Katherine Harris the next Randy Cunningham?

Katherine Harris - not Ralph Nader - is largely responsible for what America has been force-fed the past 8 years.

So few things would be more satisfying than for Harris to do some serious hard time.

There's been some very strong speculation that she's about to be prosecuted for dealings with Mitchell Wade, the man who bribed the now-disgraced Randy Cunningham. Damn, but life is good these days!

To be a juror on the trial of Katherine Harris would be so fulfilling, wouldn't it?

It seems Wade has been telling all he knows about congressional corruption lately. Apparently he's helped prosecutors go after several other recent members of Congress who are reportedly being probed for corruption similar to that of Cunningham.

Which members? It's unclear exactly who. The now-defeated Republican Virgil Goode is said to be one. The same goes for...Katherine Harris.

Harris and Goode haven't been charged with any wrongdoing, but some believe that it's looking pretty bad for them.

This could be a good one! If Katherine Harris ends up going to prison, it would be hilarious. In fact it would be one of those moments that would so great that you almost wouldn't know what to say about it.

If it happens, be sure to savor the moment!

(Source: http://allspinzone.com/wp/2008/11/29/katherine-harris-and-another-steaming-cup-of-gop-culture-of-corruption)

Radio aired White House talking points

When you read an article about an event in another country, it's often qualified with some variation of the words "according to official media." Sometimes you'll see the words "state-run media."

Government control of the news is often associated with authoritarian foreign regimes. But there's not a dime's worth of difference between that and what goes on in America these days.

Even by its narrowest definition, it was already known that it's been occurring at least since Bill Clinton's drug czar Barry McCaffrey placed messages in TV shows and magazines promoting the failed drug war. You know it goes on now, as in the PBS program on Hugo Chavez that stopped little short of repeating right-wing talking points.

The Armstrong Williams scandal of 2005 was perhaps the most well-known example. Bush's so-called Department of Education paid Williams, a right-wing commentator, over $200,000 to promote the No Child Left Behind law during his radio and TV shows.

According to Rep. George Miller (D-California), the government paying Williams to promote this law was an act of "propaganda" that was "worthy of Pravda." Miller cited GAO opinions that showed the White House had already violated federal law with video news releases that supported Bush's mangling of Medicare.

This government propagandizing has continued unabated. A former news director for WTMJ radio in Milwaukee now says broadcasters have continued to air talking points that were secretly rushed to them by the Bush White House. The White House has even hired reporters to plant newspaper stories.

Surprised? I'm not.

One suspects it's been going on since probably Bush's daddy was in office, because many of these talking points are almost identical to ones from 15 years ago.

This story also confirms what I've known and said for years: Many right-wing talking points are planted directly by the Republican National Committee.

The right-wing intelligentsia needs to stop whining like a bunch of babies about how the world is being so unfair to them, when they've got the entire media to parrot their lies. But I guess there's money in their babyishness, if they can be paid over $200,000 just to comment favorably on a failed Bush initiative.

(Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56330-2005Jan7.html;
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Radio-Treason-Right-Wing-by-Gustav-Wynn-081130-768.html;
http://www.milwaukeemagazine.com/currentIssue/full_feature_story.asp?NewMessageID=24046&pf=yes)

Daylight Wasting Time: an idea whose time has gone?

Daylight Saving Time is finally over for now, and it feels great!

After the government's more serious fuck-ups of the past 28 years, fixing Daylight Saving Time might not be a high priority. But if everyone can agree on it now, we can clear it up and get it out of the way.

Daylight Wasting Time may be of some value if you're near the eastern boundary of your time zone and are in the proper time zone to begin with. In our area though, this test doesn't quite hold true. And it's much worse in, say, Louisville or most of Indiana. (Right-wing Gov. Mitch Daniels imposed the time change on Indiana because Big Business demanded it.)

We hear so much about how Daylight Saving Time is an "urban convenience", "helps the farmers", "saves energy", and so on and so on and Scooby-Dooby-Doo. But when the government extended Daylight Saving Time a few years ago, it had the backing of powerful energy corporations.

Why would they support something if it lets people use less energy? Simple. Because it doesn't. They know it, because Daylight Saving Time doesn't even apply in the winter months that would need it the most!

Even on Standard Time, much of the United States is actually in the wrong time zone. Time zone boundaries have been slowly trudging west in an effort to force communities to follow the time of their wealthier neighbors to the east. Thus, Standard Time in Cincinnati, which is in the Eastern Time Zone, is about 40 minutes off from the city's natural sundial time - while it would be only 20 minutes off if it was moved to the Central Time Zone.

A tolerable discrepancy, maybe. But it gets much wider during the 8 months a year of Daylight Wasting time - when the time is almost 2 hours off from its natural state. If Cincinnati was in the Central Time Zone, it would be only 40 minutes off.

This is a significant point, because the human body has a biological clock. Humans have an animal-like instinct that can tell day from night. If your body thinks it's 6 AM day after day after day when the "official" clock says 8 AM, you can't catch up.

I also think the work week should be shortened from 40 hours, like the rest of the world has already done, but some of the most aggravating manifestations of the toll taken by Daylight Wasting Time occur on weekends and holidays: By the time you wake up, half the day is already shot!

Millions of Americans spend the whole summer futilely playing catch-up!

What should we do about the greed-driven expansion of Daylight Saving Time? You could abolish it altogether, but there may be a select few American locales that may end up with the opposite problem we have.

You could move it to different months. If it has to be 8 months, why not make it so we have it in December when it gets dark the earliest?

Or just leave it alone - and shift the time zone boundaries back east. Folks today don't realize that Louisville and even Lexington were on Central Time until the '60s. If we move them back to Central Time, and if we add Cincinnati to Central Time as well, we've got a much better map than what we have now!

For the sake of us all, we can't let the current situation continue much longer. We can continue to condemn ourselves to lives of poor sleep habits, sluggishness, and futility. Or we can synchronize our alarm clocks with our bodies once again.

The Conservative Fool Of The Day is...Jay Ambrose!

Jay Ambrose is a columnist who used to be the Washington director of editorial policy for the right-leaning Scripps Howard media empire. (He looks a bit like a certain school principal who I had many negative run-ins with in my day. The resemblance isn't spot-on, but it's there.)

Ambrose attracted ridicule early this year when he wrote an op-ed for the right-wing Boston Herald complaining about the New York Times daring to cover the McCain lobbyist scandal.

Now he's written a piece crying about how political figures supposedly owe oil companies an apology for criticizing their price-gouging.

Ambrose assails both Barack Obama and John McCain because they "ranted" about Big Oil's greed. "Apologize and do it now," Ambrose whimpers.

Aaaaawww, did the poor widdle oil industry have its pwecious widdle feewings hurt?

Well, I'm gonna say it right now: Big Oil practiced price-gouging all year. Still does. Ambrose boasts that gasoline prices are now down to $2 a gallon - but that's much higher than it was before Bush seized power.

And I don't owe the oil industry a fucking thing except a middle finger. It's never getting an apology from me. Never.

Ambrose absurdly claims that the $4 gas prices this summer were caused by the "then-bustling" American economy. You're hilarious, Jay, you know that?

He also grumbles about Obama pledging to tax Big Oil profits to "finance $1,000 giveaway checks to working families."

Heaven forbid corporations (many of which haven't paid a trime in taxes in 10 years) pay taxes to help families who work for a living.

Ambrose says the apology to oil companies from political leaders should be placed "in perfumed envelopes." As populist luminary Jim Hightower likes to say: What a goober.

Jay Ambrose fit Scripps Howard like ass in glove. I used to buy a copy of the Cincinnati Post 6 days a week, and their editorials were nearly as pro-Big Business as Ambrose's incoherent tirade is.

The guy's a conservafool!

From the man who's wrong about everything!

You have to wonder what Weekly Standard founder William Kristol is trying to accomplish every time he makes one of his thoughtless pronouncements.

Maybe he's actually got some big, important ideas in store for us someday, and he wants to get our attention first by sounding as stubbornly idiotic as possible in the meantime.

In Kristol's latest laughable installment, he wants Bush to give the Medal of Freedom to officials who wiretapped without warrants and administered torture.

Giving the Medal of Freedom to people for violating the Constitution? That's as absurd as Kristol's whine in the same piece that the Republicans "won't get the credit they deserve for successes in Iraq."

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/29/215235/79/467/667696)

To map or not to map?

To map or not to map? That is the question!

Drawing bicycling maps for Cincinnati area neighborhoods is sort of a side job I have. I've completed maps for 2 small northern Kentucky towns, and now I've finished one for Cincinnati's Pendleton neighborhood.

I really didn't know how to handle this one. There's a handful of neighborhoods in Cincinnati that boast a spectacularly high crime rate, and I don't have much reason to visit these areas. So I almost never do.

Are they safer than a suburban Catholic high school I once attended? By a long shot! That doesn't mean the area is safe: A nearby neighborhood did host an infamous gun battle outside a school a few years back.

Almost everything within Cincinnati city limits is reasonably safe, but there's always exceptions. Under Bush, the crime rate has soared locally as it has nationally, so no individual can still count on their own safety on every street. Anyone who seriously thinks America is safer than 30 years ago has their head up their ass.

I completed my Pendleton map because it's such a tiny area. Pendleton is a wedge-shaped neighborhood just northeast of downtown. Pendleton includes much of Bunker Alley, for which bunker blasts are named. (Just joking about the bunker blast part.)

Speaking of bunkers, to see my maps, point yours here:

http://bunkerblast.info/maps

Bubble gum and the age of discovery! (Bubble Gum Weekend)

Compared to BushAmerica, almost everything else seems like the age of discovery. Many folks such as me who like to discover would have gone much further in life if they lived in certain other times and places. Perhaps not all discovery-minded individuals would have succeeded in all other times, but certainly some would have been more likely to prosper in some times.

Things weren't perfect centuries ago. In many ways, they weren't even good. But if America was run 100 years ago the way the GOP misrules it now, the Wright brothers never would have discovered airplane travel. They would have been forced to keep quiet, study unrelated subjects, and put on a suit and tie just to have someone else get rich off their work.

And that creatively funny series of Care-Free gum commercials from the '70s never would have happened! Perish the thought!

That series also featured this commersh (reportedly from 1978):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tlmfaj1Ieo

In that ad, Isaac Newton discovers the theory of gravity. And he discovers bubble gum too! Of course. Some dude even bubbled!

Incidentally I don't recall that ad like I remembered the Wright brothers ad. I do remember one commersh in this series featuring George Washington - which has yet to surface online.

Commercials today aren't nearly as creative, but if they were, who would they feature? Perhaps John McCain thinking he discovered the BlackBerry pager.

"John McCain, you've discovered Care-Free gum!"

"No, something really hard to swallow: I've discovered the BlackBerry!"

And at the end of the ad, Bush appears blowing a bubble like in the old photo from his college years, and the jingle sings, "32% unemployment..."

Open thread

Congress investigates Spitzer case

Was former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (who is a married man) right to hire a prostitute (a scandal that led to his resignation)? Of course not. Nobody here ever said he was. But does something like this affect one's ability to govern? No. It was a personal matter, not a public one.

When a politician does something like this, I try to let it slide - unless they built their career on telling everyone else how to live. Spitzer is a Democrat - but the Republicans are usually the ones trying to control everyone's private lives. If you think I'm practicing a double standard, the Republicans have visited it upon themselves by sticking their noses into everyone else's sex lives.

A few question my stance, but the GOP reaps what it sows.

Was it right for the feds to launch a politically motivated probe of Spitzer, which led to his downfall? Absolutely not. And there's no question that the Bush regime abused its powers to catch the governor.

For once, however, Congress is making itself useful by investigating this abuse. The House Financial Services Committee is trying to see if federal agents abused their massively expanded powers that the Patriot Act gave them.

Of course they did. In my opinion, anytime you do anything authorized by the Idiot Act, it's abuse, because the law itself is abuse. The Patriot Act is a rogue law. Null, void, and boomsplackerspluzzy.

Spitzer was caught because, under the Idiot Act, certain bank transfers trigger a "suspicious activity report." That enabled the public spectacle that transpired early this year. The Bush regime doesn't give a fuck about catching terrorists. They only care about ruining the careers of political enemies.

No Patriot Act = no Spitzer case.

All of this highlights how the Patriot Act has nothing to do with halting terrorism and everything to do with government partisans going after foes.

(Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gvseu7uDYI9vGyMHJCo51IdS-4twD94MAQ180)

Damn! The Last Word must be dangerous!

Already there's some new developments in the closure of The Last Word's Yahoo e-mail list.

When I posted my notice that I was shutting it down, that e-mail got through - which proves Yahoo was specifically targeting The Last Word itself. The Last Word must be dangerous. After what happened to it on Usenet some years back, I knew The Last Word was considered subversive by the right-wing power base, but I didn't know they still paid much attention to it.

When I went to delete my e-mail list, a page popped up that said, "Please let us know why you are deleting this group."

So I actually had to give a reason? What is this? Russia?

Speaking of which, I couldn't let Yahoo's collaboration with the government of mainland China go unchallenged any more than its censorship of The Last Word. So, as my reason for shutting down my e-mail list, I said:

"Censorship by Yahoo (lovers of the Red Chinese government)"

Now, according to Wikipedia, the appellation Red China supposedly fell out of favor in the '70s because of improved relations with the Chinese government. But who gives a shit? The major entities that improved their relations with it seem to be the Republicans and Yahoo - both of whom cozy up to it every chance they get.

It seems that the Republicans since the '80s haven't found a dictatorship they didn't like, and that's why nothing has been done about Yahoo ratting out journalists to the regime in China. The GOP's cult of globalism has ruled the roost for too long.

As for the censorship of The Last Word, this may signal only good times ahead. There's a saying: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. I think the online censors may be at the third stage now.

The end of an era

Well, folks, I knew this day was coming.

After hundreds of issues of The Last Word, I think it's time to move on.

No, I'm not shutting down The Last Word. (I really had you scared for a moment, didn't I?) But due to circumstances beyond my control, The Last Word's e-mail list on Yahoo is reaching its closure after 9 years. I for one won't miss dealing with it, as it is on Yahoo.

My first Last Word e-mail list, of 1995-96, ended in shambles for several reasons. For starts, AOL kept splitting issues in half. For another thing, assholes kept signing up for my list just so they could complain it was "spam."

I started the current list on eGroups in 1999. But in 2000, Yahoo took over eGroups. In postdemocratic America, greed-driven corporate mergers are considered a constitutional right, you know.

There The Last Word stayed. When I discovered Yahoo enjoyed ratting out journalists to the Chinese government, I wrote a piece in The Last Word begging and pleading for Yahoo to kick me off their miserable system so I could go out with a bang! But they didn't budge! They didn't want to make me a martyr for freedom of conscience.

By then, Yahoo was known for shutting down groups and e-mail lists for no apparent reason. When moderators of the deleted lists asked why, Yahoo replied that they couldn't divulge why. ("You just don't argue anymore...")

But The Last Word's mailing list lived on!

Until now.

Yesterday, when I put out my latest issue, I tried e-mailing it to my Yahoo list as always. It never got through. I tried it again today. Again, it never got through.

Apparently, Yahoo is blocking my newsletter from going through at all - thus rendering the e-mail list useless. Only the very naive would think this isn't because of the contents.

Therefore I shall be shutting down my Yahoo list this evening. Fuck you hard, Yahoo, for taking over eGroups. And for reporting journalists to the Chinese government to be imprisoned just for doing their job. Yahoo is an American-based company, and American companies do not rat out journalists to oppressive foreign regimes just for the way they report the news.

I really wanted to get my Yahoo account yanked a couple years ago, and I regret not being able to do it then.

The U.S. government needs to step in and review the takeover of eGroups and let eGroups be split off again. And it needs to crack down on American companies who collude with oppressive regimes abroad. Congress needs to pass a law barring American companies from turning in journalists.

I plan to post this notice on my Last Word e-mail list, but it probably won't do any good, as Yahoo is blocking my posts. In case anyone does read it there though, I plan to continue The Last Word, which you can find at:

http://bunkerblast.info/lastword

Because The Last Word is largely overtaken by The Online Lunchpail, my popular blog, you can find that at:

http://onlinelunchpail.blogspot.com/

In the immortal words of Judge Paul Trevor: That'll be all.

City tries to limit church protests

Right-wing websites advocate killing people because of their religion - but their allies support outlawing peaceful protests against a church bureaucracy.

In short, they are intolerant extremists. And they believe the country's public policies must be based on their beliefs. Make no mistake about it: They are the American Taliban.

City officials in Draper, Utah, fit this mold, as they're supporting a proposed ordinance designed to suppress criticism of the Mormon church's bureaucracy. As the opening of a new Mormon temple in Draper looms, the city may pass a law implementing "free speech zones" that confine dissenters to small areas away from the temple.

One local attorney calls it unconstitutional - which it is. "Under the First Amendment, the entire country is a free speech zone," he said. Free speech is supposed to apply on all public rights-of-way.

Hell, if I lived in that area, I'd probably hold a protest just to speak out against this new ordinance! If the Taliban wants to arrest me for protesting on a public right-of-way, let them get sued.

(Source: http://deseretnews.com/article/0,5143,705266251,00.html)

Wal-Mart clerk killed in stampede

As Wal-Mart consolidates its monopoly in many American communities, the retail giant has received yet another black eye.

At a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, New York, a clerk died this morning when hundreds of holiday shoppers were able to smash through the doors and trample him. Numerous customers were injured.

The store was unappreciative of the employee who died on behalf of its corporatist business model. It opted to remain open throughout the ordeal. It wasn't closed until police were able to shut it down.

Customers who participated in the mayhem should shoulder much of the blame for the incident. But Wal-Mart has a responsibility to prevent stampedes like this.

This story also underlines the ravages of the cult of consumer capitalism - which the retail industry and the media have long fed. People will ship their own kids off if they skip 3 hours of school, but they'll trample their neighbors just to buy that hot new fall-apart toy that ends up in a yard sale by March.

(Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/11/28/2008-11-28_worker_dies_at_long_island_walmart_after.html)

Teacher loses job for opposing beatings

The school system in much of America means hefty doses of corporal punishment.

In many districts, no dissent from this order is tolerated. Retaliation against dissenters is actually worsening.

In Booneville, Mississippi, a special education teacher's contract was not renewed, because she opposed brutally paddling an autistic student. To support her stance, she cited studies proving that corporal punishment in schools is harmful.

In other words, a teacher was fired just because of what she thinks (even though her beliefs were backed up by factual studies). Under BushAmerica's thought police, those who are opposed to smacking kids around are told to keep their mouths shut, or they end up losing their jobs.

Furthermore, the school district lied about the reason for the dismissal. They told her they had to let her go because budget cuts forced the elimination of her position. But then the school system turned around and hired someone else to replace her.

Now the teacher who lost her job has filed a federal lawsuit because the school broke the law by not renewing her contract because of her views.

It's pretty sad when school districts try to police thoughts of employees. But they've been doing the same to students for decades, so who's surprised?

(Source: http://www.djournal.com/pages/story.asp?ID=282642&pub=1&div=News)

Have no fear, ish #450 is here!

Today, as you give thanks for the harvest with family and friends, pop open a keg or three and enjoy the latest issue of The Last Word - which continues its 16-year heritage of mixing serious commentary and humor!

This ish includes several pieces you might find interesting. Read about the 12-year-old kid who got arrested just for farting at school. Feast your eyes on my travelogue of last year's road trip in which Mountain Dew got spilled down inside the TV in a hotel room. Learn about bizarre vandalism at a respected Canadian art gallery.

For all this and more, point your pooper here:

http://bunkerblast.info/lastword/lw081127

(Also, this is the last time I'm copying a release like this to MySpace, because their blog feature is so hard to use.)

Thanksgiving open thread

MySpace sociopath let off easy

In today's America, how do you guarantee yourself a life on Easy Street in which you're pampered like a monarch and protected from even mild criticism for the rest of your years?

By becoming a sociopath!

If you're an online predator or bully, everything comes easy to you. And you can forget ever being held fully accountable for your crimes. America since about the mid-'90s has worshiped sociopathy. Right and wrong are considered dirty words these days.

This point was underscored by the outcome of the criminal trial of a 49-year-old Missouri woman who abused MySpace to help lead a hateful hoax that led to the suicide of a 13-year-old girl. Today the defendant was let off easy for her role in the crime.

The federal jury failed to convict on the conspiracy charge or the 3 felony counts of accessing computers without authorization to inflict emotional harm. It's unclear whether this is because the jury wasn't allowed to hear all the evidence. (The Bush-appointed judge had threatened to bar jurors from hearing the fact that there was even a suicide.)

Instead, the defendant was convicted on only 3 misdemeanors and faces a maximum of only 3 years - a small price for killing an innocent teenager. The victim is dead, but the perpetrator will walk after 3 years at most.

