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'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
posted by eusephus at 11:40 AM
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