New Year's open thread

2008 in review: The GOP utterly lostimated.

Celebrate the past year's hilarious political developments by popping open a few kegs and contributing to yet another open thread!

Teacher files frivolous suit over "discrimination"

This is "discrimination" how???

According to the Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati's official newspaper, an elementary school teacher in Ohio is suing teachers' unions for discrimination she claims she suffered. I'm sure there's much more to the story than the article reported, because the piece so reeks of anti-labor bias, but I'll have to go by the facts they reported for now.

The federal suit claims the unions discriminated against her by spending union dues on causes she disagrees with.

So now it's "discrimination" if someone spends money in a way you don't like? Does that mean that if I shop at a store whose owner decides to donate their revenues to right-wing causes, I can sue? If you can sue a union, why can't you sue a corporation?

And if you can sue unions, does this mean you can sue the Archdiocese of Cincinnati for spending money from the collection plate on blatant anti-union propaganda? Clearly the archdiocese is against organized labor. It can deny it all it wants, but the fact that it would publish such a piece proves where it stands.

The work-for-less intelligentsia is helping the teacher fight her case. The misnamed National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is even giving her free legal help.

I know there's two sides to every issue, and reasonable people can disagree. I'm not saying you can't have views that don't square with unions'. But the disgraceful Far Right brain trust is once again turning a culture war matter into an economic one - with the goal of harming the working public. That's always their goal. All of their demagoguery on social issues has the ultimate aim of undermining economic justice.

I'd like to see laws passed against frivolous suits like this. If it gets to the point where activist judges start siding with those who'd use cases like this to undermine economic fairness, then we need to take a serious look at passing a constitutional amendment.

Innocents abducted under "medical" guise

"Only in BushAmerica...The land of missed opportunity..."

Government and private agencies all over the country long ago made it their policy to "disappear" innocent Americans under the guise of psychiatry - often because of their political views, but sometimes because of family disputes or some other matter. And this scourge has only gotten worse.

America's psychiatric "hospitals" are full of people physically restrained or secluded for years for no reason - despite the fact that laws and court rulings explicitly forbid perpetual lockups.

In Virginia, a man was locked in a tiny suite for 15 years. In Connecticut and Florida, detainees were literally tethered to furniture for years at a time. Also in Florida, a man was strapped to a bed or wheelchair for over 2 years.

Federal law says seclusion, restraints, and druggings can only be used in psychiatric facilities in emergencies, and even then for no more than 24 hours at a time. Even the Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional to restrain people for extended periods. But "hospitals" evade this law by signing off on these restraints every 24 hours indefinitely.

There ought to be a law. There should be a federal ban on using restraints, period. But I think psychiatric abductions should be halted altogether.

Meanwhile, Dick Cheney roams free.

(Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hlIf7MAkCPk4kJ_oS5dn0bg1TQRgD958JD680)

There's a tear in their beards...

My fact-finding mission in North Carolina and Virginia lasted less than 3 days, but I'm still recovering from it! I earned it, and I was going to make the best of it!

When I got to my motel near Lynchburg, Virginia, I found it fair to protest the Far Right. Everything in Lynchburg is named after Jerry Falwell. Even one of the main roads is called Jerry Falwell Parkway for its most infamous citizen. Also, it appears as if Lynchburg may be the biggest city in America - not counting suburbs and consolidated city-counties - that McCain won. (I'm talking the city here, not the whole metropolitan area. Lynchburg is an independent city, but it's city-sized, so I don't count it as a consolidated city-county.)

So if something's gotta get ru, why not make sure it happens in Lynchburg?

At this inn, I noticed that the cover of the phone book was graced with an ad for a local right-wing talk radio station. The ad featured photos of Bill O'Reilly and Dr. Laura - some of the most flatulent forces of right-wing hypocrisy.

It was immediately clear what to do. I grabbed my pen and drew mustaches and beards on both:


Later it occurred to me that Dr. Laura bears an overpowering resemblance to that drawing of the woman with orange hair that was all over the Cincinnati Yellow Pages in the '80s. In my day, I had defaced that drawing in the same uproarious manner.

The funny thing is, the phone books in Lynchburg come out in October, so this is still early in that directory's lifespan.

I bet there is a tear in their beards, because they're probably still crying about the election results.

Readers want Bunning to resign

I plan to post a new 'Pail Poll this weekend, but the results from last week are in, and they ain't good for ol' Jimbo.

Most of you want Bunning to resign his Senate seat because of his scandal in which he abused his foundation's nonprofit status to make a profit. (The national media has ignored this scandal.) You voted 9 to 4 to oust the embattled Republican senator.

You mean there's actually 4 whole people in Kentucky who like Bunning? I think I know who they are: They're probably the people who used to attack me at school.

Nagged in Nags Head

(I wrote up this piece Monday night - the second evening of my road trip. So read it now before it reads you!)

Near Lynchburg, VA (12/29/08) - I'm still on my excellent fact-finding mission, and today I found some unfortunate facts about the takeover by the Far Right of a resort island on North Carolina's Outer Banks.

I ate lunch at the horrendous Dirty Dick's tourist trap, but that's not what's at issue here.

Rather, the island containing Nags Head, Kill Devil Hills, and Kitty Hawk emitted some rather unsavory Allowed Clouds.

For starts, when we drove onto the island, an angry red traffic sign scolded, "ALL FIREWORKS ILLEGAL."

Suuuuure. You honestly think I wouldn't have violated that Allowed Cloud by now if I lived in the area?

Hey, no biggie - just as long as I can easily defy it.

Of greater consequence may be the snooty attitude regarding "their" beach. The fact of the matter is, oceans are public property. Laws throughout the eastern U.S. also establish beaches as public up to the point where plant and animal life are land-based. Because our beaches belong to the people, public access must be provided.

Unfortunately the "all land is private lolololololz" ideologues don't grasp this concept.

I tried looking for a spot from which to access the public beach in the Outer Banks. I work hard, and I'm a member of the public, so I have a right to use a public beach. But almost every access point was emblazoned with a sign screaming about how it was private. Public access points often had no parking. I kept passing up ones that had parking, because highway authorities had placed unrelated traffic signs in front of the signs for them - in order to keep people from finding them.

The beachfront region was also marred by sprawl, but the insistence by wealthy residents of monopolizing a public beach undermines the sprit of American ingenuity just as much.

Other than this, a bippin' good time has been had by all on our fact-finding trip!

Shitty radio abounds (imagine that!)

(I wrote up this entry Sunday night while I was out of town. So read it and believe it!)

Greenville, NC (12/28/08) - When I embarked (arf-arf!) on my exciting fact-finding mission today, my heart sank at an unfortunate development. I'm not referring to the endless government surveillance along US 58 near Danville, Virginia - though I could be.

Rather, I speak of the dour radio that confronted us from the get-go.

Public affairs programming deserves more time on radio - as radio uses the public's airwaves. But identical authoritarian philippics airing on 3 stations in the same city at the same time isn't what I call public affairs.

At least 3 Cincinnati stations - WKRQ, WUBE, and WSWD - were airing the exact same program inveighing against the eeeeevils of drink.

The 3 stations are owned by the same company - Bonneville - on the same band in the same market.

That's "diversity of voices"?

This never even would've been legal before the right-wing Telecommunications Act of 1996. Or if the states had opted to shore up the removal of ownership caps.

Hey, if you're going to air a program-length editorial against alcohol, at least make sure your stations carry 3 different ones. At least that'd be more amusing.

It's fair to say 2 of the 3 stations were heritage outlets. They hadn't been great for years before Bonneville decimated them further, but this development is still a crying shame.

Blistex smells nice.

Realizing the radio business isn't improving from its wretched self (does anything ever?), I shut the radio off for most of the rest of the way to Greenville.

The new administration must make repeal of the '96 telcom law a priority. Either that or the states should reinstate ownership caps.

Welcome back to Kentucky. Bipping prohibited.

I got home from my fact-finding mission in the Southeast a couple hours ago, and I managed to find some facts!

When I got back to the hotel room each night of my trip, I worked on new entries for this blog, and I'll have those up shortly!

I bet the Far Right thought this blog had been killed off once and for all because of the lack of entries the past few days - but I fooled them!

Welcome to North Carolina. Bipping mandatory.

I'm in Greenville, North Carolina! Man, this trip rules!

But bipping is mandatory in this state. So I have opted to bip throughout my exciting fact-finding mission.

Naturally, rain looms today, despite what the dumbfucks of the media claimed beforehand.

Open thread

My fact-finding mission in the Southeast gets under way tomorrow morn, and odds are that I won't be able to post here until I get home sometime Tuesday.

This blog gets thousands of visitors daily, so I sorely expect to find this entry full of comments by the time I return! Gab about anything: Cars. Money. Beer. Toilets. Anything!

Just think! No conservatives for 3 days!

Chip the Magic Racist

Chip Saltsman, 40, is a right-wing operative who has chaired the Republicans in Tennessee. And he's as vicious as the rest of the right-wing brain trust (such as it is).

Saltsman is now a candidate to become head of the Republican National Committee. He's endorsed by Mike Huckabee, Bill Frist, and other sorryasses.

To celebrate Christmas, Saltsman gave a CD to RNC members that included an unfunny parody of the song "Puff The Magic Dragon" titled "Barack The Magic Negro." The tune was first aired on Rush Limpballs's program last year.

The Republicans sure are obsessed with race, aren't they?

If I failed to go back in time to retroactively prevent someone else from saying something racist, I'd be assailed by critics as the worst bigot since Trent Lott. But Chip Saltsman gets a free pass for this?

Worse, Saltsman now defends the song. Apologists for the parody keep praising it as just a commentary on an earlier Los Angeles Times piece. But that's roo gas. The satire got played on talk-shit radio precisely because it has some appeal to right-wing listeners' racism.

This controversy speaks volumes about what's become of the GOP.

It's amazing that a few people try to unfairly play the race card against my blog and others' similar endeavors, but anything the Republicans do is considered "art" no matter how racist it is.

(Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/26/rnc.obama.satire)

KHK recruited hundreds of miles away

This entry shows not only how out of control the Kids Helping Kids cult in Cincinnati was, but also that we must make sure it doesn't reopen.

I've learned that KHK was recruiting in Floyd County, Kentucky - with the school system's blessing. This is significant not only because there's plenty of counties in rural Kentucky that are far more right-wing than Floyd County is, but also because Floyd County is nowhere near Cincinnati! By road, it's about 200 miles.

Here's the school system's drug policy:

http://www.floyd.k12.ky.us/Drug%20Policies/Student_Drug_Policy.pdf

In addition to the usual right-wing drug testing language (which was once unheard of in American public schools) and stagy programmy propaganda about "signs and symptoms of substance abuse", the manual also lists KHK as a resource and gives its phone number.

You knew the cult recruited in schools in my area, but this story shows how far and wide the cult's influence must have ranged.

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

Internet censorship coming to a land near you

Prior restraint of websites already flourishes in America as well as Britain, but a British official wants it to expand to much more stifling levels.

Culture Secretary Andy Burnham told the Daily Telegraph that he wants to negotiate with the Obama administration to devise an Internet censorship system to give each website a rating, much like that which gags the movie industry.

Luckily, Obama won the American election - and not, say, Tommy Thompson. If a Republican had won, I think such a system would be almost a certainty. Then again, censorship didn't exactly diminish during the Clinton years.

How does this proposal differ from similar forms of speech suppression? The video game rating system in the U.S. was said at first to be voluntary, but some states and cities have placed the force of law behind it - thus making it a form of government censorship. Burnham's proposal would be more direct: Under this system, ISP's in both Britain and the United States would be required by law to place ratings on websites. Even sites like YouTube and Facebook would be required to remove "offensive" content within a government-mandated deadline.

Burnham, however, continues to fib about his right-wing motives. "This is not a campaign against free speech," he said. Um, yes it is. It very clearly is. It's interesting that this proposal was announced right when articles were emerging about the fact that more people were getting their news from independent websites. I guess government officials want to keep everyone captive to their propaganda outlets.

Well, guess what? I'm not putting a rating on my site. And if it gets blocked because of it, I will sue.

Someone on DU said it best: "Where did Labour get...All these folks with traumatic toilet training issues?"

(Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/technologynews/3965051/Internet-sites-could-be-given-cinema-style-age-ratings-Culture-Secretary-says.html)

Media bias watch: Bush credited for Ted Kennedy's health clinics

Sort of like how much of the evening news in mainland China is devoted to praising that country's regime, some in the American media are trying to do the same for Bush.

Not ones to let history go unrevised, the wingnuts' latest contention is that Bush - all by his lonesome - built countless health clinics in poor areas all over America.

Where are these new clinics then? I sure don't know of any expansion of such clinics in poor areas around here.

Actually, the first congressional champion of these clinics was Ted Kennedy, and most of the clinics were built before Bush took power. And Barack Obama introduced a bill to quadruple funding for this program. Apparently, however, Obama's bill didn't pass, because so many Republicans opposed it.

It would be laughable that the Bush era would be considered one of improvement in American health care - except it's really no laughing matter. I don't know if this media folktale about Bush's alleged flawlessness will achieve the same penetration as the "MIRACLE ECONOMY!!!" hoax of a few years back, but I'm sure they'll think of something else.

Nice to know your eyelashes will last

Now we know where the priorities of the FDA and the health industry are, huh?

The FDA has now approved the first prescription drug to enhance dull eyelashes. Like such a drug is really needed.

There's a skillion new drugs out there that may save lives or substantially curb major public health threats, but those have been waiting for years for FDA approval. But it takes no time at all for eyelash drugs that are purely cosmetic to be approved.

I can't believe such a drug was even developed. Drug companies like to say that their products are so expensive because they need to finance the development of new drugs to combat disease. Well, now we know what new drugs they're financing.

Thinning eyelashes are a serious public health menace, I guess.

(Source: http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/business/local/article/JMAC0268_20081226-092405/162394)

Taliban blows up schools

Weren't these right-wing creeps supposed to have been ousted from power?

The Taliban is now banning 40,000 girls in one region of Afghanistan from enrolling in school, after a 14-month-long campaign in which the Taliban has blown up over 100 schools.

The locals say they must abide by the Taliban's rule.

Excuse me for a moment, but I thought the Taliban was supposed to have been defeated?

John Kerry was right when he said the Iraq War caused America to take its eye off the ball in Afghanistan.

It's not as if Bush's right-wing cohorts give a shit though. After Bush falsely stated that "we destroyed the Taliban in Afghanistan", Bill Frist and Mel Martinez wanted Afghanistan's new government to include Taliban members. So why was America even in Afghanistan if the Taliban was just going to be kept in power?

(Source: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008\12\26\story_26-12-2008_pg7_3)

I know someone's going to notice sooner or later, so...

I don't try to be backwards and provincial on this blog, but sometimes it appears that way.

The Campbell County school system didn't exactly provide me with the best education, so even now I remain ignorant of things that every American should probably know.

But just this afternoon, I decided to get smart and briefly read up about some things. Maybe a few days too late, but better late than never. A lot of you won't even catch what I'm getting at here, but a lot of you will, and I can understand your point, as long as you're diplomatic about it.

I may have had a grade-Z formal education, but at least I did try to self-educate in order to avoid ill feelings. You may have been right to fault me for some things the past few days, but please don't fault me now.

I think I have a strong record that outweighs recent mistakes, and I do more with what I have than a lot of individuals did with the much wider opportunities that they've had.

Until now, there were certain things I thought I'd never have much reason to learn about if they seemed outside the world I know. I got set in some of my habits as a youth, but I guess you learn from experience. I can probably say that even with this matter, I'm no more provincial than most Americans were in 1990.

So, folks, just accept this for what it is.

Egotistical right-wing sheriff gets his own TV show

I've usually enjoyed the TV series 'Cops' ever since I was in high school, except when they do those preposterous drug warrior segments. But this is patently ridiculous.

I've mentioned Phoenix-area Sheriff Joe Arpaio before. He's the egotist who has boasted for years about feeding jail inmates spoiled bologna. Many of Arpaio's so-called crime-fighting techniques (some of which involve racial profiling) have been ineffective.

But now Fox is actually giving Arpaio his own reality TV show, titled 'Smile, You're Under Arrest'. And a lot of folks aren't smiling.

A network website describes Arpaio's show as a "high-energy prank show" in which real suspects with warrants are arrested in "elaborate comical stings."

But Joe Arpaio's not such a funny guy, as his misrule has seriously harmed individuals and cost taxpayers dearly.

(Source: http://www.laprensa-sandiego.org/current/Arpaio.122408.htm)

Slow days loom!

Enjoy your holidays, because this blog is going to be slooooow until New Year's!

For one thing, I just removed the old computer desk. The desk was even closer to caving in than I thought, but it looks like I'll be able to salvage a shelf that was attached to the desk. The desk was only 8 years old, but they don't make things like they used to, as you know.

Until the new desk is hauled in, my work station is scattered about the floor, which makes putting together material for this blog all the more frustrating.

Also, next week my annual fact-finding mission looms. It's scheduled for December 28 to 30, and I've been planning it for weeks. This time I plan to go to North Carolina and Virginia, and I probably won't have access to a computer for 3 days.

It used to be that I didn't announce fact-finding missions ahead of time, for security reasons, but now I figure it can't do much harm.

The only fact I've found so far today is there are some slooooow days ahead for the 'Pail.

Open thread

It's another open thread, so I better find some comments here by the end of Christmas Day!

Otherwise I'll cry like the macho superman I am.

Utah bill would curb social engineering nonsense

I'm an economic populist first and foremost. But social engineering efforts by the Far Right keep hard-working Americans down almost as much as their economic engineering efforts do.

In Utah, it's illegal for people in a cohabiting relationship to become foster or adoptive parents. Most other U.S. states don't have such a policy.

Utah's policy is rather ludicrous - especially because the state has a shortage of potential adoptive and foster homes. And because other states get by relatively well without such a rule.

The Utah rule isn't some vestige from the 19th century. It became law in 2000, believe it or not!

Now, however, a Democratic lawmaker has introduced a bill to repeal Utah's ban on unmarried foster and adoptive parents.

But the Utah legislature remains so conservative that it probably won't take up this issue any time soon, beezweezerly enough.