That's BushAmerica's idea of "justice"?

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081126/ap_on_re_us/internet_suicide)

Raided program backs Roloff

America's modern teen confinement racket is modeled on several unsavory programs. Much of it descends from techniques found in POW camps, which were later adopted by cults of the '50s and '60s. A great deal of today's suffering though wouldn't be possible without the late Lester Roloff.

In the '70s, Roloff, a right-wing preacher, was known for his youth homes in Texas and other states that used heavy corporal punishment, forced kids to listen to tapes of his sermons for days on end, and refused to allow state inspections. Texas closed Roloff down, but in 1997, then-Gov. George W. Bush - being the big Nazi he is - enacted new laws to let the centers reopen. Roloff had died in 1982 in a plane crash, but his supporters carried on his "work."

Probably every teen confinement center in America today has some aspects that were inspired by Roloff's homes. The "quiet room", for instance, is almost pure Roloff.

When I was reviewing the clips about the raid on Reclamation Ranch in Alabama following abuse allegations there, I detected something I didn't notice the first time I viewed them. See if you can spot it:



Did you catch it? It's at 1:20.

The white van belonging to the program is emblazoned with the words, "IN HONOR OF LESTER ROLOFF."

So this program not only probably has some methods that descended from Roloff's abusive practices, but seems to be explicitly based on the dangerous Roloff modality. Why else would they pay so much gratitude to the late preacher?

The van windows also use that dark tinting characteristic of cars used by Kids Helping Kids, the Cincinnati cult that got smacked down recently by the roadside protests I was involved in.

The more you investigate teen programs, the more they seem to have in common.

Alabama youth facility raided

Another teen facility has been raided for child abuse allegations - this time in Alabama.

Reclamation Ranch describes itself as a Christian program for troubled young people, and it has several facilities in that area. The one that was raided is called Lighthouse Academy and is for boys ages 12 to 17. Eleven boys were removed from Lighthouse Academy by authorities on Saturday after allegations of beatings and torture. Foster parents who housed kids from the program also say the teens were forced to eat spoiled cereal.

Reclamation Ranch denies the accusations. But other programs have also denied abuse accusations - even when abuse was confirmed. After being abused by another program, and after my involvement in investigating such facilities, I refuse to take any program at its word. If they're committing child abuse, do you really think they're going to admit it?

The center that was raided in Alabama calls itself a "minimum one-year program" that teaches kids "how to obey authority." This very description is enough to send chills up your spine.

At a hearing yesterday, the 11 boys taken from Lighthouse Academy were returned to their families.

One commenter on the Alabama paper's site says that Reclamation Ranch supports Kent Hovind, a right-wing conspiracy theorist who is serving federal prison time for tax fraud. I'm trying to be fair here, but frankly it doesn't look good for Reclamation Ranch. Then again, I don't know of many youth residential facilities that don't believe in right-wing conspiracy theories, so no surprise there.

You also have to consider the fact that it takes a lot for a program to be raided. At many facilities, abuse is obvious to anyone who might investigate for more than a few minutes, yet authorities never take action.

Also, there's a couple of TV news reports about the raid up on YouPube already:



And:



(Source: http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/statebriefs.ssf?/base/news/1227604555195750.xml&coll=2;
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2008/11/11_boys_returned_to_families_a.html)

Can't read...Can't read... ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

'Sesame Street' seems to have an unusually high illiteracy rate.

Several sketches have made reference to Cookie Monster's weak reading skills. Another segment reveals that even the Number Painter hasn't been blessed with the gift of literacy.

So it's ironic that 'Sesame Street' would feature a song promoting reading:



That segment was from the '80s when I was a little too old for 'Sesame Street', but I know I saw it at a family member's house one weekend around 1991. I was watching 'Sesame Street' because all the other channels were showing preacher beg-a-thons.

Also, is it just an illusion, or does the back of Bob's newspaper feature ads for escort services?

I always used to think of additional verses to this song that had to do with other reading materials. I think it would pib if a fourth verse featured Amazing Mumford singing:

In a porno book
I got to take a look
At those filthy photos Grover took
Can read
Can read
A porno book you can read
A porno book's all you need
And you can read

It's great when you can read! Yeah!

Robert Gates??? Really???

America spends all this effort to put a Democrat in the White House, and this is what it gets in return.

Decisions like this are one of the key reasons I switched to the Greens. I think it's safe to say Cynthia McKinney never would have reappointed ROBERT GATES, of all people!

Robert Hates was the Conservative Fool Of The Day for 11/29/06 because of his Iran/Contragate involvement and because he had demanded the bombing of Nicaragua. Gates was also one of the chief architects of the Bush regime's failed Iraq War troop surge.

And so, the right-wing revolving door continues to swing around nutsack-like - even with a party change at the top.

Bailout bonanza balloons (at your expense, of course!)

Damn, this recession is great!

If you're a corporation, that is. It seems that all a big corporation - especially a major bank - needs to do to get taxpayer money is hold out its hand, and the cash plops right in.

Now the government is about to give - get this, folks - almost $8,000,000,000,000 more to Corporate America.

Look at that number again, folks. That's 8,000,000,000,000. That's not 8 million. Not 8 billion. It's 8 trillion. I expressed it in numeric format just to show you how big a trillion is. A trillion is a million times a million.

This sum is about $25,000 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. It's also 9 times what the U.S. has spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts combined.

Worse, the government won't even reveal which financial institutions are getting our money!

All this after banks spent the original bailout money to swallow up smaller banks and buy its executives swanky new jet airplanes.

(Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=arEE1iClqDrk&refer=home)

Citigroup gets bailout after spending millions to name stadium

Citigroup is paying the New York Mets $400,000,000 just to have its name on the ball club's new stadium. This deal is still in place even as the banking giant has announced that it's firing 52,000 employees and as the company's stock values have declined by half.

Shittypoop can spend almost a half-billion on stadium naming rights yet has to fire over 50,000 workers???

It gets worse.

Now Citigroup has just gotten a taxpayer-funded government bailout worth over a quarter-trillion dollars. This $300,000,000,000 isn't spread across the industry. It goes entirely to Shittypoop.

So the American taxpayers are effectively paying for Citigroup to faceplant its name all over the Mets' ballpark. Lovely. Citigroup can't manage itself well enough to comprehend why keeping 50,000 workers on the job is better than putting its name on a stadium - and now it's getting rewarded for it.

Hey, if I do something incredibly stupid, can I get $300,000,000,000 in taxpayer money for it?

(Source: http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2008/11/24/citigroup-prefers-naming-rights-of-mets-stadium-to-real-people)

Subway...Eat campaign literature!

A congressional election in Louisiana still lurks in December (because the primary was delayed by hurricane season), and here's one candidate who deserves to lose in a landslide: John C. Fleming, a wealthy Republican who finances most of his own campaign.

John Fleming is a physician and author. Of course, that's not why I'm against him. Writers and doctors do many wonderful things. I'm against Fleming because he's a right-wing extremist who supports a 30% national sales tax - and he fills his website with propaganda like "Every Child is a Potential Drug Addict" and links to teen residential programs and sellers of home drug tests in case you "would like to test someone."

Fleming, the owner of 30 Subway restaurants, has also gained ridicule for his campaign practices. If you happen to pick up a sandwich at a Subway in northern Louisiana (without knowing that Fleming owns the place), you might find the bag for your meal stuffed full of Fleming campaign materials.

Many customers discovered this and were disheartened. John Fleming's election opponents weren't too pleased either, and they questioned whether this unholy matrimony of politics and commerce was even legal. They were also concerned about Fleming's campaign commercials featuring him in one of the Subways he owns.

Part of the problem is that Fleming makes it appear as if Subway Restaurants (the chain itself, not just the 30 shops he owns) endorses his candidacy. But the candidate maintains that everything is groovy. Still, the Federal Election Commission has never specifically addressed this sort of activity.

Customers and political opponents are unimpressed, but employees of Fleming's Subways who have to stuff the bags with his campaign propaganda are downright furious - especially because many of them were already supporters of one of his opponents!

I guess we can't expect someone who provides links on his website to teen confinement facilities not to be smug enough to think his congressional campaign is worthy of unadulterated praise 100% of the time.

(Source: http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/the-subway-candidate-flemings-business-practices-toe-political-line-2008-11-24.html)

Get your TV Brick ready: Fox adds infomercials

When over-the-air networks add an infomercial block, it's fair to say the American television industry has finally reached its point of collapse.

Infomercials (which are literally program-length commercials) used to violate FCC regulations against airing too much advertising - rules that were lifted by the Reagan regime. Many infomercials are outright scams, advertising get-rich-quick rip-offs and bogus weight loss drugs.

These days, individual TV stations fill much of the weekends, overnights, and even afternoons with infomercials. Cable channels have begun doing the same - and cable households have to pay for this shit. Occasionally a national political candidate will run a one-time campaign infomercial on the networks.

But no regular-assed over-the-air TV network in the U.S. of A. nation has ever aired regularly scheduled infomercials.

Until now.

Starting in January, Fox will replace part of its Saturday morning children's programming block with 2 hours of infomercials.

If I owned a station that was affiliated with Fox, this would be crying out for a local preemption. Even if I had to bring back those slides from 1983 and have a voiceover announcer just read the AP wire, there's no way in hell I'd show network infomercials. But TV stations apparently aren't so bright: Fox's infomercial block has cleared 95% of the network's affiliates.

Stations are so eager to preempt 'The Simpsons' for a college basketball game that has 3 viewers, but infomercials get 95% clearance?

Do Fox-affiliated stations even gain anything from showing network infomercials?

It gets worse. Fox plans to team up with major advertisers to create infomercials that resemble regular programs but are actually built around the product being advertised. This slick brand of infomercial is designed to blur the lines between programming and advertising.

It's time the FCC steps in and puts its foot down like it used to. Maybe when affiliates' licenses come up for renewal, the FCC might be interested in hearing comments from the public about how the stations are misusing the airwaves (which are supposed to belong to the people).

(Source: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=95409;
http://www.variety.com/VR1117996360.html)

Court legalizes warrantless searches

This story is yet another strike against liberty, justice, and the very rule of law (or as Bush calls it, the rule of "damn pieces of paper").

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has decreed that warrantless searches by the U.S. government of American citizens are legal if they take place abroad. In other words, the government doesn't even have to obey the very Constitution that's supposed to be the law of the land.

The court said that these warrantless searches must be reasonable as the Constitution requires. Uh. Look at the Constitution. The Constitution also says searches can't be warrantless.

Duh!

Whatever you think about a defendant's guilt or innocence, America is supposed to be a nation of laws. If you've ever been arrested, you've probably endured a lecture about the importance of rules and laws. So the government should obey the law itself.

It should also obey other countries' laws. This case involved a search by the U.S. government of an American citizen that took place in Kenya. Like the U.S. Constitution, the Constitution of Kenya also safeguards against arbitrary search and seizure.

American authorities can't just stomp into another country and search everything they feel like searching. If you're 20 years old and you drive to Canada where it's legal for 20-year-olds to drink, can U.S. agents march into your hotel room and arrest you without a warrant?

Even if the government thinks someone is a terrorist, it should get a warrant before searching them. The Constitution is very clear on that. Under our system, the government and the accused are both supposed to get their day in court, and I'm all for the accused being punished severely if they're guilty. But the laws must be followed.

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/nyregion/25embassy.html)

Bush regime stabs vets in the back (again)

When the neorightists talk about supporting the troops, it's just a slogan to them - for they've always got a knife hidden somewhere to stab America's brave fighting men and women in the back.

Now the Bush regime has done it yet again. Taking away injured soldiers' signing bonuses and trying to gut the VA wasn't enough to gratify the Decider, I guess.

The Pentagon is now changing the definition of combat-related disabilities in an effort to deny veterans the benefits that they're owed. (This blog's L.A. Times ban is again suspended.) Under this new rule, disabilities incurred by combat aren't necessarily combat-related disabilities.

Confused?

Take the case of a Marine who was injured in Iraq by a roadside bomb and a landmine. He received a traumatic brain injury, hearing loss, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other injuries. All disabling conditions, and all caused by combat, right?

Or what about an Army sergeant who had to have her hip replaced because of a mortar attack?

Well, according to the Decider-in-Chief's new rules, these aren't combat-related disabilities. Why? They aren't because they aren't. The nation's rulers say what they say because they say it. They don't necessarily rely on logic or fairness.

America's military budgets are squandered on fancy offices for high-ranking personnel, while disabled soldiers are denied thousands of dollars a year in benefits under the new rules.

I'm a lifelong civilian, and I despise war. But there are perhaps no words sufficient to express my disdain for those who stab the nation's veterans in the back with such mind-numbing attention to this sordid task.

Why does the Bush regime hate the troops?

(Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-combat25-2008nov25,0,3682816.story)

A story CNN won't report

There's a lot of important stories CNN won't report - and not just war pieces that were bowdlerized by totalitarian foreign regimes that the Bush crime family supports.

This story is about CNN's own attack on working people.

Evidently, CNN fired over 100 workers 5 years ago all because they were union members. This firing was illegal: It's against federal law to fire employees because they organize. Bush hasn't been too serious about enforcing this law - because he thinks laws are just "damn pieces of paper" - but that is the law.

But now an administrative law judge has ordered CNN to rehire the employees. The conservative-leaning cable channel has also been ordered to recognize the unions.

It wouldn't have taken 5 years to reach this decision if Bush had just enforced labor laws, but like I said, he's the "damn pieces of paper" guy.

(Source: http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/11/24/cnn-ordered-to-rehire-110-workers-fired-for-belonging-to-a-union)

Lawsuits stop drilling despite DeMint's shitfit

When the Bush regime and the DLC defeatists recently gutted a nearly 30-year-old nationwide ban on dangerous offshore oil drilling, you could almost hear America's beaches becoming thick with goo.

We didn't expect to receive much more oil from offshore drilling. We knew much of the oil (that which didn't get spilled at least) would just be hoarded like much of that from onshore sites, forcing fuel costs up again.

Now fans of offshore drilling are facing a much-deserved hurdle they didn't expect! Conservation groups, states, and private citizens are now suing over oil leases - which has forced the drilling mania to grind to a halt, at least for now.

Last month though, America-hating right-wing Sen. Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) introduced an industry-backed bill that would have allowed only 90 days to sue.

I guess DeMint would rather live under a legal system that lets corporate "rights" rule, huh?

(Source: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3616178)

Kentucky to go nuclear?

I frankly don't see the newfound appeal of nuclear power.

Although the conservative camp laughably insists that nuclear power is a "green technology", it's actually one of the most dangerous and costly forms of energy. So much so that Kentucky banned nuclear power plants after the Three Mile Island disaster in Pennsylvania.

But some want that ban lifted. State Sen. Bob Leeper introduced a bill this year to repeal Kentucky's nuclear ban - boasting that Kentucky could host numerous nuclear plants if his bill passed.

Of course it could, but why would most Kentuckians want that?

Even since Kentucky's ban was enacted, there's been enough worry over attempts to build plants just across the state line. Anyone who remembers the map inside the cover of the Campbell County phone book showing where the toxic cloud would hover in case of a nuclear accident in Ohio doesn't need to be reminded of that. Kentucky doesn't need nuclear power plants anywhere near, let alone within its own borders.

But a new report actually suggests Kentucky take a serious look at nuclear power. Several utility firms have already threatened to build nuclear plants in the Bluegrass State if they get permission.

You can just see Monty Burns tapping his fingers together and saying, "Excellent!"

If we want Kentucky to save energy, school boards should stop closing down schools in populated areas and forcing kids to be schlepped 10 miles out of town. And let's stop allowing big box stores and exurban malls to drive Main Street out of business and making everyone drive 30 miles just to get groceries.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/content/middleblue1/story.aspx?content_id=fde4ae72-ab43-473b-b54c-a6cfe8fa9a55)

Take it away...Wanna hear you play...

Perhaps no U.S. senator deserved to lose his reelection bid more than this asshole: Georgia's Saxby Chambliss. And he still may, because he faces a runoff next week.

Saxby Clueless won his Senate seat in 2002 after calling incumbent Max Cleland a communist - even though Cleland lost several limbs in the Vietnam War (while Chambliss dodged the draft).

Now Chambliss has again proven what an asswipe and bully he is. When a journalist asked him a question about his refusal to testify in the case of the Imperial Sugar explosion that killed 13 people, Chambliss angrily scowled to the cameraperson, "You can take it away now." The senator shoved the camera and placed his hand over the lens.

Here's a video of Chambliss's tantrum:



Take yourself away, Saxby.

As for the lawsuit itself, Chambliss has refused to comply with subpoenas - citing "senatorial immunity." However, there's no such thing as "senatorial immunity." None whatsoever. He pulled it out of his ass.

He also verbally harassed a whistleblower in that case.

I guess this is to be expected from Mr. UnfairTax, huh?

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/22/114818/60/1009/665120)

Bush imposes air "security" rules on Canada

Even as Bush eyes the 'O' keys of White House computers with his flathead screwdriver, he still hasn't stopped crapping his pants.

Now the Decider's Transportation Security Administration is going ahead with new rules that would disrupt the privacy and movement of not just U.S. citizens but Canadians as well. The TSA has decreed that Canadian travelers flying abroad from Canadian airports must provide all their personal info - even if the flight never touches down in the U.S.

This is supposed to boost America's security how?

Why does Canada tolerate this imposition? I know the Harper administration isn't exactly known for standing up against Bush, but come on!

Roch Tasse of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group put it succinctly: "It's the United States having control over which Canadians are allowed to board a plane or not." Last year, the Bush regime pressured Canada into creating its own no-fly list (which is like a Bushist Bible), so this imperialism isn't entirely new.

Obama's going to have his work cut out for him cleaning up Bush's mess. Now you know what he meant when he said he'd have to prioritize.

(Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081123.wflights1123/BNStory/National/home)

City ends "blight" fight

In Long Branch, New Jersey, a dull, peptic tower of luxury condos now looms over a working-class beachfront neighborhood - blocking the view that the older homes once enjoyed. The new condos cater exclusively to the wealthy, many of whom are early retirees.

But the new development will likely see no more expansion - much to the delight of its working-class neighbors.

Starting in 1994, the city of Long Branch tried to abuse eminent domain to seize houses in the neighborhood and turn the property over to the developers. However, both the federal and state Constitutions permit eminent domain only for public use. The new development is private.

As an excuse for this right-wing land grab, the city claimed the existing properties were "blight." In fact, hard-working residents were denied permission by the city to improve their homes just so the city could call them "blight." The city also refused to maintain the streets, for that same reason.

But now, the city is abandoning plans to seize over a dozen homes to allow the development to expand. Surely, some damage has already been done at the hands of this project - so the real blight is from the new luxury condos. But it now appears as if there will be no more.

Maybe the developers don't want the land anymore because the economy is so bad that whatever they build on it will sit empty. How much market can there possibly be for exclusive condos when everyone keeps getting poorer and poorer?

Powerful, greedy developers often browbeat people and local governments until they get their way, but this time it didn't work exactly the way they hoped.

A few of you remember us in the early days of The Last Word having those paranoid delusions about local cities trying to force working-class residents out to build upscale retail and residential developments. Damn, what a bunch of fools we Last Word people musta been, because everyone knows nothing like that ever happens in America.

Except that it does. And this story proves it.

(Source: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/11/long_branch_may_be_extending_o.html)

Nurse in boot camp death loses license

What happened at the Bay County Juvenile Boot Camp in Florida in 2006 was a clear case of murder: A 14-year-old who collapsed was beaten by drill instructors and had ammonia shoved in his face until he died.

Eight employees involved in the massacre were charged with manslaughter. They should have been charged with murder. But they were let off the hook for the manslaughter charge.

Now one of them - a nurse who refused to intervene to save the teenager - has lost her license to be a nurse in Florida. The State Board of Nursing said that her conduct during the assault was unprofessional and negligent.

Among other things, she improperly distributed the ammonia capsules to the drill instructors, she performed no emergency treatment on the teen at any time during the attack, and she didn't even provide paramedics with complete information.

With a new administration in Washington on the horizon, there may still be activity at the federal level against the guards and the nurse over the boot camp murder.

(Source: http://www.wjhg.com/news/headlines/33938754.html)

Interview tyranny

As a working-class blog, we've noticed that the labor market relies less and less on skill and substance, and more and more on style. The job market today is actually an elite fraternity.

When I got my first job - which was for the public library when I was 17 - the interview consisted of material that was relevant to what I'd be doing at work. As long as I could show an ability to perform competently, all I had to do to get the job was show up for the interview in a raggedy shirt and wrinkled jeans.

(A humorous monologue by Barry Fox of Power 94.5 had poked fun at job applicants who blew bubbles with bubble gum during their interview, but I noticed that a girl in a tie-dyed t-shirt who bubbled also got the job she applied for.)

