldiers being judged by a system headed by a cowardly Air Guard no-show doesn't escape me...)

Again, here's a big red F U C K Y O U to Red State America for making this all possible...(assholes...)

Oh CANADA!!!!!!!!!!!!

Many liberal Americans have gone back and forth with the moral and ethical conundrum of being forced by the 2004 "elections" to support the Bush regime and it's War in Iraq whether they like it or not.

My personal view is that to continue to willingly support the Bush war machine with my tax dollars is immoral. (Although sadly, I must do this until 2006 to avoid being a criminal. Re-locating to another country a'int easy...nor speedy...) Considering that the elections of 2000 were definitely rigged and the 2004 elections were probably rigged, the argument that we should stay and fight seems almost laughable. Could the Germans have voted Hitler out of office in 1935? I think not... Could the Soviets have used their ballots to send Stalin a message when he alligned his foreign policy with Hitler's in 1939?

Um-no...Dictatorships don't exactly work that way...

By 2006 ALL of our votes could be cast on Diebold machines. Who could stop it? The cowed and marginalized Democrats? The GOP who used the machines to steal the election of 2004 and now controls ALL branches of the US government?

I've got a great idea, I'll WRITE MY CONGRESSPERSON! *snicker*

Whatever...

Anyway, here's perhaps a more practical solution:

LEAVE THE U.S. & PAY TAXES TO A NON-BELIGERENT GOVENMENT!







Poll-shocked US Democrats take interest in Canada

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/11/16/2003211303

IDEOLOGICAL IMMIGRATION?: A Canadian Web site has received thousands of more hits from the US than it normally gets since the Nov. 2 presidential election

Rudi Kischer wants to help those Americans who have the post-election blues after US President George W. Bush's second-term victory.

The Vancouver, British Columbia, immigration lawyer plans seminars in three US cities -- Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles -- to tell Americans frustrated with Bush's victory that the grass is greener north of the border. And that's not just an allusion to Canada's lenient marijuana laws.

Nancy Bray, a spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada, said her agency's Web site received 261,000 hits from the US in the two days following the election, but it'll be many months before officials can guess how many of them were serious.

Jason Mogus, Communicopia's chief executive, said that while his company wanted to help interested Americans, moving to Canada should be plan B.

"We strongly encourage Americans to stay and build a culture in line with their values," Mogus said. "In other words, stay and fight."








"Stay and fight..." Well...Sounds positively GROOVY on the face of it...But building upon a culture that calls murderers heroes is difficult, if not impossible. The US Marine who recently shot a wounded, unarmed man in the head ("He's dead NOW...huh huh huh") obviously does not see himself as a murderer, nor do his comrades at arms, nor do the Red State Zombies for Christ who support America's war in Iraq. One can argue ad infinitum whether this Marine was driven to such an act though stress, upbringing, or lack of education. Considering these factors will be irrelevant because chances are he will become the next cause celebe for the right wing whether he goes to trial or not. If he plays his cards right he could very well end up being the Horst Wessel of the Neocon movement. Maybe Fox TV could do a reality show about breeding him with Jessica Lynch to produce the perfect Christian Soldier...






U.S. Marines Rally Round Iraq Probe Comrade

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&e=16&u=/nm/iraq_falluja_investigation_dc


Marines interviewed on Tuesday said they didn't see the shooting as a scandal, rather the act of a comrade who faced intense pressure during the effort to quell the insurgency in the city.


"I can see why he would do it. He was probably running around being shot at for days on end in Falluja. There should be an investigation but they should look into the circumstances," said Lance Corporal Christopher Hanson.


"I would have shot the insurgent too. Two shots to the head," said Sergeant Nicholas Graham, 24, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. "You can't trust these people. He should not be investigated. He did nothing wrong."




So much for winning hearts and minds...