(Source: http://www.sltrib.com/ci_11300249)

Bush pardons fraudster

When Bill Clinton issued a series of last-minute pardons, Republicans stamped their feet and demanded a constitutional amendment to weaken presidential pardon powers.

Now Bush is abusing pardon powers outright, and nobody raises a peep.

Yesterday, Bush pardoned a Brooklyn real estate developer who scammed hundreds of poor homebuyers. The developer, Isaac Toussie, had been convicted of mail fraud and lying to HUD. He falsely claimed Whoopi Goldberg and other celebrities had endorsed his business.

Victims of Toussie's fraud are outraged at the pardon.

Why was a con man pardoned for preying on some of New York City's poorest people? Well, it helps that his daddy donated $28,500 to the Republicans this year.

Actually the Republicans were right 8 years ago: We should amend the Constitution to limit presidential pardons. Unchecked pardon power was actually a carryover from the days when America was ruled by the British crown. But the GOP doesn't dare advocate limiting pardon powers now.

Shockingly, Toussie was still able to find work as a real estate consultant even after his fraud convictions. This is yet another aspect of this story that shows that in modern America, everything is about who you know. People who are honest, knowledgeable, and hard-working can't find a job anywhere except Booger Burger, but a Republican con artist like this gets to keep their well-paying job.

(Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/12/23/2008-12-23_president_bush_pardons_brooklyn_home_sca.html)

City sued for harassing disabled homeless

City officials in Laguna Beach, California, really aren't in the holiday spirit, are they?

Right-wing city leaders have in effect criminalized being disabled and homeless - under the guise of an anti-sleeping ordinance. The city authorized sweeps of beaches and parks to harass, threaten, and arrest disabled homeless people.

All out of sheer meanness.

But now the ACLU is suing the city because the anti-sleeping ordinance is unconstitutional. The city of Laguna Beach had plenty of time to enact City Council's recommendations for dealing with homelessness, but it willfully failed to do so.

City leaders who supported cracking down on the homeless should also be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.

(Source: http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/the-aclu-and-uc-irvine)

Congress to crack down on bailed-out banks

Yeah, sure they are.

I'll believe that when they do it.

The same bill had already been introduced earlier, but the Senate didn't even bother to take it up.

I agree with the DU member who said the morons in Congress should've demanded accountability before giving banks $700,000,000,000 of the taxpayers' hard-earned money.

(Source: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3658083)

Ernie the climate change skeptic ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

Few would consider Ernie of 'Sesame Street' to be one of the world's great scientific minds. It seems that Ernie believes what artificial sweetener ads and Free Republic tell him - not what scientific reports say.

Don't get me wrong. Ernie's a nice guy and all. But he's been hoodwinked.

Why - like other climate change skeptics - he doesn't even believe that warm temperatures melt ice:



That sketch deals with the ruinment of Ernie's ice cube collection.

People thought I was weird because of the time I collected dried thorns off plants to use for self-defense in middle school, but ice cube collecting puts that to shame - especially because Ernie didn't even bother to keep his ice cube collection cold!

It's not like Bert is such a brainiac either. Notice how he thinks ice cubes should be placed in the refrigerator rather than the freezer.

But both members of the comedic duo are smarter than the Freeper droids. At least Ernie is smart enough to learn that the ice cubes melted instead of being stolen. The wingnut brain trust never learns and just repeats the same moronic ideas over and over for years.

Frosty defeats Grinch

It always gives me a great feeling inside when some petty crybaby gets the smackdown they so richly deserve!

In Anchorage, Alaska, some right-wing galoot complained to the city about a neighbor's giant snowman - even though the snowman created no harm to anyone. Apparently the complainant considered the snow giant to be demonic.

Every neighborhood seems to have a busybody who gripes about everything. They spend every summer calling the police on 10-year-olds who set off Fun Snaps, so I guess they need something to whine about in winter too.

Shockingly, city pen pushers actually ordered the man who built the snowman to take it down all because one person complained. So he did. He was threatened with arrest if he didn't.

But this War on Winter ended up backfiring. In the middle of the night, someone came along and built a new snowman that was much bigger than the one the city ordered taken down.

As Nelson of 'The Simpsons' would say: Ha ha!

As chestnuts roast over an open spit, let that story warm your heart!

(Source: http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/anchorage/story/630926.html;
http://www.adn.com/snowzilla/story/632231.html)

Words that sting

"...just because you're too damn lazy..."

In high school, I thought that lecture was funny - because a teacher was angry and said "damn." Now I realize how hurtful it was intended to be.

I haven't had much recreation since I was a teenager. When I have, it's always in the back of my mind that it must really be for the amusement of the collective. I recall when this feeling first emerged, a few months after I was expelled from a Catholic high school, and now I know it's because that particular school intentionally breaks people down.

The lecture in question occurred one day in sophomore religion class when the priest who taught the course became exasperated because students' homework wasn't up to his standards. The harsh clergyman said to the class something like, "I don't want to hear any complaining about your grades just because you're too damn lazy to read the directions for a simple assignment!"

For a year or two after that, I actually believed I was lazy, all because he said that I and other students were.

Even now, I have to work harder to prove myself. It isn't just a matter of earning a living. It's also one of self-respect. I think it's obvious though that there's a dominant media culture that will never be satisfied no matter hard I or others like me work.

It's kind of like the wingnutosphere's recent hit piece against the autoworkers that was debunked. Right-wing blogs wanted people to think that hard-working autoworkers were lazy and greedy all because they didn't want to take a pay cut. Similarly, the attack on my industriousness in high school was to make me and the school community think I was living an easy life.

Those who tried to break me and my schoolmates are no different from those who denounce hard-working Americans in the labor force for insisting on decent pay.

Now that the priest's tirade and the discredited autoworker story prove we're all toiling on the same corporatist estate, maybe it's time we should all have a little fun! Let's not recreate for the benefit of our corporate masters, but let's share our fun with other hard workers!

Aspartame subsidy decried

As I told you last week, the state of New York wants to impose a 15% soft drink tax that exempts diet sodas - thereby creating a taxpayer subsidy for synthetic toxins like aspartame. Already, the so-called logic behind this exemption is becoming undone.

Numerous separate studies have linked diet soft drinks to diabetes, cancer, and other conditions. A 2005 study by the University of Texas Health Science Center and 2007 reports by the University of Massachusetts and Canada's University of Alberta all found that diet sodas were more likely to cause obesity than regular soft drinks. The Massachusetts study (which the media ignored) found diet sodas carry a risk of diabetes and heart disease.

The FDA and European regulators (agencies that are purchased and paid for by the frankenfoods industry) claim aspartame - known by the brand name NutraSweet - is safe. This claim is patently untrue. Numerous studies by American and European researchers have connected aspartame with cancer, organ damage, and headaches.

Still, a few individuals try to deny that artificial sweeteners are dangerous, and the media is always happy to give them face time. However, they never cite any studies showing that these products are safe - probably because there are none.

The artificial sweetener subsidy may be questioned here and elsewhere, but modern America isn't a society in which science usually prevails. If the proposal to give diet soft drinks a free ride passes, that'll seem to legitimize it and further marginalize dissenters - and the cycle will continue. Kind of like with the Sudafed logs.

And this is how societies end.

Comcast cuts MSNBC

Comcast makes Storer look passable in comparison, don't they?

It's hard to claim that all the cable news and commentary channels don't lean to the right to at least some degree, but everyone knows Fox News Channel is the leader in right-wing cable commentary. Despite MSNBC's overall conservative lean, at least MSNBC has a few progressive commentators.

For years, I've been subjected to a right-wing plen-T-plaint that claims Fox News Channel is on fewer cable systems than CNN or MSNBC despite receiving higher ratings. This I doubt. For starts, a string of motels in the Midwest removed CNN but kept Faux, so I strongly doubt that CNN is on more systems than Pox. For another thing, I've yet to see any ratings that show Fox beating CNN. If the ratings show this, it's probably because they're skewed or because there's such a small sample size. (Recently there was a thread on a radio board about a county in Kentucky where the top-rated radio station is one you can't even pick up. That shows how accurate rating surveys are.)

Now the yeezlypops at the wretched Comcast are removing MSNBC but keeping Fox News Channel. In some Comcast markets (if not all), Comcast has removed MSNBC from its basic cable tier - but Faux remains.

Conservatives are complaining about Fox being on fewer cable systems than its competitors, even though the largest cable company in America has removed competitors from basic cable and kept Fox?

Gee, no bias at Comcast, huh? (That's sarcasm!)

Today, almost all cable systems in the U.S. are monopolies awarded by local governments. And we all know which party's held the purse strings for 28 years, so that's part of the problem right there.

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/12/23/113123/31/785/676531)

Church officials want "Hokey Pokey" criminalized

No, I'm not making this up.

I had involvement with the Catholic Church throughout my youth, but the Church's bureaucracy has now proven more than ever how out of touch with reality they are.

The song "Hokey Pokey" - which is called "Hokey Cokey" in Britain - has long been a standard at children's parties. For years, it was sung on 'The Uncle Al Show', a Cincinnati-based children's TV program. It's all very harmless, and it's hard to imagine anyone ever getting offended by it.

But in Scotland, Church officials and politicians want the song banned, because they call it "anti-Catholic." They want anyone who sings "Hokey Cokey" to be arrested and prosecuted under the hate crime laws.

They claim the song was written in 18th century Britain to make fun of Catholic church services. That however is complete fabrication. The tune was actually written in the 1940s to provide inoffensive entertainment for Idaho tourists.

Some sources suggest the song's title came from the expression "hocus pocus", but that's questionable. It's also been suggested that "hocus pocus" is a mocking corruption of a Latin phrase used by priests during Mass. That too is probably an urban legend.

It's ironic that Church officials would say "Hokey Pokey" is a hate crime, for there are many high-ranking officials in the Church who hate various groups themselves. They hate Muslims and gays, yet they claim "Hokey Pokey" is a hate crime!

This is on par with Don Wildmon organizing pickets of Sesame Street Live performances following his claim that Bert and Ernie are gay.

The European Union allows governments to persecute Muslims (more on that later), while it also lets countries throw people in jail for singing a tame children's party song? The EU also extradited an Austrian cartoonist to Greece to face ridiculous "blasphemy" charges, so one can't help but worry that punishment is in store for those who defy the "Hokey Pokey" commissars.

If it's happening in Scotland, it'll be going on in America before you know it. Intolerant Church bureaucrats accuse others of intolerance as a means of projection. Were these officials not so narrow-minded themselves, they never would've made such a stink over a charming little song associated with kids' TV shows.

(Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3883838/Doing-the-Hokey-Cokey-could-be-hate-crime.html)

Santa Cruz! Midland! It's a great place to start!

Metro Mike lives, everyone!

That's a reference to a project following the 1988 presidential election that ranked all of America's metropolitan areas based on the percentage of votes each major candidate got. If I remember correctly, Fort Walton Beach, Florida, was Mad Dog Bush's best area, but for the life of me I can't remember what Dukakis's best area was.

Now, 20 years later, I've put together a ranking like this based on the 2008 election! I've ranked all 364 metropolitan areas - not counting the 2 in Alaska, because the website I got these from doesn't break down Alaska results by county equivalent.

Obama's best area is Santa Cruz, California. This list of his top 20 areas shows a disproportionate number of college towns:

1. Santa Cruz, CA
2. Santa Fe, NM
3. San Francisco, CA
4. Pittsfield, MA
5. Santa Rosa, CA
6. Boulder, CO
7. Laredo, TX
8. Madison, WI
9. Ithaca, NY
10. Honolulu, HI
11. Durham, NC
12. Ann Arbor, MI
13. San Jose, CA
14. Burlington, VT
15. McAllen, TX
16. Washington, DC
17. Salinas, CA
18. Trenton, NJ
19. Chicago, IL
20. Iowa City, IA

McCain's best area is Midland, Texas, which is near one of the home bases of the Bush crime family. McCain's top 20 is exclusively Southern, except for the areas in Utah and Idaho:

1. Midland, TX
2. Provo, UT
3. Amarillo, TX
4. St. George, UT
5. Gainesville, GA
6. Odessa, TX
7. Abilene, TX
8. Cleveland, TN
9. Idaho Falls, ID
10. Logan, UT
11. Fort Walton Beach, FL
12. Dothan, AL
13. Wichita Falls, TX
14. Longview, TX
15. San Angelo, TX
16. Houma, LA (home of the fascist school uniform policy)
17. Dalton, GA
18. Panama City, FL
19. Morristown, TN
20. Decatur, AL

I don't know what the best areas for the third party candidates are, for the website I saw lumps them all into "other."

Cincinnati ranks #260 for Obama and #101 for McCain. (The exurbs speak!)

I made this!

A pure work of video genius!

The Eyewitness Cam likes to be funny. And I do too. It's a diversion from the usually serious nature of this blog.

So we've created this hilarious parody video to entertain you:



That's a spoof of the classic bumper played before CBS special programming in the '70s and '80s.

Psychiatrist probed for Paxil payoffs

In very few places other than the fucked-up right-wing Bizarro World of psychiatry would it be considered acceptable for Big Pharma to pay doctors to promote a drug without these payments being disclosed.

Dr. Charles Nemeroff is a psychiatrist at Emory University who is reportedly an expert on depression. But now he's under fire for getting paid millions by Paxil maker GlaxoSmithKline to give what Glaxo calls "product talks."

In response to a U.S. Senate investigation, the university admitted that Nemeroff failed to disclose "substantial speaking fees from pharmaceutical companies to Emory." As a result of this scandal, Nemeroff stepped aside as head of Emory's psychiatry department - and the National Institutes of Health froze funding for a depression study by Nemeroff.

Have the payoffs to Nemeroff compromised his research? Well, a popular book that describes numerous drugs and their supposed benefits has a chapter on Paxil coauthored by Nemeroff. The chapter seems to portray Paxil as a miracle drug, a cure for all that ails this big, mean world that the psychiatric industry doesn't understand.

Nemeroff praises Paxil despite the fact that Paxil has actually been found to have serious side effects including suicidal behavior.

It's not known how many more stories like this there'll have to be before Big Pharma has to clean up its act once and for all.

(Source: http://badpsych.com;
http://justana-justana.blogspot.com/2008/12/charles-nemeroff-paxilseroxat-good-for.html)

Plane crash victim was warned of sabotage

After the highly suspicious plane crash that claimed the life of election fraud witness Michael Connell, more details are emerging.

We already knew Connell was threatened by Karl Rove for refusing to take the fall for Republican election fraud. It now turns out that Connell had been specifically warned of sabotage to his plane.

WOIO-TV in Cleveland reported that Connell "was apparently told by a close friend not to fly his plane because his plane might be sabotaged."

I'm not naive enough to expect a thorough investigation though. All 5 members of the National Transportation Safety Board are Bush political appointees. There's also been a media cover-up: When the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported the crash, it made no mention of Connell testifying in the election fraud suit.

But I do think it's now beyond a reasonable doubt that it was sabotage by someone in the Republican ranks. By precisely who is yet to be determined.

(Source: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Killed_GOP_pilot_suspected_plane_had_1222.html)

"Foolproof" traffic cams fooled

In postdemocratic America, you have to watch your own every move to stay out of trouble. But sometimes even that's not enough.

Traffic enforcement cameras - which are frequently abused to Make Money for the well-connected firms that operate them - lay this point bare.

Apologists for traffic cams say the devices are foolproof. Indeed, the cameras are considered so infallible that many motorists who have been wrongly ticketed (despite being nowhere near the camera) have never been able to clear their names.

But now a new pastime in Maryland shows just how gullible the cameras are. It seems that some local high school students have gotten the bright idea that they can make phony replicas of their teachers' license plates, paste them over the plates on their own cars, and zip through the traffic cams at law-bustin' speeds.

The camera snaps a photo of the plate - and a speeding ticket gets mailed to the teacher, even though the teacher is innocent.

Teachers aren't the only victims. Other students are too.

It's unclear how much success victims have had fighting these bogus citations. One official admitted that this hobby will damage public confidence in the traffic cams.

I never had confidence in this program to begin with. Once you've seen that there's a whole system in place to "get" you no matter how innocent you are, it's hard to see why anyone ever thought the cameras were perfect.

(Source: http://www.thesentinel.com/302730670790449.php)

Bailed-out banks still use corporate jets

Must be nice to be a rich bank or insurance company. I guess there's no strings attached for financial institutions that got free bailout money from us taxpayers, judging by the fact that they're still not selling off their corporate jet fleets that enable their execs to fly in style.

Six financial firms that each got a gimme worth billions still fly their own fleets of jets - many of which are used for top execs' personal trips.

Insurance giant AIG still has 7 planes in its fleet, for instance, and Bank of America has 9.

This follows the discovery in October that AIG spent thousands on a hunting trip in England for its top execs - even while the company was begging for bailout dough. One of the AIG bosses boasted, "The recession will go on until about 2011 - but the shooting was great today and we are relaxing fine."

(Source: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MELTDOWN_CORPORATE_JETS?SITE=MIDTN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)

Another good health poster

Since this is the time of year when things get the most boogery to spoil your holidays, I've found another fine old poster that took seriously the threat of contagious respiratory illnesses.

Common colds should be taken seriously. Many Americans who are my age remember when they were. That was before the greed-driven health care system conditioned everyone into believing otherwise.

And when this poster was made even before my time, public health was taken seriously back then too:


(http://i44.tinypic.com/2ir832s.jpg)

This poster makes it very clear: If you get a cold, "CONSULT YOUR PHYSICIAN." I still trust the hydrogen peroxide treatment, but I know many folks refuse to try it, because it's never been advocated in any sugar-free gum commercials. (The state of New York is about to give aspartame a taxpayer subsidy, so public health obviously isn't a high priority anymore like it was in the days of that poster.)

I also wouldn't worry about a solitary boogie dripping out. But if the more vexing symptoms set in, I certainly would see a doctor. That poster was right. I think that if I'd seen a doctor, I wouldn't have developed bronchitis several years back.

It's pretty bad that society now places a higher priority on cosmetic procedures for the opulent than on serious respiratory diseases that can strike anyone. But these days, money talks.