Those days sadly have passed. Nowadays, you have to look exactly right and display a certain style and even a certain accent. Midwestern English, for instance, is often unacceptable to the corporate empire, which seems to instead use Valspeak as its official dialect.

They don't want you just to wear a suit and tie. They actually expect it to be of a certain color. According to a Cincinnati Post article from 2005, a career event for high school students suggested that males who are looking for a job anywhere should wear a black suit.

Hell, I don't even own a suit - of any color! Or a tie! By 2005, I was a writer anyway, so I was more or less self-employed, and none of the jobs I had before then required wearing suits and ties. (I had to work outdoors in the summer before then, so donning a suit would've been potentially dangerous.) If I was born 15 years later than I was, my library gig would've gone to someone who showed more style, even if they had a much weaker grasp of what the job entailed.

Life today really is a fraternity. Know the right people and dress the right way, and you might get the job. Who cares if you have skill, knowledge, passion, or competence? Maybe you have these things. But it won't help you unless you put on a black suit and tie and impress some big shot. Little matters these days except trying to impress a corporate mentality that's overstayed its welcome.

Hail, hail, Kenton Vale!

To challenge the dominance of the Far Right, I draw maps.

These are bicycling maps for neighborhoods in the Cincinnati area. My second map to be completed is of the town of Kenton Vale, Kentucky. As with Woodlawn, Kentucky, I did it all in one sitting, for the community is so small.

Kenton Vale is known for its distinctive fauna that produce shirts, almanacs, Oscar the Grouch memorabilia, balloons, allergy medicine, crayons, and other things that the Far Right is afraid of. Just joking. I made that up completely - just to make the Far Right mad!

As is usual with these maps, the green roads are better for biking than the yellow roads. The circle on the map at Kuhrs & Edwin is my symbol for a city center, though this is often hard to define in suburban towns.

So point your pooper here to peep these beautiful maps:

http://bunkerblast.info/maps

Some more GOP congressmorons losed!

Lest you're wondering, it's now official: Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Virginia) got defeated in an upset. It took almost 3 weeks to count all the votes, but Goode has now goed!

I also forgot to tell you that Rep. Randy Kuhl (R-New York) is bye-bye as well. Kuhl was the Conservative Fool Of The Day for 9/19/06 because he threatened to shoot his wife during a dinner party. Kuhl blamed this act on his election opponent.

Although it was established on election night that Kuhl had lost, Wikipedia says he still refuses to concede. What a big baby!

These clowns utterly lostimated!

Mailman praised for not delivering junk

How much of your precious time and effort has been squandered going to the mailbox only to find another pile of junk mail and transporting it to the trash can? How much more have you spent on garbage bags just to handle it all?

Sure, it's fun to watch Super Shopper mailings burn, but you'd rather not have to deal with them at all. Junk mail wastes paper and clutters living spaces.

Folks in one North Carolina community are praising the local mail carrier because he refused to deliver junk mail - for 7 years! (I'm lifting my blackballing of the L.A. Times again.) For one thing, nobody wanted to get junk mail. For another, the amount of it was aggravating the mailman's heart trouble and diabetes. Instead of delivering the bulk mail, he buried it in his yard.

Not one person complained about his refusal to deliver junk mail. In fact he was hailed as a hero.

But the Postal Service isn't cheering - even though the Postal Service probably loses money on junk mail (forcing the cost of stamps for real mail to keep increasing exponentially). Nor is the Direct Marketing Association, because they think they have a "right" to fill your mailbox with unsolicited ads.

And the mailman was prosecuted for not delivering all the bulk mail. He avoided prison time, however. Instead he only received 3 years of probation, a $3,000 fine, and 500 hours of community service after compliments by locals poured in.

Sounds to me like he's a damn good candidate for Postmaster General.

(Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-junk-mail22-2008nov22,0,42692.story)

Gum Fighter wins another gum fight (Bubble Gum Weekend)

Bubble gum. I never chew the stuff myself nowadays. My jaw gets stiff and locks up chewing anything chewier than a booger these days, so why chew bubble gum?

Because it bips, that's why. Just joking. Even if it bips, chewing bubble gum would be hard work indeed.

But it comes so easy to the Gum Fighter - the guy in the Western-themed Hubba Bubba commercials.

Although the ads were set in the good ol' U.S. and A., and the Gum Fighter was played by an American actor, he appears in this commersh that reportedly aired in the U.K. in 1982:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlsFQgvouFc

In that ad, several people bubbled after being chased by Hubba Bubba highway robbers on horseback. Apparently, the Gum Fighter and his crew haul Hubba Bubba around by stagecoach, leaving them susceptible to robbery. Gum is highly coveted stuff, you know.

At the end of the ad, of course, the Gum Fighter emerged a hero, and the women all flocked to him!

This commercial seems almost the same as the American version except for the jingle at the end: In the U.K. version, the jingle seems to be sung in a British accent.

Damn. When are the villains going to learn their lesson that the Gum Fighter is unstoppable?

Woman loses limbs and sight due to hospital incompetence

Welcome to America's profit-driven health care system, folks.

This is the system under which a dentist lodged a drill bit in a patient's eye socket because he was dancing to the song "Car Wash" while pulling a tooth. (This happened in 2004 in Syracuse, New York.)

Now a hospital in New York City is being sued for $100,000,000 because of a recent incident that cost a 32-year-old woman her hands, her feet, and much of her sight.

The woman went to the emergency room with abdominal pain symptomatic of a kidney stone. According to her attorney, the hospital sent her back home on a stretcher with no blood test. She promptly developed an infection, and her hands and feet had to be amputated because of gangrene. She is also now legally blind.

The life of a mother who is only 32 is now destroyed because of the sheer greed that defines American's health care system.

This isn't the first time in recent years that something almost exactly like this has happened in America's medical facilities.

Frankly, $100,000,000 probably isn't even enough for something like this. Who's really to blame? It sounds like most of it is indeed the hospital's fault. Perhaps the rest of it is the fault of America's political "leaders" of the past 28 years who have allowed the health care system to disintegrate.

(Source: http://wcbstv.com/local/brooklyn.hospital.lawsuit.2.870802.html)

Open thread

Freepers cry "economic terrorism!" (more Freeper Madness)

Here at the 'Pail, we're a mainstay of progressive populism. But Free Republic is the anti-'Pail. I know of no other major website that has so many contributors who are so wrong so often.

In their view, having the wrong opinion is "terrorism." If not "terrorism", they call it "treason", such as when a user called western Pennsylvania a "traitor area" because it elected John Murtha to Congress. The user said this despite the fact that Murtha is a decorated former Marine and a Vietnam veteran.

Recently, PETA released a video (filmed undercover) exposing the abuse of turkeys at farms in West Virginia run by poultry breeding giant Aviagen. The video showed real events. Making and distributing the video is free speech (regardless of whether one agrees with all of PETA's stances).

But what does the Free Republic brain trust have to say about this? One Freeper asked, "Coming right before the holiday season, when most of the turkeys are sold, can the release of this PETA video be considered economic terrorism?"

Simple answer: no.

If a company doesn't want to be exposed, it shouldn't allow turkeys to be abused at its farms. The real crime was committed by those at Aviagen who refused to respect animal welfare. The Freeper bots remind me of how during the Abu Ghraib scandal, Jim Inhofe was "more outraged by the outrage" than by the scandal itself.

What went on at the turkey farms is a serious crime. In West Virginia, cruelty to animals is a felony that carries stiff prison terms. A criminal complaint has already been filed over the abuse.

Freepers believe in corporate rights - not the welfare of living beings. They seem to think no corporations should be exposed if grisly events occur under their watch. In their funhouse mirror world, those who blow the whistle on corporate misconduct are considered "economic terrorists."

In the topsy-turvy world of Free Republic, corporations have limitless rights to violate animal cruelty and other laws, but nobody is allowed to exercise their First Amendment right to expose it.

Pro-drugging shrink received Big Medicine payoffs

Dr. Frederick Goodwin is a psychiatrist who hosted the radio show 'The Infinite Mind' on NPR.

Goodwin seemed to support drugging of children. In one of the most outrageous statements on his show, he claimed that children who were not drugged for bipolar disorder would suffer brain damage. This propaganda was broadcast to countless parents nationwide - and at taxpayer expense through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other organizations. He claimed the drugs were "proven both safe and effective in bipolar children" - though they were not.

Now it turns out that Goodwin received at least $1,300,000 from drug companies to give marketing lectures. This income was never mentioned on his show. He got $2,500 from GlaxoSmithKline just on the day he made his controversial statement.

When you see or hear a commercial, you know it's a paid announcement. But what Goodwin did was far more virulent, for it occurred as part of his show and didn't appear to be the paid plug that it was.

In another display of Goodwin's greed-driven drug plugs, he once falsely claimed, "There is no credible scientific evidence linking antidepressants to violence or to suicide." The same week he said that, he was paid $20,000 from Glaxo, a company that suppressed studies showing Paxil increased suicidal behavior.

As a result of this conflict, NPR is removing 'The Infinite Mind' from its lineup.

But a lot of damage may already be done. How many parents fed their kids antidepressants because Frederick Goodwin said they'd be brain-damaged if they didn't? The lives of many of these children are destroyed now because of Goodwin's "advice."

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/health/22radio.html)

Failed school system expands policy on...well, guess

I'll give conservatives a point on framing an important issue: monopolies in education. While they believe public schools have a monopoly, even where private schools propagate madly, my concern is that private schools actually have a monopoly - for many American public school systems are de facto private.

Can a school system truly be called public if it requires uniforms? If a job requires a uniform, you can at least choose not to work there. But school is compulsory. In every American community, there is "the school." In most cases, you can't just choose another school district if yours has uniforms. In over 20% of the country, uniform schools in general have no less of a monopoly than conservatives believe public schools have.

That of course includes Clayton County, Georgia. This school system has attracted national derision for being one of very few American school districts in recent years shitty enough to nearly lose its accreditation.

Like the right-wing school district where I grew up, the Clayton County system tries to gloss over its own incompetence with failed gimmicks. In Clayton County, that meant uniforms, which were implemented this year at elementary and middle schools.

This right-wing policy not only failed to stem disciplinary and academic woes. In fact, violence and other disciplinary issues have actually worsened this school year. So naturally, the school board expanded uniforms to the high schools as well.

I guess BushAmerica means a corrupt school board can deny a whole county its right to a public education. Public schools aren't so public after all if they can exclude students for not wearing a uniform.

(Source: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/clayton/stories/2008/11/20/clayton_schools_dress_code.html)

Right-wing meanness on display in Kentucky city

Covington, Kentucky, has become so hostile to homeless people that it appeared in a ranking of the worst cities in North America for the homeless. In addition to the illegal bulldozing of an encampment (in which a resident's cat was cruelly killed), there was also the infamous rally by wealthy locals attacking the homeless.

Now the meanness of right-wing city policies is being showcased once again for the whole wide world to ogle (beep).

Last year, the city of Covington unrepentantly outlawed homeless shelters (as reported in The Last Word of 11/3/07). Evidently, a year before, the city adopted a zoning rule to disallow new social service agencies anywhere near downtown.

These rules are being trotted out to keep a new shelter from opening - even though the shelter was already approved by the county, which owns the building.

You know, since conservatives jack off so much to "preemption" of local laws (one of Bush's major policies that he wields against regulation of Big Business), why doesn't it apply in this case?

And who's ever heard of a city zoning an entire district against social service agencies? A neighborhood might be zoned business or residential, but certainly not specifically against social service agencies.

(Source: http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20081121/NEWS0103/811210378)

Disabled man denied right to sue

Once again I'm suspending my spurning of the Los Angeles Times, for this is an important story.

Jarek Molski is a 38-year-old man in California who uses a wheelchair after being injured in a motorcycle crash. Many consider Molski a crusader for the disabled. He filed over 400 lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act to ensure compliance with this oft-ignored law.

Many of the suits seemed farfetched at first glance, but a majority of the companies that were targeted were indeed violating the ADA. I'm not saying businesses should be ruined over an inadvertent oversight, but there has to be some way to make sure the ADA is obeyed.

A Reagan-appointed federal judge accused Molski of merely trying to extort money from corporations. But the ADA is clear that reasonable accommodations must be made for the disabled. The judge even conceded that many of the businesses Molski sued were breaking the ADA. Despite this, the judge barred Molski from filing any more suits in that district ever again.

The right-wing U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that judge's ruling (of course), and now the Supreme Court has allowed that decision to stand.

Even some judges on the 9th Circus had dissented though, correctly pointing out that Molski was just exercising his right to petition the government for redress of grievances.

If the federal district court in California is so worried about vexatious litigants, why don't they do anything about clowns like the misnamed National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation? This organization files frivolous suits in that same district every time a union fails to represent nonunion employees.

Uh, California isn't a work-for-less state. Thus, dues paid by union workers there aren't required to be used to represent nonunion workers. I'm sure the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation knows this, yet its abuse of the legal system continues unabated.

(Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-wheelchair18-2008nov18,0,2293830.story)

Taxpayers pay for Gonzales's lawyer

Habeas corpus skeptic Alberto Gonzales is the defendant in not just one but at least 2 cases simultaneously. In addition to being indicted alongside Dick Cheney in the prison scandal, Gonzales is also a defendant in a suit involving himself and other Justice Department officials blocking law students from Washington jobs because of their political views.

Gonzales asked the Justice Department to hire a private attorney for him at taxpayer expense. And the department has eagerly complied.

Isn't it nice to know you're paying for the former Attorney General's private lawyer?

Isn't Alberto Gonzales an attorney himself? If you were Attorney General - the nation's top lawyer - shouldn't your legal skills be grand enough to enable you to defend yourself?

Or is this an admission that Gonzales doesn't have the legal knowhow of a pile of navel lint? Hell, he doesn't even believe in habeas corpus, which we were supposed to learn about in 7th grade. How can you be a lawyer when you don't even believe in something that the Constitution guarantees in plain sight?

(Source: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/56078.html)

School system nearly shuts down over Matchbox Twenty song

Eek! It's a voicemail from Rob Thomas! Call the FBI!

If Matchbox Twenty can induce an entire school system to practically close down, just think what some of the bands back in my day like Twisted Sister would do.

In Mercer County, Kentucky, a school system employee reported receiving a voicemail consisting of the song "How Far We've Come" by Matchbox Twenty, which appeared to be taped off the radio.

Most people wouldn't find anything offensive about the song itself. After all, it was played on the radio, and corporate radio these days isn't exactly known for its tolerance of lyrics. But school people aren't most people.

The school employee described the song as "disturbing", and she called the police. Cops are now launching an investigation into the song.

Meanwhile, the Mercer County Schools were turned into an armed fortress for days because of the song.

Talk about a school system with some really weak coping strategies. If an inoffensive tune can bring the system to its knees, how would the schools react if there was a real emergency?

(Source: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/story/598007.html)

Disabled services slashed

What did I tell ya?

Just 4 days ago, I posted here about how something like this was going to happen. Now it has. States are now slashing services for the disabled and elderly, using the excuse of budget shortfalls.

Because of these cuts, low-income disabled Americans are being shuffled off to nursing homes even when home-based care is much more suitable.

The shortfall excuse is just that: an excuse, not a valid reason. States and cities have managed to scrounge up millions for construction of equestrian centers for wealthy horse breeders to show off, new stadiums for greedy sports team owners, subsidies for rich private schools, land deals to benefit big box retailers, more prisons, and handouts to abusive youth confinement gulags.

They call that "compassionate conservatism"?

(Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122714130153442755.html)

Palin may receive millions to write memoir

Sarah Palin comes from the petty "world-owes-me" school of right-wing politics. She was totally unprepared to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, but she sure knows how to cash in on her electoral loss.

I know what people like that are like, because I grew up in an area that was a bit like Palin's is now. Not counting the river cities, my county had about as many inhabitants, was suburban-dominated, and was on the political right. Palin reminds me of some of the nobility in my area who gained power and tried turning every public and private agency into their own personal fiefdom.

Like much of our local nobility, Palin doesn't know what it's like to have to actually earn a living. If she was a city council member just for a day, she thinks she should be treated as if she was President of the whole solar system.

Now Failin' Palin is said to be nearing a deal that would give her $7,000,000 just to write her autobiography - even though she can barely form a complete sentence.

Even other politicians hardly ever get that big of an advance to write their life story. Bill Clinton didn't get much more than that - even after he was President for 8 years. Just a few years ago, the record for a nonfiction advance was $8,500,000 (for Pope John Paul II), and Palin has almost topped that!

Nice to know that if you've got a wingnut following like Failin' Palin has, all you need to do to get paid $7,000,000 is scribble down some garbledygoop about how the big, stinky, nasty world is so mean to you.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20081119/pl_ynews/ynews_pl157)

Number Painter gets his comeuppance? ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

That Number Painter on 'Sesame Street' was a cool peep!

But even ol' Mr. Bentley isn't safe from paying the consequences for his numerophilia.

The Number Painter sketches featured all the numbers from 2 through 11 inclusive. In many of these uproarious skits, he emerges satisfied. In others, he is chased away but ultimately suffers no payback. In still others, his victim attempts to humiliate him, but the unembarrassable Painter seems undaunted.

But in the sketch for 11 - which is presumably his final appearance - the Number Painter finally learns whether vandalism truly pays:



In this clip, the Painter sneaks into a doctor's office and tries to paint an 11 on the window of the door. After almost being caught red-handed by the nurse (played by Stockard Channing), the Painter sits back down and reveals that although he's great with numbers, he is illiterate, as he holds his magazine upside-down.

After the window washer - a Painter victim in previous sketches - finally gets his revenge, he smiles with a deep sense of fulfillment. But this was just the beginning of the Painter's last stand.

As the Number Painter is reduced nearly to tears at the loss of his 11, the nurse opens the door and drags him into the examining room to see the doc.

Draw your own conclusions as to why the poor ol' Painter is never seen again.

I guess this was designed to teach kids that there are consequences for painting numbers on things. Hence, a generation of children were able to make informed choices about whether to engage in this death-defying activity.

TTYL, book burners

The world's working class has had very few enemies more virulent than censorship. The more censorship we let go unchallenged - even in school libraries - the more the censors are emboldened.

It's hard to claim America still has free speech when the meepings of one right-wing busybody can get a book pulled from a library shelf. But that's exactly what's happened now at a public school in Round Rock, Texas.

One dominionist parent in the community complained that the novel 'TTYL' by Lauren Myracle is "obscene" (even though it was intended for young readers). That was enough to get the superintendent to yank the book - even after 2 separate committees of parents and teachers voted to keep the tome.

So not only does America lack free speech, but the wishes of a majority aren't even followed. One person in a town of 60,000 doesn't make a majority. Even though the parent who demanded the banning of the book claims to have over 1,000 backers, it's still not a majority.

Sadly, the smell of burning books wafts over Round Rock today.

(Source: http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/education/entries/2008/11/18/book_removed_from_round_rock_m.html)

Home Despot

The moguls and nobility of Corporate America can usually be counted on to be diehard defenders of right-wing politics. Worse, they support capital punishment for not favoring their causes.

Home Depot (the home improvement retail chain) was founded by Bernie Marcus and several others. Marcus left the company years ago and no longer owns any stock in it. But like a true corporate head honcho, he's not shy about telling the world what he thinks about political enemies.

What does Marcus think about closely contested Senate races like the one in Minnesota? He says that anyone in the retail biz who hasn't donated money to the campaigns of Norm Coleman and other right-wing Republicans "should be shot, should be thrown out of their goddamn jobs."

Lovely. A founder of one of America's largest store chains supports assassinating or illegally firing people if their political views disagree with his.

This mentality has defined talk-shit radio and has helped contribute to the thuggery that's pervaded the Far Right in recent years. This is one of the reasons their followers start fights at campaign events, attack rallies, burn opponents' campaign signs or dissenters' houses (as what happened in Virginia), and lie about it.

The well was long ago poisoned and has yet to be decontaminated.

(Source: http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/1872)

Flushing out again!

Years ago I decreed November 18 of each year to be Plop Day - to commemorate restroom mischief at my high school.

By a remarkable coincidence, the World Toilet Organization - whose website says "Improving Toilets and Sanitation Globally" - later declared November 19 of every year to be World Toilet Day.

Has the whole month of November gone plumb toilety?

Frankly, I never understood the appeal of flushing toilets. I can understand flushing home johnnypots, but in public restrooms it's of no use. All you do is risk getting germs on your hands from touching the lever.

But today, since it's World Toilet Day, the World Toilet Organization has a solution that may render this dilemma moot.

At the World Toilet Summit, the organization is promoting a nifty invention called a dry toilet. It separates the pee-pee from the poo-poo and completely, er, eliminates the need to flush.