I remember shortly after 9-11 seeing a young American man about 19 or 20 years old being interviewed on TV. It was one of those quickie "man in the street" sound bites so beloved of the US broadcast media. He said "I hate the Arabs...I always have..." He didn't look particularly stupid, or poor, or uneducated. It made me realize that YES, this kid HAD been raised to hate Arabs by the news media, by Hollywood and by his government. For those of us old enough to remember the "Cold War" which was an ideological war of attrition with a distant foe whom most of us would never meet, it's shocking that we have produced a generation of racist religious zealots willing to kill for Christ and country. Wonder if there's enough predator kids like this to keep a draft from happening?

Jury's out on that one...



Some very sad news: Aaron, the guy behind Uppity Negro, one of my all time favorite blogs took his own life a few months back...

...shit...

Dunno the particulars, but he will be missed. This sad, stupid country could use more Uppity Negros like Aaron..Indeed, it will probably not survive without them...

http://www.uppity-negro.com/archives/001943.html

I've got my old 20th century Bondai Blue iMac out of storage and can now access the internet in a limited capacity. Now...I can update this blog and check email and depress myself with the never ending torrent of BAD news coming out of Bush's Washington. (Don't expect too much in the way of linking, spell-checking or stylish formatting...)

I've been trying NOT to dwell on the resumption of Bush's stranglehold on the American body politic. It's really hard not too...BUT...

I'll start out with a short account of the things that have made me happy recently.

Last Saturday night we had friends over to watch "Duck Soup" by the Marx Bros. It was a much needed dose of old school absurdity. (As opposed to Bush-era absurdity where thousands of people are killed and the survivors made paupers and the main perp GETS RE-ELECTED!) I'd LOVE to be able to turn the Marx's loose at the Bush inaguaration. Can you imagine Harpo encountering G.W.? !God...! Or a bedroom chase scene with all the Bros. and Laura Bush as Margret Dumont? *snicker*

(Note to those who find this era to be terminally depressing: WATCH MORE MARX BROTHERS!)

Today I took MF, my youngest daughter to the grounds of the Arkansas School for the Deaf and had an idyllic morning lounging under the pines and an impossibly blue sky...

I have so much to be thankful for that I feel like a pussy for whining about politics all the time. Whenever I start feeling too sorry for myself, I consider the relative difficulties suffered by humans all throughout history. I imagine being alive during the Dresden bombings, the German occupation of Poland, the US Civil War, the Black Plague, etc etc, etc. My problems are few, my blessings are many.

HOWEVER, every news day brings us yet more evidence of Bush's desire to remake the US into a Right Wing fantasy land.

According to "sources," Bush is purging the CIA of "liberals." Apparently there were too many folks in the Agency who didn't lock step with Junior's agenda to remake the US into an agressive Christian Soviet. Bad news: CIA is now to be run as a spy agency answering to an individual rather than a government. Good news: this will create many, many disgruntled ex-employees who could turn whistleblowers against Junior's fascist regime. Inevitably, they will be disparaged by the government and the controlled US press as "traitors," "weaklings" and of course, "liberals." But the world is watching and listening. Bush is going to look more like Yertle the Turtle and less like the "Leader of the Free World" when all is said and done. Where are Stalin, Hitler and Napoleon now? Kings of MUD!

White House Orders Purge of CIA 'Liberals,' Sources Say

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1114-01.htm



Unsurprisingly, the purge is being sold by the Neocons as necessary post-9-11 house-cleaning.

Bush butt-boy John McCain sez:




...on ABC's "This Week" that he thought Goss' efforts to shake up the CIA were the right thing to do. He described it as a "dysfunctional agency, and in some ways a rogue agency."


"This agency needs to be reformed," McCain said, adding that Goss was "on the right track. He is being savaged by these people that want the status quo. And the status quo is not satisfactory."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/latimests/20041115/ts_latimes/ciatumultcausesworryincongress




The Democrats and few remaining moderate Republicans who are holding their breath waiting for McCain to swoop down from the skies and save them from that big bully Bush can give it up.