When Cheney tried to bite Gerald Ford

I saw this photo a while back, and everyone said I should write about it, because it's so uproarious:


(http://i44.tinypic.com/2lbpc0h.jpg)

That's a photo from 1975 of Donald Rumsfeld, Gerald Ford, and Dick Cheney together in the Oval Office. Cheney and Rumsfeld of course occupied important positions in the Ford administration - giving them a chance to consolidate their power even a generation ago.

As a side note, the elder Bush is not pictured here, but Ford later appointed him as CIA director. Bush was so paranoid that he believed Rumsfeld was plotting to destroy his political career. (For all I know, maybe he was.) But that's another topic entirely.

The funny thing about this photo is Cheney's pose. (That's Cheney on the right.) The sorry-assed goofball has his hand on his gut, and like an angry animal, he's baring his teeth at President Ford (who is standing in the middle).

Yes, Sure Shot Cheney is showing the Leader of the Free World that Ultra-Bite smile!

When I look at this photo, I feel like saying to Ford, "Watch out, Jerry, he's about to bite you!"

As for ol' Rumsfeld, he has this excited look on his face like he's about to watch a good boxing match.

The aftermath of this photo is unknown. It's not known if Cheney was successful at mauling the Commander-in-Chief, or if Ford got out of the way in time.

This picture is actually symbolic of the way Dick Cheney later returned to bite America squarely on its rump.

Bunning hypocrisy

You can't make up this shit, people. You just can't.

We all know that right-wing Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Kentucky) is now under fire for making a profit off his "nonprofit" foundation.

But it turns out that back in 1995, Bunning (then of the U.S. House) launched a war against nonprofits, who he baselessly accused of abusing their nonprofit status. His aim was to silence nonprofits who disagreed with him.

You read that right: Bunning accused nonprofits of abusing their status - then he abused his own foundation's nonprofit status.

(Source: http://www.freespeechcoalition.org/nwsv3n2.htm)

Should Bunning resign? ('Pail Poll)

Well, the results of last week's 'Pail Poll are in, and it's a tie!

Last week's survey asked you which of several right-wing mucketymucks should be prosecuted first by the Obama administration.

The results are somewhat of a surprise - at least to those who don't know that many readers of the 'Pail have looooooooong memories. Tied for first place with 4 votes each are George W. Bush (no surprise) and...Newt Gingrich (!!!).

Dick Cheney places behind the top 2, with 2 votes. Alberto Gonzales and Donald Rumsfeld each received one vote. John Ashcroft and Michael Mukasey received none, proving how irrelevant they truly are.

Now, for this week's 'Pail Poll: Should Jim Bunning resign his Senate seat after being caught abusing his foundation's nonprofit status by making a profit?

Incidentally, what Bunning has done is even worse than the Rod Blagojevich scandal, but I've yet to see any national news outlet print even one word about it. Gee, no bias there, huh?

Bubble gum bustin' while it cuts the dustin' (Bubble Gum Weekend)

You know something? This isn't just any weekend. It's a Bubble Gum Weekend!

True to form, a hilarious old commersh for Trident sugarless gum has now appeared on YouPube to menace us all.

In this ad that I recall seeing around 1990, several people bubbled. It didn't pop in their face like the Gum Fighter used to do, but they bubbled nonetheless:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxoeZ5nEeZE

That commercial is amusing on several fronts. The voiceover man declares, "People don't chew Trident just because more dentists..." And so on and so on and so on. You've heard that tagline a gabillion times before. If people don't chew Trident for that reason, maybe it's because people don't chew Trident at all.

Honestly, do you ever see people chewing Trident?

Also, near the end of the commersh, an elderly woman blew a big pink bubble. A lot of people consider bubbling to be only humorous if the bubbler appears to be at least 65. I have no idea why this is. I guess many people assume that the bubbler must have been born before bubble gum was invented, and therefore they'd never have reason to chew it.

Evidently, the folks in this ad share that view. The only time they cheer and laugh is when the elderly character bubbles.

Also, I can tell their bus system isn't TANK, because TANK likes to keep its routes confined to areas where most people can afford a car (which the desert in this ad presumably isn't).

'G'. Gum.

Don't vote Romney...Map out Bromley!

Damn! The Far Right must be hating me right about now!

But the 'Pail doesn't keep me because I'm handsome. It keeps me because I give the Far Right shitfits. And that I'm doing again, for the second time in as many days with my bike map project.

To rub in the fact that Mitt Romney was defeated in his presidential efforts, I've decided to post a bicycling map of Bromley, Kentucky - as 'Bromley' nearly rhymes with 'Romney'. This is the sixth map in my series.

It includes part of Bromley-Crescent Springs Road - the thoroughfare where a driver of an SUV intentionally plowed me down back in 2001. I got Bromley done early because it's a fairly small burg and didn't take much time.

So peep and weep:

http://bunkerblast.info/maps

Seasons greetings!

Seasons greetings from The Online Lunchpail!

It's hard for me to get in the holiday spirit (because of experiences I had with school), but now is our time to pay respect to the season and share good times with family.

Don't let the War on the Holidays ruin your seasonal spirit. Bill O'Reilly and other conservatives claim there's a War on Christmas, but talking heads like O'Reilly are involved in a War on the Holidays, as they attempt to shut out the other events one might celebrate. Many of this blog's fans observe Christmas, but this blog also has readers who are hard-working Americans who celebrate other holidays instead of or in addition to Christmas - and the 'Pail extends its holiday message of cheer to all!

Here's hoping for a great holiday season!

Election fraud witness dies in suspicious plane crash

Michael Connell was a Republican computer expert who gave important testimony in the case of Republican fraud that marred the 2004 election in Ohio.

Lawyers thought Connell's testimony would finally nail Karl Rove. In fact, Rove threatened Connell and his wife if Connell didn't take the fall for the election fraud. This was such a serious threat that a lawyer in the case requested witness protection for Connell.

Now, Connell has died in a mysterious plane crash. The 45-year-old was flying alone in his private plane, when the aircraft went down only 3 miles from Akron's main airport. Connell was an experienced pilot who had flown his plane for years.

Mike Connell was an important figure. In addition to being involved in the election fraud case, he also helped the Bush White House destroy its e-mail traffic. If he had ever testified in that case, it would have likely implicated Dick Cheney in criminal activity.

In other words, this man posed a serious problem to the criminal Republican leadership. And now his plane has suspiciously gone down right when he had crucial information to share.

After the GOP criminals sabotaged Paul Wellstone's plane (which there's no denying they did), one immediately suspects sabotage in Connell's crash. The crash is being blamed on the plane running out of fuel, but Connell was such an experienced pilot that he surely checked the fuel gauge before he took off. So it's clear that someone put a leak in the fuel line before the flight.

It also turns out that Connell had to make emergency landings of at least 2 flights in the past 2 months because of suspicious problems.

Or maybe I'm just paranoid for thinking that a gang of sociopaths like that which dominate the GOP today would kill a man who was about to reveal damning information about them. But like I always say: Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/12/20/115123/56/832/675467;
http://www.atlargely.com/2008/12/one-of-my-sources-died-in-a-plane-crash-last-night.html;
http://www.ohio.com/news/break_news/36482529.html)

Open thread

Court blocks standardized test

The national religion of standardized testing has just received a mild blow, as a judge has blocked California from implementing a statewide algebra test for 8th graders.

The reason for the court's decision is that the state Bored of Education acted outside its jurisdiction and with no public input.

Few tears are being shed over the ruling. Most families agree that there's too much standardized testing in today's schools - and not enough teaching. Schools today are forced to teach to the test, not to the student.

On the other hand, I have to ask why so few 8th graders in California have even taken algebra. I think I had something resembling algebra even by 4th grade, so it seems rather odd.

Maybe the reason not as many 8th graders take algebra now is that the schools spend too much time teaching gimmicky feely-bad courses instead and enforcing moronic dress codes.

(Source: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/ALGEBRA_DISPUTE?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US)

My n00 drug testing plan lololololol!

To counter the right-wing cultism on other websites, here's my big new super-duper idea. It's not to be taken seriously, of course, but I'm just posting this for illustrative purposes.

I was forced to take a drug test once, and I'm less than pleased by this fact. (For the record, I was clean, but it's the principle that matters.) Also, from the mid-'90s until it was ruled unconstitutional, many Americans who received certain government benefits were also forced to take drug tests.

This policy was tossed out because it violated the Fourth Amendment's provision against unreasonable searches and seizures - but the damage caused by forced drug tests is done.

How about if we start forcing CEO's of banks that get government bailout money to take a drug test? Make 'em pee right in a cup, and have a member of Congress chosen at random drink it to see if they get high.

Wouldn't that violate the Fourth Amendment? Well, no. At least not if we pull the same type of semantic maneuvering that our cheery lawmakers do. We can make it so accepting bailout money is implied consent to be tested.

Kentucky legislators have actually passed a law effectively saying that simply applying for a driver's license constitutes implied consent to have your school release your academic records - in violation of federal law.

Lawmakers try to circumvent the law in order to "get" those who got in minor trouble at school, so why can't we do the same to powerful bank execs? Because we respect the Constitution, that's why.

It's the duty of each and every one of us to build a society based on the human rights that are enshrined in the Constitution. I know there's a BushAmerica bandwagon that says otherwise, but we as human beings are expected by nature to have the courage to keep our rights.

Elderly man roughed up in botched drug raid

When you see stories like this, you know it's time to end the War on Drugs (as if this hasn't already been clear for years). Just end it.

Last week, I told you about a Georgia family that was roughed up when drug agents mistakenly raided their home - adding to a long string of similar incidents nationwide.

Now something similar has happened in Dallas, where an elderly gentleman in a small apartment was brutalized when deputies wrongly raided his place in a drug raid.

Yesterday morning, police came to the man's apartment with their guns drawn, violently pulled him out of the apartment, and tried to cuff him.

Police had the wrong residence. They were actually looking for a man who was only 27, while this man was clearly much older. But now it turns out that cops already knew he wasn't the right guy when he opened the door! But they tried arresting him anyway!

You read that right: They knew they had the wrong guy, but they tried arresting him despite knowing they had the wrong person. How ridiculous is that?

But hey. It's a "war" on "drugs."

(Source: http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa081218_mo_roundup.77e202f1.html)

Right-wing politician has 18 kids

Jim Bob Duggar and his wife Michelle are media celebrities who are now welcoming their 18th child.

I wouldn't judge someone just because they have 18 kids. Whether the Duggars have 30 children or zero isn't the real issue here.

The real issue is that Jim Bob Duggar is a rather, uh, interesting character - and that the media has yet another double standard.

When I say Jim Bob Duggar was a conservative politician, I don't say it to judge. I say it because it's a fact. Most articles don't mention the fact that he was a Republican legislator in the Arkansas House several years ago.

According to the Wikipedia articles about the former lawmaker and his family, the Duggars "endorse the Quiverfull movement." Some of Quiverfull's own advocates have stated that the movement's purpose is to have as many children as possible in order to produce a generation of right-wing leaders to someday dominate positions of influence.

Again, I'm not judging the Duggars. I'm just stating the facts about Quiverfull as reported by its own supporters.

The omniscient Wikipedia also says the Duggars back the teachings of Bill Gothard, a speaker and writer known for his goofy claim that the Cabbage Patch Kids are possessed by demons.

Now what about the media's double standard? Well, just look at how the media (especially rightist talk radio) acts about other families who have only 3 or 4 kids. If most people - including married couples - have that many children, some in the media unfairly brand them as irresponsible. That's because most people aren't right-wing politicians like Jim Bob Duggar was.

Imagine if you can what the negative reaction by the wingnutosphere would be if I was the father of 3 or 4 children, even if this was in the context of marriage. But the Duggars have 18 kids, and cable channel TLC gives them their own TV series for it!

In short, the media treats ultraconservative professionals like Jim Bob Duggar much more favorably than it treats everyone else. There's no denying it, and it's time we bring the issue to the fore, even though this isn't an easy entry to write.

And that's not really the Duggars' fault. That's the fault of the conservative media culture for having such an obvious double standard that favors conservative families such as the Duggars because of their views.

The media judges. It judges folks for supposedly having too many kids - if they don't share the Duggars' ideas. I'm sincerely trying not to judge the Duggars, for they are certainly entitled to their beliefs. But I'll certainly judge the media and the right-wing blogosphere for practicing doublespeak and phony populism.

(Source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/121908dntex18thbaby.2c95770.html)

RIAA to harass ISP's

Now that the Recording Industry Association of America has finally figured out that its frivolous lawsuits accusing individuals of stealing music haven't yielded the results they wanted, the RIAA is employing a new anti-people tack.

The RIAA's 35,000 lawsuits targeted everyone from small children to little old ladies who had never used a computer in their lives. Even people who died before file sharing was invented were sued posthumously. When it became clear how bogus these suits were, it was a public relations nightmare for the record industry.

The RIAA's latest effort tries to avoid those humiliating woes. The industry association says it's made agreements with ISP's under which it'll notify the ISP if it thinks a customer is distributing music files.

If you think this will catch only people who are sharing music illegally, I have my doubts - especially after seeing how the lawsuits targeted people who had never even touched computers.

It also raises the question of how the industry will find alleged file sharers. Will they just log on to AltaVista or Google and type in "metallica" to see what comes up? Will they pressure the ISP's to spy on users? Will the RIAA place wiretaps?

I honestly have a hard time trusting the RIAA or some ISP's to do the right thing, so who doesn't believe the RIAA won't turn your ISP into its own private police force?

If they're worried about the decline in music sales, maybe the decline is because much of the music today is so unlistenable.

What's next? A taxpayer-funded bailout for the recording industry?

(Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122966038836021137.html)

Franken beats Coleman

Glad this is finally over, but odds are that you heard the results here first!

The Senate election in Minnesota between Democrat Al Franken and incumbent Republican Norm Coleman (and others) was 6 weeks ago, but the Coleman machine has kept things gummed up so badly that we couldn't declare a winner until now.

Actually I would've called it for Franken weeks ago, but if they decided to take it away from him, I didn't want to be shouted down for the next 6 years, like what happened for 4 years after each of the so-called elections that Bush stole.

So yet another incumbent Republican is history!

Al Franken is a famous comedian, but the fact that Norm Coleman lost is pretty damn hilarious on its own.

My crowning achievement in mappery!

Damn, the right-wingers are gonna be mad!

I finally completed my bicycling map of Bellevue, Kentucky - making it the fifth in this series to be completed. Bellevue isn't like one of these microtowns that I'd already finished; it's a sizeable community, and mapping it required a lot of hard work.

To make the Far Right doubly mad, you may notice routes marked with a blue marker. These are bike routes that I've designated. Much as Rand McNally created the U.S. numbered highway system in the 1920s for their road atlas, I've devised a system of local bike routes for these maps.

The Bushists just absolutely hate it! They cannot stand it!

To see the 5 maps I've made, point your pooper here:

http://bunkerblast.info/maps

ACORN targeted by frivolous RICO suit

The right-wing brain trust never ceases to astound!

Now, 2 wingnuts in suburban Cincinnati - Jennifer Miller and Kimberly Grant - are filing a frivolous RICO suit against ACORN, claiming ACORN somehow deprived them of their right to vote.

We named Miller our Conservative Fool Of The Day on 2/22/08 because of her tantrum at a school board meeting.

The lawsuit demands that the court shut down ACORN - though it provides no real evidence ACORN ever committed vote fraud.

In fact, the Ohio election board says ACORN weeded out bogus voter registration forms before anyone could vote. Many of the forms were submitted by Republican operatives trying to set up ACORN.

In other words, Grant and Miller are hallucinating about Mickey Mouse voter registrations that don't even exist!

The judge ought to fine Miller and Grant back to the Stone Age for filing such an obviously superficial suit.

Meanwhile, ACORN activists have now been arrested in Arizona just for disagreeing with right-wing Phoenix area sheriff Joe Arpaio.

(Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2008/12/15/daily42.html)

One psych ward, 2 rapes

Psychiatric abuse is a national scandal that seems to worsen every year.

Now there's been at least 2 rapes just recently at the Rawson Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas. They took place only a week apart in November.

The circumstances surrounding the attacks are unknown, but authorities are investigating.

Things don't look good for the state of mental health care in America or of the psychiatric industry in general, do they?

(Source: http://badpsych.com/2008/12/17/authorities-investigates-two-rapes-at-psychiatric-hospital)

Bunning profits from his "charity"

Kentuckians have long known that Jim Bunning is interested primarily in Jim Bunning.

Now the 2-term Republican senator is in the scandal of his life, as it's been discovered that he's made money off a so-called nonprofit foundation he started.

Whooooo, man! This guy could be in some deep trouble! The IRS and the Senate do not look kindly upon shenanigans like this. At all.

The Jim Bunning Foundation collects money that Bunning, a former major league pitcher, gets from autographing baseball items. It's taken in about $500,000. Where does this money go?

The biggest recipient of money raised by the Jim Bunning Foundation is (drum roll, please) Jim Bunning. Tax records show that he's gotten a $180,000 salary just for working for this "charity" a grueling one hour a week. According to these records, Bunning is the only individual employed by his foundation or to get a paycheck from it.

Churches and charities in the area have received less than $140,000 from the Jim Bunning Foundation. While 36% of the money raised by this "nonprofit" has gone to Bunning's salary, only 27% has gone to charitable activities.

It doesn't look good for ol' Jimbo, does it?

Daniel Borochoff of the American Institute of Philanthropy said, "The IRS doesn't want people to just set up their weekend hobbies as nonprofit foundations so they can take advantage of the tax-protection rules." But it appears that's exactly what Jim Bunning did.

Longtime Bunning follower and lobbyist Rick Robinson, who incorporated Bunning's foundation, said the senator created the "nonprofit" so he could make money from autographs without violating Senate rules on outside income.

So he's saying the purpose of a nonprofit is to make a profit? Yes, I heard him too. He really said that.

What's next? Is Bunning going to start holding Freedom Concerts?

(Source: http://bluegrasspolitics.bloginky.com/2008/12/18/sen-bunning-profits-from-his-non-profit)

Idiot Act to expand?

I think scientists have just discovered the heaviest chemical element ever known: idiotactium. It has no protons, neutrons, or electrons, but it has enough morons to make up for that.

Police in Tennessee are reporting an increase in meth labs after the renewed version of the Patriot Act started requiring allergy sufferers to sign logs every time they buy medicine.