By being flush-free, this amazing tinkletorium also saves water and provides fertilizer for crops. Worldwide, the average person flushes the toilet 2,500 times yearly. Think how much wa will be conserved!

In the meantime though, I won't be flushing any donickers in public lavatories.

Happy World Toilet Day, everyone!

(Source: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24670784-2,00.html)

Ted Stevens loses Senate seat!

"You had a bad day...The camera don't lie..."

I bet the GOP thought there'd only be one day of me laughing in their faces over the election results, but they had to drag it out, didn't they?

(And if you think I'm being too gleeful over the Republicans' many defeats on November 4, this is payback for 2004, 2002, 2000, 1998, 1996, 1994, 1988, 1984, 1980...They so deserve it!)

Now it's officially been called: Alaska's Ted Stevens is the latest incumbent Republican senator to be unseated. I know it was close, which is why it took 2 weeks to decide it, but pre-election polls showed him trailing so much that he's lucky it was that close.

That it was this close shows how much the Republicans are willing to tolerate someone convicted of 7 felonies in the Senate. They got so mad at us for questioning the media's war on John Edwards, even though Edwards did nothing illegal. But they put up with a felon like Ted Stevens in the Senate!

Gonzales indicted with Cheney

Now you know the indictment of Dick Cheney is real, and wasn't issued by some kids playing grown-up court with some old powdered wigs and a hammer they found in the woods.

Bush's former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has also been named in the very real indictment against Cheney.

It turns out the indictment stems from the very real abuse of inmates at federal prisons in Texas. Sure Shot Cheney is an investor in the Vanguard Group, which owns parts of the private companies that run these prisons. The indictment accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" of inmates.

Gonzales is accused of abusing his Attorney General post to halt an investigation into prison abuse.

Another indictment accuses Texas State Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. of improperly profiting from his office by accepting honoraria from prison management firms.

The right-wing intelligentsia is already blasting the indictments as part of a politically motivated witch hunt by Democrats. Except Lucio is a Democrat, geniuses. Oops, another Freeper argument is out the window.

(Source: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6119394.html)

The Conservative Fool Of The Day is...Wiley Drake!

Meet Rev. Wiley Drake, pastor of the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, California.

The first time I remember hearing about the nutty pastor was last year when he demanded the death of those who questioned his IRS tax-exempt status after he used church stationery to endorse Mike Huckabee's ill-fated presidential bid.

During this controversy, Drake admitted, "I don't believe in the separation of church and state" - even though church-state separation is guaranteed by the First Amendment.

According to the Orange County Register newspaper, Drake recently ran for Vice-President as Alan Keyes's running mate on the America's Independent Party ticket.

Now Drake is truly proving what a sore loser he is!

The crazed minister is joining Keyes's frivolous lawsuit to keep President-elect Obama from taking office. The suit asks the California Secretary of State not to certify that state's election results. It charges that Obama hasn't proven that he's a natural-born citizen.

Wasn't that little Freeper rumor debunked months ago? It was debunked not only by the appearance of Obama's birth certificate but also by at least one website that scanned in a blurb from a Hawaii newspaper from 1961 that announced his birth in Hawaii. Clearly, the paper didn't run a phony blurb back in 1961. Because how would they know he'd run for President 47 years later?

Sounds like poor little Rev. Wiley Drake is upset because he lost! Someone call the WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHmbulance!

(Source: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/obama-drake-evidence-2232055-birth-certificate)

Cheney indicted!

I haven't seen anything about this on my local TV news, as the whole news team instead smirks and grins about stories that nobody gives a shit about.

Nonetheless, Sure Shot Cheney has now been indicted by a grand jury in Willacy County, Texas, along with several judges and state legislators.

Details about Cheney's indictment have not yet been made public.

(Source: http://www.krgv.com/2008/11/18/1001429/Willacy-County-Grand-Jury-Indicts-Vice-President)

Hunger up 50% in a year

Today's BushAmerica statistic: In 2007, child hunger in America soared 50% just from the previous year. Over 700,000 American children went hungry, according to new Agriculture Department numbers.

Remember, we're talking 2007 here, so this doesn't even take into account the economic woes of 2008.

Child hunger increases while banking industry stuffed shirts purchase sparkling new jet airplanes with $700,000,000,000 in bailout money Congress gave them. Much of this bailout money came from the very taxpayers whose kids are starving!

I wonder how the noise machine is going to try to spin this. Around the time the elder Bush left office, researchers predicted that years later there would be increased hunger in the U.S. caused by corn shortages. But these spinmeisters said not to worry because it would "solve" the obesity "pandemic." Now that 45% of American families report losing weight because they don't have enough food, count on the media machine to spin that too.

You can almost see Phil Gramm sneering at us right now.

Apparently, America's right-wing leaders are arrogant enough that they think can put us on a diet by not doing anything about hunger. That's how they "think."

(Source: http://www.newsnet5.com/health/18000875/detail.html)

More DLC wussiness

Senate Democrats (who already brang you the confirmation of Michael Mukasey) strike again!

Now - in all their DLC foolishness - they've decided to keep the increasingly unpopular Joe Lieberman as chairman of the powerful Homeland Security Committee.

The Homeland Security Committee, of all things! I don't think Lieberman has ever regretted supporting the Patriot Act, so this certainly isn't a committee he should be heading. That's like making Dan Lungren drug czar.

For me, the problem with this isn't so much that Lieberman didn't endorse Obama. I went to an Obama rally, and I'm satisfied with Obama's victory, but I didn't endorse Obama outright (for I questioned whether he was progressive enough).

The problem isn't even that Lieberman is no longer a full-fledged Democrat. In fact, I'm not either, for I'm a Green.

The problem is that Lieberman is more or less now a Republican! He spoke at the Republican National Convention, for crying out loud! And his policy positions have shifted well to the right, especially on issues like homeland security.

Yet Senate Democrats voted 42 to 13 to keep him as committee chairman??? Worse, they did it by secret ballot, so we'll never know which senators sneered at their own supporters by backing Lieberman.

Partisan Democratic blogs want Harry Reid ousted as the Senate's Democratic leader because of this. And I hope they do give Reid the boot. I hope House Democrats do the same to Nancy Pelosi as Speaker.

(Source: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/18/lieberman-keeps-powerful-chairmanship-post)

Plop plop fizz fizz...

One of the pivotal events of my life happened 20 years ago today.

On Friday, November 18, 1988, I was treated to the Plop Lecture. Many of the circumstances of this event are a blur, but we do know this: I was a sophomore in high school, and the principal was throwing a temper tantrum about the toilets getting clogged with scissors and underpants. He famously declared, "Plop! There it goes! It's gone!"

I've told this story countless times, and it never gets old!

Following that jaw-dropping harangue, I declared November 18 of every year from then on to be Plop Day. It's celebrated with lots of toilet humor, fizzy drinks, and loud music.

Just yesterday, there was a photo of the old guy on the local newspaper website. He's scowling and pointing his finger, just as he always did in my day.

The restroom mischief that preceded the Plop Lecture fits the political theme of The Online Lunchpail. The headmaster's tirade is linked inseparably with the 1988 election. No election, no Plop Lecture.

The whole thing started when the walkie-talkie got put in the toilet in October. Shortly thereafter, there was a campaign ad on Power 94½ radio for Mad Dog Bush, in which the Republican candidate came on at the end and gave a usual standard line like, "Paid for by Bush for President." It sounded as if he was speaking through a waterlogged walkie-talkie.

Inspired by that, I said something like, "I'm going to put something in the toilet at school if Bush wins." What else was I supposed to do? I wasn't old enough to vote. Why not be creative in voicing your opinion about how much Bush stinks?

Sure enough, Mad Dog Bush winned. Hence my contribution to the toilet hijinks: I put a campaign flyer for a local GOP politician in the johnnypot at school to protest the election results.

I still don't know who committed the other ploppings from the walkie-talkie up to November 18, but it would be a laugh-out-loud riot to find out now!

This is also one of these standard entries that goes on all of my blogs - except my MySpace one, of course, because MySpace's blog feature is so hard to use. Oh, what the hell, I'll post it there anyway! The 20-year anniversary of the Plop Lecture is special enough to be posted on 3 blogs!

How far have we come in these past 20 years? The country was crumbling then, but now there may finally be a glimmer of hope on the political front!

What else was going on in 1988? The Internet was only in its infancy in 1988. A state-of-the-art modem was 1200 baud. Mullets and parachute pants were in. 'Roseanne' and 'The Cosby Show' ruled the TV airwaves. Pooing was cool (and still is). The #1 song on Billboard's Hot 100 at the time of the Plop Lecture was "Bad Medicine" by Bon Jovi.

There ain't no doctor that can cure the disease of plopitis!

Happy Plop Day, everyone! And may the next 20 years be even ploppier!

Superbug epidemic expands

The American health care system surely stands alone among modern nations in making people sicker than they already were.

The Seattle Times reports that MRSA, a potentially fatal drug-resistant superbug, is "spreading here at an alarming rate" - largely through hospitals, ironically enough.

Eighty-five percent of Americans who get MRSA get it at a hospital or health care facility. In the state of Washington alone, the number of hospital patients known to be infected with MRSA increased 33 times in the past 10 years, to a staggering 4,723. This statistic was covered up until a Seattle Times investigation blew it wide open.

Government hospitals for veterans screen patients for MRSA - which has eliminated almost all MRSA cases in these facilities. But in the money-driven health care system that serves civilian America, screenings are rare. No community hospital in the whole state of Washington screens every patient.

One of the reasons for this refusal to screen is astounding: Hospitals are afraid that screening would show which MRSA patients acquired the pathogen while at the hospital - which would result in the hospital being sued. In other words, if a hospital won't stop the spread of MRSA on its own grounds, they don't want to get caught.

In addition, major hospitals have been caught exhibiting unsanitary practices. At one facility, a nurse fed pills to a patient after the pills were contaminated by being spilled on the floor. (When dealing with hospital-borne illnesses, there is no 10-second rule.)

I used to think the health care system was here to cure, not to sicken - but here we are.

(Source: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008396215_mrsaday1.html)

Republicans the next third party?

A new third party is emerging on America's political landscape!

They're called...the Republicans!

With any luck, they're going the way the Whigs went 150 years ago (i.e., gone altogether). Even the Democrats in the early 2000s weren't chastised by such resounding margins in 2 consecutive election cycles.

In fact, in San Francisco, the Republicans are already a third party. I mean that literally: The GOP's congressional candidate came in third place in the November 4 election, behind Cindy Sheehan's independent bid. (Despite this, CNN's website showed the totals for the Republican candidate but not for Sheehan.)

If the Democrats move too far to the right (they were already there when they confirmed Michael Mukasey), the Greens would likely be their main opposition. Either that, or the Democrats will split into 2 parties themselves - one for the right-wing DLC and Bush Dog Coalition, and the other for those who are what the Democrats should have been all along.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are now just a regional party: Their allegiance comes from the South, mountain West, and other states' suburbs. I don't think any major or medium-sized central city has more than minimal GOP support now, except in a few states.

(Source: http://vote.sos.ca.gov/Returns/usrep/0859.htm)

How the states got their shapes

By bipping. That's how.

Just joking!

I had some store credit at Amazon, so I buyed a book: 'How The States Got Their Shapes' by playwright and screenwriter Mark Stein (who is not to be confused with right-wing commentator Mark Steyn). The title of the tome is self-explanatory: It describes how the 50 states and the District of Columbia got their often uproarious shapes.

It took 8 days for the Postal Service to deliver it, but they finally brang it today, and I can hardly wait to read it! It takes me a long time to read a book. Me try hard to read. But this one looks like a real page turner!

This volume is much more detailed than I expected, and it sounds like something that's tailor-made for the Great Royal Tim.

I used to work for the Department of the Interior. (I wasn't born rich like the GOP's base was, so I had to find some type of profession.) From then on, I've learned more about geography, like how Liberty Street in Cincinnati is the survey baseline for most of southwestern Ohio, and that the region's entire road grid is off because of errors made when the baseline was surveyed. America's state boundaries are full of similar lore.

'Lore' is a funny word. I always confused it with 'lure' - maybe because it lures people in to listen. And listen I will. As Alabama is the first state in alphabetical order, maybe now I'll learn why it has that testicle-shaped protrusion in the southwest.

A book about the shapes of states! Amazing! Discover your own frontier!

Lawmaker dressed for failure

If you thought the revelation that school uniforms are made in abusive sweatshops (a story that was almost entirely covered up) would put the kibosh on uniform requirements, then you haven't come face to face with what corporatism is all about.

In BushAmerica, you see rights taken away every day. You're told what you can and can't do with your person, even as corporations have almost no regulations.

This trend is just fine according to Nevada State Sen. Bob Coffin. Coffin calls himself an "independent Democrat" much like Joe Lieberman - but he values neither independence nor democracy. The appellation is code for Republican.

Coffin has drafted a right-wing bill that would require all public schools in the entire state of Nevada to make it mandatory for students to wear uniforms. He cried that students "flaunt their appearance as a sign of disobedience."

Bob Coffin's scolding manner sounds like that of some right-wing preacher like the one who wrote that 'Rock Report' book.

He says he introduced the same bill 20 years ago but it was rejected then. Uh, Bob? Didn't the legislature already decide this? Talk about a man of futility. Oh well. Maybe Bob Coffin is the best kind of totalitarian to have, if his ideas don't pass.

If it does pass, what about the school systems that don't want uniforms? Very few districts in Nevada have a districtwide uniform requirement now. Is the state going to call in the National Guard to enforce it?

And I can absolutely guarantee that some kid somewhere is going to defy the policy outright. In a state with millions of people, at least one is going to stand up against right-wing groupthink - especially because Coffin's arguments are so untenable. He's more worried about "disobedience" than the economic excuses that have been debunked. (The sweatshop discovery discredited the economic arguments even more than they already were.)

What a fucking fool.

Now you know why I reregistered as a Green, don't you?

(Source: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/nov/17/bill-would-require-public-school-uniforms)

TB pandemic lurks?

It amazes you - absolutely amazes you - that this is even a topic in 2008, but this shows you how much the world's living standards have fallen behind in this decade.

Tuberculosis - thought by many to be consigned to a dreary world of old - is mutating into new strains that are completely resistant to drugs. Most terrifyingly, one of the new strains is called XDR-TB - meaning extensively drug-resistant. It is contagious, and it kills slowly and agonizingly, as victims are forced to waste away.

Worldwide, 40,000 new cases of XDR-TB are emerging each year now. And not just in remote lands but also in America, especially in prisons and institutions.

The real tragedy is that the formation of this strain could have been prevented. But because of greed, it was not. Other strains of TB are curable with drugs. But many sufferers were not treated, because of the high costs of medicine - and the disease mutated.

In recent years, more attention has been paid to vanity medicine for those who are relatively well-off than to fighting deadly diseases that can afflict anyone. If millions of dollars aren't poured into researching how to let wealthy 80-year-olds look like they're 25, it's considered an outrage. But when drug companies overcharge for medicine that could save countless lives, that's called the "free market."

(Source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/11/17/tb.pandemic)

Lungren sits on board of Sembler cult

This guy's a scumbag who hates almost everything America is supposed to stand for, yet he still doesn't know when to slam his spleezix yip tight.

He's California congressman Dan Lungren, who is now mounting a bid to become House Republican leader. If there's another 1994 (which there won't be), this guy could become House Speaker, and the last thing America needs is another unstable maniac like Newtzi in the Speaker's chair.

During his years as California Attorney General, Lungren proved his hatred of the First Amendment when he tried to have people imprisoned for selling anti-DARE t-shirts. Despite Lungren's fascism, there still exists a propaganda cult that praises him for supposedly lowering the state's crime rate (even though crime soared under his watch).

In Congress, Lungren cosponsored a clearly unconstitutional bill to deny U.S. citizenship to American-born children of immigrants.

Dan Lungren ranks up there with Bill McCollum and Mark Souder in hallucinating about stoners and "dry druggies" hiding under every bed. So much so that Lungren appears to be the only current or former member of Congress to serve on the advisory board of Drug Free America Foundation, a cult descended from Mel Sembler's Straight, Incorporated.

Straight, Inc. of course was a "rehab" that was the site of countless cases of abuse against teenagers. Straight, Inc. used brainwashing tactics borrowed from prisoner-of-war camps. (Youth programs such as residential "rehabs" and psychiatric "hospitals" have borrowed many of the same tactics.) The Kids Helping Kids cult (yes, the one we protested) was more or less Straight, Inc. under a different name.

DFAF's advisory board reads like a Who's Who of right-wing politics of Florida (the state where DFAF is based), including Jeb Bush and other sorryasses. But Lungren is one of several members from other states.

It's fair to say Dan Lungren is ear-deep in helping run an abusive cult. This is the man who's making a serious bid to become one of the most powerful Republicans in America - and was one of the most powerful politicians of any party in California.

Disabled next on right-wing hit list?

The past 15 years have been the era of "soak the poor" - a fact that highlights conservative meanness and self-righteousness. (Oops, I mean "tuff luv lolololz.") Who'd be surprised if they make the next era one of "soak the disabled"?

In some ways, it already is, as a subset of the Far Right's war on the poor. I wouldn't be surprised though if they make disability programs a more specific target.

Disabled Americans may qualify for Supplemental Security Income. SSI only provides about $600 monthly, and this benefit is reduced every time a recipient earns any money from gainful employment.

But to able-bodied conservatives who make $60,000 monthly, $600 a month for the disabled is too much. A $700,000,000,000 bailout for the banking industry isn't too much, but $600 for a disabled person is.

It's already much harder to qualify for SSI now than it used to be. Substance abusers were kicked off the rolls in the '90s even if their drug abuse stemmed from an underlying disability for which they would otherwise qualify. Many adults lost their SSI because they had gotten in trouble with the law as juveniles - under new rules that were enforced on an ex post facto basis.

If a person has an invisible disability, it's much harder to qualify now than it once was, even if their condition impairs them nearly as much as if they were in a wheelchair. Many victims of this trend are war veterans.

If an applicant was illegally barred from regular schools after being labeled with a disability, this does not on its own qualify them for SSI. Under the standard used today, one is classed as disabled if it can be used against them, not if it benefits them.

The cuts in SSI largely resulted from conservatives listening to traitors like the Heritage Foundation that wanted to make this cause a high priority. But now, after conservatives thrust their knives into the backs of veterans and of those who were denied an equal education, they're now fixing to twist the knives to inflict maximum pain.

Their latest screaming point is that SSI is a plot by "the liberals" to confiscate property. I have no idea how. According to them, it is because it is. Ask them why, and that's what they'll say. They make no more sense than if they had replied, "Because it bips."

If we're lucky, Obama won't be another Bill Clinton. Clinton sure didn't halt Congress's war on the poor, but I sure hope Obama doesn't let the war on the disabled gain steam. Lately, under Republican and Democratic administrations alike, the class warriors have been permitted to get away with anything. Many of their so-called opponents did nothing. Zero.

And that's why SSI is in the Far Right's crosshairs now. They got their way in gutting other benefits programs, so why not SSI too?

You give the corporatists a foot in the door, and they ask for more. They see they've won, and that encourages them to take things further. If they get their way this time, what's next? Are they going to abolish Medicare? I've read enough to know that a lot of them want to.

Roughed-up protester wins thousands!

The 2004 Republican National Convention, which was held at New York's Madison Square Garden, wasn't just a symbol of right-wing intolerance. It was also a source of violence against dissidents.

During Bush's acceptance speech at this laughable event, a woman unfurled a banner criticizing the feverish dictator. Two Republican operatives responded by beating the woman and dragging her out of the venue.

A complaint filed by the woman's lawyer said that the GOP thugs "maliciously beat, pushed, grabbed and otherwise violently battered plaintiff with the intent of causing her injury." And injure her they did.

The woman was also arrested on trumped-up assault charges lodged by the men who attacked her, but a video proved these criminals were lying, and she beat the charges.

She sued over the attack, and now the city has to pay her $55,000 - adding to the $1,500,000 the city has already had to pay to settle other suits stemming from the city's illegal suppression of dissent during the convention. Although the attackers in this case were not city employees, the city had to pay the $55,000 because of a prior agreement to foot the bill for suits against the Republican National Committee. Clearly, the Republicans knew there was going to be trouble at the convention, seeing how they made the city sign this deal.

New York City voters ought to be fuming right about now that their tax dollars have to pay for the Republicans' violent antics. Not like the public's votes count much anymore: They voted to institute term limits, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg's machine just decided to gut those.

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/nyregion/16settle.html)

Bubblicious has a Gum Fighter now too? (Bubble Gum Weekend)

Everyone loves the Gum Fighter from the Hubba Bubba commercials.

But apparently Bubblicious now has its own bubbling hero who draws an admiring crowd of hundreds every time he chews.

