Obama shuns DLC meeting

Now this is an improvement!

I'm disgusted and depressed by the made-up rumors spread by the Right against the Democratic standard-bearer, but if you've read this blog long enough, you probably know that I think Obama is actually much too conservative. (I'm a registered Green, you know.)

Nonetheless, the candidate is doing something bold that no other Democratic nominee has done in probably 20 years: He's shunning the Democratic Leadership Council's meeting.

The Democratic Losership Clowncil is the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. But it's guided the party since the '90s. Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and even John Kerry were (at minimum) strongly influenced by these inane sellouts.

The DLC is usually portrayed as centrist, but these days, that means right-wing. The DLC isn't just conservative, but they're more conservative on the wrong issues! For instance, the DLC supports "free" trade, the failed welfare "reform" law, and the illegal Iraq War. This is especially irritating because the DLC now dominates the party.

But now that Obama has skipped the DLC's get-together in Chicago (even though he was in Chicago when it was going on), it may be a sign the DLC is losing pull.

A little too late, I know. And the party still has a looooong way to go before being restored to what it was. It'll take decades.

The DLC actually hurt the party. The Democrats' only major electoral victory since its rise was Bill Clinton. Look how badly they lost Congress and the governorships from 1993 through 2004. Look how badly their presidential candidates did against Bush, of all people! That's because the DLC pushed the party to go after voters who'll never vote Democratic anyway! All it did was alienate reliable Democratic voters and push them to vote Green or independent.

One wonders why the party's big tent hasn't been closed to the DLC clowns.

(Source: http://www.kansascity.com/445/story/685676.html)

School officials threaten language crackdown and forced prayer

Stuff like this amazes you. Sure, social engineering stuff like this is a distraction (because I'm more of an economic populist). But it's the type of loopy-right distraction that ultimately doesn't accomplish shit - except to make its advocates look like fools.

In Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, public school officials are furious. What happened to make them so mad? Did drug-sniffing dogs find scissors in the trunk of a student's car? Did somebody have a "violent" Strawberry Shortcake lunchbox? Did someone fail to get bullied?

Nope! None of those things!

School officials' fury was prompted by the graduation speech given by a high school co-valedictorian. One sentence of the speech was in Vietnamese, and the student dedicated it to her parents, who are from Vietnam and are not fluent in English. She then spoke the same sentence in English, and said it was a call to be your own person.

To most folks, there's nothing offensive about it. But everything offends educrats. And I mean everything. Surely, they didn't like the fact that the sentence was a call to individuality. What really rankled them though was that it was in Vietnamese.

So school officials are now introducing a whole bevy of new policies to soothe their own inner turmoil. One of these new rules will forbid foreign languages in graduation speeches. Look, if they're so worried about foreign languages, what the hell do they think English is? English is called English for a reason. It's not called American. It's called English because it began in jolly old England.

School officials are also considering mandatory prayer at graduation ceremonies - in a public school. Why??? What does this have to do with the speech that offended them so much?

If the prayer rule takes effect, it's almost a certainty the school board is going to be sued. And they'll almost certainly lose. It's already clear the school board is out of step with the community, because of the complaints this proposal has already prompted.

This is the best the Terrebonne Parish public school system can do to distract us from more important issues?

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/us/30english.html)

Fun with teethcosters

Damn. I take the Peace Bike to Covington all day, and I come home to a very slow news day and a teethcoster! The teethcoster turned out to be based within my apartment, but it's a teethcoster nonetheless - because it never would've happened but for the phone company's beedledickery.

A teethcoster is a loss of Internet connectivity. There was even a song about teethcosters back in the '70s called "You Little Teethcoster." Just joking. Actually it wasn't called that.

Anybip, I arrived home today to be confronted by a teethcoster. My high-speed wouldn't work. No way, no how. So I called the phone company, who owns the high-speed service.

Now, this particular phone company has a monopoly on regular phone service in my area and is one of only 2 high-speed providers. Because of its near-monopoly, the public has a right to hold it to a high standard. And I've been quite generous to it.

When I called, the man on the other end scheduled a service call for tomorrow between noon and 4 PM. (Gee, that narrows it down.) But when I was done, I noticed something rather bizarre: The wire from my phone jack to my modem had been pulled out.

Turns out there's only one way this could have happened. This morning, I was rousted out of bed at 7 AM by a threatening phone call from a certain business (which I've never had any dealings with). When I was fumbling for the phone, the wire must have gotten yanked.

How is it the phone company's fault that I got a harassing phone call, which is the proximate cause of the wire getting pulled? Because the phone company hasn't done shit about the harassing calls I've been getting. And these aren't all hang-up calls either.

To give you an idea of how long ago this started, during the first harassing call I remember getting, the song "One Night In Bangkok" by Murray Head was debuting on WCLU. So it had to have been early 1985. I was 11. The phone company hasn't done one thing in 23 years to halt it. Not one fucking thing.

The phone company says go to the police. The police say go to the phone company. I've had to have my number changed about once every 6 months, and it never solves the problem.

I actually hadn't got a call like this in about a month, but if there's one thing I need to do this summer, it's put a stop to this shit once and for all. Especially because I know where today's call came from!

So when I goed to Covington today, one of my first errands was photographing the offending business to add to my road photo collection. I was madder than fuck, and I still am.

When I found the loose wire later, I fixed it and got on the Internet. I promptly e-mailed the phone company to tell them to cancel the service call.

But here's the real fun part: I don't think they're going to cancel it. So they're going to send a repair crew out here for nothing! The crew probably won't mind, because they got extra work by driving out here. But the phone company will, because it's on their dime!

Think of all the money the phone company is going to spend on gas and on paying its repair crew all for naught! It serves the phone company right for not doing anything about the harassing calls, because the whole incident resulted from such a call. And it's not my fault if they come out here, because I told them to cancel the run. If they don't cancel it, that's their stupid fault.

If they try charging me for the run I canceled, I'll fight them on that.

If it comes down to it, I'll hold a protest outside the phone company's headquarters - about the extra charge and about their inaction on harassment. Such a protest is legal. Check the rules.

FEMA gave away hurricane victims' supplies

This story is couple weeks old, but it has to be shoved right back onto the frontburner until there's some answers (seeing how the Bush cult likes to portray themselves as big answer people and all).

It's been revealed that FEMA gave away some $85,000,000 worth of household goods that were intended for survivors of Hurricane Katrina. FEMA held the items - which included necessities like kitchen items, sleeping goods, clothes, and cleaning supplies - in warehouses for 2 years until FEMA gave away the items to various agencies that had nothing to do with hurricane recovery. While a small portion of it went to independent nonprofit agencies like food banks, most of it went straight to other government agencies.

FEMA's excuse? They said it was costing too much to store the items, and another agency wanted the warehouses demolished. Um, well? Then why didn't FEMA, like, give the items to hurricane victims, which is what they were supposed to do in the first place?

The problem has got to be much deeper than it appears. A lot of the items were donations from private parties. But following FEMA's giveaway, they wound up in the hands of other government agencies. And who knows where they went from there?

With the amount of corruption in the government, the items were probably looted by high-ranking officials. And I bet FEMA knew this was going on, because government corruption today is so rampant.

As I write this, there's probably some undersecretary at some Cabinet department who's eating filet mignon off plates that were supposed to go to hurricane survivors. I'm not exaggerating. It's hard to see what use some government agencies would have with some of these supplies, so somebody's obviously skimming the items for personal use.

The Border Patrol, the Bureau of Prisons, and the Postal Service were first in line to receive the items. Organizations like the Department of Homeland Suckyurity also got some items. I doubt the Postal Service has much use for bed sheets and dinner forks, or that the Border Patrol has much use for clothing and toilet bowl cleaner, so I'm wagering that some Bush patronage appointee is taking the supplies home.

All this while the government keeps jawing about how much it's done for the hurricane victims?

(Source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/11/fema.giveaway)

Texas court sides with Taliban

Tell me if this doesn't sound like it isn't ripped straight out of the tyrannical pages of the Taliban.

In 1996, a 17-year-old girl collapsed at a Pentecostal church outside Fort Worth, Texas. Instead of investigating to see if there was a medical cause behind the collapse, church members immediately performed what they called an exorcism by violently pinning her to the floor. (A worshiper had reported seeing a demon running around on church grounds.)

The girl was still conscious and never consented to this exorcism. She fought to break free and was gasping for air. She received rug burns from this restraint, which lasted for 3 hours.

The church did the same thing to her again 3 days later - again without her consent. This time she was bruised heavily.

Not long after this, the previously well-adjusted teenager began experiencing symptoms of what several different therapists agreed was post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder. They determined she was at risk for suicide and cardiovascular problems, and she was unable to eat or sleep.

The victim of the church assaults sued. A jury quite properly awarded her $188,000.

But in BushAmerica, it seems like no sensible court decision lasts very long without some activist judges bopping along and overturning it.

The losing defendants fought their victim tooth and nail and appealed this judgment to the Texas Supreme Court. And the $188,000 verdict was promptly tossed out because they claimed it violated church members' First Amendment rights.

You can't make this stuff up, people. The court actually ruled in favor of those who assaulted the teen by claiming that the assault was protected under the right to religious expression. Seriously, they said that.

I adore the Bill of Rights, and religious freedom is one of the most important rights guarded by this document. But nowhere does this give you the right to injure someone during an exorcism that you performed on them without their consent.

I know that at the time of the incident, the victim was a minor. Then shouldn't the church members who injured her be prosecuted for child abuse? Child abusers can't very well argue that they can abuse their victims because they don't need consent. That would be preposterous.

The Texas Supreme Court's 6 to 3 decision to let the assaulters hide behind the First Amendment is simply nutty. And it guts decades of established law.

The dissent in this case accurately stated that the ruling gives too much immunity to defendants who "merely allege a religious motive" and that the First Amendment does not "sanction intentional abuse in religion's name."

While the court's majority said religious practices that threaten someone's safety "cannot be tolerated as protected religious belief", it denied that the victim's safety was threatened. They said this is because PTSD is emotional and not physical.

What's that again??? It's been proven that PTSD actually involves physical changes in part of the brain. And why should emotional pain be treated as any less of a sign or cause of danger as physical pain?

Maybe I should start my own church so I can break any law I want.

(Source: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/06/28/0628exorcism.html)

Disaster Daniels raises tax

This idiot actually has a serious shot of getting reelected?

I read this morning that Indiana has a new tax law. Most of it takes effect this coming Tuesday, but part of it has been in force since April: the increased sales tax.

Although it took effect on April Fools' Day (suitably enough), it's really no joke. Indiana's already high sales tax of 6% was pushed up to 7%, one of the highest in the country.

Now, Kentucky 40 years ago had Nickel Louie, who raised the sales tax to 5%. (It's now 6%.) But at least that paid for schools. But the tax hike in Indiana doesn't, like, buy stuff. All it does is provide "relief" for large property owners by paying for slashing property taxes.

I know that if you rent, you're paying property tax indirectly, but I've whipped out the calculator to see if you save any money from this. A person who lives alone in a small apartment probably doesn't save anything. A family of 3 or 4 certainly doesn't: By my calculations, the average family already pays hundreds more per year in sales taxes than in property taxes (even with property tax included in their rent). The wealthy exurbanite with a lot of capital investments and a lot of land probably comes out ahead, but few others do.

The less money you have, the smaller your digs, and the more you get hurt by Indiana's new tax "reforms." It's a reverse Robin Hood.

I immediately knew right-wing Gov. Mitch Daniels had to be behind this, considering that he tends to provide a steady stream of bad ideas. I knew that at minimum he must have signed it into law. Turns out the whole thing was his idea.

We had Nickel Louie. They've got Disaster Daniels.

(Source: http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080629/NEWS02/806290496)

Party big shots want Robert Gates to stay

When you saw the header of this entry, you probably thought the party that wants Robert Gates to stay on as Secretary of Defense after Bush leaves office is the Republican Party.

But now Gates is being held up as some great superman by big shots in the Democratic Party - or at least by candidate Obama's advisers. The Democratic nominee's foreign policy and national security advisers are actually urging him to keep Gates (a Bush appointee) as Secretary of Defense.

If you want proof that the Democrats have become Republicans Lite, this is just one of many, many frustrating examples.

Before the Bush era, Gates (Conservative Fool Of The Day 11/29/06) was an Iran/Contragate figure who wanted Reagan to bomb Nicaragua and overthrow that country's democratically elected government. He doesn't exactly sound like someone who'd make the world a safer place.

Man, talk about a revolving door in Washington! If someone as dangerous as Robert Gates can stink up important positions decade after decade, even with a different party in power, something is wrong.

I can understand a candidate reaching out to another party. But to Robert Gates???

What's next? Is the DLC going to tell Obama to keep Michael Mukasey on as Attorney General? Are they going to make him pick Dick Cheney as his running mate? That's about what this is like.

Damn. With stories like this, I'm so glad I'm a Green!

(Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4232070.ece)

Band silenced for criticizing Bush (a blast from the past)

You know BushAmerica's suppression of dissent was out of control when we're still mixing stories from 2006 in with new offerings. If you think things are bad now, it's actually an improvement from a couple years ago.

The Tower City Center mall in Cleveland played host to a music festival a couple years back. One of the bands that played was Mifun, an Afrobeat group. The band members began performing in anti-Bush t-shirts. The shirts showed the Decider with a line (presumably like the universal symbol for a no-no) over the mass of flesh that is often referred to as Bush's face.

During a song called "Supercrush", which is about Bush's evil economic policies, managers of Tower City Center cut the microphones. Though the mic was cut, the band was able to tell the audience what happened. The crowed booed the facility's management in response.

Who runs Tower City Center? It's run by the U.S. Postal Service, an agency that answers directly to the government. Thus the facility is public. So, contrary to what a Nazi might think, the band had a right to free speech inside the mall. End of story.

Then again, Bush is the same international terrorist whose hired thugs violently suppressed dissent at the Devou Park rally in 2000, so I've amassed almost a whole hard drive of articles about incidents like this.

(Source: AP 4/29/06)

Students arrested for protesting war (a blast from the past)

This golden oldie from 2006 shows that America's schools are run by thin-skinned little Nazis. Everything since mid-decade is anticlimactic, of course, but the situation hasn't much improved.

In Frederick, Maryland, 5 high school students got in the trouble of their lives just for protesting against the war when the Marine Corps set up a recruiting booth at their school. All 5 were suspended. Two of them were arrested when the school called in the cops.

Do right-wing school officials have such delicate feelings that they have to cry to the police? Aaaaawww, poor widdle school people!

The students' "crime"? "Distributing unapproved leaflets." Gee, now there's a freedom-loving phrase - not!

Now see why I support homeschooling?

(Source: AP 4/27/06)

Student ignores uniforms

Good. It's about time somebody stood up against this bullshit. Naturally it ain't in America, where everyone's been browbeaten too much to fight.

A 15-year-old high school student in the Australian state of Tasmania is engaged in a battle against school uniforms. In at least one Australian state - Queensland - uniforms can't be required in state schools (which are what we call public schools). In Queensland it's because of a directive by state education officials. Tasmania, however, seems to have no such wide-reaching safeguard.

The student in this story hasn't worn her uniform in over 2 years. She simply refuses. The attire is uncomfortable, pointless, and fails to enhance academics.

The school has retaliated by barring her from field trips and gym class. (Of course, I'd say being banned from gym class is more of a reward than a punishment.) This retaliation has prompted her to seek help from education officials, who agreed that she was being discriminated against by the school for not wearing the uniform.

But when they took the case to a parliamentary committee, right-wing politicians blasted the student's claim.

Just think if enough people in the United States did what the student in this story is doing!

(Source: http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,23924564-3462,00.html)

Wide Stance Larry and Diaper Dave sponsor marriage amendment

When I saw this, I thought it had to be a joke. But nope, it's true, it's true, it's totally true!

I know this federal marriage amendment malarkey comes up about once a year now (if not more), but when you see who's sponsoring it this time, you're gonna laugh a hole in your face.

That's right, folks: Larry Craig and Dave Vitter.

Yes, it's the same Larry Craig who was caught in an airport bathroom trying to engage in sex with an undercover policeman. And yes, it's the same Dave Vitter who hired a prostitute to indulge his diaper fetish. Both of these senators were married at the time of their respective extramarital scandals, yet they're preaching to everyone else about marriage?

The Senate needs to take up a cause people give a shit about, and not this social engineering horseshit. You know what this amendment really is? It's a distraction. If Americans don't find themselves with a higher minimum wage, lower gas prices, and better health care, it's because Congress wastes time on this garbage.

So if anyone's an enemy of hard-working people, the social conservatives are just as bad as the economic conservatives.

And by the way, don't you just love how the self-described states' rights crowd wants to dictate to the states what their laws have to be?

(Source: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/16020.html)

Annoyed!

The drug warriors know they're ridiculous. They know it.

They know the War on Drugs is a failure. But they're addicted to their own propaganda, so to speak, and there's no signs of the war ebbing. If the drug war was successful, we wouldn't have seen the rise of meth in the current decade.

From what a defender of the Rockefeller drug law against cold and allergy medicine said this week, you can tell they know the whole thing has gotten way out of hand. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, a staunch DLCer, held a gargantuan press conference to praise her state's version of the law. She boasted that the law "required us to annoyingly show an ID and sign a log when we purchased those types of medications."

"Annoyingly show an ID"??? You got that right, Lisa, because I'm annoyed at being forced to mortgage my Fourth Amendment rights in the name of a war that was known 15 years ago to be a failure. Like I've said before, this law hurts only the innocent, and the log is in effect a warrantless search.

Or maybe Madigan meant the law requires us to show an ID in an annoying fashion. So that I shall do. If I ever buy allergy or cold medicine, I shall display my ID, throw it in the air, make fake fart noises, then make the ID dance the Lambada, like I used to do with the salt shaker at family meals.

Would that be annoying? Damn fucking right it would!

I'm not even going to link to the TV station's story where I found Lisa Madigan's quote, because most of the story was just so brazenly dedicated to repeating politicians' made-up and unsourced bullshit about how great the law is. With the law being such a failure elsewhere, why would Illinois be an exception? (In other places, the law has been followed by an increase in meth labs.)

School uniforms have a new rival in the category of right-wing ideas that people aren't allowed to criticize.