So what are officials planning on doing now? Why, expanding this failed law, of course.

They never learn, do they?

Now they want new laws requiring you to sign a log even to buy liquid pseudoephedrine drugs. This after they kept assuring us over and over again that the laws would only apply to pseudoephedrine in pill form. It's unclear how they think meth cooks may isolate pseudoephedrine from a liquid.

This proves once again that once tyrants are allowed to get one dumb law passed, they inevitably expand their efforts. And that's been the story of America for the past quarter-century.

It works like this: They identify a problem, pass an oppressive law to "fight" it, watch the law fail, and use that as an excuse for even tougher laws. The cycle never ends.

I don't know what it's going to take to stop these right-wing tyrants, but they're out of control.

I'm going to say it now: We need to repeal the Patriot Act - but we particularly need to repeal state and federal laws that punish innocent Americans just for buying over-the-counter allergy medicine to use for its intended purpose.

(Source: http://www.wsmv.com/news/18299219/detail.html)

Bush regime falsely accuses British hunters of being terrorists

If you still thought the Republicans were America's gun rights champions, this story should kablammo that notion clean out of your conscience.

Recently, 2 hard-working Englishmen scrounged up just enough money to fly to North Carolina for a hunting trip. They brang along 2 air gun silencers as a gift for their friend in North Carolina.

The men had no problems boarding the plane in England. But when they landed in America, authorities falsely accused them of being terrorists and jailed them.

A judge ordered them released, but authorities got an order to supercede the judge. The travelers subsequently spent 24 days being shuffled among crowded, brutal American jails.

Further, they were forced to plead guilty to a felony just to be released. Their legal ordeal ran up thousands of dollars in bills.

These guys can blame Bush's Department of Homeland Suckyurity for being held for almost a month in American jails. One of them said, "I will never come back to the United States, ever."

Now the British public is furious at the U.S. government, and wants answers.

(Source: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1336840.html)

The Six Dollar Man! ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

Beep a beep a beep, boop a boop a boop, beep a beep a beep, boop a boop a boop! News flash!

'Sesame Street' in the '70s was known for Kermit the Frog's "News Flash" segments. Often they were based on an old nursery rhyme, but one of them featured the Six Dollar Man - a parody of the 'Six Million Dollar Man' TV series of the time.

The Six Dollar Man was a hilariously destructive robot built by an eccentric Muppet professor:



I always dug this sketch because it used neat words like 'lubricate' and 'activate'.

But I doubt it could air today. For one thing, the cost of the Six Dollar Man's parts now well exceed $6, thanks to (whoosh...whoosh) inflation. Because of Bush, you'd be lucky to find even the bowling ball for less than $60, let alone $6.

The more serious issue though is that scouring pads are now considered nothing but drug paraphernalia. Seriously. I saw an episode of 'Cops' in which a motorist was arrested just for having scouring pads. (Who says America hasn't become a command state?)

Nonetheless, I would've liked to have a robot like this at the protests against Kids Helping Kids. We could have it march down the driveway of the facility and generally cause a ruckus. If the programmies threw my robot in the dumpster, at least I'd only be out $6.

Psychiatry's political madness

If this story doesn't completely debunk psychiatry, what will?

I've noticed for years that psychiatry in effect suppresses dissent. Indeed, many governments - including the United States and the old Soviet Union - have placed citizens in psychiatric "hospitals" because of their political views.

The psychiatric racket's definition of a major mental illness is disagreeing with a shrink.

But there hasn't really been much examination of what specific views or philosophies are suppressed. I think the latest development, however, lays that bare.

Dr. Lyle Rossiter Jr. has released a book attacking liberalism as a mental disorder. Right-wing websites praise Rossiter as an acclaimed Chicago psychiatrist, but he's actually just some nobody. They call him an independent voice with no links to conservative activists, but that's a lie, as Rossiter writes a column on a right-wing extremist site.

Apparently this book came out 2 years ago, but it's been such a flop that people are just now discovering it.

The aim of the book is clear. It tries to label those who dissent from the conservative order as mentally ill. Various unpleasantries befall a person when they are labeled: Their views may no longer be taken seriously, they may be institutionalized, they may lose their right to vote or drive.

The liberalism-as-disorder meme is now raging through the wingnutosphere, and the timing is important. Psychiatry has long practiced suppression of dissent, but Rossiter's book is designed to promote support for this suppression to average readers. The book seemed to be released at just the right time, for it was right when the wheels were falling off the Bush wagon, and Bush's cultists could trot out this book as ammo against dissidents.

Actually, all the book seems to be accomplishing is proving what a pseudoscientific crock psychiatry is.

If liberalism is a mental disorder, conservatism is a social disease.

Insurance racket may silence cannon

A few miles from here, at Highlands High School in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, they have a tradition: Every time the school's football team scores a touchdown, a cannon goes off.

Even folks who don't care about school athletics enjoy the cannon. It's artful expression, much like my Fourth of July displays of the '90s.

But last Friday, as a man was loading the cannon, there was a freak accident that blew off 2 of his fingers. This has failed to stem the public's fascination with the cannon, and many local residents still dream of joining the crew that fires the device.

It seems that the only party that wants the tradition stopped is the school district's insurance carrier. Whether the school system keeps the cannon depends entirely on what the insurer dictates.

What happened last Friday was a tragic but isolated event. This is the first injury that's been reported in the cannon's 40-year history.

In school systems all over America, children get seriously injured just going to school. I know of several cases just in my area where students have had their entire lives destroyed by classroom accidents. (Most of these were the school system's fault.) Are insurers going to tell schools to stop making kids come to class because of this?

This story highlights the larger issue of the insurance industry making decisions for everyone else - a form of corporatism. Just like how health insurers make decisions that doctors should be making (a practice that results in the deaths of patients), the insurers in this story are making decisions that should be made by folks who know something about cannon safety.

Instead, however, the decision is being made by insurance companies whose field of expertise isn't cannons, but crunching numbers to protect the bottom line.

People are conditioned to toe the insurer line. Personally, I think that if the school's insurer won't let it keep the cannon, it ought to find a different carrier. But because corporatism is the national cult, too many just accept insurers' decisions as incontrovertible truths.

If we wake up in a sterile world with no recreation allowed, the insurance industry will be largely to blame.

(Source: http://nky.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20081216/NEWS0103/312160098)

Extremists try to silence Irish President

Uh-oh. The conservatives are upset. Whatsoever shall we do?

The University of San Francisco (a Catholic school) recently awarded Irish President Mary McAleese an honorary degree. McAleese was invited to the university to accept this honor.

Conservatives in the Catholic Church (think my first high school) are furious. That's because McAleese has fairly liberal positions on ordaining women as priests and on gay rights. Conservatives are angry despite the fact that McAleese didn't address these topics during her acceptance speech.

I usually don't post here about stories that are more about religion than government. In this case, however, I must - because conservatives tried policing a political figure's thoughts. I'm also mentioning it here because conservatives in the Church have tried using government as a tool to impose their beliefs on the public.

This story also underscores conservatives' stances that keep everyone down. Their side stockpiles capital to fight socially liberal influences, when they could instead be helping the disadvantaged.

It's a shame there's individuals around who try to deny the President of Ireland her right to have dissenting beliefs. Thought has in effect been criminalized.

(Source: http://www.catholicnews.com/data/briefs/cns/20081216.htm)

Unemployment "decline" means everyone gave up

Ever wonder why the official numbers always show unemployment only in single digits, even though half the people you know haven't been able to find a job since 1997? Well, this is why.

Officially, the unemployment rate in Kentucky actually dropped from 7.1% to 6.8% between September and October. I know you're baffled that it's down at all. But these numbers are computed by dividing the number of people who get unemployment benefits with the number of employed people plus unemployment benefit recipients.

Workers who are out of a job long enough for their unemployment benefits to run out aren't counted. Nor are those who have realized that they're never going to be able to find a job so they've stopped looking.

And believe me, that does happen. Kentucky doesn't exactly have a lot of jobs waiting to be filled. Most of the ones it has either pay minimum wage or are open only to those with advanced degrees.

Indeed, Kentucky's manufacturing sector lost 4,400 jobs just in October.

An analyst with Kentucky's Office of Employment and Training said, "The decline in the unemployment rate reflects individuals who have faced long-term unemployment becoming discouraged and dropping out of the labor force."

It's pretty sad when everyone knows things are so hopeless that there's no longer any point in trying. But when America has been ruled for 28 years by an ideology built on keeping wages artificially low, who's surprised?

For a really depressing story, imagine if underemployment figures were published in addition to unemployment numbers.

(Source: http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20081124/BUSINESS/81124021)

Giants Stadium full of shit?

Somebody at Giants Stadium is just absolutely full of it.

At the New York Giants' football facility, a woman who has been appearing at games in skimpy outfits for 30 years has become a popular personality among fans.

But now all of a sudden the stadium has decided that she's no longer as welcome as she once was, and ejected her from a game.

The NFL doesn't do anything about spectator altercations like the one that ruined a Cincinnati fan's Rudi Johnson jersey, but it cracks down on a woman's outfit that was considered acceptable 30 years ago.

Giants Stadium security personnel told the woman she was being ejected because there's an Allowed Cloud against her carrying signs. That's bullshit, of course. How many times have you watched football games and seen signs displayed prominently by fans?

Or did the NFL just implement a no-sign rule and say it's because of "safety", even though signs have never caused serious problems before?

Man forced to undergo electroshock

In America in 2008, nobody is forced to undergo electroshock therapy, right?

Well, think again.

A 54-year-old Minnesota man has been court-ordered to undergo more than 30 sessions of electroconvulsive therapy. He dreads every session, because it causes him severe pain and destroys his memory.

This is how the right-wing regime in Minnesota treats a man with serious health problems who walks with a cane? What century is this again?

Apologists for the psychiatric industry like to talk about people being a "danger to themselves or others", but they've failed to prove that the man would pose a threat to society if he doesn't undergo electroshock treatment. He clearly wouldn't pose any more of a threat to himself than he otherwise would - because he wants the so-called treatment stopped.

There was supposed to be a court hearing today to determine if the electroshocks will cease, but the outcome of this hearing is unknown.

(Source: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/12/15/forced_electroconvulsive_therapy)

Cop who attacked cyclist indicted

This clip that's been posted on YouPube speaks for itself:



That video was taken in July of a bicycling event on Times Square. In the clip, one of the New York City police officers who was standing guard decides to just suddenly march towards one of the law-abiding cyclists at random and shove him off his bike while he's riding it.

Watch the clip again. You can't deny that's what happened. The cop was caught red-handed, as he apparently didn't count on anyone having a video camera to record his unprovoked assault.

Now, after a clip of the incident was played in court, the officer has now been indicted for the attack.

Police claimed the bicyclist had been obstructing traffic and had intentionally steered his bike into the officer. Anyone who watches the video can see that's not what happened. The cop who shoved him was looking in the direction from which the bikes were coming. The cyclist was doing nothing that the other cyclists weren't doing, and was actually trying to avoid hitting the policeman. Charges against the cyclist were later dismissed.

So in addition to assault, it looks like the officer may also be in trouble for filing false charges.

When you see videos like this, it doesn't exactly reinforce your trust in the system.

(Source: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--youtube-cyclist1215dec15,0,3375850.story)

Another Idiot Act provision struck down!

With the Patriot Act facing its just desserts little by little, eventually there won't be any of it left.

Oh no! Then who's gonna spy on all our bank transactions? Who's gonna make us sign a log every time we buy Sudafed? Who's gonna make the library turn over records of the books we borrow?

Now a federal appeals court has struck down the clearly unconstitutional gag provision of the Idiot Act. The gag rule prohibited folks who received "national security letters" from speaking out. These letters were usually demands for documents or notices that private records had been searched by the government.

Under the court's ruling, the government now has to go to court to get a gag order instead of just handing out gag orders like mind control drugs in a school office.

The Patriot Act provision that the court struck down clearly violated the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech.

The court's ruling follows last year's decision that struck down Patriot Act provisions that unconstitutionally allowed the government to conduct searches without probable cause.

It remains to be seen how or even if the government will remedy the abuses that it's already carried out under the Idiot Act during America's lost decade.

(Source: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Court_sides_with_ACLU_strikes_down_1216.html)

Map war against Far Right continues

Because the Far Right is afraid of maps, I've now completed my fourth in a series of bicycling maps for Cincinnati area neighborhoods.

And believe me, they are afraid of maps. They're afraid of bicycles, they're afraid of me, and they're afraid of their own damn shadows.

My newest map is of Fairview, Kentucky (in Kenton County). This one was easy, as there may only be 2 paved public roads in the whole town (not counting those along city limits). I goed to Fairview a week ago - during the same outing in which I legally demolished Damon Thayer's dumbassed campaign sign.

So point your pooper here:

http://bunkerblast.info/maps

Nun gets year in jail for molesting boys

America has a longstanding pattern of coddling criminals if they happened to be employed by the Catholic Church. For instance, authorities in Toledo, Ohio, had a specific policy for decades of not going after priests who molested children.

In fact, according to authorities in most of America, if someone representing the Church does something, it's not illegal or wrong.

Now a nun in the Milwaukee area has gotten off easy for her crimes.

The nun had been convicted of sexually assaulting boys at a Catholic school in the '60s. Not long ago, she was sentenced to only a year in jail for these crimes.

Now, after she's served only 8 months, her attorneys have unsuccessfully demanded her release. They wanted her released because she might die in jail, because she is 80.

Boo fucking hoo hoo hoo. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

The nun's victims got a life sentence full of pain and terror - but she only got a year, and almost got out early.

(Source: http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/36046044.html)

Congress tries meddling in D.C. (again)

Kentucky has over 50 counties where it's illegal to buy alcohol. Nobody in the U.S. Senate has tried to overturn these antiquated laws.

But now that the District of Columbia wants to allow bars to stay open 24/7 for just one week this coming January, several senators act like this is a sign of society's ultimate ruin and want this new policy gutted.

After D.C. city council passed the new law allowing bars to be open around the clock during inauguration week, right-wing Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) demanded that city council reverse itself. So far, the city hasn't caved to this meddling.

Now that the Senate has tried to intervene against D.C.'s lenient alcohol laws, when will it take on Kentucky's draconian statutes? The laws in Kentucky and several other states against alcohol are motivated entirely by religion, and America is supposed to have separation of church and state, right?

The Twenty-First Amendment has been misinterpreted to allow states and counties to go dry, but even if that was the correct interpretation, why does the Twenty-First Amendment carry more weight than the First Amendment?

As for the D.C. controversy, is this yet another case of Congress treating D.C. as its own policy laboratory and pretending as if the city can't make decisions for itself?

(Source: http://www.dcexaminer.com/local/121108-DC_Council_stands_firm_on_bar_hours.html)

Reporter tortured after throwing shoes

The TV journalist in Iraq who threw his shoes at Bush as a sign of contempt for his policies became a worldwide celeb almost instantly. Many in the region called him a folk hero.

But, following that episode, now he's been tortured in a U.S.-run prison. His ribs have been broken and his arm has been incapacitated.

This is Bush's idea of "spreading democracy"? I mean, it's unusual to torture reporters (unless there's a Republican National Convention going on nearby) - but with Bush around, I guess it becomes the norm.

(Source: http://current.com/items/89625564/breaking_iraqi_tv_claims_shoe_throwing_reporter_being_tortured_at_us_run_prison.htm)

Whither your $2 trillion?

Now that the government has given another $2,000,000,000,000 handout to financial institutions, it refuses to disclose exactly which companies got your money.

Bloomberg News filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit requesting the details, but the Federal Reserve refused to provide them.

So much for the right to know where your money is going, huh?

(Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=apx7XNLnZZlc)

School teaches kids to be wusses

As the media's cover-up of school uniform sweatshop abuses continues, I had an epiphany a few days ago about what's going on here.

It actually reinforced what I'd long known: American schools raise wimps so they can oppress them more easily. But this story lays bare a more specific aspect of this ongoing scandal.

In East Hartford, Connecticut, a group of right-wing parents has lobbied in favor of mandatory student uniforms. Naturally, a school committee buckled under by urging uniforms, but the committee's excuses for it reveal something very sinister.

Some educrat said the school needs uniforms because of impoverished students being teased for not being able to afford the snazziest clothes.

Sounds to me like that's the school's fault for not doing anything about serial bullies. If East Hartford has been the site of extravaganza bullying, maybe the schools started punishing the victims if they fought back. Neutralized students are weak students, and are also less likely to fight back against right-wing tyranny like uniforms.

I think this was intentional on the part of the school system. In fact, I know it was.

Thirty years ago, if a kid got picked on at school for not having much money, they'd likely march right up to the aggressor and clock them right in the teeth. Problem solved. I remember TV shows from the '70s in which this very thing happened.

These days, the victim is taught to sit back and take it. Victims are punished if they fight back - because fighting back would violate bullies' True Free Speach Now (tm).

Many folks say that a disarmed public is a weak public. OK, I get it now. Sometimes it's a hard lesson learned. Similarly, a student who can't fight is a weakened student.

It's now clear that one of the main reasons schools teach kids not to fight is just so they have an excuse to implement uniforms - thereby leading to even more control. This story proves it.

To add more injury to injury, the East Hartford school system says that if uniforms are made mandatory, it doesn't have money to buy uniforms for students who can't afford them. Oops, there goes their false claim that uniforms help the poor.

There's other factors here, one of which is that the media (the same media that clearly supports uniforms) keeps accepting ads for expensive, stylish kids' clothes. How can the media support uniforms for supposedly eliminating competition for the hippest clothes, while it carries ads for such clothes? A bit hypocritical, don't you think?

We should call on the media to stop accepting such advertising.

(Source: http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-ehddress1211.artdec11,0,5874329.story)

Fingerprinting of poor may end

Despite the looming aspartame subsidy that protects toxic diet soda from being taxed, the news out of New York state isn't all bad!

Under the state's new budget proposal, the fingerprinting of Medicaid applicants may end.

For one thing, I had no idea New York was fingerprinting the poor just to receive medical benefits. I may have written about this tyranny years ago, but with the Far Right's ongoing war on the poor, it was easy to get distracted by other policies that were just as right-wing.