McCain was the wet dream of late 20th century wishy-washy retirement age baby boomer psuedo-liberals (a.k.a. the elusive American Moderates...) who wanted the soothing security of GOP rhetoric but STILL wanted to pretend that the conservative vision was an inclusive one. *OOPS!* Looks like McCain is just as bad as some of us suspected, either that or he's a coward who cares more for his personal political career than helping the American people. In other words: he's a Republican Al Gore. ...FUCK...HIM...

There's so much more bad news to report today (global warming, MORE "insurgency" in Iraq, etc etc) but I'll just leave you all with this last über-depression news item du jour:

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1114-22.htm
Published on Sunday, November 14, 2004 by the Toronto Star
Web Abuzz With Vote-Rigging Tales
by Antonia Zerbisias
 

John Kerry may have conceded the White House to George W. Bush, but millions of Americans have not.

My inbox is engorged with some of their emails claiming that the election was hijacked. There are appeals to "bombard" the Ohio secretary of state over the provisional ballots, pleas for "emergency funds" to force state recounts plus entreaties for "first-hand'' anecdotes for a book on election irregularities.

But you wouldn't know anything was out of the ordinary from most of the mainstream media (MSM).

Since Nov. 2, they've produced plenty of post-vote pontification over "moral values," predictions on future White House appointments and premature speculation on who will run against whom in 2008.

Meanwhile, there's practically nothing on the issue consuming my bandwidth and clogging my computer.

The Nation's David Corn feels my pain.

"The election's been stolen! Fraud! John Kerry won!" he writes in the latest issue. "In the (post-election) days, these charges flew over the Internet. The basic claim was that the early exit polls — which showed Kerry ahead of George W. Bush — were right; the vote tallies were rigged. Could this be? Or have ballot booths with electronic voting machines become the new Grassy Knoll for conspiracy theorists?"

Yes ... and no.

No because, in many jurisdictions, including the contentious Ohio and Florida, real problems have been reported. Some local MSM (e.g. the Cincinnati Inquirer) and all kinds of websites (http://www.votersunite.org, to name one) have documented incidences of machine malfunctions, discrepancies between exit poll results and actual votes, "disappeared" votes, "extra" votes and other problems.

Yes because, thanks to a patchwork system of machine and paper ballots, a vast and confusing array of irregularities are turning up in many different counties. That means little coherence and much chaos, propelling wild rumours around the cyberspace, along with legitimate accounts of trouble.

But is that any reason to discount the story? What little MSM reporting there is of the irregularities is done with the intent of discrediting any potential case, however flimsy, against certifying the election results.

"Mocking us as `spreadsheet-wielding conspiracy theorists,' (Washington) Post reporters Manuel Roig-Franzia and Dan Keating signalled their determination to put questions about Bush's victory outside the bounds of responsible debate," noted Sam Parry of http://www.consortiumnews.com on Friday, before launching into a post-mortem of the paper's "sloppy mistakes and untrue assertions."

lso on Friday, the New York Times took a crack at the votejacking charges only to conclude that there is no there there.

"I'd give my right arm for Internet rumours of a stolen election to be true," David Wade, a Kerry campaign spokesperson, tells the paper. "But blogging it doesn't make it so."

This brings us to MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, host of the best, although not best-rated, weeknight hour on U.S. cable. His Countdown With Keith Olbermann (at 8 and midnight) is a smart and snarky look at the day's events, with little of the spin you typically find on TV.

Not surprising, then, that Olbermann has been almost a lone voice in the MSM's treatment of voting irregularities, earning him hero status in blogistan.

Last Tuesday night, he asked Congressional Quarterly columnist Craig Crawford if "every news organization (gave) up on this story the moment John Kerry conceded the election." He got this reply:

"The glib answer, which is part of the truth, is I think everybody was tired after that election. And it was a gruelling one. And so, since John Kerry — and this is the second factor — since Kerry conceded, there wasn't the great desire to run out to Columbus or wherever and try to figure this stuff out. And the concession is the key, because we're often wimps in the media. And we wait for other people to make charges, one political party or another, and then we investigate."