Most of Bubblicious's old commercials were built on a now-familiar theme: a cartoon featuring teens flying through outer space while blowing gigantic bubbles. But more recently, Bubblicious ads seem to have taken a new turn.

This appears to be an actual commersh, though I've never seen it except on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXqinsa9KCc

The protagonist of this ad is a bald man in a suit who goes to a park to find the best place to showcase his bubbling skills. When people see him bubbling, they cheer him much as they did the Gum Fighter.

Man, if that guy runs for state senator, he'll get elected with probably 90% of the vote! All because he lives in a town where everyone's lives revolve around bubble gum!

Summer saved for me; lives saved for others?

It's taken 19 years to get to this point, but I knew I'd be proven right sooner or later!

The forces of doom have long lamented the fact that I evaded summer school when I was a high school sophomore - an act that forced me to repeat the year. But I knew then I made the right decision.

I later had run-ins at my local university, simply because of the point America was at in its history. Even if I was a year further along than what I was, I still wouldn't have graduated college yet, so no loss there.

So I'd already come out ahead in the long run - but this year's developments have made it more so.

College and my early Last Word notoriety are what indirectly led me to the protests against the Kids Helping Kids cult. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time for one semester when I was in college. I practically had to put life on hold for 12 years after college, but the wheels do move.

I refuse to take full credit for the fact that KHK is shut down, especially since there were protests going back years before I even knew what KHK was. But I wouldn't have even known about the protests of the past year if not for the fact that I was only a junior in college in late 1994.

Who'd have ever thought underachievement could achieve so much?

This ought to silence those who questioned ditching summer school, right? I guess the thought police at my high school would be happier if I had wasted my whole summer, and if KHK hadn't been run out of town and was still able to keep torturing kids around here. I'm sure my school would be happier, for the school allowed KHK to recruit there.

So the joke's on them.

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

KKK must pay millions for beating

Ha ha!

It really hasn't been a good month for the right wing, has it?

A jury in Meade County, Kentucky, has ordered a Ku Klux Klan group to pay $2,500,000 because of its role in a racially motivated beating of a Latino teenager at a county fair. The KKK group, the Imperial Klans of America, is one of the nation's largest. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the victim by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

A few clowns on the Internet have long questioned the practice of holding hate groups financially liable for violence they cause. They cry that it's all a big conspiracy against them. But that's too damn bad. If a group organizes violence like this, the group deserves to be held responsible.

This story underscores once again what a bunch of sorryasses the KKK are. They get all the special rights they ask for from Kentucky's university system (which gives them privileges that others are denied), and they forever delete others' Usenet posts - but when you get down to it, they're among the country's biggest clods.

Their phony populism is a lie that everyone sees through. The KKK is a bunch of trust fund babies who think they have a sense of entitlement and shouldn't have to work like everyone else. Recently I saw an article about one of their leaders refusing to work and trying to collect disability benefits all because he won't control his anger.

If I knew you could get disability for getting angry, what the hell am I working for? These days, if you have a real disabling condition, it often takes years just to collect even a penny in benefits. And if you do collect, you're hamstrung by red tape and often forced to visit doctors of the government's choosing (rather than your own doctors) for years afterward.

But if you're a well-off Klansman who gets angry and doesn't want to work, you've got it made! This flagrant abuse of the country's disability system costs folks who dearly need benefits. And it costs taxpayers in general.

Our efforts to expose right-wing hate groups aren't done yet though. Since 2000 - largely under the Bush regime - the number of hate groups in the U.S. has increased nearly 50%.

(Source: http://www.splcenter.org/news/item.jsp?aid=345&splcnewsletter=newsgen-111408)

Open thread

Another media war on a private citizen?

An article in a major Southern newspaper said today that a private investigator described a man as "a potential danger" to the city's population.

Further down, however, the same private eye said the man "doesn't have a history of violence." A friend of the man said, "He's not a violent person. He hasn't had a history of being violent." In fact, nothing in the story suggests the man has even gotten a jaywalking ticket.

Nonetheless, the paper is asking you to call the cops on the man if you see him.

Why?

It's because the man had been involuntarily committed - not in the U.S., but in a foreign country by a foreign psychiatrist, because he enjoys dressing as a woman. From the article, he appears to be a U.S. citizen who had otherwise lived his whole life in America. He returned to America after escaping the foreign "hospital." (The only thing he did that might be a violation of the law was using his parents' credit card number to buy an airline ticket - which was necessary to escape.)

A newspaper thinks we're supposed to call the police on an American citizen with no history of violence and have him deported to a foreign mental institution? Yeah, I know what they're gonna say: It's "for his own good", right? Like you haven't heard that one before.

Was the man ever asked if it was "for his own good"? He's an adult, so I think he can judge that for himself.

The economy is in the toilet, the foreclosure crisis is out of control, and the media's biggest concern is trying to have an American citizen deported and institutionalized because he's a cross-dresser. Unbelievable.

This is a bit like how in the early '90s, one of the network newsmagazines did an "expose" about a homeless man who reportedly suffered from mental illness. Clearly, the man posed less of a danger to public safety than Mad Dog Bush did.

The media wonders why nobody trusts it.

Noise ordinance just a "damn piece of paper" now, huh?

Communities are so eager to ticket someone for a car radio that's audible for 3 seconds, but construction noise that lasts 24/7 for months gets a free pass. "Quality of life" ordinances seem to be designed to be enforced selectively, and that's why I've long found them suspect.

Here in the Belv, numerous traffic signs warn against motorists having music too loud, but nothing was ever done about a pile driver that clanked almost around the clock for months in the winter of 2005-06 and kept residents awake over a radius of a mile.

Now folks in Cincinnati and the neighboring town of Madeira are being treated to a nauseating repeat...repeat...repeat...repeat...repeat.

For 5 months now, construction noise at a ritzy retirement village has kept Cincinnatians awake - with no respite in sight. The din has begun as early as 4:30 AM and lasted as late as midnight. It happens on weekends and weekdays alike.

Cincinnati passed a rigid noise ordinance in the late '90s to bar noise that causes "inconvenience or annoyance to persons of ordinary sensibilities." The intent of this law, however, was to provide a rationale to harass gatherings of people. Most folks of "ordinary sensibilities" (other than the ol' Osk) would find 5 months of gratuitous construction noise to be "inconvenience or annoyance", yet the law isn't enforced against that.

The city does have rules that are supposed to limit construction noise to a lenient window of 7 AM to 11 PM. But the city waived even these lax rules for this and other projects!

I guess laws really are just "damn pieces of paper" (as Bush would say). But if you play music too loud for a few minutes, you'll see that the only piece of paper you'll get is a citation to court.

The construction noise is continuing despite complaints by dozens of nearby residents.

Big Business seems to derive joy out of disturbing neighborhoods with needless noise. Next time you hear some disrupting of the peace like this, odds are the construction trucks have out-of-county plates or an out-of-area phone number. So some of these contractors don't give a shit about the community. And when they're done in your neighborhood, they'll move on to another and leave yours a wreck.

(Source: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20081112/NEWS01/811120359/1168/NEWS)

Right-wing lawmaker sued by son

Kentucky State Sen. Julie Denton, a Louisville Republican, has been a wellspring of conservafoolery for years.

In 1999 (under her earlier married name Julie Rose), she and her husband pleaded guilty to leaving a vehicle unattended after they left their kids in a car while they went to a Homearama event. The couple was subsequently fined.

Now Denton is being sued by her son, who is now a university student. The son claims Denton stole $15,000 from his trust fund and squandered it all on herself.

I'm waiting for the Freepers to come here and scream, "Your [sic] an idiot," like they did with one of yesterday's posts.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/content/wcposhared/story.aspx?content_id=e47ef415-61ab-4e1e-bb44-db74e241d733;
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20081111/NEWS01/81111051)

Students banned from wearing scarves

When it's almost December, upstate New York may be one of the last places in America you'd want to go without a scarf.

But at a high school in rural Orange County, students are now banned from wearing neckwear such as scarves because the principal thinks scarves are a gang symbol.

Students protested the decree by wearing scarves, and were punished harshly.

Scarves became popular there for staying warm after the school previously banned jackets.

Talk about a school being out of step with reality! The principal must not have been alive yet back in the disco era when people wore scarves even when it was warm outside. (And you notice people got sick a lot less back then too.)

(Source: http://wcbstv.com/watercooler/valley.central.scarves.2.861854.html)

Gee, no bias there!

The Patriot Act's war on allergy sufferers has been variously described as everything ranging from an inconvenience to a hoax on the part of supporters who tout its "success" (even though it's been a failure). And the pop-up media has actively mired itself in demanding an expansion of this out-of-control war.

Make no mistake: Right-wing media bias is the 10-ton ogre in America's living rooms - so much so that this is the fourth consecutive entry here that touches on this national disgrace.

The latest exhibit on this media wall of shame is KOKI-TV, the Fox affiliate in Tulsa. Last night, a headline on the station's website blared, "Are Pseudoephedrine Laws Tough Enough?"

Um, yes, KOKI. They are.

KOKI is actually suggesting that new draconian state and federal laws that treat folks as criminals for buying over-the-counter cold or allergy drugs at a pharmacy aren't tough enough? Under these laws, moms have gone to prison for getting medicine for their sick kids (even after a doctor recommended the product). Yet a powerful TV station in a major city is saying the laws aren't tough enough? Hello???

I don't know who writes the headlines at Fox 23, but this isn't just bias. This seems like intentional manipulation of public opinion and outright distortion. The FCC used to frown upon stations intentionally distorting news, you know.

The actual content of the article debunks KOKI's apparent stance. A police captain's statement suggests that the more rigid laws that hamstring families have actually made illegal drugs more prevalent: "It's on every street corner, if someone wants meth, they can find meth."

The reporter laments being able to stock up on 4 boxes of medicine when he should have been allowed to buy only one. Uh, no. The Constitution says you can buy as many as you need. To hell with the Patriot Act.

But the dinosaur media has an agenda, and few dare to challenge it. In just the past 5 years, public opinion has been manipulated so much that an idea that would have once been met with a resounding "no" was softened into a "maybe." Now it's considered a mere inconvenience that's often excused as a necessary evil - thanks wholly to media bias.

Even though this very blog advertises its own political philosophy, we've been more objective than the major media on this issue. They're as much involved in causes as we are - only on the other side of the spectrum.

We really can't stand Bush in Kentucky

I don't know what it takes to get it through the media's thick skull that Kentuckians can't stand Bush. Maybe the fact that the Republicans keep losing some of the state's most rural counties will do it.

Nonetheless, I found an interesting article about Obama's smashing electoral victories in eastern Kentucky:

http://polwatchers.typepad.com/pol_watchers/2008/11/officials-in-4-appalachian-counties-proud-their-residents-went-for-obama.html

Without a doubt, Obama had developed a strong appeal in these counties. McCain, on the other hand, was hopelessly tarnished by Bush's stench. That's not a scent you can cover up easily.

This wouldn't even be a story except that the media previously kept portraying poor and working-class areas of Kentucky as being full of racist bumpkins who'd never vote for Obama even if his only opponent was, say, Dan Quayle. If these counties were rich, there never would have been an article about them if they went 61% for Obama - despite the fact that more affluent areas were less likely to support him!

In other words, this article debunks the right-wing media's classism that was showcased before the election. It's no small irony that in portraying working-class Kentuckians as right-wing bigots, the media was itself practicing right-wing bigotry.

I guarantee McCain would have lost even more counties in that area if not for the suppression of voter carpools that's gained height in this decade. The media's last-minute hit piece that attacked Obama by taking his comments about coal out of context seemed to have little effect though, as voters who made up their minds in the last few days of the campaign were more likely to support him.

The real mystery is how the hell Bush managed to win Kentucky when nobody liked him even back then. See, this is one state where we really, really don't like that guy.

The Conservative Fool Of The Day is...Tom Rooney!

Meet the not-so-amazing politician who lived at a dog track!

Tom Rooney is a new Republican congressman from Florida who defeated scandal-tainted Democrat Tim Mahoney. Now, keep in mind, I never defended Mahoney. Sure, I think there's a double standard that keeps Republicans from being exposed for the same things Mahoney did, and I had a hard time trusting allegations from single news sources that had already strained credibility with their own partisanship.

(I also never defended John Edwards for having an affair, even though I considered the matter to be a nonstory. The standards police tried to club this blog with that too - as if it was my fault Edwards had an affair.)

But Mahoney is gone now and replaced by Tom Rooney. Back during the campaign, someone alleged Mahoney had registered to vote at a horse barn just so he could claim residency in his Palm Beaches-area district. Rooney rubbed his paws together in excitement at being able to make light of this!

Then it turned out that Rooney had previously been registered to vote at a dog track. During the years he voted from the dog track in West Palm Beach, he actually lived in Miami to study law, in Texas to serve as a military prosecutor, and in New York state to teach at West Point. He didn't live in West Palm Beach.

Why was it wrong for the incumbent congressman to register at a horse barn while it was perfectly fine and dandy for his challenger to register at a dog track?

Talk about a double standard!

If you've paid close attention to the American political landscape of the past 20 years, you'd know that rules don't apply to Republicans like they apply to everyone else.

(Source: http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/sep/22/democrats-point-out-mahoneys-challenger-rooney-use)

Operative tries to debunk Palin story - and fails

The right-wing idea engine is desperate. And when I say desperate, do I mean desperate!

Recently it was revealed - "leaked", as the noise machine has put it - that Sarah Palin thinks Africa is a country, not a continent. No serious news organization doubts this story about Palin, as it came from multiple aides in the McCain camp.

But on Monday, MSNBC reported that the story came from a source that later turned out to be fake. Their excuse for reporting a phony source is that someone in the network's newsroom passed the bogus source along in an e-mail.

Isn't that convenient?

The story of Palin's behavior is obviously real, given the number of different sources. But who'd be inclined to believe it after MSNBC used one fake source that was popped into the mix?

It's pretty clear what happened: Some operative who works behind the scenes at MSNBC passed this source along because they knew it would cast doubt on the whole story. They treated the source as real just to set the story up to be debunked.

In summary, here's the facts: Failin' Palin thought Africa isn't a continent. Some media insider couldn't stand this being reported, so - out of desperation - they tried sabotaging the story. And it didn't work. Everyone still knows Palin is an incompetent moron.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened to derail a story, and I know it won't be the last, as long as America's school system trains rightist operatives to fill positions at news organizations. If there's even one newsroom employee who puts partisanship ahead of accuracy, facts suffer.

(Source: AP)

Private profanity police

Is this command state day? This is the second consecutive entry here about localized anti-people programs (as opposed to national economic stories).

Cincinnati has the hated CCCDC, but Memphis has the Center City Commission. They're similar in that they're committees that represent right-wing private downtown business interests but insource control over public spaces.

What it boils down to is that they're private entities that try to exercise police powers on public property.

In February, the Center City Commission decided to hire a private security firm to harass Memphis's homeless and other poor on the public right-of-way. The security force was to be armed with batons and stun guns. This meanness was driven by the desire to turn the city into what the director of the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center called "a private playground for the wealthy."

Private security aren't police. They can't make arrests on public property. Even police can't arrest someone for being homeless, because being homeless is not a crime. (Vagrancy laws were voided decades ago.) So I guarantee that if I was a homeless citizen of Memphis, the Center City Commission would face a lawsuit the moment their private patrols put their hands on me.

Now the situation has gone a step further in the Disney World for the very rich that the Center City Commission wants downtown Memphis to be. The committee's private security firm has set up bike patrols to arrest folks for uttering profane language on the public streets. The firm is doing this as part of its enforcement of a "disorderly conduct code" on downtown.

Grow up, will ya?

I don't think there's a single one of the "7 dirty words" or any of their common derivatives that I didn't hear being spoken fluently by schoolmates in first grade almost 30 years ago. The real obscenity isn't words, but actions: Why should the homeless be subjected to the obscenity of being arrested by the Center City Commission just for being homeless? Why should other members of the public be force-fed the obscenity of having to witness this sickening spectacle?

Someone can get cuffed now for saying "damn" on a downtown street, but no action is taken at all against right-wing bigots who commit terroristic threatening against a rally? Isn't that the dumbest thing you've ever heard of?

I'd hate to disappoint Big Business, but America's downtowns aren't here to be corporate fiefdoms to cater to elites who seek to monopolize the city's amenities.

(Source: http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/feb/27/ccc-plan-caters-to-elite-hurts-poor;
http://www.wmctv.com/global/story.asp?s=9331356)

Ohioans not giving green light to red light cams

Ohio seems to be the hub of efforts against traffic light cameras.

After voters in Cincinnati voted last week to outlaw red light cams, other cities in the Buckeye State may follow suit. The Cincinnati effort to ban red light cams was backed by political parties ranging from the Greens to the Libertarians as well as by the NAACP.

The media machine usually tries to impress upon the masses the alleged effectiveness of traffic light cams, but it never cites statistics to boost its cause. The press always seems rather gullible regarding command state programs, and this is no exception. However, a study by the Virginia Department of Transportation shows accidents increased by nearly a third where the cameras were used.

(In this entry, I'm very limited with sources, because most major media won't report any statistics at all.)

There's also other reasons to oppose the cameras: In other jurisdictions, they've issued tickets to the wrong motorists after misreading the license plates. There have also been attempts made to expand them into all-purpose spy cams. In some locales, the cams have been used to track citizen gatherings.

The camera program also smacks of dishonesty: It's used primarily for revenue purposes and to pad the coffers of corporations that run the cams - not for road safety. This is why traffic lights that have cameras often feature shortened yellow phases that have led to wrecks.

In BushAmerica, you're being watched - and it's not for your own good. But now Cincinnati voters have finally had their say.

(Source: http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/25/2590.asp;
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/25/2588.asp;
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/18/1844.asp)

The Conservative Fool Of The Day is...Carol Elliott!

The Republicans aren't taking their many losses like grownups, are they?

Carol Elliott, a Republican, is county treasurer in Grafton County, New Hampshire. But not for much longer - after she lost her reelection bid to her Democratic opponent, a local college student.

How is Elliott handling her defeat? Not very well. She said "real" people voted for her - as if her opponent's backers were just life-sized cardboard cutouts. She said her opponent was supported only by college students who voted that way because they were "brainwashed" by the school system.

"It was the brainwashed college kids that made the difference," Elliott whined. She continued, "You've got a buffoon for a register of deeds, and you've got a teenybopper for a treasurer."

Hey, I hear something off in the distance, don't you?

It's getting louder!

Why, it's the good ol' WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHmbulance again!

Other GOP officials also turned on the waterworks over Carol Elliott's loss.

They always eep about liberal "brainwashing" in colleges, but you never hear a word about the conservative indoctrination that dominates America's schools in general. I don't think I ever attended a school that had a liberal principal or administrator. This wouldn't be a major concern of mine, if not for the fact that some of them seemed incapable of withholding their personal opinions from their young charges.

I guess that means I can say Republicans in public office who attended my local school system weren't supported by "real" people, huh?

The Republicans losted. They need to get over it.

(Source: http://news.bostonherald.com)

Water! ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

There's no wa!

That battle cry has long been associated with a parody of commercials for Frisch's restaurants, a Cincinnati-based Big Boy chain.

But in the utopia of 'Sesame Street', there's always wa!

Peep this animated 'Sesame Street' segment that flourished in the '70s:



That cartoon is about...water! People bathe in it. Fish do something else in it. A nifty lesson for the show's young viewers!

That piece shows an anthropomorphic water container peeing on fires and transforming itself into other receptacles such as a soup bowl or a toilet. (Just joking about the toilet part.) It also features an elephant wiping their ass on a towel.

The narrator in that segment sounds a little bit like Mister Rogers. And the music sounds like that played on the car radio by the guards at CPH when they had to schlep us across town for some moronic appointment they made without our permission or that of our parents.

Also, does anyone else think the guy in the bathtub near the beginning looks just like the bloke in the "Just Think...No Conservatives" banner?

I guess there is wa after all!

Supremes gut Navy sonar ruling

Well, the harebrained Federalist Society devotees on the U.S. Supreme Court did it again, didn't they?

A divided SCrOTUS has now allowed the Navy to use sonar in military training exercises even when it threatens Pacific marine life. This ruling largely overturns a federal judge's order that would have required the Navy to mitigate the exercises' threat to dolphins and other marine mammals.

The lower court was merely following the law. The Navy has ways to mitigate sonar damage, but instead of using them, it appealed that judge's order to the Supremes.

In writing for the majority, right-wing Chief Justice John Roberts seemed to substitute his own judgment in place of what the laws actually say. This is commonly called legislating from the bench - or judicial activism. It might not be as clear-cut in this case as it is in others, but it's certainly there.

This is just one of many cases that underscores the difficulties presented by the Supreme Court's conservative majority. To them, the rule of law is almost just a "damn piece of paper" (as Bush might say). Among today's Supreme Court, ideology usually rules; law usually doesn't.