For another, programs similar to fingerprinting the poor to receive government benefits have already been ruled illegal. Such fingerprinting is an illegal search, and it's discriminatory. We don't fingerprint bank executives who get bailout money, so why do we fingerprint Medicaid recipients?

It's not just illegal. It's mean-spirited, malicious, and evil. There's simply no other way to describe it.

I'd almost bet my life savings that George Pataki was the one who implemented the fingerprinting requirement, because who else in that state would? He ran the state during the nationwide soak-the-poor frenzy of the mid-'90s, which made criminals out of anyone who was below the poverty line.

Hopefully the fingerprinting will come to a close, and all the fingerprint files will be destroyed.

(Source: http://www.politickerny.com/1046/patersons-budget-will-eventually-boost-welfare-expand-health-care)

New York may subsidize frankenfoods

State budgets generally aren't easy endeavors, but the one in the state of New York may subsidize makers of toxic artificial sweeteners (in addition to reinstating the sales tax on clothes).

Under this new budget, New Yorkers may pay a new tax on regular soft drinks - but not diet sodas. The rationale for this double standard is that it's an "obesity tax."

The national "obesity pandemic" is a hoax pumped up largely by the right-wing media. It's a complete and utter fraud. I know it is, because according to the government's new obesity definition, I'm overweight too.

Why does this hoax exist? It exists primarily to draw attention away from other stories, to wrongly shift blame onto the public for environmentally induced ailments, and to sell synthetic chemicals like that which fill diet soft drinks. I am 100% certain of it.

Because the tax differentiates between diet and regular sodas, it is in effect a subsidy for dangerous artificial sweeteners.

Yes, I know, I know. I'm sure New York had to pass a tax on something, because they're still paying for Wacky Pataki's mismanagement, but if that's the case, why not tax that diet shit just as much as the regular product?

The state has to cut funding for health care and education severely, but poisonous frankenfoods get a free gimme???

I guarantee you that if I ran a grocery store in New York, I'd be hot diggety damned if I'd make customers pay more for regular soda than for diet. Hell, I'd just lower the store cost on the regular and raise it on diet, so they end up costing the buyer the same. (Except I'd probably be eager to get rid of the diet, seeing how every store I go to always has gobs and gobs of diet in stock, while they're always nearly out of regular.)

(Source: http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=750267&category=STATE)

CIA drug warriors shot down 15 civilian planes

The CIA has long been out of control, regardless of who's in the White House. It has a mind of its own with little accountability.

With no political will to curb the failed War on Drugs (which expands every year), the drug war and the CIA have been a deadly combination.

Now a report shows that between 1995 and 2001 a drug war effort by the CIA and Peru's Air Force shot down 15 civilian aircraft. There is no evidence that any of these flights or any of their crew or passengers had anything to do with drugs.

One of the flights carried an innocent American missionary and her 7-month-old daughter. They both died when the CIA shot their plane down.

The report also reveals that government officials lied to Congress about the CIA's plane-shooting program and obstructed a Justice Department investigation into possible criminal charges. However, Bush's Justice Department decided in 2005 not to file charges against anyone involved in shooting down the planes (no surprise).

The drug warriors are willing to kill missionaries and babies just so they can claim they're "fighting drugs." (They've put into action the ideas of several right-wing politicians who had urged such a program.) There's no words in the English language sufficient to express my disgust at the government thugs who have murdered innocents to carry out the War on Drugs.

(Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/11/world/main4664791.shtml)

Texas punishes innocents, cries "terrorism!"

The treason lobby's meme of screaming "terrorism!" to justify inconveniencing innocents is back, and it's just as idiotic as ever.

Under a new rule in Texas, every motorist or anyone else with a state ID will soon have to lug in enough paperwork to choke a toilet if their license or ID is even one day past its expiration date. They'll have to cough up a notarized birth certificate, passport, or some other high-sounding document just to renew their license - even if they've already proven their citizenship.

And until their birth certificate arrives, they can't drive or do anything that requires an ID - including write a check at the supermarket, or even vote.

Even some folks whose license hasn't expired are finding themselves hamstrung by this paperwork. Many elderly Texans don't even have a birth certificate, because nobody ever issued one at the time they were born!

Political appointees of right-wing Gov. Rick Perry - a man who has never been known for being intelligent, honest, or reasonable - imposed this new fiat. Allan Polunsky, Perry's Public Safety Commission head, sniffed that the new rule is for "national security."

So someone who's already proven that they are who they say they are is a threat to national security unless they bring in paperwork with information that the motor vehicle bureau already has on file? You're an idiot, Allan.

State Rep. Lon Burnam (D-Fort Worth) criticized the Perry regime's diktat, but right-wing talk-shit radio hosts misled listeners about the controversy. "People really misunderstand this because the right-wing radio personalities don't want to understand it," Burnam observed.

Rick Perry needs to be recalled like the clunker he is.

(Source: http://www.star-telegram.com/news/story/1092542.html)

Who should the Obama administration prosecute first?

Well, folks, our first weekly poll has closed, and it was a doubleheader.

The first question was whether Harry Reid should resign as Senate Majority Leader. You voted 15 to 1 to oust him.

The second question was whether the same fate should befall Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker. This referendum was unanimous: Pelosi lost 14 to 0.

This week, I've got a new poll: Which right-wing criminal should the incoming Obama administration prosecute first? This poll gives you 7 options: John Ashcroft, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, Alberto Gonzales, Michael Mukasey, and Donald Rumsfeld.

I can lay out the case to prosecute each of these 7 men, but I'm sure I've done so with many of them already. I was tempted to add Phil Gramm to the list, but I wanted to keep things simple.

'Pail our poll, will ya?

Open thread

Blow someone else's bubble! (Bubble Gum Weekend)

I bet Floyd D. Duck's shit stinks from eating all that Bubble Yum.

Seriously. I would bet the farm on it!

Floyd D. Duck is a cartoon avian who was introduced as Bubble Yum's mascot sometime in the '90s. He was designed to look like a hip punk rocker who talks about bubble gum.

While TV ads for bubble gum seemed few and far between by the time of Mr. Duck's introduction, he did nonetheless appear in at least one commersh:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv6QjkTJGkE

The Floydster even bubbled twice in that ad for the official gum of Major League Baseball!

Of particular note is Bubble Yum's late '90s slogan: "Blow your own bubble."

As if it's possible to blow someone else's bubble???

That would be pretty hard to do - unless you're like one of the kids I went to high school with who chewed used gum they found laying on the floor.

Gum. The energy source of a new America.

Back when public health was taken seriously

This is a poster from World War II:


(http://i35.tinypic.com/dm6zow.jpg)

I may go out of town for a couple days this month, and believe me, if I feel even a common cold coming on before my trip, I expect to get treatment for it. Ted Kennedy said it best: Health care is not a privilege; it is a right.

I've worked too hard to have to miss my yearly vacation I toiled so hard for, and come hell or high water, I will get treatment. I take this shit seriously, because I lost a substantial portion of my teenage years to infections that went untreated because doctors and medicine "cost money."

If Americans had that defeatist attitude back in the 1940s, Europe would have been bowing at the Nazis' feet for decades after. In recent years, I've delivered this same lecture every winter, and nobody learns.

For me, hydrogen peroxide in the ears has been 100% effective at fighting colds, but if that doesn't work this time, treatment will come some way or another. I don't know about you, but I'm standing up for myself.

If it's just a few boogers, I'll let it slide. We all need the joy of wiping our noses on unlikely surfaces. But usually the symptoms are far ghastlier.

To put it more succinctly, public health must be taken more seriously. MUST!!! I don't know what it's going to take for the media to catch on, but hopefully it won't take another war. It isn't taken seriously now, because Big Pharma and other medical corporations have such a sense of entitlement that they put their own profits before the public's well-being.

On that poster, you'll also notice that during World War II, the average American was sick for only 2 days a year. Most Americans today probably can't believe it was ever less than 2 months a year.

We need to produce a modern version of that old poster.

Sheriff makes inmates pay for spoiled food

Right-wing Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, has long been a publicity-seeking galoot and media fave.

Arpaio is known for making inmates view tapes of Newt Gingrich speeches and boasting about feeding them lunchmeat that had begun turning green - meaning it was spoiled. (Even at one of the supermarkets near my home that only sells lunchmeat if it's 6 weeks past its expiration date, the meat has yet to turn green.)

Now Arpaio has decreed that many of the inmates are going to be required to pay for the rotten food themselves.

How does he expect them to pay? Do inmates make money in jail? Somehow I doubt it.

Remember, this is jail, not prison. So many of the detainees are held pending trial and have yet to be convicted.

This is the same Joe Arpaio who denied an inmate with Crohn's disease his medication that would have cost only a few dollars. This withholding of medicine resulted in the inmate needing 2 major surgeries, which cost county taxpayers dearly.

(Source: http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/271508.php)

L.A. cable system illegally shuts off public access

If you study broadcasting in college, one thing you'll probably learn around your second semester or so is that federal law requires American cable TV systems to provide public access channels.

Thus, your local cable company provides equipment to let you place your own shows on TV. Cable companies are barred from censoring your programs based on content.
That's the law. Not just a "damn piece of paper" (as Bush would say), but the law.

But in Los Angeles, I guess laws no longer apply.

Right-wing city officials and cable companies have helped lead an effort to gut public access TV. Time Warner, which controls over 90% of the cable TV biz in L.A., plans to close its public access studios in that city.

How does Time Warner accomplish depriving the community of public access cable? A 2006 state law, which was written by request of right-wing communications giant AT&T, gutted local public access deals and put franchise agreements in the hands of the Public Utilities Commission - the Puke-O of California, which refuses even to regulate the electric industry. (And we all know what happened with that.)

The law frees cable providers from having to provide public access as long as they pay a tiny fee to cities.

How do they get around the federal law mandating public access? Who the fuck knows?

(Source: http://www.laweekly.com/2008-12-11/news/shutting-down-public-access-tv)

Hitlerage Foundation lies about autoworker wages

Well, the Heritage Foundation has struck again, haven't they?

The Hitlerage Foundation is the crew of right-wing crackpots who consistently rank Singapore as one of the world's freest countries (despite it having one of the planet's vilest dictatorships).

If you're wondering where the wingnutosphere gets its laughable claim that autoworkers make $75 an hour, now we know. It turns out this lie is being spread by the Heritage Foundation. Their aim is to place blame for the automakers' woes on the unions and the autoworkers for allegedly being paid too much.

Something tells me the CEO's and other execs are making quite a bit more money than the autoworkers, so maybe the autoworkers aren't the ones who are demanding too much money.

It turns out that autoworkers at American auto plants actually make about $28 an hour. To us, this might sound like a good wage, but in today's economy, that doesn't exactly make one rich. If the Republicans' demand that autoworkers take a 50% pay cut was carried out, the workers wouldn't be making nearly enough to support their families.

But Heritage Foundation continues to fib. And the right-wing intelligentsia maliciously spreads this lie. Right-wing Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Alabama) said, "Even with recent changes, the average hourly wage at General Motors is still $75 an hour." Except it isn't true, Spencer.

Who else is fed up with the Far Right's lies about workers supposedly making too much money, while execs make many times as much? In their fantasy world, the workers wouldn't be paid at all and would just get a bowl of soup each day.

(Source: http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/do_auto_workers_really_make_more_than.html)

Bush makes nuke deal with United Arab Emirates

Here's today's news story that was almost totally covered up (other than a few sentences on cable TV).

The Bush regime has now inked a nuclear deal with United Arab Emirates - a country whose largest trade partner is Iran.

You hear so much about Iran being dangerous, but Bush made a nuke pact with one of its main trading partners?

If Iran is a threat, and if something bad happens because of this deal, Bush will be to blame. Again.

How to handle the auto bailout

I'm going to be upfront about what the government needs to do to handle this.

The best option would be to nationalize the auto industry. If the industry wasn't able to manage itself well enough not to need a bailout, our government representatives need to step up to the plate.

But if that doesn't happen, the government needs to pay for the auto bailout by taking it out of the much larger bailout the banks got.

And they need to tell the auto industry it doesn't get a penny unless it gets out of the SUV business.

Other than that, I guess you can say the car industry bailout is a bargain compared to the massive giveaway to the banking industry.

I find it rather hypocritical that the Republicans defend the bank bailout but keep insisting that autoworkers take a 50% pay cut.

Another site exposes right-wing cult

Over the past couple days, I've run out of patience with the Far Right.

So I'm pleased to learn of the debut of yet another website exposing the right-wing cult that ran the now-expelled Kids Helping Kids program in Cincinnati:

http://www.pfctruth.com

This cult may be gone from Cincinnati, but it continues in several other markets.

Believe me, the program is a cult. All teen behavior modification centers are. Just like CPH, which tried making detainees actually change their core beliefs before releasing them.

Tim defeats Thayer

I have a reputation of violating petty Allowed Clouds, but Republican politicians are permitted to violate Allowed Clouds that are more well-grounded.

There's a right-wing state senator in Kentucky named Damon Thayer who posts his idiotic campaign signs on the public right-of-way and leaves them up well past the election.

I understand politicians post their signs on the public right-of-way all the time, so I'm not too worried about that. I do find it quite interesting that Republican Thayer's signs were allowed to stay up a month after the election, while other candidates' signs got taken right down.

Fact of the matter is, you're not supposed to leave your signs up on the public right-of-way in December. Yes, that's an Allowed Cloud. We have an interest in keeping our highways presentable when we can, and citizens are legally permitted to remove such signs if they're up for that long and are along a public road.

So I did precisely that:



Nothing illegal about what I did. Not a damn thing.

I made that video on Monday when I took the Peace Bike on an outing in Kenton County, and much of the clip deals with the area's roads.

Read it and peep!

Woman totes gun; everyone acts shocked

At one time, I may have been astounded to see a civilian carrying a pistol in the open. I've lived in incorporated cities my whole life, and guns are often viewed differently in urban areas than in the countryside.

But a 30-year-old mother of 4 in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, has now elicited condemnation from folks on both sides of the political spectrum for her decision to openly carry a pistol on her hip almost everywhere she goes.

Clearly, her behavior isn't illegal - at least not in that area. But some seem to be frightened by it.

From what I can gather, it's much ado about nothing. I almost never see civilians openly carrying firearms, but I've seen it before.

About 5 years ago, I was biking through downtown Cincinnati, and I happened to zip past a heavyset, bespectacled man who was about 40 who had a pistol in a holster clearly visible on his hip. I assume he wasn't a cop, for he wore no uniform. (If he was undercover, he was doing a shitty job of it.) And there were people all around - children and adults alike - as this was the downtown of a major city.

Why did this open display of a gun in a large city generate no controversy, while carrying a firearm in a small town has become a national news story?

I think it's a simple double standard.

I've never met the Pennsylvania woman, so I can't judge if my impression from media reports is accurate. I haven't seen the Cincinnati man more than once, so I can't fairly judge him either. But it appears that the Pennsylvania woman has more of an assertive personality and is more willing to stand up for her rights. Odds are that the Cincinnati man is more of a follower of the system and doesn't like to make waves. This personality type seems more common in today's lockstep society, so it's reasonable to suspect such.

Here's an analogy: If I was caught carrying even a nail in my pocket, I'd probably be interrogated endlessly and forever branded as some sort of dangerous maniac. But if the guy I went to school with who was really rules-oriented and is now a financially secure office manager carried a gun, authorities would probably never bat an eye at him.

I could be wrong, but it does appear to be a double standard. So you can't judge until you know more facts.

(Source: http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20081212_Gun-toting_woman_divides_community.html)

Game over, Rod

I know what the GOP droids are going to tell us: "Rod Blagojevich is a lib just like you lololololololololololz."

(I also notice the media is trying to link Barack Obama to Blagojevich's woes, solely because they are from the same party and state. That's exactly like if they had tried to link me to Paul Patton's scandal.)

To hear the other side tell it, you'd think Blagojevich was cofounder of The Last Word.

Quite the contrary, Blagojevich has had some rather right-wing ideas as Governor of Illinois. He was so fearful of the free flow of ideas that he proposed limits on selling "violent" video games. He said media violence caused obesity. (I swear I am not making this up.) The AP reported that his plan passed an Illinois House committee unanimously, "despite concerns that it might be unconstitutional."

It's pretty bad when politicians try to pass stuff they know might be unconstitutional, but Bush didn't exactly set a shining example. By the time Illinois passed its law, courts had already struck down similar laws in other states because they violated freedom of speech.

Despite all this, Blagojevich's fear of reason prompted copycat measures in other states.

The Illinois law was so vague and broad that even football video games would have been covered by it.

And it cost Illinois taxpayers dearly. It too was ruled unconstitutional, forcing the state to pay over $500,000 in legal fees. They sure didn't learn, did they? After that, the state tried refusing to pay.

I know, man, that Rod Blagojevich sounds like a real left-wing guy to me - not!

Taxpayers paid for Palin's lipstick

The laughs never end with Failin' Palin, do they? Except it's really not very funny, because we're paying for her extravagance.

Now it turns out that $110,000 was spent on cosmetics and hair styling for the failed GOP vice-presidential candidate. Unlike the $180,000 that the Republican National Committee spent on her wardrobe just for one week, this lipstick allowance was effectively paid by taxpayers: It was purchased by the McCain campaign, which received public funding.

This is the Bushbots' version of a "populist", folks. They'll ridicule someone for wearing the same shoes for more than a year, but somebody who wastes thousands of taxpayer dollars on cosmetics (while America has the worst economy in 75 years) is called a champion of the people.

I also know of no media attempts to debunk this story. When some operative tried to discredit the true story about how Palin didn't know Africa was a continent, they fell flat on their face, so I guess they realize they're out of luck.

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/12/5/6531/98250/626/669571;
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/mccain-campaign-spent-110000-on-palin-stylists)

Bush White House alters documents

The Bush White House is like the memory hole of Orwell's '1984'.

Now it's been revealed that the ruling regime has altered public documents - making the modified versions appear to be original. Often they deleted documents outright.

This is significant because it shows yet again that we can't trust our government masters to maintain public records of their own idiotic mistakes - thereby causing these errors to be repeated.

Maybe the next thing the Republicans need to do is delete their stupid faces.

At least they preserved the records of Newt Gingrich singlehandedly ending crime and poverty. (That's sarcasm, everyone.)