Like the rest of the Bill of Rights, the Fourth Amendment - which is violated by the requirement that buyers sign a log - embodies rights that weren't created anew with the amendment's passage. These rights already existed and are possessed by everyone in the world. We all love the Bill of Rights, but it didn't take this great document to establish that the right existed. The Bill of Rights lists and guards our rights; it didn't create them.

We must repeal the new Rockefeller drug laws at once. It's a shame the major political parties are so wrapped up in superstition and delusion now that they can't even see their pet cause is a failure.

Jindal faces recall effort

The country has other governors who are probably worse than Louisiana's Bobby Jindal. (The names Mitch Daniels, Matt Blunt, and Haley Barbour come to mind.) Still, Jindal is miserable enough, and it serves the GOP right that Republican Jindal is now facing a recall effort, after the Republicans abused the recall process so fluently.

If it's a slow news day, we can always find something to post about Jindal - like the fact that he doesn't believe in the constitutional clause prohibiting religious tests for public office. But now the big, bright Bobby Jindal balloon that's been bouncing along the Louisiana skyline may be running out of bunk gas.

The Louisiana Secretary of State's office says a recall petition has been filed to oust the governor from power. Jindal is the fifth Louisiana politician to face such an effort since the Republicans in the legislature voted themselves a huge pay increase - which Jindal supports. The petition was prompted by the politicians' support of the pay hike.

This recall drive serves the GOPee right because they mounted a bogus recall effort against the previous governor, Democrat Kathleen Blanco. That effort was just so clearly a "do over" attempt that everyone saw right through it. The Republicans launched the recall petition solely because they were sore losers. Nothing more, nothing less.

The GOP thought police's recall drive against Democrat Gray Davis in California was actually successful. Davis wasn't a great governor, but the recall effort showed that all the Republicans at that time needed to do to win in the long run was lose an election and throw a shitfit about the results.

It's amazing that it's taken so much Republican incompetence for a GOP governor to face a serious recall petition, while all a Democrat needs to do to get recalled is win an election and make the wingnuts cwy.

(Source: http://wwl.com/Recall-attempt-mounted-against-Jindal/2498158)

Prima fascism

You gotta spread the word about this blog. This blog is one of the most strident voices of working-class populism out there to counter the wingnutosphere's bigotry and greed, so - despite our rapid growth - we still need to bring in business.

This is especially true because this blog is being blackballed because of its views. Legal-like types would say the proof of this is prima facie (pronounced "PRY-muh FAY-shee"), which means this assertion is self-evident.

The old Conservative Fool Of The Day blog had an entry on Brian Crall - a Kentucky crackpot who introduced the state's Rockefeller drug law against cold medicine, was investigated in Ernie Fletcher's corruption scandal, and illegally mailed out envelopes showing state employees' Social Security numbers in plain sight. The comment section of Crall's entry was flooded by the head of Partnership for a Drug Free Kentucky, who praised Crall for his drug law. I can't count the number of times this commenter said something to the effect of, "'Prima facie' means 'on its face.'"

His argument was that if a person had more than 24 grams of cold medicine, it was prima facie evidence of intent to cook meth. This man's attempt at mind-reading was laughed at by about 15 different commenters. He was misusing the term to justify deeming someone guilty without even proving it.

If anything is prima facie, it's the evidence that The Online Lunchpail is being blacklisted. If you search on engines like Google or AltaVista, you find hardly any mentions of this blog except on the blog itself. I don't blame the search engines. Rather, I think - actually know - that someone is gaming the system to have this blog suppressed.

I know how many hits the 'Pail gets daily, and although it's a decent number, it's nowhere close to what it should be - considering that, although it's not the only populist-leaning blog, it's probably the only one that dares to publicly recognize the Spittle Doctrine (a concept with widespread support outside the blogosphere), and this blog has at least several entries a day.

As even more solid proof we're being shunned, peep Wikipedia. I'm not saying every person or website who's ever existed should get a Wikipedia entry, but there's certainly a bias by the volunteers who have been allowed to infiltrate the reader-edited encyclopedia. The 'Pail once had an entry. It was quickly deleted - despite the fact that every teensy-weensy right-wing blog or blogger that you can think of had a detailed entry, no matter how minor or how laughable the blog was.

Based on prima facie evidence, the fact of the matter is that there's a concerted right-wing effort to suppress this blog. It's a racket, if you will. There's no doubt in my mind about it.

This was long the case with The Last Word: I remember the deletions of The Last Word that Nazi ISP admins refused to do anything about (because they considered these deletions to be free speech).

It boils down to a powerful clique of fascists being terrified of the free flow of ideas. The problem has gone on for years. It was an issue when I had my first Internet account in 1995, and I'm sure it's a bigger issue now.

So spread the word about this blog. We're in this fight together, workers of America and the world.

3 U.S. soldiers, Iraqi family of 6 killed

I hate stories like this, but the American media won't report them.

This has been yet another bad week in the Iraq War. Now a roadside bomb near Baghdad has killed 3 U.S. soldiers and an interpreter. This brings the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq just this week up to 7. (This week's other casualties were also ignored by the media.)

And a family of 6 Iraqi civilians - including 4 children ages 4 to 11 - was killed when an American jet destroyed their house.

Now do chickenhawk liars like Jim DeMint understand why we don't want the war continuing, let alone drawing in more of America's young people? If they don't get it by now, they're a lost cause.

(Source: http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=221312&Sn=WORL&IssueID=31098)

Doctor removes wrong lung

If we can move away from horseshit issues like the ones the "values voters" are so inordinately obsessed with, maybe we can get to work on cleaning up America's health care crisis.

This is yet another story proving just how broken the U.S. health care system is.

In New Jersey, the State Board of Medical Examiners found that a surgeon removed part of a patient's right lung - when he should have been removing a tumor in the left lung. Removing tissue from the right lung meant no surgery could be performed on the left lung - thereby dooming the patient.

Then the doctor tried covering up his idiotic mistake by telling the patient that the removed lung contained a dangerous tumor - which wasn't true.

The doc's incompetence did lead to the death of the patient - who was a Vietnam War veteran - when the cancerous tumor that was supposed be removed ruptured and drowned him in his own blood. The 60-year-old patient died without a nickel to his name because his health benefits ran out. The surgeon also altered the patient's records to show he intended to operate on the right lung in the first place.

Even after state regulators determined the mistake could have been avoided if the doctor had taken "the most basic and minimal of actions that should be taken by a surgeon in advance of surgery", guess what the punishment for him was? He got his medical license briefly suspended and fined only a bit more than $81,000 (which is mere pennies to a highly paid surgeon).

That's it??? He only had to pay $81,000 for causing a man's death?

What's the excuse from the apologists for the broken health care system now?

I mean, it's so easy for hospitals and HMO's to sue patients because they're 30 seconds late with a payment or because they forgot to return a bedpan. I remember looking at the local legal notices, and they were littered with suit after suit filed by medical corporations trying to squeeze Joe and Jo Sixpack out of every last simoleon they could. I don't remember finding a single damn lawsuit filed by patients in these notices.

Fatal mistakes are par for the course when profit takes priority over people.

(Source: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/06/surgeons_license_is_suspended.html;
http://www.northjersey.com/news/northernnj/Doc_who_operated_on_wrong_lung_suspended.html)

Supremes nix D.C. gun ban, but don't get too excited

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a big case today: D.C. v. Heller. In this landmark ruling, the Big Nine struck down Washington, D.C.'s longtime handgun ban. Bush's so-called Justice Department had submitted a brief supporting the gun ban, so this seems to be a setback for the ruling regime.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) said the ruling was long overdue to reaffirm Second Amendment precedent.

But don't get too worked up. The Supremes aren't applying this affirmation of the right to bear arms to the actions of states (or their respective local governments). In other words, they didn't say the states couldn't ban guns. They said the ruling applies only in D.C. because D.C. just happens to be the only place that ain't in a state.

Man, they really stepped in it. Although the court finally said the Second Amendment protects individual gun ownership, they failed to reaffirm that the Bill of Rights applies to the actions of state governments. Now that's a bad precedent if there ever was one - and it puts decades upon decades of law at risk. The framers of the Bill of Rights did of course feel that these safeguards should protect the people from state abuses, not just federal abuses.

The Supremes also failed to resolve important due process issues that are just hankerin' to be abused again. So the due process matters are going to get worse before they get better.

I bet there's going to have to be a whole new case to decide the constitutionality of the even tougher gun laws in some Chicago suburbs. In Wilmette, Illinois, a victim of a home invasion used a handgun to shoot the invader who threatened him. The invader didn't serve more than a few months after recovering from his wound, but the system threw the book at the victim for having a handgun.

The Bush regime apparently thinks that's fair. But the Bushists are the crew that brings a whole new meaning to "crime pays", so what do you expect?

Have no fear, ish #448 is here!

In the early '90s, one of the major TV newsmagazines did a whole segment attacking a man who was not a public figure or celebrity and probably posed no real threat to anybody. It was truly a Jump the Shark moment for that series.

I figure that if a respected national news program can squander a segment on something like that, I can get away with using The Last Word to expose what I've had to put up with from neighbors for the past 3 years.

Trust me. When you read about their crapola, you'll be overcome by alternate fits of uncontrollable laughter and seething anger. I wasn't going to write about them, but after what just happened this week, I finally reached my limit.

I've published The Last Word since 1993. Its newsletter format is a relic, but I still publish an occasional issue just to keep the tradition alive! So point your pooper here for ish #448:

http://bunkerblast.info/lastword/lw080626

'Sesame Street' pioneer Kermit Love dies

If you grew up watching 'Sesame Street', you may remember the name Kermit Love being prominently featured in the credits.

Love - in addition to playing Willy the hot dog vendor on the long-running children's TV series - was a pioneer in puppetry. On Saturday, Love died at the age of 91.

Contrary to popular assumption, Kermit the Frog was not named after Kermit Love - despite the 'Sesame Street' credentials of both. But it was Love who helped design Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Cookie Monster, and other members of the 'Sesame Street' kick-butt crew.

Love also designed the cuddly Snuggle bear who appeared in fabric softener ads.

Who doesn't enjoy classic 'Sesame Street'?

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080625/ap_on_en_ot/obit_love;_ylt=AorK0gXe8m5C4wqrhmangnADW7oF)

O'Reilly spews more classist bile

I've had this item on the backburner for a couple weeks, because I try not to get too worked up over the ravings of irrational has-beens. And Bill O'Reilly is nearly as much of a right-wing has-been as Rush Limbaugh is.

On his Fox News program recently, O'Reilly discussed an incident in which numerous freshmen at a high school in an upscale New Jersey suburb were suspended from school for distributing topless photos of classmates. The fact that he brang this up wasn't classist. But what he said next was.

Showing his class bigotry, O'Reilly declared that "it's an amazing amount of kids involved with this - 20 - in an affluent school district. This isn't, you know, the inner city. You would think that these kids would have some kind of a values system."

So he's saying that poor central cities don't have a values system while rich suburbs do? You're an idiot, Bill.

Isn't this the same Bill O'Reilly who's always trying to portray himself as some great working-class folk hero (even though he grew up wealthy and lives in a mansion today)?

The public inner-city high school I attended certainly had a better grasp of values than the private suburban high school I attended previously. I remember schoolmates from the suburban school who never had boundaries set for them in their whole lives.

In other words, O'Reilly is downright wrong when he tries to imply that a lack of values is limited to the inner cities.

What? Bill O'Reilly was wrong??? Gee, what a shock. (That's sarcasm!)

(Source: http://mediamatters.org/items/200806110003?f=h_latest)

Supreme Court bans death penalty?

I'm against the death penalty. It's as much of a Big Government tool to use against the public as the terrifying prison boom is.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking the death penalty is only used against murderers and terrorists and possibly child rapists, so why should we be worried about it? Quite the contrary. There have been documented instances in recent American history of people being put to death who were almost certainly innocent of the crime they were executed for.

Not only that, but the death penalty no longer applies to just those convicted of murder, child rape, and terrorism. In the '90s alone, the federal government established at least 60 new crimes that were eligible for capital punishment. These days, even certain drug offenses can bring a federal death penalty, even when the offender played no role in any murder.

Today, however, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a Louisiana case that the death penalty can't be imposed for raping children - a crime so unspeakable that it's enough to make anyone sick. According to the court, the punishment is out of proportion to the crime under evolving standards of decency - despite child rape being among the worst crimes imaginable.

Like I said, I'm not a capital punishment supporter. But what this ruling really means is that the death penalty is also out of proportion to any other crime. What crime is worse than child rape? I don't think there is any. Child rapists are the criminals I hate the worst.

I believe the crime of child rape is worse even than murder. Child rapists kill souls slowly.

If capital punishment is banned for the worst criminals for being too severe for the crime, then obviously I'd have no choice but to say the death penalty is also illegal for everyone else. Based on the reasons given for the ruling, I'd be inclined to interpret this decision as effectively a total death penalty ban.

Think how bad it's going to look when the government tries executing a farmer for growing too much pot when you're not even allowed to execute a child rapist.

Wimbledon organizers afraid of pigeons

Taking a page from the Louisville Republican machine, are they?

Organizers of the Wimbledon tennis tournament in London are upset that pigeons act like pigeons. So they've utterly lost it.

Angry with pigeons soaring over the outdoor restaurant for media celebs, the forces of Wimbledondom opted to bring in marksmen to shoot the birds dead.

The effort is likely illegal in that locale, because organizers didn't even try nonlethal methods of keeping the birds away (with the exception of a brief attempt at using hawks to scare away the pigeons).

Ever think maybe the media folks could try eating indoors like everyone else? The world does not revolve around the privileged few who think they should get to work and eat outside while most people have to spend 40 waking hours a week cooped up indoors.

(Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/news?slug=reu-wimbledonpigeons&prov=reuters&type=lgns)

More judicial activism in Exxon case

The 1989 Valdez oil tanker spill that fouled Alaska's coastline caused such severe losses that in 1994 a jury ordered Exxon to pay $5,000,000,000 in punitive damages. That, however, wasn't judicial activism. That was justice. The jury simply followed the law to make sure thousands of Alaska residents who lost their livelihoods and property were treated fairly.

But the law was no match for the forces of Exxondom, and in 2006, the real judicial activism occurred. The incredibly profitable oil giant got its conservative friends on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to slash the judgment in half.

It was an activist ruling. No question about that.

But today it got worse.

Now the U.S. Supreme Court has cut the remaining $2,500,000,000 of the ruling to a mere $500,000,000. To Exxon, that's pennies, because Fuxxup rakes in some $40,000,000,000 a year. Just think how much Exxon owns in assets.

The Supremes ruled that punitive damages can't exceed what the company has already had to pay for economic damages. Oh yeah? What part of the Constitution or any statute or legal theory says that?

Quite the contrary, punitive damages are usually several times the economic damages. They're called punitive damages for a reason. The word 'punitive' is related to 'punish'. It's hardly much of a punishment for the wealthiest corporation in the world to have judgments against it slashed to only one-tenth of what the jury said was fitting.

With the 9th Circus and the Federalist Society extremists on the Supreme Court, Corporate America knows they're going to get paid when their case gets heard.

So sing it, corporate types:

We've got the 9th
Who needs those juries
We've got the 9th, babe
And the SCrOTUS today!

(That's sung to the tune of Bob Seger's tender love ballad "We've Got Tonight.")

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=2f961f2e-fcab-4776-8bf1-4a2e29789bd7)

"School" allowed to continue electric shocks

It's hard to believe, but it's true.

After all the scandal about use of electric shocks at Judge Rotenberg Educational Center - a Massachusetts gulag that houses mentally challenged, autistic, or otherwise disabled children and adults - you'd think the state would have finally put a stop to it.

But instead, the state has now approved the continued use of this torture. This after an incident last year in which a call by someone posing as an administrator caused several detainees to be awakened in the middle of the night to be shocked. One was shocked 77 times.

That the shock treatments would be reauthorized brings a whole new meaning to outrageous.

Rottenberg is claimed to be the only facility in the U.S. that uses electric shocks. However I'm sure there are others, seeing how the gulag racket likes brutality.

(Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/023494.html)

Right-wing media censors war coverage because of election

We call it the right-wing media for a reason. It's because it's right-wing. That's why. And when it's right-wing, it's so, so right-wing!

The American media's spotty war coverage was never great, but it's gotten worse. While the 3 leading networks broadcast 1,157 minutes of coverage last year, they've only had 181 minutes so far this year, with the year almost halfway over.

Gee. I wonder why that could be.

Couldn't possibly have something to do with it being an election year, could it? Why yes, it could. Especially because of media execs' Republican leanings and the fact that every war item is bad news for their party.

CBS correspondent Lara Logan said she's had to fight just to get her war reportage on the air at all. She observed, "If I were to watch the news that you hear here in the United States, I would just blow my brains out because it would drive me nuts." In fact, CBS won't even place a full-time correspondent in Iraq anymore.

Not exactly a valiant bunch, them media execs are, if they don't even let their own reporters put war items on the air.

(Source: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/34301)

Doctor's office accused of imprisoning patient who couldn't pay

If this isn't a reason why America needs a health care system (which it barely has now), what is?

In Duluth, Georgia, a doctor's office has been charged with false imprisonment because of the way it allegedly treated a patient.

According to the indictment, the doctor and his assistants detained a woman against her will when she was unable to pay her bill. They had reportedly told her the visit would cost $98 but then charged her $755.

During the hours-long hostage crisis, staffers allowed the patient to get some paperwork out of her car, but they reportedly held her remote control keychain inside the office so she couldn't drive away.

If a doctor's office tells you that you'll be charged $98 but then tries charging you $755, what are you supposed to do? Are you supposed to pay them $755 after being told it would be $98? Fuck no! You fight it!

Apparently this is not an isolated incident. Other medical offices (namely, ones that are affiliated with greedy HMO's) have been reported to be pulling this exact same scam on an increasing basis.

A vast majority of doctors and medical staffers would never participate in such a rip-off. But you have to watch out for the very few who would. So if you go to any type of medical office for treatment, make sure nobody gets a hold of your wallet, your money, your credit card, or your keys. Your security first; good manners second.

(Source: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/gwinnett/stories/2008/06/20/duluth_clinic_captive.html)

Fascists harass car dwellers

The government needs to get its hairy ass screwed on straight.

With more and more Americans being forced to live out of their cars as a result of the "new economy" and greedy, foreclosure-happy banks, what does the government do as a result?

Does it limit banks' foreclosure efforts? In most areas, no. That would make too much sense.