This consistent pattern of judicial activism is why I'd fully support court-packing once the new administration takes office.

(Source: http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/court-rules-for-navy-in-sonar-use)

University student jailed for supporting Obama

Nazism has been on the march in one university town.

In October, Elon University - a private institution in North Carolina - hosted a rally featuring Sarah Palin. The event was held at the school's ballfield.

A sophomore student bipped over to the event carrying Obama flyers - and he was assaulted by Republican cultists who tried grabbing the flyers from him. Then the head of the College Republicans called the police on him - even though he was doing nothing wrong.

Only a thin-skinned crybaby would call the cops on someone over a difference of opinion - but the College Republicans head did precisely that.

The student with the Obama flyers was then arrested on a bogus charge of disturbing the peace and taken to the Alamance County Jail. He was released on $500 bail.

But the university wasn't done with its campaign to suppress dissent. The school lodged its own charges against the student, and university officials notified his parents. Because the student is a college sophomore, I'm assuming he's at least 18, and is therefore an adult. So it's illegal under federal privacy laws for the school to notify his parents.

(And I don't give a shit what the Contract With America said. I go by real laws - not what remained of the laws after a spleezixgums pretend government like the 104th Reich got through gutting them.)

Because the student was assaulted by GOP Movementarians, he should file charges against the assailants. He should also sue Elon University for violating his privacy rights by notifying his parents. And he should sue the College Republicans and the police for false arrest.

This story proves again what a bunch of thin-skinned brownshirts the conservative intelligentsia have become.

(Source: http://www.elon.edu/pendulum/Story.aspx?id=1301)

Traveler checkpoints loom in Texas

This is a story that ought to roust you clean out of your seat.

In recent years, authorities have employed various excuses to stop travelers from moving about freely on America's roads. Whether it was the failed War on Drugs or some other spurious pretext, many innocents found themselves being treated like criminals with no cause whatsoever.

Now the situation is edging ever worse.

State police in Texas want the authority to set up checkpoints all over the state to inspect motorists for things like auto insurance.

They plan to do this with no probable cause whatsoever - and certainly with no warrants. There's also no imminent danger from the travelers to justify these inspections - nor is there any exceptional security situation in that region. Furthermore, the public should have no lowered expectation of privacy when using personal cars.

The proposed policy runs roughshod over the freedom to travel within the country's borders - which is one of the most basic liberties. If there isn't a lawsuit over this, I'll just bip. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that such traffic stops to check for driver's licenses are unconstitutional.

I'm told that a few other American locales are already doing what Texas wants to do, thanks to intense lobbying by the insurance industry. Not only is the notion of public roads being gutted, but it's happening with the blessing of Corporate America. Who says America hasn't become a corporate command state?

Your papers, please?

(Source: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6107900.html)

Another double standard by the right-wing media

Here's yet another double standard, courtesy of the right-wing media.

Recently, at Citadel Broadcasting's KGO radio in San Francisco, top-rated talk show host Karel was fired because he said a bad word regarding Joe the Plumber. Karel had been told by the station engineer that his microphone was off, so he believed it was safe to utter the offending speech.

He was fired anyway.

But just a few days later, right-wing former congressman Joe Scarborough said "fuck" live on his MSNBC show. He knew the microphone was on, for he said it in full view of his guests.

Was he fired? Of course not. Scarborough is right-wing, so he's special and privileged and all. He doesn't have to live by the same rules that hamstring everyone else.

Oh, it gets better. Scarborough has also long advocated censorship of profanity on TV. And it gets even better. He supported the right-wing 1996 Telecommunications Act, which removed ownership caps. In other words, he supports censoring for content, but opposes regulating for public interest purposes.

How many acts of right-wing hypocrisy are described just in this story alone?

(Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/11/11/radio-host-gets-the-hook-for-joe-the-plumber-comments)

MTV rules Weird Al offensive

Most people wouldn't judge "Weird Al" Yankovic to be offensive. Yankovic's song parodies and his other hilarious tracks have always been relatively clean-cut.

But MTV isn't most people.

That's because in the strange, fucked-up world of MTV, the words 'Morpheus', 'Grokster', 'Limewire', and 'Kazaa' are all considered highly vulgar terms. And when Weird Al released a tune in 2006 called "Don't Download This Song", which was about file-sharing, MTV demanded that the names of these 4 file-sharing sites be deleted.

Because MTV didn't want to encourage eeeeevil file-sharing sites, you see.

Censorship has become all too emblematic of MTV in recent years - when they play videos at all (which they seldom do anymore). The amount of lyrics censorship on MTV generally exceeds even that of corporate radio.

To protest MTV capsizing into the abysmal depths of the toilet, Weird Al provided a video of his song in which the offending words were bleeped - but he did so "as obnoxiously as possible" (as he put it). As a result, it is believed that MTV dropped the tune from its playlist altogether.

All of this came to light recently when MTV launched an online music video site that nobody uses. Evidently, MTV's site carries Yankovic's video, but with the offending words still bleeped.

This is like when the library censored the word 'e-mail' from my site, isn't it?

Uproariously, however, Weird Al still offers the unedited version of the video on his YouTube on MySpace pages.

So the joke's on you, MTV!

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/business/media/03mtv.html)

Right-wing bigots attack rallies

I refuse to get in a big debate right now over California's Proposition 8. Yes, this is the referendumb for which the bureaucracies of both the Catholic church and the Mormon church abused their tax-exempt statuses, but that's another matter entirely.

But, in an article about the referendum, my eyes did detect one of the most unfortunate developments of the entire controversy. At rallies against Proposition 8, a lesbian couple was repeatedly attacked by motorists who yelled anti-gay slurs at them. (I'm lifting my avoidance of the Los Angeles Times for this story.)

Do people realize that a hate crime was committed by said motorists? It was terroristic threatening for certain. If all the motorists did was just criticize the rally (without doing anything so obviously out of line as yelling slurs), it wouldn't be such a serious concern. But nope, they had to take it 10 steps further, didn't they? Disagreeing in a dignified manner doesn't do it for them.

Someone ought to be keeping tabs on the right-wing bigots who'd do something like that. I sincerely hope the rally participants saved the license plate numbers of those who threatened them.

As an economic populist, I've long condemned bigoted attacks against the poor. But I will also condemn attacks against others. I will condemn these attacks because I'm an American. It's my right and duty to condemn such harassment.

There's very few things that are further beneath the dignity of humanity than Fred Phelps-style attacks against rallies. I challenge anyone to find any reason why motorists threatening a rally is tolerated. (And I've noticed lately that any time I make a challenge like this, the other side always comes up empty.)

(Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-redriverside9-2008nov09,0,1024594.story)

What the schools are teaching your kids

This story shows you what the so-called schools in conservative areas are teaching to kids - and it ain't good.

Hop onto a school bus in Rexburg, Idaho, and you might hear kids chanting, "Assassinate Obama!" After parents complained that their elementary school children were being exposed to this mantra, the superintendent quite properly urged students to respect the President-elect.

While the superintendent encouraged respect, someone in the schools obviously didn't. Otherwise you wouldn't have so many children demanding the death of a popular political leader.

Yes, I do believe that this shit was spread by the schools. After seeing what I've seen in schools, you'd know why I believe the schools are at fault.

The potential assassins have got your kids from ages 5 to 18, folks.

(Source: http://www.2news.tv/news/local/34274374.html)

Postal Service delivers layoffs

I've said it before: There's so much mismanagement in the Bush regime that even the United States Postal Service isn't safe from being afflicted.

The Postal Service, a quasigovernmental agency, isn't free from the patronage politics that have defined other government functions lately. It's clear that high-ranking Bush cronies have been skimming off part of its budget for personal whims - at the expense of average employees and of the level of service.

Despite the automatic stamp increases that recently took effect, the Postal Service now has such a severe cash flow problem that it has to slash jobs for the first time ever. The agency employs some 685,000 people, but now it has to cut 40,000 jobs - which include clerks and mail carriers.

How did the Postal Service lose $2,000,000,000 even though customers pay more for diminished services? That's such a strong indicator of skimming by powerful political appointees that I'd be surprised if the Government Accountability Office isn't investigating.

Either that, or junk mail rates are so cheap compared to real mail that the Postal Service loses money delivering junk. Junk mail has long been subsidized by high stamp prices for real mail, and it's a waste. It clutters up living spaces with ads for products people rarely buy. It uses up paper and depletes our forests. I've been on this matter for 15 years, but the problem has only gotten worse.

I think the Postal Service needs to start charging more to send out junk mail - especially the weekly installment of oversized slick ads. Multiply the increase by 52 weeks a year and by the number of households in America, and that takes care of a good portion of the $2,000,000,000 shortfall right there.

(Source: http://www.ksla.com/Global/story.asp?S=9247633)

Pentagon makes rape victims pay for their own exam kits

This is one of the most outrageous stories I've seen lately about the treatment of America's military personnel - and on Veterans Day, no less.

It turns out that (like Sarah Palin's administration in Wasilla) the Pentagon's medical system for active duty members doesn't pay for forensic rape kits for military women who are raped. The Pentagon forces the women to pay for it themselves.

We don't bill burglary victims for the cost of fingerprinting the crime scene, so why the hell does the military bill rape victims for rape kits?

"Support the troops" isn't supposed to be just a motto. But under the regime that's ruled the country for the past 8 years, America's fighting men and women have been stabbed in the back again and again. They got their signing bonuses taken away if they got injured, they got their disability records shredded, they were insulted by self-righteous know-it-alls like Sally Satel, and now this.

(Source: http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/106307/raped_in_the_military_you)

Man accused of killing teacher 21 years after beating

This story is the result of corporal punishment running rampant in schools.

I was angry for years after being beaten by school personnel in grade school. I can almost guarantee you that it would eat you up inside if it ever happened to you.

In South Korea, a 37-year-old man is accused of fatally stabbing a former teacher over corporal punishment that occurred in 1987, when he was a high school freshman. The beating was dished out when he was accused of cheating on a test - a charge he continues to deny.

The man had been visiting the teacher's school lately in search of an apology, but the instructor refused to apologize.

The teacher couldn't admit he was wrong, could he? Even if the cheating allegation was true, it didn't warrant ruthlessly beating a student. For the record, I believe that the cheating accusation was false. Why else would a 37-year-old man continue to maintain his innocence over something that happened in high school?

If that school district in Korea was anything like my home county in Kentucky was, it was a place where schools reigned and kids obeyed - even when the school was wrong. If a student stepped out of line, by golly, they heard about it. In much of Campbell County, Kentucky, schoolchildren were considered lower than dirt.

I'm not saying it isn't a shame someone ended up being killed. My point is that if you treat kids like garbage, they will resent it, and they will carry it into adulthood. Forever.

(Source: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/11/117_34163.html)

Bush-appointed judge may nix evidence in MySpace trial

Federal judicial appointees don't just wink away when there's a regime change. They can gunk things up for decades.

In the criminal trial of the remorseless 49-year-old MySpace hoaxster who harassed a 13-year-old girl until she committed suicide, the judge said he will likely exclude the suicide from being presented as evidence. In other words, the fact that the teen committed suicide won't even be known by the jury - even though much of the case rests on this fact.

The judge is George Wu - a Bush appointee.

Wu sniffed, "I don't necessarily think the suicide is relevant to the crime charged." Without the suicide, there never would've been a case. So the jury won't even learn of an event that's crucial to the case! How can the jury possibly make an informed judgment without being allowed to hear the facts?

If I didn't know any better, I'd almost suspect this decision was designed to let the defendant off the hook. Bush judicial appointees seem to have a penchant for granting "rights" to bullies young and old - judging by the fact that Bush elevated Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court after he ruled in appeals court that bullying schoolmates is a constitutionally protected right.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081110/ap_on_re_us/internet_suicide)

Billionaire accused of bulldozing dune

East Hampton, New York, was the site of a beautiful beach dune that nature took 3,000 years to build.

But local officials say that a billionaire property owner bulldozed the dune and a patch of protected vegetation almost in a wink. The alleged culprit is Ron Baron, founder of Baron Capital Management. Baron's purchase of the property last year for $103,000,000 was the most ever paid for a residential property.

According to some accounts, the dune apparently wasn't even on his property. It was near it, but not on it.

If Baron did indeed demolish the beach dune, he stole something from all of us. And they should fine him back to the age at which the dune began forming. Anyone who'd destroy the dune has a sense of entitlement they don't deserve.

But his lawyer said the 15-foot-high dune was just a "pile of dirt." How self-righteous can one get?

(Source: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/ny-lidune1012157731nov10,0,7656096.story)

Right-wing referendumb passes in Arkansas

I guess in some states inalienable rights are alienable after all.

Arkansas is one of several states in the Mid-South that seems to have utterly missed out on last Tuesday's humiliation of the GOP and continues to get more right-wing. I want to talk about the economy, but as long as the dominionists clutter the ballot with social engineering garbage, I don't always get to do so.

In Arkansas, voters were confronted with a ballot measure to make it illegal for people who cohabitate to become foster or adoptive parents. Because conservatives hate gays, they supported this initiative because it would keep gays from adopting (as gay marriage isn't legal there). The measure, however, wasn't gay-specific. If it was, it would still be stupid. The new law would apply not only against gays but against unmarried people in general.

I figured there was no way in hell this was going to pass. I thought it would fail, and the Pat Robertson types would be rendered a crying mess.

Well, the referendum lost in several counties, but it was passed statewide.

After the old regulation was unanimously ruled unconstitutional by the Arkansas Supreme Court, do people really think the new law won't be overturned too?

All this in a state that already has a severe shortage of potential adoptive and foster parents.

How in the Wide, Wide World Of Sports did this referendumb actually pass? I know the dominionist underworld is stronger than you'd think in every state, and they tell people in church who and what to vote for. It's surprising that it's that powerful though.

In fact, I question the results of the election. A University of Arkansas poll found most voters opposed to the initiative.

So now the state of Arkansas is once again put in a position of probing citizens' private lives. All because of a few right-wing activists who wanted this bullshit on the ballot so badly - and because enough people were willing to listen to them.

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/9/9356/17632/46/657971;
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/us/politics/09arkansas.html)

Students punished for supporting Obama

Even after the election, the suppression of ideas continues.

In several school districts in Mississippi, students are being sent home from school for wearing shirts supporting the new President-elect or for even uttering his name.

Apparently, one school's excuse was that "celebrations at school" are "against the law."

There was no similar policy 4 years ago against celebrating Bush stealing the election that year.

(Source: http://www.wlbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=9315082&nav=2CSf)

Palin channels Reagan

During his reign, President Reagan visited South America. When he returned home, he said, "You'd be surprised. They're all individual countries."

Well, now it's been revealed that Failin' Palin was surprised to learn Africa is a continent and not just one country.

Palin doesn't know Africa is a continent and doesn't know what countries are in NAFTA, yet she's the person who would've been a heartbeat away from the presidency had the aging McCain won?

I remember once when I was about 2, I thought Africa was one of the 50 states, and I asked my mom where it was on a map of the U.S. The reply: "Africa is not a state."

I was thoroughly dumbfounded! How can Africa not be a state when its name sounded so close to Alaska and Arizona?

But it's not a state. Even if Sarah Palin thinks she can see it out her window like with Russia. I was only 2 when I thought it was a state; Palin is 44.

Now Palin's defenders are blaming campaign staffers for her weak grasp of geography - and for her tantrums that flared up repeatedly during the campaign. They complain that staffers "leaked" stories about her behavior.

Rappin' Ronnie Raygun at least wasn't that prone to tantrums.

Now the wingnutosphere is trying to draft Palin for President in 2012. But I've read that the Republicans might instead pick (snicker) Mitch Daniels.

(Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/05/palin-didnt-know-africa-i_n_141653.html;
http://www.cbs12.com/news/mccain_4710581___article.html/palin_aides.html)

Child abuse legal in Alabama

If you like to beat children until they can't sit down, becoming a school administrator in Alabama might be a job that's open for you.

In Oxford, Alabama, a 12-year-old boy was beaten so severely by a school administrator that he had bruises a day later. After the paddling, he even had to go to the doctor for x-rays because waves of pain continued shooting down his legs.

But get this: When the boy's father went to police to file assault charges, he was told that state law exempts school personnel from prosecution for beating kids. In other words, it's legal in Alabama for school employees to leave bruises and nearly kill a student.

Can you believe that?

If it's legal for school faculty to abuse children, then it should also be legal for parents to march right down to the school and crack the paddle right over the school administrator's head in retaliation. I guarantee you I would, legal or not. And I'm sure most of you would too, so I challenge anyone to try to argue against this point.

(Source: http://teachers.net/mentors/discipline/topic1620/10.30.08.10.07.35.html)

Machine rigs machines

If you're scratching your noodle over why Kentucky is one of few states where the Democrats didn't significantly improve their election performance, don't forget that it has quite a few Republican machine counties - and is a Republican machine state. Even though Kentucky has more Democrats than Republicans, the GOP controls economic projects - and still holds some major state offices and the Kentucky Senate, despite the routs since 2006.

It's a bit like how Saddam ran Iraq.

Nationwide, I doubt if McCain won a single county that isn't a machine county or is in a machine state. I think this was already true of Bush in 2000, but now the GOP is more of a regional party, and their machine counties are now smaller and more Southern.

Kentucky probably has no larger machine county than Kenton County. According to the county GOP's website, the county's entire fiscal court and most county offices are held by Republicans.

Believe me, it shows.

After current Republican congressman Geoff Davis's failed 2002 congressional bid, the county government website falsely declared Davis had won.

Proof of vote rigging occurred last Tuesday when disabled-accessible electronic voting machines in Kenton County failed to count votes. The machines were shut down, but not before many votes were hopelessly lost. Turnout in Democratic precincts was suspiciously low.

County officials counted on voters not noticing that the machines were rigged, but someone caught on, and that's when they had to set aside the machines.

As a result of the Republicans' blatant election fraud, a hotly contested Kentucky Senate election seems to have been won by the Republican incumbent. A recanvass was scheduled, but if there aren't some serious legal challenges to the GOP's win, then the Democrats really need to find tougher leaders. They can't drop the ball like they did in the 1998 U.S. Senate race, when the power went out in other counties and lost votes.

As for Kenton County, GOP fraud also occurred in a 2006 Kentucky House race. It was narrowly won by the Republican, but a heavily populated precinct near the Democrat's home counted only 64 votes, giving it only about a 15% turnout. The seal of at least one voting machine didn't match the packing slip.

To sum up, this is a fact: Republicans in Kenton County rigged the election - in 2006 and 2008. And they'll get away with it, because everyone is too browbeaten to keep the pressure on.

The GOP rigged it, and I'm calling them out on it.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=fe4c8508-f19d-486b-886f-be5f1b211039)

Open thread

Discover bubble gum too! (Bubble Gum Weekend)

Discover bubble gum! You can chew it, and you can even blow bubbles with it!

For years, when someone mentioned Orville and Wilbur Wright to me, I often asked if they remembered a Care-Free gum commercial featuring actors playing the Wright brothers. Their response was always the same: "You're making that up!"

But I knew it wasn't just my imagination, and now I'm absolutely floored to find that ad on YouTube decades later!

Like Care-Free's Benjamin Franklin ad, this hilarious commersh was part of a patriotic series that extolled the size of a stick of Care-Free. But the Wright brothers ad (reportedly from 1979) was different in that it featured a guy in a funny golf hat bubbling:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2Qi5MnBTXY

Note also that at the end of the ad when the jingle starts playing, one of the Wrights starts dancing side to side in the same manner that the Gum Fighter did in some of the Hubba Bubba commercials.

So discover bubble gum! Discover it under your computer desk, discover it stuck on the sidewalk, and discover it in your hair! Bubble gum exists for you to discover!

Cross burned on lawn of Obama supporters

The Far Right can't stand not getting their way 100% of the time, and in the past couple days, it's been more obvious than ever.

In Hardwick, New Jersey, a family who supported Obama's presidential bid have woken up to find a cross burned on their lawn. The charred remains of the cross were wrapped in an Obama-related banner that had been stolen from the lawn the previous night.

This was in a community that the Republican ticket won by a substantial margin. Incidents like this do seem to occur disproportionately in areas that favor right-wing politics.

The family targeted by this display won't be intimidated though: They're putting up an even larger banner to support the new President-elect.

GOP weaklings burn a cross and destroy a banner, but they didn't destroy a family's spirit.

I think it's time someone makes an effort to start connecting the dots between attacks like this and some of the nasty comments wingnuts post online.

(Source: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/11/burning_cross.html)

"Independent" CBS panel would have included Coulter and Limbaugh

The fuckheadosphere manufactured much din in 2004 over the memos about Bush's Texas Air National Guard service. Despite what at least one local TV station has falsely claimed, nobody has ever proven the memos were fake. Nonetheless, Dan Rather's reporting of the memos led him to be hounded out of his CBS post by the Far Right.