(Source: http://media.www.dailyillini.com/media/storage/paper736/news/2008/12/05/News/White.House.Documents.Found.To.Be.Altered-3571806.shtml)

Welcome to the 14th century!

When you see stories like this, it's hard not to lapse into suspension of disbelief mode - until you realize how menacingly real the story is.

I know the Bush era hasn't been known for medical progress, but who would have ever thought Americans would have to worry about the plague in 2008?

Now that a case of the plague has been confirmed in a cat in New Mexico, it's been revealed that the disease has returned with a vengeance in humans. In New Mexico alone, there were 5 human cases of the plague just last year. One of them was fatal.

We need to tell this to all the folks in fantasyland who insist contagious illnesses aren't a serious matter.

(Source: http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/apcatplague12-10-08.htm)

Drug warriors break down wrong door (again)

Gee, what'll it be today? Work-for-less laws, uniforms, or oil company greed?

I know! How about another story about police breaking down the wrong door in a botched drug raid?

The ruling regime has gotten so predictable, hasn't it?

In Gwinnett County, Georgia, police decided to carry out a no-knock drug raid - which itself is probably illegal. But it turns out they raided the wrong house!

The purveyors of the failed War on Drugs barged right into a house unannounced and held an innocent family - including a 3-month-old baby - at gunpoint.

In addition to traumatizing the family, police also destroyed the house's front door.

The only major difference between this and other incidents like this is that usually the drug cops end up killing or physically injuring the innocent residents.

The problem of bungled drug raids is so out of control nationwide that Los Angeles police have now hired their own carpenter just to fix doors of people whose homes are wrongly raided.

As for the Georgia raid, police did eventually raid the right house. They found money, but there's no indication they ever found drugs.

(Source: http://www.wsbtv.com/news/18247509/detail.html)

Violated in Valpo

The public school system in Valparaiso, Indiana, is so fascist that it might now have the most draconian substance abuse policy in the nation.

The policy is so extreme that it makes all students - not just those in extracurricular activities - eligible to be forced to take a drug test.

Incidentally, Valparaiso is in Porter County - the county that gave a taxpayer bailout to an abusive teen "rehab" cult.

Valparaiso High School's student handbook, which includes the school's voluminous discipline code, details the school district's substance abuse plan:

http://www.valpo.k12.in.us/assets/pdf/08vhshandbook.pdf

(The school also took the unusual step of copyrighting its handbook.)

This right-wing policy says that school administrators "shall have the authority to require any student to submit to a chemical test if the administration has reasonable suspicion to believe the student is using or under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs."

The Constitution, however, says administrators shall not have this authority. Making all students eligible for a forced drug test is blatantly unconstitutional. Not like I expect schools to give a damn what the law is. (I went to public schools that broke laws even in the '70s, so imagine what it's like now.)

What does the school define as "reasonable suspicion" that a student uses drugs? The criteria include general clumsiness, nosebleeds, sleepiness, disobeying the school's closed campus policy, hearsay accusations, and stinking. I'm sure all of you have experienced several of these things. According to the Valparaiso school system, that makes you a druggie.

Is that stupid or what?

If a student is suspected of being on drugs based on these criteria, the student is asked to take a drug test. If the student refuses to submit, they are automatically treated as if the drug test showed drugs in their system. The same goes for any student whose parents refuse to grant permission for them to be tested.

For a school to assume someone is on drugs when they haven't been tested to prove it isn't exactly what I call due process.

If the results come back positive - or if the student or parent refuses the test - the student is subject to disciplinary measures. The penalty may include expulsion.

It's an outright miracle that the school system doesn't get its pants sued off.

Since Porter County is a stronghold of the parent organization of Kids Helping Kids, I wouldn't be surprised if the cult is recruiting in the Valparaiso schools and using the district's substance abuse plan to do it. KHK has recruited in schools in my area, so I wouldn't put it past them.

Puppet maker falsely accused of being terrorist

How out of control was the illegal mid-decade pogrom by the Maryland Police State Police to spy on dissidents?

Police falsely accused 53 people of being terrorists and entered them into a terrorism database. Among them are 2 nuns, a Democratic congressional candidate, and a puppet maker.

You can't make this stuff up, folks. The file for one of the 53 victims of this illegal investigation complained that she was "involved in puppet making."

Ooh, puppet making! Heaven forbid!

If Wayland Flowers was alive today, would they put him on a terror watch list too?

The files lie outright. One woman was added to the list just for supposedly attending a conference in Washington, D.C. However, she was actually at an unrelated event in Hawaii while that conference was going on.

The right-wing regime that ruled Maryland at the time wasn't even competent at being undercover. One organization that was infiltrated found it suspicious that a woman kept bringing her laptop to meetings. The woman turned out to be an undercover cop.

I always thought undercover police were supposed to blend in as much as possible and not look suspicious. So that's yet another mistake they've made.

Shockingly, the Maryland Police State Police have not disciplined any officers involved in the illegal spying program.

For right-wing former Gov. Bob Ehrlich and those in the department who led this program, the penalty should be severe. I'm in favor of prison reform, but those who led the spying program should face exile or a long sentence in a medieval-style prison. They have evil in their hearts, and they transgressed not only against 53 puppet makers and nuns but against all Americans.

If Bob Ehrlich barged into my house right now (like he did in Maryland tourism commercials), I'd have no objection to asking him right to his scuzzy face, "Why do you hate America?"

(Source: http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?id=96246&section=news)

Bert goes on a rampage! ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

Bert is cool.

He and his buddy Ernie go back a long way together, though it's never been made clear how they met.

A rare sketch from around 1982 explores the comedic duo further:



That lengthy skit is one of the rarest Ernie and Bert segments ever, and I don't ever remember seeing it until now (possibly because I was too old for 'Sesame Street' by 1982). But it's also one of the all-time greatest, simply because of the uproarious ending - which may well be the funniest Bert and Ernie scene of all-time!

The rest of the segment is very slow-paced, but the ending more than makes up for that!

Ernie fawns over his balloons for being "fat and floaty", but expresses alarm when Bert tells him that balloons don't last forever. Ernie apparently thought that even after the sun expanded and engulfed the Earth, balloons would somehow survive the event.

The discovery that balloons are mortal leads Ernie to liberate the inflated orbs by letting them float out the window. (However, he didn't attach a piece of paper saying "Pooing is cool" to the string.)

When Ernie suggests renting a helicopter to retrieve the balloons, Bert finally loses his shit! And it's so funny to watch! The pointy-headed Muppet screams and runs out into the street in his pajamas, and the sound of breaking glass is heard. One envisions Bert with a cinder block smashing out car windows.

'Sesame Street' desperately needs to start airing this skit again! I don't buy the argument that Bert's tantrum is too much for today's children to handle. It's better to show sketches like this than to raise a generation of lifelong babies.

Indiana outlaws smiling

It's happened! The inmate at the jail after the bogus NKU arrest who predicted the onset of "anti-smiling laws" was right!

Indiana has now adopted the most stringent rules in America governing photos on driver's licenses and ID cards. Smiling is strictly forbidden. So are eyeglasses, even if you usually wear glasses.

If you think that's bizarre, the reason for it is downright maddening: These guidelines were instituted to make facial recognition software work more easily.

Call me paranoid, but this sounds too much like conservatives' plan of several years ago to collect the DNA of every newborn infant.

Then again, if Mitch Daniels was my governor, I wouldn't be smiling anyway.

However, Indiana wisely allows religious exemptions to the battery of new rules - unlike Florida, which is openly hostile to freedom of religion (at least regarding license photos).

(Source: http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20081209/NEWS02/812090395)

Man learns about sinus medicine law the hard way

The War on Drugs makes criminals out of everyone, it seems.

In Florence, Alabama, authorities just arrested 63 people for the "crime" of buying too much over-the-counter cold and allergy medicine (which was only recently made illegal).

All 63 were charged with second-degree manufacturing of a controlled substance, which - according to the local paper - "in essence means they were in possession of ingredients used in the meth-making process."

You can't make this stuff up, people. It used to be that manufacturing a controlled substance meant you had to sort of, like, make the substance. That's what manufacturing means. But I guess now possessing one ingredient is considered the same as making the substance, even if you had no intent to manufacture it.

Is that fascist or what? That's like charging someone for making moonshine because they possess water.

This binge of arrests is especially ludicrous because the town probably isn't even big enough to support 63 meth labs - so there's no way that more than a handful of the 63 arrestees had anything to do with meth.

In fact, a man who purchased the over-the-counter medicine for his allergies (which is the product's intended purpose) found himself among these 63 even though he didn't even know about the new laws.

The prosecutor now says that his office is looking into the possibility that some of the 63 had no intent on making meth. Gee, ya think?

I guess it's about time authorities figure out that not everyone nabbed under the failed War on Drugs has something to do with illicit substances. Of course they knew that already but that never stopped the drug war from expanding.

Blagojevich accused of threatening paper

Oh, I see now.

Federal authorities who arrested Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich are claiming that he and his chief of staff threatened the Chicago Tribune because the governor didn't like its editorials. (Articles about this story include alleged phone conversations in which the governor says "fuck" and "shit.")

In the immortal words of Cookie Monster: Me got it now.

Hey, is this like the time back in the '90s when some conservative legislators in Kentucky wanted to pass a law to require newspapers to publish the names of their editorialists, all because the legislators disagreed with their editorials?

When are those lawmakers going to be arrested?

Army base destroys historic site

In yet another crime by the Bush regime, it's now been revealed that Bush built an Army heliport in Iraq out of historic remnants - and then quickly abandoned the base.

The site had artifacts that were thousands of years old and dated back to the Babylonian era. But the Pentagon used these historic items to fill sandbags for the new base. Vibrations from military aircraft also caused a historic temple to collapse.

And it was all for nothing. The U.S. Army abandoned the base after only 5 months. Poland then took charge of the base, but pulled out only 16 months later. The port has sat empty ever since.

There really is no end to Bush's shittiness, is there?

(Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jvUpUKpfGU3mupF7Xpyb-WMQGQAg)

Chuck E.'s in love...with having the cops called on it!

For those unawares, Chuck E. Cheese's is a chain of pizza restaurants specializing in stage shows and other features for children. It features a cartoon rat as its mascot.

I've heard that the Chuck E. Cheese's in my area is so stodgy that it refuses to allow teenagers to eat there without an adult "chaperone." It seems to me that teenagers would be too old to be interested in Chuck E. Cheese's anyway. My school had an outing there when I was a high school senior, and I just didn't grasp why the school thought it would appeal to teens.

I was also there on a school trip in 5th grade. I don't remember whether it was during that trip or the one in high school when someone shit on the restroom floor.

Now a Chuck E. Cheese's in upscale Brookfield, Wisconsin, is one of several locations that are the subject of a preposterously offbeat story about the drunken behavior of parents who take their kids there.

Chuck E. Cheese's is the source of more police calls than any other restaurant in town. In fact, even most bars don't see as many fights. Since last year, cops have had to break up 12 fights at Chuck E. Cheese's. The most notorious altercation occurred at a child's birthday party when about 40 adults threw chairs and yelled in front of the stage.

Because of such displays, the town asked Chuck E. Cheese's to surrender its alcohol license.

Other cities report similar woes at their local Chuck E. Cheese's locations. A fight at a Chuck E. Cheese's in Michigan involved some 85 people. At a location in Ohio, several adults were charged with disorderly conduct after they started a melee with children who they accused of monopolizing a drawing machine.

What's the restaurant's response to this misconduct? Many locations have implemented predictably ineffective measures. Some have implemented dress codes for customers that prohibit "gang-style apparel." Others have filled the restaurants with pistol-packing guards.

Needless to say, the immaturity by adult patrons of Chuck E. Cheese's continues unabated.

Chuck E. Cheese's, of all places!

(Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122878081364889613.html)

Wal-Mart to pay up in wage suit

Sometimes justice takes a long time coming. When a corporation breaks basic labor laws, you can't always expect a remedy to come quickly, because Bush & Co. isn't too reliable on enforcing the laws.

A class action suit says Wal-Mart and Sam's Club locations in Minnesota deprived workers of wages and breaks back in 1998. The retailer forced employees to work off the clock and refused to give workers rest breaks they were owed.

Well, eventually the bottom had to drop out, I guess - and now Wal-Mart has to pay over $54,000,000 to settle the suit.

Wal-Mart could have faced over $2,000,000,000 in fines for thumbing its nose at state wage laws. (It had over 2,000,000 violations, carrying fines of $1,000 each.)

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart is also now the target of a lawsuit by customers injured in the post-Thanksgiving stampede that left an employee dead in Long Island.

(Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE4B84ML20081209;
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/12/02/walmart.trampling.suit/?iref=mpstoryview)

Wikipedia access blocked in Britain

The Last Word has exposed problems faced by American dissenters editing Wikipedia articles, but now this scourge seems to have spread across the ocean.

Great Britain is the home of the Internet Watch Foundation. The IWF is often described as a charity independent of government control or influence, but it gets funding from the European Union and in effect acts as the EU's Internet police.

The IWF maintains a list of websites for British ISP's to block. Although some of the blacklisted sites feature almost exclusively illegal material, the IWF added Wikipedia several days ago. This was prompted by a complaint regarding the entry about a Scorpions album from 30 years ago that featured a crude, tasteless, offensive sleeve.

As offensive as the album jacket was, the IWF went about the matter the wrong way on several fronts.

For one, the IWF doesn't just list content but blocks it outright. It literally censors content even before it's found to be illegal, thereby practicing prior restraint. This includes not just pictures but also written material.

The Scorpions album with the crude sleeve is still sold by music stores and online retailers in Britain. Why is a Wikipedia article about the album blocked, while it's legal to sell the sleeve?

The IWF blocks not just the picture but also the text of the Wikipedia article. The text itself is not offensive.

Further, the IWF isn't even honest about how it blocks Wikipedia. It makes it appear as if it's just a missing webpage and not blacklisted.

And finally, the IWF's blacklist prevents almost all customers of British ISP's from editing any article on Wikipedia - regardless of topic.

I suspect that the IWF actually wasn't too concerned about the album jacket and was actually trying to suppress information about political topics that people might publish on Wikipedia. After all, by keeping folks from editing Wikipedia, it also kept them from removing the offensive record jacket. (Wikipedia admins also refuse to remove it, as the sleeve has not been ruled illegal.)

Why else would the IWF block editing of millions of inoffensive Wikipedia articles and say it's because of an offensive picture that accompanies one entry?

The IWF's actions are a bit like what a prosecutor in my area did over some magazine or movie some years back. Instead of acting on citizen complaints (as he was supposed to), he happened to see the material at a store and prosecuted based on his own complaint. (The film or publication in this case would not have been considered legally obscene in most other American jurisdictions.)

Today, the IWF backed down from blocking Wikipedia, following complaints about this blockage.

Blocking of Wikipedia - coming to a land near you.

(Source: http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/web/wikipedia-added-to-child-pornography-blacklist/2008/12/08/1228584723764.html)

Man beaten for wearing Obama shirt

It's happened again: yet another politically motivated assault by GOP cultists who can't take losing.

A 32-year-old man in Shreveport, Louisiana, was beaten bloody at a gas station by thugs who noticed he was wearing an Obama t-shirt. The assailants yelled, "Fuck Obama!" They also used a racial slur.

The victim suffered a broken nose and eye socket, and his eye was swollen shut. He still faces surgery.

Only cowards would gang up on someone and attack him because they don't like his Obama shirt. Like the Free Republic terrorists, they think they can amass strength in numbers to gang up on dissenters.

(Source: http://www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=9479629&nav=menu57_2)

Governor arrested day after he warned bank

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is a Democrat with a '70s hairdo and a gubernatorial career marred by embarrassing plen-T-plaints against "dirty" video games.

Despite his DLC-like record, Blagojevich did something right yesterday by ordering state agencies to stop doing business with Bank of America - in the hopes of forcing the bank to help laid-off Republic Windows & Doors workers involved in a sit-in. (Bank of America has received federal bailout dough, yet it has failed to assist the workers.)

The result? Well, I've just received word that Blagojevich has just been arrested. For what, I don't know.

He could be in trouble for something else (even though a zillion other politicians never get arrested or charged with anything despite their own corruption) - or maybe not. I think it's pretty suspicious that the feds decide to swoop in on Blagojevich only a day after he warns Bank of America.

After the botched Don Siegelman probe, you can't just assume the Blagojevich arrest isn't politically motivated (especially when Ernie Fletcher was never once arrested).

(Source: http://www.kentucky.com/103/story/620572.html)

Stations delay Gitmo documentary

'Torturing Democracy' is a 90-minute documentary about the Guantanamo Bay death camp. A marketing director for KBDI-TV, a PBS member station in Denver, calls the program "phenomenal."

Yet countless PBS stations from coast to coast are refusing to air the documentary until after Bush leaves office. Although 'Torturing Democracy' has been offered to individual stations since months before the election, the network itself won't even air it until after Obama is sworn in.

The delay is politically motivated. Not a surprise, considering such motivations have run rampant at PBS lately to appease the Bush regime. Maybe that's because the Bush regime proposed cutting off funding for the network if its programming wasn't more to its liking.

If Mister Rogers was alive today, his TV neighborhood would face the wrecking ball and be replaced by a fall-apart development.

(Source: http://coloradoindependent.com/16934/kbdi-refuses-to-delay-airing-of-guantanamo-torture-documentary)

Child's life to be ruined over cap gun

In my day, if someone took a toy cap gun to school (as they often did), what do you think the school's reaction would be?

Trust me, they wouldn't do what schools in Newton County, Georgia, are doing.

A 10-year-old student at Fairview Elementary School has been arrested, fingerprinted, and charged with a felony because he took a cap gun to school. The gun was a toy that cost $6 at Wal-Mart.

Now he may be sent to juvenile lockup until he's 21.

The boy was arrested after school when several sheriff's deputies stormed his home. Authorities say he had threatened schoolmates with the gun - but this turned out to be untrue.

Now the life of a 10-year-old boy who wants to become a cop when he grows up is in shambles all because schools don't know how to exercise common sense.

I sure as shit don't feel any safer, do you?