Does it require builders of new subdivisions to set aside a certain percentage of homes for low-income households? In most places, nope! That's because Freeper types have cried that this is un-American commieism. (The Freeper terrorists think "freedom" means outlawing labor unions.)

So what does the government do? Oh, it punishes the people who have to live in their cars, of course.

In Los Angeles, City Clowncil passed an ordinance this year on overnight parking, which was designed to punish the car-bound. In fact it's illegal (not just in L.A. but reportedly throughout the state of California) for people to live in their cars (even if they have no other choice).

Other cities are even more unbending in punishing folks who live in cars or RV's. Some cities even confiscate their cars without a trial (which is unconstitutional).

Extremists think this still isn't enough, and they're lobbying to have the disadvantaged punished even further - despite the fact that their proposals run afoul of state regulations requiring accommodations for others who use local waterways.

It gets worse.

Folks who are forced to live in their cars have increasingly found themselves verbally harassed by wealthy locals.

I'm sorry, but there's no excuse whatsoever for this conduct (especially from so-called adults). It's terroristic threatening, and it's a classist hate crime. Police, prosecutors, and judges need to throw the book at the harassers, and lawmakers need to pass much stiffer laws against them.

If right-wing mayors didn't squander all their resources figuring out ways to implement school uniforms and bellyaching about the "social promotion" hoax, there might be more scrutiny of this outrage. If right-wing city governments spent half as much effort in combating the housing shortage as they do trying to eliminate small apartments in an effort to drive out poor people, people might not have to live in cars in the first place.

In other words, they have no business punishing the poor for living in cars, because it's often the city's fault they have to live in cars.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080623/ap_on_re_us/mobile_homeless)

Report on teen cult makes it to YouTube

Since November, I've been to 7 protests that I was invited to against an abusive behavior modification facility near Cincinnati. Back before this series of demonstrations, WCPO-TV had done its own investigation of this right-wing cult and exposed how the program destroys teenagers and their families:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OfCXLdOAwk

That rare report provides more insight into what's been going on for years at that facility: the cultish ways, the "motivating", the keeping kids out of school (which I'd think would be a violation of attendance laws), and so on.

Unfortunately, the media has otherwise covered up what goes on, because the cult is supported by people in high places (including local media execs).

Supremes get sonar case

This is another case in which environmental regulations are in danger of being gutted by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Under a judge's order, military operations off the California coast may not use sonar within a certain distance of marine mammals and must reduce sonar power during certain conditions. That's because the training area includes dozens of marine mammal species, some of which are protected by the Endangered Species Act. And sonar may ruin the hearing of marine mammals such as dolphins and whales as it booms across the sea. Some of these water-dwelling animals have also become beached and stranded after sonar exposure.

But the Bush regime (as usual) doesn't get it, so it's taking the case to the SCrOTUS in an attempt to get the order overturned. What it boils down to is that the dimwitted Bush White House thinks the Pentagon shouldn't have to follow the law.

Ironically, nixing the environmental regulations would involve overturning the Ninth Circuit, which had actually made a proper ruling (in contrast to its usual Bushism).

If the Supreme Court does rule in the ruling party's favor again, how do we expect laws and regulations to ever be enforced?

(Source: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/41924.html)

Supreme Court lets DHS break environmental laws

The Department of Homeland Suckyurity's fence along the Mexican border continues to be an overpriced boondoggle.

Worse yet, Bush's DHS head Michael Chertoff has chosen to ignore environmental and other laws and regulations to build the fence.

Now the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a case filed by environmentalists seeking to stop Jerkoff from breaking the law.

I guess laws are just "damn pieces of paper", huh, George?

Then I guess that law against possessing markers at the park is just a "damn piece of paper" too.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=4d008a78-dd8d-4d6f-bd4f-9d90802e0865)

Comedian George Carlin dies

Legendary comedian George Carlin died yesterday of heart failure at the age of 71.

Carlin of course was the man who gave us the uproarious "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine, which was pivotal in defining radio and TV "indecency."

As a tribute, I'm regaling you with my "Seven Made-Up Words" routine. These are words that are not vulgar but were designed to substitute for words that are. I coined these terms to evade library censorship filters.

It's hard to believe that in the late '90s the country was so prudish that I had to start making up words because I wasn't allowed saying the words that were fit to describe the situation. Mad magazine did this in the 1950s to get around comic book censorship codes, but I had to do it 40 years later because of Newt Gingrich being such a Hitler.

My "Seven Made-Up" words are:

beezlydolf
beezweezer
noxawoxawoxawoxalism
peevoglums
pleezixmouth
vivvlyvoovler
wozzfozz

You're probably wondering why 'skeezewocker' isn't included. That's because I didn't invent this term. I first saw it used by an Internet troll in the mid-'90s in a post assailing a foreign dictator.

George Carlin was cool.

Minnesota legalizes child abuse

Twelve swats with a paddle is child abuse. End of story.

But a few weeks ago, the Minnesota Supreme Court in effect legalized this degree of parental corporal punishment. If nothing else, this indicates how weak the child abuse statutes are, if the court can interpret the law to allow such an outrage.

The incident that prompted this case had resulted in intervention by child protective services. But now, following this ruling, Minnesota may have some of the weakest child abuse laws in America.

I went to several schools that wielded a mean "board of education", but I think the most swats I ever got in one session was 8, which was an outrageously high number. If 8 was more than excessive back then, why should 12 be considered acceptable now?

(I'm actually being too generous to the parent in this story. Apparently this case involved 36 blows spread out over 3 increments.)

I wouldn't be too surprised if lawmakers attempt to craft a stronger statute against child abuse. Fanatics will whine then, because they think children are theirs to batter. But the fanatics are going to have to learn to live with it.

(Source: http://www.startribune.com/local/19409584.html)

School begins drug tests of all students

Well, folks, it's happened: An American public school system has implemented drug tests of all students.

The outpost of this tyranny is Beaufort County, North Carolina. Under this policy, any student - not just ones who participate in extracurricular activities - can be tested for drugs if the school suspects them of being high.

I remember hearing something around mid-decade about a school district in western Texas having a universal drug testing policy, but I don't remember what became of it. I vaguely recall a parent threatening to sue the school for testing his preteen child, but I'm assuming this lawsuit warning did the policy in.

I guarantee there's going to be some lawsuits in North Carolina. I'm fully aware the Supreme Court has allowed drug tests of students in extracurricular activities, but the difference here is this: School clubs and sports aren't compulsory. School is. The Beaufort County policy applies to all students - not just those who opt to sign up for the track team or the yearbook club.

As bad as the Supreme Court rulings allowing drug tests of student athletes and club members are, permitting drug tests of all students would be thoroughly ridiculous.

If nothing else, this is more proof of the bunker mentality in which society tars everyone as stoners and "dry druggies." I think the school system is doing this just to mask its own inability to effectively deal with whatever issues the system may have.

(Source: http://www.wdnweb.com/articles/2008/06/21/news/news01.txt)

Gunfire hits Democratic candidate's office

I wonder what Freeper was behind this?

In Fort Worth, Texas, the law office of a Democratic candidate for state representative has found itself the target of gunfire.

The office of Kalandra Wheeler was riddled with bullets from a shotgun on Thursday night. Several pieces of ammo entered the office right over the candidate's chair.

How do right-wing types get away with calling everyone else terrorists when they're the ones who shoot up opponents' offices? Weird how Democratic offices keep getting burglarized, vandalized, and shot - while this never happens to Republican offices. (The only exception I can think of offhand is in West Virginia when a certain known GOP hoaxster just happened to be around when shots were fired near a Republican office.)

This is reminiscent of the recent instances when right-wing terrorists shot a radio station office in Houston and burned an antiwar bus in New Jersey. There's no end to the violence from the Bushbots.

The government needs to launch a detailed investigation of right-wing organizations to get to the bottom of these terrorist acts.

(Source: http://cbs11tv.com/local/Kalandra.Wheeler.State.2.753457.html)

Self-righteous goof builds robot to harass homeless

Talk about a guy with too much time on his hands!

A swanky bar owner in Atlanta is so upset about some people having less than him that he's built a robot to attack those who have less than him.

He calls it the "BumBot", and he uses it to harass the homeless. The robot is a meat smoker on wheels armed with a bright light, loudspeaker, camera, and water pistol. The man uses a remote control to send the 400-pound contraption tooling down the street and tearing up the pavement.

And if homeless people don't vamoose, the squirt gun is deployed.

You know that's assault, don't you?

I guarantee you that if I was walking down a public sidewalk and this robot began bothering me, I'd kick the thing clean down the street. It's going to be uproarious when someone does just that.

On the other hand, maybe this robot should inspire us to build one of our own to help protest against the cult I've been demonstrating against. That way, if we can't make it to a protest, we can send the robot in our place.

I'm serious about this. If I knew how to build a robot, I might consider constructing one for this purpose!

(Source: http://gizmodo.com/360585/homemade-bumbot-wages-war-on-riff+raff)

Extremists want channel removed from cable

When it comes to coverage of the failed Iraq War, few outlets are more objective than Al Jazeera, the Middle Eastern TV channel. Their coverage beats that of the major American media hands-down.

Al Jazeera's website is often blocked in the U.S. If you try accessing it, notice your access to it is sporadic.

Disturbingly, American cable companies have also shunned the English-language version of Al Jazeera solely because its coverage is not pro-war. Predictably, Comcast - the Wal-Mart of the cable industry - refuses to carry it, for that reason.

A few American cities are lucky, however, in that their cable system offers Al Jazeera. Among them is Burlington, Vermont. But if the spittle contingent gets its way, it will be no more.

A right-wing hate group called the Defenders Council of Vermont - which has a formidable 11 members statewide - is trying to pressure the city's cable system to remove Al Jazeera. The Defenders Council calls Al Jazeera a terrorist propaganda organ because of its failure to support the war.

The claim that Al Jazeera is a terrorist outlet is a lie. But this lie is not atypical of the Freeper types who squirm around in concealed poo-poo Luvs while waiting for Netflix to send them their 'Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed' DVD. According to these liars, anyone who doesn't support the war is a terrorist and a communist.

But Burlington's townsfolk say they're quite happy with Al Jazeera. For once, they get to watch decent war coverage. At a public forum, people staunchly praised the channel.

Nonetheless, the Defenders Council remains undeterred in its censoriousness. A spokesman for the group has hosted showings of a film attacking Al Jazeera. The film was produced by Accuracy in Media, a Washington-based right-wing klavern that defends Joe McCarthy and is responsible for forming Accuracy in Academia, which published right-wing hate paper Campus Report.

Predictably, many of those who want to drop Al Jazeera admit they've never even seen it! They just said they "have it on good authority" that it's biased against America.

If any network is anti-American and pro-terrorist, it's Fox News Channel. As an example of Fox News Channel's desire to give a voice to America-hating traitors, they welcome contributors like Liz Trotta, who thought it would be funny to assassinate Barack Obama. Yet I don't know of any American cable system today that doesn't carry Fox News. (One hotel chain in the Midwest dropped CNN while keeping Fox News, because they considered CNN to be not pro-war enough.)

Faux News even reported that Al Jazeera shows videos of terrorists (with their faces hidden under masks) beheading hostages in Iraq. Fox's claim, however, turned out to be an outright lie. (The claim was picked up by other news organizations, some of whom later corrected it.)

With Fox News Channel receiving almost total penetration, at least the Burlington, Vermont, cable system is willing to provide an alternative.

(Source: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080611/NEWS02/806110312/1009/NEWS01;
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080619/NEWS02/806190309/1009/NEWS01;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/nov/24/usa.terrorism)

"Tough love" versus "tough shit"

I was summoned to the east side of Cincinnati again last night for another roadside protest against the teen behavior modification center that I've helped protest before. Such a deployment is always a possibility I have to be prepared for, but if I have to keep doing this when I'm 90, I will. The facility claims to base its program on "tough love", but that's just their NewSpeak for torture, as the place has been confirmed to be abusive.

We had 6 - count 'em, 6 - participants in last night's rally. The facility's supporters who countered us were for the most part as irrational, babyish, and cultish as ever.

But there was a bright spot. The grandmother of one of the inmates drove out of the center and pulled up to us. We explained to her the center's history of abuse and dishonesty. She seemed receptive to our message - which is especially valuable because she has a family member who is confined in this gulag.

This shows one of the main purposes of these protests. We educate. If a parent or grandparent hasn't yet been drawn deeply enough into the facility's cultish ways, there's a strong chance the information we provide can help them rescue their family member from a lifetime of hurt at the hands of the facility.

But this ain't an easy task. The center's supporters are usually unreasonable and frankly vulgar in their confrontations. Vulgar never hurt us. We protesters are tough men, tough women, and tough kids, so the filthy language of the programmies isn't something we haven't heard before, nor is it something some of us don't use on a minutely basis.

When push comes to shove, sometimes you have to fight fire with fire, and it was late in the evening that the real misbehavior beginned. When one of the program parents drove out of the cult's parking lot, she saw our orange-on-white "SAVE YOUR KID" sign and began mocking it, as if she was trying to hurt the sign's feelings. She flailed her arms and yelled, "Saaaved! Saaaved!"

When she saw we had a camera on a tripod, she yelled from her car, "Get that camera off of me! I'm gonna sue!"

Immediately following this episode, another parent pulled out of the facility in her hulking vehicle. She scowled at us that we were blocking the road. Which wasn't true, of course.

My response to this temper tantrum? "Tough shit," I calmly replied.

You don't know how good that felt! Since the programmies are so unreasonable, why should I be squeaky-clean in return?

My response may have precipitated a call to authorities. When we were getting ready to leave shortly thereafter, a white SUV that was zipping northwest on the main road suddenly slowed down and pulled up to us. Then it sped away as quickly as it appeared. I'm guessing this was an unmarked police SUV or it was one of the programmies trying to scope us. If it was the cops, I guess they realized we weren't doing anything illegal.

Afterward, 3 of us went to IHOP for din-din, and we celebrated this successful protest by blowing bubbles through the straw in our sodas until the beverage rose to the top of the glass.

The programmies don't scare me one bit, and the facility has got to be getting close to being closed down by now. I'm told that a similar gulag in Orlando got shut down recently because of demonstrations like this.

All 7 of the protests I've been to have been unparalleled fun and all, but the real satisfaction comes when the facility gets closed once and for all.

(More info: http://www.isaccorp.org/kidshelpingkids.asp)

Australia becoming the next Ritalin nation?

I know the American psychiatric industry isn't very clueful, but I guess now it's exporting its greed and fascism.

Australia may become the next country to lose a generation of its brightest young people, as prescriptions of Ritalin - the toxic ADHD drug - have soared lately.

The extent of the massacre by the Ritalin pushers doesn't appear to be nearly as severe in Australia as it is in the U.S. - yet. But across Australia, there are 5 known cases of Ritalin being prescribed to toddlers who are only 2 years old - despite the known side effects.

Ritalin for 2-year-olds??? If a 2-year-old doesn't sit still at a fancy restaurant, ever think maybe it's because they're only 2?

Ritalin is a drug. If you haven't been prescribed Ritalin, using it will result in you being treated as a criminal, just as if you shot up heroin. So why is it considered acceptable to give Ritalin to a 2-year-old for ADHD, a condition many doctors are skeptical of?

I believe ADHD is a hoax by drug companies and schools. I'm allowed to say that because I was labeled with this spindrome in my youth. It is a massive fraud based on greed and control.

So let's stop drugging children - here, there, and everywhere.

(Source: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23780441-2,00.html)

House approves government spying and telcom immunity

With the record of the Bush regime and its congressional enablers, this story seems anticlimactic. But it just goes to show how out of control the GOP/DLC monarchy is.

The Decider is praising Congress for its so-called compromise that would allow the government to spy on phone communications without a warrant. They call this a compromise? A compromise with what??? The warrantless eavesdropping program was and is unconstitutional. How can you compromise constitutional rights?

The Fourth Amendment is very clear. For the government to listen in on any communications is a search, and it requires a warrant. Period.

The new bill also provides immunity to phone companies for allowing past and future wiretaps, no matter how illegal the wiretaps were when they occurred. In other words, telcoms can break the law and get away with it.

When Bush claims this new policy will help fight terrorism, he's a liar. (Just like he is about everything else.) Under the FISA rules of 1978 that are now being gutted, there was no threat of terrorists escaping, as long as these rules were followed. That's because FISA allowed the government to get retroactive clearance if surveillance had to be done immediately. But that's gone now along with the Fourth Amendment.

Gee, talk about being let down by the major parties. You can't pin much blame on me from now on, because I've switched to the Greens, but this story just goes to show what a big disappointment the current congressional leadership (to use the term loosely) is.

(True to form, the allegedly Democratic Congress has higher approval ratings among Republicans than among Democrats.)

The Senate is expected to approve the changes next week, and Bush of course is expected to sign the whole sordid bill into law.

(Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-06-20-bush-eavesdropping_N.htm;
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1929314820080620)

School board caught lying about uniform survey

If you've read my work for more than a week, you know one thing above all else: I (like a majority of Americans) am squarely opposed to making students in public schools wear uniforms. I attended 2 Catholic schools where the dress code more or less amounted to a uniform policy, and I can't even begin to tell you how out-of-control the discipline situation was.

I was against it when I was 13; I'm even more against it at 34. There's more than enough evidence that uniforms are detrimental to discipline, because it forces schools to shift attention away from more serious rulebreaking. I watched it happen right before my very eyes (as the band Chicago would say).

When you hear of a school sending a survey to parents about uniforms, be wary. If a parent or their child has fought the school before, they ain't likely to receive a survey. (I found this out after I circulated that petition.)

Now school trustees in South Bend, Indiana, have been caught with their polo shirts down around their ankles manipulating a uniform survey and lying about it.

At issue was whether uniforms would be mandated at Riley High School. The school board made uniforms obligatory at this campus, citing a survey that they claimed showed strong parental support for this fascism.

But not so fast! Numerous parents say they never got a survey. One estimated that 45% did not receive the questionnaire. Though the school board claims to have sent the survey out twice, one parent says he never received the survey even once.

Whoops. Gotcha, school bored!

I'm not surprised that school officials would lie about something like this. But that they'd make it so obvious is astonishing.

For years I've thought it odd that Indiana refers to its school systems as "corporations." Judging by the dishonesty and tyranny of school officials in South Bend, it looks like the term is fitting in this case.