Which once again confirms how journalism is dead while stenography lives and thrives.

Just like they did in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the media are not asking the questions they should be asking.

I am not saying that, given all the irregularities put together, the election outcome would be any different. I am just wondering why there's been precious little probing of the problems and how they must be fixed before the next election.

Of course, driving all these charges of election hijacking is a healthy dose of paranoia based on the all-too-real 2000 election mess. Mix in bewilderment over how so many Americans swallowed the Bush administration lies about 9/11 and Iraq with a generous helping of sore loserdom — and you have the perfect recipe for a conspiracy theory.

But this is one cow pie that stinks to high heaven. You have to wonder why the media aren't sniffing around it.

© 2004 Toronto Star

I'm going to be offline for (hopefully just) a few days while my sick computer goes to the doctor...so...until I return, enjoy these thoughts:


The Neocons are trying to amend the constitution to allow Arnold "Learn to Speak the Fucking Language You Nazi Bonehead" Schwarzenegger to become "Der Fuhrer-nator" of the US after Bush runs the country completely into the ground.



Ads Back Schwarzenegger for President

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=2&u=/ap/20041114/ap_on_re_us/schwarzenegger_president


I can't believe Americans calling themselves "conservatives" are wanting to allow foreign-born individuals to be president! Have they NO knowledge of history AT ALL? If this happens it will make the United States the SECOND Republic founded on the principles of Hellenistic democratic ideals to be invaded and destroyed by Germanic invaders...

Check this out:



http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/firsteuro/invas.html

In 476, the traditional date for the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the German chieftain Odovacer deposed the West's last emperor, Romulus Augustulus, and established an autonomous kingdom in Italy. In 493, however, the Ostrogoths, led by Theodoric (c. 454 - 526), a German leader who had been brought up at the Court of Constantinople, defeated Odovacer and in turn established control over Italy.




A coincidence too close for comfort, eh?

Maybe Arnold should just change his name to Theodoric II and start wearing goatskins, that'll get us all in the mood...

Of course, his national origins ain't the REAL issue. The fact that Arnie even WANTS to have clean up duty after the worst US president in history calls his intelligence and competency gravely into question and SHOULD negate any appeal that he should have. (But it won't-he VILL be der next president...get used to it..."Hasta la vista, BABY!")

Maybe a Schwarzenegger presidency is just what those Red State goose-steppers deserve...nature does indeed have ways of correcting it's failed experiments...

Meanwhile, things seem to be going from worse to tragic in Iraq. The Bushite warlords are claiming victory in Fallujah after having "liberated" it's lunar landscape from the grip of "insurgents" (i.e. any Iraqi stupid or unfortunate enough to still be living in the city regardless of their political, religious or ideological allegiance...)

Hey kids! Guess what? Number two boogie man Abu "Zowie" Zarqawi ESCAPED!!! As Gomer Pyle would say, "Surprise, surprise surprise...!"


Zarqawi threatens to carry on the war
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/922186.cms



I'm sure this won't stop Junior from putting on another Gucci flight suit and playing triumphal God-Emperor. Soon to be playing on a feel good screen near you: "Mission Accomplished 2..."

(I predict that it'll draw more Red State box-office than it's competitor, "Oil Wars: Mosul Strikes Back...")

My friend Lance Miller has some good solutions for dealing with the Bushite junta:



Time to Divorce the Dumbass

http://www.lancemiller.org/blog/

I am not a naive anarchist. I have met the black hooded anarchists of the Northwest and they are dipshits. That said, read on if you will...

I live in a progressive city (Seattle). I am in a graduate program that is all about progressive social change. That is the context of my consciousness. That said, read on if you will...

No matter which way the Presidential election goes, one thing that is a big feedback signal to the world is the popular vote going to George Bush II, a first since 1988 with his father's election result. Congress has become more conservative. This should mean a more conservative Supreme Court for decades. FOR DECADES.