In Rather's lawsuit against the network, something interesting has emerged. It turns out that when CBS announced it was forming an "independent" panel to investigate the manner in which the memo story was put together, its list of potential panelists included much of the pampered right-wing media machine.

Although a few of the names listed weren't reliably conservative, a disproportionate number were. They included Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, William Bennett, William Buckley, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, and Matt Drudge. (Matt Drudge??? Shit, I have more experience than he has just from The Last Word!)

Eventually, the panel was composed only of former AP head Louis Boccardi and Mad Dog Bush's Attorney General Dick Thornburgh. I don't know about Boccardi, but Thornburgh was clearly right-wing and already had ties to the Bush crime family.

Rather's legal team found that the disproportionately conservative list of potential panelists was vetted by Viacom's Washington lobbyists and unidentified Republican operatives.

No wonder nobody trusts the media anymore: They force Dan Rather out of a job because he reported a story that proved Bush was a spoiled baby - and then they hire almost nothing but conservatives to investigate the matter.

One more reason why we need an investigation into the news media's right-wing bias.

(Source: http://www.observer.com/2008/media/juicy-bits-surfacing-rather-case-2004-cbs-considered-matt-drudge-rush-limbaugh-ann-coulte)

Teen attacked over Obama support

What? A high school student in suburban Cincinnati got attacked by right-wing schoolmates for supporting a presidential candidate?

Didn't this happen once before? Why yes, it did. I'm sure I told you about what happened to me in 1988, and not every county has matured much since then.

At northeast suburban Mason High School, a student is being harassed by fascists because of her support for Obama. However, this saga is different from what I suffered 20 years ago, because at least the principal at Mason posted a letter warning that such attacks will not be tolerated. At the high school I attended in 1988, the principal just encouraged more assaults and used the intercom to spread his own right-wing views.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/content/wcposhared/story.aspx?content_id=fdb681f1-4000-4992-8b4c-1cdd0f0711f9)

DEA murdered Bolivian farmers

Many in Congress think they're the President of the World, and various right-wing federal legislators have espoused the view that the United States should in effect invade other countries to fight the failed drug war. They've even demanded that the U.S. spray toxic chemicals on entire regions to kill crops - which the DEA has done. (The DEA does the same in Hawaii, against residents' wishes.)

Bolivian President Evo Morales now says the DEA hasn't just been killing crops but farmers as well.

"The DEA killed, shot at the coca farmers' movement," stated Morales, who also heads a coca growers' federation.

Morales also said the DEA funded criminals and encouraged political unrest that killed 19 people.

The DEA is probably the most corrupt federal agency. This story is a living example of the type of corruption and violence the drug war breeds.

(Source: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jokP3NJceKbNnXTn2o1hsA5wEZ_A)

Looks like Musgrave lost...

"Looks like Musgrave lost..." (Sung to the tune of "Muskrat Love.")

Marilyn Musgrave is a right-wing congresswoman from Colorado. She is so well-known for her hatefulness that she is one of few recent members of Congress to win a Ku Klux Klan endorsement (as Bush also did). The American Conservative Union also ranked her as the most conservative member of the House.

Musgrave has also accepted trips from groups like the Heritage Foundation that support authoritarian foreign dictatorships. She cosponsored a federal "right-to-work" law to break up labor unions and suppress wages. She even helped lead the effort to tell the Bush regime to illegally suspend prevailing wage laws in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. And she was ranked by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington as one of Congress's 20 most corrupt members.

Well, guess what? Marilyn Musgrave losed too. Musgrave got defeated in her reelection bid by a resounding 12% - in a Republican district.

Yes, I know, I know. It isn't like the Greens have taken over Congress or anything, but I can't remember the last time the Republicans have fared so laughably.

(Source: http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_10910108)

Terrorists attack over election results

The right-wing sore losers really can't take it, can they?

I guess they need someone to comfort and soothe them, give them soft blankies and wawa, and prop their heads on their pillow as they watch the ol' b00b t00b. Aw, fuck them.

They can't cope with the election results, so they get violent.

In Staten Island, a mob of white racists beat a Muslim black teenager with a baseball bat because they were angry at Obama's victory. (Incidentally, Obama is not a Muslim. I don't know why so many people continue insisting he is.)

And in Kingston, Pennsylvania, a man walked into a bar and bit a man's nose off because he was upset about the election results.

The crybabies can start all the "Impeach Obama" groups on Facebook that they please (as they already have). Their violence though is another matter.

I think it's almost time for a whole separate webpage listing violent assaults by these unhinged cretins. We also need to call it what it is: terrorism.

(Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/11/05/2008-11-05_gang_angry_at_barack_obama_win_beat_me_s-1.html;
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Police__Man_rsquo_s_nose_bitten_over_Obama_win_11-05-2008.html)

Elizabeth Dole goes bananas and loses

As a senator from North Carolina, Elizabeth Dole was the Conservative Fool Of The Day for 4/4/06 because she mailed out a Republican fundraising letter designed to look like an IRS tax form and tried to threaten people into sending in money. The letter didn't go just to GOP cultists but also to other members of the general public.

This was such an obvious case of mail fraud that it's a miracle Dole wasn't hauled straight to jail.

Guess what? Now she's lost her reelection bid just like so many other Republicans. And she deserved it.

As one of the sleaziest political attacks in recent memory, Dole ran an ad attacking her Democratic opponent Kay Hagan (a former Sunday school teacher) by having a person with a similar voice yell, "There is no God!" It was designed to make it sound as if Hagan had said it herself.

Maybe there is a God if Elizabeth Dole lost.

Marijuana initiative wins every county in Michigan

The drug warriors are going to be emitting steaming piles of liquefied shit into their pantaloons when they read this one!

Liars like Mel Sembler's Drug Free America Foundation cult are always spreading propaganda against what they call "soft" drug policy - which by their definition includes legalizing medical marijuana. They wouldn't know the truth if it jumped out of a computer screen and moved their jaws for them.

Their stance isn't just a War on Drugs. It's a war against patients of glaucoma, cancer, and other serious illnesses.

The Bush regime has even sent DEA agents into states where medical marijuana is legal to arrest patients.

But Michigan voters got a chance to vote on a referendum to legalize medical marijuana for certain illnesses. The measure would also allow medical defenses for marijuana-related prosecutions.

Not only did this measure pass with 63% yesterday. It also won in all 83 counties in Michigan.

Hopefully the federal policy of running roughshod over the rights of states that allow medical marijuana will stop, now that the Republicans have finally lost their grip on D.C. If not, the states need to arrest federal agents for not respecting state law.

(Source: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/county)

Mmm! A bike! Deelish! ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

Remind me never to ride the Peace Bike to Sesame Street.

The street we all know and love seems to have an unusually high concentration of blue, furry monsters who feast on bicycles:



The bike in this sketch belonged to neither Herry nor Cookie Monster. They ate it without the owner's consent.

This would make a great 'Cops' segment, wouldn't it?

GOP loses Ohio House

Had enough amusement for one day?

I never even saw this one coming, but here it wafts: The Republicans have managed to lose their majority in the Ohio House.

We're talking Ohio, of all places! This is the state that had one of the most corrupt and unbending GOP machines in America in the early 2000s, yet now they've blown a 7-seat edge in the House!

The Republicans had gained control of the Ohio House in the electoral disaster of 1994 - and we all know what I think about the '94 fraud, don't we?

When a party is as corrupt and worthless as the modern Republicans have been, for them to lose their majority status should actually be viewed as a return to the natural state of things.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/content/wcposhared/story.aspx?content_id=7281943e-c01f-450c-bf45-f0c594534e44)

Colorado work-for-less referendumb loses

No surprise here!

Colorado has a right-wing past - but apparently not a right-wing future.

Corporate interests placed a measure on the ballot in Colorado asking voters to approve a so-called "right-to-work" law. This measure would have gutted labor union contracts and forced unions to represent nonunion employees.

Work-for-less laws are common in the South and West. The goal of these quirky laws is to weaken organized labor and keep wages artificially low. I believe "right-to-work" laws are unconstitutional.

In Colorado, however, voters rejected work-for-less. The margin was rather decisive.

This should teach the corporatists a lesson. But it won't. They never learn.

Idiot who's an absolute idiot defeated

Referring to Idaho congressman Bill Sali, the Conservative Fool Of The Day entry for 1/17/07 said, "This is the type of guy who makes our job too damn easy!" The entry said that Sali is "not one of these 'uptown conservafools' like Tom Ridge. ... Sali has more of a kooky air about him."

Idaho House Speaker Bruce Newcomb once said of Sali, "That idiot is just an absolute idiot." No truer words were ever spoken. A doctor who Sali visited after a car crash said Sali was exaggerating his injuries to help him in a lawsuit against the driver he hit, and so the doctor would prescribe him more drugs.

When Sali won his congressional seat in 2006, freshman Republicans chose Sali as their class leader - which proves how much of a master of disaster he was. To express his opposition to increasing the minimum wage, he introduced a bill to abolish the law of gravity.

But guess what?

Yesterday, Bill Sali losed.

He got defeated in his reelection bid - in a heavily Republican district, no less.

I guess we don't have this clod to laugh at anymore. But I'm sure he'll try to seek some office again.

Sore loser loses again

About sore losers: They lose.

Their whole mission in life seems to be to lose and be sore about it. Just ask Louis Jenkins.

Dino Rossi was the Conservative Fool Of The Day for 5/26/05. He was the Republican candidate for Governor of Washington state in 2004 and lost. When he lost to Democrat Christine Gregoire, he threw an absolute, complete, utter temper tantrum - like the big crybaby he is.

And man, is he a right-winger! He also lied on his resume about being a real estate broker.

As part of his meltdown, Rossi accused the Democrats of rigging the election but he provided no proof. He even demanded that state lawmakers pass a bill to conduct a new election because he lost. Then he sued every county in the state to try to overturn the results of the election in which he was defeated.

The election yesterday was a rematch (at least among the major parties). And guess what? Dino Rossi lost again - this time by a much greater margin than 4 years ago!

Is he going to carry on about this too?

You're a big baby, Dino.

Longtime Cincinnati GOP congressman loses

I frankly don't get a lot of the Republicans or why they kept winning when they shouldn't have.

Steve Chabot is a 7-term Republican congressman from Cincinnati. He's been damn lucky in elections, but maybe it's because he's not as much of a loudmouth about his stances as other Republicans are.

Well, your luck has finally run out, Steve. You lost.

In losing, he failed to win. By not winning, he lost. Which means he didn't win.

Bye, Steve.

Even Cincinnati ditched the GOP

You're not gonna believe this one, but something happened on Election Day that hadn't happened since 1964.

For the first time in 44 years, Cincinnati's Hamilton County went Democratic in a presidential election. Yes, Cincinnati, of all places!

Isn't Cincinnati a conservative stronghold? I'm not referring to the city here, but the whole county - which includes many suburbs that are unfailingly right-wing.

But Obama won the place by 5%, about the same as his nationwide showing.

Talk about a county where the Republicans have really self-destructed lately!

GOP loses seats in both houses of Congress

Continuing the uproarious trend that began in 2006, the Republicans have again suffered a net loss of seats in both the Senate and the House - making a Tuesday night full of laughs even more fulfilling!

If you think I'm being too partisan about this, the GOP did have a few rare bright spots, like when they defeated Democrat Tim Mahoney, who wanted to act like a jerk. But the Republicans acted like even bigger jerks and lost many more seats.

Overall, not a bad night! When I was at my family event, I heard cheers and fireworks outside when Obama was declared the winner - in a county that McCain allegedly won with 60%, no less.

(I'm skeptical of the claim that McCain really won Campbell County at all, from what I've seen lately. This is not 1990. Incidentally, Obama did better in Campbell County than he did in Perry County. I'd be surprised if there was any other time since the New Deal when the Democrats did better in Campbell than in Perry.)

"You had a bad day...The camera don't lie..."

Tom Feeney has a teeny weenie

This sorryass so deserved to lose that I can't even begin to tell you how satisfying his defeat is!

Tom Feeney - a right-wing congressman from central Florida - was the Conservative Fool Of The Day on 2/22/06 for a variety of reasons. He was the moron who in 2000 wanted Florida lawmakers to ignore the popular vote and certify a slate of Bush electors even if Al Gore was found to have carried the state. When he was a state legislator, he introduced a bill to have Florida secede from the United States because he considered the federal government too liberal.

Computer programmer Clint Curtis later said Feeney asked him to write software to rig touch screen voting machines. Curtis later ran against Feeney in 2006.

But now Tom Feeney got defeated for reelection by Suzanne Kosmas - by 16%, no less!

Bye Tom, you right-wing fuckchop.

Yes, Obama won Elliott County

Elliott County, Kentucky, has come through again for the Democrats. You've got to give the county credit for shunning the GOP so consistently!

I got in a heated discussion on the Internet about who would win Elliott County. I was told repeatedly that McCain would carry this bailiwick in rural Appalachia hands-down. But it was not to be!

In fact, Obama won it by 25%. It was Obama's best county of all 120 counties in Kentucky.

I've said before that the urban-rural split is widening, but I knew all along Obama would win some rural Appalachian counties. America's political regions are what they are, and poop on those who think they can predict a county offhand and be so wrong!

Obama wins presidency

Ladies and gentlemen, our long national nightmare is over!

I just got home from my Election Day event, and the elections turned out to be pretty much a rout, didn't they?

It really hasn't even sunken in yet, but there's a lot of different ways you can view this. With the GOP smashed so resoundingly in 2 consecutive cycles, I think this may well be the end of the Republican era that started in 1980.

I don't want to get my hopes up too much, but I think this election might really be the one when things crashed down for the GOP for good. The Republicans so deserve it.

Obama wins Guam

I bet you didn't know that Guam casts votes for President. It's the only external U.S. territory to do so. Guam ultimately has no effect on the outcome, for it has no electoral votes, but its voters are U.S. citizens.

Guam however is a bellwether. For decades, whoever won Guam was the official winner nationwide. (I have to make a distinction between official and unofficial, thanks to the last 2 presidential elections being stolen nationally.) Lately though, Guam has gone well right of center: Bush won it almost 2-to-1 in 2004.

But now Obama has carried Guam by about the same margin the Decider won it last time.

This could be a very, very, very, very, very excruciating night for the GOPstapo.

(Source: http://www.kuam.com/decision2008/results/general)

Election Day open thread!

Cue the "Read On!" fife music: I did my patriotic duty today! Turnout seemed vastly suppressed - but I overheard other voters, and trust me, they ain't McCain supporters. (I ain't either.) And no right-wing issue groups were campaigning at the polling place, unlike 2004.

I blog. It's my job. Rush Limbaugh's job is a radio commentator. Mona Charen's job is a newspaper and TV commentator. My job is an Internet commentator.

Charen and Limbaugh are right-wing; I'm not. But the work I do is just as legit as anyone else's. I'm not getting rich, but it pays the bills for someone like me, who didn't have as many opportunities in life as Rush or Mona did.

It's not just a job, but a career, and I take pride in it.

Last year, I blogged live during elections including the Kentucky gubernatorial contest. I devoured a piping hot pile of West Virginia pepperoni rolls as I had the Secretary of State's website set to refresh constantly. But this year, I'm going to a family event, like I've done on Election Day every 2 years of my adult life. (The only exception was 2006, because we all had other things we had to do.)

At these events, we watch returns on TV and the Internet. There's nothing quite like seeing the numbers roll in! It's like watching a sporting event, only rarer.

Tonight I'm going to be at this get-together. I know you're disappointed that I won't be here to update you, but I worked until almost 10 PM last night, and I can't be home 100% of the time. But I'll be taking notes, and I guarantee you I'll be blogging again the moment I get home! That's a 100% ironclad promise!

Let this entry be an open thread for your own election observations!

And may the worst candidate lose!

A big thanks to the protesters!

McCain is still losing.

I'm still hungry.

And the Kids Helping Kids cult is still closed - at least as far as I know!

I don't deserve to hog all the glory for shutting down the abusive facility. I'm proud of what I did, but I'm just one of many voices in the cause. Our recent roadside protests have had as many as 12 participants, so the credit has to be properly allocated.

Although I wasn't involved in these protests until last November, there were other demonstrations against the cult before I even knew about what was going on. In fact, there was a protest as long ago as about 1988.

All participants deserve credit. A big, warm thanks to all who showed their support - and to all who allowed me such amenities as the Eyewitness Cam! The Eyewitness Cam is a great Roads Scholaring tool, but it's also seen some action at the protests!

If programs like KHK crop up again in the Cincinnati area, I hope to be able to protest those as well.

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

GOP mercenary firm gets laughed at

Pity the poor losers. On second thought, don't.

The GOPstapo may be pretty adept at rigging the election in Kentucky by offering faulty voting machines, but everything else they do is a total failure.

Now a CIA-linked mercenary firm called Evergreen Defense & Security Services has offered to post sentries at polling places in Oregon with the purpose of "detaining troublemakers." The News Register of McMinnville described the company's founder as "a political conservative who enjoys close ties with the federal government and military."

The mercenary firm's parent company has ties to the right-wing intelligentsia - even schlepping Bill O'Reilly around Kuwait. (Why was O'Reilly visiting a country ruled by a regime that is so totalitarian that it banned 'Fahrenheit 9/11'?)

"Detaining troublemakers", huh? Sounds like voter intimidation to me. And I guarantee that if someone laid a hand on me to stop me from voting, they'd get an elbow in the teeth. If some fascist thug fights me, I fight back.

But here's the funny part: Oregon doesn't have polling places anymore. Oregon votes by mail. Voters are supposed to have ballots mailed to them. They mail the completed ballots back or turn them in at drop boxes at county offices.

So this move by Evergreen Defense & Security Services is a bust. All because they weren't smart enough to realize that voting in Oregon is by mail.

Is Evergreen gonna post sentries in folks' living rooms? That's where most people in Oregon voted! Hahahahaha!

(Source: http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/11/spooky-defense.html)

Election being rigged in Kentucky

What???

The Republicans are rigging the election in Kentucky???

Gee, imagine that!

It seems that in Kenton County the disabled-accessible electronic voting machines with the round dials weren't recording votes.

Now the problem has supposedly been fixed, but I'm highly skeptical of that claim.

Meanwhile, turnout seems suspiciously low - meaning suppressed - in Democratic precincts.

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/4/115922/497/462/652470;
http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20081104/NEWS0103/310310111)

Exec loses job for supporting Obama

The McCain campaign is in its endgame, but that seems to make the Republicans all the more irrational.

But in the business world, it's been going on for years. In Corporate America, you're taught to back the GOP party line - or else.

Dan Cooper was chief executive of Cooper Firearms, a rifle manufacturing company that he founded. He's unusual for an exec in that he supports Obama, and he donated several thousand dollars to his campaign. He opted not to back the Republicans, because the party "has moved so far right in recent years."

Because of his stance, the board of directors of the company he founded has asked him to step down.

It's illegal to force someone out of a job over their politics. Yet it happens anyway - because the ruling party won't enforce the laws.

The executive director of the American Hunters and Shooters Association (which endorsed Obama) said the board of directors' action against Dan Cooper is "McCarthyism at its worst."

The loss of Dan Cooper follows an organized effort by right-wing blogs to boycott his company because of his political stance.

(Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-10-30-gun-ceo-ousted_N.htm)

The Conservative Fool Of The Day is...Sonny Perdue!

Voters in Georgia who use early voting have been confronted by long waits of 8 to 10 hours - if they're in Democratic areas (and thus are likely to vote Democratic).

Intimidation? Probably. Incompetence? Certainly. Georgia is run by Republican Gov. Sonny "Boss Hogg" Perdue, who ain't exactly the most capable politician around.

When asked about the delays, you know what Perdue said about voters? He said, "They shouldn't have procrastinated."

Um, Sonny? You do realize we're talking about early voting here? If they were such procrastinators, why didn't they wait until tomorrow to vote, genius?

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/1/11361/6248/979/648878)

McCain volunteer charged for stealing Obama signs

Lovely. Two entries back to back about ruthless thuggery in the GOP camp.

In Pennsylvania, a McCain campaign volunteer has been charged with receiving stolen property for stealing 40 Obama signs. The 39-year-old volunteer was charged after police found signs in his SUV at the county's Republican headquarters.

He admitted stealing the signs, but said it was justified because the Democrats have been swiping McCain signs (though he offered no proof). Yeah, that's a real airtight defense - not!

It's especially amusing that police knew exactly where to find the thief: at the Republican headquarters.

I guess batshittery like stealing signs is the norm now among the Republicans. It seems like hardly a day goes by when they don't do something like this.

(Source: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08308/925027-100.stm)

GOP thug tries running over Obama backer

I think no matter who the Republicans put up from now on, their supporters will always stoop to the depths set by Bush's cultists. Thanks a billion, George.