(Source: http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080617/News01/806170318/0/BIZ)

Census swindled New Jersey town

Look it up: Teterboro, New Jersey.

Teterboro is a tiny town known for its general aviation airport. Like Supai, Arizona, Teterboro was grossly undercounted in the 2000 census - the count that governs congressional districting, electoral vote allocation, and funding of public services until 2010.

In fact, the census only counted about one-third of the small community's residents. An entire development - where the mayor and all 4 city council members lived - was missed entirely.

You're probably asking how the census could be so careless as to skip an entire neighborhood. As it turns out - ahem, ahem, ahem - Teterboro just happens to be not very Republican. Like the county that includes Supai, Teterboro is heavily Democratic in federal elections.

So this is yet another case where the census undercounted a Democratic area - costing it funding and legislative clout. Weird how I've found at least 6 or 7 instances like this afflicting Democratic areas, but not a single damn one affecting a Republican area.

Isn't it strange that the Republican states also gained an unusually high number of congressional seats under this census? Now there's a thing that makes you go, "Hmmm."

Supremes say corporations have right to spend your money to fight workers

I'm mad.

This is what I mean when I say the right-wing Supreme Court just pulls stuff out of its ass. It's also another case where the hero worship of federal preemption was wielded to mercilessly bludgeon all that challenges corporate tyranny.

In 2000, California passed a law saying that companies that receive taxpayer funds from the state can't use the money on union-busting activities. The law was sensible indeed.

Naturally, Coprorate (sic) America totally lost its shit when this law was enacted. It cried that the law violated corporations' "rights" about anything and everything.

Sorry, but corporations ain't supposed to have no rights. Our constitutional rights club is only for living, breathing organisms - not corporations.

But today the U.S. Supreme Court overturned California's innovative law, citing a federal law that supposedly contradicts it.

Oh yeah? I thought conservatives were supposed to be the ones who were for states' rights. The states clearly have the constitutional power to pass laws like the California statute.

An AFL-CIO lawyer said, "We don't believe Congress ever intended to force the states to provide taxpayer money to fight workers who are trying to organize a union." Knowing Congress, however, who really knows? The more important issue is that even if Congress intended it, they have no constitutional power to make the states fund union busters.

What if you don't want your tax dollars going to greedy corporations for them to suppress unions? According to the Supreme Court, you're shit out of luck now. In the SCrOTUS's fucked-up world, you now have to work harder for less so your employer can use your tax dollars against you so you can work even harder for even less!

If Big Business wants to greedily break up unions so badly, why can't they do it by spending their own ill-gotten loot instead of doing it on the taxpayers' dime?

With the Supremes' decree that taxpayer money must fund anti-union campaigns, I think America has just about attained pure corporatism - a political model where nothing exists outside the corporate world and where the government exists exclusively to foster corporate interests.

In light of the latest ruling, I also think maybe it's time for a constitutional amendment to restore laws like the California law. (Not like the Supreme Court has paid much attention to the Constitution lately.)

(Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/19/BA0P11C0TK.DTL&tsp=1)

Officials poison birds (a blast from the past)

This is a 1999 story that's been shoved aside for a while now, but the item just goes to show how out of sync corporatism is with the world.

In Louisville's Jefferson County - which at the time was run by right-wing Republicans - the area around the courthouse was graced by beautiful starlings nesting in the magnolia trees.

But this didn't sit well in the halls of power. County officials complained that the birds smelled of poopy, which offended their olfactory sensibilities.

So how'd they get rid of the starlings? Normal folks suggested spraying the area with a safe grape solution to ward off the birds. But the courthouse big shots were out for blood, so they didn't even try anything this sensible. Instead they decided to poison them - despite protests from animal lovers.

Thousands of birds, cruelly poisoned to death. Just to please some Republican officials who were offended by the birds' smell and were too lazy to find other options.

It's not just a matter of cruelty but a matter of disrespect. The starlings did what they did because they were starlings, and they weren't there to be killed by indignant politicians.

City attacks couple over religion

This story is a few days old, but it's just now getting national exposure.

Right-wing city officials in Des Moines, Iowa, are engaged in a war against religion. A couple there is under attack because they dared to paint Pagan symbols on their own fence.

According to the city, the symbols are nothing but graffiti - even though the couple owns the fence where the symbols appeared.

This is such a clear case of someone being discriminated against for their religion that I almost can't believe this is going on in America in 2008. Wait, actually I can, considering how far down the toilet of wingnuttery the country has eddied.

The city began harassing the couple when a neighbor complained about the symbols. This despite the fact that a city inspector already approved the fence with the symbols on it.

(And yes, bigots have already assailed the couple in the comment section of the Iowa paper.)

(Source: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080610/NEWS/806100380/-1/LIFE04)

Bush vetoes farm bill (again!)

Yawn.

Bush is known for making a spectacle of himself, but after 8 years of this shit, it's gotten damn old.

Last month, Congress overrode Bush's veto of an important farm and food assistance bill. But it's not known if this did any good, because a printing error caused an entire section
to be omitted. (The GOP can't do anything right, it seems.)

So the bill had to be resubmitted - and now Bush has vetoed it again. His latest excuse? He says the bill isn't necessary because farmers are earning record income.

Seriously. He said that. He apparently thinks farmers are wallowing in money.

Um. Uh. George??? Have you actually been around any farmers lately? Fuel prices, record floods, and factory farming are just several factors that have been killing their livelihoods.

Luckily, however, Congress is expected to override this veto too.

(Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/bush-vetoes-latest-version-farm/story.aspx?guid=%7B9D702CA8%2D3633%2D4FD9%2D970A%2D7ABEDF73C84A%7D&dist=msr_6;
http://www.kypost.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=b2c8444f-80fb-4b79-afb8-ea6a05a8f0e7)

Cop who abused involuntary commitment won't be rehired

All those who still claim that the process of having someone involuntarily committed has never been abused in the history of the world can kindly retract their mouths to the unopened position now.

A few years ago, there was a Somerville, Massachusetts, police officer who was also a real estate agent. One day, a woman approached the policeman and asked for help in evicting her former husband from a building she owned, where the man had been squatting in the basement.

The cop immediately resorted to the involuntary commitment tack. He called a local psych ward to try to have the man locked up - even though squatting is no grounds to have someone institutionalized. They may have had grounds to evict him, but not institutionalize him.

Around this time, the officer took an interest in this building and decided he wanted to buy it at a cheap price. And wouldn't ya know it? Turns out the mere presence of the squatter was preventing the sale from taking place.

So what did the officer do? He had the guy committed, of course.

If someone in authority such as a police officer can misuse the involuntary commitment process, who's safe?

The city fired the cop from the force for abusing involuntary commitment in an effort to carry out the real estate deal. He was also fined $10,000 by the State Ethics Commission. Now the firing has been upheld.

I bet the man who got committed can sue the police officer over this. If you got committed to a mental ward just for being an obstacle to a cop's property deal, you'd be livid.

(Source: http://somervillenews.typepad.com/the_somerville_news/2008/05/fired-cop-loses.html)

Jon Kyl. What a dick.

Once again, this worthless galoot is filling the air with his fetid fart gas.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Arizona) is the asshat who - along with South Carolina's Lindsey Graham - inserted a phony congressional debate into the Congressional Record a few years back. Kyl then lied to the Supreme Court by implying the debate was real in an important legal brief.

Now Kyl has abused Senate rules to block an important bill that would've extended unemployment benefits. He blocked the bill singlehandedly.

I can't believe that with the worst economy in 75 years any one senator would want to be associated with blocking unemployment benefits. But I guess Kyl must be an idiot or something.

Now, because of one man (Jon Kyl), hundreds of thousands of Americans are losing their benefits. So blame the scuzzy fuck.

Bush of course had already threatened to veto the bill - claiming tax cuts for the rich and more rip-off trade agreements like NAFTA will solve ongoing unemployment. But you expect such idiotic claims from the Decider.

(Source: http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/06/17/senate-republicans-roadblock-unemployment-benefits-extension)

School accuses students of cheating on drug tests

You can't make this shit up, people!

If only 7 students out of 900 in your high school test positive for drugs, I'd say your school doesn't have any more of a drug problem than most other places.

But in Cache County, Utah, school officials somehow interpret this as a sign that the other 893 kids cheated.

So the school is saying they cheated just because the tests didn't yield the results that the school expected? That's just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard of.

This is exactly like when the media (especially scumbag rags like Campus Report) began playing up the nationwide grade inflation hoax. Under this idiotic meme, if students' grades went up, the right-wing media acted as if it was because schools gave them a free pass. (Yet the media has ignored the real grade inflation that benefits star athletes.)

To hear the system tell it, if you succeed, it's because you cheated. If you fail, it's because you deserve it. Imagine being subjected to an environment in which you're bombarded with constant messages like this calling you either a failure or a cheater (depending on your current standing). (My first high school was like that.)

In the Utah drug testing story - in which the school unconstitutionally foists a drug test on students in extracurricular activities - school officials claim that students only passed the drug tests because they dipped the cup in the toilet and filled it with someone else's pee.

If the school has as many kids who are on drugs as officials claim, then wouldn't the urine from the toilet also be drug-laden? Damn, talk about some really bad reasoning by the school.

Schools aren't always known for great reasoning skills.

(Source: http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_9598157)

AP tries gutting fair use

Copyright law has a concept called fair use, which lets you quote small pieces of copyrighted works without gaining permission from the copyright holder.

But the Associated Press apparently doesn't believe in this concept. The AP is now trying to make blogs (such as this one) buy licenses just to quote AP articles in a manner that fair use protects. These licenses start at $12.50 costly dollars for quotes of only 5 to 25 words - which is far smaller than what fair use allows for free.

And if you buy this license to quote the AP, but offend the AP in quoting it, the AP gets to terminate your license.

The AP's new policy also offers hefty rewards for people to rat each other out for violations.

Sorry, APee, but you're not the one who gets to decide when fair use applies and when it doesn't. Fair use is the law. If bloggers excerpting 5-word quotes from AP pieces was illegal, the AP would have raised an outcry about it years ago. So I'm just gonna ignore the AP's stance.

The policy is especially ironic because ASSociated Press articles often feature quotes from people that are much longer than 5 words in length. Can the people quoted in its stories make the AP pay them a licensing fee?

I think this new development is another sign that the dinosaur media is on borrowed time. Otherwise they wouldn't be trying to drive innovative bloggers out of business.

(Source: http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/010341.html)

Trilafon and other drugs pose fatal risk

Perphenazine - often sold under the brand name Trilafon - seems to be kind of like a catch-all psychiatric drug. It's an antipsychotic that shrinks like to feed to people of all ages who clearly aren't psychotic.

It's really more of a control drug that suppresses dissenting thoughts and behaviors but doesn't alleviate whatever symptoms (if any) are suffered by the person taking the drug.

Perphenazine is also known to cause tardive dyskinesia (which continues forever after use of the drug ends), glaucoma, heart problems, and progression of certain types of cancer. (The list of side effects reads almost like those you hear in drug commercials these days.)

Hardly anyone is going to warn you of this, of course, so you have to do your homework on it.

Now the FDA is warning doctors that Trilafon and similar drugs may pose a risk of death, especially for older people. The drugs covered by this warning include a class known as atypical antipsychotics as well as another known as conventional antipsychotics - of which Trilafon is a member. This updates an earlier action about atypical antipsychotics' increased risk of heart attack and pneumonia.

Are the programmies happy now that they've poisoned so many people without even letting them know how dangerous these drugs are until now?

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=c3dcba7e-d37a-4661-baaa-decec045c0c3)

Yet another "zero tolerance" outrage

Gosh, we're still getting these stories halfway through June?!

In Oregon City, Oregon, a 4th grade student was suspended from school for the last day of the school year (which was last Friday) for passing around lip cream to 2 classmates. The other 2 students were also suspended.

Really? You know, if what she did was really that horrible, why didn't the school stop the situation before it started?

And this is 4th grade we're talking about. Even in my area, nobody would have been suspended back when I was in 4th grade for such a thing, so what's the rush to suspend now?

The superintendent in Oregon City sniffed, "I just can't believe that parents would want their students or other students sharing medications, whether they're prescription or over the counter, with other students." What parents wanted this, genius?

Or is this just another effort to tar opponents of "zero tolerance" fascism?

It's bad enough they didn't get out of school until June 13.

(Source: http://www.nwcn.com/statenews/oregon/stories/NW_061308ORN_student_suspended_for_lip_cream_TP.2d3c0c4b.html)

Wusses!

How wussified can you get?

Democrats were swept into Congress in 2006 with many mandates. One of them was to end the Iraq War.

So what are they doing? They're giving chickenhawk-in-chief Bush exactly what he wants - without changing a comma.

Congressional Democrats are now giving the Decider the last war-funding bill of his term without any of the conditions for withdrawing troops that the bill was supposed to have.

As a result, the 110th Congress - the first Democrat-controlled Congress in 12 years - will have completed its term without forcing a single damn change to Bush's war policy. Not a single fucking change!

Now I'm really glad I changed my registration to Green.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080616/pl_nm/iraq_usa_funding_dc)

GOP auto dealer indicted for money laundering

Let's play another game of "Guess The Party Affiliation."

In southern California, a car dealer and Republican activist (oops, gave it away!) named Mark Leggio and 3 of his employees have been named in a 37-count indictment for political money laundering.

According to the indictment, Leggio had the employees donate over $50,000 to GOP campaigns, then reimbursed them. Sounds to me like an illegal scheme to evade donation limits.

If the second paragraph didn't give it away, you'd guess by now Leggio is a Republican. The Republicans usually are the ones who control the purse strings and can afford to give this much money to political campaigns, and the Republicans these days also seem to think laws aren't supposed to apply to them, so who'd be surprised?

(Source: http://www.beloblog.com/Pe_Blogs/news/digest/2008/06/auto-dealer-indicted-for-polit.html)

Gas far cheaper in Mexico

Gasoline prices in the U.S. have hit yet another record: In San Diego it's $4.61 a gallon now.

It's so out of control now that motorists in southern California find that they're saving money by traveling across the border to Mexico to buy gas - even with all the idling at border checkpoints. Gas in Tijuana averages only $2.54 a gallon, or far less if you pay in pesos.

Weird how the price of gas can be cut almost in half just by crossing the border.

The fact that so many U.S. citizens now cross the border for fuel, health care, and medicine because it's cheaper shows you that maybe (just maybe) the U.S. needs to start regulating corporations? Anyone can see there's price gouging going on.

If international market forces set the gas price, then maybe it's time the good ol' U.S. and A. needs to take a serious look at what other countries have been doing for decades: nationalizing the oil industry. At least then we can make sure the profits go back to the people instead of to some corporation that spends this money on fancy desks and VIP sports tickets for CEO's. Since Exxon merged with Mobil and Amoco merged with BP (which had already merged with Sohio), there's already almost total concentration in the oil industry. How can an unregulated corporate monopoly be any more desirable than a regulated public monopoly?

If the U.S. oil business claims it can't do anything about gas prices, they're lying. Otherwise gas wouldn't be so much cheaper in Mexico.

(Source: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/automotive/16612631/detail.html)

Honey ruined by genetically altered corn

How out of control is the frankenfood industry?

In Germany - where the European Union has failed to stem the rise of genetically modified crops - beekeepers now transport their bees for miles to keep them away from genetically modified corn that may contaminate their honey.

Pollen from genetically altered corn makes honey unfit for human consumption. This honey can't be sold - because nobody would want to buy it, and it's illegal to sell it anyway.

The unabated rise of frankenfoods is costing beekeepers an untold amount of money transporting their bees and finding space for them. Some have had to go out of business.

Because many of the bees have been ruined by genetically modified crops, they can't pollinate other crops, such as fruits and grains.

Bush ought to be made to grow a bee beard so the bees that were destroyed by his cronies in the frankenfood industry can pollinate his face.

(Source: http://www.thelocal.de/12503/20080615)

I get mail

It's another weekend of hard work for me! But sometimes I get e-mail from totally clueless individuals that turns out to be comic relief.

Yesterday I wrote about a natural gas company abusing eminent domain to build a pipeline. This afternoon, I got a hilarious response. It reads:

"I would respectfully request that before you post completely inaccurate information about the use of eminent domain you do a little research into its use. I would further ask you to thank Kinder Morgan, and every other 'for profit' utility, every time you turn on your lights, use your stove, drive a car or buy anything in America. Nothing would be possible without the use of eminent domain whether it was for a road, electric or telephone line or pipeline."

For starts, what I posted about eminent domain wasn't "inaccurate information." The phrase refers to government powers to buy land for public projects. It's not supposed to refer to corporations trying to get land at cheap prices for private projects.

For another thing, I worked for the phone company, so I'm familiar with how utilities work. I'm supposed to thank a gas company because it wouldn't agree to the land prices that landowners insisted on?

Here's what this is like: Suppose I'm out biking somewhere and see a house I like. So I approach the owner and offer to buy it for $1,000. But they reply, "Nope, it's $50,000."

So I decide to file an eminent domain suit against the owner so I could get the house at a cheap price.

The only difference between this preposterous scenario and the gas company's effort is that I'm just a poor working-class fella. The gas firm is a wealthy, powerful corporation.

Widespread eminent domain hurts the poor more than it hurts the rich. Simply put, public and private agencies don't want to spend much for land, and the poor have the cheapest land. Wealthier landowners have more clout. That's one of the reasons your local freeway displaced working-class neighborhoods instead of the country club.

Eminent domain is misused too often. If government or private industry needs land that belongs to individuals, they should negotiate - not bully folks into accepting a raw deal.

Another torture center got protested!

Since November, I've participated in 6 public protests against an abusive teen behavior modification facility outside Cincinnati.

But the practice of publicly picketing the teen torture racket isn't limited to just this area. In other areas, other folks have taken up the cause!

In northern Indiana, the town of Warsaw has been plagued since the 1970s by what's euphemistically described as an all-girls boarding school affiliated with a fundamentalist Baptist church. But it too is an abusive behavior modification center. The facility bases its program on the abusive practices of the late Lester Roloff.

One of the founders of this torture center has encouraged his followers to spank infants and leave bruises, and he has described administering a 2-hour-long spanking of one of his own children. Not surprisingly, the "school" founded by this sick fuck has been reported to use corporal punishment frequently. (They call the paddle the "Rod of God.") It's also been reported to withhold meals from detainees.