The progressive regions, cities ( Minneapolis, Austin, Boston, Santa Fe et cetera ), and even small networks of friends, need to reevaluate and come up with a plan to survive. Survive is the wrong word. "Come up with a plan of how to live our values" is a better way to say it.

Hey, progressive America, if you are waiting on the mainstream America to catch up to your values.....[please listen to the next words]...you are going to die waiting. You are going to die waiting. This means you are not going to get what you want, if you want the conservatives of this country to some day accept gay marriages or be pro-environment. It ain't going to happen.

So fellow progressives, get your wits together, decide to sellout or stay with your values, and those who stay let's march on without the permission. acknowledgement, respect, or cooperation of the wider American population.

The early 20th century black communities of Harlem and Chicago are good examples for us. They created their own world, and created jazz. In a hostile prejudiced wider culture, they sustained each other, and created a beautiful culture the world still respects and reflects on.

Let's do that, my friends, let's do that. Not alone and autonomous, but together, knitting networks of friends, babysitters, doctors, and ultimately an alternate economy.

If you really want to live with any contentment in yourself, you must join in and create this society I am speaking of.





Lance has brought up an interesting analogy. We live in a culture that has developed it's worst tendencies through the historical suppression of a racial minority. The Red State phenomenon is merely an extension of the memetic pool that spawned the slave trade, the Prussian inspired military culture AND voter suppression based on race. The South has never been fully democratized. It has always had democratic ideals forced upon it from without. The Civil War is the most extreme example of this, but the South's whole history has been one of coerced cooperation with progressive change. It was drug kicking and screaming into the 20th century by Supreme Court decisions forcing it to accept the concepts of Evolution (and the greater issue of separatition of Church and State) and desegregation (with the greater issues of equality of race and class.)

Blood is in the water. The Neocon sharks have tasted this blood and are on the verge of becoming drunk with it. It is our turn to be drug kicking and screaming, but this time we're being drug BACKWARDS beyond even the point of the creation of our core values and institutions. Bush and Co. are getting positively MEDIEVAL on our asses.



Meanwhile my friend Chris S. sent this inspiring quote to me. This sums up the blog phenomenon and why it will probably have the last laugh over the Corpse of Professional Journalism:




There is a literature that does not reach the voracious mass. It is the work of creators, issued from a real necessity in the author, produced for himself. It expresses the knowledge of a supreme egoism, in which laws wither away. Every page must explode, either by profound heavy seriousness, the whirlwind, poetic frenzy, the new, the eternal, the crushing joke, enthusiasm for principles, or by the way in which it is printed. On the one hand a tottering world in flight, betrothed to the glockenspiel of hell, on the other hand: new men. Rough, bouncing, riding on hiccups. Behind them a crippled world and literary quacks with a mania for improvement.

I say unto you: there is no beginning and we do not tremble, we are not sentimental. We are a furious Wind, tearing the dirty linen of clouds and prayers, preparing the great spectacle of disaster, fire, decomposition.* We will put an end to mourning and replace tears by sirens screeching from one continent to another. Pavilions of intense joy and widowers with the sadness of poison. Dada is the signboard of abstraction; advertising and business are also elements of poetry.

I destroy the drawers of the brain and of social organization: spread demoralization wherever I go and cast my hand from heaven to hell, my eyes from hell to heaven, restore the fecund wheel of a universal circus to objective forces and the imagination of every individual.

Tristan Tzara,"Dada Manifesto" [1918]

MY DINNER WITH ASTRONAUT BODY



The night before last, I actually had the opportunity to go out and hear live music performed by a live band. It is a rare occasion when my schedule allows for such things therefore it made me very happy to go out and RAWK most excellently.

Happily, the band in question was Reagan's Polyp (who will hitherto be referred to as The MIGHTY Reagan's Polyp.) For those of you not familiar with the MIghty RP, this is what they are about:

Phree phorm psychedelic washes punctuated by shrill surgical attacks of psychotic psatirical brainrapes...