(Source: http://www.11alive.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=124359&catid=40&GID=juD5/d++YtmiZjwqGKDay6Tw1TGed4c0A5QCiVJAOvA%3D)

Cult gets $200,000 bailout

I'm proud to say we helped chase the Kids Helping Kids cult out of Cincinnati - much like in the Old West when the townsfolk chased away purveyors of quack products. But there's still work to be done. Despite losing one of its 4 outposts, KHK's parent organization still flourishes in 3 remaining markets.

While the cult gets chased out of Cincinnati, it gets the red carpet treatment in Porter County, Indiana (just outside Chicago).

In fact, an editorial in the Times of northwestern Indiana says Porter County has just given the cult $200,000 in taxpayer funds. This is really a bailout.

The Times has been rife with favorable coverage of the cult in recent months, and this editorial seems to be no exception, as it seems to ask that the federal government also assist in this bailout.

That $200,000 could have been spent on effective community-based resources for young people who might be in need. But instead it was squandered on a lock-'em-up cult that's been confirmed to be abusive and ineffective time and time again.

Want to voice your opinion about this fleecing of Porter County taxpayers? Here's the Times editorial in question, complete with a comment section:

http://nwi.com/articles/2008/12/08/opinion/times_editorials/doc3d9df5a666968877862575160076be5c.txt

Harassing call from VA center

The number of harassing phone calls I've been receiving dropped off precipitously after I caught my former high school with its Transformers Underoos down around its ankles, but some of these pricks never learn.

My sleep schedule has been fucked up the past few days because of what happened Thursday morning. I keep forgetting to post about it here, but now I found the note I scribbled down after getting rousted out of bed early in the morning.

I was woken up by a harassing phone call much like the others I've been getting for decades. I traced the number and discovered it was that of the Cincinnati VA Medical Center.

Under Bush, the VA comes up with every excuse in the book to deprive injured veterans of the benefits that they're owed, yet it can afford to hire some asshole who I went to school with who refuses to do any work and instead spends work time playing with the phone like a big baby.

When I was about 5, I was so awed by the newfangled touch-tone phone at another family's house that I couldn't resist playing around with it a little bit. But somebody out there who is 35 and is still amazed by '70s technology got hired by the VA and makes harassing phone calls on the taxpayers' dime.

Damn! You're over 30! Get over what happened in school already, will ya?

Because I don't know exactly who the culprit is, I'm going to keep a very close eye on Facebook for alumni of several different schools in Campbell County, and I'm going to see which ones list the Cincinnati VA Medical Center as their workplace. If any of the names sound familiar, there's a chance one of them could be behind the call.

Pat Boone has almost lost his mind

Every once in a while you see an article about a celebrity that details their downfall so hilariously that you have to share it.

For instance, when the late chess champion Bobby Fischer was having his run-ins with Japanese authorities, an uproarious article surfaced describing his embarrassing exploits of the preceding decades.

Popular 1950s singer Pat Boone has descended into right-wing fartpipery in recent years. So much so that he now writes for WorldNetDaily, a right-wing extremist website.

Now an article has appeared describing Boone's humiliating plunge of late:

http://allspinzone.com/wp/2008/12/07/pat-boones-head-explodes

Read it and believe it!

The Conservative Fool Of The Day is...Brian Krolicki!

Look at this sorryass.

It's Nevada Lt. Gov. Brian K. Krolicki, a Republican.

It's bad enough for Krolicki that he's just been indicted on 4 felony counts stemming from his mismanagement of a college savings program when he was state treasurer. It's bad enough for him that he may face up to 16 years in prison for allegedly misappropriating funds.

It's bad enough for Nevada Republicans that Krolicki was the most viable Senate candidate they had. It's also bad enough for them that their right-wing Gov. Jim Gibbons was recently sued by 2 different people in the same week. (One of the lawsuits alleges that Gibbons assaulted and kidnapped a cocktail waitress.)

Brian Krolicki looks like an even bigger idiot than he otherwise would by crying that the indictments against himself are politically motivated. He says he's a victim of big, mean libs trying to ruin him.

Like we haven't heard that one before. Right, Ernie Fletcher?

Grow up, Brian, you big crybaby.

(Source: http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=9452456&nav=168XDWn7)

Now you can 'Pail our polls!

'Pail our polls (snap snap)
'Pail our polls (snap snap)
'Pail our polls, 'Pail our polls, 'Pail our polls (snap snap)...

(Sung to the tune of the theme from 'The Addams Family'.)

Sharp-eyed viewers of this fast-growing blog may have noticed some changes today on the right-hand side of the screen. Scroll down just a teensy-weensy bit, and there's a "Subscribe To" widget. Supposedly this lets you subscribe to entries and comments on this blog, though I have yet to test it.

I'm also pleased to announce that we now have polls! You can vote in these unscientific surveys. I have no way of knowing who votes, let alone what they vote for, so it is a secret ballot. (Shh! A secret!)

To inaugurate this feature, I have 2 polls - asking whether the Senate and the House should find new leaders. I hope to be able to post a new poll each weekend!

This bubble gum's loaded! (Bubble Gum Weekend)

It's always satisfying to unearth something totally different and unexpected for this feature!

There's certain gum ads that YouPube has at least 5 copies of which weren't even that creative - yet there have been other commercials that were much more imaginative that had their only copy yanked because it hurt someone's feewings. There's still some that I remember that I've yet to find at all.

A few days ago I just happened to find a Freshen-Up commersh from 1978 on YouTube that I don't ever remember seeing in my youth!

I live, breathe, and eat the '70s. I'm a 1978 kind of guy. If something appeared on TV in 1978, by golly, I should remember it! Those were great times! I was discoin' down in kindergarten and havin' a blast!

But, dammit, I don't remember this ad for Freshen-Up's bubble gum:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5xKssr7x18

This is also yet another sports-themed gum ad. Bubble gum and baseball seem to go hand in hand. Anyone who watches even a Major League Baseball game will notice that the players often bubble.

This commersh suggests that youth leagues are no different. Numerous individuals bubble in this ad. Even the bespectacled ump blows a big, pink bubble!

See, that's what people did in the '70s. They bubbled.

Union assails uniform sweatshops

In the wake of a report revealing that school uniforms are made in abusive overseas sweatshops, the New York State United Teachers - a union representing teachers and health care workers - has taken a firm stance against this racket.

The report revealed that uniforms sold at Wal-Mart under the Faded Glory brand are made at sweatshops in Bangladesh that dish out beatings to workers and pay them less than Bangladesh's minimum wage. This is a significant problem because an increasing number of American schools (even public schools) are requiring uniforms and forcing students to buy this brand.

Since the report came out 2 months ago, however, the media has almost completely swept it under the rug (because it doesn't fit the media's agenda). The only regular news outlet where I've seen it mentioned has been BusinessWeek.

But the NYSUT and the Labor-Religion Coalition are trying to cut through this blackout. The groups are trying to raise awareness so families and schools don't "unwittingly support sweat labor."

Unfortunately, many schools don't place much value on ending labor exploitation. What do you think all this bullshit from schools about "preparing students for the global marketplace" means anyway? It's a code phrase for molding students into cheap, docile labor.

With the American school system hell-bent on serving a corporatist model, much of the work in fighting school uniforms falls on students, parents, teachers, labor leaders, me, and you. Let's make sure the issue of uniform sweatshops gets the coverage the media has so far denied it.

(Source: http://www.nysut.org/cps/rde/xchg/nysut/hs.xsl/newyorkteacher_11613.htm)

Open thread

School performs strip search

The right-wing Taliban in charge of America's schools must be the stupidest fucks alive if they think they can get away with this. There have been cases almost exactly like this before, and it didn't turn out good for the school.

But the school system in Ansonia, Connecticut, didn't learn this lesson.

A 15-year-old boy who attends Ansonia's alternative education program was strip-searched Tuesday after the school falsely accused him of stealing $70 from a teacher. The principal directed 2 teachers to take the student into the restroom and force him to disrobe. The teen was forced to remove his clothing, including his underpants.

The money was not found. That's because the student never stole it. He wasn't even around when the money reportedly vanished.

The teachers who made the boy take off his underpants are damn lucky he didn't clock them right in their fucking teeth.

Now, because of the strip search, the school is being sued to court (as I always say). A report has also been made with police against the teachers.

This isn't even the first case like this in that area. Several years ago in nearby New Haven, the city had to pay tens of thousands of dollars each to 16 girls who were illegally strip-searched at their middle school. This too was over stolen money - and the search failed to find the cash.

(Source: http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2008/12/05/news/valley/a1_--_stripsearch.txt)

ACLU challenges school drug dogs

Because the school system in Canton, Connecticut, is run by a bunch of fascists, it has a policy of searching students' cars for drugs.

These searches, which involve drug-sniffing dogs, are illegal - as they lack probable cause. But these days, everyone is considered a criminal - probable cause or not. This is especially true in America's slaughterhouse school system.

Indeed, false alerts by the drug dogs have resulted in over 15 students being yanked from class to watch cops search their cars and their lockers - only to find no contraband. I guarantee you that if this happened to me, there'd be a lawsuit lickety-split.

Right-wing observers are always complaining that kids don't spend enough time in school, yet they support depriving innocent students of valuable class time for this shit.

Now the ACLU is asking the school system to end its illegal searches. Right-wing observers like to grumble about the ACLU as much as they do about everything else - which proves right-wingers' hostility to basic constitutional liberty. Not like I needed any more proof, after the things I've seen over the years.

Will the school system budge? I hope so. If not, someone needs to sue 'em plumb to court.

(Source: http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/news/news_ap_canton_ACLU_questions_use_of_drug_sniffing_dogs_200812050737)

More Bushstink

Since the Decider only has 6 weeks left in office (unless he stages an illegal coup like Stephen Harper), I guess he figures he has to hurry if he wants to give the country away to the corporate empire.

For years, Congress has enjoyed a check that lets it stop unreasonable mineral exploration on public lands. Congress has employed this power 6 times since a 1976 law gave them this power. This year, Congress placed a 3-year moratorium on uranium mining at the Grand Canyon.

That anyone would even think of opening a uranium mine near the Grand Canyon (of all places) boggles the mind. But Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne chose to illegally ignore this congressional order - resulting in a lawsuit by environmentalists.

Yesterday, Bush's Department of the Interior just decided to remove Congress's veto power altogether.

Uh, George? A law gives Congress this veto power. You can't just decide that a law doesn't apply anymore. Or is Bush relying on his "damn pieces of paper" theory again?

Evidently, Bush is trying to make sure the constitutionality of Congress's law is challenged. Nothing in the 1976 law is unconstitutional though. However, Bush unilaterally gutting the law is.

Obama is going to have his work cut out for him cleaning up Bush's mess, isn't he?

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/us/05withdraw.html)

Recording company tries shaking down universities

Shakedown, breakdown, takedown...Everybody wants into the crowded line...Breakdown, takedown...You're busted, Warner Music Group!

A while back, Warner - one of the 4 remaining major record labels - hired a bloke named Jim Griffin who supports something he calls a "blanket license." This was basically a tax on all Internet users that would be redistributed to record companies to cover what they claim are losses caused by file sharing. (There's nothing like the government being a tax collector for the entertainment industry, is there?)

Now Warner is trying to extort money from universities. They've pitched this tax to universities by telling them that if they "voluntarily" pay, they'll stop filing frivolous suits over file sharing.

There's a word for what Warner Music Group is doing. It's not just a shakedown. It's racketeering. This extortion attempt is clearly actionable under RICO. Not a question about it.

Shockingly, several major universities appear ready to agree to this tax. If you think tuition is high now, think what it's going to be when students are forced to pay for their school to pay protection money to the recording industry!

If this fee is imposed, then pretty soon, any American who wants a college education is going to be forced to fund the recording industry - an industry that won't even give musicians their fair share! All because the industry refuses to adapt to the digital age (which everyone else did in 1995).

(Source: http://techdirt.com/articles/20081204/1534153023.shtml)

Abracadabra!

Now, for the GOP's next illusion, they're going to make over 100 ballots in the Senate election in Minnesota disappear!

The Al Franken/Norm Coleman election standoff continues a month after the polls closed, and now it's been discovered that 133 ballots from a heavily Democratic precinct in Minneapolis have vanished without a trace.

The election is close enough that 133 votes make a difference, but these ballots are gone. Nowhere to be seen. Disappeared into thin air. Just dropped off the face of the earth!

The ballots from that precinct were contained in 5 sealed envelopes. Now one of the envelopes cannot be located. Anywhere.

Is anyone actually naive enough to think this was not deliberate? It's clear that the Republicans intentionally lost the ballots. Not a shadow of a doubt about that.

The Republicans rigged the election, and they might get away with it. It's a fact that they rigged it. The Minnesota GOP has a history of this - and worse. (Much worse.)

In addition to this (and the Minnesota GOP's history of violence against opponents), the Republicans had tried suppressing votes in that precinct by trying to halt college students from voting legally.

If Coleman is declared the winner, there will forever be a taint on his Senate career, all because everyone knows he won because it was rigged. I already know Franken got many more votes than has been acknowledged so far, and I'll go to my grave knowing that he actually won.

(Source: http://www.mndaily.com/2008/12/03/city-acknowledges-missing-ballots)

Just call him Work-for-Less Terry!

BushAmerica seems to have a national religion: so-called "right-to-work" laws.

These laws are designed to suppress wages and weaken labor unions. Kentucky has no such law, but most states in the South and mountain West (which have loomed large in national politics for 25 years) have them. I call them work-for-less laws.

Lately the Democrats have become almost as bad as the Republicans in supporting these illegal laws. Virginia's new Sen. Mark Warner (a supposed Democrat) supports work-for-less, as I reported in September. Former Democratic National Committee chair Terry McAuliffe supports it too.

McAuliffe recently announced his support for Virginia's right-to-scab law, as he mulls running for governor of that state.

Smooth move, Terry. As if it isn't hard enough already for a Democrat to win (even today), it would be even harder if McAuliffe was the nominee: The Democrats will bleed supporters to third parties precisely because of his support for work-for-less laws.

Losing support is true to form for Terry McAuliffe. His ineptness when he ran the party in the early 2000s contributed to the party's repeated defeats in elections that they should have won in landslides. Further burnishing McAuliffe's DLC credentials is his chairing of Hillary Clinton's ill-fated presidential campaign.

Who'd have ever thought there'd be so much worship of right-to-scab laws in the DEMOCRATIC Party, of all things? You expect this shit from the Republicans, but I used to think the Democrats were better.

On election night when Mark Warner won his Senate seat, the news people were fawning over how much Warner was adored by both Democrats and Republicans. Then someone said to me, "But not by a certain Green in Kentucky." There's a reason for that: The Warner/McAuliffe wing ruined the Democrats. McAuliffe led the whole damn party just a few years ago, and Warner is held up as the party's future - yet they support union busting!

Work-for-less laws were first authorized 60 years ago under the Taft-Hartley Act, which lets states pass such laws to keep wages artificially low. It's time to repeal Taft-Hartley and rip the rug right out from under the "right-to-work" cult.

(Source: http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/virginia/dp-va--apday-governorsr1202dec02,0,5434004.story)

Amusement parks fined under child labor laws

While we're on the topic of corporate power (as always), several Cincinnati area abusement parks have been fined thousands of dollars for breaking child labor laws.

Kings Island (home of the metal detectors) was fined almost $30,000 for having young employees perform hazardous tasks in violation of federal laws. Some of its vendors were penalized for similar offenses.

Coney Island had to pay almost $5,000 for having young workers work too many hours.

Now you know another reason why amusement parks don't amuse me much anymore.

(Source: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20081204/BIZ01/812050308)

Bratz dolls banned

I never heard of Bratz until now, but evidently Bratz is a line of dolls produced by MGA Entertainment which are sort of like Mattel's Barbie, only edgier.

Apparently, however, Mattel thinks it's the only company that should be allowed to make toy dolls. So it sued MGA to court over Bratz.

Mattel's complaint is that Bratz was conceived by a former employee while he was still working for Mattel, so MGA is illegally competing with them by making Bratz. According to the suit, MGA violated "contractual duties" that Mattel's former employee owed to Mattel.

The key word here of course is former. If you're no longer working for Mattel, how can you still be bound by a contract you made with the toy making giant?

Believe it or not, a federal court has ruled in favor of Mattel - and now the judge has ordered a ban on selling Bratz. This despite the fact that the current Bratz dolls bear no resemblance to Barbie strong enough to be considered copyright infringement.

That's right, folks, Bratz are banned. All because courts think it's their duty to protect Mattel from competition. It's almost like a bailout for Barbie.

Mattel seems to argue that because its employee thought of Bratz during the time he was working there, Bratz should belong to Mattel. That's like if the Campbell County Public Library files a suit claiming it owns The Last Word.

It's pretty sad when there's so much constipation over a toy doll that we have to be reduced to discussing it here. Blame Mattel for filing such a ridiculous suit, and the court for outlawing MGA's doll.

Incidentally this is not the first Barbie-related lawsuit by Mattel. They sued the band Aqua over its song "Barbie Girl", claiming trademark infringement - but Mattel lost. Mattel also lost when it sued an artist who created photographs of a Barbie doll in a blender.

But winning a suit just to quash competition sure is corporatism at its near-worst.

(Source: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6146368.html)

Canada's Harper threatens to dissolve Parliament

I don't think all sore losers try to become dictators, but Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper sure as shit tries.

In recent parliamentary elections, only one out of every 5 voters backed Harper's Conservative Party. Yet 61% voted for parties that back the new coalition of the Liberals and the New Democratic Party. This coalition has a right under Canada's parliamentary system to form government and oust Harper, because together they have a majority.

Now that this coalition has decided to form government, Harper is throwing a mammoth tantrum like the big crybaby he is. He's decided to attempt what would literally be a right-wing putsch to keep the new administration from taking office.

His party is trying to shut down Parliament until late January so the new coalition can't take office. This is illegal, of course, but he wants to do it anyway. Harper also says that if he doesn't get his way on this, he will try to dissolve Parliament.

Isn't it nice to know our friends north of the border are being ruled by a right-wing dictator?

One is reminded of Bush's efforts in 2004 to cancel that year's election because he was afraid he'd lose. Indeed, Harper's party (which was once more respectable than its U.S. counterpart, the right wing of the Republican Party) has been coached lately by U.S. right-wingers.