On Wednesday, several survivors of this facility demonstrated in front of the Kosciusko County Courthouse. One recounted that she was mercilessly beaten in 1996 on her very first day in the program. Other former detainees report being forced to eat their own vomit and wear diapers, and that every time they went to the bathroom it was posted on what they called the "B.M. board."

The center is not licensed or regulated by Indiana authorities, despite the fact that state law reportedly requires licensing of group homes. But this protest and the resulting media coverage may finally prompt an investigation.

(Source: http://www.timesuniononline.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=224&ArticleID=33697&TM=74550.03;
http://www.fox28.com/global/video/flash/popupplayer.asp?clipId1=2587927&at1=News&vt1=v&h1=Protests+at+the+Kosciusko+County+Courthouse&d1=196433&redirUrl=www.fox28.com&activePane=info&LaunchPageAdTag=homepage&clipFormat=flv&rnd=24626540;
More info: http://www.hephzibahhouse.com;
http://www.hephzibah-girls.blogspot.com)

Gas company tries abusing eminent domain

Eminent domain refers to the power of government to force a property owner to sell property to make way for public projects like roads. As controversial as this practice is, it's worse when governments force you to sell property just so it can be turned over to a developer for a private project.

But now powerful corporations are using eminent domain outright - as if they're the government.

A for-profit natural gas company has filed an eminent domain suit against 77 landowners in Ohio to take their property for a new pipeline. The pipeline will be run by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, an Enron spinoff involved in over 30 major pipeline accidents nationwide, including explosions in which passersby were burned alive.

So now corporations get government powers? BushAmerica really is the complete model of corporatism, isn't it?

I'd think that under any real legal theory, what the (ppphh!) gas company is trying to do would be viewed as illegal. Under the Constitution, the government has to provide just compensation to take property even for public use. Many states have tried to reform the abusive practice of government taking property for private use. (Reportedly, Ohio passed new laws to this end, but these laws are ignored.)

While the Constitution says public agencies may take land for public use if they provide fair compensation, where does it say private corporations can take land for private use at all? Even if statutes give corporations this right, I don't see how it can pass constitutional muster.

When an unelected corporation can come along and take your property, that's a sure sign the laws have gone too far in Big Business's favor.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/content/wcposhared/story.aspx?content_id=3e1e6e7a-6a33-44eb-b5e9-5f3e5aa6e7a0)

More Kentucky children go poor; government sits on ass

The Bush decade has been so much about advancing agendas that it's hard to grasp the degree to which Americans have been left behind.

In Kentucky, more children and families are going poor and more kids are behind bars than at any time in recent memory. The problem isn't limited to Kentucky, although the Bluegrass State has trended downward.

Strikingly, some 75% of Kentucky youths in juvenile detention facilities are being held for nonviolent offenses - which no doubt has to be a record for the juvenile "justice" system that's already awash in discrimination and other abuse.

The pervasive poverty that afflicts Kentucky and other states isn't just from unemployment either. It's also underemployment. Agencies that serve the poor say most of their clients work. But they're all in low-wage jobs. You know, the kind of jobs the freeposphere wants everyone except themselves to take.

This trend though didn't begin with Bush. He only aggravated it. When Congress spent most of the '90s bashing the poor and doing its damnedest to gut the economic safety net, what did people think was going to happen? You didn't seriously expect 100,000,000 job positions (many of which don't even pay a living wage) to support 150,000,000 households, did you?

If we want to help end this cycle of poverty, we can start by restoring the safety net to what it was before the mid-'90s.

(Source: http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080612/NEWS01/806120402&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL)

School district defies uniform ban

You'd think with summer starting, you'd see less of this bullshit, but who was I kidding?

Repeat after me: Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 71, Section 83 reads, "School officials shall not abridge the rights of students as to personal dress and appearance except if such officials determine that such personal dress and appearance violate reasonable standards of health, safety and cleanliness."

Got that?

In Massachusetts, that is the law. Unless you think wearing normal clothes in a public school defies "reasonable standards of health, safety and cleanliness", the law is very clear: NO UNIFORMS IN MASSACHUSETTS PUBLIC SCHOOLS! End of story.

But in the city of Springfield, the school system is just ignoring this safeguard outright by making uniforms mandatory starting this fall.

Didn't the school district bother to check the law first? As shitty as the schools in northern Kentucky are, at least they seem to have damn good attorneys. If there's one thing schools in my area do well, it's get out of a legal bind. But in Springfield, Massachusetts, they must not have a single damn lawyer. I've been to Massachusetts only twice in my whole life, yet I know the Bay State's laws better than that school system does.

Mark my words: The Springfield schools are going to get sued. You can't run a school system with that many students in a state that specifically bans uniforms and expect to be able to get away with this.

I'm not even linking to the WSHM-LP story about the new uniform policy, but it's just so incredibly biased.

Vet denied disability for joining antiwar group

Is there any end in sight to the shitty treatment the Bush regime gives to courageous veterans who fought for their country?

This story is about an Army veteran of the '91 Gulf War and the Afghanistan conflict who was awarded a Bronze Star for his Afghanistan service. After he retired from the military in 2003 and the current Iraq War picked up, he started battling insomnia and depression. He was occasionally suicidal. Later he was diagnosed with mild post-traumatic stress disorder.

But his condition was worse than mild and getting worse still. So he appealed his disability claim to change his rating from mild to moderate.

Now, however, Veterans Affairs has denied his disability claim. Why? Because he got involved with VoteVets.org, an organization of veterans that opposes the handling of the Iraq conflict.

In its letter to the retired Army man, the VA minimized all the symptoms he was experiencing before jawing about his VoteVets involvement.

The VA's ruling stinks strongly of politics. But the Bush regime has long been known for this type of political harassment. I already firmly believed the government would use politics to deny someone benefits they need. This item just proves it even more.

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/12/22535/3904/879/535098)

Waste money. Live worse. Wal-Mart.

Another day, another instance of Wal-Mart behaving as gutlessly as ever.

In Houston, a college student went to Wal-Mart to cash some money orders. The cash-strapped student had received the Wal-Mart money orders when she sold her car to pay for her education.

What happened when she tried cashing the orders? Why, Wal-Fart totally lost its shit. The store promptly accused her of passing bogus money orders and had her arrested for felony forgery.

The money orders were not only perfectly valid but had been issued by Wal-Mart!

As a result of this utterly bogus forgery charge, the young woman (who is a criminal justice major) was jailed for 2 days.

But that wasn't all! After the jail stay, Wal-Mart mailed her a letter accusing her of shoplifting and demanding that she pay the store $200.

Or else what? That letter is probably enough to have Wal-Mart charged with racketeering, I hope you realize. (The retail giant's suppression of unions is more than enough for a racketeering charge.)

Talk about corporatism being out of control! It's bad enough for a store to baselessly accuse someone of forging a money order. It's worse for the authorities to actually take someone to jail for what's clearly a sham accusation.

That's the world of Wal-Mart, I guess.

(Source: http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou080610_tj_walmartforgery.1d77d917.html)

Journalist Tim Russert dead of heart attack

I'm in shock at this obituary, because he was only 58 and appeared to be in good health.

If you've watched political coverage, you probably know who Tim Russert was. He was a longtime NBC journalist and 'Meet The Press' host. Today he died after collapsing at NBC's Washington news bureau.

Utah town to lift bikini ban

It seems like this week there's been a disproportionate number of entries here about stuff being banned. Now finally something is being unbanned!

Kanab, Utah, has a law against wearing bikinis at the city swimming pool. The city called the swimwear too revealing. I swear I'm not making this up. When I first saw that the town had this ordinance, I thought it was some relic from the 1890s. But actually the law had passed just this year!

Did they expect people to wear bonnets and gray dresses at the pool?

Many locals got a good laugh, but to tourists who planned on patronizing the pool, it was no laughing matter.

But now the city plans to lift the bikini ban.

To give you an idea of how conservative Kanab is, city council in 2006 passed a resolution encouraging women to stay at home instead of finding a job. You read that right: 2006!

This reminds me of a story around 1990 in which a city in my area refused to build a swimming pool at the city park unless there were separate pools for men and women. (They claimed a pool for both genders would lead to "immorality.")

(Source: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gaZ0GBLTJJN-jh0AR_KPbiye8hAQD918GUG80;
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_9506010)

McCain still not the one!

Remember that song "Still The One" by Orleans? Yes, this is the tune ABC butchered for its late '70s promos (one of which featured a person bubbling).

A while back, the McCain campaign had to stop using some of John Mellencamp's songs when Mellencamp complained about this misuse of his work. But the embattled candidate didn't learn his lesson!

Now McCain is misappropriating "Still The One" without bothering to get permission from its co-writer John Hall, a founding member of Orleans.

Hall, now a Democratic congressman from New York (and an Obama supporter), said, "This is yet another example of John McCain not learning anything from George Bush's mistakes." (Bush had used the song without permission in 2004.)

The Republicans are usually the ones who demonize peer-to-peer software for allegedly making people violate copyright laws, but now it turns out Republicans like McCain have no respect for copyright laws themselves.

A McCain spokesman said of Hall's complaint, "We will take his concerns under consideration." You'll take copyright law under consideration? Is this anything like how the Bush regime takes laws under consideration and then disobeys them?

With most songwriters shunning McCain, I guess he's going to be left with nothing but horrible David Thibodeaux parodies.

(Source: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3350965)

7 arrested for cheering at graduation

Is it my imagination, or are a hell of a lot of people getting arrested for nothing lately?

In Rock Hill, South Carolina, 7 people attending high school graduations at 2 different schools were arrested for the "crime" of cheering when students' names were called. They were charged with disorderly conduct.

Really? Arrested for that?

At all the graduations I've been to (except at certain ultraconservative private schools), folks cheered when their relatives' names were called. I wouldn't exactly call that disruptive behavior.

These arrests followed a whole year in which many schools did absolutely nothing to serial bullies who barraged schoolmates with projectiles 200 times a day. Which sounds more like disorderly conduct to you? Cheering at a graduation, or harassing schoolmates?

Some of the people arrested at the graduations were siblings of the graduates. As part of their punishment, they were ordered to undergo drug testing and counseling.

Drug tests for cheering at a graduation? Seriously???

(Source: http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2008/06/10/5834001-ap.html)

America scammed out of new TV stations

I can already tell digital TV is going to be a big bust thanks to the reception problems, and now it turns out the new medium has other issues I never even saw coming.

When the transition is complete, every station gets several (possibly 4 or more) extra channels. That's what this 19.2 and 48.4 business is all about. So a station could broadcast 4 different things at the same time.

I thought this might be the one saving grace for digital TV. Who wouldn't want to be able to receive 4 times as many stations over the air?

But it turns out that this was a massive missed opportunity. The FCC could have awarded this extra bandwidth to community groups, local governments, libraries, schools, labor unions, or even small commercial broadcasters. But instead it went to the licensees of the main stations!

All of it. Every single bit of it.

I studied broadcasting in college, and one of the first things I learned was that the airwaves are public property. It gets licensed to private broadcasters, but they have to operate in the "public interest, convenience, and necessity." (Every broadcasting student in America has to be keenly familiar with that phrase.) The FCC is also supposed to guarantee a diversity of voices. Americans of all backgrounds are supposed to get a voice - because the airwaves are owned by Americans of all backgrounds.

But the FCC hasn't provided that the bonus bandwidth that was literally given to major broadcasters for free carry any public service obligations like educational or community programs. It's basically a giveaway for the same type of crap that fills the main channels.

When digital TV was being worked out in the '90s, these big broadcasters promised to use the extra channels for educational programs and up-to-date news. But this has turned out to be a lie.

The fact that thousands of extra TV channels are being opened up without anyone being able to apply for them except existing broadcasters is kept hidden from the public - because the big broadcasters don't want any scrutiny over whether or not they deserve these channels.

It's a missed opportunity for damn sure! But the situation may actually be even worse than it appears. Does any powerful corporate broadcaster really need more channels even if it's not at the expense of everyone else? The corporate media exerts enough influence as it is, and is the country improving because of it? Contrast America's quality of life now versus before the corporate giveaways of the '90s, and it's not even close.

What the digital transition really means isn't 6 extra Big Bird channels like everyone hoped but likely more channels full of infomercials, talk shows about "kids out of control!!!", home shopping, conservative propaganda, and other gibberish.

(Source: http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2008/06/11/grand-theft-digital-how-corporate-broadcasters-will-hijack-digital-tv)

GOP big shot convicted of bizarre sex crime

Glenn Murphy Jr. is the former chairman of the Republican Party in Clark County, Indiana, and also headed the Young Republican National Federation.

But now, he's admitted to charges of criminal deviate conduct for performing oral sex on a sleeping man at a party. He may face 2 years in prison as part of a plea bargain.

According to the accusation, the victim of this sex crime awoke and found Murphy performing oral sex on him.

It's getting to the point where all you need to do to identify the sex offenders in your community is look at your local GOP website for the list of officials. Glenn Murphy Jr. wasn't just an occasional Republican voter but a chairman of the Young Republican National Federation and of a county party. And this isn't the first story like this. Once every month or so, a story like this emerges about some Republican chair somewhere.

Imagine if you can what the national uproar from the blogosphere would be if a Democratic official had been involved in a scandal that was only one-tenth as bad.

(Source: http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080612/ZONE11/806130302/0/BUSINESS)

Fox News displays its bigotry

This is what America has to look forward to from the media machine until the election (and for 4 years after that, if the media doesn't get its way then).

Fox News actually referred to Michelle Obama as "Obama's baby mama." Seriously, they said that. Honestly, can Faux News be any more blatant about its bigotry? For those who don't know what a "baby mama" is, it's a woman who has kids outside a committed relationship. However, the Obamas have been married for decades.

Does Pox News ever refer to Cindy McCain as "McCain's baby mama"? The selective use of the phrase is what really seems bigoted.

You expect better from a self-described professional news organization. These aren't offhand words uttered at a cookout by the best friend of the dog groomer of your great-uncle who you haven't seen since 1977. Fox News is supposed to be, um, professional! It's only fair that we should hold a so-called professional news outlet to a higher standard than we should for the average person.

What the incident really speaks to is that the corporate media is engaged in a partisan propaganda effort. Because the airwaves are a public trust, the FCC used to crack down on stations for distorting news. I'm always wary of government efforts, but we've reached the point where we ought to ask hard questions of smug media execs who claim to be neutral while engaging in partisan hackery. The American people deserve answers.

America's corporate media of today is on par with the partisan press of a century ago - if not worse.

This incident also shows that the Republican camp doesn't have any real issues to go on - at least not without exposing itself for its own worse record.

(Source: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3348843&mesg_id=3348843)

Schools may require clothes from Wal-Mart

It's long been true that one of the key reasons some schools require uniforms is that they have contracts with certain suppliers and retailers forcing students to buy the uniforms from these firms.

But when that store is Wal-Mart, it's particularly outrageous.

In the Jackson-Madison County Schools in Tennessee, the school board is seriously considering adopting a uniform policy requiring students to buy their uniforms at Wal-Mart, of all places. Under this proposed sumptuary law, Wal-Mart has been named the official seller of the standardized attire.

Even if uniforms in public schools weren't unconstitutional, there's the issue of forcing folks to buy them at a particular store that they may object to anyway.

I've boycotted Wal-Mart for years. I don't think I've buyed a thing there since the era of helmet hair. I wouldn't even buy a pack of bubble gum there now. Reasons for this boycott include Wal-Mart's exceptionally predatory business practices and its militant suppression of labor unions.

Why the hell should someone lift a boycott just to satisfy a school (especially when it's a school funded by taxpayer dollars)?

Of course the Jackson Sun did its part to advance the right-wing cause by printing a misleading, one-sided headline.

I guess lockstep tyranny like uniforms is to be expected in a school system that still uses CORPORAL PUNISHMENT, of all things (in 2008, no less). (The school must like being sued, I guess.)

(Source: http://www.jacksonsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080610/NEWS01/806100307)

Hospital endorses research corruption

Everyone is outraged about the Harvard University scandal in which 3 self-anointed child psychiatry experts took payoffs from drug companies while conducting an important research project.

Everyone, that is, except for officials at a major hospital.

Officials at Massachusetts General Hospital praised the disgraced researchers as "beloved and trusted by thousands of grateful children and families", even as the U.S. Senate investigates them. The hospital endorsed what it calls "closely managed" collaboration with the drug industry.

You read that right: A hospital is supporting drug industry corruption of important research.

After the psychiatrists got millions from the pharmaceutical racket, it should be no surprise that their so-called research was followed by a steep rise in druggings of children.

(Source: http://www.boston.com/news/health/blog/2008/06/post_8.html)

Fine me $500! Please!

"Breaking the law, breaking the law..."

Today I engaged in another act of civil disobedience to follow last month's appearance at NKU and my barefoot walk on the Purple People Bridge. These acts challenged posted rules or prior orders. But they had to be done to bring us off the slippery slope that we're already nearing the bottom of.

This morn, I goed to Bellevue Beach Park - a public park here in Bellevue, Kentucky, home of this fine blog. Around mid-decade, this park posted a zillion signs warning folks that it's a $500 fine even to possess markers, paint, or "similar items" in the park.

Hilariously, I noticed a couple years ago that someone had spraypainted all over one of the signs, which serves the tyrants right.

You read that right: It's now a "crime" not just to use markers or paint, but even to possess them!

So what did I do? Possess 'em! And I got a photo to prove that I disobeyed this Allowed Cloud:


(http://i28.tinypic.com/veriur.jpg)

I possessed a marker in Bellevue Beach Park! See?!

To paraphrase the ol' Raygun: I paid for this park! It's my city, my tax dollars, my park.

Gonna fine me $500 now?

It's unclear what the penalty for going barefoot on the Purple People Bridge is, or even if there is a real penalty, and the "trespassing" order I defied at NKU is so old that I can't imagine them enforcing it. But my defiance in the Belv today is fresh and new and carries a posted punishment!

So please! Gimme a ticket!

I know the alleged aim of the ordinance is to stop vandals, but what it really does is punish innocents. If you're an artist who wants to make a painting of the river, you're actually violating the law.

And not only that, but it's ineffective at curtailing vandalism. Otherwise I wouldn't have found the sign vandalized a couple years back!

So that's Bellevue Beast Park for ya! The crybabies are gonna be so mad when they read that I brang a marker to "their" park today!