In Holmes Beach, Florida, a McCain backer tried running over an Obama supporter as she stood outside her store. The assailant drove a blue van with Illinois plates and missed the intended victim by only a few inches. The van had a McCain sticker on the back.

There were witnesses to the incident.

Well, there's another aggravated assault by the GOP camp. Kind of like when that guy in Cincinnati tried to run over the antiwar demonstrators (and got off with a small fine because of a friendly court system).

(Source: http://www.bradenton.com/news/breaking_news/story/1003770.html)

Someone wanna tell me how this didn't pass any constitutional test? (more Freeper Madness)

It's another uproarious episode of 'Wingnuts Complain About The Darndest Things'!

When I saw a harangue on right-wing agitation site Free Republic headlined "Someone wanna tell me how this passed any Constitutional test?", I could only guess what they were complaining about.

I knew it wasn't about something that was actually unconstitutional, like the Sudafed logs or Congress's requirement that libraries censor Web access. This is the land of the Freepers we're talking about.

Sure enough, I was right. The Freak Rethuglic brain trust (as it were) was bellowing about a government program that assists low-income families with their phone service. In my area, this program provides a discount on regular phone bills. In others, it seems to cover cell phones.

The Freepers complain, "Does anyone know the article and section of the Constitution that allows the government to collect taxes to hand out free cell phones?"

Um. Where's the article and section of the Constitution that prohibit the government from doing so?

Still waiting.

The government gave hundreds of billions of dollars to the banking industry (which then used the money to buy new jets for CEO's), so how can it be barred from providing communications assistance for the poor?

Wait, I think I found that clause. It's right after the section that says Bush can preempt state lawsuits against negligent drug companies. Oops, that section doesn't exist either.

Is there anything else that's not in the Constitution that conservatives hallucinate about?

AP still insists media favors Obama

No wonder the Associated Press keeps losing newspapers. They're bugfuck delusional.

For the second time in as many weeks, the AP has reported some study claiming television news organizations are more favorable to Obama than to McCain. Obviously that doesn't include newswires, because the AP's hit piece against Obama's aunt would have bent the needle to the right quite a bit.

The AP cites a study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs "proving" a pro-Obama bias. What it doesn't tell you is that the CMPA was founded by conservatives. What it also doesn't tell you is that the CMPA reported that the TV media has a pro-McCain bias just a few months ago, even though the CMPA was conceived as a conservative organ.

The AP seriously thinks a Brit Hume shitcast is more accurate and balanced than anything else on TV?

That the Assholciated Press keeps reporting studies like this disproves the very point they're trying to make. Their point has long been that the media favors Democrats over Republicans - but the fact that the AP keeps reporting this fallacy disproves it. If the media didn't favor Republicans, it wouldn't keep falsely accusing itself of favoring Democrats.

The AP's story discredits itself just by being reported.

The media has a nice racket: They can favor Republicans, then report that they're not doing so, because they're the media.

In 2004, the media often made it look like Bush was the only candidate who was even running.

Since right-wing hack Dean Singleton took the reins, it's hard to trust anything the AP says anymore. But the AP has a near-monopoly in the American newswire biz. Its biggest U.S. competitor is probably UPI, but UPI's share of the business is miniscule after it got taken over by Sun Myung Moon (who promptly ruined it).

In BushWorld, that's considered balance.

Vampires now a gang symbol?

Is there any doubt remaining that America's schools are run by out-of-touch right-wing kooks?

The right-wing War on Halloween has been humming full-throttle in Savannah, Georgia. A 5th grade student was assigned by his art teacher to draw a scary Halloween mask. He opted to draw a vampire, and the instructor coached him on some of the details.

But when the youngster's homeroom teacher saw the vampire mask, all hell broke loose. She claimed the mask was a gang symbol and that the drops of blood dripping from the undead creature's mouth represented the number of people the student had killed.

As a result, she notified school police, and the student was not permitted to return to school until he passed a psychological evaluation.

A 5th grader was forced to take a mental test for doing exactly what a teacher assigned him to do? Remember, the taxpayers are paying for this.

(Source: http://savannahnow.com/node/605769;
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/31/national/main4560516.shtml)

Kentucky district to go Democratic

Two years ago, Kentucky's Louisville-based 3rd congressional district sent its Republican representative packing. It was a "ha ha!" moment to be sure.

Now the 2nd district, in west central Kentucky, appears almost certain to flip parties as well. The district has been represented since a clearly rigged 1994 special election by right-wing extremist Ron Lewis - who is known for lying about his term limit pledge and for his constitutionally wrong belief that Congress can bar the Supreme Court from hearing challenges to its laws.

With the retirement of Lewis, a Republican, it's now an open seat. Although polls in October showed Republican Brett Guthrie with an edge over Democrat David Boswell, the GOP lead has evaporated, and Boswell is now heavily favored to win.

Thus, Kentucky's House delegation will at minimum be split 3 to 3, erasing the GOP's undeserved advantage that cropped up in the '90s. This will also be the fourth time since 1998 that a Kentucky congressional seat has flipped from Republican to Democratic (although the 4th district later switched back).

For all the Democratic losses in rural Kentucky at the presidential level, at least the Republicans' coattails are short. The GOP is frigging lucky that even its presidential candidates have done so well at the polls, considering how unpopular Bush is in Kentucky.

Congressman who started forest fire complains about ad

Henry Brown Jr. (no relation that I know of) is a right-wing congressman from South Carolina.

In 2004, the Republican legislator set a fire on his property that spread to a national forest and scorched 20 acres. He was fined thousands of dollars for his carelessness.

Brown remained unapologetic about his stupidity. He whined, "I was so taken aback that I'd be treated so impersonal - like I was some kind of crook. ... Those were criminal charges that were filed against me. I felt like I was the victim."

Sounds to me like the WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHmbulance has just made another appearance!

Now - facing a tough challenge from Democrat Linda Ketner - Brown is demanding that Ketner pull an ad that criticizes him for the forest fire. Ketner also points to a U.S. Forest Service warning that told Brown not to burn anything on the day of the blaze.

But Henry Brown still won't admit he did anything wrong. How self-righteous can you get?

(Source: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h43nuQHfvmydFTIHikkPbjdET6DAD93R2KCG0)

Bush's final assault?

Look at ol' George. He's waddling out the door of the Oval Office with poo-poo bulging out his trousers like he's carting around 30 pounds of Stadium Checkers marbles.

Bye, George.

But old habits die hard, and the totalitarian fartpipe still has work to do for his corporate allies! On Friday, Bush signed an order exempting factory farms from having to get water pollution permits.

Whether you live in an urban or a rural area, factory farms are a threat to you and your family by contaminating streams with animal shit and other waste. Factory farms also bode ill for animal welfare by raising too many animals in too small of a space.

An attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council criticized the Bush regime's action. "Literally and figuratively, this rule puts the Bush administration's stamp of approval on a load of manure," he said.

This despite the fact that the Clean Water Act of 1972 specifically authorizes regulation of factory farm waste.

Another new Bush rule lets factory farms certify that they will not discharge waste - while letting them avoid penalties if they do discharge waste. You read that right: He'll let them avoid paying fines if they had previously promised not to do what they're being fined for.

The final 3 months of Bush's misrule looks like it's going to be a massive estate sale in which he sells off to our corporate masters what remains of the country he helped kill.

(Source: http://www.nrdc.org/media/2008/081031.asp)

Another day, another GOP vote meltdown

What? A Republican big shot threw a public temper tantrum at a voter registration office? Imagine that!

This time it happened in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Rick Beltram, head of the county GOP, challenged the vote of a 74-year-old woman, claiming her signature didn't match. One of the poll workers didn't appreciate the local Republican chairman interfering with someone's right to vote, and a complaint was made with state election officials.

Beltram claimed a local Democratic legislator gave doughnuts and bottled water to voters standing in line during early voting. But it turned out this wasn't true. To put it less politely, it was an outright lie.

Despite this, Beltram continued playing the victim. He complained that "all the black ladies ganged up on me." Republicans say strange things when they're losing, don't they?

He tried to intimidate elderly voters and lied about a political foe giving out doughnuts, yet he's claiming he's the victim?

How babyish can you possibly get?

(Source: http://www.goupstate.com/article/20081031/NEWS/810312973/1083)

Nader or Obama?

So who's it gonna be? Nader or Obama?

Now that it's been established that the major parties have a conservative recent history, a Nader vote looks tempting - which is why I practically endorsed him months ago. Why reward the Democrats for gaffes like confirming Michael Mukasey and the Clintons' school uniform support?

But it's not too late to take the rare step of voting for someone other than who I effectively endorsed. After Obama has spent the past 6 weeks on real populist themes (making him the best Democratic nominee in 20 years), why not vote for him? If I vote for Nader, and McCain wins by 8 electoral votes after winning Kentucky by one vote, I'd feel about an inch high. Why split the vote?

If Nader is draining votes from Obama, you can just as easily argue that Obama is draining votes from Nader - but the media won't allow that, because Nader is the one who got excluded from the debates.

Because I'm not Ann Coulter, I have only one vote. What to do with it is nearly a wash. Obama has evoked a lot of confidence lately, and his Cincinnati rally was quite impressive. But I voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, and his administration sure turned out to be a bust, didn't it?

See how carefully I'm mulling this over, folks?

Voting is by secret ballot, and I'm under no obligation to disclose who I end up voting for. The most I can do tomorrow is vote my conscience and hope for the best. It looks like this election is already decided, but don't let that keep you from voting.

More about the Obama rally!

Why would a populist Green be interested in a Democratic rally?

Well, I did try to check out a Bush rally in 2000 - even though there wasn't a chance in hell I'd vote for him. I just wanted to see what my side was up against, and of course I got run off from the Bush event anyway. If I was going to walk 80 minutes to a Republican rally, why not drive 10 minutes to a Democratic event?

Obama came to Nippert Stadium at the University of Cincinnati last night! And he put on a spectacular rally! He drew a bigger audience than UC's football program does, that's for damn sure! I'd say there were about 30,000 people there, and the line to get in wrapped about the campus for blocks!

In Cincinnati, of all places!

Obama's speech touched on themes like the economy that the Democrats should have been talking about for years. If Bill Clinton's 1996 campaign was like the past 6 weeks of the Obama campaign, the Democrats wouldn't have bled so many supporters to the Greens.

You're kickin' yourself, ol' Bill, aren't ya?

The Eyewitness Cam owes a couple new photos that fit into the rubric of things roadly, but it also captured several items at the Obama rally itself. I cranked it up to full zoom to get this photo. It's hard to see the Illinois senator, but he's at the podium on the stage:


(http://i33.tinypic.com/15f1yci.jpg)

This photo shows just a fraction of the crowd:


(http://i38.tinypic.com/2626vqw.jpg)

This is the best picture. Obama is still at the podium:


(http://i38.tinypic.com/ekj6ac.jpg)

Now he's strolled away from the podium and is talking to supporters:


(http://i38.tinypic.com/v4t9h1.jpg)

I also got...A VIDEO!!! He's not as clearly visible in the video, but he delivered an interesting speech:



When was the last time a major party candidate said "regulate" and "Wall Street" in the same sentence?

What an exciting event!

Arguing with Nazis again!

When you're a rip-roaring populist, your arguing days are never over.

In the past day I've been under assault by a small cadre of Nazis on the Internet who think rules shouldn't apply to them - and they're threatening to get my account yanked just for having a different opinion.

For weeks, one of them - we'll call 'em Lidflusher - has been posting right-wing, racist, off-topic spam. I asked the forum regulars where to report it, and they were helpful. Then, however, this venue was promptly invaded by Lidflusher's friends - possibly Lid under various sockpuppets, but I don't know for certain.

Nazis tried to have one of my accounts pulled years ago for "spam" because I posted on 2 forums where my posts were actually on-topic. So if what I did was so horrible, Lidflusher was clearly out of bounds.

Anyway, along comes one of Lid's pals. We'll call 'em Pottyslammer. Pottyslammer attacked me, and I responded in kind.

Meanwhile, Lidflusher called me a "spamming lib" - just for voicing my opinion about Lid's spam (even though I was posting in the same places as Lid). (See what I mean about how they think rules should apply to everyone except them?) Lid bragged about reporting me for "spamming" and said my sig file was "spam."

Lid said, "Take this spam crap elsewhere, asswipe."

My reply: "Make me."

You don't know how good that felt!

But Pottyslammer wasn't done yet! Somehow, Potty found out my main e-mail address and my ISP and posted those. I frankly don't give two shits. Potty posted a link to some clause in my ISP's terms of service which I thought was going to be some paper tiger about "vulgarity." But nope, it was a clause about spam and illegal activity. So I'm on even more solid ground - because I was trying to stop spam and broke no laws.

My ISP has no grounds or even any right to terminate me for anything I did. That would be no different from cutting off one's phone service for cussing out a Republican robocall.

Nonetheless, Potty called me a "tough guy douchebag" and demanded folks report me to my ISP.

I'm a tough guy alright. If the Democrats talked 15 years ago the way I talk now, they never would have lost Congress and damn sure wouldn't have lost the White House to Bush, of all people. I sure told the 'Net thought police what I thought about their bullshit.

It's easy to say that they act this way because they're losers, and this is all they have. Their party is about to lose an election despite putting up the most winnable candidate they possibly had.

But I remember them acting the same way in the early 2000s when the Republicans were at their electoral peak. There's a subtle difference though. Back then they reveled in kicking everyone else when they were down - like the bullies they are. Now they're just sore losers.

This time, they don't realize what they've gotten themselves into.

I went to an Obama rally!

Obama came to Cincinnati tonight, and I went to his rally!

What a rally!

He's interesting to see in person, even though he was all the way at the other end of the venue where I could barely see him.

More about the Obama rally later. I just got home to discover my Internet account under attack, so I need to call out some online losers before I do anything else.

More about the Halloween Grinch

I don't like ragging on private citizens, but when someone makes a complete spectacle of themselves out of sheer meanness, it's only fair to investigate them.

Earlier I told you about a Michigan nutcase who refused to give out trick-or-treat candy to 4-year-olds who voted for Obama. The story gets weirder.

A website that features a news clip of the woman being every bit as arrogant as you might expect also has other amusing tidbits.

Evidently, the woman was a high school English teacher until very recently. And one of her recent students reports some hilarious stuff. Reportedly, she once showed up at school wearing a garlic necklace to "ward off the darkness." According to this account, she's also quite a drama monarch. After being hit in the arm with a tiny piece of food during a lunchroom food fight, she totally lost her cool, went home, and showed up with her arm in a sling later. Later, she allegedly tried to steal a VCR from the school.

Now, I wasn't there. But that's what's been reported by her former students.

(Source: http://h8torade.com/2008/11/02/shirley-nagel-doesnt-give-candy-to-obama-supporters)

The Grinch who stole Halloween from Obama supporters

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the story of one of the meanest individuals alive (including Phil Gramm and Sally Satel)!

In the wealthy Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, resides the Grinch who stole Halloween. In that exclusive community, a woman refused to give Halloween candy to children whose parents backed Obama. During trick-or-treating, the McCain supporter posted a sign at her home admonishing, "No handouts for Obama supporters, liars, tricksters or kids of supporters."

Feel the love!

When reporters asked her about children being turned away without sweets, she sniffed, "Oh well. Everybody has a choice."

I guess all the Republicans have left is spitefulness. At least now children in that area will learn about how mean conservatives are.

And this nasty woman is a retired teacher? I feel bad for any kids who were in this sick, twisted maniac's class!

(Source: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081101/POLITICS01/811010422)

Partisan hit piece violated privacy law

A few days ago, the Associated Press was rubbing its palms together in excitement when it reported that Barack Obama's aunt who lives in Boston was violating immigration law by being an undocumented immigrant from Kenya. The AP acted as if this violation was somehow Obama's fault - because according to the right-wing media, everything is. (The candidate didn't even know his aunt was in America illegally.)

According to the media, if someone swallowed a booger in 1914, it's Obama's fault, even though it was decades before he was born. That's how the press "thinks."

Now it turns out that the disclosure about his aunt violated the government's privacy policy. Even the DHS is strict about these things, you know. Federal privacy statutes also limit government agencies from revealing information about immigrants' statuses.

One of the Assholciated Press's sources was a federal law enforcement official - who is bound by these laws.

Oops.

So the AP thinks that a private individual violating immigration law justifies law enforcement breaking an important privacy law? I think the public expects law enforcement to follow a slightly higher standard than the civilian population. Apparently there are some in the media who do not share this view - at least not when they think they can "get" a candidate they oppose. (Keep in mind that Barack Obama broke no laws himself.)

What if every school principal decided to go to the media and release confidential disciplinary records about students? What if every doctor decided to release private medical data about patients showing their unhealthy habits? It's not the type of world I'd want to live in.

Law enforcement represents the government, so the AP's hit piece is nothing less than a government attack on a candidate.

(Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/01/AR2008110102187.html)

McCainiacs delusional!

The wingnutosphere has been shouting it from the rooftops all weekend: McCain is leading in the polls! Zogby has him up by 1%!

Except it isn't true. They keep repeating it, but (unless I'm missing something) it's flat-out wrong.

One of the big right-wing blogs gloats, "According to Zogby, McCain outpolled the Moonbat Messiah 48% to 47% on Friday."

But I checked Zogby's numbers for Friday: Zogby said Obama had 49.1%, and McCain was down at 44.1% - a 5% edge for Obama.

And Zogby's numbers are actually more favorable to Republicans than other polls. SurveyUSA has been known to issue press releases prematurely declaring GOP victories, but their numbers are even bleaker for the McCain camp.

How do you get a 1% Republican lead out of a scientific survey that shows a 5% Democratic win? Maybe I'm just weird, but I honestly don't know.

'G'! Lee! (Bubble Gum Weekend)

The specter of bubbling in advertising isn't limited to gum commercials. Gum has long been used as a gimmick to advertise a wide variety of products.

Such is the case with a commersh for Lee Press-On Nails that bears a date of 1987. The only reason I'm giving this ad its own entry is that it's connected with an incident from my high school years that still brings laughter.

When I was a freshman, someone coined the battle cry, "'G'! Gum!" It was like a 'Sesame Street' mantra about the letter 'G'. It began when the school made us move tables in the bingo hall and we kept noticing there was gum stuck all over the bottoms of the tables.

This saying was an overnight sensation. During the multiple-choice standardized tests (which are Kentucky's state religion), I kept hearing one of my classmates whisper, "'G'." I thought he was going to say, "Gum." But when I heard him whispering other letters, I knew he was actually facilitating cheating by giving out the answers.

One day in the locker room after gym, one of my classmates declared, "'G'! Gum!" Another student responded that it sounded like a line from a Lee Press-On Nails ad: "'G'! Lee!" I had never seen the ad, but I burst out laughing because I failed to see the connection between 'G' and Lee.

Not long after that, I saw the commercial in question. It didn't say, "'G'! Lee!" But it did announce, "Bubble gum!" amidst a variety of catchphrases and colorful lettering.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume Lee Press-On Nails are no longer sold. Every mention of this brand of press-on fingernails that I can find on the Internet is in connection with the '80s, and Amazon doesn't even seem to be selling them. Because this product seems to no longer exist, I have no objection to embedding the uproarious commersh here:



The ad is rife with goofy '80s fashions, strange music, and infantile rhymes. The background looks like someone just pasted a giant sheet of Reynolds Wrap to the wall.

It's unclear if anyone ever purchased this product, for most who saw the commercial were probably so doubled over in laughter at this garish jumble that they didn't even know what was being advertised.

It would be a shame if Lee Press-On Nails were still sold while it's so difficult to find lunchmeat that isn't spoiled or bread that doesn't taste like Clorox. It wouldn't be entirely unsurprising though, because BushAmerica means millionaires complain about not getting free cosmetic surgery while I had to go 11 years without seeing a dentist.

Two dickheads who deserve to lose!

Lucky me! Two of the Republican asshats who represent my area in Congress - Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. Geoff Davis - are up for reelection! And I'm voting against both!

Although I'm not aware of any Green candidates to oppose Dracula Davis and Mitch the Glitch, they each have Democratic opposition, so you know what to do. I don't wish to endorse Bruce Lunsford, but he appears to be McConnell's only opposition. Davis is being challenged by Michael Kelley, but the local media acts like there's not even an election for that seat.

Not like I expect better from our local press, because they've long been in the tank for the GOP. A new poll shows McCain is within a few points of losing Kentucky, yet the media acts like he's running away with the state, so I'm not too impressed with the press's coverage.

Geoff Davis and Mitch McConnell are two absolute bungholes. I never voted for 'em, and I won't. But Jim Bunning is up in 2010, so another opportunity to see a Republican incumbent from Kentucky get his clock cleaned looms in a couple years.

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