And it shows. As another recent example, Harper illegally revoked the right of federal workers to go on strike.

Talk about a rule-by-decree regime!

(Source: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/cana-d03.shtml)

Number Painter actor dies

I'm saddened to report that actor Paul Benedict died Monday at the age of 70.

Benedict played Mr. Bentley on 'The Jeffersons', and he appeared on 'Seinfeld' at least once. He was also in many plays. But Paul Benedict is perhaps best known for portraying the Number Painter on 'Sesame Street'. In a series of '70s skits, he wore a long, white coat and a derby hat and painted numbers on various surfaces.

The actor died of unknown causes at his home in New England.

(Source: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2008/12/04/paul_benedict_70_actor_at_home_in_tv_sitcoms_modern_and_classical_dramas)

'Pail this poll!

You know Freepers are freeping this poll, so how about if we 'Pail it!

Some Nazi school district in Oregon is trying to make uniforms mandatory, and they've put up a poll on their website asking your opinion.

Click here to take this poll:

http://www.redmond.k12.or.us/gregory/Forms/TakeSurvey.asp?PageNumber=1&SurveyID=93J893MK7925M&1457Nav=&NodeID=823

I voted in this survey! Did you?

Mandatory school uniforms stifle expression. Freedom of expression is an inalienable right protected by the First Amendment. I am an American, and when someone tries to violate the Constitution, it's the business of all of us.

I can't assume the school district or the media will be honest about the poll results, because other school systems have lied about the results of similar surveys. (My parents still haven't received the survey that my school claimed to have mailed to them back in 1986. Damn, the Christmas mail must be slow!)

But vote in it anyway. I didn't tell you to stay home on Election Day just because I knew the Republicans would rig the election. The same principle applies here.

Just as I suspected...

I usually don't second-guess juries unless there's a damn good reason. When a jury let drill instructors walk free for brutally murdering a teen at a detention boot camp, I had to question the jurors' fitness, because a video camera caught the torture in plain sight. But that's a rare exception.

Legal systems need juries. Some countries have abolished jury trials, because jurors weren't favorable enough to the system, but this policy underscores why juries are needed.

When a MySpace fraudster who caused the suicide of a teenage girl was let off easy recently at her federal criminal trial, I strongly suspected that the jury wasn't allowed to hear all the evidence.

Turns out I was right.

The jury failed to convict on the felony counts, because the court wouldn't even let them hear evidence that was central to the case. After the trial, when they got all the facts, jurors said they wanted to convict the hoaxster on the felonies but lacked the key evidence.

To convict on the felonies, they would have had to find that the defendant intentionally accessed MySpace to commit a tortious act. The defendant had done so, but the jurors weren't allowed to hear this evidence.

That's how trials are conducted under Bush-appointed judges, I guess.

The defendant was convicted for several misdemeanors, but her lawyer may appeal even those to the federal 9th Circuit Court. Legal experts say even these convictions are likely to be overturned then, because the 9th Circus is so right-wing.

Anyone who's ever been the victim of Internet harassment knows how terrifying it is. It's also been clear for years that conservatives are intent on mollycoddling online harassers. In their mixed-up world, anything goes - as long as someone is harmed by it.

We need to toughen the laws on online harassment and make sure our courts follow these laws.

(Source: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/12/jurors-wanted-t.html)

Thumbs up for "Sneak Peek Previews"! ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

Remember 'Sneak Previews'? It was a show on PBS in which two movie critics would review and give their opinions on the latest feature films.

Back in my day, this was one show my parents just absolutely had to watch each week. Or else! They just adored it. I believe 'Sneak Previews' was on Saturday nights, because I remember them watching it while I was in my room jumping off the bunk bed in the hopes that I'd be too injured to go to church the next day.

Who could forget the catchy theme music to 'Sneak Previews'? The melody was a bit like that of the 'Smurfs' theme, and it was accompanied by a clip of a person's hands pounding on a soda machine until the cup pops out sideways and grape soda shoots out all over it.

The height of comic genius was for me to dance around the living room and pretend I was urinating or defecating during the closing theme (much like the kid in the school uniform cartoon from The Last Word doing the same to the Car-X ad).

In the early '80s, 'Sneak Previews' was hosted by the legendary film critiquin' team of Roger Ebert and the late Gene Siskel.

'Sesame Street' did what appears to be a spoof of the series called "Sneak Peak Previews." It was hosted by Oscar the Grouch and Telly Monster and appears to take place in the same theater that Bert got thrown out of years earlier in a famous '70s sketch.

In one installment, Telly and the ol' Osk hosted Siskel and Ebert as guests:



Our friend Oscar sure derives a lot of enjoyment out of seeing Gene and Roger argue!

'Sesame Street' is known for occasional celebrity appearances, and this was one of the more amusing.

Homeless placed in foreclosed houses; conservatives' heads exploding

I've said it for years: With both foreclosures and homelessness at record rates, isn't it obvious what the vacant houses can be used for?

A man in Miami, Florida, has the same idea. He acts as a realtor of sorts - but the difference between him and a conventional realtor (besides the fact that he does his work for free) is that he helps the homeless move into foreclosed homes.

Squatting? Perhaps. But locals are pleased that this service graces their community. The homeless benefit from it, and other area residents say it prevents the houses from being targeted by vandals, arsonists, and thieves.

Who wouldn't be in favor of such a program?

I'll give you 3 guesses. Conservatives, that's who.

Right-wing websites are screaming to holy high bejeepers about the program. They whine because the homeless are "trespassing" on bank-owned property.

When you think of trespassing on bank property, you think of lingering in the bank lobby for 3 hours and pestering the tellers about the lollipop dish running low. But it's hard for me to sympathize with a bank when someone who desperately needs a home moves into a house the bank has foreclosed on.

Are we supposed to put corporate "rights" ahead of human needs?

Maybe the poor, poor, poor banks shouldn't have foreclosed on so many houses, if they didn't want people moving into them without permission.

It's like what happens when you leave perfectly good belongings out on the curb for the trash collector to take. If you abandon a brand-new armchair in the dumpster, you have no business complaining if someone comes along and takes it. If a bank abandons a perfectly good house, what business does the bank have to stop a person from claiming it?

The wingnutosphere's reaction to this story proves where their allegiances lie. They care more about big banks than about families who don't even have roofs over their heads.

(Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/02/national/main4642403.shtml)

Bush EPA ignores states' pleas

Honestly, what's the point in even dividing the country into states, when Bush doesn't even listen to them and won't let them pass their own regulations?

Bush's EPA is now making it easier to dump mountaintop mining waste into our once-pristine streams. This reverses a regulation that's been in place for a quarter-century that bars mining companies from polluting our water in this manner.

Environmentalists, the governors of Kentucky and Tennessee, and various state legislators urged the EPA to block the changes. Of course, we'd have better luck if we complained to a box of rocks, for the Bush regime isn't known to listen to reason.

True to form, Bush's EPA ignored these pleas.

Isn't it nice to know the streams where we get our water are being polluted with mining waste, and the EPA won't let our state put a stop to it?

You mean the Republicans lied when they said they were for states' rights? Gee, who'd have ever thunk it!

Bush has been on a roll lately with his rule-by-decree fetish. For instance, he's issued a new ukase barring certain federal workers from joining unions (even though some of these jobs have been unionized for decades). Bush's order is illegal.

As America's national village idiot stumbles out the door, his bogus unitary rule theory is all he has left, and it looks like he's using it.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/content/wcposhared/story.aspx?content_id=18eb3fb1-3e99-42a7-9bac-55f303ba8ae2)

Attention Newark youth!

Hey-hey, kids!

If you're old enough to use the Internet, then you're old enough for a little advice from a wise old dude like me.

If you live in Newark, New Jersey, you're probably boiling mad right about now because of the new school uniform policy. Especially after the school system in your city wasted valuable tax dollars buying billboards boasting about it. I'd be furious!

Well, guess what? This so-called mandatory uniform policy is just a paper tiger. Yes, I know everything these days seems like it's mandatory this, mandatory that, but I just discovered a little secret.

A new article in your hometown paper, the Star-Ledger, reports that there are no penalties for noncompliance with the uniform policy. None. This factoid is buried deep down in the article, but the article does reluctantly admit that this is the case. (Considering the pro-uniform bias of the article, I bet the Star-Ledger is practically in tears over that fact.)

Your family might not believe you without proof, so here's the link so you can show them:

http://www.nj.com/newark/index.ssf/2008/12/dress_code_begins_in_newark.html

In other words, you can keep coming to school out of uniform, and no punishment applies.

Tell all your friends! This was a secret your school has been hiding from you, and now it's been blown wide open!

So much for that 85% compliance rate now, huh?

Canada ousts conservative Prime Minister

Speaking of Bush shadow governments, the one in Canada has just been ousted.

Unpopular Prime Minster Stephen Harper of the Conservative Party has what's called a minority government. It's actually a plurality government: His party has more seats than any other single party, but not a majority.

But no more. The Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party have agreed to join forces to form a new government and choose a new Prime Minister, with backing from the Bloc Quebecois. Together, these 3 opposition parties have a majority.

Harper of course is being every bit the sore loser you'd expect. He cried that the new coalition is overturning the election results. Uh, no they're not. The Conservatives didn't win a majority, Stephen. Cope.

(Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Rest_of_World/Political_coup_in_Canada_Dion_to_replace_Harper_as_new_PM/articleshow/3782681.cms)

Good riddance to another screwball!

If Mel Martinez retired from the Senate, would you miss him?

I sure as shit wouldn't.

The 62-year-old Florida Republican was elected to the Senate in 2004 after serving as Bush's HUD secretary. While senator, Martinez headed the Republican National Committee from 2006 to 2007.

Martinez represented a particularly destructive brand of right-wing lawmaker. For one thing, he supported Bill Frist in his insistence that members of the Taliban be kept in Afghanistan's government. This followed Bush's 2003 claim that "we destroyed the Taliban in Afghanistan" - a claim debunked by reports of Taliban violence that continue to this day.

Why the hell did America go to war in Afghanistan if the Taliban was just going to be kept in power?

During the Terri Schiavo controversy, a Martinez staffer wrote and distributed a talking points memo that urged Republicans to make hay of what the memo called "a great political issue."

Martinez is perhaps more infamous for his right-wing tirade in 2005 against populism. He said populism is a "radical ideology spread like a virus."

The American Heritage Dictionary defines populism as "a political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite." So if populism is a virus, I want it to sneeze all over me!

Now - thanks to his growing unpopularity - Mel Martinez has decided not to seek reelection in 2010.

Of course, this nearly ensures the GOP will run a candidate who'll almost make you miss him. For those Republicans who want a Bush shadow government, Jeb Bush has been named as a possibility. Another is the despicable Bill McCollum. But they may be even less likely to win than Martinez would have been.

Bye, Mel.

(Source: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/12/mel_martinez_to_retire.html)

Get a job...Sha na na na, sha na na na na...

I'm a writer. It's my job. But royalties for my works don't pay the bills forever, peeps. Hence my frequent visits to Monster.com and other sites for job seekers.

I heard the Census Bureau was hiring folks to help in the looming 2010 census (for jobs that I'm eminently qualified for), so I decided to mail in my application.

An interesting thing, that Census Bureau is. They conduct the constitutionally mandated decennial census. You know, that thing that I was left off of in 2000. That's the census that insists Arlington, Texas, is bigger than Cincinnati.

When I and others were skipped by the 2000 census, it cost representation in redrawing federal and state legislative district boundaries, and it cost local governments important funding.

Furthermore, when the census tried tabulating adjustments for areas that were undercounted, activist federal judges ruled that these numbers couldn't be used for any official purpose. No matter, because I still use the 1990 numbers, because I was skipped in 2000. (Presumably, I was not skipped in '90, for I distinctly recall filling out the census form as a teenager.)

Do you expect me to get the job I applied for? I don't. With the economy lodged firmly in the toilet, with no auger around strong enough to pull it out, there's got to be a long list of people who need that job.

Cheney and Gonzales indictments dismissed

It looks to me like the only way these scumbags are going to face justice is by bringing them in leg irons before an international tribunal.

A Texas judge has now dismissed the indictments against Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales, because. Now the court seems to be trying to disqualify the prosecutor for daring to bring the cases at all.

The indictments stemmed from abuse of inmates at privately run federal prisons in southern Texas.

(Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h9PvQtj8plxTnRZS7hHmJap_Rt2AD94QB04O1)

U.S. Attorney probed for leaking justice's tax returns

Another "oops!" from the right-wing culture of corruption we all know and hate.

Dunnica Lampton is the Bush-appointed U.S. Attorney for southern Mississippi. He's already in trouble for politically motivated prosecutions, and now he's being investigated by the Treasury Department for allegedly sharing private tax records of a Mississippi Supreme Court Justice who he was targeting.

It turns out that the justice's opponent in the 2000 election was a good friend of Lampton. The justice endured repeated unsuccessful prosecutions by Lampton, and now the House Judiciary Committee has named the case against him as one of several nationwide that were politically motivated.

Is it just my imagination, or does it seem like all of Bush's U.S. Attorney appointees (plus his Attorney General appointees) got their law degrees from the back of a matchbook?

(Source: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Treasury_Department_investigating_US_Attorney_for_1201.html)

Zoo scraps relationship with creationists

One can't help but be baffled that a modern zoo would team up with any organization built on openly rejecting science. In today's world, zoos purport to be educational and scientific institutions.

In 2005, the city of Tulsa's park board voted to add an exhibit at the Tulsa Zoo promoting creationism. This was done to pacify religious extremists who complained that a giant marble globe near the zoo's entrance promoted Earth worship. They claimed failing to use a taxpayer-funded zoo to promote creationism was "discrimination." Seriously, they said that.

The city dropped the proposal because there were so many complaints, and the mayor who supported the creationist display later got defeated for reelection. (Dropping the idea prompted lawsuit threats from creationists.) Apparently, however, the Cincinnati Zoo didn't learn a damn thing from what happened in Tulsa.

Recently the Cincinnati Zoo entered a promotional deal with the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky. The Creation Museum is a much-ridiculed facility that promotes young Earth creationism and is funded by the Answers in Genesis cult. This so-called museum is known for its ridiculous stance that dinosaurs lived alongside humans.

The fact that a zoo that claims to have a scientific mission would team up with a cult that that builds a museum based on its 'Land Of The Lost' fetish was disheartening.

But now the zoo has scrapped this promotion, after countless negative calls and e-mails about how incredibly preposterous it was.

When I saw that the zoo was teaming up with the Creation Museum, suspension of disbelief almost kicked in. The Creation Museum has always sounded to me like a clownish endeavor that elicits only laughs at its expense. One has to question the judgment of whoever it was at the Cincinnati Zoo who thought it would be a good idea to enter a promotional deal with the Creation Museum.

(Source: http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20081201/NEWS01/312010040)

Motel goes Confederate in post-election tantrum

The owners of the Faubus Motel in Huntsville, Arkansas, can't take losing too well, it seems. So now I guess they're trying to secede from the United States because the election didn't go their way.

After Obama's rousing election victory, the motel's owners were such sore losers that they replaced the U.S. flag outside their business with a Confederate flag. This caused much embarrassment to neighbors, even in the South.

The inn's owners (who purchased the business in 1996) explained their stance in detail to the Madison County Record. They said, "We resent having a Marxist in the White House no matter color he is." They also defended Bush and claimed ACORN tried to steal the election in Florida in 2000.

Nobody's saying they don't have a right to fly whatever flag they choose. But just because the hotel owners' actions are legal doesn't mean they don't look like fools with the coping skills of a preschooler.

(Source: http://www.mcrecordonline.com/index.php?id=1863)

Vatican can be sued for sex abuse

There shouldn't even be much debate about whether the Vatican can be sued for negligence in the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal. Anyone should be able to see that it can, because that's the law.

But Church bureaucrats at various levels have always tried to dodge responsibility for their roles in the scandal. They blame the victims, they use corporate law to defend themselves, they make their insurers pay their legal judgments, you name it. (One suspects a taxpayer-funded bailout is next.)

Lately, the Vatican's big defense is that it can't be sued by any American victim because the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act prohibits such suits. Their "reasoning" seems to be that because the seat of the Church is Vatican City, which is considered a sovereign country, the church is immune from being sued as foreign governments are.

A federal circuit court has now ruled in a Kentucky case that the Vatican is a foreign state that would usually be eligible for immunity - but the plaintiffs can still sue, because they allege a "tortious act."

The real story here may be that the Church bureaucracy continues to behave not like a religious organization but like a big corporation trying to protect itself. Unfortunately, the Church's policy since 1962 has been to cover up sexual abuse by priests - so sadly it's not a surprise that it tries hiding under the law instead of accepting responsibility.

I also think it's time we end the bullshit policy of allowing the Church to be considered a foreign state. The Vatican used this outrageous pretext to prevail in a case in which the Vatican bank was sued by concentration camp survivors.

With separation of church and state firmly entrenched in American constitutional law, it seems odd for any American court to consider a church to be a state.

(Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/11/25/sixth-circuit-vatican-can-be-sued-for-sexual-abuse)

Protest against greed suppressed

The cult of capitalist greed is looking so untenable right now that demonstrators in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, held a mock funeral for it.

Predictably, this didn't sit well with right-wing city authorities. Police say they were just trying to keep a burning effigy from blocking the street, but witnesses say otherwise.

Witnesses say cops unleashed pepper spray and batons on the protesters. One said that the demonstrators were "very peaceful until the cop pushed one of the protesters down." It was also reported that an officer grabbed a protester by his scarf without any provocation whatsoever.

Despite what witnesses have reported, the police chief insists authorities did everything right, for the city had not issued a permit for the protest.

Uh, hello??? A permit for a protest? As long as you're on a public right-of-way and you're not obstructing movement, since when do you need a permit to protest? I used to think there was something called a First Amendment, but I guess not anymore.

We didn't even need a permit to protest Kids Helping Kids, so why should someone need a permit to protest capitalism in general? In fact, police allowed us to keep protesting KHK.

Capitalism is a failure that's bankrupted working families and gutted entire countries' economies. Hopefully it can be buried in an unmarked grave in the desert so nobody can dig it up and unleash it again.

(Source: http://www.newsobserver.com/264/story/1309773.html)