Louisiana may defy Real ID

If we're lucky, this could be another "ha ha!" moment!

Louisiana may be the next state to challenge the Bush regime's Real ID fiat. A new bill in the Pelican State would order the Department of Public Safety & Corrections to simply ignore the illegal federal mandate.

The bill faces an uncertain future though. Although Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal wrote a letter criticizing Real ID, he voted for Real ID when he was a congressman. So I don't know what to believe.

Something tells me that of all the truly miserable Bush policies, Real IDiot is one that's not going to last no matter who becomes President.

(Source: http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/politics/19754244.html)

Researchers took payoffs from drug makers

Well, well, well, and well (to quote Boss Hogg). Who's surprised at this? Not I, that's for sure.

Three top researchers at Harvard University are now disgraced for life because they accepted millions of dollars from pharmaceutical drug kingpins like Eli Lilly & Co. while they were conducting a research project about how to treat childhood bipolar disorder.

Not only does this taint the study beyond all hope. It also violates university rules and federal guidelines.

One of the researchers - who has long been an avid booster of drugging children - even lied to Congress about it. When Senate investigators made him disclose his income, he reported receiving less money than the drug makers admit giving him.

This is a serious matter: The study has already been influential enough to boost sales of psychiatric drugs to the young. And now everyone knows the whole study is bogus.

This scandal crosses the line from being merely frustrating and into being downright criminal.

(Source: http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article614734.ece)

TSA requires ID to fly

Yet another entry in the "Your papers, please?" department.

Contrary to popular belief, even if you don't have a state-issued ID card, you're permitted to fly on planes within the U.S. You might be subject to a much more extensive search, but ultimately you can travel.

Until now.

Now the Transportation Security Administration has barked down an order that I could smell from light years away. Under this ukase, passengers who refuse to show an ID will not be allowed to fly - period. (Ooh, an Allowed Cloud!)

The loathsome boogerfaces of the Bush regime strike again!

Worse, the TSA provided only 2 weeks of notice before the June 21 effective date.

The TSA - the agency that brang you the Naziesque no-fly list - has become one of the most corrupt and out-of-control federal agencies of late. Further, its air travel screening practices lack any consistency whatsoever.

With Real ID looming, this order was almost inevitable. This despite the fact that courts have ruled that, under the Constitution, you ultimately don't need an ID to travel.

Then again, people are going to ask, what's another liberty lost? These days, almost any mode of travel is in effect subject to a "Your papers, please?" I've been carded by police just walking down the street in my own neighborhood.

One of the main points of the new policy is that it only afflicts those who actively refuse to produce an ID. It doesn't affect those who simply forgot their ID. So you can tell it's another case of plain old intimidation.

I don't feel any safer, do you? I feel less safe. Any terrorist is just going to find their way around it. If they don't have an ID, they'll just say they lost or forgot it. But odds are, they'll have a phony one: If they know how to hijack a plane, they surely know how to make a fake ID (which any kid with a Power Mac from 1994 can probably do).

I think the states need to step in and reinforce what courts have already ruled. To protect the existing right of travel without having to show "papers", the states need to have laws to overrule the TSA's new diktat. The TSA shouldn't get to decide when constitutionally guaranteed freedoms apply.

(Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-9962760-46.html)

Supremes gut employees' right to sue

Sigh. Another ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that's so questionable that you have to wonder where they came up with this bullshit.

Yesterday, the SCrOTUS came down against working Americans when it limited the right of public employees to sue over unfair firings.

In the 6 to 3 ruling, the usual madcap crew - Justices Alito, Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas - was joined by Justice Breyer in ruling for the court's majority. Justices Ginsburg, Souter, and Stevens were the 3 dissenters.

The ruling limits suits by workers who as individuals suffered retaliatory and other unjust dismissals.

Chief Justice John Roberts said that "government offices could not function if every employment decision became a constitutional matter." Hey, the employer (not the employee) is the one that dragged the case above the lower court.

Political and retaliatory firings are already pervasive in state and federal patronage systems. Now the Supremes have gutted an important remedy to this corruption.

This case resulted when an Oregon woman was allegedly fired by a vindictive boss. She won her case in lower court. But of course the Ninth Circus overturned that, and the Supremes agreed with the Ninth. (Would somebody please explain why everyone considers the Ninth Circuit to be a liberal court, when it's made so many conservative rulings?)

Why shouldn't unfair firings be heard in court? I'm not saying everyone who's ever been fired for everything deserves to win. But fired employees should at least have the chance to be heard.

Workers are not property.

(Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scotus10-2008jun10,0,317500.story)

You know you're already my obsession...Stop treating paint as a weapon...

(I bet it's been a damn long time since you've heard that song!)

This entry is about one of these right-wing microtyrannies that's actually a macrotyranny because it used to be considered far beyond the pale but now faces little challenge. (This story is also a few days old, but it's just now coming to the fore.)

Officials in St. Louis want markers and cans of spray paint to be treated equivalent to a handgun: A new proposed ordinance would restrict who can buy paint or markers, require purchasers to show an ID, and criminalize unauthorized possession.

It would also require retailers to keep records of buyers and turn the logs over to police when asked. Oops, there goes the Fourth Amendment!

Criminalization of markers and paint, which in the past had no restrictions, probably made its U.S. debut in the mid-'90s spittle wave. Other American locales have tried to restrict purchases of the items. But the St. Louis proposal is one of very few that would penalize not just sales but also possession.

The planned ordinance would prohibit unauthorized possession of paint or markers on private as well as public property. The punishment is severe: a $500 fine or up to 90 days in the slammer.

A bill in Colorado that would have made it illegal to possess these items failed when lawmakers realized it was open to abuse. A park just 2 blocks from my digs actually has a sign boasting of a similar policy though. (Now there's an Allowed Cloud for me to violate!)

Talk about a slippery slope! Today it's markers and paint. Tomorrow they'll be going after little kids with crayons. If you don't think they would, who'd have ever thought a student would get suspended from school for wearing Winnie the Pooh socks?

If I owned a store in St. Louis, do you think I'd cooperate with city officials' desire to make criminals of every individual every waking moment? Pick from these 2 answers: 1) Hell no! 2) Fuck no! I damn sure wouldn't be keeping a log of buyers. Of course, many major chains even outside St. Louis are already doing what this bill would do. If there's one thing that's just as bad as heavy-handed government officials being the arbiter of theraupetical correctitude, it's Big Business doing the same.

Silly me. I used to think America was a free country. Now if I want to spray paint my own bike a different color, I have to be carded and go through heaps of red tape. Oh well. Another day, another example of the innocent being punished in the name of a "war" on something-or-other.

(Source: http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2008-06-04/news/paintless-in-st-louis-st-louis-alderwoman-donna-baringer-wants-to-treat-cans-of-spray-paint-like-they-re-handguns)

Funny article about dumb drug law

Bob Caudle - known as an "equal opportunity insulter" at the Morning News of northwestern Arkansas - has put out a rather comical piece about the idiotic law that criminalizes innocent people over pseudoephedrine-containing cold and allergy medicine:

http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2008/06/07/columns/bob_caudle/060808caudle.txt

Read it!!!

What a stupid, stupid law! I bet you didn't know that, did you?

The people who have been jailed because they purchased cold medicine for their sick kids have learned this the hard way.

GOP official condones domestic violence

What a bunch of little cowards the conservatives have become. Conservatives try to portray themselves as great stand-up superpeople, but this story proves how wussified their ideology is.

Mike Daly is a Republican county commissioner in Deschutes County, Oregon. Recently it was reported that Daly (who is a former state trooper) complained that domestic violence laws in his bailiwick are too tough.

He said that if a guy mercilessly beats up his wife or girlfriend, he shouldn't be arrested if it's only the first offense (which the law requires).

Daly explained his stance in further detail. Regarding domestic violence victims, Daly inquired, "Did anybody ever think that he or she might have had it coming?"

Days later, Daly was confronted about this statement. He replied, "I don't know why anybody would be offended. We were just joking around."

Har-de-har-har, Mike. This weirdo thinks domestic assault is funny?

I'm a progressive populist, so I'm no fan of GOP conservatism. But I wish conservatism hadn't regressed from being just a bunch of crotchety execs protecting their money into sorry oafs like Mike Daly.

(Source: http://www.tsweekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2887&Itemid=66)

School sued following harassment suicide

There used to be a social taboo against school harassment. Maddeningly, it now seems almost taboo even to remember this taboo. The blight of serial bullying has grown in probably every community in America.

Kentucky has become the epicenter of this phenomenon. This should be of little surprise, because Kentucky seems to be the one state where separation of life and school has been gutted more than any other. There's likely no other place in America that puts such pressure on students to satisfy the education system at all costs. Dissent from school is no longer tolerated.

If students are victimized at school, they have no alternate outlet. Everything comes from within school, and nothing is allowed to be outside it.

A 13-year-old student at Kentucky's Allen Central Middle School was harassed repeatedly by schoolmates until he committed suicide by shooting himself. School officials neglected to tell his parents he was being harassed.

Every person who hears about this tragedy should be outraged.

Now the victim's parents are suing school officials for their refusal to stop the harassment.

I want to know why the assailants who harassed the boy are not charged with murder. Their malicious behavior caused his suicide, so it's murder. End of story.

"Zero tolerance" is a policy that severely punishes almost everything - except bullying. With all the "zero tolerance" Nazism in our schools - in which kids get expelled over drawings of nail clippers - innocents are punished. Bullies are not. "Zero tolerance" advocates know this.

The system lives to protect serial harassers, because it's run by those who were troublemakers in their own younger years.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=a6802fc5-26b0-4522-9de9-ab1240c7e63e)

Government bribes schools to require drug tests

Everyone feared the day when American public schools began subjecting every student - not just kids in extracurricular activities - to forced drug testing. I don't think it's quite here yet - except maybe in one or two districts - but it's getting closer.

And the federal government is bribing schools to do it!

Numerous schools have received a federal grant from Bush's drug czar office to subject students to random drug tests. The Record newspaper of northern New Jersey says this usually only afflicts students in athletics or school clubs, or those who drive to school, but the implication is that the program is expanding to a much larger pool of students - perhaps all.

As is always the case with right-wing gimmicks like this, the idea created a furor at first, but then it died down when people were bullied enough into going along with it.

Drugs tests aren't even fully accurate, so there's not just the groundless search and privacy issues, but also other issues surrounding due process and presumption of innocence.

When forced drug tests expand to every student, I guarantee there will be another round of court battles. So if an activist court approves that scourge too, it will be interesting to see the conflict of laws that results. In other words, if a student is barred from school for not taking a drug test, but also required to go to school under the attendance laws, which policy is going to win out? Obviously, you can't obey both.

(Source: http://www.northjersey.com/education/educationnews/Fed_grant_boosts_random_drug_tests_at_River_Dell.html)

Sprawl threatens Kentucky county (activist alert!)

Welcome to Campbell County, Kentucky - my home county!

Folks like you and me work hard and play by the rules in Campbell County. (Notice I'm working the weekend.) But now we need to work harder to make the community sustainable again.

A decade ago, a much-needed moratorium was placed on suburban development in most of the southern half of the county. This was because the old sewer system couldn't handle the sprawl.

But last year, a new sewage plant finally opened, and now a whole new sewer system is nearing completion. This upgrade was long overdue. Up until just last year, the old system released 8,000,000 gallons of raw, poopy sewage into our environment annually. But the new system has been able to handle even this year's flooding rains. The new plant has also reduced the wafto-like stench produced by the old system.

But there's a downside to this blessing. In November, the new system also encouraged the outgoing regime of right-wing Gov. Ernie "Hey Bert" Fletcher to lift most of the moratorium (a fact the media largely ignored).

Inevitably some new buildings are going to be needed to replace worn structures or provide necessary services. But what the county doesn't need any more of is the type of spread-out, inefficient residential and commercial devleopment that has already marred the county.

There's several key reasons why big box retailers and subdivisions full of fall-apart mansions aren't needed. It creates erosion that causes older homes to be flooded. It eats up space needed for agriculture. It deeply impedes on our social fabric and way of life. It caters disproportionately to the financially secure, at the expense of the disadvantaged. It drives out small business for the benefit of Big Business. It wastes fuel by forcing folks to drive further out to stores and other firms (if they even have a car at all).

The negative effects are felt not only by the rural areas but also by the county's central cities.

Any new development of this sort should be opposed anywhere - especially in Campbell County, where we've already paid the price for the ravages of creeping exurbanism.

And it's never too late to oppose what hasn't yet been built.

Over the next 10 years, developers plan to build subdivisions containing at least 1,800 new homes in that part of the county. One subdivision alone is set to contain 900 houses.

How do we stop our communities from being spoiled by development? Tell your mayors, council members, judge-execs, and planning boards what you think. Make flyers and websites for folks in the area outlining the dangers of sprawl.

These acts are perfectly legal. Check the rules.

Cities or the county should set a sprawl limit and place a moratorium on development that isn't high-density and efficient.

The wisdom is in the land, people. Life shouldn't be about developers Making Money.

(Source: http://news.nky.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20080608/NEWS0103/806080394)

Bully "joke" prompts lawsuit

At Milford High School outside Cincinnati, a boy on the freshman basketball team says he was harassed mercilessly by 3 teammates.

According to witnesses, the victim was punched, and one of the aggressors tried to sexually assault him. Because of this ongoing abuse, the victim quit the team.

The assailants said the whole attack was just a "joke." Well, I don't see anyone laughing. Sexual assault isn't exactly the stuff of guffaws.

One of the assailants reportedly harassed at least 4 players throughout the season. He allegedly forced teammates to lick his sweaty ankle bracelet.

The situation was so out of hand that police got involved.

And now the 14-year-old victim is filing a lawsuit against the Milford school system and the main assailant.

The lawsuit is considered significant because it may establish how far schools have to go to protect their students. It doesn't mean the school itself is guilty of any wrongdoing. This suit will simply determine if the school did anything wrong.

It's a fact though that many schools condone student bullying outright. The laws have to come down hard on schools that encourage or fail to intervene against serial harassers.

(Source: http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080606/NEWS01/306050089;
http://www.kypost.com/content/wcposhared/story.aspx?content_id=d3e2087c-1913-40c6-906b-490729e44a29)

Media probe has precedent

If you think I'm being too much of a hard-ass on the dinosaur media for what other commenters here have correctly labeled as in-kind contributions to the GOP, my stance has a precedent.

In April, David Barstow of the New York Times did a massive piece detailing the media's participation in the Bush regime's secret propaganda war to sell its failed Iraq policy. This was about the only coverage of this effort, because the rest of the media has participated extensively in this campaign all along! Thus, the Times' groundbreaking expose was largely ignored.

But The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel said Congress should investigate this military-media-industrial complex. I agree. This also shows I'm not the only one who wants the media probed.

It's antithetical to democracy for the "mainstream" media to be the government-linked partisan organ that it is while pretending to be neutral. The major media is also America's biggest censor.

Except during sad chapters of pain imposed on me by those who didn't respect nonsuburban ways, I've clearly recognized that real wisdom doesn't come from media big shots in their ivory towers but from nature itself. As a populist, I see nothing wrong with looking into what makes today's media such an unresponsive institution.

(Source: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/313313;
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html)

The man who wouldn't work (a blast from the past)

I work, and I'm proud of it. I get raked through cess on other blogs over this fact, but it's true.

I'm willing to do most things for $7.25 an hour. But a few jobs I ain't doin'. If people don't like it, that's too bad. I'm a populist, and if I have to show some teeth and stand up for myself, SO BE IT! If you really want to work for minimum wage at one of the rare jobs I wouldn't take, that's your choice. To each their own.

I worked for the library, the phone company, and the Department of the Interior, and rarely complained. So if people think I'm lazy, they can kiss my ass.

If I now make a living from writing, why should anyone wrongly judge me for it? Are we supposed to just do away with books and blogs? Writers don't work for free. And if I had to take some time off once 5 years ago for health problems, there's even less grounds to judge.

I simply feel that after investing a lot of time and money in my college education, I deserve something better than one of the few jobs I won't take. Wouldn't you feel the same way? It might not have been therapeutically correct for me to say so, but at least I was honest.

Now it's the weekend, and I've been suffering a negative food reaction all day, so I thought I'd take it easy today by telling you about a man who (unlike me) didn't work.

This entry is about a guy who got a Conservative Fool Of The Day entry on the old blog on February 15, 2006. The man was a Republican patronage employee for Kentucky's road department.

The man's connections through a Kentucky Republican Party treasurer helped him get a cushy, easy, high-paying patronage job at Kentucky's transportation bureau after Ernie Fletcher took office. The job paid nearly $50,000 a year - which most folks in Kentucky would consider to be living like a king. The man was in his fifties, but this was an exceptionally good salary considering he never even went to college and had little experience in the type of job he was hired for.

Suffice it to say, the chap had an excellent job for someone with so few credentials - but it wasn't good enough for him. As part of his job, the Fletcher appointee had to (gasp!) answer phones. Ooh, torture! While thousands of Kentuckians earn their living through hard physical work and make nowhere near $50,000 a year, this guy cried about having to answer a damn phone!

There's things I didn't want to have to do to make a living, but I grinned and beared it. I had no choice. Most people don't, when push comes to shove. But the guy in this story refused to do his job altogether.

The deputy transportation secretary was furious at this man for refusing to work, and he commented in an interoffice e-mail, "It doesn't bode well for the Cabinet to have someone like that who absolutely refuses to do what he is hired to do." In another e-mail, the sec expressed dismay at not knowing what to do with the employee. Most organizations would just fire him on the spot. But you can't do that with him. You just can't. He's a Republican, so he's special and privileged. So the e-mail suggested that the agency had no choice but to either reassign him or "put him in a corner and we'll ignore him." In other words, the transportation department would pay the lazy clod his full salary to do nothing, because the agency wasn't allowed to fire him.

Yes, a patronage employee refused to work - so the state was going to pay him to do nothing. All at taxpayer expense. Finally his bosses did find him another job - one that was even better than the job he refused to do. So if you're a conservative who refuses to do your job, you get promoted instead of fired. We knew that, because we'd seen it happen before.

All this after Fletcher ran on a platform of ending a corrupt patronage system. Of course, it's not like we ever believed Fletcher in the first place, thanks to earlier right-wing corruption.

Now we know why it's called a spoils system. It's because it benefits people who are spoiled - like the Republican patronage employee in this story.