I saw them YEARS ago at a middle eastern restaurant in Little Rock called International Bazar when they opened for my friend Brooks' band the Glands (RIP.) I can state for the record that even after all these years, the Polyps still got it ALL goin' on!

Although the club was sparsely populated (but densely packed with PEOPLE WHO TRULY MATTER) The Mighty Reagan's Polyp rocked like they were playing at a never ending Altamont in the ninth circle of Hell for an army of Demon-Gopis...

Long story made short: (The Mighty) Reagan's Polyp triggered something deep within me. There was something in that music...something EVIL...

...buy... buy...BUY their products or suffer the consequences.

Get Polyp Stuff at:

http://www.trashfish.com/polyp/

Before the show, I spoke at length with band member Astronaut Body about our mutual love for the Boredoms and was even given a *F*R*E*E* CD of their opus "Love Overdrive."

Hot diggiity damn!

(Note to bands: Give eusephus free CDs and he'll love ya! )

UNITED RED STATES OF AMERICA

or

Darwinism In Action?




Well, it finally happened!

People Down South been saying that "The South Will Rise Agin" and "Forget, Hell!" for the last 139 years. Folks north of the Mason-Dixon line thought that Southerners were just being humorously "quaint" with these repeated assertions. The "election" of 2004 proved once and for all that they meant every word of these threats.

Welcome to "United Red States of America" a place where the darkest, most fucked up fantasy of every promise keeping/militia gun nut/abortionist killer can come true! A military grade humvee in every garage and a King James Bible in every pot. YEEE HAH!

Don't expect the change to be too dramatic at first...the first signs of the NEW WAY won't be immediately apparent, especially if you're the kind of person who gets most of your news from the Cathode Monster instead of the Internet. Oh no, the change will be slooow like cancer, baby!

The good news is that these Slaves of Christ are sowing the seeds of their own cultural destruction. Once I realized that with our all volunteer military, it will be largely THEIR sons who will be dying in Iraq, a sick, hurt part of me suddenly became rather pro-Iraq War. By next year the only new recruits the US Military is liable to recruit are the most indoctrinated pain lovers of the Neocon Revolution.

The word "eugenics" is an ugly one. So let's use the term "voluntary natural selection" instead...

Am I being mean-spirited? Perhaps...But-lemmings that choose to jump off the Neocon cliff will have to accept the unforgiving will of the rocks of reality below. Those who choose to live by the sword, die by the sword. The Neocons can make all the excuses they want, but the insatiable War Machine created by Bush's Mid-East policies will demand more and more young bodies. The coming deficit of willing martyrs to die for Wolfowitz's Napoleon fantasies could be avoided with a draft, but Bush seems convinced, at least publicly, that this war can be fought with an all volunteer army...just like our damaged economy can be healed by cutting all taxes...

...yeah...right...whatever...have another snort, Junior...

What sucks the most in all of this is that there are the bodies of innocent Iraqi children in Fallujah lying on the ground with the bloody boot prints of US Marines on them. MY fucking tax dollars paid for those boots and the bullets that took those kid's lives. It will haunt me forever. All these kids ever wanted to do was live their young lives doing the things that kids all over the world do: playing, learning, and growing. We took that from them forever. FOR NO LOGICAL REASON! The US military's Rape of Fallujah is frighteningly close to the US Calvary's policy towards the Plains Indians in the Indian Wars. "Nits make lice...kill the women and children!"

Where is the lesson here? Bush has an answer for that one, "You're either with us or against us!" With this simple thesis Bush charts a course towards realigning our national policy with concepts no rational, humane person could ever support and I for one will continue to fight his administration with the most appropriate means necessary.

The end of REALITY and the beginnings of a better deal!

Hello!

Welcome to the first installment of what will soon prove to be your greatest addiction: your daily visit with eusephus!

More will appear soon...WATCH OUT!