(Source: http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/28/fletcher-ethics)

Banks shun less prestigious colleges

If this isn't outright economic discrimination...

...Then what the fuckola is?

Many of America's biggest banks are now eschewing student loans for community colleges and other less prestigious schools - while continuing to make loans to students at more prestigious institutions of higher book-burnin'.

Citibank is one of the worst offenders, but other banks are also guilty, albeit to a lesser extent than Shittywank is.

Naturally, the economically poorest students are hit the hardest (as always). Some have been prevented by this new policy from going to school altogether.

Some victims of this blacklisting are asking: Does it really matter to the bank where you go to school? It shouldn't matter, but banks apparently think it does. Banks view these less competitive schools as less profitable for them. But because the government guarantees 95% of the value of these loans, why would banks even see that much of a difference between these schools and the more prestigious ones?

The government already requires that colleges be accredited and have a low default rate to participate in these loans. So the banks can't use the excuse that the shunned colleges have too many defaults.

I think this whole thing is about classism for its own sake. Maybe the big banks think letting people of humble means advance would be too much of a threat to their dominion. I know Big Business wants people in elementary and high school longer, but school at that level is more indoctrinating. College course work is a little more relevant.

This story should also lay to the rest the claims of those who think banks suffer more regulation than individuals do. Maybe the government needs to step in and say the banks can't spurn colleges just because their students weren't born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/02/business/02loans.html)

Another scumbag rag proves itself to be bird cage liner

Circulation of the right-wing Detroit News lags behind its rival in its home market. And deservedly so, because of trite shenanigans like this.

Today, some 45,000 copies of the paper featured the headline, "Clinton, Osama meet to discuss unity."

Um. They mean "Obama." Idiots.

The paper claimed this was only a typo. But I can count on my fingers the number of times I've ever seen typos in a headline - and the 'S' key is nowhere near the 'B' key on most typewriters and computers I've seen. So it's clear the "error" was intentional.

This is what the Nazi noise machine has stooped to. This is just like John Ashcroft and Stinky Singleton doing the same thing and telling people it was just an accident (when it wasn't). The newspaper did this on purpose, and there's no point in them lying about it.

The Detroit News is blackballed as a source here now because of this.

I'm so angry that I'm almost inclined to say Congress or the state legislatures should open an investigation into the corporate media and make the arrogant media big shots answer some tough questions. I'd love to see them squirm.

(Source: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3342272)

Unemployment up for fifth straight month

Remember the "It's the economy, stupid" mantra from the '90s? Something tells me we're going to be hearing that one again.

For the fifth straight month, unemployment in the U.S. has shot up - this time to 5.5%. (Not 5 out of 5, to use our battle cry from 8th grade, but 5.5.) The jump in May was the biggest since 1986! Nearly 50,000 Americans found themselves out of work just last month.

I just can't believe it's only 5.5%! Where I come from, I don't think it's been under 15% since 1997, and I'm sure it's higher than the official numbers claim. When a person is unemployed for too long, they're no longer counted in the official figures, because they no longer qualify for unemployment benefits. So just think how many people are missed by the 5.5% figure.

The jobs simply aren't there. Today I checked Monster.com (coooookie...munch munch munch munch!) for opportunities in case my writing gigs fail. I typed in several fields I'd be interested in, and it only came up with 4 open positions in my area - 3 of which had nothing to do with what I was looking for. The only remaining one required a bachelor's degree.

Then again, I also checked low-paying fast food positions, and quite a few openings came up. Quite frankly, I have zero interest in these jobs, and I'd much prefer to be homeless and have to survive on eating grass than to take such a job. Nothing personal, but that's how I feel, and I'm going to stand up for myself by saying so. With 3½ years of college, I feel I have a right to expect better than a job making minimum wage serving burgers. (I'd probably be earning less than I am now from my book sales and blog revenues.) I've worked too hard in life to get ahead.

Indeed, the loss of jobs in May hit the manufacturing and construction sectors the hardest. The low-paying service field actually added jobs. Of course.

We need to start indexing the minimum wage with (whoosh...whoosh) inflation. Because members of Congress get a pay increase every year (which violates the Constitution), you deserve one too. I think there should also be a guarantee of a job for everyone who wants one. Maybe we can start by finding a way to halt outsourcing.

(In light of the loss of jobs to other countries, it's particularly ironic that I can't find this story being covered anywhere except on foreign news sites.)

(Source: http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/001200806061863.htm)

GOP blocks important environmental bill

What was this again about the Democrats controlling the Senate now?

Today, Senate Republicans blocked an important climate change bill by abusing the filibuster power. Of course they had some help from a handful of DLC Democrats. The bill would have sharply cut greenhouse gas emissions by limiting pollution by power plants, factories, and refineries.

I guess the corporaterrorists who blocked the bill still don't comprehend that the American public has rejected their cult of climate change denial.

Their excuse for opposing the bill was that it would lead to higher energy costs. Um, no. The fact that state regulators give utility companies every rate increase they ask for does more to run up energy prices than probably anything. (I used to work for the phone company, so I know a bit about how utilities work.)

This bill was shot down despite the fact that a majority of senators supported the proposal. I guess in BushAmerica, a majority doesn't mean much.

Even if this bill had passed Congress, it may have all been all for nothing - because Bush boasted that he was going to veto it anyway. Gives a whole new meaning to the cry, "All that work, wastage bastage!"

Mitch McConnell - the bubble gum obsessed senate GOP leader - cried that the bill is a "huge tax increase." This is a bald-faced lie. The bill actually would've provided tax relief for energy costs.

So now what do we do? Do we just let the corporate cultists get their way by letting pollution march forward uncontrolled?

(Source: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hNv-MFtVtkVdwOvTJ3iV7jq7VIPgD914KSI00)

Philly sheriff won't enforce foreclosures

It was about time someone stood up to greedy banks!

Philadelphia Sheriff John Green surprised many recently when he refused to conduct a foreclosure auction. But his stance has a strong precedent.

Some years back, an Ohio sheriff exercised his option to refuse to enforce foreclosures. This too raised eyebrows. But supporters of the lawman's policy quite sensibly argued that the sheriff was elected by the people and was simply representing the people's interests.

I've said it before: Declining to enforce foreclosures is a legitimate choice that sheriffs have.

Now Philadelphia's John Green is taking a similar approach. The longtime sheriff is stepping up to make sure the city's people don't lose their homes to banks that took advantage of them.

Banks have expressed much chagrin over Green's stand. Big Business was so used to getting its way that their heads are exploding now that they've been rebuffed.

The sheriff's policy has helped make Philadelphia stand out in its response to the nationwide foreclosure scandal. The policy also helps keep neighborhoods stable and maintain a stronger sense of community.

In a nonbinding resolution, City Council had approved a foreclosure moratorium, which would benefit thousands of residents monthly.

When even Ed McMahon isn't safe from the foreclosure crisis, you know times are tough, and something has to be done.

(Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121271135166050537.html)

Mental patient held in solitary for 20 years

Don't think this can't happen to you. It can.

It's been revealed that at Western State Hospital in Staunton, Virginia, a man has been held in solitary confinement for 20 years - in violation of state law and surely against court rulings.

The man, now in his 50s, was reportedly held 24/7. This despite the fact that courts have ruled that even convicted criminals can't be held in solitary more than 23 hours a day. (There's no indication that the man in this story had been convicted of a crime.)

Even right-wing terrorist Eric Rudolph is allowed out of solitary for swimming 90 minutes a day (which Rudolph complained isn't enough). But the man held at Virginia's mental "hospital" was given no such amenities.

The Virginia mental patient received his food through a tiny slot in the door. After having his teeth pulled because of dental problems, he was not given dentures, because the guards claimed he'd use them as a weapon. (He was in solitary, so who could he possibly attack?) Furthermore, he speaks only Spanish, and the "hospital" refused to provide him with doctors or therapists who were fluent in his language.

The only break from this confinement was when he was allowed to briefly leave the institution with his family. The institution expressed no fear that he posed a danger to anyone during these outings, so what's the institution's excuse for keeping him locked away the rest of the time?

Courts have also ruled that people held in mental "hospitals" are entitled to actual treatment - not warehousing. But if you lock someone in solitary for 20 years, I wouldn't call that treatment.

This tragedy is nothing new in Virginia. Ten years ago, federal investigators probed the state's institutions over illegal use of seclusion and restraints (torture devices).

Records show there was no effort to place the man back in his community, even though this is supposed to be a goal of the state's mental health system.

This man's life is probably destroyed forever. He may have been perfectly sane when he was first locked up. (Most people who are institutionalized are.) But I can't imagine anyone recovering from 20 years of a lack of human contact.

This could just as easily be you. You can bet your bottom dollar there are other people in America's psychiatric facilities who have been held in solitary for just as long. If you think it can't happen to you, you could be in for a rude awakening one of these days. I never in a million years would've thought I'd have the struggle I had in 1990 just for getting expelled from a Catholic high school, but here we are.

There's a whole system in place to punish folks in a manner contrary to the law. Be forewarned, because BushAmerica is on par with the old Soviet Union with using psychiatric wards to lock up dissidents.

(Source: http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-06-06-0184.html)

Homeowners association harasses woman over swing for autistic son

Yet another homeowners association has decided to anoint itself as the world's final authority.

In North Ridgeville, Ohio, a woman who uses a wheelchair faces penalties by her homeowners association because she refuses to remove a swing set for her autistic son. The association is threatening to fine her $100 - per month.

The association that previously ran the neighborhood allowed her to get the swing set 2 years ago. But now that the community has been taken over by a different association, the new regime is ordering the swing set removed.

The swing set is in the middle of the back yard and out of sight of the street. It has prompted no complaints - except from the homeowners association, of course.

Allow me to be perfectly unambiguous about this: The homeowners association has no case. End of story. Ohio law specifically bars associations from making rules like this.

Even if state law was silent, the ASSociation still has no case. How in holy high hell is it supposed to collect a fine? It's not a government, but a corporate entity. It has no powers to make arrests of people who don't pay fines. So put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Also sneak a peek at the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Fair Housing Act says associations must waive rules in order to accommodate people with disabilities. The ADA covers general protections for the disabled.

The long and short of it is, if I was a parent who was threatened with a fine for not taking down a swing set for an autistic son, I'd sit back and let the homeowners association do its worst to try to enforce its rule on me. I'd simply not pay the fine.

Things don't get much lower than harassing a disabled parent over a swing set for an autistic child. There's a special place in hell looming for this homeowners association for doing such a thing.

So I don't want to hear any "rules are rules" bullshit. If rules are rules, laws are laws, and the law clearly says the association is in the wrong.

(Source: http://www.chroniclet.com/2008/06/05/homeowners-group-playground-must-go)

17 arrested in cold medicine probe

Sigh. Yes, it's another piece about the failed law against cold and allergy drugs that contain pseudoephedrine.

A police investigation in southeastern Kansas has netted 17 arrests of people who (I'm cautioning you, dear reader, please do not read further if you're easily offended) purchased too much over-the-counter cold and allergy medicine. They were nabbed on information cops got from stores that happily handed over logs of the purchases.

I've seen no evidence that any of the 17 "suspects" intended to use the medicine for anything other than what it was meant for. More to the point, I see no proof that they tried using the pills to make meth. I know firsthand that spring allergies can be brutal in the Midwest, so did you ever stop and think that maybe these 17 individuals have really bad allergies and have no involvement in meth whatsoever?

But the law makes no distinction. If you're running 200 meth labs in the woods behind your house, this law treats you no more harshly than if you've just got 2 sick children.

Naturally, Freeper types are praising the probe in the comment section of the Kansas paper. They brag (in all capitals) that the quirky arrests will "SEND A MESSAGE TO THESE TYPE OF PEOPLE." What type of people? People who catch colds or have allergies?

Just one more example of why we need to flush these new laws straight down the crapper.

(Source: http://www.fstribune.com/story/1432957.html)

Alabama county sees meth labs spike under new law

Wow, sounds like that Rockefeller drug law against allergy medicine with pseudoephedrine is really working - not!

How bad are things are getting under these new laws? In Etowah County - a major Alabama jurisdiction - law enforcement says there were more meth labs seized just last month than in all of 2007. Only 6 labs were seized last year, but so far this year, there's been about 30.

The reason for the twelvefold increase in methamphetamine labs? At first, authorities deceived themselves into thinking the new laws were effective. But now they've noticed that meth cooks are evading the law by obtaining ingredients at different stores instead of just one.

Gee! (Slaps forehead.) Who'd have ever thought meth cooks would think to do that?! (That's sarcasm!)

This is just more proof that the only people punished under the new law are allergy sufferers and parents of sick kids.

(Source: http://www.weis990am.com/np75352.htm)

Air travel costs soar (again)

Laws seem to be sweeping the country away, don't they?

In most states, it's illegal for cancer patients to get a doctor's prescription for herbs that have been proven to have positive medical effects. In many places, it's illegal to light a firecracker even on the Fourth of July. It's illegal to walk across the Newport Southbank Bridge barefoot or bring a dog to Fountain Square. It's illegal to possess markers or paint at Bellevue Beach Park.

Everything illegal.

Unless you're a big corporation like an airline. Corporations have almost no regulations on them. In BushAmerica, laws are only for the little people, you see.

It's under this "regulation for thee, not for me" climate that airlines have now raised fares threefold.

For instance, American Airlines' July fares between Phoenix and Miami cost $238 last year. But now they've almost tripled to $660.

If that isn't a clarion call to reestablish some state or federal regulation over the airline industry, what is? It's perfectly clear you can't sit back and "let the market work." If the market worked, fares wouldn't have gone up so much!

Let's make a deal: If the government stops mortgaging individual rights in the name of the failed War on Drugs and the Idiot Act, I'll go a whole month without lamenting the laissez-faire attitude that governs Big Business. Offer expires Plop Day.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=e7829bfb-1c96-4d25-b215-bf246d1b0be1)

D.C. takes us right into the danger zones

Yes, I know, that's our second Kenny Loggins reference in a week, but anyway...

If city officials in Washington, D.C., get their way, much of the city will become what is perhaps America's most extensive Stalinist police state.

Under this right-wing plan, police will be able to cordon off entire neighborhoods, and they will be able to set up checkpoints and expel "unapproved" persons. Cops will demand identification from people just entering the neighborhood. People who don't show "legitimate reason" to be there will be shooed away or arrested.

In the now-familiar "war is peace" fashion, they call them "neighborhood safety zones." I call 'em neighborhood danger zones: Would you expect to feel any safer? I wouldn't. There's neighborhoods in Cincinnati that are as crime-ridden as any in D.C., but I'd feel no safer if the same plan was adopted in these parts.

In fact I'd feel much less safe. Under programs like this, almost every innocent person is considered a criminal to some extent. The "safety zones" are in fact unconstitutional under freedom of assembly. Neighborhoods are indeed public spaces and are maintained by the city's taxpayers. An Assistant U.S. Attorney has already warned the city that the danger zones are unconstitutional.

With these factors - namely, the presumed guilt, the intentional disregard of constitutional rights, and the raw power of the system - I'd say it's far more likely to be wrongly arrested or have one's rights violated under this program than to be a crime victim without this program.

But officials remain undeterred! The city's interim attorney general Peter Nickles boasted, "I'm not worried about the constitutionality of it." Hints of Marc Racicot! Apparently, Nickles considers the Constitution to be just a piece of paper and not the law of the land. However, the head of the D.C.-area ACLU said of the program, "I think they tried this in Russia and it failed."

Police chief Cathy Lanier claimed 100% of D.C. residents favor the proposal. Oh yeah? Several residents of targeted neighborhoods told Examiner.com that they know it won't work. They say that something similar but less extensive was tried in the Far Right wave of the '90s. In that round of tyranny, residents felt threatened as police brandished guns at them for trying to enter their own neighborhoods.

If the danger zones don't become a reality, it will be a victory for locals but another setback for Lanier. Recently, a public outcry forced her to scale back her unconstitutional plan for warrantless searches for contraband.

Probably neither of these ideas would have been proposed recently except there's so many liberty-hating scumbags in high places like Michael Chertoff who keep telling us we should give up our freedoms. So when someone obliges, future abuses appear less intrusive than they really are.

Papers, please?

(Source: http://www.examiner.com/a-1423820~Lanier_plans_to_seal_off_rough__hoods_in_latest_effort_to_stop_wave_of_violence.html;
http://www.examiner.com/a-1425545~U_S__attorney_questioned_constitutionality_of_sealed_safety_zones_in_May.html;
http://www.examiner.com/a-1425547~Police_checkpoints_don_t_comfort_concerned_Trinidad_residents.html;
http://dcist.com/2008/06/04/mpd_to_seal_off.php)

Bad eminent domain measure fails; real thing passes

Something just downright swell happened in California yesterday.

The Golden State had an election with 2 referendums on the ballot: propositions 98 and 99. Both offered protection against eminent domain abuse. Prop 98 would have gone further in that regard, but this was only a cover for the initiative's real, more unfortunate goal: The measure would have also barred cities from having rent control.

Rent control has been a life-saver for many Californians. Perhaps hundreds of thousands of people simply couldn't afford to lose rent control. But the eminent domain issue was being exploited to accomplish the goal of abolishing cities' limits on rents.

If both referendums won a majority of the vote, Prop 99 would have canceled out Prop 98. But in yesterday's vote, only Prop 99 got a majority. And it wasn't even close: The frightening Prop 98 (with its rent control ban) lost 61% to 39%, while Prop 99 (which doesn't ban rent control) won 62% to 38%.

The right-wing media machine churned out countless editorials bashing Prop 99 as a tool of corrupt city governments, while praising Prop 98. They cried that rent control is as much of a "taking" as eminent domain abuse is. These screeds were intentionally misleading. Proposition 99 does more to curtail eminent domain abuse than current policy does, without gutting tenant protections - so if you had to pick one of the two, Prop 99 is more of the real deal.

Should there be broader protections against eminent domain than Prop 99? You're damn right there should be! But just not at the expense of tenants who need rent control to make ends meet.

The Conservative Fool Of The Day is...Jon Draud!

Jon Draud is Kentucky's Education Commissioner. He's long been a thorn in the side of those of us with a brain.

In 1999, when Draud was a Republican state legislator from Kenton County, he wrote a rambling op-ed for the Kentucky Post in which he blamed the First Amendment for school shootings. I swear I am not making this up.

Later, Draud had opportunities for advancement under the corrupt regime of Republican Gov. Ernie "Hey Bert" Fletcher. Fletcher was almost as much of a right-wing activist as Bush, as the likelihood that Fletcher would appoint some big shot to an important post increased in proportion to how truly miserable said big shot was. Everything became about advancing an agenda.

Naturally, Jon Draud was appointed Education Commissioner by the Kentucky school board, which was stacked with Fletcher ideologues. He was about the very worst person they could possibly select, and they chose him.

But now it's all crashing down for poor ol' Jon, as he's caught up in a major scandal!

In late May, Draud told Louisville's Courier-Journal newspaper that he knew nothing about the cost of a fancy new 2008 car with $13,000 in extras that was purchased at taxpayer expense for his official vehicle.

But now it turns out that he knew. He knew it all along! The former school principal ordered thousands of dollars in amenities for the car on the taxpayers' dime - then lied about knowing about it.

He approved the expenses even though a state finance official warned him that the state had a budget crisis on its hands. This seems to fly in the face of current Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear's executive order that the heads of state agencies provide justification for expenses over $1,000.

The extras Draud requested for his new Chrysler luxury sedan include a telephone system and a GPS device. Um, Jon??? Wouldn't a road atlas have been much cheaper?

Oh well. Maybe we should give Jon Draud the best things in life to make his feewings feel better, because he seems to be a sickly guy and all - judging by the fact that he demanded a bonus of 30 days of sick leave in addition to the 20 days of leave he already gets (when most new state employees only get 12 and no bonus). His annual salary is $220,000.

At least this wasteful scandal might take Draud's attention off doing any more damage to Kentucky's school system.

(Source: http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080604/NEWS01/806040902;
http://pageonekentucky.com/2008/05/23/ed-commission-jon-draud-his-fancy-new-car)

D.C. defeats fireworks ban

John Adams once said the Fourth of July should be celebrated "with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward for ever more."

Americans keep Adams's spirit alive with fireworks. All over the country, the sky becomes a crowd-pleasing canvas every July 4 as folks exercise their right to express their patriotism with exciting fireworks displays. But increasingly, the right-wing media and zealous local governments have lodged a war against this tradition.

My response to these party poopers is the same as it is to that of moral panic types like Jack Thompson who try to ban video games and music: If it offends you, don't do it. Simple. The fact that they don't fuck off proves one thing: They don't like it when people have a good time.

Those who'd ban fireworks or video games are the modern equivalent of the Puritans who passed the early blue laws. Enforcement efforts have been stepped up to ridiculous levels in recent years (such as when Rudolph Giuliani sent New York City police to a fireworks festival hundreds of miles from the city to confiscate attendees' cars).

With Independence Day lurking, officials in the District of Columbia proposed following the "lead" of numerous states by enacting tough new laws against fireworks. The plan would have banned entirely the sale or use of common consumer fireworks anywhere in the city.

They called it emergency legislation. I guess the city must not have any other problems if this was an emergency. The real reason officials put this plan on the fast track was so there wouldn't be any public comment on it.

The plan was praised with the usual "Think of the children!" chorus reminiscent of that of Rev. Lovejoy's wife on 'The Simpsons'. Of course this gimmick is a fallacious appeal to emotion. They were using it to try to unfairly tar the proposal's opponents.

The plan to ban fireworks proved massively unpopular among D.C. residents. And last night, City Council rejected the ban by a smashing 11 to 2 vote.

I question whether the government can even issue such a blanket ban of fireworks or most other products. Regulate it, sure. But to go after individuals for safely using pyrotechnics for their intended purpose seems almost as if the government is overstepping its bounds.

Banning does more harm than good. If fireworks are illegal entirely, it's impossible to regulate what's safe and what isn't. If they're legal, you can at least oversee their safety. If they're illegal, there's no guidelines for safe use.

In other words, the anti-fun crowd is out of excuses.

(Source: http://www.examiner.com/a-1421409~D_C__Council_expected_to_kill_emergency_fireworks_ban.html;
http://www.examiner.com/a-1423473~D_C__Council_rejects_fireworks_ban.html)

Chickenhawk Kristol attacks Obama over war service

Weekly Standard founder William Kristol is a profile in serial people-destroying. But this time he's fallen on his stupid face with a thud.

Bill Kristol's latest idiotic theme is his attack on Barack Obama for never joining the military. Well, you didn't enlist either, Bill.

Kristol turned 18 in 1970, at the height of the Vietnam conflict. Although he supported this war, Kristol - who was a recent prep school graduate - didn't sign up. He coasted on to Harvard instead.

Obama turned 18 in 1979. After high school, he attended a small college. He didn't go off to fight in a war, because America wasn't in any wars in 1979!

Why do right-wingers like Kristol expect everyone else to fight their wars? Or to enlist at all when they refused to do so themselves? The political scene is still rife with right-wing big shots who have supported a draft and who reached conscription age in the '50s but never served during that era's peacetime draft (expecting others to be drafted in their place).

With all of Kristol's chickenhawkery, it should be no surprise that Kristol was one of the shrillest voices for starting the Iraq War. I guess he knew he'd never have to fight in it.

Why should a right-wing chickenhawk like Kristol even suggest that today's young Americans sign up for the current war that only pads the coffers of millionaires in the defense industry, when he never enlisted in wars he supported?

Kristol's smear machine has already been called out in recent months. In one of his memes a few months back, he relied on debunked information he got from NewsMax, which is a notoriously unreliable source. When people caught on to this, Kristol had to issue an apology.

Does anyone still trust this clod? For years, TV news outlets have always had Kristol on to give his unfortunate opinions about important matters. How much more does he have to be disgraced before they stop?

(Source: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15002)

Philippines abolishes school uniforms!

In the good ol' U.S. and A., where some 25% of public schools now require uniforms, neither the Democratic nor Republican party has the gumption to advocate abolishing this scourge. The tyranny has only expanded, especially as activist courts like the right-wing Ninth Circuit have approved uniforms (a decision that flies in the face of the First Amendment).

Much of the world, however, is seeing uniforms slowly fall by the wayside.

Just days ago, the government of the Philippines issued a directive that abolished obligatory uniforms in all public elementary and high schools that had them.

Sure, if you happen to have a uniform, you may still wear it. But you won't be required to obtain one.

The policy itself takes a refreshingly populist tack. Before the uniform requirement was dropped, some schools were barring students from class because their parents couldn't afford to buy a uniform. By lifting the uniform requirement, families are no longer burdened with this arduous expense.

The abolition of uniforms helps make an education not only free of charge to students but also more free with regard to thinking. Abolishing uniforms will encourage innovation and creativity among the young.

Where's America's political "leaders"?

(Source: http://www.pia.gov.ph/default.asp?m=12&r=&y=&mo=&fi=p080604.htm&no=12)

Hate crimes soar under conservative governments

The Bush regime - more specifically, its allies in the American media - is in effect the world's #1 exporter of right-wing violence.

The U.S. media, which has acted as a mouthpiece for the totalitarian Bush government, is surprisingly influential abroad. Even in South America, the Spanish-language versions of U.S. news outlets are widely seen.

How does the Bushist media export rightist violence? Their coverage of foreign elections is as biased towards conservative candidates as is that of American elections. This is the key reason a surprising number of the world's economically powerful nations have ushered in conservative governments just in the past few years.

And what happens under conservative governments? You know, there's a reason we call 'em conservative and not liberal (at least not by the American definition). Let's be honest: Conservatism stands for certain causes. I'm not saying all the foreign governments that lean to the right are extreme. But they do have views and policies, you see.

Part of their philosophy is that they view cultural matters a little differently from what we might. They're generally a bit more nationalistic and a little more suspicious of outsiders. They tend to be a little less mindful of pluralism, even in very diverse societies.

This is a bigger issue than it otherwise would be, because it attracts and emboldens those who take this view to extremes. Right-wing extremists feel sheltered and encouraged by a government that they see as more friendly. And why wouldn't they? Conservative regimes typically don't place a high priority on addressing concerns of all segments of society. That's simply the way it is.

Violent extremists have gotten a decisive foot in the door worldwide lately. Most conservative governments might not be fanatical on their own, but they do little to stop extremism from flourishing. Canada, for example, has the most conservative government it's had in years - and now a new report shows that anti-Semitic incidents reached an all-time high in Canada last year under this new conservative rule. These episodes increased a staggering 59.1% on college campuses.

Similar rises were reported for last year in Germany (which has a conservative leader), Australia (which had one at the time), and the United States (don't even ask). At the same time, these incidents decreased in most of western Europe, where a majority of governments were more moderate. An article in Israeli newspaper Haaretz said the increase in Germany, Australia, and the U.S. was "tied to the strengthening of the radical right" and linked to "right-wing extremist groups."

Gee, whose fault is that? Did "the liberals" strengthen right-wing extremists? Somehow I doubt it. If a party has too much appeal to extreme elements, these factions will inevitably pull its policies away from the center. We've already seen it happen in America with the Republicans.

This also shows how deeply the ideology of the Right is flawed. No matter how far you take the policies of the Left, it doesn't approach that level of raw, irrational bigotry.

A vote for conservatism is a vote for hate crimes.

(Source: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/989445.html;
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/948267.html)

School switches to 4-day week because of energy costs

When I saw this story, I thought for damn sure it was going to be another school trying to provide a cloak for a year-round calendar. Instead it's an item that underscores how expensive energy has become.

Turns out it's a charter school in Cincinnati. After summer vacation, the school is switching to a 4-day week, a move expected to save $1,000 in energy costs monthly.

It's unclear how Fridays are going to be made up, but I'm guessing a lot of the savings are going to be from lower fuel costs involved in transporting students to and from school.

If you've seen the cost of (ppphh!) gas lately, you'll see why. I think it's time the government steps in and investigates oil prices. America can't survive with gas being $4 a gallon. It just can't.

(Source: http://www.wlwt.com/education/16476127/detail.html)

Right-wing lawmakers waste thousands on posh offices

The right-wing Kentucky legislature is at it again, as they've squandered hundreds of thousands of your tax dollars on fancier offices.

I guess you can expect this waste and incompetence from the beezlydolfs who enjoy hitting kids and putting your grandma in jail for buying too much allergy medicine. The way they went about it was especially arrogant: The legislature evicted important state agencies from the Capitol Annex so lawmakers could build larger offices for themselves. As a result of this, the evicted agencies had to rent space from private building owners, which will cost Kentucky taxpayers $400,000 a year - plus utilities.

The total cost will be even more. And that money's going to come from the state's cash-strapped general fund that had been saved up for emergencies.

What's more is, the new legislative offices will be used on only 30 to 60 days a year. The Kentucky legislature is part-time and meets on only 60 days in even-numbered years and only 30 days in odd-numbered years. The agencies that were evicted are year-round.

The state auditor was evicted too. Because of this, her staffers have to drive all the way across town to the Capitol 3 to 5 times daily and waste (ppphh!) gas.

Kentucky doesn't have enough money for colleges or health care, but lawmakers waste money on self-indulgent shit? The legislature's new budget actually slashed funds for schools and other public services, while throwing more money at this boondoggle, which includes a fancy lounge.

Maybe if the legislature would stop stockpiling beer in the rooms it already has, it would have more space.

(Source: http://polwatchers.typepad.com/pol_watchers/2008/06/general-assemblys-space-grab-brings-400000-in-rent-costs.html;
http://frontier.cincinnati.com/blogs/gov2/2008/05/groob-hits-westwood-on-senate.asp)

Cheney says what he really thinks of West Virginia

As much as the media raises a stink about Barack Obama's remark that rural voters are "bitter", the media has hardly uttered a peep about what Dick Cheney said about West Virginia.

At a Press Club (funny word alert) luncheon, Cheney said something about how there were folks named Cheney on both his father's side and his mother's side of the family. He chortled, "So I had Cheneys on both sides of the family and we don't even live in West Virginia."

Making incest jokes about a whole state, Dicky?

If the media was on this remark (which shows what the Republicans really think about West Virginia and rural America) as much as they're still on the "bitter" flap, that's a lot of electoral votes gone for the GOP.

Conservatives really do look down upon some of America's rural regions. If you're a rural populist, don't be fooled by Republicans' deceptive self-marketing where they try to paint themselves as a bunch of down-home folks. Remarks like Cheney's incest comment are quite common in right-wing circles, but they usually don't slip out in public. I know this, because I've heard the things they say. They've had the nerve to say it to my face, no less. (Nonsuburban Kentucky is another target of their wrath.)

When you talk about elite suburban areas the way Cheney talks about rural states like West Virginia, it's edgy, because nobody expects it. And because the affluent suburbs have never had to worry about getting picked on. But what Cheney said isn't edgy. It's trite and stupid.

You expect stupidity and triteness from a chickenhawk like Dick Cheney who got 5 draft deferments to avoid serving in the Vietnam War, which he strongly supported.

A writer for the Washington Post is already speculating that Cheney's little quip may have cost his party West Virginia in the upcoming election. (That's one state where the GOP was actually far ahead!) But probably not, because the media won't cover it.

(Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/02/cheney-makes-incest-joke_n_104761.html)

Fair use for me, not for thee

We already laughed at the discredited and much-ridiculed 'Expelled' when Freepers tried to claim Netflix was part of a conspiracy to censor it. (They were too dumb to realize Netflix doesn't carry films that are brand new.) Now there's a whole new vista for us to expose the film's fartpipery.

As you may know, there's something encrusted in copyright law called fair use. If you're creating a new work, it's legal to use limited portions of copyrighted works without gaining permission from the copyright holder. This doctrine is quite broad.

There's a fine line between fair use and plagiarism - which conservatives cross regularly. At the same time, they scream "copyright infringement!" over detractors using their materials in ways that fair use protects.

In short, they believe in "fair use for me, not for thee." A case involving 'Expelled' proves it.

Viewers of the movie are treated to the John Lennon tune "Imagine" being played over old black-and-white footage of a Stalin parade. The movie is trying to equate creationism critic PZ Myers with the Soviet dictator.

This comparison is absolutely idiotic. But the piece of the song is probably just short enough that its inclusion is protected under fair use. Yoko Ono and other members of John Lennon's family have gone to court to try to sort the issue out.

The real issue here is that the makers of 'Expelled' are claiming fair use, while their ideological allies have accused the other side of "copyright infringement" for much less.

How many entries have I posted here about some right-wing corporation or individual hiding under the DMCA or abusing copyright law? A few months back, a conservative law firm that represented infomercial scammers claimed a website was violating its copyright just by posting a cease-and-desist letter. If misusing a John Lennon song is protected, then posting a cease-and-desist letter damn sure is.

The hypocrisy never ceases.

(Source: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080602-ben-stein-1-yoko-ono-0-in-expelled-copyright-spat.html)

The Conservative Fool Of The Day is...Mark Madden!

After Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a brain tumor, conservatives have had a hard time containing their glee.

Mark Madden, a Pittsburgh-based ESPN sports radio host, seems to be leading the right-wing noise machine's hatred against the senator.

Recently, Madden, 47, went on his radio show and declared, "I'm very disappointed to hear Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts is near death because of a brain tumor. I always hoped Sen. Kennedy would live long enough to be assassinated."

ESPN was not amused. Madden was soon sacked for his outburst following outrage by listeners.

Conservatives ain't exactly a sweet bunch, are they?

(Source: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/790581/mark_madden_no_longer_on_espn_1250.html?cat=14)

Year-round school scourge eases in Louisville

I'm glad someone's finally starting to wake up to this scourge, and it's happening in my home state, no less!

Kentucky is a stronghold of failed gimmickry in its so-called public schools, and as long ago as 1994, Louisville's Jefferson County had its first school with a year-round calendar. But now this school is one of 2 in Louisville that's abolishing its failed year-round setup.

I planned on quarantining the AP article about this event, because the piece continues to praise year-round school even though it's a massive failure, but what the shit. Also, it isn't true that the calendar had only 175 days, because Kentucky requires 177 - and because additional days were used for what the schools should have been providing all along, so by my calculation it was about 221 days.

In its rush to heap adulation on year-round school, the AP says test scores increased at one of the schools, but this too is misleading: Standardized tests are known to be poor measures of academic achievement, because they only show how well schools teach to the test, not to the student.

Few tears are being shed at the schools abandoning their year-round schedules. Since one of the schools went year-round 6 years ago, parents have been pulling their kids from the school, and enrollment there has dropped every year. That tells you something right there. Ever hear the saying, "The customer is always right"?

Maybe sometime before the 30th century, the Campbell County Schools will finally get the message.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/content/news/commonwealth/story.aspx?content_id=5adf3f21-28b7-49f6-a0f8-9328889808ca)

Phone books and me

Phone books are cool.

Telephone directories and I go back a long way together. I remember that when I was growing up in the early '80s, the local Yellow Pages began including street maps. I hoped someday I'd grow up to get a job correcting the maps (which the maps they included at the time sorely needed). But when I saw the words "Since 1907" under the Reuben H. Donnelly logo, I began to worry that Mr. Donnelly might be no longer alive to hire me to work on the maps.

I don't know if any of you remember the Yellow Pages at the time including a drawing of a woman with orange hair holding one of the maps, but these illustrations were legendary then - and subject to extensive defacement by many a customer.

I don't think ol' Reuben had anything to do with the White Pages, but if he did, Reub and I had something big in store for the area in the late '80s! It was then that I began posting the Cincinnati area White Pages on a local BBS. It worked wonders for post counts!

I skipped the preface of the directory that listed consumer rights and phone harassment penalties, and went right to the listings. The listings were the meat and potatoes of the tome, after all.

My uproarious endeavor was bolstered in 1991 when the Supreme Court ruled in Feist v. Rural that phone companies cannot enforce a copyright on listings.

In 1998, I finally got a chance to work in the phone book biz. I got a job bipping about Highland Heights delivering the directories. That year, the phone company test-marketed a miniature replica of the White Pages - featuring all the same listings, but in much smaller print. The phone company decided to give some of the houses in my territory a miniature book instead of the big book. But when the townsfolk protested by asking for a big directory, I defied the phone company's Allowed Cloud by giving them one.

Phone books also make dandy collateral to use against hotel chains. Once on a trip in Pennsylvania, I confiscated a motel room's phone book as leverage because the inn's swimming pool was out of service.

Now it's June! Where I come from, we call June phone book month. What does this year's run of directories have in store for the Great Royal Tim? Who knows? Life can be full of surprises, especially when phone books are involved.